#one chicago party

[notbecauseofvictories]

My best friend and I had a call recently---she’s back with her family for a bit helping out with some hometown stuff. As part of the stuff, she’s been going through a (deceased) relative’s scrapbook, compiled in the American Midwest circa 1870-1900 and featuring mostly cut-out figures from the ads of the day.

She talked about how painstaking this relative’s work was. (Apparently the relative was careful to cut out every finger, every cowlick; this was by no means carelessly or hastily assembled.) But she also she talked about how---the baby on the baking soda ad is ugly, it is so ugly, why anyone would clip this heinously ugly illustrated baby and paste it into a scrapbook? Why would you save the (terribly told, boring) ghost story that came with your box of soap?

(Why include these things in the first place? we asked each other. ”There’s a kind of anti-capitalism to it,” she mused.)

And we discussed that for a bit---how most of the images, stories, artists, and ads were local, not national; they’re pulled from [Midwestern state] companies’ advertisements in [Midwestern state] papers, magazines, and products. As a consequence, you’re not looking at Leyendecker or Norman Rockwell illustrations, but Johann Spatz-Smith from down the road, who took a drawing class at college.

(College is the state college, and he came home on weekends and in the summer to help with the farm or earn some money at the plant.)

But it also inspired a really interesting conversation about how---we have access to so much more art, better and more professional art, than any time in history. As my bff said, all you have to do to find a great, technically proficient and lovely representational image of a baby, is to google the right keywords. But for a girl living in rural [Midwestern state] of the late 1800s, it was the baking soda ad, or literal actual babies. There was no in-between, no heading out to the nearby art museum to study oil paintings of mother and child, no studying photographs and film---such new technologies hadn’t diffused to local newspapers and circulars yet, and were far beyond the average person’s means. But cheap, semi-amateur artists? Those were definitely around, scattered between towns and nearby smallish cities.

It was a good conversation, and made me think about a couple things---the weird entitlement that “professional” and expensive art instills in viewers, how it artificially depresses the appetite for messy unprofessional art, including your own; the way that this makes your tastes narrower, less interesting, less open.

By that I mean---maybe the baby isn’t ugly! Maybe you’ve just seen too many photorealistic babies. Maybe you haven’t really stopped to contemplate that your drawing of a baby (however crude, ugly, or limited) is the best drawing of a baby you can make, and the act of drawing that lumpen, ugly baby is more sacred and profoundly human than even looking at a Mary Cassatt painting.

And even if that isn’t the case....there was this girl in [American Midwestern state] for whom it was very, very important that she capture every finger, curl, and bit of shading for that ugly soap ad baby. And some one hundred years later, her great-something-or-other took pains to preserve her work---because how terribly human it is, to seek out all the art we can find that resonates with us, preserve it, adore it.

It might be the most human impulse we have.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Plates from The Dinner Party (1974-1979), with raised central motifs based on vulval, floral, and butterfly forms, and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honoured, by American feminist artist, art educator, and writer, Judy Chicago, born in 1939.

Judy Chicago is known for her large collaborative art installation pieces focusing on images of birth and creation, which examine the role of women in history and culture.

Complete work (image in comments with a closeup) ceramic, porcelain, textile, 14.63 x 14.63 m, 47' 3" x 47' 3" approx

Collection of the Brooklyn Museum, New York

The Dinner Party, an important icon of 1970s feminist art and a milestone in twentieth-century art, comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table, symbol of equality, with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history. The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with three-dimensional designs representing individual women, resembling flowers, butterflies, and female genitalia. The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table.

The individual plates pictured are:

Top, left to right:

Primordial Goddess plate Virginia Woolf plate Theodora plate

Bottom, left to right:

Saint Bridget plate Hatshepsut plate Boadaceia plate

China paint on porcelain, diameter 35 cm, 14 in approx

* * * *

“When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

[ophernelia]

I am an alternative black girl in the sense that I like some obscure shit and am coated in tattoos. Not in the “black people never accepted me because I speak properly >:(“ type of alt black girl way. Some of the girls, very clearly, hate themselves so!

[gayofthefae]

If season 2 were about El and Mike fighting to get back to each other they wouldn't have had El almost not come back.

If it were about Mike and El fighting to come back to each other, it wouldn't have been a decision whether or not should we would.

But she almost stayed in Chicago. And they made a point of her saying she went back for all of her friends, not just him, and for Hopper. She went back for Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Hopper. It was played as big and loving. But it wasn't played as romantic. That wasn't her reasoning and missing Mike wasn't enough to bring her back in the first place.

In the first few episodes of the season, she fights with Hopper about not being able to see Mike. But as the season progresses, we find it isn't about that. It's about not being able to leave. She goes to Chicago and almost doesn't come back. There is a full stand alone episode about her maybe not coming back and she ALMOST STAYS.

If it were some big romantic payoff of their reunion, they would have simply had an obstacle they had to fight to overcome - like Hopper or the monsters or something. But instead, Mike was hoping she was alive and El was considering letting him come to terms with her death and living out her days with her sister in Chicago.

El almost never saw Mike again. It was a very close decision. She changed her mind last minute. It's valid and it remains loving, but in trope simply put...it isn't romantic.

"I almost never came back to you but I changed my mind" in the context of being separated against your will? Isn't romantic.

And similar is true in their separation in seasons 3 AND 4. She does not reach out after her time with Max. Granted maybe she would have, it was a short time, I will give that. But then she didn't get back together with him until the end of the epilogue to our knowledge. She did not run back to him in grief in need of comfort. She did not get back together with him for the familiarity even in that, she got back together with him to keep a piece of Hawkins. Her priorities would not have been the same of "wait and see if he says it" - and he could have done that in a relationship too, as we saw was an arc for him in season 4. Once again, she waited until the last minute - even almost walking away and leaving for Lenora - before coming back to him at the last possible second.

In season 4, then, she did not include him in her plans when escaping NINA. She only noted Max and her friends. Really, this re-established her priorities from season 2. Her intention was to return to all of her friends, to return to Hawkins, and to help her loved ones out of danger. Not to return specifically to him. When he was out of the equation, he was skipped over. She and Mike had a bad fight. And she still loved him just like she still loved her brothers who were also not mentioned, but her focus was only verbalized as being on Max and Hawkins. The original intention of her leaving was for Owens to take her back to Hawkins. She had zero knowledge that her family and Mike (and Argyle) were coming to get her. She thought they were back at the house in Lenora and that she was going straight to Hawkins and would call them once it was all finished. We have no knowledge that she was going to make a pitstop - unlikely given the stakes and distance between Nevada and Lenora.

In season 2, El almost stayed in Chicago. In season 3, El almost stayed broken up with Mike. In season 4, El almost went back to Hawkins without them - this decision being out of her control when it was changed.

Each and every time they are separated, El only makes the decision to reunite with Mike last minute after seeming to have intended to stay apart from him. Their reunions are always so sweet. But they are never her goal.

She came back for Will.

She came back in her grief over Hopper and leaving Hawkins.

She came back for Max.

The key question ever time she reunites with Mike is: does the story stop there? Or does she do something very important next?

Mike always a sweet stop on her way to her goal. He is never "the point". He is a part of her life as many other people are. But he is not her life and he is not why she comes back.

[rexferg]

#i'm fine. #once we catch this son of a bitch i'll be JUST fine Chicago PD | 9x13 - STILL WATER

[bugieeeee]

@ifuckinghatebriansella tagged me in this even though I already know what they're stealing from my room

No pressure Tagging @i-am-not-to-be-perceived @myvirtuesuncounted @wellmanneredthief @somedancingdoodles @thatwasntlikeridingabikeuasshole @youmustfixyourheartt @iveofficiallygonemad

[inkstainedhandswithrings]

btw I’m a 100% that whenever Doris was on nightshift she and Crockett would sit at the nurses station spilling all the day shift tea

[thomas-mvller]

I wish people would understand that yeah, some movies are meant to be rated in every aspect possible (the so called "academy award worthy"), but some movies are made just... for the purpose of fun. Just that. They're meant to be mostly lighthearted, warming, entertaining so people can disconnect from all the stress for an hour and a half and just have fun. Said movies don't need a harvard level analysis in terms of direction, storyline etc like jesus henry chrysler have fun for once in your lifetime it's not that deep fam omfg

[killerchickadee]

Sunday is the worst day for parking in my neighborhood, especially if there's a football game on because everyone goes to the bars one street over to watch the game.

But what's always SUPER annoying is like, I ended up having to park three full blocks away from my apartment after doing loops in the neighborhood for 10 minutes. As I'm walking to my building a car pulls out of a space like one building over from me.

The best part is walking three blocks to my car in a dark, not entirely safe neighborhood at 3 in the morning to go to work.

[purge-samauwu]

Everything that's mildly decent or great on Netflix always gets shitty marketing and I'm so tired😭

[thewingedwolf]

having a group of gay friends where this is their first group of gay friends apparently means they don’t find my “our one token straight friend is like a little gay” jokes funny apparently aksjsjs or when i bitch specifically about the gay dating scene near chicago being dominated by annoying white ex theater gays, they immediately get into like “well there are messy gay poc” yeah i’m aware of that, i’m talking about a really specific issue with the gays in this area pls keep up

[jesuisgourde]

I'm reading trans girl suicide museum by hannah baer (almost done with it, it's really good) but it's really really making me miss having a group of queer friends and shit

[candyredterezii]

two of my coworkers, one being one of my managers, now call me ‘mommy’ at work and it’s so... fucking funny-

[sapphic-schizo]

remembering last year when i went to my cousin's wedding and they're wealthy chicago catholics so it was a whole big Thing with Events and Dress Codes, and one of the dress codes was "backyard casual" which i interpreted that as like jorts and converse but it was definitely more of a prep-school luncheon type vibe...

[bones-sprouts]

i could get a tattoo. i could call my mom and guilt trip her into sending me a notary and i could go to the place downtown and i could have one. and just keep it hidden and not infected

[avoidingdestiny]

What’s inconvenient about my breakup is that the easiest Purim mitzvah for me to fulfill (buy a Reese’s cup and a bag of Cheetos from the work diner and give them to my ex) has now become the most difficult.