Trauma Narrative - Blog Posts
The Mother of Science Fiction
From the beginning scifi has been used to examine society’s issues. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” asked of people to take responsibility for their actions, to consider the impact of one’s legacy, and to have compassion for one’s fellow human.
Charles Simic, ‘Totemism’, Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell // Warsan Shire, The House //Julien Baker, Sour Breath // Westworld // Greta Gerwig and Florence Welch for W Magazine // Edith Wharton, The Ghost Stories
something i wish i had realized earlier: you can write poems on the same subject more than once. you can write, paint, draw the same thing over and over if you want to. you can spend your whole life making art about oranges. i think i always felt this pressure to get it right the first time like i couldn’t go back and use that inspiration again. but you can. you can go back and revisit it. you can pick up the conversation again and again if you have more to say.
It’s ok if you have be your own support system, you’re great at it 💙
love from the sad ghost club x
I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind.
--Anne Sexton, “Her Kind”
THE VVITCH: A New-England Folktale (2015), dir. Robert Eggers. Witches Sabbath (1789) / Witches Flight (1798) by Francisco de Goya.
I was most excited for you to come
just me and the besties <3
someone: it’s okay! you tried your best!!
me, with no idea of what my best even looks like anymore:
‘Black Phillip, Black Phillip, king of all.’
The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015) dir. Robert Eggers
you should watch Hannah Gadsby’s special Nanette…..imo
hannah gadsby took the format of a 1 hour standup special and split it into 3 related acts: 1. do normal standup comedy jokes. funny. feminist. 2. riff extensively on art history. move back and forth between outrage at the patriarchy and hilarity. 3. critique the whole format of standup comedy, explain why she’s quitting her comedy career, and discuss her experiences as a survivor at the intersections of homophobia and misogyny with complete seriousness and sincerity. Woven in with stories from the “regular jokes” and “art history jokes” cast in a new light. will make you cry.
what a legend.
“Do you remember that story about that young man who almost beat me up? It was a very funny story. It was very funny, I made a lot of people laugh about his ignorance, and the reason I could do that is because I’m very good at this job. I actually am pretty good at controlling the tension. And I know how to balance that to get the laugh at the right place. But in order to balance the tension in the room with that story, I couldn’t tell that story as it actually happened. Because I couldn’t tell the part of the story where the man realized his mistake. And he came back. And he said “Oh, no, I get it. You’re a lady faggot. I’m allowed to beat the shit out of you.” And he did! He beat the shit out of me and nobody stopped him. And I didn’t… report that to the police, and I did not take myself to the hospital, and I should have. And you know why I didn’t? It’s because I thought that was all I was worth.
And that is what happens when you soak one child in shame, and give permission to another to hate. And that was not homophobia pure and simple, people. That was gendered. If I’d been feminine, that would not have happened. I am incorrectly female. I am incorrect, and that is a punishable offense.
And this tension, it’s yours. I am not helping you anymore. You need to learn what this feels like because this… this tension is what non-normals carry inside of them all of the time because it is dangerous to be different.”