Every time I see that G--gle phone photoshop commercial my heart is filled with infinite sadness, like, yeah it's cool you can have a good family photo, it's cool you can do that, but god, there is something to be said for the honesty of a family photo where you're blinking, or crying, or have ugly wrinkles.
What is too unsightly for you? Would you swipe-click-replace out the image of my cousin crying on our Florida trip family reunion photo? Would you remove the plastic snake I have clenched in my grip, which I still have to this day? Would you scoff at the wrinkles around our eyes and the strands of hair on our faces as we squint into the wind, the day before the massive storm? Would I remember it if I didn't have these reminders, if the picture was perfect and clean, all children in a row with perfect gleaming white tombstone tooth smiles? No tears. No plastic snake.
Everyone is beautiful and no one looks genuine.
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the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.
three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.
two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.
their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.
one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.
i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.
i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.
and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?
you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.
a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.
someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.
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Hot take but… “Gale was a teen soldier who got brainwashed, by a manipulative dictator, into the idea that sacrificing a small number of troops was worth it to definitively stop the government that had spent years ruining the lives of him and his people” and “Gale’s gross disregard for human life directly led to the death of Prim and thousands of other civilians including children, and Katniss is justified in her anger and has no obligation to ever forgive him” are two statements that can and should coexist together.
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Today in measuring your peahen, Bug is casually 2 foot, 3 inches tall (she can stretch a little taller when she REALLY wants a treat). This is just tall enough to see over a tray table and pull things off of nightstands and end cabinets.
Bug is also a little over 3 feet long from tail tip to beak tip. Most of Bug is made up of tail and neck. There is a 6lb dead weight in the middle somewhere that she knows how to directly place onto the ball of one foot while standing on you.
Bug's wingspan is around 3.5 feet, thought I didn't get a measurement. It will be over 4 feet as an adult.
Bug is growing in her spurs. As a Spalding (hybrid) hen, Bug will likely have one inch bone knives conveniently attached to her tarsometatarsus. This is technically fused foot bones, not a leg bone. Curiously, pure Pavo cristatus hens have spurs, and pure Pavo muticus hens have spurs, but many domestic Pavo cristatus and low-percent Spalding hens lack them. This is one of the indications of domestication in the cristatus species. As I prefer the wild type, I prefer my hens spurred, so this is a good sign!
Bug's toes measure a smidge over 5 inches from the tip of her rear-facing to to the tip of her longest front facing toe. Try measuring that on your hand.
Bug's nails measure 1/2-3/4 an inch long, depending on the toe. That's almost as long as one finger section for most people.
When I had snakes, I got asked all the time if I was afraid of them biting me. The answer is no. I have been bitten by a 6 foot long, 20lb boa constrictor, and have no scars to prove it. Meanwhile I have so many scars from peafowl sitting on me, particularly on my forearms, that I have had to reassure people I am not a danger to myself.
I post these photos as a reference, but also as a precaution. This is a BABY peafowl, and a female at that. She is only 6 months old and weighs a little over 6lbs, which means she's about 2/3 of the way grown, and adult hens are typically 3/4 the size of an adult male. These are BIG birds that can do a LOT of damage, even accidentally. When they become aggressive, as in the case of hand-raised males or poorly bred birds, they become a potentially fatal threat to any other fowl you have. Unlike chickens, they are more than capable of (and prone to!) jumping to human face level before they flog (kick with their feet in a way that allows their spurs to hit home), which means they could easily take out an eye or cause other serious facial injury if they get a lucky strike. I have seen more than a few people end up with stitches, and more than a few birds end up euthanized because people think they are gonna be cute cuddly friends.
I know that Bug is a cute bird, but I also want to stress that a) she has an outstanding personality as a result of breeding choices and socialization b) she hasn't hit maturity, and won't do so for another 2+ years, so her personality could change considerably still and c) I have been raising peafowl one way or another for my entire adult life, which has been structured around keeping them. I love my birds, and I would love for more people to keep peafowl as they are great animals, but they are not casual animals. They are large and potentially dangerous farm fowl that take a lot of space, care, and knowledge to keep.
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anyway, I’ll keep saying until I can say it no more, but I love how hayden christensen just keeps getting to prove over and over that he was always a good anakin casting. I love that he gets to be as visually iconic as his other co-stars from the franchise. I love that he can see fans lose their absolute mind with cheer and applause at his mere presence in a SW project. All when he was once the scapegoat and punching bag of why people hated the prequel trilogy. I just love it all.
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