From this morning’s walk…
July 26, 2023 - by Heather Cox Richardson
And therein lies a huge problem for today’s Republican Party. A recent poll of young voters shows they care deeply about gun violence, economic inequality, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate change. All of those issues are only becoming more prominent.
July 26, 2023 - by Heather Cox Richardson
Former vice president Mike Pence, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, today unveiled his economic proposal. It calls for eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Biden administration’s incentives designed to address climate change.
The Woman I Want/To Be :: Essays On Attention Paid
> I have read more than a few books written by women about the experience of being woman. Caliban and the Witch, by Silvia Federici; Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo; Catcalling by Soho Lee; Girlhood by Melissa Febos; The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir; Down Girl, by Kate Manne; Radical Homemakers, by Shannon Hayes.
The Woman I Want/To Be :: Essays On Attention Paid
> I have been photographing women’s clothing displays in shop widows for years. I am in love with womanhood. I am in love with womanhood in two ways. First, and dominantly, I am in love with womanhood in the way you would expect my male lizard brain to be. I am in love with womanhood as a receptive place where my sexual longings can come to repose.
About Barbie. Not sorry I went to see but mixed feelings. Funny and touching in places. Well crafted, acted and directed. Critique of patriarchy (and matriarchy), not satisfying. And the discovery Barbie made on her hero’s journey? She’d rather be in the complex real world, grow old, die? Hmmmm.
“… no one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or more disdainful, than a man anxious about his own virility.”
— The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir a.co/gl8cTQL
Becoming a woman: The gender theories of Simone de Beauvoir - Rewriting The Rules
One is not born, but rather one becomes, a woman.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Here she is arguing, from autobiographical experience and from the available evidence at the time, that the things associated with womenhood (such as being passive, concerned with appearance, childlike and in need of protection, and wanting to care for others) are imposed upon women by society rather than being innate characteristics they are born with.
Sitting here waiting for the end of Open Studios. Been a good day. Decent number of visitors. A couple of sales with another possible. And this photo which I’ve been thinking all afternoon I should take and finally did…

I discovered this morning that one can have multiple links in their Instagram profile. When did that change?! Probably years ago. That’s how long I have been largely absent from the platform.
Day two of Beacon Open Studios begins at noon! If you are in the area come visit! I am #9 on the map.

July 22, 2023 - by Heather Cox Richardson
The Florida Board of Education approved new state social studies standards on Wednesday, including standards for African American history, civics and government, American history, and economics. Critics immediately called out the middle school instruction in African American history that includes “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” (p. 6). They noted that describing enslavement as offering personal benefits to enslaved people is outrageous.
Open Studios day one coming to a conclusion. Among my visitors was @Parag!Thanks for coming! First time either one of us has met an M.b member in the flesh.

I believe there is a dimension of the universe dedicated to pet hair. The nature of this dimension is to act as a repository for pet hair such that, whenever you vacuum up the pet hair, minutes later a fresh supply appears. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Literature and Empathy :: Essays On Attention Paid
Humanity is a beautiful mosaic. As long as another’s way of being in the world doesn’t cause physical or psychological damage to those around them, all ways of being should be tolerated. We should aim to educate as broadly as possible in the variety of ways one can be. Children in particular, at appropriate ages, with appropriate guidance, should be allowed and encouraged to inhabit a multitude of ways of being, as they work out what their way of being will be.
BOS has arrived! If you are in or near the Hudson Valley, come visit!

Julie Byrne: The Greater Wings Album Review | Pitchfork
Six years later, the itinerant Buffalo, New York, singer-songwriter incorporates harp, synth, and piano alongside her nimbly fingerpicked guitar and dusky vocals; the broader palette and cosmic scope—she invokes “distant galaxies” in the first verse—feel like a logical progression of her astral folk.
Literature and Empathy :: Essays On Attention Paid
To understand what it feels like to be in someone else’s shoes, read accounts of it by talented authors who’ve had that experience or have done the work it takes to write an honest and empathetic portrayal of it. And write about it yourself. Nothing lets you walk a mile in another’s shoes quite the way imagining and writing about it does.
Literature and Empathy :: Essays On Attention Paid
We spend our lifetimes steeping in cultural cosmologies1 that become gated communities of belief where anything outside the gates is foreign, even dangerous. Some of us have expansive cultural cosmologies with highly permeable membranes around them. Some of us have tightly limiting cosmologies with hard exoskeleton membranes and little permeability. The majority of us are somewhere between. Literature is often the way hard, permeable exoskeletons are avoided or softened.
Accordion book display installation for Open Studios this weekend…
