Inside Senta Simond’s “Intimate and Personal” New Photo Zine

#photography #photographers-women

From this morning’s walk…

Face made of an old book, sunglasses, wooden nose sculpture, in a shop window.

Curtain pulled into a feminine form with a sash. Shop window with condensation and drip paths softening the kitchen form.

Dress made with flowers.

Paper ice cream cone in a shop window.

Yellow floral print dress, with sash at the waist, on a mannequin, with broad brimmed straw hat on top.

Bag of construction material standing on the floor of a shop being renovated.

Women’s green shoes and green checkered handbag sitting on an Ilene Gray circles side table in a shop window.

Sometimes songs punch you in the gut… this one does that to me. Tears streaming down my cheeks every time. This version by the Indigo Girls as powerful as the original by GK and Pips: music.apple.com/us/album/…

So much handwringing over the end times, except, it’s just hand wringing. Is there any chance we’ll willingly change our behavior? Or will we ring our hands, normalize it, and move on? Until it all comes crashing down. Which we know it will. In a dark mood…

From this morning’s walk…

Rapids in local creek after heavy rains.

Sticker on railing depicting a feminine face with a cat’s tail mustache and the words serious comedy theater.

Hydrangea like pink blooms.

Two spiraling seed pods wrapping around each other.

Huge brimmed woven hat hanging on wall above woman’s blouse also hanging on wall.

Instead of a morning walk my wife and I took a trip down memory lane. We visited our respective high schools which are an hour away from where we live now…

Man and woman in front of Ramsey High School in Ramsey, NJ.

Holly and me in front of my high school building.

Ramsey High School, Ramsey, NJ

My high school building.

Woman and dogs standing in front of a high school building.

Holly and our two dogs in front of her high school building.

The Number of Songs in the World Doubled Yesterday

An artificial intelligence company in Delaware boasted, in a press release, that it had created 100 million new songs. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire catalog of music available on Spotify.

How the EARN IT Act, a Bill to Protect Children Online, Threatens Artists

While officially designed to target CSAM, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other digital rights groups believe the new bill is actually designed to eliminate privacy online and threaten websites of all sizes into cooperating with authorities. This will result in states having access to everything we once trusted to remain private, the probable demise of end-to-end encryption, and the chilling of freedom of expression across the internet as sites fear prosecution and liability.

Political Theology: an introduction - by Rhyd Wildermuth

It’s very easy to see how this collective atonement/guilt idea shows up in the “secular” social justice identity politics cosmology. All white people, or all men, or all “settler-colonists” share together in the responsibility for – and the benefits of – oppression of black people, or indigenous people, or women.

Political Theology: an introduction - by Rhyd Wildermuth

Another way of understanding cosmology is to think of it as a religious system (or theology), even if it is not explicitly religious and even if it rejects all precepts of what we would think of as “faith.” An atheist has a cosmology, just as a monotheist has one. Each takes certain things as given and inarguable. Though one might believe there is a singular god and the other might believe there are no gods at all, the conclusion of each is a foundational belief to the rest of their cosmology.

I’m July 14, 2023 - by Heather Cox Richardson

Late last night, House Republicans broke that tradition by loading the bill with a wish list from the far right. Republicans added amendments that eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the Defense Department; end the Defense Department program that reimburses military personnel who must travel for abortion services; bar healthcare for gender transition; prevent the military academies from using affirmative action in admissions (an exception the recent Supreme Court decision allowed); block the Pentagon from putting in place President Biden’s executive orders on climate change; prevent schools associated with the Defense Department from teaching that the United States of America is racist; and block military schools from having “pornographic and radical gender ideology books” in their libraries.

We all live in gated communities of the mind and soul. It’s up to us to open the gates and let life in, as well as to walk outside the gates and meet life where it lives.

From this morning’s walk…

Things, plastic and metal, in a cardboard box.

Lilly flower petals fallen on a marble table surface and a couple of vintage vases.

Pristine in the box barbie doll.

Green light tube in a shop window with reflection of street in the background.

orange and yellow dress and broad brimmed hat on a mannequin in a shop window with sky and buildings reflected on the window.

roll of gold foil wrapping paper on the concrete pavement with water drops and wet pavement outlining it.

close up of ornamental grass plant

I’ve had some time to contemplate the situation and to realize that yes, my story actually is a male fantasy trope. What else could it be? It was grounded in a moment that was of the stuff that heterosexual male fantasy is made of. A beautiful young woman walks up to a past-his-young-women-days man and asks, in a beguiling, slightly flirtatious way, for a light. My god, centuries of capitalist psychosexual conditioning came screaming at me in that one brief moment.

About Heteronormative Male Sexual Fantasy Tropes Essays On Attention Paid

After the event, I stewed in my juices a bit. I was disappointed in the reaction I got, and disappointed that nobody commented on my French braid, either.

About Heteronormative Male Sexual Fantasy Tropes Essays On Attention Paid

Reading: One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston 📚

A quarter of the way into this romance novel and can hardly put it down. Reminds me of Time and Again by Jack Finney, but set in the almost present with an LGBTQ+ twist. Really fun and well written.

Last week floodwaters came, but not to my door or the doors of friends. Far away friends and family asked if we were ok. We were. We only knew the problems from tv news and overheard conversations. It felt like we lived under a protective dome. Of course, we don’t. Climate change complacency?

From this morning’s walk…

First warp comic book in a brown cardboard box.

Air conditioning/heating unit waiting for installation on a brown tile floor.

Closeup of fake Christmas tree and ornaments.

Chain link/wood picket fence between two buildings.

Cactus plant dressed in a red bandana in a shop window. Reflection of feet and legs layered on top.

Pink hat and pleated green tote bag/purse draped on mannequin wearing a pink floral sundress in a shop window.

Patching shape on asphalt driveway.

She asked what my story was about. I told her it was about two women having a one-night stand, explained the scenario, and mentioned I had read it to my wife. “And what did your wife say?” she asked, “that it was male sexual fantasy writing,” I said, whereupon she said, “I love your wife.” She had the same “oh brother” reaction my wife did.

About Heteronormative Male Sexual Fantasy Tropes Essays On Attention Paid

Eventually, I asked my wife if the scene I painted was implausible. She said, as far as she knew, it wasn’t. I asked her if I had been disrespectful to women in the way I wrote it. She said I had not. So then, I suggested, the problem is that because a man wrote it, it can’t escape the male fantasy trope critique? She said maybe.

About Heteronormative Male Sexual Fantasy Tropes Essays On Attention Paid

A New Film Captures the Majesty of Blue Whales

… it seems there are a few good environmental stories around… i am not sure it shifts me into unbridled hope for the future, but, it seems we can change course and it does make a difference when we do…

The Sheer Love and Joy of Alice Neel’s Pet Portraits

Overheard on the street yesterday:

Girl… I swear that food was on the money!

Now I’m hungry…

From this morning’s walk…

Weeds growing out of cracks in the sidewalk.

Rectangular patch in asphalt street surface. Drainage basin steel plate grid.

Rectilinear patching in asphalt street surface.

Diamond and rectilinear sunlight patterns through water.

Stack of clear plastic cups on a wicker shelf.

Woman’s Channel handbag slung over the passenger side car seat.

Pile of partially used white candles.

Reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The only other CM book I’ve read is The Road. It struck me today that both are apocalyptic novels. TR takes place after a world ending catastrophe. BM takes place during an apocalypse unfolding in the form of humanity.