Alkistis Protopsalti - Ela gia Ligo
Σάββατο 23 Οκτωβρίου 2010
Lesbian Portraits
History
In the early 1990s, the mainstream media finally discovered that, in the words of a famous slogan, ''lesbians are everywhere''. But, as we shall see, passionate love between women is no modern social phenomenon - it has existed as long as women themselves, whatever term has been used to describe it. Lesbians have been ''inverts'' and ''female adventurers'', women who are ''not as other women'' and who particiapte in ''romantic friendships'' or ''Boston marriages'', which supposedly consist of little more than holding hands and reading poetry to each other. The cultural influence of lesbians has been seen in every field, from social and political reform to art and literature. Yet historians have repeatedly failed to record the contributions made by these women. And, contrary to popular belief, lesbians throughout ancient and modern history have often been subjected to persecution similar to that of gay men. In 15th and 16th-century Europe, women executed for ''marrying'' other women. Many of those burned during witch-hunts were women who chose to live without men.
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 10) - DEAR SAPPHO
July 14, 1989
Dear L,
How should I address you in my love letters? L, my lesbian(ism), my Lover, my love, through the glistening pip, the shining tendril (of) our desire for me, the slender rod registering the relation of your frequency and mine.
Billie Holiday - STRANGE FRUIT
Billie Holiday a legendary voice sings live.
Rare Live Footage of one of the firtst anti rascism songs ever.
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 9) - DEAR SAPPHO
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| Gertrude Stein with Alice Tsoclas |
1940
My love my love, I love my love,
My love I love, I love my love,
Bless her, her little fingers and her
big finger and her whole hand and all
of her bless her, I love my love bless
her and the two little apples inside her
bless her, and the cow that comes out
with her, bless her, I love
my love, my
love I love, bless her.
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 8) - DEAR SAPPHO
August 14, 1994
Cayenne - I'm really glad you responded to my e-mail. God, this is a hard one (coming to terms with my femme-self). In some ways although I wear my ''femenness'' on my sleeve (so to speak) - I still grapple with it on an intellectual and emotional level. As a child I always liked typical girl femmey things - dolls, dresses - and didn't like butchy things - sports, rough housing etc. . . . In fact, girls that I grew up with that I now recognize as butch, I was afraid of and I steered clear. (Could it be that I ''knew'' of my forbidden desires even then?)
I came out as a lesbian in '84 - wow already 10 years. . . At first it was more of a curiosity than a burning desire . . . From the start I was always attracted to butch dykes. I would notice a beautiful woman - and still do - but in a completely different way than a handsome woman. When I look at femme dykes my thought process is something like ''She's beautiful, I wonder what that hair cut would looke like on me . . . '' When I see a butch dyke I don't think, my body responds. . .
How to have a home with no house payments and no utility bills!
How to have a home with no house payments and no monthly utility bills!
This is an introduction to simple solar homesteading that provides information on how to find cheap land, build an inexpensive home, and use solar power to eliminate monthly utility bills.
What would you do if you had no house payment and no monthly utility bills ?
Well watch the video and I will show you how it is done easily and with very lttle money
SADE - No Ordinary Love
This is no Ordinary Love - SADE
I gave you all the love I got
I gave you more than I could give
I gave you love
I gave you all that I have inside
And you took my love
You took my love
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 7) - DEAR SAPPHO
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| Emma Goldman |
August 8, 1912
. . . I am a savage, Emma, a wild, wild savage. And they can't tame me with their puling conventions, their stinking houses nor their dammed religion. And it is the untamed part of me that loves y ou because you don't want to put leading strings on it. If you did I would tell you that ou are a liar and your book is a lie.
John Lennon - Working Class Heroe
Working Class Heroe .. is something to be!
(Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.)
As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 6) - DEAR SAPPHO
1-93-1993, 11:30 A.M.
Madisson, Madisson, Madisson,
I am obsessed with you. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I only can think of you and our love-making on Friday night. Thoughts of you crying-thinking of how beautiful I find you. Being scared to let me kiss you everywhere - afraid to let go of the last control to me - afraid to be so totally vulnerble . . . . I want to possess you, capture you, belong to you. Belong to you - belong to you - belong to you. Madisson, belong to you. I surrender my body, my heart, my soul to you, my beautiful Madisson.
I am more afraid than I have ever been in my life. Afraid of the totality of my desire for you. Afraid you'll ask me to leave Terry, afraid you won't ask me to leave Terry. What's going to happen to me? . . . How can I live without you now that I've found you? I cannot . . .
Come to my house on our next weekday off and spend the day with me. Start in the morning, make love, go on a picnic? hold hands, tell me your dreams, make love again and again and again . . . Let me court you, woo you, seduce you . . . Let me rub our wetness together. This time I won't hold back my climax. I love your hands, lips, pelvis, legs. . . I love you, angel. I love you Janet Madisson Mary Michael Ledet forever and without conditions or hesitation. If you reject me now - I will die.
Laura
LAURA TO MADISSON
We've been together two years now (1996). We are nurses at Texas Children's Hospital. Madisson is very androgynous and I am very femme. I did leave Terry (my partner of 10 years) about two weeks after this letter was written.
From the book
DEAR SAPPHO A legacy of Lesbian Love Letters
by KAY TURNER
Published by: THAMES AND HUDSON, 1996
Leonard Cohen - EVERYBODY KNOWS
Don't we all know?
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 6) - DEAR SAPPHO
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTIFUL . . . It's such a lovely day here, the goddesses know its your birthday and have made everything stunning for you. I thought I would honor your memory in my own way and I got up and took a long bath and put on my leather pants and red jacket and boots and red lipstick like the first time I caught your eye on the bar stool that night when I held your attention long enough to get you to my motel room, if even for a moment, but it was enough to light the flame, which has not quit burning burning burning since and I love it so much, you, how it happened, where it is going, how good we look together on the street and how well we fit together under covers or on top of them or next to each other on the subway and I think YES YES this is as fine as fine gets only for us it will only get better and better, a thought that is awesome in its own right, when I think of you and what is growing between us like marigolds or zinnias, fast and furious in bold colors springing up all over the place, between cracks in city sidewalks and beside front porch swings bringing something wonderful and beautiful to all of those who walk by or see or feel it, and it is good to see it pass along among friends who can recognize THE GOOD and feel it and it rubs off on them and courses thru their bones too, this wonderful wonderful love that has come like Venus up from the waters, cool and sweet it makes me want to take you now, right now in my arms and hold you and kiss you everywhere everywhere not missing a single spot and love you with my mouth and my hands and my arms and my face so good it feels next to you, so perfect you feel, so perfect we are together cracking whips and gum and so happy we are, I am, I am so happy you were born today 29 years ago and so proud of your strength and your big brave heart baby that I just want to say from the bottom and top of my heart that I hope you have a happy day and a happy happy birthday and I love you so so much . . .
Yours yours yours yours with
love - Lu
LUCINDA TO POLLY
Polly and Lucinda met at a Llibrarian's convention in Washington, D.C. on January 9, 1989. Fortunate to have early and easy access to the internet at their owtherwise dull university jobs, they corresponded via e-mail for 8 months until Lucinda moved from Kentucky to join Polly in NYC. They were joint caretakers of the Lesbian Herstory Archives from the time it moved to Brookly in June 1992 until their break-up in January 1994. Their e-mail correspondence continues, though it looks quite different today.
From the book
DEAR SAPPHO A legacy of Love Letters
by KAY TURNER
Publishers THAMES AND HUDSON
Παρασκευή 22 Οκτωβρίου 2010
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 5) - DEAR SAPPHO
April 1994
Darling Wendy or Wendy Darling -
I'm in a limo driving to sound check thinking of you you, of Sunny, of the bridge we just went over. We've been gone a day, but as in heaven - a day is as a thousand. Perhaps not to you, but I've already done two planes; two shows; 2 hotels; thousands of people; 3 showers; 1 in-store; 8 different limos; 3 different promoters; a hundred autographs; 2 strippers; 60 photographers; 4 interviews; 3 mini-stores for food; 2 meals; 4 bunches of flowers; 7 roses; lots of phone calls (I've told everyone about you); 4 shots of Jagermeister; 1 buttery nipple; 5 different tapes all the way through; 2 sound checks; 7 bottles of water; 1 blown speaker; 1 mic stand explosion;
and a million thoughts of You. I'm tired. It's raining - warm and wet - sound familiar? I'd kiss this, but it won't do a damn bit of good - I never wear lipstick do I? Is this absurd? Are we - am I? I' m in Office Depot to touch you with my writing.
Kisses,
Christina
CHRISTINA TO WENDY
Christina Minna spends most of her life touring with the band Fem2Fem. She met Wendy Jill York, the photographer and current editor of the magazine 50/50, during an interview. Much of their relationship was conducted via letters and faxes - the example published here is a fax - sent back and forth while Christina was on the road.
From the book DEAR SAPPHO A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters
by KAY TURNER
THAMES AND HUDSON, 1996
Fem2Fem was a 1990s techno group who released two albums. With actress Lezlie Deane of Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare as a member, Fem2Fem were the first and (so-far only) openly lesbian pop group to chart. But only some of the members of Fem2Fem were lesbians, and according to lead singer Michele Crispin their intentions at the beginning were to promote a healthy view of sexuality with their music, regardless of sexual orientation. However, an appearance by the band in the December 1993 issue of Playboy magazine and the non-political nature of their sapphic lyrics led to criticism by some in the LGBT community that the band was merely playing to the prurient interests of a heterosexual male audience....
Wikipedia
ON BULLSHIT
''One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.
In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis. I shall not consider the rhetorical uses and misuses of bullshit. My aim is simply to give a rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not - or (putting it somewhat differently) to articulate, more or less sketchily, the structure of its concept.
Any suggestion about what conditions are logically both necessary and sufficient for the constitution of bullshit is bound to be somewhat arbitrary.
For one thing, the expression bullshit is often employed quite loosely - simply as a generic term of abuse, with no very specific literal meaning. For another, the phenomenon itself is so vast and amorphous that no crisp and perspicuous analysis of its concept can avoid being procrustean. Nonetheless it should be possible to say something helpful, even though it is not likely to be decisive. Even the most basic and preliminary questions about bullshit remain, after all, not only unanswered but unasked.
So far as I am aware, very little work has been done on this subject. I have not undertaken a survey of the literature, partly because I do not know how to go about it. To be sure, there is one quite obvious place to look - the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED has an entry for bullshit in the supplementary volumes, and it also has entries for various pertinent uses of the word bull and for some related terms. I shall consider some of these entries in due course. I have not consulted dictionaries in languages other than English, because I do not know the words for bullshit or bull in any other language. Another worthwhile source is the title essay in The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black. (Max Black, The Prevalence of Humbug, Published by Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985). I am uncertain just how close in meaning the word humbug is to the word bullshit. Of course, the words are not freely and fully interchangeable; it is clear that they are used differently. But the difference appears on the whole to have more to do with consideration of gentility, and certain other rhetorical parameters, than with the strictly literal modes of significance that concern me most. It is more polite, as well as less intense, to say ''Humbug!'' than to say ''Bullshit!''.
For the sake of this discussion, I shall assume that there is no other importan difference between the two.''
-----
Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial - notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.
Harry G. Frankfurt
Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 2005
Πέμπτη 21 Οκτωβρίου 2010
Psywar - The complete film
This film explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States, with an emphasis on the "elitist theory of democracy" and the relationship between war, propaganda and class.
Includes original interviews with a number of dissident scholars including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips ("Project Censored"), John Stauber ("PR Watch"), Christopher Simpson ("The Science of Coercion") and others.
Τετάρτη 20 Οκτωβρίου 2010
END Violence Against Women
Violence against women is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women. Similar to a hate crime, this type of violence targets a specific group with the victim's gender as a primary motive. The United Nations General Assembly defines "violence against women" as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mentalharm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life." The 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women noted that this violence could be perpetrated by assailants of either gender, family members and even the "State" itself. Worldwide governments and organizations actively work to combat violence against women through a variety of programs. A UN resolution designated November 25 as International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Wikipedia
Περί έρωτος και ποίησης - Η Αναζήτηση της Αρχής
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| Octavio Paz |
Απόσπασμα από το βιβλίο Η ΑΝΑΖΗΤΗΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΗΣ, Δοκίμια για τον υπερρεαλισμό
του Οκτάβιο Παθ
Η ποίηση γίνεται στό κρεββάτι σάν τόν έρωτα
Τα σχισμένα της σεντόνια είναι η αυγή των πραγμάτων
Η ποίηση γίνεται στά δάση
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Το ποιητικό αγκάλιασμα καθώς τ' αγκάλιασμα
το σαρκικό
όσο διαρκεί
απαγορεύει τήν πτώση στή μιζέρια του κόσμου. *
* Andre Breton
Ποίηση και αγάπη είναι δραστηριότητες όμοιες. Η ποιητική καθώς και η ερωτική εμπειρία μας ανοίγουν τις πύλες με ηλεκτρική ταχύτητα σ' ένα λεπτό. Εκεί ο χρόνος δεν έχει τίποτα το διαδοχικό. Το χτές, το σήμερα, το αύριο παύουν να έχουν νόημα: υπάρχει μονάχα ένα πάντα, που είναι επίσης ένα εδώ και ένα τώρα. Πέφτουν τα τείχη της πνευματικής φυλακής. Διάστημα και χρόνος αγκαλιάζονται, αλληλοπεριέχονται και ξεδιπλώνουν στά πόδια μας ένα ζωντανό χαλί, μια βλάστηση που μας τυλίγει με τα χίλια χλοερά της χέρια, που μας γδύνει με τα χίλια υδάτινα μάτια της. Το ποίημα καθώς και η αγάπη είναι μία πράξη όπου η γέννηση και ο θάνατος, αυτές οι δυό ακραίες αντιφάσεις που μας διέπουν και πού μ'αυτόν τον τρόπο κάνουν τόσο αβέβαιες τις ανθρώπινες καταστάσεις συμβιβάζονται και συγχωνεύονται. Να αγαπάς είναι να πεθαίνεις, είπαν οι μυστικιστές μας. Αλλά επίσης, για τον ίδιο αυτό λόγο, είναι και να γεννιέσαι. Ο αστέρευτος χαρακτήρας της ερωτικής εμπειρίας δεν είναι διάφορος από εκείνον της ποίησης. Ο Rene Char γράφει: ''Το ποίημα είναι ο έρωτας ο πραγματοποιημένος από τον πόθο που παραμένει πόθος''.
ΜAD WORLD - Gary Jules
The original video of Gary Jules' and Michael Andrews' cover version of Mad World, directed by Michel Gondry. Throughout the video children are making animated figures on the sidewalk below. (the song was featured in the movie Donnie Darko.)
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 4) - DEAR SAPPHO
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| Mary Woolley |
July 11, 1900
What shall I do when the postman fails to bring me a letter everyday, dearest? It did not come by this morning's mail and although I had said to myself that of course I should not have one today, nevertheless work dragged a little because it failed to come. This afternoon mine was ready for him to take and as a reward, he gave me yours. It takes me one-half second to tear open the envelope and then, darling, I literally devour the contents . . . .my darling, is it not strange that each should find inspiration in that other - I cannot understand how I can be an inspiration to you, but I can see full well why you inspire me every day as you do, so that all my life is different for me. Darling, you are more lovely in nature and in every respect than I - do not ever say that you are not ''worthy''. It is I who am not worthy of the woman who constantly brings to my mind those words of Jean Inglebrook's, ''A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath.'' No, as sweeter woman never did, nor a truer, braver, sincerer, nobler woman! You are all that to me, dear heart, and far, far more. You and my mother are enshrined in my heart as the dearest women God ever made. . . .
My heart is simply overflowing with love for you dearest - if you should be taken out of my life, it would kill me; perhaps not physically - people do live, even if the heart dies. You would not give me your love to take it away again - I know that, as I know you, but it frightens me to realize how I depend upon this love of yours, and wonder how it is given to me in such richness. I am selfish, my darling, I cannot understand how a mother can endure having her child give her heart to another. You know that there is a side of my love which is very like its mother's for her child, while there is another quality that makes me feel that I am the child looking to you for the protecting, comforting love which you never fail to give. I long to say to you ''Pet me, Jeannette'' and put my head on your shoulder to be loved and petted as only you can do it . . . . Do you realize what it means to have you, this heart of my life, to talk with you as I would with my own soul, to have nothing hid, to feel that we are one?. . . Goodnight, my darling, it is almost ten and I must leave to rest until tomorrow. It is a constant to have this little talk. What will it be to have it with my arms around you, my own little girl?. . .
Your own Mary
MARY TO JEANNETTE
Mary Woolley was a professor of Biblical history at Wellesley College when she met a student, Jeannette Marks, in 1895. They courted for five years. At the turn of the century, Woolley became the President of Mt. Holyoke College. This letter was written before Marks was appointed to the college faculty and came to live permanently with Woolley at Holyoke.
From the book
DEAR SAPPHO
A Legacy of Lesbian Love Letters
by KAY TURNER
PUBLISHERS: THAMES AND HUDSON, 1996
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 3) - DEAR SAPPHO
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| From the book DEAR SAPPHO A Legacy of Lesbian Love Letters by KAY TURNER |
July 1961
Dearest Judy,
It's late in the night. I'm tired, yet I can't go to sleep. Have you ever lain in your bed, your head lost in the pillow . . . your teeth clenched tight so that they'll keep you from screaming out loud - all because you miss somebody so very much? It's a miserable feeling. My eyes cry desperately for sleep, they are ready to close and die away. But my mind can't. Thoughts . . . violate its peace, like a swirling tornado. And one persistent thought keeps imposing itself on the others: I want to see her. Please, I've got to see her.
Something stirs inside my chest. Like a hand gripping my heart, suffocating me. I want to breathe hard and fast, I want to cry. Where are the tears? Even they don't come. Nothing comes. God! Is it possible to miss someone so much? . . . I know that first thing tomorrow morning I'll call you, because I must talk to you.
I remember what you said the other night - that you're scared. . . So am I . . . But I'm also desperately in love. In love with everything in you and about you. In love with your thoughts, in love with your face, in love with your feelings and emotions. Is it wrong to feel this way? . . .
Do you feel the same way? . . . All I know is that right now the way I feel is the way of my life. And I've always believed that there's nothing I care more about than the way of my life.
There must be something wrong with the world, I think. Why should we be afraid of waht we feel, of what we think? Why should they be right and we wrong? . . . It's not just a matter of a woman falling in love with another woman, it's a whole way of approaching life, a whole series of beliefs and ideals, and feelings that is at stake. And I'm too selfish, too self-confident, to accept theirs instead of mine. In a way, I'm scared only because you are. I don't want to cause you any trouble . . . But for myself I don't care. I'm in love. What does it matter whether it's a man or a woman? Love is wonderful, marvelous, beautiful in all its forms and aspects. Love is love.
I love you, Judy. I say it and I don't care, I'm not ashamed. I want to say it again and again. I love you Judy. Judy, I love you.
Charoula
CHAROULA TO JUDY
Charoula fell in love with Judy at Vassar College in the early 1960s. But Judy was a bit of a butterfly, unable to commit. She had a brief affair with Gail and at the same time introduced Charoula to her. Then Gail and Charoula became lovers and they have been together ever since, thirty-three years and counting (1996). In 1968, upon hearing the Beatles' song about aging, Gail wrote to Charoula, ''If I love you so much when I'm 31, it is impossible to think of the amount and strength when I'm 64....''
A Legacy Of Lesbian Love Letters (No 2) - DEAR SAPPHO
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| Djuna Barnes. An American playright, novelist and painter |
From the book
DEAR SAPPHO
a legacy of lesbian
love letters
by
KAY TURNER
Published by: THAMES AND HUDSON, 1996
(No 2)
Aug 5th, after 1928
Djuna love - I wrote you a letter last week but had sense enough to read it over the next day - and not send it. It was awful - I thought I was going to have a ''crisis'' but I was unwell and perhaps that was the trouble-
But at times Djuna things are get very terrible - something will happen I go to pieces - for instance I dream of you every night - and sometimes Djuna I dream we are lovers and I wake up the next day and nearly die of shame. Taking advantage in my sleep of something I know so intimately - and something you do not wish me to have - It's like stealing from you and I feel the next day like cabling ''forgive me'' and sitting up all night.
You can understand dearest how I get upset - have patience with me - your letter about knowing what I ought to do torments me. I say to myself ''Djuna is a clever woman - and she must know how I tear myself up over every word she writes'' - if there's something to do it's not what I've done or am - I'd cut my heart out and send it to you if you cared for it - I'd do anything in the world to please you a little - but what is it I can do?...
. . . I want you my Djuna- you know you have my life - in any way you want it - I'll be president of the United States if you want it - I adore you -
Simon
THELMA (SIMON) TO DJUNA
The American author Djuna Barnes, who wrote the deliciously deviant and legendary ''Nightwood'', among other books, lived on the Left Bank in Paris during the 1920's and '30's, then spent the rest of her life in New York. In 1921 she met Thelma Wood, a striking, booted, six-foot-tall American woman who became, according to Barnes, ''my great love''.
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