Emily M. Danforth's Blog

davidmfrazier:

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34.
Stanley Almodovar III, 23.
Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20.
Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22.
Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36.
Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22.
Luis S. Vielma, 22.
Kimberly Morris, 37.
Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30.
Darryl Roman Burt II, 29.
Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32.
Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21.
Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25.
Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35.
Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50.
Amanda Alvear, 25.
Martin Benitez Torres, 33.
Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37.
Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26.
Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35.
Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25.
Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31.
Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26.
Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old.
Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old.
Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40 years old.
Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old
Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old
Cory James Connell, 21 years old
Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37 years old
Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old
Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old
Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25 years old
Jerald Arthur Wright, 31
Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25
Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25
Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24
Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27
Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33
Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49
Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan, 24
Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32
Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28
Frank Hernandez, 27
Paul Terrell Henry, 41

You will not be forgotten. 

The first words I spoke to my wife this morning as she stirred in our bed were: “There was another mass shooting, at a gay nightclub in Florida. At least 20 people are dead.”

Then I headed downstairs, the dogs at my feet, wanting to be let out and fed. By the living room I wished I hadn’t told her right away. What a thing to wake up to. What first words of mo(u)rning.

We went to get coffee and some tomato plants. By the time we got home it was 50 dead, 53 wounded. I don’t even know how to think a number dead that large.

June is LGBTQ Pride Month. It’s also the month we got married. “My wife.” Eight years later, it sometimes still feels new, even risky, to say it. To claim it.

“Come sit in the backyard with me,” my wife says. “Come let’s sit and drink beer.” But I am itchy and fidgety, restless. I keep scrolling feeds. I re-tweet. I write and delete. I water the window boxes and am angry at the wilting petunias. I check twitter and am angry at the politician who campaigned on a garbage tide of queer hate now saying his heart is with the victims in Florida. I am angry at the two boys on a stoop who lowly called me a dyke as I walked the dogs earlier this week. I’m angrier at myself for saying nothing to them.

I poorly plant tomatoes, dirt all down the front of my shorts, and my wife says—“Sit down here with me.”

I don’t. I can’t be allowed time to sit quietly in the shade, time to scroll on my phone.

I am not ready for news that this or that famous preacher has named this act God’s justice for our gay sins. I am not ready to compare this to the shootings that have come before, that will come after. I don’t want to see the face of the shooter. I don’t care what he did or didn’t like or want or think. I want only to see the faces of those he killed. I want to know their names the way I know the lyrics of songs, lines from favorite movies, the fucking Pledge of Allegiance: by heart, by heart, by heart.

I cannot abide the silence from those who are quick to condemn shootings more palatable to their politics. We hear your silence. You can’t hide behind it. And if you can’t see how this act of violence is linked to anti-trans bathroom bills and other laws that allow for queer people to be discriminated against, to be singled out as other, less-than, you’re fooling yourselves. But what’s scariest is that I think you do see it. I think you know that hate is hate. And when you applaud it at rallies and proclaim it on bumper stickers and vote it into office, you multiply it, give it oxygen.

I don’t want to talk about how often this happens here. (All the damn time.) I don’t want to hear about what we could but won’t do about it. I don’t want to hear about how a gun that perpetrated the deadliest mass shooting in US history, by a single gunman, is for hunting and home defense. For hunting queer people: you betcha.

“Come sit with me,” my wife says. “Come now.” It is windy and the maple tree above her bends low its branches, the sunlight shifting over her. Soon she’ll light the charcoal for the grill and we’ll drink beer and talk about the week to come. We are so lucky and our life together is beautiful and and I will try to hang on to that.

hashimotocontemporary:

Mind-bending paintings by San Francisco-based artist Casey Gray. 

Read more about the artist in his discussion with Juxtapoz magazine last year. 

Excited to welcome Casey to the gallery for our Summer Group Show, opening next week!

artchipel:

Pae White

Pop Storm (2011)
Oroscopo (2004)
Morceau Accrochant (2004)

Image source: Kaufmann Repetto, Milton Keynes Gallery, Tate
© All images courtesy of the artist

artchipel:

Pae White (b.1963, USA) - Too much night, again installation view, South london gallery, London (2013)

American visual artist Pae White is a multi-media artist who frequently creates large-scale installations in a variety of media, from tapestry to ceramics to tinfoil. Notable for her unusual use of space, White’s work has been featured in a range of non-exhibition spaces including the bookshop window at Galerie Buchholz and a children’s learning area at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Of the concept behind her work, White has said: “For the last several years, my practice has focused on an exploration of the neglected, the forgotten, the spaces between things, even the things between things. I am equally drawn to the temporary, the fleeting, to the ephemera of everyday life. My work has attempted to subvert the viewer’s expected relationship to an everyday object, nudging them off balance, encouraging a deeper look.”

Image source: Contemporary Art Daily © All images courtesy of the artist

[more Pae White]

fuckyeahlesbianliterature:

[image description: three photos, all showing hardcover books that each have a letter carved through the entire book. The first photo shows five books with the letter L, G, B, T, and Q cut out, and is captioned “Is your bookshelf missing something? Without LGBTQ+ representation, readers don’t get the whole story”. The next shows books with the letters L, G, B, and T cut out and is labelled “Is your library missing something? Without LGBT+ representation, readers don’t get the whole story” The last shows books with the letter L, G, B, T, Q, I, and A and is captioned “Is your bookshelf missing something? Without LGBTQIA+ representation, readers don’t get the whole story”]

queerbitterblue:

diversify your reads and get the whole story~

to get you started, here are some of my favorite tumblrs dedicated to queer representation in literature: aroacereads, bisexual-books, diversityinya, genrequeery, fuckyeahlesbianliterature, queerbookclub, readvitality, thegayya, transpositiveliterature, and weneeddiversebooks

even more resources: diversityinya.com, gayya.org, lesbrary.com, allourworlds.com, and malindalo's guide to LGBT YA.

(more about this project at getthewholestory.tumblr.com)

doubledaybooks:

“A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.” - Susan Sontag

theparisreview:

Roz Chast drew us some Revel concepts a few years back. Behold her rejected “Great Moments in Literature.”

“"Many modern editors have exercised ‘gallantry’ and ‘discretion’ by eliminating or changing words or lines in her poems that they believed would be misunderstood by readers. This history of her reception is itself part of Sappho’s significance."”

- "Sappho: 620 BCE–550 BCE” poetryfoundation.org (via english2123)

ruineshumaines:

Swimming Pool, an amazing and visually confounding installation by Leandro Erlich.