The real problem isn’t that it’s difficult to decide who owns culture; it’s that the very idea of ownership is the wrong model. The Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution supplies a plausible reason for creating ownership of words and ideas… But the arts progressed perfectly well in the world’s traditional cultures without these protections; and the traditional products and practices of a group—its songs and stories, even its secrets—are not best understood as its property, or made more useful by being tethered to their putative origins. (Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Lies That Bind)

Gratitude for my Feminine

Lucy Sante writing about her transition to womanhood…

I don’t hate myself anymore, am no longer apologetic for my very existence. I walk with pride. I feel exceptionally fortunate, grateful to whatever force cracked my egg before it was too late. I was saved from drowning. (Lucy Sante, I Heard Her Call My Name)

… i feel this sort of gratitude for being able to express myself femininely, though i don’t think i ever felt i was drowning… what i now recognize is that my self expression had been contained in a way that kept me from reaching a point of full happiness with who i was and what i was expressing… the joy that has found me since claiming the right to wear skirts, dresses, flowery things, lipstick, nail polish and all the other feminine things i am excitedly exploring, is enormous… i move through the world with a kind of confidence that i have had only intermittently in the past… the present confidence is much more continuous… i am grateful to a community that has embraced me enthusiastically in my new presentation… this has been decisive in solidifying the confidence i now have to be as i want to be…

Genderless

A body in immense pain can feel genderless, its status as a site of hurt more meaningful in the white-hot and blinding torrent of sensation brought on by a punch or kick or cut than its official designation as a body that is sexed. (Philippa Snow, Which as You Know Means Violence)

… this… that bodies have states of being that are genderless… when the pain is too much… when the pleasure is all consuming… when the world is incomprehensible… there are these places of intensity we occupy in a genderless way…

Cornucopia…

Trash bins with cardboard recycling overflowing and cardboard stacked on the sidewalk.

Antique store display window with abundance of antiques.

New additions to my mandala series…

Circular tray with eagle painted on it in shop window. Image has been turned 90 degrees.

Circular meeter situated in top 3rd of frame and shadow cast down to the left.

Pet peeve…

Apple with store stickers.

The sticker on the right removes easily… the sticker on the left takes the skin of the apple with it. The left side sticker is applied by the grocery store. I hate them with a passion.

Particularly liked this one from this morning…

Wispy clouds above a silhouetted flat roof building at the bottom of the frame.

Choosing Among Immoralities

Do you have access to wealth and the creation of more of it? Or must you sell your time, your body, and your labor for even the minimal means of your survival? (Rhyd Wildermuth, Here Be Monsters)

… i have been thinking about the morality of being an American, with a middle to upper middle class level of wealth and consumption and, therefore, responsibility for global oppression structures and destruction of the planet… liberal friends who are certain that Donald Trump is evil, might sit out the vote in November because it would be immoral to support Vice President Harris… in their minds, she shares responsibility with President Biden for failing to force Israel to stop it’s Palestinian genocide… this is a luxury they will permit themselves because they live in a state that will reliably vote Democrat and send all its electoral college votes to Harris/Walz… in the meantime they live a comfortable upper middle class existence in America and don’t much question its impact on the globe and its peoples… they also don’t see the importance of making sure Donald Trump is defeated, not narrowly, but massively at every level… what should i say to them?… or do they have an argument i should listen to?…

Lately I’ve been feeling very alone on Micro.blog. My posts are mostly ignored. I post a variety of things, so it can’t all be uninteresting. This place makes me sad more than it makes me happy. Don’t know what to do about that.

An intriguing addition to my Everyday Mandala series…

Circular window looking out onto a Japanese garden. The window has three vertical bamboo pieces and one horizontal bamboo piece, all carefully placed asymmetrically.

We went with friends to the [Hammond Museum and Japanese Gardens]((https://www.hammondmuseum.org) yesterday…

Tree with grass and circle of stones below.

Stone frog stature on gravel.

Cluster of tree stumps. Trees recently cut down.

Metallic leaf hanging from a wire in front of charred wood. This is a detail from a sculpture.

Tree trunk rising on the right side into a canopy of branches and leaves in the background.

Four trunks in a stand of evergreen trees.

A stand of bamboo.

Closeup of ornamental grass.

Closeup of ornamental grass.

… we then had lunch at Purdy’s The Farmer and the Fish which was excellent!

A random encounter on the street…

… a man, tall, lanky, in his late 40’s, early 50’s, calls out to me as i am walking down Elm street to Main Street… he is sitting on top of a picnic table under a tree with a cup of coffee… i can’t make out what he is saying at first and ask him to repeat… he tells me he respects LGBTQ people and that Jesus welcomes everyone to the table… i thank him for his words of support… “God bless you!” he says as i move on… i an a little surprised… i had not thought i was presenting so obviously it could be seen from a distance… still, i am happy to be recognized as LGBTQ… later on, i pass him on Main Street… i have observed him righting a trash can that had been tipped over during the night… he asks me if i tipped it over and says you people up from the city need to be more respectful… i tell him that i live in Beacon and that i didn’t do it… he reaches his hand out and tells me his name is Danny and that he’s lived his whole life in the house with the yellow shutters on Elm street… i have never seen him before… i tell him my name and that i live around the corner from him on Dewindt street… he goes back to expressing his acceptance of LGBTQ people… he tells me he thinks we are angels, we all have wings on our backs… “I hope so,” i say… he says, “i know so,”… i wish him a good day and move on…

From this morning’s walk…

Tops of trees and cloudy skies.

Leaves and branches against a cloudy sky.

Spray of sparkling lights in a shop window.

Drink can with paper bag wrapped tightly around it sitting on a shop window ledge with light front he shop illuminating the can.

Two chairs stacked in a shop window. Chairs have a gold frame with beige fabric.

Two shopping bags with clothing inside sitting in deep shadows.

Stack of advertising papers with plastic binding straps that have been cut and lay open in a cross or x shape.

Everlane is having an end of summer sale. I scored the skirt, dress and blouse (without the shorts) at substantial discount. I am a big Everlane fan. Their clothing is well made, reasonably priced (even before sale markdown), and the company centers sustainability in their products and shipping. And, they have plus sizing for most garments.

At the same time I am shopping these elegant heels…

Soft gold tone woman’s closed toe sandal heels with ankle strap.

… my wife is shopping for the ever fashionable combat boots to go with her jeans and leather biker jacket… there seems to be a bit of gender role reversal going on.

Rather like this selfie from this morning…

… this version too!

An individual, like a people, like a continent, dies out when he shrinks from both rash plans and rash acts, when, instead of taking risks and hurling himself toward being, he cowers within it, takes refuge there: a metaphysics of regression, a retreat to the primordial! (E. M. Cioran and Richard Howard, The Temptation to Exist)

August 27, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

“For those counting,” legal analyst Andrew Weismann wrote, “FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.”

From this morning’s walk… trying out a new “film” pack in Hipstamatic…

Leaves and branches silhouetted against the sky. Nostalgic filter applied.

Closeup with cardboard and paper with a grid of small holes in the paper. Nostalgic filter applied.

Old fashioned public clock silhouetted against the sky. Nostalgic filter applied.

Top of building shot looking up towards the sky. Nostalgic filter applied.

Mannequin with necklace, gray knit top, white jeans and jacket in shop window. Nostalgic filter applied.

White mini dress floating in a shop window. Nostalgic filter applied.

Selfie of reflection in a window. I am wearing a mini dress with thing graphic lines. Black sandals, no leggings.

What I Expected, What I Got | In Opposition

The most pleasant surprise of all, however, has been the number of people who have gone out of their way to affirm my feminine forward presentation. A neighbor from a few doors up was driving by and stopped to tell me he thought I had been rocking my outfits lately. Another neighbor I often pass during early morning walks told me she thought my outfits had been really cute lately. A vender in the farmer’s market told me she had been noticing me for a while and that she loved my style.

From this morning’s walk…

Yellow wild flowers by the road.

Waterfall viewed from above.

Bridal bouquets in a bridal shop window.

Paper globe lantern in a shop window with reflections of trees overlaid.

Tunnel between buildings with construction work going on.

The war, of course, furnished many examples of this pattern: the casual fact, the creative imagination, the will to believe, and out of these three elements, a counterfeit of reality to which there was a violent instinctive response. For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities, and that in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond. (Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion)

… sounds vaguely familiar…

In America more than anywhere else, the spectacle of mechanical progress has made so deep an impression, that it has suffused the whole moral code. (Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion)

Experience is an inherently uncertain business that carries risk – a risk without which one can learn nothing. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

Curiosity will never be content… Perhaps there are things, like many others, destined never to be learnt before the world comes to its end. Or perhaps—but here I speculate, here my own curiosity leads me by the nose—the world is so arranged that when all things are learnt, when curiosity is exhausted (so, long live curiosity), that is when the world shall have come to its end. But even if we learn how, and what, and where, and when, will we ever know why? Why, why?” (Patrik Svensson, The Book of Eels)