girlontape: 03.12

girlAgitprop

via strong intelligent women choosing equality & freedom instead of religion
and the corollary, in the words of Italian comedian Daniele Luttazzi:

"The Pope has advised young people to practice chastity.
If it works with them, he'll try it on priests next."

girlfriends like these make my world go round

...because all i have to give is music

vintage girlwebcam + new diego ro-k set

This is one of several DJs who literally saved my life during the seven years i spent lost in Buenos Aires... words cannot explain how important their music was to me... truly a gift to the people, enjoy:

of marley and (im)mortality

We have many different games. Morning ones, evening ones. The shower curtain game, the moving-the-lighter-off-the-edge-of-the-coffee-table-while-you-aren’t-looking game. The game of hiding under the sheets while I make the bed.

You have fangs, I have opposable thumbs and yes you are the apple of my eye. I lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove you.

Do you have a kitten? asks the Sole 24 Ore editor in the posh 15^th floor midtown Manhattan conference room twelve years ago. He’s observing my hands. Which are criss-crossed with baby claw marks. It’s just that I’m allergic to cats, he adds, carefully keeping the vast polished mahogany table between us.

I know it’s not the same, but it is. They play, run, fight, fall, get up, learn. (Dream, fear, hope, remember, demand. Mourn.)

They’re made of rubber – no use trying to be everywhere at once. They’re bound to get scratched - eat something they shouldn’t. They teethe, catch cold, need vaccines. They need.

They’re so needy – sometimes you feel like screaming at them. And you do.

They could so easily end up tortured by psychopaths. Neglected, abused, abandoned. Bought and sold on the internet, caged. Vivisected, gassed, clubbed, injected.

You are the only thing standing between them and the evil fate that is being meted out to the innocent everywhere in the world, every minute every second. You are their guardian.

They’re possessive – won’t let you out of their sight. Follow you into the kitchen, the bathroom. Accompany you while you cook, freak out, fall in love, dance, take pictures fold the laundry. They make you laugh. Lay their paws on you where it hurts.

They bring you trophies – an eviscerated toy. Moth corpses. Once, a complete set of feathers. (Where’s the rest of the bird? You will never find it. Not even the beak.)

They have their preferences: classical music of any kind bewitches them. Led Zeppelin drives them out of the room.

They die so much sooner than us, said Francis the other day in the park. But I like to think we’ll find them waiting for us on the other side. Francis and his wife are in their sixties, their kids grown up; their rescued dog, Sophie, is two. So chances are – chances.

You’re twelve now Marley. At the same time it seems like yesterday I stood across that vast mahogany table and gushed, Yes! I just adopted a kitten… in fact, are we done with this meeting? I can’t wait to get home.

Soo Yeon Lee: Grand Slam (AQO Redub)

discovered via the one & only kisa lala... still showing me the way after all these years...

some people get by with a little understanding

FB wonders, girlontape recently reconnected with one of her loves of yesteryear. The kind that changes you, launching you on a whole new sequence of adventures

(in that case, it was the transition from uptown to downtown, activism to art, low-rent aspirations to buying real estate on Avenue C:

different sorts of self-definition, not that there is ultimately any separation, but at that age you feel it's just so important to draw those fine, non-existent lines)

and I told him "I'm heading to Berlin to reconnect with the rock n roll spirit I once knew in NY" and he said, "You are still rock n roll Stef"

which made me happy,

in the way that only the perception of someone who has known you this long can make you happy, and yeah I want MORE

the one and only kat by the one and only kat

"robert was concerned with taking the picture, i with being the picture" (patti smith, just kids)

self-portraits by kat ziegler

in praise of the worth of women

artist painting a musician's portrait, by marguerite gerard (1761-1837)

"I say that everything men can understand, women can too; and where a man’s intellect can penetrate, so along with it can a woman’s.

If you study ancient and modern history -- although men have always been very sparing in their praise of women -- you will find that there have been women who waged wars and won glorious victories, governed great kingdoms with the greatest prudence and justice, and done all that men have done.

As for learning, cannot you recall reading of many women who knew philosophy, of others who have been consummate poets, others who prosecuted, accused and defended before judges with the greatest eloquence?

Who does not realize that without women we can get no pleasure or satisfaction out of life, which but for them would be more uncouth and savage than that of wild beasts?

If we really consider the truth, we shall also recognize that in our understanding of great issues, far from distracting us they awaken our minds, and in warfare they make men fearless and bold beyond measure."

baldassarre castiglione, the book of the courtier, 1508