Tag Archives: obsessed

We’re Obsessed With: Astro Poets

Started by “actual living poets” Dorothea Lasky and Alex Dimitrov, the new Twitter account Astro Poets is everything anyone could ever want from the internet all in one 140-character space: astrology by poets for everyone.

For those who don’t know, I’m obsessed with both astrology and good writing which is why I can’t get enough of this account. Lasky and Dimitrov are funny, charming and masters of their form. The Twitterverse is so lucky to have these two and I am so lucky to have had a chance to ask them a few questions about their absolutely magical collaboration known as Astro Poets.

Astro Poets cross

Dorothea Lasky and Alex Dimitrov

 

Cathy de la Cruz: What made you start the Astro Poets Twitter account?

Dorothea Lasky: The account was started on a whim one night. Alex had put a poll on his Twitter asking his followers whether he should date a Taurus or a Virgo that night. I voted for Taurus and that prompted Alex to ask me if we should start an astrology Twitter account. I said yes and he put a poll up asking people if we should start one and lots of people voted that we should. So we did. We both agreed going into it that the largest goal was to bring people some laughs during what has been a bad year.

Alex Dimitrov: I think we’re both pretty funny people and also we both really get… how do I say this… human nature. We finally decided to share that in a more public way. I mean we both have so much going on in our lives, this is kind of a side project that speaks to the entertainers and prophets in us… but it might turn into other things!

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Filed under Everything Else, Interviews

We’re Obsessed With: The Headless Women of Hollywood

Started by comedian Marcia Belsky, the new Tumblr The Headless Women of Hollywood draws attention to the all-too-common practice of featuring fragmented, objectified images of women’s bodies in advertising for movies and TV.

 

From the Tumblr’s “About” page:

“The head is first and foremost the thinking part of the human body, where our motivations and feelings are located. So, these images we are bombarded with on a daily basis tell us persistently that women’s thoughts, feelings and personal agency either don’t exist or are of no interest.

Further, facial features are the way we recognize other people. It’s the face that makes us individuals. That too is taken away, and we are taught that all women, especially ones that match the ideal, are the same and interchangeable.

We are made numb in pop culture to female bodies remaining background to male-centered action. A right for men to focus on or ignore, but always there if and when he so chooses. And always there explicitly, first and foremost, for his intent.”

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Filed under Movies + TV

We’re Obsessed With: Octavia Butler’s Handwritten Journal

The Huntington Library recently revealed this cover page from brilliant science fiction legend & Afro-Futurism pioneer Octavia Butler’s personal notebook, which was discovered in their archive:

via huntingtonblogs.org

“This is my life. I write bestselling novels.” **CHILLS** Continue reading

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Filed under Books + Literature

OMFG: This Girl-Version of “Howl” by Amy Newman

Via the Poetry Foundation website:

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by wedding 
planners,
  dieting, in shapewear,
dragging themselves in cute outfits through the freezer section for the
  semifreddo bender,
blessed innovative cloister girl pin-ups burning to know the rabbi of
  electricity in poverty, obedience, in the dream stick of opium and the
  green Wi-Fi fuse,”

Read the whole poem here and in the latest issue of Poetry magazine.

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We’re Obsessed With: Ambivalently Yours

Oh to be a teen in the age of Tumblr. Pretty-on-pink drawings by anonymous artist Ambivalently Yours thoroughly soothe and vindicate my inner teenage girl with reminders that it’s more than okay to be sensitive, emotional, complicated, and unabashedly “girly.” Ambivalently says, “I want my art to be about all of us boldly undecided girls.” Here are a few of my favorites:

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Filed under Art + Comics, Everything Else

We’re Obsessed With: Lizzie and Ali

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When I was in college, I was friends with this group of girls who had the driest, most deadpan sense of humor imaginable. (Just to be clear, since I have a moist sense of humor at best: I wasn’t in this particular group, I was just friends with them.) They were the kind of girls who would just flat-out lie to you about something, anything, for like fifteen minutes, or however long it took you to figure out that they were lying, but I’m pretty sure they assumed you were in on it and knew they were lying, because they were nice and generous enough to maybe think you were as smart as they were, or almost as smart. Also they had a wonderful, violent kitten named Cupcake.

They all grew up to be dry and deadpan and smart and generous in various careers, and one of them, Lizzie Prestel, grew up to make this webseries, Lizzie and Ali: A Mostly True Story, in which she plays a mostly-true version of Lizzie: one who is just as dry and deadpan as Real Lizzie, but a lot less smart and way less generous.That’s especially true in Lizzie and Ali‘s latest episode, which just went live on Funny or Die. Continue reading

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Filed under Everything Else, Movies + TV