Megan Westerby

“I think a lot about what makes a strong female character. You know, movies and TV shows, these things have influence, my own website. So I think the question of “What makes a strong female character?”, often goes misinterpreted. And instead we get these two-dimensional superwomen, who maybe have one quality that’s played up a lot. Like, you know, a Catwoman type, or she plays her sexuality up a lot and it’s seen as power. But they’re not strong characters who happen to be female, they’re completely flat and they’re basically cardboard characters.
The problem with this is that then people expect women to be that easy to understand, and women are mad at themselves for not being that simple. When in actuality, women are complicated. Women are multifaceted. Not because women are crazy, but because people are crazy. And women happen to be people!”

-Tavi Gevinson for TEDTalks [x]

Tavi Gevinson for President. 

kenyatta:

With all of the Yahoo-Tumblr reporting still going on right now it surprises me how many writers still mistake Tumblr for a “blogging platform.”

Anyone who has spent significant time on Tumblr knows that this whole “blog” thing is a front.

Literally.

70% of a given blog’s post traffic actually happens in the Dashboard. For some blogs, that percentage is even higher.

This makes things like ranking a Tumblr blog’s popularity through site traffic fairly dubious.

It also means that the value of Tumblr isn’t just in the original posts but the amplification of ideas through reblogs and the like.

There’s probably an iceberg.gif of some sort that would work really well here.

(btw, the numbers in that image are from an “official” blog that I run, not my personal blog.)

def one of those days I want kenyatta to run the world. 

mydrunkkitchen:

With one month left on the tour, and I would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all 1300 of you who have volunteered your time with us at food banks and food drives across America.

Our little arms combined have re-packed and distributed 55,500 pounds of food to our North American neighbors - equivalent to 46,250 meals!

We have volunteered in 12 cities so far, and have collected 2,150 pounds of donations. The enthusiasm and effort has been a wonderful sight to see. Also, a big shout-out to Mandy Hort for organizing continual Hartosexual volunteer events since we’ve left the Oregon Food Bank. That’s dope!

Thanks for being a part of this, guys. Feels mighty good.

Love,
Hannah

I am ridiculously proud of Hannah for everything she’s managed to accomplish in the last six months. When she sets her mind to something she moves mountains. 

pewinternet:

13% of internet users ages 18-29 use Tumblr.

Compare Tumblr user demographics to other social networking sites: http://pewrsr.ch/VBAYby

The reveal: Tumblr has the smallest percentage of any 18-29 year old demo listed! 

buzzfeed:

You can change the direction this train is moving just by thinking about it.

Is this the new ‘which way is the lady rotating?’ brain test?

leahclaire:

wallmakers:

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

So I was loaned this book by someone with, apparently, the exact same taste in books as me (I mean, not really, but his is SUPER CLOSE). Because, okay, it’s sci fi—time travel sci fi—by a British lady, and it’s basically… a P. G. Wodehouse novel. Except with an unbelievably good plot.

Like. Even if it was terrible, jesus christ, what a fucking gorgeous concept. And it wasn’t terrible! It was AMAZING! I can’t believe I hadn’t ever read it before—it was very Diana Wynne Jones-y; seriously, she almost could have written it. 

I love this book a whole lot.

Number 1 recommendation when people ask for new readables. 

strle:

nbcsnl:

Stefon’s farewell had, well, everything. We love you Stefon. Thanks for everything!

Reblogging this here for the permanent record. 

I’m still absolutely devastated. Just the best. 

I’m crylaughing. Perfection.

SARAH JANE SPEAKS THE TRUTH. 

simulacrumb:

I’m fascinated by the addition of wood chips (or bark bits, tree shreds, whatever they might be called) to the short stretch of Logan Boulevard greenspace that plays host to the Logan Square Farmers’s Market on Sundays. I can’t stop thinking about trails.

The little reading I’ve done on the history of Logan Square reveals an emphasis on the role of Milwaukee and Elston Avenues as commercial conduits that grew from so-called Indian trails. In the mid-nineteenth century these routes were paved with wood, becoming the plank roads that ferried goods into the emerging Chicago metropolis (in this case the North West Plank Road). The plank roads were reported to be notoriously dangerous, the wood rotting after only a few seasons of traffic. As the story goes, they were upgraded to more durable surfaces, then came the railways, expressways, and airways (if you take account for the endless chain of flights between O’Hare and New York). These arrived in sequence, all along the same northwesterly corridor.

Logan Boulevard itself is part of, or was incorporated into, the (awe-inspiringly grand) ‘Emerald Necklace’ designed by Daniel Burnham for the master plan of Chicago. The wide boulevards with flanking streets and wide medians are a beautiful vision of never-quite-realized urban ideals. Walking around at twilight I can sometimes glimpse the ghostly image of a phaeton on its leisurely weekend ride. One of these days I want to bike every extant (and unrealized/non-extant) yard of the boulevards, camera (and maybe voice recorder?) in hand.

Today we have the phenomenon of the farmer’s market. What I’m fixated on is the idea of recursivity. The market pops up every weekend (late May to October) at the juncture of Logan Boulevard and Milwaukee Avenue, the meeting place of these two historical threads. If the farmer’s market creedo is about (re)introducing local produce and goods into urban markets (or, alternatively, food deserts), then the use of Logan Boulevard’s wide greenspace is an imaginative hack of Burnham’s plan, a creative subterfuge of early twentieth-century notions of leisure. It also loops back to the former uses of Milwaukee Avenue as a route for the transport of local goods.

But beyond that I see something poetic in the foot-worn trail that kills the short green grass. The footsteps of market goers who’s flip-flops and strollers tame the manicured lawns of master plan-Chicago. One hundred years of concrete and iron infrastructure peeled away to the sinews of (so-called Indian) trails. While I adore the idea or recursivity, there is something more tangible at play, and the addition of wood chips seems to make it all the more real.

I love it when my brother blogs. 

I made Jamie rewind so we could watch this again. 

My Medical Choice - NYTimes.com

Angelina Jolie is BRCA-1 positive.

I’ve been adjacent to this world for a couple of years now. My father tested positive for the gene mutation, and told my sister and I we needed to be tested. I was negative. But Dana tested positive. 

She elected to have the surgeries. They were long and torturous but she’s come through the other side.  She now does a lot of work with the advocacy group FORCE.  My father also does work with them, fundraising and about genealogical research.

The thing you need to know, that is of the essence, is that last month the Supreme Court heard a case about the right of the lab that developed the test for the BRCA-1 mutation to hold a patent on the gene and charge whatever they want. The test can cost anywhere from $300 to $3000.

When Dana first found out, we all did a lot of research and reading. These were the ones I found most helpful:

In The Family, a documentary by Joanna Rudnick.

Pretty is What Changes, by Jessica Queller.

(via jaybushman)

Angelina Jolie’s op-ed will reach a lot of people and I’m very thankful for that, because it will make the choices so many women and men will have to face much less alien — but no less expensive. 

citysleep:

micropolisnyc:

Carry on.

…great!

Remember when New York used to randomly smell like maple syrup and everyone thought it was a wind pattern test for something like this?

People Magazine’s review on ‘The Great Gatsby’

(via brucewaynes)

READ A BOOK

(via lexcanroar)

Is this quote in print only? I’ve been trying to verify it and haven’t been able to. I’m all for the meta narrative of the reviews playing out like a first impression of the book after reading it too quickly but, y’know, I also want it to be true. 

damsel-with-a-dulcimer:

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne: You’re not a REAL Gatsby fan unless you’ve read the book. Unless…

gatzzby:

You’re not a REAL Gatsby fan unless you’ve read the book. Unless you’ve read every Fitzgerald book. Unless you’ve read their early drafts,…

• Me as I take a bag of Trader Joe's roasted corn out of the freezer: This corn is not going to be good to eat, I've used it to ice my foot a few times.
• Jamie: You should write on it. So we don't eat it.
• Me: Foot corn?
• Jamie: That sounds gross.
• Me: Good, no one will eat it!