November 1, 2015
by Ned
Halloween is over, but this massive inflatable pumpkin is still on the loose somewhere in Arizona.
This just in: you can now use your menstrual blood as garden fertilizer!
Whether or not you’ve watched the new horror flick It Follows, you should probably go read this nuanced and fascinating review by Johanna Isaacson. A taste: “The horror film It Follows (2014, Mitchell) helps us think about historicizing misogyny in relation to new capitalist logics. …In the face of tectonic shifts in the logic of capital, It Followsrecodes the well-worn generic trope of sexual panic and sexual disease to stand for a larger fear of futurelessness. ”
A must-read for Toronto folks on the ties between a proposed LGBTQ-focused sport facility in Moss Park and the gentrification of the Downtown East.
The Ontario government introduced legislation on Tuesday that aims to make “workplaces, campuses and communities safer and ‘more responsive to the needs of survivors and to complaints about sexual violence and harassment.'” If you missed the original TV spot for the government’s campaign against sexual violence, you can watch it here.
Brittney Cooper addresses the “school-to-prison pipeline” in the wake of the horrifying assault of a female student by a police officer in South Carolina:
This kind of violence is not acceptable. It is not discipline. It is terror and brutalization designed to compel compliance rather than to redirect negative behaviors. It is no way to educate. It is the way a system treats Black students when it decides that they are not worthy of hope, care, dignity or protection. This is the way the system and its arbiters view and treat Black life.
Toronto Life features five stories from trans folk, drawing attention to their successes, but also to ways violence and discrimination shape their daily lives in the city. Not only are the stories powerful, the photography is really beautiful!
With eight provincial police officers under investigation for sexual abuse against First Nations women in the community of Val-d’Or, Quebec, and little show of solidarity or support from the city’s mayoral office, The Cree Nation has persisted in its boycott against Val-d’Or venues and shops. Matthew Coon Come, Grand Chief of the Cree Nation in Quebec, said about the mayor: “There was no mention of standing with our women in what happened, or even to stand with the Eeyou/Eenou, to get to the bottom of what may have happened. The only thing he talked about was the economic impact that the city of Val-d’Or would feel.”
“The Fragile Ears of Men,” or why male critics are so bothered by Joanna Newsom’s music. (The last line of the essay is pretty great.)
What does the Left think about renewable energy? Is it enough to “disavow ‘bad’ forms of energy” (e.g. fossil-fuel industries) for “greener” options? Over at the Jacobin, writers Brent Bellamy and David Thomas suggest otherwise: “From the earliest days of industrialization, capitalists used fossil-fuel technologies to erode the working class’s capacity for self-determination, and today is no different — capital’s development of renewable energy sites will play out in accordance with the same exploitative logic.”
“Ethical Clothing Made By an Unethical Man,” pretty much sums up the history of American Apparel. Refinery 29 takes readers inside the “cult” of Dov Charney.
From the Root (the best zine!) has a call for submissions for their third issue, “Mind.” Go submit!
Just when you think you can’t love The Toast any more than you already do… Go read Nicole Cliffe’s tweets about funding online indie media (though, be warned, it’s sort of upsetting, and also, if you are a billionaire please get in touch at editors@gutsmagazine.ca).
