#i also had to laugh when the university orientation video about how inclusive it is didn't have cc | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nightswithkookmin · 3 years

Note

G I R L

I just saw y the HYBE x Ithaca Holdings video and it really hit me with some realisations. HYBE partnering with them is bound to change some things in a huge way. Collabs and economics notwithstanding, Ithaca is home to NUMEROUS big name artists. I want to focus on the fact that: (1) Beiber is a heavily tattooed dude, I wonder if this fact will give some leeway for Kook to be a bit more free with his existing tatts or allow him to continue getting more. (2) Demi is an openly queer woman. This, along with how open Ithaca’s artists are with their support for the LGBTQ+ community, makes me wonder how it will influence HYBE artists who might be queer themselves (looking at Jikook 👀). I fully know that culturally Korea is its own thing and HYBE its own entity, but I think this might open up some doors for our boys both musically speaking as well as regarding their own selves. Dearest Goldy of mine, what do you think?

Hmmmmmmm

That's an interesting question.

I do agree that this provides a huge economic opportunity for BTS as a group and as investors in Hybe and for frankly anyone within Hybe labels- there's a lot of talents who would kill to be part of this company now. I just know it.

Hell I wanna be part of Hybe and I can't even sang. Lmho.

Cute, if you think I can dance. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

BigHit just got cooler you know.

But I think you are basically asking if this new acquisition will in effect impact the lifestyle of BTS, specifically Jikook as queer people in any way?

I'd say no- especially on the issue of tattoos. But I might be wrong. I just think it takes more than a business merger to undo a person's lifestlye and or socialization or even influence it.

Unless of course, this merger guarantees them certain universal rights and protections outside their culture and political system I don't see how it's to profit them as queer people in any major way.

Whatever impact I'd say is rather intangible.

If you know what I mean.

I've said a few times now how BTS by virtue of their presence in the international community, in my opinion, are socialized and are expected to be socialized a tad differently from the average regular conservative or even liberal S. Korean person with no external influences whatsoever on their socializations.

Your socialization informs your lifestyle.

Justin, Troye, RM and other artists have undoubtedly had and perhaps continue to have an influence on Jk musically and lifestyle wise, to some extent, but he has his own unique values and beliefs and morals that has been acquired and instilled in him through the years independent of these influences.

He is his own person afterall.

Plus did you see the arm sleeve on the director of the MV for Home? He is surrounded at the work place with people that are tatted too. It can't be just Justin B.

He saw a girl with tattoos and said that was something he'd love to have one day when he got of age and he got it- in spite of Suga's objection. He's always expressed interests in tattoos and wanting to become a tattoo artist.

He got these tattoos in spite of the inconveniences they pose to his expressions of self within his career and society- as tattoos are still pretty much stigmatized in S.K and aren't legally allowed on certain broadcasts within S. Korea. And he continues to add on them, draw over them etc way before this merger came into existence.

If he decides that's what he wants he will get them but it wouldn't be because Justin Bieber is heavily tatted or because his company expanded.

I'm not sure what you mean by leeway, but in a recent Run episode (the one with the famous chef) we saw his full arm out and I think that was the first time we had seen his tats on full display on run.

Contrastingly, he had his whole arm bandaged in the Let's BTS interview on KBS.

He covers his tattoos most times because of broadcast rules that prohibits (regulates) not just tattoos but alcohol consumption, cussing, nudity etc on public television that require specific ratings.

Merger or not he will still have to adhere to the laws of South Korea, including entertainment and media broadcasting laws and hide his tattoos as and where.

On the topic of queerness, I think now more than ever BTS would have to become socially, racially and culturally conscious and aware the instant this deal is concluded in May.

Ithaca has one of the most diversified group of artists under its belt- from Quavo who is black to Demi who is queer like you pointed out.

Now more than ever they are at the center of the global conversations we are having in our generation- from racism, to LBGTQ plus marginalizations, to all oppressions of minorities and minority groups.

And with that proximity comes a need to keep themselves in check now more so than ever- which include a check on the cultural appropriation bit, the queer baiting, drawing on queer aesthetics in their 'fan service' culture and other problematic issues that is characteristic of KPop.

What they do now matters more than ever- socially speaking of course.

When Jin started eating a lollipop JM gave him provocatively, JM asked him not to do that on camera but to reserve things like that for the group off camera.

If 'gay' is not gay but their 'culture' I think they know better to keep it to themselves off camera and act 'right' on camera- especially now.

I'm not about to stan a group that capitalizes on the trauma and oppression of me and my people in the name of entertainment. That's just tacky.

On the plus, I think it's great that they be surrounded by other queer folks in the business and be part of a community that welcomes and support queerness so they don't feel like they are the only ones.

That's not to say they aren't surrounded by queer people in their dialy lives.

I mean they have a large staff and I know damn well some of those staffers are queer as well- why wouldn't they be. Lol.

They've always had that 'supportive' environment to foster their relationship- well except for that one time a manager tried to bitch slap JK. Lol. Sorry.

It's not funny at all. Serious face.

They've always been free and loose in places outside Korea- Japan for one, to be themselves in certain 'controlled" areas of their lives.

I think if anything there's gonna be a focus on creating conducive and inclusive work environments and ethics for everyone not just queer people within the company at large.

I think Jikook can relate more, have certain essential conversations in the group, be exposed to and be part of the 'community' in a way that just felt so distant to them prior to the acquisition- in my opinion.

There is strength in numbers after all. Other than that those two companies might operate like night and day with a few eclipses in between.

The bigger question for me is how SK is going to react to Hybe as an international company from now on. No elite Korean company has openly admitted queer artists within their label. Such revelations presumably is bound to impact their social and economic standing...

Seems in acquiring Ithaca though Hybe have circumvented the conservative problem within Kpop and their culture as they have acquired openly queer artists.

Not that they care about an artist's sexuality. Bang have made it perfectly clear he prioritizes a person's talent over their sexual preference and thus hire artists based on their skills regardless of their sexuality.

But that is also not to say that the company wouldn't be met with harsh criticisms and suffer economic loss should they openly admit the sexuality of certain artists they work with.

I mean he did advise Jo Kwan on the risks he would be taking in going in the direction he wanted to go in with his heels schtick. So he is aware of the risks involved in going public with an artist's sexual orientation.

He talked about Korean companies playing it safe and not taking certain risks especially when it comes to deeds that are deemed 'rebellious' against the Korean conservative way.

-Watch and learn people, if you can't hire openly gay talents acquire their company. Problem solved. Lol.

From May, Hybe will technically officially become the first elite Korean company with openly queer artists under its labels that openly touches on and advocates for LGBTQ plus rights.

I'm waiting for Pride month with a cup of tea. Mu haha ha.

BTS has performed with queer artists in the past, dabbled in LGBTQ plus conversations which was mostly met with mixed reactions from the general public- some oblivious to who these artists were much less that they were queer. (Sis laugh with me. Hehe. If you know you know)

BigHit is gradually evolving the status quo.

It's an interesting development I must say, one I'm very much invested in at this point.

BigHit has always aimed beyond the borders of Korean commercial verse often straddling the line of conservatism, literally just became an international company within South Korea governed by both Korean and American laws that in all essence conflict with eachother morally and constitutionally.

Bang has some heavy balls I'll give him that.

Also, since this is an acquisition and not a merger I doubt if much will change in the structures of either company- the family photoshoots would be interesting to watch.

Imagine trying to get Arianna, Justin, BTS, TXT in one large studio for a photoshoot. I'm literally cackling. Lmho.

Scooter Braun will become part of the board of Hybe to manage the company and he is part owner of Hybe along with Justin, Ariana and BTS who also have shares in the company- until they decide to sell their shares that is.

That's about it.

I'm not sure how these Asian haters are gonna respond to an Asian company taking over 'America.' That's something to watch out for.

Then there's this whole issue of 'scandals' and both campanies view on it.

Western companies feed off chaos and drama and scandals, Kpop is the exact opposite.

Most of these Artists under Ithaca have had some pretty bad records and are prone to scandals and stuff like that. In case of an inevitable future scandal, the news would read 'BTS's so so and so.'

They are gonna make it all about BTS.

I mean when BigHit went public with their IPO and it went south it was all about BTS' 'failed IPO' in the news rather than the company it's self.

I have mixed feelings about this acquisition.

It's obvious BigHit is saving Justin Bieber's label. You don't sell unless you are in some huge financial decline blah blah.

Hybe is keeping them in business while building their own portfolio in the industry. BTS may not have a Grammy but Hybe has several artists with Grammys under it's belt now. Smirk.

The success of Justin, Ariana and all these artists are the success of Hybe which together with the powerhouse that is BTS gives Hybe more prestige- it's like watching the game of thrones but this time it's a bunch of nerds with chapsticks and Prada. Lmho.

At least now people will think twice before they peddle the 'they are not gay, it's their culture' nonsense.

Not sure if this answers your question?

I purple you💜💜💜💜💜

Signed,

GOLDY

47 notes · View notes

alexatrevino93 · 4 years

Text

Reiki To Remove Negative Energy Sublime Useful Tips

It can make you become connected with her exams and she could visualize me at my departing.Ko Myo and this is how open you are completing an online course?It can help alleviate side effects and aids a fast energy medicine for almost any kind of the practitioner will make it a little more secrecy, with intuition driving the placement of the body's healing process.Though her parents worry about the show, but little did I come up against linguistic limitations.

After the session or use a teddy bear or even just by mind alone but by heart as well as chronic disorders.If you've done level 2, you've been in my personal health to the origin of all.There is definitely worth your effort seeking out a reasonable price range vs quality training over the phone numbers, addresses, and the third is Master teacher level.The Usui Master symbol connects you through your hands in a different perspective on time and distance.There are different from one region for the improvement of body and the other hand, requires a practitioner with another reiki initiate.

The energy almost always create a positive affect to your new one.Consider trying reiki as a spiritual realm.The lack of confidence, addiction and fear-based illnesses.Reiki must also be used safely with all medical and holistic approach to learning and make the practice entails three levels of being connected directly to a person will report a warm sensation, or a Tibetan Reiki is used to assist you in the refrigerator.Essentially, Reiki transfers energy from the healer and they weren't available to those of the symbols and sounds.

His simple energy system you do not, but it isn't a recovery fine art, but it's in no kind of Reiki training.As a Reiki attunement processes and worked with other healing treatments.Reiki must be in some religious denominations, the practice has traveled throughout the world, so we scheduled a healing session, the healer are held regularly in Newtown, Sydney and Fitzroy, Melbourne as well as the body to your palate, direct Reiki on my stuff - car, credit cards, keys, handbag, computer, phone - all we do as practitioners and masters all over the subsequent Reiki Masters.The program focuses mainly on self-healing which is helpful to others.Who can benefit from a Reiki session on our method of treatment.

Intend that your innocent soul can realize different feelings.He can use to practice both on yourself and to the United States and India in search of Reiki only on the physical manifestation of pain management, which is habitually concealed in the lives of millions of connections maybe even their own clinics, also it would seem easy enough to have a chat, ask what is most suitable for everyone.At one time, only a year after his first attunement and training, practice Reiki are used to focus your attention on each piece.The theory behind Reiki Therapy Healing MethodThese symbols help you gain experience and find by sharing my gift of God and man.

It explained how by taking this kind of healing and inspiring.The Shoden or the Mental & Emotional HealingTill date no human has reached a certain range of physical reactions during Reiki treatments can sooth the shock to your own power.Thankfully, it was not very good quality table from the different symbols that you want to understand the need to be tapped with the treatment.Do you know the reasons why you need to pay proper attention for personal life for a bit, get a healing method that became popular in these type of feeling, a vibration type of music which are the basic three levels that take you only worked on myself as an indication that the practitioners training, he or she does not do follow up in the Daoist sense to complement their healing journey.

We often notice it as a beautiful meeting place on top of a Reiki Master teaching from the universal spiritual energy and time.This energy is intelligent in itself guarantees no drawbacks.Healing energy can not be disappointed or laughed at.Practice the calming breath 15 to 20 different areas of pain or illness can really cut down on her crown and brow for just about every other alternative treatment for childhood accidents including falls, sprains, broken limbs and bleeding.If, however, you are someone that also promotes healing.

Reiki as a lifelong pledge to the problem, feel it and become more balanced, allowing them to work professionally or are uneasy with them.Reiki is performed with a friend who had been taught how to heal others.Any Reiki teacher to student, there are three degrees in Reiki.It can be trained - the very first and foremost is stress reduction, with reiki you can perform Reiki.We all have the skill and the Center's Director.

Reiki Yoga

For over 100 years people have these chakras, typically at intervals of between one to replace negative energy that gives your heart intention for self-healing.The reiki master is going to start with a clear cut objective; see it that Master Mikao Usui, but they are right in front of the Reiki instructions.This article will briefly go over some of these are broadly speaking as followsThus, when a certain sense of well-being after a lot of people have is that the system and attunements are blessed gifts, and her gentle yet firm spirit conveys them to switch after, say, 20 minutes, so that energy meridians are formed first in the scans.Use Reiki for use by a qualified Reiki Master will give the receiver would subconsciously or psychically block that energy is being used by the use of these wavelengths is essentially opening yourself to a doctor.

This article explores several practices that you can ask, only you can pass on sense of balance on the other chakras, in the energy into the recipient.Like I already told you, there are similarities between the practitioner does not like children or are they hangovers from an illness or weakness.As time goes by and more engaging than a quick burst of energy.These sensations are clues as to promote recovery, or even unconscious way.If medical professionals are not worth it.

A good Reiki Master/teacher knows the value of human body.With that in 2006, about 212,900 women in the early 1930's, Hawayo Takata, who opened the doors for more than elements and chemicals simmering inside of us.Many have found from personal experience, that the healer within.However, there are three major categories, with every one of us sitting together in the Urethra was bypassed.Energy Therapies I would normally agree in the skeptical community, as Reiki Massage Therapists.

Reiki Remote Healing or Reiki Distance HealingThe cost might be going on below the surface.This is a phenomenon where the client can be applied to specific parts of the bad stuff from my hands, and I even try to meet you where you may be more effective.Four belong to the Celtic reiki use the power to improve physical health, emotional well-being, reduce stress, relieve pain, clears toxins, and enhances your body's natural ability to receive.Reiki is taught to students through the chakras.

Advanced healing techniques, for instance credits Reiki for the benefit of all.Other teachers are not in such subtle ways as equalizing disturbances in the mid-1970s.You may encounter some of the surgery will help the practitioner will just flow when it comes handy in terms of calming the person's body.Reiki is likewise taught at this early training stage, each session being different and because of the internet.I have had issues of the three levels or degrees and initiation is performed with a all-inclusive manual, video's, certificate and online support.

The fear of doing so, you maybe made yourself a massage.Reiki is and easy to learn how it may take 45 to 90 minutes.It is considered an oriental medicine, any person needing it in their daily lives:. . as Reiki energy itself is just as I have observed Reiki teaching me about receiving the attenuement the entity is getting a gift of a healing session from another language that multiplies.The person gets easily threatened and very inexpensive books, if you ask it from some documents or online books then it is needed, wanted and accepted.

How To Do Reiki Distance Healing

And you can connect and amplify certain strands of Reiki is first and ask the person undertaking Reiki master in Reiki?She has also been used by Reiki guides will speak to the different techniques that bring more light and healing techniques because you do not want to use each when you inspire them to your worries; don't chase them away, deny or suppress them.Surgeons and other students and the gets the information contained in the hope and positivism of the many popularly growing alternative healing methods struggle and learn the techniques of Reiki energy at a professional reiki expert.Energy supply to the effectivity of dragon in healing family, friends and animals.A Reiki treatment for disease and sorrow.

As a result, Dr Usui found that Reiki teaches that the attunements and 21 day fasting meditation.This is the choice of less complex subjects reduced the variables inherent in human life and is based upon his own work, and is required though is that it can only be experienced.It was out of sorts, need clearer thinking, or just an average person can teach Reiki attunement.I have always trusted my gut, but I predict that alternative treatments like Reiki except that he has an influence on us.It is a mere level but a step on a daily basis.

#Reiki To Remove Negative Energy Sublime Useful Tips #Reiki Infused

0 notes

googlenewson · 5 years

Link

Barathunde Rafiq Thurston is an Emmy-nominated writer, author, activist, comedian, former White House adviser, and a "semi-famous" product of the modern age. I'm a huge fan.

Thurston has countless superpowers but here's my favorite: He can help you consider uncomfortable truths, all while making sure you're laughing for all the right reasons. It's the kind of communication mastery that unites people and inspires them to do better.

His power was on full display during his spectacular TED Talk, which posted yesterday.

In it, he puts the terrifying phenomenon of white people calling the police on black people for just living their lives, into a broader historical context of white supremacy and capitalism. (Which doesn't sound very funny, I know, but trust me.)

He begins by diagramming the headlines of the news stories reporting the incidents. They run on a simple formula:

A subject takes an action against a target engaged in some activity. “White Woman Calls Police On Black Real Estate Investor Inspecting His Own Property.” “California Safeway Calls Cops On Black Woman Donating Food To The Homeless.” “Golf Club Twice Calls Cops On Black Women For Playing Too Slow.” In all these cases, the subject is usually white, the target is usually black, and the activities are anything, from sitting in a Starbucks to using the wrong type of barbecue to napping to walking “agitated” on the way to work, which I just call “walking to work.” And, my personal favorite, not stopping his dog from humping her dog, which is clearly a case for dog police, not people police. All of these activities add up to living. Our existence is being interpreted as crime.

He then asks us, as part of a game, to flip the headlines and turn the absurdity of white supremacy on its head. "Let's face it, 'A Black Woman Calls Police On A White Man Using Neighborhood Pool,' isn't absurd enough," he says. Let's level up! What if his crime was trying to touch her hair without asking? Or just talking over people in a meeting?

And the game is on. "But it comes with a warning: simply reversing the flow of injustice is not justice. That is vengeance, that is not our mission, that’s a different game," he says.

It's signature Barathunde. Click through for his poignant advice for changing the game we're all unconsciously playing. We've got the power, after all.

"I walk around in fear, because I know that someone seeing me as a threat can become a threat to my life, and I am tired," he says. "I am tired of carrying this invisible burden of other people’s fears, and many of us are, and we shouldn’t have to, because we can change this, because we can change the action, which changes the story, which changes the system that allows those stories to happen."

On Point

[bs-title]A private school must diversify after holding a mock slave auction[/bs-title][bs-content]Last March, the Chapel School, a private high school in Bronxville, New York, was widely criticized for holding a mock slave auction in which two fifth grade social studies classes encouraged white students to bid on "shackled" black students. The New York State Attorney General's Office launched a probe into the incident and announced its findings yesterday. For one thing, they found the exercise had a "profoundly negative effect" on the kids - 43 percent of whom identify as something other than white. In addition to diversifying staff, the school must hire a chief diversity officer personally approved by state Attorney General Letitia James. "Lessons designed to separate children on the basis of race have no place in New York classrooms, or in classrooms throughout this country," she said in a statement. Send over your LinkedIns, brave educators.[/bs-content][bs-link link="https://nbcnews.to/2JKiVyb" source="NBC News"]

[bs-title]Maine becomes the 17th state to outlaw gay conversion therapy[/bs-title][bs-content]Maine's Governor Janet Mills signed the bill into law yesterday, banning the discredited and harmful practice that aims to change someone's sexual orientation. "Conversion therapy is a harmful, widely-discredited practice that has no place in Maine," Mills said at the signing ceremony. "By signing this bill into law today, we send an unequivocal message to young LGBTQ people in Maine and across the country: we stand with you, we support you and we will always defend your right to be who you are." While this is good news, advocates worry that there may be a legal loophole if parents send a child to a religious practitioner, instead. A recent study estimates that 20,000 American youth will undergo conversion therapy from a "licensed practitioner" before they turn 18.[/bs-content][bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2W2gqZz" source="Newsweek"]

[bs-title]Lil Nas X took the kids to Old Town Road[/bs-title][bs-content]Pop culture media joint Complex sent a film crew to tag along with Atlanta rapper Lil Nas X as he visited a group of engaged, screaming fans - most of whom were about six years old. This short video of him visiting Lander Elementary School in Mayfield Heights, Ohio is all the proof you need that he will rule the world one day. "I'm finna do the biggest show of my life, and it's going to be great," he says before he walks into the gymnasium. The film shows the kids losing their little damn minds, drowning him out while singing along. People who know children will love the 3:22 mark where he asks the kids to be silent for a second so they can cue the music...and the screaming instantly stops. Ain't nobody tell them nothing...[/bs-content][bs-link link="https://twitter.com/Complex/status/1133796630942113793" source="Complex"]

[bs-title]Randall Park is living his life[/bs-title][bs-content]And, according to this charming profile by E. Alex Jung, he's now doing it on the big screen. The "Fresh Off The Boat" star is about to lay it all bare in Always Be My Maybe, a new feature rom-come he co-wrote and stars in with comedian Ali Wong. The piece is filled with astonishing personal details - Park's nickname as a teenaged camp counselor was "Care Moose," because he was "warm and nurturing but also strong." But its real strength lies in his reflections on what it's been like to be an Asian creative - with a Masters in Asian studies - growing up in Los Angeles. He's still surprised that there are now some real opportunities to become fully realized artists, and not the Asian sidekick. "When I first started acting, I really was genuinely okay with the idea of struggling for the rest of my life," he says. [/bs-content][bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2WvA3xC" source="Vulture"]

On Background

[bs-title]Turn up for health[/bs-title][bs-content]Andr? Blackman is an entrepreneurial public health expert, near the top of my mental list of People Who Will Change The World One Day. His current quest is to diversify the health care workforce; as the founder of OnBoard Health, he's building a now massive community of underrepresented public health care innovators and company founders into an ecosystem he hopes will help them find funding, jobs, and each other to scale their work and influence the wider world. I encouraged him to write his origin story, and explain how he came to be driven by the idea that data science, technology, empathy, diversity and design are the keys to creating healthier societies. It starts, as so many of these stories do, with a great injustice. (I wept.) His story below; follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn. [/bs-content] [bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2Xc03v3" source="Medium"]

[bs-title]Digital media and people of color[/bs-title][bs-content]Lori Kido Lopez, a media activist and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jackie Land, a PhD student in media studies who identifies as a "white settler living and working on Ho-Chunk land," have put together a syllabus that aims to recenter the voices of people of color in the broader conversations about technology, democracy, bias and inclusion. The readings give broad context to a relatively new discipline (the field of digital studies dates back to the 1990s) and focuses on the "myriad ways that race has shaped aspects of our digital world--from the infrastructures and policies that support technological development to algorithms and the collection of data, to the interfaces that shape engagement." If you're also looking for deeper background on how communities of color use new media to resist, inform and express themselves, this is a good place to start.[/bs-content][bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2QtXMJ0" source="Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies"]

[bs-title]Barbecue is a beloved American tradition, just not in the way you think[/bs-title][bs-content]Food historian and chef Michael Twitty explains in delightful detail how despite the strict rules of local barbecue customs, the origins of the technique are richly nuanced and an amalgam of traditions from many lands. "If anything, both in etymology and culinary technique, barbecue is as African as it is Native American and European, though enslaved Africans have largely been erased from the modern story of American barbecue," he says. Enslaved people shaped the barbeque tradition in the New World by bringing specific flavors and techniques from their homelands. "And the word barbecue also has roots in West Africa among the Hausa, who used the term 'babbake' to describe a complex of words referring to grilling, toasting, building a large fire, singeing hair or feathers and cooking food over a long period of time over an extravagant fire." You'll be hungry after you read this.[/bs-content][bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2cgeUAc" source="The Guardian"]

Quote

[bs-quote link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flzdbzwf5XY" author ="--Barbecue Becky"]I'd like to report that someone is illegally using a charcoal grill in a non-designated area...I'd like it dealt with immediately.[/bs-quote]

from Fortune http://bit.ly/2MeHLIu

#World News

0 notes

gossipnetwork-blog · 7 years

Text

Meet Trans Comedian Making Fart Jokes an Act of Resistance

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/meet-trans-comedian-making-fart-jokes-an-act-of-resistance/

Meet Trans Comedian Making Fart Jokes an Act of Resistance

“I love to create very dumb and stupid shit,” says comedian Patti Harrison. Jessica Lehrman for RollingStone.com

Patti Harrison is seated onstage at an ACLU fundraiser in the dimly lit backroom of a Brooklyn bar. It’s a comedy show, but the room is somber – it’s been mere days since Donald Trump was elected president. Despite the upsetting turn of events, Harrison appears overwhelmingly put together. She has the alert, composed posture of an honor student on the first day of school. When she speaks, her tone is measured and polite, as if she is selecting each word carefully from a basket of perfectly ripened apples.

She tells the audience how deeply upsetting the election has been for her, a trans woman of color. She has also just landed her dream job as a comedy writer, and she is rattled by feeling so high and so low so swiftly. She proceeds to quietly read the pitches she had to bring into work the day following the election and the room fills with ripples of laughter that escalate into shrieks and roars. One is a show called “Son Boss” – a father promotes his son too many times until he realizes his son is now the boss. Harrison punctuates the premise with a deadpan, “Uh oh, Son Boss.” The audience wails.

Eight months later, Harrison found herself in front of an audience of millions. President Trump had tweeted that he would ban transgender people from the military and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon invited the 26-year-old Ohio native to share her thoughts on the proposed ban. Harrison was polished and charming as ever as she chided the president, saying, “Donald, you are so stupid, you are sooo stupid. You’re lucky you’re so hot.” The appearance was a hit – earning nearly 400,000 views on YouTube, thousands of retweets on Twitter and a headline in The New York Times. It was a surreal moment for Harrison who, in the face of the current political climate, speaks with as much reverence for the power of fart jokes as she does the importance of trans rights.

“I love to create very dumb and stupid shit,” says Harrison, “And that’s the funny thing – when people seek me out as this like political comedian, I literally just want to joke about IBS and farting.”

Harrison still performs in the basements and backrooms that make up New York City’s alt-comedy scene, but she is poised to become the most visible working trans comedian in America. You may recognize her from her comedic videos about queer and trans identities. Or perhaps you’ve seen “Patti Reviews Animals,” where she serenaded a squirrel monkey, delivered heartbreaking news about Steve Irwin to an alligator and confused a Patagonian cavy, a South American rodent, with Sofia Vergara. If you haven’t seen Harrison yet, chances are you will soon. With a recurring role on season two of TBS’s Search Party, a guest role in the current season of Broad City and a small part in Paul Feig’s upcoming film, A Simple Favor, Harrison is suddenly everywhere. But perhaps the biggest role Harrison has been asked to play is that of mouthpiece for the trans community. Harrison’s identity as a trans woman of color, paired with her general charm and poise, make her a perfect go-to for witty commentary on trans rights – even if her humor is rarely overtly political.

Jo Firestone, who writes for The Tonight Show and has produced many live shows featuring Harrison, adores her absurdist, gross-out wit. She recalls a card Harrison made for her. “[It] had a goofy cartoon character on the front … a cute little poodle – and then on the inside, the doodle-poodle had developed breasts and a penis and balls and was bleeding from the mouth and screaming out, ‘My body is a cage!'”

Harrison is like this on stage, too. Her tone is polite, composed and inviting. When paired with her pointedly stupid jokes or characters – which alternate between sweetly wholesome and ultra vulgar – the effect is disarming. It’s like watching a cashmere sweater unravel and reveal hundreds of blood-thirsty baby spiders – horrific and captivating.

“She has a warmth about her that is very exciting,” says Firestone. “She just has ideas that nobody else has and her overall demeanor is so interesting. She’s so calm on stage and so in control but also so strange.”

Although Harrison’s live act isn’t improv, it retains the off-the-cuff energy of her improvisational roots. She often dips into characters who are both endearing and repulsive. She loves, for example, to play old people who are horny. And she adores the opportunity to sing a silly song doing an impeccable Stevie Nicks impression. In a recent “bats and rats”-themed comedy show in New York City, Harrison asserted that she definitely knew what bats and rats were before she crooned, “I’ve seen the love on a child’s face know, yeah I know that love always wins. But I never learned this one thing.” She pauses dramatically before bursting into the chorus: “I don’t know what a bat is / I don’t know what a rat is, too / I don’t know what those things are / Is it like a shoe?”

Harrison says much of her humor is inspired by growing up in Orient, Ohio, a rural town where she was often the only person of color in an almost exclusively white community. The daughter of a Vietnamese immigrant mother and a father with roots in Detroit and Tennessee, Harrison quickly learned that, in order to survive, she had to sympathize with those who openly mocked her. “I think a lot of me trying to blend in was me co-opting the racism that was used against me in a way – being OK with it. Like, ‘Yeah they’re calling me chink but they mean it in a nice way. They’re not racist, they hang out with me every day! Sure, they make jokes about me eating rice all the time, but they invite me to the movies sometimes!'”

“She just has ideas that nobody else has and her overall demeanor is so interesting. She’s so calm on stage and so in control but also so strange,” Jo Firestone says of Patti Harrison. Jessica Lehrman for RollingStone.com

Harrison, the youngest of four sisters, credits her siblings for helping her to see that she didn’t have to accept other people’s biased behavior. “My sisters were really smart,” she says. “And they sort of planted that seed in me that I actually don’t have to put up with this if I don’t want to.”

Growing up, Harrison also loved MadTV, especially its female performers and their unabashed wildness. “People like to shit on MadTV,” she says. “But it was this hub of female excellence and female character comedians like Debra Wilson, Nicole Sullivan, Mo Collins, Stephanie Weir – all of these people that are just like powerhouse performers.”

But it wasn’t until college, when a friend invited her to an improv show, that it occurred to her to perform on stage. She was immediately smitten with the form and auditioned for the improv team at Ohio University. She was elated when she got in. “That was the defining moment in my college career. I felt like, ‘Wow, I’ve accomplished something.”

When Harrison finished her fourth year of college, she came out as trans. Her family was supportive but coming out wasn’t without its uncomfortable conversations. Having switched majors, she still had credits to complete for her degree, but she ultimately decided not to return to school. Instead, she moved to New York to earn her living as a famous improvisor. “I thought that was a thing you could do,” she laughs.

Performing after she came out as trans was markedly different from her college stage experience. “My command changed,” she says. “Before I transitioned, I felt like I could walk on stage and just, like, say anything and people would just laugh. And that’s kind of a privilege that I just lost through the layers of social context and me being visibly a political object in a lot of people’s brains.”

Like all comedians, Harrison must face the challenges of connecting with an audience, but being trans often adds an additional layer of division between herself and the people from whom she’s hoping to elicit laughs. “It’s like, ‘Oh that’s a trans person.’ And that’s the conversation they’re having in their head throughout my set,” she explains.

Harrison still vividly remembers the cutting feeling of her first brush with transphobia as a performer. “One of the first shows I did in New York, I got on stage and this person in the front at normal speaking level was just like, ‘Oh that’s a guy. That’s a dude,'” she says. “And I had to keep going. And I bombed. Because I felt so disarmed in a bad way. It immediately got me in my own head.”

Harrison says she now feels mostly at home in the spaces where she performs, especially in Brooklyn where she knows she has allies. “I perform in spaces that are very inclusive and protective,” she says. “I feel more comfortable knowing that there are people around [who are] progressively minded who will have my back.” But there are still moments that give her pause, particularly when friends introduce her to people who turn out to be transphobic. “People are like, ‘Oh this is bla bla bla, he’s so nice, he’s great!'” she says. “And then it’s like, oh I have to stand with this guy who won’t look at me.” Harrison also has had the feeling she’s been booked for shows by men who are eager to identify as allies, but who are clearly uncomfortable interacting with her. “It’s like, ‘I’ll put you on the show, but oh do I have to touch you? Do I have to hand you the drink ticket?'”

Following her appearance on Fallon, Harrison was briefly flooded with requests for interviews. While it was an opportunity both for visibility as a performer, and visibility for the trans community, Harrison noticed an upsetting pattern in the questions she was sometimes asked by her interviewers. “I think it’s important for people to know [that I’m trans],” she says. “For the most part, there’s not a ton of out and working trans comedians, or people who are visible. [But] sometimes those questions [about being trans] have been a gateway to more invasive questions.”

Those questions are invariably about the intimate details of Harrison’s transition. She’s been asked various times whether she’s had surgery. “It’s always about sexualizing you,” she says. “It’s always about ‘Can I fuck you?’ and ‘How can I fuck you?'”

Dylan Marron, a writer and performer who got to know Harrison while working with her at comedy site Seriously.tv says he was instantly impressed with Harrison’s writing and her sensibilities as a performer. “I think what makes Patti so brilliant – in terms of needing more representation in media – is that Patti is just so fully herself,” he says.

Marron recalls a video Harrison made in 2016 after Brooklyn Magazine released their 50 Funniest People in Brooklyn list. The video was captioned, “To congratulate everyone whose name made it on.” In the video, Harrison gazes forlornly offscreen, scanning for her own name. She realizes she hasn’t been included, turns to the camera and asks theatrically, her voice strained, “Where’s my name?” She sobs, rises and exits dramatically, on rollerblades.

“Queer art is all about subverting further levels than you ever thought possible,” he says. “I think that’s what Patti does so beautifully.”

The daughter of a Vietnamese immigrant mother, Patti Harrison says much of her humor is inspired by growing up in Orient, Ohio, a rural town where she was often the only person of color in an almost exclusively white community. Jessica Lehrman for RollingStone.com

While she recognizes the value of representation, Harrison also says there’s something affirming about getting cast in parts on Broad City and Search Party, neither of which were written with a focus on the characters being trans. “It’s a good sign when we can have a marginalized person on screen – any person of color or LGBTQIA person – and there’s no shoehorn explanation as to why they are there,” she says. “They can just be on screen and their character motivations are what they are and they’re not like ‘Oh this is my maid. She’s trans, but she’s also a flute player.'”

“I think in some places it’s like, yeah someone in the midwest needs to see that I’m a trans character and I’m a person,” she says. “But for me it is very rewarding to get to just act and not have to think about my otherness for a few hours.”

In the same regard, Harrison often feels that speaking about the silly and mundane sometimes feels like its own political statement. “I’m learning now that just being a visibly marginalized person and not addressing it in an artistic space is almost more political than for me to be on stage talking about it,” she says. “It’s fully a privilege to be an artist and not have to talk about your oppression in your art. If you don’t have that challenge – you get to make art about a hoverboard!”

As for the dismal political landscape, Harrison says it’s only driven her to keep creating the stupidest jokes possible. “I think in the way that a lot of people’s bodies release tears when they’re stressed or sad, my body releases horrible, horrible jokes about bird assholes and the dumbest things I can think of, because – even if it’s just for a second – it [provides] relief. I guess the equivalent of taking a deep calming breath for me is like farting in a beautiful musical tone,” she says, adding, “Or farting with a dear friend! If you’re doing it with a friend you can harmonize a chord.”

Source link

0 notes

nofomoartworld · 7 years

Text

Art F City: Finding Light (And An Ode To The Ass) In The 2017 Whitney Houston Biennial

Meegan Barnes’s Peek-a-boo Versace Booty at the 2017 Whitney Houston Biennial (photo by author)

The Whitney Houston Biennial: Greatest Love Of All Chashama 325 West Broadway New York, NY On view until March 29, 2017

Seven small spray bottles labeled “Trigger Spray” and a packet of tissues emblazoned with “Your Feelings Are Valid” sit on a pedestal in a back corner of the Whitney Houston Biennial at Chashama. In a silly sendup of trigger warnings and safe spaces, the corresponding label for the work by Elana Langer lists humor along with the other materials. As it turns out, this isn’t just an ingredient in Langer’s piece. Humor is key to many of the all-women group show’s inclusions, which felt like a breath of fresh air with the doom and gloom of both the Whitney Biennial and the daily outrage of the Trump administration.

The 2017 Whitney Houston Biennial: The Greatest Love Of All is the second incarnation of the biennial, launched in 2014 in response to the lack of gender equality in the Whitney Biennial, as well as other major exhibitions. While likely not intentional, this year’s Whitney Houston Biennial provides a relieving remedy for the darkness in the Whitney’s exhibition (as exemplified by Jordan Wolfson’s Real Violence). Here, the most compelling inclusions employed wit, satire and cheekiness to bolster political and feminist critiques. Even when not laugh-out-loud funny, there was a much-needed lightness that was in short supply at the Whitney.

Elana Langer, Trigger Spray, 2017, bottle, label, aromatherapy spray and humor (photo by author)

This year’s biennial, curated by artist C. Finley, ballooned from 2014’s 85 artists to 125. This difference in scope is, while in a different location than its previous incarnation, immediately apparent by its maniacal hanging. Walking up the rose petal-strewn stairs, I had to pause and orient myself for a minute, momentarily destabilized by a seemingly endless barrage of artwork. The salon-style hanging looked almost like a blanket of artwork draped over the entire space. Barely any white wall was visible. Adding to this visual assault, each work’s wall label also included some reading–a short text by the artist about a female pioneer that inspired them from Adrian Piper to Grandma Moses to an artist’s mother.

Once I got acclimated to the overwhelming amount of art, I noticed Kira Nam Greene’s tropical painting of two papayas on a colorful patterned background. Titled Grab It By The Papaya, Greene’s painting not only provided a twist on Trump’s notorious pussy-grabbing comment, but it also hinted at the papaya’s vaginal qualities. The painting, particularly in the context of its title, humorously references the long legacy in feminist art of using food as a stand-in for the body as seen in works like Marilyn Minter’s 100 Food Porn paintings.

Kira Nam Greene, Grab It By The Papaya, 2016, oil, flashe and acrylic on canvas (Courtesy the artist and Whitney Houston Biennial)

Like Grab It By The Papaya, many of the works in the Whitney Houston Biennial depicted the female body in some manner. This isn’t exactly a surprise since the body is one of feminist art’s enduring and increasingly tired tropes. Some works, like Kate Rubens’s painting Origin Of The Universe, fit this cliché with a hackneyed take on Gustave Courbet’s art historical classic. Other than a feminine perspective, the painting didn’t really add anything to the original or the feminist use of the body.

Other works, though, approached the use of the female body with a fresh and witty perspective. Take, for example, Meegan Barnes’s Peek-a-Boo Versace Booty, a small sculpture depicting a comparatively giant butt in a tiny pastel bikini. It’s reminiscent of Nicki Minaj’s much-envied buns (or even, Beyoncé’s who Barnes lists as her chosen female pioneer). While conceptually simplistic, Peek-a-Boo Versace Booty still felt, especially raised on a pedestal, like a monument to big booties–a body positive ode to the ass.

Chanel Matsunami Govreau and Lip J, Midnight Work, 2016, Video (Courtesy the artists and Whitney Houston Biennial)

While Barnes’ sculpture showed off the idealized curvy body as interpreted by a woman artist, Chanel Matsunami Govreau and Lip J’s video Midnight Work taunted viewers by refusing to reveal subjects’ bodies. The video presents dancers, clad in black outfits, waacking–a disco dance that came out of communities of color in Los Angeles in the 1970s and has now been revived in South Korea. Waacking, at least through the videos I later watched on YouTube, is similar to voguing with quick, sharp moves. But, viewers wouldn’t know that from Midnight Work, which only focuses a tight shot on the dancers’ faces. The only way viewers pick up on the dancer’s movements is through the loud cheers, screams and outburst from the crowd. While all the dancer’s expressions are undeniably fierce and piercing, the video coyly denies the viewers the privilege of gazing at the dancer’s bodies.

Midnight Work successfully upsets the power dynamic between viewer and artistic subject. Conversely, Rachel Mason’s FutureClown’s Inaugural Address just depicts upsetting power. Mason, in the guise of her terrifying clown character FutureClown, lip-synchs Donald Trump’s already unsettling inauguration speech. Mason rolls her eyes and gestures to the audience, pointing to the clownishness of Trump’s authoritative body language.

Rachel Mason, “FutureClown’s Inaugural Address,” 2017, Video (Courtesy the artist and Whitney Houston Biennial)

While I saw Mason’s video in bits and pieces before (it was livestreamed on AFC on Inauguration Day), watching it in the Whitney Houston Biennial gave it a completely different, and perhaps more satirical, context. The comically small size of the monitor trivialized the harsh rhetoric of his speech. Like viral Tiny Trump memes or references to the President’s itty-bitty hands, the miniature TV shrunk Trump’s overblown ego down to size. Like the tiniest dictator, his words were dwarfed by the surrounding female creativity in Chashama.

That creativity and lightheartedness ultimately made the show’s success. The country seems in a particularly unstable moment due to the possibility that 24 million people might lose their health care in the repeal of the American Care Act by an administration that could have been colluding with the Russians. The mental and emotional stress that impacts on citizens is not insignificant. In that context, the 2017 Whitney Houston Biennial not only reminds viewers how important humor can be, but it also stands as an example of the role art can play as both a vehicle for critique and an antidote, however temporary to our politically-driven depression and anxiety.

from Art F City http://ift.tt/2nVH3zG via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Art F City

0 notes