Link Roundup! -The Toast

My power came back at the 40 hour mark. Then I cleaned out my fridge with vinegar, and I am better for it. Then I ate a TREMENDOUS amount of a frozen homemade lasagna because “I didn’t think it was safe to let it refreeze.” Then I watched the rest of Scandal. Thanks for all your emotional support.

Teaching the camera to see her skin (I excerpted a larger chunk than usual from this piece because you HAVE to READ it):

It turns out, film stock’s failures to capture dark skin aren’t a technical issue, they’re a choice. Lorna Roth, a scholar in media and communication studies,wrote that film emulsions — the coating on the film base that reacts with chemicals and light to produce an image — “could have been designed initially with more sensitivity to the continuum of yellow, brown and reddish skin tones but the design process would have to be motivated by a recognition of the need for extended range.” Back then there was little motivation to acknowledge, let alone cater to a market beyond white consumers.

Kodak did finally modify its film emulsion stocks in the 1970s and ’80s — but only after complaints from companies trying to advertise chocolate and wood furniture. The resulting Gold Max film stock was created. According to Roth, a Kodak executive described the film as being able to “photograph the details of the dark horse in low light.”

GUTS is a new Canadian feminist mag, and here is a piece from their first issue, “Body of Work”:

I stopped working as a grant writer for the Cerebral Palsy Association the day of my first emergency room visit, and I receive disability pay from a private insurance company. Lisa, the claims examiner, calls me periodically to check on my status. Where am I on the “road to recovery”? What can my body mean now to the market? It seems so unfamiliar and variable that I can’t imagine a place for myself in the world of “work.” But the market is constant, able, so insolently healthy that my new and, I thought, irreconcilable body seems to Lisa no challenge for its appetite. She effortlessly redefines my labour. All my work becomes, or has been all along, the work of getting back to work. To the insurance company, my work has always been in service of the market imperative to Be Well.

A brief history of on-screen text messages in TV and movies:

“What Michael Stewart Did” is a total gutwrench, but also excellent, and shows a real attempt to understand the nature of psychosis and responsibility:

“The first time I spoke to them” — his family — “after the index offence, I was saying, will you please forgive me? And they said yes, but I hadn’t earned it.”

Michael is told that every member of his family interviewed for this story said they don’t blame him for what happened.

He takes a deep breath and nods slowly, his mouth curling into a sad half-smile. “I’m happy to hear that said to me,” he says. Then he’s quiet for awhile.

“The only thing that I’m sure they, I hope they know is that I’m grateful,” he says. “They haven’t pushed me aside, which I think is lucky. For me.”

Why yes, I WILL link your Flashdance-but-about-abortion-access music video, thank you. You can also donate:

The life and death of Spuds MacKenzie, the original party animal:

There’s a moment in Spuds MacKenzie’s interview with Dick Clark when Clark shifts gears and, as if by obligation, brings up the recent bad press the bull terrier has been the subject of. “There are these vicious rumors,” he begins, addressing not the tuxedo-wearing Spuds, but one of the beautiful spokesmodels—or “Spudettes”—who accompany him. “Is there any truth to the fact that he is female?” The Spudette, clearly trained for this type of question, asserts, “He’s got three women around him, and I don’t think we’d be following him…” Clark, thrusting his fist forward, interrupts, “He’s a full-out macho guy?” A few men in the audience let out ferocious whoos! and yeahs! They are relieved to hear that their hero is, like them, a cool dude.

Why Black Boys Need Lupita Nyong’o:

As much as we tout how important it is for a young Black person’s parents to instill an appropriate sense of self-worth, self-love, and racial consciousness, family units don’t exist in vacuums. A kid’s peer groups matter. The images they’re exposed to matter. The media they consume matters. And, I don’t think it was a coincidence my young tastes skewed lighter at a time when the vast majority of the young female entertainers considered crush-worthy (Halle Berry, Aaliyah, Lark Voorhies, Mya, Karyn Parsons, Tisha Campbell, etc) were also light. Even the ones who were browner (Tatyana Ali, Ananda Lewis, Chilli, etc) were lauded for their long, wavy hair–a trait usually associated with lighter-skinned women and not one most Black women posses, not by far.

Are you watching High Maintenance?

DID you see this gif of Drake lint-rolling his pants at a basketball game?