Toast Points for the Week of October 9th -The Toast

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MONK #1: so these tower sized women
are they always IN towers, or just the SIZE of towers
MONK #2: yes
MONK #1: yes to which part
MONK #2: both
being a tower is a very important aspect of womanhood


We interviewed Rainbow Rowell about Carry On (WHICH YOU NEED TO READ IMMEDIATELY):

I understand that some writers don’t enjoy writing romance, but it’s always seemed strange to me the way romance gets corralled into its own genre. Because romance and romantic love are so much a part of most of our lives. The desire for it, the search for it, finding it, losing it, holding on …

My favorite stories have romance and love in the mix, even if they aren’t always front and center. (This is whyThe Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie.)

All that is to say, no, for me, it wasn’t challenging balancing the romance and the rest of the plot. Because every scene with Baz and Simon is a romantic scene. Even if it’s also a saving-the-world scene.


This perfect post of Mallory’s inspired me to spend the better part of an afternoon reading Miss Fisher fanfic, and I feel so much better now. If you too watch this show and find yourself continually frustrated by the nigh-unbearable and unresolved sexual tension, allow me to prescribe one fic every time the air between Phryne and Jack crackles. (I…could possibly recommend some stories for you in the comments.)


Megan Castellan on titles, her vocation, and the things you do for family:

In all those conversations back in seminary, no one wanted to be a “Mother.” To be a mother was nothing near the strength inherent in “Father,” my classmates argued—it was a second-place substitute. “Mother” brought up conflicted feelings about your relationship with your actual mom, and worse—it led to unrealistic projections and expectations. It meant you had to be warm and fuzzy and nurturing and probably hang out with babies, the argument went. Let’s be good feminists, we agreed—let’s use gender-neutral titles only. Let’s stay at an safe distance, and never be confused with ego-inflating monsters!

Seminary itself had enabled this conclusion. When my female classmates and I learned to chant the liturgy, we were told to sing an octave lower, so the men in the congregation could follow along. When I led my first practice Mass, I was chided for wearing my grandmother’s pink sapphire ring and wearing my hair loose (“these are inappropriate distractions at the altar”). The only shoes allowed for serving in the chapel were soft-soled, shapeless and black—worn underneath vestments that (as we were taught early on) were modeled after the clothing of Roman noblemen. The black shirts worn with the clerical collar were shapeless, and seemed interchangeable with a garbage bag. When I pointed this out, the salesman stared at me. “They need to protect your dignity. You can’t have them fitted, now can you?”


The Sequel to The Philadelphia Story That Katherine Hepburn Deserves


Morgan Jerkins:

It starts with urging national publications to create series around the mystique of living in the black female body and enlisting black female writers to explore this phenomenon. It follows with having more black women on staff. It continues with giving more praise to books written by and for black women . . . Without this, black women are relegated to being invisible concepts.


Dirtbag Ezra Pound:

I barely have time to convince my favorite mistress to abandon her promising career as a violinist in order to play nursemaid to me and head archivist to my legacy
i can see how that would get
taxing
and that’s without all the anti-Semitism, even
sure
which also takes up a lot of my time


Mallory introduced us to these wonderful bodybuilders and their tiny cups of coffee and letters and one of them (Odd-Magnus Williamson!) dropped by The Toast to comment; I CANNOT be the only one secretly hoping for a Toast exclusive now.


Anastasia Valens on the interactive game “Even Cowgirls Bleed” and how playing it helped her think about her own experiences as a trans woman at the margins of her LGBT community.


If Tilda Swinton were your girlfriend, she’d be pleased to loan you anything from her closet, even though nothing ever looks quite right on you and is always several inches too long. You’d try not to act like it was a big deal when Tilda showed you her old christening gown, which was woven before the Norman Conquest.”


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