I’d only ever been surrounded by women who didn’t have the blueprint for claiming their lives. There were my aunts, who would never be caught socializing without their husbands present—certainly not publicly. They couldn’t drive their cars without their husbands, let alone ride a motorcycle. And there was my mother, who was notified of her own name change only when her wedding invitations arrived from the printer. She stared at one for a few moments, wondering if my father had changed his mind and was marrying someone else instead. Without consulting her, he had decided that Yasmin would be a more suitable and elegant name for his wife than Frida. It was one of the first signs that her identity was disposable.
—Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here
2.
When he fell in love with her, Rossetti wanted to “improve” Lizzie, to make her more worthy of being his companion. One of the first things he did was to persuade her to change the way she spelt her surname. He convinced her that “Siddal” looked more genteel than “Siddall”, so Lizzie changed it permanently.
—Lucinda Hawksley, Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel
3.
“Jane” wasn’t Mrs. H.G. Wells’s real name, Amy Catherine was her real name. H.G. didn’t like Amy Catherine, he rechristened her Jane, a name he thought embodied domestic ability. They were married close on forty years and Jane fulfilled H.G.’s domestic expectations. Yet sometimes he says he saw “[Amy Catherine] look at me out of Jane’s brown eyes, and vanish.” (H.G. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography.)
—Anne Carson, “Candor”
4.
On 23rd February, [Paula Modersohn-Becker] sets out for a longer stay in Paris. She wants to leave Otto Modersohn, and writes to Rainer Maria Rilke, with whom she had spoken about her plans: “And now, I don’t even know how I am supposed to sign my name. I am not Modersohn and I am not Paula Becker anymore either. I am Me, and I hope to become Me more and more.”
5.
On my desk lies a white envelope with my name written on it: ‘Dr El-Saadawi, Visiting Professor, Duke University.’ The name Duke rings strange in my ears like that of Al-Saadawi. Who was Duke? A millionaire from North Carolina. Just before dying, he suddenly discovered he could not take his money with him to the grave, so he thought why not leave his name on a wall, or at the bottom of a statue? Why not pay whatever sum of money was required to ensure that his name would not be buried forever with him? But my mother’s name was buried forever. She owned nothing, had no money. According to divine and to human law, her children, including me, were her husband’s property. So, I never carried the name of my mother. Her name was buried with her body and disappeared from history.
wake up to this. daydream to this. fall gently asleep to this. here’s a playlist that makes you feel like you’re in heaven, exclusively compiled of woc artists:
i know the alternative scene is extremely white; does anyone have recommendations for some black artists to check out?
these alt/punk bands have black women in them and they are all amazing!!
aye nako, blacker face, the bellrays, noods, tamar-kali, honeychild coleman, big joanie, new bloods, the tuts, x-ray spex, skinny girl diet, jigsaw youth, t-rextasy, nova twins, suffratjett, the skins, the butchies, tribe 8, vagabon, sate
“roaming the greenwood” by colm tóibín (ostensibly a book review of the history of gay literature but actually just very incisive thoughts on…the history of gay literature)
the entire lingua franca archive but in particular “bio hazard” by fred kaplan (about writing a biography of gore vidal) and “the stand” by daniel mendelsohn (about the role of a philosopher (martha nussbaum love of my life) in a colorado gay rights case in the 90s)
feel free to request some concepts you want to see next! if you want, make sure to follow the playlists bc ill still be adding songs to them, also send me ur spotify if you want to follow eachother <3
Ya boi just took some asshole for a ride. Some schmuck called me from a (spoofed) DC number with some cockamamie story about how he’s with the Federal Government and they’ve randomly selected me to receive a $7000 grant, oh and I’ll have to go pick it up at any of several chain grocery stores. Keeps using these “check-in” phrases that are meant to prompt you to say yes.
But see, joke’s on him: I’ve heard of this scam, and I don’t talk like most people. When I answer the phone and someone asks for me by name, I say “Speaking,” not “Yes.” So every single time this assclown tried to get me to say “Yes” I’d say something like “Understood” or “Go on.”
You see, the scam is, they trick you into saying “Yes,” and bonus if they can get you to repeat numbers (esp. 0-9) and/or “I agree.” What these low-lives do is record your voice and then use the sound bytes to make fraudulent charges in your name.
So fuck this guy right off the bat.
The more I dicked him around, the more frequently he started trying to goad me into saying the y-word. The funniest part came when he was going to “give me a confirmation number.”
Him: The confirmation is seven, one, three…
And he just STOPS. The “three” was pitched up to indicate there’d be more. I wait. He waits. I say, “Go on.”
And this bitch goes, “Yes, the confirmation number is seven, one, three…”
And he STOPS AGAIN. I wait. He waits. I say, “Go on,” again.
And he STARTS! OVER! AGAIN! He did this TWO MORE TIMES before giving me the “full confirmation number” and a “number to call,” which together JUST HAPPEN to include all ten digits, 0 through 9.
This entire time I haven’t said a single word that could be construed as agreement. So he asks me to repeat the numbers back to him. I decide I’ve had enough at that point. I tell him to get a better job, hang up, and block the number.
Another “DC” number immediately calls me. I reject & block it.
And then I filed a report with the Federal Trade Commission. :3
BE WARY. Get yourself on the National Do Not Call Registry. If a number you don’t recognize calls you, DON’T REPLY “YES” OR ANY OTHER GENERIC AFFIRMATIVE TO ANYTHING THEY SAY OR ASK.
The original scam is a robocall that starts off with “Can you hear me?” The most correct response is to hang up and report it to the FTC. The second best is “I can hear you,” if you’re not sure or if you forget. But get into the habit of using responses other than “Yes” on the phone. These fuckers are everywhere.
It gets worse, OP. Your voice can be spliced to sound like you agreed to something. You may have given them enough to do that with. Like those Microsoft Windows people that call and want your ‘important numbers off your computer’ I talked to them for far too long and only found out after the fact that they could make fraudulent charges just by splicing some of your words together. They were after something different, but it amounts to the same thing in the end. Also there’s the common ‘press 1′ people as well. It’s best to just hang up. The Attorney General says to get an answering machine and they can’t really do anything about them because they’re constantly spoofing numbers. Neither can the phone company, and they Charge You Money for reporting them!
Oof. Reblogging for additional warnings. I’ve already made my report to the FTC, so I’ll just be keeping a close eye on my finances for a while. (Like I’m not already given my situation.)
I’m trying not to be annoyed by this
but I’m annoyed
I understand that this is tunglr dot hell and people love to make up wild shit but llllllook boys girls and others this literally happened to me, personally, exactly as I described it. Here’s the screenshot of the two “DC” numbers that called me—the one I answered at 12:35, dicked around, and hung up on, and the one that called me immediately after which I rejected.
On reflection I do partway suspect that it might have just been the fake grant scam, but I still gotta say, super fucking fishy that he kept trying so very hard to get me to say yes and repeat numbers.
I’m on the level, fam.
Question, why even answer or stay on the phone with them?
