elite

'The Amazonian Guard is an elite group of 30-40 (reports differ) virginal women who are tasked with protecting the leader of Libya, Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Candidates for the Amazonian Guard undergo extensive firearms and martial arts training at a special academy and must be hand picked by Gaddafi himself. Members of this elite group are allowed privileges not deemed acceptable in the Muslim world, such as dressing in Western-style fatigues and wearing makeup, or displaying Western hair styles and high heels.

The existence of this elite group has created controversy as it challenges the role of women in the Muslim world.

Is it wrong and unfeminist of me to think this is sort of badass?
I also appropriate the lesbian erotica and fantasy fiction potential of this.

so if you're pretty, i sign titties.

I love Nicki. She's such a BAMF. I guess I'm just one of those girls, falling like dominoes for her.
'Say my shoe game nuts, so I call 'em cashews
Every other city there's another Nicki tattoo
Steal Wayne girls, I steal Drake girls
You know the real bitches love me fuck the fake girls
So if you pretty, I sign titties
I got the key to every motherfuckin' city'

Fuck that 'Do It Like a Dude' song, this is the lesbian anthem.

surfboard made out of don't care.

This is such a Tumblr picture. I found this on my facebook mini-feed and I can't credit it seeing as how I only know this person because we made out drunkenly in a tree fort once. I'm too embarrassed to ask where the picture/jacket came from.
But, this is a pretty rad jacket, no?

Cobain

"Chef Boyardee is meaner, stronger, less susceptible to disease and more dominant than a male gorilla. He comes to me at night. Willfully opening the locks and bending the bars on my window. Costing me horrendous amounts of money in home burglary devices. He comes to me in my bedroom. Naked, shaved and oiled. Goose-bumped thick black arm hairs risen off his skin. Standing in a pool of pizza grease. Barfing up flour. It enters my lungs. I cough. He laughs. He mounts me. I'd like to kick his hot-stinking, macho fuckin' ass."

- Kurt Cobain

Big ups to Mark Peckmezian for showing me this. This quote is amazing, it's like Hemingway and Jack Kerouac. And then, it's more homoerotic and sort of racist, written in this desperate drug addict way. The imagery is insane, not to state the obvious like the douche that I am, but the man is talented with words.
The quote is from his biography, Heavier Than Heaven.

slits

RIP Ari Up, you sure were no typical girl.

Jane

May Morning, Jane Morris, by J. Robert Parsons.
Morris is shown here in an unadorned heavily draped silk dress with long sleeves and minimal accessories, all typical of aesthetic fashion.

Aesthetic dress was a protest against the contemporary fashion for bustles and restrictive corsets of the 19th century. The trend was started by the Pre-Raphaelites and was mostly concentrated to a small community of middle class intellectuals, artistic and literary people.

Aesthetic fashions were mostly made of wool, Liberty silk or velvet, the dresses were cut looser and unstructured in the style of medieval or Renaissance garments. Corset free women were not only "loose waisted" but also considered to have loose morals and many of the Aesthetic women were thought slightly Bohemian and beyond normal social conventions and morals of the time.

hard

1. Kembra Pfahler photographed by Lisa Kereszi. 2. Photo by Kuku Smigun. 3,4. Stills from Katrina Del Mar's short film Girl Gangs 2000.

dominate

Olympia. Édouard Manet, 1863.

"What shocked contemporary audiences was not Olympia's nudity, nor even the presence of her fully clothed maid, but her confrontational gaze and a number of details identifying her as a demi-mondaine or courtesan. These include the orchid in her hair, her bracelet, pearl earrings and the oriental shawl on which she lies, symbols of wealth and sensuality. The black ribbon around her neck, in stark contrast with her pale flesh, and her cast-off slipper underline the voluptuous atmosphere. Whereas Titian's Venus delicately covers her sex, Olympia's hand firmly protects hers, as if to emphasize her independence and sexual dominance over men. Manet replaced the little dog (symbol of fidelity) in Titian's painting with a black cat, which symbolized prostitution. Olympia disdainfully ignores the flowers presented to her by her servant, probably a gift from a client. Some have suggested that she is looking in the direction of the door, as her client barges in unannounced.

The painting deviates from the academic canon in its style, characterized by broad, quick brushstrokes, studio lighting that eliminates mid-tones, large color surfaces and shallow depth. Instead of a smooth idealised nude, as in Alexandre Cabanel's La naissance de Vénus (also painted in 1863), Manet painted a real woman, whose nakedness is revealed in all its brutality by the harsh light.

The model, Victorine Meurent, went on to become an accomplished painter in her own right."

Via Wikipedia

I just realized the cat on the right is hilariously painted, I wonder if Manet was really bad at painting cats or if he was just having a laugh.

Breillat!

Catherine Breillat is a brilliant director, I haven't seen that many of her films but the works I have seen has struck me as incredibly brave and masterful. On top of that, Breillat is always pissing people off with her explicit depictions of sexuality and violence. This month Cinematheque Ontario is doing a retrospective on Breillat's works titled Anatomies of Desire. I'm most likely going to watch Bluebeard and The Last Mistress, which is playing this Thursday and August 9th respectively.

Bluebeard

Barbe bleue is a “brilliantly written, exquisitely realized feminist reworking of the cautionary mixed message in Charles Perrault’s fairy tale” (Amy Taubin, Artforum). Narrated by two young sisters huddled away in their attic to read the titular tale, the film unfolds from their imaginations like a stylized seventeenth-century pageant play reminiscent of Demy’s Peau d’âne and Rohmer’s Perceval le Gallois. Naïve and courageous Marie-Christine (Lola Créton and her dancing big brown eyes) is the young, impoverished girl willing to wed the big, bearded brute (Dominique Thomas) in order to save her family from starvation and ruin. Breillat’s touch is in every detail, and her characteristic insights into the psychology of female desire, curiosity, fantasy and sibling rivalry—a curious parallel universe is created between the sisters reading the book and the fairytale sisters separated by marriage—are at the core of the film, yet Barbe Bleue is noticeably devoid of the explicit sex and sex talk that have come to define the director’s reputation. “I can't think of a better image to represent Breillat's cinema en toto than a shot of the massive, shirtless Bluebeard being watched unnoticed by his waif, virgin wife. Brilliant film” (Darren Hughes, Long Pauses).

Top three photos: The Last Mistress, last photo: Bluebeard.

Thelma & Louise

Thelma & Louise is a totally kick ass film in which two heroines lead us through danger, adventure and crime through the desert in their '66 Thunderbird. This film definitely passes The Bechdel Test, meaning: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.
At first, Thelma drove me nuts but she does eventually redeem her self through some hilarious badassery. So, if you haven't seen this movie yet, get on it! It's an essential feminist film. Also check out Essential Films by Women, people on Mubi.com make such great lists.

night swim

I've been having a pretty awesome summer.
The other day, my friends and I went pool hopping at Christie Pits, I've never hopped a pool, I felt like a badass and it was a great antidote to the heat wave we've been having. It was the coolest experience, there were so many other people there at 3 am and everyone just wanted to have fun.

Vessel

I had to make a badass tag just for shit like this. Using legal loopholes for good these women are sailing to countries where abortions are illegal and bring women on board and providing them with safe abortions. I'm rrrrreally pro-choice, anti-abortionists make me lose my shit. Pro "life" is ANTI life, and ANTI WOMEN! Fuck them. Click here to watch the trailer. If anyone knows where they're showing the film/own it, msg me, I want to see it.

SKATE BITCHES

I can't believe I just discovered this video now, its so fucking badass. Also, speaking of badassery, subscribe to Kathleen Hanna's blag. I guess if I could relive a time, I would have to pick 80's/90's, but as a girl in her 20's and hang out with other Riot Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrls. I'm off to make a zine now.

Also, I was chatting with my mom today and we were talking about new movies we wanted to see. And I told her I was trying to only watch movies (well that I have to pay for) that have been directed by women. And then she jokingly asked if I was gay now? ("Arrrr you gaaaay?" Me and Margaret Cho may or may not have the same mother.) I guess my mom thinks feminism is only for lesbians?