All art is at once surface and symbol

Racist crowd whines about Annie being black in the remake of a famous musical.

As someone who thought the original Annie was gag-inducing, this new version actually looks pretty cute. This comment gives me a little more hope for humanity (bolding mine):

This is really sad. And it's so sad that its even pretty pathetic from a purely literary perspective. In the original story the whole point of Annie being a red head was to show that she was less desirable than the pretty blonds and the smart brunettes. She’s a disadvantaged outsider who uses charm innocence and grace to win the cold hearts of the echelon elites. Only once the wealthy have recognized her value does she have any and a scandal ensues. That the producers of this latest production have used a precious little black girl in place of a red head to retell this charming fairy tale, shows they understand the concept perfectly. The story was always about the children we throw away. A black child has every right to stand there and play that role. It's a role about those confined to poverty and about how kindness conquers all. And what’s sad is that all those people crying about “white Annie” obviously missed the entire point of the story in the first place. And seriously guys, you can’t remake Roots with white people because that didn’t happen to white people and a fictional fairy tale is no where near on the level of a true political hero and any such comparison is born of silly knee jerk pride and reactionary ignorance. This movie is about little orphaned girls and orphans come from all of us.

*applauds* Well said. I'll be looking forward to seeing Quvenzhané Wallis this Christmas. :D

George Takei Responds to Traditional Marriage Fans

Did I mention that Takei is my hero?

19 Creative Ways People Have Satirized Anti-Gay Arguments

I've seen some of these before, but it's always nice to look at them again~ ♥

Originally posted by amelia_seyroon at Important Causes Made Easy

‘Brave’ To Focus On Mother-Daughter Relationship, Will Overlook Romance

In the TIME article, there is a key paragraph that states:

Brave’s medieval Scottish princess, Merida (voiced by Boardwalk Empire‘s Kelly Macdonald), almost never wears princess clothes. Instead, she rides a horse and shoots a bow and arrow. Her mom, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) insists she follow tradition and let the eldest sons of the heads of the kingdom’s clans compete for her hand in marriage. But Merida doesn’t tell her mom that she’s going to pick her own husband, as princesses sometimes do in films. This is a fairy tale without romance. Merida tells her that she isn’t marrying anyone. Then she fights bears. But mostly, like all teenage girls, she fights with her mom.

I approve of this.

Why the Best Kid Books Are Written in Blood

I nearly cried while reading this, because I empathize so hard. I've certainly never been raped or used drugs or been a victim of violence, but I have gone through rough times (including depression and foster care) and I've used books for the same reasons that Alexie described.

Of course, all during my childhood, would-be saviors tried to rescue my fellow tribal members. They wanted to rescue me. But, even then, I could only laugh at their platitudes. In those days, the cultural conservatives thought that KISS and Black Sabbath were going to impede my moral development. They wanted to protect me from sex when I had already been raped. They wanted to protect me from evil though a future serial killer had already abused me. They wanted me to profess my love for God without considering that I was the child and grandchild of men and women who’d been sexually and physically abused by generations of clergy.

What was my immature, childish response to those would-be saviors?

“Wow, you are way, way too late.”

This. This this this. Alexie, we've just met, and there should be more people like you.

*adds The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian on her To-Read list*

Today's been a crummy day since my parents are under stress and I didn't get sleep last night, but this is the best thing I've read all day. I never had My Little Pony though I remember playing with several of them a couple times, and I hear lots of great things about the new show. Thanks to this, my respect for the little ponies has gone up tremendously. Bless those little darlings. :)

WISCONSIN IS BEAUTIFUL GUYS.

Seriously, there's trees (different kinds!), colors (GREEN), lakes, barns & silos, birds, fireflies, gorgeous skies, jgdkslgdlk oh yeah Wisconsin Dells AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. It's eye candy everywhere I look. The sunrises/sunsets are amazing here. *-*

Parents had me up about all night (mostly drills from Mom) and what's worse, they blasted music when I was trying to sleep. No, talking to them didn't make it better, all they did was lower the volume. Ugh, and I can still hear it. The plane ride was terrible. The cushions were nice, but I wish I could say the same about the chair itself. I was weary and wanted shut-eye, but no. My back hurt, I got a crick in my neck, and I couldn't get comfortable no matter how I positioned myself. A couple good things did come from the trip though. Mom and I went to a book shop to get ourselves something to read; Mom got Chuck Palahniuk's Tell-All and I got *dundundundun* Watership Down. I always wanted to read that book! Thank goodness for Steph's kindness and Dannie's warm and cozy bed.

The Dolan's house is comfy and amazing and they have an outdoor kitty named Striker that took a love to me right away. I got up for a closer view of the woods and she was rubbing against my legs. ;; I got to meet Matt, Brianna's future husband, and he's truly a great guy. Hilarious, warm-hearted, and fun to be around. Uncle Ricke brought a travel edition of Apples To Apples, so we had fun and laughs playing that (I kept picking Mom's cards although I was clearly trying to avoid her. ;;) I got to show a few of my music videos finally, though later people were mostly chatting. Ricke seemed genuinely interested in my work though, and was deeply focused in watching and listening to me explain things. ;; Later, Matt realized that I made these instead of watching someone else's vids and he said he was impressed. :o

Yesterday we went to Noah's Ark! Aka the biggest waterpark in the world according to the consensus. It's been what, years since I've been there? I missed the place so much. Flash Flood's gotta be my favorite. You get double the benefit; a splash from coming down, and a splash from standing on the bridge~ ♥ The first time, we were all chanting, "One more time! One more time!" Hehe. We got Dippin' Dots and crummy food (nomnom Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough dots. Not-so-nom to the so-called "chicken stix" I ate. :P), and I waited below while everyone else committed suicide on The Plunge and Point of No Return. The Stingray is amazing too! My brother and I were holding a tube, I remember getting nervous because I was facing backwards and it looked steep, and my brother said in a soothing way, "It's going to be all right." Aww. ;; My brother can be really sweet like that sometimes. Anyway, we made the drop and it was a ton of fun. Definitely one of my favorites even if we had to cut out of line twice due to the length. XD

Note to self: next time, bring shoes 'cause wearing your wet watershoes inside a restaurant is not fun. :P We went to Famous Dave's for dinner (whose mascot is a cannibalistic pig) and Brianna, Matt and I doodled wicked atrocities all over the coloring paper until our orders arrived. It was a BBQ restaurant, and I was already feeling pretty full, so all I had was a basket of fries and some ice-cold water. Nomnomnom. The moon was gorgeous that night too. I always felt like it was an alternative version of Earth, with all the gray spots being the continents such as Europe and South America. Though tonight I saw a couple of eyes and a face too. Kinda creepy and mesmerizing in a way, though thankfully nothing like Majora's moon. XD

Who needs Internet when I'm having fun? Remind me to import Phantom of the Opera and the second Cranberries CD on my computer. I've been loading a ton of stuff from the Dolan music library and all the Talking Heads/Josh Groban/various 80s stuff is gonna do me good when I get home! They even have Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Beethoven's Last Night!"

Here's a unique game to play in your spare time."

You're a psychiatrist taking care of abused and mentally ill stuffed animals. Have fun! :o

Puri has a new computer~ ♥♥♥♥♥ You know the saying, "You don't know what you've got until it's gone?" For me, it's become, "You don't know what you've got until it's back." It's been eons since I've used Winamp and downloaded so many skins for it! *_____*

It's good to have a home again~ ♥

Whew. I thought I got too many eggs there. I found a spare Raikou at the Shelter today, and I got messaged by the previous owner and it turned out he was trying to make a trade with someone. :o So now we've made an agreement, since I already have a Raikou anyway; I'm trading the spare for one of his seven Heatrans at 4 PM server time tomorrow. Oh boy oh boy oh boy~ ♥♥♥

Playing Eusine is so much fun! He's knee-deep in Suicunes at both dear_mun and pokedressing and he's spazzing like Daffy Duck in my headspace right now. I need to tweak his icons later, so I can have more HG/SS goodies, nomnomnom~ ♥ He's curiously approaching a Skitlord now~ ♥♥♥

Other than that, stress is built by washing bedsheets and my sister's old computer is supposed to be mailed to our house soon. Must... have... computer... AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa

P.S. Happy 30th Birthday, Pacman! You can play some rounds on Google! :D

~Puri's Birthday Loot~

- Sonic & the Black Knight from my brother
- 2-Disc Edition of Coraline
- Adrian Lyne's Lolita (Jeremy Irons, nomnomnom~)
- The Legendary Starfy for DS
- Les Miserables Broadway Soundtrack (!!!) (Surprise from Mom)
- Fanart of Shaymin & Zee-Tee from Blu
- Icons from Jamie
- Hedgehog pictures from Deryak
- Money from relatives/grandparents
- Member's Card/Darkrai from Nintendo
- Birthday Brawl with Philleh, in which Jeff, Shadow & Mr. Resetti showed up, Metal Gear commentary on Jigglypuff and Pit, and the SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE! cry when I flung Philleh offscreen. :o

And I'm expecting FFIV DS from Jean in the mail soon~ ♥ And fanfic from Vyck, nomnomnom~

The family and I went to see Ponyo on my birthday and I died of cuteness~ Now I'm feeling kinda stressful since it's been a couple days since I turned 21. @.@ Oh well. There was a super sweet secret at RP!S about pokedressing too, and Shaymin was one of the listed characters! ;; This is what Anon told me:

Welcome <3 Shaymin is sweet and fuzzy. She's RPed very well. That well in fact that because of it I'm starting to like the Pokemon. I never did before! xD

Thank you again, anon. ;______; Seriously.