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Classical Pride

I know I'm too late for Pride Month. And I wasn't planning on posting much this year related to Pride, mostly because the category of "queer composers" includes a large span of styles and eras where the sexuality or gender identity may not necessarily be relevant to the music.

However (at the very least here in America) the political atmosphere has made queerness "controversial" again, and whenever there's a vocal effort to erase queerness and insist upon a heteronormative view of culture, history, biology, psychology, morality, etc. it only ever leads to real world harm for all of us.

So I don't think Pride Month should end just because the corporate calendar is ready for the next marketable holiday or season; don't be afraid to say "Gay" or "Trans" or "Queer", we exist and have always existed and here are some contributions to classical music history (with a few significant Jazz composers).

This list is a mix, mostly music by LGBT composers (either those who self-identify, or those who were alive before the category was articulated but evidence shows they could be classified as "queer"), and some that are on queer subjects (i.e. the only Bach piece here is an aria he wrote for a cantata where the sun god Phoebus (Apollo) mourns the death of his lover Hyacinth, and accepts that through love he is never truly dead).

If there are any LGBT composers, or thematic works, that you think should be included, please let me know!

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It's kind of incredible just how much the Country House Murder Mystery genre is, at its roots, a reaction to WWI and the social change that sprang from it.

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LA Cares AIDS campaign (c.1984) starring Zelda Rubinstein Zelda Rubinstein was a little person (the term she preferred) who began acting in her 40's. Her big break came in 1982 with her role as Tangina Barrons in the film Poltergeist.

In 1984, she was the the central figure in a series of advertisements, directed towards gay men specifically, promoting safer sex and AIDS awareness. Rubinstein did so at risk to her own career, especially so shortly after her rise to fame, and admitted later that she did "pay a price, career-wise." "I lost a friend to AIDS, one of the first public figures that died of AIDS," the actress said in an interview with The Advocate. "I knew it was not the kind of disease that would stay in anybody's backyard. It would climb the fences, get over the fences into all of our homes. It was not limited to one group of people." She attended the first AIDS Project Los Angeles AIDS Walk. (Source:Wikipedia)

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specific pain stretches, condensed

absolute fuckwaffle / pectoral stretches

basically any stretches where you hold your arms behind your back and puff your chest out, keeping shoulders back and blades together

lace hands behind your head/top of neck, your elbows pointing out to the sides. allow your head to fall back into hands as you open chest and squeeze shoulder blades together

traitor / neck retraction

lay down or lean back on a flat surface and tuck your chin into your neck. hold it there for a bit, relax into usual state, then repeat

drop your head in different directions to relieve tension held there

jackass / drop shoulders

holding your shoulders super tense before letting them go in relaxed pose

more shoulder stretches

and then there's this asshole / superman exercise (yes it's really called that)

lay on your belly with arms fully extended over head and legs straight back; look straight down. contract your glutes (clench your butt) to lift your legs and arms off the the floor towards the ceiling. stop when you feel a flex in your lower back, hold for a second, then return to start.

wiggle out with a brief cat/cow (arch back up, arch back down) to relieve the last of tension if needed

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In Utero

By Guglielmo Alberto Nacci

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Dolly Parton and Karen Black performing Me and Bobby McGee, 1977

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idk why, but for some reason i find photoshopped pictures of poptart boxes with fake ridiculous, outrageous flavor names to be the funniest freaking thing

like this is hysterical

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I'm so sick of people saying water doesn't taste. Water fuckin TASTES

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wikipedia no longer being anywhere near the top of search results when looking up anything feels eviscerating

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Everyone say thank you american indigenous people for cultivating corn, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, cacao, pumpkin, squash, and anything i missed. Makes life more meaningful globally

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