preheville

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getting my degree at ace attorney university with a major in women's studies and a minor in japanifornia legal philosophy

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Scholars of Hansel and Gretel argue that the original story by the Brothers Grimm was a warning against the brutality of life in the Middle Ages, a time characterized by a hunger and scarcity that with frequency, with terrorizing frequency, led to infanticide. These scholars add that the story of Hansel and Gretel as we now know it is only a sterilized version created for the middle-class sensibilities of the nineteenth century. In fact, they insist that in the first versions written by the Brothers Grimm there was no stepmother at all; instead, it was the mother herself who persuaded the father to leave the children in the forest to starve to death. This change, the experts explain, this deliberate lessening of violence against children, seems to have occurred in order to prevent certain refined and modern mothers from being forced to hear the stories of other mothers, no doubt desperate mothers, perhaps savage mothers, unnatural mothers, one might say, who had mistreated their children to the point of death. On the other hand, everything seems to indicate, at least in the story of Hansel and Gretel, that the mother or stepmother and the witch, whom the children kill in the end, are the same woman transfigured. Proof of this shared identity: Besides placing the children in danger, the two women share the same preoccupation with food. In the case of the mother or stepmother, it manifests in her attempt to prevent hunger, while with the witch, whose house is made of food, it is seen in her desire to consume the children.

The Taiga Syndrome, Christina Rivera Garza, trans. Aviva Kana & Suzanne Jill Levine

[preheville]

In the photograph he held in front of my eyes the woman seemed happy. Her smile, at least, was enormous. Contagious. Something viral. In fact, it was a series of images. The photographer had captured, second by second, the way the woman spun on her own axis. Her red dress, opened. Again, her smile. And in the background, the forest. “So, is she Hansel or Gretel?” I asked, truly curious, still staring at the images. “Gretel, I suppose,” the man hesitated, taken aback. “Maybe she is the woodsman or the witch or the woman who wants to get rid of the children in order to have enough to eat,” I said more to myself than to the man who had begun to smile, stupefied. “This is not a fairy tale, detective,” he said, interrupting me again. “This is a story about being in love.” “Or being out of love,” I corrected him.

The Taiga Syndrome, Christina Rivera Garza, trans. Aviva Kana & Suzanne Jill Levine

[preheville]

They had arrived there, according to my information, at the beginning of winter. I had come to that conclusion because their last communication came from a telegram office in a border town about two hundred kilometers away. The telegram, addressed to the man who had hired me to investigate the case, said briefly and somewhat obliquely that they were never coming back: “WHAT ARE WE LETTING IN WHEN WE SAY GOODBYE?” I took the case because I have always had an all-consuming weakness for forms of writing no longer in use: radiograms, stenography, telegrams. As soon as I placed my hands on the faded paper, I began to dream. The tips of my fingers skimmed the creases of the paper; the stale smell of age. Something hidden.

The Taiga Syndrome, Christina Rivera Garza, trans. Aviva Kana & Suzanne Jill Levine

[preheville]

"my top 6 women in translation month books :3" and 4/6 are from japan.

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Dennis Scholl — Contemplation (oil on wood panel, 2023)

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Been browsing a website w a bunch of digitised An Phoblacht/Republican News issues from the Troubles. sampling of some of the more striking covers from 1979, 1983, and 1984

[preheville]

Soundtrack from Twin Peaks, music composed by Angelo Badalamenti (1990)

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some fears and some hungers

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Don’t be afraid to jump then fall.

Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon 2

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oh my god i have got to be sleeping better i am so sick of my brain feeling so stupid

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self indulging

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50 books read this year 😳

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