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Detail from Disco Sock photographic artwork by Yvonne Todd

Strike a pose

I grew up when women were viewed as decorative, appraised for their sexual currency. It’s hard to disassociate from powerful formative experiences. Particularly my childhood observations of glamour fused with my interest in the macabre.

A passing phase

I went to Tim’s Guitars years ago and I saw Grant Hart from Hüsker Dü do a solo thing and he had a Q&A after the solo. And some guy went, ‘How often do you practise guitar?’ And then Grant Hart said, ‘I never practise guitar, practising guitar gets in the way of my personality.’ And I was like, ‘Oh wow, that’s actually really true.’

Taxidermy 

Reddit, I click. One post notes that mammals are difficult to taxidermise because it’s hard to find a dead mammal to practise on without hunting one yourself. It’s not like u can buy a dead animal with the skin still on at the butcher, BigKen62 posted. Try marine, TommyFishes America replied. I hover the mouse over the word. Then, click it. 

Wax

I touch the wax of their pickaxes, then run my hand along the wax rock of the walls. One man squats a few metres away from the others, holding a pan. As I move towards him, I notice a label with descriptive text about Victoria’s gold rush, a reminder of the foundational gruesomeness of the enterprise – the colonial history of world’s fairs, or zoos, here insisting on itself in a minor carnival of the macabre. 

Cusp

We were going to visit Patience’s supervisor Callista, a tenured senior lecturer in literature and cultural studies, though her strange, ageless grace made the word senior feel like a misnomer. I knew Patience would have chided me for this, saying it showed both my ageism and internalised misogyny, so these were among the thoughts I kept to myself.

Same old new village

We pass the food market, and the dining hall, where each morning I would take my grandmother to eat yong tofu, hot noodle soup with fishballs and stuffed tofu. She said she always wanted to eat, but in reality she wanted to show me off to her old friends.

Radical love

People ask me how to manifest their greatest desires because I am clearly living the life of my dreams. I am renowned for my healing work and own a vast business empire connected to it, although this has not always been the case. Prior to my unlimited success, I dabbled in various careers but never settled on any, feeling there was more to existence if only I could grasp it.

Lesbian search terms

how does a lesbian love a person    can I use a rock to tenderise meat    Amazon commercial with the lesbian couple wtf    homemade real lesbian    things that usually...

Run River: An exercise

Little space in this town for dead game. Steal a teal Corvette, hit the drive-in, Find the tatty shop. They serve a fish dish.

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