1. April is National Poetry Month. Poets.org has some really great resources for celebrating this month, or to simply get more poetry into your life. Some of my current favorite poems are Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón and Meeting the Buddha by Craig van Rooyen.
2. Advice To Writers. This series continues to be really good.
3. How Shrill Made Its Dream ‘Fat Babe Pool Party’ a Reality “I almost cried because it was so beautiful.” And if you’ve been following the controversy around this episode, you might be interested in this “sorry, not sorry” apology from Virgie Tovar.
4. How a Popular Decolonizing Yoga Summit Became a Colonizing One.
5. Gather – Art, Friends and Road Trip | Performative Documentary. “As four art instructors set out on a cross-country trip to teach workshops, they discover stark truths about themselves and their friendships. GATHER blurs the lines between documentary film and fiction, as individuals – appearing as themselves – use stories loosely based on real life events to create an intimate portrait of adult friendship. This bold experiment in narrative realism invites us to examine the heart-wrenching, invisible kind of loss that’s surely touched all of our lives–the moment right before everything shifts and threatens the longevity of a cherished friendship. GATHER is both a penetrating look at what holds us back from reaching out and connecting with one another and a beautiful reminder of what’s possible when we do.”
6. Be a Librarian to Your Readers: An Interview with Austin Kleon. Also from Austin Kleon, The page is a place.
7. Project 1, 2, 3: A Daily Creativity Journal for Expressing Yourself in Lists of Three by Paris Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Rosenthal‘s daughter.
8. April Love 2019, another great Instagram photo challenge from Susannah Conway.
9. From a Viral Tweet to a Dedicated Community: “Fatventure Mag” Celebrates Joyful Movement beyond the Bounds of Diet Culture. “Samantha Puc and Alice Lesperance founded ‘Fatventure’ to celebrate fat folks who ‘love joyful movement, but don’t love toxic diet culture.’ The second issue will expand that concept to the theme of home and belonging.”
10. Top 10 Reasons Why INFJs Are Walking Paradoxes.
11. Guy Biking Across The World Picks Up A Stray Kitten. (video)
12. Find the Poem: the full trailer. (video) “Getting close to finishing this project with 30 of the country’s most awesome poets giving their insight on writing, performance, business and everything else that makes up this world we call ‘spoken word poetry.'”
13. “You want to tell people that their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist?” (video) “Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave an impassioned speech during a committee hearing in response to Republicans push-back on her climate change policy, the Green New Deal.” She gives me such hope that we might be able to turn this around.
15. Black Farmers to buy from instead of Whole Foods.
16. Intricate Golden Labyrinths Created From Fallen Leaves of a Gingko Tree.
17. This Woman Was Fat-Shamed While Running A Marathon. (video). “Latoya Shauntay Snell (Running Fat Chef) has experienced fat-shaming her whole life — by friends, family and doctors, and even by spectators watching her as she ran the New York City Marathon. Latoya’s response? ‘Fat-shaming can go f**k itself.'”
18. Dancing family. (video) “My wife is Pakistani & loves to watch hip hop dance. She asked me to dance to music from her culture…so last Sunday I got our 3 children together to perform to a song that I felt represented apart of my culture(hip hop) & her culture as well….We love you mom!!!”
19. Instead of hiding rips and tears, the visible mending movement turns them into art. “Born from the Japanese art of sashiko, visible mending enables crafters to eschew fast fashion and make mistakes beautiful.”
20. Little girl believes she’s hula hooping all by herself, but she’s actually got some help. (video)
21. Yoga, Race, and Culture by Dianne Bondy.
22. In Praise of bell hooks from The New York Times.
23. “Gentleman Jack”: 9 Facts About Lesbian Legend Anne Lister to Know Before HBO’s Miniseries.
24. A Dad Painted His Daughter as Mona Lisa and Her Reaction is Priceless.
25. Woman Gives Birth To Twins 1 Month After Giving Birth To Baby Boy. Surprise!
26. Japanese Illustrator Imagines A World Where Humans Live Among Giant Animals. I love these, but let’s be honest: cats that big would totally murder us all.
27. African Elephants Are Evolving Without Tusks Due To Extreme Poaching On The Continent.
28. 19-Year-Old Omarian Banks Shot After Knocking on Wrong Door.
29. Confronting racism is not about the needs and feelings of white people by Ijeoma Oluo.
30. On eve of execution, Texas prisoner denied right to have Buddhist priest present while he dies.
31. Add a Blurred Background to Your Photo with PicMonkey.
32. This Native American reservation has been inundated with floods for two weeks, leaving 80,000 people without drinking water, (video) “and the help they desperately need has been slow to arrive.”
33. Lawyering While Black: Cop Detains Attorney in Courthouse, Accuses Him of Impersonating a Lawyer.
34. After Cyclone Idai, bodies litter Mozambique’s fields, and the true death toll may never be known. In related news, Death Toll For Cyclone Idai, Which Struck Mozambique, Zimbabwe And Malawi, Reaches 750.
35. 31 Must-Read Stories For Every Day Of Women’s History Month.
36. Facebook Announces New Policy to Ban White Nationalist Content on The New York Times.
37. Meet the 14-year-old who wants to be the Colombian Billy Elliot. (video) “Sometimes it helps me when I’m sad or angry. I dance and everything goes away.”
38. Boxer reincarnated as a cat? (video)
39. Russell Brand does Great British Bake Off. (video)
40. Why Do Narcissists Make Positive First Impressions?
41. This citizen stopped ICE from arresting 2 undocumented immigrants because he knew his rights. (video)
42. NASA Scraps First All-Female Spacewalk For Want Of A Medium-Size Spacesuit. Must be the same reason I can’t find a decent bra that fits.
43. Damon Young on the ‘Absurdity’ of Being Black on The New York Times. “The co-founder of the cultural criticism website Very Smart Brothas mines his experiences in a new memoir, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker.”
44. Morgan Freeman converts his Mississippi ranch into a honeybee sanctuary.
45. Listen to this interview with Roxane Gay: ‘We have so much work still to do’, says feminist Roxane Gay. In related news, Roxane Gay was an oasis of calm on last night’s Q&A.
46. The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 