[ shit is pretty dark right now. ]

I wonder, how many times can you say: I wrote this song instead of killing myself, before it loses its luster? Before the postponement is ineffective, the audience insulted? Here, in the face of this excruciating pain, I was only a little unkind to a small number of people? I tell myself this impresses no one. 

This running-myself-into-the-ground, this why-isn’t-this-better, this i-am-ashamed-of-producing-anything-that-is-not-perfect and thus i-am-ashamed-of-producing-anything, it is, at the dark times like these, tangled up in the knowledge that every thing I am doing is, as it is happening, the thing I am doing instead of giving up. the sickest part of my brain gives me her litany: this is what you’re forcing yourself to keep on going for? this? to show someone the scraps of some half-started project? to write some crap essay? to be unkind, needy, and neglectful of the people you love? you tolerate what it is like inside your head in order to be simply mediocre? 

That, she says, is embarrassing. 

Allowing every single action to oscillate between the fuck it all of catatonia and the impossible pressure of this is what I’m staying alive for, so it had better be remarkable, this is not a way to accomplish tasks. this is not a way to get things done. this is not a way to live.

look. today you woke up. you took a shower. you put on clean clothes. you left the house, only an hour after you said you would. you drank coffee. you ate food. you overpaid for both those things, but now’s not the time to beat yourself up about that. you worked on a project. you averted a crisis; others arose. they always will. you didn’t throw yourself off a bridge into highway traffic or the dark waters of the Chicago River. 

you imagine a world where you can drink shandies forever but never get too drunk, and all you have to do is stand in a spotlight in an uncrowded bar, singing Roy Orbison songs into a microphone, all your friends smiling at you from the booths. 

you hang on, because that’s all you can do, forever and ever and ever. 

Trying to write a grant proposal while in the throes of stupid, debilitating depression. 

Discuss your artistic goals and plans for the next three to five years. What kind of work do you hope to do? Note any changes in your creative direction and the reasons for these changes. Maximum 2,000 characters.

This feels a little bit like a joke. 

Here, yes, now, when you are feeling your least competent, your least being-of-worth, when your head aches and your cunt bleeds and your thoughts cloud, when all you are becomes one maw of selfish lazy wanting, slick with the tempting sickly sweet of self-loathing, self-pity glinting green in the hot dark– push words through that diseased wall of meat into the world. State clearly your intent. Mark out each logical step of progress on the way to all the things you knew so certainly you wanted. 

This, of course, is where this bout of terror comes from. Being forced to face my muddled pits of desire, to take the scattered bones and read them clear. To say, yes, I know what I want, and why it matters, and to be sure I will not fail because I believe that I can overcome my fear, and my sloth, and my constant distraction, because I believe that I can win more times than I do not in the fight against this sinking, this sabotaging melt into the grime. 

I think a lot about a scene in a goddamn 1982 fantasy action movie, The Beastmaster, that I haven’t even seen in years, but where he’s in some quicksand or a tar pit or something, he’s going to sink in and die, but his tiny little ferret friends somehow save him, he makes it out. Sometimes it feels like that, except I’m the Beastmaster and the ferrets, and also the quicksand, and the whole strange primeval landscape, the trees moving quietly in the wind.

This outfit belonged to the late fashion icon and magazine editor Isabella Blow, who committed suicide in 2007. Isabella was a huge influence on Gaga, and Gaga has been a major supporter of the Isabella Blow foundation, which provides funding both to arts scholarships and depression research. Isabella was a huge part of the British fashion scene, and Gaga considered wearing this to London Fashion Week a tribute to her memory. That doesn’t depoliticize it, of course, but is another layer of context for the intention behind the choice. And that you should probably all be getting somewhat less pissed at Gaga and more pissed at the British woman who discovered McQueen and poisoned herself after getting ovarian cancer. (Blow was also working on a book project about “beauty in the Arab world” not long before her death, although I don’t know what became of the project.)

Obviously I get why someone who has undergone persecution for wearing a burqa as a part of their religious practice could be offended, and I’m not attempting to delegitimize that. However, think of the thousands of bullshit Western teenagers who didn’t know what a burqa is earlier this year. Perhaps a few of them were curious, and did some googling. They now know slightly more than they did, and perhaps are slightly more tolerant. Yes, it’s tacky and ugly and insensitive, but I’ll take that over cultural isolationism and ignorant youth any day.

And of course, to reiterate what K said below, “people have no right to tell anyone what they can and can’t wear." 

clockwork-bomb:

myheadthinksalot:

faineemae:

gilderoy:

faineemae:

tufworld:

gagaroyale:

Backstage at London Fashion Week.

i just searched the lady gaga tag to see if tumblr savior is working ,and then i see this . she angers me so much

seriously what the fuck are you doing

you get my gif too

if you can wear it, why can’t she?

Because she’s not Muslim, because she’s not from the middle east, because she can’t fucking wear shit that has religious and cultural significance for the name of fashion while my sisters, myself and milllions of other muslim women still get shitted on by western society and are called oppressed for just wearing a hijab, let alone a full veil and face covering while this woman can wear a cheap ugly tacky piece of shit and call it a burqa.

Ya made a wrong turn on this one, Gaga.

Wrong.

Where did she call it a burqa? Sure it looks like one, and that’s how women wear one (except the color… and translucent veil over the face), but if she called it one then that’s what matters. Gaga’s also worn meat and came to an award ceremony in a giant fucking egg. She does weird shit. Let it roll.

If you wanna play devil’s advocate you could try to say that her wearing it is showing how it can be used as a fashion statement, meaning that there’s nothing wrong with it, meaning that people should get used to the image of it and therefore stop shitting on the burqa and hijab when women wear it for religious purposes.

I wear scarves on my head but not in the same style as Muslim women. Think about the 50s style of women tying scarves around their head to keep hair back, or just to travel. I don’t do it for any other reason but I feel more comfortable doing so. I have crucifix designs on jewelry and, sometimes, on t-shirts. I’m not Christian and I don’t see anything wrong with it (unless the image is being used in an offensive way). I have images of the Buddha in my home, and while I’m no Buddhist I do tend to pray/make wishes towards said statue.

You can come after me all you want and spout out stuff like PRIVILEGE and IGNORANCE etc. etc. but you know what? I don’t care. I don’t. I think it’d be better to be more concerned about the people who treat these religious objects as something to be ashamed of instead of realizing that 1: they have a value that can’t be ignored and 2: people have no right to tell anyone what they can and can’t wear. This goes both ways. I think you would be better off going after the people who attack you for wearing something crucial to your religion and something you take great pride in. If you disagree, go right ahead and keep fighting that fight against… what, again?

For all we know, crazy lady’s doing this as a very poor attempt at solidarity. You can judge her for it but it’s important to think of the other side of this, however much you don’t like it.

I’m not a Gaga apologist, and while I’m a fan of hers I’m definitely not worshipping all the shit she does, but she’s got her heart in the right place. That doesn’t excuse when she steps over the line, though I think that’s just as important as the times she falls short of the mark and ruffles some jimmies, like in this case.

I’d also just like to add that this is LADY FUCKING GAGA. Everything she does is to keep your eye on her so congratulations, you just did exactly what she wanted you to do.