hello!

it’s December 10th!

Midwest Mountaineering, 1971-2023

Outdoor sporting retailer, Midwest Mountaineering, a fixture of the Cedar-Riverside and West Bank neighborhood, will close its doors for good in October.

Rod Johnson opened Midwest Mountaineering in the upstairs of 1408 Hennepin Avenue in 1971, when he was just in his early 20s. An avid mountain climber, kayaker, hiker, and skier, Johnson began buying climbing gear at wholesale prices for himself in 1969, then turned it into a shop. He sold quality climbing, backpacking, camping, snowshoeing and ski touring equipment at discount prices. In 1976 he opened in a larger space at 309 Cedar Avenue and has been there ever since, expanding the space through the years to the 23,000 square feet it currently occupies. Earlier this month, Johnson announced the store would be closing in early October, unable to compete with online retailers, and the building would be put up for sale, promoted to local developers.

And the West Bank goes the way of Dinkytown...

See photos of Midwest Mountaineering through the years in the Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.

What an incredible way to do crowd work as a ventriloquist comedian.

richie tozier core

I need everyone to see this picture from the 4th article.

Reminder: Bi Visibility Day is September 23. Remember to leave cookies out for Freddie.

Tonight!

this is a good tradition and must be maintained

Video desc:

A yellow and grey cockatiel "sings" the chorus to "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire in a high-pitched whistle. It occasionally pecks a metal object to the beat, and it makes a deep, short sound similar to that of a cowbell.

it's not even cringe; it's just personal and unpolished and you've been taught to flinch away from vulnerability which doesn't mock itself

was talking to my gf about my fear of dying young for being trans and my mom putting my deadname on my gravestone, and she said "i hope that never happens, but if it does, i will carve your name into your grave myself if i have to." and i think theres something extremely raw about that sentiment and trans community in general. you can kill only our bodies, but you cant kill transsexuality

listen i know each actor brings their own spice to a role, but i just can’t take timothee chalamet’s wonka seriously 

where is the madness behind his eyes??? the malice??? the complete disregard for the laws of mankind and decency???

this man makes me fear that i’ll be shoved into a taffy machine at the slightest provocation 

as! he! should!

I’m not gonna let this gem of a tag on this post go unnoticed.

[publishing research thesis] lol is this anything

Alisa Shea, ‘A Feminine Touch’, 2021 Watercolour on paper, 35 x 50cm

What the fuck do you mean watercolour on paper

After shoving Hansel in the oven, the witch turns to Gretel - who is currently fending the witch off with a gingerbread chair - and says:

“I can’t believe you thought a trail of breadcrumbs would save you. I mean, honestly, this is a forest! It’s full of animals. Honestly, the very idea that a dumb shit like you thought you could get the better of me is absurd.”

Gretel hits her in the face with said chair. To be fair to the witch, she takes the chairshot like a champ.

“Ow!”

“Did you know,” says Gretel, “that crows are capable of facial recognition?”

“Eh?” Says the witch, clambering to her feet and pulling a candy cane sledgehammer off the wall. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Not only that,” Gretel continues, “but they can remember both friends and enemies. And they’ll often follow people they remember as friends.”

The two fence with their sugared weapons for a moment, before the witch knocks the chair out of Gretel’s hands.

“Enough with the bird facts! Honestly, this whole attempted escape has been utter clownshoes. Get in the fucking oven!”

She seizes Gretel by the collar. Gretel immediately sandbags, letting her whole body go limp. This eminently practical defense forces the witch to try and deadlift her. Which is hard, as the witch often skips leg day.

“For example,” Gretel says, as the witch struggles and grunts, “if you feed crows a lot of breadcrumbs, they’ll probably start to see you as a friend and follow you in the hope of more food.”

The witch stops. Outside, she hears the thunder of wings.

“They’ll even bring you shiny things they find as presents!” Says Gretel, as a corner of the gingerbread ceiling is suddenly cut away by a large crow with a knife in its mouth.

“Oh shitballs.” Says the witch, as the crows descend. “I hope you know this is a great unkindness.”

“Technically,” Says Gretel, “It’s a murder.”

the novelty of having pets really does never wear off i’ve had my cat for ten years and i still look at him strolling around like can you believe this. a cat. is everyone seeing this. he’s alive he has bones and all. unbelievable

all this “bottom rights” and “top rights” discourse…. u fools….. where is my support for switches!

support.nintendo.com

Project 25. The Heritage Foundation.

It's behind every single anti-lgbt law pushed the last year. They are why Roe v Wade was overturned. They are successful, well funded, and a massive threat.

What you can do is educate yourself and others about it. Get to know your enemy. Protest. Wear pride pins. Put out your flags. Show solidarity. We are ALL under attack by this white supremacist christo-fascist group.

Remember when 2020 had kpop stans organizing on twitter and gen z using tik tok to make Trump meets flop while white vets made themselves frontline walls at BLM protests that were organized to handle shit like kettling thanks to their amazing black organizers? Remember how people actually Showed up to those protests for awhile?

We need that cross-generational Fuck The System energy again. Not just for a summer this time. This needs to go passed the election.

They're playing a long game and so do we.

Get inspired.

Their goals include saving the children and traditional family, and "to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right."

This translates to destroying the EPA, disability rights, and criminalizing being LGBT. Also to overthrow the US government, as stated in their manifesto.

They want to replace our democracy with a theocracy. No Republican in office was elected without their approval.

They're the kind of right that makes being LGBT punishable by death. That makes it a crime just to exist where others can see you. They want librarians who work in libraries that make LGBT books accessible to be registered sex offenders. They want you prosecuted and even specify that no mercy should be shown to people the "left" likes (ex: immigrants, black people, etc)

That's the extreme right who's been manipulating our laws.

And they plan to make things a lot worse within the first 180 days a Republican is elected president.

Source

If you don't have plans coming up.... Start organizing them. We will be okay if we work together.

We will be okay if we work together.

If we have each other, we'll be okay. We have to rely on each other. You have to be reliable. You, person reading this, have to show up. That's how this works.

I have your back if you have mine. Do not leave me to the wolves and I won't leave you.

There's no avoiding it, we have to confront these merciless attacks on trans folks!

Trans people are just the gateway to straight up Christian fascism.

They're going to use trans people to push all their policies because nobody would bother fighting against those laws.

But it will not end with trans people. This foundation is built by and founded on white supremacist ideals.

Remember the last time a white supremacist had power?

It will not end with trans people. Everyone will be affected.

Don't let this become your future

Go to the article in Dame Magazine and download the Mandate for Leadership 920-page PDF. I know what I will be reading this weekend.

Also I don't want it lost on anyone that Reagan is very much our Margaret Thatcher. Nearly every problem that the poor and working class has talked about recently was started with Reagan. He's often where people start when we start to discuss corporatism, the shrinking middle class, reversing progress.

So Reagan often gets the blame.

The fact its actually been these people pulling the strings the entire time should infuriate you to getting this group disbanded.

There's no way this isn't a terroist hate group tbfh. They literally say they want to replace our government with a theocracy and it says so blatantly in their manifesto.

And every Republican is tied to it.

This is a Big fucking deal.

I'm gonna ask you to consider how much the law actually means to you now that you know all this about Republicans and the laws they pass and the shadowy organizations who've been writing them. About the police who, without hesitation, would enforce those laws because theyre morally bankrupt as long as they can have some power for a couple hours. Do you really want all those same people to stay in their positions?

I want you to consider all that because how do you address this on this scale? Start calling for every human right defined by the UN to be codified into US law? Then what? Expect the fascists to go away like the Nazis did? To just let those laws pass? Do you think the cops will just arrest them and none of the judges will be bought either?

Their policies are why we've seen military and police budgets inflated. We know Supreme Court Justices have shamelessly and remorselessly taken gifts, too.

Any protest will have planned and practiced reactions on every level.

When I say this is a Big fucking deal...it is. Please think about this and grasp it's scale and implications.

The USA will get through this or it won't but either way it will never be the same again. WE choose if it's for better or for worse.

The time to figure out how far you'd go for it to not get worse. If nothing else motivated you out of your apathy to something other than vote: this should.

This requires organized action from ALL of us.

A lot more than just voting.

Nationwide protests, strikes, riots, organized and selected candidates of Our Own to put forth- a new party entirely perhaps 👀, and above all else intersectional solidarity.

Not a single demographic in the US will be safe. We need to have each other's backs. No room for ignorance or intolerance anymore.

I need y'all to embody this LOTR meme, okay?

in order to remove the sexual stigma placed on breasts, we must move past the act of shaming people who are brave enough to go topless in public. myself and another transfem friend went topless at our local pride parade not because we were trying to be "sexual" at pride, but to protest the idea that some chests are viewed as inherently sexual and illegal to be viewed publicly, while some are not. it's not a sexual act for someone with breasts to take their shirt off.

i did not have anyone give me rude or sexual comments. i received a lot of approving nods, thumbs up and polite compliments, people were even reminding me that that's the spirit of pride, and hoped that they were brave enough to do the same in the future.

sometimes it's nearly 100 degrees and people with breasts get dangerously overheated. sometimes people with breasts just don't want to wear a shirt. their breasts are not an object for you to get upset about. their breasts are not an object for you to make a moral argument about. their breasts are a part of their body, and they're not scarring or hurting anyone by existing, they are another organ on the human body and someone else's breasts are not up for you to debate about.