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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

Full-throated defense of trans people is a good thing.

Katelyn Boo-urns @katelynburns.com · 1d

I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning:

www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

Definitely having an "oh noooo!" feeling after hearing about Diane Keaton, followed by thoughts of Woody Allen, followed by thoughts about how hard she defended that man

Reposted by annec

Leonid Baezhnev @rev-avocado.bsky.social · 1d

This is good, actually. This is the kind of thing we need to build a pro-court expansion majority.

Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 1d

More judges speak to the press (the NYT) about what a disaster the Supreme Court (specifically the shadow docket) has been - “incredibly demoralizing & troubling”; a “judicial crisis”; a “slap in the face to district courts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

Um, they want to activate the parents of special ed kids and put them at the center of resistance? Really?

annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

I don't think her reading of Hamlet - as a cultural force - is wrong here. Her strength is not a close reading of the play, but of catching and reflecting influences in the culture.

annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

So when she's talking about being saved from the fate of Ophelia, I think she means that she can be herself as an artist and a person.

This makes the reception to the album a bit bonkers! Or a trifle sad.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

However, I think the theme of The Tortured Poets Department is that this attempt nearly killed her. Especially in trying to live the aesthetic in her actual life.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

You can look at the general arc of her career as an attempt to show that she can write a song as cool as any male indie artist that boyfriend character listened to. In Folklore/Evermore, she proved that in spades.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

The line from "All Too Well" comes to mind, about the boyfriend character in it liking songs that are much cooler than hers.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

To my mind, this seems of a piece with the arc I was talking about in comparing her to Paul McCartney. Swift has had a love/hate relationship with modern male sensibility - especially its "cooler" aspects - her whole career.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

Another way of looking at that - and seeing it through a Hamlet/Ophelia frame - is that Hamlet is the ultimate in modern sensibility for the male protagonist. He is the character that launched a thousand streams of consciousness. And Ophelia is... something else. A minor, reactive figure.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

I'm assuming the theme of the album as a whole is the one expressed in Track 5, "Eldest Daughter" (which itself circles back to the Ophelia reference in the first song). As I read it, Eldest Daughter is about a renunciation of trying to be cool, and just being yourself, as you are.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

For myself, I would imagine Swift is at least vaguely aware of both readings, but is reaching for something a little different, perhaps the problems related to having a girl be the protagonist - since that's what most of her other songs are about.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

Your typical English major/music critic seems to be pointing out that Ophelia's problem in the play is one of agency. She is a daughter, a sister, Hamlet's romantic plaything, but not a person in her own right. Suicide is the tragic way she takes control of her own life.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

It seems to me the typical "pop" reading of Ophelia is related to the book Reviving Ophelia, which is about teenage girls becoming hyper self-conscious and losing their strong girlhood personas as they become too aware of the male gaze, &c.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

I've seen complaints that she admitted to not rereading the play recently and that her interpretation is therefore shallow. And yeah, it could be kind of shallow - she is not in fact an English teacher, she's a pop star. But I'm thinking about how the character interacts with her general mythos.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 1d

Since the album came out, I've been wondering what the character of Ophelia means to Taylor Swift, and whether it's just a misguided gloss - as your average English major/music critic on the internet seems to think.

annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 4d

My current theory of Taylor Swift is that there is a reason Paul McCartney sees himself in her & champions her work. But this includes both the heights & the cringier aspects of his songwriting. Now there's even the fact that love & happiness may have dulled the purity of the artistic vision.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 3d

Why is the president having an "annual physical" six months after having the last one, @jaketapper.bsky.social?

Reposted by annec

Irish Literary Times @irishlittimes.bsky.social · 4d

Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is gravely concerned about the detention of writer Naoise Dolan...The flotilla was illegally intercepted last night and seized by armed Israeli forces in international waters.
irishpen.com/2025/10/08/t...

Thousand Madleens flotilla Statement - Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann

8 October 2025 Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is gravely concerned about the detention of writer Naoise Dolan, one of several Irish citizens taking part in the Thousand Madleens f...

irishpen.com

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 4d

But being an artist in the mold of Paul McCartney is not so shabby, all round. And people who don't think she ever reached that level should probably reckon with Paul's view of the matter. Or at least think about her in that vein - or as an echo of the undisputed master.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 4d

And though she has some sprinkling of whatever that transcendent quality Lennon had, she is not John Lennon, she has much more of Paul McCartney's musical profile.

Plus I would say - having processed this through a Beatles lens - she somehow gets the Yoko backlash too.

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 4d

And I think you could see the Folklore/Evermore era, and to some extent Midnights, as reaching for a sharper Lennonlike edge? Where she is trying to appeal to her harshest critics and also the sensibility of someone like Matty Healy (or whatever he represented to her).

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 4d

My current theory of Taylor Swift is that there is a reason Paul McCartney sees himself in her & champions her work. But this includes both the heights & the cringier aspects of his songwriting. Now there's even the fact that love & happiness may have dulled the purity of the artistic vision.

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Reposted by annec

Schnorkles O'Bork @schnorkles.bsky.social · 4d

Funny how the media turns on the GOP riiiigghhhtt about the time they detonate safe flights.

Suzanne Kelleher @srkelleher.bsky.social · 5d

“The air traffic system, in general, is stressed to the max,” a veteran air traffic controller working at a major East Coast airport told Forbes on Tuesday, adding “sick outs will continue to happen because the [controllers] aren’t fit for duty.”

www.forbes.com/sites/suzann...

Overstressed, Unpaid Air Traffic Controllers ‘Aren’t Fit For Duty,’ Says Agency Veteran

Cracks in the air travel system are widening, as air traffic controllers bear the strain of an understaffed system and no pay until the government shutdown ends.

www.forbes.com

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annec @queencityac.bsky.social · 4d

It's funny that even Schumer got some sort of message about better comms