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It is interesting that we need a marketing campaign before we decide that something is "ok" for us to buy. This seems particularly evident when products cross previously defined oppositional-gender lines.
On the one hand, I'm cautiously happy that some stereotypically feminine fashions are crossing over right now. It may help demystify femininity, and perhaps reduce the kinds of sexism that arise from keeping males culturally separated from behaviors and gender-expressions that are deemed feminine. The more men pretty themselves up, the less able they will be to deride femininity (and by associated-guilt, females) as frivolous.
On the other hand, this kind of approach to buffing away at sexism is rather simple-minded. Members of one class (in this case men) ought not to have to walk in another class' ballet flats in order to realize that class boundaries help create, recreate, and enforce hierarchy and oppression.
In practice, I suspect that normative gender roles are far more powerful than changing fashions, and that cross-gender fashion trends, once they become mainstream enough, will simply be swallowed up and made not to matter. While I'm not particularly hip to fashion trends, I think I've seen this happen with skinny jeans (which used to be feminine, and now can be written-off as 'just being emo'), faux-hawks and wide, studded belts (which used to be gay male signifiers, but I think are becoming increasingly gender neutral), and most evidently to me, in those wide leather watch-bands that everyone is wearing today: to me they scream 'fetish', and yet they are just a conformist fashion trend, and at least some portion of their wearers have little clue that their choice to wear their watch right- or left- handed brands them as sub or domme.
Coming back to my own current confusion about the meaning(s) of cross-dressing, I really don't want my "scruffy bloke in a dress" gender presentation fantasy (think Kurt Kobain, I guess), to come off as emo/goth pretense. Although the look is really hot (in the sense that I go for it), I think my body type happily might lend itself to really femme-ing it up as well.
- Mood:queer?
But by far and away the best bit was a couple of pages excerpting real love letters from the book Other People's Love Letters. Jacob was 5 when he wrote "PHoebe I love you And I Might marry you". :-) One of the letters *really* took my breath away though, and I'm quoting it here in full because, if you ever wondered how to write me a morning-after love letter, this is how *grin*:
"You asked me to 'give you a little something?' Well here it is: I'm giving you half my heart. I wanted to give it to you today -- even though I'm spacy, a little bit sore in all the good places and still have absolutely no saliva -- because it's what I feel and I know it's 'real.' I also know that tonight will be hard for you, and that there will be harder times to come for both of us. But right now, I just want you to know that last night was totally off-the-charts incredible for me in the most surprising and profound ways. Even as I write this, I can feel my heart (the other half) twinge and my skin tingle (those frissions again) when I think about how strangely, wonderfully comfortable I felt with you... so close, so calm, just lying there in the pre-dawn delirium, softly touching, bodies entangled. I want to use the word intimacy even though I know the professionals will say it can't be so because it's not a 'real' relationship. All I know is that being with you was amazing. You're amazing. Really.Sweet Goddess! I would be falling Soooo incredibly hard in love if I found that note on my pillow after a night like the one it describes! I mean it's not Shakespearean sonnetry, but the way it mixes quiet, hopeful, realism with delicious delirium is exactly what defines romance to me. Anyone with a personality to match that note can have a quarter of my heart right here and now (with the other quarter waiting tremblingly for that night of passion to come).
Oh, and as for the other half of my heart, I'm going to hang on to it and try to keep it in a safe place for a while. Maybe you'll let me know, someday, if you want it. And maybe, someday, I'll give it to you."
[Picture of a half heart attached to the bottom of the note]
- Mood:
dirty
Just had the misfortune to endure about 10 mins of the pabalum that is the Dr Phil show. I was almost begging for a commercial break to interrupt the content-free advertisements-in-disguise that Dr. Phil and his wife were trying to pass-off as a talk show. Why would I subject myself to such mind rot you ask?
Well theme of the show had something to do with "Makeovers for any age". Mostly this consisted of them pushing products (iPods, yoga mats, sunglasses, face creams). The reason I managed to keep myself watching this is that the image consultant who shared the stage with Dr. Phil and his wife was a trans person. Of if sie wasn't, sie certainly seemed to be of ambiguous gender to me. Just like that, with no particular to-do about it, an obviously genderqueer person was there on a talk show whose topic was not about being queer. It's the same kind of moment as seeing Denzel or Lawrence Fishburne in roles that aren't specifically written as black characters. Or seeing an Arabic Muslim woman interviewed in the mass media for her expertise on, say, computer engineering, rather than on her experience as an Arabic Muslim woman.
Trans is in some ways the final frontier that straight and queer cultures alike are still uneasy about exploring. Dr Phil's show is *all about* image marketing, and they could have chosen anyone for their "makeover consultant", and rather than choosing a woman or a "safely" gay guy perhaps, they chose someone trans or genderqueer. Sometimes you can find jewels of rebellion and resistance even in the most diarrhetic of mass-media content, and that's a beautiful thing indeed.
True, the genderqueer person was a fashion critic, not, say, a schoolteacher. Many people in mainstream society seem willing to accept a far larger diversity of gender roles when it comes to specific creative niches that don't threaten the image of occupations that are meaningful to their self-image. A queer makeup artist, dancer, or hairdresser seems far less threatening to mainstream society, I think, than a queer soldier, teacher, or rabbi. So, yes, the Dr. Phil people chose one of the least threatening ways to introduce a genderqueer person, but nonetheless I love that they did it.
It's a very Obama-esque subversion of the mainstream, wherein the mainstream may not even be aware that they are being revolutionized gently from within. 3 cheers for the implicit message Dr. Phil chose to broadcast (amidst a raucous chorus of boos for how utterly shite the show's explicitly scripted content is).
Well theme of the show had something to do with "Makeovers for any age". Mostly this consisted of them pushing products (iPods, yoga mats, sunglasses, face creams). The reason I managed to keep myself watching this is that the image consultant who shared the stage with Dr. Phil and his wife was a trans person. Of if sie wasn't, sie certainly seemed to be of ambiguous gender to me. Just like that, with no particular to-do about it, an obviously genderqueer person was there on a talk show whose topic was not about being queer. It's the same kind of moment as seeing Denzel or Lawrence Fishburne in roles that aren't specifically written as black characters. Or seeing an Arabic Muslim woman interviewed in the mass media for her expertise on, say, computer engineering, rather than on her experience as an Arabic Muslim woman.
Trans is in some ways the final frontier that straight and queer cultures alike are still uneasy about exploring. Dr Phil's show is *all about* image marketing, and they could have chosen anyone for their "makeover consultant", and rather than choosing a woman or a "safely" gay guy perhaps, they chose someone trans or genderqueer. Sometimes you can find jewels of rebellion and resistance even in the most diarrhetic of mass-media content, and that's a beautiful thing indeed.
True, the genderqueer person was a fashion critic, not, say, a schoolteacher. Many people in mainstream society seem willing to accept a far larger diversity of gender roles when it comes to specific creative niches that don't threaten the image of occupations that are meaningful to their self-image. A queer makeup artist, dancer, or hairdresser seems far less threatening to mainstream society, I think, than a queer soldier, teacher, or rabbi. So, yes, the Dr. Phil people chose one of the least threatening ways to introduce a genderqueer person, but nonetheless I love that they did it.
It's a very Obama-esque subversion of the mainstream, wherein the mainstream may not even be aware that they are being revolutionized gently from within. 3 cheers for the implicit message Dr. Phil chose to broadcast (amidst a raucous chorus of boos for how utterly shite the show's explicitly scripted content is).
Update: So the fashion consultant in question is apparently Steven Cojocaru, who is some kind of celebrity, and I'm not sure what his gender identity is. Wikipedia lists him among a list of GLBT celebrities, and refers to him as a "he", but gives no more information than that. Google reffered me to this blog posting by hank stuever, which refers to Cojocaru as "post gay".
- Mood:gay :-)
[LJ2ME] before getting discouraged, consider...
before casting your lot with those ready to usher in the apocalypse, consider how easy it is to effect meaningful change; among all these stories the bbc reported one other this morning: that 12 and 14 year old girls in natal province are walking long distances to fetch water, and consequently are unable to walk the long distances needed to get to school. that's a problem we (meaning Homo sapiens, not Americans) can solve using fiscal, political, social, and technological resources available in south africa. all it needs is a little nudge from the developed world.
bono is right, people (even according to Jesse Helms). so go to it: click your mouse a few times and buy the latest (product)red™ thing, or quit your job to go forth and be the change.... Maybe just blog an uncapitalized but inspi(red)™ post from your cellphone and spam all your friends with it.
just don't throw your hands up in the air and wail that times are dark and getting darker still. they aren't; we're just far more interconnected, and informed, despite ourselves. 21st century growing pains aside, that's a good thing, folks! To use uniquely 21st century jargon: ubuntu is umami.
Photo: Time Magazine.
[LJ2ME] A small downside to poly
grumpygirl tries to smile Brought to you by www.grumpy-girl.com
^^girl's in need of emergency ice-skating therapy even worse than I am!
Something now??
Through life no fun
I want to feel
I want to run
I'm gonna keep catching that butterfly
In that dream of mine ~ "catching the butterfly", the verve
- Music:urban hymns ~ the verve
The new Nine Inch Nails album has been available for streaming off their website for a few weeks now, and it's out in stores now.
( The surprising, and insidious, thing is how groovalicious it is. )
( Anyway, there are definitely a few keepers on the album. )
They plan on eventually releasing all the tracks in Garageband format (see 3/13/07 entry), so that fans can remix and play with the songs. Open-source pop music!
( Some quotes plucked from the ether that characterize Trent's latest effort: )
A final note of advice: don't listen to the album too much. It's best when you hear it with somewhat fresh ears.
( The surprising, and insidious, thing is how groovalicious it is. )
( Anyway, there are definitely a few keepers on the album. )
They plan on eventually releasing all the tracks in Garageband format (see 3/13/07 entry), so that fans can remix and play with the songs. Open-source pop music!
( Some quotes plucked from the ether that characterize Trent's latest effort: )
Don't give a shit about the temperature in Guatemala
Don't really see what all the fuss is about
Ain't gonna worry bout no future generations and a
I'm sure somebody's gonna figure it out
Don't try to tell how some power can corrupt a person
You haven't had enough to know what it's like
You're only angry 'cause you wish you were in my position
Now nod your head because you know that I'm right—all right!
... ...
There's a lot of me inside you
Maybe you're afraid to see~ NIN, "Capital G"
A final note of advice: don't listen to the album too much. It's best when you hear it with somewhat fresh ears.
Businesess in NYC can, with impunity, use Buddha heads in bars, spas or other completely non-religious contexts, and New Yorkers seem to be savvy enough to realize that these decorative elements don't somehow invalidate Buddhism. Some Buddhists, my Mom among them, probably would be a little skeeved by the practice, and she'd certainly have a problem with a chocolate naked Buddha. Probably such a statue would have been taken down just like the "my sweet lord" was.
What exactly is the problem though? A chocolate Buddha would be quite in keeping with the Buddhist tenant of impermanance: when Buddhists offer flowers at Buddha statues, they are making the point that all things, like the pretty petals, are subject to decay. Nakedness just emphasizes the corporeality of the human form. A chocolate naked Buddha would be a fitting embodiment of Buddhist ideas.
"My sweet lord," probably doesn't have any such theological justification in Christianity, and yet why would anyone object to its being displayed? It's not "Piss Christ", (which itself I'd argue was a rather intriguing image, and not the same as, say, putting a Jesus figurine in a urinal). Chocolate is made from Cocoa, whose scientific genus name "Theobroma" means "God's Gift". Nakedness is, well, the original sinless state in Eden. God's own form, if one takes literally that God created Humans in hir own image.
Sigh. People jump so quickly to see theological insult where none might be. God, assuming sie created anything, created shit and shit-beetles people. It's only the puny minds of Homo sapiens that think that chocolate or nakedness could insult Jesus, or those who follow his teachings.
OK, I'm not as naive as all that. This is about power. The Christian community tests and demonstrates their cultural power by getting the exhibit closed. Perhaps it's fortunate that the non-christian community doesn't care enough to flex their power. Perhaps it's unfortunate that we let a good idea get sentenced to death and buried in the name of religion.
That's just fscking idiotic. I thought google were supposed to come up with smart ideas?? Most people create their gmail accounts well before signing up for google-checkout, and most people won't use a good, secure passphrase for their gmail account because it's too much of a pain to enter 8 times a day on different machines. At the same time, people trust google as a company, and may feel that google-checkout protects them, and therefore aren't going to change their gmail password after signing up for checkout. Scary.
I'm not saying it's easy to abuse, but people store their gmail password in various places: computers, cellphones, third-party applets using untested JVMs, third-party calendaring programs, and is everything properly encrypted? Furthermore, the damn thing is used for email, calendaring, newsgroups, and who knows what else. All these things need about the same level of security, enough to protect privacy and the integrity of one's online identity. To inject financial functions into the same level of trust is a Very. Bad. Idea.
As an alternate way to keep financial information firewalled from online merchants, I like citibank's (and probably other banks') service of giving virtual, one-time use credit-card numbers for online purchases.
( My real criticism is that the political content seems too shallow for my taste. Sometimes TR overcomes this by leaving the speakers of a song unnamed... But beyond punning on who the speaker of a song's ideology is, the ideologies themselves seem rather flat and shallow... To put it differently, Trent could be a truly great songwriter, as opposed to 'just' a great songcrafter, if he studied the irony of a Dylan or Ani DiFranco a bit. )
A second criticism is more of the reception that the album is getting from some fans. This noise stuff isn't new or groundbreaking. As usual, Trent is simply taking the more experimental work of others, and putting it to use in a way that will be palatable to a broad audience -- albeit one of open-minded people.
Third (since YZ seems to go in a hip-hop direction but pull back): when's Trent going to do, or at least produce, a proper hip-hop album (yeah, Saul Williams, I know...)? I wish he'd schmooze with the Def-Jam folks a bit, and get involved there. He's not going to revolutionize alterna/industrial/rock; but he *could* bring a real refreshing breath of fresh ideas to mainstream hip-hop.
NIN promises a new full-length release in April. The marketing for this one is just plain fun. First, they've set up a bunch of websites purportedly created in the 2022 world that the album describes. The sites are ( the usual suspects for a dystopian future world )
Parallel to this Alternate Reality Game (ARG), USB drives are being left in bathroom stalls at NIN concerts. The drives contain
CD quality
mp3s of tracks from the forthcoming NIN album (thusfar three have been leaked), along with other files that contain clues to the ARG. There are more clues in tour T-shirts, and numbers to call with recordings on them. The latest (and most disturbing) is 216-333-1810 (in conjunction with the leak of the song "Me, I'm not" and the uswiretap.com site). WARNING The recording at that phone number is a simulated cellphone call from a girl in a nightclub where people get locked-in and massacred. Not pleasant to listen to (for me, much worse than the torture stuff in the Broken movie, which was clearly simulated), and you can find transcripts online if your interested in the ARG, but not getting the heebie-jeebies.Oh yeah, the Songs... You can find the dload sites at echoingthesound.org and other places. As these are unofficial "official" leaks from NIN, they're not pirated. Go get them and listen.
"Survivalism"
was the 1st leak (and indeed is officially released to radio stations). It's OK."My violent heart
" was next. People have called-it Public Enemy-ish, which is kindof like saying Stravinsky is Mozart-ish because they use the same instrumentation. I'm not sure what to classify it as. It's fun as hell to dance to with it's crazy beat."Me, I'm not"
Anyway, Year_Zero, is a damn geeky and fun concept for an album release.
You can listen to two tracks: "survivalism" and "my violent heart", from the forthcoming Album _Year Zero_ on nin's myspace player. Release date is april 17th 2007. That's what, about four years early for a Trent Reznor production?
on [12_13_2006], Trent said:
on [12_13_2006], Trent said:
Is it possible I am actually finished writing and recording a new nine inch nails record? Apparently so. We begin mixing in January!
Juggling fifteen all-new tracks around. Testing sequences. No leftovers from "with teeth". Highly conceptual. Quite noisy. Fucking cool.
- Music:my violent heart -- nin
The ensuing discussion at youTube is quite interesting.
Knowing that several people were killed in Iraq during the course of that blog-discussion is even more interesting.
There's an LA times article floating around somewhere about the incident. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/l
"Get up, Stand up" Isn't that a line, ironically, from a Bob Marley song?
And before screaming police brutality, take a gander at this next video. Admittedly not the same kind of weapon and the shocks are very brief. But people do take this kind of pain for fun. Lack of consent makes all the difference. You can run both vids simultaneously for a VERY interesting effect.
And there's always the remix version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmRoNM_d
The same station (a very good one) interviews Ann Powers, an LA Times reporter saying that Tool are "mainstream metal". What? After pimping Dylan, she hypes a band called Mastodon, who definitely sound metal, so what's up with misclassifying Tool? Perhaps I just haven't heard them enough (I probably know APC better in fact), but I'd call them "rock" or "alt-rock" if I had to, but metal? Hrmm. I don't like Powers' picks much anyway.
Yeah. God save the fucking
Ironically -- since I'm ambivalent about the meaning of having "Latin Grammys" -- Cristina Gonzalez' "Year in Latin Music" picks from the same show are *really good*. Lenina, Calle 13 ("the Dela Soul of Regaeton"), Los Tres (Indy-rocky) can all be enjoyed without a knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese.
Apparently Lance hadn't trained enough.
Why have I, and much of the press, along with many spectators focused on cheering for Lance? I don't know. He's only one of some 38,000 runners who started. He's certainly among the faster ones, finishing in the 800s, but nothing compared to the pro-elites with whom he was given special permission to start. Livestrong gives him philanthropic street cred, but he's certainly not the only person who ran for charity, nor the only cancer survivor who ran.
I think we cheered for him because the marathon makes him seem simultaneously human and super-human. As a cyclist, his dominance of an event which is regarded as the most physiologically challenging known, put him in the stratosphere of human physical acheivement. It also made him a celebrity, a status which he leveraged to gain even more publicity for his Livestrong foundation.
Cheering for Lance on a bike was an act of living vicariously. By associating ourselves with a paragon of a very specific and limited kind, we made ourselves feel better about our own daily challenges (or perhaps escaped from them for a few moments). Cheering for Lance in his running shoes gave the same thrill, but it was given more weight by the seeming fact that he actually *needed* the help of his fans.
As a single guy living with two male appartment mates, I feel left out. :p
Edit: meh. When I list the commercials I actually see on TV, things seem to balance-out a lot more. In terms of heavy lifting though, it's only the Country Crock commercial and the Easy-Off BAM commercial that show or imply a man doing real work.
( a list of offenders, and non-offenders )
Age of Consent?
As much as the US pretends to have zero-tolerance for child sexual abuse, we are awfully confused about the issue. I have no idea what state ages of consent for sex are, but until recently (and for all I know, even now) they are not uniform. "Legal" is not necessarily 18, *as far as state law goes*. When it comes to homosexual acts, consent may not be allowed at the same ages as for heterosexual ones. In some states of course, homosexual sex is still technically illegal. AFAIK, the military code bans sex with those under the age of 16 (which makes sense since many soldiers are just out of high-school). Don't know if this applies whithin the US or only outside of it.I notice that news reports today (BBC and WNYC) are careful to use the word "teenager" in response to the Foley issue, while reports on saturday said "children". A journalist erroneously used the word "pedophillia" on WNYC.
Statutory Rape
I'm not sure what exactly Foley did or said, but if it was limited to asking a 16 year old if his messages "makes you horny", or asking for a picture, lets please *not* call that pedophillia OK? The behavior may well have been illegal under federal laws that Foley himself sponsored. But that doesn't mean that they were blatently evil acts that should be implicitly compared to child abuse.Corrupting a minor
Sexual messages between adults and minors are regulated on the internet. However, nothing prevents adults from hyping up, glorifying, and encouraging teenage sex via the popular media. As usual, we Americans are horribly confused about sex. Influential adults are screaming "BUY! SEX! BUY!" to kids, and yet interactions between adults and sub-eighteen year olds are supposed to be strictly platonic.Sexual Harrasment
Foley was a congressman. He should *not* have been sexually fraternizing with underlings, be they underage or not. As they were indeed underage, he ought to have been that much more sensitive to the issue.Hypocrisy
Democrats are going to fall over themselves to condemn Foley's hypocrisy for having sponsored internet child-protection laws, and for having been critical of President Clinton's "sexual addiction". They are going to cry foul about the Republican leadership, including Speaker Hastert, for having permitted and covered-up Foley's behavior. Fine. But I hope they don't get holier-than-thou and adopt the Republican's moral agenda, in this one expeditious case, and call for fire-and-brimstone against Foley and Hastert for acts of perverted homosexual pedophilia. Verbal irony intended.No, he's not attempting a comeback, but rather will be doing a few exhibition rounds to make a bit of money. "I think I'm useless to society. I don't think I'm worthy of the people who come out to see me, but they do," he said, apparently joking.
When all's said and done, at least he got out of the game before he suffered permanently debilitating bodily injury.
He ought to join up with Billy Banks and try to get in on the Tae-Bo franchise. Or perhaps he's better off staying out of "the business", whether it's the fight business or the entertainment business, and just being a regular old piece of human meat.
