I hope that one of these days I will have ideas for writing topics. Maybe it’s rose-colored hindsight, but my recollection of other stretches where I was blogging is that I had so many more subjects than I had the bandwidth to address.
And now here I am with my shiny “write every day in 2019” pledge, and the topic well has run dry. Oy vey.
So, I guess it’s back to the “hat box” I go.
I remember when I was a kid….
I’ve been wrestling with the notion of weighing in on what I am sarcastically calling the “Covington Catholic clusterfuck,” but I really don’t have any hot take on it that isn’t actively plagiarizing other people’s intellectual labor and insights. Here’s a few links and random thoughts:
And that’s all I care to say about that tonight.
So, in lieu of socio-cultural commentary, what focus am I going to use for an MLK Day post?
Books, of course.
A friend of mine and fellow blogger* has, upon occasion referred to herself as an “unfunny feminist“–riffing on and mocking the dismissive “Can’t you take a joke?” bullshit that so often erupts when we dare to read some bit of cultural quote-unquote fun through an anti-kyriarchal lens, only to observe (quelle surprise!) that said fun isn’t really fun or funny, and instead just reinscribes some horrific piece of the miasma of misogyny in which we all soak daily.
Now, I’m not gonna steal my friend’s slogan from her, but I gotta say that I am definitely feeling the “unfunny feminist” vibe today. (Maybe I’ll call my own expression of this kind of sentiment the “Humourless Hag” chronicles.)
Continue reading “I Never Thought I’d Live Past 20 (Well, 30)”
As a card-carrying “geek girl,” it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that I’ve been watching Game of Thrones since it debuted on HBO back in 2011. Besides, I made this fact clear last summer when I reminisced about using the show as a touchpoint of connection between Mr. Mezzo and myself back during the late spring & early summer of 2013 when we were living apart as part of the Great Northern Relocation.*
(For the spoiler-averse, I’m going to be talking more about last night’s GoT episode, as well as plot points from previous episodes. So if you’re not caught up and don’t want to have plot surprises reveled to you, stop now rather than clicking through to after the jump. For the rest of you, who are up-to-speed or who don’t give many fucks about the series, come on in!)
It case it hasn’t been made eminently clear by now, I am and have always been a “geek girl.”
[SIDEBAR] I’m using the irony-quotes because I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the dimunutive-ing effect of describing my 45-year-old self and interests as those of a “girl.” But “geek girl” is the general nomenclature, so there you go. [/SIDEBAR]
Being a female fan of things geeky has always been a source of cognitive dissonance for me, and I really don’t think I’m alone in this. After all, whatever aspirational role models I could find in that world always had at least a teaspoon of misogyny soup in the mix. Black Canary may kick ass, but she’s only allowed to do so in fishnets and a ridiculous leather bustier.* Princess Leia is strong enough to wield a blaster pistol and withstand torture in Star Wars, but by Return of the Jedi, there is she is stuck in the nouveau sci-fi version of the chainmail bikini.
For every mark in the “W” column, there’s another loss. For every Buffy, there’s a Bella.
Mr. Mezzo has been spending the last week making preparations for his imminent descent in NaNoWriMo. For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, NaNoWriMo is a (mostly) virtual event in which a bunch of writers band together and pledge to write a 50,000 word novel during the course of November. (Hence the name: NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth.* This will be the second time he’s done it, and I’m wondering if I should maybe do something of my own in solidarity.
Now, I’m not crazy enough to do NaNoWriMo. For starters, there’s the fact that I live in a Newtonian universe where time and energy are finite resources. I still have those two classes I’m finishing up, plus choir, plus the fact that I’m just now beginning to pull myself out of the black hole I recently fell into. More importantly than those practicalities is the fact that I don’t currently have a strong idea for a book. I know I’ll write one someday — but this day is not that day. (Or “this month is not that month.” Something like that.)
But NaBloPoMo? That’s a entirely different kettle of tea.
Well, I’ve been half-avoiding the topic, but there’s no denying that it’s Hallowe’en tomorrow. Mr. Mezzo and I didn’t get any trick-or-treaters last year, but we still have some candy on hand. We’ll turn on the front porch light and will set out a few seasonal decorations tomorrow evening, just in case anyone comes through the neighborhood looking for treats.
But I won’t be taking the time to get dressed up in costume.
Jezebel tells me that the Wall Street Journal recently ran an article asking “Are High Heels Dead?” The full WSJ article is behind their subscriber paywall, so I can’t tell you anything more about it than appears in Jezebel’s summary.
Look down at your feet. If you’re wearing Crocs or clogs right now, then you win and you’re right on trend. There’s a “low shoe revolution” afoot and it’s all about comfort. According to this Wall Street Journal article, “Are High Heels Dead?” ladies are proudly taking to the streets in their best-worst “unfashionable footwear.”
I honestly can’t tell if the Jezebel staffer is happy, unhappy, or indifferent about this supposed turn of events — she identifies herself as someone interested in comfort, but also comments “there’s no real reason to trash all our favorite pumps.”
What I will say is that I am more skeptical than anything else.
Way back when — I mean, way back when I was right out of college and still in the musicology Ph.D. program I attended, before jumping ship to literature & culture, which was before jumping ship en toto — a few of my school friends and I took a road trip up from Philly to see a performance at the Met.
Enough years have passed that I can’t tell you which opera. It was definitely something 20th century and modern/post-modern, knowing the operatic tastes of the group members (myself most emphatically included in the tally of that preference). Strangely enough is how one of the clearest memories I have from that trip (aside from impressing the gang with my ability to surgically insert my Honda into the flow Lincoln Tunnel traffic) was something that happened at dinner before the show.
There’s no one specific topic that I’m burning to write about tonight, so I’m re-instating something I did a couple times back during the HCG journey: stringing a series of random thoughts/vignettes together in a bricolage sort of post.
It’s a way to get some of the hamsters out of my brain, and at least ensures that I will get a post up here on JALC after skipping last night. (The pace of Wednesday night choir rehearsals finally caught up with me.)
Below the jump: more pumpkin spice, the endurance part of “endurance performance art,” and the futility of boob-plate armor.
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It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Mother-Fuckers
My Facebook and WordPress feeds have shown me all the ways that the annual pumpkin spice festival is in the zeitgeist, as it were. Perhaps funniest was this essay from McSweeney’s (originally printed in 2010) in the form of a letter expressing the sense of loss and betrayal at pumpkin spice’s previous cycles of betrayal and abandonment. It plays a little bit too strongly into old cliches around “You left me! I hate you! Please take me back!” — at least for my comfort level. Nonetheless, the level of passion and the artfulness of the conceit (including notes of a rebound fling with peppermint in December): all this passion and spleen for pumpkin spice, ye gods, just makes me giggle.
There’s another McSweeney’s essay from 2009 — whose title I have shamelessly cribbed here — but I found the tone to be too mean-spirited for me to enjoy. Nonetheless, the title is worth enjoying for its own brilliance, and can even be purchased in mug form for your next autumnal cuppa cuppa.
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Carry that Weight a Long Time
This article from art-blog HyperAllergic includes pieces of an interview with Emma Sulkowicz, a bit more than two weeks into her performance of Carry that Weight/Mattress Performance. The article contains one factoid that I very much appreciate:
“I’ve only had to do one walk entirely by myself, and that was because there were reporters swarming me and no one was willing to break through the flock.”
It comes back to something my friend Alice said in her comment on my main post about this piece (and the Carry the Weight Together solidarity movement that has been organized in response to Sulkowicz’s piece):
I suspect the most powerful impact will emerge, as it usually does, not in administrative reaction to large rallies but in conversations and allyships forged by small groups of people, finding each other over shared space of common cause.
Now, Gaia forgive my naive heart, I do still fervently believe that policies and legal precedents matter tremendously. (Did you see me back when the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision came down? Here’s a recap: initial outrage, growing anger, full-blown rage, never again, and a ray of solidarity. So suffice to say: I’m emotionally invested in big-policy.) But I also kinda think that the only way big policy change ever really sticks is when there’s a groundswell within the population that things must change and evolve — and that kind of groundswell is absolutely rooted in those small conversations and perspective-shifts. In that kind of yes/and space (or “having my cake and eating it too?”), I am pleased to see how Sulkowicz is receiving support from both formal and informal networks.*
But the other part that hit me more with this article than with earlier coverage is the endurance part of this “endurance performance art piece.” The article name checks some other practitioners of this genre — which I’ll admit I haven’t looked up yet — and has made me more aware of the particular kind of energy and discipline that is needed to sustain this piece.
Yeah, in all of the coverage from day one, the possibility has been voiced that Sulkowicz’s rapist may remain on campus without problem and that she would then be carrying this mattress until her graduation day. But something in reading this new article really settled into my body the sense of how likely that possibility is, considering Columbia’s less-than-stellar record on these issues. Sulkowicz could very well be carrying this physical weight, this talisman of trauma, until next June.
Talk about the kind of courage that’s demonstrated moment by moment and step by step.
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Death-Trap Boob-Armor
As a more whimsical follow-up to my snark about the plate-mail bikinis worn by so many of the Disneyfied princess-warriors I featured about a month ago, here’s an article from Tor that uses science (Science!) to show what a bad idea boob-shaped armor would be:
Let’s begin by stating the simple purpose of plate armor—to deflect blows from weaponry. Assuming that you are avoiding the blow of a sword, your armor should be designed so that the blade glances off your body, away from your chest. If your armor is breast-shaped, you are in fact increasing the likelihood that a blade blow will slide inward, toward the center of your chest, the very place you are trying to keep safe.
But that’s not all! Let’s say you even fall onto your boob-conscious armor. The divet separating each breast will dig into your chest, doing you injury. It might even break your breastbone. With a strong enough blow to the chest, it could fracture your sternum entirely, destroying your heart and lungs, instantly killing you. It is literally a death trap—you are wearing armor that acts as a perpetual spear directed at some of your most vulnerable body parts. It’s just not smart.
Consider this a sliding-towards-Hallowe’en public service announcement: boob-shaped-armor will get you killed.
* Though not the TV networks. C’mon oppressive reporter-flock — could at least one member among you have been awake enough to let the helper-bees through? Or were you actively cordoning Sulkowicz off in order to get a better shot?
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Image credit: http://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/its-decorative-gourd-season-motherfucker-mug
Self-Love: It's Just Another Lifestyle Change 