Cool, something to check back on

Sociological Images blog, and also, what a cool picture, I have fond memories of being surrounded by flat screens in a computer lab...

O

1) Occidental College Press Conference 2) OSAC 3) Comment under How Not to Handle... about episode of yucky stupid TV show I watched when I was younger 90210 Posted by @FeministPrncess (not verified) on March 12, 2013 - 5:29pm Interestingly enough, Beverly Hills 90210 used Occidental College as their fictional "California University" for the college years of the show. In season 4, there is a particularly disturbing Take Back the Night episode set at Occidental, where Steve "accidentally" rapes someone, ignorant that her silence was not a 'yes'. He is portrayed as entirely innocent, and the victim as being confused about her own consent, and ultimately deserving of her fate for being too ambiguous. She ends up apologizing to Steve in front of the entire TBTN rally, saying in her speech "I didn't say yes, but I didn't say no either." Rape apologists: 1 Consent enthusiasts: 0 Thanks, Hollywood.

Theme

From The Most Playful Libraries...

From Famous & Fabulous Library Cats

From 20 Amazing Outdoor Libraries

From 25 Vintage Photos of Librarians

The thematically-disorganized brain

For parts that are hardwired to comprehend tragedy:

Anger Rises (Bangledesh factory collapse)
277 Million...
Your Naeem Here

~~~~

For parts that see the ridiculous, the gross yet funny:
Ex-Boyfriend by Lil Dicky "the voice of the voiceless."

~~~~~

Decades-old memory: 
Boss - Okay, whose drawer should I count down first?
Young male co-worker -  Me! me!
Boss (to me) -  Chivalry's not dead!

~~~~~

In the colder months, a little girl sips a hot drink containing objects that look like medieval weapons. Then the moment fades, and she's just staring into a cup of apple cider with cloves and allspice.

A thing to do sometimes

For some strange reason, this is a thing to do sometimes:

lie down on a bed beneath a comforter and peek out from underneath to watch light and shadows moving on beige walls. Listen to Inside (song). Think a little bit about Daisy Dead Petals (song and imagery on the cover). Also, think about cloth and fabric.

telegenic

Last night I showed b.f. a clip of "Switchblade Sisters" and he said "that looks like Kill Bill inspiration" and this morning he told me about the Mormon bishop samurai sword guy and I thought about how my friend who teaches swordfighting once said he had a friend in LA who fended off a home intruder with a sword (but that didn't get in the news) and then I briefly looked at Leap, which is about The Garden of Earthly Delights and Mormonism and other things, and something the author wrote about paella kind of caught my attention, and that reminds me of the first episode of 3's Company where the girls fawn over Jack's ability to cook eggs...

Oh REALLY

The entity that was responsible for my absolute favorite cup (the Quik bunny, with bunny ears for handles on either side) is doing this now?

Foot Fetish?

So I read How China's 'Leftover Women' Are To Blame, and thought, well, if you work in a factory that makes shoes, are you more likely to be "marriage material?" Then I looked for a picture of Cinderella's glass slipper and found this: Pictures of the day: 18 May 2009

Once in a while, I think...

The actress in this "Say Goodnight Raquel" clip reminds me of one of my old friends, and I really should call her...

ahem

"According to a study published in Psychological Science, 'women who were primed to evaluate themselves based on their appearance and sexual desirability had a decreased motivation to challenge gender-based inequalities and injustices.'"

*****

"...girlish bodies have much more social capital."

--Sexy Girls

Something for EARTH DAY!!!

Less than 5 minutes of slacking off left...

!) ***News Bulletin***
Petaluma, Calif. (AP)
CHILDREN IN THE PETALUMA SCHOOL DISTRICT WERE ASKED TO BRING IN ORANGE JUICE FOR ALL THE GIRLS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 12-14 WHO ARE PREGNANT. PARENTS ARE ALSO ASKED TO HELP OUT.

*****

"I'm a very healthy girl."

~ Teenage Mother (1967) trailer

~~~~~

!!) "There is nothing you can do. No matter what, one day your little girl will spread her legs and fly away."

~ from MM, "At the Codfish Ball"
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/emile%20calvet

~~~~~

!!!) "Girls who have early pubertal development are also more likely to be on the receiving end of physical and sexual violence. On the whole, they have lower levels of academic achievement and a higher and earlier level of sexual activity. They are also more likely to have a teenage pregnancy.

Early maturing boys do not have these same behavioural patterns or outcomes."

*****

"To unravel all of this, we need to begin, in earnest, to appreciate the interplay between the chemical burden in our environments (our water, food and air) and our physical and social development. Our evolution may depend on it."

~ Early puberty for girls. The new normal...

Bells...

Marin Marais: Sonnerie de Ste Genevieve du Mont de Paris

Apparently, a version of that one is in this 80s film, which I've never seen:
Liquid Sky

~~~~~

Liquid Sky trailer

Fantastic Planet trailer

When the brain has given up on doing anything productive before xx o'clock.

Momentary interruption

O concentration. Where hast thou fled, leaving thy fracturable psyche to flail about, captivated by some kind of internal wilderness...8th grade? Pacific Northwest? Your closest friend wants to learn dances and become an actress/model? (Bust A Move music video) 2nd/3rd grade? East Coast? Sitting outside, eating a melting orange creamsicle that you don't actually like? Your babysitter chainsmokes, applies eyeliner to your lids, wants to sleep with David Lee Roth, and makes you sing/memorize the lyrics that "white-winged dove" song? (Edge of Seventeen music video) There must be a better version of that one somewhere...

Cat-sitting book

I read some of this book the last time I cat-sat:

 Leap  by T. T. Williams

I had re-checked it out, so I had it in my bag. Instead of reading it, this time I just brushed her and then cat-napped on the couch.

It's partially about The Garden of Earthly Delights. I remember that I had a magazine fold out of The Garden of Earthly Delights pasted on purple construction paper in high school. Another Bosch triptych was pasted on red construction paper. I can't remember the name of it, but I believe it was more hellish looking.

I just noticed how similar "triptych" sounds to "Trip Tik." (In my head.)

Time to resume a better sleeping schedule.

heavily rotated

After a week of heavy burdens and sleep deprivation, took a nap at a stranger's house. While driving home (radio station is talking about what a tragic week it has been), twisted the knob to other channels.
"Bust A Move"
It's like...WAKE UP
That Is A Song.
"Edge of Seventeen"
That Is Another Song.
12 hours earlier: a girl whose mom is my age showed me her Powerpoint insights and a video she made about applying make-up.

C & C thoughts

~~~ Children ~~~

Says this girl today: I couldn't go to the other schools I got into 'cause my mom lost her job. We took classes together. She's really good, smarter than me. Says I: Well, she's a lot older than you are.
Says girl: She's about your age. She had me when she was like seventeen.

~~~ Commitment ~~~

IwillIwillIwillIwillIwillIwillIwillIwillIwill readthese!!!!
Won't forget. Going to reserve them now.
La vida es corta.

Bears

"On a scale of one to 10, how much fun did you have?
I'm actually not sure I had any fun. The trip was challenging, which I always like, and now that I'm through it, something I'm glad I did, but I basically spent the entire time in a state of sheer terror, so there wasn't much room for fun. I guess a one? "

~Hiking the Tetons - The Hairpin

stick hair

From Bizarre Yet Delightfully Whimsical Photos...

weird synchronicity

Watched Exit Through The Gift Shop on the day this Joshua Tree graffiti story came out...

hmmm, movies again

From Bridesmaids Sparks a Genre...

" Geena Davis, the actress and founder of the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media, told TheWrap that after the release of her “Thelma and Louise” 20 years ago, “the press was predicting, ‘Oh my God, this proves a movie designed to appeal to women can be successful. A female road movie can be successful. This proves that a female buddy movie can be successful … This is surely going to launch a whole wave of these kinds of movies. And there were none. There were none, none, none.”

After that, Davis starred in the very successful “A League of Their Own,” about an all-female baseball team.

Its success, she said, was accompanied by the same talk: “We’re going to see so many other female sports movies. And there none until ‘Bend it Like Beckham.’ So that didn’t happen.”

But she congratulated Wiig and noted that only about 13 percent of screenwriters are women.

“Any time women can be portrayed doing something other than what they are usually doing in movies – which is a lot of times being a love object or being decorative rather than a fully realized character, that’s great,” she said."

on page two, four

"In short order I was shuffled into a regular class schedule. Mind you it was not evidence of my intellectual ability, but the recognition of a cultural "norm," that made the ultimate difference. What's more it took the intervention of a third party to get my situation addressed. Fact is, it is only through third party advocacy that those with little to their names ever get considered in our affairs. When someone advocates on behalf of the poor, they are cited and honored for their humanity. When a guy on the street advocates for himself he is often looked upon with suspicion and derision, as a mere beggar." 

~~~~~

"When the book went to press, a slew of new, nicer definitions were attached to my name. I was suddenly in the papers, on the radio, and TV. And, yes, they wanted me to keynote a UN conference on--you guessed it--global poverty. Only then, once I was no longer one of them, did the world want to hear what I had to say about being poor."

-- Lee Stringer, How Being Poor In America Shaped Every Part of My Life...

Mee yooo

It's just really weird how talented cats are... And sort of strange that soap operas are so appealing to women. I mean, men were still the ones writing them when they came out, right? It's not like a bunch of women were sitting around writing them. I never got that into them, except for when I was trying to learn Spanish; then I became addicted to Spanish language soap operas. When you're struggling with basic concepts, watching something with lots of melodrama makes it easier to feel like you can really understand what's going on. That's why watching soap operas is such a great way to learn Spanish.

WYLDFLEURS



seen on walk, admired, and identified after some research...

Elegant Clarkia, from SMMTC

Wild Canterbury Bells, from ABDNHA

Coulter's Lupine, from delange.org

California Poppy, from birdmom.net

aCaDeMiC aMbUlAtIoN

para ver

50 Films
(Just saw Waiting For Superman)

to/from

I did the opposite of what this website is trying to get people to do.
http://www.fairfaxcountyeda.org/worldwideoffices/los-angeles-office

"To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation."
-- George Christoph Lichtenberg

Ah, reflection...

by John Waterhouse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



by Polina Gilad

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



by Dorothea Lange

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Funky English

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Doctor Fun

So $ blah kids blah

Actually, all we do is sit in the special room (which is better insulated to protect patrons from the noise of wild children, and yes, I'm sure it took $ to build that) and read stories.

I also get to hear stories. Like about how they used to have a parrot in Mexico that flew to their aunt's house with messages (like a carrier pigeon!) until one day some grumpy old man shot it.

So.

Sapo y sepo son amigos.

From Necks out...

Alliteration!

theworstadplacementi'veseentoday

Tragic story:
Teens Arrested on Sexual Assault Charges Following Saratoga Suicide

Next to the paragraph giving details about the assault, there was this incredibly unfortunate ad placement that said: "Big Bang Party After Dark"

It turns out it's for a party being thrown by the California Academy of Sciences

~~~~~

I mean, is the universe just trying to be very in-our-face, telling us that we need to study this problem scientifically?

What are people going to be saying about this time period in 100 years?

Dog days documentary

Last night I had the pleasure of viewing
The Winnebago Man documentary
Heat-induced acrimony, combined with swearing and the love of a dog named Buda. Shades of stepfather. (Though not really!!!!...Though, not entirely off-base, either...) I should ask if he's watched it. Last movie he recommended to me (which I still haven't seen) was Silver Linings Playbook.

Cats prove that computer divorce is unlikely

15 Cats That Are Leaning In

EEE

Before I obtain a divorce from the computer
last dose of droll environmental humor...

Energy Everywhere

H-----

(insert positive interjection beginning with letter H)

A happier-than-average sports story:
Sisters Lead Louisville

(Found while finishing up the junkfood story, just after the part about Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.)

Food & tape

From designboom.com/art/aakash-nihalani-interview/

From CW Creates Magical Fairy Tale Scenes...

 

Interruption

I was in search of something fanciful about food.
But then another sad story came up.
Just this week, I read this fictional piece, in which an interruption prevents a worse tragedy from happening.
But not in this news story...

"'Rehtaeh would want her story out there,' she said."

Gee, it's scientific

Smelling lavender and rosemary increases free radical scavenging activity...

WELL

The Army! Processed foods! Stocking up at the commisary!

"The military has long been in a peculiar bind when it comes to food: how to get soldiers to eat more rations when they are in the field. They know that over time, soldiers would gradually find their meals-ready-to-eat so boring that they would toss them away, half-eaten, and not get all the calories they needed. But what was causing this M.R.E.-fatigue was a mystery. “So I started asking soldiers how frequently they would like to eat this or that, trying to figure out which products they would find boring,” Moskowitz said. The answers he got were inconsistent. “They liked flavorful foods like turkey tetrazzini, but only at first; they quickly grew tired of them. On the other hand, mundane foods like white bread would never get them too excited, but they could eat lots and lots of it without feeling they’d had enough.      

 

This contradiction is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. Sensory-specific satiety also became a guiding principle for the processed-food industry. The biggest hits — be they Coca-Cola or Doritos — owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating."

-- The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

~~~~

"We did some work not that long ago in Alabama and met kids that have never seen strawberries or grapes. They're nine years old."

--Mari Gallagher -- Food Deserts

Name sounds like a flower to me

Just read this story: Phildel: 'I learned to visualise the sounds I could hear'

"There are, as she is the first to admit, vast 'holes' in her musical knowledge. She can't remember the names of pop stars. She talks about songwriting in terms of shape and colour. The title track on her debut album, The Disappearance of the Girl, represents, she says, the moment when, at the hands of her stepfather, she 'slipped from the moderate, liberal culture of [her] birth into a new world of silence and control.'"

"...It was the process of coming to terms with her unhappy childhood that allowed her, as she puts it, to 'realign herself with society' – though without the backup of her mother and younger sister, from whom she is estranged.

'I personally feel that my stepfather's behaviour was 100% psychology and nothing to do with the religion he used to justify his treatment of us,' she says today. 'It all came from the fact that he couldn't communicate. He was isolated, and men in general are not encouraged to seek emotional support the way women are – they cannot ask for help.'"

A song and other stuff

"You are sixteen going on seventeen" played at the end of this Mad Men episode called Tea Leaves.
Today I saw a sign that described a repeat robber (I really believe that there's a better way of saying that but I can't actually think at the moment) who steals phones. A young blond female in a tank top and flip flops will go up to a person, sweetly ask to borrow the phone, then walk off with it. It has happened multiple times! How sad. What if those people have no phone insurance? I specifically thought to myself, "that's definitely not gonna happen with my phone!" There is no reason a person should feel oppressed for owning a flip phone.
I postulate.

Food industry

Rise Above It
Give Pizza A Chance

Is it the money or what...

Spinning Out of Control...

A conversation from a week ago: you're told by person x, this volunteer tutor program is not going to be for children anymore. And you point out that schools don't have tutoring programs anymore (a lot of them don't have art classes either, by the way) and then you're told by person x their budget has been cut too. And that picking up the slack is not their job. And then this person says things like, I see that mother in here with him with other tutors, tutors who are not in our program. And why is that, is he developmentally disabled or something?

And you want to say, is that really any of your business? But instead you say, well, he had to repeat a grade.

And then person x is like, so do you want to keep doing this, would it affect you, or do you not care that much?

Well...I guess I would be a little sad if we had to stop. I don't know if his mother is bringing him in here all the time or what, but he's a good kid...

Oh of course he is. And I'm sure his mother just wants the very best for her children.Well, it's not going to happen overnight, but just wanted to warn you that a change is going to be made. You understand.

Yeah, so much fun.

This is what it means to say the system is failing people.

Frosty



From Of Wolf Moons...








From Father Frost



By R. Reisman
Moonflower Musings -
Nettle: Attention to Nourishment

Red shoes

From If the red shoes fit...

From Promiscuities

From The Dorothy Effect

What a weird dream

In this dream, I was at a conference or something? A woman told me that at some point in the past, she had crept up the stairs and opened my bedroom door while I was sleeping. She admitted that she had tricked me into thinking I was dreaming her up when I was really awake and seeing her sneak into my bedroom.

I was like, what?

Then the scene unfolded. It was like watching a play from the outside. She ascended the staircase and opened my bedroom door (in the dream, not that this resembled any house I've actually lived in.)

A voice that was supposed to be mine floated out.

"What are you doing here?" the voice said to her.

To fool the voice, she acted confused and asked a question about an imaginary land. (Like "Where is Arcadia/Where is Narnia?" something like that.)

Then the voice spoke to her. "I'm sorry. I don't know what press we're using."

She had fooled "me" (the voice) into thinking it was all a dream. She left and closed my bedroom door.

Then I (the onlooker) went to the refrigerator. I opened it. This woman's head was in the refrigerator, talking to me on a plate.

She said, "I am a man."

"No you're not, you're a woman."

She shook her head. A man.

I woke up, suitably creeped out.

I am admitting that this article about an "all-male Clarke prize shortlist" kind of reminded me of that dream...

(It also made me think: "Look on the bright side...females are great at making babies and sewing brassieres in garment factories around the world...")

songsiesongsiesongzeeeeee

At last... (Etta James)
You finally get home (after traffic and a long day which included buying a refrigerated can of Coke to stave off a weird heat-and-noise-induced near panic attack)
and take off your shoes and SUCK IN THE QUIET!!!!!
~~~~
Also
Baby You're a Rich Man
Martha My Dear
This is the song that never ends... (dont' listen for more than 30 seconds, it's just not worth it...)
~~~~
Tahini and chick peas and mixed greens and HOT SAUCE
(do not underestimate Tapatio)
Veggie pasta and chicken and pesto

words and deep thoughts about plants!

Shrubs. Foliage. Groundcovers. Drought-resistant.
That vine you overlooked but now you thank it for all the privacy it provides to folks simply by having the nerve to keep on growing...
Off to connect with a plant book.
~~~~
And yay for the doodle on Maria Sibylla Merian, who apparently also really liked insects...