Time off

Man, I accidentally took a month-long hiatus from this blog. I blame several things: actually having work to do at work, the fact that I joined a new internet forum, and lots of traveling over the month of August. Regardless, I'm trying to get back on the horse and I do have a fair number of things to write about, so hopefully you will see something worth reading here soon. In the meantime, something trendy:

On female friendships

"So divorced are we from the idea that these are the pitfalls of human friendships across every spectrum that even in feminist/womanist spaces, discussions of female friendships will frequently yield comments like, "Well, I have a hard time being friends with women because so many women are gossipy, competitive, jealous bitches."

No. So many people are like that.

That this woman can't successfully be friends with that woman does not mean women can't be friends. It means that those two women can't be friends."

From Shakesville, read the rest here.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2010

This year marked the second time I've attended Pitchfork since the inception of my blog, and also the third (out of five possible years) that I've attended Pitchfork period. I only went on Saturday and Sunday this year (ticket prices have gone up and I prioritized) but I will say that I intended to only attend Saturday and had such a good time that I bought a Sunday ticket and came on Sunday anyway, despite my best-laid plans.

Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera to either day, so I can't do a proper photo+writeup post about it, but I will go through the concerts I attended.

I arrived with my brother and cousin on Saturday with a mild hangover and a belly full of refriend beans and rice. We met up with a friend of ours who was very gung-ho about forcing a bottle of vodka lemonade onto us, and there began my bad idea boozing at Saturday Pitchfork. We were standing by stage A, half-assedly listening to Delorean, a band named after something incredibly trendy in that 2000's nostalgia for the 80'ss kind of way. They sounded good to me; I had never heard them before. I downloaded their album last night and put it on and it didn't sound nearly as good as their live show. It was vaguely like Cut Copy and I still think In Ghost Colours sounds better as a studio album. Since I'm about to see Cut Copy at Lollapalooza, I guess I can judge then whether they sound better live too.

Anyway, after that I walked around the poster fair and saw these amazing Gossip Girl posters that I totally wanted to buy (two images, one of Chuck Bass, one of Leighton Meester) but they were 50 bucks for a set and I chickened out about spending that much money (probably because I was planning on coming back for Sunday). Anyway, I got the business card of the artist and here is his website: Dead Meat Design. And here is one of the posters:

Afterwards I sat around with a couple of my cousin's friends and drank rum and coke with my brother to the point that I felt a little sick because it was like 90 degrees out with full sun and I was drinking booze instead of water. At some point I waited in line for half an hour to fill up my water bottle at the water fountain--they really should have more of those, but they also want us to spend money on bottled water, so I understand why they don't do it. Although it's still hella lame. Around this time Raekwon came on and I idly listened to it and felt like a poser because I have never listened to Wu Tang Clan, not once. I mean, maybe there was a song in the back of my head that just popped up, but I couldn't think of it right now. So anyway, yeah I'm not THAT cool when it comes to my music tastes, as evidenced by my Sunday experience, which I will describe shortly.

Then we stood up to listen to Wolf Parade. They put on an all right show; it really suffered from happening when it was still light out. Wolf Parade in general is kind of a huge disappointment for me because their first album was SO GOOD and everything since has been SO MEH. Also, it was the fourth time I've seen them live which means they're the band I've seen most often in concert, which is just screwy because they are nowhere near my favorite. Sometimes life works out this way.

The highlight of the night and the reason for the season was LCD Soundsystem's headliner set.

And..... It...... Was.Amazing.

They opened their show with Us v. Them. They played three songs off their new album: Pow Pow Pow, Drunk Girls (of course), and I Can Change. I Can Change is one of my favorites off the album so I was excited about that, but if I had my way I would have substituted All I Want and Dance Yourself Clean for the other two. Off of the first LP they played Yeah Yeah Yeah (Crass Version), Tribulations, Daft Punk is Playing at My House, and Losing My Edge. They also played Someone Great and All My Friends off of Sound of Silver, and now that I'm done listing most of the show, I may have actually remembered the entire set (which is a very rare occurrence for me).

They closed the show with New York, I Love You and in the last refrain broke into a split second cover of Empire State of Mind. As a friend of mine said, to insert a song about the glories of New York into their song about how New York is becoming hollow was a genius move, especially combined with the fact that LCD Soundsystem is ending and this is their final tour.

Everything about that show was amazing. I was close enough to the stage for it to be pretty loud and to see James Murphy and every song was a revelation. During Someone Great I even got choked up, mainly because that song's lyrics are so heart-rending.

On Sunday I bit the bullet and bought a scalped ticket for 60 dollars because I had so much fun on Saturday I wanted a repeat (and sitting by myself in my apartment while everyone I knew was at Pitchfork sounded awful). I got there with my roommate around 2:15 and first off we saw Girls, and got pretty close to the stage. I thought that their set was a pleasant surprise because I sincerely thought every song would be a straight up version from their album, but during a couple of their slower songs they took it to the next level and made it loud and droning. I was surprised at how much I liked the difference between their sun-drenched surfer rock sound and then straight guitar noise. It really worked for them. Also the lead singer was wearing silver socks.

Afterwards I hung out at the Beach House stage and enjoyed every second. Their set went by way too fast, probably because I was just lounging in the shade, but also they played a lot of songs off their latest album, which I love. They played my favorite, Zebra. And oh heck, I'll include this detail even though it's embarrassing: I cried during a couple of their songs. It happened for layered reasons, but one of them was definitely that their music just sounded so emotional and raw and beautiful that loud, and it went straight to the heartstrings. God, I'm a wuss.

Afterwards my people wanted to see some bands I wasn't interested in, so I wandered around the record fair and bought a key necklace from Spinal Fusion, whose shop you can find here. Very cool stuff, although she didn't have a button at her table for my neighborhood, Edgewater, among her Chicago-related products.

I then ate a vegan ice cream cone (the only ice cream available was vegan) and I found it very good. I think there is a hope for a vegan-only nation, although converting everybody from dairy is a hard task. I still can't make that leap because of Cheese. It's all about Cheese. Cheese which is so important I MUST CAPITALIZE IT. CHEESE.

After my respite from music, I went back to Stage A for Major Lazer, which had to be the silliest thing in the context of a music festival. Major Lazer is a collaboration between Diplo and Switch. Since it's basically just club music, they had some dancers bouncing about the front of the stage, and this guy with a mike who kept saying "CHICAGO! PUT YOUR HANDS UP!" and acting like he was the creator of the music. "HEY DIPLO, SLOW IT DOWN FOR A SECOND. I WANT TO SWITCH IT UP FOR CHICAGO!!" This repeated every few minutes. The best part of the whole thing were these two Chinese dragons on stage. Once they left, I found my roommate and we went to Neon Indian.

Neon Indian's set was kind of erratic, mainly because the lead singer had a theremin that he enjoyed dicking around with in between songs. So a song would be grooving along and sounding totally rad, and then he would cut it short to put in some noise. I like a bit of noise and some difference in the songs when I see a band, but if you get your apathetic crowd actually moving, I suggest you do NOT cut the song short to dick around with your noise machines. Just thoughts. Their two biggest songs still sounded great (which are "I shoulda taken acid with you" and "Deadbeat Summer").

Afterwards we went back to the main stages for Big Boi, who actually played "I like the way you move" while he had these little kid breakdancers on stage. The only girl in the group, who was about 10 years old I'd say, spun on her head for a good 3 minutes at the end of the song. When you're spinning on your head, I imagine each minute feels like an hour, so I'm still impressed with that. They begged us to like their page on facebook, but I can't remember what they were called now, so I guess we'll just have to live without that particular detail. Also he played a couple of minutes of "Bombs Over Baghdad" which was crazy! Probably because Pitchfork named it the song of the decade.

Then, finally, it was Pavement's big reunion show. Which I did not stay for all of, so you can just go ahead and revoke my indie cred card right now. As much as I would have liked to stay, I never listened to Pavement growing up and so I couldn't fuel the experience with nostalgia. I also didn't want to deal with how crazy the trains are after the headlining act (as it stands they were crazy enough when I left). What I saw of the show was awesome, and their stage was set up with really cool strings of regular light bulbs. They had this shock-jock DJ from the 90s with someone named like Rocking Mike (can't remember now) introduce the band, and it was kind of ridiculous. I think he was pulling a lot of asshole shit for entertainment value, but he claimed that Pitchfork was the minor leagues to Lollapalooza's major leagues, and wouldn't we rather be in Grant Park right now? Okay, yeah, so I am going to Lollapalooza this year, but I can tell you that my musical experience at Pitchfork is as good as Lolla is going to be (if not better). So anyway.

That is my write-up of Pitchfork 2010. HOLLER.

And then Tiger Beatdown went and did a post on fashion the day after my fashion rant

"And so when I hear, tights are not pants, or you should wear pantyhose to court, or I wouldn’t wear X cut of a shirt because it doesn’t look good on me, I think, who made these rules? Why are we following them? Why do we passively subscribe to an aesthetic system that requires us to daily fulfill the twin obligations of being “respectful” by not doing anything out of the ordinary and looking as thin and “feminine” as we can muster? I want fashion to be less about making other people comfortable, and more about personal expression and art. There is too much hierarchy. It is too top-down, from a murky top with too many leaders with too many conflicting messages."

Read the article here

taking fashion photography back

About a month ago now there was a post on one of the fashion blogs in my reader that has been stuck in my craw ever since: Read the post here

Excerpt:

Without getting too much into it at the moment, it's an example of a movement that is taking place, right now behind closed doors, by photographers who believe that fashion photography has lost its origin, and has become too commercialized, and too amateures. And they want to take things back, and at the same time dig deeper into their ability to create non tainted work.

Ehh? I'm pretty cynical about the fashion industry since I consume a lot of its imagery and know a fair amount of its hierarchies and yada yada yada. I have a pretty official stance on fashion photography, and it's basically that I want to make it as democratic as possible. I know that some of my ideas vis a vis fashion photos make no sense in terms of business. Okay, fashion on the grand scale is for all people. Everybody wears clothes. How much you buy into certain aesthetics or the luxury aspect of it depends on how much money you have and whether you really give a shit. I mean yeah, there are people out there who wear their t-shirt from the company picnic and their holy cargo shorts and their crocs and pretty much don't care ever, period. I offer no judgment on that. What I'm saying is: because class exists, because there are wealthy people and poor people, there is going to be wealthy fashion and poor fashion. This will result in the really high end luxury fashions and goods being photographed by people who are paid a lot for images that are put in magazines that hawk expensive goods; magazines that are expensive to make. But even knowing all that, I don't buy it. I don't want fashion to be about the luxury goods--I mean, certain articles of clothing can be well made and cost more--but the whole super star designer ball game we've got going on, where designers sign their name to shoes that cost 50 dollars to make and then price them at 5000--this shit does not sit well with me, whether or not it's a fact of life.

Okay, I'm not really looking to take down the entire fashion industry in this post. Obviously I set the scale really high here.

The idea of a fashion movement that wants to take fashion photography "back" makes me nervous. First of all, how does one even take things back to the time before fashion photog was "too commercialized and "amateures"? When was that glorious time in fashion photography history? The 90s? The 80s? Helmut Lang? If you get rid of amateurs in fashion photography, what are we left with? The elitist hierarchy that shoves Lagerfeld and only Lagerfeld down our throats? The kind of photography that demands that women's bodies only look a certain way?

On the other hand, the commercialization of fashion photography (which I'm assuming just means photoshop): now there's something I would like to revolutionize. I want to see real bodies in real contexts wearing these clothes. I want the fantasy but I also want the fantasy to be democratic; i.e. let's stop pitting rich white women as the ultimate goal and let all kinds of bodies participate in the luxury of interesting clothes. And let's get rid of the computer programs that make their skin look like plastic. Let's get rid of that everlasting temptation to remove just a couple inches off the waist, digitally. Or physically, that too.

So I don't know. I hope that this revolution from this blog post, this group of people behind closed doors: I hope they know what they're doing. I hope they do something fantastic and interesting. I hope they use all kinds of models. I hope that their revolution also actually matters, because it would be nice to see something out of the confines of the Vogue monarchy.

But "taking back fashion photography" is entirely missing the point. By all means, change its course. Just don't romanticize the past and miss the forest for the trees.

On Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me" Part 2

Some of my more faithful readers may recall this post about how I thought that Taylor Swift's video for "You Belong with Me" should be made with a gay boy as the main character. Well, in this wonderous world of Youtube and Jezebel commenters, my wish is...my command! Check it:

Love this! Love the ending! Gah this makes me happy.

AusNTM cycle 6 coming out this month.

If you read this blog you should know that I'm an avid consumer of the Top Model franchise. ANTM of course if the mother, but Australia's Next Top Model is totally the hip, more attractive younger sister. And as a result of AusNTM, I will forever be in love with Australians. So here is the promo for Cycle 6 (and how amazing is it when Alex Perry says "Expensive"????)

On Racism in the Corporate Lunchroom

I had one of those experiences a couple of days ago. One of those experiences that is the reason I usually hide in my cubicle during lunch: racism in the lunchroom. Oh, it all starts so innocently enough. You work at a majority white corporation that makes school materials that aren't exactly harmless, but on the spectrum from the manufacturing of kitten beds to weaponizing lethal diseases, you would definitely say this company is on the "kitten bed" end of the spectrum. And besides, you think to yourself, you're just a temp anyway. You aren't exactly culpable for any of the crap that goes on here.

So you go down to lunch to eat with all the other white temps in your white washed building except for the Bilingual department where are the Spanish speakers dwell (I kid you the fuck not) and everyone is talking about innocent things. Stuff white people like. The Royal Tenenbaums comes up in conversation. Then the next thing the girl next to you who works in Science is talking about how hilarious it is that when she worked at Chuck E. Cheeze, all of the "gangstas" used to come in wearing hot pink jumpsuits and putting on their chapstick. "You're not scary," she says defiantly, following her speech with, "Don't you guys remember when they were all wearing pink? It was so funny, I wish they still were." Then this other girl, a girl you don't like very much anyway because she made you miss the train once, she decides that she needs to mention that she loves it when "they" "swagger." She then describes a man's swagger that she saw the other day on the street. (And this girl once asked me what it was like to go to a liberal school because her parents are so conservative).

The point of this story is: post-racial society my ass, the only words missing from this conversation are "Black people" and/or "Negroes." This conversation hit me viscerally in many ways because these people do not know who I am. The only thing they know is my name, the fact that I'm also a temp for this corporation, and that I'm white. Without knowing a shred about my personal life or my politics, they assume that they are in safe company .

There is this blogger, Harriet Jacobs. Maybe I've mentioned her before. She runs a pretty kickass blog called Fugitivus (click here to get to it) where she has taken on these issues before. I would feel remiss in addressing any of my experience here without quoting her and her wondrous blog capabilities because often she can say what I cannot. I thought of this excerpt when I was in this situation:

"This is what comes of being the “right” race in a racist society. You are an assumed depository for vile, racist conversations and opinions, and your assumed compatriots operate under the belief that this is not damaging, enraging, difficult, isolating, or painful to hear. I do not feel like an overtly radical person. On the spectrum of anti-racism, I consider myself a tick to the left of moderate. But even that perception is radical, because to get there, I’ve had to move my liberal white friends a whole football field to the right of moderate, into “I’m not racist racist, but I am better, smarter, and more rational than the hypothetical dark masses that exist in my brain” territory." (taken from this post)

What I find so noteworthy about my experience in the lunchroom is that I am complicit in racist statements because I cannot argue with them. It's my job and I make it a point not to talk about my politics, social or otherwise. The best I could do was judge them furiously in my brain; these judgments have been sticking around for several days. Ultimately, what bothers me is that these assumptions are so monolithic: all black people do this and all white people are just waiting to have their moment behind black people's backs. (The "isn't it fun to talk like this" moment). I am not interested in participating in these kinds of discussions with strangers. I don't care what color my skin is: my perceived whiteness should not be an excuse to say racist bullshit around me. Not only do I not want to hear what hateful things are dwelling in other white people's brains, I don't want to be part of that whole post-racial, color-blind system that uses vaguer pronouns to say the same things that white people said 50 years ago.

So yeah, I'm pissed about this still. I know that being a white person who is angry that a bunch of other white people assumed stuff about her because she was white really is a drop in the ocean of systematic racism and that my complaints seem meager. But I can't let this experience slide completely unopposed, even if all I managed was a measly blog post.

Excerpt from Shapely Prose

"And then I started thinking about what it was really like before I’d actually made peace with my body. And what it was really like was this: The Fantasy of Being Thin absolutely dominated my life — even after I’d gotten thin once, found myself just as depressive and scattered and frustrated as always, and then gained all the weight back because, you know, diets don’t work. The reality of being thin didn’t even sink in after all that, because The Fantasy of Being Thin was still far more familiar to me, still what I knew best. I’d spent years and years nurturing that fantasy, and only a couple years as an actual thin person. Reality didn’t have a chance."

Read the rest here

Hey Arnold: nostalgia and nicktoons

Recently my roommate and I discovered that Netflix Instant Watch has a lot of old nicktoons available. I started off obsessively watching Hey Arnold, my favorite of old Nickelodeon cartoons to this day. Then I realized: I know what is wrong with this country. I know what is wrong with the oversexualization of little girls! I know why the celebrity industrial complex is so damn irritating! I even know why Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant! It's because Nickelodeon dropped nicktoons like "Hey Arnold," "Angry Beaver," and "Aaah! Real Monsters." Spongebob remains, but even the Rugrats ended up as tweens.

Hopefully I'll be back to post about other nicktoons that I've watched, but today I'll deal with Hey Arnold exclusively. It's a show that's beautiful in its simplicity: it's about a bunch of kids who attend a public school in New York. They live in Brooklyn and they represent a wide range of socioeconomic statuses, ethnic backgrounds, attitudes, and dress styles. (For the longest time I thought Arnold was wearing a kilt, although now I realize it's a plaid shirt under a sweater). The main character, Arnold, is an orphan living in a boarding house with his grandparents. He is incredibly even-tempered, he understands human motivation, he is kind and big-hearted, and yet he is still a kid who likes popsicles and baseball.

What is so great about the show is its diversity. The characters in the show are not carbon copied young adults who go about their gossipy lives; they include serious character motivations (Mr. Hyunh, one of the boarders, came to New York to look for his daughter, who he gave up for adoption during the Vietnam war). The main female character, Helga, may have a crush on Arnold, but she is no wilting flower. For every moment she spends pining after her Beloved, the next she spends punching that guy who is always wheezing in the nose.

The episode that really convinced me of Hey Arnold's greatness, however, does not heavily feature Arnold. Instead it is an episode about Helga, in which she is not invited to a girls-only sleepover for the girls in her class. Everybody spends most of the episode making fun of Helga for not being girly enough, until she gives in, gets a Fifteen magazine, and gives herself a hilarious makeover.

(Those boobs are totally made of tissue paper, btw). At the end of the episode, she goes to the slumber party, tries to fake her way through girliness, and then loses it when she sees the girls with green mud masks on. Mid-rant, she pulls her hair back into her signature pigtails and wipes off all of her makeup while asking "who wants to do this? Why do we even have to do this?" The girls say "but this is what girls do, Helga" and she says "Bully. Just because this is what girls do doesn't mean they have to do it." At this moment the girls discover that the boys are spying on them and they capture Harold, an oafish dude, and put makeup on him. It's a moment of pure cartoon perfection. The point of the episode is that you can be whoever you want to be, and do whatever you want to do, regardless of gender, but it's not overstated. Helga may give a speech but it's a speech in line with her bitchy, bossy character. This cartoon is remarkably subtle for a kid's show and that is one of the most important parts of its genius.

Two points for the last part of this post: the characters wear really iconic cartoon clothing that I discovered has been transformed into outfits via Polyvore, below:

Harold!! for Polka My Dot ina mid-life crisis

Helga!!!! for Polka My Dot ina mid-life crisis

Dressing like Helga is my new aspiration in life.

Secondly, Hey Arnold uses so many tropes that it can easily be turned into a drinking game (one in which my roommate and I have indulged multiple times). I thought I would provide a list of them here for you intrepid Nicktoon fans.

Hey Arnold Drinking Game

Drink when...

1) The cats/dogs/pigs run in or out of the boarding house.

2) Helga calls Arnold a football head

3) Helga goes on a loveydovey rant about Arnold/Punches Weezy in the face (since these usually are paired, you can decide whether to drink twice)

4) Arnold's grandmother acts crazy

5) Phoebe says something nerdy

6) They make a joke about Harold's eating habits/size

7) Arnold and Gerald do their special thumbshake

8) Grandpa talks about going to the toilet or is seen going to and coming from the toilet.

9) Someone says Hey Arnold!

10) The polish man is fighting with his wife or is inconsiderate (there is a whole episode about this so you have to watch out on this one).

I'm open to any additions to the Hey Arnold drinking game in the comments.