You ain't heard nothing yet!

Why Alternative Transportation Can Be a Form of Activism

2010-09-22T19:07:00.009-04:00

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the intersection of the two seemingly disparate ideas of transportation and gender. Most likely, my recent interest in the two topics in conjunction with one another comes from my new-found love of cycling, but my ruminations on gender and transport don't stop with the frame of my bicycle. I began thinking about the implications of taking the subway, the bus and the train for the two years that I lived in New York City. Obviously, every person packed into a subway car or sitting on a humming crosstown bus means one less vehicle on the crowded streets of Manhattan, taking down the air and noise pollution significantly and most likely decreasing the number of collision-related injuries and deaths. But less obviously, participating in alternate forms of transportation puts one in a more vulnerable position, taking them out of the safety of their personal vehicle and placing them in contact with strangers, darkened street corners, and abandoned late-night subway stations.

It takes awareness, wherewithal and a little dose of courage for ANYONE to take the subway back to one's apartment alone at 3am, although it took me a while to admit to myself that I was vulnerable to any negative consequences by waiting alone on an almost empty subway platform. This vulnerability was palpable not just because I am a woman, but also because the reactions of my friends and family would lead one to think that my womanness somehow made me more of a target. I refuse to believe that I was any more susceptible to assault or attack because I was a woman alone on a subway platform because I believe this to be a subscription to victimhood. I understand that pleading with me to "be careful" or to "just take a cab home" were their efforts to protect me from the comfort of their own apartments and from across the country, but their attempts at protection made me feel less like a woman and more like a child that needed to be told how to function in the world. Which made me doubt my own confidence in my safety. Which, in turn, made me start taking cabs home when I had maybe had a few too many or was a little more tired than usual.

Now that I have started cycling, I'm starting to feel this same undue protectiveness coming from all directions. When my brother, a road cyclist of over 5 years, decided to bike 100 miles from Los Angeles up to Santa Barbara, almost everyone was impressed instead of worried. This could be due to his experience with road riding, but I don't think his years of riding were what made my family and his friends okay with his excursion. When my brother and my boyfriend ride their bikes to work or to do errands, friends shrug their shoulders or shake their heads in a disbelieving - albeit impressed - manner. When I decide to ride 2.5 miles to Target to run an errand, I am met with worry and hushed voices regarding my safety. I understand that my family and friends want me to be safe and want me to be aware of myself when I'm on the road, and I appreciate their concern; I do not, however, appreciate their overwrought concern that is directed only at me and not at my male friends and family who decide to employ cycling as their primary mode of transportation.

As of right now, I live in the hills. Due to my level of experience, the quality of my bicycle, and the grade of the nearby hills, cycling everywhere is totally out of the question. I'm forced to drive in order to cycle, and for now I'm okay with that. I've only had my bike for three months, and I have no desire to completely abandon my four-wheeled vehicle in favor of my two-wheeled one. I didn't begin cycling to make some grand statement about the reduction of my carbon footprint. I didn't start riding my bike to prove anything to anyone, least of all to myself. But slowly I've been realizing that cycling - and all other alternative forms of transportation, for that matter - actively takes a stand against the pervasive car culture of my hometown of Southern California, a culture that is dangerous to others, to animals, to the environment, and to the landscape and unique geography of the area. Cycling is only dangerous to me if I decide to ride in a dangerous manner, and I've been taught by experienced bikers how to obey the rules of the road. That being said, I understand that I have no control over the actions of vehicles larger than my vintage road bike, and that the unprotected state of my cycling body potentially puts me at risk for injury.

But I am beginning to realize more and more that by participating in this activity, I am also actively changing and challenging the perceptions of females and their safety when engaging in cycling and other solo, alternative transit options. This activism also comes in the form of my good female friend who chooses to take the Metro to and from work in Downtown Los Angeles alone instead of buying a car, or my closest gal pal who prefers walking to dinner in her neighborhood despite the setting sun. We may not be speaking out at rallies, but our activism in the form of alternative transportation makes me feel like I am a part of what Susan B Anthony called "free, untrammeled womanhood.” The bicycle helped to liberate women from their domestic setting and attire. That liberation became taken for granted when women preferred less strenuous activity for the sake of aesthetics. I say to hell aesthetics, and to the roads with our bodies. Transportation need not be gendered, and our gender should be no indication of our ability to travel.

To Be Young, Skinny and White - A Comment on Modern Standards of Beauty

2010-09-17T02:14:00.015-04:00

One of my favorite popular-culture-meets-gossip-meets-strong-female-voice blogs Jezebel has an on-going, fantastic series they call "Photoshop of Horrors." These pieces - always accompanied by the images being critiqued for going under the Photoshop knife - tend to focus attention to the wildly disproportionate waist-to-hip ratios, wrinkle-free faces, and oddly disembodied legs and arms that grace the pages and covers of fashion magazines and other pop culture images. From brand advertisements to movie posters to fashion features all the way to the front cover of Elle magazine, Jezebel stops at nothing to point out every noticeable (and even not-so-noticeable) instances of airbrushing, cropping, editing, and chest-enlarging that it can scour from the pages of popular culture. Heck, the subtitle of the website is "Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing," two sentences that, if a few words were altered, could read as a scathing manifesto about the topic that most commonly graces the pages of their wonderful blog.

When I say that this topic is a prominent feature on the website, I'm not exaggerating - a quick search for the hash tag #photoshopofhorrors yields 214 results ranging from the removal of emotion from Scarlett Johansson's face to Ralph Lauren repeatedly giving the Photoshop stick-figure treatment to their models. Why I love what Jezebel is doing is that - much like the fantastic Sociological Images blog - half of the time the images in the posts are left to speak for themselves. The occasional addition of arrows, brief text, and side-by-side comparisons allow these (at times really disturbing and un-human) figures and faces to be removed from the noisy, cluttered context of a fashion magazine to a space where they can be singled out, scrutinized and studied, calling attention to the little things that we as a society are beginning to take for granted as beautiful, "healthy," and normative body types. But at other times, when the "cease and desist" emails start pouring in from magazine editors, photographers, and talent agents, Jezebel will do more than just show some cringe-worthy images - they'll fight back.

When there's a watchdog like Jezebel out in the neighborhood patrolling for these sorts of transgressions, you would think that magazine editors and talent managers would be a bit more careful when deciding what type of images to print. But it seems that these unfortunate, blatant and sometimes just negligent Photoshop mishaps have been popping up everywhere lately - however, this perceived pervasiveness could just be my recently attuned interest in the topic. The most recent instance of blatant alteration comes in the form of the obvious skin-lightening of actress Gabourey Sidibe, the Oscar-nominated star of Precious who now has a recurring role on Showtime's The Big C alongside Laura Linney. This piece was brought to my attention yesterday by my step-brother who, anecdotally, asked me tonight if I "look for sexism in everything." (A comment to which I responded "I don't look for it in everything, I just see it in everything!") I really couldn't go much further without giving full credit to the guy for pointing me in the direction of a Yahoo! piece that positioned the photo of Gabby from the Elle cover next to a red carpet photo to display the drastic difference in her skin tone.

[Credit: Getty Images] There is no doubt in my mind that this photo has been retouched. Even Elle admits that Gabby's photo "was not retouched any more or less than the others." It's no secret that real life skin lightening is a dangerous trend that's received uneven attention in the media, and that aside from all of the lightening cosmetic creams available at the drug store there are Facebook apps that promise to lighten the shade of one's skin in their profile picture. These products and applications are targeted at any community whose skin tone is darker than the average Western European's skin color, hinting that the lighter one's skin, the more beautiful they will look and feel. The reason for the retouching of Sidibe's skin tone on the cover of Elle becomes abundantly clear when you view the other three Elle covers coming out for this 25th anniversary special edition of the magazine (see below):

[Credit: The Daily Mail] Of the four girls that Elle chose to represent the face of young, modern America, three of them are white, thin, and conventionally beautiful. Sidibe is the only woman of color represented, and the only woman who is shot in extreme close-up - presumably in order to hide the truth of her weight and size. As Elle makes an attempt to be inclusive and representative, it ultimately fails by instead making Sidibe's cover so dramatically different than the other three so as to single her out and almost specifically call attention to her differences from the other three actresses gracing the special anniversary cover. In an attempt to represent "what 25 looks like" in America, Elle has fallen back to the reoccurring white and thin beauty standards of yesteryear - and, not to mention, has completely alienated Asian-American, Latino-American, Muslim-American and myriad other ethnic communities in the process.

It's also no secret that black Americans are highly underrepresented in fashion, in film, and on television. The same, interestingly enough, seems to go for full-figured women. Plus-size models generally measure in with waists that are still smaller than that of the average American woman, and, despite what brands like Dove want you to think, the perceived normative beauty standard still lies within the advertisements for high fashion brands. It's applauded when women appear in magazines touting their un-Photoshopped bodies or faces, something that I think should be less of a celebration and more of a common practice. With an attempt to move toward truth in advertising in American media, this is one of the first places we should start, especially when so many women suffer from eating disorders, depression and social anxieties about their weight and appearance, or, in some extreme cases, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).

While the causes of BDD are usually psychological or neurological, one of the triggers of BDD is said to be environmental, meaning that the influence of images in the media might cause an individual grappling with the disease to become even more sensitive or self-conscious about their appearance. A recent episode of MTV's True Life titled "I Hate My Face" featured Pamela, a young woman about the same age as the four actresses on the covers of Elle who was suffering greatly from the disease. Pamela is unable to hold down a job or finish dinner with her boyfriend at a restaurant because of her insecurities about her self-perceived "ugliness." In one scene, she compares herself to the blond women she sees out in public and expresses her insecurities that she is not as beautiful as this one woman. In another, Pamela fights with her boyfriend about her disease:

True Life - MTV Shows

While Pamela may not be Western European-looking or blond, she ultimately upholds these physical features as the ultimate in beauty standards. Where she gets the idea that her Filipino looks and, more specifically, her nose and her chest size, could not possibly be perceived as beautiful is anyone's guess, but I can venture to lay blame on one culprit in particular. I'm not saying that the media or American society instilled in her these negative feelings toward her appearance, but based on what she believes to be "beautiful," the blame also cannot be completely exonerated. While I want to applaud Elle for depicting some semblance of diversity on their anniversary covers, it's difficult for me not to wonder how those who recognize Sidibe's change in skin tone will feel about the alteration. It's possible that women with darker toned skin could be offended that Sidibe is being misrepresented. It's possible that women who have been otherwise marginalized for their weight or body shape could view the cropping of the photo as an attempt to censor the truth of Sidibe's size. It's also possible for anyone to be just downright offended on a purely aesthetic level by the horrible wig that the fashion editor provided for Gabourey to wear.

Of course the wonderful Jezebel has covered this topic, but it seems not to have made as many waves as, say, the afore-linked extreeeeme retouching of Jennifer Aniston's tan and wrinkles. Granted, this year did see the first ever plus-size fashion show at New York Fashion Week, but based on this whole Elle magazine fiasco I'm not about to jump and say that this singular incident represents a change in the tide. In theory, it's totally great a woman of color and of size like Gabourey is being represented on the cover of Elle. In reality, Elle seems to believe that dark skin and anything but a size 6 isn't worth representing - at least, not fully and completely.

Thoughts on same-sex parents - from flirting with disaster to the kids being all right.

2010-08-16T02:09:00.018-04:00

After Judge Vaugh Walker handed down his decision that Proposition 8 - the legislation that banned gay marriage in California - was unconstitutional on August 4th, proponents of the legislation promised an immediate appeal. The majority of the arguments being shouted back-and-forth for appeal of the unconstitutionality ruling are primarily based on the grounds of the potential "harm" inflicted from lifting the ban: the harm that would come to the institution of marriage, the harm to tradition and personal morals, and, seemingly, the harm that will be inflicted on the children raised by same-sex couples. Listening to NPR the day that the decision was handed down, I heard callers basing their argument that children would be "harmed" if they were raised by same-sex couples on historical evidence: children have traditionally been raised by one mother and one father, so now why would we want to go around messing with this already functional system?

If tradition dictates that children should be raised by a man and a woman, then over 12 million families in the US are guilty of breaking tradition by functioning as single parent households. If the definition of an "adequate parent" is based on the presence of a man and a woman to raise a child, then women whose spouses have left them, or men whose partners have passed away, or ambitious single women who choose to adopt a child without the financial or emotional support of a life partner do not qualify as "adequate parents." What about families that have several generations living under one roof, families in which aunts and grandparents and siblings share in the parenting responsibilities? Or families in which one of the parents falls ill and can no longer share in the child-rearing responsibilities? Attempting to define the basis for what makes an adequate parent is such an incredibly personal and unique assessment to make. It is so frustrating that more people aren't offended by all of this "tradition" rhetoric that organizations like the National Organization for Marriage are throwing around, especially given the profound ignorance of the feelings of the children involved in this whole discussion.

Seemingly released apropos recent research that supports this notion that children of same-sex couples "are well-adjusted," Lisa Cholodenko's newest dramedy The Kids Are All Right attempts to depict what The New York Times dubbed "a generous, nearly note-perfect portrait of a modern family." If one knows the premise of the film, the title effectively conveys the outcome of the storyline in a fairly clear manner - that children of gay parents, despite popular belief, might just turn out to be pretty okay. Is it possible, in the face of the beliefs of Proposition 8 supporters, that non-traditional family models can actually produce children that can function in a dominantly heteronormative society? Is this film trying to tell us that despite the "abnormal" behavior of their parents, the children of same-sex partners might just be able to function as the normal, well-adjusted human beings that we want to have in society? That, in fact, the kids of lesbian parents might just be totally all right?

Interestingly enough, some affirmation of this notion came in a recent lonely late night with my Netflix Watch Instantly queue, which lead me to revisit the fairly forgotten mid-90s film Flirting with Disaster, a movie that unexpectedly touches - albeit somewhat ironically - on the parenting questions being raised by Prop 8 supporters. This frenetic David O. Russell comedy stars Ben Stiller before he was a male model conducting walk-offs refereed by David Bowie and threatening that "nobody makes me bleed my own blood," and - brief sidebar - reminds the viewer why some audiences fell in love with him in the first place.

The film focuses on the journey of neurotic Mel Coplin (played by Stiller) and his wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) as they travel the country with their newborn son attempting to find his birth parents with the incompetent-but-flirtatious adoption agency employee Tina (Téa Leoni). Mel's adoptive parents Ed and Pearl Coplin (played to bickering perfection by George Segal and Mary Tyler Moore) are deeply hurt and defensive of his decision, thinking Mel's search for his birth parents is a slight on their skills as parents. The first few scenes of the film set up the audience for the true reasons behind Mel's myriad neuroses and his quest to find out the reasons behind them - his adoptive father Ed is perplexingly afraid of the wheel of cheese sitting on the living room table (Pearl later calls him "food-phobic), and his mother won't let her son finish a sentence without a loud and dramatic interruption.

As the film goes on, Tina brings the young couple to two different people who turn out not to be his parents - the last of whom subsequently enables Mel to back a semi truck into a post office. At the police station, the three run into Nancy's old high school classmate Tony (Josh Brolin) who works in the alcohol, tobacco and firearms division with his partner, Paul (Richard Jenkins). The five of them all go out to an Italian restaurant, where it is slowly and subtly revealed that Paul and Tony are not just partners in the ATF division of the station - they are also romantic partners who are potentially considering adopting a child.

Tony and Paul serve as comic relief for the remainder of the film, if not just for their sexual orientation: Tony (who admits he's bisexual) attempts to seduce Nancy by licking her armpit, and Paul ends up running half naked through the desert after taking two hits of acid that Mel's vindictive and bitter younger brother meant for him. But, to my surprise for its serendipity, the last few lines of the film turn the joke away from the same-sex relationship and over onto the potential reality of any family situation - that even a child who is raised by a man and a woman in a typically "traditional" household has every chance of being messed up and poorly adjusted.

In the last scene of the film, the whole group gathers outside the jail from which Ed and Pearl Coplin have been bailed out after being caught with hundreds of tabs of acid in their trunk (I'm telling you, just see the movie - this matter of the plot is far too tangential to my main point). Outside the jail, Pearl turns to Ed and, motioning toward Tony and Paul, says "I think those two men are homosexuals." Ed responds that the two are thinking about adopting a child, and expresses how "sick" someone would have to be to do that. Pearl agrees with Ed, adding "can you imagine the neurosis that child will have to deal with?" After an entire movie about a man who can't name his child until he's met his birth parents, who (it's mentioned) has problems performing during oral sex, whose mother exposes her breasts to his wife, and who has awkward and illicit sexual interactions with someone who's effectively his psychiatrist, devoting the last three lines of a film to this ironic comment on the nature of familial relationships struck me as oddly timely to all the yelling and hand-wringing being done by outspoken Prop 8 supporters about the effects on the psyches of the children of gay and lesbian couples.

I cannot describe the surge of feelings brought forth in me that the last minute of a film made 15 years ago managed to pinpoint the exact fear expressed by supporters of traditional marriage values today in 2010. I smiled, feeling like I was a part of some in-joke, when the fear of potential mental harm to the child of a same-sex couple is spoken by a dysfunctional, heterosexual couple that produced an entirely neurotic and idiosyncratic offspring. Sure, one could argue the mere fact that Mel was adopted in some ways makes his family a non-traditional one, but keep in mind that I am going off of the assumption that a traditionally defined family (according to certain supporters of the ban on same-sex marriage) is one that is lead by a man and a woman. One could also argue that, seeing as he is married and has a child and job, Mel is an ipso facto well-adjusted member of society, but I would beg to differ that his issues far outweigh his surface normalcy.

I find that the testimony of the adopted children of same-sex couples is hardly given any credence in this whole discussion, even though they are seemingly the ones who are so negatively effected by their family situation - and who, not surprisingly, tend to express positive feelings about their home life. This issue is so extremely personal, and anyone who attempts to try and dictate what is best for any one child or any one family needs to step back and take a good look at what they are implicating about other non-traditional families in various alternative circumstances. Is it appropriate to turn to a strange family in a crowded restaurant and attempt to scold their child for being messy or consuming their food too loudly? Is it anyone's responsibility but the parent of a child - be it birth or adoptive - to decide what is best for their children? If anything, the laws against gay marriage are what most effect the psyche of a child of a same-sex couple - it can't be anything but devastating to grow up watching your parents be discriminated against for simply loving each other and making some attempt at normalcy.

Abstract for Global Fusion 2010 conference at Texas A&M

2010-07-21T20:26:00.006-04:00

I just heard today that my paper was accepted for presentation at Global Fusion 2010: Sustenance and Globalization, an academic conference at Texas A&M University. Here is the version of the abstract that I submitted to the selection committee, which includes some basic information on the issues that my paper will cover.

Net neutrality and reproductive health: How new media platforms navigate controversial issues.

In this uncertain time for the future of access and openness on the Internet, it is not surprising that controversial issues are often not permitted the same amount of openness as neutral ones. A contentious issue around the world, especially in relation to the United States’ recent attempt to pass health care reform, has been and continues to be the issue of abortion, including not only access to the service itself but also access to information regarding the service. This project is interested in exploring how companies and institutions that own rights to new media services - such as search engines and text messaging services - censor messages or information regarding controversial issues such as abortion. What does this censorship imply for the future of public health when certain reproductive health NGOs and information sharing societies both within the US and in Latin America are the target of this silencing?

In this paper, I would like to begin with an introduction stating the current temperature of the net neutrality debate; provide a brief background on the issue of abortion at home and abroad; introduce and analyze some of the literature on net neutrality, Internet filtering, and access to information on reproductive health; outline the inspiration for the methodological approach to this research; and present two instances of censorship: Verizon Wireless's refusal to participate in NARAL Pro-Choice's text messaging campaign, and Google AdWords' exclusion of ads offering abortion information in over a dozen countries internationally.

I am SUPER excited for this opportunity, especially since this is the first academic conference to which I have ever submitted an abstract. Certainly encouraging and commending considering the flood of rejections I've received for job opportunities lately. Let me know what you think, and fill me in on some ideas for presentation methods - already thinking about Prezi or something similar.

Lady Gaga's 'Telephone': Exploitation cinemas, homosexual attraction, and the blending of public and private.

2010-07-19T12:59:00.009-04:00

The following is an excerpt from a full-length paper entitled "“We’re C-Coming Out”: Lady Gaga’s Postmodern Videographic and Public Bisexual Persona" that was completed in May 2010. For an analysis of the Gaga's depiction of her heterosexual tendencies in her music videos, see my post on irony, innocence, and the death of the heterosexual binary.

In order to experience a bisexual camp reading of the video for Telephone as a comment on one aspect of Lady Gaga’s sexual identity, one cannot expect the song’s lyrics to provide deeper meaning. The actual song does not begin until 2 minutes and 50 seconds into the video, with multiple starts and stops of the track throughout that make clear the point of the video is the visual and not the lyrical content. Although the video is ironically edited to the contents of the song in part – namely when Lady Gaga answers a payphone in prison to begin the song, singing “Hello, hello, baby, you called? / I can’t hear a thing / I have got no service in the club / You see, you see” – the overall context of the video rarely reflects the events taking place in the lyrics except through occasional irony. The video begins set in a prison and then moves to the road and into a diner – and never, ever finds Lady Gaga or her co-star, Beyoncé, in a traditional club setting. Through a reading of the visual elements of key instances from Lady Gaga’s video for Telephone, I will attempt to further the idea that Gaga’s public and private life are indeed blended together in a remark on postmodern authenticity while also calling attention to the presentation of her sexuality in a single video as never bisexual and always only hetero or homosexual.

Telephone opens with blue-tinted shots of the exterior of a prison including images of barbed wire, guards positioned up high on a wall, and the surrounding cityscape all beneath fluorescent graphics and text that announce the stars (Beyoncé and Gaga) and director Jonas Åkerlund). This text and visual style set the stage indisputably for the campy visual style of a cult grindhouse film alá the blaxploitation classic Super Fly (dir. Gordon Parks, Jr., 1972) or
I Spit on Your Grave, Meir Zarchi’s 1978 rape-revenge film. Seemingly being imprisoned for poisoning and killing her boyfriend in her previous video for Paparazzi, Lady Gaga appears dressed in an exaggerated take on the black and white striped jailhouse uniform complete with her (or Grace Jones’s?) signature pointed shoulder pads which both function as a type of androgynous costume play as well as a nod to queer camp aesthetics of exaggeration discussed by Dyer [1] and Bryant [2]. A title appears explaining she has arrived at the “Prison for Bitches” as she is guided along a long line of hard-yet-chic feminine women within their respective jail cells who cat-call, blow kisses, and lick the metal bars, pronouncing their sexually aggressive – and therefore prison-societal – superiority over the new inmate. Each dressed in their own unique and completely more subdued variations of Gaga’s uniform, the women behind the bars look more like femme sex workers than regular prison inmates (and in fact, none of the women in this segment of the video come close to appearing butch), perhaps Åkerlund’s and/ or Lady Gaga’s comment on the type of women who are depicted as deviant jailbirds who might inspire empathy in the women-in-prison films (yet another sub-genre of exploitation cinema showcased in this video) like Chained Heat (dir. Paul Nicholas, 1983) or the original contribution to the genre, Caged (dir. John Cromwell, 1950).

Gaga is shoved into her jail cell and disrobed of all but her fishnet stockings by the transgender guards, who throw her down onto her cot. As she scrambles in an attempt to escape she mounts the bars of the door to her cell, exposing her pixilated crotch just long enough for the world to see the truth of her gender identity. In a direct comment to this revelation, one of the guards becomes the authority to announce this now-proven genital knowledge to the skeptical general public when she proclaims “I told you she didn’t have a dick.” Including proof in the pixilated version of a Lady Gaga’s vulva is perhaps an attempt to dispel this rumor once and for all that she is not “a very well-endowed young man” and is indeed cisgendered.

Lyrics from her previous single “Poker Face,” which Lady Gaga has claimed is about “poker facing with your sexuality,” lead in some ways to the development of this rumor: “I won’t tell you that I love you / Kiss or hug you / Cause I’m bluffin’ with my muffin / I’m not lying I’m just stunnin’ with my love-glue-gunning.” About seven months after her 17 April 2009 appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross – the show on which Gaga was rudely confronted by the host with the rumor about her assigned gender – Gaga reinforced in an interview with Barbara Walters that the lyric “bluffin’ with my muffin” is not a reference to her assigned gender, but indeed to her sexuality as a woman who is attracted to both men and women, albeit to each in different ways. The few seconds of screen time that Gaga’s vulva receives in 2010's Telephone seek to do away with this persistent rumor – a case in which gender has been conflated with sexuality [3] – once and for all.

The scene in the exercise yard in which Gaga is adorned in an outfit complete with heavy metal chains and sunglasses covered in lit, smoking cigarettes (visible in Figure 4) positions her as “the phallic femme” discussed by Chris Straayer. She moves across the yard as two of her previous hits, “Paper Gangsta” and “I Like It Rough,” play through the speakers of a boom box, perhaps a comment on Gaga’s consistent radio presence and media saturation no matter where one might find themselves. As soon as she sits down at a table outside, a “she-butch” female [5] in leather with short hair sits down beside Gaga and begins to kiss her (see below). Gaga kisses her back and even grabs the other woman between her legs, heightening the sexual tension of the moment. Feministe blogger Sady Doyle pointed to this instance in the video as one that plays with transgression from the normative pop culture representations of girl-on-girl sexual expression, especially since “special makeout times Between the Ladies [sic] almost always happen, in pop culture, between two very femme-looking individuals” [6]. Look no further than Katy Perry’s video for I Kissed a Girl to see instances of feminine women implicated as potential sexual partners for other feminine women, or 1998’s feature length film Wild Things in which Neve Campbell and Denise Richards, two traditionally femme females, share an intimate moment together in a pool. For the remainder of the video we only see Gaga implicated in relationships with other women whether as a domestic or sexual partner, clearly aligning the Lady with her attraction for women, or the homosexual side of her bisexuality.

Soon after this femme-butch kiss in the exercise yard a girl-on-girl kung fu-style fight reminiscent of the gloriously camp and stylized Faster, Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill! (dir. Russ Meyer, 1965) breaks out in the prison and an impromptu dance number begins that combines acrobatics, aerobics, and aggressive boxing moves. Soon after the brawl and the dancing Beyoncé comes to Lady Gaga’s rescue in the Pussy Wagon, loaned to Lady Gaga by Quentin Tarantino specifically for the video, who obviously recognized the parallels between Gaga’s character in this video and the non-normative femme female action star of Kill Bill Volume I (2003) and II (2004). Gaga is dressed in yet another new outfit, this time a slightly more exaggerated and androgynous nod to camp queen Jane Mansfield’s outfit from her famous scene in The Girl Can’t Help It (dir. Frank Tashlin, 1956).

After making a sandwich into a phallic object via a nod to oral fetishism and allowing Beyoncé to sing a little bit, the two ladies tear down a dirt road in the neon yellow truck on their way to a diner where they will eventually poison everyone, starting with Beyoncé’s abusive, hyper-masculine boyfriend. After her boyfriend keels over dead onto the table, Beyoncé makes an innocent yet knowing hand-to-mouth, wide-eyed gesture similar to Lady Gaga’s from Paparazzi after she too has poisoned her boyfriend. This positions Beyoncé as a referential figure by drawing a parallel to the previous video performance to create a space for Beyoncé that is indeed strictly performative and is not meant to make reference to her celebrity persona in the same way that Gaga’s gesture in Paparazzi is meant to be viewed. Another aspect of the video that positions Beyoncé in a different light than Gaga is that Beyoncé is allowed to be presented as bisexual in the contexts of this video even though her public and private personae are consistently positioned as heterosexual. The video does, however go to great lengths to situate Beyoncé’s true performance as non-normative and a stark contrast to her typical presentation in the media by her outlandish dress and her robotic movements that mirror the sound of the skipping audio track. Gaga’s videos consistently employ this aesthetic, as do her songs; Beyoncé’s videos and music, on the other hand, do not subscribe to the same “fake authenticity” that are present in the pantheon of Gaga representations. The video ends in a similarly consistently referential manner with a nod to the film Thelma and Louis as Gaga and Beyoncé grasp hands as they drive off together into the horizon. A heart-shaped graphic appears, situating the two as not just friends but romantic lovers, who interestingly enough do not share an on-screen kiss in the video.

[1] Richard Dyer. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2004.

[2] Wayne M. Byrant. Bisexual Characters in Film: From Anais to Zee. New York: The Haworth
Press, 1997.

[3] Judith Butler. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge (1990, 1999), 9.

[4] Chris Straayer. Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-Orientations in Film and Video. New York: Columbia University Press (1996), 83-84.

[5] Ibid, 94-101.

[6] Sady Doyle. “Nothing That Happened This Week Was Ever Going To Be As Important As The ‘Telephone’ Video.” Feministe. 13 March 2010.

"The Internet is boring today" - A Brief Look at How This is Even Possible

2010-07-16T17:26:00.008-04:00

When I was checking my email last night before tucking myself into bed with John Irving, I noticed a Google Chat status update from a former classmate that read as follows:

The Internet is boring today.

I immediately asked myself: How is this even remotely possible? There is just so much information available on the Internet - however, this is not to say that all of it is credible, interesting, or even entertaining. Most of the stuff one finds on a daily basis holds their interest for a matter of minutes, sometimes even seconds, which certainly does not make time fly if one is bored out of their minds. I don't think that it was necessarily the Internet that she was bored with - quite possibly, she had simply run out of motivation.

I would argue - and maybe I'm starting in with the big guns of optimism a little too soon -that even someone with the most niche and the most obscure of interests can find something interesting, intriguing, or inspiring to read, interact with, create, or watch on the Internet on any given day. But - and here's the catch - one has to actually be in the mood to seek it out. Optimistic, starry-eyed scholars love to elevate the Internet to this amazing source of ultimate information, comparing it to a bridge that will connect all peoples in their quest for knowledge, truth, and cute kitties. But the echo chamber into which most bloggers are contributing (guilty, I'm sure) and through which most readers are hand-picking their content of choice does not lead us to these infinite options as much as we would like to believe. However, if one is smart enough about their pursuits of knowledge and is willing to devote time to seeking out content and information, then the Internet can never be truly boring. This "boring" label should be more appropriately slapped on the user.

Sure, the viral video selection might not be as exciting as it was on Monday, or maybe the details of the Financial Reform Bill just don't pique your fancy, or perhaps Twitter is down and you just don't know what to do with your info-hungry self. But as I'm considering all of these caveats for why one would state that "the Internet is boring," I can't help conjuring up the adage "if you are bored, you are boring." Was my media-obsessed (and I would think she would have to be to pursue a Masters degree in the field) former cohort making the statement that the Internet was boring to her at that moment? That she was bored with the information or news she was finding? Or that she was simply bored with the Internet?

Whether or not the day's local or national or international news is particularly appealing or exciting for one reason or another does not negate the wealth of yet-unread blog posts that one has been meaning to get to; does not immediately discredit the available fiction, non-fiction, opinion, and how-to articles on which one has been meaning to sit down and focus; and certainly does not mean that one has watched, listened to, clicked on, or looked at everything available on a given day. Most of us go to websites, blogs and videos to look for things that interest us - however, I can understand how one can become tired of staring at a screen for hours on end if, say, one's job requires them to do so, and how one can subsequently become bored of looking for things to do on the web. This was probably her way of saying she was "bored," but was looking for someone/thing to blame for her boredom. And of course, who better to blame than an intangible, potentially info-rich source of information? It's like someone walking into a library with the explicit purpose of reading only to fall asleep on their pile of books and then report back to their friends that "the library was boring today." While this is entirely possible, one should blame their lack of sleep or disinterest in the subject matter before blaming the books - but then again, this blog entry is simply the nitpicking of a five-word status update, which could perhaps be used to prove that I, too, have nothing better to do online and that I, too, have also found that "the Internet is boring today."

The Art of Becoming: An exploration of female artists living for (and in) their work, PART 1

2010-06-03T14:15:00.003-04:00

...it is no longer possible to regard the contemporary
work as a space to be walked through...It is henceforth
presented as a period of time to be lived through, like
an opening to unlimited discussion.[1]

Art is more about asking questions.[2]

How should we think of ourselves? How should we
articulate who we are and what we can become? [3]

As disparate as they may seem, for French philosopher Gilles Deleuze the arts, science, and philosophy are all arenas of potential creation. Deleuze asserts in most of his texts and interviews on philosophy that “we really have to see philosophy, art, and science as sorts of separate melodic lines in constant interplay with one another”[4] and not as disconnected factions at war with or competing with one another for prominence. Not so much interested in discovering a preexisting notion, a quest that would imply that all realms of possibility are already in existence and are just waiting to be found, one of the main goals behind Deleuze’s philosophical pursuits was to create something new, believing that there exists “a hidden image of thought that, as it unfolds, branches out, and mutates, inspires a need to keep on creating new concepts.”[5] Perhaps this is why Deleuze held such an affinity for the arts, focusing many of his 18 total works on visual modes of representation and literary forms of creativity,[6] for the arts are generally viewed as the ultimate realm of creativity in opposition to science, the ultimate realm of logic. But one cannot ignore that a good portion of Deleuze’s work, especially his monumental text A Thousand Plateaus written with longtime collaborator Felix Guattari, focuses on specific scientific and mathematical arenas such as neuroscience, geometry, and chemistry in relation to his and Guattari’s theories on assemblage and process ontology, thus conflating these modes of potential experiment-based creativity with philosophic inquiry.

To maintain and continue Deleuze’s investigation into the connectivity (and potential unique breaks) between the arts and science, it is my hope that a focus on these two fields will reflect the way that each sphere of creativity incorporates or disunites from Deleuze’s themes of being as becoming, duration, and smooth and striated spaces, and the exploration of immanence. Although Deleuze would assert that “there’s no order of priority among these disciplines. Each is creative,”[7] an exploration of the ways in which science and art look at the final outcome of an event – as well as an examination of the process of becoming during an event – will hopefully make an argument for art, especially duration-based performance art, as an ultimate potential for the representation of becoming. This paper will primarily explore the ways in which contemporary female performance artists Linda Montano, Marina Abramovic and Andrea Zittel have experimented with[8] and (unintentionally) incorporated these Deleuzian concepts into their work. In a way, all of the following works of art answer Deleuze’s essential question of “how might one live?” giving the viewer of the work a glimpse into the lived life of an artist living for and in their work. Interested in the effects of these “lived” art experiences, Abramovic, Zittel, and Montano attempt to suggest one mode of lived experience through their pieces, all of them relating somehow to austerity, duration, isolation, and dealing.

An essential starting point for understanding some key concepts in the work of Deleuze is certainly with his prioritizing of process ontology over substance ontology, favoring constant development and transition over absolute statehood. Process ontology allows for entities to be open to transformation and change, is an exploration of that which is coming into existence. Note the use of the term exploration here as opposed to definition, for “ontology does not offer answers but rather ways to approach the question of living.”[9] Process ontology values being as becoming, being in a state of constant development towards an unforeseen and undetermined goal. For Deleuze, “to become is not to progress or regress along a series…becoming is not an evolution, at least not an evolution by descent and filiation;”[10] becoming is therefore not about improvement or degradation, betterment or deterioration. Becoming is about transition and change, never stopping for ultimate satisfaction but constantly exploring new possible situations for one’s own existence.

Not restricted to the theoretical realm of philosophic thought, process ontology very much informs architect and theorist Bernard Cache’s stance in his work on the creation of structures. An alignment with process ontology certainly inspires Cache’s concept that “in no case does the identity of a site preexist, for it is always the outcome of a construction”[11]; for Cache, no destination has a predetermined future or path along which it necessarily will or must follow, much like the Deleuzian concepts of individuals as in a constant state of becoming (Deleuze, never one for humanism, would argue that architectural sites are no different than animals, than humans, than flowers…). Architecture is an art form that plays a prominent role in the A-Z Living Spaces – small, self-contained home modules in which an inhabitant has access to everything she or he needs – of Andrea Zittel and in Marina Abramovic’s durational performance pieces, and is another space to which one can apply Deleuzian concepts surrounding this ontology of becoming. Noticing that “Zittel’s aspiration to ‘new kinds of situations’ seems to parallel a broader trend[. T]he proposals she (Zittel) receives at Socrates—for “Interstate” as well as for other exhibitions—increasingly reflect ‘a notion of public art that is not monumental but rather changing and ephemeral’,”[12] Zittel’s collaborator Alysan Baker reflects on the notion of the nomadic (or, in Deleuzian terms, “the smooth”) in contemporary art as offering potentials for becoming and transition.

For the three female artists in question, process ontology offers a chance to recognize the outcome of each lived experience as uncertain and unpredictable, especially Montano’s Seven Years of Living Art, in which the artist wore a different color every year and lived in a room of the same color for seven years; Abramovic’s experiments in duration and consciousness with The House with the Ocean View (2002-2003); and Zittel’s hope to create “wonderful experiences that are completely unpredictable”[13] with her A-Z Pocket Property and her A-Z Living Units. In constructing the first of her home units, Andrea Zittel believed “that when I made that piece and I had everything perfected that [would] solve all of my problems" of living in the confined space of a storefront in Brooklyn. However, once she was done with the first unit she discovered that

when...it was perfect and there was nothing left to do to it, I felt
completely despondent, very listless and depressed. At that
point...I had this revelation that no one really wants perfection;
that we're obsessed with perfection, we're obsessed with
innovation and moving forwards, but what we really want is
the hope of some sort of new and improved or a better
tomorrow.[14]

When Zittel set out to execute the performance of A-Z Pocket Property in which she lived on a prefabricated, floating island in Denmark by herself for one month, she liked the idea of “not really knowing beforehand if it’s going to be a great experience or a horrible one”;[15] this spirit of conducting tests mirrors the ways that Abramovic “considered performance art a laboratory for experiments in consciousness.”[16] Zittel’s Pocket Property enterprise was a dance with isolation in its purest sense – except, of course, if we are to account for the friends who joined her to film the experience for a day.[17]

In mentioning this fact of video recording that performance artists tend to employ when documenting their work, one cannot ignore the discussion of live performance versus recorded performance – in fact, Phelan holds true to the notion that, at least in terms of Abramovic’s House, “the potential for the event to be transformed in unscripted ways by those participating (both the artists and the viewers) makes it more exciting,”[18] something that arguably cannot occur when re-watching of the video of an event. A video of an artistic performance, most likely edited down for length, does not bear witness to the complete experience of becoming through which the artist is moving both in front of and with an audience. When deciding to document her seven days of performances for Seven Easy Pieces (themselves re-performances of the works of other artists such as Vito Acconci, Valie Export, and Gina Pane), Abramovic asserted “that her purpose in hiring the famous documentary filmmaker (Babette Mangolte) to record every minute of the total forty-nine hours was to avoid “repeating the mistakes of the ’70s” in failing to attend to such details.”[19] But, as Phelan would argue, “performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: Once it does so, it becomes something other than performance.”[20] In fact, one must question whether not recording those performances in the 1970s was actually a failure of these artists or in fact an acknowledgement of that which Phelan insists. Tending to agree (and I am certain that Deleuze would as well) with Phelan, moving away from a focus on the recorded representations of the work of these artists will offer a more true depiction of the duration-based experiences of becoming explored by Montano, Abramovic and Zittel.

As mentioned above, all three of these women artists have conducted performances and pieces that deal with the concept of duration, although they were certainly not the first in the art world to explore these Deleuzian notions. Similar in the themes of duration, striated space and immanence, Taiwanese artist Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performance 1978-1979 (Cage Piece) explored the notion of isolation, discipline and dedication as he positioned himself within a self-constructed jail cell. This piece consisted of Hsieh living in an 11′6″ × 9′ × 8′ caged room with nothing but simple lights, a sink, a bed, and a pail. He also had some toiletries and a friend who would visit to feed him and rid the waste from his cell. He did not speak nor read nor listen to music for this entire year.

His works have been called explorations not in suffering but in struggle and duration. The living of one’s life is certainly comparable to duration, for life is unquestionably the ultimate duration for all of us. A precursor to the work of the three women to follow, Hsieh’s work is perhaps a comment on “prison, the model site of confinement”[21] for Deleuze in his extrapolation on Foucault’s notions presented in Discipline and Punish. Indeed, the setting and title of Hsieh’s work do evoke a site of confinement as opposed to the older notion of a society of discipline; thus, it is interesting the Hsieh explains his work as exploring this very notion of “discipline.” To a certain degree, Hsieh locked himself in a cage for an entire year in order to free himself from the weight of his life, similar in vain to his goals with One Year Performance 1981-1982 (Outdoor Piece) in which he did not allow himself to enter any buildings or confined spaces, moving about New York City with only the items he could carry with him. The ways that Outdoor Piece more readily manifests this sense of freedom from control and imprisonment Cage Piece achieves through irony. Far more ominous and incarcerating in nature than the female artists to follow him, Hsieh and his work still “[fit] squarely within performance art’s peculiar and extreme explorations of the human condition”[22] although perhaps in a different, more politically enforced notion of what is to exist within and through humanity.

[1] Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Paris: Les Presses du réel, 2002), 15.

[2] Andrea Zittel qtd. in Jori Finkel, “ART; Making the Desert Bloom Out West. Way Out West,” New York Times, 25 September 2005.

[3] Todd May, “How Might One Live?” in Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction, trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 8.

[4] Gilles Deleuze, “Mediators,” in Negotiation 1972-1990, trans. Martin Joughin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 125.

[5] Deleuze, “On Philosophy,” in Negotiation, 149.

[6] See, for example, Essays Critical and Clinical, trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (with Felix Guattari), trans. Dana Polan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986); Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, trans. Daniel W. Smith (London and New York: Continuum, 2003); Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989).

[7] Deleuze, “Mediators,” in Negotiation, 123.

[8] In maintaining a discussion aligned with Deleuze, this phrase should not be seen as an attempt to separate the body from the mind in the Descartean sense of transcendence. Deleuze would argue that there is only mind, consciousness, self, or I that exists within and not separate from life.

[9] May, 25.

[10] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 238.

[11] Bernard Cache, Earth Moves: The Furnishing of Territories, ed. Michael Speaks, trans. Anne Boyman (Cambridge, MA and London, UK: MIT Press, 1995) pp. 15.

[12] Alysan Baker qtd in Michael Ned Holte, “From California to the New York Island,” Art Forum, May 2006.

[13] Interview with Andrea Zittel, “Consumption,” 2001 episode of Art: 21 – Art in the Twenty-First Century (PBS, 2001-present; Art21 Inc)

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Peggy Phelan, “Marina Abramovic: Witnessing Shadows,” Theatre Journal, Vol. 56, No. 4 (December 2004), 571.

[17] The outcome of her friends’ visit is the film Gollywobler, directed by Joachim Hamou (2000; Denmark).

[18] Phelan, 575.

[19] Johanna Burton, “Repeat Performance,” Art Forum, January 2006.

[20] Peggy Phelan, “The ontology of performance: representation without reproduction,” in Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies, ed. Philip Auslander (New York: Routledge, 2003), 320.

[21] Deleuze, “Postscript on Control Societies,” in Negotiations, 177.

[22] Roberta Smith, “A Year in a Cage: A Life Shrunk to Expand Art,” New York Times, 18 February, 2009.

True Blood title sequence: sexual consumption and intolerance of the Other

2010-05-10T19:10:00.004-04:00

The beginning title sequence of True Blood effectively sets the location and space in which the narrative will unfold while alluding to racial tensions and overt themes of sex and consumption. In a recent interview, design house Digital Kitchen’s Shawn Fedorchuk, one of the main creatives behind the storyboarding of the True Blood title sequence, alleged he wanted the credits to take on “a point of view of a supernatural, predatory creature observing human beings from the shadows, almost stalking them” [1]. The sequence begins underwater with the camera tilting up from a menacing, amphibious creature lurking in the depths, immediately cutting to the eye of a crocodile that stares unblinking at the camera. The following shots pan across deserted swamplands, simultaneously locating the action in the Southern state of Louisiana (well-known for its alluvial topography) while also insinuating that the actions to unfold will deal with “creatures” literally hidden beneath the surface of society, important both symbolically and literally as vampires sleep underground.

As the camera takes the viewer away from the swamplands and along the streets of a town lined with picaresque houses and Mom and Pop liquor stores, we get our first clear glimpse of some of the people who inhabit this Louisiana town: black women in their Sunday best, singing and clapping their hands in a church choir. As the camera continues to move along the sleepy storefront of a liquor store, there is a cut to archival black and white footage of civil unrest between black and white folks with an intervention by police officers. The archival footage has most likely been taken from a Civil Rights protest in the 1960s, hinting to the viewer that similar struggles for civil rights will unfold during the course of the program’s narrative, in this case contextualized with the Vampire Rights Movement. The choice to show these black faces after images of the creatures that inhabit the literal underbelly of the swamplands might be an attempt to prepare the audience for the depiction of a Southern state that still positions minorities against the hegemonic norm of whiteness, a town in which white (in this case white human) authority is bureaucratically superior and minorities still maintain their traditional Southern role of persecution.

The next several bodies that we see are white and evoke some reference – both indirect and directly – to either sexuality or violence: the black lingerie-clad body of a blond woman on a bed; the youthful, blank face of a tiny, hood-adorned Ku Klux Klan member; two young boys smearing a pulverized strawberry across their mouths and chins. After the shot of the half-naked white body, the audience is privy to the slow-motion shot of a snake preparing to strike an unseen victim that might just be the unassuming white woman. If we are to link the black, minority bodies to their introduction by gruesome yet inactive swamp creatures, then the same connection can be made for the relationship between the predatory snake and the violent and sexualized white bodies: in this narrative, white men are the main purveyors of violence who are able to comfortably and openly speak about killing the minority vampire figures.

As the title sequence moves on, we see several female bodies juxtaposed with dead or dying animals: an image of a white, half-naked woman lying down just before a shot of a flattened, bloody possum; in another sequence, a woman sits on the edge of a pool table, wrapping her legs around a man’s waist, an image in contrast with a frog being consumed by a Venus Flytrap. By equating these sexual bodies with dead animals and creatures capable of consumption, the title sequence attempts to align sexuality with nonhuman creatures in a way that foreshadows the miscegenation between humans and the undead that is to occur in the program's narrative. The Venus Flytrap functions as a visual play on the vagina dentata, a male fear of the female sex organ as a possible castrator due to the female’s “lack” of a phallus [2] that can be said to serve as a comment on Jason Stackhouse's fear of having sex with both vampires and women who have copulated with vampires. The dead, bloody possum juxtaposed with the white, half-naked female body serves as a reference to “meat” available for consumption by whatever creature intends to feed on it. As the song “Bad Things” by Jace Everett plays to its end, the sequence culminates with convulsing black bodies in a Baptist church and two white men baptizing a white woman in a lake. The intense religious imagery, including a brief shot of a cross bursting into flames and two white women praying and crying, notifies the viewer of the religiously-informed position of most of the people in this small Southern town. If the brief shot in this title sequence of a church sign reading "God Hates Fangs" didn't do enough to convince the audience that this town is filled with intolerance of the Other - even an Other who looks so much like them as humans - the events that unfold on the show will convincingly depict this atmosphere of religiously- and socially-formed intolerance in due time.

[1] Shawn Fedorchuk. Qtd in “Doing Baptisms, Bars and Bloodlust.” Red Orbit, 10 September 2008. http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/1550089/doing_baptisms_bars_and_bloodlust/index.html

[2] Discussed in Barbara Creed. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis. New York: Routldge, 1993. 105 - 121.

Lady Gaga's video for "Paparazzi": Irony, innocence, and the death of the heterosexual binary

2010-05-09T00:30:00.007-04:00

This is an excerpt from a paper entitled "'We're C-Coming Out': Lady Gaga's Postmodern Videographic and Public Bisexual Persona"

Full disclosure: Åkerlund’s video for Paparazzi does not have the rich visual subtext found in his later Telephone, although the lyrical content is far more relevant to the presented visual themes than the words in the Telephone lyrics. The disjointed presentation that occurs between the narrative and the song-and-dance numbers could have something to do with this, or it could be because this video deals with a heterosexual relationship that does not overtly challenge the representations of relationships. Through a close reading of Lady Gaga’s interactions with her male lover in the video’s narrative and by reading into the irony present in the juxtaposition between the song’s lyrics and the narrative elements, one can understand Gaga’s need to be loved by men and her ultimate distrust of the male relationships she has had in her life. The ending of the video will also provide a clean segue into the beginning of the video for Telephone in which Gaga is punished for her actions toward her heterosexual lover.

Lady Gaga is shown in bed intimately kissing her male lover, played by Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård of True Blood fame, until he asks her to come with him out to the balcony. In this moment we identify the gender of Gaga’s sexual attraction for this video as a cisman who likely functions as a stand-in for her real-life boyfriend before she became famous. He carries her outside, propping her body on the edge of the balcony ledge, and the viewer soon finds out his real motivations for carrying her outside were not to be romantic but to have their intimate moments captured by the paparazzi. Once the Lady realizes the motivations behind his intentions she hits him across the face, which enrages him enough to drop her small body over the edge of the balcony. Just after both parties have admitted to loving each other – and indeed, Gaga has admitted in interviews that she has “only been in love with men” although she has had sexual attractions to women [1] – the male half of this couple makes the decision to push the woman he “loves” to her death, questioning the ability for love to exist in a life so comingled with artistic performance.

Interestingly enough, the play with gender that occurs between the lyrics of the song and the actions on screen allow for an ironic, nuanced reading of the video that further positions it within Dyer’s definition of the queer camp aesthetic[2]. The lyrics of the song describe a female fan totally “gaga” over an unidentified male celebrity. The fan swears to him that “I’m your biggest fan / I’ll follow you until you love me” and promises “I won’t stop / Until that boy is mine.” Taking on the role of the female fan instead of the celebrity who is typically the object of fandom, she presents a critical look at both herself as a celebrity persona and the obsessive, bloodthirsty fans who subscribe to the cult/ure of celebrity. If we take her male heterosexual lover in this video as an embodiment of a potential adoring (read: obsessive) fan who is actually thinking “I won’t stop / Until that girl is mine.” It is foreboding that these lyrics play over the image of Gaga pushed in a wheelchair and then attempting to walk with crutches; as her voice is heard in the song singing the lyrics above, she advances awkwardly on her crutches as the video is intercut with shots of Lady Gaga sitting on a couch simulating auto-asphyxiation, indicating that obsessive infatuation with both a celebrity and a lover can lead to suffocation. Using fandom as a metaphor for romantic and/or sexual love, Lady Gaga comments on the sacrifices she will go through as a lover, and the subsequent sacrifices that her lover will go through as a die-hard fan, in order to obtain the object of their desire.

At the end of the Fosse-driven dance sequences that occur for the middle portion of the video we return to a now-recovered Lady Gaga and her lover who share afternoon tea together. Lady Gaga pours a flask of poison – the same poison we will later see utilized in Telephone – into his beverage, which kills him almost instantly. Gaga wears a bright yellow outfit decorated with a graphic print of Mouseketeers and black sunglasses quite similar to Mickey Mouse ears. Looking both like a cartoonish and a childish version of herself, Gaga places her hand to her lips in an innocent yet knowing fashion after her lover is officially dead. By poisoning her boyfriend who literally and figuratively robbed her of her mobility both physically and socially, Lady Gaga the character and the actual celebrity will now self-reflexively steal back her rightful place at the top of the fame food chain by the tabloid coverage that this homicide will afford her. By killing off her heterosexual partner Lady Gaga is effectively doing away with this strict sexual binary that society has attempted to assign to her, leaving open the possibility for new forms of sexual exploration. As she is lead into a police car through a sea of screaming fans, Lady Gaga’s regained fame spins out of newspaper headlines as she drives off into the next phase in her life and in her “career”: a short stint in prison.

[1] In an interview with Barbara Walters, Gaga states “I’ve only been in love with men, I’ve never been in love with a woman but that’s really what the song was all about: why, when I was with my boyfriend, was I fantasizing about women?” Walters reacts with far more dignity than Jonathan Ross, who, when she makes a similar proclamation on his show, reacts with “Oh, good lord…blimey.”

[2] Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: Routledge, 2004.

The Whitney, Alone and Together

2010-05-09T00:27:00.001-04:00

Cross-posted on Immanent Terrain

Perhaps because I was so completely taken by the Marina Abramovic exhibit at MoMA last week - I'm still thinking about it and still bring it up in conversation with friends back in California - I found it difficult to process all of the information thrown at me at the Whitney Museum's Biennial show last Friday, April 30th. Only almost a week later have I been able to reflect on what I had seen and what struck me and remained imprinted on my memory.

I showed up at the museum equipped with the knowledge of one, maybe two of the artists whose work was on display, completely unfamiliar with the rest of the pieces and the artists in the show and completely unassuming in what to expect. I'd heard a lot of hype, namely that this year's show was the best in ages, but digesting this hype felt similar to times when friends have told me that a film is "amazing" or "hilaaarious!" - I knew that expecting too much could potentially disappoint. I suppose that since this show is supposed to be the show that features the next big stars of the art world I should have done a bit more research - but honestly, wandering the labyrinth of temporary walls and installations with a map and a checklist wouldn't have done me any good at all. Instead, coming in blindly allowed me to stay longer when I wanted to stay and move on quickly when something didn't catch my attention or peak my interest.

Having the collective experience of viewing the Bruce High Quality Foundation's piece I Like America and America Likes Me was a unique moment in the visit, being the first and last time that all seven of us experienced a piece together through interaction and conversation. I don't know that everyone was equally intrigued by this piece, nor am I asserting that everyone will remember it - but from this point on, after viewing the BHQF's Hearse converted into an ambulance with the windshield functioning as a screen for a slightly distorted video piece, each of us will have a unique selective memory of those pieces of art that matter the most to us for one reason or another. For that first shared experience, we all were able to experience something together, although this is not to say that all of our experiences were the same nor that all of our memories of the shared experience will be the same.

Fascinating, though, how each of us will come away from this and write something different about potentially disparate or potentially the same works. After we all parted ways and completely lost track of each other, each of us were able to take as much time as we needed looking at every piece of art that interested us, in a way being allowed to choose the most desired path for our own unique experiences. I had several passing moments with everyone, "dancing" with Susana a few times, sitting silently next to Caldwell during Kerry Tribe's video piece HM (which I fully intend to write more about once I feel that I can effectively compare it to Bergson), but rarely speaking with any of them in the hopes of maintaining our own unique, uninterrupted experiences. I don't necessarily enjoy conversing at a museum anyway both for fear of being rude or disturbing other patrons and the desire to quietly contemplate and live in the moment. This is why I agree with Sam's point that museums and art in general are sometimes best experienced alone - I think that Brian trying to be friendly and speak to a completely engrossed and therefore barely responsive version of myself while I was watching Abramovic's Rest Energy at MoMA is a testament to the point that art is sometimes best experienced in solitude - but, this is not to discourage the potential for an enlightened, collaborative conversation afterward.

The Artist is Present: Marina Abramovic and Relational Aesthetics

2010-04-28T18:26:00.004-04:00

(cross-posted on Immanent Terrain)

It was nothing short of a profoundly unique experience to witness Marina Abramovic's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday, April 24th, 2010. I say this not just because of the profound impact that her work left on me for the days after witnessing the re-performances and re-presentations of her literal "body of work"; this experience was novel as it was the first time MoMA has curated a retrospective on the oeuvre of a performance artist.

I had an inclining of what to expect after having lunch with my artist friend on the Wednesday prior to visiting the museum. She explained the piece that Abramovic herself was to be performing on the second floor of the museum, The Artist is Present, as the artist's ultimate work. My artist friend's explanation served to be a far more modest, cursory description of the performance, as the experience is far more serene yet grand than she made it out to be. Upon entering the museum and ascending the stairs to the Marron Atrium that exists as a space traditionally in constant flux exhibiting temporary collections, large-scale pieces, and video installations, one encounters massive floodlights at each of the four corners of a large square marked off on the floor by tape, the square almost the size of the space itself. In the center of the square sits Abramovic on a chair at one end of a wooden table wearing a long, red gown that is simultaneously confining her body and yet somehow cascading around her legs and onto the floor, making herself at once separate from and one with the chair on which she is positioned. There is a chair positioned at the other end of the table facing the artist in which museum visitors are invited to sit and engage in an unspoken dialogue with the artist for an indeterminate amount of time. Her body appears in this same position every day for the length of museum hours until the retrospective closes on May 31, 2010.

Endurance is a large part of Marina Abramovic's presentation of her body/of work. Sitting or standing for hours at a time, subjecting her body to repeatedly to collisions with other objects, beatings, lashings or deprivation, Abramovic tests the limits of human comfort with acts of tedium, stress, and concentration. As she submits her body to these series of acts - examples can be drawn from her three parallel pieces from 1977 entitled Freeing the Memory, Freeing the Body, and Freeing the Voice in which she speaks, dances and screams until she has pushed her body to the point of failure - Abramovic seeks to push her body out of its comfort of stasis and stagnant, un-becoming being. In committing to performing these acts in front of a live audience (or at times the future audience implied in the act of filming the performance), the artist insists on creating a dialogue with herself and her audience, creating herself as both the subject and the object of her body/of work. Much like her piece The Artist is Present, Abramovic questions the notions of object and subject and of artistic and audience.

If, as Nicolas Bourriaud asserts in his text Relational Aesthetics, "each particular artwork is a proposal to live in a shared world, and the work of every artist is a bundle of relations with the world,"(i) then Abramovic's aim of blurring the line between artist as subject and audience as object (and vice versa) lies in her confrontation of her body with the spectator. Consistently appearing nude without engaging in sexual acts and subjecting her body to the will of her audience like she did with Rhythm O - asking the audience to use one of 70 or so different objects, some of them potentially lethal, on herself and taking full responsibility - the artist is confronting her audience's notions of the body and of the traditional work of art while at the same time dispelling concepts of sexuality and humanity.

"...it is no longer possible to regard the contemporary work as a space to be walked through...It is henceforth presented as a period of time to be lived through, like an opening to unlimited discussion." (ii)
- Nicolas Bourriaud

None of Marina Abramovic's works exemplify this quote from Bourriaud more literally than her piece The House with the Ocean View (2002), a space constructed for living out a minimalist existence in the hopes of purifying the artist's body and mind. Consisting of three rooms with nothing more than a shower, a toilet, 12 changes of clothes and gallons of purified water, Abramovic lived in this elevated space for 12 days with three ladders made of butcher knives offering her only chance for escape. While the artist was only present in the space via a filmed projection of one of her performances of this work, the stark space, beautiful in its modernist simplicity and austerity, the picture below offers one glimpse into her 12 day experience in the performance space.

"I didn't have verbal communication. It was only with the eyes. I became so sensitive that—it sounds almost religious—I had this amazing opening of the heart that hurt me. This is why I believe time is so necessary: the public needs time to get the point. When I spend 12 days in a gallery, its energy is changed. Artists have to serve as oxygen to society, and that is what I do." - Marina Abramovic, from an interview for ARTnews.

(i) Nicolas Bourriaud. Relational Aesthetics. France: Les presses du reel, 1998 (22).
(ii) Ibid, 15.

"We're C-Coming Out": Lady Gaga's Videographic and Public Bisexual Persona

2010-04-25T22:13:00.006-04:00

Below are some preliminary thoughts on a term paper for my Sexual Personae class.

Musical artist, performer and stylistic savant Lady Gaga's gender and sexual identity have come into question ever since the release of her first album The Fame in 2008. Reactions to her on- and off-screen persona bring to light the public's discomfort with a contemporary performance artist whose display of her body is not overtly sexualized to the preferences of the male gaze. Clearly taking influence from artists like Madonna and turning the costumes and visual styles up to maximum volume, Lady Gaga's music is in no way what makes her unique - this young woman is clearly an artist in the age of the viral video, incorporating hyper-contemporary and shocking images into her repertoire of dance and filmed and live performance. Lady Gaga's outrageous costumes, videos, and stage presence are all part of that repertoire, and paired with her public appearances at LGBTQ Rights rallies make for just an off-kilter enough performance of gender and sexuality for the general public to begin to question her identification as a woman. Even after Gaga admitted to identifying as a bisexual woman, rumors surrounding her sex organs did not subside - a rumor that her recent video "Telephone" goes to almost graphic lengths to disprove.

Lady Gaga's videos never shy away from sparking conversation and inciting controversy - especially in the fluidity of her sexual affections and attentions from one video to the next.

In this paper I would like to address the representations of Lady Gaga's sexuality in both her music videos as well as her public life of advocacy. I would like to begin by analyzing the discourse surrounding Gaga's gender and sexual identity in the popular press and on gossip blogs and in magazines, as well as some of her appearances at LGBTQ rallies and publicized support of those who have experienced discrimination because of their sexuality. The paper will then move into a contextual analysis of the sexual content of both "Paparazzi" and "Telephone," two videos which depict the fluidity of her sexual affections for first a male ("Paparazzi") and then a female ("Telephone") sexual subject.

I will analyze the ways that these two videos break from while simultaneously reinstating certain gender roles, depictions of heterosexual and same-sex relationships, and ideas of the male gaze of the female subject.

Preliminary Sources:

Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge, 1990, 1999.

Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, Second Edition, London: Routledge, 2004.

Straayer, Chris, Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-Orientations in Film and Video, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Tyler, Parker, Screening the Sexes: Homosexuality and the Movies, New York: Holt, 1972.

The Degendering of Black Male Performers

2010-04-24T12:43:00.003-04:00

Take a look at this video which showcases dance moves of the 1930s like the Charleston, the Lindy Hop and the Shim Sham as exemplified by black performers Al Minns and Leon James in both solo and partner dance.

Interestingly enough, these men who start as individual male performers begin to perform as partners, a traditionally male-female relationship in the world of dance. Would this have been acceptable with a white male-male partnership on 1960s national television? As this video is showcasing the "jazz" (read: black) dance moves that came out of "jazz" (again, read: black) clubs of the era, having two white performers enact these moves would have been inappropriate to some degree. But the interesting choice to have two black men perform a partner dance that includes close body contact and lifts (that should be massively accredited for their impressive athleticism) proves the point of many scholars that mediated representations of black men and women are usually "divested of their sexuality"(i) on television or are portraying "neutered or counterfeit sexuality"(ii) in films. Also, their attire is reminiscent of a bellhop's or a waiter's uniform, warranting another reading of the chosen costume for these black entertainers as congruous with other contemporary representations of black men as individuals in the service industry.

Despite these observations, the video is pretty fantastically entertaining in its own right, is it not?

(i) Donald Bogle, Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 37.

(ii) Ed Guerrero, Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 72.

A "Western" horror hallmark in Japanese cinema

2010-04-15T12:45:00.012-04:00

The most recent issue of Bitch magazine included an article (not available on the web, sorry!) entitled "Hell is Older People—Aging as the ultimate cinematic horror" about the way in which Western horror films repeatedly utilize a scary, decrepit, manipulative old women character to strike ultimate fear in the minds of the youthful audience, the usual demographic for the horror genre. What author Alana Prochuk argues is that unlike the sick, devastating blow of an axe to the neck, aging is something that we as mortals can never escape - besides, how many of the individuals sitting in the audience have actually been threatened by a chainsaw-wielding maniac? Both the characters in the filmic world and the audience members in the seats of the theater face the imminent threat of our own mortality and death, and what better way to depict this fear than by placing it in large scale on the screen in front of us: a close-up of Mrs. Ganush's cataract-clouded eye and decaying teeth in Drag Me to Hell, the fossil-like state of Vera in the wonderfully graphic Dead Alive.

Even the titles are blatantly indicative of what is to be feared most about these the films: the thin, delicate line between between life and death, and the struggle to emerge from death's imminent, dragging pull toward a hellish (both literal and figurative) afterlife.

Prochuk goes on to cite other examples from Western cinema dating all the way back to 1974's Homebodies, a tale of "a sweet-seeming band of dispossessed senior citizens" who go to lengths to regain ownership of the home from which they have been evicted. In deciding to dedicate this article to Western cinema, Prochuk unfortunately missed out other opportunities for exploration found in horror films from filmmakers outside of the US and Western Europe, and I don't blame her - the majority of the films in her article focus on mainstream, major theatrical releases from the last twenty years or so, probably films that an American woman could have easily accessed in her local theater or found on the shelves of Blockbuster or the search engines on Netflix.

Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 film Hausu (House), on the other hand, would not have been showing around the corner at the local theater, and is not even available on Region 1 DVD (after some initial research, I could find several Region 2 (UK) copies of the DVD on Ebay and Amazon, and although it is listed on Netflix one's only option is to "Save" the DVD for later) - the only way that I hear about the film was through a friend inviting me to a late-night screening at IFC Center in the West Village. This is, arguably, just around the corner for a few people, but as House was only screening for a single night and there were about twenty other people in the theater besides the five in our group I doubt many people have heard of or even know of this beautifully strange, self-aware psychedelic horror film about a group of seven high school girls who go to visit one of their elderly auntie's on break from school.

The seven girls who appropriately embody their names - Prof wears glasses and reads books, Kung-Fu kicks ass (with minimal clothing!), Sweet likes to clean, Fantasy has an overactive imagination, Gorgeous is real purdy, Melody plays the guitar and piano, and Mac probably likes McDonald's a little too much - are killed off one by one by either the paraplegic (or is she?) auntie or by her house itself. Although Gorgeous's auntie does not embody the Western horror trope of the decaying elderly character, there is certainly something a little creepy, a little off, and a little ephemeral about her presence.

While physically she is not unpleasant to look at, she still exists in the film as a reminder of what will happen to a girl who never gets married and rides out life through old age alone in her secluded, slightly dilapidated house. She is the ultimate "cat lady," with her cat Blanche doing her bidding and ceramic and painted representations of Auntie's faithful feline staring back at every turn. Auntie is positioned as a woman who wanted nothing more than to be married as a young girl, a figure in stark contrast to the seven youthful, cheerful and independent girls who come to visit her who each have their own unique (if stereotypically depicted) talent. Interestingly, the girls are all eventually killed by whatever thing it is they love the most: Melody is dismembered by the piano, Mac is decapitated while trying to fetch a watermelon from the well, and Sweet is crushed by falling linens and mattresses. Kung-Fu, physically the strongest of the group, is electrocuted by a ceiling lamp, a harnessed force that is impervious to human strength and could be the only thing to defeat a bodily force such as martial arts.

While the Western films mentioned in Prochuk's piece tend to physically portray the indications that old age is something to be feared through the withered faces of the elderly, Hausu does something slightly different by suggesting that resigning to the life of an old maid will drive one insane, distract them from youthful passions and desires, and trap one in a life of void of fulfillment. Prochuk suggests that "it's hardly surprising that many such films feature a female baddie" especially since the "problems" that come with aging - wrinkles, bad smells, loss of sexual drive and possibility for sexually attracting a mate - are treated in Western culture as much more dire for women than they are for men. I wonder if this trope only crops up subtly in Japanese film because, as filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky once wrote, "The Japanese[...]see a particular charm in the evidence of old age." While Tarkovsky was discussing the Japanese affinity for Saba in their art, it can be said that almost any culture outside of the United States tends to hold much higher regard and respect for their elderly. This could be why the elderly woman found in Western horror films doesn't crop up quite the same way in Japanese horror; however, I still find Prochuk's argument applicable to the themes in Hausu.

All critical analysis aside, the screening of this film was one of the best experiences I've had at the cinema in quite some time. If the print travels to a theater near you, don't miss it.

Thoughts on Bernard Cache's EARTH MOVES

2010-03-27T16:51:00.005-04:00

Beginning his text announcing that "architectural images seem to be a good starting point" (2) for distinguishing between and navigating around the myriad visual elements that are present in our daily lives, Bernard Cache continues his text with an exploration of the philosophical and formal nature of architecture. But delegating the text to this definition - assigning Earth Moves the category of a "formal and philosophical study of architecture" - would be far too limiting, for he indeed discusses a great deal more than just forms and thought. Architecture is indeed inherently about forms and shapes, and is therefore also about geometry and mathematical interests. Cache discusses the city of Lausanne, a Swiss city located near the shores of Lake Geneva. The topography of the city has been profiled by filmmakers like Godard, who in a short film about Lausanne describes the city to have a visual problem or inconsistency that is to him Cezannian in nature - broad, disconnected spaces that make navigating the terrain problematic.

Cache chooses to profile the city of Lausanne due to its unique topography and geography that somehow dictated the construction of roads, buildings, works of art, and so on. However, Cache goes on to remind us that "in no case does the identity of a site preexist, for it is always the outcome of a construction" (15). For Cache, no destination has a predetermined future or path along which it necessarily will or must follow, an assertion that should strike a familiar chord with readers of Deleuze: one of the French philosopher's key concepts is a subscription to process ontology, which privileges being as becoming, as transformation, as constant change. Gilles Deleuze tends to prioritize difference over identity, a concept that is almost directly paraphrased in Cache's affirmation that once a being is defined or once a place has a definition, it is no longer capable of evolution. Remembering Todd May's definition of Deleuze's main question "how might one live?", Cache's own question regarding the development of architectural projects on a topographic space could possibly be summed up as "how might this space be altered?"

After attending class and discussing, albeit briefly, Cache's text and its significance to the world of critical architectural theory and Cache's relationship to Deleuze (they were contemporaries, even though Cache's text was not published until almost 12 years after it was written and only because Deleuze cross-referenced Cache's ideas in his own work, thus giving him notoriety), I found myself developing a new appreciation for Cache's approach to architecture and the interrelated realms of science, mathematics, and representational art. It was interesting to learn that not just Deleuze's ideas on the individual - or what he would call the becoming-human (so in this case, the becoming-site?) - are what influenced Cache, but also Simondon's embrace of individuation and his subsequent rejection of preformism, a rejection that he came to after his studies of physical matter led him to dismiss this idea of substance. A rejection of preformism can also be said to be a rejection of the preexisting identity of a geological site, something that Cache adamantly repeats throughout his text and his argument. I must say that this idea is quite appealing to me, especially because it expresses the possibility of unlimited potential, a potential that one would not normally assign to an inanimate object. In some ways, a rejection of preformism and an embrace of individuation opens the door for so much creativity, even if the site is already altered to a certain specification or a temporary definition of what it is at that moment; once a concrete structure is formed on a specific site, this does not mean that the structure is permanent or the only way to define the site. Instead, defining a site as capable of endless possibilities allows for impermanence, creativity, and growth in the eternal becoming-site.

You can also find this post on Immanent Terrain, the class blog for Art After Deleuze.

White guilt and White male paranoia

2010-03-10T10:27:00.007-05:00

A response to Richard Dyer's "The Matter of Whiteness":

Richard Dyer begins his paper “The Matter of Whiteness” (1999) by discussing the central nature that racial judgments and racial imagery encompass in the contemporary world. He points to the “enormous amount of analysis on racial imagery in the past decades,” especially when it comes to analyses in postcolonial texts of the racial Other – that is, those who are other than White, for the majority of research and discourse about race centers on “any racial imagery other than that of white people” (539). He mentions the assumption employed by the media and authors of other textual works that categorize “whiteness” as synonymous with “human,” a category which he admits to utilizing in his own discussion of drag queens: Dyer mentions that in his analysis of characters from Car Wash such as the “fashion queen” and the “black queen” he fails to identify the “fashion queen” as White, falling into the trap of writing about “white people [as] just people” whereas Black individuals necessitate the signifier of their color (540). He draws upon other examples of this in mentioning the short descriptions of programs on television, reminding his reader that these two examples are in no way exhaustive.

Ultimately, Dyer’s piece can be read as a manifesto of how to attempt to discuss the issue of whiteness without repositioning it in the hegemonic, heteronormative space that it has encompassed for much (all?) of history. While attempting to iterate that White folks are not colorless and should be recognized as a categorization deserving of some attention, Dyer simultaneously asserts that whiteness should not be a newly claimed area of study – he identifies his fear that “paying attention to whiteness” will somehow “reinstate it” as a point of “centrality and authority” (542). He discusses the concept of white guilt, and how this guilt can “be a blocking emotion” that causes analyses of Whites to remain focused on how awful they have been in the past as opposed to “how exactly their image has been constructed,” (542) not suggesting that this history be ignored but should instead be only a part of the complicated reading of whiteness, and indeed of any racial category. A recent post to the online community Yay Hooray (scroll down to Lord Thuggingsworth's post) displays an example of a personification of this white guilt that does nothing to enhance the conversation.

A point of interest in Dyer’s piece comes with his mention of the surge in “white male paranoia” (542) that manifests itself in print advertisements, television spots, and magazine articles as a product of White people feeling left out of the race discussion. This white male paranoia, Dyer states, is a product of “all this (all this?) attention being given to non-white subjects” (542) in the critical analyses of race in the media and in academia. A particular Newsweek article of the same name as the hegemonic fear discussed above begins by focusing on the actions of Michael Douglas’s character in the film Falling Down – a project contemporaneous to the magazine piece – who acts out in violent rage against people of color, including “whining panhandlers, immigrant shopkeepers who don't trouble themselves to speak good English, [and] gun-toting gangbangers” (Gates, 1993) in retaliation to and reaction for the termination of his job. Other examples of this paranoia can be seen in recent Docker’s print advertisements that attempt to reclaim a time when “men wore pants” and in a television spot for Ketel One vodka (see embed below) in which the image of a table full of White, upper-middle class males is accompanied by a voiceover maintaining “there was a time when men were Men” (presumably with a capital "M"), and that this manly, vodka-drinking experience is supposedly “inspired by 300 years of tradition.” Although one could easily read these examples from a feminist perspective, stating that these advertisements and filmic representations are a reclaiming of a masculinity taken from men by a recent shift of focus to the feminine, it is this “300 years of tradition” and the table full of white men that leads me to believe otherwise – that this is indeed not just a gender but also a racial issue.

A question that came to mind while reading Dyer’s piece has to do with the sustainability of his statement that the “media, politics, education are still in the hands of white people, still speak for whites while claiming – and sometimes sincerely aiming – to speak for humanity” (541) during an era in which the United States is being run by an African American man. The inherent naivety of this question is apparent even as it is being composed, but this was a question that was raised from similar statements in Shome’s piece as well: now that a Black man is the president of America, does this mean that the presidency can still be considered “the ultimate site of white masculinity” (Shome 2000; 369) so proclaimed by Shome? This is not to suggest that President Obama, being both Black and White, speaks for all Black Americans or all White Americans – nor that these two classifications encompass the entirety of racial identities found within the United States – but is this not a potentially encouraging step toward representation of not just the white race but the human race in the “politics” mentioned in Dyer, with Obama able to possibly function as a voice for a larger portion of humanity than is possible with the overwhelming majority of white voices usually found in politics and the media? I am not sure that this question can be answered adequately; I only attempt to bring up the disparities and small developments between the current era of the early 21^st century and the late 20^th century.

Freud, the horror genre and "vagina dentata"

2010-02-18T01:00:00.007-05:00

Just look at this. I said to myself back at the beginning of February, it's a new semester! That means, Katharine, you best be writing on that blog of yours a lot more than you did in the Fall, because you're only taking three seminars so you'll have allllll this time on your hands! No reason to not be writing every day on every topic you find interesting! You can DO IT!

And now just look at me. An entire week and a half has passed since my last entry. So much for staying focused.

Well, actually, I have been quite focused. Like, 180 pages of reading a week focused. I've been focused on so many papers and articles and books that don't require me to enter The World Wide Web™ in order to read them that I haven't been taking what I've been reading and moving my thoughts and ideas into cyberspace. And since my boyfriend will be in New York this weekend (starting tomorrow night! *doeslittledance*), odds are I won't even be doing much thinking about class at all. So here's an attempt to rectify my extreme inactivity.

The title for my Sexual Personae class this week is "Exploitation!" with the readings including an interview with subversive filmmaker Doris Wishman and a brief history of sexploitation films from the book Incredibly Strange Films, as well as two chapters from the text The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis by Barbara Creed. The latter two chapters on a feminist look at Freud and Lacan and how their psychoanalytic theories can be applied to the horror genre are certainly a refreshing piece of psychoanalytic feminist film theory for someone who is quite burnt out on Laura Mulvey's defeatist attitude toward the helpless gaze inflicted upon women in cinema.

Creed is able to turn Freud's ideas of the castrated female - a quite passive and pathetic figure that, in Lacanian terms, represents "lack" due to her absence of a phallus - into an object that inspires fear in the male not because she represents the possibility of castration, but because she represents an active, potential figure who can castrate. For Creed, the female is seen as the castrating, not the castrated, with this fear of the castrating female usually established through the idea of the toothed vagina, or vagina dentata. The depiction of vagina dentata in many filmic forms - the mouth of a vampire, for instance, or the shark's mouth in Jaws, or the blood flowing from a hallway (The Shining), or Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors - represents this fear of the castrating female, for the victims in almost all cases are primarily male. Some of the characters she notes as castrating female characters - the mother in Psycho, the story of Medusa and her head of snakes, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct - had never taken on this dimension for me before, and I found it completely fascinating.

I thoroughly enjoyed her refusal to accept Freud overlooking the possibility of the female as castrating as opposed to castrated. Although, I do believe that her analysis does not do enough to challenge Freud's insistence on positioning the child figure as almost consistently male, never completely pursuing the idea of what a female child's process of identification might be upon the first sight of her father's genitals, and how this works into the concepts of viewing herself as either castrated or capable of castrating - or of being injured or lacking, or otherwise empowered.

I remember reading an essay in one of my mother's old issues of Bitch magazine that discussed a different aspect of women characters in the horror genre that has always stuck with me, but I am not quite sure where - or if - it fits in with Freudian concepts. This analysis I read positioned women in horror films not in the almost empowered(1) roles as a castrating figure, but as weak and easily possessed figures because of their vaginas, because of this orifice that allows possession by a foreign entity. In the case of The Exorcist or Poltergeist it is a demon or a spirit that possesses a female character, presumably because she is more susceptible due to her cavernous absence between her legs. With films such as The Evil Dead the forest literally enters one of the women as tree branches snake along the ground, raping and thus possessing and turning evil the female character through their entrance into her vagina. There was also something in the Bitch article about a menstruating woman, and how being a virgin in a horror film affects the outcome of the female character's ultimate conclusion, but I can't seem to remember the nuances. If anyone can point me in the right direction, or still has a copy of that magazine (*coughcough* Mom?) please, let me know. As for now, let me just say I highly recommend reading Creed. Those of you who are far better versed in the horror genre will probably get a lot more out of it than I did.

(1) This is not to imply that I believe the violent act of castration is empowering, or any violent act for that matter. I'm simply saying that this idea of the woman not as castrated - as in Freud - or as "lacking" - as in Lacan - but instead as in possession of the possibility of castrating allows the female to assume a far more active role because it is a far more frightening one for the male, therefore giving the female the slight upper hand in a formerly oppressed relationship to the male figure.

The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks

2010-02-06T12:14:00.006-05:00

On Thursday, February 4th, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) in Fort Greene, Brooklyn opened their newest exhibit titled "The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks" to a mass of attendees. Complete with digital turntablism and free food (which I overheard was donated from local eateries and restaurants) and wine, the opening event was so crowded that it was almost difficult to see all of the 20 works of art inhabiting the walls, floor, and video screens in the museum's gallery space. I was there supporting my friend Josh Bricker, whose installation piece at the MoCADA titled "The Order of Things" can be viewed by either visiting the gallery itself (open Wed thru Sun 11 - 6) or by visiting the sculpture section of his portfolio on his website.

I mention this exhibit not just to plug my friend's piece, but also as a nod to my "Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the Media" course. (I know, it's pretty much the only course I've blogged about thus far. Trust me, posts having to do with "Sexual Personae" and "Art After Deleuze" are forthcoming.) There seemed to be a mix of anger, confusion, and critique present among the attendees and the works of art in the gallery as to what the gentrification of Brooklyn means in relation to class, to loss of a unique identity, and to the social structure of the inhabitants of the area that is in the process of gentrification. I highly recommend visiting the exhibit for yourself to witness pieces from artists from the five boroughs of New York City of diverse ethnic backgrounds (none of the artists currently reside in Brooklyn, however) whose pieces cover topics including relocation, homogenization, redefinition of the word "community," and what it means to be a neighbor.

For more on the exhibit see an article from The Daily Serving and a video from NY1 in which you can see Josh's piece with the artist himself standing by, and my bewildered-looking roommate (hilarious).

Punxsutawney Phil is on Facebook

2010-02-02T13:06:00.004-05:00

First of all: who else, when thinking of the lovely American tradition of Groundhog Day, has a certain Sonny and Cher song immediately pop in their head? All you Bill Murray fans out there better say, "I do! I do!" or I'll make you watch Broken Flowers over and over again until you can't move due to your smothered state of depression. A good Murray film from the 80s or 90s is capable of being remembered for it's iconic moments and infinite string of quotable lines, and today just makes me wish I had Groundhog Day on DVD. But, alas, I will have to resort to looking up key scenes on YouTube. Le sigh...

Anyway, the real reason for this post is to briefly comment on the fact that even HOLIDAYS have begun to appropriate social networking for their own purposes (via the Christian Science Monitor). And whatever a groundhog needs a Facebook page for is totally beyond me, save maybe to alert people that February 2nd is on the horizon and then on February 2nd using the page to announce whether Punxsutawney Phil has seen his shadow. But that's it. Every other day of the year, this page has no purpose. Although, Phil does have 7,572 fans, more than most Fan pages for famous humans tend to acquire. Oh, and Phil is also mobile-savvy: today, he sent out his prognostication via text message.

I don't know how many more fans he will make after this year, seeing as the "over-sized rodent" saw his fat little shadow, forecasting another 6 weeks of winter. Double le sigh...

Congrats to Kathryn Bigelow!

2010-02-01T12:26:00.005-05:00

From The Guardian:

in a low-key ceremony in Los Angeles, Kathryn Bigelow became the first-ever female winner of the Directors' Guild of America (DGA) award for best direction in a feature film.
This is an important moment: in the DGA's 62-year-existence no female director has ever won this award. Congratulations to Bigelow aside, this win now points her firmly in the direction of an Academy award: almost every DGA win in this category results in the same achievement at the Oscars.

This could mean, since the Oscars usually follow suit with the results of the DGA awards, that Kathryn Bigelow might be the first female director to win an Academy Award for best picture in the 82 year history of the Oscars. I have no delusions here, and realize that Avatar could easily win best picture based on Guild voting from the past. Although, since I've only seen the first tense twenty minutes of Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, I cannot accurately assess whether I believe this film is more worthy of the award than Avatar. If the award was for technological innovation and spectacular achievement, I doubt the award for best picture could go anywhere else but to Cameron's film. But, this does not mean that the Academy will select the same film/director combo for the Best Picture/Best Director awards, as evidenced numerous times over the history of the ceremony.

Aside from the fact that it would be wonderful to see Bigelow accept this award, I really don't want to hear Cameron's Navi version of "I'm the king of the world!" Actually, as opposed to being in the native language of the people of pandora, his acceptance speech would probably start with something along the lines of "I've obtained the unobtainium!" Gag.

Another interesting dynamic at play here is that Bigelow is Cameron's ex-wife, making this also the first time that a husband/wife pair, albeit a former husband/wife pair, were nominated in the same category and up for the same award. The DGA Awards, in my opinion, is far more valid and reputable ceremony than the Oscars, but is not nearly as publicized or brandished as the Oscars. I just really want to see a woman win, but last year was the year for the underdog. I have my doubts as to whether the little guy (or, in this case, little lady) could possibly trump the big shot.

The Cinematic and Televisual Vampire as the Imaginary Racial and Sexual "Other"

2010-01-31T22:11:00.008-05:00

The title of this blog post is a topic I am brainstorming on as a potential avenue of exploration for the final paper in my Race, Ethnicity, and Class in the Media course that I am taking this semester with Racquel Gates. This concept is inspired by some of my burgeoning and preliminary thoughts on the blurry and fluctuating metaphor of the vampire as the racially- or sexually-marginalized "Other" on the HBO Original Series True Blood.

My hope is to investigate the use of the vampire as a representative figure for at once gay communities and minority populations both, utilizing discursive analysis of phrases employed on this program such as "coming out of the coffin" - which is easily identified as a signifier for queer culture and the process of "coming out of the closet" - or the term "Vampire Rights Movement," a battle for equality and rights being waged by the vampires of True Blood that was fought by African Americans in this country in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Movement, a struggle for equal representation and opportunities that still continues within the LGBTQ community to this day. In most cases, the vampire takes the place of the discriminated or marginalized Other, especially in the small fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana featured in True Blood; while we are not sure that there was extreme racism against the racial Other - and in Bon Temps, LA, this racial Other is by all accounts a member of the black community - before the vampires came out of the coffin a few years prior to the time period of the first season of the series (roughly present day), it can be certain that all hatred, stereotyping, fear and bigotry that was focused on and around the racial Other in Bon Temps is now directed at the vampires as the new Other. The vampire seems to be a convenient stand-in for a minority, since vampires are purely mythical beings, able to become a location for metaphor, for symbolism, for contextualized signification.

There is a fascinating character on True Blood on whom I would like to focus seeing as he shares almost the same role of the Other as the vampires but without the same of stigmatization: Lafayette Reynolds, a homosexual black short-order cook, public works employee, prostitute and drug dealer. Wearing multiple hats with his myriad professions he is one of the keenest and most strong-willed characters on the show, having connections with the mainstream public in his restaurant job, with the hidden sexual life of some of the high-ranking men in his town through his prostitution and webcam service on his website, as well as with the vampire community as a dealer of "V," or vampire blood, a substance that seems to have similar attributes to ecstasy - or, as an active party or rave subculture would refer to it, "E." He is also the physical personification of what the vampires signify as the Other as a black man and a homosexual man, for at times the vampire can represent both the racial and the sexual Other, never quite committing to one or the other.

So far, I believe I will most likely be referencing the writing of bell hooks, Homi K. Bhabha, and Stuart Hall. As I delve deeper into the semester, I am sure I will find more and more that I can work into this paper. Any suggestions? Please leave them in the comments!

I am also interested in investigating the rumblings I've heard surrounding queer identifications with and sociological analyses of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and other more classic representations of vampires in the cinema and on television. I am not yet sure where the Twilight franchise will fit in to all of this, and I feel I would be remiss in skipping over this phenomenon entirely, but I really, really don't want to read those books.

Gilles Deleuze

2010-01-11T10:25:00.005-05:00

So for this lovely, sunny Winter Break that I've been spending in Southern California, I've been spending a good deal of it reading. Granted, I've also been watching a hell of a lot of television on DVD, namely the first season of House and the first season of True Blood. There's been some "Jersey Shore" sprinkled in there (don't judge, you know you watch it, too) and a few films, both in the theaters (Fantastic Mr. Fox and Avatar) and on DVD (Angels with Dirty Faces, Finding Woodstock, Triplets of Belleville, probably a few more that I'm forgetting), but the time not spent watching has been spent reading. I'm still working on Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, and two days ago I finished Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien, a sort of Marley and Me-esque memoir but with a Caltech biologist who lives with and raises a rescued barn owl.

But the main goal of this break was to get started on some texts by Gilles Deleuze, especially since I'm enrolled in a class in the Spring called "Art After Deleuze," and I figured I should probably begin to understand some of his concepts and his style before I try to understand that which came and was created after him.

Thanks to a generous gift card to Amazon from my very literary aunt, I have purchased three texts by Deleuze: What is Philosophy?, which is co-authored by Guattari; Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, a text which I've been reading in front of a computer in order to search for all of the paintings to which Deleuze is referring; and Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, quite possibly the most dense text of the three. I'm only through the various introductions and the first 5 pages, but I've already found a passage that grabbed me, which I would like to share here:

...what was cinema's position at the outset? On the one hand, the view point [prise de vue] was fixed, the shot was therefore spatial and strictly immobile; on the other hand, the apparatus for shooting [appareil de prise de vue] was combined with the apparatus for projection, endowed with a uniform abstract time. The evolution of the cinema, the conquest of its own essence or novelty, was to take place through montage, the mobile camera and the emancipation of the view point, which became seperate from projection.

I know some of you might be thinking that this is quite an obvious statement of the moment(s) when cinema began to evolve, and the means through which it did, and therefore must be wondering why I like this quote so much. It's quite simple, really: I'm a sucker for concise definitions.

Hopefully this text gets a bit easier as it goes on, because right now I'm struggling a little. This could be because I'm trying to read the introductory concepts at 7 in the morning, which is what I'm hoping the case may be. I should probably continue reading when I've had a bit more caffeine...

"R"

2009-12-16T23:26:00.002-05:00

Below is another poem from my Google search series. Enjoy.

R

Ragtime, Ratatat LP3 tracks
RCN, The Red Bull Stop, Road bike
Ritalin
Record player, Records for sale, Records online
Robert Mapplethorpe, Robert Venturi, Ramses
Roddy Macdowell, Rick Warren
Ritalin
Roy Teeluck, Rosie the Riveter
The Rumble Strips, Rhythms of modern art, Rutgers
Ritalin

Statement of Intent for "Imagining Language" project, plus one of the poems

2009-12-14T10:26:00.008-05:00

Through the act of articulation and writing oneself into being, all participants are engaged in a performance intended to be interpreted and convey particular impressions.

- danah boyd from “'None of This is Real': Identity and Participation in Friendster"

This project is designed to act as a comment on the performative nature of the depictions of self that we as participants in online social networks create and compose for the online audience of our peers. By summing up our identities through a series of pre-determined categories (Activities, Interests, Favorite Music/TV shows/Movies/Books, etc.) we are actively creating our virtual selves to represent who we believe ourselves to be, taking deliberate control over the domain of first impressions and identity creation. This impression of ourselves that we are meticulously authoring is the self-approved version of our identity, the one meant for performance in the public space of the online social sphere.

However, factors of our online presence that we do not consciously maintain or construct – or usually, for that matter, even remember – such as the keywords entered into search engines like Google still compose a unique online identity and cache of puzzle pieces that comprise a more complete picture of a user. This running set of inquiries – searches tracked by Google Analytics when a user is signed into their Google account and conducts a search – that was reserved for the mind and oral culture before the advent of the computerized search engine can be seen as the portion of our stream of consciousness that accounts for all those “I wonder what, or who, or where…” moments, and in some ways makes up for our stunted short term memories. These keywords should not be seen as just a point of inception of an inquiry; they in fact make up another aspect of our online identities, an aspect that we do not then share in the online sphere of the social. Because we do not actively enter keywords with the foresight of public presentation in mind, these keywords are almost more indicative of our identities than the information on our deliberately constructed online social network profiles

Primarily informed by danah boyd’s notions of the personal performances that take place on the profile spaces of social networking sites such as Friendster, this project aims to make a comment on the constructed performance of identity that is so accepted within online social networks by publicly performing portions of the artist's Google search history and thus forcing the private into the public. These search results will be compiled into lists, poems, and possibly other forms that grow organically from the source material. The artist intends to perform these pieces in public spaces, exposing normally hidden aspects of her interests in the public sphere. In order to incorporate the online social sphere as well as the traditional public sphere, the artist will also post these pieces to her social network profiles, and will showcase the pieces on her personal website.

The artist acknowledges that she has set certain parameters for this project, given the fact that the project can evolve over time as Google is the primary search engine employed by the artist in her daily online activities. The artist has made selections from her searches, choosing what to include in certain pieces and what to leave out. It is for these reasons, along with the burden of time constraints, that the artist has set certain parameters for the project, including the following::

Some of the pieces were constructed with the intent to have a certain cognitive flow, and include only search inquiry keywords that rhyme or fit together stylistically.
Others will simply be presented alphabetically by the first letter of the search term, for example: all search inquiries that start with the letter “R”
The artist omitted any Google Maps search results for businesses, locations, or addresses and limited the included keywords to images, persons, and things.
The project, due to time constraints, was limited to the sample of keywords that begin with the letters M through Z for searches conducted between September, 2008 and February, 2009. This will be expanded over the course of the next several months to include Googled keywords through September, 2009 (allowing for the sample size = 1 year) and Googled words and phrases beginning with the letters A through L.

The inspiration for this project came after seeing a performance of Francesco Gagliardi’s poetry that was comprised of the outcomes of Human Intelligence Tasks (or HITs) on Amazon Mechanical Turk’s crowd sourcing marketplace. His performance took place at The Internet as Playground and Factory Conference on Digital Labor hosted by Eugene Lang College at The New School in New York City. This project is also somewhat inspired by the flarf poetry movement of the late 20th and early 21st century.

The artist plans to perform pieces from this project at an open mic night that occurs every Tuesday evening in Los Angeles, California’s Echo Park neighborhood.

Below you will find an example of one of the pieces intended for performance:

I Google

I Google images of a skinny cat
I Google guides for the MLA format
I Google what it means to be a pack rat
I Google Ratatat LP3 tracks

I Google media mass deception
I Google poodle illustration
I Google media extensions and medical questions
I Google the benefits of female masturbation

I Google MIT
I Google Why We Fight
I Google Sci-fi original movies
I Google Summer’s here and the time is right

I Google Paul Newman
I Google the intricacies of pumpkin carving
I Google Joe Shuster Superman
I Google a stick figure, crying

I Google Sergei Eisenstein
I Google Sherrie Levine
I Google Skyline, Virgin airlines, and We Feel Fine

I Google post-human
I Google Please please please
I Google Pakistan
I Google Mozzarella cheese

Some history on Marconi, FDR, and Disruptive Technologies

2009-12-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

Throughout the history of mediated communication, beginning with the telegraph and Morse code technology, one finds the trend of disruptive communication technology becoming the eventual mainstay that wins out over the older, antiquated models, but usually not without a fight. Tracing the history of the medium of radio and the individuals involved in its restriction and ultimate essential freeing up of government restriction, one sees a pattern that is eventually initiated and successfully negotiated within the medium of television and the Internet.

If it weren’t for Marconi’s invention of the antenna and the founding of Marconi of America in 1899, the precedent for radio and all subsequent technologies might still have occurred; however, this is difficult to say emphatically. Spontaneous simultaneous invention seems to be the way that this creative world operates as exemplified by photography, film, and other such technologies, so who is to say that without Marconi there would be no antenna? Nikolai Tesla, the credited inventor of the radio, certainly had a huge role in the development of the technology, as did inventers Reginald Fessenden and Lee DeForest, all of who can be recognized as the “fathers of radio”. However, for the purposes of this argument, Marconi will take at least partial imperative responsibility for causing radio to become a popular mainstay in American homes through his invention of the antenna.

In the initial years, the possibility of obtaining a license to broadcast over the airways was not blocked by any substantial hurtles; nearly everyone interested in transmitting could obtain a permit to do so. With the help of other aforementioned innovators, along with many parallel advancements and inventions in India and Europe, the amateur radio transmission trend was sweeping the world. This presented problems for copyright issues: many private residences and infrastructures began to broadcast music recordings over the airwaves without first obtaining permission from the artists or from the recording companies. It was for this reason, and with the country being on the brink of WWI, that FDR deemed radio a disruptive technology and made the decision to coordinate and effectively control the radio airways.

Under the banner of national security, the Navy set aside all patent claims to radio. All amateurs had to go off the air, and all antennas were taken over by the government. Essentially, the US government shut down all civilian transmissions in order to allow the US Navy full control over all transmissions and airwaves. This was a political move on the part of FDR, but this raised a question: Does the government have the right to turn off or take away technology? This was a direct violation of 1st Amendment rights in that it “abridge[d] the freedom of speech [and] of the press”, but in times of war the Navy and the President felt that it was their responsibility to monopolize the airwaves for the sake (and under the guise) of national safety.

This military-mandated ownership of the medium of radio continued until the end of World War I in 1919, when the Navy announced they wanted to introduce the radio to everyone; however, they wanted to still maintain ultimate control over the medium. The government completely disagreed with this concept, and thus the home-grown monopoly of the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) was born (a natural monopoly because there were no other competitors, much like the successive situation with AT&T). This technology was initially seen as a threat to national security, but odds are this “disruptive” technology instilled notions of fear in the military, hence FDR’s move to suspend all civilian access. With the creation of the RCA, however, this once disruptive and seemingly threatening technology became a mainstay, including regulatory laws, the foundation of the first public radio stations, and the eventual domestication of the medium as a part of the fabric of everyday American life.

Abstract for my paper on Net Neutrality, Internet Filtering, and Reproductive Health

2009-12-08T21:49:00.004-05:00

In this uncertain time for the future of access and openness on the Internet, it is not surprising that controversial issues are often not permitted the same amount of openness as neutral ones. A contentious issue around the world, especially in relation to the US's attempt to pass health care reform, has been and continues to be the issue of abortion, including not only access to the service itself but also access to information regarding the service. This project is interested in exploring how companies and institutions that own rights to new media services such as medical databases, search engines, and text messaging services censor messages or information regarding controversial issues such as abortion that are the main concern of certain health care and reproductive health NGOs and information sharing societies and institutions.

In this paper, I would like to begin with an introduction stating the current temperature of the net neutrality debate; provide a brief background on both the issue of abortion and net neutrality at home and abroad; introduce and analyze some of the literature - both academic and popular - on net neutrality and Internet filtering; outline the inspiration for the methodological approach to this research; present three case studies on the issue (POPLINE medical database's omission of abortion as a search term at Johns Hopkins University; Verizon Wireless's refusal to participte in NARAL Pro-Choice's text messaging campaign; and Google AdWords' exclusion of ads offering abortion information where services are restrictive or illegal) and report on what happened and who was involved and briefly speculate as to why the censoring happened; and, finally, come to a conclusion as to the implications of the blocking or censoring, including an express statement on why a government, country or institution would want these types of communication technologies open instead of closed, or vice versa.

Now, don't nobody go stealin' my idea, ya hear!

Here's to all the interviews I have at Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice going well...

So by 2020, we'll all be cyborgs?

2009-11-19T23:38:00.004-05:00

This terrifies me a little bit.

I also have the feeling that by admitting that this terrifies me, I will soon find myself eating my words in the same way that everyone who claimed that the Internet is destroying language ate (or are still eating) their words. I'm like that father who said watching Elvis perform will destroy his daughter's sexual purity, like the mother who said TV will rot your brain. I've suddenly grown into that older generation in which all new technology is scaaary. I mean, I must be getting old if it freaks me out that the folks at Intel have been working on learning how to read brainwaves to create a chip that would be implanted in your brain that would replace your mouse and keyboard, right? I'm, like, soooo not with the times that this is totally terrifying.

But Intel Lab's vice president of research Andrew Chien does not seem to be even remotely phased by this idea. He equates the misguided notion conceived by those silly humans of twenty years ago that it was "unnecessary" for everyone to carry around computers to us now-laptop-toting humans of today, those of us now near-sighted individuals who think we will never need an implant in our brain to more easily and intuitively complete our daily computer-centric tasks like surfing the web and leafing through digital documents. I say that implanting something in to your brain - effectively submitting to invasive, elective surgery - is a way bigger deal than just carrying around a laptop or a mobile device everywhere. Sure, one could liken our laptops and mobile devices to a sort of appendage, but it is an appendage that we can remove from our hands at any given time and set aside away from our bodies.

To me (and I of course understand that this might not even come to fruition) I think that a separation of body and technology should to be maintained. I could see this being useful for individuals who do not have use of their hands (for example, those with severe Carpal Tunnel or Cerebral Palsy), but I suppose the idea just freaks me out in relation to all those who are fully capable of typing and clicking who could potentially still elect to go through this implant procedure. And the article on Computer World does not mention this development as being an implant for those with disabilities; the article goes so far as to state that "users will tire of having to manipulate an interface with their fingers" and would therefore elect to put themselves through this surgery.

Is it just me, or am I getting old?

My First Smartphone

2009-11-09T14:13:00.011-05:00

Oh, hey there, 21st Century Mobile Technology. It's me, Katharine.

I know I know, we've met before - granted, never on personalized terms.

I've admired you from afar, trying hard to never let you catch on to my interested stares.

I've passed you on the street when you've been with others, trying not to turn my head, attempting not to be enticed by all you have to offer.

Sure, I've spoken of you to others, admittedly quite often - spoken of your beautiful interface, of your accessible personality, of your potential to start a relationship with me that would never ask me to loose site of those important in my life. In fact, I've been told that you would even encourage it. This, I find, is a factor that is so important in a healthy relationship, and it's so promising to know that you support it.

I'll admit, this is kind of awkward. I know you've seen me with others, others who don't offer the same things you offer. I am hoping that you do not judge me because of my past relationships, and that you can believe that I've moved on. I've come to realize my attachment to these others was based on comfort, on the familiar, on something I didn't want to give up because I was just so used to it.

You've, um, been on my mind a lot lately and, well, I've finally decided to admit this, both to myself and to you. I've come to realize the independence you could possibly grant me, and have decided to tell you how I feel.

I need you.

Even though you are asking me to change several things about my life, these are all changes that I am willing to make - that I am happy to make - for you. I am welcoming you into my life with open arms, 21st Century Mobile Technology, and hope you too are in it for the long haul.

I am so happy I found you.

Okay, so all hyperbole aside, I really do like HTC's new Droid phone. And I don't care that I'm paying a bit more for the data plan. I don't have any major complaints about it yet, except that when I transferred over my contacts from my old phone, it subsequently deleted all of my Gmail contacts, and now keeps telling me via a very tiny icon that I have "too many contacts deletes." Aside from the fact that I don't think that is proper English ("too many contacts deleted" would probably be a less awkward way of saying this) , that constant reminder needs to go away, and I don't know how to make that happen.**

Besides this, I'm very happy with the device, and really happy I stuck with Verizon and didn't cave and get an iPhone. It's touchscreen, it connects to my Gmail, it's open source, most of the apps are free, it was only $100, and, most importantly, there are icons of little green skateboarding 'droids that greet me when I turn on the phone. Boo-ya.

**Update: All I had to do was turn my phone off and then on again, and that recurring "too many contacts deletes" icon was gone. Hallelujah!

An older example of remix

2009-11-04T11:47:00.005-05:00

Mostly because of my New Media and Global Affairs class, I have been reading extensively on networks, collective authorship, and copyright issues as they apply to the contemporary digital platforms that encourage and support media output such as videos, music, animation and text, especially when it comes to intellectual property rights and the remixing culture that we see with the musical artist Girl Talk, DJ Dangermouse, and a slue of others (read my comment on the article "Copy and Persist: The Logic of Mash-Up Culture" for more on the issue).

What I didn't know (probably because my knowledge of Woody Allen's extensive body of work is still in a growing period because, really, you need an entire lifetime to familiarize yourself with everything he's done, and I didn't get started until I was maaaybe 20) was that Allen's filmic debut was with what he calls the "very stupid enterprise" What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), which was not even his film to begin with: Allen and his friends took the Japanese film International Secret Police: Key of Keys and dubbed over the actors' original dialogue, making the espionage action film into a comedy. Although in Stig Björkman's book Woody Allen on Woody Allen Allen himself discredits his first attempt at filmmaking as "a sophomoric enterprise", it completely mirrors what kids and adults alike are creating and posting on YouTube and Vimeo today.

I just love it when ideas from the past come to prominent fruition in contemporary times. See below for the trailer for Allen's first film, which interestingly enough is credited on IMDb as having two directors: Allen and the original Japanese director, Senkichi Taniguchi.

STUDY from Wikimedia Foundation says "Women and Wikipedia Don't Mix"

2009-11-03T20:13:00.012-05:00

Okay, so I've heard this before: women are more inclined to participate on social networking sites than they are to contribute to an article aggregator or ranking site (Digg, for example) or to Wikipedia, and this article from the Wall Street Journal proves that again, in statistics-from-a-survey form.

I originally read about this survey on Mashable, where I found what could possibly be considered simultaneous a feminist's worst nightmare and, if you're lucky enough to be a feminist who has a sense of humor, a straight up LOLfest.

The first comment on the article was posted by "man", who had this to say:

Wikipedia has to be fact-checked and referenced, whereas women prefer to make baseless claims and get into arguments. Attempting to end the argument by referencing an actual document is only going to piss them off, the only positive result is to acquiese.

This does not mean they are always wrong, they are correct roughly 50% of the time. But no fact-checking.

And then, of course, the attacking of baseless sexism via comment threads ensues. This seems to somehow further my professor Chris Mann's point that the Internet is not a medium suited for any dialectic other than agreement. It also echos my work as the New Media Intern at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where I am able to post an article to their Facebook page, sit back, and watch a conversation unfold. And if someone makes a sexist, racist, untrue or overtly inflammatory comment, I get to watch Planned Parenthood's supporters jump in and make sure they are aware that intolerance is not permitted. And I totally love it.

Wait a second, though. Isn't this a kind of intolerance of intolerance? Fighting fire with fire? Are these types of baseless comments just left ignored?

I suppose sometimes, supporting freedom of speech also causes one to shoot oneself in the foot. Don't want to step on anyone's toes in the process of self expression. Calling someone sexist could lead the commenter to come back at The Girl Who Cried Sexism for being a militant feminist, thus causing The Girl Who Cried Sexism to put her foot in her mouth.

Any other feet-related idioms you can think of for this?

I'm really tired and had a sudden urge to post since it's been a while, so do mind my eventual side-stepping of the main issue.

Hah!

This was bound to happen...

2009-10-22T15:00:00.003-04:00

According to accounts from an NYC industry summit that took place Wednesday, October 21st, Hulu plans to begin to charge users for their services starting in 2010. Umm...

That's less than two months away. You're trying to tell me that a service that started off as free hasn't found a way to utilize their growing (nay, rapidly surmounting) amount of time and space devoted to advertising to their advantage is now planning on charging, likely in a subscription-based model?

Most newspapers haven't even dared to make this leap, and while to most people access to news information is more valuable than access to entertainment*, I'm surprised, yet not too surprised, that Hulu has come to this decision. I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to watch a few TV shows -- I do have a Netflix subscription. But since I can probably find these shows elsewhere online and I need that extra money to pay for, you know, my Internet connection in the first place, odds are you will find me opting out of Hulu as a viewing platform if I am made to pay for it.

Now that I think about it, I'm actually surprised that Netflix hasn't started charging users more for the "View Instantly" feature since it allows a user access to movies and TV shows (admittedly, a lot fewer than their entire stock of available titles) at virtually any time. I wonder if there will be different tiers of subscription for Hulu, and if so I hope that some content will still be free for those of us who chose not to pay. They can't completely eliminate a huge pool of users like that just because they don't want/can't afford to pay for their services, can they? Maybe it's a risk they are willing to take.

*I realize in making this statement I'm being very optimistic about the type of information the average individual consumes. This statement is easily altered due to the age and education of the user.

Thank you Pajiba: The "Other" 100 Best Movie Quotes of All Time

2009-10-14T11:51:00.004-04:00

Stuff like this just makes me so happy.

h/t to my mom, who probably can name every single movie in this video.

"I don't mean to be racist or anything, but Myspace is like, ghetto"

2009-10-13T13:25:00.005-04:00

Inspired by previous work done by ethnographer danah boyd (yeah, she's all bell hooks like that), this interesting CNN article uses Neilson data research to scan the difference in income levels of users of social media. Mostly, research has found that most young children start their social networking on Myspace and gravitate toward Facebook once they've gotten a bit older or graduated from high school. This trend seems a bit logical as Facebook started as a site only available to those with .edu email addresses, but the fact that even after almost five years of existence, expansion, multi-user inclusion and interface and usability development Facebook still caters primarily to the high school graduate is pretty intriguing. It seems that with Myspace, users not only become tired of the kitschy music players and opportunities to pimp out profiles that go horribly awry (and sometimes even crash browsers...*ehem* IE!) but, like the beat-up swing set in the bad part of town, users abandon their old stomping grounds when they find the newer, safer playgrounds on the block. And in terms of privacy settings, Facebook is indeed almost infinitely more safe than Myspace.

In terms of affluence, the sites are ranked with Twitter and LinkedIn leading the pack. This is probably due to the features of Twitter that allow users an easy outlet for their public relations material that younger or non-professional individuals might not need, especially if they are not tweeting for a company or for business purposes. And the fact that LinkedIn's homepage advertises the site as a place for "professionals" could be why a large number of users are part of a higher income bracket. Facebook follows, with 23% of their users earning over $100,000/yr., with Myspace users tending to be from the blue-collar middle class.

The title of this post comes from an interaction that boyd had with a young woman from a small town in Massachusetts, and I pretty much have to agree. As part of my internship, I have to accept friend requests on Myspace on behalf of the organization's Myspace page, and when I go to leave "Thanks for the add!" comments on people's pages, oh boy do I see a lot of trashy, ugly, flashy stuff. Most people have made over their profiles in the spirit of a horrible MTV makeover show, with bling and dyed leather and awful music everywhere. The number of times my browser slows down due to these pages would shock you.

As for myself, an educated graduate student with no income, I wonder where I fit into all the demographics. It would be interesting to look at the education levels of the individuals who use each of these sites instead of assuming that being affluent also means having a high level of education, or vice versa.

How about a little meta-blogging?

2009-10-07T10:47:00.006-04:00

A little blogging on blogging, in other words.

This doesn't necessarily effect me because I don't "write for" anyone, and no one has ever sent me something to for free to review, but it's worth a mention since it's the first time the general population of bloggers and tweeters have the potential, due to new FTC guidelines, to be significantly fined for not explicitly stating (with a tag or a brief mention within their post) that their comments were paid for with either material goods (free stuff) or monetary compensation from the company or brand that they are promoting or shilling. From Business Week:

For the first time, the revisions specified that bloggers, like mainstream media outlets, are required to disclose any "material connections" they have to a brand or product they write about. What's more, the guides apply to any users of Twitter, , [sic] and other social media sites where people may be paid to pitch goods to friends, according to Rich Cleland, assistant director of the FTC's division of advertising practices.

I am kind of refusing to state any solid position on this, since I can think of a few worst case scenarios that would lead to even more hassle than an individual blogger should have to deal with but also am getting a bit uncomfortable with the FTC and the FCC tightening their grasp on the online community. I believe that imposing these regulations on independent bloggers and tweeters does in some ways legitimize bloggers -- who so frequently come under attack anyway -- and active social media users by recognizing that what they are saying does in fact have an impact on the online community at large, instead of taking the usual popular press and traditional opinion column route of dismissing the blogosphere as complete garbage (okay, so maybe about 99%* of the blogosphere is complete garbage. But that doesn't make the quality 1% any less credible).

I also think that if I happen to ever receive a free service, material good or monetary payment in return for reviewing some one's work that I will probably mention that I received this good somewhere on my blog, mostly because I will be stoked about receiving free stuff. But what if I happen to not mention where I received it at all because it's not relevant to the post? What if I decide not to do a complete review of, say, a book that some one's sent me and instead mention it briefly within a post about my random day? And, what if I end up reviewing the book negatively? I suppose a bad review is at least a review, and I suppose it is still free advertising for the product in question. But still, whatever they are sending me is probably an early copy of the product (a galley or a pre-final-mix version of a CD or a trial product) and has little to no resale value whatsoever, and therefore has no value to be except in taking up space in my shelf, or potentially in my trash can.

*99% statistic from my boyfriend.

What I've been discovering lately

2009-10-02T10:53:00.006-04:00

As a few of you might have noticed, I have significantly increased the number of links to blogs and media-related sites over the past few months. Mostly because I haven't had much time to write lengthy blog posts -- what with the part-time internship, the conference planning, the full-time studying and the trying to fit in a few hours here and there for socializing so I don't go absolutely insane -- I've been trying to enrich at least some of the content on this here mind dump I like to call my blog. So if you have some free time (and trust me, I sympathize with you if you don't) check out some of my newer links to foundations, blogs, and media-related content aggregation sites I've added under my Media Links and Blogroll.

Below, I've highlighted some of my new favorites.

MediaShift is a blog from PBS Online that advertises itself as "Your Guide to the Digital Media Revolution" (I don't really like the term "revolution" in this context, but I'll let it slide this time), which so far seems to provide a good mix of local and international topics ranging from the business end of New Media to the importance and impact of social media and to focus on niche topics like web comics. Scroll down on the page a bit to find their Guides to hot topics in digital media news, including issues such as net neutrality, online privacy, and the Iranian election.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is another recent find due in part to research on information and communications technologies (ICTs) for development for my New Media and Global Affairs class. Focusing on "social justice and sustainable development", APC's blog posts and articles create a lens into the world of attempted implementation of ICTs for developing countries and the obstacles met and overcome, as well as the myriad challenges presented with implanting ICTs into remote areas among populations of "unimagined users" with potential technological or literacy blockades to overcome. APC (and, for that matter, my NM&GA class) certainly helps me focus on a less US-centric view of the ICT world.

The First Monday podcast is the audio supplement to the online peer-reviewed journal of the same name. Browse their archives for topics relating to remixing/mash-up culture, Creative Commons, and cyber crime victims.

The Sociological Images blog takes images from the media and provides concise, intriguing analysis, reminding readers of the power of the image and importance of early media literacy education and sensitivity awareness. In their words (since they say it better than I can), they aim "to encourage all kinds of people to exercise and develop their sociological imagination by presenting brief sociological discussions of compelling and timely imagery that spans the breadth of sociological inquiry." I also totally love them because they wrote a brief analysis of the difference between the representations of male and female models in American Apparel catalogues and on their website (I wrote something similar a few months back).

Oh, and I totally want to do research here.

Former NY Times Journalist talks about drinking and journalism

2009-09-29T10:14:00.010-04:00

Thanks to MediaBistro, a media-centric news content provider and creator (that, I might add, always advertises amazing panels, classes, and jobs in one's area), I recently discovered Big Think, a "global online forum connecting people and ideas" through videos from experts in particular fields. Big Think hosts pages from each of their "experts", one such individual being Gay Talese, a former New York Times journalist and non-fiction writer who is credited with bringing "storytelling into the practice of journalism". It makes sense that a site like Big Think would consider him an "expert", even though he has not been as active as of late with his writing practices: his way of writing and relating to the world seems to be very similar with the way that modern-day bloggers share their views with their readers.

Little segue: I've been watching Mad Men quite a bit lately, and although I am not quite caught up enough to start watching the 3rd season live, I have watched enough of the show to assert that the show is a fascinating case study of several things: gender roles, the American Dream, power, and, among others, our nation's relationship with substances. Everyone on that show seems to be constantly ingesting something, usually cigarette smoke or alcohol in its myriad forms -- hell, Don needed about five beers just to finish building his kids' playhouse. But in this interview with Gay Talese, the former journalist puts all their afternoon office drinking and after-work inebriation to shame. "Hell," he states, "journalism was beyond that [what you see in Mad Men]...It's a wonder the paper could even get out."

See the video below for a fun recollection of the mighty journalists from days of yore passing out face first on their typewriters.

Consider the target audience!

2009-09-28T11:24:00.004-04:00

I read this morning in a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll on CBS News that

It appears that our younger generation is not atwitter about Twitter. Less than 20% of 18-44 year olds think it's an important new tool, while about half the respondents from that age bracket think that it's a fad that will fade away.

Umm, I don't know who YOU have been hanging out with, but everyone I know who is my age is at least talking about Twitter, or encounters it on a daily basis when reading their news online or following their favorite blogger.

This information is from the same survey in which 48% of respondents claim that Wal-mart "best symbolizes America today" (and I don't think they mean this ironically). Also of note: of the individuals who took this survey, 10% had no idea what Twitter even was. While I agree that, like Friendster or Myspace, Twitter does have the potential to "fade away", isn't it a bit to soon to be making these assumptions? I urge all those who read this survey to heed the title of this post and consider the audience of Vanity Fair and 60 Minutes. Not exactly the twenty-something age bracket that encompasses most Twitter users, is it?

The thing that I think bothers me the most is that this is showing up as news on I Want Media, an aggregation site that focuses on articles and stories of interest surrounding media-related current issues and events. The fact that the only commentary on the poll on IWantMedia is in their personalized headline "Vanity Fair/CBS Poll Bashes Google, Twitter" irks me a bit. I suppose it is their obligation to report on all things media, whether or not those things be representative or skewed and ludicrous.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh. But further investigation into the poll does not make CBS or Vanity Fair look any better. They make sweeping claims about the type of person who would disagree with their five options on battling obesity as if these are the only viable options, and that the individuals choosing the "None of the above" option were obviously "obese people on food stamps that love fast food". Nice attempt at humor, but I'm gasping instead of laughing. What if those who took the survey don't agree with the idea of tax credits for liposuction or installing scales in restaurants? Who really enjoys getting on that scale at the doctor's office, let alone in a fairly public area?

I understand that these polls are meant to be fun and that I'm probably just being a killjoy. I'm just concerned that more people than not will see this as the "search for our national character" it's claiming to be, which to me is just downright silly.

Toward the Sentient City: When Urban Technology is "Too Smart"

2009-09-22T15:38:00.006-04:00

A few notes on The Architectural League of New York's exhibit "Toward the Sentient City"

The project that stuck out the most for its wit and (almost) cynical take on the idea of a city complete with the “benefits” of ubiquitous computing interlaced with architecture within urban spaces was Too Smart City, a project funded by Eyebeam Arts & Technology Center and the Georgia Tech Digital Media Graduate program. All five of the projects in the exhibit incorporated technology and architecture, but this was the one project that seemed to make a comment on the idea of an urban space literally being too sentient and too intelligent for its own good. Too Smart City included three different pieces of urban “furniture”, all of which functioned as a comment on what happens when technology takes over the role of a city official, a concerned citizen, or law enforcement and the possible negative effects of a city being “too smart”.

The three different pieces of furniture – The Smart Bench, The Smart Sign, and The Smart Trashcan – all tackle the fault of technological enthusiasts who think that any advancement is a good advancement, and, much like Adam Greenfield suggests in his interview with Mark Shepard in the Situated Technologies Pamphlet “Urban Computing and it’s Discontents”: “just because we now have the technological ability to, say, correlate lighting levels to the average blood pressure of everyone on the floor, should we?”

Here's a video proposal of the project:

Too Smart City from David Jimison on Vimeo.

Possibly the one piece that acts as being the most counter-intuitive – or, as the artist statement suggests, as a “[failure] rather than…progress” – is The Smart Trashcan, a device that acts essentially as an urban dweller’s Jiminy Cricket, spitting trash back out of the receptacle that more properly belongs in a recycling bin (glass, paper, plastic, etc.). The sociological reasoning behind the construction of this technology would seemingly be to teach individuals what does and does not belong in a trash can, and to make the urban dweller aware of the differences between the myriad objects they are discarding while simultaneously allowing for simplicity in waste disposal. But, unlike Trash Track – MIT’s project involving a system of tagging trash that allows one to follow what happens to their waste – the urban dweller who relies on a sentient trash bin to do their work for them does not think about the fact that if their garbage is not granted access to the interior of The Smart Trashcan, the can spits their garbage onto the street either to lie dormant in a pile or be swept up by manual labor.

The Smart Trashcan also does not provide the urban dweller with other options like a recycling receptacle; instead, the sentient can spits the trash onto the ground below, since the person who discarded the object in the first place has seemingly moved on to their next destination, already being too busy to be bothered with finding a recycling bin. As a comment not only on the fast-paced ideology of the urban dweller but also a reflection of the project’s “Too Smart” title, The Smart Trashcan initially seems like a fantastic idea, until it is actually used in something other than a hypothetical or fictitious urban setting.

I wish I had written this

2009-09-16T16:52:00.002-04:00

I wait way too long to write movie reviews. I think about the films for way too long and never end up getting around to it. But then again, I can say that about most things in my life these days.

If you haven't seen Tarantino's newest film, go see it, and then read what people are saying about it. I highly recommend Amanda Marcotte of pandagon.net's review of Inglorious Basterds for several reasons, even though I think she glazes over some issues (a friend and I were talking about the way the deaths of the female characters are highlighted, for example). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Kenneth Goldsmith sings works by media theorists

2009-09-13T19:34:00.003-04:00

My professor for my Imagining Language class sent us a link to a site by an NYC radio DJ named Kenneth Goldsmith who has recorded himself singing the works of media theorists over music, and I thought it was just too hilarious not to share. If the guy's voice wasn't so awful I could probably learn something from him -- oh, and if I hadn't already taken the time to read most of these works.

I particularly enjoyed his rendition of Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library" and, of course, his musical version of Baudrillard's critique of Disneyland.

I'm not quite sure if my professor thinks this is brilliant or just plain ridiculous. I guess I'll find out in lecture tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Closure of 29 radio stations in Venezuela means freedom of expression just moves to new media platforms

2009-09-07T14:15:00.010-04:00

This past Friday in Venezuela, protesters marched against President Hugo Chavez's decision to continue to shut down radio a nd telev ision sta tion s, supposedly for breaches of contract and "violations relating to their broadcasting licenses". Whatever the claimed reasons for denying citizens access to an option of media sources may be, it seems as though this effort to silence the public and their opinions, whether they be pro- or anti-Chavez, won't really hinder their freedom of expression as much as they think. Case in point: one news station covering the story ran text messages sent in from viewers in a ticker along the bottom of the screen, messages that expressed their views and opinions on the radio and television station closures. It seems that the station wants to go out with a bang, refusing to back down even after threats of closure. And that takes guts -- albeit rather sneaky guts -- from a station being controlled by a government wishing to silence any anti-Chavez opinions.

Said television broadcasting station Globovision, which is a known critic of Chavez, is being investigated for "breaking a law on 'social responsibility'", allegedly because of their biases and opinions that go against Chavez and his policies. But instead of sitting still and allowing to be silenced, Venezuelan citizens moved their discussion of Chavez's choices on to another platform (the ticker aired on the older medium of television) by means of the new medium of mobile phone technology. I have yet to see this be a trend on Twitter and I haven't found a Cause for the incident on Facebook, but it wouldn't surprise me if these topics show up sooner or later (it's quite possible that maybe I'm having difficulty finding these groups because I haven't been searching Spanish).

In some ways, I'm incredibly grateful for the freedom of the press and access to information that we have here in America. I may find it difficult to completely support and agree with any of the major news providers or pundits in the media, but at least those who the majority of citizens do not agree with or who fall on the fringes of public opinion are not at risk of being silenced for their views and opinions. I'm not saying that Venezuela needs to adopt a freedom of speech model akin to ours in the US, because I do not think that our system is by any means flawless (one could argue that there is just too much media noise out there, or an unpalatable amount of "truthiness", i.e.); I'm simply stating that I think the opportunities for free speech awarded by unchecked new media outlets like text messaging, Twitter and Facebook make the possibility of silencing a public difficult. Without complete removal of these media from public access, which I don't think neither pro- nor anti-Chavez citizens would be particularly happy about (but which has happened recently in China), citizens and pundits will still be allowed to express their opinions without fear of repercussions. So while Chavez may be attempting to silence the public opinion via the radio and television platforms, I'm pretty sure he may not actually be targeting the right media.

I'll warn you like I warned my boyfriend...

2009-09-04T19:02:00.008-04:00

...this post will probably be a huge self-indulgent, life-is-awesome-for-me-right-now self-affirmation session, so if you decide not to read on, I totally understand.

That's me jumping off a stage at a park in Santa Barbara. I feel it best captures how I've been feeling since the Fall semester began.

Let me explain.

A new semester usually means meeting new people, starting new classes, buying new books, getting used to new and possibly quirky or off-kilter teaching methods, and a whole new boatload of stresses including reading assignments, participating in online discussions, thinking up paper and project topics, etc., etc. But as the first week of the semester comes to a close, I'm left less with a sensation of newness per se and more with a feeling of excitement, control, and accomplishment. This is for several reasons:

1) I'm starting an internship next week at Planned Parenthood Federation of America as the social media intern. I'll be playing around with Facebook, Myspace and Twitter all day, completing tasks that the Social Media Specialist (who happens to be a good friend of mine. Probably why I got the position, but whatever, I still got it!) assigns to me, and researching developments in social networking trends. It's unpaid, but I'm receiving school credit as well as the added bonus of having an item that looks good on my resume. And the fact that I'll be working with an organization with which I have parallel ideological sensibilities will, I think, make it even easier to put myself into this position wholeheartedly. My undergrad internship consisted of laying out bagels, making coffee, stocking the fridge, retrieving the mail twice a day, and picking up lunches for employees in the offices of Montecito Picture Company, a film production company that's given us such gems as My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Disturbia, and Road Trip. Excuse me for not being totally amped to sit at a desk chatting with friends online, doing numerous crosswords and strategically napping between tasks. Occasionally (read: ONCE) I got to assemble a few scripts that I had time to intermittently peruse, which was exciting only because it was a break from having Ivan Reitman pretend to not even be aware that another person besides himself was in a room at any given time.

In any case, I'll be starting next Tuesday and will be working for PPFA three days a week. I'm sure there will be a much stronger "reproductive rights and their representation in the media" presence on this blog, but I'll try not to make it all that I write about with a mind for not alienating or losing any readership or interest. The topic of women's rights and their representation and discussion in the media has been a huge topic of interest to me lately, as you might be able to tell from some of my more recently added links in my "Now Hear This!" sidebar, but I don't want it to completely dominate this blog. If you find that it does, please make sure I hear about it!

2) I've been asked to act as the Media Studies chair of The New School's 10th annual Critical Themes in Media Studies conference! I couldn't be more excited, especially since I was really involved with it last year and wanted to be involved again in some capacity this year. We're holding our first meeting on Wednesday, September 16th to discuss last year's conference, possible keynote speakers (any ideas greatly appreciated!) and introduce the idea behind this student-run event to all of the incoming 1st years who wish to attend. I'll probably be airing out some ideas, frustrations, developments or announcements on this here blog -- just a heads up!

3) I've started going to yoga again. The center I've chosen is absolutely amazing: payment is on a donation basis (they ask for $10 but I've given $3 each time because no one is standing there judging you), the classes are challenging yet refreshing and energizing, and it's right off my train in the East Village. I'd almost forgotten how much better I feel about myself and my body after only a few days of yoga, and since this place is so affordable I don't doubt I'll be going at least twice a week. It's better than what I was doing all last year (going on a two mile run and feeling great about myself and thinking That was awesome! but once the time comes to go out again finding an excuse -- weather, sore muscles, not enough time -- and somehow not go running again for another 2 months, by which time it's started snowing and I freeze my face off just running around the block and my nose runs but I can't feel it because my face is, like I said, frozen, so I look like a bundled homeless person running from the cops and people take pity on me and my snot-crusted face so I give up and decide Well, I do walk a lot. I guess that's enough.) and I'm hoping I'll stick with it. There's just something about the class environment that's so much more encouraging than going for a run solo. Especially since all I have are these huge headphones that get all sweaty and jangle on my head and are not the most comfortable of all devices in which to run around the streets. But, I digress.

4) I'll be starting Ph.D. applications within the next few weeks. I honestly never knew I would be doing this with my life, but I'm really happy I've made this decision. I have support from all my loved ones, peers, and professors, so even if a Ph.D. program isn't in my future in the next year, at least I'll know that I was encouraged along the way. I've decided to apply to NYU's Cinema Studies program at Tisch School of the Arts, Rutgers' Communication, Information and Library Science's Ph.D. program with a focus on Media Studies, University of Chicago's Cinema and Media Studies program, USC's Critical Studies program within the School of Cinematic Arts, UCLA's program in Film and Television, and UCSB's Ph.D. program in Film and Media Studies (my alma mater!). I've yet to start on any of these, but the process of asking for letters of rec (I need three) is just around the corner.

Oh yeah, and on top of this I'm taking two classes: Imagining Language, and New Media and Global Affairs. Honestly, I think I'm going to like the NM&GA class more than the former, just because the professor actually has a structured syllabus and I'll be able to schedule my time accordingly.

So, there you have it. I'm pretty happy to be busy once again, and also pretty thrilled to be doing things that I'm really passionate about.

I've been recently bidding my time with the most recent issue of Bitch magazine, and there are some very interesting things that I've been meaning to write about. But, that'll be another day, another post!

Ciao for now...

Blogs deserve a summer vacation, too!

2009-08-30T22:23:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the hiatus, folks!

For the time being, I've given the ole bloggie a bit of a face-lift (see it as an homage of sorts to the previous entry. Not really) and changed it so the categories are now in CLOUD format, which makes me oh so happy. Looks so much better than an effing boring laundry list, if you ask me.

Posts will be more frequent after the semester kicks into full gear on the 31st of August.

Until then, my loyal readers...

In case you needed a reason to loose that self-esteem again, Hungary is holding a beauty pageant for women who have had plastic surgery. Umm...

2009-07-27T11:59:00.007-04:00

Photograph by: Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/MCT

Does any one else find this a bit disturbing?

Here is a quote from the press director of the pageant, Reka Bodis:

"The whole thing is about harmony, that's what the contest seeks to emphasize," Bodis said. "Let's not forget that there are ladies who have had new perspectives open up for them thanks to plastic surgery, who could get rid of their complexes with an operation and can now have a more complete life."

So now that they have restored their self-esteem by giving themselves some cosmetic confidence, what better way to help them continue to shed their complexes than pitting their plastic bods against other enhanced/altered women to determine who is the most appealing, the most beautiful? Does anyone else think that this could maybe lead to more women having plastic surgery, thus boosting profits for Hungary's plastic surgery industry, one of the world's cheapest places to obtain a cosmetic procedure? Maybe someone else out there has a different take on what beauty pageants do for young women and their self-esteem and self-worth, but I think that those who argue that beauty pageants are judged based on personality and talent are completely disillusioned. It is called a beauty pageant, after all. And this is targeted at young(er) women: According to the article from The Windsor Star, "The contest is open to women aged 18-30 or above 30 in the "dame" category." Maybe it's just me, but there is something terribly wrong with women obtaining surgery for purely cosmetic reasons when their bodies are not even completely settled into their adult form. And the encouragement of women to participate in such practices is just as terribly wrong.

So now, these women who have spent thousands of dollars on procedures (that's the catch: a woman can only enter the pageant if she has had a significant alteration done to her body. "...a plain botox injection will not suffice. 'The entry requirement is a surgical procedure done under general or local anesthesia,' said Reka Bodis, press director of the pageant.") will be comparing themselves and will be compared to other women who have done the same if not MORE to their bodies, and then at the end of the day go home a beauty winner or loser. And these women who have lost who have already spent thousands on "improving" themselves will possibly have a mind to spend even MORE to ensure that they are indeed the most beautiful they can be.

What I am interested to find out is which company is actually sponsoring this pageant. I attempted to do some poking around on the Miss Plastic Hungary site, but I think that the English version does not have as much information as the Hungarian version. I have a fairly pessimistic inkling, however, than the company hosting this event has something to do with the medical supply industry...Please, please prove me wrong. That would just be too evil.

Culture of Distraction

2009-07-21T17:21:00.009-04:00

I'm all for constantly remaining connected. Whenever I am on a computer, I usually keep my Gmail account open so I can instantly know if someone sends me an email or instant messages me. I keep my cell phone within my sight at almost all times. But I think there is a point when certain other "distractions" should take the place of connectivity-related distractions, wouldn't you agree?

If you know me personally or have been following me on Twitter, you are probably aware of all the free cultural events I have been attending in the city this summer: David Byrne concert in Prospect Park, the New York City Opera and Orchestra at South Seaport Pier 17, a poetry reading and Meredith Monk tribute concert at Rockefeller Park, the Figment collaborative art festival on Governor's Island, Harold and Maude in Bryant Park, "Pay What You Wish" Saturdays at the Guggenheim, Siren Music Festival on Coney Island, the Colombian Independence Day celebration in Flushing Meadows...the list goes on and on. And while most of these events are far from formal, they are still, for the most part, performances -- cultural, artful "distractions" from work, school, life, or any other mundane, repetitive, commonplace part of everyday living. When one is dedicating their time to the viewing of or participation with performance or a cultural event, is it too much to ask that emails and text messages are ignored, at least for an hour or the length of a film or the course of a musical performance? Is it too much to assume that everyone loves to get lost in these types of experiences as much as I do, that it's not about just being there and saying you were there but actually about experiencing something new and having it alter you, even if that alteration is ever so slight? My basic sentiment, to quote Gob Bluth of the wonderful Arrested Development,

"Come on!!"

Two instances have gotten me particularly up in arms lately:

1) When I was home in California, my boyfriend took me and his brother's girlfriend to see Andrew Bird perform at the Greek Theater, a beautiful, woodsy, outdoor venue nestled on the hillside of Griffith Park. I sat to the left of my boyfriend with a mid-thirty-something year old man to my left who was text messaging almost continuously throughout the show. Now, we certainly weren't inside where extraneous light would certainly be distracting, but the LED glow emitting from that screen was piercing through the darkness of the amphitheater like a searchlight on the middle of a lake at midnight. It was completely distracting in my peripheral vision, and I made a point of perching on the verrry edge of my seat so as not to be distracted by his blinding cellular device, somewhat hoping he would pick up on the hint that his glowing cell screen was bugging the shit out of me, as if my sideways glances and tisking weren't enough of an indication.

If you are that bored during a musical event and not paying attention to something that you paid to see, just get the hell out and let the rest of us focus. Seriously. His slouching posture made it clear that his texts were not urgent or necessary, as did his occasional bursts of air-violining whenever he decided to tune in to the illustrious Andrew Bird's beautiful set. This to me is almost worse than messing around with one's cell phone during a free performance or event, especially since one has paid to be there. But then again, I think I've recently developed an even more sensitive relationship to what it means to spend money on something. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it's polite and probably worthwhile to pay attention during a live performance. Even if the live performance is of the ilk executed by the landlord in The Big Lebowski, it's probably a more unique experience than whatever is going on in the ether with one's social networks.

2) I mentioned above that I went to see Harold and Maude in Bryant Park. What I failed to mention was what an intriguing experience it was. I could honestly write an entire post about struggling through a sea of people to find a patch of grass large enough for myself and my roommate, the gay couple that was taking pictures of me because they apparently liked my outfit, the fact that everyone got up to dance when the HBO introduction began - but the element of the evening that was the most relevant to the topic of this post has to be the group of girls in their late teens sitting directly ahead of us on the lawn. Before the film started there was a silly Merrie Melodies Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd cartoon, during which this group of girls proceeded to take endless arms-length focal distance photos of themselves (someone with less respect for women might call these "cam whore" shots, but no, I'm not going to do that here. I'm not going to go so low as to dub these girls "cam whores.") with the flash pointed directly at my retinas. They would then proceed to giggle and scream if the photos were not to their liking or happened to capture a double chin or an awkward blink. I figured I wouldn't allow myself to get too upset until the actual film started since for now was just a cartoon, but when the film started and the Myspace-whore photo-snapping did not subside and one of the girls turned to the group sitting to their right and asked "What movie are we watching?", I was visibly gritting my teeth with rage. Not only did these girls not even know what movie they were all meeting up to see, but they were also ruining the entertainment factor for others who very much did know what movie they were about to watch with their inconsiderate behavior. They weren't there for the actual experience. They were there to document that they were there, to have a reason to post photos to their Facebook profiles, and not at all for the film. In fact, about a half an hour into the movie the girls began dropping like flies until they had all packed up their digicams and their loud mouths and left the park before the film had even reached the tree liberating scene.

In short, I guess I get pretty aggravated when peoples' lack of interest in an event or a performance are blatant and visible. Especially when that lack of interest bleeds into text messaging and taking photos that impose on my vision and attention - there's a reason why cell phones are banned in movie theaters and museums. And the fact that this activity is so rampant even further enforces my belief that appropriate mediated behavior should be considered as much of a civic responsibility as picking up one's trash.

Okay, so maybe that's going a bit far. But I think you get my point.

A Kindle in Every Backpack??

2009-07-16T16:14:00.006-04:00

Someone from my Virtual Learning Environments class posted this to the class blog (which, if you're interested, can be found here) and I thought the concept was quite interesting. "A Kindle in Every Backpack" is sort of the same concept as One Laptop Per Child, with that latter being far more practical and reasonable. The OLPC idea intends to distribute rugged wifi-capable netbooks to children in low-income areas and under-developed nations, netbooks that are easily adaptable (ie have open-source software that therefore would not require upgrades) and durable under harsh conditions. OPLC is a not-for-profit organization that seems to have the right idea when it comes to promoting early childhood education, media literacy, and international connectivity.

The Democratic Leadership Council's plan to put a Kindle in every backpack, however, seems to assume that every child in America already has access to the Internet, a laptop, or even just an Internet-capable desktop or public library computer. Jumping ahead to give every child a Kindle, which is essentially a walled garden that would require system upgrades and could potentially fall victim to discrepancies in available functionality once new versions of the Kindle (or whatever eReader the DLC chooses) emerge, seems to be completely neglecting the fact that some people in rural areas of the country still don't even have broadband due to lack of infrastructure and/or funds.

Before providing every child with an eReader, the first step is definitely to improve Internet access in public schools and community institutions and increase the number of student netbook owners. The DLC seems to be a little blind to the current lack of connectivity that some (maybe a just few, but still SOME) rural and low-income Americans still face. And would these Kindles be the student's, or property of the educational institution? Since most students in public institutions don't have to pay for texts in the first place, doesn't this seem like it would be a huge financial burden if the DLC decided to make students start paying for their eBooks?

Oh, and here is a really cute video of OLPC's mission.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

2009-07-04T14:42:00.002-04:00

While I'll be watching the fireworks from Hoboken, everyone who's missing out on fireworks this year can enjoy some exploding candy and coins.

Enjoy!

My virtual presence has been piss-poor.

2009-06-24T22:06:00.006-04:00

Wow, so I maintain a blog, huh? You mean to say that I regularly write entries and manage a website that I happen to be very proud of and hope to use as part of my portfolio when I want to get into a PhD program? You don't say...

Alright, enough beating myself up about not maintaining this thing lately. I obviously went on a hiatus. I hope you all can forgive me.

Enough about that. Let's talk about new media.

I'm getting really sick of everyone mocking Twitter or downplaying it as usefulness. Yes, a lot of it is mundane, trite, self-indulgent, abbreviated prattle that doesn't do anyone any amount of good, save establish a user's presence in a community. But hold on. Even something as seemingly insignificant as presence means so much in an online environment, especially since virtual environments are increasingly becoming appendages to our real world interactions and selves.

There are obviously negative and positive aspects to the information digital age, where to access headlines, statistics, biographical information, and wikis allows anyone with Internet connection a chance to obtain as much knowledge as they know how to get their eyes on. While unfettered access to information allows almost every literate individual the right and possibility of a self-fueled education, not everyone is going to take advantage of these tools of unlimited access. Only those who want to participate will participate, only those who want to start a conversation will start on. The category of an engaged virtual participator only applies to a very small percentage of individuals who have high efficacy in their involvement in a community setting in the first place. Those who make the effort to establish their presence in a community, be it actual or in the ether, are few and far between. Think of activists. Think of religious fanatics. Think of hard-core sports nuts. How many of us really know someone, in real life, who is whole-heartedly dedicated to an extremist lifestyle? And these extreme life-participants now exist in another form: the extreme virtual participant.

I have only a handful of friends who regularly post interesting news stories to their Facebook pages, and maybe just as many whose profile photo is in a constant state of flux. Almost all of my Facebook friends, however, utilize the status update tool, seemingly as a way of establishing their presence in this community. The difference between those who post breaking or interesting headlines on their pages and those who constantly change their "About Me" sections is actually quite minimal when it comes down to it: both of these groups from assumed extreme opposite spectrums are simply overtly and unabashedly establishing their virtual presence in a community. And in some cases, their presence is quite similar to what it would be in face-to-face interaction. Not always, but in some cases, our virtual selves mirror our realities.

Some don't attempt to depict themselves in the ether because they are tentative about putting their information out there for all to see -- proof that shyness does indeed plague those in a seemingly objective and open online world -- while some simply don't see the point. I believe that those who are so adamantly against Twitter fall into the latter category of those who just don't see the point. And sometimes, I don't either.

But I don't think that it matters that we all understand everyone's personal need or desire to blog, to tweet, or to connect on Facebook. I don't think that chalking it up to narcissism and self-indulgence is fair. I posted something on my Facebook page about how Iranians are spreading news via Twitter, and one friend quipped "Cuz that's what the vast majority of people use it for." Both extremes of the argument are, I feel, inaccurate: to say that everyone uses Twitter and other social networking sites for the dissemination of information would be an optimistic fallacy; to say that everyone uses these sites to tell their friends what kind of sandwich they ate at lunch is equally unfair. I think it is most fair to say that Twitter offers possibilities for freedom of speech and access to information, which is admittedly a fairly neutral statement. But to avoid sounding too polarized -- too praising or too negative -- I think that the conversation of what Twitter and other social networking sites can do is far more productive than straight up negations or praise.

Because these sites and the possibility of a democratic (mostly) virtual presence is all so new, people are still trying out the waters. We all saw how quickly Myspace fell into the depths of the Dark Side of the Internet, and who knows how much longer it will be before Facebook gives way to a social networking site with a more user-friendly interface and better privacy settings? Twitter could easily go the way of the LiveJournal any time soon, but for the time being, I'm going to play around with my presence on the site as much as I can.

My fotos, now on Flickr

2009-06-15T19:29:00.009-04:00

So, again, because of this design class I'm taking over the summer, I have to take photos basically weekly, each week with a new theme. I've already fallen a little behind (mostly because I've been too lazy to buy new batteries after my rechargeable ones totally crapped out on me), but I definitely caught up yesterday after visiting Figment on Governor's Island, a weekend-long collaborative arts and music festival. If you are interested in looking at some of the photos I took -- which include some on the week's theme of "Motion" as well as more straightforward, non-artsy shots -- please visit my new Flickr page. If you have Flickr, be my friend so I can see your photo's, too!

Below I've posted some of my favorites to give you a little taste of what you're in for.

I'm really into the idea of painting with light. I think that the image above does that well.

I stuck the lens of my camera into a prism. Done.

Moving around on my roof at night must be done with great caution...

Whimsical linens on Governor's Island.

What happens when children and hippies try to recreate A Beautiful Mind. I'm telling you, it's all part of The Man's vast conspiracy to take away your finger paints and convince you that peace is not possible, man!

I have a new addiction

2009-06-13T21:26:00.003-04:00

Thanks to my design class, I've been working with Photoshop a lot lately. A recent assignment was to bring in examples of good, bad, and neutral Photoshop work. Someone in my class showed all of us PhotoshopDisasters, a site devoted to posting the horrible, the lazy, and the downright hilarious in the realm of Photoshop work. I could seriously spend HOURS on this site. What good fun. This image below terrifies me while simultaneously making me giggle.

And friends, the site is full of em.

Forget the Film, Watch the Titles

2009-06-10T12:52:00.002-04:00

I'm taking a design class during summer session, and since we are doing a short unit on typography my professor sent us a link to Forget the Film, Watch the Titles, a site that features movie title sequences that are animated, feature motion graphics, use 3D effects, or incorporate mixed media. This site is a fun way to kill some time. Be sure to check out the animated titles for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, one of my favorite title sequences of all time. And although the film was just okay, the titles for Thank You for Smoking are also pretty cool. Enjoy!

The Future of Media is, apparently, all about Twitter

2009-06-04T10:55:00.005-04:00

In a panel at 20 Cooper Square's 7th floor television studio in New York City yesterday afternoon, panelists Nick Denton of Gawker Media, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Bonnie Fuller of Bonnie Fuller Media, Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray, and Craigslist founder Craig Newark gathered and spoke with moderator Patrick Phillips, founder of IWantMedia and adjunct NYU professor, about the trajectory, impact, and trends in new media for the remainder of 2009 as they saw it. Mostly, the themes of the panel centered on the concept of community and user-dictated need and services; opinions on whether or not users will be satisfied with a "pay wall" for their valued news and information, even if each site only mandates a wall for small portions of their content; the importance of blogging and the difference between old school and new media journalists; a grasping attempt by Murray to talk about advertising, which was quickly lost in the more timely topics of discussion; and, of course, the media wonder that is Twitter.

Everyone on the panel uses Twitter, and more recently, they all noted, everyone was using it to find their news even before consulting other trusted news aggregators like Google. While most of them recognized that there needs to be more credibility and fact-checking in these tweets, the fact remains that all five of these people who ultimately have control over the media we consume daily feed off of tweets for myriad reasons, whether for access to news, building a community with friends, or self-promotion. Dorsey admitted that Twitter was a constantly evolving animal, and that this evolution was driven by the users, not the programmers; the appearance of Trends, of @replies, of the search engine (which Dorsey states is not a search but a discovery engine...um, okay...) were all because the people at Twitter saw these things happening or saw a user need for these modes of functionality. The folks at Twitter just made it easier for their users to execute these actions and fulfill these needs.

Something I found interesting was Denton's insistence that old media producers (ie: print journalists) did not work fast enough to be successful in the blogosphere. Claiming that while these "old media" journalists did fantastic investigative work, they were not prepared to have the tightened deadlines or produce the amount of stories required for the new media format of blogging. I wonder, and sometimes fear, that the need for instant information will eventually mean an ultimate breakdown of credibility and reliability. Actually, this has already begun. But I digress.

The half-hearted attempt to discuss advertising quickly fizzled out when Denton trumped Murray's claim that advertising online was not the way to monetize a service. Gawker takes a significant portion of their revenue from ad dollars, and is still utilizing this advertising model successfully, much to the chagrin of other media outlets who are no longer succeeding with this model (for example, Murray's WSJ). Murray and Denton, who were sitting next to each other, got into a slightly heated debate during which the former raised his voice and the latter simply sat their grinning and looking overly-confident through his rebuttal. Murray admitted that advertising was indeed a part of the puzzle, but not the whole puzzle. Coming from someone whose company has effectively monetized a pay wall, Murray must have been slightly irked at Denton's claim that Gawker is thriving off of ad dollars. Newmark joined the conversation to ad that the biggest threat to the advertising model that some adhere to so stringently is actually user review services, which are huge in the gadget community (enter another excuse for Newmark to mention how nerdy he is).

There were some stark contrasts among the panelists, and this is not a comment meant to be in reference to their opinions and thoughts: their appearances and mannerisms alone defined their unique characters, almost dictating what would come out of their mouths. Dorsey, the youngest in the group and by far the best dressed in a casual blazer with sunglasses dangling from the front pocket, looked like he was going to throw up any second. He was by far the most soft-spoken, and I'm not sure whether I should chalk that up to his actual modesty or his industry greenness in comparison to the other panel members. All of his statements seemed very calculated and cautious, and I don't blame him: everyone's watching Twitter's actions right now. Denton portrayed the ultimate "I'm totally confident and I don't give a f---" new-generation kind of UK business man, draping his right elbow over the back of his chair and idly swinging back and forth on his revolving stool while eagerly grinning throughout the hour-long discussion. His mannerisms made it very clear that he, and his company, were sitting quite comfortably at the moment. Murray sat facing forward, almost on the edge of his seat, with his hands folded, stuttering a bit when he spoke up to contribute to the discussion and repeatedly talking loudly over Phillips or the other panelists. Probably the only individual still grasping to survive the "old media" model (despite the WSJ's pay wall system that seems to be functioning quite nicely, depending on who you ask), it was obvious that due to the uncertain future of the newspaper business, this man constantly lives on edge. Newmark made it known that he was a "nerd" who lacked common social skills, and made this painfully clear by emphasizing several of his points with old-timey radio effects cued up on his sleek white iPhone (a rimshot, a wah wah wahhhh noise, etc). Fuller's demeanor was pretty uninteresting by comparison to the others, although her random interjections seemed like futile attempts to establish her credibility as a celebrity journalist.

Fuller, I must add, should not be totally discredited just because she is a celebrity journalist. She did have some very interesting things to say, especially on the topic of the vanity searches that are so popular on Twitter and how this relates to new media's catering to our need for fame in our personal lives. She made a comment relating to our individual need for being known, and that the Internet can now fulfill this need better than a short-lived reality television stint can.

As the panel was coming to a close, moderator Phillips mentioned that IWantMedia does a poll each year to determine the most influential media person of the year, and asked the panelists who or what this person was likely to be, even though the year is only half way over. Fuller, Denton, and Newmark all said that, without a doubt, "It's got to be the Twitter guys." Dorsey simply sat there, hiding his smile and red face behind his hand that was casually covering his mouth. Murray piped up, saying "I was going to put Murdoch," but eventually agreed that the guys at Twitter would be "a good choice." Dorsey, in all of his modesty, whether real or feigned, calmly stated "I was going to say our users."

Current MoMA exhibits worth seeing

2009-05-27T20:03:00.018-04:00

Since Spring semester has come to a close and I'm pretty much settled in my new apartment on the Upper East Side (still need curtains and more decorations on the walls, but that's another matter), I've had lots of free time on my hands. True, I should probably be looking for a job, but with the 3.94 GPA I've been maintaining I'm convinced a job will just make my grades and my work suffer. However, knowing that I'm starting summer session in less than a week and will probably be working on stuff for my design class at a computer all day instead of enjoying a day in the park has served as a great motivator for me to get out and do things! The Met has a killer Fra ncis Bacon retrospective that's up for quite some time that I've already been awed by, and MoMA has all sorts of exciting exhibits to kick off a summer full of culturally-stimulating events and works. I'm pretty upset that I've almost completely missed the Cruel and Unusual Comedy series that focuses on different socially charged aspects of silent slapstick comedy such as racial issues, violence, and the treatment of children and animals, but my visit today more than made up for what I missed. The MoMA is six floors full of awesome so I didn't get to see all the new exhibits, but one of the (few) perks of being a New School student is free admission to the museum any time of any day, so I'll just have to make another trip some time soon. What I did get to see, however, especially in the photography section, made me completely nerd out with glee.

Polish Posters 1945-89
Hidden in the Architecture and Design Galleries with the product design pieces, 3rd floor
(Up through January 11th, 2010)

I was honestly expecting a lot more in terms of quantity, but the small corner exhibit of 30 or so prints made in Poland (that took the place of George Lois' Esquire covers exhibit) were all quite impressive in their own way. Characteristically expressionist and most of them quite surreal or abstract, the majority of these prints, most of them made by four artists, were made in Cold War-era Poland, a country which the exhibit cites as being the most free of Soviet-imposed power of all the Eastern Bloc countries and therefore the most devoid of artistic censorship. All of these brightly colored images were used on either book jackets or on film, opera or theater posters to announce a performance or showing of a particular piece. The poster above, "Ksiadz Marek (Friar Marek)" was a piece made by Roman Cieslewicz in 1963 for a play to be performed in Poland that same year. Ranging from graphically simplistic in the genre's inception to gruesomely detailed and disturbing in its later works (see Andrzej Pagowski's "Psie Serce (Heart of a dog)", 1982, below), every one of the posters was visually stunning or moving in its own way. I would have liked to see more description of the individual artists, and overall I don't think enough space was devoted to these pieces. Especially after being so impressed by the Met's British Prints (1914-1939) exhibit back in October and know what sort of memorable impact extensive wall literature and descriptions and ample space can bring to a themed exhibit, I was expecting a bit more. But, as I suppose it is with every building, space is a premium in New York City, even at the Museum of Modern Art.

Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West
3rd Floor at the back of the long corridor
(Up through June 8th, 2009)

Featuring photographs ranging from daguerreotypes of gold miners in the 1850s to color prints from as recent as 2007, the focus of this exhibit was on the usual, unusual, commonplace and hidden lifestyles of the American West in all of its glory: beauty, repetition, degradation, suburban banality, and a richness of the rural. Photographers such as the well-known Cindy Sherman (featured above, Untitled Film Still #43, 1979) and Lee Friedlander were sprinkled throughout the exhibit, which danced between black and white, muted sepia and rich, large scale color prints. Some of the photographs products of personal endeavors, others WPA-era government-funded projects, the exhibit was held together quite nicely by the common themes of desert scenes of sparse nature, portraits of working (and unemployed) men and women, stages of progression of the once untouched land (one six-image series shows the steps of development of a planned housing community in Lakewood, CA) and counter- or sub-cultural figures such as Hell's Angels members, native Americans, Las Vegas prostitutes or suburban families.

I mentioned above that some of the things I saw today made me "nerd out". A certain 1872 Albumen silver print of Yosemite by none other than Edweard Muybridge, in particular, was the one image made me squee a little inside. Here was one of the fathers of the moving image, one of the men who aided in the invention of the motion picture camera, one of the geniuses who was fundamental in the art which I have studied so intently and lovingly for the past five years, just casually hung next to other Albumen prints like he was just one of the many who was taking landscape photographs during the 1870s. In effect, he was just one of many, but he was definitely the only one who was hanging on that wall at the MoMA who took a bet that same year as to whether or not a horse in full gallop completely left the ground, leading him to be one of the first to experiment with human and animal locomotion through the medium of photography, eventually causing him to be known as the certifiable "grandfather of the motion picture". As I stood in front of this image, I looked shifty-eyed from side to side, wondering if anyone else in the gallery knew how special this photograph was. Sure, it wasn't of a horse; it wasn't even of anything in motion, just a fairly serene, peaceful landscape with trees and water and mountains. But this photograph had a special celebrity aura to it, a certain draw that none of the other photographs in this exhibit had. Based on your knowledge of film history or the amount that you even give a hoot, this photograph might easily go unnoticed among the dozens of photos throughout the four room exhibit. But if you do find it, please take a minute to look at it and think about the hands, and the eye, who thought of capturing and therefore created that image. Yes, I was starstruck by a mediocre photograph from the 1870s by a dead guy who basically invented the filmic process. Big huge nerdy nerd. Right here.

Tangled Alphabets: Leon Ferrari and Mira Schendel
6th Floor at the top of the escalator
(Up through June 15th, 2009)

Leon Ferrari (Untitled, 1962, is pictured above) and Mira Schendel, both of Latin American heritage, are a bit like Picasso and Braque. I would assign the role of Picasso to Ferrari and Braque to Schendel, mostly because I think that Ferrari was far more evolutionary, experimental, and daring than Schendel, and also broke the mold of his early work, branching out into multimedia territory with far more comfort than his contemporary. Please don't think that I am comparing Ferrari and Schendel's artistic talents to that of the two Cubists; I am simply using them as a comparison of contemporaries with similar incipient visions.

I understand why the two were put in the same exhibit, and it is important that one sees the similarities between their works: both artists integrated language, the cosmos, and religion into their pieces, but the first two categories are really where the most similarities lie. Some of their pieces, much like Picasso and Braque, can be shown side by side and, without wall descriptions, the artist will certainly be completely indiscernible. There are very few works between Ferrari and Schendel that hold that many visual similarities, especially when one moves from their work with letters and blank space to their depictions and statements of religion. Simple graphic elements, letters, and shapes almost always presented with minimal color, Schendel's style remains virtually unchanging and consistent throughout her career, even when she was attempting to make statements on religion. Some might see Ferrari's religious work as heavy handed, but it's just as thought-provoking as Schendel's pieces, most of which as up for differing interpretations.

As with my relationship and feelings about Picasso, I was more impressed with the breadth and visual style of Ferrari than I was with Schendel. Including more color and detail (two visual elements that are consistently compelling for me, no matter what the genre), Ferrari's early work can be described as a series of ink scribbles that experiment with depth and the structural elements of the alphabet and language. Ferrari even went to lengths to construct his own alphabet, complete with icons both language- and image-based.

His series "Rereadings of the Bible" was probably the most imposing yet astounding of the work from his twilight years, taking Catholic figures and placing them in scenes of violence (atomic bombs, missiles, war) and sex (images from the Kama Sutra) to create something that was "not anti-religious art but art that [was] against repression, torture, and power." Creating a collage of sorts, these stood out among the myriad sculptures, paintings, prints, and illustrations to be my favorite of Ferrari's work in the exhibit. I wouldn't mind, however, staring for hours on end at one of his scribbled pieces like the one I've pictured above. So much detail for things only the artist can fully understand...

A fun way to pass the time...

2009-05-26T14:00:00.003-04:00

Sleeveface's headline best encapsulates what can be found on the site:

"one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion"

Totally awesome.

Thanks to Jason for tweeting this.

The Future of Media: 2009 at NYU on June 3rd

2009-05-26T09:47:00.004-04:00

For the second time, media news blog I Want Media is rehashing their (hopefully) annual forum entitled "The Future of Media" at 1 PM on Wednesday, June 3rd at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at 20 Cooper Square and 5th Street. Persons who will be speaking on the future of social media, the newspaper industry and sharing communities include Gawker Media founder Nick Denton, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, the WSJ's managing editor Robert Thompson, and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. The hour-long event will be moderated by NYU Adjunct Professor and I Want Media founder Patrick Phillips. If you will be in the New York area I would highly recommend attending this free event, although the space is very limited by now (standing room only). For those of you who aren't in the New York area or are too late to RSVP (which might be my case, but we'll have to see if I'm lucky enough to get shoved in the back somewhere) there will be a streaming video of the event through Livestream's I Want Media TV page.

This event and many others are a part of Internet Week New York, an event beginning Monday, June 1st and culminating with the Webby Awards (invitation only) on the evening of June 8th. There is an extensive list of events on their site's schedule section, and I'm pretty excited for several of them that look like they are free with an RSVP. The week will include conferences and panels on social media, content, and advertising, the future of arts and entertainment in the digital age, and oh so much more. I'm starting to RSVP for some of the events today (especially since almost all of them are freeeeee!), although I might be too late for some of the events.

West Coasters, be jealous!

Oh wow, I can't wait to read this!

2009-05-22T11:31:00.005-04:00

So it seems as though Sarah Palin has picked a collaborator to help her write (read: completely construct the text for) her memoirs. Ohhhh, goodie! I can't wait to read this book that will obviously be a truthful, accurate, non-fictional account of this horrible, winking, worst-thing-to-recently-snub-progressive-sexual-equality woman's life. From the AP:

Palin has selected Lynn Vincent, an author and features editor for World magazine, a conservative Christian publication. Palin's book, currently untitled, is scheduled for release next year by HarperCollins.

No surprise in her pick for collaborator, right?

I say we all go shoot some wolves to celebrate.

New Google Chrome ads

2009-05-19T01:08:00.004-04:00

I was watching 30 Rock on Hulu tonight, and this ad for Google's new web browser came on. I'm a total sucker for clever animation, so I figured I would share it here.

I guess it's trying to say that Google Chrome is simpler, cleaner, and without all the visual clutter. I've been planning on doing a post on how I think Google will get broken up in the near future, so do they really think it's a good idea to create a web browser to add to the myriad other products and services they offer? In my opinion, they are definitely dipping their quills into way too many ink wells.

To see more ads for Google Chrome, check out their YouTube page.

Lessig : Helprin :: remix : extended terms of copyright (that's right, I just got all sorts of SAT on you)

2009-05-18T20:23:00.005-04:00

So this guy Mark Helprin writes this article for the New York Times that argues for an extension of copyright restrictions past the current 70 years. He also has somewhat of a different view on what it means to have work copyrighted, and brings up interesting points on the difference between an idea and a work of art. He talks about the article, and his book Digital Barbarism in an episode of All Things Considered. Lawrence Lessig then responds to Mark Helprin's argument by making a page on his wiki so that his followers can work together to create a response, and goes on All Things Considered to clearly state why what Helprin is trying to say is met with so much grief by so many individuals (you can find this on the same page as the ATC episode with Helprin under the link "Lawrence Lessig responds to Mark Helprin's argument").

We were asked to respond to this for a final in my Media Industry Perspectives class. Below is my response and which side of the argument I advocate.
---
I completely agree that the current state of copyright law not only restricts creativity, but also, in line with Lessig’s statements made on NPR’s All Things Considered, that copyright as an overall system has failed to fulfill its intended results in the 21st century digital world. In his interview with Jackie Lyden on NPR, Lessig informs listeners that when Google set out to digitize 18 million books, they found that 75% of these books were in an uncertain status of copyright. They were out of print, and yet whether or not they were still under copyright protection or were in fact the stuff of public domain was indeterminate. This proves that the current state of copyright that is intended to recognize the original author is failing to do its most basic and simple job properly. The laws surrounding copyright and ownership are so muddy that Lessig has based his career around making these laws and regulations simpler to understand, and wishes to make negotiations flexible and comprehensible for the average layman who has his work protected under copyright.

In (not direct) opposition to Lawrence Lessig’s work and his books The Future of Ideas and Remix, author Mark Helprin argues in his article from the New York Times and his book Digital Barbarism that Congress should continue to extend copyright terms from the existing 70 years to, in his words, “as far as it can throw”. He believes that the children and grandchildren who inherit the copyright and the money involved in the royalties made from that copyright of a predecessor’s work should be seen as equivalent to the generations who inherit the property rights to a family mill. Lessig refutes this position, stating that, obviously, these two pieces of property are very different, and that Helprin’s argument is inherently faulty for being based on these grounds. Helprin’s article received over half a million negative comments from the online community, mostly from those who in theory align with Lessig and his ideas on public domain, intellectual property, and what it means to create and share in a digital world. Along with the aforementioned NPR appearance, Lessig also responded to Helprin’s article by creating a page entitled “Against perpetual copyright” on The Lessig Wiki, a community site intended to discuss ideas, praises and criticism surrounding Lessig’s work.

While Helprin and Lessig are not entirely diametrically opposed (they both do not wish for the current state of peer-to-many free file sharing to continue, for example), they do have many differing opinions on intellectual property rights, the definition of art and creativity in general, and their interpretation of legislation. One of their differences of opinion lies in their individual interpretation of the line in the US Constitution surrounding copyright. This particular line states the length of any given copyright should only exist “for limited Times”. Lessig understands “limited” to mean minimal, and believes that Congress extending the length of protected copyright on a work 11 times in the past 40 years is making a joke of the US Constitution and only serves to put more money in the hands of those who are profiting off of the protection of the work; on the other hand, Helprin takes the term “limited” to be extremely flexible and subjective, and while he has never said that he advocates perpetual copyright, he certainly believes that as long as copyright law is up for renewal and extension, Congress should take advantage of this open interpretation of the Constitution.

Another area where Lessig and Helprin disagree is on the concept of “remixing” existing works into new, appropriated pieces of art. In his interview on NPR, Helprin states that “remix is a nightmare”, and while he probably means this only in relation to legal issues, this statement serves to make Helprin look like a naysayer and a curmudgeon who refuses to accept the evolving states of art and media that come with evolving technologies. Helprin believes that the work one creates is sacred and should not be altered in any way without the original author’s permission. I certainly advocate Lessig’s ideas surrounding the issue, and believe that current copyright laws need to evolve with and not against the current trends in technology and waves of creativity.

Must Love Robots

2009-05-08T04:05:00.004-04:00

So one of my fellow Media Studies MA candidates who is in my Media Industry Perspectives class this semester started a web series called "Must Love Robots" about a young man who is trying to find a date for his roommate who just so happens to be a lonely robot. The two live together in Brooklyn and have created a blog where they are posting all of the webisodes. I found it completely adorable and also quite hilarious. Trust me, it's not one of those inside joke things where one has to know the person for it to be funny. It's genuinely awesome. Be sure to scroll to the bottom and work your way up to watch the videos in the correct order.

In tandem with the blog they have also created a Match.com-esque website called Robot Friend Finder where one can create their own character profile (mine is an android who goes by the same name as her human counterpart). Be sure to watch the introduction video before you actually enter the site below; it's equally as clever as the actual web series. If you find that this web series is something you'd like to continue watching the in future, you can become a fan of them on Facebook or follow the characters on Twitter.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

(PS: I've been tossing and turning all night because I knew I had to wake up at 4:30 to get ready to meet my boyfriend and the airport and I'm both excited and nervous that he is flying. This was definitely a more than welcomed way to spend my sleepless time.)

Movin' on up to the (Upper) East Side!

2009-05-07T00:14:00.005-04:00

To a ti-ny apartment on the sixth floo ooor!

Well, at least I hope.

My friend Arthur and I put down a deposit on this place this morning, and we won't be sure that we have the place until the credit check is approved, a process that is occurring tomorrow. So I don't quite want to jinx our chances of getting the place, but it all looks pretty good so far.

The place is small, with barely enough room to do anything in the living room except place a couch. There's not even room for a dining room table, but heck, man, this is New York City! Anyone who has the misconception that where I've been living is typical, please, PLEASE erase that thought from your mind - Stuyvesant Town is an anomaly. But the new building is great, and the neighborhood is amazing. On our way back to the train we passed countless pubs, various ethnic restaurants (even Turkish), and several laundromats, although the building is getting laundry facilities within the next few months. We're 6 blocks east from Central Park, and since we're moving there in the summer I can guess we will be hitting up its green belts and shady trees quite frequently. When we went to make the deposit today we met the landlord, who is a young man from Israel, and Arthur pulled out a slick "Thank you" in Hebrew that really caught the guy off guard. Quite amusing, I thought.

Manhattan property managers are bastards.

2009-05-04T13:31:00.002-04:00

I totally thought we had a place. I was ready to skip home, dancing and singing the theme from "The Jeffersons". But no. This dude blatantly lied to us. Told us yesterday evening that Apartment 7 at 350 E 91st Street was available. I called him this morning before taking the train ride up there to tell him that we were coming by with the deposit money, and he says "That's fine, I'll see you when you get here." And lo and behold, we get to his office at 11:30 this morning to find that, oops! He got confused! He already took a deposit on Apartment 7.

"I do have another place in the building next door though, much nicer than the other one, a little bit more expensive though."

"Like, how much more expensive?"

"It's $1750, but I'm sure we can talk him down to $1600 for you two." Apartment 7 was listed for $1495 with heat and hot water included.

I give Arthur a sideways look. "Well, we called you this morning to tell you that we were coming by to make a deposit. Did this happen this morning?"

"No," he says, rifling through paperwork. "These girls came by after you saw the apartment on Saturday and made a deposit on the place."

"Then why did you text me at 7 in the morning on Sunday to say that we should come by that day with the deposit for Apartment 7?"

"Oh, man, I must have got confused. I was at a christening yesterday and was just so busy, it's hectic right now, you know?"

Yeah, I know. I know that I now have two weeks to find an apartment in the midst of finals and paper writing and my boyfriend coming to visit this weekend, a weekend during which I thought I would be completely free to enjoy his company and not have to drag him all over the city looking at god damned apartments. I know that this guy was probably planning this tactic all along, trying to mess with some young kids who he knows are students and are desperate for a place. I know that I almost had an emotional meltdown on 91st Street this afternoon. And I know that no matter how much foresight I try to have, and no matter how much I try to be rational and not let my emotions get the better of me, things never work out the easy way. At least that seems to be my horrible luck lately.

So in the middle of writing a 15 page paper and a finishing a take-home final, I'll have to start the apartment hunting process all over again. I thought we were done, but really, we're back at square one.

"You know how your iPod's got songs? Well, now you can download books and shit."

2009-04-30T15:19:00.012-04:00

The title of this entry is a direct quote from a kid on the L into Manhattan this afternoon explaining the concept of Amazon's Kindle 2 to a friend. I knew he was explaining the Kindle because he was motioning to the advertisement for said product above his head on the train, although I think I would have understood to what he was making reference even without noticing the ad displayed above. Seriously, Amazon, this should totally be your slogan:

"It downloads books and shit."

How good does that sound? It appeals to those of us who want the straight, no-nonsense facts, to the younger, hipper, edgier generation who knows curse words make anything more awesome. Come on, what other sort of product description do you need? Does the average consumer really give a hoot about longer battery life or that the buttons are less sensitive than the Kindle 1? No. All they really care about is that it downloads books. And shit.

Also, I think it's really hilarious that, just like the skins for iPods, the Kindle is coming out with "cute" colorful covers as a way to make each Kindle 2 unique to its owner (read: make more money on useless, wasteful products that the device really "needs"). Sure, they protect the product from superficial damage, but do I really need a pink leather case when a straight black one would suffice? Or, much like I keep my iPod in a super soft ped sock for which I sadly lost the left mate, don't you think think your Kindle would find protection and comfort wrapped in an old, well-worn t-shirt? Think of it like a bonding moment between you and your dear, beloved Kindle. It will take on your personal, unique scent, a far more distinguishing mark than a gaudy pink leather cover that a thousand other people will also have. But maybe that's just how I roll, since I refuse to buy a manufactured piece of plastic or animal bi-products just to make my electronic device unique to me. Although, I guess it would be cool to have one to match the potential outfit I might wear on any given day...omg effing hawt loves it!

Pssh. Seriously, people.

Happy Birthday, Dear Bloggie...

2009-04-28T12:39:00.005-04:00

...Happy Birthday to You!

Today marks exactly one year since I posted my first blog entry as You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet!, and look at the forms it's taken as it's grown up to a walking, talking, free wheelin' space for my thoughts, rants, observations, and musings. What began as a place to document reviews of music shows (my first entry is a reflection on Coachella 2008) and films slowly morphed into a space where nothing I post is not somehow media-related, stretching the boundaries of what I originally intended into a far less restrictive arena of new media, advertising, television, audience studies, etc (the most recent entry is on the evolving nature of YouTube's social networking capabilities). Sure, there are other themes that I've incorporated throughout this weblog's first year, including but not limited to politics, gender issues, a series entitled "Things Grad Students Love" (that I hope to continue as an on-going contribution...ideas for Part 6, anyone?), and reviews of art exhibits, but I try, sometimes in vain, to always dovetail the issues I discuss with media studies and analysis.

While I certainly maintain this space for my personal benefit as a portfolio, as a way for family and friends who don't live in my city to keep up with my life and interests, and as my own contribution to the on-going meta-dialogue on the media, I have also gotten recognition for my work here from professors, administrators within my Masters program, fellow Media Studies students, and non-Media Studies friends, as well as some comments from a few strangers. While this certainly boosts my ego and restores faith in my abilities, this is not why I am writing. I want my writing and ideas to be public to inspire conversation within the Media Studies community and the Internet community at large and hopefully cause someone, even one individual, to think a bit differently about the way they interact with the visual environment surrounding them.

Some may think that my quiet voice in a sea of millions of others may not make an impact, and I don't expect it to. But it does instill a sense of purpose in the work that I am doing, and has even allowed me to chart my growth and decline of interest on certain issues and topics, guiding me in (god, hopefully) the right direction for future areas of study. I started this blog wanting to be a film critic. But because I have been given a space to air out my ideas that is communal and includes much-welcomed comments, questions, and discourse, I have decided that writing solely about film would be selling myself short, as the Internet is quickly replacing film as the most influential visual media in the world. I will never give up my passion for film and what it means to me as an art form, as a social commentary, and as a form of entertainment, escapism and fantasy, and I will continue to write about film when the mood strikes. However, I will also never again pigeonhole myself into such a narrow category.

So, for all of you who have been with me from the beginning and for those of you who have just started participating in the discourse I offer here, thank you. Your readership, comments, participation, kind praise and constructive criticism are more important to me that you may ever know.

YouTube to include RealTime notifications

2009-04-27T16:52:00.006-04:00

I think this is just so cool. Almost everything is becoming a form of social media nowadays. From TechCrunch.com:

The real-time web is all the rage, with FriendFeed widely deploying live feeds earlier this month and Facebook working hard on bringing real-time streams to its homepage. Now YouTube is looking to get in on the action, and is currently testing a new feature dubbed ‘YouTube RealTime’, which allow users to see which of their friends are currently online, the videos they’re watching, and comments they’ve left. Updates will be shown in a persistent toolbar, which means that users will be able to see them no matter where they are on the site.
[...] This is going to be big. While real time feeds are bound to increase engagement on most sites, I think they’ll work especially well on YouTube. Many people go to YouTube without any particular video in mind - they simply go to watch something. Now as they browse through the site looking for the latest videos to go viral, they’ll also get constant status updates as their friends stumble across cool videos too. It’s tough to ignore a popup notification that your friend just watched a video called “Cat rides skateboard” - you’re going to want to see for yourself, and then your friends will see an update alerting them about the video, creating an endless loop.

Not only that, but YouTube has already sent out preliminary invites for individuals to begin playing around with the newest interface and networking capabilities. TechCrunch gave out 25 of them, and everyone of those 25 people who claimed the invitations got 25 invites of their own. Awesome.

I might not agree with the author's commentary that users just find themselves on YouTube to watch whatever they stumble upon, maybe because I don't just hang out on YouTube all day. I usually have an agenda, like "I really want to see the end credits of Buckaroo Banzai right now!" or something. But it is true that video suggestions on YouTube are just cutting out the middle man of Facebook or email in order to share clips with friends and family, which I find rather brilliant and interesting. I already have a YouTube account, but I don't really use it for any specific purpose. Maybe after this RealTime feature begins, however, that will be a different story.

American Apparel is officially soft core pornography

2009-04-27T00:22:00.010-04:00

...and I am officially boycotting this company.

Ok, so I own some of their stuff. In total, I have two v-necks, a gray dress, a brown leotard, two pair of track shorts, and some metallic silver snake skin leggings (that make my legs feel like they are in sausage casings and that I've only worn twice, but god damn do they look good on me and make me want to get doooown on the dance floor). And I'm not throwing away the items that I purchased from them almost a year ago because that would be straight wasteful, and I never throw clothes away in the first place. I donate. I'm actually wearing one of their shirts right now: a white v-neck that I wore with a white skirt and brown leather belt today because it was 90 freakin' degrees outside and I intended to reflect the rays of the scorching sun as much as possible. So please, don't try to call me a total reactionary or a hypocrite, because I do own some of the company's clothing, I do think that what I own is comfortable, and I am not getting rid of any of it just for my moral opposition to their advertisements. Oh, yeah, so if you were wondering why I'm embarking on this rant about American Apparel, it all stems from just that: their barely legal soft core pornography advertising campaign.

When I was in my early teenage years, my mom would not allow me to purchase a pair of Calvin Klein denim jeans because she was so opposed to the blatant female objectification and hegemonic, male-centric sexuality that was portrayed in their billboard and print ad campaigns. I'm pretty sure that if I had a teenage son or daughter today who wanted to give their money to a company that promoted such objectified images of women that did nothing to advertise the clothing and solely promoted a male-centric gaze toward the barely legal women featured in their ads, you can bet I would react in a similar fashion to my mother and exclaim an emphatic "no".

An example of said objectifying image from the lovely company in question:

This is a photograph from a slide show on the American Apparel website entitled "Britney wearing the Unisex Oversized See Thru T-Shirt". Surname-less, generic, blond Britney "wearing" a t-shirt laying on a bed with a come-hither look in her eyes is more asking the viewer to buy her body and not an item of clothing. I can't even tell if that's a t-shirt or a scarf, and as I buyer I would have no idea how the shirt actually fit a human body. And actually, based on this photo, she's about to not be wearing it in two seconds. And as a matter of fact, as the slide show goes on, there are, to my shock and amazement, blatantly displayed nipples (hover over the photograph for the slide show navigators to appear). Somehow, this smacks of a Playboy photo feature and not a clothing advertisement, don't you think?

Britney is in no way a single occurrence in this company's quest to push the limit of appropriateness. If you want more examples of crotch shots, vacant stares, take-me-from-behind poses, and near-nipple exposure, trust me, they are really easy to find. Please take note that none of these half- and near-naked slide shows feature men. The only male representation to be seen in the slide show section is of men going places for the company, doing things like dying t-shirts, and trying out different ways to wear a jacket, under which the model is surprisingly wearing pants. There are half-naked men modeling underwear, but that is to be expected; even Hanes does that kind of stuff. For a company that claims to be unisex, female customers are certainly getting the short end of the stick when it comes to advertisement eye candy (that's what I like to call sarcasm, kids). What I mean to say is: for a company that offers clothing for both men and women, their advertising is certainly geared toward the gaze of their male customer. Well, that's not being fair to all the women-loving women out there...let's just keep it simple and say that their advertising unabashedly depicts mostly women, not men, in a hyper-sexualized light. And it wouldn't be nearly as creepy if the brightly lit photographs didn't so closely resemble barely-legal pornography.

In short, I refuse to give another dime to this company. The inner fashionista in me might be crying this summer when she can't rock that fly light-weight jersey dress everyone else is sporting, but the gender equality side of me will hopefully just punch that stupid American-Apparel-craving hipster straight in the face and call it a day.

Art in a State of Fluxus: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Neo-avant-garde Social Movement

2009-04-26T17:24:00.005-04:00

The notion that a (mostly) pacifist artistic movement could possibly function as a catalyst of active social change might strike some as impossible, if not at least difficult in potential execution. The motivation behind the international collective of the Fluxus movement, nonetheless, strove to advance their goal of reaffirming “everyday life and its natural, often humorous, relation to art” in an attempt to separate itself from the growing consumer-driven tendencies of a postwar era, among other driving forces to be discussed at length. The foci of this paper’s analysis of the Fluxus movement will initiate with a description the incipient structure of Fluxus as a social and artistic movement; follow the flow (or, if I may, the flux) of the overarching substantive qualities of the movement; and finally, spotlight the organizational visual and rhetorical style of the group’s neo-avant-garde artistic output.

From the Roman circus to New York Vaudeville: The Incipient Structure Stage of Fluxus

While many point to John Cage as the instigator of the Fluxus movement, it would be more accurate to say that Cage’s music and art were the inspiration for the instigation of the Fluxus group, especially to one George Maciunas, a Lithuanian-born anti-artist who is the credited “maniacal organizer” and individual responsible for really jump-starting the movement in the early 1960s. While there was no overt, dominating leader of Fluxus, one can easily argue that Maciunas was responsible for bringing together likeminded individuals whose unification was realized in the striking similarities of their visual style and the underlying message of their collective artistic vision. While consistently rejecting consumerism (a move which some would argue is at odds with any group wishing to display their “products” (read: artworks) in the public sphere ), Fluxus understood that the “product” they were indeed “selling” to the public through the vehicle of their movement was not physical but indeed an ephemeral “ideology, particularly its program for change” via artistic output.

The group’s aim was to produce a reaction “against the heroics of Abstract Expressionism and the commercialism of high Modernism” with the goal of “expanding the boundaries of art” through public performances and gallery shows made available to the public. To support his agenda Maciunas gathered local and international personalities including the noted first video artist Nam June Paik and his wife, video sculptor Shigeko Kubota; musician, minimalist, and instruction painting artist Yoko Ono ; event score composer/artist Alison Knowles; and conceptual artist and avant-garde composer George Brecht.

A unifying force for all members was at least a familiarity with Eastern philosophy and an outlook on Buddhism not as a way of life but as a foundation for representation and creative stimulation. Maciunas was responsible for penning the movement’s Manifesto, a brief, one-page document known as The Fluxus Codex. As Alexandra Monroe details in an exhaustive compilation of the female artist’s life and work Yes Yoko Ono, Maciunas “reached back to such diverse sources as the Roman circus[…]and Byzantine iconoclasm” while also taking inspiration from the more contemporary “Dada and Futurist sound poetry, abstract calligraphy[…and] Vaudeville” when conceptualizing the way that the movement would interface with the outside audience. Self-designated motivated leader of the group, Maciunas understood that “social movements[…]must rely on ideological and social commitments from their members” in order to succeed in their goal, which was his reason for drafting The Fluxus Codex.

The Fluxus Codex: The Overarching Substance of the Movement

What I do I do not wish blamed on Zen…I often point out that Dada
nowadays has in it a space, an emptiness, that it formally lacked.
What, nowadays, America mid-twentieth century, is Zen?
- John Cage

On the surface, the artistic and social movement known as Fluxus that grew out of myriad inspirations in response to numerous anti–art and postwar anti–consumerist tendencies seems to be thoroughly steeped in Eastern philosophy and Buddhist religious signifiers; however, while John Cage (arguably the educator and creator most responsible for the inception of Fluxus) was highly influenced by Zen and Taoism, a reaction to these Eastern influences of key member Nam June Paik is telling: “I react to Zen the same way as I react to Johann Sebastian Bach.” In other words, the movement’s roots in Zen were simply a creative and interpretative jumping-off point as opposed to a constant, insistent referent; to Cage and his successors, Zen was just “one conceptual tool in the Fluxkit”. Therefore, the work of John Cage and his followers in the Fluxus movement should not be considered Buddhist or Zen, because, as Cage reminds his audience: really, what was Zen in 1960s America?

The study of Fluxus as a social movement would be remiss without explicitly stating the problem situated behind the group’s motivations for creation and public interface. Through their art and “happenings”, Fluxus hoped for "the gradual elimination of fine arts[…]motivated by the desire to stop the waste of material and human resources[…]and divert it to socially constructive ends[…targeting] nationalist and hierarchical cultural traditions that had led to the social catastrophe of the first World War." All of these (notably environmentally- and socially-concerned) motives are outlined beautifully and succinctly in The Fluxus Codex, in which Maciunas penned his desire to “Purge the world” of these evils. This “purging”, however, was not to be done by violent or negative means, but instead through the group’s minimal appropriation of materials when creating their art, event scores, and happenings.

The major narrative for the movement attempted to escape negative rhetoric in order to completely embrace the “spontaneous, unmediated experience” of creation, while simultaneously never taking it as seriously as their precursors in Expressionism. The teachings of Buddhism and the artwork that makes references to its philosophies was far from drastic or menacing in tone: the Buddha is almost consistently depicted as a happy, smiling, rotund individual, far from heroic or somber. A parallel can be drawn here between Buddhism’s humorous, light-hearted aspects and the Fluxus movement, which strove to “temporarily have the pedagogical function of teaching people the needlessness of art including the eventual needlessness of itself” ; in other words, through Fluxus’ clever event scores, including Knowles’ The Identical Lunch; Paik’s “visual equivalent of Cage’s 4’33”” entitled Zen for Film; and numerous other happenings that bubbled up from Fluxus, a self-contained sense of humor was enacted in order to connect with their audience, a tactic which cleverly avoided group alienation from the broader public. Despite, as Baas points out in her text Smile of the Buddha, “the overtly political nature of the enterprise, Fluxus products were leavened with considerable humor” which the members hoped would allow more public participation and support than alienation and rejection.

While the Fluxus movement is certainly not as prolific in the contemporary art scene, event scores are still being performed to this day by Knowles, and Paik was an integral figure in the creation of unique video art up until a stroke rendered him paralyzed in 1996. It is no coincidence that most cite 1978 as the end the prolific thrust of the Fluxus movement; this was the same year as founding member Maciunas’ death. Fluxus remains in spirit, and has influenced several postmodern multi-media artists with its core values and ideologies.

Minimalism, Performance Art, and the Fluxkit: The Visual and Rhetorical Style of the Movement

When one enters an exhibit focusing on the neo-avant-garde Fluxus movement, one does not encounter loud splashes of color or wild video installations; on the contrary, one will encounter minimalist (often in subject and in size) video installations, naked canvas and parchment paper, and simple tri-chromatic screen prints. The entire wall at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum dedicated to the instruction paintings of Yoko Ono includes nothing more than rows of framed parchment upon which are inscribed tiny Japanese characters in modest black ink with translations offered below each column of frames.

As mentioned above, tenants of Expressionism and abstract art were a far cry from the rhetorical visual style of Fluxus; rather, in coherence with their environmentally-driven goals of minimizing waste output, Fluxus’ rhetorical style was visually represented through pencil drawings, photographs of event scores, sepia-toned books and lithographs, a slightly humorous multi-media collection of tools entitled Fluxkit, and even a simple rectangle of white light projected on a wall from an exposed roll of film . In this way, Fluxus’ and its organizer Maciunas’ style can certainly be found in ordinance with Herbert W. Simon’s description of the rhetorical strategies of an intermediate social agenda: somewhere between the passivity of the moderate and the intensity of the militant.

While Fluxus indeed had a unique social goal that can been seen as a less militant version of the contemporary “green” movement with similar sentiment found also in AdBusters magazine and other anti-consumerist modern-day art movements, Fluxus was not alone in their era. The 1960s, ripe with social reform, was also the chronological home of neo-Dada, Happenings, the Beats, and the Bay Area conceptual art movement. Possibly the unique quality found in Fluxus that separates it from its contemporaries is its consistency in style despite geographical differences among artists.

Not So Much a Problem as an Issue: A Summation of the Fluxus Social Movement as an Un-Aggressive Force

There is no solution because there is no problem.
- Marcel Duchamp

There is no problem because there is no solution.
- Shigeko Kubota

Kubota and her contemporaries in the Fluxus movement recognized that although their goal was to do away with the consumerist, hierarchical standards of past cultural and social eras, there was ultimately no concrete solution to the problem of consumerism in an inherently capitalist society. While enthusiastic about the group’s art and the rhetoric surrounding their visual styles, it can be argued that even Maciunas understood it was impossible to “purge the world” of everything that he believed called for purging. As stated above, Maciunas’ and Fluxus’ goal was to temporarily inform people about their beliefs and their Codex, with the knowledge that movements come and movements go.

Even so, characteristics of Fluxus remain with us today in our postmodern society: certainly multi-media visual art projects and performances can attribute their invention and creation to Fluxus artists, along with remix artists such as Sim Sadler and Johan Söderberg who take pre-existing footage and edit it to music in order to construct social commentary. Although a movement that withered with the death of its key founding member, Fluxus remains at the heart of all artistic movements that want to enhance the life experience of its members, contributors and the interfacing public through more than simple aesthetic means. Because for members of Fluxus, the movement was not just about creating art; it was a way of life. For as a movement “decidedly rowdier and more socially committed than the American Abstract Expressionists […Fluxus] wanted to give art back to the social realm.” Those were its aims, and as argued here, it’s ultimate successes as a social movement.

(I couldn't figure out how to insert linked end notes, and therefore not much is cited. I will attempt to change this into in-text citations soon.)

Coachella 2009: Reflections from Friday, April 17th

2009-04-20T23:58:00.012-04:00

Sorry it's so delayed...Rinaldi, I hear you man! Been busy with school work and apartment hunting, so I recognize the posts are a bit delayed.

Let me just start by saying that of the now five years I've been to the Coachella Music and Arts festival, 2009 was my first year camping on the festival grounds. While sweaty, dirty, shiveringly cold at night and hot as hell by 9 AM, it was nothing short of a completely unique and surprisingly comfortable, amazing experience. My boyfriend (woo!) made the last minute decision on Thursday that instead of worrying about driving somewhere to sleep each night at 1 AM he would buy camping passes for us, as well as a tent, a lantern, a small flashlight, and a flat of water. My mom and stepfather were kind enough to loan out their air mattress, some pillows, a blanket, and their cooler, which added extremely to our level of comfort. The grounds had ample bathroom facilities and several shower trucks that skirted the edge of the campsite complete with sinks and mirrors along with multiple food and beverage locations, cell phone and computer charging stations, a general store, and a large tent under which one could consume bloody marys as early as 9 AM.

Some of aforementioned details will be included in this description, as I give you now a rough play by play of Friday's events:

Friday, April 17th

(Photograph Geoffrey Anderson, 2009)

4ish PM: After driving from Echo Park to La Habra Heights to the Indio Rite Aid for snacks and ice, Geoff and I arrive at the campsite with the things we need for the day, where we attempt to check in. Dude at the gate informs us that we can only check in with all our camping stuff as late as 8 PM that night. We trudge back to the car, where we run into Eric, his girlfriend, and Bryanna. Matty & Galina and Brook & Justine wander by Geoff's car as we are unloading the trunk with all the weekend's necessities. After we finally make it through security without getting anything taken away (including our lantern that was, indeed, made of glass, a material not supposed to be taken in to the campsite or festival) we find where Ken, Laura and Zach have set up their canopy (thanks to Zach's very accurate description) and set up the tent within 5 spaces of them. After everything is inside the tent and we have everything we'll need for the next 7 hours, we walk in to the festival.

6:25 PM: Geoff and I walk over to see a bit of Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band at the Outdoor Stage. Oberst is wearing a ridiculously huge black hat, and we both agree that the man has lost something as he's matured. While the orchestration and sound were pretty nice, his angst-y-ness and soul have been kind of sucked out of his new project, leaving his performance and the songs a bit flat.

6:40 PM: We decide that since the weather isn't as hot as we'd both expected that we'd make a stop over at the beer garden by the Sahara tent before going in to see Crystal Castles. After swiftly polishing off two beers each, we run in to catch some of their set. While the music was a total electronic dance party, I have the extreme disadvantage of being a mere 5 feet and 4 inches tall, which left me standing in a sea of people questioning where this shrill yelling was coming from. I could see a miniature Alice Glass jumping around and passionately expressing herself into the mic, but maybe it was my low audio-vantage point that left her words muddled. I kind of wished she would stop shrieking for a little bit so I could just get lost in the music, which was just as spot-on as their record.

7:30 PM: While I'm not well-versed in Leonard Cohen's catalogue, Cohen was really the first performance of Coachella that left me feeling something. He performed during sunset, always a coveted time slot for the Coachella performer at the Outdoor or Main Stage. His voice was flawless, and at 74, that's saying something. Geoff, being over a foot taller than myself, graciously lifted me up a few times so I could see Cohen, who would occasionally break into a little grove under the low brim of his amazingly suave hat. Of course, he sang "Halleluah", and of course, persons of every generation sang along as the sky turned indigo behind the palm trees that border the grounds of the polo field. His lyricism was what impressed me the most, because, like I said, I'm fairly uneducated when it comes to Cohen. The image of him crooning into his mic is really the first that impressed me of the festival that day.

8:30 PM: Geoff and I wandered over to Beirut in the Mojave tent, where we try for the maybe fifth time that night to meet up with Ken, Laura and Zach. Not able to find the kids and figuring we'd just meet up with them at Girl Talk, we watch most of his set. Much like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who I'll talk about in my entry on Sunday), Zach Condon and gang played a delightful mix of old and new, and made me loose myself as I swayed along to "A Sunday Smile" and several other horn- and accordian-infused tunes. The dry heat had absolutely no effect on Condon's sweet, sophisticated vocals, and he sounded just like Prince Charming on a white horse even in the desert's 80 degrees. My only regret is that I wasn't a little closer for his set, since there's a certain intimacy that I think is required to fully appreciate what Beirut has to offer.

9:10 PM: After obtaining what proved again to be extremely accurate directions from Zach, Geoff and I enter through the side of the Sahara tent and meet up with everyone to see Girl Talk's set. While Gillis knew when to slow it down just a bit to give the crowd a much-needed dancing break, I had to forcefully stop myself from dancing until I fell over toward the end. The music definitely took control of my limbs, especially, and I say this with no regrets or qualms or embarrassment, when Beyonce's "Single Ladies" was mixed with ______ (I'm totally blanking right now). My sister would have been so proud. There were some amazing mash-ups, and maybe my brain will remember a few as time goes by. There was one mash-up that emplored the audience to "jump" repeatedly. It was because of this that half of my phone's front screen got totally cracked, and now I can only see who's calling me if it's someone with a very long name. Looks like it's time for a smartphone...

9:50 PM: Very wisely, all of eight of us slip out of the side of the tent and move toward the Main Stage to get a decent spot for Paul McCartney. Geoff and I wander off to get a beer quickly before Sir Paul takes the stage, and come back to the same spot in enough time to find Ken, Zach, Laura and Kelsey. McCartney took the stage, and to all of our surprise, wonder and wish fulfillment played only 5 post-Beatles tracks. All the rest were songs we all know and love from childhood, including "Eleanor Rigby", "Blackbird", "Hey Jude", "Baby You Can Drive My Car", "Yesterday", a ukulele version of "Something", "Live and Let Die", "Give Peace a Chance", "Back in the USSR", "Birthday", "Got to Get You Into My Life", and oh so many more. He did two encores, finishing his set around 1 in the morning. Look here for the full McCartney set list from this amazing, once in a lifetime performance.

1 AM: Geoff and I leave the festival grounds as just two individuals in the herd of people making a mass exodus. We discuss Sir Paul's performance, which Geoff described as "transcendent", as we schlep back to the car to hang our parking pass from the rear view mirror so as to avoid getting towed.

2 AM: Zach stumbles by our site, helps us secure the rain cover, then disappears into the sea of tents mumbling "I gotta find some fuckin' food." Geoff and I fall asleep with visions of music notes dancing in our heads, shivering from the damp cold air rising from the grassy ground below us. Reminder for next year: bring at least two blankets and pants, not shorts, for bedtime.

Check back soon for more details from Saturday and Sunday!

Tweeting my trip: Because any one really cares.

2009-04-15T19:25:00.005-04:00

I am very torn about Twitter.

A recent member to the site, I found the idea initially quite silly. Honestly, this site is even more self-indulgent and narcissistic than Facebook, save the "@replies" feature that allows one to dedicate their status in response to another person one is "following"s status.

But within my first week of joining I had my mobile phone networked so that I could text status updates while I was walking around the city, sitting on a bus, etc., and now I find myself thinking in status updates quite constantly. Well, at least when I'm by myself. Going hand in hand with being narcissistic, I only think to tweet when I'm by myself either at my computer or out at the supermarket or just after class. Here is how my thought process plays out when I'm, for example, at Trader Joe's:

Old woman with amazing pashmina scarf in line behind me starts talking about the best place in the city to find roses and asking me about the chicken broth I have in my cart. She also has the most amazing blue rimmed 1983 glasses I've seen this side of the new millennium.

I want to remember this moment because she is exactly who I want to be when I'm 75.

There are a few friends who would have appreciated this experience with whom I must share my thoughts and feelings.

I must send a text to Twitter about this event so as to remember it and simultaneously share with friends

I also now have my Twitter updates linked to my Facebook profile, so whenever I send a text to Twitter with a new status update the update will ultimately end up on Facebook as well (although I believe there are a limited number of these that Twitter will send to Facebook per day).

But, this is assuming that my friends actually care about what's happening in my day enough that I should share every little part of my life with them through social media. I know that I have a few friends whose updates are always very interesting, funny, or informative, and I guess at times I hope mine have that role for someone else in my life. And in a way, I don't really care if anyone cares about these little things I find amusing in my life. Again, straight up narcissism.

In any case, the tweeting is almost entirely superfluous, although not entirely unnecessary. Case in point: My flight to California on Monday was met with several problems, almost all of which I texted to Twitter or to Facebook (through their mobile photo uploads feature). Several of my friends and family members were able to find out when I would be home and what was going on with my layover situation simultaneously, without having to go through the time-consuming process of calling/texting everyone who needed to know. In a way, the Twitter status update is a type of mass text sent to everyone who is following me, just through the medium of the computer instead of the cell phone.

However, a big reason why I use Twitter is so that the end result of my status update will find itself on my Facebook profile. I have 435 friends and family members with whom I am directly connected on Facebook, and only about 20 people who I am following/follow me on Twitter (I would give an exact number here but my mom's laptop is not wanting to connect with Twitter at the moment. This actually happens quite frequently, and I think it's due to their small yet expanding bandwidth). This is most likely due to the fact that Twitter is a newer site, and that the majority of the people with who I am close have not yet decided to join the site for either moral or insignificant reasons (I was having a cell phone conversation with a friend the other day who said he was feeling out of the loop lately. He ascribed this feeling to the fact that he was not yet on "Twatter". You get the idea). Some still think it's a joke, but most new media trends are usually met with adversaries.

Not taking into account how many businesses have been using Twitter to profitable, reliable, networking-savvy ends, Twitter for the layman is really just a fun tool with an easy to use, pretty cool interface (my profile has birds on it. Hee!). And as narcissistic and self-indulgent as it may be, the next time I'm waiting in line at Trader Joe's for a half an hour or find that the L is shut down and have to walk 5 Avenue blocks to my destination or some idiot is trying to take a photo of the Washington arch at night with a flash and I feel like I simply have to tell someone about it, you can bet I'll be texting my good friend Twitter with the details.

Police Raid The New School

2009-04-10T14:33:00.005-04:00

In response to the student body's disappointment with the leadership choices (among other decisions) made by New School President Bob Kerrey, a student group called the New School in Exile threatened to shut down and occupy the school on April 1st, an action that never came to fruition but was certainly made known to the public.

Below is a letter from President Bob Kerry about the 60-student protest and building occupation that resulted in a massive police raid incleuding alleged tear gas and violence. An article on the incident can be found here, which cites the fact that 19 of the 60 participants were actually arrested. I kind of wish I hadn't missed out on the mayhem, although while I certainly understand their motives I'm very thankful I'm not involved in this mess.

"A Note to the Community
"On December 15, 2008, an unofficial student organization calling themselves the New School in Exile occupied the cafeteria at 65 Fifth Avenue, barricaded themselves into the room, and issued a set of demands. Early on the morning of December 16, a group of students and non-students broke through a fire exit on 14th street and entered the building.
"Although the occupants had violated a number of important security rules, the university made the judgment they were neither an operational or a security risk. Accordingly, we did not file a complaint with the New York Police Department to have the occupants removed. Instead we entered into a process of negotiations with our students and reached agreement on a list of demands including amnesty for all involved early on the morning of December 17. The students left peacefully at that time.
"In January, this same unofficial student organization issued a public threat to forcefully shut down the university on April 1 unless the President and Chief Operating Officer were removed. Following this they were caught stealing an entire edition of the student newspaper on account of a story they regarded as unfavorable to them; and subsequently they vandalized the university's presidential residence.
"During this time the university has allowed and accommodated every peaceful protest, teach-in, and demonstration. We have enforced our rules governing such events in such a way as to permit protests, so long as they don't endanger the safety of other members of the community or destruction of property.
"This morning's illegal occupation of 65 Fifth Avenue was joined by a number of New School in Exile students as well as individuals without any affiliation to The New School. Their claim that this was a simple political protest is false. Their entry into this building was forced, they removed a man who was cleaning the building, took his phone, injured a security officer, and did physical damage to the building.
"Accordingly, in this case the university asked the New York Police Department to remove and arrest those who were trespassing on our property. We suspended, pending administrative review, all New School students who were a part of this action.
"The New School prides itself on civic engagement. We have been and will continue to be a refuge for open and critical political debate. Students and faculty who choose to peacefully and passionately oppose the policies of the university will have their rights to do so protected as strongly as we protect our right to safely and securely operate our university."
President Bob Kerrey

I study Wikipedia.

2009-04-07T09:49:00.005-04:00

Um...not really.

Let me explain.

In anticipation for Coachella I am listening to the four Beirut albums that I have on my iPod on shuffle as I get ready for my day today. And as I am listening I am reminded of a certain incident with a friend that occurred before a Cat Power show in Los Angeles about a year ago. There was a banner hanging at the venue announcing that Beirut would be playing in a few months, and my friend from college and I got very excited. Naturally: this man is very very easy to listen to. My college friend and I decided that his voice is like what we would expect to come out of Prince Charming's mouth, and the fact that the man can play something like 8 instruments is just damn impressive. And it makes him all the more attractive/interesting, and his songs make me want to dance down the Seine wearing stripes on a Parisian fall afternoon...Anyway, the other friend who was there with us wasn't familiar with Beirut, and inquired, "Beirut? Like the drinking game? That's pretty funny."

My response was, "Or, you know, like the city."

She turned to me with a snarky face. "What, did you like study the term on Wikipedia or something?"

I sat their quietly as she laughed at me, and it was today as I was listening to Zach Condon's sweet melodies that I was reminded of this, one of the few times in my recent adult life that I've been made to feel embarrassed about my knowledge.

But really, this is something I should (and have) turn(ed) into pride. My mother had a similar experience during the interviewing portion of jury selection. After answering a question on (what I believe was) her opinion of the role of law enforcement, she answered very astutely, unfaltering in her view even though it wasn't necessarily the answer the attorneys wanted to hear. During the lunch break, a woman who was sitting on the jury with her approached her and asked, "Do you, like, read the dictionary or something?"

Remembering my mother's account of this incident, I note that she told me the story with pride in her voice, and she should have. Because really, accusing someone of knowing something as if it were a huge negative thing is just such a teenager thing to do.

Thanks for sitting through that. I was telling a certain someone last night that I give myself flack when I don't update frequently enough, and I've certainly been feeling those guilty pangs lately. As a reward for actually reading my self-indulgent account of being made to feel nerdy, here's a little Condon for your eyes and ears. (For those of you who haven't seen this video series, it's pretty amazing. Thanks, Ken.)