8/1/2004 My Spyware Battle
1/30/2003 Ten
Cool Things About Baton Rouge, Part 3
5/01/02 Finding Found Money on the Internet
4/27/2002 Ten Cool Things about Baton Rouge, Part 2
4/16/2002 Books for Tween Girls
12/12/01 It's all About the Galleons
8/29/01 Ten Cool Things about Baton Rouge, Part 1
5/21/01 Kenneth Burke, Little Magazines, and Blogs
I have never been very good about journaling, as the following sporadic entries will demonstrate. But every once in a while I do find myself rambling and the internet is the perfect place to subject everyone to those ramblings. The classroom really should be the perfect place, but it's annoying to watch everyone's eyes rolling. Most of my journal entries tend to be cultural criticism but, as they say, all criticism is biography. Those who put journals on line tend to put their personal life on display. And sometimes others are critical of that project because there's a sort of exhibitionism or lack of boundaries associated with it. I do that kind of car-wreck style interpersonal bleeding enough face-to-face. So sorry to all you rubber neckers who happened to make it this far -- this one isn't a three-lane accident, just a few flat tires on the side of the road.
Ten Cool Things About Baton Rouge, Part III
January 30, 2003
Reading: _The Sublime Object of Ideology_, by Slavoj Zizek
Ok, so, Kaleidoscope closed down so I am down one less on my list of ten things in Baton Rouge. Luckily I have two things to add, which I probably should have done ages ago, since I like them both a lot. The first one is the performance space for the Communication Studies Department at LSU. It's called the HopKins Black Box. I cannot even begin to say how cool that space is. Or, really, how cool the performance faculty have made it. Here is what the Black Box website says to describe it:
The HopKins Black Box opened in 1992 and is the nerve center and heartbeat of Performance Studies at LSU. The events held within this dynamic space range from informal, workshop-style presentations and performance experiments, to performance hours that feature solo and group performances, to fully staged scripts that, in most cases, the director has adapted for the stage from written, oral, and/or other cultural texts. On the average, 40-50 students appear in public performances on our stage each semester. Additionally, because most of the Performance Studies classes involve a performance component, the space is both our theatre and our classroom laboratory.
The coolest thing I ever saw in the Black Box was Ruth's Moby Dick show. My memory of it is visceral. I cannot describe it. I don't have a vocabulary to talk about it. I mean, I could wax deconstructive about it fairly easily, but it would be an academic exercise in the truest sense and it wouldn't come near to capturing how that performance made me feel. So it's probably better just to move on to the next thing on the list :) (Sorry, Ruth, if you ever read this.)
So, let's see, that's five minus Kaleidoscope, which makes four, add KLSU Radio and that makes five again. Five in 17 months is not a bad life! Unfortunately they have a suck website, but they play very cool music. Good alternative music. Lots of chicks who aren't Britney Spears or Avril Lavigne, which is a major plus in my book. So, my list is growing. Yay.
More Ramblings
September 5, 2002
Reading: _Jane Sexes it Up_, by Merri Lisa Johnson
Ok, so
it's been months and months since I've written a journal entry. I have blogged occasionally but it's been weeks and weeks since I've done that
too. Life has been extremely complicated lately. On June 28, Steve and I
bought our first home. Yes, we are a little late in the game, but we both
don't really want to grow up. Buying a first house was a stressful and
time-consuming experience, as everyone warned. I didn't believe them.
Until I was in the thick of it. Then I learned. In the process I did find
this great book called
The Virgin Homeowner, by Janice Papolos, which
taught me about the structural aspects of a house. The book rocked. I
showed it later to the home inspector, who also bought it and said he will
now recommend it to all his new homeowner clients. Also, as everyone said,
we will collect a number of stories about house-buying. And they were
right about that as well. For instance, the alarm company ripped us off
while they were installing the alarm. Yes. I swear it's true. The
installers were two "punk-ass kids," one of whom was coming barefoot into
the house and then putting on Steve's Air Jordan's and walking out with
them. He managed to lift two pairs! Anyway, now I find myself in suburban
digs with a shoebox house that looks about like all the other shoebox
house on a street of manicured lawns. Our lawn is resistant. I have sheets
in the windows. Oh well. The best thing about the house, besides the
living room that perfectly houses our home theater, is Willow's room,
which she is claiming with a vengeance. For her birthday I gave her a
black light and stars, which she has plastered -everywhere-.
So, in addition to house things, there have been other daily life things, some unusual, some rather mundane, that have kept me running. Things are finally settling down now, I'm behind in everything, and I'm trying to catch up, reassess, and tackle my commitments and my goals with a realistic game plan. And for the first time in my life, I feel sorta grownup.
Finding Found Money on the Internet
May 1, 2002
When surfing the internet I often do strange things I might not otherwise do. Like spend money. Well, no, actually I spend money all the time. I'm terrible with money. My husband Steve says I hemorrhage money. But on the internet, when your credit card account is saved and all you have to do is hit enter, spending money becomes oh-so-easy. And isn't that the point?
So, here's another confession. I paid to join Classmates.com. No point in putting a link to them since they advertise incessantly, but what's a blog without links? Classmates.com sends annoying emails telling you that someone from your school just joined. Utterly annoying. I didn't like most of those people in the first place. High school sucked. I don't know why I wasted my money; I was consumed by the haze of a click-happy fit of nostalgia, I suppose.
On the classmates.com website I saw an ad for
foundmoney.com. Woohoo! I found 3 accounts in my name, one of which had
over 2000.00 in it. Of course, it costs 20.00 to get more information.
And I stupidly attempted to buy it, even though my husband groaned,
"you're hemorrhaging us over a scam!" (with 20.00; he has a flair for
the dramatic). But the whole website appears to be screwed up. The thing
wouldn't process my credit card. So I decided to surf around and find
some other found money sites and this is what I discovered:
Missingmoney.Com -- This is a free site
sponsored by the
National Association of Unclaimed Property
Administrators. It is a non-profit organization. I eventually used this
site to track down one of my smaller accounts. I still can't find the
2k.
Unclaimed property: Free Found Money -- Some guy
made this site after he spent 20.00 at Found Money and learned it was a ripoff. (See, my husband was right! I hate it when he's right). This
site compiles links to all the unclaimed property offices from each
state.
Found Money -- They advertised on Oprah! I hope
Oprah sues them. It costs 20.00 to join but right now the website is
broken. I wish they'd tell me how to collect that 2k they say I have.
Also, don't be fooled. They also own
nonprofitexpert.com
Unclaimed Services -- This site is very sleazy.
You have to click three pages deep to get any information. The clicks
remind me of the old salesman trick -- get them to nod their head as
often as possible and before they know it they are nodding when you ask
them to buy a vacuum cleaner.
AARP: The Pigeon Drop -- This was an accidental
find when I was searching for "found money." The pigeon drop is a scam
in which the hook is someone pretending to find money in a bag. It's an
interesting scam. The AARP has a long list of other scams as well. Fun
reading. They should add Foundmoney.Com to their list.
Unclaimed Money Kit -- This is a software kit
that you can use to create your own unclaimed money scam!! Yes. It's
true!
Findcash.com -- They found 3 accounts for me and
tried to charge me to retrieve the information. After following a few
links, I was led back to foundmoney.com. All roads lead to Rome.
Findmoney.com -- A list of links to found money
sites, most of which eventually lead back to foundmoney.com. I'm sensing
a theme. I still haven't found my 2k. I'm sensing a theme.
Simple Abundance
Another WTF was I thinking moment
April 25, 2002
I must have wanted simple abundance in my life. I cannot imagine why I might otherwise buy this book. Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ben Bretnach. I hardly think the Oprah Book Club sticker on the cover was a selling point. Simple Abundance is a "daybook" diary/journal that teaches readers to "simplify" their lives through consumption. The message is so ironic. One one page, Breathnach tells readers to discard all their glossy women's magazines because they make us feel bad about ourselves and then on the next, in the very idiom of those glossies, she tells us to go shopping in order to discover our "authentic" selves. For instance, here is a representative quote from the Simple Abundance Website:
Visit a hat store and try on a variety of chapeaux. You're dashing in a black felt fedora, but perhaps the broad-brimmed straw with the cabbage rose has captured your fancy? Play around with the many different possibilities. You might just catch a glimpse of your authentic self in the mirror.
This book makes me think about my consumer habits. My hands instantly reached out for an array of Simple Abundance accessories that are marketed with the book -- the special journal, the extra books, the audio tapes. They remind me of the Barbie days, when having Barbie wasn't sufficient; you need Ken, and Skipper, and the Barbie dreamhouse, and a pink Barbie bus, too.
The invented selves of Barbie and Simple
Abundance are not that different. The book offers 365 different
personality outfits to try, a different one for each day of the year.
And they Mix and Match so you can maximize your abundantly authentic
wardrobe of self. Of course, the book is published by Time Warner. 'Nuff
said! I'm telling you, that pink Sarah Ben Breathnach bus is on the
horizon.
 Before Simple Abundance |
"Luxury need not have a price -- comfort itself is a luxury."-- Geoffrey Beene |
 After Simple Abundance |
Stepford wives, anyone?
With all that said, I still found useful things in the book. It reinforces the old Alcoholics' Anonymous sentiment about gratitude. Gratitude keeps your life clean. I make a gratitude list now when I journal. And when I review it, I realize how blessed I am. Too bad I needed to get my mastercard swiped to remember that lesson. The Salon review of Simple Abundance said it best: "It postulates a spiritual path that is repetitive, narcissistic and meaningless; it creates the pornography of boredom." Why am I confessing my purchase? I think it was Foucault who said something about the compulsion to confess as intimately tied with technologies of the self. I confess, therefore I am.
A Book List for Tween Grrls
April 16, 2002
Reading: _Ella Enchanted_, by Gail Carson Levine
Listening: Ray of Light, Madonna
My church has a Mother (or guardian)/Daughter Book Club that meets once a month to read books of interest to middle school girls. Last month, Willow and I attended the potluck that gets the book club off the ground. Everyone got to suggest one book and since there were twelve of us (six mother/daughter pairs) we each got to recommend a selection. The selections were quite amazing. Nearly all of them shared a common theme of girl power, -literally-. Most of them were about magickal girls of one kind or another.
So I decided that I'd make an entry listing the books that we selected along with Amazon links (to make ordering easier for me later on and to bookmark the reviews and previews). Hopefully as the group progresses, Willow and I will add our own commentary. This list is especially cool if you are A) looking for something to read while you wait for the next Harry Potter installment, and B) if you think Hermoine got the short end of the stick.
Incidentally, while I was surfing, I also found this groovy book site for children's literature; it has a heavy emphasis on multicultural readings that seemed really interesting.
Link-hunting for information on Tamora Pierce, who completely rocks, led me to Sheroes Central. Tamora Pierce also has a list of books about females who don't wait for rescue!! Gotta love it. I also found an interesting essay that talks about the narrowing gap between adult and young adult SF. The author fails to mention gender issues that, imo, play a significant part in this shift. I'm so glad girls don't have to repeat a "Boys' Life" version of SF. I think that, as SF opens up to more and more women writers (I remember when I could pick from just a handful, like Andre Norton or Anne McCaffrey or Ursula LeGuin), the genre itself undoubtedly changes.
Anyway, Willow got me completely addicted to Tamora Pierce and I have read about 12 books by her since Christmas when Willow arrived with her library in tow (she brought books, no clothes, just books. Go figure). Tamora Pierce's characters are excellent role models for girls. I can't say much more without giving away too much, but her characters ROCK! So, here's the list (on a different page because it's graphics heavy).
Ozmidala
April 11, 2002
Interestingly enough, an article in the Chicago Reader points out that "the underwater city of Otoh Gunga could probably be traced back to John R. Neill's illustrations in one of the Oz books," so I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this similarity.
Oh yes! And Frank OZ plays Yoda! Or, at least, the voice of Yoda. So, to prove that Ozma and Amidala are one and the same, you can check out the following links to some pics of Ozmidala here and here. Or you can compare the two pictures below!
Bizarre Oz Factoids and Links: * L. Frank Baum's Great Grandaughter, Dr. Dorothy (Gita) Morena, is a Transpersonal Psychologist! * L. Frank Baum was married to Maud Gage, daughter of leading suffrage feminist, Matilda Gage. * Embracing the Child -- beautiful website with additional links, picture of L. Frank Baum, etc. * For Donna Haraway and Cyborg fans worldwide, Bruce Mazlish has an interesting article on Tik-Tok of Oz and Baum's other mechanical creatures in the Stanford Humanities Review, called "The man-machine and artificial intelligence". |
and forced coincidences
... 
Ten Cool Things About Baton Rouge, Part II
March 27, 2002
Reading: _Born for Liberty_, by Sara Evans
Listening: Under Rug Swept, Alanis Morissette
So it is almost Easter weekend, which begins spring break. Steve, Willow, and I are about to head out for Tampa. It is the end of March, the weather here is beautiful, and the flowers are in bloom. In moments like this I am happy to add to my list of things that I like about Baton Rouge. I like my church, the Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge. I like this church because of the huge round window at the front of the sanctuary. The window was inspired by a poem by Edwin Markham:
They drew a circle and shut me out,
A heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle and took them in.
Church is extremely central to the culture of Baton Rouge, so non-church-goers have a difficult time finding community here. The Unitarian Church is a loving and welcoming place and they always have something going on -- far much more than I can actually partake in. For instance, they host a "mother/daughter book group" for middle school aged girls and their mothers (or guardians -- That's Me!!). Willow and I started attending that program and it's a -blast-. So far the only meeting we attended is the potluck where everyone submitted their book of choice for the reading list. We selected 12 books, one for each participant. Interestingly enough, the books were all about strong girls, often magical, witchy, goddess-worshipping types. It must be a tween thing. Anyway, during times when people gather with their family, like holidays (which I used to hate), I have a place to go to now. I even get Christmas cards from some of these folks, which is pretty funny for someone as jaded as I am about holiday things.
I was introduced to this church by Robbie Madden, who is my idol here. Robbie reminds me of my grandmother. She is a grass roots activist and community leader. She gets so much accomplished and she really knows how to "work" things. She's very good at cultivating networks of folk who will help her when she needs it. She amazes me. Robbie works for the YWCA, which is a surprisingly radical organization. Their approach to women's issues is very broad and includes eradicating racism. They have a pretty sophisticated view of the way that women's issues are entangled with poverty and race. The YWCA has hosted anti-racism programs for years now. I was re-reading Sara Evans' book Born for Liberty and ran across the background of the YWCA as part of the women's reform movements. Very interesting history.... Anyway, Robbie and the YWCA would be #5 and #6, which means I am more than half-way done with my list! Yay!
Holiday Ramblings
December 23, 2001
Reading: _Fellowship of the Rings_, by JRR Tolkien
Listening: A Winter's Solstice, 1985; Holiday Songs and Lullabies, Shawn Colvin
This is the first Christmas that I have stayed home in two years. The last Christmas I stayed home, home was Arizona, and I married Steve. Christmas in Louisiana is rather generic. No neat stores, like last year in Woodstock, where I could buy all sorts of artsy items. But I'm having fun! First of all, I am cooking; I haven't cooked in a while and I am looking forward to it. I am even making for my vegetarian sister a dish with bulgher, apricots and mint. Yum. And then all the usual Christmas day fare. I also plan to make Christmas cookies and decorate them with my niece, Willow. I want to pack them up in this nice little decorative box I got and bring them to my dad in Houston. Also, I got some white glitter and I have been repairing my broken bird-christmas lights. The little white birds have lost most of their sparkle because they are ten years old. So I am dusting them with glitter. The glitter does not hid the discoloration, unfortunately, but it makes the birds sparkle and the discoloration looks ..well ..intentional. Or, maybe not. I have the house decorated for the holiday, the fridge stocked with food, I even have a Christmas card or two. I decorated stockings, making holiday designs with glitter glue and hung then I them over the chimney with care :) I put a snowflake on Willow's, a candy cane on my sister's, some holly on the cat's, a tree on Steve's and a snowman on mine. Steve stuffed them. He put tea in my sister's and a can of tuna fish in the cat's! I bought some Christmas ornament crafts--the kind that you stick beads and sequins on with straight pins. I hope that will keep Willow and my sister entertained while I cook. I also bought fuzzy reindeer antlers that I have been wearing around the house. I'm such a Christmas dork. I'm so domesticated. Gah.
VanGogh's Sunflowers by Laura (MSPaint; November 2001)
It's All About the Galleons
December 12, 2001
Harry Potter is all the rage, of course. Some people are happy about that and others aren't. Crooked Dimwit is one of those who isn't.
Annoyed and exhausted by the Harry Potter hype, Crooked Dimwit argues that the media overstates Harry's pre-eminence at the box office. Because the rating system ignores inflation, HP rankings are actually exaggerated. When adjusted for inflation, _Gone with the Wind_ ranks the highest grossing movie of all time while HP ranks well at the bottom half of the top 100 box office earners. As an aside, I just HAVE to point out that GWTW has *sixty* years of re-releases added into its total whereas HP has been released for, what, three weeks? In sixty years, we'll see who's the head boy, bucko.
I personally think commercialization besmirches the beloved HP books. True, a lot of people think that the books themselves aren't all that grand. They consider them to be rather generic. I agree. They _are_ generic. Generic, as in, a member of a genre, children's fantasy literature. And an excellent member at that. I love Harry Potter because of JKR's sense of verbal play and her very British sense of humor. I laugh every time I read the names of wizards, books, spells, and candy. I also get surprised by her plot twists and turns. I _never_ guessed that the bad guy in book for is *OOPS*....never mind. People like to rail that these books aren't "timeless" "literature." But I personally don't really care about all those tired old high-culture/low-culture arguments that have long ago proven to be culturally and historically relative.
So what's my issue with Harry Potter, then?
Well, Crooked Dimwit's biggest complaint is the news media who report box office figures as _news_. The "Magic of Harry Potter" is really just media spin, he claims, and hardly newsworthy.
Well, I cannot blame him. I agree that HP has been grossly over-commercialized (grossly over-commercialized? Isn't that redundant?), an on-going problem for Harry Potter's fans. I don't just mean commercialized as in advertising. I mean, _across the board_, it's been all about the galleons. Remember, WB bullied kids about their fan sites over copyright issues. Not to mention the ugly controversy about JKR plagiarizing (the very notion of intellectual property is an effect of commerce, after all). Or the even uglier controversy about Harry's demonic associations for the Christian Right (another effect of commerce, but that's another story). Or the controversy about multiple toy companies getting licensing rights. Or JKR's supposed "I hate action figure" deals with Coke. Not to mention Robbie Coltrane's recent rant because WB can skip royalty payments because they didn't use his likeness for the Hagrid dolls.
Yet, despite murmurs of boycotts, we all went to see the film, and we all still buy the over-marketed/cross-marketed products.
Maybe it's all part of the dumbing down of America, which has evil kinship with grade inflation, the explosion of Wal-Mart's across the country, and Mediocre George II's presumable "rise to the challenge of the presidency during a time of crisis" (still yet another effect of commerce, and maybe it's all part of the very -same- story).
So, like Crooked Dimwit, I'm too annoyed with the hypercapitalism of Harry--or as Rex Murphy calls him, Frankenpotter. But I'm not that naive. I stopped believing that news media actually reports news a long time ago. If you doubt me, though, here's an obvious, visible piece of evidence to show that the news media is just one big Madison Avenue advertisement.
If you follow the dollar..erm..galleon, you will see that AOL-Time Warner owns the rights to Harry Potter. AOL-Time Warner also owns or is related to:
Moviefone
Ebay
American Greetings
Ticketmaster
Hewlett Packard
Book-of-the-Month Club
Little, Brown & Co.
HBO
Fortune
People Magazine
Turner Entertainment
Time Magazine (obviously)
And
CNN.
So if you think you see Harry EVERYWHERE, it's because you ARE seeing Harry everywhere. It's called product placement and cross-marketing. And news reports are just another version of product placement. Here is the perfect example to prove my point. CNN Money has a dollar to galleon converter on it currency conversion page, which you can check out here:
I Dream of Jeannie
December 8, 2001
I'm not really sure what made me think of this,
but for some reason today I was thinking about I Dream of Jeannie. A
couple of years ago I found this animated gif of Jeannie on the web and
I saved it because I liked it. I liked the show a lot when I was a kid,
without really thinking about what Jeannie stood for. So, on the one
hand, I think Jeannie is one chick who seriously needs a copy of The
Feminine Mystique. On the other, I think it's delightful that the
psychiatrist, Dr. Bellows (now there's a pun for a name) was
pathologized and neuroticized. How funny is that.
And I like the point that feminist critic Lynn Spigel makes in "From Domestic Space to Outer Space" (in Close Encounters: Film, Feminism, and Science Fiction, ed. Penley et al.): The patriarchal splendors of the space project are ironically cast aside as a woman is able to accomplish the same task with mere wishful thinking.
Or, Jeannie puts it more simply when she says to Tony:
My ancestors were flying carpets while yours were still hollowing out canoes.
Jeannie Links
I Dream of Jeannie: The Web Page
I Dream of Jeannie: E-cards
I Dream of Jeannie Theme Song (RealPlayer)
Four Scary Things
November 29, 2001
Scary Thing #1:
American Council of Trustees and Alumni
I recently read an article in a newspaper about the way that Lynn Cheney and her organization, The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, is trying to shut down dissent about the "war" in Afghanistan and the government's response to the WTC. This organization published a manifesto, entitled "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It," that collects various quotes from university professors and students in response to the WTC. You can read various write-ups about this report from the following sites:
Conservatives Denounce Dissent at Common Dreams News Center (a reprint from the Boston Globe)
Lynn Cheney's Campus Crusade at Working for Change (part of Working Assets)
Lynn Cheney's Free Speech Blacklist at TomPaine.Com(mon sense)
My response to this document, of course, is to make my students in Contemporary Public Address read it!
In looking around on the net to learn more about the manifesto and the organization that sponsored it, I ran into Scary Thing #2.
Scary Thing #2:
Media Transparency
Now, Media Transparency is not, in and of itself, scary. But what it DOES is scary. Media Transparency tracks the political economy of public opinion and public policy by showing the labyrinthine connection between the conservative movement, the media, and policy-making. It primarily tracks the exchange of money through grants and sponsorships. The format of the news articles is great -- before each article title and by-line it lists grant dollars and granting agencies that funded the people and organizations in the news stories. They have amassed a huge database of information that is very scary. In one story, they demonstrate who the financiers of the Clinton Hunting were and then link to a very early story about right wing media investigating Clinton in Arkansas, for instance.
So surfing around this site to learn more about the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, I learned that the conservative movement is INDEED a MOVEMENT, well-organized, well-funded, etc. Well, no, I always knew that. But seeing the numbers in hypertext was very frightening. For instance, one of the strands of the conservative movement that Media Transparency is tracking is the way that the Federalist Society and similar organizations are trying to reshape the U.S. Constitution. This strand of the movement is heavily responsible for things like Ashcroft's recent military tribunals and the government's efforts to trim (no, slice and dice) civil liberties in order to keep us all safe from terrorism. Which, of course, leads to Scary Thing #3.
Scary Thing #3:
Ashcroft. Enough said.
"The Department of Justice is waging a deliberate campaign of arrest and detention to protect American lives. We're removing suspected terrorists who violate the law from our streets to prevent further terrorist attack."
-- From Ashcroft's 11.27 Press Conference Statement
"On November 13, 2001, President Bush issued a "Military Order" providing for potentially indefinite detention of any non-citizen accused of terrorism, and permitting trial of such defendants in a military commission with no provision for judicial review."
-- From the ACLU's 11.28 Congressional Statement
Scary Thing #4:
The ACLU has several links that analyze this act and the way that it threatens the civil liberties of every citizen. This is scary stuff.
Michael Moore
November 29, 2001
Like everyone, this WTC thing has really scared me. The event itself is surreal. I know I am not the first to say this. What scares me most is the way we are reacting to it. I know I am not the first to say this, either. Neither is Michael Moore, but he did make a statement about it in "Mike's Message" on 9/12/01.
For the record, I love Michael Moore.
I love the things he says and the way he says them. He is so sharp.
Anyway, I've been following Mike's Message for a while and, as usual, he has some shocking things to say about the nation's response to the WTC. Unfortunately, the most recent messages aren't archived, so you have to hunt around for them. In his latest messages he chronicles his trip home from L.A. to N.Y.C. and to find his daughter who goes to school in NYC; during the trip he observes American's response to the WTC. Here are some of his messages:
Mike's Message 9.12.01
Mike's Message 9.14.01
Mike's Message 9.15.01
Mike's Message 9.17.01
Mike's Message 9.19.01
Mike's Message 9.22.01
Mike's Message 10.08.01
Mike's basic points are that our government created Osama bin Ladin and that George Bush (who he calls George II) et al. has used the WTC as an opportunity to erode further the freedom in America. There are some sadly humorous things on this site and some poignant moments.
Ugly Philosophers
November 27, 2001
OK. I admit I am vain. Very vain. Why? Well, today I did a vanity search on google and yahoo to see if my name or site would come up. I was very surprised at the number of entries. Which means I am entitled to some vanity :)
Anyway, I saw that Gareth Kemerling's Philosophy Page has a link to my Donna Haraway page! Unfortunately it was the OLD GTE link that no longer works, so I sent him a quick email and he updated it.
The Philosophy Page is an EXCELLENT resource. It is a dictionary of terms and philosophers plus a timeline of the development philosophical ideas. It is rich in both content and links. And it has pictures of a lot of the philosophers.
Weird pictures.
One of Althusser whose face is sagging like a Dali clock.
And B.F. Skinner's hair! He looks like he's on a roller coaster.
Friedrich Schleiermacher is the scariest of all! I would not want to meet him in a dark alley. And Arthur Schopenhauer -- Mein Gott!
I'm not sure if Kemerling has a bizarre sense of humor or if these pictures simply demonstrate the ravages of using your brain.
-- done thinking for the night
Righteous Reading
November 2, 2001
Reading: _Gender Trouble_, by Judith Butler
Listening: Strange Little Girls, Tori Amos
Although I hate to admit that I do miss Tampa, FL, now and again I am forced to make that confession, particularly when I am confronted with the book shopping options in Baton Rouge. Cottonwood books, a small used bookstore, seems to specialize in military history. I would like to support Cottonwood, but it offers little that interests me. It even smells musty, reminiscent of the unused stacks in the library or the personal library of an aging colonel. I yearn for Brigit Books in Tampa, where the scent of incense reigns and where I felt a sense of community. So now I am reduced to web shopping or supporting Barnes&Noble. There are two B&Ns here, one the aptly named Corporate Drive and the other in the LSU Union, which some people call Barnes&Fogle after the provost who sealed the deal to close the independent bookstore and replace it with the corporatized B&N despite widespread campus outcry.
Lately I have been avoiding Amazon, choosing instead to support small bookstores or presses on line. I've had a couple of interesting finds. Seal Press, which publishes _Listen Up: Voices from the Next Generation of Feminists_, has a cool website and they ask people to order online through Brigit. I also stumbled onto Girl Press, which seems to have some interesting fare geared toward Gen Y girls, particularly a cool book about how to make your own 'zine. And then there are the women's magazines that you cannot buy at Barnes&Nobles like _On Our Backs_, the pro-sex, pro-porn feminist mag, which has an EXCELLENT website. I haven't found the website for _Off Our Backs_, though. _Women's Review of Books_ has a website and they do post selected essays from the current issue and the content of back issues. But it's not the same as physically being in Brigit and standing in front of the tight corner that held the news stand and thumbing through the pages. As much as I like surfing the internet at Amazon and as much as I proclaim the internet as a valid site of community and culture, I'm surprised at how I'm waxing nostalgic about Brigit Books.
With all my surfing, it's hardly surprising that I stumbled on to some excellent VoXYgen type reads lately, however. First, I found "Babes In Action" by Katherine Brown in _Friction Magazine_. This zine is another entry in the long list of leftist cultural politics zines that populate the web but it is worth the surf, especially for the commentary on the recent WTC crisis. In any case, "Babes in Action" talks about female action heroes, making the point that Barbie-bodied action heroines can be transgressive or progressive because they show females kicking boys' asses. *POW* Now women can be sexy AND strong at the same time. It's a controversial claim.
I also ran into an article in the Village Voice on-line about Asian feminists who use the web to fight orientalized pornography of Asian women. Of course, I found this link from surfing Slander. The article is called Nude Japanese Schoolgirls! Lotus Blossoms! Radical Feminists? The article refers to an amazing website by Bindi Grl sort of harem. It's worth the surf.
Last I learned that the feminist academic journal, _Feminist Studies_, is available via findarticles.com. When I surfed Feminist Studies, I found two useful VoXYgen-type articles. The first is called U.S. FEMINISM-GRRRL STYLE! YOUTH (SUB)CULTURES AND THE TECHNOLOGICS OF THE THIRD WAVE by Ednie Kaeh Garrison. This article gives a solid introduction to the issues of third wave feminism. The second article is called RADICAL FEMINISM, LESBIAN SEPARATISM, AND QUEER THEORY by Kathy Rudy. This article talks about the tensions between radical lesbian feminism and queer theory from a position that is sympathetic to "both sides." (Note: These links are now all dead 6/04.)
In any case, I will have to win lottery so that I can retire and open my own feminist bookstore here (which is bound to fail since there are so few feminists here). In the mean time, I will surf the net for my feminist reading fix.
See you in the lottery ticket line....
Ten Cool Things About Baton Rouge, Part I
August 29, 2001
Reading: _History of Sexuality, Vol. I_, by Michel Foucault; _Pleasure and Danger_, by Carol Vance (ed.)
Listening: Lorena McKennitt, Parallel Dreams
As the fall semester begins, my life approaches the comfortable chaos of an annual new beginning. After over 30 years of "back to school specials," I should be used to this by now. I -am- used to it, in fact, but it remains frenetic nonetheless. Amidst the chaos, I have renewed my quest for ten things to like about Baton Rouge. The task is onerous.
The history of this list is an important one to me. I got the idea from my good friend Carolyn DiPalma, a professor and former colleague at the Women's Studies Department at the University of South Florida. To make life in Tampa bearable, Carolyn is working on a collection of cool things about the city. Carolyn, you have to understand, has lived *all over* the world. So, of course, Tampa would be boring to her. Especially since she has never lived in Baton Rouge. So I have borrowed her idea of making this list and it has become an ongoing conversation with several of my friends here who share a similar frustration with this booming metropolis in which we live.
Here is my list so far, not in order:
La Madelaine
This is a delightful "French" restaurant on the corner of Jefferson and Corporate--"French" in the postmodern, hyperreal sense, meaning there's nothing really authentically French about it. It has that old-time provincial feeling to it and good bread and coffee. Even though it's a chain, it's considered to be a "Best Bet" by New Orleans restaurant guides, particularly for breakfast, and the Baton Rouge version is my favorite restaurant here. There are three special things I like about La Mad's. First, they have a beautiful little garden in front that changes every time I go to the restaurant. So, if you squint your eyes and cover your ears, and focus your gaze on the flowers while blocking out the strip-mall parking lot sounds, fumes, and images, you might actually feel like you're in France. Or New Orleans. Apparently the people who live in Atlanta, GA, agree with me, because they voted La Mad's as the best bakery in Atlanta for their Creative Loafing. See? I told you it was a chain. Second, many people dine at La Mad's who look like the sort of people I want to get to know. In other words, women, with short hair, very cool earrings, who look like they might be Democrats, or the might like to read books and talk about them, or *gasp* they might even be pro-choice. A Marxist in the house? Dare I hope? Third, every time I have dined alone at La Mad's, I end up in the most curious conversations with single, elderly women, who all want to know what I'm eating, how it tastes, and how it compares to what they are eating. Not to mention whether or not I'm enjoying the pleasant weather and the Azaleas. It never fails. I promise. It is the most charming thing. Especially since I -know- these women eat here every day and have had the precise thing I'm eating, which makes their questions about more than food, obviously. It's very -Southern- and one of the few things I -like- about the South. Now if one of them would only ask me how I like the latest issue of Ms. Magazine, I'd be set for life.
Flowers and February (and March, too)
My
friend Loretta (and colleague in the Speech Communication
Department--soon to be called Communication Studies when the Board of
Regents finds our paperwork) says that flowers and the flower season of
February to March should count as TWO separate cool things about Baton
Rouge. I told her that was cheating. I live in the Garden District,
which was built circa 1920s and which is filled with beautiful deco
style houses. The streets are lined with oaks and azaleas and crepe
myrtle and when the flowers bloom and the weather is bearable, well,
Baton Rouge is a beautiful place.
But
I still say trying to turn this delightful aspect of life in Baton Rouge
into two entries instead of one is cheating. And, yes, Loretta, that
means you have to work harder to make your list. So, the picture of
pink flowers above is Azaleas and the tree thing to the left is a crepe
myrtle. These pictures, incidentally, were stolen from the
LSU AgCenter's website, which is
where my friend Vallerie Maurice works. Val is my companion in misery
and list-making. And although I haven't specifically asked her about the
Flower/February/March thing, I'm sure she would take Loretta's side. Val
is the Director of Diversity at the LSU AgCenter. 'Nuff said.
Kaleidoscope Children's Art Gallery
This place is one of the most creative ideas I've ever seen. I sent my niece, Willow, to a children's art camp this summer at the Kaleidoscope studio. Their approach is fantastic! The instructors taught about famous artists like Van Gogh and Pollock and then the kids would make their own version, copying the style of the artist they learned about. They used all sorts of creative techniques and produced artwork that looks much better than anything I could ever do myself. The Gallery had an art exhibit featuring a piece of art by every camper. The owner is so talented and creative! She has painted picture frames in bright colors and designs right onto the walls of the entire studio. Then she just tapes up the various pieces of artwork into frames to display them. She also made note cards out of miniature copies of each kid's art. Once a month they have "Ladies' Night," which is an art class for adults (women, presumably). Sometimes they have mother-daughter nights too. This Friday the Ladies' Night project is to paint and decorate wine glasses. I think I am going to attend with Loretta, Val, and Christy. This place definitely makes Baton Rouge bearable.
Kenneth Burke, Little Magazines, and Blogs
May 21, 2001
Reading: _Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village_, by Jack Selzer; _Counterstatement_, by Kenneth Burke
Listening: Poe, Haunting
I'm still not sure what the difference is between a blog and a journal. But these are my thoughts on the subject:
I recently ran into Mimi Nguyen's Slander page and she has a section of blogs. Surfing off of her page onto the pages of her friends, I saw they also had blogs. It took me a while to figure out what a blog was exactly, probably because I was caffeine deprived. But 'blog, which is short for weblog, is basically a surfing journal. Blogs have become pretty popular, it seems, especially since there are whole webrings devoted to blogging. Blogs, I think, have become an integral part of web culture just like zines. Now, Mimi's Slander page has an interesting journal entry that talks about whether or not she has "copycats" out there on the net. Intellectual property is a huge issue these days, and it seems that a friend of Mimi's is concerned with protecting Slander. Well, let's just get this straight--*I* am a Mimi copy-cat. She puts what she's reading in her journals, so I put what I'm reading. She puts what she's listening to, so I put what I'm listening to. I've copied her form. So, the questions that the internet raises about zines and blogs and intellectual property and, in particular, the nature of form lead me to Kenneth Burke. Of course.
Coincidentally, I grabbed _Counterstatement_ off my shelf a couple of weeks ago and started reading it. Now, it's been a while since I've -read- anything by Kenneth Burke. I've thumbed through looking for quotes, especially in my favorite sections. But I've wanted to sit down and -read- Burke again for some time now. I've read the introduction twice. The first time was a turgid read. I eyeballed old margin notes. I looked for meaning in every word. I read like a good student of rhetoric should read. Then I surfed my way into Jack Selzer's _Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village_ (which I am reading through LSU's access to netLibrary). Now this is a gem of a book so far, talking about the early Burke and his cafe and Little Magazine days. And this fascinates me.
It fascinates me for purely tangential reasons. First of all, I just moved into a 1920s Hollywood-style bungalow in "The Garden District" (ok, the Garden District of Baton Rouge, big whoop). And I keep finding myself drawn to Modernist iconography and culture. Now, I admit that, as a dilettante, I will probably let this interest fade when I surf on to something else that gets my attention. But thinking about Burke sitting in a Greenwich Village cafe and writing essays for _The Dial_ makes me want to drink coffee and just -talk- about stuff. Talk about it and read about it.
That's when it struck me that I was reading Burke wrong. Counterstatement should be a cafe companion, not a seminal text. And the whole thing changed before my eyes. Now I drink Burke with my coffee in the morning.
So, what's the connection to blogs? Well, when I was trolling through my bookmarks to revamp my website, I ran into a very cool page which I now have on my link-o-rama (shameless plug), the Cyber_lit e-zines page. The text on this page has stuck with me for a few weeks now. The site claims a number of points about e-zines. First, e-zines are derived from Little Magazine culture. I suppose the connection is patently obvious, but I had never thought of it before. Perhaps because my Grandfather owned a large collection of Little Magazines and in fact published his own Little Magazine, called _Earth_, but this was something that never impressed me until it was too late. He's dead and the magazines are at the Smithsonian.
Second, the Cyber_lit e-zine site says that academic journals are really just zines. What a riot! That completely demystifies tenure, doesn't it. Zines address discrete audiences who share distinct idiolects and particular interests, says the website. Wait, though, before we push the analogy too far and give academic journals too much credit. Zines are cutting edge, academic journals are typically overly-disciplined.
Anyway, what I really wanted to do was to read some Little Magazines on the web, but no one has digitized those yet. My surfing quest did turn up some interesting sites, however. Of course, Encarta Encyclopedia always comes up on searches like this. Their entry was useless, but it was nice to see Little Magazines recognized by them: "Little Magazine--a periodical devoted to publishing specialized, avant-garde writing and criticism. Because of limited circulation and marginal financial backing, the so-called little magazines are generally short-lived." This from an electronic publication owned by Microsoft. The ironies here are many and painful.
Then I ran into the Directory of Little Magazines, a UK site that made me want to visit England again. Unless you want to buy the mags via snail mail, the site was not very helpful, unfortunately. There is a Little Magazine Project at Nottingham Trent University. For a while there, all the sites I was running into were from the Brits. This site said that Little Magazines published boundary-pushing works with no regard for commercial gain. It also said that Little Magazines were *fundamental* to many modern literary and aesthetic movements. And it made a very appropriate point: Contributors to Little Mags were impossible to categorize. Indeed, this is true for Burke. Rhetoricians of every paradigm and ideology try to claim him for their own. See Kenneth Burke and the 21st Century by Bernard L. Brock (which I am also reading from the netLibrary at LSU).
I struck gold with a great site by Dr. Mary Ann Gillies at Simon Fraser University. She teaches a class on Little Mags and her students have put together some websites that detail various Mags, including a history of editors, contributors, and so forth. Of particular interest is the page on Kenneth Burke's Little Mag, _The Dial_, which talks about its relationship to Transcendentalism, the history of its various editors, including Margaret Fuller, among other things.
I also found two directory links, one for on-line zines and one for Little Magazine publishers.
These various links somehow led me to a curious site by a student earning a master's degree in publishing. I didn't know you could do that. Anyway, he wrote a paper about the history of publishing in the beat generation that's worth a look if you're into that sort of thing. It's called Unspeakable Visions: The Beat Generation and the Bohemian Dialect. And since the paper was, of course, completely absent of women, I was very happy to run into the book, _Women Editing Modernism: "Little" Magazines & Literary History_ by Jayne Marek.
The final site worth mentioning was Juniper Press, who is a contemporary publisher of Little Magazines. This site had an inspiring quote by Felix Pollak, who is former Curator of Rare Books at UW-Madison and, they claim, a world authority on little magazines:
"Practically speaking, it is littleness that guarantees the littles their independence and unbeholdenness without which they cease to be what they are. A true little mag is one that would not be big if it could, that is kept little not by need but by choice. . . .A true little mag would rather address itself to a select group of kindred spirits than a faceless void of anonyms. To edit a little magazine, in short, means to maintain a thou to thou relationship with the contributors, with the readers, and with that whole microcosm that encompasses the macro world-at least ideally so........"
So what's the connection between Kenneth Burke, Little Magazines, and Blogs? Heh....meet me at Community Coffee and I will tell you.
