Have a nice day.

There is a certain wiggle room allowed socially in how much boys and girls are allowed to flex within the confines of their gender roles.

Girls can wear pants but if she wears cargo pants, she must be a photographer, a lesbian or a safari woman (or all three).

Boys can wear skirts but only if they are kilts passed on from their grandfathers.

Girls can have short hair but only if they are Agyness Deyn, a lesbian, a military lady, or if they've experienced some sort of medical difficulty that causes them to lose hair - or if they wear super 'feminine' clothing.

Boys can have long hair but only if they're yoga instructors, selling you togas at Wreck Beach, metal heads or without access to proper barbering, scissors or razorblades.

Why, why, why?
Fuck the gender binary. I'm just getting so bored having to talk about it over and over again. Like beating a dead horse, but don't worry, I'll keep beating it.

Note: the aim is not a sexless population but rather a population where roles are not prescribed. When we are born, there should be a wealth of options of how to identify and I think we all deserve the right to be able to choose from that from purely our own biases, not from what is pressed on us from a billion different angles. When those options are all level with eachother, then we can start talking about how much of our gender is inherited and how much of it is in-born.

"I have made a great discovery. What I love belongs to me." - From a photo that Andy Warhol took of a quote by Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco.

And if it isn't yours, your love inevitably inherits it as a part of you. And there, it will make you happy. And there, you will feel love for it and the postivity of that will make it worth exponentially more. Love is created. Not a given.

Image from A Patch of Skye

Valedictory Address

I seriously just need to have this in my archives. Thanks to swiftkickonline.com for this unbelievably eloquent and well-constructed critique on the institution of education. (Doesn't "institution of education" seem a bit like an oxymoron, even just for a second?) Here it is:

Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
Author Note: Over the past four days, this post has received 110K+ hits and over 300+ comments. If you are interested in the unschooling/edupunks movement, please follow us via RSS, Email, or Twitter.
Last month, Erica Goldson graduated as valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School. Instead of using her graduation speech to celebrate the triumph of her victory, the school, and the teachers that made it happen, she channeled her inner Ivan Illich and de-constructed the logic of a valedictorian and the whole educational system.

Erica originally posted her full speech on Sign of the Times, and without need for editing or cutting, here's the speech in its entirety:

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ." The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast -- How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."

This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer - not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition - a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, "We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness - curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that." Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not "to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States."

To illustrate this idea, doesn't it perturb you to learn about the idea of "critical thinking." Is there really such a thing as "uncritically thinking?" To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn't for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren't we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don't have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can't run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be - but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, "You have to learn this for the test" is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn't have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a "see you later" when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let's go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we're smart enough to do so!

I thought you were the -

Check out Sweetest Kill from BSS' Forgiveness Rock Record.
I don't think I've ever heard anything like it.
It's so modest and overwhelming at the same time.
And vaguely reminds me of having the last fifteen minutes of my Monday night swimming lessons overlap with the syncronized swimmers' and wanting to just sit on the bottom of the pool with my legs crossed like genie and my goggles on. Just to hear what music could sound like when removed from air and how I could literally feel the music.

P-nut Party

Are you done?
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. ONE single blob of sandwich spread and the rest of the toast, dry. Look at it sitting all lonely. Like a jam factory in the middle of the desert. Anyone who knows me should know that I'm very particular about the way I eat my food. I'm not the type to just eat the rice, then eat the beans, then scoop some salsa into my mouth. I like to think that all the plates I dive into are made of components that were meant complement and to be eaten together. I usually cut a piece of the hardest thing on the plate, then have the softies meet on another side of the plate at a little merging of two rivers, and then have the hard thing staked to my prongs and then sort of lift everything else onto the better of the fork - the flatbed, you could say.
Would you really gnaw at the dry crusties while you're telling a joke to your friend, knowing that an oasis of - what is meant to be all over the toast - is just crying with loneliness while it stands awe-struck at how you distribute the paste.
This photo is my step one and I'd be embarrassed to possess traits that allowed me to finish here and walk away smiling.

I think it is safe to say that most people believe that men holding doors for women represents some kind of chivalry or gentlemanliness.
Men feel gracious and powerful when they do it, while women tend to feel flattered and or deserving.
I on the other hand have things to argue about this social reflex.
People should hold doors open for people.

This door-holding business imitates a sense of true aid. It makes it seem like the man is willing to help women in lots of different aspects of life. From standing on the car-side of the sidewalk to paying the bill to throwing his own laundry in the laundry bin, he may feel he is the absolute "man" and his lady would be nothing without those helpful little hands. (Where are the men when women need help with domestic labour, doing his laundry, making meals for the both of them?)

How dare a man who is holding two T.V.s in each hand while balancing a record player on his head and wobbling with a DVD player in between his legs let a woman open the door for him? *spits* And how dare he not drop everything to make sure her empty-handed self can glide through the door? Men tend to place these gallantries above the practical reality of the situation. The door-opening and other small services are intended for people who are generally incapacitated, burdened or generally unable in some way to do that thing for themselves. Wouldn’t this mean then that if a person was carrying something while approaching a doorway that anyone near should rush ahead a bit to open the door - regardless of gender? In this sense, it seems obvious that these tiny tasks (that even sometimes woo women) are actually just actions that reinstate their inferiority and place men as the only mover for the unmoved and the only ones willing to literally step forward and do something.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate when people hold the door open for me and never fail to say "Thank You". What I cannot handle is when I do hold the door open for a guy and he stops before he crosses the threshold so that I can walk away and he can open the door for himself to walk through. Another situation is when I stop walking to hold a door open and the man in question puts his hand on the door while he walks through (sometimes even using a whole forearm), as if I need help doing it. Then he says "Thanks", in a way that I take as a pitiful "Thanks for trying". Or maybe because he is insulted that I'd dare to doubt his ability to do it for himself - or his manhood in not doing it for me,. Just let me hold the fucking door open for you. I'll be fine, I know I will.

Bubble

"Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone."

-Miranda July from No One Belongs Here More Than You

Photo from FFFFOUND.com

Baby Madonna

The dying of childrens' imagination is so terribly sad.
So sad that I barely let myself comprehend how real it is. Our world doesn't let kids relish in the imagination that is so crucial to creativity and freedom of thought and speech that they also need to be in touch with later in life.
Kids used to play in the streets til it was dark out, playing marbles or drawing with chalk. Now they sit in front of Leap Frogs or PlayStations as their parents peer out the windows for child molesters.
Kids used to draw on paper and on the walls. Now there are coloring books to stay in the lines and Mr Clean Magic Erasers.
Hide and Seek to Hannah Montana.
This revolution is really brutal for me to just stand-by and watch as someone who was an impressionable child not too long ago and who understands - at least from a subjective viewpoint - that just being a dumb, rampant kid is so much more important than trying to figure out how to use a cellphone to tell the neighbour to meet at the sandbox in five.

I don't want to see "sexy" 8-year olds, or the very rigid outlines of gender in general,
I don't want to see training bras for infants,
I don't want kids to only know how to think "in the box",
I don't want there to be necessity for sexual education for kindergarteners,
I don't want kids to have calculators before they have paintbrushes,
I don't want a child's post-secondary potential to be determined by their reading capability at age six,
I don't want kids to have eating disorders and body-image issues before they even hit puberty, or see punishment for screwing up while experimenting with harmless but possibly "weird" things.
The list goes on and on.
Just some food for thought.

Erin McKenna is a Goddess, whatever.

I really have to share this recipe.
For those of you who don't know, I've been vegan for over a month now and am really enjoying it.
This is a recipe that I found online by Erin McKenna (raw, whole, and vegan food extraordinaire) who apparently worked on the recipe here and there for about six months before she got it right.
These "Brownie Bites" are wheat/gluten-free, and dairy-free and you will fool everyone in thinking that they are "normal".

Ingredients
Vegetable oil spray
1 cup and 4 tablespoons Bob's Red Mill gluten-free, all-purpose baking flour (organic, unbleached flour is also okay)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (I used 3/4 teaspoon of corn starch instead)
1 cup applesauce (sweetened or unsweetened is fine)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup dairy-free mini chocolate chips (Foley's is a good brand of these. I used the dark chocolate ones. You can also use Carob chips but personally I don't like the flavour of them very much)

Directions
1.Preheat the oven to 325°. Spray 2 muffin pans with vegetable oil spray. In a bowl, whisk the baking flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt and xanthan gum. In another bowl, whisk the applesauce, oil and vanilla; stir into the dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon the batter into the muffin pans, filling them three-quarters full. Bake for 15 minutes, or until set. Let the brownies cool in the pans for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Food & Wine

Mark Rothko meets Balenciaga

This Balenciaga skirt reminds me of a more refined Mark Rothko painting.
Rothko here:





The first time I saw Rothko paintings in the flesh was at the MOMA in New York. It might at first seem easy, without much knowledge of his work, to dismiss it as mindless and childish but after some time and information, you may find yourself feeling suspicion of them, and having them imprinted on your mind, several minutes after you stop viewing them. I realized that they're meant as instalments, not as an intention to imitate the physical realm of reality.
Other modern classic, abstract expressionists from the mid 20th century have more explicit imagery that can "be explored," so to speak.
However, this doesn't go to say that there isn't power in his work. "Real" art cannot possibly be characterized by the human ability to understand what it intends to implore.
After some dabbling in more literal forms of expressionism, he realized that post-war artists were polite and accurate in the assumption that at this point in time, the human body could not be fairly depicted unless it was mutilated.
From that point on, he reduced his literal forms to more vague shapes and images.
Eventually, he realized that all he ever really wanted to do was depict emotion anyways - grief, loss, ecstasy, etc which led him to his most unique and recognizable style.
This is the time when the above paintings were created.
Language cannot even precisely represent such a vague thing as emotion, and he really believed that painting was another medium through which to try.
People would weep in the face of his paintings, and those are the people that he painted for. He actually accepted a commission from the Four Seasons Hotel on the bottom floor of the Seagram building for $2.5 million, spent a number of years completing it, and after having one meal there, rejected the offer. He believed that nobody who would pay so much for a meal could possibly appreciate or even notice the effort of his art.
Say what you will about Mark Rothko (and please don't draw your conclusions based on these thumbnails), but he had such a breath-taking, bleak and sad angle of human emotion during a period of pop-art, that focused on human beings, not on the world at large.

Back from not being around.

I remember hearing in a Philosophy class;
A person has as many personalities as there are people on earth.
I found this dangerously interesting because how many times have I been told "Treat everyone the same" in my up-bringing?
Though I understand that the treat-everyone-the-same mentality is probably meant in the sense that we should treat everyone with the same respect, I can recall thinking, even in elementary school about applying the concept and it not seeming feasible (obviously).
Quite simply, you would not treat your best friend the way you treat someone you just meet. You would not treat your grandmother the same way you treat the person who sells you fruits and vegetables.

But do we really change "who we are" according to every interaction?
I think so.
Sometimes when I get people from different fields of my life together (ie. school friends with work friends), I can tend to feel torn because I know that each group is interested in different things.
Though I can get along with both just wonderfully in separate realms, it is a curious dynamic when they collide. They know different sides of me, they make me feel like interacting in different ways. This dynamic applies even to a level as minute as one person from each group.

This idea comes from a person who considers herself confident and self-assured which makes me believe that changing how you act and how you interact from one person to the next doesn't have anything to do with feeling unsure of yourself.

Maybe this is all a very obvious concept, but I just think it is very interesting to ponder who a person really is, (if a "neutral state" actually exists) when they're all alone with no other person to "shape" what they are in that moment.
Or maybe having no other persons around creates a single personality in itself!

Brick-breaker

Today I was at Pet Habitat and there were little white kittens all hanging out in a big glass cage.
And two of them were especially fond of each other, hopping and gliding up against the other.
One of them looked like Frida, short-haired with a pointy little face and the other a baby white persian/himalayan kitten with baby blue eyes.
The himalayan really caught my eye. I'd climb mountains for that cat.
She had little eye crusties and was looking at me with a pet-store kind of bottom-lip-pout that gets me every time.
I stuck my pinky under the sticker that read,
"Do not stick anything, especially not fingers under the door".

She was just sweet.

Lay your body down and put this on your ceiling

Cecily Brown.
Theres something about her depiction of the naked body that is so satisfying. She doesn't lie about the shapes, she doesn't fake any flawless seams, she just crafts abstract expressionist globs of pure sex. Her figures tend to creep behind the dense structure of the paint, into forms reminiscent of Cezanne's, creating a dreamy elusiveness.
Her kaliedoscopic, anti-academic diatribes suggest sexual deviance while drawing limits for themselves, being shy - not telling the whole story. I think that even people who curse abstract expressionism can find appreciation for her work. It leaves a lot of room to put the pieces together for yourself, but not in a blindingly formless way like Pollock or even deKooning.

Some of her images remind me of watching interviews on the news wherein the person wants to remain anonymous so their face is blurred out. There's a strength paired with cowardice in those figures sometimes, and I feel like Brown does that with her art.

It's not about being explicit, raw and bloody dirty but about giving the viewer a simple outline, and allowing them to fill in the blanks, plug in their own fantasies, and turn it into something that really belongs to them.
Whatever it may be.

C-breeze

Alright summer, here I come. Time to watch every possible Charlotte Gainsbourg film imaginable.
Watch the six minute short film called "My Heart Laid Bare".
She narrates it beautifully.

(So I carry, I carry the flowers
the flowers that are dead in my hands
they wilt naturally. Understand
that today is the day
that we find out once and for all
Now you know I must leave here
You must let me stand or fall.)

Canvas too Clean

Today, everything seems to be dawning on me in a way that falsely inflates the meaning of them.
Like, everything I look at seems to be woven together in a way that quickly turns too philosphical.
I entered a very strange state of consciousness last night where I seemed to be right in that little groove between sleeping and being awake. I felt like I was in my bed and surrounded by a dozen pots and pans, all with different soups, as well as yam and potato dishes. They were all in and around my bed, and then when I thought I woke up, I was still trying to sift through the strange feeling of them being around me, I actually felt like I couldn't move or else I'd disturb their cooking process. Then I sort of slipped into this state where I thought I could actually sort of smell these dishes.
I want to be able to distinguish which things are the result of the physical properties of my brain and which are the workings of my mind and imagination.

They are separate.

All I know is that this is my last week of school, there are at least five really amazing movies that I have downloaded that I need to watch, at least 15 books that have been carefully selected to sit on my desk which I'm dying to read, and 50 kilometres of biking I want to do in the next month.
I keep trying to plan my next big step, but the only things that feel right seem to be the little ones.

Balmain

Amazing cuts as far as legs, chest and backs go.
There is lots of skin, LOTS of legs, and the way that the fabric falls tends not to be too tight or too loose, but just enough for a little bit of dream in between the skin and the garment.
I love it.
Lots of blacks, metallics, and earthys.
These are from the Ready to Wear line but the runway line is just as unreal.
Call me crazy but this season is still about chunky footwear.
Bring your docs and ankle boots to the beach!

Cerebellar Hypoplasia

The other day I was pulling out of a parking space on a street off Commercial Drive and my friend was like "Aw, look!"
And I looked to see this beautiful little striped white, black and grey cat with green eyes - so tender.
Then she started walking and she was lifting her feet really weirdly and quickly. It sort of looked like someone put double-sided tape on the bottom of her feet but she didn't look bothered by it.
Then the lady who owned her was like "Oh, thank you for slowing down, she has brain damage called Cerebellar Hypoplasia that affects her motor function" and I was like "Awww" in a really lame-ish tone because I didn't know what she was really talking about. But then I looked it up later, after reflecting on how adorable the kitty was and giggling and found this video.
These cats are often killed at a very young age because it is assumed by the owners that something is wrong with them, when in actuality, they are just fine! They lead lives like any other cat. Totally happy. And they probably make even happier owners because they appear really clumsy and adorable.
In the future if I ever look into fostering cats or adopting again, I'm going to seek out one with Cerebellar Hypoplasia.

Bacon

This photo has never ceased to fall out of my head.
Yes, it is a man sitting in a chair with two halves of an animal hanging above him.
Francis Bacon did a series of paintings titled "Heads" that depicted, in much distortion, non-specific rulers of the papal states in history (He lived in the mid 1900s).
This is another from the set:

He has been suspected of manic depression. He had high-wired, unrealistic and delusionally happy views of his life that could snap back in seconds to making statements proclaiming the absolute hopelessness of human existence as naturally as breathing. These are the times that his paintings seemed to most represent.
The characteristics of his work are mutilated bodies, death, nakedness, spasmodic scenes and dream sequences.
In the 80's he was the most expensive living artist.
I love his paintings for the pure reason that they are so evocative. They are serious instalments whether you buy an original, a print or just a google image from your printer.
Francis Bacon, my friends.

Classic T+S

I loved Tegan's voice during this period.
Their very first album Under Feet Like Ours album sounded so raw and grimey, like "I've been smoking way too much and snarling at people, oh and look at me play my guitar super low, near my crotch". They first released it in 1999 and then re-released in 2001.
This song floors me though, really.
Somehow in all the dykey, rough and tough, leatherness of it, there's such a softness..
in both of them.
This song is why I was originally a Tegan person.
(Also, one of my favourite past-times is tracing Tegan and Sara's chronology through their hairstyles).
I'm really, really looking forward to seeing them at the Gorge at the end of May. Maybe I'll get Sara to meet me side-stage for some casual conversation.
So here... This is everything.

The Runaways

The movie "The Runaways" by Floria Sigismondi features Dakota Fanning (Amityville Horror) and Kristen Stewart, (Twilight) and recalls the story of The Runaways' band who peaked in the late 70's.
I had no exectation for the movie after "Bella"'s character in Twilight, but it really blew me out of the park.
Check some of these photos out.
Lots of lesbo gals are absolutely stumbling over Kristen's character which vaguely resembles Kate Moenig's in the L-word (but way better).
This is a video of the original performance of the Runaways featuring Cherie Currie and Joan Jett on the Japan leg of their tour.
This however, is a trailer for the movie, with a lot of clips of the rendition from the song that Dakota Fanning did as Cherie Currie.
Tell me how much you're falling for Dakota's Cherie.
So much love, so much passion. I think Dakota almost nails the vocals too.
Such beautiful production and direction.
The shower shot of Dakota Fanning in the movie is unreal which you can only see in the real movie (also Kristen's scene in the bath tub).
Watch it if you haven't already.
I don't care if you download it or if you pay $13 to go see it, just see it.

The Jordan

This is a National Geographic Photo of two kids washing up in the Jordan River.

Frida is aloof.

My cat Frida is so seriously deranged that I could see her doing something like this.
As of now, she will creep through the bathroom door when I run out naked to grab my exfoliant from my room and then lie on her back as all the steam washes over her as she looks up with a blind amazement.
And while I'm drying off, she'll hop up to the ledge of the bath and then finally leap into the bath awkwardly and lick up all the little leftover droplets.
Does this mean that I don't give her fresh water often enough? No, not at all.
She's just weird, like this cat.

Human Cat Perch

The most perfect cat in the entire animal kingdowm.

yell saccani

I looked at this photo for a really long time before making anything of it and I'm still not totally sure what I make of it.
It looks to me like she could be going either way - from a beautiful pose to some kind of rush or escape, or from a blurry body-thrash to a serene yet dominant pose.
The in-between of the two polars of the image is so up to the viewer's decision and I really like that.
Personally I think it captures more of the escape - like she could've met someone in a place that had really sexy music, had a four-word conversation and knew they wanted to leave together and as he was pulling the shutter down for the first time, she saw a rat... or a knife. Or the exposure was just left open for a while and just happened to catch a lady who was slipping from her bedroom to her laundry room to pull on her robe that just finished in the dryer.
Check out yell saccani for more photos like this, especially from his "BLUR" collection.

Have you seen this?

So I was watching TV the other day and I came across this commercial.
I think it is absolutely hilarious that they are making a mockery of all the other thousands of tampon and pad commercials that make women out to be these flowers who only need good period protection because they want to wear "white spandex", go dancing and play piano.
Of course those are all great things but this makes me feel like actual women are starting to get in on ad campaigning for "feminine products".
What a strange concept!
Go Kotex!
And if you're feeling like furthering your giggle, read this by Gloria Steinem:

If Men Could Menstruate
by Gloria Steinem

A white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking that a white skin makes people superior - even though the only thing it really does is make the more subject to ultraviolet rays and to wrinkles. Male human beings have built whole cultures around the idea that penis envy is "natural" to women - though having such an unprotected organ might be said to make men vulnerable, and the power to give birth makes womb envy at least as logical.
In short, the characteristics of the powerful, whatever they may be, are thought to be better than the characteristics of the powerless - and logic has nothing to do with it.
What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?
The answer is clear - menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event:
Men would brag about how long and how much.
Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties.
Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts.
Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. (Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of commercial brands such as John Wayne Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-dope Pads, Joe Namath Jock Shields - "For Those Light Bachelor Days," and Robert "Baretta" Blake Maxi-Pads.)
Military men, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve in the Army ("you have to give blood to take blood"), occupy political office ("can women be aggressive without that steadfast cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priest and ministers ("how could a woman give her blood for our sins?") or rabbis ("without the monthly loss of impurities, women remain unclean").
Male radicals, left-wing politicians, mystics, however, would insist that women are equal, just different, and that any woman could enter their ranks if she were willing to self-inflict a major wound every month ("you MUST give blood for the revolution"), recognize the preeminence of menstrual issues, or subordinate her selfness to all men in their Cycle of Enlightenment. Street guys would brag ("I'm a three pad man") or answer praise from a buddy ("Man, you lookin' good!") by giving fives and saying, "Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!" TV shows would treat the subject at length. ("Happy Days": Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row.) So would newspapers. (SHARK SCARE THREATENS MENSTRUATING MEN. JUDGE CITES MONTHLY STRESS IN PARDONING RAPIST.) And movies. (Newman and Redford in "Blood Brothers"!)
Men would convince women that intercourse was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself - though probably only because they needed a good menstruating man.
Of course, male intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguments. How could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics, or measurement, for instance, without that in-built gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets - and thus for measuring anything at all? In the rarefied fields of philosophy and religion, could women compensate for missing the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death-and-resurrection every month?
Liberal males in every field would try to be kind: the fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life or connecting to the universe, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.
And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine traditional women agreeing to all arguments with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly. "Your husband's blood is as sacred as that of Jesus - and so sexy, too!": Marabel Morgan.) Reformers and Queen Bees would try to imitate men, and pretend to have a monthly cycle. All feminists would explain endlessly that men, too, needed to be liberated from the false idea of Martian aggressiveness, just as women needed to escape the bonds of menses envy. Radical feminist would add that the oppression of the nonmenstrual was the pattern for all other oppressions ("Vampires were our first freedom fighters!") Cultural feminists would develop a bloodless imagery in art and literature. Socialist feminists would insist that only under capitalism would men be able to monopolize menstrual blood . . . .
In fact, if men could menstruate, the power justifications could probably go on forever.
If we let them.

Love this to pieces.

Boo!
So ghostly.
Check out more of Jonathan Pierce NOW.

The Middle East

This is so beautiful, I'm so moved. Especially when the female vocals come in and the harmonies that follow.
Oooh, I'm melting.
Please, hear it out by clicking this and not turning back.
Grab the person nearest to you and sway.

Tastebuds.

Myself being a huge fan of Mrs Vickie's to begin with, I was more than ready to dive into the adventure of this "New!/Nouveau!" flavour.
Yes, you read right - Balsamic Vinegar and Sweet Onion.
Two things I already spend a lot of my time consuming in other ways.
I've had a bit of a hard time finding them since the discovery but I'm pretty sure Save-On Foods has them pretty regularly, not 7/11 though.
A salty, sourish, sweet combo sure to tantalize your whole being, from your eyebrows to your intestines, they are by far the best from Mrs Vickie, wherever she is.

Not Drinking Any Green Beer

Photo by Megan Ghiroli.

My dimly-lit eggplant purple room,
freshly cleaned,
no clothes on the ground, no things on my desk,
smells like my shampoo and my -
candles, four strangely shaped candles,
one-day old washed sheets!
CAKE - chocolate cake with white confetti icing with two layers of icing,
my silk robe on my naked skin,
my feet in slippers,
laptop on my lap,
catching up on e-mails with my friends,
petting my Frida,
finishing an assignment I've been procrastinating pretty hard on,
happy to be alone without my phone that I left at my lady-friend's house,
thinking of the weekend,
thinking of drinking all that caffeinated tea I just bought so I can stop my coffee addiction,
thinking of taking photos with my camera and the three rolls of film that haven't been fondled in at least a week.
This is my March 17th,
Google told me it's my... St Patricks Day?

Happy St Patricks Day.

Takes 3 To Tango

Alright, so this all makes me feel so giddy.

First, let your ears soak in this.

Secondly, listen to some of this song.

Now, listen to this song.

This is such a beautiful thing about music! I love the idea of parodies and covers.
There's something about songs being redone and re-wired and re-strung and re-formed and just re-, re-, re- that makes it such an amazing medium of art (like DJing too).
I think if you're covering or mixing a song, you're not saying that you're making it better than the original, just putting your own spin on it, creating new things, and taking the ideas of it, and totally turning it into something else.
Does it take away from the legitimacy of the original? I say absolutely not.
It's more like a breeding ground for appreciating the original as a stem and creating new ideas from that stem.
Maybe one day all music will have already been made and this will be the only thing left for artists to do! Probably not for another couple hundred years though.

So which is your favourite?

Telephone

This video is fabulous. I'm so impressed.
You must be 18 years or older to watch this link on Youtube but I'm sure if you tried, you could find other versions that aren't restricted.

Yes, I think Lady Gaga is an artist.
She dares, she steps out of line, she makes people feel uncomfortable.
She's the only person in the very poppish, mainstream eye who has actually been daring enough to do bring a weird, abstract artsy feel into the mix of music.
People thought Impressionist paintings were fugly knock-offs of the Classics until a few people caught on and allowed the beauty of it's unconventionality to hit them.
They were open-minded enough to let art say something different in a new way.
This has really been the way all the best and biggest artists have become... the best and the biggest. Because it causes abbrasion, it gets people talking. People have to go over it in their heads a few times to actually figure out what they think about it. Like listening to a radio condom commercial with your mom before you've even had your first period... (sound of crickets).

One of my friends asked me "Has bold and important art turned from Goya to Lady GaGa?"
So I say sort of, yeah.
Art develops with the times and art itself changes the times.
How many people even look at art anymore? Tiny, private galleries on the street or the local library's exhibits or the big ones in the core of their cities?
I'd say with gusto that more people would rather be at home on their computers, watching TV or movies, or gaming to which I will attribute the influx of artistry in film, music, photography and graphic design.
Of course with all this technology there has been a serious loss of focus and appreciation on the physical arts like sculptures and paintings.
But I have to say I'm pretty okay with it. It makes sense. Whatever medium artists want to use to get their ideas across to the maximum number of people, I think they should.
So times have changed:
from no phones to cord-full house phones to cellphones for everyone in your family including your dog; Bronte novels to blogs; Francis Bacon and Schiele's raunchy and eerie paintings to the neo-eerie videos of Lady Gaga.
Enjoy.

HK

My best friend Cliff who lives in Hong Kong found these two shots.
I think they are truly fabulous and (from what he's told me) representative of some of the amazing street culture that exists over there.
Such extreme colours in the one on the bottom and so raw.
Keep sending, Cliff.

Mark your Calendars

"On Sunday, March 21st, a white supremacist group referring to themselves
as “Advocates for White Civil Rights” founded by “president” Travis Annan
and “vice-president” Lee Peacock is planning to march through Coquitlam,
Burnaby and Vancouver. They plan to assemble at Braid skytrain station in
New Westminster at 12 noon then proceed down the line, marching between
stations, and ending at the Vancouver Art Gallery. After this, they have
stated their intention to proceed to Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area,
where they plan on holding a “feast”, in their words. Given the secluded
nature of this area, and the fact that their group includes known violent
offenders, and has demonstrated hostility towards visible minority groups,
this poses an unacceptable threat to public safety. There is currently a
petition to the city of Burnaby, to deny them usage on those grounds.

Numerous groups are massing in opposition to this, there will be a
Multicultural Pride march assembling at Braid station at 11am on the same
day, and proceeding along the same planned route. There will be a wide
variety of entertainment, performances and general revelry at the event,
it is intended to be a peaceful celebration of the lower mainland’s
multicultural community; people of all race, culture and creed are
welcome. There will also be a cohesive, organized presence there, to
prevent any of the participants from being harmed. We are after all
dealing with violent offenders, who have a track record of assaulting
visible minorities. The concept of “white pride” is protected under
freedom of speech, despite the fact that it is being used as a thin veneer
to mask the promotion of hate crimes. We recognize and appreciate this right,
we do not intend to block their planned march. We are there to present the
differing viewpoint, in a safe, positive and fun manner. We ask that all
interested members of Vancouver’s diverse ethnic and cultural
communities join us; to celebrate the differences between us, and to
demonstrate to these individuals and groups that racial hatred
will not go unchallenged in this area."

Need I say more?
Definitely come out and support these groups that are in the anti-rally rally.
Sunday March 21st, at Braid Skytrain Station at 12 noon.

Gendercide

A few months ago I came across a paper written by Amartya Sen, (a so-called "Mother Teresa of Economics" for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, gender inequality, and political liberalism) called "More than 100 Million Women Are Missing" that discusses a mysterious hole in history where he estimates should've been 100 million females. From sacrificing women in ancient religious ceremonies, to court-killing women for being infertile, to conviction of "witch craft" leading to burning at the stake, to the Montreal Massacre, to the Pickton trials, to the effects of China's one-child policy, Sen explores and tries to predicate where this ridiculous number of women have really gone and why.

The latest edition of The Economist Magazine released a piece titled "Gendercide" which follows a very similar suit to the work by Sen.
It discusses the truth about the mass abortions and murders of girls based solely on the fact that they are... girls. There is discussion about the harsh reality of this very normalized practice of killing fetuses, newborns and even up to 4-year old females, among other factors which are outlined in the essay.
Who would've thought that a $12 ultrasound option could reform humanity?
And this is NOT only happening in China where the one-child policy is implemented.

"The boy-girl ratio is above 200 for a third child in some places."

While these killings happen because of the age-old tradition that males are more useful to carry on the family name, work physically harder and other annoyingly sticky stereotypes, they are happening because of today's world that continues to favour the success of boys, boys, boys who obviously do have a kickstart on life, from their moment of birth.
I definitely encourage you to read on.

House Moment

Here I am at home this weekend, in my room, studying and I just overheard my Mom say:
"I always wanted a daschund.
What do I get? Two frickin' cats that pee on beds and puke up furballs."

Dirty Street

Happy Birthday today to my 20-year old brother and my 16-year old sister!
I wish it was my birthday so you all could buy me this outfit so I can look like a weird and beautiful silent killer with even killer-er shoes.
Love always and forever,

Jac

Farewell Facebook

My decision to deactivate my Facebook account is for a number of reasons.
I really do hate the way that technology seems to govern mine and everyone else's lives. Even at parties or gatherings, people always seem to be partying with technology at the same time - on cellphones, TVs, computers, etc. I feel like anytime I'm hanging with someone, there will at least be a few points when we have moments of silence as we catch up with our phones.
I know that this seems like I should be getting rid of my phone or something but lets just say that deactivating Facebook is a step in the right direction, for me at least.

I used to justify keeping it in the past, saying it helped me keep in touch with people.
But if I really want to keep in touch with them, I could call them or e-mail them instead of creepily watching them from a cyber-distance while determining if I still like them at all.
I would also justify having Facebook by saying that I wouldn't get invited to things if I didn't have it.
If people really wanted me at their event, they would/could get a hold of me in another way and that would probably mean that I was extra special because everyone knows how many stupid fucking generic invites they get on Facebook for events that they've never expressed interest in.
I would also justify it by saying that I like looking at photos.
That is something I might actually miss, but lots of my friends have flickr or their own sites anyways.
I would also justify it by saying that I like to read/write notes.
I write on here instead, and most people's notes on Facebook are just those really long Q&A things that are so much fun to do, but not really to read.

When I meet people at a bar, they will no longer ask me for my last name, but rather my phone number. It's way less secretive and mysterious that way anyways.

Case in point, I will not have Facebook for a while. Hopefully a long while.

Coincidence

Today I looked in the mirror after I dressed myself and realized that I resembled the character of Moira/Max from the L-word.
I wasn't wearing any makeup, my eyes looked really tired, my bangs were swooping flatly onto one side of my face and I happened to be wearing flannel.
One time I actually saw her drinking coffee on Davie Street and gave her a double-take and then she smiled like she knew I knew who she was.
I'm pretty sure I looked more like Moira than Max though.
Maybe it's just this dark hair that's making me see myself in a thousand different ways, yet somehow always as... me.

Feel Sexy Now

"Ohh you got me shaking
to that moan you made last night
Ohh my body's aching
from that naked summer light..."

Click here to listen to Mando Diao's "High Heels".

President's Choice

There is an ice cream in my fridge right now called "Cream First".

Blurb on Urban Sprawl

Long, long ago in the American mid-west there existed a sort of front-porch culture.
After eating a wholesome meal, the children would run out into the front lawn to catch the last whispers of the sun, playing with animal figurines and mini plastic cars while the parents assumed the swinging chair on a porch overlooking the lawn and street.
The neighbourhood would buzz until the sound of crickets took over the gutteral laughter that poured through the streets at sun-down.
A lone man would rock slowly, taking in a cigar and finally retreat to his home.

The idea of Post-War homes that catered to the nuclear family of Mom, Pop, Dick and Jane absolutely flourished - creating suburbia.
This was a time when kids actually went outside and did things like "kick the can", marbles, and jacks.
Mommy would clean all day and daddy would work all day and everyone looked clean-pressed, eager and "happy".

Today, 73% of families lack at least one quality of this nuclear family structure.
While this is true, urban sprawl keeps... well, sprawling.
(MORE greenhouse gas emissions,
LONGER commuting times,
MORE hair-tearing people perpetually stuck in gridlocks,
MORE tax dollars spent on highways and roadways, all to say "Viva la Vehicle".)

So why are we still building ridiculously unneccessary houses that have four-car garages and front lawns that are used merely to portray the amount of time the owners have to groom it? These houses extend from the outskirts of downtown to the boonies and everyone seems to just be trying to commute everywhere but there everyday anyways?

Give some thought to mixed land-use that could recall the quirkiness of main-street funk, to have subsidised housing near middle- or upper-class housing in close proximity to varieties of transit options, amenities, shopping and recreation.
Of course this is talking more about replenishing the downtowns that exist, and densifying the sprawl that also already exists, to stop it from expanding (rather than building main-streets in Belcarra or something).
People just seem to be obsessed with the idea that taking transit is for the poor, failing to realize its convenience, practicality and friendliness with the environment.

You're a bus-rider.
Other bus-riders think it takes too long to take the bus now that more people are driving cars.
So those bus-riders buy cars and drive alongside the bus that you're on.
Now it takes even longer for your bus ride.
So you get a car too.

It's an issue that will be far from solving even at the point when people acknowledge that it's an issue at all.

Emerald City

I guess this look is more Winter but oh well.
We had a short winter anyways so I'm probably just compensating.

Chicks with Sticks

I hung out last night at the Met with the Canadian Women's Gold Medal Hockey team! (The night following their victory)
It was so exciting to see them all medal-clad, mingling and generally getting wild.
Was a bit funny to be at a table with a bunch of olympic-neutral and even anti-olympic people.
Champagne everywhere, cigars and seeing the captain of the team stumbling over herself in the bathroom was pretty priceless.
They seemed to be pretty good at fuzball too.
(Paige, that reminds me about our challenge...)
Anyways, cool beans!

The Magician's Private Library

Please let your chakras be moved by Holly Miranda's newest album that came out yesterday.
Five tracks that were released on her EP "Sleep on Fire" have been revamped for this album along with a bunch of other new songs. One of my personal favourites is definitely "Canvas".

There's no place I want to wake up, but beside you. or Everytime I go to sleep I kick and scream and dream a little bit.
-Sleep on Fire, The Magician's Private Library

Unearthly sounds come together with more orchestra, more harmony and more treble.
This kind of music seems to either leave me sitting on my bed with my jaw on the floor staring into never-never-land or dancing around boneless in a full-body panty hose - most commonly used for lipo-massage, riding my space-heater.
Her voice is chilling and it just keeps getting chillier.

Alice for Annie

Annie Leibovitz shoots Natalia Vodianova!
A bunch of wonderful designers were commissioned to create their Alice in Wonderland in one costume.
These are only a few from the whole collection.
The designer of the dress Vodianova wears in each individual photo is IN the photo with her and the gown.
Even Karl Lagerfeld got in on it.
This, by the by, was not onset by any of this new movie shit.
(On that whole Johnny Depp idea, I really hope he doesn't ruin Lewis Carroll's infinitely dreamy, drug-ridden creation the way Jim Carrey wrecked the Series of Unfortunate Events.)
Sigh. Such a beautiful set. So much out-of-the-box collaboration and creativity.
It makes me want to watch Gwen Stefani's "What you waiting for?" video.
I guess a little more Cheshire Cat would've been nice though...

Melita Consuelo

Tip your waiters.

Dirrrty

AAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
So apparently Christina Aguilera has been jamming with Kathleen Hannah and the rest of the riot grrl group, Le Tigre!
Christina's new album will not only feature this punk-rock band that came about during *3rd wave feminism but also...
Santogold...
M.I.A....
Ladytron...
Goldfrapp...
and Sia!

I'm getting the jitters.
This is a totally new angle for Lady Marmalade.
This reminds me of Tiesto's new ablum, in his pairings with a bunch of artists that you'd never guess he would like Bloc Party, Nelly Furtado, Tegan and Sara and Emily Haines.

Anyways... I absolutely cannot wait for this album.

Arms Tonight

I fell in your arms tonight.
I fell hard in your arms tonight,
it was nice.
I died in your arms tonight.
I slipped through into the afterlife,
it was nice.
White lies in your arms tonight.
I lost sight in your arms tonight,
it was nice.
And hey, you, don't you think it's kinda cute
that I died right inside your arms tonight
that I'm fine even after I have died
because it was in your arms I died.
I cried in the afterlife
I cry hard because I have died,
and you're alive.
I try to escape afterlife.
I try hard to get back inside
your arms alive.

Seeing this live last night was absolutely phenomenal and put a smile on Surrey's face.
Giggling and jiggling my body with some other chicas.
Mmm.
Check out Mother Mother for those who haven't already.

The Best Place on Earth

Some things I heard the other night while downtown.
1. [Going up the escalator at a skytrain station with my little sister] and a guy who is going down the escalator yells 'Cleavage! Cleavage!' and him and his friend laugh hysterically.

2. [Three 20-ish blonde girls running up the stairs super excited, getting everyone riled up and] people randomly holler with Olympic excitement and then this guy says to his friend 'Yeahhhh!!! Woo! Gotta love the blonde girls!... As long as they put out!'

3. [In the crowd at a concert and] a 25-ish guy pushes his friend into my little sister and yells 'Yeah! Give it to her in the ass!'

4. [A very eccentric and sort of feminine-looking guy is sitting with his female friend and they are discussing some pins that they just purchased, quietly to each other and] as soon as they get off the train, these two guys started yelling 'Faggot mother fucker!' and continued guffawing as the train pulled away.

5. [After a mishap at a concert which caused many people to get trampled and the whole event to get called off, I was on the skytrain home and] I overheard a guy talking on his phone who was explaining the situation at the show as 'some bitch broke her leg and she was too fat to carry away'.

Coraline

I love Coraline so much.
Choose to be in a life that actually has problems that are accompanied by emotions both good and bad or;
a perfect life where all the candy and cakes are delicious and the eggs are always fresh and the gardens are ever-blooming and everyone adorns you with goodness and the mice are always dancing but you are basically a robot and everyone you love is a robot too and everything you feel is external.

Oldie but goodie

Not sure if anyone has ever seen this or not but I only came across it today and I really appreciated it.
Ellen just makes everyone smile all the time and she's absolutely like the rockin'-sha-boppin-cannon-awesome-bopper for ice-breaking.
And John McCain is just so awkward, it kills me.
(Sarah Palin actually wanted to work towards a federal ban against gay marriage.)
I think I'd feel like peeling my skin off and then doing a cannibal dance if I ever saw him (or Palin) anywhere in the world.
Anyways, watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7addd1-SY8&feature=related

RIP Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen was found dead this morning in his London apartment after apparently committing suicide.
With one month until the release of his next name, "McQ", set to be revealed in Paris, he called it quits. It isn't yet verified that the cause was suicide but rumours have been spread that he was found hanging from his ceiling, only nine days after the death of his mother.
It was apparent by the interactions with his closest peers and even by his twitter updates that he was extremely distraught by her loss.
He was only 40 years old.
He pulled the London scene out of it's turmoil in the late 70's after the punk movement and added his fantasy, avant-garde, deranged and delicate fixtures to the scene, working for various designers until eventually opening his own name in 1993.
He was even was recognized by the Queen in 2003, when she made him a Commander of the British Empire for his fashion leadership.
Being a genius is hard because people will keep expecting you to do genius things.

Did I miss something?

For those of you who don't know...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is to carry the Olympic torch Friday morning on a final relay before the opening ceremony for the Vancouver Games.

Olympic organizers said Schwarzenegger will help carry the torch around Stanley Park before handing it off just after 7 a.m. to two-time British Olympic gold medalist Sebastian Coe, who is also chairman of the London 2012 organizing committee.

I'm not sure I see the relevance to anything.
He's the Governor General of California AND he tried to step down...
Is this Terminator some kind of intimidation factor for the anticipated terrorists?
It's sort of a slap in the face for me to see that he's carrying the torch through Stanley Park, kind of a very Vancouverish thing.
And I'm not even that gung-ho about the olympics.
It seems that they've put him in a very important position for our olympics.

Cat Head

My friend Evil Patrick Shannon took this photo.
I sure love it.
Sorry if the person or the cat in the photo stumble across this and feel weird like I'm pretending to be your friends.

Check out more of his work www.evilpatrick.ca

Good Cat

Just thought it was really important that I share this with everyone.
She's been fabulous since the surgical alteration.
And sleeping with me and having really weird fits of REM sleep that jiggles my whole bed.
It's actually really weird to watch...

MARC'd

Spring '10 (ready-to-wear) line for Marc Jacobs!
Tasteful, alluring and inexplicably sexy modesty.
Lots of leg.
Strained whispers of summer-to-come.
Celebrate pale!
Original patterns.
Alice in Wonderland bows!
Gladiators, silk, patent and canvas pieds.
Warning: may contain traces of the 70's.

It's so surprisingly wearable for me, for you, for your grandma, for your butler.

Uh oh...

Is it just me or does this give implication of rape?
Anyone?
Does this stiletto not look like a knife too close to - what Mom taught me in "Love and Life" - the place 'under your bathing suit' that that only doctors, parents and lovers should see?
And the concrete, flash-filled background is sort of daunting as well.
Sure the shoes are hot hot hot, but the direction of the photo is so distracting.
Agghhh okay, I know sex sells.
But rape shouldn't.

Black History Month

Yesterday marks the beginning of Black History month which is February.
It seems that now-a-days there are months for a lot of things.
The month of Mary, Drug and Alcohol Awareness Month, Plumber's month, Secretary's Month, How-to-clean-up-cat-pee-most-effectively-off-various-kinds-of-furniture - month and other great months.
But I think this one is really one to be taken seriously.
Recognize it, read about it, educate yourself - even a little bit.
Give thought to race as a whole - where people came from, what they experience on a day-to-day basis and what sorts of prejudices you have about those races however explicit or implicit they may be. And put them to the test.
Calling on Audre Lorde:

"I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable."

or maybe just watch Malcolm X,
or check out Tupac's 'Black Cotton' lyrics:

Black Cotton - A symbol for unrewarded struggle
Time for a little gospel tail
Ghetto gospel that is- listen
Robbin' Black Cotton in God's eyes
Speak

Black Cotton
Steady stressin' Smith and Wessons count my blessin's
Class is in session the worst question is the first question
Why do we work like slaves sweatin' blades to an early grave
Never got paid but still we slave (In the nine tre')
Answer that then answer this too-
Loves gonna get ya you know it's true life's a bitch true
You best to backtrack and try to act black and live
Not to be phony and positive but why be negative?
What's the matter G? Black cat got your tongue
Fat track gotcha sprung now your hung (Do ya feel me?)
Dum dum diddy is it me?
Attempt to reach each and every brother on the streets
If not peace then at least let's get a piece
I'm tired of seeing bodies on the streets- deceased
Lookin' through my highschool yearbook
Reminiscin' of the tears as the years took
One homie, two homie, three homies - POOF
We used to have troops but now there's no more youth to shoot
God come save the misbegotten
Lost ghetto souls of Black Cotton (In God's eyes)

Nobody don't care
(No matter how hard I try/Look to the sky/and I ask God why)
Nobody don't care
(Seems like my dreams/Drowned in by screams/No answer to my questions)
Nobody don't care
(Feels like I'm pressed/Why do I stress?/It's like I'm being tested)
Nobody don't care
(Seems like my prayers/Vanish to thin air/Please answer my questions)
Nobody don't care

In the belly of the beast I'm bubbling up
Running out of luck, about to self destruct
Old heads say live your life like such
Your sure to catch her witcha one day boy
I wouldn't listen to 'em
Your power movement was cool
But it ain't fix nothin'
So I just go with what i know
I dont trust none
Look what the 80's did
To what's Bebe's kids
And now we grown up
Nobody ain't own us yet

Black cotton, I'm plottin' on what they owe me
I'm workin' without a profit
They shacklin' all my homies
I'm hurtin' but keep the mind
And we ain't stop, its cutains, you try to rise and
Certainly we survive with Outlaw Ridas
What's the reward for a strugala
If the lord lovin' us then why they hate to see us comin' up
Runnin up, Gun cocked like nasty gloves
If you aint got a penny, mind the glove
No love
Waitin' for my 40 acas and a blunt to blaze
Biblicle times good hearts with milita minds
Black Cotton - I'm hoppin' over enemy lines
Black Cotton - I ain't stoppin' till they givin me mine

or re-cap on Rosa Parks' HUGE influence on the Civil Rights Movement,
or pay a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t by tuning in to Aretha Franklin or Billie Holiday,
or look closer at the recent discussions and acts of Obama who is making black history in front of our eyes, whether positive or negative.