mid-week cat in a box [video]

... not one of ours, sadly. Though I imagine Teazle would be totally into boxing herself. And then immediately climbing out again. And then back in. And then out. And then in. And then ... well, you get the idea.

But I thought for a Wednesday in mid-December, this video was just about right.

Hope everyone's week is going well, and I'm looking forward to having some time to post toward the end of the month. The holiday season is upon us -- can you believe it's almost 2013?

We live in the future, people!

the headlines through fan goggles

Here's a bit of absolute fluffy fluff for your Friday afternoon ...

In my circle of fannish friends we've been struck lately by the humorous and occasionally horrifying effects of going through your media-consuming life with fan and/or slash goggles welded to your face.

For example:

text: Guardian headline reading, "Branson starts talks with Universal Music on Virgin Records deal"

This is, sadly, not a story about the Downton Abbey chauffeur switching to a career in music.

And this headline ...

text: Guardian headline reading, "Hathaway deserves Catwoman spin-off, says Nolan

... disappointed me mightily last weekend because when I first glanced at it, I thought someone was suggesting there be some sort of Inspector Lewis/Avengers crossover. And then I was like OH ANNE HATHAWAY. RIGHT.

text: email from Fab.com with subject heading, "Vintage Eames Splint, Brownie Box Cameras ..."

Hanna saw this one in her inbox last week and said for a second she was hoping for a bit of Arthur/Eames fanfiction involving Eames' arm or leg in a splint.

Sometimes, the confusion is slightly more awkward and/or embarrassing, such as in these two stories:

text: NPR headline reading, "WHO Says Virus Caused Illnesses in Cambodia"

For a minute I was baffled as to why the latest season of Doctor Who involved Eleven saving the day in Cambodia ... not that I would mind, but it would have been a significant shift from its Euro-centric plotlines!

text: Nerdy Feminist blog post titled "The 'Tosh Sucks' Roundup"

And because I had no idea who Daniel Tosh was before the recent dust-up, I was saddened by the thought that somewhere, a bunch of people cared enough about hating Toshiko Sato that they were writing multiple blog posts about it. Thankfully -- wrong Tosh!

Sometimes, when the real news gets you down, you find yourself wishing the fan-goggle versions were for true! Because of reasons.

Thank goodness it's Friday, everyone, and I hope you have some rest & relaxation time ahead of you.

quick hit: the haunted legs!

Hanna and I spent the weekend in Maine at her parents' house, which was a blessed break from the heat of an urban summer and also a two-day stretch of time away from the Internet. Since we were spending time with family, I didn't get any writing done -- so I don't have the review of Love the Sin for you which I hoped to post today.

Instead, I'm going to give a signal boost to my brother Brian's wacky month-long art project "Haunted Legs":

click here for more

Each day will bring a new frame in the ... story? web comic? we'll see as it unfolds! Here is yesterday's installment:

Ever since I saw the early sketches for this project, I've been thinking of the Dr. Seuss story about the pale green pants with nobody inside them; it was one of our favorite stories to read a Grandma's house growing up -- and I bet the resemblance is more than pure coincidence! Click here to check out the page and follow along. Happy reading!

live-blog: caitlin flanagan on WBUR

via

I got home from one of those days in which I was dashing hither and yon doing work-related stuff and found what I really wanted to do was listen to Caitlin Flanagan fulminate in front of Tom Ashbrook and the ever-articulate Irin Carmon on On Point (WBUR). Basically, I listened to the episode so you don't have to. Here's are my "live blog" responses to the conversation.

For more considered reviews of Flanagan's Girl Land see here and here, and while you're at it read Amanda Marcotte's reflections on this same interview over at Pandagon.

Update: Irin's own reflections on the interview, and Caitlin Flanagan's concern trolling of Irin's girlhood, can be found here.

1:57 - Caitlin Flanagan (CF): "Across time and culture there are certain things about [female adolescence] that are constant." Wait, what? People making claims about anything being "constant" across time and culture is a huge red flag in my book. Especially when it's something as historically situated as "adolescence" which, as historians of the family will tell you, is an invention of modernity.

2:48 - CF: "[Adolescence is an] emotionally exquisite experience." For all girls? Fess up to the fact that you're talking about yourself, not everyone. At least, I think she was talking about herself? It was confusing. The rose colored glasses were coming out big time here. And I speak as someone who was pretty happy with my life between the ages of twelve and twenty.

3:32 - But then she acknowledges that teenage/adolescent period is a twentieth century phenomenon. So she's already contradicting her argument about things being constant "across time and culture."

4:25 - CF is wishing to bring back "protective" mechanisms for girls. She keeps saying "girls" when she's actually talking about teenagers. Children are not being discussed here.

4:48 - CF talks about how teenagers today are "steeped in pornography," "sexting" and "hook-up" culture. She's using the language of moral panic here, which is particularly interesting given the recent data which suggest that the people doing the most "sexting" aren't teenagers, but adults.

5:46 - CF presents princess culture as innate girlhood, rather than culturally shaped. She should do her homework and read Peggy Orenstein's book Cinderella Ate My Daughter (or listen to this 40 minute interview) about how princesses are being relentlessly marketed to girls.

6:29 - Tom Ashbrook (TA) uses the phrase "time immemorial." Oh, Tom, please. She doesn't need help universalizing this supposed phenomenon.

6:52 - Only six minutes in and I'm already hating the erasure of boys. What about boys who are "drawn to romance"? I knew boys who loved Austen novels and who were sweet and nurturing and interested in sustaining meaningful relationships (of sexual and non-sexual kinds) throughout adolescence. It makes me sick that the only way CF can picture cross-gender relationships is to sexualize them, and the only way she can contain those scary sexualized relationships is to require them to be "dating" relationships.

7:25 - CF: "All she's thinking about is attracting the attention of other boys that she knows." So ... when teenage girls experiment with gender presentation and dressing up and sexuality, it's all about male attention? What year is it again, and what rock have you been hiding under?

7:40 - CF: "She's opened up to a world of sexual threat" ... but not joy also? Developing sexuality is going to be entirely framed by fear and threat? "It's almost not politically correct to admit that it is [threatening]." Oh kill me now. Seriously? The "politically correct" card is such a lame disclaimer to play. Way to make me stop taking anything you say after said disclaimer seriously.

8:05 - CF: "It has been through the ages" again with the universalizing. SO WRONG.

8:30 - TA asks what would be an ideal world [for "girls"] in CF's eyes, and uses nice qualifiers. Specifically asks for her opinion, not as if she's an expert. CF looking for "protection."

9:20 - She keeps circling back to the Internet. Seriously. Like it's this totally overwhelming thing we as human beings don't mediate as users.

9:45 - Are girls not capable of making their own rooms a protected space? She keeps talking about how adults have to force their daughters into using their rooms as retreats, when shouldn't the daughters themselves be making that call? My parents weren't forcing me to spend hours and hours in my room reading novels and exchanging (totally private, emotionally intense) letters (and later emails) with my closest friends. Why do parents need to enforce this, if it's what girls want? She doesn't explain this disconnect.

10:08 - CF: "The school day is so intense for them" - girls specifically? And again, if adults are able to make this space for themselves, why can't teenagers, if they need it. If CF walks away from "the Internet" when she's overwhelmed, can't she just model good self-care to her children?

10:48 - CF [about college students having mementos of childhood in their dorm rooms]: "Men in college don't have that"? On what basis do you make this assertion?? Have you looked at any young man's life recently? It makes me wonder how much you know about your own sons, because the men in my life are all over the treasured memories of their childhood. It's equal-opportunity nostalgia in my own social circle.

11:13 - CF: "There's no more dating as we knew it" and therefore girls are totally at risk. Again, I wonder where is the trust that young women will make the world the way they want it? Where is the agency? Dating was somehow this magical land of unicorns and rainbows, and this new land of (allegedly) no dating is a nightmare that is being forced on girls? I think straight women might have had something to do with the evolution of hetero courtship?

11:57 - TA acknowledges "pushback" from feminists (thanks TA!), asks is this "just life" that you're protecting girls from? Good question!

12:27 - CF talks like there's only "two schools" for raising girls/children -- either you're totally controlling or totally permissive. Her language is one of moderation, as if she's offering an alternative to all-or-nothing, as if she wants the gains of the feminist movement without the ... well, it's unclear what, but whatever it is, it's BAD THINGS ... but her word choices are all those of moral panic over SEX and girls and SEX.

12:41 - CF talks about "imperatives of male sexuality" which is such a total red flag to me. It's gender essentialism and it's bioreductive bullshit. As an example of the loaded language: girls are now "servicing boys"?! TA pushes back on her equation of "freedom" with "oral sex" (and oral sex that is about "servicing," making it sound like sex is something girls do to comply with manly sexual urges when they're forced to do so by this awful new freedom thing).

13:50 - I find myself wondering why CF things "support" for girls and young women equals "protection" and control?

15:00 - Again, she's promulgating a very extreme duality here, despite her tone of moderation: either parents "protect" their girls by limiting their girls' access to avenues of exploration, or they're pushing their (unwilling?) daughters into having wild, meaningless sex with bestial boys.

15:39 - A call-in listener introduced as Vica observes that a "dichotomy has been set up" by Flanagan, and that as an Armenian immigrant who's done cross-cultural research on women, she questions whether freedom is a bad thing. "I've had the freedom to explore," she says, observing that her mother gave her the "same sorts of freedom that she now gives my little brothers." She points to the risk of socializing women into fear, inferiority.

18:02 - Another listener, Caroline, starts out on a good note: "I've found it impossible to actually shield her... you have to talk to them about it." She argues it's important to find "talking opportunit[ies] with your daughter" ... "you have to equip them" for going out into the world. Then, she describes going through her daughter's computer history to check for porn access. What. The. Fuck. Invasion of privacy. Not okay.

20:41 - CF: "I think everything that Caroline said is fantastic" ... says all parents should be asking their daughters "what are you going to require in a boy?" (God she's so relentlessly heteronormative) ... "[Boys will do whatever it takes to get access to female companionship and ultimately female sexuality." UM WHAT? FUCK YOU. If girls don't hold high expectations, "that's what you'll end up with." Basically, if partner mistreats you, it's all your fault for not demanding better treatment. Places girls in the role of the gatekeeper. She totally needs to hook up with got on a date with Iris Krasnow.

[Irin Carmon joins the program]

23:44 - Irin Carmon (IC): "We need to talk more about how we're raising our boys and not have such a low opinion of them" ... "there's only so much you can protect girls" and so it's important to model critiquing the culture, for both girls and boys.

25:04 - IC: "I don't recognize the girl land CF describes" ... Irin's teenage years were a "fertile time" for her, recognizing that she was lucky to be in safe, supportive community of people. It was okay to talk about sex, to have Instant Messager in her room, etc.

26:17 - IC argues that the real question is "how do you create a dialogue around sexuality that's about knowledge and not shame" -- and how do we bring boys into that dialogue. I love her talking point here, and how it relentlessly calls attention to the fact that CF is relentlessly focused on policing girls' lives, even as she places the main threat for girls on the shoulders of over-sexed boys.

26: 56 - CF: "I'm the last person to demonize boys" (you smarmy snake-oil saleswoman). Yet she goes right on to say that boys will "follow cues" that girls give them (what are they, pets?).  "Boys will be thrilled with hook up culture," with "pornified culture." Like, all boys? All boys are totally interested in sex the way it's depicted in mainstream, mass-marketed porn? Why exactly do you think boys are "thrilled" with hook-up culture? Because they're led by their dicks? And what their dicks want is access to pussy 24/7? Please check your research, listen to some actual boys and men (and the researchers who listen to those boys and men) and then we'll talk. 'Cause that's not what I'm hearing. I happen to think men and boys are just as varied in their sexual desires as women, and that it's irresponsible to start any sentence with "Boys will ..." if it's going to end with a generalization about sex or relationship desires.

28:04 - IC: "I feel like you're conflating pornified culture with safe sex education." AMEN.

29:40 - TA questions CF about her argument that the shift from boy/girl dating (in her idealized past) to group activities (which makes it sound like group sex, but I think she means, like, people hanging out together in friendly ways?) hurts girls. What I'm struck by is that back in the very period she's idealizing (the 50s!), adults were concerned about the very opposite trend. The worry back in the 50s and 60s was that  teenagers were doing too much pairing off, when really they should be hanging out in groups and dating around before "going steady." Really, I wish she'd done some basic research. Like, any research. At all. Into this period she's supposedly harkening back to.

29:46 - CF on IC's adolescent boyfriends: "They didn't really treat her very well..." Oh. My. God. is she concern trolling!! Poor Irin apprently needs to be "treated nicely," to "find a way that boys would treat her kindly." It's like we're supposed to train boys like circus animals or something. Jesus H. Christ.

31:42 - IC (kicking ass, as usual): "Frankly, my adolescence was fine and so were some of the growing-up boys that I dated" ... "I feel really okay ... I feel fine about it because I was in a community of really supportive parents" ... We're not doing girls any favors "if we lock them up in their rooms without an internet connection."

33:05 TA asks CF point-blank: "Is that really the measure of a good adolescence, if you had a boyfriend in high school?" THANK YOU TA.

33:25 - IC: our job is to help teenagers to be "resilient in the face of humans hurting each other." Because sometimes people are shit even when we do everything right. Newsflash Ms. Flanagan! Women and girls (some of whom aren't that kindly themselves) can't domesticate the entire world and make sure no one ever, ever gets hurt by exuding perfect femininity. Or something.

34:55 - CF: "Talking about date rape is almost useless now because kids don't go on conventional dates"??

35:20 - IC likes TA's question about what makes a good adolescence: "I emerged feeling happy and connected and with healthy relationships" ... and while she says "date rape" as a term is problematic, it's because (duh) the qualifier makes it seem like there's gradations of rate. "What we should be talking about is sexual violence" full stop.

36:32 - IC: "My job to actively critique and push back on" the assault on women's rights. To ask "how do we send girls and boys out into the world ... with the resilience to respond" to corrosive messages about what it means to be masculine and feminine, and to be in relationship with one another?

Again, I find myself wondering where, in Flanagan's view of the world, is the trust that young people will know their own limits? Will grow and learn about themselves? Will say "no, I've had enough," or "that's not for me"? Why are parents depicted as the enforcers?

38:58 - CF: "If you're in a marriage and you're raising children that is the model they will follow." Um ... what about abusive families? What about kids who don't want their parents' marriage? What if a girl likes her dad, but actually wants a different sort of man as a sexual partner or ... gasp! ... a woman? Or both?

39: 35 - TA pushes back against CF's characterization of IC's childhood (THANK YOU). Again, CF uses loaded language like "unfettered" and "untrammeled" when talking about access to the Interwebs. "Parenting a teenager [is hard] ... now we need to be as vigilant and hardworking as when they were toddlers."

41:31 - CF: girls are asking "am I capable of being loving and loved by an adult man." ... um. hello? queer women? TA pushes back on the privilege bleeding all over this portrait of family life and CF places responsibility on the wife to keep marriage intact (I'm telling you: Flanagan needs to shack up with Krasnow and they can totally get off one one anothers' view of wifely responsibility).

42:08 - IC: CF has "nostalgic ideas about family" ... while she had a great two-parent home growing up, what "if one of my parents had happened to be abusive," or "incarcerated"? "You're setting up a value 'what do nice girls do'" as if they can create that whole world around themselves. Yet often things happen to us that are beyond our direct control.

43:48 - CF is pretty clearly blaming women for marrying jerks, arguing that we engage in "magical thinking" about how easy marriage is, and become "self-defeating" (I'm telling you: Krasnow/Flanagan is all I can see now, and I totally wish I could erase that from my brain).

44:28 - TA: "I don't know who's describing [marriage] as a crap shoot ...". I love how he's trying to be impartial, but is so clearly skeptical of Flanagan's hyperbole.

45:06 - CF: "It's a hardship to be raised without a father." And ... we're out.

Yeah, I know. It was a little like shooting fish in a barrel. But I had a glass of wine and needed to unwind for an hour. No need to thank me :).

Thankfully, no actual adolescent girls were harmed in the making of this blog post. Or boys either. Or folks who haven't decided what their gender is. I hope Flanagan's sons find their own way in the world, and learn to make up their own minds about what it means to be a guy. 'Cause frankly, their mother's picture of manhood is depressing as hell.

from the archives: historical games of telephone

I don't have the mental oomph this week for a thirty at thirty post, so I thought instead I'd offer you a little anecdote from the Reading Room of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It's a fascinating example of how historical sources can be unreliable, and knowledge with think we all know turns out to be factually far more complicated than it appeared at first glance.

via

Yesterday afternoon I took a call from a researcher who was looking to source a quotation about Horace Mann. The researcher gave the quote to me over the telephone as follows

Education really consists of a student on one end of a log and Horace Mann on the other end of the log.

The researcher wanted to find out who had said this. I took their contact information and this morning when I was in the Reading Room I spent some time digging around to see what I could find.


My first stop was the online version of Bartlett's Quotations, to look up any familiar quotations with "Horace Mann" in or associated with them, since this was my one concrete lead. (The MHS does, in fact, hold a large collection of Horace Mann papers, but since this was a quotation ostensibly about Mann rather than by Mann, I set aside the possibility of wading into those waters until later. Turns out this was a good call!). Bartlett's didn't yield anything. So I decided to begin by verifying the wording of the quotation via that wonderfully inexact crowd-sourcing tool known as The Internet.


I navigated to Google.com and typed in "education really consists of a student on one end of a log" and hit search.


Yes, Librarians do it too, and yes sometimes it can actually be an incredibly powerful entry-point for research of this kind.


What I discovered from scanning the first page of results for this phrase was that it wasn't Horace Mann whose name was most frequently associated with phrases along these lines, but a man named Mark Hopkins, who was the president of Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.) from 1836-1872.


Re-running my search with the "education..." phrase and "Mark Hopkins" took me to a Wikiquotes article on education, where the quotation is given as: "My definition of a University is Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and a student on the other," and the attribution is described thus:

Tradition well established that James A. Garfield used the phrase at a New York Alumni Dinner in 1872. No such words are found, however. A letter of his, Jan., 1872, contains the same line of thought.

I now had a tentative identification for the individual named in the quotation as well as a possible identification for the individual who had spoken the words.

via

A search in Google Books and the Internet Archive for various combinations of keywords from the above yielded some fascinating permutations of the elusive quote on education:


The January 1902 issue of the Western Journal of Education contains an address by one E.F. Adams in which he claims, “When President Garfield said that when Horace Mann was on one end of a log and himself on the other there was a university he expressed the spirit of the old education” (p. 18).

In a 1966 issue of the education magazine Phi Delta Kappan, Arthur H. Glogau again attributed the quotation to President Garfield and writes “Garfield once said that a rotten log, with Mark Hopkins on one end of it, and himself on the other, would be a university” (Vol 48, p. 404). The date for the quotation is given in this instance as 1885.

Mark Hopkins was one-time president of Williams College and apparently a former professor of Garfield’s. In a footnote concerning Hopkins in The Collected Prose of Robert Frost, the editor formulates the quote as: “The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student at the other” (p. 266).

Since none of these sources either quote Garfield directly or provide a citation to his own writing or speeches, I turned to our own catalog, ABIGAIL, and called for a biography of Garfield from our reference collection.

Unfortunately, this didn't exactly clear up the mystery.

Robert Granfield Caldwell’s James A Garfield: A Party Chieftain (1931), attributes the quote to another secondary source, B.A. Hinsdale’s President Garfield and Education (1882), and phrases it: “Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus and libraries without him” (p. 185). 


This citation appears to lead us back to a 4 February 1879 speech by Garfield before the National Education Association, the full text of which is reproduced in the Hinsdale publication. You can read it online at the Internet Archive. In his NEA address, Garfield articulated the idea in this way:

If I could be taken back into boyhood to-day, and had all the libraries and apparatus of a university, with ordinary routine professors, offered me on the one hand, and on the other a great, luminous, rich-souled man, such as Dr. Hopkins was twenty years ago, in a tent in the woods alone, I should say, ‘Give me Dr. Hopkins for my college course, rather than any university with only routine professors’ (338).

So now I have four dates upon which this sentiment was supposedly expressed (1871, 1872, 1879, and 1885) and as many venues (New York Alumni dinner, private correspondence, NEA address, and an unknown context for the 1885 attribution). 


What I find fascinating about all of these "quotations" is the aspects of the story that remain roughly constant: the presence of Hopkins, the image of one mentor and one student in dialogue, the language of wood: a log, a log bench, a rotten log, a tent in the woods. My speculative guess, based on the information I have in front of me, is that this was a well-worn anecdote that James Garfield told about his former professor in a number of settings, and that the image was such a striking one to his contemporaries that it was picked up and repeated over time with slight variation, like that game of telephone you're forced to play as a child at birthday parties where you whisper a message from ear to ear around the circle and see whether the end result bears any resemblance to the original phrase.

So there you have it: an hour or two in the life of a reference librarian. 

"The second vital smirch"

So last night I got a pingback on a book review I wrote earlier in the year at Harpyness of Stephanie Coontz' A Strange Stirring. Out of curiosity (who would be linking to a six-month-old post?) I clicked through. At first glance it appeared to be a book review of Judith Warner's Perfect Madness. At second glance it turned out to be a plagiarized version of my review of Judith Warner's Perfect Madness.

Well, sort of.

"mommy and baby are people of highly importance"
(click image to imbiggen)

As I started skimming the post, I realized that they hadn't quite plagiarized it ... they'd thrown it through a translation filter (or maybe several?) so that the result was complete gobbledygook. The whole site reads like it was put together by a robot with only a thin grasp of English.

It's just not worth going after them for stealing my post, because in actual fact their garbled version is much more colorful and entertaining than my own incisive analysis! I'm not going to link to the post because I'm philosophically opposed to sending traffic their way (though, *cough*cough*, you can find the ping-back on the Coontz review comment thread above ... they were foolish enough to leave the internal links intact from the original post ... bwahahahah!). However, I'm totally not above providing y'all with some Tuesday afternoon laughs.

My review reads:

Suddenly, living in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, Warner found herself with no critical distance on a culture that rewarded mothers for being entirely absorbed in, perfectionists at, a very particular type of mothering.

The plagiarized review reads:

Suddenly, vital in a Washington D.C. civil area, Warner found herself with no vicious stretch on a enlightenment that rewarded mothers for being wholly engrossed in, perfectionists at, a unequivocally sold form of mothering.

My review reads:

The second major flaw in Perfect Madness was the way Warner allows herself to make pretty harsh judgments about specific parenting choices.

The plagiarized review reads:

The second vital smirch in Perfect Madness was a proceed Warner allows herself to make flattering oppressive judgments about specific parenting choices.

My review reads:

Warner lays the blame for her sorrows at the feet of 'the culture wars' between social conservatives and feminists, whom she believes waste their energies on issues that are not of concern to the majority of Americans.

The plagiarized review reads:

Warner lays a censure for her sorrows at a feet of 'the enlightenment wars' between social conservatives and feminists, whom she believes waste their energies on issues that are not of regard to a infancy of Americans.

My review reads:

As a thirty-year-old woman in a lesbian relationship with no immediate plans to parent, I am not the demographic that Warner is writing about or writing for.  Even if I were to find myself a parent, the legacies of my own childhood in a fairly radical household and my own values system would preclude parenting the way the women in this book are parenting. Their values are, in many ways, decidedly not my values. And because of that, the experience of reading Perfect Madness felt voyeuristic at times. The study of lives and concerns at far remove from my own.

The plagiarized review reads (this might be my very favorite paragraph):

As a thirty-year-old lady in a lesbian attribute with no evident skeleton to parent, we am not a demographic that Warner is essay about or essay for.  Even if we were to find myself a parent, the legacies of my possess childhood in a sincerely radical domicile and my possess values complement would preclude parenting a proceed a women in this book are parenting. Their values are, in many ways, decidedly not my values. And given of that, a knowledge of reading Perfect Madness felt voyeuristic during times. The investigate of lives and concerns during distant mislay from my own.

My friend Lola has suggested that now she should qualify every introduction of me with "a lesbian attribute" as in, "this is Anna, a lesbian attribute." When we find out what I'm an attribute of you'll certainly be the first to know!

multimedia monday: "Americans only have children by accident"

The new House and Human Services classification of birth control as preventative medicine has the crazies at Fox News up in arms. Why? Stephen Colbert is on hand to explain: "If we give your daughters and granddaughters access to birth control they will instantly turn into wanton harlots with an insatiable sexual appetite!"

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Women's Health-Nazi Plan
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Via Feministing, RhRealityCheck and many others.

from the archives: fun with reenactment photography

Some things never change.

This passed week at the MHS, some colleagues and I posed for mock Victorian daguerreotype photographs to promote our new photography exhibit on the blog. Here I am with my awesome boss, Elaine:

Anna (standing) and Elaine (seated)
at the MHS, April 2011

(The shawls are courtesy of Hanna's mom Linda.)

When I sent the blog post to my mother she responded by digging out these photographs, circa. 1988, when we created our own mock portrait studio and spent an afternoon posing for Edwardian-era black and white photographs.

Yes, before you ask, we were indeed that sort of homeschooling family.

Anna (age 7)

Brian (age 4)

Maggie (age 1)

"all of the slurs we called each other were gender neutral"

May I say: Vag Magazine FTW!

Vag Magazine Episode 1: "Fumbling Toward Ecstasy" from Vag Magazine on Vimeo.

My latest issue of Bitch magazine contained an interview with two of the creators of the online serial "Vag Magazine," which follows the internal politics of a group of young women who have taken over a mainstream women's magazine in an effort to subvert the patriarchy.

Hilarity ensues. Hope y'all enjoy!

live-blogging "downton abbey" (episode no. 3)

It's a busy day at work today, folks, and I don't have time for an elaborate introduction / cross-post. Though I will say two things: 1) every line out of Maggie Smith's mouth continues to be pure gold and 2) if Bates the valet and Anna the housemaid fail to have some sexytimes -- or at least implied sexytimes -- by the end of the series, there will be serious dedespondency in our household. You can read our third live-blog of "Downton Abbey" over at ...fly over me, evil angel... and catch up with installments one and two there as well. Spoilers after the jump. You have been warned.

live-blogging "downton abbey" (episode no. 2)

Lady Mary prepares to be unwise in her flirtations.

Following up last week's live-blog of the first episode of Masterpiece Theater's "Downton Abbey,"

Hanna and I, along with our friend Minerva, gave a repeat performance last night for the second episode (we're halfway through the series, people! can you stand the drama?!)  You can read the whole blog post over at ...fly over me, evil angel....

Obviously Spoiler Warning: Downton Abbey, Episodes One and Two. Return after you've seen it if you don't want any plot points to be given away.

A few tantalizing tidbits ...

9.23: [as Bates and Anna giggle] M: Kiss. Each. Other. Please, honey! Make him drop the cane! I'm sorry; I need some smexy times! A: Yeah, he needs to grab her ass... M: There's a table right behind you!

9.24: [Harriet shows up] H: Go, Harriet! M: Oh, I like you!

9.25: [as Maggie shows up] M: Oh, Maggie -- I don't like you now! M: [as wife defends procedure] Oh, good for you! A: She [Maggie Smith] is so good at that "What? People are contradicting me?"-look.

9.26: [as procedure continues] M: Whoa -- that so ain't right! H&A: Hush!

And predictions for the second half ...

Halfway through the show! Guesses all 'round...

A: So the little redhaired girl is going to go off to be a secretary.

M: Bates and whatsherface need to come to some kind of agreement. Understanding.

A: Yeah.

H: Thomas needs...a shagging or a comeuppance...

M: Thomas is going to blackmail his way out of that house.

A: He's going to use that information to get himself leverage somewhere, somehow.

M: I do think it will backfire.

A: Yeah, he's going to try. I don't know what O'Brien wants...but she's going to be there with him.

M: Her motivation, other than being spiteful, is...

A: If she was acting as if the family was under threat...but she hates everyone!

M: I think she just wants to see people ruined.

A: It's a very malicious sort of...youngest daughter needs to find some sort of voice.

M: She's gettin' close. Middle daughter -- all middle daughter is going to end up a little shafted in this story.

A: Which is sad. But yeah. I want to see Maggie Smith and Harriet Jones...

H: Go at it. Oh, god, yes.

M: ...preferably in that little cottage parlor. Epic.

[General agreement and headnodding]

Head on over to Hanna's blog for the full post.

"live-blogging" downton abbey

Hanna and I, along with our friend Minerva, watched the first episode of Masterpiece Theater's "Downton Abbey" last night and live-blogged it for a post that Hanna put up this morning over at ...fly over me, evil angel....

Obviously Spoiler Warning: Downton Abbey, Episode One. Return after you've seen it if you don't want any plot points to be given away.

Because who doesn't want to see Maggie Smith
play Dowager Lady Crawley?

Rather than post the whole thing here, I'm sending the blog traffic her way. But here's a taste of the wit you have in store:

9.20: [Dowager Lady and Lady plotting to save money and estate] M: Granny is manipulative and awesome. A: Yeah, it would be a little frightening to be on her side -- but it would be frightening to be on the side that wasn't her!

9.21: [Daisy mooning over sulky footman] M: Daisy is going to end up in the family way... A: And not quite understand how it happened. H: Does she only have one dress? M: Yeah. She's so going to end up pregnant.

9.22: [lawyer and Lord discussing new heir] Oh god, not Manchester! A: The midlands! "There are worse professions." ".....Yes." M: Oh -- snap!

. . .

9.57: [Duke: "You might tell that footman I've gone up."] H: Well, you're not the game there, honey! M: God, how did women survive this time? H: Vibrators. A: I don't know if vibrators would solve their financial problems...

9.58: [Thomas kneels in front of Duke] Moment of stunned silence. A: This is like slash that gives you the 'no feeling.' M: ...this is still a little hot. This is like Upstairs, Downstairs with a gay twist! H: They're...quite sweet? M: Oh -- not sweet. H: Nope, not sweet. [as threats pass between footman, Duke] M: Oh, wait -- I feel some angry sex coming on...maybe not...maybe...awwww...no slashiness. A: Well, he was being a bit of a bastard. H: Yeah...Maurice without the nice ending. M: Wow... [as footman tries to master his emotions.] H: Yeah...kind of touching.

Read the rest over at ...fly over me, evil angel... and watch for the second installment next Monday.

friday fun: Jay Smooth on Christine O'Donnell's latest campaign ad

Hanna and I watched this on Wednesday night and were in tears. 'Cause really, he says it all. All that is wrong with this ad and all that is wrong with hard-core populism in American politics.

I'm all for a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to smartness, intelligence, credentials, etc. But I also don't think "common sense" is good enough, wise enough, to be an indication that we should trust someone with power.

Also: who wants to mess with the space-time continuum? Seriously!

No transcript seems to be available yet, but watch Ill Doctrine for an update on that front.

Happy Friday, folks! Have a good (hopefully three-day) weekend.

quick hit: defending one's manhood

My colleague, Jeremy, receives the print edition of The Atlantic magazine and I happened to notice, yesterday, the following query and response on the back page of the most recent issue (September 2010), in Jeffrey Goldberg's "What's Your Problem?" column.

I’ve noticed that The Atlantic has become very anti-male lately. My proof lies in recent articles by Sandra Tsing Loh, Caitlin Flanagan, and of course Hanna Rosin, whose July/August cover story, “The End of Men,” argued that men will no longer be necessary as our economy changes. How do you protect your manhood while working at a magazine that is so hostile to men?

P. W., Chicago, Ill.

Dear P. W.,

I take active countermeasures to protect myself against the rampant feminization of The Atlantic. For instance, I eat only what I kill, except for sandwiches from Potbelly, which are killed by someone else. I also chop down the trees that provide the paper on which this magazine is printed, using only an extremely dull axe and my signature bad-ass attitude. Other prophylactic measures I employ include hiring Chuck Norris as a guest blogger, and then firing him, by fax, for being insufficiently manly; and using actual prophylaxis, in the form of a full-body condom I wear to protect myself from the effects of airborne estrogen. I also refuse to participate in the mandatory office-wide “All Guys Have to Wear Jimmy Choos on Fridays” morale-building exercise. And though I was ultimately forced to appear in The Atlantic’s staging of The Vagina Monologues, I purposefully delivered an indifferent performance as Eve Ensler’s labia.

As a feminist, I feel honor-bound to point out that Sandra Tsing Loh, Caitlin Flanagan, and Hanna Rosin are, in fact, often very anti-man (the scene from Parenthood where Dianne Wiest's character says to her daughter, just as her young son walks into the room, "Men are such jerks!" comes to mind) they are often anti-woman as well. Or rather, they tend to subscribe to very gender-essentialist concepts of what it means to be a man or a woman, neither of which serve human beings all that well.

The idea that being anti-male, anti-manhood, and "hostile to men" are all roughly equivalent positions is a fallacy anyway. As a feminist, I'm fairly anti-"womanhood" (since womanhood, in our culture, is a very specific type of cultural performance) and yet hardly anti-women or hostile to women as human beings. Nor do I have a problem with female-bodied persons.

Which is all to say, I love the way Goldberg plays up all the stereotypes of masculinity in his response. Because really, it's about the level of attention all of those articles -- and the concern they seem to have sparked -- deserve.

comic of the week

From the always-on-pitch xkcd.


Presented without further comment.

friday fun: homophobes not welcome!

As previously mentioned, my sister and her boyfriend just moved to Austin, Texas and by all accounts it is an awesome place. Here's something that makes it a little more awesome. I'll let my sister tell the story.

I wrote this in a bathroom at a cafe a week ago on a chalkboard (meant for customer use).

^{blackboard reads: My sister is bisexual. I come from a tiny town that hates homosexuality. THANK YOU, Austin for accepting all people [heart] MRC.}

Today, I went back. Under is someone wrote, "well, we don't really support homophobes, so you're welcome."

I thought that was a grand response.

Happy Friday everyone. Spread the love :).

espresso AND a puppy: the consequences of free-range children?

Via my friend Laura comes this warning from a coffee shop in L.A., posted online at The Consumerist.


I'm going to admit up front I find this funny. I think it's a fairly light-hearted way to ask parents to be aware of their children in public, crowded spaces. And remind them not to assume that baristas and/or store clerks and/or other customers are available for free childcare. As a person who used to work at Barnes & Noble, I've experienced first-hand the frustration of adults who came in with the clear intention of dumping their kids in the children's area and then going to meet their friends for an extended coffee klatch at the Starbucks across the store. It's one thing to believe that "it takes a village to raise a child" (I do believe young people are our collective responsibility) and another thing to demand that "the village" suddenly add childcare to their list of work-related responsibilities.

There's a big difference between asking a barista to politely take an order for chocolate milk from a three-year-old and asking them to supervise a gaggle of small people roughousing on the coffeehouse furniture. As Laura said to me in a follow-up email,

Whenever people ask me to take care of their children, I try to make it clear that they may not like the results. After thinking through this child-hate controversy for a long time (via your blog and elsewhere), I have come up with [the point that] us haters don't actually hate children, we hate the parents. The parents who don't respect their children or other people enough to to teach/guide/discipline their children within responsible boundaries. My own personal experience with this is primarily in stores and on the T [Boston subway], both places where it can be dangerous not to monitor children. Plus, I think most everyone could do with a teaching moment on respect, politeness, and kindness, and I think it's a real problem that some parents think their children can't learn it, or it will be stifling to their creative spirit to learn it. I mean, children are smart, you can teach them appropriateness in different circumstances.

To go back to the episode of My Family I wrote about for mother's day, when Ben and Susan (the parents) are trying to speak with another couple about that couple's son's bullying behavior toward Ben and Susan's youngest child. The parents of the bully are self-proclaimed advocates of "free range" children, which in their minds equates to being completely hands-off and allowing their child to run rough-shod over other young people. I have first-hand experience with this kind of parenting philosophy, which basically assumes that children should work out problems among themselves. What I find suspicious about this philosophy is that a) the parents espousing it are more often then not the parents of children who benefit from the playground hierarchy, rather than parents of victims; and b) it side-steps the question of how children are going to learn -- particularly in a culture that's so age-segregated as ours, where children spend the majority of their time with their age-mates -- the skills to mediate and problem-solve. These are skills even adults with years of practice struggle with, and yet we assume children will magically acquire them?

I sense a disconnect.

Which is why I come back to observation "a": radically hands-off parents* are more often than not bullies themselves, advantage-takers who are more than willing to step over others more vulnerable then themselves (whether it's a polite stranger they cut in front of in the coffee line, or a colleague at work they systematically undermine, or a spouse whom they bully Hyacinthe style). They believe the world is a cut-throat, take-no-prisoners place in which their children will need to learn how to come out on top if they are to survive.

I realize I've wandered far away from "espresso and a puppy" here. I think what's fascinating to me about the question of attended/unattended children in public spaces (and the related question of what type of "attending" said children require) is that rarely do we stop to assess what the stakeholders in the situation really need and how we might best arrange our public spaces in order to accommodate those needs. And I use the rather social-sciencey term "stakeholder" here as an umbrella term that encompasses all people involved: coffee shop employees, customers with children, customers without children, customers who are children ... how often do we stop and ask, when there is a perception of a problem (i.e. unattended children) what the actual problem is, and how it might be fixed. It's a possibility that rowdy, neglected children are symptomatic of something deeper, and that requiring children to be "attended" won't necessarily fix that issue -- which will manifest in some other way down the road.

Still, points to the sign-creators for naming the symptom at least -- if not the cure. And doing it in a fairly benign fashion at that, with a clear sense of humor. I particularly appreciate that the consequences of the percieved problem, in this case, are couched in terms of consequences for the parents (your kid's gonna learn the word "fuck"! and acquire a taste for coffee!) rather than abuse toward the children themselves, who are still learning, growing, and practicing what it means to be part of the social fabric of the world.

*Again, to be distinguished from parents who respect their children as human beings and care for them with unconditional love, something that is often also referred to as "free range parenting." That's a post for another day.

from the archive: "the librarian's image"

I'm processing a collection at Northeastern donated by Michael Meltsner, one of the faculty at the School of Law. On an op-ed page from the New York Times, 13 October 2003, I came across the following letter to the editor.

To the Editor:

Your Oct. 9 Arts pages article about the librarian action figure modeled on Nancy Pearl referred to librarians who found the figure offensive as the ''humorless reaches of librarianship.'' A number of my colleagues have taken offense at being described as such. We are opposed to the action figure not because we are ''humorless'' but because it perpetuates a stereotype that is demeaning to our profession.

Perhaps public librarians are not directly affected by the dowdy librarian stereotype, but as law librarians we provide library services to some of the most prestigious firms in the country and must maintain a professional image.

The librarian doll with the ''amazing push-button shushing action'' damages the professional image that we have worked so hard to achieve.

TANIA DANIELSON

Port Washington, N.Y., Oct. 9, 2003

I think it's the second to last paragraph that really takes the cake. I'm fascinated by the way it combines a total lack of willingness to enjoy the light-hearted, self-depricating humor embodied by the action figure -- not to mention the way the action figure is an ironic commentary on the stereotype she's unhappy with -- and professional snobbery at the expense of public librarianship. I mean really: who in their right mind disses public librarians? I guess now we have our answer!

Given that this was a random letter to the New York Times from seven years ago, I'm not really out to slam Ms. Danielson for what I sincerely hope are now outdated sentiments! But I was really impressed by the elitism this letter was saturated with, and I'm amusing myself on this stifling hot Monday in June by re-posting it here.

PSA: Diplomas are Tools of Satan!!!

Via Hanna comes this awesome sign from the blog Engrish Funny.



The text on the sign reads:

Diploma Is A Tool of Satan
Diplomas and academic status are Satan’s tools of oppression
To obtain them, students have come slaves to the education systems of the human kingdoms
We are honorable children of God
We need not subject ourselves to their system
….. being affirmed by God.

Thank you all for reading and enjoy your Saturday!

"our tea party has cookies!"

Right-wing celebrity of the moment (a girl can hope, yeah?) Sara Palin appeared in Boston this past Wednesday, April 14th, for a whinge session with the Tea Party movement folks (there are even some here in Boston, who knew?) who are pissed about possibly getting better health care and all. So a group of gentle souls decided to hold a polite counter-protest in the form of an actual tea party. The kind where you dress up and have biscuits.



These tea partiers dressed to the nines (or at least the four-and-a-halves) and carried pretty signs with such slogans as

"Tea Drinkers for Civilized Discourse"

"Impoliteness does not bring peace."

"Our tea party has cookies!"

and

"There is no trouble so great or grave that it cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea" (courtesy of philosopher Bernerd-Paul Heroux).

Hanna and I were unfortunately both working and unable to make the occasion (not to mention our lack of proper attire!) but a couple of folks who did make it have posted pictures on Flickr, the photo-sharing site, which are a joy to behold.

Have a lovely weekend, one and all.

*image credit: Parasol! made available by pensive.wombat @ Flickr.com.