Packaging Girlhood

Packaging Girlhood is a really interesting blog that dissects the things that are advertised to girls, both in terms of the products themselves and the subtle messages those things send. I do not necessarily agree with everything that this blog highlights, but it is important that feminists think about the way young girls are taught certain ideas about their career opportunities, bodies and other issues, and that we combat the ideas that oppress women by offering positive, empowering images and ideas to girls at the beginning of their lives.

Cute Boys with Cats

I must admit that I really love cats. So I really love this sweethearted blog, Cute Boys with Cats. And its title is basically all you need to know: photographs of boys and cats. My current favorite picture is of these two, sleeping. I love how the cat is named after Oscar Wilde and they are both in the same position.

Quilts and Feminism

There is this lovely blog post from the National Museum of American History on their quilt collection. The posted video has some wonderful examples and talks about quilts. At one point, they even call quilts a kind of "sandwich," which is hilarious and cute. I also love the detail of how women rejected men, called "giving him the mitten."
Even though I am myself not a quilter, I am a feminist. In Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, talks about how creative expression for women has been historically limited. Despite this obvious problem of this, Walker asks her readers to see things, including quilts, which she explicitly mentions, as a way for women to creatively expressed themselves, especially women of color. The blog post does not mention Walker, unfortunately, but it does note the use of quotes as a source of history, specifically a source of history of women.

A Museum of One's Own

For those of you who regularly read this blog, I am a museum nerd. I love going and sometimes even review them. I also am a feminist, and I love the idea of a National Women's History Museum. Women's history is an essential part of history, but one that is often forgotten or marginalized. Men frequently wrote the primary sources that historians pull from and since most societies were patriarchies, this meant that women stories often went untold, and if they were, they were from a male view.
A museum is a great way to celebrate and educate museum-goers on the achievements and struggles of American women. Even though there are a few women-centic museums and homes, like the National Museum for Women in the Arts, women have made achievements in other fields too, and despite a few (male) senators beliefs women are all about reproduction and thus a museum is not necessary.

"Willy Loman: A Cataloge Poem"

Joel E. Jacobson recently published "Willy Loman: A Cataloge Poem" on his blog.
I really like the idea of writing a poem from the perspective of a literary character, or any character for that matter. Robert Browning famously perfected the idea of writing poems as monologues from characters who defined themselves as the poem progressed, particularly in his poems "My Last Duchess" and "Fra Lippo Lippi."
I love the phrase "faded like a bad TV show." That's a great description.
I also love the image at the end of this poem, where the miscellaneous material of capitalism creates a self-annihilating device. Nice.

Bill Idol and Lil' Wayne

I've been blogging and tweeting for Arthur all about mashups lately. I love this smaller, simpler piece, mashing up Bill Idol's "Rebel Yell" vocals with Birdman and Lil' Wayne. I love Idol's "Rebel Yell" and it really changes the song to hear a hip hop beat over it.

"Gypsy" Costume

I really love this dress that was posted on a blog of historical costumes I like, but I was a little sad about her use of the word "gypsy."  That word is usually considered racist, as they prefer the Roma. 
They are still an ethnic group that exists today, and they are often treated terribly.  A great example of this is France's recent expulsion of them.  (I'm not impressed with this article's use of the word gypsy either, but it gives a short history of their diaspora, similar in some ways to the Jewish diaspora, the major difference being if a country kicked out all their Jews, the international community would make more noise about it.)

The New Titanic

According to my fellow blogger Enchanted Serenity, Julian Fellows has penned the new version of Titanic coming out.

What I find really funny about this is the structure of the story. Basically, Fellows is going to be telling the stories of all the different kinds of people on the ship, which is fine, but that's basically what Downton Abbey, Fellows latest (and a megahit) did, only it did so in a house, not a ship. This is also basically the structure of two other recent British dramas, Upstairs Downstairs (both the old and new versions) and Gosford Park.

Fellows never creates a story solely about the lower classes and he insists on making the upper classes completely nice to their servants, even though there's more evidence that they were cruel and exploitative. Lots of British dramas have been great because they tell the stories of the poor. The stories of Charles Dickens are often about the working class and how their exploited.

Gothic Dress

If you've been reading this blog, you've realized by now I'm a totally history nerd.  I love the everyday details of people's lives.  Lately, it seems like I've been stumbling on blogs dedicating to historical clothing and people who make replica costumes.  One of my recent favorites is this cute little number.  There's something strangely Gothic about it.  I could easily see one of the female characters from a Gothic romance wearing this, or maybe even Catherine from Northanger Abbey. 

Art and Pretention

You may have noticed, if you regularly check out this blog, that I'm an art nerd. I'm hesitant to claim the word artist because, although I dabble, I don't think I'm especially good. (And not so much doing it for the product as I am the process.) So I love it when someone actually explains to me what is the what in art. Today, we have the difference between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Although they are similar, I really needed someone to show me the difference, as I'm sure I'll need to be pretentious enough to explain this to someone someday.
(If you're wondering: the picture to the right is art nouveau.)

Marketing Ninja Cuts to the Quick

I'd like to welcome my friend Antonio to blogger. Even though he's had a blog for a while, he's only recently started blogging, mostly on The Marketing Ninja. Antonio is a very good (and old) friend of mine, and I'm hoping his blog takes off.
My favorite post so far? This one on the search engine developments of Yahoo. As a researcher, I'm always looking to optomizwe my searching capabilities because it means wasting less time going through mindless drivel and more time looking at the useful stuff. I would totally like to see Yahoo take on qualities that make it easier to filter things out that I don't want or need.

National Museum of the American Indian

Most people use Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday as a free day off. And maybe I'm just in the wrong circles, but I never hear of a rally or other events/ideas to celebrate King's legacy and life. This year I wanted to do something specifically to celebrate him, to educate myself and to think about the future of people of color.
What I ended up doing is going to the National Museum of the American Indian. I realize, of course, that King was African American, but King was not fighting for just civil rights for African Americans, and his cause inspired other people of color to demand justice and equality. If King had survived his shooting, he would probably be proud to see his words inspire other activists fighting for other minorities.
Moreover, I feel like I have a personal blind spot when it comes to Native American culture. Not on purpose, of course, but I do not know much about the differences between nations. So going to this museum was an attempt to spend some time, in honor of King's work, educating myself. I wanted to post some pictures I took and share some of the assorted thoughts I had.

The first floor of the museum had this wonderful collection of everyday items Native Americans made. Obviously, this is a bowl. (I am having trouble discerning my notes, but I believe this is from either the Lakota or Dakota. At the very least, it's Sioux.) The artist who created this did a great job capturing the animal's likeness.


This is a set of playing cards. After having contact with Westerns, Native Americans adopted some of their games and changed them. Games were also played by Native Americans to settle clan disputes, which made me think about how some Southern African people would use poetry as a way to battle one another without actually shedding blood.

I believe this is a cribbage game.


The dramatic lighting in the museum. The museum is located in a historical, Beaux-Arts building.

A more modern piece of art the greets you when you first walk in the museum.
There were a lot of omissions at this museum. I realize most people do not want to talk about the issues affecting living Native Americans, like all the problems that plague reservations, but there was not even a discussion of the horrible things that happened to Native Americans as part of the U.S. attempts to "civilize" them, just brief mentions here and there of them being moved against their will to places like Oklahoma. This is a huge gap in history to ignore, and important one.
I also wish there was some discussion of what modern life for Native Americans is like. There was art from contemporary Native Americans (which was very cool), but it had muted political quality, and a fair amount of it, displayed in another context and without information, could have been seen as non-political art.
I have more pictures on Flikr and I wrote a longer review of the museum on my review blog.

Riding Side Saddle

Edwardian Promenade has another interesting post, this time about riding side saddle.  One of the things the post mentions is that it took a long time before riding skirts were designed with safety in mind.  Before that, it was common for women to get dragged by their horses.  The history of clothing is littered with stories of clothes that privileged a certain aesthetic for women over their own health and safety, and the fact that horse draggings went on for centuries before a solution was found is really sad.  Women were literally dying just to wear socially acceptable clothes. 
It's hard not to wonder about some of our own choices today and think about how they are privileging an aesthetic over health and safety.  For example, women (more so then men) get surgery to change their appearance, and although many of these procedures happen without complications, problems can arise.  Is this really what we want for women and men?  To feel compelled to change their bodies or put their bodies at risk just for other people?  Do we really want them to feel like they're getting dragged by a  horse?

The Covers of Kurt Vonnegut

Good Show Sir is the interesting blog which collects all the worst science fiction book covers out there. The first time I looked at this blog, I was amused to see the latest post featured a book I myself had.
Lately though they posted a Kurt Vonnegut cover. I love Vonnegut, but this cover is indeed bad. (Though I've seen worse on the like of Battlefield Earth.) Mostly, I feel like there should be a category called When Bad Covers Happen to Good Authors.
One of the things I don't think people realize is that writers do not necessarily get a lot of say over covers, especially if they're getting published with a big press. Sometimes writers will get to pick one cover out of a few acceptable choices, but that's it.
Don't despair for Vonnegut: his cover for Jailbird actually looks really nice.

In Other Skies

Continuing on a theme, last night I came across the work of Ainsley E, who has her own blog called In Other Skies. It's a design blog, which I really love. Design blogs basically collect cool images, usually around ideas or themes, and post them. I like Ainsley's taste. Just a small peak at her blog brings up cool links to places like OK Great, Design for Mankind, Adam Simpson and automatism.
What I like about design blogs is that, if you check one regularly, it's a nice way to put a little art in your day, especially for me, who doesn't always get a lot of visual art as part of a healthy creative diet. (I do rather well in terms of written form of art, but sometimes slide on the other things.) So maybe I'm going to have to follow these blogs a little more closely, if only because it's good for me.
In the meantime, I went out there looking for something that I thought was beautiful, and this is what I found. I like it when people do interesting, unexpected things to their homes. Who expects to walk in a bedroom and find something as lovely as this?

Elemental

The best blogs are the ones with strange ideas.  This one is about blogging the Periodic Table of Elements. 
This blog is great because it gives so many interesting facts about things.  For example, did you know Lewis and Clark traveled with mercury-laced tablets?  They were used to help track down where Lewis and Clark had stayed on their expedition.  That antimony was studied by Newton in an attempt to make gold?  That a form of that same element was used by Egyptian women as eyeliner? 
The only thing that troubled me was that the author mentioned that he used to play with mercury, which struck me as one of the unsafe things to do.  When I was in high school, someone broke a massive barometer in my chemistry lab, and we were out for days and someone cleaned it all up. 
The author also has a really cool looking book about it called The Disappearing Spoon. 

Summer Reading Program

Like all book junkies, I love a good library. And, like so many things, you never forget your first.
The local library that I grew up in has a lot of memories for me. I went to storytime here as a kid. I ran around the garden. I saw my first butterflies up close when a woman came in to do a show about them. I surfed the Internet back in the day when people were still using that phrase.
When I got a little older, I started volunteering at the library. As a kid, they had a Summer Reading Program, and I participated. It only seemed fair, at around twelve or fourteen, to start helping out, since I had enjoyed it back then. Over the years, I've gone back on occasion to put some more time in, since this library has sentimental value and because it's a good way to get a sense of what's happening in YA literature.
I signed up for a few times to volunteer this summer. I'm reluctant to take too many times, as of right now, since a lot of teenagers use the volunteer time to get into things like NHS. But I signed up for a few times throughout the coming weeks.
Year to year, not much changes at the Summer Reading Program. The idea of the program is to reward and encourage reading by elementary school kids throughout the summer. Volunteers man a table and record each student's reading. Every time they come in, they get at least one prize. Usually prizes are something small, like a yo-yo or a toy unicorn or temporary tattoos. For an adult, this would just be junk, but for a small child, this is a big deal. These kids then want to work for more prizes and keep reading. At the end of the program, we tally up the information. Kids who read the most get an extra prize. And we record what schools have the most kids participate and which schools read the most.
I do a couple of things. I man the desk and talk to kids about their books (we're suppose to ask them if they liked what they read.) Sometimes I work on Wednesdays, when there's a special guest, and the library is packed, and extra volunteers are needed to deal with everything. And then, this last summer, they asked me to find a way to combine all the data we got.
Easy, I thought. And it was. I just made a spreadsheet. After all the time I've spent at the Offbeat and the Red Cedar Review and the Center for Poetry, spreadsheets are a perfect way to organize data. So I've done that now for them too.
We talked last year about making a zine for the teens, but none of the teens were interested in writing or anything like that. Maybe we'll try again this year. Or we'll find something else fun to do. I've been wondering if they would like to make book trailers, which have become popular, or even start a blog.

Poetry Reviews

Today is another Red Cedar Review day. On Wednesday, we began looking through old editions of the journal. We're publishing an anniversary issue with content from the last fifty years of material. It's a lot to go through, which is why we're starting now.
One of my jobs as the poetry editor is to condense all the reviews in one easy-to-read excel sheet. I'm a master at making one of those, and I just finished the first draft. It feels satisfying to be able to see that we already are making headway on this project.
I'm not working on this project alone. Gavin Craig, who use to work for The Red Cedar Review began a blog archive of all our work (as well as other literary magazines.) When my poetry readers have sloppy writing, I can just look up the correct spelling of something on there. The only thing I don't like about this is that I can't add notes to his notes about the journal.
For example, Jane Vincent Taylor published a poem with us in 2000. She's since become a more notable poet and her book What Can Be Saved is amazing. She also has other great poems, like "Ice Broken". I got to meet her when I was a sophomore, and she's lovely. I want to note her contribution in the blog.
Also, I noticed that we have published Carrie Preston several times. I initially noted this because she was the former editor of the journal, and I think we should consider asking the former staff members who have gone on to become writers to come back at the issue release party. On a lark, I googled her. Turns out she's a poet and academic now. She has published other poetry too. Now I have another note and something to tell Emily and Ashley, our current editors.
Actually, I wanted to mention to Emily and Ashley that, as long as I have access to a computer, I can continue to contribute to the group over the summer. This summer, a group of staffers is going to go through the archive and digitalize everything. I believe it will be available on ProjectMuse. I was thinking, if I and other readers have access to those journals as they are digitized, we could continue to read and review them, which would allow us to have a lot work done before the school term starts up. I think this might be a great idea, especially since it'll allow me to stay involved in the project longer than I thought I would otherwise be able to.