Ebony & Irony: Irony Hits You Like a Punch In the Face
Today’s quote of the day greeted me on my iGoogle home page, and I was immediately hit with its in-your-face irony. Like a punch to the face. In a fun sort of way.
Computer games don’t affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music.
- Marcus Brigstocke
Uh, sir, many of us often times find ourselves in darkened rooms, drained of emotion, of all mental capacity. Our society does encourage popping pills as therapy to stem the tides of social and mental disorders. And our mainstream music stations are rampant with overwhelmingly similar, regurgitated styles that nothing is truly original anymore. On another hand–yet in the same vein–some of the biggest hits of the last couple of decades featured simple chord progressions, repetitive melody lines. I.e., Nirvana, Weezer, Rhianna (oh boy, talk about repetitive and simple melody!), and even decades back.
And we’re slowly yet surely starting to become aware of this netherworld of netizens on MMO games like World of Warcraft and social games like Second Life, which spawn Other Lives of people who refuse to fully embrace living in THIS one, the real world, with real face-to-face interactions. People marry in WoW and in Second Life, causing obsessions which often lead to addiction and, sometimes, even violence. (Hey, the first ever internet addiction clinics were for people who were too obsessed with WoW that they forgot that the physical, interactive world still existed outside of their computers.)
What do you mean the kids aren’t alright? Sure they are. Or they aren’t. Either way, they’re all a-Twitter about it. They’ll tell you everything they’re feeling in every sordid Facebook status update, down to the steamy, emo details. They’ll photo whore their every activity on Yfrog or Twitpic or DailyBooth.com. If they’re feeling depressed, you’ll be sure that they’ll be atop the timeline of the #depression trend topic.
And parents, where are they? They’re busy on their crack berries themselves. So there’s Wii and PSPs to occupy their kids. Don’t mind when their five year old gets brain cancer when he’s fifteen. At least he had something to do when he was a kid, right?
I’m pretty sure videogames and all digital media are inedibly tied to our new society. These devices and programs are the new way to entertain and communicate, and they are here to stay.
I can’t rid myself from Twitter and my 30+ tweets a day. I’m not going to try.
Gratitudinousness
Edit: Another thing for which I am grateful.
Score!! @Shopruche is having a sale through Monday! 15% using this code: 
Be Grateful.
Today we celebrate Thanksgiving. And though I’m not a born American, like a true modern American youth, the historical significance in a way, is lost on me. I’m the indulgent, self-absorbed super consumer like most kids my age in this great nation of ours.
But today is special. Today is the measly one day out of three hundred and sixty five, that we set aside to ponder (I would hope) on things that we should be grateful for having.
We are a blessed, privileged and powerful country. And though there are many flaws, many people suffering all over this country, all of us as a whole enjoy a more charmed, comfortable life than most people in the developing (AND developed) world. It should not be so much to ask of ourselves to be content and thankful that we live in this great nation, have what we have, and enjoy the freedoms our ancestors emigrated to this country for… for what they came here and helped build so that we could have even more than they ever did…
2009 was kind of a bum year and a great year for me. And in the end, those losses are easily trumped by the many wonderful and many mundane things that in the end, still make my life incredible.
1. I have a very, very nice roof over my head and I live in extreme comfort.
2. I finally graduated university after struggling with night school and full-time work for 8.5 years. (HS grad class of 2000.)
3. I have a stable, okay paying job, despite working for people I dislike–in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the entire country!
4. My husband N is the most caring, motivating, kindest, supportive, giving, diligent, understanding significant other I’ve ever had. He pushes me to be a better person every single day–because he knows that is who I am underneath all the prickly, whiny, fashion-starved exterior layers.
5. My family is loving, close-knit and supportive of whatever I do. They haven’t always been, but have incredibly become, a loving, warm safety net, emotionally and fiscally.
6. I got married!
7. I live a very, very, comfortable life, where I can still stay afloat financially, pay my bills and still manage to buy a few luxuries every now and then.
8. My friends, despite the distance that separates us, are still the most important people in my life–and they are epically generous, loving and thoughtful.
9. I have the most adorable hoodlum dog on the planet. (You may not agree. Sorry, I beg to differ!)
There are many other things for which I am blessed, but I have rambled on and on.
For what are you grateful?
It is through adversity that the people can shine. It is through trial and tribulation that our resilience becomes brilliance. And it is through hardship that we learn, grow and enhance. Even the crappiest things in life should never be taken for granted!
You’re alive. (And, if you read this blog, one can assume you have somewhere comfortable to read the internet, which means you have a computer, probably in a home you rent or own or live in, and you probably have a safe, somewhat comfy life… another thing to be grateful for!) Thank the powers that be (God, Allah, Vishnu, The Void, The Universe, whatever!) that you are and have.
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Go on! Read on!
Be sure to check out my list of recent loves–I am grateful for them!
Maeko Loves #1.
And take a trip with me through a magical “Saturday in the Life”!
Weekending.
On relationships
In response to a post on rialeilani.com, on whether men and women can be friends.
Growing up, I was of the opinion, that yes, of course girls and boys could socialise exclusively, have close personal friendships with each other without romantic feelings boiling up or any implications between the two.
Then, I went off to college and got a sweetheart who had trust issues, and then it wasn’t so true for me.
I’m going to have to expound on that one.
That girls and boys could be friends still held true between the two parties involved in the actual friendship. Most of my friends my first year of uni were all boys. I got along better with them. At that point in my life, I had way more commonalities with the nerdy, geeky, comic book and animé fanboys than I did with any of the frilly girly girls around campus. Boys didn’t judge me for liking the things I did, and it gave me a sense of identity to cleave to this group of people who accepted me and validated me because we all shared the same hobbies, which most of the girls on campus had absolutely no interest in. There were no problems between me and the guys I grew close to.
The problem lay singularly with my new sweetheart. He grew up in the shadow of his best friend, and that fragile, stupid ego became the proverbial thorn in my side, the pebble in the shoe of every pairing of guy friends I had. That asshole would feel threatened by any boy I grew close to, because he felt his hold on me, or his significance in my life slipping cruelly away with each agonising minute I spent with any male who wasn’t him. I couldn’t have friendships with boys because the boy who I was sleeping with, and who I was in love with couldn’t be in love with himself.
His lack of self-confidence manifested itself in distrust, jealousy and possessiveness.
I must have sensed it early on. I fucked up. I cheated on him, which furthered the issues between u s. I kissed someone else, someone who had that confidence and joie de vivre I was missing. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to splinter whatever had grown in my boyfriend.
Over the course of the next two years, he would often resort to spying, going through my emails, my cell phone history. He would write me love letters, and then later revoke them, pick fights with me about all the guys I would hang out with.
Now see here, you can’t pick on me… I definitely earned a measure of distrust when I cheated on him. However, I made efforts of huge proportions to include him on my friendships. I would bring him to meals with my friends, I intro’d him to all my friends, and made sure they knew each other well. I would often call him in the middle of my conversations to let him know where I was and who I was with, which was a severe disservice to my pals–a rude move which I would never do now. When that didn’t work, I eventually had to prove to him that I loved him by dumping all my guy friends. That should have been the first and only red herring that he wasn’t right for me…. but some immature desire to marry the first guy I had sex with overwhelmed whatever fledgling sense of logic I might have had at the time.
Because of him, I felt that friendships with someone of the opposite sex weren’t possible.
And in those cases, no. When there is a third party involved, a third party that has a serious lack of self-awareness, confidence and true love, men and women cannot be friends. And in those cases where the third party is such a person, why is the girl or boy dating them in the first place?
I come from a world of believing that in order to truly love others without avarice, dishonesty and disrust, one must love himself completely, and whole-heartedly.
If one cannot do that, it will ruin other people’s lives.
And I don’t think couples should be joined at the hip and do everything together. Men and women who complete each others sentences, spend every waking minute together, dress like each other and have no interests outside the other person have no identity. They define themselves by their significant other, effectively having absorbed their S.O.’s personality into themselves, losing whatever unique qualities they had prior to their relationship.
It is as imperative for any person’s well-being to have good, close friendships of the opposite sex (or the same sex if the couple is not hetero) as it is to have friends of the same sex outside of the relationship. These people balance you out and can provide a perspective not clouded by judgement, a more objective, fresh opinion that can shed light on convolutions and conflicts that couldn’t otherwise be seen. Harmony and balance comes from diversity, not from similarity. When you have too much of the same thing, the scales tip too far in one direction.
I think it is important to the honour and stability of the relationship, however, to always include your significant other in on your friendship. It is disrespectful to your love to wholly exclude them from any friendships that occur outside your unit of 2. Even if your S.O. is completely trusting, and secure in themselves, keeping your friendships to yourself is selfish and invites discord. This is where communication is key.
I got lucky in a few ways*. I found out my ex was a fucktard, and I broke up with him. I also learned that self-esteem is an extremely sharp double edged sword, and if both of you aren’t confident and loving of yourselves, then both of you get gutted.
I’d say, 50/50 times, men and women can be friends without any of that romantic smantic crap bubbling up between the two. Other times, however, one of the parties involved sometimes develops an interest in the other, because he or she happens to kick ass. If both are single, cha-ching, fucking go for it. But if not, it is the responsibility of those two people to do the respectful thing to their girlfriends and boyfriends and kick the relationship down a notch or two. Hey, it’s not your fault you fucking rock, but if you’re really a good, loving friend to the other person, you back the fuck off. Because, believe it or not, your friendship with someone actually means you get 2 for the price of 1, even if you only wanted 1. Sorry, that’s how it goes. The significant other is always involved, whether in person or not.
*Thank God I went through that horrible relationship. It taught me a fuckload about what good relationships must be like, and now I have one.
Super Bitchy Monday: Your Car’s Fat, Ugly and Old, and It Looks Just Like You.
I’m not necessarily in the worst of moods today, actually, but there are a few things that riled me today: mostly when one of my favourite bloggers wrote a bitchy letter to an old friend, it kind of awakened this Last Frakking Nerve feeling I’ve been wanting to fry.
Dear American Public,
Yes, it is your fault that we’re in this hot fucking mess.
Yes, there I said it. It’s the American public’s fault.
GM’s going to bust, and you’re going to bitch about it, but guess what? It’s your fucking fault they failed. Wanna know why?
You had this stupid ass fucking insatiable need for monster cars that performed harder, went faster, made more noise and were bigger than everyone else’s on the block. No, I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about your greed and lust for monster machines that out-performed the modest and tiny vehicles across the pond. So, because of your thirst for power, GM and Chrysler and Ford invested in machining technology that created bigger cars and used more precious fuel. And now that you’re clamouring about GM not deserving any bail out money because they failed to understand the need for more consevative fuel consumption, you’re full of crap and you should shove it up your H2’s tail pipe with the 9MPG and 9Point IQ you’ve got. It’s YOUR FUCKING FAULT.
You bought their shitty cars, so they continued to make them. Until you decided to go trendy and smaller… Couldn’t you have been a bandwagoner sooner? Shit.
AND, you elected Reagan, who effectively pressed the delete key on all of Jimmy Carter’s aggressive fuel conservation and green initiatives literally as soon as his ass hit the leather chair in the oval office. So… uh, yeah. Your fault.
AIG? Well, let’s see, I’m not an economist, but if you elect a bunch of beaurocrats who like to re-write oversight policies so that financial institutions like AIG and Bank Of America and Countrywide could invest and deal with risky business ventures, then yeah, I can say again, the financial pickle the US is in, is mostly a lot of the public’s fault.
Well, maybe I’m reaching on that one.
Probably.
But about this here housing credit crunch…. this is some people’s fault. Not just from predatory lenders on innocent people who just wanted to buy a house. Not all borrowers were innocent.
Some people who were fresh outta college and making $34k a year decided that they could get a $400K loan on a house and some how they’d be alright.
Some people decided to draw out all the equity on their house and use it to buy other houses, digging themselves into an exponentially higher amount of debt all under the name of “investment.” Well, digging yourself in debt by using–in effect–a credit cash advance from your home isn’t an investment. If you use equity, it might have been a credit and an asset at one point, but using it to catapult yourself into higher debt that you shouldn’t be able to buy isn’t an investment–it’s just debt buying debt.
And you think that the credit industry is in a crisis because of fraudulent lending practices and ponzi schemes? Partly, yes, but partly, no… it’s your fault. It’s your fault you thougth you could get away with buying something you could never in your entire life pay off, just because you believed what a bull-shit mortgage banker told you, and you didn’t read the fine print, or because you thought that somehow you were smarter than the system. Let me tell you, you’re weren’t, and you’re still not. Don’t whine to Mr. Obama to bail you out when you decided against better judgement to buy a house that was way beyond your pay grade!
If you buy a house worth $600 grand, and your combined household income is only $80K, and you have 2 dogs, 2 kids and 3 vehicles, you are living out of your means. If your house is worth $600 grand, and your combined household income is only $60Km, and you have 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 SUVs, satellite TV with 200 channels, and you eat every meal out at McDonald’s and shop at Wal-Mart, you are living out of your means, and you have no sense of employee ethics, health or protecting the environment, in which case we should never meet and never be friends.
It’s your fault! Some people who are so pro buying American forget that buying American and being Pro-America, means that we need to demand better service, better machinery, better technology, better fuel economy, and better all around products from American companies. Buying American doesn’t mean bigger, better, faster, stronger. It means saving, conserving, preserving and diversifying. Being Pro-America doesn’t mean we subscribe to the status quo, but demaning better ideas, thought OUTSIDE the box, better initiatives that quell consumption, and infusing those initiatives into avenues that create jobs, and cut down on excess! Being Pro-America means we have to get MEAN and demand from our elected officials what the beaurocrats are too fat and stupid to get done.
I’m Pro-America, and I’m fucking angry. Why do people think that just because I’m angry, I’m anti-American? I want America to go back to the way it should be–that is, the way it never was before this economic crisis!
Fuck you.
Oh yeah, and if you think tailing me and revving your engine behind me on 13 mile road in that ugly fucking box of a BMW fuel consuming, UNGREEN SUV is going to get you to your destination faster…You got another think coming. By the way, I looked in my rear-view mirror, and I saw a behemoth that looked like it’d gotten caught in the power lines outside the power station near my house: frizzy, fried, and fucking fat. Your car looks like Gary Busey, bloated, boxy, stupid and oh yeah, it looks like like you.
I heard the Dollar is on it’s way back up, so shut the hell up and go buy something not made in China, and carry it home in a reusable shopping bag.
Oh yeah, and the next time you’re driving with a phone to your ear? Hang up and fucking drive. You’ll be a better driver for it.
Love,
Mae
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PC. Treehugger, and Jutiagroup.com
News Source: NYTimes.com
EFF YOU, YOU JERK! – New Years Resolution #1: Don’t be a jerk (Aud Blog Entry)
I went through some of my old archives and vlogs and what not… so, to begin the new year, I will post an audblog.
I wrote a diatribe about how everyone in America is an effing jerk, and how not to be one… I think to begin your year, you should resolve not to be a fucker. And without further ado, here is the verbal essay, “Don’t Be A Jerk,” which I recorded two years ago, reading an essay I wrote in 2004 on a now defunct blog.
MY VERY FIRST AUD BLOG!!
“Don’t Be a Jerk”: An Audio Blog Verbal Essay
Author’s notes: **Explicit Lyrics WARNING**
This file is 5MB and is 13 or so minutes long. It will open up in a separate window or tab, and play in that window. I’m quite fond of this piece, honestly. So if you have time to listen, lease do so where you can do so privately… work = NOT a good place to listen to an essay with some swearing. You get me.
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In other news:
(i have a math test tomorrow to see if I have to take basic math for the graduation requirement, and I think I might fail the effing thing.
I think i am so screwed, I can’t think straight or punctuate properly.
efeffeffffffff!)
Frowning Fraus (WIWT)
There is a woman here at the office who slightly resembles a Mennonite. I know she is not, though, because she wears makeup, profanes, and works at this establishment and drives a nice car; not a nice, nice car, but a pretty decent one, better than average. Perhaps she doesn’t possess the extreme humility of outward appearance of a Mennonite, but she makes me wonder if she were a Quaker in another life. She wears a mantle of embroidered wool, with those hokey country quaint patterns on them, a creme-coloured confection topped with coral pink and orange sprinkles. She always wears long skirts with pleating (usually made for women with Muffin-Top syndrome) in boring warm earth tones and oranges and her tops under her mantle-poncho usually fall within the autumnal colour pallete. Boring, wholesome, 50’s farm marm kind of stuff.
She’s not of the type that merits noting on this site. She’s not out of the norm from many of the women here. She fits right in. Though she is a bit more country-crock-traditional than most of my marmy, heavy-set work colleagues, she doesn’t stand out in any particular way that I should spend time writing about her. It’s not how she dresses that puts a nettle in my hat.
This is a dangerous assumption often made of shy people, but I think she has proven herself not to be shy. She and I have spoken on more than one occasion, and never once has she exhibited the ability to smile. At me. I don’t know if she’s rascist, or if she doesn’t like me because I’m skinnier than she–which has been the case with some of the other women here. I pass her at least two or three times a week as we wind our way through the cornflower blue cotton walls of the cubicle maze, or run into each other coming opposite ways near the washrooms. Each time I encounter her, I smile wide, grin right at her, or say hello cheerfully. Most times she will eye me with a quizzical, unfriendly look and keep passing with nary a word of greeting in return. Rude.
This morning it really bothered me.
Now, I take particular pride some days in the way I dress. Dressing well makes me feel accomplished and collected. I feel proud that I am able to dress myself well without spending hundreds on the clothes I have. I am cheap and occasionally chic. Today is such a day, though I’m unmade up facewise.
Again I passed her in the fabric by-lanes of the maze of this office, and I beamed at her. This time, she gave me the up-down eye and looked right at me with a frowny squint and then walked right past me. ME! She gave me stink eye, she in that lamb rug she calls a piece of clothing. Why does this woman frown at me when all I do is say hello and smile at her? It’s almost upsetting considering the effort I put into greeting her with a smile, knowing she is sort of new here. I’ve learned to move past the other frowning frau-bags, because they are quite, quite large, and I’m sure they think I’m a dieter or one of those girls who eats like a bird. I assure you, I so am not. I eat like shit (despite being a vegetarian), and I eat a lot. So, I obviously don’t care because they can’t help being envious of a skinny girl and hating her guts because they choose not to control themselves. But this woman isn’t quite on their level yet. What is her excuse? Why this overt dislike?
She ain’t shy, so what the fuck?
Why are people so rotten? Despite my hating this job many times and many days, I try to be the best person I am in the day when I am here. I smile at others, even if I’m crumpling with anger inside. I wave and make chatties with the wonderful women at the front desk. I joke and laugh with my cubicle department mates, because that’s how we get by.
But this Quaker woman? What is her reason?
** Cashmere drape sweater, Victoria’s Secret; Crew Sweater, Forever21; Lace Pleat Skirt, Mossimo; Patent Belt, Zara; Patent Oxfords, Payless.
Important: VOTE TOMORROW
Regardless of party affiliation, tomorrow’s Federal Election Day is one of the most important, if not the most important in this Nation’s history: a Black man is running for a Major Party with great possibilities of becoming the First Black American President.
During the Primaries, we saw the first major possibility of a White woman as the President, which was particularly important to me as a woman, and a newly sworn-in American.
And while I can’t vote tomorrow, it doesn’t make the day any less significant to me. Though my voice can’t be heard on election day, Mr. Obama’s very presence in this election means that Americans are changing, that the racial attitudes and climates are changing, are moving toward a Great Dream only words from Reverend King could express. It means that people of brown and yellow and red skin, like myself, have possibilities in this country. Obama’s presence in this race, and his very possible presidency mean that we of colour don’t have to dream anymore, but we can act, we can choose, and that those acts and choices will be answered with reality.
**Graphic Credit Obey Giant.com (Shepard Ferry)
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I have to stress to my California readers: Vote NO on Proposition 8, which seeks to reverse the momentous and paramount Equal-Marriage law in California. This Proposition was funded and driven by a large Mormon voting base, and if you believe, like me that Religion should NEVER play politics, you should vote NO on this evil, discriminatory Proposition.
To my Michigan readers: VOTE YES on Prop 2, which will go far in aiding people who Cerebral Palsy, MS, Cancer, paralysis, Alzheimer’s, and many other terrible diseases victimise. Embryonic Stem Cell Research does not harm lives, because the embryos donated to stem cell research are discards and unwanteds from in vitro labs for people who cannot conceive naturally. In most cases these embryos have been frozen in deep freeze storage, and their chances to become a living human being were already forfeited. These embryos do not come from live births. These embryos were bred in a petre dish, by scientists, and never at any time was a human life harmed–or averted.
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And regardless of what you believe, or what I believe, you should always uphold your rights and duties to the United States by exercising your right to vote in a Federal Election. So Vote tomorrow.
And for those of you voting for Obama, please send my wishes, too. Because I can’t vote in this one, though I now can in all future ones! Happy Balloting!
I Make Myself Laugh (I am mean…)
Ironic that I would write this directly following my last post.
In response to the SlackMistress’ blog about stupid neighbours…. I had to tell everyone my “Theory.”
This post reinforces my Universal Idiocy Theory: Everyone but a certain, select few (mostly on the blogosphere), are fucking idiots and should not A.) Procreate, B.) Speak, C.) Interact with other human beings; but that actually A.) Procreate, and in higher numbers than the above-mentioned “smart people, B.) Speak, and in many more words and forums than said “Smart People,” (whereby C. from above is a total given), and C.) are quickly killing the planet by overwhelming the “Smart Race” with their shockingly high population, effectively breeding the “smarties” out.
:sigh:
I’m sorry. You happen to live amongst many such creatures.
Renewing Ridiculous Fixation
With an impending album release and debut in the USA, I find myself oddly drawn to the music of Asian sensation BoA–a renewed ridiculous fascination with ironic zeal.
BoA is a seasoned performer, discovered at the age of eleven and trained and prepped for performance for two years before making her musical debut at the age of thirteen in 2000. She was groomed for performance perfection, being trained in the art of hip hop dance, given English and Japanese lessons, and a huge range of vocal training, to round out her skills. At thirteen she debuted with huge success, with the release of her Album ID: Peace B. Funnily enough, the song is actually about connecting with others through a game network, and creating peace through gaming together. Admittedly a bit of a child’s theme, which was prominent in her first album, for example, the song Sara is a down-tempo dance love song to her cat.
(I’m quite sure she didn’t write any of her songs.)
(more…)
OF THE MOMENT IMPORTANCE: Impeding Democracy – How Feminism Is Biting Us in the Anus (Sarah Palin)
I think it’s no News that Sarah Palin sucks. Yesterday, on Democracy Now, a wonderful interview was held by an Evangelical who finds Palin anathema and because of her, her abuse of power, her demonization of gays instead of love and acceptance–and thereby spreading hate, her “othering” of Barack Obama, and her accusations of Obama “palling around with terrorists” and sitting idle when death threats are hurled violently from her political rallies…hate and otherness disseminates across this country, and awakens racist, bigoted tendencies in people… She MORE than just sucks. She is one way to say Feminism is biting us in the ass. I will not vote for her ticket and McCain’s ticket just because I want to advance the crack in the Glass Ceiling. A crack in the glass ceiling with her name on it will fracture this broken nation even more. She is evil. She must be stopped.
What a great blog of the moment: The Times Magazine (New York), the Moment, had a guest blogger, Bonnie Fuller who wrote this article, attacking (with great reason) Palin. Let’s take a moment to savour, shall we? AND PASS ON THE WORD! McCain and Palin are the sure way to regress, and bring more corruption to the White House. Shining city on a hill, my ass.
Suck it, Palin.
Britney Spears vs. Sarah Palin: Which is a greater threat to civilization?
The notorious pop tart is back with a catchy new single, “Womanizer,” and has been replaced as everybody’s favorite cultural punch line by another working mom, who is proving to be a far greater threat to civilization, if you ask me….
She riles up her audiences about Obama’s “otherness,” and then is silent when someone in the crowd screams, “kill him”!…
Memo to Sarah Palin: civilization rests on the tolerance of other backgrounds, religious views and political ideas….
And Sarah Palin? We know from the interview she did with Katie Couric that the woman who could be a heartbeat away from the presidency cannot name a single news source that she reads.
I like the last point particularly… Bravo.
Blue Box Diatribe #2: In couplet rhyme!
Dear fellow user of the metal box so blue,
I have a certain bone to pick with you.
When last you used the ceramic bowl,
you left behind a remnant foul.
I have visited today maybe twice,
and the smell from there was not so nice.
Others have visited once or maybe more,
and find such a stench leaves them sore.
So I must kindly ask you yet again,
To consider yourself warned, and then,
think what happens when you use the loo,
to the others who use it after you!
Please flush that toilet just for us,
so we don’t have to post this–
and make a huge fuss!
There’s this thing about office toilets. Why can’t people be kind enough to flush after themselves? I find myself time after time having to flush streakies, skid marks, disintegrating brown sludge, pulpy yellow piss/paper water. This is just rude and inconsiderate. What about those of us who go to the bathroom to seek solace from a busy, hellish desk? I cannot stand for this!
If only I had the courage to actually post that. Though I doubt someone’s head wouldn’t roll if this was posted in the toilets.
What a day. Taking my lunch break (non-existent because I have none packed) at the desk. Will ask boyfriend if he can stop us by burger king or something and grad a veggie burger on the way out to school.
Blue Box Smells — The Vagina Post
For those of you who read on a reg, you know that I like to refer to my office bathroom as a sanctuary in a blue metal box. You also probably know that whenever I go there to escape, I usually sit there for a bit, even if I’m not going, just to get a moment’s peace. I call it my Blue Box Sanctuary, or something. I have a few times, anyway.
Yet more prefacing: Not to recently, but recently, one of my favourite bloggers, Equivocality, posted something called “The Peeing Sound” – His pee post. Kind of like a poop post, but about peeing.
Here is my equivalent. The Vagina Diatribe.
Well, today, I felt like getting a moment’s respite from the barrage of Thursday morning reporting. I go into the blue box and sit there, waiting for silence and tranquility to hit me. (In a building of two hundred people, the bathroom is the only place you can escape, TRUST ME.) Anyway, it’s about a interval or two before I realise someone’s in the stall next to me. There is no sound of urine trickling into the bowl. There are no dumps or splashes of #2’s going. It’s silent. No rustling of pants ’round ankles.
How do I know? I can smell her.
Gross. (And it wasn’t a poo smell.)
Dear woman in the stall next to me from this morning,
While it is not recommended to wash your hair everyday, the etiquette of public forums and personal interaction require that you wash your vagina regularly. This is not only for etiquette and circumventing offending others’ noses, but it is a sanitary issue. Please, for your health and the health of others, wash your vagina.
I do not wish to smell you again.
Sincerely,
Your Disgusted Stall Partner, MK
And that was the (what’s the opposite of a highlight?) of my morning!
The Denigration of American Values
People in America actually call the following people “Role Models.” I am ready to gag.
Paris Hilton, you are an insipid, ignorant, good-for-nothing, waste of plastic-looking organic matter:
In an interview with the media while on a wild-life preserve in South Africa with boyfriend Benji Madden, Hilton said, “”I love Africa in general. South Africa and West Africa. They are both great countries.” source: People.com
Could you be any stupider? West Africa is a geographical region, not a country. What a stupid piece of crap. Why do people idolise her? She just goes to show you how mainstream America is getting lazier, more inconsiderate, and less intelligent.
Remember Miss South Carolina at the Miss Teen USA Pageant of ignoramouses? 1.) She couldn’t answer why people twenty percent of Americans couldn’t locate the U.S. on a map (HOW COULD NO ONE DO THIS? THIS IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE!). 2.) She probably couldn’t locate it herself: “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our [children].” (Source: Wikipedia.org)
Oh my god, you stupid people! Like, uh, uh, uh, read a fucking book!
This is why we say “pay attention in class.” It really does make a difference: to show you who’s stupid and who’s not.
Social Justice: Letter to the Senator
Regarding a recent law passed by our Secretary of State that bars non-legal residents of Michigan from obtaining a Driver Licence (this extends to people who are here legally, such as International Scholars and Researchers at academic institutions and International students
here on academic visas as well as guest workers on Work Visas):
Dear Senator Jacobs,
We need the Michigan Senate to take swift legislative action to remedy recent changes made to rules concerning driver’s license eligibility.
Though I am a US Permanent Resident, and a legal resident of Michigan, I am appalled with the interpretation Secretary Terry Lynn Land has given to Attorney General Cox’s statement regarding legal licensed drivers in Michigan. As a child of immigrants from the Philippines,
and a student of Wayne State University, I cannot help but feel empathy and outrage on behalf of the many international students and faculty at Wayne State who are negatively impacted by this unfair law. Not being able to travel by car in a city without quick mass transit such as trains or subways deeply inconveniences families and imperils people’s job standings. Had this law been passed when my parents immigrated to the US under work Visas, my family would have been plunged into extreme circumstances. My parents would not have been able to commute to work, which would have eventually ended in their layoff.
Because of this law, institutions and businesses that rely on international workers are suffering economic and productive loss due to low man-power. Michigan as a state is losing innumerable dollars each day this law is in effect; foreign businesses with offices and branches based in Michigan lose money from the result of this law. The long-term consequence could be the pull-out of existing Michigan based International businesses and the reluctance of future investments and business development by foreign investors and business entities.
We are losing face in the global market. We are inconveniencing countless people that depend on driving in order to work and provide for their families. We risk a huge negative impact on our state economy. We are impeding leading institutions such as Wayne State University in research essential in industry and economic growth.
Please help these highly skilled workers and students regain their mobility so that they can continue to provide cutting-edge research and training that will propel Michigan forward.
I urge your vote to concur with House Bill 4505.
Sincerely,
Mae Ko
If you’re a resident of Michigan, I implore you to write to your senator, urging him or her to vote in agreement and affirmation of the House Bill 4505. The law passed sweepingly in the House, and grants drivers licences to all legal residents and non-residents of Michigan (Permanent Residents, citizens, and foreign nationals here on Visas).
Take action now, by writing your MI Senator on this site sponsored by Wayne State University. You can write directly here, and it will send it directly to your senator depending on your address of residence. I encourage ALL residentds of MI, US Nationals and Citizens, to write and push for the passing of this House Bill in the MI Senate. Show your International counterparts that we support them and stand up for their human rights and for the economy and future of Michigan!
Right or Relevant?
During the Labour Day weekend I was participating in an 50th annual Michigan event where thousands upon thousands of people walked the 5 mile expanse of bridge between upper and lower Michigan.
After finishing the bridge walk, I was idling in a crowded car park along the main streets of a boutique town near th bridge and saw a huge banner across the trunk of a parked Camry that read, “ALL SINNERS WILL BE PUNISHED,” with tiny micro print: Psalms something: something.
See, now, that made me want to scream out, “Satan LOVES Christians like you!!!”
And honestly, I think it’s true. I don’t think these people really understood the calling of the Great Commission. Being called to be servants of God is a calling with a pre-requisite of humility, piousness, pitifulness (in the fact that we are groveling sub-level in comparison to the glory of God) and love. Because God calls us to be servants to do His good work, and not “Ambassadors,” or “administrators,” people need to realise that when we are doing work, we have to approach others from a lower-than-they attitude, which means we do not point fingers, pre-judge, and acknowledge our own piteous nature, which, without God could not be purged and purified.
Not that I’m much of a Christian anymore, but what I was brought up to believe was what I just wrote… Christians are to be loving, non-judgemental, peaceful, people who try to bring a message of faith and love. They should be forgiving, kind and have loving-understanding when someone doesn’t see things their way. They aren’t supposed to force their violent views on others or take violent views at all. A true Christian doesn’t believe in an unmercifcul, hateful, vengeful, wrathful God who throws people who don’t see things its way into an unending vortex of fire and suffering. Something that professes to be the Ultimate Source of Love wouldn’t allow things that it created to suffer for eternity.
I don’t think these people really understood that their message was neither right in the eyes of God, nor relevant in the way that it needs to be so that it truly reaches people instead of disgusting them. They only put their message out there because they wanted so hard to believe their way was right.
This is the same type of Christian who believes that WAR on Terror exists in everywhere but in America, not in the hearts of all men who want to use religion and race as a dividing line…
Christians like that make me want to puke.
9/11/07 – Posted on the MySpace blog.
The Hands Have it.
With all the work I do where my fingers are constantly flying on the keyboard a little more than a foot from my face, I never once really stop to look down at my fingers at all. I noticed them today.
They were in god-awful shape.
My cuticles were cracked and dry, flaking off in places and scaling in others. I had hang nails I had tried to vainly snip off with unsanitised nail clippers, that had snagged on the various many documents and contracts I am constantly handling at work. One nail had been sliced open from a knife that escaped my hand one day as I was trying to dice tomatoes; the cut portion of the nail had come off the quick and fibers from my clothing were stuck in the crack between that and the rest of the nail. Sections of hardened skin were dry and tough on the corners of my fingers. The edges of the nails were ragged and uneven.
I wondered, when in the hell did my fingers become so ugly? The answer to that one was simple. I never took care of my hands in the first place; they were bound to turn into this snaggy, brittle, cracked mess.
Now the thing you might think is, why does it even matter, the condition of your fingers? Oh, I don’t know. The appearance of professionalism in a business environment? The concept of cleanliness? How about semblance of order and balance? Exhibiting attention to detail?
Think of it this way: your hands can say a lot more about you as a person than your words can say before you open your mouth. If I see someone with nails chewed down to the nub, I am thinking, complusive, nervous, anxious, disordered. And secondly, chewed nails are just gosh darn unsightly! If I see raggedy looking cuticles, bleeding hang nails, I am thinking of someone who doesn’t pay attention to minute, important details. Dirt under the fingernails bring to mind disorder, untidiness, and a certain amount of blatant carelessness. Dry, cracked hands? what does that say? Pre-mature ageing?
If I were an employer, I am more likely to hire someone with well-groomed fingers than someone who looks like they performed an oil-change and tried to rinse the grease off with acid. There’s just something to be said about someone who puts care into things that are easily neglected, like fingers. If they put that much care into things that are so seemingly unimportant, and yet so essential to everyday functions, they are more than likely to go the extra mile in things that hold a more obvious place of value.
So. After work, I found a much needed reward debit Visa in my purse and went to town in the manicure section at Target (or, as my mum says, “Tar-zhay“).
My once awful hands have been transformed into awesome. Now, all I need to do is find me that employer who thinks as highly of my phalanges as I do and give me the salary to boot!
For crappy cuticles: Sally Hansen’s Diamond Strength Cuticle & Nail Refiner. 24 g, $5, drugstores. It’s actually a short cut for the manicure idiots like me. It has micro particles that you massage for 60 seconds onto the nail surface and into the cuticle that slough off the dead skin and file down the ridges of the nail. Basically, it buffs and softens and pushes back the cuticles. You skip a whole three steps. Then you just wash your hands.
For cracked hands: Vaseline Intensive’s Age Renewal Hand Lotion. 3.1 Fl oz, $4, drugstores. The lotion is rich and creamy, but absorbs quickly into the skin and leaves it feeling supple without the nasty greasy feeling afterward. And it’s small enough to keep in a briefcase or bag.
For raggedy nails: Trim Salon Boards. Twin pack, $2, drugstores. This emery board actual has two different grains. Fine and Extra Fine. Use the fine side to shape nails into a rounded square tip to keep from snaggy nail syndrome. The extra fine side will refine the shape and finish the microscopic ridges so the edge of the nail is perfectly smooth.
Finish off with a quick coat of Neutrogena Instant Nail Enhancer in Buffed Sheen 01. $7, drugstores. Brush one coat of this and it dries so fast, that seconds after application, you can be popping open a can of soda or go rifling through your carry-all without messing it up. It gives your fingernails an enhanced, buffed, healthy look, without the overly conspicuous shine of nail polish. It also strengthens and hardens the nail with infusions of vitamins. And it fades off, rather than chipping, flaking, or having to remove it with harsh acetone or other polish removers that stink up your entire bathroom. Super plus!
Heart
I wanted to write something light-hearted. In fact, I had spent a long portion of the night on Friday writing a little beauty article based on the experiences of my day. I had wanted to do something that would celebrate the happy weekend I had had.
But I can’t. There are people who have died. People who attend classes and work and strive to get an education, just like me.
What happened at Virginia Tech today could’ve happened anywhere. It has happened on smaller scales in other universities. It has happened, even, on my campus, in one of the dorms and in one of the parking garages.
But what is it about this massacre that gains even more attention? The murders today are the largest university shootings and casualties ever at any educational institution in all of American History.
It is an immense tragedy that a massacre be recognised as historical. Is this what this generation is going to be known for after we are gone: The atrocities we are committing by the actions of our young troops in Iraq; the war mongering and guerilla warfare in Afghanistan; Desert Storm; bullying and fighting amongst our own government? What is the glory of our generation? What good have we done and what good are we laying down as a foundation for the generation to follow us? At this point, all I see is gunfire and bloodshed and beauracracy. This is our legacy. A terrorist chaser who is committing terrorism himself, three bloody wars and a country of young people waiting to just kill each other.
Dramatic words. But they are merited on such a dramatic, horrendous day.
Art or Artillery?
What is art?
We were discussing this in film class yesterday eve. Who is given the right to judge the art value of a piece? Where one person may dismiss a plush velvet Elvis Presley image hanging on the 50’s inspired bathroom wall in my teacher’s home as chintz acquired in the gaudy besequined fluorescence we know as Las Vegas, my teacher considers her cherished memento an artistic display of quirk and character. She values it more than she does any other piece of art in her home. Who is it that decides that a Renoir painting has higher value than the black velvet Elvis in my professor’s loo?
Society seems to be instilled with a sense of snobbery when it comes to the value system of things people consider art. Something aesthetically pleasing isn’t always a quality piece of work. Whereas something slopped together like a Jackson Pollack is considered avant simply because it defied the conventions of art standard of his day; I think it looks like shit a three year old could do with feces.
But doesn’t that get you thinking? I find nothing intriguing in the 60’s dotted comic style of Warhol. A can of soup? Since when is that timeless, classic and profound? It isn’t. But the quality of Warhol’s work came at a juncture when society was challenging established, classic standards in many of arena’s of society: sexuality and gender, feminine roles, civil rights, religion, war, politics, young America. It isn’t surprising that the art that came out of the 60’s that is most revered today isn’t the typical sweeping Americana landscapes, or Impressionism that flourished in earlier eras. The art of that time was a neon print of a Campell’s can of soup. Composition that defied convention, bent the pre-written law that dictated what constitutes the value of art. Because of the whirlwind of social change that was the Sixties, the art of the era was manifest of the great transitions. The value of art of the day was directly correspondent with the value placed on defying convention of society. Erase history and rewrite it. Fight history and tear it to shreds. Break apart art and put it back together. Change what you know.
Maybe it’s in that same vein that should get us thinking about the value of art. People respect Renoir because he is timeless. Same with Van Gogh. But his work was considered Post-Impressionist rubbish while he was composing it. His work, too, challenged the widespread Monet standard of the time. The vivid colour, the bold, almost rebellious textures and exaggerated shapes, the refusal to use perspectives in realistic proportion. He was filing against the prison bars of what was holding creativity at bay.
So what is art? Defiance? Not necessarily. But that could be one characteristic.
The value of art should be judged not on its quantitative values but on its qualitative value. Just because the Painter of Light, Thomas Kincade, can mass produce Lighthouse in the Mist and Cottage in the Glen which almost seemingly gives off warm candlelight when house lights are dimmed, does not mean his work is art. With the epic scale of his production (and reproductions assembly line style), his work seems less Fine Art and more massive attack; homey, French cottages nestled in forests populated by unseen nymphs, basked by golden firelight, brought to you in American Landscape version, West European, and now Oriental Forest at the nearest outlet, er, gallery. Now everyone can enjoy Fine Art. Just don’t mind if 1400 other households in your city have the same painting hanging on their wall.
Same thing goes with photography and the movies. Pictures and moving pictures as artforms should be judged on their ability to create something moving without regurgitating the same contrived version of reality we’ve already seen in a million other pictures. The quality of a work is something that is not only beautiful, meaningful, but posesses a soul that hasn’t already been bought out by commercialism and unoriginality. Cutting edge doesn’t mean that it is new, pseudo avant garde doesn’t mean it isn’t something we have already seen but from a different angle. Non-linear editing doesn’t mean the story isn’t one we’ve already been told.
Art should mean something.
That is the beauty of Warhol’s work. It meant something to the people who were witnessing it for the first time. A can of soup wasn’t something art because it was something mundane, dressed up in royal clothing. It was because it embodied the rebellion of a new generation against old, dowdy moral standards.
Now, art can be anything. It depends on what it means to you. In the end, you are the one who must judge the value of a work in the context of your own relationship with the object.
No dollar amount can change the quality of art to its beholder. No matter what the Louvre says.
-MK/cmm 1/19/07
How to make me wet: a non-sexual reflection
Ask any gentleman who has had dealings with the fairer sex his thoughts on it. They will tell you this: women are goddamn confusing. Why do we make it so hard for them to figure us out? Well, we could always go the logical route and spell it out for them: women are emotion-based creatures that thrive on talking, hearing themselves talking, hearing others talking and agreeing to the talk talked and rehashing old conversations during new ones and over analysing the feelings that are involved in any talk, situations and events. We like to talk. We like feelings. We like to talk about feelings, we like to analyse what they could mean.
Guys just . . . don’t. Guys, the more “logically” (this is a scientific term, do not think that you are more logical, intelligent creatures, because most times, your senses are so dimmed by the desires of your penis that you can’t think straight) inclined of the sexes and therefore figuring out emotions and what lies behind them are not exactly their cup of tea. Guys like action. They don’t like to talk about it.
But that’s the lay explanation. On the deeper, less simple side, there is the complication that not all women are this generally described. Each of us, happening to possess a soul and a degree of intellect (some more than others, men included), are such complex creatures that we can’t be defined by such a broad categorisation. Some women are like men; they like action, to talk the talk without actually talking about what it all means. No analysis, no fuzzy bunny emotions. Just the rawness of a chase and the thrill of getting what one wants. Some men are more sensitive, broaching delicate, emotional subjects, probing into feelings and looking for meaning behind an action. Some of us clam up and just don’t want to talk about anything. Considering how complex the interaction between sexes is, it’s a wonder anyone communicates at all.
Isn’t there an easier way? Dating is so difficult.
I think my dating experiences could’ve gone a lot smoother if I had just spelt out how to get to my creamy milk chocolate center without biting too hard. The way to my softer side is not through talking about sex. That comes later.
Give me the Perfect, or Close to Perfect Date. Does such a thing exist? With all the games we play, how in the world can we even achieve something so impossible? Start out by throwing all your agendas out the window, men. Give the girl what she wants, and she will reciprocate. If you’re in it for the the lacy panties and their graceful descent to the floor bedside, go find a girl like yourself who isn’t in it to cook you dinner and rub your feet after a long day six months later.
My Perfect date starts out several days prior to the actual Event. Clever banter, biting wit and sarcasm with a pinch of romantic interlude is required. No sexual innuendo should make its untimely stage entrance at this point in the play. We should agree on some activity. It usually involves a film of some kind. And a hand cooked dinner. I don’t like eating in places where smoking is likely to occur, wafting into my nostrils over my sauteed salmon dish and sauvignon blanc. I like conversation, witty and introspective with a large helping of interest in the things I say. Pay attention to my mouth. I have an oral fixation. Not one in which I must indulge sexually, but mouths are my big woop. Drink in the details of my face, comment on my clothing, notice how much work I have put into impressing you but try so hard to hide that it took me two hours to get my hair done this way and my cuticles to smoothed perfection. If we work this hard, the least you could do is notice and like it. After this dinner and film . . . we need ice cream or chocolate cake. And maybe a walk.
Then the next date is part of the first date. The jumping to the third or fourth where we’ve passed all the banter bullshit and shop talk and establish that we like each other. We bypass the beginning stage where we puff up our egos and fool the other person we’re someone other than we’ve played ourselves to be. I’m talking, throw off the dressing to the nines, put on some sweat pants, mess up your hair.
The next date is my clincher. Dimmed lighting and a marathon of my favourite (MY favourite and not yours) television show on DVD. My head is in your lap and you are playing with my hair, and my fingers are playing with your ears. We laugh (because my telly shows are bitingly funny) and we stare and eventually the tv doesn’t matter because you’ve finally tapped into the thing I’ve been wanting.
And then the sex follows. If you want me, want ME. Don’t want all the fake bullshit that you think you want out of a girl. Take the girl as she is and find out what makes her tick.
At least that’s how it is with me.
Now I have the man who did this for me, waiting at the table with a pizza (my Fourth Date food of choice) and ready conversation. By the way, we’re probably going to do this until we’re dead. Score.
I am a souless drone to academia
Rumour and Legend within Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I am part of Group Four: Rumour and Legends in Popular Culture and Other Media, which takes a look at rumours and legends in the context of popular culture via the Internet, film, theatre, television and modern literature. The way our group relates to each other is that we are joined by popular culture and modern genres. Our individual survey topics, however, show our disparity; our topics are diverse and almost unrelated. [Text and Names of Group Members and topics deleted] I am looking at the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer with particular regard to Season Four, Episode One, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe Freshmen,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù and its play on campus legends and rumour as vehicles for the voice of young adults.
In ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe Freshmen,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù the Season Four opening episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and her gang of friends have left a tumultuous high school career behind them. The task of overcoming the exceedingly difficult life of high school pales in comparison to assimilating into college life for Buffy. While her more ?¢‚Ǩ?ìnerdy?¢‚Ǩ¬ù friends Willow and Oz matriculate seamlessly, Buffy battles bewilderment, embarrassment and even fear. In discussion, we learn that college is merely the foreground for the development from adolescence into adulthood. For many Freshmen, this time is trying. At this stage in human development, college may be an initiatory phase, one which a Freshman must overcome in order to proceed into adulthood (Tucker, 39). A student will be wracked with confusion and frustration and at times seemingly insurmountable amounts of stress. Buffy finds herself confounded and lost, at one point, literally. It is at this moment that she stumbles into the first person she meets in college who is as lost as she is.
Eddie: … A lot of the courses are really tough…
I think it’s supposed to get easier.
Buffy: I still feel like carrying around a security blanket.
Eddie: ‘Of Human Bondage.’ Have you ever read it? …
… there’s no actual bondage, it’s just a novel. I’ve read it, like, ten times. I always keep it by my bed… security blanket.
Buffy: I don’t really have a security blanket… So it’s nice to know that I’m not the only entirely confused person on this campus. (?¢‚Ǩ?ìThe Freshmen,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù 4001)
Coincidentally, the two are in the same intense psychology class and make a date to meet up. However, Eddie turns up missing the next day.
My heart is on observation
In a conversation online w/ my good friend J, the starlet of my great romance idea . . . on the disappearance of romance.
J: my teacher in my world music class was saying how sad it is that intuition is frowned upon.. and lost in todays society of facts and statistics
J: i couldnt agree more
MK: Reason away feeling, reason away common sense and replace with calculated logic and rationale.
MK: Explain with science and statistical observation and generalisations the magic of life and its mysteries.
J: no passion
MK: Nevermind that life’s questions may never be unanswered, like love, and passion, and emotion.
MK: Instead, replace with itemised directions for how to make love a chemical reaction and toss with cynicism and a pinch of bitterness.
MK: Life is under a microscope and love is on a petree dish.
. . . and for some reason she really agreed. Hmmm.
Random
Met Tony Pierce today. Chatted over Italian and generous portions of parmesean cheese.
Yesterday saw an Asian sister (we all all brethren) reviled by a foul racist who had to be escorted out of the pharmacy. Will elab later, for now, I am tired.
Been going to bed at two every night, organising the new place, envisioning furniture layouts and decor strategies, fretting over colour schemes and what not.
One frustrating piece of info. TP says I am incredibly brilliant (in person.. who knew? I thought my speech patterns closely resemble those of a valley girl with only 3 neurons functioning in the brain.), but that fact doesn’t assert itself within my writing. Is my writing that inane? Does it lack complex vocabulary? Am I too quippy? Too ranty? Am I not biting, sarcastic, witty and complicated? Are my lines too simple? Is my writing style too casual, too unreadable? Why am I most discouraged by such a passing comment?
The one blogger I wouldn’t mind replying probably doesn’t read my blog. The writers I respect most probably don’t know I exist (in the Internets) until I write them an email.
This means… More writing. More fiction. (I hate poetry–Mine own.)
Project Runway 310: Black and White
Challenge: Create a cocktail dress using only a black and white palette, incorporating all material purchased in the overall look. No leftover scraps are permitted. They are given one day to construct.
Guest Judge: Designer Zac Posen.
Heidi wasn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t kidding when she said the challenges would get harder. Starting from last challenge, immunity was dissolved. This week?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s episode twist is more like a wrench thrown into the spokes of a moving bicycle. Heidi announces two surprise guests who turn out to be designers who have won previous challenges but were later auf?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d. Surprise! Woody (Vincent L.) and Holly Hobbie (Angela) turn up. (Keith Michael would?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve been eligible for comeback, but his cheating disqualified him.) In t his challenge, instead of one auf, there will be three.
I think if a designer was booted, there was a good reason. Particularly in Vincent?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s case. I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t even know how he lasted so long. He should have been booted in the first episode. He put a basket on Camilla?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s head! Where in the world does that not scream, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìno!?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Maybe where daily duties call for baskets to be placed on your head, serving some function essential in everyday life. I, like Nina Garcia, do not understand this man.
Of course, of course, Jeffrey is unhappy. His Detroit neck tattoo throbs as he searches for the good thing about this particular challenge and ultimately draws a blank. He can be so childish. Like a thirteen year old boy who wants to give into the temptation to rub his boogers in the nerdy girl?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s hair.
Project Runway #308 – High Flying Fashion
Photo via BravoTV and my Flickr!!
Challenge: Create a look for an international jetsetter with a twist (or two).
Guest judge: Francisco Costa, Creative Director @ Calvin Klein; Catharine Maladrino.
The drama of last week overflows into this episode?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s first minutes. Jeffrey still rankles from the conflict with Angela and her dear little mummy. He contends that Angela was trying to get him kicked off the show by encouraging her mother to say bad things about his outfit for her. In what delusional universe was he competing last week?
This week?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s challenge is probably one of the more creative challenges spun from the threads of high fashion on this show in a long time. Create a look for an international jet setting, trendy, hip individual. In the workroom at Parson?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s, Tim Gunn reveals the twist: the jet-setting individual is the designer! They are to create and model a look based on themselves. The designers are elated. Angela squeals in delight and does a little happy dance. I, on the other hand, am not so excited. Instead, I am perched in anticipation for who will fail to capture the essence of a globetrotting trendsetter. Perhaps I am not so idealistic as Angela.
Her childlike na?ɬØvet?ɬ© becomes completely apparent in the fifteen minutes they are given to sketch the look. Angela?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s pen hovers, quivering over a mostly blank sketchpad. Living on a secluded little farm in Ohio, she admits, jet-setting and travel for events and parties is a foreign concept. That might explain the rosettes.
Another person stumped with the concept is Vincent, who exclaims in his Woody Allen-esque voice, that he has never designed for a man before. He has designed stuff out of garbage and made a hat out of a wicker basket. Leave it to this quirky man to be nonplussed by something so easy as an outfit he wears everyday. He doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t strike me as a hip jetsetter, anyway.
Right away, the three people who know exactly what they are doing are Jeffrey, who designs something very much in the vein of his rock n?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ roll roots, Michael Knight (whom I still cannot decide is gay or not), most at home in hip hop, and Architect who, though now pregnant, is certain that she is the quintessence of chic, hip, upper echelon. She does dress that way and all her clothes are her own design.
In Mood, what I am totally thrown by is the tacky patterned silk material Kayne spots. He calls it Versace. Later Jeffrey calls it Liberace. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s just hideous. Purple and blue petal-like shapes spring from some unknown starting point and blossom out of control.
Michael is working with an all white motif. The use of one colour really emphasises the shape, cut and accent pieces of bling on his outfit. His look: seer-sucker white drawstring, parachute/cargo type of pants with a clean cut white shirt with a slashed neckline. Pulling up his hip hop roots, he envisions himself flying from Brooklyn to the Hamptons to party with Diddy. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s hot. Throw on some bad-ass kicks and a pair of big sunglasses and maybe a Kangol, and you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve got an outfit ready for some of NYC?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s hottest hip-hop slams. And what? He totally rocks it on the runway, too. (Ghetto and gay. What an awesome combination!)
Vincent plays it safe with a charcoal heather cashmere v-neck sweater and sateen cotton pant. Francisco Costa says it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s clean and sleek. Very Calvin Klein of you to say so.
Architect?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s peach dress is fantastic! It is a faux wrap with the tie creating a sleek, long line down the back.
Jeffrey?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s outfit is Glam Rock with all the attitude that his neck tattoo can muster. Muscle tee with silver topography design, form-fitting tight pant with motorcycle boots, and a shiny blazer with leather lapels finish off the look. It translates well from a daytime meeting with clients to a slammin?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ party that rages until 5:00AM. High marks from the judges.
Kayne?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Liberace gets a thumbs down. Kors tells him, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIt?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s a paparazzi photo for the ?¢‚ǨÀúWhat Were You Thinking!?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ section.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Yes, cheers. The petal-like flairs from the cuffs to the explosion on the back of his black long sleeve shirt with over-sized Elvis lapels are just over the top.
This is where the second twist happens. Instead of being in?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d and out?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d right there, they are to pack and board a jet with their outfit (how travel-ready is it?) to a surprise destination. When they get to JFK they find out they?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re going to Paris. The home of fashion. There, Catharine Maladrino judges them on the overall look and travel wear of the clothes.
Laura, high marks. Uli?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s patchwork scores low with the NYC judges, but is in. But ultimately, the challenge is between Michael and Jeffrey. Hip hop versus Rock n?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ Roll. This time, rock takes the win and the glory. Well-done. The outfit is hot. If you think you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re a rockstar, maybe a little jerky behaviour might be warranted.
The low scores are between Angela?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s wrinkly satin and linen creation and Kayne?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s ?¢‚Ǩ?ìfake pop star?¢‚Ǩ¬ù outfit, as Maladrino described it. But his well-made clothes are enough to save his hide this time. They were perfectly non-wrinkled out of the plane and Angela?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s looked like she had rolled in a hayloft. Too bad. She had just arrived in Paris, too.
Honestly, I feel bad for Angela. Her clothes can be very well made and her outfits from time to time have surprised me for their elegance. But unfortunately, her style aesthetic is inconsistent. Intermittent brilliance isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t enough to get you by in this industry. From Paris to the farm. I wonder what?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s next for her.
