Consumeration and Cred

We’ve shifted from seeing ourselves primarily as makers of things, craftspeople of one variety or another, to seeing ourselves primarily as consumers

... I'm not saying that this sort of referencing ... is bad writing or poorly conceived. I’m arguing it isn’t writing or conceiving at all.

It’s scratching an itch that we have somewhere.

Oh my, this was a Lightbulb Moment for me. It's one of those things we know but don't "realize" in general, and it's the very shape of our lives. See also: memes. There is some kind of truth in this observation well beyond comedy. Memes live as something more than comedy, they're indicators - we point to those things we want to make sure others know we have seen, just as we post pictures of those things we want to make sure others know we have eaten, people we have met/known/hated/adored/had sex with ... We've gotten awfully pointy in my lifetime. (Oh yeah. I did that on so many purposes.)

I would say this, though: this is more about cred than about advertising our consumption. We get to the cred BY pointing out the references that signify whatever area of the cultural landscape we wish to live upon. For my part, I get my cred by NOT knowing certain references - I am old, I have earned the privilege of never having heard of all the recent 20-year-olds who have died tragically and had articles written about them. I have earned respite from the effort of keeping up with what on fleek means, or who is doing what on YouTube or anywhere at all. I have earned the right not to have an Insta, and to have some fuzzy idea, "Is Snapchat over?" or be entirely surprised that Grey's Anatomy apparently was not canceled like seven years ago or something.

Nobody gives a hang what anybody else is eating, or quoting, or in-meme-ing about. They are interested in, culturally, where somebody stands. If someone is familiar with my political/comedic/subcultural/art cred, I'll be interested in references they might make I don't already know. We judge by where someone places themselves on these social, virtual maps - they just quoted the third Doctor or the Stones or (not Taylor) Swift or Childish Gambino or the Christian Bible or made a Left Shark joke or hollered back to All Your Base, and I love them for it: we share this.

Our consumption is a signifying - UNIFYING - communicator.

Pretty deep, even if it isn't writing.

I need to go marinate in some Trek now.

Collection

Well, apparently the year I was born was important enough to commemorate. Some of the tidbits The Atlantic has archived here are pretty interesting; stay tuned for more, no doubt I'll come back to this well more than once this year.

Plant lore! I love so many aspects of this story - not merely the nerd who looked at a lock and understood its symbolism, but the images of a centuries-old trunk and its archives, and simply the word "hutch" - thanks again, History Blog, for a multi-layered read and look at an unusual collection of artifacts and facts. Moonwort. Heh.

Random note - in opening this new post window, I was listening to a 70s music mix, and "Moonlight Feels Right" by Starbuck happened to be playing. Yep: marimba solos happened in 1976. The times of my life (redux).

Map nerdlery! CityLab has thirteen maps to help make some sense (or at least get a view of) the year 2017. Some of it is interesting, some even amusing - some of it is dark (literally, and spiritually). From marches to regions to events within them, take a *look* at the year that was.

More Space Nerding

Played this for my mom yesterday, we had a little fun. I am grateful, fortunate, and so glad my parents raised me with constant interest in nature and science, as well as art and people.

And here we have almost all of that, wrapped up in one clip.

Also: any questions why I love Star Trek?

Collection

On the likelihood Henry VIII called Anne Boleyn a trollop when he was courting her - the messages within the song Greensleeves, and who probably would *not* have written such a song.

Multi-layered nerd link! James Marsters' Trek audition. Worth a click beyond for a bit of Tom Hardy, too.

For everyone who EVER didn't want to admit loving a show ...




SNL Drag Race from Nicola Mari on Vimeo.

A wee lexicon for your edifictation: "fish" is feminine beauty - beating your face means doing your makeup well - "beat for filth" is doing it so well you end up giving fishy realness, Erica Jane is a completely synthetic Housewife who also records club music, and Kenan Thompson just watching the competition here is hilarical. Enjoy!

It turns out that the poor often know much better than outside experts how to improve their own condition.

Sigh. When this ↑ is radical thinking, no wonder we don't act in the immediate. On charity versus philanthropy. You know what? A bandage is a good idea when someone is bleeding.

Collection

Archaeogaming. It's a tantalizing word, an interesting idea. As I said to my favorite gamer and my favorite archaeologist, I should figure out how to apply this to writing. But then - "Oh. Wait. I became a writer exactly so I wouldn't have to play nicely with others."

My daughter and I are as different as fire and rain and as alike as ice and water.

Isn't that a glorious sentence? Subtle, poetic, evocative - and yet concrete, communicative. There is a whole essay's worth more here, from Elyse M. Goldsmith, and a shout-out to Bowie. Make with the click, y'all.

The History Blog has a pair of great posts this week. First, footprints not in the sand: an ancient child's tootsies, captured in three millennia old mortar. Also, how cool is the name Manfred Bietek? Second, interested in a project? You can transcribe WWI era love letters for posterity. Cool.

Music and Fashion - Not Always the Passion

Not long ago, I took in a long-ago recorded documentary some may recall, The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 - The Metal Years. Apart from Chris Holmes' notoriously bleak, drunken turn before the camera, a great deal of this outing was devoted to poking fun at glam metal even while having a little bit of fun in the scene. The fashion is RIGHT out front, and is presented precisely as many of us saw it even at the time - pretty much ridiculous.

Let it be known, by 1988, I was dating a guy in a band (the eventual, inimitable Beloved Ex, in fact), and I had a few run-ins with spandex myself. The only lipstick in my repertoire for probably the entire stretch from 1985-1993 was a sturdy magenta that went with everything: black. On rare occasion, I will admit - I wore white minidresses and white spike heels. But mostly just black. I had a couple spiral perms, of varying burned-out 80s-osity. I had this great HAT. I wore that hat to my office job sometimes. I owned and took out of my closet more than one bolero, over the pink suede bustier I was able to afford because it had a broken snap. Indeed, I had several hats. I was remembered for one of them by a colleague of my dad's (I worked at his University on my college breaks) for decades.

Yeah, so I committed 80s fashions. I was NOT much for big hair; I never have been much for doing a lot of styling with my hair - but I just recognized how ugly it was. And damaging (though, again: spiral perms). I once got sneered at by a girl who wanted very much to scam on my husband, "I wish I could wear my hair FLAT like yours!" I brightly replied to her all the hairspray in our town seemed to have sold out after she hit the drugstore. *Shrug*

Over the top fashion does not have a way of ageing well. See also: the would-be Victorian polyester bridal fashions of the early 1970s - complete with giant floppy (matching pastel) hats. See also: 1960s Nehru jackets (the faddishness of which actually I think is a shame; men's tailoring in the West has been stagnated for nearly TWO HUNDRED years now - across three centuries, and a millennial divide!).

So, this morning, when I had nothing of this sort on my mind whatsoever, and I turned on a Grace Jones mix to accompany my work, it took a couple of hours before I began regarding her fashion extremity and remembering that other extremity, and comparing them.

Jones is iconic. She is still, also, unabashed in her presentation. It's something beyond fashion - her headdresses and makeup and her very hair are more than clothing, or style choices. She is living performance art. Confrontational and beautiful, powerful, visually stunning, dazzling.

Why is it Grace Jones' headdresses and cutout appliques to her face, her stripped-down gorgeousness and her sumptuous, presentational costumes have not become ridiculous, like the extensive array of hair and makeup and pleather donnings of the kids and performers of Western Civ?

Even the other two Decline documentaries, both of them focused on punk rock in different ways, feature looks which still are dominant today, in certain subcultures, and even on runways. My old punk brother and I sometimes get a grin realizing kids are still rocking mohawks like they're new and shocking. To us, it's actually adorable. "Aww. You're rocking your granddaddy's rebellion. You're EDGY!"

Punk has influenced fashion since the 1970s, but its widest evolved callback is probably the many Goth looks still prominent in subcultural scenes and on runways.

Grace, of course, is entirely her own. Even when she's not "trying" to be visually arresting - all but nude, or wearing a suit - her art pared to nothing - she is visually arresting. There's no such thing as minimalism with her, because anything she dons is automatically endowed with Grace.

And Grace does not go out of style. Which is rather astonishing. She's either enclosed or encompassing - either way, she bears fashion well outside of fashion itself.

As I have maintained since high school, and she embodies: there is a difference between fashion and style. (And I'd rather have the latter.) Or, as my punk-turned-old-dude of a bro once gleefully laughed about my saying, "Nerdliness is next to youthfulness." Perhaps agelessness.



My theory: the glam fashion was adhered to its connection with youth. Five years on - never mind all these decades down the road since then - if it survived at all, it was not prettily. Some things have very short half lives. Because Grace goes outside concerns like that, she survives, her outrageousness doesn't pall, because she's not acting like a fifteen-year-old. Sixty-eight years of age and OWNING that sh*t, it's not like she's rocking Baby Jane's pinafore and curls. What she started with wasn't anchored to its age. And so she gets to keep her own age, now. And keep the style she brung with her.

Collection

Never trust anyone (man or otherwise) who decides anyone (woman or otherwise) must not be TRUSTED on the basis of any aspect of their personal tastes.

Star Trek: Axanar and the legality of copyrighting Klingon*. What a fandom buzzkill, Paramount. Fan produced entertainments for *generations* (b’doom pssshhhhhhh) have been fun, hallowed, and even considered canon at times. So much for that thing where “CBS has a long history of accepting fan films” and “…realizes that we’re just making their brand that much better.”. Bummer. Thanks to Dena Pawling for pointing to the suit. (*Or Klingonee, if you're really old school. I like the ring of it myself, but am not - well, aggressively Klingon about that.)

Alan Turing sings? Well no, but the mathematics of music have long been of fascination to scientists. One of my favorite Douglas Adams novels (not a Hitchhiker's outing) waxes poetic on the magic of fractals. Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach was still an exciting innovation when I was a kid. And then there was Alan. Arguably barer bones in terms of musical talent, still the recording is a tantalizing look at early creativity in electronic music.

In even more GEE WHIZ news, how about an app that allows you to create in thin air, scale, and print? How Tony Stark can you get? Pretty Tony Starkish, as it turns out. Also, "mixed reality" could become the next phrase I'm impressed by while simultaneously kind of hating it. To use an 80s-ism I haven't dusted off in a while: whoa.

It's been too long since I linked The Arrant Pedant, so how about a short trip to that illuminating and amusing blog? "the most noteworthy thing about the split infinitive is that there are still some people who think there’s something wrong with it. ... If they're good enough for Star Trek, they're good enough for you too."

(A) common pattern of prescriptivist complaints: a new usage arises, or perhaps it has existed for literally millennia, it goes unnoticed for decades or even centuries, someone finally notices it and decides they don’t like it (often because they don’t understand it), and suddenly everyone starts decrying this terrible new thing that’s ruining English.

G-d, I love the demystifying work of The Pedant. I also love that Blogger's idiotic spellczech finds fault with the word prescriptivist. Shut up, Blogger.

Born, and the Rest

Mama Ru on the Reagan years, tribe, and mainstreaming the un-mainstream-able (or NOT; for Ru is wise).



He IS an outstanding host, I've said it before, presiding over drag families for decades now and RuPaul's Drag Race for eight seasons and two All-Stars editions as well. Some of the people hes introduced us to mean a lot to those of us who are fans. Alaska T. is the only thing named Alaska on Earth I will ever love, and Katya and (OMG) Latrice Royale.

My friend Kristi and I agreed: Ru's saying recently that he could never go mainstream was marketing brilliance. The media has snapped-to - oh, and look, two Emmy nods as well. Whether you appreciate that sort of thing or not, this is a queen who has EARNED notoriety, and has worked his curvaceous ass off since he was scarcely a teenager. Someone who knows who he is (and does not care whether you call her he or she) and what he wants - you can really see it in some of the vintage vids available on YouTube (bonus if you click: Mama Ru's own mama, BUBBLE WRAP DANCING - and about 3/4 of a second of Ru with a beard - and I mean growing out of his face, not the metaphorical merkin).

Though there is the epic point-missing of not pointing out the incredible transformations on display every single week, times however-many-contestants-remain, take a look at some reasons to love RDR here. Go. Do. Enjoy! Gerald would.

Metal, Man

Most of my life I've never 'been' anything - I don't make much of an effort on those things that earn cred-points to 'make you' this or that or the other label-thing.

I'm a huge fan of Trek, but still consider myself somewhat outside Trekdom because I'm not dedicated and have never been to a Con and so on. I'm something of a nerd, but have never played video games (do we even call them that anymore, or is the word "games" itself now the entire description of what once we had to refer to as electronic games and so on?) or achieved academically or committed sufficiently to this, that, or the other geek-cred.

As with my association with subcultures throughout my life, I get in there from time to time, but I'm never a member.

I'm not even an 80s metal head.

When I was in high school, I thought I was a hippie but wasn't ... and thought I liked New Wave but wasn't all the way there ... and had friends into hair bands, but was shy of its brashness ... and, again: I wasn't anything.

The blurb under my bio? "I contain multitudes" ... ? In a way, it's both a brag and a lament. My personality is multifarious, nonconforming - but then, it's also a bit jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none.

It's fun to brag that my first two concerts were The Clash's Combat Rock tour and Bowie (I often don't point out that was Serious Moonlight - but still - I saw all the cool concerts). But I wasn't fully in with either of those crowds either.

When I met Beloved Ex late in 1987, and began a seven-ish year stint With the Band, I actually, finally, gained a bit of cred in the one place I've ever had it. And even that - by proxy, of course.

I spent those years gigging right along with BEx and the band. I even ran lights for them a time or two (not my first time; I did major in theater - and that comment that I was part of the Rhythm Nation refers to one of the best shows I ever did run lights for - a dance concert, set to the album). I helped set up and break down, I sold what swag they had from time to time, I absolutely acted a bit as an ambassador. It never hurt those guys to have a fox dancing and "WOO!"ing up front, getting others to actually form a crowd around the stage.

When BEx worked with a radio station on an in-house band called The Wham Bam Thank You Band - I was (by the radio guys we palled around with) called The Ma'am. My chagrin at the time was entirely faked.

So that post label, the one marked 80s Bimbastic Glory? It's the one label-claim I actually feel I can make. Yeah, it's a joke (I wasn't a bimbo, I just played one for the band). BEx and I were both actually pretty conservative, well-bred, nice kids. He was a bashful and mannerly corn-fed boy who opened doors for me and treated me right.

On stage, of course, he was a whole 'nuther story.

And so, I got my cred.



I have a soft spot for metal, and all those things we're supposed to find risible - or, worse, sanctify as part of My Youth - because it's been That Many Years since they were happening (both in the temporal and the hip senses of the term). Not all metal was born in the 80s and not all its musicians had the bad hair. (I had bad hair myself, but not because it was big.)

Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, AC/DC - I love some of the greats, and some we are supposed to consider not-so-great. Hell, years ago I saw Sebastian Bach - specifically to gawk at whoever would go see him past his sell-by date, and possibly to throw some Silly String around the venue - and hell if he didn't smack my attitude down by sounding good. Still an asshat, of course. But the guy can sing, and that's his job. My hat was off. G'wan, Sebastian Bach.

More recently, the same friend and her husband and I went to go see The Cult. And Ian Astbury was great, they were tight, and it was a wonderful show, we had a great time. I could have lived without seeing that one guy from my past, but the music? My jam. That was an excellent show.

I still love this stuff. I don't OWN enough of it, of course, but then I don't own enough Janet Jackson nor *any* Loretta Lynn, nor much else of a lot of the music I love either.

Judas Priest. Jeebers, and by Priest, I mean only where Rob Halford is involved. Because - Halford! It's a rock shout unto itself, his name. Woo!

Dio. Aww. Ronnie James Dio. Tell me any fan who doesn't go all AWW when they remember him. He was the best manner of spectacle - and he seems also to have been a great guy, a nice one. Aww, Ronnie James Dio. Rest in Peace - or in mayhem, if that is more fun for a rock god, man.

And Zeppelin.

I have a hard time with Zeppelin, because - I mean, Jimmy Page once basically attemped to own a little girl for a year or two. Pretty much did. And how HIDEOUSLY horrifying. How sick, and way beyond rock-and-roll demented. It's all the worse, given he's all but internationally deified, and grey hair has conferred upon him forgiveness for all sins, if not English sainthood ...

But damn me if I can or will cut Led Zep's music out of my life. "Thank You" alone has some deep roots in my memories, and I can't excise those, nor do I care to.

And of course "Whole Lotta Love" - the performance of which is a major factor in my saying BEx on stage was a whole 'nuther guy above. I saw people who'd known him as my dorky boyfriend witness him on stage and just about die of shock.

On stage, Beloved Ex was one hell of a rock star.

He was a GREAT front man, a talented singer, guitarist, bass player, AND writer.

His spelling was the pits, but that was dealt with in the divorce.



I feel the need to get out in my car with the fantastic JVC sound system (once it gets past factory standard, it's a "sound system" not a stereo) and listen to something really loud.

I'd do it in the house. But Gossamer tends to jump.

Aww. Gossamer. Even more loveable than Ronnie James Dio. And that is saying something.

Collection

Mmmmm! Nothing says summer snacking like a nice, light tongue. Of course, at your finer establishments, you might ask for a refreshing cockscomb. Courtesy of Two Nerdy History Girls.

On detail images from paintings, and what we can learn: costume nerding - is it a boy? (Again at TNHG.)

The History Blog is hanging out in my 'hood - their take on Childeric's bees (and more). And mine.

... and THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is where "granny panties" are exactly what a wearer needs ... (American Duchess blog)

.GIF: Wikipedia

^^ This is your brain ^^.

This is your brain on books.

And this is my brain craving Star Trek nerdlery. Surely this can't be the first time ... !!!!

Finally ... hope is the dream of the querying, man. BookEnds Literary on a different kind of referral.

Collection

First off today, welcome and thank you to JEN Garrett, my 34th follower! Yay!

Next - I'm a bit late with the link, but yay more, for a tribute to writer Leonard Nimoy's birthday.

Megan Sayer has a lovely post about hope. It's hard. But, I've found, sometimes it's even harder not to.

Agent Carly Watters has good advice/encouragement - for the pre-published debut author. Just when I cool it on querying, of course (but she doesn't do my genre, so it's all right by me).

And now, a three-fer from The History Blog:

Scratch any archaeologist (but not on the lower back, their legs will never stop kicking) and you'll hear a midden story. This one may be a little adult for some readers (I'd call it NSFW), but it's still interesting history! Hint: sex toy. Yeah, we didn't invent those in the 20th century either.

Out of the toilet and into ... oh, wait. The sewer. Italian family finds 2500 years of history while looking for a broken sewer line. Man, it's boring when my toilet backs up. You know, by comparison. aaaaaaannnnd I'm okay with that. (Also with my parents not lowering me into the, erm, bowels of our home when I was twelve.)

And last, but least gross (though possibly disconcerting! and that is a pun!), 18th century Swiss automata. I'll embed the punnish clip below ...

Collection

Mojourner left me a present, so he heads up today's festivities with the best pun I've seen in ages. Bonus points for English history nerdlery! OSUM.

Good laws, I typed 65WPM last time it was tested over a decade and a half ago, and it's taken me 60% of THAT time to get ONE novel done. Donna Everheart is seriously brave and ambitious and talented and stuff, y'all. Also: yoiks!

I've been meaning to link this for a while now - Jessica Faust (and another link from there, if you like) looks at *just* how much of our communication is spent complaining.

Open forum for grammar kvetching at Tom's blog! Go, have fun, comment - knock yourselves out. :)

Finally, The History Girls take a peek at the tattoos of sailors and princes. Neato-spedito - and I had no idea any English king ever had a piece! Click through to find out which one, and what famous lady of society had one of her own.

Collec.

In an abbreviated collection of one, this link is for all my Star Wars fans out there - and most especially for Cute Shoes. Again courtesy of Jed, and so funny my dog was hilariously transfixed, watching me watch the clip. OSUM.

Live Long and Puppy

As if Cute Shoes hasn't got me spending enough time on the retail Dark Side, she just turned me on to geek pet art. For those in the know: my birthday's coming!  Hah. (Y'all see why I dig her the mostest?)

Collection

The History Blog has some very nice details on the recent geek-bonanza, the sale of the first Wolverine artwork.  One of the most significant pieces of original comic art - and a fun story for some of my graphic-loving readers.

At the HB once again, take a look at a Conquest era skeleton.  Well, as for ME anyway, this sort of thing is fascinating.

It's not my era, but it's dead-on my territories (with Ax, anyway) - explore the Roman camp at Thuringia ... and their bread ovens, no less.  More thanks to the HB.

Two Nerdy History Girls have also been busy - here we get a look at the history of DIY, with cottonian book bindings.  They're rather lovely.

TNHG are also explaining what a hair guard is (with a very nice, brief look at whether Dickens really was paid by the word!).  Victorians were quite ingenious with human hair weaving.

Geeks Who Make Women Hate Themselves

Food for thought ...
(All images/words above:  Thumbcramps.com)

My friend Leila has a great post up about women (and, really:  men) in geek-dom, which I hope gets a ton of traffic.  I've thought about this topic many times, and it even goes beyond the characters in comics with pneumatic breasts and legs four feet long ... it even goes into those feminine icons in the real world men are given permission to think they are superior for finding attractive.  Women who are supposed to be less threatening to real women but who, if we're honest, still conform to certain weights and other mainstream standards of attractiveness.

Hollywood's idea of the drab, workaday Real Woman
(All celebrity images:  IMDB)

Over the past twenty years, I can't begin to count the number of nerd guys who have congratulated themselves (they like to tell women about this; I've fielded so many of these conversations, and am sure most other nerdy and nerd-adjacent women do) for liking:  Allison Mack, Jeaneane Garofalo, Allyson Hannigan, Felicia Day, Amy Acker, and Tina Fey.  Not one of these women actually fails the Hollywood test of visual appeal - they simply aren't fully plastic bimbettes.  They're all of a certain petiteness - in Day's and Acker's cases, they're ever bit as thin as editorial models (slimmer by far than swimsuit models).  It's as if women are supposed to be grateful that a man can find a woman who is already physically striking attractive because she ALSO is intelligent and funny and Joss Whedon gets her to commit shocking violence.

Because, yes, it's no coincidence I listed three of Whedon's often-cast actresses.  It could have been significantly more.  Joss is one of those guys, I suspect, who thinks himself evolved because he finds women attractive who are not appearing in Playboy.  And he has done a bit, at least, to provide some interesting faces, especially in his work on the small screen.  But he's also got rather a thing about YOUNG women, (a whole different post but not in fact a completely different squick) - and, again, Allyson, Felicia, and so on are hardly ordinary to look at.

NONCONFORMITY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS OPEN-MINDEDNESS.


I can still recall a very old friend of mine, a sometime boyfriend - a boy whose first kiss I was, in fact - philosophizing with me in the early nineties, about the movie, "The Truth About Cats and Dogs", a movie starring Jeaneane Garofalo and Uma Thurman.  He was so proud of himself (a lot of guys were, I remember this movie's reception very well, at least amongst my lot of friends and acquaintances) for finding Jeannine SO much more attractive than Uma.

Well, the fact was, Jeaneane was (a) no uggo to begin with (she still is not, no matter the much-hammered themes of her standup and her own endorsement of the idea she might ever in her life have owned a cell of back fat), and (b) so luminously well styled, lit, scripted, and shot that she was both ethereal and completely lovely.  Add to this that the scripting on Uma was *nice* but not breathtaking, so the character had to lose out to the heroine we were following, along with Jeaneane's glossily dark locks.

At the time, I was still grateful enough for any sign of male attractiveness-egalitarianism, and deeply enough mired in my own sense of how attractive *I* was relative to Jeannine (I thought I was hotter), that I could accept that this guy's preferring her to Uma was some sort of a triumph.

As may be obvious:  over time, I have come to remember this ground-breaking example of male sensitivity in something of a different light.

Enough conversations about how "hot" Gabrielle was on Xena:  Warrior Princess, Mary Ann was, versus Ginger, Betty versus Wilma or even Betty versus Veronica later, and the theme became so obvious even to me that I stopped being impressed when men bragging that they had so generously found it in their libidos to find "UNATTRACTIVE" women attractive.  (My continued attempts to be a Veronica, even to this day, still don't negate how deadly boring a conversation this can be.)

If you can find "awkward" creature appealing - you're the hero ...
(All celebrity images:  IMDB)

Here is the Earth-shattering news, guys.

Glasses do not render a telegenic woman run of the mill.  A tinsey little scar on a lip does not destroy the luminous skin, figure, good hair, and large eyes of a television star.  Being SCRIPTED as "the girl next door" or a neurotic does nothing to diminish the requisite level of appeal a woman must maintain in order to be agented for television work, and cast as a regular.  This is how we get so many former models playing cops and private investigators, and always have.

In Hollywood, she's a second-banana ...
... but even she, eventually, will get an edit to a skimpy costume
so we can admire her exceedingly ordinary six-pack abs.
(All celebrity images:  IMDB)

Not the first beauty queen presented to American men as a girl next door ...
Not even the beginning of this issue, for American women ...
(All celebrity images:  IMDB)

Guys have bragged about finding all sorts of women they consider to be outside the beauty queen mold attractive, expecting this to make them more attractive to the women they brag about it to, and convincing themselves this makes them not only better than other "shallow" men but EXPECTING to be rewarded for their sensitivity.  By real women.  (Here's a thing:  the un-glamorous Mary Ann was a pageant princess.)  I can tell you, too - the woman who dares question a man showing off his crush on Willow, as actually perpetuating the standards held out to real women by an industry not in the business of promoting real women (don't get me started on Hollywood's long affair with increasingly dumpy leading men, at least not tonight ...), will get shrieked at in outrage by the guy who's cast himself as being Above the Whole Looks Thing.  They cannot take the idea they hold an entire gender to a standard they have trained themselves to think - and brag that - they don't believe in.  Hit that "Willow" link above and tell me how totally natural that shot is.

The actresses themselves ... I don't resent them much for making money off this conceit.  (A multi-layered term I'm loving right now.)  They're trading in an industry which, the older I get, the gladder I am I never found my way into, much less suffered success.  What this must do to someone I pity their having to endure.  May none of them suffer the decades of surgeries and ossifying expectations of self-image Joan Rivers and others who once traded on not-being-pretty (but still exemplifying it to such a degree that, past seventy, it's still such an imperative) have forced themselves to endure.  Even Phyllis Diller had some years in the eighties when she put off the fright wig and put out airbrushed photos to rehabilitate her "uggo" image.

I may suffer my own vanity issues - to be sure.  But I'm also grateful for every minute of my age, and the older I get the more I'm concerned about my HEALTH over my ability to make people think I look attractive.  Just today, I finally posted a nice, but not overly made-up image of myself as my avi on Twitter.  Baby steps.

Someone once said to me:  "You use your wit and intelligence as if your appearance had no power, and the effect is devastating."

That said a lot to me about my looks - which, with this person, even still matters to me.  But it also said something profound about what I have to back up the first impression.  I am so grateful mom and dad girded me with that power.

Side-eyeing the whole dadgum thing

Space Coolness

Twelve shot in New Orleans today, at a Mother's Day parade.

But human beings also do this:



Even Bowie must be geeking on this one.

The small lyrical changes are fascinating ... but the images and the personal intimacy are heart-catching and magnificent.  THIS is *art* ... and I can't even aspire to such beauty.  I don't even want to, I'm just grateful we are capable of such immensity.

YouTube Nerd Fun

A couple treats for my geeks ...





... and one for that one archaeologist I know ...

GOTY

For those gamers who dip in here from time to time, the single most important, harrowing, and absolutely beautiful post I've ever read about gaming.  It was the article after all.

Steam. Powered. Nerdliness.

I am dying to know the memory on this little booger (not the sleek and fuzzy one):