Wake the Sun

Internet Readalong

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:19:14 GMT

* Yesterday, Lt. Dan Choi and former Army infrantryman James Pietrangelo chained themselves to the White House fence in protest of DADT. They were arrested and are currently in jail with no phone call and Park Police will not release them on bail. Pam's got a brief update here, you can read up on Dan Choi and the events that led up to this over on Joe.My.God.

* The New York Times has an article (in the Fashion section, the hell?) on Photographer Jeff Sheng's work photographing queer people in the US military.
you can visit his website to see more of this and other projects.

* I missed this when it got posted - a Reproductive Justice linkspam over on The Angry Black Woman.

* Another Gaga link - bookshop has an epic pic/link/essayspam up.

* bossymarmalade has a response to the Feministe article (guestblogged by Sady Doyle) on the Telephone vid. Lots of discussion in the comments.

* On Boingboing: What's more awesome than discovering a temperate planet outside our solar system?

* On Wired: The Oldest Trees on the Planet

* Exclusive: Al Gore is Coming to Comic-Con! Sort of. Also holy shit - I've been to Comic-Con, they are not exaggerating how much this will mess things up. The whole city shuts down for that convention.

* poisonivory:

* ( Music )

edit: ALMOST FORGOT FOLLOW FRIDAY, whoops.

* glockgal: Amazing artist, writer of thinky things and founder of Racebending.com

* redroanchronicles: Just started following her via the Non-Fandom Friending Meme and am glad I did - lots of (horse!) photography, writing, and bio!linkspams. Good times!

Internet Readalong

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:08:19 GMT

The latest Lady Gaga (featuring Beyonce) video (for those of you who didn't count down the days, heh):

Some Gaga meta (taken almost entirely from bookshop's delicious page:

* Heather Cassils: Lady Gaga's Prison Yard Girlfriend on Out.com

Gone are the days when if you're against the war you go and protest on the street. Protesting doesn't stop wars anymore. Going to your gay pride rally is nice -- it makes you feel good, but unfortunately we don't live in that era anymore. The only way you can create social change is to insert yourself into the machine.

Right. And cast yourself as a monkey wrench.

Exactly.

* Lady Gaga's "Telephone" - Observations and Discussion!

* Yes, this is really happening: Snotty literary theory meets Lady Gaga!

And now I want to read some articles about Beyonce [makes note to self]

* A contrast - Strange Silence: Portraits from Women's Prisons

* There's some good Twilight commentary over on the Manga Bookshelf - Dear Fandom: Please Grow Up

* coffeeandink has a post up on how Religion != Christianity.

* seperis has a post up on the creepy shit Apple's been up to lately.

* They're making a comic book about Shepherd Book's backstory. I honestly have no idea how I feel about this.

* A super high rez interactive panorama of Paris? Yes please.

* Harmony - a pretty cool non-flash-based online drawing program.

* The Tiptree winners are up!

* Lastly, liv has got the Giant non-fandom friending meme going on. A big hello to everyone who found me over there!

The Hayate X Blade Guide to Idiots

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:02:26 GMT

One of my favorite manga is Hayate x Blade (はやて×ブレード, occasionally read as 'Hayate Cross Blade') by Hayashiya Shizuru (not mentioned in the wiki article - she's also done a lot of doujinshi under the circle name Jesus Drug). It's a shonen action/comedy with shojo-ai under(and over, and all over)tones that started serialization in Dengeki Daioh (2003-2008) and currently runs in Ultra Jump, there are currently 11 volumes and 3 drama cds released in Japan (5 volumes in the US), yadda yadda boring details whatever.

The thing is, Hayate x Blade is 100% GRADE A AWESOME. And sadly, tragically obscure here in the US.

( I'd like to fix that. (Image heavy) )

(Format=light version here)

In short, if you're looking for a fun, dumb, smart, hilarious action/comedy that's female centric and has oodles of homoerotic ~~sub~~text plus actual queer characters, give Hayate X Blade a try.

Internet Readalong + Follow Friday

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:16:06 GMT

* rydra_wong has an update on LJ and the affiliate link business: In other words, they will be redirecting your links to slap affiliate codes on them and make money out of them in future. As comments from the reps indicated, the "mistake" this time was that it stripped existing affiliate codes.

* There was some really, really disgusting stuff up at SyFy's bio of Gwen (Merlin). It's since been removed but, still. What the hell where they thinking? such_hights is having a Gwen/Angel picspam party to help counteract the badwrong.

* Glenn Beck is still a pox upon humanity.

* stephiepenguin has a great linkspam up - sometimes i love broken things (feminism).

* Speaking of broken things, have y'all see Queer the (US) Census? They sure are missing a bunch of tickyboxes for an organization who want to "make sure the census counts everyone." I've ordered a sticker and will be fixing the damn thing with a sharpie.

* Two pieces from Ta-Nehisi Coates - Study Finds Median Wealth For Single Black Women at $5 (in short: read the study, not just the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article) and Enhanced Interrogation (in short: holy fuck).

* Today's Cake Wreck is particularly disturbing. [squints at it] Huh. Apparently it's not supposed to look like something from Pompeii.

* Jetpacks! We have officially arrived in the future.

* Chatroulette is no longer quite so anonymous. Creepy everything is creepy.

* You Belong With Me: The queer, super adorable version. This is the version with the male voice (which folks are saying is Taylor Swift with the pitch changed?), you can see the original (same vid, Taylor's actual voice, no cutting out at the end) here.

* Brought to you by the entire internet:

Follow Friday (yay Friday!!):

* glass_icarus: Link roundups, book recs and reviews, fanfic, essays, general awesomeness.

* cimorene: Shoes and badfic headers and books and essays and stuff! Also great ficrecs on delicious. One of my favorite internet people.

* coffeeandink: Fantastic journal with lots of book reviews, tv/movie/manga talk, and meta.

* oddible:'A hybrid music pimping/writing challenge community.' Modded by ciceqi, whose music tastes have shaped mu own for years.

( Music! )

Books III: Return of the Book

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:08:54 GMT

It's been a while since I've done one of these! And it's nothing like complete, but whatever.

Currently Reading:

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

To-Read Pile:

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
The one quivo recommended to me with the title I can't remember by It's Sitting In A Bag In My Room

Just-Read Pile:

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones
Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones

There is maybe a theme here.

Notes: I really, *really* enjoyed Small Gods - I dig Pterry's thinky thoughts on Belief. I really, *really* disliked Year of the Griffin (why, DWJ?) - it was... disjointed and painfully heteronormative (did you really have to pair up everyone at the end, DWJ? Woe?).

And hey, anyone have any articles/guides on the SF&F genre for someone new to it? A 'So You Want To Read SciFi And Fantasy' type deal, maybe.

Internet Readalong

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:13:30 GMT

Wow, okay, I've been sitting on these links for days. Time to let them be free!

* Y'all know LJ's been pulling more fuckery, right? See rydra_wong for the deets. [hugs DW close]

* Via unusualmusic - Blood's Thicker Than Water: As Thousands Die in the Arizona Desert as a Result of U.S. Border Policy, an Army of Activists Intervenes: The Border Patrol's 2008 raid was not an isolated incident. Since No More Deaths established itself as a presence in Tucson's vibrant social-justice community, it has butted heads with federal authorities annoyed by its work to put water in the desert and assert the human rights of the more than half a million people who cross illegally from Mexico into the United States each year. This is an incredibly important article and I encourage you all to read it soonest.

* The stove of the future is freaking sweet.

* ciderpress remembers Michael Foot.

* I've been watching some of Lindsay Ellis', aka Nostalgia Chick, videos on older US pop culture - they're fun (if not particularly deep) and trippy in an intense flashback sort of way (especially the one on My Little Ponies).

* I'm wondering if I should break up with mainstream comics again. On the one hand, there's some really cool stuff scheduled to be coming out of DC this year. On the other hand, they pull shit like this (spoilers!) All. The. Time. odditycollector responds with a wonderful, heartbreaking, slightly spoilerly poem.

* From zanzando (I think) - Sex and the Off-Label Use of Our Bodies:

Our mouths weren’t “meant” for us to play the harmonica. Our heads weren’t “meant” for us to display giant novelty foam-rubber cheese wedges and other oversized signals of allegiance to sports teams. Our hands weren’t “meant” for us to type on computer keyboards. (Boy howdy, were they ever not. My recent tendinitis flare-up is evidence enough of that.) And that doesn’t stop anyone from doing these things.

So why should sex be an exception?

* The 'first' bookclub meeting went really well - thanks to everyone who had suggestions for the reading list! We decided that, among other things, we really wanted an online space where anyone who was interested could come and discuss the book of the month. An online space with threaded comments. An online space like... the bookaneers.

Said online space is pretty empty right now, I'll let y'all know when we've got it up and running.

* ( Music - The Weakerthans, Nelly Furtado (Josh Remix), Usher )

Dean Winchester wearing the Evenstar! (The actual poster)

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:36:41 GMT

[looks around all confused] Geez, cimorene was just here, where did she go?

'Cause, see. First we had a conversation.

( And then I made this. )

And now she's not online so I can share the glory. Woe!

The second will not make sense without the first. Or with it, really.

I don't even know how to title this

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:30:00 GMT

So Nick Simmons released a statement about his plagiarism charges saying, in effect, that it was a homage, he's sorry we're offended, and all manga looks the same anyway.

And then there were (trolling) comments about how he's right, manga does all look the same, what's the problem and I had some kind of fannish!rage blackout, fired up google images, and started planning a really epic rage!post about how manga is not a genre, you can't lump an entire country's creative sequential-art output together like that, and all manga doesn't look the same, dammit.

That was 24 hours ago. I'm feeling much better.

( But now I've got these nicely edited images so you're still getting the picspam. )

The images are pretty big and my layout doesn't really support that, so here's the format=light version

So this post isn't completely ridiculous, here. Have some links:

The Face of the Other by Mark Thorn

Are Anime Characters Caucasian or Japanese? on Youtube

Naruto 10th Anniversary Tribute Drawn by Other Popular Manga Artists | Holy heck it's been 10 years. I started reading Naruto when I was 15 and the first, like, 20 chapters were all that was up on Toriyama's World. Yikes.

Also, a signal boost: PSA: "Can I talk to you?" troll

Recipe box

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:17:25 GMT

I've been trying to cook more and eat out less, something that's been paying off both financially and health-wise (although our kitchen is a constant mess). Last night we had a bit of a party (To reiterate - Dee's friend Salma was visiting, a couple more folks dropped in, we watched Dostana and Salma practiced doing mehndi on us) and I spent most of it cooking (and running into the living area, pans in hand, to see what everyone was laughing about). End result: 12 tuna filled onigiri, 1 pan of lamb meatloaf (with cannoli beans), 4 egg sandwiches (frozen to eat during the week) and 30 chocolate-mint cookies. There was... a lot of washing up, after.

( Recipe links for these and a few others )

This is probably gonna turn into a regular thing. Do I have any food icons? [checks] No. Well, sort of. Need to get on that.

Movie!

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:41:14 GMT

Just saw Dostana (roomie has a friend over, it was an impulse buy at the local Desi grocery, long story). And it was amazing. It is tragic that there isn't anything up for it on Yuletide (next year, right?) - I'll have to check the dark_agenda list to see if folks were talking about it.

Because they should be. It's slashy as hell. The ending.

Edit: And now I've got mehndi on my hand.

Edit x2: I shared this with bookshop over on this post's evil twin and should probably do the same here. Might... this might not be worksafe. Depending on how your workplace feels about rippling abs.

Books recs?

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:38:19 GMT

A couple months ago I was making noise about starting a local Dallas bookclub - had the blog up, the flyers made, the books picked out, and then it just kind of... fizzled. Curse you, winter months!

So, I'm giving it another go. Today I'm borrowing my sister and we'll go 'round and put the flyers up, next Sunday will be the first, get-to-know-you meeting. Excellent!

But it feels like the book list needs an overhaul. We'll discuss it at the meeting, I hope, but was wondering if any of y'all had suggestions (especially for books by non-western authors). The club will focus on Fantasy and Scifi that are female, queer, and CoC centric, the books need to be SFF that meet at least one (preferably more) of those criteria. Any ideas?

( The current list )

Books I'm thinking about swapping in include Liar (Justine Larbalestier), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie), and The Twelve Kingdoms, Volume 1: Sea of Shadow (Fuyumi Ono).

Internet Readalong (is a little late)

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:08:14 GMT

Internet readalong (is a little late tonight)

* This week in plagiarism: Gene Simmon's son rips off Bleach, Hellsing, and a bunch of other manga for his own 'original' comic. Really, really obviously. Also there were shenanigans that went down with Hot Topic (surprise!), a band tshirt, and a ripped off author on Twitter. There's no writeup that I can find about it, but the main players were Verabee (the artist), Poisonrational (the one who got shit sorted out), and Pierce The Veil (the band).

* thingswithwings writes a gorgeous piece on fat shaming, sin eating, and US capitalistic society: The issue... it's that I'm taking up too much fucking space. I'm the consumer you can blame; you can tell I'm a wanton consumer by my waist size; if it weren't for me, there would be plenty of health care to go around! Plenty of food for starving waifs, plenty of fuel for thin active soccer moms to gas up their SUVs, plenty of resources. It's not that we need to fix the infrastructure or that there's anything wrong with the way the average American uses food or fuel; it's not that there's anything wrong with giant corporations that will happily trade away resources, dignity, public health, and human life for a profit. None of that stuff is the problem; I am the problem. If I would just fucking go away, there'd be enough food, and fuel, and health care for EVERYONE.

* Anti-Theist Angie has been livetweeting her abortion (fb induced) and also has a bunch of youtube vids up on all kinds of topics. See this factsheet for more information on FB induced abortion.

* Racebending.com has a short vid up about the history of yellowface as well as an analysis of the extended version of the Airbender trailer.

* A couple days ago, unusualmusic expressed an interest in seeing the US atheist movement critiqued from a social justice perspective. I immedietly thought of Towards an Intersectionality of Atheism and Race by sanguinity but, uh. Since unusualmusic is the first commenter there, she's probably already read it. Still, it's a good read and an important topic.

* Another oldie-but-goodie - shadowfae's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Tia Dalma conflict: What are my issues with Tia Dalma as a character? Presentation. In this trilogy, Disney's writers felt it was okay to tastefully weave history in the plots and portrayals of their white fictional characters, but decided to rely on stereotypes when it came to the stories of the people of color in these films - Tia Dalma in particular, and African spirituality and Black folk practices specifically.

* Via Racialicious - Blanco: In Solidarity with 1.3% of UCSD: Dr. Blanco was an inspiration for many of us, student of color organizers, while attending UCSD. In the letter, he contextualizes the “private party”, discussing why outrage is justified and why Filipino American students should stand as allies with our African American brothers and sisters.

* On TNC, Adam Serwer talks about the American Takfiris: The American conscience is often slow to action, but not because it cannot recognize evil--but because our view of ourselves as a people guided by justice is so important to who we are that when confronted with proof of our own shortcomings, we recoil in shame and precious vanity.

* seperis put up a quick link roundup about the end times (aka scary social justice shit that is going on right now).

* There's a new That's Gay episode, hurray!

* Although it looks like there won't be any more Target Women with the amazing Sarah Haskins. But we'll be getting movies from her, so it's not all bad.

* So I've lived in Dallas for a year and a half now. And the thing about Dallas is that there are these red pegasi everywhere. Like, life size statues in random lobbies and parks and things. It was surreal. So I finally googled the thing and it turns out the winged red horse is the symbol of Dallas. I'm having an interesting time incorporating this into my view of the city.

* For Follow Friday: If you're looking for interesting, intelligent women who write about interesting, intelligent things, you should check out the journals of rydra_wong, elspethdixon, jonquil, unusualmusic, and ciderpress.

* ( Music! Ciara, The Cat Empire, and Patrick Wolf. )

Guess what I usually do with my free time

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:34:20 GMT

Has anyone 'round these parts tried making a daily/weekly/whatever schedule? Did it work for you? I know these things are pretty individual but, eh, it's worth a shot.

I know there's room for more stuff in my week I'm just not very good at fitting it in.

cool comics on the internet

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:54:31 GMT

I found out the other day that bookshop has only just started reading Kate Beaton's history comics. Shock! Horror! And then I had a conversation with cimorene where I tried to push Gunnerkrigg Court and Templar, Arizona on her and I started thinking, what else don't people know about? Clearly it is time for a rec post.

Therefore, I am happy to present for your consideration:

( Webcomics I read on a regular basis/subscribe to/devour/etc )

( Webcomics I check every once in a while/wait to read in chunks )

( Webcomics I keep meaning to read )

( Artist pages/Links/other cool things )

Edit: So, what are you folks reading?

Internet Readalong

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:03:16 GMT

* There have been two major outbreaks of the Tone Argument on my reading list this week - once over at scans_daily: Why Anti-Oppression Is Serious Business (WARNING - may be triggering for survivors of assault and abuse) and again over at Feministe: Dear USians on the Internet. Folks, this is not on.

So. Firstly - I'm in support with the mods at Scans Daily and Feministe and appreciate the work they've been doing on this. Secondly - if you need a refresher on the tone argument (or don't know what it is), check out The Privilege of Politeness over at The Angry Black Woman: At the core of this expectation of politeness is the idea that the POC in question should teach the offender what was wrong with their statement. Because in my experience what is meant by “be polite” is “teach me”, teach me why you’re offended by this, teach me how to be racially sensitive and the bottom line is that it is no one’s responsibility to teach anyone else. And even when POC are as polite as possible there is still hostility read into the words because people are so afraid of being called racist that they would rather go on offending than deal with the hard road of confronting their own prejudices.

Bottom line (paraphrased from all over the internet) - if you step on someone's foot (or punch them in the face), even by accident, it is not their job to politely ask you to stop (and then explain why it hurt).

* This was linked in the Feministe comments and is pretty awesome (as is the Canadian, Please vid it's a response to. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out!):

* unusualmusic has a lovely long list of links up, all releated to POC and gender identity. The South Asian and Arab American Comedians vid she has embedded is well worth the watch.

* A small plane just crashed into a building in Austin.

* Via cimorene - Professionalism = Selling Your Soul: A Feminist Rant on "The Devil Wears Prada": So here's my problem with the movie: I couldn't see anything she did wrong. I was watching very carefully the second time around, and almost every "soul-selling" step that the heroine took seemed perfectly reasonable and defensible.

* Amazing pop-up book is amazing.

* Speaking of art - I've really fallen for the work of David Weidman. Look at those colors.

* Have y'all see Saving Face? Because you really, really should - it's an amazing film.

* Over on TNC's blog, Adam Serwer guest posts an incredibly eloquent essay on Bioshock and Bioshock 2. I don't normally go for first-person shooters, but. Damn. (geez, I haven't really looked at the blog this week, seems like there's a whole slew of guest bloggers. I've got some catching up to do...)

* Looking to put together a graphic design setup on the cheap (and by 'cheap' I mean 'free')? The folks at Paper Leaf can set you up. And while we're talking free design goodness, you should absolutely check out the exljbris Font Foundry. Oh, Fontin, love of my life.

* I've got some great webcomics linked in my sidebar ------->
but I'd like to rec SFEER Theory and The Not So Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal in particular - they're both just starting up and are wonderful things by wonderful people.

* ( Music - Tracy Chapman, The Tea Party, A Goofy Movie Soundtrack )

Internet Readalong

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:12:20 GMT

* Jay Smooth has a new video up! Pop Life and Race Matters

* resonant talks about making a list of twenty tiny transitions to make your life a little bit better. I need to make up my own list.

* Clients From Hell (graphic design) and Not Always Right (customer service/general) are two blogs I check daily. Because they are hilarious and sometimes I just need to despair of humanity.

* Yesterday I told cimorene That Adam Lambert, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga are my 'big three.' 'Big three what?' she replied, 'rainbow glitter singers?'

Which... yes. Basically.

I could write a mini essay on how I strongly associate them with clubs/dancing/fandom and also the return of glam/queerness to the mainstream pop scene, but I think I'll post some music instead. ( It's shiny. )

Happy Valentine's Day and a Happy New Year

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:46:42 GMT

I'm not much one for Valentine's - I'm usually single for it, it's over-commercialized, blahdiddy blah blah. It's a good day for feeling lonely.

But last night I read yuki_onna's Valentine's post and it made me think.

In the midst of winter, we are encouraged to come together and have sex (let's not be coy.) To escape the snow and ice in each others' bodies. The colors are red and rose and white--the colors of fire in the winter, of blood, of flesh, survival even in the barren times. We exchange hearts, the very vital core of our bodies. It is the last holiday before spring, to remind us that the fertile world will come again, with flowers and sweetness and love. Even surrounded by death, by blood on the snow, be it St. Valentine's blood or your own, life will win out. The traditional food is chocolate--which can be preserved through the winter and does not rot, full of sugar and fat which keep our bodies going through lean times. This holiday is as old as time: o world, even in the freezing storm, come together, make love, make children, feast, smile, and know the sun is coming soon.

Also, Valentine's Day was apparently invented by Chaucer. How cool is that?

It's also the Chinese/Lunar New Year - We've officially entered the Year of the Tiger. dhobikikutti has a party running, it's pretty fantastic.

And deepad tells us of a bomb blast in Pune and points us towards spykeraven, whose family lives there (they're thankfully okay). She asks:

Please, for me. Do one good deed today. Help a stranger across the road, put trash in a bin, buy a rose and leave it on a co-worker's desk. Small charms that woven together can lead to something greater. Pray for peace and understanding between our different selves.

Because if anyone I loved had been hurt, I might be asking something entirely different.

So. I don't have much romance in my life but I do have love - love for family, for friends, for the occasional stranger on the bus, at the club, or on the screen. And I'm loved in return. Why not celebrate that today? Why not share it around, mark this moment as a time for growth and change? It's a better day for it then most.

Google buzz alert

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:00:14 GMT

Hey folks, heads up - it looks like Google fucked up and made Buzz even creepier then it initially appeared. Via cleolinda:

Fugitivus - Fuck you, Google: I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother. There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other “most frequent” contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is? My abusive ex-husband. Which is why it’s SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I’ve made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend, who I had NO REASON to hide my current location or workplace from, and never did.

Lifehacker - Google Updates, Explains Buzz Privacy Setup: Does it seem to you like Google underestimated how seriously people would take having even a small part of their inboxes exposed to the world? Yeah, well, us too. Still, Google does seem to have moved quickly to at least make opting out of public follower/followee listing a more prominent option, if not necessarily a default.

MSNBC - Using Google Buzz? Here’s a privacy checklist: Silicon Alley Insider raised some very real privacy concerns about Google Buzz this week, noting that the service ends up exposing many of your e-mail contacts by default. That's a problem if you have e-mail contacts you'd rather not make public.

Please, everyone, go through and update your privacy settings PRONTO (especially if, like me, your fannish account has some RL leakage). Or shut the damn thing off entirely.

ETA (still from cleolinda): CNET - Buzz off: Disabling Google Buzz.

Internet Readalong

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:30:26 GMT

* I woke up this morning to find a ~~Facebook~~ Buzz in my Gmail [pokes it with stick]. Gizmodo reports.

* Why Taylor Swift Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos by Reise on Autostraddle. Role models aren’t suspended children, trapped by projections and unable to grow until affirmed by an idealized male partner. Role models grow and change and challenge themselves and are rewarded for exceptionalism, not potential. Independently. Note: She's talking about Taylor Swift the Media construct, not Taylor Swift the person. And also has a huge Lady Gaga bias, though Beyonce and Glambert also get shout outs.

* Intent! It’s Fucking Magic!: Today, someone said a slur. It actually doesn’t matter what slur it was, because you see, he didn’t intend to hurt anyone and therefore it couldn’t possibly be a slur. Much like how intent magically protects the actions of all privileged fuckjobs, intent means that anything you say, no matter how many groups it hurts, what awful views it enables, no matter what systemic bigotries it props up through the usage of language that enforces social concepts that crush a marginalized group, it mystically negates all of that.

* Gender Bowl by yuki_onna: Every other ad was about how horrible women are, and how they ruin everything for men, all the time. The Dodge, Flo TV, and Dove ads come to mind--you can only strike out at those evil women if you buy our product and stick it to them! YEAH. How dare women make you go to work and eat fruit and use soap? I have *got* to track down more of this woman's work - everything I've read on her journal has been magic.

* Maddow On Tancredo & Jim Crow via Joe. My. God.

( * Lots of music )

not quite an internet readalong

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:11:02 GMT

* Princess Project update - I've resolved Al, Jasmine, and Genie's backstory to my satisfaction, done a ton more research, and am in the process of plotting the overall arc and individual 'episodes.'

I've... also turned Pride Rock into a gay/queer club (with Zazu and Timon as rival drag queens ((Zazu is also the manager)), Nala as assistant manager and occasional bartender, and Simba ((pansexual and fiercely in love with Nala)) as the too-young owner with a vision. Chicha ((Emperor's New Groove)) djs there on Saturday nights). It was originally set dressing for a Rex/Hernando side story I was entertaining myself with, but at this point it's so developed I might as well use it in the main piece.

wishfulclicking, I'm so sorry, this probably isn't what you had in mind when you asked if the Lion King was going to be included.

* I'm rewatching Buffy - currently halfway through season 2 and mostly enjoying the heck out of it (aside from the race!fail and culture!fail and lookwe'retalkingaboutrapecanwehaveacookienow!fail). The last (and first) time I watched it was my freshman year in college - I had a friend who told me 'wait until you get to the fourth season - there's somethings that happen with Willow that I really think you'll relate to' - thus continuing the 'everyone knew I was queer before I did*' trend.

* There was a football game last night! I won't talk about who won because zanzando might not have seen it yet, but. There's always the commercials. Which were, for the most part, really terrible. Really, really terrible, and misogynistic, and buffoonish. To counter that you can see the Planned Parenthood response to Focus on the Family's spot here, Racebending.com's response to The Last Airbender's spot here, and rm talks about one of her favorite ads of Superbowls past over on her linkspam.

* My personal favorite Superbowl ad (I'm admittedly biased on a number of fronts):

* Another ad (not Superbowl related), totally unexpected and beautiful:

* And today's music video of choice:

* or what felt like everyone. To be fair, nepenthe totally didn't know, she just laughed for a long time when I came out and then was very supportive.

psa: Creating change 2010

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:04:47 GMT

While I'm thinking about it - anyone in town for The Taskforce's Creating Change Conference? I don't know if I'll get to drop by, work's a tidge crazy right now, but I'd be happy to provide Dallas area information. And drop me a note if you or someone you know needs a place to crash - we're already hosting a couple of people but there's always room for more.

the very best political attack ad

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:44:31 GMT

You guys this is genius. Crazy, creepy genius.

Be sure to watch the whole thing - it gets even better.

And yes, the internet tells me this was professionally made.

Internet Readalong

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:11:51 GMT

* 28 books for Black History Month, complied by deepad. If you're feeling extra readerly-like, I'd add on any of Ishmael Reed's essay compilations (and books, and poems).

* Ooh, speaking of recommended reading - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (a play by August Wilson) is up on Googlebooks in it's entirety!

* In case you've missed it, Amazon had more fail over the weekend. Scott Westerfeld has a summery here, John Scalzi talks more about it here. I posted a list of alternate, independent online booksellers after the last round of fail, you can check it out here. I've been doing all my buying since through Better World Books and highly recommend them.

* There's fuckery going down with the UK's Equality Bill, the House of Lords, and the pope - rm has a bunch of related links here, unusualmusic has a very succinct post (and more links) on the matter here.

* Both halfamoon and 14valentines are up and running - you should check them out! And a reminder - hh_kink is still running.

* Photos of the Whirlpool Galaxy. So shiny.

* The FIXIT Magazine for Comics and Art project on Kickstarter looks interesting.

( * Music! )

ETA with more book stuff:

* Tobias Buckhull talks about the latest Amazonfail in detail and gives a great break down on eBook pricing. So does K.T. Bradford.

* The Clarksworld winners are up! You can read the tied winners, From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7 by Nnedi Okorafor and The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew by Catherynne M. Valente on the website. Exciting!

Internet Readalong

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:00:04 GMT

* This clip from Wednesday's Daily Show makes me so angry and depressed, you don't even know (actually, you probably do). Also it introduces me to several people I deeply desire to punch in the face. Too far to the left my ass.

* As a fun 'Democrats what the fuck are you doing' chaser - Ta-Nehisi Coates talks with Ezra Klein about health care.

* On Racialicious: The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Babies.

* So, it turns out I have not been paying attention at all and Dan Savage is very much a douchebag. A douchebag who says transphobic, sexist, racist things. ( In addition to that- )

* In lighter news: Helvetica cookie cutters! I can't wait for these to go on sale.

* Over on Gizmodo, Joseph Shoer talks about the physics of space battles. Nifty!

* This is a really lovely period fashion shoot. Beautiful clothes, high resolution, several models of color, random goth girl... pretty much everything I could ask for.

* I watched Re Cutie Honey with my roommate last night - she was a little stunned but in the end agreed that it was amazing. ( Because it is. )

* Badass of the week: Caterina Sforza

* By rm: in secret somewhere. You are not missing the cool party ... Chasing down societally approved versions of magic and wondering why it doesn't feel more awesome isn't going to bring the win. Forget parties and conventions, this applies to my entire life.

* Henry Jenkins interviews glockgal about Racebending.com and the Avatar casting fail.

* This article on British newspaper reporting (as tweeted by Neil Gaiman) is fascinating .

* Follow Friday: Interested in other awesome linkspams? Check out rm and cofax7.

Porn! Porn for a cause!

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:09:46 GMT

hh_kink. It's a beautiful thing.