Housekeeping

Made a few additions to the old blogroll. Check 'em out.

Meanwhile...

I kind of feel like Laura Palmer.



Why? Because blogtopia is pissing me off.

I'm not saying "nobody blogs about stuff." Because, well, that would be a lie. Even "big name" bloggers actually post about these things. And hell, I'm not any sort of actionable information machine these days.

It's just that, post about boobs, get over a hundred comments.

Meanwhile...

YANGON, Myanmar - Soldiers and police took control of the streets Friday, firing warning shots and tear gas to scatter the few pro-democracy protesters who ventured out as Myanmar's military junta sealed off Buddhist monasteries and cut public Internet access.

On the third day of a harsh government crackdown, the streets were empty of the mass gatherings that had peacefully challenged the regime daily for nearly two weeks, leaving only small groups of activists to be chased around by security forces.

"Bloodbath again! Bloodbath again!" a Yangon resident yelled while watching soldiers break up one march by shooting into air, firing tear gas and beating people with clubs.

Thousands of monks had provided the backbone of the protests, but they were besieged in their monasteries, penned in by locked gates and barbed wire surrounding the compounds in the two biggest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Troops stood guard outside and blocked nearby roads to keep the clergymen isolated.

Meanwhile...

GENEVA, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Some 480,000 Iraqis have registered as internal refugees or IDPs since the start of 2007, bringing the total in the country to more than 2.25 million, the IOM relief body said on Wednesday.

The IOM, or International Organisation for Migration, said most of those leaving their homes were fleeing sectarian violence -- with 88 percent saying they had moved after being targeted for their religious identity.

"The situation is becoming a displacement catastrophe," Dana Graber Ladek, a Jordan-based official for the IOM, told a news conference. "It is certainly the worst crisis of its type the whole (Middle East) region has seen since 1948."

Etc., etc., etc.

I think all I'm saying is it gets really, really tiresome to see the more inconsequential things spark the most outrage again and again and again.

**ADDED**
Meanwhile...

Meanwhile...

Meanwhile...

Sigh. I guess I'm not sure what my point is. I mean, beyond, 'What is the point of the Feminist blogosphere, anyway?' What are we doing with ourselves, besides "examining our choices?" There has to be something more to it, right?

Who's the master?

Belledame reminds me of the coolest movie ever.



Sho 'nuff, Shogun of Harlem has to be the most awesome movie bad guy ever.



"Who's the master?"

"I am!"

I also like the part when the little kid breakdances out of the ropes the bad guys tied him up with.

Quote of the Day

seriously: how much energy would be left if people just decided to -leave other peoples' appearance/sexuality alone-? Like, for a -week.- Just one week.

-Belledame the awesome. Who I stole the 'quote of the day' concept from.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some choices to examine.

Things I missed while I was studying for a test I was doomed to fail

I missed a couple of things last week that I wanted to give mention.

For instance, Talk Like a Pirate day went by again without proper celebration on my part. Could I possibly suck more?

More importantly, I missed the Jena 6 virtual march. Well, I will still try to participate and post about it.

In fact, I'm kind of sick of blogging about stupid shit like intra-feminist blogwars while all sorts of shit around the world is happening. So let's see what happens with that sentiment on my part.

Я не люблю...

Yeah, so I did really badly on a Russian test today. Like humiliatingly badly. And then I had to do an oral exam in Russian and screwed that one up too.

Dr Ivanova, I have shamed you!

I shall never drink vodka again!

Because I don't have time to read the news

And because it will please the relatives, Bonus Baby Blogging.



I love this one. You can practically hear her thinking, 'God I hate these fucking paparazzi. Where's my cell phone!'

Okay

So I changed my template around. Is it ok? Hideous? Did I screw up something weird that makes it look funny in Netscape?

The fancy new blogger widget thingie is both kind of cool and a huge pain in the ass. I wasn't able to get Haloscan to work with it, which kind of sucks because, there's years worth of comments in Haloscan.

But, I kind of always hated Haloscan anyway. So I guess we'll do Blogger comments and see if that works out.

Also, I need to update my blogroll. Suggestions?

Um.

My template seems to have taken a vacation. If it doesn't fix itself overnight, I'll try to figure it out tomorrow. It's probably just Blogger being stupid again.

Might be time for a new template anyway. Hmmmm...

Bonus YouTubing

In counter to counter the effects of the last post, something perhaps only slightly less creepy.



Perhaps the cutest video ever made about the perils of stinky whale breath.

Ooh, creepy

Just thought I'd make anyone still around feel all eerie for no reason.

Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon.





I hate it when I dream about turning into three versions of myself while chasing a mirror-faced person while having a key come out of my mouth that keeps turing into a knife, and then I die.

Let's not even touch on Kenneth Anger's Fireworks.

Excessive Baby Blogging!

Because she's going to Grandma's this weekend and I will miss her.


Recently, Abbie has started enjoying sitting on the kitchen chairs. Apparently this is the funnest game ever. It probably helps that being a 14-month-old is akin to being high all the time.


It does give a good opportunity to snap a few pictures, though.


Here is a serious one.


And here she has properly identified the location of her teeth.


And here she is mid-shout that she wants you to put the camera away.

Tch.

Man, I love the internet! Especially the blogosphere!

It's like, land of the strawman! Home of the straw-ubermench! It's like Mecha-strawman vs. Strawzilla in this place!

Please, can we have yet another stupid blogwar about dumbass shit that affects no one!? Because I really haven't gotten the chance to show off my shiny new privilege yet. Let's spend all our time bitching about sex and puppies while all sorts of bullshit is going down in the real world while we do nothing but spend all our time bitching about sex and puppies. (Oh, don't make me link to the threads. You know where they are.) We're so lucky we have the time to do nothing else.

Oh, but you say, there's no outrage shortage! We can bitch about sex and puppies and still talk about bullshit in the real world! We've just chosen not to!

Yay blogosphere! I mean straw-gosphere! Where everyone is evil and wrong except for you! And by you I mean me! But when you say it you mean you!

And this post is itself a straw-post. Of course it is! Everything is made of straw in the blogosphere! Because anything else wouldn't be as fun!

(Okay, so that was a pretty stupid rant. But next time, when we have a huge blogwar that lots of people who have never even met get all personally invested in, can we make it about something that actually affects the lives of other human beings? And can something good come out of it? Please? I'm getting tired of sounding like a dumbass when I try to explain these things to Brian.)

Technically, I'm supposed to be writing a paper about this right now.

But, you know, I thought I'd share.

One of the classes in the "they're making me take this" category this semester is my Early Shakespeare class. Not that I don't want to take a Shakespeare class, per se, but I know Shakespeare already. Not only was I a total drama geek in high school (not to mention a poetry geek during my first round of college), but I've read a lot of Shakespeare recreationally. I mean, I married an English major. So it felt kind of juvenile having to sign up for "Early Shakespeare."

But I'm glad I did, because I love me some Titus Andronicus.

Here's the plot synopsis, if you're curious.

Titus has a bad reputation amongst the Shakespeare geeks. I have no idea why. It's fantastic, both on the literary analysis level and the oh-shit-did-he-just-slit-their-throats level. There's twisting of gender norms, twisting of the notion of "barbarian foreigners," insights into the development of racism in Western culture (in that you can see how it's starting to move from a religion and culture-based concept to an ethnicity-based concept), and other yummy goodness. Plus, there's at least one horrible atrocity committed on stage in each act. (Usually in Shakespeare, these things happen off stage. Easier on the budget, I guess.)

Much more interesting, in my opinion, than the dreary Hamlet. Yes, sighing emo boys were annoying even in the 16th century.

Better still is Julie Taymor's film adaptation Titus. It's the movie The 300 wanted to be (sorry Ren). Not only does a lot of 300's "original" visual style come from Titus (check out the trailer, here), but apparently they even stole the theme music. But the casting in this movie is perfect. Anthony Hopkins, whom I usually consider a scene-chewing hack, is perfect-perfect-perfect as Titus.

Here's my second favorite scene (of Taymor's film version), where the raped and mutilated Lavinia is discovered in a swamp by her uncle Marcus.



There's a line in the play that they're leaving out here, which reads, "Alas, a crimson river of warm blood, like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind, doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips, coming and going with thy honey breath." I think they captured that pretty good, eh?

My favorite scene in the film is the one where Titus hangs Chiron and Demetrius (who are still wearing their Rapine and Murder disguise make-up) upside-down and naked, tells them he's going to bake them into a pie that their mother will then eat, slits their throats, and has Lavinia catch their blood in a bowl she holds in her stumps. It's the scene in the trailer where Hopkins says "I shall griinnd your boooones to dust!"

I love it. If somebody finds it on Youtube, tell me and I'll post it.

Oh, trigger warning for this post I guess. And maybe NSFW I suppose.

Now, to somehow turn this post into my paper...

Dear Advertising Department at Salon.com,

Look, I'm sure the Washlet bidet is a very nice product. But do I really have to look at smiling asses whenever I go to your site? Isn't the fact that I change baby diapers enough?

Love,

Vanessa.