Upon watching a lot of Project Runway Canadria - does anyone else think that this version of the show is just, I don't know, nicer, more focussed on the tayloring and that their mentor is better than Tim Gunn? In terms of saying useful stuff? And of course, Iman is like, such a great judgehost, I mean, she rules this competition with an IRON FIST.

(10) They sort-of acknowledged that bisexuality exists and that it is not a bad thing (remains to be seen, depends on how much FOX got its panties in a twist). (9) Oh, they're such crafty little buggers when it comes to playing around with the American Dream, urban legends and genre tropes. It's like Psych but with good writing on the story- and pacing front. (8) Outfits and makeup. What? I get to be shallow and everyone gets to be gorgeous. (7) Camera, cut and execution is just dreamy. The set is dreamy. (6) Everybody is cute as a button. And I mean everybody; even the scary sharpshooter with family issues. (5) Everybody is good at their job. I love watching people doing what they're good at. (4) Especially the women. The women rock at their jobs. A lot. (3) The women. Tell me another show where women make up 50% of the cast and the show is not all about sex and relationships. Also, women talk to women on camera. Not about men! Look how desperate I've become. (2) It is very aware of its strengths and weaknesses. (1) Ang, Cam and Bones could totally run this whole lab-crime-solving-world-saving gig on their own.


***

Criticism:

(1) Of course it's sexist. It's a show on Fox. (2) It has serious issues with people of different abilities insofar as (a) they're invisible and (b) they're trying very hard to cutesify Brennan's social disorder. (3) Race - uh. Yeah. (4) It's a fucking police procedural where Science is the Answer to Everything and Everything Is In Your Genes, but it pokes more fun at that than any other show. Plus, they got a psychologist to balance out that view (but as a sociologist I have to refute both of these standpoints, so. Yeah.)


***

You're doing it again people.

Yeah, yeah, it's not like I don't have my moments of Schadenfreude when it comes to these things, but the general reaction makes me queasy - (a) because violence is not funny (even self-defence, while highly necessary, commendable and great if you can do it) and (b) everytime someone post something along the lines of "ha-ha, the trannies/fags/etc. fought back" I actually think about the ten other incidents or so I deal with a day (in research and npo-work and in my social circles) where people couldn't fight back.

So there.


Is anyone here watching Bones and would like to squee with me at the cuteness that this show manages to pull off?

Ahahahah

WOODY ALLEN: Leave him alone! All he did was have sex with a 13-year-old!
ROMAN POLANSKI: Yeah! I mean, it’s not like she was my stepdaughter or anything!
WOODY ALLEN: Aw, dude. Cold, bro. Cold.


I mean, I … can only laugh. Or I'd cry.

--- because having surfed around a bit, it seems that Gael García also said that the swine flu was a good thing to happen to Mexico, because it allowed families to spend more time with each other.

Yeah, because a pandemic is chicken soup for social cohesion.


No, I'm not bitter.

Back home for at least a month; alive. Birthday tomorrow, even though I do not feel very … birthday-ish. ¬_¬ Flat is acting suspicious, I fear a surprise party may be in order.

Guys, I love you. Seriously. Just when fandom stumbles from racefail over warningfail into queerfail, f_w becomes a beacon of self-modding hope.

:D

I'm currently giving in to my desire to purchase really tacky and I do mean tacky earrings on etsy.


… I don't even have functioning earring-suited holes in my ears right now.


Re necklace, I'm thinking this one instead of the BOOM BOOM POW one (which, incidentally, was made by revelate, who is just amazingly talented and her wirework is gorgeous. Gorgeous.

Anyway, seeing as I should be writing and working, I'll probably be talking about my jewelry and mug (<3!) collection soon, failing that, there's always books. And true blood.

Also,

could everyone trying to explain triggers and effects of triggers via neoclassic economics, numbers, graphs, cost/pay-off, externalities, RC-models please take their fucking pseudo-science and shove it elsewhere? It's almost as bad as people talking about triggers without having any definite authority on triggers in the form of experience, research or training. Nnngh.

When even "Zero Punctuation" notices the rampant racism in RE 5, you know that you've really and totally fucked up.

(Thanks sakemaki!)

Oh dear.

Some people just don't get it, and by it I mean --- wank, fun and the purpose of [Unknown LJ tag].

PUI MAKE IT STOP. I was about to start a conga line of racism icons with mctiy because I mistook that icon.

:(((

Happy belated birthday, alyanumbers! I hope that there's cake and general happiness!

So. Micro$oft created songsmith, a nice piece of software that composes some musical background noise when/while you sing. So far, so trainwreck. Luckily, the internet is a great and funny place and people never let an opportunity pass to take the living piss out of microsoft - when you extract, for instance, Queen's We will rock you and let it run against songsmith, the result sounds thusly.


*laughs tears*

Just youtube 'songsmith' or 'vs. songsmith', or go to the entertainmentweakly.com blog

(*) Out of town until Saturday; a congress on intersectionality I've been looking forward to leaves a slightly sour taste in my mouth now that I've actually looked at the speakers and workshop moderators in terms of PoC v. White speakers. Also, given that participants in the recent debate on cultural appropriation who call themselves academics have behaved in a way that showcases everything is wrong with white, western scientists (arrogance, the construction of false dichotomies, the reframing of an argument just so you can win it**), I kinda don't wanna go there. Still, I'll put on my big girl pants and engage. And I don't care if it's Regina Becker-Schmidt herself who screws up.

(*) Boyfriend et moi decided to go ahead and buy some books anyway because his bank account doesn't look that bad and we really need (some) of these. (Why, thank you for asking; we bought: RaceClassGender. An Anthology, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 because I haven' had a Krugman in a while, Fade to Blonde, Y: the Last Man Vol 1 because I decided to give Lucifer a break to reread and do some reviews and I'm going to hate myself for that decision as soon as I'm away from the internet for the rest of the week because I'm certainly going to change my mind and Vintage: A Ghost Story; the author blogs around here as mroctober and has handled a situation I'll not link to with incredible grace.)

(*) HAPPY INAUGURATION DAY! /dance

Since y'all are probably dying to know what I had to eat this weekend that wasn't too time-consuming to cook but also above the nutritional level of frozen pizza.

Excellent question, excellent.

Since y' asked, I did have Spaghetti Carbonara, steak à la mom (which is one of the first things I learned to cook; I don't like it all that much, but it quells all sorts of home sickness. Plus, it embodies everything Austrian kitchen has been, at its core, since we got a hold of potatoes: meat and potatoes [before that it was mostly meat and dumplings]: take some pork chop (with bones), peel and half some potatoes. Add salt, pepper, caraway. Heat olive oil in a pan, sear meat. Add potatoes and half a cup of water; turn down heat, cover pan with aluminium foil and let simmer until water turns into sauce), some delish vegitarian patties with oat flakes, carrottes, celeric, garlic, zuccini and peppers, with a sour cream-garlic-chives sauce and some onion-pea soup with home-made pizza.

Unfortunatley, my weekend did not end up in a much isolation as I'd hoped for (after I got over my "oh noes, I'm so alone-and-there-are-no-squabbles-over-the-washing-machine-what-shall-I-do-with-my-time"-emo phase) and so I did not get nearly as much reading done as I'd hoped for.*

I did, however, read Lucifer Vol. 6. While I think that my sole motivation for reading on is to further my obsession with Mazikeen, Mazikeen/Lucifer and going "Shit, Samael, for somebody close to omniscent you're quite the idiot of this panel" I'm simultaneously pissed and pleased with Vol. 6. More later. (I also have a new pink iPod shuffle named Mazikeen --- I, it's save to say that my perception of these characters is slightly warped).


* I did good, this weekend. But my doing good required more time than I had which meant reading even less, which means that I have to go to my only interesting class this term and be totally unprepared. My time-management, it sucketh.

The boyfriend is with his parental unit and the rest of the Flat has gone off to do whatever it is that young, left radicals do these days and so nobody makes me coffee :(, so I'm all alone and left with the bourgeois question of, "what am I going to cook for the weekend?" Sigh. Maybe I'll call A. and we'll head over to a museum, right after going to the gym and reading to poetry/v. blasé New German Novel stuff to each other.

There's a stale smell of conservatism in the air, these days.


*

I'm still smitten with Vertigo's Lucifer, I'm not so sure what to think about the fandom yet (which is tiny), since it lends itself to BLATHERING. Theology and teleology in Lucifer oscillate between cunning/elegant and something pre-pubescent, so the blathering voice-overs in the comic are sometimes deep and sometimes, you know, ~~really deep~~. The latter is the cause of aforementioned blathering and philosopical waxing about life, death, the spirit and the flesh, wings, feathers, angels, demons and monsters. (Also, amikara, to give you a taste of certain similarities: D'you see what I mean?) And whether I like navel-gazing/blathering/apocryphical analysis in my fic is largely contingent upon my mood, most of the time, I'd just be as happy to see Mazikeen beat people up.

*

( Is it dead, Bones? Scrubs S8E01 )

*
Alice Russell has a new album and it is very glorious.

Science-wise:

Focussed rereads:

Adorno, T.W.: Theorie der Halbbildung (read back-to-back with Lissman's Theorie der Unbildung)
Jan Philipp Reemtsma (2008): Vertrauen und Gewalt.
Zygmunt Bauman: Dialektik der Ordnung/Verworfenes Leben [Dialectic of Modernity/Wasted Lives]
Klinger, Cornelia et al: Achsen der Ungleichheit. [Axis of Inequality]
Klinger, Cornelia et a.: ÜberKreuzungen. [InterSections]
Götz, Aly: Hitlers Volksstaat. [Hitler's State]
Götz, Aly: Endlösung. [Final Solution]
Crouch, Colin: Post-Demokratien. [Post-Democracies]

This Just In:

Boltanski, Luc: Soziologie der Abtreibung.* [La condition fatale. Une sociologie de l'endengrement et de l'avortement]
Galeano, Eduardo: Die offenen Adern Lateinamerikas. [Las venas abiertas de America Latina]
Thomson, E.P.: Das Elend der Theorie. Zur Produktion geschichtlicher Erfahrung. [The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays]
Klein, Naomi: The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Koenen, Gerd: Traumpfade der Weltrevolution. Das Guevara Projekt.


Fiction:

Rereads:
Jose Saramago: Blindness & Seeing
Juan Rulfo: Pedro Páramo

This Just In:

Kit Whitfield: In Great Waters (/cheer!)

Let's try this again-book-of-the month:

A.S. Byatt: The Biographer's Tale

* The german translation is so awful that I'm seriously considering to read this in french, even though it is going to take me a gazillion times longer.

Meme stolen from musesfool:

Footnote: My memory of this year starts at around November, aka the TIME I STARTED TO LIVE AGAIN, so this list may seem a little end-of-the-year-focussed.

Your main fandom of the year? Dexter.

Your favourite film watched this year? Probably XXY, though I thoroughly enjoyed Iron Man.

Your favourite book read this year? A difficult question this year, since I hardly remember any kind of fiction reading. On the non-fiction front, I have to say that I'm in love with Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, because, while not new, I only realised the scope and brilliance of his argument when confronted with the context. I got to appreciate Zygmunt Bauman (esp. Dialectic of Modernity and Wasted Lives) and Andrea Smith's Conquest. Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide broadened my horizon with the elegance of detailed historical feminist research and the bluntness of a sledge hammer. One publication that I awaited anxiously and that lived up to my expectations was Jan Philipp Reemtsma's Vertrauen und Gewalt. Versuch über eine besondere Konstellation der Moderne. [Violence and Trust. An Essay on an exceptional constellation of modern thought.]

Your favourite album or song to listen to this year? José James: The Dreamer, Parov Stelar (& band): Shine, Gotan Project's new live album, Sisters: Gender Riots, Nneka: Heartbeat, and, last but definitely not least: Buraka som Sistema: Kalemba (Wegue Wegue).

Your favourite TV show of the year? Pushing Daisies, though True Blood and SPN S4 were strong contenders this year, too.

Your favourite LJ community of the year? Hm. Wasn't around much.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year? The only new thing that makes me want to write fic at this point is True Blood - and I'm mainly interested in Pam & Eric as badly dressed Sapphire and Steel clones - (I'm too heartbroken about the Pushing Daisies cancellation) and maybe Lucifer; but I'd like to finish that one first.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? Pushing Daisies! Cancellation! What the heck! Also, House, and the whole anticlimactic something that was Dexter S3. (Of course, the whole trainwreck that's Heroes and Grey's, but these were anticipated)

Your TV boyfriend of the year? Either Josh Lyman or one Sgt. Doakes, mentally added in all Dexter's S3.

Your TV girlfriend of the year? Charlotte "Chuck" Charles.

Your biggest squee moment of the year? Werecollie! Boston Legal's final episode! (I'm going to miss that show so much)

The most missed of your old fandoms? The West Wing and Weiß Kreuz. I've got serious cravings for good stories in both of them.

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to? I hear a lot about Entourage, Life and Merlin.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year? Dexter S4! True Blood S2! BSG comes back! Also, Massive Attack may just finally - finally finally finally - publish a new album (MA are one of the only bands I still feel genuinely fannish about) and there's a Blur reuinion up the alley.

Sí se puede

Thank you, thank you, thank you!