Friday, March 28, 2008

Annette Kellerman

I never get tired and I swim like a clock...






"STAGNATION ALWAYS MEANS AGE, WHEN IT DOESN'T MEAN DEATH"

"WANDERING ROUND LIKE THE SEWING MACHINE THAT DOESN'T HAVE A STITCH ON."

"LOVE WE ARE TOLD IS AN INCIDENT TO A MAN BUT THE GREAT FUNDAMENTAL FACT OF A WOMAN'S EXISTENCE."

"PUT ON A RECORD. LISTEN TO IT. WHAT DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL? WHAT DOES IT MAKE YOU THINK? PLAY IT AGAIN AND DANCE YOUR THOUGHT. DON'T BE SELF-CONSCIOUS. DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THE LONG FACED MORALIST WHO TELLS YOU DANCING IS ONLY 'HUGGING SET TO MUSIC'. DONT LISTEN TO HIM OR TEACH HIM TO DANCE."

"IF ONLY YOU COULD REALISE WHAT IT IS TO WAKEN IN THE MORNING FEELING THAT THE DAY IS NOT POSSIBLY LONG ENOUGH TO LET YOU LIVE AS MUCH AS YOU WANTED TO, IF ONLY YOU COULD KNOW WHAT IT IS TO WALK AND WORK AND PLAY AND FEEL EVERY INCH OF YOU REJOICING IN GLORIOUS BOYANT LIFE, THERE IS NOT ONE OF YOU WHO WOULD NOT SAY, 'TEACH ME! TEACH ME!'"

We'll be beachcombers

Give me the wide open spaces

Annette Kellerman 1887-1975 (she was born exactly 100 years before me!)
million dollar mermaid

*born with ricketts in her legs, used swimming to cure herself
*became an Australian professional swimmer
*credited with the invention of synchronized swimming
*first woman to attempt swimming the english channel
*advocate for the change of women's swimwear, and first swim suit designer---> The popularity of her one piece suits resulted in her own line of women's swimwear. The "Annette Kellermans" as they were known, were the first step to modern swimwear
*In 1907, at the height of her popularity, Kellermann was arrested on a Boston beach for indecency - she was wearing one of her fitted one-piece costumes
*named THE PERFECT WOMAN in 1908, because of her similar proportions to THE VENUS DE MILO, after the measuring of 3,000 women and studying of Dr. Dudley A. Sargent of Harvard University
*became an American vaudeville and silent film actress, working in aquatics doing dives, swimming in tanks, and usually fulfilling roles as mermaids.................<3
*cleaned up vaudeville, was a family spectacle ;)
*wrote and gave speeches to women about beauty, discarding their corsets, and gaining physical beauty naturally by working out
*was an icon in the woman's emancipation era...often used as an example of an amazing, beautiful intelligent woman and the perfect example of someone who should be allowed to
VOTE
*
Kellerman's large collection of costumes and theatrical memorabilia was bequeathed to the Sydney Opera House


I recommend reading>>>>>>>> The Original Million Dollar Mermaid>>>>>>>>
but I'm also going to rent some movies now...

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Buffalo '66


Buffalo '66 (1998)

Is one of my favorite movies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

"The Cruise"

"The Cruise" (1998) A low budget black and white documentary on Timothy "Speed" Levitch and New York City, the idea of "Cruising" and it's impedeing interuption by so called "grids".



"The anti-cruise is an attempt to imprison us. At every level of living it exists. Younger cruisers have asked me, "Why?" "Why is the anti-cruise so avaricious and constant in its attempt to stop the cruise? And I have no answer. There is no answer. I mean, it's gravitational, it's a relationship that's made up of reciprocals and pulling gravities. It simply exists. Where there is cruise there is an escort of anti-cruise. But even in a bastion of anti-cruise fodder... there is cruise. Somewhere in there is a sparkle of cruising energy. Deeply sublimated, within the bellowing belly of the beast. "

Other Timothy "Speed" Levitch:

Speedism: "Historical Inaccuracy is a lot of fun"
"I think a lot of the historical accuracy that people get caught up with is just more repression. For instance one of the most successful books about New York over the last years is the Encyclopedia of New York, which was written by historians who are really good about historical accuracy and knowing about what's considered to be historically accurate. Napoleon said that history is an agreed upon fiction and Malcolm McClaren said that history is getting the last word. One man ruled a country, the other perverted a country. But both men were aware that they were part of historical anecdotes as they were happening. I think they both had a very clear view of what history really is. In my mind history is the on-going attempt to convince ourselves that the past tense is more important than the present tense. So, historical inaccuracy can be a lot of fun because it's happening in the present tense. The most fun I've ever had has been in the present tense. And the only time I've actually shared with someone it's been in the present tense-that's the night club where it happened. It didn't happen in the past or in the future, the actual sharing of my life is taking place in this very special night club, a really fun place called the present tense."

Speedism: "Bitterness - the only form of the Black Plague that considers itself to be still winning."
There are other forms of Black Plague that had, in their prime, killed off a third of Europe’s population and that, today, know themselves to be inoculated and obsolete. In a convention of plagues, the most incessant respect goes to this form of plague that decided not to plague the human race by infecting our voluntary organs but, instead, chose to conquer us by way of our regrets.

Speedism: "Meant - everything unutterable uttered, not quite."
The worst violence of all is shy violence. The invisible, never spoken, emotional violence between us is the precise kind of violence all CNN Headlines ignore. The dramaturg reads into the subtext of the unfolding reality because that is where life’s greatest exclamations lie. This is why the theater director is constantly asking the actor, “What is your character’s motivation? Why is he or she saying this at this time?”

More Speedisms:
Identity-A profound opportunity
The Suburbs-Where those who do not want to be seen hang out with the blind.
Evolution is my favorite hobby.
An EGO - a lost cause.
MISCELLANEOUS - the shelf where all librarians agree to shelve our romance.

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_%22Speed%22_Levitch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cruise_%28documentary%29
youtube:
type in "The Cruise" and you can watch the whole thing ;)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

TEAM PINK 86

1. Sooo... I spent enough money at Victoria's Secret today to recieve a FREE PINK MINI DOG.
2. Does this mean there is a PINK REGULAR SIZE DOG?
3. I feel like I'm officially a college girl. I've been inducted. I mean, I didn't own one of these before, so I clearly was not. It's gotta be like some kind of a law or cliche. YOU KNOW YOU'RE A COLLEGE GIRL IF YOU SPEND ENOUGH MONEY AT VICTORIA'S SECRET TO GET A FREE PINK MINI DOG.
4. I know, I know ... it says "with any Victoria's Secret PINK purchase." but that is so untrue because I've never gotten a FREE PINK MINI DOG before, and I own some things from there.
5. It's probably new. They're trying to unload them, because they cost 10 bucks a pop, and probably no girls were taking the baskets of plush puppies off Vicki's hands with daddy's credit card.
6. Don't think I don't like my FREE PINK MINI DOG, because I do. I put it on my desk. My 100 pound black lab, Kona also likes it, but alas... I will not give it to him... for he already devoured my Ty pink poodle named Parfum, my roomates gave me freshman year of college.
7. PLUS if I gave it to Kona I would have no proof that I was a real college girl. I'm feminine! yey! I like PINK! anddd snuggling...and sleepovers omgggggg! GAG ME right? no, it's true, I AM THESE THINGS. Man, I love you FREE PINK MINI DOG.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Visual Culture 101

Art Education 255
love is a force of nature



A couple of things that hurt my brain and or I find interesting that I want to write down before I throw away my notes. Yes, I throw away my notes, even to classes specific to my major. Like this one. You dont? oh. OH WELLLL MWAHAHAHHA

-Seeing versus Looking
-To look is an act of choice

"I'm not sure who discovered water, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the fish"
---> swimming through and absorbing what seems natural instead of removing self and looking at the importance of "water" and how it shapes us.

-medium is the message.

-Threat of violence forces people to do things
-w/out that threat what makes people do things? esp. in masses?
= Hegemony and Counter Hegemony

-perspective is not the way something really is, it is one view.
technologies and ways of seeing are products of particular social and historical contexts

-The cultural preference for full-figured women was replaced in the late twentieth century by an idealization of a thin or athletic Body.
-Glamour is the quality of being envied
-We want what she has precisely because it appears to be beyond our reach
-Monroe emphasizes that cultural icons can and must be mass-distributed in order for them to have mass appeal.

-Scopophilia: pleasure in looking and being looked at
-Voyeurism: is the pleasure of looking while not being seen

-"Men act, women appear"

Psychoanalytic theory (mirror phase):
*The concept of the unconscious is crucial to [psychoanalytic theories]. One of the fundamental elements of psychoanalysis lies in its demonstration of the existence and mode of operation of unconscious mental processes.
*According to psychoanalytic theory, we repress various desires, fears, memories, and fantasies...beneath our conscious, daily social interaction there exists a dynamic, active realm of forces of desire that is inaccessible to our rational and logical selves
*According to Lacan, children go through a developmental stage at about 18 months that establishes fundamental aspects of their notion of selfhood and separateness from other human beings. In the mirror phase, infants begin to establish their egos through the process of looking at a mirror body-image of themselves, and recognize themselves to be both selves and different.
---> you only see yourself through what others want/desire of you.
---> there is no one true self
---> the search for IDEAL moves us foreward
---> misrepresentations: mirrors of mirros of reflections

Ideology:
*the broad but indispensable, shared set of values and beliefs through which individuals live out their complex relations to a range of social structures
*example: "It's always been that way." "That's just the way things are."
---> "A diamond is forever..." turns into an ideology, fetish signifies
*Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence
*We are hailed or summonned by ideologies, which recruit us as their "authors" and their essential subject
*We are not so much unique individuals but we are "always already" subjects-- spoken by the ideological discourses, into which we are born and are asked to find our place.
*Ideologies are presented as "common sense"
*Ideologies are in tension wiht other forces and constantly in flux
*One of the most important aspects of hegemony is that these relationships are constantly changing, hence dominant ideologies must be constantly reaffirmed in a culture precisely because the social existence of many people's daily lives can work against it
*The concept of hegemony and the related term negotiation allow us to acknowledge the role that people may play in challenging the status quo and effecting social change in ways that may not favor the interests of the marketplace
*Interpellation: a process by which we are constructed by the ideologies that speak to us every day through languages and images (we are their subjects from birth)

-->

-->

"Active Construction".

Consumer Culture:

*Consumer society is based on capitalism
*images are a central aspect of commodity culture and of consumer societies dependent upon the constant production and consumption of goods in order to function.
*Consumer societies emerged in the context of modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centruy wit hthe rise of mass production, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and with the consolidation of populations in major urban centers
*A consumer society is one in which the individual is confronted with and surrunded by an enormous assortement of goods, and in which the characteristics of those goods change constantly
*A consumer culture is a commodity culture -- that is, a culture in which commodities are central to cultural meaning. Commodities are things bought and sold in social system of exchange
*The concept of commodity culture is intricately allied with the idea that we construct our identities, at least in part, through the consumer products that inhabit our lives.
*Commodity fetishism... refers to the process by which mass-produced goods are emptied of the meaning of their production (the context in which they wer produced and the labor that created them) and then filled with new meanings in ways that both mystify the product and turn it into a fetish object.

Representation:
Throughout history, debates about represenation have considered whether these systems of represntation reflect the world as it is, such that they mirror it back to us as a form of mimesis or imitation, or whether in fact we construct the world and its meaning throught the systems of representation we deploy.

This is not a pipe.

se·mi·ot·ics
1.the study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behavior; the analysis of systems of communication, as language, gestures, or clothing.
2.a general theory of signs and symbolism, usually divided into the branches of pragmatics, semantics, and syntactics.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Franny and Zooey


1. J.D. Salinger makes me want to be in his books.
2. I am sad I hadn't read this one til just now.
3. I believe in "doing it for the fat lady". Sometimes there's just no one else to do it for, and yes you should do it for yourself, but also for the fat lady. dew it.

4. UNRELATED, but related... I went to a Columbus Blue Jackets Hockey game today. SO FUN. We won vs. Tampa. I wish games weren't so expensive because I would go more. maybe. BUT it just reminds me of this quote a coach told me back when I was swimming that sometimes you gotta go out there and swim for the person or kid who has maybe never been to a swim meet before...AND MAKE THEM A FAN. Inspire someone. That's how I felt at the Blue Jackets game, it was so cool! It totally made me a fan, of even just the sport. That's why you gotta do it for the FAT LADY. I personally appreciate seeing or meeting people with passion for what they do. That is inspiring.

5. TOTALLY UNRELATED...Oprah's new show, The Big Give totally makes me cry.

6. LOOSELY RELATED... Zooey Deschanel, the indie actress was named for Franny's older brother Zooey Glass in J.D. Salingers novel.

You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either.
Perform every action with your heart fixed on the Supreme Lord. Renounce attachment to the fruits. Be even-tempered in success and failure; for it is this evenness of temper which is meant by yoga.
Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. Seek refuge n the knowledge of Brahman. They who work selfishly for results are miserable. -- "Bhagavad Gita."

It loved to happen. --Marcus Aurelius.

O snail
Climb Mount Fugi,
But slowly, slowly! --Issa.


God instructs the heart, not by ideas but by pains and contradictions --De Caussade.

"Sir, we ought to teach the people that they are doing wrong in worshipping the images and pictures in the temple."
Ramakrishna: "That's the way with you Calcutta people: you want to teach and preach. You want to give millions when you are beggars yourselves . . . Do you think God does not know that he is being worshipped in the images and pictures? If a worshipper should make a mistake, do you not think God will know his intent?" --"The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna."

The happiness of being with people. --Kafka

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Kehinde Wiley

The Same Yet Not




















"To Love Somebody"

There's a light
a certain kind of light
that never shines on me

1. The sky opened up and snowed it's brains out for the blizzard of 2008 last night. The first possible blizzard in central Ohio since 1996.

2. I think Kehinde Wiley's art is so kewl.
http://www.kehindewiley.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehinde_Wiley
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vZkRszO8DKI&feature=related

Thursday, March 6, 2008

SQUARE ONE

This is tyyyyyte. I spend too much time running away from things, and I'm going to use this as a way of keeping track of things, especially musings. {._.}

mus·ing /ˈmyuzɪŋ/ Pronunciation Key - [myoo-zing]
–adjective
1.absorbed in thought; meditative.
–noun
2.contemplation; reflection.