"The Women"

I was telling a friend about the camp fabulousness of the Adrian fashion show sequence in "The Women" and looked it up on You Tube, watched it again, and was HORRIFIED by the cameo played by an African-American actress dressed in the full mammy maid's attire. This has now completely sucked any pleasure I once had in this scene, but I still do love the outfits, and the fact that the movie is all black and white, with the exception of this scene. Which is quite ironic. People say that this is a proto "Sex in the City" and in terms of its f-ed up race politics, the comparison is apt. 

"Real Women Have Curves"?????

Is this Anna Wintour's delusional attempt to "reach out" to "wider" audiences? Each year around Spring time, the fashion rags demagogically attempt to talk to "all" women by luring us to buy magazines that promise us to dress to flatter our shapes during the warmer months, requiring as they do less clothing and even (gasp) bathing suits. VOGUE's foray into this genre has been called racist by several bloggers, and I would agree. I was told that Beyonce was lightened with Photo Shop by several shades, she does look lighter skinned to my naked eye, and also thinner, and blonder. Then there are the perverse mixed signals: "Real Women Have Curves" etc. and then the "Nip/Tuck" header, on the top left, and the empty promise of "fashion for every figure" 0-20. I will say that it's the first time I have seen "size" and "20" on the cover of VOGUE. Because Lord knows that the only queen of size that's ever been in that magazine is Andree Leon Talley. [Sidebar: the delicious moment in "Valentino: The Last Emperor" when Valentino gives Andree two HIDEOUS caftans that are Mrs. Roper meets Poiret meets Zarin Fabrics is priceless.]

Colonial Currency

I have been absent from here because of the mid-semester administrative crunch (see the Conference of Nerds and Keeping Cool posts), fall-0ut catching-up after my travels, and a Spring Break odyssey to a lovely far-away location for study and relaxation (less of the latter than the former) that culminated in a debilitating illness that I brought back as an unwelcome souvenir. The trip was so enlightening, inspiring, and fabulous that being sick for almost two weeks was worth it! And I did bring back gorgeous souvenirs including clothes, jewelry, textiles, and political propaganda tchochkes - (Zapatista Barbies - these deserve their own post, sometime) some of my favorite things. 

The US government has been issuing quarters commemorating the 50 states - my dad has a special case fitted out to display them -collect them all! But I never expected to have the US's forgotten or unknown (to most citizens) territories represented, including my birthplace, Puerto Rico. The NY Daily News article (link below) has a fabulous title: Puerto Rico Gets Some Change. I hope that the writer is being ironic, pointing to the fact that we never do get the change we need. Rather, we are mired in a constant colonial dilemma, where the US always wins: divide and conquer, so the political parties on the Island battle each other, while the country remains under US control. Change has not come, despite this being Obama's slogan. And "change" is equivalent to the aid from the US government, whose policies decimate the Island's economy. Many people I meet don't fully understand Puerto Rico's status vis-a-vis the US, even educated Latin Americans, and the circulation of this silly bit of demagogic coinage will only confuse the matter more. Still, I will try to get one, it will go nicely with my vintage colonial tchotchke collection (see my post under "Collecting Schlock) including salt and pepper shakers, ashtrays, and the fabulous tablecloth with the map of Puerto Rico including various stages of Spanish and then US military invasion and occupation of the island.

http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2009/04/03/2009-04-03_puerto_rico_gets_some_change_us_mint_unv.html

More Doggie Beauty Pageants

These pictures are by AP and REUTERS from the Crufts Dog Show in the UK and I think they speak for themselves.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090308/wl_uk_afp/lifestylebritainusanimalsprize;_ylt=Ar_1ip9SUhfR7TW1ORqIg0cDA6J4

This one says it all

Testing the Waters

tantalizing glimpse of Spring and palm trees just outside my reach, from inside the airless convention center

Day Two of the Gathering of the Nerds

In trying to find a way to justify spending a few minutes in the hot tub-after months of numbing cold and grey skies-intellectually at least, is not easy. But thanks to a brain-storming session with fellow nerds including one that left the field but still experiences Stockholm Syndrome, we came up with the idea to hold a panel at the hotel's hot tub. Papers could address issues such as optical versus haptic drives, phenomenology, or entropy, and a panel could have a title such as: Performing 1970s conviviality: the liminal space of the hot tub as a site of relational aesthetics, or better perhaps might be Testing the Waters: (Re) envisioning submerged histories of global relational practices.  

But breakfast awaited. My friend/colleague/roomate/comrade ventured out early and we decided we have to do a Joan Rivers/Melissa Rivers Nerd Red Carpet report on the fashion. One constant besides the black clothing, and the aggressively hip eyeglass frames on many, is the footwear. Many of the women (and let's face it, in my field, it's mostly women) of a certain age and clearly income level, wear the French squishy yet geometric comfort shoes in bright hues produced by Arche. A hipper version of Aerosoles, they project a discordant note of color in academics' normally funereal attire. A friend commented that these shoes are Birkenstocks of art historians. GENIUS! 

Another trend is the "ethnic" wear. Women donning squarish Japanese, African, or Chinese jackets. Also popular are the "ethnic" scarves, another area of adventure - often Indian paisley, Mexican rebozo shawls, or perhaps if one gets lucky at a sample sale, a Miyake pleated geometric number. Later in the day once we got sucked into the airless convention center, we noted as well the courduroy paisley patterned ones, and the appliqued, quilted ones with subtle Bedazzling (perhaps hand made?). 

The artists are a different thing altogether, they can be more informal and they also tend to go more into the "ethnic" fashion route. There are also clogs and other comfort garments. Maybe even courdoroy.

There are also the middle-aged or older lady museum workers, who tend to wear one color squarish suits in unflattering ambiguous hem lengths with Aerosoles loafer type shoes. Here there is a bizarre intersection between dog breeders who show dogs at Westminster in buisness attire versus eveningwear, and people in the arts. 

Oddly, the Convention Center was host to an unlikely coupling perhaps as jarring as the Computer Nerds - Porn Industry folks one that I described in an earlier post. New US Citizens were sworn in (is this the term, it has a kind of policing connotation) and so one saw a disparate group of people from all over the world, with families in tow, tiny American flags in their hands. One sign gave the name of the meeting for the Nerds, the other said "CITIZENS." Appropos perhaps since we too are citizens, in our case of an imaginary land of academic freedom, "original" artworks or arguments, poorly read publications, bi-coastal/trans-atlantic relationships with peers or lovers, fleeting encounters at these conferences assuring us that we "exist" in some broader universe of sense. And we get discounts on books. 

Speaking of books, I love how every year there is a trend in publishing. So two years ago it was "Visual Culture" and this year it's Digital this, Gaming that, Facebook too, Game Theory and internet art, New media. Also John Cage. How so many people can write books about the same thing fascinates me, but why should it, a zillion books about Renaissance art have been published, why not half a dozen or so on gaming? This book publishing mimeticism reminds me of my favorite theory about dogs as pets. I believe that one can may "date" a dog by species. Much like old school connoisseurs can date a picture by something in the line, brushwork, or signature, I can date dogs by the breed after living in a big city for twenty years. I should say, gay dog breed. So if I see a Daschound, I know it's probably 6 years old, and an Italian Greyhound, ten. A French bulldog is probably two. So years from now a student approaching the library stacks might not realize that the book on Cage is from 2009, but I would. 

A Gathering of Nerds

I am in Los Angeles for an annual gathering of those of my professional ilk. A nice excuse to get away from the lousy weather, to go sit in drafty over-air-conditioned conference rooms to hear panels with titles including words and phrases such as performativity, digital ecologies, virtual queer sexualities, haptic versus optic, or, for those struggling to hold on to the Canon, sexed up titles such as: What is new about Rembrandt? Frankly, who gives a shit, when I can go have sushi with West-Coast friends, or look out my window to a tiny view of the HOLLYWOOD sign?

The best are this year's proliferation of panels about second life, web 2.0, and of course my drug of choice, Facebook. It's fabulous to see 30 and 40-something nerdy academics theorizing the life out of absolutely anything and everything, including Facebook or Twitter. Then people like me can feel ironic smugness as we blog about them. Because my tolerance for self-surveillance, addiction to over-share, and exhibitionism have not yet gotten to the level of Twitter. And hearing last night that GOP members of Congress were Twittering during President Obama's "don't panic even though the USA is in free-fall" speech did not encourage me to try it.  

A friend of mine told me that her husband goes to a tech conference in Las Vegas each year that fortuitously coincides with a meeting for those in the porn industry. Thus, computer geeks and purveyors of porn's worlds intersect (in person, we know that they do privately via DVDs and the web) as nerdy white guys pass pierced, tattooed, and silicone-enhanced performers in the halls of cavernous conference centers. The next time this happens, she and I are meeting there to witness this marvelous event, and to visit the Liberace Museum, the Holy Grail of historic homes, if you ask me.  

I don't know about Mid-western college towns but I can tell you that New York City was suddenly drained of its nerds, it was like a giant Bermuda's Triangle that opened up in the heart of town. I think the neurosis quotient of the city will drop to dangerously low levels! Shrinks will sit listlessly with nothing to do, alternative cinemas will see a drop in ticket sales, and students everywhere will celebrate canceled classes, as mine did. 

I recall one such meeting in San Antonio many years ago. It was my first such conference and I was eager to attend as many panels as possible, running to and fro to catch certain talks in simultaneous panels (known as panel surfing, no, actually, I just made that up, it's probably the jet lagged induced delirium), exhilarated at the thought! A funereal hush spread all over the cheerful Texan city, as black-clad masses descended on it, like a plague of near-sighted locusts. The best was visiting a gay bar, where white guys in full cowboy regalia danced with handsome African American men, and fabulous butch femme couples played pool. They were very welcoming of our nerd posse as we rolled up in our black suits, fancy footwear, and aggressively over-designed eyeglass frames. (at this moment, mine are red and geometric) 

Besides the panels there are also job interviews, awkwardly held most of the time in hotel rooms. A colleague once told me that these marathon interviewing sessions made her feel like a hooker: waiting in an anonymous hotel room for strangers to come in for 45 minutes to an hour and then on to the next, all day. Now I have thankfully never experienced this on the receiving end, but will be in the position of interviewing people in a hotel room for the first time this year. The other event that takes place is the product placement, besides the human kind, there is our version of porn, academic porn, the book fair. The last day is the best, as you see black clad nerds practically ripping each other's eyes out for the deeply discounted newest volume on ghostly hauntings of cyborgs in visual culture of Eastern Europe. It's not as vicious as the Super Bowl, but close. 

More on the nerdolicious adventures later......