Halo Tear

Because I love letters and text and because I like to find letters and text in unusual places or see letters and text used in all sorts of ways, and because I love pop culture and feminism and the sites where these things have strong textual elements, I have started this blog. Here are some examples of the types (pun intended) of stuff I like:

Mixed Media textiles by Cathy Cullis (via Poppytalk)















































Sunlight Poem Projector by Jiyeon Song (via Craft)




















ABC button sewing (via The Style Files)
























Book Art by Nicholas Jones (via design*sponge)

Feminaissance and Wack

So I did get a little taste of Feminaissance on Saturday. It took us forever to leave the house so we only made the last panel, but it was a very interesting one. I wish that I had been less caffeine deprived...but this is what happens when you stay up until 4 am every night!

As I mentioned earlier, Eileen Myles is AMAZING. I'm still organizing my thoughts about the other presentations, but here are some of the notes I took during E.M.'s presentation from the "categories" panel:

- the world determines your gender before you do
- one can be caught in the midst of two [gendered] performances: one true and one false
- hormones are writing (!!!)
- gender is a public thought
- gender and "things." In inflected languages (i.e. Latin) nouns are given masculine or feminine endings. In English, some things are gendered. For example, ships are "she." Also discussed gender and hurricanes. After the panel I did some research. As it turns out, the gender of hurricanes alternates through the alphabet, which seems sort of conceptually elegant to me -- this idea of alternating gender as something controlled/contained by letters and "names." You can see this list of names here. Also, why don't we name earthquakes or volcanic eruptions? Does a hurricane seem somehow more "live"; or perhaps a storm seems more distinct from the planet itself?

We also made what felt like a very cursory tour of the WACK show, which is electric and dense and mesmerizing. The concentration of feminist art creates a very palpable sense of urgency and power. It also highlights a desire to "get out" of the museums, which is to say that it draws attention to/makes clear the limits of the museum. Forms are used and simultaneously undermined. Museum spaces are productive and necessary and often feel like sanctuaries, but the underlying imperative -- the quicksilver vein of the WACK show -- is that we must change the world outside the museum. This may seem like a banal point, but trust me -- it has a sharpened tip in the context of this exhibit.

Anyway, the MOCA is one of my favorite places in Los Angeles. Besides the WACK show, there are some very interesting pieces there. Among them are some texty pieces by Alexandra Grant, including a glinting silver wire mesh sphere which seemed like something out of one of my dreams. Another piece I *loved* was by chilean artist Livia Marin. This piece involved over 2k tubes of lipstick (!!!) aranged on a curved base; the tips of the lipstick were sculpted into all sort of shapes and reminded me of chess pieces in drag. Thrilling.

x-posted to WOMB and FluffyDollar$$$

This is Like a Weird Postmodern Poem about Imperialism

ProNails

Basically the best thing since lil' mama's lip gloss

Measure for Measure

Two bracelets in two metrics:

INCHES:




















I love this tape measure bracelet by etsy seller Sweet Acorn Store.


POETIC METER:



















And I'm charmed by this poetry bracelet by etsy seller Delia's Studio.

Lettered Walls

It doesn't look like this anymore. They changed it up again. But this is how it looked inside the Anthropologie on State street sometime mid November. I took the pictures because I love letters, and this wall seemed to be something out of one of my dreams. I love the idea of a world scattered with loose letters -- over the walls, overhead, underfoot. I want to make poetry installations like this -- poems you can walk through -- room to room to room. No hallways, no order -- only the flow and flux of letters joining and cleaving.

I secretly think that I am good at predicting trends. Well, let me rephrase that. I don't predict trends, but rather I feel like I begin to see themes/images/aesthetic sensibilities that have previously preoccupied my affection suddenly popping up everywhere a year or two later. This must happen to everyone, right? I mean, I must be prone to notice letters as a trend because I am interested in letters.

But I also love the look of birds and birdcages, and Anthropologie was also decorated with those. Anthropologie was also decked out with loads of Albert Serra images and wondercabinet-type knick-knacks.


















And multi-colored silhouettes. I love that stuff.



















But I don't necessarily love to buy things in Anthropologie. Here and there I find something I like, but I much prefer the decor to what they actually sell.

Anyway, I can't help but wonder what happens to all the stuff from these stores when they take it down. Does anybody know?

Store decor of this sort is really a trend in and of itself. Anthropologie's sister store, Urban Outfitters, also has lots of instore not-for-sale trimmings. The thing is, I actually sort of hate shopping lately. I mean, it's pretty stupid. But I do like the feel of some of these stores. I like the feel of Sephora -- like being in a big pink candy box -- but I only go in there to shop for other people. And even then, I feel like I'm drawn to packaging and color and design more than I am to the actually product. I wonder if this is related to the trend of virtual shopping where kids pay real dollars to clothe their avatars in virtual duds? Or to the counter trend of stores like etsy where you can find all sorts of unique, hand-made treasures?

I think shopping is ending. Or changing. I mean, we're getting near then end of the line, no? So this is my pseudo-trend prediction for today. I know that shopping won't really end, but a real shift is underfoot. What happens when these lifestyle stores interface with mass production? Or when stores produce mountains of poorly made, inexpensive goods that are the something like paper plates. Eventually, something has to give.

What do you think? Is shopping really satisfying?

Biggie Types

we are made of words
(by / words) (re / words)












This is genius.

(source ni9e.com (ni9e blog))

Tracking the "It" Girl

Clara Bow (left), original "It" Girl
and Lindsay Lohan (below), "It" Girl, 2005

In case you haven't heard, former "mean girl" Lindsay Lohan was voted (by what we are sure if a very scientifically accurate voting system ) Hollywood's "It" girl at the VH1 Big in '05 awards. The term "it girl" suggests that a girl is "it" and has "it." But what, pray tell, is "it"?

According to Wikipedia:

An It girl is a young woman famed for her good looks, but in recent years has come to describe a new up-and-coming young starlet who has recently broken into mainstream cinema. The term was coined after Clara Bow made the film It in 1927, which was a vehicle for her sex-appeal. Consequently, Bow was dubbed the "It girl", "It" being a euphemism for sex-appeal.

The pronoun "it" is most often used to refer to a previously mentioned, non-human object. Yet in this case "it" is meant to connotate a sexually desirable woman. Interestingly, the word "girl" describes a female who has yet to come into her sexual maturity. In this sense, the term "It girl" works to suggest immaturity, pliability, and submission. The term "it" also suggests the possession of qualities that are otherwise mysterious or ineffable (akin to what American Idol judges refer to as "star quality"). Women have frequently been associated with the mysterious -- especially when it comes to their sexuality -- and this seems to be echoed in the term's lack of specificity. Moreover, the label "It girl," in it's elision of distinctive characteristics, also suggests an object of temporary attraction. Sooner or later the term "it" migrates to someone else. "It"'s lexical function is to suggest interchangeability.

But "it" has an obscene underbelly too, and is often used to stand in for something that otherwise "cannot be named." Kids talk about doing "it," and the doubly disturbing term "hitting it," with its creepy implication of both violence and objectification, seems to be gaining popularity. And the word "it" is also used to describe the terror without a name in Stephen King's novel It. Perhaps most disturbing are the of reports of victims of abuse being referred to as "it" by their abusers (i.e. the serial killer in Silence of the Lambs refers to his victims as "it;" and then there's that book A Child called "It"). "It" is also used to suggest gender ambiguity.

Interestingly, the first "it"girls were often presented as being entirely unique; they were perceived to be both an embodiment of everything that was appealing and desirable at a particular time, and also a portent of what was to come. Today's "it" girls seem more akin to a chain of paper dolls, suggesting a shift from the unique towards the generic.

From VH1's Fabulous Life of Hollywood "It" Girls:

Meet America's newest obsession: Hollywood It Girls. Smoking hot and barely legal, they live in multi-million dollar pads, zip around town in the coolest cars and date Hollywood boy-toys all the other girls would kill for- all while carrying around their pooches in thousand-dollar Louis Vuitton purses. And while these young starlets cross every velvet rope in town, nobody dares to cross them.

It's unsettling that one of the terms used to describe contemporary "It" girls is "barely legal." This is, after all, also the name of a porn magazine. Beyond the obvious narrative of class aspiration, their narrative appears also to be one of power -- they can cross any velvet rope and take any lover they desire. And yet the narrative of the contemporary "It" girl hardly seems to be one of empowerment. Consider this year nominees for the Big in 'O5 awards: L.Lo, Nicole, Paris, and Kritin Cavallari. At first glance, the only "it" these girls seem to share is a penchant for Smirnoff ice and an inability to gauge the proper sunglass size.

Contemporary "it" girls appear to dress and act the same; they seem to represent a sort of "dollification" of Hollywood. This seems eerily literal when one considers how many celebs also go under the knife in order to be more marketable. The identical fake tan, fake boobs, and fake hair of many "it" girls is both troubling and puzzling (see this amusingly cynical take on what it means to be an "it" girl). And more and more dolls are meant to be Hollywood it girls (see My Scene and Bratz). And those dolls are nasty.

There have been groups of sort of alternative "it" girls: Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Marianne Faithful, and Debbie Harry. Interestingly, women like Nico and Eddie Sedgwick were part of Andy Warhol's circle -- a scene that originally emerged as a sort of parody or facsimile of Hollywood. These types of "It" girls may also be related to the women in the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch. And to ingenues and femme fatales and vamps.

Besides being rich, "It" girls are also conspicuously white. Although Eartha Kitt and Halle Berry and Beyonce could be considered "it" girls, there still aren't enough roles for black women and minorities in Hollywood and minority women are still (sadly) less likely to appear on the cover of magazines.

And, perhaps the biggest question, why "It" girls and not "It" boys? More on that in a future post.

But for now, what do you think of the term "it" girl? Discuss.

















Debbie Harry, "it" girl

Related links:

Hollywood's shrinking "it" girls (splendora blog)
The It Girl (fiction)
"it" girls looking for love
The original "It" girl (Bint Magazine)

and when you google "it girl," half the results are about IT, which is often depicted as a big sausage party:

Why is IT all male?
Recruiting the new IT girls (BBC)
More IT Girls (BBC)

Feel Like a Big Delicious

where'd you get them jeans?

Apple Bottoms by Nelly.


Nelly designs jeans?

Yup, the rapper-singer who only a few years ago urged you to "take off all your clothes" is now making some for you to wear.

Apple Bottoms, said to "celebrate and liberate the natural curves of a woman's body," appear to be more that just another musician's forray into the world of fashion design. These jeans not only promise to be bootylicious, but radical. Though this message is more palpable in the feel of the website and its ad copy than it is in the look of the jeans, we'll take what we can get. After all, we don''t really get the sense that normal sized women make frequent appearances in the imaginations of most fashion designers.

Jeans, once the clothes of the working man, have become genuine luxury items. With the influx of brands like Seven, Citizens for Humanity, and Paper, Denim + Cloth, more people are dropping between $100 and $200 for that "perfect" pair. Most of these jeans do promise something vaguely progressive : they claim to be "hand finished" or (my favorite) "hand whiskered," and most of them are also sweatshop-labor free. But many of these brands have gained popularity due to their reputed ability to minimize a woman's flaws. And then there's Nelly, telling us to "liberate and celebrate" what so many of us are usually trying to hide.

The Apple Bottoms models make it clear that it is *all about* the hips and booty. We like that instead of back pockets, many of the styles are festooned with pink rhinestone apples (yum!).

But what we are really curious about is how Nelly came to embark on this venture. Was he sick of listening to friends and girlfriends and sisters complain about shopping for that perfect pair? Did he notice women looking uncomfortable in ill-fitting denim as they were shaking their tail feathers? Was he jealous of J. Lo (whose jeans, I can personally attest, are *not* designed for particularly curvy women -- how ironic) ? Or has he always had a yen to design clothing for women. Really, we wonder.

As of now, Apple Bottoms are not available in Texas unless you order from the website. Perhaps we'll be the first person in Austin to wear them. We really like those rhinestones! They'd look sweet with pink sandals. And we also really like the name "Apple Bottoms." It's cute!

It's Akedemik

Some of you may remember hip-hop clothiers Akedemiks' saucy ad campaign from this past holiday season. For those of you who don't, here's a little refresher:


study hard!

Read books, get sex: That's what racy advertisements on hundreds of city buses are suggesting to teens - and red-faced transit bosses are outraged.

The salacious ads by hip-hop clothing line Akademiks declare: "Read Books, Get Brain."

But kids say "get brain" does not mean smarts. It's slang for oral sex. And the company behind the ads told the Daily News the slogan choice was no mistake.

"We knew this," fessed up Anthony Harrison, Akademiks' ad designer. "It's coded language, city slang. Teens know what it means but the general public doesn't."

The above comes from a November article in the NY Daily News. We really liked this ad campaign, especially since it used slang within a slogan (Note to P.H.: that's an example of ingenuity). It also illustrates the magnetic dynamism of slang that we were talking about in our catchphrase post from yesterday. Plus, it had lots of books; we like those (and think their use here is much more interesting than their one-trick appearance in the ads for Pamela Anderson's Stacked. Like, omigod -- someone with blonde hair and boobs reads books -- what a concept!!!)

Anyway, we just came across Akedemics' new ad campaign, and we love this one too! The new ads feature a multiple choice "quiz" -- an "Akademiks Aptitude Test" -- to test your "jeanius." The idea is to match a word to what you see -- pictures of really cool looking peopple in really cool looking clothes.

Well, that's what we see at least. But what are the chances everyone sees the same thing?

Akademiks' new ads, like their old ones, play with multiple-meanings, and are effective this time because they explore the slippery semiotics of appearance. What makes them particularly potent is their exposure of the prejudices potentially/certainly embedded within these codes.

One ad features a picture of a tall and lean black man wearing a hoodie and a defiant stare. One hand is in his pockets and the other holds a duffle bag. The copy asks: Terrorist? Patriot? Activist? Scapegoat? Civilian?


an Akedemiks' ad from the May issue of Essence

At the bottom of the page, in tiny upside down letters, it says : "A: Labels are for clothes, not for people." The ad essentially works by asking the viewer to recognize other people's labels (and prejudices), and then asks them to confront their own. It also works because it offers up some unexpected labels. And there is no denying that these labels also force one to reconsider the way race affects society's perception of how and when these labels are assigned.

But it has also been awhile since we saw the word "FEMINISTS" -- in big bold letters -- inside a women's magazine. So we were really happy when we came across the above panel in the latest issue of Essence. Despite realizing that the whole point of the ad is that labels are not for people, we still really like that that this "label" is there. In fact, all the panels have words that we both love and hate -- and that's really interesting. In fact, we really did learn something from taking this "quiz": we became more aware of how these labels work, both for good and for bad.

And oh yeah, we like the clothes too!!!

Tween Commerce

coming to malls everwhere: 'tween palace outfitters Dry Ice

The emergence of a "'Tween" market is old news, but for some reason it still took us awhile to really investigate how marketers were pitching to this demographic. Sure, we noticed all the new products coming out of manufaturers like Duff Stuff, PB Tween, and the empire known as American Girl. And we've always been interested in the way teen girls are represented in media, so we've perused a few issues of CosmoGirl and TeenVogue. But we've never really delved into this "tween" area of commerce -- the merchandise for 8-12 year old girls. Of course the demographic has always existed, but it wasn't until the late 9os that corporations began a serious campaign to court these consumers and attempt to brand this particular stage of development.

So yesterday the sad billionaire and I made our first trip inside a store called Dry Ice. We've looked in the windows of said store for many moons, but had always been too -- afraid? intimidated? discouraged? -- to enter. The store is an explosion of color and fluff, and every conceivable item the could be covered in faux fur is available within: furry phone? Got it. Furry clock? yes. Furry furniture?: check. They also had fun school supplies like bendy pencils and puppy-shaped erasers, desks and bookshelves in vibrant colors and patterns, imaginative lighting, and all types of colorful knick-knacks. Overall impression: thumbs up!! We're all for young girls personalizing their space. But there's more to this industry than rainbows and glitter and kittens; there's a dark side to all this too.

The 'tween market is undeniably gender-specific. While it seems perfectly reasonable for companies to market women's jewelry, make-up, clothing, and home decor to young girls, the trend seems to be in reverse for boys, with "kid" items (video games, animated cartoons) being marketed to male teens and men.

And while lots of products for tweens have a very positive message (games like Go Goddess!) and are designed to inspire creativity (poetry beads), we can't help but be a little concerned with the way so many of these items reinforce potentially negative notions about gender and sexuality. This is most obvious in attire: as clothing for younger girls becomes more provocative, boys' clothing remains virtually unchanged.

And we are by far most concerned for the youngest members of this market. You'd think memories of Jon Benet would make parents think twice before dropping 100 dollars on a half shirt, mini skirt, and high heels at Libby Lou. After Dry Ice, we visited one of these stores and let me tell you, these places are trully frightening. They are also colorful, but intsead of creativity-inspiring home decor, they're filled with trashtastic "beauty products," plastic tiaras, and outfits that seem to draw their inspiration from magazines like Barely Legal and Britney Spears' "Slave" video. There were also a handful of scantily clad girls prancing around the store when we were there, and we could only guess that the security guard at the front of the establishment was there to keep out potential predators. This could be Little Red Riding Hood come to life -- and the forests are the malls.

But the branding of the "tween experience" isn't going anywhere, and the term "tween" has come to embody its own set of meanings (see article "e-commerce's "tween years").

And though marketing for adults is undoubtedly manipulative, advertising for children in doubly potent. Children, unlike adults, do not have the same abilities to discern the difference between marketing spin and the "facts," and this essentially lays the groundwork for a whole new pedagogy of desire. As parents give their children more and more spending power, they essentially finance their children's training as life-long consumers of junk.


** check out Yahoo's group "Queens of Tween"message boards. We have a hard time believing that many of these messages are actually posted by tweens; it seems more likely that they are written by pernicious marketers hoping to drum up business. I mean, what 12 year old starts their posts with lines like, "Hot New Artist!!!"

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

Isn't that a great title for a book? It's the title of Aimee Bender's first. She's here in town to do a reading and workshop at the house.

And check out the cover of her newest:












This is a fiction writer with a poet's sensibility. Here are some snippets from interviews.

from powell's:

Bender: Saying "the man" or "the woman," sometimes I like those words better than the words of names, even though it's true that once you name someone they're more specific and the reader can identify with them more. Maybe it's just an attraction to a kind of fairy-tale storytelling — it feels like names would be slightly too specific for the story; sometimes it would be a loss to attach a name to the characters. Like the big man and the little man [in "End of the Line"] — the big man can't have a name. I would lose part of my feeling about who he is. He's just "the big man"; he can't be Bob.

It feels like a texture to me. The texture would go a little wrong if the character was named, if the story wants to be more mythic. As soon as someone is named, the story enters the world of reality a little more. As soon as a capital letter comes into play, it looks different and it feels different.

and from Beatrice:

You can write a sentence, and the sentence will have tunnels inside of it, and you don't know how deep each tunnel will go, but a certain noun might be a tunnel that could last the length of a novel. The only way you know is that you're vaguely curious about it. It's an intuition about where you need to go, and it is a bit like groping through caves in the dark.

Sexy!!!

To learn more about the reading click here

To visit Aimee Bender's website (it's really cool) click here

Ingesting Text

I ate candy letters for breakfast this morning. Y'know, those letters that you buy to spell things out on birthday cakes? Yes, I was that desperate for something sweet.

Anyway . . .although candy letters may not make for the best first-meal-o-tha-day, they are pretty cool. Here are some of my favorite text/food combos.

Fortune Cookies
Baci Candy
Alphabet Soup
Alphabet cookies
Conversation Hearts (my favorite; read a funny summary of what's inside candy hearts)

Perhaps it's time for me to start writing edible found poems?

What sorts of letters do you like to eat?

Starry Starry Night

Omigod, thanks to the SB's very very very generous parents, I am now the proud owner of these.

Welcome to the Dollhouse

I love dollhouses and I love bookcases, so of course I absolutely super duper <3 this dollhouse bookcase.

Kim Kelly is my Friend

She's my favorite tough girl. Mercurial, volatile, brassy, and funny as hell. She bulldozes through the halls of McKinley High, spitting nails and scowling. She is my current make-up inspiration. Pale lips and smudged-cover-girl eyes. And I totally want her blue jacket.

For those of you not familiar with Kim Kelly, she's one of the "freaks" from the short-lived but totally brilliant FREAKS AND GEEKS . Thanks to MZN and E, we now own the series on DVD, and well, we've been watching it like crazy.

KIM KELLY is a character we all know, but rarely see depicted in TV shows these days. There are male bullies and "mean girls," but Kim Kelly is neither. She's a bad-ass girl with attitude from a lumpen class back-ground. She smokes pot and has sex, and she's quick to threaten those who annoy her with physical violence (i.e,"Are you calling me irrational? Because I'll tear your head off, Daniel. I'll tear it off and I'll throw it over that fence.") The thing is, Kim Kelly is also totally lovable.

Her TV precedents are gals like Rizzo and Leather Tuscadero (played by Suzi Quatro, aka suzie q. Also, there is a good teen beat band from the 90's called Tuscadero. They sing about Nancy Drew...but I digress). And though Rayanne Graff from My So-Called Life has a few things in common with Kim, it's tough (no pun intended) to find anyone else like her these days. Though tough girls still seem to be rockin' pretty hard (Sleater Kinney, The Donnas) and hip hopping (Eve, esp. in her early days), there are not many of them on TV.

I'm not sure why this is so. Unlike the "mean girl," the "tough girl" isn't necessarily dripping with femininity (though there is "bad gal" make-up). And though Buffy is TOTALLY "tough," Kim Kelly's toughness is of a different sort. And though Paris Gellar's tongue is just a sharp, she's way more square. It seems as though the tough girls without a calling or a type-a personality have gone underground.

So this is one of my current projects. I'm looking for tough girls on TV. I think I might start by checking out this new ROLLERGIRLS show from A&E. And I'd like to take a look at this book and this book.

And speaking of books, I'd like to end this post with a bit from one of Kim Kelly's book reviews. This is from her review of Deenie by Judy Blume.

Girls get tested for scoliosis all the time in gym class and it sucks. How'd you like to take your top off, stand around in your bra, and bend over in front of a doctor? So don't complain about that "turn your head and cough" crap. Anyway, Deenie has to wear a scoliosis brace. That's got to be pretty rough. But she's so conceited you want to slap her. It's like, "Boo hoo, now I can't wear my cute new school outfits!" And her mom's a real piece of work. All she cares about is forcing Deenie to be a model, so she can mooch off her daughter's paychecks. If I were Deenie, I'd make her mom wear the brace for a day or two. Then maybe she'd leave her alone. The one cool thing about Deenie is that she tells people the truth about her brace, instead of making up some lie. Eventually, everyone gets used to the idea. And this cute guy still wants to make out with her.

Read more about Kim Kelly and her book reviews here. And give me a shout if you know any tough girls.

Art + Books

Check out Sonja Ahlers reconstructed books, mixed media installations, and drawings. She is rad. I especially love the fur book.

Vintage Ads for Ladies' Undergarments

Concrete Poetry...
























or Period Romance?