Yay tiny grannies!

It's good to know that there are some in athletics who are as disturbed by the upcoming Focus on the Family Superbowl ad as I am. Thank you for speaking up, my good sirs.


And fuck you CBS.

Season of Light

upon black mountains
dark storm breaks open, spills out
snowy streams of light

It seems that every holiday event I've attended thus far has focused on light. I think it says something about humanity that we all (and by all, I mean major religions that my friends observe) find in this dark season a reason to celebrate light. Of course, I know that it isn't the same, cold December the world over, and certainly not in the places where the faiths of which I speak originate, but maybe what we really yearn for, what we really celebrate this time of year is more metaphorical.

Perhaps people gathering together to light a small candle against the darkness around them would do a whole lot of good.




PS: Look guys! I posted something! Crazy. Happy midwinter holiday of choice.

You'll Be Given Love, But You'll Have to Trust It.

Joss Whedon just got a whole lot more awesome in my eyes. I found this via Sociological Images and Feministing (best logo ever), which give women and men reason after depressing reason to join Joss and others in the fight for equality.

This hits on something I've felt over the past three years, and especially in the last couple months: It's only by shithouse luck (if you'll excuse the expression) that, from the beginning of my college experience, I've fallen in among friends and family whose attitudes are progressive, inclusive, and inherently loving and empowering. It goes beyond just having heroes that represent the unrepresented. It's the implantation of an entire culture that thinks I'm important, not just another pair of tits stuck to a vagina. I shudder to think what might have become of me if I had not stumbled upon these treasures: people who were willing to be patient with me as I groped and faltered my way through the darkness; people who trusted me with their true selves, whether gay, bisexual, transgender, cisgender, or straight; people who will stand with me against the flood of hate.

Whether they know it or not, these people have given me a power that I have never had before.

An enormous part of that power is the comfort of knowing. For instance, I know I will never have to spend my life silently hating the men around me for the unequal way they treat me. I know I will never have to worry how my husband will react if our child turns out to be gay or transgendered. I know I know that the people around me act only to bring more good into the world. These are good things to know.

Another part of that power is getting to have a richer range of experiences as a human being. Unlike generations of women before me (and even, unfortunately, many of the women of my own generation), I will have the pleasure of washing dishes, doing laundry, visiting Planned Parenthood, vacuuming, making decisions, and living alongside my husband, not for him. I hope to be there when Sara and Aly welcome their baby into the world with all the love, pride, and happiness that anyone would on such a momentous occasion. Someday I hope to watch as my transman friend walks down the aisle with his beautiful bride and my dear gays join each other at the altar. Some of it is sad: I will never see the media the same way, and I will spend hours questioning the equality or inequality of each part of Ian's and my wedding ceremony. But let me tell you: I'd rather spend my time loving and being loved than hating, fearing, and discouraging love.

Three Easy Steps to a Bad Education

1) Who uses tap dancing for percussion? Tilly and the Wall, ftw - very creative and edgy. This song, which happens to be entitled "Bad Education," also happens to have similar themes to the very strange but interesting Spanish movie "Bad Education" (woo Gael García Bernal!). But, despite the similarity and the Spanish flamenco sound, the song, according to Wikipedia, is not related to the movie. Got me hooked on Tilly anyhow.


2) Unrelatedly, I'll probably be changing the colors around on this site randomly in weeks to come. I'm sorry if you happened by while it was whatever colors it was this morning... they were frightening. I found a site called Colourlovers (Brits? Canucks? Who knows...) that I think I may become enamored (enamoured?) with. Good thing I don't own any walls, or I'd be spending the next few weeks painting and repainting them.


3) A belated thank you to Matt for the encouraging comment about theses. Where would I be without you guys? You actually got my mother interested in reading what I write... crazy! Still no progress on the thesis. I even have another idea that's starting to compete with the one I wrote about earlier. At this rate I'll be graduating with the sesquicentennial class instead of the centennial class.

Do yourself a favor

Okay, class, so your assignment is to read Evan Dahm's wonderful epic comic (perhaps you could even call it a graphic novel) Rice Boy. All of it. What's it about? you ask. Dahm describes it as "a brightly colored and surreal fantasy story, following the limbless, naive Rice Boy and the ageless, depressed The One Electronic as they travel all over a strange world seeking to fulfill an ancient prophecy." It's about destiny and religion, commonness and power, life and death, and accomplishes much with its whimsy and innovation. It stars, of course, Rice Boy, "a little fellow with no arms or legs who lives in the Matchwoods. All he can do is grow plants and watch sunsets and listen to stories, but he's gone on his way to maybe repair the world." The creatures, people, and places he encounters along the way are nothing short of breathtaking; they sometimes appear a bit Myst-like and remind me of Spirited Away, but are otherwise a world all their own. I finished the whole story months ago and was very sad to see it end. For extra credit, though, you can go read the still-developing Order of Tales, which is set in the same universe as Rice Boy.

First Occasional Meeting of the Society for the Integration of Robots into Society

Agenda:

New Business
Item 1. I love people.
Item 2. Sometimes robots undermine people.

Old Business
Item 1. I love robots.

Move to Adjourn

Lying Down on the Job

"Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie, from the album The Opposite Side of the Sea


I've loved this song from the very first time I heard it. In addition to beautiful instrumental parts, the lyrics are everything that I wish I could write (but apparently can't. My fiction piece for Intro to Creative Writing last year seems to have been heavily influenced by this song, but I miserably failed capture what Israeli national Lavie spells out so simply). Although the video wasn't what I had imagined through all the times I listened to this song on repeat, I think any sane person would have to agree that it's spectacular in every way (after all, it does star a redhead [Shir Shomron], and we all know how I feel about those). I appreciate that they've put two grown people (the man is Lavie) on a bed without once making it sexual, that they've made it whimsical without being silly, and that they've made it voyeuristic without being prying. All of these serve to underscore the song's sense of love for the subject. Very impressive. The video changed my whole day when I stumbled across it this morning, and I hope it does something similar for you.

Mother, Mae Shi?

Have you guys heard of (or listened to – the listening to it bit is the more important) The Mae Shi? The video for their song "Run To Your Grave," below, shows a bit of the energetic love for music that I find irresistible in music artists. Look at the wildly swinging drum sticks! Look at the fact that they have to clean up after the jam session! You can tell they're having fun! You can tell that they like music! {Side note - have you noticed that Youtube has cool new embedding options? They're neat-o!}




Although the Mae Shi have recorded my favorite Miley Cyrus cover ever (It's so good! It is! The video's not, though – sorry. Warning: WILL GET STUCK IN YOUR HEAD) and a hilarious parody of Christopher Bale's meltdown (lol), I think that much of their music is very important. They join other Christian musicians who form rock bands but don't call their music "Christian rock," not because their music is any less Christian, but because their music does not belong to a world of easy-peasy worship songs. There's no "fall on your face with your knees to the rising sun" to be had here. Instead of showering listeners fine slurry of platitudes and beatitudes, the Mae Shi creates songs that question, sometimes harshly, the current state of society and Christianity; or that educate the listener on aspects of the religion; or that give personal testimony of God's strengths and religion's weaknesses. From Mae Shi's song "Young Marks":

I was born
to potential and limitless grace
with the flashing of light
it was gone when the smoke cleared
cast in ash and powder

I was raised to obey and respect but
at the edge of the lake
was dead and disruption
when the water splashed across my back...

I wasn't chosen
I didn't choose the path
my heart's not built to hold his love

I was schooled
in a place of tradition
but something was missing
in faces of classmates
eyes declared too blue, too deep

The Mae Shi's lyrics do what Christian musicians, as Christians and as artists, should be doing: discomforting, challenging, thought-provoking. They've moved past the rock songs that do little more than assert strength of the artists' piety. And by doing so, they've become ministers to a new group of Christians – those who, like me, are not satisfied to merely bend over and watch the older generations poison their minds and hearts with their enema bags full of dogma.

The Mae Shi are not the only ones. In fact, they're my latest fling in an ongoing music fetish. Before this, I have fallen in love with the now-defunct Pedro the Lion and Half-Handed Cloud (HHC's song Animals Are Cut in Two is quite possibly the most upbeat song ever written on the significance of Old Testament animal sacrifice, and proves that I wasn't the only one paying attention in Theology class). While they approach the issues in different ways (both lyrically and musically) and for different purposes, this growing group of artists recognizes and accepts a complexity in Christianity that has been ignored for years, perhaps even millennia. They look at their own confusion and bottle it. Note that Pedro the Lion's beautiful ballad "Priests and Paramedics" (a very nice live version) doesn't say whether the priests or the paramedics are correct. And even after performing very pessimistic pieces, these artists can still take comfort in the old, solid hymns (Pedro the Lion also performs a very peaceful version of "Amazing Love"), or in embracing feel-good messages – The Mae Shi sells shirts that proclaim, "I'm glad you're alive" – because isn't that what Christianity is about, too? In the end, it is this wandering that makes me trust them. I wonder if they realize that their faithful uncertainty makes them more disciple-like than surety.

In a time where the word "Christian" is fraught with implications of bigotry and ineptitude, and where "Christian rock" means playing electric guitar to the same old hymn books, these artists have found a greater depth of meaning and perhaps a wider audience for Christian ideas (not to mention a place in my heart) by venturing outside the pale. Mayhaps we of the flock could learn a little from these preachers.

What should've been a clear blue sky... but wasn't because Mother Nature decided to bless us with Cirrus Uncinus clouds.

Someone is wrong on the internet. Always. But really, guys? Chemtrails? For reals?

Here's the deal: I'm farting around on Flickr, looking at pretty pictures in an "all Montana" photogroup, when I come across a photo of excellent Montana clouds - the whispy kind that denotes only the most superb of days. It's one of the things I really love about Montana. Don't underestimate the luck of being able to look up and see fluff painted daintily across the heavens. After admiring the photo for a few seconds, I looked down to the description, where the photographer was bitching about how she was "disappointed that they didn't leave the sky alone" and how "the sky was obscured the entire time" she was in Montana. Now don't get me wrong; I like a blue sky as much as the next guy. But when it's Montana whispy cirrus vs. plain ol' blue sky? Exactly. Gimme the clouds.

So I made the mistake of posting a comment saying such. This is how I find out that the photographer is a crazy conspiracy theorist.

Ladies and gents, I consider myself to be a fine connoisseur of conspiracy theories, being that I was exposed to no less than 53 of the craziest (including the "chemtrails are a government conspiracy to kill the American people" one) conspiracy theories known to man, all by the age of 12 (I have a crazy uncle). I've seen the videos, read the tracts, and guess what? It all adds up to 'I'm A Scared Deranged Individual With Too Much Time On My Hands And Too Much Need To Be Somehow Better Or More In-The-Know Than Everybody Else So I Can Warn Them And Save Them From The Big Scary World'.

Then, understandably, she gets upset when I say she's taking the "paranoid approach". Okay, so I lack tact. She's "done research," you understand. She's an expert. I get nice. I forgot that conspiracy theorists don't like to be called paranoid. That they don't see their own crazy. They're always right, you know. I'm just ignorant. I bow out, letting her to her fear and loathing, though I tell her that I "must simply appreciate [her] beautiful cloud photography for what it is to my perception: photography of chemtrails and gorgeous (natural) Montanan cloud formations."

So, this is how gorgeous cirrus uncinus clouds get demoted to the status of vague threats on our lives. This is where you look up and see sparkling scars in our skies. This is where wind-blown ice crystals become reasons to blame every headcold, nosebleed, and cough on "someone's" wish to kill the American people. This is where we, as a society, lose it. It's more than just the lack of scientific knowledge or understanding; it's where there is an enemy around every corner. It's where, when a plane disappears into the rubble of a building, as it has been demonstrated that planes do when hard-crashing into something, it is someone trying to kill us. It's where there is no hope, no trust, no goodness in others, no escape from your own irrational fears. It's where so much goes wrong.

Love, love is a verb.

And so this was Christmas, a fine event if there ever was one. A virgin, impregnated by the power of God (who'll apparently go to great lengths to avoid the "birds and the bees" conversation), rides into the overcrowded town with her newly-shotgun-wed husband to pay their taxes, when, after weeks on the back of some poor burro, the thirteen-year-old miraculously pops out her first baby in a spray of blessed afterbirth and only the most pious amounts of pain. And so, to commemorate the occasion of this supposed anniversary (the birth certificate got lost in the mail somewhere), we fret over buying one another just the right thing, the thing that will prove that we love them forever (until Mothers' Day or their birthday or Valentine's Day); we pretend for a few hours to care about the poor, cold, sick, and downtrodden, the huddled masses (as long as we can also pretend that they are all so adorable as Tiny Tim or as poignant as The Little Match Girl); and we play obnoxious nonsense songs the meaning of which few understand (leave belief out; no true beliefs can be built on ignorance).

I'm not trying to be glib or flippant about Jesus' birth. I guess I just have a hard time looking at religion without looking at the bare bones of it. I think rationality is something applied to religious beliefs far too little, both in the beliefs themselves and in the practices which accompany them. It's not what I set out to write about tonight, but I thought Christ's Mass deserved to be noted before it slipped away, and this is what came out. I suppose that it's the product of a rage that's been building for some time now. That anyone can profess to follow in the footsteps of the Lamb of God, The Prince of Peace, that great forgiver of all sins and lover of all sinners, and yet deem someone - anyone - unworthy of HIS love - oh, my friends, I become very upset. My minority, non-Christian friends lie back and take it, even expect it. I know, though, that the baby that shivered in the night those many years ago didn't care if the arms holding him were gay or Jewish or even if they belonged to the Pope himself.

What mattered was love.

I do this for you.

1) This clock is so amazing!

2) I am 6 pages in to this paper and still haven't gotten to my textual evidence :(

Can YOU paint with all the colors of the wind?

I'm tired, I had to get up early, it's snowing, and I have a million things to do, but things are wonderful. Why? Because:

1) It finally looks like winter (the bright white kind, not the dreary gray kind), so I got to wear my beloved snow boots into the winter today.

2) As I left my class and stepped into the wild white world this morning, there was a guy singing "Paint with All the Colors of the Wind" and "Let it Snow" (loudly and very well, I might add) into a cell phone. His friends were laughing at him, but he just stepped outside the doors and kept singing into the phone.

3) My bonded pair of gays is incredibly adorable.

4) My African American Lit professor gives extensions.

5) I may have time to go get my haircut fix this weekend - it's something haircut junkies get excited about - and it will be just in time for me to...

6) Get to go see my older sister in a couple weeks!

To the ones who didn't make it.

The 20th of November (gone by but an hour) was the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a special day to me because I'm glad to have a day to recognize the courage of my transgendered friend Kobe. Kobe and his new fiancée Gayle have been the most excellent friends to me from day one. Kobe has always been Kobe to me, beginning as she, then as he, but older students at Carroll knew him once as Megan. In his transition to his true self, he has faced tribulation beyond my imagination. Although I have not heard of any threats or violence carried out against him, I know that some - even the most accepting of peers - have not been understanding of what he has had to do. Gayle hasn't even been able to tell her family of their engagement yet (familiar? :-S ). I smile when I watch the new generation of Pep Band kids, who have no idea of Kobe's struggle, treat him as he should be treated. Hope? I think so. God bless Kobe and Gayle.

2:59 am

Why oh why did I drink that mocha at 11:00 pm why are GoogleMaps and Craig's List so damn fascinating all of a sudden why isn't there a Craig's List for Helena why can't I move to Vancouver and have tiny adorable kittens/bunnies/puppies/canucks/apartments nao nao nao??????????


I'm beginning to think that you do these things just to upset me, YHWH. We shall have words, my friend.

News du jour.

In no particular order:

1) Obama won. I pray that this capital-c Change all works out as well as it is promised to, that our fine president-elect is not assassinated by haters, and that supporters of both candidates will actually listen to their candidates and treat others with respect and understanding.

2) The campaigning is finally over. Thank everything holy. Really, do.

3) My classmate's sister died this Sunday. He had been missing from the seat next to mine in French to go see his sick sister. I saw him in the hall today and asked if his sister was feeling better. "She died," he said. I can't even imagine the pain he and his family are going through. I know nothing in English or French that can even express it.



4) I have two new shirts. One has cameras and ghosts; the other has birds and a telephone.

5) I am building meself a Flickr account. It has been kinda weaksauce for the past several months, so I haven't reported on it, but now that I've got 3 rolls of some decent Photography Class pictures in there, it's getting better. If you want to help, I'm trying to decide what to send in for a photography contest.

6) Washington is apparently instituting assisted suicide. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

7) Did I mention that the campaigning is over? That means, roughly translated: "Nobody is going to try to convince Caitlin that she OMG NEEDS TO VOTE FOR THIS CANDIDATE OR ELSE for another couple years." It takes the fun out of being a big girl sometimes.

Oh the possibilities: Digger toes, Digger-lipping...

Montana Tech REALLY needs to change their mascot. They're currently the Ore Diggers, which is often shortened to just "Diggers." That's appropriate enough, considering the history of Butte and the college, but try applying it to real life:

Announcer, a bit garbled: "...irst down for th.. iggers"

Caitlin, horrified: "What did he just say?! The WHAT?"


Yeah. "Diggers" sounds just like your favorite racial slur over the loudspeakers. I spent half of yesterday's homecoming game trying to give myself whiplash with suddenly jerking my head away from reading Langston Hughes. After a while I stopped looking angrily around for the culprit every time the damn announcer said "Diggers" and just shook my head.

Oh shit, it's a Grandstreet Kid.

I'm stuck working the desk in the Campus Center (CUBE) for six hours. I thought it'd be quiet and nice, but what do I get? I get the night for the Grandstreet Theatre's banquet. Now, I'm not even from Helena, and I've been here only two school years, but I know about "Grandstreet kids": They are pretentious, annoying pains in the ass. So my quiet desk shift (6 out of 11 hours I'm working today) is filled with moronic teenagers tromping around in prom dresses and hats while talking unnecessarily loudly; small, irritating, socially backwards imbiciles; and the my-kid/kids-and-I-are-better-than-everyone stage parents that accompany the whole shitterie. As if I wasn't cranky enough today.

All gang-bangy.

I recently found Overheard Everywhere, which, much like Found, has stolen my heart. Here's one that makes me laugh uncontrollably on every viewing:


It Concerns Me When You Talk About Yourself in the Third Person, Mrs. Smith
Old teacher, about middle school student: Johnny's fine until he has an audience. Then he gets all gang-bangy and tries to screw Mrs. Smith.
Young teacher: Please don't ever say that again.

Restaurant
Redlands, California
via Overheard Everywhere, Apr 18, 2008

Paradise: found.

Ian and I have gotten ourselves a fine pair of summer jobs and will be staying the summer in Helena. Happiness beyond words!! Now we just have to survive the rest of the semester, a challenging prospect, to say the least.

In other news, I'd be posting a video of the song "You! Me! Dancing!" by Los Campesinos! if I hadn't already. It starts out slowly, but don't let it fool you. This is a fun song.

I've also been hopping lately to some "gypsy punk," an interesting genre for sure. The band Pale Young Gentlemen falls sometimes into this category. You know they're crazy 'cuz they call themselves "gentlemen" but not all of them are even men. Scandalous. Their song "Clap Your Hands" is impossible to not dance to (the grammarian in me is imploding over this sentence). This is the only video of it I can find, and the sound is a little crappy, so take note when you listen.

The main gypsy punk band, though, is Gogol Bordello. They're insane. And also, they sing in Spanish sometimes. I especially love the fire of a grungy Eastern European voice backed up by accordion and electric guitar. Here they are in "60 Revolutions":




I almost forgot to add the band Plushgun. Their heartfelt song "Just Impolite" - currently one of my favorite songs - was featured in an episode of We Need Girlfriends. Thanks WNGFs!

Now we see the violence inherent in the system.

And I wish I could mean that jokingly. This is what happens when I read BBC News. BBC will mess your shit up. They got me all excited about awesome German restaurants, then told me that women in India and Bangladesh get acid thrown on them for being independent. That pretty much takes care of the little bit of hope for the world I had with the Miss Landmine pageant. I can hear it fly out the window. There it goes.

Goddamn people.


In happier news, I get to wear a hate word on my shirt tomorrow. It won't be bad (just "Mick"), but it's representative of my heritage, and I have no doubt that many an ancestor of mine faced N.I.N.A. ("No Irish Need Apply," also on my shirt) signs. My dear Jewish friend is wearing the k-word, and mi Roma amiga is to wear one that says "Pikey".

What's more startling/interesting than the language is what language people find offensive/non-offensive. One friend (okay, it was the Jew) did not think the c-word to be offensive: "It's just like 'bitch,'" she says. Another said that it was "anatomical." I disagree - this is the MOST offensive word for a woman, and it's never used in the anatomical sense. Some other people thought the word "Jew" to be offensive - a sentiment to which, well, The Jew took offense. What else does she call herself? Like "gay" and "queer," "Jew" has undergone a reclamation in the past generation. The only case we could think of "Jew" being offensive is in its use as a verb - clearly quite inflammatory and unacceptable.

Hmmm.



As long as I'm being a blogger, I might as well tell about other "cool and exciting" things: Design by Hümans is sending my shirt, surely set to arrive posthaste. MAIL! MAIL CONTAINING CLOTH! I LIKE CLOTH!


As if that wasn't arbitrary enough, here's a picture I took of Jonathan Richman, the saddest upbeat little old Jewish man ever: