We’re quitting after our noon post, due to Memorial Day, but that’s still plenty of things to read, so do not abandon us. I am also travelling to Canada this week, so your beloved link roundups will be slightly less topical than usual, I will expect every woman to do her duty and post vital, breaking-news links in the comments during this time.
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Friday night’s shooting: there is nothing I can say about it that wouldn’t turn into vicious gender essentialism and rage and fear, so, well, there you have it. Don’t fucking kill anyone because you can’t get laid. You probably won’t! Women basically never do.
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What happened to Tom Cruise is all your fault (it isn’t, and I think the distinction she draws between standing/jumping on the couch is a reaaaach/Jack Reacher):
It is Oprah who seeds the idea that he should stand on it. She thanks Cruise for attending her recent Legends Ball, where she honored Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. “I turned and looked at one point and you were standing in the chair going, ‘Yes! Yes!’ ” she gushes to Cruise. “I loved that enthusiasm.” Minutes later, he stands on the couch for a second, and after she and the audience cheer that, he does it again. When she continues pressing about if he wants to marry Holmes, he exhales, “I’m standing on your couch!” as if that’s the answer he thought was enough. All told, Cruise on the couch — the key image of what the gossip blogs deemed his meltdown — is less than three seconds of airtime.
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John Leavitt put this forward for our link roundup based solely on the line “LITTLE WOMEN COSPLAY LOVE”:
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Speaking of topical, this 2008 interview with Kazuo Ishiguro is a stand-out, even by the standards of Paris Review interviews in general. I read every word:
ISHIGURO:
Yes. I went to the local state primary school where they were experimenting with modern teaching methods. It was the mid-sixties, and my school rather complacently had no defined lessons. You could muck about with manual calculating machines, or you could make a cow out of clay, or you could write stories. This was a favorite activity because it was sociable. You wrote a bit, then you read each other’s things, and you read out loud.
I created a character called Mr. Senior, which was the name of my friend’s scoutmaster. I thought this was a really cool name for a spy. I got into Sherlock Holmes around then in a big way. I’d do a pastiche of a Victorian detective story that began with a client arriving and telling a long story. But a lot of the energy went into decorating our books to look exactly like the paperbacks we saw in the shops—drawing bullet holes on the front and putting quotations from newspapers on the back. “Brilliant, chilling tension.” —Daily Mirror.
INTERVIEWER:
Do you think the experience affected you as a writer?
ISHIGURO:
It was good fun, and it made me think of stories as effortless things.
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Did you see Curtis Sittenfeld’s memories of having been a feminist activist at prep school, and how she feels about it now?
As the student body buzzed, I wrote a petition explaining why the very notion of such a group was insulting; because this was the early nineties, I probably used phrases like “the male gaze” and “patriarchal hegemony.” That weekend, I went around to the girls’ dorms collecting signatures. Hurrying from room to room, I summarized the contents of the petition instead of giving prospective signers the chance to read it, a decision that I look back on as unconscionable on my part, even in the context of a ridiculous situation. But, back then, I thought that time was of the essence—I needed to tape my petition next to the staircase as soon as possible!
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dies, screams, is reborn
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Did you miss our creepy short story about possessed eggs?
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What is and isn’t true about Somaly Mam.
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The difficulties of solving a murder of a very simple man (if any of you are murdered, we will get to the bottom of it):
Philip seemed to have no secrets and no enemies. And he left behind no electronic footprints — the text messages, e-mails, cellphone logs and social-media traffic that police routinely use these days as they seek out unknown quarrels and final movements.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
NOOOO nooo what will those of us who have to work today have to read??? sobbing quietly
My dad ferments things. Sometimes he digs holes in the ground and puts things in there to ferment, and sometimes he forgets about it for years at a time and then when we get a dog it digs it up and everything smells putrid.
Sometimes.
Stuck…in world’s boringest conference… need internet… surely…the Toast…will post something amusing…so I can stay awake…
*Reads opening, sees that it’s Memorial Day* NOOOOOOOOOOO *zzzzzzzz*.
This is probably not the right place for this but I can’t wait until Friday open thread. I finally took the plunge and read some of the fan fiction y’all are always talking about. I read “All the Best and Brightest Creatures”. WOW.
First, whoever suggested that, thanks!
Second, so what do I read next? What else is good?
Anything by Breathedout (amazing historically accurate, footnoted, 1920s and 1950s sherlock slash. Also one really good one that’s just about maynard keynes having sex) and Aggressivewhenstartled (fabulous, feminist sherlock fic where Sally and girl!john get together to file a sexual harassment complaint against Anderson).
If you want more Sherlock I really like Miracle Year: http://archiveofourown.org/works/393018/chapters/…
All the Best and Brightest is marvelous. I get giddy when it updates.
Try Midnight Blue Serenity by beautifulfic. John and Sherlock undercover at a bar, trying to catch a serial killer. Also The Progress of Sherlock Holmes by ivyblossom.
Thanks all! I will definitely be loading some of these on my Kindle right away. I have a really long trip coming up in two weeks, 14 hours just on the airplane, not counting the two layovers. I need distractions. : )
I like the tone of Andrew Ti’s response to responses to the shooting
I like all the cursing.
he is generally good for swears.
I was Away From Internet for the shooting news and came back after #YesAllWomen and the lame countertrend #YesAllPeople got going. I’m kind of glad I missed the teeth of the drama. I got to see second responses instead of angry or speechless first ones.
As many people have asked, can we get MRA’s on a hate group list now?
Yes please can we?
I remember seeing that the Southern Poverty Law Group is tracking MRAs.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/classif…
There is a petition for it!
I can’t wait for the Friday open thread to post a picture of this year’s foal (born Saturday evening) using my finger as a lollipop.
So much cute. So much.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
You taste like a burger. I don’t like you anymore.
Excuse me, ladies. You may remember me as the guy who came to dinner a few weeks ago with underwear on my head.
Ohhhhh those SVH covers. We remember finding the first few books in the local B. Dalton’s bookstore when I was maybe six or so (this is when they were brand new, yes, I am old in the body) and carefully saving up to buy them and read them all and trying to figure out the mysterious world of high school in which there were twins and boys drove something called a Porsche which apparently made them awesome but jerks and why was Elizabeth’s boyfriend supposed to be so wonderful? And the book about the bullied girl becoming popular SCARRED ME FOR LIFE or at least until my twenties, I kept waiting for that to happen! Instead I moved to California and embraced my geekdom. 🙂
Re: contemporary Little Women cosplay love: anyone else read Jacqueline Shannon’s Big Guy, Little Women? It was the sort of thing you’d find at a Scholastic Book Fair for a dollar. The story dares to ask the question “what would happen if Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy time traveled to be modern students at a 1980s high school?”
There’s also a student named Lori who is apparently the only person in the entire high school who has read Little Women, and the only person who recognizes the time-traveling interlopers. Instead of being all “holy shit TIME TRAVEL,” she spends her time terrified that Meg is going to steal her boyfriend Big Guy (whose given name is Brook).
Sadly, the lesbian potential between Lori/Jo and Lori/Amy is never explored.
I have finally read the Curtis Sittenfeld and hey, that is the kind of self-defense we used to teach!! Awesome!
I’m a UCSB student and in so many ways I just don’t know what to do with myself. It’s very strange to have my neighborhood (really, the area around UCSB is not even a town, it’s a square mile neighborhood) be national news. It’s kind of surreal that it inspired the huge #yesallwomen hashtag on twitter. The whole day on Saturday was just news helicopters going back and forth overhead. It’s strange to see people on facebook and other social media site getting so many details about the crime, or my neighborhood, or my school wrong.
(This is a disorganized thought jumble, but I remember thinking to myself yesterday “I guess I’ll really know this is huge if it shows up in the Toast roundup”…and there it is today.)
I think the UC system works so hard to give an impression of being a safe space to learn how to be an adult, that when things go very wrong, it’s extra unsettling. It can be a lot easier to reconcile terrible things happening in your hometown than your college – because there is a small army of staff working to give the impression that all actions have predictable consequences and that people behave rationally. It’s great prep work for being a reliable employee and a solid citizen, but it really strikes at your heart when things go wrong.
Also I’m sorry! It’s weird and rough when something bad happens close to you, even if it doesn’t quite touch you. If you want to share, I’ll listen, and probably some other people with better social skills will listen too.
The UC public relations apparatus has been very apparent this year (at least to me) because of other local acts of violence. I wish the university would take this event seriously in conjunction with other acts of sexual and gender based violence this year to talk about toxic masculinity in the Isla Vista area. But unfortunately they seem all too focused on considering each act of gender-based violence an individual event.
I have a lot of anger towards the University in particular for being more concerned about their image than anything else. The shooter wasn’t a UCSB student, which will give the Uni further reason to not address cultural problems in the area.
So far there is a lot of organizing happening around grieving and memorials, which is necessary and appreciated. I just hope that long term this lends momentum to putting more resources towards violence & sexuality.
Awww, I’m so sad for you. I do hope the University makes an effort to address the on-going problems in IV, and inparticular, the sexual violence. Because it shouldn’t be this way. Not at all.
The way universities respond to violence – sexual assault in particular – is chilling. And it’s true; if there’s any way to avoid taking responsibility, universities will find a way.
I’m an alumnus and I thought, “is everyone posting about this to me because they know I went there?” It’s awful but I honestly wasn’t sure if it would be considered national news, there have been 31 school shootings since Columbine and maybe 5 or 6 have been highly publicized.
I heard the gunshots because I only live a few streets away (but really, everyone only lives a few streets away, IV is so small) and was tuning in to the police scanner just after that to hear everything go down. Then it immediately starting blowing up on facebook among UCSB peers…I went to bed thinking maybe Bay Area news would pick it up as well, but I woke up to national coverage. First thing I saw on twitter that morning was people like Nicole and Roxane Gay tweeting about it, and it was totally surreal.
I know it is late in the day but I have to share this WTF article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/fashion/wedding…
Yikes. People are weird.
I am 90% sure that that’s based on the same press release that Alison Freer wrote about at xoJane last week.
There’s this… http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sout…
“The scheme will also see pavements resurfaced with a “slightly spongy material” that makes them easier to walk on in high heels.”
Ok, I mostly avoid high heels so I could be wrong about this, but wouldn’t a spongy surface make it harder to walk in them?
I have avoided saying much of anything in response to the shooting and online discussions, in part because it’s my style to listen for a long time before responding and in part because… unghh. I do want to respond in some way though, so I’m considering just keeping a diary for a day of all the times I take into account how men specifically will react to something I do or say. Little things like making sure to wear a tank top under my shirt to avoid showing cleavage, or crossing the street here rather than a block down so I don’t have to walk by the bar, or how I move to the right to make room when a man is walking towards me because I know that despite me being bigger he won’t think to move out of the way.
The UC public relations apparatus has been very apparent this year (at least to me) because of other local acts of violence. I wish the university would take this event seriously in conjunction with other acts of sexual and gender based violence this year to talk about toxic masculinity in the Isla Vista area. But unfortunately they seem all too focused on considering each act of gender-based violence an individual event.
I have a lot of anger towards the University in particular for being more concerned about their image than anything else. The shooter wasn't a UCSB student, which will give the Uni further reason to not address cultural problems in the area.
So far there is a lot of organizing happening around grieving and memorials, which is necessary and appreciated. I just hope that long term this lends momentum to putting more resources towards violence & sexuality.
I heard the gunshots because I only live a few streets away (but really, everyone only lives a few streets away, IV is so small) and was tuning in to the police scanner just after that to hear everything go down. Then it immediately starting blowing up on facebook among UCSB peers…I went to bed thinking maybe Bay Area news would pick it up as well, but I woke up to national coverage. First thing I saw on twitter that morning was people like Nicole and Roxane Gay tweeting about it, and it was totally surreal.
So much cute. So much.
Awww, I'm so sad for you. I do hope the University makes an effort to address the on-going problems in IV, and inparticular, the sexual violence. Because it shouldn't be this way. Not at all.