Because my middle name is "tasteful"

Holy Crap

Tracie is totally right about this girl!



I FOUND HER!

I don't know how I could have forgotten this

Maybe it's because it took me almost a year to finally get around to discussing it here, but I totally forgot about the BEST PART of this story:

So immediately after class I called my sister who I had a missed call from.

Amy: OH MY GOD.

Me: No, me first! Seriously, oh MY god.

Amy: Ugh. Fine go.


So I tell her the whole story. It takes the entire twenty minute walk home.

(and keep in mind, I'm really upset. I've been on the verge of tears for at least an hour now.)

I finally make it home and kick off my shoes. I'm barefoot and feeling the tiniest, tiniest bit better. I finish my story.

Amy: That sucks, it's my turn.

Me: Fine, go.

Amy starts talking about whatever the hell it is Amy wanted to talk about and I take about three steps into the kitchen. I feel something. Immediately I know what it is.

It's a dead animal.

I don't even put my entire weight on my bare foot against dead, furry OOZING animal before I LOSE MY SHIT.

I collapse onto the floor in a fit of uncontrollable sobs. I cannot speak. I cannot even breathe. I cannot even pronounce the words DEAD BAT for at least 2 minutes.

Me: (incoherent, possibly dieing)

Amy: What? What's going on?! STOP IT. You had your turn! Listen to me!

Me: (I don't know if I was even breathing at this point. I just had the worst day of my graduate experience and now there is DEAD BAT residue on my BARE FOOT)

I writhe on the floor. The cat is confused.

Me: Whimper. Ok, I'm OK.

I look at the bat and start sobbing again. At this point instead of giving a shit about the fact that I am having a major emotional breakdown, my sister starts screaming the second half of her story to me. I am still crying and haven't taken a full breath in at least five minutes.

Amy tells her her story (whatever the HELL it was about) and I pull it (hardly) together.

She finishes and I grab a paper towel to scoop up the dead bat and toss in the kitchen trash can.

Me: That sucks. Ok, I need to go take a two hour shower now.

Amy: Ok, I'll talk to you later.

Me: Ok, bye.

In relation to the previous post:

John showed this piece I made a while ago to his Digital Imaging class in preparation for their mapping project. He told them, "This is a map of the female body."


























I should have yelled across the lab that, "No, it's a pornographic body. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT... pornographic, not female. Totally different."


I didn't.

I should have.



I should do a lot more yelling.

Feeling nostalgic for my Feminism and Visual Culture days

There is a professor here who likes to proclaim that he is guided in all he does by Katie Grace ****'s breasts.

This professor is male, white, straight, able-bodied and tenured. Katie Grace **** is a graduate student who put on a performance piece where she read from sheets of paper which she would then discard one by one onto the floor. During this process of reading and discarding she seamlessly removed both her shirt and bra and finished the piece bare-chested.

This professor now claims it is Katie Grace ****'s lack of inhibition in her art which inspires him to live his life without feeling the need to fear or censor himself. (See, it's like all his thoughts and ideas are like a woman's breasts, you know, oppressed.)

Unfortunately, this manifests itself as a frequently repeated proclamation that "I am guided in all I do by Katie Grace ****'s breasts."

Seriously.

Though I never saw the performance piece, I can imagine it probably has nothing to do with a white male's liberation of ...something?, thus leading this professor to believe that his own fixation on a younger woman's breasts is all in the name of Art (capital A) and should be both applauded and frequently discussed.

To which my gut reaction is: No. Ugh, no.

And upon further discussion, my reaction remains the same.

Also, to irritate me further, I've never met this artist before, but now Katie Grace *****'s name will forever be linked to her breasts. When I hear her name, I (and you) will think of her breasts. When I meet her I will first be thinking about her breast. And thus Katie Grace **** is reduced to her breasts. Somehow I doubt the point of her piece was to be forever identified this way. Just a hunch.

When I first moved to Iowa I had a hard time adjusting. I was working a job I hated, fighting a cockroach infestation and the long standing relationship that brought me here was already going south. I started volunteering for purely selfish reasons. I needed an escape.

Not long after I was at a party when a vegan asked me, "Why horses? Isn't it cruel to turn these smart, capable animals into beasts of burden? Why not use something dumber? Like cows or machines?"

The horses stride at the walk is similar in length and cadence to that of a human's walk. Riding builds strength and muscle memory necessary for what will become some students' first steps. I remember one student who after over a year in therapy still hadn't walked. After one five week session on Jasper's back, his father set him down, stepped back and we all watched as he took six steps forward.


I told the vegan this.

"Oh." He said. "Well, would you EAT a horse?"









...probably not one of these horses.

I've been frustrated a lot lately.

The end of last year I got in a big fight with one of my classmates (and subsequently the rest of the class) about the depiction of a character with a disability in his film.

My classmate was making a video interpretation of the book Heart of Darkness. He acted all four parts, including a filmmaker, an elusive rock throwing forest dweller, a helpful dimwit, and finally a character he described as kind of off, kind of weird. The character was depicted by lying naked on a cement floor wrapped in a dirty blanket. He drooled while gasping and yelling instead of talking. His hands were uncontrolled and contorted as was most of the rest of his body and he lived deeply secluded in a rundown cabin in the woods. The character was undeniably disabled.

After the screening and many praise for the beauty and clarity of HD, I raised my hand.

"Can you tell me exactly what is wrong with the character in the cabin?"

While I cannot claim to be an expert on disability, having worked with people of all ranges of abilities since high school, I have a pretty good vocabulary when it comes to actual symptoms of real diseases/syndromes/injuries/etc.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I just imagined he's been living in this cabin for so long... maybe he starved at some point and this is what happened to him."

Knowing nothing about the effects of starvation on the human brain and body I asked, "Oh, is that what happens to someone when they almost starve to death?"

"I don't know. I didn't look it up or anything. I mean, that's just an idea. I don't think it really matters what's specifically wrong with him."

At this point, because of years of academic training (I'm in 19th grade!) and an inability to argue in a way that might actually engage people, I pull out my big vocabulary:

"Oh, in that case, I find the portrayal of this specific disabled body problematic in that it seems to be a collection of disability stereotypes Frankensteined together to create an idea of disability which you then use to stand in for 'weirdness' or 'otherness.'"

At which point the class rallies to this character's defense.

They don't think the specific disability matters and the viewer will know the character is being played by an able-bodied actor anyway. One person even said he liked the performance because it was kind of funny to see his classmate act that way. Others said they liked the character as he is because the way he acts weirds them out and makes them feel uncomfortable.

The discussion ends when my professor (who makes over $100,000 a year teaching and is quite established as an influential white male filmmaker) informs me:

"It's not the specificities of the individual character that are important, but the filmmaker's idea of what that character represents that truly matters."

Which, of course, was the exact opposite of the point I was trying to make (read: white, upper middle-class, male, college-educated, able-bodied filmmaker's ideas are NOT more important than actual people with disabilities and just because he has the ability to use disability stereotypes to create the idea of difference and otherness in his Art does not give him the right to perpetuate said stereotypes using such an influential medium.)

Years of academic training have also taught me to recognize arguments I cannot win. Besides I suddenly had to focus all my energy on not crying in front of fifteen men. I let it go.

***

The next week brings a new cut of the same film. I don't expect much change in the character in question and subsequently am not surprised when there is little difference. He had cut out some of the sound, I assume because of the funny comment, but left the visual of the dirty, uncontrollable, helpless body (now gasping in silence) untouched. I wasn't going to open my mouth.

The lights come on and my most trusted Iowa friend, the one who came the MFA program when I did (the only other person in my year) raises his hand. He was present last week for the discussion, but had missed the screening. He knew my argument and how upset I was last week.

"Dude, this film is INCREDIBLE and I don't think it makes fun of retarded people at all."






I haven't taken a class in the film department since.

Reasons I know I can't stay in acadamia

A few weeks ago I assigned a reading to my class. It discussed how there are very few women or minorities in the film industry and how the addition of these points of view could drastically change the types of stories being told in Hollywood. My class hearty agreed. The article then went on to say that even if you are not a woman or minority (based on gender, race, or sexuality and I had my students physically write in 'or disability) it is important not to forget about these people when writing your scripts. Even more importantly, however, when one does include someone who is not white, heterosexual, able-bodied and male, the writer should not rely on stereotypes to build the character.

"Yes!" They agreed.

"OK then, how does this apply to your writing or films?" I asked to my 10 white male and 4 white female students.

A bit of silence...

and then:

"Well, I don't see the world in stereotypes so I don't think this really applies to me."

"I think stereotypes are funny. I mean have you ever read stuff White People Like? I'm not offended."

(Going off of an example in the reading of the white cop/black dynamic, think Lethal Weapon)
"It seems to be working. I mean, those films make a ton of money so people must like them. I don't see the problem."

And finally:

"Well, I don't see how I can write about people who aren't white like me. I'm not trying to be racist or anything, but it seems like black people hang out with black people and white people hang out with white people."

Judging academics

carina: Doesn't it seem a little sick that this person has made a thesis out of people in the witness protection program as 'performers' for the world.

amy: she also thinks there are no witness protection people in rural areas.

Scooter

The smartest horse we have at Miracles is a standardbred named Scooter. Originally trained to be a police crowd control horse, he never made it out of the boot camp stage.

My guess is it's because he's just too fucking weird to be a police horse. He does this thing where he exaggerates his bends making it difficult to steer and, more importantly, is incredibly irritating.

Anyway, what is actually significant about Scooter is he is currently the lowest horse in the heard pecking order. Scooter is a social loser. Think:

Seriously though, Scooter's only friend is a fiberglass life-size horse sculpture named Skywalker that he whinnies to and flirts with every time he sees her. The real horses kick and bite him.

****************

One of the students that rides with us looks like a girl. He is a little bit chubby, has a pretty face with freckles, and long curly auburn hair. The first time I met him he told me "I'm Tommy... I'm not a girl."

Normally my first response would be, well, what the hell is wrong with being a girl? But clearly, this is a serious issue for the kid and I don't think twelve year olds with emotional disabilities really share my brand humor.

Well, today Tommy and I were working with Scooter. Now last week it seems somebody told Tommy about Scooter's problems with the other horses. So while the other four (real) girls were crowding in with brushes and combs, poking and pulling at Scooter's mane and tail, Tommy came up next to me, his own hair pulled into a long cascading ponytail. He leaned in close to Scooter's face.

"Scooter, I want you to know it doesn't matter what those other horses do to you. I don't want you to let it get to you. You're better than that. Most important, though, I want you to know you will always, always have somebody you can talk to."

After the ride he leaned down and patted Scooter's shoulder. "Scooter, I am proud of you. No matter what anybody else says, I'm proud of what you did today... OK?"


All of this just really makes me wonder why don't the parents just cut the kid's damn hair?

Paris X 5 from carina johnson on Vimeo.

Oh my

Barbie Barbie Barbie (shakes head)

This argument was accented with nude drawings.

Also, recently Omer attempted to argue that men are better at drawing because they are trained/raised to look and thus are better at remembering from the point when they are looking at their model/object to when they look at the paper how she really looks. Women on the other hand are trained/raised to identify with the object/model and thus cannot actually see her or draw how she really looks.

I mean, it's kind of likes he's reading.

Kind of.

Everything past this point is now optional

So Harold, the Dutch man in my feminism and visual culture class was supposed to give a presentation on an article titled "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists" by Linda Nochlin (which you can read almost all of here in chapter 26 ). So rather than engaging with Nochlin's argument that:

"The question "why have there been no great women artists?" has lead us to the conclusion, so far, that art is not a free, autonomous activity of a "super-endowed" individual, influenced by previous artists and, more vaguely and superficially, by "social forces," but rather that the whole situation of art making, both in terms of the development of the art maker and in the nature and quality of the art work itself, occur in a social situation, are integral elements of this social structure, and are mediated and determined by specific and definable social institutions, be they art academics, systems of patronage, mythologies of the divine creator, artist as he-man or social outcast."

He simply states that "I am going to have to disagree with Nochlin. Women are capable of making great work and to prove it I have brought in a list of great women artists from the past five centuries."

He then produces a list of about 20 female artists from each century. "See, great artists! Women can do it."

And I'm all "Are you serious, did you even read the article or just the title and figured you got the gist of it? 20 women from each CENTURY and you're using this list to discredit the entire article?"

And then my professor was all, "Let's discuss in small groups! Everybody split up."


So the next class period we're watching the film All About My Mother so we can write about it for our midterm exam. We all sit through it as a class and naturally, attempt a bit of a discussion when it ends.

There's a lot of discussion about the gaze, gender norms, women working together in a mutually beneficial way, heterosexual male stereotypes, etc.

And when it gets to Harold:

"You know what I realize about this film? It really is all about my mother. I see my mother in this film and how she gives and gives and nobody gives back to her until she has nothing and that's what it's all about. My mother."


OH MY GOD Harold, did you even watch the movie? Seriously.

I love this so much

nikki's husband on the film teeth:

here's the preview in case you're not familiar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH8yuld4DUE

Joey

it's a good movie

its very sad actually

but really feminist

1:24pmAlana

how so?

1:24pmJoey

well for starters

the lead is a woman

solely a woman

it's her story

and it presents some really difficult and unsavory situations

she gets raped

twice

of course she's teeth

so she bites back

makes you think about the shitiness of it all

it's not like a crappy lifetime movie either

where every guy is a walking penis out to rape and murder every girl

her dad is a really good guy

And David's response:

one more reason not to have sex with women.
that trailer is fucking scary.

David: you really are one big long feminist rant

David: although in your analysis of the paintings i think you failed to mention the possibility that the two dudes were really just attracted to each other and wanted a girl there so it wouldn't be too gay, and the threat to ruin her reputation was just their way to ensure their place in the closet

This blog has turned into one long feminist rant

much like my life right now.

Thanks grad school.



Recently, in my Feminism and Visual Culture class:

Zoe brings in 4 paintings each depicting the Bible story Susanna and the Elders. Basically what happens in the story is Susanna is bathing naked in the river and two elders come upon her and demand she has sex with them or they will tell the whole town she is sleeping with a young man and ruin her reputation (condemn her to death).

Three of the paintings were painted by men. This is one:


One was painted by a woman:


We have a short discussion about how unfair the female representation is in the male renditions and are about to move on. Until Omer pipes up.

Omer: Have you thought about who the real victim is in these paintings?

Us: Yes, the woman.

Omer: But who is the real victim? The real prey?

Us: The WOMAN.

Omer: No, it is the men. The men who have these desires they cannot control. They cannot control them and they are condemned for their actions.

Us: They can control their actions and not rape this DEFENSELESS NAKED BATHING WOMAN.

Omer: No, they cannot help it and fall victim to their own feelings of desire and lust.


Omer subsequently defends his position and refuses to budge.


This class makes me so sad.

Dear Vegas, Eat a goddamn dick.

See how you like it.


This is an article from the Review Journal I'm cutting and pasting here so I don't advertise the pictures any more than they already are. The highlighting is mine.

VICE ENFORCEMENT'S TOP OFFENDERS: Police are taking unprecedented steps to keep prostitution offenders off the Strip

WORKING GIRLS: Las Vegas' 50 most prolific prostitutes

Call it a unique kind of most wanted list or simply an attempt to clamp down on the area's worst-kept secret.

Working off a roster of the reputed 50 "most prolific prostitutes" in Clark County, Las Vegas police and prosecutors are taking unprecedented steps to keep repeat prostitution offenders off the Strip.

Some are criticizing the law enforcement crackdown as overly aggressive. And it comes at a time when some policymakers are talking about eventually legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution in the Las Vegas Valley.

The Vice Enforcement Top Offenders (VETO) list, which took the vice unit two years to compile, has the names of women with the longest prostitution-related criminal records in Clark County, said Lt. Karen Hughes.

Most of the women on the list have been convicted of exchanging sex for money or of prostitution-related theft charges inside several Strip hotels, not for street prostitution.

Within days of launching the crackdown, police over Super Bowl weekend arrested 13 of the women on charges of soliciting prostitution, loitering for the purposes of prostitution, or trespassing, police records show.

In all, 24 of the 50 women on the list were arrested between Jan. 28 and Feb. 13, all on misdemeanor charges.

Six on the list were arrested twice during that period.

Those arrested range in age from 20 to 41.

Police declined a request by the Review-Journal for the entire VETO list.

Hughes said it is time to stop the revolving door of prostitution-related arrests, especially when those arrests involve "trick rolls," in which prostitutes steal from men.

"We're talking about girls who have been arrested repeatedly over the years, ones that we all know by face and by name," said Hughes, citing one woman who was arrested 18 times in a single year.

"If they get the message that Las Vegas is not going to ignore their subsequent arrests, then maybe they'll take their lifestyle to a different city," she said.

Or at least to a different part of Clark County.

In a memo to prosecutors about VETO cases, Assistant District Attorney Christopher Lalli last month told his staff to offer plea agreements that would include possible jail time and an order that defendants "refrain from entering the resort corridor" for a period of six or 12 months.

The guilty plea offer also will include 100 hours of community service and mandatory attendance of an AIDS awareness class.

If caught back in the resort corridor for any reason other than lawful employment or residency, the subject will be rearrested and given jail time, Lalli's memo said.

City and county ordinances have allowed for so-called "order-out zones" in downtown Las Vegas and the Strip since the late 1990s.

In the past, order-outs usually were agreed to by defendants in exchange for probation.

Hughes spoke about the VETO program and the general problem of prostitution at a meeting of Justice Court judges last month.

The judges were briefed on the initiative even before the sheriff was.

Her appearance before the justices of the peace is problematic, said Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. "It's a cause for real concern when police are going to judges and promoting their policy for cleaning up the Strip."

Peck also wondered whether police are relying so heavily on a Top 50 list that it will lead to prostitution arrests without probable cause. Such arrests would pave the way for the issuance of order-outs.

"It would be troubling if this list is being used as a substitute for sound police judgment," he said.

Hughes said police won't make initial prostitution-related arrests without proof that a new crime has been committed.

"Just because they're on the list doesn't mean they're going to jail," she said.

Lalli said he hopes the VETO effort will put a dent in prostitution. He cited special prosecution guidelines on other crimes such as car theft, which has been dwindling recently, as evidence that crackdowns work.

"Prostitution is one of those areas that brings with it a whole host of undesirable things," Lalli said. "If you're a prostitute out there, the message is, 'Don't commit your act of prostitution around here.' "

Hughes said new names probably would be added to the VETO list once the first set of cases goes through the court system.

She said law enforcement's tough approach to the problem could give way to a push for other alternative sentences for prostitutes and even a court that hears only prostitution cases.

Mayor Oscar Goodman, whose jurisdiction doesn't include the Strip, questioned whether a crackdown on prostitutes is the best public policy. He said pimps should be the main targets of law enforcement.

"It's the exploiters of these women who are the real villains here," Goodman said. "I have a deep and abiding conviction that they are the primary offenders."

Just because police don't have a list of the most prolific pimps doesn't mean the vice unit is ignoring that part of the problem in its undercover operations, Hughes said.

"We've got two investigative teams that deal with nothing but pimps," she said. "But we also want to minimize opportunities for prostitutes to be aggressive with the tourists and with men who aren't interested in that."

Citing more than 5,000 prostitution arrests last year by the vice unit along the Strip, a 46 percent increase from the number two years ago, Hughes said she is concerned that prostitution hurts tourism and creates a bad image for Las Vegas.

"Vice has always had a zero tolerance on prostitution," Hughes said. "There's more work out there than we can wrap our arms around. Our hope is that we convey to prostitutes and pimps who operate here that this is not an easy city to make money."

She rallied support for the VETO effort at a meeting of hotel security chiefs earlier this month.

Several hotel officials contacted by the Review-Journal didn't return phone calls.

Hotels are just one place police are looking for prostitutes, Hughes said. Their attention is also directed on the street and at "erotic services" advertised in print and online publications.

In a related effort, undercover female officers make arrests of men who try to hire prostitutes. This group tends to be less apt to reoffend, according to Hughes.

As police ratchet up efforts to reduce prostitution, Goodman renewed his call for a discussion about options for legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution.

"If I were to engage in discussion, I'd be thinking in terms of a Little Amsterdam," a red-light district with legalized brothels, he said. "But I'm not advocating it."

Prostitution is legal in 10 rural Nevada counties, but not in Clark or Washoe counties.

Goodman said legalized and regulated brothels over time could generate hundreds of millions of dollars for this area.

State Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee, said last month he was open to the idea of holding a legislative hearing to discuss legalizing and taxing prostitution in the state's urban counties.

It appears, however, that the Legislature will not act on that idea this session.

At a recent meeting of the Review-Journal editorial board, Sheriff Doug Gillespie spoke out strongly against such proposals.

For now, Goodman said, Las Vegas police should enforce the laws on the book.

Barbara Brents, a sociology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said she is surprised that law enforcement would focus so heavily on cracking down on prostitution.

"It seems pretty hypocritical to me to have an economy based on sexualizing women and then to come down on the women when police want to make it seem like they're enforcing the law," she said. "It's coming down on women who are least able to fight back."

Defense attorney James "Bucky" Buchanan, who has defended many clients accused of prostitution, sees practical problems with the effort.

"As much as Metro wants to do this, it's just going to clog the courts," he said. "I don't think Metro has thought out the consequences and financial impact of this."

On the bright side, Buchanan said, the crop of VETO arrests will make a lot of money for attorneys like him.

This is so painfully wrong.

-I've been thinking a lot about that film you showed in class last week. -You mean the porn? -Yeah, that one.

One of them older men in my Feminism and Visual Culture class has developed this irritating and insulting habit of whenever he speaks he first begins by doing this:

"When some of you speak, it is very easy for me to understand. You (points at classmates), you, and you are very clear.

"When some other people speak, like you (and he points at me every time) I have a very hard time understanding what you are saying. I am just asking that when you speak, you remember me and remember to take care of me. Please take care of me."

I felt mildly bad because he is from Sudan and doesn't speak the best English even though I was planning on strangling him if he ever asked me to "take care" of him again. That is until a month into the semester when he revealed he isn't planning on buying any of the books.

Really? Is my big, literate vocabulary too much for you? Are you really going to ask me to define objective and subjective?

The first day of my Feminism and Visual Culture class one of the older men asked the professor, "What exactly is feminism, anyway?"

It has all been down hill from there.