Red lipstick is bad for you

Well, because Shiela Jeffreys says so. The Guardian's Julie Bindel talks to Jeffreys, the "Andrea Dworkin of the UK," on her new book Beauty and Misogyny which traces the history of the beauty industry and how it has perpetuated the oppression of women through the endless pursuit of beauty.

Jeffreys takes a look at how cosmetics have been used to alter appearance for thousands of years, sometimes exclusively by prostitutes and others deemed disreputable, other times as a political gesture. The suffragettes fought for the right to look and dress as they saw fit, some wearing red lipstick as a symbol of feminine defiance. After the second world war, a shortage of men meant that women tried hard to look as attractive as possible in the hope of getting a husband, and make-up became, Jeffreys argues, "a requirement that women could not escape, rather than a sign of liberation."

She even eschews how women now "do not want their behaviour 'policed by feminism', but wish to enjoy sex with men, wear make-up, and dress in short skirts and high heels without feeling they are betraying feminism." For her, the battle is not just political but also personal. She stopped dyeing her hair a certain shade, cut it, and then decided to become a lesbian as a political stance.

But Jeffreys has always been viewed as an extreme feminist, such that even pornographers have even named a sex toy after her: The Sheila: A Spinster's Best Friend.

Now that's really hardcore.

The absence of urban literature

Now if the Philippines has a surplus of buangst literature, the Chinese are suffering from the opposite: the lack of urban themes in their writing.

Chinese critics have noted that their literature is still majorly influenced by agrarian themes and their writers are more familiar with rural subjects, making them unable to portray the delicacies of urban living. The reason for all these, some say, is that Chinese cities had undergone major changes in the last two decades.

The Xinhua newspaper reported:

Critic Li Jingze asserted that both theorists and writers should rethink their limited literary thinking. Writers born after the late 1970s were grappling with complicated urban experiences, whereas critics had no idea what they were talking about or why, said Li.

[D]epictions of the lives of doctors or lawyers should be much more complex and insightful regarding contemporary life than continual depictions of farmers, and should also require more dedicated research. (Highlights mine) However, most mainstream Chinese writers and critics, coming from the countryside themselves, still focused themselves on rural subjects despite the fact that the urban experience had become a major element of China's contemporary culture.

If the Pinoy writers are fixated on buangst writing, then the Chinese seem to be overdosing on their rural lit, forever mining the glorious Mao era and forgetting that it's all about the shopping malls now. And given that their writers are just about my age but they're all writing about farmers, that's just like, whoa. (Excuse the airhead, I just woke up, no coffee yet.) What struck me most about that article is their dedication to research. I was reminded of this Time magazine article about how rural Chinese also see their cities as a place paved with gold. The Time writers followed this teenage girl, from pagluwas sa probinsya to life in the big city and back to the villages again. I swear, it's just like our own people.

So maybe we should do as the Chinese and let's take to writing rural fiction for a while, and let the Chinese do as we do. Maybe make all those who want to be writers enroll in a creative writing program. Hee.

Buangst

In fiction class, my professor lamented about the proliferation of "buangst" stories--a trend wherein the characters, most of them writers and/or creative writing majors, go crazy ("mabuang") after treating the readers to several pages of usually urban or quarter-life induced angst and usually ends with a death (their own, self-induced) or deaths (others, Columbine style).

After dismissing those as unsubstantial fare, the challenge now is to go back to (here we go now) "our roots." Which means reading up on local myths and legends, the neglected epics that nobody really reads unless forced by their CW/Lit teacher, preferably in a language other than Tagalog. This is where we can get our material, she says, so we will produce something that will up the ante of writing and improve our reading culture.

I appreciate the challenge and all, although I'm becoming more and more aware that I have been digging my own grave in this class. (This is what happens to students who write about Sharon and Gabby in a Ph.D. level course.) So I guess this means I'll have to forget writing about elephants appearing in the middle in Edsa (lookie here, a Murakami anti-thesis!), getting stabbed in a jeepney holdup (ooh, see blood spurting from jugular!), and gazing into Courtney Cox's asshole (wala lang).

It'll be back to local culture for me. If push comes to shove and I don't get to finish my research project and don't have enough material, I'll write me another artista story to complete my "Pinoy Loveteams from the '80s" series. Then my professor will be so disappointed and go completely buangst on me. Haha. Wala lang.

What does sex look like?

The Dutch have the answer.

A team of Dutch scientists used Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal. The group also traced other experiments in this field of study, most notably, that of Leonardo Da Vinci, whose drawing "The Copulation" showed that semen in males comes from the brain and goes down the spine. Sort of gives you confirmation about how certain parts of the population think. Feh.

But really now, the Dutch, they really know how to do a really cool science project.

Feminist Fairy tales

Last week in fiction class, we read (or rather, the teacher read for us) selections from Barbara Walker's "Feminist Fairy Tales." Walker is convinced that "in the beginning, classical fairy tales show little respect for women, except as young and beautiful 'princesses.'" Their only role was to be decorative, "in the customary female function in these old stories. Girls without beauty are automatically also without virtue, happiness, luck or love."

Thus, Walker's purpose in rewriting the said narratives is "to elevate the role of the women in the fairy tale to a stronger, more independent one, capable of leaving for fixing her unhappy position, usually at the hands of abusive men." But unlike satirists who poke fun at the situation, Walker is is described as a 'humerlus' person, totally devoid of humor.

I also found totally unrelated stuff for my fiction class homework, but all I found was this: A post-colonial canonical and cultural revision of Conan Doyle's Holmes narratives and this.

I'm still at a loss what to do with the homework, although I have the idea that I want to put together Megastar Ate Shawie, Gabby Concepcion, Magick Sing and Aegis' "Basang-basa sa Ulan." Ate Shawie, who has everything but used to be unhappy in love and luckless when it comes to men, makes up for everything by earning tons in her endorsements. She did her time at the hands of abusive men. So I want her to totally get over it and kick some abusive male ass.

If not that, I'm tempted to put together Ate Vi and the legend of sampalok. Tapos puro krompalan scenes lang ever. Wala lang. I--actually me and Yummy--have decided to cast ourselves as the class' resident airheads. Just to continue what we have established in our first day of class last week: We arrived late, and gave totally blah answers to the question, "Why do you write?" Our CW10 kids would have given better answers. Feh.

UPDATE: I decided to go with the Sharon and Gabby thing. I totally horsed around, and I almost shriveled when the teacher picked my homework to be read out loud first. While I thought that it would just be submitted and she'd read it as an exercise, the whole class actually had to critique it. As in give it a reading, ladida, the works. And Yummy gave a totally airhead answer: "It was funny! I liked it!" Go, airheads! Heehee.

The Grandmammy of all covers

Now here's something guaranteed to make you fall off your chairs: What happens if you cross Kylie Minogue with Tori Amos?

A totally weird cover version of Can't Get You Out of My Head. (Scroll down for the page for the link.) Seriously. I know this is like nearly a month late, but still worth the download. I know the cover was done becaue of good intentions, but really, our only comment when the song finally played out was something out of Melanie Marquez: "Ms. Amos, ang labo mo!" Hehehe.

[Thanks to Hanah for telling me the news.]

How to write a term paper

Once again, the guys at TMN bring you incredibly useful advice. This time they give us the lowdown on how to write a term paper--complete with tips on pagination, margins, font size, and of course, with pictures:

But if school taught us how to do anything, it showed us how to turn the un-presentable into the presentable—at least by the end of class on the due date. In fact, we can assure you there is no poster that can’t be improved with an extra photocopied textbook illustration, no diorama that can’t rise another letter grade with an accompanying oral argument about how you’ve truly revealed Ibsen’s underlying dramatic—and certainly no short essay that resists inflation into a term paper four times the normal size of its content.

For students attempting to google me: If you do exactly as the TMN guys tell you for your papers in Eng10, you will get a fat, round grade in your classcards. No dice.

How to fold a fitted sheet

I am a ditz and a klutz when it comes to folding and ironing stuff, so this advice from Target (Target! Of all places!) on how to fold a fitted sheet is really really helpful. I got confused a bit, but at the end of the day, I had my sheets folded just fine.

More how-to's:



Silksreen your shirt designs using stencils and fabric paint. Looks nice noh? via.

So long, Mrs. Robinson

Actress Anne Bancroft passed away at age 73 from uterine cancer.

According to the New York Times article, she worked hard to get beneath the surface, to inhabit a role as deeply as possible. While preparing for her role as Helen Keller's teacher in "The Miracle Worker," the film that gave her an Oscar, she taped her eyes shut so that she'd know what it's really like to be blind.

But even with dedication like that to her craft, Anne Bancroft was still known for her portrayal of the middle aged seductress Mrs. Robinson in the 1967 film "The Graduate." In an interview conducted in 2003, she expressed concern and slight disappointment that her "meatier" roles were all obscured by attempt to educate a rather well-heeled young man just out of college.

I must confess that I'm one of those Ms. Bancroft must have loathed. "The Graduate" is one of my favorite "directional*" movies, and every time I hear the Simon and Garfunkel intro I can't help but hum along and envision Dustin Hoffman staring at those stockinged feet.

Anyhow, more useless info about that movie according to the interviews in the 25th year anniversary laser disc edition: Despite the roles they played in the movie, there really wasn't much of a "generational gap" between her and Dustin Hoffman, who was already thirtyish when he took on the role of Benjamin Braddock. He was like 31 to her 36. And between Hoffman and Katharine Ross, the girl who played Elaine Robinson, it was the latter who was more popular at the time.

When the film came out when it did, in the late 60s, it spoke to an entire generation of people who were advised to invest in a future in plastics, although I am more inclined to wear sunscreen. It is my goal that someday, I will be as well preserved as Mrs. Robinson.

*The other films in that library include Reality Bites and Ghost World.

Asian Lesbians or Siths?

Nerve interviews first time filmmaker Alice Wu, who is being hailed as the poster girl for Asian-American lesbians with the debut of her film "Saving Face." Here's what she has to say on being gay and Asian: "I think a lot of people end up getting married and having kids because suddenly there's nothing to graduate from. One thing about coming out — your parents and Hallmark stop saying, 'You need to get married now.'"

When questioned by a male Canadian customs officer, Wu had to describe her opus as "an old-fashioned romantic screwball comedy." When the customs guy dismissed Wu's work as "chick stuff", Wu told him that he might think differently if he saw her lead actresses - "three beautiful women." The customs guy apparently considered this for a minute, then said, "I do like beautiful women. But no male leads? Where does the romantic part come from?" As though it's not possible to have a romantic comedy with an all girl cast.

I was reminded of this review I saw in a magazine that there's a smattering of Pinoy indie movies like Ang Lagusan (horrible) or that long winded movie (a little less horrible), and an entire selection of gay movies like Duda, Bathhouse, or Macho Dancer if you want to go back that far, but we hardly have anything about girls.

Which leads us to ask, "Yeah, where are all the girls?" Given a choice between girls or Siths, where will you throw your money?