Put some pants on

Slowly now, repeat after me:

Leggings. Are. Not. Pants.

They weren't pants in 1987 when we wore them with stirrups and ballet flats, and they aren't now.

Writerly-ly

I think I'm addicted to addiction memoirs. Odd for someone who's never really used drugs and rarely drinks. Even odder that I have little empathy for drug addicts.

Yeah, I know that's really insensitive or un-PC, but mostly I find addiction memoirs narcissistic and pathetic, like some 14-year-old's MySpace rants about Death Cab For Cutie* lyrics and self-mutilation.

(*Pretend it's like 2004 or something.)

Anyway, said memoir is actually a pretty engrossing read, except I can't help but be jealous over someone who can write in a drug-induced fog. To write even one coherent sentence, I have to have be alone, all electronic devices off or out of my reach save for the computer, lighting just right and the cat fast asleep. Not fair.

They're playing my song. Hell, they're playing the entire contents of my iPod

There's a supermarket I go to -- the kind of place patronized by septuagenarians in motorized scooters. Normally, I pay little attention to the music being piped through the store, but in the past few months the playlist has changed from the usual 70s MOR pap to a modern-day alt.rock/singer-songwriter format, essentially, my iPod.

(Yes, I am a cliche. Yamma yamma yamma.)

I thought it was odd when I heard the familiar strains of Wilco's "Impossible Germany." Even odder when they busted out Rufus Wainwright's "Sanssouci." Yesterday they were playing Jim O'Rourke's "Halfway to A Threeway."

NaNo Interrupted...

My NaNo novel is on indefinite hold.

I'm not really "in it to win it" this year, so I'm not stressing over word count like I've done during previous NaNos, but I am putting it away for a while until I figure out in what direction I'm taking my story.

My opening scene is totally un-PC. The character at the center of it is, well, a bit of a douche, but it still feels a little icky, especially after reading a post on another blog about "the responsibility of the artist" and whatnot.

I am not creating art. At least not yet, so it just reads like a B-level reality TV show. In my mind,it plays as something dark and sinister but isn't, for lack of a better cliche, translating well to page.

I'm not looking for sympathy or "just hang in there kid-isms." I'm venting. I need to either push it to that dark sinister place or ax it altogether.

linkage...

1. I updated some of the links from my Google Reader -- finally. (See Available Links) Paste Magazine posted their 50 Best Albums of the Decade. Check it out to see what you've missed.

2. If your mom was into the whole Color Me Beautiful thing in the 80s, here's an expanded system with each of the four seasons divided into threes.

NaNo: Day One

Did not make the 1600+ word quota for the day. I did, however, actually start my story in medias res as I was taught. And, somewhat inexplicably, my typing skills have improved. No typos.

Goals: I has them. Small ones, but I still has them.

Write a piece of rambling prose and shit...

I'm actually writing this on NaNo's Eve. If I haven't updated my post with a word count, it means I've yet to start. I'm better prepared than I was last year, but I'm not going to run myself ragged trying to write every spare minute I get like I did in '06 and '07. I won those years, but I had little "novel" to show for it.

This is my best plan so far. If you have a better one, please share.

Boo, ya'll...

Happy Halloween!



(PS: I'm going to be Blip'ing Halloween-themed songs -- I'm a geek like that -- throughout the day on my Blip.FM page.)

Do men even listen to female recording artists (or their fans)?

(Cross-Posted at BlogHer)

I guess an easy answer would be some do, but many still don't. Granted, I have only anecdotal evidence, but it doesn't surprise me while digging through some of my last.fm contacts music libraries, I found that male artists far outweigh female ones.

(I actually did some tallying up -- because I am a nerd like that. It was around 5% at the low end, and 25% at the high.)

Of course, it's no secret that female recording artists get the shaft unless you are young, beautiful and heavily promoted.Jezebel's response to a Times Of London article on the concept of "musical genius" earlier this year:

The Times of London writer claims that Rufus Wainwright gets plied with the "genius" accolade frequently, while similarly blessed female musicians like Kate Bush, Bjork and Goldfrapp are not given the genius label. Um, Jane? Goldfrapp? You're really arguing that Goldfrapp is a "genius?" Maybe the term genius is being tossed around entirely too frequently, regardless of gender.

and

I checked out the Billboard Hot 100, and as five of the top ten albums are by women, maybe we need to lament the lack of "genius" females in music writing, not music making... Yes, 50% of the top selling artists this week are female, but they're all, to a woman (Rihanna, Natasha Beddingfield, the abhorrent Katy Perry, etc.) beautiful, under 25, and singing pop. Several of them do not write their own songs, and their popularity is largely driven by their packaging, not their music.

With image being at such a high premium, and women being being more susceptible to attacks on their image, it's easy to see why so many talented female artists fall through the cracks. But what does this all mean to those of who have long-prided ourselves on eschewing glossy, cookie-cutter pop stars for something more organic? Not much. Indie rock has long been a boy's club, and speaking from personal experience, it doesn't get much better on the fan-end. Apparently, the internet isn't the great equalizer it should be. Nancy Baym from Online Fandom says of women music fans and the online experience:

Meanwhile, music on and offline is as much of a boy’s club as it’s ever been. When I worked in a record store (the only woman who worked at that store), almost all of our customers were male, and all of the ones who came in and dropped tons of cash on large stacks of records and later CDs were. Women in bands are expected more than ever to be sex objects as well as singers (have a look at coverage of the most recent American Idol if you doubt that). But few and far between as women in bands are, fewer and further between are women behind the counters at record stores, working at record labels, acting as managers (let alone producers or engineers), and working behind the scenes at “Music 2.0” sites. We can’t expect the internet to overcome a playing field that unlevel to begin with.

The closest parallels can be drawn from the gaming world, another "old boys' club":

For those of you who haven’t been around the past few years listening to me rant about the gender issue, let’s just say that there’s been a pattern of fanboys ignoring fangirls, of male scholars dismissing and ignoring our interests or, when discussing the same material, our outlook and insights.
(ephemeral traces)

My own experiences online and off have followed the same pattern. There's always that feeling of "proving yourself worthy" before you are accepted, something most women have faced especially those who dare to enter a "boys only" zone.

I've always wanted to ask other female music fans this: do you feel talked down to or marginalized in the presence of fanboys? Has the internet been the great equalize it was supposed to be?

Bring the fug

I need a new BlogHer avatar. I've been using the same mannequin head for two years. I think people think it's really me in the shot, not some random dummy in a store window. Therefore, it's time to get a "big girl" avatar; one that shows my actual face.

Now if I could only find a picture of me a) not wearing a holey tee shirt, and/or b) looking like a crackwhore.