Outerspaceways, Inc.

moving this blag to tumblr

2009-09-24T17:20:00.000-04:00

Go here now >> [all we have is now]

curiosities

2009-06-01T18:13:00.000-04:00

trickle down theory

2009-05-26T15:42:00.000-04:00

Mountain Goats @ Somerville Theater 3/25/2009

2009-05-17T18:22:00.001-04:00

maw

2009-05-12T14:08:00.001-04:00

discarded

2009-05-03T23:23:00.001-04:00

2009-05-03T01:46:00.002-04:00

pink petals

2009-05-02T17:38:00.000-04:00

absolutely not

2009-04-30T17:47:00.001-04:00

it's springtime in Delaware Park again

2009-04-29T20:02:00.000-04:00

New pretty things for sale at [knots and loops]

2009-04-27T22:38:00.000-04:00

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade
LindenTea.etsy.com

encrinal

2009-04-27T01:24:00.000-04:00

fossil

2009-04-25T12:38:00.000-04:00

is this what I am?

2009-04-23T15:54:00.001-04:00

last outpost

2009-04-22T19:22:00.000-04:00

stones and rust

2009-04-21T23:46:00.000-04:00

between the sky and waves

2009-04-20T16:16:00.000-04:00

recent highlights.

2009-04-18T20:17:00.002-04:00

Whoa, hey, I have a blog. I have a blog??

2009-01-14T16:58:00.004-05:00

Yes indeed I have a blog, although it may seem I forgot about it.

Much happens. The world orbits the sun. So it goes.

I have a shop on Etsy now, selling hemp jewelry and cozy knitted goodies. Here's a sample of what's available now!

Etsy
Buy Handmade
LindenTea

I also just got a Holga roll back. Woooo.

Had very enjoyable winter holidays. :)

Through The Hiss is still truckin' along! We hit a slowdown during the fall semester, because most of us just got crazy busy, jeezy creezy. But new posts are still hammered out with regularity. :)

late summer x-pro: we are made of stardust

2008-10-04T16:34:00.002-04:00

recent 35mm

2008-10-01T23:52:00.003-04:00

First roll of x-pro, first roll on the Canon FTb

2008-08-04T20:32:00.004-04:00

Wow. I was not expecting the roll to come out like this! Not that that's a bad thing! But I figured that the cross-processing would come out looking more like this or this, in terms of color.

But I am still very pleased.

MOAR: http://flickr.com/photos/linden_tea

Holga on Independence Day

2008-07-19T21:10:00.003-04:00

O HAI.

It's been a while since I've posted. Whoops.

Here's some photos from July 4th! I just got this roll developed. :)

"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the CHILDREN??"

2008-06-20T16:25:00.004-04:00

Either it's that Helen Lovejoyism is getting out of control lately or I'm noticing it more often, but...

1. There was a post (it's friends-locked, so you need to be a community member to read it) at the LJ Feminist community about adolescents posing nude in photography (which were not published until they were legal adults, at which time they were asked for consent again), which opened a whole slew of comments, some of which were particularly stupid. Like the person suggesting that sharing any photos of children are exploitative and wrong and evil. And that everyone who does not get explicit written consent from their friends is exploiting them if they appear in the background of a photo they post to Myspace. 9__6 Quick! Someone please send a memo to my parents that they should be sent to jail for those few adorable photos of baby-me in the bath. OH NOES.

2. A forum thread at Ravelry, debating whether naked human bits should be allowed in "ravatars" (user icons) on the site, which sparked a ton of "omg but the childrens could see nudity!!!1!" as if whatever nudity could fit into a 100 x 100 pixel icon would somehow scar a child for life. Puh-leeeeze. Would these same people refuse to allow their child(ren) to go on a school field trip to an art museum?

3. This recent post at geologic blog Magma Cum Laude, which describes a situation where a publication was denied because photos of children engaged in geosciences outdoors were deemed too "unsafe" for lack of HAZMAT suits. No, really. It's that fucking ridiculous. The post sums up my feelings pretty well:
You can't plan for every idiotic thing that someone could potentially do. Naturally, you shouldn't take unnecessary risks, or let children do obviously stupid or dangerous things. But when you start saying that kids shouldn't be depicted running around in sunlight, or digging in the dirt, or wading in water at the beach, you're just being silly and alarmist. We can't raise a generation of people who have no idea how to handle themselves in the real, dirty, messy, natural world, because they'll just spend their lives inside. And you can't do geoscience from a bubble.

Recent adventures in Second Life

2008-06-19T12:49:00.002-04:00

Sometimes you just need some eye candy.

Like space babes dancing with all manner of brightly colored lights. Mmmmm. Sen (the pixie) is the spouse's "alt", although Sen is quickly becoming a main character and Artdre (the original avatar) has been in-world far less often these days. This is probably a good thing, as Artdre is a dark, sulky, snarky, angry demon and Sen is a bright, fluttery, happy space pixie. The blue tentacled space babe is my main avatar Pinkfeather, who is a shapeshifting genderfluid creature.

One of my alts, Geo, discovered some tasty analog keyboards. He begged Sen to come play with him, and she obliged. I think Geo has a lovecrush on Sen but he's too shy to initiate anything with her, as Sen seems kind of asexual (even if she's sexy). Pixies are like that, aren't they? :P

Also, the new spaceport and hydroponic gardens at Fracture == LOVE.

knitting projects

2008-06-17T12:57:00.004-04:00

I have it in mind to keep this blog updated with all my myriad projects, perhaps to convince myself that I'm not just a lazy slacker after all...

So here's that pink sweater I started. Doesn't look a whole lot like a sweater yet, does it? ;) It will. Size 13 (9.0 mm) needles means it knits up quick. Woot.

And here's that coffee cozy I posted about before. I can't really have coffee right now, so the cozy is functioning as art. I think it looks like a coral polyp, sans tentacles (maybe the ribbing at the top is the tentacles). Also, ooooohhhh rainbowy Noro yarn is pretty. I finally killed that stash of Kureyon, which means I could have an excuse to buy more Noro in the near future... Hmmmm..

Through The Hiss is updated, and knitting happens.

2008-06-16T17:09:00.003-04:00

There is a new post up at Through The Hiss, with a brand spankin' new live recording of La Cacahouette. :D New as in, recorded yesterday. I spent a few hours today turning it into a podcast (seeing as I didn't have to go into work). Go look! Go listen! I'm excited.

Oh, oh, I started knitting a fuzzy pink sweater, from a pattern in Stitch N' Bitch. Concurrently, I'm almost-halfway-done with a set of black and white striped armwarmers for the spouse. That little coffee cup warmer (which is finished) will be sidelined for a bit, since recent health promblems have meant I can't have coffee. (Insert Darth Vader "NOOOOOO" here.)

And uh, anyhow...

Lack of updates due to lack of presence at home. :P

2008-06-13T23:13:00.002-04:00

Whoa, hi there blog!

I was in Cambridge/Boston for a few days, having so damned much fun. Took lots of photos, but haven't had the time to go through all of them yet for resizing purposes. There's a few over on my flickr photostream already.

Cheers!

Daily linkage: Science Tattoos!

2008-06-03T13:31:00.003-04:00

Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium showcases some very awesome inked skin.

This is making me want to get more tattoos. Especially science-related ones.

Teen sketch meme (I am always late to the party)

2008-06-01T23:16:00.004-04:00

For this meme!

Features of Teen Lins™:

Slouchy shoulders and bad posture
Undershave worn as a floppy mohawk (dyed green)
Multiple necklaces and chokers
"Pagan" (lol!)
Straightedge (roflmao!!)
Ratty old army jacket
Sandals (I still have the pair I got when I was 15)
Sketchbook full of murry purry furry "art"
Tie-dye t-shirt with a wolf on it (I owned several)
Semi-baggy jeans that are a size or two too small (Due to severely bad body image, I couldn't cope with my actual clothing size and pretended I could lose enough weight to fit into my tight clothes... The irony is, I only weighed about 120-125 pounds during my mid-to-late teen years. Dayum!)
Ears pierced once each; fake CBR earrings
No bra

Not Pictured:

Emotionally abusive metalhead boyfriend
Eating disorder
Self-injuries
Bad grades
Shitty taste in music
The mind-numbing banality of life in suburbia

Through The Hiss update and what I am knitting right now

2008-05-28T16:21:00.004-04:00

Through The Hiss has been updated with another archive podcast! Also, we now have all the equipment we need to start recording bands, so waahooooo we're all pretty damn excited.

And I am knitting a coffee sweater. That is, a cup holder for take-out coffee cups.

It will protect my hands when the place does not have paper holders.
It will save the paper holders and extra layers of take-out cups from needing to be used.
It will keep the coffee warm longer than the paper holders would.

I find creative ways to go through the parts of my stash that are otherwise too small to make a real project. :B

Initial overview of glacial erratics in a stream (Eternal Flame area of Chestnut Ridge park)

2008-05-26T16:22:00.004-04:00

One of my planned-for-the-immediate-future research projects involves mapping, identifying, and petrographically/petrologically analyzing glacial erratics. The spouse and I went to Chestnut Ridge park yesterday to hike down to the eternal flame (a natural gas leak behind a waterfall). Normally this would have been awesome, but unfortunately there was a large pack of 8-12 year old kids there (mostly boys) who were being pretty obnoxious. Normally I'm not a child-hater (i.e. I can deal with crying children in restaurants without being all OMG THOSE MOOS AND THEIR SPROGS) but seriously... there were adults there "supervising" (or rather, just standing around while the kids were clambering all over the waterfall, throwing rocks and branches, and splashing around). I was only irritated because, how hard would it be to say, "Hey kids, stand aside for a moment while these people look at the flame," really? I didn't want them to stop playing and go home, I just wanted a couple minutes to look at the waterfall and the flame, take a couple photos, and continue on our merry way. Buuut we didn't get that. Oh well, there's always non-holiday weekends for hiking...

But anyhow. Here's some rocks I found! :B I have discovered that identifying rock types in the field can be a bit tricky, especially if the outer surface is very weathered and covered in lichen and moss. (Lichen can look a lot like rock!)

I'm not sure what rock type this is. Some meta-igneous rock, I'm assuming? I think the large dark purple crystals are plagioclase, or at least that's what Solar said a few weeks ago.

Another tricky one to identify. It definitely looks metamorphosed, although the photo doesn't show it too well. There's some augen in there.

A gneiss that rather resembles television static. Looks like there's no k-feldspar in there. Drat, I didn't bring any HCl with me (like I think of these things when hiking?) but it didn't scratch easily with my knife, so I'm assuming it's not marble. The strong fabric of foliations indicates it's not marble, also. So, quartzofeldspathic? Probably.

I guessed this one to be quartzite. There's banding in there, but I couldn't see any particular fabric, so the color of the banding could be due to the chemistry and possible relict bedding.

Banded gneiss.

Closeup of the above banded gneiss. Oooohh, neat mini fault.

Gneiss (or amphibolite gneiss? hard to tell.) with garnet porphyroblasts.

I liked this one. Hard to make out the mineral composition, but I'm guessing those big chunky augen are plagioclase. There could be some effects of differential erosion, leading to the strong relief of the surface texture.

I want so badly to cut these damned rocks up and look at them under the microscope!! You have noooo idea. It's driving me crazy not being able to tell their mineral compositions because of their outer surfaces. I can only assume that I'll get better at field identification in the future, but until then I like nice clean broken surfaces when it comes to rock ID.

Carnival at Southgate plaza in West Seneca

2008-05-25T21:46:00.002-04:00

We were on our way elsewhere to get hot dogs, when we passed this wee carnival and decided to eat there instead.

Through The Hiss -- That thing's operational! :0

2008-05-24T18:31:00.002-04:00

Checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitoutcheckitoutcheckitout

Now with (some) content! More to come!

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaatties

2008-05-23T02:55:00.003-04:00

So Jay promised me one rat for my birthday. Then we went to the SPCA and they had a bazillion ratties. And there were these three little boys all in one cage. And I said, "I can't split these l'il bros up, that would be saaaad."

So now Lucy and Wakka and Chappu have some new adoptive brothers (who are chargin their lazers)! Yaay.

Birthday prezzy to myself

2008-05-22T14:51:00.003-04:00

Today I turn 24. Well, not until 7:35 p.m., if you want to get technical.

My birthday present to myself was a new collar from Collar Factory. :D It's chocolate raspberry leather with green lambskin lining and "emerald" gems, with a D-ring near the buckle (as opposed to front-and-center). Oooohh.

I liked this photo. Note to self, though: get new septum hardware. Maybe a CBR. Maybe a gauge bigger. Mmm.

Today's linkage: Refreshing thoughts about the (U.S.) Democratic primaries

2008-05-20T16:04:00.004-04:00

This post at the Unapologetic Mexican is a good read. Refreshing, too!

An introductory quote:
THERE IS misogyny among both supporters of Clinton and Obama. And there is racism in both camps, too. Some people will not vote for a woman, no matter what. And guess what, some people will not vote for a man who looks like Obama. Some people who harbor a good amount of sexism will still vote for a woman, given the right person. And some people who generally think in terms of whiteness being of most value will still vote for a non-white, given the right person. There are many reasons to be for and against all the candidates, and I'm betting it's very rarely as simple as Racists for Clinton! And Misogynists For Obama! And Pallbearers for McCain!

There are certain Livejournal communities, of late, that I can not read when there is a post about the U.S. Democratic primaries. People have become so polarized and given themselves such strong tunnel vision that there is no point discussing the role of racism and sexism in the elections and campaigns because they are convinced that "their" candidate is infallible and the other is evil. A question has been raised many times during these discussions: "If 'your' candidate does not win the primaries, what will you do? Vote for McCain? Just not vote??" And the response is sometimes that they will vote for the other Democratic candidate anyway, but I get a little worried when their response is, "Well, I don't know." Or they just don't respond. I mean, yeah, you know, I prefer Obama over Clinton, but there is no way in hell I'd vote for McCain. And I still have this little voice in my head that is telling me, even if my vote doesn't count (it sure as hell didn't help in 2000 or 2004), do it anyway, because then at least you can say you tried.

The real trick now is, wondering whether it's worth trying.

I still think it is.

Today's linkage: Enjoying horror

2008-05-15T13:18:00.004-04:00

There is a post on the Tale of Tales blog about the horror genre (specifically, a horror video game, but it can be applicable to other genres of entertainment). Michaël brings up an excellent point: horror is only fun as long as it is fictional. My first thought upon reading the entry was, "Holy fuck, someone made a video game about the Rwandan genocide?? Have they absolutely no taste whatsoever?" (Bonus question: am I wrong to be offended by the game for its chosen subject? Because it really does not feel right to me.)

The fictionality of horror is essential to my own enjoyment of the genre. I love love love gore-fests where supernatural creatures (e.g. vampires, zombies(!!), werewolves) are the enemies, but slasher movies with mortal human villains (e.g. the 'torture porn' movie trend) are so disturbing to me I can't deal with even sitting through the whole thing. On the other hand, when I'm not feeling disturbed, I find myself bored to tears by 'torture porn' movies, because there is absolutely no creativity put into trying to make the audience feel fear; there's only squickiness. It's like watching video taken in a slaughterhouse. Gory and disturbing, yes -- but nothing there to incite fear or excitement. And I haaaaate it when actual creativity has been replaced by attempts at being "edgy". I hate "edginess", oh god do I hate it. I hate it so much I won't write it without quotes, because it's always so phony.

Now I'm in the mood to watch some movies with "...Of The Dead" in the title. Hmmmmm. ;)

Sunshine heals.

2008-05-05T23:30:00.004-04:00

The spouse and I went to Delaware Park today to enjoy the absolutely perfect weather. He took the day off work because he's been sick (too)... We needed that lovely sunshine and those warm breezes.

Uh.... Bubble privilege?

2008-05-03T12:11:00.004-04:00

While I am more than a little reluctant to call it a type of privilege, I've often wondered, during conversations on the internet and while reading other sources, about the unexamined advantages a person has if they live in a more socially "liberal"/progressive town or city.

So, one of the things that bugged me when I read Inga Muscio's Cunt: a declaration of independence was her perspective as a person who lives on the West Coast of the U.S. and has access to a comfortable bubble of like-minded progressive types, and perhaps institutions (i.e. clinics, Planned Parenthood, woo-woo herbalist friends, etc.) that the majority of the continent does not experience. It is not necessarily a direct function of city size, but of geography and social attitudes. And I've seen this same perspective coming from many people in discussions on the internet. It's gotten to the point where, usually if I see some completely oblivious person who is saying things like, "What do you mean, you don't have a Planned Parenthood within easy walking/driving/bus distance?" they are from the West Coast: usually somewhere near San Francisco, Portland or Seattle area... I swear I'm not just hallucinating this. Sometimes I'll see someone on LJ say some really stupid "hai there I live in a bubble where everyone loves and tolerates each other and the streets are paved with candy" white liberal bullshit, I go to look at their profile, and lo and behold they live on the West Coast of the U.S. Call me crazy, but I can't help making a connection...

Well, hmm... is it more a subset of class privilege, then? I'm inclined to disagree, because I don't hear the exact same attitudes coming from people from expensive cities like NYC/Boston/wherever. There may be hints of it, but it's a different flavor. It's less intense, less oblivious. Maybe because NYC and Boston and the like aren't so... granola.

Intersectionality -- I think this is perhaps more accurately described as a mish-mash of class privilege and white privilege. It's the assumption that what is "normal" for white progressives/radicals in Portland or San Francisco or Seattle is "normal" (or, if recognized as not normal, then it is asserted as the ideal) for everyone else. What I see is: O hay, we don't have to worry about the fucked up shit that's happening in the rest of the country or the rest of the world, because we have our happy granola community here, plz stop bumming us out with your talk of reproductive rights and race issues and omg I DON'T SEE COLOR...

Yeah, well. You get the idea.

Oh jeez, I am so bad at expressing myself. How do other bloggers write such perfectly articulate theses on matters like this? I think I'm going to have to blame the fact that I haven't really been healthy for the past month and today I'm woozy and sick (AGAIN) with a sore throat and god knows what else...

hair.

2008-05-02T13:13:00.005-04:00

A week or two ago I found the web stream for WZBC Boston and I am happily listening to it. Woo.

So, Wednesday I got a haircut. Actually, I got all of them cut. It feels amazing. I guess I miss the long hair, because I enjoyed the feel of it. I hemmed and hawed for a couple days about this, because honestly I wanted long hair and short hair equally as much. But then I told myself, "Stop being a baby about it, it's hair and hair grows back, and what is a year's worth of growth, really?"

I went from this:

To this:

Then I bleached and re-dyed it 'cause all that was left was roots and I needed my pink.

Springtime in Delaware Park

2008-04-25T16:48:00.005-04:00

I have more photos from this roll (all 24 came out, for once- a Holga rarity!) but the photolab inevitably messed up most of the scans, which wound up horribly off-center. :/ I hate this era of holy shit let's automate everything!!1! So that means you'll have to wait for my photos of the Eternal Flame falls (I was pleasantly surprised to see the flame was indeed captured on my film). Well... at least the lovely blossomy photos were scanned right. Honestly I have no idea how this keeps happening; I count the exact same number of click in between shots every time. Grrrr.

So, spring has finally come to WNY and this makes me happeeee. I took some extra time yesterday to wander around Delaware Park before class, and snapped the above photos. I strolled blissfully through the park, listening for the first time in months to the soft rustle of the breeze moving through leaves and blossoms...

Daily reading: rock hammers can be useful for things other than their intended purpose.

2008-04-25T13:36:00.006-04:00

Two things:

First, do not fuck with geologists. Even if you are a rabid bobcat and you think, "Oh hmmm that nerdy dude looks tasty," that geologist will fuck you up with a rock hammer. Seriously though, I'd be scared shitless if a bobcat randomly attacked me while hiking, and I'd probably do the same as this couple did- try to get away without harming it first, then kill it if necessary. Yikes. Although I do harbor fantasies about showing off scars from altercations with wild animals. A few years ago I spent a bit of time wondering how I could get a controlled shark bite without accidentally hurting myself too much, just enough to have bite scars on an arm or leg...

Second, the Blowfish Blog has a nice entry today about... well, it's about a lot of things: Jealousy, Friendship, and Bisexual Chopped Liver. I can relate so closely it's almost scary; an ex of mine was the paranoid OMG-you're-bisexual-that-means-I-can't-trust-you-because-you'll-fuck-anyone-you-meet type that tried to dictate who I could and could not be friends with, under threat of leaving me. (I often look back and think about how much happier, saner, and less permanently scarred I would have been in my mid-to-late teens, if I'd just never met that douchebag.)

Anyhow...! Yesterday was the perfect day. I may have photos later, when they're ready.

Future projects

2008-04-21T11:33:00.004-04:00

It's absolutely beautiful outside and structural geology class meets in the field today!

This is making me excited for the research I want to do over the summer and fall (and yes, I also want to continue working on the results from the AZ research, I'm not that embittered for not getting the summer fellowship... am I?).

See that? That rock does not belong around here, because all we have is shale, and limestone, and occasionally sandstone. And this rock? Fabrics, it haz dem. See the garnets? How could you miss the garnets? I'm going to be doing some creekwalking and mapping boulders of igneous and metamorphic rocks (GPS ahooooooy), and taking hand specimens to cut up and look at thin sections. Ultimately I want to try and place the boulders to their source outcrops (which would be somewhere in southern Ontario). Another student began this research a couple years ago, but "more research is needed" as always.

Here's that same boulder again, this time with a spouse for scale. (Spouses of geologists often get used for such purposes. It's an unwritten contract when one becomes the partner of a mad scientist.)

Awwwww, Jay is so cute. Isn't he? *gushy gush*

Spring is about to get sprung

2008-04-20T16:33:00.002-04:00

Yeah, for the past several days we've been getting a taste of warm (and sometimes sunny) weather here in B-lo.

So I can't wait to see this year's blossoms (and take copious photos of them!).

Why do poor white folks vote for candidates that screw them over?

2008-04-20T11:27:00.006-04:00

Daily read: Is it still an insult if it's true? Nojojojo of Angry Black Woman talks about "the furor over Obama’s comments about the 'bitterness' of small-town/rural blue collar folks." A good analysis of the subtle ways racism is used to make poor white folks vote against their own interests. Just go read it, 'cause I'm no good at summarizing and I should be writing a paper right now. :B

Discussion in the comments made me think, too, that a lot of the "furor" and "outrage" against Obama's "bitterness" comment is fabricated by the news media.

The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters

2008-04-19T17:34:00.005-04:00

I don't know how old this is, because there's no date on it, but it's new to me so nyeh: The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters is your daily dosage of "oh god I don't know whether to laugh or weep or both". Also: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, THE COMMENTS. WHY THE HELL DID I READ THE COMMENTS?

[edit] Something I found rather, erm, interesting was that this link has only 14 diggs, compared to most others on the front page of the same site which have at least a thousand. Interesting, that. :|

Wherefore art thou feminist?

2008-04-18T16:13:00.008-04:00

So, I figure I'll make a post about the whole internet "debacle" surrounding the deletion of brownfemipower's blog and the associated fuckery of certain white feminists.

It makes me sad to see the growing rift between white feminists and women of color who once were feminists but are, one by one, rejecting the label. I guess I'm not sure how to react when WoC bloggers are not only rejecting the label of feminism, they seem to be rejecting feminism itself. I understand their reasons, and I empathize. And I'm angry, but I'm not angry at WoC bloggers, I'm angry at the white feminists who get to keep the flag of feminism no matter how much they have shat on it.

Is it time for a new movement? (I don't mean, "is it time to start a new movement," I mean, "is it time to throw our old ways in the trash and re-learn how to listen to our sisters who have been trying to speak to us for decades?")

It makes me sad that feminist is a dirty word, for so many reasons. There's the people who will say, "I'm not a feminist but..." or "I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist"; those are apologists who have basic notions of justice and equality but do not want to offend the patriarchy because they are somehow benefiting from privilege. And then there's the people who see that feminism has historically been a white movement that has ignored (or even sometimes outright discriminated against) communities of color and the needs and basic realities of WoC, and thus they reject feminism because it does not seek equality for all women, just white women.

I suppose that I'm torn. I understand fully why any WoC, trans women, kinky women and sex workers, women with disabilities, and/or any other group that is severely under-represented and/or even openly reviled by mainstream white feminism, would want to reject feminism. But I don't know if I'm ready to reject it, because the patriarchy is still alive and well and breathing down my neck every day, and I don't know how I'd cope otherwise.

But the actions and words of some of my fellow white feminists are embarrassing at best. It hurts to see well-known white feminists engaging in silencing of WoC. I hurt in sympathy for the WoC who have been harmed (whether it be by the theft of ideas, or refusal to accept book proposals, denial of experiences, charges of hostility, the list goes on...) And I hurt, selfishly, because I am white and I am a feminist and the stupidity of other white feminists makes me feel that it is even harder to be an ally to WoC because of all this bullshit. (Whether it actually is harder or not, that is my selfish worry. I won't pretend that I'm perfect and I won't pretend that I don't have white privilege and that I wasn't socialized into this culture of white supremacy.) I don't mean it's harder because I feel scared of oh noes teh big mean WoC, I mean, I just don't want to seem like Just Another White Feminist. But I suppose my privilege has made distrust-based-on-skin-color a New Thing to me. :|

And it's nothing new. Nothing I have to say is anything new. I'm just saying it, because I feel like I need to.

The thing that makes me feel awful is that, before bfp deleted her blog I never really read it that often. Neither did I read very many other blogs by WoC. I didn't read very many non-livejournal blogs at all, regardless, but that's no excuse whatsoever. I kind of feel like LJ is this little bubble that can so easily turn into a space of confinement. With this blog I'm trying to break out of the bubble, expand my horizons. The world outside of my LJ friends page isn't that scary after all.

[edit] I guess what I'm trying to get at, is: how is "feminism" defined? Is it defined by a set of ideals (that would be, equality for all people regardless of gender or sex)? Or is it defined by those who identify as feminists? Maybe more on this later; now it is dinner time...!

[edit, part 2: THE REVENGE OF THE EDIT] I don't have much more of my own self to add, I'm kind of tired. :P But here's a couple links with some useful discussion: a couple posts at
Alas, a blog and Diary of an Anxious Black Woman.

Holgarizona, part II.

2008-04-14T12:52:00.004-04:00

Strangely enough, last night I had a dream my parents were moving to Phoenix and I decided to go with them, live with them while I looked for an apartment. Today I fantasized about moving someplace warm and dry and riding a motorcycle around town and through the mountains...

Anyhow.

Grand Canyon holgagraphy!

Holgarizona, part I.

2008-04-12T19:17:00.005-04:00

Waffle House in Phoenix, mmmmmmmmmmm waffles and sausages...

Sedona (mostly).

More at Sedona.

Gnarly tree at the top of Walker Lake Crater.

View from the top... San Francisco Volcanic Field.

Oh yeah, and: this fire occurred in 1996. Kinda creepy how nothing has.. really grown back.

definitely not a terribly original analysis, but I felt like it anyhow-

2008-04-11T17:29:00.002-04:00

So, after a few months of reading the cheesy, sometimes poorly-written, bought-as-a-used-copy fantasy novels that have accumulated in my book ~~fetish~~ collection over the years, a couple months ago I decided I'd go and read through The Lord of the Rings, just because I wanted something in the fantasy genre that was actually well-written, to sort of cleanse the palate. Also, I wanted, for myself, to analyze the racism and sexism of Tolkien's story (outside of the context of the movies). To read a plethora of other analyses, just do a Google search for "racism and 'Lord of the Rings'".

Now, I had previously read The Hobbit, Fellowship of the Ring, and half of The Two Towers, in junior high and high school. Right now I'm at the point where I've just about re-read through all I'd gotten through before.

The racism in the movies is (in my opinion) much much worse, but it is still definitely present in the books. I guess I had this naïve hope that the books wouldn't be that bad, that the metaphors of black=evil didn't actually go so far as to compare the orcs to apes or refer to their skin as being dark (oh, but it does). Peter Jackson could have and SHOULD have made the movies as non-racist as possible, and there were DEFINITELY ways to work around it and keep the story intact. In fact, it almost seems like Jackson went out of his way to make the movies more racist.

This is nothing new, I know.

Regarding sexism, I hated Jackson's Arwen so much I'd have preferred her to be utterly non-existent like she is in the books. At least he tried to put her in the movies, and she was given ACTUAL SPEAKING LINES OOOOHH, which she... doesn't really have, in the books. Éowen, too, was given more presence in the movies. I haven't gotten to Return of the King yet, but at least in The Two Towers I liked movie-Éowen a lot more than book-Éowen. Because she actually has more than two lines in the movie. So Peter Jackson gave white women some meager props, but he doesn't get a cookie.

Well, I've gotten to the point where I'm thinking, Okay. I've analyzed this a little, and even putting the book into "the context of the times" (my white anthropology professors were always quick to mention THE TIMES when lecturing about racist white anthropologists of the past, as if we should forgive racism just because it happened fifty or a hundred years ago?) I'm finding it difficult to get past the -isms. I know we all enjoy some media where we overlook something that offends us, and that can be something difficult to reconcile with our personal sense of What Is Right.

So here's my point: While I'm reading these books I'm finding that, for myself, I can reconcile sexism against white women much easier than sexism and racism against people of color. I can say, as a white female-bodied person, I take offense at the sexism but I can look past it and still think the book (or whatever other TV show, movie, comic book, &c.) is enjoyable. I can not speak for people who are in groups to which I do not belong, myself. Which is why I can't just look at Lord of the Rings and say, "Oh, well, it's a bit racist but it doesn't bother me," because OF COURSE it "doesn't bother me"- I am white and I was socialized not to be bothered by (or even notice in the first place) subtle racism in entertainment.

I know, I know, I should just put down this damned trilogy and pick up something like His Dark Materials, or pick up some more Ursula K. LeGuin, but I have something to prove to myself first. :P

p.s. Anyone have good book recommendations for something in the fantasy/sci-fi genre where the protagonists are women of color?

p.p.s. x-posted on LJ and at Outerspaceways, Inc.

Supersampler!

2008-04-09T23:06:00.002-04:00

I got a Lomo Supersampler for my Arizona trip. Unfortunately, the pullstring film advancer broke before I was finished shooting my first roll! >:0 Luckily there's a warrantee, but still...! I had some slide film I was going to experiment with cross-processing and now it's gotta wait for non-Arizona photos, heh.

Anyhow...

Holga goes downtown

2008-04-08T17:02:00.003-04:00

Some photos I took in the past couple weeks. Holga. :D This expired Kodak Portra film I've been using is UTTERLY DELICIOUS.

Ok so that last one was not taken downtown, but still in WNY. :P Guess where and you get a cookie?

Holga b&w

2008-04-07T17:04:00.003-04:00

Got a couple rolls of B&W film developed today... One's been sitting around since December, the other I took a couple weeks ago.

So, like. I don't even remember when Like A Panther played the WBNY Local Show, but I was pleasantly surprised to remember I took photos.

And I had a couple shots of Jay's band's practice space.

And some randoms. I [heart] b&w Holgagraphy. :D

The rest are on my flickr photostream!

Back with looooots of photos!

2008-04-06T22:37:00.001-04:00

More to come, but for now...

Surprise visit to the Grand Canyon? YES WE CAN.

16-year-old me visits the desert

2008-04-03T09:34:00.004-04:00

Haha okay, so it's still not a photo of Arizona, but here's a picture of me the last time I was in a desert (southern CA or NV or somewhere thereabouts). I never grew out of the unnaturally-colored hair phase. :D And if you look, you can see me holding a camera bag. That was my dad's oooooold Nikon camera that I loved to pieces. I think he still has it, unless my brother lost it last time he borrowed it...

Oh, and I'm definitely one of those Yankee easterners who fell in love with the desert. I can't wait to get to Arizona! No blog updates until Sunday night!

Random photo from the photostream: Boston Museum of Science

2008-04-02T17:41:00.001-04:00

Curiosity cabinets FTW!

Random from the files: Lionfish, Niagara Falls Aquarium

2008-04-01T13:21:00.002-04:00

Holga in the Adirondacks (October 2007)

2008-03-31T10:25:00.005-04:00

I hate migraines that suddenly pop up the day before a (draft of a) paper is due. :| So, uh, I kinda didn't write anything because every time I looked at the computer screen my eyes EXPLODED and I got tired of cleaning the sticky goo off my keyboard. This, of course, did not prevent me from playing We ♥ Katamari. *whistles innocently*

To psych myself up for going to Arizona on Thursday (woooo!) here's some photos of mountains. They're the Adirondacks, nowhere near Arizona, but still... mountains! Wooooo! :D

Note to self: buy more black and white film.

pocket watch

2008-03-29T16:28:00.002-04:00

So, I got this pretty little pocket watch recently. It was cheap, and its behavior reflects its worth (*cough*) but I still like it.

Anyhow, it's pretty and shiny and I like it.

city hall

2008-03-28T22:19:00.004-04:00

Since the NEGSA conference is downtown, today I walked to city hall and enjoyed some photography. (Holga photos will come eventually, but the digicam offers immediate satisfaction.)

more field trip shots!

2008-03-27T21:12:00.007-04:00

I had to upload these photos in two batches. Here's some of my favorites from the second batch. Taken in the Niagara River region and also Silurian-Devonian (we left behind the Ordovician). You may want to refer to this site (http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PETROLGY/Leaverite-SedFeat.HTM) if you have basic questions about sedimentary structures.

Photos from the Niagara Gorge trail at Artpark in Lewiston, NY:

First, we have a shot of some load casts.

Next, on the now-vertical "under"side of a boulder (which was facing outward at the very edge of a steep dropoff on the edge of the trail, wheeeee) is a whole buttload of arthrophycus trace fossils. (That's worm burrows, that is.)

While we're at it, have some ripple marks too.

Uh... nature iz pretty. :B

Queenston-Lewiston bridge.

Orthocone nautiloid with some of the siphuncle preserved.

Some shots further up the river, not at Artpark:

Dr. Carlton Brett (who lead the field trip) is in this shot (taken near the power outlook on the NY side of the river) for scale. I like the cross-bedding. :)

Can you spot the stromatolites in the rocks? There's also thrombolites in there but I'm very un-knoledgeable about those. :|

Churning rapids in the whirlpool of the Niagara River. Turns out the whirlpool is there because there was a filled-in gorge that existed previously, leaving softer material that was more easily eroded, forming a kink in the Niagara River.

And finally, we have a black squirrel, because squirrels are infinitely excellent. Woot!

All of these photos may be seen at a larger size by following the links to my flickr photostream. :)

WNY stratigraphy: Ordovician - Silurian

2008-03-27T16:58:00.006-04:00

The Northeast section GSA meeting is going on right now. :) Yesterday I went on a field trip about Ordovician and Silurian stratigraphy and palaeongology, lead by Dr. Carlton Brett. I decided not to bother editing and resizing the photos, because I've been avoiding uploading lots of other photos for months because I haven't wanted to bother going through the whole editing/resizing process (because it takes hours for one batch and it makes my shoulder ache).

Anyhow, I think I was the only one on the trip that was staring curiously at this railroad bridge (at the first stop in Lockport).

And apparently there's a lot of fossil sponge reefs in the local bedrock, but I never really paid attention. :|

More photos soon-ish!

I may try to make this a picture-a-day blog, if I can keep up with it...

2008-03-25T11:23:00.002-04:00

Because I certainly have enough photos to make a picture-a-day post every day for years to come.

2008-03-24T17:12:00.002-04:00

Oh, hello. Maybe I'll have a public blog where I post photos and projects. Keepin' it separate from my Livejournal 'cause I whine too much over there.

So let's start this off with my most "interesting" photo on flickr. A couple of little glass octopi made by the Blaschkas. These little guys live at the Corning Museum of Glass.