mellysblog

I'm off to spend the day with my monkey in search of a blond Britney wig for a photoshoot tomorrow. I'll post pics later.

“So, like, I just can’t come when I’m on top anymore…. It’s kind of like during my undergrad when I lost my trill…….”


Thai iced coffee comes out Melly’s nose…...

A while back I came across an article about Dolly Parton and her role in feminist culture, and my initial reaction was whuh?? My Dolly knowledge is limited to a few songs I've heard from her earlier days, her Christmas album made with Kenny Rogers, a Hughes Holiday family staple, and the movie 9-5. But the more I thought about it, her songs are actually very empowering. She's a real strong woman with a voice of an angel, who's not afraid to put on a blonde wig and outlandish costumes and hoist those boobies up there and SING, and I'm a big fan of lipstick feminists, if there is such a term.


Remember 9-5? the movie starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Dolly....and Dabney Coleman? Heavens!! them there are some strong women! You can familiarize yourself with the plot a little more here, but basically, three sexy smart ladies who've had it up to here with the sexual advances and misogynistic behavior of their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" of a boss, decide to take matters into their own hands... I watched this movie when I was like six, or something. It came out in 1980, practically when I was born. Definitely plan on watching it again, perhaps paired with Mr. Mom, another early 80's feminist classic. Below is your trailer... having not watched this movie in 15 or so years, what struck me most about it is how much the workplace hasn't changed since 1980.



I've worked for male bosses that would walk past a group of all female(damn-it!) executive assistants and say something like "How are my girls this morning?" At one company birthday party one of the EA's brought in a homemade Mississippi Mud Pie, and the SVP of an unnamed branch of AOL actually said, without blinking, "Suzie Q, if you were my wife I'd never let you out of the kitchen." It was all I could do to not stare in horror..seriously, inappropriate on two counts, way to go... Or one top level executive would call me in repeatedly during morning meetings to switch out his cold coffee with hot coffee. I would saunter in wearing a cute skirt and cardigan and approach the round table with eight or so men who completely ignored my presence. In those moments I wondered why it was so important to me to continute on with secondary education.... why I took a small scholarship, and somehow managed to feed and clothe myself and my autistic son while completing my master's degree at an ivy-league institution... I did all that to be on hot-coffee patrol??


Life isn't always fun, obvs, but what I'm sort of working through in my life is that I have to do things I don't want to do sometimes in order to be able to better provide for myself and my son..and that's what we call "doing life" salary, benefits, taxes, cleaning, shopping, those things that just have to get done and ain't so much fun doing. But there's a fine line between chasing your dreams, and being plain old foolish and selfish, and I'm trying to figure that out as I go along. What I do know, and what I am working on is trying to enjoy each moment to its absolute fullest. To often I view my life as being in this state of stasis...that sounds silly, but it's true. I meander through life as if it's just about to begin, my goal is always just around the corner, when I finally get this thing, then I'll be really happy... I've been thinking that way for God only knows how long. That whole present moment thing is something that I think we all struggle with.

Well here's dazzled and bedecked Dolly again with another gather your strength number... and the video also stars Amy Sedaris from Strangers with Candy... I wanna know what face cream Amy uses so her face isn't affected by those whack-ass expressions she makes. Anywhoo, chin up ladies and enjoy...

I kind of giggled at the bikini turkey, and thought the ladies at feministing were kind of over-reacting...... I thought the generic sex-less pencil sharpener was funny... until I had a closer look and realized it was a headless woman getting fucked up the ass....and one would need their head to be willing to get fucked up the ass in my opinion. This little beauty is making a poor attempt at poking fun at rape, which just ain't funny.... but this is fucked up.

Anytime a woman's body is represented anyway but in its entirety, it's kind of an open invitation to scrutiny.... and when those representations are based on common misrepresentations and abilities of our sex(i.e. women are sex toys).. then it's objectification. Kind of plain and simple....

Via Feministing

There are few things that I enjoy more in this world than watching Tarantino movies... in fact my idea of heaven, (and in fact I did try to recreate this moment on my birthday this year) is a bottle of wine, and watching BOTH of the Kill Bill's while knitting, because what could be more feminine that that.....

Only Tarantino could fall in love with his stuntwoman's talents and create an entire movie based on a crazy stuntman (Kurt Russell) starring a real life stuntwoman as its heroine, and make it work. Well, my girl crush Zoe Bell, from Kill Bill, Xena (a role she landed at the age of 18!) Alias, CatWoman, and most recently the Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature Grindhouse, has just announced that she will have a small role in an upcoming episode of LOST, to air in 2008. Here's a remixed trailer for Deathproof, one of the strongest pieces of feminist cinema out there, Kill Bill style. Here's my girl:




and ladies, on a rainy day if you need a little somethin' somethin' to remind you that you really can kick ass when push comes to shove, feast your eyes on this little beauty... (Spoiler Alert!!!)



Via Variety

It's Sunday morning and guess where I'm NOT!!! church!! woo-woo!! Not singing in church this morning has freed me up to meet with a photographer in preparation for my friend Jacob Cooper's electronic opera based on the lives of Britney and Justin.... I'm Britney, naturally...

Jacob's idea is taking segments of Justin and Britney's songs and slowing them down, way down, and re-performing them with live band.... the vocalists are to mimic the mouth movements, consonants, intonation of the slowed down track.. It's pretty sweet.

In my "research" I've had to listen to a lot of Britney, some real time, and a lot slow time, and I came across this video a while ago....Part of why I'm psyched about this project is that it's forcing me to get comfy with setting up effects racks in Ableton Live, a program that I'm slowly getting comfy with. Because we're performing these crazy phrases slowed down, we need a lot of chorus, reverb, and other effects in order to keep the lines moving. So give a listen. Despite the fact that her vocals are completely soaked in effects, she still sucks... auto-tune, anyone? Oh, and I admit, did get a little excited when I thought she was actually playing the piano... and then she stood up to sing, and the piano magically kept right on playing....enjoy.

The madness has begun.... this video is not an accurate depiction of what growing up in my household was, but now that Jack is getting older, I'm trying to do the whole Christmas thing. I am actually looking forward to a trip to the tree farm with Mom and Dad, letting Jack pick the tree out, and later decorating it with my sister while listening to the Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton Christmas album.... traditions. Today, that sounds amazing to me.

Maybe one of these days I'll tell you the story of the year we gift wrapped the living room stereo speakers in protest to our parents NOT buying us a tree. Surprise, once upon a time, I did care about that kind of stuff, and for the sake of my little one, I am making the decision to NOT herald Christ's birth in song this year, and spend it in NH with Mom and Dad, Heather, Jack and a few bottles of wine....

Anywhoo, have lots to do today, but here's a little something from me to you on this very merry and crazy day... I think I bumped into this woman on an LIRR train last year... Enjoy

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?? It's 7 minutes!!! Nobody gets to rock out on Sesame Street for 7 minutes nowadays... This is because Sesame Street has been completely revamped for a younger audience..... (and it's boring as hell now.....) which means that the Sesame Street that you and I loved, that we've signed numerous petitions to protect, the generation of episodes featuring "Ladybug Picnic" and 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12! and Jack's personal favorite are now being deemed inappropriate for toddlers. Whuh??

Yup, Cookie Monster has an eating disorder, Bert and Ernie are never seen together anymore because of the whole "gay" thing and the shows ratings are completely dependent upon a furry little red thing who speaks in the 3rd person.... and damn it if my son doesn't freaking love him. Sigh...



Via my bitches at Jezebel

Yay!! A trailer for a film that I can't wait to see and will drag my bf to, god damn it. (After watching Ichi the Killer this week, he kinda owes me one.) Those of you who know me well, know that I spent five months writing a paper for a Freud class at Yale on the depiction of female genitalia through visual art and media... not exactly a thrilling read, but something I'm pretty passionate about. Regretfully, I didn't come across Tammy Oler's paper on pubescent female adolescents in the modern horror genre until I had finished up at Yale, but man, there's some really good stuff in there, unfortunately, no links to available content on the web. Anyways, I'm beginning to watch horror films in a new light, that is, from the perspective of a feminist... and horror is a film genre that's unchartered territory for me.

While, I'm all about the exploring, exploiting, identifying, exposing and debunking sexist myth and urban legend in media, it's been a while since I've seen a trailer for something that has the potential to be this powerful, and hopefully will provide some interesting feminist theory critique....this is truly the kind of stuff I live for. Here's what Sundance had to say about Teeth:

If you get over the rather distasteful subject matter and focus on what's beneath the surface, you'll find a flick that's got a whole lot to say about young women and their fear of burgeoning sexuality, society's general distaste (and, let's face it, fear) of the female sex organ, and the ways in which men do a serious disservice to womankind by treating their "naughty bits" as if they're something to be ashamed of. Teeth covers all this ground (and a whole lot more), and I suspect it's more open-minded and honest than most of what passes for "sex ed" these days. This movie offers enough meaty subtext to fill three semesters and it does so in a shocking, humorous and strangely compassionate fashion.

Sex as power, or as a weapon is not a new notion, but what director Michael Lichtenstein has done here is sheer brilliance, he's taken the vagina dentata myth, and flipped it upside down.... while most vagina dentata narratives end with the male warrior conquering/slaying the woman with teeth/monster, (think Medusa in the cave) in Teeth it is the toothed woman/monster-turned-heroine that the audience is left rooting for.

Happy Tuesday

At DC comics, where the previous executive assistant was apparently fired because she's already been completely disabled in the system..... Translation: it's gonna take at least a day or two to generate a new username and pasword and get my computer mapped and back on the system.... Good thing I have about 50 comic books on my desk.....

And the wonder woman is on my wall, and yeah, I have my own office....complete with a V for Vendetta mask on my desk, it's kinda hot..... So is the poster of Viggo Mortenson on my wall... Alla the History of Violence..... Mmmmmmm
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

I know this looks like an image someone drew on a facebook wall, or something from MST3K, but believe it or not, this is a new Russian designed robotic suitcase, complete with infrared technology, light sensors and gyroscope. It uses a card that you keep on your person and follows you around like a puppy dog in love, or a Russian mobster you can't shake...It can detect stairs and objects without bumping into them, won't fall over, and if stolen without your card, emits an obnoxious alarm... and breaks kneecaps, dismembers assailants and scatters fingertips and teeth to the far corners of the world. My only question is at $2,000 bucks why can't it make me a martini??...yowzas! I'd like to see it handle the 59th Street platform at rush hour, but my guess is if you can afford a $2,000 suitcase, you're not taking the A train. It will be available in 2009, which gives me plenty of time to save up for it, because my $75 purple beauty has definitely seen better days.

Via RawFeed

Taylor Clark has penned a tall tome titled "Starbucked: A Dark Tall Tale of Caffeine Commerce and Culture." It's supposed to be a rich read packed full of nerdy facts. Check out a detailed review at the Observer.

I've already written on my experiences as a coffee snob, and I'm the recent recipient of a pound of Kona coffee, which from what I understand is equivalent to holding a bag of 100% pure uncut cocaine. It's still sitting unopened on the couch now because it intimidates me, but when I do try it, you'll be the first to know. So here's what I learned this morning: the first Starbucks opened in NYC in 1994, a far journey from its Seattle home. If you're anything like me, you probably grew weary in the next few years of ordering even the plainest Cup o'Joe only to be forced into swank-sizing it with a modifier.... tall-venti-grande? I remember an experience in the late 90's in Princeton where I asked for a "medium" coffee, and was corrected "Grande?" to which I snarkily replied (and I was WAAAAY more snarky then) "Uhh... yeah, y'all are from Seattle right???".... blank look from barista...blink...blink...cricket...cricket...I resumed, "Yeah, just checking." Snark unappreciated.

Anyways, when the first Starbucks opened in NYC it was one of 425 stores, now they have expanded to 14,000 (4,000 of which are located outside the US.... they're overtaking the world!!!)and 170 of those 10,000 in the US are right here in Manhattan!!

But they're not all evil....they may have infected our entire country with a caffeine habit, as evidenced by the compete surge of coffee shops from 585 in 1989 to 24,000 in the US today... only 10,000 of which are Bucks.....Nah, they're not so bad, and bonus!! they have those sweet inspirational quotes on their recycled cups to ease the yuppy pangs.

Where to even start with this one.... I'll give you the advantage that I didn't have. Check out the website first here before reading any further, and then read my snark and either agree with me, or bite me. Really....go...get all up in there.

Maybe you laughed, that's okay, maybe it didn't phase you, although I'd find that hard to believe. If you're anything like me, you stared at the computer in utter disgust and confusion.

What's with all the girl on girl action? yeah, it sells, but it just seems kinda out of place, no? oh wait, there's one guy tearing off a woman's panties with his teeth...ok, sign me up...

Ok,just kidding. My issue is not with gyms... although I think if you need someone to kick your ass verbally, mentally, or emotionally to get you to do ANYTHING in life you're a bit of a masochist, but that's beside the point. My issue is with the motivation behind joining a gym like this.

Personally, I'm not surprised they're receiving hate mail... I think what they're doing sucks. I'll be the first to admit that I'm kind of uber-sensitive when it comes to advertising, but come on!! Please don't assume that every woman wants a hubby!!... and even if they wanted one, that should absofuckinglutely NOT be the reason to join a gym, nor should the list of reasons include the desire to have your clothes ripped off by someone's teeth, or having sex with the lights on, (which scares skinny people too....) no, I think one should lose weight because one wants to, because you want to look good for you, because your health is important to you..... for crying out loud, didn't we all read She's come undone already?? It's just insulting. But I'm not going to say anything because I don't want to be labeled a bearded lady...... yeah, that whole feminist as hairy-legged, smelly and undersexed man-haters schtick is real tired.