I admit that I clicked through on this one because I’m a bit impatient. Really a good message – art is a come as you are party.
Filed under: Art Appreciation
Inspiring Artist’s Way Video
Filed under: Art Appreciation
Tag Archives: media
Filed under: Art Appreciation
Cocktail Mixing Apps Give Novice Bartenders an Edge – NYTimes.com
Cocktail Mixing Apps Give Novice Bartenders an Edge – NYTimes.com.
Notable for the name he gives one cocktail: “The Wiccan Debutante.”
On some level Wicca became mainstream-ish, but to the tune of cultural punchline. In a way it’s good – we succeeded in changing a stereotype. In a way it’s bad, as most people assume we’re a bit silly.
Bat bones are not crucial to Wiccan ritual
Saw the “Wicca” episode of Bones. While the implication that “all witches are evil” is finally going to the wayside, the characterization of the Wiccans in the show made me want to choke someone. That person was not necessarily the show writers. The hippy-dippy pseudo-Renaissance speech crap came from a real person, I know this on a purely intuitive level.
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Finally saw that Simpson’s episode
Lisa Simpson on Wiccapedia
The one with the teen Wiccans and the hooch? Yeah. To be honest, I don’t really have any opinion on it whatsoever. It was typical Simpson’s fare, and while it handled Wicca fairly with only a few exaggerations, everyone did get somewhat skewered. The ritual representation with the grape juice was just so boringly true it made me wonder who the writers spoke to, or if one of their staff is Wiccan.
I also decided to look for this “Wiccapedia” which at this point is nothing but parked domains. I would guess no one wants to attempt undertaking such a project because of the inevitable caterwauling and arguments over not just academic details but what the public should be “allowed” to know. 1
I wound up finding this entry about Wicca on Uncyclopedia, that starts with the header “Wicca: a Cry for Help if Ever there Was One.” It seems that the site is mostly satirical, so I’m not particularly butt-hurt about it. As I’ve said before, I don’t care if coverage of my religion is nice, I care that it’s accurate, and the satire is at least moderately true to form – while the article is mean-spirited, it’s not resorting to the outright lies that certain church groups often do.
Really, there’s enough of a seed of truth in it that it merits backing up and taking pause. While I’m not going to apologize for my body (since I am evidently the stereotypical fat Wiccan) I can consider my behavior, and I think every human being ever needs the occasional check-point on “how am I driving my skin?” But it should be a self-checkpoint. When someone walks up to me or anyone with an uninvited evaluation, eventual punching is inevitable.
- I’ve come to the conclusion that if the Divine wants a secret kept, it’ll get kept, and there’s not much I need to do about it. Which is different from maintaining confidentiality. [↩]
Ugly Betty finale
I’ve come to think of Betty Suarez on the US Ugly Betty as the anti-Daria. Where Daria Morgendorffer snarks at fashion and does ultimately consider herself above all that lowly stuff like the entitled middle-class brat she is1 Betty comes to understand it. The difference between Daria and Betty is more than just the positive/negative attitude dichotomy or social privilege: it’s that while Daria likes to know things and goes about it by reading and watching obscura, Betty is willing to learn. They are both smart and capable characters. But Betty capitalizes on her luck rather than having a crisis over it, and she treads out bravely exposing her neck to all sorts of criticism while maintaining an unironic positivity. She isn’t blind or “let’s be sunny at it” all the time: she is very real about the people around her.
I identified with Daria, and I identified with Betty. Especially now that choosing the positive has become so very important in my life, I really wish I were Betty even though I’m now a) too old and b) a career like Betty’s these days is purely anachronistic fiction. While I know the campy adapted telenovela took a real nose dive after its first season, I’m still really sorry to see the show go. It’s my first experience with living vicariously through a character: I loved that Betty’s love life was actually pretty happening, because it meant that mine wasn’t the strange animal some people have assumed it to be2 I loved her connection to her family, her relationship with Mark and Amanda, and I baldly ship her with Daniel.
So yes, I am hoping they close with a hyper-romantic ending where boss man figures out where his head is at. I never got the over-the-top romantic ending in my 20s. So I totally want to see Betty have it. If my vicarous life is going to end, I want it to end good.
Hey! I know her!
This is a painting done by Paul Rucker of a friend of mine, Brenda Senechal. Both are awesome and deeply creative people. Brenda is the jewelery design genius behind Dancing Jems, and is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Definitely pick up a copy if you get a chance – not only is it super-exciting that her picture is on the cover, Spellcraft is a darned good magazine!
Why the Sex and the City trope needs to be stopped
Almost any time I read about a group of women in a fashion magazine, I end up reading an alignment with each of the four: the one that’s prudish and controlling is a “total Charlotte.” The one who is slutty – “Samantha.” The one who works hard and has no patience with bullshit is “Miranda.” The one with no salient characteristics is “Carrie” although sometimes a girl gets “Carried” for no other reason than that she’s a writer…or knows how to write…the alphabet.
I enjoyed Sex and the City. The show opened the door to discussions at home that left some men crawling under the table and hiding, but also invited them and the women in their lives to be happier and discuss – and ultimately enjoy – sex more. And thankfully it gave us a perspective on women that is so much more interesting and complex than the Madonna/Whore, or from the Pagan perspective, the Maiden/Mother/Crone archetypal limits. These women, not even Samantha, were whores. They were working, educated women who were trying to make the best choices for their lives and not always succeeding.
The show succeeded in breaking that limited dualistic stereotype (or three options box among Pagans, for those who watched it.) Unfortunately, nature and the human psyche abhorr a vacuum. So while the Madonna/whore stereotype is now being used less and less, in its place is the Sex and the City trope. Women are more complex than chaste or not – but not MUCH more, since now she must be likened to one of these four characters. It’s getting profoundly annoying to read stories about groups of women who hang out together who either align themselves by SATS, or who are described by authors with very little adjective command.
Women make up 51% of the world’s population, so why do we only get three or four archetypes to work from?
News: the Pagan Newswire Collective
This really is news, so I don’t know why the hell I’ve been sitting on it.
Jason Pitzl-Waters of the Wild Hunt blog is forming the Pagan Newswire Collective. The essential idea is a citizen-journalism run service that focuses on religious news as it impacts neopagans worldwide. Already on the table for coverage is the Parliament of World Religions in Australia. Members are still being sought worldwide who are willing to do local or global reporting.
As described on the site:
“The idea is simple: a pool of journalists and writers within the collective share sources and collaborate on dynamic and timely stories of interest to the Pagan community; media liaisons from various Pagan organizations pass along news and current events for possible coverage; editors, bloggers, podcasters, and other media outlets can call for submissions, collaborate with the collective, and negotiate with individual writer(s) to distribute finished product.”
If this works as envisoned, the result would be sort of like an Associated Press newswire for Pagan publishers to use worldwide – except it would be open source and not particularly obsessed with Sheperd Farey.
Note: I have applied for membership, and I would be interested to hear from anyone in Minneapolis/Saint Paul who would be interested in forming a collaborative reporting cluster. If you do contact me here or through a private email, please be patient – I don’t know what all the rules are for how this works yet. This is a really exciting project, the first of its kind that I know of in the Pagan community and I think the time is ripe. I’m very excited to see how this goes.
True Blood: conflating the Dionysian cult with Satanism
It hurts when a show you love betrays you. Especially if, despite yourself, you still love the show.
That’s what’s happened to me with True Blood. It’s a great, off-the-beaten-path vampire drama based on the equally wonderful Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. I have consumed both voraciously. And the novels, oh how they make me feel at home: Harris walks the lines of alternate realities and real/imaginary people with such grace. She has what would be real Wiccans and real Christians (Sookie Stackhouse, the main character, is an active and forward-thinking Christian) next to the imaginary beings of vampires and shapeshifters. Harris has taken real care to avoid defaming any religion, and even to keep ancient religions somehow true to their historical context and yet their storylines well within the supernatural realm of possibility.
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