RhianCaroline

5 blogs of Christmas: A mix

 

Here's my banjo-heavy-redneck-wannabe-not-traditionally-christmasy mix tape for you all :) Download here.

1. Christmas Eve - John White
2. Walk Out To Winder - Aztec Camera
3. Santa Claus Is Back In Town - My Morning Jacket
4. All My Bells Are Ringing - Lenka
5. The Man in the Santa Suit - Fountains of Wayne
6. Don't Shoot Me Santa - The Killers
7. Xmas Prison Blues - Seasick Steve & The Levil Devils
8. Hard Candy Christmas - Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers
9. Christmas Lights - Coldplay
10. Holiday Mood - The Apples in Stereo
11. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing - Sufjan Stevens
12. Winter Winds - Mumford and Sons
13. Unreasonable Dream: Christmas Night - Emily Barker & The Arctic Circle Ensemble & The Puffin Voices
14. But For You Who Fear My Name - The Welcome Wagon
15. The First Snowflake - The Boy Least Likely To
16. White is in the Winter Night - Enya

1, 8. 11 and 14 are probably my favourites right now. Not including Mumford of course...

love

I read very few blogs these days. They all seem to be taken up with advertising, pointless posts, and not enough real life stuff. I like to read about people, about the things they are doing and thinking and (yes) sometimes making.

When did everyone get to be the same? Love the same stuff? Censor the same things? Think there is a certain way you have to blog? It's weird.

However, these are a few that I do love.

Pop Fizz Academy - I met Nic earlier in the year, when I stayed at her place the night before Morgan and I flew out to Dublin. Her and Morgan have been friends since college, if I remember correctly. Nic is fabulous, and is also doing some fabulously exciting things that she is bringing online. She runs a burlesque dance company in Philedelphia that she over-sees from here in Britain, but she is bringing the classes and ethos to online courses. Her blog is full of recipes you will want to eat, random tutorials she has written for e-how, thoughts and news. It's a good place to read.

Art as Life - Eh. Debee and me go way back, back when she is was dB C, a name I still can not get out of my head whenever I think of her. *True fact, debee!* You want to see the girl every scrapbooker seems to be trying to look like these days? Look no further than here.

Tea and Toast - I'm not even sure how I stumbled across Amy's blog. I think it was probably via flickr. However it was, she makes the cutest things for her etsy, and is a fellow crafty Briton. She blogs about things she made, and the life she's living, two things that I always like to catch up on. (Even if I am a terrible terrible commenter.)

Penny Red - is witty, intelligent, thoughtful, and constantly making me think about everything in the world. Literally. She has brilliant commentary on our British politics at the moment, and manages to keep readers informed via her well informed opinions. In short, she is far more brilliant at 23 than I believe I will ever be.

My Polaroid Blog - one girls life through polaroids. Need I say more.

a ghostly illness - I love Kim anyway. But I especially love this branch of Kim Smith. This is the place she is dumping all her ideas, thoughts, poems, feelings about dealing with her CFS. This is actually a school project (is that right, Kim?) but I have lost count the amount of times I read words that either I could of written, or that are laying hidden in many of my journals. She's working her way through this battlefield we call CFS, and she is doing it ever so beautifully.

It's been a while and now your smile Is almost like a memory

I have a feeling there are going to be people that really dislike this album. Of course the Kate Nash haters will instantly, but they are losers anyway.

Personally. I LOVE IT. Really really. I wasn't so impressed with Doo-Wah-Doo that she has released for radio, but even that song is grower.
The whole album is like one giant shout out to 60's girl pop bands, with clear overtones of grrl punk, and so.much.feminism. 
There is anger in this album, pure unbrideled rage, and it it marvellous!

For lovers of slam poetry, you will adore this. It has all the wordsmith magic we have come to love Kate Nash for, with what can only be described as poetry recitals throughout some of the tracks.
She is still ridiculous, and mundane, and whimsical, and poignant, and now so much more polished and brilliant than ever before.

Get it.

 

Lady Gaga's stuff

Saturday afternoon Sarah said to me, "have you see gaga's new video?"
"No!" I replied, as I searched Youtube and found the thing, then at over 6 million hits in two days alone.
As I sat back and watched this 9 and a half minute mini-film there was just one over-riding thought running through my head?

Am I just not clever enough?

I have since watched this video/short film 5+ times, and still my question remains. Am I just not clever enough? Here is where I unpack why in fact I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence, and everything to do with confusion.

I am not going to touch the lesbian/trans/cis themes running through this video, and in particular the jail scenes. 

As a straight, white female, I don't feel I have any kind of experience or background to qualify me to make any kind of judgement/opinion on what may or may not be represented here. I can say however, I find it refreshing to see 'butch' females given air time in a video that has reached over 14 million views so far.

 

What I do feel qualified in commenting on is the over arching feminist imagery running throughout this whole video, the bits I feel completely enamored with, and the bits that make me feel more than a little uncomfortable. The 'ew, that did not just happen', feeling is what leads to the confusion I felt upon watching this video.

 

Here it is.
Hell the to yessssss for lesbian action between gaga and a stereotypically 'butch' female. Things we don't see usually, because everybody knows lesbians are all young, pretty, slim things, running around in their underwear and having pillow fights that lead to highly unlikely same sex entanglements, that of course, the passing male is invited to join in on the action. Scenes like the one provided by gaga are more often than not the fantasy of a creative male, who, whilst titillated by the idea of two women together, can't for one second believe that this kind of encounter can exist outside of his control and direction. Women still need penars! Women are there for his pleasure. Which also means women form that weird blond bimbo clinical image dreamt up by a pre-adolescent boy who doesn't realise femininity is a construct not all women can relate to in any way, and heaven forbid the lesbian have short hair, big muscles, and prefers to wear baggy jeans over cut off bum cheek huggers. 

 

HELLO to Gaga strutting and jumping in a kitchen environment that is providing sustenance for the scumbag boyfriend of Beyonce outside. Yes, you are correct in thinking I definitely read this as a shout out to the 50's housewife, relegated to the kitchen, surrounded by implements and gadgets that are created especially for her to use, in her kitchen, to feed her man, to gain her identity from. That role of housekeeper especially set aside for us, the more gentle and maternal of the sexes, is depicted here with gyrating and biting and flinging things around the room and dancer boys of all colours and and and Oh the joy! The jagged biting movements really reminded me of a video I found late last year. It is an iconic piece of performance art from Martha Rosler, filmed in the 1970's, dealing with the idea of woman as a sign and signifier. Watch it, it's a must see.

 

These two aspects alone are enough for us to assume there is more to Gaga than elaborate costumes and, what are definitely otherwise, medicore pop songs. This is a lady with something to say, and she is using her self, her body, her videos and costumes and makeup, to say it. For this I respect Gaga immensely.

 

What I do not respect is the confusion this video leads too. We have shout outs to all kinds of iconic female centred movies, we have women killing men in acts of rage and passion usually reserved for aggressive men, using the environment and implements given to women as their own. There are people of all ethnicity's and women of all persuasions, yet amongst all this we have what is not much more than an all white, skinny dance troupe, twirling and jumping about in their underwear. 

 

For all the messages this video is giving us, the thing I saw first and foremost, and the one that probably most other people saw, was Gaga dancing around in her underwear. Gaga in an all female prison, backed up by all white slim dancers all wearing underwear. This sits uncomfortably with me. For me, and I'm sure there are those that will disagree, this is not a break from the norm at all. This is another portrayal of a male fantasy, young fit women dancing around in next to no clothing. Where is the challenge and critique of what should and shouldn't be on display for public consumption?

A little bit before this spontaneous!dance!moment! we get a full frontal shot of Gaga's gaga.Lesley of Fashionita says far more eloquently than I could,

 

"But the most sublime aspect of this presentation is the digital blurring. The image is a huge tease that ultimately tells us nothing. There could be a vag there, sure, or there could be the fabled "little bit of a penis", or she could be smooth and slit-free as a Barbie doll. Gaga’s crotch shot says: is this what you want, a look around a woman’s body that is literally incarcerated, the freedom to explore her like she’s nothing more than a doll? Well, fuck you. Some information is still not public property. Some privates, it seems, are still private. Too bad."

 

I like this reading of that scene, I just can't mould that together with the otherwise predictable, overtly sexual, quite voyeuristic dance squad moment. I get that this is a music video, that is what women do in music videos, they strip down and gyrate before an audience of men who like it and women who know no better. But with everything else Gaga seems to be trying to do with her performance, it just doesn't fit.
The average person will not see a channeling of Rosler, nor will they see empowered reclaiming of the female sexuality and body; what they see is a white girl half naked bouncing around. If this is a statement of feminism, it's lost on me.

 

Along with this we have the obscene product placement scattered throughout all of Gaga's videos, and definitely this one. Virgin, Coke, one dubious dating website, Wonderbread, Polaroids, Honey B's, the list goes on.
There is something in Wonderbread being the item that is ultimately used to poison the diner full of people, that overly manufactured, not very nutritional staple the loving housewife would feed her family. Yet, I just can't fully get on board with this imagery, because Gaga got paid for this product placement. You can't mock something, whilst simultaneously taking the money they are paying you for it. That is ridiculous amounts of hypocrisy.

I have read rumours that she wasn't paid for all the product placement, she uses some of it specifically to critique this commercial culture we are part of. I don't know. I'm not sure how much you can criticise a system you are fundamentally benefitting from.

 

Gaga isn't doing things that differently to be able to criticise a world she has chosen. She can't make overt feminist statements in one part, yet pander to societal norms in the next. She can't construct a video that demeans commercial product placements, yet take money for it at the same time. These two factors are what I find most confusing about this video.

 

There are of course many differing opinions on this. This is just mine. Hook me up with others if you've got them!

 

*eta* i'm replying to comments in the comments on this one!

things that make me happy; a list

- Skyscrapers
- Trees covered in snow
- Beautiful cards
- Pretend names on parcels
- High pitched piano music
- Blurry fairy light photos
- Getting emails
- Watching terrible terrible TV programmes with people who also know how terrible it is, but being able to make a running commentary on it, therefore making them brilliant

 
- Being surprised by people in a good way
- Trees covered in fairy lights
- Crochet granny square garlands
- Moleskins full of lists
- Christmas cards with scotties on
- At home hair dye that looks good
- Antlers
- When people re-tell a conversation they have had, but it is so utterly boring you can't do anything but laugh and tell the person that it was completely boring, and then they laugh, and you both laugh.

 
- Starting a new calandar
- Watercolour pencils
- Brilliant books
- Baths
- Dreaming up 52 things to do in 52 weeks
- Old vintage christmas jumpers
- Polaroid supershooters and 669 film

* Inspired by this brilliant book. Read it if you love lists. New York. Are a 20 something wondering what on earth you are doing, and what the point of it is.

and for winter

I posted my favorite summer cook book back in August. Well this is my favorite winter one.
I can pretty much live on broth, soup, and mashed potatoes during this time of year. I need foods that will keep me warm, fill me up, but won't take me 9 years to prepare. And if I'm lucky, will be perfect for reheating over the following days too!
It is definitely not as aesthetically pleasing as the marie claire cookbook, but it is jam packed full of way more recipes that I actually want to eat.
It would probably be fully adaptable for you meat eaters out there too.
My favorites are the chickpea broth with parsley dumplings, lentil and green chilli burgers, and tomato and butterbean soup.
Thumbs up.