Author Archive
Marilyn Wann is an amazing woman. Not only has she been one of the most recognizable figureheads of the fat-acceptance/love movement, but she spearheads a website, wrote a book, and now, she’s making scales.
The good kind! Whenever you step on the Yay! Scale, not only are you treated to the squish of funfur, but you’ll see a positive affirmation of your awesomeness spin into place before you.
What are you waiting for?! Bop on over and check it out.
Only six more shopping days ’til Christmas! Thankfully, the wholestyle roundups are blissfully free of stress-inducing holiday posts about parties (attending and hosting) and gifts (giving and receiving). Dive into this batch of articles and take some time for you!
And as an administrative note, I’ll be out of town December 20th – January 5th, so there won’t be any roundups until the second full week of the new year. I know, I know, you’re all heartbroken. But I promise great pictures of Baja when I get back.
Arts & Entertainment
DIY
Education
Fashion
Food
Positive Life
Sexuality
Travel
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Text
Arts & Entertainment
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As December starts, we begin to fill up on holiday treats – this week we’ve got some amazing treats for your brain (and a giant list of treats to fill your tummy!).
Arts and Entertainment this week has Danielle Meder’s Toronto-fashion paper doll book and a review of Influence – because the Olsen Twins have been frickin’ adorable since they were tiny tv tots. There’s also some fascinating thoughts on Gay Superheroes; an article that muses on the connection with superheroes, and how that opens doors for everyone – no more us vs. them.
Our Body Talk section asks you to look in the mirror to see who’s really there – it’s you, and you’ve got beauty in all the right places!
The Education section offer’s Simon Doonan’s view on Pauline Bonaparte and why she was such a babe. There’s also some insight on loneliness – a common holiday affliction. Learn you somethin’!
In Fashion, Ms Agent Loverrrrrr breaks down the Rodarte for Target line and Michelle at Wicked Whimsy talks about the practical quality of what you buy.
Since it’s the holidays, there’s a bajillion (or like 9) Food links. We love food – can you blame us?!
Our Health and Beauty section weighs in on Pilates, Yoga and Vitamin E. And for the ladies with light eyebrows, Zoetica has a fantastic tutorial for filling them in. No more pencil for those brows – it’s all about the powder.
To beef up your Positivity, we fully believe in the “get from life what you put in” philosophy, and there’s a great article on that. And Generation Meh wants you to know that “You can’t erase, but you CAN revise.” That seems to be some of the best inspiration we’ve heard all day!
Our Sexuality articles offer some insights on how porn is overly demonized. Also, are there gray areas of sexual consent? I bet your answer is no… you should read on, to find out!
Social Issues this week explores the fat revolution (the Food Network is trying to slim people down!?). Someone should email Christoper Kimball from Cooks Illustrated and tell him I need less butter in EVERYTHING in the Test Kitchen cookbook! >_<
The Travel section has a bunch of beautiful places to visit. Star went to New York, Zevs has creepy places to stay, and the Amazon Basin awaits. Go forth, young one! Be amazed!
In Work and Career we have a few talented minds weighing in on working for yourself, keeping up with your clients, and your career versus your need to bear offspring.
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Arts & Entertainment
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Ah, another week of wholestyle fabulosity come and gone. Friday is really one of the best parts of our week just because we get to share these articles with you. The feedback has been amazing andwe read some incredible stuff every day! Roll around in these, get inspired, and have a great weekend!
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This week the round up is full of fun surprises – some excellent body-talk, fashion, feminism, food and more! We had so many entries this week (can you say 25 by Tuesday alone?) that it was hard to pare them down to bring you the BEST of wholestyle on the Web!
AND just in case you missed it, the Hive Mind here at Bonne Vie (that is – Jaka and the Bird!) had some excellent features on Media Literacy this week – so check them out! The idea is extremely important when you’re reading these (and any!) articles.
So without further ado, on to the fun!
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Media Literacy Week: Day Five, Wrapup
The media literacy articles this week have been designed to open our collective eyes to the hidden messages in the information and ideas that we consume on a daily (even hourly) basis. I sincerely hope that it’s been helpful. I’d like to wrap up with a segueway and an extrapolation about the ways we choose to use what we learn from those messages.
I like to pretend that I’m a literary person; I’ve read both Brave New World and 1984. Both books impacted my worldview in lifelong ways. Yet, for some reason, I never thought to compare and contrast the ideas the authors present. Whose vision of our future is correct? Thankfully, Stuart McMillen drew this incredible comic for simps like me. I highly encourage you to take the time and read the entire thing, let it process, then think about what our society has become today. Who was the better prophet?
Personally, I’m of two minds on this one. Before, I would have automatically said that Orwell had it down, no question. But the more I delve into the instant messaging, instant news, instant update, instant viewing world of the internet and all it offers, the more I think I sway towards agreeing with Huxley. As a first-world country, we have everything we could ever want to sate our impulses for food, sex, gossip, and general “feelgood” and we can get it in an instant. Sometimes even for free. I think that’s the real devil here – luxury and the overabundance of sensation, not a lack of information (which I do believe exists, but not to the point of destroying us on a personal level).
–
The Bird response: “I don’t necessarily think these two dystopian ideals are meant to be pitted against one another. Regulation of feel-good luxuries (even if they’re incredibly bad for you) spurns Orwellian societal response. Yet, in many dystopian tales, we see societies that overdose on pleasure or create the “perfect society” by removing pain and suffering, which leads to a placid and thoughtless society (watch the movie Equilibrium to understand this theory). We’re almost leaning towards Huxley’s dystopia today. I mean, Ford is coming out with these new “Smart Trucks” and every time I see those commercials, I envision HAL 9000 saying, “I’m sorry, Bird, I cannot open the drivers’ side door” as it flings us off a cliff. My thought: where one theory doesn’t get us, the other will.”
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Questions? Comments? Concerns? Bueller?
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Media Literacy Week: Day two, tactics
Image courtesy of msventura
So now that we know what media literacy is and why it’s important, what can we do to become more aware of what we’re taking in? The next step is to take action. In order to dissect and understand the messages our media are sending, we need a knowledge base and a method of operation for tackling what we’re consuming. Today, we’re going to talk about the two most common devices, as well as arm ourselves with seven easy questions to ask about any piece of media.
Roald Dahl’s notes for words in The BFG, courtesy of the BBC
Persuasive language is likely the single most-used method of getting across an author’s message. Words are the currency that we deal in the most often; each one’s meaning can range from insignificant to world-changing, completely dependent on emphasis, placement, and context. They easily trigger emotions with the faintest of effort and sway our opinions with careful diction. All language has this ability, but there are special kinds of language and special ways of using it that produce astounding results. Changing Minds has a fantastic list of ways that language can be tamed and formed around our intentions to send a particular message. Any or all of these could be utilized in a single piece of writing, be it a newspaper article, scholarly research, song lyrics, or film dialogue, in order to sculpt our reactions and influence our thoughts.
- Final impact: Put the impact at the end of the sentence.
- Hidden commands: Burying commands in sentences.
- Intensifiers: increasing the emotional impact of a statement.
- Object focus: Focus on the object and let the subject slip by.
- Power words: Words that have special meaning.
- Pronoun language: I, you and so on add power.
- Sensory language: Language that evokes senses.
- Short sentences: Like this. That work. Of course.
- Temporal language: Changing time and hence meaning.
- Trivializing words: Deflating what others say.
- Using pauses: Adding power with very largely nothing.
Manipulating data in graphs is one of the most common ways we see facts and figures presented to fit a particular message. The process is, at its core, simply the re-sorting and rearranging of research data without fundamentally changing it. However, as any statistics student can tell you, it’s not always practical to start your axes at zero and create the chart from there; sometimes the numbers are too high or too low to show that way. Many people use this gray area between exact representation of data and practicality to alter the way they present numbers.
For example, the graphs above show two very distinct ways of presenting the same numbers. The chart on the left groups findings into categories, shows three fat bars, has wide ranges of MPG, and uses 5-digit increments on the y-axis, leading us to believe that there are lots of cars that get high gas mileage. Yet, it starts its x-axis numbering at zero; this shows us no cars that have MPG ratings between zero and 19. The chart on the right presents each MPG rating as an individual skinny bar marked along the x-axis (which starts at 25, rather than zero) and uses 2-digit increments on its y-axis. This arrangement leads us to believe that there is a wide variety of MPG ratings, most falling on the “low” end of the scale, with only a scant few on the high end.
Both of these graphs present the exact same information, the difference being that details like using a range (versus individual bars) and the numbering of the x- and y-axes can greatly influence the way we perceive the data. And, in addition to noting these discrepancies, we should also be looking for what is not there. What size engine did these vehicles have? In what year were they tested? What condition were they in? Under what environmental conditions were they tested? All of these factors can sway the “meaning” of the raw data, so it’s vital that we know how to question what we’re seeing.
THE TAKE-HOME MESSAGE: Look out for persuasive language and data manipulation!
Questions to Ask:
Armed with this basic knowledge and these analytical questions, we can decipher any hidden information that may come our way. While we generally trust that people say what they mean and that numbers never lie, both words and data are constantly undergoing a careful grooming process (whether intentionally or not) to help support the author’s ideas. Again, this is not to say that any author of any work is out to get us or trying to “hurt” us. We all send out messages in our writing, our photography, our videos; being media-literate is the key to mastering those messages and becoming aware of those trying to reach you.
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Recommended Reading
Media Literacy Week: Day one, definitions
Image courtesy of Fiona Otway
This week in Canada is Media Literacy Week, November 2-8th; seven days focused on increasing awareness of the messages carefully constructed in the information we are constantly consuming. While it may be a foreign holiday for most of our readers, we feel that it’s vitally important for people to have a grasp on the ideas and manipulations that can be hiding in anything from a book to an advertisement to a movie to charts/graphs to the news to a blog post. In the ever-ready, up-to-the-minute-news world of the internet, it’s more important now than ever before that people are actively engaging their brains when they read/hear anything that’s been passed off as “factual”.
So, what exactly is media literacy? What does it actually mean?
Very basically, it’s the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in both print and non-print sources. It’s not about being right or wrong, but about learning to question the motivations of the producer (author, director, photographer, journalist,etc). Are they reorganizing and reshaping data to look more favourable towards their cause? Are they using manipulative language or literary devices to evoke a certain response? Are they choosing to show some elements but not others in order to push us to agreeing? Yet, this is not to say that there’s some mass diabolical, malicious scheme going on across all media everywhere (although some conspiracy nuts believe otherwise); all producers of media inevitably write from their own viewpoint and only a small percentage are intentionally designed to “hurt” you. If we are questioning and evaluating the works themselves, we can learn more than what is outwardly presented and grow in our understanding of the world.
Here are some key concepts, courtesy of the MedicaLiteracyWeek.ca site:
1. Media are constructions: Media products are carefully constructed. They are created with a purpose and from a particular perspective, using specific forms and techniques. Media literacy works towards deconstructing these products, taking them apart to show how they are made and exploring the decisions and factors behind them.
2. Audiences negotiate meaning: We all bring our own life experience, knowledge and attitudes to the media we encounter. Each person makes sense of what he or she sees and hears in different ways. Media literacy encourages us to understand how individual factors, such as age, gender, race and social status affect our interpretations of media.
3. Media have commercial implications: Most media production is a business and must, therefore, make a profit. In addition, media industries belong to a powerful network of corporations that exert influence on content and distribution. Questions of ownership and control are central because a relatively small number of individuals control what we watch, read and hear in the media.
4. Ideological messages underpin all media: Explicitly or implicitly, the mainstream media convey ideological messages and notions of values, power and authority. In media literacy, what or who is absent may be more important than what or who is included.
We’ll be talking about being media-literate, and what it means, today, tomorrow, and Thursday. Our goal here is to encourage everyone to look more critically at what messages they’re consuming and how they may be inadvertently manipulated (for good or ill). We’ve got to make sure that we can ask the right questions about the right topics in order to fully understand what we’re reading/viewing/hearing. It’s vitally important that people take responsibility for their thoughts and not allow a fancy graph or cleverly-worded article to throw them off the truth.
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It’s Friiiiiiidaaaaaaay! (does a little dance) Don’t know about you, but for some reason this week has been total murder. And no, that’s not Halloween pun. [Although, if you'd like more Halloween puns, you can scope out the Bonus Roundup from yesterday]. Reading all these awesome articles has been the only thing keeping my zen going. We hope you like them as much as we did and have a happy weekend!
Arts & Entertainment
Body Talk
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Health
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(scary voice) oOooOOoooOooooOOoo! (waggles fingers) It’s Halloween!
Well, it will be on Saturday. And to get you prepped for the rockin’ weekend to come, here’s a bucket full of tricks and treats just for you! [Good lord, did I just write that? I think I need a drink...]
The best part of Halloween is all the junkfood. Miss Corrine at Frock ‘n’ Roll has a list of five great ideas for all of you who aren’t making it to the wild parties this year (like me). Got a hard-on for sugar this time of year? So does Irreference! They’ve got great tutorials on how to make candy corn and candy apples, or you could go for apple cider doughnuts, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen. If you’re more in the mood for real food, try Not Martha’s evil-looking handloaf. And don’t forget to mix yourself up some wicked cocktails, starting with some of Neatorama’s brain shots!
Do you know what you’re dressing up as yet? If you put it off to the last minute, we’ve found some quirky and quick ideas. College Candy wants you to remember that Halloween isn’t about being slutty and you should dress as such. Nothing Elegant agrees, providing some very classy ideas, all focused around the great ladies of history. If you’re too lazy or uninspired to do any of those, you can always slap on a wig and pretend you’re a stranger; Fajr from Stylish Thought tells you how! But be warned – there are always costumes that are going to get you an asskicking.
And don’t forget the entertainment! Head out to a zombie pub crawl, like Sarah Von did, for a hilarious time. Martin Scorsese himself has given us the lowdown what he thinks are the scariest horror movies of all time. If books are more your speed, check out the must-read list of gothic horror and terrifying tales from Nothing Elegant. You could also check out the less-scary-but-always-fun Goosebumps books, the 10 best of which Topless Robot’s so kindly picked out for you.
Or…if you want a special treat…you could always get your freak on with one of these blood-suckers: the Succu-Dry (for men) and the Vamp (for the ladies).
Happy Halloween, everyone! Eat lots of candy, dress up, have a blast, stay safe, and don’t be this guy when you’re out trick or treating:
Islamic fashion doesn’t come up much in the West, and we don’t usually realize that there’s true style and boatloads of fashion sense that goes into wearing hijab. And yet, there’s never been an exhibition in the Middle East to show off all the amazing fabrics and styles that constantly emerge from the Islamic fashion world.
Until now! The very first Islamic fashion show wrapped up in Turkey, spanning four fashion-filled days, October 1st through the 4th.
The Hurriyet sez: “During this fair, the trends of Islamic fashion for 2010 will be displayed. The participating firms and fashion designers have the chance to promote their new pieces at stands and through fashion shows. There will also be a competition, allowing designers and firms to participate with creations for 2010, such as scarves, veils and coats.
The fair expects to host 3,000 foreign professional visitors and 12,000 local visitors. Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Malaysia, Indonesia, the United States, France and Germany are among the participating countries.”
The fact that this is even happening is both inspirational and empowering. Even as a white, non-traditionally-spiritual, Western chick, I’m in love with the message this event is sending.
Also, I kinda love the idea of the Burqini.
Andandand! There’s another hijab-friendly fashion show on RIGHT NOW in the United Arab Emirates! Dubai Fashion Week (warning: audio) is in full swing all week. Hijabtrendz, the most fashionable and informational hijab fashion site I’ve seen, is all over this and is offering peeks of the offerings from different designers (this link is my favourite so far).
Closer to home, the lovely Nadia Malik from Hijabtrendz attended Chicago Fashion Week last week and kept a weather eye out for Muslim-friendly styles. The runway was packed with sleek, stylish, and sexy clothing that any woman wanting to wear hijab can totally rock.
Shows in India, Saudi Arabia, and smaller venues across the globe remind us that, while we focus on Paris and London, New York and LA, people everywhere should have a chance to embrace and show off their cultural fashions. These runway shows are a fantastic way to gain insight into other cultures and to pick up some style ideas to impart into our own wardrobes.
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Image courtesy of WeHeartIt
That’s right, even Darth Fucking Vader takes time out to enrich his brain. And so should you! Here’s your much-anticipated weekly roundup of wholestyle awesomeness on the web. We had to cap it at 50 even though there were closer to 70 that made the cut. Trying not to kill you with too much awesome, at least for the time being. [[Manager's note: We're also looking into having this sent out as a weekly newsletter of some kind, so keep your eyes peeled!]]
For a link to post this wholestye round up on YOUR space, click here!
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Arts & Entertainment
Body Talk
DIYs
Fashion
Feminism
Food & Health
Interviews
Positive Life
Sexuality
Social Issues
Travel
Work, Money & Organization
Remember when you were a little kid and having a black Barbie was a huge goddamn deal? There was only one girl on my block that had one, and that was me. We played with her in hushed tones for fear of some overprotective parent saying it was weird that a bunch of white girls had a black doll, and really, she just looked like a regular Barbie, with a dip-dyed skin color (or a REALLY bad fake-tan).
But! Now we have a brand-spankin’-new line of black dolls, courtesy of Stacey McBride-Irby, a steadfast employee of Barbie’s thinktank. The doll line, called So In Style”, features Grace, Courtney, Janessa, Kara, Kianna, and Trichelle, each with their own well-rounded and kid-friendly backstory. They’ve got some kick-ass clothes and aren’t just a new skin on white Barbie – sporting new facial features and different hair styles.
But some people aren’t pleased with the dolls, saying that they’re racist and too reliant on hip-hop/rap culture for their wardrobe (In the NY Daily News article, a 15-year-old girl gushes about how these new dolls represent Beyoncé to her). In a recent CNN article, consumers rallied against the dolls saying the new hairstyles are “a step backwards” and that the dolls “should have had more natural black hairstyles, such as afros or braids.” One of the fundamental problems the CNN article cites is: “‘Black women come in all shades, shapes and varieties that there is just no way to capture everyone with three dolls.”
Now, to us, saying these newly designed Barbies are racist is like saying that white Barbie is racist because she relies too heavily on cheerleading costumes. We’ve always found the Barbie doll to be much too stereotypical on all kinds of fronts (although they’ve toned it down in recent years). The old Barbie has never looked like a real person, and it seems like Mattel is trying to take a step forward in creating a more realistic ideal. Can you honestly say you don’t like the new black dolls because they’re stereotypical?
The argument behind stereotyping is outlined in an article published in the SMC Collegian:
…When one takes a closer look at what lies underneath it becomes more clear that the dolls have the unfortunate potential to further segregate American society. Young girls who play with the dolls will soon recognize those specific features of the dolls that differentiate them from their white counterparts. Once these become more observable, young girls will be more apt to remember these distinguishing traits when they think of the African-American race. While it is true that the dolls are meant to celebrate the differences and recognize the distinctions of a young black woman, realistically, how many children from non-black households will be inclined to play with the dolls? When you create a doll as unique as these, the issue arises of highlighting the differences between these dolls and those that came before them. Once that happens, young girls will find themselves developing opinions for or against these black Barbie dolls, leading them down a path that can prove to be racially discriminatory.
Maybe people need to do some reflecting on all dolls if they want to pull that crap.
UPDATE: We got a comment on this post pointing us to this post on Racialicious and it was a great point of view. Check out some of the comments:
“And while I could quibble about the authenticity of the dolls, the issue is not whether the dolls are representative of ANY women of African heritage. The issue is why there are almost never any dolls that are representative of CERTAIN women of African heritage.
From a marketing perspective, I am sure that they picked a happy medium. Dolls that would likely appeal to the broadest range of black consumers. Thats cool. As I said, to ME the dolls all look “black” and other than the hair I’d not blink when presented with them. So Im sure the white folk and other non black people who see the dolls and signed off on them felt they met the blackness standard, they are operating from a different frame of reference. Its entirely possible that white people and even the black woman who designed them felt the dolls are entirely representative of black women. I mean, most people in the US see straightened hair as the norm and natural hair as the exception or aberration.
But, if the company wants to claim they are representing, which I doubt, they surely could have a wider range of black. There are 3 dolls, 6 including the small kids. One could have some kink to the hair.”
Also:
“I just have to observe, I am white and have never seen a Barbie doll that looks like me either. Barbie doesn’t look like anyone. The body mould itself is that of no anorexic supermodel in the world. As well as race, this is a major consideration. It is one thing to take care that facial features and skin tone are more relate-able for black girls, but still, what does it do to their self-esteem to look at Barbie from the neck down and see this kind of body held up as an ideal?”
What do you think about the So In Style line? Racist or not? What should they change, if anything?
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This post came across BoingBoing and my immediate reaction was, “I need those shoes”. That doesn’t happen to me very often, especially not over brown leather shoes. But damn! Look at these things!
About CYDWOQ sez: “CYDWOQ founder, Rafi Balouzian, loves to walk. He walks everywhere. In fact, long before it was considered recreation or a “green” alternative to commutes or cabs, Rafi would routinely walk 50 blocks to a business meeting—and still does. Prior to starting CYDWOQ, however, Rafi found his shoes weren’t helping his epic strolls. Space-age materials, fancy padding, and air bubbles of all shapes and sizes impeded rather than promoted a healthy, efficient stride. And in this realization, a company was born.”
And they apparently last forever. They make both women’s and men’s shoes, as well as a range of accessories. They even sell replacement parts for their footwear. They price isn’t in my range, but if I had a couple hundred dollars, I’d be on this so hard. (Birdie says, “John Fluevog, lookout!”)
It’s that time of the week again and we’ve got some amazing articles to satisfy your wholestyle sweet-tooth! Since the roundup’s been growing by leaps and bounds, we decided to break the articles up into categories for easy browsing. We are currently discussing posting more than one link per source, as long as the articles fall in different lifestyle categories – if you’re into that, leave us a comment. If you want to get the wholestyle word out, or you want to show off the best wholestyle-on-the-web links for the week, Clicky Here! for an html text version to post.
Without further ado – your weekly roundup!
Arts & Culture
Body Talk
Education
Fashion & Beauty
Feminism
Food
Interviews
Positive Life
Sexuality
Work & Organization
Image courtesy of xkcd
Image courtesy of Savage Chickens
Image courtesy of We Heart It
There’s been some SERIOUS wholestyle activity this week and the roundup has exploded! I’m seriously considering breaking it up into categories for easier browsing. I know it’s a lot, but every one of these links has been hand-picked at the peak of awesomeness, just for you!
Whew! I’m not sure if I can handle so much awesome at once. I’m all sweaty now. That’s all for this week’s roundup! Remember – if you see anything out there, comment on it. And if there’s something I missed that I should follow, drop me a link. Happy weekend, all!
Aw, snap! We totally missed out on National Poetry Day yesterday! But that’s not going to stop us from celebrating today. Here’s a few stanzas to get your motor running and those creative juices flowing, hand-picked by us just for you.
Image courtesy of We Heart It
Phenomenal Woman – Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing of my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
When I Am An Old Woman – Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and a pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple.
Image courtesy of Savage Chickens
and, for that endearingly awkward and embarrassing touch – something written by each of us:
Visitation – Jaka
Awkward at the station
Gawkers and drizzle to match
Hours late
KFC and a phonecall
Fuck the Greyhound bus
Striking silver, faded gold
So light and so heavy
A gift
An initial and a history
The oath before the promise
Skinteethsweatnailsbreathsteam
Darkness and fulfillment
Our love
Puzzle pieces and daybreak
Breaking the unbreakable
Driving in the city
Chatter and tunes blaring away
Singing loudly
Probably lost and bonding
A movie moment captured
Goodbyes in front of hobos
Hopeful talk and hugs
No tears
Stolen kisses and a wave
Counting down nine empty days
Scribbled in Haste – Birdie
all misfits -
transplants.
here because a wind blew,
and our tiny seed-bodies landed;
we took root
here, i will lift you up
on my shoulders,
and carry you through high waters;
mumbling under my breath,
how i love you.
though at times, i hardly know you,
you, there, girl,
and you and you…
i’ll still take you with me;
hand in hand,
on some adventure
i feel like fighting for.
i am enamored
of your beauty,
of your resolve,
of your likeness to myself,
and all i ever wanted myself to be.
Image courtesy of We Heart It
I’d love to see some of your own scribbles! Especially the ones you wrote in highschool when you were all angsty and knew everything. Those are totally the best. Happy belated National Poetry Day everyone! Keep your eyes peeled for the increasingly-popular Wholestyle Roundup later on today. It’s a doozy!
and
So you may have noticed – we have a houseguest here at Bonne Vie! Everybody say “hi” to Jaka… Jaka, say “hi” to everybody!
I’m pleased to be working with this genius of a girl to bring you content that’s relevant to your WHOLE style. We hope you enjoy these little brain-nuggets just as much as we enjoyed discussing and plotting them out. And now I present you the first installment:
♣ ♣ ♣
We came across this article from The Art of Manliness the other day and ended up in a deep conversation about gender roles and the deep-seated issues in relationships that revolve around traditional thought. The post is very informative and largely accurate, but to the casual observer it might make women seem like under-developed emotional weaklings. Though a lot of the points are true – like men needing to express their feelings in a “healthy and mature way” – at first glance it sounds like men have to coddle to women when they’re emotional. If you’re a guy, in the context of the article, this could sound like quite the double standard.
Image from LA Film Forum
In a way, it is a double standard, but it’s one of many that we live with, and use, in our daily relationship lives. Just like men and women have different sexual responses and are good at different tasks, men and women process information (and emotional situations) in different ways and don’t communicate in the same manner.
The truth is, the topic of “how to be a rock” should be a lesson for both partners instead being only about the man. The perspective of the article is purposely man-oriented, without giving much attention to the role of the woman in the relationship. [The title of the site, "The Art of Manliness", isn't necessarily a woman-inclusive environment - even if many of the articles are written by a married couple].
A lot of the statements in the article are completely true for and applicable to both genders. If it were talked about in a different way – maybe a more all-inclusive way – it would make perfect sense, regardless of gender roles. While it’s traditionally the man’s job in a (heterosexual) relationship to be the rock, we’ve come to a point in our societal development where it’s okay for the woman to be the rock or to switch off when needed. In fact, it’s generally considered to be more modern and healthy for both partners (regardless of gender) to fill the “rock” role at some point.
So, keeping all that in mind, let’s look at a more inclusive view on the points in the definitely-awesome Art of Manliness take on being strong for your significant other when they need it.
The take-home message here is that, when your baby needs you to be strong, it’s about them, not you. You might be uncomfortable at first and it might seem a little weird to communicate differently, but once you realize that it makes everything easier and more fluid, it’ll all seem completely natural. Be open and honest in your communication; be strong when it’s needed, vulnerable when called for. And most of all, be loving.
Until next time,
and
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