Since Bruce Sterling’s excellent post at Beyond the Beyond covering “The New Aesthetic” panel at SxSW ’12, a lot of other entries have sprung up talking about it. I thought I’d round some up: An Essay on the New Aesthetic, by Bruce Sterling The New Aesthetic and I, by Damien G. Walter New Aesthetics — […]
The New Aesthetics of the male gaze Read More »
Today, Ontario’s top court legalized brothels, with the intent to protect sex workers. Snip: All five judges said the law prohibiting the operation of bawdy houses “is grossly disproportionate” to its stated aim of avoiding disorder and maintaining public health standards. “The record is clear that the safest way to sell sex is for a
Another reason I’m happy to live in Canada: Read More »
I’ll admit it: I’m late to the party, on this one. Since January 2011, the anime-watching public (online and off) has been enamoured of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and I’ve been scoffing at it. They said it was deep. I scoffed. They said it was meta. I scoffed. They said to give it some time.
Girls, Women, and Choice: Why you should watch Madoka Read More »
“What was it like, in the Dark Ages when abortion was a crime, for the girl whose dad couldn’t borrow cash, as my dad could? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t even tell her dad, because he would go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to
And now a word from Ursula K. LeGuin re: abortion Read More »
There must have been something in the tubes last week, because I found three really excellent pieces about gender and feminist concerns that really stuck with me as I procrastinated on finishing the edits to vN. Given that the novel has a female protagonist for much of the story, you can see why I might
Three good pieces on gender Read More »
I was at dinner with some friends on Tuesday night, discussing the sad sack of fail who ruined many a party at the 2011 World Fantasy Convention in San Diego by getting drunk and sexually harassing some of the women in attendance. Some of the women I was eating with said it wasn’t that bad,
A story about why we need harassment policies Read More »
If the pronouns listed in the title above mean anything to you, I suggest you read this piece by Deb Aoki about why she left American superhero comics for Japanese shounen manga. Snip: The fascinating and diverse female casts of Bleach and Naruto are a big part of these series’ appeal to both male and
Re: DC, Starfire, Sailor Moon, and the difference between comics in the US and Japan: Read More »
Maybe you missed it, but New York Times writer Ginia Bellafante just insulted about half of HBO’s new audience share. It took place during a review (and I use that term loosely, here) of HBO’s new series Game of Thrones, adapted from George R. R. Martin’s exceedingly popular Song of Ice and Fire series of
Why the New York Times should give me Ginia Bellafante’s job: Read More »
One of the reasons I haven’t blogged very much recently is that I’ve been so damn busy. I went away for a while to a lake up north, where I worked on the story in this subject heading as well as a couple of others (I even did some foresighting work, if you can believe
The other day, my husband and I caught a trailer for The Expendables, which is the cinematic result of a mad scientist’s attempt to mix the mitochondrial DNA of every American action star from the 1980’s into a sweaty, tattooed, bulging-veined chimera. We first saw this trailer during Kick-Ass, and my comment at the time