Rotten Girls

Molly sends along this interesting article about fujoshi, the female otakus:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUKT30561220080229?pageNumber=4&virtualBrandChannel=0

Here are two pretty great video clips:

http://darkdiamond.net/web-notes/the-world-of-fujoshi-the-female-otaku/

Interestingly, whereas those two links equate fujoshi to "girl geeks," the Wikipedia entry on fujoshi is only concerned with their interest in slash fan-fic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujoshi

I wonder if the Reuters article does this to whitewash the term, or if Wikipedia has confused effect for cause. That is, Harry Potter nerds are ALSO interested in romantic couplings of (underage) fictional characters, but by and large that's an offshoot of their fandom, not the reason they got into the world.

I suppose the truth is somewhere in the midde, but a good rule of thumb is: If you have two explanations, and one of them is "Wikipedia sucks," always choose that one.

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Speaking of, librarians have ANOTHER reason to hate Nicholson Baker: he loves Wikipedia...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131

Actually, this article--a review of a book called Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, the existence of which makes my head explode--is an interesting read, full of great observations, even if I don't share his enthusiasm for the faith-based encyclopedia.

Six Million Little Pieces

Writer Admits Holocaust Book Is Not True:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080229/ap_on_re_us/holocaust_book_hoax_2

Oh look, It's this old knee-slapper: "This story is mine. It is not actually reality, but my reality..." Hurf durf it was a post-modern experiment.

(And yes, readers, the bit about the wolves is absolutely the best part. Ha!)

Don't worry, though, it won't be an issue...

John McCain was born on a military base in Panama...can he still be President?

Of course he can, right? Don't think so fast:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=144404&f=77

Affluenza: February 27

The Ron Gilad's Dear Ingo chandelier is simply mindblowing. Wow!

http://www.unicahome.com/p21795/moooi/dear-ingo-by-ron-gilad-for-moooi.html

But: "biomorphic overtones?" Fuck off.

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Areo has a TON of fall-down beautiful matchbooks:

http://areohome.com/matches.html

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An actual store in Korea:

http://flickr.com/photos/mishamc/2174716455/in/set-72157603575774721/

The first entry in the official Affluenza shopping guide, coming soon.

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Tetris ice cube trays...

http://martin.zampach.com/detail/tetrice-ice-cube-maker

...combined with a description of a microwave oven, for some reason.

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"Sustainable" BS aside, I really like this bath caddy...dig the slot for your wine glass:

http://www.delight.com/Sustainable-Bamboo-Bath-Caddy-w-Book-Stand-Wine-Glass-Holder

Elegant manservant not included.

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In a shamless bid to be featured on Affluenza, Renata Quintela has disguised her Phone Concept as a Toaster Concept:

http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_file.asp?from_url=true&sort_by=1&portfolio_id=827002&individual_id=179897

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Gwen Stefani continues her tireless efforts to get women to dress like security guards:

http://eluxury.com/estore/browse/product_detail.jsp?id=11737796

I know, I know, it's a "schoolboy blazer," but look at that picture: if you saw that rather odd-looking woman walking towards you, wouldn't you just assume a fairly large portion of her day was spent in a golf cart?

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Clever computer speakers:

http://www.insound.com/search/showrelease.jsp?from=&p=INS42198&from=37020

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Salt and Pepper Maracas:

http://designmuseumshop.com/whats-new/salt-and-pepper-maracas

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Nice to see designers taking their cues from Flea's pants in the "Bust A Move" video:

http://www.mossonline.com/product-exec/product_id/29623/category_id/9

Oh my god, when my sister was 8 she was an avant garde chair designer!

The website says "price available upon request," which is designer-speak for "get fucked," but seriously: couldn't you totally make this with a cheap papasan and thirty bucks of Dollar Tree stuffed animals?

Desiree Palmen

Desiree Palmen's impressive camouflage photography:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=517634&in_page_id=1770

"People always react strongly when they see my work. They have mixed reactions: confusion, surprise and interest." ... "Mostly people like the idea of wearing garments that make them invisible."

It's so refreshing to read comments from an artist who doesn't hide behind empty MFA-speak about the themes she's "exploring" with her "experiments."

White Like Us

The Los Angeles Times on Stuff White People Like:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez25feb25,0,1952462.column

Quote:

By "white people," Lander doesn't actually mean the more than 221 million Americans who check that box on the decennial census. But that's part of the fun. Lander is doing to whites what scores of journalists and politicians do to non-white minorities every day, "essentializing" complex identities -- that is, stripping away all variety and reducing them to their presumed authentic essences.

Book Club update

I've finished Emma (and posted my final thoughts in the thread), so I'm one book away from finishing the Jane Austen endeavor.

I'm pretty far ahead of schedule...I have basically a month to read the fifty chapters of Sense And Sensibility. The original idea was to read two chapters a day for the next twenty five days.

HOWEVER, I find the idea of starting yet another Austen novel tomorrow absurdly upsetting, so I'm taking a couple of weeks off. Instead of reading two chapters daily for a month, starting on March 9 I'll be reading five chapters a day for ten days. Probably.

I know this is disappointing for the dozens of people who read along with me and contribute to the lively long-ranging conversations in the threads, but I'm so far behind on these Yu-Gi-Oh novelizations I may never catch up...

Orthorexia Nervosa

Orthorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder defined by an escalating obsession with eating "healthfully."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthorexia

The term was coined by Dr. Stephen Bratman, who identified a fixation on a diet that can be perceived as morally pure. "Where the bulimic and anorexic focus on the quantity of food, the orthorexic fixates on its quality."

Here's his original article on the subject, called Health Food Junkies. It's insanely interesting.

http://www.beyondveg.com/bratman-s/hfj/hf-junkie-1a.shtml

“And my heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss.”

Charles Dickens' incredibly touching obituary for William Makepeace Thackeray:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/In_Memoriam_W._M._Thackeray

"I remember his once asking me with fantastic gravity, when he had been to Eton where my eldest son then was, whether I felt as he did in regard of never seeing a boy without wanting instantly to give him a sovereign? I thought of this when I looked down into his grave, after he was laid there, for I looked down into it over the shoulder of a boy to whom he had been kind."

Southwestern Beans And Couscous, a Baby Ruthless original recipe

[Recently my mother sent me a "Diabetic Cooking" cookbook. Can you imagine? Anyway, here's a recipe I adapted pretty loosely from that book. It's not too similar to the original, but it's yummy.]

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn
2 jalapenos, cored, seeded, and minced
2 shallots or 1 small onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
3 cups of water
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
10 oz of uncooked couscous
Salt

1. Place beans, corn, jalapeno, shallots, garlic, cumin, black pepper, water, and bouillon cube in the crock pot. (Everything except the cilantro, lime juice, and couscous.)

2. Stir, cover, and cook on LOW for 3 to 4 hours. (Probably less, really...you're just cooking the onion and jalapeno.) (And of course you could probably just cook this in a pot on the stove for maybe an hour? I don't know.)

3. Ten minutes before you serve it, add the cilantro, the lime juice, and the couscous. Stir and cover.