Tag: blogging

privacy, sexism, the personal public

what is already yours

RECOMMENDED READING: Gratuitous: How Sexism Threatens to Undermine the Internet.

[…] Checking my Tumblr feed is like checking in with my friends, even if these “friends” are people I know very little about and will possibly never meet in real life. I met most of these people through friends of friends or via the social discovery that re-blogging affords. I somehow stumbled into their worlds, and they were interesting enough to make me want to come back. I interact with enough of them that I can pretty clearly say that when they post something, it is intended for me. I’m part of their small group, and I have no qualms about that.

Lisa, on the other hand, is a different matter. Lisa is a college student at a large university in the Midwest (and Lisa is not her name; I don’t know whether she would want a bunch of book nerds suddenly reading her posts or not, so I’m not going to link to her blog here, either). She seems pretty smart, and she blogs about her love life, her schoolwork, her friends, and all of the other things that matter to her. I find Lisa’s life very interesting, and her blog is great. But I haven’t completely settled the “is she talking to me” question. While Lisa follows me back, we don’t interact with each other. She uses Tumblr in a very social way, she isn’t really part of the crowd of people whom I otherwise follow. And I find this somewhat troubling. […]

The pane of glass, and the contrast between the brightly lit casting room and the dim audience space, was enough distance to effectively dehumanize these girls. There were other factors at work, such as the blonde California girl’s status as marketing conceit and sexual totem, but I think a big reason we all felt free to dissect and dismiss these girls is because they couldn’t really see us. We were, more or less, anonymous. It was especially unsettling to turn around after watching for a few minutes and see one of the girls who had been in the call standing just behind us. How long had she been there, the girl in the leopard print shorts? And how did she suddenly become so real? […]

Why are women treated differently than men online? I suppose the greater question is why they are still treated differently everywhere — online or otherwise — but since this post is about the web, I will focus on that. Surely there’s the garden variety sexism that permeates most of our culture, where women’s opinions are discounted or denigrated, and where the female form is used to sell everything from liquor to football. But I think there is something else at work online, and in many ways, it’s related to the strange feeling of watching all of those girls wait to have their pictures taken, as well as my conflicted feelings about enjoying college girl Lisa’s blog so much.

Attention Vancouver Bloggers

Short notice, yet totally awesome:

If you’re interested, we’re taking some bloggers around the BC Children’s Hospital today from 4 – 6pm. You are welcome to join us! It’s a behind-the-scenes tour. (Photos are most likely okay, but Children’s asked that it be at their discretion, depending on what the kids feel comfortable with.) Let me know if you’re in, and I’ll shoot you the details. grace.carter [at] invokemedia.com

let me just photoshop you into my schedule


Originally uploaded by y0nderboy.

Thanks to Warren, I’ve been in the number ten slot on BlogPulse, (an automated blog trend discovery system), for two days in a row now and I’m listed as the 34th most popular blog.

If I were the sort of person to use exclamation points, that would be a few of them right there.

I’m doing civil war themed pin-up photography with Spider Robinson’s photographer before the garden party today. I’m not sure how that sentence came into reality, but I blame living on Commercial Drive. He’s making me breakfast, then we’re going to figure out how to fake vintage lingerie.

Montreal team announces advance in HIV research.

Oliver and I have found ourselves a month together held in our hands like sticky string, (fun, wonderful, but what the hell is it?). We’re still being late to everything because of the trouble we have dragging our bodies from one another. I should have left the house already, but the chance at internet is too good to pass up. My evening house, my fairy-tale, it has a computer but no connection. I am cut off when the sun sets. I am directionless, trapped in warmth and white sheets, unable to find purchase in the ether. My fingers tap away on count-tops and tables, asking for information, trying to morse code the air itself. Late at night, I look down into my unemployment and try to wonder what’s going to happen.

I never heard back from the people who asked me to be their company blogger, Telus didn’t hire me, though the interview seemed almost perfunctory, but I have extra work again on Monday, a paid focus group on Tuesday evening, and a freelance odd-job coming from RipTown Media. The longest I’ve been without gainful employment, but somehow I’m keeping it all together. The utility companies are going to threaten me again soon, but I’m hoping that I can cover that by taking Robin out and about the town for a little Social Therapy.

To the people who bought mp3’s off me. Yes, they are coming, and I am most dreadfully sorry it has been taking this long. My microphone died, leaving me with little equipment options. I have been using my mother’s home-studio, but it’s all the way across town, which can be literally hours away by bus, and I’ve been scrabbling so much that I haven’t had a day to devote. (Some of the work has been finished, but I thought it would only be fair that everyone have to wait together. Think ‘according to the principles of Mercerism.’). I’m planning on going over to her house early Wednesday and not leaving until everything is finished or the busses stop running, whichever comes first.

Apple said it will pay $100 million for a license to use Creative’s patented technology in its iPod music player, settling all legal disputes between the two companies.

I spent up all night taking photos

IMG_0334

i carry your heart with me
e. e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Voting is now open for the 2006 Bloggies™
Click here to vote.

In similar news, I discovered today that Van2.ca, a tiny website I’d never heard of before today, has listed me as one of Vancouver’s Best Blogs of 2005. Thank you Javina for placing me on the roster. I’m baffled as to what the site is about, but I appreciate it. (In fact, excellent timing, as I just today re-worked my sidebar to include a directory of where I am on-line and, yes mother, a donation button).