Better Never than Late: This Week's Turn-Off

We're all for making lit fun and, dare we say this connotation-loaded word, accessible (not that http midget cares about being accessible to anyone outside their 15 or so regulars). But for the love of all things fucking sacred, people, can we stop the egregious, sexist, middle school circle jerking?

The most offensive thing about this isn't the objectification because let's face it, we care way less about dudes being objectified than chicas. Sometimes shit is just refreshing, ya know? The most offensive thing isn't even our usual decrying of a list of top ten anything that doesn't include women (You're all hot, ladies. All of you. All six of you that get any kind of cred on the intrawebz for writing of any kind. And we're sure your racks are amazing as well. Of course we want to see them, and not in an objectify-you kind of way. We also love your earrings, where did you get them? Oh, you made them? Can we buy a pair, plus a copy or two of your latest books? We love you like peanut butter crackers, we do.)  Nor is it the presumptuous insinuation that we want to see any of those dudes sans their not-that-ironic band t-shirts and plaid Gap boxers, but we're getting closer.

No, the most offensive thing about this is that it's the same white dudes, published in the same mags, by the same presses, with the same subject matter. Yep, we've read most of it. Sounds like some other stuff we've read, with a few exceptions (They Could No Longer Contain Themselves is awesome front to back. We wanna see its naughty bits.) Sounds like an echo.

Sounds like a circle jerk.

guest post: Fleabie Jeebies = yeah, baby!

The following is a guest post by the fabulous Tracey P, whose blog  is awesome & whose company kept mama sane while stuck in the alabamaz...

Fleabie Jeebies – Girl on Girl on Girl guest blog

Mama and Baby (a.k.a. Tracey, a.k.a. Pearl) moseyed to Angel’s Antiques in Opelika, Alabama, on a hot Sunday afternoon in July to stave off soul-crushing boredom that makes outsiders living in Auburn want to pierce and tattoo every part of their bodies, shave their heads, and make out with same sex friends just to freak people out.  (Auburn people are easily freaked out – wearing all black will do it). 

Baby Pearl has been flea marketing since she was a kid – her hometown, Springfield, Missouri is junk-rich with antique stores, flea markets, and thrift shops.  Living outside the Queen City meant that her junkin’ was mostly on hiatus, though, since those dusty, mildew scented stores are less plentiful.  Imagine her delight when she discovered Angel’s Antiques – located in an old Wal-Mart store, full of antique treasures like old Fiesta dishes and crap like, well, about 75% of it.  Baby loves antiques and vintage stuffs, but more than half the fun of junkin’ is the wonder of what people cast off in garage sales, and hopeful junkers put in their booths. 

Mama and Baby started taking photos with their phones at Angel’s to boost the entertainment value of the trip.  What started out as just lookin’ around became a quest to document the creepy and bizarre.  The flea angels did not disappoint.  The photos became a half-finished outsider art project.

Almost a year later, her bestie Debi (a.k.a. Irma) perused the photos and said, “We should start a blog.  We could call it Fleabie Jeebies.”  OMG what a good idea. So Baby Pearl moved back to  Springfield, and when Irma came to visit, they started the blog (fleabiejeebies.blogspot.com). 

Fleabie Jeebies features bizarre stuffs, nasty stuffs, and stuffs that should NOT be for sale:

Flea markets offer a random story of American and world history – for better and for worse.  Fleabie Jeebies will feature a category called “-isms” dedicated to evil racist homophobic sexist shit like a goddamn Nazi whatever that thing is that should be in a museum, where the proper context can be observed, rather than for someone to profit from.  Mama and Baby considered a stakeout to see WHO would buy this piece of evil, but the thing has been there for a while, so it would be a long wait, even though there’s not much better to do in East Alabama.

So Baby Pearl is in flea market central and along with Debi/Irma, she will be bringing to you the craptastic items that inspire both whimsy and snark at fleabiejeebies.blogspot.com.  A journey of the bizarre and the ridiculous, a fun time will be had by all. 

Here’s one for the road:

His name, we believe, is Glenn Beck.

Turn-on/off: A new boys club, and Don't treat F-word like F-bomb, respectively

This week's turn-on: this article by Stacy May Fowles at The Walrus, on gender inequality in lit mags. (Wait, that's in issue? That's in the news lately, for real??) "Since literary publications so often struggle with gender disparity, in their contributor lists and mastheads, in the books they review and the viewpoints they include, why don’t men who consider themselves allies to equality simply refuse publication?" (idea adopted, as Fowles cites, from an article in Good Magazine) YES. She also trots out all the beyond-cliche, echo chamber questions—"Is feminism dead? Is feminism obsolete? Is women's writing different from men's writing?"—and rightly calls them "gag-worthy." YES.

omg this is so slow...

mama needs a new Gateway beyond 1999. do they even make Gateways beyond 1999?

mama doesn't care, but she does. that's how mama do always. mama was gonna go to bed & then she started thinking things & then she was like I should write them down & then her computer was slowly shutting off & she didn't get there in time for it to not shut down & then she had to turn it back on...

she may have lost lots of brain cells in that interval.

she may have looked at justin timberlake photos circa 2008-2011...

cos if she looked at nkotb pix that would just be creepy.

what mama is trying to get at in some weird post-bender pre-bender per-bender way is that she hates the false humilities.

for reals.

these are not deep deep questions, but if you wrote something anything a novel a poetry book a chapbook a short story a poem a flash a micro, whatever & you send it out, then why don't you love it? if you don't love it, then why do you send it out? why do you even let it see the light of day? yes, mama's using cliches in her attempt to get at the bottom of the writer humility schtick, but that's only cos the whole thing's replete with cliches, dontcha think?

why do you ask surprised when someone else loves your writing?

mama wrote her novel Homegirl! & mama loves her novel. mama's not gonna be like, oh, yeah, i wrote this novel, but, really, it's a piece of shit or mama can do better or love me, anyways... mama put her heart & soul or whatever into that shit.

judge mama by her novel & not anything else.

mama thinks more writers need to declare that.

cos if it's not good writing it's shit...

& who cares who you know or how motherfucking cool you are, for reals...

you gonna die alone, anyways, bitches.

that was not what mama was gonna talk about between the bathroom & the computer shutting down...

that is what mama's talking bout now & mama said knock you out.

i'm gonna knock you out,
ryder

Turn off: Omg. I hate human beings

mama hates the humans but mama loves the sexings...

here are some controversies (cuntroversies?)  about semen and sex and "feminism" (i.e. "women's groups") and duh, not all "women's groups" = all "feminists" just like not all democrats = progressive & not all republicans = batshitaynrandmotherfuckingcrazy, yo.

calling this "semengate" adds fuel to the fire, yo. makes the feminists who were offended seem crazy & you should read the comments cos they are not hilarious & if mama has a soul, well her soul is hurting & her soul is bruised & drinking andre brut in the dark.

mama had a boyfriend who had an ex who was a female ejaculator & he called her ejaculation piss. why doesn't anyone ever wanna talk about that? i call femalejaculatorgate on all y'all.

i guess, mama's point is all these stories surrounding sex do something that makes the sexings hard to get & that makes the understandings hard to get & that makes the rammings taboo & makes the dominating taboo & the ejaculating & the getting on top & meaning it taboo & all mama wants is to get laid with someone who turns her on & someone that is safe & someone that doesn't feel safe all at the same time...

& that's what depresses mama more than anything. cos those peeps are few & far between.

yours,
ryder

mama likey: charlotte bronte + shane jones

mama's students are reading Light Boxes; mama's students are reading Light Boxes some are tot digging it & some are confused & some are sleeping & some of them missed tiger transit... mama was not tot digging all the academic essays so she gave her kiddies the choice of a creative option. mama asked her students to re-write a scene from Jane Eyre a la Light Boxes to marry Bronte and Jones (sorry, Jones' wife, sorry dead Bronte)...

this is mama's turn-on of the week cos mama likes to laugh just like her balaclavaed babies.

this is what was bornded and mama loves it & mama laughed out loud & it was good.

mama's student's JE
JANE
There is something STRANGE walking the halls here in Thornfield. 
It is probably GRACE POOLE who haunts my dreams like a ghost which vanishes into the night



Rochester says to himself quietly
I do not like this way of life. Secrets cannot be hidden forever. They must come OUT eventually. Nothing can be kept locked away for eternity…or can it?



Grace Poole’s bread pudding recipe:
1. 0% part bread mixed in with 100% gin
2. A bottle of gin
3. Gin flavoring
4. Extract of gin
5. Gin topping
6. A honey gin glaze (substitute gin for the honey)



JANE
I do not like the smell of smoke. It came that night after the scream through Thornfield hall. FIRE! Water followed to douse the flame on Rochester’s bed and then there was darkness again…Rochester left the room to take care of matters on the THIRD FLOOR



Rochester
I never have liked the third floor of my house… maybe I should have it remodeled or better yet destroyed. I hate floors taller than two stories anyway.



Mrs. Fairfax
Whats the big deal? Just a small fire in Rochester’s bed. No problem at all. It happens all the time. You say Jane that you heard a scream? Stop worrying about screams, start worrying when you don’t hear any screams in the night.



A list that fell out of Grace Poole’s pocket
1. Wake up
2. Go to the THIRD floor
3. Drink some gin
4. Drink some gin
5. Drink some gin
6. Drink some gin
7. Drink some gin 
8. Drink some gin
9. Drink some gin
10. Wake up




JANE hates
mirrors. They reflect who I am not. I am not beautiful. I am not Blanche Ingram. I should lock myself away in on the THIRD floor where nobody else resides. But the ghosts of Thornfield.

Turn-Off (girl on girl on girl on girl hate), Turn-On (toe on toe polish)

Kinda like wax on, wax off. Not really.

Evil first: this ridiculous and offensive review of the newest issue of PMS poemmemoirstory on NewPages.com, in which the reviewer can't get past the title of the journal because, I don't know, she's 10 or something. Evidence of our stunning progress as a society: "The allusion to menstruation is a turn-off for men. Many women who don’t already know the magazine don’t take it seriously. One potential reader contacted by this reviewer said she assumes the content has a 'whiny' tone, with poems like those found at a 'bad poetry slam.'" Whoever these people are, they need to get over their hangups about an acronym. This journal is consistently fantastic, diverse, and real. At AWP Atlanta a few years ago, the PMS reading brought the house down. The standing room only, had-to-open-up-the-adjacent-room house. I can assure you, Tanya, that plenty of people, male and female, take this journal quite seriously. The review goes on to actually cite and praise a few pieces from the issue, but always intro-ing that information with clauses like "To its credit" and "despite its problematic name," always a dig snuck in with a compliment as she glosses over these "excellent, serious, non-whiny literary works." (Try not to bang your head against your hard cover copy of Sexual Politics every time this reviewer uses the word "whiny.") I normally love the reviews section of NewPages, but come on. Can we all agree it's a reductive cliche at best to label work by women whiny until proven serious? Sweeping dismissal of talented female writers via the "women are icky" argument. P(M)S Tanya: you aren't invited to "girl talk" for a while.

Sorry, maybe I'm just on my rag or something. My big, bloody, crampy, bloaty rag. Nevermind, I'm not sorry. I want to Donita Sparks this review. No link because if you don't know what I'm referencing, you better ask somebody.

But there's hope. Jezebel is cracking my shit up today. Thanks to them and to Jon Stewart for making me laugh after the outpouring of asshattery from Faux News and other regressive POSs re: some hot pink toenail polish.