the f blog

Real Jenn, Virtual Jenn

2008-02-12T21:11:00.000-08:00

Virtual Assistant Jenn is one of "the latest of many customer friendly innovations at Alaska.com." Real Jenn is not. Here is our conversation...

Whoop it up!

2007-10-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Adbusters has posted my short story "Whooping it Up in the Uncanny Valley" on its web site. It's much easier to read than the PDF I created awhile back. Enjoy!

This reminds me that I need to keep submitting my fiction. Since starting a full-time job, it's been hard to write, nonetheless send pieces out.
[LINK]

Reading at Google

2007-08-15T13:45:00.001-07:00

If my postings on this blog have been scarce lately, it's because I've been working full-time as a copywriter for Google since June. In addition to having far less time for things like blogging, a lot of what I'm working on isn't exactly public at this time.

One of my favorite aspects of working at Google (there are many) is their Authors@ series. Every week, amazing authors of all stripes come and share their work and answer questions. Whereas I'd be hesitant to commit to a reading on a weeknight, I'm eager to spend my lunch hour listening and learning. And in this case, reading!

Last month, I was invited to join She's Such a Geek editors Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders, and fellow contributor (and Googler) Ellen Spertus, for an author event. You can catch this event and the others via Google's Authors@ YouTube channel. Enjoy!

The tune in, check out, read up round up

2007-06-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

If you direct your attention to the upper right-hand corner of this blog, you'll see a brand new widget. It's a jukebox, playing tunes from my friend and former Razorfish colleague, Evan Sornstein's, own music label Dynamophone Records. Evan's got a great ear for melodic, electronic acts. If I were a music critic, I'd do a much better job describing the Dynamophone vibe. Fortunately, I don't have to. Because whenever you come to the fBlog, you can click play, adjust the volume, and hear for yourself. If you like what you hear, please show this small, independent label your support with a purchase or three.

Last month's Maker Faire was incredible in many ways, from the robot wars to the geek-lebrity sightings to the diverse creativity on display in the craft section. But the best part was visiting my friend Meri Brin's booth for her small press Fixed Orifice (that's me, her, and Mark Stramaglia of Wizard Master--speaking of friends making cool music--on the left there). I'm especially fond of the Spirograph t-shirts.

Incidentally, "All Fixed Orifice Press items are hand silkscreened, and created from recycled and salvaged items whenever possible. All items are limited edition - short runs of less than 30 for notebooks, 10 and under for t-shirts."

My first day of work in my brand-new job (rhymes with oogle) was capped by an event at the nearby Computer History Museum, where my friend John Alderman was signing his new book, "Core Memory," with photographer Mark Richards. This book captures the history of computer technology to date in a stunning series of images by Mark, accented by succinct historical summaries by John.

"Core Memory" was edited by my husband, Alan Rapp, whose been making his own splash in the blogosphere. He's now a regular feature of the Chronicle Books blog. In this week's post, he examines the notion of "radical transparency" for book publishing, using the recently announced BLDG BLOG book as an example. Needless to say, this is one feed I am definitely subscribed to.

Introducing Friendly Banner

2007-04-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

On the rare occasion when I have clicked on a banner ad, it's typically been the result of trying to click on a content link and missing. Banner ads tend to be ignorable, at best, obnoxious and distracting at worst. So when given the task of helping create a banner ad campaign for Washington Mutual (or WaMu if you're nasty), through my current role as a copywriter at Avenue A | Razorfish, I was determined to create banner ads that even I would want to click on. In short, a different kind of banner altogether.

The result is "Friendly Banner," which I am proud to introduce here. Simple, funny, and context-savvy, Friendly takes the "suck" out of banner advertising.

Fat
Lost
Blinking problem
Hola (my personal favorite)
Easy money
Naked
Compliments
Kaching!
Refund
Thin
Joint checking
Tiny

And here's Landing Page:
Checking + Savings
ATM Machines
Customer Service
Online Banking
Tax Refund
Via Search

This campaign--which is the brainchild of yours truly and my wonderfully smart and talented collaborator, Associate Creative Director Evan Sornstein--has been a copywriter's dream come true. I've not only gotten to create and develop a wonderful character with a distinct voice, but I've gotten to use humor, and to address the audience with respect for their intelligence and Web-savvy. Wow.

The best part? It's working. I'm can't how well, but let's just say we're not getting angry calls from the client. Friends have emailed to report Friendly Banner sightings around the Web. On top of it all, we're getting wonderful feedback from the blogosphere.

Usermonkey says: "I saw a nicely designed banner ad for WaMu today and actually clicked it. I think the last time I intentionally clicked a banner ad was in 1999." [LINK]

At BrandflakesforBreakfast, the word is: This is great on a few levels:
1. A bank with a sense of humor is a bank that feels human.
2. Acknowledging an ad campaign as an ad campaign takes the edge off the sell.
3. It's entertaining. Copywriting, creative and programming all singing together.
[LINK]

Carol Hiller, on her MySpace blog, wonders, "Is this some craven attempt on the part of a 22-year-old copywriter/Flash developer to buddy up close enough to grab the money I keep under the mattress, for their 82-year-old Chairman of the Board's golden parachute fund?" (Answer: I'm 33, actually. And, you keep money under the mattress?) [LINK]

And Cup of Java writes: "This might be the best landing page I've ever seen...so far." [LINK]

Thanks, bloggers!

Last but in no way least, I want to give credit to the entire creative team at Avenue A | Razorfish, who've contributed their ideas, criticisms, humor, and hard work to this effort: Creative Director Luther Thie, fellow copywriters Kate McCagg and Margo Stern, Flash animators Thomas Lough and Brian Forstat, and associate designer Rhatia Carr, as well as client partner Peter Guagenti and all the wonderful media planners who've worked so hard on this. Incidentally, Avenue A | Razorfish was just named the No. 1 Interactive Agency for 2006 by Advertising Age. Woot!

This is just the beginning. Look for new Friendly Banners and other cool stuff soon.

Oh, and hey, I'm posting this of my own volition. So it's not, you know, WaMu or agency-lawyer approved. Yo.

THIS JUST IN:SmartBiz.com and BrandFlakesForBreakfast.com have published a joint blog post that's all about Friendly! They write: "It's friendly. You'd think that would be common sense in an ad campaign, but look around. Plenty of ads talk down to their customers, yell and scream to their customers, or even worse - bore their customers to death. Friendly wins." [LINK]

Gursky documents North Korean gymnastics

2007-04-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

How to desribe the mind-blowing, exactingly choreographed, monumental-scale human spectacle that is North Korean gymnastics? I have only caught an astonished glimpse of its true glory on a pirated DVD of lamentable quality bought off of eBay for no small fee. Even so, words fail me. But the photographer Andreas Gursky is sharing this off-limits experience, through his megamegapixel, large-format images. I caught a glimpse of the work in the last issue of Wallpaper.

As the world's most collectable living photographer, Andreas Gursky has photographed a wide array of scenes: from the worker bees at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, seen from high above, to a remarkable neutrino observatory in Japan (Kamiokande, 2007) Now the photographer has captured North Korea's incredible Arirang Festival, featured as a spectacular gatefold in this month's issue of Wallpaper*, where 70,000 choreographed performers entertain 50,000 rapturous spectators.

Can't wait until they come to a gallery near me

Gursky!
Gursky!!
Gursky!!!
Gursy!!!!

Get the full scoop here.

2007-03-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

My interview with Lee Gutkind, author of the new book, Almost Human: Making Robots Think, appears on Wired News today -- without a byline for some reason. Lee's book examines the subculture behind academic robotics. If that sounds boring it's not. As I write in the introduction, " He uncovers a surprising amount of action -- from the RoboCup, in which Sony Aibos modified by rival teams compete in soccer, to the barren landscape of the Atacama Desert in Chile, where roboticists put a prototypical Mars rover named Zoë to the test."

Here's a snip:

Wired News: A number of people in your book don't sleep, don't bathe. Is there something about robotics that appeals to this personality type, or does the work itself take over?

Lee Gutkind: You can't just do this for eight or 16 hours and walk away. Even debugging a program will take a whole day. So I think it takes a patient but obsessive personality. Don't forget also, it's a very male-oriented culture. There's not a lot of joking, not a lot of flirting, because there's no one to joke and flirt with. You're flirting with your robot is what you're doing.

WN: Although the field is overwhelmingly male-dominated, in your book we do meet a number of highly accomplished female roboticists. How are women influencing robotics?

Gutkind: Just look at Manuela Veloso. It took a woman in a sea of men to get the men to start talking to one another. She gave them a game to play, and she triggered off their testosterone and set them in a competition that brought them together. Would they have come together in a room at MIT or the White House to share their code? No, but to play a game and beat the pants off somebody from Stanford, that's another matter entirely. Similarly, Nathalie Cabrol, the NASA representative, got the scientists and the roboticists to work together and get a robot to do science.

[LINK]

A time for shout outs

2007-03-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

For some time, I've been using this blog space to toot my own horn, whenever I've had a story published or a pressing thought. But right now my life and my work are in a period of transition, so there's not much to report. At the same time, friends of mine are behind some incredible creative and provocative work. So I thought I'd take a moment to brag about them for a change.

My husband Alan Rapp (via Chronicle Books) and Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG have put together an afternoon of talks on landscape and architecture that should prove to be esoteric and engaging.

As Geoff writes on his blog:

I'm excited, honored, flattered, stoked, etc., even slightly stunned, to announce that BLDGBLOG and Chronicle Books have teamed up to host an afternoon of talks about landscape and architecture at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, from 2:30-5:00pm on Saturday, April 7th.

The line-up ... includes John Bela & Matthew Passmore, of Rebar; Erik Davis, author of The Visionary State; Lisa Iwamoto, of both IwamotoScott Architecture and UC-Berkeley; myself, against all better judgement and in contrast to last time; and Walter Murch, three-time Oscar winner and co-author, with Michael Ondaatje, of the excellent and highly recommended book, The Conversations.

[LINK]

Our friends Scott Andreae and Karen Lee, of Ilo Design, have just returned from Sri Lanka, where they documented the lives and tools of traditional fisherfolk. They've posted a beautiful video, "Malu Malu," capturing this way of life on their Web site.

This video is the amalgamation of footage shot over a period of four months from October 2006 to February 2007.

“malu malu” is the cry of the fish sellers as they ride through the villages selling the fresh catch from crates off the backs of their bicycles and scooters.

[LINK]

A couple years ago at the Yoga Loft, where I spend an astonishing amount of my free time standing on my head, I ran into an old friend, whom I hadn't seen since high school. She's Dr. Selby Wynn Schwartz of UC Berkeley these days, and she's just published what an academic paper on drag ballet.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a drag ballet company formed in New York in 1974, currently perform the pinkest, most tulle-and-toe-shoe of classical ballets to international acclaim. The company's unique double heritage - derived in part from Charles Ludlam's edgy gay performance tactics, and in part from channeling the spirit of iconic Russian prima ballerinas - has sparked a highly conscious, very camp version of self-performed identity. On their nearly constant worldwide tours, the Ballets Trockadero continue to be preservationists of historic ballets as well as revolutionary advocates of diversity in dance.

Damn it's fun to be an an academic.
[LINK]

How does Lisa Hazen do it? In the past year she moved across country, with a very young son, launched her own Web design business, and has become an in-demand Mommy Blogger extraordinaire. Already a published author, she's working on a book/organizer for busy moms. One of her latest work projects struck me as especially fascinating and challenging. She created the Web site for the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Go Lisa!
[LINK]

Study shows FAM to be as effective as the pill

2007-02-24T17:45:00.000-08:00

In January, I published a piece in Wired News about the fact that women are increasingly using online tools to monitor their basic fertility signs -- whether to get pregnant or to avoid pregnancy. So I was fascinated (and relieved) to to read that the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), as it's called, has been shown to be as effective as using the pill. From an article in MedPage Today:

A natural family-planning method based on fertility self-monitoring may be as effective as hormonal contraception but only when used correctly, researchers said.

The natural method produced an unintended pregnancy rate of 0.43% per year for couples who abstained from sex during fertile times, reported Petra Frank-Herrmann, M.D., of the University of Heidelberg, and colleagues, online in Human Reproduction.

[LINK]

On an unrelated note, for those who missed my recent She's Such a Geek reading in January, purple-haired girl geek wonder Liz Henry blogged the entire event live. You can read her blow-by-blow here.

A night of Weird Religion at Hotel Utah

2007-02-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Please join me and writers Erik Davis and Sean McLain Brown, as well as Patrick Cress’s Blicker, in celebrating the release of Madonna of the Toast by Buzz Poole at Hotel Utah on Saturday, March 10. Doors at 8:00, readings at 9:00 followed by music; sliding scale suggested donation $5-$15 ($15 gets you a copy of Madonna of the Toast).

What is this wonderfully titled book all about? According to the press release:

Madonna of the Toast documents what happens when religious and secular icons appear on objects such as pancakes, potato chips and cows. From highly publicized examples of these phenomena (Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese) to previously unpublicized instances of these visitations (Jar Jar Binks on a shed door, Jesus on a mandolin), all of the objects featured in the book exemplify the power of visual communication.

Buzz Poole continues to document the phenomenon of icons appearing in banal objects on his Madonna of the Toast blo g, which has already gotten mention at Wired News and elsewhere.

I'll be reading from my short story Agatha, Agatha, which was inspired by the tragic tale of martyr St. Agatha, though mostly it's just about tits. According to this unfortunate girl's Wikipedia entry:

having rejected the amorous advances of a Roman prefect, she was persecuted by him for her Christian faith. Among the tortures she underwent was the cutting off of her breasts. She is therefore often depicted iconographically carrying her excised breasts on a platter.

It's especially an honor to read alongside my friend Erik Davis. Erik is the author of TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information and, most recently, Visionary State, edited by my husband Alan Rapp and featuring the stunning photography of Michael Rauner.

Meet the she-geeks!

2007-01-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

Join me and three other she-geeks as we read from the newly-published anthology "She's Such a Geek," edited by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders. The book is a collection of first-person stories by women working in tech, science, game design, and other male-dominated "geeky" fields like tech law and even comic book writing.

Check out the blog at http://www.shessuchageek.com!

February 1, 2007 @ 7 PM
Modern Times Book Store
888 Valencia St., San Francisco
w/ Jenn Shreve, Ellen Spertus, Corie Ralston and Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Raves for the book:

New York Times Technology reporter Katie Hafner called the book "exhilarating, hilarious, inspiring and infuriating." Xeni Jardin from BoingBoing says she takes "great joy in the she-nerd spirit evident throughout this book." Kim Stanley Robinson calls the book "sharp,
interesting, and funny." And Ladies Home Journal listed it in the "our favorites" list for December 2006.

Rating Richter's Scale

2007-01-21T17:01:00.000-08:00

My review of Susan Elizabeth Hough's new biography "Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man" appears in the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review today. As I discuss in the piece, "The Trekkie nudist behind the Richter Scale," I was disappointed by this rather dry read because Richter's life itself was so fascinating.

Richter, it turns out, was also an avid nudist, a frustrated but prolific poet, a Trekkie, a devoted backpacker profiled in the pages of Field and Stream, and a philandering spouse who was quite possibly in love with his sister and whose globe-trotting wife may have been a lesbian. While that may not sound all that unusual to the modern-day San Franciscan, keep in mind that the guy was born in 1900. ...

Hough, a seismologist herself, has thoroughly researched her subject and done her best to delve into areas where scientists fear to tread: psychology, emotions, speculation. As biographies go, she covers a lot of ground. Alas, she struggles to shape and organize her findings into a compelling story.

Still I learned quite a bit from Hough's book, including this fun piece of trivia: Although most people still refer to the Richter Scale when there's an earthquake, seismologists actually use the the moment magnitude scale developed in 1979. Talk about dry! It's no surprise that "Richter" stuck.
[LINK]

Memoirville

2007-01-16T13:44:00.000-08:00

Memoirville, which is part of Smith Magazine, has published my memoir piece "Loaded." It's about meeting my father and grandmother for the first time several years ago. Here's an excerpt:

At the age of 86, my grandmother has been sober fewer years than there are fingers on her hands. As we head to the restaurant, it becomes clear she shouldt be driving. We bob and weave at 45 miles per hour down the Interstate. She can’t remember where we’re going. Somehow this is the exit’s fault.

During dinner, I notice she’s wrapping all-you-can-eat pork chops into napkins and tucking them neatly into her purse. Hesitantly, I raise the question. “I hear you, uh, killed someone?” I am touched by the gentleness of her refusal, so unlike a hard-drinking, gun-toting Texas grandma. “Oh, let’s not talk about that. Those were terrible, terrible times.”
Although I am a journalist by trade, I have never been one to prod where prodding isn’t wanted. Each of us here–my brother, my father, my grandmother, and me, slouching in uncomfortable molded-plastic chairs over rapidly cooling heaps of mashed potatoes, carved turkey breast, and boiled veggies–each of us has our dark places, the ones we don’t like to visit. When we do go there, we understand it is better to travel alone. And yet, this lack of a past has left me full of great gaping holes. Amazing in retrospect, my certainty that answers would somehow make me whole.

[LINK]

Want porn? Try a Christian Web site

2007-01-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

My latest piece for Wired News exposes some loopholes in commerce solutions aimed at small, niche online retailers. My internet cache is filthy from researching this piece. From the article:

Looking for the sexually explicit rap CD 2 Live Crew Is What We Are or the sexually graphic Jenna From All Angles DVD? Try CD Gospel. BooksForChristians might not be the first place you'd go to buy Fatherhood for Gay Men: An Emotional and Practical Guide to Becoming a Gay Dad, but there you'll find it -- on sale no less. ...

Giggle factor aside, the incongruities between the niche markets these websites target and the range of products they actually sell highlights a problem most small online retailers face. It's easy enough to set up a storefront selling a vast array of entertainment products, but it's extremely difficult to manage and market such a site.

How does Fuck This Book wind up on Christian Discipleship Center? The better question, it turns out, is how could it not?

[LINK]

Lean, green buzz machine

2007-01-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

The book Green Design, for which I wrote the introduction and and an essay, has been getting some nice press that I thought I'd share. Worldchanging interviewed the editor and my pal Buzz Poole about the book, and The Green Guide ran a positive review. Here's a snip from that:

As Jenn Shreve notes in the introduction, green design goes beyond the lifespan of the product to build items that can be disassembled so their materials can be reused. LEGOs, a nearly indestructible toy, are an apt metaphor for this concept. "Every LEGO brick since the first [produced] can be used with every other brick, and in dozens of ways within a model," writes Dominic Muren, making them a perfect toy to pass on to other children for constant reuse. They are an emblem of "a building system where there is no waste," from a company that pays its workers a living wage. And if you ever wondered where the name came from, Muren has tracked it down to a contraction of the Danish words leg godt ("play well").

But what was really exciting was walking into Urban Outfitters in San Francisco during the pre-Christmas rush and seeing the book--piles and piles of the book, actually--on the main display table as you walked into the store. That was about as close to feeling like a rock star as I'll probably ever get in my life, and it was great!

"You've got mail, and your period"

2006-12-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

My latest story for Wired News is out today. It's about all the nifty techy ways women have to track their fertility signs. I first learned about these sites more than four years ago, when I was trying to avoid having a "red wedding." I've been using CyclesPage.co m ever since to keep track of the basics -- menstruation and estimated ovulation. It's a great example of technology that truly empowers women. From the piece:

Women hoping to become pregnant are transforming themselves into busy data machines, tracking everything from waking temperature to moods and various bodily fluids. A cottage industry of websites feeds the obsession by offering online charts and e-mail services to alert women on their fertile days.

Many of the tools for tracking the female reproductive cycle are based on a 50-year-old technique, the Fertility Awareness Method, or FAM, that is natural, scientifically accurate and decidedly low-tech.
Now, FAM-inspired websites let women record, chart and analyze everything from their menstrual cycles to the color and texture of cervical discharges. Likewise, several free downloads turn PDAs into fertility-tracking devices.

[LINK]

Now online: "Whooping it Up in the Uncanny Valley"

2006-12-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

Adbuster's Nov/Dec issue is off the stands. They've given me permission to post a PDF of my short story from the issue to my Web site. Apologies for the large size of the PDF; I wanted to make sure the small type was readable. You can read a little bit about the inspiration for the story here, and listen to a partial podcast of the story by a fan here.
[LINK]

"Saving the World Without Hippies"

2006-11-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

My review of Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century appears in Wired News today.

Here's an excerpt:

A successor to the Whole Earth Catalog, this hefty guide is organized around the same categories as the blog -- Stuff, Shelter, Cities, Community, Business, Politics, Planet -- with an introduction by Al Gore and contributions from Cory Doctorow, Kevin Kelly, Bruce Sterling and many other experts. Each section contains an abundance of ideas and solutions aimed at helping us mere mortals make more sustainable choices ...
What emerges is a comprehensive, cohesive vision for sustainability that feels perfectly in sync with the times. Out with the muumuus, Bucky domes and brown rice; in with the Hug Shirt, renovated factory lofts and New Rice for Africa. If Worldchanging is any indicator, the new green movement is globally aware, technically savvy, design conscious and, above all, optimistic. Or as Newsweek put it earlier this year: "Environmentalism is hot."

In other words, I highly recommend this book!
[LINK]

6 words. 1 memoir.

2006-11-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

My pals over at Smith Magazine are putting on a six-word memoir contest!

From the site:

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. The result was "For sale: baby shoes, never used." Could be the title of your autobiography, or maybe your epitaph.

This strikes me as an excellent way to kill time over the holidays.

[LINK]

Podcast of "Whooping it Up in the Uncanny Valley"

2006-11-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

Adbusters hasn't yet posted my short story "Whooping it Up in the Uncanny Valley" to its Web site, but I just stumbled across a podcast of it. A podcaster who goes by the name X-Sister has recorded his abridged reading of my story and set it to music. While it would have been nice for X-Sister to get my permission first (ahem), I'm enjoying the results too much to get up in a wad about it. Enjoy!
[LINK]

I'm Such a Geek!

2006-11-01T13:05:00.000-08:00

The blog for the upcoming Seal Press anthology She's Such a Geek is now live. From the inaugural post:

Welcome to the official blog for She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology and Other Nerdy Stuff. Published by Seal Press, the book is an essay collection by and about women who have lived, worked and played in the male-dominated realms of technical and cultural geekdom. Edited by Annalee Newitz (that’s me!) and Charlie Anders, the book includes amazing essays by female scientists, engineers, bloggers, videogame designers, gamers, Harry Potter fans (of course), and policy wonks.

Katie Hafner of the New York Times calls She’s Such a Geek “exhilarating, hilarious, inspiring and infuriating.” BoingBoing’s Xeni Jardin says she “take[s] great joy in the she-nerd spirit evident throughout this book.” Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars, calls it “sharp, interesting and funny.” And Ellen Ullman, author of The Bug, dubbed it “a delight, a challenge, and a call to arms.” W00t!

My contribution to the book, Geek Interrupted, is about how I came to science and technology later in life following a decidedly anti-science, anti-feminist fundamentalist Christian education. So please check out the blog and buy the book. And check back for information on upcoming girl geek events.
[LINK]

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile

2006-10-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

"I know I have not posted in quite awhile due to personal training, appearances and DVD slaes skyrocketing, but I dod want everyone to know - I AM STILL A VEGAN NUT!" [LINK]

This guy says he hasn't blogged in awhile because he's busy becoming a full-time blogger. [LINK]

"work has rurned out to be a curse and blessing, more money but I work with a bunch of alcoholics" [LINK]

"I've been busy But not much has been happening in my life other than working." [LINK]

"The reason...extreme working. " [LINK]

"I got promoted to an officer in my World of Warcraft guild "Trick Model" on Illidan. "[LINK]

"It must be because I haven't done much around the house to brag about! The place still looks the same, so this must mean that I am at least maintaining the mess instead of adding to it. I still have a piles everywhere." [LINK]

"Yesterday I wrote a heavy-handed piece about individualism and the merits of self-sufficiency, but I decided not to post it because it was not consistent with the cheerful character that is Cooper." (Warning: scary photo.) [LINK]

"I just don't enjoy it as much as I convince myself I do" [LINK]

"I tried to post, I really did. I even have some started and saved as drafts. But, I didn't feel that I had much to say. I'm not pregnant, I'm without faith, life sucks, job is starting to feel stagnant, Sean and I are bickering back and forth for the past two weeks about the stupidest things." [LINK]

"there isn't anything new about the adoption just the same old 'waiting game' " [LINK]

"I just haven't found the need to express my thoughts for the whole world to see lately." [LINK]

"I've been honestly overwhelmed by trying to keep up with my two language courses" [LINK]

"Mainly because I haven't taken the time for my mental to be at ease allowing my thoughts to flow." [LINK]

"I think a post I wrote a couple weeks ago was too big and clogged up one of the tubes leading to my "own personal internet." Fortunately I just bought some eDrano, so things should be fine now." [LINK]

"mostly because my internet sucks ass up here in the apt." [LINK]

"I've been in a state of flux." [LINK]

"once again my world zoomed out of control." [LINK]

"I feel like I haven't posted in awhile even though my last post was only on Sunday." [LINK]

"Wow it seems like every other post I'm apologizing for not posting in awhile... hmmm... anywho... sorry I haven't posted in awhile: have been busy." [LINK]

"So, I got paid twenty bucks to write this. " [LINK]

"I forgot my password..." [LINK]

"bc I knew my next post would address the current war in Lebanon" [LINK]

"I've been busy shooting soccer teams." [LINK]

"Sometimes it can be exhaustingly overwhelming to say what you think, which is why I haven't posted in awhile." [LINK]

"I haven't had the internet and I have been drunk or busy alot. I kind of did a minor (for me) crash and burn when I found out Selissa was fucking one of my friends (after we broke up). The night I walked in on them I had just spent about 200 dollars on boxing gear for this guy, because he wanted me to teach him how to fight. Anyway, everyone has something to mope about. Truth is, there really can be no rules for this sort of thing." [LINK]

"I've been really bummed. I went shopping" [LINK]

"Both lazy & busy or just busy being lazy. " [LINK]

"more than the usual laziness was involved" [LINK]

"I would like to blame it on the excess of greasy iftaar goodies that reek havoc on any sane person's digestive system, but alas, it is my own laziness" [LINK]

"I was hoping to make a celebratory declaration about the new oven's arrival. The good news is, it did finally arrive on Wednesday afternoon. The bad news is, it's been a nightmare ever since it got here!" [LINK]

"I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I've been so busy, but hopefully we'll catch up on things. Anyway, my great-grandmother died today." [LINK]

"I had a really bad end to my summer" [LINK]

"I've been very depressed since Ginger died." [LINK]

"We are on 'vacation.'" [LINK]

"I have felt that I have nothing much that I want to write about. This is bad not because I delude myself to think that anyone is depending on me writing in my little blog but because the introspection that I do while blogging is good for me." [LINK]

"I had a bout of food poisoning, from McDonald's of all places." [LINK]

Scouts, college football ... [LINK]

"In a nutshell, I ran horribly in August." [LINK]

"as you know I had to send in my computer and it hasn't come back yet therefore I haven't been on the computer as much. For some reason though, I am actually kind of thinking of this as a good thing. " [LINK]

"I've been sick for the past couple weeks and haven't really felt like mood themeing." [LINK]

"I keep thinking 'I'll wait one more day until there's some news and THEN I'll post an update.' But all those 'one more day's end up with little info." [LINK]

"I've just been so damn busy at work, and tired, and sick, and pregnant." [LINK]

"I was planning on working more on my chibi characters. " [LINK]

"I've been jousting with a computer virus for the last several days." [LINK]

"I haven't posted in awhile (that's kinda self-evident, but don't all bloggers make a point to say something like "i haven't blogged in awhile" or "sorry, i've been busy" when they haven't blogged in a while...i am just following the blog rules!)." [LINK]

"I haven't posted in awhile and still really don't have much to say. " [LINK]

The Joys and Horrors of Cooking

2006-10-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

My husband and I were having dinner with our friends Bart and Bonnie recently, when we started talking about some of the crazy recipes published in old copies of The Joy of Cooking. And wouldn't you know it? Bonnie had a vintage copy on hand.

Bonnie is the co-founder of the awesome ethical food blog, Ethicurean, and has recounted what followed in a post:

Alan went straight for the opossum recipe. If possible, the home chef is to trap this nocturnal animal and feed it on milk and cereal for 10 days before attempting to parboil, roast, and eat it, perhaps with some turnip greens. Okaaaaaay!

[LINK]

Bonnie also has also written a terrific investigative article in today's San Francisco Chronicle about how industrial meat farms are trying to pass off their products as sustainable. She writes:

My husband ordered the pork chop, which was moist and bursting with meaty flavor. Unfamiliar with White Marble Farms, I had the house-made spaghetti -- and took home a menu to research the company.
What I discovered surprised me. White Marble Farms is a brand of Sysco, North America's largest food services distributor. The pork comes from Cargill Meat Solutions, America's second-largest meat processor.
It is bred to ensure tender meat marbled with just enough flavor-boosting fat. But these pigs never see a pasture. They're raised indoors in confinement barns, just the way most commercial pork is produced, except in smaller numbers. Aside from genetics, they're conventional pigs wearing a lip gloss of sustainability.

This, at a restaurant that prides itself in selling sustainable meat. It's an astonishing piece.
[LINK]

Enfants horribles

2006-10-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

My husband Alan Rapp just sent me a link to an upcoming exhibition at the Yossi Milo Gallery in New York, featuring the work of Tierney Gearon. According to the announcement:

The subject of The Mother Project is the interaction between the artist, her mother and her own children. The photographs are personal studies of her family, yet raise larger issues of aging, mental illness, and the complicated dynamic of the mother-child relationship.

Gearon is not the only photographer whose work exploring the darker side of family life and childhood has caught my eye. As one who has tried and failed many times to map the commonly accepted visions of childhood-as-Eden upon my own blunt, ugly memories of youth, I have also been drawn to the work of painter Gottfried Helnwein, whose violent, grotesque paintings of children strike me as exaggerations in the service of an uncomfortable truth: childhood is a precarious, vulnerable, and often brutal time.

Helnwein manages to capture both the fantasy of children, what we want them to be -- beautiful, pure, and soft -- as well as the fragility that renders them vulnerable and helpless. (Particularly disturbing are Helnwein's depictions of babies being presented patriotically to Nazis.) His children are dark fantasies. The painterly gestures in these portraits grant the children a compassionate gloss of perfection and distance, even as the stark realism (more in some paintings and less in others) renders them (and us) inseparable from the horror that grips them by the throat.

In photographer Jill Greenberg's controversial series "End Times," which my husband recently reviewed for photo-eye Booklist, she captures the raw anguish of young children. Each portrait gives us a wailing child shot against a simple background and cast in an ethereal light, an approach that has the effect of isolating the sheer torment and sorrow that, however fleeting, is being felt by the child.

Like Helnwein, Greenberg is creating an exaggeration in the service of the truth, which for her is political. Each of the portraits is accompanied by phrases that will be familiar to anyone who's followed politics over the past six years: "Rapture Index," "Shock," "Awe," "Torture," "Spin," and "Nucular (sic)" are a few. Still I'm tempted to say the evening news tie-in trivializes the work, ties it too closely to the present and not with the larger, existential questions.

As Alan wrote in his critique:

For my taste, the titles play too simplistically, detracting from what could otherwise be disturbing yet enigmatic imagery. The best pronouncements against such overwhelming power have to employ more subtlety than their targets do. In using an explicitly political context for these anxious portraits, Greenberg may have inadvertently set the critique to round on her: if these children represent our helpless society in an oppressive environment, then some authoritarian fearmonger in either case is causing the distress. "Manipulator," meet "the Decider"; you may have found more in common than you wished.

The children photographed by Loretta Lux, on the other hand, are eerily blank, scrubbed of flaws, and removed from their setting/context, save for a few set pieces. Here, too, we see the painterly touches -- light, color, shadows all exaggerated in the service of the message. And what is that message? In giving us what we want -- perfect children, perfect childhood -- Lux reveals the inherent contradiction with that desire. Perfection is inhuman and therefore repulsive.

I suspect most will dismiss these portraits of children as "disturbing," at best. But for me, I find them oddly comforting. I spent much of my adult life comparing the predominant societal fantasy of childhood as a carefree, happy time with the reality that my own early years were full of violence, lies, and hardship. By presenting us with the brutal realities of childhood in a beautiful way, these portraits embody that schism. In them I catch a glimpse of my own truth.

Whooping It Up in Adbusters Magazine

2006-09-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm thrilled to announce that my short story "Whooping it Up in the Uncanny Valley" has been published in the current, "Apocalypse Soon" issue of Adbusters Magazine.

The inspiration for this piece came a couple years ago from a New Yorker article about robotics. In the field, there's a term called "the uncanny valley." Briefly explained: when a person encounters an artificial being, they are more likely to empathize with it if it has distinctly human characteristics. However, if the artificial being is too human, revulsion takes the place of empathy. The Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori termed this sudden dip in empathy the "uncanny valley." (This is one of my favorite articles on the phenomenon.)

As I read the article, I started to wonder what it would be like if the uncanny valley was an actual place. Who would live there? And what would it take to finally push them to the point of revulsion? When I started to create this fictional place, I found it was not all that different from the gated, suburban communities many live in now. My nameless protagonist wakes up one morning to find himself disgusted with his life. The story is his attempt to cut through the unreality of his life and finally live and feel like a real human being again.

The piece is on newsstands now. I believe it will be online soon.