The tone of the letter just seems mean somehow, though.
Whatever the tone, if you're genuinely interested in someone's well-being, there's no reason whatsoever to express your concerns in an open letter.
Erik Loomis approved of Sinead, the commenters disagreed.
And here is the Miley Cyrus video Wrecking Ball which, partly based on "Nothing Compares 2 U" inspired SO to write her letter. I also read an interview with MC.
"Nothing Compares 2 U" to "Wrecking Ball" in twenty years. Is this progress and an improvement for taste and women.
And get offa my lawn.
Perhaps the continual use of the word "prostitute" and synonyms?
I was tentative in the OP because the letter's getting such widespread applause elsewhere.
I like Sinead O Conner, but anything is an improvement over Nothing Compares to You.
I didn't think her tone in the letter was going to be persuasive to Miley. Miley will have to live it to believe it. Hopefully she is getting good financial advice now.
Hopefully she is getting good financial advice now.
You would think that one advantage of having a former pop star as a parent is that they could offer some practical advice, like that.
The link in the OP is to an article titled "Austin Kiddie Limits keeps the little ones occupied at ACL Fest 2013." Not the right link, I suspect.
Hopefully she is getting good financial advice now.
You would think that one advantage of having a former pop star as a parent is that they could offer some practical advice, like that.
Miley Cyrus has successfully trolled the entire United States and is twerking laughing all the way to the bank. She does not appear to me to be dumb or exploited.
7: Hush. It seems like a perfectly nice event.
Also, Sinead's preferred outcome is preachy.
If the problem is that Miley's sexuality is a valuable commodity being distributed by powerful men who get most of the income from it, then there are more solutions than the one Sinead proposes. Sinead says don't sell it all, depriving Miley of her portion. The other option could be for Miley to take more control of the distribution and use her monopoly to demand more of the income stream.
Sinead's preferred outcome is preachy.
Sinead's only mode of discourse is self-righteous preachiness, and has been so for as long as I've been familiar with her.
Here is the Miley Cyrus Rolling Stone interview, Sept 27, I read yesterday.
I try to keep informed.
I would read this as O'Connor being a sincerely well-wishing thoughtless asshole -- that is, she believes what she's saying and thinks it should help Cyrus in her decisionmaking, but isn't much at the non-enraging communication skills (see, e.g., tearing up a picture of the Pope on SNL.) And that a reason for doing it publicly is that what's going on with Cyrus is a public thing that affects other women in the media world shaped by Cyrus's behavior, and so she wants to communicate to the world that she thinks there's a problem here.
My guess is that she's wrong about Cyrus being particularly exploited, and that she's doing just fine, and that heaven knows a vulgar dance routine isn't an important driver of unfortunately sexualized images of women in the media, but I haven't got a lot of basis for that. (I should really look at a video just to have a referent for 'twerk'. I can't imagine that it's all that different from any other kind of gyrating.)
I realized the other day that when Miley Cyrus does that wink-plus-tongue thing she looks kinda like the Toxic Avenger.
but isn't much at the non-enraging communication skills (see, e.g., tearing up a picture of the Pope on SNL.)
I wonder what (if anything) she could have done to better wake up the world to the Catholic Church's pedophilia problem.
I'm not actually disapproving here, I'm just saying that her approach to publicizing an issue is consistently enraging rather than conciliatory. Sometimes that's effective and a good thing, sometimes it's not.
The executives aren't making that much money!
I mean put differently whatever is going on with Miley Cyrus she is not being financially exploited by "powerful men." She's pretty much totally in charge of her own financial success and has her thumb on her label, etc, not the other way around.
"Ladies " to "Material Girl" in twenty years. Is this progress and an improvement for taste and women.
"Ladies of the Canyon" to "Material Girl" in twenty years. Is this progress and an improvement for taste and women.
I haven't seen the video in question, but can someone explain why the country decided to have a collective fainting fit over it?
I mean, "MTV airs video of half-naked women dancing suggestively": has this really never happened before?
Rumours to this stuff is 37 years. I bet there are women here who have better taste.
Terry Richardson, who directed the wrecking ball video, is an A#1 creep with a capital C. But he seems to prey on vulnerable girls, and Miley Cyrus doesn't seem to fit that frame. Still, knowing he's behind it makes the video much creepier than it would otherwise be.
Hmm. It starts off okay, but deteriorates. As mother to two teenage girls who will metaphorically kick the shit out of anyone who indulges in slut-shaming, accusing them of prostitution (of their bodies or their talents) would not go down well. (They think Miley can wear what the fuck she likes and dance however the fuck she wants, and that the only problem is that she was doing these things with Robin Thicke.)
If Sinead really thinks that she wrote that partly in the spirit of motherliness ... well, I would suggest to her that she could have predicted it would start an argument. And that style of communication is, I suppose, quite a common parental trait, but I've always found it to be fucking pointless, and try to avoid it.
The problem with Miley is that while her photoshoots are getting increasingly lewd, her music remains comfortably in the mainstream.
In my open letter to Miley Cyrus, I will recommend that she cut an album with Naked City.
20: Srsly. The entire I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got album is great.
23 -- it's because she was an insanely dominant star for kids for years before taking this turn. It's like Captain Kangaroo turned into Peaches. OK not really but I just wanted to say that.
Anyhow, MC was able to do what she did artistically precisely because she's very financially powerful and can dictate her own terms, not the reverse. Sinead is an idiot.
I've watched a lot of Hannah Montana in my time. I prefer the new Miley.
23: I haven't seen the video in question
I hadn't either until just now -- McManus provides a link in 2. This isn't about the twerking performance at music video awards shindig, which I hadn't realized. That video is ... surprising to me. Is full nakedness normal these days?
Anyway, I don't feel the need to school Sinead O'Connor on her choice of response: MC cited SO's song as inspiration, and if someone produced a softcore porn piece and cited *you* as her foremother, you might be annoyed too.
Also, the link in the OP now goes to the headiline "Austin Kiddie Limits keeps the little ones occupied at ACL Fest 2013" and a picture of two year olds playing the bongos. The two year olds probably aren't slut-shaming.
Also, apparently SO has come forth with a second letter to MC.
Is full nakedness normal these days?
Not as normal as I'd like it to be.
Miley needs to be careful, as being photographed topless is related to decapitation of statues.
(Maybe not safe for work, if your workplace has a thing about perky metal breasts.)
I am not terribly informed about it but I really like what Miley Cyrus is doing. I suppose it's exploitative in the same way that "gay chicken" is exploitative -- she exploits her audience for her own amusement. O'Connor perhaps wishes she had the idea twenty years ago.
23 -- Honestly? I think the main problem is that neither the tongue-out twerking dance nor the Wrecking Ball video are actually sexy, so they just make people uncomfortable. I have no idea if she's doing this on purpose, but it's certainly interesting.
if your workplace has a thing about perky metal breasts
I don't know about a "thing," per se, but I honestly would not be surprised to find perky metal breasts popping up in one of our projects. My boss often seems highly suggestible, so maybe I can change my desktop to a Metropolis still and force the issue.
37: In my opinion, the images are hott, both in spite of and because she is trying deliberately to be unsexy. Her form is inherently attractive, and will be no matter how she poses or what type of face she makes.
That's what makes it interesting for me and also what makes me think that these images -- unlike most nude or semi-nude photographs -- are quite far from being self-exploitative. She's making absolutely no effort to please the camera, and does not look helpless or particularly in need of anything. People are willing to pay her to do whatever she wants in front of a camera, and she is taking advantage of that.
nor the Wrecking Ball video are actually sexy
Of course the video is actually sexy.
7/32: Oops. OTOH, guess where I'll be this weekend.
37: neither the tongue-out twerking dance nor the Wrecking Ball video are actually sexy, so they just make people uncomfortable. I have no idea if she's doing this on purpose, but it's certainly interesting.
Oooh, maybe MC is subtly engineering a reverse double kow-tow (or whatever that figure-skating term is): she's, like, deliberately making us notice how unpleasant her performances are.
39: because she is trying deliberately to be unsexy.
Really? She is?
I'm having trouble seeing this.
Also, of course she's sometimes trying to be sexy, and sometimes not. Sometimes she's fucking with her audience.
I don't think she's some sort of idiot savant feminist. But I'm generally on Team Miley.
The deliberately unsexy thing was at least plausible in reference to her VMA performance and the music video for that song, but makes absolutely no sense at all in reference to Wrecking Ball.
"Ladies of the Canyon" to "Material Girl" in twenty years.
Well, yeah
37:because she is trying deliberately to be unsexy.
I don't claim to know what is sexy or other or younger people.
She's making absolutely no effort to please the camera, and does not look helpless or particularly in need of anything.
C'mon, I think what she looks like in the "Wrecking Ball" video or the VMA show does go a step or two beyond "not demure." And goes beyond "Material Girl"
And no, I very much did not like Jagger's antics 60 years ago.
"Is this progress and an improvement for taste and women."
I meant it. Explain it to me.
Tell me what will be the next step, for MC's young followers.
She's making absolutely no effort to please the camera
Not to hammer it in, but: really? Are you serious? You are text, after all.
29.1: it's like you're bending over backwards to avoid linking to Miss Piggy. I mean, maybe you are, but fuck that.
As far as the rest of it goes, I have this horrible feeling that we've all wandered into a prolonged psychotic delusion of Camille Paglia's. I guess I can just go read Emily Dickinson's letters or something; there's always a copy lying around somewhere. It is impossible to hear the couple of good tracks on "i do not want..." from inside the Pagliagehirn, though.
29, 30: OK, that explains it. I'd never heard of her before this, although I was vaguely aware that Hannah Montana was a popular kids' show.
Parsimon, go watch the VMA performance again. It's a complete parody of MTV-style "sexiness". If it had been Margaret Cho or Sarah Silverman or Melissa McCarthy doing it, everybody would get it. I've read an interview about the tongue-out thing and her response was basically that she has been photographed everywhere she went in public for most of her life and she hated the constant fake smiling for cameras so she decided to do something ridiculous instead.
This is the best explanation for why Miley is always sticking out her tongue.
Also note they have very different directors. The "We Can't Stop" video was directed by a woman, and the "Wrecking Ball" one by a rapey man with a thing for teenagers. The point of view of the videos are very different.
40
Well, maybe it's sexier if you watch the whole thing. I thought the tight close-up was lovely, but when she started licking the sledgehammer I just felt embarrassed for her and stopped watching.
I don't really know what it is about these performances that make them seem so awkward (to me at least). I'm probably more responsive to conventional sexual imagery than I'd like to admit. The whole thing reminds me of the "sexy" dance fail in Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York, except MC is conventionally beautiful.
That said, I really dislike all of the criticism she's been getting. Her sexual self-presentation is just one iteration of what women in entertainment do all the time, she's no fundamentally worse for women than any of them IMO.
For example, the only thing that makes this even remotely sexy is that she's 20 years old and 110 pounds. It's really obvious parody.
And to explain a little bit where I am coming from, I did not like AC-DC or Ozzy or Alice Cooper or Bowie or my fucking god Kiss or much of that obnoxious in your face showbiz exhibitionist bullshit.
I liked Jerry G and Willie standing up there playing their guitars.
Hate me if you like.
46: really. and now I'm going to watch wrecking ball.
49: Good point, and I get that about the VMA performance. Not about the Wrecking Ball video, though. That's what Sinead O'Connor is responding to.
If SO is being humorless about the Wrecking Ball video, as though she's not getting the alleged self- and audience mockery in it, I can't really blame her.
Um, the video came before the VMA thing, I think? Maybe MC is evolving.
I really dislike all of the criticism she's been getting.
I half agree with some of the racial criticism.
53: "Parody" doesn't seem like quite the right word to me. It feels like more of a fuck you to femininity and its lack of agency.
Oh Awesome! Hulk Hogan spoofs Wrecking Ball video
I don't really know what it is about these performances that make them seem so awkward
I'm working on it. A good analysis would be more complicated than what I have been getting. For instance, the initial full face tear is probably mockery, and why SO is so pissed.
That said, I really dislike all of the criticism she's been getting.
It ain't personal.
I am honestly trying to understand current culture (kids today) and if MC's "Wrecking Ball" is state-of-the-art intelligent self-respecting feminism, I feel I should know, so I can look back at Emmylou Harris and see how horribly oppressed she was.
Bob, we were dinosaurs in 1978, and barely even still fossils now.
I was born when Charley and Bob were dinosaurs.
I couldn't make it past the first 30 seconds of WB, because the song was indistinguishable from ten thousand other pop songs. Is it okay to dislike Miley Cyrus because she makes garbage?
I don't think parody is quite right either. It's more random fucking around with the idea of being a sex goddess, done by someone who is both pretty conscious of (a) no longer wanting people to think of her as a kids' star but (b) also pretty conscious that she is in control and is free to fuck around with her own image and also is (c) a master of self promotion. I don't think that she's a feminist savant either, but she's certainly not being "exploited" in any meaningful sense, financial or otherwise, and she's certainly not just doing sexytime porn because that's what the mens want her to do.
Pictures like the ones in 53 just look like drunken frat party pics. "Look, I'm holding my beer can as a penis!" When I look at them, I feel the spilled beer making my feet stick to the floor. I assume for most kidsthesedays, those photos blend in perfectly with the rest of their photostream.
I have watched wrecking ball and am improved for it. Yes, obviously the tone of wrecking ball is different from the tone of the photographs. She's not trying to be unsexy, but there is still a frankness in her posture and facial expressions which differs significantly from the pop star sexuality which predominated ten or fifteen years ago, to which Sinead O'Connor presumably did not object -- at least not enough to write open letters. She's quite far from helpless, but she is vulnerable, or expresses a vulnerability which is necessary to the expression of the necessary range of emotion for the song.
By the way, Sinead is pretty good at self promotion too. When was the last time anyone mentioned her?
I still say it's tardive dyskinesia.
Now someone make a video that makes it appear that Captain Kangaroo is singing "Fuck the Pain Away"!
This thread caused me to 1) watch several clips of Captain Kangaroo 2) watch several clips of gay chicken 3) watch the beginning of Mr. Rogers. Why does he change shoes?
No way is any of this Miley stuff trying to be unsexy. We've seen that in the form of Lady Gaga or Bjork or Peaches or Yo-Landi Vitter. This is more like "I don't have to get all dolled up to be sexy, I am naturally sexy"
Why does he change shoes?
To keep street-dirt out of the house, in consideration for whoever cleans, without doing anything radical like going barefoot.
Why does he change shoes?
YES. I have always wondered this. For a long time, I thought that all adults except somehow mysteriously my parents and the ones around me must be constantly changing from home shoes to work shoes to outside shoes to whatever shoes.
On Miley Cyrus, there might be an actually interesting piece to be written about connections between the vaguely "girl power" vibe of Hanna Montana and the current incarnation. ISTM that there's actually a lot of continuity somehow but I'm not a good enough cultural critic to figure out exactly how that works.
pop star sexuality which predominated ten or fifteen years ago
Geez, Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" came out almost exactly 15 years ago. Time seems to be moving so fast now.
I bet it's felt a lot slower to Britney.
60: the initial full face tear is probably mockery, and why SO is so pissed.
Yeah, I think that's right. You have to watch the two videos in comparison to see why it's annoying.
To keep street-dirt out of the house, in consideration for whoever cleans, without doing anything radical like going barefoot.
Right, but why not just put on slippers or comfy thick socks? Did he never visit Japan?
I think we can all agree, or should reasonably agree, if we are not in trolling mode, that the photographs are provocatively unsexy and that the video is frankly sexual. Both could give you a hard-on, sure, but in the photographs, Miley is really doing nothing in aid of that hard-on aside from having a beautiful form, and is mocking both the hard-on and herself as provider of hard-ons.
In the video, Miley supports a sexual love song with images of herself which are obviously sexual. But they aren't cloying, and that makes me happy, because I don't like cloying, and because cloying was so prevalent while I was in college.
71: You too.
I fear to tread in this context, because for me it is not gendered at all. And it does also tie in for me to post-post-modern illiberal culture theories. After all, liberalism is about restraint, isn't it? No violence.
There was a time a place a culture, or maybe it is still around somewhere like Denmark...
...where self-confidence, security, freedom meant
...you didn't have to do anything at all, didn't have to prove you were free, because you know solid in your skin, don't care what people think means pretend they aren't watching etc. You could stand still, wear bluejeans, sit and chant the Lotus, not seek attention. Even read a book. Light the bong.
This is opposed to the "freedom" to drink yourself to .341, or grab the crayons and go postal on the blackboard.
The freedom to do anything, everything, anything imaginable in front of everybody, more loud and more obnoxious and more in-your-face than anybody did last week...
...because freedom is being really bold loud hard and pissing off the squares.
I was a little like that when I was 18. I grew up because the adults didn't indulge me.
I half agree with some of the racial criticism.
That reminds me... Were blogs invented yet during Gwen Stefani's "These are my 4 pet Japanese girls" phase? I don't remember a massive liberal shitstorm about that, though shitstorm it deserved.
And 60.last: if MC's "Wrecking Ball" is state-of-the-art intelligent self-respecting feminism, I feel I should know
Yeah, me too.
I'm free watch me dance
Bored now? I'll dance harder, but watch me
I'm free, watch me read.
Bored now, go away. I don't need you.
Something desperate and pathetic and scarey is goin down.
I haven't seen any of this, and couldn't pick Miley Cyrus out of a lineup, but of course a music video isn't state of the art intelligent self-respecting feminism. It's a music video, which isn't really a medium well-suited for expressing intellectual ideas. But it's perfectly possible that it's not a significant problem from a feminist point of view.
Why does Wrecking Ball have to be an expression of feminism? It's an expression of a range of emotions, including gratefulness, regret, lust, desire, and a healthy amount of cynicism regarding those emotions. She's naked, but I wouldn't watch that video and think that all beautiful women have to get naked immediately (though I wouldn't object).
I would honestly like to see a video of Bob free dancing.
Miley Cyrus's message is "Look at me!"
Pretty much the same as bob's.
Bored now? I'll dance harder, but watch me
I don't think this is what's going on. There's always a part of Miley Cyrus that's making fun of the fact that you are watching her dance -- she's willing to mock herself for it, but she's also mocking stodgy old men who she would never lay.
68: By the way, Sinead is pretty good at self promotion too. When was the last time anyone mentioned her?
That's just obnoxious, Halford. Is that Hollywood speak to suggest that someone's a has-been? Sinead was name-checked by Miley. If it's given rise to a public discussion of the ongoing debate between second-wave feminists and post-feminists*, that's fine.
* I'm unclear on which phase of feminism we're on now. The one where you're a feminist when you make a video like Wrecking Ball.
Well this is embarrassing: I kind of like the song.
I read the Sinead letter and it seems kind of nutso but I did love her for tearing up the pope that one time.
83, 88: Also, to be really simplistic, she does make a living because people are watching her -- it's not a hobby, it's a profession. Insight into her personal psychology from the fact that she's attention-seeking is going to be obscured by that fact.
89 -- I mean that Sinead O'Connor's posting an "open letter" to Miley Cyrus is also a form of self-promotion, which it clearly is. Perfectly easy for Sinead to send a more private message (even an email!) or keep her thoughts to herself, if that's what she wanted to do. These are all performers who have to self-promote for a living, nothing wrong with that, but they're all pretty skilled at it and let's be clear about what's going on.
88: There's always a part of Miley Cyrus that's making fun of the fact that you are watching her dance -- she's willing to mock herself for it, but she's also mocking stodgy old men who she would never lay.
Oh for god's sake. This is not remotely original to MC. Women can do it over and over and over again, but nothing will be different. It's not clever; it's predatory and exhibitionist and what Sinead O'Connor calls prostituting yourself.
Women know all about that stuff! Which I view as a sickness. For god's sake, we're trained early on in how to do it, should we choose to.
Well this is embarrassing: I kind of like the song
It's not as good as her version of "Vissi d'arte", but it is catchy.
I'm inclined to cut O'Connor a lot of slack, since she was enslaved by nuns in a laundry and then when she tried to tell people about sex abuse in the Catholic church everyone said she was a crazy hate monger and then when it turned out she was right no one even apologized to her.
Also, The Emperor's New Clothes is a really good song.
I haven't seen any of this, and couldn't pick Miley Cyrus out of a lineup
I keep getting her confused with that girl on iCarly.
It's like Captain Kangaroo turned into Peaches.
I need brain bleach.
93: I never said Miley Cyrus was the first singer to be frankly sexual, and I doubt that she would lay claim to that title. The photographs are different in degree from much else that I've seen, if not different in kind. It's as though Andy Kaufman were a beautiful woman and decided to do some sexy photos. Yes, there has already been an Andy Kaufman, but I've still never quite seen something like these. If you have, good, please share them.
I don't think that frank sexuality is quite the same as prostitution, though neither category is new to the human stage. Inasmuch as she is not promising to get off on all of her oglers, I would say that Miley Cyrus is a step away from -- even a strike against -- the whorish pop-singers of ten to fifteen years ago.
Well this is embarrassing: I kind of like the song.
Oh dear God. One is reminded.
Is it okay to dislike Miley Cyrus because she makes garbage?
So tempted to give a flippant answer to this on the order of "you haven't earned the right to part with your lightbulb", which is also my extremely profound and subtle response to bob's questions. (I once idly thought of writing a paper on contemporary anxieties about the waste stream and contemporary art forms (not literal recycling in plastic arts, but more generally), but a) it's hard to turn a very vague intuition into productive labor and b) I'm sure someone's already done it in a way I'd find exceedingly annoying to read.)
95.2: yep that's one of the good ones. A teenage anthem.
Also, The Emperor's New Clothes is a really good song.
Agreed. Really, really good.
Seriously, if Miley Cyrus at some point comes out of her navel-gazing phase and comes up with a rationale for her recent performances -- to include her snotty responses to SO's initial letter (see link at 33) -- then okay. Otherwise she looks like a brat.
I see that there's a continuing downright shitstorm going on http://music-mix.ew.com/2013/10/04/sinead-oconnor-miley-cyrus-open-letter-3/
She starred on Disney shows for years. There's no way she doesn't look like a brat to anyone over 30. Selana Gomez, on the other hand, is going places.
90:I closed my eyes and also kinda liked the song. Too much production of course. I checked out MC and AMG, and she is apparently really talented.
I was reminded the other day of Reese Witherspoon's move in Twilight. Full-frontal, get it over with, change image and market, rarely if ever again.
More power to Cyrus if that is what she is doing and becomes Gillian Welch next year. About the music, not the show.
But I am still thinking about a culture of brash
Inasmuch as she is not promising to get off on all of her oglers, I would say that Miley Cyrus is a step away from -- even a strike against -- the whorish pop-singers of ten to fifteen years ago.
One thing I am keeping very much in mind is that I or much younger men are not her intended audience
Her audience is mostly women and girls younger than herself, and that is who whatever message is in the video is aimed at..
"Stop being such a brat! Respond to my self promotional letter! Respect your elders"
Well yes. Song, not video. The hammer-licking is just embarrassing for her and for everything on the shelves at Home Depot. Also not lyrics, which are like Teen Drama Catchphrase Salad.
104: Also "Apologize or I'll sue." Really, if you ever find yourself saying that, something's gone wrong.
It's as though Andy Kaufman
I started to make an Andy Kaufman comparison earlier, but got distracted by work and never did.
103: I'm pretty sure that Miley Cyrus is aware of the fact that her audience has changed and that men will watch her videos simply because she is beautiful and shows her body. These will be men from their teens up to the seventies. They may not admit it, or they may be fine with it. Young girls will also watch her videos seeking a model of female sexuality. And if, in the Wrecking Ball video, that's what she's presenting, it's not a bad model. She's not a perpetual little girl in need of assistance. She's a woman capable of choosing a sexual partner on her own terms.
The photographs are clearly mocking men who masturbate to photographs of naked celebrities. She is wearing cotton briefs and an undershirt, with a beer can pointed right back at the penises pointed at her.
Open letters 1-3: O'Connor is not coming off well *AT ALL* in this exchange.
Open letters 1-3: O'Connor is not coming off well *AT ALL* in this exchange.
I laughed out loud at MC's Amanda Bynes crack in response.
To back-up Halford, guess who's going on tour next week?
101 Seriously, if Miley Cyrus at some point comes out of her navel-gazing phase and comes up with a rationale for her recent performances -- to include her snotty responses to SO's initial letter (see link at 33) -- then okay. Otherwise she looks like a brat.
Maybe you should write an open letter to her.
I started to make an Andy Kaufman comparison earlier, but got distracted by work and never did.
Meanwhile I'm trying to make a comparison to Russell Westbrook. Is he trying to be anti-masculine by wearing ridiculous sweaters and goofy glasses? No, he's being masculine while being indifferent to the supposed need for hyper-masculine signifiers.
After seeing a reference to the Terry Richardson photos of Miley earlier today, I did an image search on his photos: the dude seems to be art-directing Miley's entire life at this point.
108: Ok, maybe we disagree on whether parts or aspects of the video were excessive or unnecessary, or necessary because the message is different than we think it is, or because we are not the intended audience.
I hated to say it because I was really afraid of being called on slut-shaming, and to say the video was "too brash," (obnoxiously bold) might be exactly that (have we no sense of degree).
But I spent some time over at Ro/osh's PU/A site precisely because he was also brash, excessive and obnoxiously bold, absolutely driven to prove his freedom and lack of concern.
I can claim my interest in a culture of brash is not gendered, and some might believe me.
To the extent that I disagree with Cryptic Ned here, I think the disagreement is merely semantic. The photos are "unsexy" in that she adopts poses and ornaments which would, under other circumstances, cause a man to lose an erection. She doesn't look like a woman who necessarily wants to fuck you.
But she's still hot, and you still could conceivably masturbate to the photos, so sure, to that extent they are still "sexy".
Oh, FFS, how is anyone taking Sinead seriously? She is a serial provoker and attention-seeker. Just read her Wiki page for the greatest hits.
O'Connor has admitted to being bipolar, I think. The last time I remember seeing her in the news was when she got married in Vegas and divorced six weeks later (or something); before that, I think she tried to found her own branch of the Catholic Church... having learned nothing from the Hugo Schwyzer discussion I will say that mental illness manifests itself in different ways, with different levels of accountability, but you certainly get unshakeably used to having a certain emotional and mental range, and even 95% excellent impulse control is going to break down once in a while.
118: She seems a bit over dramatic, but within the bounds of normality for the genre.
It really seems to me that Miley is headed down the Britney/Lindsey path and not the Madonna/Gaga path. It's hard for me not to look at her current choices through the lens of how many young superstars end up totally fucked up and miserable.
Britney/Lindsey path and not the Madonna/Gaga
Christ, if I was MC I'd surely hope those weren't my only choices.
I don't listen to her music but what I like about Lady Gaga is that she seems completely self-possessed and self-aware, she'll do her own thing for her own reasons and is not ever going to end up a train wreck like Britney. MC is clearly on the Britney line .
14:
I should really look at a video just to have a referent for 'twerk'. I can't imagine that it's all that different from any other kind of gyrating.)
Some things are fine to have forst hand knowledge of. Not atwerk, though.
There's the Lisa Loeb path. I think that involves writing children's songs that will make the kids laugh and the dads remember you pantless with glasses.
My friend C is still bitter about teenage Sinead scrawling extensively all over his brother's Bob Dylan songbook.
One big difference between MC and Britney or (especially) Lindsey Lohan is that MC is really very extremely rich already. That of course is no guarantee against "train wreck" (perhaps the opposite) but it's important to remember that she was one of the most profitable entertainment figures around long before she took this turn, and had been for very many years. Plus I don't think she's anywhere close to "train wreck" status now -- she's not acting erratically, just showing her naked butt in music videos.
What do you mean, "(especially) Lindsey Lohan"? Wasn't she an extremely successful child star too?
128: Wasn't Britney extremely rich when she started having meltdowns? And Lindsay Lohan had starred in a bunch of major motion pictures -- that pays well, doesn't it?
what I like about Lady Gaga is that she seems completely self-possessed and self-aware, she'll do her own thing for her own reasons and is not ever going to end up a train wreck
Except for all the hospitalizations and battles with anorexia, bulemia, and other mental issues.
it's important to remember that she was one of the most profitable entertainment figures around long before she took this turn, and had been for very many years
Exactly, and grew up in a wealthy celeb household.
Grr. Look, Sinead O'Connor and Miley Cyrus are equally performers. It is completely unbelievable to me that some think SO is more craven or preachy or annoying than MC.
Those people have another think coming.
I just mean that MC is dramatically richer and more powerful than either Brintey or Lindsey at the moment when they started having their respective meltdowns, such that they are very different kinds of "stars." Lohan had been paid pretty well but was just starting out and didn't have enough money to sustain a deep coke habit and is totally broke now. BS was certainly a star but didn't have anywhere near the income that MC does, and, more importantly, especially not anywhere close to the creative and financial control that MC has. BS was much much more a traditional pop star controlled by her label and management. MC is not.
MC came up as a star when the industry around her was collapsing and she basically had the only viable business model going. She has for many years now been in charge of herself. She's almost infinitely more powerful than anyone at her label, just for example.
Plus, the comparison fails because there's no evidence that Miley is actually having a personal meltdown or is a drug addict, unlike those other two. Other than engaging in possibly ironic sexytimes video, she seems outwardly totally in control.
From Sinead O'Connor's I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got", The Last Day of Our Acquaintance
132: SO is clearly more preachy. I'm more annoyed by MC, too, though she's pretty far on the periphery of my consciousness.
I'm pretty sure Sinead easily beats her out in terms of preachy, NTTAWWT.
To Future Moby Hick,
I'm not sure how you got back into the archives this time. It may have been due to a link posted by another. You may have been searching it of your own volition. It may have been read into the transcript when you were being deposed. Regardless, the "think" in 133 isn't one of your many typos. I just thought you should know.
MH
P.S. If you have arterial plaque issues, I'm sorry about all the french fries over the years.
131 Well that just goes to show you how much I pay attention to these kind of celebs. I'll just slink back to my corner now. Twerking.
139: don't worry, gswift. When you finish your rehab I'm sure you'll be back to full speed.
I can't believe the Mineshaft's Pittsburgh faction hasn't made the merest attempt at a baseball threadjack, what with a crucial game going their way. Maybe your lack of enthusiasm was the reason for all those losing seasons.
This. I don't get the comparison whatsoever. MC does not seem to be decompensating.
142: I think we're winning today.
141: Man, no doubt. Supposedly I can start back up light weightlifting again now, thank god. My left arm has withered down to like half the size of my right, which amuses my wife to no end.
To Future Moby Hick,
On this day, the Pittsburgh Pirates appear poised to win their first non-wild card playoff game in 20 years or so. You were mildly interested in this.
MH
My left arm has withered down to like half the size of my right, which amuses my wife to no end.
I hope she doesn't make too many masturbation jokes around the neighbors.
Another model for Miley is Rihanna. What does Rihanna's career arc look like?
From Sinead O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got", You Cause as Much Sorrow
With these links to Sinead O'Connor songs from that album, I'm really looking for the one about her child.
This is "Three Babies", which still isn't what I was looking for, but: it should be clear by now that Miley Cyrus claiming Sinead as a foremother, and then mocking her, is just a no go. Just not. Fuck Cyrus. Go away, Cyrus.
Now I kind of want Miley Cyrus to go to Parsimon's house and pee on her record collection. That's probably wrong! Oh well, go Dodgers.
Maybe pee is excessive. Just get naked and grind her butt on Parsimon's record collection, then maybe gyrate suggestively on a lamp with her tongue sticking out.
I mean, Halford may be right that MC basically had the only viable business model going, but that doesn't look like anything to brag about to me.
151: MC can just try to come to my house.
I think we might have to cart her off to the funny-farm.
152 is cracking me up.
Parsi arrives home, opens the front door, and turns on the lights. In the middle of the living room is a giant plaster wrecking ball with a scantily clad Miley Cyrus on top.
"Hi, parsimon. I've been waiting for you."
Are you trying to get a job directing her next video?
Hrm, it actually hadn't occurred to me that MC is fuck-you wealthy and not ordinary star rich. But you're totally right. She's halfway to Beyonce! I suppose that does make a big difference.
I still think the odds are higher than not that she has a drug problem and that the director of Wrecking Ball sexually assaulted her like he sexually assaults most people he photographs.
150:Well, anyone who studied my analysis of the three archetypes that retard feminism, m-w-m, might understand why I remain cautious about discussing the latter two and stick with analyzing "the maiden" but I can understand a younger generation of women pop-stars would find the archetypal images and feelings of that SO video even more problematic than the one by Cyrus. I mean, Holy Terza Madre Lachrymae, in lavender gauzy scrims.
Are "the huntress" and the "Pieta" as offensive as slut-shaming?
Well, anyone who studied my analysis of the three archetypes that retard feminism
Of course, no one is going to admit to not having studied that!
I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to wake up one day with amnesia, start reading the archives, and discover that you are Moby Hick.
I haven't every woken with amnesia since I started commenting here. As far as I know.
I wonder if Standpipe will wake up one day with amnesia.
I hope she doesn't make too many masturbation jokes around the neighbors.
Mostly it's warnings not to give her any lip or she's going to beat me up.
It is completely unbelievable to me that some think SO is more [...] preachy [...] than MC.
Holy cow, parsimon. It is completely unbelievable to me that some think the Denver Broncos are a better football team than the cast of the Golden Girls.
That is to say: O'Connor became Mother Bernadette Mary at a ceremony staged by the breakaway Latin Tridentine church in Lourdes last week. [...] The Catholic Church does not officially recognise women priests, but O'Connor now claims she has the authority to say Mass, baptise and administer last rites. She plans to continue in the music industry as Mother Bernadette Mary, after the peasant girl whose visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes made the town famous. She also says she will wear a dog collar and clerical shirt daily from now on.
165: You're thinking that this is an apples to oranges comparison? MC doesn't put her preachiness into actually verbalized words, but it's there.
I'm thinking the one that actually joined the clergy is quite far ahead in any preachiness contest.
Apo, are you saying that a gyrating butt can't be preachy? I'd say it's preachy in a different way.
167 before seeing 166.
166: What?? Okay, whatever; I'm reading SO's written words in response to MC. They could be written by any number of women, as long as they weren't concerned about being mocked or dismissed as prudes, slut-shamers, or has-beens.
I'm out of this thread. But let's remember that this is about whether Miley Cyrus is problematically and unnecessarily exhibiting herself. Sinead O'Connor says yes. I can't find it in myself to disagree.
Not related to the current conversation, but SO's another person my age with four marriages entered and exited. She and Hugo Schwyzer should have coffee. Or do a Brady Bunch-style reality show.
Maybe just co-hosting a feminist Christian talk show? It'd be epic.
170: In fact, the Church of Miley Cyrus's Gyrating Butt is the fastest-growing congregation in the Hollywood-Burbank area.
They do have six kids between them. Casting: who's going to be Alice?
In my day, joining breakaway churches and leaving marriages were things the Irish sucked at.
175: The man formerly known as Pope Benedict. He's bored now and wants to get back in the limelight.
My first instinct was Marilyn Manson, but 177 is going to be hard to beat.
177 Shouldn't she be Cindy trying to become Marcia?
I bet Barry Williams is available and willing to play Greg again.
It's the story
Of a shaved-head lady
Who hated slutty booty-shaking girls
None of them would take fake vows, like Mary Mother,
a dog-collared clerical
It's the story
of a man named Hugo
Who was cheating with three students of his own
He was a con man and fake professor
and now lives all alone
The top song in the country is by anti-bling ballad by a 17 year old girl from new zealand who isn't even in the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFasFq4GJYM
I watched a decent amount of hannah montana with my kids. Miley Cyrus is an incredibly annoying actress. She is a perfectly fine singer though. Every single one of the tween shows my kids watched have a lead actress with a record contract.
I'm not claiming that 182 is in any way good.
Or done. There are two more verses!
182 is great.
My prediction for that show is that Hugo would charm everyone until he stabs her.
OT: A little bending of the rule about food on the bus seems fine, but chicken wings? The last person I saw break the rule that baldly was later arrested for threatening people in the park with a hatchet.
re: 65
I saw her on a British chat show a few weeks back, and that was more or less how she seemed to be presenting it herself. That she was messing around, sometimes deliberately being silly, sometimes trying to provoke. She was fully aware of the daftness of the hammer-licking, and so on.
She didn't come across as someone with a view of what she was doing that would satisfy someone looking for scholarly self-analysis; but she was certainly very self-aware and sounded completely in control of her own image and self-presentation. Also sounded highly amused by much of the reaction and controversy.
was later arrested for threatening people in the park with a hatchet.
Remember kids, hatchet hobo is intimidating but he can be felled by the superior reach of four pronged cane hobo.
I wonder if there's any money to be made in a hobo themed Pokemon style game.
I wonder if there's any money to be made in a hobo themed Pokemon style game.
Sell it on trains, maybe.
132 It is completely unbelievable to me that some think SO is more craven or preachy or annoying than MC.
Some of us have gotten pretty good at recognizing preachy and annoying.
||
Anchorage NWS FTW! Encode "PLEASE PAY US" in forecast using the "FUCK YOU HALF ASS" trick.
|>
Just wondering, anybody remember this kind of faux concerned crap about all those young male pop stars posing shirtless for posters intended for girls' bedrooms, for gyrating and thrusting on stage, and singing sexually suggestive lyrics? Any worries about how they're just letting their sexuality be exploited? Yes, I know that the social context is different in that generalized sexual objectification isn't much of an issue for men, but the pop industry seems like a really strange place to concentrate your worries on. It's a lot more egalitarian in that regard than society at large.
anybody remember this kind of faux concerned crap about all those young male pop stars posing [...[ gyrating and thrusting on stage, and singing sexually suggestive lyrics?
Those controversies were about the effect on social morals, not about the sexual exploitation of Elvis or Mick. Rather than worries about boys demeaning themselves by playing to the desires of horny girls and women, it was that they might be a turn on for good, proper girls and women.
I dunno, you have to wonder if at some point Mick might have had a drug problem.
They could be written by any number of women, as long as they weren't concerned about being mocked or dismissed as prudes, slut-shamers, or has-beens.
One of these things is not like the others. That is to say: I'm pretty comfortable with the calling out of slut-shamers.
But let's remember that this is about whether Miley Cyrus is problematically and unnecessarily exhibiting herself.
I bet you can see her nipples under her clothes.
191 did make me laugh. No doubt toeing the line is the preferred manner of speaking, and Sinead O'Connor didn't do that, and I don't do it as often as I should.
parsimon: what is it, specifically, that you find objectionable about Cyrus' behavior?
I bet you can see her nipples under her clothes.
202: Speaking strictly about the Wrecking Ball video: it's a song, right? About lost love and heartbreak, and a resolve to come through that to the other side still strong. I find objectionable that any of that message needs to be accompanied by sexytime playacting. More specifically, the sexytime stuff -- which isn't just a sidebar, but is central, indeed overwhelming -- detracts from whatever the hell the song is supposed to be about. It's a sex tape. I don't see any way around this. I completely understand that Sinead O'Connor would be pissed off to be name-checked on that.
I don't really care one way or the other what Cyrus does, though. I defend her right to do whatever she wants, whether or not I think what she's doing has any value. That is not the same as slut-shaming.
I think I'd like to ask other members of the commentariat why they feel that Cyrus might be embarrassing or demeaning herself in that video. A couple of people upthread have said as much.
I'm uncomfortable being put in a targeted position as sole voice for the feeling that there's anything at all troubling in Cyrus's video.
This morning I kept half-awakely wondering why there was a thread about Emmylou Harris.
Mostly I just wish that Cyrus would use her words, you know? Use your words. Whatever the fuck you're trying to say besides sex tape, you should use words for that.
About lost love and heartbreak [...] needs to be accompanied by sexytime playacting.
Lost love can be about no longer having sex with someone you used to have sex with.
208: Don't I know it. But: is that what the Wrecking Ball video depicts to you? If it does, I cancel all my previous remarks.
Isn't Sinead O'Connor about to go out on tour?
I'm uncomfortable being put in a targeted position as sole voice for the feeling that there's anything at all troubling in Cyrus's video.
If you makes you feel less alone, I agree with you. But I don't feel like arguing about it on the internets (especially since I have to get up at 5:30 am to drive my son to a drop-off for a camping trip).
I suppose that doesn't mean that she's not also concerned -- very concerned -- about Miley Cyrus's wellbeing, but it sure seems like this whole thing is a pr stunt, and a good one at that. I'd like to think that Miley Cyrus is an investor in Sinead O'Connor's tour, but that's probably too much to hope for.
Ah, I see that I was pwned many times. Go, me!
Thanks, Mary Catherine. Best wishes that your son has an excellent time on the camping trip. It could totally blow his mind, with how awesome it is. Or not. You know. But maybe awesome?
Aren't people in sex tapes having sex, usually? I guess I haven't seen that many (Paris, Screech, Chyna... that might be it?) but that has definitely always been a feature.
Apo, are you saying that a gyrating butt can't be preachy? I'd say it's preachy in a different way.
"Ohhh, PREACHY. I thought you said PEACHY."
What if I don't want to, PREACHES?
220: Oh my god, what is that?
Uh. I knew a girl like that. But she died - which has nothing to to with this. Someone Killed her. Her name was Pest.
Oh my god, what is that?
I think it's what Captain Kangaroo turned into?
Just, not for any reason, but is anybody in this thread on mushrooms right now?
Big sigh.
The slut-shaming accusation bugs me -- and I'm speaking to Blume here. I've been accused in the past of slutitude, for having serial relationships. I know what that is. It's a coded message that one is being promiscuous, unacceptably so.
That is not what Miley Cyrus is doing. She's not visibly having sex with anyone. She is, though, selling her body. If I take exception to that, I'm not slut-shaming her.
Or, well, what exactly is the deal here? What counts as out of bounds? If a person objects to an actual sex tape, e.g. Paris Hilton or whoever, is she slut-shaming the sex actress? Is the idea that we should not object in any way whatsoever at any time to anything any woman might do, sexually speaking?
i am drinking ginseng tea right now where it counts
Is the idea that we should not object in any way whatsoever at any time to anything any woman might do, sexually speaking?
Sure, okay. Deal!
Is the idea that we should not object in any way whatsoever at any time to anything any woman might do, sexually speaking?
A consenting adult? Not endangering herself or anyone else? Not breaking the law? Yes, I think so.
Meanwhile I am very curious what a "sex actress" is. It sounds classy!
The idea is that everyone is a giant slutbag and giving your kid the wrong name dooms him/her to being murdered.
Von Wafer is a giant slutbag but that's okay because I hear his people's birthrate is down.
prudes, slut-shamers, or has-beens
I stand by what I wrote in 198. Slut-shaming stood out for me in that list as a different kind of thing. But yes, we have disagreed in the past about what exactly that constitutes.
Pest's name was actually Tempest Grace Gale.
I hear his people's birthrate is down.
Because we're not slutbags, copper.
Ridiculously off-topic, but we went to a party Selah's former foster family threw for their foster child who's turned 1 and spent most of that year with Selah, and everyone was very polite about how we haven't and don't plan to change the girls' names much, but their actual names were considered sort of baffling. The family will probably change the other baby's name if they adopt, though I'd made a big deal of how excited the big girls were to meet a baby who shares Mara's best friend's name. Oh well.
I have to be up at 5 to get Nia to cheerleading competition. I have her hair in curlers and even did what the head parent told us to and took out the twists around the edges of her hair that tame those edges, because apparently we'll get scored down if there are any visible cornrows etc. and not just that there can't be beads or ballies, which I knew. Wtf, racist cheerleading standards-setters? The head of our program is black and was both tasteful and direct in how she explained the rules, but it's still annoying and I feel a little bad that I didn't do a better job with Nia's hairstyle, but I don't know what the hell I'm doing with curlers, never having touched them before, and have to just hope I put on enough setting lotion that she'll have a ponytail full of ringlets tomorrow when the coach takes the curlers out. Ack, this is totally my life. (Though we haven't really talked Sinead vs. Miley on the haircut front, have we?)
234 to a comment from BEETLEJUICE that's been deleted, which said that the name Pest was surely a sign or something. Whatever.
237: oh shit, it is definitely true that Miley should do cornrows. True.
228, 229: Okay, thanks for answering the question.
The no-cornrow thing is pretty bullshit, yeah. That sucks.
238: Nah, just they both have gotten attention for supposedly super-gay haircuts. Maybe they could bond over that.
240: I think the team mom may have made that up, but I figured I might as well comply. I'm very curious what the other black girl on the team will do, because her (relaxed) hair is way shorter than Nia's and there's no way she could get a ponytail without either cornrows/flat twists or bobby pins everywhere and it's a little odd that the latter is considered less distracting.
I'm not sure why I'm worried about my part getting points deducted when we're not going to win anyway, although now I have to wonder why we're part of the football league and the boys in this age group aren't allowed to keep score (not sure if it's officially gender-segregated, but on our team girls cheer and boys play football) but the girls can practice three nights a week for the competition where there will be winners and losers. So maybe there won't be, but I know when our coach asked if our team of first-time cheerleaders ages 5-7 could skip competition she was told the whole team would be fined significantly, so someone cares about this stupid thing.
Is 226 saying that calling someone a slut is a "coded" way of saying they are promiscuous? Tell me more about these codes.
She's not visibly having sex with anyone.
Wait, she might be having sex with someone invisible? You're blowing my mind here.
243: Yeah, sorry for that. Obviously it's not coded at all.
But further to 239, to 228 and 229, replying to my question, Is the idea that we should not object in any way whatsoever at any time to anything any woman might do, sexually speaking?
Goddamn. Are you sure you guys mean that?
Lemieux weighs in contra O'Connor and Loomis
I should note that the wisdom or aesthetic merit of Cyrus's choices are beyond the jurisdiction of this Court. Were my purely personal attitude relevant I would agree that the "Wrecking Ball" video has, alas, precisely the level of tastefulness and subtlety one would expect from a Terry Richardson production. The abysmal quality of the video, however, is not evidence of exploitation and the nudity per se is not the problem.
essear, cut it out. I'm not stupid and you're not stupid. Taking potshots at me is irritating. If you can't figure out what I meant, that's your problem.
Are you sure you guys mean that?
I'm not completely certain, no, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a scenario -- again, assuming we're talking about a consenting adult who's breaking no laws and putting nobody else in harm's way -- in which my objections would be warranted.
247: Sorry, I shouldn't be amusing myself at your expense. I do think you're somehow conflating aesthetic judgments with moral ones, or something along those lines.
252:conflating aesthetic judgments with moral ones
Discussing Lemieux's "level of tastefulness and subtlety" or other aesthetic qualities of that particular Cyrus video, or the pictures, or the VMA performance, without lapsing into "slut-shaming" or old-fogyism is really what is challenging here, isn't it?
252: I do think you're somehow conflating aesthetic judgments with moral ones, or something along those lines.
I do think those lines are blurry, yes, and it's not because we're just confused, but because they really are blurry, and they always will be.
I can't bring myself to agree that anything any woman might do etc. etc. of a sexual nature is always fine given "consent".
250: Yes, bob, it is! I'm glad you're around, by the way.
I can't bring myself to agree that anything any woman might do etc. etc. of a sexual nature is always fine given "consent".
What do you plan to do about it? Make Miley wear a scarlet letter? Who gets to decide? Anyway, that video basically looks like an ad for cute boyish white underwear with a little coy nudity thrown in; it wouldn't look even a little unusual in a fashion context. Take the song out, cut to a perfume bottle at the end, business as usual.
253: All I can do about it is protest in small ways. Hey, I don't even shave my legs. Which is totally gross, I know.
I don't know how else to protestl
That IS totally gross. Even my wife makes me take a clipper to the leg hair.
Everyone, be less gross. For America.
And mcmc is completely right that the Cyrus video looks like a combined ad for Calvin Klein plus whatever scent brand. Plus lipstick -- which looks a little sticky and yucky. Plus spiky eyelashes, which also look yucky.
257: Huh? Your wife .. what? Clipper? I thought you were a blondie, gswift, so I wouldn't have thought your leg hair was that obtrusive.
I read the Rolling Stone interview with Miley Cyrus, and she seemed like a cheerful, happy, in-control 20 year old person doing things that a 20 year old with a lot of money and freedom in a flamboyant industry might do, but not particularly to excess. She praised marijuana and expressed disgust with cocaine, so she clearly has a healthy relationship with drugs.
Plus she seemed very intelligent. For example, this was one of the sharpest criticisms of Breaking Bad I've seen:
And Breaking Bad I just got into, but I haven't been able to keep up with it as much. There's just a lot of him coughing. I'm in the first season, and the coughing is driving me crazy. Like, we get it. You're dying. Do you really need a whole two-minute scene of another cough attack? It's too much.
Thank you. It had to be said.
I also think the racism stuff is absurd. The notion that black and white culture and music exist in separate boxes in America, and anyone mixing them up is somehow violating something is weird and silly.
I read the Rolling Stone interview with Miley Cyrus, and she seemed like a cheerful, happy, in-control 20 year old person doing things that a 20 year old with a lot of money and freedom in a flamboyant industry might do, but not particularly to excess. She praised marijuana and expressed disgust with cocaine, so she clearly has a healthy relationship with drugs.
Plus she seemed very intelligent. For example, this was one of the sharpest criticisms of Breaking Bad I've seen:
And Breaking Bad I just got into, but I haven't been able to keep up with it as much. There's just a lot of him coughing. I'm in the first season, and the coughing is driving me crazy. Like, we get it. You're dying. Do you really need a whole two-minute scene of another cough attack? It's too much.
Thank you. It had to be said.
I also think the racism stuff is absurd. The notion that black and white culture and music exist in separate boxes in America, and anyone mixing them up is somehow violating something is weird and silly.
Whoops!
However, I also think MC's art is kinda lame, and am even willing to entertain Bob's idea that its lameness says something negative about the culture at large. But its lameness has nothing to do with how she strategically deploys her butt, or with her success at trolling the country. Her music, her dancing...it just isn't all that good. But she herself seems fine.
Also, she clearly understood exactly what she was doing at the VMAs. From the RS interview:
"I know what I'm doing. I know I'm shocking you," she said frankly. "When I'm dressed in that teddy bear thing, I think that's funny. I was saying yesterday, I had this obsession about this character that's like an adult baby. Like if you see a baby do something like that, it's so warped and weird, but there's something creepily hot about it. "So when I'm in that teddy bear suit, I'm like a creepy, sexy baby. But I forget that it's, like, people in Kansas watching the show. That people sit their kid in front of the TV and are like, 'Oh, an awards show! Let's watch.'"
She actually nails exactly the repulsion/attraction of the performance and the reason it generated so much sweet. sweet publicity.
207: Use your words, Ludwig, use your words!
Her music, her dancing...it just isn't all that good. But she herself seems fine.
This.
I would add that she's not particularly attractive (as 20 year olds go), which means she has to take the provocation/exhibitionism up a notch to achieve a simulacrum of sexy (cf. early Madonna and every plain girl at a disco ever). NTTAWWT.
There are more things wrong with the underlying attitude manifested in 265 than there are words in the comment.
I'm not sure we want to be a bunch of 49 year old bald men in our mom's basement critiquing the appearance of a 20 year old.
I stand by the Toxic Avenger thing.
I stand by my statement that she should work with John Zorn.
Ever since Debbie Gibson recorded with the Circle Jerks I've had hope for more such pairings with more interaction (not just doing backing vocals.) The opportunity has passed for Michael Jackson to cover "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing." But there are other possibilities.
Also, I love Keith Morris's So. Cal. accent.
Mostly I just wish that Cyrus would use her words, you know?
Use your words, Miley! You're a big girl! C'mon, stop grunting and use your words.
I'm not completely certain, no, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a scenario -- again, assuming we're talking about a consenting adult who's breaking no laws and putting nobody else in harm's way -- in which my objections would be warranted.
Oh, I can easily picture music videos that would irritate me on a feminist level. How about Blurred Lines, for one. Wrecking Ball doesn't.
This brings up something I've wondered. Does someone like Cyrus make significant money from straight men by sexing it up? Sexing it up gets her publicity, which helps sales, but I doubt the mechanism is as simple as "Cyrus got naked with a wrecking ball. I gotta get her next CD!" Especially now that the difficulty of finding nude pictures of somebody as attractive as Cyrus is zero.
Wrecking ball fetistists must be sincerely excited, though.
Cyrus is a perfectly well looking young woman when she presents herself as one. I don't know who she makes significant money from by releasing these videos, but presumably somebody is cutting her big cheques because she doesn't strike me as a fool and she has plenty of people in a good position to look after her if needed.
I'm reminded of the occasion in about 1964 when the Stones were all over the papers for pissing up the wall of a fuel station. Many years later, it transpired that Andrew Oldham had rung them all one morning and said, "You haven't had enough press coverage lately. Get over here and we'll do something about that."
The awesome thing about referring to Miley Cyrus by her surname is that every time I'm pretty sure for a second that you're talking about the commenter Cyrus.
It's kind of funny to me that Hannah Montana was about a girl named Miley who was secretly a rock star, and then the real Miley was like "I'd rather just be the rock star."
she's not particularly attractive (as 20 year olds go)
The awesome thing about referring to Miley Cyrus by her surname is that every time I'm pretty sure for a second that you're talking about the commenter Cyrus.
People referring to her as MC threw me off, too, because I kept thinking they were talking about Mary Catherine.
278: My brain translates her name to Miley Ray Cyrus every time.
255, 257, 260: I feel brunette-shamed.
I feel Achey-Breaky-Heart-liking shamed.
276 -- straight up sexing it up? No obvious path to financial success. But in this combined with general publicity buzz, sure. She's had two top-5 singles from her new album and Wrecking Ball was a straight-up number one for a while before, as lemmy caution says, being replaced by an anti-materialism indie song sung by a 16 year old New Zealand teenager. There's a separate question as to how a "number 1" single meaningfully transfers into money these days, and maybe she's killed a little of the licensing/endorsement/TV appearance juice by being controversial, but probably not and she likely is doing fine in that area as well. It's just been genius effective marketing from someone who her entire generation associated with music for 9 year olds.
the corruption of blood stemming from "Achey Breaky Heart"
There's a year of my life I think of as the "Barton Fink Year." I had just moved to Chicago to go to grad school and was living in a 1 room efficiency in a building that featured a dude who panhandled inside the building. Three people lived in the efficiency directly above me--a husband, a wife, and a brother-in-law.
I don't know what drugs they were on, but one night they put Achey Breaky Heart on repeat and full volume. It was playing when I finally managed to fall asleep. It was playing when I woke up in the morning.
288: Right, but she's not getting the #1 single by selling to 50-year old men, who are probably saving up for the next Eagles reunion tour. She's selling to 16-year-old girls who think "Wow, Miley is so adult."
I'd lay even money that the Miley/Sinead feud was organized by their publicists.
I feel like the majority of my undergraduate years were spent with NHL Hockey video game soundtrack drifting in from other rooms.
Speaking of undergraduates and noise, there's a frat house in my neighborhood that's currently hosting a pre-football-game party. They've been blaring music, including "Wagon Wheel" followed immediately by "Song of the South". I really hate both of those songs.
287 is excellent! I needed that laugh.
I like "Song of the South" because it's so resolutely pro-New Deal. It is up there among the most politically liberal hit songs ever. If you're into economic liberalism that is.
Those controversies were about the effect on social morals, not about the sexual exploitation of Elvis or Mick. Rather than worries about boys demeaning themselves by playing to the desires of horny girls and women, it was that they might be a turn on for good, proper girls and women.
There's a BBC special from the 70s about David Bowie, which I occasionally come across on Youtube, but never remember to bookmark, which is weirdly patronizing in it's tone, and definitely feels like they believe he is selling himself in inappropriate ways.
Obviously in that case there's the discomfort with him not conforming to standard gender roles/presentation.
I can't find it at the moment, but I did find this weird 1973 duet with David Bowie and Marianne Faithfull. Which is strange, good, and one of the most distinctly 70s things I've seen in a while.
Of course, the reason it doesn't have that reputation is that it is simultaneously loaded with racist signifiers. But that's the authentic New Deal coalition for you!
275: Oh, I can easily picture music videos that would irritate me on a feminist level. How about Blurred Lines, for one. Wrecking Ball doesn't.
I'm curious about this. Blurred Lines is the Robin Thicke song/video, I take it (I'd never heard of the guy until the Miley Cyrus VMA performance brouhaha, so bear with me).
Why is that worse than Wrecking Ball? Is it because it's sung by a man? I don't know any context or back story about Blurred Lines. I notice that it seems like a play on Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love": the women are as painted, glossy, clone-like mannequins, props. Silent.
298 and 300 are totally true. I always wondered about the politics of that song, but it's unusual among even vaguely left-leaning country for being affirmatively pro government intervention.
299.last: Hey, thanks for that Bowie/Faithfull thing, NickS. Marianne Faithfull is so ... strange, and interesting.
Her cover of Working Class Hero. The best I know of.
Also I assume that Stanley is talking about the Darius Rucker "Wagon Wheel" and not the Lou Reed. Only one of those is a #1 country song sung by a black man.
Sorry, I probably should have provided a link to a live performance. Go for that one instead of 303's.
because I kept thinking they were talking about Mary Catherine.
Up until now, I've managed to keep my double life a secret.
And that's no mean feat when you twerk it like Mary Catherine.
Meanwhile, I assume Stanley and his hipster friends are scoffing at the economic liberalism of Song of the South while listening to the ivy-league educated children of bankers play in indie bands with names like "Yacht" "Tennis" "Country Club" "Squash Court" and "Lily Pulitzer Pants."
This Guardian piece puts the Miley Cyrus/Sinead O'Connor debate in plain terms. It's pro-MC, anti-SO. Final passage:
But the simplistic formula that images of women's bodies are always objectifying is old-fashioned and plays into the idea of feminists as asexual. Young women need to know that when they take off their clothes, they are still in charge of themselves.
Huh. I don't think SO was saying that images of women's bodies are always objectifying, but let's leave that aside: it's old-fashioned to be concerned about this?
I gather I lose this argument.
Also I assume that Stanley is talking about the Darius Rucker "Wagon Wheel" and not the Lou Reed.
It was the Old Crow Medicine Show version.
Stanley and his hipster friends
Hipster? Heavens now. Nowadays I associate exclusively with adherents of Seapunk.
that Guardian piece is weird.
the dichotomy is supposed to be blame victims/blame rapists?
when did it become consensus that the images produced by a culture had no effect in that culture?
this version of feminism reminds me of college freshmen; they assume they have complete possession of all their own desires, their own selves--everything.
no unconscious, no society: just automomous me!
If the SO/MC discussion is winding down, Stanley, perhaps a baseball-enthusiast fpp could initiate a discussion about A-Rod's legal strategy, about which the blog's baseball-enthusiast lawyers could certainly opine.
Thank Heaven there is at least one other.
I thought the Yanks should get a salary refund from A-Rod for 2004: the July fight and that October play showed rage that might have been performance enhanced.
I don't have any opinions wrt his current legal battle.
It seems that he has a Roger Clemens-like regard for his legacy, and that his legal team is pursuing a desperate gambit. But I suppose I don't really need informed opinion, since my daughters think he sucks, and that's pretty much good for me.
311: when did it become consensus that the images produced by a culture had no effect in that culture?
Apparently since post-feminism, or 11-dimensional-chess feminism, or whatever it calls itself.
I do get it: younger women want to reclaim what was previously shamed. The idea is supposed to be that if you, without shame, exhibit your body intentionally and in the extreme, this will no longer be an exploitative state of affairs, because it's done with full agency.
Okay, finally watched the VMA thing. The audience reaction shots offer pretty strong support for Halford's take on things. I am pretty sure at least a few of the reaction shots are of other pop stars (I recognize them from looking at TLo, so pretty sure), for whom attending this kind of thing is just part of the job, and what I saw was MC's competitors realizing exactly how profitable of a shit storm of publicity MC was kicking off. The grudging, cynical admiration of fellow practitioners.
Also, the DB and MF duet linked to at 299 is AMAZING. I particularly like that moment at around 2:20 when he gives his skinny torso a good shake in his red sequin/black marabou reverse wings backless number. Really, standards for male pop star attire have taken a serious nose dive. Recognizing DB set a pretty awesomely high standard. And MF - can Flying Nun drag be topped? I think not.
Lastly, can we teletransport 70's Bowie back for the photo shoot in which he ritually and meticulously tortures Terry Richardson? Please?
Hey, thanks for that Bowie/Faithfull thing, NickS. Marianne Faithfull is so ... strange, and interesting.
Also, the DB and MF duet linked to at 299 is AMAZING. I particularly like that moment at around 2:20 when he gives his skinny torso a good shake in his red sequin/black marabou reverse wings backless number.
Thinking about it, I appreciate that the costumes are very glam, but the performance isn't (other than Bowie's occasional shimmy). The performance is relatively serious.
Sorry, I probably should have provided a link to a live performance.
That is good. I think she's a good live performer. I like Marianne Faithful, but I hadn't thought about her much until I recently picked up her live album of (mostly) Kurt Weill covers, which is quite good. For example. Like David Bowie she is a very actorly singer.
Old school. She's about the age of MC here, I guess.
That DB clip probably works on a completely different level for people who were used to watching the S&C show.
320: Cher was so cute! I love her stripey outfit. Sonny was ... the less talented half of the duo.
I think I need a new pseud.
All Armenians from Fresno can forever be proud of their gal Cher!
I really like Smiley Iris, actually. That's good! But since I'm closer to Sinead than to Miley on the sledgehammer question, I'm thinking Jane [anglicised Sinead] Something or Other. Or maybe just plain Jane.
Cooter is an unfortunate surname.
331 is brilliant, but not really Mary Catherine's style.
Are there caps on the number of name changes you are allowed?
Whistler's Mo Fo or something might work better.
I know why you liked Cher's outfit. Same style as this.
Whistler's Mother Fucker.
You know, I appreciate the input, but I'm not sure this moniker would accurately capture my way of being-in-this-world in general.
They always call the biggest guy "Tiny".
So, I'm home alone, and want to use this chance to watch something that no one in the family would want to watch with me. These are the options I've come up with:
a. Space 1999 [I've got the whole series on DVD]
b. Pontypol
c. Ip Man
d. Dhoom.
e. Anything the hivemind can think of.
Recommendations?
338: Human Centipede 2 is streaming on Netflix. And you could follow it up with Miley Cyrus hosting Saturday Night Live.
Anyhow, Tetsuo The Iron Man is on netflix instant.
334 made me laugh. But hockey sentimentality has gone downhill ever since the death of Maurice ("le Rocket") Richard. To hear the Archbishop of Montréal speak of the eyes as the mirror of the soul of a hockey player, is to realize that Canada is truly hockey-mad.
My dad loved Maurice. It was a generational thing, I think. Ah geez, yeah, The Rocket.
Except for e), I never heard of the shows in 338.
344 was me. Mary Catherine, or perhaps Just Plain Jane.
"C Alice" would make a good pseud.
My grandfather played hockey with "King Clancy" (Francis Michael Clancy), btw. An earlier Canadian hockey legend was Clancy, who got his start beating up French Canadians for St. Bridget's (the Irish versus the French: such are the roots of hockey's ridiculous fight-'em-on-the-ice culture).
I don't understand what's wrong with "Mary Catherine" and I'm not of the opinion that "Just Plain Jane" is an improvement. For one thing, there would be a JP and a JPJ.
Let me be the first to suggest Mary Hartman.
Changing pseuds ever in one's life is obviously a sign of moral weakness.
Well right, with all the changes, who could say?
The problem with "Mary Catherine" is that it's a little too close to my real name. Actually, it is my real name. I was named after after my paternal grandmother Mary Catherine La/hey, and IRL I don't have a problem with this. But internet-wise, I think I need a new moniker.
I don't understand what's wrong with "Mary Catherine"
You're basically Irish Catholic in origin, aren't you?
356: Biologically, only half. I was raised in a town founded by a Fenian, but it was so awash in the sea of midwestern white bread, that I missed most of the cultural baggage somebody from a more urban environment might have gotten.
That said, on the Irish side of my family, the only women without either a form of Mary or Catherine for a name are those who are the third or later daughter in a family. Or under 30, because of the aforementioned white bread.
I'm morally weak where it counts.
At the corner of Sainte-Catherine's and Boulevard Décarie?
That's why trips to Canada are always so morally uplifting. Nobody can pronounce where the prostitutes are.
I was raised in a town founded by a Fenian,
My dad had a cousin, let's call her Cousin Aggie (Sister Mary Agnes O'N__ll), who told me some stories about the Fenians. And many of those stories, they were pure shite, just a bunch of dramatic and romantic bullshit; but a few of those tall tales, they turned out to be true. The O'Neills, eh?
Yep. Not that my ancestors went on that particular camping trip.
I chose (b) and now there's no fucking way I'm going to sleep.
The JP Jane thing is going to play havoc with my stories about my Jane's love for Wonder Woman and "blue music" and the like, but I guess that's no reason to stop unless you want to be tarred with a three-year-old's love for Hello Kitty.
363: SNL with Miley Cyrus is about to start.
Delayed because of baseball or because she was high?
I chose (b) and now there's no fucking way I'm going to sleep.
I decided I needed some mindless and not-at-all-depressing entertainment, so I'm watching This Is The End, and in retrospect wonder if a movie about the end of the world can actually qualify as "not-at-all-depressing", but I think it does.
Or is midnight now the regular schedule?
I was stupidly wondering why SNL would be on on a Friday, before I remembered that just because I worked all day today doesn't mean it isn't Saturday.
Delayed because of football, actually.
Actually, I rather like football delays.
I know, his attempts at the absurd really have been somewhat pathetic of late.
Surely someone here can do better than any of the contributions under the #addawordruinanopera Twitter hashtag. (Not me, though! I'm terrible at that shit.) As of right this minute, no "Orgy and Bess" yet.
Like David Bowie she is a very actorly singer.
Possibly because she's a very good actor. I saw her as Ophelia back in the day, and she was well up to it in a fairly star studded cast.
Doctor Atomic Wedgie
Einstein on the Nude Beach
Mr. Mefistofele
Jeffrey Nealon
In short, Negri's "historical" critique of deconstruction is that, like most poststructuralist theory, it "pushes against an open door" when it insists on the critical potential of openness, fluidity, and the hidden or uncharted possibilities buried within a binary or logocentric essentialism. "Global capitalism" is likewise a sworn enemy of essentialism, and a big backer of multiple ways of proceeding (the famous "flexible specialization"). Negri argues that the regimes of hyperflexible advanced finance capital are in fact immune from a certain kind of demystifying "deconstruction," precisely because these supple and mobile economic formulations don't primarily desire or produce binary totalizing effects. Contemporary global capitalism produces its effects--totalizing or otherwise--only through embracing the event of dispersion, differentiation, and singularization, rather than fighting endlessly against this open-ended state of affairs. Post-postmodern materialism, of Negri's neo-Deleuzian variety, bases itself on an explicit critique of this whole postmodernist, "anti-totalization" mode of thinking. In other words, global capitalism of the advanced type doesn't want to totalize anything at all--other than this sense of fluid openness.
MC is not "reclaiming the who**" because nobody who counts cares anymore. Nor are the people resisting "slut-shaming" actually doing that, actually protecting, anymore than SO is protecting. It's as wrong as saying both Democrats and Republicans are fighting over the budget.
It is indeed all marketing, differentiation.
Why do we have so much trouble critiquing the video?
PS:After looking at a lot of Terry Richardson photos, I find him much less "creepy" in the standard sense. Not that I completely understand him. He apparently shoots both women and men, including Obama, and it looks like he uses the same techniques with all.
My first guess is that he wants to make his subjects nervous and awkward and off-balance, so they will overcompensate with performative brashness or overcomed shyness. Uhh, something.
The Demon Barber of Seville
A Masked Ball Boy
The Strong Nuclear Force of Destiny
380. Carmen Electra would be a mashup I'd go and see.
The one that made me laugh hardest, and is totally an opera I'd see: "Moses und Aaron Hernandez."
Filet Mignon
Billy Budd Selig
Elektra Assassin
Tony Orlando
Aida Dawholeting
William Tell Mom
Salome-capades
Salome: 120 Days of Sodom
Subparsifal
There actually is a song named 382.1, from a would-be Tom Lehrer in the late nineties whose name eludes me.
Back on topic, this was amusing: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/we-did-stop/n41624. Aside from that clip, MC wasn't that funny, though that's more on the writers than her. I was kind of impressed with her two musical performances, tbh.
So I watched the Wrecking Ball video and didn't think it was sexy, though she's obviously quite nubile. The sledgehammer bit was so ridiculous.
I also didn't think it was musically a very good song.
Was her costume (and one of the shots) an homage to the Apple 1984 commercial?
Castor Oil et Pollux
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Trials
Bluebeard's Bouncy Castle
The Stag Party King
Princess Ore-Ida
Trial by Jury Duty
Puff the Magic Flute
The Devil and Kate Winslet
Deep cuts!
Um, I should do this but I'm 3/4 awake.
Cosi Fa Tootie Ramsey?
Yeah ok I should wake up more.
Wait no Cosi Fan Tootie Ramsey is way worse.
Die Drei Ford Pintos
The Saint Bernard of Bleecker Street
La Fanciulla del West Hollywood
Deep cuts!
If they're anything like me, they went to the Wikipedia list of major operas page.
405: But not in a way we can understand anymore.
Lulu Lemon
Fozzie Wozzeck
Idomeneocracy
Der Vamypr Diaries
The National Bohemian Girl
Somebody isn't following the rules.
Returning to the OP for a moment. I was just reading the American Prospect article about Task Rabbit (not available on the main site yet). This description,
Customers hire Task Rabbits to clean garages, haul clothes to the laundry, paint apartments, assemble Ikea products, buy groceries, or do almost anything else that's legal. . . .The firm performs criminal background checks on aspiring Rabbits, who then get access to chore requests posted by customers. Using the familiar metrics of the Internet, the more than 10,000 approved Rabbits are rated by past users.
Made me think that one effect will be to reward people who are conventionally good looking and gender-conforming. If you're rating somebody for helping you put together Ikea furniture it just seems likely that, as long as they're basically competent, a more attractive person will get higher ratings.
Then, when I got to:
That's what makes it a metaphor for the new economy, a dystopia where regular careers are vanishing, every worker is a freelancer, every labor transaction is a one-night stand, and we collude with one another to cut our wages. ... [T]emps, contract employees, ... underemployed "consultants," and adjunct professors all have one core trait in common with freelance errand-runners: They have lost bargaining power.
I thought about that ugly CrookedTimber thread about sexual harassment in the workplace. As a thought experiment, the opening description of Task Rabbit seems like a example that goes along with the idea of harassment as a reflection of power imbalances -- the less a job exists within a negotiated structure which defines the expectations of good performance, the easier it is for supervisors or co-workers to behave as if the purpose of the employees is to make them, personally, happy -- rather than performing a specific job.
420: Umm. the recent Sociology of Work in Japan makes the point (one I have seen made much) that as the number of temp and precariat workers increase in a given site, the wages, benefits, and demands made on the permanent workers eg managers and supervisors will increase proportionately or even more. And they will have more incentive to protect their jobs and follow guidelines.
b) Temp and precariat workers will have more resources, more training and experience in using offsite gov't and non-gov't assistance orgs (because the precariat "works" many hours finding jobs), and much less incentive, rewards, to remain quiet and not make waves.
Or to put it more theoretically:
As capitalism matures, capital will become less organized and more alienated, and labour-power will become more globally self-socialized and less alienated from itself.
Temp and precariat workers will have more resources, more training and experience in using offsite gov't and non-gov't assistance orgs (because the precariat "works" many hours finding jobs), and much less incentive, rewards, to remain quiet and not make waves.
And the only reason the slums of Calcutta didn't produce a movement to rule with world was because Mother Teresa didn't make the poor use an online form to sign up.
423:operative word is "didn't"
Whatever we are, wherever we are going, it is not backwards. We aren't regressing.
I note in passing, the common move to connect the high-value, high-skilled, high-agency temp and contract female worker of Nick's 420 to the most abject of abject in the Calcutta slums.
Yeah, nasty wallpaper on employer's desktop exactly the same as starvation and human trafficking, cause, structuralism or feelings or something.
I may return to this.
I may return, because NickS panderful "Oh, noes oh noes sexual harassment in the workplace is gonna get so much worse" is exactly what a certain crowd wants and needs to hear.
The interesting question is why they want to hear it.
Hivemind bleg from a friend of a friend:
"I've been looking for this one poem I read in college for forever. It's a poem about a woman's mother, and how she sees her as just a woman for the first time. It starts with the mother on the phone telling a friend an unfunny (but trying to be funny) story about how she almost choked and died at dinner. The other part of it that I remember is the girl finding her mother looking out the screen door (or back door) one morning, and looking at her with 'not love exactly, but love inexactly, imperfect as it always is.' Let me know if you have any ideas. I would pay a thousand dollars to have my old Xerox copy of this fucking thing. I think it was by a contemporary NY poet, like someone who haunt[ed] the 92nd street Y, but I'm not sure."
Note for Bob, my comment was intentionally gender-neutral. Attractive men who fit gender norms benefit from their appearance too.
Charles Dickens was kind of handsome I guess. Nick S, have you ever done a google image search (of Charles Dickens)?
The young Philip K. Dick looked a bit like the old Brad Pitt. And the old Philip K. Dick looked a lot like the pap smurf fellow who just passed away. I'm going to leave the finding links up to you all as I am lazy.
Anyhoo, it is interesting how people look!
Serial Abductions from the Seraglio
Nabuco & Friends
Dialogues of the Ex-Carmelites
Parsifal's Theorem
"Oh, noes oh noes sexual harassment in the workplace is gonna get so much worse"
This has been pissing me off, because it seems like a significant misreading. But Bob is correct that my initial comment wasn't completely thought out (shocking) and, in particular that the reference to Sexual Harassment was gestured at but not explained.
A few thoughts.
1) The reference to the CT thread was based on me thinking that there were a significant number of people who dug in their heels and resisted the idea that workplace power dynamics were worth talking about at all. I would agree with the article that I linked that we should be trying to look ahead and figure out what changes are coming,
2) I've done a lot of contract work, and I don't trade on attractiveness but I do think I benefit from the fact that I am good at being non-threatening and generally don't have sharp elbows.
3) I don't know that there's anything wrong with that -- certainly in the contract work I do the power dynamics are complex, not one-way, and not easily reducible. Different personalities will benefit from different working relationships, and I think it's probably best to have an economy in which there's a wide range of relationship types, and people can try to play to their own strengths.
4) Side note to (3) I set up a Kickstarter account about a year ago, and have backed a variety of projects, largely on whim. Part of what I find fascinating about KS is the way in which it clearly benefits certain personality types -- people who are good at connecting to their audience do much better, so there's a significant amount of personal salesmanship involved (by contrast something like eBay requires very little salesmanship).
5) Given Bob's argument that we're moving forward, not backward, a link to Bruce Sterling's story, Maneki Neko seems appropriate. I haven't read it in a while, so I'm just going to gesture at it, but it seems related.
6) I do think Robert Kuttner may be making a mistake to group Amazon warehouse employees and adjunct professors in one category. Part of what's interesting about Task Rabbit, is that it takes an internet contractor model and de-anonymizes it -- in that the work is done in person, rather than online. I think there's a big difference between people doing piece work contracting online (and I remember hearing about sites in which people bid to do programming jobs years ago) and one in which the work is in the physical world -- but I don't pretend that I can think through all of the differences.
Given Bob's argument that we're moving forward, not backward...
You think he could warn people when he's going to do something like that.
I was going to make an Emmylou Harris joke but apparently that happened a few days ago. Instead, here's Ann Magnuson's brain-breaking Open Letter to an Open Letter.
Also here's Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball, which link was going to be in my joke. Adding value!
The Bathtub Ring of the Nibelung
La clemenza di Tito Francona
Struwwelpeter Grimes
Don Carlos Beltran
Don Carlos Slim
Don Carlos Danger
Carmen, Bikewomen
Carmen, -inis (n.)
Norma Jean
The Tales of Albert Hofmann
Scalia/Ginsburg
A new opera, "Scalia/Ginsburg," will premiere next year, the work of Derrick Wang, a composer and recent graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law. Dueling constitutional interpretations, set to music.
