i went to duluth this weekend and got to use some fancy tools including a belt sander and a planer and a table saw, with that same grin on my face the whole time; it was perfectly safe, as indicated by my ear-wear

if i ever record an angsty album under the persona of a duluthian high schooler with child-like innocence, this will be the album cover; lake superior makes me hard core pensive and squinty

Okay, it’s drawn beautifully (see above), it’s set in 18th Century Germany (well, no such thing, but you get the idea), has way cool sound effects, and features arguments about whether or not our Protagonist is going to Mass (who hasn’t been there? eh? eh?). Also, apparently werewolves make an appearance later on.

I will stop now because I know you all want to hop over and start reading it.

Flying Aces, as imagined by comic genius Kate Beaton (click to make it legible)

For as much as I think about gender, I don’t think all that much about men and masculinity. And for as many books and articles and blog posts out there about gender theory, it’s remarkably easy to avoid thinking about masculinity. I probably did this because I’m mainly self-interested and want to understand why I am the way I am because of the stereotypes of women that I’ve internalized. The idea, though, that gender is something for women to struggle with is more widespread, I think. Some theorists have said that only women have gender, which sounds odd until you think about our culture’s understanding of men as the universal. Okay, here is an example of what that means:

illustration for an article about aging in this week's New Yorker

Thought experiment: I bet when you look at that illustration you think ‘oh, this article is about aging’ (if so, then Richard McGuire did a good job as illustrator!). But if it showed female figures instead of male, would you think ‘oh, this article is about women aging’? I bet I would. So the male gender disappears because we see a male figure and think ‘human’, but female figures only ever suggest ‘women’.

Of course, men are influenced by gender stereotypes as much as women are, and it’s only by examining those stereotypes that we can hope to move past them. Sometimes I joke that I’m a good dude because, for instance, I’m not comfortable sharing my feelings and I’m not overly sensitive to what others are feeling, but as much as I like pointing out the negative stereotypes, masculinity is in general a big mystery to me. Because I’ve never examined it! Enter Susan Faludi’s book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, which is about men in post-war America. I read the opening chapter (hat tip to Seth, who has become my gender theory pen pal), and I think I’m hooked enough that I’ll check it out from the library.

One of the main themes she brings up in this opening chapter is our culture’s myth that men are in control– that they are men because they are in control– of nature, of others, of their surroundings. Certainly a lot of ‘feminist’ rhetoric on power structures reinforces this idea. But no one is really in control, because we all have to play by the rules of the institutions we were born into (like corporate capitalism and our political system). It just so happens that so-called masculine traits in vogue in the past few decades, like competition and self-interest, are more valued in our capitalist society than, say, self-sacrifice and cooperation.* But competition and self-interest have not always been as explicitly prized as they are now. Faludi uses the example of WWII rhetoric on the soldiers in the trenches vs flying aces (yes, the comic above is related to something in this post!) to argue that the traits of self-sacrifice and cooperation, exemplified by the ‘small men’ fighting on the ground, were more valued in men than they are now. (Of course, it was in the interest of the powers-that-were that the ‘small men’ enlisted to face their death at war felt valued– but whatever the motives, the point is that that men were praised for embodying these cooperative traits).

She also has an interesting thesis that the situation of young men in the ’90s resembles that of housewives in the ’50s. Basically, the hypermasculinity of the former and the hyperfemininity of the latter were both born of the consumerism they were encouraged to embrace because they lacked a meaningful role in public life. I will have to read the whole book before I say more about that (especially about what she’s counting as ‘a role in public life’), but I do love the idea of drawing parallels between the situation of men and women.

Maybe we aren’t from different planets after all! (I will spare you a diatribe about that notion.)

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*Can’t help but point out that this is institutional sexism: when an institution (capitalism) rewards the traits assigned to one gender rather than the other, such that people taught to be ‘good men’ (competitive, self-interested) are more rewarded than people taught to be ‘good women’ (self-sacrifising, cooperative).

ingreeds

I am going to go out on a limb and say tempeh is the most delicious stir-fry ingredient ever. Also broccoli. Okay, all of the ingredients pictured above I am heartily excited about.

avocado tower stuck in the middle there makes it so delish. so much of meals is about awkward presentation.

I also put in plenty of red pepper flakes, ginger, garlic, & roasted peanuts, with the sauce consisting of canola oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, and cornstarch.

The whole thing was inspired by this lady, especially the cast iron method. Well, I didn’t do each ingredient separately, but I did use a hot cast iron! Still getting used to cooking with l’electricite, but it seems hotter than gas stoves. Could that be true?

If you haven’t seen it, or if it’s been too long, I will wait while you watch this scene of him dancing on his bicycle with his ballerina lady friend:

Okay, now that you have scene fresh in your mind, I will give you points two through six for why you should watch the whole thing:

2. The first race scene, bike vs. taxi in rush hour, in which we get a dramatic close-up of the rear derailler shifting to a higher gear so our bicyclist can propel himself forward at a faster rate. Is this the only cinematic presentation of derailler drama? It’s the only I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, they actually show the chain shifting to a lower gear, which looks an awful lot like it should be shifting to a higher gear, but is it too nerdy to point that out?

3. Kevin Bacon trues a wheel after his bike messenger lady friend crashes. Notable quote from said lady friend, seeing Kevin Bacon lube his chain: “Why do you do that?”

4. The whole bike messenger crew doing bicycle circus tricks during their 15.

5. A moment of unmistakable foreshadowing of Kevin Bacon’s creepy phase, in which he creepily pretends to be asleep while his lady friend puts a blanket on him, and then his eyes open in a creepy fashion to reveal that he was awake the whole time.

6. The part where the killer guy, looking for our bike messenger lady friend in a diner, walks past the men’s bathroom with a glance, the air thick with ‘Well she sure won’t be found in there‘, and enters the women’s bathroom, where lo and behold! See, even if we are running for our lives, you will not find us ladies going into the men’s bathroom. At least some things are still sacred in this crazy world.

my francophile friend hillsry got me this postcard that says 'je cuisine a l'electricite', and it's finally true

le sauce: saute 6 garlic cloves & some tomato paste, add a few glugs of wine, then a big can of diced tomatoes. season with salt, sugar, and pepper.

le filling: crumbled tofu & a few T's of nutritional yeast & salt & pepper. an old trick learnt from a vegan friend, if you don't want to use boring old cheese.

le crust: white + whole wheat flour & yeast & salt & olive oil & water. i love my cuisinart.

le process: roll into ovals, add tofu (i also added chopped green olives) mixture in center, moisten edges to seal, bake, and voila! dinner!

fun fact: there is an echo in this room when you stand in the epicenter of the turret

our lookout post from The Defenses, aka The Turret, observing our blizzard yesterday

our pretty pretty kitchen

information station in my bedroom. woo east window!

That’s the best I can do, picture-wise. Visit me and see the whole thing! Cute puppy pictures (our neighbors/landlords have a great dane named Bertram) forthcoming. I PROMISE.

dead leaves on the dirty ground... minus the dirty ground part

So I did not think to protect my peace lilies in the move to the new apartment. For anyone who’s curious, 20 minutes travel time outside when it’s 3 degrees is indeed enough to kill your houseplant leaves. I had revived them so well just a month ago! Hopefully it’s not all for naught, and they return happier than ever. Stay tuned.

sad. just sad.

That was the only sad part of my move last weekend, however! The new place is great, and will grace this blog with pictures in the near future. This time around I am aiming to beat my previous record of staying in the same apartment for 17 months. Because as much as I apparently dig moving, it’s nice to have found a place that could work for– gasp– 18 months or more. Maybe I will start hoarding things, like rats or garbage, thus increasing the potential cost of moving and driving down the likelihood of that seeming like a good option…

my mouth looks either frozen open or like it's helping me concentrate on taking a self-portrait. it's the latter.

Not my best ‘sicle, but quite likely my last, if this gorgeous weather holds. I’m sure I won’t be disappointed. What could go wrong?

From a National Geographic article on the 125th anniversary of Punxsutawney Phil’s antics:

While Phil’s proponents maintain that his predictions are 100 percent accurate, the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has estimated that Phil is correct only about 40 percent of the time.

My head says ‘numbers!’ but my heart says ‘spring!’. So I’m thinking that our three-day warming trend here in Minneapolis will continue unbroken into the warm summer months. And now I have a groundhog to back me up in this assertion. I have a feeling I’ll believe this even when the highs of 10 degrees come back next week.

[Disclaimer: please note that I'm not ungrateful to Winter for toughening me up ever so slightly. Winter has been very instructive and character-building.]