Cake rant

Recently two links have popped up on my Facebook feed... both related to the propaganda of dieting.  It's odd how there seems to be stock photography about diets that I never really noticed.  It's all aimed at women and it seems to assume that women all have similar eating problems... clearly it is cake.  It is chocolate.  It is eating that one delicious thing that Every woman loves... we are offered cake at every turn and find we must resist. Did you not notice this?

Oh OH! it is so hard to turn the corner and not find a cake. You know what would cheer me up?  It's salad.  Salad is apparently the funniest meal of the day.  It's awesome.  And you can eat it alone because well, men do not think salad is as funny as we do...

I know there are other stock photography examples out there... the woman lifting weights on the beach, the happy yoga on a rock... on a rock!  Have you ever done yoga on top of a bolder?  As soon as you try a new balance pose and fall out of it at best you're going to scrape up your feet, and at worst you're going to fall off.

The larger problem in all of this is the way that it simplifies problems.  You are fat because of cake.  If you're not eating cake... well there is no real solution for you but you should laugh over some salad and lift some weights.  You should eat some salad and lift weights, but most diet magazines are not going to tell you why.  They are also not going to tell you that fast food, and soda are making you fat because then Mickey D's is going to sue them. They will tell you the "healthier" foods to buy at the fast food joints. They are not going to tell you that you need to eat less, because that's not profitable. They talk a lot about things to buy but not quantity to consume.

They aren't going to tell you how to really understand your nutritional needs... you need to eat more energy bars and take more special diet pills and spend Money! Even the FDA has its hands tied by food lobbyists about what they can or cannot tell you (check out Food Politics by Marion Nestle). How is it fitness magazines are going to push past that?  "Make healthier choices" is the creed but when you get down to it they clearly think that cake is the most delicious thing on earth... yes they even try to tell you to eat yogurt instead of food... knowing that yogurt (at least diet yogurt) is kind of vile.

(You'll be back on cake and fat in no time)  You need to stay frustrated and continue to pick up their diet magazines with slightly repackaged advice that never really gets you where you want to be... just closer when you are very very good.

...and when you resist cake.  Of course.

Dead Stock

When a garment is left unsold and unworn it is called "dead stock" and remains intact in some mysterious land with tags attached until one day it surfaces from a warehouse or a vintage store... I purchased a pair of dead stock pants for my latest Shakespeare show... solid proof that Polyester is evil...
The same company responsible for Agent Orange, Round-up weed killer, and various other products of the future making the earth uninhabitable for humans helped to develop Polyester and in fact guaranteed it for a whole year...


One year seems rather unambitious for this Polyester. The archeologists of the far future are likely to be digging it up in a Poly-plastic-strata that will form to mark our epoch on this planet.

Really?

There is a time and a place for interpretive portraiture... but I don't think this is one of them.

Sorry to be all judgmental about you or your wife or your special third grade artist but there is a reason that magazines and beauty salons show happy beautiful people in their advertising. Even if you tricked the MOMA into purchasing this original piece of art and even if you convinced someone that Chagall himself painted it for you, it's still not going to make people want to get their hair cut here. Use your head!!!

Research and the summer of What the hell?!

I've just got to get this off my chest. This month a certain university to which I am an alumnus put out this publicity poster:

Seriously? Where did they get their research? Possibly from a photo like this:

It's a bit insulting to Real hippies and to anyone who's ever been to a Phish concert, or anyone who has lived in Berkeley or San Francisco (to present day), to Ben and Jerry... For one thing there's no facial stubble, hell there's no body hair! Their nails are spick and span, and their fake fake wigs are rather too well groomed...

Here are Real hippies;
Please note the grime, the nappy crazy hair, the mismatch clothing, the lack of neon colors... and look at that facial hair! Screw razors man... hippies don't shave when 'the man' says they should. Below, look at this woman's unibrow, she doesn't care... that's the freakin' point!
Real hippies; Look at their muddy feet, look at the lack of bras (the one in the publicity shot is so obviously a foam bra I want to puke on it... come on Ohio... Mark Twain always said that you were a good ten years behind the times, so in theory this should all be more current to you.
I hope that the publicity shot was just put together in haste because if the whole show looks like this I'm going to have to go get a new piece of academic paper from Yale or somewhere that I can point to and say "I trained There!"

I about fell down...

Liberty, Prosperity, Opportunity, Hope... all embodied in a Chia head? As I recall from my Chias, they kinda grow for a bit before getting all slimy and dead. Let's hope the Presidency goes better than ChiaObama. Ooh.
(Please no bashing the Pres. comments)

Good Housekeeping

I found the best book today. It is "The Good Housekeeping, Housekeeping Book" Published in 1947!
("I love to iron, it's what I dream about")

It looks like after the War, when Rosie the Riveter was shoved back into the domestic life, there was a need to convince women that Housekeeping was so complicated and important that their work required a full 491 page book to help them. This book is simultaneously insulting and interesting. There is a lot of good advice about stain removal, ironing, starching, washing with non-automatic or automatic washers... Things that are actually useful to have in a manual. What's great about it is that this was published before the mass commercialization of the soap industry so a lot of the products suggested are; Borax, baking soda, soap flakes, vinegar... all simple and inexpensive items.

At the same time, every chapter begins with a poem about cleaning, keeping your man happy, being a good wife... the worst is the one about learning how to use tools and perform basic household repairs;

The Chapter is Titled "You can fix it yourself, sometimes"

Enigma
How women today--
Wives, sisters, and nieces --
Can Knit or crochet
Such intracate piece,
Yet be so dumb
With a hammer or pliers,
Leaves me numb
With Amazement, sires!

Well-- ouch! Weren't these women just busy running factories not more than two years ago? How did we ever win that war at all with all of these helpless women running the country?

One of my favorite photos is this one of a housewife fumigating her dress;

The chapter it's attached to continues with the whole useful-yet-disturbing theme. It throughly describes all varieties of household pests that you could deal with. The book even describes how to recognize different varieties of ants and moths. And then... 13 of the 27 pages in "Household Pests" chapter describe all of the various ways to use DDT to kill them all.

I think I may need to share more as I go through this old gem... there's a poem about the "Perfect Wife", There is a large portion of the stain busting chapter dedicated to "vanilla, fruit or chocolate" ice cream... it's all fascinating stuff.

Copy Cat Cola

(This is part of the new Pepsi ad campaign up all over including the public transit here in San Francisco)

Dear Pepsi Corporation,
You officially suck. It has nothing to do with your soda. Although soda pop has a large contribution to obesity and dental caries, I am talking to your advertising devision. I'm mostly offended by the way you've taken what was essentially a very successful ad campaign for Barack Obama and made it your own. If you simply look at the "hope" campaign as advertisement (which is a bit of a simplification), then you have offended me with your sheer lack of originality and the way you've decided to ride the coattails of popularity in hopes that people will like you too. It reeks of desperation. You are the sad high school freshman emulating the seniors in hopes of people forgetting that you don't care enough about yourself to figure out who You are and what You are about. Pepsi, please you can do better than this. Have a little self esteem and don't think that people are going to like you because you've changed your can and have decided to be like Barack. I expect if John McCain had won you would have "Pepsi First" posters up instead.  

Really, it's too late to support Obama, just go back to selling us overly sugary soda and stop with this irritating campaign.  You are not a political figure, you are not going to attempt to haul our collective ass out of this recession, you do not represent a new era,  and you are not giving us "Hope" in any capacity.  Perhaps you should focus on "Fizz", "refreshment" and other such verbs that Pepsi actually can provide us with.
Sincerly,
Me

Want a Cigarette?

my friend Michal took this photo in Korea