Cruel shoes

I think we can all agree that taste in shoes differs and that what one person thinks is fabulous another thinks looks like what the dog barfed up on the sofa last night.

Sometimes, however, there comes a shoe ugliness so profound that we can all rally around it and bask in the warmth that instantly-forged camaraderie generates. The only thing better than one rallying point of ugly shoeness is three, which I present to you now in no particular order of ugliness:

The Kitten Heel Fringe Clog with Rivets: Nothing says identity crisis like these shoes. Are you a biker or a debutante? Why not both? Seems like the back half of the shoe would need some sort of brace. I am not sure I could even pick up my feet in these shoes. I think I would just end up dragging the front of my foot along the ground until I fell forward. I love contrast and juxtaposition as much as the next person but this is completely unacceptable. SO unacceptable, in fact, that Zappos.com (which I LOVE) could only bear to picture one shoe instead of the pair.

The Ankle Strap Pastel Shoelace Bondage Shoes with Pegs (or maybe golf tees) for Heels: These shoes were clearly assembled by unsupervised wolverines. Wolverines on a Pixie Stix high perhaps. And what is that pink thing inside the shoe on the right? A lung? Is that the latest cool accessory?

Slingbacks with Barnacles, Tapestry, and Random, Inexplicable Silver Thingies: First of all, I didn’t know that shoes could have barnacles. These shoes look like a glue gun craft store sale bin project gone bad under the influence of too much Wild Turkey. I suspect there is a perfectly serviceable, if unremarkable, pair of slingbacks under all that crap but it is so hard to tell. And what does one wear these with?

This won’t mean anything to you unless you’ve read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books

And really … you should read them. They’re wonderfully funny and intelligent. My personal favorite is Hogfather.

Anyhoo…

Which Discworld Character are you like?

created with QuizFarm.com

No, actually, I think you are an idiot

The Language Guy has written another compelling post about Sexism in Language (part 1). Avoiding some form of sexism in writing and speaking is nearly impossible. I worry about it a bit but not much because it is just too much work. It is also makes me weary to think about describing myself as a “womyn.” I think a good neutral pronoun is what we need (along with some common sense).

The Sexism post generated many interesting comments but my favorite thus far is from “Anonymous” who said, and I quote:

“I like women who enjoy being women and accept their place in society. If they’re so concerned about how they are addressed they maybe they are just egoists with self-esteem issues. My wife didn’t want to take my name. Whatever. I don’t care because I’m not an egoist. Sure their are a few women who outshine men, but, in general, men are superior both physically and intellectually. It’s a man’s world. Maybe you might think I’m a chauvinistic pig for saying such things, but, you know it’s true.”

Well thank you very much “Anonymous.” SO glad you cleared that up for us. Honestly, I don’t know how I’ve made it all these years thinking that I, an inferior woman, could ever be equal to a man. How fabulous you must be, “Anonymous.” Are you faster, better, stronger, smarter, braver? I suppose you must be. I am simply bowled over and grateful to you for telling us how it is … via the comment section of a blog … ANONYMOUSLY. Gosh. I wonder why your wife didn’t want to take your name, because you, “Anonymous,” are clearly the man.

Related: Why I Hate Broadsheet

The past is another hemisphere

I’m reading a really interesting book right now: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. What I like about it is that the author’s approach to all of the data and various bits of evidence, pet theories, dogma, and obsessions is inherently fair. I do not think he is trying to stake out a specific position as much as he is reminding us that [a] there is so much we do not yet know and [b] it is incredibly difficult, and potentially dangerous, to extrapolate psychology, emotion, and intent from physical objects for which we have little, vague, or no context.

Three themes resonate very much with me:

[1] It is very clear that the traditional idea that the Americas were only populated by nomadic groups or sporadically settled populations isn’t quite accurate. I think it is safe to say that there were far more people in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans than has been traditionally believed. Whether this constitutes many thousands, millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions is up for debate. I, personally, would not be surprised for the number to be higher rather than lower.

[2] The struggle between “Indians as poster children for eco-catastrophe” versus “Indians as green role models” is a thorny issue that sparks much anger. Clearly, these ideas conflict but maybe not as much as it seems. Mounting evidence seems to support the idea that most native populations were gifted land managers. This doesn’t mean they didn’t’ leave a footprint; of course they did. They altered the landscape dramatically but for the most part, beneficially. It would be to their detriment to do otherwise. Every population knows that. Poor land management is historically driven by desperation and disaster.

[3] These people are us; no better, no worse. They aren’t primitive (in the pejorative sense). They are sophisticated in a variety of areas and demonstrated an incredible knack for making the most of their environment, opportunities, and resources to create wonderful and stupendous systems, structures, art, religions, agriculture, and societies. They’ve done things we cannot do today but that doesn’t mean that they had the help of alien beings. It means they figured something out and that the knowledge was lost with them. It happens all the time throughout human history.

I do not have a stake in this as my career is not anthropology or archaeology but I do find all of it fascinating and enjoy the twists and turns that new information forces. If you are similarly interested in this subject matter, I highly recommend this book. Good companions for it are Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.

The Ears of Exasperation

The cold has moved into the hacking cough phase so last night was spent mostly not sleeping. The cats, who were piled on me nonetheless, had the nerve to look put out that I was coughing and, it seems, inconveniencing them. This from Mr. Howls Wake the Dead and Ms. Crushes My Sternum. The both directed what I call The Reproachful Stare, The Ears of Exasperation, and The Twitching Tail of Anger at me. Needles to say, I was properly chastised by this and FLUNG THEIR SORRY ASSES OFF THE BED. Ungrateful wretches.

I am going back to bed now and they’d better both stay in the den.

Human kindness, it’s overflowing

The sun has set on Thanksgiving. After a relatively balmy day (high of 50 or so) the temperature has already dropped 20 degrees and the wind is gearing up for a long night of sweeping leaves into great piles and flinging small branches onto rooftops.

I have spent Thanksgiving at home nursing a cold. I already planned to not go out to the mountains this year but had no fewer than three four invitations for Thanksgiving locally. Many thanks to one of those wonderful families for bringing me three (!) plates of food this evening. I couldn’t really taste it but I am pretty sure it was good.

The cats are curled up on me trying to steal my and the computer’s warmth. Figaro is smugly basking in the glow of his huge ego and Abby, to judge from her twitching, is dreaming about bringing down great mastodons.

I am dreaming about warm weather and being free of this cold.

Giving thanks for Extruded Americans

My friend pointed me to this wonderful collection of images and captions at Lileks.com’s Gallery of Regrettable Food and I found myself inspired by one of the images, namely, the Thanksgiving Party Cake House complete with Extruded American. There is cake for every month but the November cake is special to me because of the conversation she and I had at the time, which I would transcribe here verbatim if I could remember any of it. Since I cannot do that, I’ll make something up. Here’s what we might have said:

Me: Did you see the November cake with the little plastic Native American? How does that make you feel?

Her: Well, as a Native American, I am offended. We’re not yellow; we’re red.

Me: I don’t know, you look pretty white to me. And I NEVER see you in a headdress or loincloth. What’s up with that? Doesn’t seem to me like you are representin’ your peeps too well.

Her: Kiss. My. Ass. Kemosabe.

Like I said, that isn’t it exactly but it captures, I think, the spirit of the exchange (much like a dream catcher [Gag … I just made myself sick with that]).

So, I spent the next few months diligently searching flea markets and antique stores for an Extruded American for my not yellow friend and I finally found one. It was a tiny little plastic “Indian” doll complete with diorama background and helpful information about the Indians. It was part of a “Dolls of the World” collection from probably the 1940s or 1950s. Needless to say, it taught that these folks are noble savages and all exactly the same. Because, of course, they are.

Perhaps, if I am lucky, said friend will send me a photo or post a photo on her blog of the doll and diorama.

The birds and the … cats

Today is the last sunny and warmish day for at least a week so the birds are making the most of it, flitting around, singing, and driving my cats crazy. They (the cats) are currently battling each other for the prime windowsill space so that they can lure the bird into the apartment and feast upon them.

Now, there are some problems with this plan:

-The windowscreens. I am not removing the screens, the cats cannot remove the screens and unlike bats, the birds cannot thread themselves through said screens and would not even consider it.

-The birds. Despite the age-old “birdbrain” insult, these birds are not that stupid and can tell that it is a PREDATORY cat trying to lure them over to the window to, you know, just hang out and talk.

-The cats. The cats don’t really know what they’re in for with a live bird. No doubt a sparrow could kick both Figaro’s and Abby’s asses.

And yet, Abby and Figaro remain ever optimistic. Bless their hearts.

“But the cow would have to be tipped quickly…” Part Deux

A debate has erupted about the veracity of the cow tipping study and whether or not to applies to cows in the mountainous regions. A person who is from the flattest flat place ever known to mankind believes the he knows some stuff about the physics of tipping mountain cows and has even gone so far as to illustrate his point with a diagram:

This man has clearly never been anywhere near a cow that wasn’t served up medium-well with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, on a toasted bun or he would know that mountain cows are wise to cow-tipping trickery and hip to physics and gravity. That isn’t to say that cows are intellectuals because they most certainly are not. What they are is good at basic self-preservation. Also? It is difficult to sneak up on them FROM THE FRONT.

In addition, I resent his comment to me personally that women do not understand physics. If ever there were a creature endowed with the ability and tools needed to understand physics, it is the human female.

“But the cow would have to be tipped quickly…”

Cow-tipping myth hasn’t got a leg to stand on.

Good to know that this has finally been settled.