Spider Fashion

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Sister Wolf

Spidery things are on my radar today. I’m proud to say that I have no fear of spiders. I’m afraid of squirrels and rodents and midgets, but spiders are nothing. I enjoy killing them. I’ve even sprayed them with gold paint, just to make them ornamental for a moment.

Here is a spider web t-shirt from Urban Outfitters. If I were 20 years old, I would definitely want this shirt.

More problematic are these shoes by John Galliano. There are reduced from $850 to only $150, and they are available in my size, an enormous and crowd-pleasing size 40. The thing is, I would never wear them. I know from experience that I’d just add them to my Museum of Shoes I Can’t Walk In. On the other hand, wouldn’t they make a nice addition to the collection?

Isn’t it sad that I am mostly reacting to the original price? I want to save $700!

I read some thing at Time magazine online, about people who are trying to live with only 100 things. It’s a concept that I find very appealing and also terrifying. I probably have 100 hair products. Maybe I could throw some out, though. And then I could buy the shoes.

Posted in Disorders, Fashion | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

The Manson Family: A Gift That Keeps on Giving

Posted on June 14, 2008 by Sister Wolf

No matter how much time passes, The Manson Family endures as the epitome of depraved evil. It just never gets old. This week, a new documentary about Roman Polanski has been playing on TV every night. Now, Manson murderess Susan Atkins is seeking parole, with a request for a “compassionate release” from prison. Atkins, now 59, is terminally ill with brain cancer. She says she has 6 months to live, and she has been a model prisoner.

A story about this in the L.A. Times has generated 750 comments. People obviously still feel strongly about the the Manson murders. But maybe there is support for the idea of redemption through serving “God,” which Atkins has done with the same zealous commitment she once reserved for Charlie Manson.

Susan Atkins runs a ministry and donates her prosaic artwork to good causes. She has even found two men to marry her during her incarceration!

And just like everybody, she has her own website. I laughed out loud when I saw the heading “Accomplishments.” Her accomplishments are listed in minute detail. I’d love someone to make a similar list of my accomplishments, like “Sister Wolf participated in watching TV without stabbing anyone.”

Susan, I’m sorry about your brain cancer but shit happens. You should have read “The Secret” instead of stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach and drinking her blood.

Finally, I was shaken to the core by hearing a demo of Charles Manson singing one of his own compositions. He actually had a great voice! Isn’t that awful?!?

Posted in Disorders, Horrible Stuff, News | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

“Are Men Boring?”

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Sister Wolf

Arts & Letters led me to an essay titled “Are Men Boring?”, where I expected to find some breakthrough study that proved the obvious, beyond a doubt.

Instead, it was the usual anecdotal findings of irritated wives and girlfriends whose male companions had nothing to talk about. Not “nothing” exactly, just nothing that they cared to share in conversation with a woman. I did like this quote from neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine:

“Connecting through talking”, she wrote in her book The Female Brain (2006), “activates the pleasure centres in a girl’s brain. We’re not talking about a small amount of pleasure. This is huge. It’s a major dopamine and oxytocin rush, which is the biggest, fattest neurological reward you can get outside of an orgasm.”

Yes,  Louann, DUH, we love to talk. We are starved for conversation if we live with men. We will make conversation with practically anyone after being home all week with kids who only know how to yell, “BUT WHY? JUST TELL ME WHY!” when you don’t cave in to some demand. We crave conversation so much that we’ll talk to anybody who’s wiling to venture an opinion or relate some experience, however mundane.

Are Men Boring? Is the Pope a former Nazi? Of course men are boring, because they talk only to achieve a goal. The process is just too girly for them and makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes you can put two obsessive men together and they’ll talk about drill bits or blues singers or even sports, but it’s not talk as females experience talking. It’s a dry exchange of information, or else a competition.

Lately, I see there’s a breed of men who talk endlessly about their game with women, but it has the same quality of men talking about business strategy, only more paranoid.

Men must know deep down how boring they are. And I guess they’re proud to be indifferent to conversation. They’re not pussies, dammit!

One thing men don’t like even more than talking is a woman with armpit hair. Every so often, I like to seperate the men from the boys by lifting up my arms. I’m not trying to be obnoxious! I’m just letting them know who they’re dealing with.

Posted in Words | Tagged , , | 51 Comments

Crap, and Other Crap

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Sister Wolf

Here is a cell phone picture of my dresser tonight. Is there too much crap on it, do you think?

Some of the things I considered writing about today, include:

A really funny review of “the worst book ever written”

The obscenity trial underway in L.A., involving scat porn (and a guy who needs killing)

A blog about “piñata related violence”

Golconda diamonds, and why they are so valuable

But I was too lazy, so that’s why I took a picture of my dresser! Despite appearances, I am devoutly atheist.

Posted in Horrible Stuff, News, Words | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Let’s Talk Books

Posted on June 10, 2008 by Sister Wolf

Yesterday, I came across a delightful discussion about books at Salon.com . People were invited to recall a book they really hated.

It was a funny and interesting thread, which I would like to copy (since that’s the sincerest form of flattery, Salon.com!)   I was surprised that more people didn’t name Moby Dick. As I have already mentioned somewhere, Moby Dick is my own Moby Dick.

I loved that someone asked if he was allowed to hate a book he’d never read. He wanted to hate the work of Charles Bukowski, and I know what he means. I hate every book by Chuck Palahniuk, without having read them.   So hating a book Just Because is okay with me.

I will begin with “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin.   I hate that book. I can’t imagine anyone not hating it. And yet it is often assigned reading in high school. Is it because teachers want to make sure that guys grow up to hate “women writers?” I felt so sorry when my oldest son had to read it. I assured him that it was not representative of good fiction written by women. I probably said something like, “Oh god, what a fucking awful book! Ugh, they’re trying to torture you!”

I hated that book because its prose is so leaden and tedious. I can still recall the hideous yellow cover of the paperback after all these years.

I also hate Ulysses, and anyone who says how great it is. Not that I’ll ever read it.

Okay, does anyone have a book to revile?

Posted in Rants, Words | Tagged , , | 34 Comments

Boo Hoo for Ed McMahon

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Sister Wolf

Who gives a shit if Ed McMahon can’t make his mortgage payments?!? I can’t believe he’s getting so much press out of this. I’m even reading that Ed’s money problem is “giving a face” to the nationwide mortgage crisis.

Ed and his much-younger wife were on TV, blubbering about their tragic circumstances. People actually called in with offers of help.

If that stupid old bastard can’t sell his $6 million mansion, he might lose it to foreclosure! Maybe he shouldn’t have had so many wives. Maybe he blew all his money on those flashy dentures. All he ever did in life was sit on a couch and go “Ha ha ha” when Johnny Carson told a joke. Then he bothered everyone with that Publisher’s Clearing House scam.

Fuck Ed McMahon. Let him start worrying about how I’m going to get these new Vivienne Westwood shoes.

Posted in Fashion, Rants | Tagged , , | 20 Comments

I’ll Take This in Red.

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Sister Wolf

This red outfit by Ohne Titel could make me give up black.   Layers of red is my wish for Autumn.

Posted in Fashion | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

In Awe of Liza Lou

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Sister Wolf

All day I’ve been thinking about Liz Lou. Maybe it’s because her art involves such a passionate, superhuman commitment in time and labor. My own fits of art are so half-assed and meager.

“Liza Lou has often been trivialised as the “bead lady”. Her art is distinguished by the thousands of tiny threaded and glued beads that cover every millimetre of her life-sized sculptures and environments. There are those who would see Lou’s work as a kind of extreme and cranky craftwork, an obsessional but minor art. Her most famous piece is a full-scale kitchen, whose counters, cupboards, sink, dishes, tap and even the gushing water are all picked out in chains and whorls of beads. There has been a beaded trailer home and a backyard, every blade of grass a spike of beads. Beaded blankets, beaded portraits of all the US presidents, a beaded toilet bowl with beaded stains, beaded saints, a beaded suicide. When can it ever end? It started when she was in college. If Lou could she’d bead the world.”

I would probably spray the world gold, because it takes less effort. Read more about Liza Lou here.

Posted in Art, Religion | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Directors Gone Wild!

Posted on June 7, 2008 by Sister Wolf

When Clint Eastwood heard Spike Lee’s complaint about the racial make-up of Clint’s war movie “Flags of Our Fathers,” Clint was exasperated. After explaining to a interviewer that his film was true to history, he remarked about Spike Lee, “A guy like him should shut his face.”

I’ve said that line in my head, over and over, and I love it. It is poetry.

When Abel Ferrara heard that Werner Herzog had cast Nick Cage in his remake of Ferrara’s film The Bad Lieutenant, Ferrara told an L.A. Times reporter, “I wish these people would all die in hell. I hope they’re all in the same street car and it blows up.”

Herzog came back with, “I have no idea who Abel Ferrara is. Is he Italian?”

Why can’t everyone follow the lead of these guys and say what they mean? In the arts, in politics, wouldn’t that be refreshing? Anywhere but in the home, of course.

On another note, I can’t wait to see “Mongol“, an epic film about Ghenghis Kahn. It was filmed in China, Mongolia and Kasakhstan. It looks like a visually stunning drama, filled with spectacular violence, and beautiful rugged Aisan men with long flowing hair.

Posted in Art, Words | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Mutton, Lamb and Misogyny

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Sister Wolf

While I’ve been pondering the mutton-dressed-as-lamb issue (evoked by the sight of a 63 year old film director wearing silver lamé jeans,) fate led me to a blog where men were busy explaining why dewy young women are infinitely superior to women over thirty.

Ladies, prepare to give up any illusions of a post-sexist world.   There are men among us who truly believe in their tiny hearts that women are ruined for all intents and purposes once they’ve been soiled by education and experience. Not only ruined, but downright disgusting.

Ah well. Being Sister Wolf, I barged into their conversation and toyed with them. This brought about wounded cries of “Feminist! Angry Woman!” and all the usual charges meant to send women cringing back into their sewing circles.

Let me just say, I FUCKING LOVE MEN! I love them when they’re stupid insecure babies, and I love them when they’re nice grown-up men. I love them when they’re gay and I love them when they don’t even know they’re gay. I love them the most when they love women.

Back to the mutton/lamb thing: In preparing for my Golden Years, I’ve been asking friends for advice about the Cut-Off Date, as in when is it time to give up jeans and a t-shirt and settle into a more age-appropriate dress-code.   Everyone seems to think that one should keep on dressing the way one always dressed. I can’t agree, though. The silver jeans were just wrong for the nice woman who wore them, even though she was as cool as you could ask for, without being Patti Smith.

Patti is the supreme role model for maintaining your coolness and your dignity. But I plan to swap my jeans for long Victorian mourning dresses. I will wear my hair in a bun, and no one will dare bother me. Plus, I will learn to cackle.

Check out this beautiful dress below. This will be the foundation of my Look. Then, check out this whole online shop if you are still drawn to Goth finery. The bustle skirts and petticoats made me moan out loud…as only a woman over thirty can moan.

Posted in Fashion, Horrible Stuff | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments