Kevin Allred, a professor in the women’s and gender studies department at Rutgers University, is stirring up controversy with his signature course: Feminist Perspectives: Politicizing Beyonce.

In a recent interview with NPR, he discusses the genesis of the course. “I read an article a few years ago by Daphne Brooks, a professor at Princeton, and she was arguing that the ‘B’Day’ album should be looked – politically, in kind of line with black, female protest singing throughout history.”

It’s nice to know that Professors at Princeton are thinking about Beyonce too.

Allred continues, “And I wanted to continue that and, like, think about all of Beyonce’s work, post and pre ‘B’Day,’ and her career in general as a way to engage students around these conversations about race, gender, sexuality and the politics of those categories in the United States, especially.”

So I’m, like, how many units is this class and like, what is the cost per unit? Will it help the students to pay back their college loans or what?

If I were teaching Beyonce Studies, I’d start with her transformation from a pretty African American girl to a sleek blond bombshell.

Does a Black woman have to look ‘whiter’ to achieve success with a mass audience? Why is the prevailing concept of female beauty still a busty blond? For all Beyonce’s talk about empowerment, I see a shrewd businesswoman selling herself as a non-threatening sex symbol. Where’s the power in that?

I have no idea what Beyonce means to our culture, but nothing about her piques my curiosity. I’m much more interested when something fresh or challenging manages to capture the public imagination, like Amy Winehouse or ‘Breaking Bad‘. Or when someone truly awful, like Taylor Swift, manages to make $1 million per show.

But that’s just me. I am obviously out of step with most of humanity.

If you’re thinking of taking Professor Allred’s course, you should familiarize yourself with his own dissertation project, for which he is now, ahem, ….

“interrogating U.S. black feminism through the sonic register, reframing debates over intersectionality versus assemblage through taking careful account of the sounds black women’s voices make, both live and recorded. He is particularly interested in the ways black female musicians – like Nina Simone, Odetta, Beyonce Knowles, Nicki Minaj, and Janelle Monae – manipulate their voices in order to resist racist and heteronormative power structures.”

Oh God. Like his hairstyle isn’t enough.

This get-up comes from the new collection by InAisce, designed by a New Yorker called Jona.

Here’s how Trendland describes the collection:

 Jona of InAisce developed a unisex line of clothes that melds the lines between mythical and avant garde fashion. Drawing on homelessness as inspiration for the collection “Seeking Aether” transports us to multiple landscapes. 

And here’s CoolHunting, raising the stakes:

The line’s sinuous draping and streamlined silhouettes, however, effortlessly melded into androgynous geometry, garnishing a unisex following and establishing InAisce as a transcendent force. Blurring the lines between sartorial ingenuity and mythical intrigue, InAisce explores “homelessness” as a transient quest in search of one’s origins with “Seeking Aether.”

Note the difference between homelessness and “homelessness.” Subtle but telling!

I’m going to “garnish” the CoolHunting “writer” with the Most Pathetic Journalism of the Week award, for not knowing the meaning of the word garnish.  She was thinking of “garner” but even that would have been pretentious. Better to stick with “earning a following” or “acquiring a following.”  In any case, G words are not interchangeable, girl!

Can somebody make me a cute little MPJOTW thingie that I can use for this coveted new award?* Just send it to sisterwolf666@gmail    xoxo
*Thanks to Sue Davis!

100% wildcrafted and organic ingredients.  $22.00

What man worthy of the title wouldn’t love a couple of stumps? They’re honest, wildcrafted, they say “I’m no sissy, and I’m not afraid of splinters.”  Buy them at Need Supply.

Turn up your speakers because she mumbles, and you don’t want to miss a word.

I really don’t know what to say except Ugh.

A reader asked me to explain why I don’t like Tavi, and while thinking this over I wondered: Is it okay to not like her? By “okay” I mean, politically acceptable, if not politically correct.

I just don’t like her! Sue me!

Trying to examine the dislike is akin to examining why I don’t like cream cheese.   It’s an immediate reaction, a matter of taste. Does it have to go deeper, I’m wondering? Is it so weird to not like a precocious little teenager that it calls for analysis?

I once took issue with her over the notion that she should identify herself as being on the autistic spectrum. That didn’t go over very well. I don’t even agree with myself at this point. People are free to self-identify or not, as gay, autistic, bi-polar, what have you. I’m past giving a shit. Sorry! to everyone who took offense.

Here’s an idea:

I will use this photo to illustrate my opinion, Taviwise. She is a kid who finds herself   ironic. Her discussions of her schoolday strike me as full of self-irony disguised as faux innocence. Her stance of “Who me? I’m just a kid!” is contradicted by hiring a very effective publicist to put her in front of our eyes on an almost daily basis. She approaches these people to be part of their projects. She’s a brand seeking brand recognition.

In this photo, she was asked to model the Ralph Lauren breast cancer awareness shirt, and she chose to style it with the famous ribbon hat, nudge nudge, that bothered some fashion editor. She’s too young to reference herself, but she’s doing it anyway. It’s irritating.

I don’t even get why grown ups are supposed to want a kid telling them about fashion or anything else. If your all-time favorite TV show is “Daria,” and your all-time favorite magazine is “Sassy,” you need to stay in school and gain some perspective! Or get a show on Nikelodeon!

Remember when she turned down an invitation to be on Oprah, “because that’s just not a crowd whose eyes I want on me?” Oprah is just too pedestrian. Screw Oprah. Oprah wouldn’t get it like Rad Hourani or the Rodarte girls.

Is this a good enough explanation or am I just a big mean horrible old wrinkly meanie?

“Really love the studded coat that closed the show, it just reminds me of ALL my friends growing up and their leathers. As much as it makes me laugh to see our teenage looks adopted into the fashion world everywhere, I’ll never tire of seeing it because I’ll forever think it looks hot as hell.”

Who else but Gnarlitude could have written those words? I have yet to discover a person so full of their own punk street cred. Whoever you are, she is cooler. You’re probably just copying her. She wore that shit first. She cried harder when Dash Snow died than any of you lame asses.

Normally I can find pleasure in displays of pretentiousness. Why does her persona torture me so much?! Is it the proprietary way she says she’s “so proud” of any designer, musician or artist, like she has something to do with it? Is it the non-stop mention of Ksubi and bikers?

In this fawning interview, Gnarlitude pays homage to her vintage monkey fur coat but inexplicably forgets to bring up her Old Man. The very best and most gnarly part of the interview is this closing exchange:

BN:   Describe your look in three words or less
JH: Miserable Mornings, NeverEnding Nights
~

Feel free to weigh in on this and/or complain about my surly nature. Unless you’re from Dallas.

They forget the monkey fur, but otherwise, perfect, don’t you think?

(photo via)

DAMIEN HIRST
End of an Era, 2009
Bull’s head, gold, gold-plated steel, glass and formaldehyde solution with a Carrara marble plinth
84 x 67 5/16 x 38 5/16 inches overall (213.4 x 171 x 97.2 cm)

“The exhibition takes its title from the central sculpture in the exhibition, a severed bull’s head with golden horns and crowned with a solid gold disc. Suspended in formaldehyde and encased in a golden vitrine, this totemic sculpture acts as a powerful coda to The Golden Calf (2008). End of an Era proffers a sacrificial head, here dismembered from the majestic body of the earlier sculpture. While The Golden Calf symbolized the worshipping of a false idol, with End of an Era (2009) Hirst demystifies the biblical tale and, by extension, debunks his own myth-making.”

God, what a cunt.

And not only that, she called me a stupid cunt! See, this is why I’m against comment-censorship. Instead of deleting Ellen’s rant, I would like to deconstruct it. I will need all the help I can get, though. Here is Ellen’s reply to my last post:

dude, don’t hate the player, HATE THE GAME. opiates feel so good. im sure you don’t hate on people who drink booze, and yet look at all the damage alcohol causes to peoples lives. on one hand you are ‘taking up bandwidth’ as you call it, with your endless bitter pap, yet you encourage (nay, harrass) people you don’t even know to ‘look at themselves’ and accuse them of being unhappy and damaged. I think in the case of bloggers who don’t walk their own talk, they SHOULD censor THEMSELVES, so we don’t have to constantly roll our eyes at their bullshit, denial or not.

First of all, why do these people call me “dude?” I feel like the Elephant Man! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL! I’m a   female! Next, “don’t hate the player, hate the game:” Is that a lyric from a rap song? I don’t understand it. Can I hate the player AND the game if I want to?? And also too, must I hate “on” things, rather than simply hate them?

Then the opiates. Jesus. Anyone who promotes the use of opiates is either hopelessly naive or contemptible. It’s like being in favor of drunk driving. The only outcome is prison or death. Anyone who persists in thinking that drug addiction is cool is in for an ugly awakening.

Let’s see, what next. There’s the “endless bitter pap,” but that’s fair enough. One’s person’s pap is another person’s epiphany.

But what about the “nay?” That is a problem. Why does Ellen use the archaic form of “no” in that sentence? Is it ironic or just pretentious bad writing? English majors, speak up!

In the last sentence, Ellen suggests that I don’t walk my own talk. I have searched for the meaning of this expression and it seems to mean “practice what you preach.” Ellen, I wish you had been more specific! I do use a walker at present, so try to go easy on me. If you’re trying to say I’m a hypocrite, then yes, I’m at least as hypocritical as the next person.

Finally, in her follow up comment, Ellen suggests that I’m a stupid cunt, and here I must vigorously disagree. Stupid is such a relative term, after all, and while I’m certainly stupid in my own way, I’m not nearly as stupid as Ellen. Therefore, I remain a cunt, but not a stupid cunt.

You’re in luck.   The Occidental College Course Catalog for 2008/2009 offers a course in Stupidity. Here is the description:

Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beevis and Butthead. This course examines stupidity.

Are you still conscious? What do they mean, “it’s a sign of the feminine?”

Um excuse me, I disagree. Not that I even know what they’re trying to say.