Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Quick Hits...

Sorry for the relative quiet lately. I feel like every other post is my apologizing for light posting, at this point. That's embarassing. I'm in the process of preparing for a cross-country move at the moment, stressing out about looking for a good job in MA (anyone looking to hire someone with a BS in Lit/Phil? Because I'm looking to be hired!), and generally feeling overwhelmed by how much stuff I still have to do in order to get my ass moved. So, here are a few things I'm also thinking about/being annoyed by...

1. Discussions about being trans that generally ignore or deny the experiences of people who identify as such really piss me off. Read the comments- there are a lot of them, but you can mostly jump to the end and see what I'm talking about. When you start dismissing the experiences of transpeople and suggesting that it's all just a big mental illness? Yeah. That's a problem to me.

2. Comparisons between homosexuality and incest.

3. The ways that some people seem to think that "it's just a movie" or "it's pop culture" make something beyond reproach or critique. Pop culture is tremendously important, and, quite frankly, we don't spend anywhere near enough time examining it. We ought to be taking more time to critically examine the things that succeed as pop culture, and examining how our attitudes are shaped by the media we consume. Pop culture both reflects and shapes culture, and it's just stupid, imo, to ignore it or pretend that it's "just" anything.

4. I'm making tacos for dinner tonight, and I'm really hungry. I'm really interested in learning how to make my own taco seasoning. I wonder how hard it would be to do that with fresh ingredients? I mean, what even goes in it? There's almost certainly tomato in there, right? Maybe? I don't know. But, damn, I loves me some tacos.

5. I don't even know what to say about this story, yet. It's heartbreaking.

6. I was sitting in a diner waiting for my food when I first heard about this compound.

2 comments:

Kristen said...

My husband's super secret taco seasoning recipe:

1 T chili powder
1/4 t oregano
1 t paprika
2 t cumin
1 t salt (he insists on kosher or sea salt, but he's a snob)
2 t (freshly ground black) pepper
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 T onion also finely minced
2 T fresh cilantro cut (with scissors) into tiny bits

And for the super secret ingredient....a dash of fresh cinnamon to taste.

Voila...you have seasoning.

SunflowerP said...

Very much agreed about pop culture. What gets missed, I suspect, is that what we call "pop culture" when referring to the 20th and 21st centuries (and, occasionally, to the 19th) is essentially the same thing as what we call "folk culture" when referring to earlier eras. "High" culture may get immortalized, but folk culture is a driving force - it is, after all, the kind of culture we're referencing when speaking of "cultural diversity" and such.

Sunflower