YouTube Restores My Confidence In The Species

Why?

Because although we have given the world this -

We have also turned that shite into into this -

And this and this and this.

I've had the chorus of the Kwurzel Massive song in my head all morning.

Sometimes people are awesome.

True Confessions

We all have those odd things we do when we're alone, right? For example, I like to buy the organic "Just Fruit" freeze-dried strawberries and bananas and reconstitute them in a hot cup of tea and eat them with a spoon. And then drink the tea.

I also enjoy watching the TimeLife music infomercials. Classic Soul Ballads got me through many a sleepless Sunday dawn. This half hour of musical joy - so sweet, so sultry - was hosted by my man Peabo Bryson. I had no idea how many Peabo Bryson songs are indelibly etched into my brain, in the deepest recesses of my childhood memories. Some day I won't remember the names of my friends and family, but let me tell you, I will always have Peabo. We had a once in a life time.

They don't just play the song snippets as the titles scroll by, either. They show clips of classic soul ballad singers singing classic soul ballads. Funny clothes! Funny hair! Peabo Bryson! In between there are little blurbs where couples confessionalize about how glad they are that TimeLife has brought all their favorite soul ballads together in one collection. I mean, you could spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars collecting all those great hits!

The repetition, the tiny snippets, the soothing voice of Peabo: this is one of the most relaxing half hours of programming on television.

But now, oh now, TimeLife gives us Classic Soft Rock, hosted by Air Supply. (Whose names are, no kidding, Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock.) Turns out I also know all the words to half a dozen Air Supply songs. I bet you do, too.

And If I thought it didn't get better than Luther Vandross videos, that was only because I had not seen footage of Gino Vannelli in a tight white jumpsuit open to the waist. You think you don't know who Gino Vannelli is, but you should. He sang "Living Without Your Love", a personal favorite, as well as "I Just Wanna Stop". Remember Linda Ronstadt and Kim Carnes? Then there's Styx, Chicago, America, and a multitude of other bands whose names are taken from geography. Aligator lizards in the aaaair - love it!

Ah, funny old dudes from Air Supply. Snippets of Solid Gold-era live performances with the soft colorful back-lit sets which give a halo effect to the truly ginormous hairdos. Man, when I was little I wanted to be a Sold Gold dancer. And I wanted hair like Nicolette Larson.

So this is my confession . . . I sit on the futon under my throw blanket and eat re-hydrated astronaut strawberries and watch TimeLife Classic infomercials. Got a problem with that?

Lost in love and I don't know much ...

Gender Studies Crash Course - Lab Stylee

So I have a bay mate who I am getting to be friends with. It's Newish Indian Post-Doc (NIPD) who you will remember from the baking incident. NIPD took me into confidence about his dating woes and complained that he just doesn't know what women want! He also made some comments about how dating (a woman) takes up too much time and money. However, he still would like to date one ... How to resolve this?! To help my new friend I wrote the following.

Dear NIPD,

I've been thinking about this for several days so I am going to be presumptuous and adopt a slightly professorial tone for a few minutes. I don't mean to be in any way condescending, but I have thought, read, and talked a lot about these issues over the last ten years - possibly at the expense of knowing calculus.

It occurs to me, and I'm sure this is hardly a new or novel thought, that the stereotypical "woman who wants money from men" is a product of patriarchal culture itself. Traditionally, well-paying professions (or any professions, depending on how far removed in space/time you are from Boston in 2007) have been reserved for males. Women are/have been expected to remain dependent on male relatives (father, husband) their whole lives. It's still true even in America today that women make 75 cents to the dollar of their male equivalents in the workplace, and female versions of the same occupation ("cook" vs "chef") tend to be lower status that the males'. Let's forget Larry Summers' hypothesis for a minute and focus on demonstrable history.

For most of our history, the males have been calling the shots (for various reasons), and as my step-dad always says, though usually he says it in the context of labor relations: When someone's got the pie and they've also got the knife, who do you think is going to get the biggest slice? There's a particular advantage to limiting the pool of workers in competition for jobs (and some advantage, historically, for division of arduous domestic labor). (Aside: this holds true for race/caste as well as sex.) The option for women in this system is to hawk their only constant asset, i.e. their bodies. Historically, the respectable version of this is marriage, in which the woman trades access to her reproductive system in exchange for social and material support, but generally at the cost of her freedom. The other version is prostitution, in which the woman is more physically free (not beholden to one particular man or family) but is socially castigated. Of course, here and now it's not as clear cut, but the wife/whore dichotomy still holds cultural sway.

In any case, the basic principles of sex inequality remain:
1) systematic or unintentional discrimination (old boys' club networking, boss less likely to hire woman who may have babies soon, male boss feeling "just more comfortable" around men);
2) the cook vs chef issue (studies have been done that show an unconscious bias in both men and women to rank a male resume over a female's even though they have the same qualifications; see Nature article by the male-to-female scientist for more evidence of this); and
3) the emphasis on a woman's youth and beauty as defining her value and social standing (e.g. there are lots of mediocre looking actors, but very few non-gorgeous actresses; people feel free to comment on Hilary Clinton's physical appearance in a way they would not think of doing about John Edwards - talk to me later about Barack Obama, that's the Race In America lecture!)

Read any Victorian novel and it's all about match-making - mostly (with a few notable exceptions) about girls making the best match in terms of wealth and social status. Gold-digging? Think of this: these characters know that they have no way to advance their wealth and social standing apart from through a man! It's only recently, in this country, that women could vote, own property (and not have to turn it over to their husbands upon marriage), open a bank account without a male relative, attend universities (Princeton didn't admit women until 1969). If those women didn't "marry up" they had to make a living as a governess or live on charity, neither of which option had any social status at all. Their marriageablility was based on either their parents' wealth or on their "charms and virtues" which, if you think about it, all relate directly to their being ornamental and likely to bear their husband's children. Which means that a woman is foremost a body which exists for the needs of others (men, children) rather than a person with personhood and agency in and of herself.

It's somewhat different here and now, but not completely different. The old modes of thinking persist. We humans have short memories and have trouble thinking outside of our own experiences. This is why when mysoginist "funny" emails circulate, otherwise educated people laugh at them, feel slightly mystified about "what women want", and feel put upon by the thought of being judged as a material resource by the opposite sex...

But now, having thought about it, we can see that the problem is inherent in the system; in fact, it is created by the system. The only solution is to move beyond gender roles toward a system in which womens' work is valued and renumerated equal to mens'. Some people actually don't want this, because it means giving up that pie knife. It also means, for the knife-wielders (i.e. men as a group), giving up power over reproduction and companionship, which historically have been up for purchase, to the suppliers of those things (i.e. women as a group).

However, people like you and I, who are interested in people as people and not as vehicles for the satisfaction of our own needs, don't need to keep that dynamic or to traditional notions of gender. In fact, gender roles hurt both of us. It's a little more obvious why they hurt me, as a woman, in terms of power and resources, but you, as a male, also suffer personally, as we have seen. We are not people who need the uniforms of gender to tell us who we are or what to think or how to be. I don't need for my husband to make more money than me in order to find him valuable, and his masculinity doesn't enter into it. I know he's a man. He knows he's a man. And what's so special about being a man, anyway? Half the world are men. Likewise, I don't want my professional peers to judge me on my boobs. Half the people in the world have boobs. So what? I'm Joolya first, and a boob carrier second. Anyone who judges you for not conforming to gender norms is lame and not worth getting involved with. But we enlightened people do exist. We're just beset on all sides by tv and magazines and stupid people who don't know any better. But we all just need to get over gender, or we will stay being unsatisfied.

It's impossible to have a satisfying, intimate relationship with someone who you view as different or less human than yourself (or members of your group, whether that is racial, or sexual, or religious, etc.). Hence the plight of the heterosexual! I mean, how can you get closeness and sex and love from someone you objectify? By "objectify" I don't just mean gaze at lustfully. I mean not seeing that person as just as much of a person as you yourself are. Loving an object is not love.

The system is deeply, deeply entrenched and I'm sure you will see it everywhere you look now. But I think we, as tiny little antlike individuals, can help swing the balance away from inequality and dehumanization by confronting those things in ourselves and in our lives day to day. Even if it's just something so small as looking at a mysogynistic joke and thinking about why it is or is not funny.

Okay, lecture over. If you're still even reading, I hope I haven't said anything patronising. I'm rather passionate on this topic, and I like you too much to not tell you what I think. I'll even loan you my copy of The Feminine Mystique, which is eye-popping, and a good read, too.

Sincerely,
Joolya

PS I need the microscope tomorrow.

Joolya Plans Haitus From Popular Culture

I think I am going to stick to topics of science and personal maybe-humourous observations for a while. I have to save up my news and media brain-space for the 2008 election.

Chilly

I guess this kind of thing is why politicians in America don't feel safe to express actual opinions or have personalities. Reading the comments section is also thought-provoking. I think Amanda Marcotte was maybe a little naive about what she was getting herself into, and balked when it got nasty. Certainly her blog is not "tasteful" or full of sunshine and rainbows. But it also strikes me, in these comments and others on Salon, how people are so lacking in empathy and imagination for someone else's experience, and so quick to throw stones of invective.

Here's why I'm not going into politics. This whole thing makes me want to say offensive things; but only from the relative safety of relative anonymity.

Feminism! Liberal! Fuck! Athiesm! Vagina! Penis! The Pope looks like the Emperor Palpatine! Rick Santorum looks like Guy Smiley! Pre-marital sex! Legalize marijuana!

FMS help me when the bad people tell us to get in the trucks. I'd better do more cardio so I can run when the time comes. Since I'm not the best at cross-country, though, maybe we should all just stay on our guard and not let that happen.

The Font of Teriyaki

Since my PI is out of town this week, group meeting yesterday was devoted to the topic of How to Make Figures (and Not Get Yelled At When You've Done It Wrong and Have to Go Redo Them With Much Grumbling).

Have I talked to you yet about the importance of fonts?

My first committee meeting - I'm making figures and showing them to my PI. Let's call him Ringo. Ringo looks at my figure, takes a deep breath, puts his hands down on the table, leans forward and says, "Okay, I'd better just tell this now." Another deep inhalation: "Never use serif fonts to label figures!"

You see, he continues, serif fonts such as Times New Roman are designed to guide the eye from letter to letter. However, in a figure label there is no string of letters, so the serifs are thus unnecessary and look cluttered. No serifs on headlines, titles, or drawings.

Only use Arial or Helvetica, he tells me. And really, it's better if you just use Arial in the text, too, when you send me text. Just - just - always use it. No serifs ever! Death to serifs! Sans-serifs triumphant! Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!

In honor of this conversation, I wrote a poem and gave a dramatic reading a la Anne Shirley at the Charlottetown Hospital Benefit, to similar accolades. Sent it to my PI who wrote back:
"This is so outstanding that you have earned the right to submit one thesis in times roman (but figures still need to be sans serif of your choice)."

I reprint it now for your edification. (With some small changes to protect lab anonymity.)

Twas brillig and the Ringoites
Did loiter in the chit-chat room.
Ringo's office door, a gaping maw,
Did beckon in the gloom.

Beware the serif fonts, my friend!
The prongs that guide the eye along
The body of the text, and shun
The frumious Garamond!

What is a serif font, you ask-
O Ringoite, it's time you knew,
And save yourself the gruesome fate
Of Times Roman, New.

A serif letter, called grotesque,
Or gothic, is at each end tipped
With little frills, as by a scribe
Whose quivering quill has slipped.

You protest: you love TNR!
In this lab, that's heretical.
Our leader has decried all fonts
That aren't Helvetical.

If to a meeting you show up
With figures serifally marked
Those serifs inflame Ringo's wrath
Like blood enflames a shark.

Helvetica and Arial!
So clean, so neat, so legible!
A figure not so labeled will
Be ineligible

For his consideration, lo -
His eye will ever thus be caught
Upon the fringed serifs and on
Your data not.

So do yourself a favor, folks,
Cleave to these words and live to tell
A student of your own some day
The joys of Arial.

A figure label stands alone:
A letter proud and unadorned
By messy serifs must be used.
Don't say you've not been warned.


**Extra points if you got the reference in the post title.

I should be at the lab, probably

So, I like to read Television Without Pity. I got into it when I moved and lost HBO in the middle of season 3 of Six Feet Under. Despite lacking visuals, reading the TWOP recaps was as entertainting, if not more so, than watching the show.

Got into reading the recaps of America's Next Top Model later, because I could never keep track of what day the stupid show was on.

I sometimes like to read the recaps of shows I have already seen, just because they are funny, and clearly my life lacks something critical.

Which brings me to my cyber-crush on Potes. Potes writes the recaps for ANTM and, I have just learned, also for Ugly Betty, which is my new iTunes download show (since I got all caught up on Grey's Anatomy and am rarely home to watch TV at 8 pm).

Potes is from my hometown. She is so funny. I heart Potes. I would befriend her on Friendster if that wouldn't make me look like a creepy cyberstalker. Instead, I will just proclaim my crush here, on my blog, which is less cree... yeah, okay, it's not, is it? Whatever.

Anyway - go on over to IBTP and read about something really creepy.

Sticks and stones

Since I gave group meeting last week, something like six people have asked me on seperate occasions when I am going to finish. Yesterday a former tech in the lab who is finishing a PhD in informatics this year (yes, he was a tech when I joined the lab) asked me this question within earshot of my PI!

Even worse was the double whammy sucker punch from Slightly Odd Newish Grad Student (SONGS):

"So, was that [protein I work on] stuff like, your whole project? Are you almost done?"*

Doesn't anyone know that inquiring about projected length of stay is the about the cruelest thing you can say to a G5?

It seems like an innocent question, but it is actually a sharp hooked barb of meanness and pain.

*(Struck back later with, "Oh, so, all that data looked interesting but ... you're gonna wanna do some controls ...")

Yay!!!

Balloon Lady is the coolest person I know: her film, TWISTED: A Balloonamentary will be premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin on March 10th in the Emerging Visions category.

Yes, this is the same Balloon Lady who made an 8 ft tall balloon Al Roker on the Today Show.

So film buffs, fans of wacky subcultures, and anyone in Austin in March should go see her film because it's awesome.

Consciousness Raising Activities In The Lab

I brought I torte in for group meeting yesterday. I'd bought the torte at a local bakery. Came into the meeting and the punters were nibbling away.

"Did you bring this?" someone asked.

"Yes," I replied."

"Did you bake it yourself?" asked Newish Indian Post-Doc. I like NIPD, so we have banter.

"Haha, yeah ..." I said. "Okay, no not really."

"I didn't think so," said NIPD. "You don't look like you know how to bake."

"Fwaaahaa?" I said, gaping. "What does that even mean?"

NIPD tried to play it off like he was totally kidding, when in fact he was only sort of kidding - in that he actually did think that but said it as a joke. Not in a mean way.

"I have many comebacks to that, NIPD; sadly none of them are appropriate to the lab environment." I replied with a jocund gape in all directions.

"Since when has anything been inappropriate for the lab environment?" asked Dirty Canadian MD.

"Good point," said NIPD. "Like what?"

I waved my hand as if to say, If you can't imagine my comeback, O innocent NIPD, I surely cannot corrupt your brian by telling it to you.

"I can cook! I just choose not to. Though not so much with the baking. I'm more a throw-things-into-sauce, never the same way twice cook."

"See, I guessed that," he said.

"You've been looking at my blots, haven't you?"

Then our PI came in so we left it. But I wanted to make sure NIPD knew I wasn't really offended after the meeting. He stammered for a minute that he thought we had banter rights and I said of course we did, and I'm rather hard to offend. Not to mention my husband does the baking in our house. He found this amusing.

"NIPD, why must you tie yourself down with gender roles, hm?"

Then he thought for a moment and said, "But you know, most of the top name chefs are men ... "

"Yeah, NIPD, that's because when a woman cooks she's a cook, but ooooooh when a man cooks, he's a chef!"

He didn't get it. I think NIPD needs his consciousness raised.

Sometimes I am flabbergasted by the level of cultural ignorance evinced by my arguably intelligent colleagues.

Why oh Why is there not a 10 pm bus???

Does anyone else think that swoosh on the Amazon.com logo looks like a penis?

Damn, I gotta stop renting videos. I never return them on time.

Just thought of this because there is no way I am dragging myself out to the video store at 11 pm this evening to return the bloody things. I haven't even finished one of them.

This is also why I have no cash: because of things like not returning videos or registering for the term on time.

And I've got immersion oil all on my hands and in my hair and in my pores. It smells like the chrism the bishop smeared on my head when I got Confirmed. Feel like my hair resembles that of Professor Snape. Although I do adore me some Alan Rickman, this is not a good thing.

I hate group meeting day. Crankybagelsugarrushmorningwastedlatenightnodinnerday.

Scientists Wear Clothes And Have Hair

Seventh graders visit Fermilab, learn that scientists do wear clothes under their white lab coats, just like regular people! (Yes, even I do that on occassion - it's really cold in there.)

Highlight from Katie:
Actually, scientists are normal people that lead normal lives. Their jobs sound very interesting because they can do whatever they want and they still get paid for it. They can dress in casual clothes and decorate their offices however they want.

Katie has smashed the atom right on the head! Aside from that most of us don't have offices. Casual clothes and the freedom to surf the net all day and sit at the 'scope all night is what seperates the PhDs from the MDs. Hells yeah!

There are a number of gender swaps in the before/after drawings, which is intriguing. Also interesting is that many of the before drawings show male scientists with bald pates while their after counterparts have full heads of hair (and in one case a porn-tache).

The captions are pretty sweet. I am generally disappointed in the quality of the drawings, though. Hello, perspective? Tiny foreheads? Egyptian tomb stance? Clearly we are underfunding visual arts in our schools.

Sunday Dilemmas

I have realized that I would rather go to the lab than tidy/clean my apartment.

Only, it's really cold outside and I'd have to wait for the bus and since I just had a procrastination bath my hair is all wet and likely to freeze.

Also I'm hungry, so I'd have to stop for lunch and then by the time I got to lab I'd be there all evening. I don't have any food in the house, though, so I still have to go outside even if I don't go to lab.

Which means I might as well put some laundry on, since I have to go downstairs anyway and I am out of underwear, but I would rather just take my dirty clothes to the nice place where they wash and dry and fold it for me tomorrow morning, and just do without underwear for a day.

If I go to lab and come home late, there's no way I will actually clean my apartment or go grocery shopping, which leaves me with the problem of messy - slovenly, even - flat and no food.

I should really put the suitcases away from Christmas. And pick up the piles of paper from group meeting preparation that litter the floor. And transport the bathtowels from the top of the dresser into the closet. And remove the make-up from the kitchen table.

God, and I ought to change the bed sheets, too. And put the duvet cover on the quilt, instead of sleeping under a naked quilt like a refugee. I really hate doing that.* And the dozen or so books cast around the bed could go find homes on shelves, probably. At least the ones I've finished.

You know how mice in a cage build nests with the cedar chips and the torn-up cardboard boxes? Okay, picture that, but add a laptop and teacups and half-finished novels and stacks of unopened mail and bags of various sizes and shoes and dirty clothes. Now you have an approximate visual representation of my apartment.

I like a nice, clean tidy living space, I really do. I feel happiness and satisfaction when the house is clean and cozy and one doesn't have to thread one's way on tiptoes to get from bed to dresser. The problem is, I can easily close my eyes to the mess and it stops bothering me except as a sort of low-level sense of chagrin when I consider anyone else seeing it. Or when I can't find my bra, phone, or towel.

The mess really doesn't bother me too much until I decided Today Is The Day I Will Clean, at which point I start to writhe and squirm like a fish on a hook, and then I hate my apartment and I hate myself and I hate life, et cetera.

At least if I went to lab I'd have a good excuse for not cleaning.

Maybe I'll just go to the bookstore.

After I have lunch.

*Just to clarify, I really hate putting the duvet cover on the quilt. Sleeping under the naked quilt like a refugee, not a problem.