Since I left my cranky-pants folded so carefully up here, I may as well put them on again today.

NB: The cranky I’m directing isn’t directed at YOU. So, if you’re one of the people who blogged or forwarded to me the latest Dove campaign, please don’t feel that this is personal, okay? Think of this instead as a good Hank rant. It’s not against you. It’s against the corporations.

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There are days that I feel particularly out of step with the world, like when I’m asked to participate in a marketing survey and asked what advertising “speaks” to me, and I’m struck dumb by the complete emptiness of my head at that point, and I think, “Um…?” Or, when, in the same survey, I’m asked to name the model of a car after being told the maker, and asked for an adjectival description… Um. Fiat. I didn’t know they had models… I thought there were just… Fiats. CLEARLY, I am the wrong person for so many things.

Part of this uselessness comes from avoiding advertising like the plague – If I hadn’t already agreed to take the survey to help someone out, I would have withdrawn (I may have skewed their results entirely) – I don’t have a TV, I don’t often read sales papers, I have AdBlock on my computer, and the home page is plain old Google – no newsfeed, no fun little apps. I prefer my phones dumb. I prefer to limit the inrush of the information stream, to narrow its tributaries to a single drop from the spigot of my choosing, lest I be overwhelmed. I know myself, and know how much of a relationship with chaos I can afford.

That’s why, when I receive a forward from a flurry of people, telling me that they’ve wept, I expect that they expect me to do the same. I’m immediately intrigued – in an appalled sort of way. Dove’s campaigns are allegedly pro-woman — though their relationship with Photoshop for their “Campaign for Real Beauty” was undeniably disappointing – and so, I’m getting my “girly” on, and joining the gang.

Except, once again, I’m out of step. I don’t feel like crying. I feel …herded.

shutout game

ready, aim and fire —
all your feel-good footage. Me:
a swing, and a miss

car shopping

make, model
style. shade. Preference:
wheels. motor.

I don’t at all deny that the smart graphic design and marketing team behind the Dove campaign knows people, and how they tick. They’ve emphasized the messages of real beauty being that toward which we’re all supposed to strive. I’m kind of “meh” about beauty – I have big teeth, a weirdly shaped head, frizzy hair, broad shoulders, a wide, short torso, and too much bust – not to mention weight – for my very little height. I’m kind of over beautiful, in the regular realm of things – it’s like that Judy Shendlein quote: “Beauty fades, dumb is forever.” Whether or not you agree (and I don’t – I believe ugly is relative, and people grow into their looks their whole lives) I’m not ever going to be beautiful in a non-Photoshopped Dove world, where “real” beauty is relative. Not beauty, but strong, that, I can just about manage.

Why doesn’t anyone ever celebrate strength and capability, Dove? Put some thought into that, please.

My aunt, because she’s unable to work as a nurse, what with the titanium rods in her back, has embarked upon another career of sorts – teaching Home Ec to junior high students. No, nobody calls it that anymore; it’s Consumer And Family Sciences now (I still like to call it Home Ick, because I never took it in high school and can be obnoxious about all the poor souls stuck doing it while I escaped [hello, auto body class!]), but it’s the same thing – all of those basic cooking, housekeeping, DIY Life stuff that many school districts stopped teaching, because, you know, money. And, “Didn’t your Mama tell you how to sort clothes?”

From where I stood teaching junior high, looking at the ironing scorched, pink-dyed-whites, rumpled masses before me, the answer was, “Nope.” (And let’s not count the crowds who used Axe in lieu of soap, or pancake foundation and raccoon liner, or wore the same outfit three times in a row…) Some parents don’t have time to teach that stuff, much less inclination. After all, Martha exists to tell you how often to change your sheets.

Obviously, we could all use a little help with the laundry.

on the catwalk

sniffing the shirt he
determines his tomorrow.
yep. he’s too sexy.

what Mama said

fold in thirds,
use tight hospital corners,
floss nightly.

brights, darks, and colors

Hogwarth’s could have made
A fortune tweaking
That Sorting Hat thing.

Launder, rinse, repeat. Happy weekend.

This week, The Enchanted Inkpot put out the covers of a lot of 2013 YA science fiction and fantasy. Because I serve on the Cybils SFF crew, and have served on the Cybils since its first year, I tend to keep an eye on these lists, but I have to say that it’s getting harder to be a part of the illustrious company of science fiction and fantasy lovers. I still adore it, but in some ways, it’s not going anywhere. Which is ironic, since science fiction, at least, is supposed to represent the “what if” of the future.

One topic the YA community has been talking about for so long is characters of color in YA fiction. The covers of the latest batch of 2013 beauties, out of eighty two covers depicted in one post, and ninety-four in the next, show maybe THREE cover which unequivocally displays a character of color.

I know: some characters are mixed, or not even human, if you read the stories. Some covers are illustrations. Maybe I could better say that of a hundred and seventy-six covers total, one hundred twenty covers, where a face (not a hand or leg – I am trying to be generous) was visible enough to determine ethnicity, only three of those covers clearly depicted characters of color. I love the cover kitty on Cynthia L. Smith’s FERAL NIGHTS. There are fewer Decapitated Female Torsos out there this year; a few more with unique cut paper art, sketches, and other stuff. Taken as a whole, these are creative and beautiful covers. Please understand – I am not saying they’re not well done on all levels. Just …one.

Fat Is Not A Fairytale is another one of my very favorite Jane Yolen poems. It is because of this poem that I bring up my next point, that another element not visible on these covers is any female body above a size, maybe… six.(Admittedly, I’m bad at eyeballing sizes; I would have said four, but I’m trying to err on the side of generosity.) There is a resounding ZERO covers which depict characters in the multiplicity of sizes which represent reality. None. And I didn’t expect any.

(Okay, so book designers have to follow the specs of the novel, yes? And so, the onus is on the writers. YES. Writers, I am looking with squinty-eyed accusation at you.) And, as for always using the thinnest model thing, welllll, it’s science fiction, the “what if,” not the “what is.” Maybe I should shrug, and just accept that “these things take time” and, as we’ve been told, take to heart that book covers have to stay within “industry standards,” which apparently means, in the small print, Caucasian Models With Size Four and Below Bodies. I’m stirring the pile with a big stick, here, but it’s a little disheartening that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There has been ALLLL this white-washing brouhaha, and … what? Nothing much. Not a lot of change. Almost none.

You know how YA books are supposed to keep faith with their readership, and let them know that, somewhere, there’s their tribe, and they just have to hold on, and make it through high school and someday find them?

Are we keeping that promise?

Writers?

roleplay

childhood games
revealed truth: Mermaid
trumps Sea Witch

(Thought I’d try a haiku short form. You have to definitely think harder, and sometimes I think the least said works the best.)

super

caped with tights: heroes
had a certain look. white. thin.
nothing like you, dear.

(Or maybe that would work as…)

super

Caped, with tights.
Heroes have a look
Buffed. Hot. White.

stuff nobody asked

If the job came with
Trousers, would you prefer it?
I wonder, woman.

To all the authors who have tried, and continue to diversify their characters – thanks. Promises kept are best.