Category Archives: music

Time for an Unquiet (Pussy) Riot

freespeech, music, politics, rhetoric Leave a comment

Pussy Riot: Band Members’ Conviction a Blow to Free Expression (Huffington Post) Musicians being arrested for performing material deemed “obscene” was, in large part, responsible for my becoming such a political animal over twenty years ago. Music has always played a huge role in my life, and as I was growing up in the 1980s faced with a nauseating pop music scene, hair metal and a huge wave of untalented pre-packaged teen acts, I turned to rap music for a refuge. I wish I could…

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The Lady Gaga Principle

glbt, music, politics, rhetoric 1 Comment

Traveling in the circles I do, I’ve certainly heard more than my fair share about Lady Gaga. From what little I’d heard of her first album I was sure that I wouldn’t care for her music much; that’s not to say I thought it was bad, just that it didn’t really sound like my sort of thing. Last year, when she released Born This Way and Amazon was selling the MP3 version for 99 cents, I decided to go ahead and buy it, if nothing else…

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The Machine

internet, music, politics, sex, teaching, television Leave a comment

Joseph Campbell: “[The modern myth] has to do with machines …” (Interview with Publishers Weekly excerpted in Facebook post from the Joseph Campbell Foundation) Anything having to do with Star Wars is kind of timely with news of George Lucas preparing to step down at LucasFilm still fresh in our minds. As I read Campbell’s words I had to wonder what he would have made of the Borg from the Star Trek universe, which were more contemporary for people of my generation. With Darth Vader the threat of…

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Buried in Tape

dvds, entertainment, internet, music, personal, television Leave a comment

In 1997 I used my tax refund to get satellite television.  Although I was much more of a television-watcher back then, the one primary reason I wanted to get satellite television when I did was so I could catch a documentary on Björk that was going to air on Bravo, which my local cable company didn’t carry back then.  Back when we were closer to having 500 cable channels than the 5,000 or so we have today, a documentary on Björk airing in the United…

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What Was That Decade?

music, personal, Uncategorized Leave a comment

One of my new favourite places to shop online is torrid.com. Torrid is basically Hot Topic for larger women like myself, and I don’t know how I didn’t find out about them sooner. Granted, they make the kind of clothes I wear when I’m having a social life versus when I’m in my professional life, and I’ve only recently begun having a social life again, but you’d think I would have heard something about them. My one visit to their store in Toledo, about a…

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