Careless Goat-Love and Madeleine Peyroux

It's weird how things work...

For the last few weeks I've been trying to find some music that grabs me and I was not having much luck. Then, yesterday on a forum I read, someone started a completely off-topic 'link to uber-cute YouTube videos' thread.

Aww, aww, aww and then I click to this:



Very cute goats (aww) but I was instantly mesmerized by the music. 'I know the song but who is this singing?! What a great voice!' It turns out to be a woman named Madeleine Peyroux and I googled her and went out today and bought one of her CDs; Careless Love. I've been listening to it all day. It's wonderful.

It's very weird that I had not heard of her before because her influences are some of my favourites; Bessie Smith, Billy Holiday, Patsy Cline etc... and she's been around for a few years. I guess this should be expected when I spend a year and a half under a rock. ;-)

But, thanks to off-topic forum thread, I've found some music that really lights my fire!

And now I also want baby goats...



Aww... :-)

Equal Access... even if it's crap!

I'm hard of hearing and I have trouble hearing the dialogue in many films so I often, though not always, need subtitles or to turn on the closed-captioning. Just 'going the pictures' and seeing whatever's playing means risking a wad of dough cos chances are I will not be able to understand the dialogue, I will lose the plot (haha) and experience ninety minutes of frustration and feelings of exclusion.

Most of the time, this hearing-related, movie-going thing is not much of an issue for me as I prefer my own comfy sofa and a DVD (with the captions on) over going out. Though, once in a while I do crave the big screen.

Even with that occassional personal craving and the knowledge that other people who are hard of hearing or who are deaf/Deaf also would like to see a flic on the big screen, I have to be honest... I have struggled with the idea of campaigning for cineplexes, movies theatres, cinemas to be legislated into providing captioning.

One reason is that I believe that I have personally benefited from having a limited access to all the crap that comes out of the Hollywood machine and similar ilk. I have seen very many subtitled foreign films, saved a lot of cash that would have otherwise lined a megatroncinematicmegacomplex owner's pocket and I've developed other interests away from audio-visual media. And isn't it just enough that the movie houses are not providing a functional product (for me) so I've decided that they aren't going to get any of my money? Aren't there more subversive options available here than accepting that megatroncinematicmegacomplexes have such a grip on our entertainment needs?

I was mentioning this is a friend and she responded simply with: you snob.

Hmm... upsinged!

After I mulled that one over. I have to admit that she is right. Who the fuck am I to decide how other people entertain themselves? And how did I become so arrogant? Still, I think I do have a point, even if many people do not understand what I mean. ;-)

Back to captioning campaigns, I'm still not completely sure where I stand on this, so comments would be appreciated.

Anyways, while reading up on captioning, I came across this post on Sarah's blog (Speak Up Librarian). It's about Bill Creswell - a hearing man who is is "captioning the Internet one video at a time". Good man.

And I found this on YouTube.... :-D

Talking tampons...

Yes, more bothering.

A while ago, I bought a box of tampons. Not my usual ones but some other brand as I'm currently in a financial tight spot, need to be frugal and they were on sale.

So, there I was in the privacy of my own bathroom. I open the box and select one. Hmm, there's writing on the wrapper, I wonder what it says? I was anticipating 'this end up' or similar but my eyes were met with, "You can do it!".... wtf? I know I can do it. I've been menstruating monthly for over 25 years, I know what I'm doing here you stupid, patronizing tampon.

Just to see, I select another one and it reads, "All you can do is your best." Oh, give me a fucking break! I want feminine protection here not psychotherapy. I dump the contents of the box out onto the counter and see that there are all sorts of comments.



One not included in the above photo was "Work it out!" When I read that I instantly thought about that constipated accountant joke* and seriously wondered what I might be getting into if I used this product.

But work it out is exactly what I did; it wasn't difficult.

I'm suppose to read these little slogans and feel the love and associate that lovely warm feeling to this product and then when I'm in the store buying my next box of tampons I will remember the nice words that these talking tampons uttered and the warmth that I felt and purchase this product again. And again. And again.

Most advertising bothers me but this sort of insidious, intrusive marketing really irritates me. I don't want to live in a world where some of my most private moments (that I am discussing openly on the internet) are contaminated with attempts to manipulate my mind.

On the plus side, these talking tampons reminded me of an interesting documentary series I watched a few years ago called 'The Century of the Self'. It describes how those in positions of power can use the theories presented by Sigmund Freud to manipulate the masses. Much of the documentary is about Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays who was one of the first people to use Freud's theories in advertising to manipulate people's consumer behaviour. And I've decided to try a DivaCup.

Here is a short snippet from the documentary but I recommend watching The Century of the Self in its entirety; it's fascinating. I'm trying to find a version with subtitles or CC. If anyone knows of one, can you let me know.

Update! I deleted the embedded video as it seems to interfer with the comment feature. And! I found a transcript of the entire documentary. Not as good as CC or subtitles but better than nothing.

*How did the accountant cure his constipation?
-- He worked it out with a pencil.

Ok. Post number two...

I'm going to attempt to embed something from YouTube. Here goes...




Ta-dah! It worked!

The clip is a slideshow I made a couple of weeks ago after I went for a walk with my camera on a beautiful day.

You can see other creations I made here. I'm just learning!