Monday Morning Music

I’ve been a fan of Skepchick for a while now. They post a lot of interesting, useful stuff. Aggravating stuff, too, but that’s all part of the mix, ain’t it? They also post fun stuff.

Link Treats

Time to share another collection of links with you. A little bit of everything today. Enjoy!

Fat and fit?
Andreas Heinakroon takes on another controversial topic with his typical aplumb. Something worth thinking about.

A Compromise: How To Be A Reasonable Prescriptivist
Kory Stamper talks about the ongoing duel between prescriptivist and descriptivist language folk. I have run-ins with the kind of prescriptivist she talks about quite often. A lexicographer’s trebuchet would be handy.

MLK: Sanitized for Their Protection
The sanitizing of Martin Luther King is something that’s troubled me for years now. The Weekly Sift looks further into the co-opting of a brilliant revolutionary.

Winter Well: Speculative Novellas About Older Women
This link is nothing but shameless self-promotion for me and my fellow Winter Well authors. A starred review from Publishers Weekly!

You Are Worth It
Feeling down and not so thrilled with yourself. Give this post by The Belle Jar a read. She’s talking to you.

I think there’s a trebuchet in this picture. I love it anyway. Česky: Obránci hradu (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Weekly Linkroll

Looks like we’re going to combine a couple weeks of links here, considering I haven’t been keeping up with blog business lately. There’s been gardening, writing, and general enjoying of spring, so it’s not like I’ve been goofing off. Much.

Book Review: Winter Well: Speculative Novellas About Older Women
First, a little self-promotion. My next novella is coming out in three weeks, and Jule’s Book Reviews has already reviewed Winter Well, the collection it’s in. May 24, folks!

White Lady Feminism, Christian Blogging, and the Worst of Both Possible Worlds
Dianna Anderson has some interesting thoughts on the similarities between online feminism and online Christianity. Dissent is often necessary.

Sexy Pool Party
It’s the last shot that really made me laugh.

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls… SO I WILL
The Militant Baker on body image and loving yourself.

The Myth of the Free Market: You’ll Find a Unicorn Before You Find a Free Market
Scriptonite Daily with thoughts on the free market, or if there really is one. A long read, but worth it.

Kentucky woman ordained as priest by dissident Roman Catholics
Sofia Perpetua, with NBC News, discusses the ordination of a woman as Catholic priest. I didn’t know there were dissident groups who did this. Cool.

Honey bees, CCD, and the Elephant in the Room
Fascinating post at Bug Girl’s Blog on colony collapse disorder in honey bees and how a lot of folks might be taking the wrong approach. Dr. Doug Yanega guest posts.

Newsflash: Spot Reduction/Spot Training Does NOT Work
Fit, Feminist, and (almost) Fifty calls out a longstanding exercise myth.

14-Year-Old Scientist Makes a Groundbreaking Discovery
Maria Elena Grimmett is working to ensure that people around the world have safe drinking water.

Little Girls Are Better at Designing Superheroes than You
A fun tumblr project by Alex Law. Law draws superheroes based on little girls’ costumes. Kinda cool.

Applications open for Mars One, the first human space colony
Casey Johnston at Ars Technica tells us about the private space project that plans to colonize Mars.

Weekly Linkroll

It’s been a heck of a week here in New England. I teared up a little listening the Red Sox game yesterday when Neil Diamond made an impromptu appearance to sing along with himself in the seventh inning. A little odd, since the two Neils weren’t always in synch, but quite touching.

One good thing, though? The Winter of the Novel is finished! I handed off a printed manuscript to my alpha this week. Now, on to the next story.

Time for some links. I decided that all the links this week are going to be positive in some way. I think we all need that. (back to my usual cranky self next time)

Jacek Yerka – dreams and imagination
Wordlander on an artist I didn’t know of until reading her post. Beautiful!

Relax. You’re Already Ok. Also: Pimp Suits
Meg Worden over at Feed Me Darling on being enough.

If Diets Don’t Work, Then What?
Fit, Feminist, and (almost) Fifty gives a pretty good answer. FF&(a)F is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs.

High Schooler Protests ‘Slut-Shaming’ Abstinence Assembly Despite Alleged Threats From Her Principal
High school senior Katelyn Campbell stands up to her bully of a principal over an abstinence-only assembly full of lies. He threatened to call the college who accepted her to tell them about her “bad character.” The college’s response is awesome.

Anonymous’s Mirror Facebook Page Mocking the Westboro Baptist Church with Love and Tinfoil Kittehs
Making me love Anonymous even more.

New Zealand Passes Marriage Equality, Bringing Country Count To 14
Zack Ford over at Think Progress on New Zealand passing marriage equality. Both videos are definitely worth watching. I love the MP in the second one.

Shakespeare for Hamsters
Hannah Meiklejohn’s hamster likes poetry, so it seems. And pumpkin seeds.

Astronauts’ Favorite Space Food: Shrimp Cocktail
Who knew? Megan Garber at The Atlantic gives us the scoop.

Women Learn To Be Women – Part 2 (Runaways edition)

You know, I actually believed that this series would be no more than four posts (and that I would have it done before now, but I should have known better on that account). When I started looking more deeply into the bands that came along in the mid- to late-1970s, I realized how wrong I was. There’s a bunch of them. Thanks to punk coming on the scene in the UK and later in the US, a lot more women jumped into the mix of rock ‘n’ roll after the Quatros and Fanny, et al. Among them, the earliest, and probably most influential, is the band I’m going to talk about today. The Runaways.

Joan Jett (rhythm guitar) and Sandy West (drums) were the first girls to join the band, meeting in 1975 in L.A. thanks to controversial manager Kim Fowley. Another original band member was Micki Steele on bass. She was fired from the band before things really got started, but went on to join the Bangles (I’ll talk about them in another post). The rest of the classic lineup was set when Lita Ford, Cherie Currie, and Jackie Fox came along (lead guitar, lead vocals, and bass, respectively).

And here they are.

(l to r) Cherie Currie, Joan Jett, Sandy West, Lita Ford, Jackie Fox

The Runaways had mixed success. While they signed with a major US label (Mercury), they never made it big in this country, even with the “jailbait” marketing that went with their name, the band’s outfits (pretty risqué for the time–no kidding), and the ages of the band members (16-17 when the band first started up). In Japan, though, they were huge, playing to sellout crowds and appearing in their own tv special.

And, as we’ll see as these posts go along, they influenced a lot of other women to pick up guitars or drum sticks and play.

By 1978, however, internal politics and trouble with their manager led to the band calling it a day (1979, officially). They had released four studio albums, one live record, and Joan Jett and Lita Ford would go on to have very successful careers in rock music. Sandy West became a drum teacher and did session work with John Entwistle before her death from lung cancer in 2005. Jackie Fox became a lawyer, and Vicki Blue (actually Vicki Tischler-Blue) became a filmmaker, directing documentaries on the Runaways and Suzi Quatro, as well as playing Cindy in This Is Spinal Tap.

Yeah, but who is Cindy? I don’t remember.

Tischler-Blue has also produced music videos, including one of a 2011 Suzi Quatro song! How can I not include that here?

Back to the matter at hand.

Here are two Runaways videos for you. The first is from a 1977 concert in Japan where they’re performing probably their most famous tune, “Cherry Bomb.” So many rules being broken here.

This next video was filmed on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test after Cherie Currie left the band, also in 1977.  By this point, too, Vicki Blue had replaced Fox on bass. Joan Jett took over as lead singer, and, um, contrary to what the caption says, that’s Lita Ford on lead guitar (although Currie is, indeed, an accomplished chainsaw artist). A solid band, wouldn’t you say?

And what about after they broke up? Given how influential Joan Jett and Lita Ford were in their own solo careers, it only seems fair to post some of their work, too. (I posted Suzi Quatro by herself, too, so…)

One of the many reasons the Runaways broke up was stylistic. Jett and West really wanted the band to move in a punk direction while Ford was more interested in keeping the music hard rock or even metal. And that’s the direction she went as a solo artist, releasing several successful albums before retiring to raise a family. She returned to the music scene in 2008 and released a new album last year.

Here Ford is playing “Kiss Me Deadly,” one of her big hits from 1988.

And here she’s playing a track from her most recent album.

And then there’s Joanie (oops, fangirl slipped out there). After being turned down by more than twenty labels, she, with her business partner Kenny Laguna, went on to form Blackheart Records, becoming one of the first women to create her own label. She’s released 14 albums at this point and 34 singles, 18 of which have charted around the world. She also decided to market herself a little differently than Ms. Ford.

Here she is in 1981– (I especially love this video because Jett’s attitude toward revealing her body is just awesome)

and in 2012 with a brand new song!

Now, one thing that is blatantly obvious with Joan Jett and Lita Ford (and Suzi Quatro before them) is that after leaving the Runaways, they never played in an all-woman band again. Why is this? When Jett was forming the Blackhearts, the ad she ran in the L.A. Weekly called for “three good men.” A 2010 article in the Irish Times made the assumption that this was because of her bad experiences with the Runaways. Perhaps it was the same for Ford. I don’t know. Fortunately, more all-women bands came along because of them. I hope you’ll tune in next time to read more about them.

Related articles

• Women Learn To Be Women – Part 1 (mfennwrites.wordpress.com)

Weekly Linkroll

Another Sunday has found us, as has the snow. Which, given that it’s 37 outside, is kind of odd. It was 34 when I got up and raining.

I don’t know.

Lots of links for this last Sunday in February. I hope you find something you like here. Find something cool you want to share? Do tell.

Black History Month: 4 Famous Black Feminists You Never Learned About in School
Policymic weighs in on Black History Month with stories of four women who were new to me, as well. Fascinating stuff.

Bullies Called Him Pork Chop. He Took That Pain With Him And Then Cooked It Into This.
From Upworthy, Shane Koyczan‘s powerful video on his bullied childhood (which is also many of our childhoods).

The salon experience from hell: Or, how I learned to love my curls
A powerful post from Visible and Real on body image and what happens when we allow others to define it for us. Has me thinking a lot of my own experiences.

This Loom Made Out of LEGOs is More Entrancing Than It Probably Should Be [VIDEO]
Shared by The Mary Sue, this video is definitely entrancing and fun to watch. I need to find the time and space to weave again. (My loom room, ARGH!)

This Year’s Nebula Award Nominees
John Scalzi is one of many folk who posted about this year’s Nebula Award contenders. So many more books I have to read now. And Joss is nominated twice!

Phoenix Lights
Are they back? Karen Gadient saw something that looks pretty similar to the sightings that happened back in the 1997. Aircraft in formation? Military flares? Whatever they are, they look pretty cool.

Photos of Volcanoes–FROM SPACE!
Sally Strange shares her love of volcanoes and links to a lot of cool pics. Plus! An interactive map!

 

Weekend Linkroll

So, the Ravens won last night, in stunning fashion, which kind of made my weekend. The Winter of the Novel has taken a short break so I can work on edits for “To The Edges”: another good thing. My fickle nature reared its head yesterday; the blog got another makeover. We’ll see how long this one sticks.

Plus, I’m reading Christine again, which always makes me happy. In that creepy-King-rocks-fall-everybody-dies way of happy.

And I have several links to share. Here’s hoping you find something interesting in them.

Food & Wine Thursdays: Because You Need The Reminder – Sulfites Revisited!
A PSA from The Satellite Show on sulfites in wine. Good stuff to know.

SCIENCE PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF ESP- Dateline 1950
Ellis Nelson talks about Chris Carter’s (no, not that Chris Carter) book Science and Psychic Phenomena. I’ve read similar stuff in the past and find the behind-the-scenes battles between real skeptics and debunkers to be almost as fascinating as the topics they’re fighting over. Oh, and I love the Max Planck quote.

Perception, Imagination, and Experience: “Stairway to Heaven” and Melodies Unheard
I wasn’t the only one thinking about Led Zeppelin this week. But Natania Barron took her thoughts in a really cool, meta direction.

Thorin Dreamboatshield: An Unexpected Hotness of Dwarves
Fun parody script of The Hobbit by Sarah Rees Brennan.

Your Friday Reading: Subterranean Magazine
Mr. Scalzi hips us to Subterranean‘s giveaway goodies. Pick up the fall and winter issues for free!

When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.
Lucy’s Football has a little something to say about the latest teenager who’s being censored by her school. Because stopping students from writing down their private thoughts will end school shootings. *sigh*

Ladies, Can We All Just Stop Being Bitches for TWO SECONDS?
Snobbery on body-shaming. Women do it, too, and it sucks.

Weekly Linkroll

It’s been a contemplative weekend. I’ve been working on 2082, which I want to talk about, I think, at some point. There’s another Outsider post brewing. And I redid the blog design here. Enjoying the sunshine today, too (well, I was; it’s clouded over again since I started writing this). Three out of the last four days have been sunshiny. This is unusual in the winter in New England. Usually it’s GREY ALL THE TIME! So, yeah, that’s been nice.

WordPress suggested this illustration based on what I’ve written so far. It’s the burning of Columbia, South Carolina, February 17, 1865, by General Sherman’s troops. Your guess is as good as mine on that.

Anyway. It’s time to share my favorite links of the week. Hopefully, you find something you like, as well. And if you have some to share, please do in the comments.

So what do we have…

Truth really is stranger than fiction
From Women and Words: try to write a fictional story about any of these true ones. Now those are some prompts!

3 Steps For Creative Writers to Tell it Slant
The Artist’s Road’s suggestions for more showing and less telling. I always have to work on this.

Why I Don’t Give Writing Advice
Natania Barron’s thoughts on writing and success.

The Best Videos of 2012, From People Who Have the Best Taste in Videos
Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg at The Atlantic called on her favorite video-watchers to share their favorites with her. I’m still working my way through them. Impressive!

Intention vs. Reality: Why BMI Is Not Just a Tool
Heina at Skepchick takes on a CSI article by Ben Radford on the dreaded BMI where he states that it’s just a tool and is never misused to shame people. Yeah, right. Good information. And no, I’ve never been a fan of CSI (or CSICOP, as they used to be called), so this article doesn’t surprise me. They are debunkers, not true skeptics. There’s a difference.

27 Science Fictions That Became Science Facts In 2012
“We may never have our flying cars, but the future is here. From creating fully functioning artificial leaves to hacking the human brain, science made a lot of breakthroughs this year.” From Buzzfeed.

Weekend Linkroll

It’s Sunday (regardless of my brain trying to convince me it was Saturday again), so it must be time to look at what I found interesting on the internet this week. What interested you? Feel free to share in the comments.