Washington DC

Ahh, there’s nothing better than being home after a long trip. Traveling is always fun for me. I love airports and plane rides and the feeling of anticipation leading up to the actual trip. Conferences aren’t always in interesting cities, but Washington D.C. works great for someone like me because I love history and am endlessly entertained by museums.

I read Devil in the White City on the plane. Highly recommended if you love historical fiction! Not as good as The Historian, but still a great read.

To be frank, the conference wasn’t that great. That isn’t to say that it was a bad conference, it just wasn’t one geared to my interests, and as a result, the few sessions I went to had high expectations. Expectations they did not really live up to, I guess. It is tough to find a session with good topics, good approaches to those topics, and good presentation style to engage the audience. These three things are miraculous when they happen. I didn’t quite get that feeling this time around. That being said, some of the sessions I missed out on may have been really cool. I’m bummed that I missed out on a cool session on video games, and another one on The Wire. But the conference was only part of the reason for my trip. I got to meet up with some great longtime friends.


It was actually a reunion of sorts, as us grad students had once come together to Washington D.C. For this very conference in 2001, just two months after 9/11.

We felt it was important to go then, and I do remember the gash down the side of the pentagon, as well as the heightened security in the airports. I wanted to go this time and get a good look at the White House now that Obama is president. Of our group of 6 from 2001, only 3 of us were reunited. We reminisced about that old trip, but we also talked about how different things are, now that we are all either writing dissertations or post-doctoral and job seeking. The ASA Presidential Address by Kevin Gaines was excellent, but it was a little sad for me, as he reminded the crowd that the economic crisis has failed colleges and universities (and, as a result, working class students) across the nation, none more than those in California. These are troubling times.

Highlights from the trip:

Right when I got into town, I called up my pal Jeremy, who met up with me at the conference hotel. We had some appetizers for dinner and then I asked him to take me to a real bar. “A real bar?” “Yes, a real bar. Not a hotel bar, not a grill-pub, a dingy dirty bar.” One hour in DC and I was already over being surrounded by people in bad suits. We went to the Black Cat, which I loved immediately. Nothing feels better than a non-pretentious bar.
Randomly, the bottom floor of the bar is called "The Red Room" and is pretty much exactly like my local bar of the same name. Weird!

The next day, as I walked around near my hotel, I noticed that DC isn’t really big on diners. It was tough to find a decent place for breakfast. I looked up some options on Yelp! and found Lincoln’s Waffle House, which was great! Initially I thought I had missed out, because when I finally walked all the way to the address, this is what I saw:




But a sign mentioned that they moved a few doors down, so I managed to have my waffles after all.

Directly across the street from Ford’s Theater, Lincoln’s Waffle House is a non-touristy place to get great food cheaply and quickly. I was in and out in less than half an hour.


It’s right next door to the house Lincoln died in, which is morbid but also interesting to someone like me, who is fascinated by morbid details.

I went to a lot of museums. I mean a LOT of museums. The most interesting by far was the International Spy Museum, which was a very interesting look at spies and secret agents throughout the nation’s history. I was impressed by the way the museum both respected the job of the spy but also pointed out that becoming a spy is giving up your own personality and risking your life--something that only a particular kind of (bizarre) person would be willing to do. It was filled with lots of technological spy stuff, but also with stories of double agents and the increase in spy behavior during the Cold War. Basically, if you live in a building built during the Cold War in Russia, you probably have a bug in your house. It was so interesting that I didn't even take pictures, I just experienced the museum.



Another museum that was quite moving was the Holocaust Memorial Museum. I was lucky enough to go with a friend who studies holocaust museums, so I got a really good perspective on how the museum tells its story.

A while back, a white supremacist shot at the building and killed one of the guards. They still have a lot of security out front, one guard even had a bomb sniffing dog.I have studied the Holocaust since I was about 12 years old. Much of the more disturbing images and information I already knew. It doesn't make it less moving, but it did make me prepared for most of what I saw. The most moving part of the whole experience was a hallway that is two stories high, covered with old photographs.

As you walk through, you see all kinds of photos. Family photos, like one big giant album of everyone that existed in a town. People having fun. Women with their babies. Whole families. Wedding pictures. All of these photos come from a city in Bulgaria named Monastir. All of its inhabitants were Jews that were rounded up and sent to their deaths in Treblinka. A whole town full of people, gone forever. Looking in their faces was..well, I can't really explain the feeling. It's supposed to be moving, and you walk through it twice. Once through the top half on a suspended bridge, and after the section on the Final Solution, you find out that all of these people are dead and enter the bottom half. Even looking at the photo of the room now is tough.

Of course, I made a point to view the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. I didn’t do it the last time around, and I’m a sucker for parchment. As are about a thousand other people who herded along, making it difficult to get a good view.

I noticed that the National Archives had a research section, so I went in and looked up some genealogical information about M’s family. I managed to find most of his grandparents’ census records, which gave me some good information about when his ancestors immigrated to the U.S. (so far, all of them came at the turn of the century). I hope to do more research once I move to the east coast.

Of course, as a fan of Bones, I had to go to the Jeffersonian, I mean, Smithsonian and look at some bones. There were very interesting displays about people they’ve dug up in the Chesapeake region from the earliest European colonists. The most heartbreaking was this one:


Unlike the children of the family, who got proper burials with grave markers, this grave is likely of a servant boy who died c.1663 and was buried in a shallow grave in the cellar along with some trash.

I did the Smithsonian Natural History museum, which wasn’t that interesting to me, but holy taxidermy Batman!

They were creative with the taxidermy as well, making the animals come to life (or meet their death) for eternity.


All in all, a successful trip in terms of the fun I had, not so successful career-wise, but it was nice to know I’m not alone in feeling the way I feel about teaching, job prospects, and other professor-related stuff. There is something absolutely beautiful about the east coast in the fall. Such beautiful colors and a comfortable coolness. I was happily walking around at night with my scarf and thick tights. Yay fall!

Finds - Costumes

The grand day approaches, people: Halloween. It's time to start thinking about your costume so that you don't end up being that downer who shows up at the party in your boring regular old clothes. I don't have any rules where costumes are concerned. I like the purchased ones and the handmade ones, as long as the idea behind the costume is fun.

To help you out, I've compiled a list of places you go to purchase costumes or parts of costumes:

Zoogster is a cheap and easy place for costumes. This is one of those sites that has absolutely every kind of cheap pre-fabricated costume. They have their site organized well, in categories by gender, theme, and decade. Here's the Madonna costume from the 80s section, only $36:

Every costume site has Harry Potter, some might have Voldemort, but few have Hedwig! I was happy to see this little furry Hedwig costume on Zoogster, only $20:


This is, however, one of those sites that provides "sexy" costumes. Sigh. Really?


Urban Collector has a variety of really cool costumes, all at reasonable prices. I don't think that spending over $60 on a costume is really worth it unless it's amazing and not so cheaply made that you can't re-wear it in a few years (note: try not to do the trendy-of-the-moment costume, it's just not fiscally responsible).

Obviously I'm into Wonder Woman (if you've read previous posts anyway), so I gravitated towards this costume at Urban Collector:

For $48, you get a pretty decent WW costume. This is one of those costumes that could go badly because it is already too "sexy." WW pretty much wears a bustier bathing suit, so this is a good take on the costume that provides some measure of coverage.

Their Star Trek costumes look pretty good too. Both under $50

Sometimes you can construct a pretty decent costume yourself, but there are certain elements that you just have to have pre-made. The Watchmen's Night Owl mask is a good example.
$50 and you don't have to construct a sad version of this out of felt or whatever.

CostumersNetwork is for serious folk, but the quality is worth it. They have a wide variety of costumes and are a favorite of cosplay fans. Whole entire top to bottom costumes range from $40-$200. They won't let me steal their images, but they've got really cool stuff, so go check them out.

Maybe you want to be a historical figure. If you want to go Victorian (and I highly encourage it!) Retroscope has some amazing dresses. This mourning dress is $100, but it looks like a dress, not a costume.




You could use this several years in a row. Maybe one year you're Lizzie Borden. Next year you're a vampire. Next year you dazzle at the graduate student Halloween party as Victoria Woodhull. Grad students should have more Halloween parties. Think of the funny, amazing, and insufferably lame costumes you'd have to talk about for years to come.

Individual designers are already plying their wares over on Etsy, so you better check these out before they are all gone:

This lovely mermaid costume by Ivy Quilts is handmade and has its own little bag:


Only $40 for this Ollie the Owl costume by Dottie's Closet


This replica of Max's pajama hood by Pencil Perfect is only $37 and with a paper gold crown and some regular footie pajamas, you've got yourself an awesome Where the Wild Things Are costume.

If you really want to do it right, you can get this super expensive version for $129 from Katesy.

She also makes an adult version!! $250

Etsy has tons of stuff, so if you are looking for a mask or an accessory, it's a great place to get something unique. That's all for now. As I come across good costume stuff, I'll definitely post!

Friday Finds - Steampunk

My favorite new subculture is Steampunk. I still don't know what I think about it, really, but I am generally intrigued by subcultures that mess with or refer to historical rituals and customs. I'm in no way your ambassador to it, but from what I've read, it is basically a derivative of the fiction genre during the era of steam engines that dabbled in the fantastic, futuristic, and mechanical. It's basically a fantasy of the future from the Victorian perspective. Much like the Jules Verne novels. I have always been interested in futuristic visions and I think the further back you go, the more interesting they are, because nobody really could predict the unprecedented amount of progression that technology has taken in the last century.

These postcards represent just a few of the expectations of the future (the year 2000) from the perspective of a French artist in 1910:


I remember reading 1984, George Orwell's dystopian look at the future, in which the main character manages information for the public via card catalog. I read it as a teenager, when computers were in most middle-class homes, and so of course I was thinking a "card catalog system"?

So, back to the steampunks. I'm super late to it, I know, but now it's starting to reach a higher threshold. Before, it was about literature which maybe influenced gothic fashion. Now it seems like it's part of people's environments as well as being a set of clothing choices. Of course, goths love steampunk. It marries the beautiful gothic sub-genres of industrial and the romantics. Lace and plastic tubing? Surely you jest.

Here are a few examples of steampunk fashion just to get your feet wet:




It kind of messes with the idea of genteel Victorians by juxtaposing their very restrictive clothing with bat shit crazy items or by altering them so they expose more skin. This pic from the Wikipedia entry on steampunk is probably the best illustration of the marriage of Victorian fashion with a futuristic vision by way of steam engines:

This could (and does) go terribly wrong. White people with dreadlocks are strewn throughout steampunk. That man up there is dabbling in a very Matrixy version of dreadlocks himself, which I'm barely able to forgive him for. Neo-Victorians are much like the old ones, potentially interesting but also kind of horrifying and likely to induce 21st century eye-rolls.

So what does this have to do with Friday Finds? Well, I know a lot of people are into vintage design, but where do you put your 20 inch iMac monitor in your painstaking reproduction of a Victorian parlour? These are questions people must be asking themselves all the time. Ok, maybe not, but let's pretend. This niftly little combo of a typewriter and computer might be your solution!


There is even a complete tutorial from Steampunk Workshop on how to transform your keyboard from this

to this:


FYI it's not easy.

Maybe you are tired of wrestling your corset on only to look in the mirror and see the garish 2009 blutooth device sullying your good intentions. Well, this is just for you!



There are some beautiful handcrafted steampunk items I've found that might interest more than the leather and lace crowd. Done sparingly, some of this stuff might look less costumey and more "interestingly accessorized."

This octopus necklace from Cosmic Fierfly is very 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. $13


This Swallow Pendant from Nouveau Motley is part pocket watch, part brooch and $60.

Steampunk jewelry seems to be about watch parts most of the time, but I really like this ring. $40 from London's Gate

This seems more Victorian than steampunk, but I like the scroll work and the detail on the rose. Only $10 from Studio Regency.
This cuff watch is out. of. control. But maybe you created a time machine in 1862 and you want people to know that that's just how you roll. Aranwen makes these for a pretty penny, but her other stuff is interesting as well, so check out her Etsy shop.


Again, watch parts, but paired with the little lacy metal edge. Dainty and mechanical. $65 from EDMDesigns
This is a really good example of the kind of craftsmanship that steampunk inspires, which is kind of why I am fascinated with the whole culture. It does expect a certain degree of inspiration and ingenuity (in the fashion of the kooky 19th century inventors it seems to venerate). I was sad to realize that this is not a corset but actually a "jumpsuit," which strikes to close to the idea of the romper. I hate rompers. I believe that in hell, Satan is there, wearing a romper. But anyway, it's $70 on Etsy.
Hope you enjoyed the history lesson/shopping trip!

Half Breed

"Both sides were against me since the day I was born."
- Cher, "Half Breed," 1973

It's all about half-breeds when it comes to vampire movies. Other action adventure movies have halfies, too. People who live in two worlds (half-human half-whatever else). Harry Potter's world (the Potterverse) had half-bloods. But when it comes to vamps, the heroes are often not completely human and not completely vampire. Blade, the Underworld series, Even Buffy was magically different, if not half-vampire. It stems in part from the ancient folk tales of vampires in eastern Europe.

Vampires were often scapegoats for small pre-Christian communities. If someone committed suicide, (which could be interpreted as a mark upon the community in some way) they would often be dug up and decapitated days after the burial. Sometimes the build up to the decapitation would include tales of sounds and whispers at night, walking on the roof, and other ghostly stuff. Very reminiscent of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. It was a way to put to rest personal guilt with an albeit grisly communal ritual. Similarly, there were tales of women who managed to get pregnant immediately after a husband's death. The curious situation of a child born 10 or 11 months after the husband's death was deemed a result of the husband, who had now become a vampire. So he was dug up and staked or decapitated and the community could put this little incident to rest. The child would be considered "different" and possibly magically able to spot vampires due to his or her lineage. Doesn't it make youthink of how differently the Virgin Mary's life would have been had she been living in Romania instead of Israel? Sometimes half-vampires are called "dhampirs."

It's also a useful narrative device, as storytellers want to revel in the brutal and violent aspect of vampires, but find it difficult to get viewers to identify with someone too bloodthirsty. Well, some viewers anyway. With a half-blood, you have a vampire that probably doesn't mind killing other vampires and who wishes for full humanity. Being torn between two aspects of your identity is something many people can identify with as well, so it makes sense for lots of different reasons. In my Axis of Ava comic, my central character is a half-breed, but not by birth. She's the result of a scientific experiment that didn't work out too well. Mostly because I wanted to address the idea that the government has known about vampires for a long time, but it does allow for a more complicated and more interesting character. For the record, Ava probably wishes she was more vampire than human, but she's a contrary Mary.


So not surprisingly, this movie, Blood the Last Vampire features a gal who is a half-breed vampire hunter (huntress?). She exists for one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill bloodsuckers. It's based on an anime film from 2000 of the same name. It looks pretty damn cool! Check out the trailer.

Blood The Last Vampire

Gross Dudes are Everywhere

Don't know if you happened to catch this in your news feed, but the world's oldest known depiction of a human, this 35,000 year old 2 inch figurine, was recently found in south western Germany. Guess what folks, it's a lady!

This looks to me (and I am not an expert at all) like a goddess figurine. Many women's studies-inclined peeps know that some of the oldest religious artifacts found across the globe are goddess worship artifacts. If you wanna get your matriarchal studies going, I highly recommend Merlin Stone's When God Was a Woman. Basically, the theory is that a majority of pagan, pre-Judaic religions were religions that venerated women, childbirth, and big giant boobies. And that as such, the spread of Judaism and Christianity required a rejection of the female as transcendant figure. Hence patriarchy and the reason my dad was bummed when I, his first born child, was a girl. Yeah, I've got some issues.

But this figurine totally reminded me of the Goddess of Willendorf, which you might remember:
Same deal, large breasts, thunderously amazing thighs, belly with navel. Right?

Oh, don't go celebrating though, about the Venus of Hohle Fells. Because the way this story was reported, and the Cambridge archaeologist who provided some commentary, will engender thousands of eye-rolls.

Point #1 - the title of the piece, on MSNBC, by Jennifer Viegas for Discovery, is, I kid you not:

"She's Still a Pin-Up After 35,000 Years"

Really Jennifer?

Point #2 -

Although tiny — just over 2 inches long — the intentionally headless figurine is remarkably detailed, with pronounced genitalia visible between open legs. "As one male colleague remarked, nothing has changed in 40,000 years," Nicholas Conard, who reported the find and led the project, told Discovery News.

har de har har! Looks like we got ourselves a comedian! But it gets better!

"It is the oldest example of figurative art in any class, making it all the more surprising that the figurine presents such a powerful, sexually aggressive image," added Conard, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Tubingen.

Why is this image considered "aggressive"? Is it because of the boobies? Because they are large? And because she actually has a vagina? Could it be that powerful, sexual women were once worshipped or thought of as beautiful. Surprising?

Ok, so that's one douche that's involved in the find. It could be he's trying to be palatable to the media so his story gets reported. But can you believe they found another person to comment on this in the academic community who needs to be whacked on the head? You can? Oh, that's right, you probably can.

Point # 3

Paul Mellars, a University of Cambridge archaeologist who is currently at Stony Brook University's Turkana Basin Institute, wrote a commentary about the Venus that appears in the same issue of Nature. "It's at least as old as the world's oldest cave art," Mellars said, adding that viewers "can't avoid being struck by its very sexually explicit depiction of a woman. The breasts really jump out at you."

"I assume it was a guy who carved it, perhaps representing his girlfriend," he added. "Paleolithic Playboy? We just don't know how it was used at this point, but the object's size meant it fit well in someone's hand."

So instead of thinking this is a religious artifact, the conclusion is that this is spank bank material? That pagan men were jerking off to this figure? For fucking reals?

If you're interested, Paul Mellars looks like you'd expect him to:

And can be contacted here!

But really folks, poor Venus of Holhe Fells, who probably had a much cooler name originally. Once a goddess, worshipped as the embodiment of all things female (breasts of course, give life and sustenance, in addition to scaring 40 year old archaeologists). If she's at all magical and still in existence in some form, I hope she gives those dudes mystical gynecomastia.