9/11/2005

Musings of Ms Vagina Brain

It's just occurred to me that I call my husband Ol' Wax Cock and myself Ms Vagina Brain. Are these really the type of people that should be trying to have children?

Speaking of vaginas (yes, AGAIN), I stumbled upon a video in my uni library yesterday that I just had to watch concerning the 1970s feminist movement and its relation to the visual arts of the time. As luck would have it the library provide little TV/VCR combos, with the only restriction being that you have to use headphones. The term has not yet begun, so the library was essentially empty.

Just as well really. Let me just say, thank goodness the feminist movement has advanced since the 1970s because christ on a bike were those women strange. My favourite segment was the roomful of badly dressed and even more horribly coiffed women prancing around in a circle with their arms bent and wrists limp saying "I will make the dinner. I will do the ironing. I will raise the children." over and over again in an extremely grating falsetto tones. Perhaps it was groundbreaking back in the day, but cynical me, inhabitant of the 21st century, just found it unnerving and hardly progressive.

There was boob and cooter action too. Much as I try to not be such a prude and embrace the tenets of feminism, ie not being embarrassed by vaginal imagery, the word "cunt", et al -- In real life I still shift uncomfortably when faced with it. I can write about it without fear, but having it all right in my face, and in public, led me to attempt to cover the screen subtly with my body while watching the rest of my video. I was worried how it would look, a woman on a nearly vacant floor of the library, watching grainy footage of naked women prancing about.

A day later, I'm back to reading about vaginas and damn it if I'm not enjoying myself just a bit. I have a confession. Earlier I sniffed one of the books while listening to Loreena McKennitt (Loreena--new album please!) and I was in heaven. Musty old library smell + Loreena = bliss. Does anyone else out there enjoy that smell? C'mon. I can't be the only one. Or can I...

Speaking of books, thanks so much for the recommendations. Once this bastard is written I plan on reading more about them via Amazon. I have been eyeing up Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell for a good while, has anyone read it? I tend to be attracted to books based on their cover art and I like the font on this one. It's an odd way to select reading material, but I can't help it. I'm a bit concerned with its length -- a hefty 1024 pages. If anyone has read it and says it is worth it, I'll invest the time.

Back to vaginas...

6 comments:

Linda said...

Hooray, I'm the very first one!

I, too, like the smell of old, musty books. To me that smell means hours of entertainment and escape only seconds away.

Bittermama said...

Love that smell...

And I took a seminar on French Feminism once in which we weren't allowed to address each other's comments in any way (deconstructing the seminar encounter) and so we took turns saying things like "I have a thousand cocks on my head" or "My cunt is not a wound" and acting like none of us had said anything at all. Occasionally, much to the professor's dismay, an actual conversation would break out about ambush performance art on the subway.

I read Jonathan Norrel and Mr. Strange and have to say I was disappointed. I had been so looking forward to it and it really didn't take long to read, but in the end it was sort of boring and I thought it really degenerated in the last quarter or so. Still, it was well written and fairly well characterized. It definitely wouldn't be the first thing I'd read after a long pleasure-reading dry spell.

Thanks for all the literary talk - just what I need to kick off my two week wait.

Anonymous said...

Yep... also love the smell.

When watching these naked women... have you noticed how unusual their boobs look? I mean... as in... the shape of boobs in the 70's were just DIFFERENT? That's what I thought when I recently came across a bunch of 30 year old sketches of nudes... then I realized... my perception was WHACKED because I have come to accept the silicone-standard of this decade as the NORM... Today... you never see nude images of real boobs anymore... well... not in North America anyway. Isn't THAT sad?

Anonymous said...

I've heard mixed reviews on the Jonathan Strange book. I do like the font, however. I am, unfortunately, another book-cover-judger.

Ha ha, Pru was watching 70s porn alone in a library! Nerd!

(By the way, my "Word Verification" word is "btnpxj." I think I made that noise the last time someone asked, "How are you today?")

Anonymous said...

I don't care much for the smell of musty old books (or musty old vaginas, for that matter), but I do loves me some Loreena McKennitt!

Anonymous said...

Oo, I just started Jonathon Strange! so far I'm quite enjoying it, but then I only like genre fiction...