come on, come on!

You know what we need, folks?

If you guessed "The Second Annual Ladies CD Swap partay", you're right! Have a cookie! [Or you know, whatever you'd rather have than a cookie. Think about Supersize Me and go get a cheeseburger!]

Yeah. While this is slightly complicated for me by the fact that my CD burner has just moved out of my house, I think it's that time again, ladies [and people of any gender who are down with the Second Annual Ladies CD Swap].

Here's the 411:
1. You pick a bunch of songs by women artists [or woman-dominated bands, or trans artists, or other artists who make sense to you] that you want to share with other rock-out feminists.
2. You put these songs on CDs.
3. I email you a list of addresses, and you send your CD to everyone on the list.

Last year it was all about the March. This year I challenge everyone to somehow connect that spirit of empowerment to something else on a lot of our minds: breakup music.

So, yeah. Who's in?

addresses for 2nd annual ladies cd swap

If you'd like to be in on the Second Annual Ladies CD Swap, there's an important question you must answer...

[Poll #531565]

streeeetch

Here I am. The whole really long rest of my life stretching before me. And I could decide to go absolutely anywhere.

I want to relish this.

And.

My time is entirely my own right now. Except for the time I choose to give to work, which is still mine but... on loan.

So. What would you do with this time? What would you read? Where would you go? What would you try? How would you decide?

I won't want to do everything you would, but I suspect you all have ideas I might not think about. And I want to imagine all the options ever.

craft

There is a lot of "folk art" in Amish country that I think of as akin to simple life porn. Like, look at the cute leetle girl in her bonnet with her fuzzy animal! How quaint that she won't go to school beyond 8th grade! It just feels exploitative.

So, I think of all cultural fixation on things Mennonite and Shaker and whatnot as sort of a pornography of simplicity. But there may be more to it - that there's something in this other culture that appeals to our idea of ourselves as living more shallow, technical lives than we want. And maybe we'd like a little more slowness, a little more craft. To be able to spend months with our family sewing a quilt or something.

Cause as a culture we don't really allow for much craft. There's very little interpretation of our own work (not just our jobs, but all work we do) or others' as the work of craftsfolk. Can you even imagine a culture where table bussers and cashiers and computer programmers were all expected to think of their jobs as a meaningful craft - something they could perfect and control? I think that'd be swell.