MORE freakin’ cranky poo?!

Yes, you bitches.
Because I am back in the dancing game, my friends. The podiatrist has given me permission to start getting back into dancing. Which means a long, slow building up of stamina and strength. Two dances every second day. That’s 10 minutes of dancing every second day. I have, of course, broken that rule. I did mean to do just thirty minutes the other day, but it became an hour. Two days later, another hour. Then two days later, 2 songs worth dance, then 1.5 hours of DJing, then about 45 minutes of mucking about. And I hurt the next day. But not in a crippling you’ve-fucked-up way (but jeez, is dancing fitness-requiring; I have zero dance fitness, and cycling is nothing compared to lindy hop!)
Today is rest day, and then I’ll have a look at more slow-building work this week. With the Cranky Poo, of course.

misogynist much?

A recent io9 story about Wonder Woman quotes Marvel Comics’ Brian Michael Bendis’ tweet:

Spider-Woman has better hair, better costume, frank cho implants and a fucked up origin. Wonder Woman is a walking std farm!!

This bothers me in so many ways. Not to diss Spiderwoman (who was one of my favourites), but wtf? Since when is it even a little bit ok to call anyone a ‘walking STD farm’? It’s at moments like these that I despair of superhero comics writers. FAIL.
In antidote, let’s have a little badass Wonder Woman wonderfulness:
ww1.jpg
That’s a great pic, but part of me worries about the violence.
But the io9 article is interesting, if only because it discusses the tension between violence and pacifism in super beings – as they’re depicted in comicland. I’m not sure I buy the discussion of Wonder Woman letting a man beat the shit out of her to make a moral point (I think you need to engage with gender and the way WW is sexualised before you can make claims about the visual depiction of this sort of violence/victim stuff). This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a powerful woman brought low with sexualised violence (WW is wearing a bustierre, for the goddess’ sake!) – think of the (fucked up) episode of Buffy where Spike tries to rape her and she can’t fight him off*. WTF was going on there?! Since when could some lamearse vamp take Buffy down? The implication in that particular story line (as with the WW one) is that this badass chick was complicit in her own assault – she wanted to be assaulted/punished/whatever. The linking of sex and violence, the implication that all women (particularly the badass ones) want to be controlled or beaten down and of course the whole ‘man brings low strong woman’ fantasy really get up my arse. I sure as fuck wouldn’t be writing any of that shit in my stories.
So here’s something a little better:
ww2.jpg
I like this image because – in the simplest sense – she returns the gaze. She’s not laid out as a body to be devoured by teenage male eyes, she’s bringing it. The pose is iconic WW, centering her bracelets. But the returned gaze (not a sensual beckoning from below coy, lowered lids) is something interesting. There is the problem of the bustiere, but it’s so iconic, I think it’d be very difficult to not feature it in this sort of WW cover art.
ww3.jpg
Again, the bustiere and bracelets, but no returned gaze. I like the fist, but I’m still having trouble with the bustiere.
There’s lots more to say, of course, and WW’s history as a character is interesting, as is the history of the comic. But I don’t know enough to make any more than these few comments.
*This is one of those moments where Joss Whedon FAILS. Don’t give me any bullshit arguments about how he didn’t write or direct that ep. HE IS RESPONSIBLE.

my current lindy hop interests include…

I am currently really enjoying Bethany and Stefan, two lindy hoppers who’ve eschewed the current trend for pointy-toed high-steppin’ pony follows and cock-rock leads. Is that too harsh a dismissal of what I’m seeing in a lot of lindy these days? I think not.
But, here, let me show you what Bethany and Stefan are doing:

That’s them competing in the ILHC in 2008. That’s the first I’d seen of them (that I can remember). It’s unusual stuff. Why? Well, for a start, the songs they choose aren’t your standard classic swing action. They favour less well known versions of songs which lean towards vocalese, well, eccentric renditions. Their dancing is similarly unusual. Though we see an awful lot of Bethany’s knickers, this display isn’t as coy or barbie-pony as some of the other knicker action I’ve seen around the place. They also tend to favour interesting jazz steps, often doing far more ‘solo’ stuff (together) than they do ‘lindy hop’. This, of course, delights me: lindy hop is built for this.
But what else have they done?

That is their more recent routine, from Frankiefest. Again, it’s unusual. They look a little nervous (well, you would – there were zillions of dancers in the audience and they were onstage with the biggest names in lindy hop), but they seriously rock. I’m really enjoying Bethany’s swivels – no pointy toed prancing pony swivels here; she’s seriously grounded.
I have to say, I do like their lack of vintage clobber. He looks like Dr Who (circa Tennant), she looks like an indy kid… well, I guess she is. No silly high heels here, either – she’s badass.
This next one is them in 2007:

I think that though I really like Bethany’s style (take that, patriarchy – we’ve got other things to think about), I also like the way Stefan works with her style. He’s just as unusual and skilled, it’s just that we’re not seeing his undies.
This is the sort of lindy hop I’m digging these days. Oh, as well as the Hot Shots and the olden days doods.