Now on YouTube...why write fiction

I keep wanting to say it. I know it's not wise, but with all the gray hair on display I'm already a known old person. When if not now?

I've gone YouTubular.

I know it doesn't even really mean anything. Plus it's slang from a later generation, but how was I going to work my generation's word "groovy" into the conversation? This YouTubulation has driven me a bit off the rails, but here it is for your enjoyment.

A goddess confronts fat bashing in San Francisco

The Willendorf Venus vs. Santa the Hutt. Marilyn Wann constructed a Venus of Willendorf Selfie Station outside the offending/offensive store.

This prompted some thoughts on the Willendorf Venus and why such a small statue (less than 5 inches tall) is so scary.

Make Love Not Porn, Cindy Gallop's Voyage of Discovery

I've just posted on Body Impolitic about Cindy Gallop's Make Love Not Porn

She makes the point that porn has become the primary form of sex education (nature abhors a vacuum and commerce expands to fill it, right?) But what are the real world consequences of modeling actual sex after what we see in the movies?

Gallop started with a TED talk and launched a website so popular it almost crashed the first day, and it even became a TED book (which is how I found it). Now it seems to be morphing into a participation forum.

30th Anniversary of Shadow on a Tightrope - taking back our lives

Many activists are joining in a blog carnival today honoring the anniversary of this groundbreaking book

Shadow on a Tightrope, Writings by Women on Fat Oppression

I don't have a post to contribute myself but my wonderful publisher, Peggy Elam at Pearlsong Press posted this eloquent appreciation

A hundred years from now, or more, people will have the collection of writings in Shadow on a Tightrope as a record of the early days of and need for fat liberation. By that time I hope fat oppression and its many manifestations are extinct. But they're still alive and kicking now, so I recommend arming yourself with a potent weapon. If you don't have your own copy of Shadow on a Tightrope, get one. Now.

I'd like to end (after thanking Substantia Jones for use of her marvelous photo above) [LM note: wonderful photo can be seen on the Pearlsong Press post] with an excerpt from the poem from which the title of the book is taken, "whoever i am i'm a fat woman" by Sharon Bas Hannah:

certain truths

will make your heart beat fast

when you hear them from a fat womon

you'll grow pale

get chills

disbelieve

but she's marching toward you

she's here and she's taking back her life.

Happy Birthday, Shadow on a Tightrope. Thank you, and your editors and contributors and publisher.

Also here's a link to Golda Poretsky's list of links! Noting that this was something that couldn't be done 30 years ago!

Other Cool Carnival Posts!

Rebel Wilson and Celebrity Dieting for Dollars

Now on Body Impolitic I offer up some thoughts on Rebel Wilson, star of ABC sitcom, Super Fun Night and the media expectation that a fat performer must be invariably be in need of a diet. photo from Wikipedia

Big Brother (by Lionel Shriver) is watching your weight

My primal scream reply to Lionel Shriver's use of the word "fat." She attacks fat activists by suggesting that fat phobia is a natural and unavoidable cultural idea. She's promoting her novel, Big Brother, in NY Mag and I'm ardently disagreeing on Body Impolitic. The headline was an inspired addition by Debbie Notkin who edited my post with her usual elegance (thanks!) I like that title way better than my original idea: "A Convex author replies to a (presumably) concave author"--though I remain outraged that Shriver talks about "the convex" as a euphemism for "fat people".

A letter I didn't know I needed to read

Sometimes you run across a statement that makes you take a deep breath and feel like you found something you needed to hear, even though you didn’t know you needed to hear it. That’s the way I feel about Iris Higgins’ “An Open Apology to All of My Weight Loss Clients” posted in her blog on 07/27/2013

Higgins comes from a different perspective than I do. She’s “New-Agey” enough to invite readers to call her “your fairy angel.” She now works helping clients build self-esteem and empowerment without dieting, but for 3 years she worked at Jenny Craig. The rest of my post is at Body Impolitic