If you’re into Chinese identity politics, human rights and amazing voices and you’re not reading Sixth Tone, you are missing out. Some of Steph’s recent highlights as reads are: Love in the Lowlands as a Muslim Lesbian Tomboy; Beijing NGO Relieves Pressure on Peeing; Temples Put Profits Over Enlightenment.
Come talk to Steph about this article at the Toast: “You left your culture at the door”: Relationships, Misogyny, and Asian American Inside Baseball
This post at the WaPo on food politics and racism is American but still great reading; many of its concepts apply in Australia. How Americans pretend to love ‘ethnic food’
But we have incorporated these foods on our terms — not on theirs. We want “ethnic food” to be authentic, but we are almost never willing to pay for it.
Squids and octopuses thrive as ‘weeds of the sea’ warm to hotter oceans
Related: Do you care about animals? Then you really shouldn’t eat octopus
(What Liz is taking away from this, as a person who already doesn’t eat cephalopods, is that you can adopt an octopus in NZ. Guys. GUYS.)
This piece is REALLY INTERESTING: How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Fall in Love with Subaru
What worked were winks and nudges. One ad campaign showed Subaru cars that had license plates that said “Xena LVR” (a reference to Xena: Warrior Princess, a TV show whose female protagonists seemed to be lovers) or “P-TOWN” (a moniker for Provincetown, Massachusetts, a popular LGBT vacation spot). Many ads had taglines with double meanings. “Get Out. And Stay Out” could refer to exploring the outdoors in a Subaru—or coming out as gay. “It’s Not a Choice. It’s the Way We’re Built” could refer to all Subarus coming with all-wheel-drive—or LGBT identity.
“Each year we’ve done this, we’ve learned more about our target audience,” John Nash, the creative director of the ad agency has said. “We’ve found that playful coding is really, really appreciated by our consumers. They like deciphering it.”
Steph is having a lot of feelings about coding and decoding in queer communities and acceptance/decriminalisation through marketing and capitalism.
Huge, exquisite egg sandwiches found around Tokyo. I (Liz, the non-vegan half of NA) just love tamago so much.
Cadavers in pearls: meet the Anatomical Venus
Erotic … anatomical models? Yes. Yes, there was a time when people (male people) thought that was a good thing that should exist.
Liz notes: I found this fascinating and not especially visceral or horrific except in the abstract, but others may wish to take note of the content warning in the first paragraph:
It is a truism of sitcoms that, whenever there’s a conversation about violence towards testicles, men always cross their legs. As a woman, reading Anatomical Venus, you will want to fold yourself protectively over everything, wrap your arms around your kidneys and liver, run some barbed wire round your reproductive area.
Love craft, hate yarnbombing, want to do something for refugees, and you live in Melbourne? The West Welcome Wagon is accepting donations of blankets, door snakes, cardigans and slippers, and also (I think?) fabric that can be turned into such things: Welcome Warmth.
Meet Cleverman: our first Aboriginal screen superhero, with healing powers and a political edge
no-award.net 