gaga, oh la la.

Lady Gaga is our muse.

Interim break has given us the opportunity to pursue activities we wouldn't normally do during the semester. One of them has been exercising our artistic abilities. I have found myself obsessively sketching pastel caricatures of Lady Gaga. What is so great about Lady Gaga is not just her catchy music or her brazen personality, but also her eccentric sense of style. Everyday Gaga is wearing something so extraordinary, you cannot help but admire her confidence and her incredible imagination.

Bubble Gaga 

From The Fame Ball Tour

Big Eyes Gaga

From "Bad Romance" Video

Royal Gaga

From the Queen's 2009 Royal Variety Show

Grammy Gaga

From the 2010 Grammy Awards

Froggy Gaga

From the 2009 VMAs

Liz also has been gaga for Gaga, interpreting the diva in her own way:

Black Crown Gaga

Oh...I think we're caught in a bad romance.

what arrrrrrr you going to do with your life?

"I wont grow up!" -Peter Pan

There comes a time in every human's life where he/she must grow up, graduate from college, and become a fine upstanding member of the real world. It is incredibly important to be prepared for this before it creeps up on you, and beats you to a pulp. That is why I strongly suggest planning ahead.

Now, when planning your life it is better to organize in stages, as more of a step by step deal. That said, here is my current 5 stage plan for life after college:

My Life Plan...

STAGE 1:

The first stage in my plan is to graduate from St Olaf with a degree in French, as well as a k-12 teaching license. I will then spend several years teaching, and being paid to travel to France with large groups of unruly high school students. It will be on one of these trips that I will first become aquatinted with Kinderman (formerly the child model Kinderboy). Once I have scrimped and saved up a large sum of money I will be able to progress to stage two of my life plan.

STAGE 2:

With my large sum of money I will buy a pirate ship, but not just any pirate ship. This pirate ship will be the most fearsome and fast ship since the Spanish Armada. I will assemble my pirate crew and spend my days pillaging and plundering the seven seas. Now I'm talking real hardcore old fashioned pirating, none of this wimpy "hey I have a gun and a boat" South African crap. I will be known as "blonde beard" the most terrible (and sexy) pirate that 'eer was. Instead of having a parrot I will have a one eyed cat named Camus that will perch on my shoulder. Women will scream, and small children will cry and cower in fear whenever they hear my name.

During the pirating stage of my life, I will once again run into Kinderman and our great love affair will begin. Eventually, however, the evil Danni will lure him to her evil French themed café with a new kinder flavored mocha concoction. The two of them will fall hopelessly in love and he will leave me... and get really fat.

After such a tragic loss my heart will no longer be in piracy, and the sea will seem to me to be a metaphor for my drowning despair. I will finally make port, for good... moving to stage 3 of my plan.

STAGE 3:

Stage three is the wildest of the stages of my plan. I will be feeling quite rebellious after losing the love of my life to a French historian, so I will go on a rampage of sex, booze, and backup dancing and eventually find a position as a rap star's ho. I will be asked to dance in several videos, as well as work with Beyoncé on the remake of her hit song Single Ladies, (retitled Middle-aged ladies). During my time spent among the rap stars, I will obtain much bling (in the form of fine jewelry, crystal, and a gold/platinum grill), as well as develop many life long friends (with benefits), and eventually contract syphilis. This will thrust me into stage 4 of my plan.

STAGE 4:

At this point the syphilis will begin to spread to my central nervous system, causing me to quite literally lose my mind. I will pawn my bling and pirate treasure, and buy a very large, very old Scottish castle. I will fill my castle with cats (mostly strays). Camus the cat will die as soon as I buy the castle, but I will have a taxidermist stuff him, and I will continue to carry him around on my shoulder. Every night as the sun goes down I will play my bagpipes (very poorly) on a hill just outside of my cat castle. Alas, my final years will consist of sitting on my porch swing, a cat under each arm (and the stuffed Camus on my shoulder), shooting a riffle at the occasional person that dares to step on my crab grass lawn.

STAGE 5:

Once I am gone, they (I'm not really sure who, but someone, probably someone important) will erect a large memorial in my honor, and young French teachers/pirates/rapstar's hos/crazy cat ladies will make yearly pilgrimages there to honor my memory, and party like crazy people!

Anyway, that's what I have so far, some details are likely to change, but at least I have a plan...

the mermaid problem.

For her hair is green as seaweed and her skin is blue and pale

And I tell you now before you start you can love that girl with all your heart

But you're just gonna love the upper part you're not gonna like the tail

-     Shel Silverstein, “The Mermaid”

That’s right, the mermaid problem. If you google it, you will find plenty of sites dedicated to the topic, including a whole Wikipedia article. The mermaid problem concerns “the difficulty of having sexual intercourse with a mermaid.” Or a merman.

Looking at adult issues in Disney films, we recently brought up the mermaid problem in discussion about the Little Mermaid. Originally, we were concerned with mermaid/merman relations. How do merpeople procreate? They’re half fish, half human. On one end of the spectrum, it’s obvious that merpeople would procreate like any other fish. The mermaid lays eggs and the merman fertilizes them externally. (Makes you think twice before eating cavier…) But on the other end, they’re human. So wouldn’t they naturally want the pleasure and satisfaction of sex? This is where we run into trouble.

Mermaids have always been portrayed as sex symbols. Even Disney depicts Ariel as almost completely naked with the exception of her seashell brassiere, of which little boys and girls unconsciously ogle. The voluptuousness and the erotica of mermaids make them an incredible catch; they are consistently hunted by greedy humans who lust after such rare creatures. 

Mermen however do not have the same type of sex appeal. No matter how ripped a merman may be - bulky biceps and chiseled abs - the fish tail gives him somewhat of an effeminate and scaly effect. From goofy-looking smiles to salacious embraces to model-like poses, a google search of mermen brings up countless images of homoerotica.  

And Ariel's father, King Triton, looks frighteningly like Pastor Benson with fins. 

Going back to the mermaid problem, there have been numerous pop culture references to the sexual intrigue of mermaids. Will Ferrell encounters Reese Witherspoon as a mermaid in an episode of Saturday Night Live, initiating in a rousing discussion about her sexual capabilities. Fry in Futurama has frustrations in the bedroom with a mermaid in the underwater city of “Atlanta.” The fantastic Oscar Wilde even mentions a man’s kindled love for women’s legs after having experience with a mermaid in the story “The Fisherman and His Soul.” Each of these references express aggravation of loving a mermaid simply because she is missing something that humans naturally find important.

The only kind of reconciliation for the mermaid problem has been the “reverse” mermaid. In the grand scheme of things, it's the bottom part that counts, right? Lois from Family Guy befriends a merman with the top part of a fish and the bottom part male, yet refused to do anything with him due to his awkward upper appearance. However, Shel Silvertein’s hero in “The Mermaid” falls in love with a reverse mermaid, saying, “And I don't give a damn about the upper part and that's how I end my tale.”

Ultimately, Ariel desires to be part of our world because she wants more. Flipping her fins, she doesn't get too far. Legs are required for jumping, dancing...and other things.

robin hood is a total fox... (and i love him).

“ You know how Robin Hood’s a thief… well he’s definitely stolen my heart!" -Liz

“Danni googles Robin Hood” -Also Liz

As a small child I fell in love with the Disney version of the Robin Hood movie. I even developed a childish crush on the movie’s main character Robin Hood. It never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with our love; I mean the dude’s a fox! Alas, my children, herein lies the source of much confusion and dismay. You see the Disney Robin Hood character is actually a fox… as in the animal fox. This sad fact causes me to worry whether my love for Mr. Hood falls under the category of bestiality. You have to understand that this is a rather unsettling thought. Why would Disney, a corporation that I have trusted since childhood, install such impure concepts into my young mind! It is a travesty!

Ok, first things first, I needed to decide whether or not it falls along the lines of bestiality to love Robin Hood. I suppose he is not the first species confused character to grace the silver screen. In fact, Danni, Kristen (podmates) and I were able to come up with a couple dozen semi-animal, semi-human characters featured by seemingly trustworthy sources such as Disney, Orangina, ancient Greek myth, etc. It thus seemed appropriate to categorize these creatures based on the appropriateness of loving them. It’s one thing to love a fox that dresses like a human, walks and talks like a human, and performs everyday human tasks. It is something completely different to love a talking dog (are you paying attention Danni). When discussing the sexiness of movie characters Danni brought up an important point, "I do like the beast better as a beast, than as a human". I have managed to divide these creatures into two categories: Creatures that it’s ok to love, and Creatures that are a no-go, based on the following logic:

Some of these animalistic creatures are more anatomically similar to humans than to animals (for example the Orangina characters)

Some of these creatures wear well fitting human clothing

Some of these creatures stand on two feet and walk like humans

With the exception of some vampires figures that are dead are generally undesirable

The ability to speak only becomes important when the creature's language can be understood by other creatures, especially of the human variety

While the desired creature is generally fantastical, it cannot be mechanical

Much depends on the world inhabited by these creatures: i.e. Do they exist within the human world, or are they the primary inhabitants of a secondary world. If they live in a secondary world would you be able to create an avatar of yourself that is the same species of them (etc)?

There are other reasons that apply to my personal taste. Here are the two lists that I have thus-far devised:

Creatures that it’s ok to love

-Robin Hood -The Na'vi -Bugs Bunny -The animals from Animal farm (just for you Danni) -The Pink Panther -Werewolves (except the werewolves from Twilight) -Animaniacs -Jessica Rabbit -The Beast

-The Genie-Hercules/ any god like figure -Mythological creatures -Hobbits -Elves -Merpeople -Bernstein bears, SNL bears -Lady Gaga -The Oringina characters -Spider man -Vampires... but only the kind that melt in the sunlight, not the kind that sparkle -Jack the the Pumkin King

The no-go’s:

-Alvin, Simon, and Theodore… or any other chipmunk (Chip/Dale) -Pongo the dog -Benji -Balto -Thomas O’Mally the Ally cat -Mickey, Donald, Goofy -Abu from Aladdin -Shrek… not even in human form -Characters from Cars and Monster’s Inc -Simba -Aslan -Pinky and the Brain -The beast in human form -The animals from Madagascar -Black beauty -Babe -Dumbo -Bambi, or the King of the Forest -Puff the magic dragon, or Albi the racist dragon -Dwarves-House elves -Dr. Seuss characters -Pinocchio -Mice -Hello Kitty -Spongebob -Ghosts or zombies

smile with your eyes.

In our pod common room sit Tyra Banks and Walter the Viking.

Tyra has been our pod mascot over the past semester, held with the utmost respect and honor. Walter the Viking is the newcomer, won by Liz in a coloring contest. Joining Tyra, he hopes to get a place in the spotlight. (As well as a closer spot to Tyra...) Tyra represents beauty, fashion, and poise. She has no shame in who she is and inspires us all to be super models in our own right. Walter is the epitome of what Tyra is not. 

But they both have an inner fierceness, something we admire.

This blog is way for us to share our own fierceness with others. We hope to brighten your day with doodles, drawings, thoughts, and stories. Plus whatever else we can come up with.