This hair was actually braided several times, but it kept coming out until someone added the hair elastic. How sweet!
The last pic is much later, and now she is all torn up and bald. Interestingly, someone has torn off her fingers, and taped them back up to resemble a penis. A wonky penis- but a recognizable penis nonetheless.
Non-Transgendered girl here.
Unrelatedly,
The UX are my new heroes! Amazing, inspiring stuff here! (Also from The Guardian! Link goes to online version, quoted below):
Undercover restorers fix Paris landmark’s clock
‘Cultural guerrillas’ cleared of lawbreaking over secret workshop in Pantheon

Emilie Boyer King in Paris

Monday November 26, 2007

The Guardian

It is one of Paris’s most celebrated monuments, a neoclassical masterpiece that has cast its shadow across the city for more than two centuries.
But it is unlikely that the Panthéon, or any other building in France’s capital, will have played host to a more bizarre sequence of events than those revealed in a court last week.
Four members of an underground “cultural guerrilla” movement known as the Untergunther, whose purpose is to restore France’s cultural heritage, were cleared on Friday of breaking into the 18th-century monument in a plot worthy of Dan Brown or Umberto Eco.
For a year from September 2005, under the nose of the Panthéon’s unsuspecting security officials, a group of intrepid “illegal restorers” set up a secret workshop and lounge in a cavity under the building’s famous dome. Under the supervision of group member Jean-Baptiste Viot, a professional clockmaker, they pieced apart and repaired the antique clock that had been left to rust in the building since the 1960s. Only when their clandestine revamp of the elaborate timepiece had been completed did they reveal themselves.
“When we had finished the repairs, we had a big debate on whether we should let the Panthéon’s officials know or not,” said Lazar Klausmann, a spokesperson for the Untergunther. “We decided to tell them in the end so that they would know to wind the clock up so it would still work.
“The Panthéon’s administrator thought it was a hoax at first, but when we showed him the clock, and then took him up to our workshop, he had to take a deep breath and sit down.”
The Centre of National Monuments, embarrassed by the way the group entered the building so easily, did not take to the news kindly, taking legal action and replacing the administrator.
Getting into the building was the easiest part, according to Klausmann. The squad allowed themselves to be locked into the Panthéon one night, and then identified a side entrance near some stairs leading up to their future hiding place. “Opening a lock is the easiest thing for a clockmaker,” said Klausmann. From then on, they sneaked in day or night under the unsuspecting noses of the Panthéon’s officials.
“I’ve been working here for years,” said a ticket officer at the Panthéon who wished to remain anonymous. “I know every corner of the building. And I never noticed anything.”
The hardest part of the scheme was carrying up the planks used to make chairs and tables to furnish the Untergunther’s cosy squat cum workshop, which has sweeping views over Paris.
The group managed to connect the hideaway to the electricity grid and install a computer connected to the net.
Klausmann and his crew are connaisseurs of the Parisian underworld. Since the 1990s they have restored crypts, staged readings and plays in monuments at night, and organised rock concerts in quarries. The network was unknown to the authorities until 2004, when the police discovered an underground cinema, complete with bar and restaurant, under the Seine. They have tried to track them down ever since.
But the UX, the name of Untergunther’s parent organisation, is a finely tuned organisation. It has around 150 members and is divided into separate groups, which specialise in different activities ranging from getting into buildings after dark to setting up cultural events. Untergunther is the restoration cell of the network.
Members know Paris intimately. Many of them were students in the Latin Quarter in the 80s and 90s, when it was popular to have secret parties in Paris’s network of tunnels. They have now grown up and become nurses or lawyers, but still have a taste for the capital’s underworld, and they now have more than just partying on their mind.
“We would like to be able to replace the state in the areas it is incompetent,” said Klausmann. “But our means are limited and we can only do a fraction of what needs to be done. There’s so much to do in Paris that we won’t manage in our lifetime.”

The Untergunther are already busy working on another restoration mission Paris. The location is top secret, of course. But the Panthéon clock remains one of its proudest feats.
“The Latin Quarter is where the concept of human rights came from, it’s the centre of everything. The Panthéon clock is in the middle of it. So it’s a bit like the clock at the centre of the world.”

I think that this has alot to do with yesterdays post.

I think the logic here goes something like this:


If tagging is an inherently masculine activity, then it must be done by males (or the occasional tomboy, as epitomized by lady pink, the first lady of graff.)

Therefore, when a tagger encounters a work on the street, they can safely assume the creator of it is another male- and any male deviating from manly tagging- even if the deviation is to paint a hot n’ sexy lady- is gay.

Or a fag. A gay fag. It’s a deviation from the hetro-tagging normative. I’m a queer homostencual!

Original stencil here.

First follow-up here!

Yesterday I got an interesting e-mail from Trevor:

hey, i just wanted to point out that i’m pretty sure i read on a forum
somewhere that Utah is actually a “she.” i know that “a forum somewhere”
is not exactly a specific or valid reference, but my girlfriend always
points out whenever i refer to a writer i don’t know personally as “him”
or “he,” so i thought i would pass this along.

The graffiti culture of bombing, getting up, going over, beef- and all that- is just so perfectly, stereotypically, masculine.
I suppose, then, that “street art” is feminine- as epitomized by Swoon, the first lady of street art. I think that my approach is very much like Swoons- more like Swoons, in fact, than any male artist I can think of right now! Maybe that’s why I get comments like this:

“I love Posterchild. Until recently I always figured it was a girl… not sure why.”

Now,

To be fair, Graff is hugely lopsided- very male dominated.
If you’re on a game show, and you have to guess the gender of a tagger, the smart money is on “Dude”
In any case, today we’ll refer to this tagger only by their chosen name, Cream 3.
That’s a good solution, I think.
Original, untagged stencil here.

This stencil is sprayed in a location where I’ve been crossed out or had “toy” written on any stencil or tag that I’ve put up.

So I’ve put this stencil in a tricky place- right smack dab in the middle of the wall. It can’t be reached by leaning over the top and it’s hard to reach from the bottom.

I’d like to see someone cross this out!

Well, no, actually, I wouldn’t. But, I would at least know that they worked for it!

Did you know that Pac-Man was going to be called “Puck-Man”? It’s true! They changed it for North America, because they knew that vandals would scratch out part of the “P” on every cabinet, everywhere, making their game “Fuck-Man”.

Did you know that Posterchild was going to be called “Poster Girl”? It’s true! I changed it to the more enigmatic and gender-neutral Posterchild, but I was originally going to go with the feminized version- just to throw people off the track and to further distance my secret identity from myself!

I mean really, wouldn’t John Jonzz really keep people away from his secret (secret) identity if he transformed into a fishnet wearing, lipstick daubed, Martian Womanhunter? If Peter Parker had worn a stuffed bra under his spidey suit? If Wonder Woman had bulked up her suit with armoured, muscle-like padding?

Of course, this transgendered identity protection probably wouldn’t have flown under the comics code back then, but I think this could be a really interesting idea for a new superhero!

This is for the latest SR Challenge, Manliness.

I thought it was a good theme. What is manliness?

How to be a MAN nowadays?

I certainly don’t know. I found it all very confusing growing up.

I don’t buy the idea that gender is an entirely social construct, but our society certainly shapes our ideas of gender allot! Growing up, I learned that the old model of manliness was not appropriate or desirable, yet no substitute model was offered!

Perhaps, as a result, I sometimes wonder if I am more in touch with my so-called “feminine side” than my “manliness”. The “feminine” qualities in me are certainly socially encouraged. (Nurturing, compassion, gentleness, expressing emotion, empathy, social bonding, caring and creativity) while the “masculine” qualities (Independence, aggressiveness, boldness, bravery, strength, dedication, honour and ambition) seem to be more conflicted- they are often discouraged and endorsed in equal measure. Some masculine qualities, such as physical strength or honour are seen as primitive throwbacks and are usually mocked as soon as they are mentioned.

“I’m a MAN, gaze upon my muscles while I tear a bloody steak in twain!”

In fact, I was so used to downplaying my physical strength I remember a moment several years ago when I realized that it was often advantageous to be strong! It was a ridiculous epiphany! I then realized how crazy it was that I’ve been socialized to ignore my own strengths!

In anycase, like I said, I don’t buy the idea that gender is an entirely social construct, but our society certainly shapes our ideas of gender though the role models we glamorize and the stories we tell.

Enter He-Man.

How unequivocally masculine.


HE FUCKING MAN. There is absolutely nothing feminine about that name. It’s like they kicked the “Wo” out of “Woman” and put HE in there.

He-Man was one of my earliest models for manhood. I loved He-Man. I ran around with a stick stuck down the back of my shirt, and I would pull it out, shouting: “By the Power of Grey Skull!”

I then kinda forgot about He-Man, but now that I’m older I can see just how weird He-Man was. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the oeuvre of He-Man, his alter ego was a pink and pastel wearing immature sissy guy called “Prince Adam.” Now, Prince Adam was basically your standard Prince Charming, with a castle and wealth and good looks and all that. But Prince Adam would also transform into a powerhouse of buttkicking via a sword. I forget the details, but his lazy tiger “Cringer” would also transform into a manly male, and gain the manly quality of bravery. If I recall correctly, he hated this transformation and had to be forced into doing it.

Just like Puberty.

Anyway, the more I thought about He-Man, the more I thought it was a fascinating look at manliness.

So here’s my stencils, in the form of a “Throw-Up”. When the wind blows they flip between Prince Adam and He-Man.

Which one is more “Gay” ?

Here is the Betsy McCall doll herself!

And I also included some shots of the whole wall, with all the outfits.

Ok,

So,

She’s only wearing her underwear (Although very modest it is, especially by today’s standards. I guess today it would be a thong with “Bad Girl” written on it. Man, It’s crazy, who hasn’t seen a very young girl wearing shockingly sexy clothes or T-Shirts with sexually suggestive slogans? What’s up with that? What’s driving this? Super-Sexy role models for young girls? Is this what 4th wave Feminist empowerment has in mind? -“Cam Girls” and girls getting older younger?

Dudes + Dudettes, I’m a young person, but I know that I sound like a Grandparent. It’s astounding, but it seems to me that there is a new generation gap building already. To me, it’s absurd that kids are growing up with Cell Phones. Why does a kid need a cell phone? I don’t even need a cell phone.)

Anyway,

My ranting aside,

She’s only wearing her underwear.

And that would be cold and embarrassing.

I’d like you to help me pick which outfit she will wear!

Which will It be!

Outfit One, with the ruled pad of paper. (It ruled!)

Outfit Two, without any prop.

Or, Outfit Three, with a ruler. (It rules!)

Or Perhaps, you might prefer if I left her in her underroos! They do all look good on the wall the way they are….

You can vote here: bladediary.com/forum/

You don’t have to log in, just say what you’d like to see happen most!

Tomorrow I’ll post a pic of whatever wins!