Alison Garwood Jones

Up, up and away!

August 18, 2010

SketchesDrawing-6I know, I know. It looks like I’m going the wrong way. I drew this on a flight from LA to Honolulu

I’m going on a trip! I’ll take you along for the ride. I’m off to Hungary, Austria, Germany and Holland. So grab your plane socks and moist towelettes, but leave behind the Lonely Planets. You won’t need them. You’ve got me!

SketchesDrawing-6 A window seat is a must!

*For any lurking ne’er-do-wells, don’t even think about raiding my apartment while I’m gone. It’s full of books. Who needs those anymore? And the fridge is empty. I ate the last olive. Besides, my friend Geoff (who’s as big as a tank thanks to his Bavarian ancestors) is guarding it for me while I’m gone.

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Your letters

August 11, 2010

letter

My friend, Emily, always has something thoughtful to say. Here’s what she said about my last blog post, “Female emancipation never looked so bad.”

“I agree that it is a bit depressing to think about the media messages being absorbed by teens today (not to mention that it makes me feel really old!). Of course, we all look back at our teen years with hazy lenses; I don’t doubt or deny that I was exposed to sexualized music, movies, and shows but what was once considered to be “pushing the envelope” is shrugged off by most teens today. However, I have a feeling that the newer generation will breed its own “riot grrls” who are fed up with the current messages aimed at young girls.”

She got me thinking, so I replied:

“I know this a generational thing, she says, leaning on her cane. But, I think those Mary Quant mini dresses from the sixties (shocking at the time) were pretty darn kicky! Many of the gals who wore them (including Gloria Steinem [below], Marlo Thomas and, even, Hillary Clinton) british-design-classics-stamps-bd5looked and acted smart and sassy in them, accomplishing important things despite their trendy wardrobes. Oh, and back then, women didn’t greet each other with “Yo bitch!” But because I’m human, I’m also torn. Should Gloria (below) be organizing a rally for women’s rights AND showing her whites? Does one cancel the other out? Easy answers are hard to come by (grey is the new black). Fast forward: I doubt time will make the antics of the sparkly “Hot Skank” T-shirt set look or seem better than they are. Exhibitionism in and of itself is such a dead-end for women, although try telling that to a young gal who thinks her sex appeal is her only ticket. Looks ARE power. That816883_161653_0e26a5649f_l won’t change, and it shouldn’t. It’s how you wield it (and come to terms with it) that matter. Obviously, this is a very North American and very privileged take on women’s autonomy, but it’s all I know. I’ve never lived in Afghanistan or been pressured to drop a sheet over my head because my looks and very existence were thought to be a major distraction, at best, or subversive, at worst. In the end, maybe the deepest part of human nature makes us all (women and men) go a little crazy over the effect of women’s attributes. Like John Berger said, “Women have a different social presence than men. Men watch women, while women watch men looking at them.” I still say the “Girls Gone Wild” period will go down as a dip (no, a free fall) in women’s history. Hopefully Britain’s Royal Mail will never approve a “skank stamp.” As always, LOVE your input, Emily!”

Does anyone else want to weigh in?

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Female emancipation never looked so bad

August 5, 2010

GIRL

©AGJ

You’re circling the drain

Take back the message

Yeah, it takes work

Focus and vigilance

The lowest common denominator takes seconds to achieve

Overriding decades of work

You’re discouraged?

OK! Let’s work with that

No, you say

And throw a party

To make you feel better

The theme?

Your own degradation

You invite your friends

Go Wooo!

Flash the boys

You love that they love it

Well, some of them do …

You ignore the rest

And get more provocative on your Facebook news feed

See how many comments you can get

What’s that?

I can’t hear you. You’re whispering

You feel stung by the aggressive feedback?

A little confused?

Well, here’s how we handled bewilderment

Back in the eighties

I’m talking, but you’re texting

OK, you say, tell me how it’s different today

It’s a global stage

Your mistakes are stored

But the basic dynamic hasn’t moved an inch

Waddya mean?

I get caught-up in the web-like complexities of the male/female dance

Shit

I’ve lost you

Your phone rings

You leave the room

And up the ante

Installing a webcam in your bedroom

Misting up the lens with your open mouth

Flashing. Again

Who taught you this?

Not Naomi

Not Gloria

Not Betty

The Hollywood sleazebags, I guess

Those cigar chompers who put the highest premium on your fuckability

“Would you do her?”

If that’s a yes around the casting table

You get the call

Mom, I got the part!

You don’t tell her what’s involved

You take the money

Fill the hole inside yourself with more purses

More shoes

Lots of stuff

Ignore the sacred whisper

On your own terms, it says

Yeah right, you sneer,

Turning out the light, and spooning your pillow.

*For more on this “hot” topic, see this week’s cover story in Maclean’s, “Outraged moms, trashy daughters,” by Anne Kingston.

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Happy Birthday!

August 4, 2010

SketchesDrawing-6

Obama looks 14 not 49 in my version of Shepard Fairey‘s iconic print.

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Lesson learned

July 22, 2010

Okay, okay. So blog readers don’t like polls. They especially don’t like polls with philosophical preambles.

In my last post, I was the only one who cast a vote. How lame is that?!

I promise to keep things simple, dear reader.


Alison Signature

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It’s time for a survey

July 19, 2010

Gary Shteyngart is a funny guy. His new book, Super Sad True Love Story, follows the obsessions and catastrophes of the information age, and I can’t wait to read it!

In Garyland, “books are extinct, eternal life can be purchased by the elite, subways offer business class and see-through jeans are the latest fashion.” (hat tip to Deborah Solomon’s Q&A in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine). It’s fiction, but it feels like many of these things are underway already.

Not many novelists, apart from Douglas Coupland, write about the present, but Shteyngart wonders in the Times piece, “How could you not write about today? It’s so fascinating. When civilization takes a nose dive, how can you look away? You’ve got to be there. You’ve got to be at the bottom of the swimming pool taking notes.”

Here are a few things that get Gary cracking his satirical whip:

• Our new and not-so-improved attention spans: “I can only read 20 or 30 words at a time before taking out my iPhone and caressing it and snuggling with it.”

• The death of reading: “Maybe we’re all wrong and there’s going to be a huge comeback in 10 years where all the kids are going to drop their iKindles and start reading like crazy. ‘Dude, did you read the latest Turgenev? It’s so sick. This dude is like all over the subject of love and serfdom.'”

• Our lack empathy: “The idea that it’s important to learn how another person thinks, to enter the mind of another person, the whole idea of empathy is gone. We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.”

Gary jokes “Dystopia” is his middle name but others, like Jeremy Rifkin, see a different outcome for the information age. Rifkin, author of The Empathic Civilization, is a frequent “contributor” to this blog. He believes the internet will hasten global consciousness and help us through our most pressing crises, and the environmental crisis, in particular.

In a talk that was both peppy and philosophical, Rifkin told the kids at Google last January that they have a special mission at this pivotal point in history …

Our lives are unrepeatable. This existential sense of our selves, the idea that we have a one and only history that allows us to feel the same thing in another person, to feel their struggle and their desire to fluorish, that’s what brings out a sense of solidarity in all of us. Think about it, our most alive moments are when we have that feeling of death and life together, when we feel empathy. I think the awe of life is bound in us, that we’re hardwired for empathetic distress. So imagine a scenario in which we could extend that central nervous system to the entire human race through technology? I think our digital consciousness is doing this, or could. Google has the potential to create a biosphere awareness. When communications revolutions come together with energy revolutions those are pivotal points in history because they change human consciousness. They expand our empathic horizons.

What’s your stance on this? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Have your say in the poll below.


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The biggest thing since the Industrial Revolution

July 18, 2010

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Will you still love me tomorrow?

July 17, 2010

Neon iPhone

iPhone 4: We’re not used to being in the dog house.

(Black crayon on white paper→Sony Cyber-shot, “click!”→picnik.com (Neon effect)→Et, voilà)

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Summer favourites (past and present)

July 8, 2010

1278608728796First book: Fun At The Beach (author unknown, A Whitman Tiny TotTale). Spoiler alert: Johnny and his brother swim past a crab, scarf down some peanut butter sandwiches, and make sand pies and cakes. Mom sits under an umbrella and claps from a distance.

Shoes: The classic Sperry Topsider. They’re back! … kind of. Love the no-slip grip, the candy colours. Wish there were more eighties plaid shirts and shorts on this season’s rack to pair them with.
Sperry


Frozen CokeFreezer treat: Frozen Coke. If you’re feeling depleted from all those trips down the water slide, frozen Coke is the best invention, ever. Mushy, sweet and thirst-quenching. WARNING: drinking FCs too fast could bring on a headache or, worse, flashbacks of those horrid clique battles from Grade 7 trips to Ontario Place.

Summer picnicPic-a-nic: Hit the beach with a big bunch of grapes, a selection of cheeses and some wine. This Verona portable picnic basket balances nicely on your shoulder.


51T8taS43lL._SL500_Movie: Cousins or Seitensprunge in German (it just sounds more summery in the Teutonic translation, nein?). Isabella wears a fantastically-wide sun hat in one scene, stills for which were no where to be found on Google. Trust me on this: she looks stylish and sun savvy.


Makeup: A fresh paint job!4698486638_cd0e363b01_m

Adult reading: Don’t get sand on me!1278618582731



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Manhattan transfer

July 6, 2010

Noo YawkNEW YORK, 100ºF —“Philip, do you think anyone would care if I left my hat and gloves in the hotel?”

*I used the “Inkling” app to draw this. It creates Japanese brush painting strokes, but also mimics a butcher’s grease pencil and looks a lot like the magazine  illustration techniques of the 1950s. I added a blush of colour using the “airbrush” mode in the “Sketchbook” app.

Could this be more fun?

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