THE GURGLING COD

Toxic Bitches

Now and again something pops up in the news or in the tubes that inspires paralysis. The systolic dudgeon is up around 180, but the thought of re-reading the offending piece, posting on it and moving on is unpalatable because it would involve re-reading the thing that got me pissed in the first place. I'd missed out on the Skinny Bitch phenomenon until it popped up in the DI/DO, but my luck ran out on Wednesday. What nobody seems to have pointed out is that these women (not gonna abet their brand by calling them names) are the Dov Charney of the food world. Like the American Apparel founder, these women are promoting positive social values (in the food industry, rather than textiles) using a reprehensible philosophy of gender and sexuality. Actually, the waif taint iconography Charney uses to push panties is probably healthier than the worldview coming out of SBITK:

“You know how you feel when a tall, thin, pretty woman walks by and something inside you wants to say, ‘That skinny bitch!’?” said Ms. Barnouin, who happens to be tall, thin and pretty. “The book takes that envy and anger and gives you a new place to put it.”

The world needs more of this shit (hollerin atcha, US weekly and imitators), like it needs more pan-Asian restaurants. I am not going to plough deeply into SB bibliography, but getting women to buy shit by making them feel shitty is the oldest trick in the book.  I don't see how wanting to get skinny so other women will not like you is an improvement over wanting to get skinny so men will like you. According to a t-shirt for sale at an alumnae reunion I crashed recently, my girl Madeline Albright says "There is a special place in hell for women who refuse to help each other." A self help industry with a foundation based on making women feel like shit suggests that there's a warm spot waiting for these women. In all, further evidence that being a vegan may make you stupid.

As a palate cleanser, the kind of Toxic that is good for you (contains swearing, and some weird stuff about Muppets) Hope Asgard is treating you well, ODB.

I know.

*Charney is probably ahead of the game here, as not having textiles made by eight year olds in China is a clearer social plus than heeding edicts of an alumna of an "unaccredited school for alternative health"

Poppycock Cupcakes

Evidently, the world pants for news of vegan cupcakes. Has anyone else noticed that the premise of the article is bogus?

Ms. Moskowitz, 34, was born in Coney Island Hospital, lives in Brooklyn, and is a typically impatient and opinionated New Yorker. She can’t stand how slowly most cooks peel garlic, makes relentless fun of Rachael Ray and rolls her eyes at the mention of California hippies.

But as a vegan and a follower of punk music since age 14, she is also part of a culinary movement that helped turn the chaotic energy of punk culture of the 1970s and 1980s into a progressive political force.

“Punk taught me to question everything,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “Of course, in my case that means questioning how to make a Hostess cupcake without eggs, butter or cream.”

The implication here seems to be that it was not possible to question everything before, say 1977. How, say, Darwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Tom Paine or Margaret Sanger managed without a punk soundtrack telling them to question everything is tough to figure. The narrative gets even more dubious:

In the early days of punk, bands like the Sex Pistols were notorious for nihilism, anarchism and epic consumption of drugs and alcohol — none of which would seem to lead to tofu and chamomile tea. But as punk became more political (and as bands self-destructed) in the 1990s, many punks adopted a more profoundly rebellious stance: against drugs, against alcohol and against the whole habit of mindless consumption.

“It was about purifying the movement, about being poison-free,” said Ted Leo, of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, who led the band Chisel in the 1990s. He became vegetarian in 1988 and has been vegan since 1998. Many punks became vegetarian to protest corporate and government control of the food supply. Veganism takes vegetarianism farther into cruelty-free territory by avoiding anything produced by animals: milk, cheese, eggs, honey, etc.

I am a big Ted Leo fan, but to talk about straightedge asceticism as a stage in the evolution of punk is to construct a narrative that ignores the vast majoirty of that culture. It's like saying that the Protestant Reformation evolved into Pentecostal snakehandling.   (I'll pass on the difficulties that are inevitable in even talking about "punk in the 1990s.")

As such, I'd argue there is nothing inherently or especially punk about  being a vegan. It does not disqualify you, but it does not make you. As such, I take issue with this association of punk with Moskowitz' persona. It seems to be a question of tattoos and band t-shirts. And counterfactual statements: “Besides, eggs are the big lie in baking. All the books say they provide structure, but that’s kind of crap.” Radical! There might be workarounds for eggs in some contexts, but that does not mean that eggs do not do what eggs do. This is not punk as an ethos, but an aesthetic. As such, it has more to do with Hot Topic (the chain, not the song) and the Suicide Girls than it does with the Dead Kennedys or the Slits.

Beyond what Moskowitz has to say for herself, there are some real headthumpers in Moskin's text:

The charm of Ms. Moskowitz — in person, in her cookbooks and on her public-access television cooking show, the Post-Punk Kitchen (theppk.com/shows/) — is that she makes even the deprivations of veganism and the rage of punk seem like fun. Like feminism that embraces makeup and miniskirts — the frivolous bits — Ms. Moskowitz’s veganism embraces chocolate, white flour, confectioners’ sugar, and food coloring.

I've been back and forth on whether this is an insult to vegans or feminists, and I think I have to give the nod to feminists. Are makeup and miniskirts the frivolous bits of feminism? Does being a feminist, like being a vegan, involve various deprivations? I had been under the impression that the whole point of being a feminist was the idea that not being a feminist produced various deprivations. As the Grinder pointed out, it is nice to see a change from the too-frequent articles on how hard it it is to get someone to fix the Viking range in your country home, but if this is the best DI/DO can do with La Vie Boheme, then I hope they stay in the Hamptons.

Play us out, Poly:

X-Ray Spex, "I am a Cliche'," Germ-Free Adolescents, 1978 (CD Reissue Bonus_track)