Essays from Yes Means Yes

[sanguinity]

All these are from Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power & a World Without Rape, edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti, and published by Seal Press.

( Nota bene: Seal Press, Feministing, Amanda Marcotte )

2. "A Woman's Worth," Javacia N. Harris
3. "Queering Black Female Heterosexuality," Kimberly Springer
4. "What It Feels Like When It Finally Comes: Surviving Incest in Real Life," Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (brownstargirl!)
5. "Invasion of Space by a Female," Coco Fusco
6. "Trial By Media: Black Female Lasciviousness and the Question of Consent", Samhita Mukhopadhyay
7. "The Not-Rape Epidemic," Latoya Peterson
8. "Killing Misogyny: A personal Story of Love, Violence, and Strategies for Survival", Cristina Meztli Tzintzun
9. "When Pregnancy is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will be Pregnant," Tiloma Jayasignhe
10. "Who're You Calling a Whore? A Conversation with Three Sex Workers on Sexuality, Empowerment, and the Industry," Susan Lopez, Mariko Passion, Saundra

( Comments/summaries on the individual essays )

The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie

[sanguinity]

42. Thomas Fink and Yong Mao, The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie.

The first third of this slim volume is the history of male neckwear, including such factoids as how the terracotta army turned necktie scholarship on its ear, what the first verse of Yankee Doodle is about, and that while the Duke of Windsor's characteristically large knot can be emulated with a so-called Windsor knot, the Duke himself wore padded ties. (That last makes me snicker every time I repeat it; I keep wanting to make a joke about him stuffing his tie with kleenex.)

From there the book goes into a fast overview of knots in the topological sense (in which we learn that the four-in-hand is a buntline hitch), and a prose description of the authors' definition of a "legal" necktie knot. (Much to my disappointment, the eighty-five knots in the title are not a cataloging of all the possible ways to put a knot in a tie, but all the possible ways to build a "respectable" knot, something you might be willing to wear to a job interview. In this case, "respectability" includes somewhat-arbitrary limits on a knot's symmetry and maximum size.) For those who are frustrated by prose descriptions of mathematics, the mathematical details are included in an appendix; for those who do not want to deal with the formal mathematics, the formal mathematics has been placed well out of your way in the appendix.

And then we get to the knots themselves. All eighty-five possible knots are described in notation and diagrams, and the history of the most-aesthetic few in each class (as defined by the mathematics) is discussed. Throughout this section there are many photos of famous people wearing neckties, but unfortunately, the particular knot used in any given photo is almost never identified. While reading all these detailed descriptions of the final forms of the twenty-odd most popular knots, I very much wanted side-by-side standardized photos. (Mostly because I doubt. Are they really as distinctive as all that?)

All in all, it's a readable little treatise that demonstrates how one can define a solution space for a not-so-abstract problem. Back in my pure-math combinatorics days, I could see handing this off to someone who was trying to get a vague sense of what math "looks" like to mathematicians (or, similarly, for those who wanted a sample of what mathematicians "do"). It could also be nice browse-through for trivia hounds. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if its most frequent usage was as a coming-of-age gift for a young person who was learning to tie his or her first necktie.

#3, An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina

[lady-jem.livejournal.com]

#3, An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina

An autobiographical memoir by the general manager of the Hotel Mille Collines in Rwanda, who sheltered over 1200 people in his hotel during the three months of the massacres.(In the interest of full disclosure: he worked with another writer on it, who may or may not have been of color.  I really don't care.  It's clearly his voice.)

It's a fascinating book, and he's a fascinating man. He makes no apologies for his Machiavellian approach to dealing with people who came into his office with blood splatters on still their clothing, how he could talk and smoothe and bribe them into letting the hotel's "guests" live one more day. An interesting blend of pragmatism and idealism, whose ability to read and manipulate people with his words saved over a thousand lives.

This book was a revelation to me--the descriptions of the massacres, of the pointless and horrible slaughter of neighbor by neighbor, the sheer numbers...and when I'd heard in the past of this man and the hotel, I always thought in some way they were hidden (though if I'd realized the number of the saved was so high, I would have abandoned that idea!), not that all of Rwanda knew that they were there and somehow this one man was able, with words and cases of cognac and a binder full of phone numbers he'd collected of people who owed him favors, to stand between them and the machetes. 

A story at once horrible and wonderful...definitely worth the read.
peace,
J

Tags:

• a: rusesabagina,
• autobiography,
• rwanda