Street art in Oaxaca: the pulse of the people

Jen Wilton

All photo credits: Jen Wilton

 « We declare the world as our canvas » – Street Art Utopia

After first arriving in Oaxaca, Mexico it was hard not to be struck by the amount of artwork adorning public spaces – from walls to bridges and pavements to roofs.  There are pieces that remain in place for weeks, months or even years, while all the time I am surprised by new pieces springing up out of nowhere.  Some just outside my door, others in tucked away spots I have been lucky enough to stumble across.

Frida Kahlo

What is really so amazing about this phenomenon is the quality of work – not just someone tagging initials or names on walls, but beautiful murals, interpretive pieces, political criticisms… the list goes on!  This form of art is clearly designed to make the viewer think more closely about some aspect of the…

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Some thoughts on #readwomen2014

Pechorin's Journal

For those of you not familiar with it, #readwomen2014 is a campaign started on twitter by writer Joanna Walsh intended to get people reading more books by women.

The concept of the campaign is a simple one, female writers don’t get the same critical attention as male. That’s odd, women read more than men (proportionally and in aggregate) and they get published in much the same numbers. So if women are published equally and women read more, why are they reviewed less?

Part of the answer seems to be that a disproportionate number of professional critics are men, and men famously are much less likely to read books by women than women are books by men (which is both bizarre and frankly depressing). Another part is marketing and perception.Women’s fiction is often given « girly » covers with pastels and sometimes cute taglines. If you’re male those covers are profoundly offputting.

Equally, it’s sadly true…

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The « Me Time » Myth

Your Mom Has A Blog

We moms are always talking about « Me Time. »  We seem to spend a lot of brain power thinking about it and how to get it.  I even recently saw a red carpet reporter whose sole assignment was to ask celebrity moms how they get the all-important Me Time.  And, each celebrity had different answers.  Pedicures and coffee were favorites.  Lunches and going to the gym were mentioned.  Basically any activity that doesn’t involve the children can qualify, although if doesn’t involve the children OR the husband, then it is really considered a treat.

And I know why we say this.  It’s because being a mom is tiring.  And draining.  And some days it’s not all that fun or even interesting.  Being a mom requires lots of hard work, lots of putting others first, and lots of doing things that you don’t necessarily feel like doing.  So, when we have been…

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10 Reasons Why You Should Leave Your Job and Come Back to Kolkata

Some like it hot

Biryani

You know for a fact that no one knows Biryani like you do. No one loves biryani like you do. No one misses biryani like you do.

You don’t get anything in your neighbourhood that even remotely resembles biryani. Here in Kolkata, when you were in the mood for some subtlety in your Biryani you’d walk down to Aminia. For a full bodied taste, you’d stroll down to Aliya/ Shiraz/ Arsalan. For a plate of sumputous lip smacking biryani in general, with a large chunk of aaloo and one whole dim seddho (boiled egg) you used to step out of that car/ bus/ auto/ taxi anywhere in Kolkata. And just in case you were one of those adventurous ones, you walked frequently down that dingy lane off CIT road Puddopukur for the heavenly beef biryani at Qayum’s. You have never tasted better Biryani. Anywhere. In the World.

Park Street

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THE CHOPPER SAGA: PART THREE (In Which His Reign of Terror Comes to an End)

The Language of Dude Feminism

The sort of language used to assert men’s dominance over women has a pretty recognizable pattern across the cultural landscape. Men, we are told, are in charge of things because they have something women (supposedly) lack: physical strength, honor, higher cognitive facilities, or the mystique of the male organ itself. Women, sadly “lacking” these qualities, need to be “protected” from the all-consuming lusts of strange men.

This can be spun as noble chivalry, brutal domination, or a playful battle of the sexes, but at the root it’s the same: women are denied the freedoms that men take as a God-given right, assigned subordinate status, and coerced into performative gender roles.

In this dialectic, men’s protective abilities and ravaging urges come from the same place and are both aimed squarely at women. Language, of course, did not create the patriarchy, but language is a powerful method of inscribing the possible, shaping…

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The Moral Cost of Travel

Letters from the alleyway

follow your nose

Lately has been a patch of such intensity, so much pressure in every direction, that each glimmer of tenderness, of humanity, of a hand reaching out in the chaos has felt like a branch that must be held onto tightly in hopes of slowing the relentless slide down a slope.
That dream the other night of a house where everything you touch turns into something else – you pick up the umbrella, it turns into an eel, you grab the doorhandle, it turns into a salamander.
A house of so many tricks and false faces and turns and complications, and in the dream I am trying and trying to leave, to take my son and go live with a man I’ve met by the seaside, a fisherman, to go and live a simple life, the three of us, if I can just escape this house….
But – But I can’t…

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Shakespeare at 450: His Top Ten Adaptations on Film