Foolish Monkey's Open Salon Blog

for V CORSO:Do clothes make the woman? Women in America PT 2

Sun, 6 May 2012 19:05:39 -0400

This is a continuation of a discusson inspired by a terrific piece by Jeanette Demain entitled: Breasturants, Hypocrisy and Sexual Kitsch

In response I wrote (retitled as): OPEN CALL: gettin' back to tits and ass American Style

Phyllis Is What suggested this OPEN and contributed: Female objectification and fashion - Foolish Monkey's OC

Keri H wrote: Blog comment in support of Foolish Monkey's post

From V Corso:

Phyllis/Foolish Monkey's OC: A modest proposal---The Burqua

From Poor Woman: Foolish Monkeys OC: Women Must Fight a New Way

If you let me know you've written something that adds to this discussion, it would be my pleasure to link it here and on the original OPEN. Thanks.

As I see this, it's not about skin per se, but about the message women are getting day in day out - to sell our skin, to sell our selves short. It reminds me of what it's like to watch the dynamics of a two child family where one is the favorite.

Girls are told in every conceivable way: you are here for boys to look at and maybe even to like if you're REALLY REALLY sexy and fun! And boys get the message that they are here to take their place in the world. Go get em, tiger!

Oppression plays one against the other. And pays mightily for someone off the graph.

The cultural message is right there in a continuous loop. Watch the commercials, tv shows, ads in magazines, movies. I mentioned in another blog there's a new movie coming out, an animated movie for kids about Pirates. Take a look at the female pirate in the commercial: she's made to look like a stripper with a sword.

I said in my last blog:

"Today's girls and women are told in a million different creative and even stunningly subliminal ways that in these difficult times the road to prosperity is to sell yourself and your body to the highest bidder."

V CORSO responded in her blog:

"Foolish Monkey's point about girls and women being told that the road to prosperity is looking beautiful/sexy (paraphrasing here) dovetails nicely into this line of thought. Life has become all about packaging, not content. If you've got other resources and assets to keep yourself afloat in the world, there's a whole slew of jobs more lucrative, safer and far more pleasant than being a pole dancer or working in a breastaurant."

My problem with the above is while you're correct, the fact is in order to have something substantial to offer, you've got to get an education. It has to be valued and discussed in the family, and valued by society. Is anyone fighting for our kid's educations? Even primary education is underfunded. Who can afford college any more?

Is it that we don't have the time or the energy to place focus and value on vision, education or advancement? Or is it that we're too busy being diverted and preoccupied by the idiots of the world being rubbed in our faces morning noon and night? Elevating supreme symbols of vapid idiocy and even prostitution to cultural heroes of national obsession.

My point has been that right now, trash and overt sexuality is a constant in our society. And it's reinforced every day. Our girls believe being sexy will give them leverage, make boys like them. They think being sexual will give them power, love, an edge, money.

In this day and age, most families are worried about keeping a roof over their heads so the idea of whether or not their daughters are empowered enough to resist all this garbage being fed into their heads or whether they're given equal opportunity isn't nearly as important as whether or not they as parents can keep their daughters from getting pregnant or quitting school or doing drugs or losing interest in their own futures. People are struggling to keep body and soul together.

I have granddaughters and I know that this world is easier for men and in general as it presently stands, life will be easier for my grandsons than my granddaughters. It's that simple and it's wrong.

It may be this discussion is really about corporate fascist oppression and selling our children a corrupt bill of goods so enormous profits continue to be made PLUS keeping power cards out of our hands. Dividing and conquering is always a winning strategy and oppression wins the day.

While I was writing this at one point I tried to think of a symbol for America, some recognizable symbol, like freedom and mom and apple pie and baseball used to be. I was trying to think of something that makes us feel good today.

You know I couldn't think of a thing, until this came to mind:

OPEN CALL: gettin' back to tits and ass American Style

Fri, 4 May 2012 15:05:38 -0400

This is an expansion of my comment in response to a great piece by Jeanette Demain, that started it all titled: Breasturants, Hypocrisy and Sexual Kitsch. Phyllis suggested this as an OPEN CALL: so I'm comin' at you. OPEN CALL: from toddlers to women, getin' back to that good old fashioned American Style tits and ass pov!

You see I’ve noticed it too, the creeping creepy cultural nostalgia; that desire to stumble backwards on the highest heels ever engineered, to a dismal past that will be our daughter’s futures.

We return to the glory days of Leave It To Beaver except in this incarnation, we're going porno style and sexually liber-fied into a world where our roles are to be grateful for any paycheck nomatter how degrading because the concept of degradation isn't really so bad anymore. If it can pay the rent and in many cases, it does, then why not?

So glam up girlfriend, because if you're sufficiently winsome and superficially pliable you might be honored to make a living wearing supershort shorts and blouses open a button or ten too low, all in aid of serving up some down home corporate food and suggestive banter, while using your breasts and ass as a platter.

And show some gratitude, little woman! for we DO have the technology to keep you in the game, sort of young, almost, mostly forever. Okay..not exactly young young, and more like kabuki young with your face frozen in a mask of clipped nose, bubble lips and modified cheeks and chin, a face so swimming in zombie botulism bacteria it won't even move when you speak.

YAY us! Can I use my MC or Visa?

The rest of our mess of normal physical aging can be smoothed and repositioned via shapers or spanx or support or – if we're moneyed and/or have an amazing credit line: dream it, slash and silicone and liposuction. And how about having the old taint bleached or one's body tanned to leather? We can have eternal youth, albeit bizarro "youth" and so far, it's sort of working, kind of, almost, maybe. Squinting, it might be okay.

I just saw a piece on “The Soup” where one of the ubiquitous cable "Housewives" - who is in fact is nothing close to anybody's housewife, rich, at least 50+ and skinny to the point of anorexia - was quote unquote entertaining a crowd, by doing (of all things) a very bad song and strip act.

My first thought was why aren't the people in the audience storming around, demanding refunds? Then it occurred to me as the camera panned the room that if they weren't nibbling on a plate of hootered wings, all those groaning, cheering people in the audience looked like her: they were mostly “housewives" and "house men", maybe waiting a turn at this orgy of ramped up sexual humiliation. Maybe kind of a shared, groupy grope therapeutic support event for middle aged former hookers and their former pimps and johns.

It's big time Americans entertainment now: this degradation of women, young and old. We sit and watch as they slug it out in restaurants and on dormitory floors, falling down drunk, foul mouthed, aggressive and violent, promiscuous, ignorant and crude, dressed in a mind boggling variety of too tight cocktail dresses. Oh and lets not look away from baby beauty queens dressed up in stripper "costumes" with mommy coaching them on how to work a crowd.

Haven't you heard? a girl can put herself through college working The Pole!

And this is where we want our daughters to go: what we want them to think about, dream about, emulate, aspire to. And what we want our boys to dream of too: this nightmare trip to the past without even the illusion of the respect or dignity the June Cleavers were given. The respect our mothers and grandmothers demanded as “ladies”. Okay it was an illusion but it was something.

They demanded acknowledgement that they were worthy of respect, however paltry it was. Society, culture, didn’t overtly treat women like pieces of garbage - behind the scenes, something else, but up front, we were treated "like ladies". It's true, it was a sad little charade, but it made life a little easier and women felt there was redress and even decency in our shared understanding. This was the deal: we were human beings and not gussied up platters of spicey little meatballs.

Today girls and women are told in a million different, creative and even stunningly subliminal ways, that in these difficult times the road to prosperity and security is to sell yourself and your body to the highest bidder.

Prepare to step aside Kardashians...the future of America, our little women are being tutored to steal your market. A million million spicy little meatballs, coming up!

We accept and embrace dressing in too short, too tight clothing and stuffing feet into stilettos. Again. Cramming bodies into girdles. Again. Could someone please explain why? Just explain it to me. I won’t argue because how you want walk through your day is your business. But I’d sure love to know how the daily torture of bone and skin is a good thing.

We are sneaking back to a time where boys and men expect to remain indulged children, perpetually tasting and sampling girlywomen who are there mostly for them. Yes women are beautiful. And so are men. And yes men will look, and so will women. But what we're doing to women at this point is nothing less than pornographic objectification. And like porn, women are not expected to expect an orgasm (faking will do) or getting anything out of it (except a paycheck). But we are expected to look as if we're rarin' to go.

So here were are. Again. Still. A culture where women are second class citizens waiting for men in power to validate us, to give us equal pay, equality, protection under the law and autonomy.

And we are sold out, over and over again for one reason or another: politics, religion, what difference does it make? our rights are still not ours.

To me saddest of all is watching women sell us, themselves out, and worse, sell out all our daughters and granddaughters for the sake of financial and/or emotional security.

Will it never, ever end?

that smithie woman gave me a fucking headache!

Wed, 2 May 2012 12:05:58 -0400

my brain hurts today.

"we are not able to put this right, all this wacky shit! and after trying to piece it into something cohesive and then finding out we needn't have bothered, we're collectively, proactively pissed!"

"SO! being we're stuck here in your fucking skull, we're about to go all explosive and fireworky on your ass", hissed my neurons about an hour ago.

"blame the smithie!", they keep yammering. "smithie! smithie!"

shit. shitshitshit.

Madam Monkey's Fabuloso & Perfect Sugar Free Ricotta Cookies

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:04:50 -0400

^{Behold! the most delicous sugar free cookies in the world!}

Now that I’m regularly whipping up ricotta cheese in my little kitchen - which btw, is the easiest thing in the world to do, I am compelled by frugal duty to followup with recipe ideas for this bounty of goodness. Woman cannot live by lasagna alone. I’d be about five feet around and a million pounds if I did - fresh home made ricotta in lasagna is to DIE for. (And living is so much more pleasant.)

^{fresh ricotta is a beautiful thing}

With this much delicious ricotta, you’ve got to get creative unless you enjoy eating a lot of plain ricotta cheese (OH NO PLEASE, NOT THAT!). You see, home made ricotta cheese has no stabilizers so it must be used within a day or two otherwise it will go bad. And not in a good "cheesey" way.

Oh yes, you can eat it simply smeared on a piece of toasted bread with a little honey drizzled over it - unreal delicious. And today I experimented with a ricotta dough making rigatoni shapes with my extruder. Came out tasting too noodley. My pasta skills are weak.

Right now, my favorite recipe is ricotta cookies - no surprise there. Our family motto: mi vita loco cookie!, my life for the cookie!

In the past I wasn't able to make them often because ricotta is expensive and doesn't keep very well. Now I'm making them every couple of weeks. YAY.

^{lovely little almost cookies patiently waiting their turn in the oven. this batch has orange peel and a few chocolate chips pressed in to make my monkey man especially happy.}

Easily enough, I could fill our life with ricotta cheesecakes and pound cakes – and don't get me wrong - they are a wondrous thing, but they’re big caloric things too, really, and should be served sparingly, on holidays or special occasions. I don't care who you are, who in their right mind could eat such richness regularly? Well, okay, I could, yes. But I know better. And so do my hidden fat pants, who would not be my secret friend any more.

Following my recipe as it is below will not bust anyone out of any pants, unless you eat all the cookies alone in one sitting.

And they are so good...I caution you, this could be a real possibility!

On the other hand, from the normal functional human being portion wise vantage point, they are not what one might call a “fat” cookie. Nor are they a “fat free” cookie to be eaten like a maniac. They are what you make of them.

And as your monkey friend and food enabler, I am providing you with the knowledge and technology to make this recipe precisely just so, however you desire your cookies to be. THEN you may dive in with gusto, guilt free commitment and fat pants be damned!

As with most cookies, they can be prepared entirely sugar free and nearly fat free: sugar free by eliminating the agave nectar and using only granulated pure Splenda (and not the Splenda blend). If you use fat free ricotta, Egg Beaters and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” or canola oil instead of butter you’ll eliminate much of the fat. What's so special about this recipe is that you don't notice that they're made with Splenda or Egg Beaters. They're that good.

However I do advise against substituting the ricotta cheese. Ricotta is not cottage cheese, it’s not goat cheese or yogurt cheese or any other cheese. Ricotta is a unique ingredient. I just know someone is going to write and say "MONKEY...SEE? I USED ZERO FAT SOYCHEESE AND MY COOKIES ARE SO DELICIOUS AND SO MUCH BETTER FOR YOU, FAT STUPID MONKEY COW".

And I say, okay, knucklehead you win! But you are chomping on a soy cheese cookie. (ew) And I know and you know your cookies taste like SOY CHEESE cookies. (ew) Certainly not these stupdendous cookies I am offering my super secret recipe for (you numbnuts that I am casting my pearls before).

The heavenly lemon fragrance that fills the kitchen and luscious creamy flavor is as marvelous and unique as their chemistry. For immediately after adding flour you'll notice the dough is coming together differently and is so much softer, fluffier and more elastic than any other cookie dough.

The combined ingredients puff up when subjected to baking and take on a delicate pillowed texture. They are so delicious, so undiet-like and luxurious, that nomatter how many calories or grams of fat you make them with, it will be impossible to believe they haven't been sent by the devil to layer the world in trembling, gelatinous globules of flab.

^{see how they rise like tender little clouds ...ooooooooo}

MONKEY'S FABULOSO AND PERFECT SUGAR FREE RICOTTA COOKIES

makes about 3 dozen large cookies

Butter = 2 sticks / ½ lb pound
Splenda granulated, 2 cups
Agave Nectar a scant ¼ cup (or this measure in Splenda for zero sugar)
Eggs, 2 whatever size you have lying around (unless you have pullet size eggss, then use more.)
Ricotta, 3/4 to 1 lb
Flour, 3 cups all purpose
Salt, ¾ teaspoon
Baking Powder 1 teaspoon
Baking Soda, 1 teaspoon
Juice and zest of one lemon

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 325F*

2. Cream butter and ricotta in a mixer. When it’s soft and fluffy

3. add lemon and splenda. Blend thoroughly, then

4. add flour mixture and slowly bring the dough together. THEN STOP. Do not overmix! If you do, you will end up with a tough cookie! Great for film noir. Not so great when you’re making a cookie, cookie.

5. Use a well greased or nonstick cookiesheet or cookie sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat and spoon the cookie dough on. I like to use a cookie scooper, then press and shape with dampened fingers. I keep a bowl of water nearby. This is a light, sticky dough.

6. ALSO: this is DELICIOUS dough. It will not be easy to not eat all the dough right out of the bowl before it’s baked.

7. Bake for 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. NOW you can eat.

^{* These cookies can scorch. So keep watch on your oven temp until you’ve worked with this recipe once or twice and are familiar with how your oven bakes them. I have an electric oven so I watch carefully. It's been my experience that electric ovens are hotter than gas ovens.}

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS AND IDEAS:

o citron or orange zest is perfect with lemon. try making these cookies with an orange or a lime.

o chocolate chips are always a welcome sight in any cookie. there are sugar free chips, but my preference for these are the tiny chips for this very light and delicate cookie.

o pignoli nuts, finely chopped macadamia mixed in or a sprinkling of shaved almonds on top is wonderful. I prefer delicately flavored nuts for this cookie, but you might want to try a sprinkling of finely chopped pistachios, pecans or walnuts

o sadly, their shelf life is short. sugar is a natural preservative, so no sugar means stale cookies very quickly and we can’t have that! Freeze what you can’t eat in a day or two.

o OR twice bake them. twice baked cookies are biscotti and biscotti are delicioso and have a longer shelf life. they won’t be pillowy soft, but they’ll still taste like piece of heaven.

^{take that! soy cheese cookie fascists!}

when poetry knocks better run out the back door!

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:04:55 -0400

snuck up on me she did

I wuz mindin my own bizness ya know

when all of a hot damn lickity

comes this fancyshmancy

I didn’t ask for it, see?

I didn’t sit around like I do now

tryin to stoke it to life

likea…well..ah..

just steps in the room all nice and friendly

and gives me this pretty little

sweet smoochie somethin and

the next thing yaknow

I’m writin and it don’t matter

about what cause it never does

turns out s'got nothing to do with me anyways

this is just an apartment she hangs out in

the basket where she lays her eggs

givin me a wee

bit of a cudgeling

so humid dark corners

might offer her tiny nubbins

a fertile nest to root

see what I mean?

this is fair warning:

run from the muse!

run fast!

run while your feet still have some sense

before they start their crazy tapdance

before yammering thesauri battle royal

for phrases on empty white pages

smackin you around

to the song of million hungry dead poets

never the same, you see

words you never heard in ya head

suddenly hang on the wind

right before yer eyes

in colors so delicious

the air starts thumpin

then there’s the gods to contend with

and a beloved or two

nestled over there in a corner

can you imagine?

I tell ya the easy life is over

once she taps on your shoulder

and smooches you up