Screaming Females!

New video.


THIS IS ME PROCRASTINATING AT 6:30AM!

I'm going to see Screaming Females in Detroit and in New Jersey.

Smash The Glass 2009 - Phog Night Photos!

The Floral Prints

Erica Di Maio

A Young Wife

Perilelle

Lioness

FAM PRESENTS: Through Women's Eyes & Voices

Through Women's Eyes & Voices is a photography and music showcase happening at Milk Coffee Bar throughout the entire month of April. This event acts as a celebration of women's artistic output in our community.

Musical Showcases:
-All Shows: All-Ages/10PM/$5

Saturday, April 4th:
Corrina Keeling
Monique Belanger

Friday, April 17th:
Two For The Cascade
This Is Me, As A Woman

Saturday, April 25th:
Perilelle
Tara Watts

Photo Show & Sale runs the entire month of April and features the works of:
Roxi D-Lite
Alishia Fox
Anna Frenette
Bree Gaudette
Julia Hall
Corrina Keeling
Cristina Naccarato
Juliana Schewe
Melissa-Rae W
Tara Watts

Quick Reminder!

TONIGHT! (March 26th, 2009)
Indie/Folk/Electronic Night of SMASH THE GLASS @ Phog
TOMORROW NIGHT! (March 27th, 2009)
Punk/Hardcore/Ska Night of SMASH THE GLASS @ The Chubby Pickle

The SMASH THE GLASS 2009 ZINES are printed and ready. Pick up a copy tonight for FREE or ask me for one.

SATURDAY NIGHT!
PLAYBOY MANSION PARTY @ THE UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR PUB
Ew. Seriously, what the fuck?
Don't go to this.

Go to see Walls of Jericho at The Chubby Pickle On Sunday!!
Candace Kucsulain tears shit apart. She's super bad ass.

Amy Franceschini: Futurefarmers Cultivating Consciousness Since 1995

Amy Franceschini of San Francisco, is a contemporary American artist and designer who's practices span from drawing, painting, sculpture, design, net art, public art and gardening. She teaches media theory and practice courses at both Stanford University and San Francisco Art Institute.

In 1995, she founded Futurefarmers as a way to bring together multidisciplinary art practitioners to bring together new work. They are, "teachers, researchers, designers, gardeners, scientists, engineers, illustrators, people who know how to sew, pattern makers, cooks and bus drivers with a common interest in creating work that challenge current social, political and economic systems." Amy Franceschini explains, "The name [Futurefarmers] is a product of my childhood," explaining the influences of her father, a corporate farmer and owner of a pesticide company, and her mother, a New Age type devoted to the notion of organic farming.

Her Futurefarmers are comfortable with both traditional and new media, allowing them to employ a fertile approach to all of their projects. They also have an Artist in Residency Program, and have housed 19 artists from 8 countries who have created experimental and client based projects along with the Futurefarmers.

You can check out all of their projects on their website, but I figured I'd give you a taste by posting some their eco-friendly art projects for you.

CIVIC CYCLE 2008

Civic Cycle is a temporary bike share program, a public bike pump and a public forum to present existing city bike share programs as well as an open discussion to gather input on what San Francisco’s city bike program might look and operate like. The goal of this project is to cut traffic, reduce pollution, improve parking and enhance the city’s image as a greener, quieter, more relaxed place.

RAINWATER HARVESTER/GREYWATER FEEDBACK LOOP

A water saving system made from salvaged materials storing two types of water–water that normally runs away while becoming hot and rain water. The water is stored in the 3 small recycling bins which can also be used as benches to sit upon. The hand crank device on the right is used to pump stored water back to the sink to be used at a later time. The sink is equip with a variable drain allowing you to decide to let your water run back into the storage units, into the greywater system to the garden or out to the city system.

VICTORY GARDENS

An ongoing project being developed with the City of San Francisco. The program began as a utopian proposal and has now become a pilot project that supports the transition of backyard, front yard, window boxes, rooftops and unused land into food production areas. Victory Gardens has the mission to create and support a citywide network of urban farmers by (1) growing, distributing and supporting home gardens, (2) educating through lessons, exhibitions and web sites and (3) planting demonstration gardens in highly visible public lands; garden at city hall, schools and Golden Gate Park.

Amy Franceschini is a perfect example of a strong and independent woman who is blending her creativity and eco-awareness to create artistic activism and strive for change.

Smash The Glass 2009

Smash the Glass; a non-profit musical showcase entitled to empower women. Smash the Glass is a response to the lack of support towards female musicians in our city. "Smashing the Glass," comes from an understanding of the glass ceiling theory that describes the fact that women are limited as to how far they can advance up organizational ranks, the 'ceiling' is glass because it is transparent because limitations are not immediately apparent.

This DIY project started as an idea in April, 2007, while Sonia Nizzer was sitting in Nancy Gobatto’s Generation X, Third Wave Feminism class and was brought to life by herself and a close group of friends. We are back this year, to offer a stage, a podium, a foundation of motivation, support and ambition to those women who just want a chance to show YOU what they've got! We encourage men and women, all ages, to support this event. This is about celebrating and encouraging the females around us!

The festival will be two days this year, starting March 26 @ Phog Lounge and moving to the Chubby Pickle on March 27th. We hope that all who enjoyed last year's event come out again this year to recognize women in music! Tune into CJAM 91.5fm from 5 to 6 tonight for a special Smash The Glass segment of Milk and Vodka by myself and Nicole Markham (performer). We'll be chatting about the festival and playing the artists who you should come and check out this weekend!

Each Night is $5
Doors at 7pm for both shows
First night is indie/accoustic/electronic
Second night is punk/hardcore/etc
All proceeds going to the Well-come Centre for Human Potential

March 26th - Phog Lounge - 19+

Lioness - Toronto Electronic
Perilelle - Windsor Triphop
A Young Wife - Toronto Indie Folk
Erica Di Maio - Windsor Acoustic
The Floral Prints - Windsor Indie Acoustic

March 27th - Chubby Pickle - All Ages

Two Hand Fools - Kent Ohio Folk Pop Punk
The Love and Terror Cult - Mississauga Experimental Grind(?)
Empty Hands - Kitchener Hardcore
Brass Knuckles - Windsor Ska
Cold White North - Columbus Ohio Folk Punk

FitnessFirst: Using Public Humiliation To Up Their Gym Memberships!

Imagine, after a long stressful day at work or school, you head over to the bus stop dying to sit down and breathe for a minute. Just as you sit, eager to rest your legs, you discover that the bench you're sitting on is actually hooked up to a SCALE that's displaying your weight to EVERY passerby in big, red, glowing numbers.

Fitness First, a gym chain in the Netherlands launched a new ad campaign, where they've hooked up the benches of bus stops to a scale that displays your weight to the public, and if you don't like what you see
, it tells you directly below where you can go to fix that problem.

Melissa on The F Word stated, "We’re sure Fitness First is expecting a huge spike in membership from this, but the effect is ruined the moment two people share the seat. That and, you know, trying to win people’s business by humiliating them."

Enough is enough! Not only are these people being publicly humiliated, but think about the damage this is doing to their self esteem. Like there aren't enough public advertisements ridiculing women who aren't a perfect size 2 (ie. facebook advertisements that are specifically targeted to women).

Many people let this issue slide because it's "health" related, but these are the issues that make girls develop eating disorders younger and younger, and quite frankly, I think we have enough little girls starving themselves trying to look like the photoshopped women they see in magazines.

International Women's Day Recap

Sonia and I baked 70 cupcakes, and we didn't have a single one left over.
Here are a few black and white photos I took from the event.
You can find some alternate photos on my photo blog, or in my flickr.

Nicole Markham

Bree Gaudette

Erica Di Maio

Amour AmourTara WattsPerilelle

This is Me as a WomanThank you, everyone who came out to Phog Lounge on Sunday night to help us celebrate International Women's Day!
Also, Nicole and I joined Kyle Lebel on his CJAM show, "Juxtaposition Jukebox" and played a special Women's Day track list. You can check out the set list here.

Barbie Gets Inked!

Remember my earlier post celebrating Barbie's 50th birthday, where everyone seemed to agree with my statement that little girls use their Barbies as a creative outlet? Remember when EVERYONE commented or came up to me and told me (outside of the blogosphere! omg!) that they used to draw tattoos on all of their barbies too? Well, Apparently Mattel has picked up on this 'popular' trend and created, Totally Stylin' Tattoo Barbie, which allows little girls to not only put little sparkly tattoos all over their doll, but on themselves as well.

As you can imagine, this new line of Barbie that comes complete with cutesy butterfly, hearts and flower tattoos has caused a lot of controversy, and parents world-wide have been filing complains stating Tattoo Barbie will make their little girls grow up too fast.

In this really hilarious and terribly written article, Robert Elessar states, "I don't know about the idea of little girls thinking about getting permanent tattoos before they graduate from medical school."
...WHAT? Yes Robert, all girls choose a path toward medical school, and they should wait until they've graduated to put ink on their bodies...???? How specific can you get?

Jenn Alcayaga, a parent from Sacramento, California, in a much more legit argument states, "It's attracting kids too young to want to expose parts of their body to show off tattoos."

In one way I think it's kinda cool, taking the MOST popular girl driven product and having her sport something that is usually seen as taboo. According to the Bitch Blog, only 1 in 4 women have tattoos, so essentially, this could create a giant shift in perspective. Plus, they're just moving a long with the changing times. It's not like they're giving Barbie tattoos of guns and spiders (like in these two photos where someone decided to give their own twist to tattoo barbie), it's still very innocent.

With that in mind, you also have to remember that Barbie is Mattel, and Mattel is a corporation who is obviously feeding off of the huge insurgence of tattoo culture and taking this opportunity for a little bit of corporate appropriation. Mattel argues that Totally Stylin' Tattoo Barbie, "let's children express themselves and be creative."

What do you think? Yay or nay?
Would you buy your kid Totally Stylin' Tattoo Barbie?

P.S. Happy International Women's Day! Don't forget to come celebrate tonight at Phog!

International Women's Day!

Mark your Calenders! International Women's Day (IWD) is fast-approaching!
March 8th is the global holiday celebrating the economical, social and political achievements of women. It started off with a political and human rights theme in Russia and other Soviet Bloc countries. The theme was initiated by the United Nations and looks toward raising social awareness of women's struggles worldwide.

The celebration takes place in many different countries, who hold diverse initiatives and events that are brought about and planned by women. The global women's organization, Aurora has even created a worldwide register of all the IWD events happening. But, be sure to keep your eyes peeled and your ears opened for all of the fem-related events happening in our city!

CJAM's Women's Radio Collective will be hosting ten hours of special programming next Sunday. There will be tons of music and spoken word shows with various female hosts. All the content will be related to women's issues and kick-ass ladies, so be sure to tune in. That week, many other CJAM shows will also be featuring all-women setlists for their shows.

Sonia and I will also be hosting, "International Women's Day Jam" at Phog Lounge that night.
We're gathering up all of our local lady talents for a fun night of celebration and music!
With Smash The Glass coming up in just a few short weeks, we figured getting a few of the Windsor women musicians together would be a fun way to kick things off.
We've got a few local favorites, as well as a few that you may have not heard yet!
Joining us, we have Tara Watts, This is Me as a Woman, Steph Copeland (Perilelle), Amour Amour, Bree Gaudette, Erica Di Maio and Nicole Markham.
Be sure to stop in, tune in, celebrate, etc! This is a day for the ladies!