Okay. Someone in a previous post asked if there were any natural hair mags on the market. The answer is a resounding "no", especially when bombarded by the likes of Hype Hair and Sophisticate's Black Hair. Nothing against those mags, but we naturals need more info on how to take care of OUR hair--two or three page sections on natural styles aren't enough. And even in an age where technology is prevelant, not everyone has immediate access to the web to surf The Coil Review or even YouTube.

Enter my fanzine.

I've been toying with the idea of doing one for a couple of months now. It wasn't until the young lady in question posted HER question that got me thinking "if you want it, sometimes you make it yourself". (Gotta love DIY ethics.)

So, since this fanzine is for the natural hair community I want to know: what do you ladies want in a zine that is essentially being written FOR YOU? What information do you want in it? What sort of CONTENT (articles, interviews, relevant artwork and/or writing) do you want in it? You have my ear/LJ inbox: tell me what you want.

Mind you, I WILL NOT doing this for profit let alone to compete with the magazines on the shelves. This is for ALL of us as naturals, myself included. Printing and mailing costs are minimal concerns when it comes to providing our community with the information it needs.

So how about it? What do you want in your zine, ladies? =)

Yay! Short workweek! :) I got a fair amount of stuff accomplished at work on Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday, though, I wasn't able to focus. Partly because my stomach was bothering me (for some unknown reason). Partly because I was looking forward to the four-day weekend.

Anyway, as planned, we are going to Top of the Mark for Thanksgiving. Our reservation is for 2:00 PM. It will be a buffet. So, I shouldn't have any trouble eating vegetarian. And there will be unlimited champagne. So, I shouldn't have any trouble drinking a lot. :)

After Mara and I get out of bed, I will probably tune the TV to the Macy's parade. We certainly won't watch it with undivided attention, but we can have it on in the background. I also have a few family phone calls to make.

I don't know if I'll do any shopping tomorrow (Friday). I certainly won't be waiting in line at 3:00 AM, in any case. But I might go later in the day. I read somewhere that the stores tend to get less crowded after around 6:00 PM.

I'll probably also go to the office briefly tomorrow, to look something up for someone.

The sweet potatoes are in the oven for their first baking (I don't like boiling sweet potatoes for the pone so I bake them in their skins, scoop out the squishy goodness, mash it with the butter and spices and pop it back in with the pecan topping) and we've just realized we need more eggs for the cornbread. I may also make some brownies, but I doubt another dessert is really necessary for today. I may endeavor to play with my Google Wave account later, but for now I think I'm going to squeeze in a nap before we have to start getting ready in earnest. Would it be rude to take my laptop with me? I know that sooner or later I'll wind up bored with nothing to do but watch bad TV if I don't take it.

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My husband cooked a turkey yesterday afternoon (Thanksgiving Eve) so that we could take it with us to his brother's house for Thanksgiving, where bratwurst will be on the menu. My sister-in-law grew up in Germany, so the idea of traditional American Thanksgiving foods mean nothing to her. Jeff was craving tradition, and that means turkey, so he decided his only option was to cook one himself. He carved the bird up and made a point to preserve the wishbone so that our 5 year old son could partake in the wish-making ritual around it.

We asked our little Sweet Pea who he wanted to dual with, and he picked his father. He shut it eyes tightly and let us know when he was ready. Jeff, with a life experience of making wishes behind him, knew the secret to winning a wishbone dual has everything to do with where you place your thumb on the wishbone. He put his thumb low on his side of the bone and threw the contest in the direction of his little boy. They pulled, and Sweet Pea held the winning side of the bone.

( A Wish Wash )

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/my-big-fat-schmalty-thank-you-note/

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you embarking upon Turkey Coma today in the US, and for the rest of the world who might be receiving a satellite feed of our other Thanksgiving tradition, namely: a whole lot of American football. In past years I’ve written about why I’m thankful for romance, and why particular authors have made a difference in the lives of so many readers.

Today I’d like to say thank you to you. You, reading this page. Hi, there! Thank you! This year has been a huge massive one for a whole lot of reasons. This year we released a book, and traveled all over the US and into Canada promoting the book and our website and our unlimited love for excellent romance. We’ve been welcomed into your communities in Toronto, Durham, Doylestown, Seattle, Portland, Boonsboro, New York, Des Moines and Carroll, among others, and we’ve met so many romance readers who gleefully told us how much they enjoy our site, and our book, and the fact that finally, they have places online to go to talk romance with other smart romance readers. Meeting romance readers who were as enthusiastic and joyous about romance as I am was definitely the best part of book travel.

Since then, we’ve been featured in a lot of different publications - ones we never expected, from People to Marie Claire to The New Yorker to the Daily News to Publishers Weekly. Through that incredible exposure, more readers have discovered our site and other blogs that welcome romance readers and fans of the genre. There’s nothing like receiving an email that says, “I am so thankful I found you! And there are all these sites just about romance novels? I had no idea you existed. THANK YOU.”

No, really, thank you. Thank you for coming to the site and reading, whether you lurk or comment daily. Thank you for emailing me privately to talk about an issue, and for coming back to see what’s new and what’s happened since your last visit. Thank you for sending me absolutely absurd covers or stock images that have been used so often they qualify for AARP membership. Thanks for the book recommendations, the website links, the awesome Friday video submissions, the jokes, and the email messages about how much you disagree with my review. Thank you for every part of the reminder that there are so many amazing, smart, clever readers of romance out there, and thank you for the joy and pleasure of meeting you here. Happy thanksgiving, and many, many happily ever afters.

As I mentioned before, Japanese songs are pretty hit or miss for me. I got lucky and there was one from Toradora I really liked and I figured I'd link it. It's called Vanilla Salt by Horie Yui, the seiyu who also had the role of Naru from Love Hina and Tohru from Fruits Basket, two of my favorite characters of all time. She also sings Yakusoku, the song I linked to in the other entry. Not only is the melody to Vanilla Salt catchy but I really liked the translated lyrics. It could be the theme song for all tsundere and I can relate to it as a contrarian sort of person. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I weren't so cynical, but then I wouldn't really be me, right? It's like when you ask depressives whether they should go on medication. The pills may help and make you feel better, but are you still really you? If I were an optomistic, cheery person, then I wouldn't really be myself anymore. I'm not suggesting that would be a bad thing especially now, but it's like a form of death if you think about it.

Anyway, here's the video. You can turn on the closed captioning for the lyrics, but I'll paste a version too. It won't match up exactly since they're separate translations but both will give the general gist.



With vanilla salt
With vanilla salt
With vanilla salt
Burning Love

If it’s just sweet
Then let’s put salt on

Because I want you to know more about me
More than anyone else, I want to bare myself
But I can’t do it, I’ve got nothing for experience
It’s too frustrating

The more I try to show my weakness
The more I act tough in vain and everything goes the other way
I’m actually a crybaby
Though I’ve been mum about that

But a love that’s just sweet
Is slightly different from what I’m seeking

If I’m told it’s white
I’d say it’s black
I can’t be honest
I say one thing but do another
If I’m told, “I love you”
I’d say, “I hate you”
I’m happy, but what am I saying?

Like putting salt
Into sweet vanilla…

When I fall head over heels in love
For all the time, 24/7
I think about you continuously
It’s rather extreme

Can it be, that no one ever thought
That I’d be this obsessed with you?
Weather forecasts can’t tell
The whereabouts of love

My memories engraved into the periods of time when we’re together
Are treasures

If I’m told it’s right
I’d turn left
I can’t be honest
I say one thing but do another
If I’m told, “I love you”
I’d say, “I hate you”
I’m happy, but what am I saying?
Burning Love

Rather than the vanilla that’s just sweet
The slightly salted kind
Makes it sweeter
I can’t get tired of it…

It’s the same with the love that’s just sweet
The slightly salted kind
Shrinks the distance between us
And I’m sure
That a future more wonderful than today is waiting

If I’m told it’s white
I’d say it’s black
I can’t be honest
I say one thing but do another
If I’m told, “I love you”
I’d say, “I hate you”
I’m happy, but what am I saying?

If it’s just sweet
Then let’s put salt on

With vanilla salt
With vanilla salt
With vanilla salt
With vanilla salt

I'm not sure about him. He has the ears. He's not that dark though. Is this the best we can do?


Edit: I found this on Huffington Post late last night. I'm looking for the link now. Its a store display in NYC.

Edit 2: Linkage

Sorry. How did i forget to post the link with the original post? Crazy.

How much should one library employee go to protect children from content they shouldn't have access to? According to Sharon Cook quite a bit.

" It all started in the fall of 2008, and she is still doing it. The proof is in her knapsack, in a bright yellow flexible file folder, hidden from prying eyes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier. It has pink and yellow highlighter tags sticking out, marking the pages that contain explicit sexual content.

It is the Jessamine County Public Library's copy, which she has checked out and not returned. She is being fined 10 cents a day for her breach of library contract — and for her moral stand.

She was, she says, simply appalled that a child could find a book that contained so many outright visually obscene graphics in the Jessamine library where she worked. So nine months ago, she challenged its right to be included in the collection, and when that failed, she simply checked it out herself."

And you can find much, much more information about the story through the link at the top. But what do you think? Is she going too far keeping the book out of circulation, should the libraries police these things more carefully, or should the decision ultimately be left up to the parents of the children checking out the material?

I've been on a pretty incredibly streak lately when it comes to anime. I've chosen to watch some real gems that have changed how I feel about the entire genre, in a more positive direction. Mai-Hime changed how I felt about magical girl anime and I just finished watching Toradora and it's left what I had previous thought of as an average anime Rom-Com in tatters.



Lets cut to the chase and say right off the bat that I absolutely loved Toradora by the end. I had some hesitation at first because despite looking like a classic nice guy linked up with a tsundere, there were some problems. For one, Taiga (the female protagonist and aforementioned tsundere) was more of a vicious little bitch then I had been expecting from my previous interactions with the trope in a rom-com. Usually, it's pretty apparent from the start that there's more than meets the eye in a positive direction or the humor/slapstick nature of the character's bitchiness takes the sting out of it. There was very little of that to begin with here as Taiga is pretty much an unmitigated nightmare at first and because of the more realistic portrayal of her violence (no happy flying off into the sky and becoming a star for the poor guy), she very rapidly nominated herself for anime character I'd like to see hit by a bus. She is one horrid little troll at the start of the show. In fact, when I read that her character had won this year's SaiMoe vote (A contest to determine which character is the most Moe in all of anime/manga/etc) I was flabbergasted. I was around a third of the way through the anime at that point and I just couldn't understand how she could have won given that the whole idea behind a Moe character is you're supposed to feel endearing and protective feelings towards them, not hope they die in a fire. Suffice to say that given I've already told you how much I loved the anime, my feelings changed.

The real joy of Toradora is that the writing is fantastic and the characters are real and three-dimensional instead of cardboard cutouts. They start as walking tropes: the tsundere, the nice guy, the genki girl, the Libby bitch, the nerdy best friend, etc, but all of them grow and expand in a very realistic manner. The dramatic elements were fantastically done and it was also some of the best dialogue I've ever run into. While you start the show knowing pretty much how it's almost certainly going to end up given the title (Toradora = Tiger/Dragon which corresponds to the names of Taiga and Ryuji), the writers manage to get you there on a dramatic roller coaster. From what I read online, simply mentioning this anime on some forums will immediately spark a flame war since some people apparently got sick on the roller coaster and ended up 'shipping' different characters and were pissed it didn't end up that way. Personally, it all made sense to me and every character's actions seemed to fit their personality.

One of the most impressive characters in the anime was the aforementioned Libby bitch, Ami. She starts out as a completely two-faced and manipulative character but she doesn't get the generic transformation. She doesn't simply get a uni-dimensional character shift ending up with a sweet heart of gold. Instead, she's developed more realistically and she ends up being the character who can see through all the fronts and illusions used by the others to hide what they're really thinking. Fitting considering that her entire life has been a facade to get people to like her. If anyone can recognize that sort of dishonesty, she's certainly the one. You end up guessing at her motivations and ambiguous comments through most of the anime, never sure if she really has people's best interests at heart of if she's simply playing manipulative games. The last few episodes are incredibly powerful as all of this along with the buildup of the drama-bomb resolves itself.

I guess I should also mention one other character that did sort of freak me out a little. The male protagonist, Ryuji and his mother own a 'bird' of some sort. This thing is beyond screwy. It seems to have the bird-equivalent intelligence of a drooling mental retard.



Ryuji has been trying to coax the thing to say it's own name with no success and it twitches and spazzes its way through every scene it's in. The funny thing is that it too plays into the plot when I thought that it was simply a throwaway to meant to amuse and/or repulse. I guess the message when it's finally able to say its name at the end is that we can all find ourselves if we really look.

have a happy wonderful thanksgiving!!! somebody loves you! even if tomorrow is shitty - be thankful for the shittiness because it could be...shittier. it really could.

here, watch this video of the Greatest, Most Prolific Band Of All Time


album out album out go by it go by it

I was watching Tyler Perry's House of Payne and Meet the Browns.....I laughed. Though some jokes were stolen from Good Times and the short lived comedy South Central.

Do I need an intervention?

At some point, every adopted child wonders about his biological parents. Did I get my athletic abilities from my birth mom? Did my birth dad have these brown eyes?

In one particularly stunning case, Matthew Roberts of Los Angeles found out -- to his horror -- that he very well could be the son of convicted murderer Charles Manson.

Roberts, 41, started looking for his roots 12 years ago. Through a social service agency, he located his biological mother in Wisconsin.

She revealed that Manson might be his father. She claims she met the Helter Skelterite in 1967 -- two years before the infamous Manson Family murders -- and was raped by Manson in a drug-fueled orgy. After seeing Roberts' photo, she was convinced he is Manson's son.
Roberts was born March 22, 1968. The time line fits. Manson was released from prison March 21, 1967. He was arrested again Oct. 12, 1969. Any children he fathered near Roberts' age would have to have been conceived during that window.

Manson doesn't deny he might have children no one knows about.

"Every time I get out, I get a woman and a kid, and then she runs off," he said in a typically rambling interview for the 1989 documentary "Charles Manson, Superstar."

"Then the kid shows up 20, 30 years later, fat and acting like his mother."

There is no hard, scientific evidence linking Roberts to Manson. He has only his biological mother's word and recollection as well as a resemblance to the killer.

Roberts notices the resemblance himself. "If I get worked up, my eyes get really big and that's really freaked some people out before," he tells the British newspaper The Sun.

"I've tried to tone that down quite a bit. I don't like having that effect on people," he adds. "I don't even like the fact that I'm big. It makes me even scarier. My hero is Gandhi. I'm an extremely nonviolent, peaceful person and a vegetarian.

"I don't even kill bugs."

Roberts grew up in Rockford, Ill. and tells The Sun he has exchanged some letters with Manson. The killer has even sent him his prison phone number. However, he doesn't want to meet Manson personally.

"I didn't want to believe it," he says. "I was frightened and angry. It's like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father. I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster."

I feel so bad for this guy. That's just plain fucked up.

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/11/25/surprise-your-biological-father-may-be-charles-manson/?ncid=AOLDSN00290000000010

Should I be trying to get a Google Wave invite? I'm seeing all the cool kids with it.

I'm all stressed out about the "what are you thankful for" part of dinner tomorrow.  No one wants to hear the truth, trust me!  I can't think of anything table-worthy that won't come off as totally fake.  Really now, they know me.

Also, Happy Birthday to payoffpitch, stateofwhat, and karinalynn if you're reading :)

I went out with the family today. The plan was to head down to Middletown and pick up my cousins for lunch. Right when we got to the restaurant, I ended up balking. I really didn't want anything to eat. There's one thing to be said for reoccurring bouts of gloom, it functions as a pretty impressive appetite suppressant. I decided to walk around outside for a hour and change instead, singing songs to myself. It was a gloomy overcast day with occasional bouts of light drizzle and it fit my mood pretty well. God knows how many times I made my way around that parking lot but I worked my way through most of Les Miserables among other things. For some reason, that's always my gloomy sing-to-myself musical of choice. I guess it's not surprising given how it's chock full of lamenting songs and characters who meet an unpleasant end.

While wandering about, I found I had a few songs in Japanese stuck in my head, not for the lyrics obviously but for the beautiful melodies. I recently was on youtube and decided to listen to some of the soundtrack files from Love Hina, an anime I really liked. That's not something I would usually do since I've never been a fan of music in languages I can't understand. It takes away so much of the power of a song when the lyrics aren't there to tell the story. That said, some melodies are so beautiful that you don't even need to know what is being said.

Here's one song that's been stuck in my head for days now. I find myself humming it whenever I start feeling sort of down.



It has such a wistful feel to it that I find my heart sticks in my throat whenever I hear it.

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Send some lovin' thanks to your friends with our holiday vgifts!

Photos of the week

We're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.

Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!