My 100th Post: The Best Of Blog Tour

This is my 100th post, and so I have decided to try and get 100 views to my blog today!  I have been failing to have much traffic lately, barely a handful of viewers per post, which means that even my dear friends and family may not be reading anymore.  It’s ok, I still love you – but I want you back!

The goal of 100 views is perhaps a too high, since so far the only post of mine which has gotten close to that was my Eurovision post on Conchita Wurst, and that got 90 views that day.  And that was only because of random people who had searched for the busty Polish girls and instead got my post.  Sorry, fellas.

So I’m going to have to try really hard to get people interested in the nonsense I spew forth from my keyboard.  Let’s just consider this post a Best Of Blog tour, in the hopes that at least some of what I write is appealing to the general public.

Every post you read gets me one step closer to 100!  So click away!!  Read, enjoy, or roll your eyes and look at pictures of hilarious animals instead.  Just do it after you click.

So perhaps you’re reading this because you like writing, and that is what this blog is supposed to be about.  Maybe you want to read topical posts like Worldbuilding with my discussion of Ursula Le Guin’s awesomeness or The Mirror of Fantastic Vanity in which I call out Neil Gaiman.

Or maybe you, like myself, struggle with finger-stalling brain-demons and would appreciate Mental Bran Flakes.

Perhaps, instead, you’re only here because I have Facebook press-ganged you into it, or a friend of a friend has posted this link.  In that case, maybe you’d rather read something random and potentially humourous like The Spider and the Flute: a sleep-deprivation-inspired tale of arachnid tragedy about which critics, by which I mean the only person who commented (looking at you, md456), have proclaimed: “I have not felt this sympathetic for a spider since Charlotte’s Web.” Or maybe Hobbies, or “the tale of the boob coaster” where I had an R-rated yarn-craft disaster.

Are you one of my falconry friends?  Or have a passing interest in things raptorial?  How about A Falconry Rant where I bitch about the ignorant masses at my old job as a display falconer, The Austringer’s Lament where I wax lyrically about the hunt, or There’s No Such Thing as a Stupid Question – No Wait, There is where I give up on people in general as having common sense at all.

Maybe you’ve read all these before because you’re my mother and read everything I ever post (I love you!), or maybe you’ve never read any of them and have a new-found appreciation or concern for my mental state.  Whatever the case, thank you for taking the time to read what I write.

This will also be a test of how far this platform reaches.  I have decided that the avenue of self-publishing is the only way for a new writer to break into the industry currently, as much as I long to one day hold one of my books in solid printed paper.  So without the weight of a traditional publisher behind me I will be needing to do all my own marketing and advertising, and that’s the real reason I created this blog.  An author needs to be in charge of her own online presence and so this kind of self-advertisement, however uncomfortable it makes me, is part of the game.

So read, my pretties, read!

Gender and Eurovision: Why We Need More Bearded Ladies

I’ve been quiet the past couple of days because I’ve been busy working on the groundwork of my novel.  And also, watching Eurovision.

Last night was the usual pageantry, the usual exhibition of randomness (why was there a man in a hamster wheel for Ukraine’s entry?  why the trapeze for Azerbaijan?  because EUROVISION, that’s why!) and that’s why we love it.  Lyrics ranged from the trite love song (one in fact called “The Cliched Love Song” to the zany, “I want a mustache” (France’s Twin Twin rocked that particular number) and the downright bizarre:

“Looking for a candidate you have an option only one choice. Sipping my drinks looking around, there is so much beauty, oh yes we can. But yet, self-confidence is a fragile concept, that often fades away in the night. And there it comes, that unwanted guest, there is no place for you tonight “

Thanks for that, Switzerland!  The addition of a whistling refrain really added to it.

So when it came to light that one of the entries was Austria’s popular “bearded lady,” Conchita Wurst, no one really batted an eyelid.  Hey, it’s Eurovision, anything goes!  We’ve had dancing grannies and all sorts.

Quite frankly, a more believable and attractive lady than me, on most mornings.

Although in her native Austria, more than 31,000 people liked an “Anti-Wurst” Facebook page following the decision to select her. In October, the Ministry of Information in Belarus received a petition calling on BTRC, Belarus’ state broadcaster, to edit Wurst’s performance out of its Eurovision broadcast. The petition claimed that the performance would turn Eurovision “into a hotbed of sodomy”. In December, a similar petition surfaced in Russia. [Wikipedia]

But we’re the UK, we’re progressive and accepting of nontraditional gender roles.

And then she won.

Suddenly my Facebook news feed blew up.  People couldn’t just sit on the fence about this one anymore, they had to have an opinion.  I’m sorry to say that I saw more than a few comments on friend’s status updates where people (not friends of mine, I’m happy to say, or they wouldn’t have stayed friends for long) have proclaimed distaste for the “he-she” or that “pick a gender, you can’t be both!”  Thankfully the opinions of my friends themselves were more progressive, and among them some true supporters of Conchita Wurst and her message.

So what’s gotten people so hot under the collar?

With the rise in drag-queen normality, with such shows as RuPaul’s Drag Race, the ignorant public have started to get used to seeing men in drag.  But only if the illusion is complete.  If Conchita Wurst had no beard, I think there wouldn’t have been an outcry.  But her choice to display her beard alongside her crystals, her fabulous sweeping gown, beautiful long hair – this is what makes the common Joe/Jocinda Public uncomfortable.  They need the illusion to be completely man or woman.

Personally, I love the transgression of her appearance.  It’s brave and purposefully jarring.  Her very name shows her disdain of what people might think.  From her Wikipedia page:

While in German, Wurst means ‘sausage,’ the performer compares the choice of last name to the common German expression ‘Das ist mir doch alles Wurst,’ which translates as ‘it’s all the same to me,’ and ‘I don’t care,’ stating that the name emerged from the first meaning of the expression and added, “It doesn’t really matter where one comes from, and what one looks like.”

And indeed it shouldn’t matter what one looks like, how one chooses to present oneself, what gender, or lack thereof, one identifies with.  The fact is that Conchita Wurst sang beautifully.  “Rise Like a Phoenix” was evocative of old-movie glamour, with the class and style of a Bond film’s opening credits.  It was big, it was dramatic, and it was Eurovision.

However, what no one has really commented on, apart from the vulgar odd joke, is Poland’s entry: My Słowianie (We Are Slavic) by Donatan and Cleo.  It depicted several provocatively-dressed busty women as traditional milkmaids, churning butter suggestively with their tits hanging out.  If you’re going to get upset about gender issues and turning Eurovision into a “hotbed” of something, there’s a whole host of things to get outraged about there!

But no, the average ignorant viewer is used to seeing women being objectified; rampant sluttery is old news.  Drag queens with beards, now that’s what they don’t like to see!  Just think of the children!  They’ll grow up thinking that gender isn’t binary, while they swan around in their hotpants and flutter their fake eyelashes at the opposite sex.  Gasp, shock, horror, etc.

Really makes you despair for the human race, doesn’t it?  Personally, I think we need more people like Conchita Wurst, she’s a true role model.  In her own words:

“This is about an important message, it’s call for tolerance for everything that seems different.”

Amen, sister.