paperandglue.net

Yesterday I was organizing my filing cabinet and found something — well, two somethings — I thought I had lost in a move in 2007.

I thought I had lost it forever, but it turns out it was in my filing cabinet, safe and sound, the whole time.

What was it?

FAT MAP!

The fat map was a project that Stina of chubbluv zine did a few years backk, where she pasted pictures of fat people, fat animals and tasty food onto maps and sent them to you. I treasured this map, and added to it — the colour images are ones I glued on, including the likes of Camryn Manheim and Leslie Hall. This map dates back to 2006 — the days when I first became more into the fat acceptance/body positivity movement. As it is with most people, it’s a process to get to the point where you can say, “fat does not equal bad/ugly/gross/whatever.” For me, the journey started with my high school art teacher, who was fat and amazing and lent me copies of the now-defunct plus size fashion mag Mode. A couple years later, I started ordering zines from the (also now-defunct) Pander Zine Distro. I read the bio page for Ericka, the distro runner, where along with vital stats like name, age and location she also listed her height and her weight (!) with the parenthetical comment “Fat girls represent!” That kind of blew my mind, opening the pathways so I’d be ready to get into chubbluv and Fatshionista and the like.

Nowadays, you can find Stina at no futvre, where she continues to be excellent. You can find Ericka and her beautiful photography at elbfoto.

The second item returned to my possession by this expedition into my files was this strip of photo booth pics. It’s my brother and me at the airport. I’m probably 15ish and he’s probably 13ish here.

It’s surprising to see us getting along so well at this particular phase in our lives. It was before he grew to be bigger than me, nullifying any physical intimidation I was previously able to use to bend him to my considerable will; it was before we made it through the treacherous waters of adolescence, able to finally be friends as adults. Bro, if you’re reading, we should take another set of photo booth pics soon!

Bits from my Tumblr and the rest of the web.

1. SEAN’S ANTIQUE WEATHER CLOCK

My pal Sean is known for his interest in clock mods. In the past, he’s modded a thrift store alarm clock to be controlled by a joystick. This time, he’s taking an antique weather clock and hooking it up to the freakin’ internet. Oh yes. Check it out!

.

2. ONE GRAND HOME TAKES ON THE BEHEMOTH

Thanks to Racialicious, I was recently introduced to One Grand Home (Subtitle: Reflections on sophisticated, affordable home design and the ethics and politics of decor) and have been appreciating Alexis’s analyses of the classism and racism that tend to rear their ugly heads in the art/craft/design blogosphere. On Monday, the target was design megablog Apartment Therapy, with an illustrated breakdown of its many incidents of race- and class-fail and the way that the blogs editors refuse to acknowledge or address these issues.

3. THE EXCELLENCE OF TUNE-YARDS, IN VIDEO FORM

Lizzyville posted a link to dublab’s video of Tune-Yards performing the song “Fiya.” The video itself is understated — just Merrill Garbus playing and singing in front of a backdrop of soft blue lights — but that’s probably what makes it so wonderful.

tUnE-YaRdS “Fiya” from dublab on Vimeo.

Tune-Yards, if you don’t know, was one of the best things in music in 2009 and undoubtedly will continue to be in 2010 and beyond (it was the soundtrack and partially the inspiration for my first Video Scrapbook back in April). Experience it on MySpace.

(One more parenthetical: I refuse, simply refuse, to render the name in tOgGLe CaPs as Merrill Garbus wants us to. I will honour many different ways of styling proper names — all caps (HEALTH) or lowercase (crys cole), but I simply will not acknowledge that anyone over the age of 14 would choose to render their name in toGgLe cAps. SoRRy.)

4. THIS WEEK IN FAT FASHION (A.K.A. FATSHION)

New blog discovery this week: Christina’s Musings of a Fatshionista (Tagline: Fashuns for the Fat & Fancy). This week, she posted some scans of a high fashion shoot by Velvet d’Amour. The model in the shoot is, of course, plus-sized (no — she’s actually fat. In model terms, “plus-size” can mean anything from a size 4-8, so let’s give this gorgeous woman credit for her actual adipose tissue!).

5. GABBY SIDIBE CONTINUES BEING AWESOME, LOOKS AMAZING WHILE DOING IT

The star of Precious is profiled and photographed in Harper’s Bazaar, and that article is profiled in People (funny how that works). She looks gorgeous, and she drops a couple of great quotes, one wise, one hilarious:

[W]hile Gabourey can pose for the camera like any seasoned pro, her confidence didn’t come as easily as it may seem. “It came late, too late in my life,” she recalls of changing her attitude. “One day I decided that I was beautiful, and so I carried out my life as if I was a beautiful girl.”

“I hate yoga so much. Like if yoga was a person, I’d stab them”