In the investigation of a neurotic style of life, we must always note who suffers most because of the patient’s condition. Usually, this is a member of the family.
…To injure another person through atonement is one of the most subtle devices of the neurotic.
(Dr. Alfred Adler. Problems of Neurosis. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd, 1929.)
Neurosis — keep it all in the family.
“Draw Batgirl” meme result by Jennifer Wang, aka mao on the lj.
We must not allow ourselves to be deflected by the ‘feminists,’ who are anxious to force us to regard the two sexes as completely equal in position and worth.
(Sigmund Freud.)
Asphinctersayswhat? Yeah. Thanks for the warning, coke-addled misogynist.
via comicallyvintage on the tumblr.
Since Batgirl’s a superhero and librarians are perceived as being innocuous, there’s no way that any of the other characters are going to be able to make the connection, right? And if the opposite of Batgirl is a librarian, what does that say about librarians? That in order to be a bad ass, they must literally transform themselves?
via Bruna Künzler on the fotolog.
Regardless of whether or not Batgirl was reinforcing popular stereotypes about librarians, she was definitely empowering a whole lot of young girls. In 1998, Yvonne Craig talked about the role that her character played in young girl’s lives:
I meet young women who say Batgirl was their role model. They say it’s because it was the first time they ever felt girls could do the same things guys could do, and sometimes better. I think that’s lovely.
“batgirl” by Saint Julia 88 on the da.
In the 60s and onward, Batgirl became a symbol of women’s empowerment. In 1972, she appeared in a public service announcement for the United States Department of Labor, in which she advocated for equal pay for women.
(“From the Library: Batgirl!” McAllister, Ashley. Bitchmedia Community Learning Library, Bitch magazine website. August 15, 2010.)
And here is that PSA:
Dig Robin’s “Holy Discontent!” exclamation.
I am for accepting equality and undenigrated respect for all. But it is true that there have been men I’ve met who do not share my view and to whom I do not consider myself equal: in those cases, I consider myself infinitely their superior.
Giving the people what they want: in which I glance over my blog stats, spot the trends in what brings you party people of the internet sliding on down to my place, and accordingly and with mutual thanks throw you some bone(r?)s.
Farewell and adieu to you fair Irish ladies.
First, a shocker. With mixed emotions I must report that the rack of Miss Megan Mullally is no longer the sheriff of Googlesearchy Town.* The first two editions (1, 2) of “Giving the people what they want” were dominated by amused-but-puzzled nods to the bafflingly large number of searches for the diminuitive Will and Grace star’s cleavage which lead droves of folks to my door. Megan held her own, beating out for many months running distant contenders such as “Drew Barrymore naked,” and “lesbian kiss,” which I would have thought any such phrases would easily eclipse “Megan Mullally’s breasts,” her “boobs,” her “topless” and variations therein and they never did. Until now.
*(By Googlesearchy Town I mean the searches that people enter in google to land on this journal — wordpress keeps track and ranks the most popular for me)
Top searching honors now rest in the tiny but mighty vintage hands of busty, bespectacled aspiring astrologer, the lovely and talented Fran Gerard — Playboy’s Miss March 1967, the self-help loving little looker whose cups runneth over.
The lovely and etc Ms. Gerard. For Science.
With 5,909 searches since her relatively recent appearance on the journal in March, Ms. Gerard beats out Megan at 2,503 since her inaugural boob-airing last September. Well-played, Ms. Gerard!
Sweet, lovely and talented heiress to generations of hot Italian culinary genius, Amber Campisi.
Rising Star Awards must go to three special up and comers. First, the talented family gal Amber Campisi (Miss February 2005); next, beautiful and tragic playmate and poet Marlene Morrow, aka Persephone (Miss April 1974) — whose gripping story has justly been getting attention from a number of outside sites linking in, enough so that her sister Landi was able to find this blog and send us an optimistic update on Marlene’s present condition about which I’m thrilled, check that post’s comments to get the latest — annnnnnnnd Yvonne Craig, BATGIRL!; all of whom are beginning to trend up the stats list with great and deserved speed. I look forward to what the next edition of “Giving the people what they want” will bring!
The very special Marlene Morrow/Marlene Pinckard/Persephone. Please, please read the account of how Paul Zollo found her with notebooks of poetry and an envelope holding her centerfold photo, living on the streets in L.A., and consider following the non-profit links which follow the write-up?
Finally: Quick note to the person who has found this blog by searching google three times in the space of the last two weeks — with “only assholes” in quotes so’s as to make maximal use of boolean exceptors — for the exact phrase “‘only assholes’ fall for me“: In case you ever come back a third time, I’d like to hope you hit this entry.
Vintage hottie Yvonne Craig has suited up!
First, you probably keep landing here because I frequently tag what I consider to be interesting graffiti with the words “only assholes write on walls” a la cult classic Rocky Horror. So I am sorry for the “only assholes” mix-up. But, more importantly, I am genuinely really sorry that you feel like only assholes fall for you and I wish I could make it better. I’m sorry that you’ve felt that way strongly enough to search the phrase three different times recently. I hope the next person you date is not an asshole. I hope that he or she is really nice to you — no, not just nice, because that is mealy-mouthed and hollow. That is a bullshit expression of my actual sentiment and is weak tea compared to the depth of my empathy, here. Okay:
I hope that that next person you date is genuinely amazing to you, like I pray that their very existence makes you believe in a loving God and you see the echo of your love for them in all the shapes of nature, and you don’t just love him or her but admire and value them, and that you curl your toes when you think of him or her even while driving and that they fill you with so much passion and love that you would kill tigers for them without a blink and you stay together until you die in each other’s arms after fantastic geriatric sex.
Scroll to bottom for caption.*
I hope that the grace of his or her presence in your life is like a lightning strike that inspires you forever after always to strive to be a better person, to laugh with surprise at an unexpected joke they make when you are having an argument, to give new ideas a thorough-think-through and peek behind closed doors; I hope in short that he or she deserves every drop of the deep well of love you were created to share and renews your faith in all the anonymous fellow upper primates all over our world with whom we must trek in our stewardship of this nutty mudhole in order to improve our karma and with every go ’round perfect our souls.
ByTim Weber and Sue Noble via environmental graffiti.
Good luck to you.
*Long caption to second to last shot: The dish ran away with the spoon but what can you do? They have opened a comic book store in the City and on rare nights off they like to order dim sum and watch TVLand; the comic shop is honestly not doing so well, their apartment is super-tiny, the bride’s mom won’t take their calls, their used car’s a/c is on the fritz, and they have never been happier.
Publicity still: Adam West and Yvonne Craig read Detective Comics #359, “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl.”
With her role as Batgirl, Yvonne Craig’s own place in pop culture is secure. “There was no stigma to my having been Batgirl,” she notes. “No typecasting whatsoever. People really like the character. I was in a supermarket once, and a little girl came up to me and said, ‘I know who you really are!’ Then she said, ‘Barbara Gordon!'”
(Jankiewicz, Pat. “Recalling Batgirl.” October 2002. Starlog 303: 38-41.)
Can Beach Bunny Batgirl get Scientific with you?
On this date in 1981, the space shuttle Columbia completed its first successful orbit, landing safely at Edwards AFB in Antelope Valley, CA. In 1932, the atom was split by Cockroft and Walton in the Cavendish Labs. Like, dang. Those are some incredible scientific landmarks of just the sort that Sir Isaac Newton was speaking in the above quote.
My god, what a century of achievements. What will we do next? Keep your mind open and don’t be afraid of advancements — the only way to prevent a dystopian future run by cyborgs and genetically enhanced a-holes is to stay ethically invested in the coming leaps of technology. The only way to guarantee Bizarro Robocops and sentient microwaves stalking your cloned stem-cell baby with iPod implant neck shunts and laser gun wristwatches is to not care and not keep up with change. Cell phones freak me out and I don’t even know how to begin to use touchscreen notebooks, but I’m determined to learn this year. No burying my head in the sand (or clouds, more likely) and hiding from Change for me — not anymore.
Because I look at that quote from the freaking father of physics, thank you very much, and think of all the science that has rocked our world through the years, and each time a new advancement came along, there were frightened people, shellshocked Luddites like myself waving their arms around and crying “We’re all gonna die! Apocalypse now!” but it never happened, because humanity’s better nature has inevitably prevailed, and we’ve assimilated as best we could each new challenge to keeping the lid on our growing godlike powers. As fearsome as that is, if I am concerned, that’s exactly why I should not give up on the Future, right? If I’m so worried about it, why don’t I put my money where my big scared mouth is and stick around to defend it? Ought we not fight for the future to be a brave and conscience-guided good one instead of cringing in the corner, wringing our hands and refusing to look growing technology square in the eye?
I believe that great changes at which, like Sir Isaac Newton, we can not even possibly begin to guess are going to come in our lifetimes but we can make it a safe and morally-centered time with the potential to better the lives of everyone on Earth, so long as we try and don’t give up or get overwhelmed. I believe this is possible. I really do. I’m in a new and more positive place than I’ve ever been.
Okay, so I guess in addition to getting Scientific with you, I also got a little Hippie. I have those kind of tendencies. Thanks for loving me anyway. (My providing you with all kinds of softcore porn has I’m sure nothing to do with it.)
Yvonne Craig (Batgirl) and Adam West (Batman) goofing around on a publicity shoot.
Batgirl appeared only in the final season of the Batman series, 1967-68, but Yvonne Craig stayed attached to the character. The Joker shot Barbara Gordon, paralyzing her from the waist down, then kidnapped and stripped her father, forcing him to view blown-up shots of his suffering daughter (also mainly undressed) in Alan Moore’s 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke — over which people are often divided; I think it’s a masterwork — in order to prove to Jim Gordon and Batman that all it takes is “one bad day” for a man to be driven mad. After reading The Killing Joke for herself, Yvonne Craig complained to DC about what she viewed as the character’s egregiously cruel fate (the wiki).
Bonus Trek connection:
Yvonne played Marta, the Orion asylum inmate with green skin and sexy dance moves, in “Whom Gods Destroy,” Star Trek TOS, Season 3, Episode 15 (1968).
The Thought Experiment 