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When Julian stretches, the only part of his arms that makes it higher than his head are his little fists. If adults had those proportions we’d be the laughing stock of the universe.

He’s getting better control over his limbs now. He’s been balling his hands up together, Davis style, and either sitting around like that, or eating his hands.

Andy:
Thanks for continuing to wash all the dishes, even though that was meant to be a temporary arrangement for when I had a giant belly that stopped me from getting within ten feet of the sink.

Andy recorded some stuff last Summer and he just got around to getting it downloadable! You can get his mini-album for free at www.thebackgrounds.com. In some ways it’s fairly different from the stuff on his first album, but it’s still solid and I genuinely enjoy listening to it. He hadn’t planned on recording anything for a little while, but the opportunity came up right before we left Provo and seemed like a great idea. Especially since he managed to wangle studio time out of several good musician friends like Bret (cleanest drummer known to mankind), Branden Campell (bassist from Neon Trees who played on his first album), and get a contribution from Organist Mikel Azpiroz who also played on his first album. Andy also managed to get his family history on by recording with the same guy who recorded his dad’s album, and has Bardhi to thank for the artwork. He’s lucky to have talented friends who are down with collaborating like this.

Anyway. I really like these songs, and am excited about Andy recording some more stuff he’s been messing around with. You can get your filthy little mitts on his current stuff here!

A bunch of psychiatrists from the Royal College are trying to get digitally ‘enhanced’ images kitemarked in magazines. Basically, if an image has had more than a certain percentage of the image altered, these psychiatrists are pushing to get it annotated. I think it’s a great idea. If McDonald’s is banned from targeting youths with foodstuffs linked to obesity, then Bazaar should be banned from hawking bobblehead models who have been linked to the development of body dysmorphia. Of course some people’s bodies and body images aren’t affected negatively by McDonalds pushing Big Macs on them or couture designers assaulting people with skeletons in clothes, but there’s undeniably high correlation between both forms of advertising and both forms of eating issues so it can’t hurt to try and discourage the encouragement of either extreme.

I’m not really with the Royal College Psychiatrists on the ‘ban size zero models’ thing though. Don’t get me wrong, I’m staunchly against the modelling industry’s maltreatment of human beings (e.g. the use of models who are under sixteen, the pressure to pull an Ana Reston), the pushing of emaciated forms and the expression that a waist size any bigger than that of a seven year old is fashion felony). I just don’t think that banning models of a particular measurement will correct people’s warped perceptions of ‘beauty’ or ‘thin’.

I’m more offended by magazines photoshopped bobbleheads than runway models. The runway is a gangplank for mobile coathanders, the idea being to give the clothing cadenza, not the human form. Frankly, if career-aged people want to kill themselves with a short stint as a coathanger, and suffer Karl Lagerfield yelling “NO ONE WANTS TO LOOK AT A FAT MODEL, WHAT ARE YOU, A SIZE 1?” voluntarily; whatever. You just have to make eye contact with a runway model to know that the tastiest thing they’ve eaten since puberty was half-a-raisin and their greatest satisfaction in life comes from punitive forms of self-denial. That lifestyle has zero appeal to anyone not predisposed to eating disorder. Runwaytopia and it’s league of emaciated are at least real (and so are their anorexia related deaths – I wish the fashion industry wouldn’t try and hide that so much). It’s the bobbleheads in magazines that wind me up most. People forget the images are practically paintings (not even the runway models can compete with a photoshopped skeleton) and end up thinking that the POW look is hot.

In Milan they decided that models had to have a BMI of 18.5, which is still micro (and you can kinda cram for those doctors appointments by drinking 6 litres of water before you get weighed, like a featherweight weigh-in, in reverse) but at least they’re making an effort. London is refusing to do this since 18.5 is ‘too high’.

Anyway. The fashion industry is retarded but I doubt banning size zero models will fix that. Kitemarking heavily altered images in ads sounds good though.

We finished it! Including World 9. Aw yeah.

Natalie Dee.

Rachel’s recent find via ffffound:

I have no idea what they are, but I love them. And they look like they’re wrapped up in bath towels waiting to use a sauna or something.

For me, the absolute worst feeling in the world comes from being emotionally obligated and constricted by or to something I don’t want to be. I don’t do well with those kinds of restrictions. I don’t know if anybody does.

I am in a foul mood. Take that, Blog-Sunshine and Rainbows.