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| Gilbert Arenas’s new Obama tattoo (Photo credit: Dan Hellie / NBC Washington) |
[DC Sports Bog] Update! We mentioned the other day that the NBA’s Gilbert Arenas (who once actually gave himself the nickname, “the Black President”) had cast off his indecision and jumped in head-first into his support for Obama with a hand tattoo, the photographic evidence of which can now be seen above. Arenas told the photographer he got the tattoo so that, among other reasons, he can look at his hand during games and see the words “We Believe.” This is the same reason I got “Delicious Nachos” tattooed on my hands — everyone needs a pick-me-up sometimes, right? Oh, delicious nachos. I’m feeling better already.
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| Photo credit: Retna |
[TMZ] I can’t describe how dirty I feel linking to TMZ and Fox News. Nonetheless, it’s worth it to get the details on a story this goddamn insane. Basically, Stephen Baldwin just got the initials “HM” tattooed on him for “Hannah Montana.” Strange enough? Well hot holy damn, try this next graf on for size:
The idea reportedly stems back to a dare that Cyrus made last year. The two became friends after meeting at the White House, when Cyrus told Baldwin that he could appear on her Disney show “Hannah Montana” – of which his daughters are huge fans – if he would get a tattoo, TMZ said.
Stephen Baldwin and Miley Cyrus, who are friends (!), met at the White House, and while there, took the time to hash out a tattoo-related dare. This actually happened. In real life. Head asplode.
[Somatechnics] Calling all academics who didn’t leave the site in disgust after the previous two vacuous celebrity stories! The good folks at the Somatechnics Research Centre at Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia, have put out a call for papers to be presented at next year’s fifth Somatechnics conference. Rather than absolutely mangling the description with my layman’s terms, here’s the deal for those unfamiliar:
“Somatechnics” is a recently coined term used to highlight the inextricability of soma and techné, of the body (as a culturally intelligible construct) and the techniques (dispositifs and ‘hard technologies’) in and through which bodies are formed and transformed. This term, then, supplants the logic of the ‘and’, indicating that technés are not something we add to or apply to the body, but rather, are the means in and through which bodies are constituted, positioned, and lived. As such, the term reflects contemporary understandings of the body as the incarnation or materialization of historically and culturally specific discourses and practices.
Possible topics:
• Somatechnologies of the self (‘non-mainstream’ body modification, body sculpting, performance, fashion, drug use, ‘self-mutilation’, religious practice, etc)
• medical somatechnologies (cosmetic, reproductive, imaging, corrective, sex (re)assignment, implantation, enhancement, bio-techs, public health initiatives, etc)
• somatechnics of law
• somatechnologies of gender, sexuality, race, class, etc
• somatechnologies of normalcy and pathology
• somatechnics of war
• somatechnologies of the post-human (cyborgs, nanotechnology, virtuality, etc)
• soma-ethics
A number of IAM members have spoken at this conference in the past and, by all accounts, it’s a fascinating and exciting project to be a part of. For those interested, abstracts are due in by November 30, 2008.
BME/News and Modblog highlight only a small fraction of what
“Head asplode.” is by far the funniest phrase I’ve heard in months. Kudos.
“Head asplode.” is by far the funniest phrase I’ve heard in months. Kudos.
Miley Cyrus sucks mega cock
Thanks, professor.
Ugh.. I hate Miley Cyrus. That’s just completely diverted my attention from everything else in the post.
haha i thought it was “in believe we change.” because the mole on their finger looked like a period.
yeah, i don’t know why he placed “change” at the front. but whatever. i’m not a black president of anything, what do i know?
the somatechnics confuses me but sounds cool if it is what i think it
So help me god, I want to fucking punch Miley Cyrus in the face SO BAD.
Failz.
Stephen Baldwin must have been higher than he looks to get that done! It’s like Michael Jackson getting MC tattooed somewhere.
i thought Baldwin was an idiot BEFORE the MC tattoo. now, im so fucking sure of it! and the Cyrus chick is a B. Spears in the making……
I’m all for the academic study of body mods, but that blurb is some of the worst academic gobbledygook I’ve ever read. Most of it means almost exactly nothing. Here’s a translation:
‘Somatechnics’ is a fancy neologism meaning body modification. By it, we mean everything the body modification community means by ‘body modification.’ We are interested in both bodies and modification. We think of them holistically, so that the bodies and the means of modifying them are a single unit. This kind of thinking is trendy.
TripleHelix: I must disagree. Although it is true that academics are tendentiously and occasionally needlessly loquacious, the above is hardly what I would call the worst of the gobbledygook out there, and is fairly in line with the tone, content and diction of most calls for papers/panels. More specifically, I disagree with your translation of soma technics. As is so often the case with academes, the term arises (and I must admit some bias towards the defensive, as I’ve heard the explanation of the term from Susan Stryker, who coined it, although she would probably reject the term academic in favor of radical archivist) from the Greek, for soma (body) and techne (which she translated as practices, although there are other possible interpretations). Simply put, the conference deals with practices of the body, which includes but is not limited to what the body modification community means by body modification, which I think would likely be too narrow for the confines (such as they are) of the conference, which I believe this year has an added focus on technology.
I don’t mean to come across as overly pedantic and I realize that I’m probably too partial to this kind of language. It’s just that it irks me when you replace (rather cynically and dismissively so) a fairly straightforward description with an inaccurate translation, especially when the original text is a call for an open dialogue on our community (whatever that is).
Bwhwhwhwhahahahahaha. I completely agree head asplode IS the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time as well.
Miley Cyrus, Stephen Baldwin and GW walk into the oval office. … it’s like the start of a bad joke.
i would assume that the tattoo thing is temporary…