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Good Irish Catholic Werewolves of the Middle Ages

While most werewolves are ravening beasts, some are just little old Irish Catholic ladies. Below is a medieval werewolf encounter recorded by Gerald of Wales in The History and Topography of Ireland. The translation is from John J. O’Meara. (No information on whether O’Meara is a werewolf)

About three years ago before the coming of Lord John into Ireland, it happened that a priest, journeying from Ulster towards Meath, spent the night in a wood on the borders of Meath. He was staying up beside a fire which he had prepared for himself under the leafy branches of a tree, and had for company only a little boy, when a wolf came up to them and immediately broke into these words: “Do not be afraid! Do not fear! Do not worry! There is nothing to fear!”

They were completely astounded and in great consternation. The wolf said to them something about God that seemed reasonable. The priest called on him and abjured him by the omnipotent God and faith in the Trinity not to harm them and to tell them what kind of creature he was, who, although in the form of a beast, could speak human words. The wolf gave a Catholic answer in all things and at length added:

“We are natives of Ossory. From there every seven years, because of the imprecation of a certain saint, namely the abbot Natalis, two persons, a man and a woman, are compelled to go into exile not only from their territory but also from their bodily shape. They put off the form of man completely and put on the form of wolf. When the seven years are up, and if they have survived, two others take their place in the same way, and the first pair return to their former country and nature.

“My companion in this pilgrimage is not far from here and is seriously ill. Please give her in her last hour the solace of the priesthood in bringing to her the revelation of the divine mercy.

This is what he said, and the priest, full of fear, followed him as he went to a certain tree not far away. In the hollow of the tree the priest saw a she-wolf groaning and grieving like a human being, even though her appearance was that of a beast. As soon as she saw him she welcomed him in a human way, and then gave thanks also to God that in her last hour he had granted her such consolation. She then received from the hands of the priest all the last rites duly performed up to the last communion. This too she eagerly requested, and implored him to complete his good act by giving her the viaticum. The priest insisted that he did not have it with him, but the wolf, who in the meantime had gone a little distance away, came back again and pointed out to him a little wallet, containing a manual and some consecrated hosts, which the priest according to the custom of his country carried about with him, hanging from his neck, on his travels. He begged him not to deny to them in any way the gift and help of God, destined for their aid by divine providence. To remove all doubt he pulled all the skin off the she-wolf from the head down to the navel, folding it back with his paw as if were a hand. And immediately the shape of an old woman, clear to be seen, appeared. At that, the priest, more through terror than reason, communicated her as she had earnestly demanded, and then she devoutly received the sacrament. Afterwards, the skin that had been removed by the he-wolf resumed its former position.

When all this had taken place – more in equity than with proper procedure – the wolf showed himself to them to be a man rather than a beast. He shared the fire with them during the whole night, and when morning came he led them over a great distance in the wood, and showed them the surest way on their journey. When they parted he gave many thanks to the priest for the benefit he had conferred upon him, and promised to give him much more tangible evidence of his gratitude, if the Lord should call him back from the exile in which he was, and of which he had now completed two thirds.

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Bisclavret: The Original Team Jacob

Interested in a medieval werewolf tale? Check out this PDF of “Bisclavret” by Marie de France.  It’s less than ten pages long, so go ahead and read it — spoilers below the image.

Wolves

(By the way, that image is from British Library, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, Folio 29r, for those who are interested)

One of the really cool things about “Bisclavret” is that Marie de France doesn’t back away from the idea that werewolves are vicious creatures.  She tells us that they are savage, that they eat men, and they wreak evil. She doesn’t make the claim that they are falsely maligned, or misunderstood — she depicts them as monstrous.

And then there’s the wife. At the beginning, she seems really to love her husband. Again, Marie doesn’t set up the tale so that the wife was always treacherous, or that she never really loved the Bisclavret. Her questions about his frequent disappearances aren’t at all unreasonable. Later, when she gets the rival knight to do her bidding, Marie gives us a little aside to assure us that not only had she never loved the rival knight, but she had never even encouraged his advances; the wife had been completely faithful to her husband up until that point.

So the turn for her comes when she learns the truth, and her reaction is described as “terror.” Given how Marie has just described werewolves as savage man-eaters, terror seems a pretty reasonable response.

By the time we get to the end of the story, though, the usual medieval romance is turned on its head. The adulterous lovers are punished (adulterous love is commonly depicted as awesome in medieval romances and other lais of Marie de France), the knight and wife are tortured, and the wife not only gets her nose bitten off by her werewolf first husband, but her children are cursed with noselessness (no information on whether Tom Riddle is a descendant). The werewolf, on the other hand, is honored and gets back more than he ever had before.

In the end, this is a story about loyalty. The Bisclavret takes himself out to the woods to protect his family. He remains loyal to his king even when he is basically a savage animal. And in return, he receives the loyalty of everyone else, to such a degree that they defend the wolf when he mauls two people.

So be loyal, and return loyalty to those who are loyal to you. And this Halloween, if you discover your spouse is a savage monster, just chalk it up to one of those little things you learn about a person through years of marriage, and be grateful that you still have a nose.

 

(The featured image is from British Library, Royal MS 13 B viii, and depicts husband and wife werewolves)

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Fangirling The Bad Plus

Last night I totally fangirled the best jazz trio in the world at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta.

And it was awesome.

Jazz isn’t a genre that typically has fangirls. I’m not sure, however, that it would be correct to say that jazz has fanboys, either. Maybe fangentlemen.

But for me, admitting that you have no idea who The Bad Plus are is like admitting that you have never heard of Doctor Who. And with very similar consequences, because I will immediately do everything in my power to save you from the abyss of deprivation that surrounds you. And I will do this because I am a fangirl.

Fangirling gets a bad rap. Urban Dictionary defines fangirl/fanboy as having a “compulsive dedication” and gives an example of a fan who can only talk about their fandom. Fangirldom is associated with youth and immaturity, hence fangirl, not fanwoman (and, I must point out, that “fangirl” is a newer term then “fanboy,” which left women out completely when it was coined). Fandom is not something adults do. Fandom isn’t a real appreciation for something, but a blind following of something, usually related to comics or sci-fi or gaming. Being a fangirl, in other words, makes me a less legitimate fan, and that is due, in part, to the associations of “girlishness” with “fan.”

Although I can understand where some of these concerns are coming from, I have to admit that I think  the pejorative connotations associated with fangirls and fanboys are a load of smeg. For me, fandom is about enthusiasm, passion, and, on more than one occasion, feminism. I like the term “fangirl” because I like being a fan, and many of the things I am a fan of have not always been female friendly. I like how “fangirl,” as a term, is a reminder that women can be fans (and even participants! Gasp!) in popular culture.  Jazz, for example, is notoriously male. I once asked a tenor saxophonist (whom I had seen play locally several times) to name his favorite musicians. He sized me up, taking particular note of my femaleness, and said, “Well, you’ve probably never heard of him, but I really like a guy named Sonny Rollins.”

In jazz, this is rather like saying “You’ve probably never heard of him, but I like a guy named Paul McCartney.” While I certainly won’t claim to be an expert on jazz (I have a PhD in books), I  know who Sonny Rollins is. In fact, I know who Vi Burnside is, and I think her tenor sax mastery is delicious and frenetic. And the reason I know who Vi Burnside is because I’m a woman, and I woke up one morning tired of male tenor sax players who thought I didn’t know anything, and I sought out women in jazz. And I wrote about them.

In other words, I  know who Vi Burnside is because I’m a fangirl.

After all, this is what fangirls do. I get giddy over music, just like I get giddy over books. The reason I have a PhD in English is really just because I’m a fangirl of hundreds of writers. I get giddy over great films and television and comics, too. Listening to a great band or reading a great book is like dissolving into the sun. It’s the best way of being set on fire. And being a fangirl is about fanning those flames. Removing the enthusiasm, the passions, the respect, the learning, the sharing from fandom leaves us as plain old girls and boys. Fans are, after all, fanatics. We need more fans, more people that are so excited and passionate about books and music and films that they can’t shut up. That they babble. And squee. And transcend.

And we need fangirls in particular because more women need to be involved in music and books and art; we need more women involved in writing and composing and painting. So much of the canon of great art, great books, great music, great film is male. And that’s the canon we need to join. Not the offshoot canons, not the women’s lit. and the women’s music, but the primary, main canon of GREAT works. Women need to be there, visibly, speaking and writing and painting and playing. Shakespeare courses, Shakespeare studies, the great canon of literature–this was all made by fanboys, because really, is there a Shakespeare scholar that isn’t a fan of Shakespeare? We need to own our fandoms, and women particularly need to own our fangirldom, because Canonical Greatness? It isn’t just for white men anymore.

I want to see the same kinds of fangirldom that is generally associated with sci-fi and comics and gaming within the Canons of Great Works. For me, there is no difference in my fandom for Doctor Who and my fandom for The Bad Plus. I love the devotion and exuberance of the Doctor Who fandom, the Buffy fandom, Whedon fandom, Arrow fandom, Nerf Herder fandom, TMBG fandom, and I bring that to my jazz fandom. I am, at heart, a geek. I geek out. I freak out. I squee with delight. And I am female. White, straight, and fairly cis-gendered. And I belong here, in the Canon, among jazz and classical and rock and geek rock. I belong here with all the other genders and colors and orientations and ways of being. And so do you.

So if you’ve never heard of The Bad Plus, I will remedy that for you here. Go give them a listen.

And squee.

Me and The Bad Plus. SQUEE!!
Me and The Bad Plus. SQUEE!!
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Lists, Maps, Narratives: The Top 11 All-Time Influential Albums of My Entire Life

Every so often on Facebook, a tagging Top 10 cycle begins. From listing the 12th word on the 12th sentence on the 12th page of a book that you are currently reading, to a listing of top 10 albums, books, or artists, these tagging cycles are fascinating to me (and I always get new things to read or listen to). I don’t know how many times that I’ve been tagged in a post and then created my Top 10 albums or books. Most recently, I was tagged in a Top 11 All-Time Influential Albums of My Entire Life. I’m including the list below:

At the tagging behest of Julian Cook, here are the 11 most influential albums of my entire life. In no particular order:

They Might Be Giants: Flood

XTC: Oranges and Lemons

Peter, Paul, and Mary: The Best of Peter, Paul, and Mary

Cyndi Lauper: She’s So Unusual

Propagandhi: How to Clean Everything

The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground

Sarah Vaughan: Live at Mister Kelly’s

Nick Drake: Way to Blue

Camper Van Beethoven: Key Lime Pie

Boris: Noise

The Cure: Disintegration

Bonus extra: Avail: Dixie

I took the prompt literally, and although I didn’t write this list in any particular order, I’m going to elaborate on it in chronological order. Because there is most definitely a chronological order.

Peter, Paul, and Mary were my childhood obsession, and my first favorite. I carried their Best Of tape everywhere I went. I listened to it everywhere I could. I drove my parents crazy by playing that tape over and over and over again. It was my introduction to music, to melody, and to storytelling through song. I can still sing most songs on that album. Dragons, racehorses, lemon trees, and jet planes continue to have vivid connotations for me. While Tchaikovsky and Joan Baez were also childhood favorites, Peter, Paul, and Mary were the first.

Then I discovered Cyndi Lauper. Holy shit. Cyndi Lauper and Boy George were my heroes in elementary school. I cannot stress enough how much I adored these people who did what they wanted because it was artistic. Because it was beautiful. They embraced being different, they flaunted their own sense of style. I loved it. I was already a geekling, what with reading The Hobbit in fifth grade. And Cyndi Lauper made it clear that you should embrace who you are, that girls were really cool, and that fun was far better than True Womanhood. And I believed her.

Eighth grade brought XTC and They Might Be Giants. Prior to this, sixth and seventh grades had also brought New Kids on the Block, who I adored throughout the first part of middle school. I wouldn’t call this influential, however,  as much as tweenal. I’m not sure how girls now deal with growing up, but fetishsizing a boy band (or girl band) is not a bad way to deal with the sudden onset of puberty. After the initial slump into becoming a teenager, my ears reasserted themselves, but with the profound new knowledge that sex was very much linked to music. I listened to the radio avidly, but found myself drawn to bands that seemed to get less, if any, rotation. People made me tapes. Along with XTC and TMBG, I was introduced to Depeche Mode and Morrissey and REM. I wish I could list all of them as most influential. But XTC showed me a new way of looking at the world and finding meaning in it, and TMBG became my favorite band for similar reasons–and have stayed my favorite band for the last 24 years (for more on TMBG, read the intro to Geek Rock and my chapter “They Might Be Lacanian: They Might Be Giants, Jacques Lacan, and the Rhetoric of Geek Rock”).

High school. 9th/10th grade. The Cure and Camper Van Beethoven. More tapes from more people. Again, storytelling through song redefined, rebellion embraced, sonic impact re-assessed. 11th/12th grade: The Velvet Underground and Propagandhi (and Avail fits here as well). The discovery of punk was the culmination of much musical searching, the expression of my anger at society, my thwarted idealism, my discontent. It was a revelation, hence the juxtaposition with VU, who define revelation. There were weeks when all I would listen to was Propagandhi and VU. And other weeks when all I would listen to was CVB and The Cure. I went to local shows (here’s my nod to Avail, but also Inquisition (now Strike Anywhere), Uphilll Down, Four Walls Falling, Action Patrol, and Fun Size, to name a few) at least every weekend. Music was life.

And music was survival. My high school years were particularly messy because my home life was particularly messy. Not to get too into that here, but music, represented by these four bands (and my local scene), gave me hope, anger, optimism, and faith. And I really needed it.

In college, I discovered Nick Drake. Way to Blue was sitting unobtrusively in a CD rack at a record store called Plan 9, and I bought it. This album was the place where all that hope and anger and optimism and faith was leading. This was a different world, a Narnia of music. I jumped into the wardrobe.

About a year or so after I graduated from college, I discovered jazz, which was yet another door that I didn’t just walk through, I swam through (because, as ee cummings taught me, “a poet is a penguin, his wings are to swim with”). I summarized my discovery of jazz with Sarah Vaughan’s Live at Mister Kelly’s because it reminds me of scotch, summer nights, and listening to music with my entire consciousness.

And most recently Boris, whose music is an out of body experience. After seeing Boris live on their tour for Noise, I felt my perception of sound shift ever so slightly, my perception of possible, my perception of perception. The sonic shift is, for me, also a visceral shift, a paradigm shift, into new modes of being and sensing. All of these albums, in some way, shifted me, my world, my selfhood.

The element that all of these albums have in common is that they are all lyres. Robertson Davies wrote that “the lyre of Orpheus opened the door to the underworld of feeling.” For me, music is a door. Music is growth. Music takes me places beyond myself and teaches me who I am.

And that is why I love these top 10, top 11, top 15 lists on Facebook, because who am I is always changing, and each list I make is a different retrospective map of the path I took to become. Today, I look back from where I am, and see these 12 places I have been that have made me. Tomorrow, or next week, or next month, I’ll remember different moments, memories, albums, and those will be the ones that I list, that I use to map my selfness. It’s the act of mapping that is important, the tallying and creating, the shifting of lines and charts, of writing each list out. With each list, each map, we create a narrative of becoming, of being, of defining. We create a moment of who we are in this moment.

And then we move on to the next.

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Not That Scruffy Looking: Nerf Herder

At Dragon*Con, I saw Nerf Herder play. Twice, in fact: a half hour acoustic set in the afternoon, and then an hour long set later than night. And I learned that I have been terribly remiss in exploring their oeuvre.

You see, I’d heard Nerf Herder before I knew they played the Buffy theme song (if you were not aware, yes, that’s Nerf Herder. And now that you know, go back and watch Season 7 again, because in the episode “Empty Places,” that’s Nerf Herder playing “Rock City News” at the Bronze. It’s funny, because Dawn says, “I think this band might actually be one of the signs [of the apocalypse].” Nerf Herder is, of course, literally one of the signs of the apocalypse in the Buffyverse, as their music heralds each episode. Fittingly, they are the last band we see play at the Bronze.). I had an ex who got into Nerf Herder with the release of How to Meet Girls in 2000, and he played that album, along with their eponymous 1996 release, quite a bit. I liked them. But shortly thereafter, the ex became ex, and that was that.

But sometimes bands follow you around until you pay attention (that would be a great music video.). I say “follow” because when I first saw Buffy (I need to point out here that I was late to Buffy, and started with Season 1 sometime while Season 4 was airing), I thought “Oh cool! Nerf Herder!” and my impression of the show immediately rose (which was good, because Season 1). I listened to Nerf Herder quite a bit, just the one song, over and over and over as I fell into Whedon fandom watching Buffy. And then, in Season 7, I added a snippet from another song to my Nerf Herder a la Buffy repertoire. Time passed. I still liked them. I re-watched Buffy. I wrote in Buffy Studies. I became a member of the WSA (that’s Whedon Studies Association. It’s awesome. They publish an online journal called Slayage and have a conference every two years.). I published a chapter in a book called Reading Joss Whedon. And I still didn’t explore Nerf Herder.

So when I discovered that Nerf Herder was playing at Dragon*Con, I went. And now, I keep asking myself, for the love of God, why didn’t I explore Nerf Herder? These guys are BRILLIANT. Not even remotely half-witted, nor scruffy looking, Nerf Herder is the most under-rated geek rock band that has ever geeked or rocked. American Cheese, their 2002 release, is playing rather obsessively on my Spotify (sorry guys, I’ll buy everything, too, I promise! I needed immediate gratification). Genius happens on this album. Several times. Nerf Herder (1996) and How to Meet Girls (2000) are the solid pop punk albums that I remember, and as soon as I can stop playing these I’ll move on to Nerf Herder IV (2008), My E.P. (2001) and High Voltage Christmas Rock (2002) (which I’ll clearly be saving until December). Plus, I’m looking forward to the new album they’re working on, that you can pre-order right here (yeah, I did that already).

So, I’m left with two questions from this long-deferred exploration: Why now? And what is it about Nerf Herder that makes them so great? I’ll start with the second one. Nerf Herder is a pop punk geek rock band. And they do pop punk well. Very, very well. Solid, tight, short songs. Guitar that drives and bass that bounces and drums that carry and vocals that pull it all together. The best of pop punk is a bag of Skittles: bright, infectious morsels. You can’t ignore a bag of Skittles. You can’t resist a bag of Skittles. And you can’t resist Nerf Herder. Even more alluring is their overt geekery, playing in Star Trek t-shirts and singing about Spock. Nerf Herder’s geek pop punk is like Skittles for breakfast: a little subversive, and exactly what you want in the depths of your heart.

Which brings me to the first question, secondly: Why now? I have a theory. (And no, I don’t think it’s bunnies). Music finds us when we need it to. Right now, Nerf Herder is my perfect sonic expression. All I want is Nerf Herder, Boris, and Melt Banana on repeat. I want sweetness and depth and melodic chaos. I can regret not exploring Nerf Herder sooner while at the same time being grateful to explore them now. I always liked them. I always liked Skittles. But I guess that now, the difference is that I want to eat Skittles for breakfast.

And possibly lunch and dinner as well.

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Geek Week and Fandoms

As you read these words, Dragon*Con has begun in Atlanta.

As I’m writing these words, however, several days before the Con begins, in the midst of last minute scheduling changes (for the Comics and Popular Arts Conference at the Con), I am about to keel over in anticipation. Between D*Con and the Doctor Who premiere, I’m completely beside myself.

And the icing on the geek cake is that I have received my copy of Geek Rock: An Exploration of Music and Subculture, and it looks FANTASTIC.

This week is turning rapidly into Geek Week. And the definition for Geek Week appears to be the opportunity to participate in as many fandoms as possible. Fandoms, actually, are important enough to geek culture that we probably should have put more about fandom in our criteria for geek rock. There is a difference, after all, from the casual Doctor Who viewer and the viewer who runs out of the theatre in her Doctor Who/Hello Kitty mash-up t-shirt shrieking “I LOVE PETER CAPALDI” before breathlessly articulating the reasons why Steven Moffat is a genius (yes, that’s exactly what I did after “Deep Breath”). While geek rock needs to meet a fair amount of criteria in order to be geek rock, a casual listener can certainly remain just that–casual. But the avid listener tends to “geek out” over geek rock, a process that involves learning, collecting, sharing, expounding, and proclaiming. The geek rock fan in the geek rock band t-shirt who owns every album and has read every interview and who attends every concert and who writes fanfic and who even managed to acquire the Japanese import on blue vinyl–they are part of the fandom in a way that the casual listener is not. They ARE the fandom, in some respects. Much like Doctor Who, which is rather geeky by definition, geek rock allows fans to participate at any level they wish, but encourages fandom.

And the thing about geek rock fandom is that it’s not just any fandom. Phish has a fandom, probably one of the most infamous fandoms in music, but Phish’s fandom isn’t exactly geeky. Or are they? The Phish fandom trades bootlegs, follows the band, collects, learns, trades, shares, camps, expounds, and proclaims. The Phish fandom actually goes beyond fandom, turning the band into a way of life (a phenomenon that I think–but don’t quote me–is borrowed from the Grateful Dead). Phish fans who participate in most devote levels of fandom are actually participating in a lifestyle and philosophy centered around Phish’s music.

Which brings us full circle, really. Because fandom for geek rock expresses itself in the only way it knows how–geekily. Maybe that’s the point–that any fandom is expressive of its object. If that is, in fact the case (and I’m not yet convinced it is, I’m just throwing out some ideas here), then there is really only one thing for a fan of geek rock to do.

I’ll see you at Dragon*Con.

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Professor Awesome’s Icy Counter-Challenge

Professor Awesome has been called out by several different people to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Me, a mere slacktivist? Never! So I offer my counter-challenge to my students, so that they may participate in a meaningful way:

Any student who wishes to dump a bucket of ice on Professor Awesome’s head may do so, with the following stipulations:

1. You must donate $10 directly to the ALS Association. Even undergraduates can afford that. Because many object to the ALSA’s support of fetal stem cell research, you may alternately donate $10 to the JP2MRI if you prefer.
2. You must film it and post it to encourage your friends. The more Professor Awesome suffers the icy indignity, the more money will be raised.
3. You must do it by Wednesday, August 27th, after which point I’ll be out of town. You can make arrangements with me via Twitter @rsnokes. Surely you can scrape up $10 by then!

Not sure if you want to take Professor Awesome’s counter-challenge? Consider these words from the Anglo-Saxon poem, “The Seafarer,” and meditate on how your heart will delight to make me wretched for a noble cause:

How wretched I was, drifting through winter
On an ice-cold sea, whirled in sorrow,
Alone in a world blown clear of love,
Hung with icicles. The hailstorms flew.
The only sound was the roaring sea,
The freezing waves.

And if that doesn’t inspire you, try this:

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Ok Go and the Geek (Rock) Video

Ok Go isn’t exactly what I would call a geek rock band. Although they are most assuredly clever, their music doesn’t really fit the criteria for geek rock; in my opinion, they are straight up, unabashedly, indie rock. And they make some very good indie rock. But it’s not geek rock. Not quite.

Their videos, however, are an altogether different story. Ok Go’s videos are geeky as hell. Their latest video, for “The Writing’s on the Wall,” is a study in perspective and optical illusion. The song is great, as Ok Go songs tend to be–honest, melody driven, unpretentious indie rock that is happy to be indie rock. But the video is fantastic. The video elevates the song into something akin to geek rock.

I would even make the argument that all Ok Go videos do this–bring their music into a place where their music doesn’t necessarily go on its own. For “The Writing’s on the Wall,” it’s clear that the amount of time, dedication, and perhaps most importantly, study that went into the making of this video required geek-level knowledge. To even make a music video today is itself almost an act of geekery. After the rise (and fall) of MTV, the music video has (sadly) seen better days. Making a music video speaks to either a deep dedication to music, or a deep dedication to sales. Ok Go is clearly in the former category (see above: indie rock).

The phrase “the writing is on the wall” is cliche at best, hackneyed at worst, depending on one’s personal preference. The song itself is strong, well-constructed and unsurprising, with lyrics that are  largely unexceptional. A confessional break-up song, the lyrics follow the song title; the narrator explains that the relationship is clearly over, and all he wants is to see his partner happy again for a moment before they break up. There are no surprises or twists. This is a break up song.

The magic is in the video. The optical illusions and twists in perspective are the envy of textbooks on cognition and optics. I have no doubt that this video is being shown in psychology classes. And the reason the video elevates, or enhances, the song and pushes it towards the realm of geek rockery is that the video (much like all visual rhetoric) overlaps an additional layer of meaning, a commentary on relationships and perspectives. Not only is the video a work of mechanical and theoretical mastery of illusion (much like actual stage magic), but the pairing of the video with the song creates a visual and aural rhetorical commentary on  the optical illusion of being, of I-ness and you-ness and us-ness, of the boundaries of self and other (and world). The video achieves a level of geekery that the song, on it’s own, does not, and the video almost works to pull the song with it into a geekier realm.

The video with the Rube Goldberg Machine, “This Too Shall Pass,” is by far my favorite Ok Go video, and one of my favorite all time videos.

The phenomenal intricacies of this Rube Goldberg machine pair perfectly with the song. While nothing about the song is inherently geeky, the video, again, elevates and compliments the song towards the realm of geek rockery. In itself an amazing feat of engineering, the video also creates a visual interpretation of the song, even down to the sonic and visual complements of the song to the machine.

There are, however, two official videos for this song, the second one featuring the Notre Dame marching band:

And the very fact of there being TWO videos, with two different sonic and visual interpretations of this song, is pretty geeky. Not content with one fairly geeky visual elevation, Ok Go made a second, prominently featuring a collegiate marching band both visually and aurally–marching band being, as several popular movies tell us, “geeky.”

But still, I wouldn’t call Ok Go a geek rock band. Their music, on it’s own, doesn’t lend itself to enough of the criteria to be geek rock. But their videos are a different story, pushing them closer to the line of geek rock them most other straightforwardly indie bands achieve. And perhaps this is part of their charm, because they are willing to explore and create wherever their music takes them.

Which is pretty geeky, if you ask me.

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I Am a Feminist Geek, and You Do, Indeed, Need Me

I’m having a lot of trouble taking the “We Don’t Need Feminism” tumblr seriously. For starters, the banner is a .gif from Veronica Mars, which is not only a blatantly feminist TV show, but also full of self-proclaimed feminist actresses, actors, writers, and producers. The scholarship about Veronica Mars even studies feminism within the show. So the choice to use Veronica Mars as a banner for an anti-feminist blog? That’s just funny.

The submission guidelines are hard to read, partially due to the unique editorial decision to use a bright red font on a dark blue background, and partially due to the creative use of sentence construction. Clearly, we’re not dealing with a user who is burdened with a knowledge of rhetoric.

The submissions themselves are in bright white boxes, which at least makes them easy to read, from a usability perspective. The contents of the white boxes, however, tend to range from semi-literate tweet fodder to, very occasionally, a sound bite that could prove thought-provoking, given more expansion. Of course, the medium of tumblr itself is limiting, but it appears that several of the submitters are limited by more than the medium. If the medium is indeed the message, then perhaps the real takeaway from this site is that anti-feminism is gaudy, hard to read, and largely untroubled by depth.

Feminism, as most of us know,  (and particularly those of us in the worlds of geek and/or academia), is hardly a monolithic edifice. Most theories of feminism now revolve around feminisms, acknowledging that there is more than one way to think, analyze, protest, act, believe, write, and unite. There is more than “the patriarchy” to address as well, because race, class, orientation, and education are just a few of the other ways agency (and access) can be restricted and regulated. Feminism, in other words, is complex. Anti-feminism? Evidently, not so much.

And it’s the simplicity, the reductiveness, and the sheer gaudiness of this anti-feminism tumblr that make me laugh because it’s a little like the stories my IT friends have told me about helping clients (“My printer doesn’t work!” “Have you tried loading paper?”). And while I’m know that many feminists are angry about this tumblr, I know that many, many more are laughing. Because it’s hard to be a feminist without being, even in a small way, a geek. Someone who reads philosophy, books, and critical theory. Who is concerned with social justice. Who follows politics and reads newspapers. Who stays informed. Who is culturally literate. It’s hard to be a feminist, and not laugh when Veronica Mars is used as the poster child for anti-feminism.

Feminism, I would like to argue, is kind of inherently geeky. Which is an odd claim, since geekdom itself has traditionally been male (and white and middle class and educated and straight). But the quest for knowledge, social justice, voice, and freedom from oppression is a pretty geeky quest because geeks, like women, tend to be underdogs. Being a feminist requires knowledge, action, and power. And geekdom itself has produced some of the most compelling narratives of feminism and feminist heroines currently in pop culture, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wonder Woman, and yes, Veronica Mars. Science-fiction allowed for some of the first strong female protagonists, and writers such as Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Octavia Butler took advantage of the medium. And comics are taking it even further, with a female Thor (yay!).

This isn’t to say that geekdom isn’t without sexism. But to say that feminism is, maybe, just a bit geeky, offers another way of looking at what, exactly, it is about feminism that is so abhorrent to so many. In that context, the anti-feminist tumblr makes a little more sense, because these women are claiming that they are not geeks, they are separate from something as geeky, as uncool, as intelligent as feminism. Because geekiness is still marginalized and smartness is vilified (literally: go watch an action film or a Disney movie), feminism isn’t “cool.” It doesn’t have cultural capital. The feminism vs. anti-feminism debate seems to be new iteration of geeks vs. jocks, but one with femininity (in its myriad of forms) evidently at stake.

This backlash against feminism is, then, in some respects a backlash against smart chicks that is very much in the vein of America’s current anti-intellectualism. And yet, the problem remains that geekiness is not necessarily feminist. The best example of how feminism is geeky, but geekery is not necessarily feminist, can probably be found in geek rock, and, far more generally, music overall. How so, you ask? Name 10 female geek rock musicians. How about 10 female rock musicians? Or 10 female musicians in any genre? NOT singers or vocalists. Musicians. Name me 10.

And that, right there, is when my laughter stops, because it’s so obvious, so glaring, so absent, that I’m astonished at anyone too blind to see it. Why do we need feminism?  The answer is clear: because there is still work to be done.

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