Earth in Our Care: Ecology, Economy, and Sustainability

By Chris Maser
Rutgers University Press

In Earth in Our Care: Ecology, Economy, and Sustainability, Chris Maser sets out to explain the interconnectedness of life on this planet and the importance of promoting the functioning of healthy ecosystems. Rather than being a dry treatise on biological systems, the text is engaging and draws on all kinds of disciplines.

I consider myself to be an advocate for sustainability, but am not overly familiar with the technical aspects of environmentalism or ecology. Reading this from the perspective of someone who is not a scientist, Maser does a good job of writing in an approachable way that is easy to understand most of the time. He doesn’t assume that the reader is already familiar with concepts like feedback loops, the commons, or trade-offs, and takes the time to briefly describe some of these key concepts of ecology. That being said, there are definitely some very theoretical and philosophical concepts discussed in this book that can be difficult to follow. The author draws on history, philosophy, linguistics, biology, and other disciplines in order to make his points, which makes his arguments more nuanced and interesting but can also be a little distracting at times.

Maser insists that we as human beings are obligated to care about and understand ecology. The last chapter of the book, “Where do we go from Here?,” gives some recommendations about how to go about changing human culture and society so that we can support the healthy functioning of the Earth’s ecosystems. Maser’s two main recommendations are that we "critically examine our situation today” and "determine where society needs to be at the end of this century if people are to have any kind of dignified life with an overall sense of well-being.” Earth in Our Care makes an important contribution to both of these goals and will likely inspire readers to begin thinking about sustainability in a new way.

Review by Liz Simmons

Trouble the Water

Directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
Zeitgeist Films

If you missed the exhaustively, deservedly lauded Trouble the Water in theaters last year, now you can catch it on the small screen. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (it lost to Man on Wire), Trouble the Water follows New Orleans residents Kimberly "Kim" Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts from the day Katrina makes landfall to a year and a half afterward, when Kim and Scott have moved back to the city.

Kim’s video footage of her neighborhood just before and during the storm, shot on a Hi-8 camcorder, provides the anchor for the beginning of the film. The dramatic arc of the storm’s landfall is witnessed by the viewer through the eyes of a resident in its path: talking with the neighbors under a blue sky; sheltering from sheets of rain on the porch; watching the water come up to the back door; watching from the attic as the water comes in through the windows; sharing fruit juice and food with neighbors in the attic; and shouting out an attic window to a neighbor swimming through stop-sign-high water, who’s using a punching bag as a flotation device to help ferry neighbors to higher ground. A clip of footage shot from a helicopter at the time of the storm is spliced in, showing the overwhelmed levees of the Ninth Ward, three blocks away from Kim and Scott’s house.

The vintage news coverage interwoven throughout the film provides a contextualizing counterpoint to Kim and Scott’s story as they assume places in front of the camera; simultaneously, their story works as a powerful antidote to the coverage of the hurricane as seen from above, lorded over by pundits. The viewer hears the story of the storm, and the story of a city chronically afflicted by poverty cheek by jowl with its chipper tourist industry, from those who have lived it.

The viewer follows Kim partway into an uninspected house in which there lies the body of one of her neighbors, two weeks after the storm, while outside National Guardsmen appear to loll in the street. The viewer hears Scott tell the story of being directed to a nearby Naval base by the Coast Guard to seek shelter for displaced neighborhood residents; once there, guards cocked their guns at the crowd. (The viewer then witnesses guards at the Naval base, being interviewed, deny this.)

Throughout the film, Kim comes across as a confident woman and leader, and Scott as a loving and supportive husband unthreatened by her strength. This would be a refreshing depiction in any film, but is especially remarkable given the extreme circumstances under which Kim and Scott share their story with the filmmakers. In an interview with Richard Roeper included in the DVD, director Tia Lessin says, “You’re looking up at [Kim and Scott] most of the film, which I think is beautiful, because that’s not how the media portrays people… metaphorically, we really tried to make a film that looked up to Kimberly and Scott.” Certainly, they’ve succeeded.

Review by Kaja Katamay

The Madwoman of Bethlehem

By Rosine Nimeh-Mailloux
Second Story Press

Before I started to read The Madwoman of Bethlehem, a story about a woman’s struggle against her patriarchal culture, I wondered whether it would be depressing. It wasn’t. From the beginning, when Rosine Nimeh-Mailloux sets up the present, where Amal is incarcerated in an asylum for women, the writing captivated me.

Yes, the main character, Amal, is born into tough Palestinian life as a female, subjected to her mean grandmother and later, drunken husband, but I never once feel sorry for her. She gives off the energy of a feisty spirit and does not give up. It doesn’t matter how terrible the situation is; we all have the choice to fight or give up.

As Amal’s history is slowly revealed, the author also provides background of the other characters, so that the reader gains understanding of the complex context they exist in. It isn’t just Amal who is expected to obey her husband, but all women, according to Allah. By treating Amal as a servant, she will learn proper behavior—or so her family believes.

Amal refuses to accept the ancient view that women belong to men to do with as they please, she argues that her family betrays her by trading her off to get her sister a nice deal. Her view falls on deaf ears, but she does find an ally to turn to during her journey to acceptance.

So many girls and women in many cultures from around the world have been betrayed by their families under the guise of the old “it’s for your own good” philosophy. This novel is inspiring despite this typical letdown. I have spent years resenting my own family’s strict patriarchal ways, but after reading Nimeh-Mailloux’s novel, I know that I have to accept that it is simply their belief system, not mine.

Amal the character may be fictional, but she is based on the lives of women in the author’s family. She is also the voice of oppressed women in today’s world. She is me and you when we learn to stand up to abuse against women and children.

Whether you’re looking for a bit of inspiration or simply a good page-turner, you’ll find it in The Madwoman of Bethlehem. I didn’t want to put the book down. It is an emotional trip, from tears to laughter and back again.

Review by Nicolette Westfall

Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings

Edited by Charles Lemert
Westview Press

The fourth edition of Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings offers a lesson in sociological practice that moves beyond the atmosphere of a university auditorium. This collection is arranged in chronological order and organizes the Modern Era into distinct historical categories. However, the overarching themes of decentering, discourse, and difference are incorporated into the discussion of each era in a way that is seamless yet meaningful.

Lemert’s expressed goal in creating a comprehensive collection that combines sociological masterpieces with yet unexplored pieces is to simply provide people with the knowledge to live better lives. Social theory, argues Lemert, can bring people power, pleasure, understanding about their social worlds, and most importantly, the ability to put their experiences and observations into words. Social theory thus allows people to explore and express inequalities and social disruption, investigate class warfare and communication breakdowns, and discern how differences between people can be magnified, nullified, or respectfully approached.

It’s especially interesting to read this collection at this point in time. Honestly, it will probably always be considered a reflexive, thoughtful text, but some of the pieces that I read were almost predictive of the current global state of affairs. For instance, in 1919, John Maynard Keynes offered an economic philosophy that recommended state policies which would control and direct the economy. In recent history, conservative talking heads could be heard lambasting “Keynesian Economics,” as the government takeover of the free market. Today, we know that the market doesn’t always stabilize as effectively as Capitalists say it does, and it could be argued that Keynesian Economics seems to be more sensible than Socialism.

The role of women in this collection of essays is hardly marginalized, however, since the writings move from older to more recent, a greater selection of feminist writers emerges towards the book’s end. The feminist selections in this anthology are theoretical yet practical, and seem to focus mainly on the topic of difference. Both social theorists and non-theorists can garner inspiration and motivation from the lessons provided in these pieces. In "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House," Audre Lorde states that meaningful discourse can help women and other historically oppressed groups to “take our differences and make them strengths.” Likewise, Nancy Hartsock advises that “we can construct an understanding of the world that is sensitive to difference.” Within the context of globalization, Saskia Sassen moves beyond the realm of language and argues that issues of participation and representation should take center stage in current feminist analysis.

Could this mean that globalization is helping the world to become more sensitive to difference? I’m not sure, and they authors don’t say either. But that’s one of the goals of this collection: to make you ask questions and decide on the answers yourself.

Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings certainly provides readers with an array of arguments that don’t always coincide with one another. However, Lemert’s personal argument to readers can be witnessed in nearly every essay. That is, to think about the social world around all of us. Because by thinking, observing, and expressing our sentiments about this fascinating world, we are using a critical eye, and ultimately, improving our own lives and hopefully, others’ too.

By Rachel Muzika Scheib

Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me?

By Bárbara Renaud González
University of Texas Press

Golondrina is the Spanish word for a (female) swallow, a noun. But to accept that in such strict terms would be an injustice to this literary artwork laid out by Bárbara Renaud González in Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me?. To swallow—the verb—would be to envelope or take in and also to accept or believe without question, anger, or protest. To embrace the former, this long-winged migratory bird with the deeply-forked tail is to embrace all of these definitions within the context of Amada García’s journey.

Amada’s story is intricately woven within the delicacies of Mexican cuisine and through the eyes of her second daughter, Lucero. Her journey begins and, dare I say, ends in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution would seem to better serve as a prelude rather than a catalyst for the bitterness that unmercifully surrounds Amada. For if it were a prelude instead of a catalyst, time may have been kinder to her.

Having to be taken out of school at the age of thirteen, Amada decides to educate herself. This education came in the form of a rebellious quinceañera gift to herself: a brutal marriage to a man her father’s age and a daughter, Salomé, forced to grow up without his love. Amada decides to leave Mexico and Salomé in search of a better life for herself and she hopes the daughter will join her eventually. She falls in love with the man who takes her across the border, but chooses to marry a man who is only in love with the land taken from his people. The love Amada so wishes to have is the love she gives to her eight children and the physical and emotional nourishment she provides for them.

González is a masterful storyteller with the ability to unapologetically simmer pain, desire, and despondency with the richness of words that conjure up beautiful culinary imagery. She refuses to romanticize the brutality of the journey, yet still creates a longing in the reader that allows us to take in this journey with more philosophical resignation than question, anger, or protest. Amada García’s story is that of a heart that migrates across what seems to be three lifetimes: her life in Mexico, her journey from Mexico to Texas, and her life from Texas on forward. Amada's journey starts in Mexico, and even though she is physically in another country, those lessons that have so deeply etched themselves into her heart seem to remain loyal to her motherland.

In Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me? González beautifully and artfully leaves us content with nothing to protest.

Review by Olupero R. Aiyenimelo

The Box

Directed by Richard Kelly
Darko Entertainment



Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur (James Marsden) receive a small box with a red button on top delivered by a mysterious man (Frank Langella) with half the left side of his face missing (gruesome, courtesy of CGI). It’s a Faustian deal. Press button and receive a million bucks. The catch: Someone unknown to you dies.

Here’s a good thing about The Box: The special-effects water and its climax are très cool. Would that the rest of the flick were as compelling.

The melodramatic plot of nosebleeds, the afterlife, lightning, zomboids, Mars hokum, and the CIA borders on incoherent. Certain plot points in The Box are so problematic, silly, or contrived that you are lurched outside the tale. You will laugh, or else scratch your head and think, “Huh, what?" You will also wonder why you should empathize with the principal characters—who have good jobs and a nice home—when they would bump off a stranger in order to bridge a rough financial patch and be even more comfy in the future than they already are. Richard Kelly, the director and screenwriter, seems to have forgotten that—unless you’re Brecht and consciously demolishing the fourth wall—such maladroit lurchings shatter the willing suspension of disbelief.

Then there's the pacing—mostly glacial—and not interestingly glacial as in an Andrei Tarkovsky or Terrence Malick film, just leaden. Then there’s the dialogue. Every neophyte drama student knows that exposition creates backstory. The trick with exposition is to bury it in dialogue so astutely crafted that an audience is not aware that it's absorbing past facts crucial to an understanding of the present story. Exposition in The Box is often obvious and crudely dispensed (and there’s lots of it in an attempt to make the opaque plot transparent).

The film’s faults might be forgiven if it lived up to the raison d'être of its genre. The Box is supposed to be a supernatural/sci-fi thriller wrapped around a morality tale. Thrillers must have thrills. I don’t know about you, but my indispensable criterion for thriller thrills is whether the suspense is so fraught that my skin crawls and I’m perched on my seat’s edge. Attendant to this crawling and perching, I want to flee the theatre because I can’t stand one more second of apprehension. Yet I can’t leave. I am riveted to my cushion. The Box riveted me to my cushion twice. The several times I wanted to leave the theatre were occasioned by boredom.

Of many wasted efforts in The Box, Cameron Diaz is the most misused. Diaz is a game comedienne; she can also deglamourize and disappear in a part not seemingly meant for her—as she proved, respectively, in The Mask and Being John Malkovich. One automatically thinks of her as beautiful in the tall, blond manner. In The Box, sometimes she does appear lovely, but sometimes her face betrays her typecasting and seems close to ugly. Such a complex look is fruitful for an actress because she can use it to embody all the hope, love, joy, disappointment, sadness, and tragedy life brings. Her face sets Diaz apart from, say, Jennifer Aniston, who is merely pretty and—so far—only middling good at her craft.

Furthermore, Diaz has aged beyond being even a youngish romantic comedy lead. In The Box, she’s the mother of a pre-pubescent son. This aging is her and our blessing. It would be a marvel to see her on stage as Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. She deserves, at least, a complex film role that struts her stuff as an actor capable of the most profound incarnations of multiple truths that drama can provide. The Box, however, is so vacuous that she has nothing worth playing with or for, though now and again you can see in her performance what might await. Let us hope she gets a great part soon, so she can triumphantly mark her development for all of us to witness. Meanwhile, spend your money elsewhere (see Bright Star again!) and hope that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 will be revived so The Box can receive the lampooning it deserves.

Review by Neil Flowers

How Perfect Is That

By Sarah Bird
Pocket Books

How Perfect Is That is a story of becoming. When Blythe Young begins her tale, her world is in the process of crashing down around her. Though she married into a wealthy Texas family, her mother-in-law was one step ahead of her and insisted upon a prenuptial agreement—an agreement which carefully stipulated no provisions for Blythe in case of a divorce. Without any cash, Blythe tries to make ends meet by cutting (slashing) corners in her catering company, serving discount liver sausage as gourmet pâté and drugging her clients so they won't notice the difference. Everyone is after her—her clients, her staff (whom she can't afford to pay), the IRS—except for her family, her ex-husband, and her friends (apparently you really can't buy those). With the IRS literally dogging her heels, Blythe turns up at the doorstep of her college roommate and collapses, utterly exhausted.

What follows feels somewhat predictable. However, by this time, the reader might be curious to know how author Sarah Bird will subject Blythe to the consequences of her actions. At least, that is what happened to me. Blythe is cynical and irritating during the first third of the book. When it becomes clear to her that something's got to give and that she has to both appraise and change her life (her friends, her outlook, her direction, her drug habits, her values), she grows more interesting. It is entirely a testament to Bird's writing skill that Blythe's reorientation never feels sudden, clumsy, or didactic.

Blythe continues to make mistakes, but becomes a sympathetic character by the end of the book. She reinvents herself again, realizing that there is more than one way to escape an upbringing of which one is not proud. Perhaps this is not the next great novel, but it's not too bad either. It's perfect for a lazy weekend afternoon, as a traveling companion, or for the bathtub.

Review by Kristina Grob

One Scream Away

By Kate Brady
Hachette Book Group

One Scream Away is the book equivalent of a CBS crime drama: barely dangerous, slightly obscene, with an expected level of crazy for the villain and a suitable amount of romance to balance the ugliness. The book is edgy only to the level that is appropriate, which, of course, is the point. It skirts the line of being nice.

The plot is simple: after surviving an attack seven years earlier, Beth Denison is stalked by her attacker, now a serial killer. Former FBI agent Neil Sheridan, fighting his own demons (naturally), is brought in on the case—one he thought was closed. Sparks fly, as do a few bullets. Yada yada yada. If you’ve watched a crime drama in the last twenty years, you know the story.

That being said, the book is not a bad read. Kate Brady is a talented writer, even if she’s not stretching herself, and the book offers some well written, if unoriginal, moments. The characters—Neil and Beth in particular—are well developed. Their relationship moves in a natural way, even if it seems too fast for comfort. While I never thought anyone was in real danger, I was interested to know what route she would take.

Of course, this being both a romance novel and a crime story, no one acts anywhere near logically. Rules are thrown out the window in favor of hunches; cops are inept at best, downright stupid at worst. When was the last time a person was kidnapped from protective custody with fifteen guards around them? No one bats an eye when Neil and Beth begin a relationship, despite all sorts of conflicts that would result from a lead investigator sleeping with the main witness, especially one who was briefly the main suspect.

Never mind that being stalked and threatened with death might not make it the best time to begin a new relationship; sex is the cure all for all of Beth's ills, particularly that pesky post-traumatic stress disorder that simply disappears after Beth finally has the love of a good man. Yeah, it’s that kind of book.

I haven’t even gotten to Chevy Banks, the stalker, who is a big ball of Norman Bates-style momma-hating issues that is a cross-dressing habit short of being created entirely by googling “serial killer” and using the key words. Fortunately, these problems don’t keep the book from being a beach read. Unfortunately, they do keep it from being a book you remember five minutes after you put it down. If you can’t watch Law and Order for a couple of days, there are worse ways to spend your time.

Review by Taylor Rhodes

Women of Color and Feminism

By Maythee Rojas
Seal Press

If many postmodern feminists would have it, colour or “race” wouldn't be of primary concern in theorising oppression; a woman would be seen as much more than her race, class, and sexuality. In other words, every woman's experience of oppression is nuanced, different. And if the postmodern approach is hugely popular and trounces other feminist methods of studying oppression, Women of Color and Feminism by Maythee Rojas would be rendered obsolete.

But it hasn't, and that's because we cannot get past race and the “assumptions based on our physical features [that] invariably work against our attempts at self-actualisation.” Thus the only way to gain some control over our lives as non-White women is by claiming politically-charged identities. In this, Rojas means 'Women of Colour'.

Rojas expresses surprise that her students, who are mostly people of colour, do not identify with the term, but she doesn't have to investigate too deeply to discover why: women of colour, as a group and in its use as terminology, have long been marginalised within academia. Learning about “Others” is reduced to courses on multiculturalism, and everywhere else, people are expected to be perceived as simply people. Rojas does not suggest, however, that the term is a loaded one, or one that has the political potency that feminist also has. Typically associated with the Black civil rights movement, “colored” can sound outdated and exclusive, and it's unsurprising that not many, especially outside the cabal of feminist academia, take it up.

Women of Color and Feminism is interspersed with profiles of women and historical vignettes that readers are made to understand as inspirations for feminist consciousness in different ethnic communities in the United States. One cannot help but note a sense of tragedy that overhangs each profile. Anna Mae Pictau-Acquash, Saartjie Baartman, Korean camptown women, and Josefa Loaiza are all women whose lives have been marked by and remembered for the brutality inflicted on them because of the way they looked and where they came from.

Disco diva Donna Summers makes an unexpected appearance as the subject of Rojas' analysis on the sexuality of women of colour. Known for her risque lyrics and sexy media persona, Summers' 1970s career is projected as a kind of yardstick for how much women of colour, particularly Black women, have gained following the sexual revolution in the 1960s. It's far from a 'happily ever after' of sexual autonomy and empowerment, Rojas notes, as everything the disco singer represented—in her music and image—was hugely complicit in reinforcing heterosexist 'love' and resurrecting the ghost of the Black Jezebel.

Rojas also covers a range of issues pertaining to the struggles of women of colour that are not usually associated with mainstream feminism. This includes reproductive rights as the right to remain fertile, as women of colour have been known to be sterilised against their will for numerous racist reasons, and the rights of incarcerated women to better health care in prison, protection from abuse behind bars, and better rehabilitation programmes.

The limitations I find in Rojas' already expansive account is the omission of feminist work by women of colour whose goals are integrated within mainstream feminism's agenda. This is important, especially in her final chapter on transnational feminism in which she stresses the key to feminism's dynamism is the need for common links with other feminists to be established on a continual basis—not just with other women of colour, but with white women too. Women of Color and Feminism makes it clear that under the pressure of silence and marginalisation, more and more women of colour feel compelled to create narratives that represent their unique experiences through whatever means possible. Visual art, stand-up comedy, and blogs are the new, life-affirming sources of inspirations for feminists of colour, and not Rojas' flawed selection of women of colour's tragic lives.

Review by Alicia Izharuddin

Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller

By Kim E. Nielsen
Beacon Press Books

As a child, I was very intrigued by the life and story of Helen Keller. Though she was deaf, blind, and initially mute, she went on to live a full life: graduating college and publishing books. While Helen Keller’s remarkable story has served as an inspiration to us all, there is an even more remarkable story in her teacher Anne Sullivan Macy.

I did not know much about Macy aside from her being the person who opened up Keller’s world and became her life-long companion. I had no knowledge of the years before meeting Keller, the circumstances that brought Macy into Keller’s life, and Macy’s personal life. Nielsen has written a biography that finally does Macy justice, allowing us into world to show us the woman she truly was.

The life story of Anne Sullivan Macy is that of a woman who came from poor beginnings. Her poor eyesight plagued her most of her life and was a constant ailment in her later years, though she never outwardly complained. Macy lived in Helen Keller’s shadow for so many years, so it is hard to imagine that Macy had her autonomy. It was great to read a biography that focuses on Macy’s life.

Growing up in poverty, it is great to see how Macy’s strong spirit prevails through all of the hardships she endured. Nielsen has written a very humanizing story, one that gives Macy the limelight, when she depended on Helen Keller for so much of her life. Nielsen also does not attempt to fictionalize any part of the biography, but instead tells the reader when she does not have information in a certain time frame. Overall, I found Beyond the Miracle Worker to be a very inspirational one of a woman who has been widely overlooked in history and literature.

Review by Adrione N. Council

Resolving the Paradox of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Sexual Politics

By Tamela Ice
University Press of America

Professor Ice begins her book with what she calls a paradox within philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social philosophy. In her words, “Rousseau's views on women sits [sic] in tension with his philosophy of freedom and equality.” That is, Professor Ice refers to the apparent discrepancy between Rousseau's vision of freedom for men and his endorsement of subordination for women. In the first chapter, Ice begins by exploring Rousseau's identity and sexual politics to determine Rousseau's definition (description would be better) of “woman.” Next, in the second chapter, she discusses what she considers Rousseau's overarching philosophical project—“the restoration of a sense of equality among men as men.” Thus, the question becomes: Does Rousseau's sexual politics undermine his larger project of restoring this sense of equality among men? In chapter three, Professor Ice moves to a discussion of the depiction of psychological alienation in literature to describe what happens to women when they are psychologically dependent and living in bad faith. In chapter four, Professor Ice directly employs selections from Simone de Beauvoir's oeuvreas a lens for refocusing interpretations of Rousseau.

I am sympathetic to the desire to connect Rousseau and Beauvoir. Indeed, stylistically, they are mutually sympathetic. Both Beauvoir and Rousseau have been lambasted by (some) feminists and other critics for insisting upon a status quo which they merely (brilliantly, feelingly) describe. It is not the case that there is no connection to be made between Rousseau and Beauvoir, it is simply that Ice never justifies her comparison. She never tells her reader why she chooses Beauvoir as a foil for Rousseau; she never explains why “bad faith” is something about which we ought to worry; she never explains why and how it is she justifies her anachronistic application of a twentieth century existentialist concept to an eighteenth century Enlightenment philosophy. Even if the reader were to set aside the lack of justification (and the regrettable editing errors), she must still contend with Ice's interpretation of Rousseau's sexual politics and social philosophy. Ice notes the masculine language Rousseau uses to discuss the civil “man,” but never looks at Rousseau's moral project (or even appears to recognize a moral project in Rousseau's work).

One might note a sort of progression in Rousseau's genealogy of human social development: wild, natural, civil, moral. The moral person is the culmination of Rousseau's project and the moral person comprises a man and a woman: in Emile, Rousseau claims that the community created by a woman and a man “produces a person...” (emphasis added). There is no moral humanity without women; men alone, as men, cannot be taken as the measure for (full) humanity.

Unfortunately, although Ice attempts a revision of Rousseau scholarship, there is nothing revisionary in her tired invocation of an illicit major premise: all men are human, no woman is a man, therefore, no woman is human. Rousseau doesn't take man, by himself, for the measure of humanity and doesn't measure women against men. When feminist academics employ such faulty logic, they disadvantage their scholarship and often miss subtleties that can be more fruitfully explored.

Review by Kristina Grob

German for Travelers : A Novel in 95 Lessons

By Norah Labiner
Coffee House Press

Norah Labiner's third novel German for Travelers reads a lot more like poetry than prose. Each chapter, which is framed as a lesson, begins with a seemingly disconnected sentence translated into English from German, before jumping to a different time period, country, character, or all three. Though a somewhat dizzying read, German for Travelers is a unique family history told through a gradual unraveling of a long kept family secret. It might also be described as a nonfiction mystery novel—à la Truman Capote—that takes as a starting point Sigmund Freud's famous (and, from a feminist perspective, rather notorious) Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria.

The novel’s narrative(s) center on the Leopold/Berlin family who are descendants of a renowned Jewish German psychoanalyst, Franz Apfel. It begins besides Lemon Leopold's pool in her Hollywood mansion, year 2000-something. Lemon is a famous Hollywood actress; her brother Ben a frustrated psychoanalyst. Their cousin, Eliza Berlin is a gloomy romance writer who, unlike Lemon, has had a lot of "rotten luck". Lemon and Eliza, in fact, are opposites in almost every way. If they weren't cousins, they would no doubt never cross paths, but as can only happen with family, the unlikely pair travel together to Berlin to unravel the unsolved case of "Elsa Z"—their great-grandfather's incurable patient.

In some ways, German for Travelers is a critique of Freud's Dora, and perhaps of the limits of psychoanalysis in that, in Elsa's case, the doctor never discovers the obvious (and ruinous, for him) truth about Elsa until it is too late. Elsa is also turned into a somewhat prophet of the approaching Holocaust (although I actually found this aspect of Elsa's character a little hard to swallow). It is successful, I think, in highlighting some of the misogyny and homophobia of Freud's incomplete analysis of Dora—but the novel is too short, and there is too much going on in it, to form a sustained and coherent critique.

It’s Labiner's characters who manage to stay with the reader by the time the book spirals to its end. I found the dark, world-weary romance writer Eliza and her deceased husband Hans two of the most compelling characters in the novel. Hans is portrayed as a haunted, tragic, yet romantic character—though we are never quite sure if we are seeing him through the narrator (who is constantly shifting) or Eliza's point of view. For example:

He lamented: Time is the fire in which we burn. He pronounced: Every man his own football! He railed: I think of Germany at night: the thought keeps me awake till light. Once as he and Eliza rushed through a station to catch a departing train—he made it onto the platform first—and he called out to her: Run, comrade, run; the world is behind you. (Lesson 13)

I was, at first, somewhat frustrated with the chapters given to the Hollywood-dwelling siblings, Lemon and Ben Leopold, but I came to feel that there was a lot of truth to the characterization of these two somewhat superficial personalities who nevertheless are respectively intrigued and haunted by their family's past. Lemon and Ben's parents were (publicly) an image of the sugar-coated all-American family; one, however, that is hiding a few scandalous secrets. Lemon, Ben and Eliza's grandparents were Holocaust survivors who, as is often the case with many Holocaust survivors of that generation, (and in fact survivors of such traumas in general) never seemed to speak about their pasts. Their grandfather, in fact, after the war, is supposed to have lost his mind, and hence rendered voiceless. I found the way the novel touched on the trans-generational effects of trauma, and the effects of the repression of family history, quite touchingly and intelligently portrayed.

My one reserve is that there is so much going on in so few pages that, at its close, it feels somewhat unfinished. It is a part-critique, part-novel, part-history that can barely hold its characters bursting with personality, its references to pop culture and pop psychology, and its weighty themes. However, I also think this is part of the charm of this book: it leaves the reader thinking and, given its digestible size, this might be the kind of book that deserves a repeated reading—or perhaps, given the book's brevity of words, weighty themes, and lingering phrases, it is, as I first suggested, better read as a poem than novel.

Review by Rachel Liebhaber

Keeping the Campfires Going: Native Women’s Activities in Urban Communities

Edited by Susan Applegate Krouse and Heather A. Howard
University of Nebraska Press

Keeping the Campfires Going: Native Women's Activism in Urban Communities is a collection of essays featuring the struggles and triumphs of Native women living in urban communities. Written about people living throughout North America from San Francisco to Chicago to Vancouver to Anchorage, the essays focus on the role that women have played in keeping their native people connected as a community. The range of women and communities presented gives a broad, yet still specific, view of the conflicts overcome and those still being addressed.

Traditionally (based on reading the book and not attempting to generalize) Native and Aboriginal communities were rural, at times isolated, and not urban. Increasingly the Native and Aboriginal population is growing in cities. The challenge to holding onto one’s past and identity in the face of pressure and a changing world is magnified. The struggle in finding a home, literally and metaphorically, as both a woman and a Native American or Aboriginal is illuminated and discussed. The women are negotiating finding and keeping a place within the native community as well as making a place for themselves within the larger, non-native community.

The women are standing up to be heard and to be seen, and to confront and to change the stereotypes and misconceptions about their place in the world. A quote from a flyer distributed in Vancouver sums up much of the book for me: “We are Aboriginal women, givers of life. We are mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties and grandmothers. Not just prostitutes and drug addicts. Not welfare cheats. We stand on our Mother Earth and we demand respect. We are not here to be beaten, abused, murdered, ignored.” They are embracing their past and their heritage, and they are claiming a place in today’s society.

The essays are well-researched and professional, and while there are personal stories and anecdotes given, the focus is on academia. Many of the contributors are anthropologists and professors. The challenge they face as women is made two-fold because of their Native or Aboriginal background, and I had not before been as truly aware of the depth of the challenge.

Review by Kristin Conard

Quilted Gadget Bag & Small Pouch

For no apparent reason, I fell in love with elephants when I was a little girl and started an ad hoc collection. By the time I was an adult I had gathered a small army of elephant kitsch that included everything from crystal statues to jewelry to candles to clocks. My penchant for all things pachyderm made gift-giving occasions an effortless affair for all of my family and friends, but while they were appreciative of the low maintenance mental exertion, their lack of creativity had me a little bit miffed. And when I sold all but my most precious belongings before moving to India—the country with the largest elephant population, by the way—my collection didn't make the cut.

The loss didn't strike me as particularly bothersome until I visited an elephant breeding center in Chitwan, Nepal, where I saw a particularly uncommon occurrence: captive elephant twins! My fondness for the largest living land mammal returned while attempting to pet the ever-mobile baby giants in a manner that was matador-esque. Already strong enough to knock a grown man out of their way (a feat I witnessed several times by a handful of foolish men who wanted them to stop and pose for a picture), as the two month old twins trotted from one end of the enclosure to the other, I would swoop in for a pat as they passed. Once the darling duo renewed my amorous inclinations for their species, Tina Hsieh's Small Pouch was the perfect way to be re-introduced cute creature consumption.

A stay-at-home mother, Tina's creative interest came from her father, a costume tailor. She honed her skills at a fashion design school in Taipei before settling into her current location: Singapore. When she's not looking after her thirteen-year-old daughter, Tina runs her bagonebagshop through Etsy.

Tina's bags are impeccably constructed with sturdy material and reliable stitching. While the Small Pouch (3.5 x 5 inches) works for pocket-sized items—money, a U.S. driver's license, or a compact cell phone—the Quilted Gadget Bag (6 x 4.5 inches) comes in handy for those who prefer to carry goods of a larger variety, such as a Blackberry, iPod, or passport. The Small Pouch comes with a d-ring attachment that can be used with a spring hook to snap it to your belt loop, and the Gadget Bag has a multi-use strap that facilitates several wearable configurations. Both are of excellent quality and affordably priced, even when you add international shipping.

Not into elephants? No problem. Tina's wristlet and clutch designs run the gammut from mod to modern and back again with fabrics that feature everything from flowers and flying birds to fluffy clouds and phrases. And if that's still not enough variety, she'll even customize orders to suit your style. That's what I call thoughtful gifting.

Review by Mandy Van Deven

Rough Magic

By Caryl Cude Mullin
Second Story Press

Most of Caryl Cude Mullin’s Rough Magic takes place on a magical island, the home of sirens and air spirits. When an exiled Queen bent on revenge and accumulating more power takes control of the island’s magic the fate of its inhabitants is left for the islands own control.

Chiara, a young Princess with an interest and talent for magic, is ordered by her father to marry a Spanish Prince for his own ambition. Caliban serves as Chiara’s teacher, servant, and the closest thing she’s emotionally had to a father. Calypso, another young woman who later in the story finds the island is the daughter of a witch and has been wandering the seas searching for a purpose to her life.

Much can’t be said about these characters as they are written flat and one-sided. Main character Caliban isn’t much of the hero we may expect him to be, and Chiara a girl whom, for most of her personality, is submissive and meek from her introduction to the story suddenly becomes cold and harsh at its end.

While I enjoyed this book to an extent, I was also slightly disappointed with it. Rough Magic’s plot is tedious and slow. It lacks the necessary action that defines the fantasy genre. Furthermore, the characters on occasion are repetitive in their thoughts. If you read the back cover you are informed that this story was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the novel does indeed closely resemble the play, but still anything affiliated with that of the bard’s works is always put up to high expectations such as a similar almost mimicking style in dialoged and prose while keeping to modern changes. For this reviewer, Rough Magic falls short of such expectations.

Review by Nina Lopez–Ortiz

Stage Fright: 40 Stars Tell You How They Beat America’s #1 Fear

By Mick Berry and Michael R. Edelestein
See Sharp Press

The collection of interviews presented in Stage Fright is a well-rounded accumulation of several years of interviews with various publicly known speakers. Ranging from politicians to a timeless poet to comedians, this collection is rich with insight from the people that have spoken publicly and professionally for decades.

Mick Berry questions interviewees about when, why, and how they conquered their stage fright. Each person reveals moments of stage fright, how they worked to get rid of it, and how it fed their performance. David Burns, who leads workshops to help people conquer stage fright, describes how some of his clients overcome their fear. His strategy is to simply put them on stage and point out how their fears are controlling them. Reading about what so many performers have gone through is what is ultimately valuable about this collection.

Maya Angelou proved poetic in her interview, eloquently embracing her anxiety until this day despite some fifty years of bearing it all. I love Jason Alexander’s mantra of having strength, courage, conviction, and joy. He uses it as a personal reminder that because he is privileged to have the talents he has, it’s best to share them with the world.

The ideas shared by the interviewees help to ease the tensions of having to perform in public. Putting the ideas into action, however, might be another issue entirely. As a musician who has not played a show in nearly two years, I found this book to be a much needed wake up call. Hardly anyone can perform perfectly from the beginning. Performers have to allow themselves to feed off the “butterflies” to become better.

A running theme is the comforting fact that "the crowd is not out to get you." Either you will be liked and you will continue to perform or you will bomb—but life will go on either way.

Review by A. Mariel Westermeyer

Prospect Park West

By Amy Sohn
Simon & Schuster

Brooklyn’s famously high-end and yuppie Park Slope neighborhood is nearly a character itself in Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West. The book follows the lives of four women living in the neighborhood. There is Melora Leigh, a troubled actress, who joins the neighborhood co-op for good PR. Her time there ties her to Karen Shapiro, an overly protective mother and social climber desperate for a new apartment in the best school district. Lizzie O’Donnell is a “former lesbian” living with her husband and child, but still drawn to women. Her attention focuses on Rebecca Rose, another mom, who hasn’t been touched by her husband in the year and a half since she gave birth.

The book seems aimed at subtly making fun and illuminating the foibles of stereotypical yuppie mothers as well as the new hipster mother. It’s like a filled out gossip column or blog on the lives of overly privileged women. The struggles of being a mother are mentioned, but it is incidental to the women’s sex lives and neuroses. The stories weave together fairly well, though the plot line that connects Karen and Melora seems overly fanciful. At times, I found myself forgetting the connections between the characters and having to flip back to figure out who was being discussed.

Occasionally throughout the text are small chapters written in italics and from the perspective of a few of the male characters in the book. They don’t seem to add much to the book, as they don’t flesh out the male characters enough.

The book ends a bit anti-climactically. I didn’t feel let-down, but more "oh, now it’s done." I suppose Prospect Park West is simply giving a snapshot (in this case a 400 page snapshot) of the women’s lives. There is no grand climax in the action, because the women’s lives simply carry on, much like in real life.

For fans of chick lit and lighter fare, pick this book up. Otherwise, you can give it a miss.

Review by Kristin Conard

Poppies Silhouette Pendant

This simple yet beautiful handmade pendant has a base of a one inch square piece of fiberboard and is but one of the hundreds of choices available from NoisyBirdStudio, a husband and wife team from New Hampshire. The husband cuts out the fiberboard tiles, and the wife does the rest.

Once she creates her tiny pieces of art and prints them “using high-quality laser print and paper,” she sands and seals the edges and applies a “non-toxic glass-like resin” to the top. The resin on my pendant seems very sturdy and resistant to cracks and chips. I was able to make small dents in it with fingernail and teeth while putting it through rigorous product testing, but there were no problems from normal wear around my neck. The pendant did come with a tiny note specifying that the top finish is water-resistant, but not waterproof, and recommending removal before showering, swimming, and other wet activities.

The pendants are sold alone, without any chain or cord, allowing for individual choice. NoisyBirdStudio does sell both 2.4mm silver plated ball chain and 2mm, 18-inch long black leather pendant cord with a sterling silver spring clasp. Another option would be to hang it from a matching or contrasting length of ribbon, yarn, or braided embroidery floss. My poppies hang from an old, dull ball chain, which makes the overall look a little tougher, a little less dainty.

The pendants can also be used as zipper pulls. A three-inch, silver-plated ball chain with clasp can be added to any pendant, making it a fun addition to backpack, purse, coat, jacket, or any item carried or worn by someone who doesn’t wear necklaces. For folks who can’t find the perfect words or image among the multitude of offerings, NoisyBirdStudio takes on custom orders, even creating designs from scratch. They can turn a photo or other work of art into a truly one-of-a-kind creation.

The affordability of the lovely pieces from NoisyBirdStudio, coupled with the abundance of designs, makes it easy to pick out a special piece for every friend and family member. I think I can make all my winter holiday purchases in this one little Etsy shop.

As for my poppies, I enjoy the unusual pairing of brown and pink, their subtle beauty dangling at my throat.

Review by Chantel C. Guidry

Dead Floating Lovers

By Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli
Midnight Ink Books

Set in the lush landscape of upper Michigan, Dead Floating Lovers (the second in Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli's series of the Emily Kincaid mysteries) chronicles the experiences of aspiring mystery writer Emily Kincaid, who is enmeshed in one investigation after another as a journalist-cum-sidekick for the local law—her friend Deputy Dolly Wakowski.

Floating in a remote upper Michigan lake, Deputy Dolly discovers bones that she thinks belong to her ex-husband (he disappeared some thirteen years prior), or the Native American girl he ran off with. Determined to find out whether her ex-husband is the victim, or perhaps even the murderer, Dolly and Emily set out on a goose chase after Dolly’s long-lost family and wade through Native American tribal land and law where neither woman navigates comfortably.

As mysteries go, this one isn’t particularly gripping, and I won’t give away the details. The mystery itself (Who was killed? Who is the killer? Why?) is anticlimactically revealed. Mysteries typically employ some element of danger, and perhaps it is a testament to my desensitized nature that the danger in this mystery wasn’t nearly palpable enough. For this quick and easy read, the place setting, characters, and fairly predictable relationship scenarios comprise the more entertaining elements of the book.

Emily Kincaid fled from Ann Arbor and her broken marriage to Jackson Rinaldi, a pompous lothario of an academic. His purposefully overdone character convinces the reader to immediately side with Emily—Jackson drives a Jaguar, tosses scarves over his neck and shoulders, and is passionately engrossed in writing a book about The Canterbury Tales. Oh—he speaks Italian and he can’t keep it in his pants around younger female grad students. Yet Jackson still holds sway over Emily—an all-too-familiar trope. Luckily, the hard-nosed and law abiding Deputy Dolly is always on hand to remind Emily (albeit unsuccessfully) that Jackson’s looming presence in her life only ends in heartbreak. And yet Dolly’s story is surprisingly similar. Dolly is inexplicably faithful to her long-gone husband (continuing to call him her “husband” and insisting on loyalty to one’s “family”) who after six months of marriage took off with another woman.

As delightful as it can be to read novels with women protagonists, what is mysterious here is that both women feel strong obligation to the men whose love for them seemed dead from the start. Both Emily and Dolly fall into a pattern I’ve been seeing lately in both print and on the screen, of women who fit into emotional extremes without leaving room for a middle ground. Dolly is exaggeratedly unemotional, and showing emotion seems to wound her soul in some unmentionable way.

Out of their unlikely friendship Emily is pitched as the “smart” one who should know better than to let herself be emotionally unwound by a man who comes off as skeezy, for lack of a better word—let alone force herself to achieve perfection for him when she says, “I wanted everything perfect when Jackson came to dinner. A wild, atavistic urge to feed a man came over me. Must’ve been straight down from a grandmother I’d never met; from back in the times when a woman caught herself a productive male or perished.”

Though I am starting to think I would prefer a bit more balance among women protagonists, the ways Emily and Dolly navigate the men whose presence (or absence-as-presence) is injected in their lives successfully propel the book and entertain the reader when the mystery lags. However, through their dramas Buzzelli succeeds at addressing a larger significant reality outside the story itself—that when it comes to relationships, physical extraction rarely equals emotional extraction.

Review by L.Y. Bertram

Dark Hunger

By Rita Herron
Forever

Where do I begin? I guess I should start with an admission. I’m a horror geek. I love horror movies, both the good and the bad; horror novels, ghost stories, midnight walks, supernatural based TV shows, and even a good Scooby Doo episode. I also love romance. Give me a good love story, and I’m hooked in spite of myself. So when I saw Dark Hunger, the second book in Rita Herron’s Demonborn series, I was looking forward to it. I learned my mistake quickly. I should have known—the title is Dark Hunger.

To summarize, Annabelle Anderson, a beautiful CNN reporter, follows a lead to Quinton Valtrez (the Demonborn of the series name), who is an assassin for a covert army group. He is fighting his demonic birthright, and doesn’t want anyone to worry. She is determined to get to the bottom of her story, and is drawn to the strong, handsome, sexy Quinton. Issues occur, as does sex. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

This book is terrible. The plot makes little sense, the characters are poorly conceived, badly written and trite, and there is nothing original in the entire book. Quinton’s demonic side manifests itself as a desire to kill and an addiction to sex. This trait he shares with his newly found brother, Vincent. Luckily, Vincent figured out the answer to his habit in the first book of the series, and is now happily married. There are bombings and a creepy evangelical preacher, a whiny editor demanding an update every five pages and an overly sinister army General.

As for the “horror” side of things, there are crows, an angel of death, a demon named Zion (guess who he is), and some mind control. That’s pretty much it. Nothing scary, original, interesting or even clearly ripped off of someone else. The sex scenes, the real reason anyone reads romance novels, are numerous, and well written.

If you see this book in a bookstore and are tempted to pick it up, go get a Clive Barker book instead. It’ll be a lot better in every category, including the sex scenes. However, if you do get it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Review by Taylor Rhodes

** Sometimes we accidentally duplicate a review. What can we say? Perfection is an illusion. Click here for another Feminist Review writer's vantage point this book.

The Heretics

Directed by Joan Braderman
Crescent Diamond

The Heretics: Stories from a Feminist Collective premiered at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) during the first two weeks of October, 2009. Written and directed by Hampshire college professor, Joan Braderman, the documentary chronicles the creation and life of the feminist art collective, the Heresies, and their homegrown publication, HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, which was in print from 1977-1992.

Braderman circles the globe in search of her former colleagues—painters, writers, filmmakers, among other artists—in an effort to document the history of the Heresies Collective and their publication within the larger context of the feminist movement of the 1970s. Braderman is successful in capturing the spirit of the heretics through her many interviews. HERESIES was a seminal publication in and for the feminist movement, and, throughout the course of the film, each interviewer details the love and dedication poured into the publication, from all night meetings to open sessions for readers to critique the most recent issue.

As a contributor to this publication, which advocates the same spirit of global feminism of its precursor, I felt a kinship with the feminism embodied by the interviewees. Each interviewee emphasized the collective’s success in promoting feminism and feminist dialogue through the conduit of their journal. “Success” is a fraught word for feminists, who have worked for large-scale change, but for whom change has yet to come on an equivalent scale. Indeed, it was heartbreaking to hear various members of the collective lament the current state of feminism, particularly in the United States. They spoke of the fact that very few people are feminists, or even desire to appropriate the identity of feminist. These women, commonly known as the second wave feminists, along with women around the world, have dedicated their lives to achieving political and social equality for women—and yet, women today spit on both the appellation of “feminist” and the philosophy of feminism. The film therefore not only documents the past, but issues a challenge to the future: do you—you feminists, you women—dare to be heretical?

Review by Marcie Bianco

Japanese Floral and Forest Pendants

My first assignment for the Indian edition of Marie Claire was to write a book review of Kamila Shamsie’s novel Burnt Shadows. Having never written for a glossy mag before, I was quite excited about this opportunity—but nervous too. Bigger publications have a tendency to censor unflattering sentiments that might alienate potential advertisers, and when it comes to fiction, I’m not easy to please. If I failed to be impressed by Shamsie’s work, would I still get the gig? Fortunately, I never had to find out.

The book’s back cover description may fool a potential reader into thinking Burnt Shadows is about the life of a Japanese woman in Nagasaki post-atomic bomb detonation, but it’s not. Although she is the only constant figure throughout the novel, Hiroko Tanaka is simply the conduit through which one is introduced to an entire cast of global characters, all of whom are beautifully fleshed out and whole. Many times, the reader learns of a character far before that person is actually introduced into the main story, which makes it all the more exciting to meet them when they finally do make their entrance. The seamless shifts from one person’s perspective to another create a cinematic element to the story, and while reading Burnt Shadows I found myself wondering if Shamsie has sold the film rights to this book, as it is enormously adaptable to the big screen.

So if this is a jewelry review, why am I spending so much time hyping a novel? Like Tanaka herself, this review is the conduit through which the Japanese Floral and Forest pendants are introduced, as both have a particularly florid Japanese aesthetic. The cherry blossom design on the Japanese Floral, in particular, pendant brings to mind the two unprecedented and (so far) un-replicated events that eventually led to the end of World War II at the expense of thousands of civilian lives in Japan. It brings this to mind because the springtime blooming of the delicate pink flowers in both Washington, D.C. and Hiroshima’s Peace Park are an annual reminder of these devastating events; the trees in the U.S. capital city were originally gifted in 1912 by Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki as a symbol of friendship between the two countries. It’s a friendship that comes and goes.

One’s seemingly harmless and well-intended personal choices necessarily accumulate and intersect with the lives of others to create cause and effect simultaneously and mold our individual and collective pasts, presents, and futures in ways both known and unknown. In Burnt Shadows, the concept of home is fluid and dynamic, as Shamsie embodies the world in her characters. The story glides from one geographic landscape to another—Delhi, Karachi, New York, Afghanistan—giving the reader a glimpse of what life may be like for those living in multiple locales while blurring topographic borders that are arbitrary yet endlessly meaningful. Everyone is an outsider in one context or another, yet all fit together and fill each others' lives with what was previously missing. Every character has a role to play, and each role is as important as the next.

Though largely weightless, the Japanese Floral and Forest pendants are heavy with meaning: impossible love that is made possible, unlikely friendships forged from necessity, betrayal of the worst kind, premature loss of loved ones. This is my own association for this pair of pendants, a representation of natural beauty crafted from the dirt by human hands that toiled and provided care. I’ll be sure to wear them with the requisite grace and humility they deserve.

Review by Mandy Van Deven

Selenidad: Selena, Latinos and the Performance of Memory

By Deborah Paredez
Duke University Press

“This is not a book about Selena, but about what it means to remember her,” explains the author in the opening statement of her book. Remembering Selena is a remedy that releases the emotions of her grieving family, her fans, and those who became engaged in her music only after discovering the impact that she had on Latino communities.

Selena, a pop diva from Corpus Christi Texas, was murdered by her fan club president, Yolanda Saldívar on March 31, 1995. Instantly, Selena became a posthumous icon—a symbol—the object of adoration by many. Selena’s museum was erected in her honour in Corpus Christi, and Selena’s monument graces the downtown area of her native city. Selena: A Musical Celebration of her Life (2001), the film Selena (1997) with Jennifer López, and even A Conversation with Academics about Selena that aired on television (1999) explore her life and how she changed the perception of Latino music. In 2003, Selena Live - The Last Concert, which included her famous hit "Como la Flor" (Like the Flower), was released on DVD in her memory. It also served as a method for experiencing latinidad as an effective mode of belonging.

Who was Selena? Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, lead singer of Selena y Los Dinos started singing at the age of five. She was a U.S.-born Latina who grew up speaking English in a working class family that had lived in Texas for several generations. Her father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr. forced her to learn Spanish so she could further her career. Selena was voluptuous, had a Latina’s features and exuded a sexual charisma on stage. Her famous glittering purple pantsuit hugging her hips was a signature of Selena’s skill as a performer. She gained popularity through musical performances of a Tejano music that was often ignored by the mainstream and even by Latino communities. At the age of twenty-three, she was worth over five million dollars.

What does it mean to remember her? When she was murdered, Selena became the ‘Tex-Mex Madonna’ and the focus of collective suffering on both sides of the border. She also became the unquestioned queen of mestizo pop music. Many Americans invested emotionally, politically and financially in Selena’s posthumous life as they had previously in the lives of Evita and Frida Kahlo. The films made about them attracted the attention of people all over the world.

Through remembering them, a Latin explosion or boom promoted the mourning of collective memories; it also capitalized on the cultural, economic, and political concept of latinidad in the United States. Selena launched not only latinidad, but also initiated the Latin music boom that emerged in the 1990s and created Latino mega-stars.

Deborah Paredez’ study on Selena’s posthumous importance is well written, engaging, and timely. She reveals the cultural, political, and economic dynamics of some commemorations of Selena. She further explores the reactions of Latinos and mainstream Americans after Selena’s death. Selenidad enables—if only for a moment—a sense of belonging to communities of the living. A great and easy read coupled with a selection of interesting photographs.

Review by Anna Hamling

The Drifter

Directed by Taylor Steele
Sire

Professional surfer, Rob Machado, captured scenes from his journey through the remote areas of Indonesia. All of this came together into a beautifully narrated film. The Drifter is an amazing visual experience with some interesting observations and wicked waves along the way. The script was largely taken from Machado's own journal entries from his trip and co-written by Nathan Myers.

The film opens with Machado in Bali. His experience there was simply doing the same things with the same people in the same places. “The surf world can feel like a traveling circus. You stay at the same hotels, eat at the same restaurants, surf the same spots.” In order to feel like he his actually travelling and able to leave his comfort zones, Machado ventured to the outer islands.

One of my favorite lines of the film is “High expectations make for [terrible] travel companions.” This sentiment was placed in the moment of the film that Machado seemed to be beginning to feel a bit homesick. He soon fought off this minor feeling and was finally truly able to open himself up to the adventure. This moment seemed to be when the film becomes an authentic tale of discovery.

Armed with this new found commitment to his experience, he set up camp on a mountain overlooking a gorgeous landscape. On the remote island of Sumba, he met children of a local village who invited him to see their home. Despite a language barrier he managed to develop a meaningful connection with the people in the village. These friendships led him to assist in their project of constructing a pipe line and well.

This film is predominately marketed as a surf film. It won best film at the Ombak International Surf Film Festival and had its U.S. premiere at the New York Surf Film Festival. Tucked in between this human story were beautiful surfing scenes. These action scenes featured exciting music by The Shins, Raconteurs, and Tegan and Sara.

A large market for this film isn't being tapped. There are a lot of self-proclaimed drifters out there who would identify with the journey of Rob Machado. Anyone that enjoys a story about personal growth, the pursuit of knowledge, or just likes beautiful scenery would appreciate this film.

The end of the film left me feeling both frustrated and inspired at the same time because you hope for a neat conclusion to a self-reflection film. As Machado looks out the airplane window as he leaves Indonesia the voice over offers no comfort and certain answers about life, but it’s very honest. In some ways, it was a more comforting than contrived insight.

Review by Andrea Hance

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head Earrings / Lady Robot Red Pocket Mirror

I used to be a fussy gal when it came to keeping up appearances. I obsessively straightened my hair, checked my makeup many times a day, and had a sizable collection of collared shirts. Along the way—between the radicalizing of my politics, inheriting much of my grandmother's wardrobe, and deciding that what I call ugly chic best represents my humble upbringings and current socioeconomic situation—I put my flat iron in storage, threw out all of my makeup (save for a mascara wand for special occasions), and gave away all my collared shirts that required starch. I'm still able to fix myself up quite nicely, but the pretense is gone. I'm much more comfortable with a foundation-free face and fun jewelry to dress up my somewhat drab but functional clothing.

LaNinja, a friendly designer named Miia based in Stockholm, Sweden, makes accessories that speak to my minimalist, kitschy ways. All of her sterling silver jewelry is handmade in her studio, and her glass jewelry is hand-fired in her kiln. My silver Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head Earrings—a set comprised of one raindrop and one cloud—are perhaps some of the most sturdy yet dainty accessories I have owned. Both shapes were handcut, soldered, and oxidized with the oxidation lightly brushed for texture. I recently purchased new wellies to keep my feet dry during rainshowers, and I do tend to live in a dreary climate, so the more wet weather accessories—whether functional or just for show—are quite appropriate. I also enjoy songs about bad weather because I'm a bit of a curmudgeon by nature. These include titles like "Only Happy When It Rains" and my earrings' namesake. (I prefer the Burt Bacharach version.)

At 3.5 inches in diameter and adorned with a LaNinja original design, my Lady Robot Red Pocket Mirror puts to shame the dollar store mirror used by my co-worker to obsessively check her makeup and hair. She probably thinks I'm an unkempt mess, but I'd rather opt for more sleep and less primp time. I can use my mirror on the train to work if I really need a touch-up.

As office politics stress have brought on a strange bought of facial skin irritation of late, a mirror in my bag serves me well. I'm frequently red and bumpy without a full blown outbreak. My acupuncturist says I have stagnant qi. Thus, I enjoy the contrast of my red mirror, which is a more extreme color than I am. Why must robots always be portrayed as male? My female robot design is an appropriate nod to my past as a pseudo-techie and the recovery I have since thankfully made. Much to Donna Haraway's chagrin, I do not consider myself a cyborg feminist.

While LaNinja maintains an impressive Etsy shop, a larger selection of her designs and wares can be found on her own website. You don't have to be a granny clothes grouch like me to enjoy her goodies. In fact, if you like cheerful greens and blues, water themes, and gorgeous handmade silver designs, you'll probably adore Miia's work.

Review by Brittany Shoot

Trees Zine #4

By Samantha Trees

A quarter page booklet of photocopied text with one off-center staple and as much profundity as you can cram in that meager space—how else would you present yourself to the world? I thought that zines went out with the twentieth century, at least in the sense of personal confessionals, and journaling went out traded out for online diaries, journals, and social networks. These days even the formal blog seems to be winnowing down to its base denominator: trading out contemplation for a sound bite, reflection for a terse witticism. Zines, with their labor-intensive, frequently amateur construction and problematic-at-best distribution, are the antithesis of convenient, concise communication. For most zinesters, this suits them just fine – better to create something a little flawed and heartfelt than to encapsulate your heart and soul in a polished, pre-packaged medium saddled with embedded advertisements and suspect signifiers of a commodity culture.

Samantha Trees demonstrates in twenty-four tiny and mostly half-filled pages that there’s still plenty of soul in the zine movement, even if it has lost some visibility since its heyday in the 1990s. In her “Hopeless Romantic/Punk As Fuck” fourth issue ($2), Samantha revels in the giddy enthusiasm of the first nights living in a punk co-op, starting up what could be considered a pick-up, come-as-you-are riot grrrl music collective, and trying to teach a bunch of grrrls how to play Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” (probably easier than “Double Dare,” although not as fun in my opinion). What really strikes a reader is the hopeful vibrancy of her voice, an optimistic yearning for life still being tested by the daily rigors of post-adolescence.

The content of the zine is hardly more than personal reflections recorded on scrap paper and post-it-notes probably cribbed from where she works if Samantha cleaves as closely to traditional zine assembly as she does its design. Trees is simply presented with an unadorned layout and sparse design. Unfortunately, the text is similarly sparse, with anecdotes and insights that could merit fleshing out.

Samantha hints at more in-depth stories and experiences than the zine allows itself to give space. In particular, her experiences with her loves and the time she spends at work with a crisis call center assume direct knowledge of her acquaintances or familiarity with such an environment. Regardless, Trees succeeds in its self-defined mission of offering a “really sincere piece” of the author to the reader. While her opinions occasionally stray into those of questionable wisdom (her rant against the Calgary police force strikes this reader as being shortsighted), the reader can’t help but recognize that these are the irrepressible moments of sincerity, emotion, and passion that grip every young woman before the tawdry banalities of adult life set in their hooks.

Review by Melissa Ruis