In our first-ever tag-team Friday vid, Miriam and I discuss Feministing's mad love for Rachel Maddow, who is getting her own show on MSNBC next month:
Transcript below the jump.
Also check out Rebecca Traister's profile of Maddow.
Ann: This week is the first joint Friday Feminist Fuck You.
Miriam: It's also my first time vlogging, so Ann is here to help initiate me.
Ann: Miriam's a vlogging virgin.
Miriam: Vlogging virgin.
Ann: So we want to say fuck yeah this week to the news that Rachel Maddow just got her own show on cable news. This is huge! This is a huge audience for her, she's awesomely liberal. Her background is as a prison rights activist, specifically the prison AIDS movement, which is righteous. And she's really smart! She always says incredibly smart things, not just fluffy talking points. So we love her for that.
Miriam: It's also awesome to have another lesbian in the media who's not Ellen DeGeneres, who's also not a comedian, who's in a position of authority, who gets to talk about news and serious things, and is not only talking about the fact that she's a lesbian. And also awesome to see more masculine or butch women in the media.
Ann: I wish they would let Rachel wear her glasses, though. Have you seen pictures of Rachel in her glasses?
Miriam: I have not seen them.
Ann: Super cute. However, they do kind of give her the wave on TV.
Miriam: A little too much makeup.
Ann: Okay, okay, but we're not gonna pick apart her appearance because she's a woman on TV. We're gonna stop. And just say fuck yeah.
Miriam: Fuck yeah.
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Aw shit, double trouble.
Rachel Maddow is to Dan Abrams as Ann Friedman is to Wolf Blitzer.
Watch your back Blitzer!
ANN, the most trusted name in news.
Awesome awesome awesome, and great FFFY.
Ann you are fANNtastic as always and *amazing* first vlog Miriam, please don't make it your last!
Mad love indeed for Rachel Maddow and the Feministing ladies!
Oh! God not another queer in the media, that is the last thing the media needs. I guess it's a good thing I don't watch any tv at all.
Um, Brandi...I hope you're being facetious...
Kanazawa, one of the wealthiest castle towns in the Edo Period (1600-1867). was also famous for its elegant culture. Arts such as the tea ceremony flourished under its powerful Maeda lords, and were known for their bold flourishes in comparison with the understated arts in Kyoto. The first stop on the highway that connected Kyoto to Kanazawa Castle was Nonoichi Town in the Kaga area. The Mimou home is situated along the old highway in this town. This stately mansion, along with its various tearooms and storehouses, was built by the influential Mimou family in the 1870s, soon after the time of the Meiji Revolution in 1968.
The main Mimou house is built in the Sukiya style, the style of tea ceremony. A tea garden is an integral part of the Sukiya experience, and acts as an interface between the tea hut and the mundane world. The garden has a series of gates or thresholds to punctuate the guests' walk on a roji stone path from the outside world to the tea hut. At each such marker, the guest may sit down and relax, releasing worldly cares to enter a "tea state of mind." The plants in the tea garden are designed to be a microcosm of nature in the deep forests, where big evergreen trees grow alongside low shrubs, and the ground is carpeted with thick moss. The views that a guest sees while walking along a meandering path on the roji are carefully considered, so as to compress the sensory experience of a longer walk in the short distance from entry to the tearoom. The roji path finally leads to a large stepping-stone placed in front of the tearoom, usually surrounded by a broad earthen floor under deep eaves.
The eight-mat tearoom in the Mimou house shows a connoisseur's refined taste, and exquisite care taken to heighten the intrinsic beauty of nature. Shoji windows and doors are placed and fitted with painstaking consideration for garden views and the lighting conditions during certain hours of the day. Filtered light through thick rice paper gives soft luster to a painting of deer on silvery fusuma doors. Handmade white paper, pasted to the lower part of brown-coated walls, reflects the light, adding a bit of brightness. The hanging scroll in the tokonoma alcove is complemented by an arrangement of fresh flowers. Tea flowers are arranged as modestly and naturally as possible. On the second floor of the tearoom is a formal room with ten tatami mats. This guest room has walls of bold red ocher characteristic of this area, a urushi lacquered ceiling and ornate carvings on the transoms. These rooms. with their superb garden view over the veranda, are typical embodiments of the strong relationship between Japanese interiors and the garden.
The 18th owner, Michiko Mimou, learned the art of tea ceremony in her childhood. She has also inherited a vast collection of hanging scrolls, folding screens, tea utensils and pottery, from which she carefully selects items for display according to seasonal themes. Michiko says that on a fine day, when she is sitting quietly in the room with birds chirping and the leaves rustling in her garden, she feels the presence of her ancestors who must have done similar things in this very house.