Kath and Kaggers on Womanhood

In the junior days of our friendship Rachel and I exchanged some delightful banter on what it means to be a woman. The exchange is posted below. I think that after reading it you will not be able to deny that the world owes us a large amount of gratitude for furthering the cause of women.

Note: All non-woman type issues have been removed from these messages because I’m a woman and you have no power over me. Unless you are David Bowie, then maybe you have a little, but only when you wear tight pants. Are you with me, lady pals? Don’t answer that, I know you are.

It’s okay if your mind is blown by the extreme amount of feminism. But seriously bros, I do strive to be more ladylike. Not in a lame cooking and cleaning kind of way but I often think that if I knew more about etiquette and proper behavior I would feel less awkward. I think the Victorians have the answers, to everything.

Just ignore all the overtly sexist stuff and you’re golden. Not me though, I’m not golden, my womanhood always gets conquered by sunflower seeds. Not like that though.

Kathryn Rawson July 26 at 2:06pm
I cook in a very non-aproned, minimalist kind of way. I love delicious food but I am not a skilled cook. Mostly because I am bad at being a woman. Although I am quite a good at cleaning. There's hope for me yet.

Rachel Kagan July 26 at 3:43pm
It’s hard being a woman. Always having to wear homely dresses, wearing rouge, baking cookies, feeling repressed, mopping, cooking, not being allowed to talk about politics, fixing the men-folk martinis. Hmm, not sure why I just went all 50s like that…anyway, I’ll trade you my cooking skills for your cleaning skills. Is there a facebook application to do that?

Kathryn Rawson July 26 at 5:22pm

If you spliced us together into one person we would make a complete woman. Now we are only shadowy disgraces of proper women. I vote for splicing over a facebook sponsored trade of domestic abilities. Which reminds me, do you know a ladylike way to eat sunflower seeds? Because I don't.

Rachel Kagan July 26 at 5:55pm
My god, you are right, between your cleaning abilities and embracing of the apocalypse/scary things, and my cooking abilities and fear of everything, together we represent the modern day woman.

The ladylike way to do that is whatever the opposite of sitting with your legs open and spitting seeds everywhere. So basically that means keeping your legs crossed at all times and not eating them and smiling politely.

True Friendship Always

Defining true friendship is a modern problem. For some people. It seems that technology has made idiots of us all when it comes to knowing who our true friends are. At least this is what some dude named Simon Sinek says.

But he also says that he cries a lot. That’s right, I say HE cries a lot. Don’t even get me started on the failure of masculinity in the new millennium. Anyhoo, he says we need to cry together on couches to be true friends, I say this is quite good enough :(. Or I would if I could stomach emoticons.

Facebook gets blamed for watering down relationships. Apparently true friends are only those people you have a deep trust with. Who knew? I’ll tell you who, everyone who is not emotionally confused. And anyway, I say that digitally sharing a photo album with questionable photos of yourself is just the same. Mine include me drinking various types of dubious alcohol. LOOK AT THEM! Now we are friends.

The crying man is also worried that putting our personal information on display confuses people and makes them think they know us. Much like how reading a celebrity blog makes you think you and Brad Pitt are pals. To be honest, I did fall victim to this once. It was while working at the CBC. I was screening and cataloguing a show from the 70s called Take 30. Hana Gartner was one of the hosts at that time. Hana still worked at the CBC so I would occasionally run into her on an elevator. It would be just me in her in there and my first instinct was to blurt something out as if we were friends. But seriously it was just a momentary relapse, I didn’t actually think we were bros. Hana, if you’re reading this, can you please return my calls? Thanks.

In the context of Facebook. what is true friendship, friends? It’s the same as in real life. In the network of people you have met in person, some are acquaintances and some are true friends. If you are savvy, you know the difference. On Facebook this community just gets disproportionately magnified, your friends remain the same, your acquaintances grow to ridiculous numbers.

Sinek says about friendship: ‘you can’t request it’. True, when you friend request someone and they accept that does not immediately mean you are friends, but it can mean you like that person enough to try. There will always be people who request your FB friendship then disappear once you accept, to these people friendship is merely a numbers game. They define their social status by quantity and not quality. Poor dears.

I have proof that Facebook can help turn a stranger into a friend, her name is Kaggers and she is my pal. Our friendship was formed with the help of Facebook. Deal with it.

Are we alone together?

Look you guys, I don’t want to alarm you but the robots are coming! Also, it seems that some people think that while technology tries to connect us, it is actually driving us apart. And by some people I mean MIT professor of the social studies of science and technology, Sherry Turkle. Her new book, Alone Together, examines the way people interact with technology in our highly connected world. What a waste of time! She could have just come and talked to Kaggers and I. We have developed the ideal way to balance technology with the real world. It’s just a little something we call living life.

I wasn’t kidding with you about the robots. According to Turkle we are experiencing “the robotic moment”. WHAT THE FACEBOOK?! Don't panic, that just means we don’t have robots but we are getting philosophically prepared for them. Kaggers, I want you to know something, I would never replace you with a friendbot. Sure a robot would never talk back and would be okay with doing my laundry for me but wherefore the banter? Wherefore the humanity? Plus I hear robots make shitty co-blog writers.

You see the thing is, pals, we just have to learn how to use technology to our social advantage. We have to remember to keep one foot in the real world as we tweet toward tomorrow. Jonah Lehrer’s New York Times review of Turkle’s book draws the same conclusion: “In the end, it’s just another tool, an accessory that allows us to do what we’ve always done: interact with one other”. I could not have said that better myself, no wait I already did.

The human tendency to pun is carved in stone

The title of this post comes from The Pun's Story, a recent book review on the history and significance of punning.

The review likens the 34,000 year old art of punning to modern day communication technologies: “Sumerian scribes began using pictographs...the result…was comparable to a modern text message…”; and, "the pun was humanity’s first hyperlink, a way to identify and articulate potential connections that aren’t necessarily or immediately apparent.”

Technology and punnery go hand in hand. On one hand, email can be open to misinterpretation with the reader potentially misreading the sender’s tone and intent of their email. On the other, to make a purposeful play on words in an email forces the punnee to decipher the double entendre of the punner’s email.

The first is an unintentionally ambiguous email which makes you crazy trying to figure out its meaning. The other is an intentionally ambiguous email which makes you crazy trying to figure out its meaning. Crazy with laughter!

Rachel Kagan March 16 at 4:12pm
Where did that sudden burst of delusional confidence come from? It must be my new glasses. It’s weird to call them ‘new’ when they are wood. Do you think that the first glasses ever were made of stone? Who could be able to rock that look?

Kathryn Rawson March 16, 2011 at 5:18pm
I like your new glasses! I have no idea who would be able to rock the stone look but it would have to be someone with the strength of marble. The quality of my stone-related joke is questionable, I am aware of this.

Rachel Kagan March 17 at 9:29am
The quality of your joke is not questionable. In fact, I think it really represents the cornerstone of the whole bit.

Kathryn Rawson March 17, 2011 at 10:30am
It's true, my joke is basically the Plymouth Rock of our times.

Rachel Kagan March 17 at 1:40pm
You have facilitated the bedrock that is this joke.

Kathryn Rawson March 17 at 2:21pm
I guess you could say I really boulder-d you over with my joke.

Rachel Kagan March 17 at 3:23pm
Yes, I would say that you did boulder-d me over, so much so that my laughter turned into lava. I think I just turned this joke into rubble.

Kathryn Rawson March 17 at 5:31pm
This joke is so dead it should have its own tombstone.

Rachel Kagan March 18 at 12:09pm
We just need to medicate this joke to bring it back to life. So we need to get it stoned.

Kathryn Rawson March 18 at 12:53pm
We are like the master masons of rock jokes.

Vacation Communication

Similar to the lost art of letter writing, this recent article talks about the lost art of post carding.

I agree with the author of the article that receiving a postcard from a friend is more thoughtful than receiving a “Miss you! Having a great time!” post on my wall. Look, it’s fine if you’re going to rub it in my face that you’re on vacation, just don’t rub it in my Facebook face.

I agree that it is easier, quicker and cheaper to send an e-greeting while travelling, but I prefer an old-fashioned postcard. I love searching for the perfect postcard. I like reminding myself that I have the ability to write cursively. I like licking the stamp and then wondering if the stamp glue is toxic. I like putting the postcard in the mailbox and then neurotically checking the mailbox to see if the postcard went down the mailbox chute. I like knowing that in a stack of bills and election paraphernalia, my recipient will be surprised by my illegible yet thoughtful postcard. And I like knowing that the postcard will likely end up on their fridge as a keepsake. You can’t put Facebook on your fridge you guys.

The Art of E-Correspondence

Communicating in the age of technology has bred a level of informality that I’m not sure Jane Austen would approve of. Once commonly used greetings and salutations such as “dear” and “yours truly” have been hastily replaced with “hey” and “msg me l8r”. Jane would no doubt be appalled by such a lack of etiquette.

In Jane’s day, the proper Victorian lady was obliged to convey news and information through letters. Her talent for letter writing was not only a social obligation, but a skill that she was expected to cultivate. Polite correspondence, neat handwriting, the art of elegant composition, all were skills used to measure ones' breeding. Today it seems our breeding is measured by how quickly we reply to emails.

In the nineteenth century, Victorian letter writing manuals such as The Universal Letter Writer, The Wide World Letter Writer, Companion to the Writing-Desk, and Lewis Carroll’s Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing, were all used to aid ones’ hand in how to properly address letters, how to accept or politely decline an invitation to a ball, or how to graciously declare your disdain for your suitor’s shooting-jacket.

While emailing has replaced letter writing, the intent remains the same: maintaining relations. It is just the format that has changed, and with it, the formalities.

Lewis Carroll offers many rules in his Manual, such as how to begin a letter, how to go on with a letter, how to end a letter, how to affix the stamp, and how to carry the letter to the Post Office (carry it in your hand because if you put it in your pocket you will take a long country walk and pass the Post Office twice, going and returning, and when you get home you will find the letter still in your pocket). While that last rule is not so applicable in today’s world, much of his 121 year old advice still holds true, but is often forgotten in the rush and immediacy that is email.

Although Facebook is a poor substitute for fancy stationary and handsome script, it has provided us with a way to hone our letter writing skills. They say the ‘better the letter writing, the finer the breeding’, and no truer words have e’er been spoken. While we admit that we are prejudiced when it comes to our own writings, we believe that our e-letters would make Jane Austen proud. To illustrate our pride, we have selected our most 1890ish messages to share with you.

Rachel Kagan February 23 at 2:22pm

Dear Kathryn,

To receive your letters, cloaked in their veil of rich observations describing the web of your life, and mingling them with words that are sharper than a serpent’s tongue, is very pleasant indeed. Mine’s eye reads each of your carefully chosen words with eager anticipation and takes me on a journey that I never tire of reading. And what a journey it is! How often I am diverted beyond moderation for your letters cause me so much laughter that I soon feel ill. Ill with joy! You are indeed the finest comic writer of the present age.

I am forever thankful that our fine breeding and sensible dispositions have saved us from ugly rows. How dreadful would that be! For if our correspondence were to end, dear friend, I shan’t express the misery I would no sooner display than for if I were bound too tight in my hourglass corset.

Adieu. Know that you cannot write too often, but never should your pen feel overburdened with a sense of duty for your letter-writing, for that would be a shame more cruel than a thousand deaths.

Yours most truly,

Rachel

Kathryn Rawson February 23 at 4:03pm

Dearest Kaggers,

Many moons have set since the auspicious beginning to our delightful friendship. I cannot mention too often my gratefulness for your many kindnesses and for the words that seem to seep from your pen like gilded roses. If not for your letters, I'm certain I would perish from boredom. And you are too kind and somewhat misguided (read on, dear Kaggers, do not fret) when you say that I am the finest comic writer of our age. For it is certainly you that should hold that honour. Or perhaps we shall share it. Our fine breeding, as you say, would allow for this with no danger of a snit.

As I write to you by the dawn's light I cannot help but reminisce about the times you have offered me your wisdom when I was feeling ill at ease in my brainpan. Your intelligence is akin in spirit to an aged grandmother while your face is as young and fresh as the spring's first fiddlehead.

I will write to you in times of joy and in times of need. I will write to you always. Our exchanges embolden my heart and sharpen my intellect. Burdensome they are not, nor will they ever be. Else let me die by the hand of man for I could not bear our letters to be anything more than a breath of fresh air carried on the winds of sincerity.

Yours in friendship,
Kath

What Now?

Hi Friends,

Rachel and I spent one grueling 10 hour time block writing the blog you see before this post to bring you up to date on how we became friends. Actually it wasn’t so much grueling as it was a joyous day spent in the company of each other with enough Pepsi Max for 12 co-blog-writers. We both now have reduced life spans due to the amount of aspartame we consumed. Don’t fret! We are only dying as much as any of us are dying. Which is a lot. Anyhoo*, our friendship continued from this point. We still write each other several times daily. We are getting to know each other more deeply through this communication but have things yet to learn.

I know what you all are thinking: what the French toast happens now for the blog? Now you get to watch our friendship become more friendshippier.

We will share more of our digital letters with you, we will discuss modern friendship and link to articles to see what other people have to say on the subject. You will notice I did not say ‘other, smarter people’, but that’s just because I hate lying. It is the scourge of our times. All this and more we will do for you. The more is a surprise. If you like laughter, please read on. If not, may god have mercy on your soul.

Yours in Friendship,

Kath and Kaggers

*Rachel and I disagree on the spelling of ‘anyhoo’, but it is the only thing we fight about.