KickStart this!

Cary Cooper's new album Zuzu's Petals. The video is told from the point of view of her daughter, but features some of her lovely music. And I love the idea of her stretching herself outside her comfort zone.

Learning and becoming competent on an instrument, and learning how to carry whole shows by myself were among the things that terrified me the most. But because I love doing what I do and can’t imagine doing anything else, I made the brave commitment to stretch and see just how far stretching would take me. As it turns out, I’ve stretched pretty far!

Heroine is a role playing game with an adventurous young woman protagonist, by Josh Jordan. I've heard so many great things about this project from my various gamer friends. We don't do a lot of story-telling around here, but I might have to get a copy anyway.

Heroine is a storytelling game inspired by books and movies like Wizard of Oz, Labyrinth, Alice in Wonderland, and The Chronicles of Narnia. I love these stories about a girl who has serious problems to deal with in her regular life, but who gets whisked away to the Other World, where she has an unusual chance to be heroic.

Invisible Warriors: African American Women in World War II -- will tell the stories of African American working during World War II -- fighting the war and fighting for their own civil rights. This looks like a great project and well worth funding for the historical value alone!

Keeper of the Stars, by Aubrey Jewel - "A tale of the magic found in the night sky in the form of an animated story." This looks like a lovely book for kids, young and old alike.

Fabulous artist Therese Obergottsberger is looking for some help getting her her work scanned and ready for a showing in New York in December. She's an amazing talent!

Diary of a Champion -- Looks like the kind of sports story I'd love to see. And the cast list is impressive.

When your passion and talent don't seem to be enough, the lengths one will go are detrimental. Following the story of Track & Field star Tahja Dupree, “Diary of a Champion” explores the politics and scandal behind the doors of competition between prominent track athletes and coaches preparing for the 2016 games.

And finally, just in time for the holi-daze, check out Heather "Cloe" Bloss' Spoonful of Cats Holiday Cards. I mean, who doesn't like cute cats in holiday scenes?

What KickStarter projects are you following?

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Is archery making a come back?

In the 18th century, archery was one of the few sports open to young English ladies. Archery societies were popular, and many of the young elite women found an outlet for their competitiveness while still appearing feminine and proper.

Winona Ryder as Mae Welland in The Age of Innocence

While many 20th century schools offered archery, its popularity has waned over the years. But with so many really awesome archers in pop culture these days, archery appears to be making a come-back. And many young girls getting involved.

The Hunger Games book trilogy and movie, featuring a futuristic, bow-wielding heroine named Katniss Everdeen, hooked Elizabeth Kinson, 13, on archery. For Mia Smith, 7, it was the archer Merida in the animated movie Brave.

Top: Merida in Brave; Bottom: Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games
Photo source: Fresno Bee

New archery clubs are popping up all over, and established clubs are seeing a dramatic increase in inquiries and new memberships.

Bruce Cull, president of the National Field Archery Assocation, says membership is up about 5% this year, largely driven by younger archers. "Hollywood has had a huge impact on archery," he says. "Young girls see the appeal because they see somebody cool doing it."

And not only are they taking it up as a hobby, but they're competing. Like Christiana-Marie Wilburn, of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Christiana-Marie Wilburn, 17 and fab. Photo source: Las Vegas Sun

Right now Wilburn just hopes to make it to 2012 National Archery in the Schools Program’s Nationals in Louisville, Ky. Though winning the tournament has secured her an invite, she’s actively looking for sponsors since archery is just a club at Las Vegas Academy and not funded like other high school sports around the valley.

Everyone expects this increased interest will only continue to grow during the 2012 Olympics, with the best archers in the world competing in London. The archery competitions began today, with the US women's team already in second place.

Miranda Leek, 19 and awesome. Photo source: USAToday

I don't know about you, but I think it is pretty awesome. Or, as Elizabeth Kinson said, "It's fun, and it makes me feel really powerful."

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Olympics Preview

I don't know about you, but the Olympics are a Big Deal™ around my house. I've been looking forward to this year's games for months! Years ago, when I first moved in with my partner, we didn't have cable television. We went a couple of years without it, in fact. But we broke down and got it for the 2004 Olympics. Going to a sports bar for all the events we wanted to watch just wasn't practical. I mean, there's just so many chicken wings one person can eat, right?

This year seems to be the Year of the Women. There are so many great women and girls from around the world showing up to compete in London. I'm going to try to watch as many events as I can, but I have to be a bit pragmatic. Just in case life gets hectic, as it's wont to do, I've made a short list of events that will take priority.

I can't wait to see the women's cycling team. My favorite event is the road race, and I usually check out the mountain bike race, but I'm also excited to see the BMX event. I mean, seriously, what's not to love about women's BMX?!

On the road racing side of cycling, I really hope Kristin Armstrong does well again. She's one of my favorites, and after winning gold in 2008, I think she's done a lot for improving the attention given to women's cycling in the US.

I'll also be watching the women's triathlon (and probably the men's too). Laura Bennett is representing the US, and she's pretty awesome. But I'm intrigued by Sarah Groff's story.

She clinched her spot on the Olympic team back in 2011, while competing in the London ITU World Championship Series, which was run on the same course the Olympics will use. Which means she's had almost an entire year to train for it.

"It's fast, it's furious and it's exciting. Those two hours go by so quickly. You make a small mistake, and it could cost you your entire race."

And, like many people, I'm already watching the women's soccer events, which started earlier this week.

And I'm always amazing at the women weightlifters! I hope by now you've heard of Sarah Robles. But what about Holley Mangold? If her last name sounds familiar, it might be that you know of her brother, Nick Mangold, who plays for the NY Giants.

I'm also very interested in the outcome of the women's boxing events, since this is the first Olympics where there will be women participating. While boxing isn't a sport I usually like to watch, I might have to check it out just to see these women who I've been hearing so much about for the last several months. The US will be represented by Claressa Shields, Marlen Esparza, and Queen Underwood.

I'm sure I'll also be watching swimming, gymnastics, rowing, fencing, and all kinds of other sports I wouldn't normally watch. And don't think I'm only watching the US athletes. There are women coming from nearly every country. I'm especially eager to see the woman from Saudi Arabia and other muslim countries who will be the first women to ever represent their country.

Also, I sincerely hope there's another sighting of these two "olympians."

Who are you most excited to watch? What events capture your fancy?

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Blog Around

Geek Mom has a post about a great new CD for science geeks: Science Fair.

The songs of Science Fair are all performed by women and girls, including some kids’ music greats like Frances England, Elizabeth Mitchell, Lunch Money, Renee & Jeremy, and Ashley Albert of The Jimmies. The musical styles represented are as diverse as the science topics, from hip hop to rock to folk, phytoplankton to fossils to outer space. The album name drops Feynman, Heisenberg, Einstein, Bohr, Newton, Schrödinger, with a terrific ukelele-filled song dedicated to Marie Curie.

Speaking of women in science, the Elsevier Foundation, The Academy of Sciences for the Developing worls (TWAS) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) have launched an awards program for women scientists in developing countries.

Valerie Weiss has an excellent post on indiewire.com about the problems of portraying science in the media: Women, Science and Film.

1. Girls are not dumb. They have interests outside of the world of Abercrombie or Forever 21. They are actually just as discerning as you and me and can tell when they’re fed dumbed-down messages.

2. Science can actually be cool. Why else would there be news reports on the search for dark energy and why else would we care about the race to find a cure for cancer? Why else would people actually study it?

In this Word & Film interview, the fabulous Kristen Scott Thomas dishes about being an older woman in Hollywood and why she prefers to make movies in Europe these days.

“The Hollywood film industry nourishes everything else because that’s the mother hand, but it’s true: The movies I’m making in Europe are more exciting to me than the things I’ve been asked to do recently coming out of America. That doesn’t mean to say I don’t want to do them anymore, but when you have even a much smaller part, it’s so exciting. And in Europe, they’re interested in women of my age. I don’t think that here they are.” 

Have you ever thought that computer science should include more dragons and wizards? Well, you're in luck! Computational Fairy Tales is here to save the day!

Did you hear Maureen Corrigan's NPR review of Caitlin Moran's book, How To Be A Woman?

But, more importantly, like Barr used to do, Moran invests her consciousness-raising confessions with an all-too-rare working-class worldview.

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival is presenting a five-part piece called Women of Will, created by Tina Packer, which will explore the female roles in Shakespeare's plays.

Packer's theory is that Shakespeare's changing approach to women over the years illustrates his own ever-evolving complexity of thought and understanding. Women in his time, she points out, were necessarily shrewd observers, analysts of the power structure and their own place within it.

The Comic's Journal has a review of a new publication of Flannery O'Connor's lineoleum cut cartoons she made while in high school and college.

I think the significance of O’Connor’s cartoons lies not in their connection to her fiction but the gap between them. That they stand so puny and so far from her writing speaks to the wonder of the creative process. They attest to the mind’s capacity to access and master dangerous and potentially self-devouring material in ways that can not be foreseen, for which logic can construct no model for others to follow. 

I've seen some photos of awesome swag people are bringing home from San Diego Comic-Con, but I'm pretty that Mercedes Becerra has them all beat. She scored a ticket to space!

The SF Gate had a great piece about Dona Bailey, the woman who helped create the iconic arcade game Centipede.

"It was interesting to see how a male society functioned," she says. "It was kind of rough sometimes, too. It was a culture that I don't think they were thinking 'there is one woman, we should modify our behavior for her sake' ... I grew a thicker skin."

Meet Missy Franklin, who will soon become the first US woman to swim in seven events in one Olympic Games. She's definitely someone to watch. According to Teri McKeever, the head coach of the US Olympic women's swimming team.

"Missy is definitely the marquee female athlete on this Olympic team and probably has the highest expectations. Our job as coaches is to help her manoeuvre those and help her stay true to who she is."

Sabera Talukder, 16 years old, invented an inexpensive and portable water purification sysmter for developing countries, and became a finalist in the Google Science Fair.

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SRPS Shout Out - Nadia Comăneci

"I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet."

On this day in 1976, Nadia Comăneci was the first female gymnast to be awarded a perfect 10 in an Olympic event. Her story was something I grew up with just knowing. I was six that year, and probably watched the Olympics, although I don't really have any clear memories of it.

Rewatching the video now, I'm struck by her grace, her poise, her calm confidence. While I have never been a gymnast myself, I have always admired the sheer athleticism required.



Throughout the 1976 Olympic, Nadia earned seven perfect 10 scores, and her opponent Nellie Kim earned two.

Although retired from competing, she has remained active in the world of gymnastics. While she was living in Romania, she worked with their national junior gymnastics program. Romania at this time was  run by an oppressive regime, and there were many defections during the 80s. Nadia was closely guarded, and it wasn't until the late-80s that she was able to escape. She made her way to the U.S. and then to Canada. There was some drama around her relationship with the man who helped her escape, and some concerns that he was controlling and possibly abusing her. With the help of her former coach, the infamous Bela Károlyi, she was able to get away from him.

In 1996, she married American gymnast Bart Conner, and the couple now has a son. Since the fall of communism, she has returned to Romania several times, and has set up several charity organizations, as well as taking a leadership role in the national gymnastics program.

"I believe that you should gravitate to people who are doing productive and positive things with their lives."

In the U.S., she was invited to be a speaker at the U.N., and is the current president of the Special Olympics. In the past, she has been hired as a color commentator for gymnastic events, and I sincerely hope she is invited to the 2012 Olympics in London next month.

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