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After the addition of the former Borg drone Seven of Nine to the starship's crew at the start of the fifth Star Trek series' fourth season, Voyager's weekly viewer ratings soared by more than 60%... [T]he character was an instant success, and "saved the show" from disorientation and even oblivion. The Emergency Medical Hologram's dermoplastic grafting procedures and follicle stimulation therapies produced a highly sexualized feminine bodily appearance that appealed especially to adolescent and young males, a major portion of Star Trek's viewership. Seven's arrival on the scene was accompanied by a massive publicity campaign in TV magazines and newspaper supplements. Played by a former Miss America pageant finalist Jeri Ryan, outfitted in a skintight, lustrous catsuit and high heels that accentuate her breasts and buttocks, Seven of Nine radiates "available feminine sexuality," yet is paradoxically unaware of her "epidermal" exposure and blatant desirability. Her erect phallic posture, techno-scientific competence, stringently business-like speaking style, and indifference towards male erotic overtures make her an ambivalent boundary crosser with both masculine and feminine semiotic and manneristic attributes.--from Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, by Alan N. Shapiro (the Bible)
Posting from an...undisclosed location, some time on my hands, don't have my tablet so my project for the night is drawing Seven of Nine with a mouse. This may change as I get time to tinker with it. ("That is irrelevant.")
Attended a NY art blogger social event in Chelsea last night organized by Edward Winkleman. Paddy Johnson has a report (she did a better job meeting people than I did). The mood was pleasant and egalitarian, and people talked a fair amount about art, unlike so many art world soirees terminally marred by climbers, strivers, snubbers, and assorted other dysfunctional bad vibe inducers. (Yes, I was scarred by several years of writing criticism during the dot com era.) Learned about a few sites I hadn't heard of before. There's definitely an uptick in good blog activity since this page's last extended prognosis of the scene, and the scuttlebutt has it that galleries and museums are paying a tad more attention to these self-published vehicles. This matters not so much for getting perks and press credentials as getting out-of-favor ideas heard and mediocre-but-powerful gatekeepers righteously bypassed. Maybe that's all of a piece, don't know for sure. Thanks to Edward for organizing this, looking forward to more such events.