Read the original essay, and comments it received, here: http://women-forum.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=157%3Agoezllik-250-volt&catid=34%3Aindividuality&Itemid=53&lang=en

I am attending an academic conference. There is a huge mirror on the right side of the hall. Several PhD candidates are sitting there – three girls and many boys. Boys are feverishly discussing an issue of the legal regulation of property management in foreign countries. One of the girls turns around and looks at her image in the mirror. She wants to check her appearance before addressing the audience. The other girl reaches into her bag, presses on a perfume flask in it and wipes around her ear with a finger. Minutes pass.

The discussion between the lawyers becomes even more intense; they seek to figure out which country’s laws regulate the division of property for an Azerbaijani national married to a foreign national in case of a divorce. The lady who has just perfumed herself scans her image in the mirror out of the corner of her eye and starts expressing her opinion while looking into the boys’ faces. Sometimes they apologize for interrupting her and make remarks on a different legal question. She avails herself of the pause brought by such an interruption and throws another glance at herself in the mirror…

I am watching TV now. In the TV show, men and women compete for an expensive prize. While men are heavily involved in proving somebody is right or wrong, women often turn to the studio screen to check how they look in front of the audience.

A 19-years old girl whom I know well admits: “Oh, every time when I walk with my fiancé in the streets and he talks about his expectations of family life, my eyes jump from one shop window to another in search of sales offers where I would come back later to do shopping. He gets angry and asks where my attention wanders when we are having such a serious talk. He cannot understand that I need new clothes for our next rendezvous and another new dress for the one after that…»

I am approaching a book stand with many shelves entitled «Women’s World» in a bookstore in some European country. Female writers have produced tons of books on ways to look pretty! “A Secret of Success” is one of the titles I come across today.

I could cite dozens of examples similar to the above, for more examples will provide a better illustration of women’s struggle for the sake of beauty. When they don’t look nice, women avoid appointments, become gloomy, lose their love for life and self-confidence…

An attractive appearance is many women’s number one concern that keeps them under constant pressure and interferes with other important spheres of life such as science, philosophy, and law. When a man ponders over philosophical details of the meaning of «logos», a woman wonders what people see when they look at her face and body.

As if their never-ending search for beauty and charm is the devil’s trap.

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www.jamiebanes.com     jamie@jamiebanes.com

JAMIE BANES

Artist Statement

My attraction to the energy of urban areas inspires a playful, 

excited examination of the frenzied systems around me. 

 Highly active environments such as ports, stations, airfields, 

or sub-street infrastructures feel like childhood experiments 

with Tinkertoys and Lego bricks, 

or voyages into Richard Scarry's seemingly chaotic worlds.  

I’ve been exploring my awareness of these arrangements 

and my position within them, making 

associations with anatomy and physicality, and allowing 

myself the opportunity to revisit a youthful mindset 

that seems more and more fleeting.

For our readers: the poet, filmmaker, and novelist Faracy Grouse, whom we’ve published various times in Synchronized Chaos, is launching the Visual Jazz Film Festival, which will take place in Spain later this summer.  

Here’s how the festival will operate:  

• All films must be conceived, shot and edited between sunrise and sunset on the day of the festival.
• No money can be spent on the production.
• Any music or sound effects used must be original and created within the allotted time.
• All stories must be original.
• No scripted dialogue allowed, however silent and non spoken films are permitted.
• Completed films can be between 30 seconds and 1 hour.
• All films must include some variation of the three items/concepts/words the organizers will announce three minutes before sunrise the day people shoot the films.
• Films will be shown between sunset and sunrise that night, at a yet-to-be-determined venue.
• Films will be shown between sunset and sunrise that night, at a yet-to-be-determined venue.

If this might interest you, please contact Faracy Grouse at alumine3@gmail.com

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Hinchas de Poesia—an online digital codex dedicated to modern Pan-American writing—is now soliciting submissions for its Fall 2010 issue. Hinchas seeks to publish innovative, experimental work of a devastating caliber, regardless of format, medium, or language. Please send us work that you are unsure about, using language that belies the contours of a nameless gloss. Submissions will heretofore be regarded as poetry, fiction, poetry in translation, non-fiction, and photography and painting.

To date, Hinchas de Poesia has generated substantial interest with over 7,500 visitors interacting with our website, at an average of at least 55 visitors per month. Our online issues are released quarterly and Hinchas Press, an imprint dedicated to publishing chapbooks, has seen its roster of releases grow from the initial four titles at the time of our inception to our current stable of seven titles with four more forthcoming, including Compound Memorandum, an illustrated short story of an American reporter that takes a job in Baghdad and misappropriates funds for an Iraqi secretary named after mirages, as well as Odas a Futbolistas, an anthology of soccer poems dedicated to the heroes of the beautiful game.

Our reading period for our fall issue will run from June 15th, 2010 until July 31, 2010. Multiple submissions are permitted but please do inform us if your work has been accepted elsewhere.

To submit electronically email your text as an attachment in .doc or .pdf format to: <hinchasdpoesia(at)gmail.com> (replace (at) with @).To submit images electronically, please follow these requirements: 2400pixels wide (high res) at 72 dpi. To ensure compatibility, please only attach images as .jpegs. Attachments should be no larger than 24 MBs. If you are sending multiple images that exceed this capacity, then please send images separately.