It is also the course website for PHI 100.02 Concepts of the Person

Resume: www.linkedin.com/in/cathyhsiao

Cathy lives and learns in Brooklyn and taught philosophy at SUNY SB until she decided to practice what she preached about the relationship between embodied cognition and aesthetic education (also see Heidegger here) and start over as an aspiring designer under the name Kids In Love Collective. 

Kids In Love grew out of a desire to organically marry an avant-garde graphic sensibility with organic craft techniques. It’s rooted in my practice of art and music, commitment to the DIY community, and respect for traditional craft knowledge. You can see more academic work here. 

Brooklyn’s Textile Arts Center is where a lot of my new education comes from. Please support TAC, it’s such a great place and the people are all so talented. I also sometimes write for Tom Tom Magazine, a print publication devoted to lady drummers and play guitar and sing in The Missionaries. You can find me dyeing, guitar playing or baking sweet treats! (My patent-pending ultra rich almond butter chocolate cups below)

Tom Tom Mag is offering free drum lessons for ladies and girls now through the end of August at Greenpoint’s own DanBro Studios.

Shoot an email to tomtomdrumspace@gmail.com to set up an appointment.

How can you say no?!

INTERVIEW with MINDY ABOVITZ of TOM TOM MAGAZINE

“I read that Tom Tom started as a blog, and I was wondering both what inspired you to start it and then how it transitioned into a magazine?

Well, I’m a female drummer, and I’ve been drumming for a really long time and involved in a lot of different groups that empower women to play music, like the Rock Camp For Girls and Vibe SongMakers, and I’ve also had my own personal allegiance to play with women my whole life. I don’t consume any drummer magazines because they don’t speak to me and never have. I was sort of sitting around wondering if there was a magazine for female drummers, and thought that if there wasn’t I wanted to start one.

So, initially the blog was a test to see if anything like this existed. I started the blog with that in mind — “here, I’ll just start approaching drummers I respect and interviewing them and posting it on this blog and seeing what happens.” And with that little experiment I discovered that there was no magazine like it and that we were, indeed, in dire need of something like that. The blog turned into a website and then some benefit shows gave me enough money to put out the first issue. And then it just happened after that. I decided it was a quarterly print magazine and it’s just been growing since then.

And how do you feel about special categories for women making music — is it limiting or liberating or both?

I believe it’s both, but because we’ve been living in a draught — we female drummers and female musicians in lots of specialty fields or whatever…or not specialty fields — we pretty much go unrecognized in the media. So, essentially, while it could potentially be holding us down, initially, it’s not — I believe that it’s really empowering and necessary. I feel like we’re asserting ourselves in the media. I do believe we’ll live in a climate where that’s unnecessary. Until it’s unnecessary, I do believe we need to have these places where we can go to communicate and share and promote each other.

In an ideal world, we would be represented in these current magazines and it wouldn’t be necessary. I would open a drummer magazine and see myself or someone like me and I could relate and I wouldn’t feel the need to have this magazine. But, right now that’s not the case. So, you know, it may appear to be a limiting sort of resource, but for me and a lot of other women and men that I know it’s totally necessary and encouraging and a move in the right direction.

Something that I really love about Tom Tom is that you feature little instructional sections, too, so a drummer will describe a new trick that she has, or how to do this, or how to set your kit up in this way. Probably the last time I banged on a set of drums was like 5 years ago in someone’s basement, but it’s so inspiring to have that kind of invitation. It’s about sharing and not about exclusivity. Also, I was reading about — I was probably reading this in your magazine — how in more earth-based cultures, women were the drummers because they had cycles, and so rhythm was considered their area of expertise.

Yeah, I find that people want to delineate between genders a lot when they’re thinking about this magazine, in particular — people want to say, “Women were born to be drummers,” or “Women are different kinds of drummers.” I actually don’t believe there’s a difference between women and men on the kit, necessarily — I mean, I can name a few physical differences or potentially cultural differences based on socialization. But I honestly don’t believe that, at the core, we are meant or not meant to play the drums. I just think there should be a fair representation of women
drummers.

But often times people feel that way — we have a lot of different voices of people who play drums and people who love drums represented in the magazine. That was one of the articles you were referring to, I think. Someone said women have cycles so women were meant to be drummers. I think we’re meant to be everything, so, it’s like, some of us happen to be drummers.

What’s next on the horizon for Tom Tom?

We have a tour of the Northeast that’s happening. We’re going to SXSW with the Cake Shop and some surprise guests. We are beginning this thing called Tom Tom Magazine Sessions, which is essentially a concert with instruction built in. Every drummer and programmer is going to give a bit of a how-to to what’s she’s doing. An ultimate goal is to be in every newsstand, bookstore and house all over the world. Books. And a lot more instruction in the magazine has been a big request. We also have a huge online presence, and we post new, original content every day.

We’re working on a really fair way to review music. That’s another thing that’s on the horizon for us — something as good as Pitchfork, but gender fair, gender equal. There’s a ton going on — we’re now in all the guest rooms at the Aces in New York, Palm Springs, and Portland, and we’ve got our Issue 5 NYC release party coming up this Saturday in Liberty Hall. And there are some other Ace events in the works.”

MORE interview at the Ace Hotel Blog.

Video from Tom Tom’s WOMEN IN MEDIA WOMEN IN MUSIC PANEL

Come celebrate as Tom Tom and Ace Hotel present:

I’m currently updating the site, thanks for your patience