Saturday, August 3, 2013

When ‘Horse Girls’ Become ‘Horse Women’

It was the night of the Exotic Erotic, and I was stuck in traffic in suburban Connecticut with the college equestrian team. The annual Exotic Erotic dance (“the less you wear, the less you pay”), would start in one hour, and there was no way I was going to make it back in time to partake in my new favorite pastime: “pre-gaming.” It was at that moment, drenched in a potent mixture of sweat, manure, and horse snot, that I decided that I wouldn’t be spending the next four years driving around New England; it was time to pair an unflattering bathing suit top with a pair of cut-off Seven jeans and do shots of Popov vodka. It didn’t matter that at the age of 8, peaking around 11, slightly petering out at 15, and then roaring back for college at 18, I had been obsessed with horses for most of my life.

All this came flashing back this year, a decade later, when I was bored one day and biked over to my old barn. I happened to observe a group of thirtysomething ladies taking a lesson together. They looked like they were having a ball. So I decided it was time to get back in the saddle, even though I felt slightly embarrassed. When I heard horse-related murmurings coming from my cubicle-mate Amelia Diamond's desk, it took me a while to venture over there to talk shop. “So, do you ... ride?” I tentatively asked her one day. Actually, she rides twice a week, occasionally thrice, and even competes. And Amelia, despite a phase as a pre-teen during which she watched National Velvet from start to finish every single day after school, also happens to be markedly well-adjusted. Soon, we both started talking about one of summer’s biggest book releases, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, out this week via Riverhead, which is beautifully written, and essentially horse porn for literary-minded equestrians.

Other than the fact that paying for lessons costs as much as a nice dinner for two, I obviously had reservations about getting back into it: There was something a little silly about a grown woman partaking in something associated with pre-pubescent girls. It's kind of like if I had decided to start playing with American Girl dolls or trading Absolut ads again. I would soon realize that riding as an adult is a lot different from riding as a girl. Gone are intolerable horse-moms, snooty mean girls, scary trainers, and all that adolescent angst. Only as a critically thinking woman can I now fully grasp how insane and amazing it is to be able to use your mind and body to seamlessly communicate something to a massive animal which, in turn, allows you both to fly through air. Whereas the relationship between Man and Horse was something I once thought of as “cute” and “fun,” I now think it’s kind of transcendent. Plus, riding gear is chic! A tucked-in white button down paired with a pair of tan riding pants and knee-high, lace-up black boots is just classically elegant. With dirty hair, it can look awesome.

Beyond the uniform, why did I like the hobby so much? That’s what I hoped talking to other women, riding as adults, could help me determine. “As an adult, I'm now more conscious of and can now articulate what it is I like about horses,” Yonahlossee’s author Anton DiSclafani told me the other day. She rode competitively as a teenager up until college, only returning to the sport a year and a half ago. “Riding requires so much mental and physical energy, and when I’m doing it, it’s the only time of the day when I’m not worried about something. It’s better than therapy.”

But though she leases a horse, rides several times a week, and has gotten to the point where she’s not embarrassed to go to the grocery store covered in all manner of equine goo, she says, “I have to be careful; I'm aware of not wanting to come across as that weird lady obsessed with horses.” I too feel the need to keep my horsiness in check, knowing that it could easily spiral into something verging on kooky, in a non-endearing kind of way.

Sarah Maslin Nir, a New York Times reporter who rode competitively as a teen and now rides three times a week, is less concerned with coming across as a weirdo than as a spoiled snob. There's no denying that horseback riding, at least here on the East Coast, is a sport that’s tied up with privilege; little blonde girls with pigtails photographed atop their ponies next to mom’s Jack Russells; Polo Ralph Lauren; Georgina Bloomberg. “I always think that saddest part of the sport is that it is associated with the elite, because at its heart of hearts, it's just being outdoors and being with a beautiful creature.” While it's still not cheap by any means, Nir says that she’s a strong enough rider to be able to “sit on anything,” and makes it work by riding other people's fancy horses. As a grown-up, she says the superficial values that made horseback riding slightly icky back when she was younger mostly seems to have disappeared. Yennie Solheim, another rider who works at Google and has been riding steadily since she was a young girl, adds that as a teen, there was a lot of pressure to have this fancy helmet, and that fancy riding coat. “For me, now, riding is purely a way for me to relax; it's a getaway.”

As young girls, the barn offered the same thing. “I was less interested in boys than my friends were,” DiSclafani says, “and didn't, like, love middle or high school. The barn was a total refuge.” (Like her, and all who rode, really, Christine Quinn writes in her new memoir that horseback riding was “the activity that sustained” her as a teenager).

But the sexy stuff is unavoidable. “This might be an oversimplification, but girls have a lot of sexual energy at that time, and being obsessed with horses was one way to direct that,” DiSclafani adds. Looking back on my early teens, my friends and I definitely used to talk about horses like we talked about boys (whom we were definitely not talking to): Wasn’t Toy just so cute today? Sarah rode Lucky, and it was so clear he didn’t like her! Windy and I just really have such good chemistry. It's no coincidence that Yonahlossee, a bildungsroman set during the Depression about a young girl whose wealthy family sends her away to a horse-centric boarding school, charts her relationship with an older man as she becomes a more competitive horseback rider. “As she becomes more interested in the world of sex, she becomes a better rider, and riding is an even more important part of her life,” DiSclafani says.

These days, the riders I spoke to seemed to be navigating the world of horses and men just fine. Diamond says that most of the guys she encounters don’t seem to have a problem with it. “But there’s always some dude who says something gross. Like, ‘You ride? Have you seen Cruel Intentions 2?'”

Nir recalls a blind date she went on with a guy who was named after a horse, and, shockingly, liked horses just as much as she did. “I thought, wow, it’s the closet thing to dating a horse as it gets. This is great,” until something just felt off. “I love talking about horses with my girlfriends, but talking about horses with him felt like talking about getting my nails done.”

It's true that there is still some sort of girlish glee that riding brings out in me. Diamond put it best when she said “there is something actually delicious” about that first whiff of horse and leather she gets now when she walks into a stable. Even if it comes at the expense of more grown-up activities: “When you get to this age, and you’re still riding, you've weighed your priorities, and your horse comes before your partner,” Nir adds, before clarifying: “But it’s not a sacrifice. I really feel like the luckiest girl in the world.


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Airbus Bag2Go smart luggage wields GPS, RFID to skip airport hassles

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Airbus Bag2Go smart luggage can check itself in, skip baggage claim video

Many of us avoid flying with checked baggage when possible, and for good reason: even a simple delay can sour a whole trip. Airbus' new Bag2Go prototype could save us from having to pack light, however. The smart luggage carries a raft of sensors that work with an iOS app to bypass the usual airport drudgery. Its RFID chip lets travelers check in their bag and link it to every step of their itinerary; in theory, couriers can ship baggage to the hotel at a lower cost than usual. Bag2Go should also provide some reassurance through GPS tracking and alerts to any possible tampering. Airbus is still early into development, but it foresees a business model where customers can either buy a Bag2Go suitcase at a premium or rent one for a long vacation. As for us? We'll just be happy if our luggage avoids an unexpected detour to Belize.

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Apple puts up '7' banner in advance of WWDC, likely confirms new version of iOS (update: OS X too)

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Apple puts up '7' banner in advance of WWDC, likely confirms new version of iOS

Well, we were pretty sure that Apple was going to out a new version of iOS next week, and a banner just went up at the Moscone Center in San Francisco (the venue for WWDC) seems to confirm the rumors. As you can see, it shows only the number '7', which all but confirms that we'll be seeing Jony Ive's first iteration of Apple's mobile OS in just a few days. Tune in to our coverage next week to check the accuracy of our deductive powers and find out what other goodies Apple has in store.

Update: Our friends at 9 to 5 Mac have more pics, including photos of an ad with a big 'X' in front of a wave. That should put to rest any hopes for this being the launch of OS XI.

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Purported Galaxy S 4 Zoom flaunts its profile in multiple leaks

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Purported Galaxy S 4 Zoom flaunts its profile in multiple leaks

Samsung is no stranger to teasing its fans, and with expectations running high that it'll introduce a true cameraphone -- the Galaxy S 4 Zoom -- in London on June 20th, you'll have to forgive us for being more than curious for what's in store. We've already seen a hint of such a device at the FCC, but now it seems that we may be looking at the hybrid phone / camera in all its eyebrow-raising glory. Thanks to SamMobile and TechTastic, we're treated to purported renders and "in the wild" shots of the Galaxy S 4 Zoom, which line up with expectations that it'll be based on the Galaxy S 4 Mini. If this is the real deal, in addition to similar specs, it seems that we can expect a dedicated shutter button on the righthand side, which is situated below a volume rocker that's said to activate the camera's optical zoom lens. On the opposing side of the cameraphone, you'll find a dedicated tripod mount. Could this be an intentional leak in response to a similar outing from Nokia? Only time will tell, but we hope to know for sure in the coming days.

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PayPal mistakenly informs users they've won 500 euros in a comedy of errors

DNP PayPal mistakenly informs users they've won 500 euros in a comedy of errors

Most of us who receive an email stating we're lucky winners of 500 units of cash money from PayPal might brush it off as a phishing scam. But what happens if the email looks legit? And what if PayPal was genuinely running a promotional campaign offering that amount to 10 random people each day, as long as they used the service that week? You'd be forgiven for believing it. That's exactly what happened to some PayPal users in Germany yesterday when they received an official email stating they've won 500 euros. So they rushed to their PayPal accounts only to find... nothing. You see, PayPal did actually send those emails, but it did so accidentally. PayPal Germany offered a mea culpa on its Facebook page, stating that it was "due to a technical error" and winners have not yet been chosen. Oops. Maybe PayPal should consider giving that money away anyway; it could stand to improve its image after all.

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Plex updates Media Server software and highlights PlexConnect Apple TV client hack

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Plex adds multiuser support and more to Media Server, highlights Apple TV client hack

The team behind the Plex media playback package seems to rarely rest, and has most recently pushed an update to the server end of the software. Now up to version 0.9.8 and nearing the lofty 1.0 tag, Plex Media Server is finally offering proper multiuser support, giving each user their own view state. That means your kids can have their own account, for example, with access to only certain silos of content. Even better, the Web, iOS, Android and Roku clients are already prepared for this, and the others are getting updates soon, although it's currently only enabled for PlexPass subscribers. Also new is a "now playing" status which carries more importance thanks to the previously mentioned multiuser feature, all viewable through Plex/Web or accessible via the API. The last major change is that it can create video index file that drops in thumbnails for each section of a video. That enables image previews while navigating on the Roku, and thumbnails of progress in that new now playing feature.

On the client end, the Plex blog highlighted an interesting project called PlexConnect which runs on the Apple TV. While that's not new by itself, the twist here is that it works on Apple TV second and even third generation boxes without the need for a jailbreak. This bit of magic is apparently achieved by spoofing Apple's Trailer app, which means it requires firmware 5.0 or higher to work. It doesn't have all the features of other clients (yet) and it will require a bit of Terminal know-how to get running, but there's plenty of information in the wiki to get you started.

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