Seriously? Seriously.

Women in Comedy

2011-08-13T20:35:00.001-04:00

I'm reading New Yorkers in batches, but since we were speaking of women in comedy ... the April 11th New Yorker has a must-read article on Anna Faris, of The House Bunny fame. The article is entitled "Funny Like A Guy." You can kinda access it here, but Faris is appearing in a movie entitled, "What's Your Number," which is apparently about a woman who learns (in Marie Claire) that if she sleeps with more than 20 guys, she'll never get married, so she goes back to each of the guys she has slept with to see if they're The One. We could parse *that* premise, but first, interesting quotes:

The makers of "What's Your Number" were anxious about the number itself. "We thought, Would twenty guys be too many for the audience to relate to her?"

Faris on rejecting certain female rom-com movie roles:

When Pratt [Faris' husband], tidies the house, he often finds discarded scripts with cover notes offering his wife a million dollars--which to Pratt, a regular on the NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation," seems like a lot of money. Faris calls such parts "the girl," or "counce-card roles," after the reflective sheet that softens the light around an actor, because the whole job is to giggle, simper, and coo. She told me, "I feel like I did that in 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' " -- a 2006 film in which her role consisted of allowing Luke Wilson to admire her ass and then turning with melting eyes as he ran off to have sex with Uma Thurman. "I hated being on that movie so much I was glad when it bombed," she said. "These roles are destroying a generation of boys, who think we'll forgive any kind of assholey behavior."

On audience expecations of female characters:

Nicolas Stoller, the director of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," ... says, "There's a misogyny in audiences, a much higher bar of required likeability for women stars. You need to make the actress completely adorable, or else she'll be thought of as the straight man or the bummer ..." To make a woman adorable, one successful female screenwriter says, "you have to defeat her at the beginning. It's a conscious thing I do--abuse and break her, strip her of her dignity, and then she gets to live out our fantasies and have fun. It's as simple as making the girl cry, fifteen minutes into the movie."

F YOUR GENDER BINARY

2011-07-19T19:51:00.001-04:00

Street activism, alive and well.

And there should be free condoms everywhere, not just in the RA's room.

2011-07-19T19:46:00.000-04:00

"The Institute of Medicine report is out earlier than expected, after an embargo was broken. Among other things, it recommends that the federal government consider putting "the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods" on the list of services for women that would be covered by insurers without a copay."

Read more via NPR here.

Brilliant quotes from Tina Fey's Bossypants

2011-07-19T19:43:00.000-04:00

To read about a woman embrace feminism without having to specify what feminism is - that is so wonderful, especially nowadays with all this inter-generational feminist clashing over how to define the term, and how to live it.

Tina Fey on the brilliant Palin/Clinton SNL sketch (press conference cold open):
"You all watched a sketch about feminism and you realize it because of all the jokes. It's like when Jessica Seinfeld puts spinach in kids' brownies. Suckers!"

On being a female comedian with The Second City in the mid-90s:
"In 1995, each cast at The Second City was made up of four men and two women. When it was suggested that they switch one of the companies to three men and three women, the producers and directors had the same panicked reaction. 'You can't do that. There won't be enough parts to go around. There won't be enough for the girls.' This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury. We weren't doing Death of a Salesman. We were making up the show ourselves. How could there not be enough parts?"

Things are starting to get out of hand.

2010-10-04T20:18:00.003-04:00

How can incidents like these happen after 4 young people under the age of 19 committed suicide in a matter of a month or so. Anyone feel like they are becoming more and more alienating Other People in the World? Just stop it!

On the other hand, this is "cute."

"It seems, though, that you're obsessed with this gay, young man."

2010-10-01T00:56:00.001-04:00

That's what she said.

2010-09-18T04:55:00.003-04:00

No, really. This is really what she said.

"And if he already knows what pleases him, and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture?"

And you can read more about it here.

"I think it's important for medical reasons and for ... other reasons."

2010-05-13T12:15:00.000-04:00

Laura Bush on Larry King.

An excuse to type out very long Kristeva quotes

2009-10-26T15:12:00.004-04:00

Maybe I'm sliding into a deep depression, but I've been avoiding the world lately, which is probably why I didn't discover this Slate Freaky Friday switcharoo project, called Freaky Fortnight, where a go-to-work husband and work-at-home wife with two little boys switch places for a month, until last Saturday night. I promptly spent the next hour of my life reading the entire collection of posts documenting their experience. It was addictive.

There are a few things that make this project tidier than it could have been: 1). both husband and wife are writers/editors, which makes the wife doing the husband's job more reasonable than if say, Lucy had tried to do Ricky's (if that wasn't an I Love Lucy episode, it should be). 2). they do have a part-time sitter, which (as I am a part-time sitter), many families in NYC have, but when you have someone available to you who knows the routines of children, it alleviates some of the pressure of figuring that out (i.e., made an easier transition for the dad).

The project, whether its original intention or not, becomes primarily focused on the complicated feelings of privileged mothers or potential mothers (i.e., women) in the States: to work, or to stay at home? How to Mommy the best way for your children? Are you fulfilling the expectations, cultural or biological, of your gender or betraying them?

The conclusion of the project is superficially satisfying: father/husband admits that mother/wife has a more "difficult" (because it can be qualified and compared) job: taking care of the children (and freelancing, at that). Mother/wife admits that she likes going to an office--it gives her a sense of place, ownership, pride in her self away from her identity as mother/wife, and it is easier than being at home, but the rewards reaped being at home with children are worth it. See? Everyone wins.

But what does it solve? The questions about gender roles and expectations and social pressures, frustrating in how they haven't seem to change since the 1960s, are still here. And it feels like women seem even more reluctant to acknowledge and deal with that question. The most interesting point, I think, is when Susan wonders if she would feel more strongly about being in an office if she was raising girls instead of boys, as if a daughter would interpret her actions differently than a son. This seems to be a place where we make major missteps--this expectation for women to shoulder the impetus for change. Michael Agger admits that staying at home makes him feel emasculated, which is a step, but how will he challenge that? If Susan Burton does enjoy being in the office, will she and her husband find her a way back to it? And if they don't take those steps, why? It's a pain in the ass to redistribute domestic and professional responsibilities, not to mention hard to find a job in this economy, and it changes the entire familial relationship.

I started reading Julia Kristeva's Possessions, and it was hard not to think of the Slate project when I encountered her pages about Gloria's redirected devotion to her deaf son. "Devotion is a kind of devouring," Kristeva writes.

In the end the child came to possess Gloria. Her whole world--sex, ambition, personal appeal, professional success, feminine charm, sessions at the gym, riding, visits to the hairdresser, outings, dinner parties, cocktail parties, social contacts of all kinds--virtually everything had gone, disappeared. There was nothing left. But Gloria had hardly noticed. She had no regrets. She was living her life to the full. Posession can take the form of a single love absorbing the entire universe. Absorbing you as well; whether that leaves you in the world or outside it, it makes no difference. When you're possessed you're ruled not by external forces but by inner self-evident necessity.

And then this:

Gloria had no partner for the verbal joustings, literary fireworks, and philosophical flights she'd once hoped to enjoy with the people around her. ... She had to cope with the demands of everyday life. An endless series of details, large and small, to be dealt with: social security, school, ailments, doctors, taxes, parking, gasoline, breakdowns, plumbing, electricity, accountants, mailmen, checkbooks, telephone, bakery, butcher shop, dry cleaner's, stationer's, more schools, more doctors, more things to be repaired in the house, a spot of gym, a drop of perfume, a game of tennis, fitness classes, a translation, two translations, three translations, a publisher, two publishers, three publishers, a lunch, two cocktail parties, three dinner parties, train or plane tickets, two one-ways, three round-trips, are you sure, yes, we're sure, please do your best, I am, let's go, we're off. Agencies of all kinds: travel agencies, rental agencies, agencies for hiring staff, for finding real estate, for moving your furniture into it. Buying, maintaining, escorting, earning, spending, coping. Deadly dull? Not really, Gloria had attained the numb efficiency of matter moving at supersonic speed. Once past Mach 2.9, motion is subject to more and more incidents, but there's no surface resistance by which to measure the stress. It was as simple as that: she carried out her tasks with the ease of a robot operating beyond the sound barrier. For in fact it wasn't "she" anymore. But if not, who was it? Didn't such interstellar anonymity conceal disturbance, alienation, even madness? But by some miracle Gloria managed to quell any demons that may have inhabited her, without ever letting them emerge into the light of day.

This is the female gendered burden: to bear children or to not bear children. To fulfill purpose? To remain empty? And then after, who to become? It's admirable that the Slate Freaky Fortnight team switched roles for a month--the fact that they would do it, is a good sign. But there's got to be more than this reality. And how to work or write our way out of that? This is what I'm trying to figure out.

I only moderately believe this.

2009-09-05T08:09:00.004-04:00

The New York Times online conducted a poll on what people read on the subway. I take the subway. Quite often. At all sorts of hours during the day. I've taken the subway quite often for four years now. And I can say that I have seen maybe 3 people reading Harper's - plus one cuteliterarilyhipster boy reading it on the bus from Newark to Port Authority. I have seen several people reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and some people reading The Time Traveler's Wife, but The Infinite Jest? Dude. If you have enough wherewithal/room in your bag to carry that book around with you, then you need to follow me around and carry my change of shoes or something. And I'm not sure you're a real NY-er.

On the other hand, I've seen people reading all of the newspapers listed ...

Chinese people like to do weird things.

2009-02-09T18:23:00.003-05:00

Western-centrism, so hot right now. That first sentence made me retch. Though after reading through the article, maybe it was written by someone whose first language is not English. But I can't believe Time's editors would publish that!

Looking back at the Bush presidency ...

2009-01-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

By looking forward.

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Girls are eeeevil ...

2009-01-11T11:16:00.001-05:00

Unless they bring God to you:

In high school, he met a pretty blond pastor’s daughter named — providentially — Grace. She gave him his first Bible. He read voraciously and was born again at 19.

When life imitates reality TV ...

2009-01-08T13:35:00.002-05:00

Because anyone can be famous!!!
And imperialism lives! Like, through pop culture, or whatever. Reality TV hit Pakistan, and proves to be fascinating.

I need this immediately

2008-11-24T00:23:00.002-05:00

I want to read this book right now. Don't know how you feel about intellectual porn, but I am mentally salivating over the language possibilities in the book. Plus, I have a crush on its subtitle.

Language-gasm

2008-11-08T08:22:00.002-05:00

I want this book soooooo badly. Well, I don't have to have it, but I want to read it, so I want NYPL to get it right now. Immediately.

Here's a wonderful review of it by Dan Chiasson in the New Yorker:

"Bad childhoods are a human misfortune, but for writers they are often a stroke of luck."

The Morning After

2008-11-05T07:07:00.004-05:00

This cartoon made me LOL.

An interesting article on new stats of how we (the country) break down on marriage, divorce, teen sex, and teen pregnancy.

Some advice if you have post-partum (um, electoral?) depression.

Just a personal statement: thanks to this election, there are a few words that I am going need a few months to recover from hearing way too often. For example, "maverick." Or "my friends" (this one I may never be able to hear again). We can also add "historic" onto that list. Aren't all presidential elections "historic"? Or maybe the problem is that we don't see all presidential elections as historic.

And in other news, like, outside of our crazy country. Taiwan and China signed HISTORIC accords, continuing Taiwan's trend towards more pro-China relations. Perhaps you don't care/know all that much about a small little island south of Japan (it's true - most people seem to think that I mean "Thailand" when I say "Taiwan"). Truthfully, I don't know enough about the intricate politics (of policy and identity) in order to make a judgment on which side I stand. But more interestingly, please compare this article from the NYTimes and this article from Radio France International. Both of which are still very pro-China, but RFI mentions protests in the headline, and significantly includes a photo of a protester and policeman clashing, whereas the Times article, which is twice as long, buries protests deep into the article (the second to last paragraph, right before the pandas). And this is our beacon of liberal media.

I can do anything ... I was in a boy band, okay?

2008-11-04T08:37:00.001-05:00

Obligatory Nov. 4th VOTE post.

I'm worried

2008-11-02T14:25:00.000-05:00

... that nothing has changed in 8 years.

Just lovely.

2008-10-14T17:45:00.002-04:00

Even if you don't love Jean Paul Gaultier, or France, this is just a wonderful paragraph.

“The first time I went there, I chose one beautiful mushroom — a girolle, with garlic,” he said. “Olympe brought it out in a pan, with eggs broken on it, like in the countryside. Fabulous. The next day I went with friends and said, ‘I would like to have four girolles like yesterday,’ and she said, ‘Non.’ She said, ‘I went to the market today and the girolles were not beautiful, so I did not take them.’ I loved that.”

New York Cheat Sheets

2008-10-14T08:55:00.000-04:00

I love this! I want to do this for myself.

I love my Hello Kitty rice cooker.

2008-10-01T13:21:00.002-04:00

I've never understood why Americans cook rice on a stove ...

The unwanted crust left stuck to the bottom of the rice cooker is called okoge — the same word used as slang for a single woman who spends a lot of time with gay men

Blowing up the Beehive

2008-09-13T15:40:00.004-04:00

This article makes me want to vomit. Does anyone remember six months ago, when Hilary Clinton was being slaughtered by conservatives for crying and playing the "woman" card? Or all the lovely time we spent thinking about Hilary's cleavage? But we're supposed to read an article glowing about Sarah Palin's f'in beehive hairstyle (in the incredibly LIBERAL New York Times) and think: well golly, since she used to be a beauty queen and she is just so "normal" looking and has an "approachable" resume, that's totally fine.

I'm disgusted that we continue to be more concerned over the appearance of our female politicians than the content of their beliefs/voting records/brains. And I'm disgusted that the Republicans are not losing any support even though they affirmative-actioned their VP pick, and now they're patronizing women everywhere by the way Sarah Palin is presenting herself. And I am disgusted at the double standard in the media representation of Hilary (the de-feminizing/demonizing) versus their representation of Palin.

ARGH. And just riffing off the "approachable" thing ... this is totally what it's about. Sarah Palin is that approachable girl at the bar. She's cute, but not gorgeous; she's got glasses, so she knows how to read, but she's got a beehive and drink in her hand, so she cares about her appearance and is not a scary Ph.D. candidate who reads too much and "smart". And that drink in her hand? Well, it's a good American beer (so, not Bud), not any sort of fancy cocktail drink. Hello, George W, part deux! Oh, I'm sorry. That's two, in American.

I don't understand - she's underqualified - there can be absolutely no debating that. The Republicans' attempts to do so are embarrassing (Alaska is the closest point to Russia so she has international relations experience? Seriously? There are hockey players who have spent more time in the last year outside of the U.S. than she has! Why can't we nominate the entire Buffalo Sabres team for presidency? Isn't Buffalo IN Canada anyway? Talk about foreign experience!). And she's NOT harmless. She has the potential to do serious damage to many of our already dwindling civil rights - I think I wake up every morning to a dark scary cloud over my head in the shape of the Supreme Court.

I read somewhere (thought it was on Slate, but I can't find the article) that Sarah Palin being "just like us" is the whole point of why *not* to support her current bid for VP. How many people really think that their next door neighbors (or themselves, for that matter) are capable of running a country? And how many really want their next door neighbor to be running the entire country? This isn't Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, where you think, wow, if she can get the rich businessman to fall for her by just being her refreshingly down-home, prostitute self, then maybe I can too! It's not a damn reality tv show!

What's that word ... rhymes with "voice"?

2008-09-05T19:18:00.002-04:00

Seriously, you all need to watch Daily Show and Colbert Report ... it just gets better and better as the days (and election) pass.

Further in memorium

2008-08-20T17:40:00.000-04:00

Reading about reading makes me happy.

Of Blurb Whores and the Bloggerati

2008-08-16T12:46:00.001-04:00

This essay is long overdue.

Worry Wart

2008-07-29T00:48:00.003-04:00

What does it mean if reading this article only added to my worries? Actually, the reality is: about 1/2 of the things he lists are not that huge of worries, and not justified in a manner that is much consolation for the worrying.

Shanghai me.

2008-07-22T13:53:00.004-04:00

Thanks, New Yorker, for appealing to my American capitalist and consumerist desire to have everything, as well as my Asian necessity to find great deals and awesome marketplaces to bargain my way to shiny objects and one-of-a-kind clothing. $20 for a tailor-made dress? Shanghai, I'm coming.

South Dakota

2008-07-05T13:55:00.001-04:00

I'm too exhausted to comment on this reality ...

Amazing--language and Ojibwe

2008-07-02T03:17:00.002-04:00

On sustaining endangered languages.

listen to this

Mind your p's and q's

2008-06-30T10:44:00.003-04:00

I enjoy columns on social manners because people have questions like this ... and not because I have problems like this.

Subway Crush
Is it socially acceptable to approach someone on the subway with the intent of procuring his phone number to arrange a date? I’ve been harboring a crush on a fellow commuter for the last six months and don’t know how to handle it.
Brooke S., Boston

Find out the proper way to handle commuter crushing here.

God is dead, etc.

2008-06-28T03:31:00.002-04:00

This is an interesting review by James Woods from the New Yorker. I especially liked the last paragraph, which seemed to nicely summarize first semester's secularization seminar:

“Come quickly, Lord” is the great refrain of both the Old Testament and the New. But the problem for Jews is that the Messiah never came, and everything stayed the same (or got worse), while the problem for Christians is that the Messiah did come, and everything stayed the same (or got worse). Jews and Christians are dependent, in different ways, on an always deferred Second Coming. Heaven—because it comes next and is not now—is, as so often in religious thought, a solution that merely creates another problem. If God supposedly wipes away all tears from our faces in Heaven, why does he not do it now? Why does God not now establish paradise on earth, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe he will do? And what is the purpose of these eighty or so years we spend on earth not having the tears wiped from our faces?

Read it here.

On Obama

2008-06-08T18:51:00.002-04:00

"Look, I'll be honest: he's an empty vessel. I'm putting in him a certain hope about what he'll be like."

That's all I need those Obama-maniacs to recognize! Thanks, M, for sending this.

New German Fiction

2008-06-06T10:35:00.001-04:00

Can't wait to read this...wish I didn't have to wait for the translation of a "Racy Novel of Sex and Hygiene". Review here.

And then the Dutch got really really tall...

2008-06-04T21:04:00.001-04:00

"The Netherlands, as any European can tell you, has become a land of giants. In a century’s time, the Dutch have gone from being among the smallest people in Europe to the largest in the world. The men now average six feet one—seven inches taller than in van Gogh’s day—and the women five feet eight. The national organization of tall people, Klub Lange Mensen, has considerable lobbying power. From Rotterdam to Eindhoven, ceilings have had to be lifted, furniture redesigned, lintels raised to keep foreheads from smacking them. Many hotels now offer twenty-centimetre bed extensions, and ambulances on occasion must keep their back doors open, to allow for patients’ legs. “We will not go through the ceiling,” the pediatrician Hans van Wieringen assured me, after summarizing national height surveys that he had coördinated. 'But it is possible that we will grow another ten centimetres."

Buffalo makes the travel section...

2008-05-23T11:41:00.001-04:00

or rather, East Aurora does. But who can afford to be that specific?

When JJ and I went to E. Aurora in search of antiques, all we found was an ice cream cone (or custard, as they make here).

This almost makes Buffalo look fun.

Haiti on the Death Plan

2008-05-22T12:51:00.002-04:00

from The Nation, here.

It's not a bad article, but they could have included more of the historical factors that led to the current food crisis (perhaps more on U.S. policies, which are/were atrocious, more on corrupt leadership, especially including Aristide more, deforestation of land for fuel, resulting in poor soil, diseases that wiped out indigenous animals, importing non-native species, etc.)

Cool:

2008-05-17T13:07:00.002-04:00

"Three people are employed full time as grinders, just to keep knives sharpened - the near-solid blubber can dull a keen blade in minutes."

On becoming a philosophy major, and what your mother wants

2008-04-07T20:17:00.003-04:00

"She wanted me to be a pharmacy major, but I persuaded her..."

Pharmacy major. Sounds familiar.

Philosophy majors are up in American colleges. And this is the number-one emailed article on the nytimes website.

Some nice (read: laughable) lines:

"For those who cannot get enough of their Descartes in class, there is the Wednesday night philosophy club, where, last week, 11 students debated the metaphysics behind the movie “The Matrix” for more than an hour."

Descartes? Maybe my Continental-flavored undergrad institution shaped me...but Descartes was for first year 'Perspectives' classes and French courses. Heidegger and Husserl were for Philo. (Don't misunderstand me. I like Descartes, via Foucault and Derrida.)

My prediction: Classics majors will begin to increase, as Classics majors are good recruits for empire-building and war-making. Lucrative in the current climate. The seeds evidenced:

"Once scoffed at as a luxury major, philosophy is being embraced at Rutgers and other universities by a new generation of college students who are drawing modern-day lessons from the age-old discipline as they try to make sense of their world, from the morality of the war in Iraq to the latest political scandal. The economic downturn has done little, if anything, to dampen this enthusiasm among students, who say that what they learn in class can translate into practical skills and careers. On many campuses, debate over modern issues like war and technology is emphasized over the study of classic ancient texts."

Philo = Good for your future (ahem, LSATS):

"Some, like Ms. Onejeme, the pre-med-student-turned-philosopher, who is double majoring in political science, see it as a pre-law track because it emphasizes the verbal and logic skills prized by law schools — something the Rutgers department encourages by pointing out that their majors score high on the LSAT."

Philo = Good for your future bed (ahem, heteronormative breeding and 'home-making'):

Jenna Schaal-O’Connor, a 20-year-old sophomore who is majoring in cognitive science and linguistics, said philosophy had other perks. She said she found many male philosophy majors interesting and sensitive.

“That whole deep existential torment,” she said. “It’s good for getting girlfriends.”

"she has formed a nonprofit to support the many other women with similar stories"

2008-04-05T22:14:00.003-04:00

From The Nation, "Another KBR Rape Case":

Jamie Leigh Jones, whose story made the news in December--when she alleged that her 2005 gang rape by Halliburton/KBR co-workers in Iraq was being covered up by the company and the US government--also initially believed hers was an isolated incident. But today, Jones reports that she has formed a nonprofit to support the many other women with similar stories. Currently, she has forty US contractor employees in her database who have contacted her alleging a variety of sexual assault or sexual harassment incidents--and claim that Halliburton, KBR and SEII have either failed to help them or outright obstructed them.

and

Over the next month and a half, she says, she faced a series of hurdles. She would be discouraged from reporting the incident by several KBR employees, she says. She would be confused by the lack of any written medical protocol for sexual assault (as the only medical person on site, she treated herself with doxycycline).

On judging

2008-03-30T12:14:00.002-04:00

... which I'm totally all about. This applies to music, clothes, favorite cities, food, and anything, generally.

"I'm dead chuffed."

2008-03-22T20:54:00.002-04:00

Blogger wins Japanese literary prize. Click here for more on the language-of-the-blog-is-Japanese, and writing novels on your mobile.

Ms Kawakami, a Björk-loving 31-year-old, began blogging five years ago and her style quickly won admirers with, at one stage, 200,000 hits a day. The book has sold 110,000 copies, and there are plans for a movie. True to her origins, Ms Kawakami has little time for stuffy literary language. When she won the Akutagawa Prize, she said in her regional dialect, "Mesanko, ureshii": "I'm dead chuffed."

Hearting Holgas

2008-03-19T19:27:00.002-04:00

Though I'm not sure what Jack White has to do with it. Here.

The Numbers and New Sins, or, 1,007 Americans can't be wrong...

2008-03-10T17:07:00.002-04:00

New Sins: there are 7, in accordance with the evils of globalization. Did Satan create globalization to test us mere mortals? Well, if "fossils are God's test to us" as one professor at St. Anselm College claims:

1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control

2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

Don't numbers 5 through 7 basically say the same thing? More here.

Another new sin re: the oldest profession: Governor Spitzer. Bravo! I'm unsure about how I feel about these numbers, basically, the fact that a half hour with one of Eliot's prostitutes = the amount of my annual raise from Gov. Spitzer. All this suggests there are easier ways to make a dollar. How long will we have to listen to the 'irony' of the fact that, ohmygod, Spitzer cracked down on prostitutes in New York, and paid them in D.C. Yawn.

1,007 Americans can't be wrong: Pakistan is not the 'favorite' country of Americans. 72% of those polled said they see it 'unfavorably.' Canada was seen as the best, followed by Britain. The 'Palestinian Authority' was viewed unfavorably...which leads me to ask, Is the Palestinian Authority a country? A nation? The Gallup poll seems to think so. More here from Dawn News.

Badiou on Walls

2008-03-09T12:07:00.001-04:00

"The fall of the Berlin Wall was supposed to signal the advent of the single world of freedom and democracy. Twenty years later, it is clear that the world’s wall has simply shifted: instead of separating East and West it now divides the rich capitalist North from the poor and devastated South. New walls are being constructed all over the world: between Palestinians and Israelis, between Mexico and the United States, between Africa and the Spanish enclaves, between the pleasures of wealth and the desires of the poor, whether they be peasants in villages or urban dwellers in favelas, banlieues, estates, hostels, squats and shantytowns. The price of the supposedly unified world of capital is the brutal division of human existence into regions separated by police dogs, bureaucratic controls, naval patrols, barbed wire and expulsions. The ‘problem of immigration’ is, in reality, the fact that the conditions faced by workers from other countries provide living proof that—in human terms—the ‘unified world’ of globalization is a sham."

The rest in the NLR.

Aitzaz Ahsan's Black Flag Week

2008-03-08T15:25:00.002-05:00

Check it out here.

"It's Over, Ralph" (Again?)

2008-02-24T17:51:00.003-05:00

Way back in 2004, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a snarky piece on Nader in the Times, telling him to drop out of the race. I still had a soft spot for Nader in 2004. He was the person I voted for in the 2000 election, my first time voting :) I had my button from Brookline Booksmith: Bush + Gore = Bore. Oh, youth, etc.

This time? Is Nader still relevant? I'm not sure. But since progressive Democrat seems to be an oxymoron, perhaps Nader could be useful? I'm not sure I'm convinced. Here's Ehrenreich's piece. Notice the line at the bottom: Friedman away to write a book. I'm assuming that was his not-earth-shattering flat-worlder treatise. What's worse: reading Friedman, or having him on break (and not reading him) only to then be assaulted by the predictable media storm around his next under-whelming, "I swear I'm not a neo-con" book? And on another note, it's nice that the Times finally wised up and re-opened the archives.

I want to play too: the Chicago poetry debates.

2008-02-24T11:10:00.009-05:00

Some exciting conversation is happening within the women's poetry community in the States! I am delayed in officially responding, but better late than never. The context of this post are the articles of Jennifer Ashton, which I can't seem to find a link to anymore, and Juliana Spahr & Stephanie Young, found here. Ashton responded to the response and so did Joshua Kotin and Robert P. Baird, both of which you can find here and neither of which I have read yet. There's also a whole blog-worth of responses , and I'm sure much more beyond that. As an advance warning: this post is LONG.

First, a confession: I have not read (and likely will not be able to read) all of the comments, thoughts, responses to the original debate and articles I am writing about. Part of the reason for that is due to the volume of the responses; I wonder that I would be able to write my own comments if I spent all my time reading others’. Also because I know that responses to the Ashton/Spahr&Young essays can go in so many different directions, I fear that I will become caught up in responded to the responses. Which is not my current intention. My [gendered] pre-apology, then, is if I seem to repeat arguments and/or thoughts that have already been sent out into the universe and thus are not advancing the conversation. Additionally, I admit that I am not good at being a “member” of “communities” – scare quotations not because I find that role distasteful, but because, on the one hand, my work necessarily deems me a member of a community, but on the other, I tend not to flesh myself out within particular communities, choosing to float between many. Thus, while the intellectual and emotional pursuit of poetry is not severable from my being (as a noun and a verb), the energy I invest is in the writing and reading of texts and I do not invest nearly enough energy in creating, maintaining, and contributing to a poetry community in its physical, people-form. Because of this, I remain embarrassingly ignorant and/or shallow in knowledge of poetic resources, and will write this from an inside-but-outside point of view. Also, I’ve been reading a lot of Cixous, so excuse me as I only quote her—you can accuse me of being lazy, and I won’t argue, but I will say there is value in using the writing of a non-American, Western feminist from the 1980s for the sake of context. That being said, here I go.

There does exist disconnect between Ashton’s original essay and the Spahr/Young response. For this reason, I’m going to respond more to the two separate essays, less to their conversation. Though I will say that one of the points made by Spahr/Young on which I agree is the lack of the discussion on feminism in Ashton's original essay - and in my very quick glance over Ashton's response essay, I think I caught her saying that her intention was not to discuss feminism. Fine, that's fair, but it's dangerous to title an essay "Our Bodies, Our Poems" (an explicit illusion to the feminist text Our Bodies, Our Selves (and this time I KNOW I am reading the correct allusion into the title. =P)) and not foresee readers' expectations of a prominent, or at least significant, role of feminism (theory of, current status of, effects of, etc. - not that the essay has to be a feminist essay) within the essay.

Because I read the Spahr/Young Chicago Review essay before Ashton’s original paper, I went into the reading of Ashton with an expectation of what the essay would contain. This was discombobulating – Ashton was much narrower in scope than Spahr/Young. Though I, too, was unconvinced by Ashton’s arguments on number equality—partially because I knew, if only instinctively, gender parity exists and partially because there is a concerning lack of hard evidence cited in the paper—the focus of the paper is not on the numbers, but that the recent influx of women’s anthologies imposes the “exceptionalist discourse” (2 posts in a row!!!) that women poets (or at least their anthologizing editors) claim they are working against. This argument is, of course, not all that original and not necessarily incorrect. What Ashton added to the argument was tying female TEXT (by her definition, poetry’s form, structure, and to a lesser degree language) to the female BODY—the physicality of poetry to the physicality of the poet. She believes that the evolution of reading women poets’ (and other artists – she threw in Joan Mitchell, for what I’m not quite sure; perhaps to give a true concrete example) work, specifically the “avant garde/experimental” (I’m not even going to try to define those two terms) work, as a physical reflection of (or, perhaps more aptly according to Ashton, “predetermined by”) women’s body or bodily experience denies female poets the agency to make an intellectual/political decision on a poem’s physicality. This is Ashton’s argument that the poetic community is trending back towards female “essentialism” despite the contradictory claims against it and desires to transcend it.

I personally don’t find arguments on essentialism that interesting. To me, not what I would consider productive. I can’t speak outside of my experience. I acknowledge that I “can’t just get rid of femininity,” but I can’t make another female writer agree with me (Cixous). What I do find interesting is the implied division of body/essentialism from intellectual/political and the omission of language informing/intellectualizing body, as in language creating one’s (specifically female) body within a masculine language and tradition. I don’t I see the same clear delineation between physical representation and creation (text and body) and identity/self representation and creation (words and self). I don’t see a one-way exchange of information: it’s not body --> poem. It’s a circular body-poem; poem-body. And I don’t believe this is applicable only to women poets/writers. The lack of bodily awareness is a privilege and there are many ways in which privilege manifests—whether is gender (male over non-male), class/world (“first” over “third”), location (think: a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – to be Hank Morgan at first arrival!), sexual orientation (hetero over non-hetero). The body is how they who lack privilege know themselves—against other bodies:

“I don’t ‘begin’ by ‘writing’: I don’t write. Life becomes text starting out from my body. I am already text. History, love, violence, time, work, desire inscribe it in my body, I go where the ‘fundamental language’ is spoken, the body language into which all the tongues of things, acts, and beings translate themselves, in my own breast, the whole of reality worked upon in my flesh, intercepted by my nerves, by my senses, by the labor of all my cells, projected, analyzed, recomposed into a book” (Cixous).

The self/body writes, but writing, “a gestation of self,” is a means to create self/body (Cixous).

It also seems dangerous to me to link/limit innovation to “avant garde/experimental” poetry (which I'm not accusing only Ashton of doing - it's just my personal observation). Women writers write and exist in a language that isn’t theirs. Cixous on the inherent masculinity of language: “I said ‘write French.’ One writes in. Penetration. Door. Knock before entering. Strictly forbidden.” This statement extends beyond women writers, of course also applicable to those who fall within the marginalities or the intersections of marginalities of society. “Everything in me joined forces to forbid me to write: history, my story, my origin, my sex. Everything that constituted my social and cultural self. To begin with the necessary, which I lacked, the material that writing is formed of and extracted from: language.” (Cixous). It could be that women will only be able to accurately represent themselves through language by scrapping existing language and start all over. Not practical if possible at all. So as women writers, we necessarily look for ways to form poems/selves within the foreign language available to us—whether it is to strip away meaning and history of words or to build on meaning and history of words. This, to me, is where innovation lies. Not merely in visible structure/form or in the content (if content can be judged without form, and vice versa), but where the two inform each other. For example, how Plath uses sound and repetition to express her claustrophobia, how Loy’s pulsing rhythms enhance and reflect her reverberating images, how Teresa Hak Kyung Cha sets the English and French versions of stanzas against each other so a reader is assaulted by language and uncertain which is a translation of which.

I suppose I am making no arguments for or against Ashton’s position, no thoughts on essentialism, avoidable or not. This was a quick-response, so if there exists holes in my arguments or things you’d like me to think more about, please let me know. As almost everyone believes, I think this is a conversation that is absolutely necessary, not just because it seems to have touched a nerve in the community, but also within the larger context of the national (the way gender and race is being played/played out in the Democratic candidacy race, as a most obvious mark) and international (what do our “Western” identifiers mean within a globalized community and what are their effects), so I welcome the discussion and the opportunity for discussion.

This was very long and I didn't even talk about Spahr&Young's response. That will have to wait for another post. I can already feel your antipication rocking through the computer screen.

The Library

2008-02-21T19:52:00.002-05:00

Two things from The Library:

1. 'Book of the Month' (per The Library) is Mohsin Hamid's 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist.' So I checked out the only copy, and plan on reading it this weekend. I've heard mixed reviews from friends. Here is how the home page of The Library's website describes the book:

"The focus of this short novel is a conversation between a bearded Pakistani man and an American man he has just met, which takes place during the course of one evening in a Lahore café."

And granted, I have not read the book, so perhaps the fact that the Pakistani man is bearded plays a large role...buuuuuuuuttt...is that like saying "female doctor" as an exceptionalist discourse?

Or is it code for terrorist? Muslim? Islamo-fascist? <--quite the term.

And how many people know Lahore is in Pakistan? The beard is crucial but locating Lahore is less so? I'm just asking.

I have a hard time picturing/reading a book blurb that reads:

"The focus of this quaint novella is between a Pakistani man and a bearded Alabaman he has just met, which takes place during the course of one meal in a diner in Gorham, Maine." It's cold in Maine. People grow beards.

2. Art in America astonishes, twice; once in a good way (language encore).

a. "The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum recently joined legal forces to stave off Nazi loot claims on two prized Picassos, one belonging to each museum."

'stave off Nazi loot claims'? Now apparently, the man looking to 'question' ownership apparently lacks the proper 'evidence', but 'stave off Nazi loot claims' almost makes it sound like it's a nuisance to the museums that this man is looking to re-claim what he thinks was taken from his family by the Nazis. I find the language here irresponsible.

b. Geoffrey Batchen makes some great points about the singular 'view' that many museum shows display, in his review of the Met show "Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860". Here's a long-ish clip (the last two paragraphs of the review):

"In these various ways, art museums like the Met and the National Gallery impose an overarching interpretation on their exhibitions, despite their notorious aversion to didactic display. Beholden to a masterpiece-driven form of narrative long since discredited in the academy, their photographic exhibitions consistently suppress signs of social struggle (such as the class tensions accompanying the commercialization of photography) or the economies of photographic practice, seeking to foster the illusion that art transcends such brute realities. There is no doubt that it is difficult to make these kinds of tensions visible in an exhibition, although the addition of cartoons, documents, letters and other supplementary material of the sort routinely referred to in the catalogue would certainly help viewers understand more of what is at stake in the pictures they see. But this would require a different kind of attitude to both curating and history, a shift from the current emphasis on purity of medium and great single prints to an engagement with the actual complexity of photography's role in the formation of modern life.

Without this engagement, we are left with a deeply conservative attitude toward both past and present, one that denies viewers the possibility of an informed engagement with their own cultural history. Given that resource-rich institutions like the Met are where major historical exhibitions of photography are most often found, they have a disproportionate influence on our understanding of this history. Unable to see beyond the art museums' original moralizing function, they imagine that our exposure to nothing but the best will ultimately make us better, meaning more compliant, subjects. 'Impressed by Light' offers a condensation of the sensibilities of the British ruling class of the 1850s, in a display mode designed to affirm and promote the values and interest of the American ruling class of today. Thoughtful viewers, however, will see this as no more than the exhibition's initial, latent image, and will seek to develop a much sharper picture of the calotype and its history than is here allowed to impress the eye." (Art in America, February 2008 issue)

death of magazine = screen left wanting and Bare Life 'charred'

2008-02-21T19:45:00.010-05:00

NPR reports that 'No Depression' magazine is no longer. I had the curious experience of hearing about it for the first time today, with news of its no-longerness. It's a music magazine and sounds like something I would have liked. Reverse nostalgia. Quick-like.

However, what really interests me is the way one of the founders spoke about the death of magazines like his, and how the web just doesn't cut it as a substitute. The interviewer assumes that they'll continue their presence on the web, and suggests that the web may even be a 'better' place for them, with more access to a wide readership. Founder replies:

The problem I have with the web is that it doesn't seem like a good home for a 10,000 word story on Little Miss Corn-Shucks. And I don't know where that story gets told, if magazines like ours can't survive... . I don't think the reading experience works. The data that I've seen says that people won't turn the metaphorical page and go to page 2 on articles on the web. And those aren't long by our standard; those are 2,000 word pieces, 1,500 word pieces. I don't think the medium is receptive to long pieces of complicated prose.

Homo Saccer, ahem, 'charred':

I had claimed that if I heard the words 'Agamben' and 'bare life' one more time this week...I would go torch something. And then I heard about the U.S. embassy in Belgrade. Fear not, Americans! The "one charred body" found, was always already *not* American. 'We' don't know 'what' it is, just that it's not American.

Which begs the question: if this body were writ-national, would it be described as charred? And if so, would we see pictures of it, or would it be wrapped in the invisible shrouds (which are shrouds of invisibility) reserved for U.S. soldiers?

Being described as "charred" and yet "not-American", described burned and cooked and then unwritten, must be 'bare life' indeed. Another moment of 'reporting' that posits itself nationally and uncritically.

Translating Publishing in Transit/lation

2008-02-16T17:25:00.002-05:00

Or, perhaps the difference between a 'smart' cover and a 'clever' one...

Lawrence Venuti on The Business of Translation

and a follow-up to his original essay here

NPR joins the Atlantic man-settling debate...

2008-02-13T22:41:00.003-05:00

and honestly, it's just not that interesting

The best part is, the NPR blog beseeches you to read the whole Atlantic article (something I had troubling staving off a generalized ADD in order to do) because, ahem, "her article isn't simplistic." Uh, ok. I guess. If by not "simplistic" they mean 'poorly written' or perhaps 'highly boring and curiously maddening at the same time' well, then "not simplistic" is accurate.

Propo-man-da.

2008-02-11T12:44:00.001-05:00

Or something cleverer than that.

Call: from The Atlantic.

And response: from Salon.

Awesome

2008-02-04T16:06:00.000-05:00

If you can't avoid heartache, languish. With paid time off.

Round-eyed and Undeveloped.

2008-01-21T12:51:00.000-05:00

And I'm not talking about a twelve-year-old girl in sex ed.

So I'm reading David Kamp's United States of Arugula because I like food and I like history. And it's definitely an interesting read. While I might have found the asterick-ing (footnoting) sometimes fell on the gossip and unnecessary as well as random (there's no clear delineation and/or consistency as to why some tidbits of information were found worthy of inclusion in main text and others were relegated to the bottom of the page), I rolled with it. If I were writing a research book on "American" culinary history, I wouldn't use Kamp as a source, but for a light dip into the pool, it works. Generally, it was enjoyable, though at times meandering and excessive, I get the whole "there's such great material at my fingertips I have to include all of it" mentality.

What I don't get are these two moments, which were found within 6 pages of each other:

"[Mark] Miller's timing was good, for in the mid-eighties, America's palate was growing more accustomed to the flavors of such cultures. Twenty years earlier, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1965, which abolished the discriminatory national-origins quota system that had favored white Western European immigrants over brown ones from undeveloped countries." (309).

A few interesting things, one of which is these sentences are within the context of the "Mexican food movement." I would think it would be safe to assume that the "brown" immigrants Kamp is alluding to are Mexican immigrants, but of course there's a whole Asia, Middle Eastern, and I suppose Latin America of brown out there. I was also curious about the "undeveloped countries" statement - undeveloped in what sense? It seems (or should be) significant that the word choice wasn't "underdeveloped" or even on the "First/ Second/ Third World" tiering system. Was Mexico really "undeveloped" in 1985, or even 1965? But I guess I appreciate acknowledging (despite the weird othering and the severing of non-Western-European food(cultural) history from American history, like America didn't feel the influences outside of Western-Europe until the 1980s) the context of social (international) consciousness of the "American" palate. I couldn't really figure out the tone, either, which also led to my confusion. Is it condemnation of our xenophobia? Is it congratulatory for our openness? Is it mocking of those that would categorize Mexicans as "brown [immigrants] from [an] undeveloped countr[y]?"

If that wasn't strange enough to read, then there was this:

"Tokyo Kaikan also claimed to be where the inside-out roll was invented, to placate round-eye customers who didn't like the texture of the seaweed wrap, but Imaizumi, a purist, doesn't make them in his current Little Tokyo restaurant, Sushi Imai" (316; parentheses removed).

My immediate reaction: Whaaaaaat? Did he seriously write that? And did his editor seriously leave it in?

Is it possible that he used "round-eye" to indicate "non-Japanese?" Is "round-eye" even a term? If so, it the sentence not only trades on a racial slur, but also builds on top of the assumption that that particular racial slur is available to everyone who reads the book. If a reader doesn't know "slant-eyed" as an equivalent name for Asians, s/he would have no idea who Kamp meant - it's not just racist, it's bad journalism. And what a way to categorize! I'm utterly confused. I welcome help to unpack that sentence - maybe I'm reading it wrong. But from where I stand, that is a dirty shot.

NyTimes Book Review "does Islam"

2008-01-06T10:32:00.000-05:00

And the first headline under 'The Islam Issue' is, ahem, 'The Suicide of Reason.' Hmmm, could they have an agenda? Here's the link.

Tofu Womanizing and the Organic Defense: not just for vegetarians

2008-01-02T14:10:00.001-05:00

This neologism comes to me courtesy of one Miss (or, rather, Mrs.!) JJ.

We were reflecting on the tendency of certain 'sensitive' males to shirk all kinds of emotional responsibility when entering into relations with women--sexual or otherwise. The tofu womanizer purports to be as ideologically wholesome and organic as his whole grains. Since he's such a 'good person' in so many aspects of his life, he assumes that this carries over to other realms; he is beyond reproach. But the "Organic Defense" breaks down.

JJ and I broke rank at one crucial point: I would not make anyone (male or female) "responsible" for my emotions/actions. If I enter into a relationship, I am of course responsible for my own actions. Here I use such fun words as 'organic' and 'subjectivity' and 'agency.' JJ *almost* suggested that the tofu womanizer should feel bad if he goes on the proverbial first date, has sex, and then does not call. Ever. I countered that both parties had the sex...why should tofu do the calling, isn't that a bit retro? If you're having sex on a first date, and recently met this person, why the assumption that you'll be seeing each other again? And why the assumption that calling needs to happen? Why is this male responsibility?

JJ will offer more on this, hopefully. And since I'm celibate-in-snow-land, I am a mere observer of the phenomenon.

And for your reading pleasure: Who's Afraid of Lesbians with Babies? A lot of people, apparently. Here's an article from the Observer. I have no problem with women who choose to have children 'alone', lesbian or otherwise, but the particular brand of commodified children (commodi-kids?) that this article describes (very Park Slope, expensive strollers in 'fun!' 'now!' colors, uggs for babies...or anyone for that matter) is a bit much for me. If moving to Brooklyn means dodging both purebred dog shit on sidewalks (Cockapoodle-pooh?) as well as over-large baby carriers, count me out. Read here.

Can I be a lexicographer? Words for 2007

2007-12-30T14:34:00.000-05:00

Where have I been all year?

New words for me (that I liked from the list):

mobisode (like the word, but not the what)
multi-dad
post-kinetic environment (only the military can de-human and make murder antiseptic so earnestly)
tumblelog (you're reading one right...now!)
vegansexual (priceless)
walkshed (a little confusing, and I would think, quite subjective?)

and one I still don't understand:

lolcat

Read more here.

And while we're on jargon, here are the dangers of it (wouldn't grad school go out of business if it got out of the jargon industry? I'm just sayin'...)

"It's a pickle of a paradox" (but does it involve any pickled peppers? and how much is a peck going for these days?)

When you don't even need comments from the peanut gallery ...

2007-12-12T09:57:00.000-05:00

"You're consenting to being raped for money."

"[t]he adoption had 'gone wrong'"

"Some people made it out like we went grocery shopping and came back with a baby," she says. "But being in India was tough - the heat, the mosquitoes, worrying about Rubina and the baby's health. You have to want a baby real bad to deal with this kind of arrangement."

and

As excited as she is about the prospect of Vohra's pregnancy, Ordenes isn't sure she can stick around for the embryo transfer - Patel has scheduled it for the following week. "I really want to stay to be with Najima," she says, "but I need to get home because I've arranged to have my basement renovated." She quickly realizes how that sounds and adds a qualifier. "Well, you know, good workmen are very hard to find.
And the renovations are for the baby."

"There are days when I’m still not sure from which perspective I’m viewing the world."

2007-11-20T11:10:00.000-05:00

Other than the other Vietnamese adoptee, I didn’t interact with another Vietnamese until I entered college. My encounter with a representative from a Vietnamese student organization was brief, painful and can be summed up by:

“Are you Vietnamese?”

“Yes.”

“Do you speak Vietnamese?”

“No.”

“Thank you.”

Interesting "opinion" piece (personal essay) on identity and ... dare I put it out there? "Inbetweenness" ... maybe I'll riff on my struggles with the away-from-America adoption craze ... have I already? Or maybe you can just read my the-sick. ;)

More on identity in this book "review" (I am liberal with my quotations today - it's going to be one of those days) of Ha Jin's new book. There are a few things about the review that make me nod my head, other things that make me feel unsettled, but I just am not in the mood to engage right now (plus, I haven't read the book), so ... y'all figure it out. I do have to point out this sentence, though: "Like the famously four-toned Chinese language, the novel takes place in multiple registers." Am I particularly sensitive to adverbs right now, or is "famously" a weird way to describe "four-toned Chinese language?" Something about that doesn't sit right - like Chinese is four-toned for the attention. Weird.

A.L. says Kaddish for Mailer

2007-11-19T18:42:00.000-05:00

which then led to Ginsberg's Kaddish here with that great first line:

"Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village."

Oh yeah, and Jesus spent his formative years as an action hero in India with a beautiful princess...why not?

E.J. writes: "I think I'm ready to give fashion mags up for good"

2007-11-11T23:09:00.001-05:00

and here's her 'evidence'

from feministing and
hot-but-not-hot-enough...how WEIRD does this chick look? I'm still confused about selling hot female bodies to...other females...in a heteronormative way.

Oh commodified bodies...the cut and paste. She offers: "sometimes, ignorance is bliss"

Musharraf on the Brain (brain gets mushy?)

2007-11-11T11:54:00.000-05:00

Reading Memmi's 'The Colonizer and the Colonized' with Musharraf on the brain means that Musharraf is entering (unwelcome?) into the reading.

A couple of quotes:

"He loves the most flashy symbols, the most striking demonstrations of the power of his country. He attends all military parades and he desires and obtains frequent and elaborate ones; he contributes his part by dressing up carefully and ostentatiously. He admires the army and its strength, reveres uniforms and covets decorations."

"The fact is that all oppression is directed at a human group as a whole and, a priori, all individual members of that group are anonymously victimized by it."

If anyone else thought Musharraf sounded totally weird during his speech, read more here. (More reason to learn Urdu...)

A great blog (if I haven't already mentioned it?): Chapati Mystery

Read it. Immediately.

2007-11-06T13:43:00.000-05:00

"To me a lot of the abortion restrictions are about control of women, about power, and it’s insulting.”"

"They're probably going to have trouble blaming Iran for the fires."

2007-11-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

Mike Davis on the California fires in ZNet.

Hello, India?

2007-10-31T19:50:00.000-04:00

India helps me with my math homework here

India's landless answer a call: "all that you see shining, is not really true" here

and re: Americans complaining about Indian "language, accent and cultural nuance" when dealing with customer call centers...I say bring it! The more "English(es)" the better. If I did not have access and exposure to 'Indian English' (notice the scare quotes) I wouldn't know how insulted I should be when SM calls me a "tube light." And make no mistake...I fit the description. Why are people so scared of languages, plural?

From the delicious to the disturbed to the altogether disappointing.

2007-10-29T14:59:00.000-04:00

I may have found my new reason for living - I must try the sweet potato fries at all of these place s.

I don't know what's more disturbing--the fact that this exists, or the fact that he decided it was a good idea to fucking co-opt Virginia Woolf in titling it. Is there irony left in the world? A Room of One's Own, the "pre-feminism" feminist manifesta on how women need their own space in order to write/create/survive because the world leans masculine in nature and privilege ... did that dude even think about the intellectual ramifications of alluding to Woolf in the title of his book on why we should deny women's freedoms?*

Dear Fashion and Style section, thank you for once again skimming the surface of what could be a fascinating study on culture, language, femininity and our society's gendered understanding of the body and the world. Instead, I got to read a fluff article on a euphemistic word and I'm still not really sure how a). the article is news (because if it was ever news, it's about 6-months old) and b). Oprah became such a centerpiece for it. I wish that you had followed through with the Steinem and Ensler quotes (though I love that Steinem and Ensler are still the only feminists mainstream and safe enough to quote), or the fact that Shonda Rhimes and Grey's Anatomy could say "penis" on the air, but were not allowed to say "vagina," or even why the hell there was "a need for a pet name" (no seriously - wtf was that quote and why wasn't it explained? There are only a million pet names for "vagina"). But instead, the article is a jumble of semi-titillating ideas signifying nothing. Ultimately, I think my real issue isn't that you refused to explore the very serious and somewhat academic implications of the "trend," but rather that the article itself is - quite simply - a terrible piece of journalism and writing. What was the point of the article? Why did it go in so many directions, only to turn around after a few sentences? Oh article, you are a total cock tease. Intellectual dissatisfaction is worse than bad sex.

*See comments - duh! Always good to be reminded that I'm an idiot!

I miss it and I want it.

2007-10-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

Enchiladas, chile rellenos, y mole, oh my!

UNICEF Ads

2007-10-18T10:44:00.000-04:00

No, seriously? Who approved this ad campaign? It's disgraceful. Check the link for all the ads to get the translation.

Why not play the media?

2007-10-11T17:37:00.000-04:00

Oh, Terrell Owens ... and can I just take this space to beg that Dallas professional sports stars stop dating/marrying pop "stars"?

They're watching ...

2007-10-10T14:09:00.001-04:00

I have no idea what it takes to motivate a generation into activism. Damn it if that isn't my job now to figure it out.

See, I told y'all about gmail being Big Brother actions and that's why I don't use gmail. Even if you get free M&Ms ... there's something frightening about everything Google knows about me ... even if I am feeding it to them while sitting at home in my pjs.

Terrifying

2007-10-08T10:26:00.000-04:00

The things that stay the same.

“We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear,” said Dr. Mukwege, who works in South Kivu Province, the epicenter of Congo’s rape epidemic. “They are done to destroy women.”

Whoa. Whoa.

2007-10-07T22:48:00.000-04:00

Okay, time out New York. Did Charles Isherwood seriously write "brill" and "environs" in the first three paragraphs of this article? And can someone tell me if he's joking? And then can someone explain to me that last paragraph of the article?

Love the idea ...

2007-10-04T15:22:00.000-04:00

... not fond of the designs. But if and when there's something that interests me, my credit card is totally there.

Making fun of Disney is funny.

2007-10-03T11:56:00.000-04:00

Especially when it's about an STD.

"I'm not about to defend all food writing by those of us with testicles."

2007-09-22T11:51:00.000-04:00

Poetry, food porn, machismo. The article here.

From the "Washington Babylon" department

2007-09-16T09:53:00.000-04:00

Giuliani Advisor: Raze Palestinian Villages and then Obama almost cringes.

From last weekend's The Globe and Mail

2007-09-14T10:05:00.000-04:00

Manhattan Mini Storage

2007-09-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

To be completely New-York-City-centric (is there any other way?) for a post, Manhattan Mini Storage, the aptly named storage company serving Manhattan residents, has been running ads for a while now that follow this pattern: compare YOUR (as in, potential customer or ad viewer's) closet to a TINY thing. This, of course, is to say that your closet is small, so you should store some things in Manhattan Mini Storage. These TINY things that they have used in the ads have been snarky and of-the-moment - example: "your closet is so shallow it makes Paris look deep" or "your closet is smaller than a model's lunch." Some of them have also been "controversial," as in, "your closet is scarier than Bush's agenda." My personal favorite is the "your closet is shrinking faster than a woman's right to choose." I especially appreciated the image over which the words are superimposed - that is, a coat hanger.

Anyway, point of all of this is to say - surprise! surprise! - people have complained about them. And now Manhattan Mini Storage is running a "poll" on their website that allows its customers/potential customers/you to vote on whether or not we want the social commentary to continue on their ads. So, if you feel inclined, vote here.

Antis: what are they thinking?

2007-09-12T11:29:00.000-04:00

Read this. And think about the youTube Mitt Romney speeches when you read:

Romney opened by admitting the error of his former ways and likened himself to George Bush, Sr. and Henry Hyde. "I took a prochoice position once and I was wrong," he said. "The anti-life threat to our culture is real and I will fight to ban abortion, embryo farming, and cloning. I will fight to define life as beginning at conception. I support abstinence education. I oppose gay marriage. I do not favor bilingual education."

Gosh, I'm so proud of the school I went to:

Dr. Angela Franks, a young Boston College theologian, described one of the group's websites, Teen Wire, as pornographic. It "promotes teen sex play, mutual masturbation, oral sex and cyber sex," she said. As an antidote, Franks developed www.pphurtsgirls.org. The site denounces Planned Parenthood as a purveyor of disease and immorality.

Scanning The Boston Globe.

2007-09-12T11:14:00.000-04:00

What scares me most about this is that it was "[a]bout 10 young people" who allegedly yelled the anti-gay slurs ... I always like to think that mindsets change positively with generations.

Oh, sweet exasperation on toast ... I can't even describe my feelings toward this.

Dear future husband/sugar daddy/friend/person who will pay for my rock n'roll lifestyle, please be employed in one of these occupations. Love, me.

Remembering

2007-09-11T16:54:00.001-04:00

I love YouTube because it provides accountability for words and actions necessary. Romney is an ass in this clip!!! So many quotes that need to be written out:

"Mitt Romney isn't pro-choice, he's not anti-choice, he's multiple choice." (Ted Kennedy)

"My position [on abortion] has been the same throughout my political career." (Mitt Romney in 2002).

And we never remembered Grace Paley, so we'll let Slate do that.

Supporting Aurora

2007-09-08T10:54:00.001-04:00

Simple activism opportunity here!

Playing the Name Game

2007-09-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

There's an academic paper about identity politics, naming, and politic politics in this somewhere, but I'm too lazy to write it.

I'm all about healthy lunch options, but I kinda have to agree with my Texas compatriots on letting kids have cupcakes on Halloween and birthdays.

An initial analysis of Tony Snow's "financial problems" and how they intersect with his health problems, and the administration's health care "solutions."

Lovely just for the opening story about Laura X. What women the world has produced!

And speaking of what women the world has produced ... didn't this almost happen at BC last year? I mean, I believe the stabbing did happen, but there were no deaths. Scary!

Fees for using the health center and printing in the comp lab ... maybe I'll buy those. But fees for using the library? That's bullshit. Because seriously, what college students need is more deterrent from walking through the doors of the library.

Stats: Buffalo NY

2007-08-30T21:34:00.000-04:00

Erie county (where Buffalo is located) has the lowest credit rating in...wait for it...the NATION.

Buffalo is the second-poorest big city in the US.

42% of children in Buffalo live at or below the poverty line.

Local coverage here

Larry Craig: I'm not gay, I just play gay in real life ...

2007-08-29T11:12:00.000-04:00

I both can't believe and find hilarious the "bathroom scandal." Slate editors have published an amusing conversation. Here is the actual police report, which I found fascinating for both the content and the writing style/requirements of police reports.

I don't think my blog partner blogged this, though she sent it to me, so I will. So far, my favorite quote: "During the reform period ... [c]olors were allowed. ... Now that may seem like a very minor point, to be able to wear a pink headscarf, or a red one, as opposed to black, or brown, or blue, I mean originally the colors were very sober. But you know, for people who want to express themselves, express their personalities, it's actually very important. It sounds very trivial, but it's not." These are the statements that make me want to write a dissertation on culture and clothing, fashion and place. There's also a fascinating discussion about Iranian perception (especially of Iranian youth) of the Holocaust. Plus, her voice is amazing.

Tappity Tap Tap.

2007-08-28T11:06:00.001-04:00

Even if Senator Craig *didn't* know that tapping a man's foot in a bathroom is a sexual come-on (which I didn't. Look, I learn new things every day!), how exactly is he explaining why he did it and why he waved his hand under the stall? Was there no toilet paper in his stall?

The first paragraph alone of this article makes me sad.

Best. Line. Ever.

2007-08-27T17:03:00.000-04:00

"Mom, I'm 11!" she said. "I'm not Harriet Miers!"

Goodbye Gonzales, Hello...Michael fucking Chertoff??!!??

2007-08-27T16:30:00.000-04:00

If Michael Nosferatu Chertoff becomes the new attorney general, I will eat my hat.

Not just any hat, mind you. I'll eat the fur hat, made-in-Malta-in-the-1940s, purchased from a thrift store in Buffalo hat. That's pretty gross. Then I'll follow that by copious amounts of vodka, I guess, to dissolve the fur and my sorrow (jie jiu jiao chou).

Here's a picture of Chertoff, the symphony of horror incarnate.

Hilarity in Santa Fe

2007-08-23T22:40:00.000-04:00

this is TOO fucking funny: Terry Castle in the LRB

To-ma-to, To-mah-to

2007-08-22T12:58:00.000-04:00

I am swooning over this article. Literally. I now understand the word "swoon" because of my reaction. This must be what "character acting" is like.

This is utterly heartbreaking.

This chick is badass and funny. I'm glad I Googled "Curves gym" onto her blog!

Sometimes CIF is just too funny...

2007-08-21T21:46:00.000-04:00

Here's the original post.

And here are two choice comments:

chongkina
Comment No. 769698

August 21 15:04

USA
I have a hunch that Bin Laden's real obsession with destroying the World Trade Center stemmed from a personal grudge against some banker or financial institution that had its office there. However, he himself said that this and other Al-Quaeda attacks were revenge on the United States for desecrating the holy cities of Medina and Mecca during Gulf War I, and at this point I believe him more than the various white Christians around me who keep howling about how all the Muslims want to kill us with dirty bombs and anthrax and then force our ghosts to wear burqas. These phantom Islamofascist hordes have had six years to do so, but all I've seen so far is evidence that my country and yours have killed, maimed, tortured, raped and otherwise so many Muslims all over that world that nobody in the Western world dares to even guess at how many. I'm guessing that when the dust has settled the "war on terror" under George Bush will have claimed more lives than Hitler and Stalin combined.

So if the Muslims hate me and my kind, can I really blame them at this point? Let's be frank, my government has used the victims of 9/11 the way the Nazis used Horst Wessel. I'm sorry they died but their blood is no more sacred than that of the Iraqis, Afghanis, Lebanese, and other innocent victims of this hysterical reactive genocide.

[Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment.]
LabanTall
Comment No. 769730

August 21 15:13

GBR
congratulations, chongkina ! Most self-hating post of the day !

A Seamus Milne mug will be winging its way to you shortly.

[Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment.]

The Daria Edition

2007-08-21T11:11:00.000-04:00

Next, on Sick, Sad World: Academia.

I :::heart::: Futura

2007-08-15T22:04:00.000-04:00

because it makes me feel w & f. It only has a cameo role, but at least it got a mention.

International Edition

2007-08-14T09:15:00.000-04:00

Two articles on Kenya--water as slum commodity and climate change and malaria in Nairobi.

Happy Birthday Pakistan and India:

stuff from The Guardian here and
here
stuff from BBC here and here
stuff from Independent here

"They told me to stop waiting and considered him/her/it dead"

2007-08-13T16:37:00.001-04:00

That's a lovely chapter title from a Korean reader that Mr. Lee's wife so nicely translated.

And here's my sister's new blog. Pictures and everything.

Typos: (naming and sexual)

2007-08-12T13:22:00.000-04:00

Are typos a big deal? Read it here.

Why men don't have more sexual partners than women; it's just not statistically possible.

Peaks and valleys of the NYT.

2007-08-10T16:31:00.001-04:00

This is AWESOME!!!

And I think this made me stupider with each word I read.

Searching

2007-08-07T16:35:00.000-04:00

On internet searches.

Math time.

2007-08-03T10:34:00.000-04:00

I'm not proclaiming that I'm great at math or anything, but let's work on some equations.

If having an abortion = illegal and having an abortion = murder;

and if murder = illegal and murder --> state-sanctioned punishment ranging from jail-time to death penalty;

then shouldn't having an abortion --> state-sanctioned punishment ranging from jail-time to death penalty?

Because it's not a rational argument if you only punish some people for murder but not all people for murder. Unless maybe having an abortion ≠ murder? And maybe the fact that none of the antis can answer the question of whether women seeking abortions should be held legally responsible if abortion were made illegal should indicate that even the antis don't *really* consider "abortion" "murder?"

And on a lighter note, this is absolutely amazing!