mustang submerged

mustang submerged
Originally uploaded by wanakenahouse.

This, it must be said, is the car that brought us to Wanakena. When we arranged to rent a compact from Avis in Newark, NJ, we had no idea that they would provide us with a bright red Ford Mustang convertible. Who needs four wheel drive when you have all that MUSCLE?

More pictures at flickr!

rebound

Usually, I get very stressed out about traveling to and from Wanakena, my friend K-Ross's house in the mountains, and then I enjoy my time in the snowy wilderness immensely. This year I felt nowhere near so apprehensive in advance; but, while I enjoyed myself, I also didn't have the kind of heart-filling experience I have had in the past. Whether these things are related, I can't tell.

What is probably related is that about half of those who went this year were newfolks, a self-contained group of non-Swatties, and though they were perfectly nice, I felt a bit on the outskirts the whole time. Mostly I hung out with my small, great nucleus of friends, an experience that was cozy and lovely but not transcendent. Plus, once two of those friends ramped up the flirting and eying of each other, the prevailing narrative of the day became their courtship and then its culmination. (Of which I only watched the first part.)

Mr. Ben put in a superhuman effort to get us there, driving almost the entire way through a devouring snowstorm, after having slept only two hours of the last thirty. Listening to the last Harry Potter book on CD helped, but the unfortunate side effect was that he was more or less in a fugue state for much of the next day. Still, I think he had a good time. And it's lucky we didn't crash. Apparently we tempted fate by forgetting to "sit" before we left -- it's a very simple Russian tradition that consists, simply and entirely, of sitting quietly before getting up and moving into the car. We forgot, and, in consequence, LEFT OUR DOOR UNLOCKED. Nothing was stolen, thank God, but I don't think we'll neglect to "sit" again.

Once in Wanakena, we hung out in the sweat lodge, danced, ate, and tromped through the deep powdery snow. We also played a lot of games, especially once the strangers and half of my nucleus took off, leaving only K. Ross, Mr. Ben, the Rebbe and me alone with the leftovers. My favorite part of the experience was the outfit I wore New Year's Eve, which came courtesy of the Rebbe with an assist from one of the strangers. I felt like a 20's vixen. (Pictures TK!)

And now it's 2008. I can't believe this year is here already -- it's the one I thought would never come around. We had to offer blessings to each other over dinner, a process which freaked me out in the moment since I hate being put on the spot AND forced to be sincere at the same time, but the ones I offered the stranger next to me stand for pretty much everyone I know, certainly all of you: (1) good haircuts; (2) a Democratic government; and (3) the encountering of many new and surprising selves within the larger You. Happy new year!

winding down

In A.O. Scott's review of There Will Be Blood, he mentions, parenthetically, "Like most of the finest American directors working now, Mr. Anderson makes little on-screen time for women." I love P.T. Anderson. I love the Coen brothers. Most of the directors, in fact, that Tony's talking about are men I hold near and dear to my heart. But it's indisputable that they forget Abigail Adams's famous injunction: "...remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."

It's possible only the beginning of the quote applies to this particular cinematic situation.

Still, it bothers me. Last night, Mr. Ben and I watched Waitress, which meant that I have now completed 2007's Fertility Trifecta (the other two being, of course, Knocked Up and Juno). The movie had some entertaining moments and some good lines. Mostly, though, it felt like it was trying too hard to yank on the Steel Magnolias chain, and it lacked the credibility: there's something odd about watching Felicity and Jeremy Sisto, the creepy brother from Six Feet Under, affect Southern accents. At the end, the quirky-sweetness falls away from the movie's tone and it becomes a kind of Herstory uptopia, a You Go Girl!, Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle pastel fantasy.

Despite the movie's flaws, it's one of the few 2007 films that pass the Ms. test. Juno and the the Savages also do, bless their indie little hearts, and I'm sure Persepolis will. But I'm sure it's not a coincidence that all of those films come from source material written by women -- and, in the case of the Savages, a female director too. Why are women fundamentally uninteresting to otherwise edgy, intelligent, creative, broad-minded men?

Whatever the reason for the blind spot, I do think it's funny that directors will make exceptions for their wives: Frances McDormand is a Mrs. Coen and has played their most memorably vivid and interesting female character; Helena Bonham Carter, Burton's girlfriend and baby momma, serves the same function. Expand, fellas! Does Patricia Clarkson need to hook up with someone to get a real role?

Sweeney! SWEENEY!

One of the perks of having a father-in-law who lives locally? Sometimes you can get taken to dinner 'n' a movie. This is exciting under normal circumstances, but when "movie" = "SWEENEY TODD," something you're totally desperate to see, it's beyond thrilling.

I didn't realize at first that he agreed to take Mr. Ben and me to the movie the same way he agreed to take us to -- I shudder to think of this now -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a far less successful adaptation of a classic text. Luckily, he loved it. Does it even need be said that Mr. Ben and I did too? This was Tim Burton at his most grotesque, let loose on fantastic material. At times (the "By the Sea" dream sequence, where Mrs. Lovett fantasizes about how she & her homicidal lover could have a bourgeois life together, for example) Burton's macabre vision actually improves on the original.

Helena Bonham Carter has a range of about five notes, but she manages to put her own spin on a role I've now seen inhabited by extremely different actresses (Angela Lansbury, Christine Baranski, and Patti LuPone -- what could you imagine they would have in common?). ** SPOILER ALERT ** She makes the foolhardy love that Mrs. Lovett has for Sweeney moving rather than merely pathetic, and I loved her duet with Toby, "Not While I'm Around." I mean, talk about layered subtext. Little Toby is singing, thinking, "I finally have a home! This woman rescued me and I can't wait til I can rescue her in turn to communicate the depth of my affections!" and the mother figure is singing, thinking, "Oh, shit, I now have to kill this boy."

Part of the twisted charm of this show is that Sondheim wrote strikingly beautiful love songs for it and then put them in the most upsetting possible context. How would you like to sing an ode to "Pretty Women" with the man who had you jailed so he could rape your wife?

HBC and Johnny Depp as Sweeney are both made up to look like zombies (sexy zombies) only partially inhabiting the colorless world of Victorian London. In that respect, they match, and they feel right as a couple. Depp also has a surprisingly good voice, or good for the role anyway. This is true of the other cast members too. They make it work.

Mr. Ben and I realized that the cast is peopled with Slytherins: HBC, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spell (the man who plays the Beadle here and Peter Pettigrew there). This inevitably made me wonder how the Harry Potter movies would be as interpreted by Tim Burton. Oh, the things of which we can only dream ... But in fairness, Burton is a post-modernist; Sweeney is a pomo classic; HP is not. Burton doesn't seem to be at his best dealing with non-pomo material, as evidenced by virtually everything he's done since Nightmare Before Christmas.

Anyway. Sweeney left me weak in the knees, as the kids say, and I feel prepared to take on the movie that is both supposed to be excellent in its own right AND an excellent summation of the films of 2007: There Will Be Blood.

no, but underneath

Jonah Goldberg secretly loves me. He knows he does.

angry about things?

Someone pointed out that most of my entries are written on the topic of My Being Outraged About Something. That's horrible! I don't mean to be doing that. Most of the time I'm a very positive person. Right now, for example. I'm at my secret internet full-time job (not to be confused with the secret internet part-time job I held briefly last spring) and I like it! I really like it! The people are -- well, they're around me right now so I won't say much about them, but they're all my age, which makes "work" feel more like "summer camp."

We get our first paycheck today, in fact, I believe. That's pretty good for a week in which we've spent one day being oriented by playing name games; one day touring NYC campuses undercover (that really took me back); and three days now at a computer lab doing things that actually require thinking and creativity.

Also, I just saw Juno, this year's Little Miss Sunshine the same way No Country for Old Men is this year's the Departed. It was the best thing I'd seen in a long time, possibly since Pan's Labyrinth. It was as funny as Knocked Up but didn't make me feel dirty afterwards because it didn't seem to be saying that men and women are fundamentally different and can never get along, never never never, but they have to get & stay married anyway, just because.

Atonement--you know, the literary movie about War and Love and Betrayal and Big Ideas--was respectably good, especially in its first act, but it didn't move me nearly as much as the story of the adorable, snarky, midwestern 16 year old and her adorable, sweet sorta boyfriend. Mostly, and this is key: I believed it.

Oh, and Malcolm Gladwell! He wrote what I hope will be the definitive word on race and IQ. (God knows at least I'm not interested in reading more on the subject.) Basically, he reminds us that an IQ test is not like a blood test: you don't get objective results because one must TAKE an IQ test. Since it's active, the individual can't be separated from the results. Which is to say, someone who wasn't groomed to be sit down quietly and concentrate on a paper-and-pencil test is virtually bound to do less well than someone who was. Also, Gladwell has a way of making statistics legible without condescending to his readers. I appreciate that.

See? I like stuff! In fact, I like everything, except Ditchens and Howd.

quit yer hitchin

Happy Hannukah, everyone! You know, that harmless, minor Jewish holiday that exists in America as this country's paltry companion piece to Christmas, like a kid playing a kazoo on the sidelines as a confetti strewn marching band in full regalia, with cheerleaders and baton twirlers and gymnasts and everything, spends a month slowly parading by.

Don't think I bear Christmas any ill will. Sure, I used to; but we're cool now, we're cool. I've gotten to celebrate a secular version a couple times with Mr. Ben's dad's family. I've done it all, in fact: the evening service as St. Marks, a stocking filled with stuff hanging on the mantle for me, wrapped boxes glistening under the tree. I can understand how, if you grew up with that -- or, that plus some heartfelt religious traditions -- you'd long for it every year.

It's just not my holiday. All the same, you'd never see me go on a tirade like this about Christmas, let alone about poor, miserable, homely Hannukah! What is Christopher Hitchens thinking?

His rant, which I've read now twice and concluded makes not a speck of sense, seems to be saying that Hannukah is bad because it celebrates the triumph (for about fifteen minutes, once) of the ancient Hebrews over the Greeks. And who were the Greeks, asks Hitch? A culture that

had weaned many people away from the sacrifices, the circumcisions, the belief in a special relationship with God, and the other reactionary manifestations of an ancient and cruel faith.

Some religious Jews were annoyed that their countrymen were assimilating, so they rebelled against the imperial powers of the day and WON -- which, by the way, didn't happen often in Jewish history, so I'm sure it came as quite a shock to Judah the Maccabee; like my mother when she was convinced I wouldn't get into Swarthmore, Judah probably gave away his bottle of champagne.

And why does Hitch have a bee in his bonnet about this? Because to him it's a turning point. If the Jews hadn't won, we wouldn't have those pesky spin-off religions, Christianity (centered around, in his elegant phrase, the "alleged birth of the supposed Jesus of Nazareth") and Islam. No monotheistic religion would exist! Think of it! We'd all be wearing togas and drinking wine touched up with water and having sex with little boys, just like the pagan gods intended.

There is little more irritating to me than sloppy history, especially in combination with nostalgia for the imaginary utopias of earlier eras, "before the development of the whole of humanity was terribly retarded." (Wow, right?) I mean, yes, when I was 12, I did want to inhabit the world of Mists of Avalon, but even then I understood that it was *fiction* and anyway I was 12! There's no point in wishing ancient Greece back. No matter how much Hitch yearns for the homosocial, toga-wearing, gymasium-dwelling, slave-holding, vomitorium-scented days of a couple thousand years ago, that empire was sacked by the Romans. The ancient Hebrew did not kill Athens; and if Athens was able to fall, on any level, to a guerilla band of hammer-wielding mountain men, it certainly could not have been very stable to begin with. So lay off, would you, Hitch? Christ. You're putting me off my latkes.

links that make you think "so true!"

Via NYMag, a handy-dandy graphical guide to the depressing movies to choose from this holiday season!

Via People for the American Way, the hilarious parody Right Wing Facebook!

It's my last day in this office and I can't concentrate properly. Last night I went to a Mountain Goats concert at NYU and was distracted nearly the whole time by this kid making out with his girlfriend in front of me. There was something so mesmerizingly wrong about the pair of them: she was a normal looking 18-22 year old; he looked like a serial killer. Pale skin, old-fashioned nerd glasses, the kind of haircut you give your middle-schooler before he learns to rebel, and clothes to match. Why on earth were they sucking face for the length of the show? Was the girl under some kind of spell?

Then the Goats played The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton as their final encore. There's nothing like a packed auditorium of undergraduates screaming, "Hail Satan!" to shake one out of a reverie.

Whee! Enchanted, that girliest of girl movies starring Amy Adams, won the box office match-up this past weekend, beating, by a long shot, Natalie Portman's trippy-sounding entry, Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium. Not that I contributed to Enchanted's success; I was too busy watching boy movies 1. I'm Not There and 2. No Country for Old Men, both of which I enjoyed and admired, although neither knocked my head off my shoulders.

I'm Not There at least breaks free of the tedious biopic formula in which the director attempts to psychoanalyze the subject based on a five minute snippet of his childhood, tracing all of his problems with women, for example, back to that time his mother put him in a closet. Todd Haynes doesn't try to understand Dylan at all; six actors portray different facets of the rocker, and the composite both serves as a good overall sense of the people Dylan has maybe been at different points AND a good example of the Being John Malkovich/Walt Whitman theory of identity. You know, that we contain multitudes.

The two standout Dylans are a little black boy who rides freight trains with his guitar, dressed like a Depression-era mini hobo, Sir-ing and Ma'am-ing and performing for the bemused 1959 adults he meets along the way as Grassroots Bob, and a b&w Cate Blanchett in fantastic drag who captures everything itchy, rangy, brilliant, and savage about Famous Bob.

As for No Country, aka this year's Departed, I liked it better than Nora Ephron did. (Caution: her piece contains spoilers, in case you care, when going to watch a bloodbath, exactly who dies.)

Mr. Ben and I went to his dad's house in Westchester for Thanksgiving with a swarm of Russians, which meant a feast lengthened by frequent cigarette breaks and toasts that made Ben's dad weep with laughter. He and/or Mr. Ben tried valiantly to translate but I only found the jokes perplexing, which made everyone else laugh harder. One gag began, "So, you remember Stalin" and went on to be about a man who had fathered three kids by three different women.
"Get it?" said Ben's dad at last having painstakingly explained.
"Yes," I said. "But what does that have to do with Stalin?"
The table roared.

Foodwise, everything that didn't have meat had mayonnaise. I ate a lot of bread and, at the debut of the fruit bowl come dessert-time, I fell on those melon cubes like they were my personal lord and savior. But the evening was definitely an experience.

jump the broom, pass the bar

Mr. Ben had cause for celebration this weekend so we ran a lot of errands. This is the way things work around here. But they were fun errands! Thanks to them, I traded in a few books I wasn't crazy about and got in return Best American Comics 2007 (f0r Mr. Ben) and Under the Banner of Heaven (for me). Barnes and Noble can be a regular lending library if you know how to game the system! And then, in a different store, I traded in a couple movies I wasn't crazy about and got in return Season One of the Gilmore Girls, a Madeline Peyroux CD, and Bruce Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on video.

Especially when the various birthday parties and friends and sleepovers and Buster Keaton shorts and Korean dinner and magical sandwich brunch were factored in, it was the best weekend I've had in a while. Mr. Ben and I hadn't gotten to spend that much uninterrupted time together since he started at the firm. Um, because clearly he's been spending too much time golfing at the club? Whose life am I living?

I did realize recently that my draconian regimen of no alcohol and no food with more than 25g of sugar has turned me into a new person. It's been months since my last anxiety attack, and that one was over the wedding weekend; and christ, if a person can't go shaky before they get married, then I don't know what. Anyway, it's wonderful not to have to worry all the time that I'm going to turn into a fragile, eplileptic mess, crumpled on the bathroom floor like a junkie trying to inject relief in the form of a children's book. (Before xanax, the Snicket series was worth its weight in gold.)

Even the time of year hasn't been stressing me out. I'm changing jobs but voluntarily and wow! what a difference that makes. The holidays seem to be arranging themselves nicely. The Scrabulous ratings system was instituted after my unlucky streak and before my current lucky one, so my rating is a whopping 1511. It's bound to go down and might never reach that pinnacle again -- thus, even though I know not what the numbers mean, I feel like I must enshrine them. And to top it all off, my sainted mother went dancing this past week in my high school prom dress. She promises pictures.

absurdism

Without realizing that Defective Yeti had declared this November to be National Novel Reading Month -- the novel in question being Catch 22 -- my book group also chose to sink its wine-stained teeth into Catch 22. I had read it before in high skool and I remembered three things:

1) Major Major Major Major!
2) War is crazy. In war there are no heroes, only people struggling to maintain their sanity; and if that, maybe, once in a while, coincides with Doing the Right Thing, then cool, but no one goes out of his way.
3) There are an awful lot of whores.

My memory proved accurate. It's not an easy read: the story loops back in on itself, tangential characters wander on and off screen, there are almost as many unnecessary adjectives as loose Italian women. In parts you really have to push yourself through but each time you're rewarded with a scene that's so good you wonder how anyone couldn't love this book.

And what struck me this time was how revolutionary this kind of myth-busting must have been when the book first came out. At this point, in a post-Vietnam world, we're accustomed to hearing that the people who fight for our freedom may have flaws, that not everyone who ventures out on a battlefield has pure and noble intentions. But this book is about World War II: The Good War, the one we're supposed be to be able to be proud of. These soldiers, described by Heller in all their specific grinning idiocy are members of our Greatest Generation. How did he get away with that? Even today it wouldn't be easy.

Despite its stylistic flaws, I think that courage is going to be my key takeaway from this reading. But um, I do wish there were one female character who wasn't an empty-headed, busty buffoon. On that note: in honor of whatshisname, another great white shark of mid-century American fiction who died this past weekend, Jezebel put together a roster of He-Man Woman Hating Club. Made me feel better about feeling alienated by so much "contemporary" lit. Read the comments too. They are pure and noble.

ETA: if this isn't enough bile for a Wednesday morning, here's some additional spewing, bubbling, volcanic hate for Maureen Dowd.

Decisions

Here I've been making pro / con lists, talking myself hoarse, giving myself wrinkles with all the thinking, and all this time I should have been consulting AstrologyZone.com:

Mars is still moving though Cancer, a sign that you are in the process of starting a brand new cycle. This is a process that will be ongoing for several months, ending on May 9 next year. During that time you'll be very busy, so you might want to pace yourself - these types of cycles can be exhausting, but also very exciting!

Mars does not come by that often, so it may help to know that the next time you'll have Mars in Cancer to give you an outstanding advantage, it will be August 2009. But next time you won't have several months to institute the changes you want so dearly, instead only a matter of weeks (which is much more typical a visit of Mars). As you see, you truly are in the catbird's seat.

The problem is that Mars is about to shut down when it goes retrograde from November 15 to January 30. During that phase you won't be able to access all the best qualities of Mars, which are assertive career action, determination, energy, and drive - so it is imperative that you make your most important initiations this month from November 1 to 14, your golden period. After that, you'll need to backtrack and course correct, and be ready to go at full throttle again in February.

Mars is the engine that runs your prestigious professional sector (tenth house), so this means that the coming two-and-a-half month period will not bring encouraging career developments. If you are not currently employed, or if you are anxious to leave your present position, you must be ready to begin your search in the first half of November, and to get as many interviews in at that time as you can. ...

November 4 could bring you a good career tip or breakthrough. That's a Sunday, but due to the fine angle of the Sun and Mars in Cancer, over this weekend you may see an interesting job listing on the Internet or in the paper, or get an email that brings an opportunity you will want to follow up on.

If you are in a creative field, you will be in top form. From November 9 onward, the date of the new moon, you will have an opportunity to put your stamp of individuality on a project that will become very dear to you. If an offer comes in that intrigues you at this time, take it seriously. ...

Pluto is the ruler of your fifth house of creativity. This powerful planet is about to meet with financially beneficial, expansive Jupiter. These two planets only meet in conjunction every thirteen years, and the last time they did was in very late 1994. These two planets are about to meet next month, on December 11. This is headline news, and it's been a conjunction I've been watching for several years - it is almost here!

Pluto conjunct Jupiter is a powerful indicator of success. Bill Gates has this conjunction in his natal chart, as does Warren Buffet. You will have this transiting conjunction in your chart next month, in your sixth house of work assignments. These two planets move very slowly but are already close enough to bring you benefits. Be alert to the kind of conversations and offers you are having now - something is in the wind and it could wind up being bigger than you ever assumed possible.

If 1994 or 1995 is important to you in some way because you began an endeavor or made a major decision, you will have the opportunity to advance that endeavor now or end it and start a completely new one. (Or, you can do both.) I point to those years, for that's when we had that last Jupiter to Pluto conjunction. That event gave me the opportunity to start a then very tiny website that I called Astrology Zone. At the time I really didn't realize that my life was changing forever. This type of experience could happen to you, for Jupiter and Pluto are meeting in the same part of the chart that it did for me, the sixth house. When opportunity knocks, it will be up to you to either run with it - or not. The future is always in your hands.

up to

It's funny how little time it takes a Monday morning to devour an aura of warm fuzz. Even though this weekend featured a hurricane, a long day's worth of travel to and from Connecticut for In-Law Family Time, a bad cold that kept me from enjoying Friday night's festivities at a fancy lawyer's house in Larchmont (complete with lobster bisque!), and several Serious Conversations, it still left me feeling well-balanced and happy. You know, temporarily.

Still, it's good to keep perspective. At least I'm not a sex worker who's just been told by someone in a position of authority that gang rape at gunpoint = merely "theft of services."

And at least exciting movies will be coming out soon. I haven't seen anything I've been crazy about this year. Ratatouille, Michael Clayton, and Knocked Up were all entertaining in their various ways, but I want to be rocked like I was by Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth. Who will rock me? Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd? The cast is promising; the trailer, less so. Philip Seymour Hoffman as brought to me by Tamara Jenkins? She was supposed to be my honors examiner, you know. Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter? One of the many Bob Dylanses? Or the animated Marjane Satrapi? After the recent NYT Mag interview with her wherein she declaimed, "I'm not a feminist; I'm a humanist," and then went on to extoll the pleasures of smoking, I'm disappointed with the IRL version, but I can hold out hope for celluloid.

wisdom for the ages

"First rule: Do not use semicolons. ... All they do is show you've been to college. And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. ... If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding."
-- K. Vonnegut, from A Man Without a Country

***

Lillian Gish Goes to Hell
Richard Siken

But she has been there before, has a suite
in fact, where she can swan and collapse
on a series of fainting couches: velveteen,
plush, gem-colored. In 1913, during the
production of A Good Little Devil, Lillian
collapsed from anemia. She took delight in
suffering for art. Although not a religious
man, Sartre was fascinated by suffering
as well, said Hell is other people and meant it.
Some like to suffer and some try to eliminate
desire. Buddha, God bless him, had a great
idea: whatever is subject to change is subject to
suffering. But let’s face it, he was fat and sat
around in his underwear, while we delight
in changing our wardrobes. You, terrible
in your solitude. Me, ruined and desperate
in my cowboy shirt with the pearly buttons
and significant stitching. We can suffer with
the best of them, Lil, effortlessly working off
our karma as the drunken father breaks down
the wooden door, or we roam, dying, through
the streets of Montmartre. I am no stranger
to love and I am not waiting for you, because
I believe we will be reborn, because I believe
everything, and I believe that we will meet
again and suffer together again. The future
belongs to China and yet I want to learn
French. This, too, is another kind of suffering.
Once, at a truck stop, I ate an entire banana
cream pie and half a pound of bacon, which
is a kind of suffering for some, but I felt
fucking great. You know this, you must know
this. We are lovely and full of desire, we die
so many times and come back here, to cross
paths. I didn’t fall off the roof, I was pushed.
I want neither revenge nor relief. I crave no
rescue. What I want, Lillian, is to be gigantic
and perfectly lit, to be with you again, carnal
in our reincarnation. The future will find us
handsome taikonauts in a small ship spinning
out of control, flawed by love and plunging
realistically toward the heart of a hellish sun.
In the future we will suffer together in outer
space and eat crème brûlée out of a silver tube.
The novelty never wears off, Lil. It never does.

***

"You don't gotta be a bitch to be competitive." -- Bianca, ANTM

everyone's a joker

I spent this afternoon in the All Souls Episcopal Church in Harlem. And I'm not even running for President!

Although I was not the only white person in the basement/auditorium, I'm pretty sure I was the only Jewish white girl. I mean, for that matter, I was one of the few women under 60 and one of the few not wearing a hat. Judging by the crowd, in fact, I can safely say, Hats are totally back! You heard it here first.

This all came about because Mr. Ben has decided to burn off some of his new job related stress by taking an African dance class in Brooklyn. How that ended up with him dancing in a church on 114th street I can't exactly explain but I was there to watch him, loyal little wife that I am; AND he got paid too. This means he is not only getting paid way more than I am to stare at a computer screen all day, he's also only getting paid way more than I am for his hobbies.

This reminds me a bit of one of the funniest quotes from this week's 30 Rock:

Jack: Where do you invest your money, Liz?
Liz: I have, like, twelve grand in checking.
Jack: Are you...an immigrant?

You all watch that show, right? That is the funniest show ever. I'm not sure, however, if it's actually funnier than my mother. You be the judge. This is from an email she sent because she and my father are running off to Mexico for two weeks.

If we don't surface by 11/4, the car broke down or the bandits got us. In either case, don't forget that we have travel/life insurance with AAA and life insurance with TransAmerica Life Insurance. There are a good deal of paid hours at Arthur Murray which someone should use because they're so expensive and remember that I keep personal files in my office. If you need to access them, don't laugh. I have wedding bills mixed with an incredible
number of job applications and South Beach Diet recipes all mixed together with other stuff. It represents a real cross-section of our family. ...
[If we need more money] as daddy says, open the yellow pages and look for a money lender.

Lastly, I went to the dentist the other day and had my teeth cleaned. The hygienist told me that I was terribly remiss in not brushing my tongue with my toothbrush. In retrospect, I never knew that such a practice was required and I realize that I never instructed my children to do so. So, in closing, be sure to brush your tongue with your toothbrush. It apparently removes dead cells, increases taste and makes your breath fresher. You heard it here first.

Priceless, right? I love being reminded that, in my father's head, it's still the 18th century. Also that should my parents disappear into the wilds of a resort in Yucatan, I can rest easy knowing my mother's last words to me were, "Brush your tongue."

cancer free since 1982!

Yesterday I was scheduled for the needle biopsy that's been freaking me out for a month. First there was one doctor who said it's probably nothing but get an ultrasound just in case.

Thirty days later, after the ultrasound, there was another doctor who said it's probably nothing but get a biopsy just in case.

Thirty days after that, there was a nurse and then another nurse and then finally a surgeon who said, "It's nothing!"

I said, thoroughly brainwashed by this point, "You don't want to poke me just in case?"

"No," she said. "There's nothing there to poke."

Here I am, alive and tumor-free (so far as I know), and yet after the giddiness evaporated the residual stress hit. Maybe I'd been repressing it. In any event, I'm taking it easy today. It's the last 70 degree day, according to NY1, and I'm going to suspend thinking about my future, try not to worry that the highly-recommended and respected surgeon is somehow wrong, maybe watch something mindless.

ETA: And then I saw my horoscope!

When issues get too complicated, you tend to withdraw into yourself until you've decided what to do. This is one of those times when it may seem easier to just sink quietly to the bottom of your cave and let the world flow by. However, this isn't in your best interest. Instead, select your most important feelings and share them with someone close to you.

The metaphors here aren't helping my headache. Sink to the bottom of my cave and let the world flow by -- I guess I'm in the sea then? Is this because I'm a Cancer? (Can't escape that word ...) Also I'm not sure I have Most Important Feelings. The phrase makes me a picture an Olympic winners platform. But what National Anthem would play when the gold medal for Most Important Feeling goes to Anxiety?

the time, she passes

It has been a week and a half of learning and growing. First, visiting my family in DC, I learned that I can sail! -- or at least be on a small sailboat for an entire afternoon without throwing up. This is remarkable, friends. I retain vivid memories of that time we went "whale watching" one stormy New Hampshire morning and I lasted about twenty minutes on the open seas before I found myself exiled to the boat's inner sanctum. There, lying on my back on a narrow wooden bench, it was my responsibility to contemplate whether life was truly worth living as, over and over, sea water rose to fill the porthole and then recede. Fill, recede, fill, recede. Conclusion: Nyet.

Nothing transforms someone into a Medieval philosopher faster than nausea.

And see how far I've come? I got on the boat with little to no trepidation, even thinking of the delicious sandwiches my mother had prepared for our three-hour tour. It was only when, two hours from shore, we hit some sustained turbulence generated by tugboats, ferries, and mammoth freight carriers, that I realized I was no longer enjoying being me. At least the sun was shining.

Soon after I returned to New York, however, autumn burst out with all the subtlety and grace of Steve Carrell in the Office. Rain, wind; everything howled; degrees dripped away. That combined with a friend's promotion made me all quarter-lifey. Where was I going? What was I doing? What did I aim for? Aspire to be? How happy was I supposed to be? What was my plan? Ye gods, was I supposed to have a plan, other than to make enough money to afford a Netflix subscription and a pair of shoes every once in a while?

The funk lasted off and on for a bit. Several things however have contributed to the return of my joie de vivre:

- an UWS walking tour that including one of my the city's only gated communities, Paumander Walk, a one-block stretch of beautiful, tiny, Tudor houses complete with rose gardens and free roaming housecats
- Scrabulous
- the makeover episode of America's Next Top Model
- a sleepover in Washington Heights
- learning that Myla Goldberg and Michael Cunningham are both teaching in the MFA fiction program at Brooklyn College
- Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, a badly titled movie that's nonetheless worth seeing, if you like dark, gritty, gripping sorts of things
- The prospect of Persepolis soon
- ETA: agreeing to look stupid on camera for the internets.

fallacy time!

Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post tries to be evenhanded in the initial paragraphs of this op-ed before coming clean on what she really thinks of Justice Thomas. A noble enough effort, I guess, but why waste space on this silliness?

Thomas v. Hill is one of those questions destined to remain disputed -- Did Al Gore actually win the presidency? Was the intelligence manipulated to mislead us into Iraq? The conundrum of Thomas-Hill is the continuing forcefulness of their conflicting assertions about what happened when he was a Reagan administration official and she a young lawyer working for him.

If Thomas did what Hill claims, how to understand his undimmed anger, his absolute denials, his willingness to pick the scab anew? If he didn't, how to understand her motive for lying -- and her summoning such unlikely details as pubic hairs on Coke cans?

This is your Gordian knot, Ms. Marcus? Allow me.

a) No.
b) Yes.
c) I refer you to Dotty P.:

If they whisper false of you
Never trouble to deny
If the words they say be true
Weep and storm and swear they lie.

This reminds of this one time in high school that an annoying boy, SM, spread a rumor about me. It wasn't terribly malicious, I guess, but it seemed at the time like the worst thing that could be said, and what really killed me, what really made this unforgettable, was that it was TRUE. & there was no way he could have known!

I went rather nuts, wailing to the heavens, and the gods avenged me, in a way: a couple years later, a popular friend of mine, C., discovered that SM wanted into his clique. C. demanded, as the price of entry, that SM apologize to me for the humiliation and find some way to make it up to me. This put me in the rather awkward position of having to tell SM it was all forgiven; however, the humbling of SM did come accompanied by a mix tape he made for me which introduced me to Ben Folds Five, Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkel. My affinity for his music endured, though the friendship we tried to strike up was pretty much DOA.

Through the grapevine (you know, Facebook), I found out that SM, hairline receding fast, got married within about a week of me. C., who I haven't spoken to in months, is featured prominently in the pictures. I guess life will only get stranger as it goes on.

i've been bobbed!

What an amazing day. Right before I got into the subway on my way to work, I saw John Malkovich exit his trailer and saunter down the street towards the set by my apartment where the Coen brothers are shooting their next movie, Burn After Reading. Mr. Ben had seen JM *and* Tilda Swinton (Cate Blanchett for film cultists) but this was my first sighting.

At 10:30 I left my office for my free haircut at Bumble n Bumble. I'd been recruited for it last Thursday when a very gay young man approached me in Union Square and gushed, "I love your hair! Can I cut it?" He wanted me to be his hair model. Seriously, say "model" to me, and, like Carrie Bradshaw, I'll do anything.

So, under the supervision of a curl expert, I got bobbed. With a razor, no less! It's all light and bouncy. It's going to go great with my new chili red coat, once I work up the courage to wear it.

On my way home, I noticed a crowd on the sidewalk facing the townhouse where the Coens have been shooting. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I joined the gawkers, where I got to overhear several of the dumbest college students in the city:

Stupid Girl: Say 'Would you like some tea and crumpets?'!
South African Girl, in a flat voice: Would you like some tea and crumpets?
Stupid Girl: Ha ha hahahaha, awesome!

and, later:

Stupid Girl 2: So, like, where you live, are there cities and stuff?
South African Girl: Yeah, I mean, of course. I'm from Capetown, which is a city ...
SG 2: And there's, like, bush? Are there, like, wild animals roaming around everywhere?
SAG: Not, like, "roaming" ...

Then, Brad Pitt emerged from the townhouse, waved to everyone, and got into a waiting black Escalade. I SAW BRAD PITT. The girls squeed; paparazzi snapped pictures; I grinned, almost jumping for joy.

My list of celebrity sightings is pretty fuckin awesome at the moment but as short on women as a typical New Yorker TOC:

- Paul Giamatti
- Gabriel Byrne
- James Gandolfini
- Michael Imperioli
- Steve Schirripa ("Bobby" on the Sopranos)
- John Malkovich
- Brad Pitt

I'm never leaving New York.

the non-spiritual side

Courtesy of Slate, our favoritest former president, Richard Milhouse Nixon, on the chosen people, on July 3, 1971:

Nixon: Now, point: [Fred] Malek is not Jewish.

Haldeman: No.

Nixon: All right, I want a look at any sensitive areas around where Jews are involved, Bob. See, the Jews are all through the government, and we have got to get in those areas. We've got to get a man in charge who is not Jewish to control the Jewish … do you understand?

Haldeman: I sure do.

Nixon: The government is full of Jews. Second, most Jews are disloyal. You know what I mean? You have a [White House Counsel Leonard] Garment and a [National Security Adviser Henry] Kissinger and, frankly, a [White House speechwriter William] Safire, and, by God, they're exceptions. But Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?

Haldeman: Their whole orientation is against you. In this administration, anyway. And they are smart. They have the ability to do what they want to do—which—is to hurt us.

And then on July 24:

Nixon: One other thing I want to know. Colson made an interesting study of the BLS crew. He found out of the 21—you remember he said last time—16 were Democrats. No, he told me in the car, 16 were registered Democrats, one was a registered Republican [inaudible] well, there may have been 23. And four were Declined to States. Now that doesn't surprise me in BLS. The point that he did not get into that I want to know, Bob, how many were Jews? Out of the 23 in the BLS, would you get me that?

Haldeman: [White House deputy assistant] Alex [Butterfield] is getting it.

Nixon: There's a Jewish cabal, you know, running through this, working with people like [Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur F.] Burns and the rest. And they all—they all only talk to Jews. Now, but there it is. But there's the BLS staff. Now how the hell do you ever expect us to get anything from that staff, the raw data, let alone what the poor guys have to say [inaudible] that isn't gonna be loaded against us? You understand?

Haldeman: Is Alex working on that?

Ehrlichman: Malek.

Nixon: Oh, Malek is. Oh.

Unidentified Person: [whispering] I'll get this to you today.

Well, tricky Dick gets three points for using the word "cabal" correctly. Malek gets ten points for coordinating the anti-cabal effort then and now being the national finance co-chair of John McCain's campaign. And I get fifteen points for holding in my vomit.

I know this is a relic -- well, I'm 90% sure. But it never ceases to amaze me that smart people, people in power, had these entrenched ideas about Jews. Mr. Ben's mother, my MIL I guess I should say if I can do so without fainting, recommended an excellent novel to me recently, Mary McCarthy's The Group, a very realistic, detailed, absoring look at eight Vassar women who graduate in the early '30s and go on to lead very different lives, mostly in New York City.

McCarthy presents the women's opinions about everything from shacking up with men to Stalin vs. Trotsky to breastfeeding and toilet-training with a matter-of-factness that never betrays how she herself feels about a subject. Which is great, most of the time, and unsettling when every woman's attitude about Jews ranges from distantly tolerant to politely hostile.

I don't know why I was surprised. I remember how disappointed I was reading Virginia Woolf's diaries -- she *married* a Jew and yet couldn't get over her genteel dislike of the people as a whole. I know how powered by anti-semitism the America First movement of the early war years was, and how Roosevelt's hands essentially were tied by it. And yet. I always expect better from this country -- or maybe it's more honest, if scandalous, to say, from educated people. Ugh & ugh again.

On the brighter side of things, Mr. Ben and I are going to the Vendy Awards tomorrow, a fantastic only-in-NYC kind of event that he helped pioneer when he worked for the Street Vendor Project. Tickets are a little steep, but food is included, and the experience (I hear) is not to be missed. Come support street food! I didn't know how much I loved it til I got to Japan and it was (almost) nowhere to be found.