After he died, I enjoyed reading transcripts of Pete Seeger's "interviews" with the House of Un-American Activities in the 1950s. He was so young and brave and gently defiant.
I've always loved this version of Guantanamera by the Sandpipers.
Seeger recites part of the original poem by Jose Marti, saying, "My poems are a like a wounded fawn seeking refuge in the forest."
Guantanamera is one of my favorite songs ever, though, and I am convinced that in a past life, I was an old Cuban woman, fat and frumping in a housedress, yelling at kids and singing along to Guantanamera from a wavy record.
Guantanamera is a traditional Cuban song and is extremely popular there. Jose Marti was a prolific writer and activist and subsequent Cuban national hero. He traveled the world during his lifetime, and returned to Cuba in time to be killed in a battle for independence from Spain around the turn of the 20th century. Now everything is named after him.
Anyway, I even love the hilarious 1980s Julio Iglesias version, un-ironically. Got something to say?
Nothing is sweeter the Joan Baez's version, though, singing in her American-inflected Spanish.
And Celia Cruz
And Joe Dassin
Everything is so shitty in Cuba, but I've always kind of idealized it anyway. The conflux of races and subsequent strange and heady blending of tradition is very romantic to me. I'm also inspired by the constant low boil of protest happening among the citizenry, who, in response to the internet embargo, have been burning smuggled international and local news to cds, which are hand-delivered all over the country. R. Castro's government is pretty powerless to combat this offline transmission of information, which trades hands like produce in a market, or drugs in an alley.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Best History Podcasts
With Mean Observations About Each.
I have culled the entire internet for good history podcasts, and have been shocked at the lack of them. My only explanation for this is the way that historians often come to modernity only when forced, and often with tears and gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, etc. Conduct an experiment: go to any children's museum in the world, and observe the technology. Then go to any history museum. At the children's museum, you will probably enter a room where you can test out an app that allows you to levitate while mentally texting your bff. At the history museum, they'll hand you a walkman with foam-covered headphones that plays Wanda Landowska playing Dixie on her harpsichord.
I went to the Phoenix Art Museum with my grandma yesterday and asked if she remembered taking me to the massive exhibit of Egyptian art back in the mid 90s. It might've been the highlight of my year, because I was still going to be an Egyptologist then. I studied every item closely and read every line of text. I still have the Eye of Horus pendant I bought at the gift shop.
Her memory of that day: "Remember when you wouldn't put on the headphones?"
Me: "No?"
Her: "You thought you'd get lice."
BEST HISTORY PODCASTS ON THE INTERNET
1. Backstory with the American History Guys
Covers topics in a conceptual way instead of event by event, with topics like how America came to standardize the concept of time, or how we arrived at our opinions about children. Each of the three hosts specializes on a century: 18th, 19th or 20th. Each has bonafide history credentials, and I think one is on the board at Monticello or something. They are almost never annoying, which is amazing, and when their guests attempt to speak untruths, they are slapped down instantly and with vigor. In the Civil War episode, some old Confederate enthusiast tries to explain that flying the Confederate flag is ok in contemporary times because freed slaves enlisted to fight for the south. It's already a stupid fucking connection to make, but the guy implied that MANY freed black men did this when in reality, it was just a few, and this was made clear to him in a quietly ferocious and punctilious way. In your face, idiot.
2. Civil War Series with Dr. James Robertson
Dr. Robertson tells short stories about the war in a familiar and sensitive way which is only made more adorable by his slight lisp. He seems to have let the project lapse, but there are plenty of old episodes to listen to. He covers little known topics in a way that is both brief and very interesting. My mental image of him is a little more stylized than the reality - no muttonchops, no vest! No replica "US" belt buckle. Well, we like him anyway.
3. History Extra by BBC History Magazine
THEY ARE ALWAYS SELF-PROMOTING. IT IS SO DISTRACTING. Did you know the BBC History magazine is the best-selling history magazine in the UK and maybe the universe? Did you know you can get it for $5? Did you know you could learn more at the website, and buy a shirt, and subscribe, and make a donation? Well you can. That said, the topics and guests are very good and I have learned all sorts of interesting things that I didn't know, about things like the black plague, and Henry VIII's mom, and peasant casualwear of the 18th century.
4. Lapham's Quarterly Podcast
I don't know. One of the editors narrates this podcast and he has the most incredibly horrible, annoying voice. I listened to one in which Dick Cavett was interviewed by Lewis Lapham himself, so that one was fine, but I don't know if I can listen to the others if that hideous guy is on all of them. Lapham's is a pretty good magazine, though, so I am keeping the hope alive. Why doesn't someone tell him his voice is so bad? Dealbreaker material.
5. The Bowery Boys
NYC history. These guys aren't annoying at all. Topics are interesting and well-researched. They make me want to go back and tour "George Washington's New York," which is something I think I made up, but is probably an actual tour. I'm currently reading a book about GW, and all of the talk about Manhattan spots that are still there, and what a hideous little shithole he thought it was, makes me want to go stand in the same places and pretend to be a 6'7 gentle giant who can't have any fun because everyone admires him too much.
6. BBC In Our Time: History
Pretty entertaining because the host/guests are all very invested in their comments and ready to get into a heated match of words at any time. The problem is that they do, constantly, and it starts to sound like the Jerry Springer version of a history podcast as they bicker away unintelligibly. The topics are very intense and they get into them instantly, leaving no time for laypeople to catch up. If you are not at least semi-familiar with the incident they'll be discussing, then forget it.
I have culled the entire internet for good history podcasts, and have been shocked at the lack of them. My only explanation for this is the way that historians often come to modernity only when forced, and often with tears and gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, etc. Conduct an experiment: go to any children's museum in the world, and observe the technology. Then go to any history museum. At the children's museum, you will probably enter a room where you can test out an app that allows you to levitate while mentally texting your bff. At the history museum, they'll hand you a walkman with foam-covered headphones that plays Wanda Landowska playing Dixie on her harpsichord.
I went to the Phoenix Art Museum with my grandma yesterday and asked if she remembered taking me to the massive exhibit of Egyptian art back in the mid 90s. It might've been the highlight of my year, because I was still going to be an Egyptologist then. I studied every item closely and read every line of text. I still have the Eye of Horus pendant I bought at the gift shop.
Her memory of that day: "Remember when you wouldn't put on the headphones?"
Me: "No?"
Her: "You thought you'd get lice."
BEST HISTORY PODCASTS ON THE INTERNET
1. Backstory with the American History Guys
Covers topics in a conceptual way instead of event by event, with topics like how America came to standardize the concept of time, or how we arrived at our opinions about children. Each of the three hosts specializes on a century: 18th, 19th or 20th. Each has bonafide history credentials, and I think one is on the board at Monticello or something. They are almost never annoying, which is amazing, and when their guests attempt to speak untruths, they are slapped down instantly and with vigor. In the Civil War episode, some old Confederate enthusiast tries to explain that flying the Confederate flag is ok in contemporary times because freed slaves enlisted to fight for the south. It's already a stupid fucking connection to make, but the guy implied that MANY freed black men did this when in reality, it was just a few, and this was made clear to him in a quietly ferocious and punctilious way. In your face, idiot.
2. Civil War Series with Dr. James Robertson
Dr. Robertson tells short stories about the war in a familiar and sensitive way which is only made more adorable by his slight lisp. He seems to have let the project lapse, but there are plenty of old episodes to listen to. He covers little known topics in a way that is both brief and very interesting. My mental image of him is a little more stylized than the reality - no muttonchops, no vest! No replica "US" belt buckle. Well, we like him anyway.
3. History Extra by BBC History Magazine
THEY ARE ALWAYS SELF-PROMOTING. IT IS SO DISTRACTING. Did you know the BBC History magazine is the best-selling history magazine in the UK and maybe the universe? Did you know you can get it for $5? Did you know you could learn more at the website, and buy a shirt, and subscribe, and make a donation? Well you can. That said, the topics and guests are very good and I have learned all sorts of interesting things that I didn't know, about things like the black plague, and Henry VIII's mom, and peasant casualwear of the 18th century.
4. Lapham's Quarterly Podcast
I don't know. One of the editors narrates this podcast and he has the most incredibly horrible, annoying voice. I listened to one in which Dick Cavett was interviewed by Lewis Lapham himself, so that one was fine, but I don't know if I can listen to the others if that hideous guy is on all of them. Lapham's is a pretty good magazine, though, so I am keeping the hope alive. Why doesn't someone tell him his voice is so bad? Dealbreaker material.
5. The Bowery Boys
NYC history. These guys aren't annoying at all. Topics are interesting and well-researched. They make me want to go back and tour "George Washington's New York," which is something I think I made up, but is probably an actual tour. I'm currently reading a book about GW, and all of the talk about Manhattan spots that are still there, and what a hideous little shithole he thought it was, makes me want to go stand in the same places and pretend to be a 6'7 gentle giant who can't have any fun because everyone admires him too much.
6. BBC In Our Time: History
Pretty entertaining because the host/guests are all very invested in their comments and ready to get into a heated match of words at any time. The problem is that they do, constantly, and it starts to sound like the Jerry Springer version of a history podcast as they bicker away unintelligibly. The topics are very intense and they get into them instantly, leaving no time for laypeople to catch up. If you are not at least semi-familiar with the incident they'll be discussing, then forget it.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Downton Abbey always reminds me of the Channel 4 reality shows in which modern people are made to live for a few months in a perfect replication of some other period of time.
My favorite is 1900 House. A family moves into a Victorian rowhouse which has been impeccably restored to its original era. There is not a trace of modern convenience except a secret room which contains a phone, in case of emergencies. Otherwise, the house is arranged and decorated in strict compliance with the day. My favorite was one of the set historians who admitted (resentfully?) that they used modern paint for the walls and adhesive for the wallpaper, because he supposed it wouldn't be appropriate to use materials containing lead and arsenic. Ugh! The patronizing society we live in.
The family also has to dress in strictly Victorian attire and use only products that would have been available at the time. Incidentally, the Victorians didn't have shampoo as we know it now, which was of greatest concern to the women of the family. I don't exactly blame them. There's a reason hair often looks so limp and waxen in historic portraiture. Not only was there no shampoo, there was hardly any proper soap at all that you could use on your body, because the only soap in the house was the lye for the laundry. Unless you were a rich French woman, for whom fancy soaps were made as a cosmetic, but this was generally seen as a ridiculous frivolity of the rich. So it was recommended to just rinse the shit out every few weeks, or maybe put an egg yolk on it, or to use a little castile soap if you had it. Too dreadful. Eventually (spoiler alert) the mother and daughter steal into a modern shop and buy some Suave, but they feel like cheaters about it and go back to using the hideous period concoction they probably found in Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) to be good sports.
Another incredible hardship is keeping the coal stove on. This house had upstairs plumbing, but to get any hot water in the bathroom, someone had to be stoking the coals all the bloody time, including through the night. If you don't have servants, this pretty much sucks, and you can begin to imagine why people were so economical with the bathing.
Come to think of it, everything you do is harder when you're a Victorian, and if you're a woman, just give up now. It's hard to cook, because the stove doesn't heat evenly. The recipes are very complicated and some of the terminology is different, so you don't know what the hell the ingredients even are. If you're a fancy or even an upper middle class lady, you have to change your clothes and re-do your hair several times a day, and the rest of the time you just spend sitting around, looking out a window and wondering what your neighbors are wearing. If you're poor or a servant, you have to go grocery shopping every damned day, because you don't have an icebox, or if you do, it's very small. Cleaning is hard because the house is very dark and you have no Swiffer. Some people had those roller vacuums, which only function by way of slavish, vigorous rolling motions done over the carpet. There are no paper towels, so you have to do the laundry all the time too, which takes the entire day and is exhausting and terrible even with your crew of forced labor (children), and you can be burned by the soap. This helps us to understand why standards of household cleanliness back then were considerably lower than ours are now. It was just too hard. Also, no trash pickup. If you live in the hood, then the streets are actually comprised of compacted horse manure mixed with the trash that people just throw on the street and sidewalk. Old school and poor people still use chamber pots, which they just empty any old place. The hems of your skirts are quite foul.
And, of course, the women were doing all of this in corsets and tight, unsupportive leather shoes. And the corsets weren't those stupid decorative things that goth kids wear to prom. They were reinforced with steel, to keep you utterly in place. I've read news clippings from the 1890s talking about women who died after falling off a horse or something, because they were impaled on their own corsets. Also, the clothes were very heavy. Dresses weighed many pounds, and your undergarments were voluminous to say the least. And don't wear makeup unless you want people to think you are a prostitute.
God, even leisure time is potentially awful. You have to sit in a room with your family and listen to someone read aloud. If you're lucky, they're reading the latest novel, as long as it's not pornographic or written by a lady. If you're unlucky, which you probably are, they are reading the bible. There may be some piano playing or embroidering to get you through. Perhaps you sing, or study at dancing a reel for a semi-annual dance. Perhaps you are collecting your own hair to boil, wax, and form into small rosettes that you will frame or have set into a brooch for a loved one. Oh, and you are supposed to have a whole raft of children, half of which will die as infants. You just keep cranking them out (this is easy, because there is no reliable birth control other than non-compliance, which your husband can divorce you for which will then get you excommunicated and sent to hell) until a few stick it out through babyhood. Or worse, they all live and you find yourself having to feed 14 unwashed people every day. I'm just saying. It was probably hard.
So anyway. We don't envy our great-great-grandmothers much, even if they did have better furniture. I would, however, definitely partake in an experiment like 1900 House, and I very much resent that doing so isn't available as some kind of themed vacation for historians, nerds and escapists.
My favorite is 1900 House. A family moves into a Victorian rowhouse which has been impeccably restored to its original era. There is not a trace of modern convenience except a secret room which contains a phone, in case of emergencies. Otherwise, the house is arranged and decorated in strict compliance with the day. My favorite was one of the set historians who admitted (resentfully?) that they used modern paint for the walls and adhesive for the wallpaper, because he supposed it wouldn't be appropriate to use materials containing lead and arsenic. Ugh! The patronizing society we live in.
The family also has to dress in strictly Victorian attire and use only products that would have been available at the time. Incidentally, the Victorians didn't have shampoo as we know it now, which was of greatest concern to the women of the family. I don't exactly blame them. There's a reason hair often looks so limp and waxen in historic portraiture. Not only was there no shampoo, there was hardly any proper soap at all that you could use on your body, because the only soap in the house was the lye for the laundry. Unless you were a rich French woman, for whom fancy soaps were made as a cosmetic, but this was generally seen as a ridiculous frivolity of the rich. So it was recommended to just rinse the shit out every few weeks, or maybe put an egg yolk on it, or to use a little castile soap if you had it. Too dreadful. Eventually (spoiler alert) the mother and daughter steal into a modern shop and buy some Suave, but they feel like cheaters about it and go back to using the hideous period concoction they probably found in Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) to be good sports.
Another incredible hardship is keeping the coal stove on. This house had upstairs plumbing, but to get any hot water in the bathroom, someone had to be stoking the coals all the bloody time, including through the night. If you don't have servants, this pretty much sucks, and you can begin to imagine why people were so economical with the bathing.
Come to think of it, everything you do is harder when you're a Victorian, and if you're a woman, just give up now. It's hard to cook, because the stove doesn't heat evenly. The recipes are very complicated and some of the terminology is different, so you don't know what the hell the ingredients even are. If you're a fancy or even an upper middle class lady, you have to change your clothes and re-do your hair several times a day, and the rest of the time you just spend sitting around, looking out a window and wondering what your neighbors are wearing. If you're poor or a servant, you have to go grocery shopping every damned day, because you don't have an icebox, or if you do, it's very small. Cleaning is hard because the house is very dark and you have no Swiffer. Some people had those roller vacuums, which only function by way of slavish, vigorous rolling motions done over the carpet. There are no paper towels, so you have to do the laundry all the time too, which takes the entire day and is exhausting and terrible even with your crew of forced labor (children), and you can be burned by the soap. This helps us to understand why standards of household cleanliness back then were considerably lower than ours are now. It was just too hard. Also, no trash pickup. If you live in the hood, then the streets are actually comprised of compacted horse manure mixed with the trash that people just throw on the street and sidewalk. Old school and poor people still use chamber pots, which they just empty any old place. The hems of your skirts are quite foul.
And, of course, the women were doing all of this in corsets and tight, unsupportive leather shoes. And the corsets weren't those stupid decorative things that goth kids wear to prom. They were reinforced with steel, to keep you utterly in place. I've read news clippings from the 1890s talking about women who died after falling off a horse or something, because they were impaled on their own corsets. Also, the clothes were very heavy. Dresses weighed many pounds, and your undergarments were voluminous to say the least. And don't wear makeup unless you want people to think you are a prostitute.
God, even leisure time is potentially awful. You have to sit in a room with your family and listen to someone read aloud. If you're lucky, they're reading the latest novel, as long as it's not pornographic or written by a lady. If you're unlucky, which you probably are, they are reading the bible. There may be some piano playing or embroidering to get you through. Perhaps you sing, or study at dancing a reel for a semi-annual dance. Perhaps you are collecting your own hair to boil, wax, and form into small rosettes that you will frame or have set into a brooch for a loved one. Oh, and you are supposed to have a whole raft of children, half of which will die as infants. You just keep cranking them out (this is easy, because there is no reliable birth control other than non-compliance, which your husband can divorce you for which will then get you excommunicated and sent to hell) until a few stick it out through babyhood. Or worse, they all live and you find yourself having to feed 14 unwashed people every day. I'm just saying. It was probably hard.
So anyway. We don't envy our great-great-grandmothers much, even if they did have better furniture. I would, however, definitely partake in an experiment like 1900 House, and I very much resent that doing so isn't available as some kind of themed vacation for historians, nerds and escapists.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
This is how all my genius ideas go
Like a bolt of lightning, it hit me: How much better would Urban Cowboy have been WITHOUT John Travolta?
It's almost depressing to think of how much better it could have been. John Travolta has always been distasteful to me for a variety of obvious reasons (gross, a Scientologist, etc.), and while he does play Bud's stubborn hick machismo exceedingly well, he's just a little too unlikeable for the role. We're supposed to care when he almost dies, right? (Spoilers!) And when he cheats on Sissy, you want to say, "Great! Now go find someone else!" to her. Although Sissy is pretty much a douchebag herself.
Aaron Latham wrote the screenplay based on a factual Bud & Sissy of suburban Houston, who really were a couple of drunk 21 year old idiots who embarked on a tragiromance after meeting at Gilley's one night. He also kept a diary during the filming of the movie, and it's a pretty fascinating look into how young stars like Winger and Travolta carried on at this time in their lives. Hints: she's batshit and he is gay. He is a gay man. I keep telling my mother this and she won't hear me. Ok, maybe he's bi, who even cares, he looks like John McCain now.
I'm not really sure who the other up and coming young actors of 1980 were, but I feel like they could have done so much better. They only cast Travolta because he was on fire from Saturday Night Fever, and there was dancing. He looks so utterly out of place otherwise. Oh! I've got it. Sam Elliott. Maybe he was a little too old for that role, but they should have started there, not with Travolta.
Such a missed opportunity, but at least we have that priceless soundtrack. Seriously, I do love Mickey Gilley.
Poor quality, but that shirt.
Not from the movie, but still nice.
It's almost depressing to think of how much better it could have been. John Travolta has always been distasteful to me for a variety of obvious reasons (gross, a Scientologist, etc.), and while he does play Bud's stubborn hick machismo exceedingly well, he's just a little too unlikeable for the role. We're supposed to care when he almost dies, right? (Spoilers!) And when he cheats on Sissy, you want to say, "Great! Now go find someone else!" to her. Although Sissy is pretty much a douchebag herself.
Aaron Latham wrote the screenplay based on a factual Bud & Sissy of suburban Houston, who really were a couple of drunk 21 year old idiots who embarked on a tragiromance after meeting at Gilley's one night. He also kept a diary during the filming of the movie, and it's a pretty fascinating look into how young stars like Winger and Travolta carried on at this time in their lives. Hints: she's batshit and he is gay. He is a gay man. I keep telling my mother this and she won't hear me. Ok, maybe he's bi, who even cares, he looks like John McCain now.
I'm not really sure who the other up and coming young actors of 1980 were, but I feel like they could have done so much better. They only cast Travolta because he was on fire from Saturday Night Fever, and there was dancing. He looks so utterly out of place otherwise. Oh! I've got it. Sam Elliott. Maybe he was a little too old for that role, but they should have started there, not with Travolta.
Such a missed opportunity, but at least we have that priceless soundtrack. Seriously, I do love Mickey Gilley.
Poor quality, but that shirt.
Not from the movie, but still nice.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Rational Reasons
The Parsons version of this song is heartbreaking, but the Fonda version is not to be overlooked. It's an interesting combination of GP genius mixed with nerdy vocals and mariachi. And who can resist adorable gangly young Fonda with his Byronic sideburns?
One of the best things about late 60s fashion is that male hairstyles were distinctly Napoleonic in appearance. Is that so much to ask? Christ, give me a reason, dudes.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Oh goody, we learned something
An alarming thing that I learned at some point on the internet was that people who overtalk about their goals and plans tend not to accomplish those goals, because discussing them at length gives them a sort of premature satisfaction in their future accomplishments, which causes them to spend less time, you know...trying. I can't remember where I learned this. But it seems legit.
At some point, I stopped articulating my plans. Rather than plot them out in exhaustive detail or try to mentally counter potential obstacles in advance, I just leave them in a sort amorphous, ambiguous state once I am aware of them. I leave them there because 1. you can ditch them as soon as you change your mind without having some inquisitive bastard asking when you're moving to Cuba and 2. it's easier to sneak up on them when they're asleep in space, unaware of their own existence.
I guess I do my best thinking when I'm not trying to think. It's like having strokes of genius in the shower.
I set some "goals" for myself months ago, if you could even call them goals. I envisioned a timeline and sequence of events that would suit me, and checked back on them every couple of months, mostly just to make sure that I still cared. Very casual and vague. "I'll probably do this sometime." One afternoon I sat back and said, "Yanno what? Now." I spent a couple of minutes prepping, asked for a meeting, and emerged with the result that I had noncommittally decided would be best 6 months ago. A result that I later learned was unlikely to happen, policy-wise. I think this worked out because I didn't overthink it. It didn't strike me as strategy at the time, but some post-conversations I had with the boss made me realize it was. I turned the impatient and controlling part of my brain off, the part that has to make an announcement the second it has a feeling, and allowed a subtler, more perceptive element to take control.
This sounds like a slightly self-aggrandizing story about getting promoted (it is), but I believe in this method of self-direction. Negotiations with other people are so delicate and layered, and I'm generally not interested in engaging with that at all for non-personal relationships. I don't want to, which is why I have to turn my external brain off in order to be able to navigate situations. Sometimes. Other times, I just leave the outer brain on because it's always outraged and talking shit and that makes me laugh.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Thanks, Sofia
 |
| "Take my name out your mouth, bitch." |
Friday, December 27, 2013
Nope.
Jonathan Franzen has nothing to say, yet needs to produce, and therefore has to grasp about in the shallows for tools more familiar to middle school brats than literary fancymen in order to churn out a trite revision of an artist when he should, instead, turn his lazy two-bit microscope upon his own tired-ass cultural hangups.
Or at least that's what I think.
Unfortunately, for I was having such an exasperation-free day, I came across his base attempt to summarize Edith Wharton for us in a 2012 issue of the New Yorker. This is truly simple stuff.
He says that her privilege as a member of an aristocratic and well-monied family makes her difficult to like, and puts her at a "moral disadvantage". A MORAL disadvantage? This woman was born during the Civil War into a puritanical society in which women were treated as chattel, but Franzen feels oppressed by all the stuff that she could buy to decorate her house with.
Next, he throws her a bone, and says that the moral repugnance of her income is lessened by the fact that she was plain of appearance. That's right, she's not hot. He doesn't want to fuck the dour-faced novelist, standing in her turn of the century cabinet cards, with her corset and lapdogs. The unspeakable horror of this non-babe status humanizes her, it ratchets her down slightly from "rich bitch" to "ugly bitch," making her entirely more acceptable and less threatening to him. Would you ever publish something that revealed your stunted, insecure little parts like that? This article has nothing to do with Edith Wharton. It's about Franzen and his lack of emotional sophistication as a writer and a thinker.
JF, you need to sit down. Regardless of one's opinions on Wharton, who by modern perceptions can be anything from a stuffed shirt to a pioneering hero, this article is pathetic. It's lazy, written by a resentful Beavis incapable of formulating hypotheses worth sharing.
Anyway, she's taken to task far more often than is sensible or fair when you compare the tidal waves of forgiveness lavished on many male writers of comparable fame who do come with biographies that strongly temper their credibility. Perhaps people are made insecure that she still seems to be everyone's boss.
Because who in the bloody goddamned fucking hell would read this:
Or at least that's what I think.
Unfortunately, for I was having such an exasperation-free day, I came across his base attempt to summarize Edith Wharton for us in a 2012 issue of the New Yorker. This is truly simple stuff.
He says that her privilege as a member of an aristocratic and well-monied family makes her difficult to like, and puts her at a "moral disadvantage". A MORAL disadvantage? This woman was born during the Civil War into a puritanical society in which women were treated as chattel, but Franzen feels oppressed by all the stuff that she could buy to decorate her house with.
Next, he throws her a bone, and says that the moral repugnance of her income is lessened by the fact that she was plain of appearance. That's right, she's not hot. He doesn't want to fuck the dour-faced novelist, standing in her turn of the century cabinet cards, with her corset and lapdogs. The unspeakable horror of this non-babe status humanizes her, it ratchets her down slightly from "rich bitch" to "ugly bitch," making her entirely more acceptable and less threatening to him. Would you ever publish something that revealed your stunted, insecure little parts like that? This article has nothing to do with Edith Wharton. It's about Franzen and his lack of emotional sophistication as a writer and a thinker.
JF, you need to sit down. Regardless of one's opinions on Wharton, who by modern perceptions can be anything from a stuffed shirt to a pioneering hero, this article is pathetic. It's lazy, written by a resentful Beavis incapable of formulating hypotheses worth sharing.
Anyway, she's taken to task far more often than is sensible or fair when you compare the tidal waves of forgiveness lavished on many male writers of comparable fame who do come with biographies that strongly temper their credibility. Perhaps people are made insecure that she still seems to be everyone's boss.
Because who in the bloody goddamned fucking hell would read this:
“The young man was sincerely but placidly in love. He delighted in the radiant good looks of his betrothed, in her health, her horsemanship, her grace and quickness at games, and the shy interest in books and ideas that she was beginning to develop under his guidance. She was straightforward, loyal, and brave; she had a sense of humour (chiefly proved by her laughing at his jokes); and he suspected, in the depths of her innocently-gazing soul, a glow of feeling that it would be a joy to waken. But when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product. Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.”
and respond with "Yeah, but have you seen her pixxx?"
Edit: I decided to look into the fallout of Franzen's odious bullshit and found some far better responses to him than I am capable of at this time.
Victoria Patterson dispenses with him in a way that is diplomatic, authoritative, and interesting. To be able to eviscerate someone in a kind way, a humane killing, must be an incredibly valuable skill to have. I wouldn't know. LA Review of Books "Not Pretty: On Edith Wharton and Jonathan Franzen"
Marina Budhos wonders why Franzen was unable to see the similarities between himself and Wharton. Probably because one must be in heavy denial of one's own flaws in order to achieve such a level of schmuckery.
Edit: I decided to look into the fallout of Franzen's odious bullshit and found some far better responses to him than I am capable of at this time.
Victoria Patterson dispenses with him in a way that is diplomatic, authoritative, and interesting. To be able to eviscerate someone in a kind way, a humane killing, must be an incredibly valuable skill to have. I wouldn't know. LA Review of Books "Not Pretty: On Edith Wharton and Jonathan Franzen"
Marina Budhos wonders why Franzen was unable to see the similarities between himself and Wharton. Probably because one must be in heavy denial of one's own flaws in order to achieve such a level of schmuckery.
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| Not Sexy Enough |
Every time I hear Marion Harris' version of Tea For Two (more often than you'd think; it's 1934 over on 8tracks), I think of Big Edie Beale singing along to an old recording in her squalid bedroom. She's obviously transported at one point and really gets into it, reliving her prior glories.
This scene was one of the most memorable for me. Big Edie shaking her arms at her daughter saying, "Dance to that waltz! How can you resist that?"
I love music of the 20s and 30s, but some songs are just way too adorable and saccharine or goofy for me to handle, and Tea For Two was one of them. Rarely do I want to hear a song that you can tap dance to. Still, Grey Gardens changed my mind and I quite like it now. I think Doris Day is the reason why I couldn't deal with the song, originally. Although I think she's an under-appreciated actress, she was often styled in a way that created an almost toxic combination of cuteness and squareness.
The real DD seems to be a bit of a badass. Yes, be. She still lives.
DD 1950
Marion Harris 1924
This scene was one of the most memorable for me. Big Edie shaking her arms at her daughter saying, "Dance to that waltz! How can you resist that?"
I love music of the 20s and 30s, but some songs are just way too adorable and saccharine or goofy for me to handle, and Tea For Two was one of them. Rarely do I want to hear a song that you can tap dance to. Still, Grey Gardens changed my mind and I quite like it now. I think Doris Day is the reason why I couldn't deal with the song, originally. Although I think she's an under-appreciated actress, she was often styled in a way that created an almost toxic combination of cuteness and squareness.
The real DD seems to be a bit of a badass. Yes, be. She still lives.
DD 1950
Marion Harris 1924
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Researches
I miss this. I tend to pick topics that are hard and ultimately probably unrewarding, but are nevertheless things that I MUST KNOW.
Current topic: What (if anything) stood on the land that now hosts my office building? We are in a residential area that has a really curious mix of housing, age-wise. We are just a couple of miles outside of the original Phoenix city limits, so it's reasonably likely that there was something there in the 19th century or around the turn of the century. It could have been orchards, farmland, perhaps a mix of the three with a dwelling, etc. We are close the the state hospital (formerly: The Insane Asylum of Arizona), too, which was located on a sprawling acreage that included orchards, grain crops and vineyards, but I have no real concept of how large 160 acres is, so I can't tell if we are close enough to have been part of that, or if the hospital ever even got rid of any of that land. I haven't found a map of the hospital from that time. Sidebar, the hospital also has its own cemetery with graves dating back to 1888. Want to see! It seems pretty securified there, though, and like many places, probably won't let me in.
Obviously, the reason I want to know is because of THE GHOST. I mean, the alleged ghost. I haven't seen shit and that is fine. But continued conversations with someone who claims to have seen it indicate that it wears a giant, oddly-shaped hat the likes of which your great-great grandmother was probably into.
There are precious few early Phoenix maps that are of any use for this. The Assessor's office doesn't seem to have any historic property info. Do parcel numbers change, ever? How can we keep track if they change them? I can't seem to find anything about the previous zoning or address situation of any given parcel. The current residential developments around us cannot be original - they're inexpensive 40s and 50s builds, some of which appear to have been built to house airport personnel. And one street over, we have much earlier homes.
Because we are so close to the original city center, and not far off the path people used to get to Tempe, and because we are right smack in between the downtown area and the hospital (which was pretty impressive at the time and therefore a bit of a landmark), it seems likely to me that there could have been a few scattered homes in the vicinity of our office building. Perhaps more than a few. I'll find out eventually.
Current topic: What (if anything) stood on the land that now hosts my office building? We are in a residential area that has a really curious mix of housing, age-wise. We are just a couple of miles outside of the original Phoenix city limits, so it's reasonably likely that there was something there in the 19th century or around the turn of the century. It could have been orchards, farmland, perhaps a mix of the three with a dwelling, etc. We are close the the state hospital (formerly: The Insane Asylum of Arizona), too, which was located on a sprawling acreage that included orchards, grain crops and vineyards, but I have no real concept of how large 160 acres is, so I can't tell if we are close enough to have been part of that, or if the hospital ever even got rid of any of that land. I haven't found a map of the hospital from that time. Sidebar, the hospital also has its own cemetery with graves dating back to 1888. Want to see! It seems pretty securified there, though, and like many places, probably won't let me in.
Obviously, the reason I want to know is because of THE GHOST. I mean, the alleged ghost. I haven't seen shit and that is fine. But continued conversations with someone who claims to have seen it indicate that it wears a giant, oddly-shaped hat the likes of which your great-great grandmother was probably into.
There are precious few early Phoenix maps that are of any use for this. The Assessor's office doesn't seem to have any historic property info. Do parcel numbers change, ever? How can we keep track if they change them? I can't seem to find anything about the previous zoning or address situation of any given parcel. The current residential developments around us cannot be original - they're inexpensive 40s and 50s builds, some of which appear to have been built to house airport personnel. And one street over, we have much earlier homes.
Because we are so close to the original city center, and not far off the path people used to get to Tempe, and because we are right smack in between the downtown area and the hospital (which was pretty impressive at the time and therefore a bit of a landmark), it seems likely to me that there could have been a few scattered homes in the vicinity of our office building. Perhaps more than a few. I'll find out eventually.
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| 1890s hospital administration enjoying their "lake" hole |
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