(Weeping about many different issues simultaneously.)
Helena has not been happy this week. Rather, she has been happy, but she has also been extremely miserable. There's diarrhea. And yesterday I thought I caught a glint of white in the dark recesses (lower left) where a molar is someday to be.
Her appetite, or at least her eating patterns, is in flux. I thought she wasn't hungry, but it turns out she really wanted to feed herself, so lunch takes about an hour.
This morning, after having dropped her at the mother-in-law's so we can enjoy a romantic getaway of a weekend in Quebec City, it's been reported to us that there's a pus-y discharge from her eye. I'm going to try not to worry.
And I've been working. (Note how the number of blog entries earlier this week directly corresponds to my capacity for procrastination.)
I took a phone call from a client the other day and Helena was screaming the whole time. The incident has me extremely upset. Fortunately, I have a healthy relationship with this client; I don't think it's a big deal. I deperately want to explain, though, to the client and to the world, that Helena's rarely like that. But I'm angry, too. I know clients realize I work from home and therefore set my own hours and conditions, yet I feel that if the phone rings I should be "on." On the clock. On the ball. Not have a wailing infant in my arms. I'm really upset. I guess I have to rethink some things. Again.
The Passion is finally out, to mixed reviews. Charlie Rose the other night had Christopher Hitchens, among others, calling it the Jesus Chainsaw Massacre. I'm dead curious to see it with my own eyes, but I have serious reservations about contributing financially to Mel Gibson and his weird sect. We'll see which forces within me win out.
I particularly like the joke about Donald Trump firing Pontius Pilate.
Did I not read somewhere that the use of Latin in the movie is historically inaccurate? That Greek would've been the lingua franca of politics and "diplomacy"? Nobody seems to think that's an issue (just another detail that calls into question the accuracy of the interpretation). Maybe I dreamt it. I wonder...
Be careful of what your government is voting on:
The real aim of the legislation is to undermine abortion rights by giving the unborn the same legal rights as the born. They charge that abortion politics was taking precedence over the need to protect abused women.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said it would affect a woman's reproductive rights. It "is not about women and it is not about children. It's about politics."
According to Maud Newton's site, there's more on the semicolon issue, and there's an octopus making it's way around New York City.
And I really feel for Mimi this week, what with battling "the Great Drifting Alienated Orb Of Adulthood (see ill-conceived metaphor here)." Maybe I should write to her.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
According to the Book Quiz, I'm The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger:
You are surrounded by phonies, and boy are you sick of them! In an ongoing struggle to search for a land without phonies, you end up running away from everything, from school to consequences. In this process, you reveal that many people in your life have suffered torments and all you really want to do is catch them as they fall. Perhaps using a baseball mitt. Your biggest fans are infamous psychotics.
Maybe I should grow up.
The second time through, I'm Eliot's Prufrock:
Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.
Funny, cuz both these pieces were highly significant to me, when I was 15.
You are surrounded by phonies, and boy are you sick of them! In an ongoing struggle to search for a land without phonies, you end up running away from everything, from school to consequences. In this process, you reveal that many people in your life have suffered torments and all you really want to do is catch them as they fall. Perhaps using a baseball mitt. Your biggest fans are infamous psychotics.
Maybe I should grow up.
The second time through, I'm Eliot's Prufrock:
Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.
Funny, cuz both these pieces were highly significant to me, when I was 15.
Go, gods, go
I liked Neil Gaiman's American Gods. In fact, the more I think about it, the more time passes, the more I like it.
Read an excerpt.
It didn't hit me over the head. Although I cared what happened next, I didn't stay up late reading. I didn't sneak off to bathroom, asking J-F to watch Helena "for a few minutes."
I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about — pages and pages of quotable blurbs written by reviewers I've never heard of. "An important, essential book" is a bit overblown. "Keeps the reader turning pages" is somewhat more lowkey, but a meaningless comment, really, to make about any adequate book.
There's nothing bad to say about this book. But it's lingering with me. The story's a giant metaphor, of course, which I'm still enjoying unravelling. This book is aging well.
Gaiman paints America with the reverence only an outsider could muster. He is able to express and comment upon his experience with America through wildly fantastical elements. One realizes how magical even the plainest portions of the country are, as Wednesday and Shadow trek across the country looking for supernatural recruits. No imagination can escape the boundaries of America's wide and varied landscapes, and even gods are humbled by it. These modern times are often defined in terms of conflicting values and eras, as well as ethnicities and languages, and somewhere, standing undefined, is that elusive figure suggested by the term "American."
Gaiman's no literary genius, but he knows his craft well enough. It's idea that drives this book, not language. (More books might be better off if they had ideas like these.) I don't really see how American Gods could win both the Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel (the only horrific element is that dead woman who keeps hanging around) and the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Novel (there's certainly no science about it, and the fantasy is the kind that pervades our daily lives) — I'd sooner file this book in the magic realism genre.
The story behind the story is the marketing of this book. Part of that plan included an online journal, which still thrives.
From one of Neil Gaiman's first journal entries:
I first suggested we do something like this to my editor, the redoubtable Jennifer Hershey, about a year ago, while the book was still being written (a process that continued until about 3 weeks ago). She preferred to wait until the book was on the conveyor belt to actual publication, thus sparing the reading world lots of entries like "Feb 13th: wrote some stuff. It was crap." and "Feb 14th: wrote some brilliant stuff. This is going to be such a good novel. Honest it is." followed by "Feb 15th. no, it's crap" and so on. It was a bit like wrestling a bear. Some days I was on top. Most days, the bear was on top. So you missed watching an author staring in bafflement as the manuscript got longer and longer, and the deadlines flew about like dry leaves in a gale, and the book remained unfinished.
I have no idea what kind of book this is. Or rather, there's nothing quite like it out there that I can point to. Sooner or later some reviewer will say something silly but quotable like "If JRR Tolkein had written The Bonfire of the Vanities..." and it'll go on the paperback cover and thus put off everyone who might have enjoyed it.
(There is a blurb that goes, "If Jack Kerouac had written Lord of the Rings...")
It's about the soul of America, really. What people brought to America; what found them when they came; and the things that lie sleeping beneath it all.
Read an excerpt.
It didn't hit me over the head. Although I cared what happened next, I didn't stay up late reading. I didn't sneak off to bathroom, asking J-F to watch Helena "for a few minutes."
I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about — pages and pages of quotable blurbs written by reviewers I've never heard of. "An important, essential book" is a bit overblown. "Keeps the reader turning pages" is somewhat more lowkey, but a meaningless comment, really, to make about any adequate book.
There's nothing bad to say about this book. But it's lingering with me. The story's a giant metaphor, of course, which I'm still enjoying unravelling. This book is aging well.
Gaiman paints America with the reverence only an outsider could muster. He is able to express and comment upon his experience with America through wildly fantastical elements. One realizes how magical even the plainest portions of the country are, as Wednesday and Shadow trek across the country looking for supernatural recruits. No imagination can escape the boundaries of America's wide and varied landscapes, and even gods are humbled by it. These modern times are often defined in terms of conflicting values and eras, as well as ethnicities and languages, and somewhere, standing undefined, is that elusive figure suggested by the term "American."
Gaiman's no literary genius, but he knows his craft well enough. It's idea that drives this book, not language. (More books might be better off if they had ideas like these.) I don't really see how American Gods could win both the Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel (the only horrific element is that dead woman who keeps hanging around) and the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Novel (there's certainly no science about it, and the fantasy is the kind that pervades our daily lives) — I'd sooner file this book in the magic realism genre.
The story behind the story is the marketing of this book. Part of that plan included an online journal, which still thrives.
From one of Neil Gaiman's first journal entries:
I first suggested we do something like this to my editor, the redoubtable Jennifer Hershey, about a year ago, while the book was still being written (a process that continued until about 3 weeks ago). She preferred to wait until the book was on the conveyor belt to actual publication, thus sparing the reading world lots of entries like "Feb 13th: wrote some stuff. It was crap." and "Feb 14th: wrote some brilliant stuff. This is going to be such a good novel. Honest it is." followed by "Feb 15th. no, it's crap" and so on. It was a bit like wrestling a bear. Some days I was on top. Most days, the bear was on top. So you missed watching an author staring in bafflement as the manuscript got longer and longer, and the deadlines flew about like dry leaves in a gale, and the book remained unfinished.
I have no idea what kind of book this is. Or rather, there's nothing quite like it out there that I can point to. Sooner or later some reviewer will say something silly but quotable like "If JRR Tolkein had written The Bonfire of the Vanities..." and it'll go on the paperback cover and thus put off everyone who might have enjoyed it.
(There is a blurb that goes, "If Jack Kerouac had written Lord of the Rings...")
It's about the soul of America, really. What people brought to America; what found them when they came; and the things that lie sleeping beneath it all.
Where is bin Laden?
Driving home late Saturday night we heard on a French AM radio station that Osama bin Laden had been located. We scanned the radio dial for more information. Nothing.
We got home in information-hunting mode; I went for the TV, J-F for the Internet. Nothing. Nothing on the French wires. In the clear light of the following day, still nothing.
This morning finally the story makes its way into the pages of Salon:
Osama is being "monitored by satellite"
So says the Sunday Express, a London tabloid owned by Brit publishing magnate Richard Desmond, whose other titles include "Horny Housewives," "Mega Boobs," and "Worldwide Golf." Though some Bush opponents worry that the administration could spring an "October surprise" by capturing Osama just in time to parade back into the White House in November, few mainstream media have picked up the Express story. Australia's Sunday Telegraph ventured a cautious report on Monday:
"Bin Laden 'surrounded'
"February 22, 2004
"A British Sunday newspaper is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Sunday Express, known for its sometimes colourful scoops, claims the al-Qaeda leader has been 'sighted' for the first time since 2001 and is being monitored by satellite ...
"The claim is attributed to 'a well-placed intelligence source' in Washington, who is quoted as saying: 'He (bin Laden) is boxed in.'
"The paper says the hostile terrain makes an all-out conventional military assault impossible. The plan to capture him would depend on a 'grab-him-and-go' style operation. 'US helicopters already sited on the Afghanistan border will swoop in to extricate him,' the newspaper says ... The special forces are 'absolutely confident' there is no escape for bin Laden, and are awaiting the order to go in and get him.
"'The timing of that order will ultimately depend on President Bush,' the paper says. 'Capturing bin Laden will certainly be a huge help for him as he gets ready for the election.'"
Now, I suppose the source of the story is considered questionable (Salon drives that point home), but it's a story people are very much interested in. So why aren't we hearing more about it?
We got home in information-hunting mode; I went for the TV, J-F for the Internet. Nothing. Nothing on the French wires. In the clear light of the following day, still nothing.
This morning finally the story makes its way into the pages of Salon:
Osama is being "monitored by satellite"
So says the Sunday Express, a London tabloid owned by Brit publishing magnate Richard Desmond, whose other titles include "Horny Housewives," "Mega Boobs," and "Worldwide Golf." Though some Bush opponents worry that the administration could spring an "October surprise" by capturing Osama just in time to parade back into the White House in November, few mainstream media have picked up the Express story. Australia's Sunday Telegraph ventured a cautious report on Monday:
"Bin Laden 'surrounded'
"February 22, 2004
"A British Sunday newspaper is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Sunday Express, known for its sometimes colourful scoops, claims the al-Qaeda leader has been 'sighted' for the first time since 2001 and is being monitored by satellite ...
"The claim is attributed to 'a well-placed intelligence source' in Washington, who is quoted as saying: 'He (bin Laden) is boxed in.'
"The paper says the hostile terrain makes an all-out conventional military assault impossible. The plan to capture him would depend on a 'grab-him-and-go' style operation. 'US helicopters already sited on the Afghanistan border will swoop in to extricate him,' the newspaper says ... The special forces are 'absolutely confident' there is no escape for bin Laden, and are awaiting the order to go in and get him.
"'The timing of that order will ultimately depend on President Bush,' the paper says. 'Capturing bin Laden will certainly be a huge help for him as he gets ready for the election.'"
Now, I suppose the source of the story is considered questionable (Salon drives that point home), but it's a story people are very much interested in. So why aren't we hearing more about it?
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Faith-based politics
Where do I start? It's infuriating, and I can't not say anything any longer. Please, go educate yourselves, and vote wisely.
1. From Harper's:
More than 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel prize winners and 19 winners of the National Medal of Science, denounced the Bush Administration for its systematic distortion of scientific facts for political gain; John H. Marburger III, the administration's head of science and technology policy, dismissed the report and said that it was politically motivated.
2. Unnoticed by much of the public, the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have been laying the groundwork for a repeal of abortion rights.
The anti-abortion movement is making tremendous progress . . . but "they're doing it below the radar."
Laci and Conner's Law: (Whenever possible, Republicans title their legislation after high-profile victims.) Though it makes an explicit exception for abortion, within the rhetoric of a law that defines killing a fetus as murder the exception seems absurd — and that's precisely the point.
The bill to suspend the FDA's approval of RU-486, the abortion pill: An 18-year-old died in September, a week after taking the pill, making her the second American woman to die from RU-486 complications. In comparison, according to the Food and Drug Administration, as of 1998, 130 Americans died after taking Viagra.
Even more devastating has been Bush's reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule, which denies American aid to family planning agencies that even mention to pregnant women that abortion is an option. See also point 3 below.
Some laws have been struck down because they didn't provide exceptions for the health of the mother and didn't contain a precise definition of the procedure it purported to ban — a crucial point because "partial birth abortion" is not a medical term. Bush doesn't follow this logic.
There cannot be an anti-abortion majority on the US Supreme Court!
Note that Roe vs. Wade isn't over yet.
Abortion in Law, History & Religion provides an interesting international perspective.
3. Abstinence over sex education:
Bush's budget recommends $270 million for programs that try to dissuade teenagers from having sex. Much of that money would be given in grants to Christian organizations such as Youth for Christ and to anti-abortion groups operating so-called crisis pregnancy centers, outfits that masquerade as women's health clinics but deliver a strongly anti-abortion message and often medically inaccurate information. It would pay for school programs that teach kids that premarital sex leads to psychological maladies and that sex with condoms is a kind of viral Russian roulette.
There is no scientific evidence that abstinence-only programs work.
There is anecdotal evidence aplenty that they do not!
Often, though, the doctors associated with the Medical Institute seem to put their "values commitments" ahead of hard evidence. One member of the institute's advisory board is W. David Hager, the author of a book called "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." Hager has suggested prayer as a cure for premenstrual syndrome and, in private practice, refused to prescribe contraception to unmarried women. In 2002, Bush appointed Hager, whom Time Magazine called "scantily credentialed," to head an FDA panel on women's health policy, but after a public outcry, he was merely made a member of the panel.
That's absurd! That man should be nowhere near women's health, and no president of any brain would think to appoint him.
4. Amending the constitution:
Bush says marriage cannot be severed from its "cultural, religious and natural" roots. (Haven't they taken God out of the constitution yet?!)
I don't see how amending the constitution would not be discriminatory. I fear this opens the door to a lot more Christian-Right amending.
Grrr. It all just makes me so mad.
1. From Harper's:
More than 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel prize winners and 19 winners of the National Medal of Science, denounced the Bush Administration for its systematic distortion of scientific facts for political gain; John H. Marburger III, the administration's head of science and technology policy, dismissed the report and said that it was politically motivated.
2. Unnoticed by much of the public, the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have been laying the groundwork for a repeal of abortion rights.
The anti-abortion movement is making tremendous progress . . . but "they're doing it below the radar."
Laci and Conner's Law: (Whenever possible, Republicans title their legislation after high-profile victims.) Though it makes an explicit exception for abortion, within the rhetoric of a law that defines killing a fetus as murder the exception seems absurd — and that's precisely the point.
The bill to suspend the FDA's approval of RU-486, the abortion pill: An 18-year-old died in September, a week after taking the pill, making her the second American woman to die from RU-486 complications. In comparison, according to the Food and Drug Administration, as of 1998, 130 Americans died after taking Viagra.
Even more devastating has been Bush's reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule, which denies American aid to family planning agencies that even mention to pregnant women that abortion is an option. See also point 3 below.
Some laws have been struck down because they didn't provide exceptions for the health of the mother and didn't contain a precise definition of the procedure it purported to ban — a crucial point because "partial birth abortion" is not a medical term. Bush doesn't follow this logic.
There cannot be an anti-abortion majority on the US Supreme Court!
Note that Roe vs. Wade isn't over yet.
Abortion in Law, History & Religion provides an interesting international perspective.
3. Abstinence over sex education:
Bush's budget recommends $270 million for programs that try to dissuade teenagers from having sex. Much of that money would be given in grants to Christian organizations such as Youth for Christ and to anti-abortion groups operating so-called crisis pregnancy centers, outfits that masquerade as women's health clinics but deliver a strongly anti-abortion message and often medically inaccurate information. It would pay for school programs that teach kids that premarital sex leads to psychological maladies and that sex with condoms is a kind of viral Russian roulette.
There is no scientific evidence that abstinence-only programs work.
There is anecdotal evidence aplenty that they do not!
Often, though, the doctors associated with the Medical Institute seem to put their "values commitments" ahead of hard evidence. One member of the institute's advisory board is W. David Hager, the author of a book called "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." Hager has suggested prayer as a cure for premenstrual syndrome and, in private practice, refused to prescribe contraception to unmarried women. In 2002, Bush appointed Hager, whom Time Magazine called "scantily credentialed," to head an FDA panel on women's health policy, but after a public outcry, he was merely made a member of the panel.
That's absurd! That man should be nowhere near women's health, and no president of any brain would think to appoint him.
4. Amending the constitution:
Bush says marriage cannot be severed from its "cultural, religious and natural" roots. (Haven't they taken God out of the constitution yet?!)
I don't see how amending the constitution would not be discriminatory. I fear this opens the door to a lot more Christian-Right amending.
Grrr. It all just makes me so mad.
Editing can be criminal
Be careful who you edit:
The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes. Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a "service" and it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations.
Will it inhibit academic exchange?
The notion that publishing articles does not inevitably involve editing them is mind-boggling to many in the business.
Mind-boggling!
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc (IEEE) has posted its policy on dealing with embargoed activities, which include reordering of paragraphs or sentences, correction of syntax, grammar, and the replacement of inappropriate words prior to publication. "It doesn't matter where the reviewers or editors are located when applying these rules."
The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes. Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a "service" and it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations.
Will it inhibit academic exchange?
The notion that publishing articles does not inevitably involve editing them is mind-boggling to many in the business.
Mind-boggling!
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc (IEEE) has posted its policy on dealing with embargoed activities, which include reordering of paragraphs or sentences, correction of syntax, grammar, and the replacement of inappropriate words prior to publication. "It doesn't matter where the reviewers or editors are located when applying these rules."
The people in our neighbourhood
Yesterday afternoon, Helena and I headed out for a longer walk than usual. Destination: the other grocery store, because it has a superior meat counter.
Outside the ATM vestibule were two security guards, one of whom even held the door open for us. Two parking metres flank the side of the building. At one was a youngish, scruffy, tough-looking guy poking the coin slot with the blade of a Swiss army knife; at the other was a neatly dressed couple, also prodding the contraption with various keys and cards. They were still there when I left 5 minutes later. The security guards chose to leave then, too, and one of them entered a nearby phonebooth. I don't understand what they were doing there. I don't understand what would possess people to jab at a jammed quarter for such a sustained period, and without raising questions among uniformed authorities.
Further down the street we saw two of Snow White's dwarfs, though perhaps one of them was a distant cousin, looking less a miner as he was wearing a snazzy captain's hat and cowhide-print scarf. The other was appropriately toqued up for the cold.
I do not have enough hands and feet to begin to count the babies out in their strollers on this sunny day.
Outside the ATM vestibule were two security guards, one of whom even held the door open for us. Two parking metres flank the side of the building. At one was a youngish, scruffy, tough-looking guy poking the coin slot with the blade of a Swiss army knife; at the other was a neatly dressed couple, also prodding the contraption with various keys and cards. They were still there when I left 5 minutes later. The security guards chose to leave then, too, and one of them entered a nearby phonebooth. I don't understand what they were doing there. I don't understand what would possess people to jab at a jammed quarter for such a sustained period, and without raising questions among uniformed authorities.
Further down the street we saw two of Snow White's dwarfs, though perhaps one of them was a distant cousin, looking less a miner as he was wearing a snazzy captain's hat and cowhide-print scarf. The other was appropriately toqued up for the cold.
I do not have enough hands and feet to begin to count the babies out in their strollers on this sunny day.
Monday, February 23, 2004
Even though The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe was the last book standing on Canada Reads, it's the review I read this morning that makes me think it's a book I might like to read.
Canada Reads — great concept, but apart from naming a must-read for the country, the debate, though entertaining, is not very informative for people who haven't read the books on the table.
Canada Reads — great concept, but apart from naming a must-read for the country, the debate, though entertaining, is not very informative for people who haven't read the books on the table.
Pretend
Helena spends a lot of time pretending these days.
She's copying a lot of behaviour, including dance moves, which are particularly challenging since she refuses to walk, or even stand, unsupported.
She pretends to eat, picking up and savouring imaginary morsels. She pretends to read, her finger following the text and flipping pages. She "participates" in conversations. She pretends to use the computer, happily tapping away at the keyboard and mousing away. She pretends to use the phone — our real cordless phone. The primary-colour toy phones simply won't do (well, sometimes, in a pinch).
She holds the phone correctly and babbles away. Sometimes she punches in a string of numbers. I guess this is her best impression of me using the phone. She looks like she knows what she's doing and having a conversation. I haven't a clue what she's saying, and I can't imagine what must be going through her head when she does this.
Helena's computer skills leave much to be desired. Her documents are all nonsense, but she goes through the motions as well as many coworkers I've had.
All of this confirms some niggling suspicions I've had over the years — If you pretend you know what you're talking about, people will believe you. If you pretend you're a grownup, people will treat you like one. If you pretend you're sociable, smart, and funny, people might actually think you are. Act happy and you'll be happy. Mind over matter. There are days I pulled off remarkable things, cuz I believed I could and I convinced those around me. It's all a big game of pretend.
Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to "act " like he's presidential material, and, frightening though the thought is, he might make it happen.
Ralph Nader continues to act like an idiot, and the voting public knows that he is one.
From this day forth I will pretend to be a competent and all-knowing supermom with a successful editing career.
She's copying a lot of behaviour, including dance moves, which are particularly challenging since she refuses to walk, or even stand, unsupported.
She pretends to eat, picking up and savouring imaginary morsels. She pretends to read, her finger following the text and flipping pages. She "participates" in conversations. She pretends to use the computer, happily tapping away at the keyboard and mousing away. She pretends to use the phone — our real cordless phone. The primary-colour toy phones simply won't do (well, sometimes, in a pinch).
She holds the phone correctly and babbles away. Sometimes she punches in a string of numbers. I guess this is her best impression of me using the phone. She looks like she knows what she's doing and having a conversation. I haven't a clue what she's saying, and I can't imagine what must be going through her head when she does this.
Helena's computer skills leave much to be desired. Her documents are all nonsense, but she goes through the motions as well as many coworkers I've had.
All of this confirms some niggling suspicions I've had over the years — If you pretend you know what you're talking about, people will believe you. If you pretend you're a grownup, people will treat you like one. If you pretend you're sociable, smart, and funny, people might actually think you are. Act happy and you'll be happy. Mind over matter. There are days I pulled off remarkable things, cuz I believed I could and I convinced those around me. It's all a big game of pretend.
Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to "act " like he's presidential material, and, frightening though the thought is, he might make it happen.
Ralph Nader continues to act like an idiot, and the voting public knows that he is one.
From this day forth I will pretend to be a competent and all-knowing supermom with a successful editing career.
Sunday, February 22, 2004
The boring details of my weekend
Friday evening we headed to the mall for reasons I won't get into here, but I am so very excited about the black turtleneck sweater I bought for my baby for $3.44, tax included. I guess not many people buy black turtlenecks for their babies, which accounts for the sale. I can't wait for the crisp of autumn (the sweater's still a bit big) when Helena and I will head out to the café in our matching outfits — jeans and a black turtleneck. Now if only I can find her a beret.
We visited friends yesterday: an old coworker of J-F's, his wife and kids. Helena befriended the three-and-a-half-year-old girl; we were all pleased to meet the five-month-old boy. The day passed sweetly, too quickly, mostly uneventfully. Bridget was rather excited, and a bit excitable, and at one point Helena fended her off — I guess Bridget was too much in Helena's space. Later Helena stuck her whole hand in someone's glass of red wine. Her expression was one of displeasure — I'm not sure if that's cuz she'd licked her hand or just cuz of the feeling of wet.
They're good people. And we feasted on barbecued meats. The only thing better than barbecue in the sizzle of summer is barbecue in the snow.
It was a long day for Helena and with no afternoon nap. (And she seemed to be snacking all day long.) She had a couple outbursts but was mostly of a pleasant disposition. Helena's a good egg. (I love that expression. I should use it more often.) Everybody likes Helena.
Good egg.
Today marks the start of Freedom to Read Week. I'd like to enjoy the freedom to read something this week. (I'm almost finished American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, but more on this when I make it to the end. I suppose lots of people of a certain kind could find this novel full of the sort of objectionable things they would rather not let people read about.) I continue to be shocked! outraged! incensed! that books — most harmless, many provocative and inspired — are being banned. It makes me sad even when the book is kind of boring and stupid, or just unimportant. I guess I should find some examples of that, huh. But really, Where's Waldo??
So far, today, my family is doing a lot of sleeping. It's a good day for that. I shall bore you no further.
We visited friends yesterday: an old coworker of J-F's, his wife and kids. Helena befriended the three-and-a-half-year-old girl; we were all pleased to meet the five-month-old boy. The day passed sweetly, too quickly, mostly uneventfully. Bridget was rather excited, and a bit excitable, and at one point Helena fended her off — I guess Bridget was too much in Helena's space. Later Helena stuck her whole hand in someone's glass of red wine. Her expression was one of displeasure — I'm not sure if that's cuz she'd licked her hand or just cuz of the feeling of wet.
They're good people. And we feasted on barbecued meats. The only thing better than barbecue in the sizzle of summer is barbecue in the snow.
It was a long day for Helena and with no afternoon nap. (And she seemed to be snacking all day long.) She had a couple outbursts but was mostly of a pleasant disposition. Helena's a good egg. (I love that expression. I should use it more often.) Everybody likes Helena.
Good egg.
Today marks the start of Freedom to Read Week. I'd like to enjoy the freedom to read something this week. (I'm almost finished American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, but more on this when I make it to the end. I suppose lots of people of a certain kind could find this novel full of the sort of objectionable things they would rather not let people read about.) I continue to be shocked! outraged! incensed! that books — most harmless, many provocative and inspired — are being banned. It makes me sad even when the book is kind of boring and stupid, or just unimportant. I guess I should find some examples of that, huh. But really, Where's Waldo??
So far, today, my family is doing a lot of sleeping. It's a good day for that. I shall bore you no further.
Making the cut
We rented In the Cut the other night. The Meg Ryan porno. For all the fuss about this movie, it was all a little too uncomfortable to be truly sexy. Though some of the sex helped to more fully paint character, most was gratuitous.
On the whole I enjoyed the movie, but it had a lot of problems.
For starters, there's a glaring continuity problem in one scene, a conversation on a sidewalk. One flamboyantly dressed passerby walks by twice, in the same direction, within seconds. This is simply sloppy editing.
The title is never explained. The film opens on a conversation about sexual slang. It's easy to assume to the title must belong to this category. A web search yields "slang for vagina, the street usage meaning a safe place to hide," as well as a couple references to female circumcision.
The story is fairly predictable and Meg Ryan proves she can act in other than Meg Ryan movies. But her character is tough to figure out — partly deliberately so, but some of fault for this must lie with the direction and with the script.
"Frannie" is distanced from her surroundings, a natural attitude for a writer, but she seems to look on everything with distaste. Everything. She admits she is not happy when she wakes up in the morning, but the wall she has around herself while making a life in this neighbourhood is too thick. She is constantly surprised at the seediness around her, and I don't find this believable in a long-time resident, no matter that she's a writer or romantic. She would've killed herself long ago, or moved on.
How she came to live in these circumstances is also something a mystery. We know her father left her mother. We know that on one occasion he left Frannie in Geneva to go to Washington, DC. She went to boarding school. She now lives on a schoolteacher's salary, and has a close relationship with a half-sister and a fascination with New York's underbelly. (Maybe not "fascination"; she is inexplicably drawn to it.) She matter-of-factly states that words are her passion, but she never demonstrates that passion. This is the contradiction that is Frannie, and I couldn't entirely buy it.
Frannie particularly liked the word "disarticulate." I wish most of the actors had articulated better. I guess the underbelly mumbles when feminists talk out of their cu-ts.
On the whole I enjoyed the movie, but it had a lot of problems.
For starters, there's a glaring continuity problem in one scene, a conversation on a sidewalk. One flamboyantly dressed passerby walks by twice, in the same direction, within seconds. This is simply sloppy editing.
The title is never explained. The film opens on a conversation about sexual slang. It's easy to assume to the title must belong to this category. A web search yields "slang for vagina, the street usage meaning a safe place to hide," as well as a couple references to female circumcision.
The story is fairly predictable and Meg Ryan proves she can act in other than Meg Ryan movies. But her character is tough to figure out — partly deliberately so, but some of fault for this must lie with the direction and with the script.
"Frannie" is distanced from her surroundings, a natural attitude for a writer, but she seems to look on everything with distaste. Everything. She admits she is not happy when she wakes up in the morning, but the wall she has around herself while making a life in this neighbourhood is too thick. She is constantly surprised at the seediness around her, and I don't find this believable in a long-time resident, no matter that she's a writer or romantic. She would've killed herself long ago, or moved on.
How she came to live in these circumstances is also something a mystery. We know her father left her mother. We know that on one occasion he left Frannie in Geneva to go to Washington, DC. She went to boarding school. She now lives on a schoolteacher's salary, and has a close relationship with a half-sister and a fascination with New York's underbelly. (Maybe not "fascination"; she is inexplicably drawn to it.) She matter-of-factly states that words are her passion, but she never demonstrates that passion. This is the contradiction that is Frannie, and I couldn't entirely buy it.
Frannie particularly liked the word "disarticulate." I wish most of the actors had articulated better. I guess the underbelly mumbles when feminists talk out of their cu-ts.
Friday, February 20, 2004
How Caitlin Flanagan pisses me off
Flanagan's latest, "How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement," is now online. (Or just read this commentary — "There is a point in the article somewhere, but you'll have to slug through all the self-satisfied bullshit first.")
Aaauurrrrrggh!
I felt in every way superior to them: every day while they had been miles away from their babies, I'd been right there with mine, catching every little smile, writing down every advance—rolling over! eating a bit of mashed banana!—on the lined ivory pages of their baby books, importantly calling the pediatrician if anything seemed slightly awry. That so much of the day had been tedious and (truth be told) mildly depressing was itself a badge of honor.
If it's tedious and depressing, maybe you should rethink your "career" choices.
See, Flanagan had "a highly capable and very industrious nanny who did all of the hard stuff. There was no need for me to be moping around the apartment all day; I really could have lightened up and had a little more fun, clicked off the TV and gone to the movies or lunch or shopping. But I felt anxious about the whole thing—very, very anxious. If I was going to stake out my turf as an "at-home mother," putting all my worldly promise in cold storage to do it, didn't I have to actually stay home?"
Uhh, what about the mother part?
Aaauurrrrrggh!
I felt in every way superior to them: every day while they had been miles away from their babies, I'd been right there with mine, catching every little smile, writing down every advance—rolling over! eating a bit of mashed banana!—on the lined ivory pages of their baby books, importantly calling the pediatrician if anything seemed slightly awry. That so much of the day had been tedious and (truth be told) mildly depressing was itself a badge of honor.
If it's tedious and depressing, maybe you should rethink your "career" choices.
See, Flanagan had "a highly capable and very industrious nanny who did all of the hard stuff. There was no need for me to be moping around the apartment all day; I really could have lightened up and had a little more fun, clicked off the TV and gone to the movies or lunch or shopping. But I felt anxious about the whole thing—very, very anxious. If I was going to stake out my turf as an "at-home mother," putting all my worldly promise in cold storage to do it, didn't I have to actually stay home?"
Uhh, what about the mother part?
Mel's dad
Mel's dad is having a little bit of a reality problem.
"They claimed that there were 6.2 million (Jews) in Poland before the war and after the war there were 200,000, therefore he (Hitler) must have killed 6 million of them. They simply got up and left. They were all over the Bronx and Brooklyn and Sydney and Los Angeles.''
Mel has declined to comment.
Hutton Gibson follows a tiny wing of traditionalist Catholicism that views the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council as a conspiracy between Jews and Masons to take over the church.
He's kept quiet while Mel has worked to improve the PR regarding his new film, till now.
Is it ever appropriate to speak out against one's father? I think it is.
"They claimed that there were 6.2 million (Jews) in Poland before the war and after the war there were 200,000, therefore he (Hitler) must have killed 6 million of them. They simply got up and left. They were all over the Bronx and Brooklyn and Sydney and Los Angeles.''
Mel has declined to comment.
Hutton Gibson follows a tiny wing of traditionalist Catholicism that views the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council as a conspiracy between Jews and Masons to take over the church.
He's kept quiet while Mel has worked to improve the PR regarding his new film, till now.
Is it ever appropriate to speak out against one's father? I think it is.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
People shouldn't use semicolons unless they know how
They're tricky. It's no wonder they've fallen out of favour.
The LA Times ran this piece the other day (which I'm reproducing here to avoid the registration hassle):
SAN FRANCISCO—Conservative groups trying to stop the city from issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples failed to win any immediate action today in two separate court hearings.
Superior Court Judge James Warren told plaintiffs late this afternoon that they would likely succeed on the merits of their case but said he would not issue a court order until they corrected a punctuation error in their legal filing.
“I am not trying to be petty here, but it is a big deal. That semicolon is a big deal,” Warren told attorneys, according to an account by Associated Press.
In documents filed with the court, the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund had requested a court order that would force the city “cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before this court.”
“The way you’ve written this it has a semicolon where it should have the word ‘or’,” the judge said. “I don’t have the authority to issue it under these circumstances.”
Copyeditors rejoice! The law is on our side!
The LA Times ran this piece the other day (which I'm reproducing here to avoid the registration hassle):
SAN FRANCISCO—Conservative groups trying to stop the city from issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples failed to win any immediate action today in two separate court hearings.
Superior Court Judge James Warren told plaintiffs late this afternoon that they would likely succeed on the merits of their case but said he would not issue a court order until they corrected a punctuation error in their legal filing.
“I am not trying to be petty here, but it is a big deal. That semicolon is a big deal,” Warren told attorneys, according to an account by Associated Press.
In documents filed with the court, the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund had requested a court order that would force the city “cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before this court.”
“The way you’ve written this it has a semicolon where it should have the word ‘or’,” the judge said. “I don’t have the authority to issue it under these circumstances.”
Copyeditors rejoice! The law is on our side!
Metamommy crap
Caitlin Flanagan will be writing for The New Yorker:
"If it were possible to splice the DNA of Mary McCarthy and Erma Bombeck without the world exploding," said Ms. Flanagan of her new gig, "that’s what I’m going for. I’m interested in the kind of keen social observation and—at times—caustically precise criticism of McCarthy, but my subject is domestic life. Middle-class Americans used to think of work as a burden and home life as a pleasure—but now people tend to think just the opposite. I’m interested in how and why that change took place. If a household is a tiny state—as, of course, it is—I want to be its chronicler."
Something about that women is just so troublesome. In a recent interview about nannies, Flanagan admitted:
Hard work: frankly, I try to avoid it. When I was in high school, I didn't even plan on going to college. I wanted to go to community college, live at home, and then get married. I like being home! You can read and have snacks and go out to the garden and watch Hot Topics on The View.
That statement makes me want to scream, "Shut up and go back to reading your stupid Martha Stewart Magazine and doing your nails. Shut up shut shut up shut up shut up!" (Very mature of me, I know.) I find it extremely unsettling that this woman's opinions are being read by an enormous number of (can I assume things about the magazines' readership?) well-educated, career-minded men and women. Yet, all of us, it seems, are drawn to her like a train wreck.
Meanwhile Salon features an interview with an author of The Mommy Myth.
"If you're like us — mothers with an attitude problem — you may be getting increasingly irritable about this chasm between the ridiculous, honey-hued ideals of perfect motherhood in the mass media and the reality of mothers' everyday lives," Douglas and Michaels write. "And you may also be worn down by media images that suggest that however much you do for and love your kids, it is never enough."
I am increasingly relieved that I don't read mommy books, whether they be how-to parenting guides or political feminist manifestoes. Now if I can only stop reading about them.
Motherhood isn't exactly a walk in the park (well, maybe every other day we go for a stroll), but I wouldn't say it's rife with difficulty in attaining unfair ideals. Women have been doing it for, well, ever, under all sorts of impossible circumstances. If I have time enough to read about how hard it's supposed to be, I don't have it too bad. (Unless I'm doing something dreadfully wrong...)
That is, of course, assuming Helena turns out all right.
"If it were possible to splice the DNA of Mary McCarthy and Erma Bombeck without the world exploding," said Ms. Flanagan of her new gig, "that’s what I’m going for. I’m interested in the kind of keen social observation and—at times—caustically precise criticism of McCarthy, but my subject is domestic life. Middle-class Americans used to think of work as a burden and home life as a pleasure—but now people tend to think just the opposite. I’m interested in how and why that change took place. If a household is a tiny state—as, of course, it is—I want to be its chronicler."
Something about that women is just so troublesome. In a recent interview about nannies, Flanagan admitted:
Hard work: frankly, I try to avoid it. When I was in high school, I didn't even plan on going to college. I wanted to go to community college, live at home, and then get married. I like being home! You can read and have snacks and go out to the garden and watch Hot Topics on The View.
That statement makes me want to scream, "Shut up and go back to reading your stupid Martha Stewart Magazine and doing your nails. Shut up shut shut up shut up shut up!" (Very mature of me, I know.) I find it extremely unsettling that this woman's opinions are being read by an enormous number of (can I assume things about the magazines' readership?) well-educated, career-minded men and women. Yet, all of us, it seems, are drawn to her like a train wreck.
Meanwhile Salon features an interview with an author of The Mommy Myth.
"If you're like us — mothers with an attitude problem — you may be getting increasingly irritable about this chasm between the ridiculous, honey-hued ideals of perfect motherhood in the mass media and the reality of mothers' everyday lives," Douglas and Michaels write. "And you may also be worn down by media images that suggest that however much you do for and love your kids, it is never enough."
I am increasingly relieved that I don't read mommy books, whether they be how-to parenting guides or political feminist manifestoes. Now if I can only stop reading about them.
Motherhood isn't exactly a walk in the park (well, maybe every other day we go for a stroll), but I wouldn't say it's rife with difficulty in attaining unfair ideals. Women have been doing it for, well, ever, under all sorts of impossible circumstances. If I have time enough to read about how hard it's supposed to be, I don't have it too bad. (Unless I'm doing something dreadfully wrong...)
That is, of course, assuming Helena turns out all right.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Brilliant marketing, or serious paranoia?
Still more media coverage of the movie it was feared no one would go see (The Passion of the Christ), and about its media coverage.
The source of my angst [had] everything to do with [Hutton Gibson's] worldview; as he laid out his alternate history of the 20th century, I had that gut-churning sensation familiar to any journalist witnessing something horrible -- the shock of seeing it, laced by the excitement of being on hand to record it. And while I never assumed that Hutton spoke for his son, the film Mel produced and his comments about it certainly suggest father and son share a core of moral certainty that can alternately come off as righteous, uncompromising or pathological.
It's that intense moral certainty that can lead to revisionism. This is why Mel, his movie, and most of all his fundamentalist Catholicism fascinate me so.
And how he's walking that fine line between madness and genius.
The source of my angst [had] everything to do with [Hutton Gibson's] worldview; as he laid out his alternate history of the 20th century, I had that gut-churning sensation familiar to any journalist witnessing something horrible -- the shock of seeing it, laced by the excitement of being on hand to record it. And while I never assumed that Hutton spoke for his son, the film Mel produced and his comments about it certainly suggest father and son share a core of moral certainty that can alternately come off as righteous, uncompromising or pathological.
It's that intense moral certainty that can lead to revisionism. This is why Mel, his movie, and most of all his fundamentalist Catholicism fascinate me so.
And how he's walking that fine line between madness and genius.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
More passion
I'm not sure what the point is supposed to be in this just-posted piece in Salon, but at least I'm not alone in finding Mel's behaviour decidedly odd:
Gibson's mannerisms during his interview with Sawyer don't exactly help to dispel this notion of him as a propagandist with a pulpit. His eyes dart back and forth nervously, his tone shifts rapidly from humility to condescension to anger, and he talks in clipped sentences, pausing to grin smugly or widen his eyes to pound home his point.
Gibson's mannerisms during his interview with Sawyer don't exactly help to dispel this notion of him as a propagandist with a pulpit. His eyes dart back and forth nervously, his tone shifts rapidly from humility to condescension to anger, and he talks in clipped sentences, pausing to grin smugly or widen his eyes to pound home his point.
Whistle while you work
We've been busy. J-F collected Helena from his mom's place and got her home just in time for my sister's visit. She was flying through town, so she spent Sunday night on our couch and Monday day hanging out with Helena (time enough for me to go to the dentist), and with me too.
In the afternoon we went for a stroll and stopped for lunch. The bread was great, according to Helena, and even better when dipped in the carrot & ginger soup. She tried mushrooms for the first time (from my chicken and pesto panini) and thought they were really funny, I think because of the texture and because they were sliced very thin.
Helena's play is advancing to a new level. The Alphabet Pal is no longer just for kicking — Helena seems to now realize that pressing each foot of this caterpillar produces a unique sound. Lego pieces are no longer for piling into and taking out of the drawer — they can be pressed together. And she seems to have figured out that the blocks that belong to her sorting castle don't have to gain entry through the drawbridge door exclusively — they sometimes fit though the cutout shapes in the side.
Vocabulary additions:
lala = lala (Polish for doll). Surprisingly, Helena also knows that her Teletubby lala (doll) is Po and not Laa-Laa.
googlygooglygoogly = cookie. Or maybe "cookie, cookie, cookie." Although most of the time it stills appears to mean nothing at all. It's not as if she gets a lot of cookies, only Farley's "instant cereal in biscuit form."
Then there's the whistling. She makes a tiny "o" shape with her mouth, and blows. Yesterday she produced a faint, but sustained, tone. I'm amazed. I didn't figure out whistling till I was well into my twenties, and I'm still not very good. And she's learned this from me!
Today marks the first true day of our return to normalcy and Helena doesn't seem very happy. Maybe she's tired after the last couple weeks (she is napping quite a bit). Maybe she's really not impressed with our regular daily life in our tiny apartment. Or maybe there's a tooth on the way. (What kind of excuses for her misery will I come up with after all her teeth are in?)
We'll have to do some more whistling.
In the afternoon we went for a stroll and stopped for lunch. The bread was great, according to Helena, and even better when dipped in the carrot & ginger soup. She tried mushrooms for the first time (from my chicken and pesto panini) and thought they were really funny, I think because of the texture and because they were sliced very thin.
Helena's play is advancing to a new level. The Alphabet Pal is no longer just for kicking — Helena seems to now realize that pressing each foot of this caterpillar produces a unique sound. Lego pieces are no longer for piling into and taking out of the drawer — they can be pressed together. And she seems to have figured out that the blocks that belong to her sorting castle don't have to gain entry through the drawbridge door exclusively — they sometimes fit though the cutout shapes in the side.
Vocabulary additions:
lala = lala (Polish for doll). Surprisingly, Helena also knows that her Teletubby lala (doll) is Po and not Laa-Laa.
googlygooglygoogly = cookie. Or maybe "cookie, cookie, cookie." Although most of the time it stills appears to mean nothing at all. It's not as if she gets a lot of cookies, only Farley's "instant cereal in biscuit form."
Then there's the whistling. She makes a tiny "o" shape with her mouth, and blows. Yesterday she produced a faint, but sustained, tone. I'm amazed. I didn't figure out whistling till I was well into my twenties, and I'm still not very good. And she's learned this from me!
Today marks the first true day of our return to normalcy and Helena doesn't seem very happy. Maybe she's tired after the last couple weeks (she is napping quite a bit). Maybe she's really not impressed with our regular daily life in our tiny apartment. Or maybe there's a tooth on the way. (What kind of excuses for her misery will I come up with after all her teeth are in?)
We'll have to do some more whistling.
Gibson's Passion
I had to watch Diane Sawyer's interview with Mel Gibson last night, but there was no new insight into the director or his new film, The Passion of the Christ.
The only interesting things about the interview were 1) Sawyer's explanation that throughout the interview the word "passion" would be used in its original Greek sense of "suffering," referring to Christ's final hours (thanks for that, Diane; the movie's title had me totally misled); and 2) Gibson's particularly twitchy, tic-y, shifty-eyed comportment — like his character in Conspiracy Theory — which supports some people's claims that that role closely modelled Gibson's inner psyche ("The Jesus War" by P Boyer [not available online] in The New Yorker, Sept 15, 2003). Maybe he's just upset about having to continue to defend his film, but to me he looks unstable.
The only interesting things about the interview were 1) Sawyer's explanation that throughout the interview the word "passion" would be used in its original Greek sense of "suffering," referring to Christ's final hours (thanks for that, Diane; the movie's title had me totally misled); and 2) Gibson's particularly twitchy, tic-y, shifty-eyed comportment — like his character in Conspiracy Theory — which supports some people's claims that that role closely modelled Gibson's inner psyche ("The Jesus War" by P Boyer [not available online] in The New Yorker, Sept 15, 2003). Maybe he's just upset about having to continue to defend his film, but to me he looks unstable.
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