Lopate on Sontag via her son

I love this Phillip Lopate essay in the current Threepenny Review (yes, I'm reading it this morning when I should be working) about Susan Sontag's Under the Sign of Saturn and melancholia, including this anecdote from her son's memoir:

"...she was almost always dueling with depression. This was clearest immediately after she woke up, when, in an effort to shake off her despondency, she would talk, about anything and at breakneck speed, as if to overwhelm her mood with meteor showers of verbiage."

Take that, Brigham and your 55 wives!

I'm still a little stunned that Prop 8 passed. My parents and I were walking in Pioneer Square last Friday and someone with a clipboard said, "Do you want to help me get back the right to marry that I lost on Tuesday." It took me about three blocks to figure out what the heck she was talking about... California.

I know the Mormons campaigned pretty heavily for it, but do they have to take all the blame? I mean, what about all the members who protested the church's support of Prop 8 and risked being excommunicated? And it's pretty convenient for evangelicals and other general bigots to let the "saints" take the heat. Oh well, it's easy to beat up on the Mormons.


of course, anyone who will read this also reads the Slog, but I couldn't resist these photos of the New York protests.

More on Mr. Pro-Life

Ah, some clarification from the Spokesman-Review (thanks, Tom!):

"With a candidate for the U.S. Senate who’s legally changed his name to just “Pro-Life,” Idaho’s top election official is worried that voters might be confused – and vote for both “Pro-Life” and the candidate of their choice in the crowded race for retiring Sen. Larry Craig’s seat."

And then there's Pro-Life's renegade cousin, Less Taxes.

Did this happen in other states?

I'm not sure Pro-Life is qualified to be a U.S. Senator (i.e., why I can't live in my home state).

Yes, I like Roseanne (yes, the show)

EW has a photo retrospective on Roseanne, which started 20 (effing) years ago (!). I remember many people in my family *hating* this show (esp. grandpa, because Roseanne was big and loud, and my mom, who would pull a sort of ew face and shake her head every time it was on.) I'm still not sure why I like it so much--supporting cast, Darlene, their seemingly constant fights about brand-name vs. generic food. I'm sure it has something to do with the afghan.

Stop, please.

Damn it.

We never talk about Katamari anymore

...or knitting for that matter. Do I finally have a use for all that yarn in my back closet? (Yep... found it on BoingBoing. My blog is very personal.)

Urban homesteads, my ass

This makes me want to barf. I mean, it's great to have a vegetable garden, and it's very cool that people are growing their own food, but do they have to be such self-congratulating twits (look at the comments!)? Ech. It's like when someone writes a personal essay for the college paper about how they met a very nice Real Change salesman and decided to give him $5 instead of $1.

Farmers have to get up every morning at 5 a.m. to do the chores, then go to their day jobs because the farm that they love generally does not pay the bills, then they go back to work on the farm after most urban people are already home from work, sitting on their patios ("my own piece of urban heaven"), drinking wine, and toasting themselves in congratulating gestures over the spicy basil. I know this organic basil, I have it on my patio, but I don't call myself a homesteader. Farmers are actually connected to the land (not the dirt in a planter), some since birth, and they are the people who will still be interested in "the land" after it's been relegated to the dustbin of good-causes past. Talk to me in 40 years and we'll see how your urban homestead (read: condo/townhouse; read: temporary) is doing. You will have moved on, and in the meantime many rural families will have to sell their homesteads because urban consumers, while we do our best to buy as much local food as we can, can't really support the farmers in our region under the current system. Congratulate yourself, then, you bandwagon-jumping jerk. I know you worked really hard to put in that tiered garden; I just ask that you have some perspective. And humility. There's a lot of change that needs to happen to fix our food system, and it sure ain't happening out of your vegetable garden.

I love Grist, normally. They have some really great, smart, informative posts. But this is just straight-up horseshit.

Pom poms, and nunchucks

Holy shit. The New England Patriot franchise is training 600 Chinese cheerleaders for the upcoming Olympics. Apparently, they'll be cheering at every event. Enjoy the weirdness. (WSJ video via Shanghaiist).

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

The first act of Dr. Horrible (Joss Whedon's web series) just went up a little while ago. So far, so funny. Next episode: Thursday.

Tomorrow, Silas and I are off to the Yak for working and swimming (he's working, I'm swimming).

She first danced with Ballet Russes as Celia Siderova

Instead of writing a too-long post about the amazing Cyd Charisse, I'll defer to Ain't it Cool News (yes, Ain't it Cool News). They have an extensive tribute ("Cyd Charisse has slipped back to Brigadoon...") with video footage from several of her movies.

If you don't know her work, put The Band Wagon in your queue (now, before everyone else does!). Or just watch Singin' in the Rain again (I know you've seen that one!). She's the leggy gal in the green and black.

A strange tribute to Sydney Pollack, from my junior high diary

A bit late... I had to dig it out of the storage unit. It looks like an early rant about the great injustices of the Academy Awards. But, as it turns out, it's even weirder.

In this diary, whenever I missed days, I went back and filled in the blanks with some random joke, or valley-girl-ese (gag me with a spoon), or commercial jingle (wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?)--trying to create a time capsule of 80s hilarity, I'm guessing. So, I found out tonight that the Oscars didn't happen until April 11 that year--so, unless I was attuned to early Oscar buzz (did they have early Oscar buzz back then?), this is just a bizarro relic that I went back and added, probably a couple of months later. The mispelled Gandhi adds some bonus stupidity points.

On March 11, I actually did go "cruisin," which I apparently did every third day, according to this diary.

Happy Birthday Le Sacre...

Diaghilev: Will the music continue like that for a very long time?

Stravinsky: To the end, my dear.

95 years ago today, Le Sacre du Printemps premiered at the Paris Opera. Ballet riots! Nijinksy! If I only had a time machine...

This morning, Silas and I have been listening to The Rite of Spring (both with Bernstein and Stravinsky conducting). I offer no analysis (because, frankly, I know nothing about music, really). Instead, I crib from others...

like, the Chicago Symphony (you may know as CSO):

...when the score was suggested to Walt Disney for his film Fantasia, he asked “The Sock?" clearly never having heard of Le sacre. ...

May 29, 1913, the night The Rite of Spring opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, is one of the dates historians cite as the start of the modern age, like 1907, the year Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, or 1922, when The Waste Land and Ulysses were published.

and NPR, where you can listen to a detailed analysis of the Rite or Stravinsky conducting the ballet in 1960.

and Alex Ross' great The Rest is Noise. This book is way more interesting than a book about classical music should be. From p. 92...

When Charlie Parker came to Paris in 1949, he marked the occasion by incorporating the first notes of the Rite into his solo on "Alt Peanuts." Two years later, playing Birdland in New York, the bebop master spotted Stravinsky at one of the tables and immediately incorporated a motif from Firebird into "Koko," causing the composer to spill his scotch in ecstasy.

YouTube has some great clips, both of the ballet (a Joffrey production from, not sure, the 60s?) and of Stravinsky,

like this super geeky documentary: .
(think pictures of instruments with text "ribbons", and Star Warsian titles)

And this short interview on a ship. Someone commented that Stravinsky looks drunk, but it seems more likely that he was bewildered by questions like, "Who created music?" (Huh? Where's my interpreter?) Bonus: this 1965 documentary seems to be narrated by Orson Welles, or maybe all 1960s narrators sounded like Orson Welles.

If we only lived in London, I could have seen three different dance companies' interpretations in the last year (from Robin Grebson's blog... I have no idea who Robin Grebson is, but this person likes dance and music, so I like this person):

"The Rite of Spring was, quite simply, awesome. For somebody who doesn’t really do “classical” this managed to be the 3rd version of The Rite that I have seen in a year, and although the Michael Clark and LPO/Julia Mach versions were both great in their own ways, this was something else altogether."

This was written about a performance of Frühlingsopfer by Tanztheater Wuppertal. According to their spielplan I can see their company if hurry to Paris by mid-June.

I don't love the 90s: brewpubs killed my nostalgia buzz

I went to Pull-Mo last week, that's the Palouse, land-grant country, the country... to cover the state FFA convention, so I got to spend one night in my old college town. Anyone familiar with Moscow will be sad to know that Gambinos (home of the fish bowl) is no more. Instead, it's the Coeur d'Alene Brewing Company with a tricked out deck and expanded seating.

On a brighter note, we found out from our friend Amo last week that some UI architecture profs have been trying to save this old granary... much more of a Moscow fixture. When I asked the guy at the BBQ bus in the motel parking lot, he said they didn't know what was happening to it. Condos? Office building? At least it won't be a brewpub.




I stayed at the Royal Motor Inn, the only motel downtown and one that, incidentally, my parents managed in college. (The Fifth Dimension stayed there once; I think they had the same room decor that I had.)


I knew from reading online reviews that the sheets at RMI were tie-dyed, but it is impossible to imagine the impact of seeing mauve and green liquid-stained sheets until you pull back the covers.

The next morning, when I walked out the front door of my room and saw the store across the alley, all became clear...



There's not much else to report from my trip. On Friday night, I walked by the SUB, my old apartment, and the ATO house, the non-official entrance to G.R., where I got a little sad and creeped out (it was dusk). I was lame and working and did not stop in John's Alley for a Black Label or the Garden Lounge for a g&t. I was deep in FFA/reporter mode, plus it seemed a little weird and creepy to "go out" in bars where I used to pick people up (or try to pick people up) so many years ago.

Saturday morning, I enjoyed one of several downtown healthy bakeries and the farmers setting up for the outdoor market but missed out on the handicrafts store that now occupies half of what used to be Ken's Stationery, where I worked in college. (I was in charge of the crepe paper and Post-it notes.)

So, Moscow's changed, and it hasn't. I've definitely changed--maybe it's because of Silas, I don't know. I do know that nostalgia sucks. It always did, I just never noticed before.

"And here we have Idaho..."

Ha. Ha ha ha. That's something Idaho has a lot of.... bored teenagers.

Snow hid the oversized phallus over the winter, but when it emerged again in the spring some neighbors had had enough.

"They're upset about it," said Annette Tetreault, a worker at Moxie Java near the hill on Bogus Basin Road, which gives motorists a full windshield view of the hillside. "Maybe it could be offensive."

Others were indifferent.

Why don't we just go ahead and ruin bacon everywhere?

Stupid CAFOizing Americans.

For anyone who doesn't know... I wrote a story about some pigs imported from Austria that were an old-style Eastern European breed, and we are lucky to be able to get them here because they have not been "improved" by American methods of pig production. The story is coming soon, and I noticed that the P-I wrote about them today, too. (No, I won't link to you, P-I. I was there first.)

Oh, Betty

Ok. This is from yesterday. But I can't resist practically useless, yet somehow so appealing, regular segments like "first ladies who rock."



I especially love the fun facts on this one:

--Mrs. Ford supported the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights.
--Her maiden name was Bloomer.
--She performed with Martha Graham's dance company in Carnegie Hall.
--She told McCall's magazine that the only thing she'd never been asked was how often she had sex with her husband. "And if they'd asked me that I would have told them, 'As often as possible.'"
--Without her, there would be no Betty Ford Center, and half the punchlines on late night television would not make sense.

Speaking of Betty Ford Center, we were just at my parents' condo in Palm Desert, which is just a couple of gigantic, artificially oasisized blocks away from the BFC main campus on Bob Hope Drive. That, and having dinner on the same veranda as Brigitte Nielsen in Palm Springs, were our two celebrity moments. Don't you want to move to California?

Well, at least someone agrees

I've been boring people for years with my analysis of Less Than Zero as The Great Gatsby of our generation (or The Sun Also Rises, I kind of go back and forth), so I was happy to read this.

The day I met my dream book

Ferdinand: It's one of those days when everyone you talk to seems to be an imbecile. Then you start to wonder about yourself. --from Pierrot le fou

Yes, exactly. I was having a great day at the library. Then I went shopping. I will spare you the story of my bad retail experience because: a) bad retail/customer service stories are super boring; b) two very patient people in my life already had to sit through every dang detail; and, c) people telling these stories always come out sounding more like assholes the more they try to describe the assholeness of the other party. And, come on, we all know who the real assholes are. This is just shopping.

Then, you know the bad dream that has you accidentally on an express bus to Puyallup? Fortunately, my accidental express bus only took me to West Seattle. (Did you know you can get to West Seattle from downtown in 5 minutes? They don't just say that. It's actually true.)

This was all forgotten as soon as I saw Silas, and as soon as I remembered this happy library find in my Strand bag. I love Martha Gellhorn anyway, but I think this is my favorite title ever. Ever.

And Buffy, too

The last few weeks I have been getting back in touch with my old friend, television. Not in an I've-accepted-that-Dancing with the Stars-is-on-every-day sort of way (although my Mom did force me to watch it last week), but in a tv-party-on-my-Macbook 24/7 way. This party consists of:

1) Hulu. Holy shit. They have 30Rock, Fame, St. Elsewhere, and now... season two of Buffy. (The hair! Did people really look like that 11 years ago?) If they add Now and Again and Family I'm doomed, for certain.

2) TV professors! I think this is my dream job. See "Notes on Single Camera Comedy," found during my recent obsession with the now infamous failure of AS-P's Jezebel James, which people are blaming mostly on the laugh track and unexpected actor incompatibility. I watched all three episodes and the writing wasn't bad, but it's probably in the actors' best interest that no one see them act like that ever again (Parker Posey, cutesy or uptight? Even she's not sure. And Lauren Ambrose: forever petulant teen?). If you feel at all traumatized by these performances, just go rent Dazed and Confused, Personal Velocity, and SFU: Season 5, and you'll forget all about it. (No, sadly, none of these are on hulu yet.)

Yesterday, I felt traumatized by the failure (exacerbated by the fact that I wrote about it last week w/o warning people about the bad reviews). Failure is just really f-ing sad, even if it helps you move on to better things. If you don't believe me, come over to my house and watch Silas reach a little too far around the dishwasher until he crashes down, bonking his little head on the hard tiles. Which leads me to...

3) The great theater of life. Besides daily episodes of Rock of Love II on my actual television (Who will Ambre tattle on next? Did Bret really just say, "She hasn't addressed to me yet..."?), there are the daily articles in Variety and other industry pubs talking about the dismally slow pilot season and decline of television, as well as the writers' complaints that producers are out to punish them.

A TV studio chief is less generous in responding to the notion that companies are out for payback, calling those who make such accusations "crybabies."

"I’m not trying to get back at anyone," the exec said. "This is just the ebb and flow of any market and being true to what people’s value really is."

Six-word memoirs

Writing is getting me nowhere today.

No, I am not married yet.

I just kept changing my hair.

On hard days, we ate cookies.

And for Si...
Crawling, crawling and still not there.

And another... more reading!

I found this reading challenge--What's in a Name--via the nyrb books blog. Just what I need, another diversion. And yet, another diversion! And it helps me with my goal of actually reading the books I have in my house.

Here are my books (with the # of years owned + not read):
1. Color - Purple America, Rick Moody (11 years)
2. Animal - Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, Lorrie Moore (4 years)
3. First name - The Dick Gibson Show, Stanley Elkin (3 years)
4. Place - Europe Central, William Vollman (2 years)
5. Weather Event - Snow, Orhan Pamuk (3 years)
6. Plant - In the Beauty of the Lillies, John Updike (13 years)

Yet another diversion...SET is online

One of my favorite games is now a puzzle online. As if I don't already waste enough time with puzzles and online miscellany. When I first discovered it this morning, I thought it was faulty because the cards didn't change out. But (read the rules, duh) they switch out every day and you can re-use cards to find 4 (beginner) or 6 (advanced) sets--keep looking.

On the verge of...

I'm cleaning out my files as part of the big transfer to the new macbook(!) and I found this folder under "essays" and "mine." Wow. It's difficult to imagine the kind of fabulousness I have forgone by not saving anything in the folder of greatness since February 4, 2005.

P.S. Regarding my last post: Ignore me. I know nothing. Your vote counts! Go to the caucus! Go!

Happy Super (you live in WA and yer vote don't count) Tuesday!

TNR's latest issue has a feature of "eggheads and eminences" talking about who they are voting for. Poet C.K. Williams is voting for Obama, and adds:

I have to say that, as a spectator, I'm much more fascinated by the Republicans. Watching those shifty, devious, unscrupulous creatures clawing at each other in spasms of demagoguery and pander is like beholding the whole vile, fear-driven history of humanity.

And, if you're a Hillary hold-over like me, you might enjoy Erica Jong's not-surprisingly feminist statement, even if the last sentence is a little old school, in an over-the-top, yep, my-mom-would-say-that sort of way. I wish it were more hopeful, but then I could say the same for the H.C. campaign.