Today was the first day of spring quarter. (and there was much rejoicing...) But no, really, it wasn't too bad. I will probably talk about it more after this first week, but Mondays are going to be hard because I have five hours of class without a break--right during normal lunching hours!
I finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender, a book with its own particular sadness. Wikipedia notes that Bender is known for her surreal plots, which, aside from Rose's ability to taste emotions, did not seem true of this novel, until *SPOILER ALERT* her brother turns into a chair! What?!? I had to read that chapter twice and was thoroughly confused. It began to make more sense towards the end of the novel, if that's possible. I think the sadness for me came from the depiction of a dysfunctional family (that, and that the characters weren't entirely fleshed-out). God knows my family is nowhere near functional, and yet I thought, my family is more real than this, my family is more happy than this. And so I wondered if there are families out there like this, just quietly sad.
I am now reading Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil. So far it's interesting, but the novel seems a bit like Martel on Martel--obsessed as it is with writing and animals, the protagonist being a Canadian writer. It is clever, and I mean that as a compliment and insult. Still, two passages stuck out to me that I like:
"If you are pitched into misery, remember that your days on this earth are counted and you might as well make the best of those you have left."
That has a certain come-what-may, life-goes-on practicality, and that everything will work out somehow simply because it has to.
"English's drive to exploit the new and the alien, its zeal in robbing words from other languages, its incapacity to feel qualms over the matter, its museum-size overabundance of vocabulary, its shoulder-shrug approach approach to spelling, its don't-worry-be-happy concern for grammar--the result was a language whose colour and wealth Henry loved."
That's often how I feel about English--a language I love for these same reasons and am thankful that I am a native speaker. I should note that these quotes come from the uncorrected proofs.
Anyway, I came across this op-ed piece in The New York Times entitled "The Rage Is Not About Health Care," which crystallized a lot of my thoughts about the health care debate, my thoughts less about the bill itself and more about our current political climate. It is clearly pro-Democrat and anti-Republican, but I still think it's important. I wanted to quote a few passages.
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.
. . .
That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care.
. . .
If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. . . . When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.
. . .
Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.
Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.
Even Jim Nelson, editor of GQ (a liberal magazine), said very similar things back in September in his letter from the editor, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Race." His glib and provocative letter argues how race has trumped real political issues:
But it’s more than the birthers. Everywhere you look, people keep making batshit-crazy comments about race and ethnicity, stream-of-consciousness-style, as if the election had unleashed some Freudian anxiety in the cultural air.
Finally, here's a pro-liberal viral video that remixes Obama's slogan "Yes We Can" with John Boehner's "Hell no, you can't!" Time (magazine) says it pretty much sums up American politics in 2010 (so far, anyway).
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Swag
Early Tuesday morning I woke up, headed down to Starbucks to get coffee and a doughnut, where it was apparently free pastry day!, and then finished packing my bags so I could head down to Portland for the Public Library Association's annual conference. I then headed downtown on the buses (two-bus trip) with my luggage, which wasn't all that fun, but it helped that the buses were largely empty. I got off in the International District searching for the King Street Station. I finally got there and boarded the train--all the way back in the very last car in coach. (Sadly there are no photos to document the trip--I've never been a very good picture-taker.)
This was my fourth train, I think. The very first train I rode was the Heber Creeper, a real coal-burning, smoke-spewing, choo-choo train that makes a completely circuitous route--it doesn't go anywhere, you just ride it for funsies. And let me tell you how much fun it is to be stuck on a slow-moving train with your family in the middle of Utah. The next train I rode on was the Eurostar Chunnel from London to Paris, and a few days later a train through the English countryside to Stratford-upon-Avon. So this was the Amtrack train from Vancouver to Portland, and ever since I was young Amtrack and Amway have always been confusedly associated in my mind--is it a train, a pyramid scheme, or both? I now know they are separate entities. Sadly American trains are not as fast as European ones. Nor are they as magical as the Darjeeling Limited--a train so whimsical you know it came from Anderson's imagination and is not based on any reality. Of course, then again, I'm not traveling with a mountain of Luis Vuitton luggage.
On the way down I read a great deal of The United States of Arugula a nonfiction account of how America became of gourmet nation chronicling the last fifty years or so of our food history and how key players like James Beard, Craig Claiborne, Julia Child, and Alice Waters, among many others, changed the way we eat and think about (gourmet) food. It's very interesting, and has made me thankful that we live in a world that now contains such items as salsa--virtually unheard of 25 years ago.
Well I arrived in Portland around 3:30, and I took a taxi to the Red Lion Hotel, which I assumed would be hella janky, confusing it in my mind with unfortunate stays in Red Roof Inns. The Red Lion is actually a very nice hotel (free wi-fi!--even if we couldn't figure out how the curtains worked the first night--and a window that actually opened) kitty-corner to the convention center. To get to the hotel from the train station I had to take the worst taxi ride I've ever been on. The hotel wasn't that far from the station, but the man had no idea where it was or even how to drive a vehicle. He couldn't change lanes--sometimes driving in the middle of two lanes--ignored lights, and was baffled by Portland's streets, of which he is a taxi driver. If I am going to die in a cab it had better be in Italy and not Portland! The cynic in me thinks he may have been trying to extend the ride, but he was so bad at driving, I think he just had no sense of direction. Consequently, I hardly tipped him and didn't feel bad about it at all. So I was at the hotel where I was sharing a room with my friend Lillian, who had already checked in without putting my name on the room, and was already at a session. So I waited awkwardly in the lobby for a couple of hours until she showed up.
Once I finally got into our room, I freshened up, and we went downtown on the light rail called the MAX. It was fabulous and absolutely free in the city center. Brilliant! I was expecting Portland to be much larger like Seattle, but the city center is fairly small for a major US city. It reminded my a lot of Salt Lake actually with the broad streets, square blocks, low skyline, and general openness. Seattle is just so constricted. Portland just has more beer, fewer Mormons, and bridges. Anyway, I love Portland. So we first went to Powell's, which as many of you already know is a destination book store, and I found book heaven. I thought Bookman's in Flagstaff was pretty nice, and the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle is fabulous--well at their present location anyway; they are moving at the end of this month. But Powell's beats them all. It's a new and use bookstore that takes up an entire city block. When we stepped into the store, all my dendrites started firing and my synapses overloaded. I was pretty much in a daze for the next couple of hours which I probably why I bought two books I didn't even need. First I bought the The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles, a (very good) translation I have already read and own in my Norton anthology. I also own the Albert Cook translation (I haven't heard of him either) in the Norton Critical Edition series. But this is the beautiful Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with French folds and deckled edges and that matches the Fagles Iliad that I own and haven't red. A complete set. I also bought the Final Harvest poems by Emily Dickinson selected and edited by Thomas H. Johnson confusing it for the Franklin Reading Edition recommended by Harold Bloom. It's still a step up from the BN Classics volume, but I already have so many of Dickinson's poems in various anthologies already. Still they're very nice books, and they were on sale.
After Powell's, we started looking for somewhere to eat, but central Portland pretty much closes by eight. However, we went to Deschutes Brewery because I've already had their very good beer. Their Inversion IPA is so good! I got the sweet and spicy macaroni and cheese. The sweet and spicy aspect was interesting and delicious, but as far as mac and cheese goes, it wasn't that great. I've basically decided to only order mac and cheese from restaurants in the South that do not use penne pasta. Seriously America! I make better mac and cheese at home.
We got up early the next morning for Nancy Pearl's Book Buzz where she introduced us to representatives from Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House, and Macmillan who told us all about books coming out this spring and summer (and fall) of which librarians should be aware. We ran into fellow-student Marissa and moseyed down to the J Cafe for lunch where I had a delicious panini. We sat at the outside tables because it was a gloriously sunny and warm day. in Portland! (The next two days were gray, windy, cold, and rainy.) We headed back to the convention to see some person I didn't know named Natalie Merchant. This is because 10,000 Maniacs was a little before my time, and even though I've heard and like some of their songs, I didn't know who their lead singer was. She's been working on a new project that comes out in April called "Leave Your Sleep" that she started for her daughter wherein she has taken English and American poems and adapted them into songs. She introduced all the poem/songs and poets, and it was quite nice. Man, does she have a voice, and she's pretty funny. She also cracked up a few times during the songs. She was accompanied by two guitarists and a cellist, who was amazing! I love the cello. She came back for one encore song, explaining that when she was a child you would find her at the public library, and sang "Kind and Generous" dedicated to and a thank you for all the librarians in the room. I was just happy that is was a song I knew. After her performance, was the keynote address delivered by Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times reporter who has won a Pulitzer (with his wife) for coverage on the Tienanmen Square protests and then again for his coverage on Darfur. His speech was from his book Half the Sky about the oppression of women in developing countries. He specifically shared stories about sex trafficking in Cambodia and the education of school girls in rural China. It was a little grim, and he acknowledged that he's seen some grim things, but that what he remembers first and most are the humanitarians and volunteers who are working to make the world a better place. And his speech was a call to arms in many ways of creating opportunities for women so we can make the world better. It was really interesting (and depressing), but I was left wondering what specifically this had to do with public libraries and librarians.
After the keynote address, we made our way to the exhibit halls. I haven't been to a convention or expo center for a long time, and I forgot how freaking huge these things are. There were hundreds of vendors--mostly to do with technology--but we made our way to the publishers' booths to score some free galleys. And boy did we ever! I got The Passage by Justin Cronin a massive book, Angelology by Danielle Trussoni of which I had recently read a NYT review, Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender which I am reading right now. It's the story of a girl who one day was able to taste the hidden emotions of the people who have made the food she eats which of course a curse and not a blessing. So far, so good. I also scored a free copy of the first book in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. And I bought, for a mere five bucks, a Penguin Deluxe Edition of Moby-Dick which I will one day read. And even if I don't, it's a beautiful copy. Lillian, who just finished reading it, and already owns two copies of the book, still wants this edition. Some guy also shoved a poster in my hand, which turned out to be a pretty freaky poster of a demon and I had no idea what it was even in relation to. I left the poster in the hotel wastebasket. Looking at the pile of books, later in the hotel room, I despaired at how I was ever going to get them all home with me, but I did.
Afterward, we found the rest of our group from school, and we all headed downtown and grabbed some pizza and beer at Rocco's. Again we sat outside because it was so sunny and warm, almost uncomfortably so. We then went back to Powell's, where I didn't buy anything this time. Afterward we went and got some gelato--which is always a treat. At this point, I was ready to go back to the hotel room, which is in fact, what we did. As I was trying to decide what sessions I wanted to go to the next day, I quietly despaired at why I ever wanted to be a librarian and how much more fun English conventions are, even if they don't have any swag.
But the sessions turned out to be pretty good. I first went to one about Learning 2.0 which was about librarians learning and using Web 2.0 technologies and bringing the public library into the 21st century. I have a handle of most of these, but there's still a few I could learn. During his talk, I picked up on things I had learned in Research Methods which was both exciting and depressing. On one hand, I hated Research Methods and this was freaking Spring Break, but on the other hand I knew what he was talking about and realized I had actually learned something in class, so it wasn't a total waste. (Later, on the light rail, I heard a couple of guys talking about functions and arrays, and I sort of knew what they were talking about, thanks to my JavaScript class.) The next session was a crossover advisory for teen and adult fiction--the teens who want to read adult books and the adults who are interested in teen books. The panel consisted of two public librarians who are readers' advisers and two authors: Kaite Meditore Stover, who writes horror, and Brandon Sanderson, who writes fantasy. I decided to skip out on the last session that day, needing some down time by myself.
Lillian and I went downtown to scrounge up some food, and take advantage of Oregon's lack of sales tax. Sadly, I did not buy anything. At the hotel we watched Julie & Julia which is currently on Starz and Netflix. I really like this movie. The Julia part really is the best part of the movie, even though I like Amy Adams and Julie's memoir. Meryl Streep's Julia is just so amazing!
On Friday morning I went to the Top 5 of the Top 5, but due to time constraints it was the Top 3 of the Top 5. They acknowledge the arbitrary nature of the "top five" genres they talked about: horror, fantasy, women's fiction, crime fiction, and humor--humor not really being a traditional genre at all. They then talked about the top five up-and-comers in the genre, five trends, and their five personal favorites. There was a link to the slideshow I wanted to share, but I didn't write it down, and I can't find it right now. Anyway librarians have to be knowledgeable about every and any genre despite personal preferences. There are so many books I need to put on hold at the library.
So I ran downtown one last time to grab some street food, I got a really good taco and great baklava (which I've found to be rare), but I had a gyro that has just awful and threw most of it away. (However, there's a place on the Ave that makes fantastic gyros.) I also checked out the central branch of Portland's public library. It's old-fashioned and stately. I still think SLC's main branch is just one of the best libraries ever, but I am prejudiced. Then we checked out, and took the train home. And once we arrived in Seattle, it took another hour and a half to bus home. I plan to visit Portland more, and wouldn't even mind settling down there to work.
Two Netflix movies were waiting for me: Double Indemnity and the second season of Brothers & Sisters. And the Bodum Chambord French press I ordered finally arrived. I ordered the 3-cup size which is only 12 ounces and I'm kind of pissed at how small it is. Apparently, the Swedes think 4 oz is a cup. Damn that metric system! You know, cause I thought that 3 cups would be 24 ounces. I mean in the world we live in, a small/tall coffee is 12 oz (sometimes you can get a short which is 8 oz), but really. Seriously, Bodum?!? I know I should have read the product description more carefully, but calling it a 3-Cup Coffee Press is rather misleading. To me 12 oz is a small "cup" of coffee. Anyway, it did make delicious coffee, and one day I will probably buy a bigger, better press. (I'm also not really sure how to clean the plunger/filter--Rae?)
Well, spring quarter starts on Monday, and I'm not really excited about starting a whole new quarter. Another reason to prefer semesters. But hopefully, it'll be a good one.
This was my fourth train, I think. The very first train I rode was the Heber Creeper, a real coal-burning, smoke-spewing, choo-choo train that makes a completely circuitous route--it doesn't go anywhere, you just ride it for funsies. And let me tell you how much fun it is to be stuck on a slow-moving train with your family in the middle of Utah. The next train I rode on was the Eurostar Chunnel from London to Paris, and a few days later a train through the English countryside to Stratford-upon-Avon. So this was the Amtrack train from Vancouver to Portland, and ever since I was young Amtrack and Amway have always been confusedly associated in my mind--is it a train, a pyramid scheme, or both? I now know they are separate entities. Sadly American trains are not as fast as European ones. Nor are they as magical as the Darjeeling Limited--a train so whimsical you know it came from Anderson's imagination and is not based on any reality. Of course, then again, I'm not traveling with a mountain of Luis Vuitton luggage.
On the way down I read a great deal of The United States of Arugula a nonfiction account of how America became of gourmet nation chronicling the last fifty years or so of our food history and how key players like James Beard, Craig Claiborne, Julia Child, and Alice Waters, among many others, changed the way we eat and think about (gourmet) food. It's very interesting, and has made me thankful that we live in a world that now contains such items as salsa--virtually unheard of 25 years ago.
Well I arrived in Portland around 3:30, and I took a taxi to the Red Lion Hotel, which I assumed would be hella janky, confusing it in my mind with unfortunate stays in Red Roof Inns. The Red Lion is actually a very nice hotel (free wi-fi!--even if we couldn't figure out how the curtains worked the first night--and a window that actually opened) kitty-corner to the convention center. To get to the hotel from the train station I had to take the worst taxi ride I've ever been on. The hotel wasn't that far from the station, but the man had no idea where it was or even how to drive a vehicle. He couldn't change lanes--sometimes driving in the middle of two lanes--ignored lights, and was baffled by Portland's streets, of which he is a taxi driver. If I am going to die in a cab it had better be in Italy and not Portland! The cynic in me thinks he may have been trying to extend the ride, but he was so bad at driving, I think he just had no sense of direction. Consequently, I hardly tipped him and didn't feel bad about it at all. So I was at the hotel where I was sharing a room with my friend Lillian, who had already checked in without putting my name on the room, and was already at a session. So I waited awkwardly in the lobby for a couple of hours until she showed up.
Once I finally got into our room, I freshened up, and we went downtown on the light rail called the MAX. It was fabulous and absolutely free in the city center. Brilliant! I was expecting Portland to be much larger like Seattle, but the city center is fairly small for a major US city. It reminded my a lot of Salt Lake actually with the broad streets, square blocks, low skyline, and general openness. Seattle is just so constricted. Portland just has more beer, fewer Mormons, and bridges. Anyway, I love Portland. So we first went to Powell's, which as many of you already know is a destination book store, and I found book heaven. I thought Bookman's in Flagstaff was pretty nice, and the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle is fabulous--well at their present location anyway; they are moving at the end of this month. But Powell's beats them all. It's a new and use bookstore that takes up an entire city block. When we stepped into the store, all my dendrites started firing and my synapses overloaded. I was pretty much in a daze for the next couple of hours which I probably why I bought two books I didn't even need. First I bought the The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles, a (very good) translation I have already read and own in my Norton anthology. I also own the Albert Cook translation (I haven't heard of him either) in the Norton Critical Edition series. But this is the beautiful Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with French folds and deckled edges and that matches the Fagles Iliad that I own and haven't red. A complete set. I also bought the Final Harvest poems by Emily Dickinson selected and edited by Thomas H. Johnson confusing it for the Franklin Reading Edition recommended by Harold Bloom. It's still a step up from the BN Classics volume, but I already have so many of Dickinson's poems in various anthologies already. Still they're very nice books, and they were on sale.
After Powell's, we started looking for somewhere to eat, but central Portland pretty much closes by eight. However, we went to Deschutes Brewery because I've already had their very good beer. Their Inversion IPA is so good! I got the sweet and spicy macaroni and cheese. The sweet and spicy aspect was interesting and delicious, but as far as mac and cheese goes, it wasn't that great. I've basically decided to only order mac and cheese from restaurants in the South that do not use penne pasta. Seriously America! I make better mac and cheese at home.
We got up early the next morning for Nancy Pearl's Book Buzz where she introduced us to representatives from Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House, and Macmillan who told us all about books coming out this spring and summer (and fall) of which librarians should be aware. We ran into fellow-student Marissa and moseyed down to the J Cafe for lunch where I had a delicious panini. We sat at the outside tables because it was a gloriously sunny and warm day. in Portland! (The next two days were gray, windy, cold, and rainy.) We headed back to the convention to see some person I didn't know named Natalie Merchant. This is because 10,000 Maniacs was a little before my time, and even though I've heard and like some of their songs, I didn't know who their lead singer was. She's been working on a new project that comes out in April called "Leave Your Sleep" that she started for her daughter wherein she has taken English and American poems and adapted them into songs. She introduced all the poem/songs and poets, and it was quite nice. Man, does she have a voice, and she's pretty funny. She also cracked up a few times during the songs. She was accompanied by two guitarists and a cellist, who was amazing! I love the cello. She came back for one encore song, explaining that when she was a child you would find her at the public library, and sang "Kind and Generous" dedicated to and a thank you for all the librarians in the room. I was just happy that is was a song I knew. After her performance, was the keynote address delivered by Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times reporter who has won a Pulitzer (with his wife) for coverage on the Tienanmen Square protests and then again for his coverage on Darfur. His speech was from his book Half the Sky about the oppression of women in developing countries. He specifically shared stories about sex trafficking in Cambodia and the education of school girls in rural China. It was a little grim, and he acknowledged that he's seen some grim things, but that what he remembers first and most are the humanitarians and volunteers who are working to make the world a better place. And his speech was a call to arms in many ways of creating opportunities for women so we can make the world better. It was really interesting (and depressing), but I was left wondering what specifically this had to do with public libraries and librarians.
After the keynote address, we made our way to the exhibit halls. I haven't been to a convention or expo center for a long time, and I forgot how freaking huge these things are. There were hundreds of vendors--mostly to do with technology--but we made our way to the publishers' booths to score some free galleys. And boy did we ever! I got The Passage by Justin Cronin a massive book, Angelology by Danielle Trussoni of which I had recently read a NYT review, Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender which I am reading right now. It's the story of a girl who one day was able to taste the hidden emotions of the people who have made the food she eats which of course a curse and not a blessing. So far, so good. I also scored a free copy of the first book in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. And I bought, for a mere five bucks, a Penguin Deluxe Edition of Moby-Dick which I will one day read. And even if I don't, it's a beautiful copy. Lillian, who just finished reading it, and already owns two copies of the book, still wants this edition. Some guy also shoved a poster in my hand, which turned out to be a pretty freaky poster of a demon and I had no idea what it was even in relation to. I left the poster in the hotel wastebasket. Looking at the pile of books, later in the hotel room, I despaired at how I was ever going to get them all home with me, but I did.
Afterward, we found the rest of our group from school, and we all headed downtown and grabbed some pizza and beer at Rocco's. Again we sat outside because it was so sunny and warm, almost uncomfortably so. We then went back to Powell's, where I didn't buy anything this time. Afterward we went and got some gelato--which is always a treat. At this point, I was ready to go back to the hotel room, which is in fact, what we did. As I was trying to decide what sessions I wanted to go to the next day, I quietly despaired at why I ever wanted to be a librarian and how much more fun English conventions are, even if they don't have any swag.
But the sessions turned out to be pretty good. I first went to one about Learning 2.0 which was about librarians learning and using Web 2.0 technologies and bringing the public library into the 21st century. I have a handle of most of these, but there's still a few I could learn. During his talk, I picked up on things I had learned in Research Methods which was both exciting and depressing. On one hand, I hated Research Methods and this was freaking Spring Break, but on the other hand I knew what he was talking about and realized I had actually learned something in class, so it wasn't a total waste. (Later, on the light rail, I heard a couple of guys talking about functions and arrays, and I sort of knew what they were talking about, thanks to my JavaScript class.) The next session was a crossover advisory for teen and adult fiction--the teens who want to read adult books and the adults who are interested in teen books. The panel consisted of two public librarians who are readers' advisers and two authors: Kaite Meditore Stover, who writes horror, and Brandon Sanderson, who writes fantasy. I decided to skip out on the last session that day, needing some down time by myself.
Lillian and I went downtown to scrounge up some food, and take advantage of Oregon's lack of sales tax. Sadly, I did not buy anything. At the hotel we watched Julie & Julia which is currently on Starz and Netflix. I really like this movie. The Julia part really is the best part of the movie, even though I like Amy Adams and Julie's memoir. Meryl Streep's Julia is just so amazing!
On Friday morning I went to the Top 5 of the Top 5, but due to time constraints it was the Top 3 of the Top 5. They acknowledge the arbitrary nature of the "top five" genres they talked about: horror, fantasy, women's fiction, crime fiction, and humor--humor not really being a traditional genre at all. They then talked about the top five up-and-comers in the genre, five trends, and their five personal favorites. There was a link to the slideshow I wanted to share, but I didn't write it down, and I can't find it right now. Anyway librarians have to be knowledgeable about every and any genre despite personal preferences. There are so many books I need to put on hold at the library.
So I ran downtown one last time to grab some street food, I got a really good taco and great baklava (which I've found to be rare), but I had a gyro that has just awful and threw most of it away. (However, there's a place on the Ave that makes fantastic gyros.) I also checked out the central branch of Portland's public library. It's old-fashioned and stately. I still think SLC's main branch is just one of the best libraries ever, but I am prejudiced. Then we checked out, and took the train home. And once we arrived in Seattle, it took another hour and a half to bus home. I plan to visit Portland more, and wouldn't even mind settling down there to work.
Two Netflix movies were waiting for me: Double Indemnity and the second season of Brothers & Sisters. And the Bodum Chambord French press I ordered finally arrived. I ordered the 3-cup size which is only 12 ounces and I'm kind of pissed at how small it is. Apparently, the Swedes think 4 oz is a cup. Damn that metric system! You know, cause I thought that 3 cups would be 24 ounces. I mean in the world we live in, a small/tall coffee is 12 oz (sometimes you can get a short which is 8 oz), but really. Seriously, Bodum?!? I know I should have read the product description more carefully, but calling it a 3-Cup Coffee Press is rather misleading. To me 12 oz is a small "cup" of coffee. Anyway, it did make delicious coffee, and one day I will probably buy a bigger, better press. (I'm also not really sure how to clean the plunger/filter--Rae?)
Well, spring quarter starts on Monday, and I'm not really excited about starting a whole new quarter. Another reason to prefer semesters. But hopefully, it'll be a good one.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thoughts
I pretty much squandered last week, but that's okay because it was technically finals week. Oh, and I did finish my JavaScript project on Wednesday which only took like five hours. This is the end result--it's nothing fancy but it's done. This week is officially spring break, and I'm going to Portland tomorrow for the PLA conference. I will probably feel incredibly underdressed in khakis and whatever I wear with all those librarians. I need to do laundry today. I also need to go shopping--maybe in Portland where there's no sales tax!
Anyway, in what follows is a long, rambling, incoherent stream of thoughts about not just the health care bill, but about our nation's political health in general. Let me be clear--these are my own nascent thoughts. So the health care bill finally passed, and I actually don't know that much about it. When I still lived and worked in Utah I listened to NPR's Morning Edition every morning and Talk of the Nation on my way home every afternoon. I will admit that I think NPR generally, usually leans left of center although NPR denies it. Still, I think they embody journalistic integrity, and when listening to NPR, I felt well-informed. At work I listened to and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!, This American Life, and TBTL. Since moving to Seattle I only occasionally listen to TBTL and never to NPR. I miss it a lot, but I hardly ever drive here (radio is so much better in the car!), and I'm months behind on the one podcast I semi-regularly listen to. All of this is to say that I have no idea, none whatsoever, what the current health care bill that we finally passed looks like. Still I'm excited since this means I will probably have health care one way or another, that Obama got to pass the pet issue he led and championed--otherwise he would already be a lame duck president--and also that the Democrats finally found the cojones to pass the bill.
In not knowing what the health bill comprises, I am sure I am not alone. I feel that the Republicans have been spreading a lot of misinformation and fear about the bill. Remember Death Panels? What a joke, except people actually fell for it. I respect Republicans who have a different vision for what's best for the country that differs from the Democrats' vision. However, I do not respect people, on either side of the political chasm, who participate in the xenophobic abuse we've largely seen from the conservatives: refusing to even participate in an open dialogue about issues, stonewalling every attempt, crying fowl whenever the Democrats engaged in the very same behavior that Republicans have used to their own advantage in previous Congresses, and spreading misinformation about the issues. The same tactics that have lead commentators, and the public, to believe the government is broken which stems from what? That the president is black? At one point, the health care bill looked very similar to a previous health care bill created by Republicans. Health care itself has been broken for years, so it seems only irresponsible to not try to fix it, but these tactics are even more irresponsible. If Obama and the Democrats could not pass health care, their platform issue, I think the Republicans believed they would take back Congress in the midterms and the White House in 2012. (And who knows, they still might.) So the Republicans refused to even be open to health care. It was not about responsible governing, it was about politics. It's really a shame that politics and governing go hand in hand since they're diametrically opposing forces.
Not to mention that Republicans receive a lot of money and support from big business and insurance companies. It's not the complete lack of bipartisan compromise in Washington, but also the obscene lobbying that leads me to believe our government is broken. It's going to take some serious and real campaign finance and lobbying reform in D.C. before we can have open and reasonable discourse again (so probably never). But maybe the Enlightenment principles that our country was built on, no longer work. They certainly don't apply when those in power disregard them. Perhaps the Constitution is a quaint document in the political malaise of our nuclear, information age and imperial presidency. All empires eventually fail--maybe this is the beginning of the end for us.
Still I find it bemusing, it would be more amusing if it wasn't so terrifying, that the Republicans are the populist party and the Democrats are the elite. Really? The Democrats who have been (or were, for some time) the party of women, minorities (blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc.), youth, the dispossessed, the educated, and so on. While the Republicans are the party of the upper-class white male. They claim to speak for the middle-class and Middle America, but I don't think that's really true. Maybe I'm wrong. When everyone was claiming the GOP was breaking apart, I thought that eventually we might have a Republican party worth voting for again. Perhaps the dissolution is taking longer than I thought, or maybe this is the party we will have to live with for some time.
But you have the Glenn Becks of the world (and the Bill O'Reillys, Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, Lyndon LaRouches, Anne Coulters, etc.) engaging in libertarian populism (are those two philosophies even compatible?) and demagoguery as opposed to rational discourse--remember the Enlightenment principles I was talking about? Anger is the easiest emotion to appeal to, and in Glenn Beck's case I think he is using it in a highly irresponsible manner. By the way, Glenn Beck as a libertarian does not belong to either party, but I don't remember him raising the pitchfork when W. was in office. Now Americans are angry; we're living in a Post-9/11 world where everything feels a little less safe, and we're just now (hopefully) getting out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Thanks Wall Street! Remember when the Democrats were angry at Wall Street? But Glenn Beck is angry at socialism, not unregulated capitalism. Yeah, that makes sense. I think my favorite Glenn Beck moment, covered by The Daily Show (an entertainment program that has a higher degree of journalistic integrity than FOX news), was when Beck declaimed the ills of progressivism after reading about it in books at the library, because the library is free. Of course John Stewart pointed out that libraries aren't free, they are a progressive institution paid for with tax money. Stewart goes on to note that the first public library was established in Boston in 1854. Statement of purpose? "Every citizen has the right to access community owned resources." Community owned? That sounds a lot like communism. Seriously, Glenn Beck! He makes me ashamed to be a Mormon (well ex-Mormon--my Mormonism is the subject of a whole other discussion [Also, the Mormons could really used more Brandon Flowers and fewer Glenn Becks]).
And then you have the LaRouche demagoguery comparing Obama to Hitler. If I wasn't so scared of talking to a rabid person, I would ask a LaRoucher to explain just how Obama is Hitler. Seriously! Democrats: next we need to fix that other progressive institution--public education--so we can educate our children about what Hitler was actually about and what the Nazis actually did. Painting a Hitler mustache on anyone is a cheap shot to start with, but it also lessens the actual atrocities committed by Nazis. Not cool. People hurl intellectual elitism at the liberals, and I'm sorry, isn't intellectualism a good thing? When did anti-intellectualism become chic?
So the Democrats finally passed a bill without Republican support (at least I don't think there was any Republican support), which frankly I didn't think the Democrats had in them. We've taken years of xenophobic abuse, and like an abused puppy we keep coming back for more, and to top it all off, we're scared to upset our Republican "allies." When the other party keeps bullying you, you can't just keep cowering and handing over your lunch money. Eventually you have to take a tough stand. I think politics would be much better if we could reach bipartisan compromise through rational discourse (pesky Enlightenment), but partisanship isn't always such a bad thing. I can't quite remember all the way back to my American history class, but I think the Federalists believed the Framers may have had partisanship in mind. Of course, I may be completely off. The Framers did believe in the educated elite governing the country. We also tend to forgot that America is not a democracy, it's a republic. We elect the people who govern, and who hopefully represent the people who elected them. Otherwise, we elect somebody else the next time, or if the elected abuse their power, we may impeach them. Still, in 2008 the people spoke choosing a Democratic president and a Democratic majority. And the elected have spoken in passing the health care bill. This year we will speak again in the midterm elections. Perhaps we have changed our minds.
In either case, if you haven't seen your Facebook home page today, go check it out. It's pretty funny, but also frightening in its implications. Those who have made a comment concerning health care are either 100% for or against it. And the comment sections are sometimes fraught. And these people are our Facebook friends! The country has been politically polarized and people are discussing politics in highly emotional states. I would hope at least are leaders could discuss politics in a more dispassionate manner. But after all the Enlightenment (logic) was succeeded by Romanticism (emotion). While this is a rant in its own way, I hope I'm open for a rational debate. I may have been harsh on conservatives, but I don't think I have been unfair. I certainly haven't compare anyone to Hitler. But if you disagree let me know. It's also on the Internet, a great shield for people to hide in anonymity and forget civility. You know who I am, you know I'm a liberal, and I hope I've been civil.
I think that's all I'm going to say on that for now, so if you want to jump straight to the comments, go ahead. However, in the meantime, I want to tell you how disgusting silver tequila is. My first experience with tequila was a bad one, and I've never really cared for it since. However, I do like a good margarita every now and then as well as a long island iced tea, two cocktails which use tequila. The only two cocktails in my mind that make a case for tequila's existence. So I was a caipirinha kick, and they are delicious, but then I started to make some long islands. The perfect long island iced tea recipe, courtesy of Dale DeGroff, is as follows:
1/2 oz vodka
12/oz gin
1/2 oz (white/light) rum
1/2 oz (silver) tequila
1/2 (triple sec) Cointreau
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
top with Coca-Cola (3-5 oz)
So you shake all the ingredient, except the cola, with ice, strain into a large glass filled 3/4 full of ice, top with Coke, and throw in a lemon wedge.
So basically it has four liquors and one liqueur, but is still delicious by combining them in small and equal portions, and surprisingly tastes a little bit like iced tea. So I had some 1800 reposado tequila, which is rested tequila. But all my cocktail books call for silver tequila in cocktails, which is not aged at all. And in the long island the vodka, gin, and Cointreau are clear, and so it calls for a white rum and a silver tequila to keep things equal. However, I was using my reposado and it worked just fine in margaritas and long islands. But then I used my last bit. So I went to the liquor store and decided to try silver tequila, buying 1800 brand 100% blue agave silver tequila. Huge mistake. The resting period of the reposado takes the edge off the silver tequila which is vegetal, peppery, and terrible. I made a silver margarita and it was the worst margarita I've ever had. So then I made a long island where you can't really taste any of the liquors since they're all mixed together. Except, through the vodka, gin, rum, Cointreau, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Coca-Cola, I could taste the 1/2 oz of silver tequila, and it almost ruined the long island--it's definitely not as good as with reposado. So here's my advice: avoid tequila always except for a margarita or long island, and then only use reposado tequila. I now have a big-ass bottle of silver tequila that I will probably have till the end of time.
Time to get ready for Portland!
Anyway, in what follows is a long, rambling, incoherent stream of thoughts about not just the health care bill, but about our nation's political health in general. Let me be clear--these are my own nascent thoughts. So the health care bill finally passed, and I actually don't know that much about it. When I still lived and worked in Utah I listened to NPR's Morning Edition every morning and Talk of the Nation on my way home every afternoon. I will admit that I think NPR generally, usually leans left of center although NPR denies it. Still, I think they embody journalistic integrity, and when listening to NPR, I felt well-informed. At work I listened to and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!, This American Life, and TBTL. Since moving to Seattle I only occasionally listen to TBTL and never to NPR. I miss it a lot, but I hardly ever drive here (radio is so much better in the car!), and I'm months behind on the one podcast I semi-regularly listen to. All of this is to say that I have no idea, none whatsoever, what the current health care bill that we finally passed looks like. Still I'm excited since this means I will probably have health care one way or another, that Obama got to pass the pet issue he led and championed--otherwise he would already be a lame duck president--and also that the Democrats finally found the cojones to pass the bill.
In not knowing what the health bill comprises, I am sure I am not alone. I feel that the Republicans have been spreading a lot of misinformation and fear about the bill. Remember Death Panels? What a joke, except people actually fell for it. I respect Republicans who have a different vision for what's best for the country that differs from the Democrats' vision. However, I do not respect people, on either side of the political chasm, who participate in the xenophobic abuse we've largely seen from the conservatives: refusing to even participate in an open dialogue about issues, stonewalling every attempt, crying fowl whenever the Democrats engaged in the very same behavior that Republicans have used to their own advantage in previous Congresses, and spreading misinformation about the issues. The same tactics that have lead commentators, and the public, to believe the government is broken which stems from what? That the president is black? At one point, the health care bill looked very similar to a previous health care bill created by Republicans. Health care itself has been broken for years, so it seems only irresponsible to not try to fix it, but these tactics are even more irresponsible. If Obama and the Democrats could not pass health care, their platform issue, I think the Republicans believed they would take back Congress in the midterms and the White House in 2012. (And who knows, they still might.) So the Republicans refused to even be open to health care. It was not about responsible governing, it was about politics. It's really a shame that politics and governing go hand in hand since they're diametrically opposing forces.
Not to mention that Republicans receive a lot of money and support from big business and insurance companies. It's not the complete lack of bipartisan compromise in Washington, but also the obscene lobbying that leads me to believe our government is broken. It's going to take some serious and real campaign finance and lobbying reform in D.C. before we can have open and reasonable discourse again (so probably never). But maybe the Enlightenment principles that our country was built on, no longer work. They certainly don't apply when those in power disregard them. Perhaps the Constitution is a quaint document in the political malaise of our nuclear, information age and imperial presidency. All empires eventually fail--maybe this is the beginning of the end for us.
Still I find it bemusing, it would be more amusing if it wasn't so terrifying, that the Republicans are the populist party and the Democrats are the elite. Really? The Democrats who have been (or were, for some time) the party of women, minorities (blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc.), youth, the dispossessed, the educated, and so on. While the Republicans are the party of the upper-class white male. They claim to speak for the middle-class and Middle America, but I don't think that's really true. Maybe I'm wrong. When everyone was claiming the GOP was breaking apart, I thought that eventually we might have a Republican party worth voting for again. Perhaps the dissolution is taking longer than I thought, or maybe this is the party we will have to live with for some time.
But you have the Glenn Becks of the world (and the Bill O'Reillys, Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, Lyndon LaRouches, Anne Coulters, etc.) engaging in libertarian populism (are those two philosophies even compatible?) and demagoguery as opposed to rational discourse--remember the Enlightenment principles I was talking about? Anger is the easiest emotion to appeal to, and in Glenn Beck's case I think he is using it in a highly irresponsible manner. By the way, Glenn Beck as a libertarian does not belong to either party, but I don't remember him raising the pitchfork when W. was in office. Now Americans are angry; we're living in a Post-9/11 world where everything feels a little less safe, and we're just now (hopefully) getting out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Thanks Wall Street! Remember when the Democrats were angry at Wall Street? But Glenn Beck is angry at socialism, not unregulated capitalism. Yeah, that makes sense. I think my favorite Glenn Beck moment, covered by The Daily Show (an entertainment program that has a higher degree of journalistic integrity than FOX news), was when Beck declaimed the ills of progressivism after reading about it in books at the library, because the library is free. Of course John Stewart pointed out that libraries aren't free, they are a progressive institution paid for with tax money. Stewart goes on to note that the first public library was established in Boston in 1854. Statement of purpose? "Every citizen has the right to access community owned resources." Community owned? That sounds a lot like communism. Seriously, Glenn Beck! He makes me ashamed to be a Mormon (well ex-Mormon--my Mormonism is the subject of a whole other discussion [Also, the Mormons could really used more Brandon Flowers and fewer Glenn Becks]).
And then you have the LaRouche demagoguery comparing Obama to Hitler. If I wasn't so scared of talking to a rabid person, I would ask a LaRoucher to explain just how Obama is Hitler. Seriously! Democrats: next we need to fix that other progressive institution--public education--so we can educate our children about what Hitler was actually about and what the Nazis actually did. Painting a Hitler mustache on anyone is a cheap shot to start with, but it also lessens the actual atrocities committed by Nazis. Not cool. People hurl intellectual elitism at the liberals, and I'm sorry, isn't intellectualism a good thing? When did anti-intellectualism become chic?
So the Democrats finally passed a bill without Republican support (at least I don't think there was any Republican support), which frankly I didn't think the Democrats had in them. We've taken years of xenophobic abuse, and like an abused puppy we keep coming back for more, and to top it all off, we're scared to upset our Republican "allies." When the other party keeps bullying you, you can't just keep cowering and handing over your lunch money. Eventually you have to take a tough stand. I think politics would be much better if we could reach bipartisan compromise through rational discourse (pesky Enlightenment), but partisanship isn't always such a bad thing. I can't quite remember all the way back to my American history class, but I think the Federalists believed the Framers may have had partisanship in mind. Of course, I may be completely off. The Framers did believe in the educated elite governing the country. We also tend to forgot that America is not a democracy, it's a republic. We elect the people who govern, and who hopefully represent the people who elected them. Otherwise, we elect somebody else the next time, or if the elected abuse their power, we may impeach them. Still, in 2008 the people spoke choosing a Democratic president and a Democratic majority. And the elected have spoken in passing the health care bill. This year we will speak again in the midterm elections. Perhaps we have changed our minds.
In either case, if you haven't seen your Facebook home page today, go check it out. It's pretty funny, but also frightening in its implications. Those who have made a comment concerning health care are either 100% for or against it. And the comment sections are sometimes fraught. And these people are our Facebook friends! The country has been politically polarized and people are discussing politics in highly emotional states. I would hope at least are leaders could discuss politics in a more dispassionate manner. But after all the Enlightenment (logic) was succeeded by Romanticism (emotion). While this is a rant in its own way, I hope I'm open for a rational debate. I may have been harsh on conservatives, but I don't think I have been unfair. I certainly haven't compare anyone to Hitler. But if you disagree let me know. It's also on the Internet, a great shield for people to hide in anonymity and forget civility. You know who I am, you know I'm a liberal, and I hope I've been civil.
I think that's all I'm going to say on that for now, so if you want to jump straight to the comments, go ahead. However, in the meantime, I want to tell you how disgusting silver tequila is. My first experience with tequila was a bad one, and I've never really cared for it since. However, I do like a good margarita every now and then as well as a long island iced tea, two cocktails which use tequila. The only two cocktails in my mind that make a case for tequila's existence. So I was a caipirinha kick, and they are delicious, but then I started to make some long islands. The perfect long island iced tea recipe, courtesy of Dale DeGroff, is as follows:
1/2 oz vodka
12/oz gin
1/2 oz (white/light) rum
1/2 oz (silver) tequila
1/2 (triple sec) Cointreau
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
top with Coca-Cola (3-5 oz)
So you shake all the ingredient, except the cola, with ice, strain into a large glass filled 3/4 full of ice, top with Coke, and throw in a lemon wedge.
So basically it has four liquors and one liqueur, but is still delicious by combining them in small and equal portions, and surprisingly tastes a little bit like iced tea. So I had some 1800 reposado tequila, which is rested tequila. But all my cocktail books call for silver tequila in cocktails, which is not aged at all. And in the long island the vodka, gin, and Cointreau are clear, and so it calls for a white rum and a silver tequila to keep things equal. However, I was using my reposado and it worked just fine in margaritas and long islands. But then I used my last bit. So I went to the liquor store and decided to try silver tequila, buying 1800 brand 100% blue agave silver tequila. Huge mistake. The resting period of the reposado takes the edge off the silver tequila which is vegetal, peppery, and terrible. I made a silver margarita and it was the worst margarita I've ever had. So then I made a long island where you can't really taste any of the liquors since they're all mixed together. Except, through the vodka, gin, rum, Cointreau, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Coca-Cola, I could taste the 1/2 oz of silver tequila, and it almost ruined the long island--it's definitely not as good as with reposado. So here's my advice: avoid tequila always except for a margarita or long island, and then only use reposado tequila. I now have a big-ass bottle of silver tequila that I will probably have till the end of time.
Time to get ready for Portland!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Week in Review
Right now I'm listening to a CD of Belle & Sebastian and Kate Bush that Cathy gave me. Thanks Cathy! Ask and you shall receive.
So last Monday I finally had more than two people over to my apartment. I got about six other librarians-in-training over to play Trivial Pursuit because we're hardcore like that. It was really fun, and it made me clean my entire apartment which doesn't happen all that often. It was so lovely--it's pretty much gone to hell again already. It's at times like these that I understand my mother's frustration in keeping the house clean for more than five minutes. So it's the 1981 Genus edition of Trivial Pursuit that Ellen gave me for Christmas. I never got my Pink wedge because I don't know '70s pop culture. Really I don't know any pop culture before 2004, and even then... I also don't do well with the orange sports category unless it's a leisure (read: drinking) question. I read enough GQ that I could pull out a contemporary athlete's name even if it might be the wrong sport, but athletes and games before 1981--I'm helpless. I got one question about a quarterback, and Ady said Greg doesn't know any quarterbacks, only wide receivers and tight ends. Thanks Ady. I did do better than Heidi who answered every question with Jesus. It was pretty sweet when she got a question about the book Heidi though. Chloe had to leave early which meant that Tim won, of course.
On Wednesday, my group in Research Methods had to give a twenty-minute presentation on our paper. I had made slides the night before and sent them to Andra. Well I checked my email at school realizing I had sent a PDF file and not a PPT file, and so I had to run home send the slide, and run back to school up the giant hill. So much for being calm and poised. The presentation actually went pretty well. It just wasn't a fun day.
On Thursday we had a celebraxination for 530 which started with brunch at Portage Bay Cafe whose motto is Eat Like You Give a Damn--y'know locally grown, ethically raised, organic, and environmentally friendly food. I got the lemon curd French toast which sounded delicious but the lemon curd was too sweet. I also met Moritz, Maggie's German sweetheart, who is on his spring break or something. We were trying to find something that wasn't too sweet for him because his German, and so we settled on the buckwheat pancakes, except none of know exactly what buckwheat is. It did lead to a interesting discussion of challah and communion wafers. After brunch, I was going to work on my Zotero assignment and edit/rewrite my final paper, but I watched TV instead waiting until it was time to go to Chapel to continue the celebraxination.
Chapel is a sophisticated martini bar in Capitol Hill. It was actually a former funeral home converted into a lounge. Now, as you well know, I'm a cocktail and gin snob. Martinis are made with gin and dry vermouth, stirred over ice, and served up with a lemon twist or an olive. End of story. Just because you serve a drink in a cocktail glass doesn't mean it's a martini--appletini, flirtini, pomtini, chocolate martini, etc. Martinis go in martini glasses. Fortunately, I had a coming to Jesus moment. Their so-called martinis first of all have more creative names than just adding -tini at the end, and secondly are delicious. I started, in my snobbery, with a John Doe--a gin martini that was super strong. But then I had a lavender martini which was a revelation! Then the Edie Sedgwick which is a lot like a cosmo, the Campari martini, because I love Campari, and finally the NYC. So I realized that I can make myself an excellent gin martini anytime at home, but I can't make an infused cocktail like the lavender martini.
So Meagan drove us there, us being Susan, Andrew, and I. Our original game plan was to have one drink, or two, and then go home like responsible students who have an 8:30 Friday class. Well drink one derailed us from this plan of attack. Halfway through her Stigmata, Meagan was like we should stay out ALL NIGHT and go to IHOP and then to class. I strongly protested this line of thinking. Anyway, there were about twenty people there and we it was lovely to see everyone and converse and drink. So after five drinks, singing "Somebody Told Me" with Meagan, and falling down in front of the font, the party decided to travel down the street (far, far down the street) to Neighbors, a gay dance club.
So normally, I'm not one for clubs or dancing, but I was drunk enough and they played enough awesome songs that I just went with it. We were probably there for an hour and a half or so. It was awesome to see our professor out there shaking it. Grad school is awesome! We left shortly before midnight, our dreams of staying out all night had been sensibly crushed, and Andrew and I had a dance-off (not really) to see who the most sober to drive. Andrew won. But first we had to go to Dick's for some hot, greasy food to soak up all the alcohol. I got home just before one, took some ibuprofen, and drank a couple of glasses of water. (Meagan took pictures of all the madness, which I'm sure will be on Facebook soon enough.)
I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that I had to complete two assignments later that day, and wondered why, oh why, did go out last night? And then when it was time to wake up, I had no problems getting out of bed, surprisingly. I usually don't get hangovers, and this wasn't even the worst I've felt after a night of drinking, but I didn't feel super great either. So at 8:30 when our professor started talking about social issues, I was like, I can't handle this. Why am I here? It was a short day though, so that was nice. I had Ben help me export an RDF file from Zotero because I had no idea how to do something like that.
Anyway, after my last class, I raced home, and had little over an hour to complete my Zotero assignment. In the RDF file, I had to identify the XML namespaces and other identifiers. First of all, I have no idea how to read XML, so I basically made it up. It was due at 5. I submitted it at 4:59. Booyah! On to my paper. So in class, our professor had some us talk about papers so we could hear what other people were working on. In class I was like, I don't even remember what my paper's about because I haven't looked it since I got my peer review comments back. Anyway, I went through the comments, made some changes, read through it, fixed my citations, and turned it in. Not my best paper, but oh well. 16+ years of schooling has reinforced the concept that I can put everything off until the last minute and be fine. Jeannie was having an end-of-term/St. Paddy's party that night, but I was pretty much catatonic at that point, so I stayed home.
Yesterday, I went and saw The Last Station which was a perfectly fine film. And then I walked home, down the Ave and through campus, and it was such a beautiful day. Sunny, and warm, and all the cherry trees on campus in bloom. Then I decided to make Turkey Loco burgers. So I mixed up the ground turkey, onion, and spices in a large bowl, formed the patties and grilled a couple of them. Then I got out a smaller bowl to make the guacamole topping--this is the "loco" part. So the guacamole called for a jalapeno, minced. This was my first jalapeno and I didn't wear gloves. However, I did hold the pepper with a paper towel and didn't touch any of the seeds. Fortunately my hands didn't catch on fire, but I rubbed them in oil just in case. After I had eaten, I was putting everything away, and I realized the smaller bowl I got out was still clean. Then I realized that I had made the guacamole in the same bowl as the raw turkey. Awesome. Well, I'm not dead yet.
I also made a Caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail, which is lime wedges muddles with raw sugar, add cachaca and ice, then shake it all up. I had no idea what cachaca was until yesterday when I discovered that it's a lot like rum, but whereas rum is made from molasses, cachaca is made from sugarcane. So I don't really like rum, but I bought this 10 Cane rum from Trinidad which I really like. The thing about 10 Cane is that it's made from sugarcane and not molasses which makes it more of a cachaca than a rum. Anyway, Caipirinhas are delicious, and I might just make them every day for the rest of spring break.
Afterward, I drove to Capitol Hill since Cathy was having a small party. We played Partini, which is a bit like Cranium (more party, less brainy), and there's a cups and ball game. So I went to pick the ball up off the floor and my fingernail hurt. I looked at my fingernail and realized that there was a flaky piece of wood or something from the baseboard jammed up my fingernail. I took it out and it bled a little bit, it wasn't too painful though. But I might die from tetanus, if the salmonella doesn't get me first that is.
Well, that's what I've been up to. Today I need to go through my email, apply for the FAFSA, and work on my final JavaScript project which is due tomorrow. Then I'll be officially free.
So last Monday I finally had more than two people over to my apartment. I got about six other librarians-in-training over to play Trivial Pursuit because we're hardcore like that. It was really fun, and it made me clean my entire apartment which doesn't happen all that often. It was so lovely--it's pretty much gone to hell again already. It's at times like these that I understand my mother's frustration in keeping the house clean for more than five minutes. So it's the 1981 Genus edition of Trivial Pursuit that Ellen gave me for Christmas. I never got my Pink wedge because I don't know '70s pop culture. Really I don't know any pop culture before 2004, and even then... I also don't do well with the orange sports category unless it's a leisure (read: drinking) question. I read enough GQ that I could pull out a contemporary athlete's name even if it might be the wrong sport, but athletes and games before 1981--I'm helpless. I got one question about a quarterback, and Ady said Greg doesn't know any quarterbacks, only wide receivers and tight ends. Thanks Ady. I did do better than Heidi who answered every question with Jesus. It was pretty sweet when she got a question about the book Heidi though. Chloe had to leave early which meant that Tim won, of course.
On Wednesday, my group in Research Methods had to give a twenty-minute presentation on our paper. I had made slides the night before and sent them to Andra. Well I checked my email at school realizing I had sent a PDF file and not a PPT file, and so I had to run home send the slide, and run back to school up the giant hill. So much for being calm and poised. The presentation actually went pretty well. It just wasn't a fun day.
On Thursday we had a celebraxination for 530 which started with brunch at Portage Bay Cafe whose motto is Eat Like You Give a Damn--y'know locally grown, ethically raised, organic, and environmentally friendly food. I got the lemon curd French toast which sounded delicious but the lemon curd was too sweet. I also met Moritz, Maggie's German sweetheart, who is on his spring break or something. We were trying to find something that wasn't too sweet for him because his German, and so we settled on the buckwheat pancakes, except none of know exactly what buckwheat is. It did lead to a interesting discussion of challah and communion wafers. After brunch, I was going to work on my Zotero assignment and edit/rewrite my final paper, but I watched TV instead waiting until it was time to go to Chapel to continue the celebraxination.
Chapel is a sophisticated martini bar in Capitol Hill. It was actually a former funeral home converted into a lounge. Now, as you well know, I'm a cocktail and gin snob. Martinis are made with gin and dry vermouth, stirred over ice, and served up with a lemon twist or an olive. End of story. Just because you serve a drink in a cocktail glass doesn't mean it's a martini--appletini, flirtini, pomtini, chocolate martini, etc. Martinis go in martini glasses. Fortunately, I had a coming to Jesus moment. Their so-called martinis first of all have more creative names than just adding -tini at the end, and secondly are delicious. I started, in my snobbery, with a John Doe--a gin martini that was super strong. But then I had a lavender martini which was a revelation! Then the Edie Sedgwick which is a lot like a cosmo, the Campari martini, because I love Campari, and finally the NYC. So I realized that I can make myself an excellent gin martini anytime at home, but I can't make an infused cocktail like the lavender martini.
So Meagan drove us there, us being Susan, Andrew, and I. Our original game plan was to have one drink, or two, and then go home like responsible students who have an 8:30 Friday class. Well drink one derailed us from this plan of attack. Halfway through her Stigmata, Meagan was like we should stay out ALL NIGHT and go to IHOP and then to class. I strongly protested this line of thinking. Anyway, there were about twenty people there and we it was lovely to see everyone and converse and drink. So after five drinks, singing "Somebody Told Me" with Meagan, and falling down in front of the font, the party decided to travel down the street (far, far down the street) to Neighbors, a gay dance club.
So normally, I'm not one for clubs or dancing, but I was drunk enough and they played enough awesome songs that I just went with it. We were probably there for an hour and a half or so. It was awesome to see our professor out there shaking it. Grad school is awesome! We left shortly before midnight, our dreams of staying out all night had been sensibly crushed, and Andrew and I had a dance-off (not really) to see who the most sober to drive. Andrew won. But first we had to go to Dick's for some hot, greasy food to soak up all the alcohol. I got home just before one, took some ibuprofen, and drank a couple of glasses of water. (Meagan took pictures of all the madness, which I'm sure will be on Facebook soon enough.)
I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that I had to complete two assignments later that day, and wondered why, oh why, did go out last night? And then when it was time to wake up, I had no problems getting out of bed, surprisingly. I usually don't get hangovers, and this wasn't even the worst I've felt after a night of drinking, but I didn't feel super great either. So at 8:30 when our professor started talking about social issues, I was like, I can't handle this. Why am I here? It was a short day though, so that was nice. I had Ben help me export an RDF file from Zotero because I had no idea how to do something like that.
Anyway, after my last class, I raced home, and had little over an hour to complete my Zotero assignment. In the RDF file, I had to identify the XML namespaces and other identifiers. First of all, I have no idea how to read XML, so I basically made it up. It was due at 5. I submitted it at 4:59. Booyah! On to my paper. So in class, our professor had some us talk about papers so we could hear what other people were working on. In class I was like, I don't even remember what my paper's about because I haven't looked it since I got my peer review comments back. Anyway, I went through the comments, made some changes, read through it, fixed my citations, and turned it in. Not my best paper, but oh well. 16+ years of schooling has reinforced the concept that I can put everything off until the last minute and be fine. Jeannie was having an end-of-term/St. Paddy's party that night, but I was pretty much catatonic at that point, so I stayed home.
Yesterday, I went and saw The Last Station which was a perfectly fine film. And then I walked home, down the Ave and through campus, and it was such a beautiful day. Sunny, and warm, and all the cherry trees on campus in bloom. Then I decided to make Turkey Loco burgers. So I mixed up the ground turkey, onion, and spices in a large bowl, formed the patties and grilled a couple of them. Then I got out a smaller bowl to make the guacamole topping--this is the "loco" part. So the guacamole called for a jalapeno, minced. This was my first jalapeno and I didn't wear gloves. However, I did hold the pepper with a paper towel and didn't touch any of the seeds. Fortunately my hands didn't catch on fire, but I rubbed them in oil just in case. After I had eaten, I was putting everything away, and I realized the smaller bowl I got out was still clean. Then I realized that I had made the guacamole in the same bowl as the raw turkey. Awesome. Well, I'm not dead yet.
I also made a Caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail, which is lime wedges muddles with raw sugar, add cachaca and ice, then shake it all up. I had no idea what cachaca was until yesterday when I discovered that it's a lot like rum, but whereas rum is made from molasses, cachaca is made from sugarcane. So I don't really like rum, but I bought this 10 Cane rum from Trinidad which I really like. The thing about 10 Cane is that it's made from sugarcane and not molasses which makes it more of a cachaca than a rum. Anyway, Caipirinhas are delicious, and I might just make them every day for the rest of spring break.
Afterward, I drove to Capitol Hill since Cathy was having a small party. We played Partini, which is a bit like Cranium (more party, less brainy), and there's a cups and ball game. So I went to pick the ball up off the floor and my fingernail hurt. I looked at my fingernail and realized that there was a flaky piece of wood or something from the baseboard jammed up my fingernail. I took it out and it bled a little bit, it wasn't too painful though. But I might die from tetanus, if the salmonella doesn't get me first that is.
Well, that's what I've been up to. Today I need to go through my email, apply for the FAFSA, and work on my final JavaScript project which is due tomorrow. Then I'll be officially free.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Pretty Pretty Princess
So I just read this post by the ladies over at Being Lovely which also refers to this post by Shannon Hale. In some respects my post follows my other recent post about my totally reconstructed views regarding feminism. Now Disney has always been accused of being anti-feminist or whatever--we discussed this at some length in my Advanced Critical Theory class--but Disney made me a "feminist," which is probably at the root of my problems with classic academic gender feminists.
Anyway, if we look at the television shows and movies I own, there is a recurring theme of interesting female characters. I shall guide you through a portion of my DVD shelf. First up Gilmore Girls, the center of which is the mother/daughter team of the Lorelais who are smart, witty, funny, and culturally literate women. Mother/Grandmother Emily Gilmore is another strong female character, and the bucket of neuroses known as Paris Geller is my favorite character on the show. The West Wing (my favorite show) is lousy with men, as real-life politics are, but my favorite characters are the women: Press-Secretary C.J. Cregg, Josh's assistant Donna, Republican Counsel Ainsley Hayes, women's activist Amy Gardner, and the firecracker of a First Lady, Abigail Bartlet, played by Stockard Channing. I also own a couple of seasons of Sex and the City, a gynocentric show to be sure. Finally, in the HBO miniseries Angels in America, my favorite character is Harper played to perfection by Mary-Louise Parker.
Moving on to movies, my favorite of course is The Hours headed by three real women: Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf writing Mrs. Dalloway, Julianne Moore as a 1950s housewife suffocated by familial duties and the era's malaise, and Meryl Streep as a contemporary society hostess. These are the lead characters and they're fascinating. The book and the film ignited my love of Virginia Woolf, a fascinating woman and writer. We have Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep as the strong-willed Karen von Blixen (who was also a writer; psuedonym Isak Dinesen). V for Vendetta stars Natalie Portman as the lead character. Casino Royale features Judi Dench as M and sexy Eva Green as the feisty Vesper Lynd, one of the few (if not the only) women with whom Bond truly falls in love. Kill Bill follows The Bride, female assassin-extraordinaire. White Oleander is a story of a mother's love and a daughter's struggle for independence. It features a diverse array of female characters. I especially love Michelle Pfeiffer's brilliant portrayal of the manipulative mother, Ingrid. We have Drew Barrymore as the free-spirited heroine in Ever After who rescues the prince and even herself. In Elizabeth, Cate Blanchett dazzles as the Virgin Queen with the heart of a lion. She also reigns in The Lord of the Rings as the ambiguous Elven queen. Audrey Hepburn turns in an iconic performance as Holly Golightly.
I know some people have proposed eliminating the "Best Actress" awards categories as sexist, and just having Best Actor categories for male and female actors instead, but I'm always much more interested in the actress nominees, and I'm not entirely sure the nominations would be shared equally.
And then we reach the Disney Princesses. A child of the "Disney Renaissance," we begin with The Little Mermaid, which centers on Ariel, a strong-willed daughter who rebels against her father. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle is a girl who reads!--can you believe it?!--who learns that beauty is more than skin-deep. In Aladdin, Jasmine declares "I am no prize to be won!" In Hercules we have the sardonic Megara. And in Mulan, our eponymous character dons men's armor and proves she's just as good as any man. While Sleeping Beauty, one of my personal favorites, features an excessively passive princess, it also has the perpetually charming good fairies and Maleficent, who I think is the best Disney villain ever.
Now, I'm not saying that all of these characters are strong women or ideal role-models for girls, but they are interesting female characters. (A "good" feminist should be able to tell you everything wrong with Disney.) The Disney princesses made me interested in female characters which in turn made me interested in women. Now maybe I was predisposed to like women and female characters since I'm gay. I mean I played with my sisters' Barbie dolls more than they did, and I even had a Little Mermaid board game (seriously, how did my parent's not know!?). I forgot where I was going with this, but I think Disney films can be important as cultural heritage and collective memory. It's up to parents to know what their kids are watching and to be aware of the messages, explicit or implicit, the media is preaching. Finally, you wouldn't have books like Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber or Anne Sexton's Transformations without the Brothers Grimm. You also wouldn't have songs like "Hallelujah," "Samson," "Past the Mission," or "Building a Mystery" without the Bible and religion. You actually wouldn't have a lot of literature without the Bible.
So anyway, I think I wrote this because I'm in love with interesting female characters in TV and film, and they do exist. Also, patriarchal texts can be rich for female subversion. Now I really want to watch a princess movie.
In Other News: Classes end tomorrow. I don't have any finals scheduled next week because this is library school, though I do have a JavaScript project due next week. Dammit. But after tomorrow (at 11:45pm) I will be mostly free. I should be doing homework right now. I hope to get some good reading in over spring break. I started reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay at the beginning of the quarter, and while it's very good, I got stuck because at times it's very description heavy. Sometimes, you need to reset your reading, and I think I'll do that with To Kill A Mockingbird. It's such a great novel yet easily accessible. I often prefer to reread a book than read a new one anyway, and it's been so long since I've read Mockingbird that it will still be interesting. After my post on feminism, I picked up Sexual Personae again, which I had stopped reading once grad school started. Anyway, better get back to homework.
Anyway, if we look at the television shows and movies I own, there is a recurring theme of interesting female characters. I shall guide you through a portion of my DVD shelf. First up Gilmore Girls, the center of which is the mother/daughter team of the Lorelais who are smart, witty, funny, and culturally literate women. Mother/Grandmother Emily Gilmore is another strong female character, and the bucket of neuroses known as Paris Geller is my favorite character on the show. The West Wing (my favorite show) is lousy with men, as real-life politics are, but my favorite characters are the women: Press-Secretary C.J. Cregg, Josh's assistant Donna, Republican Counsel Ainsley Hayes, women's activist Amy Gardner, and the firecracker of a First Lady, Abigail Bartlet, played by Stockard Channing. I also own a couple of seasons of Sex and the City, a gynocentric show to be sure. Finally, in the HBO miniseries Angels in America, my favorite character is Harper played to perfection by Mary-Louise Parker.
Moving on to movies, my favorite of course is The Hours headed by three real women: Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf writing Mrs. Dalloway, Julianne Moore as a 1950s housewife suffocated by familial duties and the era's malaise, and Meryl Streep as a contemporary society hostess. These are the lead characters and they're fascinating. The book and the film ignited my love of Virginia Woolf, a fascinating woman and writer. We have Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep as the strong-willed Karen von Blixen (who was also a writer; psuedonym Isak Dinesen). V for Vendetta stars Natalie Portman as the lead character. Casino Royale features Judi Dench as M and sexy Eva Green as the feisty Vesper Lynd, one of the few (if not the only) women with whom Bond truly falls in love. Kill Bill follows The Bride, female assassin-extraordinaire. White Oleander is a story of a mother's love and a daughter's struggle for independence. It features a diverse array of female characters. I especially love Michelle Pfeiffer's brilliant portrayal of the manipulative mother, Ingrid. We have Drew Barrymore as the free-spirited heroine in Ever After who rescues the prince and even herself. In Elizabeth, Cate Blanchett dazzles as the Virgin Queen with the heart of a lion. She also reigns in The Lord of the Rings as the ambiguous Elven queen. Audrey Hepburn turns in an iconic performance as Holly Golightly.
I know some people have proposed eliminating the "Best Actress" awards categories as sexist, and just having Best Actor categories for male and female actors instead, but I'm always much more interested in the actress nominees, and I'm not entirely sure the nominations would be shared equally.
And then we reach the Disney Princesses. A child of the "Disney Renaissance," we begin with The Little Mermaid, which centers on Ariel, a strong-willed daughter who rebels against her father. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle is a girl who reads!--can you believe it?!--who learns that beauty is more than skin-deep. In Aladdin, Jasmine declares "I am no prize to be won!" In Hercules we have the sardonic Megara. And in Mulan, our eponymous character dons men's armor and proves she's just as good as any man. While Sleeping Beauty, one of my personal favorites, features an excessively passive princess, it also has the perpetually charming good fairies and Maleficent, who I think is the best Disney villain ever.
Now, I'm not saying that all of these characters are strong women or ideal role-models for girls, but they are interesting female characters. (A "good" feminist should be able to tell you everything wrong with Disney.) The Disney princesses made me interested in female characters which in turn made me interested in women. Now maybe I was predisposed to like women and female characters since I'm gay. I mean I played with my sisters' Barbie dolls more than they did, and I even had a Little Mermaid board game (seriously, how did my parent's not know!?). I forgot where I was going with this, but I think Disney films can be important as cultural heritage and collective memory. It's up to parents to know what their kids are watching and to be aware of the messages, explicit or implicit, the media is preaching. Finally, you wouldn't have books like Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber or Anne Sexton's Transformations without the Brothers Grimm. You also wouldn't have songs like "Hallelujah," "Samson," "Past the Mission," or "Building a Mystery" without the Bible and religion. You actually wouldn't have a lot of literature without the Bible.
So anyway, I think I wrote this because I'm in love with interesting female characters in TV and film, and they do exist. Also, patriarchal texts can be rich for female subversion. Now I really want to watch a princess movie.
In Other News: Classes end tomorrow. I don't have any finals scheduled next week because this is library school, though I do have a JavaScript project due next week. Dammit. But after tomorrow (at 11:45pm) I will be mostly free. I should be doing homework right now. I hope to get some good reading in over spring break. I started reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay at the beginning of the quarter, and while it's very good, I got stuck because at times it's very description heavy. Sometimes, you need to reset your reading, and I think I'll do that with To Kill A Mockingbird. It's such a great novel yet easily accessible. I often prefer to reread a book than read a new one anyway, and it's been so long since I've read Mockingbird that it will still be interesting. After my post on feminism, I picked up Sexual Personae again, which I had stopped reading once grad school started. Anyway, better get back to homework.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Oscar Palooza
So on Sunday, I was busy doing my laundry when all of sudden the Oscars started. Things happen a lot sooner on the West Coast. So I made myself a Sidecar (which wasn't very good; I think the lemon must have been bad), and settled in the for the night. I was a little disappointed though as I found the evening a little lackluster. Last year I was more excited about the movies and who would win (Meryl or Kate?! Sean or Mickey?!) I had a lovely party with friends and brie and wine. And Hugh Jackman hosted--how can you top that? You can't.
So then Neil Patrick Harris came out and sang, and I was like is this the Tonys or the Oscars? There was a lot of dancing later on too, for like Best Score or something? I don't know. I also didn't find Alec and Steve very funny, even though Alec kills it on 30 Rock. Tina Fey should write the Oscars; her presenting bit was one of the funniest. Like every year, I didn't see the documentaries. And unlike last year, I didn't see the short films. I also didn't see the foreign films, but I hadn't even hear of The Secret in Their Eyes from Argentina, though I did hear a lot about A Prophet (France) and The White Ribbon (Germany).
So Up won Best Animated Feature because it's Pixar. It was also nominated for regular Best Picture. Greedy much? Star Trek won Best Makeup, and The Young Victoria won Best Costume Design. I liked Sandy Powell's speech when she said the award was for all those costume designers who don't do movies about dead monarchs or glitzy musicals. Avatar won Best Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Art Direction which was fair. Avatar was a visually stunning film, but that's about it. And The Hurt Locker cleaned up the other technical awards with Sound Editing and Sound Mixing (which I think should be combined for one award--Sound Editing & Mixing--don't you?) and Best Editing.
So I judge screenplays mostly on dialogue as well as the overall story and plot, and while there's more than that to writing, that can be affected by directing and editing and whatnot. Anyway, I think Quentin Tarantino should have won Original Screenplay for Inglourious Basterds. Have you seen it?! There are two 20-30 minute scenes of just people sitting and talking, but you can't breathe because they're so fraught, which is also due to Tarantino's direction. Well, The Hurt Locker won and it's a good movie, but I don't remember much of the dialogue (or plot for that matter). I also wanted Up in the Air to win Adapted Screenplay. Jason Reitman (and Sheldon Turner) created Vera Farmiga's and Anna Kendrick's characters out of thin air because in the novel everything's happening inside Ryan (George Clooney) Bingham's head (or so I've heard). That's impressive. Also, in a movie that could have easily been cliche ridden, the film transcends every cliche (except for Ryan's aha moment which we've all seen many, many times). Up in the Air was also my favorite movie of last year (even though I saw it this year). It's out on DVD today. Instead Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire won. I wonder if it was in Sapphire's contract when she sold the rights to have that godawful subtitle. Precious was a hard movie to sit through at times, but I had pretty much forgotten about it by the next day. So, yeah. Maybe that was just me.
So Mo'Nique won Best Supporting Actress just as she has won every award this season. Which is fine because it was an emotionally wrenching performance, especially coming from a stand-up comedian. But I loved Vera Farmiga's performance in Up in the Air more. Hopefully we'll see more of her. Penelope Cruz was up for Nine and she did fine, but it's not exactly an Oscar worthy performance. It doesn't come close to her award-winning role in Vicky Christina Barcelona last year, and I heard she was much better this year in Broken Embraces. Anna Kendrick also did fine, but again, Oscar worthy? And I haven't seen Crazy Heart, but I love Maggie Gyllenhaal. Critsoph Waltz likewise won Best Supporting Actor, which I support, for Ingourious Basterds. I haven't even seen the other four supporting actors' films.
It was also no surprise when Jeff Bridges won Best Actor which was finally due, so good for Jeff and his standing ovation. Now I haven't seen Crazy Heart but it's about a broken-down country singer making a comeback which first of all sounds like a country song but also sounds suspiciously like last year's The Wrestler and Mickey Rourke's acclaimed performance (even if Sean Penn won). George Clooney also gave one of his best performances, but I'm sure he'll win another Oscar one of these years.
So really there were no surprises in the Acting categories. Even Sandra Bullock won the Golden Globe and the SAG for The Blind Side which I had forgotten about, and I was like oh, Sandra's nominated for an Oscar. That's cute. Now I haven't seen The Blind Side but from what I've heard, her character is a fairly archetypal uppity white woman who doesn't take any guff which the Academy loves (see: Erin Brockovich). Also, everyone in Hollywood loves Sandra Bullock. The night before the Oscar's, she even showed up in person to accept her Razzie Award for Worst Actress for All About Steve. How cool is that? However, Meryl Streep also won a Golden Globe for Julie & Julia for her iconic portrayal of Julia Child and everyone loves Julia. Everyone loves to nominate Meryl Streep too, they just don't love to vote for her. The Academy just needs to effing give Meryl one more Oscar before it's too late. Seriously! I haven't seen The Last Station, but I'm sure Helen Mirren was great. Carey Mulligan was effortlessly lovely and perfect in An Education. I'm excited to see more from her, and she'll be back. Everyone's also saying we're going to see more from Gabourey Sidibe, but I don't know. There just aren't a lot of roles for large black women who aren't Queen Latifah. Sidibe did a great job, but it was also a very internalized performance. We'll see. So yeah, Sandra won, and her hair was dark, shiny, smooth, and very pretty. And I will always be upset until Meryl wins at least one more time.
Finally Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director for The Hurt Locker. She's the first women to do so. I thought Sofia Coppola had that distinction, and while she was nominated for directing, she won her Oscar for Best Screenplay. It's even better because Kathryn Bigelow used to be married to James Cameron. I would also have been happy if Quentin Tarantino or Jason Reitman had won.
Finally we come to Best Picture. There were ten nominees this year; 1944 was the last (and only?) time there were ten nominees before, but this might be a new thing going forward? I don't know. I have only seen six of the ten nominees. I really wanted Up in the Air to win, but I was pretty sure that was just wishful thinking. I just really, really did not want Avatar to win. Well, I think the Academy hasn't forgiven Cameron for Titanic, and The Hurt Locker won. (Also acceptable: Inglourious Basterds.) I saw The Hurt Locker back in the summer, and it's a good film and a masterwork of suspense. I need to see it again.
Well that pretty much sums it up. My ABC reception is a little fuzzy, so I don't have any great fashion notes for you. I was really happy that Avatar only won three minor awards. Other than that, there were no real surprises. And the hosting was a little boring. Bring back Hugh Jackman!
So then Neil Patrick Harris came out and sang, and I was like is this the Tonys or the Oscars? There was a lot of dancing later on too, for like Best Score or something? I don't know. I also didn't find Alec and Steve very funny, even though Alec kills it on 30 Rock. Tina Fey should write the Oscars; her presenting bit was one of the funniest. Like every year, I didn't see the documentaries. And unlike last year, I didn't see the short films. I also didn't see the foreign films, but I hadn't even hear of The Secret in Their Eyes from Argentina, though I did hear a lot about A Prophet (France) and The White Ribbon (Germany).
So Up won Best Animated Feature because it's Pixar. It was also nominated for regular Best Picture. Greedy much? Star Trek won Best Makeup, and The Young Victoria won Best Costume Design. I liked Sandy Powell's speech when she said the award was for all those costume designers who don't do movies about dead monarchs or glitzy musicals. Avatar won Best Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Art Direction which was fair. Avatar was a visually stunning film, but that's about it. And The Hurt Locker cleaned up the other technical awards with Sound Editing and Sound Mixing (which I think should be combined for one award--Sound Editing & Mixing--don't you?) and Best Editing.
So I judge screenplays mostly on dialogue as well as the overall story and plot, and while there's more than that to writing, that can be affected by directing and editing and whatnot. Anyway, I think Quentin Tarantino should have won Original Screenplay for Inglourious Basterds. Have you seen it?! There are two 20-30 minute scenes of just people sitting and talking, but you can't breathe because they're so fraught, which is also due to Tarantino's direction. Well, The Hurt Locker won and it's a good movie, but I don't remember much of the dialogue (or plot for that matter). I also wanted Up in the Air to win Adapted Screenplay. Jason Reitman (and Sheldon Turner) created Vera Farmiga's and Anna Kendrick's characters out of thin air because in the novel everything's happening inside Ryan (George Clooney) Bingham's head (or so I've heard). That's impressive. Also, in a movie that could have easily been cliche ridden, the film transcends every cliche (except for Ryan's aha moment which we've all seen many, many times). Up in the Air was also my favorite movie of last year (even though I saw it this year). It's out on DVD today. Instead Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire won. I wonder if it was in Sapphire's contract when she sold the rights to have that godawful subtitle. Precious was a hard movie to sit through at times, but I had pretty much forgotten about it by the next day. So, yeah. Maybe that was just me.
So Mo'Nique won Best Supporting Actress just as she has won every award this season. Which is fine because it was an emotionally wrenching performance, especially coming from a stand-up comedian. But I loved Vera Farmiga's performance in Up in the Air more. Hopefully we'll see more of her. Penelope Cruz was up for Nine and she did fine, but it's not exactly an Oscar worthy performance. It doesn't come close to her award-winning role in Vicky Christina Barcelona last year, and I heard she was much better this year in Broken Embraces. Anna Kendrick also did fine, but again, Oscar worthy? And I haven't seen Crazy Heart, but I love Maggie Gyllenhaal. Critsoph Waltz likewise won Best Supporting Actor, which I support, for Ingourious Basterds. I haven't even seen the other four supporting actors' films.
It was also no surprise when Jeff Bridges won Best Actor which was finally due, so good for Jeff and his standing ovation. Now I haven't seen Crazy Heart but it's about a broken-down country singer making a comeback which first of all sounds like a country song but also sounds suspiciously like last year's The Wrestler and Mickey Rourke's acclaimed performance (even if Sean Penn won). George Clooney also gave one of his best performances, but I'm sure he'll win another Oscar one of these years.
So really there were no surprises in the Acting categories. Even Sandra Bullock won the Golden Globe and the SAG for The Blind Side which I had forgotten about, and I was like oh, Sandra's nominated for an Oscar. That's cute. Now I haven't seen The Blind Side but from what I've heard, her character is a fairly archetypal uppity white woman who doesn't take any guff which the Academy loves (see: Erin Brockovich). Also, everyone in Hollywood loves Sandra Bullock. The night before the Oscar's, she even showed up in person to accept her Razzie Award for Worst Actress for All About Steve. How cool is that? However, Meryl Streep also won a Golden Globe for Julie & Julia for her iconic portrayal of Julia Child and everyone loves Julia. Everyone loves to nominate Meryl Streep too, they just don't love to vote for her. The Academy just needs to effing give Meryl one more Oscar before it's too late. Seriously! I haven't seen The Last Station, but I'm sure Helen Mirren was great. Carey Mulligan was effortlessly lovely and perfect in An Education. I'm excited to see more from her, and she'll be back. Everyone's also saying we're going to see more from Gabourey Sidibe, but I don't know. There just aren't a lot of roles for large black women who aren't Queen Latifah. Sidibe did a great job, but it was also a very internalized performance. We'll see. So yeah, Sandra won, and her hair was dark, shiny, smooth, and very pretty. And I will always be upset until Meryl wins at least one more time.
Finally Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director for The Hurt Locker. She's the first women to do so. I thought Sofia Coppola had that distinction, and while she was nominated for directing, she won her Oscar for Best Screenplay. It's even better because Kathryn Bigelow used to be married to James Cameron. I would also have been happy if Quentin Tarantino or Jason Reitman had won.
Finally we come to Best Picture. There were ten nominees this year; 1944 was the last (and only?) time there were ten nominees before, but this might be a new thing going forward? I don't know. I have only seen six of the ten nominees. I really wanted Up in the Air to win, but I was pretty sure that was just wishful thinking. I just really, really did not want Avatar to win. Well, I think the Academy hasn't forgiven Cameron for Titanic, and The Hurt Locker won. (Also acceptable: Inglourious Basterds.) I saw The Hurt Locker back in the summer, and it's a good film and a masterwork of suspense. I need to see it again.
Well that pretty much sums it up. My ABC reception is a little fuzzy, so I don't have any great fashion notes for you. I was really happy that Avatar only won three minor awards. Other than that, there were no real surprises. And the hosting was a little boring. Bring back Hugh Jackman!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Bleach Stains and Feminism
Today I was sitting in my Information in Social Context(s) class which sometimes brings out my deeply buried, inner-Utah authoritarian that I didn't know I had in me. Also, sometime when I see all the religious booths, the LaRouche supporters, and anti-abortion propaganda on Red Square or the quad, I wonder why I'm paying all this money to live in liberal Seattle. I guess when you live in conservative Utah, the liberal activity sort of stands out. And in largely liberal Seattle, the conservatives have to make more noise. (By the way, did you see this NYT op-ed piece?) So anyway, I was sitting in class wearing my favorite American Eagle hoodie (that's getting a bit snug) thinking I should get a new, lightweight spring jacket that's actually waterproof. (I actually need a lot of new clothes. and Thin Mints! Yay, spring! )And then I thought I should stain my hoodie with bleach all distressed-like. Sadly it seems that most of the articles on the interwebs are about removing bleach stains. And then I wondered if distressed clothing is so 2006. So to stain or not to stain? That is the question. And if so, how?
(So Bill Maher is on, and even though I've never seen his show, I don't really like him. But he's a liberal! on HBO! Two things that I love.)
ANYWAY. Then in my 530 class, in which I never have any idea what we're talking about, we somehow were discussing language and feminism, and not Hélène Cixous or Julia Kristeva either. Now generally I consider myself a feminist, but this is where I say several chauvinistic things like, what about them crazy broads? Like Mary Daly who wrote Webster's First Intergalactic Wickedary because she wanted to take the dick out of dictionary (by replacing it with wick?) which I guess is her stab at écriture féminine. But I wonder if language is inherently patriarchal, though I suppose it is true that men have taken language and have used it to write the laws. I might even like the Wikedary, after all it's subverting language, and I think we need more subversives and iconoclasts. However, Daly, who taught at Boston College (and passed away earlier this year), refused to allow men to take her advanced women's studies classes. And then one of my fellow classmates told me how one her friends (a former women's studies major) refused to read books written by men, which first of all takes Shakespeare out of the picture, unless you believe that Lucy Negro wrote Shakespeare's plays. Seriously?! There are some dead white men who wrote some pretty good damn books. I think Virginia Woolf got there with the most when she said that the best writers have androgynous minds, womanly-men and manly-women. And I love my women writers like Virginia and Edith. (Hermione Lee and I should be best friends!) Now I know that getting all the women to agree on an issue is never going to happen which is why we have several different strands of feminism, but then I don't think it's possible for any socio-political movement to achieve unanimous consent. So I'm all for women's rights and equality, but sometimes I feel the feminist movement today is less interested in the glass ceiling and more interested in sexy girl talk. Now women's sexuality is an important issue, but just because you talk about dildos doesn't make you a feminist. And Alanis, I love you, but just because you sing about a breakup doesn't automatically make you a feminist either. But go girl power! Anyway, feel free to leave me angry comments.
Don't forget the Oscars are on this Sunday! I'm hoping Kathryn Bigelow or Quentin Tarantino wins Best Director, and that any film beats Avatar for Best Picture, especially Up In the Air, Inglourious Basterds, or The Hurt Locker. I feel the Best Actress category isn't very strong this year, maybe Meryl will finally win her third statue. Really I think it's between her and Helen (who already bested Meryl three years ago with The Queen). The Supporting Actress category is slightly more interesting, but Mo'Nique has that all but locked down. Happy watching!
(So Bill Maher is on, and even though I've never seen his show, I don't really like him. But he's a liberal! on HBO! Two things that I love.)
ANYWAY. Then in my 530 class, in which I never have any idea what we're talking about, we somehow were discussing language and feminism, and not Hélène Cixous or Julia Kristeva either. Now generally I consider myself a feminist, but this is where I say several chauvinistic things like, what about them crazy broads? Like Mary Daly who wrote Webster's First Intergalactic Wickedary because she wanted to take the dick out of dictionary (by replacing it with wick?) which I guess is her stab at écriture féminine. But I wonder if language is inherently patriarchal, though I suppose it is true that men have taken language and have used it to write the laws. I might even like the Wikedary, after all it's subverting language, and I think we need more subversives and iconoclasts. However, Daly, who taught at Boston College (and passed away earlier this year), refused to allow men to take her advanced women's studies classes. And then one of my fellow classmates told me how one her friends (a former women's studies major) refused to read books written by men, which first of all takes Shakespeare out of the picture, unless you believe that Lucy Negro wrote Shakespeare's plays. Seriously?! There are some dead white men who wrote some pretty good damn books. I think Virginia Woolf got there with the most when she said that the best writers have androgynous minds, womanly-men and manly-women. And I love my women writers like Virginia and Edith. (Hermione Lee and I should be best friends!) Now I know that getting all the women to agree on an issue is never going to happen which is why we have several different strands of feminism, but then I don't think it's possible for any socio-political movement to achieve unanimous consent. So I'm all for women's rights and equality, but sometimes I feel the feminist movement today is less interested in the glass ceiling and more interested in sexy girl talk. Now women's sexuality is an important issue, but just because you talk about dildos doesn't make you a feminist. And Alanis, I love you, but just because you sing about a breakup doesn't automatically make you a feminist either. But go girl power! Anyway, feel free to leave me angry comments.
Don't forget the Oscars are on this Sunday! I'm hoping Kathryn Bigelow or Quentin Tarantino wins Best Director, and that any film beats Avatar for Best Picture, especially Up In the Air, Inglourious Basterds, or The Hurt Locker. I feel the Best Actress category isn't very strong this year, maybe Meryl will finally win her third statue. Really I think it's between her and Helen (who already bested Meryl three years ago with The Queen). The Supporting Actress category is slightly more interesting, but Mo'Nique has that all but locked down. Happy watching!
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