All posts by ester

good writing, movies, patriarchy

Internets FTW

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The web is *on* today! Here’s Dana Stevens at Slate reviewing the latest rom-com black cat to cross her path:

The Back-up Plan (CBS Films), with Jennifer Lopez as a would-be single mother surprised by love, is by any reasonable standard a bad movie: predictably scripted, sentimental, with laughs that rarely rise above a gentle sitcom chuckle. But at least it’s not reprehensible, misogynistic, or cynical, and the lead couple isn’t made up of a shrill female narcissist and a proudly slovenly male lug. I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend this movie, but if you were tied down and forced to watch it, you wouldn’t necessarily have to chew off your own leg to get away.

Damning with faint praise has become an internet art form.

And here’s the Washington Post on the porn scandal rocking the SEC:

In one instance, a regional office staff account admitted viewing pornography on his office computer and on his SEC-issued laptop while on official government travel. Another staff account received nearly 1,800 access denials for pornography Web sites in a two-week period and had more than 600 images saved on her laptop’s hard drive, the report said.

A senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington admitted he sometimes spent as much as eight hours viewing pornography from his office computer, according to the report. The attorney’s computer ran out of space for the downloaded images, so he started storing them on CDs and DVDs that he stored in his office.

I do not envy the cleaning lady in that office. In fact: For the love of god! Will someone please think of the cleaning ladies?

Leaving aside the fact that these folks were fiddling with themselves while Rome burned, I just don’t understand the appeal of porn in an office setting. Isn’t the office the least titillating place on earth? I mean, we’re talking about federal government buildings, not Sterling Cooper.* And did these lawyers signal to each other not to interrupt their marathon sessions of self-love? Did they put socks on doorknobs, or what?

Lastly, the Internets provide us with this self-glorifying thread at Shapely Prose, where Kate-fucking-Harding encourages everyone to brag about why they’re awesome. The comments have been brightening my mood for an hour already like bloggy Windex. Thanks, folks!

*My friend Nomi suggests that offices are unsexy to me because I *don’t* watch porn on my computer, which is a cause-and-effect I had not considered.

femininity, modesty

Feminist Readers Digest

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  • Have you ever wanted a set of colorful, informative slides to explain the persistent wage gap — to what extent it exists, when, and why — between men and women in America? {those “lesbian shitasses” at Jezebel.}
  • Want to help start a Boobquake on Monday April 26? Wear your most office-unsuitable tops and draw the wrath of God down upon us.

    So, start here …

    That’s right! Just like that.

    Then, progress to Step Two.

    After that, take a drink — you’ve earned it! — and sit back and watch the tectonic plates start shifting.

  • Wanna get self-conscious about what you wear? Check out this list of the 25 most “fattening” clothing items, featuring virtually every kind of pants (mom jeans, grandma pants, cargo pants, capri pants, white pants, hot pants, sweat pants, any pair of pants with an elastic waistband, acid washed jeans, and shorts of any kind), skirts on both extremes (frilly mini skirts and peasant skirts), and comfortable shoes (ballet flats, gladiator sandals, white sneakers).

    Also bad: patterned tights, baby doll dresses, and bikinis (!).

    By contrast, what is the #1 most universally flattering item of clothing? I’m so glad you asked.

    Spanx.

    Luckily the commenters have the right attitude:

    GIRDLES are on the non-fattening list? Well, yeah, but that doesn’t really count as CLOTHES. Also, god, look how much more FUN the fattening list is: binkinis, colors, cute details, trends. The non-fattening list is basically just monotone-black underwear. I’d rather look fat and cute and non-girdled, thanks.

    I concur. Reject what my friend Lana calls “the tyranny of the flattering!” Trying on a daily basis to look your most tall, your most thin, your most non-threatening, professional but fun, sexy but not slutty, *and* age-appropriate is exhausting. And what’s the point? Somewhere, at some point, the earth will shake, and you’ll still get blamed for the rubble.

dan savage, marriage, snooping

On marriage, flagging, and snooping

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In responding to a “non-stereotypical-looking lesbian” who wants to know how to signal her availability, Dan Savage stumbles upon an idea I had about a decade ago.

… maybe all lesbians everywhere should start wearing a button. No words, just a solid color, something small and tasteful that could be pinned to the strap of a purse (popular with “not-stereotypical-looking” lesbians), the lapel of a jacket, or the belt loop on a pair of jeans. Thinking outside the lavender/pink/purple box, I think the button should be green—green for “go,” green as in “Go ahead and hit on me, ladies. I’m a lesbian.”

My version of this idea was not sexuality-specific, or gender-specific, for that matter. I just figured, at the time, that everyone should wear a button — red, yellow, or green — signaling their availability. Then I learned about flagging, which has the benefit of being uber-specific and the drawback of dying out, possibly for the same reason.

On the other hand, what’s easier to interpret than red / yellow / green? Folks could even take the initiative to further decorate their buttons with the most vital specifics of their Match.com profiles.

Sadly, a flash-forward to a guy in a witness box protesting, “But she was wearing green!” and a lawyer retorting, “A button does not imply consent!” made me realize my idea had any number of flaws.

Still, Dan, if you’re interested in sifting through my other youthful fancies, I once thought it would be brilliant to have marriage be a 7-year-long contract that could be extended. Sure, if a couple decided not to renew, they would have to figure out what to do with mutual children and property, but it could be a simpler and less vicious process than divorce.*

To the turn the tables for a second, though, Dan, I got kind of stuck on this, from your column a couple weeks ago:

A confession: I’ve looked through my boyfriend’s e-mail; I assume he’s looked through mine. I’ve scrolled through his text messages; I assume he’s scrolled through mine. Expecting your partner not to snoop is like expecting your partner not to fart or fantasize about other people. It’s a nice thought, JB, but knowing what we know about human nature—and knowing that we ourselves snoop, fart, and fantasize about other people—it’s a little unrealistic.

That’s pretty strong language there. I would be upset if I found out Mr. Ben had gone through my email or my text messages. Dude, I don’t even open letters that I know are intended for both of us if they’re addressed only to him. To me, this is standard practice, because everyone is entitled both to privacy and to vent, whether in journals or by email or whatever. Also, the couple times in my life I have seen someone else’s gchat conversation windows or text messages, I’ve had to deal with unwanted information, the kind I wished afterwards I could un-know.

Snooping is counter-productive: you think your curiosity will be slaked by just a little bit more information, but that’s not usually the way curiosity works. If you feel like you’re being lied to and can’t trust the person you’re with, the trust is probably gone and the relationship is probably over, no matter what exists in the other person’s inbox. Right?

Or is there something here I’m not seeing? Has anyone ever had a positive snooping outcome?

*Turns out a German politician not only read my mind, she went public with the notion of a time-limited, renewable civil marriage. The only folks who took her seriously were the Catholics, who demanded that she be ejected from the Christian Social Union (CSU) party. Ah well.

celebrity gossip, life in new york

True story

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So, the other day, I was like, “Hi, Cynthia Nixon! This adorable person next to you, over whom I am leaning, must be your wife.”

And Cynthia Nixon was like, “We’re engaged but we haven’t gotten married yet. Hi, though!”

(Note: this is all true, except the parts that aren’t.)

Me: I remember us working together at the Very Important Talent Agency.

CN: That place must have been terrible for a sensitive, intelligent young woman like yourself.

Me: Thank you for feeling my pain, Cynthia. That means a lot. So what are you doing here at this random activist-y Jewish theater event at the Manhattan JCC, of all places?

CN: I like to do things outside my character profile.

Me: Me too! For example, I now run three miles three times a week. Isn’t that crazy? I refuse to invest in running gear, because I don’t want anyone to think I’m some kind of poser, but it still feels kind of amazing.

CN: While I starred in one of the most influential TV shows in the world as a straight, fashion-and-shoe-obsessed Manhattan lady, I left my boyfriend of fifteen years and the father of my children to move to Park Slope and become a lesbian.

Me: Okay, okay, you win. As a token of my appreciation, may I offer you this totebag? My best friend Charrow made it and she would be thrilled if I could tell her I gave it to you.

CN: Why, of course! Thank you. Oh my god, it’s adorable.

Me: So are you. You were my favorite part of Sex and the City, and the screenwriters for the film were totally punishing you for being the most normal and most happy.

CN: At least they didn’t make me shit myself.

Me: True, true. Well, let’s watch this play! Which will, incidentally, send the message that caring too much about handbags is deranged. I hope you won’t be offended.

CN: I will laugh as hard as anyone. I promise. For years, I’ve been laughing all the way to the bank.

Me: Oh my god, Cynthia. I heart you so much. And I’m so glad we (sort of) had this talk.

cursing, modesty, movies, NYT

The purity of childhood

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This NYT article showcases — and, naturally, frets about — the young, female star of a violent movie. Not because she is violent, but because she uses naughty words.

the filmmakers are bracing for the reception that the movie and Ms. Moretz may receive. In Britain, where the movie was released at the end of March, David Cox of The Guardian assailed its creative team and Ms. Moretz’s mother for allowing that swear word spoken by Chloë to become “acceptable parlance for children in mainstream movies,” adding, “We’ll be the poorer for it.”

Now, I don’t know which bit of verbal raunch is being referenced here. Perhaps it’s garden variety (“shit,” “bitch”). Perhaps it’s what Kurt Vonnegut in Mother Night called “the most offensive compound word in the English language.”

(Speaking of Vonnegut, let’s hear what he has to say on the impact of salty talk:

There is the word “motherfucker” one time in my Slaughterhouse-Five, as in, “Get out of the road, you dumb motherfucker.” Ever since that word was published, way back in 1969, children have been attempting to have intercourse with their mothers. When it will stop no one knows.)

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut. I hope that, when you got to Heaven, they gave you a perch with a good view of all the nonsense that goes on down here.

Regardless, is this really something to get all yelpy about? Me, I love “bad language.” The more creatively vulgar, the better. Cursing features prominently in some of my favorite movies. And what makes me particularly disappointed in stuffy old Mr. David Cox of the Guardian is that British profanity is even more gleeful and entertaining than the American kind.

When I was thirteen, the same age as this tender young actress, I could turn the air around me so blue you would think Cookie Monster had exploded. I turned out okay and so did my friends, who were occasionally shocked but usually on board. “A word after a word after a word is power,” says Margaret Atwood, who is one savvy lady, and who understands that for young girls especially saying what folks don’t expect them to is an excellent way to be not just looked at but seen.

The article goes on:

Mr. Vaughn said this kind of condemnation was hypocritical because it attacked the movie’s language while essentially forgiving its violence. “I was like, ‘Does it not bother you that she killed about 53 people in this film?’” he said. “I’m like, ‘Would you rather your daughter swore, or became a masked vigilante killer?’ They’re going, ‘Yeah, I don’t know.’”

children, dogs, life in new york

stumping dear abby

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As a know-it-all (in my case, a genetic condition) I love being asked questions. At the second seder, a little boy asked me, “Why does the clock keep going?” I shot back, “Because time keeps going.”

BOO YEAH. If you want to catch me without a reply, you’re going to have to try harder than that, you three-toothed squirt.

Sometimes, though, even I can’t come up with an answer, as in the situation below. See if you can do better.

[ex-coworker]: are you / have you been a dog owner?
also hi, how are you

me: i had a dog when i was a kid

[ex-coworker]: i may as well tell you why i asked: a friend’s dog ate some condoms. her mom’s visiting. she doesnt want the dog to poop out the condoms while mom’s visiting. partly, apprently cause her mom will blame her for leaving condoms out for the dog to eat

me: … wow.
well, that’s definitely not a problem i had as a kid
were they wrapped?

[ex-coworker]: uh no

me: yikes.

++

It is perhaps worth mentioning that I did once use a condom as a bookmark of a book my mother then asked to borrow. I handed it over without any sense of impending doom, having completely forgotten. That’s as close as I have ever come to playing Russian Roulette.

massage

The red and the black

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If you haven’t ever sat bolt upright in a massage to say “Ow!” then, my friends, you haven’t lived. Likewise if the massage doesn’t leave you sore for the next couple of days and segue directly into a cold that keeps you from going into the office.

The woman who administered this stern treatment also scolded me, which is kind of fun. I liked her scolding better than that of the Stalinist relic who gave me my first ever massage, after I lost my job during the transit strike. “What did you major in?” barked the Cossack. Upon hearing my answer, she shook her head in disgust. “Oh no, you will never get job with that.” She then advised me to find an older man to look out for me in my next office and not to trust other women, who will necessarily be back-stabby.

Anyway, this woman told me I wasn’t taking good enough care of myself. My entire right side, she informed me, is screwed up. Her best efforts over 70 minutes hadn’t really made a dent. (So she claimed. I felt dented all over.) She gave me a very disapproving look, to which I responded meekly. When I was leaving, I gave an elaborate tip.

It’s always nice to be validated, even, or especially, in one’s troubles. I didn’t have time to explain, nor did she seem to care, *why* my body is dysfunctional. But I have a wild idea: It’s because I don’t know how to properly manage sadness and anger.

Over the past six months or so, I have been to four funerals / shiva calls and spent significant time at the bedside of dying people in two different hospice facilities. I’ve taken off work and traveled and helped bury the dead and eaten round things and listened to people cry. Where I should have felt sad, most of the time I was furious.

By contrast, a once-good friend has hurt me more deeply than I have been hurt in years. I should be justly enraged; I try to be. Thinking in strong words helps for a while (“How DARE you?”). Eventually, though, I keep sliding back into mystified whimpering (“how could she?”).

Worst of all, there’s nothing I can do about anything. I have had almost no agency in any of these situations. The stress of that might be worst of all.

Sadness is a liquid; anger is a solid. My poor body has been melting and freezing and melting again. Is there any wonder it’s a mess?

absolutes, mr. ben

This is not bragging

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I’m just saying, publicly, that I feel I made the right decision in marrying the person I did.

Hey sweetie,

You now have an appointment for [time] tomorrow with Simone at the [place] on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn. It’s Swedish massage, though she can do “deep work” if necessary. Just tell them that the class was purchased as part of a series under my name.

Does that work for you?

Love,
B

In a time when, apparently, people are spatting about their relationships on the You Face, it’s got to be worth it to extend some gratitude on a blog. Right? Right.

Also, I love you and you and you and you and you. You, less so. (You know who you are.) And if any of you buy me an impromptu massage, I will bless you on the Internets too.

happiness, life in new york, linky, literature

Contents are (marginally less) fragile

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I knew Friday was going to be rough when I started off the morning by almost stepping on a cockroach in my bare feet.

Friday *was* rough, as expected. Even by the evening, when I abandoned all attempts to feign normalcy and instead went to the gym for an hour, I was faced with a Very Special Episode of “What Not to Wear” starring a cancer survivor who had lost both her breasts as well as ninety pounds. “Now that she has beaten cancer through sheer determination,” said the voiceover, “she faces another challenge: how to dress her new body.”

Luckily all my energy was going into propelling my body forward on the treadmill, so I had no strength with which to pummel the screen.

Yeah, Friday sucked, as did Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. There were bright spots! If you were with me on any of those days, you made them bearable, so thank you. Overall, though, I felt like a plucked chicken, and not even a tasty one.

Then, this morning, I woke up to a brilliant, sparkling sky. Suddenly I am sympathetic to all of God’s children. I am nodding and smiling. I am identifying with everything I read, like this, via Finslippy:

I’ve been feeling ever since like I should wear a shirt that reads, “CONTENTS ARE FRAGILE,” and actually that we should all wear that shirt, so that we can all remember to be kind to each other, because life can be so hard, and we’re only here for a little while.

Yes, Alice, goddammit! Yes. I embrace you! Mwah!

And you, Morning News Tournament of Books! Come over here, you old so-and-so. You are almost making me weep with happiness. (At least so far. I cannot vouch for what will happen if Wolf Hall and other favorites of mine from 09 don’t keep advancing.) Quotes like these made my morning:

Let’s say that the standards that apply to people-—the basic character-defining requirements—=are that a person be funny, smart, and kind. This is my rubric and possibly yours. If a person is funny, smart, and kind (or two out of the three) any other flaw can be forgiven.

It has never occurred to me to apply the same standard to books, which have an aesthetic dimension not even touched in the funny-smart-kind paradigm. And yet …

Yes, TOB! That is exactly right! Thank you.

You know what else is sublimely right? This chart matching famous writers with their day jobs. YES. I cheer for you, Lapham Quarterly. Hurrah!

Maybe Mr. Ben sprinkled MDMA on my Oatmeal Flakes this morning. After four days of Fester Gloom walking around (who has, to be honest, been making guest appearances in our apartment all month) I couldn’t blame him.

"science", faux gender theory

Gen-dar

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I just took an internet test to discover what gender my brain is. This test seemed reliable to me because a) it’s British, and b) it’s six parts.

Going in, my assumption was that my brain would be roughly 130% female because I’m told my body shape, baby-face, and negligible amounts of body hair correlate strongly with having more estrogen than a soybean field. There are other stereotypical reasons I would think so, too: I am hyper-verbal but scared of numbers; I am equally indifferent to cars and sports, unless there is a narrative to follow (or, failing that, something pretty to admire); and at times I hate myself, as female-type people are wont to do.

Speaking of which, I watched the Oscars Sunday night. The best parts of the ceremony, in order:

3) “George Clooney threw me into a pool.”

2) The Horror montage, perfectly described by David Rees: “Kill Everyone with your Chainsaw … the Dolls are Alive … Dreaming of Murder … Blood and Gore Will Cleanse Your Soul … The Baby is Satan … I break your feet … eat a rat for dinner … big-ass freaky ears and eyes … Frankenstein wants a kiss … the Headless Horseman rides again … Alfred Hitchock’s “Too Many Birds” … screaming and yelling … people staring at each other …long hallways with kids in ‘em … I see dead people … bloody monsters that you have to kiss … blood coming out of elevators … rats and mucus … mouths and teeth … AND THAT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS HORROR.”

1) The fact that Bigelow won for Best Director and then got to win again for Best Picture. The audience understood the moment Barbara “Liberal Jewish Feminist” Streisand walked out to present the first of those awards that Bigelow was going down in history, but the second win was still a happy shock. As Dana Stevens put it,

it’s unbelievably gratifying to see a woman who does fine, small-scale work triumphing over a man who erects massive monuments to his own vanity. Bigelow’s victory makes it seem like hard work is worthwhile, because someday someone will recognize it, no matter how loudly that asshole at the center table is talking about himself.

I quibble with the idea that the Hurt Locker is “small-scale.” Um, it’s a war movie. It’s about men and guns and battle and heat and exhaustion and explosions. Did I mention men? I don’t think there is a single speaking woman in the whole thing. We’re not exactly talking about a well-mannered Jane Austen adaptation here.

I do love the fact, though, that in two speeches Bigelow got around to thanking “firemen” (!) and still didn’t slip in a reference Cameron, her ex-husband and co-front runner. Didn’t you expect her to mention him, at least? To say some cursory “thank you” for … I don’t know, something? At least I would assume that would be the gracious, self-effacing, feminine thing to do.

Back to the point: how did I fare at the gender test?

Part I was a look at spatial understanding, something about lines and angles. “If you scored 18 – 20: You have more of a male brain [emphasis added]. On average, men outperform women in this task and those with more mathematical knowledge tend to score quite high as well. In past studies, 60 per cent of the people in this range were men.”

Well, that’s a shocker! But it may be an outlier. How about Part II, which is more about objects changing position? “If you scored between 0 – 33%: You may have more of a male brain. Scientists say men tend to under perform in this task. The corpus callosum, the part of the brain that links the right and left hemispheres, is a fifth larger in women. This means women can process visual and other signals at the same time more easily than men. There is also a theory that oestrogen levels in women give them an added advantage in spatial memory.”

Sorry, test. I scored low because I was afraid to make a mistake (points were deducted for incorrect answers as well as awarded for correct ones). All of the things I guessed, however, were right. I played it safe. What’s more female than that?

Still, it was kind of exciting to be seen as male for two questions. Then the test took a turn for the physiognomical: It wanted to me actually gauge my hands, which betrayed me. My empathy & sensitivity to emotion results, which came next, were off the charts. Though I have a better-than-average appreciation for systems (for a girl), I suck at mentally rotating shapes. I must have been asleep the day they covered that in school. Oh wait! Just kidding — they never taught us how to do that. Is this one of those “innate” IQ things?

I screwed myself by knowing significantly more synonyms for given words than either men or women are supposed to know. Come on! The word for that is not “female,” it’s “dorky.”

To add insult to injury, the test insinuated that I am a lesbian by pointing out I like men with “feminine” faces. (Ha!)

And so I ultimately come in exactly as “female” as the average woman taking the test. Go skew their results, would you, please? Man, it sucks to be average.