The only thing more disturbing than John McCain rebuffing a calm, reasonable, sincere Ellen Degeneres on the subject of gay marriage?
Both via Jezebel.
Enjoy your memorial day weekends!
All posts by ester
Party Accomplished
It rained all over our housewarming on Sunday, our very first attempt at hosting a party in New York City. We had intended to debut our fab backyard and so, in addition to cleaning and readying the inside of our apartment, I weeded and scrubbed the deck chairs. Clearly, washing patio furniture is the NYC, rain-summoning equivalent of washing your car. But the food was great, and the drinks, custom made by our mixologist friend Marie, were better still. We got to show off our wedding swag — because a registry is the #1 way to up the ante on your kitchenware — and introduce folks from our different worlds who had never collided.
Mr. Ben and I were also captured taking some time off from prep work to enjoy ourselves at another party. (Thanks, Fauxtobooth!) There I met a Wii for the first time and discovered that though I am wretchedly bad at Wii Baseball and Wii Tennis, somehow I am a savant at Wii Bowling. Who knew?
Also, the only thing more fun than an inebriated congregation of like-minded individuals? An American history quiz. Knock yourself out, fellas. I got at 81.67% and it’s a damn good thing I did, or else Swarthmore would ask for its American History degree back. And I have to admit, I was pretty scared throughout. Who the hell knows what battle happened at Yorktown vs. Saratoga?
Fun with Dick-Heads and Janes!
One of my coworkers, a fellow who is afraid of vegetables and took years to work up the courage to get a Legend of Zelda tattoo, likes to send me retro sexist imagery from the internets. This is partly because I’ve established myself as the Feminist of the office (I can’t imagine how that happened). Despite my being card-carrying and all that, the Collective Leadership of the Feminist Cabal allowed me to retain my sense of humor. Each of these makes me giggle.
Two are from that Great Things repository, Boing Boing, and the last comes from the very ether.
Also, I have now been to L.A. and I’m adding it to my ever-growing list of Mediocre American Cities, right behind Tucson and Atlanta. Seriously, what the hell is the point of a “city” that’s really an over-priced network of neighborhoods where parking costs a thousand dollars, gas costs even more, and the buildings are only one story high? I did like the ocean, though I only saw it from a distance since the foul weather (srsly!) kept us from the beach.
Though Seattle is kind of similar, being short, modern, and pretty spread out, at least it’s verdant and pretty and has a more mellow vibe. There’s something girl-next-door-ish about Seattle, whereas LA is that sorority-girl-next-door, and Tucson is that vacant-frat-boy-next-door. And Atlanta is the suit-next-door who doesn’t give Halloween candy to trick or treaters.
Anyway, vacations are always nice and it was good to see my family & the folks I know who are stranded on that coast. Mr. Ben suggested, brilliantly, that we visit the UCB Theater out there, and Asssssssssscat, featuring Tim Meadows, was awesome. I liked its West Hollywood digs, too, as much as I liked anything I saw besides the Getty and the Getty villa. General warning, though, for anyone who wants to follow in our footsteps: you cannot buy tickets at the box office itself so make sure you do so on the ‘nets before you leave home. If you run into issues, like we did, the coffee shop on the corner, across from the Scientology Castle, has free wireless. You’re welcome.
For the first time, I’d rather have Showtime
I came late to the This American Life party, possibly because my parents only listened to the news on NPR and I never knew the station offered more. Over several years, I gradually broadened my public radio horizons until I am now a junkie. Brian Lehrer, Radio Lab, Morning Edition, even Jonathan Schwartz. I am a *monthly sustainer*, god help me.
This, of course, drives me further into deep blue-state-stereotype territory. As it is, I begin way too many sentences with “Oh! Have you read that piece in the New Yorker?”
Still, I am now at the TAL party. The food is great, the music is great, and I’m standing there, in a small group of funny dorks roughly my age, laughing at something once of them just said about the NYT Thursday Styles section, when I realize: HBO has lost its hold on me. Showtime has, in addition to TAL, Weeds, Californication, and Dexter. HBO? has reruns.
This is a jarring realization, but life goes on, the earth only spins in one direction, and we all must put our brave faces on as we march into an uncertain future.
When I listen to the podcasts at work, I picture Ira Glass as the Verizon guy (who apparently has a brain tumor?). This is embedded enough that last night, when I saw Ira Glass live at the TAL show at NYU, his voice felt disassociated from the guy onstage. Still, the two-hour multimedia extravaganza was fucking awesome, the best live show of anything I’ve seen since August: Osage County. And now I am stuck yearning for pay cable so that I could watch Season 2. Maybe WNYC will offer THAT as its thank you gift this spring!
Also: the Rebecca who introduced me to TAL has a new blog called the Opposite of Static, which is a lovely name. Maybe I only think that because it reflects a sentiment I agree with, that all of us are several different people simultaneously, the selves that we were & the selves we will be, and that we are morphing and changing and being holograms of ourselves at any given moment.
I have four Rebeccas. That seems excessive, doesn’t it?
Irritating Ivy Leaguers
Full disclosure: some of my best friends are Ivy Leaguers and my brother is Cornell class of ’03. Although Cornell barely counts, right? Back me up, children of privilege!
*I know this link is old but I hadn’t seen it before and perhaps you haven’t either. I would hate for you to have missed out.
Bring it home, B.O.
Asheville <3's Obama, according to this short graphic series from the NYT, and western North Carolina is less sure of him (one character in the strip shouts from the sidelines, “He’s a Muslim!”). This jives with what I saw when I was there: Obama signs all over! Interestingly, where there weren’t Obama signs, there weren’t McCain signs either, even in the wealthy, white Atlanta areas.
Obama seems to be moving with more purpose these days (cutting off the batshit crazy Jeremiah Wright, for one thing). Hopefully it will be enough. I can’t handle this race much longer. I can’t lose any more respect for the Clintons or Americans in general; it will be bad for my liver.
Kalamazoo and tigger too
JJ, as depicted here in a piece of Charrow art, was one of our hosts for the past few days as Mr. Ben and I sojourned in the Southlands. These strange foreign lands, as it turned out, didn’t feel as strange or foreign as I expected. In fact, Atlanta reminded me strongly of Seattle, only with more traffic and way less charm. People in Seattle also get bonus points for friendliness compared to their Southern counterparts, unless you count the bum in Asheville, NC, who, trying his hardest to make us feel at home, called after us, “Happy Hannukah!”
JJ was an excellent sport over the weekend in Asheville, where we were up to our chins in Judaica with Mr. Ben’s family the entire time: she nibbled matzoh for breakfast without complaint and sat through both seders. Even when Mr. Ben’s mom’s SPP (straight person partner) Harry played Hebrew songs on his new harmonica with more exuberance than skill, JJ didn’t flinch. A righteous woman, who can find her? Her worth is above rubies.
I realized during the service that these seders consist of lots of lying to God, and not just the standard “You’re so merciful and gracious!” stuff. Just for example, there’s a long prayer where the chorus goes, “It would have been enough!” — i.e., if God had rescued us from Egypt but not parted the sea so we could get through, it would have been enough. The song continues, mentioning how the Lord brought us to the land of Israel and vanquished our enemies and built us the temple. But of course, if God had done one or even some of those things and not the rest, it wouldn’t have been enough, not by a long shot. We wouldn’t be here to tell the tale year after year.
Later, there’s a true whopper set a beautiful, ghostly melody. It goes like this, roughly:
I have been young
And I have grown old
Yet never have I seen a good man starve.
I mean, please. We teach this stuff to children?
After the second seder Sunday night, without waiting for the dough to rise, we packed up the Honda and sped past Bob Jones University and Clemson U., the South blurring into fast food chains and churches in the dark outside my window. Charrow and JJ’s Little Five Points apartment is beautiful, all old wood and bright colors and windows everywhere. Mr. Ben’s mom’s house was the same way, charming and well-lit. (Not that I can complain about real estate, but we do pay the same for our place as my MIL spends on hers, only hers includes several bedrooms, a backyard, a stained-glass pantry, and more nooks and crannies than an English muffin.)
I hadn’t seen Charrow since she guest-starred as Maid of Honor in the production that was my wedding nine months ago. That is much too long. She and JJ will be moving up here in the fall and the fall cannot come fast enough.
Disturbia: Women Who Make Us All Look Bad edition
It’s been a week for disquieting news from the womb-bearers. First, there’s this new book by a plastic surgeon to help small children understand why their mommies are voluntarily going under the knife. There’s no explanation given except the mother’s dream of looking like a pageant winner.
To start with, the mother looks fine; by the end, post-procedures, she looks like a more exaggerated cartoonish version of herself, in hot pink no less. The once-skeptical daughter looks thrilled. Thanks, newly high femme Mom, for perpetuating irritating stereotypes! (Via Newsweek)
Next up, the abortion art installation from Yale, created by a student who inseminated herself and then induced miscarriages.
She speaks, yet she says nothing: “I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” Shvarts said. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”
Uh huh. Well, does the project speak for itself?
The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
I think her uterine lining must be smarter than she is. This is why I kind of hate art. It gives people cover to be snotty & self-absorbed.
I have only divided outrage left for the Georgia belle who was scared to be Michelle Obama’s roommate at Princeton. She and her mom are still semi-racist but reflect ruefully on their fears at the time. Michelle Obama turned out to be the stately, witty, graceful woman we all know, but she and the Southern GOP-member-to-be never exactly bonded. Perhaps out of guilt, the belle and her mother (who still doesn’t believe in intermarriage) are considering voting for the big O. How many such sins do you supposed will be atoned for at the ballot box this year?
portrait of the teenager the artist used to be
One of the many dangers of Facebook is that someone from your past will scan in pictures from your past, the dark, shadowy, awkward, pale, bespectacled parts, the parts where you wore your brother’s t-shirts and tended to stare at people. These pictures will appear for the world to see, including your newlywed, who will take one look and say, sounding almost impressed, “Wow! You look as bad as you possibly could!”
He lacks imagination. I could have boils, or bugs crawling on me. My skin could be peeling off along with leprous chunks of my nose. My hair could stick straight up high enough to be measured in inches like Marge Simpson’s, the way it did from 2nd grade through 4th when my mom finally let me grow it long.
But the fact remains that the boy next to me looks about 4 years old and drugged, and I look like the 40 year old who drugged him. What is amazing, though, is that, when this picture was taken, one of us was already getting sexual attention from the opposite sex, serious adult-like attention, attention which occurred in the safety and comfort of a Jerry’s Subs and Pizza bathroom. Prizes for anyone who guesses which of us that was!
six word memoirs
In the spirit of this project, I’ve been brainstorming six word memoirs of my time at Swarthmore for work. So far I’ve come up with:
“dorks everywhere! never been so happy”
“I learned to love my belly”
“School funded film about dancing tampons”
“They say, ‘Wait til college.’ They’re right.”
These are sort of rosy … maybe I’ll write a more cynical series. Ones for my actual life would be even harder. I could write one for Mr. Ben, who is finally getting sworn into the New York bar tomorrow morning: “After 3.5 years, attorney at last.”
ETA: More cynical ones:
“Four full years of sensitivity training”
“Blissful navel gazing in ivory tower”