ester and the birthday of minor importance

I’m glad the left seems to be treating John Roberts Jr. as the pinata that he is and reserving their energy for the real elephant in the room. Not that, of course, we can’t all tap our heads while simultaneously rubbing our bellies. But we do seem to have our priorities straight. Heads over bellies, guys, right? Right.

And not that I don’t understand the blistering anger Roberts is generating in certain circles (bellies). When the anger is funny, I appreciate it even more. But guys, a Republican wormed his way into office. I know: ewwww! I don’t want to believe it either. Sadly, we have no choice; and that means a Republican gets to pick a Republican judge. Considering that Bush could have taken this opportunity to throw serious raw meat to his more rabid and demanding followers, I figure, with Roberts, we almost got off easy.

On the other hand, I wish people would stop giving Bush points for courage for selecting a straight white male. As though any old pansy-ass wuss could do the “PC” thing and place someone in position of power to immediately face accusations of tokenism, but it takes balls of true Pennsylvania steel to do things as they’ve always been done.

By the way, I’m 23 now, and I’ve officially worked at my new job for a month, which means my health insurance is seconds from kicking in. I’m going to Coney Island tomorrow to celebrate and if I get thrown from the Cyclone, don’t worry, guys — I’ll be covered.

ester and the little scandal that could

Considering that I’ve been waiting for two years, with my outrage on simmer, for Plamegate to break wide open, it is bizarre that I haven’t blogged about it. I read everything I can get my virtual hands on: media commentary from Howie Kurtz in the WashPost and the pundits at Slate and Salon. The more I read, the happier I become: the updates drop hard and fast, like hail on Bush loyalists that appear to the rest of us as raindrops. And we’re gleefully dancing through the raindrops, whoooooooeee are we dancing. The Democratic party has become frikkin Gene Kelly with these raindrops, though of course we’re keeping our Stern, Shocked faces on and occasionally feeling a stab of guilt when we remember poor Judy Miller and mattress of foam.

Today I was pleased to discover that Matthew Baldwin has woven my two fixations together. Thus he has given me an opening.

This case sickens me. It has from the first day I heard of it. You lie; a man, who happens to be an expert on what you lied about, calls you on it; and in response you viciously, wantonly take down that man’s wife? Shouldn’t this be obvious, even if our deranged day and age: a person’s family is off-limits. Christ, even in the Sopranos they understand that.

Karl Rove wanted to hit Joe Wilson in the balls and he did; he acted without the slightest concern for collateral damage even though the shrapnel would fall in his own backyard. The woman worked for the CIA! How can the people who are risking their lives to protect this country do their jobs when there’s a man in the White House willing to blow their cover for the smallest, most pointless bit of political retribution? Retribution for something they themselves didn’t do? Now Republicans are pissing and moaning that Rove may not have have known she was covert, as though that’s a defense, as though a reasonable person, faced with even the possibility that she was covert, wouldn’t consider finding out — because whether or not it’s a technical felony, it’s a national security matter and on those it’s important to have one’s facts straight.

This may be the obvious point of all, yet I haven’t sufficiently heard it raised. Karl Rove’s actions paint him not only as a ethically-void, cold-blooded, cheerfully malignant plop of birdshit on the windshield of this country, but also as a sexist of the first degree. That’s why, to my mind, he didn’t think twice about outing Valerie. She was a woman: how vital could she possibly be to the CIA? How important could her career be? Whether consciously or not, Rove was sending her back to the kitchen, and/or the cover of Vanity Fair, where she belonged.

The press and the Republicans, whether consciously or not, have gone along with it to an alarming extent. If Joe Wilson had been Josephina and it had been her husband working as a spy, my god, can you imagine the outcry? The part of the story where Valerie suggested Joe for the trip to Niger only has teeth because of the gender dynamics. That revelation is supposed to be another kick to the balls not because of possible nepotism but because — hee hee! — his wife had power! Ergo pansy est. It’s sick.

It’s the same kind of subtle but prevalent attitudes about men and women that guarantee female superheroes have the “powers” they have. Bear with me here, I just finally saw Batman Begins and I have comics on the brain. Still, it’s an interesting comment on our nation as a collective that female superheroes tend to have defensive, not offensive, capabilities. They disappear, they create force-fields, they read minds, they become — half-cat? (Which, by the way — what??) It seems to be because superheroes have been to believable. Sure, they’re bigger and stronger than we are, but in ways that are consistent the individuals as we understand them. A man’s anger could swell him up into the Hulk; a boy’s tragedy and fear forms him into a dedicated crime fighter; blah blah blah. We don’t like to believe women can or want to hurt people. Not really. And so their powers are correspondingly dinky and unaggressive.

That’s why this story is really only gaining traction now that we have a (male) figure to focus on, and a supervillian at that. Two supervillians, in fact, and Fitzgerald’s not done yet.

Valerie Plame is being portrayed as a suburban housewife who got caught up in this mess, at best a desk jockey in the CIA and ultimately just a victim with a shrill husband. But consider: what if she were Batman and Karl Rove leaked her secret identity for no better reason than because he could and it would hurt someone she loved. I hope she finds a way to strike back and, in the meantime, that everyone starts giving her a little more credit.

ester and the well-cooked chinese food

This morning, I finally finished Harry Potter VI. That scream of woe you heard around 10 am? Yeah, that was me.

Mr. Ben and I took turns with the tome once we acquired it at an adorable lower east side bookstore that stayed open Friday night with a party for adults. Of course, kids were there also drinking punch, getting their palms read, and blocking the aisles talking in hushed voices about what the remembered from Book V. I looked at them from the height of my almost-23 years and at once envied and pitied their innocence. Except not really. I looked at them and was jealous that they had parents shelling out the $25 for them.

From that point on, Mr. Ben and I took turns staying up late / getting up early to read. We found it hard to separate ourselves from the book, going so far as to drag it showing of Me, You, and Everyone We Know at BAM. I rarely pay the full $10 for movies in New York; I can’t really bring myself to. But Me and You managed to be heartfelt and enchanting, as Sundance winners are supposed to be, without also being self-indulgent, overly quirky and unresolved, as they so often are (viz, The Station Agent.) From the depths of Mr. Ben’s messenger bag, I can’t imagine, however, that HPVI had a very clear view. I imagine it was too busy stewing its dark, antsy juices to enjoy the film anyway.

Once we finished, Mr. Ben and I were so shocked that instead of leaping into our chores like bunnies of efficiency, as we usually do, we moped around in our underwear, rereading key passages, speculating about what would happen in the final volume, and — I’m not proud of this — even turning to the internets for support. We were indeed comforted by how collectively stunned all Harry Potter fans everywhere seemed to be, but it still took us several hours to recover. Even then, showered, dressed, shopping for food to do the week’s cooking, we kept hashing and rehashing the novel. Yes, we are dorks. But come on! That book frikkin ends with a bang. I can’t wait to read it again.

little ester and the big scary men that populate this city

Chapter 1:

Ester leaves the apartment, walks down the street to the A,C,E. The stairway down to the train creates a wind-tunnel and she holds her skirt futilely against her legs to try to avoid a Marilyn Monroe moment. (It’s only sexy if it happens to Marilyn Monroe.)

Chapter 2:

Walking down a street at the other end of a subway trip. Her hands continue to flit toward her skirt to protect it against a sneaky wind-tunnel, the kind that would burst onto the scene and yell “boo!” and pull the fabric up. Especially as she passes the lumberyard that she must pass every morning before she arrives at the office. What sort of crazy block in Manhattan boasts of fashion studios / casting offices AND a lumberyard? She curses the schizophrenia of Chelsea and tries to ignore the various men wishing her a good morning. Although they are never obscene, their attention feels unpleasant and she wishes they would pay it to someone else.

Chapter 3:

At her desk, trapped. A barrel-chested 45 year old man with a gleaming smile is flirting to pass the time. He gestures toward the white lilies on her desk: “Men send those to you every week, don’t they?” Playing along (what else can she do?) she jokes, “Yup. There’s a sign-up list and everything.” He leans in: “I’ll bet I’d be number 250 on that list.”

The number 250 is hi-larious enough. But the man does not leave. He ruminates on the gym. How he used to go, how he stopped, how sad that is. He glances at Ester. “You must work out, right? You’re in great shape.” When Ester laughs, “No,” he says, “Oh, you’re a natural!”

Chapter 4:

Swishing home in her army green platform boots, salmon pleather skirt, and fancy black tank top, feeling pretty good about having managed another day in the big city. A voice from the sidewalk calls out, “Ester!” She turns, stares. There sits a boy she barely recognizes, someone from the depths of the margins of the past: a high school classmate’s younger brother she hadn’t seen in at least 5 years. “Hey!” he says. “You look exactly the same!”

Wait for it …

My semi-regular pinochle games are memorable not simply for the hostess’s vintage card table or glassware, or for the fun of doing something to engage my brain (that happens pretty rarely now that I’m out of the academic world and into the working one). They’re also memorable for the low-key famous folks in the aged bohemian crowd.

The thing about low-key famous folks is that they put you on a first-name basis with them and don’t act like they’re anything special. So if you never think to inquire about a last name, you might go the rest of your life not knowing you just drank beer with and teased Jerry Orbach‘s son. Last names become important.

At pinochle, in the hostess’s kitchen last week, I fell to talking with a pleasant middle-aged woman. Her necklace spoke to me: it reminded me of the jewelry my mother wears and not too many other people do. It could be characterized as “difficult jewelry” — it’s often made of heavy, unrecognizable stones — or, merely, “the jewelry of the well-travelled.”

My surprise, then, was not great to discover that she writes travel guides. Currently, she’s composing one about New York. I could hardly think of something more exciting. We talked about it for a while then, and also later, once we started playing the game. Another person at our table asked how she got into the business. It must be kind of tricky, kind of competitive.

It helps that it’s a family business, she said.

And to the background noise of bells ringing in my head, I asked what her last name is.

And she replied, Frommer.

I have another pinochle game tomorrow. I can’t wait to see who I’ll meet.

the macchias dacha

In brief, I am back from Maine. The trip was not brief. Well, the time I spent in Maine was brief; the travel to and from was not. Eleven HOURS, my friends, it takes to get from Westchester to Maine, and it’s an hour from the city to Chappaqua, where the car waits, and since before that I had to work a half day, Mr. Ben and I didn’t get to start our expotition til early afternoon. And we didn’t get back (to Chappaqua!) til midnight, to return the car, we had to commute with the commuters this morning, revoltingly early, in order to get to work on time.

Phew.

But Maine was beautiful. Mr. Ben’s father, an emigre from Moscow, found a house on property to his liking on roughly the same latitude as the place where he grew up. He recognizes obscure wildflowers that grow on lilypads along the river and remembers from summer camp how to make necklaces out of them. To share in the nostalgia, Mr. Ben’s father — who we could call Dr. Mr. Ben — invited his extended Russian emigre family, settled lo these many years in Brighton Beach. Everyone grumbled a bit about the driving length, at least until they got an unobstructed view of unpolluted air rolling out over unpolluted waters almost to Nova Scotia. And, at night, layers over layers of stars.

The weather obliged us. In fact, I think it was showing off. The fog retreated slowly our first morning, revealing the scenery in teasing bits, and then it stayed away entirely so we could get sunburned more easily. We went canoeing. We watched waterfalls. We wandered around town (which, though lacking in a single traffic light, does have an organic food store). We ate.

And now we’re home. It’s my second week at the new job. Things are going well, I think, mostly. It’s always stressful to change jobs but I feel a little more confident and that’s always good. Even if I’m not actually confident I have to fake it, because in this city I’ve learned people don’t have much tolerance for the alternative.

Justice disrobes! Just in time for Pride

Lady Justice is a dyke!. At the very least, it’s an extraordinary coincidental show of support: at the same time that one million raging homosexuals and voyeurs descended on NYC in various states of undress, Lady Justice discreetly shrugged off her drapes. Ashcroft must be rolling over in his grave.

I missed the great event of Pride, the parade, today; I wasn’t sure I could handle it, frankly. The dyke march yesterday was a tepid precursor but I cheered it on and thus I did my small part for the freedom of queers everywhere to get drunk and get naked while under the protection of the NYPD.

Plus it’s been too frikkin hot. I was almost delirious from the heat yesterday after only a few hours and I stayed out, like an idiot, for ten more. Too much to do to go home! I ended the day at Central Park, watching the premiere of the charming As You Like It in the company of — oddly enough — Keanu Reeves. He was scruffy and serene in person but I couldn’t get over wondering what on earth he was doing there. Perhaps someone pays him to lurk around Shakespeare and make it awkward by the, er, force of his presence. Perhaps Marlowe pays him from beyond the grave.

The night before I also saw excellent theater: Doubt. Gave me shivers. No star sightings to go along with that, though. It’s funny to contemplate what taglines Hollywood would give to Broadway plays if it were assigned to promote them. “Doubt: This Thanksgiving, you won’t believe your eyes!” “Doubt: Catholic school will never be the same.” “Doubt: When America was on its knees because it was possibly being molested by a priest, she brought us to our feet!”

punnage

I was struck by a thought the other day on my way to work: Taxi cabs unite! You have nothing to choose but your lanes!

Anyway.

Yesterday was my last at the Very Important Talent Agency. I stayed out the night before, somewhat unwisely, playing pinnochle over cocktails, but I wasn’t going to sleep well regardless; I was too keyed up about the almighty Exit Interview. With the Exit Interview in mind, I dressed to be taken seriously in my gray Arden B. suit — I even threw in a little jewelry. Perhaps thanks to my clothes, I walked out unscathed. And did I mention relieved? Very, very relieved.

On my way out, one of the boy assistants bashfully handed me a parting gift. A book! I love books. And a non-fiction book at that, which is interesting because I rarely pick up non-fiction and I certainly rarely receive non-fiction as gifts. The volume in question, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, won me over almost immediately; I finished it within 24 hours and I’m still thinking about it. Gladwell writes like a layman, not a scholar. His sentences are clear and direct and he’s careful, as he builds his points, to continually re-process information he’s already introduced.

When I read non-fiction — or did, in college — my eye has a tendency to get lost in dense paragraphs and wander down the page for something easier to grab onto. In other words, I skim. In praise of Blink, I think I can honestly say I read every word.

Until I start my new job on Monday, I am pursuing the kind of slothful, hedonistic lifestyle that would make evangelicals indignant. And I have earned it. Bye bye, Very Important Talent Agency! Hello, future! Future, you will hopefully find me tanned, rested, and ready.

undisclosed location

Also, yesterday an Emmy-Winning Actress showed me her ass. She meant it for her sister, who was in the room, and I was caught in the cross-fire. It was by far the highlight of my otherwise giddy and totally unproductive workweek.

I accepted the casting job! I’m going to work in casting! I’m going to pursue a Career in casting and someday maybe have a Casting Couch of my own where Emmy-Winning Actors and Actresses show me their asses on command. That’s what being in this business is all about and I’m so excited the pieces have finally and truly fallen into place.

If Jacko is innocent …

I feel like that could be a good title for a poem: “If Jacko is innocent.” Perhaps I will write it on the subway one afternoon and it will be all about tongue in cheek, improbable things, and all the things will add up to a profound whole. I’m reading 180 More, one of the best poetry anthologies I’ve ever come across, and the poems therein are much like that. Reading them this morning on the train, I was inspired to write something about how Mr. Ben bought two huge bags of Lays potato chips and was so proud of himself for making efforts at gaining weight that he forgot to actually eat any of them.

Inspiration abounds.

Life is good again: I got a job offer. Yes! In a casting office. It’s pretty exciting. And right after I got the offer this morning, I got an interview offer from another job, in audio publishing, that I was also excited for. Since I had 3 interviews last week and a follow-up to one scheduled for this Thursday, all told I felt pretty desirable, and my current boss, for whom I’ve still been working after giving notice, seemed duly impressed. I will continue to work for current boss for another week or so even though, mentally, I have both feet out the door. In fact, my mental feet aren’t just out the door: they’re tapping impatiently and occasionally breaking out in dance moves to these boots are made for walking … Soon, I croon to my mental feet. Soon …