fortuna

Moving

2007-01-23T23:38:00.000-05:00

I hate blogger. I have MOVED.

Blithe spirit

2007-01-22T21:53:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned that I'm annoyed that someone else has written the YA novel about Spiritualism? Perhaps this is why I've been in a bad mood of late. Stop writing YA novels about Spiritualism, people! I want to do this! Eventually!

And yet I'm told that the person who wrote the YA novel about Spiritualism wrote another novel that was crap, so maybe it isn't the YANAS. Ok, better mood now.

Anyway, Spiritualism. So I'm reading this book on Spiritualism and the interwar period, and one of the themes is how mediumship was a feminist move in some ways, giving women a sense of control and leadership in an unexpected route.

But that's not what this excerpt is about. I just liked this ideal medium-producing childhood:

Let us begin with some childhood experiences of Eileen Garrett, a celebrated medium in the 1930s. Garrett grew up with her Protestant aunt and uncle in County Meath, Ireland. In her autobiography, Many Voices, she recalled a turn-of-the-century childhood steeped in a mysticism and theological heterodoxy that extended to her staid and otherwise conventional aunt and uncle. Her uncle, generally regarded as a 'good Christian man', thoroughly believed in the wailing spirit of the banshee. So did her aunt, for she heard them talking about this wailing wraith on several occasions: ' "I heard the banshee last night—the time is not far away for someone to depart", they would say, with a certain poetic melancholy, but at the same time with a kind of gentle, objective acceptance.' According to Garrett, the banshee was part of fairy lore, 'which was regarded by the country folk as more potent than their religious practices'. Eileen became deeply involved with the magical powers which, she felt, 'lay hidden all around'. On her way to school she made primrose and cowslip wreaths, and left messages to reassure the spirits of her goodwill. She listened in the evenings to the stories of her neighbours, who believed in creatures who 'surpassed human beings in knowledge and power'—creatures who liked music, dancing and bright colours, and came and went oblivious of time.

Self-censoring

2007-01-22T17:55:00.000-05:00

I decided not to post the last two entries I wrote. Not quite sure what I want to talk about, apparently.

Footbridges

2007-01-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

The first part of the Nietzschean aphorism I alluded to here would seem to come in handy a lot:

When dealing with people who are bashful about their feelings, one has to be able to dissimulate; they feel a sudden hatred towards anyone who catches them in a tender or enthusiastic or elevated feeling, as if he had seen their secrets. If one wants to do them good in such moments, one should make them laugh or utter some cold, jocular sarcasm: then their feeling freezes and they regain power over themselves.

One reason

2007-01-20T11:59:00.000-05:00

I was mentioning Sarah Waters below (in the Llangollen comments) was that I'm reading this at the moment. It seems more understated than her Victorian novels, and I'm more fond of it.

Crossing over

2007-01-19T15:00:00.000-05:00

I just got an email from an old friend who is getting married in May. This is also a second marriage. Kat's first husband was her Arabic instructor, in Jordan. He was a very funny, very sweet guy—I believe I mentioned somewhere that he learned English by watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice about 500 times, and therefore sounded amusingly old-fashioned, often exclaiming, "This is so very vexing!" Or, "I can only think of that with abhorrence!" Once he came over to the States they were both graduate students, and broke all the time. When I was visiting them once, they had an argument about Kat's purchase of a $4 cup of coffee that morning. He was also still angry from the night before, when she had worn a skirt short enough to flash her underwear at one of his Middle Eastern friends. So I had a sense, even then, that it was doomed.

She remains very much an Arabist, fond of supporting Palestinian causes. This time she's marrying a Jewish guy who is very pro-Israel, and is looking forward to having lots of intellectual arguments, and very few domestic ones. However, one of her demands in advance of marriage is that she gets to control the political educations of any children resulting from the union.

The forgotten idiom: a series

2007-01-18T09:23:00.000-05:00

Continuing the theme:

I came across the phrase "don't be a Lady of Llangollen" and cannot work out what it would mean, even after looking it up. Is the objection that she was a recluse or that she was gay? Or, indeed, Irish?

Update: Aha!
Update ii: I'm pretty sure I've come across a reference to them before, and I think I love them a little.
Update iii: This doesn't sound very fun:

The Honourable Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831) lived with relatives in Woodstock, Ireland. Her host, Sir William Fownes, tried to force himself on her on various occasions.

Update iv: Doesn't something about them scream, make us into a BBC miniseries?

Intrigue

2007-01-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

When out at dinner just now, the server who took away my plate had a splint on her arm. The plate looking a bit wobbly, I asked, "Are you okay?" She said she was fine and added, "One of the hardest things about wearing this thing is that everybody asks how it happened." Quincy said, "We won't, then." She then leaned in and warned, "Believe me, you don't want to know."

We let her go, looking after her with great pangs of curiosity.

Exchange

2007-01-17T11:13:00.000-05:00

Tia's latest reminds me: life made a lot more sense after I read Humiliation by William Ian Miller. It's possibly superstitious at this point, but I think most bad social interactions I have can be explained by my failure to respect the mysteries of the gift.

Helms Deep

2007-01-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

This is great. (Via Faustus, M.D., my internet hero-worship of whom I is so intense I'd be afraid to meet him in real life.)
Update: Also.
Update ii: I believe I know who Jackmormon's blog hero is. Not sure I could name anyone else's.

Walls

2007-01-16T10:30:00.000-05:00

I was thinking as I read about differences between internet expectation and reality that I probably have a different conception of the world of blogs than some. I have an impression that blogging can be a bit bad for the character, if it makes you more self-involved and grandiose, and for that reason you should try to be more separate from your online self. I may notice this particularly because I seem to have the opposite problem, where my writing tends to tap into an older, more insecure strain of character. Either way, I think the distinction between the writing self and the everyday self should be maintained, or at least recognized.

Update: Someone else once pointed out to me that the internet creates a false and somewhat frustrating sense of intimacy, because revelation is usually earned in real life, and there is more mutual exchange and influence, whereas the mechanisms of social relation are speeded up, and potentially more one-sided, online. I have made some great friends through the medium, but I remain wary of it.
Update ii: That is, you will not catch me frolicking in tents of blogdom, with daisies in my hair, saying "oh, the internet is just heaven!" anytime soon. In case you were expecting to discover me in such a pose.
Update iii: And I know you were. So I thought I'd disabuse you of this notion.

This weekend

2007-01-15T22:16:00.000-05:00

I wasn't too gloomy at the wedding. I had a good time catching up with people I used to hang out with years ago. There was one immensely cool lesbian lawyer couple I made an unsuccessful bid to be best buddies with circa 1999, whom I flagged down and got to sit at my table, trying to have another go. My mother, who was also at the reception, seemed even more interested in this couple than I was. At some point, after I'd been wandering around mingling, I came back to find my mother deep in conspiratorial mode with the bespectacled forceful Asian half of the partnership, belly-laughing about politics.

Actually I think both my mother and my boyfriend made more progress on the lesbian couple front than I did. (He concentrated on the more wry and subtle one.)

While I was in New York, I also popped in to MoMA for a bit, and saw Volver. It's probably a bit late to point out that Almodóvar is fond of filling the screen with women characters, but man, that Almodóvar is fond of filling the screen with women characters.

Update: My boyfriend, Quincy, insists I add that at the end of the affaire, one of them said "We were just talking about how after [the last time I'd seen them, several years before] we were saying that Fortuna is awesome and we should be her best friends." (His rendering of the quote, not mine.) So maybe they do return my affection.

Steeples

2007-01-14T10:03:00.000-05:00

I went to my friend L.'s wedding yesterday, which was held in an Episcopal church. I was struck by the fact of a church service because a) I'm (lapsed) Catholic, and as far as I know you wouldn't be able to have a religious service on your second marriage in my religion, and b) my friend is very liberal, so it's interesting that she's as religious as she is. It's a bit sad, too. I couldn't help thinking as I sat in my pew that the comforts of faith must have been very important to her—more important than I had ever fully realized. Her mother died when she was nine, she had an immensely difficult relationship with her father which has only recently improved, and her first marriage was a trial. I was thinking about an episode she recounted from her initial separation, when she went to the supermarket and unthinkingly bought more supplies than she alone could carry (being so used to shopping for two), and struggled so much the bags on her way home that she fell to her knees and cried on the sidewalk.

She is now very certain, and very happy, and I was glad of it.

David Beckham

2007-01-11T12:04:00.000-05:00

Is going to bridge the great soccer divide.
Update: Will anyone notice, do you think?

Stalking Ian McKellen

2007-01-10T16:27:00.000-05:00

From Roops's autobiography:

My technique was more menacing. I positioned myself to full advantage, stood back and stared. I never asked him to sign anything. (I learnt, much later, just how effective this tactic could be.) Ian disappeared into the night and the ladies shuffled off, clucking. When they were all gone I dived after him into the darkness, darting in and out of the shadows like the hero in an Enid Blyton novel as I tracked my star on the walk home or to the pub. Sometimes, if I woke early enough (I had ripped a copy of the rehearsal schedule off the wall backstage so I knew his every move), I even waited for him to leave his house in the mornings and tracked him to the rehearsal room. If he spotted me, I pretended I had lost something in the rubbish. I was quite macabre. Then six months later I was passing by the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden and saw a poster announcing MacBeth as part of the coming season. I couldn't believe my luck. I dashed inside and got the job tearing tickets.

Pretty soon I had manoevred my way into a backstage position where I got to kneel by the side of the stage and take the three little voodoo dolls from Judi Dench's hands as she rushed into the wings after the mad scene. Then I had to take the dolls into the dressing rooms during the interval and set them by her place ready for the next scene. I acted very businesslike on these trips, but still managed to look sultry as I passed through the men's dressing room where Ian inevitably sat half naked and smoking in front of the mirror. The stalker was in the house! I think he was initially quite freaked out, but I kept my head down and bided my time. After all, there was a whole season ahead.

It was one of the most exciting jobs I ever had. Creeping around in the wings of a theatre while the show was on, listening for the changing nuances of a performance, feeling the disparate audience being slowly drawn together, was like being on drugs for me. My heart lived in my mouth and so it was a tight squeeze when I finally managed to manoevre my way on to the back of Ian's McKellen's scooter and sped off towards a late night tête-à-tête in Camberwell. I remember the look of fury on the face of his most persistent fan, Sue. I had tortured this girl since my elevation to ticket-tearer. [...] I will never forget the look of utter disbelief on her face as I nonchalantly strapped on Ian's spare helmet and put my hands around his waist before riding off into the night.

Forgot that bit

2007-01-09T22:55:00.000-05:00

Was just flipping through my Classical Dictionary, and happened to notice that there's some question of whether a Helen of Troylike figure was originally worshipped as a goddess.

Update: Don't know that I've ever heard of this Peitho, goddess of Persuasion, either.
Update ii: Interesting how her area of persuasion and charming speech shades into rape.

The new new thing

2007-01-08T22:21:00.000-05:00

I do suddenly have a strange desire to start blogging the Reformation. I could talk about how the revival house I practically used to live in as a teenager was constantly playing Anne of a Thousand Days. Or how everyone in my mom's house was doing the Mary, Queen of Scots sketch over Christmas break. The possibilities are just endless.

Careful wishes

2007-01-08T09:45:00.000-05:00

Having recently arrived back in Fortunaville, I'm turning around and going back to New York for a wedding this weekend. A high school friend, L., is getting married for the second time. I was telling another, single, friend about this, and she lamented that she'd never done it once, when other people were on their second time around—which seemed an odd point of envy. Especially in this case. L. really had a terrible time with her first husband. It was like being tethered to a horse that's out of control. He was an alcoholic, and wildly unstable. But she thought she could smooth him out, and kept trying. And trying. Her life has been about fifty times calmer since she's taken up with the new fellow. Cut the number of late-night emergency room visits rather dramatically.

The ex had been in a band when they were in college. He'd been in a band, and was really hot, and had lots of girlfriends, and she used to pine for him, attending all his shows. She actively plotted to win him, and succeeded. And then loved him so much she couldn't separate from him when everything went awry.

I was thinking about the whole story of L.'s romantic life, remembering that there is a woman from our high school who writes lots of books and articles about dating, who happened to mention in one of her pieces that she dated a pretty half-Asian swimmer when she was a junior or senior (after we'd left the school). She said that he was very dark and brooding and unreachable, having been embittered by his experience with his first girlfriend, who was older than he was, and who cheated on him and broke his heart. That first girlfriend being L.

Update: Related.

I love

2007-01-07T13:48:00.000-05:00

These cookies.

I really should take better notes

2007-01-06T10:46:00.000-05:00

I copied this from somewhere, I know not where:

If you can order your Thoughts and shape them into Art, good: if you can live in the obligations and affections of Daily Life, good. But do not get into the habit of morbid self-examination. Nothing so unfits a woman for producing good work, or for living usefully. The Lord will take care of the second of these—opportunities will be found. The first is a matter of Will.

Update: It seems to be A.S. Byatt.

Distant shores

2007-01-05T11:55:00.000-05:00

The other night I was telling the story of a multi-generational feud my Irish relatives have going with another branch of the family—it's a huge saga that's been going on since the 1950s and has provided the entire dramatic arc of my farmer uncle's life (picture a variation of this). It's a bit too long to go into here, but as I was recounting it, I thought of my father's role in the story, which was to look up one of the offending family's members who was, like him, living in the States, and—with typical impish contrariety—become friends. The distant cousin, Jimmy, showed up at my father's funeral and talked about how much that friendship had meant to him, transcending the intense hatred that had kept other members of the family apart. He also seemed to appreciate that for all the noble, high-toned possibilities of the gesture, my father had probably originally contacted him as a joke.

I just got a letter from one of my Irish uncles. I'd been out of touch for a long time, and sent him a Christmas card, and he wrote me a note in response. I was recalling some similar quality of his, thinking about the time he took me to the Church of Ireland cathedral in Armagh (i.e., the old seat of Protestant religious power), when we spent the afternoon looking at all the memorials to the First World War dead—the Ulster regiments having borne the brunt of the first day of fighting on the Somme. While we were very solemn and respectfully curious about it, we were both secretly or not so secretly amused at our solemnity and respectfulness in the Most Protestant Place Ever.

That Octavio Paz thing

2007-01-05T10:39:00.000-05:00

Over the holidays, I was reading some essays by Shashi Tharoor. He happened to mention a study of India by Octavio Paz, which I have been meaning to get my hands on for a while. Paz was apparently the Mexican ambassador to India for a number of years, and reflected on his time there, comparing it to Mexico and focusing on North/South and postcolonial issues. I gather he was interested in the attempt to construct an authentic modern identity, taking one's colonial past and indigenous cultural strains into account. My dad's friend Ed recommended it to me many times, and managed to give the impression that it has a kind of cult status among Third World intellectuals, it being a rare outsider view of a country from the point of view of a peer of sorts, rather than a European. Tharoor discussed it in similar terms.

Tharoor is, incidentally, the sexiest man alive.

Lounge 47

2007-01-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

Last night I was out with some friends, and I met a woman who talked very aggressively about contemporary fiction. When another person at the table was asking me for recommendations, and I mentioned I liked Mary Gaitskill's Veronica, she interjected, "What the hell was the point of that? She's just in pain all the time. I couldn't finish it." And when I mentioned my fondness for The Namesake, she said, "But don't you find it's all the same? If you read her stories, it's just all the same tale over and over, she never does anything different." I was thinking, well, no, I don't, that would be why I have just expressed the opinion that it is good. But it turned out to be fun, once I got over the initial slap of unexpected conflict, and I eventually got her to tone down or back off some of her pronouncements. She may even have said at one point, "Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about."

New year

2007-01-01T08:43:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in my old apartment, recovering from the lovely party I attended last night, which involved rather too much prosecco. Or maybe the cocktails at the bar beforehand were the problem. It really was a lovely party; I'd been hearing tales of a bacchanal that occurred the night before, and I was thinking that a sit-down dinner with magazine-spread food and sparkly conversation and a pretty view may have been a little more my speed. At least for this weekend.

I have spent the past ten days with different branches of my family. Around Christmas I was at my mother's, relaxing, eating a bit too well, chatting about books and education policy and doing my niece's hair. My mom and I observed our tradition of having tea in a fancy old hotel—a little place that seems like it is out of Edith Wharton. I love those cozy old brownstone rooms, and they are becoming familiar and ritualized now, with accumulated tradition. In the last couple of days, I've been in Maryland with my step-mother and aunt and cousins. My father died ten years ago, but my step-mother and I are still close. I had a long chat with her and my aunt about some unresolved questions of the year and, strangely, in the telling, the associated slights and anxieties seemed to dissolve. A nice feeling to have at the end of 2006, clearing the way for 2007.

Final burning question of the year

2006-12-31T10:49:00.000-05:00

How do you pronounce "bougainvillea"?

Sumsong

2006-12-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

I don't think I have the energy for another long involved meme, but I was thinking about the answer to the last question: a song lyric that sums up my year. I suspect last year it probably would have been some line or other from "Help," but this year, I don't know, the chorus from this seems to work on many levels:

Now don't come the cowboy with me Sonny Jim
I know lots of those and you're not one of them
There's a light in your eyes tells me somebody's in
And you won't come the cowboy with me

Update: I should note, the rest of the song, not so much.
Update ii: Because, you know, it seems to be sung by a prostitute.

A visual history of the CIA

2006-12-26T13:48:00.000-05:00

Saw The Good Shepherd yesterday. I found it utterly absurd. Spoilers below the fold.
read more!
I was slightly troubled by issues of historical accuracy and verisimilitude, which I could have forgiven in service of a good story. But the central story was so bad it actually made me want to laugh out loud. The original trouble was tied to the British intelligence narrative. I very much doubt that the security services were offing their own agents for sleeping around with working class boys and spilling secrets. Sleeping around with working class boys and spilling secrets is a grand national tradition; if it weren't, the Cambridge spy ring would never have got off the ground. I suppose it was meant to be symbolic—we learned our dirty counter-intelligence tricks from the British, and watching them push one of their own agents into the river was a way of demonstrating this. It still seemed overly murky to me. There is plenty to criticize about secret agencies without veering into the wildly implausible. But the real problem with the film was the ridiculous father-son story. Oh yes, I'm quite sure the Bay of Pigs turned into a fiasco because an anguished faultily-loved son overheard the wrong word while coming out of the shower. And said son would never figure out that the gorgeous foreign woman he has an affair with in an exotic locale is a Russian agent. Right.

I thought the best part was the evocation of the self-importance and kitsch elements of WASP culture. The film missed its main point badly enough, however, that I couldn't work up too much interest in this.

Old friend

2006-12-23T23:18:00.000-05:00

Was hanging out in my old apartment today, with friends who moved in as I was on my way out, and I was feeling a strange sort of love for that space, which I lived in for several years, four in that apartment and six in the one immediately below. It's a great deal for New York, immense, sunny, with wood floors, high ceilings, a large kitchen. Some Chicago friends of mine were staying in it and announced it to be a Chicago sort of apartment, rather than a New York one—big, light, quirky, full of character. It was odd seeing it set up in a new way, but I didn't feel any possessiveness about it. It's ok that my apartment and I parted ways. We've both moved on, it seems happy now, in its new relationship. I wish it well. I have left about seventeen cases of books there, though, so we still have a connection.

Holidays

2006-12-23T10:55:00.000-05:00

I'm back in New York at the moment, and yesterday went to see not one but two photography shows. I'm a bit thirsty for culture where I live now, and coming back feels like taking a tall drink of water.

Fragments encore

2006-12-21T01:23:00.000-05:00

Was looking through an old notebook, and found this passage, not sure where it's from (probably from a book by or about George F. Kennan, since it's in among things about him):

The most singular feature of Chekhov's fiction is its evocation of mood, more often than not nostalgic, melancholic, autumnal. The sources of Chekhov's mood were manifold, but probably chief among them was the fact that he suffered from consumption—the most romantic of maladies—and was aware from the depths of his being of the precariousness and fleeting quality of what he loved.

YA, again

2006-12-19T12:43:00.000-05:00

I was thinking, as I wrote this, that there really is a whole sub-genre of young adult books about the teenage girl who loses her sense of self in a relationship. Yesterday I was looking at The Tenth Circle, which features a teenage girl so distraught by the end of a romance she starts cutting herself. And last year I read Dreamland, which was about a girl who gets too deeply involved with the bad boy at her school, drifts away from all her friends, and enters a dark, downward spiral, shut off in this private world with him. The author, Sarah Dessen, seems to have made a career of this sort of story, of a girl with bad impulses who is saved by a crowd of caring friends.

Update: I should probably link to the whole post.

Well, that was cheery

2006-12-18T00:01:00.000-05:00

Was just watching The Passion of Anna, and man, it was bleak. I don't think I have ever seen a more self-consciously unhappy film. In it, one character is socially isolated, and his life actually gets worse when he finds companionship, his only real friend in the world—with whom he identifies greatly—is set upon by a mob, and meanwhile there is some maniac on the loose who is going around killing animals, so interspersed with all these cold, lonely scenes of desperately sad interiors, there are horrible exterior shots of dead things bleeding in the snow. And yet, I was strangely cheered by it, perhaps because its extremes veered a bit too far outside my sense of familiarity, thus making the whole landscape a little too alien. I could think, well, at least I don't live on an isolated farm in rural Sweden, with people who want to take an axe to me in arguments. That's something.

K.

2006-12-17T21:46:00.000-05:00

My friend K. delivered twins the other day. Her husband sent pictures in which she looked surprisingly fresh and alert and pretty. Another friend had mentioned that K. getting married and being pregnant was somehow a milestone; someone we identified with, who has seemed, at times, like an extension of ourselves, going through these things makes them that much more real. However, looking at that picture, I know I would not be looking that good after such an event.

There is indeed a reason

2006-12-16T19:12:00.000-05:00

Why I'm looking at this. (It's the opposite of this feeling.)
Update: Now I have the Xanadu theme song in my head.

Niccolo

2006-12-16T10:55:00.000-05:00

While looking for something completely different, I happened to come across some H.G. Wells, and I liked this vision of Machiavelli at work:

I picture him at San Casciano as he lived in retirement upon his property after the fall of the Republic, perhaps with a twinge of the torture that punished his conspiracy still lurking in his limbs. Such twinges could not stop his dreaming. Then it was "The Prince" was written. All day he went about his personal affairs, saw homely neighbours, dealt with his family, gave vent to everyday passions. He would sit in the shop of Donato del Corno gossiping curiously among vicious company, or pace the lonely woods of his estate, book in hand, full of bitter meditations. In the evening he returned home and went to his study. At the entrance, he says, he pulled off his peasant clothes covered with the dust and dirt of that immediate life, washed himself, put on his "noble court dress," closed the door on the world of toiling and getting, private loving, private hating and personal regrets, sat down with a sigh of contentment to those wider dreams.

Excuse the management-speak

2006-12-15T14:42:00.000-05:00

The passage from Social Intelligence I read yesterday that made me interested in the management style of Loic Le Meur:

Organizational narcissism has clear perils. Pumping up grandiosity, whether it is the boss's or some false collective self-image held throughout the company, becomes the operating norm. Healthy dissent dies out. And any organization that is cheated of a full grasp of truth loses the ability to respond nimbly to harsh realities.

To be sure, every company wants its employees to be proud they work there and to feel that they share a meaningful mission—a bit of well-founded collective narcissism is healthy. Trouble creeps in when that pride builds on a desperate grasp for glory rather than on real accomplishment.

Trouble grows when narcissistic leaders expect to hear only messages that confirm their own sense of greatness. And when those leaders turn against bearers of bad news, subordinates naturally start to ignore data that do not fit the grandiose image. This skewed filter on reality need not be cynically motivated. Employees who themselves gain ego-inflation from belonging will bend the truth willingly, in exchange for the rosy feelings of group self-adulation.

Ah

2006-12-15T00:56:00.000-05:00

At first, I didn't quite understand these posts of Jackie's. That is, I understood that a bunch of people were unhappy about Le Web3 conference, and that it had something to do with the appearance of Sarkozy, but the cause of the level of outrage was somewhat eluding me. It was funny, it became an exercise in looking around trying to make sense of a story. I think I get it now.

Ze academie

2006-12-14T19:41:00.000-05:00

I was looking up something about Pierre Nora and noticed that he was in the Académie française, which of course led me to wonder who else was currently in it. The ones I've heard of are Giscard d'Estaing, Lévi-Strauss, Robbe-Grillet, and Girard. I know who Revel is, too, but he's dead now, and apparently his seat is still vacant.

Somehow it's amusing me that they are referred to as "immortals." Yes, I'm an immortal, I'm having my immortal breakfast right now, shortly I'll be going for an immortal walk....

Update: Happened to come across this article about the state of efforts to eliminate gender-bias in language.
Update ii: And this one about people who speak Klingon.
Update iii: Related because the Académie guards the language, see.

Q.

2006-12-14T00:39:00.000-05:00

Do people write anti-dedications in books? Things like: thanks, Lucinda, for making me doubt myself, if I'd listened to you I never would have finished! Or: thanks, neighbors, for playing the disco tunes at 3am every morning, and sapping my will to live, much less write!

Girly Keats

2006-12-13T18:26:00.000-05:00

Earlier I was reading about Keats's fascination with the Cupid and Psyche myth, and how this led him into the realm of the Female Gothic.

Update: From the Anne Williams book:

Keats's two most familiar metaphors for life also have analogies in the Psyche myth: "Life is a mansion of many apartments" suggests the heroine's sojourn in Eros's castle; life as a "vale of soul-making" indicates the notion of selfhood as a process similar to Psyche's labors. All of Keats's mature poetry is concerned with seeing, the moment when Psyche lights her lamp and awakens to the reality of her situation.

Manners, hypocrisy, cont.'d

2006-12-13T17:55:00.000-05:00

To explain Wollstonecraft's project further:

The problem as she sees it is how to separate the kind of modesty that elicits respect from men and women alike (and that is related in turn to self-respect) from its false double, a quality only mistakenly called modesty. False modesty forces women to deceive others as well as themselves, bestowing power on women only within a system of tyranny and dependence.

The higher hypocrisy

2006-12-12T18:12:00.000-05:00

I was reading Jenny D.'s book on hypocrisy and manners. One of the central themes of it is the Burke/Wollstonecraft argument over whether hypocrisy has some social or political purpose, smoothing interaction, or, tied up in the requirements and duplicity of modesty, it is a system of repression. There is a chapter on Jane Austen, and her attempt to finesse this question by drawing a contrast both between feeling and reserve, represented by the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility, and between sincere reserve or diplomatic duplicity and its more overtly deceptive variety:

In a revealing counterpoint to Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility is Austen's first extended working-out of the problem (central to the development of domestic fiction) of how a virtuous heroine should be rewarded by marriage. The novel sets up the character of Lucy Steele as a foil to Elinor Dashwood, insisting on Lucy's exaggerated or parodic likeness to the eighteenth-century novel's ostentatiously virtuous heroines. Lucy's shameless flattery of a series of patrons earns her a just reward: marriage to one of the Ferrars brothers (and to the richer one at that). [...] The prosperity which crowns Lucy's duplicity "may be held forth as a most encouraging instance of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however its progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and conscience."

Update: At some point Elinor explains to Marianne that she feels as deeply, just shows it less, which is a different order of "hypocrisy" than Lucy Steele's. In a way, it may match both Burke and Wollstonecraft's notions of public good, meeting the standard of politeness for Burke, the standard of honesty and self-respect for Wollstonecraft. I suppose the Austen goal is, by these lights, honesty with oneself, not necessarily everyone you meet.

Lonesome morning cry

2006-12-12T10:27:00.000-05:00

Where o where can you get a good croissant in this town?
Update: This picture made me homesick for my old neighborhood, and the little French place by the river where I could get café au lait in a bowl. And, yes, croissants.
Update ii: Or these.

No reason

2006-12-11T19:10:00.000-05:00

Why I'm looking at this, or this.

Long, long ago

2006-12-11T09:49:00.000-05:00

I picked up Bodily Harm, which I read a number of years ago, and as I was reading the first few paragraphs, I suddenly recalled very vividly the last time I was reading it, Thanksgiving break my first year of college, when I was housesitting for my aunt in her old apartment on W 15th street. One of the French TAs and a high school friend were staying with me, and we had lots of crazy episodes packed into one weekend, mostly having to do with the fact that my aunt's dog was sick, and kept leaving messes around the house, as little surprises for us. This must have happened fifteen times in one weekend. At some point, we were having a bunch of guys over, one of whom my friend had a wee crush on, and we couldn't find one of the dog messes, but knew it must be around, so just sprayed fantastic amounts of air freshener all over the place, to try to conceal its presence. When my aunt came home, she thought we'd been having wild parties, spraying champagne on the walls.

Books 2006

2006-12-10T19:10:00.000-05:00

The inclusion of Richard Ford makes this list seem dubious. I think I liked last year's list better, because I read more of it. This year, I read the Claire Messud and the Marisha Pessl, nothing else. And I wasn't overly fond of Special Topics.

Update: Looking back at other years, I'm reminded: Brick Lane, not my favorite book. I think it triggered food book peevishness.
Update: This review seems to acknowledge the mango/coconut food problem, and tells me I should have gotten past it.

In the Danish Swedish Finnish house

2006-12-09T11:34:00.000-05:00

So I'm reading the Nordic housework study, and finding it very interesting. The researchers interviewed thirty couples, diving them into "unequal," "in-between," or "equal" categories depending on how much work the woman was doing, and evaluating their narratives of the domestic situation based on this designation. There were only six couples that met the equal division qualification (yes, even in Scandinavia, only a fifth of interviewees.) In no family did the man do more housework, so the unequal designation always meant that the woman was doing more—usually about two-thirds of household tasks. In such families, the narrative was very much one of female expertise, that women were better capable of "seeing" when tasks needed doing and had lower thresholds for dirt, so often took to performing the tasks themselves. The in-between couples were negotiating more and, perhaps, having more conflict, but seemed to be moving in a direction of greater equality:

In the narratives of the in-between couple women did less house-work, while still having overall responsibility and usually lower thresholds. These couples talked about men as somewhat more competent on house-work tasks than in the unequal couples. Several of the women talked about themselves as foremen, who decided on standards for household chores, and who expected at least some cooperation from the man. Minna, a Finnish woman, recounted that she had said to her husband: "If you don't hang the clothes properly, they will become creased", and taught him how to hang them. Since then she expected him to be able to perform this task.

The equal couples either set standards that they both attempted to live up to, or tried very consciously to dismantle the vision of female expertise:

Jaana, a Finnish woman, illustrated this strategy when she told the interviewer that she was very aware of the importance of letting Jarmo, her husband, spend time alone with their baby and take care of him on his own. She also emphasized that it was important that her husband learn things himself, and that she should not act the expert and apply her standards to him: "If he puts the baby's sweater on inside out, I don't rush in and tell him."

Update: Somehow I just love the image of Jarmo with his sartorially-challenged but fine baby, tags sticking out everywhere.

Chick flicks

2006-12-08T23:48:00.000-05:00

This site of feminist readings of chick flicks looks interesting.
Update: A very funny, very negative review of The Holiday.
Update ii: I was reading different reviews (mostly by male reviewers), thinking that while it's obviously good to know whether a given film transcends the genre, artistic demands may be beside the point for this sort of story. It seems a more ritualized experience, which serves some other purpose than high art. That's why I went looking for feminist criticism.
Update iii: Some feminist thoughts about chick lit.

Swe-den Swe-den

2006-12-08T11:43:00.000-05:00

Back when I was getting into a lot of arguments about women and work, I kept thinking, you know, there's no need to reinvent the wheel here, there is already a country on earth where gender equality is truly a national goal, and maybe we can look at that and learn from it. There are obviously costs to the Swedish approach, and questions whether the welfare state is even remotely sustainable. Still, I was wondering how close they actually are to reaching a state of equality.

Update: I'd like to look at this study of Nordic housework division, but it costs $$$$.
Update ii: Slightly more random Sweden-related link.
Update iii: And.

My lat pulldowns

2006-12-08T10:01:00.000-05:00

Acquired a thitherto unwonted gravity...

Dealing with bullies

2006-12-07T09:31:00.000-05:00

Laura told her son he could hit back, but with certain rules in mind. My experience in childhood was that once I crossed a certain socioeconomic line, physical intimidation ceased to be a factor in the school environment. In my working class grade school neighborhood, kids would get into fights, and defend themselves. Once I started going to school in Manhattan, all warfare became psychological.

Sebastian

2006-12-06T15:44:00.000-05:00

I was looking at the new Sebastian Faulks the other day, and wondering if he's sort of crap and I like him anyway, or if he's actually a great novelist who just takes on popular themes. He falls in some crack between the two in my head, and I can't evaluate him properly.

Update: What? His novel Birdsong came ahead of Rebecca, Middlemarch, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on the list of Britain's best-loved books?

Little choirs everywhere

2006-12-05T16:55:00.000-05:00

You read stories like this (as well as this more famous story), and think that what public schools need is massive expansion of classical music programs. Playing an instrument or singing in a choir requires and teaches discipline, it shows in very concrete ways how work and practice pay off, it's fun and can produce great emotion and involvement and joy—it reaches places other subjects can't. Musical ability and thought is related to the mathematical, developing those capacities, and transcends language, so can potentially engage immigrant children. Plus: built-in future classical audiences.

I hated my own music classes in high school, for being dreary and uninspired. But it seems there's a whole other way to do it.
Story via Clive.

Update: Another appeal is that it gives kids access to Culture with a capital C, and really lets them possess and inhabit it, which is so often a stumbling block to becoming or feeling educated. If you feel you have a magic wand waving you into Lincoln Center, whole other worlds become open to you as well.

Memories

2006-12-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

To go back to an old love or an old hurt, and discover that your mind played tricks on you at the time. Always interesting. This is my favorite story on this theme, which I linked to on my old blog.

A friend went to the ten year reunion of the class below me, and told me that the love of my college life now resembled Yoda. But I guess that's a different sort of problem. I'm pretty sure he didn't look like that at the time.

Tube troubles

2006-12-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

Jackie and I have had conversations before about London crime and policing, and I was sorry to hear she was assaulted herself recently. I have gotten into numerous conversations about this over the last five or ten years, with relatives who were all complaining of rising crime in UK cities, as they visited me and marveled at safer and safer New York (at least in the ordinary crime sense). Jackie is a libertarian, so has particular ideas about how this problem should be solved. But this certainly helps her in taking an active role in her case, which seems the right way to go.

Update: Was wondering if ideas on crime and policing and the New York makeover were affected by the Stephen Levitt theory.
Update ii: Was looking around at some of Yglesias's old crime policy pieces.

Cheer

2006-12-04T17:54:00.000-05:00

Ezra is asking about favorite Christmas songs. I like the narrative element of The Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping," the chick lit Christmas song.

Update: The video here isn't very interesting, but you can hear the song.

Alex and Anna

2006-12-04T15:15:00.000-05:00

This post about an Australian movie reminds me that I have been thinking of my favorite Australian tv show a lot recently. I have started swimming regularly (that is, three whole times now with a likely fourth tomorrow), and as I do so I think about the two characters who met every morning to swim together. Somehow that show offered an ideal vision of life, at least on the surface, and I realize I carry it around semi-consciously as a picture of how to go about things—cutting out some of the more soap opera elements of it. Claudia Karvan, as Alex, really carried the show, and it was a rare pop culture portrait of a young woman who was caring and smart and thoughtful, fully three-dimensional. Somehow you really got a sense of her inner life, and her moral landscape, and sense of herself.

The show was a bit like This Life, which, to me, was also carried by the young woman professional in the group. Daniela Nardini, as Anna, totally stole the show. I suppose they both had self-destructive streaks, and great fragility, as well as strong ambitions, which made them fun to watch. And so memorable (and rare) that they still blaze away in my head, years after following their stories.

You'll be happy to know

2006-12-04T13:04:00.000-05:00

I finished the meme.

Wedding section

2006-12-03T19:45:00.000-05:00

Wow. I recently met the couple featured in this week's "Vows." I'll write about that encounter shortly. I'm not sure if this has happened before, that I have known the pair of the week.

Update: I met the two of them when I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, attending a family function of my partner's. They were seated across from us at the table. We asked the usual questions about what they did for a living, and when the woman said she was a professional matchmaker my attention, which had been wandering, zoomed in on her. I'm not sure precisely why—perhaps because I was the only person who watched that short-lived yet strangely fascinating Alicia Silverstone show about a woman who starts an informal matchmaking business, and it was like meeting a more New York version of that character. She had been a social worker—sounding extremely burned out about that profession—and decided to try to help people in a more fun, more lucrative manner. (The linked article makes it sound as if she were doing it to make her own match as well.) She was saying that her social work and counseling training was a natural fit with the matchmaking profile; she thought most people who were at the point of hiring help had to overcome personal problems or psychological stumbling blocks in order to find a partner. You can get a good sense of her personality from that picture, and from that quote about her being a Jewish mother in the making—a powerfully feminine presence, to the point of seeming archetypal or like some kind of fertility goddess brought to life. But she came off as businesslike as well, not suited to the more low-profile end of the helping professions.

LM

2006-12-02T11:48:00.000-05:00

Birmingham had brought MacNeice closer to the workers—in sympathy and understanding—than it would ever bring Auden, closer than London would bring Blunt, Day Lewis, or Spender. An Orwellian honesty, however, would always prevent him from concealing the inner self the others would deny, but time would increasingly reveal.

He saw through his friends of the new gang as he saw through himself, and his irony sometimes made them wary of him. 'Take the case of Stephen Spender,' he says in the The Strings are False, 'who was now living in a chic apartment with a colour scheme out of Vogue, a huge vulcanite writing desk and over the fireplace an abstract picture by Wyndham Lewis.' One senses in MacNeice's detail both a sensuous delight in the objects he describes and a mischievous delight in the contrast they make with the owner's communist principles.

—Jon Stalworthy, Louis MacNeice

Northern city

2006-12-02T11:36:00.000-05:00

Some lines from Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal: XVI:

And the North, where I was a boy,
Is still the North, veneered with the grime of Glasgow,
Thousands of men whom nobody will employ
Standing at the corners, coughing.
And the street-children play on the wet
Pavement—hopscotch or marbles;
And each rich family boasts a sagging tennis-net
On a spongy lawn beside a dripping shrubbery.

Looking at the shelf

2006-12-02T10:58:00.000-05:00

I feel that, as an exercise, I should read a beloved book I read ten years ago and make elaborate notes about all the ways I respond to it differently now than I did then.

Surprise!

2006-11-30T18:18:00.000-05:00

Can I tag Tia with this meme, even if I haven't had time to do it myself yet?

Update: I may answer one question at a time throughout the day, slowly, in my ponderous way.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Sometimes, when I'm writing, I getting into a zone where thoughts come freely and I lose all self-consciousness and feel pure joy of creation. That, and reading the stuff a couple months later and deciding it's not, in fact, crap. That is perfect happiness.

What is your greatest fear?

I don't want to say it, out of superstitiousness. I have been feeling a bit guilty about something, and hope I rectify it before it's too late.

What historical figure do you most identify with?

I'd like to avoid saying Madame de Sévigné, since she was sort of insane. I can't deny a sense of recognition there, though. Trying to think of someone more positive. I used to feel more of an affinity with Oscar Wilde than I currently do. (I have previously told the story of how my mother started to cry while watching this, because his more painful and self-defeating qualities reminded her of me). Wait, that's not more positive is it? Hmm. I also have a strong attachment to Louis MacNeice and keep his biography on a shelf near my desk wherever I'm working, as a kind of talisman. He's a low-profile, thoughtful sort, filled with quiet longing, who thinks about his N. Irish background a lot.

Which living person do you most admire?

I have been leaning rather heavily on Katha Pollitt this year, as a feminist voice of reason, articulating thoughts I'm having. I went to see her speak over the summer, and felt a great sense of appreciation for her writing and presence on the political scene. (I'm a little too aware of her weaknesses to feel unmixed admiration, however.)

I admire Margaret Atwood as well, for her writing, for her attempt to be accessible and relevant and suspenseful as well as erudite.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

My indecision; the sense of paralysis that overtakes me sometimes.

What trait do you most deplore in others?

I like Sheila's answer there. I have discovered that I get very frustrated dealing with people who lack self-knowledge, especially when I'm acknowledging my own faults and biases, and the other person doesn't reciprocate at all. To be met by a cool, ungiving surface, when you're trying to be human about things.

What is your greatest extravagance?

It used to be travel, and pretty things, now it's probably books.

On what occasion do you lie?

Mostly for artistic reasons. I change details to make stories better.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

I used to have a jokey magnet on my fridge with an image of a woman in 1950s lingerie, saying, "You will have perfect thighs in this lifetime." It was not really a joke.

What is your favorite journey?

I used to like arriving at the Paris apartment, the feeling of familiarity but not being quite at home, knowing the neighborhood well but still working at true intimacy, going immediately to get a cucumber sandwich and some mushroom salad at Gérard Mulot around the corner. Ok, I think I'm going to cry now....

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Self-reliance maybe? I'm thinking of that line about how if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you fall over. But it's not so much about the quality itself being bad, but people thinking they have it when they are in fact in possession of a vast support system and calling it self-reliance.

Which living person do you most despise?

I have a relative I'm emphatically not fond of. Seems a bit harsh to describe her as The Most Despised Being, though. So: Dick Cheney.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

In fact. Just. Or something.

What is your greatest regret?

A phone call I didn't make.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

I think I stopped at this question before because I didn't want to be trite or trivialize what's going on in my life right now. In general I have a problem answering personal questions these days, for this reason. (This may be why my blog has largely become about what I'm reading.) If I had answered this question in 2004 I probably would have said French Revolution boy, although that seems sort of sad. Does being half-crazed about someone when you are seventeen really count? Or is it totally illusion?

When and where were you happiest?

For form's sake, I'd like to answer this question in the same way. My old answer to this question would have been: October 31st/November 1st 1990.

Which talent would you most like to have?

I'd like to draw and paint and be crafty.

What is your current state of mind?

Abuzz with ideas.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I can think of a few instances where I wanted things to go differently, but I don't know that I really want to change the way I am. I sometimes wish I were less sensitive, but then it comes in handy sometimes, or makes me see other people in a way I wouldn't want to give up.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

I wish I were closer to some of my Irish relatives.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?

person

If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?

It might be interesting to be an Arab intellectual.

What do your consider your greatest achievement?

I'll let you know in a couple months.

What is your most treasured possession?

My Keith King sculptures.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Most of the scenes I'm picturing are African: being a subsistence farmer, being a child drafted into an army, having your community ravaged by AIDS, &c.

What is your most marked characteristic?

I'm told it's my laugh.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

I agree with Sheila: truly likes women.

What is the quality you most admire in a woman?

Insight.

What do you most value in your friends?

A kind of elasticity, and generosity, a willingness to discuss what we're actually thinking, rather than observing forms, while still being kind or thoughtful.

Who are your favourite writers?

I have been talking about Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt recently, and I mentioned Alan Hollinghurst in comments somewhere. I loved Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Zadie. Mary Gaitskill.

ho is your favourite hero of fiction?

I was fond of Telemachus. King Arthur in The Once and Future King. Helga the troll.

Who are your heroes in real life?

Artists.

What are your favourite names?

Nora. Liam.

What is it that you most dislike?

People who lecture you on things you're perfectly familiar with.

How would you like to die?

Driving a car at 90 million miles an hour. Skiiing off a cliff. Something active and glamorous.

What is your motto?

Some variant of darkest before dawn.

Nature run amok

2006-11-30T10:02:00.001-05:00

This peeved killer whale story jumped out at me. I saw Orca about twelve times when I was a kid, and it left me with the impression that killer whales are crafty, vindictive, relentless creatures. You didn't know what motivated Jaws, but Orca, man, Orca had intent. Orca had purpose. It was like a battle of nerve between Orca and Richard Harris.

Harris's career was going rapidly downhill, at the time—as he slid under the ice, you wondered if he would make another picture ever again—and that lent the film extra pathos. The whale was killing him in more ways than one.

My mom and I generally saw a lot of movies in the nature run amok genre. Rattlesnakes on the rampage? All over it. Killer grizzlies? You bet. Last year I was at her house and we were flipping through channels and saw that there was some crazy film on about giant mutant locusts developed by the military, and, ah, it brought back such fond memories!

Lesbian Until Graduation

2006-11-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

Having mentioned the LUG phenomenon in a comment to a previous post, I'm reminded that most of the lesbian women I know have encountered such people in their love lives, some at great cost. My mother has a cousin who lived with a woman for nine years who had previously only been involved with men. Their relationship had, I believe, broken up the woman's marriage. They seemed perfectly fine all that time, until the day the partner left my cousin for a man.

My Seattle-based step-sister is also gay, and she had a friend at Bryn Mawr who seemed pretty hardcore (at least to me), whose entire emotional life seemed to consist of women and only women, and she ended up surprising everyone in her circle and marrying a man. (She was quite hot, actually, and I had a teeny bit of a crush on her, or was drawn to her when hanging out with my sister's friends—she looks a bit like a more ethereal version of Charlize Theron.)

Update: Her tremendous hotness gave her defection the feeling of a grave blow for lesbians everywhere.
Update ii: Apologies to my sister if this is an admittedly distant take on events.
Update iii: When I say that my cousin's relationship seemed perfectly fine, I mean on the outside. I gathered afterwards that they had bed death issues from fairly early on. But their lives were so woven together my cousin never thought the partner would leave. She had a breakdown, afterwards.

Kremlin diary

2006-11-29T09:52:00.000-05:00

I was wondering what was going on in there.

Lives

2006-11-28T00:38:00.000-05:00

I was struck by this account of an old-fashioned maiden aunt. I used to identify rather strongly with characters in books seemingly destined to be maiden aunts, like Natasha's cousin Sonya in War and Peace. I can see the lament here that the aunt has never been in love, or never been able to say "I was adored once too"—but, I wonder, do we still really think a life without romantic love a life not fully lived? (It's an honest question; I don't know the answer.) A few possibilities occur to me: there are many forms of love, so it's a different thing to say that one hasn't experienced romantic love and hasn't experienced any love at all; I'm certainly a believer that friendships can be quite passionate, so that exists as an strong emotional substitute; and, if your possibly nunlike aunt did have all sorts of secret passions, people she loved who didn't love her back, they could have made her quite miserable, so maybe she's better off being more phlegmatic or even-keeled, sustained by rosaries and dreams of heaven. The nephew's concern is about her life as a whole, rather than merely the romantic part, but that's what I wondered about, reading that. She seems a bit of a blank, but she also seems sweet, and, as far as I can tell, unscathed.

Update: Sonya was the secret or not so secret passions sort.
Update ii: You wouldn't count a rosary bead clutcher as a liberated modern fish-without-bicycle woman, which is why she seemed so maiden auntish. So the question is, perhaps, whether we actually believe in liberated singlehood. After all, even Gloria Steinem married in the end. (Christian Bale's father, no less.) And beyond that, whether the more archaic forms of singleness represented some liberation, or whether there was always such implicit condemnation in the conception of the condition that you couldn't carry it off. It's interesting too, to consider how the homosexuality of the viewer, in this case, colors the perception of the life. Because presumably it's more difficult for the gay person to understand the asexual solitary life, because so often part of the process of understanding the gay story is to go back and read lots of secret passion in seemingly asexual lives. That uncle who was a bachelor farmer: probably gay! &c. So you might have a more difficult time relating to someone who appears to have nothing going on, in this sense.

Note

2006-11-27T00:11:00.000-05:00

When driving through New Mexico, it is amusing to listen to ridiculous faux-west Adam Ant songs. So you too can sing, "I’m a big tough man with a big tough plan/Gonna spend my day in a big tough way..." as you roll through the mesas.

Update: The ridiculous faux-west theme was reminding me of some Fintan O'Toole essay I once read about the Irish national identification with the Indians.
Update ii: This seems to be a big theme for Fintan.
Update iii: More on the Irish Indian chief.

For your art

2006-11-24T23:31:00.000-05:00

I'm in Santa Fe for Thanksgiving, and I went to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum today. The brochure for the Paul Strand exhibit mentioned that Strand had a falling out with his mentor, Stieglitz, at the same time that he was getting divorced from his wife. I wondered what caused both relationships to break up at the same time, mental illness, an affair in the other two points of the triangle, what. I looked through a book of essays on Strand, in the bookstore, and it turned out that he struck out in a new artistic direction, abandoning Stieglitz, who was going through his cloud phase at the time. Somehow his new vision, or desire to go it alone affected his relationship with his wife as well. Possibly he was tired of doing portraits of her, in the style of Stieglitz's photographs of Georgia O'Keeffe.

Word association

2006-11-21T16:20:00.000-05:00

Meme via Nancy:

1. Yourself: blue
2. Your spouse: purple
3. Your hair: fuller
4. Your mother: competent
5. Your father: handsome
6. Your favorite item: art
7. Your dream last night: molestation
8. Your favorite drink: coffee
9. Your dream car: mini
10. The room you are in: bright
11. Your ex: mistreated
12. Your fear: unfairness
13. What you want to be in 10 years: writing
14. Who you hung out with last night: partner
15. What you're not: organized
16. Muffins: lemon poppyseed
17: One of your wish list items: productivity
18: Time: languorous
19. The last thing you did: washed
20. What you are wearing: clogs
21. Your favorite weather: fresh
22. Your favorite book: changes
23. The last thing you ate: pizza
24. Your life: good
25. Your mood: middling
26. Your best friend: upset
27. What you're thinking about right now: swimming
28. Your car: fine
29. What you are doing at the moment: reading
30. Your summer: hopeful
31. Your relationship status: best
32. What is on your TV: nothing
33. What is the weather like: unpredictable
34. When was the last time you laughed: earlier

Update: I tag Tia.
Update ii: That is, I attempted to tag Tia, and failed.

Bookstore observations

2006-11-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

1. There are three rows devoted to Christian fiction in the local Barnes & Noble. I was leafing through some pretty insidious-seeming Christian chick lit, having noticed a novel at the Austin airport about a woman working in a pregnancy crisis center, and become curious about the genre. These things look like The Devil Wears Prada. But no.

2. I was flipping through In Style and saw that they had Kate Bosworth's Invasion From Planet Anorexia outfit listed as one of the Best Looks of 2006.

Infamy

2006-11-20T00:44:00.000-05:00

This is a long post, but I invite anyone who has ever played Botticelli with me to look at the first block quote.

The forgotten idiom: a series

2006-11-19T11:18:00.000-05:00

I mentioned "the vicar of Bray" here recently. And then yesterday I read this passage in Don't Tell Alfred:

The Chef de Cabinet, no doubt in an emotional state, had lost his head and ordered homard à l'armoricaine. When Northey discovered that this was French for lobster, and the cruellest sort at that, she was furious; she cried and sent him to Coventry for half an hour.

The story taking place in Paris, my first thought was, "that doesn't seem like very long." And then, a second later: Oops. Forgot about that one.

Update: Would this phrase appear in a contemporary British novel?
Update ii: Because my sense is it was vastly more common before 1960.

Oh right, the French election

2006-11-18T13:39:00.000-05:00

Have spent the morning reading about Ségo.

The ultimate in alternate careers

2006-11-17T12:16:00.000-05:00

Do you think you would make a good spy? I can't decide if I'd be decent at it, or absolutely terrible. I'm imagining the classic SOE dropped behind the lines in wartime France sort of spy scenario. First of all, I'd be walking on roots and brambles in open country, and would surely turn my ankle. So my spy career might not get off the ground at all. But then if I did manage to get to the town, hmm, my French isn't that great, but my accent is quite good so I bet they could have trained me up ok in one of those Beaulieu places and I'd be able to pass. Though I'd probably give myself away at some crucial moment by improper use of the subjunctive. Presumably I'd have a contact in the Resistance who I'm trying to meet. If that doesn't pan out, would I be good at ingratiating myself with random townspeople? I think the answer is actually yes...

Or, as my friends call me, CHAMM

2006-11-17T00:35:00.000-05:00

I think this may be my favorite fugging ever.

Serge

2006-11-15T22:39:00.000-05:00

I love this song. Was dancing around the kitchen to it while making dinner. (Be sure to play the one with Serge's voice.)

Coupling

2006-11-15T11:45:00.000-05:00

On the subject of domestic ideals: over the summer I was observing to Tia that most of the women I know seem to pair off at just the point where they find the most feminist man they have ever dated, someone who genuinely likes women, and understands, in some fundamental way, how to be a good guy. I was saying this in connection with my friend Alex, who dated a bunch, and then finally chose a guy with loads of female and gay friends, who at times seems more conscientious about gender roles than Alex herself does. (And all without being some caricature of The Sensitive Guy.) I was staying with them this weekend, and thinking about it again as I was hanging out with her boyfriend, thinking how relaxing it was to be around a couple that seems perfectly modern, breathing an air of fairness and mutual respect. I always notice his mentions of an old friend of his, a very cool woman (the one who was responsible for introducing them), and get glimpses of his character or solidity.

Update: That is, I quite like the mutual friend, and if she thinks he a good guy, and has a longstanding relationship with him, that's a big reinforcement of my own impressions. I'm reminded of this whenever he mentions her.

Umberto wannabes

2006-11-15T11:04:00.000-05:00

A study of the philosopher novelist.

I have a strong desire

2006-11-14T15:18:00.000-05:00

To read this. I wonder if it's at all inspired by The Heat of the Day, which is one of my favorite books. The spy element of the Bowen novel also begins at a funeral, which is what made me think of it.

Old pals

2006-11-14T10:40:00.000-05:00

When mentioning my Swiss friend the venture capitalist, I was recalling my days of living on a hall with her and our Venezuelan friend, in college. (The latter was also quite girly, and went on to run her father's company for a while, which basically put her in charge of the non-oil portion of the Venezuelan economy.) We had half of the top floor of a beautiful old dorm to ourselves, and lived under a sloping roof together, darting in and out of one another's rooms, having what seemed to be a perpetual slumber party. They were always serving me tea and cakes, and tickling me, and doing my hair. We all had a massive intellectual crush on the brilliant young econ prof, competing to be his top disciple, and would go to class and the library together, and read each other's papers. We communicated in a mixture of franglais, baby talk, and statistics. Many of my close friends were away for their junior year, and I went away the second half of the year myself, so my time with the pair of international students was short. But it was also one of the happiest times in my life, in which I felt extremely well looked after, and intellectually stimulated, and sort of free.

Charmed

2006-11-12T10:55:00.000-05:00

I had more to say on the topic of girls and their fathers, but I'm in NYC this weekend and running around seeing people, so don't have time for a long, organized post. Some thoughts occurring to me were that one person's idea of manipulation can, from another point of view, just be charm. We imagine that the tools of dependence can never be tools of power, but as girls have greater opportunities, the devices of insecurity can take on different, more positive aspects. Charm is a way of achieving your will. It is a way of getting people to do what you want without twisting their arms. It is, in this sense, soft power. (That thing Americans have been advised to remember and develop.)

Charm is certainly not incompatible with power. To take it out of the gender context for a second, think of Bill Clinton. Some of his more salient traits were traditionally feminine ones: charm, empathy, vulnerability. And he was the most naturally gifted American politician of the last fifty years.

The way women are

2006-11-10T09:04:00.000-05:00

As I thought about father daughter relations, I was thinking of a cousin of mine, who has some elements of traditional femininity about her, who uses charm and pouts to get what she wants. But this did not relegate her to domestic servitude. She went to Edinburgh University, and traveled all over the place doing environmental science, and lived in the Orkneys for a while studying bird populations. A pouty feminine style with your dad may not be so damning as you think, because one of the ways many women have become more powerful has been to gain some knowledge of the world through their fathers, and that closeness with your dad can take many forms. I'd say that some feminist families use this old-fashioned connection between father and daughter, rather than totally subverting or rejecting it. The important point is outcomes, isn't it? It's about getting the daughter to think big and fulfill her dream of working in the Orkneys or what have you, not micromanaging the emotional styles of families. In general, I don't think the goal is to issue one standard personality anyway.

Update: I would say, actually, that if we get close to a feminist utopia, most families are going to go this route, at least initially.

Tired

2006-11-09T14:56:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel I should just hold up a card that says, "After the revolution, there will be no Jews." As in, surely the point of feminism is not to eradicate all traces of historical female identity, or demonize women who are not like you. (Not angry, by the way, just feel this is my role. Picture me holding the card up somewhat perfunctorily, with a lazy wrist, as I sip my coffee and read my book.)

Update: Don't mean to overreact, these things just jump out at me, so feel obliged to point them out. But really, I'm getting out of the game. I just feel a certain wistfulness about leaving the corner undefended.

It's like children with their food touching

2006-11-09T11:53:00.000-05:00

I was looking at a book by a relative of mine about the French Revolution, and noticed she said, "The very mention of the name Freud by a historian is for some a red flag of danger."

Update: I was just struck by the discipline anxiety cropping up in unconnected places. Is it as marked now as it apparently used to be? Or are these examples not representative anyway?

More Northrop

2006-11-08T19:25:00.000-05:00

I'm interested in NF at the moment because I was reading about his influence on Margaret Atwood. I thought this bit of The Critical Path was amusing:

I myself was soon identified as one of the critics who took their assumptions from anthropology and psychology, then still widely regarded as the wrong subjects. I have always insisted that criticism cannot take presuppositions from elsewhere, which always means wrenching them out of their real context, and must work out its own. But mental habits are hard to break, especially bad habits, and, because I found the term "archetype" an essential one, I am still often called a Jungian critic, and classified with Miss Maud Bodkin, whose book I have read with interest, but whom, on the evidence of that book, I resemble about as closely as I resemble the late Sarah Bernhardt.

More random excerpts of stuff I'm reading

2006-11-07T17:21:00.000-05:00

Few critics have surpassed the insights of Northrop Frye into comedy's utopian dimension, its mapping of an "order that is altered." Frye, in fact, can be credited with finding in romantic comedy—and in comedy in general—a profundity that had eluded earlier generations of critics. Indeed, his project, beginning with "The Argument of Comedy" in 1948 and continuing to the present, might be seen as an attempt to reclaim comedy from its critical exclusion. For several decades, Frye's work was out of favor among critics wary of his formalism and his insistence on art's continual creation of itself out of its own conventions and histories. But it was Frye whom Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson invoked in theorizing the relation between works of the imagination and the social world. According to Frye, that relation is most fully and positively realized in the forms of comedy and romance, which express wish-fulfillment rather than anxiety-fulfillment, and so "educate" the imagination in the direction of social transformation.

For Frye, all narrative reworks a common story of community, struggle, and renewal; of birth, death, and rebirth. Comedy (and romance) emphasize the renewal element of the cycle rather than defeat. It represents the liberation of a world wilting under repressive law by a temporary movement into a space marked by what Bakhtin would call the carnivalesque, Victor Turner the liminal, and Frye and C.L. Barber a "green world" of festivity and natural renewal set apart from the "red and white" world of politics and history. In romantic comedy, that movement follows the remarkably consistent pattern of New Comedy: "What usually happens is that a young man wants a young woman, that his desire is resisted by some opposition, usually paternal, and that near the end of the play some twist in the plot enables the hero to have his will".... The lovers are tested and finally find themselves by retreating from the ordinary world where their union seems impossible to a "magical" place apart from everyday life....

—Kathleen Rowe, The Unruly Woman

Attempts

2006-11-06T10:55:00.000-05:00

More on the Mother-in-law, M, who dislikes her Daughter-in-law, D, and is trying to overcome her prejudices (mentioned in the Austen/Murdoch article here), from Iris Murdoch's "The Idea of Perfection":

What M is ex hypothesi attempting to do is not just to see D accurately but to see her justly or lovingly. Notice the rather different image of freedom which this at once suggests. Freedom is not the sudden jumping of the isolated will in and out of an impersonal logical complex, it is a function of the progressive attempt to see a particular object clearly. M's activity is essentially something progressive, something infinitely perfectible. So far from claiming for it a sort of infallibility, this new picture has built in the notion of a necessary fallibility. M is engaged in an endless task. As soon as we begin to use words such as "love" and "justice" in characterising M, we introduce into our whole conceptual picture of her situation the idea of progress, that is the idea of perfection: and it it just the presence of this idea which demands an analysis of mental concepts which is different from the genetic one.

Boy

2006-11-05T13:20:00.000-05:00

Was I in the mood to read this today. Have been thinking for weeks and weeks about moral philosophy and Jane Austen. Her theme does so often seem to be the balance between valid criticism of others and self-criticism, trying to arrive at some clear-eyed spot between the two. And when I'm having problems in this area, I go back to those characters and stories I know so well, as a kind of check, or model.

I also appreciated this controversial bit:

Philosophers like to argue that their discipline is the most important because it contains all the others. I am inclined to think that novelists often do philosophy better than philosophers, because they raise abstract questions in the context of represented human action, which provides healthy intellectual constraints on the impulse to generalize.

I was trying

2006-11-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

To leave a comment elsewhere about my odd fondness for Frédéric Fekkai and his philosophy of style, but I was cruelly thwarted. So instead I will say it here. I have an odd fondness for Frédéric Fekkai and his philosophy of style.

Update: Odd because I don't know that I actually follow it at all. It may be yet another element of life that resembles ardently following gardening programs when you live in an apartment.
Update ii: Basically his idea is that the essence of chic is following the seasons and somehow being close to nature. And I am not the most pastoral of sorts. For instance, I hate hiking, or nature trails. I could walk ten miles in a lovely paved city, but being out and about in the woods, no thanks.

Example

2006-11-03T11:06:00.000-05:00

Kipnis tells a story:

At the first party, mostly couples, the hostess spent the evening addressing her husband in tones of such well-honed contempt that Edward Albee could have written the dialogue. In fact, among all the married female guests, scorn for husbands was as thick as a wedding album: they had hubbies' number and weren't going to let anyone else at the table miss it. The hostess had a wonderfully subtle way of interrupting her husband—who did indeed have much to say—every time he got to the crucial point in an anecdote, invariably to inform him, in candied tones, of some essential task that needed performing at exactly that moment. Which you'd notice if you weren't such an insufferable long-winded narcissist.

"Richard, do you want to pour the coffee or slice the cake?" she interrupted once again following dinner. Shut up and help you self-absorbed egomaniac. Barely glancing at her, he shot back, "Both," with a triumphant little smirk—got you, you control freak—and kept on with what he was saying. [...] When Richard failed to slice the cake with enough alacrity, not yet finished with whatever shaggy-dog story he now was on, one of the other wives seated at his end of the table grabbed the knife from him, announcing with a display of eye rolling to the guests, "I'd better do this or we'll be here forever," soliciting the rest of the females present to bond over this bit of typical male buffoonery. All happily did. Men! Too self-absorbed to cut a cake! The female struggle continues, one slice at a time!

I have more to say

2006-11-03T10:13:00.000-05:00

About The Female Thing and ressentiment, but find it a bit difficult to talk about. Perhaps because I'd want to make a lot of distinctions and qualifications, and because I don't know that articulate these thoughts very often. I just had a moment of recognition when I read that passage. On the one hand, I'm surprised all the time how even liberal guys can seem so hateful towards women—how you can be dealing with them fairly normally and then spring some sort of trap where they assert their dominance or express surprising contempt—and I'm inclined to think that you can't be too complacent about that, and have to be vigilant about not falling into modes of being that ultimately hurt you and make you feel bad and alienate you, as a woman. On the other, I do understand Kipnis's ironic view of the project of trying to make men more like women, of expecting them to be more emotional and open than they have the inclination to be, and of feeling superior when they don't in fact meet this standard.

It's hard, though, because it can be very limiting and confusing dealing with someone whose emotional realm is so much more unexplored than your own. For one thing, you're more likely to be placed into a rigid category, which you struggle against, trying to remind him of your individuality—like an actress trying to break out of siren or ingenue parts in cinema. It also seems that there are adolescent modes that people grow out of, if they think about their emotions and reactions at all. You don't luxuriate in being misunderstood and unfathomable, after a certain point. But that only comes with practice, and reflection. If you don't practice, or reflect, you can stay that way for a long time.

That is, there are some aspects of communication or self-knowledge which are not a question of gender—these ways of being in the world benefit anyone, and it's unfortunate that it's relegated to a looked-down-upon feminine domain. At the same time, there is no doubt a point beyond which the naturally taciturn man should not have to go.

Yes

2006-11-02T11:57:00.000-05:00

This is the truest thing I've ever said on the internets.

The ressentiment bit

2006-11-01T13:21:00.000-05:00

Kipnis writes:

Basically it's a story about projecting the pain and frustration that accompanies feelings of inferiority onto some external scapegoat. Men, for instance. (Not to let them off the hook either.) You denounce the source of your pain but still want what he has, or at least you think you do, which creates a sort of perverse psychological bond. Only the scorn is an imaginary revenge at best—a way of escaping your own self-hatred, which you fling outward, onto the one whose presence makes you feel inferior, the supposed cause of all your frustrations. It's all rather joyless, though also infinitely reassuring, since invariably an element of self-congratulation creeps in, a lovely moral superiority.

TBF

2006-11-01T09:44:00.000-05:00

Noticed a critique of the book festival I just attended. (Via Bookslut.)

Laura K.

2006-10-31T12:18:00.000-05:00

I received The Female Thing for my birthday, and read the whole thing yesterday evening. I noticed one review called it behind the times, a very 1990s book, but I didn't find it so. It seemed quite relevant to arguments and discussions I have been having this past year, as well as things I think about more privately. I found her Marx-tinged analysis of the labor market strangely satisfying. For instance:

So here's a tough question: Did empowerment feminism end up playing the unwitting shill for the scorched-earth labor practices of the new global economy? As employers lopped off highly paid guys at the top and replaced them with lower-paid women it created "a backdoor route to wage equality," says labor economist Barbara Bergmann.... Historically speaking, it's capitalism that's the beneficiary of internal strife within the work force—ethnic or racial divisions function to keep wages and demands down. Now we've learned that sexual divisions can work the same way.

And:

But let's not forget all the non-poster girls in the workforce, since most of the new jobs were low-end service-sector positions, meaning the the majority of working women are enjoying possibly even less satisfaction and security than husbands once provided, given the increasing uncertainties of the labor situation these days: benefits down, health costs up, shrinking job security, longer periods of unemployment, and so on. As Berkeley sociologist Neil Gilbert points out a little depressingly, women may now have increasing independence from men, but what this really means is not exactly "independence," but shifting the dependency from husbands to vagaries of the job market: to bosses, customers, and time clocks.

I don't know that I accept her picture—and in any case I'm not sure she's even trying to create a full picture, since raising awkward questions and paradoxes of progress seems to be her specialty. But I like the skepticism all the same. Seems in line with one or two things I have said here, about relying on market forces to improve quality of life and make businesses more family-friendly. On the other hand, less satisfyingly, I felt named by her accusation of ressentiment in the way women deal with men. More on that later, I think.

Update: I believe I mean "strangely satisfying" in an "I'm no Marxist, but damn, they can be amusingly scathing about 'late capitalism,' can't they?" sort of way.

Personal myth v

2006-10-30T12:59:00.000-05:00

I notice Katie Roiphe's review of The Emperor's Children focuses on this theme of myth and reality in conception of the self.

Quilty

2006-10-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

I went to the Austin Museum of Art, which had a a folk art show up featuring a few generations of an African-American family who make quilts. I liked this explanation from the quilty matriarch, Mary Lee Bendolph:

The materials I use is mostly old material. People loved their pants or dresses, and they have worn out or don't fit anymore. I make quilts out of it because I hate throwing things away. People are so wasteful now, it hurts me to see people waste up things. Every thing you throw away, it can be used and make something beautiful out of it.... Old clothes have spirit in them. They also have love. When I make a quilt, that's what I want it to have, too, the love and the spirit of the people who wore it.

I was in Austin over the weekend

2006-10-30T08:30:00.000-05:00

I didn't go to see any bands on purpose, and yet ended up hearing about twelve live acts anyway, just walking by. I did explore South Congress, and went to some of the places suggested, so thanks. The Texas Book Festival was going on, and supposedly Barack Obama was there to sign his book, but I did not see him. I did see some guy signing copies of his book at the airport—he was pulling them off the shelf of the little newsstand/bookstore almost surreptitiously and scribbling away in them. At least, he had a Texas Book Festival badge on, so I assumed it was the author of the book; I suppose he could just have been a vandal.

I saw my old friend, who used to be my roommate in Chicago, who has a cute little house in the hip part of town. She had been an actress in LA and she was talking about the pressures and costs of that life, which may have accounted for her slightly world-weary air. Though maybe that was simple weariness, since she is a new mother.

Nearly done

2006-10-26T14:22:00.000-04:00

With The Emperor's Children. One of the more striking elements of the story is that it uses September 11th effectively, as dramatic irony, an impending event that will affect all of the characters' hopes and plans. Although one plan is looking a bit contrived, as of now, on page 366. We'll see.