Of Mice and Me

photo by Steve Jurvetson

I'm tired and my eyes are itchy. Damn cats.

Yesterday a friend came over to play with photos and as we were hanging up the film to dry I noticed the orange one was growling at the white one and holding a mouse in his mouth. The mouse looked dead, so as long as the cats didn't damage each other fighting over it I wasn't too worried. But when the orange one dropped the mouse it suddenly looked a lot less dead. I have a lot of junk in the basement and a lot of low furniture. It is NOT a good place for a cat to play with his food.

Our indoor cats are not such fabulous mousers. I'm a better mouser than they are - I found it at least twice as often as they did. Whenever we got them to notice the mouse they kept chasing it somewhere they couldn't get to it, then going back to the last place they found it to check if it had magically reappeared there. Eventually I got tired of moving furniture and left them to it, hoping they would somehow figure it out on their own.

Just before bed I chased the white one upstairs, but I couldn't find the orange one. I don't like letting them get outside, but I didn't want him trapped out their either so I left one window open. About 1am I heard the clatter of him coming into the house, so I turned on the light to grab him and take him upstairs - and he had another mouse in his mouth. It didn't stay there for long. He didn't keep track of this one either.

By 1:30 I was again tired of moving furniture, so I shut the windows (bah! I love my night breezes) and left him to dispose of them properly. I doubt he did, but it made for an exciting night with him jumping up at me, purring, and me checking whether I had a mouse corpse on my pillow. And I'm still having an allergic thing with the cat rubbing himself on my face at night.

Why is there Lettuce Hanging on State Street?

More pictures, no explanation here

O Happy Day

Viola: Most excellent accomplish'd lady, the heavens rain odors on you!
Sir Andrew: That youth's a rare courtier—'rain odors,' well.
Viola: My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant and vouchsafed ear.
Sir Andrew: 'Odors,' 'pregnant,' and 'vouchsafed'; I'll get 'em all three all ready.

I had a long day today sorting old letters from sycophantic society ladies as I tried to clean out our conference room so it could be used for conferencing tomorrow - I didn't eat lunch and I missed my train going home, which wasn't a great beginning. But the heavens are raining odors today - the air is thick with moisture and the grass is fragrant and the lilacs are blooming. I need to walk home under the tall trees more often instead of just counting broken bottles along the factory route.

Other Books I Have Read (Or Meant to Read)

I'm clearing out my old sidebars of bookish information and trying to remember how to do the sidebar info.

The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

The Adventures of David Simple

I Capture the Castle

Sophie Calle: Did You See Me?

Ilium

A Simple Story

Work: A Story of Experience

Inkheart & Inkspell

Best Foot Forward

On Photography

The Female Quixote

Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded

Clarissa: Or, the History of a Young Lady

The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Regeneration

Manhood in America

Photographic Possibilities

The Mislaid Magician, Or, Ten Years After

The Pinhole Egg

Conrad's Fate

Enchantment

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works

The Incarnational Art Of Flannery O'Connor

Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral

The Second Sex

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers

April 2007 Reading List

I'm realizing that I may not have much time for free reading after I start grad school this summer, so I'm trying to fit everything I can think of into one last burst. This month my "bedside stack" includes:

Fiction:
√ Crown Duel (2-IN-1)
by Sherwood Smith

Diana Tregarde Investigates (3-IN-1) -
by Mercedes Lackey

√ (4/13) Fairest
by Gail Carson Levine

History of the adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams; and, An apology for the life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews
by Henry Fielding ; edited by Douglas Brooks-Davies

√ The Invention of Hugo Cabret
by Brian Selznick

√ (4/14) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke

√ Princess Academy, √ Goose Girl, √ Enna Burning, and √ River Secrets
by Shannon Hale

√ The Sherwood Ring
by Elizabeth Marie Pope

√ (4/25) Tempting Fate by Esther Friesner
Wintersmith -
by Terry Pratchett

Non-Fiction:
√ Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
by Henry Jenkins

Curry : a tale of cooks and conquerors
by Lizzie Collingham

Female chauvinist pigs: women and the rise of raunch culture
by Ariel Levy

Knowledge deficit: closing the shocking education gap for American children
by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

Irving Penn: a career in photography
edited by Colin Westerbeck; with contributions by Rosamond Bernier

Photographic facts and formulas
by E.J. Wall and Franklin I. Jordan

Reading matters: what the research reveals about reading, libraries, and community
by Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer

√ (4/22-4/26) Something from the oven: reinventing dinner in 1950's America
by Laura Shapiro

√ (4/15-4/17 ) There goes the neighborhood: racial, ethnic, and class tensions in four Chicago neighborhoods and their meaning for America -
by William Julius Wilson and Richard P. Taub.

The trouble with diversity: how we learned to love identity and ignore inequality
by Walter Benn Michaels

Other books I just bought but I've read before:

The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls by Brumberg, Joan

Deadly Persuasion: Why Women And Girls Must Fight The Addictive Power Of Advertising
by Jean Kilbourne

Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
by Mary Pipher

also: several silly romance novels & advice books from the thrift store

Your Life Work: The Librarian

Yes! I love books AND people! But I evidently don't need a college degree. What a pain!

Movie Meme
1. Popcorn or candy?
2. Name a movie you've been meaning to see forever.
3. You are given the power to recall one Oscar: Who loses theirs and to whom?
4. Steal one costume from a movie for your wardrobe. Which will it be?
5. Your favorite film franchise is:
6. Invite five movie people over for dinner. Who are they? Why'd you invite them? What do you feed them?
7. What is the appropriate punishment for people who answer cell phones in the movie theater?
8. Choose a female bodyguard: Ripley from Aliens. Mystique from X-Men. Sarah Connor from Terminator 2. The Bride from Kill Bill. Mace from Strange Days.
9. What's the scariest thing you've ever seen in a movie?
10. Your favorite genre (excluding comedy and drama) is?
11. You are given the power to greenlight movies at a major studio for one year. How do you wield this power?
12. Bonnie or Clyde?
13. Who are you tagging to answer this survey?

Movie Meme

1. Popcorn or candy?
Mmmmm... candy! I eat popcorn too quickly and it pickles my tongue before we're out of the previews.
2. Name a movie you've been meaning to see forever.
Like, on endless repeat? Hm. Can't think of any that wouldn't drive me nuts. I've done pretty well using the powers of Netflix to catch up on movies I've wanted to see but couldn't find. Ok, to be specific, I've only been waiting a year, but I'm really eager to see 49 Up - it's unfortunately posted as "short wait" at the top of my queue right now.
3. You are given the power to recall one Oscar: Who loses theirs and to whom?
I don't usually watch enough of the movies to judge which person deserves it (at least I don't watch enough of them before the oscars that year, I am catching up on lots of good ones now that I have more time & money). But I was really rooting for Amy Adams to get best supporting actress for Junebug last year. I'm sure Weisz was good in The Constant Gardener, but wasn't she dead for half the movie? At least it wasn't as bad as Judi Dench getting it for 8 minutes in Shakespeare in Love
4. Steal one costume from a movie for your wardrobe. Which will it be?
Ha! I actually could immediately picture the article of clothing I wanted to wear. The red sweater Amelie wears when she slips the key in her pocket. It may not be as cool as some movie costumes, but I really wanted it. Actually, pretty much everything she wears would look good on me - I love the colors:

5. Your favorite film franchise is:
Batman. I might be tempted towards X-Men but I have to agree with Leigh Ann about the last one. Yech.
6. Invite five movie people over for dinner. Who are they? Why'd you invite them? What do you feed them?
Oh boy! This would make for a fun dinner table conversation: Emma Thompson, Lily Tomlin, America Ferrera, Queen Latifah, and Rodrigo Garcia. I think they are all intelligent, funny, talented people who would really bounce off each other well. They don't seem to take themselves too seriously, they explore a lot of interesting ideas in their work, and I want them to take over Hollywood. I'd definitely watch more movies if they did. What do I feed them? Hm. That's the question that makes me pause and think. Something that would keep them at the table a long time but not be stuffy. Maybe lots of hispanic food - I'd get Beatrice Colon to make arroz con gandules because hers is the best. I'd get Liliana Valdez to make Argentine empanadas, and I'd make Iris's pastelon casserole and some nice fajitas or something and serve it with lots of wonderful summer fruit and homemade ice cream. That's kind of what I feel like right now, but the Colons were just over here and Chrissy was complaining that I made sweet potatoe empanadas and they weren't like Liliana's. Eh.
7. What is the appropriate punishment for people who answer cell phones in the movie theater?They have to watch that Steven King cell phone horror movie on endless repeat forever when they die.
8. Choose a female bodyguard: Ripley from Aliens. Mystique from X-Men. Sarah Connor from Terminator 2. The Bride from Kill Bill. Mace from Strange Days. I want Trinity from the Matrix movies. She's cooler - or at least I like Carrie Ann Moss's face better than these. Forget it - I'll be my own bodyguard, thanks much.
9. What's the scariest thing you've ever seen in a movie? The scene with the little Vietnamese-American boy and the gun in Gurinder Chadha's What's Cooking still makes my heart beat too fast. I don't watch scary movies, ever, so I'll stick to the moment of completely realistic terror in a Thanksgiving drama/comedy.
10. Your favorite genre (excluding comedy and drama) is?To go with an unusual one, food movies. Mostly Martha, Tortilla Soup, Eat Drink Man Woman, Babbette's Feast, What's Cooking, Chocolat etc. Actually, I don't really like Chocolat - I think it's too heavy handed. But I like the chocolate scenes.
11. You are given the power to greenlight movies at a major studio for one year. How do you wield this power?
I hand it over to Emma Thompson, with the requirement that at least five be based on her favorite books. I love this woman's taste and sense of humor and I think she has a good sense for staying true to the heart of the story in books. Plus she understands the importance of a realistic-looking women and staying out of Hollywood so it doesn't eat your soul.
12. Bonnie or Clyde? Like "Larressha," n/a because I have not seen this film.
13. Who are you tagging to answer this survey? I want to tag my brother but he doesn't have a blog. Meh. He's been suggesting entertaining answers over my shoulder. So I'll try tagging Bethany

Heroic Condescension

I finally got around to watching Woman of the Year, which had been sitting on my coffee table for weeks. Sure enough, it was just as disappointing and irritating as I thought it was. I was thinking of Adam's Rib when I put it on my Netflix queue, then realized that this was the one with the awful kitchen scene with Katharine Hepburn in funky suspenders.

I guess it was the 1940s and I shouldn't be surprised, but the utter hypocrisy of the movie is still galling. Create a fabulously talented woman, one with an important job who is well recognized and influential on a national and international level. Have her meet Ordinary Joe, who introduces her to the common pleasure of baseball. Turns out they like each other, despite early friction. BUT... they get married, and it turns out she isn't going to stop being busy and important. This is not a good thing. This is a very bad thing. Joe feels neglected and leaves abruptly with a dramatic passive-agressive gesture. She's confused and hurt, but decides to muddle through it. Then she witnesses another marriage ceremony and decides to try again. She tries to show she's willing to change by making breakfast. But she can't. She fails. He forgives her for not being a good cook and tells her he just wants her to be his wife, she doesn't even have to quit her job. Then he randomly assaults her assistant (an effeminate male) because he brings in an inconvenient reminder of her responsibilities as a influential and famous person. Husband kisses wife and all is well.

Except that this mutual repentance is not exactly on the same level. Husband is heroic for acknowledging that it is ok for her to be successful, as long as it doesn't get in his way. He proves his masculinity by violently removing an example of her independence and power. Wife is heroic for being willing to sacrifice her entire career and learn how to be a proper woman. She is humbled for not being sufficiently feminine because she confused a couple ingredients in a recipe. She will be allowed to continue her career because he loves her and holds veto power over her. That is a successful marriage.

In a state of intense irritation I came upstairs. Trying to express all of the ridiculous evilness of such a plot being perpetrated on a woman like Katharine Hepburn, I began an even more irritating conversation with Hermano #2. I maintain that this plot, which may have been understandable in 1942, is still being perpetrated today, lending legitimacy to an attitude that should be obviously idiotic to anyone. They are still plots about men who can't take it when their women become successful and the men are still portrayed as making some heroic character development when they are able to reconcile themselves to that success. I maintained that it is pathetic to resent the success of someone you love when you admire their talent.

Losing a pathetically misogynistic and selfish attitude is in no way, shape or form heroic. Hermano #1 agreed, but Hermano #2 felt it necessary to insist that this was a "big" step for some guys and an important issue to their relationships, so it should be covered in movies, though of course he doesn't feel that way himself. He's dense, sez I.

I said the recent Stepford Wives with Mathew Broderick and Nicole Kidman used almost the exact same plot and really didn't end up very far apart. The choice of those two actors was already an indication of the power dynamic in the relationship, and sure enough the husband is again resentful and insecure and needs to make dramatic passive-agressive gestures to regain his sense of confidence and control. The purported moral of the story is again equality in marriage, but again the husband is somehow supposed to make an "equal" stride towards this reconciliation simply by being willing to not control his wife and enjoy her talent, while she needs to humble herself and acknowledge all kinds of errors in her ways. At least there is no humiliating kitchen scene for Nicole Kidman, though I think there was something of the sort for Bette Midler. This time the villain (spoiler) is a woman, who perpetrates nasty stereotypes onto other women and empowers nasty patriarchal control forms. Ok, fine, whatever. Women are nasty too and do nasty things to each other. No duh, but as a conclusion isn't it just a way out of dealing with the nastiness of the husband's earlier position?

Gah! On the other hand, I guess Fever Pitch is a good example of this plot being remade with a far more reasonable depiction of what committment actually involves. The guy is Mr. Traditional Family Values in a more well-rounded way and the woman's success isn't resented on its own as much, though I still think they try to undermine it more than the do his side. The guy still gets to come out with fewer sacrifices, but at least (spoiler) he's the one offering to give it all up and she's the one stopping him. Sports are still portrayed as far more important than I think is at all reasonable, but the unreasonableness of it all is at least given sufficient screen time. We all have unpredictable obsessions and we have to give up something in relationships. Nick Hornby will allow me to go to bed slightly less pissed off. :)

Impromptu

Sand's fabulous deep voice and aggressive sexiness is very appealing, but I don't want to be a man-eater. Emma Thompson looks like she's having a lot more fun and she's still sexy even when she's acting a complete zany. Emma Thompson is the only actress I can think of that could inspire me to write rhapsodical fan letters.

Pragmatic Christianity

"All that is not eternal is eternally useless"
- attributed to C.S. Lewis

Having grown up in a conservative evangelical world, I am quite familiar with the idea that human souls and their eternal fate must be the first priority for any Christian. But we aren't eternal. No one is eternal but God, according to Christian orthodoxy.

But that would mean all of God's creation is entirely useless. Not just humanly created things like food and literature and technology and politics, but everything that is listed in the first few chapters of Genesis - galaxies and forests, birds, fish, mountains. Human societies in all of their complexity and groups that fight back against physical and social injustices are also useless.

The funny thing is I didn't run into this in my pastor's trite regurgitation of standard gnostic heresy last Sunday (though that was annoying). I heard it from a distinguished alumna who was speaking to us about finding "purpose" in our jobs. How can I find purpose in my life if only the "eternal" has meaning? Why was I created with eyes and ears and tongue if everything I encounter through them is "useless"? Why should "use" matter so much?

This narrow pragmatism of evangelicalism stunts any interaction with the world - art is useless, learning is useless, conversation (unless "spiritual") is useless. I know this reductionism is hardly compatible with Lewis' grand vision of eternal redemption in The Weight of Glory or The Great Divorce. But if even Lewis was frequently tempted away from such a beautifully redemptive vision to simplistic gnosticism, is it any wonder the rest of us have a hard time stretching the boundaries of our faith?

more typos

I was setting up a reservation for a student and he was leaning over the desk to watch what I was doing. I find this a little annoying. Without meaning to, I almost entered his name as "Bretty."

Cold Night

Sunday I went to Devon Street with a friend from church who's from Uzbekistan (sp?). Coming back from the El, after dark, I saw two people sitting under the train overpass on the concrete supports. One was a middle-aged woman with lots of dark brown hair, the other was a middle aged man with a stocking cap and a beard. She held out a small stuffed animal dog. As I passed them the man reached out to stroke its face and the woman said "Snuggles".

the end

Socialization

"If children do not dip their toes in the waters of unsupervised social activity, they likely will never be able to swim in the sea of civic responsibility. If they have no opportunities to dig in the soil, discover the spiders, bugs, birds, and plants that populate even the smallest unpaved playgrounds, they will be less likely to explore, appreciate, and protect nature as adults. "

http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-5om/Monke_FT.html

What crap. Why should "recess" be the only opportunity for social interaction or physical activity?

"WHEN I WAS GROWING UP IN RURAL IOWA, I certainly lacked for many things. I couldn't tell a bagel from a burrito. But I always and in many ways belonged. For children, belonging is the most important function a community serves

Substituting the excitement of virtual connections for the deep fulfillment of firsthand engagement is like mistaking a map of a country for the land itself, or as biological philosopher Gregory Bateson put it, "eat[ing] the menu instead of your meal." No one prays over a menu. And I've never witnessed a child developing a reverence for nature while using a computer.

This shift toward remote control is akin to taking the child out of the role of actor and turning her into the director. This is a very different way of engaging the world than hitting a ball, building a fort, setting a table, climbing a tree, sorting coins, speaking and listening to another person, acting in a play. In an important sense, the child gains control over a vast array of complex abstract activities by giving up or eroding her capacity to actually do them herself. We bemoan the student who uses a spell-checker instead of learning to spell, or a calculator instead of learning to add. But the sacrifice of internal growth for external power generally operates at a more subtle level, as when a child assembles a PowerPoint slideshow using little if any material that she actually created herself."

What are you sniggering at?

Adam McCune, describing with characteristic panache, the progress of his next film:

"Yes, all I have to do for that scene is show two imaginary friends walking away from two people"

"I decided to use all caps because that is what they did in Lord of the Rings"

further McCune Watch update: he now wears his hair in a 1" ponytail/tassel

Also, on the way back from work I passed high school football players wearing purple jerseys: one, though, had orange polka-dot zoobas as well.

Which is still nothing compared to the synchronized "running and leaping and praising God" that Baxter once witnessed, but it was enough to make me smile the rest of the way home.

Meow

Oy. Googling yourself can be embarrassing. Googling former penpals, on the other hand...

It turns out my junior high penpal has posted a movie review I gave her years ago on her website. Browsing around, I find she's been busy: with help from her periodical publishing parents, she is living out her dream of becoming a professional writer without having to go to college or read books with difficult vocabulary. Proving she's fulfilled each of those goals, her online store lists her favorite authors as "The classics, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and C.S. Lewis."

At the risk of exposing my own fatuous nonsense that is being hosted there, here's a link to her site: http://www.charitysplace.com/review/charitybishop.htm

Anyone who has a soft spot for the fictional offerings of Mr. McCune should check out her novels.

Why I love my Grandfather...

Pure Nerd
73 % Nerd, 17% Geek, 30% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 80% on nerdiness
You scored higher than 15% on geekosity
You scored higher than 44% on dork points

Subconscious Soundtracks

This morning, after I surrendered to my snooze button and tumbled out of a dream that included arguing with my mother in an old diner, intelligible monkeys that wore Victorian clothing, Jane Austen's Bennet family, unlocking deceased children's rooms, photographing pink cosmos, and major house construction, I was getting dressed hurriedly and found myself quoting nursery rhymes in my mind.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall/ All the kings' horses and all the kings' men / Couldn't put Humpty together again," it kept repeating.

Previous tracks from my drowsy subconscious:

"My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!" (also on repeat)

Video Killed the Radio Star
You Can't Take That Away From Me
Night and Day, by Cole Porter - all the verses, with chorus.

Does anyone else experience this? If you do, what do you hear?

Blargh - mini rant

Dear Netflix:

I recently rented "The Gleaners and I" by Agnes Varda and was surprised to see it first described as "no-holds-barred documentary" then "an insouciant treat from beginning to end" and finally "an unexpectedly obtuse perspective." Is it normally your policy to attach negative reviews to your films? Insouciant means "marked by blithe unconcern; nonchalant." Obtuse, on the other hand, suggests the movie's perspective was dense, dim, dull, dumb or slow.

Agnes Varda is an internationally acclaimed director, the only female member of the French New Wave. The film won 11 awards including "Best Documentary" from the European Film Academy. Roger Ebert gave it his highest rating, as did critics from the NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and Salon.com.

This film was neither inaccessible nor elitist; it also was not a "no-holds barred/nonchalant/dull" documentary. I don't know where you get your descriptions, but I'd suggest using a dictionary rather than adding words just because they "sound good" in a description.