Fanty, who generally refuses to be photographed, was under the table at the foot of my bed this morning, and I managed to steal a snap:
Archive for Deborah Lipp
VA Pentacle case goes to suit
After waiting nine years, after the government refused to allow a soldier killed in Afghanistan to be buried with the symbol of his religion, with 1800 Wiccans on active duty in the military, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has finally filed suit against the Deptartment of Veterans Affairs.
“I honestly think there must be some people who don’t want to acknowledge that the Wiccan religion should be entitled to the same rights as other religions,” said Selena Fox, who is senior minister of the Wiccan Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wisconsin.
I don’t know if Selena is being disingenuous, because, like, of course some people don’t want us to have our rights. Of course “freedom of religion” only means “my religion and those very similar to mine and not those that make me uncomfortable.” I mean, read the Constitution, duh.
CNN has a poll up. Go vote. And while you’re at it, consider contributing to Americans United. This is work done for all of us.
Ethnic Food Day
Yesterday, my office had ethnic food day. In our office of about 40 people, we have at least* eleven countries of birth represented. There was biryani, chicken tikki, raita, and a few other Indian and Pakistani dishes, there was baked ziti, chicken Kiev, macaroni and cheese (representing the all-American contingent), edamame, fried tofu, red caviar, and brisket, among other things. We were all stuffed.
I’ve posted before about the true joys of pluralism. What we tend to forget, when working towards a better and more pluralistic society, is how much fun it is. When my sisters married African-American guys, my reaction was, Whoa, there’s a lot more dancing at black weddings. Cool! Then my brother married a Chinese woman and they had a Chinese opera company perform at the wedding (as well as a band playing Ha Va Nagilla) and that, too, was cool. And the food!
The ability to share our cultures, our fun things, our food and dance and jokes and fashion, is dependent upon feeling safe and accepted. So if you’re a bigot and you’re forcing people to fit in or get out, your palate is both literally and figuratively more bland. You’re not just a bigot, you’re also missing the party.
*I know that the employees from the former Soviet Union come from at least Russia and Ukraine, but there may be other countries represented. The countries I counted were U.S.A., Russia, Jamaica, Ukraine, Israel, Peru, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, The Phillipines, and China. Among the U.S.-born employees we enjoyed Jewish and Italian dishes, as well as the aforementioned macs & cheese.
Answers to Tuesday Trivia
By the way, I recommend all of these movies.
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Another cool interview
An article about James Bond in the Baltimore Sun, wherein I am extensively quoted.
I get the closing paragraph, and I really like it. Sometimes you read interviews with yourself and you want to crawl under the rug, but I’m proud of this one.
Learned empowerment
Learned helplessness is an injury to your fight or flight response.
In animal experiments, the researcher Martin Seligman found that an animal could learn it had no power to escape. Cage a dog and shock it. The dog will struggle, snarl, try to get away, but it can’t, it’s in a cage. Do this over and over, until the dog has learned that struggling is futile. It can’t escape. Now shock the dog; it stands there whimpering.
Now take the cage away. Shock the dog. It stands there whimpering.
Learned helplessness has been used as a model to explain depression, to explain patterns of revictimization (why do abused people seek new abusers?), to explain the persistant failure of able people.
But helplessness can be unlearned. I am interested in psychology, in therapy, in inner work. I am interested in behavior. I am also interested in ritual. And I am interested in how these things interact.
The use of affirmations is effective. You look in the mirror every morning and repeat “I am successful.” In time, it becomes true. But affirmations are verbal, not behavioral. What we need to do is step out of the cage.
The first time a victimized person says no to an abuser, it will feel awkward and unnatural. It will cause anxiety. She will feel like something is wrong. She’s imprinting new behaviors. She’s used to standing there and whimpering, and she’s sure there’s going to be a worse shock.
There isn’t.
One thing that Pagans can do is create models, rituals, meditations, that build power and restore self-direction. One thing that everyone can do is support the process of ending victimization.
Universal Exports Interview
The good people at Universal Exports: The Home of James Bond, interview me about Bond and my book.
The left blogosphere has its feet up
I’ve noticed many of my favorite blogs are posting less than usual. I suspect we are just taking a post-election breather. Wake up, look around, yes, Democrats still won both houses, no, not a dream. Go to bed. Wake up, yes…
Anyway, I wanted to remark on the issue of feminist rants. My review yesterday of Something’s Gotta Give was much on my mind when I decided not to make feminist rants a weekly feature. Not that I’d written it yet, but I was sort of formulating it.
And while formulating, I realized that feminism is something that happens for me in looking at the world. In looking at movies and politics and religion and family life. So to confine the idea of “ranting” to its own category isn’t true for me. It’s there in the movie reviews, there in the politics, there everywhere.
And of course I will continue to share it with you.
Tuesday Trivia Time
Okay, here’s the inaugural quiz. The plan is to do this every Tuesday.
Name the movie based on the quote, trivia, or vignette. There’s a James Bond connection hiding among the clues. Answers will be posted on…how much time would you like? Is Friday good? Is Thursday better? Let me know.
1. An officer pisses in his own pants, and then blows his brains out.
solved by Daven.2. The name of the main character of this gangster film is never revealed. When he calls another character’s girlfriend to make a date with her, he just says “It’s me.” Gossip columnists had the actors playing the main character and the girlfriend linked romantically.
solved by Tom.3. “Never put this bat in the closet.”
solved by Amy.4. The vindictive children of her employer break a painted tile that she loves.
solved by Tom5. “It’s not slutty, it’s fun.”
solved by Amy.6. A sax player, a waitress, and a magic rock.
HINT: The sax player is an Oscar nominee. The waitress is an Oscar winner. The magic rock was making its film debut.7. A film makeup artist takes pictures of his girlfriend with gory makeup on. When someone else gets the pictures at the developer, he is looked at with suspicion.
Solved by George and Chas in rapid succession.
Monday Movie Review: Something’s Gotta Give
Something’s Gotta Give (2003) 8/10
When Marin Barry (Amanda Peet) brings her much-older boyfriend (Jack Nicholson) to her mom’s home in the Hamptons, she doesn’t realize that mom—renowned playwright Erica Barry (Diane Keaton)—is there with her sister (Frances McDormand). When Harry (Nicholson) has a heart attack, Erica is stuck nursing him. Soon she is being wooed by both Harry and his handsome young doctor (Keanu Reeves).
Something’s Gotta Give is a flawed movie. Writer/director Nancy Meyers has an awkward hand with exposition. When she wants to tell you something, she tells you. Early, establishing dialogue has Erica using words like “misogynist” as a verbal American Express Gold Card; providing admission to all the right places. There are awkward early scenes where intellectual credentials are being established; I find it grating that in an group of smart, literate people, Zoe (McDormand) can only talk about sexism and cultural perceptions if someone apologetically explains that she’s a professor of Women’s Studies at Columbia. An aside like that manages to be simultaneously snooty and demeaning. Snooty, because look how smart and white we all are! Demeaning, because her academic credentials are treated like a tic; don’t mind her, she’s a feminist. Regular people don’t say such things, only professors of women’s studies, nudge nudge wink wink say no more.
For all of that, Something’s Gotta Give really does have something to say about women and men and aging and relationships, and it says it with the most soulful and natural performances I can imagine. Nicholson and (especially) Keaton are a dream.
There’s a scene where Erica is crying. She’s crying with total abandon, fully, voluptuously. It’s marvelous to watch; touching, funny, and very real. She’s not in the first moment of shock, she’s not overdramatizing for an audience, she’s just not censoring herself. She’s “processing;” she’s letting the feelings—grief, anger, loss—wash over her, without ever saying to herself “Okay, that’s enough, now.” Later, there’s a conversation with her daughter about letting yourself have deep feelings, even at the risk of grief, and the dialogue is rancid, stiff, trite, but Keaton sells it because we saw her live it.
Not that every moment of dialogue is bad; much is quite good. Nancy Meyers just doesn’t know how to write the conversations where you’re Making A Point®. Fortunately, with a cast as good as this, you can get over the bumps and love the movie.
The thing is, Meyers’s point is worth noting. Zoe points out that Harry, as a wealthy heterosexual bachelor, is considered fascinating, dashing, and enviable. But Erica, equally wealthy, equally successful, equally single, is, socially, pitiable. Being “of a certain age,” she is undesirable, despite her talent and beauty, and a man her own age is dating her daughter.
But then the movie throws us a curve ball, by having the very gorgeous, very young Julian (Keanu Reeves) fall for Erica. And what works about that is how Erica just can’t believe it. She’s sort of trying to correct him; ‘No, no, you don’t want to date me, you haven’t realized that I’m old. You haven’t realized that I’m not attractive. You haven’t realized that you want a beautiful young woman.’ And what that does is remind us what it feels like to be living in the skin of a social phenomenon. It’s not about a feminist theory, it’s about a beautiful, successful, brilliant woman who doesn’t trust that it’s okay to be pursued, okay to be desired, okay to be sexy and sexual and in love.
Thing is, I relate. I’m not rich, and I’m not Diane Keaton, and I’m not even in my fifties, but I’m a successful writer in my forties and I see how the success works as a turn-off, and more than that, I see how I fear it works as a turn-off. I see how I get lost in noticing that I’ve aged, and become absorbed in the thought that I can’t possibly be attractive because look! Crow’s feet! In her richly expressive performance, in the delicate way she allows self-doubt to play across her face, Keaton is embodying something very real, very present.
Now, Keaton is thin, so she doesn’t get the public excoriation that Kathy Bates suffered for nudity in About Schmidt, but it’s still remarkable how rare it is to see an older woman be sexual, be nude, and be, well, wrinkled. Not only are women never allowed to have relationships past 35 in the movies, they certainly aren’t allowed to look past 35 no matter what. Keaton hasn’t had a drop of plastic surgery. There are lines. And wrinkles. And small flaws. And that, in itself, is a stunning act of beauty. She is so wonderful to look at on-screen, because she’s not all shiny and plasticine. Simply starring in the film is a feminist act that thumbs its nose at a film industry that would make her disappear if it could.
