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Archive for Deborah Lipp
Morning Larks and Night Owls
My ex is a confirmed night owl. At some point, he wanted to coin a term for daylight people, e.g. the opposite of night owls. I tried “normal” but he rejected that and came up with larks.
But the urge to divide people into owls and larks is just one of the many unimportant but ubiquitous examples of the dualism of our culture: Day or night, good or evil, male or female, right or wrong, we divide divide divide and never see the gray areas.
I am not a morning person. Just. Not. I wake up slowly and I don’t do well when the alarm goes off much before 7. Conversation before coffee is sluggish and reluctant.
But I get most of my work done in the morning. I clean the bathroom while I’m getting ready for work. I leave the dishes in the sink after dinner and wash them the next morning while making coffee. Then I get to work, get myself more coffee, and am at peak productivity before lunch.
I could continue with the boring details. I’m most social in the evenings. I have a dead zone around 2 p.m. I’m usually up past midnight but can’t write productively my last hour or so awake. The point is, I’m neither an owl nor a lark. I’m me. I have my own cycles and my own interaction with light, food intake, and the other things that affect circadian rhythms.
And so does everyone else. It’s just one more box we don’t have to squeeze into.
It’s so weird, because I’m back, but…
SO FRICKIN TIRED.
It’s like blogging is beyond me.
Over the next few days, I promise some kind of trip write-up and some cool photos. I feel like reentry into the world has not been so very smooth. There is still camping gear piled up in my garage (therefore I am still parking in my driveway).
Tuesday Trivia Roundtable
Since this was so successful when Tom did it, and since I am still recovering from my trip, I am doing a trivia roundtable this week. Answer the following question and you get to post the next question. It can go as long as people are having fun.
In The Graduate, there’s a scene near the end where Dustin Hoffman confronts Katharine Ross in her apartment. An uncredited bit player would rise to stardom and Oscar victory. Name him.
You’ve waited long enough, it’s time for…
the Third Annual Things You Only Hear At Starwood!
This fire is hot. Did it singe my hat?
If you move my car, I’ll initiate you.
The Chinese sex cards are in the bodice drawer.
Can I borrow the dildo and go over to the Hurt Yurt?
Oh! I forgot my gods.
I’ve already sunscreened my ass off.
You never want to snip your nipple in the cupholder.
We have all these pie crusts and I don’t know why.
She had a couple more vaginas but they all went.
I once sunburned a moon into my forehead.
The dome has once again become infested by bondage fairies.
What I don’t need is peanut butter and jelly all over my flashlight.
The fetish fairies are here in full force.
Oh! There’s glitter in my pubic hair! I don’t know how it got there.
I’m so tired of waking up next to a big penis every morning.
If you don’t take out your trash, bears will come and eat you.
Condom ninjas attacked the bar last night.
Fun With Language: Dinner Edition
“Don’t wave your fish at me.”
That is all.
Mad Men
AMC’s new show Mad Men is a must-see. It’s set in 1960 in a high-pressure Madison Avenue ad agency. Other than sharp writing, gorgeous visuals, and a top-notch cast, what Mad Men has going for it is an unapologetic eye about the mores of the late 50s/early 60s (what they’re now calling “mid-century”).
The “values conservatives” of the world, David Broder, Jonah Goldberg, and other people with pseudo-brains filling their skulls, believe the 1950s were an idyllic time. Women knew their place, none of that pesky feminism to mess around with their pretty heads. Abortion was illegal. Sex was never discussed in the public sphere, and when it was alluded to, it was only the heterosexual sort. Men wore skinny ties. (I kind of agree about the skinny ties.) The notion, of course, is that mid-century was a happy, innocent time. Families were all Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It To Beaver.
The fact is, the man behind the curtain was already visible at the time. Kinsey published in 1948 and 1953. Brown vs. the Board of Education was 1954 and the Montgomery bus boycott was the following year.
What Mad Men shows is direct and uncompromising. It is a man’s world, but the show has strong female characters, struggling in a world where they must choose between career and marriage, where most opportunities are closed to them, and sexual harassment is not only legal, it’s encouraged. As oppressive as the sexism is, it’s matched by the casual, normative racism and anti-Semitism. Homophobia isn’t even mentioned, but there is one character who is clearly closeted and struggling to be ‘one of the boys.’
Maybe I’m naive to think it would make a difference for people to actually see what they’re idolizing. I’m well-informed, I know a lot about the world my mother grew up in, and yet I found it shocking. There’s something about the visual impact that can’t be denied.
The mise en scène is pretty amazing. They are very careful to get the clothing, speech and attitudes just right. And the cast, as I said, is excellent. Whedon-heads will be pleased to see Angel and Firefly regulars back on TV.
Painting Fat Women
While I was searching for artwork the other day, I came across some amazing paintings by Botero. (Botero is also known for his shocking and powerful Abu Ghraib paintings, but that’s not what I’m blogging about today.)
It was one of those odd things, where I searched for Godward and it said “You might also like…” and showed me Botero. I can’t imagine how that connection was made, I can’t see anything in common between the two.
I am delighted by these fat, lush images. It is interesting to experience my own reaction, and to see how others have reacted. My first reaction, to “The Bath” (below the fold) was that it was funny; the fat woman, the toilet, the primping. And then I thought it was joyful.
On Wikipedia, I read this:
The “fat people” are often thought by critics to satirize the subjects and situations that Botero chooses to paint. Botero explains his use of obese figures and forms as such: “An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.”
How interesting! They’re fat so it must be satire. But counter to that, they’re fat because I like to paint them that way and that’s that. I love that he said that!
Botero has been written about by fat-acceptance folks, from whom I read:
Ironically, however, exclusively portraying fat people in a positive light is not Botero’s intent. He is not, as we would intuitively believe, a fat admirer. Rather Botero sees life in terms of abundance, fullness, richness, and contrasts; this is why his work focuses on a larger form.
I get that NAAFA has a specific agenda, but this doesn’t read right. First, just about everyone in a Botero is fat, not just the positively-imaged people. Second, not having the intention of being about fat positivity is not the same as “he is not…a fat admirer.” These are wonderful, sensual images that challenge our notions of beauty and force us to confront our rhetoric about fat positivity in light of our visceral reactions. I think they’re wonderful.
Monday Movie Review: Superman Returns
Superman Returns (2006) 4/10
Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to Metropolis after a five year absence, to find that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has a son and a fiance (James Marsden), and that Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is out of jail. Directed by Bryan Singer.
Superman Returns is a ponderous, overlong, uneventful bore of a movie. It reminds me a great deal of Ang Lee‘s disasterous Hulk; the same deadly sense of self-importance, preventing it even from being “so bad it’s good,” the same obsession with fathers and sons, the same occasional reminders that a usually talented director is at the helm.
Perhaps the worst flaw of this film is it has no idea what it wants to be. Singer never decides if he is continuing the Christopher Reeve Superman films, or remaking them, or perhaps doing a homage. If it is a continuation, then the many repeated scenes from Superman: The Movie are inappropriate. If it is a remake, then why the painstaking effort to fill in the gaps between the two films? And if a homage, we got it at the first repeated line, 10 minutes in, and we didn’t need the bludgeoning.
Brandon Routh in the starring role is absolutely dreadful. I mean awful. I mean he makes Andie McDowell look like she can act. It’s scary how bad this guy is. He spends a lot of time doing Christopher Reeve imitations, and he’s passably good at imitating Reeve as Clark Kent (although he has none of Reeve’s gentle dignity as Superman), but he brings nothing of his own to the role. I watched the movie with my sister, and she pointed out that they needed to trust the character, not the actor who played him definitively. Routh’s imitation kills the series in the same way that a Sean Connery imitator would have killed James Bond. Christopher Reeve remains the biggest crush I have ever had in my life, from the first time I saw Superman in 1980 in a drive-in until today, I have never loved an actor half as much. But I don’t want to see Routh or anyone else playing Reeve’s Superman, if the movie is worth making, they have to make the character their own. So maybe this one wasn’t worth making.
Kate Bosworth must be thanking her lucky stars she’s acting opposite Routh, because only in such a pairing is she the talented one. She’s all wrong for Lois Lane, a character who is angular and sharp. Her character is actually well-written though, and has more to do than most iterations of Lois, but Bosworth isn’t persuasive.
From time to time, Superman Returns has flourishes that remind you Bryan Singer really can do good things behind the camera. There’s a lovely bit where he’s flying and rolls onto his back to use his heat vision while continuing to fly. It’s the sort of clever and inventive use of character and plot that I admire in a film. If all of the little good bits were strung together with, I dunno, a script, and a cast, well, they’d really have something.
Okay, there is a cast. At least a supporting cast. Spacey is absolutely fantastic. He brings real conviction to the part. And I’m a little freaked out by how sexy I find Frank Langella. But I do, and also he can act. Sam Huntington is charming as Jimmy Olsen.
But make no mistake: None of these charms make the movie worth seeing.
