tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-155242112024-03-13T12:49:55.580-05:00Bad AliceNow, HERE, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
<br>-- The Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking GlassBad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04540577363786819292noreply@blogger.comBlogger473125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-30436139510488446862015-10-28T13:17:00.000-05:002015-10-28T13:17:19.067-05:00In which I report my lack of interaction with the supernatural realm<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The whole gang is writing about their ghostly experiences, and I thought I’d like to do that too. Except I don’t have any ghostly experiences. I’ve heard lots of stories from my friend Steve, and then an old coworker used to tell me tales about skin walkers and possessed dolls and the like. I on the other hand, have little to report, and it can all be quite easily explained.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-46d800ee-afa3-248c-d515-5d331f388976" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna report it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in college I somehow ended up going to meditation meetings at this rich lady’s house. One evening the topic of extra sensory perception came up, and I mentioned that I had no such thing. So she found photos and gave each of us one to concentrate on. Mine was an innocuous photo of a smiling woman. Eventually our host decided we should move into the room where this lady spent a lot of time. It was the laundry room, so she was the maid. Yep, wealthy neighborhood. Anyway, I was looking at the photo and thinking what a crock when suddenly my breath got short and I felt scared. “Something bad happened to her. She’s in danger. Someone did something bad to her.” And as it turned out, her boyfriend had shot her. Ba da bum. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During my college summers I lived with two of my brothers at their house. At the time I had pretty frequent bouts of sleep paralysis. Nothing as bad as <a href="http://shirleyijest.blogspot.com/2015/10/if-youre-seeing-things-running-through.html" target="_blank">JP’s</a>, but still unpleasant. Usually I felt as if a magnet was pulling me to the bed, and I would hear staticky, whispering sounds - just the sort of thing the daughter of a schizophrenic wants to hear - and then I would wake up feeling uneasy. Well, on the day in question, I had one of these incidents while taking a nap in my room, and then something - I thought it was a loud noise - woke me. As usual I felt disoriented and a bit anxious. I went to the kitchen and the phone rang. It was my friend Steve, who is some sort of magnet for the supernatural. We were talking and then he suddenly stopped and said, “Who’s picking up on your extension?” “Huh?” I asked, “No one else is here.” “No, I definitely heard someone pick up.” Well by now I am in full panic mode, since the other phones are in the bedrooms. I found a very large knife and walked through the entire house, including the basement. That’s what you aren’t supposed to do in the horror movies, right? Well I have now experienced the sort of crazy that will make you walk around a house that possibly contains either a specter or a real live intruder. Of course I didn’t find anything or anyone, but I grabbed my keys and purse and drove to a nice busy parking lot until my brothers got home. Years later my brother told me that his house has been broken into multiple times, with the thieves entering - guess where? - my bedroom.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On another day Steve dropped by to visit me at my brothers’ house. For some reason we walked around the back. I knew there was a basement, but I didn’t realize there was another, separate basement room that could only be entered through an outside door. We walked over to peek in. The room was painted white and was completely empty. Except for an ax leaning against one wall. Steve was more freaked out by this than I was. He probably still thinks one of my brothers is an ax murderer. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The final incident occurred right after my mom’s funeral. I was back at my parents’ house, in their bedroom. Dad told me to take any of her books that I wanted. So I walked over to the bookcase and reached into the dark space between the books and the shelf, where I couldn’t really see anything, and pulled out a Bible. It was my mom’s, I knew. I opened it up somewhere in the middle and saw her notes written in the margins. Then I flipped to the front page. There was a little label that said “This book belongs to” and my name. I turned to the dedication page, where my mom had filled in the dedicatory lines.. “Presented to” my name “By” mother “On” inherited. I guess my mom really, really wanted me to read the Bible. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s pretty much the sum total of my encounters with the woo woo, and they all have rational explanations. No one is going to hand you a photo to concentrate on for paranormal purposes unless there’s something significant associated with it, and the woman who gave it to me could have been suggesting by body language and tone that there was a dark association. Sleep paralysis makes you feel as if there is an unseen presence, which was only exacerbated by my friend’s suggestion that someone had picked up on an extension. An ax is just an ax, even isolated in an empty room. My mom came from a time and culture where handing down a family Bible was not uncommon. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m pretty down with never experiencing ghosties and such, so maybe I’m screening out a lot that would be significant to the spiritually sensitive. You wouldn’t catch me dead at a seance, or rather that’s the only way you’d catch me at one, and I don’t go near ouija boards. I try never to look in mirrors in the dark and I never once as a kid played Bloody Mary. Sometimes when I lie in bed with my back to the room, I start to feel uncomfortable and turn over so that I’m facing outward. You know, just in case there’s something that will only target me if my back is turned. I don’t care how ridiculously superstitious this makes me sound. To quote Stephen King: “The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.”</span></div>
Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-48468031377713075922015-10-19T21:12:00.002-05:002015-10-19T21:12:39.146-05:00Just Being HereEven home with a mind-cracking headache, I still find delight in the disruption of the routine. I like hearing the neighborhood as it is when I'm not around. The cars going by sound different when I don't have to join them. There are thrums and hums and sonorous clanging from some unidentifiable piece of machinery doing unknown work somewhere in the distance. A few chirrups of birds. The faraway growl of an airplane. Inside, the window blinds creak as the cat inserts herself between them and the window for a sunbath. Being still is one of my favorite activities, something I inherited from my mom, who could sit in an old lawn chair under the stars for hours. I used to think she was boring until I discovered the pleasures of sitting quietly in various locations, some urban and busy and some pastoral and slow. It is deeply satisfying to sink down into existence and simply feel it sustaining you.<br />
<br />
<br />Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-38941086029531119852015-09-10T13:40:00.002-05:002015-09-10T13:40:46.244-05:00Pick an Obession, Any Obsession<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-f883a44d-b88e-978d-5bf3-ec95c12981df" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Okay, what next? I need something new to focus on so exclusively that I drive my family batty. Right now I’m unanchored, and I don’t like it. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I pick up and drop interests in a regular pattern. They last about a year before they suddenly deflate and drop back to earth. A few years back it was knitting, then crafts in general, followed by Sherlock and Doctor Who, which segued into anime, which dragged the Japanese language along with it. And now… I just don’t know. I’m a little jittery without something to occupy my mind 24/7. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s not like I’ve completely abandoned any of the above. I could suddenly dive back into knitting, or finally drag out the sewing machine. I even went to the dollar store and bought craft pumpkins, because Pinterest. I still want to go to 221B Con and Timegate, and buy manga. But the pure obsession is gone, and I’m much less likely to commit to any of them with the unbridled enthusiasm I once had. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I never know what might grab and harness my attention. It could be a new TV show, or a fictional character, or a literary genre, or a board game, or … or … glass blowing for all I know. But until I’ve discovered whatever it may be, I’m restless and uncomfortable and petulant.</span></div>
Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-18250493073960348012015-09-02T11:21:00.002-05:002015-09-02T11:21:46.632-05:00Meeting Myself in Passing<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-575b0bfe-8edb-2286-2a42-fd564483cdb0" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So the other day I was talking to my therapist (don’t you love posts that begin with someone talking about their therapy - blah blah blah - well, that’s my life right now) and after suggesting I write a letter to my dead father (which I will delay until the last possible moment), he also told me to look up a book called </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Power of Now</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Now I like my therapist, but I also found a card in his waiting area for some lady advertising “energy healing,” so I’m a bit wary. He also has a very strange beard, sort of like an unusually long, rectangular-ish goatee, but so light you could actually miss it at first or think that it was a large piece of fuzz floating in the air. I’m greatly puzzled by that beard, primarily because I can’t imagine why anyone would find it a good idea. But, facial hair aside, I really like him. At last I have found a therapist who is not the dreaded “Christian counselor.” Blue Cross Blue Shield isn’t considerate enough to let me filter a search in such a way as to weed out the people most likely to get on my last nerve. How hard can it be to find a damn secular therapist in the South? </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anyway, I looked up the title on my beloved public library website, and saw that it’s written by Eckhart Tolle. Well of course I’ve heard of him, somewhere or other. Probably in an inspirational quote posted on Facebook. And man, I am on a waiting list for that book because everyone wants to read him, which makes me suspicious that he’s a purveyor of some sort of woo woo.. On the other hand, the name Eckhart reminded me how much I enjoyed Meister Eckhardt. Someone who takes the name Eckhart can’t be all bad, although Meister Eckhardt has been accused of purveying his own sort of woo woo. But it’s the kind of woo woo I can revel in. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eckhart reminded me of how much I enjoyed mysticism in general until Southern religiosity hemmed me in on all sides. When I lived in NYC, I often popped into St. John the Divine just to sit. It’s a beautiful cathedral, quiet and dark with a lingering, faint smell of incense. When I lived there they had a gift shop with books by Eckhardt and Mechthild of Magdeburg and so forth. It was a good place. On my own in my apartment I would burn a little frankincense - the sap, mind you, not some powdery stick- and put on some Gregorian chant and just be still for a while. I sought out places I could be still, like the Cloisters and the Medieval section of the Met.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Somewhere I have a collection of Eckhart’s sermons translated by Matthew Fox, an excommunicated Catholic priest who’s so far left he’s staring at the right’s backside. His view of Christianity was so completely different from what I grew up with, and I found it resonated with my satisfaction in meditating on the whatever-it-was that I felt immersed in when I was quiet, or in a special place, or looking at great art.</span></div>
<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0000a0; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“I pray God to make me free of God, for [His] unconditioned Being is above God and all distinctions.” “The authorities say that God is a being, an intelligent being who knows everything. But I say that God is neither a being nor intelligent and He doesn’t ‘know’ either this or that. God is free of everything and therefore He </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0000a0; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0000a0; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> everything.” “If I had a God I could understand, I would no longer consider him God.” </span></div>
</blockquote>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Man, I loved that shit. I wasn’t sure I believed in God at all, but I loved this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">idea</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of God. I could relax into that idea, which seemed to describe that feeling of fullness and quiet happiness I would sometimes feel, and which I remembered from certain times in my childhood. I didn’t really care if there were a being out there. And I definitely didn’t do any deep study of mysticism or Eckhardt. I don’t do deep study of anything - I like summaries and the big picture. Still it was important to me.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then stuff kinda got in the way. I married my first husband, who wasn’t interested in anything I was interested in unless it coincided with his interests. I think he considered this giving us each independence but basically it was his excuse to ignore them in favor of his own, which I enjoyed well enough myself. I just ignored my own. He had a subtly dominating personality. One of his favorite books was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Prince</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, by Machiavelli, which he thought had been unfairly maligned and which he thought gave much insight into finding your way in the world. Whatever. That’s behind me. Then I married Jeff and had kids and began constructing this new add-on module, the parent.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I saw Eckhart Tolle’s name, I suddenly remembered a former self who was open, who could be silent and in awe, before I tried to stuff her under a ton of dogma, or hide her behind a facade of respectable belief, and then bury her under the resulting, inevitable cynicism. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s a refreshing feeling, this. It’s not that I feel any calling to immerse myself in mystical what not. I doubt incense and Gregorian chants would have the same effect today that they did back then, although I’m not writing it off entirely. It’s just nice to become reaquainted with myself. </span></div>
<br />Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-25211950869039077362015-08-23T20:53:00.001-05:002015-08-23T20:53:22.692-05:00I've been thinking a bit more about Queen of Hearts, because that's how far my brain will stretch at the moment, and how the items I used to think were tacky or just "there" are now sought-after antiques.<br />
<br />
How many of you grew up with one of these?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5405905/il_fullxfull.358983449.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5405905/il_fullxfull.358983449.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
These are glass relish bowls. But in our house they were used for serving cranberry sauce. And by cranberry sauce I mean the stuff in a can that slurps out in one cylindrical jellyish piece. My mom would then slice it, and lay the slices out prettily in one of these little dishes. It was an absolute horror when I discovered that people at it with actual whole cranberries. Gross. Anyway, I have one of these in my cabinets now, as I absconded with it and another cut-glass serving dish, that I doubt my brother has much use for.<br />
<br />
We also had these for a while:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/18/35/53/1835539ccced2521000abbf0a117c230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/18/35/53/1835539ccced2521000abbf0a117c230.jpg" /></a></div>
I think they were amber. These were always filled with iced tea. At some point they were replaced with something more modern and equally ugly. Only now they've been imbued with a certain dignity, and they're waiting to be snapped up in an antique store. Why my mother didn't have the common sense to buy the blue ones, I don't know. <br />
<br />
Now, if I could find replicas of the absolutely hideous lamps we had in the living room. They were awful, but I loved them. The base was a translucent green and made me think of genies living in lamps. It looked a bit like this, but a darker green and smooth:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="212" src="https://img1.etsystatic.com/063/0/7626657/il_fullxfull.791375557_fjtz.jpg" width="320" /></div>
I say "if I could find" as if Jeff would ever let these cross our threshold. We don't even have end tables, which would have baffled my mom.<br />
<br />
Finally, a walk down memory lane wouldn't be complete without mentioning our TV trays. OF COURSE we had TV trays. Only communists didn't have them. The ones I remember best had vividly rendered paintings of autumn in New England that made me absolutely certain that I lived in the worst place on earth. Our leaves couldn't even get up the energy to change colors. They just lost hope, turned brown and fell. Actually, I suspect they were paintings of the four seasons, but fall was the most captivating. This looks very much like them - I gather the artist was named Robert Wood.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://img0.etsystatic.com/024/0/6780574/il_570xN.493667102_tgup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://img0.etsystatic.com/024/0/6780574/il_570xN.493667102_tgup.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
So, to wrap up this day of reminiscing I bought a bottle of Pine-Sol. It doesn't smell quite the way I remember. Maybe they got rid of some carcinogenic chemical or started using real pine essence or stopped using real pine essence. It's a bit disappointing. Hah, just found out that you can order the original formulation <a href="http://www.1221market.com/b/8438422011" target="_blank">here</a>. No I can only hope Silly Putty does the same.<br />
<br />
Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-27358545228289628142015-08-20T11:47:00.000-05:002015-08-20T11:47:34.913-05:00Queen of Hearts<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-40439bc1-4bff-a07a-23c0-1a1bc1eef4f7" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This past weekend Jeff took me to a special store called <a href="http://www.queenofheartsantiques-interiors.com/" target="_blank">Queen of Hearts</a>. Sounds like the perfect store for Bad Alice, doesn’t it? And it is. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Queen of Hearts is an antique store that houses staged displays from different dealers. Oh my God, I wanted to just roll around in the glory of it all. There were wonderful pieces of furniture, some of them as-is and some of them gussied up in interesting ways. One section had cookie jars. One gentleman specialized in vintage license plates. There were more cigar boxes than any Pinterest crafter could ever want. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But it was generally the small things that caught my eye, like the set of pink mixing bowls with the strawberry motif, and the casserole dishes - you know the ones - with little flowers. Most of them flooded me with a sense of nostalgia. A spinning wheel like the one in my paternal grandfather’s house. A butter churn like the one I found in my maternal grandparents’ basement. A straw purse with hideous flowers like one my mom had. Old Butterick patterns. Jeff even found some books on record, pulling out by chance one that contained Black Beauty with, of all things, my first name written on it in marker.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">By that time I was beginning to feel a bit teary eyed. I missed my parents. I remembered my mom cutting out fabric on the kitchen table - she never pinned but instead weighted the pattern pieces with table knives. She had an old fruitcake tin filled with buttons (I still have those buttons) and an old Whitman’s Sampler box filled with thread, some of it so old it was on wooden spools. I remembered my dad’s old cigar boxes filled with arrowheads. In storage there are two old, heavy black typewriters much nicer than the ones I saw on display. Soon a chain of associations led me further afield. When Abby was little my dad found a huge lot of Matchbox cars at a flea market and gave them to her. Whenever I open the cabinet where I keep our spices, I smell the same timeless scent I smelled in our spice cabinet growing up, and I’ve stashed my mom’s recipe box there. In one section of the store I found a few old thermoses, the kind with the glass interiors that always broke. How many times I went to drink my lunch milk and found shards floating on top. Whatever happened, I wondered, to the metal Laugh-in lunchbox I used in first grade, with a paper name tag held in place by grubby scotch tape curling up at the edges?</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh, I wanted to buy so many things, as if I could somehow recapture the best moments of my childhood and carry them with me when I left the store. Instead we left with a set of sundae glasses, something my family never owned, and surprised the girls with ice cream and fudge sauce. </span></div>
Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-50477587125772629992015-08-16T21:41:00.001-05:002015-08-16T21:41:43.242-05:00Stress, What Stress?This weekend was a respite from the not-quite-enough-air issue I've been having. But here it is Sunday night and whaddaya know, I feel like there's a live squirrel running around inside my head. This tells me I was meant for a life of leisure.<br />
<br />
I was mentioning my panic and anxiety to Jeff the other day and he said, why, you don't have anything to be stressed about. I don't know if he was joking, but I'm sure my life looks placid compared to his, which is full to the brim with lesson plans as well as the heavy lifting in making our finances work. But, I am a thirsty sponge that soaks up everyone's stress and stirs it into the pot of my own simmering anxiety. It takes very little, just Liz mentioning that her tooth hurts - my heart beats just a bit faster because we don't have insurance this month (long story), and she had oral surgery last month. Because we have no insurance we had to cancel Abby's therapy appointments, and she desperately needs help managing her own anxiety, which manifests as chronic headaches, stomach aches, fatigue, and muscle twitches. Jeff is spending his own money (because that's what teachers do) to supply his classroom, and after the bank account was overdrawn I suggested a credit card just for that purpose. And that reminds me of how much I hate the bitches who made his life so impossible at his last job. If I was ever tempted to embrace the dark arts, it would be in the hopes of blighting their lives.<br />
<br />
When I first started talking about this in therapy, I began with "I don't really have that much to be stressed about" and ended up naming so many things: Abby's illness and my worries for her future, Liz's perfectionist streak and her lack of friends, Jeff's former job and the fierce protective anger I felt on his behalf, our desire to live somewhere else and my uncertainty about job prospects if we move. Or the fact that I feel this constant tug of war between my sense of myself and my work.<br />
<br />
But now I need to go to sleep. And I hope I really sleep.<br />
<br />Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-88785419443081964982015-08-14T08:20:00.001-05:002015-08-14T08:20:36.617-05:00PanicSo I had a panic attack the other night. I think it was the culmination of two days of feeling as if I couldn't breathe properly. Obviously I was breathing and walking around and no one had to call an ambulance, but I felt like I couldn't draw in quite enough air. This led to lots of yawning and deep breaths and generally made the whole process that's supposed to be automatic a huge pain in the ass. Anyway, last night I was dealing once again with the breathing situation, when I stopped being able to swallow. Well, I could swallow water, I found. But clearing my throat - and the usual swallowing we do as a matter of course? Nah, my throat seized up. I decided I was probably dying of MS or ALS or something similar, and I would end up in a bed with a feeding tube and a ventilator and someone would have to suction out all my spit. So I had to talk myself down out of that tree. That went sort of like this:<br />
<br />
Amygdala: You're going to die! There is something seriously wrong but we don't know what it is. Scour the Internet!<br />
Me: I'm not dying. I can still breathe and swallow water *pause to drink water again*<br />
Amygdala: Sure you can swallow it now, but for how long? And what about that breathing thing? How's that going?<br />
Me: Dammit! Maybe if I try to lie down...<br />
Amygdala: Don't lie down! What if your throat closes up and you stop breathing? YOU NEED TO STAY AWAKE! <br />
Me: Look it even says here that swallowing problems are a common feature of a panic attack.<br />
Amygdala: Did I stutter? YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!<br />
<br />
When I finally did get to sleep, I dreamed that Jeff was applying for a second job at Taco Bell. While I sat waiting for him, I began to wonder if Taco Bell had anything gluten free. Then I began to worry because Jeff hadn't come out. What if he already come out and didn't realize I was still there and had gone home? So I went home. And he wasn't there. So I began to fret that now he was coming out of the interview and would be worried when I wasn't there. This conundrum was interrupted by the appearance of someone I worked with, She asked to take a picture of me, but then I was the one holding the camera phone up to the sky, and I saw cherry blossoms going in and out of focus on the screen. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-42463991257968987632015-08-10T10:02:00.001-05:002015-08-10T10:02:55.156-05:00I had to post something because my last post was such a downerPretty much sunshine and roses here. And bees. Lots of bees.<br />
<br />
<br />Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-72662515783189911792013-12-06T17:07:00.000-05:002013-12-06T17:07:42.772-05:00F**k This<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-29c9911e-c9d9-3621-5fad-981a31d65701" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s how it is. Today I stood up and looked out the window and my heart sank. I can’t think of a better way to say it. The doors closed and the lights went out. I look at the weekend and it seems like an infinite series of steps that I just can’t walk. So I’ll have to push myself and fuck I don’t want to.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wonder if recovered drug addicts, the ones who shoot up, have a hypersensitive awareness along their old injection sites. My left arm remembers being cut. Whenever I sink to a certain depth, I become oh so aware of that inner forearm, and I feel the pull of pure craving. I wouldn’t, I don’t, never gain, but the temptation is always there. Because, damnit, it was cathartic, both punishment and release. And surprisingly little pain. The pain came after and I deserved it and treasured it. Sure I had to hide the evidence with long sleeves, but I’m used to hiding. When have I ever not hidden? When do I not self-censor, pretend, retreat? </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So this is me not self-censoring this small section of my life. If I were ever into S&M, it would involve knives and razors and blood. And all the self-loathing and tumult and unbearable tangle of god knows what would be excised, at least for a while.</span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-81486021491374860272013-12-04T20:43:00.001-05:002013-12-04T20:44:20.934-05:00True Grit<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7971defe-c06a-8366-0a56-f61b46ed9a31" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I recently ran across a book that mentioned something called the Grit Test (</span><a href="http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter.aspx</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) . I decided to take it, although I was pretty sure I knew the outcome. As I suspected, I have no grit, at least not the kind the test measures. I mean, I’ve made it through illnesses, job losses and a suddenly deaf husband, but I think that falls under perseverance during adversity. The sort of grit the test measures is the ability to persevere in the pursuit of long-term goals. I have no long-term goals and can barely meet the short-term ones, so, no grit.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve always known this about myself, and periodically I find it discouraging. I experience my lack of ambition as something fundamental that probably shouldn’t be that way. Some people get physical birth defects, but I got this instead, along with the wacked brain chemistry, or maybe because of the wacked brain chemistry.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I cannot imagine a long-term goal that would hold any interest for me. I can’t imagine one that would hold my interest even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">theoretically</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Goal oriented thinking is as foreign to me as differential calculus, and while I might be able to memorize some formulas to solve equations (my to-do lists and schedules at work, for instance), I don’t think I would ever get beyond mechanics. Of course, without goals you don’t really accomplish anything. But then we’re back to what I might want to accomplish, and I got nuthin’. The biggest goal I recently undertook was in January of last year, when I created an elaborate Harry Potter birthday party for DramaQueen. Preparations started in December, and that, my dears, is where a bipolar upswing really comes in handy. Some of the decorations stayed up through the Summer. Because once I was done, I was DONE. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is the way my life goes - obsessions and enthusiasms embraced and abandoned over and over. It is not the lack of completion that is so bothersome, but the way all the life can suddenly be sucked out of something that once enchanted me, and I’m left looking at the corpse of a once-beloved project. And then I’m bored, and my brain feels like it’s in prison.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Not everyone who has this illness is so unproductive - there are many wildly creative artists and writers. I once knew someone with severe bipolar illness who said the manic episodes were the only thing that made the depression bearable. I’m not that far along the spectrum and I’m well-medicated. When I’m up I probably just look like a normally productive person, perhaps unusually and relentlessly talkative about topics that interest only me, and a bit rude because I tend to interrupt. But my brain is working, and the world is in technicolor, and it’s lovely. And when I’m depressed - that would be now - I still look pretty normal, just quieter, lethargic, messier, dull, closed up. And the world looks like a newspaper left out in the rain.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This all sounds very glum, but I guarantee, in a few weeks or a few months, everything will shift and, oh, just wait.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-67548613911706501002013-10-29T10:00:00.000-05:002013-11-07T16:59:28.471-05:00The Fifth Estate: No One Is Going to Tell You the Truth<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e22f8ed-0217-be62-b839-b4d4b738729f" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“That's where real power lies. Your willingness to look past this story, any story. As long as you keep searching you are dangerous to them. That's what they are afraid of. You. It is all about you.</span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">”</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/UPNfpA6Ra88" width="420"></iframe>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I finally saw <i>The Fifth Estate</i>. They weren’t kidding about the abysmal attendance rate - I was in a completely empty theater. I found that a little odd, considering how timely the film is - the media spent all summer covering the Manning trial. Oh well. I don’t know if I would have gone if Benedict Cumberbatch had not played the lead. It was his performance I went to see, and he did an excellent job. Still, I was rather hoping the film would dig deeper than it did.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Julian Assange did not want this film made, thinking that it was prejudiced against him and WikiLeaks. Given the lackluster response, he needn’t have worried. I found the film to be fairly superficial in its examination of both Julian and WikiLeaks. It seemed to lose track of what it was doing. Is it a biopic? No, there's not enough background information on the characters. Is it a critique of WikiLeaks? Well, it criticizes one aspect of WikiLeaks, and it doesn't present a compelling case there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Which brings me to the personalities involved, because the center of the film is not WikiLeaks so much as the friendship, if you can call it that, between Daniel Domscheit-Berg and Julian. This was a relationship with a messy breakup. But it's difficult to feel much affection for the friendship and hence to feel any sadness at its loss. We aren't talking about Thomas Becket and Henry II or Julius Caesar and Marcus Aurelius, although we are meant to think of Daniel as the noble man of conscience taking a stand against power gone mad.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Julian is compelling because of his passion, but he's also kind of a jerk. You can tell that there is so much more to his story than the film reveals, much of it intensely sad. Part of his childhood was spent in a cult, one that abused the children and gave them doses of hallucinogenic drugs, and, oddly, required them to dye their hair white. I don’t recall exactly how he became involved in hacking, but he was very good at it, and eventually he and some friends were arrested. One of them betrayed Julian by turning state’s evidence. Betrayal is a theme in the movie, although not one that is explored very deeply. I’ve since looked around a bit on the Internet, and I suspect Julian’s childhood was rather worse than even what we learn in the film. Definitely one of the more fucked up childhoods I’ve ever heard of. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Daniel falls in Julian’s path first as an admirer during the early days (Julian speaking in front of maybe a dozen people) and then becomes engrossed in the mission to the point that it takes over his life. It’s intoxicating to be part of a group that brings down corruption, to feel like you can really make a difference. People can argue that Julian is dangerous, but he has a very clear ethical code of holding the corrupt accountable, and he is persistent in pursuing this cause. I find it difficult not to admire him. He’s also single-minded, charismatic, seductive and manipulative. At one point Julian shows up during a passionate interlude between Daniel and his girlfriend and simply sets up shop, either unaware or unconcerned about the tension he’s created. Or perhaps well aware and pleased to find that he has the power to take over someone’s life so completely. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KLghruGp4Gk" width="420"></iframe></span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At no time does Julian act much like an actual friend. He’s all mission. At one point, in a half-assed apology, Julian alludes to being autistic, which is either true or a way of gaining sympathy, I’m not sure. In any case, Daniel becomes someone Julian trusts as a spokesperson for WikiLeaks - and we are shown how wary he is about accepting others into the fold. He also expects complete loyalty in return, so you can see how this is eventually going to crash and burn. When Daniel objects to publishing war logs without redacting names, Julian goes apeshit crazy, accusing Daniel and his girlfriend of being part of the CIA and basically throwing an enormous online temper tantrum. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Haven’t we all had friends like that? They love us as long as we don’t criticize, as long as we are always accessible, and they’re charming enough that at first you don’t notice the dangerous edge to their personality, always one step away from a meltdown, until one day you say the wrong thing and BAM, you are on the receiving end of a shitstorm the likes of which you never expected. It’s obvious that Julian has some serious emotional baggage. Daniel, on the other hand, comes from a stable, middle-class background and is ill-prepared to deal with someone who seems to look at "friends" as tools to further a cause. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>(I’m going to take a moment to mention the implication that the mental instability of the principle players taints WikiLeaks. Julian is portrayed as someone damaged by his past, and they just had to mention Manning’s history of mental illness, oh, and say something about how you can’t protect people from themselves. That was referring to Manning but it was aimed at Julian as well. This is a subtle way of undermining any enterprise, because the stigma of mental illness is so persistent. Of course WikiLeaks is dangerous - the man who created it is mentally unstable! It wasn’t conscience that motivated Manning - she was clearly nuts! Why, no one in their right mind would have anything to do with this! This doesn’t even have to be a deliberate, thought-out choice on the part of the writers, because we are so used to accusations of mental illness being used to undermine dissent.)</i></span></i></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Faced with the question of the morality of not redacting names, Julian simply replies that WikiLeaks doesn’t edit. And then he pretends to go along with redacting, until Daniel finds out that there is, in fact, no way to wipe out all the names on this enormous datapile. Redacting names seems perfectly reasonable, a way to protect innocent people. So why won’t he? Because it was too difficult? That seems to be the answer, and yeah, that seems like a pretty shit thing to do, and it’s the final straw for Daniel. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/q9pbD7OVr6c" width="560"></iframe></span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But what is the fallout from not redacting? Given the news reporter voice overs about Julian having “blood on his hands,” I expected some stories about the ugly consequences of his refusal. I was unable to dredge up any sympathy for the US government official we follow who’s worried about her favorite operative. If she represents the government’s perspective, it’s pretty wishy-washy. If you are going to argue that someone’s anarchist vision makes him a danger to others, you need to back it up with something besides an onscreen story of an informant SAFELY LEAVING THE COUNTRY. Is there seriously no legitimate evidence that people were targeted as a result? That’s something I would expect Amnesty International to be tabulating if it were so. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Reviewers mentioned the difficulties of creating a film in which the primary action is people tapping keyboards. I didn’t find that particularly problematic while I was watching the film, but then I was interested in the subject. To the average viewer people dramatically whipping out their laptops for some serious anarchist coding probably looks a bit ridiculous. The decision to create an imaginary office space to represent WikiLeaks, which is really just a few people on laptops, struck me as odd until the end of the movie, when it became clear that the artificial office was set up as a way to illustrate Daniel’s final betrayal, when he takes down WikiLeaks. Bringing down a virtual office is visually uninspiring. Tipping over desks and setting fire to it all - well I see what they were going for but it looks a bit silly. In any case, that destruction was hardly final, so what the hell? From what I understand, <i>The Guardian</i> had all the logs anyway, so bringing down the site did nothing. Eventually they were all published exactly the way Julian wanted. And last time I checked, WikiLeaks is still in business. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I liked the final scenes, which were filmed as if they were an interview with Julian. He mentions that not a single shred of evidence ever surfaced that publishing the complete logs resulted in anyone’s death. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not sure I would trust the government if they told me they had evidence. In a bit of meta fun, he talks about the “WikiLeaks movie,” saying that if you really want to know the truth, you’re going to have to find it out yourself. Good luck with that.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The movie didn't change my opinion of WikiLeaks. I admire its mission of transparency and protection for whistleblowers. That governments, which happily send soldiers into useless wars, wars where civilian casualties are massive, should accuse WikiLeaks of making the world less safe, just leaves me flabbergasted at the hypocrisy of that claim. Snowden and Manning had the guts to show us what we truly are as a country, our willingness to murder and torture while trying to cover our tracks, the systematic stripping away of privacy so that we the citizens can have our every move traced while the government hides behind the curtain of national security. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Julian Assange, whatever his personal failings. has one hell of a vision, and he (and Manning and Snowden) is certainly paying the price for it. I really hope it’s worth it.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“You want to know the truth? No one is going to tell you the whole truth. They’ll only tell you their version. You want the truth, you have to seek it out for yourself.”</span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B for effort, C for execution and A’s for the cast. Oddly enough, I would watch it again.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh, and Dan Stevens with dark hair? Yes, please.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">UPDATE: Here's what I should have included in the first place, a link to WikiLeak's response to the movie: <a href="http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/wikileaks-dreamworks-memo.html#about">http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/wikileaks-dreamworks-memo.html#about.</a></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: blue;"> According to this, the stuff about Julian being in a cult or dying is hair is fabrication. But you can read for yourself.</span></span></div>
Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-82302997488286859242013-09-23T14:30:00.000-05:002013-09-24T12:44:54.638-05:00It's sleepy and it's hollow<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e929090-4886-f7e0-8525-851583a74956" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What do you get if you combine Once Upon a Time, Grimm and the Secret Circle? Tedium. The writers of Sleepy Hollow took a great idea - moving the Headless Horseman legend into a modern day Sleepy Hollow - and made it...bloodless. Even last year’s failed American Horror wannabe Park Avenue 666 had more style and a better script. That said, there are a bunch of positive reviews on IMDB that made me wonder if I had seen the same show as everyone else. Or maybe the network paid a bunch of people to write positive reviews. Or it was just silly fun all around and I’m being too earnest. Except I was bored. DO NOT bore me.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We open on a Revolutionary battlefield, where an Ominous Soldier on Horseback appears in the melee. Ichabod Crane engages and discovers that, live the Weebles of old, the horseman wobbles but he won’t fall down. So Crane lops off his head, but not before receiving some sort of injury. Fade to mist. Now we’re in a cave with jars of murky liquid sitting around who knows why but they look creepy and make a fine scene when they shatter. And they shatter because Crane is punching his way through the soil, emerging crusted with dirt and some sort of weird white stuff - was he preserved in salt? Off he lopes through the woods and onto a road, in time to be nearly plowed down by a car. Crane looks vaguely puzzled. You’d think he might go Holy Shit what was that? given that his last mode of transport was a horse.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Meanwhile an older cop and his younger partner run into trouble investigating a potential crime at a creepy old stables with an Ominously Frightened Horse. You’d think the horse would be bucking at his stable door since there’s a Headless Horseman hunkered down in there. If I were a horse I would do more than whicker. So the older cop gets his head cut off, which is a real bummer for his partner, who calls for backup.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cue for Ichabod Crane to appear out of nowhere for no clear reason and run into the street right in front of a cop car. I guess if you are dirty and scruffy and run into the middle of the street the legitimate police response is to hold you at gunpoint and arrest you. That’s a pretty stiff penalty for jaywalking, don’t you think? But of course maybe he just cut off someone’s head, right? What, he’s not covered in blood and he has no weapon? No problem.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You would think that waking up 250 years in the future would put more of a kink in his brain, but Ichabod Crane is remarkably unflustered by the COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION of the town he lived in, by the changes in noise levels and fashion, by electric lights, skyscrapers, concrete, and motor vehicles. He does ask about the TV screens in the police station (but not the big machines moving by magic along the road or the torchless illumination), the end of slavery and Starbucks (part of a really, really stupid and obvious joke), and he asks when women started wearing trousers, which would have probably been scandalous 250 years ago, but hey, he’s an easy going guy I guess. He doesn’t even flinch getting into a car for the first time or comment on the remarkable lack of horse-drawn carts and manure in the streets. Somehow he has survived all this time in some sort of coma in a cave, and yet all his clothes are intact. It would have been much more interesting if they’d fallen off. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Others have pointed out that most cops don’t let suspects, or people being transported to a mental health facility for pete’s sake, sit in the front seat of a police car. But if he wasn’t in the front seat he wouldn’t have been able to get out of the car at a crucial point to wander around a cemetery, where the plucky female cop decided to check out a new crime scene. Get that - she’s going to a crime scene with a potential, possibly dangerous, mental patient in her care, which, even if she thinks he’s okay because she saw the Horseman, probably won’t go over well with her superior (played by Orlando Jones, like THAT makes any sense).</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is no chemistry between the leads. Nada. Zip. I think he is supposed to help her accept her own psychic/witchy abilities so that they can partner up to fight Evil. She comes to terms with this pretty quickly, like Hey, I was gonna go join the elite at QUANTICO but instead I’m going to say fuck my career because this guy who crawled out of a hole tells me I’m going to have to fight a headless adversary. ‘sall cool. I don’t expect romance - at least they haven’t written the female as a love interest - but where’s the snappy repartee? Where is the initial distrust that must be overcome? Where are the humorous misunderstandings. Anything? Nope, the relationship is completely flaccid.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The headless horseman himself is a disappointment. If you met someone headless in real life it would be terrifying or at least icky, but on screen a head really adds a special something that axes and guns fail to deliver. (The guns, by the way, seem to shoot fireworks - pretty!) The writers should take note of the show’s theme song, “Sympathy for the Devil.” Mindless, mechanical evil is boooooring. There has to be a villain with personality, a Loki or a Moriarty or a Crowley, to earn your guilty admiration. We don’t even have a whole person. When we are finally introduced to the horseman’s skull, it has all the menace of something from a display at your local Halloween store. Actually, strike that because I’m sometimes scared of the displays at the local Halloween store. We also glimpse a demon that looks strangely like a tall, skinny Dobby. I’m not exactly quaking. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTk4MzY1NjQ4MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODI1MjE1OQ@@._V1_SY317_CR2,0,214,317_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTk4MzY1NjQ4MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODI1MjE1OQ@@._V1_SY317_CR2,0,214,317_.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s a shame this is so very lame, because Tom Mison who plays Ichabod Crane has a British accent (always, always a good thing) and is very pleasant to look at, or he would be if someone gave him access to a shower, a barber and some clean clothes. If I do watch another episode it will be to see if they have the wisdom to dress him in tight jeans. Because I could be persuaded to suspend disbelief. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As for the plot, they are setting up a good coven/bad coven narrative - yawn. Who in the town can you trust, blah blah blah. Something about Revelation (of COURSE) and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Well, I can tell you right now that the Winchester brothers already shut that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">down</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, and they did it with flair and sass. Much as I thought the last couple of seasons uneven, I am now really looking forward to the return of Supernatural. I need some proper scaring. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-90946761454900786762013-09-16T14:30:00.000-05:002013-09-16T14:30:01.292-05:00Why can't I be you?<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-3b8a607a-153c-ccc7-b514-2a88b4f09b0d" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Envy is thin because it bites but never eats. - Spanish Proverb</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br /></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My husband puts up with a lot. Chaos usually follows in my wake, because I tend to make and ignore messes, distracted endlessly by the many shiny things in the world. I am disorganized and frivolous while he keeps the bills paid and the accounts balanced. He sees work to be done and I see books to be read. I hope I’m amusing enough to make up for what I lack.
I try his patience in many ways, but right now I think Benedict Cumberbatch may top the list. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am obsessed with BC. If his name appears in the credits, I’m there. Now whenever I mention a movie I want to see, Dear Husband responds with wary suspicion. My Pinterest account has been overtaken by photos and videos of Benedict. I await the return of Sherlock with an intense anticipation that most people probably reserve for the birth of their children.
I’m nowhere near the worst or wackiest out there. Thanks to fans far more obsessed than I, there is an ecstatic proliferation of Tumblr accounts offering an endless supply of photos and gifs capturing every performance, public appearance, change of hair color, and shift of expression. This is the standard by which I measure my sanity - at least I have not <strike>opened a Tumblr account</strike> and started creating my own screen caps. I have, however, considered creating a Sherlock themed Christmas tree.
</span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dear Husband probably thinks this is my ultimate fantasy: </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://imsooochangeable.tumblr.com/post/28980471547" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img height="282px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/1sCqkf0uBuUxW5c-ivdbSgMj_GLbH-dVqtEuXMw1d3UpDqzU5VdqOSosO1Bm8FGNyHJe5mV9dMAAm1K5WUCB5aClDNXs6UcvAH5yLqHVCtDI981WKbbz2xmkBQ" width="500px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">source: http://imsooochangeable.tumblr.com/post/28980471547</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yeah, well, someone who went on and on and on and on and ON about Amanda Tapping really shouldn’t be so judgey. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think celebrity obsessions originate in a part of the building you don’t usually visit, but if you give any thought to the matter you’ll probably discover something unexpected and possibly unwelcome about yourself, and it often has less to do with sex than with other desires. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So yeah, he definitely has 1000 watt sex appeal - beautiful eyes, tousleable auburn/blond/black curls, swoony voice - but there is another side to this. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Really. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And if it wasn’t a teensy bit of a downer, would I even bother telling you?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So here goes, I have a silly fantasy of a long, meandering conversation in which I ask him endless questions about acting and writing, and what’s his take on the NSA/GCHQ business, and who are his favorite poets and how the hell does anyone get into character anyway (something I’ve never understood, as I can barely get into my own character). Just me and my imaginary friend chatting about creativity and art and, I suppose, the meaning of it all, over tea at a nice little bohemian cafe on some London side street. I wouldn’t even care if he smoked, but he wouldn’t, because that’s the sort of gentleman he is.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He’s so very clever. I like clever people. Clever people make me happy. I get high on clever. In interviews Benedict comes across as intelligent and eloquent. He navigates his ocean of crazed admirers with grace, poise and humor. He does charity work (check out this <a href="http://wabbitwanderer95.tumblr.com/post/15782615973/meeting-benedict-cumberbatch-the-full-story" target="_blank">blog by a young girl with Cystic Fibrosis</a> and tell me he isn’t a sweetie). He did a series of videos with the pianist James Rhodes and what’s that - he can play piano, too? He survived a car jacking in South Africa. He taught English in a Tibetan Monastery. He can go from elegant to charming, to dorky in seconds without any apparent embarrassment. He’s adventurous. He’s athletic. He’s humble. He’s exotic.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And his acting - I think he may be channeling the gods. He delivers, as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/02/sherlock-review-benedict-cumberbatch-martin-freeman_n_1207883.html" target="_blank">one writer put it </a>“ a level of acting almost messianic in its quality.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Oh yes. He so completely embodies Sherlock that I’m convinced the character now exists as a real person in an alternate reality. Imagine the level of talent and dedication it would take to get to that point, so it seems to flow from you as naturally as sunshine falling over water. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And then when I thought he couldn’t get any more amazing, he does this: </span></span><a href="http://socialitelife.com/photos/benedict-cumberbatch-sends-a-message-to-the-government-through-the-paparazzi/benedict-cumberbatch-holds-up-a-sign-in-protest#.UjJ_MzzzQG8.blogger">Benedict Cumberbatch Sends A Message To The Government Through The Paparazzi</a>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/25/benedict-cumberbatch-marries-his-two-gay-best-friends-in-ibiza-as-he-officiates-wedding-3898673/" target="_blank">this.</a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And then he gives an interview like this, and I think I may cry from the sheer joy of witnessing someone talk using polysyllabic words. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Pp8gi2zZDGo" width="420"></iframe></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m in awe, with a side of hero worship. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And I’m so very jealous. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wish I could go back to my 15 year old self and say - this, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is the person you should take as your role model. Keep to this and you might get somewhere and be somebody. You might be something more than the chaotic, chronically distracted person who has never created anything admirable, or noble, or beautiful, who instead stumbles from day to day in a state of existential confusion with the vague sense of having missed the point. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So, at the end of that long conversation in the fictional cafe, I imagine him saying: “So what have you done with your life lately? Hmm. I’m just going to take this BAFTA now and go help some disadvantaged youth. Laters." ‘Course he would never say that. He’s too much of a gentleman.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It's better when it's just about sex.</span></span></div>
Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-56599176284591874132013-09-05T13:00:00.000-05:002013-09-05T13:00:05.411-05:00To Bedlam<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-3a84e096-ebf8-ac0b-1828-7e3f2b22c46d" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Not that it was beautiful,</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">but that, in the end, there was</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a certain sense of order there;</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">something worth learning</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">in that narrow diary of my mind”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">― Anne Sexton, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To Bedlam and Part Way Back </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My mom was crazy. Literally.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s a word meant to insult, discount. My mom hated it, but she would have taken exception to any word that called her mental stability into question. Really, the acceptable term “mental illness” doesn’t sound much better.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Both my parents are dead now, and they left behind a lot of stuff. Recently I was going through some of their papers and found letters that my mom had saved for years, including a packet of letters that my dad wrote to her while she was at Milledgeville State Hospital in the late 50s, one of the largest mental hospitals in the country at the time. I was born in 1966, so her stay happened a number of years before my birth, and I knew nothing about it for a long time. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CZjchxoxmWI/UifxghJ0EyI/AAAAAAAALmQ/aRmJ2aC7bkQ/s1600/20130904_224734.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CZjchxoxmWI/UifxghJ0EyI/AAAAAAAALmQ/aRmJ2aC7bkQ/s1600/20130904_224734.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mom with three of my brothers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Growing up I knew that my mom was unusual, but I had no idea that she had a mental illness. It wasn’t until I was 22 that one of my brothers mentioned it in passing, and suddenly chaos settled into pattern and meaning. Her official diagnosis was schizophrenia. I’m not sure that diagnosis was completely accurate - in many ways she was more like someone with bipolar disorder - but she heard voices and at times had paranoid delusions. Despite this, she was, to the best of my knowledge, unmedicated and untreated while I was growing up. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As you have probably guessed, no one talked about this. So, when my mom told me about conversations with doctors that I knew did not exist, or mentioned being part of a mind control experiment conducted by the Soviets, or became convinced that the neighbors were spying on us, when she began huge projects with a massive burst of energy only to drop them completely and take to bed, when she went on angry paranoid rampages spewing the most bizarre stories, I - well, I don’t know what I did. In between these strange phases my mom was like any other mom, affectionate and protective, if a little shy and socially awkward. She was smart and curious. No matter what state she was in, she made sure we had three meals a day and clean clothes. She made doctor appointments for me, sewed clothes for me, and read to me (although sometimes not the best choices - most moms would not read Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” to a six-year-old). I was never neglected. So it was very disorienting to switch from that to the the freaky mom who thought she might be the victim of demonic possession.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I lived in a strange world, pretending that everything was normal, or approaching normal, when it was anything but. My father acted as if her behavior was a deliberate ploy to destroy his life, and he spent a lot of time away from the house. My much older brothers had long before moved out and if at any time during their visits my mother acted strangely, they simply ignored it. In all the time I was growing up, my mother never saw a psychiatrist, a therapist or even a social worker. I never saw my dad seek any assistance either, although he now and then he threatened to have her “locked up,” which did indeed have a squelching effect on my mom. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That makes my dad sound awful, and for a long time I was angry with him for the way he treated my mom, but I have to remember that he had to make this journey practically by himself. I don’t know what triggered my mom being committed, but my dad must have been out of his depth, and he may have been afraid for my brothers. My dad’s letters reveal his struggles trying to keep the family going alone - juggling work with 4 school age boys. He rarely had any help, and the boys were left to their own devices most of the time. He expressed more resentment as time went by (she seems to have been there for at least a year), and he often asked why she couldn’t come home. There were also letters from my brothers, which are sad to read, tidbits about school and home life and appeals to her to come home written in awkward childish handwriting. Saddest of all are a few lines from my dad, a response it seems to a question from my mom, that he had no idea why her parents did not write or visit. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What’s missing are my mother’s letters to him. Maybe my dad didn’t bother to keep them - he liked to forget unpleasant things. What she experienced there remains a mystery. Even as an adult I was extremely reluctant to broach the subject with her. I don’t mean that she never mentioned it, but I really had to read between the lines, and I was so used to ignoring the absurd that sometimes I wasn’t sure what I was hearing.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So much secrecy. Those were the days when you still didn’t admit to or talk about mental illness, when it tainted your reputation and the reputation of your entire family. Even though attitudes had loosened by the time I was born, it was deeply entrenched in the family dynamics, so much so that I was trained early, without any sort of explicit instruction, to ignore blatantly odd behavior, to keep it quiet. And I didn’t want anything to be wrong - the very idea of anything being wrong was so terrifying that I lived this odd life of pretending that I didn’t know what I knew. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve concluded that the invisible doctors were probably actual psychiatrists who treated her. I had thought the voices schizophrenics hear would say horrible things, but her voices always seemed to give her encouragement and advice. She insisted they understood her completely. When I was much older, she alluded to electro-shock treatment in such a way that it was clear that she had terrible memories of it. She also once mentioned medicine that made her too drowsy, and so she never took it again. I think she wanted to talk about it, but none of us wanted to listen, not in the way she needed us to listen. Instead we were eager to refute or, god help us, try to reason it away, or ignore it as if it were bad behavior that shouldn’t be encouraged.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With this history, you might think that I would be afraid of inheriting schizophrenia. It helped that I didn’t know the true nature of her illness until I was an adult. By then I was pretty confident that I never had and never would have hallucinations or paranoid fantasies. The problems I did have - well, it would be hard to emerge from that household unscathed. We were all dinged in some way.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I recently ran across <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/health/study-finds-genetic-risk-factors-shared-by-5-psychiatric-disorders.html" target="_blank">a study</a> that has found a common genetic source for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, major depression and ADHD. Here’s a quote from the article: “But what surprised them was that while one person with the aberration might get one disorder, a relative with the same mutation got a different one.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This has made me rethink my mother’s legacy, which I thought I had nimbly evaded. I think every one of my siblings and I have something on that list, whether or not we admit it, whether or not we have ever been diagnosed. These days it’s so much easier to talk about mental illness, and I’ve made sure that I don’t hide that part of the family history - or my own history - from the girls. I hope for the best, that whatever genetic mishap, if there is one, that bled into our lives, ends with me. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wish I had my mother’s files from that time, that I had a little more insight into that part of her life. Some people might think that talking about my mom’s illness is somehow invading her privacy or revealing too much. But I think the one thing my mom wanted but only found in the hospital, was someone to talk to who would not judge her, someone to acknowledge that her invisible doctors and strange thoughts did not make her a bad person, or less of a person, or someone whose opinions should be discounted because she was “crazy”. That it was really okay. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-63004930962098293092013-08-28T09:00:00.000-05:002013-08-28T09:04:21.173-05:00King of the Lemonade Stand<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-23ff5685-c273-fa4f-490f-2de4f96b9339" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-23ff5685-c273-fa4f-490f-2de4f96b9339" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dear Husband is deaf. He went deaf suddenly in the summer of 2012 as the result of a severe infection that put him in the hospital for 10 days while doctors ran test after test and scratched their heads. Since then he has struggled with hearing aids and assistive devices, and we’ve taken ASL classes and visited lots of specialists, some of whom I would like to kick in the shins. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What amazes me is how, after such a devastating loss, he embraced his situation. He did research, found Facebook groups, started <a href="http://www.deaf-insight.com/world-of-silence.html" target="_blank">blogging</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.deaf-insight.com/world-of-silence.html" target="_blank"> about hearing loss</a>, and took to ASL with amazing ease. I am very proud of how he has taken charge of his situation. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">His hearing has dropped further, from severe/profound to profound, and it looks as if he will soon be getting a cochlear implant. Of course, he has done extensive research on these as well! I think if he could he would stay awake during the operation to direct the surgeon. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. I think I am very lucky to be married to such a man. Despite these quite serious health preoccupations, he is always on top of things, always thinking about us. Recently he was laid off, and he set up a plan to finish the last of his education courses and take the teacher certification exam. He has a schedule for himself that makes me feel like a slacker. Once again he sees a setback as an opportunity. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That’s why I titled this King of the Lemonade Stand - he’s one of those people who makes lemonade. </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Happy anniversary, sweetheart! You're the best. </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VjWxP25ERO4/Uh1OEFvqncI/AAAAAAAALe4/5XU8LKQUaiI/s1600/Jeff+and+a+giraffe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VjWxP25ERO4/Uh1OEFvqncI/AAAAAAAALe4/5XU8LKQUaiI/s1600/Jeff+and+a+giraffe.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jeff, and a giraffe.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-88828469367946091222013-08-22T14:08:00.000-05:002013-08-22T14:08:17.927-05:00I Spy<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-376cf2e7-a764-f44b-0938-41a1abc43330" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I was in college I worked one summer for SANE/FREEZE, an international organization that lobbied for a nuclear arms race freeze as well as an end to US support of the Contras. I joined after having a horrific dream about a nuclear attack. I quickly discovered that I am no good as a door-to-door canvaser, but after that summer I continued to be involved in organizations like Amnesty International as well as a group specific to my college called Waging Peace. I even went to DC once as part of a lobbying group (something I am also not good at). </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some very odd people would show up to work for SANE. Turnover was relatively high, since it was hardly a well-paying job and you were likely to meet quite a bit of resistance. One day a new person joined the team, a very unpleasant, abrasive person in, I kid you not, a dark suit and sunglasses. We joked that he was a CIA or FBI plant. Why anyone in charge would have hired someone so antithetical to the cause was a mystery. He didn’t stay of course. Maybe he reported back to some top-secret agency about our motley crew of highly inefficient idealists. Maybe it was some sort of COINTELPRO style ploy to disrupt and degrade.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I knew when I joined SANE/FREEZE that such groups were under scrutiny. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The government spies on its citizens. I took it as a given. Someone was monitoring - not necessarily me - but the higher ups, and the organization as a whole. But, oh, the innocent days before email and the Internet. You worried about signing a particular petition, or subscribing to a particular publication. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I often ignore politics. The abundance of information that pours out everyday is overwhelming. I can’t keep up. I can’t figure out what is legitimate and what is trash. it’s exhausting. It’s demoralizing. I’m pretty sure that both sides and the middle are busy spewing endless amounts of verbiage for the sole purpose of keeping us confused. No wonder we post lots of photos of cats. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What’s on my mind late? Bradley Manning. Edward Snowden. The NSA. The mess in the UK that involves the NSA. The NSA’s push to collect any and everything. XKeyscore. PRSM. All the arguments about how much they can actually look at and how much they are bound by law is not reassuring. We seem to be willing to sacrifice a lot in the name of a spurious safety. Do you feel safer? </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some people dismiss all concerns: Oh no one cares about your emails, just don’t be a terrorist and you’ll be okay, they still need warrants, it’s just metadata. Supposedly we have safeguards in place because of a long history of abusing surveillance of private citizens. It’s always okay until you find out what’s really going on.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We have legitimized torture and indefinite detainment - is anything really out of bounds? We have prosecuted whistleblowers or forced them into exile. A president who used to praise such acts has seemingly changed his mind and is now perfectly happy to expand the NSA’s reach. People call Manning and Snowden traitors, and sometimes I wonder what it would be like to trust the government enough to believe that. But we aren’t supposed to trust the government, or the military, or the organizations we’ve created to collect secret intelligence. We’re supposed to hold them accountable. We’re supposed to be able to access the information that would allow us to hold them accountable. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-376cf2e7-a76c-a4e8-7dfc-0872cdd251d3" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A good overview of this mess can be found at </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The NSA Files</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> on the Guardian website.</span> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-9300066532631896262013-08-20T10:00:00.000-05:002013-08-20T10:00:00.228-05:00The Art of Swearing<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e3733b1-84c8-7b50-b0e9-270905742602" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I was little my dad was very careful to substitute tame words for expletives. His favorite expression was “shoot fire,” which made me giggle. My mother never cursed that I remember. Or maybe the occasional dammit surfaced under duress. I was never quite so disciplined, so between me and TV I’m sure the girls have a working familiarity with colorful language.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have nothing against swearing. I’ve always felt that people squeamish about it were just too prissy for words. Sorry if that’s you. I spend most days biting my tongue to spare your sensibilities, so be sure to applaud me for my incredible restraint. I know a reliance on profanity can reveal a poverty of language and an inability to properly express oneself. Profanity can also be very aggressive, integral to bullying or verbal abuse. But in general I think life can be difficult enough to warrant a few expletives. God won’t spank you for it.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When the BBC announced that the 12th Doctor (and yes I was ferociously interested in this) would be Peter Capaldi, I decided I would have to investigate the series he’s best known for - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Thick of It.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> If you don’t know the series, it’s a satire about the British government, in particular the fictional Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. Peter Capaldi plays Malcolm Tucker, the party's spin doctor. His character, and the show in general, is known for its liberal use of profane language. In fact, I think its MA rating is based purely on language, as I haven’t yet seen any sex or nudity.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve never heard anything quite like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Thick of It</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. This isn't just letting fly a few curse words. This is extravagance. This is a luxurious jungle of swearing rooted in rich loamy earth. I’m not sure there is a single character who doesn’t participate, but the king is Malcolm Tucker, who uses it like a crowbar to prise open every opportunity that comes his way, a whip to punish his coworkers, and a bludgeon to beat down objections. And he does it in a Scottish accent. It’s downright mellifluous. I gather that they actually have someone who acts as a "swearing consultant" on the scripts. Imagine that job.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In any case, the show is bitingly funny in a particularly British way. I suppose you could think of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fawlty Towers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> wed to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Office</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Mishaps, misunderstandings, and misdirection accumulate while everyone teeters on the edge of disaster and chaos. If they didn’t swear constantly they would probably leave a trail of blood and bodies behind them.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="288" mozallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="http://www.hulu.com/embed.html?eid=y_iyom8ajxh999qeulr0ia" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="512"></iframe></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Everyone wonders what Capaldi will bring to Doctor Who. All the doctors have a catch phrase: Fantastic! (9th), Allons-y! (10th), Geronimo! (11th). Makes you wonder what the 12th will say.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/jammywho21/works/10659622-peter-capaldi-dont-blink-clean" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F6CFBvDFdxg/Ug2Do5p20MI/AAAAAAAALc8/7qm4ZWlzHD0/s320/dontblink.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can actually get this on a <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/jammywho21/works/10659622-peter-capaldi-dont-blink-clean" target="_blank">T-shirt</a>. There's also an "unbleeped" version, if you're brave.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-14231351027420131002013-02-13T22:45:00.001-05:002013-02-13T22:45:13.861-05:00Pause<span id="internal-source-marker_0.49127934919217675" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So,
there was a pause, an intermission. I got tired. I grew speechless.
I’ve taken the scissors and simply cut out a chunk of time, because
there’s no hope of catching you up. Suffice it to say that stuff
happened. </span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-83919704848412192512012-04-17T06:06:00.000-05:002012-04-17T06:06:05.947-05:00Platform 9 3/4When we asked DramaQueen what she wanted for her birthday, she decided on a trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. So that's where we spent part of Spring break.<br />
<br />
It is awesome. Except for the insane hoards exploding out of the windy paths, its a joy to wander through. Hogsmeade is a gem, a work of art, really. Look at Hogwarts - it's fabulous.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gZIkB4h066Q/T4S_zJ4EJAI/AAAAAAAABGw/hf9ijQH7FVc/s1600/2012-04-01%2525252008.53.02%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gZIkB4h066Q/T4S_zJ4EJAI/AAAAAAAABGw/hf9ijQH7FVc/s320/2012-04-01%2525252008.53.02%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
We stayed at this fabulous, swanky resort. The sort of place you can call housekeeping and say, "I forgot deodorant," and they reply, "No problem. We'll bring some right up." I was tempted to call and ask for random things, like a pregnancy test or condoms. Or both.<br />
<br />
Anyway, because we stayed at this posh resort practically on top of the park, we got Express Passes and early admission to the park. We heard that the best thing to do was to get there at 7 am and head strait for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the ride that's in Hogwarts Castle. It's the main attraction and a feat of theme park technological wizardry (he he).<br />
<br />
It's also scary as hell. I thought it was a sort of safe for the whole family ride. Turns out it wasn't even safe for me. (I can hear some of you hardened theme park aficionados snickering at this.)<br />
<br />
But, damn. You're bolted down in these benches - "enchanted benches" I later learned they were called - and then you move along the conveyor belt of doom while the benches pitch you about. I don't think we went upside down but I remember being flat on my back at some point and then face down. I knew going in of course that the highlight was the filmed projections that put you into the action. I was hoping for the best. I have problems processing film that is right in my face and surrounding me, and swooping visually down through the trees while being tossed about by possessed benches was very unpleasant. I gave up and closed my eyes. At some point there was a roar and a blast of hot air. I think that was a dragon. I missed the spider entirely.<br />
<br />
If you so desire, you can get a vague sense of what it was like in this video. I enjoyed seeing what I missed from the comfort of my sofa.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/iT7CPDrK8ro?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
It seems so short on video.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://netdna.orlandoinformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/zDSC00684.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://netdna.orlandoinformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/zDSC00684.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The enchanted benches </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That photo of the enchanted benches is from <a href="http://www.orlandoinformer.com/universal/harry-potter-forbidden-journey-book-1/" target="_blank">this Orlando Informer article</a> devoted to the castle and ride, which includes some wonderful photos of the various sets and props you pass through on your way to the ride. There's also a link to a "behind the scenes" video that shows the mechanics of how the ride works. If I had seen that before going, perhaps I wouldn't have been so unsettled.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mgsEAJ5JaS4/T4NeFY2DVoI/AAAAAAAAA_c/ZYUMj7s_7go/s1600/2012-04-01+08.48.45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mgsEAJ5JaS4/T4NeFY2DVoI/AAAAAAAAA_c/ZYUMj7s_7go/s320/2012-04-01+08.48.45.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sadly, only the outside of Olivanders. Don't you love the fake snow?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The other highlight was our visit to Olivanders wand shop. You stand in line for an hour or two and are ushered in in groups of 20 or so. One child is picked from the crowd to be "the chosen one" who will demonstrate how the wand chooses the wizard. Of course DramaQueen wanted to be picked. I didn't have much hope of it, but by golly she was! The show was delightful. The actor playing the wizard was having a fine time creating an atmosphere of awe and mystery. It was also so dim I didn't move for fear of walking into someone. So no photos in there. A flash would have destroyed the effect. Yes I still feel guilty for not memorializing the moment.<br />
<br />
Some young wizards and witches stopped by while we were waiting in line for Olivanders. I am quite sad that we missed the toad chorus. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NtkcGrdhtvY/T4NaXksUbjI/AAAAAAAAA-k/mKoPRLG2LZo/s1600/2012-04-01+09.21.23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NtkcGrdhtvY/T4NaXksUbjI/AAAAAAAAA-k/mKoPRLG2LZo/s320/2012-04-01+09.21.23.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You could tell these witches were enjoying their work.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
You can't go to Hogsmeade without trying the Butterbeer. Happily, it was recently reformulated to be both dairy-free and gluten-free, so I was able to partake. It tastes like cream soda with foamy, vaguely buttery fluff on top.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PEeQQ4MgexU/T4TTmg3P9qI/AAAAAAAABJY/iApXbZUNIys/s1600/IMG_20120401_113530.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PEeQQ4MgexU/T4TTmg3P9qI/AAAAAAAABJY/iApXbZUNIys/s320/IMG_20120401_113530.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DramaQueen sampling the Butterbeer at the Hogshead.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xKd3xvIYTLk/T4TTm1-OEmI/AAAAAAAABJc/hRNu9JRQ1Nc/s1600/IMG_20120401_113538.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xKd3xvIYTLk/T4TTm1-OEmI/AAAAAAAABJc/hRNu9JRQ1Nc/s320/IMG_20120401_113538.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Firecracker is still recovering from the Forbidden Journey ride.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There is talk of creating a Hogwarts train ride, which would be so awesome. It could be Universal's monorail. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9guf4iEmfPo/T4MWfLw3fOI/AAAAAAAAA5A/VO5PRrVT244/s1600/2012-04-01+12.51.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9guf4iEmfPo/T4MWfLw3fOI/AAAAAAAAA5A/VO5PRrVT244/s320/2012-04-01+12.51.03.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At Platform 9 3/4</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M6a30GLmdR0/T4NYvngFlII/AAAAAAAAA98/OC9BBiNUYWI/s1600/2012-04-01+12.49.40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M6a30GLmdR0/T4NYvngFlII/AAAAAAAAA98/OC9BBiNUYWI/s320/2012-04-01+12.49.40.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love the luggage. Note the owl cage.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The village is full of fun details. I ran across a placard for Gringott's Bank - it was next to an ATM. Most of the buildings were facade's only - you couldn't go in. But the window displays were charming and artful, with references to items in the book series.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5beMKd4yGFo/T4S_xoyB83I/AAAAAAAABGY/Syly1K0TrhU/s1600/2012-04-01%2525252008.02.32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5beMKd4yGFo/T4S_xoyB83I/AAAAAAAABGY/Syly1K0TrhU/s320/2012-04-01%2525252008.02.32.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Details like this moving wanted post of Sirius Black make the park special.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uugs1k1pB1U/T4S_0AHxC3I/AAAAAAAABHA/WzLaIGszk_o/s1600/2012-04-01%2525252011.31.36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uugs1k1pB1U/T4S_0AHxC3I/AAAAAAAABHA/WzLaIGszk_o/s320/2012-04-01%2525252011.31.36.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The hapless Ford Anglia.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hOnj04KiJVA/T4S_yGnolDI/AAAAAAAABGo/MBewBMAq6CM/s1600/2012-04-01%2525252008.43.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hOnj04KiJVA/T4S_yGnolDI/AAAAAAAABGo/MBewBMAq6CM/s320/2012-04-01%2525252008.43.12.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A squealing mandrake root. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wf7J2lc0ng0/T4S_02zlLwI/AAAAAAAABHM/izpTUx_b0II/s1600/2012-04-01%2525252011.55.24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wf7J2lc0ng0/T4S_02zlLwI/AAAAAAAABHM/izpTUx_b0II/s320/2012-04-01%2525252011.55.24.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can you see the wands and post boxes?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBlhnJObUJo/T4NdqLF2HSI/AAAAAAAAA_U/wCmFKMHQ5c0/s1600/2012-04-01+08.48.30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBlhnJObUJo/T4NdqLF2HSI/AAAAAAAAA_U/wCmFKMHQ5c0/s320/2012-04-01+08.48.30.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The window displays were outstanding.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I really wanted to capture this window display with all Lockhart's books
and the moving photos, but I just couldn't do it justice.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C8lMT5c-m_k/T4NeYsr5r8I/AAAAAAAAA_k/cDEn87uAUkE/s1600/2012-04-01+08.51.28.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C8lMT5c-m_k/T4NeYsr5r8I/AAAAAAAAA_k/cDEn87uAUkE/s320/2012-04-01+08.51.28.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Dervish & Banges is the main gift shop, and it was specially designed to be impossible to navigate, partly because the Owl Post feeds into it, and Olivanders exits into the Owl Post, which is about the width of a train corridor and the main place to purchase your wand, which are stacked up along all the walls. And DramaQueen had to open them all before choosing her wand. A checkout counter, looking like an authentic postal counter, is bang in the middle of the Owl Post. After a while you feel like clocking someone. That's a good time to find another mug of Butterbeer. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JKUySOLw9aY/T4MWE1ErDhI/AAAAAAAAA40/TxsMki8jPTo/s1600/2012-04-01+13.41.37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JKUySOLw9aY/T4MWE1ErDhI/AAAAAAAAA40/TxsMki8jPTo/s320/2012-04-01+13.41.37.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Monstrous Book of Monsters. It snarls and snaps.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Somehow I didn't get any photos of Zonko's Joke Shop or Duke's Sweetshop. I think by that time the crowds were at their height. DramaQueen bought a screaming yo-yo, a golden snitch and a chocolate frog.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yCmNdMk9bIM/T4MQxJOjWxI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/mj-nLuqWf94/s1600/2012-04-05+21.16.23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yCmNdMk9bIM/T4MQxJOjWxI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/mj-nLuqWf94/s320/2012-04-05+21.16.23.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This box houses a chocolate frog. Or it did.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C8lMT5c-m_k/T4NeYsr5r8I/AAAAAAAAA_k/cDEn87uAUkE/s1600/2012-04-01+08.51.28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
Now Firecracker is not the biggest HP fan, and she was traumatized by the Forbidden Journey ride. So we had to spend some time in the Dr. Suess area.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A0u-YOoE9_A/T4NZ22VRXlI/AAAAAAAAA-U/PdnmiIQcHjs/s1600/2012-04-01+12.28.48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A0u-YOoE9_A/T4NZ22VRXlI/AAAAAAAAA-U/PdnmiIQcHjs/s320/2012-04-01+12.28.48.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
She rode Red Fish Blue Fish three times. I rode it twice. We got soaked.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Oq0X3Cwpjk/T4S_zJoMB4I/AAAAAAAABHE/-TyfGB3-2Ew/s1600/2012-04-01%2525252010.53.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Oq0X3Cwpjk/T4S_zJoMB4I/AAAAAAAABHE/-TyfGB3-2Ew/s320/2012-04-01%2525252010.53.38.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Did I mention we had Express Passes? So worth it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The next day we went to the Universal Studios side. We were too exhausted to do much.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OF8V610ZN_M/T4MUNElROQI/AAAAAAAAA4E/HWxbAb_tXzc/s1600/2012-04-02+11.01.53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OF8V610ZN_M/T4MUNElROQI/AAAAAAAAA4E/HWxbAb_tXzc/s320/2012-04-02+11.01.53.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the Curious George Waterpark</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Well, Dear Husband and I were, but Abby did just fine. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZhcRoovkZ8Y/T4MSQo-ZNfI/AAAAAAAAA3I/5uWm1l0USGY/s1600/2012-04-02+13.28.40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZhcRoovkZ8Y/T4MSQo-ZNfI/AAAAAAAAA3I/5uWm1l0USGY/s320/2012-04-02+13.28.40.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"New York"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
DramaQueen loves the I Love Lucy show. She bought a Vitameatavegimin magnet.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I6CrAyff3fQ/T4MRkdTcUHI/AAAAAAAAA2w/6kFm1mF2zcA/s1600/2012-04-02+13.42.32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I6CrAyff3fQ/T4MRkdTcUHI/AAAAAAAAA2w/6kFm1mF2zcA/s320/2012-04-02+13.42.32.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
And that's all. I'm winding this up not exactly because that's all I have to say but because this post has been hanging around for days and it's irritating me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-4313906246400272772012-03-27T19:56:00.000-05:002012-03-27T19:56:43.194-05:00Everything Bad Is Good<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61tS1o6ub1L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61tS1o6ub1L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" /></a></div>
I'm reading this right now. Dear Husband complains that I never read nonfiction. So I checked out nonfiction. I have a dozen books on various TV shows and philosophy. Didn't know there were series like that, books with easily digestible bits of popcultural goodness and a dollop of Socrates and Lacan.<br />
<br />
This book I picked up because I like the contrarian view that TV and video games are good for you because the complexity forces particular kinds of thought processes that are beneficial (there are two "becauses" in that sentence but I just can't deal). God knows TV is a lot better than the One Day at a Time and Love Boat that I grew up with. I don't have a lot of experience with video games, but I worked my way through Myst (remember that?), and it was HARD. I remember drawing a friggin map of the subway, for pete's sake. I took notes. <br />
<br />
I also don't think our ability to socialize will be degraded by Facebook, or that we will all forget how to spell because of texting. I don't worry about e-books usurping printed books. Speaking of that, I wonder if anyone boo-hooed the loss of illuminated manuscripts when the printing press arrived. Because of the printing press, hardly anyone knows how to write entire books of intricate calligraphy and decorative marginalia. <br />
<br />
But now I'm off to watch some TV.<br />
<br />
<br />Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-15595510931267460552012-03-02T23:12:00.000-05:002012-03-02T23:12:09.131-05:00Musician of the Week: Andrew BirdI had heard of Andrew Bird at some point when I was reading about Owen Pallett. I had never bothered investigating until I recently heard a song on Pandora called Imitosis. Sort of jazzy, a little folksy, a dash of something else. As so often happens, once I started paying attention I ran across mention of him quite a lot. I even found out that he was playing in town later this month. I love this video, the colorful bejeweled mechanical insects, and Bird himself, looking like he escaped from the local college's department of mathematics.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hnXCzFnkxtY" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<br />
And then there's the impressively titled "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left." <br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wRk2iHkOcNE" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
He seems to specialize in odd titles. Here's one called "Fake Palindromes." No idea what the connection is, but I keep thinking I hear a sitar.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jqnPGX3WrCU" width="420"></iframe>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-27563873967464106672012-03-01T20:47:00.000-05:002012-03-01T20:47:30.154-05:00A Night at the Opera<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAJYD9n99uI/T1AZGUlRHDI/AAAAAAAAAvM/hDPMpMcMuVo/s1600/2012-02-25+01.14.50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5sUmEBnY0kc/T1AQ9_gLnHI/AAAAAAAAAuc/Lud163Kvaoo/s1600/12+-+1" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5sUmEBnY0kc/T1AQ9_gLnHI/AAAAAAAAAuc/Lud163Kvaoo/s320/12+-+1" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dear Husband. Those gold cords and tassel? He graduated with Distinction.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="internal-source-marker_0.19903383928709428" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
past weekend Dear Husband graduated with his Master’s degree. See, here’s
a photo of him in his gown. He looks adorable. As an aside, I don’t
understand the hoods on these gowns. It came with some incomprehensible
instructions about how to fold it so the colors show. And the hood is
vestigial - imagine someone actually pulling it over their head. The
doctoral gown looks so much easier to deal with, and it comes with a
jaunty little squishy velvet cap you can actually wear. Not that I want
to encourage Dear Husband to get a Ph.D. He says he’s bored now that he
doesn’t have school, so I encouraged him to take up knitting. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
part of the Grand Celebration his mom and one of his brothers came to
town, and we even stayed in a hotel close to the graduation site. The
girls really liked that, because kids love staying in hotels, whereas
adults tend to think of what they would find if they had a black light. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dear
Husband’s brother, hereafter referred to as Cool Hip Brother (CHB),
offered to take us out to some clubs. I haven’t been to a club since
1988, I think, and I usually went to somewhat sceevy gay clubs that
played the Smiths nonstop, wearing questionable clothes I found at
Goodwill. Everyone danced around as if they were removing cobwebs from
the rafters and tried to maintain an expression of general disdain. You're never going to hear a Smith’s
song these days, unless it’s sampled.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nO4gvYEzMzk/T1Aa2yhi-FI/AAAAAAAAAvU/LPaj4_V-lok/s1600/2012-02-26+13.27.24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nO4gvYEzMzk/T1Aa2yhi-FI/AAAAAAAAAvU/LPaj4_V-lok/s320/2012-02-26+13.27.24.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CHB with DramaQueen and Firecracker</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">CHB
is one of those People Who Know People. I always wanted to tag along
with someone like that. The first place we went you had to go up an
elevator and through some walkways and you were blindfolded for part of
the journey. Just kidding. This wasn’t a club, really. More of a
glorified bar. Actually, I think it looked like someone had turned off
the lights in a giant corporate boardroom, with all the employees still
there. The men were in suits. <i>Suits.</i> But CHB gave his name to someone,
who passed it along to someone, who swiftly descended upon CHB to talk
about whatever People Who Know People talk about. I was fascinated with
the couples sitting near us. They all looked pretty bored, even the
woman trying to give her date a lap dance. The lap dance struck me as a bit tacky, but the bar served really good mojitos. CHB seemed a
little surprised that I stuck to mojitos, which makes me wonder if I’m
out of the cool drink loop and ordered something that is just so
hopelessly last decade.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But
the best part is next, because we went to Opera, a nightclub that looks
like - an opera! At least inside. A huge crystal chandelier hangs from
the ceiling and the ceiling and some part of the architecture that I
don’t know the name of are painted with cute little rococo medallion's
and gold flourishes. Anyway, a really popular house dance dj/producer called Alesso was playing (or dj-ing or officiating or whatever) so the place was packed and there was a line down the block. We
didn’t have to wait in the line because CHB said something to a guy with a clipboard and earpiece, and we
walked right in. I was very impressed and felt all Hollywood. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAJYD9n99uI/T1AZGUlRHDI/AAAAAAAAAvM/hDPMpMcMuVo/s1600/2012-02-25+01.14.50.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAJYD9n99uI/T1AZGUlRHDI/AAAAAAAAAvM/hDPMpMcMuVo/s320/2012-02-25+01.14.50.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opera. That blurry mess at the bottom is a crowd of people.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
had been worried about dressing wrong and looking out of place and way
old, but it didn’t really matter. I think I may have been invisible,
which was fine with me. There was so much cigarette smoke you could
practically walk on it, and now and then billowing streams of dry ice
smoke blasted across the space. Alesso was doing his thing, which was a
pretty awesome thing I have to admit. I gather there’s a particular flow to house music, a buildup (crowd recognizes song; much
jumping up and down), breakdown (crowd teeters on silence), climax (and the crowd goes wild!). Just like sex! The climax part included lots of
flashing lights - which was the only time you could actually see anything
on the floor. Otherwise most of the illumination came from the
multicolored light sticks people waved around. We stayed up in the
balconies, where you could actually move. Which I did. I probably looked
epileptic, but since most everyone looked ridiculous anyway (to the
side a circle of drunk guys had carved out some space to practice
clogging, I think, or perhaps Irish step dancing), I was okay with that.
And really, that kind of music gets in your head and manipulates you if
you let it, and I’m not sure why you wouldn’t let it. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lXKjvqlnpSY/T1Abv7LbZYI/AAAAAAAAAvc/R-Tt0BttQ0s/s1600/Alesso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lXKjvqlnpSY/T1Abv7LbZYI/AAAAAAAAAvc/R-Tt0BttQ0s/s1600/Alesso.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alesso. I'm too cool and Swedish to have a last name.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-82783838030016194422012-02-11T00:18:00.001-05:002012-02-11T00:18:54.624-05:00Angels, Magicians, Monsters, Ghosts and Pretty BoysI was reading a book today that encouraged you to let your freak flag fly, to find your obsession and go with it, because that's how you find your true calling. Nice as that sounds, I don't think that my tenacity at Googling photos of really good looking people can be leveraged into a job.<b> </b>But I'm open to suggestions.<b> </b>I'm also not sure that I have a freak flag, exactly. Maybe a shoelace.<br />
<br />
But I do have my obsessions.<br />
<br />
<b>American Horror Story</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WBXQm2sBoA4/TzSc-9vAAEI/AAAAAAAAAoc/LBkrFEDnyO4/s1600/alexandra_maidaspx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WBXQm2sBoA4/TzSc-9vAAEI/AAAAAAAAAoc/LBkrFEDnyO4/s1600/alexandra_maidaspx.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ghosts with Garters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I thought this series was fantastic. It delivered the big scares as well as a more diffuse and disturbing creepiness. I don't usually watch or read horror - I'm too susceptible. I can't even look in a mirror in the dark, a fear that was the subject of one episode that now has me worried whenever I see a closed shower curtain. Horror holds up our fears and scares us with them all over again, and for some reason we really like that. American Horror Story delivered: home invasions, high school mass murders, rape, death, dark corners and spooky noises, deformity, suicide, ghosts that CAN hurt you, sociopaths and the devil's spawn. And then there are the horrors that are more corrosive than scary, like infidelity, depression, and neglect. The ghosts in American Horror Story can’t escape the house where they died, a house with layer on layer of guilt, rage, and fear. The horror house is the collective American psyche, and we’re all, innocent and guilty alike, stuck in it. Meanwhile, I give you one of the high points of the series: Alexandra Breckinridge in her slutty maid’s outfit. She didn't wash the floors or climb ladders nearly enough.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Madness of Angels, The Midnight Mayor</i> and <i>The Neon Court</i></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UHOvz4fxEag/TzVwhVXIPHI/AAAAAAAAAoo/RmqaLzrPiCU/s1600/neon+court.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UHOvz4fxEag/TzVwhVXIPHI/AAAAAAAAAoo/RmqaLzrPiCU/s200/neon+court.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
I found this series by accident, attracted to the cover of the third book, <i>The Neon Court.</i> I love urban paranormal noir. I’m a fan of the Harry Dresden and Sandman Slim books, both about gumshoe wizards. They keep going and the trouble keeps piling up faster than they can dig but that doesn’t keep them from maintaining a constant witty and droll patter. A Madness of Angels, though, is all that plus a new level of gorgeous. Each book is almost giddy with a love of the London cityscape, from which the wizard Matthew Swift draws his magic. The author’s descriptions of spells woven from the subways, bus shelters and litter are full of energy, wit, and lively imagination. The Angels, specifically the Blue Electric Angels, slid from the mouthpiece of a phone receiver into his dying body and now inhabit his brain in an uneasy alliance with his own personality (he isn't entirely certain he still has his own personality). Matthew sometimes refers to himself as “we”. I think it’s a sign of how good the writing is that although I noticed the shift it didn’t drive me up the wall but just went with it. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Magicians</i> and <i>The Magician King</i></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R3eNSYuQMyk/TzVw9NduNxI/AAAAAAAAAow/Y1Y0bRp48iE/s1600/magicians.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R3eNSYuQMyk/TzVw9NduNxI/AAAAAAAAAow/Y1Y0bRp48iE/s200/magicians.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
I’ve heard this called Harry Potter for grownups, which I think does everyone a disservice. If Harry Potter were Dickens, I suppose <i>The Magicians</i> would be Trollope. I’m not even going to try to explain that, but it makes sense somewhere in the muddled recesses of my mind. There’s a gifted teenager, Quentin, who finds himself (through an odd sequence of events) sitting a very strange exam at Brakebills, a school of magic. Thus begins his education (which rather reminded me of Arthur’s education in <i>The Sword and the Stone</i>) in magic, friendship, love, and betrayal. He also happens to be obsessed with a series of children’s books that sound an awful lot like the Narnia stories, set in a world called Fillory. He discovers that Fillory is a real place, one that he and his magician friends can visit. It’s a pretty dark coming of age story - dark as in true to the reality of how many screw ups you make on your way to adulthood. It takes an awful long time to develop any sort of true maturity. Near the end of <i>The Magician King</i> one of the characters in Fillory says something like this: “The hero isn’t the one who gains the reward. The hero is the one who pays the price.” I thought that together the books were about the journey to that painful revelation.<br />
<br />
<b>Sherlock</b><br />
I’ve blathered on about this before, but I adore the BBC adaptation. I think they did a brilliant job of modernizing the stories, and Benedict C and Martin Freeman are excellent. I feel faint just listening to their line delivery. And now I'm waiting for the next installment. And I still want that coat.<br />
<br />
<b>Being Human (the British version)</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I81v2zLqzKA/TzVxP7n27MI/AAAAAAAAAo4/xDefluNEMH4/s1600/being+human.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I81v2zLqzKA/TzVxP7n27MI/AAAAAAAAAo4/xDefluNEMH4/s1600/being+human.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm a Brooding Vampire</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I know - this has been out forever in the UK. But it hasn’t been streaming on Netflix for very long. I think we usually mangle British shows when we import them. I tried to watch the American version of Being Human, and I just couldn’t. The characters on the American series lack the nuances and quirks of the British ones. We have taken the Vampire Diaries and smushed it into the basic Being Human framework. It’s slick and shallow and as far as I can tell is primarily about sex. The British version, however, actually seems to be about figuring out what it means to be human. How do you transform the predatory and the invisible? I mean, their problems are ours writ large - selfish and greedy desire, addiction, timidity, fear, cowardice, rage, our animal nature. And THEN it's about sex. And Aidan Turner is just a better vampire. What sort of credible vampire looks like he goes to the gym everyday? Aidan looks more like he's shooting up in an alley somewhere. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Grimm</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VV6Yd9JVVLI/TzVzPZ2px1I/AAAAAAAAApI/oubAcdh3QeU/s1600/grimm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VV6Yd9JVVLI/TzVzPZ2px1I/AAAAAAAAApI/oubAcdh3QeU/s1600/grimm.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love the crooked smile.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I love this show about the fairy tale creatures that live among us. Nick, played by David Giuntoli, is just beautiful. I like watching him shoot things. A descendant of the original brothers Grimm - who are hunters, not just story collectors - he is The One Who Can See the Truth. He has a trailer full of weird weaponry and Encyclopedias of Hideous Monsters that he inherited from his aunt, and he's kind of playing it by ear because his aunt died before he could go through basic training. He’s also a cop, so it’s a bit like CSI in the Enchanted Forest. I love his friendship with the lovable werewolf Monroe, his go-to guy for all things supernatural. And his cop partner is great, too, even if he's unaware of exactly what's going on. That’s pretty much it, I think. Not a lot of depth, perhaps, but updating the stories of Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel and so forth really gives you a sense of the role fairy tales play in dealing with a dark and often frightening world.<br />
<br />
<b>White Collar</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bNITWFDON_M/TzSbw4aaqxI/AAAAAAAAAoE/cY657Wd6KoM/s1600/matt+bomer+with+dreamy+eyes2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bNITWFDON_M/TzSbw4aaqxI/AAAAAAAAAoE/cY657Wd6KoM/s320/matt+bomer+with+dreamy+eyes2.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Those eyes could break a million hearts.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Why haven’t I watched this before? I’m catching up on Netflix and loving it. The conman/forger/thief Neal Caffrey is so exuberantly charming you want to smile and wear a fedora. An actor could easily flub it and come off as smarmy and crass. Instead he’s rather sweet, one of those bad guys who’s decent at heart. His developing friendship with the FBI agent responsible for him is fun to watch, as they try to figure out how far to trust each other. And his old friend and partner in crime is adorable - always there for him, ready to come through in a crisis and help him concoct ridiculous schemes, always ready to offer a conspiracy theory and a boot-kick to authority. The actor playing Nick, Matt Bomer, has stunning blue eyes, the kind of eyes that make you catch your breath when they hit you full-force. There are a lot of pretty people, but only a few have eyes that give me butterflies.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LPTtQ1mtv5I/TzSb7E_IXOI/AAAAAAAAAoM/Do_4FS03bII/s1600/Richard-Armitageyet+agaub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LPTtQ1mtv5I/TzSb7E_IXOI/AAAAAAAAAoM/Do_4FS03bII/s200/Richard-Armitageyet+agaub.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Armitage. Sigh. Crooked smile<br />
AND startling eyes.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
(Richard Armitage is another example. I’ll take any opportunity to talk about Richard Armitage. Like... he’s going to be in the Hobbit movie with just about every other sexy British actor, including the two from Sherlock and the vampire from Being Human). I supposed they have what are called “bedroom eyes,” but their gaze seems more existential than that, as if they’ve bored down to your essence. (If I were really clever I could now insert something about Lacan and “the gaze.” But philosophers have a way of reducing what seems to be a nifty insight into utter boredom. Or not reduce - philosophers never reduce anything; they expand endlessly.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Someday this Pain Will Be Useful to You</b><br />
If only this book were around when I was a teenager. It’s compared with <i>Catcher in the Rye</i>, which is inevitable, but I was never all that fond of Holden Caufield. I love James Svek, though. He’s a teenager in love with words, who feels wildly out of place. He's obsessed with looking up houses for sale in the Midwest and wants to move there (you get a sense of why later in the story). He has a dark sense of humor and a keen sense of the absurdity around him. Here’s a snippet of conversation with his father:<br />
<br />
“You should have ordered a steak or something,” my father said. “You should never order pasta as a main course. It isn’t manly.”<br />
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.<br />
“No, you won’t,” said my father. “And listen, while we’re talking about this, let me ask you something.”<br />
“What?”<br />
“Are you gay?<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zdkcriyZmhE/TzSbHm-os5I/AAAAAAAAAn8/S-_wR4ePZVM/s1600/someday+this+pain+will+be+useful+to+you.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zdkcriyZmhE/TzSbHm-os5I/AAAAAAAAAn8/S-_wR4ePZVM/s320/someday+this+pain+will+be+useful+to+you.jpg" width="213" /></a>“What?” I asked. “Why would you ask me that?”<br />
“Why? Why not? I just want to know.”<br />
“Why? Do you get to take an extra deduction on your taxes or something.?”<br />
“Very funny, James. No. It’s just that we’ve never talked about your sexuality, and if you are gay I want to be properly supportive. It’s fine with me if you’re gay, I just want you to know.”<br />
“You wouldn’t be supportive if I were straight?”<br />
<br />
He’s precocious and clever, defiantly alone at the same time that he tries awkwardly (and disastrously) to connect. The descriptions of his emotional state are finely nuanced: “I ... just let everything go, turned the net of myself inside out and let all the worried desperate fish swim away.” How beautiful is that? You learn indirectly that he witnessed the attack on the Twin Towers, and the stories of those lost, particularly those who were missing but no one noticed at first, have contributed to his fear of never making the leap from loneliness to companionship.<br />
<br />
So that's how I've been spending my time. Or at least when I'm not looking up funny cat videos on YouTube. Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15524211.post-76345959631416556152011-09-28T20:45:00.000-05:002011-09-28T20:45:13.443-05:00Falling Backward<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.marthastewart.com/sites/files/marthastewart.com/images/content/tv/martha_stewart_show/show_photos/6001_6050/6011_092310_wreath_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.marthastewart.com/sites/files/marthastewart.com/images/content/tv/martha_stewart_show/show_photos/6001_6050/6011_092310_wreath_l.jpg" /></a></div>
Please stop me. I have grandiose ideas of decking out the house for autumn – gourds,
pumpkins, wheat, corn, maybe a festive wreath of colorful foliage. This is what happens
when I consume too much Martha Stewart, Real Simple and Better Homes & Gardens.
I imagine cute little tin buckets wrapped with burlap ribbon and filled with gold and
burgundy flowers. The reality is a faded, rumpled plaid tablecloth decorated with a few
drips of candle wax. Little pumpkins and other such decorative items end up sprawled
over the surface and buried under mail and the paper detritus the girls shed daily.<br />
<br />
I love autumn, though. I have fond memories of childhood autumns, which is kind of odd
because in South Georgia autumn isn’t a very colorful season. Leaves go brown and fall
off – none of the lovely reds, yellows and oranges you see further north. But autumn was
when school began (and end to the incredibly hot, oppressive, boring summer), and the
state fair brought its diesel-soaked excitement to town, and Halloween – well what kid
doesn’t like Halloween?
Autumn here is so much prettier.<br />
<br />
In previous years we made a few attempts at some
regional activities. Apple picking was something of a bust. Turns out that you can’t just
pick apples; you have to pay an entry fee to the orchard, which is a-bustlin with cloggers,
food vendors, petting zoos, “museums” (some rusty farm implements in a ramshackle
old building), kiddie events, and very long lines to the one restroom. My kids declared
the curly fried potatoes a success but weren’t much interested in the actual apple picking
process. Another year we went to a corn maze. That was my bright idea. Since when did
hayrides mean perching uncomfortably on some bales behind a noisy tractor, breathing
in diesel fumes? Although we had a map, we had some problems navigating the maze.
Firecracker gave out and had to be carried, and Dear Husband started wheezing. Nature
does that to him.<br />
<br />
Fall is also the time when every school and church has some sort of festival. I inevitably
forget when they are. There are also school fundraisers, which is why I’m getting those
issues of Martha Stewart. You know, I found a recipe in one of them for blueberry ice
pops that – I kid you not – called for you to steep white pine needles in hot water. PINE
NEEDLES, folks. That lady is sick.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I now know the true joy of the season – the fall television premiers.Bad Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09589572246042881069noreply@blogger.com4