Black by Popular Demand

Loving

2012-02-11T16:05:00.012-05:00

In 1958, Virginia residents Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were married in Washington, DC and returned to the state to live together. Mrs. Jeter was black and Mr. Jeter was white. Shortly after their wedding day they were charged with violating Virginia's law against inter-racial marriage and were sentenced to one year in jail. The sentence was suspended provided they move out of the Virginia and not return for at least 25 years. From their new home in Washington, they struggled to appeal their case, which was eventually brought before the Supreme Court. The law was overturned in 1967.

This, my friends, is what most of us now see as progress.

Almost 30 years to the day of that ruling, my husband and I got married in the same state, in a town a mere 45 miles from the one were Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving first met. We booked the wedding on Monday and were married the following Thursday, in a musty anti-chamber room of the Albermarle County Courthouse. No muss, no fuss, in a state where, 30 years previous, it was illegal for a black and white person to to play checkers together on the same porch.

Progress.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I was thinking of this room when I stumbled across an incident that happened just before Christmas in the City Council chamber for the City of Troy in Michigan. If you’re looking for light in the middle of February, this room would probably be the last place you’d look but for one day this past December, a ray shone in that chamber that gave a glimpse of hope to those who believe in - you, guessed it! - progress.

The week before, Mayor Janice Daniels of Troy, Michigan, was publicly admonished at a City Council meeting for her use of an anti-gay slur on her Facebook account. It was discovered that Mayor Daniels wrote a Facebook status update in June using the word “queers” when referring to lesbian and gay people, and saying that she would be throwing away her ‘I Love New York’ carrying bag now that marriage equality has passed in New York state. Widespread upset over Mayor Daniels’ comment ensued, with many residents calling for her resignation. Which is why, at a City Council meeting a few weeks ago, 80 people lined up during the public comment portion to address Mayor Daniels directly and highlight the issues with her inappropriate statement.

It was getting pretty ugly for the mayor, as you might imagine until a woman named Amy approached the Council with her wife, Tina, and their two children. Amy spoke about the love in her own family, and the values that she and Tina have instilled in their daughters. “We talk every day about different families, and different types of people, and teaching respect and kindness. And that is the heart that beats in our home – it’s about being kind, about choosing love over everything.” She then presented the mayor with a gift: two drawings that her daughters had made. The goal was for the mayor to carry the picture with her and to remember to keep thoughts of kindness and love in her heart whenever she looked at them. In her parting thoughts, Amy encouraged Mayor Daniels to see this situation as an opportunity to step up in support of all Michigan residents, including lesbian and gay people.

Stories like these are gifts. Not only do they remind us how damaging anti-gay messages send to individuals and families but, more importantly, they show us that true kindness is loving people despite the differences you might have for them. Loving them regardless of who they do, or don’t, like. Like Amy, I prefer to see challenges as opportunities to grow and change and I felt different after reading about what she did in that dingy council chamber in Troy. Hopeful, even, that there are people out there who have the courage to lead by example. Amy and her family, like Mildred and Richard Loving three decades before, performed a miracle of sorts: they turned a worn out city council chamber into a school room where I learned a lesson in, love, courage and - you guessed it! - progress.

But I know rooms like that. I got married in one.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Joy School

2012-01-31T17:11:00.007-05:00

Joy.., a photo by Ayham Al-Hamwi on Flickr.

When my kids were small, I often used TV time as a way to catch some z's (Yes, it was D minus parenting, at best, but a girl had to get some sleep somehow, yeah?) Those few moments when I could close my eyes and quietly recharge my batteries were bliss and thanks to PBS Kids programming, I was able to do it with the possibly-misguided sense that even for this one half-hour, my kids were learning without my having to actively engage them with educational toys on our un-vacuumed carpet. Success!

One day, as I was drifting in and out of sleep, I heard the following exchange on a show my son was watching called BIG TRUCKS (the caps are NOT mine. Those last ones were but the one's from the title were not, so....oh, you know what I mean!):

Truck #1: I’m so big. While these men are up in my basket, two firefighters are working on me down below.

Truck #2: Wow! Lucky!

Unbelievable. And to think, if I had been asleep, I'd have missed that entirely. From that day forward, I made a vow to myself that I would always look for something ordinary to elevate my day. Some days it's the way the breeze blows life into a shirt on a clothesline. Or the feeling you get when you know your workout is over. Neil Pasricha touched on it in his great book, The Book Of Awesome, and it's a torch that everybody would do well to pick up. Searching out joy in the every day is a gift that has lent unprecedented pleasure to my life. And I have a dirty-talking truck to thank for it. Thank you, Universe!

Here are just a few things in which I've found joy over the past week.

This is the spoon I use to stir my morning tea. It's an original Gerber baby spoon that I got at the auction for $5. I had to buy all of these

in order to get it. It was worth it.

This made me laugh.

This was delicious. And perfectly green inside.

Find your joy now, dammit!

Old Journal Love

2012-01-23T10:15:00.004-05:00

03/30: UK Journals 11 and 12, a photo by JustaPlaneRideAway on Flickr.

Last week, while nursing a wine hangover on a Sunday, I made the terrible choice to watch back -to- back episodes of Hoarders. Don't judge. Train-wreck television has it's advantages. One of which is the overwhelming desire to go down into your basement and immediately discard several boxes worth of paper that you are holding onto for no reason whatsoever. Very cleansing.

While I was wading through the morass, I stumbled upon several old journals that I kept while in university. It was a wince-fest, interweb. A rabbit hole of angst. They were so full of melancholy and over-wrought emotion that, at one point, I wondered why I hadn't burned them in a cleansing fire. But then I got to this entry and then I realized why I had held onto them all of these years. Never mind that I made the shocking realization that all I have ever done is make lists (!) but every once in a while I would write something so pointless that it brought me to tears.

So, for your reading enjoyment, I have chosen a plumb entry for you to howl at. I haven't posted a date because I want you to believe that this was waaaaaay in my past. Also: Don't feel bad for thinking less of me here. It really is a living, breathing Adele song well before it's time, y'all.

God I need a boyfriend! How long can I go on like this!! Do want reasons, journal? I'll give you a few:

I have some tough jars that need opening. I'm doing THAT by myself.
I need someone to make laugh when I've smoked a joint. I'm watching Roseanne instead.
I don't understand why listening to Lionel Ritchie "Hello" is annoying to my neighbour. I boy might have pointed that out sooner.
I want to tell someone about watching a dog eating concrete when I was thirteen but none of my girlfriends seemed to be interested. Maybe a boy would?
Hearing "I can't even imaging the TYPE of guy you're going to end up with....." is compromising some of my more fragile female relationships. Some of my male one's, too, come to think of it.
I went out with a guy who makes sculptures out of stale bread. For more than a week.
I spent a half-hour listening to a physicist friend of a friend explain the term "gravitational pull" to me - a term I understood! - just so that I could stare at at this cute beauty mark he had just under his eye.

Too much. By the way, I married the guy described in the last entry. It was between him and the bread sculptor. I think I made the right choice.

Thanks journal!

I'm Hungry.

2012-01-12T10:08:00.013-05:00

Froot Loops pops, a photo by thedecoratedcookie on Flickr.

I have never been a big candy-eater but this year, I decided that I would cut it out of my diet entirely. The result? I can't stop thinking about it. So, as a therapeutic exercise I decided to write down all of the candy I have been thinking about with the hope that setting them to paper would banish them from my mind. That's when I started to notice a strange pattern. Here's a list of foods that you can put in your mouth by simply sticking out your tongue:

Popcorn
Nerds
Pop Rocks
Cheerios
Cheetos
Most dry cereals, actually
Pirate booty
Pixie sticks
Fun Dip
Hershey' Kisses
Raisinettes
Smarties
Cotton Candy
M & M's
Sprinkles
Pretzels
Chocolate shavings
Pringles
Peanuts
Ice cream
Sour Patch Kids
Sunflower seeds
The crumbs at the bottom of the chip bag

Honorable mention: Cheese (cubed only).

Crazy right?

My Top 5 - Book Edition

2012-01-04T08:55:00.016-05:00

Last year, instead of making meaningful connections with humans, I stayed home and read 44 books. Actually, I didn't just read at home. I read at the cottage, in the chairs of various medical practitioners, on trains, planes and automobiles and once while running with a friend. The last one didn't turn out so well, as you might well have imagined. Many of the tomes have been good, some were excellent, some pure shite but all were well worth the time. Here is my list of the top five. (N.B. The first entry counts for 3)

If you're ever looking for a book that will completely snatch your life away from you for a week or so, might I suggest this young-adult series by Suzanne Collins? The Hunger Games books are about a future dystopian society of 12 districts in the remains of what we know as North America. Ruled with an iron fist by the evil Capitol, their trademark form of oppression is a twisted reality TV show called “the Hunger Games” in which 24 children called tributes must fight to the death each year. The story begins when a girl called Katniss who is forced to fight in these games- a cross between the Roman gladiator games and Survivor - and ultimately winds up the reluctant figurehead of the rebellion that overthrows the tyranny of the Capitol. Sounds simple, right? Oh, if only......

This is not a book for the faint of heart. Or the literal-minded. Like in George Orwell's 1984 (another dystopian book my mind kept turning to as I plowed forward), the state perverted the language in order to deprive the populace of any means of dissent. In the case of The Hunger Games, the Capitol has focused on a fundamental aspect of human nature -in this case, it's the idea that children need to be protected - in order to keep it in line. Forcing children to kill one another, turning innocent children into murderers for the entertainment of others, is corrupt beyond imagining but what makes the difficult subject readable (and relatable) is how successfully Collins paints the canvas. For a YA writer, she doesn't pander to her YA audience but rather reflects back the ickiest aspects that are happening right now in the stormy psyche of our culture. Manipulating our bodies for the pleasure of others? Check. Changing the rules of the game before we're half-way through? Check. Forcing people to believe a regime stands for one thing while doing the other? Check. Author Suzanne Collins has created a fun-house mirror that at it best makes us question those aspects of our own culture we need to take a closer look at. And that she does all this without using vampires and werewolves? Genius.

The characters in Bullfighting are all male and in the midst of things: midway through life, midway up the social ladder, midway through raising their kids. Like their children, they are at a difficult age. But what sets them apart, is their vantage point. The characters in these stories may feel their hearts murmur and their joints creak, but they still have a lot of living to do.

In his newest collection of stories, Irish writer and Booker-winner Roddy Doyle characters move from classrooms to crematoriums, local pubs to bullrings and within the first few sentences make you feel as though you are eavesdropping on each of their forbidden thoughts and fears. In "Recuperation," a man sets off for a prescribed walk around his neighbourhood, the sights triggering memories and recollections of his wife, his children, his younger days. In another, "Animals", George remembers caring for his children's many pets, his efforts to spare them grief when they die or disappear, looking, in the eyes of his wife, like a hero, like "your man from ER." It is something when a story can make you laugh and cry within the span of a paragraph and Doyle does this brilliantly and with almost little effort. When was the last time you read a book about middle-age that made you wish you could stay in that place? Until Bullfighting, the desire would have seemed ludicrous. But an afternoon wading into this collection is a compelling argument for visiting a place you always thought you should avoid. Who knew the male, middle-aged mind could be such a great place to hang out?

Dear Tina Fey-

For all of your efforts to depict yourself in your brilliant book, Bossypants as “a little tiny person with nothing to worry about running in circles, worried out of her mind,” you have failed utterly. You cannot fool me. In fact, to be fair, you're fooling know one. You are funny, self-deprecating, wickedly observant and, by far, the smartest person in the room. Need I remind you to refer to the title of this opus?

In this crazy, jumbled memoir-esque collection of riffs, essays, laundry lists, true stories, fantasy scenarios, SNL script excerpts, and embarrassing photos from the wilderness years , you have managed the literary equivalent of a satisfying night of sketch comedy. From your dorky years in Upper Darby, Pa., to the long days and nights on SNL, from Liz Lemon to your turn as Sarah Palin, there isn't a moment where I didn't wish that you were someone with I could call up when life got ridiculous.

While you make jokes at your own expense, you manage to reveal and maintain an inviolable sense of privacy which is no small feat. I love your list of beauty secrets. I love your comparative charts on the experiences of being “very very skinny” and “a little   bit fat.” I plan to steal your imaginary response to a rude Internet commenter: “First let me say how inspiring it is that you have learned to use a computer.” I don't wonder how you juggle it all. I don't wanna know. Just keep it coming. And stay bossy. That's the way we like you.

Sincerely,

Laura

When in Doubt: Make a List

2011-12-22T17:37:00.006-05:00

RADIOLAB: Laughter, a photo by Nick Iluzada on Flickr.

It’s nearly the time of year when we all make brave/bold/ambitious New Year's resolutions. I tend not to because I never see them through so I’m making a different type of list this year. This is my 1st annual Things I'm Glad I Learned this Year Which I'll Hopefully Remember Next Year list. I hope it catches on.

The best reading is re-reading.
Renovating is great in theory. Shitty in practice.
You can get sick of eating ribs.
Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes the problem.
It's important to be kind to everyone. Especially to those who you know don't feel the same.
If you're not failing, you're not living. Or trying hard enough.
Bad meals will put you in a foul mood and should, therefore, be avoided.
Bad movies can be enlightening.
Happiness is a choice.
Bacon makes everything better.
Kids are smarter than you think.
Nothing feels better than waking up next to someone who you know loves you.
Swimming naked is better than with a bathing suit.
Kids can be jerks, too.
Sleeping in a hammock is very satisfying.
A chipmunk landing in your hammock while sleeping? Not so much.
Making someone laugh is The. Best.

Anything to add?

What's That Ringing in my Ears? Oh, It's the Sounds of Christmas!!!

2011-12-08T22:08:00.009-05:00

Last week, I was in the city doing a little bit of shopping when the clerk at my favourite cheese shop - who's amp, by the way, is always at 11 on the "I love my Job" meter- told me that the reason she was looking and feeling a little depressed was due to the fact that she was dreading the weekend. Why I asked? Did you have a horrible task to attend to? A funeral to attend? A children's Christmas concert, perhaps? No she told me and then leaned in conspiratorially so that no one but I could hear. "This is the weekend we will be turning on the Xmas music". Ah, I said with a knowing nod of my head. I then doubled my order and told her I wouldn't see her until after the New Year when they would go back to playing whatever music they slap on that makes me buy more Boursin than any human should reasonably eat.

Every year, millions of people head out to gather gifts their family will tire of in a fortnight and find themselves needlessly exposed to Christmas music. Would it surprise you to know that when U.S. soldiers at Abu Grahib wanted to break the will of their Iraqi prisoners they chose "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth"? I'm not because every time I hear the less-than-dulcet tones of Bruce Springsteen warning me that Santa Claus is coming to town, I want to put Amnesty International on speed dial.

I should come clean: I don't hate Christmas. I like the idea of universal fellow feeling. I’ve made my peace with consumerism. Plus; I enjoy getting presents. What I don't like, however, is having music I despise shoved down my throat every time I step into a Shopper's Drug Mart to buy feminine products. Here are a few things I would rather hear than Christmas music:

a jackhammer
a cat in heat
a mosquito in my ear
anything by Keasha
fingers on a chalkboard
an old school computer modem
a colicky baby
Ben Stein
Nancy Grace
a drunken karaoke singing "Don't Stop Believing"

And while we're on the subject, why does every second song have to be a question? Do They know it's Xmas? What Child is This? What Time is Santa Coming to Drop off the Bootie? I might have made the last one up.

ANYWAY.

Here is the point (and it's more a desperate plea at this point) : for every Xmas song played, throw in a favourite song of that year. Wonderful Xmas, by Wings followed by Halocene by Bon Iver, for instance. All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey followed by Helena Beat by Foster the People. You feel me? For every mallet hit of Xmas cheer, a lovely ear worm. It would make the season brighter.

Food Rules

2011-11-22T18:28:00.003-05:00

I have a bit of a confession: I am a bit of a routine queen. I like my universe to be in a certain order and will often go to great lengths and pain - to myself AND others - to ensure that it remain so. I can't sleep without making my bed first, for instance, and haven't slept in an unmade bed since Nixon resigned. For my entire primary school career, I packed the same lunch - peanut butter and jam sandwich, juice in a thermos, cookies and a piece of fruit - and ate in the exact same order every day. With no deviation. Ever. Sick, right? Monk has nothing on my ass.

The problem with being a slave to routine and ritual, of course, is that it doesn't lend itself to a life with a ton of spontaneity which, of late, I've come to see as a bit of a character flaw. So, over the summer, one of my personal objectives was to change things up a little. I let things sort themselves out with little in the way of "personal interference", if you will, and, instead, ran my life on the path it naturally set for itself as opposed to cleaving to the grand plan I mapped out in my head. I didn't get in my own way, as they say in therapy speak.

Guess what I learned? Going with the flow: it sucks, y'all! I am a bag of toys without a consistent schedule. Meals, daily grooming and exercise, childrearing, none of these things get done with any consistency - Hell, at all!- if I don't set them to a time of day. It made my nerves so bad not to know what I was doing on a daily basis that I almost had a nervous breakdown a few times. I was like Jeremy Renner's character in The Hurt Locker, trapped in a world that expects me to make decisions in the cereal aisle of life when all I really know is wearing a helmet that looks like a giant fishbowl and defusing the same bomb over and over and over again. So I dialled it back, reverted to my old ways and made a little promise to myself that I would change it up occasionally but not as a rule, as my poor, regimented system couldn't handle the strain. Baby steps, right?

Which is why I love the new book by Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. Was this book made for me or what? Firstly, it is festooned with illustration by my God, Maira Kalman, the greatest illustrator on the planet. And it's a book. With rules. About food. I really doesn't get any better, non? Here are just a few of the wisdoms you'll find therein:

Do all of your eating a table
Don't become a short order cook
Enjoy drinks that have been caffeinated by nature, not science.
The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead.
Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.

May I recommend that this book appear in every one's stocking?

Long Live the Turtle (Neck)!

2011-11-04T16:22:00.000-04:00

In our home, the change of season is marked NOT by the turning back of the clock but by my switch from t-shirt to turtleneck. It is a sad day when this happens for it means that the cold is about to set in and we will, for six months at least, be subjected to soup for dinner at least once a week and complaints from both young and old alike that we can't find our other mitten. Sigh.

Though turtlenecks have long been associated with arty intellectuals, turkeyneck-hiding old ladies and sexless Christmas sweaters, I have always loved and worn them. Actually, I always thought that my love for the turtleneck came from a compliment I received once in my twenties. I was at a party at a friend's apartment in Montreal and flirting heavily with a young gentleman with whom I shared an existential philosophy course, a course, I should say, that I signed up for - foolishly! - and should have gotten out of waaaay before I did, but waited past the due date before realizing that my brain couldn't handle it. I turned, instead, to the wearing of the turtleneck as a solution to my problem. Dress like an intellectual, feel like an intellectual. Clever, right? Wrong. Ever the fraud, I remember secretly wishing that my bus would get t-boned on the way to my final exam.

But I digress.

The object of my affection was looking at me attentively while I blathered on about one thing or another until he interrupted with this: You look like Audrey Hepburn in your turtleneck, did you know that? I was speechless. I know that for certain woman, Audrey Hepburn is an icon of beauty and fashion. Her petite frame and gamine haircut have been copied by hundreds of starlets and co-eds, with varying degrees of success. In fact, a few months before the compliment was uttered, there had been an Audrey Hepburn festival at the revival cinema a few blocks from my apartment. Posters of her likeness were still plastered everywhere, her wide eyes and big mouth assaulting me from the sides of abandoned buildings and enveloping me in the shelter as I waited for the bus. She was a beautiful woman, there is no doubt. But to a 5 foot 10 inch black lady? There really is no weirder compliment.

I turned to my complimenter and simply shook my head. Yeah, I said with a pause. You're reaching. And, I added, you've probably had enough to drink, I think. He stood staring, bleary eyed before getting up from his perch on the arm of a couch and puking into a nearby plant. I guess that's why, for me, turtlenecks have to be about something besides a movie star. And as an added bonus: I can only conjure the image of a ponytailed man vomiting every time I see a movie still from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Some images simply endure forever.

I think Audrey would agree.....

I Don't Heart Raccoons

2011-10-20T19:48:00.001-04:00

raccoon, a photo by tobin eckian on Flickr.

Dear Racoon-Who-Invades-My-Garbage-Can-Like-a-Maurauding-Vampire-Every-Night,

Did you enjoy the 25 pound weight that I put on the garbage can last night? And the red pepper flakes I spread on it in order to make it more appetizing? Did you enjoy those, too? How about the bungy cord criss-crossed all over all of that? Are you thinking twice about choosing my place as you All-You-Can-Tear-into-and-Destroy Buffet? If not, I hope you will carefully re-think your choice in the coming nights. Cause it's on, brother. I will eff you up.

So, what drew you to my house in the first place? Was it the trees? The lovely, well-cared-for yard? The feeling of peace and serenity? Or was it the overwhelming feeling that, yes, this MUST be the house where a nice black lady with an over-arching sense of order will REALLY go crazy if I spread all of last night's dinner and most of this past week's peelings all over her driveway and porch? I'm curious.....

For the record, aren't you suppose to be a wild animal? Isn't there is a forest a few miles away that would take you with open arms? Where if you actually made the effort to access the hunting skills that Nature programmed into your DNA, you might find dinner? But you don't wanna do that now, do you? No, because that would actually be classified as work, right? And it looks to me like you'd rather spend your nights busting into easy prey (sponsored by Rubbermaid) than actually get busy on something you might have to chase.

Yours is not a discriminating palate either, is it, fella? Stale bread? Old chicken carcasses? This is your fist choice for food, huh? Interesting. And is it more delicious when you eat them under my car, or is that just where you had a party with the eggshells afterwards? I don't mean to pry but it's what I was thinking about when I was prying them off of the asphalt. The same asphalt that the sun shone on for a few hours before I discovered them making the driveway and entire surrounding area smell like a slaughterhouse. Oh, and a big thank you for really grinding them in there. Nice touch! It's was especially nice trailing them indoors and pick them out of the carpet for three- No, four! - days afterwards. You are a scamp!

Have you figured it out, yet? Have you figured out that you chose the wrong lady to piss off? That I hate you? That of all the houses, in all of this town that you could have chosen you, you made a mistake in choosing mine? If I haven't then come by again tonight. I've been thinking of the millions of ways I'd like to wipe that mask off of your face and I'd love to try a few of them out.

2011-10-07T09:21:00.000-04:00

Every year come Thanksgiving, my thoughts inevitably turn, not to overeating and dysfunctional family dynamics, but to my wedding. Yes, I was technically married on same date in July that only my mother-in-law seems to remember (July 24? Or is it the 25th?) but it was on Thanksgiving weekend that we had the reception. And as we all know, it's the reception where the real fun happens. Mine was no exception.

Every year we run through some of the highlights from that special day and they never fail to crack us up. Here are a few of my favourite moments (In certain cases, I have changed names to protect the innocent:

My friend, Jim, from The Jim Show, juggled bowling balls during the dinner. He wanted to juggle frozen turkeys but I couldn't find any on such short notice.

A friend of the groom's got so drunk that he ended up falling asleep on the floor of the restaurant where our reception was taking place. Don't worry. It was under a table. We ended up taking him home to our honeymoon suite because he couldn't remember the address of the place where he was staying that night. Good times.

A friend of the bride's had a nap half-way through the reception. She slept on three chairs and used a table cloth as a blanket. She woke up, continued partying and was one of the last to leave. I have since used this technique at other weddings.

My 75- year old Nana introduced herself to everyone as "a friend of the family". Later on in the evening, she walked in on two friends getting it on in the ladies restroom. She told them to make sure that they washed their hands afterwards. They assure me that they did.

I drank 400 gin and tonics and never got a buzz. Much to my chagrin, I have not been able to duplicate this since that day.

Enjoy your Turkey Day!

Your Music Kinda Smells Funny

2011-09-24T09:24:00.001-04:00

Day 268: Too Loud!, a photo by matt.koenig on Flickr.

The other day, I gave a friend a lift home in the rain (The same friend who, several years ago, told me to "Leave my name out of it if you ever blog about me, k? I mean it!!" Which I will do now not only because I am a woman of my word but, also, because I'm slightly afraid of what she'll do to me if I don't.) We were chatting away (read as, I was chatting away) when I noticed that she was getting a strange look on her face. The kind of look that you get when smell a bad odour, if you get me.

Nameless Friend: Is this the radio?
Me: No. It's my iPod.
Nameless Friend: Are you kidding me?!!!
Me (clueless): Yeah. Why?
Nameless Friend (incredulous): Because we are listening to Christopher Cross, Francis! Christopher Cross, for the love of God!!! From the eighties?!!!

And that's when I realized it. My iPod was on random. And I had been caught listening to Arthur's Theme. In my car. Between the moon and New York City. I know it's crazy. But it's true. (You know I had to do that, right?) While Nameless laughed her ass off and banged her hand uproariously on my dash, I busied myself trying to find an Arcade Fire track that might restore my dignity and street cred, not to mention cleanse the car of shame. All of this whilst driving and dying a thousand deaths. Multitasking, yet again.

Let me see your iPod then, Jag-Off! I yelled in defense. I bet you have something in there you wouldn't want people to know about. That shut her up quick. She clutched her purse protectively and swung her head from side to side like she was shaking a giant bug from her hair. NO! NO! she screamed. I won't let you look! Do I even need to tell you that I wrestled her in her front yard, got the iPod and then ran three blocks from her home with her trailing me from behind while frantically scrolling through her song list? Well I did! And worry not, fair readers! I hit pay dirt with Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy), by Big and Rich. How you like me now, Nameless?

The digital age leaves little room for deniability. I know this first hand now. And, in the spirit of full disclosure, here are a few more embarrassing finds from my device.

Low - Flo Rida - This song is wrong on soooo many levels. It's a song about a guy going to watch a stripper, for God's sake! But every time my husband puts it on - usually really loud when we he is in his boat at the cottage- he pretends like he's a gang-banger and gets this totally greevy look on his face that completely cracks me up. The kids actually call it, Daddy's song now. I know. How can something so wrong be so right?

I'm Coming Out — Diana Ross- OK, here’s the deal. A friend got hitched a few years back and the playlist was filled with dance hits from the early 1980s and mid 1990s. I danced with such abandon to this song with the bride's gay cousin that I felt like I had been transported to The Limelight, circa 1982. That feeling is lightening in a bottle, people, and I get it every time I hear that song. It stays.

Who Can it Be Now? - Men at Work- There is crack in this song. I have no excuse.

Can You Feel It? Black Eyed Peas - Let me be clear: I hate this song more than Senator Anthony Weiner hates the bitter taste of regret. But it lives in my iTunes. At least until 5 minutes after I publish this post, anyway. That shit is GONE.

Now, I know I am not the only naked person in the pool. What embarrassing songs do you have on your iPod?

Thrown Under the Bus? No More!

2011-09-13T12:46:00.001-04:00

Thrown Under the Bus, a photo by I, Rodius on Flickr.

Every once in a while, a saying worms its way into our cultural consciousness that leaves you questioning your will to live. Where's the beef? comes to mind. WHAZZUUUUP! another. What you talking bout, Willis? Need I go on? My current lexi- enemy is the now-ubiquitous term, Getting thrown under the bus. Hell, my eye twitched just writing it.

For those of you new to the planet, the term is an idiomatic phrase meaning to sacrifice another person (often a friend or ally), who is usually not deserving of such treatment, out of malice or for personal gain. Apparently, it was picked up by the mainstream media during the 2008 primary season when it was frequently been used to describe various politicians distancing themselves from unpopular or controversial figures. David Segal, a writer for The Washington Post, went on to call the expression "the cliché of the 2008 campaign." Well guess what, Dave? We are leading up to a new primary season, and all I can ask myself, is, Why! Dear Lord! Why?! must I keep having to hear this phrase day after day?

My Waterloo with the line came last night while watching Project Runway, of all things. In this particular episode, silver fox/mentor Tim Gunn empathized with a contestant who was having difficulties with a team challenge. I don’t want your role to be so trivialized that you’re thrown under the bus, he cautioned and as he patted her on the back. That's when I lost it, interweb. Lost. It. So this is what it has come to. It’s not enough to use the phrase after people have been thrown under the bus or to comment on bus-throwing-unders as they are happening. Now, like an insatiable fungus, this godforsaken blight on the English language has spread its tendrils to the subjunctive, and we are INVENTING situations in which someone COULD be thrown under the bus so that we may remark upon those! (N.B. To be fair, in the Project Runway universe, contestants exist only to be thrown under an enormous bus. It is the way of the show. It doesn't lessen the intensity of my ire, however, when I have to hear the term used out loud. By Tim Gunn, of all people. Sheesh!)

There must have been a time when the term was fresh as a summer breeze and didn't stink up the joint like it does now, non? According to Wikipedia (where, sadly, there is an entire entry for it. Yes. Really.), the phrase harkens back to the writer Charles Bukowski, purveyor of all things skid row. In his work Septugenarian Stew published in 1990, one of his characters, Harry, pushes his friend, Monk, in front of a bus. While Monk lays unconscious and probably dying in the street, Harry steals his wallet and goes directly to a bar where he spends Monk's money by buying himself two double whiskeys. Later, he goes to a steakhouse where, again, using Monk's money, buys two beers and two Porterhouse steaks with fries. Go easy on the grease, he tells the waiter.

It is not a moment that launched a thousand Hallmark cards, to be sure. But a catch phrase? Could Bukowski have known that this scene would paint an image that would inspire millions - some, like me, to complete and utter distractions- each day? Maybe this is the silver lining, then. Maybe this is Bukowski's revenge: that he managed to wheedle his way into the zeitgeist way past his due date. When you look at it that way, all I can say is, Touche, sir. Well played. But to the rest of you who insist on keeping the bus-throwing dream alive I say this: Stop. Saying. That. NOW! Go easy on the grease.

Making The Corrections

2011-09-08T10:59:00.000-04:00

Might I direct your attention to the far right side of this blog. (No! Not that right! This right!) Do you see that column that indicates all of the books I've read so far this year? It's a pretty long list so far, huh? Are you impressed? Don't be because if I'd had my way, this list would stretch the length of my arm. Allow me to explain why it isn't.

Every summer, before I head to my top secret retreat, I build a pile of reading materials that I try to get through in between trips to the washing machine. This summer, however, in a joint effort to both improve myself and purge my shelf of some unwanted material, I made an effort to take out and read only those books that I owned and had not yet read. There were books I'd been given and told to read by pain of death, some had been picked up on the road while travelling, with a few birthday presents from year's past and garage sale finds sprinkled in for good measure. It was a very big, very daunting pile but, no matter! I piled them into a Land's End boat tote and headed off to the land of washing dishes by hand and worrying about the dump schedule. Good times.

The project got off to a great start. By the end of the first week, I had knocked three books off the pile. Yay me! I'm gonna eff you up list! The next week brought two easy reads before Wednesday. This is like shooting fish in a barrel, I thought, as I reached towards an Ann Tyler novel paperback that'd stolen from the dentist office. I was getting cocky. I needed a challenge. And then I saw it. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Hadn't the entire world crapped themselves over this book? Isn't he the only author to have spurned Oprah? Wasn't it time that I discovered just how good/bad/indifferent I should be to this novel? Why not I thought, as I removed the book jacket and started to read. And so began my trip down the rabbit hole that is The Corrections.

How do I begin to describe just how depressed I became while reading this book? How do I begin to dissect a book that left me in a state of intellectual torpor for weeks afterwards? So much so that I couldn't pick up anything deeper than US Weekly (What's the point of reading, I kept telling myself. It all pointless, isn't it?). And more importantly, how do I begin to explain that despite all of this, it is really the only book I have thought about for two straight months?

The Corrections is a skillful, disquieting examination of a severely dysfunctional Mid-Western family - The Lamberts - as they make an effort to fulfill their mother's desire to have one last perfect Christmas with their Parkinson's afflicted father. To say these people are messed up is really understating the case and they are, each of them in their own twisted way, looking towards ritual and routine to provide any vestige of happiness or sincere emotional connection to their already shaky foundations. And so Christmas hangs over the family in this book like mistletoe but, it ends up, by books end, causing them more grief than joy. The happy family reunion that Mama Lambert ends up hoping for never materializes, of course. Same goes for the rest of the family members whose lives are heaped with turmoil of one kind or the other. Characters medicate themselves with happy pills or sleep with married people in order to feel connection of any kind. Gary, the family's eldest, looks for joy in cooking for his children which, in the beginning starts as a weekly family event, but later turns into yet another cause of his growing depression. What Franzen confronts about our modern world is how the rituals we have embraced have become disorienting and empty. We take our medication to be happy, but are unsure of whether our happiness is really a sham. We encourage sociality in our families with special dinners around the table, but those dinners might end up feeling like mere pageantry disguising unhappy lives.

Buzzkill, right?

And then I got it. Like the Lamberts, most of us are committed - ambivalently or otherwise - to some pretty miserable routines. What Franzen suggests is that this is our modern dilemma: creating stability in a deeply unstable and contradictory world. Just as Enid Lambert eventually learns from her vacation with her husband Alfred on a cruise boat, to avoid tumbling overboard, we are compelled to constantly adjust our balance.

Certain books have that uncanny, almost, magic ability to speak to us about our time. They prop a mirror up to our culture and speak to us in a way that, to be perfectly frank, can lead to uncomfortable resolutions about ourselves. And that's why I dropped that book full of unread shiite off at the dump on my way home for the summer. I had to make the corrections. I have Jonathan Franzen to thank for that.

The World According to Leon

2011-09-01T17:27:00.004-04:00

Forgive me, blogosphere. It's been too damn long since my last posting. I repeat: Too. Damn. Long.

For those of you who were not aware, for the last 2 months I have been sequestered in a witness protection-type of program with the members of my immediate family. Although I cannot divulge the exact location of said program nor the reason why I was sent there (I might blow my cover, people. My deep, deep cover...), I can say that the time spent away from the rigors of my normal, every day existence were beneficial to my general well-being and psyche. That it coincided with the beginning and ending of the school holiday break was only a coincidence, really. Just a coincidence. That said, a big shout out must go out to my good friends, Wolf Blass and Kim Crawford for getting me through this difficult period. I could not have done it without you.

I did have occasion this summer to host a fair number of guests at my top secret domicile and it gave me occasion to ponder the very nature of the houseguest. The mark of a good one, I've been told, is their ability to stay for a good time, not a long time. (There is another homily about guests and fish, too, that you often see embroidered on pillows in your finer homes but I'm not a lover of fish analogies of any kind, so I'll it leave it to your imagination. ) I prefer, instead, to draw my best illustration from the murky pond of popular culture and in the pantheon of fictional houseguests that span from Blanche DuBois to Mork from Ork, perhaps none has wreaked as much havoc in the lives of their hosts as the character of Leon Black.

Leon, from my favorite show Curb Your Enthusiasm, is the underdressed layabout and willfully vulgar foil of the producer and main character Larry David. Leon landed on the show when his family moved in with Larry after being displaced from Hurricane Katrina and his job - besides eating Larry out of house and home and never paying rent - seems to be to lay down the wisdom on Larry. Leon, with his aggressive posturing — in one episode Leon literally steals the shirt off the back of a pedestrian because Larry believed the shirt was his — and hilarious one liners ("You have to bring the ruckus, Larry!") seems to exist to transgress as many taboos as possible. He has no deeper agenda beyond bringing on what he does best.And what is that exactly, you may ask?

Keeping it real.

Here is a perfect example of that:

Consider me inspired. Look out blogosphere! This year, I intend to bring the Leon.

Am I Alone, People?

2011-06-24T16:41:00.003-04:00

monkey eats popcorn, a photo by gilesbooth on Flickr.

Last week, my son and I ditched one of his after-school activities so that we might get started on our "Summer Must See Movies" list. A ++ parenting, non? As we sat in the darkened theatre and waded through the super-lame previews that kick start most summer (and winter, for that matter) films, it dawned on me that there was only one thing I've always found annoying about the movie- watching experience. Popcorn. Specifically, the amplified sound of popcorn being chewed.

An informal poll of several of my peer-group, however, garnered slightly distressing result. Are you kidding, Francis, was the common refrain? Popcorn is the best part of the going to the movies! You have a thing against popcorn, said another? For real? It was obvious that I was alone in my hatred.

It wasn't the first time, either. I have discovered that there a more than a few areas in which my observations do not jibe with those of the gen pop. Like my use of the term gen pop, for instance. Here are a few more:

- I despise the way magicians dress.

- I think hand sanitizers are pointless.

- Pretzels should never be eaten alone. They need the rest of the Party Mix.

- Every time I see James Cameron I have to supress the urge not to bust the television

- I still enjoy Woody Allen films

- I don't find The Three Stooges funny

Just wanted to let you all know.

Animal Snuff No More

2011-06-16T14:40:00.009-04:00

When my husband and I cooked up our offspring, the thing we most looked forward to was introducing them to the classic movies that had formed our childhood. How great is it going to be to see these movies again through their eyes, I thought to myself as I sat down to compile a list for their enjoyment? Mid-way through the making of the list, however, I began to notice a troubling trend: Never Cry Wolf, Bambi, Finding Nemo, To Kill a Mockingbird, Sounder. Are you seeing it? How all are either animal or mother snuff film?

Ask 10 random people about the greatest popular-entertainment-related trauma of their childhoods, and you'll probably find it's an even split between the death of Bambi's mom and the death of Old Yeller. So let me ask you this: whence comes the tradition of heartrending children's classics in which a central character spends an entire book caring for and loving a very special animal, only to have it die in the end? The easy answer would be Disney but blaming them for anything is like shooting fish in a barrel. Sadly, most of these classic have been culled from literature where cherishing, nurturing and killing off an animal is as old as the form itself. Hello? Have you re-read The Yearling, lately? Brutal.

Which is why I decided to reverse the trend with my kids by coming up with a radical concept. For every film aimed at a young audience, I would throw in a documentary. It sounds crazy, I know, but if well chosen, a doc can introduce your kids to film making and life concepts that a fish looking for his mom mom simply cannot. And if you can avoid those docs that have extreme violence and sex as a core them (Duh.) - for which their are legion - you won't believe how enjoyable the experience can be.

Our latest in a long line of Should-We-Let-the-Kids Watch-This? - films is the documentary, Man on a Wire. Directed by James March, the film chronicles the events of the morning of Aug. 7, 1974, when a French daredevil named Philippe Petit stepped into the sky above Lower Manhattan and for almost 45 minutes ambled back and forth on a metal cable strung between the towers of the World Trade Centre. The movie starts with Petit talking about how he skirted security to get into the World Trade Centre in the first place, and then it works backward and forward until the story is complete—right through the nerve-wracking, awe-inspiring moment when Petit steps into the chasm and enchants the world. My son watched this as if he were in a trance and afterwards, we had as deep conversation as you can have with a ten-year-old about everything we had just seen. From the film's theme of pursuing your dreams despite the odds, to the importance of teamwork to why people want to do things like this in the first place. And as an added bonus: no animals were killed in the telling. Brilliant!

N.B. I also highly recommend Spellbound, a fantastic doc about kids participating in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee and Sharkwater. Both excellent doc- primers!

Talking Bout...Pop Music! Talking Bout....Pop Music!

2011-06-08T08:44:00.018-04:00

In February of this year, a more innocent time, I embarked upon a strange project. It began with a request from my daughter to change the channel on the radio on our short drive to school to the syndicated pop station that for the purposes of this post must remain nameless. ( It does, however, rhyme with "More gin, Radio!" But, I digress.) Now normally, we would listen to the alternative music station enjoyed by both my son and I. (Sending them off to school bathed in the soothing waters of the Foo Fighters made the day seem easier to face, somehow, you know?) This morning, however, I decided to give in. We'll just listen to her station instead of ours for a few weeks, I explained to my son as he watched horrified as I cranked the dial towards this new pop music world. Let's just listen to it and try to embrace what the young kids are listening to these days, I said, as we sat back and let the soulful sounds of Kesha rape our aural canal.

Do any of you remember what it felt like back in 2004 as you watched George Bush become president? You don't remember seeing and hearing that freight train coming and feeling like there was nothing you could do about it? Well, let me ask you this: can you recall a pre-Black Eyed Peas world? Because it was a glorious time. It was a time when R and B singers weren't allowed to use Auto-Tune as training wheels (Sure, this robot helps me sing. But someday I'll do it all by myself!) and groups like Train didn't seem like the least likely group to put out a song entitled, "Hey, Soul Sister".

When I was a kid, my sister would order compilation albums from the TV. They had names like Knockout! and HITS! HITS! HITS! and we would sit and listen to these for hours. It was how we were introduced to some of the most crap-tastical music of the day. We would consume the popular songs like a bag of penny candy but if we let the record ride buried on there was usually an artist on there that didn't get conventional radio play. Louden Wainright was on one of ours. Nick Drake on the album of a friend. Who are these weirdos, we would say when our friends were around? Only to find ourselves strangely moved to listen to them again when no one else was around. Ah, the familiar push and pull of commerce and art!

It's important to remember this when it feels as if pop music has hit an all time low. Pop music has always been ridiculous and disposable. That's why it's called pop. Culture Club was pop. Pat Boone? Pop. Flock of Seagulls? Same, same. When was the last time you heard "I Ran" and thought, Wow, this song is a deep, deep well? And yet that album sold millions and millions of copies. Pop fades with time. Art endures. That's why we will still be listening to Arcade Fire 50 years from now long after the name of Train has been cursed for the last time.

Try to remember this the next time you climb into the car with the kids and one of them twists the dial towards the local pop station. Maybe I'll hear a hidden gem. Maybe I'll hear I'll hear a gem. It's what I keep telling myself.

FOMO

2011-05-29T15:23:00.015-04:00

Mister Rogers, a photo by glindsay65 on Flickr.

There other day, I was approached by a friend who let me know that she was giving up on Facebook. The reason? She felt that reading other people's posts, looking at pictures on other people's walls, made her feel like she was missing out on something. You’re home alone but watching your friends' status updates tell of a great party happening somewhere else. You are aware of more parties than ever before and like gym memberships, adding Bergman movies to your Netflix queue and piling up unread copies of the New Yorker, watching these feeds gives you a sense that you’re not participating and missing out on something.

The feeling she was experiencing has a name and it is FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and many critics of the inter-web believe it will ultimately be the undoing of most social media. But my question is this: hasn't it always been thus? Doesn't this ring of hand-wringing of both the personal and the cultural variety?

Radar equipment companies sell radar equipment to the police as well as to the general public. Clorox is one of the world’s worst polluters of water but they also own Brita who make filters to get the bad stuff out of the water again. Lawyers create mazes that you have to hire a lawyer to escape. Facebook and Twitter create FOMO and also cure it.

Do you see where I am going with this?

Despite the occasional sense that everyone is popping bottles of champagne on city rooftops while I watch Modern Family reruns in my yoga pants, I still love participating in social media. And, believe it or not, seeing what I’m “missing” has shaped how I decide to spend my time. It has reminded me to fill my life with stuff that makes me feel like there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. If I feel like I’m missing out, I see it as a flag that I’m unhappy about something else, an indicator that I need to invest some time in finding my own fun, or a reminder to stay in the moment — even if the moment is just enjoying my friend's photos photos on Facebook!

There can be true meaning in social media—real connections, real friendships, devotion, humor, sacrifice, joy, depth, love. And filling your life with a sense of constant craving and desire (also called defilement, affliction) will make you feel like a slave. Is what we are looking for when we log on? No. What we are looking for is connection and you can find it on the interweb is you look in the right places. It's in the earnest posts of friends who've lost loved ones, in the pictures of their dogs dressed up like movie stars and the heartfelt bragging of their children's accomplishments. It is even in this speech that I found of Mr. Rogers accepting an Emmy. Read this and ask me if the interweb can be so bad when there is this type of stuff to be found on it:

mister rogers went onstage to accept a lifetime acheivement award — and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "all of us have special ones who have loved us into being. would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. ten seconds of silence."

and then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, "i'll watch the time." there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that mister rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. and so they did. one second, two seconds, seven seconds — and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. and mister rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly "may god be with you," to all his vanquished children.

First Time Last

2011-05-16T16:04:00.005-04:00

The Wilrik, a photo by Donald Lee Pardue on Flickr.

The other night I was laying in bed coasting through the channels when I happened upon the film, Requiem for a Dream. My husband is a huge fan of its director -Darren Aronofsky- and he and I had watched it together several years ago. I vividly remember sitting through the entire thing and turning to my husband immediately afterwards and telling him - nay, pronouncing! - with all sincerity, that I was never going to watch that film again. Ever.

For those of you unfamiliar with the film when it was released, Requiem For A Dream was about a lot of things: addiction, exploitation, destitution, loneliness, institutional corruption, the toxins of the media and our get-rich-quick culture, the false promises of the American Dream. Mainly, though, it was about visceral experience and Aronofsky provoked the audience in a visual way to feel these themes with the characters rather than have us sit back comfortably as the characters slowly circled the drain. That's why when Ellen Burstyn's character started to buzz out on pain pills, you started to feel like you were doing the same. When her drug addicted son (Jared Leto) started riding the heroin train, you felt like you were too. Fun times, huh? It was as powerful an anti-drug movie as I had ever seen and probably ever will since. And guess what I learned? I didn't like feeling like a crackhead and never wanted to be in a place where I had to turn tricks to get a fix. Lesson learned, Mr. Aronofsky. Success!

There are definitely films that I will love and cherish forever but there are also those that handily fit into the category described above: first time last. Sometimes, however, I would like to meld the two. I have decided that the best way for this to happen would be to receive the full Lacuna Inc. treatment —that's when a total stranger could with the touch of a "forgetting pen device" wipe away the memory of having seen a certain movie. Then I'd watch Hitchcock’s Psycho again for the first time. And Rushmore. And all of the Godfather movies. I just want a chance to spend an evening getting really invested in the Corleone family. Or watch Bill Murray sink to the bottom of that pool in the middle of his twin's birthday party and feel my heart break. Or watch Janet Leigh and wonder just what she is going to do with all that money. And when she meets Anthony Perkins, I want to sit through that whole awkward, kind of sweet conversation they have over sandwiches without knowing that the wig Norman’s about to put on his head is made of human hair, and not know just where he might have plucked that hair from…

Wouldn't that be nice?

Done, Dammit!

2011-05-13T16:38:00.005-04:00

Here's a little something I've been crapping out for the past two years. I finished it yesterday. I had been thinking about it for several years before I started it. Started it. Stopped it. Loved it.Hated it. Been indifferent to it. Now it's done and I feel.....weird.

I'm sure I'll get over it.

Feeling....Groovy? Not So Much.

2011-05-02T19:50:00.002-04:00

Sleeping in the Praha center, a photo by mihailokg on Flickr.

Nothing makes you feel like you are 100 years old like the following:

1) Falling asleep in front of the television at 9:30 PM. On a Saturday. Before your eight year-old does.

2) Buying a bottle of Crown Royal. For the bag.

3) Complaining to your kids about the size of the speed bumps in a traffic calming zone.

4) Using the word "Cripes". Or "Trousers". Or "Groovy", for that matter.

5) When your body wants exercise but your brain says stay home and read the paper.

6) When you buy something with the Heart Smart label at the supermarket and it gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling.

7) When you consider walking and talking multi-tasking.

8) You get teary listening to the national anthem.

9) You are using a duvet in May 'cause it's chilly in here, don't you find?

Anything to add, intraweb?

2011-04-25T10:51:00.012-04:00

Last week, HBO unleashed a new show on the cable-viewing public called Game of Thrones. Based on a series of wildly-popular fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, the show has been dubbed by many of the critics as a Must Watch if you are into the men-killing-other-men-while-pimped-out-in-fur-coat-style-period-garb-and-bare-breasts-exposing fare that cable has come to be known for these days. Hello, Tudors-fans. Nice to see you.

I have never been much of a fantasy fan, generally, but when I mated with a geek and we made a boy-child, I felt it was my motherly duty to embrace the genre. I watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy dutifully; re-watched all of the Star Wars films of my youth and their urine-soaked prequels. I bought in as best I could. But this Game of Thrones business is some weak kung-fu. Even my husband, who likes all of this crap, proclaimed it bad from the start. And this is the same dude who spent every Wednesday for four years telling me that "This is the absolutely last time I ever watch Lost, again", only to return to the exact same spot on the couch the following week. In short, he invests. But this stuff, he has walked away from after the first episode. If he is a canary in the coal mine then this does not bode well for the Game of Thrones people, I'd say.

Now, I know it takes a while for a series to find it's legs. The first couple of episodes of Lost and The Sopranos were watchable for me only because they managed to mine an atmosphere of claustrophobia and couple it with shadowy mystery and the occasional terrifying example of raw aggression. But GofT's is faltering because there is no nuance. Zero. It just keeps hitting the same tone of impending doom over and over again. And hits it, it does. Like a fat kid on a Smartie. Over and over and over again. Isn't this a show that is supposed to be based on an elaborate fantasy world? Yes, there are magical wolf-dogs and women who wear their hair in a long, overly-brushed style but between the incest, rapes and beheadings, it's difficult not to watch this pretend world without questioning humanity. Did you have to keep the worst aspects of the real world, George R.R.. Martin? (And, by the way, is it necessary to have two initials if you're a writer of epic fantasy tales? And can I see other hands up besides Mr. Tolkien and Mr. Martin to this question?) Heck, even fantasy-world crime solving is based on finding hairs. Can we have some magic here, please?

Actually, don't bother 'cause I'm out. I'd be better off watching Dragon's Den. At least there is some fantasy involved. And Dragons, apparently.

Bridesmaids Movie Trailer Official (HD)

2011-04-19T20:28:00.002-04:00

Can this start today, please? Thanks.

Globe Piece

2011-04-19T08:44:00.003-04:00

Here's a piece I wrote about the cottage that appeared in today's Globe and Mail. Enjoy!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/the-essay/i-never-thought-id-own-a-cottage/article1990131/

The Persistent Myth of "Women Aren't Funny"

2011-04-14T13:04:00.008-04:00

In 1985, cartoonist Alison Bechdel and her friend Liz Wallace decided to come up with a way of examining movies for gender bias. No small feat. The test they came up with posed three questions: Does a movie contain two or more characters who have names? Do those characters talk to each other? And, if so, do they discuss something other than a man? Most movie-goers - of both genders - would not expect movies like "The Expendables" or "The Fast and the Furious" to pass this exam. They don't. But would it surprise you to hear that the majority of comedies you love, also fail? 'Cause the list is long: The 40 Year Old Virgin, The Hangover, The Princess Bride, The Big Lebowski, anything with Adam Sandler. So, why are female roles in comedies lacking when there are so many funny women working in Hollywood?

According to most studio heads it's largely due to date night. Not the mediocre studio comedy of last year starring Tina Fey and Steve Carrell, but actual dates. Here is how it was laid out in The New Yorker:

Studios believe that making comedies for women flout the almighty laws of Date Night, which hold as follows - Men rule. Men decide which movie a couple will see on a given weekend, and any hint that a film involves fashion, pedicures, or female troubles is "man poison"

Both men and women can relate to Kevin James in Paul Blart: Mall Cop.....if that character is played by Tina Fey, it wouldn't work, for the same reason that men can't relate to Rene Zellweger in Bridget Jones Diary. Men just don't understand the nuances of female dynamics. "Often, the woman in the picture is in a movie just to make sure the audience knows the guy is not gay," says actress Catherine O'Hara.

Breathe, Laura. Breathe.

Why does this myth of women not being funny still persist? Is that women are just "fundamentally not funny", as the late John Belushi once said of his female counterparts (What a peach, huh?) or that those who make the movies have simply decided to see it as a cash issue and not a laughs issue? The last ten years or so have brought about some very positive changes in the narrative of women in comedy. Have these studios peeps ever watched an episode of 30 Rock? Seen Kirsten Wiig on SNL? Lifted their knuckles off of the ground long enough to hear the hundreds of female comedians that are out there pounding the pavement in comedy clubs nightly? I thought we were past the days when we let one gender decide what was funny for another.

Comedy has always been a man's world, but there were some bad-ass, ballsy (for lack of a better term) ladies who clawed their way in, who refused to believe the popular assumption that dismissed an entire gender as incapable of making people laugh. Mae West's first movie was in 1932 but before that, she went to prison on morals charges for writing, directing, and starring in a play called “Sex.” You want a bad boy, that's a bad boy. Funny women have always been around — we were just much less willing to see them.

And the great part is, once we realize that we must open our minds, there are twice as many people to laugh at.

N.B. An essay I wrote about buying my cottage will appear in the Fact and Arguments section of The Globe and Mail next Tuesday. I'll be sure to link or repost it here once it appears.

In Dreams

2011-04-06T13:42:00.004-04:00

Dream, a photo by Vjekoslav1 on Flickr.

This week, on three separate occasions, friends or acquaintances made mention that I had occasion to appear in their dreams. When someone is brave enough to confess my role in their night life, I, like a needy actor, almost always find myself curiously inquiring into the status of my role: cameo, supporting or starring? This week, I am pleased to say, I received top billing in all three. You could do worse. Remind me to send my dream agent flowers.

I enjoy appearing in dreams. If, however, if they are not slightly weird or disorienting in the telling, I fight the urge not to show my disappointment. Like the one in which I appeared this week that was dreamt by the lady who runs our local dry cleaning establishment. I've felt a slight chill of late with her and now I know why. It turns out I snubbed her for drinks in a dream and when she awoke it left a bad taste in her mouth that she carried around for the better part of a week. Now that she's confessed, we are on better terms. I've apologized for my un-dream-like dream-behaviour and she no longer unnecessarily scorches my husband's shirts. Everybody wins. Secretly, though, I hoped that she'd tell me that we drank from giant martini glasses filled with Kool Aid while wearing squirrel pelts. She couldn't even remember the outfits we were wearing. Very disappointing.

That said, I try never to dismiss my night dreams or the dreams of others because -without sounding like a total kook -I have always believed that on some level, our dreams are an extension of who we are and how we view the world. And I don't mean this in a pat, over-wrought, I-Believe-The-Children-Are-Our-Future kind of way. I truly believe that dreams are our subconcious' way of sending us a message about the world around us. The fact that it's written in code is just nature's way of having a laugh.

I know my theory is true because I've kept a dream journal for several years and it never, never fails to inform me about how messed up and hilarious I find the world around me. Here's a particular favourite entry from last year (N.B. Please bear in mind that most of the entries are written while half-asleep. It explains alot, trust me....):

In my dream last night, I was back working on Special Events. This time, the preparations were taking place in a barracks-type of building that reminded me of guest's quarters at a cheesy resort in the Poconos. Or a leper colony. We were surrounded, for some reason, by mechanics who were also doing their jobs but, for some reason, this was not bizarre or unusual in any way. I drove my bike everywhere and, occasionally, the mechanics would stop their work to fix my bike or give it a wash. This appeared routine for them and, for some reason, was not considered an inconvenience or break in their day.

I worked for designer, Vivienne Westwood but it was a young Vivienne Westwood with long hair and slightly boring clothes and not the funky older lady with the tremendous fashion sense and automatic sense of humour. Young Vivienne was slightly humourless.

She and I would occasionally take trips around town to look @retirement residences. Not sure why. On these trips, Young Vivienne would take her time to point out the interesting architectural features we drove past. We never took hills and when we reached one would dismount and walk our bikes up, a ritual that was clearly established at some point in the past but which we now stuck to for reasons unknown. When Vivienne was not around I gunned up the hills because I could.

There was a looming deadline that was to be met but no one seems to be worried about it, except for me. It was unspoken: the deadline would be met and we were so good at what we did that it is almost pointless to even throw our worries into this thought. What was more important was keeping our bikes in good, clean and running order and taking full advantage of the facilities around us.

Nice, huh? What does this mean? I wouldn't know where to begin.....

Here's one last one, chosen at random.

In my dream last night I was a child sitting by a river bank with a girl I' ve never seen before. We are shooting rocks into the water when a Canada goose floats by. We stop shooting rocks to let it pass.

You're like a Canada goose, my companion tells me.

How so? I ask.

A little bit white but mostly black.

I shrug my shoulders and we continue shooting rocks into the river. A river made of chocolate.

This one is clear, actually. Totally clear.

March Break- Literally

2011-03-29T13:42:00.010-04:00

Forgive me, blogosphere, for I have sinned. It's been three long weeks since my last submission. The culprit? My computer crashed. And to add insult to injury, I had not backed up many of my applications before closing. The result: utter loss of most of the stuff on my computer that is of any significance to me personally or professionally. So, no big. (N.B. So, if your therapist ever tells you that you should never move forward without first backing up everything you've said, done or committed to over the long term, they aren't lying. The consequences can be devastating.)

The results can also be strangely freeing. The day that all of this went down was, ironically, National Computer Off Day. Sponsored by the site Digg, it was their way a way to get those connected virtually to make a more concerted effort to connect with others one on one. As in face to face. In the same room. And by that I think they meant not texting the person who is standing beside you (which I've seen, by the way). Or e-mailing them (again, which I've also witnessed). They called the results, "wildly satisfying". I call them "any year before 1997". Their line is catchier.

Though, I hadn't meant to take on the day in a permanent fashion, I did manage to take on the spirit of the occasion the week before and connect with my family on the March Break. My long standing joke is that the week is aptly named because, inevitably, someone breaks. This year's break was spent in Washington and, thankfully, the only thing that broke was my funny bone. Oh, and the wind in our hotel room at night by He Who Shall Remain Nameless. Here are a few reasons why:

As a wise friend once said, "Sometimes you just have to find the courage to turn the damn thing off". Indeed, my friend. Indeed.

Breaking up is Hard to Do

2011-03-09T13:26:00.011-05:00

This week I did something that I never thought I would do: I stopped reading a book that I started. The book was called World and Town by Gish Jen and had been recommended to me by a friend who never leads me astray where books are concerned. She'd warned me that the book would take a bit longer to take hold but that once it hit, the pages would fly by and I'd be immersed in the action. Kinda like a hit of acid. But this book was like a bad batch mixed in a dirty bathtub: it just nver got off the ground. So I did the unthinkable: I took myself out of my misery and put the old dog down. For good(insert "Old Yeller" reference here).

Actually, to be fair, it wasn't the first time I've put a book down and not picked it up. In fact, my book shelf is lousy with half- or part-way read books. Here is just a random shout out to the ones I can find within grabbing distance:

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

(Started reading it in Paris. Brought it back over to the other side of the Atlantic where it's been gathering dust ever since.)

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

(Has anybody gotten all the way through this thing?!)

Colours Insulting to Nature by Cintra Wilson

(Three times started. Three times put down.)

Anything by Richard Powers, Don DeLillo and Jodi Picoult.

(No excuse, here. And, yes, I do own a Jodi Picoult book.)

Sad, huh? The difference between now and then, though, is that I always closed each book with the half-baked promise that one day, some time in the deep, dark, unknown future, I would pick it up and read it again. But no more. I've broken up with World and Town for good, y'all. Do I feel guilty? A little. Do I have regret? Some. Do you know how I'll get over it? I'll pick up another book and start reading it.

My inspiration for my new rule was a little book that I read while I waited for my son to pick out his book as the bookstore. Book Lust and was written by my new hero, Nancy Pearl. Nancy is a librarian /book barbarian who came up what is now famously known as "The 50 PageRule". The idea behind this rule is that if you are 50 years or younger, you should read 50 pages of a book before you decide whether or not you are going finish a book. It's not an entirely new idea but it's reasonable and -Damn! - if it isn't freeing beyond belief. Thanks, Nancy!

Now can you come up with a rule for unused kitchen appliances? Thanks.

(N.B. It should be noted that the exception to this rule for me will be book club books because if I've learned anything from book club it's that the duds bring on the best conversation. Just sayin'.)

Snap Out of It! - the Game

2011-03-01T17:07:00.010-05:00

The celebrities are losing their minds, people. And they really need our help. They need a good dose of "Snap Out of It! - The Game".

How do you play this fascinating game, you may be asking yourself? Well, the rules are simple: you pretend to tap a celebrity- in -need-of- a- good-talking-to on the shoulder and tell them, in two sentences or less, what they really need to hear.

Why is this game even necessary, is the next question? Well, it's because even the most self-absorbed celebrities with all the resources and high-priced advice at their disposal seem incapable of getting it together. Let's help them, shall we? Here we go.

Hey You......

Stop. Talking.

Excuse me, Mr. Gaddafi?

Ssshhhhhh. That's enough for now.

Dude!

Stay home and read a book.

No.

I won't just go with it, madam. Nor should you.

Enough!

It's time to put on some pants, Martin, K? Thanks.

Here's hoping they heard that.

What if your home town ceased to exist?

2011-02-23T08:39:00.012-05:00

This past weekend was a long weekend due to the McGuinty sanctioned-holiday Family Day. Though I don't usually care for much of what the Liberal Party pushes out (Yes, this is a backhanded poo-reference and yes, I went there), I think this holiday is out of sight! And not just because I get to sleep-in an extra day or ski on a weekday. At our place, we use the weekend as a way to connect with our kids in the way we remember our parents used to do with us. For my husband, this translates into getting everybody outdoors to do something physical. For me, it means getting everybody into a Dim Sum restaurant to gorge on chinese food and then heading immediately to a movie theatre where we listen to our digesting stomachs compete with the movie's soundtrack . Good times.

It's also a time where I reflect on where I grew up. After a trip up the French River a few summers ago with the kids, I let slip that I grew up only an hour and a half away from where we had just spent three days paddling. Like stunned American tourists, they asked whether I, too, had "paddled to school". Not. Quite. But it did lead to an impromptu Google Maps search for Levack, an explanation of what a "pit party" was and a promise to to see the Big Nickel in a summer or two. Again, good times.

Even though I spent most of my teenage years praying to get the fook out of the small town I grew up in, it's really only now, as I grow older, that I feel blessed to have been raised where I was. Tom Wolfe said that you can't go home again but he got it aaaall wrong. I have gone back home waiting for a light to change in New York City; watching a pine tree sway in the wind in the middle of a forest in Germany; laying on a secluded Caribbean beach. And always I think: where I am from is as good as this. It's a feeling that can bring you pleasure at the oddest of times.

The National Film board of Canada has put together this mesmerizing -sometimes heartbreaking- yet celebratory memoria l to a mining town in the North West Territories that was once a vibrant community and now no longer exists:

Most industry towns, after losing their purpose, attempt resurrections, reinventions, or just slowly wither away.
In Pine Point, they decided to erase the town from the face of the earth.

I felt somewhat changed after watching this film and learning about Pine Point (http://interactive.nfb.ca/#/pinepoint). It made me think about how much the place you come from is as much a part of you as the people you guide through it. And, damn it, if that's not something worthy of celebration.

Democrazy: The Game

2011-02-12T11:00:00.012-05:00

Last weekend, while my husband sat in his man cave and watched a few dozen men throw a pigskin around a million dollar stadium, I sat up in the comfort of my room and watched as a few thousand men and women pushed their country toward revolution. My show was better. You wanna know why? It lasted longer, had way fewer commercials, way more cheerleaders and the outcome was far more satisfying. Are you gonna remember who won the Super Bowl this time next year? Probably not. Will you remember that a legion of thousands toppled a government in a little more than a contestant cycle of American Idol? Uh Huh. That's what I'm talking about.

John Doyle, the curmudgeon-y television critic for The Globe and Mail might disagree, though. In an excellent column he wrote this week, he claimed that the majority of Canadian cared little or not a whit for the antics in Egypt. He cited that our general disinterest had something to do with the fact that Canadian viewers didn't actually "care much about Egyptians".

They have no empathy and very little interest in what Egyptians say, think, do or feel about anything. Groups of angry people demonstrating on the street in Arab countries make viewers in North America uneasy. The knee-jerk reaction is to associate the visuals with Islamic fundamentalism. The visuals look all too similar to footage of anti-American, anti-Western rage erupting somewhere. The other knee-jerk response in viewers is to remain steadfastly indifferent to any nuance in the situation.

So sad because on some level, it is so true. I took a random sampling of men and women on the streets of my town and asked them what they thought of what was going on in Egypt and the majority of them had little or no interest in the events. (N.B. Actually, for the record, I asked 6 people at my rural post office over two days. Not exactly an Angus Reid poll but my resources and time were limited.) Short of throwing Anderson Cooper into an angry mob, how can we get the average North American audience to give a fig about democracy? Hell, we can even get the average American to give a crap about their own crumbling state. Yeah, it's destroying itself or hadn't you noticed?

So, what I propose for the next revolution is the following: merge the NFL line-up with the revolutionary line-up.

You're not following me? Let me explain: The one thing both events have in common is great handles. Hosni Mubarak. Excellent name! LaDanian Tomlinson. Strong. So, what better way to keep the eyes on the prize than get a bunch of these guys in the same room and work together to keep people interested. Because, if I'm to understand the problem correctly this not about the rise (or inevitable fall) of democracy but about ratings, correct? So in that case, I'll see your Ehud Barak and raise you a Jabari Greer.

This is just crazy enough to work, people. Just crazy enough to work.

The 10 Weirdest Things I Ever Did

2011-02-05T08:21:00.005-05:00

The White Stripes
Originally uploaded by Barakattack

I woke up this morning to the news that the band, The White Stripes, had broken up. Sad, but hardly surprising when you consider that the band's helmsman, Jack White, has been pursuing his own projects for the better part of the past decade sans Meg. Sad, nonetheless.

I've always enjoyed The White Stripes. At their best they were a remarkable duo because they managed to successfully allow the great sound they produced to not override their weird- and sometimes creepy - personalities. It's a very tricky thing to accomplish in popular music where image is everything. Right, Phil Spector?

So, in honour of the demise of The Stripes Blanche, I am going to come clean on the ten weirdest things I have ever done. And, let me state for the record, I didn't have to dig too deep to come up with just ten.

1. I once took on an assignment to write a review of a DVD entitled, The NASA Missions: Volume 1. It was 9 hours in length. I sat through 2 and a half before I realized that I was losing my will to live and would rather be stuck in a capsule with Yakov Smirnoff headed to Mars than write the damn review. I still have the DVD if anyone wishes to borrow it.

2. I once argued with Danny DeVito over why he couldn't bring a rum and coke into one of Canada's most esteemed concert halls. It didn't go over well.

3. I practiced squatting with a dozen women - all of us 9 months pregnant - in the basement of a church on Bloor Street. At one point the instructor asked us all to moan from "the bottom of our throats" and the sound made me feel ashamed to be female. If I ever want to get in touch with a feeling of instant humiliation, I will conjure up this sound again.

4. I walked backwards from work one night just to see what it felt like. It was a two mile hike from my place of work to home and, near the end, I tripped over what I think was a cat. Rather than stop my experiment right then and there, I continued on my journey until I reached my apartment. Yeah. I did.

5. I once plunged a stuck toilet with a plastic garbage bag wrapped around my foot. It actually worked. I don't, however, recommend you try it home. Very messy.

6. I once watched my soon-to-be husband (though I didn't know it at the time) perform "surgery" on my roommate's cat with a safety pin. The cat never fussed and miraculously recovered. (N.B. I was never sure if this actually happened - a great deal of extracurricular liquids were involved - but my now-husband assures me that it did.)

7. I was obsessed with eating dirt for about a week while I was pregnant. When I told my doctor about it he told me to go home and lick a potato. It worked.

8. I once bought a Richard Simmons: Jazzercize! record at a garage sale because the look he had on his face on the cover radiated pure joy. It spoke to me. The lady I bought it from felt so sorry for me that she threw in a set of 3 pound weights for free. I still have them. The weights, not the record.

9. I let my daughter cut my hair. She got bored halfway through and stopped. Nobody noticed the change.

10. I once sat with a crazy lady on the subway who convinced me that the Eiffel tower had blown up that morning. When she got off I asked a sane gentleman if her info was correct. When he refused to answer me I skipped my class in order to get to the bottom of the situation. In my defense, this was years before the internet.

Damn, I just realized that I could go on for days. Long live the White Stripes!

Waiting for What?

2011-01-29T15:38:00.007-05:00

Originally uploaded by Meredith_Farmer

On Tuesday, the Oscar nominations were announced. In our house, the announcement was followed quickly on its heels by another: my son's wish to see at least half of the movies nominated. Which ones, I asked, my interest piqued? Well, I've already seen Toy Story 3, he said matter-of-factly, so I would like to "screen" (his pretentious word, not mine) 127 Hours, True Grit, The Fighter and The King's Speech. The rest of the nominees on the list , I was informed, simply "didn't really interest him". Okay, Pauline Kael. After I explained to him why he wasn't going to watch a film in which a hiker cuts his arm off, I agreed to take him to the others on his list. Cue the elated fist pump and the subsequent pushing of sister who stood innocently eavesdropping nearby. End scene with my son sitting in a darkened theatre telling me to "Pull it together, Mom!" as I sit in a pool of my own tears as I watched Christian Bale valiantly pull himself out of a crack addiction towards redemption.

(N.B. To avid further embarrassment, his father will be taking him to the other three films on his list. Just thought you should all know.)

The film has some phenomenal performances in it but what stuck with me the most was a pivotal scene in which Marky Mark's character - Mickey Ward - has to tell his evil succubus mother and leachy dream-killing brother to basically suck it and let him fulfill his dream of getting one last shot at a coveted boxing title. Now, I know that the It's-Never-Too-Late-To-Realize-Your-Dreams is a somewhat cliched trope that is oft over used in films today but so inspired was I that when I returned home, I was still sort of strangely floating from the whole experience. I opened an e-mail to find a message from a friend from high school who shared a similar story. He had a song that he had recently recorded and released into the world and, in the vein of The Fighter, wanted to get the word out in any way he could. He wrote:

I was standing outside my Garage/Recording/Editing studio and it dawned on me that I don’t have as much time to do shit as I thought I did. A bit of Panic set in, and I just kind of decided that I need to be a bit more fucking pro-active with the things I wanted to get done. One of these things is to record and release music. I’ve been really good at recording music (Been doing that for f-ing 25 years now, but not soo god at releasing anything.). It’d be like you doing your blog, and shelving it, always waiting for a better time to put it out there.

Brent Wohlberg, I'm guessing that you may not have the abs of Mark Walhlberg but you do have the resolve and spirit of a fighter. Keep it up!

Here's Brent's song, Big Red Rooster

http://www.jango.com/music/The+Blazing+Elwoods?l=0

Enjoy it!

Oh yeah, and follow your dreams.

Eavesdropping....Again.

2011-01-24T08:16:00.006-05:00

scared @ dentist
Originally uploaded by natashalcd

The beginning of this year has proven to be less than stellar and so in an attempt not to spiral downwards, I have been going out of my way to see the world in a more positive light. The best way I've found to turn the beat around (because the old way of putting food and booze on it is just NOT working) is to eavesdrop on conversations. Here is a particular favorite from last week.

The scene opens at a dentist's office. I am here to schedule a routine cleaning. There is a woman beside me filling out paperwork. I peek over and notice that it a consent form of some kind. I pretend not to be rudely reading another person's private form. Awkward.

Lady with Form: Uh. Are you taking some of my jaw and putting it somewhere else in my jaw?
Receptionist: Excuse me?
LwF: (pointing to a line on the form) Where do you get the bone for the bone grafting?
Receptionist: Oh! It’s a pre-treated crushed bone. Sort of like sand we use to fill the space.
LwF: Is it human bone?
Receptionist: I believe its cadaver.
LwF: So, human?
Receptionist: No, it’s cadaver. It’s animal bone.
LwF: Doesn’t cadaver mean “dead human body?”
Receptionist: (pauses) No, I’m pretty sure cadaver can mean animal, too. (pauses to ponder this horrible thought and then turns to me) Cadaver means animal, too, right?
Me: Honey. Keep me out of this.

Epilogue

In the end, the receptionist asked the doctor, who confirmed that it was, indeed, dead-person sand they were packing into the Lady with the Form's jaw and not crushed up animal. This made me feel uncomfortable, and then deeply grateful.

File Under: Come On ....Really?

2011-01-14T07:51:00.010-05:00

This week, the blogosphere was all a-buzz over a Wall Street Journal piece called, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior." In it, author Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, argued that tough love was the key to raising successful children. Her parenting methods included never allowing her two daughters to "attend a sleepover, have a play date, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A."

Wowza.

We live in impossibly difficult times. I don’t think I need to make a list. And bringing up children is hard enough without adding a draconian regimen to the mix. But no sleepovers? No play dates, computer games, or state-sanctioned extra-curriculars? What the hells, I'm raising kids here, lady, not Romanian gymnasts!

Lose the fear.

Raising kids is hard work but no regimen, regardless of its strictness, we can prevent our kids from hurt, harm and disappointment. It’s a fantasy of control and protection in times that seem, well, out of control and scary. Sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind and not let your expectation for them rule the day. And, for good or bad, you have to let your kids make choices on their own. Let them play Wii on a Tuesday night every once in a while. Let them pick their nose in the car and hide it under the seat for you to find encrusted six months later. Let them spend their allowance on nine dollars worth of Silly Banz that will make their rooms smell like the Goodyear Tire plant in Altoona, Pennsylvannia.

I know why she wrote the piece, though. She, like me, is looking to correct this culture of parenting that says that all of our children are geniuses, that their art work is on par with Picasso and their soccer trophies are an example of potential World Cup greatness. This is as crazy as the Yale professor's parenting methods, to my mind. But how about this instead:

Why can't we all just do our best?

My advice to all parents who are afraid that they are going to screw it all up for their kids is to buy them a pair of fake glasses. That's what I did for mine. They make them look and feel smarter AND, as an added bonus, prepare them for a world that is constantly telling them - in one way or the other- that what they choose to do for a living (and not how they treat those around them) will ultimately define who they are. Right, Professor Rea?

Best Films of 2010

2011-01-04T16:42:00.007-05:00

Anyone who has been paying attention to the slow drip of year-end accolades would probably be able to guess which of 2010's films were considered the best, non? There's the one about the crazy ballerina, the one about the guy who goes hiking and has to cut off his arm for some reason, the one about the FaceBook dweeb and the one where the guys try to knock off the Boston baseball landmark. I suppose. Know which ones I what I would choose? Here. We. Go.

Toy Story 3

This is easily the best film of 2010. Easily. Yes, it's a G-rated cartoon. Yes, all of the characters have appeared in Happy Meals. None of it matters.

Let me direct you to a scene deep into the film by way of example. It is a moment where some of the toy protagonists realize that in spite of all their cleverness and determination, there’s no way out of the fatal trap into which they’ve fallen. In any other children’s film, this would be a time for comedic panic, long-withheld personal confessions, or dramatic statements that would immediately turn out to be ironic. In any other children’s film, the moment would quickly peak and pass. But Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich (Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc.) holds for long, excruciating moments on the silent characters, as they pass from disbelief into sorrowful resolve, then take each others’ hands and wait. And wait. And wait.

It’s a shockingly grim sequence, but this is what Pixar films do best: find a place of deep emotion and explore it without blunting it, overexplaining it, or passing it off with a laugh. Toy Story 3 never gets darker than this moment, but time and again, it similarly finds real, resonant emotion in the antics of a bunch of children’s toys having adventures when nobody’s looking.

Plus, I cried like a Baptist. Not once but three times. Three times, people! That's good film-making.

True Grit

Some people come of age. Others have it thrust upon them. In the first few scenes of this remake of the John Wayne classic, young Mattie Ross (played crisply and unsmilingly by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) has paid the undertaker and seen three men hanged. And yet, her troubles have just barely begun. True, she could simply turn around and go back home. But she’s determined to see her father’s killer (Josh Brolin) brought to justice, which means enlisting the help of the meanest Federal Marshal money can buy, a one-eyed frontier veteran named Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), who’s happy to pull a cork or a trigger, happier still to say as few words as possible while doing so, and prone to few gentle sentiments when he does talk. He’s the perfect guide, in other words, for the hard country into which her nemesis has disappeared.

The Coens brothers direct True Grit with a light touch, but like the stark, funny novel on which this film is based (written by Charles Portis), their adventure tale shaves off none of the rough edges. It’s simultaneously rollicking and grave, alternating moments of fine dark humor with startling violence as it drags Mattie into the world of adult responsibilities and the danger and lost innocence that come with them. She tries to buy revenge using the terms of trade her father taught her, then discovers she’s made a purchase that won’t fit easily fit onto a sum-filled balance sheet. Here, the West is a place of blood, black humor, and unsparing consequences meant to test the character of even the toughest men, to say nothing of a willful girl with revenge in her heart and braids still in her hair.

The Kids Are All Right

Isn't this that movie about the lesbians? Yes. The ones where the kids go looking for their Baby Daddy? Yes. The one where Annette Bening has a scene by herself in a bathroom that is so soulful and real that I believe they began engraving her name on the Oscar at that precise moment? Yes. See it. Now.

Best Books of 2010

2010-12-20T15:36:00.014-05:00

This past week, I was told by a clerk in a chain bookstore that the printed word was dead. He was raving about the ease with which he had downloaded the latest Stephen King novel. "I decided that I wanted to read it and then - Poof!- 2 minutes later, I was!" Fascinating, I thought to myself. And do you read in the bathtub, I wonder? And what about the beach? Will you bring it there? Oh, and what about your job? Do you enjoy recommending books to real live humans? I'll stick with the printed word, I thought, as I lined up with the other dinosaurs to pay, my soon-to-be dead artifacts in tow. It took me twenty minutes to get to a clerk. If this be the state of the printed word then death be most kind.

With that in mind, I have compiled my list of the best of the year. Culled from the list you see to the left, it is short but they are the few, the proud and the strongest of the bunch and they kept me captivated, inspired and feeling nothing but love for the printed word. Dead, though, it may be......

Some books you pick up and just know, from the first page, are going to change your world. This is one of those. For 5 year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he lives with his mother - Ma-, where he was born, where he grew up, where he sleeps and where he plays. Room is home to Jack but, to Ma it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. At once frightening, enlightening and tender, Room is a celebration of resilience and a testament to the limitless bond between mother and child. It takes us to places that we don't think we want to go but once we get there, don't want to leave. After reading this book, you will never look at a rolled up piece of carpet in the same way again, nor a wardrobe or a beam of sunlight peaking through a skylight. A masterpiece.

Who would have thought that a non-fiction account of the tracking of "immortal human cells" ould be so damn gripping? Rebecca Skloot (who also wins "Best Author Handle of 2010") hits the road in a beat up car to take us on an incredible journey from the "coloured" wards of Johns Hopkins Hospital to present-day East Baltimore. Her subject's name is Henrietta Lacks but we know her as "HeLa". She was a poor Southern sharecropper but her cells- taken without her knowledge- have come to be used in almost every vital bio-medical advancement of the past half-century. Cancer research could not have ben advanced without them, the polio vaccine not developed without them, in-vitro fertilization useless without them. And yet she remains virtually unknown, her remains buried in an unmarked grave and her family destitute. Until now. It might easily be stocked in the mystery section. An unbelievably readable page-turner.

A year without a new Philip Roth novel is like a year without fresh air. This newest takes us into familiar Roth-ian territory, Newark 1944. It is the summer and a polio epidemic has invaded this close-knit, family-oriented community and its children to dizzying, devastating effects. Roth leads us, like no one else can, through every inch of emotion that such a pestilence can breed, capturing the fear, panic, anger and bewilderment that accompanies the unknown. I almost wish that it had been published last year at the height of the H1N1 epidemic when it could have been distributed as a salvo to otherwise sane and clear-thinking citizens who were crowding the drugstore lines looking for hand-sanitizers that they had come to believe would deliver them from certain ruin. How does an individual withstand the onslaught of circumstances, is the question that this book asks? Surely, cooler heads must prevail, seems to be the answer.

Henry has been waiting all summer for something to happen, anything to deliver him from the boredom and torpor that have enveloped he and his depressed mother, Adele, into a life of routine and dull circumstance. That is until Labour Day weekend, when he and Adele step into a "Pricemart" to buy trousers and find their wider world shaken up by a chance encounter with a bleeding man who approaches them and asks for their help. Author Joyce Maynard weaves a beautiful, poignant tale (which she wrote in 6 weeks!) of love, sex and adolescence as seen through the eyes of a 13 year-old teenaged boy and the man he later becomes. It is a touching, lovely, fever dream that left me praying for it to never end. I picked it up in the middle of January and read it in a fortnight, only to discover, by chance a week later, that it had been optioned for a movie by Jason Reitman. I can't wait to see what he does with it.

I started this book in July and didn't finish it until last weekend. Not because it was a brick (which, by the way, it is), but because I kept putting it down to contemplate what I was reading. Some books need to be savored, and this epic story of one of the great untold stories of American history is worthy of a slow read. Chronicling the decades-long migration of black American citizens who fled the South for the North and West, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson has written the definitive account of how their journey unfolded, how it changed cities, countries and the people within them. And how she does it is remarkable. Whittling down more than a thousand interviews compiled over 8 years, she chose to focus the history through the lens of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper who escapes prejudice (and certain lynching) in Mississippi and acheives blue-collar success in Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling who flees the Florida orange groves for Harlem; and Robert Foster, who leaves Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career. It is a bold, remarkable work that is so beautifully written that it will leave you pining for the people between the pages to never leave your house. Destined to be a classic.

What were your favorites this year?

I Wish I Was......

2010-12-13T18:37:00.007-05:00

For most, Christmas is a glorious time of year filled with festive cheer, present purchasing and wine-infused family get-togethers. I don't despise the holidays but it is a very busy time. Between the parties and the cards and Nutcracker-ing, it leaves me wishing that I were settling down for a long winter's nap. Oh, and by the way, when did December happen, anyway? It makes me want to play a round of my favorite aspirational game, "I Wish I Was...."

Here is what I came up with in just 2o minutes of play.

I wish I was.....

swimming in a warm body of water
smelling a newborn baby's head
having a nap
playing Scrabble
hiking on the AT
listening to a Nick Drake album
having a cafe allongee in a cafe in Paris
reading the new David Foster Wallace novel
playing footsie with my husband at a work-related function
singing in the car with my kids
laughing on a street corner with Cheryl and Jen until I wet my pants
waking up from a nap and then having another

So? Your turn.

It Always Comes Back to Books

2010-11-30T16:28:00.005-05:00

I spent the latter part of this morning in the mall and I mention it only because I find that the mall is, well, much maligned. From an architectural standpoint, I can agree, it is a curse: unimaginative in its structure and all-around unappealing where both aesthetics and creativity are concerned. But if your looking to eavesdrop on pointless conversations? There's no better place on the planet. Period.

Here is a perfect case in point.

Time: 11:46 AM

Place: H&M line-up

The Subjects: Two teenaged girls skipping class to buy Third World factory-made clothing. Most of it polyester, all of it bejewelled .

Girl #1: Are you gonna buy those jeans?

Girl #2: Yeah. (pause) Why?

Girl #1 (with an incredulous look on her face) Do you like them?

Girl #2 (with an equally incredulous look on her face) 'Course! (pause) Why don't you?

Girl #1 I think they look retarded.

Girl #2 Then I guess I'll be retarded AND look better than you.

(pause)

Girl #1: What rack were those on, again?

So funny. And yet so sad. Just like being a teenager.

The whole interaction made me think of a book I read last summer called, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Written by the incredible Lorrie Moore, the book is one woman's remembrance of an ephemeral teenage friendship. The narrator, Berie Carr, has a marriage that is stuck in a bleakly funny state of suspended collapse and rather than dissect it and ruefully condemn herself for how badly it's all going (that more Jonathan Franzen territory), she, instead, looks back to her girlhood in Horsehearts, an Adirondack tourist town near the Canadian border. There in the summer of 1972, as a skinny, 15-year-old misfit she idolized her sassy, sexually precocious friend Sils, who played Cinderella at a theme park they worked at called Storyland (Berie was a cashier). Told in a series of flashbacks, Berie recounts how she and Sils hung out in small town bars, snuck cigarettes and how, midway through the summer, she is shipped off to Baptist camp after filching hundreds of dollars from her register to pay for an abortion for Sils. The book is a bitterly funny hymn to vanished adolescence and is filled hilarious wordplay, allegorical images of lost innocence and a poignant awareness of how life's significant events often prove dismally anticlimactic. Like a faded pair of bejeweled jeans months after point of purchase.

Sunday Picture Diary

2010-11-21T18:03:00.004-05:00

Today, in an effort to read my book, I sat on this,

this,

and this.

And so instead of reading..... I did this:

The End.

The Excellent Things We Can Learn from the Youngsters

2010-11-15T17:56:00.003-05:00

A homeless man drinking outside Stazione Centrale
Originally uploaded by the_cha

I just returned from a fabulous, yet all-too-brief, weekend in Montreal. The occasion was my sister's 15th Annual 29th birthday and we celebrated it the only way we know how: with good food, good conversation and an ever-so-slight over-consumption of wines, both red and white. Sigh.

This year, though, as an extra-special treat, we dragged along our lovely and impressionable cousin, Amy. Amy -or Dr. Mamie, as I like to call her- is, however, hardly the corruptible youth that I thought her once to be. Truth be told, Dr. Mamie, at a mere 28 years old, on top of being a pediatric resident, taught us a thing or two about how to maximize our fun. Plus, as an extra bonus, she gave me free pharmaceutical samples and introduced me to the following things that made my life ever-more-excellent:

1/ Cash Cab

This is a show on the television box that is best enjoyed after having shopped all day and drunk half a bottle of merlot in the span of ten minutes. It is a crazy and slightly pointless game show in which passengers thinking that they've stepped into a cab, instead find themselves answering trivia questions for - you guessed it! - cash. It is Amy's dream to be in this show and I am going to try my damndest to make it happen for her. Don't ask me how.......

2/ Hobo Drunk

This a term that Amy uses in reference to too much alcohol consumption. It is evocative, funny and politically incorrect. Lethal combination. But where, dear reader, does this fit on the drunkeness scale? Well, according to Dr. Mamie, it goes a little something like this: slightly buzzed, tipsy, drunk, high school drunk , hobo drunk. I am very proud to say that I stayed at tipsy most of Friday and Saturday night. I think.

3/ Shazam

This is a great, free app that the my techno-dealer, Apple, puts out and goes a little something like this: You hear a song. You don't know who sings it. You press Shazam. It tells you. Sweet, huh? I downloaded it as soon as I got home.

There is so very much we can learn from the young......

Can Someone Please buy this for me for Xmas? Thanks.

2010-11-15T16:54:00.001-05:00

This is all I want for Xmas. Both the print AND the sentiment. Thanks.

Placenta! It's What's for Dinner.

2010-11-05T16:36:00.006-04:00

Lasagna (finished product)
Originally uploaded by jbaugher

I was cruising the internet cooking sites the other day for the perfect lasagna recipe when I came across one that I thought looked perfect. Until I checked the ingredients. Tomatoes? Check. Mozzarella cheese? Check. Noodles? Check. Placenta? Read again. Placenta? Find glasses and read again. (Pause) Bueller? Bueller?

What's up, intraweb? Are people really eating this?

Apparently, yes. After a thorough search on my computer box, it turns out that placenta has all sorts of healing properties for which I was unaware. It can be dried out and used to boost the immune system for those with iron deficiencies, chopped up and baked into ceremonial cakes. The possibilities are endless, apparently. And disgusting, quite frankly.

I remember, not so fondly, that moment just after childbirth when, in possibly the most exhausted I had experienced thus far in my life, I was asked by the attending nurse -in dulcet tones - to push just one more time. Whatever for, was my thought? Wasn't giving birth to a human more than enough? No, came the reply. You also need to push out a placenta. Whaaa?!!!!! It was like asking someone who'd just run a marathon to pop over to the store and grab some milk. And when I agreed to her absurd request, I discovered -to my horror- that she'd extracted a piece of nastiness that would best be described as a Glad bag full of veins that even Jabba the Hutt would find repulsive.

This, my friends, is not the stuff from which lasagnas are made. No! No! No!

Break It Down!

2010-10-28T14:20:00.004-04:00

Today while having lunch, I did something I vowed I would never do once my kids started school full-time (and NO! It is not get drunk on wine on a school day. Shame on you for dreaming of it, Laura.) I watched a kids show. On my own. When no kids were around. I know, right?

The show in question was, Yo Gabba Gabba, and here comes the worse part: I loved it, loved it, loved it!

After viewing, though, I have become convinced that it was conceived by an ambitious burner which is worth noting because they are a rare breed. A rare breed, indeed. Damn, now I'm rhyming things. Yo! Gabba, Gabba has all the things I enjoy: indie bands, fantastic dancing and songs about not biting your friends which, for my money, is the sort of lyric that has been a long time in coming. Also, the fashions are off the hook, they do the disco roll properly and they use the term "break it down" in the correct funky functional context. Nuff said.

More importantly, though, I think the lead and I look slightly alike.

I know that many of you frown on TV viewing during the day but my justification for it is that when I was younger, I used to watch The Price is Right with my babysitter, Louise Duguay. She was cool, made the best Kraft dinner of anyone before her or since and could guess the correct retail price of almost anything without going over. And we worshipped her because of it. How can you develop these traits if you don't watch a little useless boob tube mid-afternoon? Just sayin'.

Longing for Lines? I Think Not!

2010-10-20T16:37:00.006-04:00

There was a fantastic article that appeared in yesterday's New York Times that lamented how there were so few memorable lines in movies nowadays. In it, the writer asked a few well-known film scribes to list a few from recent films, just off of the top of their heads. And - Gosh darn it!- if they weren't stumped! It made me wonder whether, at the end of the day, our fearless reporter had really sampled the correct group. Isn't this more of a movie fan type of question?

My suspicions were confirmed a few moments later when I noticed that the ol' comments section in the "paper of record" had started to heat up. When I checked back 3 hours later there were 203. And counting.

Listen, I would be the first to admit that there is a lot of movie dreck out there but are you trying to tell me that there have been no lines that haven't hit the zeitgeist? Pu-leeze!

Here are just a few:

Squirrel! (Up)

What's a liger ? (Napoleon Dynamite)

Those aren't pillows!!! (Planes, Trains and Automobiles)

I drink your milkshake! (There Will be Blood)

I'm not the guy you kill. I'm the guy you buy...(Michael Clayton)

Call it, Friendo. (No Country for Old Men)

Mmm Hmm. (Slingblade)

I'm the cautionary whale. (Juno)

Anything to add?

Yet Another One to Explain to the Kids...

2010-10-19T21:41:00.001-04:00

It is almost impossible to sit still while listening to this song. My kids can't get enough of it and I can't help singing with the original lyrics.

They, however, know the song as, "Forget You". As Cee Lo, himself would say, "Ain't that some shit."

For my money, this song could not have happened to a more talented guy.

25 Films Your Kids Should See Before They Turn 25

2010-10-14T10:15:00.002-04:00

A possum and a movie camera 1943
Originally uploaded by Australian War Memorial collection

A few years ago, I wrote a piece for a local newspaper that attempted to be a primer for establishing the love for good film in the lives of your kids. It was a inspired by the list that the American Film Institute had come out with in 2005 listing 100 of the best films for children. Though they claimed to be the "ultimate" list, some of the selections seemed to confuse children's films with films with children in them.

And so, I created a list of my own, which I have updated for you here. It reflects what I have come to love about movies and it was screen-tested by the toughest critics I know: my kids.

The criteria for the list was simple: each film had to be artful in some way, have a strong story to convey and be able to keep kids engaged for its entire length. No small feat. A few are box office hits, others may leave you scratching your head but all are worth watching. With your kids or without.

The Essentials

1) The Triplettes of Belleville (2003)
2) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
3) Babe (2001)
4) Babies (2010)
5) Etre et Avoir (2002)
6) The Wizard of Oz (1939)
7) My Life as a Dog (1985)
8) Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998)
9) Lord of the Rings (2001)
10) Whale Rider (2002)
11) Toy Story (1995)
12) Spirited Away (2001)
13) Star Wars (1977)
14) The Black Stallion (1979)
15) Breaking Away (1979)
16) To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
17) Paper Moon (1974)
18) Edward Scissorhands (1990)
19) The Princess Bride (1987)
20) It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
21) Sounder (1972)
22) Kes (1969)
23) A Day at the Races (1937)
24) Raiders of the Lost Ark
25) The Incredibles

Did I miss anything?

Spaghetti Tacos...For Reals.

2010-10-06T03:53:00.005-04:00

Would you eat this?

Apparently, across our fair and messed-up continent, children are requesting that their parents prepare this for their next meal. It started with an episode of the kids series, "iCarly", in which the lead's older brother, Spencer, makes dinner. He slapped red-sauce-coated pasta into a hard taco shell and Voila! A foodie phenomenon was born.

Spurred on by reruns, Internet traffic and good old-fashion word of mouth, spaghetti tacos are apparently all the rage (particularly if you're under five feet and still live with your parents). Cooking blogs and web-sites are filled with recipes, a Facebook page has sprung up with more than 1200 fans and several cooking shows on the Food Network are planning on working them into their show rotations.

What could be more unappealing?

Well, besides actually having to make them, you mean?

What gives, people?

Is this Festivus for the tween-set?

What's next, chocolate with peanut butter?

Let's stop the madness.

Death Trifecta

2010-09-30T19:05:00.002-04:00

Tony Curtis
Originally uploaded by david haggard

I have mentioned it many times on this site and it bears repeating: famous people die in threes. Threes, people. It happened last year when Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon died within days of each other and it has happened again this week with the passing of Tony Curtis, Gloria Stuart and Greg Geraldi.

This year's death trifecta, though, gives us an interesting glimpse into Hollywood's many incarnations: the former golden boy, the comeback and the could-have been.

The first, Tony Curtis was a Hollywood fixture of the highest order. He starred in more than four dozen films, Some Like it Hot, most famously, bedded famous starlets and then callously wrote about them, sired famous children (Jamie Lee Curtis) and pretty much abandoned them and in his later years, managed to annoy most of Hollywood's new guard when he announced on Larry King Live that he, like many of his old Hollywood friends, would never dream of voting for Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture. Why you ask? Because the film was about homosexuals and quite frankly, that was something he just couldn't get behind. These were his words, by the way. Not mine. It was a full life.

Gloria Stuart, on the other hand, didn't get to taste Hollywood success until she was well into her eighties when she starred in Titanic as an older version of Rose (Kate Winslet played the younger version). She had spent her early years on contract to the studios and when she grew tired of playing the girlfriend ditched town to become a graphic designer. She hadn't ever intended on acting again until James Cameron came calling and invited to join the cast of Titanic. Now, everyone remembers her as the old version of the lady who got to pop Leonardo DiCaprio in the hold of a ship. You could do worse in this life, non?

Finally, Greg Giraldo, was a funny, funny, dude who could have been huge had he not gotten in his own way. A former lawyer who gave up a job at a law firm to pursue comedy, Giraldo became a wildly successful stand-up comic who specialized in dispensing his own brand of sharp and often brutal humor. Like Lewis Black, his routines tended to clever and exasperated rants. The best of which, to my mind, was one I caught last year on Comedy Central at roast in which he excoriated that douche, Larry the Cable Guy.

“Some people say Larry’s only successful because he’s pandering to the lowest common denominator,” Mr. Giraldo said. “Don’t listen to these people, Larry. They’re just bitter and jealous and right.”

Mr. Geraldi, I think I will miss you most of all.

Woman Pneumonia

2010-09-25T16:45:00.007-04:00

For the past few weeks, I have been struggling mightily with what I believed to be an allergy-related cold and sinus infection. I tried everything - pills, change of diet, masssive doses of Vitamin, prayer - and yet nothing seemed to work. A few days ago, tired of my beleaguered state and needing some help getting ahead of the massive buckets of mucus, I went to the walk-in clinic and got a diagnosis that left me humbled and slightly shocked: pneumonia. Sweet Mother Of Jesus, I thought to myself as I left the office with my prescription (for a scorced earth-type of antibiotic AND a puffer...Damn!), if I didn't think I was old before, I sure as Hell know it now.

Before heading home to download Enya albums and episodes of Matlock, I told myself that I would do my best to stay off my feet and really give my body a chance to heal. No housework, I thought to myself. No yard work, no errands, no laundry. Just healing. And reading. And sleeping. And more healing. Serenity. Now. Now, dammit!

Guess how long this deal with the devil lasted?

I'm just gonna make dinner and then I'll sit. Wait no, after I make the kid's lunches, then....Shoot, I gotta get cat litter! I'll get it after I drive the kids to their after school activities. Might as well pick up some groceries while I'm there....Car needs gas, too, sooooo.....

The whole experience reminded me of an article I read last week about reading. The author was lamenting how he could never remember the plot of any of the books that he'd read. What's the point of reading at all, then, he surmised? Why not just watch golf? Same thing with pneumonia. Why even bother giving me a pneumonia diagnosis if you aren't going to send me home with a a giant mallet and lock for my bedroom door? Sheesh.

Waxing...NO!!!!!

2010-09-19T11:30:00.001-04:00

Wax
Originally uploaded by mill

*** SPOILER ALERT( for my male readers only!) **** This post concerns waxing. Be Ye Forewarned......

Many moons ago, I told a friend that I had never done any waxing. I believe my exact words to her were, “I have never, ever waxed. I don’t have any intention of waxing. It sounds pointless and incredibly painful. So I am never going to do it.” I'm sort of unequivocal in that way.

Well, guess what? Now I know I was right. And the worst part, is that I cannot bask in my own self-righteousness because I am in too much pain.

Let me start at the beginning of my terrible judgement. A few days ago, I went to the pool to swim a few laps. I have gotten into swimming this summer after completing a 1.5 KM swim this summer and coming in fourth. Out of four. Sigh. Next year I wanna do better so, I have been pseudo-training -and by pseudo-training I mean heading to the pool only when my overwhelming shame from coming in last forces me there - in the hopes of doing a bit better next year. I'll take third, even.

Anyway, after my swim I realized that I had a bit of a Chewbacca thing going on in the leg area and I thought to myself that maybe, it was time to start waxing. I would be coming here more frequently, I surmised so why not try to look like I didn't just step out of the primordial mud.

So, I went to a place and the girl there, Natalie (may she burn in hell) convinced me that I should try a bikini wax, as well. What the hell, I figured. Why not? I was getting my legs done at a place that offered hair-ripping services, so why not go all the way.

Why not, indeed!

It wasn’t so much the the waxing itself — which was deeply undignified but not too painful — it was the horrifying, burning, swollen aftermath. It never occurred to me that I would need to heal after waxing. Perhaps because I am stupid.

I texted a friend who did this frequently and angrily asked the obvious. Why do you do this? Why does it hurt so much? Why hadn’t anyone told me?

But you’re smooth right?, she answered.
Yes, I replied. Like a plucked chicken with some sort of inflammatory disease. Screw you.

Magazine Hoarder? No More.

2010-09-09T17:08:00.005-04:00

I have a real thing for magazines. How much of a thing? Well, here is a sample of just a few that I could find in two minutes:

P.S. Most of these were the ones within arms reach of my desk. I didn't even need to stand up to get at them! Sad, non?

Up until about three months ago I had stacks and stacks of every magazine I have ever bought or subscribed to, squirreled away in various dark corners of my house. Martha's Stewart Livings from as far back as 1998, three years worth of Country Living, old Rolling Stone's from way back in the day(not Keith, though...Charlie Watts) I guess my thinking was that one day I was going to need to look through these for inspiration! ONE DAY! Hell, you never know when you are going to need to decoupage a side table.

And then the Tyrant threatened to start throwing them away willy nilly if I didn't start refining my collection (All except for The New Yorkers, of course, because those are his bathroom reads). So I kept all the copies of magazines that have gone out of business (Cottage Living, Martha Stewart Baby, Hoarders Weekly) and then got rid of everything else. Ahem. IT WAS BRUTAL. You have no idea. It felt like I was cutting off a limb, I can't explain why. One day I'm really going to need to reference this specific Martha Stewart Living, AND WHAT WILL I DO THEN?

And then what should I get in the my child's backpack. A magazine subscription fundraising catalogue. AHHHHHH!! Thanks universe.

Recipe for a Perfect Day

2010-09-03T15:27:00.002-04:00

The following is the recipe for a perfect weekend afternoon.

Arcade Fire Encore // Randall's Island
Originally uploaded by ryan muir

What you'll need:

The new Arcade Fire album

1 glass of wine

A good book.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Enjoy your long weekend.

I Know What you Did This Summer

2010-09-03T15:12:00.003-04:00

People....

Summer is leaving....

Was it something that I said?

In Their Shoes

2010-08-26T21:17:00.003-04:00

Hurricane Katrina - Shoes
Originally uploaded by Mary-Jane Maybury

This week marks the 5th year anniversary of the devastating hurricane - Katrina - that rocked the Gulf coast. I remember, like yesterday, how I watched on TV as the elements so utterly ravaged the city of New Orleans and was speechless and angered when I saw how callously the Bush Administration was in its response to the aftermath. If anything, the hurricane peeled back the layers of how truly uncaring those bunch of morons really were. Nice work, Mother Nature!

While, it's tough to leave aside all of the horror and outrage that Katrina wrought, it is even tougher to realize that a mere 5 years later with an entirely new administration (Obama) and an entirely new natural disaster (BP oil spill), we are straddled with a similar response: utter indifference.

Which is why I was almost flooded with relief when I picked up the latest issue of Esquire at the library and read a piece about the oil spill that put its cost into perspective. Written by Tom Junod, the piece recounts the night that Deepwater Horizon - the rig that started it all - exploded claiming the lives of 11 men ranging in age from 22 to 56. It has been a long time since I read an article that so poignantly made an attempt to connect readers in a tangibly human way to an event that due mostly to media saturation and confusion, leaves the average brian reeling. Junod shapes the lives of these 11 men into a touching eulogy and manages to do what the 24-hour news cycle has somehow managed to evade: make sense all the images of gushing wells and oil-drenched birds that have pounded us into senseless submission.

Eleven men with stories died on that day and it will be impossible for me now not to see the story of this disaster a little bit through their eyes.

Rememba! Rememba!

2010-08-16T08:46:00.007-04:00

Hey People-

I'm back from vacation happy, rested and looking to get my creative jones on. Let's hope that that particular impulse can overcoming my other overwhelming desire of dropping everything in my life and watching all the movies they made passive reference to in the Entertainment Weekly magazines I read on the dock.

To that end, yesterday we went to see the film of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Awesome. Beyond awesome. Get your ass to the theatre and see this film. It is funny, sweet and so highly entertaining that I am scheming to get my ass in that theatre seat again. Plus, my sister worked on it and there is nothing more satisfying than seeing your siblings name roll by on the same screen on which on you just watch Micheal Cera (he off the Gumby voice and even gumbier body) kick the asses of half of US Weekly's Hot Under 25 list. Sweet.

I did have a hilarious conversation with my daughters at the theater. Here's how it went.

Enter scene. Concession stand of the Whitby 24 theatre complex. The song Fame! comes on and it is blasting overhead like a drill sargent in an Oliver Stone film. Myself and the old gent in the line beside me (age approximately 75) are trying not to get down.

FAME! I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVER! BABY REMEMBER MY NAAAAAME. (Remember! Remember!)

Xenia: Who sings this?

Me: Pausing dramatically. You know, I have no idea.

Bryan: But Mom! She only asked you to do that one thing.

Here's another little something that made me chuckle.

Nice, huh? This is funnier to those who have no children, I suspect.

Why, Michael? Why?!

2010-07-28T08:45:00.002-04:00

"This Is The Worst" Face
Originally uploaded by Woodmania

Dear Steve Carrell-

Why are you leaving The Office? Why?!!!!

Just reading this news make me want to put on my "The is the Worst" Face. (P.S. Thanks Greg Z. for ruining my day. Wah!) They might as well close the Scranton branch 'cause my ass will not be sitting on the couch Thursday nights.

Who am I fooling? Of course it will. There's still some 30 Rock to be rocked.

Off on vacay people. Will probably not be posting for a 2 weeks. Think of me dockside, with book. It's gonna take me this long to get over the Steve Carrell thing, so......

The Weekly Salad-Celebrity Edition....Kinda

2010-07-20T10:06:00.003-04:00

Malditos bastardos Brad Pitt
Originally uploaded by nacho.fotos

I just finished reading an interesting book that Entertainment Weekly recommended (yah, I read Entertainment Weekly! What of it?) called The Imperfectionists. It was a nice read - not too spectacular or filled with incident, actually - that put me in mind of the movie, Babel, for some reason. For those of you who actually saw and remember the film, Babel was a series of disjointed stories set in several countries around the world that managed to come together in pretty whole near the end. But not before you almost lost the will to live. It left me lukewarm, as I remember. And was half an hour too long. And what is it these days with non-linear storytelling, BTW? Is it just a new way to invigorate film and books? I get the feeling that the creative class have been too unduly influenced by Mrs. Dalloway, as a whole. But I digress.....

A few minutes after I finished the book, I opened the paper only to discover that young Brad Pitt had optioned the rights to the book and would be producing the movie. And that he had also produced the film, Babel (I had no idea!) Hmmm, I thought to myself with a self-congratulatory smile on my fae. Mine instincts were true after all, then, concerning this book! Crazy coincidence? I think not. Oh, and good luck with keeping the people awake in the theatre, Benjamin Button.

All this as a an awkward anecdote to introduce this week's WEEKLY SALAD feature. What salad has to do with Brad Pitt and Babel, I will never know. This salad, however, does features my favorite star: avocado.

Halve an avocado and scoop out some but not all of the flesh. Roughly chop the flesh with black beans, a spoonful of green salsa, cilantro, chopped tomatoes (seeded, of course) and lime juice. Serve in the shells. Enjoy!

It Definitely Holds Up

2010-07-13T20:08:00.004-04:00

Have you watched Jaws lately? No? That's too bad 'cause I watched it last night and now I can't sleep.

I guess it still holds up in the "Crap Your Pants Everytime You Go for a Swim from Now On" department. Sheesh.

Weekly Salad is Back!

2010-07-08T07:58:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, my husband and I leaped into the wonderful world of cottage ownership. Though the journey was slightly fraught in the beginning with renovations, clean-ups and the like, the experience of being at this new-found property has been life altering. We have - all of us - found a place to truly connect and relax.

It's also a place where I want to do my two favorite things - read and eat. The reading part is a no-brainer but the food part- tough! Which is why I've decide to revive last summer's feature: The Weekly Salad. Salads are my favorite food in the summer mostly because they are delicious and easy to make. They also need just a few combination of ingredients to make them great. Here are three to get you started:

1. Grate carrots, toast some sunflower seeds and toss blueberries, olive oil, lemon juice and pleanty of black pepper. Sweet, sour, crunchy, soft.

2. Blanch spinach, then drain and shock in ice cold water. Squeeze it dry, chop it and toss with toasted pine nuts, raisins, olive oil and a tiny bit of balsalmic vinegar. Very elegant.

3. Make a grilled cheese sandwich, with good bread and not too much cheese. Make a salad with cherry tomatoes, basil, black olives, olive oil and balsalmic vinegar. You will not believe how damn good this is.

Enjoy

P.S. Holla! to Tracey Green and all of her visitors from Cookies and Catwalks!!

The Little Stranger

2010-07-05T09:34:00.002-04:00

The Little Stranger
Originally uploaded by The Sage Libraries

Are you looking to completely lose a few days of your life between the pages of a good book? Here's the one for you. It is by far, the best book I've read this year and it completely highjacked my week. Also, as an added bonus, Steven King lurvs it! But what does a hack like him know about writing a scary book, right?

Sarah Waters was an author I'd heard a ton about but not read. She has written a trilogy of Victorian novels Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and Fingersmith which have earned her legions of fans around the world, a number of awards and,tons of critical success. And, man, does she know how to build suspense!

Set in postwar Britain in the 1940's, Waters gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of her work. The book follows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline-its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

Piqued your interest, yet? You. Will. Love. It.

Life's Too Damn Short

2010-06-29T09:09:00.001-04:00

Muffin Top
Originally uploaded by NoT Photography

This weekend, I spent a good deal of my time shaking my head at the universe and saying over and over to myself that, well, life's just too damn short for (insert appropriate caveat HERE).

Here are just a few things that I was able to come up with in 10 minutes:

- cold tea
- whiners
-stale chips
-mealy fruit
- muffin top
- lazy people
- shitty books
- pointless movies
- shoes that don't fit correctly
- idiot Prime Ministers
- deliveries that don't arrive when they say they will
- reruns
- worrying about things you can't control
- coffee tables you can't put your feet on
- jumping to conclusions
- root canal

Anything to add?

Genius

2010-06-22T10:24:00.002-04:00

Albert Einstein
Originally uploaded by ThomasThomas

Today, is the official first launch day for the new version of iPhone. Am I bitter that it launched just shy of the 2-month purchase mark of my iPhone? 'Course not. (P.S. F**ck you, Steve Joby-Jobs....)

Anyhoo, by far, the best feature on my iPhone is the "Genius" feature that's baked in to the iPod. What is Genius, you say? Here's how it works (the following words are Apple's...not mine):

Say you have one song you really love and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. A few clicks on iPod nano, and Genius uses that song to find other songs in your library and makes a Genius playlist for you. You can listen to the playlist right away, save it for later, or even refresh and give it another go.

It's like being given an excellent mixed tape at every touch.

Watch. I'll do it now. At random. I just pressed "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) by The Arcade Fire (a personal favorite song of mine, BTW) and here's just the first five songs (of a possible 25) that came up;

White Winter Hymanal - Fleet Foxes

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi - Radiohead

My Moon my Man - Feist

Pizza Catcher, New York - Belle and Sebastian

Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie

Awesome, right? Do this. Now. Go. Make haste. Your music library needs to be listened to in a new way. Stop playing Fleetwood Mac, Rumours over and over again. K? Fanx.

Sex Ed - Benoit Style

2010-06-15T12:23:00.003-04:00

Sex Ed - Sixties style
Originally uploaded by painter girl

My son was home this week with a sore throat and to pass the time, we watched a few pointless shows on the Sundance Channel. ( Hell, it's dedicated to independent film, was my thinking, it's got to have more interesting programming than TeleToons, non?)

In between shows, the channel has programmed bumpers - little independent features - that are often hilarious and very innovative in their format. One of them is a series called, Green Porno. Hosted by its creator, the beautiful and talented Isabella Rossellini, the premise of these shorts is to show the bizarre mating rituals of various insects and animals. And here's the kicker: Rossellini, herself, stars. In costume. As an insect. The costumes are fantastic, the sets are hodge-podge-y and strangely fabulous and the dialogue? Well, let's just say that you have not lived until you've heard Madama Rossellini say, "And now....We are sequential hermaphrodites!" Awe. Some.

I did, however, have to don the the parenting hair shirt shortly thereafter, though.....

Benoit: Mom, what's a porno?
Me (trying not to puke and scream AND stay calm, all at the same time :
It's a movie, with very little plot, whose sole purpose is to show people having sex with each other.
Benoit: (aghast) Eeeeew! (pause) I don't mind watching these insects do sex, though.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

2010-06-12T10:49:00.005-04:00

Road Trip Time Lapse
Originally uploaded by Neil Dorgan

When I was a kid, my parents would take my sister and I on road trips. To pass the time, we would play a game that we came to call, Who Am I? The object of the game was simple: you had a person, place or thing in your mind and it was the goal of those playing to ask the proper questions in order to reveal the answer. With the right sort of questions, the game would be over in few short minutes. The wrong sort of questions, though, could lead you down a perilous path and you could be guessing for hours. The game kept us amused, made every trip seem shorter than it was and most importantly, gave us the opportunity, as a family, to be playful with one another, something a lot of kids my age didn’t get the chance to do with their parents.

I have wondered, often, why my mother had us play that game so many years ago. Partially, I believe, it was to pass the time but mostly, it was to keep us from doing what alot kids will do when they are forced into a confined space: get in fights and start poking fingers at each other over the smallest of perceived slights.

This week, my immediate family found itself in a similar spot. No, not forced into the backseat of a brown Pontiac Perisienne that reeked of bologna on white, but forced to redefine itself in the face of a difficult circumstance. My Nana - matriarch of a strong family, player of cribbage, lover of the Blue Jays, love of all jokes practical and all-round saint - died after a long and fruitful life.

Her death shook us all to the core.

But instead of pointing fingers and railing at the universe, we made a decision, one similar to the one my parents made each and every time we got into that car and headed out on a long journey. We decided to play, Who am I, and define who we were as a family.

And guess what?

My name is Laura Francis. I am a member of the mighty Robinson clan. And it is my honour.

Stuck in a Loop

2010-06-03T07:29:00.006-04:00

James Fogle, Drugstore cowboy, 04/08
Originally uploaded by elliotedizioni

Yesterday, I was catching up on the news when I read that writer James Fogle had been arrested. Again. Mr. Fogle is probably best known for his novel, Drugstore Cowboy, which was also made into a tremendously good movie starring Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch. Based on his experiences as junkie in the Pacific Northwest, the story chronicles a fumbling band of thieves and addicts who roamed the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s stealing drugs and money from pharmacies. Fogle was in prison when the critically acclaimed film was released in 1989. He was also on a brief stint in the big house when the book was released.

Writers are strange characters. As a writer, it is difficult not to become very personally acquainted with rejection which is perhaps why many develop such a thick hide, anything to overcome the loneliness and rejection that is so closely associated with the profession. I've met writers who are compulsive organizers, drinkers, gamblers, womanizers. Some have lives that are so boring that they are drawn towards their secret worlds as a refuge. Who am I talking about here, I wonder?

But Dude, really? Knocking off drugstores? At your age? What up?! I've been stuck in a loop, too, but this is ridiculous!

I want to suggest to all of you - writers or no- who are doing the same thing over and over and over and unable to unstick the needle from the record to do the following: Change. Things. Up. Go for a bike ride. Walk in the rain. Walk backwards for a mile while singing a Rogers and Hammerstein tune. But try to change. Embrace it, even. You'll be amazed at how freeing it can be.

BANKSY!!!

2010-05-28T10:02:00.004-04:00

This week I spent an invigorating - yet appallingly short! - two days in New York City. The purpose of the trip was quite simply to get away for a few days and boost my artistic engine, so to speak. I saw two plays (Fences at the Cort Theatre and Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Public) went to a few museums and galleries and ate food that was off the chain. Refueled? Why yes! Mission. Accomplished.

I also had the opportunity to see something that I have been mildly obsessed with for the past few years. Not too far down from the hotel I stayed at in Chelsea, I was able to actually see a work by the incredible graffitti artist, Bansy. Bansy's identity is unknown but what we do know about him is that he is British, was probably raised in Bristol where his first artworks appeared and is a cheeky monkey. His works are often satirical pieces that reflect politics, culture and ethics and are known for their distinctive stenciling technique. He doesn't sell photos of his works and has mentioned several times in his posts online (ww.banksy.com) that his art is for the people.

Radical, huh?

When you go away, you can find inspiration in the most pedestrian of places. I found mine on a walk on the Highline, the newest addition to New York art firmament. For those of you unfamiliar, the Highline is essentially, a beautiful landscaped walking concourse that was developed over 10 years on an abandonned rail line. It opened last year, stunning in its construction and was a great way to see both the New York and New Jersey skylines. As we walked along, the saw these placards jutting out from the grasses that formed its borders:

THAT, my friends, are words to live by, non?

Man Shops Globe

2010-05-11T13:30:00.005-04:00

So I am officially hooked on a new reality show. And thank goodness because there was a gaping hole in my schedule, what with Project Runway and Amazing Race being over now. Champagne problems, huh?

The show, Man Shops Globe, is on The Sundance Channel on Wednesday nights but I caught it on a Sunday night at 4:30 in the morning because I had insomnia from too much Mother's Day love. Regardless of when you catch it, it is awesome viewing all the way around.

Each episode follows Keith Johnson as he makes his way through select countries across the globe in search of amazing finds. Johnson, who is charged with giving Anthropologie stores (one of my faves. Holla!) their eclectic flair, is always searching – mostly with friends – for the most intriguing decorative objects, furniture, and textiles he can get his hands on. He enlists, along the way, the help of local experts and artists who springboard much of his inspiration. Each episode is centered around a specific location, beginning with Paris where Johnson heads to flea markets and antique stores (where he notes there is frantic competition for many of the best finds and, of course, finds that price becomes an issue), in order to get his hands on large-scale furniture for existing Anthropologie stores. Can you believe?

The whole time I'm watching I'm thinking, Damn! I don't remember my guidance counsellor steering me towards this career choice. Oh. Well.

School Concert

2010-05-06T21:04:00.001-04:00

Kinners School Concert
Originally uploaded by Sujal Parikh

Dear School Concert,

Thanks for being over. I mean it.

Sincerely,

Laura

Kid Talk

2010-04-30T18:59:00.002-04:00

Every Thursday morning from 9 AM until just before the lunch bell, I participate in a french language reading program at my children's school. Aside from it being a wonderfully rich and rewarding experience personally, it is also a great way for me to observe the children (my own included) in their natural habitat. Children will show you who they are if you pay close enough attention and because I am an adult, they often forget that I am even in the room about 10 seconds after my presence is acknowledged. This is when my needy, childish wounded-child side is most put out and my selfish, self-interested writer side is best served.

That's where you come in, dear reader.

Here are few excerpts from some overhead (okay, eavesdropped) conversations.

Convo #1

Girl #1: How come we have to read these books?

Girl #2: So that our parents can feel good about making us learn French all day.

Girl #1: Yeah. I thought so.

Convo #2

Boy #1: I am going to Colorado Springs next week.

Boy #2: How far is that from Florida.

Boy #1 (sagely): About 2 Nintendo Games away.

Boy #2: Right. Why are you going there?

Boy #1: My dad has a conference call. (pause) He's the President of the United States

This is the part where I butt in like an interrupting cow because I can take it no longer.

Me: So your dad's Barack Obama, huh?

Boy #1 (without missing a beat) Yup.

Me. Tell him I said, Hey.

Boy #1: I will. (pause) Does he know you?

Dinner Anyone?

2010-04-26T17:17:00.003-04:00

Someone told me once that you could make anything on a barbeque (Okay, maybe not a baby). Guess what?

It's true 'cause I made a pizza on one. Crazy........

Old Pipes

2010-04-20T11:10:00.002-04:00

old sewage pipe
Originally uploaded by TTL!

Today is my birthday which means I'm getting old. Here is an example of the attitude that I can look forward to from the young people.

Benoit (my son): Look at my guns, Gaga!
Gaga (my mother-in-law): What are guns?
Benoit: Arm muscles! Daddy has guns and Mummy has pipes.
Gaga: Oh, I see. (pause) What does Gaga have, then?
Benoit: Old pipes.

Sigh.