#I can’t imagine a more boring lens for analysis.

[castielmacleod]

''Same person different font'' thing regarding Mary and Dean's characters irk me so much lmao...

RIGHT omg like. On one hand we have a person who is authentically compassionate, is capable of acting outside of her own self-interest more often than not, doesn’t take out her emotions on the people around her, and owns her mistakes and shortcomings. On the other hand we have a person who is none of those things, and is furthermore a violent control freak who categorically abuses those closest to him. These are fundamental differences in the way these two characters interact with the world and others, which is far more significant in a comparison than any surface-level similarities. Liking cars and jerky does not a “same person different fonts” make.

Like lol I mean… I won’t be wholly disingenuous, I’m not going to pretend Mary and Dean have no commonalities whatsoever, because they do. In my take I’d say they both have something of a lying habit that they view not as necessarily harmful but as protecting others, as well as a tendency toward self-destructive behaviour and definitely some kind of saviour complex(?). But those similarities are still not nearly enough, in my opinion, to overshadow the fact that these two characters are otherwise, as outlined above, pretty much morally and socially disparate people. Which is to say, very much not the “literal same”.

It also just feels so reductive and honestly lazy to just write Mary off as just Dean: the Prequel or whatever and leave it at that. People do much the same with Claire (Dean 2: Simba’s Pride) and even with Max Banes (Dean the 3rd), and honestly it’s kind of. Dismal. That these characters can’t just stand on their own for a significant portion of the fandom and have to be reduced to “Dean mirrors” to warrant any thought, and are then only really thought about through that lens. Like I’m sorry that is NOT the deep character analysis you think it is 😭

[potteresque-ire]

Hi. I just wanted to say that I really like your blog and posts. I mean your analyzing and viewing all this cp and fan culture stuff from wider perspective are so interesting to read. I really enjoyed your last anon answering post. What do u think about the statement that usually cpf are just teenagers and young girls(I really don’t like ageism) who overreact. But as I noticed as for many cp especially for BJYX (i was surprised)I saw that many of cpf are young adults or even much older and experienced people. So can we say that one of most used accusation by antis that cp is only for “little girls” with rich imagination doesn’t work, right?

Oh, thank you very much for your kind words, Anon! And ...

Are you asking about older turtles?

I’m not familiar with the demographics of CPF / RPS fans in general, but I think that’s a common misconception in every corner of fandom ~ that it’s a playground for (very) young women with an overactive imagination. It’s ageism and sexism, but it also reflects some truth in the sense that fandomers do skew towards the young and female. Re: the age aspect, RL does tend to get more and more in the way as years go by, and with few exceptions, fandom engagement requires more concentration and effort than, say, Netflix and Chill. One can zone out easily while watching TV, but it’s quite a challenge to zone out while interacting with most fandom material, be it reading or writing, making art and gifs and memes, or doing FBI-level work and creating candies.

I’ve read about c-turtles who missed Gg and Dd’s performances because they had to take care of their children. Somewhere else, they mentioned a survey that analysed the difference between how younger and older turtles would convince others about SZD   ~ younger turtles tend to make a long list of evidences / candies, while older turtles tend to simply say “I’m married. I have eyes”. Whether this survey existed and the analysis was accurate, I couldn’t tell without seeing it, but these are hints that turtles aren’t limited to the young.

I’m an old fandomer and can only speak for myself. Like the older turtles in the maybe-real survey, I don’t feel a need to convince others, and that silence, perhaps, fuels the perception that fans like myself do not exist. And if I’m truly pressed to do the convincing, I also wouldn’t go the route of listing candies, a method that tends to take up more space and create visibility. 

For one, listing candies requires a memory I don’t have. For two, because I feel that the strength of many candies / evidences are based on whether one has already assumed BJYXSZD. The more recent candies are also often stacked on the older ones -- and so it requires knowledge and trust of the old candies, of the BJYX canon already written. 

Since solo fans do not share the same assumptions, knowledge and trust, convincing is difficult to do without getting into circular arguments, without the mounting frustration in doing so escalating the discussions to quarrels and fights. 

Here’s an analogy I can think of, and I hope it isn’t offensive to anyone (I sincerely apologise if it is.) For non-Christians, have you had someone try to convince you that their faith SZD? I have multiple experiences of that when I was younger, and the convo usually went like this: 

They: God SZD, because the Bible says so. Me: But the Bible may be fictional? They:  It can’t be, because it carries the words of God. Me: But I don’t believe in God. Isn’t that how our convo began? So the statement “the Bible carries the words of God” means little for me, in terms of how true or fictional it is.  They: But it’s a mistake to not believe in God. Me: Why? They: Because the Bible already proves God SZD (returns to the first point; restarts the convo).

You see how these arguments could go on forever, not because either of us were awful people, but because our starting assumptions (the nature of the Bible) were different and They, the persuader, failed to see that? Over time -- and perhaps that’s where age kicks in -- I’ve realised this: the best persuader for a cause isn’t the one who can list the most evidences or who can say them with the loudest voice, the utmost conviction. It is the one who can best see the others’ perspective. Who can put on and remove their cause-tinted lens in a heartbeat. Who can think in the opposite sides’ shoes. Sympathise. Spot a “lost cause” quickly and retreat while keeping peace -- because few “lost causes” are truly permanent, except those who feel their perspective has been slighted. Insulted. 

Getting back to BJYX, if I must try to convince someone SZD as an old, unmarried turtle with an admittedly awful eyesight for romance, I’d only say the following:

I trust there must be some truth in what millions of eyes have claimed to see.

PS. Here’s another likely sign of age: I may thank whoever calls me “a little girl with a rich imagination”. 5% for the “little girl”, 95% for the “rich imagination”. Do you know how BORING and TEDIOUS the 30+ world can be? 

[ambivalent-mess]

What do you think high school jelle would be like?

Personally, I think elle would be very into english and literature (things like Gothic lit, Sylvia Plath and other poets, and she loves exploring things through the feminist lens.) She takes French because she already knows Spanish. And I could see her being involved in music or art, but she's not the type of student who talks about her involvement constantly. She doesn't have perfect attendance, not even close, but her grades are good. She also doesn't talk in class too much. Sometimes her work is late, but it's always exemplary and shows a lot of thought.

JJ would also be very into literature, but more on the side of Shakespeare and coming of age stories (that pair with serious themes, like to kill a mockingbird or a tree grows in Brooklyn.) She loves reading, but isn't a fan of analysis. I think she'd also take French. she'd really like social issues, especially if it centered on current events. Soccer, sports in general is a bit part of high school for her. She's not a cheerleader, but she goes to every game. She sits with the sports crowd at lunch more often then not. She tries so hard to please everyone: perfect attendance, always participating, class representative, never turning in work late.

I think she'd really be drawn to elle, and elle would teach her how to relax. That she can't please everyone, and she shouldn't try to.

I could also see it as either elle moves to jjs small town and jj befriends her, because everyone else gives her the cold shoulder. She's an outcast, and a 'city girl'. Or, jj moves to New York after what happened to Roslyn. She's wowed to see how much there is outside of her small town. Elle is practically her personal tour guide, and they both help each other heal from their childhoods a lot whichever way it goes.

omg there’s so much i want to talk about with this one 

I feel like in high school Elle wore a lot of dark red lipstick and and excelled in any type of literature or language class. She’s really smart but doesn’t look like she tries, so the teachers always try to call her out for not paying attention but she always gets the answer correct by one look at the board. She always smirks at the embarrassed look on the teacher’s face because they failed at embarrassing Elle. 

JJ was the valedictorian and loved reading but if you ask her to find the deeper meaning of something, she gets bored and hates it and yet she always gets it spot on. She ALWAYS wants to please everyone. She does every extra credit assignment and sucks up to teachers - she runs for class president and is in many clubs on top of soccer. She’s still incredibly shy but tries to push through it.

I think Elle definitely teaches JJ that she can’t please everyone. Elle being as confident as she is, always compliments JJ and smiles at the blush on her face. I can imagine one night they’re laying together and JJ sits up, anxious, remembering about something she needed to do for a club and Elle calms her and holds her saying, “It’s okay, love. You can do it tomorrow morning. This is the time for you to have you time.” This happens a lot until JJ starts to advocate for herself. 

Also I love the idea of JJ being the new girl in New York and Elle shows her around the city. I think JJ’s small town mindset would be very endearing to Elle, seeing JJ’s eyes light up at the city, at things Elle never even took a second glance at, but now does because JJ helped her see. I think they’d both have really good conversations about their pasts and help each other heal.

ugh i love them - keep sending headcannons!

[moviegroovies]

confession time: for someone who (semi) actively runs a movie blog, i really haven’t seen a lot of classic movies.

(i know this comes as a shock for those of y’all who have been subjected to nothing but my half-baked thoughtpieces on bad 80′s horror for the past couple of years, but bear with me.) 

to be honest, even this review doesn’t REALLY represent me making an active choice to remedy that so much as it does me pulling a long con where i endear myself to marilyn monroe by watching her movies to get myself excited to watch the miniseries blonde (2001), for abnormally pretty, young jensen ackles purposes*, but let’s not dwell on all that. the practical result is the same; i watched some like it hot (1959). now, i hope y’all are ready for a few some like it Thoughts™:

first, idk how much attention y’all have been paying to the loose bits of personal lore i occasionally scatter within my reviews, but one thing about myself that i feel i’ve been pretty open about is the fact that i’m trans. this being so, and knowing not a whole lot about the movie beyond the very basic premise “1959 extended man in a dress gag,” i can’t say i went in with the highest of expectations. imagine my surprise, then, when the gender aspect of this movie was... actually pretty good? i mean, full disclosure, it’s not exactly gender studies, but it’s passable! it’s tolerable! there were even a few moments where i felt inclined to say the words “oh, GENDER?” out loud!

perhaps most impressively, i’d say the Cis Creator Cringe Factor of some like it hot was actually impressively LOWER than a lot of modern moves with genderswapping premises tend to be. like, i know that one definite explanation for that would be the fact that trans experiences are more widespread today, so modern filmmakers don’t feel comfortable playing with ideas like this without at least giving lipservice to them, while the era that bore some like it hot didn’t face the same “pressure,” but, okay. listen. compared to another movie i watched recently--freaky (2020), in which a teenage girl swaps bodies with serial killer vince vaugn, featuring one incredibly anvilicious scene where, upon being informed by a gay boy that she’s in the men’s bathroom, the girl’s best friend retorts, “she [vince vaugn]’s got a dick in her hand, and you’re wearing chanel no. 5. i think we’re past labels.”--some like it hot, a movie older than my father, was wayyyy easier to watch**. actually, you know what? yeah. listen to me. cis content creators? movie producers? i’m talking to you. DON’T EVEN BRING GENDER (or gender “identities”... which is an incredibly gross term, anyway) UP IF YOU’RE NOT PLANNING TO DO SOMETHING WITH IT. sincerely, this particular bad taste corner of the trans community :).

...anyway.

some like it hot, by contrast, did it right. YES, the premise of the movie was two presumably cis men in disguise as women. i’ll put that in the open. however, there was a certain... i don’t know if “respect” is the right word, but there was an avoidance, at least, of the usual predatory tropes. in fact, the worst behavior by far from either main character comes when joe manages to take off his female disguise, donning another, male persona and using things that sugar (marilyn’s character) confided in “josephine” to create a nonthreatening, desirable “millionaire” in order to trick her into sex. okay, like i said, it’s not gender studies, but, the humor in some like it hot comes from generally the right place. joe and jerry don their female disguises in a matter that in quite literally life and death for them (and it’s more than the creators ever thought of, i’m sure, but there IS an interesting analysis to be had of them needing to pass to live), which to a degree removes the usual pitfalls of male to female crossdressing as a gag; they’re neither doing it for lecherous reasons, nor to parody the female experience. this being a comedy, there is a degree of humor found in the situation, but it’s directed at jerry and joe, the characters, more than their disguises. the general assumption is that they both pass without question, as long as they’re wearing their ladies’ clothes; jerry once comments that he’s “not even pretty,” but it’s never an issue to contend with. 

wrt the crossdressing, the worst moment for me, personally, was a scene on the train when jerry prepared to take off the disguise in order to sleep with sugar, and even this ends up comedically averted at jerry’s expense.

and speaking of jerry.

jerry is actually the most compelling part of the movie for me, especially viewing it through the lens of gender. while joe, who gets the girl and manages to spend large chunks of the latter part of the film in his second, male disguise, never thinks too much about what they’re doing beyond the survival aspect of it, jerry is the one who, erm, “gets into character.” joe’s female name is simply josephine; before they get on the train with the woman musicians, it’s assumed that jerry will be going by “geraldine.” however, when they give their introductions, the duo becomes josephine... and daphne. 

as the movie progresses, this distinction grows more pronounced; when joe has to remind a smitten jerry on the train that he’s a girl, referring to their disguises, jerry miserably repeats the affirmation: “i’m a girl. i’m a girl. i want to die. i’m a girl.” later on, however, as joe’s relationship with sugar develops, “daphne” becomes acquainted with local horndog millionaire osgood, who he at first dislikes, but comes around to after being forced on a date as part of joe’s plan to trick sugar. after seeing jerry excited by the prospect of marrying osgood, a bewildered joe has to remind jerry why it’s an impossibility, and in the same miserable tone as before, jerry/daphne muddles through a new affirmation, one that definitely didn’t ring false to my trans ears: “i’m a boy. i’m a boy. i want to die. i’m a boy.” 

hm. actually, now i’m thinking about a trans male reading of joe. he was the one at first resistant to taking the job (with the all-female band), when they only needed money, and not a place to hide from an upset mob boss, but also the one who seems to know more about the role when it comes time to get into character. while jerrydaphne gets increasingly comfortable with femininity as time passes, joe never performs it in anything but a perfunctory, necessary way, and sloughs the costume EVEN WHEN the danger of being found out has not yet passed, because pretending for such a long period of time is just untenable. something about passing for female being a safe haven and a burden for both closeted (re-closeted, in this case) trans men and out trans women?

anyway. by the end, though both osgood and sugar do find out the truth about the disguises, sugar seems to instantly forgive joe for his treacherousness (again, referring more to his actions as the shell millionaire than his escapade in drag), while osgood appears unbothered by daphne’s truth, leading to an ambiguous ending for the futures of the characters, and any realizations that might come later.

no, it’s not the “real transgender experience.” it (thankfully) never claims to be. BUT, being trans myself, there were some moments that made me feel linked to our protagonists, and relatively few, if any, that made me feel alienated. all in all, that’s a lot more than i hoped for going in, so that’s what i’m happy with.

watch some like it hot, y’all. it’s a good movie in a timeless way, and, as modern movies appealing to short-lived trends that will feel outdated next week (if not by the very time of their release) will show you, that’s more than it needed to be. 

*since my original draft of this post, i DID watch blonde, and i don’t know if that’s technically fair game for this blog (not exactly a movie) or what, but 6/10. fairly well done piece of art but just BEATINGLY tragic, so proceed with caution. jensen ackles literally is THAT PRETTY though, so the jackles cut i give a strong 11/10. i am a homosexual.   **i would like to clarify that this isn’t me telling you not to watch freaky. yes, some of the dialogue is tragically riverdaleian, but there’s also a scene where vince vaugn makes out with a teenage boy. so,

[arcticdementor]

Something strange happened to the news over the past four years. The dominant stories all resembled the scripts of bad movies—sequels and reboots. The Kavanaugh hearings were a sequel to the Clarence Thomas hearings, and Russian collusion was rebooted as Ukrainian impeachment. Journalists are supposed to hunt for good scoops, but in January, as the coronavirus spread, they focused on the impeachment reality show instead of a real story.

It’s not just journalists. The so-called second golden era of televi­sion was a decade ago, and many of those shows relied on cliff-hangers and gratuitous nudity to hold audience attention. Across TV, movies, and novels it is increasingly difficult to find a compelling story that doesn’t rely on gimmicks. Even foundational stories like liberalism, equality, and meritocracy are failing; the resulting woke phenomenon is the greatest shark jump in history.

Storytelling is central to any civilization, so its sudden failure across society should set off alarm bells. Culture inevitably reflects the selection process that sorts people into the upper class, and today’s insipid stories suggest a profound failure of this sorting mech­anism.

…

Culture is larger than pop culture, or even just art. It encompasses class, architecture, cuisine, education, manners, philosophy, politics, religion, and more. T. S. Eliot charted the vastness of this word in his Notes towards the Definition of Culture, and he warned that technocratic rule narrowed our view of culture. Eliot insisted that it’s impossible to easily define such a broad concept, yet smack in the middle of the book he slips in a succinct explanation: “Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.” This highlights why the increase in “deaths of despair” is such a strong condemnation of our dysfunction. In a fundamental way, our culture only exists to serve a certain class. Eliot predicted this when he cri­tiqued elites selected through education: “Any educational system aiming at a complete adjustment between education and society will tend to restrict education to what will lead to success in the world, and to restrict success in the world to those persons who have been good pupils of the system.”

This professional managerial class has a distinct culture that often sets the tone for all of American culture. It may be possible to separate the professional managerial class from the ruling elite, or plutocracy, but there is no cultural distinction. Any commentary on an entire class will stumble in the way all generalizations stumble, yet this culture is most distinct at the highest tiers, and the fuzzy edges often emulate those on the top. At its broadest, these are college-educated, white-collar workers whose income comes from labor, who are huddled in America’s cities, and who rise to power through existing bureaucracies. Bureaucracies, whether corporate or government, are systems that reward specific traits, and so the culture of this class coalesces towards an archetype: the striving bureaucrat, whose values are defined by the skills needed to maneuver through a bureau­cracy. And from the very beginning, the striving bureaucrat succeeds precisely by disregarding good storytelling.

…

Professionals today would never self-identify as bureaucrats. Product managers at Google might have sleeve tattoos or purple hair. They might describe themselves as “creators” or “creatives.” They might characterize their hobbies as entrepreneurial “side hustles.” But their actual day-in, day-out work involves the coordination of various teams and resources across a large organization based on established administrative procedures. That’s a bureaucrat. The entire professional culture is almost an attempt to invert the connotations and expecta­tions of the word—which is what underlies this class’s tension with storytelling. Conformity is draped in the dead symbols of a prior generation’s counterculture.

…

When high school students read novels, they are asked to identify the theme, or moral, of a story. This teaches them to view texts through an instrumental lens. Novelist Robert Olen Butler wrote that we treat artists like idiot savants who “really want to say abstract, theoretical, philosophical things, but somehow they can’t quite make themselves do it.” The purpose of a story becomes the process of translating it into ideas or analysis. This is instrumental reading. F. Scott Fitzgerald spent years meticulously outlining and structuring numerous rewrites of The Great Gatsby, but every year high school students reduce the book to a bumper sticker on the American dream. A story is an experience in and of itself. When you abstract a message, you lose part of that experience. Analysis is not inherently bad; it’s just an ancillary mode that should not define the reader’s disposition.

Propaganda is ubiquitous because we’ve been taught to view it as the final purpose of art. Instrumental reading also causes people to assume overly abstract or obscure works are inherently profound. When the reader’s job is to decode meaning, then the storyteller is judged by the difficulty of that process. It’s a novel about a corn beef sandwich who sings the Book of Malachi. Ah yes, a profound critique of late capitalism. An artist! Overall, instrumental reading teaches striving students to disregard stories. Cut to the chase, and give us the message. Diversity is our strength? Got it. Throw the book out. This reductionist view perhaps makes it difficult for people to see how incoherent the higher education experience has become.

…

“Decadence” sounds incorrect since the word elicits extravagant and glamorous vices, while we have Lizzo—an obese antifertility priestess for affluent women. All our decadence becomes boring, cringe-inducing, and filled with HR-approved jargon. “For my Ful­bright, I studied conflict resolution in nonmonogamous throuples.” Campus dynamics may partially explain this phenomenon. Camille Paglia has argued that many of the brightest left-wing thinkers in the 1960s fried their brains with too much LSD, and this created an opportunity for the rise of corporate academics who never participated in the ’60s but used its values to signal status. What if this dropout process repeats every generation?

…

The professional class tells a variety of genre stories about their jobs: TED Talker, “entrepreneur,” “innovator,” “doing well by doing good.” One of the most popular today is corporate feminism. This familiar story is about a young woman who lands a prestigious job in Manhattan, where she guns for the corner office while also fulfilling her trendy Sex and the City dreams. Her day-in, day-out life is blessed by the mothers and grandmothers who fought for equality—with the ghost of Susan B. Anthony lingering Mufasa-like over America’s cubicles. Yet, like other corporate genre stories, girl-boss feminism is a celebration of bureaucratic life, including its hierarchy. Isn’t that weird?

There are few positive literary representations of life in corporate America. The common story holds that bureaucratic life is soul-crushing. At its worst, this indulges in a pedestrian Romanticism where reality is measured against a daydream, and, as Irving Babbitt warned, “in comparison . . . actual life seems a hard and cramping routine.” Drudgery is constitutive of the human condition. Yet even while admitting that toil is inescapable, it is still obvious that most white-collar work today is particularly bleak and meaningless. Office life increasingly resembles a mental factory line. The podcast is just talk radio for white-collar workers, and its popularity is evidence of how mind-numbing work has become for most.

Forty years ago, Christopher Lasch wrote that “modern industry condemns people to jobs that insult their intelligence,” and today employers rub this insult in workers’ faces with a hideously infantilizing work culture that turns the office into a permanent kindergarten classroom. Blue-chip companies reward their employees with balloons, stuffed animals, and gold stars, and an exposé detailing the stringent communication rules of the luxury brand Away Luggage revealed how many start-ups are just “live, laugh, love” sweatshops. This humiliating culture dominates America’s companies because few engage in truly productive or necessary work. Professional genre fiction, such as corporate feminism, is thus often told as a way to cope with the underwhelming reality of working a job that doesn’t con­tribute anything to the world.

There is another way to tell the story of the young career woman, however. Her commute includes inspiring podcasts about Ugandan entrepreneurs, but also a subway stranger breathing an egg sandwich into her face. Her job title is “Senior Analyst—Global Trends,” but her job is just copying and pasting between spreadsheets for ten hours. Despite all the “doing well by doing good” seminars, the closest thing she knows to a community is spin class, where a hundred similar women, and one intense man in sports goggles, listen to a spaz scream Hallmark card affirmations.

…

The bureaucrat even describes the process of rising through fraud­ulence as “playing the game.” The book The Organization Man criticized professionals in the 1950s for confusing their own interests with those of their employers, imagining, for example, that moving across the country was good for them simply because they were transferred. “Playing the game” is almost like an overlay on top of this attitude. The idea is that personal ambition puts the bureaucrat in charge. Bureaucrats always feel that they are “in on the game,” and so develop a false sense of certainty about the world, which sorts them into two groups: the cynics and the neurotics. Cynics recognize the nonsense, but think it’s necessary for power. The neurotics, by con­trast, are earnest go-getters who confuse the nonsense with actual work. They begin to feel like they’re the only ones faking it and become so insecure they have to binge-watch TED Talks on “im­poster syndrome.”

These two dispositions help explain why journalists focus on things like impeachment rather than medical supply chains. One group cynically condescends to American intelligence, while neurotics shriek about the “norms of our democracy.” Both are undergirded by a false certainty about what’s possible. Professional elites vastly overestimate their own intelligence in comparison with the average American, and today there is nothing so common as being an elitist. Meanwhile, public discourse gets dumber and dumber as elitists spend all their time explaining hastily memorized Wikipedia entries to those they deem rubes.

…

The entire phenomenon of the nonconformist bureaucrat can be seen as genre inversion. Everyone today grew up with pop culture stories about evil corporations and corporate America’s soul-sucking culture, and so the “creatives” have fashioned a self-image defined against this genre. These stories have been internalized and inverted by corporate America itself, so now corporate America has mandatory fun events and mandatory displays of creativity.

In other words, past countercultures have been absorbed into corporate America’s conception of itself. David Solomon isn’t your father’s stuffy investment banker. He’s a DJ! And Goldman Sachs isn’t like the stuffy corporations you heard about growing up. They fly a transgender flag outside their headquarters, list sex-change tran­sitions as a benefit on their career site, and refuse to underwrite an IPO if the company is run by white men. This isn’t just posturing. Wokeness is a cult of power that maintains its authority by pretending it’s perpetually marching against authority. As long it does so, its sectaries can avoid acknowledging how they strengthen managerial America’s stranglehold on life by empowering administrators to en­force ever-expanding bureaucratic technicalities.

…

Moreover, it is shocking that no one in the 2020 campaign seems to have reacted to the dramatic change that happened in 2016. Good storytellers are attuned to audience sophistication, and must understand when audiences have grown past their techniques. Everyone has seen hundreds of movies, and read hundreds of books, and so we intuitively understand the shape of a good story. Once audiences can recognize a storytelling technique as a technique, it ceases to function because it draws attention to the artifice. This creates distance be­tween the intended emotion and the audience reaction. For instance, a romantic comedy follows a couple as they fall in love and come together, and so the act two low point will often see the couple breaking up over miscommunication. Audiences recognize this as a technique, and so, even though miscommunication often causes fights, it seems fake.

Similarly, today’s voters are sophisticated enough to recognize the standard political techniques, and so their reactions are no longer easily predictable. Voters intuitively recognize that candidate “de­bates” are just media events, and prewritten zingers do not help politicians when everyone recognizes them as prewritten. The literary critic Wayne Booth wrote that “the hack is, by definition, the man who asks for responses he cannot himself respect,” and our politicians are always asking us to buy into nonsense that they couldn’t possibly believe. Inane political tropes operate just like inane business jargon and continue because everyone thinks they’re on the inside, and this blinds them to obvious developments in how audiences of voters relate to political tropes. Trump often plays in this neglected space.

The artistic development of the sitcom can be seen as the process of incorporating its own artifice into the story. There is a direct creative lineage from The Dick Van Dyke Show, a sitcom about television comedy writers, to The Office, a show about office workers being filmed for television. Similarly, Trump often succeeds because he incorporates the artifice of political tropes. When Trump points out that the debate audiences are all donors, or that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t actually pray for him, he’s just pointing out what everyone already knows. This makes it difficult for other politicians to “play the game,” because their standard tropes reinforce Trump’s message. If the debates are just media spectacle events for donors, then ap­plause lines work against you. It’s similar to breaking the fourth wall, while the rest of the cast nervously tries to continue with their lines. Trump’s success is evidence that the television era of political theater is ending, because its storytelling formats are dead.

In fact, the (often legitimate) criticism that Trump does not act “presidential” is the same as saying that he’s not acting professional—that he is ignoring the rules of bureaucratic advancement. Could you imagine Trump’s year-end review? “In 2020, we invite Donald to stop sending Outlook reminders that just say ‘get schlonged.’” Trump’s antics are indicative of his different route to power. Forget everything else about him: how would you act if you never had a job outside a company with your name on the building? The world of the professional managerial class doesn’t contain many characters, and so they associate eccentricity with bohemianism or ineptitude. But it’s also reliably found somewhere else.

Small business owners are often loons, wackos, and general nut­jobs. Unlike the professional class, their personalities vary because their job isn’t dependent on how others view them. Even when they’re wealthy or successful, they often don’t act “professional.” It requires tremendous grit and courage to own a business. They are perhaps the only people today who embody what Pericles meant when he said that the “secret to freedom is courage.” In the wake of coronavirus, small businesses owners stoically shuttered their stores and faced financial ruin, while politicians with camera-ready personas and ratlike souls tried to increase seasonal worker visas.

…

Ever since Star Wars, screenwriters have used Joseph Campbell’s monomyth to measure a successful story, and an essential act one feature is the refusal of adventure. For a moment, the universe opens up and shows the hero an unknown world of possibility, but the hero backs away. For four years, our nation has refused adventure, yet fate cannot be ignored. The coronavirus forces our nation to confront adventure. With eerie precision, this global plague tore down the false stories that veiled our true situation. The experts are incompetent. The institutions told us we were racist for caring about the virus, and then called for arresting paddleboarders in the middle of the ocean. Our business regulations make it difficult to create face masks in a crisis, while rewarding those who outsource the manufacturing of lifesaving drugs to our rival. The new civic religion of wokeness is a dangerous antihuman cult that distorts priorities. Even our Hollywood stars turn out to be ugly without makeup.

[wolfofansbach]

amateurish analysis of the Wolf Man (1941) cause I’m bored

The Wolf Man (1941), is one of my favorite movies of all time and, I’m convinced, one of the greatest horror movies (potentially also one of the greatest psych thrillers, too, and if I may be so bold, maybe even one of the best of the golden age of cinema, period) ever made. Most people are probably at least vaguely familiar with the image of Lon Chaney Jr. in his classic wolf man get up, stalking a foggy forest. Unfortunately, the actual plot of the film, its characters and themes, have failed for the most part to seep into the popular consciousness. Most people could tell you the basic tales of Frankenstein’s monster or Dracula, but probably not that of Larry Talbot. The wolf man is more famous for his part in the later, cheesier, and somewhat shallower ‘Monster rally’ flicks like Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man or House of Dracula (don’t get me wrong; I love those movies), than for his debut film. This is a damn shame, because iMO the Wolf Man is probably the best of the early Universal horror pictures, and a much smarter film than you might expect of an old black-and-white monster flick. Largely when read through the lens of a psychological tragedy instead of a simple monster story.

(More under the cut, and warning: long as fuck. If you read to the end you win a prize: my congratulations for wasting twenty minutes of your life on me. A lot of what I say here has been said elsewhere and better by others. I’ve just had werewolves on the mind lately and wanted to put some of my thoughts to paper. Or screen.)

First a brief overview of the story:

After years abroad in America, the tragic death of his his brother in a hunting accident brings Lawrence “Larry” Talbot, estranged son of stiff-necked patrician Sir John Talbot, home at last to the little Welsh village of Llanwelly.

While settling back in, Larry finds himself smitten by a local shopkeep’s daughter, Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers, one of my first screen crushes). Despite the fact that she’s engaged to be married, he manages to wring a not-date out of her. Of course, she does insist that her friend Jenny tag along, and the three visit a Roma camp just outside town.

While Jenny visits with the palm-reader Bela (Bela Lugosi, towards the end of his A-lister years), Larry and Gwen go for a moonlit stroll.

Bela sees a pentagram in Jenny’s hand and tells her to run. Moments later, Larry and Gwen hear a howl. Then a scream. Larry rushes towards the sound, to find Jenny being mauled by a massive wolf. Unfortunately, it’s too late for the girl, and before he can beat the animal to death with his new cane (topped with a silver wolf’s head, and purchased earlier from Gwen’s shop), it bites him, too.

The next morning, Larry is questioned by his father and the authorities, who tell him there was no dead wolf at the scene. Only the corpse of Bela, the fortune teller. He insists in vain that he killed a wolf, and tries to show them his wound, only to find it’s healed up.

Dun dun dun!

Gwen receives the calumny of the town for being out and about ‘unescorted’ with a man other than her fiancé. Larry on the other hand, is suspected in the deaths of both Bela and Jenny, and his mental state begins to unravel.

It all comes to a head a few days later when Larry speaks with Maleva, Bela’s sage old mother. She tells him that he was bitten by Bela, a werewolf, and now will become a werewolf himself. A shaken Larry shares his fears with Gwen, who is less than convinced. But Larry rushes home that night and transforms into a wolf-monster which then kills the town’s grave digger.

Now things really start to unravel. Larry awakens in his bedroom, covered in mud, with wolf tracks leading from the window. With the discovery of the grave-digger’s body, the men of Llanwelly become convinced there’s a wolf at large, and organize to hunt it down. Larry, now fully convinced he is a werewolf, tries in vain to convince his father and the town’s notables of such. He is dismissed and increasingly suspected of madness. Before Sir John goes out to join the hunt, Larry convinces him to take the silver cane with him.

The night of the hunt, Larry visits Gwen to tell her that he’s going away. But then he sees a pentagram in her hand--a sign that indicates to a werewolf his next victim. He runs home and begs his father to restrain him. Sir John obliges, hoping to show his son this madness is all in his head.

Of course, the restraints do not hold him, and soon the wolf man is stalking the woods again. Gwen rushes out to find Larry. Dodging the hunters, the wolf man Larry finds Gwen and attacks her. But before he can kill her, Sir John appears and manages to beat the monster to death with the silver cane.

Sir John and Gwen watch in horror as the wolf man transforms back into Lawrence Talbot.

Roll credits.

Summary over

What’s most interesting about the Wolf Man to me, is that it was not conceived as a monster movie. Not exactly, anyway. In Curt Siodmak’s original screenplay, Larry is bitten by a wolf and becomes convinced that he has become a werewolf himself. But we never see Larry in the shape of a wolf, and whether or not he has really become a monster or simply gone mad is left ambiguous. At the last moment, Universal decided they wanted a straightforward monster movie, and changes were made accordingly.

However, despite these alterations, it is still quite easy to read the film as a story of insanity and superstition, rather than one about monsters, and I wonder if this was not Siodmak’s intention, studio mandated rewrites notwithstanding. Even within the film’s own universe, more characters doubt the existence of werewolves than accept it. Unlike many monster (or ghost, or demon, etc.) movies, the supernatural skeptics are not portrayed as bullheaded or unreasonable, and there is no grand scene at the end where they realize their naturalistic errors.

Sir John for one has little patience for his son’s lycanthropic nonsense. He explains the legend of the werewolf as a primitive explanation for the duality of man, his capacity for both good and evil. When asked if he believes in werewolves, the town physician, Doctor Lloyd, tells Larry only that “a man lost in the mazes of his own mind may imagine that he’s anything”.

It is easy to watch the film and imagine that just maybe, Larry is lost in the mazes of his own mind, and there is never any monster at all, except the one he imagines himself to be (and thus “becomes” in spirit). When Bela in his wolf form bites Larry, we don’t see a monstrous hybrid, only an ordinary wolf (played by a German shepherd), which Larry beats to death with his cane. The film is told from Larry’s point of view, and before he is convinced of the existence of werewolves, we see nothing obviously supernatural. Only an ordinary wolf.

Only after Larry comes to believe in werewolves do we see an outwardly supernatural monster in the form of Larry’s own two-legged wolf man. Perhaps it’s Larry’s paranoia in the aftermath of the wolf attack that leads him to become a beast. But only in his head.

We never get any confirmation from the other characters that Larry is indeed a literal werewolf. When he kills his first victim, Richardson the gravedigger, you must watch Richardson’s face. He first spots the wolf man crouching under a tree, just before it lunges at him, but his expression isn’t “holy fuck what the hell is that thing?” it’s more “what’s that guy doing?”. Only when it springs for his throat does Richardson panic. It’s easy to imagine in the place of the monster, a maddened but very human Larry Talbot, probably barefoot and wild-eyed. Enough to unnerve Richardson and make him take a second look, but not enough to cause immediate and mortal terror, as we might expect if he was actually face to face with a supernatural monster.

Later, when the wolf man attacks Gwen, and Sir John rushes to her rescue, his face is again less that of a man who’s just been confronted by an honest to God werewolf, and more that of someone who’s just stumbled upon a man assaulting a young woman in the forest. Once he kills the wolf man and it slowly transforms back into Larry Talbot, there is certainly shock in Sir John’s face. But rather then the shock of witnessing a magic transfiguration, might this not be the shock of a man who’s realized what his own son is capable of?

Gwen, upon witnessing the same reversion to Larry’s human form, exclaims “Larry!” But Evelyn Ankers delivers the line in such a way that I hear less “werewolves are real?” and more “I can’t believe Larry Talbot just tried to strangle me.”

So if we grant that Larry has not actually become a wolf, and is instead fallen prey to superstition and his own psyche, whence comes the transformation? Why does he believe he is a werewolf? Why does he kill people?

Lon Chaney Jr. was great at playing sympathetic (and sometimes pathetic) characters that you just can’t help but feel for. His performance makes it hard not to like Larry, who seems every bit the put-upon everyman.

But long before he is ever bitten by the beast, there are indications that Larry Talbot has got a darker side.

Towards the beginning of the film, as mentioned earlier, he becomes smitten by Gwen Conliffe. But the manner in which this happens is quite disturbing. He is tinkering with his father’s telescope, and using it to scout out the town. That’s when he spots Gwen through her bedroom window. Rather than avert his eyes, he focuses the lens and watches for a bit, before going down to the shop to say hello.

The “wolf” man, indeed.

When he goes down to the shop to flirt, she’s not particularly interested. Much less so when he alludes to the earrings she keeps on her bureau in her room, spotted through the telescope. But Larry is pushy, and won’t take no for an answer. He insists on a date (”I’ll pick you up at eight”). She says no. He shows up at eight anyways. She caves.

I’m willing to chalk up some of the screenplay’s depiction of such unsettling behavior to shifting social mores and old-style sexism, but even in the 1940s watching a girl through her bedroom window was beyond the pale. So I think at least some of this was intentional on Siodmak’s part.

So it would seem the bite of the werewolf did not make Larry into a predator--he already had that side to him. In fact, when he first visits Gwen’s shop, in the face of his bold advances, she sardonically offers to sell him a cane topped with a wooden dog’s head (”how about a little dog? That would suit you!”). Larry says that won’t do, and the narrative agrees. Because next she suggests a cane capped with a silver wolf. That suits him, agree not only Gwen and the script, but also Larry himself, because he buys it.

Dogs are a byword for lechery and boorishness, but wolves are a byword for much worse: rapacity, savagery, bloodlust, unbridled lust.

What’s the significance of Larry choosing a wolf over a dog? Is there any? Am I overthinking this? Yeah, probably. You tell me.

So Larry goes with Gwen and Jenny to the Roma camp. He’s insistently flirting with Gwen when they hear the howl and the scream that alert them to Jenny’s peril. Larry rushes in to rescue Jenny, and though she’s already dead, he manages to kill the wolf with his cane.

Despite the selflessness of his act (sidenote: abandoning the “it’s all in Larry’s head” interpretation for a moment, it’s been pointed out how ironic it is that Larry, who has been a bit of a creep up until now, does this one good deed and in doing so damns himself to become a monster), it is ultimately his persistence in pursuing Gwen that leads to his being bitten by the beast.

Is it the case that, once convinced he has been bitten by a werewolf and is therefore doomed to become one himself, Larry’s subconscious finds an excuse to vent the violent psychosexual impulses that have been lurking there all the while? After all, he’s a monster now. He can’t help it.

What triggers Larry’s first transformation? A few days after he’s bitten, he goes back to the Roma camp, ostensibly to blow off some steam at the fair. While there, he runs into Gwen again, who happens to be with her fiancé Frank Andrews. He and Andrews have a ‘friendly’ competition at the shooting gallery, but when Larry is presented with a target in the shape of a cardboard cut-out wolf, he freaks and bolts. This (and the subsequent werewolf-centric conversation he has with Bela’s mother, Maleva) are the immediate cause of his first outing as ‘the wolf man’, but it seems pertinent that it follows right on the heels of another tense interaction with Gwen and with the man that’s going to marry her.

Once he becomes the wolf man, his first victim is Richardson the grave digger. Richardson is a man. But Richardson’s death seems almost accidental. Larry runs across him and kills him out of principle. Gwen on the other hand, is built up by the narrative as his “perfect victim”. Larry is horrified when he sees the apparition of a pentagram in her palm, believing himself destined to kill her. Later, during the climax, he transforms and specifically hunts her in his wolf form.

In short, both the wolf man and Larry want Gwen.

So is the wolf man a manifestation of Larry Talbot’s (possibly thanatophilic) lust? His savage sexual hunger given free rein in the shape of the “wolf man”?

It’s certainly an interesting, if eDgY, interpretation, to see Larry Talbot not as a doomed everyman, but rather as a sexually driven serial killer. Or at least, I think so.

(Worth noting that the other werewolf in the film, Bela, also transforms after a one-on-one encounter with a young woman, Jenny. And her first question of the fortune teller is “can you tell me when I’m going to be married?”)

Usually I’m not a fan of lazy “it’s all in X character’s head!” interpretations. They often come across as uninspired and pointless. But in this case I believe the film itself bears it out (or can be plausibly watched that way).

As mentioned above, Sir John makes several speeches on the duality of man. The same duality we are shown with such clarity in Larry himself. Sir John is played wonderfully by Claude Rains (probably best known as Casablanca’s Capt. Renault, but also starring in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Lawrence of Arabia) and like I mentioned above, is never made a figure of fun or contempt for his disbelief in the supernatural, unlike so many similar skeptics in monster movies. At most, his skepticism is portrayed as tragic, in that he doesn’t believe until it’s too late. At least, it can be argued (as I’ve been doing here) he was right in that there were never any literal monsters.

It seems superfluous to have Sir John make so many erudite statements on the monstrosity and capacity for savagery that exists in man, if we are not to at least contemplate the possibility that this is enough to explain the events of the film, without recourse to the supernatural.

So what is Sir John’s role in his son’s transformation, literal or otherwise? First, it’s important to note that Larry’s presumably deceased mother is never so much as mentioned. I’m sure there’s something Freudian at work here, but I’m too lazy to work it out.

The main point is that it means Sir John is alone in dealing with his son. At the beginning of the film, Sir John, glad at Larry’s return from America, tells him (regarding the traditionally austere relationship between aristocratic fathers and sons) “between us there shall be no more such reserve”. Through the remainder of the film, he again and again counsels his son that there are no werewolves at all. He’s all rationality and cool-headedness. When he speaks with Maleva, the old sage who has been Larry’s go-to in all things werewolf, he angrily denounces her as “the old gypsy woman who’s been filling his head with this werewolf nonsense”.

But of course, all this is no to avail. Towards the end of the movie, when Larry (almost hopefully) wonders if the people of Llanwelly will storm Talbot Castle and lynch him, Sir John falls back on the certainties of aristocratic privilege to reassure his son (”You’re a Talbot! This is Talbot Castle! You think those people can come in here and drag you out?”) Regardless of whether or not Larry literally sprouts fur and fangs, Sir John’s reason and deconstruction of superstition is powerless to control the monster in his son. In the end, all he can do is crudely bludgeon it to death. Tragic, really.

A commentary on the impotence of psychiatric analysis? Probably not. Still interesting to think about.

Now on to Maleva. Maria Ouspenskaya plays the crude old crone stereotype, but I think there’s a bit more to the character. She’s the mother of Bela, the Roma fortune teller who ostensibly bites Larry. She is perhaps the only staunch believer in werewolfism in the film save Larry himself, once he becomes one (or believes he has become one, if you’re staying with me). When Larry visits her just before his first transformation, she gives him the low-down on werewolf lore (”whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives, becomes a werewolf himself”). She also gives him a necklace marked with a pentagram (”the sign of the wolf”) and promises him it can break the evil spell.

He immediately gives it away to Gwen, hoping that it might protect her from himself, so we don’t get to see if it would have stopped the transformation. But when Gwen is attacked by the wolf man at the film’s climax, the charm does exactly jack-shit, so it seems unlikely. So Maleva, who believes in werewolves and even has magic charms meant to ward them off, is as powerless as the rational Sir John or Doctor Lloyd to contain the monster in Larry Talbot. The film itself never explains why the charm fails, but under the interpretation that Larry’s condition is mental rather than supernatural, of course a magic charm fails to keep him from killing.

Why does Maleva believe in werewolves? The film would immediately suggest it is because she comes from a culture that (in the movie at least) believes in them. But there’s another factor: she’s the mother of the other werewolf in the movie.

If we assume werewolves are just a manifestation of human lust, murderous or sexual or both, then it’s no wonder Maleva believes in werewolves: her son had the same monster in him as Larry Talbot. Explains her belief in the creature, and also why her charm doesn’t work. I suppose it might be easier to believe your loved one’s condition is a magic creature rather than simply a very sick human being.

So Maleva becomes as tragic a character as Sir John, both of whose explanations for the murderousness of their sons cannot do anything to actually restrain that murderousness.

(I haven’t and won’t even go into the implications of Larry killing Bela the werewolf with the phallic symbol that is a cane, and later being beaten to death by his father with the same, because it’s too on the nose and also it would probably fill another ten paragraphs)

Anyways, watch the Wolf Man. It’s a great movie. Whether you want to play psych 101 and overanalyze it like I’ve just done or just enjoy a straight up monster movie. The performances are great, the atmosphere is spooky, the score is fantastic. It’s a classic. Check it out.

And remember:

Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms, and the autumn moon is bright.

[notesfromcenter]

I am changing my mind.

@spreinke Steve Reinke

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” - Maya Angelou

“You can`t understand it? Then fuck you.” - Ol’ Dirty Bastard

Despite having written much over the past couple of years about a devastating turn in my life, I have not shared that writing. My body has decided on this opportunity to demonstrate a marked indifference to the compulsive clamoring of the mind’s narrative.  The body insists upon trauma and it’s own temporal mandates: I am not healed.

Sometimes, on the other hand, the head knows what the heart still refuses to metabolize. The disjunction between the knowledge that true sanction lies within, and the invincible and contraindicated desire to share, causes me shame. I’ve failed to reconcile these internal mechanics, limping around like a simulated human from some dystopian future, not yet able to integrate different parts, to achieve credible likeness through human fluidity.

As I attempt to parse this conflict, shame emerges, thematic. The more I consider my reluctance to share, the memories of shameful experiences proliferate. Feelings of shame have been, for me, less terrifying than an alternative where those closest to me could not be counted on for comfort or connection. I have learned not to trust my own emotions, and have been unable to use them as a compass for living.  I preferred the thought that I was the cause of my own distress,that my abnormality, my wrong-ness was to blame for feeling so alone.

PART 1

Katrien De Blauwer

Dark scenes 63 (2014)

After my divorce, there were people who never spoke to me again. One, a man I’d known for almost 15 years, someone I’d invited into my home after his own divorce when he needed a place to rebuild. The same man who delivered a reading from Wendell Berry at my wedding: “Marriage is a perilous and fearful effort, it seems to me… . It creates pain that it is the only cure for.” A particularized problem so complex and inextricable from our selves, so inexorable as to produce countless impasses for the imagination (the human tool possessed most fully of infinitude) that to evade that rhizomatic nest is simply to bury that self along with epigenetic hopes for future peace.  

I thought back to one of the final exchanges I had with this man. He spent the night at the house I shared with my then-husband. He, firmly middle-aged, had recently started seeing a woman considerably younger than himself, a pattern that unfolded in the typical manner: he grew older, the women stayed the same age. This particular woman had apparently been through a series of sexual traumas, a topic he broached with us, his close friends, in a serious and avuncular tone. He, in his consummate sensitivity and gentleness would save her from this history. His manner approached fetishistic - he the guide to this young woman, a savior from the damage of sexual predators past.  (Attempting to disavow any connection to a gendered power dynamic, he self-described as lesbian.) He elaborated tales of this young woman’s trauma, which, although undoubtedly trauma, he characterized as assault: In high school, she had given a blow job she did not want to give to a young man because he was “popular”, “black”, and “on the football team.”

Admittedly, I was rather blunt in my attack of this disclosure. Insensitive.

Lest the description of my dismay topple into the well-worn grooves the media and cultural discussion have handed us in order to properly analyze and divide over this kind of story, I’ve searched for the impasse. I’ll proffer a suggestion at bypass: There is the culture, or community, on the one hand, and individuals, on the other. #MeToo has taken highly personal stories and reflected them into a cultural narrative. We have not recognized that the equation, from one to many, is unidirectional. While appropriate to generalize from a pool of specifics, not so to reflect the general back onto an individual. We expand culture by adding elaborately specific stories, not by taking the average of those stories and waging it on the imagination of those who’ve yet to create their own.

In the case of #MeToo, the culture has given us two possible reactions to individual stories. On the one hand, you can blame the individual (she was drunk, she wore the wrong clothing, was too subtle, too unsubtle) and on the other, you can validate the victim (it was not her fault). Ostensibly different, there is common ground: Women are always victimized. If not by some outside force, then by the narrative that invokes her personal, often ethical, failure.

There is actually a third, and most powerful option: Just keep telling stories. True stories are like the body, like the heart, they demonstrate, in aggregate, that same indifference to the compulsions of analysis, in favor of something a lot more resistant to digestion. True stories quite literally don’t make sense in the way we like to think of it, unless we omit the nagging suspicions and fleeting glances that would never hold up in court. Making these omissions too shameful to report. They destroy our coherence, and women, most especially, are rendered powerless through an image of incoherence.

I suggested to my friend that a woman whose history was scarred by repeated incidents of unwanted sexual encounters hinging upon murky wagers of sexuality bore some self-examination. Perhaps the more accurate language would have been: “Your story about these events scares me in it’s implications about my own ability to consent, and therefore, the possibility of any personal integrity or cultural agency.”

I am not blind or unfeeling to the traumatic effect of such encounters, nor to the deep rooted structural inequity eroding the foundation on which all sexual encounters are predicated, however, I shudder to recast all regretful sexual encounters as assault. I do not know where the self resides in that narrative. The self that is the consciousness of thoughts and feelings, not their subject. I shudder at the implicit bias: the explicit designation of the perpetrator as “black” in the retelling of this story.  

Should we outlaw sex between men and women? After all, we are so far from social equality, the existing power differential does not admit consent in any case.

My now ex-husband used to joke, “all heterosexual sex is rape.” Just one in a series of memories provoking waves of shame as I flinchingly contemplate my complicity.  

My friend’s account of his young girlfriend’s story was pre-#MeToo. There was no cultural resurgence of Monica Lewinsky and Caitlin Moran had not yet written How to Tell the Bad Men From the Good Men; there was no conversation around Aziz Ansari’s behavior or that of his accuser. (A conversation which simply vacillates between the two aforementioned channels of prescribed thought: blame the victim or validate the victim.)

I should give a bit of context: the nature of conversations with this friend tended to the personal, but always through an intellectual lens, often making use of books or various theories to consider the topic at hand. Our conversations were explicit, probing, critical, contemplative, speculative, abstract, analytical. They weren’t shy. It’s likely I would not have suggested my qualms at the accounting had it been told by the woman herself, and I’m sure the first-hand account would’ve differed from the retelling. I did not know her, nor would I want to hurt her, blame her, or denigrate her experience. My observations reside now, as then, at the level of using these personal stories to contemplate my own integrity, my own consciousness, my own ability to consent. Hearing her stories (admittedly secondhand and through the mouthpiece of a new, male lover), my stomach immediately turned at the implications. Myself being the figure standing in for all of those implicated by the cultural exigencies created in these private mythologies. After all, we tend to tell stories that sound like the ones we already know. We can’t see things that we’ve never seen before. In these tales, we find palliatives for difficult feelings and we’re taught that our feelings are our truth. They’re not. They are metabolic flotsam to be witnessed for transience. We’re not comfortable living with mystery, and quite often agency treads too closely to responsibility to inspire our full enthusiasm.

This friend took a liberty in telling his girlfriend’s story. He was appalled at my reaction and vowed to protect his girlfriend from me. He would never bring her around me. I was dangerous in my cruelty. He would fix her with his compassion and would tailor his love-making strategy to her recovery.

I apologized profusely. I felt ashamed.

This man stopped speaking to me after my divorce. He preferred the friendship of my ex-husband. This makes a bit more sense in light of the details. Suffice it to say, my middle-aged husband also found a young woman to analyze, encouraging her to share her erotic dreams so that he could examine them. Let’s not forget, too, I am cruel. And insensitive.

PART 2

During this same time period, my young friend who would become my husband’s second wife, was engaged. She was quite aimless at the time, floating from barista job to bartender job, fantasizing about being a midwife, but mostly creating drama in her romantic relationships to avoid facing the deadening ennui. She would break up, get back together, muse on the boredom once things had settled into a routine, shake things back up again with suggestions of moving in together, or moving out, or drunkenly kissing other men at bars. Generally, provoking feelings to mask the malaise and avoiding the work that would create meaning. In one such fit of impulsivity, she convinced her boyfriend to marry her. He was complacent, too, and agreed on one condition. They would not be married “for real.” They would not file paperwork. They argued: “It’s only a piece of paper.”  

Her engagement announcement was met by a small group of friends with some measure of surprise. As the conversation tended towards diffusing the awkward reaction, she managed to back peddle away from anything that looked like an engagement or subsequent marriage. As it turned out the promise would culminate in a potluck dance party in her own honor, affording the opportunity to dress up and be center of attention under fraudulent pretenses while not actually committing to anything.

I suggested she take a closer look at what she meant by marriage, that perhaps there was more at stake in the piece of paper than she thought, in invoking the sanction and support of a community. After all, I told her, gay people are fighting too hard to get married so you can have your sham wedding.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more in the “ban marriage for everyone” camp, than a subscriber to the “marriage equality” oxymoron, but what can I say, I find words meaningful, alchemical even. It’s another case of the complex boundaries between individual cases and the larger culture. Ultimately, a case of connectivity, perhaps of meaning at all.

I’m an asshole, it’s a theme. She cried, of course she did. She pouted and insisted, indignantly and self-righteously that her perspective was well-considered. I was being elitist with my ideas about what a wedding should be. Not everyone must be so rigid in relation to ideas. She sobbed.

Here’s the refrain: I apologized profusely. I felt ashamed.

Please indulge my addition of the final chapter to that engagement: It fell apart when she, after months of sending her sex dreams to my husband, staying up with him late at night, decided to put his penis in her mouth while I was out of town.

Remember when I apologized to her for second guessing the triviality with which she faced her engagement? I suppose she proved her case. She instantiated a reality simultaneously selfish and nihilistic.

I’d made a fundamental mistake in these cases. I took these conversations to be about ideas, to be the general case. I wasn’t sensitive to the reality that most people don’t want to test their personal stories against some Kantian imperative. Everything tends to get a little too not-in-my-backyard feeling when we have to consider a reality where we live with others, truly connected to others. After all what is the American self if not exceptional?

Harriet Lee Merrion

PART 3

Let me tell you about one more friend. She and her husband are still in touch with my ex-husband, although admittedly they’re not so fond of him. Or rather, they describe him as self-serving, duplicitous, and deeply narcissistic. However, they know that according to popular culture you shouldn’t have to take sides in a divorce. In fact, it is much more deserving of dignity to be able to remain a kind of neutral party. This husband, he’s never thought much of me. He once wrote a short story depicting me (thinly veiled of course, only animals don’t invoke plausible deniability) as a cruel woman, albeit in a position of power, who would “spit” at her assistants and who demeaned her husband with her “roving eye.” He once gave me a book titled something like, Decor for Dictators. It made him “think of me”.  I don’t behave as he thinks a woman should. I saw my friend, this man’s wife, recently and I told her I’d be interested in her thoughts on some articles I was reading about #MeToo and #TimesUp. She characteristically wrinkled her nose, “I don’t know what I’ll think about that. I’m pretty regressive when it comes to these issues”, she warned. When I shared my writing with her about the dissolution of my marriage, she was quiet. I felt ashamed.

When people show you who they are, believe them.

Self-publishing my stories feels like another form of shame. As if the stories represent something abhorrent about me, something defective. It feels as though these kind of stories need authoritative sanction, an aegis.

On the other hand.

[levelstory]

My Favorite Podcasts

I had intended on writing a stellar introduction to this piece, talking about how important podcasts have been to my life and how much I have learned and blah, blah, blah. But if I am being honest, now is not the time for philosophical musings on why podcasts are freaking great. Instead, I just want to talk about my favorite podcasts, the podcasts that I can listen to no matter what. And don't underestimate me when I say no matter what. I am talking about podcasts that I never grow sick of. Sure there are times when I love a podcast, but then there are equal the amount of times when I return to the podcast and grow bored or just don't enjoy it like I did at one time. The podcasts I am talking about are the ones that I have stuck with through thick and thin and never can't enjoy. They are just too good to pass up. I know, it is a high bar I am setting. But I stand by these top 5 picks and I hold them in high regard. So without further ado, my top 5 podcasts that I never, ever get sick of...ever.

Up Yours, Downstairs

Now this list is in no particular order, but if it was then this podcast would be at the top of the tier. I never knew a love as deep as the one I have for this podcast. It specializes in recapping the PBS/ITV period soap opera, Downton Abbey. I tell people to watch Downton Abbey just to listen to this show...because if I am being honest, Downton isn't all that good. It is this podcast that makes watching all six seasons and a tacked on movie worth while. Hosts Kelly and Amy are hilarious and super smart, creating an atmosphere that is relaxing and educational. There are a handful of podcasts that have made me laugh out loud at work, but none have been able to do so with such consistency. And this is one of the few shows that I relisten to since new episodes are not currently being put out any longer (sad face). Choosing to listen to this podcast will be the best decision of your life, even more important than deciding what college to attend or what to name your first born child. Okay...that may be slightly sarcastic but you get the idea. 

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Pippa

In the Books (Game of Thrones Book Club)

Like the previous podcast, this show is no longer producing episodes which is a real shame because my gosh I crave new episodes. But listening to the episodes we were given is always super enjoyable. Hosts James, “Graessle”, Chelsea, and Joel recap and analyze chapters from A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. Although never officiated via the podcasts gods on iTunes or other audio platforms, this show was primarily hosted via YouTube. The Practical Folks, the channel that produced this program, are a comedy YouTube channel known primarily for their Drunk Disney show. The channel also used to post a lot of Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire content. Throughout its run the show was known as the Game of Thrones book club, with a name change coming shortly before the decision to bring the show to an audio platform vs. live streams and video. Sadly, shortly after the name change came the news that the team just did not have time to dedicate to have these book clubs. While I understand the reasoning, it is a real shame as this is by far the best A Song of Ice and Fire book club on the interwebs and I could have used their insight on the later books. Regardless, it is a great show and has a lot of re-listening value.

Listen/Watch: YouTube

Witch, Please

Harry Potter is the reason I became a podcast fanatic. In college all I wanted to do was study the Harry Potter books. Being that there were no classes on the series at my school, I turned to the internet where I found a plethora of podcasts to fill my Potter cravings. At this point I've listened to almost all of the podcasts about these books that are out there and it is safe to say that I have grown a bit bored. Listening to the recaps saying very similar things over and over again becomes dull and if I am being honest, Potter has lost its luster for me over the years due to Rowling's inability to leave the series behind and my own growth as a person. The series still holds a candle but it isn't as strong and I am okay with that. For a while I was beginning to think that all Potter podcasts were the same old rodeo...but Witch, Please is a breath of fresh air. Finally, a podcast that offers something new to the Potter community. What has become increasingly obvious over the years since Potter's publication is that the books, nor Rowling, are not as woke as we once believed. This podcast dives into these ideas, challenging the books while also celebrating them for the wonders that they are. I seriously love these ladies and love this podcast. Definitely take a listen.

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts

fiction/non/fiction

Self described on iTunes as, "[a podcast that] interprets current events through the lens of literature…" If ever there was a podcast for me, it would be this one. For the longest time, since high school, I have firmly believed that literature offers a window into our lives that helps us not only understand ourselves but the world around us. Good literature has long felt like a requirement for my life. After all, how can I live without these amazing books that seem to be written directly to my own soul and speak to my very experiences while at the same time speaking to others with completely different ones? During this time of political unrest, literature feels more important than ever to understanding ourselves, our neighbors, and political climates. If literature has taught me anything, it is the need to practice empathy and to have a better understanding of those whose experiences are different than mine. I grew up with a very sheltered, conservative worldview. Reading literature has expanded my mind and forced me to wrestle with ideas and I feel better for it. I never want to become content with the way things are but always question and try to understand. This podcast is the perfect outlet for these feelings. The hosts and guests talk about current events and relate them to works of literature. This podcast seems to feed my very soul and I can't get enough of it. I am still catching up on episodes and I imagine I will be a bit sad when I am all caught up, but I am excited for the future of the show and new episodes!

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts

Team West Covina

The CW musical drama Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a show I have a mixed relationship with...on the one hand I absolutely love it. It radically defies television and musical tropes while also being crazy funny and a strangely accurate depiction of relationships and mental health. On the other hand, the show can sometimes drag and the plot can feel forced. But at the end of the day, it is a show I find highly enjoyable and always recommend. As with most things in life, once I began watching this show I immediately started looking for podcasts to listen to. I found one that I stuck with for awhile but never loved. Then this one was suggested to me via a YouTuber and I figured, it is worth giving a shot...and I am so glad I did. The podcast analyses each episode in depth, paying particular attention to the characters and the themes being presented and talking about this on a larger scale by referencing past and future episodes. Clearly "Paisley" knows her stuff, and I could not imagine it being in more capable hands. Her analysis is on point and really makes you appreciate the show so much more than the casual watch. 

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts

I listen to a lot of podcasts...A LOT! My podcast library is current made up of...well I would tell you but iTunes is failing to load. What else is new. (Yes, I am bitter that iTunes can't load properly in 2019. And yes, I still use iTunes and an iPod in 2019). Again I must emphasize a lot. Sometimes I download podcasts and collect their episodes for listening far off in the future. Other times I download one episode and wonder months later why a certain podcast is in my library.

These podcasts are without a doubt the ones I always find myself listening to and returning to. They bring so much joy to my life, and I always look forward to them.

Let me know in the comments what some of your favorite podcasts are! 

[sophmatthewsphotos]

Artist Analysis Photo shoot 1            Bill Wadman

Q1) What is the name of the photographer? Is this photographer a professional photographer? If so what company has he or she worked for , what famous magazines have their photographs featured in or what galleries has he or she exhibited their work in?

William George "Bill" Wadman was born in America on the 4th January 1975 and know lives in Brooklyn New York. Wadman is a professional portrait photographer and has been a contributor to TIME, BusinessWeek, Improper Bostonian and POZ.

Q2) What is the photographers motivation for being a photographer? What is the photographers motivation for creating this type of imagery?

When Wadman was younger he was creative and interested in art but unfortunately didn't have a artistic talent or one that he had found yet. After finding he father's camera he decided photography would be a good creative path. Quote from PetaPixel interview - “I’m one of those people who gets bored fairly easily, and I can’t draw, so I figured photography was a good visual art for me to dabble in. When I was a kid, I used to play with my dad’s Canon AE-1, but he yelled at me for it most of the time, so I had to wait until I was older before I rediscovered the fun”. Wadman’s inspiration for “Dancers in Motion” started as an experiment and a departure from his traditional and conceptual portrait work. He had attended a lecture by old-school sports photographer Marvin Newman where he showed a slow shutter speed image he had taken of a boxer with his saturated glove smearing across the frame as he punched his opponent. Wadman was inspired by the imagery and the idea of capturing motion in a dynamic way, so started experimenting with long exposure photography.

Q3) Discuss whether this photograph has been taken for a commercial purpose or an editorial purpose or a fine art purpose.

Wadman’s photographs were for an editorial purpose, the project  'Motion' which they featured in was a series of long exposure studies of human motion shot in the studio. It was featured in the Huffington post and PetaPixel.

Q4) Discuss the underlying genre of the photograph?

This photograph is essentially based on a Portrait genre.

Q5) The content of this photograph revolves around the body and its movement through time. I personally find this image visually pleasing because it’s able to show how dancers can travel and distort there bodies in order to get from A to B. It also contracts from other dance portraits as the slow shutter speed gives a blur effect which allows for a more experimental/ art based feel.

Q6) Do you think that this photograph has been created purely for visual reasons or is there any other underlying reason or hidden meaning in this photograph?

I think that this photograph has been created for more than one reason. Wadman wanted to be able to portray dancers and their movement in an interesting and dynamic way, he deiced that using a dark room along with a slow shutter speed he could create this visual. I also believe that this image has an underlying reason as well. In an interview with PetaPixel Wadman states “with professional dancers the results were incredible, I decided all the subjects should people whose use of motion is their living”. This quote suggests that he wanted to use specific people in his images in order to truly represent them for example movement or dancers.

Q7) discuss the main technical or formal elements featured in this photograph?

Blurry movement is the main element featured in this photograph. Wadman used a 3-second shutter speed with his lens stopped down to f/11 (to prevent the depth-of-field from being too shallow, since he was aiming for motion blur rather than out-of-focus blur).

Q8) Do you consider this image to be a photograph or more of fine art?

I do consider this photograph as a piece of fine art. Firstly there is an element of creative art , we see this through the slow shutter speed which almost give a paint brush like effect. Secondly this image is highly imaginative as it differs from standard dance photography and uses specific subjects to represent movement as it is part of their everyday lives.  Lastly the image includes a variety of different movement , colours and shapes which overall makes it a very aesthetically pleasing piece of fine art.

Q9) What is your personal response to this photograph and how does this photograph inspire or relate to your own work?

I thoroughly enjoy this image. I feel that Wadman has successfully captured the idea of “Motion” through dance and how our body's move individually. Being a dancer myself i like the fact that he has taken people whose lives revolve around movement and used that to create an entire project. Wadman has inspired me to produce my own set of dance related images. I have similarly decided to use Motion as my theme but instead of using a slow shutter speed i am going to digitally edit my images to give the blurred effect.