Road trip, road trip, road trip, yeah!
Okay, i'm kinda excited, yet this is a bittersweet excursion, as it'll be the last adventure that me and my vehicle will have together. It's been a great 9 years, but i am trading in my explorer sport this weekend, sigh.
Thus, i decided to post a poem i once wrote about my sturdy companion:
My white trusty steed
has been beaten.
All of our time together condensed,
wiped clean, in a beat.
Heading East, contact, slick-spin and we're lurching
NorthWest, gasping.
In our minds we were already home:
Me, mixing a white russian.
You, cooling in the dark
not lifted onto a cold, friendless tow-truck
taken god knows where.
Saltpeter lines my throat, metallic grimace.
Your hard love bruised into my collarbone.
Grotesquely twisted metal reduced to scrap.
***
The good news is that explor-y pulled through & we had over four more years together!
Let's see if the green machine can even begin to compete.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Those evil witches
Okay, so is it just me (and I know it isn't) but how kick-ass are the evil queens & witches in our fairy tales & Disney cartoons? I mean, c'mon, they had power, beauty & the cajones to get ticked, say what they thought and do what they wanted.
Funny, how in the end those are the reasons they failed and inevitably died. Hmmm, not exactly positive female representation....
I mean, sure, as a kid I wanted to be Sleeping Beauty (She slept most of the story & was awaken by her true love! How easy! How lazy! no wonder I’m a floundering singleton.) or Snow White. But by the time I was nine-ish, those "heroines" seemed rather boring. I mean, they aren't even in the story that much if you think about it. Guess who is? yup, the villain.
Now take a character like Maleficent and you see this regal grace (greenish pallor aside), her determined fashion and beauty. Not to mention a forthright demeanor and a never-wavering determination. And really, all she wanted was to be invited to the party. I’d be pissed too if all my sibs had been invited & I was left out. Granted, I wouldn't curse the newborn babe to death, but I’d guarantee they would not be on my guest list.
But the female representation is fairly positive with these fairy-tale villains, except that they are evil (they want to kill our one-dimensional heroine). And in the end it is the positive characteristics that are denounced by the ultimate failure of the evil queen/witch in the end. Subtext is fairly (horrid pun) obvious, yaw? If you are female and powerful you, uhm, are punished for it. I'm beginning to think the Brothers Grimm were more like patriarchal Aesop's Fables, or worse.
Now, not only is the villain the only reason there is a story and drama to begin with; the villain is usually the more complex and interesting character (I do like America's obsession with the anti-hero, hello? westerns & gangster genres for starters...). So why are we flouncing around in pastel tulle? I say don the black dress and work some magic.
**Jakob, this one was for you. Wicked Witches DO rock.
Tons of stuff on this subject, but more focus on the heroine issue. Found this, though, really worth checking out Folk & Fairy Tales. And a whole reading list here. The musical Wicked tries to justify why the Witch of the West turns out bad. The reasons are there, Elphaba was abused & manipulated, having every right to retaliate; yet there is this apologetic tone.
SideNote: The more I think about it, though, the more I kinda think these evil queens were men in drag. Seriously, why else all the big make-up & shapeless garments if you were, say "The fairest in the land"?
I mean, sure, as a kid I wanted to be Sleeping Beauty (She slept most of the story & was awaken by her true love! How easy! How lazy! no wonder I’m a floundering singleton.) or Snow White. But by the time I was nine-ish, those "heroines" seemed rather boring. I mean, they aren't even in the story that much if you think about it. Guess who is? yup, the villain.
Now take a character like Maleficent and you see this regal grace (greenish pallor aside), her determined fashion and beauty. Not to mention a forthright demeanor and a never-wavering determination. And really, all she wanted was to be invited to the party. I’d be pissed too if all my sibs had been invited & I was left out. Granted, I wouldn't curse the newborn babe to death, but I’d guarantee they would not be on my guest list.
But the female representation is fairly positive with these fairy-tale villains, except that they are evil (they want to kill our one-dimensional heroine). And in the end it is the positive characteristics that are denounced by the ultimate failure of the evil queen/witch in the end. Subtext is fairly (horrid pun) obvious, yaw? If you are female and powerful you, uhm, are punished for it. I'm beginning to think the Brothers Grimm were more like patriarchal Aesop's Fables, or worse.
Now, not only is the villain the only reason there is a story and drama to begin with; the villain is usually the more complex and interesting character (I do like America's obsession with the anti-hero, hello? westerns & gangster genres for starters...). So why are we flouncing around in pastel tulle? I say don the black dress and work some magic.
**Jakob, this one was for you. Wicked Witches DO rock.
Tons of stuff on this subject, but more focus on the heroine issue. Found this, though, really worth checking out Folk & Fairy Tales. And a whole reading list here. The musical Wicked tries to justify why the Witch of the West turns out bad. The reasons are there, Elphaba was abused & manipulated, having every right to retaliate; yet there is this apologetic tone.
SideNote: The more I think about it, though, the more I kinda think these evil queens were men in drag. Seriously, why else all the big make-up & shapeless garments if you were, say "The fairest in the land"?
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Wolf Packs -
Now, this isn't an original idea, but one i've believed in for many years: i feel as a society, in order to survive, we've got to chuck our conventional notions of family and create communities.
We threw out the nuclear model of the family about the time the Cleavers went to syndication, but most certainly in the last 25 years it has become painfully obvious that marriage isn't a viable option for us. Not when over half of them officially fail and end in divorce (*roughly, some people say that number is high, but anything over 20% i would think too high, and it certainly is over 20%.). And then how many of those that remain married actually function and aren't a marriage of convenience? I mean look at this: "50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce," per the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology. 10% of the US is divorced (2002) which is up from 8% in 1990. There are websites labeled "divorce rate" and "divorce magazine" for chrissake.
Something is not working.
Of course i am the hopeful romantic (in cynic's clothing) and i've shiny examples of workable marriages all around me (The 'rents have had 31 glorious years together & still going strong!). Marriage is tough. Power to the couples that work things out, communicate effectively, choose the battles, compromise and maintain a part of their own individuality, cultivate it and celebrate it in her/his partner. I mean, seriously, y'all rock! Rates be damned.
But is that enough? As geography continues to pull us farther and farther apart, all the while technology brings us TOO CLOSE together, where's the human interaction going to happen? The cost of living, the economy, our environment, our politics, etc. continues to get increasingly scary. The notion of a big family isn't feasible; we seem to be heading towards a sibling-less society raised by single parents, and that's an extremely tough gig. I get marriage just based on having two people to raise a child (or childs, ha!) is better than one, unless the other one is a sh*tbird.
What if we had more than two parents?
We need wolf packs, m' dears. How else are we to make sense of all of this craziness if we don't find others that we can learn from, share and stick together? And no, i'm not proposing hippie communes with partner swapping. I mean creating a space within our groups that is healthy, encouraging and safe for our young ones and our old ones.
That's what a family is supposed to be, but.... yeah, see above.
I also think that is what organized religion is supposed to be (however effed up the politics and the practices might have been/be): it brought together large groups of people into one space. Now, i won't get started on my own beliefs about the failures of religion (another time, perhaps), but in a pure, naive stance, i think it was a fabulous thing. Community bake-offs, carnivals, brunches, lectures, single mixers, study groups, choir, luncheons, summer camps for the kiddies, retreats... I find it hard not to shudder as i list these examples, as i've become jaded by the abuse of power by religious leaders' inexcusable behaviour, brainwashing, wielding religion as fire-and-brimstone and fear, the fast-talking-save-your-soul variety on Sunday morning TV, Scientology where you pay your way [again, don't get me started, but it's hardly the first religion to employ that tactic; although it may be the smarmiest.] for starters. But again, the pure idea of it all is lovely: coming together as a community to interact. What's wrong with that? not a damn thing.
So why not try & create a new model? I say power to the urban family!
Hell, statistics show that we might as well give it a whirl, what's the worse that can happen, we fail? Seems like we already are.
***as a disclaimer, i have to say i'm incredibly lucky to have been bestowed one kick-ass family. i know i'm spoiled in that regard, completely, and i'm forever grateful for it.
We threw out the nuclear model of the family about the time the Cleavers went to syndication, but most certainly in the last 25 years it has become painfully obvious that marriage isn't a viable option for us. Not when over half of them officially fail and end in divorce (*roughly, some people say that number is high, but anything over 20% i would think too high, and it certainly is over 20%.). And then how many of those that remain married actually function and aren't a marriage of convenience? I mean look at this: "50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce," per the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology. 10% of the US is divorced (2002) which is up from 8% in 1990. There are websites labeled "divorce rate" and "divorce magazine" for chrissake.
Something is not working.
Of course i am the hopeful romantic (in cynic's clothing) and i've shiny examples of workable marriages all around me (The 'rents have had 31 glorious years together & still going strong!). Marriage is tough. Power to the couples that work things out, communicate effectively, choose the battles, compromise and maintain a part of their own individuality, cultivate it and celebrate it in her/his partner. I mean, seriously, y'all rock! Rates be damned.
But is that enough? As geography continues to pull us farther and farther apart, all the while technology brings us TOO CLOSE together, where's the human interaction going to happen? The cost of living, the economy, our environment, our politics, etc. continues to get increasingly scary. The notion of a big family isn't feasible; we seem to be heading towards a sibling-less society raised by single parents, and that's an extremely tough gig. I get marriage just based on having two people to raise a child (or childs, ha!) is better than one, unless the other one is a sh*tbird.
What if we had more than two parents?
We need wolf packs, m' dears. How else are we to make sense of all of this craziness if we don't find others that we can learn from, share and stick together? And no, i'm not proposing hippie communes with partner swapping. I mean creating a space within our groups that is healthy, encouraging and safe for our young ones and our old ones.
That's what a family is supposed to be, but.... yeah, see above.
I also think that is what organized religion is supposed to be (however effed up the politics and the practices might have been/be): it brought together large groups of people into one space. Now, i won't get started on my own beliefs about the failures of religion (another time, perhaps), but in a pure, naive stance, i think it was a fabulous thing. Community bake-offs, carnivals, brunches, lectures, single mixers, study groups, choir, luncheons, summer camps for the kiddies, retreats... I find it hard not to shudder as i list these examples, as i've become jaded by the abuse of power by religious leaders' inexcusable behaviour, brainwashing, wielding religion as fire-and-brimstone and fear, the fast-talking-save-your-soul variety on Sunday morning TV, Scientology where you pay your way [again, don't get me started, but it's hardly the first religion to employ that tactic; although it may be the smarmiest.] for starters. But again, the pure idea of it all is lovely: coming together as a community to interact. What's wrong with that? not a damn thing.
So why not try & create a new model? I say power to the urban family!
Hell, statistics show that we might as well give it a whirl, what's the worse that can happen, we fail? Seems like we already are.
***as a disclaimer, i have to say i'm incredibly lucky to have been bestowed one kick-ass family. i know i'm spoiled in that regard, completely, and i'm forever grateful for it.
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