July 2011
24 posts
Yesterday I ...
*hung out in the J. Crew Bridal salon while my friend tried on dresses. “We have explicit expectations of ourselves in specific situations — beyond expectations, they are requirements,” according to the protagonist of We Need To Talk About Kevin. “Some of these are small: If we are given a surprise party, we will be delighted. Others are sizeable: If a parent dies, we will be grief-stricken. But perhaps in tandem with these expectations is the private fear that we will fail convention in the crunch.” Right? Luckily I did feel thrilled and infected by the contagious joy of my beautiful friend, but I had worried that I’d see her come out of the dressing room in the perfect dress and have to fake the requisite awe. But it turns out that there is genuine power inherent in that moment. Who knew? Well: TLC.
*met the lady who feeds the stray cats that live on my block, after wondering who was doing it for a long time. Some people get mad at her, she says, for encouraging them. She’s friendly with one of them, and it allows itself to be petted. This whole situation seems fraught with weird poignant badness. Something is clearly wrong with this lady. I felt that and I also felt only very slightly removed from being a lot like her.
Karaoke reenactment playlist
The Muppet Movie sold out minutes before Lori and I could get our tickets yesterday, so we went to Karaoke Shout, which had just opened its doors, and rented a private room and sang songs to each other for two hours starting at 1pm. What a completely normal thing for two consenting adults to do on a Sunday. This was my first experience of daytime karaoke and my conclusions are: it’s a good way to save money and feel like a weird pervert who is overly committed to karaoke.
These are some of the songs we sang. We had sort of half-committed to a ‘people who died’ theme but after Lori sang “What I Got” I started wanting to shy away from it. The theme is “these are great and in some cases horrible songs to sing.”
“Man in the Box” is a fantastic karaoke jam (for Lori at least). “Oh bu-uh-uh-uh-uh-rn myyy eyyyyes”
"I died a hundred times" →
wwnorton.tumblr.com
A woman who delves into the relationship between Eros and Thanatos is not typically regarded as someone making a transgressive, probing move, but as a self-abasing traitor aiding and abetting rape culture. Likewise, a woman who explores the depths of her despair or depression isn’t typically valorized as a hero on a fearless quest to render any “darkness visible” but is instead perceived as a redundant example of female vulnerability, fragility, or self-destructiveness. A woman who lives, as did Artaud, like a mad animal at the furthest reaches of her sanity, isn’t a shamanistic voyager to the dark side, but a “madwoman in the attic,” an abject spectacle. “Her hair gave off a strong smell, sharp as an animal’s,” said a visitor to Plath’s London flat, one month before her winter suicide.
-Maggie Nelson, The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning
Play
“She also famously dated Sean “P. Diddy” Combs for a couple of years back in the day.”
—this is from the fourth paragraph of the J. Lo divorce item on the L.A. Times gossip blog. Decry the downfall of reporting all you want, but consider how LOL it will be when this style is universally adopted. “Congress had also tried to pass this resolution one time back in the day.”
The Art of Cruelty →
wwnorton.tumblr.com
I suppose, in the end, I remain grateful to Breaking the Waves for one thing: it spoke to a question I’ve had for some time—namely, what purpose could a female Christ serve in the (male) imagination? As writer Eileen Myles has put it, “What would be the point in seeing [a woman] half nude and…
went and purchased a new full-priced hardcover book today on the strength of this quote and am so glad I did!
