Spring inspirations from the world of pop culture

Quote of the day from today's NYT: Eric Landan, president of Rick's Cabaret International, which runs 10 strip clubs: "Our clubs are set up with the same decorations and customer service as any major steakhouse." His point was that strip clubs are not a big deal (true) and that they're where businessmen have long done their business (also true). What strikes me is the implicit parallel between strip clubs and steakhouses. It's almost like a set up for a feminist joke about women being treated like pieces of meat a' la The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist Vegetarian Critical Theory, by Carol J. Adams. I confess to never having read the book. We had it lying around my vegan all-girl punk house many years ago but the book's title seemed to say it all. The title, and all those all-girl punk songs we sang along to by Team Dresch and Sleater Kinney and Spitboy back in the day.

Speaking of girl power, I've been meaning to show this clip from the musical Wicked, which my roommate and I went to see in February. The song is called Defying Gravity and it's kind of reminiscent of all those riot girl songs of yesteryear. Here is a snapshot of the lyrics:
Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!
It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!

Also oddly moving (and, alternatively, hilarious) is Alicia Keys singing "New York" with Stephen Colbert rapping about his asthma and life in the upper-middle class!:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down
www.colbertnation.com

Faves films of late: The Runaways (serious lez action with Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie and Kirsten Stewart as Joan Jett); The Hurt Locker (more serious fare - i don't often watch war movies but this one seemed to show the alienation and adrenaline rush that comes with living amongst so much danger and violence); Up in the Air (the moral: capitalist alienation-not love-will tear us apart unless we hold onto each other); The Princess and the Frog, (yes, it was refreshing seeing a working class, black princess in a Disney musical/cartoon/movie for once!!!)

Actual news (the passage of landmark health care reform! the web of disease causation! Tom Freiden's pyramid of public health interventions! the lifting of the federal ban on funding for syringe exchange! the U.S. finally, kind of standing up to Netanyahu on building in E. Jerusalem!) next time.

Change is the only constant

I am reminded again that change is the only constant. Some highlights:

1. New nephew this week, born 9/30! Can't wait to meet him next time I'm in New York!

2. Nine laid off co-workers had their last day this week. I made a card for each of them.

3. Tsunamis and earthquakes and typhoons in Samoa, Indonesia, and the Phillipines.

4. Dear friend leaving the casa where I live. Not sure yet who will move in.

5. Due to budget crisis etc., my new commute will be 1.5 hrs. each way. If you have books to recommend during my longer train rides, let me know. I just finished reading George Soros's book on the 2008 financial crisis (which, at least in California, is not yet over). My favorite quote from the book, which sums up so much about this moment: "The fact that state intervention is always flawed does not make markets perfect."

I am reminded also of this tattoo idea I've had for a long while, about the question of strength, and whether it means dropping anchor or setting sail:

I am reminded of two wristbands a friend made me once, of the distinction between holding tight and letting go:

Addendum: A good friend has breast cancer, and could use some support. To contribute to costs for acupuncture, etc., please go to https://www.paypal.com/ and give to anandiwonder@yahoo.com.

New Fall Favorites

1) Rachel Maddow getting all silly about saying the "L" word. Of course, being a nerd, she means "Liberal" not, you know, Lesbian. Unfortunately, they cut it out of the online video and the transcript but she said something like, "Up next, Obama and 'the L word.' Oh wait, not the L word you're thinking of. I meant something else entirely." And then she put her head down and laughed. It was very charming. Anyway, here's what she was gushing about:

2) And speaking of liberals, my favorite t-shirt on a protestor at a right wing, anti-tax, anti-government, anti-Obama, anti-everything protest in Washington, D.C., September 12, 2009: "I'd rather be a right wing nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job."

Well, at least he had a sense of humor. It was fascinating, after eight years of anti-war protests in the streets, gawking at a right wing protest instead. What a strange reversal of roles. Particularly for a bunch of anarchists to suddenly be defending the government!

3) Some other highlights from the September 12, 2009, "Taxpayer March on Washington":

Male Protestor, white, male, late 40's, bellicosely: "Did you know you have $300,000 in debt because of the federal government?!"

Amanda, white, female, mid-30's, patiently: "Would you mind lowering your voice. We're standing right here."

Male Protestor: "You know what, you're right. I just get so passionate."

Amanda: "Well, a lot of people have debt."

Someone Else: "If Bush hadn't invaded Iraq, we wouldn't have so much debt."

Protestor: "No, I didn't support Bush either. (Something about the federal government needing to get out of our lives.)

Amanda: "What about public education?"

Protestor: "I'm for public education. We just need competition. Like here in DC, they blocked charter schools. My wife is a public teacher and she can't even get anything done."

Me: "What about the VA? Would you dismantle the VA? What about Medicare?"

Female Protestor: "I worked all my life and paid into Medicare. That's my money. Now you're going to have the government taking away my healthcare."

Me, to the Female Protestor: "No. If you have insurance, you'll be able to keep it."

Female Protestor: "Oh, no you won't!"

Me, to the Male Protestor: "Well, we get that you're against the public option. What are you for?"

Male Protestor: "If you wouldn't keep interrupting me, I'd tell you."

Me: "Okay, what are you for?"

Male Protestor: "Well, first of all, buying insurance across state lines. Now they're trying to block that!"

Me: "Fine. Sounds reasonable. What else?"

Male Protestor: "Well, now you've got me all flustered." Pauses at length, stuttering. Goes on to rail against Obama's government takeover.

Male Protestor, soon thereafter: "I can't talk to you guys. You're just too pig-headed." Marches away.

xxx

Later, on the plane back from DC, I sit next to a 50-something couple with antitax protest t-shirts, and decide to strike up a normal conversation. We talk about the weather in Houston, where they were from, and in San Francisco, where I'm from.

Me: "So, what do you do?"

Husband: "I sell tires at Sears."

Me: "How's business?"

Husband: "So-so. But my wife here works for ExxonMobil. There's always going to be money in the oil business."

Me: "Yeah. At least for another 25-30 years until the oil runs out. Then you'll have to be manufacturing soybeans or something like that."

Wife, sharply: "Right!"

(End of conversation. So much for across-the-aisle dialogue!)

4) The September 9-15, 2009, SF Weekly cover story, "The Wrong Stuff," where Mayor Newsom's former campaign managers and staffers describe their doubts about his skills as potential Governor. It's frightening, really, how consistently they describe him as lacking integrity. Again, his confessions of wanting to be president (and, I've long thought, fashioning himself after a Kennedy), just prove that he is a man more in love with the idea of being a leader than he is with leading.

the world is upside down, but it still has crafts

HIV prevention programs, HIV counseling and testing programs, and syringe exchange programs are losing major funding ($82 million) from the State, and possibly from counties, too, once the radiation from the Governor's budget line item veto leaks out like some kind of bureaucratic Bhopal. A lot of people I know may lose their jobs. Even the heads of the California Department of Public Health said they're concerned this will lead to new HIV infections.

Enough. It's time to lift the federal ban on funding for syringe exchange AND the amendment introduced in the House that would ban funding any syringe exchange that was within 1,000 feet of any place where children congregate (playgrounds, daycare centers, etc.). I want to believe that amendment is not just a ploy so members of Congress can look like they're taking action while effectively banning funding for syringe exchanges in urban areas.

I made some crafty things recently for other people, (one it was her b'day, one it wasn't). These things still make me happy, even if (and maybe because) they're small in scope.

Office Diorama for Sy, "Ye Olde Baitline Headquarters"

Card for Danielle, Even Though It Wasn't Actually Her B'Day

In other areas of hopeful news, worker collectives in Argentina are approaching full ownership of the factories they occupied when the Argentinian economy collapsed. Maybe we can do the same thing here while we're celebrating our gay, anticapitalist love.

Comfort food for the eyes and ears on a cold and foggy summer day in San Francisco

Beautiful, sad animated video for Seventeen Years" by Ratatat. Take note of the bunnies and turtles and squirrels; they'll have their sweet justice in the end, I swear to you.

Thanks to Scout for the youtube inspiration. Here's Rufus Wainright signing Hallelujah in Ireland. Yay for the gay gays!

More on Marilynne Robinson

At an event of City Arts and Lectures, October 27, 2008, at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, I had the pleasure of asking Marilynne Robinson this question:

“My favorite line from Housekeeping is, ‘When she had been married a little while, she concluded that love was half a longing of a kind that possession did nothing to mitigate.’ Can you talk about longing and solitude in all of your books?”

Here was her response: “Hm. Interesting. I really think. I mean, one of the reasons that I write is that it feels to me as if there is a, you know, there is a frustrated richness in experience. And I know that that’s kind of. I think that we know more than we can convey, that we hope for more than the world can satisfy, that we are in a certain sense creatures of greater depth than the world can answer to.

And that’s why I like string theory ha ha. I mean, the idea that science can actually affirm in its way the possibility that there is a greater sort of depth and density in existence itself than our senses allow us to apprehend. This, to me, feels deeply consistent with other intuitions that I have about the world.

I think that one of the things that is interesting about any art, and about the reception of any art, is that when you listen to beautiful music or when you read a moving book it’s almost as if it awakens recognition in you, as if the emotion that it stirs pre-exists your experience of it, but you would never know that if it were not for the art.

And so it’s like there’s some paradox about our being very deep creatures, very emotionally rich creatures, who nevertheless are dependent on one another for access to what is most interior to ourselves. So, longing seems to me a sort of metaphor for a much deeper state of attention, and expectation almost, that people live with continuously and never satisfy.”