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December 28, 2005

Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague, I learned recently, is a French phrase meaning "new wave," not "new AND vague," as I originally guessed, or "vaguely new" as one of my friends guessed, or "new vagueness," as another surmised. (Considering my love for 80s new wave music, my interest in cinema, and that minor I earned in French, I should have known this long ago, but at least I no longer live in such profoundly blightened ignorance. And I don't know much about Portuguese, but I do know now that bossa nova is how you say "new wave" in Portuguese.)

I learned this because a few months ago, a friend introduced me to a French band called--that's right--Nouvelle Vague. They are, to my mind, one of the coolest cover bands ever to exist: they have a bevy of sultry female singers providing breathy, faintly accented vocals to lounge versions of American and British new wave and punk songs from the late 70s and early 80s. Not only do they cover the standards, like Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again," but they also take on less commonly heard goth numbers like "A Forest" by the Cure and "Marian" by the Sisters of Mercy.

I liked them so much I bought their album for Wayne, who claims to love French bands to begin with. I thought about buying it for my brother, who, in the late 80s, used to sing along with me to the likes of Music for the Masses as we went to concerts by Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Erasure and the Cure. But my brother has three little boys, ages 18 months to six years, and I somehow knew he would be ambivalent about owning an album that includes a hot-sounding French chick announcing over and over that she is "Too Drunk to Fuck" (as the Dead Kennedys originally proclaimed), no matter how cool the other songs on it are.

But I did play the Nouvelle Vague album for my brother, who wasn't as impressed as I thought he would be. "I find it hard to be interested in a band that only does covers," he said. "If a band wants my attention and my respect, they need to record some ORIGINAL music. After they've proven they can write and arrange their own music and lyrics, THEN I'll care about hearing them perform songs someone else wrote."

I sort of understand this attitude--I like originality myself--but I sort of don't. "Frank Sinatra never wrote a song in his life, and you love Frank," I said to my brother.

"OK," my brother said. "But he recorded songs I never heard anyone else sing. He recorded songs that were written specifically for him. And they're great songs, because he's a great performer with a great voice."

But the way I see it, great performers with great voices do great versions of great songs because they 1) are great performers and 2) have great voices and 3) have a good enough musical aesthetic that they can recognize a great song when they encounter it and 4) have enough inspiration and originality that even if they can't write a song of their own, they can sing a song someone else wrote and make it inspired, inspiring and original.

I love a good cover. One of my favorites is Elvis Costello's version of "My Funny Valentine"--that song just makes me MELT. I also really love Japan's cover of "Second That Emotion" and the English Beat's cover of "Tears of a Clown." Seven or eight years ago, Wayne gave me this soundtrack to some Australian movie I've never seen called Welcome to Woop Woop which I dig because it includes all these great pop artists doing show tunes: Poe does "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No" and Cake does "Perhaps" and Reel Big Fish does this great ska version of "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" and there's also this really scary dance remix of "Climb Every Mountain" featuring the vocals laid down for the soundtrack of The Sound of Music.

Then of course there is Gary Jules' haunting (and increasingly ubiquitous) cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," a song I listened to over and over on my mission because it pretty much summed up my life: during the last seven or eight months of my mission, I had horrific, gruesome, violent nightmares (a not-so-subtle hint from my subconscious that the experience was killing my soul and had already done plenty of damage to my body as well), and it was more sad than funny that dreams in which I was dying were the most common dreams I had. I still listen to and love the original and find it heartbreaking in so many ways, but the cover is deeply, deeply creepy and disturbing because it's so stripped down that you hear even more strongly the pathos and pain of the deeply creepy, disturbing lyrics.

Let me repeat: I LOVE A GOOD COVER. I love it when a performer or a band takes a song I already know and does something to make me appreciate in a new way. A good cover can be an homage to the person who wrote the song in the first place, and an homage to the people who first performed it. Or it can be an ironic commentary, as when Clem Snide covered "I am Beautiful," written by Linda Perry and recorded by Christina Aguliera. But whether it's intended as homage or irony, the song is larger than it used to be. It has more nuances, it has more power, it has an additional life.

Whereas a bad cover can grind away every last nuance, destroy every iota of power, can kill a song you once loved.

The way I see it, a good cover band becomes a good cover band because its members are good performers who can hear songs and recognize what makes them special to begin with, then can find enough inspiration and originality to make their renditions of the song inspired, inspiring and unique.

Whereas a lame band will do predictable, familiar versions of great songs because they can't do anything but play back what they've already heard--they lack the imagination to attempt anything but imitation. I HATE covers that strive to sound just like the original.

The covers on this album are exciting and fresh, clever and convincing. Nouvelle Vague is anything but vague; it is not mere novelty; it is a wave of reinvention! OK, it's not a brand new ocean slapping the edge of some new brand continent. But it will wash up onto the beach of your music collection a funky array of fascinating creatures, treasure long lost in the deep and intricately whorled shells, some of which contain the hypnotic sound of the ocean they sprang from, echoing mysteriously when you hold them to your ear.

Posted by Holly at 10:16 AM | Comments (2)

December 27, 2005

Greetings from the Valley

Greetings from "the valley," short for "the valley of the sun," the local name for Phoenix and its environs (aka "Maricopa County.") I admit this is not my favorite part of Arizona. I prefer Tucson, which has fewer people, less pollution, a better skyline, my wonderful alma mater, and a longer history. But this is where my sister lives, and yesterday I drove up here from Tucson so I can hang out with her, her husband, her four children, and her really cute dog.

It's also where Wayne's parents live, and since arriving in Mesa, I'm also hanging out with Wayne. Yesterday we went to a bookstore, walked around a mall, drank coffee, tried to find a Mexican restaurant we were willing to eat at (which shouldn't be that difficult in this part of the country, but we had a hard time) and talked about how very weird Mesa is.

Mesa started out as a Mormon settlement--one of the first temples outside of Utah was built in Mesa, and I admit it drives me NUTS when people find out I grew up Mormon in Arizona and react as if I'd told them I'd gone to a private pingpong college on Mars. "I thought Mormons lived in Utah," they say accusingly, then tilt their chins and narrow their eyes in suspicion while they wait for me to admit that I've just told a great whopping lie. At such moments I sometimes become indignant at the illogicality of such responses, as if I didn' t know full well where I was born and raised; as if Utah and Arizona didn't share a freakin' border; as if people who forged a trail from Illinois to Utah (a journey precipitated by the fact that they were driven by murderous mobs from their homes in Illinois, an expulsion that occurred in the midst of a MIdwestern winter so severe that the MIssissippi froze solid, which meant it was unimaginably cold if you haven't experienced temperatures like that but also meant that the refugees were able to drive wagons containing the few possessions they managed to salvage across the Mississippi, but then had to weather the next few days in TENTS [and the shock of the temperature--60 below zero Fahrenheit or so--was so extreme that over a dozen pregnant women went into labor] on the Iowa bank of the river), said trail requiring these people to find a way up eastern edge the Rockies, then drag their wagons up and down god knows how many peaks and valleys, before they decide to settle down in a valley dominated by a huge, smelly, inland lake saltier than the ocean, a valley they somehow figured out how to make habitable by doing things like setting up one of the best irrigation systems in the entire US--as if people who could do all that couldn't also make their way south and figure out how to build houses with big windows and sleeping porches so you can deal with the summers, even 150 years or so ago,which is when several of my ancestors arrived in Arizona.

Then there's all that missionary work Mormons do all over the world--they actually manage to convert people now and again, and some of those people reproduce. I have friends who were born and raised Mormon in places as far from Utah as Argentina, England and Taiwan.

Well, THAT was quite a substantial side comment, not what I meant to discuss at all.... For those of you who wonder why, despite the fact that I'm no longer a practicing or believing Mormon, I still feel so attached to my Mormon heritage and was so invested in my Mormon upbringing, I've either clarified things or made you even more confused.

Anyyway. My point was going to be that these days Mesa is this huge sprawling awful suburb of Phoenix, albeit one that still has a high concentration of Mormons. Every couple of miles you see the same pattern: a bunch of tract homes built around a Mormon church, then a Walmart and/or a Target and/or a Costco, then a few restaurants, including a Coffee Bean and/or a Starbucks for the heathen; then it all starts over again.

Though we mustn't forget the Sonics: a Mormon custom--one I admit I partake in when I'm here, because Sonic has good sodas--is going to Sonic during Happy Hour and getting a big ol' soda. My sister and many women like her have a special sticker on their cars when they pass through the drive-thru, the person at the service window knows they are part of a special frequent buyers' club.

I'm hoping to spend more time with Wayne today, though he may have to hightail it back to LA for work, which would SUCK, since he's one of the main people I wanted to see here. But I'm having fun with my nieces and nephews and then there's always the weather: it's really beautiful. And there's also the fact that if I want a grapefruit for breakfast, I can just go outside and pick one. Which I think I'll do now.

Posted by Holly at 10:23 AM | Comments (1)

December 21, 2005

I'm Polyblogamous

I don't know who originally coined this word, though the earliest usage google turns up is here. I got it from John, who invoked it to describe the fact that he maintains more than one blog. I, too, have more than one blog.

This, of course, is my main blog. I completely dig blogging, and I find that I occasionally neglect certain duties in favor of writing up and posting ideas and reflections here.

But I have also maintained--albeit in an extremely abbreviated form--the site on blogger where I first began. I figured, what the hell: it's not hurting anyone, and I might as well keep the name. I post something there about once a month--I duplicate a post I really like from this blog--just so it doesn't look completely abandoned. (Note as of 6/23/06: I've completely abandoned it. But I plan to do something with it soon.)

Then there's a site called Genius to Spare, which I write with Wayne. I convinced Wayne to co-write G2S with me, after I realized that A) OTHER PEOPLE had multiple blogs, and B) there were some things I wanted to write about that didn't seem to belong on SPA--my meditation on the meaning of f*ckwit, for instance. Be sure to check out all the archives, so you can see the picture of Wayne's gorilla in a tiara. (A simian theme has somehow emerged on the site.) My personal favorite posting is our conversation about The Young Ones, though my homage to Morrissey runs a close second.

I also have a site called Dangerous and True. (The title comes from a Poe song entitled "Not a Virgin," which includes the line, "Tell me something dangerous and true." It's a challenge I like.) D&T was going to be where I worked out some ideas about sex and relationships I didn't feel comfortable writing about on SPA. You'll notice that my persona is Bored Dominatrix, and there's a rather funny story behind that, which I plan to post one of these days.... I'm still not sure where I want to go with the site, but I totally LOVE the banner, which Wayne designed for me, and someday I have to do something worthy of the blog's great look.

During the next few weeks, I'm going to be traveling and celebrating a couple of holidays, and I figure plenty of other people will too. So I probably won't post as much. Or I might--hanging out with my family might give me a lot to think about and say, and I might have nothing to do but sit in front of a computer. But if YOU find yourself in front of a computer with nothing to do, please check out my other sites.

Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (2)

December 20, 2005

Curbside Delivery

I'll soon be flying back to Arizona so I can hang out with my family for Christmas. I'm excited about it, for several reasons: 1) I have all these really cute nieces and nephews that I haven't seen since last Christmas; 2) I'll get to see Wayne, who will also be visiting his family in Arizona; 3) the highs in Tucson are supposed to be around 75 degrees (that's 24 Celsius, for those of you lucky enough to live someplace that doesn't use Fahrenheit, the stupidest of all non-metric measurements), which is a hell of a lot better than 25 F (-4 C).

What I'm not so excited about is the getting there part. I'm not the least bit afraid of being 31,000 feet above the earth in a big metal tube, but I don't like sitting around at the gate, waiting to get on and off that metal tube. I don't like being cramped for several hours in a seat next to a person who as often as not hogs the armrest. I don't like entrusting a suitcase full of my stuff to people I don't know. I don't getting to and from the airport.

I had a hell of a time finding a decent flight this trip--actually, I FAILED to find a decent flight this trip. My plane leaves at 6 a.m., which means I need to be to the airport around 5 a.m. The shuttle service I used to use is in the process of going out of business, and only delivers you to the airport if you want to get there during "convenient" times. 5 a.m. ain't convenient.

So I begged a ride from my friend Tom, who not only said he'd do me this favor, but didn't even seem to think I was being unreasonable in asking it in the first place.

Last night I was thinking about how great it is that he's willing to do this for me, and how I should do something to make it up to him. But that reminded me of an incident long about 1994, when someone I'll call Arianna asked me to give her a ride to and from the airport in Iowa, promising me that in return she'd find some truly fabulous gift to bestow upon me in recognition of my generosity.

I admit I thought Arianna was overstating the situation: she was flying in to the Cedar Rapids airport on a Tuesday afternoon in July. It was pleasant drive and I didn't have anything special to do instead--I mean, it's not like I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive through a bunch of mushy, muddy snow to get to the airport. People need rides to and from the airport: it happens. To borrow a line from Zorro, the Gay Blade (one of my favorite movies--add it to your Netflix queue!), her gratitude would have been thanks enough.

But no. Arianna made this BIG DEAL on the way to the airport about how she was going to GET ME SOMETHING, and it was going to be SPECIAL. And I will admit that on the drive to the airport to pick her up, I couldn't help wondering what she'd brought me: chocolate, maybe? A cool refrigerator magnet?

Turns out it was a fashion magazine she'd bought to read on the plane, and a bottle of shampoo and some hand lotion she'd taken from the hotel she stayed at. Wow, I thought. So that's the kind of person she thinks I am: someone so simple and/or out for what I can get that I'll jubilantly accept someone else's cast-offs.

And maybe I truly was that kind of person. Because a year or so later, Arianna was dumped by a man she loved quite deeply. About fifteen minutes after this guy broke up with her, he asked me out. I felt bad about saying yes, but I admit I said yes--jubilantly, in fact, because I really did like this guy. We dated for a couple of months.

Every so often my conscience bothers me when I think about how I wasn't a very loyal friend to Arianna. But then I think about the fact that this guy who broke her heart ended up being a good friend to me--we're still in touch, and he called me on my birthday. And then I think about the fact that Arianna thought so little of our friendship that she felt she had to bribe me to take her to the airport, and thought so little of me that she figured a complimentary bottle of shampoo and an unwanted magazine would suffice as a bribe. And then I don't feel so bad.

But I still think it's really cool of Tom to drive me to the airport well before dawn in the middle of winter, especially since he's not doing it because I'll get him something; he's just doing it because he's a good friend.

Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2005

Enclosed Please Find

Yesterday I did something I don't particularly enjoy: I put together submissions of my poetry to send to literary journals.

Ugh.

The fact that I don't enjoy doing it means that I don't do it often enough. I tend to do what I've just done: wait until most of the journals I've submitted to have responded, gather up the poems that are left, and do another massive mailing. I'd probably be better off to keep things in circulation all the time.

Writing cover letters, printing out copies of poems and addressing a bunch of envelopes are not terribly interesting activities, and I won't bore you with any more details. But I will add that it's why I don't have much to say today, and I will also ask you to cross your fingers for me and hope that some of the poems get accepted.

Posted by Holly at 9:03 AM | Comments (0)

This Just In: The Rich Are Often Selfish, and Kids Dig Money

A story in today's NY Times states that "Working-age Americans who make $50,000 to $100,000 a year are two to six times more generous in the share of their investment assets that they give to charity than those Americans who make more than $10 million, a pioneering study of federal tax data shows."

This article from the Independent UK discusses the results of a poll asking children the best and worst things the world. Here's the list:

1. Money and getting rich

2. Being famous

3. Football

4. Pop music

5. Animals

6. Families

7. Computer games

8. Holidays by the sea

9. Nice food

10. God

The worst thing in the world

1. Drunk people

2. Smoking

3. Litter

4. Graffiti

5. War

6. Bullies

7. Illness

8. Shopping

9. Having nothing to do

10. Nightmares

Posted by Holly at 8:56 AM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2005

prd & prjdc

One night while I was in Belgium, Matt, Leo and I went to see the most recent adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice at the Torsion d'Or (aka the Golden Fleece) in downtown Brussels. The novel is, of course, one of the greatest masterpieces ever composed in any language, and my favorite novel. I've read it at least a dozen times, taught it several times, hope to teach it again. (One of the best courses I ever taught was "All of Austen" at the U of Iowa--it was a blast.)

This adaptation is also titled Pride and Prejudice, but I think this is inappropriate. It should be called prd & prjdc, because it is an abbreviated, overly simplified affair, relying on the hard consonants of major plot points while forfeiting the vowel-like softness of nuance and complexity provided by character development, human growth and discovery.

There are reasons why Austen's novel remains a best seller almost 200 years after it was originally published, why it is read and understood easily even by modern high school students (I first read and loved it as a 15-year-old junior), why it is so often adapted into contemporary works. Bridget Jones's Diary, after all, is based on Pride and Prejudice, and BJD as novel, at least, does a good job of retaining major elements of the plot (not so much in the movie). Then there was Bride and Prejudice, a contemporary retelling set in India, LA and London. It includes a few great Bollywood dance numbers, and is loads of fun--as well as fairly loyal to the plot.

One reason for Jane's continued popularity is the fact that her language has aged very well. Austen's prose, while intellectually and syntactically complex, precise in vocabulary and laden with humor both understated and overt, is spare on similes and metaphors. S&M are, of course, evocative, and make for richness and beauty, but they only work if you understand both the literal and connotative meanings of the objects on each side of the comparison--otherwise, they inhibit rather than augment one's understanding of what's being evoked--"ox-eyed Athena" springs to mind.

But of course the main reason Austen remains popular is that she's a fabulous storyteller with keen insight into human psychology. And that keen insight is precisely what this new adaptation lacks.

In the original novel, Fitzwilliam Darcy, a haughty, disagreeable and exceedingly rich young gentleman of 28 discovers to his mortification that he is smitten with Elizabeth Bennet, a good-natured, intelligent, relatively poor 20-year-old gentlewoman with a bunch of boorish relatives. She's not conventionally pretty enough to appeal his tastes at first (a fact he announces loudly enough for her to overhear him), and she's too willing to express unconventional opinions to suit his sense of what a woman should be. But later he finds himself for some reason captivated by her "fine eyes," resolves to learn more of her, and as he observes firsthand her intelligence, her generosity, her courage, he falls head over heels in love with her.

Meanwhile Elizabeth has developed a fervid fancy for a ne'er-do-well named George Wickham, a hot young thing who drives all the ladies mad with his gallant manners and the sad, sad tales of how he was wronged by the nasty, dishonorable Mr. Darcy. Given how smitten she is with Georgy-Porgy, given how Darcy insulted her looks, given how taciturn and unpleasant Darcy invariably is, Elizabeth has to work even to maintain basic civility in her dealings with him.

But Darcy, reading her brittle politeness as interest in him because it flatters his vanity to do so, eventually proposes marriage to her, telling her that she must put him out of his misery and agree to marry him, even though she is decidedly inferior to him in status and connexions, and that he loves her against his will, his reason and his character. Even after she refuses this less-than-flattering offer of his hand, he believes that she rejects him primarily because he has wounded her vanity "by [his] honest confession of the scruples that long prevented [his] forming any serious" design on her.

Elizabeth struggles to retain her composure and her temper as she replies, "You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner...You could not have made me the offer of you hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it."

Darcy is mortified and astonished that anyone would dare to FORM such an opinion of him, let alone express it, but he remains silent as Elizabeth continues:

From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

But this abhorrence of Darcy is softened and abridged, if not outright removed from the new adaptation, having been replaced with what my friends both pointed out was an "undeniable sexual attraction" between Darcy and Elizabeth. Furthermore, instead of taking place in the drawing room of the Collins' home, as it does in the book, the proposal scene in the movie occurs outside in the rain, with Darcy and Elizabeth so moved by each other's physical presence that they very nearly kiss, even after insulting each other.

Make no mistake: the novel Pride and Prejudice is full of sexual attraction, and Austen makes it clear that a good marriage needs to have a healthy dose of it to succeed. But Elizabeth is not the least bit sexually attracted to Darcy at that point: she has the hots for Wickham, and her attraction for that sexy little bad boy was one reason she is so repulsed--physically, emotionally and intellectually--by Darcy. But oh yeah, Elizabeth's crush on Wickham has been deleted from the new movie too.

Austen also makes clear that in her view of things, sexual attraction must be supported and maintained by a healthy intellectual and emotional attraction: Mr. Bennet, after all, married a girl he was sexually attracted to, only to discover that she was an idiot with whom he could never have a meaningful conversation. And so that marriage could give no lasting pleasure to either partner in it--in fact, it becomes a source of great unhappiness, not only to the two spouses, but to the children it produced.

One of the reasons the novel is so satisfying is that both of the main characters change; both discover their weaknesses and become better people by interacting with the other. John Stuart Mill describes marriage as a relation where "there exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers and capacities with reciprocal superiority in them--so that each can enjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of development." That's what you get in the novel Jane Austen wrote, and it occurs precisely because the two partners in the (eventual) marriage are able to recognize and act upon valid critiques of their behavior from the other.

For instance, Darcy's letter, in which he explains his dealings with Wickham and his interferences in Bingley's intentions towards Jane, allows Elizabeth to admit to herself that

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. --Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself.

After inadvertently encountering Darcy at Pemberly and seeing how he has changed because of her, Elizabeth begins "to comprehend that he was exactly the man, who, in dispositions and talents, would most suit her." Months later, when Darcy finally manages to make Elizabeth the offer of his hand in a way she is willing to accept, he says, of his earlier attempt,

The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you believe in a more gentleman-like manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;--though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.... I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.... I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit....I was spoiled by my parents, who...allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared to my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You have taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

BUT THAT'S GONE FROM THE FREAKIN' LOUSY NEW MOVIE! In it, Darcy never owns up to making any mistakes; he's always just this great guy this skinny impertinent girl doesn't have the sense to appreciate. His "pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased" were never insufficient, and Elizabeth's final conversation with her father makes that clear: she goes on and on about how she misunderstood him, how they all misunderstood him! She learns nothing about herself, aside from the fact that she's really lucky to have this fabulous hunky rich guy in love with her. I could scarce keep my countenance....wait a minute: I didn't even bother to TRY to keep my countenance: at that point I scowled fiercely and flipped off the screen.

I admit that I preferred Brenda Blethyn's performance as Mrs. Bennet to Alison Steadman's horrible rendering of the character--Mrs. Bennet is supposed to be a ditzy, annoying airhead, but I couldn't stand how shrill and brittle she was in the 1995 mini-series, especially when contrasted to Benjamin Whitrow's witty, dry, understated performance as Mr. Bennet. (I don't consider the performance of Mr. Bennet in the new version interesting enough to warrant mentioning the name of the actor who played him.) Judi Dench was something to behold as Lady Catherine de Bourgh: the audience gasped when she first appeared on screen. But there was so little to the role as it was written--I would bet Ms. Dench spent longer in hair and make-up than she did learning the lines or preparing for the role, because an actress of her caliber could master that particular part in her sleep.

And in my opinion, there is not praise enough in the world to do justice to Julia Sawalha's energetic, rollicking, scene-stealing performance as Lydia in the 1995 version! Wan little Jena Malone, who managed to do just fine as the pregnant Christian in Saved!, provides a Lydia who is overwhelmingly forgettable and insipid. (which I guess doesn't matter since Wickham's part is so stunted and curtailed that her elopement with him doesn't have the force or significance it should.)

I suppose I should say something about the principals.... Keira Knightley bugs--at least, she bugs me. I admit I was glad when I heard she was named Britain's Sexiest Woman, (even sexier than Sienna Miller) because she's not exactly big-breasted, and as someone else whose assets aren't all on her chest, I am happy when women are recognized as devastatingly sexy even when they lack gigantic mammary glands. But Knightley, to borrow the criticism Darcy offers of Jane, "smiles too much." And she doesn's just smile: she does these weird things to her mouth: bites her lip; starts to smile, stops, then goes ahead and smiles; smirks. She can be charming, sure: but she lacks the obvious intelligence and thoughtfulness of someone like Claire Danes, which I think are necessary to play Elizabeth. (Claire Danes is who I would have liked to see in the part--if it had been better written, that is.)

As for Matthew MacFadyen, I liked him well enough in MI5 (known as Spooks in the UK), but I didn't think he was a good Darcy. (I admit I watched MI5--and everything else MacFadyen has been in--about a year ago so I could speculate about what kind of Darcy he might make.) He seemed to think he was playing Heathcliff.... He never commanded my attention on the screen. I could say to myself, "Oh, yeah, the heroine's love interest is back; I should probably pay attention to this interaction," but I would have been just as happy to look at something else.

Then there's the matter of the ending. The version I saw in Brussels ended with Mr. Bennet's command that "If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure." But I've been told that the version released in the US ends with some cheesy post-nuptial discussion about what Darcy should call Elizabeth, a discussion culminating in her declaration that he should address her as "Mrs. Darcy" only when she is at her happiest. I cannot but be grateful that I was spared seeing that.... I shudder to think of it.

In my opinion, credit for the fabulousness of the 1995 version goes to Andrew Davies, who wrote the screenplay. I would gladly drink this guy's bathwater... I'll watch anything he signs his name to. He has written plenty of adaptations of meaty British novels, including truly amazing versions of Middlemarch and Moll Flanders. His adaptations are always LONG, as in four or five or six hours: he devotes the time and care necessary to translate a 300-page novel into a fairly faithful film.

However, Deborah Moggach, the writer of the new version, should have her computer taken from her until she promises not to write any more trite, superficial shit.

For more analysis of the movie, check out two posts by FrankenGirl: Pride and Prejudice Publicity: Gender, Glamor, Sex and Film: Pride & Prejudice 2005 (I’m not proud. I’m just misunderstood.)

If you're a Janeite, you should see this movie, because Janeites want to know how Jane's work lives in the modern world. The movie isn't vile, exactly, just profoundly inferior to the source material. If you're not a Janeite, you might want to see this movie because you might not care how inferior it is to the original, and I have heard from enough people who don't know the original well and liked this a lot to believe that it might be OK in and of itself--and I readily admit I can't watch it that way, because I'm far too invested in the novel. But don't buy it, or anything like that: buy the 1995 (UK release date) mini-series, and Bride and Prejudice, and oh yeah, the book! Don't forget the book.

Posted by Holly at 8:24 AM | Comments (11)

December 16, 2005

Holly's Day in Mid December

Long about 1969, my parents gave me a book called Alphabet of Girls. I still have it--I am truly a book keeper. The book contains poems about the first names of girls, arranged by the alphabet: R, for instance, discusses Roseanna, Rosella, Rosedith, Rosetta and Rose, and the fact that not one of them is rose-like; C is devoted to Carol, Carla, Charlotte, Carrie and Cora, all of whom are indisposed; X describes the plight of a poor girl named Xenobia. H goes like this:

Hilda's birthday comes, we know,
Wrapped in January's snow.

Harriet's birthday comes on wings
Of March's windy wandering.

Hope can celebrate her day
With sun-etched greenery, in May.

For Heather's birthday, all the birds,
In August, sing their summer words.

Hazel's natal day will hold
October's scarlet and its gold.

Holly's day in mid December,
Is the easiest to remember.

My birthday is indeed the very middle day of December--today. I share my birthday with Jane Austen, Ludwig van Beethoven, Arthur C. Clarke, Noel Coward, Philip K. Dick, Margaret Mead, George Santayana, Liv Ullmann and Brett Weston. December 16 is in the sun sign of Sagittarius, sign of the archer--supposedly what he's hunting is the truth. Not only my sun but my moon sign is in Sagittarius; my rising sign is Libra.

There are ways in which my birthday isn't ideal, especially for someone in academia: it usually falls during finals week, and I can't count the number of times I have either given or taken an exam on my birthday, though I NEVER grade anything on my birthday--that's one gift I can give myself. Also lamentable is the fact that my friends and colleagues often take off for the winter break on or before my birthday, which can make it hard to celebrate properly. And then there's the way some people do that lame thing of giving me just one gift for both Christmas and my birthday, because the two events are so close together. I realize this is a bit bitchy, but I have to say: if you really like me, and if you want me to remember YOUR birthday, you'll buy me two presents, OK?

But despite all that, I have always liked my birthday. I like the general festive spirit of the season. I have always liked long cold nights (though long cold nights in Arizona are of a different character than long cold nights in Iowa or Pennsylvania) and I like celebrating my birthday with hot chocolate and a roaring fire. I also like my birthday because its proximity to Christmas is the reason for my name, which I love.

I like names that mean things, quickly and obviously: I've always said that if I ever had a daughter, I would want to name her Grace, because it's a beautiful word with a beautiful meaning. My sisters are Sharon, Katie and Lisa, and I like those names, but you have to look them up in one of those dictionaries of names to find out what they mean. I like that my name is both a noun and a proper noun. I like that my name is iconic. I like that I can point to something and say, "That's what I'm named for." One reason I bought the house I live in now is the fact that there were large, healthy holly bushes on either side of the front door. They seemed like a good sign, and so far, they have been.

My name is really quite pagan: a good old celtic fertility symbol that has subsequently been co-opted by Christianity and is now one of the most recognizable symbols of Christmas. I am glad that my parents decided to name me Holly instead of any of the other Christmas-y names: Carol, or Merry, or Noel. They are lovely names, but they don't fit me, and Holly does.

At the time I got my name, it was extremely uncommon: I could never find trinkets (necklaces, mugs, key chains) with my name printed on them, and it used to bum me out, though I make up for it now by collecting any number of things (salt and pepper shakers, vases, teapots, coffee mugs, serving platters, candy dishes, complete place settings for eight) with sprigs of holly on it. There was only one famous Holly around when I was little: Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's, and in her case Holly was actually short for Holiday, and neither was her real name: her real name was Lula Mae. There aren't many famous Hollys my age: Holly Hunter is one of the few. But the name has become quite popular, and there are plenty of little Hollys out there, which I am ambivalent about: yeah, I'm glad other people like my name well enough to bestow it on their daughters, but I also like not having to share it very often. I was the only person named Holly in my entire school, and that was more than fine with me.

In any event, I'm 42 years old today and I plan on having a lovely day. If you want to wish me Happy Birthday, I'd be thrilled to hear from you.

Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (14)

December 15, 2005

A Curmudgeon I Like

The other day I was discussing memorizing things with a friend who noted that I have an exceptionally good memory. This is a gift that has served me well throughout my life: it helped me become "scripture chase champion" (meaning that I could identify a passage of scripture based on one or two key words, then recite it verbatim, more swiftly and more accurately than anyone--what an accomplishment!) when I was in high school; it helped me memorize the discussions in Chinese as a missionary; it helped me get through a bachelor's degree with really great grades and a minimum of studying.

Some things are especially easy to memorize--certain poems or songs, for instances. One of the easiest poems to memorize is This Be the Verse, a bitterly funny poem in iambic tetrameter with simple diction and a straightforward ABAB rhyme scheme. TBtV is one of my favorite poems ever, and my very favorite poem by Philip Larkin, a curmudgeonly British poet whose attention to the intracacies of rhyme and form contrast nicely with a very earthy vocabulary and a sensibility keenly aware of loss. (As Robert Hass writes in Meditation at Lagunitas, "All the new thinking is about loss./ In this it resembles all the old thinking.")

Consider, for intance, Larkin's poem "Sad Steps." It begins with the line, "Groping back to bed after a piss," an occasion that provides the speaker with a view of a brilliant moon. The poem becomes a meditation on the fact that the moon's "wide stare"

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again
But is for other undiminished somewhere.

Larkin doesn't seem like a particularly nice person but he wrote wonderful poetry, even if he is known as the poet of dirty words. If you aren't familiar with his work, check it out.

Posted by Holly at 9:28 AM | Comments (2)

December 13, 2005

Rape in Bosnia, a Decade Later

This article from the Independent UK about broke my heart. It details the suffering still occurring as a result of the systemtic rapes of Bosnian women during the war in the 1990s. A few points worth underscoring:

In 1998 the International War Crimes Tribunal condemned rape as a crime against humanity, yet there is still no formal international or state response to sexual violence, the related trauma caused by rape or to what happens to the children born of it. In July this year, Unicef in Bosnia commissioned a report on the children born as a result of war rape. It is the first time any organisation has focused on these children. The report, however, remains unpublished.

and

the situation is made worse by the Bosnian government's reluctance to recognise women as civilian victims of war. In October it agreed to pay compensation, but this has led to further problems as many within the government claim that women are falsifying claims of rape to receive money.

Posted by Holly at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)

I'm a Janeite

I belong to all kinds of scholarly and professional associations (The Modern Language Association, the American Association of University Women, Academy of American Poets, etc) and I try to support charitable organizations whose work I value (Red Cross, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, etc) but there's one organization that I knew I'd want to support until I die, so a few years ago, after paying yearly membership dues for a decade, I just went ahead and bought a lifetime membership.

That organization is the Jane Austen Society of North America.

This morning when I got up and checked my email, there was a message from someone at the Jane Austen Society of Western Pennsylvania, inviting me to join the local branch. It's not so very local: The meetings are held an hour or two from where I live, but what the hell--I'll drive a few hours to talk to other Janeites.

For weeks now I've been working on a post about why I didn't like the new film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I'll finish and post it one of these days.... Jane's birthday is coming up--she was born December 16, 1775--and I considered posting about her that day, but there's something else I want to write about then. (Yeah, I actually do plan ahead some times.) But when I got that message this morning, I thought, OK, today it's time to say something about Jane.

She's fabulous, you know? I recently showed all six episodes of the 1995 BBC/A&E production of Pride and Prejudice to a friend, who was pleasantly surprised by how very much he liked it, that it was immediately accessible and very funny. He got a little upset when I turned the television off at the end of episode Four, when Darcy runs into Elizabeth at Pemberly, and couldn't believe how engrossed he was. If I hadn't said, "Sorry, it's time to go home," he would have kept watching because he needed to know exactly how it would all work out!

I admit I'm a little rushed for time today--I've got final papers to grade--so there's plenty to say that I'll wait and say later. Look forward to more on Jane in the next ten days! In the meantime, if you've never read it, check out this short story by Rudyard Kipling, called "The Janeites," about a guy who finds himself in the trenches of World War I in the midst of a secret society devoted to Austen--so devoted, in fact, that they name all their heavy artillery after the heavies in Austen novels--one of their biggest cannons is "Lady Catherine de Bugg."

I've read that during the worst of World War II, Winston Churchill had his daughter read Jane Austen to him every night so that he could relax--her novels managed to transport him in ways that nothing else could, so he might agree with what Humberstall concludes about Jane: "You take it from me, Brethren, there’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place. Gawd bless ’er, whoever she was."

Posted by Holly at 11:45 AM | Comments (2)

December 12, 2005

I'm Getting in on the Slayage

I'm happy to report that my proposal for a paper on "Bad Sex in Buffy" has been accepted for the Slayage Conference 2 to be held at the end of May 2006.

Please read all about my introduction to Buffy, and check out this brief reference to my initial attempts to sketch out some broad ideas about the topic. I want to share, because Buffy is my favorite TV show, and I'm thrilled that I'll be able to spend time researching and thinking about the show, and then get to spend a nice long weekend hanging out with other Buffy-philes.

Here's my abstract for the paper I'll be delivering in May:

‘Sex Is Bad?' ‘We All Knew That': Sex and the Consequences in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

After Cordelia recovers from being impregnated with demon spawn, she tells Wesley and Angel she's learned that "sex is bad," to which Angel replies, "We all knew that" (A1012). This is not Caleb's simplistic condemnation of sex as dirty and wicked, but an observation about the consequences of sexual activity in the Buffyverse. Much has been written on the sexualized nature of vampirism, and Justine Larbelestier provides a provocative binary of human (or vanilla) vs vampire (or BD/SM) sex in "The Only Thing Better than Killing a Slayer." But given how the range of characters populating the Buffyverse traverse the roles of human/demon, I argue that sex can't be categorized until after it has occurred (unless it involves someone "old" like Giles or Joyce, and then it's "gross"), and no criticism I've read adequately addresses how perilous sex often is in the Buffyverse, not only for Buffy and her demon lovers but for all the Scoobies. Seemingly "safe" sex not only produces dire consequences (supernatural pregnancy, the loss of one's soul, the need to kill one's lover); sexual behavior often attracts danger from outside the relationship, as when Tara is killed by a wayward bullet after she and Willow resume their relationship (Buffy 6019) or when Willow turns into Warren after kissing Kennedy (7013); furthermore, Anya's very presence reminds us that sex is often used to hurt women and women find ways to hurt back. Everything--even birthday parties--can be dangerous on the hell mouth, but sex is especially dangerous. Inhabitants of the Buffyverse constantly negotiate life-or-death issues of vulnerability and power; I examine how they negotiate vulnerability and power with regards to sex, and why these negotiations so often fail--the earth may not be doomed after all, but what about everyone's sex life?

I'll be most grateful for any suggestions and insights anyone wants to offer.

Posted by Holly at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2005

Women Lousy at Designing Clothes for Women?

Ugh.

I've been taking a break from dealing with certain issues because well, because I need a break. I've been trying to work on a couple of posts, one on the whole nasty debate about a "man's right to choose" sparked by Dalton Conley's December 1st NY Times editorial on the topic, and another on the sexsomnia defense a guy in Canada used to beat a rape charge, but I don't get very far before I get too upset to continue.

Here's something I would dismiss as silly if it weren't for the fact that I really dig textiles and clothing. But the clothes I own are typically things I made myself or bought on sale, and I am of the opinion that haute couture is overpriced, wasteful and misogynist. This article made me think about WHY high fashion might be something the average woman doesn't want, need or have the money for. It's from the NY Times, about why women don't succeed as fashion designers. Among the arguments for why men, either straight or gay, are better than women at designing clothes for women, are these:

In some quarters, the perception exists that fashion's main consumers, women, are more comfortable taking advice about how they should look from a man. "Men are often better designers for women than other women," said Tom Ford, the former creative director of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, who more than anyone in the past decade built a brand on his own persona, that of a man whose sensual appeal is to both men and women. Whereas Bill Blass, Valentino and Oscar de la Renta founded their empires on the strength of a nonthreatening, nonsexual charisma, Mr. Ford aggressively promoted his sexually charged designs. "Of course there are many more gay male designers," Mr. Ford said. "I think we are more objective. We don't come with the baggage of hating certain parts of our bodies."

Some designers embrace an extreme version of this position. Michael Vollbracht, the current designer of Bill Blass, said he believes that gay men are demonstrably superior at design, their aesthetic formed by a perception of a woman as an idealized fantasy. "I come from a time when gay men dressed women," Mr. Vollbracht said. "We didn't bed them. Or at least I didn't. I am someone who is really pro-homosexual. I am an elitist. I am better than straight people. Women are confused about who they want to be. I believe that male designers have the fantasy level that women do not."

When women design for other women, Mr. Ford said, they proceed from a standpoint of practicality - not fantasy. "Sometimes women are trapped by their own views of themselves, but some have built careers around that," he said. "Donna Karan was obsessed with her hips and used her own idiosyncrasies to define her brand."

The Times' article purports to be an expose on the topic, but it doesn't include many women's voices on the matter. It does, however, let a designer named Dana Buchman respond to these arguments. Ms. Buchman "sees little value in such arguments. If men are more objective, she countered, then women are empathetic, which can be useful in understanding the consumer. 'I wear my own clothes,' she said. 'I have lived the life of my customer.'" Yeah, but that's precisely the problem, as Tom Ford kindly points out: she's too caught up in the practical issues of how clothes fit the real bodies and real lives of real women! And since she never wants to f*ck herself the way a straight man would and never sees clearly the aesthetic ideal women should strive to embody the way a certain type of elitist gay man would, she will never know as well as either class of man how to dress herself, or other women.

Posted by Holly at 11:32 AM | Comments (4)

Breakfast of Chocolate Lovers

One reason I like posting my favorite recipes is that that way, I can access them away from home. For instance, if I'm traveling over the holidays and I feel like making some of my favorite chocolate treats, it won't matter whether or not I've brought the recipe with me if it's available on my blog.

I absolutely love this cake. The baking powder in the batter means that the batter rises while the boiling water and extra sugar and cocoa sink down through the batter and make a lovely fudge sauce. It's gooey and decadent and easy, and it reheats well--just put a portion in the microwave for 99 seconds or so, then top with sweetened yogurt, and you have a delicious and filling (if not particularly nutritious) breakfast.

Fudge Upside Down Cake

Sift together:
3/4 cups white sugar
2 tbsp. cocoa
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Stir in
1/4 cup milk
3 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp vanilla

Spread in ungreased 9 in by 9 in pan. Over this, sprinkle a mixture of
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
3 tbsp cocoa

Pour 1 & ½ cups boiling water over the whole thing and bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Serve with ice cream or sweetened yogurt.

Posted by Holly at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)

December 6, 2005

Just Freakin' Say No Already

This is something I wrote back in August. I was unwilling to post it at the time because the person it was about was reading my blog. But he's gone, so at long last the post gets posted. It begins with a long quotation from Isak Dinesen's essay "On Mottoes in My Life":

The family of Finch Hatton, of England, have on their crest the device Je responderay, "I will answer.''...I liked it so much I asked Denys... if I might have it for my own. He generously made me a present of it and even had a seal cut for me, with the words carved on it. The device was meaningful and dear to me for many reasons, two in particular. The first...was its high evaluation of the idea of the answer in itself. For an answer is a rarer thing than is generally imagined. There are many highly intelligent people who have no answer at all in them...Secondly, I liked the Finch Hatton device for its ethical content. I will answer for what I say or do; I will answer to the impression I make. I will be responsible.

One thing that drives me crazy is people who can't say no, not in the Ado Annie from Oklahoma! way, but in the general sense of not being able to risk disappointing someone. This affliction affects every segment of the population, but Mormon women seem to have an especially bad case of it. I notice it every year when I go to fill up panels for Sunstone: I'll start gathering names of people I could invite to participate, then email or call them. There's always at least one Mormon woman who simply can't tell me no, though she desperately wants to. She clears her throat, she dodges the question (always invoking an obligation to her family--she's just so busy with the kids!), not wanting to give me a straight answer because she's afraid it will hurt my feelings.

What I want to know is this: why is being led on, strung along, forced to interpret vague clues of resistance, somehow kinder, nicer and more tactful than simply being told, "I'm really sorry, but I have neither the time nor the inclination for what you're proposing, so I'll have to decline your generous offer. I heartily wish you the best of luck in finding someone who's interested"?

One of my friends told me that when he came out of the closet to his mom, the conversation went like this:

My Friend: Mom, I'm gay.

His Mom: Did you take some hamburger out of the freezer? Because if we don't start defrosting it now, it won't be thawed enough in time for dinner if we want to make spaghetti.

I'm having one of those conversations right now. I keep trying to talk about the big pink elephant sporting a grass skirt, carrying an ukulele and dancing the hula in the middle of the room, and the person I'm trying to talk to keeps saying, "Did you take some hamburger out of the freezer?" Or else he says nothing at all.

Circumlocutious, evasive and oblique are not among the words most people would use to describe me. Candid, forthright and honest are. Not only am I not circumlocutious, evasive or oblique, but I don't trust or respect people who are.

Just freakin' say no already!

Posted by Holly at 6:59 AM | Comments (4)

A Movie I Won't See

I remember disliking The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis when I read them in fifth grade, though I dutifully made my way through all but the last book in the series of seven: the elementary school librarian, whom I trusted thoroughly, assured me that they were required "great" children's literature, and I wanted to read all such great works. But at some point I just couldn't stomach any more--I found Lewis's books creepy and preachy and mean, and they got worse as the series went on. It was largely because of those books that I was reluctant to read anything else by Lewis: in high school I steered clear of The Screwtape Letters; in college I ignored what he had to say about Mere Christianity.

This review from The Guardian of Disney's new adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book in the series, describes some of the things I had the sense to be bothered by, even as a ten-year-old.

The headline reads, "Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion;" the review concludes

So Lewis weaves his dreams to invade children's minds with Christian iconography that is part fairytale wonder and joy - but heavily laden with guilt, blame, sacrifice and a suffering that is dark with emotional sadism.

Children are supposed to fall in love with the hypnotic Aslan, though he is not a character: he is pure, raw, awesome power. He is an emblem for everything an atheist objects to in religion. His divine presence is a way to avoid humans taking responsibility for everything here and now on earth, where no one is watching, no one is guiding, no one is judging and there is no other place yet to come. Without an Aslan, there is no one here but ourselves to suffer for our sins, no one to redeem us but ourselves: we are obliged to settle our own disputes and do what we can. We need no holy guide books, only a very human moral compass. Everyone needs ghosts, spirits, marvels and poetic imaginings, but we can do well without an Aslan.

Pretty much.

Posted by Holly at 6:42 AM | Comments (2)

December 5, 2005

England Legalizes Gay Unions and Retailers Embrace the Power of the Pink Pound

Sixteen days from today, England will allow its first gay marriages to take place. I remember reading in Austen novels about people going to Gretna Green, just over the border in Scotland, and soon realized it was a euphemism for eloping, about like "running off to Vegas. " I don't remember the details, but I learned that Scotland had different marriages laws than England--the bride could be younger, for one thing, and there might not have been this "cooling off" period England requires now.

Couples in England who want to marry as soon as the new law kicks in need to register today, so that they will have waited out a mandatory 15-day opportunity reflect on the question of "Do I REALLY want to vow publicly to live out the rest of my life with this person I've just spent six months planning a wedding with?"

The legalization is having all kinds of ramifications, and I don't mean that it's making right-wing religious wackos emerge from the comfort of their living rooms with pitchforks and picket signs in hand. No, retailers are stepping up to embrace the change, because it's "expected to generate a multimillion-pound economy in wedding ceremonies, receptions and gifts, with businesses keen to cash in on the market."

There are news stories about this all over the web, including this one from The Independent and this one from 365gay.com.

Many stories mention the responses of various churches to the event:

Some religions are getting involved, with the Liberal Judaism sect the first to offer a liturgy for partnership ceremonies, while the Methodist church is currently conducting a review of ways in which it could offer blessing services for same-sex couples.

The Church of England has ruled that clergy should not hold official blessing services for couples, but can pray for them.

That's a funky response from a religion whose beginning was all wrapped up in one man's desire to change marriage laws. It's about like the Mormon church's defense of traditional marriage even though its doctrines claim that polygamy is an unchangeable law of God humanity must submit to if it wants to be redeemed.

This story from Reuter's claims that the union is not a marriage, because "Civil partnership is formed when a couple sign certain documents in an exclusively civil procedure, whereas a marriage becomes binding when partners exchange spoken words in a civil or religious ceremony." All the other stories I've read refer to what gay couples will achieve on December 21 as "marriage."

But the Reuter's article also mentions that "The Church of England has provoked fury among Anglican traditionalists by allowing gay priests to register under the new civil partnership law as long as they remain celibate." You can get married, but can't sleep with your partner? Whatever.

Posted by Holly at 7:11 AM | Comments (1)

December 4, 2005

Neti: Gross, But Effective; or,Try This at Home

As I mentioned, I caught a cold during my travels, a fairly comment event when you're stuck in cramped quarters for eight hours with hundreds of strangers breathing their own personal bacteria colonies into air that gets recycled over and over throughout the plane.

It hasn't been a good time to be sick. I canceled classes Thursday, not something I like to do in the penultimate week of classes. I suppose I could have showed up for classes anyway, but what I would have done in the classroom wouldn't have been teaching, because I WAS sick, I felt like crap, and I had trouble forming a coherent thought.

So I stayed home and poured water into my sinuses.

No one likes a cold, but I sometimes think I have an especially hard time with them, because I can't take most cold medicines. Most decongestants are also stimulants, and for me they exacerbate rather than mitigate the suffering a cold causes. One of the things you need to recover from a cold is sleep, and if I take a decongestant, sleep is something I don't get.

Several years ago in Iowa City, my beloved yoga teacher explained a technique for a particular kriya (cleansing exercise) she thought I should try. Called neti, it involves irrigating the sinuses with water. Done regularly, it's supposed to prevent colds, but I have found it hard to incorporate the practice into my daily life. Instead, I use it as needed to relieve the discomfort of congestion and to shorten the duration of any cold I do catch.

Here's what you do:

1. Get a small glass--a juice glass, say, with a fairly small mouth, to reduce spills--and fill it with room-temperature water (filtered, if the water in your area is tainted with things like chlorine). Add a little salt--not too much, or it will be unpleasant.

2. Have a sheet or two of paper toweling handy. Stand in front of your sink. Close one nostril by pressing it shut with your forefinger, then raise the glass to your nose.

3. Tip the GLASS toward your face precisely the way you would if you were drinking from the glass, so that the water flows easily and gently into the open nostril. DO NOT tilt your head way back and pour the water forcefully into your head, and DO NOT inhale or snort the water up into your sinus. That will result in that horrible stinging sensation we refer to as "getting water up your nose."

4. Continue to allow the water to flow into your nostril and through your sinuses until you feel water run down the back of your throat and into your mouth. There might not be much--most of the water will still be in your sinus. Nonetheless, feeling the water in your mouth is how you know the sinus is full.

5. Open your mouth and allow any extra water to run out of it into the sink. If you accidently swallow some, don't worry--it's just salt water, so it won't hurt you.

6. Repeat with other nostril.

7. Leave both nostrils open and repeat the process, allowing the water to flow into both sinuses.

8. Pick up paper towel and blow your nose until there's nothing left in your sinuses.

9. Repeat entire process again once or twice as needed.

This kriya is, admittedly, gross, but not nearly as gross as having a head so full of snot that your teeth hurt. It is also as effective as it is gross. IT WORKS. It will clean your sinuses out better than any decongestant. You may have to repeat the process once or twice, and you will have to blow your nose copiously and assiduously, but you will be amazed (and grossed out) by the amount of phlegm you will remove from your sinuses--you'll clear them out, in fact. You'll be able to breathe freely, if only for a half an hour or so, until your head fills back up with phlegm. Still, that half hour will be a very welcome relief.

Neti is perfectly safe and involves no chemicals except the salt you add and those already found in your drinking water, so you can do it as many times you as you feel up to. I find it very helpful to do this right before going to bed, so that I fall asleep more easily. I also do it not long after getting up, to clear out all the phlegm that accumulated during the night. The biggest drawback to doing it often is that the salt water can irritate the skin around your nose.

You can buy something called a neti pot, which looks about like a teapot with a long spout, so you can pour the water neatly into your nostril, but that means you have to spend the money on the pot and have this extra object in your home. A glass works just as well.

Posted by Holly at 8:15 AM | Comments (1)

December 1, 2005

Welcome Home

Monday I got up at six a.m. so I could leave for the Brussels train station at 7 a.m. to catch my 7:52 a.m. train to the Paris Airport. It was a train de grand vitesse (a really fast train) and it traveled the distance between Brussels and CDG (about 270 kilometers, or 170 miles) in under an hour and twenty minutes.

So at about 9:15 I descended from the train, then ascended the escalator into the airport and what a nasty shock that was, about like having someone's laptop fall on your face when you open the overhead compartment at the end of a flight and all the items stowed during the trip have shifted. I've been to quite a few airports in my life, and usually there's some kind of prominent signage telling you what terminal various airlines use. Not so in Roissy-Charle de Gaulle! You need to arrive at the airport already familiar with its layout, especially since the few "Information" desks randomly dotting the terminals tend to be closed.

Unfortunately I had no clue which of the terminals (A through F) in Complex 2 was used by Northwest Airlines, so after wandering aimlessly for an hour or so, I finally resorted to asking the concierge at the Sheraton, which is built into the airport, no doubt to accommodate stranded passengers or people with 5 a.m. flights to Tokyo, because no one in her right mind would stay there for fun. Even though I wasn't one of the hotel's unfortunate guests, the guy willingly looked up the information I needed on his computer, and directed me to Terminal 2E.

But even once I arrived in that terminal I was still uncertain where to go, because the signs at the various counters are generally for Air France. Lucky enough to find an information counter where an actual human being dispensed actual information, I was directed to a very long line in front of an entire bank of Air France ticketing counters. During the process of standing in that line, three different people inspected my passport and looked up my flight information on a small handheld computer, the last of whom directed me to another line, where two more people inspected my passport and looked up my flight information on a small handheld computer before directing me to an Air France counter staffed by a young woman who kept climbing over the luggage conveyor belts to ask the guy next to her how she should do her job, which did not inspire confidence on my part.

Travelers are instructed to check in at CDG two and a half hours prior to departure, because it's such a badly designed and inefficiently managed airport, where everything takes for flippin' EVER. My flight was scheduled to depart at 1:55 p.m., and I arrived at the check-in counter at about 10:45, a mere forty minutes sooner than the airport suggests, and the girl almost turned me away because she thought I was too early. But finally she issued me a boarding pass and I went to sit at the gate, which, of course, involved going through security, taking off my coat and shoes so they can be x-rayed, etc.

CDG is one of those airports where the planes are often nowhere near the gates. When the flight was announced for boarding, passengers queued up in a very long, disorganized line, so that three more people could inspect our passports, boarding passes and carry-on luggage--there were even random thorough searches where they made you take your shoes off again, and I was so grateful to have been passed over for that. We then walk through a door and stood on a sidewalk before boarding a shuttle that drove for ten minutes to a plane in the middle of the tarmac. They didn't bother boarding us from the rear of the plane, so getting on the plane took almost as long as the actual flight, because people at the front of the plane were standing in the aisle, taking off their coats and stowing their carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment, while other people stood impatiently behind them, waiting to reach their seats at the back of the plane.

Yada yada yada. Eight-hour flights just suck, no matter what, though it did help that I had brought David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Denim and Corduroy as my reading material. But I'm a fast reader, and I finished it less than half way into the flight. So I watched Wedding Crashers and played some games on the console in the back of the seat in front of me.

After two bad meals and a few cans of carbonated beverages, we arrived in Detoirt and went through customs, where my declaration form was stamped COMPLEX so that I had to stand by and watch some fairly good-natured guy empty my suitcase, all the while explaining to him who I'd been visiting in Brussels and how I knew him. I said, "It was a friend I met in Tucson, Arizona, in 1988, when he was a Mormon missionary there," which seemed a fairly irreproachable answer. Then the guy wanted to know why I had bought $100 worth of chocolate when I lived in Pennsylvania, home of Hershey. "Uh, it's generally agreed that Belgian chocolate is just a little bit better than Hershey's," I said.

"Different," he said. "It's just different."

We were all in some windowless basement of the Detroit airport, and there were armed cops all over, and there was no place where you could acquire a cigarette lighter or a book of matches, but after customs, we still had to have our luggage inspected AGAIN, and go through security AGAIN, blah blah f*cking blah. The airport staff was not very nice, and seemed unable to understand why several hundred people who had just spent eight hours on a plane and god knows how long traveling before that, might be a little disoriented and slow on the uptake.

I had a four-hour layover, so I called Wayne, who had just acquired a nephew and a new car, only one of which he has blogged about at this point. The weather was abysmal, with lots of wind and rain, and the ceiling in the new regional terminal I was in leaked in several places. But my flight out of Detroit was basically on time and I arrived at my home after a mere 22 hours of traveling.

And it was at that point that I remembered why I kind of like staying home a lot of the time.

And then there's all the readjustment stuff: I had conscientiously turned my water heater to "vacation" setting, so that I couldn't take a shower until it had had a chance to heat some water, and my cat was freaked out both by the fact that I had left her for ten days and returned so abruptly, and some of my plants had wilted, so on and so forth, and I had a suitcase full of dirty clothes and a million things to do the next day, and I felt like shit.

But hey, I'm a seasoned traveler, I know how to deal with all this stuff, and I'm back in my routine and everything is going as it should, aside from the fact that on that nasty flight I picked up both a mild eye infection and a severe cold. But more on that later--or maybe not.

Posted by Holly at 10:37 AM | Comments (3)