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May 31, 2006

The Best Home Teaching Story I've Ever Heard

He went out and drank a quart of peppermint schnapps.... He ripped all my clothes off, he started to beat me with the cat furniture.... And I left him. And that's when he jumped out the kitchen window.

I just heard those lines of dialogue in a movie--and not just any movie, but a documentary about a Mormon temple worker. One of the reasons I so love nonfiction is that you just can't make shit that weird up.... OK, you can, but credibility is strained. A Mormon temple worker once drank a quart of peppermint schnapps, ripped his wife's clothes off, beat her with the cat furniture (my favorite detail by far), then tried and failed to commit suicide by jumping out the kitchen window!? (The ellipses in the dialogue, I should mention, represent not anything I have deleted but editing cuts in the film itself.) To paraphrase Aristotle, the only reason something that weird can be believed is because it really happened.

The even weirder thing is, the Mormon temple worker was once a rock star, Arthur "Killer" Kane, a founding member of the New York Dolls. In 1989, as he lay recuperating in the hospital after his failed suicide attempted, Kane called a 1-800 number and requested a copy of the Book of Mormon. Two sister missionaries later showed up at his door and taught him the discussions.

Greg Whiteley, director of New York Doll, met Arthur Kane when he became his home teacher (meaning he was supposed to visit Kane once a month and make sure he was doing OK) in LA a few years ago. He started interviewing and filming Kane, but probably nothing would have come of it if Morrissey hadn't arranged a NY Dolls reunion at Morrissey's Meltdown in London 2004. This reunion was the fulfillment of a dream Kane had cherished for 30 years.

I had to stop this film right after the interview with Kane's estranged wife Barbara (be sure to click on that link for a truly bizarre coda to the whole story) because it shifted to a bunch of Mormon priesthood holders explaining what it's like to receive a witness of the Book of Mormon. I thought about not finishing the film--I was afraid there would be too much Mormon content--but curiosity got the better of me and I watched the rest.

I really liked it. It was a sweet movie, with interesting interviews from Morrissey, Bob Geldof, all kinds of people, and it was touching to see Kane's reunion with David Johansen (a.k.a. Buster Poindexter) and fascinating to watch Kane explain the Word of Wisdom.

The kicker (and this is sort of a spoiler, except that if you've read any reviews or heard anything about the movie in the news, this detail is usually mentioned) is that Kane died of leukemia a mere 22 days after returning from the festival in London--not only that, but he died two hours after he was diagnosed.

And that moved me and I thought, "Oh, how lovely that he saw the completion of this goal before his death; how tragic that he had so little time to enjoy it."

And the credit rolled and the mailman dropped my mail through the door slot and I sort of watched the credits and sorted my mail.

And then the pop song that had accompanied the credits ended and there was David Johansen singing A Poor, Wayfaring Man of Grief (Joseph Smith's favorite hymn) accompanied only by an acoustic guitar in tribute to Arthur and I simply burst into tears and sobbed until I couldn't breathe.

I never cared for that hymn--too slow and too long and too didactic in an earnest, Victorian way--but for some reason Johansen's performance of it was terribly moving, not only because it was a loving tribute to a friend but because... because it reminded me of my own loss, the loss of the church? I don't know. I'll try to figure it out. It's partly the amazing generosity of human beings...? Kane loved both the Church AND his band. And Johansen didn't seem to be judging that hymn; he let himself be moved by it as Kane would have been.

And after about half an hour I calmed down.... And then I went through the bonus material and heard Brian Koonin (I don't know who he is, I just noticed his name on the screen) playing Come, Come Ye Saints, which has always been one of my favorite hymns, and then Johansen sang the final verse, which goes

And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the saints their rest obtain,
O how we’ll make this chorus swell,
All is well! All is well!

The hymn is about the trek to Utah, which so many of my ancestors undertook.... I couldn't even sit up at that point. I lay on the floor and cried as if my heart had just broken. I'm still crying, to be honest.

If you've seen the movie, I'd like to know what you thought. And if you haven't seen it, watch it and let me know how you react. There will be a presentation on it at Sunstone this year; I'm really looking forward to it. I think this is a movie I need to own.

Posted by Holly at 5:04 PM | Comments (19)

May 30, 2006

Not a Single Argument about Who Was the Better Bond

Academic conferences can bring out snarkiness, competition, cruelty in even the nicest people: they've got these intellectual territories to defend, ideas in which they have a great deal invested, and when someone threatens that territory by challenging those ideas, watch out! I've been in and observed my fair share of very heated exchanges--about like when Warren, Jonathan and Andrew argue over who was the best James Bond. (I love Andrew's resentful claim that "Timothy Dalton should win an Oscar and hit Sean Connery on the head with it"--not that I love Timothy Dalton OR Sean Connery--actually I hate the whole Bond franchise--I just can't help laughing at the line.) You'll sometimes see outright hostility flare up in the Q&A sessions after panels. It doesn't always happen, but it happens often enough.

One of the many great things about the Slayage conference was how little of that occurred: people were generally courteous and generous. I'm not saying no snarkiness occurred--it did--but the few times it happened just underscored how rare it was the rest of the time. We decided it was because we are so often attacked for having this bizarre scholarly interest in this element of pop culture most academics feel is beneath their notice, so when we got together, the main thing we felt was gratitude at being among friends. Still, it was very cool to go to a panel and hear such good-natured exchanges. By no means did everyone agree with everything they heard, but I've rarely seen criticisms presented and accepted so graciously: "Have you thought about this?" "Why no, I haven't! Thanks so much for suggesting that." OK, you hear stuff like that at conferences all the time, except that the graciousness of such statements is often a mere veneer, but when you heard it at Slayage, it seemed sincere.

Even when people discovered they had profound differences of opinion--say, someone who loved the final season found him/herself talking to someone who hated it (like me)--the difference didn't cause an argument. People agreed to disagree.

And there was plenty of well-deserved glowing praise: again, because so many of our colleagues think Buffy studies aren't serious, most people who do it try to be as rigorous and thorough as possible. One of the best panels I attended was on the musical episode, "Once More with Feeling." Cynthea Masson presented a great paper called "‘What Did You Sing About?': Acts of Questioning in ‘Once More with Feeling'" and Michelle Dvoskin presented an equally great paper called "Under Their Spell: ‘Once More with Feeling' and Queering the Audience." I also really liked a panel on three secondary characters, Xander, Anya and Faith: Claudia Rollins discussed Anya as a Shakespearian truth-speaking fool, while Reginald Abbott presented on "Xander with a Y (Chromosome)? Or ‘No More Butt Monkey': The Xander Harris Legacy of Masculine (Mis)Identity in BtVS." Abbott was especially great: his throw-away comments were hysterical. At one point he suggested that Joyce's death was NOT the only death in the show that didn't involve supernatural causes (as is usually assumed) because he felt her brain tumor was probably caused by living with the horrible blob of green energy that is Dawn.

I also really liked Elizabeth Rambo's paper on "‘Queen C' Goes to Boys' Town, or Killing the Angel in Angel's House," which discussed Cordelia in terms of the Coventry Patmore ideal of "the angel in the house." (I admit I liked this paper partly because it supports ideas I have about Cordelia.) There was even a very detailed parsing of speech patterns in character dialogue: one of the featured speakers was Michael Adams, who discussed "The Matrix of Motives in Slayer Style." (Adams has published a book on Slayer Slang, with Oxford University Press--that made a lot of the pooh-poohers do a double-take, 'cause you can't get much more reputable than Oxford UP.)

I also just enjoyed meeting people. I mentioned my blogging habit whenever it seemed appropriate, but few people seemed to share my interest. One of the few was Roz Kaveney--she does great work and is also just a very interesting person--check out her site, Glamourous Rags. I also learned that Jane Espenson, one of the writers for BtVS, has a blog, which I haven't started reading but plan to.

Several people asked me to post my paper on-line, and I'm not going to do that. It's just not wise in academia to do something like that until the paper has already been published, and then sometimes there are copyright laws that prohibit it. I will, however, give you a paragraph from the middle of the paper:

Some of you might remember a Canadian band from the early 90s called The Pursuit of Happiness. They had a single called "I'm an Adult Now," which contains the lines "Adult sex is either boring or dirty. Young people, they can get away with murder." This seems to be the attitude on Buffy. In "The Freshman" (4/1) Buffy goes to Giles's apartment and discovers him in a dressing gown; soon thereafter, a partially clad Olivia walks out of the bedroom. Buffy is horrified, and when Giles asks, "I'm not supposed to have a private life?" she replies, "No! Because you're very, very old and it's gross." In fact, the "grossness" of adult sex is a joke mined all the way through season five, at which point the Scoobies themselves are all past 21, and officially adults as well.

I plan to shape the conference paper into something I can submit to a journal, and if it ever gets taken, I'll let you know.

Posted by Holly at 6:04 PM | Comments (6)

May 29, 2006

Home Again, Again

I'm home. The flight home was uneventful, which is exactly how I like my flights. My house and all my stuff are fine, which is exactly how I like my house and all my stuff. The conference was fabulous (more on that later), which is how I prefer my conferences, and I'm already trying to think up something to present on next time.

One nice thing is that when I got home, several of my plants were in full bloom. I have an azalea so heavy with deep pink blossoms you almost can't see any greenery. My rhododendron and looks fabulous, as does a bunch of chives--I guess most people don't typically think of chives as decorative plants but they've got these cool fuzzy purple blossoms that I quite like. Purple is one of my favorite color for flowers: last year I planted lupine and purple columbine, both of which are healthy, established and blooming right now. The first plant I see when I walk out the back door is this vine thing (I can't for the life of me remember the name of it) climbing a trellis by my garage--it's covered with deep purple star-shaped flowers. And I finally know what color my irises are! Last year a friend gave me some cuttings from her garden but she couldn't remember what color they were. I was hoping they'd be dark purple, but they're a deep gold, almost brown--it's very dramatic and pretty, and contrasts with all the purple very nicely.

The only disappointment in the whole matter of my garden--and it's not a cause for weeping and wailing, I know, but it is kind of a drag--is that I'm leaving again in a few days, to go on a nice long vacation that will involve visits with both friends and family, and when I get back two weeks later, all these really cool plants will be done blooming for this year, and I won't get to appreciate them again until 2007. I guess next year I shouldn't plan two trips back to back, and shouldn't make one of them so long.

P.S. Now that I'm home and can manage my spam comments, I've turned the comments back on, in case anyone was dying to say something about Riley or anything else I've mentioned recently.

Posted by Holly at 4:33 PM | Comments (8)

May 28, 2006

The Joy of Being a Nerd

In "The Nerd Voice" from The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell says something like (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have my copy here with me and so can't quote it verbatim, as I prefer to do) that being a nerd--which means caring too much about a particular topic--is the best way to make friends that she knows of.

I have spent the last few days at the Slayage Conference held in Barnesville, Georgia (there's a whole long story as to why it's being held at such an out of the way location, the short version being that a college here offered to host it), indulging in nerdiness, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I am currently operating on less than five hours of sleep because I stayed up way past my bedtime last night to drink cheap beer and discuss, among other things, whether or not the cruelty of "Hell's Bells," the episode in which Xander jilts Anya at the altar, was necessary or not--I argued that it was really awful in that he not only broke her heart but humiliated her, and someone else argued that it was that extra element that made her reenroll as a vengeance demon, which made all these other plot twists in seasons six and seven possible yada yada yada. The thing is, this was an extracurricular discussion: this was after a full day of organized panel discussions of the Whedonverse. This was a conversation where people took of their shoes and sat on beds and talked informally about text and subtext and so on and so forth in BtVS and Angel and Firefly/Serenity--as well as other things. There was a discussion on Harry Potter, but I'm not really into that and so could add little to it, and as for the Jane Austen hints I dropped, everyone else was content to let them lie on the floor among the bottlecaps and carpet lint.

Vowell is right: being a nerd can be a good thing, and if you find a community of nerds who share your passion, you're probably going to feel at home. Though it's odd what does and doesn't overlap: there are all these people here who love fanfiction, and I find it less compelling than a hangnail. As for Firefly/Serenity, I can state with serenity that I have yet to succumb to its charms. But I also haven't found a single person who shares my passion for nonfiction, and I've met only one Janeite.

Still, it has been great. This is not so nerdy that people dress up like characters or try to stake each other. OK, Friday night we passed out the lyrics to "Once More with Feeling" (BtVS's musical episode, in case you didn't know) and had a singalong, but we don't want to BE anyone in the Whedonverse. Believe it or not, for most of us, it really is a serious intellectual enterprise: why does pop culture matter? Why does THIS pop culture matter? How is narrative constructed in television? How do constraints like an actor's schedule influence things like plot lines? Why do people stay loyal to shows even when they end up with plot arcs everyone hates (the introduction of Dawn and the death of Tara being prime examples)? Joss Whedon is a self-avowed feminist and a devotee of comic books; how does this intersection of interests play out in his work, and what does it tell us about genre studies and about gender?

There are two sessions left, and after that, I get to go back to my hotel, maybe end up at another party and maybe just sleep heavily.... Tomorrow I get to do the air travel thing, which I loathe, but I suppose it beat driving all the way from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Anyway, the main thing is, if you ever get a chance to attend a conference like this, do it! It's part of what makes being a nerd truly worthwhile.

Posted by Holly at 3:23 PM | Comments (5)

May 25, 2006

Riley, Ultimatums, My Absence and No Comments

So.

I am one of the few Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans who really digs Riley, Buffy's cornfed Iowa boyfriend who is also a member of this covert military operation, the "Initiative." Most people find him too wholesome and bland, but I think he's physically hot, dryly funny, decent to women, and very appealing.

Spike, Sunday's guest blogger, became my friend when he and I collaborated on a presentation on BtVS. He worked on Buffy and labor; I worked on Buffy and sex. He has been helping me thinking out some of the ideas I wanted to develop for the paper I'm presenting this weekend at Slayage 2. Blog Spike (as opposed to BtVS Spike) and I both like Riley but disagreed about how we felt about his departure from the show.

As you might have noticed, I'm not exactly developing lots of original ideas in my entries this week--too busy. As another time-saving blogging technique, I'm posting an (almost unedited) email I sent Blog Spike about Riley and what was going on when he left Buffy in Season Five--it's both topical (to me, anyway) and something I can just cut and paste.

I would love to hear from any other Riley fans out there, if any more read my blog. Unfortunately I got up this morning to find I'd received over almost 500 junk comments in six hours, so I'm turning off all comments until I get back. At that point, I'll try to figure out some better way of filtering out the crap comments from the legitimate ones.

***

When I was home for Christmas, I ended up going on this dreadful drive out in the desert with my parents, my brother and his family. It was a Sunday afternoon and we had driven less than a mile when my brother up in this HORRIBLE cd of little kids singing the Articles of Faith (13 statements of belief for the Mormon church) set to music. It was cloying and gross, and I was revolted to be confronted with so overt a method of socializing little kids into swallowing all that codswollop. I took a deep breath; I listened for a few moments, and then I said, "If you want to listen to this, that's fine. But I can't listen to it. If this is what's going to be playing in the cd player, please take me home before we go any further, because I cannot and will not listen to this."

And Brother said, "Well, uh... OK." And he took the cd out and put in a cd of silly lyrics set to classical music.

My six-year-old nephew asked, "Why are listening to this? I wanted to listen to the cd I got today at church."

"Holly asked us to change it," Brother said. "We're going to listen to this."

"But I wanted to listen to my NEW cd," Nephew said.

"You can listen to that when we get home," Brother said. "You like this cd anyway."

I don't see how that was inappropriate. I suppose in a way I said, "Choose between me or this music," but I didn't frame it that way: I took the responsibility for the choice, and said, "I am choosing between you and music I find acceptable: I will not be miserable for the next three hours, even if I get to be miserable in your company."

Choices can be offered in ways that are more or less manipulative, but I really sort of hate people who get their shorts all in a twist when faced with a legitimate but unpleasant choice and start whining about having to deal with "ultimatums." You can't have everything you want; you often have to choose between things you'd really like to have; you often have to accommodate other people's needs and concerns. I despise people who don't realize that and try to weasel out of these choices. Everything costs.

One thing that drives me crazy about Buffy is the extent to which people tell small, stupid, unconvincing lies. "What's wrong with Mom?" Dawn asks; "The doctors don't know yet," Buffy replies, although she's just been told it's a brain tumor. Oh, so uncertainty and ignorance is preferable to the certainty and information that will have to be dealt with eventually?

Last night I watched "Into the Woods," the episode you mention, and my reaction to it is almost entirely opposite of yours. [Riley wants to know what it feels like to be bitten by a vampire, so he hires "cheap vampire trulls" to suck blood from his arm.] I think it's silly and childish of Riley to go get the suck jobs, but I have no problem understanding why he's so hurt that Buffy doesn't confide in him or even keep him in the loop about her mother's illness, that she pretty much treats him like a big sex toy. She isn't fair to Riley; she doesn't really love him; she has neither enough courage to be honest with herself about her feelings for him nor enough respect for him to be forthcoming with him any more than she does with Dawn, and he is smart enough to know this.

I don't see Riley as issuing an ultimatum, as much as he is telling Buffy that he is dealing with an unacceptable situation and he will move to find an acceptable one if she won't change things. And OK, maybe that IS an ultimatum, but nonetheless, his position seems pretty justified, and I really can't stand that Buffy acts like she shouldn't have to treat Riley as anything more than (as Xander rightly observes) a "convenient" boyfriend. OK, yeah, Riley did this gross, unacceptable thing, but she claims to be upset by it because he could have gotten himself killed and because she's too busy dealing with her mom's illness to worry about protecting him, rather than saying it's a profound betrayal and infidelity--so that the matter IS an affront to her convenience, not her heart. And Riley is always aware of what she thinks and feels about her, while she never bothers to pay much attention to what he thinks and feels about her. Why should Riley stay when Buffy thinks so little of him, and thinks of him so little?

I see Buffy in the situation as whiny, selfish, self-indulgent and unreasonable, and that episode is the one where I start to really sort of hate her. By the end of Season Five I just can't stand her, and that's beginning of the change. The only thing that made Riley's departure OK was that it allowed for more Spike--I loved the plot developments when he feel in love Buffy.

Posted by Holly at 7:32 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2006

Someone Else's Sense of Humor

Here's a link Spike sent me (one of these days he'll have to stop giving me all this stuff for my blog and use it on his own) to an article in the Guardian UK about the problems of translating jokes in English into German and vice versa. Stewart Lee, the author, notes that "a commonly held contemporary British view is that the Germans have no sense of humour," then asks (and eventually answers, in fairly interesting ways) "But can this be possible? Can there genuinely be a nation incapable of laughter, or is it just that the German language of laughter differs so greatly from our own, that it appears non-existent?"

My favorite observation (and this is the kind of thing I would have liked to have been able to cite during grad school) is this, about attempts to depict a British stand-up comedian in Germany, where stand-up comedy is "alien":

this instinct to formalise a genre of comedy we accept as inherently informal is not indivisible from the limitations the German language imposes on conventional British comedy structures. The flexibility of the English language allows us to imagine that we are an inherently witty nation, when in fact we just have a vocabulary and a grammar that allow for endlessly amusing confusions of meanings.(Emphasis added, of course.)

Lee notes that humor in English relies on

Pull back and reveal. But German will not always allow you to shunt the key word to the end of the sentence to achieve this failsafe laugh. After spending weeks struggling with the rigours of the German language's far less flexible sentence structures to achieve the endless succession of "pull back and reveals" that constitute much English language humour, the idea of our comedic superiority soon begins to fade. It is a mansion built on sand.

Lee comes to the conclusion that the German "sense of humour was built on blunt, seemingly serious statements, which became funny simply because of their context." He admits that

Since watching jokes I co-wrote for our German production withering in the translation process, all their contrived weaknesses exposed, I have stopped writing jokes as such, and feel I am a better stand-up because of it. I try now to write about ideas, that would be funny in any language, and don't rely on pull- back and reveals and confusion of meaning. Germany kicked away my comedy crutches and taught me to walk unaided.

He also acknowledges that he is

hugely grateful to the Germans.... To paraphrase Simon Munnery, a British comedian so rigorous in his intellect he is almost German, there is much we can learn from watching the Germans. Not as much, however, as they can learn from watching us.

Posted by Holly at 10:34 AM | Comments (3)

May 23, 2006

Better Than a Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Stick

In case you didn't know, a standard way to publish a book of poetry is to submit your manuscript to a contest. One of the most prestigious prizes is Yale Younger Poets (which I am now too old to enter), but no matter what the level of prestige, the system is pretty much the same: you send 50-70 pages of poetry, a check for $25.00 (or thereabouts), and a self-addressed stamped envelope. You then wait six months to a year, at which point you usually get your SASE back with a xeroxed sheet of paper telling you who won. Occasionally in the list of finalists, you'll notice your name, and wonder why they never bothered to tell you that you were a finalist.

A lot of people consider it a racket; there is even an "American poetry watchdog" website that "exposes the fraudulent ‘contest,'" and there is also a Council of Literary Magazines and Presses that has set up rigorous contest-judging guidelines so that there aren't fraudulent contests to expose. Anyway, the whole thing is costly, demoralizing and time-consuming, but it's also how the system works, so I sent my book to half a dozen contests earlier this year.

Here's an email message I got yesterday:

Dear Holly,

I am writing to congradulate [sic] you on your finalist status in the 2006 Small But Respectable Poetry Press Prize. Please confirm that you have received this email, and that your manuscript is still available for publication. Also, please provide your summer contact information, as we will be expecting a decision from the judge by Labor Day. This is very important: if we cannot contact you within 2-3 days of receiving word from the judge, we will have to give the prize to the runner-up manuscript, so be clear on the best way to reach you.

I forwarded the message to a friend, who wrote back and said, "I don't want to be a wet blanket, just a wet hanky, but shouldn't an editor know how to spell congratulate?" Yeah, it's true, there's a horrible misspelling in the message, but I didn't even notice it at first: I was too busy being mildly optimistic and not the least bit offended that someone out there thinks my work is better than the work of a bunch of other people.

This is by no means a guarantee they'll publish my book, but it's better than getting my SASE back with nothing but a single xeroxed sheet in it.

Posted by Holly at 12:58 PM | Comments (4)

May 21, 2006

What's a Materialist to Say about Categorical Errors?

In an email message to me a couple of days ago, Spike noted that comments on various threads had revealed certain categorical errors. He said he'd try to find time to respond to the comments himself, and I said, "Look, you write such interesting, insightful stuff; I don't want it buried deep at the end of a thread, especially since I have the feeling these issues might come up again. If you're going to write an analysis of this, why not write something I can post as an entry? I'm really busy right now and could really use a guest blogger, if you wouldn't mind...." And it turns out, he didn't mind at all, and very graciously agreed to write a post for me.

So here it is: my very first guest post, courtesy of Spike.

In the comments to From the Perspective of a Man and Carnival of Feminists XV, two criticisms of Holly's statements made the error of confusing physical properties with culture. Timothy was concerned that while the thread of the comments under "From the Perspective of a Man" emphasized the importance of not damning a whole category of people when insulting a particular individual, this concern ran against the grain of what he felt was Holly's critique of "straight white men." Holly's response has already made the point that criticizing the dominant perspective is not the same as criticizing a group of people. What interested me was the way Timothy collapses a cultural or ideological category (the dominant perspective of the straight white male) with a biological category (men).

In the discussion of the Carnival, a similar, but slightly more complicated error led Jay to question Holly’s use of a Chinese character in the design of her web page: he was concerned about the appropriation of Asian culture by non-Asians. It seems to me that Jay’s concern also rests on a conflation of a cultural or ideological category with, here, a geographical one. This mistake is a bit less obvious than Timothy’s so I should explain why I think Jay makes it. Jay suggested that it was ironic that Holly included a link to Jenn’s piece Unbound Feet in the Carnival, when Jenn had also posted a little rant (Jay’s term) about Western appropriation of Asian culture, since it would appear from the top right of Holly’s page that she’s a white woman but she includes a Chinese character. (Holly and Jay have already had an exchange about this over the issues of etiquette and the reason Holly has the character on her blog so I won’t belabour these points.)

Now it may be a bit unfair for me to discuss Jenn's writing here – it's not her blog, I don't even know if she's reading this – so I will stress this qualification: I am not attributing any intent to Jenn, I'm only commenting as a reader. I have read both of the posts that matter here. The first thing to be noted about the "rant" is that it is a rant. It is not a thoughtfully crafted argument about the point she wants to make – unlike the elegant piece she wrote on "unbound feet," which is a careful and powerful argument. Now ranting is quite important and I would encourage more of it. But I suspect that the tone of the rant is part of the reason Jay felt he had license to question Holly's use of the Chinese character: the rant reads like a defence of the integrity of Asian culture against Western power. It would be possible – but I believe it would be very ungenerous – to suggest that this goes against the argument made in "unbound feet," which is a powerful claim for feminist resistance to female identities imposed by Asian American men on Asian American women.

So the problem that lies under Jay's use of the rant from Reappropriate is this: what is "Asian culture," that has some kind of identity that needs to be defended? Asia is a big place, with lots of language groups, many different religions, different rates and forms of urbanization, different histories…one could go on. These forms of diversity even mark a single country like China.

And Asian nations and cultures have fairly fraught relations with each other due to the region's long historical experiences with conquests and empires. Consider the experiences of Chinese, Korean, or Filipino immigrants in Japan. Or consider the attempted colonization of Korea by Japan and by China. Or China's occupation of Tibet, or its invasion of Vietnam in the late 1970s. Asia does not look like a homogeneous entity from a cultural, political, social, or economic perspective. Asia is a geographical term, not a cultural entity. Indeed, to the extent that we can even refer to a notion like "Asian culture," it is the product of orientalism: a colonial project to construct an "other" to secure "Western" identities.

I said that I think a notion of "Asian culture" would stem from an ungenerous reading of Jenn's writings cited here because I think both pieces, in different ways to be sure, are demands to be allowed to make of herself the person she would be autonomously. So to the extent that Jay would have no problem with Jenn's autonomy before pressures from "deranged and cranky" Asian American males ("DACs"), he ought not have had any issue to raise with Holly's autonomy. The problem for Jay comes up because "Asian," as a subordinate identity within the West, and Asia, for a couple of hundred years a subordinated region internationally, come to feel like something to be asserted and defended as a way of redressing these injustices. I get that, but I also suspect that as a political project it is doomed to fail because "Asia" can be no less an artificial unity, imperially papering over important cultural and political differences, than "the West" is. These geographic entities only become cultural unities through acts of domination.

Why do these category errors matter? There are a lot of reasons I could give: for example, I'm very interested in philosophical materialism. I have been trying to work out a way to think about consciousness that situates it in relation to and as a part of the material world without the kinds of reductions that I see in Timothy's and Jay's assertions. But I think there is also a larger political stake here. Holly's student in "From the Perspective of a Man" asked Holly simply to invert her perspective – if he could see the world from the point of view of a woman, could she try to see it from a man's perspective? That would be equality, right? Well, no it wouldn't, as Holly points out, because she has to see the world from a man's perspective all the time: the dominant perspective contributes to domination by making itself appear natural and inevitable. The subordinate perspective is, please forgive me for saying so, the Freudian repressed: it cannot go away but it cannot easily be expressed.

When we reduce culture or consciousness to geography or biology, we make the cultural forms or ways of thinking appear to be natural. And by becoming "natural," dominant perspectives define nature and, in turn, justify themselves through category errors: biology or geography become destiny. So it's not just a matter of giving "equal time" to subordinate points of view. The dominant ideologies have to be denatured in order to be overthrown.

Posted by Holly at 3:13 PM | Comments (9)

May 19, 2006

What Was I Saying about Perspective?

I recently came across a blog editorial entitled, "Supreme Court Officially Sends Taxpayers into Early Menopause."

Just kidding! The actual title was Supreme Court Officially Emasculates Taxpayers.

That's right: Taxpayers are officially gendered male, and the supreme court has officially castrated them.

Now, I am not happy with what the Supreme Court did in this particular case, but I wouldn't call it "emasculation." The Supreme Court has decided that "State taxpayers have no standing ... to challenge state tax or spending decisions simply by virtue of their status as taxpayers." But I don't think that really qualifies as "cutting off the testicles" of taxpayers. I suppose you could argue that "emasculate" in this case simply means to "deprive of strength of vigor," but still, that definition only works if the person being weakened is male; you wouldn't say, "My grandmother was severely emasculated by her struggle with breast cancer."

So--anyone want to suggest again that I'm "overreaching" when I say that the world happens from the perspective of a man?

Posted by Holly at 2:41 PM | Comments (4)

May 17, 2006

Carnival of Feminist XV

Thanks to everyone who nominated posts, and special thanks to Natalie, who organizes and oversees the carnival.

Feminism, Friendship and Fun

Carnival is supposed to be a time of pleasure and fun, so this carnival begins with a post from Mind the Gap!, pointing out that Fun Is a feminist issue:

Fun is also a feminist issue because it builds friendship. And friendship is a feminist issue. Friendship among women and their male allies is radical because women are not really supposed to be friends with one another, and they're certainly not supposed to be friends with men on equal terms. In refusing to compete and sell each other out for the attention of men, we work to break down patriarchal norms.

The post was generated as part of Blog for Radical Fun Day, the idea of Brownfemipower. On Woman of Color, she writes about her fondness for the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (which contains both feminist and uh, not-so-feminist elements) and lists all the blogs who participated. Definitely check this out!

In the spirit of feminist friendship, Pomegranate Queen creates a blog Forum for Women and Trans Writers of Color to share written work for purposes of critical feedback and support, called Securing our Writing.

Here's to feminist fun and friendship--I hope you enjoy this carnival, and find some new friends here.

Issues within and Surrounding Feminism

Is self-censoring built into feminism, wonders Becca, "with its emphasis on non-hierarchical power dynamics and discomfort with power generally - it all comes down to not wanting to piss anybody off or be a bad person by hurting others, which then comes down to another set of rules for women to follow in order to be good," and if so, what are the implications for art?

At a forum on HIV/AIDS, Artemis of One Woman Army discovers women who espouse feminist ideals but are still afraid to answer yes to the question, Are You a Feminist? Meanwhile, Niobum writes that she feels snubbed and shunned by feminists for reasons having to do with class, while Nubian at blac(k)ademic argues that "it is naive to claim that gender oppression outweighs racial oppression, or that racism is more oppressive than sexism" and suggests we dispense with the oppression olympics.

And on Women's Space, we find a list of the all-too-familiar ways even "Feminists take care of men (and the world as created and envisioned by men, really)."

Misogyny, Either Subtle or Overt

A major task within feminism is combating misogynist rhetoric and practices, and these bloggers take it on.

Verbify shows how an editorial by Rabbi Schmuley Boteach supposedly detailing "The Price of Disrespecting Women" is actually "a piece that reeks of good old-fashioned woman-hating". Grab a bottle, stick around for the comments Verbify analyzes and play the Radical Feminist (tm) drinking game with her--you'll need something to get you through all the more-misogynist-than-thou vitriol Boteach's editorial elicits from readers.

How does footbinding still figure in Asian communities? Jenn at Reappropriate responds to "Deranged and Cranky" Asian American Males who perpetuate "The act of Binding" through "the claim that if the Asian American Woman hopes to remain 'down with the community,' she should subjugate her own identity and autonomy in order to aid the Asian American Man in reclaiming his virility." Laura of I'm Not a Feminist, But... lists the actions that demonstrate male hatred of women.

Speaking of Misogyny, it upsets the Center of Gravitas of Gay Prof, who discusses its presence in a senior male colleague who instructs female students to "check [their] vaginas at the door" (!) and the new Burger King ad (as well as in jokes about women's bodies told by gay men).

Witchy-Woo muses on the fact that even public buildings aren't constructed to accommodate the needs of women--not enough toilets! Feminist Law Prof wonders if there's a male equivalent to the term Heathers.

Andrew Isreal Ross of Air Pollution critiques queer politics from a feminist perspective, arguing that an examination of attitudes towards domesticity reveal "the potential gendering of sexuality and gender themselves: that sexuality (read: male) is liberatory while gender (read: female) is constraining."

And I argue with a student who defends homophobic and misogynist insults applied to straight men as not insulting to women or gay men, because from the perspective of a straight white man, "the words themselves don't even matter."

Women and Intellectual Endeavors

Name an important French female mathematician who entered the field in the 18th century. If you can't, you're not alone--and it's not because there isn't one; it's because she's rarely acknowledged. Read about Unitari's efforts to get her department to recognize women mathematicians.

Now name a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who was lesbian and disabled. On Disabilities Studies, Temple U, we can learn about a bill introduced in the California state legislature "that would add 'sexual orientation' to the list of identity categories to be presented without discrimination in school textbooks"--disability being one of those already included.

Suzie Lipscomb reports on a Conference in honour of Meeto Malik, a scholar whose work explored "gender, religion, syncretism, violence and colonialism."

Motherhood and Reproductive Rights

Sunday was Mothers Day in the US. History News Network provides a history of the War against Mothers Day, which actually "originated to celebrate the organized activities of women outside the home."

Paula Martinac of Dementia Blues ("Funny/sad ruminations by a baby boomer on having two parents with dementia") writes about mother/daughter friendships: "maybe there is a generational thing going on - that baby-boomer mothers have fostered different relationships with their daughters than they had with their own mothers. Indeed, maybe there's a healthier and more enlightened approach to parenting among baby boomers that allows daughters to grow into adult friends. Imagine that!"

Miliana encourages some very reductive scientists trying to determine, based on a sampling of 29 graduate students at UC Santa Barbara, how women determine whether a man will be a good long- or short-term lover and/or father, to Put The Theory Down Gently and Back Away From This Idiocy Slowly.

Redneck Mother discusses efforts to educated ballpark honchos who hassled a nursing mom to the fact that Texas law "states that a woman may nurse anyplace she is authorized to be." RM concludes, "I think prudes are set off not just by the sight of a woman nursing but by the sight of a lone woman using her breasts for their intended purpose without a man around to supervise things."

Clare of Ink and Incapability writes about the condemnation being heaped upon Britain's youngest mother, a twelve-year-old girl who conceived when she was 11; the father of the child this child is carrying is 15. Clare includes a quote from the British press: "The problem to this social ill, rests at the disintegration of the family unit. How unsuprising it was to read that the girl comes from a broken home, drinks and smokes! The fact that the mother is not ashamed of this reflects the shocking apathy some strata of society have towards teenage pregnancy... "

And, did you know? Russia's population is in decline. Commenting on a plan by Mad Vlad Putin to encourage Russian women to bear more babies, Twisty Faster asks, "Gosh, was there ever a social crisis that couldn't be solved by governmental commandeering of women's uteruses?"

Apparently not. Because meanwhile, back in the US, embarrassed by the appalling child mortality rate (seven deaths per 1,000 lives births, a rate higher than that of almost all industrialized nations) in the world's richest, greediest country, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new federal guidelines asking that "all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon." Rebecca Traister of Salon's Broadsheet offers a spot-on analysis of this astonishing article in the Washington Post. As Traister points out, the crappy infant mortality rate has something to do with our crappy healthcare system, and has a racial component: "The infant mortality rate among black women is 13.5 per 1,000 live births, as compared with 5.7 for white women." But hey! Someone has an idea! Instead of fixing broken healthcare and economic systems, let's tell women to think of themselves as wombs with legs, all the time. (A subscription is required to read Salon and its blogs; if you don't subscribe, at least read the Post article and see just how important the rest of you is compared to your uterus and ovaries. Note added 18 May 06: Better yet, read the actual report from the CDC, which the WaPo neglects to mention includes the recommendation that we "Increase public and private health insurance coverage for women with low incomes to improve access to preventive women's health and preconception and interconception care." You'll find plenty to upset you in the report, but it's not as glib and clueless as the WaPo article suggests.)

Women and Aging

Dr. Diana Blaine discusses the Signs of Aging--one of which is realizing how conditioned we are to "lash out against difference"--and considers how best to deal with people who attack her for teaching feminism. Auntie Hattie offers a primer for older women on How to Succeed in the Academic World when No One Wants You to.

Sue Richards of My Menopause Blog discusses some of the lessons available to us--and how to approach them--as we enter the Good Ship Menopause. On Exponent II, we find an anonymous account of how being 50 seems "to offer an odd mixture of power and invisibility that suits me just fine."

Violence against Women

Thursday, May 11, was the third anniversary of the murder of Sakia Gunn, "the 15-year-old African American lesbian from Newark whose killing ignited a movement and led to New Jersey's first bias-murder prosecution." Professor Kim compares the (relatively sparse) attention to her death in the national media, especially in contrast to the memorialization of Matthew Shepard, also the victim of a hate crime.

Megha at Days in a Wannabe Punk's Life analzyes so-called honor killings (as in, what's honorable about murdering women?)

How do you have the rape conversation? Antheia of Mad Melancholic Feminista explores "the struggle that many women face when trying to decide who to confide in about their abuse. Who do you tell first? Second? Do you tell anyone? How do you tell them? I remember grappling with these questions, terrified of the reactions that I would receive from friends and family. Terrified because these reactions, at least in part, shape how you will ultimately view the abuse."

"What does living as a woman imply?" Soopermouse asks on I Hate People. "That the whole society is built on the fact that you and each and every other female needs to be kept in her place, in order for the penis wearers to thrive."

Marketing Women to Women (so they can better market themselves to men)

Ever wonder what special accommodations you need to make if you are lucky enough to be the girlfriend of a West Point Cadet? Angry Brown Butch finds a website that tells you just that, and experiences "Temporary insanity induced by overdoses of heteronormativity, patriotism, cutesy flowery background images and bad clip-art."

Halfway between Ca Mau and Sai Gon we find a response to women's magazines. The entry notes that women's magazines are now more "inclusive": "If you're skinny, and accord with their notion of perfect, product-selling beauty, they won't care what your skin colour is. Isn't that admirable?" Rac analyzes the anti-feminist content of a particular women's magazine, noting that its stories try to seem like they're about empowerment, "as if the speaker has not already conformed to every paradigm of female sexuality in contemporary culture." Photographer Christi Nielsen (I am a huge fan of the self-portraits she posts on Just about to Get Skinny) sums up the suggestion from a friend that she "check out the newest craze of exercise videos... pole dancing and lap dancing" by wondering what such videos could be titled: Existing for the Male Gaze: How to Perfect Your Body and Slut Yourself Up All in less than 10 minutes a day!

Feminism and Religion

Are boys and girls taught differently at religious schools? Natalie at Philobiblion writes about misogynist instruction at the all-girls church school she attended, and worries about the consequence of the government's encouraging the development of religious schools.

A documentary entitled The Beauty Academy of Kabul makes "the point that building self-confidence was the first step for many women to begin to regain their rights," writes Misajane, who notes that "Sometimes when we're studying social change, we forget the importance of self-confidence," particularly in relation to feminism. Martin at Salto Sobrius reflects on issues of modesty and psychological comfort with relation to headscarves worn by Muslim women and bikini tops worn by women who don't want to be topless at the beach, arguing that it's a misstep to ban things like headscarves, because a more important issue is that women "have access to education and jobs and the freedom to make their own life decisions. Never mind the shawls and bikini tops – are women allowed to ride bicycles, go to university, participate in sports, work outside the home?"

Women and Art

Jennie Rosenbaum is interviewed about her work, which "frequently center around us as women and the pressure we as women put on ourselves and each other. the body issues, the fear, resentment, and the power and abandon we sometimes let ourselves feel."

Ever notice any difference in how women and men are depicted in art when they're holding a book? Go to Earmark for commentary on the gender of reading.

Women and Comics

We return to the issue of radical fun via comics, a topic that generates a lot of feminist thought. Ragnell originally started her blog, Written World, to write about comics, but found lots of feminist topics creeping in; at this point she has resolved that on her blog, The Feminism Will Continue Until the Stupidity Dissipates. Monkeycrackmary offers readers a chance to say how they'd like to see female characters portrayed in comic books.

Somer credits a Wonder Woman pop-up book with shape her views on gender, and Melchior del Darién from Mortlake on the Schuylkill wonders at the paternalistic treatment of Power Girl. Kalinara of Pretty, Fizzy Paradise analyzes the sexist premise of the character Venom.

Sarah the Alert Nerd takes issue with a post from a man issuing edicts on what kind of comics women read, how women feel entering comic books stores--actually the guy issues edicts on almost everything, so that the Alert Nerd finally advises him to Shut Up, while another guy, Gordon of Blog THIS, Pal! begins to understand: there is an anti-female conspiracy going on, since "it just seems like comics are being written towards a more misogynistic, cynical audience. The message is simply - no girls allowed. And if you are female, you're either a cheating traitor, a useless appendage, or - worst of all - cannon fodder."

In Memoriam

We close with this old post from cancerbaby, who died Friday, May 12, 2006. Her real name was Jessica, and she was 33.

Carnival XVI

The next Carnival will be held June 7 on Welcome to the Nut House. You can submit nominations via this form.

Thanks for stopping by! I had a great time putting together this carnival and hope you enjoy it too. Please leave comments here and on individual blogs about your favorite posts.

Posted by Holly at 12:01 AM | Comments (26)

May 16, 2006

From the Perspective of a Man

Last Thursday I met a friend for coffee at Barnes and Noble. (Yes, yes, it's so corporate of us, but I also make a point of frequenting the one independent coffee shop in town too, and my friend prefers B&N.) I was waiting for my grande decaf mocha in a mug (not a paper cup), when I noticed that Student C, a talented but uh, challenging student of mine, was sitting by the window, watching me. It was a shock to see him: this particular student absorbed so much of my energy during the year, but when I encountered him off campus, I realized that I hadn't had a single stray thought about him since I'd turned in my grades--god, it felt good to realize that.

"Hey, Dr. Holly," he said. "How you doing?"

"I'm OK," I said. "You?"

"Good," he said. "I'm writing!" And he gestured at the notebook before him on the table.

Then my beverage was ready so I chatted with my friend for an hour or two, and then I browsed books for a while, and then I went back to the café to get some water, and Student C was still there, writing, and he asked me a question about a course I'm teaching next semester, so I sat down to answer it. And we started talking about writing.

He asked if I'd written any poetry recently. "Nuh-uh," I said. "No inspiration." I paused. "You get any good assignments in your other classes? Any good ideas you want to pass on?"

"You should write from the perspective of a man," he said. He raised his eyebrows. He'd been in a couple of classes where we discussed gender; his ideas on the topic, although not the most misogynist I'd encountered, were still not what I'd call enlightened. And I'd been told that when I wasn't around, he often referred to women as "bitches," even women he liked.

"Nah, that doesn't really interest me," I said.

"I knew it!" he said. He shook his head. "I write from the perspective of women all the time, but you can't even imagine what things are like from the perspective of a man?"

"First of all, I've written from a male perspective before, but I don't think it's my best work. Secondly, I don't have to imagine a male perspective," I said. "I see it all the time. I experience it. The world happens from the perspective of a man. And while I may not want to write from that point of view, I'm certainly willing to read stuff written by men. Women are more willing to read works by and about men, while most guys don't want to read stuff by and about women." And I cited a newspaper article stating just that that I'd emailed everyone during the semester.

"My favorite books are by women," he said.

"In that area, you're an exception," I said. "I've known that since we read At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid a year ago. You were the only guy in the class--almost the only person--who really liked that book. You liked it more than I did."

"I loved it," he said. "It's one of the best things I've read in my life." And the conversation went on from there.

At one point he mentioned someone he didn't like. I asked Student C if he had heard about a recent endeavor this disliked person has undertaken. Student C had not, and he became indignant and offended upon learning of it. "That cocksucker!" he exploded. "That pussy!"

"Hear what you just did?" I asked. "You just asserted your support for patriarchy."

"What're you talking about?" he asked.

"You called this guy a cocksucker, when you know he's not gay. You called him a pussy, when you know he's not female. Why use homosexuality and female genitalia to insult this guy?"

"It's just automatic," he said. "It's just what you say about someone you really don't like."

"This is what I meant," I said, "about how the world happens from the point of view of a man--a straight white man, I would add."

"No, no!" he said. "You're making too much of this. The words themselves don't even matter. It's the idea behind them."

"This from a poet?" I responded. "You're always telling me how much you love language. And now you tell me the words don't even matter?"

"But there's an idea..." he began.

"Exactly," I said. "And the idea is that invoking gayness and femaleness are the most effective ways to insult a man. I mean, why not call him a dick?"

He frowned and looked out the window. "Dick," he said thoughtfully. "Dick." He turned back to me. "It's just not the same."

"Exactly!" I said. "Merely being a penis is a mild insult. But being a cunt, that's really bad." I shook my head. "You're pretty race conscious, and you get annoyed when you encounter racial stereotypes in the texts we read or the discussions we have about them. You would never dream of insulting this guy by hurling a racial epithet that invokes brownness or blackness, but you say it's automatic and insignificant when you invoke these other kinds of difference. Why is that OK?"

"OK, OK," he said. "You're right. It's a bad thing. But it's just how the world works. It's just what people understand."

"It's just what straight men understand," I said. "I understand it because, as I said, the world happens from the point of view of a straight white man, not because it makes any real sense or to me, or because I think it's OK. What I don't understand is why you can defend this."

And it was clear to me that Student C really did get what was wrong with what he'd said. But it was also clear that he didn't want to change the way he talked about women he liked and men he didn't like--not because he felt he was morally justified in what he did, but because he didn't want the bother of monitoring his speech or thoughts, or altering his habits.

And that's pretty discouraging, when even guys who understand the problem are too lazy to do much to correct it.

What do we do about this? I think I did an OK job of explaining the problem to the guy. How do I convince him it's important enough that he should change his behavior?

One of my colleagues taught a couple of sections of introduction to creative writing this past semester; he said he was horrified by the number of stories by young men that expressed overt misogyny: he regularly encountered female characters who were called bitches and hos, or plots that revolved around humiliating female characters--and of course there was plenty of attention to describing women's bodies. "I couldn't believe how much rage against women these stories revealed," he told me. "And there was nothing at all like it in the stories by the women. These young women should be angry, should be enraged, but they're not. And even when they write about sex and relationships, they just don't objectify men in the way they themselves are objectified."

He said that he talk outside of class to the authors of particularly misogynist stories and ask if they realized how insultingly they talked about women, if they intended to portray women as objects of contempt who deserve to be hurt and humiliated. "They all claimed to be shocked and embarrassed," he said. "They all told me they really like women, that they have friends or sisters or lovers who are women and that the stories were just something they wrote without really thinking about it, not anything that reveals what they really think about women."

What do we do about matter-of-fact and ostensibly unconscious misogyny in our students' writing and speech?

Read follow-ups to this post here and here.

Posted by Holly at 11:56 AM | Comments (22)

May 15, 2006

I Am Suddenly So Freakin' Productive

As I've mentioned, the semester ended Friday, May 5. To celebrate I wore a really great outfit (maybe some of my lurking colleagues will attest to the fact that my shirt, which I bought a few days prior, was indeed very cool, and my skirt, which I made last fall, was indeed very pretty) and went out for margaritas (it being Cinco de Mayo and all) with friends/colleagues. I even got a ride so I could get rip-roaring drunk, but I was stymied in that endeavor by A) the lack of tequila in the margaritas and B) the surplus of icky green margarita mix in said beverage (just makes ‘em harder to suck down) and C) a pissy attitude that kept me from ever really having fun.

The next day I felt like crap though I wasn't even hungover. And I'd gone out with such good intentions! It really added insult to a lack of injury. I was...depleted, mostly. Exhausted by some teaching-related ickiness I might blog about if I work up the nerve.... Anyway, the weather was lovely but I was having none of it. I wore ugly old sweats and sat on my couch and watched television I didn't enjoy: four hours of Grey's Anatomy, one of those shows about doctors* that can't be bothered to include genuinely sick people. The show has people who are dying of cancer in some part of their digestive system and still weigh close to 200 pounds, despite the fact that when your digestive system stops working, you tend to lose both your appetite and weight, because even the few things you manage to put in your stomach don't get broken down properly. Or people who, only hours after having their chests sawed open, are sitting up, talking coherently, groggy from neither pain nor general anesthesia.

Sunday I at least left my house, though I didn't leave my yard: I managed to go out in the evening and do a little gardening. But I was still sulky and pissy.

But last week I somehow managed to become oh so productive! Before the semester ended but when the end was in sight, I had a moment of clarity during which I Planned Ahead: I made a bunch of appointments, so that last week I was plugged into a schedule. I took my windshield to the chip repair place. I took my cat to the vet. I took my teeth to the dentist. I took my hair to the salon. (This week I'm taking my body to the doctor--annual check-up and all that, but as I mentioned, I really distrust doctors.*) I went to graduation. (God, that was boring.) I had coffee with a friend I haven't talked to in months. I finished up some school-related business. I did some research for the Buffy paper I've got to write and ordered books for another project. I made a skirt. (It's adorable--believe me.) I took some pictures with the digital camera I got for Christmas and haven't really mastered using. (One of these days, when I'm not quite so overwhelmed, I'm actually going to plug the camera into my computer and download pictures of my cat Dinah, who is very, very cute.) When I wanted a break from all that structured productiveness, I put in a movie and watched it while I ironed all my recently washed laundry, or I worked in my garden.

I like being this productive, but I seriously dislike that I HAVE to be this productive. I have all this shit I MUST do before May 25. Didn't I just get done with some big lousy deadline? Oh yeah, I did: and dealing with it made me catatonic for 48 hours and pissy for a lot more.

Oh well. This too shall pass.

*Doctors are one of the few groups of people I've dealt with in my life that I trust less than Republican politicians and Mormon priesthood holders. They can hurt and screw you over in ways few other people can. Dishonest mechanic? Well, being stuck with a huge bill for unnecessary services does indeed suck, but it sucks even more when any unnecessary procedure is done to you. "Do no harm," the Hippocratic oath** enjoins, but I've never met a doctor who truly upheld it.

**I just discovered, when I looked up the Hippocratic oath, that the old one, which begins with an appeal to Apollo, prohibits abortion and assisted suicide. The modern one states, "I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick."

Posted by Holly at 10:07 AM | Comments (6)

May 11, 2006

It's Always Somehow Her Fault Too

In the "Thank God Someone Else Reads These Crappy Patriarchy-Loving Rags" category is this piece from Rebecca Traister at Salon. Ms. Traister neatly shreds an article from the Washington Post, which blames the impotence problems of young college men on... get this... horny college girls! That's right! In the "Jesus Fucking Christ" department, Laura Sessions Stepp has written an article called "Cupid's Broken Arrow" announcing that

for a sizable number of young men, the fact that they can get sex whenever they want may have created a situation where, in fact, they're unable to have sex. According to surveys, young women are now as likely as young men to have sex and by countless reports are also as likely to initiate sex, taking away from males the age-old, erotic power of the chase.

After explaining that impotence should be refered to as Erectile Dysfunction (ED for short), Ms. Stepp analyzes a few images of limpness and powerlessness, concluding that

Such images disturb because sexual performance is still, in the minds of many males, the sign of authority and dominance, perhaps the last such symbol in a society slogging its way toward gender equality. (Emphasis added--and gee, I wonder where guys get that?)

Those in the first years of testing their manhood may particularly see it that way.

When the tools work, there's nothing like it, says Devin Jones, a sophomore at Maryland, who read several how-to books about sex before going all the way with his first girlfriend. "When she got an orgasm, I felt like the man," he says in an interview, pounding his fists on his chest. Will Skelton, who graduated from George Washington University last year, says good sex "is all about self-worth. If you know you're a helluva lover, you're more confident with women and men."

And it goes on and on about various ways women put too much pressure on guys, and so ruin their erections...though it also takes some time to consider things men can do to themselves, like drink too much alcohol or coffee, smoke too much tobacco or marijuana, or take too many anti-depressants.

Luckily, before I read that crap myself, I got this excellent analysis from Ms. Traister:

Perhaps (and I realize this is pie-in-the-sky thinking here) the leveling of the sexual marketplace Stepp writes about, in which women and men enjoy and pursue sex with comparable vigor, could be good for both sexes. First, it could deflate some of the frequently unearned but long-held stereotypes about guys who'll have sex with anything that moves, who consider each conquest a notch on their bedpost, who are more turned on by the pursuit than by the physical pleasure of union. Perhaps, if sex with women is something that they didn't have to finagle and tease and chase their way into, if it was just a fun activity that two people who liked each other chose to engage in and that often felt really great, everyone would have a better time.

Bzzzzz! Apparently that answer was incorrect. According to Stepp, we're not looking at the maturation and increasing sophistication of the socio-sexual dynamic here. We're looking at the loss of manhood in its purest form. Guys who can't get woodies for any old girl on the block are a poignant representation of the crumbling power of the erect phallus, which is, after all, as Stepp writes, "in the minds of many males, the sign of authority and dominance, perhaps the last such symbol in a society slogging its way toward gender equality." Wow. Stepp isn't doing the men she's writing about any favors in treating their condition not as a treatable health problem related to stress or their recreational habits, but as an actual loss of their masculinity, the ultimate cost of gender equality.

Posted by Holly at 11:39 AM | Comments (4)

I Start Sentences with the First Person

This is another meme that half the bloggers in the blogosphere have already done. As I generally do with memes, I added some extra entries, just because I can.

I am a blogger.
I have a room of my own.
I want some generous benefactrix to grant me an annuity of the current equivalent of whatever 500 pounds was worth in 1928.
I wish I had been blessed with better teeth.
I hate the selfish, lazy, evil fuckwits who dump their grass cuttings and yard waste at the entrance to this wooded park not far from my house. Good grief, the city picks that stuff up for free if you just put it in a trash can and set it by the curb--is that really so hard to do?
For that matter, I hate anyone who engages in illegal dumping. The world is not your toilet.
I love chocolate, the desert, acupuncture, 80s new wave and clean sheets, among other things.
I miss certain things about being 24. Others I don't miss at all.

I fear leaving my keys in my car while the engine is running. I've never done it, but I want never to do it. So I take all these preventive steps that other people find silly, like rolling my windows down, even if it's raining, if I ever get out of the car while the ignition is on.
I hear pretty well and find myself easily distracted by noise. I am very fond of silence.
I wonder when the hell I'll finally publish a book.
I regret wearing these sandals that were not as broken in as I thought they were on a long walk the other day.
I resent this paper I have to write on bad sex in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that's what I get for submitting a proposal to a conference.
I eat a lot of organic spinach. Without question, it's the vegetable I buy most often. It's versatile and yummy and good for you.
I drink vodka generally if I'm ordering mixed drinks, unless I'm having margaritas which as we all know are HEAVENLY when made properly but REALLY LOUSY when made with that awful pre-mixed green stuff. I also like the occasional amaretto sour.
I am not allergic to shellfish or nuts, but I am allergic to penicillin.
I dance a lot less than I used to. I love to dance and I'm pretty good at it. I've taken all kinds of lessons.
I sing whenever someone mentions a song. In class one day we were discussing patriotism and a student said, "We should sing ‘God Bless America' or something now" and I immediately launched right into it. I knew all the words, too.
I cry more than a lot of people. I am rather easily moved. A few days ago I started crying in the car when "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones came on the radio (and I sang along to it too). It was such a hopeful song.... The world can indeed change in the blink of an eye, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
I am not always afflicted by insomnia, but when I am, it's bad.
I make with my hands all kinds of things involving textiles. I especially like making my own clothes.
I can't catch, hit or throw a ball very well.
I need to do some home repairs this summer, but it just doesn't sound fun.
I should put more money in savings.
I start projects I know are going to take a long time, then become obsessive about finishing them right away: piecing a quilt or knitting a sweater or writing a paper or whatever: it seems important to get it done right now, so I stay up until 4 in the morning working on it.
I finish most everything on my plate. My mother trained me well.
I tag anyone who can't think of something to write on your own.

Posted by Holly at 12:01 AM | Comments (7)

May 10, 2006

Piraha, Dependent Clauses, and Counting to Ten

Big fat disclaimer: I sent a link to this story to a colleague; she told me that the guy featured in the article, Daniel Everett, administered her comprehensive exams and is not British as he claims but "American, a member of the Summer Institute of Linguists (an evangelical group who brings Bible translation to remote places; they have done amazing linguistic research), and the former chairperson of the linguistics dept. at U.Pitt - who had to flee the country for embezzling funds from Pitt!" Also, "His story about the murder plot has been suspect for a long time." Which gave me pause about posting this, but it's still pretty interesting, and you can make up your own mind what you think about it all.

Read this amazing article from Spiegel International about a small group of Brazilian natives whose language--Piraha-- "departs from what were long thought to be essential features of all languages."

The language is incredibly spare. The Pirahã use only three pronouns. They hardly use any words associated with time and past tense verb conjugations don't exist. Apparently colors aren't very important to the Pirahãs, either -- they don't describe any of them in their language. But of all the curiosities, the one that bugs linguists the most is that Pirahã is likely the only language in the world that doesn't use subordinate clauses. Instead of saying, "When I have finished eating, I would like to speak with you," the Pirahãs say, "I finish eating, I speak with you."

Equally perplexing: In their everyday lives, the Pirahãs appear to have no need for numbers. During the time he spent with them, Everett never once heard words like "all," "every," and "more" from the Pirahãs. There is one word, "hói," which does come close to the numeral 1. But it can also mean "small" or describe a relatively small amount -- like two small fish as opposed to one big fish, for example. And they don't even appear to count without language, on their fingers for example, in order to determine how many pieces of meat they have to grill for the villagers, how many days of meat they have left from the anteaters they've hunted or how much they demand from Brazilian traders for their six baskets of Brazil nuts.

Not only do these people have no numbers, because they have never had to intellectualize counting or any form of math, they can't be taught to count to ten. It's not that they're stupid--the article makes the point that "Their thinking isn't any slower than the average college freshman," some of whom also have trouble with basic math and subordinate clauses. They just have no way of accommodating ideas for which they have no set of linguistic structures.

Daniel Everett, the linguist who's worked with the tribe, argues that "the language is created by the culture." These people live in the here and now and they don't need to know how many beans are in a can, so they've never created a language that helps them figure that out. This simple assertion has really put Noam Chomsky's knickers in a twist, because it contradicts his widely accepted theories, "according to which all human languages have a universal grammar that form a sort of basic rules enabling children to put meaning and syntax to a combination of words."

The article continues:

Whether phonetics, semantics or morphology -- what exactly makes up this universal grammar is controversial. At its core, however, is the concept of recursion, which is defined as replication of a structure within its single parts. Without it, there wouldn't be any mathematics, computers, philosophy or symphonies. Humans basically wouldn't be able to view separate thoughts as subordinate parts of a complex idea.

And there wouldn't be subordinate clauses. They are responsible for translating the concept of recursion into grammar. Renowned US psychologist Pinker believes that if the Piraha don't form subordinate clauses, then recursion cannot explain the uniqueness of human language -- just as it cannot be a central element of some universal grammar. Chomsky would be refuted.

But it freaks me out too because on my mission I had this weird experience:

I was startled one day about two months into my mission [yes, missionaries learn languages very quickly--immersion and "the gift of tongues" help with that] to realize that I understood enough Chinese to follow a conversation without mentally translating everything I heard back into English. One part of my mind got over the surprise very quickly and went on with the discussion, but another part remained astonished that suddenly there was something instantly apprehensible in the sounds and structures of Chinese; I recognized it as simultaneously a foreign language and a familiar idiom. But I was even more astonished a moment later to realize that while my comprehension had grown to include Chinese, my expression hadn't. My mind was no longer operating in translation mode, and that meant I couldn't talk. If I had stopped, commanded my mind to form my thoughts in English, to translate them into Chinese, and then spoke, I could have said something, but my thoughts were coming too rapidly and in some form that was neither English nor Chinese. The investigator said something to me, I opened my mouth to respond--my muscles, like my mind, knew I was having thoughts, and prepared to express them--but NOTHING came out. I knew I was having thoughts, but they weren't in any language that could be articulated--and once I realized that, it was all I could do not to cry, because I felt so bereft and lonely.

That was in, let's see, September 1985; in June 1986

another missionary sought me out because my skills as a speaker of French were required. Two Parisians had shown up at our chapel, two French Catholics who had come to the Mormon Church looking for the Taichung Confucian Temple, and I was enlisted to talk to them since they spoke neither English nor Chinese. I understood everything they said to me, but every time I opened my mouth to answer, the first few words out of my mouth were in French, after which the sentence finished itself in Chinese.

It was as if my brain only had two modes: Native Tongue and Foreign Language, and the default drive on the Foreign Language was Chinese. I thought out in English what I wanted to say, translated it into French in my head to reassure myself that I indeed still knew the French, then spoke: "Follow this street till it ends, then turn left, and the temple is just ahead on your right." I started out competently enough in French: "Venez au fin de cette rue et tournez a gauche" but that was as far as I got before the rest of the speech spilled out in clipped Chinese syllables: "kung fudz dyan hen jin, dzai nide you byan."

The French couple was patient and polite and quite distraught when, after a few attempts, I gave up trying to speak French and simply started to cry. I walked with them in silence down the street until the temple was visible, then walked back, alone, to the chapel.

Ever since my mission I've been skeptical of the idea that all thought involves language--make that, I KNOW there are thoughts that don't involve language; otherwise, we couldn't LEARN a language, since we don't come into this world already fluent in any speech. But I've felt on a visceral level this strange thoughts-beyond-language state, and I felt it in a very weird and disconcerting way. But of course, these thoughts I was having that weren't in any language were perhaps thoughts I was ABLE to have because I had already acquired a language that made such thoughts possible, even if they didn't have an articulate-able (articulable?) verbal dimension...?

I don't know. It's very interesting. And if you follow a chain of links, beginning with this one, you'll eventually get to a very long paper on whether or not learning a second language changes your personality--I won't link directly to it myself because it's a massively huge pdf file and trying to access something so large always freezes my poor little computer, which is connected to the internet via dialup. (I know, I know, I'm the last person in the country to use dialup. But it's free, and I'd rather buy expensive shoes than fast internet connection.)

Thanks, Spike, for sending me the link to the story.

Posted by Holly at 8:38 AM | Comments (7)

May 9, 2006

Fairy God Muse

My final official duty of the semester (aside from attending graduation this Saturday) happened Friday morning: I had to conduct the defense of a thesis I directed. It was 200+ pages of a novel, and it was pretty damn good. A prose thesis only has to be about 60 pages, so I was proud of this student I worked with, proud that she was so ambitious, proud that what she wrote was so strong.

But it wasn't finished--it wasn't even half finished. And as any writer knows, a work often changes shape and form and direction as you write it--it rarely turns out as you originally imagine, if indeed you have a particularly clear notion of what you hope to accomplish. Sometimes for short pieces I can be all about discovery, surprise, just seeing where the writing takes me, but I think that for longer works, some projected goal is useful, even if you find yourself doing something completely different.

Anyway, I wanted the student to discuss her plans for the work, how she envisioned ending it (there was a big mystery involved), and she was reluctant to do so, saying she wasn't at all sure how she'd end up resolving some of the conflicts. So I asked, "If you could put in an order with your fairy god muse to supply you with a perfect denouement that would satisfy both you and your readers, what would you ask for?"

And that phrase, "fairy god muse," was the best thing to come out of the defense for me. I am pretty sure I have a fairy god muse and I even think she's been hovering around lately, wanting to grant some wish, but I haven't bothered to ask her for anything. So I'm going to figure out what I'd like her to give me, ask for it, and see what happens.

Posted by Holly at 6:38 AM | Comments (3)

May 8, 2006

The Last Word

In honor of the end of the semester, via Dr. Crazy, Dr. Medusa and Profgrrrrl, the last word of my dissertation:

place.

The dissertation is about place--about Taiwan and Arizona most specifically.

But I decided I didn't like the last line and cut it when I revised the diss for publication (yeah, still working on that), and now the last word is growth.

Posted by Holly at 10:55 AM | Comments (6)

May 7, 2006

Only Rapists Can Prevent Rape

Borrowed from The Adventures of Dr. Diana, who invites readers to repost this entry.

A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Fuck, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all. Instead of that bullshit, how about:

If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.
If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and tell the guy he's a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it's not okay to rape someone.
Don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

If you agree, re-post it. It's that important.

Note: This goes for any gendered rape, male on female or female on male or female on female or FTM on MTF or non gendered to dual gendered and so on and so forth....

Posted by Holly at 9:25 AM | Comments (2)

May 5, 2006

What I've Learned about Myself from Taking Online Multiple Choice Tests

Your Quirk Factor: 79%

You're so quirky, it's hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal. No doubt about it, there's little about you that's "normal" or "average."

You Have Low Self Esteem 0% of the Time

Which can be translated to mean, you have high self-esteem and a healthy sense of self worth. You believe in yourself, and you know how to be the real you. You love yourself, imperfections and all.

Here's another assessment of myself these tests help provide, but there's no cool graphic for it:

You disdain online tests that purport to tell you who you are--they are generally silly, transparent and written by people who can't plan adequately for complexity--but sometimes you take them anyway, just so you can feel superior.

Posted by Holly at 9:39 AM | Comments (9)

May 4, 2006

I Am Suddenly So Freakin' Homesick

Woke up this morning well before 5 a.m., not particularly rested, all freaked out about mortality again.... I haven't written much about, because I lately haven't much inhabited, the spells of profound despair I'm sometimes subject to.... Sometimes I just worry. I bolt awake in the middle of the night, heart heavy and fast, tears already in my eyes, because the ice caps are melting and all the polar bears are going to die. Read a couple of days ago that all these new species, including the hippopotamus, have been added to the list of endangered species, and it pretty much bummed me out. "Entropy," I thought. "This is fuckin' entropy: everything reduced to the lowest common denominator, as boring and uniform as human beings can make it before they die out too."

And I also think about the fact that I'm 42 and probably about half way through my life. I sorta believe in reincarnation, and I wonder what I'll come back as.... I'm not announcing suicidal tendencies or anything--no need to worry about me--but there are times when I think, "Yeah, it wouldn't be so very bad to start all over again...."

And then I read something like this or this from Chris Clarke, which tears my heart in ways I can't fathom or describe. I realize that those of us who love the desert romanticize it terribly, and it's not because we don't know there are other places that are really beautiful. It's because, hell, I don't know.... In some ways the best thing I ever heard anyone say about the desert was T. E. Lawrence's response (at least, Peter O'Toole said it, in the movie version of T. E. Lawrence's life) when asked why he likes its so: "It's clean."

It's clean. You get dirty there, but the desert itself is somehow clean.

I spent most of my Christmas break in east Tucson at the home my parents recently purchased two doors down from my brother and his family, and one of the things I did while I was there was go for walks and look at the Catalinas, the strange mountain range to the North. The Catalinas are amazing: they're so weirdly bumpy and irregular, and they are perfectly situated to capture shadows created by the sun as it travels across the sky: the Catalinas change more than any other mountain range I've ever seen.

Like I said, there's something about all this I can't fathom or describe. The air seems clean (not that it really is these days) and clear and I just have this sense of... the sublime? Intimations of mortality? I'm just so aware of how the landscape I grew up in shaped my sense of... life as something bright and harsh. Of the world as something that doesn't much give a shit whether we manage to live in it or not, but is incredibly beautiful--and somehow knows that--whether we notice it or not. I've never not felt this sort of awe and despair and gratitude and certainty inspired by this deep visceral language-less knowledge the desert communicated to me the first time I look around and said, "Huh. So this is home."

I doubt this is making sense. Plenty of things I feel I can describe adequately. My love for my home and the reasons why the desert moves me--that I can't describe.

Posted by Holly at 6:24 AM | Comments (7)

May 2, 2006

ABC Meme

What the hell--because who doesn't love a good meme?

Accent: Standa