Why I Don't Watch Television, or Brooke Shields Why? I don't have television anymore, primarily because I am very susceptible to advertising, and I think it is evil. However, I still enjoy some television shows, which is why the Internet is wonderful. Lately though, my excellent ad-blocking software has opened a loophole that allows my favorite online television site to squeeze through 10- and 30-second ads in my programming. This is infuriating, but I can usually ignore or quickly mute them.

This week, though, Brooke Shields appeared on my computer lamenting her "inadequate or not enough" eyelashes. Another makeup ad, I assumed. But no, Brookie is now shilling a medication to grow thicker eyelashes. If you don't believe, watch it here, and take special note of the bizarre side effect warnings. It could be a great SNL digital short if it weren't so completely horrifying. And if another news story hadn't just popped up on my Google News Spotlight about another woman who fell into a coma and became braindead after a "routine liposuction." And my students still tell me that feminism is no longer relevant, or needed.  ¶ 10:34 AM 3 comments

  New Blog Please be sure to check out The Goddess Writes, gorgeously and hilariously written by my dear friend Elizabeth. My favorite sentence so far:

"In these dreams, there was nothing anyone could do to stop me. I was a penguin kicking bad-ass."

See what I mean?  ¶ 6:41 PM 1 comments

  Unsettling Thoughts On A Tragic Death Made Symbolic
Like many others I've been following a Connecticut murder case involving a pretty young woman whose body was found stuffed in a wall on the day she was supposed to be married. Just as I was starting to think up a blog post about my shame in this voyeurism, about all the disappearances and murders that aren't covered by the national media or cared about by so many, articles started popping up in Google News to that very effect. The comments section of this article, while disturbing, got me thinking about what draws our attention to certain tragic stories, and it made me think about old Aristotle and the classic tragic hero. So the question is, are we gruesomely fascinated by Annie Le because she was "true to life and yet more beautiful," because her plot was "of a certain magnitude"? I teach my students about Oedipus, Macbeth, Antigone. Do we find it so hard to look away because it's scary that this could happen to someone so high up on the social ladder? Does it make us feel more vulnerable? Or is there some creeping schadenfreude that reassures us that intelligence, beauty, money and power don't insulate people from random cruelty and violence? That wants to generate some rationale, some narrative, to show that she must have had some hubris, done something to cause this, that it couldn't have been so random, so violent? That wants to see how the mighty have fallen? Here is a woman who was killed. She is one of many who are not so roundly mourned but also not so roundly analyzed. She is not one of many but only herself, and irreplaceable.  ¶ 5:05 PM 5 comments

  Thank You, Mrs. Exley I never liked gym class, but in kindergarten it wasn't so bad. Still, my favorite days were when we gathered around the edge of the big parachute, each gripping a bit of the rim. Holding it low to the floor, we made ripples across the surface like choppy water. Mrs. Exley would call out a student's name and he would get to stand and walk across it. She called it "walking on the moon." One exciting day, she called my name, finally, but it was harder than it looked. Giant steps really are what you take.

After the moon walk we would stand, still holding the edge, and on Mrs. Exley's command lift the parachute high above our heads, then bring it down behind us and quickly sit our bottoms on the edge, grinning at each other inside our bubble until the air seeped through the hole in the middle and we had to crawl out.

Yesterday, on the fourth and last day of our canoe trip, we saw lightning in the distance and pulled our metal canoes up to the bank. As they caught up in the third canoe, R. said we should have waited for them; this was private property we were bumping up against. But the clouds got darker and the wind kicked up, and I held the dog's leash as my friends struggled in the sucking mud to tie the canoes to a tree. We scrambled up the slipping, sliding hill but the dog would not come until she was sure everyone was following. A. reached the embankment first, but it was lined with trees and a small branch fell and glanced off of him, and someone shouted that we had to get out into the open. An air horn sounded in the distance. We ran up the next hill, a little ways out onto the golf course, A. shouting "stay low!", fat drops starting to fall and more lightning. C. was unfolding the big blue tarp, throwing it to us, and he gave a command and we all lifted it up above our heads and brought it down behind us, sitting along the edge. For one terrifying moment Anthemsled wasn't in there with us, but then he was and we all sat in our little bubble, looking at each other. We smiled in dazed disbelief. We made jokes about the manicured grass and sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" and talked about the stupid camp games we could play, all the while wincing when we saw lightning flash and silently counting the beats until the thunder followed. The dogs lay down on our feet and went to sleep. My glasses got foggy and I took them off. The wind changed the shape of our tarp, and the rain lashed at it and came through a little. Every once in a while we would vent it a bit at the bottom, and the grey world outside looked positively orange compared to our blue one, like a sunset in the middle of the afternoon. Through one of these vents I saw headlights approaching; the rain had started to let up. We had been anticipating the rap on the tarp, being asked to leave. We said we'd be polite, we'd go if we had to, but when the men arrived it was only to ask if we were OK. Later, in the warm car, we saw how many big trees had been felled by this storm, and that's when I started to feel scared for us back there, in our bubble.

Last night the lightning and thunder cracked so loud above our big safe bed that I quailed, and cried a little, in gratitude.  ¶ 9:15 AM 4 comments

  A Loss I can never seem to get anything really done in a summer day. One, maybe two things--a visit, a few chapters of a book, some phone calls--but summer is torpid and winter is still, they lack the industrious preparatory spirit of spring and fall.

I floated through the day today, not really doing much of anything, and now Frank McCourt is dead and it seems like an important day. Though I was never his student I feel like I've lost a teacher, or a kind neighbor. I got to hear him read a couple of months ago, and he was clearly ill and tired, but still wry and dry and funny as hell, and I'm so glad I went.  ¶ 11:03 PM 0 comments

  Something Is Wrong With Me
This staggering conclusion was reached this afternoon when I persisted in leafing through Martha Stewart Weddings (Summer 2009), which I had actually PURCHASED this morning, even though it had just been the catalyst for a ridiculous fight with Anthemsled. L. told me when we got engaged that I wouldn't have to bother buying any of those wedding magazines, because people would just give them to me. Pff, I thought, I don't want those stupid wedding magazines anyway. Which I guess everyone could tell because no one gave me any. So I had to go out and spend six dollars on this one.

I wouldn't spend six dollars on a used paperback in an independent bookstore this weekend, but I would spend six dollars on this. Exhibit A.

I think it's the ennui of the summer. I know no one will feel bad for me on this, but as a teacher, most of my creative energy goes into my job, and most of my bitching energy goes into complaining about that. But now, two weeks into my vacation and I am gnawing on wedding shit like a beaver who needs to keep filing down his teeth.

Some brief research into past In Her Shell summers supports this. When I wrote anything, it was largely about celebrities or weird dreams I was having. Or both. Exhibit B. Last week I dreamed that I was in a play with Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and that doofy guy from The Office. Maya Rudolph warned me not to get too close to him, but I was intrigued.  ¶ 8:52 PM 2 comments

  Dear Everyone, Don't put music on your website. It's annoying. It does absolutely nothing for me except create an immediate antipathy toward you and whatever you are selling.

Regards,
Wonderturtle  ¶ 6:11 PM 3 comments

  Belated Fourth Of July Post







  ¶ 1:59 PM 0 comments