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Conservatism reborn in twisted sisterhood
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Thursday, December 30, 2004
By the way, in case you were following the neck trauma saga, it took forever but my neck now feels fine. Thanks so much to all who wrote in with suggestions. And thanks very much to those who wrote in about my counseling post, too--if I haven't replied to you yet, I will over the weekend. ...Oh and hey, where is Krubner? SEARCH REQUESTS! It's that time again. Here are some of the funnier requests that brought people to this little blog. WHAT ANIMAL IS CONSIDERED A COUSIN TO A MOUSE [um... another mouse?] homosexual leopard what can hold a lot of wild animals even when it can't be locked explanation of the phrase anatomy if destiny rat silhouette looking at people's eyeball to find out if they are interested i wanna get into the ivy league ivy league ivy league going crazy what is the rhetoric strategy of Attack of the crab monster everything about identity crises dc [sadly, I'm pretty sure this is a comics reference, not a reference to my perpetually crisis-ridden hometown] determinism and elective surgery expectations and desire for superheroic leadership where is the place where the language of mankind was babbled rock n roll creates society canony girl did romeo make bad choices [Yes. Next?] original sin snapshots bunion removal gone wrong nostalgias fairfax philosophizing aliens merrymaking nudity COURAGE UNDER FIRE: No, this is not a "good news" story. To the contrary, Coyne's experience confirms the deterioration of conditions in Iraq. She is confined, for security reasons, to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. That's been true for a long time; now her Iraqi colleagues for the most part dare not visit her there, because the terrorists are always watching those who come and go. Communication is by phone and e-mail. ... more Wednesday, December 29, 2004
VOLTAIRE WAS RIGHT. Every death is a catastrophe. Eighty thousand deaths--that is a catastrophe I can't even start to picture or apprehend. Eighty thousand claims against the property-owner, God. Voltaire assumed we would be horrified by human deaths; and so he asked why we were created. Are we born just to die? What plan can this devastation imply? To me the question works the other way. Why is this horrific? Because we are each, even when we do not know each other, worthy of love. Because we are each images of God. Because this horror is not what we were made for. Death is not what we were made for. We were made for eternal life. We are right to be shocked by death; death is shocking. It doesn't matter what would help us survive: I don't doubt that acceptance of death would help us propagate our species. But death is wrong. This is wrong. I don't think the "problem of evil" can be "solved." I think it can be lived through. I don't know that people who have sustained terrible losses in this disaster--or any of the tiny disasters that happen every day, the cancer deaths and the accidents that never make the headlines--should expect to comfort themselves on the cold bones of theology. I do think we can all try to "suffer with" the people we know who are most directly affected. I do think Jesus, in His cradle and on His cross, is with you if you suffer now. I do think what has happened to you is wrong, and that God knows it is wrong. I don't expect that to help now. All there is now, is prayer. POWER/FREEDOM: DEUS LO VOLT. Anthropomorfic. Lame. 360 words. Unrealistic in the extreme. Sorry. Setting up things I'll use in later stories, but, in itself, just kind of there. Anyway, here. LYING IN THE GUTTERS, LOOKING AT THE STARS: Comics reviews. (In the Shadow of No Towers, The Golem's Mighty Swing, and Y: The Last Man v. 1 to be reviewed soonish.) Daredevil v. 10: The Widow. Ooh, more on Daredevil's marriage, plus some neat stuff with the Black Widow, whom I'd pretty much ignored when she appeared fleetingly in other comics I've read. Here, she's fun, and Alex Maleev draws her really well. She looks Russian, at least to my uncultured eyes. (Maybe that's a low bar. Whatever. She's easy on the eyes, looks like her proper ethnicity, and looks nothing like the other women in the book. That's much, much better than most superhero artists do.) I did like this, although it's slight (which complaint will be a theme of this set of reviews), and you definitely shouldn't start here if you're looking to get into Bendis and Maleev's very cool run on Daredevil. It's probably the weakest volume so far, but that's still quite good if you're following this storyline. (You want to start with Underboss. It's a nice long storyline that mixes hard-boiled with spiraling superhero insanity. Great character work from both writer and artist. Beautiful pictures. Fun for New Yorkers, I should think.) Human Target: Living in Amerika. Hrrrrmmm. Apparently this was the volume where the central conceit (Christopher Chance can impersonate anyone, anyone at all, thus his identity is breaking up under the pressure of the alternate identities he's assumed for his job) started to wear thin for me. First story is utterly predictable and lame, lame, lame. (I generally can't guess plot twists. Thus, if I can guess your plot twist, you have failed.) Second story is okayish but nothing special. Third story is supposed to be a lark, and is fun enough while it lasts, but again, no. Skip this. Go for Human Target: Final Cut instead, which I really liked. (Also, yet again this book is choked with captions. Please stop spelling everything out!) Planetes v. 4. Aw, I love Planetes. Humanistic sci-fi manga; combines Golden Age wonder of space with contemporary political and existential sense of limits and loss. This was probably my least favorite volume so far, as a good chunk of it relies on this lame "kids are innocent of the compromises and sellouts of adulthood!" theory that I find dishonest about childhood, destructive of leadership, and harmful to people (and, in this case, animals) around the "innocent" characters. The ending, however, suggests that the next (and last) volume of the series will complicate this storyline. And, as always, Planetes has a keen sense that people bring our problems and our politics with us into space. Well worth your time, though you should start at the beginning. The Pulse v. 1. Jessica Jones gets a column at the Daily Bugle. If that makes you say, "Uh, what?", then you are definitely not the target audience here. If, instead, you squeal, "Oooh! Is J. Jonah Jameson in this? What about Ben Urich?", then this comic will gladden your fangirl heart. I loved it. I'm in love with J. Jonah, and I don't care who knows it. This is a lightweight piece--and all the women look exactly the same, thank you, Mark Bagley, you can go home now--but it's got Jessica Jones! And J. Jonah Jameson! And it's about journalism! (And I feel like I'm on the "J" page from Animalia.) Anyway, I'm a complete sucker for journalism stories, and JJJ is my third-favorite superhero comics character ever (after Cyclops and Daredevil), and Brian Bendis is doing perfectly serviceable Bendis dialogue (nothing special by his standards, but better far than most of what you'll read). I'm practically petting the darned thing. I will note that there's a lame moment where one journalist character thinks of her job as "bringing people together" or some such. (Can't be bothered to look it up now.) That's not what journalism mostly does. I'm wildly idealistic about journalism, but what it mostly does, when it's at its best, is divide people. It points out the truths people would prefer to ignore, and forces choices that societal comity requires us to avoid. The truth has rarely brought people together in the past; why should we expect it to do so now? OK, off soapbox. I'm very fond of The Pulse, but honestly, it's not a great comic and if you don't swoon for journalism, Jessica, or Jonah, you should pass it by. The Ultimates v. 1: Super-Human. I've said before that I don't really get the point of the Avengers. This comic plays up the "ill-suited group of messed-up characters have to work together" angle, but with much added cynicism and angst, so I am still left cold. Bruce Banner's character made precisely no sense. I did like Tony Stark, solely because he was an oasis of angstlessness. Dunno. A lot of the "updating" felt rote and "Saturday Night Live"-level cheap to me. New X-Men did a better job with the strains-of-leading-crazy-people thing, and Ultimate X-Men, while significantly stupider than Ultimates, was also more up-front in giving its readers their explosions amid the soap operatics. When will the next Sleeper book come out??? I'm dyin' here, people. (Or Finder! Go read yourself some Finder!) Every appealing soubrette Reminds him of passionate blogwatches... Agenda Bender on certain passionate failures of Susan Sontag. Beaucoup Kevin has a contest I want to win. "I'm giving away a copy of Julius from Oni press. A re-imagining of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar set in the London criminal community, this was one of my favorite graphic novels of the last year and you can get my spare copy by telling me, in 35 words or less, what your favorite comics moment of 2004 was and why." I will be spending part of tonight knocking together 35 words in my basement, with hammer and glue gun. Via Oakhaus, I think. Oh right--the deadline is 12/30/04 11:59 p.m., so you (and I!) still have a chance. More disaster relief links here and (easy donation for those with Amazon accounts) here. Second link via After Abortion. I'm going to take a bit of time this week to research different options, then send in my Christmas money. Really, even small donations do help. Tuesday, December 28, 2004
EARTHQUAKE RELIEF LINKS: Here and here. Via Unqualified Offerings and the Volokh Conspiracy. also here, here Sunday, December 26, 2004
Cold and raw the north did blow, Out on a blogwatch early... Agenda Bender: I don't rightly know how to describe this. I only know that I laughed, a lot. (Not really sure how his permalinks work. It's the post that starts, "Twas the night before Christmas...") Dappled Things: To the eyes of the world, that dark night, the infant would have seemed nothing remarkable, but with eyes of faith the shepherds recognized Him as their Messiah and Lord. Humility and faith -- the same gifts that enable us to look upon the Host, mere bread to the eyes of the world, and see with eyes of faith our Lord and our God, the Word made Flesh who gives His Flesh for the life of the world. Old Oligarch: More praise for "The Last Supper" (although I should note that it was actually recommended by a bunch of different people--including, I think, Julian Sanchez--rather than by Netflix's recs system); also loneliness in the Christmas crowd, and seeking solitude with God. Cacciaguida adds more, including a fascinating description of a carol I'd never heard of before. (And thanks for the package! Did you get yours?) Unqualified Offerings: Even if dogs, sexual humiliation, or sleep deprivation don't rise to one's particular uninformed definition of torture, I assume we can all agree that being dropped on barbed wire or having a lit Marlboro jammed in your ear does. That's a quotation from a post by Thomas Nephew. You should read Nephew's post in its entirety. I'm citing UO instead so you can see his framing of the quote, which is absolutely right. And: How Christmas 2004 looks to new Christian converts. Neat. Via GetReligion. Thursday, December 23, 2004
YOU'RE OLDER THAN YOU'VE EVER BEEN, AND NOW YOU'RE EVEN OLDER. Let's kiss off 2004 with two questionnaires that have been making the rounds of the rounds that I make. Five favorite blog posts from 2004: Easter in America "Oh, How the Ghost of You Clings!": Notes on Watchmen Not Exactly Natural (and sequel)--the queer story ...And I Will Sing of the Sun (sublimation) Okay, you don't believe in original sin. Fine. But what do you call it? The evening redness in the West--American stories ETA: I can count! Fiction: Best (needs least fixin' to be great): "Better At It" Best (greatest disco potential): "Getting Fired"; I also really do think "Kissable Pictures" is going places. Most underrated: I was kind of surprised nobody commented on "Better At It," which I think is pretty fabulous. ETA: Um, except for the person who did in fact comment on this story, and had several interesting and helpful things to say. Right. Very sorry.... I forget people I've met in person, too.... Most fun to write: "Desire"; "You Will Be Pulled Back" was also fun. If it only had a point.... Hardest to write: "Odysseus's Scar," which is still nowhere near acceptable. "Through the Years We All Will Be Together" was also horrible to write. Most disappointing: "Odysseus's Scar"--I'm working on it, I swear. But PLEASE don't read it now. It is NOT ready for its close-up. Most telling: "Odysseus's Scar," obviously. If you have ever wondered what I'm like in real life, just combine all of Cindy Greenberg's worst qualities with all of Justin Harlowe's. Oh, and I'm changing the title of this story. And adding another scene. And making the ending not suck. And stuff. Please, just avert your eyes.... PEOPLE WHO NEVER WILL BE MISSED: Last night I watched "The Last Supper" with the Old Oligarch (who fixed my DVD player--THANK YOU!!!!) and Zorak. It was hilarious. Basically, a bunch of lefty grad students have a tradition of inviting a newcomer over every Sunday for dinner and discussion. One night, due to a brokedown Mercedes (or Porsche? I forget), one of their number has to hitch a ride with a trucker, so he becomes the night's guest. He turns out to be... not the dinner companion they would have chosen ("Hitler had the right idea"). He harangues them for never acting on their beliefs--for being pushover wussy liberals. And he ends up dead. And they get an idea. They start knocking off all kinds of illiberal folk. The idea is, they'll spend dinner trying to convert the right-wing freak; if discussion fails, however, arsenic convinces just fine. It just spirals from there. A more American, timebound, political-junkie version of The Secret History (also dumber, and funnier). I think this would be best with a gang of right-wing college types and a decent amount of alcohol. It's overacted in a way that detracts from the fun, but really, I was kept in stitches and in suspense more or less throughout. The ending is just perfect. MARRIAGEDEBATE has a lot of cool stuff up that I keep forgetting to link here. So, some stuff: A "right not to become a parent"? bad advice "Marriage is one way to recognize who is family, but..." Awesome piece on "today's Manicheans" from--I kid you not--the National Catholic Reporter. Cats and dogs, living together, next on Fox... Donor-conceived children talk about their experiences "Nordic family ties don't mean tying the knot" And a meaty, intriguing report: "What Next for the Marriage Movement?" Lots of very specific suggestions and areas where further work and research and discussion is needed. I'd love it if you all would take a look and let me know what you think. CONSERVATIVES AND TORTURE: WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE?: Comments thread at Volokh Conspiracy. Argh, all of the posts I wanted to quote have disappeared since I first visited the thread. No clue why. Anyway, I'll be writing a lot more about this in the New Year, when the mills of journalism begin to grind once more. For now, Intel Dump has a lot of stuff here, and in links along the side of the blog. YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO TO CONFESSION FOR FEELING LOUSY. "Part of the misunderstanding -- the main part -- comes from the confusion of grace with sentiment. Christianity is not, pace Schleiermacher, about religious feelings. I can be in a state of sin, and still feel very religious and "in tune" with God. I can likewise be in a high state of grace, and still feel barren and empty. My feeling and emotion tell me nothing of my relationship with God. Nothing at all. It's useful to remember the lessons of the mystics (especially John of the Cross) who spent long periods of time in utter desolation and complete lack of religious sentiment. Their great insight is that such periods are of the greatest spiritual value: because they persevere in prayer and good works not because doing so makes them feel good, but for love of God alone, with no eye toward any interior consolations that they would hope to receive. Because the motive is purer, the merit of such prayer is greater. Their prayer and good works have value even though they are accompanied by no pleasant feelings at all." (more) TEN MYTHS ABOUT ASSISTED SUICIDE. Via Dappled Things. I still think this comment from Evangelium Vitae is one of the most profound statements on "mercy killing" issues generally that I've ever read: True "compassion" leads to sharing another person's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear. ... --Evangelium Vitae Wednesday, December 22, 2004
IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN...: Jim Henley comments on my Santa-bashing posts from a couple years ago. He says Santa is, indeed, training in "skepticism" a.k.a. dissing God, but that the whole Santa thing is helping him see that kids all develop at their own pace. Also a nice note on Santa and taking joy in your kids' joy. The only thing I'd say to that second post is that from the kid's perspective it does look different: If my parents got me gifts, I want to be grateful to them, and happy in part because they did something for me, not grateful to some random reindeer-commando I'll never meet or hug. GLIMMERS OF HOPE IN THE ARAB WORLD: Fareed Zakaria. Um, more glimmer-y than hope-y, but it's a low bar. Via Oxblog. Tuesday, December 21, 2004
EVERYONE HAS REASONS: This is a disorganized list of things I commonly hear at the pregnancy center for which I think I need better responses. I'm putting it here both so I can think more systematically and so that you all can send me any thoughts you might have. This is in approximate order of frequency. 1. God wants me to be rich and successful. Not said quite that bluntly, of course. But "doing what God wants" is construed exclusively in terms of education, job, housing, etc.--not in terms of, for example, chastity, or not killing one's baby. I don't know to what extent this belief is related to the whole "prosperity Gospel" thing. That whole idea is so weird to me (die in Christ in order to be reborn in Him? the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church? Bueller? Bueller?) that I have a hard time formulating a response. I always, always try to ensure that women leave my counseling sessions feeling more in control of their lives, more sure of their own worth and strength, while nonetheless more committed to making sacrifices and seriously changing their behavior if that's what God is requiring (which it pretty much always is, given that these are almost always unmarried women coming in for pregnancy tests). And so I want a way to talk about the dangers of this "God wants me to do all the things I want anyway" mindset that also reinforces my clients' hope and sense of self, and I'm not sure I've found one yet. One thing I do think helps with this mindset is pointing out how much drama sex is bringing into my clients' lives. Sex and men and missed periods and birth control and emotional upheaval--it all gets in the way. I remember the first time I used the term "drama"--echoing something I'd heard a bunch of clients say--and this girl's face just lit up, a real "click" moment. 2. On the first rungs of the ladder. This isn't a thing people say, so much as a position people find themselves in; and it's one of the factors most likely to make a woman seek abortion, at least in the demographics our center serves. Women and girls who haven't really got a foot on the ladder at all rarely consider abortion. They usually oppose it for religious reasons, so okay, they're resigned to dealing with a baby. But women who are on their way up--first generation to go to college, or finally gotten a good job, that kind of thing--those are the women who are knocked for a loop by pregnancy. They also oppose abortion for religious reasons. But having a baby means they've failed. It means they're derailed, thrown back into the ghetto cycle for another few years on "spin." It's the snake in Snakes and Ladders. The most common way of talking about their decision is: "I don't believe in abortion, I think it's wrong, but I just can't have a baby now." (Yeah, what a ringing endorsement of "choice." How empowering.) There are some things that really do reach women in this situation: pictures of fetal development. Discussion of the emotional and spiritual issues in abortion (since most of these women really do want to be good Christians, and really do think abortion is wrong--but it's a wrong thing you can do, and maybe addressing that tangle is what I'm really struggling with). And talking about people I know who have seen their own career plans derailed by all manner of things. I try to point out that just about nobody ever has the career path she planned on at age twenty. And those personal stories of career upheavals and recovery do speak to women, because they're obviously honest. And also, maybe, because they hook pregnant women into a community of other people who are also dealing with obstacles--they make pregnancy just another subspecies of career upheaval, rather than making it a terrible and unique stigma that needs to be hidden. Other people have faced this kind of unexpected setback; you're not alone, you're not singled out for punishment. I get the impression that this sense of commonality matters almost as much as the basic practical reminder that people do in fact recover from big shocks to their life-plans. 3. I don't go to church; churches are full of hypocrites. Here I basically want to find a nice way of saying C.S. Lewis's line that's basically, "Hey, we'll fit right in!" Church as hospital for sinners, not award show for the sinless. It is very odd to me to hear this from, again, unmarried women who think they might be pregnant. I've been thinking about these things a lot because the past month and a half has brought me a spate of difficult clients, and I really want to become a better counselor. Your thoughts are not only welcomed but strongly encouraged. NEW FBI FILES DESCRIBE ABUSE OF IRAQ INMATES: F.B.I. memorandums portray abuse of prisoners by American military personnel in Iraq that included detainees' being beaten and choked and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears, according to newly released government documents. more I just want to objectify my blogwatch... Dappled Things: The Vatican is doing reproductions of some of its classical sculptures in their original bright colors! Wow. A big piece on the economic realities of immigration (both legal and illegal) from Reason. Very much worth your time. Via Hit & Run, unsurprisingly. OK, who died and left the Florida Tomato Committee God? This is really obnoxious. (Also via Hit & Run.) And: A theatre yesterday bowed to pressure from violent religious activists by cancelling the run of a play depicting rape and murder in a Sikh temple. more--this is not a test. this is real England really now. Via Relapsed Catholic. NEW FREEDOM HOUSE REPORT. Russia downgraded to "Not Free" for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union; modest gains in the Middle East and North Africa; more. Via The Corner. APPARENTLY THE WARRANTY JUST RAN OUT ON MY LIFE: Computer crashed in a fashion so exotic I saw screens I'd never seen before. (Fixed now--thank you, Old Oligarch.) Sink and bathtub both need a fixin'. Fluorescent lights over sink, i.e. the lights I can't fix myself, burnt out. (Fixed now, at a cost of $6.) The ol' ratty jeans with a hole at the knee are now my "good pants." DVD/CD player broke. And my neck hurts. I mean, not like, "Oh, my neck hurts." That was yesterday. Today is more like, A sumo wrestler just sat on my neck. Or, A soap-opera vixen just smashed a vase over my head because I told her I wasn't her baby's father. Or, I just got rear-ended; which is especially galling since I can't drive. In short, my neck hurts a lot, from jaw all the way across my right shoulderblade. Motrin is helping a little but not much. All your suggestions are welcome. This has been a minor nagging problem for several days, and hot baths don't seem to do much, but today is just egregious. I can't open my mouth without pain. (And if this is God trying to tell me to shut up, you know, I'd really prefer skywriting.) Monday, December 20, 2004
LATEST CHRENKOFF "GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ" ROUNDUP. As always, there's some sunshine painted on the data to make okayish news look better, but just as a journalistic point I'll note that Chrenkoff is finding those little, unflashy, ten-point-headline stories that do in fact change many people's lives. In this roundup there's a ton of election stuff, plus anti-corruption efforts, computer education, the underground labor movement finally coming into the open, a trove of infrastructure-related links (including a Reuters story noting a U.S. shift from big splashy projects to smaller ones that get completed faster), and much more. I know that I must watch your blog, although it dooms me, Though it consumes me... After Abortion has a lot of great stuff up right now, including college abortion/pregnancy policies and Democrats, pro-lifers, and shame. Go there! Get Religion: "Help us out, readers: Do you have any favorite stories of forgiveness -- whether of seeking it or extending it?" And dueling op-eds take on Richard H. Sander's claim that affirmative action in law schools has led to fewer black lawyers. Sander makes his case quite plausibly here, and Goodwin Liu replies here. Liu spends way too much time on the utterly unconvincing argument that aff. action must work, otherwise black people wouldn't keep supporting it, because people are rational actors who maximize self-interest. This is interesting except for the small problem that people are not rational actors who maximize self-interest. One of the many things for which we'll gladly sacrifice self-interest is self-image; Liu's later points speak more to that concern, as he argues that black students at law schools need, essentially, a posse of other BSatLS's so that law school achievement is more imaginable and attractive to them. Anyway, go read. I have not read the study that sparked this exchange, so I won't try to comment further. (Both links via How Appealing.) I AM LORD VOLDEMORT!: Lord Voldemort: INTP. INTPs are inventive, logical, and ambitious. They see elements of the world around them as things to be shaped by their hand into something more useful. INTPs have strong principles and will defend them vigorously if they're challenged. Harry Potter Meyers-Briggs thing (Always wanted to be the Dark Lord when I grew up.) Friday, December 17, 2004
SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND SONGS OF EXPERIENCE: Recently a young woman cited Ani DiFranco as a role model, and affirmed her belief in the abortion license. This has been one of DiFranco's causes for a while. But I couldn't help thinking of some lyrics that don't exactly fit in to the whole "it's not a child, it's a choice" worldview. ...I have a very hard time maintaining anything close to a stable personal identity over time; I doubt and regret actions almost as soon as I take them. And so it's all the more striking to me that since spring of 1997, when I first started thinking I might have to oppose abortion, I have only become more convinced that the pro-life stance is the stance of human rights, hope, social justice, and love of embodied rather than abstracted life. I COULD RING A DINNER BELL. That's the missing line from "Obedience School." I'm a moron. (I do actually have something substantive to say, but I'm too tired to say it now. Expect it sometime before 3 AM EST.) ALBERTO GONZALES: ...With the Geneva Conventions out of the way, Gonzales then asked the Office of Legal Counsel to analyze the government's obligations under the Federal Torture Act. more Thursday, December 16, 2004
I AM MANDRAKE!: "People find you purgative and difficult to take. In large doses you drive them insane." Which herb are you? MAN GIVES CHARITY SOCIAL-SECURITY CHECK: Via JWB. A prosperous businessman didn't think he was entitled to his 2004 Social Security payments, so he became an early Santa Claus for the Salvation Army. more Tuesday, December 14, 2004
"HER WEASEL-LIKE LOINS": This year's Bad Sex Awards, for stunningly crapulent literary depictions of intimate congress. Monday, December 13, 2004
When most parents have a baby, they spend months dreaming about what their bundle of joy will look like. Will she look like mom? Will he have dad's eyes? But for one local Navy family, the birth of their daughter didn't give them the answers to those questions. Their daughter was born without a face. ... It's a life-long process that's draining for Tammy and Tom. Even still, they're thankful and full of love for their sweet child. "God never gives you more than you can handle. I figure she has a lot to show everyone... to show the world," says Tom. more, inc. information on donating to the family Via Amy Welborn Saturday, December 11, 2004
"ABERDEEN": More Netflixness. More scattered thoughts: 1. The plot: A hard-charging young lawyeress (Latin name: Barracuda) gets a phone call from her dying mother, begging her to fetch her estranged alcoholic father from Norway to Aberdeen for a final reunion. Now that you know the plot, you can probably write the script yourself and be just as original, or not, as the filmmakers. 2. Europeans need to learn that censorship can sometimes substitute for artistic judgment. Or to put it another way, just because you can show full male frontal nudity and female partial nudity doesn't mean it would actually enhance the storytelling. The nudity not only did not help; it actively detracted, as I found myself wondering why Scottish women apparently felt no need to wear bras. Stupid, stupid movie! 3. This movie also serves as an object lesson in Reasons to Avoid Cliche: Cliches make you say things you probably don't mean. I spent a good portion of the movie wondering whether this would be a flick where the ambitious woman was punished for her desires. Ultimately I think that's not true (the daughter and her father are mirrored, and it's hard to say who reaps more punishment and who deserves what, which is how fiction should work), but anyone who wanted to read "Aberdeen" that way would find ample evidence. That's because the scriptwriter relied on dumb grasping-lawyeress cliches. This is a minor spoiler: The daughter's career situation never gets resolved. That suggests to me that the scriptwriter simply didn't realize that he was setting her up for a standard punished-feminine-ambition plotline. But he bought into it anyway, by buying into the cliche that if you want to depict a woman unable to expose herself to Love, you should a) give her a lucrative career and b) show us her breasts. I don't think the film is trying to making a misogynist point, even subconsciously. But the cliches push it into that corner because those cliches spring from a misogynist culture, and a smarter writer would have avoided this trap. 4. Nonetheless. "Aberdeen" is a moving father-daughter film starring Lena Headey. Since Headey is a terrific actress, it's a good movie. Stellan Skarsgaard is also good as her father. And I am a complete sucker for father-daughter films. And the music is wonderful. Basically, I can't recommend this movie. But if you want father-daughterness and you do not mind a degree of cliche, this is worth your time. I was won over, then annoyed, then won over, then annoyed again. Overall, I'm glad I saw it, but mostly because now I know Lena Headey is amazing. I was born in Liverpool, down by the docks, Religion was Catholic, occupation: blogwatch... Dappled Things: Bare-essential books for seekers. "My intended audience are those people who are genuinely interested in Catholicism and open-minded, but really don't know enough to have a well-grounded opinion." These things are always so personal; I didn't get much out of Mere Christianity, but that may be because I'd heard many of the points before, from friends who'd read Lewis. I second the recommendation of The Great Divorce, and would add The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed. For Chesterton I was most struck by his two saint biographies, The Dumb Ox: St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi. The latter is especially powerful. I also got a lot out of St. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo (his treatise on the Incarnation), but that's anything but a universal taste. If you happen to be a fan of the later Platonic dialogues who is also obsessed with whether or not justice and mercy can be reconciled, check out CDH. Oh and yes, I love Augustine's Confessions; Peter Brown's biography, Augustine of Hippo, is also fantastic. Sed Contra: Who made your Christmas lights? As always, more here. Friday, December 10, 2004
KESHER TALK WRITES: "I made this entry for all the blogging and news links about the Spirit of America tour with Omar and Mohammed Ali, the bloggers of Iraq the Model." Round-up is here. Today's bad poetry is tomorrow's bad politics. --The Rat, who could use your prayers as she takes the GRE tomorrow. Thursday, December 09, 2004
LEND ME A SPOON, AND I WILL EAT OF IT MYSELF!: I forget which Elizabethan revenge tragedy that Tickish line is actually from. (Does it matter?) Anyway, apparently someone made a movie of The Revengers Tragedy, and you can get commentary on the movie and the genre here. YOU/SHE: Mandatory Minimum Sentence. This is an Art of Fiction writing exercise (250-word-long sentence), and also an Anthropomorfic (kinda), and really, a 250-word-long cop-out. But I like it and intend to mine it for future use. It's also a kissing cousin of the story that eventually became "A Separated Soul." Clicky clicky. "THE TRAGIC SIDEKICK: SHAKESPEARE AND THE SUBVERSION OF THE HEROIC IDEAL": This is my senior essay from high school. It was really, really important to me at the time; if you knew me as a college freshman (especially if you're the Old Oligarch), you might recognize some of the arguments, preferences, and catchphrases. It's wild to compare this piece to my Crisis magazine article on Christianity and children's fantasy: The implied worldviews are almost opposite. I think a lot of my fiction (and a lot of my life!) is a negotiation between this essay and the Crisis piece. The essay goes on for the next few posts, with the last one titled (helpfully) "End." I fixed a spelling error but did not clean up the grammar or prune all those d--n semicolons. I also want you all to know that I now strongly disagree with the paragraph on death in Hamlet (although I'll still stand behind the comments on Fortinbras). Anyway, other people have probably said all of this better, but I haven't read those pieces, so maybe you haven't either. Enjoy.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the typical tragedy or history play were a solar system, the hero-king would be its sun, and all the other characters satellites. A carping, anti-heroic figure on the margins of the action might add some irregularity to their orbits, but there would never be any question of where the center of gravity lay. Shakespeare, however, took the standard versions of the marginal figure left over from morality plays, and gave them so many new attributes that he profoundly shifted the weight of his plays. By giving these malcontents and Vice-figures intelligence, a sense of honor by their own un-heroic lights, and dramatic importance, he created a new type of marginal character, represented by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Falstaff in the Henry IV and Henry V plays, and the Fool in King Lear. This character is distinguished by his great vigor and lust for life, tempered by recognition of life's underside of fear and decline; cynicism about power, glory, "the good death," and the other abstract ideals of the heroes; a way with words which moves beyond the malcontent's insults into verbal acrobatics; and devotion to the hero even though his view of the world is the opposite of the hero's. This new marginal figure is still the ironic commenter who sees through the parades of nobility that the hero presents, but Shakespeare develops him into a fully-fleshed character with a personality as bold and multifaceted as the hero's, if not in some cases more so. Shakespeare gave the sidekick the freedom to be complicated, and often to speak the truths that the hero ignores. This shift of weight destabilizes the plays, knocks them free of their form, and allows the playwright to comment on that form through the sidekick's words far more powerfully than he could have through the earlier malcontent and Vice archetypes. The development of a marginal voice which rivaled the hero's gave the best of Shakespeare's work the mercurial quality which distinguishes it from more ordinary drama. Yet the hero remained the sun, and the deaths of the marginal characters served only to support his story, until Shakespeare took the final step in the development of his new archetype and placed one of them at the center of a play, completely breaking free of the constraints of his form. In Hamlet, a character who is a variation on earlier Shakespearean marginal figures is forced into the hero's role, and the tragic sidekick must try to carry the burden of the tragic hero. Shakespeare used a few versions of the simpler malcontent character throughout his career. The bilious murderers in Macbeth are the most one-dimensional representatives of this type, and the griping, syphilitic Thersites of Troilus and Cressida fits the case even better. Lear's Fool is an expansion of this type, the mocker on the sidelines who points out the follies of the powerful. The kinship of the morality-play figure of Vice to the Shakespearean tragic sidekick can be seen most clearly in Falstaff, whose outward appearance is an exact copy of the old, corpulent misleader of youth familiar from plays such as The Castell of Perseverance (c. 1425) and Nature of the Four Elements (1519). He seems to be nothing more than "Sensual Appetyte," a lecher, glutton, and coward. In Henry IV, part 1 Poins places him squarely in this tradition--"Jack! how agrees the devil and thee about the soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last, for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?" (I.ii.111-3) Mercutio, though he derives more from the malcontent than from the Vice-figure, can also be seen in this light, as Romeo moves from bawdy punning with him to a more chaste love for Juliet. Shakespeare's plays work counter to the morality plays in their presentation of these characters, however, whether he draws from the archetype of the malcontent or that of Vice. His marginal characters still have the flaws which distinguished their predecessors--the Fool's mockery, Mercutio's low humor and reckless temper, Falstaff's boasting and dissolution--but Shakespeare does not present these faults as the entirety of their personalities. He does not even present the flaws as wrong most of the time, since they serve his purpose of giving an alternate, un-heroic view of the world. The Fool's songs and riddles, which spring from the malcontent tradition, are in fact the voice of truth in a story dominated by the madness of Lear and his daughters; Mercutio's hot temper and sexual puns are part of his vitality and passionate living; Falstaff's drinking, gluttony, lust, and cowardice in battle all arise from his desire to satisfy his body and defy his approaching death. As he puts it, he may steal, but that is his vocation, and "'tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation" (1H4, I.ii.101). MERCUTIO: The characters who most perfectly fits the mold of the complex marginal figure both cynical and in his own way honorable is Mercutio, the sidekick whose role Shakespeare complicates with imagination and a sense of his own tragedy. His puns, his mockery of Romeo's tragic-love mopiness, his hotheadedness, and his verbal ingenuity are all marks of the new archetype that Shakespeare was creating. Previous malcontents could not come within miles of his expressive power, because that would have taken the focus away from the hero, but Mercutio's speech, as Benvolio puts it, "blows us from ourselves" (I.iv.111). When we first see him, he is urging Romeo to give up sighing over Rosaline; his tone is both coaxing and mocking when he declares, "You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings/And soar with them above a common bound" (I.iv.17-8). He quickly displays his talent for barely-veiled bawdiness as well, in his counsel to "Prick love for pricking" (I.iv.28). He will continue these jokes throughout the first and second acts, and often without any veil at all, as with his laughing declaration, "O Romeo, that she were, O, that she were/An open-arse, thou a pop'rin pear" (II.ii.41-2). This vulgarity is contrasted with the chaste love of the balcony scene which immediately follows it, but Shakespeare does not moralize about which image of love is better. For Mercutio, the romantic, sighing love is a four-letter word, a "mire"; he is placed opposite Romeo from the beginning, making fun of the idealization of Love which drives Romeo and the play. The audience does not hear his name until after the Queen Mab speech, which seems fitting since until that extraordinary speech we have no reason to pay more attention to him than to any of Romeo's other companions. With his fireworks description of "the fairies' midwife," he presents a vivid and startling picture of the world which is entirely unlike any other in the play. It starts with his teasing Romeo over his lovelorn friend's bad dreams, but at the mention of Queen Mab moves into a much stranger realm in which Mercutio seems to get drunk on his own creativity, his ability to create images and phrases which capture his two audiences' full attention--the audience in the theater seats, and the audience in the Verona streets. His portraiture--"Her collars of the moonshine's wat'ry beams,/Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film..." (I.iv.67-8)--then gives way to a depiction of an entire society of lovers, courtiers, lawyers, parsons. At first his society dreams of contentment, of money and kisses and ambitions fulfilled, but the foreboding in his words begins to grow. Its first hint comes in the mention of "the angry Mab" who "oft... with blisters plagues" ladies instead of showering them with kisses (I.iv.80); then, after a brief interlude of peace with the dreaming courtiers and parsons, Mercutio's thoughts turn to the soldier who dreams of "cutting foreign throats,/Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades" (I.iv.88-9). Although the soldier also dreams of "healths five fathoms deep," he wakes from his dream frightened enough to "swear[] a prayer or two" before he can fall asleep again (I.iv.90-2). Now the dream-giving queen has become a "hag," who causes misfortune by tangling the horses' manes, and causes women pain in childbirth. Romeo notices the sudden sharp melancholy of his thoughts, and cuts him off--"Thou talk'st of nothing" (I.iv.102). Mercutio returns to himself (giving proof to his name, derived from Mercury), agreeing that his words were "nothing but vain fantasy" (I.iv.105), but the audience remains unconvinced. Mercutio's troubled vision of the world sets the scene not so much for |