sundries

[rm]

The New York Times continues to think that the trend towards dressing up is their hot new over the last couple of years. The New York Times is increasingly the last to know about anything, but I'll take what I can get. This one is very much an outgrowth of the Mad Men phenomenon, but it pretty high on my "mmmm, yes, but no" list.

Laredo, TX has 250,000 people but no bookstores. via popfiend

You've got to love a photo essay on an amazing New York City home that includes the caption, "the bedroom, with even more items marked for sale." I am so there.

Get ready for the sound of me screaming. I haven't read it yet, but nothing titled, "Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women?" is gong to result in anything but my fury.

The sultry earth.

The Wall Street Journal weighs in on how much "heavage" men should show. This may be my favorite article all week. I'm not sure why, but it is.

Today is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. via shinysayyadina

I feel like a bit of an asshole linking this one as it's unavoidably full of "look at those wacky Japanese" and "geeks are losers" tropes, but Tokyo man weds video game character.

Jude Law 'in love' with 'Sherlock Holmes' co-star Robert Downey Jr. That's the headline exactly as CNN gives it to you, and I'm interested in it both as marketing strategy in terms of sound-bites on Sherlock Holmes and also because of the whole implied giggly/awkwardness of the headline in the rest of the article. I find this shit amusing on the surface and then quaint and irritating when I think about it, to be frank. Because CNN would _never_ use that headline in reference to men who were, you know, actually romantically/sexually in love with each other. That's the problem.

Speaking of Holmes: originally the two bits of Holmes hilarity coming out in the next couple of months (the one mentioned above and the sucktacular thing GDL is in) were just going to be odd campy amusements to me. But now I'm having to read all the Holmes stuff for my Bristol paper, so hey... I might be informed on the OMGWTFBBQ factor of these projects.

This is what abstinence-only education has wrought.

An origami crane folded by Sadako Sasaki is part of 9/11 memorial. My fellow children of the 80s, were you traumatized by 1,001 Cranes along with me? I can't believe that there used to be a whole genre of children's books, both fiction and non-, about nuclear war. Ah, the Regan years.

Patty has been keeping me up to date on the epically weird demise of the Washington Times, DC's bizarreo-land Moonie-run paper. If you haven't been following it, you can catch up here.

NCIS proving to be cool and useful.

The odds of my book being in-stock again from a major e-tailer before the deadline for Christmas shipping delivery is pretty low. I'm making a post office run on Saturday. If you want one $14 to me via paypal and I'll get it out then. Books will be in stock again soon, just not in time for Christmas delivery.

I forgot to mention how much I've loved how much you all love the name Martin.

Comments

I'll give you a shortcut to screaming--

[ex-adarog.livejournal.com]

--with this 21st-century quote from the article:

...a Nancy Meyers movie, in which 55-year-old women implausibly exert charms that no 25-year-old can hold a candle to...

YOU BET THEY DO, BITCH. Those words were written by *a woman*.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Hey for some of us geeks, replicants are the only answer. Now sure we are a good long way from the Nexus 6 but you have to start somewhere.

Re movies : have you seen " Imagine Me & You " as yet?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Lesbian flick, right? I think I caught the end of it when Patty was watching it.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

epically weird demise of the Washington Times, DC's bizarreo-land Moonie-run paper.

I'm sad for the non-lunatic workers for that publication who are being laid off at a time like this, but, yes, I knew of the paper before its difficulties, and it's high time it cut the apron-strings and either floated or folded on its own merits, not those of the Unification Church.

Re: I'll give you a shortcut to screaming--

[rm.livejournal.com]

The real key, I think, is I need to stop thinking these articles are about me on any level whatsoever. My relationship with being female is odd/tenuous in a lot of ways, UNTIL I READ THESE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES. But seriously, since I pretty much literally play a woman on TV (well, movie screen), I suppose my level of agitation is reasonable, but NOT ABOUT ME. But it's so yucky. SO SO YUCKY.

Re: I'll give you a shortcut to screaming--

[ex-adarog.livejournal.com]

I'm 43 and much more straightforwardly female-identified than you are, and both the ageism and the sexism in that piece enraged me. I really didn't read any further than the words I quoted--I just scrolled back up to the byline to establish that A WOMAN (with the hilarious and somehow appropriate name of "Daphne Merkin") wrote the review.

Thanks to her, I am now resolved to see this movie and everything else this director has ever made.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

I was talking with D. about games we played as kids -- how my friends and I played Cold War, while she, two years younger, barely even had nuclear annihilation on the map. The Berlin wall had already come down when she was 8 or 9 or 10. It just amazes me that so much can change in that small window. And of course I remember 1,001 Cranes and it did and does haunt me.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Technically, yeah. I didn't see it as a " lesbian flick " , but more of human drama because of all the relationship drama. I identified with the father of the bride quite a bit, and the little girl steals the movie. The thing I liked about it was that the lesbian bit was not treated as abnormal, just another part of the plot. The funny thing I thought was that every type of relationship is covered over the course of the movie - from the 'I'm divorced and never going out again ' mother , the not really happily married hetero couple, the sleezy "he would shag an open wound " ( actual quote from the movie ) single male ( who comes around in the end ) , the sensitive male who walks away so his gf/wife can be happy, the gay couple making out in the park , random people bumbling through relationships and buying flowers , and the family conflicts that make it all a giant mess.

In the end I was left with a story about people in ( and out of ) love, and not OMG!!1111ONEONE!1LESBIANS!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've never been able to figure out how to fold one, despite being good at origami and having been shown how to do it over and over. I wanted to, because of that book. I thought, if I can make 1,001 Cranes, and I can have a wish too, and maybe people will like me. But I never figured it out.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I literally only say the last ten minutes which is why I'm all "lesbians, right?" but I should check it out in its entirety sometime.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a movie I might watch for fun, actually.

[rednwhiterose.livejournal.com]

I remember having it read to me in class (and I grew up in the '90's for the most part) and I recall thinking it was sad and depressing and probably would've had more a reaction but I think I was 7 or 8 at the time.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I still have the origami crane that P. made for me forever ago. Never could figure how to make one, but then again I never was the minute artsy type.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I sent that NYT article to the hubster. He's into that trend. Actually, at his holiday party on Saturday, more than one fedora was seen (among 20-something guys).

He wore a grey suit with really subtle sort of glen plaid (you have to put your face two inches from the fabric to see it), a white and gold striped shirt and a grey tie with bits of gold in. The suit is lined with gold silk. NICE.

Damn. I was looking forward to that Nancy Meyers film. I like Meryl a lot and the sets are always the other star. :D

I JUST WANT BIG HAIR TO COME BACK OK?

http://community.livejournal.com/ru_glamour/3514397.html#cutid1

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I love, love, love that home and would buy all kinds of weird stuff from there. Bejeweled lion box! Hat! Cake stand! Random framed picture on a chair!

[sykii.livejournal.com]

Not only did I read it and was I traumatized by it, but I, like many other schoolchildren of my generation, made whole flocks of them. I wonder where they all ended up.
Even reading her name gives me chills and goosebumps, which says something about how deeply early stories sink in.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

I had repeating nightmares about being caught in a nuclear war as a kid and young adult. I thank all the gods they stopped. However, I worry that it has receded so far into the background of public consciousness while being as likely as ever or more so.

[marchek.livejournal.com]

I can teach you again if you want. That book was a big part of my childhood, but then again I was a weird child obsessed with the atomic bomb, the holocaust, and the Titanic.

Interesting cultural note, it is a Hawaii tradition that a bride folds 1001 gold cranes which are then displayed at the wedding. Alan may or may not still have the box of cranes we made.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

Yes. Very traumatized by that book. I could never figure out why they felt like it was appropriate reading for us kids.

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

Rage made me stop reading the sex education article. I am ever more certain that Mike Judge's 'Idiocracy' is our future.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Every single book we read at school was either Jane Eyre or nuclear war. Not enough, apparently, that we were all going to die, we had to know about it. Early lessons in learning to live with fear, I guess.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Re your link to abstinance only education FAIL.

Not only did it give us more unwanted pregnancies, but the notion that a girl who decides to be sexually active and is responsible enough to use birth control is categorized by her peers as a tramp; whereas if she is an idiot, says she wasn't planning on having sex and then does so without the benefit of birth control, gets pregnant and keeps the baby she is categorized as a saint.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Do you know that if you put gold wrapping paper in a fire place it kinda explodes. You probably know this. But now I'm picturing you gleefully BLOWING UP THE CRANES that you made for the wedding.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Indeed. But the underlying message seems to be that girls/women should suffer for having sex. The "tramp" is cheating that script; the 'saint' is 'martyred' by it.

Re: I'll give you a shortcut to screaming--

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Daphne Merkin wrote the article? Then you can seriously just write it off sight unseen no matter what it's about, she's...got a lot of issues that she insists on inflicting on the rest of the world in the guise of being an "essayist."