sundries

[rm]

Tonight Patty and I are dining with friends of hers, then tomorrow it's my parents, and then Wednesday it's just us and Thursday night she gets on a plane. Deep breaths. What's great about Cardiff is this time I won't have to go those two - three weeks where it's impossible to hear from her. Those are always the worst.

Right now I have two pitches out that I'm waiting to hear on. My goal for the fall, if I can manage it, is to always have three things out awaiting answer. That way, nothing looms too large and neurotically in my head, and I produce more and get stuff done. Also, if someone says no, most of these things can be retooled for other potential markets/outlets/mediums/whatevers.

Meanwhile, 'tis the season in New York. We're just off Fashion Week, now moving into the New York Film Festival and shortly into the New York Musical Theater Festival. It's the most wonderful time of the year -- that is, if you care and have the time and the cash and the clout. Me? Any year I can't get into the opening night of the NYFF always feels slightly tragic to me. I saw Akira Kurasowa's Ran with my parents the year it opened the festival, sitting up in the balcony in a hand-painted sweatshirt dress and a big clunky antique anklet on that had been my grandmother's in the old country. Kurasowa spoke and everyone below us was in black tie, and you could feel in the air that it mattered. It's one of the only times I can think of where I wasn't where I wanted to be, but it was happily close enough.

Speaking of that time of year -- it's time for the Regency Assembly in New Haven CT -- October 16 & 17th. (yes, Dragon*Con Recency people, I still owe you a post, but you should come to this!). Baring extreme social excitement, this will probably be my last public outing before I leave for my 5 weeks in Europe at the end of that month, so if you want to say hi, come to Connecticut.

Girl on a Whaleship! In 1868 a six-year-old girl went with her family on a 3-year whaling voyage and kept a journal, now scanned in and available online.

The Deseret News has been sympathizing with illegal immigrants, angering much of its conservative and devout Mormon readership.

At the polls, it's anger vs. despair and that breaks down along gender lines: men are angry, women are despairing and may stay home from voting. I could make comments. I could make a lot of comments, but they'd reinforce a lot of gender dichotomous stuff I work hard not to believe in or pay attention to when it comes to my opinion other people, so I'm just going to let it sit there, because you're all smart enough to draw your own conclusions.

Paul Krugman, meanwhile, on the rage of the rich. Btw, it's worth noting that study after study show that something like 98% of Americans, when polled, define themselves as a higher economic class than they actually are. There's some interesting lines to be drawn through my first voter rage link to this one, in light of that.

Keeping kids safe from the wrong dangers: statistically, it's irresponsible to put your kid in your car and drive them to the orthodontist; they're a lot safer if they walk there. Alone.

The German foreign minister has entered into a civil partnership. Good on him. Article linked because it notes how civil partnership in Germany conveys most of the same rights as marraige, oh, except tax benefits and the right to jointly adopt children. I'm so sick of all these "I suppose that will do" footnotes. Also can you imagine having such a high-ranking openly gay official in the US? Yeah, thought not.

So, Boardwalk Empire: Scorsese is at his best when he's working with music, and the same is true for this show so far. Much of the rest of it feels flat, and it's perhaps my own biases (and the heavily rhythmic trailers) that left me feeling this was something of a disappointment. On the other hand, Scorsese is also often at his best when working with small New York stories, so there may be hope for this, even as Atlantic City is on the fringe of New York. Certainly, it's no surprise to me that what shines the most in this show so far is the surprisingly sweet and wry face of the young Al Capone, a figure who is so far, merely a winking footnote to the audience. "Think about what this man will become!" the show cries. But I want the show to tell me a damn story. I'll be fannish if I'm fannish, and I'm happy to do the intellectual work, but the show should do its own hopefully compelling narrative work.

I've also seen a bit of discussion about the presentation of race in the series (notably, an early sequence showing a white band in black-face). Yes, it's historically accurate. But, that doesn't make it unreasonable for people to talk about how it makes them uncomfortable or whether or not showing this moment is necessary to the construction of the show. It's not appropriate to dismiss that conversation, even if you ultimately disagree with the conclusions any particular person involved in it reaches.

Last night on Angel: We watched "Number 5" and the one about Wesley's robot dad. Both episodes are problematic, and both episodes are saved by their heart and their performances.

I really, really did not know what to do with "Number 5". Is this Angel does Tarrantino? How much of this is as things happen in a supernatural reality and how much of this is as heightened (un)reality narrative bias? Is this racist? Should Whedon ever be allowed near anything that pretends to be about South American or Latin American or Hispanic cultures? Ever? Because I remember "Inca Mummy Girl" and so do you. On the other hand, it had such a small, gentle, touching ending, and I do like the idea that everyone, even the dude you think it just a punchline has an important, meaningful story and deserves your respect.

The Wesley's robot dad episode has its own set of problems. Namely, robot ninjas raining from the sky. Ninjas are a crappy shortcut in terms of narrative and racial presentation (faceless Asian horde, seriously?). On the other hand, the performances knock this out of the park -- we see the awkward Wesley we remember from Buffy, we see a man who is both too ruthless (Wes, just because you have nothing left to live for and would happily give up your life for the greater good, doesn't mean everyone else is on that page) and too generous (for fuck's sake, TELL FRED) to be happy, and, ultimately, we see a man who doesn't know quite what to think about his own childhood. Was his father merely cruel (not that words don't do a lot of damage) or as was referenced in an episode way back (Patty had to remind me) actually physically abusive? What makes Wesley the worse man? the desire to connect with his father or the desire to kill him? None of this works without Alexis Denisof being able to run rings around a simple script (again, ninjas? must we?).

This is also an episode that speaks, again, to so much of early Torchwood -- Wesley and Angel touching base after a night of professional disasters. Wesley, worrying about how their fearless, remote, miserable leader is doing, more than being worried about his own pain related to robot girlfrienddad. I can see watching this and shouting at the TV "what is this? Why is it here? What is the deal with these two? It makes no sense!" and I see how you get from here to Jack/Ianto "Cyberwoman" - "They Keep Killing Suzie" -- because none of that makes any sense either, it just seems to thanks to sex.

It's worth noting that if I write about pop-culture and race on here, I invariably get a lot of Hetalia ads.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh man, yeah, I didn't include that summer I spent at Yale in any of this. Like, sure we were in dorms and there was an RA somewhere. But I was 15 and there were no rules and I got up to some pretty sketchy stuff, but it was all sort of necessary teen sketchy stuff. As a parent, you don't want to know and you'd prefer it not happen, but as a kid, you just kinda do it and get one with things.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Anything that will help in a beltway full of road ragers I'd appreciate. (I'd actually prefer it if she moved to a big city with a good transit system that made having a car pretty unnecessary but that's a mom's wishful thinking. ;-p) And it's not so much her driving that I'm worried about, it's all the others out there.

And thanks. It was a long time ago, nearly 28 years ago but it left its mark.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Here in the metro DC area, of late, it's somewhat understandable. Over the last 28 years we've had numerous collisions/derailments, the most recent being June 2009 that killed 9 people.

Not to mention the unfortunately semi-regular Metrobus squashings. About every 5 years or so, a metrobus runs over/squashes someone or multiple people.

But the reality is, despite these accidents, there are far fewer bus wrecks and train wrecks than car wrecks. Every morning, the traffic reports are filled with major and minor car accidents. Accidents involving public transit are few and far between.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even been thinking of accidents--my blind spot. I was thinking of all the people who've told me I'm "brave" for riding the bus. Er?

Learning to drive *smart*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

first of all...oh yeah, I get the whole beltway road rager thing. Boston and DC are absolutely at the top of "cities I have driven in that I *HATED*" list. (Weirdly, Dallas is the politest driving town I've encountered personally.)

When you're ready to start thinking about her driving...*if* it's not too distracting for you, I'd recommend you start talking about your decision process while you're driving. Just an ongoing commentary, so she learns what you're taking in. Some front-seat time before she starts trying to drive would be good, too. You don't get the same sense of the road from the back seat.

I learned to merge onto freeways by practicing on a surface street that had a similar "on ramp" type turn - no stop, just drive and learn to yield. I found it nervewracking, but until I could do that, I was trapped in suburban L.A.

Something I wish my parents had done for me is more training in learning how to adjust my mirrors, and to teach me what I could reasonably expect to see in my mirrors. I knew the mechanics, but not the conceptual tools. (The summer I got my license was full of parental marriage explosion drama, capped by suicide of a parent. It was not a good time, to put it mildly.)

I would park the car in a parking lot, set out some cones (or other appropriate height markers in all the spots where you should be able to see, and have your teen practice adjusting until they're visible. Set a few cones in the blind spots, or have people stand there, to give a real understanding of how that works.

I don't have a "learning to change lanes" exercise, but I note that it's one of my biggest points of nervousness in driving, even now.

(I'd do all my initial "learn how to steer a car" stuff in a deserted weekend morning parking lot, actually.)


Now, as far as learning defensive driving techniques...this may sound crazy, but I'd have her take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's basic motorcycle skills class. Learning to think like a motorcyclist has done more for my car driving skills than anything else. Constantly scanning the road for my escape route made a huge difference.

That's my plan for how my kids will be learning. I haven't tested this out, and I'm sure I'm missing some major things. I'm guessing that you're planning on a professional teaching some basic driving skills, anyway. I've tried to just cover the fine-tuning bits. I hope someone else reading this has more ideas.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Class issues.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Yes. And I think herein lies a very fruitful conversation to be had about exactly what many of these irrational parenting anxieties are *really* all about.

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's so interesting to me, because I know you're right, but in NYC public transportation is a given, regardless of class, because taking a cab or a private car or taking time to park will make you late here during business hours. But I know when I travel elsewhere that it's immediately a class issue -- even in places like Boston and Chicago and Washington where the transit system is nearly as ubiquitous.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I have this weird impression that in NYC, taking the bus has a different value than taking the subway. Yes/no? Maybe it's just that I took the subway a *lot* when I was visiting, but very rarely the bus.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a rural area, and we were always allowed to play unsupervised within about a 500m radius of our house -- we just weren't allowed to cross the highway (and our street was bound on the other two sides by two rivers -- we weren't allowed to go swimming unsupervised until we were in our teens). We visited Sydney frequently, however, and I was allowed out on my own in the city from the age of 13 or so, although "allowed" is probably not quite the right word for it. It was more a case of my dad saying, "I think you can go out on your own now, so do it." I was also allowed to take my younger brother and sister out into the city at around this age. When I moved to Sydney for uni, I was definitely a lot more comfortable with being in the city than many of my peers, from both rural and urban areas.

[natf.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link to the diary. It reminds me of the diary that I wrote the year we sent in the US when I was 5-6 (.PDF download).
http://natalief.livejournal.com/1516697.html

[graene.livejournal.com]

Yeah, our street was unusual when we moved in that we all brought the kids out and they ran across everyone's front yards, except that family up on the corner with the fenced backyard. Between aging into after-school activities and the beastly heat during summer, we rarely see some of them now and it makes me sad. Of course, we're also using our screened in porch more, because the mosquitoes are just impossible in our own yard.

[graene.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that. All the criticism of the 'Blackberry moms' at the park, who keep the kids in peripheral vision but don't engage. Hello, the kids are at the park to play with other kids. Sure, I'll be the dragon/prince/whatnot if no one else happens to be around, but that's my chance to talk to other adults, thank you very much. Even at home it's apparently really weird that I can and do hand my kids a palette of paints and smocks and put them on the porch and don't engage for up to two hours (the girl, boy maxes out about 45 minutes). I might be sitting out there doing my own thing, watching through the bay window while I do dishes or whatever, but I'm definitely not out there cooing over every brush stroke.

Also - you're absolutely right on the neighborhoods thing too. As I grew and my 'free range' area increased, I now realize that I personally knew at least one person on every block that got added, whom I would not hesitate to ring their doorbell if I needed help of whatever kind - bathroom, bandaid, bullying kids, anything. That was almost certainly a factor for my parents.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Cancun now seems to be the thing for senior year spring break trips (mostly 18 year olds).

My parents let me travel by myself from the time I was 16, but I don't think they would have let me go en masse with friends to another country.

[rm.livejournal.com]

This is the other thing, I graduated high school at 17 (and essentially had finished the year earlier). If we don't let kids do anything, what happens to people who finish school on the early side because of when their birthday falls?

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, I used to have this impression (it was something my mother did because of the subway makes her nervous and is inconvenient because they live 8 blocks form it -- which is hard to do in Manhattan), that it was something wealthier, older, white people did. And then I moved up to Spanish Harlem, which is also far east enough that the bus is closer than the train, and now I see the bus as not having class divides. I think it depends on the bus line, certainly, based on where it serves.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

And I was out of the house at 17!

I don't feel like my personal experience is the best answer to that, though.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

My dad left me for the night alone when I was 12, regularly, on weekends. Then my mom found out about it and got REALLY mad. It is not the norm.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I hardly remember being in my house when I was a kid, except when I was reading. :D We were always playing in the park and riding bikes or skating around or something.

Am tempted to buy some skates and skate up and down my street. I'll be the only one!

[rm.livejournal.com]

You and I are also of different generations though. I'm not sure it wasn't the norm in mine.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Very true, and I did mean to cite that for contrast.

My mother was left alone to watch her younger brothers for a week when she was 15. But my mom had older (married) siblings around in case she needed help, although I think my grandparents were out of the country (?!).

[cweyr.livejournal.com]

I make $30,000 in a good year. My employer, if I had to guess, probably makes somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000 personally. (I have no idea what the business nets overall.)

It's reasonable to assume a tax increase affecting him significantly will affect me also.

[graene.livejournal.com]

I definitely remember being kicked out of the house to go play, but I didn't need DEET spray until after dinner. That has been a real issue here, with the asian mosquitos that are out all day, plus the ticks living in the woods in everyone's backyards.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Walking home from school can be problematic in Dallas. If you live anywhere near a major road, even the smaller streets can get dangerous.

I live on a neighborhood street behind Buckner Blvd (major 6 lane road) and drivers sometimes use the neighborhood street as a quick cut to get away from the traffic on Buckner.

It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't continue to drive as if they were still on Buckner. We've had drivers stopped by cops that were doing 70 on this two lane road. Or cars have hit that spot where the sand from that high yard has crept on the street, so they loose control and go into someone's yard or car. (That's happened way too often.) And yes, they've hit pedestrians that were on the sidewalk or at the bus stop too.

Some areas of Dallas are pretty old, so there are no sidewalks, just grass and that open rain guttering system. Not so bad during the dry season, but when it rains, you're pretty much stuck having to walk on the road.

Oh, sometime back there were some parents who raised a fuss over the fact that they couldn't get the bus to pick up their kids. They lived within that 3 mile limit. (You must live outside the 3 mile limit for your kids to ride the bus.) Trouble was, this group lived on one side of the North Dallas Tollway, while their kids' school was on the other side. Ya' gotta love bureaucracy. And the paper or the news never did give a follow up on that one.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Oh, the North Dallas Tollway is our version of NASCAR and doing anything less than 80 on it is considered downright sissy.