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sundries

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 ~~girlfriend~~dad. 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.

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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

Is it bad that I read this as "98% of Americans have different definitions for class boundaries than economics researchers do?" :) I mean I expect they are measuring a real phenomenon, but...

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

While this makes me want to slam my head into the wall it does help frame a lot of problems I've noticed in american politics, namely how very, very easy it is to get people to vote against their own self interests. I always thought that people were under the impression they'd win the lottery or would inherit huge amounts of money from some previously unknown relative due to a tragic and fatal bout of food poising at a family reunion and were ensuring that their future wealthy self would be well cared for.

So they actually think they're currently better off then their 1040 implies?

Math is hard. I guess.

Westerwelle isn't just foreign minister, he's also vice chancellor. (Chancellor is the most powerful post in German government.) And the head of the junior partner in the current government coalition.

Let's just say there's been more than one occasion where he could have done a lot more to make real equality happen. But he seems more concerned about pushing his party's political goal in the area of economics, and about not pissing off the bigger partner in the coalition.

Still, I'm happy for him and his partner. They've been together for years now, so I'm sure they're overjoyed to take this step. :)

What about Barney Frank? He is a congressman with a domestic partner. I don't know much about the german government, is a foreign minister higher up then a congressman?

I am *loving* that article about parental risk assessment --I was reading all sorts of quotes from it to my poor roommate, who is doomed by the fact that I am very very enthusiastic about the fact that I live with another fannish person for the first time in my life and therefore want to share interesting things.

We have examined the "children would have to wait outside for 750000 hours to be ensured of a kidnapping" and determined that that basically means 85 years, and at that point, you are probably no longer pedo-bait. You can still be kidnapped, sure, but it's unlikely to be for the same parental-panic reasons.

Also, she apologizes on behalf of her fandom for the Hetalia ads thing.

~Sor

Scorsese is at his best when he's working with music... I've noticed that I tend to favor directors who pay a lot of attention to their scores and sound design: Kubrick, David Lynch, Tarantino.

I really, really did not know what to do with "Number 5". I remember watching that one and wincing repeatedly, but every time I think of Wesley's awed expression as he breathes, "¡El Diablo Robotico!" I crack up.

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.

I was just talking to a mother of two about this very thing yesterday over brunch. She's noticed that her twin girls are gaining weight, and she attributes that to the fact that they don't walk around and don't play outside much anymore. She then asked us at what age we started to "play" outside, and said that it's not socially acceptable to let you kids just play outside unless they are supervised.

She says she feels guilty about the fact that her girls are putting on weight because they're sitting around watching tv instead of running around outdoors, but that between work and household duties, she doesn't have the time to take them every day. Her and her husband are starting to let the 11 year old girls walk to the park a few blocks away on their own, and while it seems to be going well (she goes to join them after a half hour or so), she said she gets judged by the other Moms who are there supervising their kids.

My parents always kicked us out of the house to play outside all day. Granted, we lived on a very quiet street, and most of the neighbours would keep an eye on us kids running around. But we were free to play as we wanted. I can't imagine what it'd be like to be confined to the house or a supervised fenced in yard just because of social fears and expectations.

Sorry, long babble. I might be procrastinating from real work. ;) Good article, thanks for the link. I'll try to send it to the woman I met (she's a friend of a friend).

'tis the season in New York

It's interesting to me how the meaning of "the season" has changed in the past 100 years. And yet it's still the same time of year. I suppose there are still symphonies happening where the beautiful people go to be seen, and in October there will be balls. But at least now you don't have to be listed in the Social Register to get into those.

Trying to raise a fairly free-range kid in an atmosphere that wants to believe there are rapists, abductors, molesters, and murderers hiding in the bushes and on the buses is frustrating beyond belief.

I had a conversation about the safety of the public buses in Mont. Co. the other day with our piano teacher. She didn't think the buses were safe enough for an 11 1/2 year old on her own.

Having ridden the local buses often the last few years, they are safer than many other options on a variety of levels. The accidents have been few and far between and deaths haven't occurred at all. I've been sexually harassed whilst waiting for the bus (it was super late and so there was time to start chatting) but never been accosted riding the bus. I have no problems with my daughter taking the bus on her own, if she feels up to it; she still has some reservations.

My daughter has to be driven to school now because there are no county school buses that run from our neighborhood to her new school. All three of us (including my husband who takes her to school; I pick her up) are at much greater risk for injury/death from being in a car accident on the way to and from her school than we were before when I was either taking public transit the entire way or driving a much shorter distance to the Metro station and she was walking to school and riding the school bus.

Not to mention that for women, our greatest risk is in the home and around people we know. We are far more likely to be killed/raped/beat up by a relative, former sig. other, or an acquaintance than a stranger.

I try to combat misinformation but it's so prevalent that it feels like emptying the ocean with an eyedropper.

The statistics about cars vs. other kinds of dangers are what make me a "bad mom" (drinking wine during pregnancy, letting my kid climb on stuff that's too big, etc.). It seems that people only want to outlaw fun risks, not the ones that actually matter.

We're a one-car family where I mostly walk, precisely because I understand something about statistics.

Just very quickly, because I'm in a rush:

Possibly the best ever character analysis of Wesley. (Not long.)

And then this episode review/analysis which touches upon Wes/Fred and Wes/Lilah and has some of the best ever insights into both ships that I've ever read.

Edited 2010-09-20 15:02 (UTC)

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.

Statistically, most kids do not live in the Death Race 2000 remake that is my neighborhood. Fucking Coney Island Avenue. (Obviously we walk everywhere anyway because this is NYC and I don't own a car, but GOOD GOD LOCAL DRIVERS THE RED LIGHTS ARE THERE FOR A REASON.)

</irrelevant ranting>

Okay, the article about kids and parents not knowing how to assess danger really hit home for me, because when I was a kid my parents refused to let me out out of the house except for school and the backyard, because they were afraid I would get kidnapped. But they were fine with driving me everywhere.

So it was darkly hilarious to read that they were in fact, putting me in far more danger by driving me places than they would have by letting me walk around by myself.

Oh and another thing? Terrible idea to shut up and shelter your kid that way. I went through massive adjustment problems my first two years of college because I was so much more clueless about the world than I should have been at that age, due to my lack of freedom growing up.

Okay, so this is off-topic for this particular post, but I just had a conversation with a friend where I mentioned that new House MD is on later, and she mentioned that she started watching Covert Affairs, and that Amber from House is on it!!! I LOVED AMBER. So, yeah, my friend says she basically watches for her, and I will probably be doing that too. AMBER!

(Sorry to be OT, but you're the only one I know of on my flist that watches this, and I had to tell someone :)

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 person particular person involved in it reaches.

Thank you.

The writer's commentary on ep. 12 of "Six Feet Under" is all this self-conscious but very revealing commentary from Jill Soloway about how she's constantly screwing things up in dealing with the Latin@ characters on the show - putting Mexican stuff in the Puerto Rican characters' mouths, inserting bits of Spanish that just exasperate the actors, etc. On the one hand, I was incredibly aggravated with her (not least for how she insults the viewer at least three times for "having no life" if they're watching the commentary, but mostly for her "well I just can't help screwing it up because I'm so white" attitude). But on the other hand, it was pretty refreshing to hear an author talk frankly about making cultural mistakes, making the effort to do cultural research to get things right and still getting caught out, and acknowledging that the problem is her lack of knowledge, not POC's "sensitivities" or some other de-rail.

See, what I recall from the Obama campaign was "households over $200k" as a baseline for higher taxes, not counting the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

With retirement + a second career + a second earner in a household, it's not hard to hit $150k. The Clinton-era tax bracket for this group was slightly higher and we're just reverting to that level, so the sky is not falling.

However, I'm not certain it's wise to raise taxes for households making under $200 with the economy where it is, however. People have also lost house value, and are reluctant to spend as they normally would on things like new kitchen cabinets, and it's KILLING retail. The little store where I bought my kitchen tile is out of business. I make 5% less than I did two years ago but I don't want to spend money on things like this to improve my house anymore, because I don't know that my job is secure and my house is worth less than I paid for it now, so screw it.

As for kid safety, I think the problem is that hardly anybody lets their kids walk anywhere or do anything unsupervised now, so there are fewer kids out there, creating the illusion that it's weird and unsafe to do this (and maybe it's safer when there are hordes of kids walking to school, anyway, because there you all are, walking within plain view of each other, rather than being the sole kid by herself).

I do live in the burbs and I don't even see kids in their BACKYARDS. They're all at planned activities or playing games on the wii, I guess. I don't know.

I never watched Numero Cinco because I just had a feeling that it would make me feel super uncomfortable and just generally be a shitty episode, but the way you're describing it makes me want to give it a try. I could use some tv with a bit of heart right now, even if the execution leaves something to be desired.

I actually really love the ROBOT NINJA episode, just because I think the emotion in the acting is stellar. My relationship with my parents never came anywhere near abusive, but I can absolutely relate to that desperation to please and Alexis just nails it for me.

The summer I turned 11 was when I was allowed to go to the park by myself. I got into super heaps of trouble once because I'd been playing with this group of boys and they'd peer-pressured me into trying to jump off this really high thing in the park. I was just about to climb up it when my mom came by the park walking the dog and caught me. So that put the kibosh on that for a while.

But, 6th grade (a couple months after the above incident) was when I was allowed to start taking the bus home by myself. In 8th grade I was allowed to take the bus to school, but I was, under no circumstances, allowed to take the subway to school. Until the following year. (I started taking the subway on the weekends, though. Often I would take the bus anyway because I knew the routes better.)

I felt very restricted in my freedom as a tween and teen, but mostly out of comparison with my older brother. The problem there was that he had lots of friends in nearby neighborhoods, I did not. So where my brother's friends were a short walk or bus ride away, my friends pretty much required the subway, or at least two buses. So it was a weird combo of accessibility and supply. I'm sure there was also some sexism involved, as it's a lot easier to worry about a 5' tall teenage girl than it is to worry about a 6'2 teenage boy.

I was, however, allowed to go to Boston the summer before my senior year of high school. I was accepted at the Berklee College of Music songwriting and guitar sessions, a week a piece. There was no supervision to speak of, and I definitely got up to shenanigans that my parents wouldn't have appreciated, but probably expected. My mother's sole request of me was, "Don't ever go to someone's house." Which, honestly, is pretty good advice for any seventeen-year-old going to another city.

I really responded to Empire. I think the culmination of gorgeous cinematography + costumes + music/mood made me swoon. Although it reminded me a bit of Spartacus inthat I imagine the first few episodes will be more perfunctory than the rest of the series once it gets going. Also, I about spit out my wine when he said his name was Al Capone. =]

I recall having a conversation about kids not playing outside anymore when I was in my late teens with a friend whose younger half-brother didn't play outside and was getting overweight. Both of us spent most of our childhood and adolescence out of doors.

Mind, I lived in a rural area and our yard was HUGE and in the middle of nowhere, so the chance of us being hit by a car or snatched off the street was minimal. Still, we had boundary rules (do not go past the second tree on one side of the house or the garbage cans on the other--there was a deep ravine with a sudden drop-off behind the house), but we also walked a quarter mile to the bus stop to wait with the other kids starting in kindergarten. And since we were on the farm route, it might be a good half hour before the bus came.

When we moved to the Houston suburbs, suddenly there were a couple dozen kids on the street and pick up games of roller hockey almost every day after school. When we out grew that, I used to walk by myself to the neighborhood park to sit on the swings and think (I was a strange, melancholy child due to undiagnosed chronic depression).

I don't have children of my own yet (though I am thinking seriously about adoption), so I don't know what'll go through my head when it's my kid. Though, honestly, I'll probably end up being labeled a 'bad parent' for letting my kid be too Free Range.

First, I have to note that I am really uncomfortable with the "we don't let kids run around any more and that's why they're getting FAT!" comments above. Speaking as, well, a fat girl who walks everywhere and played outside a lot, thanks.

Second, I have to note that I'm kind of peeved at the Free Range Kids gal being treated as a statistical expert. I'd rather have the article quote someone she got her numbers from, you know?

Third, one thing that's changed as far as I can tell in terms of the subjective nature of risk assessment is neighborhoods. My parents knew their neighbors, more or less, even when they were transient student rentals. My parents now live about ten blocks away from where I grew up, but they don't seem to know their neighbors as well.

I'm not particularly qualified to say much more, because I grew up in dense college-town suburbia and now live and parent in an urban setting, so it's hard for me to tell what's changed across-the-board in terms of community organization (both spatial and interpersonal) and what hasn't.

I'd feel uncomfortable letting my kids run around my neighborhood without supervision not because of kidnapping fears, but because of traffic--the same reason, more or less, that I have indoor cats. Our yard has a water feature that can't be fenced off, so no running around the back yard unsupervised either. We don't have a front yard. So we go on a lot of walks and we drive or take public transit to parks a lot.

There has definitely been a change in parenting expectations, too. You're expected to have a much higher level of engagement, especially with younger children, than I remember being true during my childhood. This is the aspect that I find most creepily intrusive. Independent play, and lots of it, was crucial to me. I was definitely not neglected by my mother sitting by a tree reading her book while I ran around.

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.

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

I think you would like this essay on “class”, in both the “rich parents” sense and the “well behaved” sense.

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