Grim and cloudy here today. The clouds are sealing the valley in again, which is good, as it means I'll just do my damn work. Of which there is copious amounts. I've been in bowl-like valleys before, but I've never been in one where the clouds come down in quite this way and seal the thing quite so tightly (in the time it took me to write this post, the mountains disappeared and anything more than two houses away is just a sheet of white). That's better than early last week, where the clouds were shaped like mushrooms, and it gave my Child of the 80s anxiety.
Yesterday, they were hanging the Christmas lights in the old town, so I hope they will be lit by the time Patty gets here, but I am not sure, as she will be too early for the Christmas markets.
Yesterday I noodled around a bit by designing logos for Palatine Crescent (production company thingy with Kali -- which basically just means a way for us to have a cool name while we write the massive novel and finally write the WWII aviator chicks screenplay and noodle with a treatment for something else). It is cool. It is made of deep thoughts about gender, a random free font from the Internet, and a bad photo of a rug from a home catalog. Collage is your friend, but I need to redo it with using the full tag-line, trying it in lower-case, and seeing if I can get the text to run fluidly on a curved white banner placed over the stripes, which I'm not sure how to make happen in Pixelmator. Another day, another battle.
Sam has just read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer for the first time. While I'm still getting over the fact that EVERYONE wasn't required to read this in sixth grade and that, that I was may explain any number of things about my personality, I'm going to take this moment to say that I think it's largely filled with obvious observations that would surprise very few of you, but it's a quick read, and you should probably catch up with that if you haven't.
Poems for DST. Have I mentioned I've been writing poetry again? This is what Switzerland does to me, and not in the good way. But USians, change your clocks. We're 6 hours apart again (it was five this past week).
Yearbooks are the latest self-esteem mechanisms in high schools. Is there, anywhere, a balance between anti-bullying and self-esteem, while also not bombarding people with messages that they are wildly successful just for showing up? Nothing hurt and humiliated me more in school than getting "most improved" awards. I was the worst at some things, and remained so, but because I got slightly better, they wanted to make me feel good. It was embarrassing, and antithetical to the experiences I had outside of school -- like in dance -- where I had to earn every scrap of attention, but where ever scrap of attention was like pounds of medals and remain moments I still savor. Nothing was more humiliating though than having to walk up on stage to receive Most Improved in Physical Education awards -- Look at this girl! We are showing her off! She cannot catch a ball and does not play well with others! Rumours you have heard that she is beautiful somewhere and somewhat else are just rumours! She finds dodgeball very hard!
Meanwhile, anti-bullying efforts are under attack because they are viewed as political because they "normalize" homosexuality. What I want to know is, if you believe someone is going to burn in hell, why do you think it's your job to make them suffer -- especially if they don't share your beliefs -- in this life? I understand, at least abstractly, the trying to save people from hell thing; it's the hastening people's way there business where I get confused.
I have no doubt in my mind that Ian McKellen is right about this. There is significant, explicit pressure in Hollywood, in New York, in the industry as a whole, not to come out and the image-making machine makes it easy for that explicit pressure to be frames as no different from marketing supposed alliances between heterosexual stars. But it is different. I love matters of persona, but this is one place where it's poisonous.
Keith Olbermann talks about his partisanship -- two days before he got suspended. One of the things I like about Olbermann is the union of anger and articulateness in his public persona and the way that relates to stories about anger in the backstage parts of his career. I poke at it, because it's interesting to me because you could say I have that sort of stuff going on with me too; at least that's how it feels from here. I really have no idea how I come off to other people, despite the endless calculation.
I couldn't agree more with Sir Ian McKellen, but unfortunatelly it's not only a Hollywood problem. I live in Brazil, a country that's known to be quite "liberal", and yet there are very few openly GLBT actors/actresses. For some reason, it seems more acceptable in musicians... :S
Brazil isn't so much about cinema yet as it is about TV. I read an interview, once, with a well known soap opera writer that shocked me with his voicing that heartthrob male actors who are gay should stay in the closet, for the sake of their image with the public :O
I'm pretty thankful for the way my parents treated such things. Namely, no bullshit, and an honest understanding that they trusted me not to be reckless with my sexual health.
I read the yearbook article, and while I was definitely one of those kids who wasn't in a single candid shot or superlative in the yearbook, what they were trying to do with equalizing the attention didn't seem that bad to me. But it also doesn't strike me as something that's necessarily going to be all that effective. By the time the yearbooks come out, the kids who aren't valued already know what their status is, so making all this effort to give them equal time and attention (and really, portraying a false portrait for the sake of the yearbook), isn't going to make any real changes in their status.
Or to put it more simply: if you're unpopular and spend four years sitting alone in the cafeteria, what does it matter if some yearbook staff make a big deal about making sure you're in a candid shot?
The article about attitudes about teen sexuality in Europe vs. the US isn't surprising at all. I'm just amazed how many people can't accept that puritanism simply doesn't work.
Strange, strange question, but the rhythm of this: "Look at this girl! We are showing her off! She cannot catch a ball and does not play well with others! Rumours you have heard that she is beautiful somewhere and somewhat else are just rumours! She finds dodgeball very hard!" is INCREDIBLY FAMILIAR and yet I can't place it at all.
Are you referencing something? Or am I seeing connotation where you're just playing with cadence in a very effective way?
The Ian McKellan thing reminded me of Rufus Wainwright's "Release the Stars," which you almost certainly already know. It's a powerful song that for me resonates beyond critiques of Hollywood, etc.
I do understand the idea that homophobic people could oppose efforts to make children/teens feel more comfortable with homosexuality. The article describes anti-bullying campaigns that go beyond just saying that children shouldn't bully other children about anything, even if they disagree about whether it's right; instead, they do try to "normalize" homosexuality. To me, the "homosexual agenda" is a real and awesome one: item #1, to make the world a safe place for people to openly love someone of whatever gender and to present their gender in non-normative ways. I think we should work really, really hard for that, and that schools should be encouraging it (that's how you cut at the root of bullying, not by telling kids on one hand that it's not ok to be gay and on the other that they shouldn't taunt others for it). But I also think that we should acknowledge that that idea, that change in the world, is very frightening to people who don't want their children to grow up thinking that being gay is fine (who knows, maybe they'd "decide" to "become" homosexual themselves!). Let's face it, the "tolerance" campaigns in the article go beyond teaching kids to be nice to each other and do attempt to change the values their parents might have taught them. It's time to 'fess up to that, to say that it's not that radical, and to not back down.
With regard to I understand, at least abstractly, the trying to save people from hell thing; it's the hastening people's way there business where I get confused. I don't think that the people who object to the "tolerance" campaigns think it's wrong because they want to save the people being bullied. I think they're far more concerned with saving the people doing the bullying, the people saying that homosexuality is wrong, from perhaps being swayed to the other side.
I haven't read The True Believer yet. Apparently I really, really need to if I want to maintain cultural literacy.
(Speaking of cultural literacy, my viewing of Moulin Rouge! last night got interrupted at the scene where Christian is walking out of the theatre and Satine starts singing "Come What May." Fucking hell.)
The Olbermann continues to give me quiet fits. The man is opinionated and passionate, and his work allows him to be in ways that aren't traditionally acceptable. Journalism is among the professions that I've always idealized as a vocation, like the priesthood or being a counselor; there are things one has to give up in order to do the Work. (It's possible that these things are like unicorns, but if that's so I'll play the "I WANT TO BELIEVE" card and place myself squarely in the Fox Mulder/Neverending Story camp, thankyouverymuch.) I wonder how much his actions were calculated in a belief that it would allow him to strike at FOX, and how much of it was just ridiculous bad judgment (and how much these things aren't mutually exclusive because Liberals in our culture have more to prove).
Still, it will be good to have him back.
Also, can't we have Sir Ian sainted or something? The man's very existence makes life better.
Most of my experiences of bullying around issues of gender presentation and sexuality, particularly in childhood and adolescence, have been at the hands of a religious organization or people explicitly sanctioned or encouraged by one, so when folks say things like "no one should be bullied" in the same sentence with talk of agendas and morals, it makes my head spin and sends my internal hypocrisy meter into the red zone. I personally found attending public school a relief (granted, over twenty years ago) because at least there I managed to find a few other people (including teachers) who thought for themselves and challenged the status quo.
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Brazil isn't so much about cinema yet as it is about TV. I read an interview, once, with a well known soap opera writer that shocked me with his voicing that heartthrob male actors who are gay should stay in the closet, for the sake of their image with the public :O
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I'm pretty thankful for the way my parents treated such things. Namely, no bullshit, and an honest understanding that they trusted me not to be reckless with my sexual health.
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Or to put it more simply: if you're unpopular and spend four years sitting alone in the cafeteria, what does it matter if some yearbook staff make a big deal about making sure you're in a candid shot?
The article about attitudes about teen sexuality in Europe vs. the US isn't surprising at all. I'm just amazed how many people can't accept that puritanism simply doesn't work.
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If you haven't read The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, you should. For PC* research purposes if naught else. ;-)
*We need another abbreviation. PalCr? Dunno...
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Are you referencing something? Or am I seeing connotation where you're just playing with cadence in a very effective way?
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Two years in a row.
Okay, now it's funny, but "now" is about 27 years later.
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I do understand the idea that homophobic people could oppose efforts to make children/teens feel more comfortable with homosexuality. The article describes anti-bullying campaigns that go beyond just saying that children shouldn't bully other children about anything, even if they disagree about whether it's right; instead, they do try to "normalize" homosexuality. To me, the "homosexual agenda" is a real and awesome one: item #1, to make the world a safe place for people to openly love someone of whatever gender and to present their gender in non-normative ways. I think we should work really, really hard for that, and that schools should be encouraging it (that's how you cut at the root of bullying, not by telling kids on one hand that it's not ok to be gay and on the other that they shouldn't taunt others for it). But I also think that we should acknowledge that that idea, that change in the world, is very frightening to people who don't want their children to grow up thinking that being gay is fine (who knows, maybe they'd "decide" to "become" homosexual themselves!). Let's face it, the "tolerance" campaigns in the article go beyond teaching kids to be nice to each other and do attempt to change the values their parents might have taught them. It's time to 'fess up to that, to say that it's not that radical, and to not back down.
With regard to I understand, at least abstractly, the trying to save people from hell thing; it's the hastening people's way there business where I get confused. I don't think that the people who object to the "tolerance" campaigns think it's wrong because they want to save the people being bullied. I think they're far more concerned with saving the people doing the bullying, the people saying that homosexuality is wrong, from perhaps being swayed to the other side.
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(Speaking of cultural literacy, my viewing of Moulin Rouge! last night got interrupted at the scene where Christian is walking out of the theatre and Satine starts singing "Come What May." Fucking hell.)
The Olbermann continues to give me quiet fits. The man is opinionated and passionate, and his work allows him to be in ways that aren't traditionally acceptable. Journalism is among the professions that I've always idealized as a vocation, like the priesthood or being a counselor; there are things one has to give up in order to do the Work. (It's possible that these things are like unicorns, but if that's so I'll play the "I WANT TO BELIEVE" card and place myself squarely in the Fox Mulder/Neverending Story camp, thankyouverymuch.) I wonder how much his actions were calculated in a belief that it would allow him to strike at FOX, and how much of it was just ridiculous bad judgment (and how much these things aren't mutually exclusive because Liberals in our culture have more to prove).
Still, it will be good to have him back.
Also, can't we have Sir Ian sainted or something? The man's very existence makes life better.
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