accidental feminist

sin city = gratuitous May 22, 2006

I’ve been told that this worked better as a graphic novel, although I feel like I read the book already, seeing as how the movie is a frame-for-frame reenactment. But the violence that’s probably artistically interesting on the page is just too much on screen, even with the comic-like touches of white blood and random suspension of the laws of physics. The only good things: Bruce Willis’ scar and Jessica Alba’s hotness. But why wasn’t her totally Freudian decision to become an exotic dancer and her obsession with Willis’ character more aknowledged for the unhealthy fixation on her near childhood rape that it was? Because then we wouldn’t be able to enjoy watching her come-on to him? Well, and this coming from someone who has almost no ability to suspend disbelief, that whole little plot-line was just, bothersome. Then again, kinky sexual fixations and gratuitous violence are what comic books do best, so what was I expecting?

if I knew, then I wouldn’t be asking “wikihow” May 18, 2006

I find this little manual about telling the difference between love and lust a bit problematic. SPecifically, there seems to be a crucial step missing between #1 and #2. How, exactly, do I figure out whether “butterflies” is love or lust?, in order to properly color code it? And if I could readily distinguish which of my various feelings fell under each category, wouldn’t I already have determined the nature of my feelings as well? My favorite suggestion is to “read literature and scriptures on the topic”.

I’m going to write my own manual: How to Know the Difference Between Agape and Eros.

people who practice contraception hate children! May 10, 2006

It seems fated that I should see this and this on the same day. My favorite line from the latter: “So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception.” That’s funny, because I oppose all forms of conception by dogmatic and ignorant parents with stupidly spelled names. Oh, Judie, I think that means you.

I also have a personal beef with this issue, having seen so many women in the Orthodox Jewish community have children when they are either physically or mentally unfit to do so. These women so often feel intense pressure from the community that their role is to bring Jewish children into the world, ignoring the equally important duty to guard one’s own health. And I’m not talking about the universal strain of having children; I’m talking about women dying in childbirth because they ignored doctors’ repeated warnings, or women having nervous breakdowns (that they saw coming) rather than stick a piece of copper in their cervix. I mean, if a women wants to have 12 kids and is physically and emotionally up to the challenge, I am completely supportive of that choice. But to sanctimoniously pop out babies that cannot be cared for or loved as they deserve is a great disservice to everyone involved.

And, BTW, when a women is pregnant, there is no chance for conception, yet a husband and wife still sleep together. Dirty!

Oh, and also, how the hell can you be against contraception and abortion? It’s like being against marriage counseling and divorce. Come on, pick one!

MI:3 = truman capote is one vindictive bastard! May 9, 2006

Okay, yeah, we saw it. We were just looking for a mindless, popcorn, date movie. So it was this or “United 93″. Philip Seymor Hoffman was so awesome! He seemed so calmly annoyed and put-out as he exacted his pathological revenge on Scientology Boy. I’m sure anyone else would have done that villian much more over-the-top, but he was just the perfect foil to Cruise’s creepy brand of unrelenting chipperness.

All in all, though, it just played like a two-hour “Alias” gender bender. I mean, silicone identity-stealing masks, hiding your true identity from the ones you love, drawing off-duty agents into the field with human bait, a world-ending device, a mole in the agency, and a nerdy techie. I have to say that I did enjoy the Jonathan Rhys-Meyer eye-candy, though. Nice work, J.J.

out of the frying pan, into the fire

A friend of mine recently told a story that ended in her finding a nasty white crust in a pair of pants she had just purchased. That’s not the point. The point is, part of her story involved a side comment, thrown off with the haste that only authority can bring, that, of course, one has to wear a thong when one is wearing dress pants, so as to not show a panty line. Seeing that this person has been with me since my “wearing my brother’s old jeans and a size large GAP hoodie” stage, I took this statement for the fact that it seemed to be.

Well, let me add an addendum to this rule: wear a thong with dress pants, unless you have a big ole, kickin’ up dust booty like me! Perhaps this method works for the tiny-tushies and the flat-backs, but to me it just looks like I forgot to wear underwear. I guess we could argue which is worse: panty lines (and even the possibility of a visible, bunched up wedgie), or the “pants wedgie” that seems to be an inextricable part of wearing underwear with no back. But that does not change the fact that, for today, I am making my students pass out all of my handouts so that I never have to turn around and risk them seeing my backside.

Thankfully, I have just enough self confidence to stick it out for the rest of the school day, rather than claim that one of my children slipped and fell on the pool deck at school and is being rushed to the emergency room and my lesson plans are on the desk thank you so much of course I will call and let you know how she is as soon as I get to the hospital.

I guess it’s just another thing to add to the list of things you wish you had taken care of before you got to work, along with shaving your legs and using Static Guard.

being rachel klein May 3, 2006

Y’ever feel like you got on the stupid train and the next exit is tomorrow? That was my afternoon. You know when you hear yourself talking and you think: “Self, you are not being articulate; you sounds stupid; stop talking; awkward silence would be better than this; please stop.” Well, if you’re me, you hear that voice, and it’s just a dare. You want me to shut up? I’m not intimidated by you, internal “stupid filter”! I will keep stringing together semi-coherent clumps of clauses and malinformed half-statements until my apendages grow cold after all of the blood in my body has rushed into my red-hot cheeks. Okay, I’ll stop now.

I think it’s the closest thing I have to addiction in my life (apart from the obsessive mangling of the skin on my thumbs). I tell myself not to, but that silence comes, or I just have a thought and I just want to say it. Not to hear myself talk, or because I think I’m so smart; just because it’ll be fun for a second to “throw that out there”. Then the high is gone and there’s the let-down, the self-loathing, the need to do it again.

I need to buy something on ebay…

overheard in hyde park May 2, 2006

“If I can keep out of hell, he says he’ll keep me out of jail.”

-57th and Kimbark

this just in: looking at Jessica Alba makes you stupider May 1, 2006

I filtched this article on how sexual images make men irrational from yosefblog and am using it for my own dastardly purposes. Please note the following quote: “The researchers are conducting similar tests with women. But so far, they have failed to find a visual stimulus which will affect their behaviour*.”

Wait, you mean that men and women really do have different mechanisms at work in their sexuality? Not that watching Kiefer (or Jennifer Garner, for that matter) kick butt doesn’t get me worked up, but I could still solve a sudoku puzzle afterward, or at least properly fold and sort laundry.

*Edited out of the article was the following line: “They are still looking into the possibility that different colours or flavours of cookeys might play a role.” (source: BBC)