accidental feminist

the big easy= i’ll have a muffalata w/ dennis quaid filling July 30, 2007

Wow. This movie did for Dennis Quaid in my mind what the combination of “Chicago” did for Richard Gere, and “Evita” did for Antonio Banderas. I’m sure that makes perfect sense. Of course you understand that I mean that, like seeing Richard Gere in “Chicago”, watching Quaid in “The Big Easy” actually made me respect an actor who I had previously thought was just a two-bit romantic comedy hack. Not to say that “The Big Easy” wasn’t a two-bit (okay, maybe three-bit) romantic comedy, but, man, his Creole accent really rocked it! He had that perfect can’t-put-your-finger-on-it, sort-of-Southern, sort-of-French thing going, and he was working it. Was he born with that? If not, wow. If so, how that he was able to ditch it for every other movie he made? Oh, yes, Antonio Banderas. Well, before I saw “Evita”, I didn’t understand why everyone thought he was so sexy. Now I do. And I now, too, understand why Dennis Quaid has that reputation for women about a decade older than me. I mean, the movie pretty much was just a vehicle for him to prance around naked, or, better, in nothing but lightly washed jeans (so 80s!).

I would like to stop here to comment on what a dearth of pictures there are of both james spader having his hair caressed from behind and dennis quaid shirtless on the Internets. Well, rent the movie (either one) if you want to know what I’m talking about.

So between this and “In Good Company” (I love me some Topher Grace), I’m almost ready to forgive Mr. Quaid for the debacle that was “Innerspace”. And for allowing Dane Cook to sort of look like him (toggle between these two until they merge into one).

tiny classified ads… July 26, 2007

This book stinks of the worst kind of financial self-help dung. I refuse to read it, based on the following assumptions that it makes:
* Anyone can get rich if they follow it.
* Work sucks and is only a means to an end (read: leisure, which in Ferriss’s case, involves riding motorcycles and dancing the tango); work can never be productive, fulfilling, or meaningful in its own right, while at the same time providing you income.
* Any business paradigm that can be made into an acronym must work!

As for his call to read Thoreau’s “Walden”, Thoreau would actually be disgusted by Ferriss’s disconnect between his preferred activities and the unsavory labor he avoids. Yes, Thoreau called for minimalism, and not to be a slave to your “work”, but he also lived on about $50 for an entire year and built his house with his bare hands.

This excerpt of a review on amazon sums it up: “This is an easy read. Althought I am a slooooow and easily distracted reader, I finished the book from cover-to-cover in a few sittings. I even spent some time researching the weblinks but didn’t do all the challenges because I was eager to absorb all the ideas first.”

Ooh…I just got another idea for making passive income: write a crappy-ass, over-simplified get-rich-quick book and watch it go on the bestseller list. I’m tossing around this one: “Mommy Millions: How To Exploit Your Bundle of Joy”. I’ve already raked in free churros at Taste of Chicago, extra lollipops at the dry cleaners, and child-sized hipster bracelets at craft fairs using my fool-proof method, which simply involves having cute children.

sex, lies, and videotape July 23, 2007

This is what I have learned about James Spader* so far this summer:
1. He can cure any woman of any type of sexual dysfunction.
2. He looks incredibly sexy when he lets a woman come up behind him and run her fingers through his beautiful blond hair while he succumbs to the intense, erotic sensuality of such a simple yet intimate act.

*Again, and for the record: all references to James Spader’s sexiness are pre-Boston Legal, in which he rides on the laurels of his previous sexiness that has been embedded in our collective cultural consciousness. And good for him! I can only aspire to embed anything about me into our collective cultural consciousness.

british women lie! July 22, 2007

I’m not exactly sure what the point of this article is, because I’m distracted by the amusing little bits of British idiom sprinkled throughout. “The National Scruples and Lies Survey 2004 also found plenty of porkies were told over the Christmas period.” My Lord, really!? Porkies!? Good heavens! “A quarter (23%) would “sneak a bottle or two” home if they were invited to a party by a well-off friend.” I dare say! What a scandal!

I’m pretty sure the conclusion is as I have indicated: British women lie; 47% more than their American counterparts. And they’re constantly “getting off with someone they don’t fancy”! Bloody disgraceful!

(thanks to yb for the link!)

why smart women make perfectly normal money decisions July 19, 2007

That’s going to be the follow-up title to this little gem that is currently in my bathroom. It will include such case studies as:

1. You get a shirt from anthropologie as a birthday gift. It is too big, so you go to return it. You only have a $50 credit, but when you get there, you see a $118 skirt that is perfect! You figure that since the $50 for the shirt is like “free money”, and you’d buy the skirt anyway if it were $50, you can spend $50 + $50 now. That only comes to $100, but since you would definitely pay $18 for such an awesome skirt, you are willing to pay $18 (the amount over the original investment as you have now calculated it) and buy the skirt. Good for you!

2. You buy a pair of shoes that are slightly uncomfortable but totally cute for $100. You wear them out four times, and they’re just not working, but you’ve already scuffed them and you’ve lost the receipt, so you’re sure the store won’t take them back. You justify the purchase retroactively by considering that they cost $25 each time you wore them, which was less than you spent on dinner and drinks every time you went out, which isn’t bad. And, since you only spent $25 on them, you figure you owe it to yourself to buy a new pair of shoes that fits better. You find a perfect pair of shoes for $125, and figure that since you already spent $100 on bad shoes, you should spend at least that on good shoes, and accept the extra $25 as the price you will have to pay for quality. Nice move!

3. You always keep a $50 return waiting in a UPS package in your trunk so that if you ever find something you really like that’s around $50 when you happen to be at the mall, you can justify the purchase by promising that today is the day you will make it over to the UPS drop box, thereby claiming your $50 of free money. Sounds sensible to me!

If any of the above scenarios sound familiar, you need my book, in which I justify all of the above behaviors and more as completely rational and normal, and totally go off on anyone who says they’re not by claiming that such people are unhealthily frugal or simply don’t want you to enjoy life.

and that, kids, is freedom of speech… July 17, 2007

But really, do my four and five year old daughters have to be subjected to 4 foot tall posters of botched abortions? Just a question. And the funny thing is, all these people did is turn my negative feelings toward the images they were showing onto them for sticking them in my face and the faces of my already-born children. And, by the way, the girls were totally nonplussed by the images, if perhaps a bit curious. Look, we’ve all been in that stairwell at The Museum of Science and Industry. My four year old daughter tears the wings off of butterflies just to see what they look like inside, for God’s sake. And then my five year old remarks to me that “it was sad that the butterfly died, but I guess it’s good because I got to see what the inside looks like”. So you know what, you just keep bringing it on, Sister Margaretta!

johnna mink: the susan b. anthony of pole dancing July 16, 2007

Please, someone comment when this video can be found online, because it was hi-la-ri-ous! Why do these people not realize that Stephen Colbert will make them look foolish, foolish, foolish? Of course, Johnna is probably having the last laugh as her enrollment triples tomorrow. And for those of you who did not find any irony in suggesting that pole dancing is empowering, knock yourself out.

And, really, on a serious note: I’m all for sexual empowerment. I’m all for owning the sensuality of your body. But let’s look, for example, at the skills the above mentioned website claims you will gain from its videos: “Learn basic to complex exotic moves, lap dance, floor work, chair dance, walking with confidence, pole dance choreographies, more than 30 poses on the pole. As well as, over 30 exotic tricks and spins that will help you move sensually around the pole.” Of all of these, there might be one (walking with confidence) that is not a complete fabrication of the male-invented and dominated sex-entertainment trade. Perhaps if they were to tell me that my new skills could translate into more universal activities, such as exiting a car with pizazz, or being able to arouse lust when picking up change off the street, or driving men wild as I jumped the superfluous ropes and bars in line on a slow day at Great America, I might be interested. But all this is about is what the husband of one of the women in Johnna’s class said best: I think it’s great to say that pole dancing is feminist because then it doesn’t make us look like pigs for watching it.

Note: Only after publishing did I realize that I have two Colbert posts in a row. Well, I can’t hide my biases…

old news: colbert on o’reilly July 10, 2007

I know this is old, but I happened to stumble across it just now (I had seen O’Reilly on Colbert when it aired), and I was absolutely blown away by the morbidity of the lack of studio audience. That said, listen for the uncontrolled laughter that intermittently emanates from, who, the interns? The key grip? Someone out there behind the cameras cannot keep it together. For more interesting musing on laugh tracks, check this out, or just watch “Arrested Development” and ask yourself if it would have been canceled if they had just prostituted themselves and thrown in a couple of guffaws.

I also liked the comment on one website I found in my research that suggested that we be conscious of the fact that, in many cases, the laughs we are hearing on laugh tracks are those of dead people. Hee hee!

big night on “big love” July 9, 2007

Edited version:Yosef says this needs a “spoiler alert”. This is because he is less self-centered and generally less of a d-bag than me…

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is this some sort of cruel joke? July 4, 2007

I’m sorry, but who ever heard of a 4th of July parade where they don’t throw candy at the children, or at least hand our key chains, or even paper fans with company logos on them? Evanston Township, you’re on serious notice. And just so you know what I had to resort to because of your thoughtlessness, no, your downright Un-American-ness, Evanston, I was forced to conduct a one-woman parade for my children when we got home, where I did handstands and made balloon animals while throwing them marshmallows and fruit roll-ups. Right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, indeed!