accidental feminist

Tout Va Bien = thank god for the skip feature on dvds… September 29, 2007

…that way, Yosef and I could check at 10 minute intervals to see if there was ever going to be a plot. The answer… after this ten minute rant about the capitalist oligarchy. And this one. And this one. Oh look, a picture of a woman holding a penis. Oh, now it’s another ten minute lecture on the oppression of the workers by the petit bourgeois. I’m sure this was just fascinating and groundbreaking and shocking and brilliant in 1972. But now it’s just sort of sad, mostly boring. And, really, I don’t mind a little slice of “remember when…” every now and then. Wall Street was dated, too, but at least it had fun features like Daryl Hannah in a wet suit, an apartment with splatter paint walls, and a reference to “Sean and Madonna”’s apartment.

Or maybe I just missed the revolution…

mazel tov! September 27, 2007

stevereed is a friend and long-time AF-er. He also just became a Daddy! Looks like someone needs to register the url “accidentalmisogynist.com” and start blogging about his precocious daughter! I’ll totally link you, dude!

has it really been ten days…

…since my last post? Oh, my, well, it is the holiday season for us Jews, so you’ll have to (read: you are Divinely obligated to) forgive me . Here’s some holiday-time highlights:

*At Yom Kippur services, Yosef took the girls into the hall for a breather. They’re playing a game: you say a word, and the next person has to say a word that starts with the letter that yours ended with. Yosef starts:

Yosef: Panda.

Bassie: Apothecary.

and…scene.

*Me, Bassie, and Dina are in the car.

Dina: Bassie, what’s 888+9?

Bassie: (thinks for a minute) 898.

Me: Hmm…are you sure?

Bassie: (Indignant) Yes, Mommy.

Me: But, why does it still end in an 8?

Bassie: Mommy! You are not a math expert like me and Daddy!

Okay, Bassie, just make sure to check your work…

and she went to yale! September 16, 2007

Hey, hey, look at this. For once my ranting is not simply a self-righteous and exclusively anecdotally-supported twist on conventional wisdom. Or, at least, it is, but it’s supported by an Oscar winning actress. So there!

wait, have I told you this story?

The line between my blog-life and my real-life blurs when I am unable to remember whether I just told a lot of people this very amusing story about bassie or if I actually blogged it. I don’t seem to see it in my archives, so stop me if you’ve heard this one…

It is a quiet ride home from wherever I’ve been with the kids. Bassie suddenly speaks up just as we’re pulling up to the house:

Bassie: Mommy, I just want you to know…when I’m older …(pause) like in high school…(pause) and I’m out with my boyfriend…(pause) and we’re having a good time…(pause) I might not get home till late.

Me: Oh, okay. Well, Bassie, I just want you to know that there’s this thing called curfew, and it’s illegal for a minor to be out after like 11 PM on a school night or 12 AM on the weekends, but as long as I know you’re save, that will probably be okay. Is your boyfriend going to be nice to you?

Bassie: I wouldn’t be going out with him if he wasn’t nice.

Me: Yeah, so if he was mean to you, you’d just break up with him?

Bassie: Yeah, like if he made me, like, do chores, like doing the dishes or something…

Me: Yeah, like that.

i blame disney! September 12, 2007

That’s right. It’s time for me to come out to the whole world with my “anti-Disney” smear campaign. (insert old Southern lady voice here): Used to be you worked your way up to Hollywood. You made in on Broadway first as a starlet, then, if you got lucky, made the big leap to film. You worked the Catskills until some big time Jewish producer vacationed there one summer and saw “something special” in you. You ran the burlesque circuit until you became someone’s mistress ans he got you a break. (end voice) Then came the 90s, where all you had to do was be cast as a perky nymphette in The New Mickey Mouse Club or a remake of an old childhood classic. And that’s when the “starlette breeding” began. Get ‘em young and naive; and I’m not talking Eve Harrington young; eleven, twelve. They’re star-struck. They’re parents are easily won over with talk of saving away a little nest egg for college tuition or vacations to the Bahamas. Of course, you have to find one with inherent sex appeal, the kind that will, you hope, if you plan to get a return on your investment, blossom with her budding breasts. That’s right, don’t think for a second that the casting agents aren’t thinking long-term on that one.

And then, when they reach the age of consent, throw them to the wolves. Claim you wash your hands of them, that they don’t “represent the Disney image” anymore. Then continue to laugh your way to the bank every time “The Parent Trap” is played on cable.

And we just eat it up; buying their chaste/untouchable sex kitten image until they go and do exactly what we’ve been implicitly asking them to do all along, which is make a spectacle of themselves, and then act shocked.

You! You are responsible for this*, Michael Eisner! You!

*Now why do you think Viacom wouldn’t want that sweet little video of the Britster’s amazing comeback floating around the Internets?

stranger than disco? September 7, 2007

Whilst at my desk earlier today, I heard music. It was coming from my colleague’s headphones. It was the Bee Gees; “More Than a Woman”. Later, I went to pick up some challah for the upcoming Sabbath. As I entered the bakery, what should be playing, but “Night Fever”, also by the Bee Gees; also from the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack (as all good Bee Gees songs are). It was as though I were in some meta-retro romantic comedy docudrama where the ghost of John Travolta is following me (even though he’s still alive) and I am reliving the whole film, but as a 21st century female protagonist, trying to fix the mistakes his character made the first time around. If only I had listened to Joey when he said he was in trouble. If only I hadn’t let my friends gang bang that sweet girl (btw: one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in all of cinema). If only…if only…if only I hadn’t been in “Michael”. Sigh…

dina brings it! September 5, 2007

Now that yosefblog is home from a harrowing summer in the mean streets of Cambridge, he gets to hear little gems like these:

Dina: (emerging from her bedroom an hour after bedtime) I can’t sleep.

yosefblog: What do you need?

Dina: To sleep in your bed.

yb: My bed?! That’s so crazy!

Dina: No, Daddy; it’s not crazy enough!

corollary to dina’s first rule of monotony September 2, 2007

“I’m so bored of having to get gas all the time.”

‘Going to the bathroom’ is surely next…