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I was all set today to do a post about how last night's episode of Smash had made me really enjoy the show again, largely due to something revealed about one of the gay characters, when lo and behold, I wake up this morning to the news that the President is supportive of same-gender marriage! I have to say--I think this is incredibly brave of him to make a statement like this so far before the election (although it may also be calculated to be buried by many other issues between now and November, but what the hell, HE IS ON THE RECORD NOW!) and I hope that this doesn't hurt his chances of re-election, especially since all the GOP wants to do is turn back the clock to the Bad Old Days of no unions, no social security, no social programs, no anything that people need who are the 99% instead of the 1%, etc. Romney isn't as heartless as Ron Paul is (pretty much the most positive thing I can say about him), but he is otherwise a pretty typical Republican, and that means nothing good for marriage equality, reproductive freedom and many other issues the GOP regularly attacks and attempts to destroy.
Our church had a table/tent at our city's "SundayOUT" celebration again this year, a few days ago, and as always, when we're at a venue like this, there are always people in the gay community who are surprised that a church is there not to try to convert people but just to let people know that there is a church (well, really more than one--lots of houses of worship!) fully supportive of sexual minorities being full, active members of the faith community. And perhaps one reason so many people are still surprised by this, even though the marriage equality movement began in houses of worship, where clergy have been blessing same-gender unions for over thirty years without the benefit of legal recognition, is that television portrayals of religiously-observant gay characters have been almost non-existent during that same period of time. Now, it's not that there are many characters of ANY orientation being depicted as religiously observant, but of those who are, almost none have been sexual minorities.
I can think of only a handful of gay characters on shows that I've watched who were depicted as religious in (somewhat) recent memory: 1) Rickie Vasquez, in My So-Called Life (a devout Catholic); David Fischer and his partner, in Six Feet Under (they attended, at different times during the series, both the Episcopal church also attended by David's mother, which may or may not have had a gay rector, and another church of unclear denomination but possibly MCC that was predominantly populated by other sexual minorities); and--that's all I can think of, until 3) Sam Strickland of Smash, a gay black man whose parents are supportive of that aspect of his life (if not as supportive of his show-biz job, which they see as unstable) and whose family welcomes him and his boyfriend Tom into their home and their predominantly black Boston church. (I loved that it wasn't actually a very integrated church--it was a very traditional-seeming black church that happened to be welcoming to Sam.)
In Monday night's episode it is simply a non-issue that Sam is gay and singing in the church service. No one in that sanctuary was about to preach an anti-gay sermon or tell Sam and Tom to leave. And Sam's character would never claim that God didn't love him as much as anyone else, as the writers on Glee had Kurt say. Now mind you, other people were trying to shove their religions down Kurt's throat during a very stressful time, evidently going by the philosophy that there are no atheists in foxholes. (If you're an atheist, all it takes is a crisis in your life to make you a believer! Didn't you know?) His personal feelings about religion didn't matter to anyone trying to push their coping methods on him.
Obviously, it's not as if many, many gay people haven't been on the receiving end of horrifying homophobia masquerading as "loving" religious people trying to "save" them, which really ends up being a message of Not Good Enough. It happens all of the time. But you know what? There's no reason Kurt's character couldn't have been depicted as an atheist simply because--that's what he believed. No connection to his orientation. It didn't have to be because of his being gay. And ONE PERSON could have told him that their house of worship didn't preach the gay-is-evil party line. (Also--one person who was religious could have refrained from beating Kurt over the head with their religion!) But no. Instead Kurt gets hijacked to a church service against his will, which is okay, even though not a single character asserts that not all churches are anti-gay, because there's music at the church, and he likes music! Who cares if this isn't what he believes? It's an opportunity to have a gospel choir sing on the show, so yay! *
Smash handled the sexual-minorities-and-religion issue by basically not MAKING it an issue. Which is as it should be, in an ideal world.
Like marriage equality.
Thank you, Mr. President, for sticking your neck out on this issue. +
* This episode of Smash was also an opportunity to have a gospel choir sing, as well as to have Katherine McPhee sing with a gospel choir, but it all made SENSE, unlike the Glee episode, because with the exception of Tom, who is Jewish (and therefore he has an excellent excuse to decline to go to a church), no one was talked into going to the service, and churches are in fact places where singing takes place. With the exception of the Bollywood number, the musical set pieces in Smash are all pretty well-justified in the show, something else Smash does a million times better than Glee.
+ I was also very proud of the President for mentioning atheists in his inaugural address. If possible, it is a group even more reviled in our country than sexual minorities. As a person of faith who is very well acquainted with many people of no faith who are incredibly moral, principled people without benefit of religion, I think it is ridiculous to continue to perpetuate the myth that being an atheist means having absolutely no ethics or moral standards. My father was one of the most principled people I ever knew, and he was an atheist from the age of 12 to his death at 83.Current Mood:  pleased |
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I enjoyed reading this, which includes the fabulous Maurissa Tancharoen (Joss Whedon's sister-in-law). At first, however, I was perusing the list, wondering where Aseem Batra and Mindy Kaling were (see icon!). But now, rather than feeling like they were left out, I feel that this is kind of a good thing--there were so many successful women of color that they couldn't all get into a list of 10! (If there were ONLY ten or even twelve, which there aren't, that would be horrifying, don't you think?) And perhaps people think Mindy's so successful now she doesn't need a boost like this list--so many people know who she is. And Aseem Batra has won the Humanitas Prize, among other things.
So--cheers to those on the list and off it! Perhaps the real test of progress will be when it just seems silly to have such a list, because the people behind the cameras of film and television shows are so diverse... We're not there yet, obviously, but here's hoping. :)Current Mood:  contemplative |
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...on tonight's episode of Smash.
( Read more... )Current Mood:  awake |
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For some reason, "Hello, My Baby" popped into my head a moment ago and I realized that, decades after hearing this repeatedly while watching Looney Tunes, I still remember all the words. To double check that I was actually right, I found this on YouTube:
Yup. I knew all of the words the frog sings. And, as one of the comments mentions, I'm one of those people who will just burst into song singing this at random times. (Okay, when I'm ALONE, usually.)
Some really weird things just stick with you, don't they? I mean--all this time, and I still have brain space devoted to this. WHY? It's not a lot of space, mind you, but I can pull this out whenever I want and it's just--there. I have to look up my kids' social security numbers every time I'm filling out financial aid paperwork for them, but THIS I remember. Go figure.Current Mood:  bouncy |
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1. Chris, Rachel and I are in the early stages of the sixth season of Lost, but not watching an episode tonight because she's at the high school with her best friend, attending their film festival. Chris has already seen all six seasons and keeps assuring us, "It never stops getting weirder," every time we insist it has gotten the weirdest it POSSIBLY CAN.
2. Also watching the UK "Being Human" (I never did hear good things about the US version, so I'm not bothering). I'm always interested to see how different fantasy universes treat vampires. (These don't sparkle but they can go out in daylight. :D) I really love Annie's character, and god, how I HATE HATE HATE Owen now. Blergh. And I love Mitchell's greyness and conflicted nature, and George's voice going up an octave when he gets overexcited and flustered. I love all three of them. :hugs:
3. Following Smash on Hulu. Most recent episode was sort of "meh", except for the musical number that was supposed to be taking place in a steam room. Derek's accent is SO Alan Rickman it's hard for me not to picture him doing this when younger. But--Uma Thurman? Really? She's kind of a giant. Around 6' tall. I liked her in the film of The Producers, but how are these fictional producers thinking she's physically right for the part? Anjelica Huston continues to be my favorite part of the show and poor Ivy's become very, very sad to me. Not sure whether her friendship with Karen is genuine or not. She (and Karen) also seem unclear about this. Ellis is annoying me again. (I feel kind of hot and cold about him from episode to episode.)
4. As if I'm not watching enough, I'm also working my way through the first season of Carnivale. I'm finding it very different from what I'm writing (for the most part). And I'm not doing a Depression-era book. And mine is both a circus and carnival (and NO hooch tent). I'm interested to see where they're going with the supernatural elements of the show. It's nice to see Tim DeKay again, and Clea Duvall. And I totally did not realize at first that Adrienne Barbeau was playing Ruthie--I haven't seen her in anything in ages! (I used to watch Maude as a kid.) So--it's kind of weird. But still not as weird as Lost.
5. I'm off now to check out some music on YouTube. For a writing soundtrack, I'm trying to find songs about circuses and carnivals. I've got a list of 25 circus songs so far and 25 carnival songs. At the risk of getting a bunch of recs of things I already have, do you know of any you can recommend?
6. Yes, I'm glad to hear that JK Rowling has a book coming out this year. No, I hadn't heard before reading about it in the paper. (Although I see now that a lot of you have mentioned it on your journals.) The reasons that I plan to buy it and expect to enjoy it are that, considering the subject matter and our knowledge of her taste in literature, I expect it to have some good, snarky humor, well-drawn characters and an interesting plot. And because it's not aimed at kids, I feel like she won't be editing certain topics out of its pages, as previously.
7. Rachel and I saw The Hunger Games film. While I found the books okay and interesting (and managed to get past the annoying writing style to get to the plotty stuff) I found the film to be far superior chiefly because it wasn't limited to Katniss's first-person limited PoV (and present-tense narration). Getting to see a lot more of what was going on, especially behind the scenes, was a big plus for me. It's also clear that Suzanne Collins is both able to see the benefits of doing things like this very differently in a film, as opposed to a book, but also values keeping her hand in a project like this, since she has both a screenwriting and producer's credit on the film. I'm looking forward to the sequels to the first film much more than I looked forward to reading the sequels to the first book, and that's saying something.
8. What I'm actually reading right now, fictionally-speaking, is Les Miserables. So--that'll take me a while. (I've just reached the bit describing the battle of Waterloo, so if you know the book you know I'm still in the relatively early stages.) Also reading some non-fiction about design in nature. (Not as "intelligent-design" as it sounds, and in fact refuting that soundly.) And I quickly read Mindy Kaling's book, which was fun. I've passed it on to Rachel to read now--we both enjoy her so much!
That feels like enough randomness for now...Current Mood: awake |
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So, I sort of inadvertently stopped posting on my LJ. I don't really remember when or why, perhaps just being busy with real life to the extent that reading and posting on LJ suddenly felt like a chore I couldn't face at the end of every day--and if you ever feel that way about some sort of activity that's purely optional, you should probably skip it, yes? So I did.
Here are a few things that have been keeping me busy:
1. Watching Stuff
This covers a lot of things. For instance, I started off watching the first season of Lost on DVD because we own them (they actually belong to Ben) and then Chris started rewatching it with me (he's seen the whole series) and then Rachel started joining us (although she needs to get caught up on parts of season two). We're really plowing through it now and are about halfway through season five. We'll sometimes watch two or even three episodes after dinner, which can take up to two hours. And considering that we're using my computer, hooked up to the new television we got last year, to stream episodes on Netflix, my computer is already monopolized by that and this makes it somewhat difficult to also post to or read LJ at the same time. (In fact, perhaps the whole not-doing-LJ so much can be directly blamed on our now having a TV with HDMI ports and my computer being the only one in the house we've managed to hook up to it successfully.)
Other viewing has included: Friday Night Lights (with Rachel), White Collar (also with Rachel) and Smash! (on my own so far, but Rachel's getting caught up, since all of the episodes are on Hulu). I also rewatched Buffy seasons 1-4 (and then rewatched 5-7), plus I just finished Angel season 1 again, all because of following along with Mark Watches.
2. Kid School Stuff
By which I mean college. Ben got into Temple's business school--yay! He's basically been doing an after-the-fact gap year post-UBC and has decided that he eventually wants to start his own business, hence applying to business school. He even got financial aid! We've sent the deposit to secure his place and we're just hoping that this time he can buckle down and be more focused on his classes than when we was off on his own in Canada. The fact that he's been trying to get work in the last year and finding that it's pretty horribly difficult when you don't have a degree might mean he's a little more motivated than he was previously. Here's hoping, anyway.
Rachel got into four of the six schools she applied to. In chronological order, they are Simmons College, Swarthmore, NYU (Gallatin) and Sarah Lawrence. She didn't get into Brown and was wait-listed by Barnard, but none of that really matters because NYU was her first choice, and they gave her an amazing scholarship that actually means, along with Ben's financial aid, that despite essentially sending both of our kids to college as freshman this coming September, we won't need to take out loans! Since we got out of debt a couple of years ago we've really been socking away money for their college fund, which I'd much rather do than take out loans, if we can help it.
One of things I've been doing while viewing things (no computer required) is working out a pretty precise schedule of how much money we'll need to set aside when during the next four years to pay for school, on the assumption of annual tuition increases of around 10% and financial aid packages that keep pace, percentage-wise, with what they've been awarded for the coming academic year. If those financial aid packages change drastically we could eventually end up making use of loans after all, but right now, my projections show us being able to eke out what we need without that. (It really doesn't hurt at all that Rachel got such a sweet deal from NYU!) So--filling out FAFSA applications for both kids and the CSS Profile for six schools for Rachel and dealing with a lot of extra paperwork for Swarthmore was also taking up a lot of my time for a while. (At least next year we just need to do it for Temple and NYU, not for five other schools too!)
3. House projects
Something I can do while my computer is being used for streaming to the television is draw and make lists, which I often do during the entire time we're also watching something. Recently work we've had done on the house includes: having all of the water-damaged plaster in the bay-window area of the bedroom ripped down and replaced (although the decorative plaster cornice won't be replaced until next week); having the water-damaged plaster in the dining room ripped out, revealing the 90-year-old waste pipe for our bathroom (right above the dining room), on the verge of collapse; having the old waste pipe for our bathroom replaced at the same time as fixing the waste pipe for the 3rd floor laundry AND at the same time as having a new bathroom sink and toilet installed; replacing the damaged wall (and fixing a hole in the ceiling from previous water-related mishaps in the bathroom) in the dining room after completion of all of the plumbing projects; shelves built into a very wide 3rd floor closet that can now be painted and organized for a lot of household items; a linen cupboard being built with salvaged doors and a drawer, such that the cabinet fits exactly at the top of the old back stairs, which we haven't used for over ten years because they are unsafe. Coming soon: new windows for the first floor front room that will eventually be our new kitchen.
4. Massively Reworking the Current Writing Project
As in pretty completely changing my world-building to avoid what seems to me now to be blatant cultural appropriation, which I didn't see for the last five years (when I originally conceived of the project). I'm having to redo pretty much all of my world's "bible", lexicon, and a ton of the characters' backstories. This will continue to keep me busy for some time before I can go back to the eight chapters I already wrote (out of twenty-one) and incorporate the many changes necessary to reflect the world-building changes.
So--as you might imagine, this is all keeping me pretty busy. I've also been looking at some favorite home-project and decorating blogs, and rereading some of my fanfiction (tearing apart some stuff pretty mercilessly to learn from my mistakes, while preserving what I think was pretty well done to remember it and try to duplicate the success of those parts in my original fiction). I'm reading through Replay now, which was pretty darn long, so that'll take a while.
I hope you all are doing well. Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes on Facebook. I'll hop on there tomorrow to thank folks properly. I've been absent from Facebook even longer than from LJ, but that's because I have philosophical problems with the way Facebook operates (problems I don't have with LJ). I hope to check out LJ more often and even post more often, but I think in order to do so I just have to look on it as a lark, not a chore. I have enough chores already (and am looking at a summer of constant painting projects around the house, now that I have all of this repaired and primed new plaster in the house).
What are you all up to?Current Mood: awake |
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While I was eating breakfast I felt like I was in an episode of Supernatural. Not because our house is haunted or my husband was possessed by a demon, but because of the music being played by the plumbers who are here digging out and replacing the pipe our rainwater is dumped into by our yard drain and downspout. (This is the pipe from 1920 that cracked and spewed water all over the basement floor, shorting out the fan on our almost-new furnace, which left us without heat for five days, made me sick enough that I couldn't sing on Christmas Eve and cost $750 to repair.)
When I mentioned to my husband at breakfast that it was like being in an episode of Supernatural he responded, "Maybe we are."
I immediately raised my eyebrow at him and said, "I certainly hope not," and after a moment's thought, he agreed. We really don't want anything supernatural emerging from our basement or where the plumber is digging up our yard!
So, during the last two weeks, when the masons were here we got to listen to that work crew singing along to Lady Gaga (no, I am not making this up) and now it's like we're reliving the last seven seasons of the Supernatural soundtrack. Who knew masons and plumbers had such divergent musical tastes?
At any rate, now that I'm upstairs on the second floor (instead of right above the basement, in the dining room), I can't hear the plumbers' soundtrack, only Ben singing along to a Nikki Minaj remix in the shower. I, on the other hand, started listening to Kansas again after not thinking about their music much for 30 years. Does that mean that I'm a plumber at heart and Ben a mason? I don't know. When I'm cleaning I usually put on Vaughan Williams, not Kansas. Perhaps that makes me a carpenter at heart--I've encountered carpenters listening to classical music while working.
It remains to be seen heard what the plaster-repair guys will play while they work on fixing the dining room walls and ceiling. Anyone want to make any guesses?Current Mood:  curious |
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...and mine sucks. I'm supposed to sing O Holy Night during the Christmas Eve service tonight, and my nose is completely stuffed up and I can't breathe without my mouth open. Last night I just started sneezing at one point and couldn't stop for a few minutes. I must have sneezed thirty or forty times in a row, and since then I've been completely miserable.
The reason for this seems to be that our furnace stopped working and we hadn't noticed because the temperature hadn't dipped--until last night when I started sneezing. It probably stopped sometime Thursday night, when we had a really big storm. Evidently, the wasteline in our basement that the roof downspout feeds into (uphill from where the rest of the house wastewater goes) has a big hole in it, which caused the rainwater from Thursday night's storm to flood the basement floor, running downhill to the lowest point in the basement: right around the furnace. It got high enough (it's receded now to a very small puddle) that it shorted out the fan on the furnace, and if the fan isn't moving the hot air the furnace overheats and then automatically shuts itself off.
So we don't have heat until Monday, because the furnace guy needs to get a part for the shorted out fan from a supply house, and we have to hope it doesn't rain until after the plumber can come and replace the bad section of pipe that dumped rainwater all over the basement floor. There's no way I can sing tonight--I'm spending every moment blowing my nose. And the masons are supposed to be finishing work Monday, part of our ongoing Keep-Water-Out-of-the-House project (a close relative to the Repair-the-Water-Damage project).
I'm getting rather tired of the round of water infiltration meaning either having to do repairs to keep the water out and/or doing repairs resulting from water that's damaged our plaster, paint, wood floors and, in this case, our furnace. I'm also not thrilled that I've become sick because of this. The last time I had a cold like this was on the trip to Portland, which was triggered (again) by rampant sneezing. This is why I take my allergy medicine religiously, but sometimes something sneaks past my defenses. Argh.
I haven't missed a Christmas Eve service in--forever. But I need to tonight. It's just not happening.Current Mood:  annoyed |
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Help me out with a little something I'm trying to research for my current writing project?
The problem is this: I'm looking for locations (parks, abandoned lots, civic centers, ball parks, college stadiums, etc.) where a circus/carnival could/would be held in two SoCal locations: in the Rancho Cucamonga area and in the Westwood Village neighborhood of LA (or as close as possible to the Westwood Village neighborhood). I'm especially interested in there being a cemetery (Westwood Memorial Park would be perfect) within walking distance of the circus/carnival venue. Oh, and the circus/carnival would take place in the winter (this being SoCal), roughly from late January to late February (this isn't the sort of circus that winters in Florida). I don't know how much that really matters, but perhaps it would impact on a venue that was owned by UCLA, for instance.
Does anything come to mind for anyone who knows the area well? I've tried figuring this out via Googling, Wikipedia and Googlemaps, but I'm not terrifically happy with any of my findings thus far. I think I really need people on the ground who know the area.
Thanks!Current Mood: awake |
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1. I did not know this before reading Jim Hines' LJ yesterday, but it makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE than doing it any other way. I also did not know that there was an author with a flashing panties fetish. But I already did not have that author's works on my Christmas list, so it's all good over here.
2. Masons are working on the north side of our house for the foreseeable future. I believe that we will be providing Christmas for their families this year. It's rather noisy and begins at 7 am every day, right outside our bedroom windows, but we don't have a lot of choice; it's a matter of twenty years of deferred maintenance and we've had a lot of horrible water damage as a result of the poor pointing. After this project, we will be providing a summer vacation trip for the contractor repairing our water-damaged interior walls.
3. Suspension of disbelief is one thing when reading fiction, but I have a very difficult time when the characters are simply too stupid to live. And for once, I mean that literally. Not that I'm trying to give advice to terrorists, but you never threaten someone to get them to favor the precise place where you live, because that just means that you've told the authorities where to find you. Being impossible to find is kind of a major requirement if you're going to engage in certain types of activities, and if the goal is to preserve the place where you live that's pretty much shot to hell. As a result of this character/author stupidity, I feel the need to stop reading the book I just started last night. Well, that and the excessively violent murder that didn't need to happen if, well, the murderer weren't quite so stupid. Looking for other reading matter when I'm done posting this.
4. Now I don't just have to worry about my own house's maintenance issues, I have to worry about my church's, too (which is also my work). The boiler that works with the steam radiators on the ground floor (where my office is) and in the basement is on the fritz, and possibly should not have passed its inspection in September, it's so bad. It either needs to be completely taken apart and put back together (made more difficult by many rusty screws holding it together) or it needs to be replaced, although it's possible that part of the problem is a blocked chimney. No matter what, it's cold in most of the building until we get this dealt with (I have a small space heater in my office) and it will cost great gobs of money. I would say, "Not my money, though," except that in this case--it partially is. This is what I get for both being the office manager and on the Building Team.
5. The Community holiday episode is PURE GENIUS. I don't care if you don't usually watch this show--run, don't walk to Hulu now and WATCH IT. When Rachel and I were watching it, jaws dropped, all she could say repeatedly was, "WHAT IS THIS SHOW? HOW DOES IT EXIST?" (I hope you understand that she means that in a good way.) This is pure holiday crack. Watch it. Watch it NOW.
6. Received some holiday cards already. Niece Jennifer's family (handsome ex-Navy husband and four impossibly beautiful kids) still absolutely perfect and adorable. Michael Swanwick's card is very chic, very Anna Wintour, in a black envelope addressed in silver ink, with black snowflakes on the front of the card. But a cousin's card is--well, the only photos on it are of their dog who passed away this year at the age of 16. I know this because the dog's years are on the front of the card: 1995-2011. They usually have pictures of their kids. This was a lovely dog and all, but now I'm scared for what it might mean the next time they have a human on one of their cards...
7. Still working on painting the bathroom. Hope to finish the woodwork tomorrow. Feeling more and more like I'm writing this missive from a nineteenth-century safari. Send more paintbrushes and painter's tape.
ETA:
8. How much do I love George Takei for talking trash about Twilight? How much do I love George Takei in general?Current Mood: awake |
| » The revolution will not be televised--nor reported on in the local paper |
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A few interesting links:
Michael Swanwick's elegy for Anne McCaffrey
Ten vampire stories more romantic than Breaking Dawn
Fox news calls pepper spray a food product
And a video of retired Philadelphia police officer Raymond Lewis, who was arrested by the NYPD after he joined Occupy Wall Street:
His comments about the police wanting to "take out" the leaders of a group makes me wonder: who is that in the case of the Occupy movement? I hope when the police ask the groups, "Who is the leader here?" they respond, "ALL OF US!"
Additional note: There has been absolutely NO COVERAGE AT ALL on Captain Lewis's OWS activities in the Philadelphia Inquirer or Daily News. None. They do not acknowledge that he exists. The only "Ray Lewis" that comes up when you do a search on Philly.com (website for both the Inquirer and Daily News) is a Baltimore football player. You'd think the arrest of a retired Philadelphia police captain who has joined OWS and is being an outspoken, vocal critic of the NYPD would be front page news in Philadelphia.
Yeah. You'd think.
Nov. 23rd, 2011 @ 02:24 pm
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| » Artwell benefit and finding a home for art |
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So much has been going on lately I've had little time to spend on the computer posting about it! One fabulous thing was the Artwell benefit on Thursday night, celebrating ten years of work bringing people together through the arts. As one of the performers, I also got to see the rest of the show (our act was the closer), and I heard and saw one of the most amazing local groups, which I hadn't even known existed: The Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra. (One of the images on their home page doesn't load, but don't worry about that.)
Here's an example of what they do:
I'm not usually a huge fan of just drumming, but these guys were amazing. At times they had the whole audience clapping along, adding to the rhythms. And were they LOUD! (A video doesn't really do them justice.) They're supposed to be performing at the Painted Bride Art center in the spring, and now I really want to go hear them again! I think Chris would love it too--he's always been the percussion fan, and this would really blow him away, I think.
The rest of the program was mostly awards given to folks who've contributed in significant ways to Artwell (not just monetarily) and when the former pastor of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church was being thanked this was in the form of Suzanne DuPlantis singing "Simple Gifts" while accompanied on guitar by classical guitarist Allen Krantz. DuPlantis and Krantz have to be two of my favorite local performers; we'll never forget attending her AVA graduation recital (with Richard Troxell, an amazing tenor you can see in a fabulous film of Madama Butterfly, as well as someone I sang a Messiah concert with and used to run into at the grocery store). The two of them finished by singing "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better", which, after a couple of hours of classical arias, was both wonderfully refreshing and just the right injection of humor to top off the evening. I will also never forget the time we snagged tickets to an Allen Krantz recital at Jefferson Medical College that was one of the most beautiful performances I've ever attended.
I couldn't find a video of the two of them performing together, but I did find a video of Allen playing in a Dolce Suono concert I attended a couple of years ago at First Unitarian Church:
It was a fabulous evening and reminded me that I want to get out a lot more to live music performances!
About a week ago I saw a beautiful painting in the window of a second-hand store, thought the price was quite reasonable, and upon realizing that I didn't have enough money with me or the time to get the money, I forgot about it. Yesterday, on the way home, I saw that the painting was still there, and had been reduced in price (even though it was already cheap). I had enough time and money this time, so I bought it. On the front the artist's name is very clear: Dorothy Kaplan.
Well, after I caught the bus to my neighborhood, instead of going right home, I decided to get off a half-dozen blocks early and go to a local store for some orange juice and to pick up a chicken for dinner. Doing this while carrying a canvas about 24"x30" was a slight challenge, but I had a sturdy string shopping bag with me and the canvas was very light. After leaving the store and crossing Fairmount Avenue to walk home, a young couple stopped me upon seeing the canvas I was carrying.
"Wait--miss--that painting you're carrying," the young man said. "Is it a--"
"Dorothy Kaplan? Yes." I wondered for a moment if she was someone really famous. The name did actually ring a slight bell with me, but I wasn't sure why. (I still don't know why, because she's probably the same person as in this obit.)
"She's my aunt!" he said.
I told them that I'd just bought it at a second hand store and he was so happy to know someone had chosen it! I told him it would have a good home in Fairmount. (I didn't tell him that the two other Dorothy Kaplan paintings at the store hadn't appealed to me; it didn't seem relevant.)
What were the chances I'd decide, on a whim, to buy the painting yesterday, decide on a whim to stop at that store on the way home (normally I'd be a half-mile away) and then run into the artist's nephew? I feel like I say this a lot, but I'll say it again: only in Philadelphia. :D
Nov. 12th, 2011 @ 02:09 pm
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| » The latest in science fiction--if this were 1965 |
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This does not surprise me even a little bit.
Last night, after going to see a matinee of In Time with her best friend, Rachel spent quite a while regaling me with how bad this entire movie is (even apart from Amanda Seyfried's character spending a ridiculous amount of time running very quickly on 5" heels). At one point I said to her, "You know, this has to be based on something else. This is the kind of thing SF writers were exploring about 40 years ago."
Turns out to be 46 years. And turns out to have been Harlan Ellison.
Color me not-shocked. How did the writer/director think no one would notice? And since when have Hollywood types stopped buying up the rights to stories with even a little similarity to avoid such lawsuits? It seemed weird at times, but also prudent. Then again, no one with much brain seems to have gotten within a stone's throw of this project, so the lack of foresight about this is also not surprising.
Nov. 9th, 2011 @ 06:13 pm
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| » Occupy Philly |
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Some Occupy Philly coverage:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Occupy_Philadelphia_protest.html?cmpid=102540079
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20111015_Quakers_are_well_situated_to_assist__Occupy_.html
Even though the Occupy movement is going on all over the country, somehow I have the feeling that I can say "only in Philadelphia" about things like the Friends Meeting assisting the protesters the way they are. And for once I mean "only in Philadelphia" in a good way. ;)
Oct. 15th, 2011 @ 09:36 am
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| » Sleepsleepsleepsleepsleep |
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Why am I still on west coast time? I have no business being awake right now.
Will be a zombie tomorrow. Blergh.
Oct. 11th, 2011 @ 01:51 am
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| » Class Warfare, Wall Street, Nickel and Dimed and the 99% |
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I know, that's quite a subject line. But they're all related.
The first one, class warfare, stems from the phrase being used by Republican politicians complaining about taxation on the richest 1% of the population being "class warfare", as though that is even possible. If you are in the class (the top 1% of income, for instance) with the power and money, raising taxes on you is not "class warfare". Is there anything that could constitute class warfare for such people? Sure. The French Revolution sent a lot of the wealthy to the guillotine. The Russian Revolution also put a lot of the wealthy up against the wall, not to mention the tsar and his family.
For the wealthy, that is true class warfare. Paying a little bit more (a small percentage, that is) in taxes because you can, because it doesn't impact on your ability to keep a roof over your head or food on the table or clothes on your children's backs, does not make you a victim of class warfare. And complaining about this, or talking about what percentage of people don't pay taxes at all (because they make too little and taxes would actually be a huge burden on them, when they can barely eke out a living as is)? Or trying to take away senior citizens' Social Security payments (which are a pittance)? Or begrudging people healthcare and suggesting that they should go off and die? That does make you an enormous jerk. (As does complaining about taxes on behalf of the 1% and the lack of taxes being paid by the poorest people in the country.)
The top 1% of earners in this country, many of whom are the bosses of the bottom earners, could alleviate their own tax burden and see to it that more of their employees pay taxes simply by lowering their own income and raising the salaries of their workers. But that's too simple, and sounds to some people too much like communism. (Oh, noes!) Yet most of these folks think nothing of the fact that many CEOs make hundreds of times the compensation earned by their lowest-level employees. Not merely dozens of times, HUNDREDS. And in some cases THOUSANDS of times more.
Consider this: an executive who earns a "modest" $5 million a year, including all types of compensation (bonuses, stock options, company car, etc. ) earns about 227 times the salary of an employee who earns $22,000 a year, which is the threshold of the poverty level if that employee is supporting three other family members on this amount. That sounds bad enough, but an executive earning that amount would actually be laughed out of many country clubs and Aspen ski resorts for being "poor". (The average compensation package for a CEO of a company on the S & P 500 is over $11 million.) On the other hand, a top-level executive making $22 million* makes exactly 1000 times the salary of an employee making $22,000. A THOUSAND TIMES. And that employee is probably not getting stock options, or particularly affordable health insurance, or education benefits, or bonuses, or a company car, let alone subsidized day care or other benefits that would make it easier to do his or her job. Instead that executive is probably looking to find ways to outsource that employee's job to the Pacific rim so that the position will now pay a lot less than $22,000 (including benefits) and result in the board of directors giving the executive yet another bonus for saving the company money.
That's the true class warfare being waged in this country, by those who have the most against those who have the least, those who, as we see on the I am the 99% website, are having to choose between food or rent, between paying student loans or buying a car to get to a decent-paying job (if they have a job offer). The class warfare we're seeing is being waged against those who are protesting on Wall Street, who are taking their grievances to the very people who have screwed over the country, who were "too big to fail" and sent the economy spiraling downward, causing many companies to cut jobs by the dozens or hundreds--or tens of hundreds. While continuing to pay their CEOs and other top executives enormous salaries that are growing ever more distant from the salaries of their lowest-paid employees, who are, more and more often, not residents of this country or even this continent.
Then, in addition to all of this economic turmoil, I see that the book Nickel and Dimed is being challenged often enough to be in the list of top ten challenged books being highlighted by the ALA during Banned Books Week. Not a book about a boy going to wizarding school or a teenaged soap opera bout a Mary Sue choosing between a vampire and a werewolf; a non-fiction account of a woman's attempt to make ends meet working at minimum wage. The truth about how hard it is to be poor is something that is too dangerous to be read, in part because it is judged to be promoting communism? Evidently.
But what really made me start grinding my teeth together was when I went to the book's Wikipedia page and learning that the "response and criticism" includes a white male American citizen with a college education and no apparent physical challenges who checked into a homeless shelter with $25 and had, ten months later, about $5000 in savings, a home, a job and a truck. Now, arguments could be made against the validity of Barbara Ehrenreich's "social experiment", given that she is also probably over-qualified for the menial jobs she was holding, but Adam Shepherd's experiment is probably even more flawed, given his complete lack of many of the challenges faced by a lot of the lowest-paid workers in our society. It matters not that Shepherd says he never told anyone about his college education--he still had that education, he was still someone capable of getting through college, and someone who didn't have literacy problems, mental illness or other physical challenges. He is fluent in English. He can prove he is a citizen. He is able to drive a car. He doesn't have other people he is supporting, or who need daycare (whether child daycare or eldercare). And, again, he is a white male.
Now, there are white males who are out of work. That alone doesn't guarantee you a job these days. But that combined with being articulate, bright (even if you don't reveal your college degree), healthy and able-bodied, willing to uproot yourself for work because you don't own a house you can't sell and don't have a spouse who would also need a job in a new location, or kids who need a good school or daycare... Yeah. He had some challenges, but not nearly enough, not compared to people attempting to do what he did who have a criminal record or are struggling to stay off whatever addiction plagues them or who have less education or who are twenty or thirty years older than he is, any or all of which would be considered an excuse for tossing someone's job application into the trash in an employment environment where it's a buyer's market for employers and those looking for work after 6, 12, 18 or more months would be willing to take any bones thrown to them.
Class warfare? Yeah, we got it. But it's been going on for a long time now and those living under siege are the 99%, not the 1%.
* According to the NY Times, the top ten compensation packages for CEOs of companies earning at least $7 billion are more than this. The top five earn between $32.6 and 84.5 million. There is no information given about what other executives at the same companies earn.
Oct. 4th, 2011 @ 10:37 pm
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| » :wrings out keyboard: |
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Okay, rain, enough is enough.
The rainiest August on record for Philadelphia.
Irene caused leaks through multiple window frames in our house and where the bay window meets the brick wall, not to mention the previous places in the walls where we needed masonry repair (next to tall window in living room, next to back door, the wall between the windows in the dining room...)
And now the weather forecast is showing nothing, and I mean NOTHING, but constant rain until NEXT WEDNESDAY. That's right, for the next forty ten days, nothing but solid rain.
I should have known to be worried when, at 9 am, weather.com claimed that there was only a 10% chance of rain and it was actually coming down in buckets.
So much for riding my bike to and from work, or just riding for pleasure or to run errands on my day off.
So much for going to the hardware store this morning--or for the next ten days. It's a mile from my house and requires walking there and back because there are no bus or trolley routes that go directly there; somehow, transferring from one route to another to travel one mile seems ridiculous to me, especially when I would probably be standing outside in the rain waiting for my connection for almost as long as it would take me to walk the whole distance in the rain, making taking the bus a moot point as far as avoiding being outside in the rain for an extended period of time.
So much for having Ben work in the garden to uproot the rampant weeds that grew back during the month of August, and which will be even worse by next Wednesday.
And so much for my house not smelling constantly of damp, even when there isn't actually water leaking in through the walls and windows. The wind during Irene was chiefly responsible for the water being DRIVEN through minute gaps between the window flashing and bricks, and between the bay window roof flashing and bricks, but even without that kind of propulsion everything around here just smells damp constantly. I'm worried about the development of mold, to which Rachel and I are particularly susceptible.
:sigh:
At least we can't actually be flooded up where we are, since we're up a pretty steep hill from the river. The water would have to rise at least forty feet to reach our house, and a number of houses would actually be completely under water if that ever happened.
I feel like I just got home (since I did) and now I would love another vacation ASAP.
Preferably someplace extremely DRY.
Sep. 6th, 2011 @ 09:50 pm
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| » The video of "Firebolt" was better, BTW |
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Katy Perry is actually a cartoon, isn't she?
Aug. 28th, 2011 @ 11:22 pm
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| » Casting Stunt |
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Perfect person to play Amy Winehouse in a biopic: Minnie Driver, Y/Y?
Aug. 28th, 2011 @ 11:10 pm
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| » Build-a-Bear Pepto Bismol |
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[Nikki Minaj appears onstage during the VMA Awards]
ME: What threw up on her?
RACHEL: Stuffed animals.
Aug. 28th, 2011 @ 09:39 pm
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| » Irene, who invited YOU? |
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Our Boston adventure has been unnecessarily eventful so far. (Kicking back? What's that?) First the reservation for the B & B was fubared. I thought it might be my fault, but I looked back at the website that listed the B & B and allowed me to make a reservation, and it wasn't me. The website had me enter the dates were were checking in and out, the number of people, and the button you click after that says, "Make reservation for these dates." So it wasn't me, but technically it wasn't the B & B folks either. It was the website programmer(s), so this means there's going to be a problem for anyone making reservations for any B & B on that website. Lovely.
As a result, we decided to check out yesterday morning, since our booking ended up being for only one night, thanks to the bad programming, even though the B & B folks said they could move us around to various vacant rooms over the five nights we'd need accommodations. There were problems that did attach to the B & B, so it didn't seem worth it to make them jump through those hoops. The internet was spotty to nonexistent, there were only two room keys available, instead of three, so each of us could have one, and with Irene coming it just seemed more practical to be in a place with more services, like the hotel we passed that sits RIGHT NEXT TO the subway station we got off to walk to our B & B (a couple of blocks away but not a bad walk).
So now we're in that hotel and will soon go downstairs for brunch, since we missed the cut-off time for room-service breakfast food. There's also a fitness center on this floor, so I can go work out later and Rachel will probably also use one of the treadmills. And all of this is slightly less expensive per night than the B & B. Go figure. (Although our breakfast yesterday morning was lovely and probably would have run us more than $30 or $40 if we'd eaten out.)
( Read more... )
At least it doesn't seem to be as bad here in Boston as was originally projected. We may be able to leave the hotel for dinner if the winds die down later. I don't especially relish the idea of walking around in 35+ mph winds; anything above 20 is absolutely no fun at all. But it is supposed to be pretty nice tomorrow, and on Tuesday Rachel and I may even take a train to Providence to meander around the Brown campus. We'll see.
Aug. 28th, 2011 @ 01:48 pm
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| » Good Night, Irene |
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Well, it really looks like Irene is determined to cut a swath on up the eastern seaboard. In fact, at first I thought I'd made the incredibly bright move of planning a mini-holiday to Boston when it was expecting to be hit by a hurricane and now it seems much more likely to affect Philadelphia.
The last big one we had here was Floyd, in 1999, which caused damage to our bay window and the plaster inside it that we still haven't gotten around to repairing, although we fixed the outside of the house to keep more water from coming in. The plaster is on my Master List of House Stuff that we can actually afford to fix now, but you can't just wave a wand and repair everything at once; you need to get the contractor in to look at each job, price it out, etc. It would be nice if getting out of debt immediately meant no longer letting the house slide downhill, but dealing with twenty years of deferred maintenance is quite the time-consuming job and this stuff doesn't happen overnight, even once you can pay the bills.
But I digress. I fully expect to have a house to come home to, since it's a rowhouse and even Hurricane Floyd didn't take out any rowhouses, but I also expect to find a freaked and distressed husband, nervous and jumpy cats and possibly a reason to call the roofer again. :sigh: With luck Chris won't lose electrical power; it really depends on where the tree limbs fall when they start flying around. Everything here is very much above-ground and quite vulnerable to weather like this.
Irene will, of course, bring more comments in various online forums about it all being The Judgment of God. (I could NOT believe how many of those I saw posted as comments on earthquake stories earlier this week.) It would be great* if the whole thing just stayed out to sea, but in case it doesn't, batten down the hatches, everyone, stay safe, and don't let the weather judge you, it's our job to judge IT. ;)
* Well, you know, unless you're out on the Atlantic in a boat.
Aug. 26th, 2011 @ 01:50 am
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| » Nagging Questions |
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- When there's an earthquake like the one we had yesterday, felt in over a dozen states and parts of Canada, does Carole King suddenly get an unexpected windfall in royalties because of people downloading a certain song of hers from iTunes?
- Does Martha Stewart really run her huge corporation, appear on her own television show, a radio show and as a guest on the Today Show PLUS regale fans throughout the day by posting, personally, to Twitter and Facebook (to say nothing of her blog)?
- Whose bright (not) idea was it for a couple of Martha's DOGS to have their own blog about what it's like to follow her around while she goes through her day, and, assuming that it's some intern or similar flunky, why the hell would you want to put on your resume, "Authored blog written in the voice of Martha Stewart's dogs"? Okay, writing credits are writing credits whether you're doing a novel that's a tie-in to a film or movie, punching up dialogue in a cheap B horror film or whatever--but THIS? Then again, maybe it's not as bad as having to put on your resume "Did all of Martha Stewart's Tweets and Facebook status updates for her."
- Is there no such job as a spokesmodel anymore? It used to be that Christy Brinkley and similar models were the ones trying to convince us to buy this mascara or that dark-circle concealer. Now it's all actresses or similar: Diane Keaton, Ellen DeGeneres, Drew Barrymore, Andie McDowell, Jessica Alba, etc. Don't these women already have incomes from their films/shows? My god, THINK OF THE POOR SPOKESMODELS.
- And finally, why is the preferred palate at Restoration Hardware so relentlessly BLEAK? It's been like this for a few years now but really struck me with this monochromatic sameness, page after page, with the new Fall 2011 online catalogue (600 pages!). I mean--just page after page of sepia-toned furniture, with pale blue the only occasional foray into non-dirt-based colors. Can the folks at Restoration Hardware actually SEE colors? Or is there an actual physical problem with the top brass being able to see color and they think this is what the world is SUPPOSED to look like for everyone? Would they open the new Crate & Barrell catalogue, see the beautiful bright red couch there, and assume that it is khaki colored?
Aug. 24th, 2011 @ 04:02 pm
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| » Did the earth move for you? |
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By which I mean, did you feel the earthquake? I was mainly confused by it. I'm at work, which is in a 127 year old stone church, a huuuuge masonry building, and what I thought I was hearing was someone pounding on a wooden door in the entry. (It's not actually a functional door anymore but a sealed-up one that leads to a porch that runs between our part of the building and the former manse, now occupied by the Penn CA.) While I was wondering why someone was on the other side of that door pounding to get in (I couldn't open that door if I tried, it's sealed really well, even if it is apparently a bit rattly when we're registering higher than 0 on the Richter scale) I started hearing other (very large and heavy solid-wood) doors in the building shaking in their frames.
My first thought was, "Wow, it must be a super-huge truck driving by to make the building shake this much," because there HAVE sometimes been super-huge trucks that have made the building shake (but not as much) just by driving by. Then it stopped and I went back to my desk, wishing evil thoughts at big trucks everywhere.
A few minutes later Chris called me from the airport (he's got another business trip) and asked me if I felt the earthquake.
"So THAT'S what that was!"
Can I say what a ditz I'm feeling like right now?
He said the epicenter was somewhere in Virginia and that buildings had been evacuated down there. So I assume that people in Delaware and Maryland could also feel this if we can feel it in Philadelphia! Ben also called to check on me, which was sweet. Poor kid has inherited my cluelessness on this, however, because he said, "At first I just thought the cat was scratching the couch really hard." LOL
CAT SCRATCHES COUCH SUPER-HARD--TREMORS ARE FELT TWO STATES AWAY.
I said that it probably hadn't woken his sister, but he said it did.
I hope everyone on the east coast is okay.
So--did the earth move for you?
Aug. 23rd, 2011 @ 02:59 pm
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| » Stuff and nonsense |
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Ooh, ow, ouch! I almost ripped off the nail on the big toe of my left foot this afternoon and every step I take HURTS. It's all my own fault, too, so I have no one to blame but myself.
Perfect timing, too, as we get ready to take a brief holiday later this week. The kids and I will be getting the Megabus up to Boston to stay at a B & B until next Wednesday morning, when we're Megabusing home again. While we're there, anyone in Boston who wants to get together for lunch or dinner or biking or other hanging-out stuff? I'll screen comments so that if you include phone numbers no one else can see.
Rachel and I may also do college look-sees, but only if she feels inclined to look at Simmons (a safety school for her) or if we decide to go ahead with a side-trip to Providence for her to walk around Brown and see how she feels about that. (SO not a safety school, but the question still exists of whether she wants to go through what she'd have to go through to apply.)
My grandmother was born in Providence but I don't remember a trip my family took there when I was very young (two or three years old). We have a painting that she did hanging above one of the couches in the family room; she did it after being grounded for quite some time at the age of 16 (this was in 1892) after she attempted to run away to New York City to be an actress and her irate, very proper German father fetched her home again to Providence. I wish I'd known her but my dad was 46 when I was born and his mother was 42 when she had him in 1918; she died about ten years before I was born. Dad always said that the wildness in my oldest sister reminded him of her; I don't know whether he would have chosen a different name for Louise if he'd known! (Rather than naming her after his mother.) OTOH, a different name probably wouldn't have done any good, since that's not how these things work.
Anyway, if you're in the Boston area and want to hang out for a little bit while we're there, drop a comment.
Aug. 22nd, 2011 @ 06:50 pm
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