Moon

It's been far too long since I've written anything that wasn't due for a class. It's kind of tragic.

Anyway, after a couple weeks of constant social engagement, I decided to pass up plans tonight and stay in by myself. It was a much needed break. I planned on finishing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (I'm re-reading the series...in preparation for the seventh film or something). However, I did not. Instead I flicked on the streaming Netflix and watched the next movie in our queue, which happened to be Moon, with Sam Rockwell. It was a fateful decision.

The film is kind of a re-imagining of 2001: A Space Odyssey, mixed with a bit of Truman Showism (I hope I didn't ruin anything for anyone there.), and it left me feeling a bit existential. I used to say that I defined myself by my relationships with those around me, and I meant it as a kind of self-effacingly sad comment about my lack of self-justification. Watching this movie, though made me wonder if I wasn't on to something. So, here's some original thought for anyone who happens to stumble across it:

Our lives on earth are in fact defined by our interactions with others. A life spent in study or entertainment, if it doesn't include meaningful relationships or some kind of service to humanity, is, as far as I can see, completely meaningless. That's a terrifying thought, and a very good reason for me to stop watching existential movies on my own.

Other thoughts: Sam Rockwell is fantastic; also, I wonder how much I'd like myself if there were two of me.

Spring Breaking and Nostalgia

It is now 1:30 on a Monday afternoon. I'm still in my pjs. Here's a list of the day's activities so far:

Ate breakfast: leftover rolls with jam. Mmmm, nutritious
Worked on my iTunes library...for quite awhile (thanks for the music, Sarah)
Facebooked
Removed my chipped nail polish

Now I'm thinking it's about time for lunch. I did manage, in the course of my iTunes/Facebook activities, to reconnect with a friend I haven't seen since I was 11--when I moved from a tiny town in Southern Utah back to the paradise of Southern California. Now, living in New York City (somewhat less temperate, and far more inhabited than either of the above locales), I don't even know how to approach talking to people I knew in the 5th grade. I have little recollection of what I was like then, but I seem to remember that being my rebellious stage. I don't know that I can really back that up except to say that I swore more at that age than I would like to admit to now, and I routinely rode my bike out past the city limits with a couple of other girls to visit a farm we had no business visiting. I read Stephen King, watched as many R-rated horror movies as I could get my hands on (though, in retrospect, many of the movies I thought were rated R were actually PG-13), and watched MTV at the house of the aforementioned friend. Yeah...I was a pretty bad kid. Luckily my mom never found out.

At the only elementary school in town, with only two classes for each grade, there was some definite social stratification going on, and not finding myself quite at the top, I rooted myself safely in the middle. I can only assume that that's where this friend of mine lived and stayed long after I made my departure. She was pretty, but edgy. I loved her white-blonde hair, and the only inside joke of ours that I can remember now was about trading mine for hers. In my nostalgia, I think of her as the pre-teen version of Claire Danes from My So Called Life. Now, even though I can't remember who was above or below us on that social ladder, it still frames my perceptions of myself and my friends at the time. I recognize that I am a different person, but in my mind, she is just a taller version of her 11-year-old self. Facebook stepped in this morning to tell me that she also has a four-year-old son, but other than that, she must be exactly the same.

American Misogynism

Aggressive women scare me/make me uncomfortable/just rub me the wrong way. Men not so much. Why is that? My fear of middle aged women in particular has become something of an inside joke (though now I suppose it's kind of out in the open) among my friend, but it really bothers me once in a while, and I can't help but wonder where it comes from.

In college, I felt like all of my favorite professors were men, but looking back, I'm not so sure that's right. I had a female teacher for Postmodern American lit who I quite liked, actually. She's probably one of the biggest reasons I decided to go on to graduate school. I had a female humanities teacher who I didn't mind much. All of my Spanish teachers were female and I found them all unequivocally likable. I really only had one female teacher who I disliked, and I attributed my disliking her to her being female and trying somehow to make up for something that didn't need making up for. I felt like she was overbearing and horrible, in addition to being incredibly disorganized (which is by far my least favorite trait in a teacher), mostly because she felt like she had to be as difficult as the male teachers--prove that her gender had no effect on her teaching style, that the nurturing mother in her would not affect her ability to grade students justly, and so she overcorrected by setting impossibly high expectations, overworking her students, and grading on the harsh side.

In retrospect, those things may have had nothing at all to do with her gender. I recognize that, logically, but I can't really feel it. Are women simply harsher judges of other women than they are on men. Is it just me? Or does American society depict women as overbearing and needy, creating frustration with my own gender when someone actually fits into that mold. What are our expectations of men in modern society? Looking at pop culture, especially sitcoms, would indicate that we expect them to be bumbling buffoons, slow to take things seriously and in serious need of a female influence to balance them out (e.g. Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Friends). As a result (?) I don't expect much at all from men beyond a good sense of humor, which is perhaps why I find them less intimidating than women.

Is society's depiction of gender unfair? or is it really a reflection of gender norms? Is my analysis accurate? or am I really just projecting my own prejudices onto the culture? Food for thought.

The Imaginarium of a Really Long Title and Heath Ledger's Last Stand

So I saw the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus tonight. It was interesting. I'd read about it quite a bit before going, and I still wasn't really sure what to expect. What I got was unexpected.

In the beginning, the whole thing feels like a farce. The characters act in ways I don't really get, which makes them hard to believe, and the whole timeless present-ness of it, mixed with everything else, made me uneasy more than anything else.

I don't want this to sound postured, but the thing does actually start to come together when Heath enters. The story seems to speed up a bit, but still, while there are some wonderful moments of characterization and art, in the end some of the characters feel more sketched than molded, and the girl (I can't think of her name for the life of me--I keep thinking Valentina, but I'm sure that's not right) comes off as shallow, one dimensional, and a little erratic.

Overall, I think a lot of things worked, but it didn't really feel complete. It was unsettling, which is far from a harsh criticism, but I'm not sure it was unsettling in the right way, and I'm left wishing I could see what the film would have been like if Heath hadn't left us midway through filming. I will most definitely see it again, and if you haven't seen it yet, you should do so ASAP, and tell me what you think.

Why Women Carry Purses (And Men Don't)

Walking down the street in lower Manhattan one is often caught in a stream of pedestrians--a line of solitary figures in suits, their sex easily distinguishable by one detail: women carry purses, and men do not. It may seem obvious to some (if it does to you, please feel free to stop reading), but the question this brings to my mind is why don't men carry purses? How do they know they have everything they need when they leave the house? Do they often go through the day wishing they had carried something with them that they simply couldn't shove into their pockets or stand to carry? I cannot count the number of times male friends have asked me to carry things for them: cameras, phones, glasses, etc. etc., yet they never seem concerned with being able to carry these things themselves. Why not?
Most of us have seen the episode of friends where Joey, dressed and accessorized by Rachel, carries a "murse" to an audition and is berated incessantly for it by nearly everyone he meets. The bag was not frilly, but still the fact that he carried it supposedly feminized him. Here I will propose three possibly reasons why:

1. Men are simple whereas women are complicated and perhaps a bit high maintenance. All men really need to have with them is a wallet, keys, and a phone, and all of those things fit quite easily into pockets making any extra baggage unnecessary. A woman, on the other hand, must have a hair brush, lotion, blush, lipstick, gloss, a mirror, hand sanitizer, and a plethora of other items that a man would have no need for or would never think of carrying with him at all times in addition to the wallet, keys, and phone. And since women are forever image conscious, they must have a bag that not only fits all of those things they find it necessary to lug around, but it also must be fashionable (often meaning nothing more than that it must cost an arm and a leg).

2. Men's clothing is made to accommodate the necessities of life whereas women's clothing is not. Men's jeans and jackets have pockets designed specifically to hold wallets, etc. If you need to carry a pen and a checkbook, just put on a blazer, and you get an inside pocket to stow them conveniently on your person.
Women's clothing is not so practical. Very few clothing items worn by women have functional pockets. Women's jeans are made to fit close to the body, making it so that any item placed in the pockets protrudes and ruins the effect. In fact, many pockets on women's jackets and pants are there for purely aesthetic reasons, some not extending more than an inch so that it's nearly impossible to place in them anything larger than a single coin. A hat I own has a buttoned pocket on the side which I never paid any attention to until someone asked me what I kept in it. The question was obviously asked in jest, but it made me wonder nonetheless. All of these useless pockets make it necessary for women to find another way to carry their things, and the purse is the perfect solution.

3. Women are the designated caretakers of society, and men need taking care of. I once went out to eat with a guy who asked if I had hand sanitizer in my bag, and when I told him I didn't, he seemed utterly taken aback and put out that he would have to find a bathroom wherein he could wash his hands. As a matter of course, I made sure to put my Purell back in my bag as soon as I got home, feeling a bit embarrassed that I had been so ill-prepared. In addition to that, I am also called on regularly to provide gum, tissues, pens, lotion, chapstick, an umbrella, and even a mirror on occasion for others in my company. I have no idea how I would accomplish all of that without the use of a purse. In college I often teased a friend of mine who carried a "mother-bag" which contained everything one might need in any given situation, but now I find myself emulating her level of preparation, and I only find it strange that men who've grown up going through boy-scouts with the boy-scout motto, "Be Prepared," can go through life as adults looking for someone else to provide all of the things women routinely carry around.

That's all I've got for now, but I think there's room for discussion. Why do you carry a bag around? or Why don't you?

11-Year-Old Gives Birth on Her Wedding Day

While scanning through news stories this afternoon, I came across this story. An 11-year-old girl in Bulgaria gave birth to a baby girl over the weekend, in the middle of her three-day wedding ceremony.

The girl met her 19-year-old husband a few weeks before her 11th birthday, when she was being bullied by a group of kids on the playground. He intervened, rescued her from the bullies, and later, she asked him out on a date, and a week later she was pregnant.

Now the girl says she will "stop playing with toys--I have a new toy now," and "I have to grow up, she is the child now--I will not go back to school.

While the father, who is facing up to 6 years in prison for having sex with a minor, says, “We know that having a baby is a big responsibility. My wife is young but I will make sure that I look after both of them if the law allows me.”

There are so many issues wrapped up in this story--the fact that 11-year-olds should not be having sex is probably the biggest, but also 11-year-old girls should not be pursuing relationships with 19-year-olds, and parents should be responsible for teaching their children morality/responsibility and acceptable behavior. While the culture is definitely a factor in this story, it cannot be "blamed" for what's happened. The grandmother with whom the child is living (her parents are in Spain) says that it is tradition for their girls to have children and marry young, but admits that her granddaughter is too young. The average marriage age in their particular area is 14. One of the most horrifying thing in the story is that the girl claims that she did not even know how to become pregnant. I find this difficult to believe, but if it is true, then it most definitely should not be. If a girl is capable of getting pregnant, she should know how reproduction works.

As far as the father goes, while it seems to me that simply not having sex with people you meet on school playgrounds would be a safe and reasonable approach, barring that, 19-year-olds must be responsible for verifying the age of their partners. This girl does not look 11, she looks closer to 16, which is above the age of consent in that country, but the way she looks does not change her actual age. All of that being said, this whole situation would be avoided if people could control themselves enough to marry before having sex.

All of this being said, the reason I really felt like responding to this story was that the comments on some of the articles were as horrific as the articles themselves. One person marked the darkness of the child's skin, then went on to talk about more and less evolved races, comparing "less evolved races" to weeds which breed more quickly than cultivated, "more evolved plants." I felt like I was reading something out of Nazi Germany. Before today, I really was under the impression that fascism was a thing of the past, and yet there it was staring me in the face. This was not the only comment of its kind, but most of the others were less obvious about their racism. Most targeted gypsies and culture instead of skin color. Another commenter cried out against Americans who saw this as a case of statutory rape and a terrible tragedy when, as (s)he said that the same case happening in the US with a black girl would be seen as her trying to live off the government.

I don't believe any of those arguments have any grounds in this story. These commenters are coming to the story with preconceived notions about the world and the way it works and the injustices of it all and the things that people are doing wrong, and then they are using the story to voice their thoughts about completely different issues. Until people are able to come to a case without their own agendas, comment boards will be a place where extremists voice opinions that make Americans look like self-righteous fascists, and that horrifies me.

Last off, I would like to say that I don't believe the couple in this story is cursed or destined to have a miserable life. The father in question seems sincerely, if naively, determined to improve the condition of his very young family. Both parties are professedly in love. Both express love for their new child, and the father has high hopes for her future: “I want Violeta to be educated, to be able to read and write. She was born famous and maybe she will stay famous like becoming a doctor who invents brilliant medicine or saves lives." I sincerely hope that this family can retain that determination, that they will educate their daughter in ways that they should have been educated themselves, and that she does someday become a brilliant physician...or whatever else she may want to be.


Article from NY Daily News

Video and Wedding Pics on YouTube

Thoughts on Grand Central Station

About three weeks ago, I moved about three blocks west to a new building. As a result, I now take the 4/5 line to school instead of the 2/3. I still get off at 42nd street, but instead of surfacing at Time Square, I now come up through Grand Central Terminal. The day I started my new route, I was in a hurry, and while I new, in theory, where I was, I paid little attention. I found the quickest way to the street, and I jetted to class. But on my way home, I had plenty of time to look around and soak in my surroundings.

I tried not to look like a tourist--I dread attracting negative attention, and no one likes it when a tourist stops in the walkway for no reason, gawking at what you see everyday, tripping you up when you're just trying to get home. So I looked up casually and saw for the first time the ceiling covered in stars. It wasn't what I expected. It looks nothing like Hogwarts. Instead of midnight blue, it's more of a turquoise color, really more green than blue if you ask me. The constellations are depicted as though someone had played connect the dots on the ceiling, and while it sounded terribly romantic in theory, practice left me a bit cold. Last summer I read "Gone to New York" by Ian Frazier, a collection of essays, in which Frazier talks about taking a tour of Grand Central and a tour guide who complains that there are mylar balloons on the ceiling that have been there for ages and he can't figure out a way to get them down. In the essay, Frazier and a friend retrieve the pesky balloons using a device they created for removing plastic bags from trees. I looked for balloons on the ceiling, but they must have gotten them all.

I can't really say that I was disappointed. The building is absolutely gorgeous. The four-sided clock in the main concourse is supposedly worth somewhere between $10 and $20 million. The clock on the 42nd street facade is one of the oldest examples of Tiffany glass, and the sculptures surrounding the clock comprise the largest sculptural group in the world. It is a building of superlatives, but I found little to connect to, nothing I could laugh at. I have little use for things I cannot laugh at. Luckily, Wikipedia shares the following tidbit about the ceiling:

"There are two peculiarities to this ceiling: the sky is backwards, and the stars are slightly displaced. [...] When they learned that the ceiling was painted backwards, the embarrassed Vanderbilt family tried to explain that the ceiling reflected God's view of the sky."


Who can help but smirk at an embarrassed Vanderbilt?

Sidenote: One of my favorite things in Grand Central, apart from walking through the main concourse and feeling incredibly small, is a pastry shop called "Hot and Crusty." I've never stopped there, but I love the tenacity of the name, and if I ever do go in, it will most likely be out of amusement, and not merely appetite.