Girl Problems

Everyone thinks my 6-month-old daughter is a boy.  She is the spitting image of her father, so if they catch a glimpse of him before they decide which pronoun to use, the situation is compounded.  I don’t routinely dress her in pink---although I have to say it is a universally flattering color.  I don’t scotch-tape or Velcro bows to the downy tufts on her largely bald head.  I do consider her gender when picking out an outfit in the morning and never quite land on any particularly comfortable solution.  On one hand, I want people to understand “who” she is and identify her as a girl.  In this case, my impulse is to reach for something pink or even a dress.  Often, I will select a pair of neutral pants with a pink drawstring, a relatively subtle item, so I don’t feel like the pressure is getting to me.  On the other hand, I don’t want to kowtow to the notion that a baby girl should be a living doll.  After all, she is only MONTHS old: How could we possibly have any idea whether she will be “girly” or a “tomboy” or anywhere else on that spectrum in her style or proclivities? The question of gender identity never fails to excite debate.  Even within my own mind, I find it almost impossible decide how I feel about stereotypic gender roles.  Some days, I am strongly convinced that gender identity (sexuality, a separate issue, could be an entirely different and equally hot topic) is ingrained or at least some interaction of genes and environment.  At other times, I sense that the socialization of gender happens so early and is so pervasive in our culture that I am surprised anyone develops the free will to resist his or her prescribed role.  My own experience bears this out . . . while the baby is still in utero, before it even joins the party, the burning question is, “Do you know what you are having?”  People desperately need to begin with the categorization as soon as possible.  I am just as guilty of this as anyone, fretting over a “gender neutral” baby gift for my sister-in-law.

When I was pregnant, we ultimately decided to find out the sex of the baby.  In the abstract, I wanted to be one of those people who doesn’t need to know.  I pictured myself indignantly telling inquirers, “We don’t need to relate to the gender of this fetus.  You see, we are very progressive . . .”  In reality, I was struggling to “plan” for her without knowing.  It felt silly, but I wanted to decorate her room, buy her clothing and think about her future with at least this clue about who she might be.  And the whole process of growing a human being is so bizarre, I felt much less like an alien pod with a sense of this label and all the things it (not necessarily) implies.  Of course, we know that all bets are off when an actual person emerges from the womb.

In time, we may come to discover that Isadora is all tutus, all the time.  She might bedazzle her dresser and have tea parties with the dog.  It could also be the case that she adores trucks and machines.  Like it or not, these are preferences we most closely associate with one gender or another.  But what if she demonstrates an interest in astronomy, math, or dinosaurs?  How about ballet, cooking, or child care?  I want so much to be a parent that doesn’t automatically think of these as “boy” or “girl” activities.  I would love to have a girl who excels in the sciences, beats her father at chess and has an amazing arm.  More important, I don’t want to be surprised by the fact that she does any of these things.

As much as we’d like to believe that kids are a tabula rasa, it is virtually impossible to opt out of gender.  Frankly, most children initiate their own affiliation with one gender or another before a parent has the ability to influence this in the slightest.  I am constantly regaled with anecdotes from family and friends about how they dutifully tried to open the field for their female children by exposing them to a wide array of toys, games, clothes and experiences.  In many of these stories, the girls immediately and stubbornly chose and clung to princesses, dolls, fairies and the like despite the efforts of the parents.   This could be the effect of many factors outside the home or subtle cues inside the home or simply hard wiring.

Distilled down, the real issue for me is to ensure that our girl has lots of choices and feels secure making them.  Her mother does flowers for a living---an industry typically associated with and dominated by women.   As a young girl, I loved anything with glitter, rainbows, or sparkle and my favorite Muppet was Miss Piggy.  I also played many sports and was an academic decathlete.  I am aware that my modeling may or may not have much impact on how she develops.  I just hope that if there is a tea party with the dog, I get an invite.

Wine, Literature and Music

Imagine these three things at once. Imagine yourself sipping a glass of red Barolo wine, and reading your favorite book while listening to a song that has been the soundtrack to a cherished part of your life.

And now imagine yourself in Italy, in a beautiful village called Barolo, Piedmont, enjoying the fourth edition of the Collisioni Festival, a summer celebration of music, literature and wine. Every year Collisioni presents important authors and artists from different parts of the world, in a wonderful and dreamy atmosphere and in a setting that is definitely worth a visit, at least once in a lifetime.

This is the opinion of Patti Smith, special guest at Collisioni, who during a magical summertime afternoon shared her passion for Italy, and her thoughts about art, environmental issues, politics, and of course music. I couldn’t wait to see Patti Smith. I’ve been listening to her songs forever, but curiously enough have never attended any of her concerts. So I’ve always wondered how it would feel seeing her in person. From a few feet away, I can tell you that she is friendly, down to earth, interesting, smart and very passionate. It felt like I didn’t need to agree to what she said to appreciate her.

And now project yourself fifty years ago. It was 1962 when a twenty year old boy from Minnesota told the world that a new wind was blowing, blowing through poetry and songs. A wind that would soon become a hurricane, and, most importantly, the voice of young people trying to imagine a different future. Bob Dylan was in Barolo, too, the only Italian date of the legendary American singer-songwriter during the summer. I can’t describe my feelings when he sang Blowin’ in the Wind or Like a Rolling Stone.

And then there was Don DeLillo, speaking about his last (latest) books, Boy George, Vinicio Capossela, and Zucchero, and many other artists from Italy too.

Music and books among the vineyards, tasting local wines from the many small cellars that offered glasses of Barolo, Dolcetto and Barbera along the way – overall, this was just a perfect weekend.

THE LAND and THE VINEYARDS, AS I SAW THEM…

 

LAST WEEKEND THROUGH WORDS.

DON DELILLO ON TIME.

“Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day after a storm when the smallest falling leaf is stabbed with self-awareness. The wind makes a sound in the pines and the world comes into being, irreversibly, and the spider rides the wind-swayed web.” from The Body Artist

PATTI SMITH ON TIME.

“Yet you could feel a vibration in the air, a sense of hastening. It had started with the moon, inaccessible poem that it was. Now men had walked upon it, rubber treads on a pearl of the gods. Perhaps it was an awareness of time passing, the last summer of the decade. Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing up.” from Just Kids

BOB DYLAN ON TIME.

Yes, how many years can a mountain exist / Before it's washed to the sea ? Yes, how many years can some people exist / Before they're allowed to be free ? Yes, how many times can a man turn his head / Pretending he just doesn't see ? The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind / The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Hatshepsut, the Female King of Egypt

Flipping through the glossary of my student’s high school world history textbook (I tutor history on the weekends, one of the sole professional manifestations of my recently-completed master’s degree) I was amazed to find that of the hundreds of key terms the book highlights, of which at least a hundred or so are people, there remain only two key terms that are historical women. Think about that. Two, out of five thousand years of history, deemed worthy of emphasis.

More surprisingly, perhaps, are the two who carry this high honor: Hatshepsut, a 15^th-century BCE queen of Egypt’s 18^th dynasty, and Eva Perón, the wife of 1940s Argentinean president Juan Perón (also a key term).

It’s a given that women are underrepresented in history books, and in history in general. Most of the chapters in our textbook, be it on ancient Egypt or Renaissance Italy or the Mongol Empire, have a subsection which should effectively be titled “So, what were women doing while all this other stuff was going on?”, just to, you know, remind us they existed. Answers variously include “being/not being allowed to own property” and “being/not being allowed to get a divorce.”

It’s not the problem of this particular textbook by any means, and neither is the scholarly field of history and its practices entirely to blame. Sources from the point of view of women, or concerning women, are scarce in many historical eras and in many countries, and that’s something historians just have to deal with. Those who focus on women’s history make do with limited sources, piecing together as full a picture as is humanly possible of women’s lived experiences.

Still, it was a little dismaying to realize just how limited female representation in the history books is. So I aim to expand that representation just a bit—a great big thank-you to those ladies who made us look good, or at least, made us look powerful (and let’s face it, power is the paradigm that never goes out of style).

Today’s historical woman: Hatshepsut, the first of those two lucky ones who made it into the third edition of The Earth and Its Peoples.

Hatshepsut was born the daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh around 1500 BCE. She married her half-brother, Thutmose II (don’t judge—it’s a different culture), who became pharaoh at their father’s death. The two had no sons, though Thutmose II did produce a male heir with another wife. However, when Thutmose II died, his son, Thutmose III, was still just a boy, so Hatshepsut took the throne as the king’s regent.

This in and of itself wasn’t so unusual: a woman taking on the kingship as a kind of “interim” ruler while the real heir grew out of childhood had happened before. But Hatshepsut’s reign was different. After a few years, she proclaimed herself pharaoh and began to take her kingly duties more seriously, participating in kingly rites and building monuments. And everyone knows that building a monument is basically just a giant “hey, look how great I am” to the world.

One of the most interesting things about Hatshepsut was that, in assuming the unlikely role of female pharaoh, she adopted a masculine role with all the trappings associated with that gender. Early on, visual evidence shows a synthesis of male and female imagery: in some temple reliefs, Hatshepsut is wearing a woman’s gown, but stands with her feet wide apart in a decidedly masculine and kingly stance.

Later, however, her female gender is effectively obscured, with depictions losing their female traits altogether and instead portraying the traditional male traits of the pharaoh, down to the false beard. Hatshepsut was not trying to change her gender, however; her depiction as a male king was more an avenue towards kingly legitimacy, in a society where female pharaohs were unheard-of and females thought unfit to rule kingdoms by religious law.

What Hatshepsut attempted in becoming a male king of Egypt, while different in style and convention, seems to me to continue to exist in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Female politicians have often had to prove themselves in a male-dominated milieu, adopting what are considered “tough” and “masculine” traits because that’s what is expected of a world leader (or, looked at another way, those women who do adopt these traits are the ones likely to be considered successful leaders). Some of the most aggressive foreign and domestic policy of the latter half of the 20^th century has been undertaken by women, from Golda Meir in Israel to Margaret Thatcher in the UK. This “necessity” for masculine legitimacy can also, probably, be seen in more innocuous ways: the prevalence of pantsuits, the stone-faced expression. (Remember when everyone freaked out because Hillary kind-of-sort-of cried during an election stop in 2008?)

Hatshepsut’s stepson Thutmose III took over following her death, and during his reign he made what appeared to be a systematic effort to erase his stepmother from the record books. He removed her name from the king’s record, took down monuments, defaced images: all a clear attack on her personal legitimacy as well as a major blow to the whole female pharaoh phenomenon. I guess the last laugh is on ol’ Thutmose, though, because today, Hatshepsut is remembered as one of Egypt’s most successful pharaohs.

And she’s an AP World History key term. If that’s not success, I don’t know what is.

In Praise of Essays

By Randon Billings Noble Yesterday afternoon the twins were napping, rain was just starting to prattle through the leaves outside my window, and I was curled up with a cup of tea and a collection of The Best American Essays.

This is when I realized:  Something happens when I read essays---something that doesn't happen when I read novels or short stories or even memoirs.  I feel . . . enlarged.

The essay in this collection that brought my attention to this feeling was  "After the Ice" by Paul Crenshaw.  I won't write much about the content of the essay---I'd rather you read it yourself and let it unfold for you---but here is a passage that starts to show what I'm talking about:

"After the funeral, while my family gathered in the living room of my grandmother's house and some of the men stood on the front porch and talked of violence, I walked through the woods on my grandmother's land.  It was stifling inside the house, and loud with the sounds that accompany death, but outside it was cold and still.  The air hovered right around freezing, and the light mist that fell could not decide whether it wanted to be snow or rain.  Late in the afternoon, the dark came early, and by the time I turned around to walk back only the porch light was visible.  The rain had finally made a decision, and the only sound around me was ice on frozen leaves."

Nothing really happens in this passage.  But something does.  A boy leaves a crowded house and walks in the woods.  Something elusive but meaningful shifts during this walk, even though we never learn exactly what: the passage ends with a section break, and on the other side of that white space a new line of thought begins.  But the moment is captured.  A dilated moment of meaning.

When I finished reading I sat for a while.  The rain was coming down hard and steady, filling the room with its fresh green smell, and there was thunder in the distance.  This moment---this moment on my couch with the tea cold at my elbow and the rain outside and the feeling of this essay settling in my mind and somehow lightly tingeing it forever---this moment felt enlarged.  It felt important.  It felt connected to the moments that Crenshaw describes, walking through the woods after the funeral or driving by an empty house or standing in the backyard at night after a snowfall.  And it promised me that my own future moments---tonight holding one of the twins after a nightmare, later this summer looking out a window in New Hampshire, years from now running my hand absently along a stalk in a field of lavender---these moments would have the same largeness, the same sense of importance, even if I never wrote them down.

And maybe that's what essays do: they call attention to moments---real, lived moments---and that's all that is needed.  Attention.  Attending.  We notice and we wait and we serve the silent shift that marks the internal change from "then" to "now and forever after."

A moment in the woods.  In the dark backyard.  On the couch with a hard summer rain falling outside.  Sometimes that's all it takes to know that our course has been subtly shifted---to whatever our new future holds.

Lovely illustration by Akiko Kato 

On Narrative and Country Music

My son took his first unassisted steps this week. It was pretty amazing, particularly because he took them while giggling hysterically. We had to buy him big boy shoes, and once we got home and he was toddling around in them, there were tears. I try not to be too much of a sentimommy, (that’s sentimental + mommy, I think I just coined it) boring people with maudlin stories; however, seeing him in those shoes walking on his own made me flash back to a year ago this time when he was a writhing, yelping, mess of a baby. When my son was brand new, I spent a decent amount of time alone in the car with him. Often, when he woke at dawn (or just before), I would whisk him out of the house to try and foster an hour of two of uninterrupted quiet for my wife to sleep.  If the weather was nice, we often went somewhere to take a nice walk, but if it was too hot or rainy, we just drove around a bit.

I found myself one morning listening to the “today’s hit country” station on the satellite radio. I have never had a strong feeling about country music one way or another. I’m from West Virginia, so it’s always been around, but it’s not the first genre of music I choose (I do, however, have strong opinions about people who say “I like all music except country” because it’s a coded statement about rural people, the same way I dislike “I like all music except rap” because it is a coded statement about urban people). All of that said, I have a trivia maven’s knowledge of country music. I know who major stars are, I can identify certain key songs, but I am by no means a fan.

Last summer, though, I went all country all the time.  When my wife asked me what the deal was, I had a hard time coming up with an answer. Part of it was having something new and different to listen to. For a period of time, every single song I heard was new to me (which lasted about a week before I could easily identify which songs were in heavy rotation). But, more significantly, so many of the songs had actual narratives. Stories! Country music has always been known for its stories, and while it’s not true for every song, it seemed to be true for many.  I followed each narrative to its end, and in a time when I couldn’t often find a moment to finish a magazine article, much less a book, it was a little bit of comfort at a chaotic time.

I began to discover recurring themes and motifs, much like I am always asking my students to do. Last summer there were several different songs getting a ton of airplay that made passionate arguments in favor of back roads rather than the interstates. Multiple songs name-checked Hank Williams (both senior and junior).  One made fun of men who eat sushi, drive Priuses, and drive on the interstate. In the bleary-eyed days of early motherhood, I threw myself into music that I can’t say represents much of my worldview.

Except for one thing---my worldview does value narrative. A story, even one told in under four minutes that I can’t personally relate to, can be truly transformative. Sleep-deprived and at times overwhelmed, I was soothed by the narrative structure of country music. I hazard that there is no other genre of American music that conveys as many narratives as country music (somehow, Katy Perry’s story of “Last Friday Night” doesn’t have the same push and pull of plot as, say, Martina McBride’s song about breast cancer, “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”).

One day, about five months later, I realized I had stopped listening to the country channel and had gone back to my old stations. My acute need for narrative had passed somehow. Maybe it was because I was more rested, maybe because I was about to go back to my day job of teaching high school English, but it passed. I listen to some of the songs from that time, but more because they remind me of the early days with my son than because I really enjoy the songs. I’m grateful for the solace that country’s narratives brought to me. Oh, and for introducing me to Miranda Lambert’s “Baggage Claim.”  That one is just a great song.

What Are You Reading (Offline, that is)?

Liz Moody, a freelance writer and former newspaper columnist, now runs a lifestyle blog, Things That Make Us.  Her posts about sex, love, travel and being a 20something in this crazy world (and, of course, the Point of Writing series) can be found at http://www.thingsthatmakeus.com.  Follow her on Twitter at @lizcmoody.  I spend a lot of time (too much!) thinking about the point of the written word, what function writing serves in the world at large.  Through my blog, I’ve gotten the opportunity to ask some amazing writers, and have received incredibly diverse and insightful responses.  “Writing allows the spotlight’s beam to cast outward into our society, then begin to illuminate ills and joys in ways we hadn’t allowed before,” says Kevin Salwen, author of The Power of Half (and my uncle).  My friend Hannah thinks that writing expands people’s capacity for empathy, while my other friend Chris thinks:  “Being able to feel from another person’s vantage point turns out to be nothing but intense self-examination.  What you’re doing, really, is finding out what it means to be you.”

I, of course, ask other people because I haven’t yet decided what my thoughts on the matter are.  The purpose has morphed over time, from the large type books I read when I was first learning how to interpret words on a page to the perfect world of Sweet Valley that I hid my face in as I walked to and from elementary school, on the bus and on the playground to avoid the less than perfect awkwardness of talking to real people.  There were the books I read in college to gain literary street cred, able to drop names with the pretentiousness one goes to college to learn.  Now, though, I’m free to read books for purely my personal relationship with them, free of other necessities or circumstances.  If I were to say what, right now, I believe the purpose of writing is, it would simply: to make us feel things.   If I close a book with my belly sore from laughter, it’s accomplished its purpose.  If I close a book with tears streaming down my face, all the better.  These are a few of the books that have made me feel the most:

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion The opening essay, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” radiantly captures the optimism of California gone awry.  It tells one story of one family in one town, in a way that is both incredibly intimate and incredibly universal.  It always leaves me with an eerie feeling, where I’m unable to talk to people or feel completely settled in whatever environment I’m in.

A taste:  “I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Beginning as a Greek epic, seguing into a tale of an immigrant family’s American dream, and brilliantly interweaving a coming-of-age story, Middlesex, to me, is about figuring out what it means to be oneself. The book manages to be incredibly complex and lyrically written while maintaining an easy read, page-turner quality.  I alternated between sobbing and feeling incredibly uplifted, in between wondering:  how did someone write this?

A taste:  “Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." … I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. ”

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris While I love all of Sedaris’s books, this one is where I feel he really hit his stride.  I read an interview with him where someone asked if he worried he was going to run out of material (Sedaris writes nonfiction, often mining his past).   Sedaris answered that the more he wrote, the less “big” things he wrote about, and the more he liked his pieces for it.  This book is often about the subtle moments that matter in the every day.  It veers from don’t-read-in-public laughter worthy (a Neanderthal take on the college experience) to incredibly poignant insights on family and friendships.  This will be the funniest death-themed book you’ll ever read.

A taste:  “I think about death all the time, but only in a romantic, self-serving way, beginning, most often, with my tragic illness and ending with my funeral. I see my brother squatting beside my grave, so racked by guilt that he’s unable to stand. “If only I’d paid him back that twenty-five thousand dollars I borrowed,” he says. I see Hugh, drying his eyes on the sleeve of his suit jacket, then crying even harder when he remembers I bought it for him.”

Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff A collection of short stories wherein each story has the emotional payoff of a novel is not an easy thing to come by.  I often had to set down the book as I finished a story, in order to let the story properly marinate in my head.  The pieces are wildly diverse: a baton twirler’s path to motherhood and meaning, a polio victim and her unlikely lover, the role of water in the world, and in one life.  While the form, particularly, allows Groff to tug on a wide range of emotions, the one I felt most acutely was a sense of loss, a pang in my stomach and chest of something I was now missing that I didn’t know was gone.

A taste:  “There is no ending, no neatness to this story. There never really is where water is concerned. It is wild, febrile, kind, ambiguous; it is dark and carries the mud, and it is clear and the cleanest thing. Too much of it kills us, and not enough kills us, and it is what makes us, mostly. Water is the cleverest substance, wily beyond the stretch of our mortal imaginations. And no matter where it is pent, no matter if it is air or liquid or solid, it will someday, inevitably, find its way out.”

Are you, like me, seeking emotion as you turn pages, or do you read for another reason? What do you think is the purpose of books?

Why do I write "strong female characters"?

It only happened a few years ago, and it may be apocryphal, but the legend goes that when Buffy creator and The Avengers writer-director Joss Whedon was asked by a journalist why he wrote “strong female characters,” he replied, “Because you’re still asking me that question.” I love this quote. I love how it represents both a rejection of what’s a somewhat limiting term---what the heck is a “strong female character” anyway?---and an acknowledgement that despite its limitations we, as women and feminists and feminist-allies, still need to be aware of its existence. Because, it would seem, we don’t have enough in movies, television, advertising, and the media in general.

But what constitutes a “strong female character”? Does she have to be a black belt, have muscles, or carry a machine gun? Does she need magical superhero powers? Does she have to wear pantsuits? Does she have to be an emotional rock that never cries?

I don’t necessarily have an answer, which is part of why I wanted to write this column: to foster a discussion about how women are represented in our culture, and what implications those representations have for our everyday reality. But, if I had to define what a female character, ideally, should be, I would lean towards: real. Or at least as real as fiction ever gets. For me, any character who is not one-dimensional or a stereotype is a strong female character, if I can co-opt an already-overused term.

(Note: This 2011 piece by Carina Chocano sums up pretty well my approach to the “strong female character” phenomenon. Definitely worth a read.)

Case in point: Whedon’s own “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” (My first Equals Record piece and I’m already revealing my nerdiness: this was and is my favorite show of all time.) Buffy Summers, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar is the Slayer, a hero whose calling in life is to fight the forces of evil using her superhuman strength and agility. She does backflips, knows martial arts, and dusts vampires, demons, and apocalyptic monsters on a regular basis. She saves the world several times. She carries a successful seven-season self-titled TV series. If anyone should be the poster woman for the “strong female character,” it’s Buffy.

But upon closer examination, it isn’t just the fact that she kicks ass that makes her strong. Otherwise, Lara Croft would also be a poster woman SFC (which, to my mind, she most certainly isn’t). Throughout the series, Buffy faces tough situations of rather more earthly sorts: bad relationships, family dysfunction, problems with authority. Her choices are not always the right ones. She cries. She flips out. She does all these very human things, all the while continuing to fight for what she believes is right and remaining relatable to decidedly non-superhuman viewers, male and female. This—and not her ability to wield a wooden stake-- is what makes her strong.

Thus, a female character shouldn’t need to possess traits we consider “masculine” to be an SFC. She doesn’t need to be physically or supernaturally strong and kick male and monster ass, like Buffy or The Avengers' Black Widow. In my humble opinion, what we need more of in pop culture are not female superheroes, so much as female characters, period (FCs?): in a variety of roles, shown in a variety of lights, a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, orientations, and occupations, a variety of choices, a variety of voices.

As with minorities in general, a major reason this doesn’t happen as often as it should is because our centers of cultural production (e.g. Hollywood) remain dominated by white, normative males, who are both more inclined to represent their own kind and perhaps less suited to represent others with accuracy and nuance. So goes the country. But things are getting better. I think. I’m trying to be optimistic.

I embark on the adventure of this column with two goals in mind: first, to critically examine the way popular culture represents women, and other minorities, and address when it’s done right, and, especially, when it’s done wrong---because while complaining might not do much, it’s better than passive acceptance of tired old tropes.

And second, perhaps less nobly: to have fun gossiping about TV shows and movies! I've said it once and I'll say it again: I’m the type of girl who publicly hates on pop culture, particularly things like trashy reality television and entertainment magazines and celebrity fashion, while secretly enjoying them whenever I need a little escapism from, you know, life. What can I say? I’m a pop culture junkie. I am not going to lie, as I type this the Kardashians are on my TV set. I’m only a little ashamed to admit this.

So please join me as I dive into the good, the bad, the ugly and the pretty of pop culture, from positive role models to shameful stereotypes, from sexual empowerment to sexual objectification. Maybe I’m an idealist, but I believe that we give pop culture its power, and we can take it away---so if we stop accepting “the bad” and “the ugly” at face value and examine what’s underneath, maybe we can demand, and receive, more of “the good” and the “pretty”---whatever those may be.

Outdoor Movies

I’ve never been to a drive-in movie. This is surprising, mostly, because given the chance to partake in anything that smacks even remotely of another era, I’ll be the first to sign up. I know I can’t be the only one daydreaming of necking while the latest sci-fi thriller goes unwatched in the background. I keep telling myself, one day.

In my own defense, active drive-ins are increasingly difficult to find. While I won’t claim to be an expert on the subject, I think we can probably blame increased land values and the incredible ease with which we can all watch movies from the comfort of our homes. Surely, there’s something wise to be said about an increased cultural tendency to turn inward and something else about folks’ unwillingness to pass a cozy evening surrounded by their favorite and least favorite neighbors.

While the drive-in movie might be largely a relic from another time, there’s an alternative to be found in movies playing in outdoors in city parks. Judging from the crowds at these cinematic evenings, I’d hazard the guess that more people than we realize relish the opportunity for some quality time surrounded by other humans under an open sky.

Last week, my fiance James and I joined throngs of our fellow New Yorkers to watch To Kill A Mockingbird in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The scene was impressive. The lawn was full to overflowing with families and friends and, in the case of the duo in front of us, very amorous young couples. Many of them packed dinner picnics and set up a hodge-podge of sleek picnic blankets and dirty beach towels to take in the film and the sunset over the East River. I imagine half the crew was seeking refuge from their overly air-conditioned offices and the other half sought the cool breeze coming off the river after a day of sweating it out without any.

Whatever the reason for being there, it was utterly delightful to be surrounded by so many happy movie-goers. The sun setting behind lower Manhattan alone would have been worth the walk down to the park, but seeing so many people enjoying it together, well, that just about got me choked up. If you’ve got a hankering for a little summertime movie adventure, or are feeling bummed out about a summer in the city, I heartily recommend trying to catch an outdoor movie or two. If you’re not in New York, never you fear. There are outdoor movies screening in cities all across the globe. Check out your local listings and make a pact to go. It'll be worth it.

What Are You Reading (Offline, that is)?

This space is usually reserved for books, sometimes magazines, but always the printed word. At risk of romanticizing the tactile pleasure of physically marking where you’ve left off (are you a corner-folder or a book marker?), feeling the right side lighten with every page flip, or getting the perfect crease in the newspaper allowing you to hold it with one hand while balancing a coffee in the other, I will say that print will always be cozier—in my mind, friendlier—than digital words. But some print publications are fleeting and I feel incredibly lucky to live in a time when an article I’ve read, dog-eared, carried with me even, can be shared via the internet.

***

I love books. I’ve loved them unrelentingly since my first wobbly attempts at reading—maybe closer to memorization—when I was still small enough to be afraid of the dark and was, thus, the proud owner of a flashlight, perfect for illuminating pages under my covers. In elementary school, I once got into mild trouble for reading a too-good-to-put-down-for-an-entire-school-day novel on my lap during an unnecessarily long lesson on soil erosion. So you can imagine my surprise when during a particularly tumultuous time in my life, I’ve found myself unable to give a book my full attention or to still my thoughts long enough to form my own sentences.

It was only during this past year that I truly released the notion that we would move west. We renovated our apartment to include an office big enough for daily work sessions with my business partner/best friend and co-worker/sister, settled our daughter in an adorable preschool, found a nanny for our son who puts Mary Poppins to shame, and helped my sister move from an apartment upstairs to one literally right next door. Life being what it is, we had only just settled into this routine that felt worthy of forever when my husband got a job offer in San Francisco—at a company he’d admired for years, doing exactly what he wants to do, with people who could aptly be described as awesome.

In some ways this move is a no-brainer. Even putting aside my husband’s opportunity, there is a lifetime of reasons why our family should settle in San Francisco. One of the first things that people learn upon meeting me is that I’m a Northern Californian. My husband and I got married in Napa. Our dog is named Tahoe. I refer to the Bay Area as “home” (I also happen to refer to New York as home, but that’s fodder for another time). My huge extended family spans the west coast from San Jose to Seattle, with three quarters of them living in the Bay Area; our holiday gatherings have been described as epic. But it was sudden and I’m sad (which is a huge step up from the first few weeks after this news when I would have said heartbroken).

While books, even some of my forever-favorites, haven’t soothed my anxiety or even temporarily diverted my attention from this looming change, essays and articles that seem to have been written with me in mind have found their way into my purse. I pull them out—all crumpled and soft from the friction of my wallet, phone, and stray chapsticks—and read snippets when I’m feeling particularly heartsick. They’re worry stones for my mind.

***

I’ve always been a loyalist—none of that flitting around from thing to thing for me. I excel at commitment. My upcoming move wasn’t even a topic of conversation when I came upon this article, “The Joys of Staying Put,” over a year ago. Apparently, there are people who live in their New York apartments for a lifetime, generations even (see also “100 Years of Staying Put”). These are my people, my tribe. This article may have been the catalyst for my decision to live not just in the same city or same neighborhood, but the same apartment . . . forever.

The funny thing is, our apartment isn’t even that great. I mean it’s reasonably sized by Manhattan standards, it’s a duplex, and it has a backyard. Oh, and our rent is below market in a neighborhood we love. It’s also what a good realtor would call “charming” or “full of character,” meaning it’s old, creaky, and will always have a thin veil of dirt, no matter how hard you scrub. None of that really matters though because we hear the birds chirp every morning and one of the neighbors with an adjacent yard plays classical music on his outdoor speakers most afternoons (though everyone on the backside of our block, at one point or another, thought we lived in listening distance of a great pianist). Only one other person seems to understand: the late and great Nora Ephron. Her brilliant essay, “Moving On,” about falling in love and leaving an apartment, is everything I feel. Like one of her movies, I read this piece and find myself laughing through my tears.

Now I’m in what Thomas Beller calls the “In-Between Days.” We technically still live in New York, but we’ve been traveling to and from San Francisco. Our count of the New York days we have left is close to single digits. Every experience has the potential of being characterized as “the last”—last impromptu backyard grill party, last day of pounding lattes and never watching videos of animals doing funny things in the office, last run up the Great Hill. Then there are the saddest ones of all—last stroll through an empty wing of the Museum of Natural History while our daughter makes up elaborate stories about the exhibits and our son interjects with animal noises, last family walk during off-leash hours where our little ones scramble up the rock they’ve termed “the mountain,” and the kids’ last ride on the double-swing my husband hung in our backyard (the one baby Jack is only just big enough to hold on to himself). There’s a real danger of letting every moment become too precious to be real.

Despite my temptation to squeeze the life out of our last days in the only home I’ve known for my adult life and to document everything we do prior to our move for posterity, I’m trying to remember that I don’t have to. I should be marveling at my luck. Unlike Joyce Maynard, I’ve fallen in love with a place that in all likelihood will remain right where it is for the entirety of my life and my kids’ lives too. In Maynard’s essay, “Paradise Lost,” she describes her grief and finally acceptance when rising waters slowly submerged her home and haven on Lake Atitlán. Her surrender to the reality of life came when she realized "The idea that any of what we have will last forever is a dream." If we hadn't changed our life by deciding to move across the country some other circumstances would have. We'll cry, we'll move, and then we'll visit an ever-changing New York through our ever-changing eyes.

He'd have me at Atwood.

Tell me, if you would, what each of these lists has in common.

1984, The Odyssey, Infinite Jest, Super Sad True Love Story. Lots of non-fiction, typically covering: history, science, or art/art theory. Neil deGrasse Tyson/Brian Greene/Richard Feynman. And biographies/autobiographies.

Just finished Nick Flynn's Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which is incredible. I am sappily fond of David Foster Wallace for many many reasons.

Confederacy of Dunces, Girl Curious Hair (surprised, wanted to really hate him), everything Salinger or Kundera.

Currently reading Life by Keith Richards and miscellaneous repair manuals. Some favorites: White Noise, Libra, Assassination Vacation, Shop Class as Soulcraft, Outliers.

All the Kings Men, The Man in the High Castle, 100 Years of Solitude, The Odyssey, Who Censored Roger Rabbit, The 1,001 Nights, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Catullus.

They are lists of books, it's true. And they're charmingly eclectic, up to a point. I mean, you have to admit that there's something adorable about a list that includes works by both Homer and Neil deGrasse Tyson. But look a little closer, and you might notice something missing: not one of these lists of favorite books includes a single novel written by a woman.

The common thread uniting these? They all herald from the OKCupid profiles of men who've either emailed me or caught my attention in the last few weeks. I haven't met any of these gentlemen in person yet, but they all seem perfectly nice, bright and open-minded. They are men who claim, either in their profiles or in the answers to their questions, a certain level of liberalism---even feminism. But nary a one lists a single book by a woman---not even a freaking short story---as among their favorites.

Whenever I get an email from a promising guy, I dread scrolling down to this part of his profile, knowing that pretty much every time I'm going to feel a twinge of disappointment in a man I otherwise find interesting. Why is it, I ask myself, that none of these men can be bothered to include a woman among their favorite authors? The likely answer, of course, is that they probably haven't read anything by a woman---with the possible exception of Doris Kearns Goodwin---since college. (Habits developed in childhood---which we've discussed before---follow people for life, kids.)

By contrast, here are the favorite books of some awesome, single, straight ladies in the same age range and geography:

A Visit From the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan), Super Sad True Love Story (Gary Shteyngart), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon), The Unnamed (Joshua Ferris).

I have favourites ranging from the Hitchhiker's Guide books to Jane Austen (cliche I know) to Stephen Fry's books.

Beckett, Plath, Hughes, Jack London, Brontës, Poe, Camus, Anthony Minghella's radio plays, Donne, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Strindberg, Thoreau, Marx, artists' journals (especially Munch), T.S. Eliot, Braudel, Benjamin.

Nabokov. Wells Tower. Lorrie Moore. Jennifer Egan. (Writing a list of books could take me forever and would only look boring on screen.)

The Handmaid's Tale, Middlesex, House of Mirth, I Capture The Castle, Persuasion, Grimm's Fairy Tales

This is hardly a scientific survey. But I can't help but think that when men---especially supposedly progressive, liberal, worth-dating men---can't be bothered to read women's writing (or, if nothing else, to cop to it online), we have yet another symptom of our still-yawning gender gap. (On the flip side of things, note the woman who feels the need to temper her love of Austen, one of the Western canon's greatest social satirists, with an aside noting how cliche her admiration is.)

I truly believe that "small" things like this are just the bubbles popping on the surface of a roiling body of sexist water, seemingly benign indicators of the ongoing wage gap (even more notable for women of color), the constant, unending street harassment women face on a daily basis, the one in four women who will be raped in their lifetimes---and on, and on, and on.

Plus, these dudes are missing out on some seriously awesome writing. Margaret Atwood is for real, bros. And would guarantee a reply email, to boot.

The Art of Japanese Sweets

These traditional japanese sweets (called "wagashi") are not only something yummy to eat, but also a piece of art.  There are many seasonal pieces you can only find at certain times, making us appreciate the season more. My favorites are sakura (cherry blossom), which can be found everywhere in spring. They are pretty and so tasty, too!

 Some sweets even resemble gold fish swimming in a jelly, but don't worry---they're not real!

What Are You Reading (Offline, That Is)?

Yes, I have a love affair with books. My relationship with them is passionate, compulsive, sometimes even compromising. Books have shaped my life since I’ve been born – naming me Alice, my mother fatally bound me to a destiny of being a day and night dreamer, and I soon started to accept the responsibilities carried by my name, letting myself be won over by an alluring and beguiling world called Wonderland. And once upon a time, when I was 25 (well, I’m 30 now!), I did find my Wonderland---it actually feels like my Neverland, too---in a country (America) I deeply love and consider the one where I can get lost, and found, and I always feel myself at my best potential. I indeed tumbled into Brooklyn, a borough I fell in love with, a very special spot that takes thousands different shapes and smells thousands different smells. A place where I hope to live again soon.

So these are some of the books that have inspired and influenced my love for Brooklyn, and that have somehow contributed to shape my idea of a unique place.

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. By Betty Smith. LOVED IT BECAUSE it made me want to go back in time, wander around the streets of Williamsburg and meet Francie Nolan, a character I feel deeply attached to. Francie looks for simple pleasures in life, like being allowed to sleep in the front room of her house on Saturday nights, watching the busy streets below. Like her beloved tree, she is ready to burst into bloom. This novel paints a portrait of Brooklyn at the turn of the twentieth century, and it goes far beyond mere description. It made all of my senses came alive and helped me feel what it was like to live in Williamsburg back then.  A classic, a must read.

“It’s mysterious here in Brooklyn. It’s like – yes – like a dream. The houses and streets don’t seem real. Neither do the people.”

THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES. By Paul Auster. LOVED IT BECAUSE I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, not far from where this story takes place. The novel feels and sounds like the borough, and Auster's native Brooklyn is painted with affection. I liked Nathan Glass, a man who retires to Brooklyn to recover from lung cancer (and his divorce). And I liked his project entitled The Book of Human Folly, a chronicle of his unique mishaps, misunderstandings, foibles and foolishness, where he actually begins the process of authoring his own true existence.

“Kafka wrote his first story in one night. Stendhal wrote The Charterhouse of Parma in forty-nine days. Melville wrote Moby- Dick in sixteen months. Flaubert spent five years on Madame Bovary. Musil worked for eighteen years on The Man Without Qualities and died before he could finish. Do we care about any of that now?”

BROOKLYN. By Colm Tòibìn. LOVED IT BECAUSE this is ultimately an optimistic novel, and on many occasions it actually made me smile. Eilis comes from a small town in Ireland, and in the 50’s she crosses the ocean to find a new life. She has to learn to live in a new culture away from the only home she has ever known. I feel like she could have been more curious about Brooklyn though, and if I ever meet her in Wonderland I’ll tell her!

"She had been keeping the thought of home out of her mind, letting it come to her only when she wrote or received letters or when she woke from a dream in which her mother or father or Rose . . . appeared. She thought it strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that it must be the prospect of home."

BROOKLYN WAS MINE. Edited by Chris Knutsen and Valerie Steiker. LOVED IT BECAUSE it’s a collection of essays that gives some of my favorite authors (and today’s best writers) an opportunity to pay a tribute to Brooklyn. Its literary history runs deep, and also in recent years the borough has seen a growing concentration of bestselling novelists, memoirists, poets, journalists. Contributors include Emily Barton, Jennifer Egan, Alexandra Styron, Darin Strauss, Jonathan Lethem.

“... but this life, we have to admit - this endless throwing and retrieving of a ball, this endless cycle of shade trees to acorns to the winter hiatus from which our kidst burst, metamorphosed completely, while we try to believe we ourselves haven't aged - is the real life: the repetitive rhythm, the onrush of time.”

“There are moments when a city can suddenly acquire all the kinetic qualities of a human being, a person's moods and expressions, so that she becomes a character of some kind - like a large woman, I often think, half asleep on her side. You find yourself talking to her, asking her questions, pestering her. And living in such a city is a long, monogamous affair, or else a marriage one abandons from time to time. Cities are rarely causual flings.”

Only, I don’t feel Brooklyn WAS mine. It IS mine! And WILL always be mine!

Alice runs “alice + wonderland”, her new blog. She is now a copy editor at Rizzoli Publishing, in Milan, and a former Italian lecturer in New York and Washington DC. Alice is passionate about books, travelling, taking pictures, vintage clothing, and of course Brooklyn ❤ Tweets @pluswonderland.

From The Sound of Music....

Dearest Clara, We're having a bit of a homecoming this week you might say . . . Vienna, Salzburg, the mountains, the lakes: all of our Austrian favorites are on tap as we head off for vacation.  When Americans come to Austria, they can't help but think of the Sound of Music, much to the bafflement of many Austrians.  They just don't get why we like that movie so much, but how can you not? Love stories, hero stories, gorgeus mountains, all set to cheery music? It's the recipe for a winner.

I've been watching this movie at least once a year since the age of five.  I remember when I first saw it, I could barely make it through the first half, and most of the storyline was lost on me.  But so much more comes out of that movie when you get older---not only does Captain Von Trapp become more and more handsome, you start to notice different characters in a new way.  Here is what I've learned over the years from this movie:

• Some parts of a party are for children, and some parts of the party are for adults: I am always almost as excited as Gretl when she exclaims "My first party!".  The Captain lets them attend and perform, but when the guests are seated at dinner, the children sing their way upstairs, which always struck me as a nice balance for everyone involved.  So please don't be upset if mommy tells you to go to bed halfway through a party.
• Bow out gracefully: Unlike many people, I think the Baroness von Schraeder gets a bit of a bum rap.  And as I've gotten older, I've actually started to feel for her---after all, she thought everything was going swimmingly until a would-be peasant nun from the hills, half her age waltzs in and turns everything upside down.  I give the Baroness a lot of credit for putting up a battle for the Captain, but more so, for bowing out gracefully when she sees the battle is lost.  She is, even in heartbreak, a pretty decent lady.  And she's got some of the best lines in the movie.
• Sometimes those closest to you will hurt you the most: We want to love and trust those closest to us, it makes natural sense.  But sometimes those we love and trust turn out to be influenced by something else more than us.  Between Liesl and Rolf, and the Captain and the Butler, we see that it is sometimes those closest to us that can hurt us the most.
• Your favorite things will be your most comforting things: When the dog bites . . . when the bee stings . . . all things that can make us cry.  But I love how Maria and the children sing of simple things that they love, like brown paper packages tied up strings, and schnitzels, and ponies. Keep a list of those things that make you smile, you can call on those memories when you can't call on me to keep you company when things might be a little saddier or lonelier.
• If you're afraid of something, you should probably go back and face it: I always loved how Mother Superior calls out Maria for hiding in the convent.  She tells her that if she joins the religious life, it must be for the right reasons.  She makes her face her fears and really explore what she was meant to do, even if it meant a loss to her convent.  I think everyone should be so lucky to have a mentor that really makes us look at what we want and need out of life, and then helps us find the courage to face it.

All my love,

Mom

Apple Pie, etc.

At this time of year, compelled by a latent patriotic streak, I often find myself pulling up a copy of the Declaration of Independence.  I find the first passage stirring each and every time.  The prose is so beautiful, the sentiments so impassioned.   Even though when they wrote, “all men are created equal,” they were, in fact, only really talking about men and not actually all men, I would say it was a pretty propitious beginning for a nation.  It is obviously important to note that the men who drafted this document were functioning in a particular social and historical context and so I forgive them, to a great extent, for not including language about women, people of color, the LGBT community, etc.  The concepts of feminism and civil rights were barely a glimmer in the eye of our founders.  I do think, in their minds, they were creating a country in which citizens could be fundamentally free and that over time, they would leave it to the people to decide to whom this freedom applied and what exactly it meant.  In 2012, however, I would like to hold us to a higher standard.  After all, we have had a few years in the interim to work out the kinks. Although I am a bit of a cynic and feel like “Holidays” can be really arbitrary markers in the passage of time, I do appreciate a solid and socially sanctioned opportunity for contemplation.  Also, I am a sucker for fireworks.  Still, in moments, I absolutely struggle with my identity as a U.S. citizen.  I worry that our domestic discourse has been reduced to a profoundly childish political game with no heed of the real consequences for our people.  As recently as 2008, our First Lady was publicly eviscerated for simply acknowledging that we are a country with a history of discrimination and lack of opportunity.  There is real dissonance with all the talk about what the founders intended and the reality that some of our citizens still don’t have equal rights or access to decent basic services.  Meanwhile, the very groups that like to tout liberty and the original “values” of this great nation tend to support limiting the prospects for everyone but those in traditional positions of power.

Living with this kind of ambivalence---despairing over the state of our union while believing that progress will prevail---is my daily bread.  As I wade through the morass of feelings and obsessively check in with Nate Silver in an effort to predict the future, I thought I would try real hope on for size.  This year, there are a few things that make me truly proud to be an American.

1. Barack Hussein Obama is our president.  That’s right, a black man is the president of the United States of America.  That is still fairly mind-blowing, am I right?  Oh, and a black man of mixed race, with an African father and a middle name that was the same exact surname of one of our country’s sworn enemies.  This guy is so “other,” that fringe people (I am looking at you, Donald Trump) still insist he is a Muslim, Socialist, Communist who was not born in this country.  And yet, WE DID IT.  We elected him fair and square and might just do it again.  This is fantastically American and is us at our best.  By the way, the person who gave him a real run for his money?  A woman.  It’s getting better all the time.

2. Same-Sex Marriage is recognized by nine states and licenses are issued in six states (plus Washington, D.C. and on a couple of Indian Reservations).  And several other states have legal avenues for recognizing same-sex unions.  And the President just publicly endorsed same-sex marriage---unalienable rights!  And people functioning in high-profile, mainstream positions, like the anchor Anderson Cooper can come out with fewer professional and personal consequences.  And when Dan Savage decided to create the It Gets Better Project---a movement to develop awareness and a call to action regarding the bullying and the suffering of gay youth---practically an entire nation took to YouTube to lift people up.  There we are again.

3. 30 million uninsured Americans just got healthcare.  I will spare you my rhetoric about how this is a moral issue.  And we can talk until the cows come home about whether or not you support various aspects of the new healthcare law.  But make no mistake, this is one of the most powerful legislative achievements on behalf of under-served people in the last 40 years.  I am so proud of the people who have fought for this bill and who believe, as I do, that a country has a responsibility to its citizens to help them when they are ill.  NO WAY, the founders had in mind to leave people to get sick and die because they couldn’t afford care.  NO WAY.

There are plenty of other, more modest reasons to hang bunting on the front porch this week.  But I think even just the above will do for the time being.  The march toward access and opportunity continues, despite a great many obstacles, both social and political.  So, go ahead, accuse me of being a hippie, but I will say this . . . you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone (Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’).  Happy 4^th, one and all.

(Fireworks photo: Ian Kluft from Wikimedia Commons.)

YWRB: First Impressions

By Amanda Page My first memory of Amy Turn Sharp is crisp and static, like a simple snapshot. She was a girl in a poetry workshop, sitting in one of the chairs beneath the classroom window, scarf around her neck---although it was Spring---and headphones casually slipped from her ears, dangling from her neck where they got lost in the fabric.  It might have been the first day or late in the quarter. But that's when I took notice. She seemed shy as she responded to a question---maybe about her poem. What stands out to me most about that moment is the reserve and timidity she displayed, because I was reserved and timid. I was shy and I didn't like it, but I didn't know how else to be.

Maybe that's why the image sticks. Or maybe I recognized a kindred spirit, but not consciously. Anyway, that was not the woman I started to know on smoke breaks. The Amy Turn I came to know in fifteen-minute bursts was loud, exuberant, and wildly enthusiastic about writing and life.

We weren't fast friends. The quarter ended and I saw her once over the summer, when I saw her on the street and stopped to say hello. Fall came and classes started and there we were in another workshop together. Most of our friends had graduated that summer. We were those rare, at the time, students who kept at it, floating a little, not quite ready to move beyond the classroom, still trying to figure out what we were doing in college, let alone with our lives.

Maybe I'm projecting a little. That's what I was doing: floating. Flailing. When I met Amy Turn, as she was called then, I made a friend to flail with. Amy Turn. I rarely ever heard her called anything but the two names together. She was never just "Amy." I admired that. I was from a place where two names were common, and I'd tried to get one to catch on for myself. It never happened. I wasn't a Bobbi Jo or Barbara Dee. I was just Amanda. Just the one name. And I couldn't quite get the two-first-name version of myself to exist.

We started writing together. We'd sit at the bar or the coffee shop or sometimes at the kitchen table in her apartment and we'd handwrite essays in yellow legal pads, right there on the spot. We thrived on the spontaneous nature of sitting down and writing something complete. We were rebelling against the image of the isolated writer, working in a dim room all alone. The work had more energy, more life, because it was composed quickly, full of vim and whimsy, in the presence of another writer.

Rebelling against the idea of the diligent, lonely writer was exciting. We reminded ourselves that Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road on one long continuous scroll. He couldn't have written it all in isolation. He needed his friends. He needed to be around the "mad ones." And I found myself a mad one in Amy Turn. I liked that my first impression of her was wrong. It gave me hope that I could rebel against first impressions of me. I was more than just a shy girl with a single first name. I was a writer, and that's what I wanted to be known. Amy Turn made it known.

Amy Turn was known. Everyone in town seemed to know her: restaurant owners and convenient store workers and every single bartender in town. It’s hard to not know the girl dancing on your table at the end of the night. Before I knew it, we were known as the writer girls. People expected us to show up with our legal pads and scratch out whole pieces. People knew about our project. That terrified me. But it also made it real.

If you're going to look for a friend with whom to rebel, you can't go wrong with one who pulls you out of your comfort zone, who introduces you to people as the person you want to be, which is not always the person you see yourself as. I started, then, to see myself as a writer. That vision, that version, of myself has wavered through the years. It's good to have a mad one to contact to remind you that you are not the lonely writer.

And it's good to know that the mad ones don't always reveal themselves in your life with that first impression.

We want to know: Do you have a friend who pulls you out of your comfort zone and makes you rebel against the small version of yourself that you sometimes believe yourself to be? How do they pull you out of your comfort zone? How do they prompt you to rebel against that small version of yourself? Email us at amanda@bold-types.com or leave a comment.

Almost Not There

There's joy in solitude sometimes, and satisfaction in company. But what feelings lie on the continuum in between? This series explores one such gray area. [gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="title"]

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Today we're lucky enough to present the Pretty Mommy edition of our "What Are You Reading?" column. Our pal Michelle LeBlanc is the tastemaker behind the impeccably curated shop, Pretty Mommy---but we don't just love her for her good taste. Michelle isn't afraid to be honest that figuring out how to run a thriving business while raising two small children comes with daily challenges. We love that she's willing to share the parts behind all the pretty.  Here, she tells us what she's reading, and pulls in two of her friends to join in the conversation. Michelle LeBlanc, Pretty Mommy I have to wax a little nostalgic about summer reading . . . growing up in the hot climes of the southwest, I spent many a long morning combing the shelves at the local library, taking home stacks of reads . . . lounging in the cool a/c with classic movie star bios, some trashy romantic lit that I snuck in under my mother's nose, the latest Sweet Valley High installment, and a hippie beauty-at-home recipe book for concocting face masks out of oatmeal & honey, patchouli oils and rose water toners . . . then finally coming out of my cave at dusk to brave the heat and track down some ice cream . . . oh to have those lazy days!

With two littles underfoot, my reading time these days is pretty much limited to short snippets of magazine reading (Bon Appetit for wishful cooking & Entertainment Weekly for indulging my pop culture obsession), but one week every summer we escape with the in-laws to a cabin whereupon I let the relatives keep track of my kids and I dive into  something with just a touch more depth (but only a touch mind you, there's nothing so awful as a downer book in the middle of summer vacation, no?) So to that end, I just ordered Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead . . . Amazon's description calls it "deceptively frothy" . . . sounds right up my alley!

[Editor's note: Hey look! One of our favorite people, Robyn Virball, recommended Seating Arrangements in the May 18 edition of What Are You Reading? The author happens to be Robyn's friend, which makes her a friend of ours.]

Jenna & Cary, Ace & Jig Some current favourites are The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, both by Jeannette Walls. We scrounged a third-hand (dog-chewed) copy of The Glass Castle off of a friend and since then Cary and I have both read it, and now the same copy is being devoured by the second of our interns! Some serious recycling going on. It's a fast-moving and fascinating read, and her no-nonsense literary style  really appeals to us as busy mamas (she cuts to the chase!). The story is a memoir of the author's life and her unbelievable family and the follow-up Half-Broke Horses  is a true life novel which relives the tale of her heroic grandmother. As you may guess, we are drawn to stories of strong women.

Cary also reports that she is currently reading Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner about the immigrant childhood in Brooklyn.

And last but not least . . . we are both so thrilled to have reached the stage where we can enjoy reading chapter books with our eldest. Cary and Alice are reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and James and I are reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  It's so fun to revisit these favorites from our childhoods.

Jennifer Murphy, Jennifer Murphy Bears & dull Diamond I'm crazy for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. The dreamlike quality of a life weaving in and out of real and unreal spaces takes me away in the summer . . . seems like the perfect daydream---charged with vivid plots and characters.

The Sweet Sounds of Summer

Are you like me?  Are you profoundly distractible in the summer?  Are you flooded with memories of some silky body of water from childhood?  Do you perpetually conjure fantasies of what your life would be like with a beach house?  While I am aware that it would make me a far more interesting person to say that my favorite season were fall (“LO, the changing leaves, the chill in the air, the opportunity for reflection . . .”), it is unequivocally summer.  The sense of liberation, the peeling of clothes, the ubiquity of gazpacho . . . my mood lifts for a solid three months. Yet, here we are, mere mortals---without that second home with the chic friggin’ towels, jute rugs, and $67 candles on the vanity.  You and I are still caged in the daily grind (however joyful and soul satisfying) of work and the business of life.  At times like this, I like to use music to transport, because as it turns out, there is nothing fired up on the helipad to take me to the Hamptons or Anguilla.

I compiled a list of some all-time favorite albums that give me that carefree summer vibe.  In doing so, I have noticed a few things: 1) I am kind of old; 2) As such, I seem to have gotten a little bit stuck in the ‘90s; 3) Maybe the ‘90s were sexier?; 4) I digress; 5) I can’t remember the other thing I was going to say here.  And one final author’s note (for the sake of what we will not characterize as my obsessive compulsive disorder, but merely something on the wide-ranging and often totally, totally normal anxiety spectrum), this list is certainly not comprehensive.  These albums---yes, I call them albums, I mentioned I was kind of old---are classics in my mind and I reach for them consistently in this season, but they are in no particular order and there are so, so, so many more I could discuss.  That is all.  ENJOY IN GOOD HEALTH.  Oh, and I would love to hear about your clutch songs or albums for summer in the comments---always looking for new classics.

Moondance – Van Morrison (1970) Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?  This is such an obvious choice, but I have (even recently!) met people who have never heard this album in its entirety and I have even met people who don’t own this album or any of the songs from it.  If something doesn’t move inside you when the opening of “Into the Mystic” begins, well . . . then I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

Songs in the Key of Life – Stevie Wonder (1976) Double album.  Stevie is so fully, totally, serious here, such a monster talent.  He played many of the instruments on many of the songs.  This is a major opus in his long and illustrious catalogue and is referred to by several critics over the years as the best album ever made (like of ALL the albums ever made by anyone, ever).  This masterpiece comes with a 24-page booklet of lyrics and liner notes.  UNREAL.  Stevie writes the book on heavy duty lyrics paired with gorgeous melodies.  Prepare to have your mind blown by “As,” one of my favorite songs, period.

3 Feet High and Rising – De La Soul (1989) Pure, unadulterated, wacky fun.  I wish hip-hop existed like this today---sadly, it does not.  This concept album is smart and sassy and hot and will make your booty shimmy.

Static & Silence – The Sundays (1997) This is the third and final album by the dreamy band, The Sundays.  If I had a voice like lead singer Harriet Wheeler, I think I would use it only for good.  And she totally does.  At all times.  And the single, “Summertime?” How about this chorus stanza:

“And it’s you and me in the summertime.  We’ll be hand in hand down in the park.  With a squeeze and sigh and that twinkle in your eye.  And all the sunshine banishes the dark.”

Heaven or Las Vegas – Cocteau Twins (1990) Cocteau Twins are completely weird, and I recognize they might be an acquired taste for some.  But if you don’t know this band and want to go into a really cozy version of outer space, this is the album to choose.  I also love Elizabeth Fraser’s voice and although she is noted for singing jibberish, this is one of the only albums on which you can actually hear her clearly and make some sense of the lyrics.  This seems like a strange endorsement, but please go download this?

Summerteeth – Wilco (1999) Haunting, lush and beautiful album by the always amazing Wilco.  An all-time favorite for all seasons.

Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? – Metric (2003) Metric is an awesome Candian indie rock band that it would really behoove you to know better.  Total Girl Power music, but also heady and sharp.  “Hustle Rose” makes me all intense and gets me grooving every time.

Rumours – Fleetwood Mac (1976) Do I really have to write anything here?  I mean, COME ON.

The Hits/The B Sides – Prince (1993) 3 albums of HOT SEX.

Celebrity Skin – Hole (1998) I will grant you that Courtney Love is a complete and total mess.  But she has made (arguably in collaboration with many other talented people) some rock-solid music in her day.  Particularly because I suspect that day has passed, never to return, what with all the crazy . . . this deserves a good, hard listen.  This whole album is sort of dedicated to LA and is very much evocative of California pop (a common theme in my musical tastes).  This also makes it a gorgeous summer stand by.  The hits on this are obviously great, but try “Boys on the Radio” on for size.  You won’t regret it.

The Surprising Joy of Inadequacy

When I began my first semester of college, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I wanted to study, and I remember when it came time to register for classes I felt pretty lost. I knew I would be taking Latin; Bryn Mawr had a pretty weighty language requirement and I had taken four years of Latin in high school. I had to take a required freshman writing seminar that all new students took, but that left two class slots wide open. My high school education had been very traditional and middle of the road. I went to college not even knowing what anthropology was, for example. I took some great classes in high school, including AP offerings in both Latin and Economics, but overall, I would say that the program offered at my high school, while solid, was not dynamic.

I had gone to a state-run educational camp for two summers while in high school (three weeks at a local college, all expenses paid for everyone, a pretty amazing thing looking back) and one year I had done creative writing. So, that first semester, I enrolled in Introduction to Writing Poetry. I didn’t think I’d make it into the course as Creative Writing offerings were notorious for being popular and oversubscribed, with priority going to juniors and seniors. When I received my schedule, though, there it was.

I figured this would be pretty straightforward. I had written some poetry at camp, and it had been well enough received.  While in high school, I hadn’t really read any poetry at all, saving old standards like William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,” which I remember enduring in AP English. Nonetheless, I figured I would be set.

I realized immediately that I was thoroughly mistaken. The other fourteen young women in the class were not there because they couldn’t think of anything else to register for. They were there because they loved poetry. They had written oodles of poems and read even more. Before class even started, they were swapping favorite poets, most of whom I didn’t know at all. It was frightening and intimidating. I am not entirely sure why I stayed in the course, but I think my main reason for staying was that it had been such a surprise to be enrolled, I didn’t want to give up this stroke of “luck.”

I struggled. I did all of the assignments and I did them carefully. I began to pick up the lingo and learn how to function in a workshop environment, and I do think I offered my classmates the occasional trenchant critique. That said, I did not write good poems. I couldn’t think of things to write about, let alone “wordsmith” as we were encouraged to do. The poem of mine that was best received in workshop was built thematically around a life experience that I had never even had, making me feel as though I was thumbing my nose at the confessional poets I had come to love like Sexton and Lowell.  I felt like a minor leaguer, a lost child, a flop. I ended up with a slightly above average grade, but there was no sense that I had done any work that semester to really remember.

In that class, though, I met some absolutely amazing women whose talent was evident and crackled around them like radio static. They ranged in age (Bryn Mawr has a program for students of “non-traditional” age), race, socioeconomic class, geographic background, and sexual orientation. In some ways, that class was a little microcosm of the community as a whole. The professor was kindly and warm, but not at all mincing. She didn’t patronize, but she wasn’t cruel.

I should have left that class demoralized. I didn’t distinguish myself at all, and it was one of many experiences at Bryn Mawr that left me feeling as though I didn’t measure up. So, what did I do? I enrolled in the follow-up course Advanced Poetry Writing the next semester. I was never going to be much of a poet, but I was not going to let the opportunity of spending more time in that challenging, electric environment pass me by. True, I didn’t break any new poetic ground in the next course.  I didn’t earn a fantastic grade. I sometimes felt silly and I sometimes felt stupid. Even in those moments, though, I felt supported and I felt inspired.

That sort of environment is rare and, I believe, a force of nature. It can’t really be created. A good teacher can facilitate the possibility of such camaraderie, but it takes many things coming together in a specific way for what I felt to happen (and, to be fair, I can’t say if everyone in the room felt the same way, although I suspect many did). The power of people (and in this case, women) creating art together (even if some of it is amateurish) should never be underestimated.

What Are You Reading (Offline, That Is)?

Today we're lucky enough to present the Anne Sage edition of our "What Are You Reading?" column. Anne writes the wildly popular blog, The City Sage, launched Rue Magazine (which she just recently left to pursue her other interests), and is an all-around Nice Person. Here, she tells us what she's reading, and pulls in two of her friends to join in the conversation. * * *

Anne Sage, The City Sage Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail  by Cheryl Strayed Author Cheryl Strayed recounts her mother's death from cancer, her own subsequent tumble into despair, drug abuse, and divorce, and her soul-restoring three-month solo hike through some of the country's most foreboding terrain. The fluid, forthright prose flies by, but the emotional strain of the narrative forced me to read this book in bite-sized pieces. Strayed's fear, her pain, her joy, it's all so very palpable, and like a verbal sorceress she summoned forth the same feelings within me. Wild is at once an individual story and a universal one. The latter is meant to plumb the depths and scale the heights of the human experience, the former is encapsulated when Strayed writes, "Of all the things that convinced me that I should not be afraid while on this journey . . . the death of my mother was the thing that made me believe the most deeply in my safety: nothing bad could happen to me. The worst thing already had."

East of Eden  by John Steinbeck This is the second time I'm reading this book. The first was in high school, when I simply enjoyed it as a near-mythic tale of love and tragedy. Now, as an adult living through difficult economic and personal times, and having driven thousands of miles around my home state of California where this book takes place and where my family is from, my appreciation for it is exponentially greater. It's one to digest slowly, to mull over, to serve as a reminder that though place and time may change, our basic needs do not. Earth, air, water: when our river dries up, so do we. East of Eden also dovetails beautifully with Wild in its exploration of personal relationships and the pressures that we place upon ourselves. Steinbeck was onto something when he wrote, “Now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”

Lacy Young, Health Coach and Creator of The Campaign for Confidence The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón The ultimate story-within-a-story, The Shadow of the Wind follows a young boy through his teen years as he investigates the mysterious back-story of a novel he finds in a lost cemetery of books. Set against the backdrop of mid-20th century Barcelona, this book is hauntingly beautiful. The writing is unparalleled, the setting idyllic, and the story is so intriguing you can't help but fall in love as you watch it all unfold. This is one of those books to which I wish I could forget the ending so I could experience the joy of reading it again!

Excuses Begone! by Dr. Wayne Dyer Reading this book is like coming home, only to the home I wish I was raised in. Excuses Be Gone is an easy-to-swallow dose of reminders on how to live in harmony with life. Dr. Dyer has a way of explaining mind-shifting concepts that leave me happily accepting them as truth. Of course the universe is abundant, of course life is way more fun if I let go of all my ridiculous rules for myself!

Kate Childs, Book Publicist, Random House Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Everyone kept recommending this novel to me—coworkers, authors, even the Random House building where a poster of the book jacket is plastered on the lobby window—so I finally started reading it, and now I know what all the fuss is about. If you’re looking for a book that will make you take detours on the subway and contemplate canceling social engagements to keep reading, pick up Gone Girl. It’s a sharp psychological thriller about a missing wife, a potentially guilty husband, and the secrets they keep.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin One of the benefits of being a book publicist is getting early access to upcoming books, and The Twelve manuscript is by far the biggest prize of all in-house right now. On paper, I’m not the type of reader who would be drawn to The Passage, the first book in this trilogy, but I absolutely couldn’t stop reading this epic novel. The characters, the post-apocalyptic world, the Virals—every part of it was captivating.The Twelve cleverly picks up where The Passage left off, and it won’t disappoint fans when it’s released in October.

We love to hear what our friends are reading when they step away from the computer. Drop us a line and let us know what’s blowing your mind.