Pixar's Brave, Continuing and Subverting the Princess Tradition

I am a Disney princess. I have seven Disney princess Barbies (yes, present tense---they’re still stashed in the childhood shrine of my old home closet). My most treasured memories are of my formerly-yearly trips to Disneyland with my parents. I know the entire Menken/Ashman (and Menken/Rice, and Menken/Schwartz) catalogue by heart. That said, as a grown-ass woman with a social sciences degree, I readily recognize some of the problems inherent in the “Disney princess” idea, and the representations of female heroines in Disney movies from the “Golden Age” to the “Renaissance.” Jasmine’s Orientalist harem fantasy outfit. Ariel’s child-bride status. And the fact that, despite ‘80s- and ‘90s-bred themes of rebelliousness and girl power, each film’s resolution involves a marriage accompanied by a happily-ever-after fulfillment.

In the last decade or so, Disney films have made steps in the right direction. Mulan, for example, is a hardcore soldier who risks death by cross-dressing as a man to take her elderly father’s place, and ends up being better at winning battles than any of her male comrades. Tiana, the first black heroine, has the much more grounded, non-fairy-tale goal of opening her own restaurant, which supersedes romance (until, of course, she meets Prince Naveen).

As far as children’s films go, though, Pixar has indubitably taken up Disney’s mantle as the reigning champ, the benchmark (okay, technically Pixar is owned by Disney, but you know--- whatever). And what’s come up in the past decade or so that Pixar’s been releasing feature length movies is: where are the female protagonists?

Now they finally have one.

Merida, the wild-haired heroine of Pixar’s latest offering Brave---its 13^th full-length animated feature---broke new ground for the very fact that she was female; the 12 previous protagonists, whether man or beast or robot or toy, were all male. So Brave represents a break with tradition, a big step forward, and the bonus of a new, strong role model for all the little girls (and boys) of the world, whose parents take them to see Pixar films and who benefit from Pixar’s better-than-children’s-movies storytelling.

That said, I’m really disappointed to admit that I was disappointed in Brave. I mean, it actually kinda breaks my heart. True, my expectations were beyond sky-high. Finding Nemo and Ratatouille are personal favorites, and I honestly think WALL-E and Up are some of the greatest achievements, not just in children’s movies, but in film history.

As many reviewers have already noted, it was a perfectly acceptable film by the standards of its genre. It was beautifully-animated, it was fun, it was sweet. But I’ve come to expect so much more from Pixar. I expect to be surprised and delighted, to have the conventional plot subverted, to see something that no one else has done before. For example, a story that revolves around a haute-cuisine-obsessed rat's ability to control the physical actions of a human chef by strategically pulling on his hair. Or a story that begins with the end of the world. Or the death of a wife.

The story in Brave is in many ways a conventional princess story, though it succeeds in, slightly, turning it on its head. Merida is a Scottish princess approaching womanhood, and as such is bound by tradition to marry the first-born son of one of the area tribes. The respective sons compete in an athletic game for her hand in marriage---a tradition meant to unite the land and maintain friendly relations between tribes.

Merida, of course, resists this tradition. She doesn’t feel ready for marriage, and it’s clear her options aren’t exactly appealing. (In this, her position is reminiscent of Jasmine’s in Aladdin---lame suitors, stubborn princess.) She butts heads with her mother, a loving but stern woman who values tradition and underscores Merida’s responsibility in keeping the kingdom together by marrying.

In the sense that, unlike Aladdin and other princess predecessors, Merida’s story does not have a conventional marriage ending, we are given a feminist reimagining of the traditional narrative. And in the sense that the film’s central relationship is between two women---the sometimes loving, sometimes brutal battle of wills that is the mother-daughter relationship---it is also admirably woman-centered. (And definitely passes the Bechdel test.)

But despite the steps forward in the woman-as-protagonist direction, Brave feels a little like a missed opportunity. The story is weaker than previous Pixar offerings, and it rests on tried-and-true children's-film conventions instead of exploring new territory. It will not go down in the record books as one of the greatest animated films ever made. It might not even get nominated for an Oscar (or at least, it might not win). For all the credit it gets in having the first female protagonist, to do so it still had to revert to a more conventional fairy-tale narrative---albeit one slightly reimagined for modern sensibilities.

I like Merida. I think she’s a great character. She’s tough---she’s a tomboy---she’s uncomfortable submitting to feminine convention---she’d rather be riding her horse, shooting her bow, and climbing precarious cliffs than playing the princess. She is flawed---her temper and her stubbornness make her brash, inconsiderate. She is naïve; she is rebellious. She is interesting, and she is realistic. Worth noting: Merida's mother is also a fantastic character, a woman with her own strengths and weaknesses different from Merida's.

Where the problem lies is that this story has been done before. And while that would have simply been a disappointment if it was just another Pixar movie, the fact that it was a landmark, first-female-protagonist Pixar movie makes that disappointment especially acute. It could have been better. Let’s hope Pixar’s next female protagonist has a film that befits her. And, maybe she doesn’t have to be a princess, either.

On (Un)following on Twitter

I've been wondering what Twitter is to me. While my favorited tweets reflect of my headspace, and encapsulate my strengths and flaws, my entire Twitter stream is the pool from which these highs and lows materialize—an idea-filled microcosm of my world, where my current interests lie. I've been thinking about the process of unfollowing, especially after reading Mat Honan's piece on Wired about unfollowing everyone. For me, the unfollowing process is active and ongoing, and while I've unfollowed people for various reasons, it's less about the account being unfollowed and more about me. My interests change from week to week, so I follow and unfollow to keep up with my mind, to keep the flow rushing and constant and healthy, to prevent debris buildups and mental cobwebs.

* * * * *

Earlier this summer, I noticed a a smattering of #TBEX in my stream, the hashtag for a travel blogging conference. I'm not a travel blogger, but in 2008, I'd created my Twitter account and my blog as platforms to complement my job at a travel website. In the beginning, I followed and networked with travel writers and travelers by default, but over the past four years, I've diverged from this path and discovered other interests and topics I enjoy writing about. It has made sense to unfollow publications and bloggers that no longer offer ideas and information that are relevant to me.

I still have friends and contacts from the online travel sphere and today find myself on the periphery of this world, yet wade in other currents that interest me, like technology and nonfiction, within my Twitter stream. I see how my Twitter feed is constantly evolving, not stagnant. It feels natural to follow and unfollow; to cull and prune; to find a balance, on any given day, between information and entertainment, hope and despair, and significance and irrelevance.

And I notice occasionally that when I unfollow someone, they immediately and automatically unfollow me in return (and sometimes on other networks, too). I find this kind of reciprocal following and unfollowing meaningless, but I understand people use Twitter, and other social media, in different ways.

* * * * *

I have my reasons for following each account on my list. I follow a handful of bloggers because I regularly read them; a group of people for interesting ideas on all things digital; a bunch of folks for general news, art and design, and pop culture; book handles of bigger publications like the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books; and then a sprinkling of accounts who add the necessary color, humor, and "padding" to my feed.

I've thought about what kind of irrelevance to keep in my stream. I don't enjoy reading complaints and the daily minutiae of a person's day, yet I don't mind the wickedly inappropriate trolling tweets of assholes. I hate when "LOL" or "LMAO" appear in my stream, but am completely fine with other abbreviations.

A systematic randomness, I suppose.

And I don't follow my closest friends. Not because I don't like them, but because I don't use Twitter to communicate with them. I also may love someone's photography so will follow them on Instagram, but that doesn't mean I will follow them on Twitter. (Can't I be drawn to just one facet of a person?)

* * * * *

But ultimately, do I have to explain this process?

So, I'm curious: do you actively follow and unfollow people on Twitter, too?

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Maggie Shipstead was born in 1983 in Orange County, CA. Her short fiction has appeared in Tin House, VQR, American Short Fiction, The Best American Short Stories 2010, and other publications. "La Moretta," a story published in VQR, was a 2012 National Magazine Award finalist for fiction. Maggie is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, and a recent resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. She doesn't really know where she lives but is open to suggestions. Seating Arrangements is her first novel. After seeing it on every list of best summer reads (including this one and this one), we ran out to buy our own copies and suggest you do the same---unless you hate laughing. I tend to have a smorgasbord of books going, dog-eared and sometimes set aside for weeks or months until I’m in the mood to pick them up again. Which book to read before bed on any given day is a question I address much like I figure out what to wear: with lots of blank staring at the possibilities, maybe making a false start or two, wishing for an infinite selection, and then yielding to the necessity of making a choice. I don’t feel much enmity for e-readers, but, for me, an integral part of the pleasure of reading is the pleasure of selecting a book from bookshelves, either mine or a store’s. Last fall I spent a month in Bali, and the Ganesha Bookshop in Ubud was a treasure trove of weird paperbacks discarded by travelers from all over the place (but, okay, mostly from Australia). I love the associations that grow between books and the places I read them. A certain mystery with a cracked cover and pill-y, yellowing paper is inseparable from a corner of shade in my landlady’s pool, where I stood in the water for hours, trying not to fry in the tropical sun. In January, when I was doing an artist residency in Paris, a Left Bank bookseller handed me The Hare With Amber Eyes, a haunting family history by ceramicist Edmund de Waal that’s about Paris and Vienna and Tokyo and war and precious objects. I read it on a hard single bed in my Spartan artist studio while the city and its past slept outside in the cold. Perfection.

These days, my bed in San Diego is a much less exotic venue for reading, but here, nonetheless, are some of the books that have recently been the object of my fickle attention.

Just finished . . . A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois A wise, crazy-smart, and heartbreaking debut novel built around the question of how to wage a battle that you know can’t be won. Sounds grim, but duBois’s writing is a treat: full of wry humor and incisive observation. Irina is a young woman from Boston living with a terminal diagnosis who embarks on a quest to Russia to track down a former chessmaster turned dissident politician, Aleksandr Bezetov, and see if he can give her any answers. DuBois also delves into Aleksandr’s past, starting in St. Petersburg in 1979. I have a lifelong thing for Russia, and—past and present—that sprawling, inscrutable country is the third lead in this book.

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon Okay, so maybe this won’t actually be released until September, but a friend scored an advance copy for me back in the spring. Sweeeet! The novel follows two families living on the seam between Oakland and Berkeley, one white, one black. The wives are partners in a midwife practice, and the husbands own a record store. Chaos ensues. This is a fat, meaty, absorbing book, jammed with off-kilter characters and happenings and with Chabon’s signature riffs on pop culture.

The Honourable Schoolboy by John LeCarré I’m a big fan of LeCarré, especially his Cold War novels. This novel falls between Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (best title ever) and Smiley’s People in a trilogy about George Smiley’s pursuit of his KGB nemesis Karla. Just on a language level, LeCarré is an amazing stylist—a very, very, very fine writer who is extremely nimble within the omniscient point of view—but he’s also a master at assembling complex plots and setting them spinning in a perfectly rendered, dreary-yet-fascinating, invisible spy world.

In the middle of . . . Look At Me by Jennifer Egan I’ve been meaning to buy this novel forever, and finally it appeared in front of my face at the right moment at the right bookstore (Books Inc. in San Francsico). One of the many things I admire about Egan’s writing is that she’s always experimenting with form and daringly fills her books with unexpected twists. In Look At Me, a model comes out of a car crash with eighty screws in her face, not disfigured but undeniably altered, and must figure out how her place in the world has also changed. That would be story enough, but other characters take turns behind the narrative wheel as well: a high school golden boy turned unhinged history professor, an outwardly plain teenage girl with a reckless streak, and a private eye, to name a few.

Arcadia by Lauren Groff I will always be obsessed with a short story of Groff’s that was in the 2007 volume of The Best American Short Stories and is called “L. Debard and Aliette.” The opening is set in New York in 1918 as a flu epidemic erupts and an Olympic champion teaches a girl recovering from polio to swim and, eventually, to do sexier things. The story is retelling of Eloise and Abelard and has a mesmerizing dreaminess to it that I’m also loving in Arcadia, which begins in a hippie commune in the 70s and, the reviews tell me, progresses all the way into the future. Groff’s writing has a matter-of-fact lyricism that allows her to write about very strange things very naturally and with apparent effortlessness.

Can’t wait to start . . . The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje I love ships and the ocean and Michael Ondaatje’s books, so I see no reason why I won’t love this book. It’s about an eleven-year-old boy traveling from Sri Lanka to England on an ocean liner, and I think it’s going to be beautiful.

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.

When the bookmarks change

Kalomoira is pregnant with twins.

I imagine you want to know who Kalomoira is. She was the winner of Fame Story, a Greek talent show that came into being long after American Idol had solidified itself into the American pop culture conscience. In the ten years that have passed since then, I had thought about Kalomoira maybe twice.

And now I know she is pregnant with twins.

***

In making homes away from Greece, be it in Colombia or Egypt, I relied on a ritualistic consumption of the news. I was determined to assimilate and to do that, I had to know. So I read the local papers every morning until I had memorized the layout of the page and could rhythmically find my way to my favorite columnist or to the sports section. I had a favorite columnist. Everywhere, from Guatemala to Jerusalem.

There was no better home for my news-guzzling obsession than Jerusalem. My favorite radio station interrupted the music every hour for a brief news report. Without the kind of command over Hebrew that allows one to understand fast-paced news segments over the radio, the hourly report became a game. I hunted for words I recognized and matched them to the English news I had read about the region earlier that morning. "Hebrew Hebrew Syria Hebrew Kofi Annan Hebrew peace," the announcer said, and I knew she was talking about the diplomatic attempts to broker peace in Syria. Jerusalem radio may not have supplied me with news of which I was previously unaware, but it did teach me how to say peacekeeping and failure in Hebrew -- and it made me long for the kind of news and linguistic comprehension that would allow me to dream of peaceful co-existence and success.

***

I left Jerusalem for my homeland, Greece, 39 days ago and my news scouring habits have changed. Days can pass without my realizing there was a stabbing in my old neighborhood. 39 days ago, I knew about car accidents on highways I had yet to even drive through.  Even though the web broadcast of my favorite radio station is bookmarked in my browser, I cannot bring myself to click through, guided by the fear that "Hebrew Hebrew Jerusalem Hebrew Hebrew film festival" will propel me into an ocean of nostalgia.

Instead, I know that a local pop star I have not brought to the forefront of my mind in a decade is now pregnant with twins. Not only I have migrated, but also my bookmarks are shifting with me. I have the kind of wandering eardrums that long for Colombian salsa in Kosovo and Greek music in Guatemala. I have the kind of fickle tastebuds that long for arepas in Uganda and falafel in Mexico. All of me is punctuated by a serial infidelity to place; enamored as I may be with where my feet are currently meeting the ground, I will let the senses wander to the other places they once called home.

And yet, it is at bookmarks that I draw the line. The very newsy trivialities that help foster my sense of home when I am new to a place cause me painful wanderlust as soon as I have booked the departing flight. It is as though my brain can only handle one pregnant-with-twins pop star at the time: the local one. Any more than that, any more soccer team updates or festival schedules or a repaving of a street on which I once used to live, and my heartstrings are stretched till they tear.

There is indigestible irony to the realization that someone who has dedicated her professional life to international development and conflict management and aspires to understand notions that are far larger than herself needs to shrink her world to the news cycle of Here and Now, lest her feet want to carry her to all the Elsewheres she has loved.

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

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.

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.

Loving the Apocalypse

For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with the end of the world. My interests run to the dystopian as well (think The Handmaid's Tale or Blade Runner), but stories about the apocalypse really get me going. And it's not about the gore, or even about terror at the idea of my own inevitable demise. In fact, I actually find some perverse, selfish comfort in the idea of it all ending at once. I won't miss anything, and I won't have to feel bad about the people I leave behind.

No, I think what fascinates me most is wondering: how will it happen, and---more importantly---how will people react?

Movie after movie has been inspired by this question, and, lately, they seem to be everywhere. I'm not sure if it's a subconscious (or deliberate) reaction to the chatter about the Mayan predictions for 2012, or just one of those moments of cultural synchronicity that come along every so often, but it's for real. Last year there was Melancholia, this year we're getting Seeking A Friend for the End of the World, and next year, The End of the World.

The typical film depiction of the apocalypse goes something like this:

1) Government discovers world-ending event (often a comet or an asteroid headed straight for Earth). 2) Government tries awfully hard---and fails even harder---to keep said event a secret. 3) Public freaks the eff out. 4) Super smart members of said public figure out awesome way to beat the world-ending event at its own game. 5) Event is eventually beaten in a show of human (or, let's face it, American) ability to triumph over all, but not without major casualties. Most central characters are spared, but a few are sacrificed on the altar of a two-hanky moment.

I like these movies, movies like Deep Impact, Armageddon, or Independence Day. I gobble them up like candy. And they do a decent job of showing the humanity in the midst of the set piece explosions. But, I have to say, the movie that's most satisfied my dual needs to a) see it all come crashing to a halt, and b) see how people might react to it is the aforementioned Melancholia.

There's no doubt at the beginning of the film that the world is going to end. He shows it to you right there in the dreamy opening sequence, alongside our heroine (played by Kirsten Dunst) aping Ophelia, birds falling from the sky, and a bush catching fire---all set to Wagner. (Manohla Dargis' rundown of the sequence is well worth a read.). A planet--- Melancholia---collides directly with Earth, destroying them both on impact. There's no escaping this end. (Spoiler alert, I guess?)

And I think that's why the movie has stuck with me. Yes, there's the incredible moment right at the end, when Melancholia bears down so hard on our cast that their hair blows sideways in its celestial breeze, and there's the breathtakingly gorgeous setting (an estate with incredible grounds in some unnamed European location)---not to mention the Wagner crashing in all over the place, chords hanging out. But watching a small group of people deal quietly with the end of the world? Talk dirty to me, von Trier.

Which is not to say that I'm not planning to see the next couple of world-ending-sky-falling movies. I am. But I know I'll be a little disappointed if Steve Carell and Keira Knightley both make it through.

(photo by mockstar on flickr)