American Idle: How Fear and Anger Drive Us To Our Fallen Work

Dear CF,
[Opening insult framed in sexual terms that broadcasts author's failure to properly express anger:] Those radio guests can suck my boob.
[Agreement plus fake announcement of topic]: I’m with you: anger and fear, weirdly understood as alienating or paralyzing emotions, are no such thing—if anything, they’re over-activating. Without anger, fear and their cousins discomfort and [...]

Read Full Post »

Wrinkled Clothes Lasagna with Starchy Sauce

Dear CF,
When I headed bedward last night I encountered a heap of clothes so heavy that my comforter, that onetime paragon of downy warmth, had been mashed into a thin and depressing sheet.  Something had to be done. I layered the clothes tenderly on the floor, in the way one might make a lasagna: the [...]

Read Full Post »

Vitameatavegamin

Dearest,
It’s post lunch, and I am groggy.  Things on my mind today:

I listen to a new age radio show in the afternoons when I shuttle between jobs.  The guests relentlessly talk about how if something feels bad then it isn’t right.  They suggest that finding your fullest potential is directly connected to how comfortable you [...]

Read Full Post »

Ultra-Sensitive in Black for Dame Bea

Dear bosom buddy,
This started as a comment on your amazing Bea Arthur clips but it got too long. Hence, a post! The “Bosom Buddies” act nails a kind of friendship much richer than the “frenemy” idea that’s flattened our sense of what girl-girl friendship is. (Much like the “bromance” has flattened the boys’.) And oh, [...]

Read Full Post »

And My New Grandma, Bea Arthur

Dear Millicent,
I just heard that Bea Arthur died today.  She was the archetype of “old woman” to me when I was a kid, and Golden Girls seemed to be relentlessly on TV, along with Empty Nest.  And then, in my teens she seemed younger– –a bawdy actress that wore draped clothes and knew how to [...]

Read Full Post »

Consequences!

I have to link because I could not figure out to embed a clip from the Today Show.  An amazing look at how hard conversations can be.  I wish there was a way to turn words into objects…but by objects I mean more like kid’s building blocks, or jenga tiles, not weapons.  They just need [...]

Read Full Post »

Odd Saint: Louisa Trotter, The Duchess of Duke Street

There are lots of reasons for Gemma Jones’ performance as Louisa Trotter to gain an Odd Saint nomination, but I think it can be summed up for two reasons alone:

I just spent three hours crying while watching the miniseries (I’m on season 2, and the whole thing has been fairly brutal).
They drink champagne like water [...]

Read Full Post »

Is Susan Boyle a Fake?

After all our gab about her here, here and here, brace yourself:
SUSAN BOYLE HAS BEEN KISSED.

Read Full Post »

Talent Without the Trappings

Hm. Well, a number of people could fit the Susan Boyle story arc to some extent: Roseanne. Rhea Perlman. Charlie Kaufman. Woody Allen. Andy Warhol. Beth Ditto. Less extreme examples: Eddie Izzard. Nathan Lane. Many of these, though, were (like Streisand) quite aware of their packaging.  I’m not sure, though, that awareness guarantees success. They [...]

Read Full Post »

The Package

Dearest M.,
I spent the last few minutes trying to think of other arcs that parallel Susan Boyle’s:  the boldy unpackaged (though I do agree with a previous commenter that “packaging” may be very much at work here) real person that wallops the world with his or her sheer and undeniable talent.  What’s frustrating is, even though I think Boyle’s sudden recognition [...]

Read Full Post »