October 2007 Archives
I had the great pleasure of seeing Julia Sweeney's One-Woman show tonight, "Letting Go Of God". I saw parts of it last year at the Paramount and instantly loved it. The extended version was amazing. I think the shorter version was a concentration of the funny bits, and the longer version had a lot more socks to the gut.
When I was abandoning the Mormon faith, I belonged to a group called "Recovery from Mormonism." It was a sort of an online therapy group. They collected stories former members told of their experiences (often AWFUL experiences) in leaving the Mormon church. I always wanted to post my story there, but I never felt like I had a "finished" version. And by the time it was finished, I couldn't remember anymore how it felt like when I was actually there.
Julia Sweeney has no such problem. She elegantly carries the audience through her entire journey, in the moment, with no hints of what is to come. It was funny and satirical, of course, but it was also devastating and embarrassing and filled with all the grief of lost fairy tales. I can't say that I've read as much on the many, many topics that led her to atheism, but her conclusions resonated very strongly with me. Especially the conversation she has with her mother, where she says she is more at peace now than she was before. And that it really sucks to re-evaluate one's own impending demise, especially given the better understanding of one's own significance (or lack thereof) in the universe at large (cv. Douglas Adams and fairy cake).
As soon as the movie is released, I will be buying it for myself and all my friends. But in the meantime, you can enjoy this amusing clip of Julia Sweeney's encounter with the Mormon Missionaries.
When I first saw Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass" on MTV, I remember feeling this sort of breathless anxiety: here was something so stunning and gorgeous and heartbreaking, and I could only see it for a few minutes before it was gone forever (this was the early 90s, when MTV couldn't spare time from 24/7 rap music and country to show alternative music). It's hard to explain this to an audience in the Aughts, where everything is so easily available online, where Wikipedia provides all the backstory and sources a person could ever need. But at the time, there was a void, and when you found something beautiful, chances are you would never see it again. And time eventually erased most of those moments from my mind, and even the ones I do remember to look up today seem to have lost their titles and identifying information in the mess that is my brain.
So when I was reading about Annie Lennox's new album in the NYT this week, it was with some chagrin that I abruptly remembered "Walking on Broken Glass." And technology had finally advanced enough that I could retrieve this particular moment of my past.
But there was a little bonus. I start the video on youtube and within two seconds, I see a familiar face. I didn't need more than two seconds, because I am, you see, a HUGE fan of Rowan Atkinson's BlackAdder. "OMG!" I yell to the Significant Other (whom, as noted in previous posts, I often torture with my BBC obsessions), "OMG! It's Hugh Laurie! Did you know Hugh Laurie was in this video?!?" And of course he didn't, so we had to watch all 4 minutes and then look it up on Wikipedia to be sure. It was like a real-life DVD Easter Egg.
I am currently reading Diana Wynne Jones' "The Game." And I know that she writes children's books, but I've gotta say that she is the *master* at creating male characters that you completely fall in love with. There are millions of anime fans out there in love with "Howl's Moving Castle" who know exactly what I mean here. Myself, I'm a Chrestomanci junkie. He was the stuff of my teenage fantasies. In "The Game," she creates this man with a few paragraphs. Less than one page, a tiny description and a bit of witty banter, and I completely adore Flute.
Howl Jenkins - Loved by Millions
But I gotta say, it makes me feel played. Like there is this stereotype of the man I would totally fall for, and she is exploiting it. Exploiting it to a tee.
I read some really embarassingly bad romance novels in my younger years. My sisters were big Harlequin readers, so I tried a few out. I think my favorite (at the time) were the Regency Romances, which were like tarted-up Jane Austen. But they were all terribly formulaic (like Jane Austen): girl meets boy, girl hates boy, girl and boy torment each other, girl realizes boy's Tortured Soul, boy discovers girl's True Worth, they pine away thinking the other hates him/her, then on the last page reveal their love and all is perfect. It got very tiresome, and thank god there was plenty of good Barbara Hambly out there to save me from it.
But I think a lot of people still hold to this stereotypical ideal of a man. I see it in film all the time, and people still *adore* Jane Austen. And although I am largely immune to their beloved Angry Misogynist With Troubled Past, I wonder when I watch Doctor Who if I am not just part of a different group of brainwashed women, seeking out the Lonely Jester. Yup, all around the world are hordes of women swooning over David Tennant.
And that makes me feel... really damn stupid.
I've been completely brainwashed. This is not a real person with bad breath in the morning and a constant need to fondle your breasts at inconvenient moments. The Lonely Jester doth not need a fourth slice of pizza and a quick jaunt to the loo after. He doesn't even have annoying siblings and bossy parents. He is missing whole parts of a real human being, with the rest just sketched in by an artful and manipulative hand.
But I still fall for it. *sigh* Adorable Flute with his white hair and ready grin. Damn you, Jones, you are perpetuating my unrealistic fantasies. And please don't stop... ;)
Cupid is my favorite cancelled TV show. I recorded it faithfully to VHS every week it was on the air. And I still break out the VCR to watch it now and again. But if you had asked me in the last decade would they ever bring it back, I would have had to say no. Like Farscape, Firefly, and Brisco County Junior, most shows seem to have that moment when everything comes together - actors, scripts, special effects, humor, current events - and it is impossible to repeat (cv. the Farscape Movie). And networks seem to be like bratty two-year-old children, holding onto the rights to shows which they capriciously cancelled in a pouty "If I couldn't make you successful, then no one else will either."
So color me shocked that it's been officially announced that YES, they are bringing back Cupid. With a new cast and a big rewrite. I dunno, I'm cautiously hopeful. The fact that it is on network television is a big thumbs down for me, but the new casting and writing might make it work (I love Jeremy Piven, but I just don't think he is "Trevor" anymore).
And even if it sucks, BuzzSugar has been kind enough to alert me to another fan who posted all the episodes to YouTube. So I can finally get rid of my VCR.
