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September 16th, 2006
10:52 pm - Peace is Restored
Vincentine (a.k.a. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) greenvincentine) has decamped, taking the Geranium Enrichment Project with her. Please friend her if you care to. Predictably (given her waspish disposition), she currently has no friends.
Slumber will now resume.
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September 5th, 2006
08:09 pm - Vincentine Lets Me Out of the Closet
She says I can post this one thing: It's so good to have Jason Varitek back. It almost feels like a real baseball season.
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August 26th, 2006
05:13 pm - Where Are We Going, and How Did I Get into This Handbasket?
Because cathyj never posts, I have taken over her journal. She can still comment on her friends' blentries, but she is no longer allowed to post. She blew it. Also, there is a misspelling in her last blentry.
From now on the Geranium Enrichment Project will be devoted to pithiness and absurdity. Of the latter, there is plenty on hand; of the former, all too little.
"Something makes the United States want to look at troubles from the air" (Dan Shore).
—Vincentine
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May 27th, 2006
12:21 pm - Shocked -- Shocked!
We take a break from withering on the vine to bring you this update on the anti-drug classic Go Ask Alice.
From Wikipedia:
The epilogue tells us that "Alice" died of a drug overdose, though the only drugs she regularly used (i.e, used more than once for pleasure) and could easily obtain at the position she was in at the end of the book were LSD and marijuana, both of which are virtually impossible to overdose on.
Whoa! Go Ask Alice isn't a real diary?! Man, I was spoon-fed that shit in high school. We watched the "Go Ask Alice" movie, "Stoned" with Scott Baio, "Angel Dusted", and a bunch of other anti-drug agitprop that I can't remember, which taught me:
- Your friends are liable to slip psychotropic drugs into your sode. So don't drink any soda!
- Nothing is worse than PCP. (We weren't shown movies about heroin, it wasn't that kind of school.)
- If you take drugs, you will end up locking yourself in a closet so you don't hurt the baby, injuring your hands, and subsequently dying unexpectedly and inexplicably. So don't take drugs!
- If you smoke pot you will put your fist through a glass cabinet full of athletic trophies. So don't smoke pot!
As I was trolling about on imbd and Wikipedia and Jump the Shark, I remembered why I don't blog. There are already people out there saying everything I might want to say. (Don't panic, people, I'm talking strictly about blog subjects.) So I don't expect to be posting much from now on, if at all. Except perhaps during Season 4? We'll see. Meanwhile, Gawker is funnier than me and they know more gossip, so go read them instead.
Love and hugs to all,
cj
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April 1st, 2006
07:36 pm - Looking Forward with Totally Undiminished Enthusiasm to Season Four, You Bet!
In which:
Shane spends episodes one through five having rebound sex with five UPS girls, eight random bar pick-ups, most of her clients, all the waitresses at the Planet, two minor Hollywood starlets (who can play themselves), a psychiatrist, Cherie "Jaffe" Peroni, the twins she blew off in Season Two, a vampire, Cherie's daughter, and Jenny. Her character is deftly drawn and completely consistent in every episode of the entire season.
Jenny's book becomes the subject of a Fake Writer scandal, even though Jenny is real (or anyway realer than Leroy). She agrees to appear on Moral Court, opposite her mother (Margot Kidder), who claims that nothing bad ever happened to Jenny. Mrs. Schechter is ruled "Morally Outrageous" and Jenny wins $2,000. (Okay, so "Moral Court" went off the air in 2001. It's always playing in the women's locker room at the Y.)
Helena gets the inevitable waitressing job at the Planet (draw your own conclusions about the first item). Dylan turns up, haggard, haunted by regret, and wearing a tight tank-top. She then spends episodes two through four trying to persuade Helena that she (Dylan) loves her (Helena), even though Helena, now penniless, is living on canned creamed corn and day-old Planet pastries (which makes her plumper and better-looking), and has no idea how to operate a washing machine so wears only jeans and the cryptic T-shirts that Carmen left behind, and her hair is a mess.
While on the run with Bette like B.B. and Beatrix Kiddo, Angelica learns to talk. Back in Los Angeles, Tina wakes up one morning and realizes that (a) Henry is ugly and piggish, (b) she could get the same effect with a dildo, and (c) she misses Bette and wants to hug her. However, given that Bette has been such an unbelievable asshole lately, Tina decides to devote the season to studying martial arts with a view to hunting Bette down, scaring the shit out of her, and only then hugging her.
Kit decides to have her baby, but refuses absolutely to marry Mangus, making him hop with frustration. He continues to treat Kit like a queen, but is no longer played by Dallas Roberts. Instead, Ewan McGregor takes the part.
Lara gains back some of the baby fat that made her look so adorable in Season One.
Peter Sarsgaard joins the cast as Alice's sleepily sinister ex-boyfriend Dax and has an affair with Mangus.
Max disappears and is never heard from again.
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March 26th, 2006
10:14 am - At Last the 1998 Show
Fifteen years ago (I spent some long moments last night freaking out about that number), I turned in a paper for a class called "Problems in Cultural Criticism" (teaching fellow: Ambreen Hai). The paper was called "Cultural Criticism from a Roof Top," and it was one of several that year which I typed up on and laser-printed from the new (color screen! flying toasters!) Macintosh computer in the Branford College Master's Office. Being a Master's Aide paid you five-fifty an hour and gave you access to the office at night and, much more importantly, to Jon Brion's mother during the day.
Selections from the paper:
Into this post-apocalyptic state a hero emerges, comic-book style, to avenge the murders of the innocent, destroy the oppressive government, and restore to England its previous interesting diversity. . . . V is an androgynous figure in a long brown wig, smiling pink-and-white mask and voluminous cloak—the costume of the English folk villain Guy Fawkes. His first act on our pages is to rescue a sixteen-year-old would-be prostitute, Evey Hammond, from menacing "Fingermen" while quoting Macbeth; his second, in keeping with his costume, is to blow up Parliament. . . .
We can now see that the conflicts in V for Vendetta are not confined to the comic-book world and that V is more than a comic-book hero—or villain. . . . A sense of marginality pervades this text, the hero of which is an androgynous, anonymous and possibly insane criminal, and whose heroine is an impoverished, orphaned young girl . . . These are the central problems of V for Vendetta: how can we accept otherness? how can we understand a culture in which otherness is both crucial and constantly under attack? how do people tell stories about those who are different from them, and what stories do the "others" tell about themselves?
Remember, I was twenty and at Yale.
. . . Insanity in any form is differentiating: the insane person, much more than the person of color, the homosexual, or the Jew, each of which belongs to a community, is fundamentally alienated from society and fundamentally "other." . . . An alienated, abused, and enraged outsider, V observes modern culture and finds it wanting. He tells Evey that the fascist rulers of England have errased difference, leaving only a stale conformity . . . In championing the cause of difference, V resembles the "new kind of cultural worker" postulated by Cornel West in the article "The New Cultural Politics of Difference."
And so on for fifteen pages. I got an A-minus.
Yesterday I went to see the new movie "V for Vendetta" with Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman (and Stephen Fry and Stephen Rea and John Hurt and Rupert Graves). I had a peculiar reaction to this movie: I liked it. While I was watching it with C. and J., I thought it was very faithful to the book. Then I came home, reread the book, and discovered that it was totally different. Here are a few of the differences.
( Detailed spoilers ensue. )
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March 25th, 2006
10:54 am - Confidential to Mr. Smearcase
Dear Mr. S, I know. I've read some old Austin media, and one thing that interested me was finding out how prevalent and consistent the "Austin is nothing like it used to be" feeling has been ever since the early eighties. But, all that aside, it's still Austin, and I still miss it. Very much.
Myself, I left Austin because I was perfectly happy there. I guess, like you, I needed out of the Velvet Rut. I can't move back in the foreseeable future for reasons we have discussed. But I think YOU should, and X should, and I will spend months out of the year there with you, if I can bring my cat.
The only bad thing about Austin is its blue-island status. And that's a bad thing. If you ever leave Austin. If you never cross the city limits, the worst that could happen is the island could grow smaller and smaller and more and more cordoned off until you basically can't leave Hyde Park. Hypothetically, that's a risk I'd be willing to take.
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10:09 am - Now to the Truly Important News
I miss the old Shane. I'm serious. She was my friend, and now she's gone.
I keep trying to tell myself we're all so upset about TLW this season because it's lesbian TV, and we're lesbians—like we have some kind of duty to keep lezTV honest. But that's not it. It's just that TLW is television, and we're television-watchers. And television-watchers get attached, and that sucks.
Scribe Grrrl is all on about Leisha Hailey's acting again. I agree with her. Leisha is so, so great. I made a vow not to read any more Scribe Grrrl, because inevitably when I'm watching my whatkatiedid-delivered VHS tape, I start thinking ahead to the Grrrl's likely snark. But I had to read her recap this week, because she suffers as much as I do. And then I was sorry I did, because it made me so depressed.
I miss the old Shane. Were those Dana flashbacks all cutting-room-floor scenes from previous seasons? 'Cause I'd like to see the complete footage of Shane and the naked girl in the perspex box. She meant something to me. You can go read my rhapsodies below if you don't believe me. And now she's gone. I feel empty. This is why I, unlike Swamp Rat, don't have affairs. How in the world could I handle them?
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09:59 am - I Fail in My Bid for a Phoenix Letter-Page Trifecta
Dear Boston Phoenix:
I'm glad that X and Y hold such strong convictions about gay adoption. I'm tempted to wonder if they've ever met a gay person, but I know they have, so I'll ask instead if they realize how many gay people they interact with in the course of an ordinary day. Mr. X, Mr. Y, we are people just like you. And I doubt that most of the probably desperate and not necessarily Catholic young mothers whom Catholic Charities used to serve would describe us as "mired in sin." As for sex, I'm not too happy contemplating what X does in the bedroom either. But I would let him adopt a child, as there is currently no state law against parenting by bigots.
Sincerely,
(No links, the Phoenix site is fucked up.)
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09:18 am - What's So Civil About War Anyway?
In his increasingly desperate public-relations campaign, Dubya the other day did something he hasn't done in three years, according to NPR: he took a question from Helen Thomas, the fiery eighty-six-year-old White House correspondent. She said:
Q: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House . . . what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil . . . it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?
He replied:
A: I think your premise—in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist—is that—[He flounders and remembers his talking points.] I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect . . .
Q[Not having it]: —everything I've heard—
A: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true. [Begins a retreat to his all-purpose excuse.] My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. . . . You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. [Burbles on, happily oblivious of any pertinence to his own actions.] And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.
Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq—hold on for a second—
Q: They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.
A: Look—excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. [Wandering hopelessly.] The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained—
Q: [Probably in disbelief] I'm talking about Iraq—
A: Helen, excuse me. That's where—[Decides to start over] Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.
I also saw a threat in Iraq. [Has finally gotten around to her question, but ignores it.] I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. . . .
It's a wonder she's lived to 86 with stress like that.
Bush prefaced their exchange with a joke ("After that brilliant performance at the Grid Iron [press club dinner]—") and interrupted her second question, about the coming Iraqi civil war, with another ("I didn't really regret [calling on her]. I kind of semi-regretted it. . . . Anyway, your performance at the Grid Iron was just brilliant—unlike Holland's, was a little weak, but—"). "(Laughter)," the transcipt notes after each. One of the things that's so horrible about Bush is his evident conviction that his charm will get him out of tight spots. Another is his blithe neglect of the actual duties of a President in favor of traveling about the country making little speeches as though he's on a goddamn book tour. It's all part of his essential failure to grasp what being President is really about, apart from (in his mind, at least) consolidating his personal wealth, power and image.
He's going to Hell.
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February 26th, 2006
12:00 pm - Usual Sunday Morning Morally Bankrupt Post
The Actress (which I'm going to call her from now on, though she'd probably prefer "Actor") is name-checked on Defamer this week:
- kate moennig from the l word at the silver spoon in weho. 2/11 looking exactly like she does on tv, same wardrobe and everything. she was eating with three ladies, one of whom had a very cute baby.
Nothing at all to say about anything else. Nothing else matters. Except oh to be that baby.
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February 12th, 2006
11:30 am - I Used to Read the News
Commented on Hothouse:
I, too, would have watched the crucial scene four times, but a houseguest arrived at three and a half—and seemed strangely uninterested in sharing the bliss of Shane’s finally getting a chance to be Shane again. Every time I open a paper or a magazine these days, I wonder why it’s not all about Kate Moennig.
"This is the happiest day of my life," I said to Swamp Rat, who inexplicably fucked off after a single viewing of this scene and took to her blog. And whatkatiedid said as I handed her back the tape, "I thought, 'Cathy's going to love this one!'"
I haven't had much luck with pictures to liven things up. It has something to do with my Mac. But here's one. . . . Whoa, fuck that. I just found this on the lovely Mel's site. Y'all know that nothing is real for me until I see it in either of the only two media outlets in the world, the New Yorker and the New York Times.
That reminds me that I just finished On Beauty. She made some mistakes, but my favorite (from the pleasant perspective of one obscure criticizing one younger, prettier, richer, probably thinner and famous) was her use, common even among American novelists, of "y'all" as a singular pronoun. Friends—it ain't. OK, OK, since you're pressing me, I'll tell you a few of the others. Americans don't use plural verbs for singular collective nouns (unless they're writing for music magazines), and someone from Roxbury would not say that a neighbor lives "in his street."
Thank God the Times didn't say anything about Kate's being straight.
As the season goes on, Shane will face problems with friends and long-lost family, along with the continuing struggle with Carmen — all of which will allow viewers to see her vulnerable side. Ms. Chaiken said she and Showtime executives debated whether to tamper with the Shane mythology. But, she said, "there comes a moment when you can't just keep doing the same thing over and over again — you have to give the character more of a known inner life."
I can see her point. But only with difficulty. The point of Shane is Shane fucking lots of girls; that's how she's constructed, that's how the character works. The fucking, and the tortured Texas past and the genderqueer hustling on Santa Monica. Certain I'm not opposed to a character's having a known inner life—in fact, I think it's a felicitous phrase. And if her known inner life were always written by Ilene Chaiken and directed by Kimberly Peirce, we might be okay.
In tonight's episode, a chastened Shane will face Carmen and attempt to fix their relationship. "She's still going to try," said Ilene Chaiken, the show's creator, sounding wistful on the telephone. "She sees how destructive it was, how hurtful it was. Of all the characters in the show, Shane is the one who least wants to cause pain to anyone else."
Sure, that's nice. But Shane and Carmen, whatever an article that whatkatiedid told me about and I can't find might have insisted, have no chemistry. Carmen is hot, okay. And maybe, in the world within the TV show that viewers have to construct (similar, but not identical, in its contours to the actual content of the show), she and Shane really do have things to talk about, and are good for each other. But Rosanna Arquette as Cherie, with her worn wry face and sexy malevolence, is a much better match for Moennig as Shane. She's bad for Shane, she offers Shane nothing, she's already broken Shane's heart, and their chemistry is amazing.
In all her conquests, there is an element of erotic surrender. Shane is a seducer of women who doesn't understand women, and is helpless before them.
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January 29th, 2006
08:47 pm - January: The News-Avoidance Month in Review
With apologies to the Weekly Dig.
After gentle prodding by M., an overview of the month during which I stood in a convenience store turning a copy of the Times in my hands and wondering, "Do I really want this much news?"
JT LeRoy: As well as illiterate, imaginary. Took up a slot on Bloomsbury's list that should have gone to a real writer—I mean one who could actually write.
Brokeback Mountain: My shattered psyche would not withstand seeing this movie a third time. The New York Observer wrote in November that "tales of crusty Manhattan critics spending two hours weeping in the screening rooms are flooding the city." This, and everything else you ever wanted to read about "Brokeback," from Andy Towle's towering "Brokeback" links list.
Shane and Carmen: God, please let it end. Please let it end soon, and messily. The angelic whatkatiedid enables our habit and counsels me through the heartbreak of watching serial television.
The U.S. government: What can this administration possibly do to get thrown out of office? Disregard habeas corpus? Spy on its own citizens? Torture people? Kill thousands? I'm running out of ideas.
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December 24th, 2005
01:49 pm - I Am Blessed
One of the "L Word" premiere parties is:- In my town;
- In my neighborhood;
- Almost within spitting distance of my house;
- Scheduled for seven o'clock in the evening.
Because, as I posted on the fan group, I do so hate to stir out-of-doors on a winter (or any) night, even for Shane. Whom I keep staring at in the full-page ad, as if she might move or possibly address me by name.
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12:27 pm - 100% Percent True
Eleven words I never thought I'd say:
"Did you look for the Christmas stockings in the butler's pantry?"
* * *
In other news, and as a corrective to the season, Secret Agent Cathy presents Allan Sherman's "Sir Greenbaum's Madrigal."
(Sweetly sung to the tune of "Greensleeves.")
In Sherwood Forest there dwelt a knight
Who was known as the righteous Sir Greenbaum.
And many dragons had felt the might
Of the smite of the righteous Sir Greenbaum.
I chanced upon him one morn
When he’d recently rescued a maiden fair.
“Why, why art thou so forlorn,
Sir Greenbaum, is thy heart heavy-laden?”
Said he, “Forsooth, ‘tis a sorry plight
That engendered my attitude blue-ish.”
Said he, “I don’t wanna be a knight.
That’s no job for a boy who is Jewish.”
(fast)
All day with the mighty sword and the mighty steed and the mighty lance,
All day with that heavy shield and a pair of aluminum pants.
All day with the slaying and slewing and smiting and smoting like Robin Hood,
Oh, wouldst I could kick the habit . . .
(impressively)
and give up smoting for good."
And so he said to the other knights,
“You may have my possessions and my goods.
For I am moving to Shaker Heights
Where I’ve got some connections in dry goods.
Farewell to the dragon’s claw
And the other swashbuckling games and sports
I’ll work for my father-in-law
When I marry . . .
(big finish)
Miss Guinivere Schwartz!”
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December 3rd, 2005
11:06 am - When is "Transamerica" Coming to the Kendall?
I daresay it will shock regular readers of this diary (there are three, including Swamp Rat when I remind her) to learn that I'm profoundly obsessed with US Magazine. Basically, I feel that I and the editors of US are in a little conspiracy together. It's a big conspiracy, actually. We're conspiring to uphold the idea that US gives me just a little truth around the edges of my celebrity news. I know that they're promoting a rigidly ritualized image of celebrity life, and they know that I know, and I know that they know that I know . . .
Now, US is relatively dyke-friendly. You can see my column about this here. In the current (Dec. 12) issue, "RPA" writes, "Ever since Sex and the City ended, it seems Cynthia Nixon, 39, can't get out of bed—the hospital bed, that is! The actress, who hit ER last season, now plays a seizure-sufferer for one episode of House. . . . 'I don't have a TV, so I'm out of the loop,' says Nixon, who dates activist Christine Marinoni." And I do believe that, in time, once a popular actor comes out, the magazine will become cautiously fag-friendly.
But they really screwed up on the trans front this week. I haven't seen "Transamerica" yet, but I saw the preview twice in one fifteen-minute period at the Kendall (two different versions of the preview, so it was pretty neat) the day I went to see "The Dying Gaul." Peter Sarsgaard was amazing, wasn't he? He was so gay. Not femmy or flamboyant or anything, just totally gay, like one's gay male friends. Here's what mistersmearcase has to say about "The Dying Gaul":
So the one time in my life, I assume, I get to see Campbell Scott draped, naked, over Peter Sarsgaard, it has to be just at the point in a Craig Lucas script where I'm beginning to wish I'd never learned English.
Isn't he scabrously witty? And it was true. Anyway, having seen the preview twice, I find it difficult to believe that Felicity Huffman's Bree should be referred to with the male pronoun, as Thelma Adams does in her review. She writes, "Desperate Housewife Huffman goes indie and carves Bree into a real character: a man who would be a woman—a prim, lonely, dressed-like-a-librarian woman. The scenes where Bree goes to his parents' Arizona home for a family reunion sporting white espadrilles and a pink manicure have a shaggy [?] humor . . ." Omigod Thelma! You can't really believe that a transsexual (I guess expecting US to use "transgendered person" or "transwoman" is asking a little much?) like Bree should be referred to as "he"? Come on! I learned not to do that six years ago! Okay, so I'm not exactly on the cutting edge of trans culture. But at least I try.
Maybe after I see the movie I won't think this review is so bizarre. But I doubt it.
I haven't got a tag for gay issues. I guess the whole diary is kind of about gay issues. Isn't that funny? Back when I was a bitty thing, I was terribly in love with a newly out gay man. He said to me once, with a touch of chagrin, "I never intended to be this gay."
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November 27th, 2005
12:40 pm - Exclusive to There's A Lot More Bleeding: Jude's Manhood Assailed!
L. gave me an OK! magazine that her nieces were finished with. This is the new (three-month-old) US version of the venerable British celebrity weekly. I wanted to peruse the masthead to see whether it's run from England, but the nieces had torn it out—I think there was a recipe on the other side.
It would take a greater mind than mine (a gawker perhaps) to lay out a typology of American celebrity rags, but one couldn't help noticing that OK! is a rather decorous and upbeat magazine. The "Nick & Jessica Exclusive: THE TRUTH!" cover comes right out with a bombshell: they're married and they love each other. It doesn't even say they're "still" married, mind. I didn't intend to crack the thing open—the last thing I need in my life is another celebrity magazine—but I was driven to it by an aching hip and found it unexpectedly soothing. The prose is mild and cautious:
Their screen chemistry sparked rumors that Jen and Vince were an item, but Jen told reporters that was not the case. Now, these tender pictures demonstrate that they are an item. . . . Two natural comedians, they share an easy sense of humor, something that may have been missing from her marriage to Brad Pitt, which ended in divorce in early October after four years. Vince is said to have encouraged Jen to relax more, while Jen is thought to have had a calming effect on the movie hunk.
There's something sweetly formulaic about that, isn't there? It reminds me of Twain's immortal Yankee, who has second thoughts about having taught the denizens of King Arthur's court to produce a tabloid paper:
I dropped a nickel out of the window and got my paper; the Adam-newsboy of the world went around the corner to get my change; is around the corner yet. It was delicious to see a newspaper again, yet I was conscious of a secret shock when my eye fell upon the first batch of display head-lines. I had lived in a clammy atmosphere of reverence, respect, deference, so long, that they sent a quivery little cold wave through me . . . It was good Arkansas journalism, but this was not Arkansas. . . . The 'Court Circular' pleased me better; indeed its simple and dignified respectfulness was a distinct refreshment to me after all those disgraceful familiarities.
The "Court Circular" is then reproduced: "On Monday, the King rode in the park," followed by identical entries, using ditto marks, for Tuesday, "Wendesday," Thursday, Friday, Saturday and "Sunda5." Typographic digression: I'll pause here to point out that the 1979 British Penguin edition, "Set in Linotype Granjon," uses only the Granjon font family to reproduce the "display head-lines" that so discomfit the Yankee. Small caps, italic, all caps, and regular Granjon are the only forms used, and, if you check out page 246, you'll see that they amply represent the wildly disjointed and typo-ridden front page of the Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano. If this book were published today, the designer would probably use Rockwell Extra Bold, Mistral, Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Copperplate Gothic and Curlz MT. Which would look like crap and not get the idea across any better.
Anyway, the American OK! has a tone of gentle concern not too far removed from the Court Circular. It takes care to identify every celebrity it covers, in case you're not sure who they are, and makes abundant use of the polite passive voice.
The man on the left is the friendly, familiar face of movie and TV star Kiefer Sutherland, signing an autograph for a fan on his lunch break. The man on the right, however, is Kiefer as Jack Bauer, the gritty agent from the tense TV show 24. . . . In this frightening scene, Kiefer is seen wearing a gas mask and brandishing a gun as he investigates a toxic gas attack . . . The scene will no doubt resonate with viewers given the current awareness of terrorism.
TomKat are "the happy couple"; Banderas is "the Spanish heartthrob"; the lesser Hilton is "ever the fashonista." I don't know if this politeness comes from the magazine's British origins, though there's evidence that OK! hasn't entirely mastered the American scene: Melissa Etheridge is referred to as a "country star" (maybe they got confused about the sensible shoes). Apparently British tabs can be very, very explicit and mean, so I don't think it's Englishness in general so much as OK!'s own conservative bent. As I say, someone should do a study of this stuff. US Magazine would never print a picture of Jude Law putting on his pants (unless they were quite quite on)—that's far too European—but then US Magazine doesn't have recipes, Sudoko or "Spot the Difference" (which takes actual celeb snapshots and alters them to make a puzzle). Let's stop before I get onto the French tabloids, or this will take all day.
And let's bid adieu to OK! with this exquisite quote: "Jude's naked picture made the rounds on the Internet, prompting numerous attacks on the actor's manhood."
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November 24th, 2005
01:19 pm - Une Site Fabuleuse!
Check it out! Some genius of a bilingual Frenchwoman has thrilled me by posting transcripts of "The L Word" in French. I love this woman. (I know she's a woman 'cause she writes "Je suis tombée . . .") She knows Katherine Moennig and sends her questions from readers of the site every two weeks, then translates the answers into French and posts them in both languages.
With the transcripts, she cautions: "Si vous souhaitez utiliser ces transcriptions, vous le pouvez, mais faites référence à la source, à savoir à ce site. Ne les hébergez pas sur votre propre site, mais faites un lien direct ici même si vous voulez les afficher." So here is the link to the transcript of episode "Loyal," excerpted below. But please, Mel, I hope you won't mind if I post just the following excerpt, giving you all due credit. Because it made me so happy.
=============
INT. - MAISON DE JENNY ET SHANE - CHAMBRE DE SHANE - NUIT
Shane a la main posée sur la porte. Lorsque Carmen l'ouvre, Shane recule. Carmen entre dans la pièce. Shane, qui a ses lunettes de soleil sur le nez, refuse de lui faire face.
Carmen: Euh... Je, je t'ai vue dehors, et euh... je sais pas, on aurait dit que tu te cachais.
Shane: Je ne me cache pas.
Carmen: Je ne te crois pas.
Shane se tourne vers elle. Elle la regarde un instant puis prend ses clés posées sur un meuble. Carmen les lui arrache des mains et les jette contre le mur. Elle s'approche de Shane et essaie alors de lui retirer ses lunettes. Cette dernière résiste mais Carmen parvient à les prendre. Elle voit alors les bleus sur son visage.
Carmen: Oh mon dieu. Oh mon dieu. Sh...
Carmen tend la main pour toucher le visage de Shane, mais celle-ci lui saisit le bras.
Carmen: Shane, qui t'a fait ça? Qui t'a fait ça?
Shane: Peu importe.
Carmen: Non, dis le moi. Putain, je vais les tuer. Qui t'a fait ça?
Shane: C'est toi.
Carmen se fige.
Carmen: Quoi?
Blessée, elle regarde Shane droit dans les yeux.
Carmen: Va te faire foutre.
Carmen, écoeurée, ouvre la porte pour sortir de la chambre. Mais Shane la rattrape et ferme la porte derrière elle.
Shane: Attends. Attends. Attends. Ecoute, je suis désolée. C'était vraiment un truc tordu à dire.
Carmen: Bien, peut être que tu veux dire quelque chose par là. Peut être qu'on devrait en parler et voir...
Shane: Non. Non. Non. On peut... on peut oublier ce que j'ai dit? Et on redevient amies?
Carmen: C'est vraiment ce que tu veux?
Shane: Vraiment, beaucoup.
Elles s'observent un instant. Shane ouvre finalement la porte. Carmen se rapproche d'elle. Leurs visages se touchent presque. Shane tourne la tête. Carmen sort de la chambre.
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Again, to see the whole transcript, go to TheLWord-fr.net. The season premiere is January 8, 10 PM, on Showtime. Me and Swamp Rat are still not sure how this is going to work.
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November 19th, 2005
07:25 pm - Fall Movie Round-Up
Sept. 3, "The Constant Gardener": Ralph Fiennes is delicious. Crisply, yet hauntedly British as he murmurs, when informed that his wife was a notorious adulterer, "So people are pleased to tell me."
Sept. 24, "A History of Violence": Reviewed above (that is to say, below). Bello much too skinny, Wm. Hurt marvellous.
Oct. 8, "Serenity": It was pouring rain this day. Is this what TV shows are like now? Everybody talks weird. Also, everybody in the cast looks like someone else, especially Sean Maher (Simon) as the poor man's Joaquin Phoenix and Sumner Glau (his sister) as Alanis Morisette. Actually the dialogue was pretty cool. I loved the beginning, in the cockpit, and the part where Wash asks: "Do we care?" He pauses. "Are we caring about that?" But in the end the much ballyhooed reworking of genre conventions came to nothing, or the same thing: the usual two-man fisticuffs in an improbably confined space.
Oct. 23, "Stay": I enjoyed this a good deal more than most people did. I have to admit I'm a sucker for movies that pose Big Questions about the afterlife and then flash lights at you for two hours and don't answer them. And I don't mind a gimmicky twist at the end. (I've now given this movie away to anyone who still cares about it and can piece together the spoiler.) The twist did explain a lot of things (though not, as People magazine pointed out, why McGregor's character consistently wears too-short pants with ankle socks). Watts much too skinny, but the tininess wasn't too incongruous this time, since she's playing a high-strung failed suicide.
There are two things about this movie that I think deserve some props, and they are Ryan Gosling and Janeane Garofalo. Gosling is 25, but I thought he was much younger. As his name suggests, he has a ruffled, awkward, ungainly demeanor—my friend R. would call him joli-laid. Despite or because of this lingering ugliness about him, he does a superb traumatized quasi-psychopath, and he has an intense sexual energy which, I regret to say, is completely wasted on Ewan McGregor, who seems hamstrung by the need to maintain an American accent. I did enjoy Ewan in "The Island," especially the scene where he busts in on Steve Buscemi who is taking a shit in an Arizona roadhouse and howls, "This is SECTOR FIVE?" But his Scottish accent is such a lovely part of him in movies like "Trainspotting" and "The Pillow Book," where he's such an anarchic unrepentant presence. In the Greenaway movie there's a scene where, dressed in a white suit (Paul Smith, I think it was [pats self on back after verifying this on imdb]), he runs backward down the street, waving at his female lover and grinning, on his way to sleep with a man. I know, I know, it's 2005 and we're none of us 25 anymore, except for Ryan Gosling. I did try to watch "Young Adam," but it was unbearably slow.
Garofalo was also super great in "Stay." Uncanny and freaky and unnerving, especially when her deadened voice comes over the intercom: "I didn't touch him. I know you're not supposed to move them." As Beth, a shell-shocked therapist, looking like death in her darkened apartment, she swills wine while McGregor (Sam) looks with alarm over her stash of pills. "You can't take these while you're drinking," he exclaims, and Garofalo perks up for just a moment and says with sepulchral relish, "It appears that I can."
One more bonus of this movie was that it featured a lot of antique telephones.
Nov. 5, "Jarhead": On my way to see this movie, I walked through the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit on the Boston Common. Of course Sarsgaard was excellent. He tries so hard—is always the best thing in any movie he's in. And Jake was good too. The number of U.S. soldiers killed so far during this Iraq war is two thousand and eighty-five. Fifteen to forty-eight thousand are estimated wounded. The number of reported Iraqi deaths so far is between twenty-seven and thirty thousand, and the Johns Hopkins study published in Lancet found that a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have died. So what sticks in my mind from "Jarhead" is the very well-acted scene of Swofford and Troy aching to fire their high-powered sniper rifles, and devastated when they can't. This is the greatest blessing that could have happened to them. They won't have to live the rest of their lives out knowing that they've taken a life. But the movie isn't really about this at all—it isn't essentially anti-war. So I don't have time for it.
I do have time for "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West. Okay, it's probably the next biggest reason I saw the movie after my Peter Sarsgaard. I didn't know it was by Kanye West when I saw the trailer, but I was amazed by it. Really got to get out and hear what the kids are listening to these days.
Yes, I just went from the Iraq body count to Kanye West. I don't know what to do. What can I do? I give money to the International Committee of the Red Cross. I will do as The Nation urges and never again vote for a national candidate who doesn't make ending the war the main element of her or his platform. But live with the knowledge that my country is killing, maiming and torturing human beings? Oh, I can live with it all right. What I can't do is truly feel it. None of us could go on with our Brita-filter middle-class bohemian lives if we truly knew and understood that.
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October 29th, 2005
11:11 am - I Never Had a Hampster
Having spent two days with a wicked L-Word hangover, and having finished up watching the paltry extras last night at two in the morning, I am now prepared to blog "The L Word Complete Second Season." Actually, you can't do better than to read Hothouse's open letter to Ilene Chaiken, which covers most of the points and makes most of the demands I would cover and demand if I were more awake.
 Right, well, Katherine Moennig is a sex god. Putting that aside for a moment, the big disappointment of the second season was the sudden deflation of Shane's complexity. I wrote last time about the thrill of seeing oneself represented in mass media. whatkatiedid said, "It means something different to you [the represented group] than it does to other people." That is, plenty of straight girls love "The L Word" (I assume—though Swamp Rat noted how few straight people seem to know much about it), but there is an extra level of recognition and gratitude that I experience when watching it that they may not.
On the other hand, it's possible that we're all thirsting for images of women that stand up to what we know about being female. (Ignore Jenny's advice to Straight Mark that if he writes "Fuck Me" on his naked body and walks the streets letting people rape him, "Then you'll know what it's like to be a woman." Okaaay Jenny.) Vide what I've written about Beatrix Kiddo and (in the first "Matrix") Trinity. What's so compelling about these characters?¹ They are free of the bone-crushing gender imperatives that control most female characters in mass media. They're people, not women, and exist on their own terms, not in relation to men. Okay, maybe not Trinity. But that's how it is with women in movies. They are almost always created to exist only in relation to men, so when an actress is able to imbue her character with real strength despite that precondition, we drink her up. Carrie Ann Moss gave Trinity so much sexiness and agency that I didn't mind her falling for Neo. There's always the hope, when I'm watching such a movie, that the hero and heroine will be allowed to relate to each other as people, instead of as Adam and Adam's rib. No such luck in "The Matrix." But look at the Bride. As Kiddo, Uma Thurman is so free from gender conventions that she kills the man she loves. While looking him in the face. With one hand. She's gorgeous and sexy and totally feminine, and she doesn't need a man to be real.
Which returns me to "The L Word." Thumbnails from Kate-Moennig.net, which has totally helped to ease my Shane craving tonight. Thanks, Kate-Moennig.net.Spoilers ensue.  Shane is one of those genderless characters. She's also an intensely romantic figure, the product of a shattered past who once turned tricks on Santa Monica Boulevard (whenever this comes up, the dialogue always specifies Santa Monica Boulevard) and has an invariably magnetic effect on women. I am very fucking jealous of the person who invented this character. Anyway, the first ten episodes of the second season did terrific things with Shane. In the first season, she was edgy and ballsy but essentially flat until she fell in love; the second showed her struggling to remain invulnerable. Moennig obviously grooves on her character (good God! who wouldn't?) and can deliver a knock-out scene of laconic suffering. Telling Carmen, "You did this," she makes selfishness and self-deception incredibly seductive. (Kate, you make me weak in the knees, and I'm in an open marriage. E-mail me.) Then she turns around and does macho nobility, holding the door open for Carmen and averting her body just enough to get Carmen out of the room without quite kissing her. When the bottom falls out, she takes a scene of disbelief, incredulity and rage—played entirely in silence opposite Straight Mark—and strings it out so long that you really don't know what Shane is going to do. You never see Shane come, but in this scene you do see her cry. Right before she punches him in the face.
 So, but. This is television, limited in the way serial television is, with inconsistent writing and directing and less than an hour a week to develop plots and characters. And Shane's romantic complexity really peters out. I'm not saying the final sex scene with Carmen isn't hot (have I mentioned yet that I'm in love with Moennig's supple skinny back?) but la la la—there's altogether too much beaming going on in episodes eleven through thirteen, and Shane just seems too goddamn happy. Her mother is a junkie, but Shane still loves her very much. Nice. Hothouse has plenty to say about this, for sure.
We who fall in love with faces on a screen are in a frustrating and more than faintly ludicrous position. No TV show and few movies can really do what you want them to do with the character you love. And thus was born slash. However, I did enjoy the metacommentary of Straight Mark and his cameras. Mark starts out as a prick, but changes when he essentially falls in love with Shane's image. His "Lesbos Gone Wild" film buddy is outraged when, as they're editing a tape of Shane sexing up the UPS girl, Mark keeps panning in until Shane's face fills the screen. When his buddy remonstrates, he says, "I want to know what she's feeling." The audience keeps gazing and yearning, trying to get into the head of the character, trying to make the image come alive.
¹ This was originally followed by "... More TK. Must to Chinatown now ..."; which will explain Mr. Smearcase's comment below.
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