"I use my body the same way a nurse uses her hat..."

The One in Which I Argue with Henry James*

From Azarian: An Episode (1864), by Harriet Prescott Spofford:

If he massacred your dolls when you were children twice (because he found her new hiding place for her toys), it looks like there's no hope for him. Sadly, the protagonist, Ruth, doesn't give up on Azarian even after his grand speech on how he imagines their marriage:

Henry James hated the novel for its 'unrealistic plot', 'unconvincing characters', and abundance of descriptive passages. Focusing on giving Prescott advice (write like French male writers!), James didn't think that the excess in the descriptions could have an ironic quality, or that boredom experienced by the protagonist was quite poignant, not to mention that the two aspects of the novel related to a distinctly different experience than that of French (or American) men.

Azarian would be À rebours à rebours if not for the fact that it was written earlier than Huysmans's novel. Art is an important theme in the novel, but not the "art for art's sake" of the decadent dandy, but the art of women painters (such as Ruth) or women of theater (such as her friend Charmian), or the work of salon hostesses such the mysterious Mme Saratov; art that does not conceal its relationship to money and does not enshroud itself in a veneer of "isolated genius."

The successful artist Ruth believes she has to get married because 'that's just what women do.' As she explains to a well-meaning friend who's trying to warn her about Azarian: "I see what you mean, yet marriage is the natural condition of maturity. Even a bad and selfish man must therefore be a better one if he has a wife If it were question with me ... of marrying such a man as those you knew, I should feel when the dazzle of his days was off how dull and dreary would they wear away. I would bide my time, I would marry him, serve him cheer him, be his slave" (199).

She's tortured by these ideas, driven mad by them to the point when she doesn't realize she's financially independent (her paintings sell extremely well) and that she was much less lonely before Azarian appeared and chased away her friend and love, the actress Charmian.

Azarian is a novel about death of boredom and the delusion of passivity. It's also a novel about women's talent being reduced to craft and fancy rather than artistry and imagination. That's what Azarian does to Ruth and James to Prescott. James accuses her of writing puppets rather than people, but are these categories necessarily mutually exclusive?

*It's easy to argue with the dead--they don't tend to talk back.

Chickadee Sighting and Feeling

Niagara Falls, September 2009.

Thanks to the generosity of a bird lover from Niagara Falls, I fed and touched a few chickadees.

So Bad You Can't Stop Watching (or Reading)

My latest favorite bad movie: Obsessed. I will keep my favorite bad novels secret (at least for now). I wrote about my favorite bad books a few posts ago: I can read Chmielewska at her worst, unfortunately, even when she stoops so low she has her protagonists praise "human nature" that makes men cheat and women do all the housework, while said protagonists lose money in a casino, inebriated, and lovelorn. It's camp without knowing it's camp (well, the kind of camp that hasn't read Susan Sontag's definition of itself).

Now, I've never read or been tempted to read Nicholas Sparks. I also don't know if I could watch any of the movies without feeling weak from all the sugary sweetness of romanticized cancer. This thread captures the potential and expressive force of the melodrama that Sparks resists (contrary to what he believes, he resists it solely in his defense of his books). And this interview shows just how melodramatic Sparks is in his self-presentation:

"I write in a genre that was not defined by me. The examples were not set out by me. They were set out 2,000 years ago by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. They were called the Greek tragedies. A thriller is supposed to thrill. A horror novel is supposed to scare you. A mystery is supposed to keep you turning the pages, guessing 'whodunit?'

"A romance novel is supposed to make you escape into a fantasy of romance. What is the purpose of what I do? These are love stories. They went from (Greek tragedies), to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, then Jane Austen did it, put a new human twist on it. Hemingway did it with A Farewell to Arms."

That's one of his favorites, and he points it out as he walks the aisles of the bookstore.

"Hemingway. See, they're recommending The Garden of Eden, and I read that. It was published after he was dead. It's a weird story about this honeymoon couple, and a third woman gets involved. Uh, it's not my cup of tea." Sparks pulls the one beside it off the shelf. "A Farewell to Arms, by Hemingway. Good stuff. That's what I write," he says, putting it back. "That's what I write."

I could see myself surreptitiously reshelving Hemingway's novels as "high-brow" romance (whatever that would mean), so Sparks does not convince me. Hemingway's stories, that's a different cup of tea. But self-aggrandizing comparisons aside, Sparks writes romance.


PS: What are your favorite bad books and/or movies?

Almanac of the Dead

The people had been free to go traveling north and south for a thousand years, traveling as they pleased, then suddenly white priests had announced smuggling as a mortal sin because smuggling was stealing from the government.
Zeta wondered if the priests who told the people smuggling was stealing had also told them how they were to feed themselves now that all the fertile land along the rivers had been stolen by white men. Where were the priest and his Catholic Church when the federal soldiers used Yaqui babies for target practice? Stealing from the "government"? What "government" was that? Mexico City? Zeta laughed out loud. Washington, D.C.? How could one steal if the government itself was the worst thief?
There was not, and never had been, a legal government by Europeans anywhere in the Americas. Not by any definition, not even by the Europeans' own definitions and laws. Because no legal government could be established on stolen land. (133)

* * * * *

Guzman's people had always hated her anyway. Because she was an Indian. "We know," Lecha said. "We know that. But what about the trees?"
Oh, yes, those trees! How terrible what they did with the trees. Because the cottonwood suckles like a baby. Suckles on the mother water running under the ground. A cottonwood will talk to the mother water and tell her what human beings are doing. But then these white men came and and they began digging up the cottonwoods and moving them here and there for a terrible purpose. (117)

* * * * *

He thought about what the ancestors had called Europeans: their God had created them but soon was furious with them, throwing them out of their birthplace, driving them away. The ancestors had called Europeans "the orphan people" and had noted that as with orphans taken in by selfish or coldhearted clanspeople, few Europeans had remained whole. They failed to recognize the earth was their mother. Europeans were like their first parents, Adam and Eve, wandering aimlessly because the insane God who had sired them had abandoned them. (258)

I Adore Kate Beaton

Kind of like Verne adored Poe (probably my favorite strip, this one). More balloons for everybody!

This one, which I found today, is very close to my current research.

Very true: Kościuszko's Insurrection was "crazy shit"--lots of upturned scythes (unfortunately, Wikipedia won't tell you about that in English).

Jan Matejko, Bitwa pod Racławicami [The Battle of Racławice], 1888 - image from Wikipedia

Costume-y!

A wonderful relief from authoritarian stylists -- costume-y delight enveloped in intriguing sounds.

(I wish I could be as pithy in the book review I'm working on.)

Duże zwierzę

Duże zwierzę was one of those films I had been planning to see for ages and kept missing. Luckily, the cat told us he's a fan of Kieślowski and we absolutely need to push Duże zwierzę to the top of our list. Well, so maybe that's not how I finally saw it, but the cat was indeed there.

The voice in the English trailer is terribly wrong when he announces that (1) the story happens in a village -- it's actually a town, (2) the villagers used to be lovely and kind -- the point is that those people have always been nasty, but maybe not as harmful: it's a film about Polish vices. In addition, the film description lies that it's a comedy -- it certainly is not, though you will smile listening to Jerzy Stuhr's conversations with the camel.

It's a story about irrational hate and destructive envy. I was heartbroken when someone in the mob raised a placard with the word "Precz" [Out!] and when Stuhr was dragged from one office to another to answer strange demands and accusations.

But I was also absolutely amazed when Anna Dymna and Jerzy Stuhr were dining with their camel, making a sweater for him, and taking him on long walks. And the closing scene with camels in the snow is incredibly beautiful.

SMART GIRLS AT THE PARTY

I wish there had been a show like this when I was growing up. More importantly, I would like there to be more shows like this, in different countries.

Link: Smart Girls at the Party

Amy Poehler interviewing young feminist Ruby

The Muppet Truth

Epiphanies of TV comedy:

Hungry

I'm thinking of getting this book.

I was a hungry teen: I lost weight at 15 and went crazy. My days were about counting calories, eating half of the half I already was eating, and squeezing in exercise whenever I could. At 18 I suddenly got terribly sick. One evening I took an afternoon nap, feeling oddly weak after a meal and woke up in pain. I thought I was going to die from intestinal cramps -- one of the lousiest, least-romantic, bordering on funny, deaths that you can imagine. My mother called the ambulance, I remember passing out because of the pain in my stomach, and the doctor trying to make me talk, so I stay conscious. I got a shot, which relaxed the cramps and after a few hours of sleep I went to the doctor for what was the first of a long series of visits and exams.

The diagnosis: an ulcer. Sounds simple, I know a lot of people deal with ulcers in one, two years, but I haven't been able to. Although, perversely, the illness helped me get over the worst obsession by preventing me from dieting, I still haven't learned to handle work-related stress or body image fears. (Like now, when I've gained a few pounds and, rationally, I know it doesn't really make much of a difference but I do feel I should lose them. But I'm not actively pursuing this -- just watching my thoughts.)

I wish I could have come to wiser conclusions about eating with a different inspiration than an imminent risk of a hole in my stomach.

But here's what the hole taught me:

raw food and fruit only diets -- crap: your inundating your stomach with acids and providing your body with only a small group of the nutrients you need;

mono-diets -- see above;

"cleanses" -- crap in a lot of cases: I understand they can help you once in a blue moon, but only if you don't belong to the huge group of people who absolutely need to eat regularly for hundreds of reasons (the basic: eating regularly is the healthiest option); if you want to "cleanse yourself of toxins" quit coffee, tea, and alcohol, sauces, fast food, snacks, chocolate, maybe dairy for a few weeks;

exercise -- good BUT if you find you are scheduling your life around visits to the gym, you are bat-shit crazy and if you think you're cool because you jog around your block but then you never WALK anywhere, you're not too smart;

demonizing bread and potatoes -- starch isn't toxic, you need to have a healthy balance of the amounts you consume AND advocate good bread (which does happen to be white sometimes), without half the periodic table in it, keeping it the same for months;

"halp! carbs!" -- change it to "help! synthetic food!"

The food part is easier than making friends with the mirror. I've been practicing for years. I feel like it's getting better, but there are many times when it feels like day one.

It doesn't help to have this as your ethnic beauty ideal and success story (btw, her body's chosen weight was this).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not biased against very slender people -- IF it's their natural weight. If it's a result of a fierce battle with the body, I don't support it. That's why I'm very grateful to Crystal Renn for writing her book and for interviews such as this one.

[Amazon.com promo]
[Kate Harding on Crystal Renn at Salon.com]
["No Longer Hungry..." at 2Medusa.com]
["Crystal Renn... on Having Her Cake and Eating It" - The Guardian]

Marriage Equality

The American version has Cat Power playing in the background and the girl's name is Megan. The problem, though, remains the same.

Pieces of Youth's Dark Awesomeness

If there is a comic sublime, it's in teenagers' diaries.

Just read these magnificent glimpses into young tortured souls -- on Jezebel.

My diaries are hidden (probably too poorly) at my parents' house. They go as far as my eighteenth summer, which I spent traveling to festivals and odd places around Poland and during one of those escapades met my future husband. I have the record of what the eighteen-year-old me thought of him, believe me, although she liked him back then, she would be quite surprised if I could tell her she married him years later.

Suddenly, We're in Nova Scotia

Why didn't anyone tell me Canada was so fabulous? We're in Halifax, it's raining, but it's still amazing.

The one dilemma is that due to time constraints we have to choose:

Peggy's Cove

Sunset Reflections - EXPLORED Feb 9/07, originally uploaded by Hadassah28 (For the love of a Rose!).

or

Lunenburg

Lunenburg, originally uploaded by Kim Naumann - Curiouser & Curiouser Designs.

Suggestions?

The Cardinal

Cardinal with Bokeh, originally uploaded by Uncle Phooey.

I'm having coffee with the Northern Cardinal. He (I know for a fact that it's a boy, because he's red from beak to toe [toe?]) is sitting outside on a branch and not singing for me but for the cardinal ladies in the area. I am almost trying to work on an essay. But it's hard, because there are no cardinals in it, not even a feather.

Just the Shoes

Here are the shoes I wore to my wedding. I was intrigued by friends' requests that I give them a photo of, I quote, "just the shoes." If I knew the selections from the wedding pictures could end on that, I wouldn't have hesitated so much whether to put those very personal photographs on facebook.

I could launch a big debate about the limits of privacy in our strange age, but we all puzzle over these issues daily. (At least I think we do.)

As a little girl I did not fantasize about my wedding (I was not one of those little girls, trust me). And I would never even have pictured the whole problem of "telling people about it." Not even on that most basic level of your aunts and uncles, so the clicking and sending a letter to the world is completely beyond me... In the end I clicked and spread the word and even posted a few pictures. But don't ask me how I feel about it. I'm not sure. It does feel a little bit like showing off.

Our weekday wedding was low key and involved running around rainy Manhattan. On the subway on our way back, after the dinner and before the drinks, a lady asked me about my bouquet. I told her that we had just got married and, immediately, the people sitting next and opposite us were all smiling.

Wielkie Wydarzenia, które mi przejdą koło nosa...

Lubisz oryginalne ciuchy, niepowtarzalną biżuterię, niebanalne dodatki? Przyjdź na kolejną akcję wymiany ciuchów z cyklu Babi Targ.

Jeśli twoja szafa pełna jest ciuchów, w których już nie chodzisz, nie możesz na nie patrzeć albo w które się już nie mieścisz Babiląd organizuje imprezę dla ciebie!

Cóż, Misiula zostanie w swoich niepołatanych sweterkach, bo Poznań jest za wielką kałużą. Co prawda jadę do Nowegoryjka, ale ciuchowe zakupy to ostatnie, co mi teraz w głowie. Potrzebne kwiaty i stalowe nerwy wobec biurokracji. A poza tym będzie pięknie.

Jeśli jednak macie bliżej do Poznania, biegnijcie, co sił. Więcej o Babim Targu tutaj, tutaj i tutaj.

Urodzinki

(Znalezione gdzieś w sieci)

Dla Ciebie, dla mnie, o krok od Twoich urodzin.

Our New Baby

We got him at the toystore downtown.

After much frantic typing (two essays I feel conflicted about) and much delirious spring cleaning, we felt grown-up enough to get a new plush person.

Somewhat distant future plans: potted plant and cat.

Reading Assignment

A few weeks ago I bought James Wright's The Branch Will Not Break on Amazon. I was very surprised by how student-friendly the price was and an anniversary edition to boot!

My surprise was even greater when the book arrived and I discovered that it makes a great prop for the tiny teddy bear and that there is no way I can read it without my reading glasses.

Now, I am an adult and should be better at handling such things. And yet I do feel slightly apprehensive about the reaction of the other critics and poets kids when I take out my little book tomorrow in class.