Out of the Deep End

I'm sure it's occurred to me before now, but I really thought about it last night: I haven't lived in that many different parts of the US, but I've traveled a fair bit, and this place easily has the most advertisements for cosmetic surgery ... and by "easily the most" I mean there are tons. Ugh.

Entertainment

This weekend we (along with my brother and a good friend) had the distinct pleasure of seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company's staging of King Lear, starring Ian McKellen.
While there are always things to be nit-picky about, staging or someone's delivery for example, overall I found the play absolutely riveting. We of course wanted to see Sir Ian onstage. The appearance of Sylvester McCoy, a former Dr. Who, as the Fool was also exciting. But really, it made me realize that it's been quite some time (indeed, I can't remember the last) since I've seen real, honest-to-god theatre. McKellen and the actor playing Edgar, in particular, were really quite phenomenal and disappeared into their characters. I felt so sorry for Lear.

It being Los Angeles, we had a pretty exciting celeb encounter: Tom Hanks, his wife Rita Wilson, and two of their sons (I think they have more) were in the audience for the Saturday matinee. As a testament to McKellen's acting, at some point my brother said "You know, it's pretty impressive, really. 'Cause, you know, (pointing) that's Tom Hanks over there, but (pointing to the stage) that is not really Ian McKellen, is it?"

Indeed.

ABC, are you watching?

That's Jonathan Papelbon, the Red Sox's scary-ass closer, celebrating their Division win. Supposedly he's quoted as saying "Next stop, Dancing with the Stars". Dude. DWTS needs a baseball player; they haven't had one yet. Plus, once you stop laughing, recognize that the boy can actually dance. And finally, look at him in his skivvies. Boy is ripped. He would look good in a tux, is all I'm sayin'.

Fascination

I really want to know about John Linnell's college career, but no-one seems to know anything. Alas.

Apocalypse?

Thought #1: I absolutely refuse to believe that Britney Spears might actually have semi-decent taste in literature.
Thought #2: Wait a minute. She can read?

Take that, LA Times!

This morning I finished my second Friday crossword ever. That sucker's hard. Soon I'll be graduating to the NY Times. Go me.

Double Standards

I've only been meaning to post about this for a couple of months now. Somehow, the time was never right, so I've just decided to go for it.

I would not describe myself as a feminist. For the most part, I think feminism, by the usual definition, goes overboard. I like to think of all people as equal, and I'd like to be treated as such. I think that, too often, special interest groups move past equality and get a little too wrapped up in the "special". So, whereas I am a reasonably liberated female member of the species, I try to treat everyone in the same manner, and I try to maintain a sense of humor about expressions in our society that others tend to see as sexist, racist, or whatever.

However. I do have a problem when it comes to the double standards that are rampant in our society with regards to things like gender/race relations. To wit, the treatment and expression of men in ways that, if applied to women, would most likely bring outcry and potential bodily harm to the expressor. For example: I have seen, in the past few months, the following two t-shirts on young ladies. One was on her way to class, the other was grocery shopping, with a male companion.

Exhibit A: He's Just an Accessory
Exhibit B: Boyfriends Make Good Pets

Whoa, dude. Seriously, if a man had on a shirt that said "Girlfriends Make Good Pets", he would be lynched. Let's not even consider the ramifications of what would happen if the subject of that fashion statement was somehow racially charged. And how is that fair? Maybe the normal male would not be offended by such a statement, but seriously, I'm kind of offended for him. I think it's vile to say anything about "making a good pet" about another human being. If you know me at all, you know how much I love my cats, but they still do not take the place of my husband or my family members. And the "accessory" statement goes even further, relegating a human being to the same importance as an inanimate object!

I guess the bottom line for me is that I'd be willing to bet that either of those young ladies would consider themselves reasonably liberated, at least in terms of having their own life, not being dependent on a male, planning or having a career of their own, etc. Maybe they even think that their choice of fashion statement is in some way liberated. But really, those statements are still a part of the problem. Yes, men and women are different. But we're all here on this earth and in this society together, and we do deserve to be treated equally, at least in terms of showing respect for a fellow human being. You know, as opposed to pets and accessories.

We can't be silent

They Might Be Giants played "She's an Angel" for me (just for me, unless you can prove otherwise) Friday night during their show at the House of Blues in Anaheim. A zillion thanks to Mr. Kasper for getting us off our butts and out to the show. It was totally awesome. Plus, I have an adorable new t-shirt! We like Hammurabi best, with his emo haircut...

Edit: Check the video!! The Mesopotamians

Shattered Youth

The book I'm reading right now is entitled The Story of Britain: from the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History. So far it's really cool. It's history, but it reads fairly well. Not too sleep-inducing. Anyway, last night I just got through King John, and I'll be moving on to the Plantagenet kings next. Of the chapters I read last night, it's the last two I want to talk about: Richard the Lionheart and John. I also want to talk about Disney.

Now then. I'm not going to pretend to be astonished to learn that the bulk of Disney movies/stories, particularly if based on actual historical events, are very much historically inaccurate. This does not come as a shock. Still. I have to admit to being a little bummed out last night, in reading about the sons of Henry II, to learn that my absolute favorite Disney classic, Robin Hood, is really quite a historical mess. There's very little mention of Robin Hood himself in The Story of Britain, which is fine. He is mentioned, however, in conjunction with Prince John, as a means of demonstrating the historical characterization of John as the snivelling, money-hungry, bad-guy younger brother of the fabulous Coeur de Lion. This is not to say that he was a saint. He wasn't that great a king, really. But here's the shocking part: neither was Richard. Let's look at this through the lens of Robin Hood, shall we?

First of all, I was interested to learn that the concept of an English sheriff originated from the Anglo-Saxon times, died out for a bit after the Norman invasion, and was re-instated (I think) by Henry II. Moving on, though. Robin Hood tells us that the noble and glorious King Richard is on Crusade and that evil Prince John has taken over the throne, where he delights in taxing the heart and soul out of the good people of Nottingham, correct? Peripherally, the implication is that the Queen Mother, Eleanor of Acquitaine, is not in the picture, and that John was a mama's boy. I always got the impression that Eleanor was already dead during the action of the cartoon. Ready for the "historically inaccurate" part? Here goes.

Richard was indeed on Crusade, but John did not "take over the throne". He was given jurisdiction (by Richard) over some parts of England and France. He did become King after Richard's death, but that's neither here nor there. Richard was on Crusade for a while, and then on the way home he was captured and held for ransom by European enemies. All that taxation? It was actually Richard who introduced exorbitant taxes during the period in order to pay for his Crusade. The taxation continued, egged on by Eleanor in order to pay Richard's ransom. Eleanor was not only still around, she actually outlived her son Richard. And while the book doesn't make any mention of John's relationship with his mother, there's quite a bit of history to tell us that John was his father's favorite to the point where Henry II actually tried to take lands and money away from his other sons to give to John. Being the youngest, John had no inheritance for himself.

The truth is that neither Richard nor John was the King their father was; they were just different. Richard was hardly ever IN England, being off on Crusade or worrying about his French lands and scrapping with the French king. John was actually very present and involved in his kingdom even at a local level, but he was greedy and a bit tyrannical a la the Disney version.

Again, it's not a revelation that a Disney cartoon, intended for kids, is not the way to learn one's history. I guess what struck me was just that this was my favorite Disney movie. I still watch it every couple of months. Prior to last night, it was pretty much everything I knew about that particular bit of British history. And as a kid, certainly, it never occurs to you that it's not accurate; I guess some things hold over into adulthood. Prince John was evil, King Richard was good, Robin Hood was a hero, and so on. Sure, it's just a movie, and a kid's one at that. As an adult, I do know that things are rarely so black-and-white, and that movies of a certain type are made to entertain rather than teach. I guess I'm just a little sad that one of my favorite parts of childhood has been clouded a bit by shades of grey, and that I will probably never look at it in quite the same way again.

Note to self:

The reason that college girl looks so effing tiny to you is that she is probably 18, which makes her 14 years younger than you, and not necessarily that she has a better body/is anorexic/eats healthfully/works out all day.

Revelation.

Rage

I just saw the following t-shirt on an obese individual at the grocery store:

This working out thing isn't working out.

Ha ha fucking ha.

A weekend, mostly fencing

(Xposted from LJ, but hey, it's better than nothing, n'est-ce pas?)

I have the sinusy-cold thing that's going around. How fun.

I fenced a women's epee tournament yesterday, and finally won my first direct elimination bout in California. I'm reading The Inner Game of Tennis, which was recommended to me by one of the coaches at my club. Well, yes, it's about tennis, but really it's about sports psychology through the medium of tennis; specifically the notion that we have two selves when engaging in most activities: a doer and a talker. The talker doesn't really know how to do anything and just spends a lot of time criticizing the doer. Hence, an inner game: learning to shut up the talker and be non-judgmental about what one is doing. The idea is that if you let your body (the doer, more or less) just do what you've trained it to do, it's going to work better. So moving from that, my goal yesterday was really just to stay relaxed, try not to focus so hard, and see what happened. Well, what happened was that I went 6-1 (lost to the eventual winner*) in my pool, seeded 4th out of pools thus earning a bye into the round of 16, annihilated a C07 in my first DE (15-4), and lost in the round of 8 to a tall, skinny B, 15-11, placing me ultimately in 5th place out of 26 women. I was actually really happy w/that last bout, too, because I was moving pretty well and correcting things as I went along. It was fencing. If I'd won that bout I would've updated my C, which would have been awfully nice, but I'm not complaining. It was a solid result. I can't say I was relaxed the whole time or that "the talker" was completely silent, but it showed some promise. Focusing on something other than the immediate task at hand would appear to have some merit.

Guess that's the update for me. Andrew is ridiculously busy with choral goings-on, and things are pretty good here. Looking forward to a visit to Bloomington this month, as well as the afore-mentioned King Lear, which Ben & Austin will make the trip out to see. Yay!!

Hope everyone has a good week. :)

*Eventual winner being 19, about 100 pounds, 5'10" or so, and apparently a member of the Swedish National Team. She smoked everybody yesterday, so I don't feel too terrible.