I believe it was dear Michael Soldier who once summed up a certain variety of strident feminist folk music as "Wah, wah, wah. My pussy hurts."
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3:26 PM
Now who says you can't have a good time in rural Louisiana?
10:56 AM
I don't know how it happened. It's never happened before, and I hope it never happens again. It was terrifying and frustrating and nauseating all at once, like being force-fed Spaghetti-Os straight from the can by Jocelyn Wildenstein with an advanced case of leprosy (if silicone can fall prey to such ailments). You see, Sunday afternoon I had an allergic reaction to theatre. When I awoke that morning, everything seemed fine. It was a beautiful day, I had plenty of bagels on hand, and a new copy of National Geographic lay on the pillow next to me (an odd substitution for my vacationing boyfriend, but whatever). I took my time getting out of bed (6:30am--sheer decadence), read some email, watched a little TV, headed for the gym. Little did I know... At 3:00pm, I hopped on my bike and rode to our friendly neighborhood theatre to see a collection of new works written and mounted by some friends. The crowd was surprisingly big for a Sunday afternoon on Memorial Day weekend--especially since most of 'em were homos and according to their contracts with the Fraternal Order of New Orleans Homosexualists (aka FONOHomos), they were required to be in Florida for the weekend. (Smart cookie that I am, I signed Jonno's name, so I'm able to escape every year). I grabbed a drink, sat my ass down, and waited for the house lights to dim. Now some of the pieces were quite good (including one by a local authoress recently turned playwright): dialogue snapped, fully fleshed-out characters crackled, and knuckles popped (a terrible habit I have). To employ some overused critic lingo, it was, by turns funny, tender, nihilistic, poignant, and morbid. Not bad. But one piece. One piece was so...insipid. So foul. So poorly written. So poorly directed. So smarmy, reactionary, condescending, offensive, gratuitous, facile, polemic, and predictable, I was shaking--no, seriously, shaking--in my seat. I was embarrassed for the cast. I was horrified that someone in the audience might think this is what passes for good theatre in New Orleans. But mostly, I was furious to the point of vomiting: furious that I--we--were being forced to sit there and watch that painfully self-indulgent train wreck. I now understand Jonno's preference for visual art: at least in a museum, you can come and go as you please. Luckily, the pieces were short, and I didn't have to endure that one for too terribly long. Also luckily, I didn't see the author afterward. I mean, I was taught to say "yes sir" and "no sir" from the time I first opened my mouth, but I might have made an exception that afternoon...
11:26 AM
Here's a shocking tidbit: I'm resistant to motivational speakers. My bosses, unfortunately, don't share that aversion, so once or twice a year, we're all herded into a room and forced to negotiate foreign objects like creativity-inspiring toys, giant sticky-pads, and oversized fluorescent markers. It's like kindergarten without naptime. These presenations are invariably unpleasant. On the one hand, I have to endure poorly coiffed, badly dressed, over-caffienated windbags who are generally more interested in hearing themselves talk than conveying useful information. And on the other, I have to endure some painful self-examination: What sort of hangups prevent me from listening with an open mind to this reasonably well-educated guy? How is this experience any different from that of attending a lecture back in college? Why am I reduced to making juvenile comments about his wearing of both pleated Dockers and jogging shoes instead of gleaning something useful from the discussion? What sort of insecurities does that expose? Can anyone see them besides me? Can he? Ultimately, Leo that I am, I spend more time selfishly pondering my own reaction to the situation instead of listening to the schmuck at the whiteboard. Does it always have to come down to that old cliche that the people we most abhor are the ones most like us?
2:02 PM
I stand corrected. Not only is it on the front page, but it's being updated, too. Hurrah for the
3:09 PM
One of the perks of my old job in New York was that I was given a free subscription to the New York Times. Well, kinda: I arrived at least an hour before anyone else, so I had plenty of time to make coffee and peruse the paper we received at the office before anyone else showed up to snatch the Arts section. One day I was sitting at my desk, gettin' my buzz on, skimming the news, and there, buried in the belly of the A section, was a tiny, one column by one column-inch piece that said, in essence, "We've been hearing these crazy rumors that 200,000 folks have been killed in some kind of fighting in Rwanda. As soon as we find Rwanda on the map, we'll send someone to investigate." It wasn't necessarily the brevity of the piece that bothered me--I mean, who in their right mind would be in Rwanda to report the story accurately? The Christiane Amanpour's of the world are stationed somewhere else. Nor was it a question of placement; if you don't have much in the way of details, why would you put a story on the front page? I guess I was more disturbed by the allusion to such a massive tragedy. I was tantalized, horrified, whatever, but the paper couldn't provide me with any details to understand what happened. It was thoroughly creepy and not a little coy. Today, it happened again. Yeah, it's on the front page of the website, but look at the size of the piece. What can that possibly tell me? Maybe I'm spoiled by CNN. Maybe I need images and human-interest stories to appreciate the news. Maybe by giving me an understanding of the events, those kinds of things provide closure so I can turn off the set and think about watering my plants. I know it's stating the obvious, but still.
9:29 AM
I understand that given the volatility of the stock market these days, real estate is a relatively solid investment, but this may be going a bit too far (literally and otherwise).
6:29 AM
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