post without a cohesive theme

As a rule, romantic comedies get the least respect of any film genre. That may well be a somewhat dubious distinction. After all, plenty of other shlocky movie genres produce their fair share of filmic excrement. Horny teenage boy comedies, for instance. Movies that are little more that montages of cars crashing into things, for instance. Moralistically propaganda-ish ensemble pieces posing as politically incisive artish things, for instance (think Traffic, Crash, Babel, et al. Yawn.) But somehow, these kinds of movies don't seem to draw the same kind of snorting, repulsed derision that romantic comedies do. Not even from, um, me.

Plenty will argue that the reason your average romantic comedy represents so much despicable-ness is because they fill women's head with unrealistic ideas about love and couplehood and relationships that are both endless and endlessly passionate. And that they are all the more horrendous because they are targeted specifically at women in the first place-- a largely sentimental and impressionable subset of the population who are unable to recognize the achingly obvious fantastical-ness of the rote happily-ever-after ending. Such arguments often end with their authors throwing their hands up in bafflement, deploring the fact that so many of us girls will collectively fork over millions for so much drivelly, drooly, lovey-dovey dreck. And those arguments are not without merit. Truly, it is amazing that all Hollywood can feed the cock-less portion of us is a bunch of brainless, un-nuanced, blindly optimistic, hokey hooey. And even more amazing that we will devour it (SATC, anyone? HJNTIY?) And most of them are formulaic and un-funny and they really are at least as bad as say, The Ballad of Ricky Bobby*.

But just for a second, let's entertain the idea that we cannot dismiss the entire genre without consideration. Although few of us guilty of this sort of generalization will want to admit it aloud (myself included), I worry sometimes that half the reason we all scoff at romantic comedies is not because they are, without exception, terrible, but rather specifically because they are geared towards women and are therefore less "serious." Or something. This article from Salon.com discusses assorted feminist theories that wonder if the reason there are so few female novelists in the canon of English-language prose is because of their subject matter. In other words, it asks whether we don't give adequate credit to women who may well possess remarkable wordsmithing talents because they choose to write of motherhood, wifehood, domestic life and sexuality over things like war, international politics, or professional life-- the stuff of which a preponderance of the most widely-taught literatures are made.

To me, it's difficult to compare "women's" literature or film by these criteria because so little of the work I love written by women pertains only those "female" topics-- most good ones are still politically situated; they can't help but be. And because so few of the books I love that were written by men address only these so-called "male" topics. With regard to literature, this argument presents a classic false dichotomy, as far as I can tell. With film, however, it's true the producers get together to plot out their marketing schema along gender lines. Pretty much every major Hollywood vehicle is designed specifically to appeal to one demographic or another, rather than to comment luminously on humanity and life and culture (a silly ambition best left to those sissified indie freaks with their digi-cams). Chick flicks are, in fact, aimed right at the greater Pussy Posse. And for that reason, it's kind of all the worse that they are, by and large, so bad. It's patronizing. But also, their intended target audience is also part of the reason, I'm afraid, that it's hard to take them seriously. They're meant for silly, frivolous girls. Which means that liking a chick flick is tantamount to proclaiming one's frivolity and intellectual (effeminate) feebleness from the hills. Well, sign me up for that! Wait. Don't.

So, just for a second, I'd like go back to the source and remember from whence the grand tradition of the romantic comedy sprung. When we were all in the 6th grade and had to read Romeo and Juliet for the first time, we were all taught the primary difference between a Shakespearean tragedy and a Shakespearean comedy. Anyone remember what that was? At the end of a tragedy, everyone important is dead. But at the end of a comedy, what happens? Yes! Everyone gets appropriately matched up and there's a big ol' festoony wedding. Nobody ever scoffed at A Midsummer's Night's Dream. Or Taming of the Shrew. No one ever assumed the The Tempest was fit for chicks and chicks alone. However, in terms of narrative arc, those plays really aren't tremendously divergent from whatever the latest unmemorable Lindsey Lohan venture might have been. Now, I'm not comparing quality of text or even depth of characters here--I'm just saying that the plotty skeletons of Shakespeare have an awful lot in common with the bare bones of your average chick flick. And in that light, their tradition seems touched with just a little golden grandeur, doesn't it?

Now, that brings me to a one rare gem of a romantic comedy that I think does just about everything right. I've been known to say, every now and again, that Secretary is the only chick flick I really and truly love. Often, folks raise their eyebrows at that assertion, avowing that Secretary ain't no kinda chick flick at all. But come on! It's got all the genre hallmarks. Sad mousy girl meets well-dressed, if awkward, man in a position of power over her. Man and girl exchange some signs of sexual interest in each other. Man and girl progress towards a sexual relationship until some obstacle arises and they have a falling-out. Girl sacrifices pride to win man back. Man and girl get married. The end. Isn't that the same plot (roughly) as Two Weeks Notice? Classic romantic comedy format. Except...

For all the times Secretary follows the rules, it breaks just as many. It's a story of two fucked up people who just happen to have matching baggage -- which is why I find it legitimately touching, rather than corny. Plus, it lends credence and autonomy to the choice to be a submissive woman. Lee isn't an abused woman. She isn't the enemy of female empowerment. She's just a girl seeking sexual transcendence through what are, for many of us, the necessary vehicles of degradation and ravishment. And bless her heart for that. In our post-Girl-Power era, it's still tough for even the most pluralistic feminist definitions to account for a character like Lee-- much less for real-life women who identify both with her and as feminists. Admittedly, I get her. Man-o-man-alive, do I get her. And I don't think I ever found James Spader so sexy, multiple kinky movies though he may have done (Sex, Lies & Videotape, the other Crash, et al), as when he jacked off onto the back of her silk blouse. Gnuuhh. Regardless, all their kink and all their hot, twisty battles for power don't change the fact that theirs is essentially a sugary, tender love story. With a happy, sexually fulfilling marriage at the end to boot. We should all be so lucky. (Ugh, Marjorie, even this romantic comedy is still a fantasy. Snap out of it.)

And now I come to my recent reading of Mary Gaitskill's first short story collection, Bad Behavior. Gaitskill's getting almost as much publicity as Flannery O'Connor right now, due to her upcoming release of another collection, entitled Don't Cry-- but I'd had Bad Behavior sitting on my shelf, unread, for a while now. It's the book that contains the short story on which the film Secretary is based. And I must say, it really is a lovely little book. The film diverges rather drastically from the short story "Secretary"-- which is not comedic at all, but rather stark and unmitigated in its description of that luscious sexual margin that wavers between that which arouses us and that which horrifies us, territory that resides squat in the middle of one of my favorite cerebral terrains. In my opinion, this disparity detracts from neither story nor movie. I recall, at its release, the movie took some shit for being touching, romantic and sexy while the story is difficult, ambivalent and ill at ease. But really, they are two very different entities. Both good, just not in the same ways.

In general, though, I found myself feeling oddly at home in this book. Gaitskill's got a reputation for writing characters on the sexual fringes. Her books are populated with part-time whores, folks with STDs, submissives, public masturbators, and people who osmose back and forth between the all-too-porous membrane that exists between the homos and the heteros. And though these narratives are suffused with a sort of angsty, uncomfortable sexuality, she has a very light, very frank touch when it comes to actually describing sex. No, these are not stories of sex. They're stories of social awkwardness.

I think I've probably written a little here and there about my distrust of the self-identification model of literature appreciation. Every once in a while, I've caught a clip of one of the Oprah's Book Club discussions-- you know the ones: all the women sit around and say they liked the book so much because they really saw themselves in it. Um. Yuck. This always rubs me the wrong way. Looking to literature to be a mirror of the reader is such a solipsistic-- though occasionally unavoidable--project that I think it really cheats the text of a proper discussion. Besides that, most of the stuff I read is, by design, fairly outside of my own frame of reference, so identifying with fictional character is just not something I do often. So, when it does happen, it's pretty unnerving. Enter here my experience reading Bad Behavior.

I grew up the younger sister of probably the most socially adept, golden charmer ever. When my brother graduated high school, he got voted "Most Likely to Succeed," "Class Favorite" and some other superlative like "Most Congenial" that he had to turn down because he was only allowed to accept two. The superlative that appears in my own yearbook hurt my feelings so badly that I can't quite bring myself to repeat it here-- not because it was true (it wasn't-- far from it) but because its lack of truth reflected just exactly how little my classmates knew me. Years beyond my adolescent gracelessness, I continue to feel edgy at family gatherings as the inevitable comparisons between the my brother and I play out in my own head, even if they aren't happening in anyone else's. He's the laughing, assured goofball and I'm the sullen, moody, self-absorbed troll. In other words, regardless of table, you can always find me sitting behind the name card reading "Socially Awkward Kid Sister." This seems to be an intractable part of my self image.

So, when Gaitskill writes of people who bear much contempt for arty pretentiousness and yet can't seem to help participating in it themselves, I think, "oh god, I know." When she writes about the aspiring writer/prostitute who gets off on her lover's ascribing to her a certain "exoticism" and outre charm that she herself knows she does not possess, I cringe a little with recognition. Some characters talk a little too loudly, some overshare, some default into annoyingly psychologizing dialogue. And none of them seem to feel particularly comfortable in the company of other humans.

All of that is itchily familiar. So much so that I'm barely aware of Gaitskill's lilting and exact writing. Her artfulness is subtle to the point of subliminality and yet it is no less arresting than some of the best language-forward poetics I've read. It feels like it's been quite some time since I've read much fiction that didn't fall within somebody or other's definition of "experimental." As such, this 20-year-old books feels refreshingly straightforward in its diction and style.

I did try to read Gaitskill's novel Veronica a couple of years ago, and though I responded to its style, I put it down-- it was winter and that is one bleak book. I think it's about time I try again, though, and I do hope to find the same taut muscularity in Don't Cry as there is in Bad Behavior. Short stories are preferable for on-the-metro reading anyway. To that end, I've also just finished Rikki Ducornet's new book, One Marvelous Thing and am currently picking through Etgar Keret's The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God. Both entirely entertaining, both parceled out in blessedly brief bursts.

Unlike this weird, meandering post. *sigh*

* N.B. The blogger behind this post would like to acknowledge that she has never seen The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and is quite likely to be talking out her ass. To the fine folks behind the production of that film, this blogger sincerely apologizes if you have, indeed, made a film of the highest artistic caliber. It's just that she has her doubts that this is the case.

Marcel Dzama

What I wish was the inspiration for this blog's title. (via Pedorabbits)

When homesick...

When Michelle and I were together, I did most of the cooking. She'd basically eat whatever I put in front of her (truly, the mark of a good mate-- for me, anyway) and my own appetite itches for experimentation most of the time. However, when I wanted something that tasted like the South, I would beckon the lovely girl to the kitchen. Michelle's recipe repertoire, unlike mine, has little to do with cookbooks and a whole lot to do with habit. And when that girl has her way with greens, cabbage, pinto beans, pork butt, fried chicken, cornbread... Lord almighty, ain't nothing like it.

So, last week, I got a real hankering for cornbread. None of that sweet, cake-like Yankee shit you get in places that aren't the South. I wanted the steamy, salty, hard stuff-- with onions and jalapenos, like my girl used to make for me. So, I emailed her. I know she went home and had to make it in order to take notes to tell me how she did it, so second-nature is its composition for her. But send me the recipe, she did. There's something to be said for staying friendly with former lovers.

Here's my vegetarian, organic version:

Jalapeno Onion Cornbread

3-4 tbsp organic canola oil
1 cup fine-ground organic corn flour (yellow or white-- either is fine)
1 cup medium-ground organic corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 -1 tsp kosher salt
2 tbsp Healthy Balance soy spread (or organic butter), melted
1 large organic egg
1-1 1/2 cups organic lowfat buttermilk
1/2 a medium yellow onion, chopped
1 large jalapeno, diced

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Shortly before the oven comes to temperature, coat a 9-inch cast iron pan* with 2 tbsp of the canola oil. Preheat the pan in the heating oven for a few minutes-- but not too long, as it can catch fire.

Mix the remaining ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, adding the egg and buttermilk last. Add the buttermilk a 1/2-cup at a time. You want the mixture to be distinctly wet, but not runny or watery. (When I made it, it took a full cup and a half, but you never know how much water you'll get from your onion.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the top is firm and golden brown. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve. Ah, nostalgia.

*A note regarding cast iron skillets for the uninitiated: When Michelle and I broke up, her parting gift to me was a cast iron skillet she'd seasoned herself. At that point in our relationship, we weren't doing so well at the being-friends thing. There was so much hurt between us -- mostly because we loved each other so much we were both furious with each other and with ourselves that, after nearly 5 years, we couldn't pull it out any longer. But she knew I loved her cornbread. And she knew I couldn't make it myself without a proper skillet. So, the thing about cast iron is that it must be seasoned to be usable. That means, you put it in the oven with only some oil coating its inner surface and you bake it until it turns black. It usually takes a few coatings and cookings to become properly dark. And then, every time you use it, you clean it by swiping an oil-coated paper towel around it. Never-- I repeat, never-- put soap in your cast iron skillet. Unless you want to start the seasoning process all over again, that is. Over the years, the skillet should develop a good, thick, black crust of cookin' love all over it. That's when you know you'll have perfect cornbread or fried chicken or french fries or zucchini dill frittatas or whatever-- every time.

So, here's Michelle's non-vegetarian, non-organic version (yeah, the bacon-drippings really do make it better-- but I promise, my version's pretty good too):

Michelle's Fool-proof Cornbread

2 cups Martha White Self Rising Meal (Approx amount)
½ to 1 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 to 4 tablespoons Bacon Drippings (less if you have smaller than a 9 inch skillet)
1 Large Egg
2 tablespoons melted butter (optional)
1 to 1 ½ cups buttermilk or whole milk (just check your mix, not to dry and definitely not watery)
1 pinch of sugar (just a pinch!!)*
1/2 a yellow onion, chopped
1 large jalapeno, minced

Mix all the ingredients adding the milk and eggs last, mix well. (Do this while the skillet is preheating)

Use the bacon drippings to season the skillet before putting the mix in (Make sure to preheat the skillet with the drippings for a few minutes). Not too long-- you don’t want to start a fire!!! Heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix should sizzle when you put it in.

Cook for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top is firm and golden brown.


*I didn't put any sugar into my version because I like my cornbread good and salty. If you simply must do it the pussy way-- er, I mean, the Yankee way-- er, I mean, the way Michelle tells you to do it, feel free to sweeten it to your taste.

Every once in a while, Michelle would add a cup or so of shredded sharp cheddar to her cornbread mixture too. That's another delicious option if you happen to have some around, but be forewarned-- the stuff is a little tricky to get out of your skillet once it's melted onto it.

Bon appetite, and happy memories!

Shriek though I may, all I hear are the howling winds in the fallow season.

I've made no secret of the fact that I find winter a challenging time of year. For a while, I put forth a valiant effort to appreciate it, knowing that without it, the planet would quickly become inhospitable to mammalian life. And as we incrementally ratchet up the global thermostat with all our shortsighted misdoings, we come ever closer to seeing the devastation of a winterless world. I am fully prepared to acknowledge this theoretical necessity of the fallow season. Nonetheless, I don't do so well at this end of the calendar.

In previous years, winter has brought along a bad case of the weepies. I'd hermit myself up as much as possible, so as to not make anyone else have to put up with my inconsolable sniveling over... my fucked-up brain chemistry. For that is what Seasonal Affective Disorder is. I'm imagining most folks understand the mechanics of this much-publicized malady by this point, but in case you don't, here's how it works: the brain requires a certain amount of sunlight to create serotonin, it's natural happy juice. When the days get short in the winter, your retinas don't register adequate sunlight and your brain produces reduced levels of serotonin, thus goading your mood to take a big ol' careening dive, with squelchy, liquidy splat at the end. And then, as the days begin to lengthen in the spring, sufferers will often experience a lovely giggling euphoria as their serotonin levels climb back up to normal. Now, I know that sounds a little like bipolar disorder or something-- but it's far more predictable, and, in most cases, nowhere near as severe. A bipolar depressive state can become suicidal and a bipolar manic state is sometimes crazed beyond recognition of natural consequences-- and from what I understand, sufferers cycle through these flailing polarities in patterns that have nothing to do with orbit of the planet. And I know, for sure, that my own issues are no where near so extreme.

Treatments for S.A.D. are still pretty limited. You can go to your nearest pharmaceutical company rep-- er, I mean, health care provider-- and get some drugs-- usually Effexor, Paxil or Welbutrin. Or you can buy a Happylite. Disinclined to pollute my system with synthetic chemicals as I am, I turn on my own Happylite while I'm getting dressed in the mornings. It provides an incremental improvement, perhaps, but let me tell you: turning on a lamp ain't no kinda cure.

I still feel like crapity-poo-- *most* of the time. This year's affliction seems to have brought a whole host of new experiences, though. As I said, winters past have left me tearful and blubbering. But this year, the only thing that seems to make me cry is trying, frustratedly, to put words to my generally pisspoor mood. I seem to be stuck in this wretched, limbic status that is both restless and stagnant. Mornings, it takes a concerted act of will to wrest me from my bed, another to pick out work-appropriate clothes (i.e., not lounge pants and tank tops), and yet another to don coat, scarf, boots, and earmuffs so as to prevent my ass from freezing off on the mile-long walk to the metro. Actually getting out the door? Daily, it's a minor miracle that that happens at all. And then when I get home at night, I can barely peel myself from the sofa to do simple things like putting the water on for tea, changing out of those skeptically chosen work clothes, and, well, getting up to go pee. And writing? Pfff. Not even an option-- just a nagging placard decreeing that I'm not living up to my potential swinging in the place where the writing should go.

And though I'm nightly rotting into my furniture, my head spins with all am I not doing. Day and night, I am not writing, I am not applying to Ph.D. programs, I am not being productive enough at work, I am not paying my bills, I am not grocery shopping, I am not replacing watch batteries, I am not making plans for dinner with friends, I am not managing the dust bunny situation in my house. But I sure am *thinking* about all that crap. Thinking about -- and not doing-- chores has begun to feel like a full-contact sport. My lower back aches with it. And though I am that restless and that bored, the will to remedy the situation evades me.

But this year's shiny new S.A.D. symptom seems to be the fury. I may generally be a spunky girl (some might even say "spicy"), but I'm not really an irritable or angry girl. I'll get righteously indignant now and again. And I'll even get spouting-off cunty every once in a while. But snappish, edgy, cranky and annoyed? Unceasingly? I hardly know myself.

Regularly, I've busted myself swearing under my breath at people who don't know the stand-on-the-right-walk-on-the-left metro station escalator rule. I've also cursed out my purse strap about a hundred times-- the damn thing is constantly sliding down my shoulder when I'm wearing a heavy coat and, for some reason, that really ticks me off. And if you are a boy in my life right now, heaven help you. If I haven't said something abjectly, childishly horrible to you in the last couple of months, you clearly haven't been hanging around me enough. None of you seem to have done anything that I would perceive as an affront, so I don't know precisely why it's you boys who are on my nerves so much. But you are. Just so you know, you weren't imagining it when you thought, maybe, I might be looking at you like I wanted to punch your face in. I did. I really ... did.

I'm sorry. The amorphous, unnameable crazy made me think it.

And that's the thing about S.A.D.-- though it affects my emotional equilibrium first and foremost, it still feels acutely physical. Last summer, when I was changing jobs, buying a condo and moving into said condo, I was really stressed out. My mood was erratic because my life was erratic. Something was actually wrong. But with this, nothing's amiss at all. I've settled into both job and home. Most of my relationships feel at least tentatively peaceful-- even the one with one the person from whom I'm vaguely estranged. And even in this precarious economy, I feel secure in that my day job is not only necessary, but its necessity is expanding. Seriously. Not a damn thing is wrong.

And yet I feel... crazy. I wish there was a less dramatic word for it, but I can't think of it. Irrational, maybe. Like I just can't quite get a hold of my own senses. Like they're vibrating in a wind tunnel and keep blowing up past my grasp. Like the crazy is a gory, little underskin carbuncle and if I could just dig my thumbnails deep enough under it, I'd be rid of it in a phantasmagoric splush of gunk. But I can't, so it continues to rankle. Stupid fucker.

But it's March. Blessed be March. Last March, I wrote 20 blog posts as the lengthening days spurred me into an exuberant streak of productivity. I have hope for this month, I really do. I so prefer being nice to people who are undeserving of my wrath. I'm sure anyone who's been putting up with me lately is eager for the first flush of le printemps as well.

Not much longer now, mes amis.