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Sunday, April 29, 2012

We Gathered About Her

     Sherwood Anderson's story Death in the Woods (1933)  is that of an abused woman, yet one who continues to take care for those who ingratiate her with violence and unlove. The weight she carries on her back is not only that of food or supplies, but the weight of life's experiences from a young girl to the stooped shoulders of a tired old woman. When I read this story I think of my grandmother. When I read this story I think only of her each time, no one else and I don't think I repeat in my head, Hey- remember how this reminds you of your grandmother?


     My grandmother was a strong woman in many ways: mother of eight children, my mother being the oldest. She often sat at the head of her kitchen table although she was never quite in charge. She smoked a lot, one Marlboro after the next; constantly re-heating the same cup of tea, something she came to do when her children got her a microwave for Christmas one year. She always drank Red Rose Tea; she collected the tiny ceramic animals that occasionally lived inside the rectangular box. There was a whole menagerie hanging out with her spoon collection; a green sea turtle in Kansas, Noah and his Wife in Tallahassee, Florida. Her curation is truly memorable.  My grandmother was a woman very much like the old Grimes woman in Anderson's story: "People drive right down a road and never notice an old woman like that" (51). She walked many miles when she had no means to drive. Her soft voice was like a string orchestra in constant rehearsal. 


     People knew my grandmother, but for different reasons. Through family stories I picture her brother punching her husband in the face after he beat her. "They fought sometimes and when they fought the old woman stood aside trembling" (53). Long after divorce she wanted to work, but had never had a job. She worked as a nanny for a while, even went on a cruise with the family, I think. Then at a beauty company, although I am unclear in what capacity. She could not function in the day- to-day life of a working woman, whose children were grown and all but, maybe one, still lived at home. But soon he left, too. Hers was a life of stock pot cooking; she never got used to making a meal for one. In some ways the hard-working, worrisome Grimes symbolizes my grandmother's inability to work: "She had a few chickens of her own and had to kill one of them in a hurry. When they were all killed she wouldn't have any eggs to sell when she went to town, and then what would she do?" (53).


      My grandmother spent hours worrying about everyone, especially her children. She often worried about money, but usually got through each month on government assistance. She saved a lot of things like Johnny Cash records she eventually sold. When she spoke she was quiet and mumbling: "She had got the habit of silence... she went around the house and the barnyard muttering to herself" (53). Many times I listened, but seldom understood what she said. Silence is the aftermath of violent earthquakes; it comes between the push and shove, the verbal manipulations. I do not know of any of this first hand as her life in my palms is a hand-me-down, but I have a distinct memory, a muttering about "...that's what I thought love was..."  Her own unlove began in a field where Anderson's story ends.


     I think she was happiest taking care of others, whether she was appreciated or not. You could rarely escape her kitchen without a bite to eat, whether leftover spaghetti, or a scoop of chocolate ice cream with a dollop of whip cream. Her cabinets were filled with dishes, bowls, recycled corned beef jars used for drinking, or holding spider plants. She had sets for twelve, maybe more, but always drank from the same tea cup and used the same spoon, rinsing them between servings. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer a few years ago, and suddenly her body became lighter, "the pack on her back" (55) became lighter, and walks to town in bad weather were gone. I loved my grandmother, did not spend enough time with her. I experienced many emotional journeys, all the zigzag stitching I could handle. Before she passed, each of her children came to see her one last time. "The scene in the forest had become for me, without my knowing it, the foundation for the real story I am now trying to tell. The fragments, you see, had to be picked up slowly, long afterwards" (59). 


     I have read Anderson's story many times. I want to write about the men and dogs in that fiction as I remember hearing them bark down the street from my grandmother's house, but this isn't the right moment. My grandmother was a writer herself, always jotting things down on bits of paper, her own thoughts, or lyrics from the radio. She liked flowers we thought were weeds; she liked sitting in the sun.


Recommended drink: Red Rose Tea, tan with milk. Re-heat in microwave only.


Source: Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer, an introduction to short fiction, 4th ed. Boston, MA:  Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1995.

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Please check out my latest essay for Radius) From the Center to the Edge. This work focuses on "Donut Parade" by poet Laura Read from Jelly Bucket:
http://www.radiuslit.org/


Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Original Money Shot: Usurping Male Power in Art and Pornography

Before trekking out to Northampton, MA for the latest show at FOE Gallery, I perused their website to see what was on view: de la calle: Ramiro Davaro-Comas, Jessica Sabogal and the ASARO Collective. I was completely struck with immediacy at the depth and power of Jessica Sabogal's "The Original Money Shot," an airbrushed work of art featuring a woman on all fours, posterier in the forefront. Other works in this show include a nude woman in pose and each one conveys extreme thought and requests emotional response. But "The Original Money Shot" struck me so deeply; it is a work that in some ways you want to examine, but do not necessarily want to be seen viewing. However, you have to find the power within yourself as a woman to absorb the meaning and there is no denying the connection to the power of our own sexuality.


The money shot is male concept: the pornographic detail of male dominance over woman, reaching his own self-pleasure on camera. Here, Sabogal's piece articulates a sexual pathology suggesting that male orgasm is not reached without the pleasure a woman gives him, but also that woman is completely capable of pleasuring herself without man; the threat of female empowerment. 


The current show is on view through May 5th, 2012. 







Sunday, April 15, 2012

Why I Continue Watching AMC's The Killing

Spoiler Alert 

Since last year's season one finale of AMC's The Killing negative commentary continues to appear and according to The Hollywood Reporter ratings dropped 19% from the end of season one to season two's premiere. As a viewer I never anticipated a big reveal at the end of season one, never expected an answer to the hovering question: Who Killed Rosie Larsen?

If there is any criticism to offer on season one it is the show's ability to kill story lines.  After Bennett Ahmed was nearly beaten to death by Stan and Belko, the last we see of Bennett is Stan staring at him in the hospital. We never discover whether Bennett lives or dies (at least not that I recall); any connection between Rosie and Bennett, or Bennett's wife, a dead plot line. And by mid-season it was as if the high school no longer existed, the idea of youth is a far gone conclusion with any ties between Rosie's best friend Sterling, her ex-boyfriend Jasper, and her kindness to tweeker Kris. I keep hoping some of these youngsters will reappear during the course of season two (and we get a glimpse in episode four, Ogi Jun- thank you!). And let's not forget the investigation at the Green Street Mosque which lead Linden and Holder to 106R Renton Street, where they break in and uncover a make-shift girl's bedroom in a meat-packing plant. Will resolution eventually arise from that plot line? Yes, we did learn what purpose the space served and Bennett's role, but what happened? Regardless of these faults, the show continues to erect monumental strides in excellent storytelling. These characters are broken people, each one possessing secrets and intense moral conflict slowly coming to fruition before the viewers eyes. The show, the storytelling is worth time spent in front of the television. 

Season one moved at a much slower, more calculated pace causing realistic riffs in the stages of grief and emotional detachment: we as viewers know how Rosie died, the details of her last breaths in the trunk of a Richmond campaign car. We do not know what lead up to that point except that she was chased and before that she returned a book to Bennett Ahmed's apartment, and prior to that attended the Halloween Dance with her best friend Sterling. Stan and Mitch Larsen seem to move in slow motion as they come to bury their daughter; no emotional understanding is eminent. Each episode revealed tidbits of information about where Rosie was before she died, who she was connected to, and eventually we discover why those amazingly expensive shoes were with her in the trunk of the car. Or at least why she owned them. Season two is moving faster. The premiere returns to Belko shooting Darren Richmond, the aftermath of the shooting; once again, Sarah abandons a flight to Sonoma, drags Jack off the plane when she gets a call that the toll camera was disabled or broken; Holder's character is  completely under fire, mostly due to his inner-self realizing mistake after mistake he continues to make: his trust in Gil, a former colleague and mentor in narcotics, and also his NA sponsor basically tells Holder he's a no good tweeker with no chance of advancement, that he received his homicide badge because of Gil's connections. Belko kills himself in a quasi-hostage situation at the station. Darren is paralyzed from the waste down and so on.  Each episode thus far in season two has contained an abundance of new information regarding the Larsen case as well as character development: we've learned more about Stan's involvement in the Polish  mob and what he supposedly had to do in order to get out: murder. According Linden's FBI friend they never linked Stan to Piota, the man he may have killed. And suddenly by the end of tonight's episode we learn that conspiracy and vengeance are truly viable options in the killing of Rosie Larsen.

The Killing is an incredibly detailed story, and views like a great unraveling novella that is read with attention. Pay attention, the details continue to roll out page after page, scene after scene.It's worth the watch, worth the wait.

Menu items include coffee-to-go, Funions with nicotine gum for the ride.


Friday, April 13, 2012

Diary of a Mad Housewife by Sue Kaufman, Random House, 1967.

Before Bettina "Tina" Balser became Mrs. Jonathan Balser, she studied Art History, shared an apartment with another female artist for nearly two years until her father finally convinced that starving was no way to live regardless of their monthly lunch dates and the cash he would slip her to help out. Their father-daughter relationship is strong, so Tina takes her father's advice and moves back home, gets her 'headshrinked' where she's told her art is basically shit, takes a secretarial course to get a 'real job' and eventually meets Jonathan- an idealistic lawyer working in the District Attorney's Office.

After the birth of their first child, he leaves that position for corporate law and soon baby number two is on the way.  At the same time, Jonation makes partner in his firm, and his father dies, leaving him $90,000. And then he changes, causing everything in Tina's life to alter dramatically. Jonathan becomes a social climbing wanna-be with the New York elite, attending parties, talking with producers, writers and wealthy uptown folks that have little interest in him, but will take his money to finance theater and invest in stocks. He insists his wife keep up with 'what's happening' by reading art magazines. He requires Tina to decorate the house with real antiques and art: ""What I want is a place that is a mixture of things-antiques, but real antiques, no reproductions, the best of the modern designer's, like a Barcelona chair, only no a Barcelona chair because everybody has them, and a lot of really first-rate art-a place that has that great, rich, eclectic look..." (41-42).

As the novel builds and builds around Tina's need for pills, her growing hatred of her husband and his boring, eye-rolling requests for an 'ole roll in the hay,' her psychological push over the edge grows near. She has an affair with playwright George Prager. The sex is fantastic, but he's a prick and perhaps even more so than Jonathan. My frustration with Tina heightened with her choice of lover; she's already married to a verbally abusive man with nothing but disregard for her as a woman and a person, and she seeks 'refuge' with a man who is crude and also very controlling. As the affair continues Tina begins to break down further due to her fear of pregnancy by her lover: "Twelve days late the curse is, counting today" (281). She confronts George and he practically spits in her face telling her to see an abortionist if she's so concerned.

A major event that occurs shortly after this scene is the elevator fire in Tina's building. As she is running down the emergency stairwell she is stopped by ex-Ziegfeld girl Carrie O'Sullivan. Realizing the fire is under control, she accepts an
invitation into Carrie's apartment along with some other women in the building and while there she "...became aware of the physical sensations I was having and what they meant... I'd been having a marvelous time. I dragged Folly [her poodle] away from Carrie, said goodbye to all the ladies in rollers and slacks and Brunch Coats... walked back up the two flights to our apartment and confirmed the good news" (294). Yes, her period arrived, she is not pregnant, and because of this and the 'group session' with Carrie and the women and Tina writes "... I know at last what I'm going to settle for and who I'm going to be. Who? Who is that? Why, Tabitha-Twitchit-Danvers, of course. The lady with the apron. And checklists. And keys. It's me. Oh it's very me, and I can't for the life of me see why I didn't realize that before.. I suppose, for one thing, Jonathan wouldn't let me. It hardly fits his image of what a wife of a Renaissance Man should be. Well, I've tried to be his image, tried to be a lot of things, but now I know. That's who I'm going to be, and if Jonathan doesn't like it he can lump it. Tabitha-Twitchit-Danvers-Me" (295).

Part of me wishes the novel ended there because this last paragraph is brilliant and although I 'hope' it is not so tidy an ending as many good novels do as does this one, it ends on a note that is not the end and questions whether Tina will ever be happy. Jonathan admits they are broke, had an affair and got his head-shrinked only to find out that he's the problem in their marriage. This late evening conversation between Tina and Jonathan is all about him; she decides not to confess her own affair: "Though I knew it might help him, might make him feel better about himself if I too Confessed, I decided I would never tell him about George. What for? I had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, once his brief spell of feeling better about himself was over" (305). Here, Tina is not so convinced that all her Jonathan's confessions are going to change a thing. Fresh start or not.

There is so much to discuss and consider after reading this novel:
·         Why settle on being the anxious Tom Kitten mother and dark and narrow Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca?   
·         Although my entry focuses on Tina and her husband, the relationship she maintains with her two daughters is most intriguing. They push her around and treat her with disrespect just as their father does until Tina slaps one of them across the face and the conversation between them is not of a child and mother.
Diary of a Mad Housewife is a fantastic novel. While reading it a friend asked me if I thought it would become a classic. I think it's already a feminist classic sharing ranks with The Women's Room, Handmaid's Tale, The Stepford Wives, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen and many others. 

Have you read Diary of a Mad Housewife? What are your thoughts? What are you reading? Anything strike you lately? I'd love to hear about it.

Recommended dish: Waldorf Salad.