but in the case of Rush Limbaugh's recent comments about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, I wouldn't say I'm over-reacting when I say this is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE, OMG WTF?!?! WHAT IS THIS COUNTRY COMING TO???
So it was pretty satisfying to receive the first response from one of his advertisers that I'd emailed to complain, informing me that they are no longer supporting the show. Because their mission is "to delight our customers with fresh and long lasting flowers," not to spread hateful speech in the public sphere. Good to know. Wonder what they thought he was doing before this? Surely not delighting us with flowers, that's for sure. Looking forward to more emails like this one.
2/21/12
2/18/12
I don't understand
why men in robes and funny collars who get up in public and say such silly things as "I oppose birth control" get any more of a hearing than anyone else irrationally proclaiming that they don't want somebody else to do/have/say something that they are entirely free to do/have/say. I mean, I start to foam at the mouth when people talk loudly on the phone in public space. I don't think anybody should make more than 500K/year for anything, ever. I think that state universities should not pay for college sports. Why doesn't the newspaper put my objections on the front page? Why does some guy's opinion of what goes on in women's uteruses deserve column inches??? Seriously, can somebody explain?
where else?*okay it just occurred to me why this deserves column inches: it is crazy and people need to know that this sort of insanity is happening so we can be prepared when they take away the pill. Uh, carry on.
2/17/12
The Glencairn Plays
Suddenly in love with Eugene O'Neill. Or The Wooster Group/New York City Players' version of him. Clunky words, cockney accents, spat out mechanically, like acting robots on a metal pipe scaffolding stage. Couplers and tubes. Sea shanties and dreams of solid land.
I always thought O'Neill's plays were a little thin compared to Chechov's or Ibsen's, slightly odd with his characters, these unlikeable people out of pulp novels or something. And the language always seemed contrived and a little embarrassing to me with the Emperor Jones's "sho' has!" and all that. But here they just put that up front, read it out like words on a page, and let the feelings underneath those words just sit there, jabbing you.
A bit in the first play (Moon of the Caribbees?) where a sailor breaks a bottle and the glass gets shattered all over the ship deck and they just walk on it. And it never gets cleaned up and then in the second one (The Long Voyage Home), another lug of a sailor has an accident and dies in agony in his bunk and then they just drag him shirtless over the glass. Those sharp edges seem to be what's underneath there. Forget complex psychology or metaphors. The dull ache of being on a ship or trying to sell alcohol to a bunch of drunken sailors or being the woman tossed around the bar is enough as it is.
I always thought O'Neill's plays were a little thin compared to Chechov's or Ibsen's, slightly odd with his characters, these unlikeable people out of pulp novels or something. And the language always seemed contrived and a little embarrassing to me with the Emperor Jones's "sho' has!" and all that. But here they just put that up front, read it out like words on a page, and let the feelings underneath those words just sit there, jabbing you.
A bit in the first play (Moon of the Caribbees?) where a sailor breaks a bottle and the glass gets shattered all over the ship deck and they just walk on it. And it never gets cleaned up and then in the second one (The Long Voyage Home), another lug of a sailor has an accident and dies in agony in his bunk and then they just drag him shirtless over the glass. Those sharp edges seem to be what's underneath there. Forget complex psychology or metaphors. The dull ache of being on a ship or trying to sell alcohol to a bunch of drunken sailors or being the woman tossed around the bar is enough as it is.
United in Anger
Watched the premier of this documentary on the history of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, last night. Highly recommended, especially if like me, you are looking for a historical overview of the movement and links to their use of visual & performative tactics.
The film briefly touches on the fact that many participants in ACT UP were people who were not "political." They were not activists, and had they not found themselves infected and suddenly stripped of their habitual privileges within America's healthcare system, they would never have put their bodies on the line in direct action. A few people interviewed mentioned that there seemed to be a split within the movement between people who were there because they wanted to heal themselves and those who were there because they were just angry with the system itself and/or wanted to heal other people. This is an interesting point, though I'm not sure what to say about it. Except that in the case of the political funerals, clearly being touched personally, knowing that your body could be the next one in the casket, made for a stronger statement and a more powerful demonstration. Yes, it is largely a matter of demands: do you fight for drugs for yourself now or do you set your sights on a larger transformation of the healthcare system for everybody, not just yourself, not just for those society finds "deserving." Tough questions, though not, I think, mutually exclusive ones.
*Not saying that demonstrators do not bring their actual experiences with them when they march, just that they are not as visible then and there, they do not constitute the very form of the protest.
United in Anger Trailer from United in Anger on Vimeo.
Did you know that by 1991, ACT UP was staging political funerals and chucking the ashes of the dead onto the White House lawn? This was one of the most powerful parts of the movie for me from a representational (can I say art historical?) perspective. Not only were these political actions, where symbols (political posters, signs, photographs, people marching, caskets, flowers, eulogies) were used to make statements about the government's and the country's blindness and disregard for a terrible public health crisis (these were truly funerals for democracy), but they were actual funeral processions, too, with actual bodies having succumbed to the virus and actual mourners with deep feelings of sorrow and rage. What happens when these two forms of representation - political symbology and public/private ritual come together? A very powerful political statement, for sure, one that is literally underpinned by the personal, by actual experience, by real and visible (and not just represented) grievance and pain.*The film briefly touches on the fact that many participants in ACT UP were people who were not "political." They were not activists, and had they not found themselves infected and suddenly stripped of their habitual privileges within America's healthcare system, they would never have put their bodies on the line in direct action. A few people interviewed mentioned that there seemed to be a split within the movement between people who were there because they wanted to heal themselves and those who were there because they were just angry with the system itself and/or wanted to heal other people. This is an interesting point, though I'm not sure what to say about it. Except that in the case of the political funerals, clearly being touched personally, knowing that your body could be the next one in the casket, made for a stronger statement and a more powerful demonstration. Yes, it is largely a matter of demands: do you fight for drugs for yourself now or do you set your sights on a larger transformation of the healthcare system for everybody, not just yourself, not just for those society finds "deserving." Tough questions, though not, I think, mutually exclusive ones.
*Not saying that demonstrators do not bring their actual experiences with them when they march, just that they are not as visible then and there, they do not constitute the very form of the protest.
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