My sister Charl runs a lot, and she runs early. I remember my first run with her 17 years ago, with her adorable husband Joe; it was a somewhat fierce 10K through the streets of Pittsburgh, and, especially, up and down the hills of Pittsburgh. Charl's kept it up, and here is the result: supergirly power at dawn. When she ran the Marine Corps Marathon, I believe she beat Al Gore and his daughters. Not that I'm bragging or anything.
Buddy, like our beloved Faith, is a Dog With A Past who is slowly overcoming trust issues. Plus, he comes from the groovy Lower East Side. Maybe he could be Faith's long distance boyfriend.
FYI, I am looking for overweight dogs and cats, and formerly overweight dogs and cats.
Not Buddy, though. He is perfect.
THE LUSTY LADY
Rachel Kramer Bussel writes about sex...here, there, and everywhere. Her latest bloggings including a great book recommendation (Meera Nair, fantastic), and some excerpts from a Monica-based anthology. As mentioned before, she also looks great in kitty ears.
SOMETHING FROM DOROTHY ALLISON
From "Notes to a Young Feminist":
Last week, because the river rose and we got cut off, we all watched TV. And it made me think, what the fuck is it gonna look like when they make the movie of our life? Let me be clear about what I envision as the future of feminism. When they come around to make the movie of your life, when someone comes around to write the biography of you, as that feminist icon or that revolutionary, world-changing activist you are about to become, for God’s sake, make it more than anything small or pretty or over-romanticized. Make it as revolutionary as this tradition in which we speak has been. Make it so dangerous that people will be scared and unnerved when they read it. Take risks. Make illegitimate children. Get lots of lovers. Try some stuff! Make some difference. Without that courage, without that outside agitation, there will be no future of feminism. There will be no change in this country.
Oh, and along the way, read some novels.
ABOUT THE OLSEN TWINS
Well, not really. But eventually. I am thinking about them, believe it or not, and yo, here's a tip for the tabloids: You can be a coke addict AND a practicing anorexic (god, that makes it sound like a religion, when in fact, when you're inside the disease, it's a cult). I learned this first in the mid80s, when I was teaching awriting to NYU undergrads, mostly dancers. (Quote from way-too skinny, lovely dancer, also using coke: "Hey, have you ever read 'Less Than Zero?' It's kind of like my life.")
Boy, if I'd had coke when I was being an early adopter of anorexia in the mid70s, I sure wouldn't be blogging today. Good luck, you girls.
And now, to the cheerful part of our blog:
Sexy Science. The following is from www.politicsandscience.org, sponsored by representative Henry Waxman. I do love me the Web today:
The American people depend upon federal agencies to develop science-based policies that protect the nation’s health and welfare. Recently, however, leading scientific journals have begun to question whether scientific integrity at federal agencies has been sacrificed to further a political and ideological agenda.
At the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the Democratic staff of the Government Reform Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives assessed the treatment of science and scientists by the Bush Administration.
The resulting report -- Politics and Science in the Bush Administration -- found numerous instances where the Administration has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings. Beneficiaries include important supporters of the President, including social conservatives and powerful industry groups.
This website -- www.politicsandscience.org -- is an ongoing record of interference with science by the Bush Administration.
REMEMBERING: HELEN MERRILL
I've never been able to do one of those blogs that's just about one thing. Even my film blog occasionally breaks the 4th wall. That said, I'm playing with the idea of writing an occasional series of essays about people and things I miss. Starting today.
Helen Merrill: a remembrance
She was a literary agent so vividly an agent, with her German accent, her wobbling lisp, and her glistening white pageboy, her clients couldn’t stop putting her in their plays, and would-be clients couldn’t stop mocking her in their novels. There was no nice in her, but plenty of kind. When my father got brain cancer, Helen would take me and my sister Liz out to dinner at the Empire Diner and make us eat hot fudge sundaes while she smoked and smoked and smoked.
Helen used to take pictures for a living, and that life was still all about her. A Diane Arbus photo of retarded children floated above her desk. Pictures of Anthony Perkins at his most broken and beautiful on the wall. They had once lived together, platonically. Small dolls that looked like KKK members sat on tables, daring you to say something. Play scripts everywhere. She called her favorite clients by diminutives. “Chrissy” was her favorite. Once, she said I had the same ingratiating manner as Sigourney Weaver…at a funeral. It was a compliment, Helen style.
The last time I saw her, she sat alone at a play by one of her clients, about the collision of WASP and Jewish cultures in the 1950s, called “The American Plan.” I was going to go up to her at intermission, but by then, she'd fallen asleep in her seat, so deeply, I feared two things: that she was dead, and if she wasn’t dead, that she’d bite my head off if I woke her. But her head snapped up as soon as the play began. And I missed my chance, for good.
A LITTLE SPITFIRE AND A SOUTHERN BOY
If you like your chanteuses with a combo of Audrey Hepburn and riotgrrl, go see
Nellie McKay tonight at the South Street Seaport. Tonight at 6. She's a 19-year-old phenom who warms the cockles of my Midler-loving, Pointer Sister-missing, second and a half wave feminist heart.
My
boy got the nod. I grew up in a mill town (in fact, the one where John Kerry announced his choice), and mill town guys don't take crap. I'm looking forward to the next four months.
REASONS TO (FINALLY) LOVE MCSWEENEY'S
I didn't get
McSweeney's, as in, I did not grok their meaning when Dave Eggers first appeared on the lit radar. And I still cannot say I love it when he has chosen to write in the editorial "we," as if he needed company, as if what he was saying wasn't enough. The agent feuds were ugly, and when his McSweeney's store opened around the block from my little block, I thought it was just plain dumb that they were too cool to post hours. So: much of the irony floats above my straightforward, middle-aged, grey-haired head. And "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," is, to me, 1/3 of a "Heartbreaking," etc. But the 1/3 that is genius, is cherce. Anyone who has had to nurse a parent through terminal cancer when you thought you were supposed to be being young and groovy and swinging knows Eggers is the real deal.
And now Eggers is, well, kinda loaded, sorta famous. And what is he doing with his money and his fame, East Coast and West? He is opening up...writing labs for kids, disguised as, respectively, a
superhero supply store and a pirate supply store. And what could be more genius than that? I'm off to buy my cape.
Thurmond's Biracial Daughter Seeks to Join Confederacy Group
That's the headline in
this New York Times story.
In a statement, Ms. Washington-Williams said: "It is important for all Americans to have the opportunity to know and understand their bloodline. Through my father's line, I am fortunate to trace my heritage back to the birth of our nation and beyond. On my mother's side, like most African-Americans, my history is broken by the course of human events."
Not much to say, but, "Oh, wow." And if we didn't know it before, this is not your average retired 78-year-old schoolteacher.
HAPPY JULY
I'll have something lucid to say about Fahrenheit 9/11 someday. But I probably couldn't say it better than Jesse Kornbluth does
here, in his July 1st entry.
One random thought does come to me: my mother-in-law spent most of WWII in Nazi concentration camps, pretending to be a Christian. She can still say the Hail Mary in Polish, more than 50 years later. She agrees that as terrible as things are now, the fact that they are often witnessed by video cameras means, as a therapist once told Carmella Soprano, we can never say "we didn't know."
