E! Obit.
Showing posts with label sunday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sunday. Show all posts
Jun 14, 2010
Nov 22, 2009
Nov 8, 2009
Jul 20, 2009
Paining
Ayer, half-napping, directly after an episode of Tiny and Toya (which, I've now realized is about the mother of Tip's bebes--jealousy, anguish and admiration), I watched Waiting to Exhale. I'd never seen it, though I was familiar with a few key scenes from...I Love the 90's? Angela Basset setting her scoundrel (white-lady-loving) husband's suits on fire inside of a BMW sedan. (The incomparable) Loretta Devine offering up a plate of cookedfood to Gregory Hines.
The film is strange. It's set in Arizona (whaaaa?). And, typically, while the four principles, Devine, Basset, Ms. Whitney Houston, and Ms. Mike Tyson, are meant to be a unit of gal'friends, the actual links drawn between them are flimsy, the editing scatter-brained, the writing puerile. The thing is this: its view of women's love lives is dark. Crackheads, underminers, and, almost universally, other people's husbands. Truly, in the course of the movie, 3 out of the 4 heroines are involved with one or more married men. This is all well and good for spring chickens like us, but for women-of-a-certain-age, who really want to settle down and make babies and run errands, it's pure tragedy, the pits. But is it accurate? Are married boyfriends standard for thirty-something singles? Or is Waiting to Exhale simply a relic of 1995, a testament to how uncomfortable Hollywood was with non-traditional trajectories (like late marriage) for women? Whatever the case, I did feel there was a distinct sexism dotting the story, a sexism distinct from the present brand, one that felt more "Eisenhower" than "Girls Gone Wild." It's quite something how much cultural ground has been covered even within our wee quarter century of experience. This guy totes does it justice:
The film is strange. It's set in Arizona (whaaaa?). And, typically, while the four principles, Devine, Basset, Ms. Whitney Houston, and Ms. Mike Tyson, are meant to be a unit of gal'friends, the actual links drawn between them are flimsy, the editing scatter-brained, the writing puerile. The thing is this: its view of women's love lives is dark. Crackheads, underminers, and, almost universally, other people's husbands. Truly, in the course of the movie, 3 out of the 4 heroines are involved with one or more married men. This is all well and good for spring chickens like us, but for women-of-a-certain-age, who really want to settle down and make babies and run errands, it's pure tragedy, the pits. But is it accurate? Are married boyfriends standard for thirty-something singles? Or is Waiting to Exhale simply a relic of 1995, a testament to how uncomfortable Hollywood was with non-traditional trajectories (like late marriage) for women? Whatever the case, I did feel there was a distinct sexism dotting the story, a sexism distinct from the present brand, one that felt more "Eisenhower" than "Girls Gone Wild." It's quite something how much cultural ground has been covered even within our wee quarter century of experience. This guy totes does it justice:
Mar 8, 2009
Sinister Minister
I know I've mentioned it before, but at A&P we're old friends (family really) with more than a few traits in common. We have comic-tragic taste in men. We drink (preferably the brown stuff). We get maudlin. We dwell on/in the past, revisit all the old bastards and losses and triumphs and television shows. These are year-round pursuits, sometimes blissful, but in winter, the grave sorts of reminiscences seem denser, joy and its memory scarce on the ground.
This past week, the first of March, it snowed in both of our homes, Memphis and New York. And as various weathermen clucked the phrase, "in like a lion, out like a lamb" over and over again, I began to feel anxious. At root, or after much repeating, it's a pretty sinister, strange saying, which is appropriate, because March is a pretty sinister, strange month with its inconsistent weather and Caesarcide. So, without getting into the sordid details of my March (with the damn Ides still to come!)...I'll say: friends—lay low, self-care, set your clocks forward, feel free to be a mess. In a matter of weeks, this spell will lift and we can start wearing shirtsleeves and eating at outdoor tables again. Blame March. Stay up.
Feb 22, 2009
Newsies
There have been rounds of recognizing big "High and Low" news lately, and in the wake of my mildly anti-NY posting about pink-colored melodrama and defecting to Virginia (and eighth grade) this morning, I had to recognize a very good thing about to happen within this city's limits. Pillow, Petrova, and myself are moving into a block and building with the most lyrical history and lobby in Flatbush (Flatbush!). From the Dutch to the Knickerbockers to young Barbara Streisand to absolute West India, our future home is an other-worldly thrill, old Brooklyn by way of the islands (with three bathrooms!). Luck abounds.
"How was your flight?—Fabulous!"
That, I think, is the first instance of the word "fabulous" in last summer's big, pink, glittery, alcoholic film version of Sex and the City. Girls to Samantha (fresh from Malibu): "How was your flight?" Samantha to Girls: "Fabulous!"
From 1998-2004, like it or not, the HBO series had a relatively massive impact on culture. In 2009, its phenomenon is the object of derision, yet many (at least of our generation) have encyclopedic knowledge of its content, from original air date to DVD to On-Demand to censored TBS syndication.
I moved back to New York (after a longish, wonderful hiatus) around the time of the film's release in May. Moving here is always difficult, no matter how many times you've done it. But the dread and anguish and bile of this place at that moment, right before the banking implosion and an election that meant something, that called for sobriety and celebrated Chicago and Washington, were palpable. The show about drinking cocktails and wearing costumes and being single well into your forties in Manhattan's big, old, unburst bubble survived September 11th. But the movie could not reverse New York's ugly forecast in 2008. I mean it worked; it was wildly popular. (Off the record) I saw it twice in theaters (and then once more last night), but each time I had a violent reaction. I wept. I went straight to the bottle. I positively reeled. Because it was humid and grey (or windy and cold) and everyone was in a bad mood and the city (that I thought I knew) felt perceptibly different everyday and Sex in the City was the same as ever and it's not like Sex and the City ever presented an idea of New York that was subtle and beautiful and complicated enough, but it was about a place that esteemed itself, not one that was sputtering and nervous and off-balance, not one where "fabulosity" made a girl feel sick. How the fuck can a five hour flight be fabulous?
From 1998-2004, like it or not, the HBO series had a relatively massive impact on culture. In 2009, its phenomenon is the object of derision, yet many (at least of our generation) have encyclopedic knowledge of its content, from original air date to DVD to On-Demand to censored TBS syndication.
I moved back to New York (after a longish, wonderful hiatus) around the time of the film's release in May. Moving here is always difficult, no matter how many times you've done it. But the dread and anguish and bile of this place at that moment, right before the banking implosion and an election that meant something, that called for sobriety and celebrated Chicago and Washington, were palpable. The show about drinking cocktails and wearing costumes and being single well into your forties in Manhattan's big, old, unburst bubble survived September 11th. But the movie could not reverse New York's ugly forecast in 2008. I mean it worked; it was wildly popular. (Off the record) I saw it twice in theaters (and then once more last night), but each time I had a violent reaction. I wept. I went straight to the bottle. I positively reeled. Because it was humid and grey (or windy and cold) and everyone was in a bad mood and the city (that I thought I knew) felt perceptibly different everyday and Sex in the City was the same as ever and it's not like Sex and the City ever presented an idea of New York that was subtle and beautiful and complicated enough, but it was about a place that esteemed itself, not one that was sputtering and nervous and off-balance, not one where "fabulosity" made a girl feel sick. How the fuck can a five hour flight be fabulous?
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