retracing my steps

i don't like harry potter. i don't like twilight. i don't like miley cyrus, taylor swift, or anything pertaining to the disney channel. i don't have a twitter account. i have no interest in seeing the movie slumdog millionaire. though i'm a very skilled singer, i have absolutely no desire to audition for (or even watch) american idol. dude, i don't even want a smartphone.

you'd think i was anti-everything. if you knew me solely from this blog, you might think me a glum, grumpy individual. you're wrong. in real life, i'm a lot like this:
i'm a big old geek. old school. i think i don't like any of the above things possibly because everyone else thinks they're so great (and because i seriously would rather have a real face to face conversation than to get hit by a bus while updating my facebook status via twitter). you know what i really like? stuff that's funny. i like stuff that makes me smile, not because someone else said it was cool.

and hear this: the office, for real, is no longer funny. truth be told, it's depressing as f*ck.

one tv show seems made for me. it's like a beacon of pure, unadulterated happiness. it's the brainchild of tina fey, whom i legitimately believe to be a genius. whereas the office drags one (or maybe one and a half) plotlines out for 25 minutes (6 of which are jim and or pam grimacing condescendingly at the camera whose presence has yet to be explained), 30 rock packs each episode with drama that is, in a word, hilarious. what's even better is that--although a million things are going on at once-- you as a viewer don't have to keep up with any of it to enjoy. every episode is self-contained.

take season 3's oprah episode. We're dealing with 3 major plotlines at once. liz has to report to jury duty in chicago and, under jack's guidance, takes a serious sleeping pill to get through the outgoing and returning flights. while she's gone, jack has to diffuse kenneth's sense of betrayal at finding out olympic tetherball was all a ruse. jack tests kenneth's moral strength, only to find out he'd be willing to choke himself with his own belt in the event of an elevator malfunction.meanwhile, tracy and jenna are angry at each other regarding compensation for videogame porn voice-over work. both are accused of taking advantage of the other's minority status, both citing the time adrian brody kissed halle barry at the oscars. both call liz on her flight home, crying out: "this is about race! this is about being a woman! this is about money! this is about being on television! and no one understands all that!" then, appropriately, oprah sits down next to liz and liz spills her soul to her. the next day, naturally, tracy comes to work dressed as a white woman and jenna arrives in blackface.

in the end, the plotlines all come together, as the argument comes to a head. as it turns out, kenneth isn't a white male at all, but a "latina fantastica."

complicated, i know, but watch it. it's so easy to love. and check out thursday's homage to paranormal activity: http://www.hulu.com/watch/125953/30-rock-jaccuse

moral of the story: this show is frikin funny. and smart. and you should be watching it. because i told you so and i'm clearly the coolest.

i haven't written in a year. not that anyone reads this anyway. in that year, i've gotten over the need to have a sexy blog photo and say vague things like "retracing my steps" as if they're meaningful. i also got engaged.

music has a way of getting to me. and i'm not talking about taylor swift. if she gets to you, you're probably 12 (on the inside). i can be a big bitch about this topic; i'll admit it. i suppose i'm bitter. i devoted my life to that wiley temptress music, and she evaded me. i couldn't write her on a page and for a while there i couldn't get her out of my throat. she just sat there, festering. she wouldn't leave me alone. (and yes, i took "wiley temptress" from the movie what happens in vegas, if you're playing along at home.)

i nearly escaped her, eclipsed her with other pursuits. i thought, hey, i have other gifts... like i'm eerily aware of grammar and syntax. count on me to pick something tractable, for that is what music isn't. i'm listening to the same piece on repeat, and a youtube commenter said s/he found in it the very image of god. GOD.

hear for yourselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhCS7etNEbU

call it hyperbolic, but that's how i've always viewed music (good music). it's where my faith is, i suppose...faith that things can be beautiful and that there is mystery yet to be discovered, as tones blend together in ways i can't explain (although jazzers i used to know would ascribe colors to them and terms like "crunchy".)

anyway, there's something truly magical about that piece of music (yes, i'm still listening to it). eric whitacre explains that it was commissioned by julia armstrong, a lawyer who had lost her parents within weeks of each other. She had wanted him to set her favorite poem, frost's "stopping by the woods," which he did. however, he came into some copyright troubles, as "stopping by the woods" was already set by randall thompson for "frostiana."

the lack of forsight was actually fortuitous, as charles anthony re-tooled the piece with new text:

the evening hangs beneath the moon,
a silver thread on darkened dune.
with closing eyes and resting head
i know that sleep is coming soon.
upon my pillow, safe in bed,
a thousand pictures fill my head,
i cannot sleep, my mind's aflight
and yet my limbs seem made of lead.
if there are noises in the night,
a frightening shadow, flickering light
then i surrender unto sleep,
where clouds of dream give second sight.
what dreams may come both dark and deep
of flying wings and soaring leap
as i surrender unto sleep.
sleep, sleep, sleep...

now that i type it all out it seems really elementary. bear in mind that the music was written first, and the text was secondary. however, the way the text is set seems so.. perfect. not only does the collaboration between whitacre and anthony achieve a dreamy half-sleep state, but the dissonances elevate the simple text to their honorable purpose. it seems that the speaker is both comparing death to giving in to sleep (as her father did shortly following her mother's passing), and using the sleep state as a way to connect with those she lost. moreover, the climax occurs at "as i surrender unto sleep," a moment we usually consider peaceful. it isn't though. has your phone ever rung as you were just dozing off? it's like clash of the cacophonies. sleep overtakes us; it's like a wave. we spend so much time at our desks, we forget that waves are loud and forceful. it is through loudness and force that we achieve peace.

who knows? maybe i'd just be better off seeing the face of god in taylor swift.

let's just state the obvious up front: the purity ball ritual is outrageously creepy. it seems like some medieval fantasy on the part of fathers, and of course it reinforces the ever-present double standard that a woman is somehow "worth" more if she is "pure."

to delve deeper, i'm concerned for the emotional well-being young girls duped into this ritual. of course when you're 5-10, you're convinced that you will remain abstinent. hell--at 14, i told everyone that i thought masturbation was a breach of my own abstinence pledge, and i didn't even attend a purity ball. the most damaging repercussion of this ritual is the inevitable guilt young women feel for their natural urges--even for undergoing puberty itself.

i should know. part of me still lives with that guilt.the fathers in the documentary said that they feel that women who don't remain abstinent have been "robbed." but i feel as if it's the other way around.

young girls are tricked into making a pledge to abstain from fulfilling urges they have not yet experienced. thus, as they develop, they begin to view their hormones as intruders of their pure being. it's the same sort of patterns young girls with eating disorders experience. society idealizes the proportions of pre-pubescent girls, so young women begin to resent their developing bodies.

i feel the same way about abstinence that i do about the drinking age; because drinking and pre-marital sex are taboo, young people engage in these activities in ways that are unhealthy--doing them for the sake of rebellion rather than for enjoyment or love.

i want my daughter to love herself at all stages of life, and to understand that the elements of those phases are natural. i want her to understand that sex is serious and to know the ways to protect herself. [one of the "purity girls" in the documentary became pregnant with the boy her parents allowed her to date--after "inspection,"--claiming she had never been educated on how to prevent stds and pregnancy].

i just wonder if those fathers have a hard time with the idea of their daughters as grown women. do they wonder at all the sort of damage their extreme protective measures have on their daughter's psyches? do
"purity girls" consider their own thoughts--their own selves--a sin?

that's what i call being robbed.