Not In Kansas Anymore...


Thursday, June 05, 2008

A few updates on my My Most Recent Rants:

1.) Welp, I read an article today by a fine writer and Ivy-League prof about the over-sexualization of girls these days, and I have to say, no one has said it better, recently. Given my recent sputteringly agog rants about Miley and Lindsay and how not wearing underwear when you the know the paparrazzi are shooting you below waist level is the new PR coup ( Oh, I didn't comment on that? Well, consider yourself spared. I'll sum it up: all over the world, modern-day princesses, pop stars, politicians and fame whores alike have managed to get in and out of cars while wearing short skirts, for decades upon decades without flashing their Lady Business to the Western World, so what's THE FRICKIN' PROBLEM, and, great googly moogly, didn't your mom teach you not to leave the house without underpants? And if she did and you took them off, say, *in a random moment of drunkenness or wild sexual abandon* WHY, for the love of GOD, did you not, say, have even a blurry little moment to wonder where that breeze up your skirt was coming from on your way out the door? Okay, that about sums it up. Ahem.) , I really like what she says.

I also always keep in mind Sassy's continued complaint when shopping for clothes with her DD, who is indeed, darling , but all of 10: "All these girls' clothes look like something *I* wouldn't wear down the street, out of sheer embarrassment. Why would I want my daughter to wear them? They look like I'm shopping at Fredrick's of Hollywood, not Target. And the jeans all say "Flirt" and "Cutie" on the butt. Listen to me: nobody needs to be reading my 10 -year old's butt!!!"

I heartily agree, Sassy..... and so I post this link for all of us in despair over what girls have to look forward to in these times:

As Suzanne Vega once wrote: "Lolita/Go on home/ Amost grown/ Lolita/So young, you need a word of protection/ Lolita/Go on home."

2.) Speaking of sputtering, I'll add inarticulate to the list when it comes to my commentary on the political scene, re: John Cusack, "War, Inc.", Naomi Klein, Blackwater, Iraq, et al. Let it just be known that I don't make a real habit out of talking about politics. It's not that I don't think about them, I DO. I just tend to talk about the politics of other situations, say, the aforementioned gender issues or religion or sexuality. I rarely tend to get into it about Politics with a capital "P", and the fact of the matter is that I find it very much a point of a sort of despairing hopelessness with me. I'm all wizened and cyncial and shit, but what most people dont' know is that I operate, most of the time out of this little interior green thing growing within my spirit called Hope. It's what keeps me going, and what helps me get all riled about that other thing, Change, and they feed each other, and then I can move forward.

Politics, however, feels futile to me on so many levels. I tend to give in to that post-Foucault idea that while yes, we don't need Some Big Authority to watch us all the time, because people will eventually censor their own behavior out of a social notion of What's Right ( as determined originally by Big Authority), the thing is, Big Authority is still calling alot of the shots in that picture. I tend to think Big Authority is impenetrable, except when people like Bono become mavericks of their own time, role and life and remind me it's possible to be annoying enough to get change and charming enough to be heard and not get killed.

At any rate, in some recent internet browsing, I found that Mr. Cusack has a website, and with no financial backing from Hollywood whatsoever, managed to go grassroots and get people into the theatres Memorial Day weekend in the right numbers to get bumped up to the next market. And then again, this week. Which means by sheer force of a MySpace site ( a movie that should have failed ended up #2 at the box office behind the "Indiana Jones and His Hip Replacement Surgery" mayhem.

Dude, that's crazy. I love it. You gotta.

Suddenly, I feel like, all hopefull and shit. About politics, capital "P". People DO want to see a movie about war and sometimes the right people prevail against a system that seems impenetrable, (insert correlations here). Suddenly, I'm hoping against hope about Obama and so on and so forth. Tenatively. Of course.

And definitely feeling more like I'm not the only one, and there's things that can be done. Cynicscism intact, I approach possibility.

3.) And R has the last word, as he has earned it:

After reading my exhaustion and horror infused rant about Big Bookseller Burbank on Memorial Day, and the state of " literary " America, R states:

"re: the bookish world.. You know what Mark Twain said: There's no real difference between the person who doesn't read good books and the person who can't. "

Yah, I'd break it down just about like that, from plain ol' common seen-it myself. Too true.

And after all of that, I DID finally get to shop a bit for some summer clothes, eat some Chincse food, and take myself to a damned movie. Yes, I went to see:

And it. Was.


I don't go to superhero movies as a general trend. (Unless they're about Batman, and only if the Batman is Christian Bale, because the only Batman I like is the pathos-filled "Dark Knight" series, ohmygod, I just realized that I gave myself away as a former-comic-reading geek girl. Dammit. And I nearly got away with letting you think I was a shabbily-chic sophisticate-about-town! ). I don't go to action movies as a general trend. It's not that I'm not a fun person, I just don't consider shallow-characters and things blowing up to be all that entertaining. At $11.50 a pop, I'd better be damned well invested in SOMEONE or SOMETHING, and if not either of those, something on the screen should be visually compelling, or I'd better be on a date with someone who paid for the ticket and will be making out with me later.


I made an exception PURELY because of Robert Downey Jr, whom I have loved my whole misspent youth as a brilliant actor and beautiful man, and have missed greatly during his unfortunate near-death spiral and absence from any project worth his prodigious talent . And I was not, dear reader, disappointed.

Yes, things blow up. Some of the time. Not much of the time. Much of the time, he talks, he improvs, he looks determined, and while, yes, the plot moves along in a semi-predictable fashion, it's damned fun getting to the end, which is somewhat predictable, but has so much life in even RDJr's last line delivery, it's worth the whole preposterous concept to begin with. Plus, it's directed by the endlessly resourceful and creative Jon Favreau, whom I frickin' adore as an actor and writer ( you might recall him from a little movie he wrote and starred in called "Swingers"?) and now, director. He keeps it real. No big CGI. No overblown bullshit; more a down-to-earth treatment, if that's even possible in a superhero situation, which somehow, he manages to pull off.

In the end, a really cool movie to see on a hot summer day and sit back and enjoy. Not too often you get that what with all the noxious "Speed Racer" and "I Am Legend" and "MI: III" kind of Summer Blockbuster pap that's usually rolling around....

Hell, I liked it so much, I might go see it again.

That about wraps it up, kids.......tune in tomorrow after I go head to head with Actor Cop for what hopefully will be the last time, and hopefully will end up with him whipping out a checkbook. I've since collected more evidence to whomp him seriously, but we'll see what out presiding judge, --an LA County Small Claims Version of Judge Judy ::eye roll:: --thinks.

Stay tuned....and remember: good vibes get good vibes in return, so keep sending 'em. I'll post again soon.