tuckova

kiss my aspirations

Did you see the movie Moonstruck? Cher and Nicholas Cage. I remember very little of it, but there was a scene when an older man, distinguished university professor type, was out to dinner with a young woman who threw her drink in his face and stormed out. Olympia Dukakis* was watching and they started talking, she and the man. They were the same age, a little intellectual sparring, if I remember correctly, and he asks her to have an affair with him. It would have been a step forward for him, initiating a relationship with an equal, not some pretty young thing but someone who could challenge him without resorting to theatrics. And she refused. Why? he asked.

Because I know who I am.

And I thought: Oh, how much I would like to be there. To know myself so much that I don't have to save anybody. It seemed sort of impossible. At the time I was nineteen and very much in love with someone who told me at regular intervals that he didn't love me but seemed unable to let me go if it meant losing my friendship. Instead of breaking my heart in a good clean way he tapped away at it at intervals, breaking off slivers, until it was small enough I could hold it on the palm of my hand and even then I kept offering it to him every time he asked to see it. I could not imagine a future in which he would not be eventually redeemed by my love, I could not imagine a world in which knowing myself would come ahead of this consuming desire to love and to be loved.

And yet here I am, years later, and I have loved since then, have loved as much (though not as hopelessly, I think) and yet every year I have come closer to accurately seeing the situation so that I can walk away from just about anything that looks like it's going to hurt. And now to the point where I can even sit down at the table where water has been thrown, have a pleasant conversation if it seems like a good idea, and still walk away when it's time, even if it hurts a bit, because I know who I am.

Finally.

*trivia: I voted for Dukakis and even worked on his campaign because I figured anybody related to Olympia Dukakis had to be decent, silly military photo op or no.

bang bang

I am tired of "trigger warning" and "spoiler alert". I understand that they're meant to function as a courtesy and I generally applaud all such efforts, but I think they're massively overused AND this week I saw some people reprimanded for NOT using them, and I think we have officially landed on ridiculous. Let me explain.

A trigger warning is a warning that a text you are about to read may create upsetting feelings, particularly if you have experienced something similar to the upsetting thing that the text is about. For example, a trigger warning on a text about rape helps people know that the text might upset them, especially if they were raped.  And while I get the courtesy that is intended by that warning, I also feel like: guess what? Women get raped so often, so brutally, and so casually that what is remarkable is not when it makes the news (trigger warning! woman raped!) but that it still makes the news at all. Trigger warning! Patriarchy! News at 11! Understand that I don't think that the sort of violence that we put these warning tags on is acceptable; it's just that I think we live in a world where this is endemic and my concern is more the idea that some people require a warning and the rest of us are okay, or that the text is more upsetting than the event it describes. Everyone should find it horrible; it IS horrible. You know who didn't get a trigger warning? The people in the story. More importantly, the implication that victims of violence and terror are somehow going to be protected from the knowledge of a fact they lived through by a little red flag at the beginning is ridiculous. If you do not want to live in a world where the news is upsetting to you, then try avoiding the news and links to news stories, or you might try channeling that horror into working to change things, instead of getting angry at people who have failed to warn you.

A spoiler alert is a warning that you are about to read key plot points from a work of fiction that will change the way you interpret it. If you are a person who consumes fiction purely for the what of the plot, I guess I can see how you might want to avoid knowing what will happen ahead of time, but... who does that? Do we not usually enjoy fiction for the how, the who, and the why? One of the highest grossing films of all time was set on the Titanic (spoiler alert! it sinks!). I GET that it is a pleasurable jolt when there is a plot twist you hadn't expected, or after the shock of seeing a main character killed off unexpectedly, but since the way we communicate now guarantees that there are fewer such surprises (like interviews with actors who are leaving a show being broadcast before their character disappears), most good artists have compensated by making how you get to those plot twists more interesting. If you are unwilling to live in a world where the plot points of television shows and popular novels may be revealed to you before you see them yourself, and this will ruin the pleasure of the show for you, then you need to either get off the internet or consume better media. I'll be over here re-reading the Chronicles of Prydain and re-watching The Princess Bride. 

 

still believe

OKAY 10 MINUTES GO.

I went to see a show last night (singer-songwriter cafe type of thing). The singer is a friend, I guess we're friends at this point. He helped me through a particularly bad patch in my life, gave me some personal insight and clarity over two cups of coffee, and I think it was not a big deal to him but it was to me. So I go to his shows, clap till my hands hurt, sing along when he asks for it, dance. Try to bring new people. He's good, a showman, funny. And last night he had a drummer, box drum, which was great.

I had some thoughts at the show last night:

 

What do I think of people who clap with a song? Or pound the table, stamp their feet, sing along with the words they know, dance in their seats? I tend to think that those people are annoying. I tend to think, I came to see and hear HIM, not YOU. I tend to think it's attention-grabby and annoying. And yet I did dance last night, to the last song, got up and did the twist, and it was fun. So what does that mean?

I so like observational poetry (can I call it that?); Frank O'Hara seems to me so clean and beautiful, and yet I often feel like songwriters are stuck in a "write what you know" rut where what they know is... I don't know, it feels uncomfortable in a way I think it shouldn't. "Tom's Diner" is a perfect example of the sort of song I mean, except that it doesn't bother me the way that, say, "You're Beautiful" does (I was on the subway and I saw a pretty girl with another guy. THE END. Seriously?). So what makes the line between a simple and lovely observation and a trite one?

Why is it that when I so value originality, there are few things as guaranteed to delight me as a clever cover? Cake's "I Will Survive", the tragic, pathos-laden cover of  "I Kissed a Girl", or Chris's cover of "...One More Time", goosebumps and a grin every time.

AND: SCENE.