So, this week the Utah Mormon modesty conversation broke out of the Wasatch front and made the Yahoo newsfeed when a really silly boy at BYU slipped a "love note" to a young woman wearing a floral dress, long sleeved sweater, leggings and boots at the library. He apparently felt she was a threat to the moral fiber of the university in her immodest apparel. The young woman was so mortified that she took a picture of the note and her outfit and posted it to Twitter, which people then reposted on any number of social media sites until it made it to professional curated sites (slow news day, seriously?). I could, like many of the comment boards on said sites, argue about the length of her skirt, the appropriateness of leggings, the real danger of making women responsible for the sexual impulses of men, or the plain old peculiarity of BYU--and I'm not talking about the good kind of peculiarity--but I won't.
What bothers me about this whole conversation is its dangerously narrow perspective. The way we have reduced the concept of modesty to how much of a woman's body is covered by fabric is short-sighted and dangerous considering how we must learn to navigate an increasingly immodest digital culture.
To me, modesty has to do with the ways and the intent with which we draw attention to ourselves. Could Andy Warhol have predicted the 21st century digital culture where truly anyone can be famous for 15 seconds at least? Within a circle of Facebook friends or Twitter followers, you can feel famous every time you post anything from a witty but somewhat mean comment about the president to the tiresome details of your dental hygiene. We live for outside approval, be it a like or comment on Facebook or a troll war in the local online paper. Like publicity, any attention is good attention these days.
Don't misunderstand me. You can actually dress immodestly. I don't doubt that. But there is little difference between a girl with cleavage or a too-short skirt and a boy with one of those t-shirts that's emblazoned with a slogan meant to offend anyone who has the misfortune of reading it. If you think that the best way to draw attention to yourself is to display your flesh or your misanthropy, something's wrong in the modesty department.
But dress is certainly not the only road to immodesty. Likewise, if you think the best approach to calming lustful thoughts about the cute girl in the library is to pass her a note telling her she's responsible for those lustful thoughts, something's wrong in the modesty department. I imagine that young man justified his behavior with thoughts of what a good deed he was doing. Obviously, she should be grateful that someone had the superior moral courage and enlightened conscience to point her back to the straight and narrow, right? Uh-huh. Right.
Still, perhaps if you think the best way to relieve the indignation of receiving such an ill-conceived note is to solicit the approval of your Twits and shame the anonymous writer in a public forum, well, maybe something needs to be adjusted in the modesty department there, too.
I'm currently in a long-term gospel study on this. So far, I haven't found much that made it clearer to me, but I found a verse in the New Testament that resonates. In 1 Peter chapter 3, there is an admonition to wives. In verses 3 and 4 it reads
3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
There are many reasons I'm not super fond of this chapter, including that, like many of the epistles, it seems to give men a pass on certain things. But for both men and women, I think verse 4 teaches us about the kinds of attention we should seek. Our greatest adornment is a quiet and meek spirit, the quality of our character. A modest life is one of moderation, one of integrity, one that needs no one's approval or attention other than God.
Is attention bad? No, of course not. When I sincerely seek the quality of life that God intends for me, I have found that He guides me to true friends, and I feel less and less tempted to strain for other kinds of attention. I guess I just hope that as my sweet little nieces and nephews develop into their own adult lives, they are not caught up in the clamor of immoderate behavior--that they are confident enough in their divine origins and eternal potential to refrain from needlessly entering the fray.
By the way, once again, the irony of this post doesn't escape me. Here I am, advocating that we moderate our behavior while drawing attention to my own philosophy (which, I freely admit, could be completely off-base). I'm not perfect yet. Forgive me. What I hope this post might effect is a broader discussion of what it means to be modest and why we should continue to care. So, to all three of you who read this blog, what do you think? What does it mean to live modestly, and how would you change the conversation about it if you could?
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Okay, so maybe I have something going on the side, too
There are just too many amazing musicians in the world. Here's another one that I'm digging right now. His name is James Vincent McMorrow. His album is Early in the Morning. He's Irish.
He reminds me a little of Bon Iver, back when I was really digging For Emma, Forever Ago. Here's another song, Follow me down to the Red Oak--
He's awesome. Check it out.
He reminds me a little of Bon Iver, back when I was really digging For Emma, Forever Ago. Here's another song, Follow me down to the Red Oak--
He's awesome. Check it out.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
I'm in love...
I am deep in the throes of a mad, passionate music crush. I discovered Chris Bathgate's Tiny Desk concert on NPR a few months ago and had to download Salt Year immediately. I held off on A Cork Tale Wake until this week. Now I can't stop listening. Salt Year is spare and plaintive, the kind of music that resonates in your bones.
Kind of perfect for the exquisite bleakness of a Utah winter--it's music born of suffering. Strangely, that's what I like listening to when I'm content.
I also just really admire his skills as a musician and a writer. He's smart, in a way that I have no hope of ever being. I love watching him loop this song, Borders.
It cuts out there at the end, but dang. I could think for a thousand years and never come up with something that beautiful.
So, I'm evangelizing for him around here. Partially because I think everyone's life would be a little better if accompanied by his work. But mostly because I want him to come to Utah the next time he swings by the west coast. Good luck, I know. I really want to hear him play live, and I'm not going to make it back to Michigan anytime soon. So go to chrisbathgate.org and download away. Worth every penny.
Here's the Tiny Desk performance, too. Enjoy...
Kind of perfect for the exquisite bleakness of a Utah winter--it's music born of suffering. Strangely, that's what I like listening to when I'm content.
I also just really admire his skills as a musician and a writer. He's smart, in a way that I have no hope of ever being. I love watching him loop this song, Borders.
It cuts out there at the end, but dang. I could think for a thousand years and never come up with something that beautiful.
So, I'm evangelizing for him around here. Partially because I think everyone's life would be a little better if accompanied by his work. But mostly because I want him to come to Utah the next time he swings by the west coast. Good luck, I know. I really want to hear him play live, and I'm not going to make it back to Michigan anytime soon. So go to chrisbathgate.org and download away. Worth every penny.
Here's the Tiny Desk performance, too. Enjoy...
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Registered Voter is good enough for me
Oh, how I love presidential election years. They bring out the best in us all, don't they? The best of Newt Gingrich scares me, but I don't really want to criticize candidates. No, I want to criticize entire political parties, and anyone who has an iron-clad ideology, really. Which is every campaigning candidate. I think it's one of the pre-requisites of running: you have to be entirely certain (or at least appear entirely certain) that you are right and everyone else is dead wrong. And that is part of what bugs me about politics.
The center of my intense dislike of politics is hypocrisy, and here is how I see that play out in our two-party system. Both Republicans and Democrats (and Ron Paul, whatever he actually is) want to have their cake and eat it too, and that never, never works. For Republicans it comes off this way--Keep your dirty, liberal, lazy (and sometimes dark-skinned) fingers out of my wallet. But you don't mind if I tell you how, when, why and with whom you have sex, do you? Their strong stance on moral issues clashes with their laissez-faire attitude toward taxes and regulation of private enterprise and personal wealth. From where I'm sitting, how, when, why, and for whom you spend your money is as much a moral issue as abortion, gay marriage, or the legalization of marijuana (all of which, I'm afraid, are more important in appealing to certain groups of voters during a campaign than they are when it comes to actual governance). You cannot demand freedom in the economic sphere while simultaneously attempting to legislate the personal lives of the folks you don't like very much.
Democrats aren't much better. They just flip the script. Stay the hell out of my bedroom and the consequences of what I do there, but you don't mind if I reach in your wallet just for a minute or two...Aaaargh. It makes utterly no sense. If you are going to have an immovable position of freedom to do whatever you want in one area, don't you have to extend that liberty in all the other areas, too? Including regulation of business and taxation?
Or here's a novel idea. Compromise. Everybody could come off their high horse, even during an election year, and stop drawing lines in the sand. I'm not always right. Neither are you. Nor are the people who are on either side of any issue. We're all fallible humans, and that's not a bad thing. It only gets ugly when we pretend we're not, and spend years trying to convince voters that we're infallible, even when we're supposed to be governing.
I do realize that's an oversimplification of a far more complex system, but that's the kernel of my understanding of it. And I'd caution you not to assume from what I've written above that you know how I feel about anything from abortion to federal regulation of the private sector. Nor who I'm voting for. I'm happy to talk about those things, but not on a blog. I'm far too fallible, and aware of it, to broadcast those opinions on the Internet.
The center of my intense dislike of politics is hypocrisy, and here is how I see that play out in our two-party system. Both Republicans and Democrats (and Ron Paul, whatever he actually is) want to have their cake and eat it too, and that never, never works. For Republicans it comes off this way--Keep your dirty, liberal, lazy (and sometimes dark-skinned) fingers out of my wallet. But you don't mind if I tell you how, when, why and with whom you have sex, do you? Their strong stance on moral issues clashes with their laissez-faire attitude toward taxes and regulation of private enterprise and personal wealth. From where I'm sitting, how, when, why, and for whom you spend your money is as much a moral issue as abortion, gay marriage, or the legalization of marijuana (all of which, I'm afraid, are more important in appealing to certain groups of voters during a campaign than they are when it comes to actual governance). You cannot demand freedom in the economic sphere while simultaneously attempting to legislate the personal lives of the folks you don't like very much.
Democrats aren't much better. They just flip the script. Stay the hell out of my bedroom and the consequences of what I do there, but you don't mind if I reach in your wallet just for a minute or two...Aaaargh. It makes utterly no sense. If you are going to have an immovable position of freedom to do whatever you want in one area, don't you have to extend that liberty in all the other areas, too? Including regulation of business and taxation?
Or here's a novel idea. Compromise. Everybody could come off their high horse, even during an election year, and stop drawing lines in the sand. I'm not always right. Neither are you. Nor are the people who are on either side of any issue. We're all fallible humans, and that's not a bad thing. It only gets ugly when we pretend we're not, and spend years trying to convince voters that we're infallible, even when we're supposed to be governing.
I do realize that's an oversimplification of a far more complex system, but that's the kernel of my understanding of it. And I'd caution you not to assume from what I've written above that you know how I feel about anything from abortion to federal regulation of the private sector. Nor who I'm voting for. I'm happy to talk about those things, but not on a blog. I'm far too fallible, and aware of it, to broadcast those opinions on the Internet.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Nobody wants to be colonized
My brain has been chewing on this subject for a while now--maybe even years subconsciously. So maybe it's time to write about it. This is another one of those "perhaps I shouldn't publish these particular thoughts" kind of topics. But, heck, what good is totally obscurity if you can't ramble on the internet about the stuff that bugs you?
A story. I had my first period when I was 13, at the beginning of eighth grade. I'm pretty sure I just lost at least half of my audience with that sentence, so to the three of you that are left--thanks for hanging in there with me. Anyway, the very first day of my very first period in eighth grade, I was walking to class in an utterly suffocating hallway when out of the chaos of teenaged limbs, some idiot grabbed my ass and gave it a serious squeeze. I have no idea who it was, and honestly, it wasn't the first time some stranger had inappropriately accessed my hindquarters. (Sidenote: to those of you who are thinking how awful it is that thirteen year old girls get treated this way by strangers-um, yeah. No kidding. And my experience is on the way, way, way mild end of the violations suffered by women. Sometimes little girls.) It wasn't an accident--not someone just brushing by that I interpreted wrongly; some stranger grabbed my butt.
That's never fun, but on this particular day it was doubly painful. My life had very recently changed--my body had changed and I was barely beginning to adjust to those changes and adapt to my new reality. Now, in addition to the humiliation of having someone take uninvited liberties with my body, I was consumed by fears of what I was doing wrong. Had I leaked? Had my maxi pad shifted in some visible and shameful way? Did he somehow know that I was on the rag, and this was my punishment for becoming a woman?
Because in my experience, women get punished for being women. We are punished for having women's bodies. I don't want anyone to misunderstand. This post--this complaint, I guess you could call it--is not a girls versus boys thing. I don't think men are to blame, or women, or really any individual or group. We just have this long history of devaluing women, specifically women's bodies, and it's so deeply embedded and subconscious that few of us escape it very well. And it hurts us--both men and women--when we systemically violate the sanctity of a human body simply because it has two x chromosomes.
It's not just the physical violations, either. It's been the psychological attacks on my female body that have done the most damage over the years. Women have a hard time winning--either you are too pretty, wherein your flesh becomes an object of desire, gratification or envy, or you are not pretty enough and yours is an object of derision and shame. Either way, you are not a person anymore--you are just an object.
I'm on the not pretty enough end of the bargain. I've struggled with my weight all my life, and I imagine that battle will not end until I lay this mortal by. I'm always the fat friend--the smart, nice girl who everyone thinks would make a great wife--for someone else. That's okay. Those are issues of my own making, admittedly (though not made in a vaccuum), but here's what drives me crazy, and what I think (I hope) is cogent to this particular subject. A few years ago I got serious about my health, and I lost a lot of weight. People, both men and women, started looking at me differently. Friends, family, people with whom I have close, loving relationships, praised me and I appreciated their praise. Casual acquaintances and even strangers also made comments, ones that I believe they meant to be kind, and I tried to accept with all the grace I could muster, but they weren't really kind. Here's the difference. The acquaintances and the strangers were simply judging my flesh. They don't know me, they don't know any part of me beneath what they see. And what they see should not be fodder for comment or judgement. My family and friends, the people who know me, when they would complement me, it wasn't just about how I looked--how they judged my body. They knew how I worked, how I strived, how I changed not just my flesh, but my mind and my spirit, to accomplish my goals. They were not planting their flag in my flesh. They weren't colonizing; they were celebrating my independence.
At Christmastime, I saw someone who has known me for many years--since we were children. We see each other maybe every few years, and it had been several since he saw me. He hardly recognized me. He couldn't stop going on and on about how much I had changed. About 15 years ago, he used to come in to the place I worked. It was my first real job out of high school--I was eighteen. And he could not believe that I was the same person as that pudgy teenager from way back when. I smiled, accepted the congratulations on my weight loss (isn't there a statute of limitations on that kind of thing--good lord, it's been years!), but fumed inwardly. Because honestly--the way my body has changed in the last fifteen years is nobody's business. The way it changes in the next fifteen or thirty or 50, well that's nobody's business either. This body is sovereign territory, and the ruling party does not take kindly to uninvited interference.
See, the thing is, my body is grand. It can create, and love and rage and think. It can sing and dance (awkwardly, admittedly)and climb. It astonishes me the more I get to know it, how glorious a thing this bag of bones and muscles and fat and blood and nerves is. Anytime some casual gaze falls upon it, or some horny adolescent of any age grabs it, physically or psychologically, it makes it a little harder for me to honor it the way it deserves. Why, in a world that is hard enough the moment we enter it, do we feel the need to make it any harder for someone else?
So, my suggestion is we stop gazing, grabbing and colonizing women's bodies--including the women who make their living on runways, ad campaigns and screens. They might not be above it, but we can be. I'm not suggesting we ignore beauty--go on and admire your wife's backside along with her wit--but leave Kate Winslet's alone.
I'm not entirely sure I'm right about any of this, or even that what I've written is an accurate reflection of what I think and feel. I'm still working out what I think and feel on this one. I'm also curious about other's experiences, especially men. I wonder a great deal if there is some analogous male experience--some way they feel colonized. So dear readers, if any of you made it to the end of this post (poor things...) please comment. But be nice. You can disagree, but try not to hurt anyone's feelings.
By the way, the irony of this post, when read in concert with the previous post about the differences between objectively and subjectively handsome men, does not escape me. I didn't say I was perfect! I just said everyone else should be! Ha ha ha....
A story. I had my first period when I was 13, at the beginning of eighth grade. I'm pretty sure I just lost at least half of my audience with that sentence, so to the three of you that are left--thanks for hanging in there with me. Anyway, the very first day of my very first period in eighth grade, I was walking to class in an utterly suffocating hallway when out of the chaos of teenaged limbs, some idiot grabbed my ass and gave it a serious squeeze. I have no idea who it was, and honestly, it wasn't the first time some stranger had inappropriately accessed my hindquarters. (Sidenote: to those of you who are thinking how awful it is that thirteen year old girls get treated this way by strangers-um, yeah. No kidding. And my experience is on the way, way, way mild end of the violations suffered by women. Sometimes little girls.) It wasn't an accident--not someone just brushing by that I interpreted wrongly; some stranger grabbed my butt.
That's never fun, but on this particular day it was doubly painful. My life had very recently changed--my body had changed and I was barely beginning to adjust to those changes and adapt to my new reality. Now, in addition to the humiliation of having someone take uninvited liberties with my body, I was consumed by fears of what I was doing wrong. Had I leaked? Had my maxi pad shifted in some visible and shameful way? Did he somehow know that I was on the rag, and this was my punishment for becoming a woman?
Because in my experience, women get punished for being women. We are punished for having women's bodies. I don't want anyone to misunderstand. This post--this complaint, I guess you could call it--is not a girls versus boys thing. I don't think men are to blame, or women, or really any individual or group. We just have this long history of devaluing women, specifically women's bodies, and it's so deeply embedded and subconscious that few of us escape it very well. And it hurts us--both men and women--when we systemically violate the sanctity of a human body simply because it has two x chromosomes.
It's not just the physical violations, either. It's been the psychological attacks on my female body that have done the most damage over the years. Women have a hard time winning--either you are too pretty, wherein your flesh becomes an object of desire, gratification or envy, or you are not pretty enough and yours is an object of derision and shame. Either way, you are not a person anymore--you are just an object.
I'm on the not pretty enough end of the bargain. I've struggled with my weight all my life, and I imagine that battle will not end until I lay this mortal by. I'm always the fat friend--the smart, nice girl who everyone thinks would make a great wife--for someone else. That's okay. Those are issues of my own making, admittedly (though not made in a vaccuum), but here's what drives me crazy, and what I think (I hope) is cogent to this particular subject. A few years ago I got serious about my health, and I lost a lot of weight. People, both men and women, started looking at me differently. Friends, family, people with whom I have close, loving relationships, praised me and I appreciated their praise. Casual acquaintances and even strangers also made comments, ones that I believe they meant to be kind, and I tried to accept with all the grace I could muster, but they weren't really kind. Here's the difference. The acquaintances and the strangers were simply judging my flesh. They don't know me, they don't know any part of me beneath what they see. And what they see should not be fodder for comment or judgement. My family and friends, the people who know me, when they would complement me, it wasn't just about how I looked--how they judged my body. They knew how I worked, how I strived, how I changed not just my flesh, but my mind and my spirit, to accomplish my goals. They were not planting their flag in my flesh. They weren't colonizing; they were celebrating my independence.
At Christmastime, I saw someone who has known me for many years--since we were children. We see each other maybe every few years, and it had been several since he saw me. He hardly recognized me. He couldn't stop going on and on about how much I had changed. About 15 years ago, he used to come in to the place I worked. It was my first real job out of high school--I was eighteen. And he could not believe that I was the same person as that pudgy teenager from way back when. I smiled, accepted the congratulations on my weight loss (isn't there a statute of limitations on that kind of thing--good lord, it's been years!), but fumed inwardly. Because honestly--the way my body has changed in the last fifteen years is nobody's business. The way it changes in the next fifteen or thirty or 50, well that's nobody's business either. This body is sovereign territory, and the ruling party does not take kindly to uninvited interference.
See, the thing is, my body is grand. It can create, and love and rage and think. It can sing and dance (awkwardly, admittedly)and climb. It astonishes me the more I get to know it, how glorious a thing this bag of bones and muscles and fat and blood and nerves is. Anytime some casual gaze falls upon it, or some horny adolescent of any age grabs it, physically or psychologically, it makes it a little harder for me to honor it the way it deserves. Why, in a world that is hard enough the moment we enter it, do we feel the need to make it any harder for someone else?
So, my suggestion is we stop gazing, grabbing and colonizing women's bodies--including the women who make their living on runways, ad campaigns and screens. They might not be above it, but we can be. I'm not suggesting we ignore beauty--go on and admire your wife's backside along with her wit--but leave Kate Winslet's alone.
I'm not entirely sure I'm right about any of this, or even that what I've written is an accurate reflection of what I think and feel. I'm still working out what I think and feel on this one. I'm also curious about other's experiences, especially men. I wonder a great deal if there is some analogous male experience--some way they feel colonized. So dear readers, if any of you made it to the end of this post (poor things...) please comment. But be nice. You can disagree, but try not to hurt anyone's feelings.
By the way, the irony of this post, when read in concert with the previous post about the differences between objectively and subjectively handsome men, does not escape me. I didn't say I was perfect! I just said everyone else should be! Ha ha ha....
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Let's have a chat about books...
So, I read quite a bit, and I write reviews for work every once in a while, so I thought maybe I'd share a few with the blogosphere. I don't like every book I read,
so some reviews are critical. I think that's a good thing though, whether you agree with me or not. I read some book reviewers and movie critics because I know what they like I won't, and what they don't like, I will probably enjoy. I think we should have an anti-staff picks shelf at the library. It would be fun and useful!
So, with that said--the inaugural "Gently Down the Stream" book reviews.
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (2011 Printz Honor)
There are going to be some people who have objections to this book, which is really too bad. King’s characters are the kind of kids who don’t get any breaks; in fact, they’re lucky if they don’t get broken. Her heroine is Vera Dietz, a bright high school senior growing up in less-than-stellar circumstances. Her parents were teenagers when they had her—an eighteen-year old alcoholic and a stripper who eventually decided that motherhood was not for her and took off with her lover to Vegas. Vera’s dad is now a recovering alcoholic and a reasonably successful accountant, but in their economically depressed town, Vera needs her pizza delivery job and the local thrift stores. She’s mourning the loss of her childhood friend Charlie who died under mysterious circumstances months before. Charlie, the son of a wife-beater and a doormat, had been drifting into a failing life of drugs, sex and trouble with the local “detentionheads”. He’d been drifting away from Vera in the months before his death, and Vera’s feelings for him have swung between loving and loathing. Now, nearly nine months after his death, Vera is unsure whether she should keep her head down and just survive, or whether she should speak what she knows and clear Charlie’s name.
There’s drinking, sex, and cussing, but none of it is gratuitous in any way. Kids who relate to Vera and Charlie’s circumstances need to see characters like Vera who, though flawed, is striving to take control of her own life and destiny. And kids who never have to face the kind of troubles in this book can gain some much needed empathy toward their less fortunate peers. It’s not a perfect book, but it’s an honest one, and I appreciate it.
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healy (2011 Morris YA Debut honor)
This fits into the category of great opportunity ultimately squandered by poor execution. The YA market is currently (still….) dominated by heroines of various stripes who fall in love with a supernatural creature and are thrust into some monumental battle between good and evil. Healy, a New Zealander herself, roots her version in Maori cosmology. Her heroine, Ellie Spencer, is seventeen and away at boarding school while her parents are traveling the world in a post-cancer scare long-term vacation. (Who does this? Drop your life and your kid for a year while you gallivant? Odd.) Ellie’s best friend Kevin (platonic) has wrangled her into helping another classmate with a production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the local University. Ellie’s mysterious crush Mark seems to have some interest in her, and it turns out that he’s not just mysterious, he’s supernatural. He’s part of an ancient race of New Zealand fairy-like folks, and he’s trying to protect Ellie and her friends from his ravenous mom and other paranormal powers that would do them harm. Of course, it turns out Ellie has some latent powers of her own.
Admittedly, I was tired of this genre about ten seconds into reading Twilight, but I can’t understand how it hasn’t worn out its welcome in the publishing world. I think Healy has potential--this was an opportunity to do something really unique, but it just buzzes along in first gear. It never really soars, you know? Too bad. Next!
And here's a few for when you want to read "grown-up" stuff
All the Little Live Things and The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
Stegner never fails to amaze me. Of the two, All the Little Live Things impressed me more. It’s probably the best thing I’ve read in years—devastating and beautiful. After a somewhat slow build of tension, Stegner blew the top of my head off with the ending. This novel finds Joe Allston, a somewhat curmudgeonly retired literary agent, and his wife Ruth newly retired and relocated to California in the 60s. They are still struggling with the death of their son, with whom Joe had a contentious relationship, when they find themselves hosting a hippie squatter on their land. Joe doesn’t like him, being opposed to all the values of the free love/free drugs generation, but can’t bring himself to kick him out either. At the same time, another newcomer appears in the form of Marian, a thirty-something mother with whom Joe is smitten. She’s like the daughter he wishes he would have had, even though she has some opposing opinions of her own. Stegner builds Allston’s philosophies about love, responsibility, wildness and order through his interactions with these two characters, blows everything away with a tragedy unlike anything I’ve ever read, then somehow ties it all together in a satisfying, if bitter, resolution. Masterful—and in my eyes, as good as anything he wrote.
The Spectator Bird takes place about ten years later, as Ruth and Joe are facing their friend’s, and thereby their own, mortality. Joe inevitably begins to recall and weigh his life, and he finds himself lacking—a spectator rather than an actor in his own story. He receives a postcard from a countess they boarded with on a trip to Denmark twenty years earlier just after the death of their son. That card leads him to pull out the journals he wrote that summer, and somehow his wife finagles him into reading them aloud to her. Dangerous memories are revealed and, finally, resolved between them as he recounts the life of this beautiful, tragic woman and the relationship that blossomed between all three of them. Not my favorite Stegner by a long shot, but still worth reading. Stegner, who had an enduring and successful partnership with his wife Mary, has something to say about both the challenge and the ultimate joy of being and staying married.
The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
The Lonely Polygamist is a sprawling story about a sprawling, typical American family, albeit a polygamous family. Okay, so maybe some things about Golden Richards, his 4 wives, 28 children, a failing construction business and a forbidden flirtation aren’t exactly typical, but it’s surprising how relatable Udall makes his characters. They deal with the same things we all struggle to overcome—a desire to feel loved and connected in a world that is big and busy and chaotic and filled with competing needs. In this family, as in the whole world, it seems like nobody’s needs are being met, and the various ways characters try to overcome that conundrum are by turns hilarious and tragic. I hesitated to read this one, simply because my own thoughts and feelings about polygamy are not clear and most attempts at portraying it in media I find utterly uncomfortable and often offensive, but I’m so glad I did. It’s not about polygamy, really; it’s about family, just intensified exponentially by the sheer size of the Richards clan. The writing is admirable, as well. Definitely recommended.
Read on, my friends. Read on!
so some reviews are critical. I think that's a good thing though, whether you agree with me or not. I read some book reviewers and movie critics because I know what they like I won't, and what they don't like, I will probably enjoy. I think we should have an anti-staff picks shelf at the library. It would be fun and useful!
So, with that said--the inaugural "Gently Down the Stream" book reviews.
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (2011 Printz Honor)
There are going to be some people who have objections to this book, which is really too bad. King’s characters are the kind of kids who don’t get any breaks; in fact, they’re lucky if they don’t get broken. Her heroine is Vera Dietz, a bright high school senior growing up in less-than-stellar circumstances. Her parents were teenagers when they had her—an eighteen-year old alcoholic and a stripper who eventually decided that motherhood was not for her and took off with her lover to Vegas. Vera’s dad is now a recovering alcoholic and a reasonably successful accountant, but in their economically depressed town, Vera needs her pizza delivery job and the local thrift stores. She’s mourning the loss of her childhood friend Charlie who died under mysterious circumstances months before. Charlie, the son of a wife-beater and a doormat, had been drifting into a failing life of drugs, sex and trouble with the local “detentionheads”. He’d been drifting away from Vera in the months before his death, and Vera’s feelings for him have swung between loving and loathing. Now, nearly nine months after his death, Vera is unsure whether she should keep her head down and just survive, or whether she should speak what she knows and clear Charlie’s name.
There’s drinking, sex, and cussing, but none of it is gratuitous in any way. Kids who relate to Vera and Charlie’s circumstances need to see characters like Vera who, though flawed, is striving to take control of her own life and destiny. And kids who never have to face the kind of troubles in this book can gain some much needed empathy toward their less fortunate peers. It’s not a perfect book, but it’s an honest one, and I appreciate it.
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healy (2011 Morris YA Debut honor)
This fits into the category of great opportunity ultimately squandered by poor execution. The YA market is currently (still….) dominated by heroines of various stripes who fall in love with a supernatural creature and are thrust into some monumental battle between good and evil. Healy, a New Zealander herself, roots her version in Maori cosmology. Her heroine, Ellie Spencer, is seventeen and away at boarding school while her parents are traveling the world in a post-cancer scare long-term vacation. (Who does this? Drop your life and your kid for a year while you gallivant? Odd.) Ellie’s best friend Kevin (platonic) has wrangled her into helping another classmate with a production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the local University. Ellie’s mysterious crush Mark seems to have some interest in her, and it turns out that he’s not just mysterious, he’s supernatural. He’s part of an ancient race of New Zealand fairy-like folks, and he’s trying to protect Ellie and her friends from his ravenous mom and other paranormal powers that would do them harm. Of course, it turns out Ellie has some latent powers of her own.
Admittedly, I was tired of this genre about ten seconds into reading Twilight, but I can’t understand how it hasn’t worn out its welcome in the publishing world. I think Healy has potential--this was an opportunity to do something really unique, but it just buzzes along in first gear. It never really soars, you know? Too bad. Next!
And here's a few for when you want to read "grown-up" stuff
All the Little Live Things and The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
Stegner never fails to amaze me. Of the two, All the Little Live Things impressed me more. It’s probably the best thing I’ve read in years—devastating and beautiful. After a somewhat slow build of tension, Stegner blew the top of my head off with the ending. This novel finds Joe Allston, a somewhat curmudgeonly retired literary agent, and his wife Ruth newly retired and relocated to California in the 60s. They are still struggling with the death of their son, with whom Joe had a contentious relationship, when they find themselves hosting a hippie squatter on their land. Joe doesn’t like him, being opposed to all the values of the free love/free drugs generation, but can’t bring himself to kick him out either. At the same time, another newcomer appears in the form of Marian, a thirty-something mother with whom Joe is smitten. She’s like the daughter he wishes he would have had, even though she has some opposing opinions of her own. Stegner builds Allston’s philosophies about love, responsibility, wildness and order through his interactions with these two characters, blows everything away with a tragedy unlike anything I’ve ever read, then somehow ties it all together in a satisfying, if bitter, resolution. Masterful—and in my eyes, as good as anything he wrote.
The Spectator Bird takes place about ten years later, as Ruth and Joe are facing their friend’s, and thereby their own, mortality. Joe inevitably begins to recall and weigh his life, and he finds himself lacking—a spectator rather than an actor in his own story. He receives a postcard from a countess they boarded with on a trip to Denmark twenty years earlier just after the death of their son. That card leads him to pull out the journals he wrote that summer, and somehow his wife finagles him into reading them aloud to her. Dangerous memories are revealed and, finally, resolved between them as he recounts the life of this beautiful, tragic woman and the relationship that blossomed between all three of them. Not my favorite Stegner by a long shot, but still worth reading. Stegner, who had an enduring and successful partnership with his wife Mary, has something to say about both the challenge and the ultimate joy of being and staying married.
The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
The Lonely Polygamist is a sprawling story about a sprawling, typical American family, albeit a polygamous family. Okay, so maybe some things about Golden Richards, his 4 wives, 28 children, a failing construction business and a forbidden flirtation aren’t exactly typical, but it’s surprising how relatable Udall makes his characters. They deal with the same things we all struggle to overcome—a desire to feel loved and connected in a world that is big and busy and chaotic and filled with competing needs. In this family, as in the whole world, it seems like nobody’s needs are being met, and the various ways characters try to overcome that conundrum are by turns hilarious and tragic. I hesitated to read this one, simply because my own thoughts and feelings about polygamy are not clear and most attempts at portraying it in media I find utterly uncomfortable and often offensive, but I’m so glad I did. It’s not about polygamy, really; it’s about family, just intensified exponentially by the sheer size of the Richards clan. The writing is admirable, as well. Definitely recommended.
Read on, my friends. Read on!
Alexander Siddig is subjective. Definitely subjective.
There are two kinds of handsome men in the world. The first is what I like to call "objectively handsome." These are the kind of guys that are clearly good looking, but don't really do anything for you. They are symmetrical, appear healthy, have the ideal proportions, etc. But they don't make you wish you could kiss their face off or talk to them for hours, or, you know, not talk to them in affectionate ways. This sort of handsome man exists both in real life and on the silver screen. I'll restrict examples to the non-real life ones; it's not polite to discuss the ones you've actually met, I think.
Brad Pitt is a clear example of this. He's obviously genetically blessed, but he doesn't hold any attraction for me. I would not see a movie because Brad Pitt was in it. It's got to have some other interest for me, because watching Mr. Pitt for two hours just isn't enough. George Clooney. Ryan Reynolds. Any of a number of fresh faced lads on TV. Most of the men who've appeared on "The Bachelor" (or at least the ones I've seen--I haven't watched it, but those folks always end up on the cover of People magazine eventually). The animated princes in Disney movies. All objectively handsome.
Then there are the subjectively handsome ones. They might, or might not, be equally attractive on paper, but it doesn't matter. Something about these men resonates with some primal, subconscious need, or something. I don't know what it is--if it's a voice, the way they hold themselves, the way they move.
Don't misunderstand me, I don't put any stock in any of this, beyond just the fascinating and funny mystery of attraction. Why does one handsome man inspire little more than a half-hearted "meh--" from me, and another I just can't seem to get enough of. Some strange mix of nature and nurture like everything, I guess.
All this, however is just a long-winded way of saying that I loved Cairo Time. I don't really know if it was a good movie though, because my prefrontal cortex pretty much checks out, and my hypothalamus takes over when Alexander Siddig enters the scene. Dang. That man is... there are no words.
That's all I have to say about that.
Brad Pitt is a clear example of this. He's obviously genetically blessed, but he doesn't hold any attraction for me. I would not see a movie because Brad Pitt was in it. It's got to have some other interest for me, because watching Mr. Pitt for two hours just isn't enough. George Clooney. Ryan Reynolds. Any of a number of fresh faced lads on TV. Most of the men who've appeared on "The Bachelor" (or at least the ones I've seen--I haven't watched it, but those folks always end up on the cover of People magazine eventually). The animated princes in Disney movies. All objectively handsome.
Then there are the subjectively handsome ones. They might, or might not, be equally attractive on paper, but it doesn't matter. Something about these men resonates with some primal, subconscious need, or something. I don't know what it is--if it's a voice, the way they hold themselves, the way they move.
Don't misunderstand me, I don't put any stock in any of this, beyond just the fascinating and funny mystery of attraction. Why does one handsome man inspire little more than a half-hearted "meh--" from me, and another I just can't seem to get enough of. Some strange mix of nature and nurture like everything, I guess.
All this, however is just a long-winded way of saying that I loved Cairo Time. I don't really know if it was a good movie though, because my prefrontal cortex pretty much checks out, and my hypothalamus takes over when Alexander Siddig enters the scene. Dang. That man is... there are no words.
That's all I have to say about that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)