Oh, No!

I'm afraid I'm going to get this in the mail:

Dear Ms. Simpson:

We regret to inform you that your feminist license (#4523HD) has been suspended for three weeks pending the completion of the tasks outlined at the bottom of this letter.

We feel we have been patient with you in the past six months, but your continual disregard of basic feminist tenets can no longer be ignored. In the past week alone you:

*made fun of women protesting hospitals' refusal to allow mothers to have VBACs (vaginal births after C-sections). Instead of recognizing that women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies, you sneered at a woman's sign which read, "My Uterus, My Choice." You should have congratulated her--not reminded your friends it was actually her "cooch" that was on the line.

*laughed--nay, guffawed at a misogynist rant in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." We also noticed you find it amusing when Cartman says, "You're breakin' my balls; you're breakin' my balls."

*incorporated the word "slut" into a poem--possibly in an unironic way.

*thought about having children without considering the financial or political ramifications of that decision.

*declared sawing into a medium-rare steak makes you feel "manly." Also, when making a daring move during a euchre game, your statement of grim determination was, "Let's be men."

*enjoyed both "Black Mama, White Mama" and "Foxy Brown," despite their blatant exploitation of women.

*envied skinny women.

Over the years, you have demonstrated great potential, and we still believe you can be an asset to the feminist community. Please use the next three weeks to think about the role you mean to play in that community. You are to read books by female authors (and ignore the white-male-dominated canon for just a moment) and seriously limit your hip-hop, "South Park," and "Chappelle Show" intake. Women have come a long way, but there's still a long road to travel. We do hope you will continue on this journey.

Sincerely,

The Collective

So Thin So Thirsty

I want to marry William Powell.

Forget those pesky details about time and space and real life versus onscreen persona--it's going to happen. And when it does, I will be the ultimate Myrna Loy. I will make wry comments. I will match him martini for martini.

Because, if there's anything that I've gotten out of watching all six Thin Man movies and the two documentaries included in my The Complete Thin Man boxed set, it's that I want to be a part of Nick and Nora's marriage club. They make it seem so cool.

In The Thin Man, you get the distinct impression that their whole marriage is one big bender. In Another Thin Man, Nick clears the group of men from around Nora's nightclub table with this: "Now Mommy, you know you shouldn't be out. What will the doctor say?" Nora: "I don't care what he says. I won't stay in quarantine one minute longer. I don't care who catches it."

Some stars, you want to have weekend getaways with. Some stars you want to have secret rendezvous in janitor closets with. Some you want to have chained in your basement for a rainy day. Some you just want to date for free meals and trips to the bowling alley. With William Powell, I only want to be his better half, variously the joker and the straight man.

Is It Possible to Be a Groupie for a Book?

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

First, the August issue of Marie Claire is going to bite it this afternoon. I can't even stand it anymore. And the Age Issue of Vogue is in trouble, too. Special thanks to nayrb5 and lildove42 for their input.

Second, the parking situation at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is unbearable. I can't be held responsible for what I might do if I have to park three miles away from campus again.

Third, the Whatever Edition of "Clueless" will be released on August 30. Don't you see? Dreams really do come true.

Fourth, Rasputina is about to be on tour. They will be in Carrboro and Charlotte in one month. New Yorkers, they will be playing the Bowery Ballroom on Halloween. Buy your tickets now. No, right now. Seriously, open a new window, take out your credit card, and get with the purchasing.

Stephanie is a good friend. I once told her I wanted to wage open war on poetry, and she responded by sending me books of verse, chapbooks, several at a time. She included David Markson's Reader's Block in the box with Helen in Egypt and Friendship with Things.

So. Reader's Block is not a book of poetry. In fact, it claims to be a novel. A novel, if the writer of the backside blurb is to be believed, "with an almost unbearable emotional impact" and a "shattering" conclusion.

Yeah, I scoffed at that description, too. Then I started reading.

Let's be honest. There's no story there; at least, not one I can easily articulate. Reader is attempting to craft the story of Protagonist. However, Reader disrupts his narrative with fragments of details about the lives of famous poets, artists, and writers. The sentences line up on the page, disjointed, disconnected from each other. The text read like a long list of facts, some seeming more relevant than others.

And I couldn't put it down. I read into the night, into the early morning. I tried to figure out the cast of characters and how Reader positions himself in relation to all these historical figures. Who is Reader? Does it even matter? What is this refrain: "X was an anti-Semite"? How does reading affect writing? What is Reader's relationship to his sketchy character, Protagonist?

The Reader gorges himself on factoids about death and war. But then he recalls stuff like Alexander Pope's actual height or what Barnett Newman had to say about sculpture. (It is "what you bump into when back up to look at a painting." Oh, snap!) I tried reading it aloud, but the Greek, Roman, Russian names twisted my tongue. Even though I'd never heard of many of these authors and artists, they mattered, even if Reader only let me know them for a sentence.

The point? Oh, this novel has a point. The conclusion did not "shatter" me, and this realization was not unbearable. Stephanie and I agree Reader allows autobiography and his scrutiny of author's lives to distract him from his ability to tell a story. The magic of a great work is that it eclipses the minor accomplishes and tragedies of the person who created it. The suicides and disappointments and sex lives of artists occur as randomly as the arrangement of headstones in a graveyard.

Wow. I've started a new book, a novel that actually looks and feels like a novel, but the questions surrounding Reader's Block are still haunting me.

So you know what I have to do. I have to make t-shirts and follow this book on tour. I have to scream during its guitar solo. This book and I, we have something real going on.

Plans

seliseburns: What are you going to do this weekend?
snovellasimpson: Well, I'm not sure about tomorrow, but I think I'm having a picnic with Sylvan and Michelle on Sunday.
snovellasimpson: It'll be BYOBoyfriend.
seliseburns: Who are you going to bring?
seliseburns: Cause I hear that guy on the corner is busy.
snovellasimpson: Well, I can't find the phone numbers of any of my rock star or movie star boyfriends.
snovellasimpson: Is he? Damn.
seliseburns: Maybe you can hang around a meat packing plant and get a date that way.
snovellasimpson: God, Stephanie, you know that place smells wretched.
seliseburns: Or, you could take a Romy and Michelle approach to the problem. Go to a club.
seliseburns: Tell guys you cut your foot before and your shoe is filling up with blood.
snovellasimpson: But only if they are suit salesmen.
snovellasimpson: That's it.
seliseburns: Well, I thought you could try to entice them with it.
seliseburns: Get some runny ketchup and put on a big show.
snovellasimpson: Sweet!
seliseburns: Oh, another way would be to bump your cart into some guy's at the grocery store.
seliseburns: I think the frozen foods section would be a good choice of aisle, since that's when they'll be feeling the most vulnerable.
snovellasimpson: So--have you tried these methods?
seliseburns: No, but I think it would be fun if you did.
snovellasimpson: It always has to be me with these things.
seliseburns: Look. When we live together, we can do them together. Until then, one of us has to be the pioneer.
snovellasimpson: Fine, fine. I'll wear the Converse sneakers and do my worst. Look out, boys.

snovellasimpson: Where in the world are we going to live?
seliseburns: We should move to London.
seliseburns: Except they keep bombing it.
snovellasimpson: Yeah, that would be pretty weak.
snovellasimpson: And what would we eat?
seliseburns: Ew. Yeah. Forgot about that.
snovellasimpson: France?
snovellasimpson: We could hang out with Johnny Depp.
seliseburns: We'd have to learn the language, though.
seliseburns: But, we could still speak English to each other, so maybe that would be okay.
snovellasimpson: I mean, who else would we need to talk to?
snovellasimpson: There's you, me, and Johnny.
seliseburns: Right.
snovellasimpson: Or we could go Greek.
seliseburns: How about we move to the Bahamas?
seliseburns: They already speak English there. Plus, nice weather and the beach.
seliseburns: Until the hurricanes.
snovellasimpson: See, that's the problem with living on the beach.
snovellasimpson: Hurricanes.
seliseburns: Yeah, but, I could really go for some laid back island living.
seliseburns: I want to live where people don't get all worked up over things the way they do here.
seliseburns: Maybe we should move to the mountains. I love those.
snovellasimpson: Too cold!
seliseburns: No, no. Some southern mountains. The Smokies.
snovellasimpson: Is there snow?
snovellasimpson: I despise snow.
seliseburns: Sometimes, but not a lot, I don't think.
snovellasimpson: I'll think about it.
snovellasimpson: Hawaii?
seliseburns: Definitely. Let's go now.
seliseburns: The only problem? Very expensive.
snovellasimpson: Life in Hawaii? Seriously?
seliseburns: And limited jobs.
snovellasimpson: No, no, we'd open a carwash.
seliseburns: Oh, well, as long as you've got a plan.
snovellasimpson: Combination carwash and coffeeshop/roller rink.
seliseburns: Carwash/coffeeshop/roller rink/bookstore.
snovellasimpson: Sweet!
snovellasimpson: It, too, would be called The Point of Babette.
seliseburns: Well, that's the plan. Our whole life worked out.
snovellasimpson: We'll get started next week.
snovellasimpson: Do you know anything about starting a business?
seliseburns: You have to have money. I know that.
snovellasimpson: Hm.
snovellasimpson: Any money substitutes?
seliseburns: Do you have precious jewels?
snovellasimpson: I have a necklace with a pendant shaped like Luna from Sailor Moon.
seliseburns: No good. Any cattle or other livestock?
snovellasimpson: I have a little sister.
seliseburns: She is pretty valuable. We could sell her to the movie studios as a colorful background performer.
snovellasimpson: There you go.
seliseburns: We're so gonna have our The Point of Babette carwash/coffeshop/roller rink/bookstore. I can't wait.
snovellasimpson: It's going to be incredible.

Strangest News I've Had All Day

So, I'm Ed Wood, eh? Should I be concerned?

You Are Ed Wood From "Ed Wood." You definitely have your name in history, although probably not for the reason you believe. Yet you are very accepting, non-judgemental, and optimistic almost to a fault. You also have a thing for angora sweaters. How could anyone not like you?

Take The Johnny Depp Quiz!

Doris Day Wants You!...To Get Married

Thursday, after a rough day, I settled down with the completely forgettable It Had to Be You starring one Michael Vartan and Natasha Henstridge, whose "break-through" role involved Matthew Perry (The Whole Nine Yards). The premise is that these two people meet while they are registering for their respective weddings and fall in love with each other (thereby jilting both their fiances).

We don't see Anna's (Henstridge) fiance, David. But, for some reason, there's an awful lot of Claire, Charlie's (Vartan) fiance. She can't go wedding shopping with him because she has to fly to London for her editing job. She meets up with him at the Plaza for a night, but then immediately goes back to work in the morning. Here's Charlie, waxing nostalgic about the early days of their relationship, those times when she worked at Macy's writing ad copy and they ate pizza from Ray's. He says he misses those days. She turns around and tells him she doesn't. She doesn't miss scraping by on $25,000 a year at a job she hated. She leaves. In the context of this movie, this is shorthand that indicates that she and Charlie are wrong for each other. There are no actual relationship problems (other than his wandering eye), just her ambition. We don't see the break-up, but Charlie goes on to write a book about his love for Anna (the schoolteacher, by the way--not only traditionally a woman's job, but also one that indicates a lack of ambition and the desire for children).

Recently, Sam lent me a book called Bachelor Girl by Betty Israel. It's the first history book I've ever read like a novel. It follows the plight of the single girl, mainly in New York City, from the 1860s to roughly the present. It's fascinating, but not without its flaws. Both Sam and I agreed that the chapters attempting to address the present day are sadly lacking. It's the problem of all history books, I think. Without the proper distance, the historian's penchant for generalities comes off as naive and narrow if not completely off-base. This is especially true for the social historian, I think. Who can tell if what consumes you or even the person down the street at this moment will be something that translates to the cultural landscape? A historian's methods are not those of a sociologist and I guess that's what I take issue with in Israel's last chapters.

Regardless, Bachelor Girl has made me acutely aware of my own single girl lifestyle as well as my barely conscious thoughts about relationships and marriage. While Israel seems to attribute cultural mouthpiece status to magazines and newspapers (not surprising given her methods as a historian and the convenience of quoting them), I find that my own thoughts are much more likely to be influenced by movies (not surprising to anyone who's met me).

I have seen, in my lifetime, hundreds upon hundreds of romantic comedies. These are the images of single life that shape my perceptions of the way in which I should live (or want to live). These are the women I could be. Will I be like Janeane Garofalo in The Truth About Cats and Dogs--single and scared of involvement, playing violin to my cat (assuming I learned violin and got a cat)? Will I ramble on about the 3 seconds in my 33rd year which would have been the perfect time to get married, if I hadn't slept through them, like Jeanne Tripplehorn in 'Till There Was You? Who wouldn't want to be Jessica Stein in Kissing Jessica Stein, with her copyediting job and apartment with its own spiral staircase? And there's always the danger that I could turn out like Sandra Bullock, pre-makeover, in Love Potion #9, the awkward conversationalist at dinner with friends, being taken advantage of by a jackass not-boyfriend and unable to flirt my way out of a moving violation ticket for my crap car. Of course, these are pretty recent examples. I used to spend Sunday afternoons watching Doris Day movies on the Family Channel. Now there's the glamourous single woman you want to be--minus the helmet hair.

All these movies have in common the expectation of marriage. It may only be implied, but it is there in the construction of the love-of-my-life romance. If a romantic comedy ends before the marriage scene, it's because it doesn't need it. Every little girl knows what follows the final clinch.

So, this leaves singlehood as the interlude. The glamourous in-between time may be prolonged, but is not to be considered permanent. This is key. Romantic comedies are littered with the shells of women who might have gotten married except they entrenched themselves too much in singlehood. I watched one Thursday night. It is a genre that so often makes women choose between love and careers.

In That Touch of Mink, Cary Grant comes right out and says that Doris Day is such a disaster at the office that the only option for her future is for some nice fellow, not too bright, to marry her and take her away to some house in the country. Israel uses as an example Kate and Leopold, a movie in which Meg Ryan not only gives up her job for Hugh Jackman, but also her right to wear pants and smoke in public by going back in time with him to 1870. And this movie was made in 2001. I could go on for days. The point is, I've left school and entered into this strange new stage of my life. I don't know how long it will last. My role models are problematic when they aren't laughably detached from reality.

If I can't be Doris Day, who will I be?

Best News I've Had All Day

Take The Ewan McGregor Test!

The Trial of Marie Claire

Promises, promises.

We, the cultural gatekeepers of The Point of Babette, believe a publication should live up to its potential. Editors should keep their word and earn the trust of their readership.

This month, the cover of Marie Claire boldly claimed to offer vital information on "Your Best Haircut," 50 single men scrambling to marry you; the new (killer) diet drug; and sexy, sexual sex. Jessica Alba validated these claims with a winning smile and honey highlights.

Now, the Sam half of The Point of Babette is never quite sure what she wants from a women's magazine. Ms. magazine sometimes needs to lighten up, but the editors of Cosmopolitan have a minimal understanding of how women who can't afford couture behave. For a while, I only used the pages of women's magazines to make envelopes. On Monday, however, the August 2005 issue of Marie Claire stood between me and debilitating boredom.

Today, I stand between Marie Claire and blind, bitter Justice. Below, I have listed the crimes the August issue committed against humanity. Yes, humanity.

• The inclusion of an article that emphasizes crystal meth as a killer diet drug--In one meth diary, the narrator describes losing her family, dropping out of school, and selling her body for a hit. Oh, and she got so skinny.
• Pretending $100 jeans are affordable.
• Placing single, American men on an auction block with puppies and sporting equipment--The editor calls them "Ben Joneses," as in "the male version of Bridget Jones." She claims to have met these men, and she knows they want to marry me. Thing is, none of these men are Jude Law. Not one of them is Trey Parker, and I didn't see Michael Ealy. So, why do I care if these "great" men want to marry me?
• Promising readers 25 more eligible bachelors for September--Chances are these men are not Law, Parker, or Ealy either.
• Forcing readers to recall that time when Keri Russell chopped off her hair and caused the dumbest ratings drop in the history of television.
• Jessica Alba.
• Debunking 13 sex myths that no one ever cared about--How relieved am I that toe-sucking is not just for foot fetishists anymore?
• Claiming military jackets constitute fashion.
• Pretending I would even consider dressing like Sarah Jessica Parker, Cameron Diaz, or Sienna Miller.
• Allowing a reader to grocery shop in a bikini for a designer handbag--And they took pictures. I dare you to think of something more pointless.
• Including sex tips that sound like stereo instructions.

You be the jury. The August 2005 issue of Marie Claire will be sentenced to recycling or burning if enough of you find it guilty.

Vote!

OLL #3: Eyebrows

Sam gets all the fun. This seems wrong to me, so I've decided to take matters into my own hands and pirate one of her formats. Because, after spending most of my time this weekend with my Remington Steele dvds, I have something to say.

Dear Pierce Brosnan's eyebrows,

I love you.

You are so perfect in Remington Steele. You are thin in the middle and thicker toward the ears. You leave just a hint of darkness between the eyes.

You are hilarious.

You are the soul behind Remington Steele's uber-Englishman persona. You crinkle in with concern for your client, the case, and you pop right out again when you smile. You are bland and incredulous when Laura is mad. You do all the thinking there is to be done.

But my favorite is when you separate and one side goes up. This is the ultimate Remington Steele charm. You ooze that come-hither look and Laura Holt proves a girl is only human.

Pierce Brosnan's eyebrows, I think you reached perfection sometime in 1982. It was all downhill from there. But I still love you. And will love you in perpetuity. On DVD.

Love,
Stephanie