I want to see us big

30 June 2009 | 13 Comments

Well, the whole big world has a lot of little girls in it, too. And not all of them are princesses — and the ones who are princesses have plenty of movies to watch.
 
And even many of them who do aspire to be princesses are mixing their princess tendencies with all manner of other delicious things. Their tiaras fall off when they skin their knees running at top speed; they get fingerpaint on their pink dresses; they chip their front teeth chasing each other in plastic high-heeled shoes.
 
– Linda Holmes, from her open letter to Pixar

What she said. Go read Linda Holmes’ entire “Dear Pixar” letter on the NPR website. Then come on back and let’s chat.

I’ve talked before about how much I want to write great roles for women, especially those of us who never see stories on screen in which people like us — over 40, not runway models or heiresses or sad lonely spinsters waiting for the right man, but simply smart, competent, interesting women — are the heroes. And in those stories, we won’t be heroes because we are tigress-mommies or loyal resolute spouses who suddenly kick ass to save our families. We’ll be heroes because we are human beings in a situation where heroism is required, and so we step up.

Why is that seemingly so hard for so many writers, producers, directors, and studio executives to imagine? Especially when we have a few shining examples of how much it rocks when a movie gets it right: Ripley in Alien, Sarah Connor in Terminator, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in Thelma and Louise, Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight (okay, she was a tigress-mommy too, but first she was an assassin, so she was by god no cliche).

And a hero is not only someone with killer biceps who leaves no bad guy standing. The hero is the person at the center of the story who must overcome challenges, face their deepest fears, lose their most precious things or people or dreams, strive and fail and still keep on going. Is it really true, as so many industry insiders seem to think, that men can only identify with those experiences if another man is having them? I am inside the hero all the time regardless of whether I’m watching Tom Cruise or Sarah Michelle Gellar. Does having a Y chromosome really restrict that kind of identification?

I don’t believe that. I think if a woman on screen is a compelling, non-cliched human being having big experiences, struggling with big feelings, making big choices, then any of us can identify with her.

This is a big screen issue for me. Television is a veritable paradise of Strong Women Characters in comparison to films. Buffy, Faith, Anya, Willow, Tara, Xena, Gabrielle, Callisto, Zoe, River, Kaylee, Sookie, Tara Thornton, Tara Gregson, Debra Morgan, the list goes on. All different, all with strengths and flaws and their own particular voice, and their own fabulous stories — complex and deeply human and universal.

So why can’t we do it big?

Well, let’s just imagine that we can. What would you like to see women characters doing on the big screen? I’d love to hear your wish list!

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, movies, television 

Resting

29 June 2009 | 6 Comments

Here’s another in the series of excerpts from With Malice Toward Some:

Oct 7th
The days melt away like cough drops on the tongue. I brush my hair and take a long walk and type out Henry’s notes and stand for a while in the garden composing my face to look like a Landed Gent, and ping! the day is gone. The Devonshire countryside grows upon me like an obsession; I sometimes suspect that somebody has given me a philtre. Living in England, provincial England, must be like being married to a stupid but exquisitely beautiful wife. Whenever you have definitely made up your mind to send her to a home for morons, she turns her heart-stopping profile and you are unstrung and victimized again. The garden still spurts roses and snapdragons and Michaelmas daisies, which I cut and arrange at great length in bowls and vases. This pursuit I estimate to be about the sheerest waste of time I have ever indulged in. The flowers wilt and only have to be done all over again. Henry, being a native New Yorker, looks pained if his attention is called to flowers. And the flowers in the garden are virtually forcing the house right off the property as it is, without my introducing them into the drawing room to bore from within. But it is principally because it is so fruitless that I like to do it. It makes every day feel like Saturday afternoon.
 
– from With Malice Toward Some by Margaret Halsey

I’m thinking a lot about the difference between relaxation and rest. I’m a champion relaxer: I know how to kick back, share a bottle of wine and talk for hours; spend an hour on the deck with a book; fall so deep into a movie that I forget where I am; sit on a park bench and stare at Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains beyond while crows and seagulls spiral up and down from the beach. I know how to enjoy these moments.

But I don’t know how to rest. I spend my life doing: it’s my response to responsibility (whoa! just made the linguistic connection…), to stress, to challenge, to learning. To life, really. I’m good at doing; but it turns out I have very little skill at stopping. I relax, but in a little back corner of my mind I am already figuring out the next process, making the next mental list, preparing to do the next thing.

I’m lucky; the busy-ness of my life is not the treadmill variety. I like my life; but it is full, and I have a lot to do, and somewhere along the line I learned that my culture won’t give me a lot of slack for “wasting” time. For just spending a hundred Saturday-afternoon-days in a row arranging flowers or sitting under an umbrella on the beach at Musha Cay — those cuffy thing moments that I find I am yearning for more and more these days. I want to do fruitless things just because they are lovely to do. I want the beautiful surroundings just because they are beautiful, and then I want to simply sit and be in them with no responsibility to anyone, not even myself. I want to unhook from all of that results-oriented list-bound doing.

I’m good at being. But always I am being in motion. Now a part of me just wants to be still.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, reading 

Shindiggin’

28 June 2009 | Comments Off

We had a lovely gathering of neighbors yesterday — about 40 people met, grilled, drank, ate, and talked in the commons at the end of our driveway. The weather was beautiful, the beer stayed cold, and as far as I know the potato salad didn’t send anyone to the emergency room. It turns out the folk here are relaxed, charming and have incredibly-well-behaved-but-non-robotic kids (I know, it sounds more like Lake Wobegon all the time).

My neighbor Vicki and I have been talking about doing this for so long that it seems strange to have actually done it. A couple weeks ago, we made a flyer and spent a Saturday afternoon walking around the neighborhood knocking on doors, introducing ourselves, and explaining about the barbeque and our desire to connect people in the ‘hood as much as possible. When people weren’t home, we left flyers, and I know there was at least one household that didn’t open the door because they thought we were selling magazine subscriptions or something (yep, Mr. Neighbor Dude, I did see you peering through your fence at us. You missed a good party and if there’s an apocalypse you won’t know everyone’s name…).

The knocking-on-doors thing is actually hard for me: I can be quite shy in situations where I am having to justify my presence/explain myself/”sell” in some way, and although I have good strategies for overcoming that shyness, they take a lot of energy. So how nice to have so many people respond by turning up with their kids and their salads and desserts, and — especially — prepared to have a nice time and meet some new people.

It’s funny how easy it is to remain disconnected even in such a place as this, where people are aware of one another and have good intentions. Connection is a process, and I hope yesterday was a good step in expanding it. We collected contact information, and now we’ll spend some time figuring out how to use it in a way that builds neighborhood bonds without turning into some kind of social club or low-value time suck that makes people disengage again. It’s an interesting thing to think about. But worth doing: apart from anything else, if there ever is an apocalypse, we will need each other. What heartens me above all else is that it seems I’m not the only one here who knows that.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Preppin’

27 June 2009 | 1 Comment

I am not really here (grin). I am madly preparing for our Neighborhood Shindig — making potato salad, moving out tables and chairs and galvanized tubs for ice (are we a party-ready household, or what?), and wondering how it’s all going to turn out. I will report back tomorrow.

Coming soon: women in films, keyword searches, jukebox (so many ideas… Duncan Black’s iPod, songs about love, identity songs, dancing music), and more!

Enjoy your Saturday.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

21

26 June 2009 | 14 Comments

Nicola and I met 21 years ago today: and life changed utterly between one breath and the next. Everything I have done since then, and all I have become, is in some way connected to that meeting.

I just can’t imagine who I am in the alternate universes in which we never met. I hope those Kelleys are happy and full of joy. They can send me postcards: I’ll be here, having a beer on a Friday afternoon with my sweetie, celebrating the years.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life 

Oh, you wolf

24 June 2009 | 7 Comments

You may remember a few months ago when I sent you over to Amazon to read the reviews for a certain airport security checkpoint toy…

Well, now there’s this. Go read the reviews. Came back and howl at thank me later.

Have fun!

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Kick the twilight out of him!

23 June 2009 | 3 Comments

From video remix artist and media activist Jonathan McIntosh comes this fantastic video that puts clips of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (okay, Freudian moment, I just typed Vampire Spayer…) together with footage from the movie Twilight, in which vampire Edward Cullen falls hard for a human girl but won’t, you know, bite her or anything, because that would be too much like teenagers having sex, and we know that never happens.

In this remixed narrative Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s an example of transformative storytelling serving as a visual critique of Edward’s character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy’s eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways.
 
– Jonathan McIntosh, from his commentary on Buffy vs Edward

McIntosh’s remix is beautifully edited, funny in places, genuinely creepy, and pretty searing in its commentary on what many fiction writers and screenwriters (and directors and producers and readers, not to mention scadillions of teenage girls and boys out there) think constitutes “romantic” behavior between people. If you know a teenager, or a so-called grownup who acts like one, park them in front of this video and tell them the only part of this dynamic that is remotely okay are all the parts where Buffy takes care of herself. And then beat them on the head until they understand that she shouldn’t have to.

You don’t need to be a Buffy fan or know the Twilight story to follow along…

Enjoy.

 

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, movies, television 

Get your apt on

22 June 2009 | 6 Comments

I don’t know the original source of this: someone gave it to me about 30 years ago. Because I know all my readers are good-looking, adventurous, talented, charming and of course incredibly smart — the aptest of the apt — I expect you’ll all get perfect scores!

You may use the comment space for your answers.

Make me proud.

———————————–

APTITUDE TEST

Instructions
Read each question carefully. Answer all questions. Time limit: 4 hours. Begin immediately.

History
Describe the history of the papacy from its origin to the present day, concentrating especially but not exclusively on its social, political, economic, religious and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, America and Africa. Be brief, concise and specific.

Medicine
You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have fifteen minutes.

Public Speaking
2,500 riot-crazed people with swords are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

Biology
Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to the probable effect on the English Parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.

Music
Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.

Psychology
Based on your knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ramses II, Gregory of Nicia, and Hammurabi. Support your evaluation with quotations from each man’s work.

Sociology
Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.

Engineering
The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed beside your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted into the room. Take whatever action you feel appropriate. Be prepared to justify your decision.

Economics
Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas: Cubism, the Donatist controversy, the wave theory of light. Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.

Political Science
There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.

Epistemology
Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position.

Physics
Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science.

Philosophy
Sketch the development of human thought. Estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought.

General knowledge
Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Family is good

21 June 2009 | Comments Off

I have a mother, father, stepfather and stepmother, and I love them all, and I’m lucky that they love me too. I’m lucky that I was a wanted (even if unplanned) child (who is still surprising her folks on a regular basis 49 years later, grins at parents through the internet). I’m lucky that all my parents have always done their best to understand me, accept me, support me, help and comfort me when I needed it. I love that they love Nicola so much.

I have a family in England who are not mine, but they love me for the sake of their daughter and sister, and for my own sake, and have made me welcome as if I am theirs.

Some families are horror shows. None are perfect. So many families, like mine, have made and unmade and re-made themselves. I hope that you have found a family, whether based on blood, choice, or a little of both; that you have people who scratch their heads over your wackiness and your flaws and will still give you a hug and a cup of coffee, or the last beer in the fridge. Because that’s where it starts, you know? And sometimes that’s all it takes.

And so I know it’s Father’s Day, but I think I will eschew the greeting card companies’ calendar in favor of my own. For me, it’s Family Is Good day.

Thanks, Dad and Mum, for always making me feel loved and wanted and smart and as safe as you could, and for making sure I had so many chances that you never had. Thanks, Art and Celeste, for making a place for me in your hearts. Thanks, Eric and Margot and Anne and Julie and Carolyn, for all the love and care you have shown me. Thank you to Ronnie who has been my sister for (omg) nearly 30 years. Thank you always to Nicola. And thank you to my friends, without whom I would be less than I am, and who are my family too. Love to you all on Family Is Good Day.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Because I can bake

20 June 2009 | 9 Comments

Every once in a while, someone gets an idea that Nicola would be much better off with them instead of what’s-her-name-Eskridge. Fair enough, I guess, although it’s a notion that comes with a built-in disappointment factor of seven million zillion (and about a trillion million zillion if you are a guy). Sometimes, these folks actually think they can get Nicola’s attention by being rude to me: we’ve been in situations where the Hopeful Other, upon being introduced to both of us, looks straight at Nicola with a melty-mouth smile and says, “Oh, I’m so glad that you could make it” — emphasis hers — and then utterly ignores me. Snort. Just so you know, if you do this kind of thing, we laugh at you on the way home.

In fact, here is my best advice to those who would impress my sweetie: if you cannot make Rhubarb Apple Crumble, girlfriend, pack your bags and move your ass out of line.

RHUBARB APPLE CRUMBLE
adapted from a recipe by Lynne Rossetto Kasper

    Filling

  • 3 cups diced green apples (1/2-inch to 1-inch pieces)
  • 3 cups diced rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • Grated zest of 1 small lemon
  • Generous pinch of salt
  • Generous pinch of ground nutmeg
  • 4 tablespoons cornstarch
    Topping

  • 10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 1/3 cup white sugar
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (spoon into measuring cup and level, don’t scoop it in or pack it down)
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (also spoon and level)
  • Heavy whipping cream (for serving)
  1. Butter a shallow 7-cup baking dish.
  2. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  3. Combine all filling ingredients in a bowl and turn them gently into the baking dish.
  4. Using an electric beater, cream the butter, both sugars, salt and vanilla at medium speed until very light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
  5. Combine the two flours and sift half into the butter mixture. Then beat on low for just a few seconds. Don’t overdo it.
  6. Work in the rest of the flour into the butter mixture with your hands until large crumbles form. Be gentle, don’t beat, and don’t overmix.
  7. Spoon the crumbles over the filling in the baking pan. Don’t pack it down.
  8. Bake at 350 on center rack for 45-55 minutes or until topping is golden brown and filling is bubbling.
  9. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve at room temperature or re-warm gently in oven.
  10. Serve with heavy whipping cream to pour on top.

Enjoy.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Next Page »