Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Grandma, happy birthday to you! You are an inspiration. When I’m 98, I hope that I, too, am reading blogs.
Much love,
“Debbie”
(Grandma Pearl is to my right; Grandma Marge, 89, to my left. I am one lucky lady, sitting in between.)
I’ve moved on from Wendy Shalit’s Girls Gone Mild to Katie Roiphe’s Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939, which I’m considering, along with Rebecca Walker‘s latest, Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood after a Lifetime of Ambivalance, for another piece I’m writing. Both these books received some virulent public thrashing, but I have to say, I read Walker’s from cover to cover yesterday without stopping. I’ve always found her style compelling, and the writing here is crisp. Could my interest in her subject matter have anything to do with the fact that I’m newly fulltime obsessed by pregnant women? Natch. (Marco is, too, as last night at dinner al fresco he commented to me, “There must be a boom. Every other woman seems pregnant on the Upper West Side.” And it’s entirely true. It’s not just the maternity fashion everyone seems to be wearing. At least, I don’t think it is. Or is it? But I digress.)
As for Roiphe’s new book, I’ve only read the intro so far, but I find it gripping. Michelle Green (who thrashed the book for the New York Times) thought Roiphe failed in making a case for the relevance of “musty dramas” of these Bloomsburys today. Au contraire. Roiphe (pictured above) does an excellent job, in the intro at least, of describing these women, and their consorting men, as “determined to live differently, to import the ideas of political progress into their most personal relations.” And she smartly highlights the ways aspects of their myriad personal, political negotiations are still with us. Tina Bennett thought so too. In a June 24 New York Times review, Bennett wrote,
The way the alpha women of Bloomsbury wrestled with their need for love while producing work of the highest quality should be an inspiration to a modern generation of women who, we keep being told, are more and more inclined to give up the struggle and abandon their aspirations.
Not sure I agree with that entire sentiment cough cough, but I do think Roiphe frames her portraits in a topical and newsworthy way. Has anyone out there read the book yet? Would be eager to hear what folks think.
(I’ll be eager to hear reactions to my review of GGM over at The American Prospect – stay tuned!)
Kimmi Auerbach’s reading at Border’s in Columbus Circle last night was packed–I’ve never been to a reading quite like it. Kimmi, author of The Devil, the Lovers, and Me: My Life in Tarot, picked three tarot cards from the deck and read the correlating chapters (each chapter’s title is the title of a card). Her performance was stellar; her writing hilarious, poignant, alive.
During the Q&A, someone asked how her parents (who were sitting in the front row) felt about turning up as characters in her memoir, and I had flashbacks to all the times I got that question while on the road with Only Child earlier this year. Among other bits of wisdom the 30-something wise-beyond-her-years writer dispensed was this, a line adapted (I think) from Kimmi’s friend and fellow funny girl Wendy Shanker, who was also in the house:
“The children who are loved the most are boldest on the page.” Meaning, children who are well loved don’t fear losing the love of their parents when they grow up and become writers who write about their past. I thought this was an interesting counter-sentiment to the words of the writers who told Daphne and me that they couldn’t safely write about their parents until they were 6 feet under. Interesting litmus test, I say.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Chapter 8 of Wendy Shalit’s book, the one called “Feminism’s (Mild) Fourth Wave.” The chapter’s title of course begs the question: Is mildness the choicest term? My dictionary defines “mild†as gentle, easy-going, and slow to get angry. Lightly flavored and not strong, hot, spicy, or bitter in taste. Pleasant and temperate and not excessively hot or cold. I prefer mine hot, but hey, I’ll admit: It takes all kinds.
Why do journalists consider Hillary Clinton’s “fat thighs” newsworthy in
coverage of her presidential bid, while Dick Cheney’s beer belly is never
noticed by political reporters? Are women all really vapid, pathetic, gold-digging whores, as so-called “reality” TV producers would like us to believe? Feminist media activism and independent media production can interrupt this misogynistic media landscape – but how can either survive in a fractured funding climate? These are just some of the meaty issues that will be tackled by Women in Media and News (WIMN) in Chicago while I’m at Kimmi’s reading tonight.
WHEN: Thurs., Aug. 2, 7pm
Click here to view Evite, and RSVP
WHAT: Wine, cheese and strategic conversation
Meet Women in Media and News’ Executive Director, Board members, bloggers and special guests, including Veronica Arreola (Chicago Parent blogger), Paula Kamen (WIMN’s Voices blogger, author and playwright), Gwynn Cassidy (co-founder, The Real Hot 100), and others at: “Don’t Pin Your Hopes on Katie Couric: How Women Can Confront, Challenge and Change Contemporary Media – a discussion with Jennifer L. Pozner and Anne Elizabeth Moore.”
If you go, tell me all about it! (And if any of the Chicago gals would like to guest blog about it here, please let me know.)
Last Thursday’s forum on my book hosted by Demos, NCRW, Woodhull, and Ms. Foundation airs today from 9:30AM to 10:30 AM ET on Truth For A Change, Time Warner Channel 34, and streaming simultaneously 9:30 AM ET here: http://www.mnn.org (select channel 34).
The other week, my writers’ group got together with Courtney Martin’s writers’ group (Crucial Minutiae) for some professional and intergenerational exchange, and for fun. I met this fabulously vivacious woman there, Kimmi Auerbach. Kimmi’s reading from her new book, The Devil, The Lovers & Me: My Life in Tarot, tonight at Borders at Columbus Circle, at 7PM. Come one, come all!
Around the same time that GGM arrived in my mailbox the other week, I also received notice about these cool new resources:
1. The Barnard Center for Research on Women has assembled ephemera dating from 1970-1999 related to women’s sexual health–resource guides, newsletters, and pamphlets written for (and by) diverse groups of women. Addressing issues like safe sex, teenage pregnancy, lesbians, and AIDS, advancements in reproductive technologies, contraceptives, reproductive health, and forced sterilization, these are documents that have empowered women to make well-informed decisions about their own bodies since the dawning of feminism’s second-wave. The collection is online, here.
2. In May 2007, the American Psychological Association released the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, linking the phenomenon to some of the most common mental health problems in girls and women. You can read the executive summary here. (To request a copy, contact Leslie Cameron at lcameron@apa.org)
Pass it on 🙂
A nice summary of the article of the same title by David von Drehle appearing in the July 26 issue Time Magazine, sent via Steve Mintz, with my favorite line in bold:
“The Dangerous Book†– a best-selling celebration of boyhood past – has tapped into a larger anxiety about raising young men. Observers of the boy “crisis†contend that families, schools and popular culture are failing boys, leaving them restless bundles of anxiety – misfits in the classroom and video-game junkies at home. They suffer from an epidemic of “anomie,†one psychologist says, adrift in a world of change without the help they need to navigate. There are statistics to back up every point in the sad litany, but also people eager to flay nearly every statistic. For instance: Is it bad that more boys are in special education, or it is better that they are getting extra help from specially trained teachers? And haven’t boys always tended to be more restless than girls under the discipline of high school and more likely to wind up in jail? Ultimately, the subject of boys is a bog of sociology in which a clever researcher can unearth evidence to support almost any point of view. This field, like so many others, has been infiltrated by the left-right political noise machine: Our boys have become cannon fodder in the unresolved culture wars waged by their parents and grandparents. But with fresh eyes on fresh facts, more upbeat conclusions are apparent. Worrying about boys – reading and writing books about them, fretting over dire trends and especially taking more time to parent them – is paying off. The next step is to let boys really blossom.
