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Archive for January 5, 2007
Friday Catblogging: The Ledge
What Famous Feline Are You?
Which famous feline are you?
You’re Hobbes. First of all, the makers of this quiz would like to congratulate you. You have our seal of approval. You are kind, intelligent, loving, and good-humoredly practical. You’re proud of who you are. At the same time, you’re tolerant of those who lack your clearsightedness. You’re always playful, but never annoying. For these traits, you are well-loved, and with good cause.
Take this quiz!
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Queer Politics
Amanda Marcotte has written an absolutely brilliant “Real consent manifesto.” You should, as the saying goes, read the whole thing.
This paragraph in particular kind of blew my mind:
The feminist concept of enthusiastic consent for sex, or total consent or whatever you want to call it, is such a new, radical idea that apparently it confuses the hell out of people. And it’s absolutely fed by queer politics, if for no other reason than acceptance of homosexuality is basically the acceptance of the idea of relationships between people that aren’t in a power differential for gendered reasons. The notion that sexual relationships could be built on desire and enthusiasm from both parties instead of a series of trade-offs between someone with power and someone without is more radical than I realize a lot of the time.
You know, I’ve given a lot of thought to the relationship between feminism and queer politics, but I’ve never been able to put it so succinctly. This is why, at core, everyone working for feminism is also working for gay rights, and vice versa. And that awareness is crucial to understanding how gender rules are running us all day, every day, without our even realizing it. (But we can realize it.)
Fun With Language: Innuendo Edition
An actual New Year’s Eve quote:
Oops! I dropped my banana in the chocolate.
While telling you that this arose while dipping fruit into a chocolate fountain may ruin it somewhat, I still hope that banana had a condom on.
Answers for Tuesday Trivia of 1/2
Quickest answers ever.
Vulnerable to Infiltration
Think Progress quotes nutcase Virgil Goode (emphasis mine):
Let us remember that we were not attacked by a nation on 9/11; we were attacked by extremists who acted in the name of the Islamic religion. I believe that if we do not stop illegal immigration totally, reduce legal immigration and end diversity visas, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to infiltration by those who want to mold the United States into the image of their religion, rather than working within the Judeo-Christian principles that have made us a beacon for freedom-loving persons around the world.
Yes, we are.
Has anyone ever left themselves so open to so pithy a response? I think not.
Mr. Goode, we are indeed vulnerable to those who wish to change the United States by molding it into the image of their religion. You are one of those people.
Tuesday Trivia Time: Greetings, ‘007!
Guess the movie. Now with exciting New Year’s features: All of the following movies feature a New Year’s Eve celebration.
Update: All done!
1. He runs all the way to the New Year’s Eve party.
Solved by Daven.
2. The theives leave behind a monkey mask.
Solved by (record-holder) Daven.
3. “Fredo, you broke my heart.”
Solved by Daven.
4. The painter lives upstairs from the pianist; both are expatriates.
Solved by Tom.
5. A “Vicars and Tarts” party doesn’t quite work out for our heroine.
Solved by Daven.
6. A coven revives a goddess.
Solved (with much enthusiasm) by Evn.
7. “Keep passing the open windows.”
Solved by Ken.
(Note: Do not look for the Bond tie-in this week. I skipped it in favor of the New Year’s tie-in.)
Guile and Calculation
I caught this quote of the day via Think Progress:
“Few have ever risen so high with so little guile or calculation.”
— Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking about former president Gerald Ford.
It’s a nice bit of eulogizing, eloquent and accurate…
Until you realize that Cheney is sort of saying that most of the people in his White House got there with guile. Nice one, Darth.
Monday Movie Review: Rebecca
Rebecca (1940) 10/10
A nervous young woman (Joan Fontaine) meets and marries well-known and wealthy Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). As”the second Mrs. de Winter” at Manderley, she finds the memories of her husband’s first wife, Rebecca, omnipresent and intimidating. Most disturbing is the strange housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who seems obsessed with Rebecca. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Rebecca is an exquisite mood piece, and does a remarkable job of keeping the viewer riveted for more than two hours. I had the pleasure of re-watching it this week with two teens who’d never seen it before. I first saw Rebecca in a high school film class (it took three days). Even knowing how thrilled and fascinated we all were in class back then, I was still wondering if these teens would really like it. I was suddenly conscious of the slowness of some of the pacing, of how little actually happens, and I was painfully aware that teens today get a lot more stimulation and are accustomed to a lot more visual movement. I am pleased to report that they both loved it.
The movie is masterful at establishing presence and creating images in the mind’s eye. I am captivated by all the half-women in this film. The second Mrs. de Winter, who is never named, Rebecca, who is never seen, Mrs. Danvers, who is deranged. It would be easy to dismiss all this as Hitchcockian misogyny, but that would be a mistake. True, women don’t fare well in this film, as you’d expect from Hitchcock, they are too meek or too bold, and their sexuality is either perverse or comical. But this is a movie all about women, about their energy and their need for place, about their longings and their sins. The men (Olivier, George Sanders as Rebecca’s cousin, Nigel Bruce as de Winter’s brother-in-law) are there merely as foils for the women to engage in perversion or self-discovery.
(Spoilers below the fold)
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