Welcome to Theatre Thursdays. I'm your host, Cynical Nymph. On Theatre Thursdays we'll take a moment to appreciate female monologues in theatre, because a modern feminist with an utterly dusty B.F.A. in Drama has to do something with it, right? Let's have at it. Theatre Thursdays, First Installment.
MRS. ANTROBUS: (She flings something - invisible to us - far over the heads of the audience to the back of the auditorium.) It's a bottle. And in the bottle's a letter. And in the letter is written all the things a woman knows. It's never been told to any man and it's never been told to any woman, and if it finds its destination, a new time will come. We're not what books and plays say we are. We're not in the movies and we're not on the radio. We're not what you're all told and what you think we are. We're ourselves. And if any man can find one of us he'll learn why the whole universe was set in motion. And if any man harm one of us, his soul - the only soul he's got - had better be at the bottom of that ocean - and that's the only way to put it.
The Skin of Our Teeth, Act II
by Thornton Wilder
11/20/2008
11/19/2008
And Now For Something Exactly The Same
The day after a for-real no-shit migraine, I always feel like the dregs of a milkshake: tepid, watery, and pillaged. I used to think migraines were fake. I mean, how could a headache be that bad? I got throbby, long headaches, sure, and sensitivity to light and sound, but nausea and death wishes with a headache? Sounded like the flu to me, or like a drama ploy. Yesterday's migraine was unlike any I've had since the first one I ever had (or at least the first one I ever recognized). I even took a pregnancy test just to make sure because this was so, so intense and awful. (Not pregnant. Just a for-real no-shit migraine.)
KARMA: SHE IS A RAGING BITCH.
So yesterday as I was sitting on the couch just waiting to die, or possibly to start leaking brain tissue out my ears, I was reading one of the Sookie Stackhouse novels upon which the HBO show True Blood is based. (Oddly enough, reading doesn't bother me during a migraine.) (As long as I'm reading in silence and near-dark.) (Sitting upright so I don't yak onto the book.) As I've mentioned, I've been watching True Blood. In the last two weeks, I have read and re-read and re-re-re-read all eight of the books that have been published so far (of course, they're not exactly Thomas Pynchon) (and I do have antisocial inclinations, so plenty of time to read). The show is fun, but as is often the case, there's an extra layer of Special to the books because you get into all the secrets and details of these characters. The first season (which is over this week, OMFG) has been fairly faithful to the main character's storyline (and had to invent most of the secondary storylines, as the novels are narrated in the first person). The changes Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under) has made so far have been, in my opinion, mostly for the better, or at least for the neutral. Fun books, fun series, you get the point.
There's just one change that sticks in my craw.
In the books, the main character is described as variously a size 8 or 10. She's 5'6", buxom and blonde. Men (or, more accurately, vampires and shapeshifters and werewolves and men) worship her. Anna Paquin is, how shall we say, rather pixie-like compared to the literary description of Sookie Stackhouse. Now, I have nothing against Anna Paquin. Aside from the fact that I think she's a good actor and I find her characterization of Sookie pretty spot-on, she's a celebrity with whom I have things in common, so I'd even say I am predisposed to like her better than most. But she is not buxom. She is certainly not a size 8, or 10, or even 6. She looks fantabulous, but it's quite refreshing to read the books and imagine these all-powerful beings drooling over an average-sized gal.
Sookie's not the only female character who's been downsized, of course. Pretty much the only female characters' curves left unwhittled are the black characters, which... isn't that always how it is? Well, guess what, TV casting hierarchy? WHITE CHICKS GET TO HAVE CURVES TOO. So go suck on a stake.
Excuse me while I nurse myself back to health with copious amounts of cheese and chocolate. Yeah. That sounds like a good plan.
KARMA: SHE IS A RAGING BITCH.
So yesterday as I was sitting on the couch just waiting to die, or possibly to start leaking brain tissue out my ears, I was reading one of the Sookie Stackhouse novels upon which the HBO show True Blood is based. (Oddly enough, reading doesn't bother me during a migraine.) (As long as I'm reading in silence and near-dark.) (Sitting upright so I don't yak onto the book.) As I've mentioned, I've been watching True Blood. In the last two weeks, I have read and re-read and re-re-re-read all eight of the books that have been published so far (of course, they're not exactly Thomas Pynchon) (and I do have antisocial inclinations, so plenty of time to read). The show is fun, but as is often the case, there's an extra layer of Special to the books because you get into all the secrets and details of these characters. The first season (which is over this week, OMFG) has been fairly faithful to the main character's storyline (and had to invent most of the secondary storylines, as the novels are narrated in the first person). The changes Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under) has made so far have been, in my opinion, mostly for the better, or at least for the neutral. Fun books, fun series, you get the point.
There's just one change that sticks in my craw.
In the books, the main character is described as variously a size 8 or 10. She's 5'6", buxom and blonde. Men (or, more accurately, vampires and shapeshifters and werewolves and men) worship her. Anna Paquin is, how shall we say, rather pixie-like compared to the literary description of Sookie Stackhouse. Now, I have nothing against Anna Paquin. Aside from the fact that I think she's a good actor and I find her characterization of Sookie pretty spot-on, she's a celebrity with whom I have things in common, so I'd even say I am predisposed to like her better than most. But she is not buxom. She is certainly not a size 8, or 10, or even 6. She looks fantabulous, but it's quite refreshing to read the books and imagine these all-powerful beings drooling over an average-sized gal.
Sookie's not the only female character who's been downsized, of course. Pretty much the only female characters' curves left unwhittled are the black characters, which... isn't that always how it is? Well, guess what, TV casting hierarchy? WHITE CHICKS GET TO HAVE CURVES TOO. So go suck on a stake.
Excuse me while I nurse myself back to health with copious amounts of cheese and chocolate. Yeah. That sounds like a good plan.
find in:
eating disorder,
fricking crazy
10/21/2008
Kellogs Can Kiss My A$$
So, there's this Special K commercial out now which pictures a mom and her little son frosting a cake. Have you seen this commercial? I believe is it for this, but for the life of me, I can't find the commercial on Google video or Youtube or what have you, so you'll have to make do with some paraphrasing of the best bits. Oh. Here it is. I'm still too lazy to listen to it though. But believe me, I got the Message.
The gist is: Mom and kid are frosting a cake together in the evening. Mom eyes the leftover chocolate frosting in the bowl eagerly and is about to take a lick. Voiceover Lady helpfully narrates something about, "Now there's a snack that will let you indulge... without undoing your whole day!"
As you may have guessed (aren't you smart?), I take issue with that... er... lovely turn of phrase. "Undo your whole day?" Really? Licking one finger's worth of icing is going to "undo your whole day?" What if you're a photographer who just today learned that your work is going to be featured in the new issue of National Geographic? What if today you found out that you're pregnant with a years-in-the-making second kid? What if today you volunteered at the library for Story Hour? What if today you booked your family's first vacation in a year? What if you had an entire day of feeling rad about yourself?
One finger full of icing is going to undo your whole day? No. I don't think so. Commercials like this can kiss my ass.
The gist is: Mom and kid are frosting a cake together in the evening. Mom eyes the leftover chocolate frosting in the bowl eagerly and is about to take a lick. Voiceover Lady helpfully narrates something about, "Now there's a snack that will let you indulge... without undoing your whole day!"
As you may have guessed (aren't you smart?), I take issue with that... er... lovely turn of phrase. "Undo your whole day?" Really? Licking one finger's worth of icing is going to "undo your whole day?" What if you're a photographer who just today learned that your work is going to be featured in the new issue of National Geographic? What if today you found out that you're pregnant with a years-in-the-making second kid? What if today you volunteered at the library for Story Hour? What if today you booked your family's first vacation in a year? What if you had an entire day of feeling rad about yourself?
One finger full of icing is going to undo your whole day? No. I don't think so. Commercials like this can kiss my ass.
find in:
eating disorder,
feminism,
to opine or to STFU?
9/15/2008
Lungs and hips are equally overrated
Yesterday I had a panic attack so intense that my lips actually took on a slightly purple hue. (I wasn't breathing enough. Holding your breath and barely taking in oxygen will do that.) The real anxiety set in after I noticed this chromatic conundrum, meaning that any real "breathing" had stopped well before I even noticed the panic attack. This panic attack followed hard upon the heels of one from the previous day that was set off by something along the lines of a mess on the floor and husbands who don't know how to clean up the kitchen after they make lunch for themselves, good gravy. This afternoon I was struck with an ongoing wave of nausea so bizarre, coupled with a dull headachey feeling, that I was sure I was either pregnant (am not), or in the early throes of a Migraine of the Century (I wasn't). The nausea and headache were products of wait for it... a to-that-point-unidentified panic attack.
The only thing surer than panic attacks that come in little clusterfucks is this: Around these same days (usually, hem hem, hormonal ones) I cannot get over just how "fat" I am. I walk around avoiding reflective surfaces, entranced by the jiggle and the bounce. I stand or sit perfectly placidly, then suddenly realize that my skin must be literally about to pop open. I feel so intensely uncomfortable and disgusted.
I am never shocked, when I step on the crappy drugstore scale that hides under our bed, to see that the all-hallowed Number hasn't shot up. It's usually quite the same, if not a pound or two lower than it was a week previous (which is "the same" for all intents and purposes). Having been in the same five-pound swing zone for the past four and a half years, I know what's going to pop up on the digital display. Regardless of how accurate the scale's set point is (it weighs our ten-pound weights as 8.8, for example), the point is this: My weight does exactly it's supposed to. It stays basically the same. This is why we have a scale in the first place: So I can check in with reality from time to time to verify that I have not, in fact, gained or lost any weight (because the funhouse mirror can squeeze both ways).
It should be a given that, when I start getting these clusters of panic attacks, I must immediately stop looking in the mirror, just for a few days. I understand why the one event is comorbid, so to speak, with the other. My issue is that, hormones aside, I never see this coming, don't know what triggers these half-week-long episodes, and would prefer to REMEMBER for a change next month.
You know. So I can write "Breathe" and "Wear Sweats" and "Don't eat frosting right out of the can" on my To-Do list. Anyone want to send me an email about that in three weeks or so? That would be greeeat.
The only thing surer than panic attacks that come in little clusterfucks is this: Around these same days (usually, hem hem, hormonal ones) I cannot get over just how "fat" I am. I walk around avoiding reflective surfaces, entranced by the jiggle and the bounce. I stand or sit perfectly placidly, then suddenly realize that my skin must be literally about to pop open. I feel so intensely uncomfortable and disgusted.
I am never shocked, when I step on the crappy drugstore scale that hides under our bed, to see that the all-hallowed Number hasn't shot up. It's usually quite the same, if not a pound or two lower than it was a week previous (which is "the same" for all intents and purposes). Having been in the same five-pound swing zone for the past four and a half years, I know what's going to pop up on the digital display. Regardless of how accurate the scale's set point is (it weighs our ten-pound weights as 8.8, for example), the point is this: My weight does exactly it's supposed to. It stays basically the same. This is why we have a scale in the first place: So I can check in with reality from time to time to verify that I have not, in fact, gained or lost any weight (because the funhouse mirror can squeeze both ways).
It should be a given that, when I start getting these clusters of panic attacks, I must immediately stop looking in the mirror, just for a few days. I understand why the one event is comorbid, so to speak, with the other. My issue is that, hormones aside, I never see this coming, don't know what triggers these half-week-long episodes, and would prefer to REMEMBER for a change next month.
You know. So I can write "Breathe" and "Wear Sweats" and "Don't eat frosting right out of the can" on my To-Do list. Anyone want to send me an email about that in three weeks or so? That would be greeeat.
find in:
eating disorder,
fricking crazy
9/11/2008
This nothing's more than matter.
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
Downtown Manhattan
Peter Pan at Carl Schurz Park, East End Avenue and East 86th Street
Bethesda Fountain, Central Park at 72nd Street
Well, you know. As Jon Stewart said, you can't beat that view.
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
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