Leave the Christmas Tree Queen Alone!

CNN Headlines of the day:

• Robbers in drag steal $100 million in jewel heist
• Christmas tree queen told: "You're crazy"

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It's been a slowly day. I was interviewed by a girl doing a social-economics class about what it's like being an American in Belfast. It was more of a conversation, though, because whenever I'd say something then she'd tell me about her thoughts on it. And it lasted an hour longer than she said it would. Partly because she talked more than I did. Boring.

I finally saw the Christmas market in city center, which was full of delicious looking food. Santa was supposed to be there, but now I guess he's gone. My plan was/maybe still is to get a picture of him holding up a Christmas greeting to my secret Santa in the house, but now he's skated and I'm not sure where to find him. I guess he's up at the North Pole with the carpenter elves making presents. Like Bratz dolls.

Speaking of Bratz dolls, did you hear that Mattel won a lawsuit and now has the power to make them go away forever? Say what you will about Barbie (and there's plenty to say, the slag) but she's way better than those slutty little preteen freaks with their miniskirts and their excess cranial fluid. Of course, Mattel could just decide to manufacture Bratz on their own. Given how much money they make I wouldn't be surprised. But it would still depress me incredibly. That would mean Mattel would have a monopoly on unrealistic standards for little girls.

Worse than normal Bratz? Bratz Babyz.


Look at this little tramp. A bikini top, a coy little pose and a mouth like a blow-up doll and she can't be three years old. What is the world coming to? What are we teaching our babies?? Is our children learning??

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On a completely different topic, I started watching My So-Called Life this Friday. It's one of many shows that's been on my radar as a show I need to watch, but I know that when I do I'll get totally sucked in, so I've avoided it 'til I have time. Now that my heavy reading's over, I can indulge myself. Other shows like that: The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Wire, The Shield, Deadwood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks/Undeclared (which I watched some of when they were originally on, but were a little close for comfort at the time. I still get cred points, though) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (which was on a lot in the Bow household when I was really young, so I have fond memories of it. I'm curious if those hold up or, like all my other Star Trek reactions, I don't cotton to it).

Anyways, My So-Called Life is nothing short of amazing. As I told Maggie Duffy, I am not in high school anymore and I'm not a female (anymore?) but I still feel a high school girl inside of me reacting like this show defines her whole existence. If you were to split up my personality into stock characters (like a certain Robin Williams movie I've heard is on the horizon) one would be a pre-pubescent boy, one would be an old man and one would be a teenage girl - call her Bowtina (or Boesha). I'm not saying that's all I have going on in there (one's bound to be a 21-year-old male from Oregon) but they crop up a lot. Anyway, Bonica - who is probably the impetus for rebelling against Victorian novels and regressing back to middle school with Twilight when I get home - is totally in love with this show and lives in a blissful world where Jared Leto never got fat and made Chapter 27.
Also, it really reflects my memories of the '90s. Some shows from this same period - like Friends, which is constantly on here - reflect '90s pop-culture, but not actual life. The Friends characters never lived in a world that wasn't two or three disconnects away from reality (have you seen their apartments? And Joey's an actor!). Watching Friends only reminds me of what it was like to be in the '90s watching Friends. My So-Called Life is reminding me of what it was actually like to live then. Wowee wow wow. And I'm only one episode in (so maybe I'm jumping the gun with my praise a little bit).

In other media news, I watched the awful '80s slasher, Pieces today. It was record-setting bad. I wish someone else had been here to watch it with me, but nobody here likes real horror movies. They'll watch things like Saw, which is like saying you like rock music because you listen to Hinder - it doesn't count.
The best scene in Pieces posted below. Please click for an Oscar-worthy performance by a woman playing a tennis-pro/detective(?) She's just discovered the body of another tennis star (topless, naturally) cut up in the locker room (by a chainsaw, naturally).



I also have to watch the BBC version of Tipping the Velvet, which should be interesting. I'm not sure how the censors would even approach a story about cross-dressing homosexual vaudevillian prostitutes. I mean, even the title is a euphemism for cunnilingus! So what I'm really saying is that I was basically assigned to read a book and watch a 3-hour adaptation called Cunnilingus.
I've been imagining what euphemisms possible sequels would have for titles and trying to make up my own. All of them are gross and none are funny enough to repeat here. I like to imagine that, had the book been written using slang from American Victorian culture rather than British it would be called something like Pussy Lickin', which would undoubtedly sell books. Or some made up slang, like Jazzin' the Cat or Washing the Dishes.
What is wrong with me?

The BFP turns me into a bearded clam

CNN headlines of the day:
"'Help me!' woman yells, then car explodes,"
"'Power Ranger' could face death in yacht killings," and
"Skinny dipper invades Imperial Palace moat" ("Man splashed, threw rocks at police who pursued him in boat... Palace official says its unlikely emperor saw nude swimmer")

So I finally finished The Cranford Chronicles (or 2/3 of it, which is all I hope I need to read) and I feel like I've been sipping tea with old ladies forever. It was a good book, but not what you'd call a page-turner; the conflicts are small and there are no villains - it's just a big, warm-hearted slice of aging Victorian elegance.
Fuck that. Now I'm reading Tipping the Velvet, which is all about oyster-shucking boy-ladies who get it on. Though it's about the late 1800s, it's the only modern book I'm reading this term (I don't think many Victorian novelists wrote about cross-dressing lesbians) and it shows. What an easy read! And not just because of all the hot, seafood euphemisms (did you know the 'bearded clam' is actually a seafood dish?).

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I also got the second Bennington Free Press in the mail today, courtesy of Laurie Kobick. I'm hesitant to write anything here that someone who writes for it might read (though how many people are reading this? Three?) so I'll be democratic and state my likes with my dislikes:

• I'm glad people at Bennington care about current affairs (pro). I'm pretty sure that we're all a tiny bit plugged into politics at the moment. But honestly, BFP, honestly you are the last place I'd ever go for news (con). Even if the writing was outstanding, why would I wait for Henry Lyon to inform me about the financial crisis (in a misspelled front page bulletin, no less) when there are hundreds of sources like CNN, The New York Times and even the fucking OregonianBFP - one Before the End of the World is enough. at my fingertips. The mind boggles! Come on I am interested in reading students' opinion-pieces about current events. Those are unique and something I can't get anywhere else, but I don't need the BFP informing me that the presidential debate was held; the world knows.

Ok, so I said I'd try not to be a bitch, but the above paragraph is pretty bitchy. Let's move on and try and keep it sweet:

• There's a tribute to Archie (pro) - along with Dave, the most lovable security guard of all. He will be sorely, sorely missed. A fourth of the tribute is really about Sarah McAbee - the second time she's been mentioned in the two BFP's this year (con).

• Someone's taken over Dee's baking column (with the nice title "Baking with Faith") (pro). It begins by suggesting that people of our generation don't know who Gene Kelly is (con). Faith, you go to Bennington - we know.

This next bit might get a little cunty:

• Connie Panzariello '12 serves up the requisite Freshman article about how new and exciting and quirky Bennington is and how we're all going to be friends because Bennington is unlike anywhere in the world!

"A Freshman Perspective On Bennington:
I like to think of my first night at Bennington as what will probably be a metaphor for my entire college experience here. At the student center, there was this drum dance. That's really the only way to describe it; only it wasn't exactly a dance in the traditional high school vein. In fact, most of my high school population would have run out faster than you could say the words, had they been there. I had my doubts as well, until I just stood there and watched for a little while. Everyone was dancing, or moving their body to the rhythm. They didn't care about how they looked or what anyone thought about them, they just did it. And after several minutes of inital 'Oh my god, what am I doing here?' thoughts - I joined in.

Oh God, Connie Panzariello '12, gag me with a spoon. (Dear Connie Panzariello '12, if you're reading this, I'm sorry). Some things:

1. Your high school population would have run faster than you could say what words?
2. Those people you saw dancing - they cared about how they looked and what people thought of them. And/or they were high.
3. This is not a metaphor for your college experience. I don't even know if it's really a metaphor... I think it's just a memory.
   

Connie then says she's on a path to self-discovery. It goes on:

I liken it to the proverbial falling without a parachute; only, it's not like you forgot the parachute; it simply does not exist. Before, at home, you probably had your parents, your best friend, and your dog, to fall on. Here you have yourself and about 231 people who are in the same exact plane as you are, but alas, they don't have parachutes either.

Connie, if falling without a parachute is a proverb at all it is one to warn against poor planning and stupidity. Also, it almost certainly ends in death. Are you saying that the freshman class has made a collective stupid decision to go to Bennington and they will all die? Also, who falls on their dog?

It's hard trying to figure out where you stand, how you stand or if you should even be standing there in the first place. Yet, I think the beauty of this place is that no one is going to tell you; you have to figure it out yourself.

Ah yes, the beauty of Bennington. I can see Connie now, five or six months down the road; she is wearing big sunglasses and chain-smoking a hangover away, complaining that nobody knows what they're doing here and that the dances all suck. It's too late to go to Bard, Connie - your credits won't transfer! (con)

Back on track:

• Big Guy/Little Guy. What the fuck? I mean seriously. (con)

• Eileen Scully's brother wrote Sarah Palin's creepy speech at the RNC? (con) Thank you, the skinny, this is exactly the type of interesting information the BFP should be giving me (pro).

• Danny Brylow's thoughtful piece on Nick Brooke's awesome Time and Motion Study (pro).

• Paul Newman's in the paper (pro)! It's cause he's dead (con).

• Zack Franklin's Lucky Strikes graphs. Does this really need to take up half a page? Is there any logic behind any of this? Also, Zack Franklin, did you ever make a graph in school? (con)

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That was exhausting. It's like four years of anti-BFP aggression just rushed out of me. Is anyone still with me? Did that get too ugly? Why am I not reading about lesbians right now?