Barbie — so perfect, even at 50!

Slate is running a video ad for the Barbie Doll. I had the ones on the first page. Still do. My daughter still has hers, I believe, though the pink plastic vans and picnic tables and motorcycles went the way of the secret yard sale.

We played girl games, forged our fashion insight, and pretended to be adults with our adult character dolls — a new thing for the times. And though she is often maligned by feminists for the unrealistic, intimidating role model she presents, Barbie has not lost her appeal whether she’s Nurse Barbie or Soccer Barbie.

The ad makes the case that Barbie has been, if little else, adaptable. Time offers a more detailed, if less edgy, survey of Barbiedom. Enjpy the ride through history.

Troy Patterson writes about Ken in “Boy Toy.”   I had the Ken doll, too, but he disappeared.

Pound cake

I have the whole menu planned except for dessert. What would you like?

Me?

You.

Anything?

Your choice.

Hmmmm. Okay — pound cake.

Pound cake?

You know, like that one my mother made.

I don’t think pound cake would be good.

Why not?

Because it’s Christmas.  Pound cake is an everyday dessert.

We don’t have it every day. You haven’t made it in six years.

It’s common . We should do something special. It’s Christmas. What about pecan pie?

Pecan pie? Why are nuts, syrup, sugar and, I guess, eggs, tossed together so special?

Because pecans are five dollars a pound. We don’t eat pecans every day, so they’re special. What about Red Velvet Cake?

I don’t like Red Velvet Cake.

Yes, you do. You always eat it when people have it.

That’s because there’s no pound cake.

Fine. I’ll toss the ham and asparagus and fry up some chicken and make macaroni and cheese.

You asked.

I did.                 Okay.  Pound cake. With chocolate ganache and raspberry coolee.  It’s Christmas.

Family: We’ve decided to pull her out

My third wife’s stepdaughter, who now lives here with us, is in love with a boy in her class. Normally we would have no problem with that, neither of us being beginners when  it comes to affairs de coeur, but we are taking her out of school and homeschooling her. Relatives are against it, claiming it will stunt her growth socially, but she seems to be developed enough socially for a sixteen year old to me. And we can only do so many massages in a day, not enough to pay for a private school.

The problem is the boy. Get this: he’s a vampire!  I said it first, I said this will come back to bite us just you wait. These public schools are breeding grounds for trouble and confusion. Integration! Government says they have a right to be there. In the old days all you had to deal with was races and we got used to that quick enough. Heck, Destiny’s mom is black, so that shows how open minded I am.  But a stinking blood-sucker like that — off limits, Missy!

Of course, he’s handsome (the wife says) and he’s smart and maybe we should let it go instead of forcing them into each others’ arms. (Sometimes I wonder about her.)

No. We will not back down on this one. The boy, Nathaniel, claims, as they all do, that he won’t hurt her, that he only sucks animal blood. Now that’s attractive, right?  We know how long that will last anyway.

And what about his powers? He can fly. He can be invisible and be a shape-shifter to boot. Imagine a spouse capable of sneaking around like that!  And if she should get tired of him like the women in this family tend to do, what man can follow an act like his? And what about when he gets bored with her? No one will believe she hasn’t been bitten a few times and who wants a wife that’s gonna live on forever after he’s gone — like being a temp or something?

You send your kid to school for an education and she comes home in love with a vampire. So Bonnell and I will just do the job ourselves. You don’t learn that much in high school anyway. There’s something wrong with the system when a kid don’t know what normal is and his school don’t either.

In brief — recent films and books

Quantum of Solace — James Bond makes us feel good.  The wit, the intellect, the savior faire, ok, the looks, we want to kick back and watch the master spy outsmart and therefore outdo all comers. We like the fact that he excels in both planning and execution. He likes his job. He is loyal to M and to England. We want to be him. Or one of the hers. We are in good hands. Daniel Craig has all of the above, but there are detrators: his motive is revenge, a rather low-life motivator. He is too morose. Lighten up, newest Bond! You can be intense and enjoy yourself at the same time. I missed the smile. Twice.

Australia — This three-hour flick begins slowly as it attempts epic grandeur in visuals and character. But even by the end we aren’t in love with Kidman or Jackman, the protagonists. Their story is a repeat of so many good westerns: “We gotta move them cattle across this plain despite the evil cattle baron/governor so we can get ‘em to market and keep the ranch.”  They succeed with the help of two aborigines, who are the best part of the film: the young orphaned boy (a scene-stealer for sure) and his National Geographic looking grandfather — ah, the wiles and ways of the Noble Savage!  The film goes for broke throwing in the Japanese bombing of Darwin and the tearful rescue of the mission where young, indigenous children live.  It has the feel of  studio films of the forties. Bring tissue.

Four Christmases — Besides our party of four, three other people sat there and laughed out loud at Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, and their four goofy families — result of divorces all around. Each family must be visited, albeit reluctantly, since it’s Christmas.

I knew the headliners, but didn’t expect to meet the top-shelf cast: Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Cissy Spacek, Mary Steenbergan, Dwight Yokam, and Christen Chenowith.  Duvall’s house is the low-end family where the pregnant daughter-in-law, babe in arms, prepares the last “layer” of Dorritos for the Christmas dinner casserole. Steenbergen is Witherspoon’s mom, a “cougar” who is dating the charismatic preacher, who needs a Mary and Joseph for the church play — extempore. Vaughn hams it up. Voight is Witherspoon’s remarried father, a well-to-do bunch and the most nearly normal — the reflective time. Spacek is Vaughn’s real mother, currently married to Vaughn’s childhood best friend. Hilarity results as the y attempt to play Taboo — family trying to manufacture good times , memories, and tradition the hard way. Hopefully you won’t find any of the households too close to home!

There’s some crude humor from family members. It ends well, as Christmas comedy should.

Books –

Selections — I bought a used copy of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poetry (1927), the edition for which she personally chose the selections. An important female American poet, she addresses the anxiety of the between the wars generation, all the anxiety and some of the disappointment in the new “freedoms” of modern life minus the shackles of religious faith, though she acknowledges God in one of my favorite sonnets, “God’s World.”  She authored the “Fig” poems about which I have an earlier post.

Twilight — This blockbuster is a mass-market, non-challenging  adolescent romance between a high school senior and a vampire in her class.  (Do you know your kid’s lab partner?) The novel has all the characteristics of adult genre formula fiction in which one can skip several pages without effect except to expedite reaching the end of the thing quicker.  On a positive note as affirmed to me by someone as I sugggested that vampires might not be a suitable topic for thirteen year olds, “Well, good grief, this family doesn’t suck human blood– only ANIMAL BLOOD.”  And I have to aadmit, Edward is a very nice vampire for a paranormal, bloodsucking hero. Feel better?

More on The Shack

The Shack is a runaway best-seller. What to make of that?

Garrett has written worthwhile commentary on The Shack and, in addition, on literary criticism. He also includes links to sites that also review the novel or critique literature in general. I’ve posted my comments for him here.

http://golfsierra.org/blog/?p=57#comment-1786

An earlier post I wrote on The Shack, mainly its interesting publication history

Post from last Thanksgiving on literary classics

 Post I did on “The Canon” of literature

That’s what little boys are made of

“Snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails.”  Funny how after all these centuries, the pile of psychology texts, sundry coursework, and a highly visual media, not to mention observation and experience, we still don’t have it straight. A mystery.

Masculinity, God bless it, has been defined in art, sculpture, and music and particularly in literature. Hamlet asks “What is a man?” The answer lists such qualities as the “paragon of animals,” “quintessence of dust,” and “beauty of the world.” Remember that this is Shakespeare, uber-Westerner, as he adds “how noble in reason,” “how infinite in faculty,” and “in form and moving how express and admirable.” Amen. Michelangelo’s David comes to mind.

So why did all this wonderment come under attack, not only individual men, who were targeted as chauvinistic or barbaric, but masculinity itself?

During various waves of feminisim, mostly during the 1970’s, we sought to change our men and do it by retraining (nagging) the old ones and indoctrinating the young ones. Textbooks, restrooms, documents, hobbies, courses, and so on became gender neutral. What used to be a pleasant concept became Fighting Territory.

Most of the focus was on boys. Make them more feminine, more like us, their mothers and female partners. Soften them up a little. They could still wear slacks and oxfords and short hair, but their attitude and manner would be kinder and gentler. They need not be ashamed if hunting and fishing, tinkering and building, didn’t appeal. Sew, shop, play with dolls, and wear pink, we said.

And they did. But many don’t like the results these four decades later. The Metro leaves many men and women a little nervous. Maybe we tampered with what we should have left alone. Social/sex engineering might not have been needed after all. Perhaps sex is more innate than superficial. Maybe boys and girls could figure it all out on their own. They still seem to gravitate in each others’ direction eventually. Might even be more fun than being told.

This gender revolution and its resulting discontent has spawned advice books, blogs, and articles on both sides. But the back to “male’ movement drives on. Examples are the British bestseller, The Dangerous Book for Boys, with its thesis that a sedentary, gaming boy needs fixing with activities such as paper airplanes, skipping stones, and King of the Hill.  Not everyone agrees as the linked article affirms.

A fun and useful website that I ran across months ago does the same thing for big boys, like the one you married. Or date.  The Art of Manliness offers advice and thoughtful commentary on grooming, debating politics, manners, vocabulary, health, sports, virtuous living, and money. There’s a book or two including the FREE Being a Gentleman in 2008.  Men can learn to tie a pocket square or shine their shoes “like a soldier.” They might be interested in the eight virtues of a samurai or how to land a plane in an emergency. Oh and there’s how to ask for a raise “like a man,” start a fire, and jump start car. Not bad for free.

In the Cary Grant movie, Father Goose, Grant, a grumpy, malcontented bachelor must share his island with eight marooned English school girls and their teacher, who refer to him only as “the filthy beast.” He refers to the teacher as “Goody Two Shoes.” That pretty much says it all.

But somewhere there is a happy medium — somewhere between men in tights and men who only speak in grunts and who couldn’t begin to wear a pullover, one not blue or gray. Somewhere between Grecian formula and Conan there is something closer to Shakespeare’s definition — the Renaissance Man.  Beat a rival in a sword fight and write you a sonnet after.

For sure, the scientific method makes for entertaining research: observe, form a hypothesis, and test, test, test away. Then you get to retest. I hope we end up with a theory with all the certainty of the origin of the universe or the details of the afterlife.

A few quotations:

Stop?  I’m the guy.  I don’t stop!  That’s the woman’s job.  We’re the gas, they’re the brakes.  ~Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, EDtv, 1999

The hardest task in a girl’s life is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious.  ~Helen Rowland

Many a man owes his success to his first wife, and his second wife to his success.  ~Jim Backus

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other.  Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.  ~Katharine Hepburn

Part of the reason that men seem so much less loving than women is that men’s behavior is measured with a feminine ruler.  ~Francesca M. Cancian

There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper.  ~Camille Paglia

He is every other inch a gentleman.  ~Rebecca West

On the one hand, we’ll never experience childbirth.  On the other hand, we can open all our own jars.  ~Bruce Willis, on the difference between men and women

<!–, Morrow’s International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations, ed. Jonathon Green, 1982; CTO–>

“spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” Wordsworth

Here’s to the dads who stayed
 – to the dads who played
(so tired !)
who needed sleep but could keep on
building or singing or drawing.
Here’s to the dads who prayed.

Here’s to the dads who read
– to the dads who said
books were good
and that we should
read and think and wonder.
Here’s to the dads who led.

Here’s to the men who loved
– who kept a roof above
our thick heads instead of
moving on to greener things –
foreign fruits and such.
Here’s to the men we love.

Sunscreen: More than skin deep

A definite low-point in my life was the time my doctor announced that the mole was malignant melanoma. He had scooped off and dropped into a jar my lovely inner-thigh mole, all the while declaring that it looked fine and was probably nothing. Just a precaution. That was years ago, and while melanoma is extremely virulent, my chances for survival are excellent. Who knows?

Any way, I had to make some adjustments since my favorite place is the ocean and my sport is tennis. I wear sunscreen and visors and stay out of the sun when I can. 

I learned some things. Did you know that “mela” is Greek for “black?” And that a current cancer didn’t happen last week. It was those summers on the beach when I blistered up at the age of eight or nine and on. Apparently we weren’t designed to go around half naked for hours having fun in the sun. Nobody knew. Also, candidate John McCain had it a few years back –lots of Arizona sun, I guess.

So I was interested in the March ‘08 report from the CDC on how MOST sunscreens are damaging to the skin, the hormones, birth weight, and more. Bad news. Everyone tested had the insidious chemical oxybenzone in his urine. This also involves make-up and moisturizer that contain sunscreen.  Children are particularly vulnerable.

Solution? Capitalism will ensure that safe products abound shortly as people become informed. For now, my research shows that products using the old zinc oxide/titanium dioxide formula are the ones to choose. I did not see a single usable product at my local drugstore chain. I bought Neutrogena Sensitive Skin 30 at the grocery store, and it seems to be alright. It was $10.00 for FOUR OUNCES!

Some online sources are on top of this and have products available, but I was in a hurry.

Here’s more about the report http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-zorn-09-may09,1,615350.column

Wondering about a mole? Here are pictures and a measuring guide  http://www.skincancerguide.ca/melanoma/images/melanoma_images.html

The Longest Day

My husband loves to talk about battles — military, not so much personal. So today he sat shirtless, ready to mow grass, while I read aloud from a fact sheet on June 6 — Operation Overlord — D Day.

It’s an interesting historical study. More importantly, it does us good, I think, to reflect and remember the great purposes of our nation — times when we united because we had to — or be destroyed along with our allies in the world.

We should be sure that our history teachers are including some time about this event in their classes: something about the horrors of the Holocaust, Nazi ideology, and evil totalitarian leaders and their regimes.

And I would hope that teachers and parents emphasize what had to be done to stop the progress of ideas that are bad for humanity, that threaten human dignity and freedom.

And that brings us to the individuals who landed on those beaches on that inclement day charging an open beach with a fiercely determined enemy armed and looking on from high cliffs. What courage that took. I for one want to add this brief memory in thanks for their sacrifice in accomplishing this, not ideal, but successful mission.

John Stuart Mill:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

a few links

http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html Capa photos — a photographer who landed with the troops and his work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/3779127.stm from the BBC — video with Prince Charles watching a reinactment, plus linked interviews with veterans who report on the carnage among other things

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLjEKKvV78s YouTube — more photos with stirring music — 1:59

http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/dday/ddaypage.html – the Eisenhour archives, lots of info and links

Interview with a vampire reader

Chastened for criticizing a novel I had not read, I set out to read said novel, Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, and thus be able to discuss it from an informed point of view. ((See my post s on must reads and/or what constitutes a literary classic along with the comments.)

I’ll start with a positive. Rice is a good raconteur. Her narrative style is the right blend of dialogue, narration, and description. The disturbed, repellent characters are depicted in great detail and carefully drawn. Places, too, are vividly portrayed.

I’m forcing myself to finish the book. The subject matter is lurid and objectionable, dark and macabre. But this isn’t just a ghost story. Its insidious side is evinced in that the vampires are attractive, naturally, and the act of sucking blood is depicted as highly sensual — the ultimate experience.  That’s disgusting and for me offensive. Descriptive tales of how a person is tracked down and drained of his life blood, often with great pleasure in a spirit of fun, is reprehensible and appeals, as does such prurient literature to the basest nature. 

I’ve read 200 pages and I can’t find anything to take away from the book, nothing here enriches, elevates, informs, or pleases. It’s like falling deeper and deeper into a dark bottomless hole. What is Rice’s purpose?

I’m waiting to read any criticism until after I’ve finished, sometime Monday maybe. I’ve been told that there is heavy-duty philosophy here and perhaps I’ll find it in those remaining 150 pages.