Achievement in Music: Robyn
Oh man, remember Robyn? Back in like grade seven, when she had that single and she was blonde and Swedish and then she sort of, uh, disappeared? I have a soft spot for one-hit wonders, specifically internationally successful artists who occasionally break through to North American listeners. Chumbawamba? Primo example. We were all "I get knocked down! I get up again! This....this is basically a drinks menu! Awesome!" for a summer, and then they disappeared back into their European hole, back to being anarcho-punks with serious lefty leanings that weren't easier conveyed to radio listeners.
Robyn hasn't gotten serious press since '95, but last year she came out with a blistering triad of synth-dance albums that were an experiment in post-Napster album production. She released acoustic versions of dance songs she hadn't written yet, collaborated with Snoop Dogg and Royksopp, and sort of came back. The culmination album, 2010's Body Talk, is ridiculously good. I mean, dancefloor jams aren't for everyone, but for folks who like their sugar with synth and 808s, it will rock you.
I especially dig the fact that she got experimental with her album structure. In the pop music world, it's rare that we're allowed a glimpse behind the production curtain. Can you imagine Britney releasing her works in progress? Her albums, even if they're released to mixed reviews, are touched by the hands of a thousand producers and a million tweaks, all before fans get their hands on the finished product. Robyn was like, "Ehhhh...eff that. I'm not perfect. Some of these songs will be better as acoustic jams, and some will rock the dancefloor. I'll take it as it comes." Love that! It speaks to a vulnerability, a willingness to be imperfect, that is extremely rare in pop music. The most we're usually offered is an acoustic outtake of a pop princess in sweats, tickling the ivories in an unconvincing bid to show us they are the authors of their own successes, instead of an army of A+R, marketing, production and support people.
Anyone who can release a song with the lyrics, "We dance to the beat of a million bad kissers with clicking teeth" is aces in my books. Her songs are funny, making pop culture references (Deloreans!) while still retaining the nuttiness of an actual honest emotional expression. I know pop music can be personal, but when Robyn belts out the instructional chorus to "Call Your Girlfriend," I get the sense that homegirl might have been there.
Best of all, the video for the hit "Dancing On My Own" is unabashedly angry, which is terribly cool to me. I feel like women in the entertainment industry rarely give themselves permission to express rage, much less through dance. She has fucked-up snaggle teeth and a deconstructed soccer-mom hairdo. I love it. I love that she is honestly human in an industry that does its best to present the world in glossy three-minute chunks. I love that she embraces her damage instead of denying it. I admire her for trying her things, for sticking to her roots, and for expressing herself in a medium that usually only expresses a love for the dancefloor. Tack så mycket, Robyn.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Best of Women: Fashion! Yipee! Sparkles!
Achievement in Fashion Design: Rodarte / Kate and Laura Mulleavy
All right, I'll cop to the fact that leading these awards with a couple of fashion designers is a little like attending the Vegetarian Food Fair with a steak in my purse. But: how many other female fashion designers can you think of? Betsy Johnson? Um...Donatella Versace? For an industry that is dominated by images of women, there are precious few broads in a position of authority. It seems to be all dudes and skinny fifteen year old Ukrainian girls.
In any case, the Mulleavy sisters are the creative team behind Rodarte. In the past few years, they've created a collection based on the vulture, outfitted the dancers in Black Swan, and been pressured to lose weight by Vogue. Their aesthetic isn't slutty or glitzy (Donatella), but rather pretty and textured. They aren't afraid to go a little weird (see: vultures) and yet they still look at the women wearing their clothes as women, not as hangers or cardboard cutouts.
It's no secret that fashion objectifies women, turning them into commodities used as a prop to sell the clothes. Rarely does a strong female force emerge, and when it does, it tends to be a novelty rather than an actual shift in power. There was the much-lauded "Age of the Supermodel," a decade or so of singular names (Naomi, Cindy, Linda, etc.) who were considered huge assets. But...to who? The fashion houses that used their images to sell their product? The magazines that put them on the cover so that their issues would move? They made millions of dollars, yes, but you would be hard-pressed to figure out how they raked it in while today's models are interchangeable alien heads with stick bodies.
In fashion, women tend to be relegated to the sidelines - quick, name me one prominent fashion photographer who could also give birth? Or a designer who isn't also a model-actress hyphenate? We have Vogue's indomitable Anna Wintour, but even she does her damnedest to propogate the image of sylph-like teenagers as the sole vision of acceptable beauty. Her annual "Shape" issue is a parody of real-life bodily diversity: the variations run the gamut from "thin" to "petite" to "short" to, um, "pregnant." Like, what?
Fashion is frivolous, sure, but everybody wears clothes. We choose our looks based on how we want to present ourselves to the world - sexy cowgirl? Prim and proper? Slightly depressed? - and even though most of us can't afford/aren't interested in the highest-end fashion, its influence trickles down to what we put on our bodies every day. We receive so many cues about bodies, about sexuality, about socioeconomic status, about youth, from the clothes we wear and see others wearing.
So when I see a pair of sisters creating beautiful, interesting, challenging clothes, it's a good thing. I like their weirdness. I admire their unwillingness to compromise. Most of all, I adore that, despite the fact that they are simultaneously successful and so outside the box.
All right, I'll cop to the fact that leading these awards with a couple of fashion designers is a little like attending the Vegetarian Food Fair with a steak in my purse. But: how many other female fashion designers can you think of? Betsy Johnson? Um...Donatella Versace? For an industry that is dominated by images of women, there are precious few broads in a position of authority. It seems to be all dudes and skinny fifteen year old Ukrainian girls.
In any case, the Mulleavy sisters are the creative team behind Rodarte. In the past few years, they've created a collection based on the vulture, outfitted the dancers in Black Swan, and been pressured to lose weight by Vogue. Their aesthetic isn't slutty or glitzy (Donatella), but rather pretty and textured. They aren't afraid to go a little weird (see: vultures) and yet they still look at the women wearing their clothes as women, not as hangers or cardboard cutouts.
It's no secret that fashion objectifies women, turning them into commodities used as a prop to sell the clothes. Rarely does a strong female force emerge, and when it does, it tends to be a novelty rather than an actual shift in power. There was the much-lauded "Age of the Supermodel," a decade or so of singular names (Naomi, Cindy, Linda, etc.) who were considered huge assets. But...to who? The fashion houses that used their images to sell their product? The magazines that put them on the cover so that their issues would move? They made millions of dollars, yes, but you would be hard-pressed to figure out how they raked it in while today's models are interchangeable alien heads with stick bodies.
In fashion, women tend to be relegated to the sidelines - quick, name me one prominent fashion photographer who could also give birth? Or a designer who isn't also a model-actress hyphenate? We have Vogue's indomitable Anna Wintour, but even she does her damnedest to propogate the image of sylph-like teenagers as the sole vision of acceptable beauty. Her annual "Shape" issue is a parody of real-life bodily diversity: the variations run the gamut from "thin" to "petite" to "short" to, um, "pregnant." Like, what?
Fashion is frivolous, sure, but everybody wears clothes. We choose our looks based on how we want to present ourselves to the world - sexy cowgirl? Prim and proper? Slightly depressed? - and even though most of us can't afford/aren't interested in the highest-end fashion, its influence trickles down to what we put on our bodies every day. We receive so many cues about bodies, about sexuality, about socioeconomic status, about youth, from the clothes we wear and see others wearing.
So when I see a pair of sisters creating beautiful, interesting, challenging clothes, it's a good thing. I like their weirdness. I admire their unwillingness to compromise. Most of all, I adore that, despite the fact that they are simultaneously successful and so outside the box.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sisters Are Doing It For Each Other
I've written before about weird women, and my terrifyingly awesome female friends, and girl crushes, and all many of girl/women-related hoo-ha. This website is virtually awash in estrogen, just streaming through the intertubes in an attempt to girly up the cybernauts (or something?). Unlike the internet's collective spazz attack about Wired's first-ever cover girl, I'm totally down with women on the web. Remember Dot from Reboot (that show was indisputably bad-ass, by the way)? Like that, but less green.
Last week I stumbled on some girl's blog entry from 2006 detailing all her heroines, a concept that I'm super enamored with...except her girl heroes were all models and actresses. No female fashion designers, no lady writers, no powerful CEOesses. I know that a certain young-women demographic are more likely to be into Sofia Coppola than Sofia Kovalevskaya, which is a legitimate stance to be taking and I'm not judging or anything. But the fact that most of the famous women out there are lauded because they're pretty or do interesting things in front of a camera is kind of sucky.
In the spirit of expanding that which women can be considered awesome for, I propose the inaugural Kaitlyn Kochany Awards for Lady Awesomeness. Aiming to explode the categories in which women are usually celebrated - being professionally good-looking - I'd venture forth with a series of other, less usual categories. What do these women win? A healthy admiration from yours truly and, if they ever come to Toronto, a burger and beer from a bistro of their choice. Who could say no to that?!
So over the next few weeks, I'll be lauding the ladies I feel are leading the way for a new generation of creative types. The writers and fashion designers, the politicas and the producers, the drag queens and activists. I'll try to avoid the women who've risen to fame through the deeds of their husbands/lovers - no Jessica Seinfelds, thanks. Maybe some women in the entertainment industry, because hey - we're all basically obsessed with that anyway! But there are plenty of women who create nuggets of pop culture who can retain their sense of integrity.
Join me as a I walk their streets, read their blog posts, and ignore the models and "actresses" who make their living pimping out the female form without doing anything to advance a woman's mind. As the song says, sisters are doing it for themselves - so let's toss our bras in the air, light our Capri cigarettes, and dance til we get gray hairs.
Last week I stumbled on some girl's blog entry from 2006 detailing all her heroines, a concept that I'm super enamored with...except her girl heroes were all models and actresses. No female fashion designers, no lady writers, no powerful CEOesses. I know that a certain young-women demographic are more likely to be into Sofia Coppola than Sofia Kovalevskaya, which is a legitimate stance to be taking and I'm not judging or anything. But the fact that most of the famous women out there are lauded because they're pretty or do interesting things in front of a camera is kind of sucky.
In the spirit of expanding that which women can be considered awesome for, I propose the inaugural Kaitlyn Kochany Awards for Lady Awesomeness. Aiming to explode the categories in which women are usually celebrated - being professionally good-looking - I'd venture forth with a series of other, less usual categories. What do these women win? A healthy admiration from yours truly and, if they ever come to Toronto, a burger and beer from a bistro of their choice. Who could say no to that?!
So over the next few weeks, I'll be lauding the ladies I feel are leading the way for a new generation of creative types. The writers and fashion designers, the politicas and the producers, the drag queens and activists. I'll try to avoid the women who've risen to fame through the deeds of their husbands/lovers - no Jessica Seinfelds, thanks. Maybe some women in the entertainment industry, because hey - we're all basically obsessed with that anyway! But there are plenty of women who create nuggets of pop culture who can retain their sense of integrity.
Join me as a I walk their streets, read their blog posts, and ignore the models and "actresses" who make their living pimping out the female form without doing anything to advance a woman's mind. As the song says, sisters are doing it for themselves - so let's toss our bras in the air, light our Capri cigarettes, and dance til we get gray hairs.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Take The Car
8:19: Leave the house. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm running a little late, but I woke up with yesterday's staff-meeting reprimand about using the internet for personal reasons still ringing in my ears, and I'm feeling a little blue. Right before I leave, I open the blinds to find a winter wonderland outside. It is, of course, March 23 and spring should have sprung by now, dudes.
8:26: Arrive at Spadina station to find that both token machines are out of order. The guy in front of me managed to jam it with his super-muscular toonie, and of course it's one of, like, three platforms in the entire system with no man in a box to distractedly give change. I leave in a huff.
8:27: I am, like, jogging to the next station over, which happens to be the main entrance to Spadina. It's only a few minutes away, but I'm seething. It's snowing so hard, I can barely see the other side of the road, and cars are trying to deal with roads that offer about as much traction as a slip-'n'-slide. It's safe to say that nobody is in a good mood right now.
8:33: Arrive at Spadina station and tell the man in the box that the machines at the North entrance are busted. He literally says, "Yeah, that's a pain in the ass, isn't it?" in a commiserating tone of voice. I'm like, YEAH IT IS and am tempted to ask for a free fare, but have been frowning for the last twenty minutes and my flirt/cute mode is totally not coming out to play.
8:36: Taking the other entrance actually means I have to switch trains, which, during a snowstorm and in rush hour, is about as appealing as touching the third rail. The first train whooshes into the station, the people get off, and then the conductor just closes the doors. There are people literally clawing their way in through the sliding doors for almost a full minute. I'm not sure why the driver thought that was a good idea, but my heart is racing. It's like watching people fistfight a train.
8:40: Get on the effing train, along with 3000 other people. I usually adore the TTC, because I think transit is important and belongs in urban centers, but right now, I'm just about ready to burn this mother to the ground. I mean, if it's possible to do that, since we're already underground...?
8:47: Arrive at Osgoode station. The stairs to street level are conveniently made of tile; in the snow, they become a scary death mountain. I am gripping the handrail and wondering why they don't install that weird grippy step business that's everywhere on, like, playgrounds and construction sites.
8:48: At the streetcar stop, I'm shifting my weight from one foot to the next in an attempt to stay warm. I'm failing. The guy next to me with the six (!! Also, I am officially an old person) facial piercings has perfected his thousand-yard stare to the point where I'm fairly sure he can see Brampton. I begin to wonder how people do this day in, day out: I was riding my bike last week, and while that comes with its own set of challenges, there isn't this sense of grinding terribleness. Everything about the TTC is delays and setbacks, zero communication and nonsensical procedures. I am, of course, in a terrible mood, but it occurs to me that the TTC needs so much in the way of improvement.
For example, in DC, the system uses a fare protocol that charges you based on the distance traveled. Go one stop? You pay, like, 80 cents. Riding to the end of the line will cost you more, but them's the breaks. The MTA in New York has a refillable metropass that allows its users to put on as much or as little money as they can afford, and doesn't expire within a certain timeframe (what up, monthly pass?) San Fransisco's transit system features the BART, which folds the outlying suburbs closer to the downtown core and costs less than a Toronto burrito.
I know it's become somewhat fashionable to pick on the TTC, but man, it's hard to enjoy yourself on that system. The stations are uniformly ugly, the coverage is spotty, the debates about where service should be pushed to are annoying, and it's expensive, both on the clock and the wallet. I'm looking forward to spring because I get to sleep in - on a bike, I can get to work in under half an hour; on the so-called Rocket, I'm lumbering there in about 45 minutes. The "historic streetcars" that run along Queen Street are traffic lummoxes (can you not imagine a Chicago-style El running over the Queen Street rooftops? I dare you. Fall in love with the idea), and the building that desperately needs to happen to support the influx of downtown condo-dwellers has been endlessly debated because subways, though necessary, are scary. Too expensive! So disruptive! Meanwhile, the city stalls.
8:59: I am at Yonge Street. I am now late for work.
9:07: I finally get to the office. I'm red-faced from hustling the last block, and pretty pissed that my commute took almost an hour. I don't feel ready to face the day; I feel like I need a nap, a back rub, and a shower. I curse this never ending winter - when the snow melts, I'm hopping off this infernal transit system and never looking back.
5:15: Deep sigh as I deposit my three loonies into the farebox.
8:26: Arrive at Spadina station to find that both token machines are out of order. The guy in front of me managed to jam it with his super-muscular toonie, and of course it's one of, like, three platforms in the entire system with no man in a box to distractedly give change. I leave in a huff.
8:27: I am, like, jogging to the next station over, which happens to be the main entrance to Spadina. It's only a few minutes away, but I'm seething. It's snowing so hard, I can barely see the other side of the road, and cars are trying to deal with roads that offer about as much traction as a slip-'n'-slide. It's safe to say that nobody is in a good mood right now.
8:33: Arrive at Spadina station and tell the man in the box that the machines at the North entrance are busted. He literally says, "Yeah, that's a pain in the ass, isn't it?" in a commiserating tone of voice. I'm like, YEAH IT IS and am tempted to ask for a free fare, but have been frowning for the last twenty minutes and my flirt/cute mode is totally not coming out to play.
8:36: Taking the other entrance actually means I have to switch trains, which, during a snowstorm and in rush hour, is about as appealing as touching the third rail. The first train whooshes into the station, the people get off, and then the conductor just closes the doors. There are people literally clawing their way in through the sliding doors for almost a full minute. I'm not sure why the driver thought that was a good idea, but my heart is racing. It's like watching people fistfight a train.
8:40: Get on the effing train, along with 3000 other people. I usually adore the TTC, because I think transit is important and belongs in urban centers, but right now, I'm just about ready to burn this mother to the ground. I mean, if it's possible to do that, since we're already underground...?
8:47: Arrive at Osgoode station. The stairs to street level are conveniently made of tile; in the snow, they become a scary death mountain. I am gripping the handrail and wondering why they don't install that weird grippy step business that's everywhere on, like, playgrounds and construction sites.
8:48: At the streetcar stop, I'm shifting my weight from one foot to the next in an attempt to stay warm. I'm failing. The guy next to me with the six (!! Also, I am officially an old person) facial piercings has perfected his thousand-yard stare to the point where I'm fairly sure he can see Brampton. I begin to wonder how people do this day in, day out: I was riding my bike last week, and while that comes with its own set of challenges, there isn't this sense of grinding terribleness. Everything about the TTC is delays and setbacks, zero communication and nonsensical procedures. I am, of course, in a terrible mood, but it occurs to me that the TTC needs so much in the way of improvement.
For example, in DC, the system uses a fare protocol that charges you based on the distance traveled. Go one stop? You pay, like, 80 cents. Riding to the end of the line will cost you more, but them's the breaks. The MTA in New York has a refillable metropass that allows its users to put on as much or as little money as they can afford, and doesn't expire within a certain timeframe (what up, monthly pass?) San Fransisco's transit system features the BART, which folds the outlying suburbs closer to the downtown core and costs less than a Toronto burrito.
I know it's become somewhat fashionable to pick on the TTC, but man, it's hard to enjoy yourself on that system. The stations are uniformly ugly, the coverage is spotty, the debates about where service should be pushed to are annoying, and it's expensive, both on the clock and the wallet. I'm looking forward to spring because I get to sleep in - on a bike, I can get to work in under half an hour; on the so-called Rocket, I'm lumbering there in about 45 minutes. The "historic streetcars" that run along Queen Street are traffic lummoxes (can you not imagine a Chicago-style El running over the Queen Street rooftops? I dare you. Fall in love with the idea), and the building that desperately needs to happen to support the influx of downtown condo-dwellers has been endlessly debated because subways, though necessary, are scary. Too expensive! So disruptive! Meanwhile, the city stalls.
8:59: I am at Yonge Street. I am now late for work.
9:07: I finally get to the office. I'm red-faced from hustling the last block, and pretty pissed that my commute took almost an hour. I don't feel ready to face the day; I feel like I need a nap, a back rub, and a shower. I curse this never ending winter - when the snow melts, I'm hopping off this infernal transit system and never looking back.
5:15: Deep sigh as I deposit my three loonies into the farebox.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Green Beer
Saint Patrick's Day, like Valentine's Day and Halloween (not the mention New Year's Eve) is one those whoo-let's-drink holidays that I think reasonable civilization could do without. Snakes out of Ireland, green beer, yadda yadda yadda...but the thing I remember most about Saint Paddy's day is from my dorm in freshman year, when teenage girls were vomiting green sludge all over the lobby of our Catholic residence. Weirdly, I've been sort of sour on the idea ever since. Not to mention last year, when I got hammered on March 16 (a combination of boredom, two friends and homemade mezcal will straight-up murder you in the morning) and spent the festive day mewling in the bathroom.
Back to first year. After Halloween, when all the other girls dressed up as "slutty [insert profession/animal/historically maligned ethnic group here]s" and my costume was "bored, with a bottle of tequila" (thematic!), I was over the idea of living solely with women. Well, fake-Catholic women, or teenagers whose parents thought that shunting them into a girls' dorm would save them from premarital sex and the dangers of the urban jungle. Since we were marooned at Bay and Wellesley in the heart of downtown Toronto, it was pretty slim pickings in terms of misbehaviour (picture the dourest, grayest corridor of office high-rises you can, and then surround that by hospitals. All the charm of Brutalist architecture, with the pleasing addition of 24/7 sirens!), but the girls still draaank. Even though the dorm was supposed to be "dry," nary an eyelash was batted when my roommate had about fourteen empty bottles of Malibu rum lined up on the edge of her desk.
Holidays were the worst for this kind of behaviour. Any excuse to put gobs of makeup and go to the club district was seized with an enthusiasm that bordered on maniacal. I shared a room (not a suite - a room) with two of these girlies, and the glitter eyeliner and hairspray that came out at these times was enough to choke a gay horse. The Saint Patrick's Day's uniform was a tight green tube/halter top, black short-shorts, and a glittery green top hat designed to make a Supreme Court Justice look like she's one shot of Jameson's away from making out with the Secretary of State (girl-on-girl = extra spicy!). It was all sort of dance-class-slutty, topped off with a liberal dosing of booze.
In any case, I haven't celebrated SPD in years. I've lived with Irish people, who treat it more like Canada Day and get appropriately tipsy/homesick. The Irish girl at my work has taken today off to sit in a pub (and tomorrow off to, I presume, recover from sitting in a pub for fifteen hours). When I lived with fifteen people under the same roof, there was usually someone who was up for a drink - we didn't need someone else's national holiday as an excuse to get blotto.
Because that is what this is. I feel good about getting a little drunk on Canada Day, because that's our collective day. Screw dead presidents, I like dead prime ministers. And Christmas is oh-kayy, even though I think the consumerism has blunted the celebratory edge for me. But as a Canadian and a cultural Christian, I feel like those holidays belong to me. But celebrating Saint Patrick's Day in any meaningful way would be like celebrating Hanukkah or the 4th of July. Those just ain't my jam, yo. And celebrating it in a non-meaningful way is sort of...trite? The Booze Holidays (Saint Patrick's Day, Halloween and New Year's Eve) all have an element of that in them.
Which isn't to say I won't be celebrating a little. Hell, I like any excuse to drink beer on a Thursday, and my boyfriend likes all the holidays except Valentines Day. But to pretend it's anything but an excuse to get blurred around the edges for us Canadians is silly. I'm not Irish. I don't want to kiss you if you're Irish. But I will celebrate your cultural heritage of moody poets, rolling green hills, unfathomably similar religions creating terrible amounts of violence, and "Danny Boy". And Guinness, which, let's just agree on this here and now: is disgusting.
Back to first year. After Halloween, when all the other girls dressed up as "slutty [insert profession/animal/historically maligned ethnic group here]s" and my costume was "bored, with a bottle of tequila" (thematic!), I was over the idea of living solely with women. Well, fake-Catholic women, or teenagers whose parents thought that shunting them into a girls' dorm would save them from premarital sex and the dangers of the urban jungle. Since we were marooned at Bay and Wellesley in the heart of downtown Toronto, it was pretty slim pickings in terms of misbehaviour (picture the dourest, grayest corridor of office high-rises you can, and then surround that by hospitals. All the charm of Brutalist architecture, with the pleasing addition of 24/7 sirens!), but the girls still draaank. Even though the dorm was supposed to be "dry," nary an eyelash was batted when my roommate had about fourteen empty bottles of Malibu rum lined up on the edge of her desk.
Holidays were the worst for this kind of behaviour. Any excuse to put gobs of makeup and go to the club district was seized with an enthusiasm that bordered on maniacal. I shared a room (not a suite - a room) with two of these girlies, and the glitter eyeliner and hairspray that came out at these times was enough to choke a gay horse. The Saint Patrick's Day's uniform was a tight green tube/halter top, black short-shorts, and a glittery green top hat designed to make a Supreme Court Justice look like she's one shot of Jameson's away from making out with the Secretary of State (girl-on-girl = extra spicy!). It was all sort of dance-class-slutty, topped off with a liberal dosing of booze.
In any case, I haven't celebrated SPD in years. I've lived with Irish people, who treat it more like Canada Day and get appropriately tipsy/homesick. The Irish girl at my work has taken today off to sit in a pub (and tomorrow off to, I presume, recover from sitting in a pub for fifteen hours). When I lived with fifteen people under the same roof, there was usually someone who was up for a drink - we didn't need someone else's national holiday as an excuse to get blotto.
Because that is what this is. I feel good about getting a little drunk on Canada Day, because that's our collective day. Screw dead presidents, I like dead prime ministers. And Christmas is oh-kayy, even though I think the consumerism has blunted the celebratory edge for me. But as a Canadian and a cultural Christian, I feel like those holidays belong to me. But celebrating Saint Patrick's Day in any meaningful way would be like celebrating Hanukkah or the 4th of July. Those just ain't my jam, yo. And celebrating it in a non-meaningful way is sort of...trite? The Booze Holidays (Saint Patrick's Day, Halloween and New Year's Eve) all have an element of that in them.
Which isn't to say I won't be celebrating a little. Hell, I like any excuse to drink beer on a Thursday, and my boyfriend likes all the holidays except Valentines Day. But to pretend it's anything but an excuse to get blurred around the edges for us Canadians is silly. I'm not Irish. I don't want to kiss you if you're Irish. But I will celebrate your cultural heritage of moody poets, rolling green hills, unfathomably similar religions creating terrible amounts of violence, and "Danny Boy". And Guinness, which, let's just agree on this here and now: is disgusting.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Swimming In Lake Jealousy
Last week I only wrote one blog entry and then went to brunch with a whole coven of fabulously successful women, and now I am broken. I'm swimming in the late-winter lake of self-loathing, and my fingers are too pruney to type.
I'm not going to lie: since graduation summa cum sewer sludge from the University of Toronto last year, my professional life hasn't exactly been awe-inspiring. I've worked as a part-time waitress, where my low-cut tops were the basis of a uniform-change ("no low-cut tops"); an erstwhile barkeep, who would panic when the bar overheated; an usher at TIFF, where I was accidentally rude to Julian Schnabel (in my defense, he was rude on purpose to me first); and as a glorified copy-room girl - if my office got a nicer photocopier, one that stapled and collated, I'd be right out of a job.
So you can imagine that sharing a table with, among others, a nursing student, a 26-year-old bar-owner (and winner of BlogTO's Caesar Challenge), a writer for The Globe and Mail, and a producer for the Daily Planet was a little overwhelming. I love my friends dearly, but when I had to borrow ten bucks from my boyfriend because the job I work 50 hours a week at isn't paying my bills, it's hard not to feel a twinge when one my tablemates starts talking about her 17 days of vacation: should she go to Europe, or just take the month off and roll around in her piles of money?
Gah! And it makes me feel crappy to feel jealous of the people I love so dearly, because I'm not very good at handling my jealousy. If I was more of a Christian, I'd be all like, "Dudes, that's so awesome that your hard work and dedication to your jobs is paying off so handsomely! Have some loaves! Have you tried this fish? Mmm, sardines...yummy!" But I've got a horrible shrivelled-up raisin where my heart should be, and jealousy has pickled me.
What's even more frustrating is that I am incredibly lucky in all other areas of my life. I live in a great city, with an amazing group of friends. I have an excellent relationship with a real adult man, which seems to be so charmed I'm a frankly little suspicious. I have enough money to buy the things that matter to me: namely, books, food, bourbon and froofy hair accessories. My family is close-knot and super supportive...and lives in a different city (George Burns was no fool). I have my health, as do most of the people I care about. The folks who are stricken with illness are love, cared for, and thought about every day. I get to love and be loved every day, and I still whinge incessantly about my career path.
To be fair, that "career path" is a little less Autobahn and a little more "dirt road through the hinterlands." And no matter how lucky I am, there's a frustration that comes from having a rough idea of what you want, and no concept on how to make it happen. I was chatting with a friend the other day, a man who's also a writer, and we were commiserating that it's dad-blasted tough to get stuff out there. What are the rules? Who do we call? (Aside from the obvious, of course.) If we send emails to agents, are we breaking some sort of code, or is that How Things Are Done and we're cluelessly missing the boat?
Add in the three-dimensional problem of figuring out how, exactly, you go from Point A (interest) to Point J (career) is tricky. Like most living humans, I have many interests. I love food and cooking, for example, and given the chance, would totally open a restaurant. I love co-op housing, and given the chance, would totally work for a co-op. I love zombies, and given the chance, would hunt them for free. You see? It's hard to pick a thing and make it That Thing I Do.
So the jealousy stems from watching my amazing, smart, driven, focused friends figure out what they want and then do it, while I flounder a little. Maybe in a few years, I'll be writing about my awesome new co-operative restaurant in the heart of downtown Toronto, and that will have murdered all those birds with one stone. And until then, I need a little less awful-raisin-heart and a little more jovial-Jesus-y-fish-sharing, or else I'm going to stuck in the muck of my own frustrated desires and just freak out.
And that's so not the point. Ladies: I celebrate your successes, and thank you for sharing them with me. It's helping me be less me-me-me (she said on her blog) and while your inspirational fabulousness is, at bit much all at once, it only goes to show that greatness follows greatness. Maybe some of it will rub off on me, and I'll rise to your ranks. Time to get out of the lake, in other words.
I'm not going to lie: since graduation summa cum sewer sludge from the University of Toronto last year, my professional life hasn't exactly been awe-inspiring. I've worked as a part-time waitress, where my low-cut tops were the basis of a uniform-change ("no low-cut tops"); an erstwhile barkeep, who would panic when the bar overheated; an usher at TIFF, where I was accidentally rude to Julian Schnabel (in my defense, he was rude on purpose to me first); and as a glorified copy-room girl - if my office got a nicer photocopier, one that stapled and collated, I'd be right out of a job.
So you can imagine that sharing a table with, among others, a nursing student, a 26-year-old bar-owner (and winner of BlogTO's Caesar Challenge), a writer for The Globe and Mail, and a producer for the Daily Planet was a little overwhelming. I love my friends dearly, but when I had to borrow ten bucks from my boyfriend because the job I work 50 hours a week at isn't paying my bills, it's hard not to feel a twinge when one my tablemates starts talking about her 17 days of vacation: should she go to Europe, or just take the month off and roll around in her piles of money?
Gah! And it makes me feel crappy to feel jealous of the people I love so dearly, because I'm not very good at handling my jealousy. If I was more of a Christian, I'd be all like, "Dudes, that's so awesome that your hard work and dedication to your jobs is paying off so handsomely! Have some loaves! Have you tried this fish? Mmm, sardines...yummy!" But I've got a horrible shrivelled-up raisin where my heart should be, and jealousy has pickled me.
What's even more frustrating is that I am incredibly lucky in all other areas of my life. I live in a great city, with an amazing group of friends. I have an excellent relationship with a real adult man, which seems to be so charmed I'm a frankly little suspicious. I have enough money to buy the things that matter to me: namely, books, food, bourbon and froofy hair accessories. My family is close-knot and super supportive...and lives in a different city (George Burns was no fool). I have my health, as do most of the people I care about. The folks who are stricken with illness are love, cared for, and thought about every day. I get to love and be loved every day, and I still whinge incessantly about my career path.
To be fair, that "career path" is a little less Autobahn and a little more "dirt road through the hinterlands." And no matter how lucky I am, there's a frustration that comes from having a rough idea of what you want, and no concept on how to make it happen. I was chatting with a friend the other day, a man who's also a writer, and we were commiserating that it's dad-blasted tough to get stuff out there. What are the rules? Who do we call? (Aside from the obvious, of course.) If we send emails to agents, are we breaking some sort of code, or is that How Things Are Done and we're cluelessly missing the boat?
Add in the three-dimensional problem of figuring out how, exactly, you go from Point A (interest) to Point J (career) is tricky. Like most living humans, I have many interests. I love food and cooking, for example, and given the chance, would totally open a restaurant. I love co-op housing, and given the chance, would totally work for a co-op. I love zombies, and given the chance, would hunt them for free. You see? It's hard to pick a thing and make it That Thing I Do.
So the jealousy stems from watching my amazing, smart, driven, focused friends figure out what they want and then do it, while I flounder a little. Maybe in a few years, I'll be writing about my awesome new co-operative restaurant in the heart of downtown Toronto, and that will have murdered all those birds with one stone. And until then, I need a little less awful-raisin-heart and a little more jovial-Jesus-y-fish-sharing, or else I'm going to stuck in the muck of my own frustrated desires and just freak out.
And that's so not the point. Ladies: I celebrate your successes, and thank you for sharing them with me. It's helping me be less me-me-me (she said on her blog) and while your inspirational fabulousness is, at bit much all at once, it only goes to show that greatness follows greatness. Maybe some of it will rub off on me, and I'll rise to your ranks. Time to get out of the lake, in other words.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Facebook Movie
Even though Peter Travers basically peeds his pants over it, I was sort of hesitant to see The Social Network when it came out in theatres. I wasn't convinced that a movie about Facebook would be all that engaging - although Facebook itself can hold my attention for hours at a time. Jesse Eisenberg staring menacingly at me behind the tagline "You don't get to 500 milion friends without making a few enemies" on every available subway ad, billboard and magazine spread took me a little aback.
DVDs (and cookies) are basically my version of catnip, but I was hesitant. The Facebook movie could have gone so horribly wrong, but it had been nominated for an Oscar, and Eisenberg had been nominated for best actor, so there was a chance that my pea-brained first assumptions would be off the mark. So I settled in with my mug of ice cream and my preconceived notions, and you know what? The movie was good. It wasn't the American masterpiece that Travers claims - anything with CGI cold-weather breath that bad can't be a cinematic Rembrandt. But was it enjoyable? Sure. Engaging? You bet. Did I fall madly in love with it and want to leave my family to travel in its touring caravan? Well....
The movie opens with Mark and his erstwhile girlfriend Erica in the middle of a pub. He's a douche - all condescending because she goes to some school that isn't Harvard. She's sweet, gamely trying to keep up with him, even though he's clearly more invested in looking smart/being right than he is in, say, Erica's feelings. It's a great scene, because we get to see her as she comes to her senses and storms out, and he sits there like a befuddled chump. I think the audience is supposed to feel pity for him - here he is, Mark Zuckerberg, who can't even hold onto a BU girl. Pfft. (It's kind of unclear what BU actually is, but I'm going to assume it's the same school from the Van Wilder movies and so let's all move on.)
After that, there's the Winklevoss twins, Fashmash, Trent Reznor's much-lauded score, rowing crew, two different lawsuits, some cold-blooded business dealing, Justin Timberlake, crazy girlfriends, appletinis, pouting, heaps of moral ambiguity, underaged bong hits, and Eisenberg's ubiquitous GAP hoodie. It's a collage of college, coding, how social trends hit the masses (according to the movie, Zuckerberg, who had exactly one friend in Eduardo Saverin, managed to spam his Harvard classmates with a link so popular it went overnight-viral, which is a little like the nerd version of the ugly girl who goes to the prom without her glasses and is suddenly the belle of the ball), and how money and betrayal apparently go hand in hand for suddenly-successful young people.
I liked it, but I didn't l.o.v.e. it. What really killed it for me, though, was the final scene. The Social Network isn't really a spoiler-alert type of deal - the major plot points can be Googled fairly readily - but for those of you who like your emotional reveals untainted, avert your eyes.
Look, I like David Fincher as much as the next Fight Club-watching girl. I saw Seven when I was way too young, and haven't really seen many of his other movies. But I trust Fincher not to walk a trite line. So was I disappointed in the ending? Yes. Fincher's final scene was of Zuckerberg sitting alone at the enormous conference table, hitting refresh on Erica's Facebook page. All the whys and wherefores of Facebook were tidily summed up into "He did it for a girl."
BARF. Come on. While I can appreciate that Zuckerberg, as the world's youngest billionaire, is going to doubt his dating life for the rest of his days ("Does she like me for me, or because I control the most successful socializing method since the phone line?"), I sincerely doubt that he did it all for the nooky. Zuckerberg, boy genius, prince of the internet, man in the high castle, emotional retard and/or thieving bastard, built the Facebook to get into his ex's head? And it does a disservice to all the unstable, untrustworthy weirdos we've spent the last couple hours with to suggest that's the case.
The movie is all about presentation - who are we? What's the difference between The Truth, and what we present to others, both online and in person? There's a nice breakup scene in the film, when the crazy girlfriend starts haranguing the unfortunate chap about why, online, his relationship status is "single." I feel like an older generation would be all "BFD, yo." but I found myself nodding in recognition. I've had those conversations with boyfriends - how much of yourself, of us, do you want people to see?
The whole "what's really happening?" issue is compounded by the movie's coyness regarding Z-man intellectual property theft. And by leaving the coding relatively unintelligible, Fincher cuts us off from what's happening online. The movie comes down to, who do we like more? Mark? Eduardo? The Winklevosses? Sean Parker? Erica? Who presents the best on paper, and who comes off as a jerk? And does it matter, in the long run? Even if Zuckerberg is a huge pompous ass, I'm not likely to meet him. I'll use his free website and continue to fret re: relationship status, and the world will keep spinning, and Peter Travers will find another movie to soil himself over, and we'll all add each other on Facebook until the next big thing comes along.
DVDs (and cookies) are basically my version of catnip, but I was hesitant. The Facebook movie could have gone so horribly wrong, but it had been nominated for an Oscar, and Eisenberg had been nominated for best actor, so there was a chance that my pea-brained first assumptions would be off the mark. So I settled in with my mug of ice cream and my preconceived notions, and you know what? The movie was good. It wasn't the American masterpiece that Travers claims - anything with CGI cold-weather breath that bad can't be a cinematic Rembrandt. But was it enjoyable? Sure. Engaging? You bet. Did I fall madly in love with it and want to leave my family to travel in its touring caravan? Well....
The movie opens with Mark and his erstwhile girlfriend Erica in the middle of a pub. He's a douche - all condescending because she goes to some school that isn't Harvard. She's sweet, gamely trying to keep up with him, even though he's clearly more invested in looking smart/being right than he is in, say, Erica's feelings. It's a great scene, because we get to see her as she comes to her senses and storms out, and he sits there like a befuddled chump. I think the audience is supposed to feel pity for him - here he is, Mark Zuckerberg, who can't even hold onto a BU girl. Pfft. (It's kind of unclear what BU actually is, but I'm going to assume it's the same school from the Van Wilder movies and so let's all move on.)
After that, there's the Winklevoss twins, Fashmash, Trent Reznor's much-lauded score, rowing crew, two different lawsuits, some cold-blooded business dealing, Justin Timberlake, crazy girlfriends, appletinis, pouting, heaps of moral ambiguity, underaged bong hits, and Eisenberg's ubiquitous GAP hoodie. It's a collage of college, coding, how social trends hit the masses (according to the movie, Zuckerberg, who had exactly one friend in Eduardo Saverin, managed to spam his Harvard classmates with a link so popular it went overnight-viral, which is a little like the nerd version of the ugly girl who goes to the prom without her glasses and is suddenly the belle of the ball), and how money and betrayal apparently go hand in hand for suddenly-successful young people.
I liked it, but I didn't l.o.v.e. it. What really killed it for me, though, was the final scene. The Social Network isn't really a spoiler-alert type of deal - the major plot points can be Googled fairly readily - but for those of you who like your emotional reveals untainted, avert your eyes.
Look, I like David Fincher as much as the next Fight Club-watching girl. I saw Seven when I was way too young, and haven't really seen many of his other movies. But I trust Fincher not to walk a trite line. So was I disappointed in the ending? Yes. Fincher's final scene was of Zuckerberg sitting alone at the enormous conference table, hitting refresh on Erica's Facebook page. All the whys and wherefores of Facebook were tidily summed up into "He did it for a girl."
BARF. Come on. While I can appreciate that Zuckerberg, as the world's youngest billionaire, is going to doubt his dating life for the rest of his days ("Does she like me for me, or because I control the most successful socializing method since the phone line?"), I sincerely doubt that he did it all for the nooky. Zuckerberg, boy genius, prince of the internet, man in the high castle, emotional retard and/or thieving bastard, built the Facebook to get into his ex's head? And it does a disservice to all the unstable, untrustworthy weirdos we've spent the last couple hours with to suggest that's the case.
The movie is all about presentation - who are we? What's the difference between The Truth, and what we present to others, both online and in person? There's a nice breakup scene in the film, when the crazy girlfriend starts haranguing the unfortunate chap about why, online, his relationship status is "single." I feel like an older generation would be all "BFD, yo." but I found myself nodding in recognition. I've had those conversations with boyfriends - how much of yourself, of us, do you want people to see?
The whole "what's really happening?" issue is compounded by the movie's coyness regarding Z-man intellectual property theft. And by leaving the coding relatively unintelligible, Fincher cuts us off from what's happening online. The movie comes down to, who do we like more? Mark? Eduardo? The Winklevosses? Sean Parker? Erica? Who presents the best on paper, and who comes off as a jerk? And does it matter, in the long run? Even if Zuckerberg is a huge pompous ass, I'm not likely to meet him. I'll use his free website and continue to fret re: relationship status, and the world will keep spinning, and Peter Travers will find another movie to soil himself over, and we'll all add each other on Facebook until the next big thing comes along.
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