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Can't sleep for some reason. All keyed up.

1. So, I'm collaborating with a group of women on producing the play "the Vagina Monologues" and weirdly at the same time I'm reading this book about "The Most Dangerous Book", which amongst other things depicts how women fought hard against the censorship laws of the time to publish the allegedly obscene and gross novel Ulysses, (which many men at the time believe they needed to protect them from - I kid you not)...and tonight found this quote by Kevin Birmingham about dirty words:

"Whatever else dirty words may do, they turn words into bodies. The word 'fuck' offends for what it denotes, but it also offends as an assembly of four particular letters on a page. This why 'f**ck' is more printable than the unobscured expletive. We insist that the sight of the word's letters is more transgressive than a coy gesture to them because the word is important purely as a word. 'Fuck' does more than transmit an idea. It is sign whose very shape becomes a spectacle, a nude figure to be clothed in asterisks."

[As aside the word 'f**k' has always been one of my favorite words and curse words - because it is so expressive. And it's usage can be determined like most English words purely by tone...its equal parts an angry word, but also one of release. Primal. And also prohibitive. You dare not say it in certain places...even here, I feel as if I'm breaking some major taboo.]

2. Had an odd discussion/disagreement with co-worker today about the weather. He felt the need to inform me why this whole weather situation was not "Global Warming" - and showed me a bunch of weather charts depicting how throughout time similar global changes had occurred. And it was the sun melting the ice caps not global warming. When I challenged his knowledge on this --- he told me he had a Bachelor's degree in Astronomy and Physics. Along with an MBA and a Law degree. My response? Okay, so what are you doing here? I did admit I had a law degree. He asked what I'm doing here? I said - well, for one thing, I'm working as a legal professional. He said as opposed to a litigator. And I responded: "Oh, please, I fight enough here as it is - why make it worse?" But cool degree though. [Not really sure what knowledge in physics, astronomy, business and law have to do with the science of global warming...or how that would make you more of an expert than you know people who actually do it for a living, spend time researching it, etc...but let's not go there, shall we?]

Sigh. My work place gives me a headache.

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Update on Snow Armageddon Take II - or Juno (yes, they name the winter nor'easters now):

* Approximately 6-8 inches in my area. (although it is still snowing - so could be more, who knows?)
* 8 inches in Upper West Side Manhattan
* 8 inches in Queens
* 26 inches in Suffolk County Long Island - or at the tip of the island
* 20 inches in Islip and Babylon - near Fire Island

So basically the storm went East and missed dumping two feet of snow on New York City by thismuch. However, Eastern Long Island - got dumped on.

But the City effectively shut itself down. Mass Transit is coming back online on 9pm. Be Sunday Service by 12 noon. Everything is effectively closed. Except of course for the NY Stock Market. Long Island Rail Road is still offline. Long Island got stomped on, they are still under a blizzard warning out in Long Island - with white-out conditions. So glad I do not live out in Long Island. Although work will be interesting this week - since 90% of my co-workers do live out in Long Island.

And people really raided the grocery stores in Manhattan and Long Island. Nothing is left on the shelves. Particularly Bananas and apparently bread and milk.

The Governor lifted the travel ban...things should slowly be coming back on line, well except for Eastern Long Island - which gets ignored. I can't ignore it - I work with it.

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Today, I had a video teleconference, baked banana caco muffins (except I didn't add honey or sweeteners deciding chocolate chips and banana was enough sweetener, since going off sugar - I've become sensitive to sweets.), watched The 100, Dowton Abbey, my soap opera, posted far too much to FB, and read The Most Dangerous Book - which has passages that I keep wanting to quote from, which means it takes longer to read than usual. Last night - took a bubble bath. I do need to do some stretching and yoga, which I'm procrastinating, because I find stretching and yoga boring. (Wrong, I know, but there it is.) Also, for some reason, I keep thinking it is Thursday.

The 100

Interesting series. It keeps showing how solving problems with violence just results in more violence regardless of the reasons or justifications. And how people feel trapped by violence or see no other way. More than one character states they had no other choice - that there was no other way to save everyone - but in reality that's not the case, they just don't want to make the harder decision. Instead they grab the short cut.

Also, these kids or teenage leaders fall into the trap of believing love is a weakness, but the truth is hate is their weakness. Vengeance is weakness.

If the characters keep going in the direction that they are - they will all have a tragic ending.

Was thinking about Shakespeare's tragedies today - and actually they too have this in common. Hamlet is a Revenge Play - and by the end, everyone is pretty much dead. MacBeth? Ditto. Same with Richard the III. Also, Romeo and Juliet who are pretty much destroyed by the hatred of their families.

And Zero Dark Thirty is haunting in much the same way The Hurt Locker, both by Kathryn Bigelow is - in that these people who devote their lives to violent activities...have empty lives. The CIA analyst focuses all her energy on catching and killing a terrorist and when she achieves it, she is empty. There's nothing to hold.
Just another terrorist to take his place.

( spoilers )

There's something about this series that motivates me to write meta that others don't. Not quite sure what it is.

Update on Storm? Things are open now. Airlines are rescheduling flights. Travel ban lifted. Back to ordinary business tomorrow. Thank heavens it wasn't as bad as predicted. Going to be bitter cold this week. So happy that my church board meeting was canceled.

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1. Link to a NY Times article regarding the new Sundance documentary film The Hunting Game. This is a film about the current rape culture across US college campuses. Actually this is a problem that goes back to the 1980s, possibly further. I still have a black whistle on my key chain that I received in 1985 - in case of an assault. I keep it - to remember the issue. I'll remove it, when the issue is no longer present.

While I've never been raped, thankfully, I've known people who were. 3 out of 5 of the women I knew in college were date-raped at frat parties. Many were drunk, passed out in a dorm room, and had sex...with little memory of it and no consent. They remembered saying no, felt ashamed, and did not report it - because they feared no one would believe them and weren't sure it qualified as rape. I know I sat and listened to their stories.
( Read more... )

2. Justified - it was good. But you can sense this is the end game. And I have a sinking feeling it is going to end in tragedy for all the main players.

Boyd Crowder is a sexy and deadly guy, well-played by Walter Goggins. His performance continues to blow me away. As does the former chief of police.

3. The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle Over James Joyce's Ulysses feels, oddly, like the perfect companion to my reading of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.
Both are about the beauty of the human body. Both are about advocacy. Both are poetic masterpieces. And both have fierce women behind their publication and production.
The Most Dangerous Book - is more about the fierce and courageous women who advocated that the book be published and more importantly they be allowed to read it - and men not be allowed to dictate what they should or should not read or how they should think. Just because you were born with a penis does not mean you are smarter or better or wiser or more mature than someone born with vagina. (I always found that view odd. Vagina's squeeze out a baby. It's an amazingly powerful muscle. A penis? Well, not all that powerful. It just plows in, plants it's seed in ten minutes, done.
Plus? Sort of vulnerable...I mean think about it? So is all this posturing and power-mongering a complicated defense mechanism built up over the ages to protect that vulnerability? I don't know. But it seems to me, if you have a sensitive body part exposed like that - you might not want to piss off people who don't have it well that exposed and can disable you with one quick kick to the gonads. I'm amazed to see that James Joyce more or less shares my point of view in this respect. Although we've come a long way since Joyce's time (1910-1920s), we really still have a long way to go regarding how we view gender as a culture, don't we? I mean it shouldn't matter whether you are born with a penis or a vagina, what you do or who you are. That shouldn't define you solely. Or dictate what you read, think or do or for that matter even who you love or who you have sex with. Why can't people get that? It's not exactly rocket science. Seems pretty frigging obvious to me.)