You are currently browsing the Crucial Minutiae weblog archives for December, 2007.
The close of 365 days and the start of a new go at it.
Some events have been sad shockers. Our bees–those intrepid workers, those pollinators of our life-line (food)–dying off mysteriously. The world’s continual ignoring of Darfur. Benazir Bhutto’s unfair and tragic exit from this world. Other moments have been glorious. Any baby born healthy. The promise of a new American leader. The sheltering and feeding of a homeless person, not only with canned beans but with organic vegetables, grass-fed beef.
A week ago, in Terminal 3 at JFK airport, I heard chirping, looked up and bore witness to three black birds swooping from corner to corner in the massive space. They surveyed the scene of people below them. How they came to be inside among the chaos I don’t know. “Someone has got to help them get out!” echoed in my head. I was nervous for them, nervous for what it means to be trapped. Today in Montana, I saw a bald eagle perched on a leafless cottonwood, casting his glance over a snowy field. He was the size of a small child and full of dignity. In June of this year, the Interior Department took the American bald eagle off the endangered species list. Here’s to hope for 2008.
My connection to the Pakistani national tragedy (that’s my sister, a photographer, on a photo shoot in Dubai before Bhutto moved back):
“Happy new year’s baby
We could probably fix it if we clean it up all day
Or we could simply pack our bags
And catch a plane to Barcelona ’cause this city’s a drag”-Counting Crows, Holiday in Spain
So this is it. The end of 2007.
You know what I’m going to miss most?
Christmas songs.
It is a shame I only get to hear Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” six weeks out of the year.
And I would like to send a special shout out to hip hop legends, Run DMC. Who made the classic “Christmas in Hollis” with no sense of irony. Just a love of Santa. And collard greens. And holiday cheer.
Enough reminiscing. Here are seven things I want to see in 2008.
1.An actual presidential election
Read more…
Just like everyone else who has access to a toilet, women on the birth control pill flush pee down the white bowl. But along with their pee, synthetic estrogen flows. Somewhere downstream those hormones enter the water supply and a small 8-year-old girl drinks it. Her body is provoked and soon she is menstruating. Fish react differently to the estrogen. They simply become hermaphrodites. Biologists cannot name the sex of these fish, and they say that the fish are equally confused. Apparently a similiar thing happens to sea otters. Apparently some men develop breasts.
6. Radiohead – In Rainbows
A scaled-back, more personal set of ten tracks by what is arguably my generation’s favorite band ever. It was actually a very strong year for my high school musical crushes, with great and mostly innovative albums by PJ Harvey, Björk, and Air all making appearances in my top 20. This might be because I’m getting very close to thirty and becoming more reluctant to embrace new sounds, but I really hope it’s because these artists are coming into their own now, making work that has no benchmarks but their own. With the syrupy-sexy (as far as echoey floaty Thom Yorke songs can really be called sticky) “House of Cards”, Radiohead at least broke new ground in lyrical content, “I don’t wanna be your friend, I just wanna be your lover,” is positively Prince. Read more…
Maybe I’ve just never been invited to the right parties, but I’m not a huge fan of the large and loud celebrations of New Year’s Eve. My celebrations tend to be quieter, more reflective. This is a kind of dorky celebration, but at the end of each December, I like looking at my yearly calendar and writing little summary paragraphs of each month. I forget so easily what I’ve done in a year; this helps me remember and wrap it all up, and let it go.
This brings me to New Year’s resolutions.
Why is it so darn difficult to place an op-ed???
College affordability is a really important issue in this country, and I saw a window to talk about it a few weeks ago when Harvard announced that they were increasing financial aid for middle class families. Cool, I thought after reading the article, which shot to number one on the New York Times’ “most emailed” list the next day, I should write an op-ed (see below) that focuses on hardworking, middle class kidz. Poor kidz not going to college isn’t really “news,” after all, and won’t sell papers.
My non-brilliant strategy didn’t work. The op-ed never got picked up.
Because themes tend to converge in life, I’ve got the desert on the brain. Two nights ago I turned the last page of a novel about the Afghanistan desert; I’m halfway through a non-fiction book on the Arab/Jew relations in Jaffa; and I’ve currently plopped myself on the carpet of the Salt Lake City Utah Airport where I swear, from the slim crack of the deplaning ramp, the scent of dry desert infused my clothes.
My thinking crystallized with the excellent article by Richard Rodriguez in the latest issue of Harpers Magazine. He nailed it. “Searching for God in the Holy Land” reminds us that religion for Christians, Jews and Muslims was born in the desert. Desert religions. In such an inhospitable place we are forced to confront our own mortality. Perhaps we are opened and then hardened by the vastness. In one snap sentence, a monk near Bethlehem tells Rodriguez, “The desert creates warriors.” So Rodriguez wonders, what if these founding religions has instead grown up in the wet green jungle? Would our modern day Crusades be tempered? Or might they be non-existent?
We use the desert as a testing ground. We test our own human hardiness. We also test nuclear bombs. We are also privy to the sweet slivers of life that emerge from contrast– like the pink bloom of a cactus or the rage of a purple thunderstorm.
I only known the American desert. Read more…
I swear I am not a grinch. But every time I turn on the television right now, I feel like I’m being assaulted by Christmas car commercials. Some are semi-fun, like this BMW ad which shows little kids going crazy for their presents—the idea being that if you want your loved one to feel that same bliss, you should get them a shiny new BMW, a modest investment at $50,000. Others are not so cute, like a disgustingly obnoxious Lexus holiday commercial (that I swear ran last year, too) where a wife takes a camera phone photo of her dream car, sends it to her husband, and then walks outside on Christmas morning to find the very same car wrapped up with a big red bow. Yuck. Wouldn’t it be grounds for divorce if your spouse sent you a camera picture of the gift they wanted? Try doing that to Santa and see what happens.
No T.V. on school nights and no more than one hour of T.V. per non-school night. I blame this stringent parenting for my drought of pop culture references, while I’m glad it left me no choice but to create my own stories (and to sneak “Saved by the Bell” with my sister while Mom was at work = bonding). Television was an experience relished at friend’s houses, but one which I felt guilty/lazy for enjoying on my own. Today, I find myself in the same predicament. I went to a friend’s house and gorged on Bravo. Now I’m reportedly talking in my sleep about fabric and Project Runway challenges, and I am shamefully obsessed with…
The Real Housewives of Orange County. To dig deep into my subconscious and ask why– hmm, I don’t envy their wardrobes or second mansions. I wouldn’t wish for the problems they have with their husbands and kids or other examples that easy street is not so easy. Do I think it’s funny when their high school grads don’t know how to pronounce a word or who John Wayne is? Yes. But I also sort of like these women. At least I wouldn’t turn down a drink with them (they love their cocktails). Plus, the title of the show is actually a misnomer. These aren’t desperate housewives; they’re real estate and insurance moguls who share/dominate the power dynamic in their households.
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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
The next part in my ‘best of 2007′ cycle is my list of best cinema experiences. Twelve films that I thought were awesome and would heartily recommend for Christmas netflix- or multiplexing. What did I miss here? What did you guys love?
I’m going to have an orgasm this Saturday at 06:08 GMT.
I don’t typically blog about such a personal event, but this is a special occasion. Saturday the 22nd marks the second annual Global Orgasm for Peace, when people around the world will synchronize their orgasms with the winter solstice, using the energy surge to focus on peace, empathy, and compassionate leadership.
As much as I hate seeing rampant steroid use in baseball, this Mitchell report is garbage. Some of the accusations, especially against Clemens, are serious and damning, but the idea of picking out forty some odd players for something utterly permitted by the entire culture is dubious at best.
Now lets look at who George J Mitchell is—former Senator from Maine and current member of Boston Red Sox front office management. Yes—I was stunned to hear it as well, a very interesting and underreported fact. This so-called impartial Mitchell Report was conducted by a man on the Red Sox payroll.
I’ve been researching a story on youth voter registration tactics and it’s got me thinking a lot about the way our generation is characterized versus how we really are (as if this is any change, I know). One of the things that is most clear to me is that our connection to the internet and online interaction is overblown.
Case in point: the most effective voter registration tactic for people between the ages of 18 and 29 is still knocking on doors, peer-to-peer conversation. The experts seem shocked by this–you mean young people actually like speaking face to face?! Yes, we may be more savvy at hooking up a wireless connection or downloading video, but we’re no less human…thank you very much.
When I was busy with side ponytails, slap bracelets and perfecting my French accent in middle school, my father would tell me that one day my children would be learning Mandarin Chinese and studying the wide wide country of China. Yeah right Dad, I thought, what–ever.
Today we are reminded that America and China are the heavy-hitters who refuse to budge on climate issues, and India is not far behind. The NY Times headline could not be more appropriate, “As China Goes, so Goes Global Warming.” Why would China change, if America won’t? We Americans can sit high as the world’s lead steed, but when it comes time to set an example, we shrivel up like cowards. Then we demand that China and India and others slow down, that they not reach the “glory” we are now descending from. It’s common to talk in numbers or statistics, to chat about the gloom and doom. But I think personal is always best; our psychology around global warming is gritty and embedded and I’m curious about it. Read more…
I have been in one fight my entire life. I was in fifth or sixth grade. I should tell you that I grew up on a block with a bunch of ragtatg, multi-culti kids. Our gang was something like The Little Rascals minus the blatantly racist overtones.
One summer afternoon, bouncing from backyard to backyard, we came across a brood of baby kittens. We gave them names and all tried to get our parents to take one in. It didn’t work.
On some equally empty summer day it was decided that I should fight Adam Drucker*. Over what, I’m not sure. It may have just been a case of, “Can Felice beat Adam?” Let’s watch.
Yesterday was a brilliant birthday, but it was nearly topped by the Friday before because of my little chat with Helen Thomas. You can read about it here, but I also wanted to share this picture with you, taken by photographer Laura B. Fitzgibbons.
Don’t be fooled by the nytimes.com URL, folks. This is actually an Onion article:
“School Recess Gets Gentler, and the Adults Are Dismayed”
I mean, it’s gotta be, right?
