Flying Inspiration

Inspiration is flying around at me from all directions lately. Last weekend Ben and I watched Frida, which for whatever reason I was surprised by – we both really liked it. I had always admired her paintings, but didn’t know that much about her life, her accident, her father was German!, she slept with Trotsky?! and had no idea how much she packed into her 47 years, and how political she and Diego Rivera were, both actively and in their art. It just made me think about a lot of things, living passionately, but also about how political art can be even when it’s not overtly political. Isn’t there some saying about – the personal is political? I think it can be very very risky to make art. Well, this is a long subject. So PS – I just always love Alfred Molina.

Two Reasons Why I Stick to Blogging About The Federlines

1) This. I find these literary fisticuffs perpetually fascinating, in this case mostly because I don’t have the balls of Steve Almond and I wish I did. I declare him the winner of this fight, and I didn’t even have to arm him with a sock and a bar of soap.

2) Because they keep giving me such dang good material. I just heard that the Federlines (thanks, Megan!) are planning to expand their line of action figures to include Kevin, baby SeanFed, Britney’s mom and little sister. I think Megan and I should have action figures, two teacher writers with little tiny tattoos, Megan’s comes dressed in a t-shirt that says Reading is Sexy and mine comes with tiny red motorcycle boots, accessories to include a battery-powered car with a window that closes with a paint stirrer. Megan’s individual set will also come with a tiny Mojo, a smiling Christopher, and two tiny laptops. Mine will include two Bens (long hair or short), a tiny easel and toolbelt for him (tiny paint not included), and a tiny coffeemaker with a teeny-tiny spoon. Interchangeable items include tiny bookshelves and lots of tiny magazines and books. Tiny ex-boyfriends sold separately.

Okay, But It Better Be Really, Really, Really Good

Apparently Selma Blair is publishing a short story in an anthology alongside the likes of Joyce Carol Oates and Dorothy Allison, and, sigh, I want to be open-minded, I do. She’s a fine actress, and if it were someone like Ashlee Simpson I’d have a full-on snit. Instead I’ll just have a half-hearted snit on behalf of the eleventy-billion talented writers who don’t star in indie movies or wear Chanel smartly or marry Zappas and can’t just call people up and say I think I’d like to be a writer today. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I knew her, I would encourage her to write if she expressed an interest. I would do that for almost anyone other than Ashlee Simpson. I’m also coming to understand and accept that there are any number of artists who work in more than one form. So why does it seem dicier to me when it’s an actress? Why do my haunches immediately go up? I don’t have haunches. Okay, I know why. It’s partly because I can’t suddenly become an actress just because I feel like it. Which I don’t, but I certainly don’t take it any less seriously as an art form, and if I did want to become an actress, and if it were just as easy to cross over in the other direction, I would expect Selma Blair to say the same thing about me. That Crane better be really, really, really good. I worked really hard, for years, to get to my solid position of moderate recognition, and I didn’t just call someone up, and if Selma Blair isn’t the next Joyce Carol Oates who happened to have taken a wrong turn into acting, well, she better… oh nevermind, I’m probably bitter towards anyone I think has it easy. I wonder if I still have my old therapist’s number…

Shoe/Shine

Ben and I drove down to Pilsen (ish) because we’d heard about this shoe repair place/hangout that sounded worth the trip, and it was as promised. (Seeming to be named, according to the sign, simply Shoe/Shine. I’m all about the slash marks as you know, so I already know this is my kind of repair shop.) This is the kind of place that makes me happy to be alive, that restores my faith in humanity, that is so far out of the way it’s almost silly, if you actually need something repaired. It’s totally cluttered, with music and the TV playing at the same time, a sofa in front of the TV while you wait, a row of antique typewriters on a high shelf, and makings of some sort of dinner on the counter along with spices on the shelf behind it right next to the shoe polish. We’d heard that if he happens to be cooking while you’re there he’ll offer it up, but he wasn’t that day. Best of all though was how warm and friendly this guy was – he was telling us about his kids going to college within minutes after we walked in the door. Ben brought something in to be repaired and he was like, Five bucks, is that too much? It’s the kind of place where watching snowy reruns of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all.

Yes, I Realize I’m A Little Late On This, But I’ve Been Busy, Ok?

Still, I feel compelled to mention my thoughts on the totally meta Jet Blue plane thing, what with the people on the plane watching themselves on TV while they were figuring out if they were all going to die a horrible fiery death. They had a segment on it on last week’s This American Life, and it what it pointed up for me was the utter uselessness of news reports like this. Talking heads on the TV, watching the plane circle, speculating about what was going to happen, only to have the plane land safely, tells me that it’s time for the news to stop their endless yakking about what if, especially if the poor people in the midst of the trouble might be watching. Can you imagine? This just in from Fox News – “Tell us what might happen here, Chet” “Well, in all likelihood the tire will catch fire as soon as it hits the ground and immediately ignite the entire plane. I’m pretty sure everyone will die.” And you’re on the plane. And then it doesn’t! Like you’re not already worried about your fiery death and never saying goodbye to your Peekapoo! News should give us useful information – am I wrong? Or how about even – actual information? Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news, a plane is in the air having trouble with its landing gear. “We will return when we know anything else. Go watch the Simpsons now. Goodbye.” Instead of yakety yakety blah di bloo. One of the funniest things I ever saw on The Daily Show, some time ago, was Jon Stewart consulting a panel of experts on some subject or another. You know how they break up the screen to accommodate two or more talking heads? This screen started breaking up into like, thirty-two talking heads. Every time he’d say, “Okay, let’s go to Granwyth Hulatberi from Ontario,” and they’d squeeze in Granwyth who’d say like, two words before Stewart cut over to the next guy. Stop it.

I Don’t Need To Swap Out Husbands To Know I Have A Good One

Okay, the wife-swap shows are one more guilty pleasure for me. I think it’s a premise with a lot of interesting potential ramifications – on the positive end, promoting tolerance – but what possesses some of these people to sign up, I dunno. Last night there was an especially entertaining episode about a super-arty home-schooling organic food-eating family with no TV swapping moms with a pageant family who ate fast food every day, usually in front of the TV. Super-arty mom’s pet peeve was “anything matching,” and pageant mom wouldn’t let her kids out if they didn’t match. And she believed that TV was evil… not evil enough not to be on it, I guess, but evil enough. And the pageant mom made up this poor little girl like – so Jon Benet Ramsey, even though I think she was completely misguided about any benefit the pageants provided for her six-year-old child (who seemed way too concerned about winning one more crown and visibly upset when she thought she looked “like crap”), she seemed to be a loving parent. The thing here was that you could see what each had to gain from seeing the other’s lifestyle – the arty mom was actually more rigid than the pageant mom – saying stuff like “I don’t even brush my hair because I am against concerning myself with what other people think about how I look.” Huh? I’m always suspicious of anyone who says they don’t care about how they look. Even the most un-fashion-minded person makes a choice in the morning about what to put on. My dad wears pretty basic dad-like clothes, but he’s still making a decision not to dress like a punk. What I wonder is if any of what they claim to have benefited from the experience – the pageant family realized they needed a better diet and the arty family realized their marriage was in trouble – lasts long-term. Same thing with the extreme makeover houses and people. I really want to see the follow up shows in ten years.

Come See Ben's Art

This Saturday and Sunday, the 15th and 16th from 10 to 5, Ben is part of the Fulton Arts Walk, so you should go see his stuff at 1510 W. Fulton. Go here
for more info. That's one of his sculptures third from the left on the bottom, the one that looks like an electrical tower.

The Phenomenon of America’s Funniest Home Videos (or: Golden Showers)

Is that it’s only funny if I watch it with Ben. Men getting kicked in the crotch, I could take it or leave it on my own. Men getting kicked in the crotch next to Ben = hilarious. Why? I don’t know. That’s what makes it a phenomenon.

This is probably as good a place as any to mention that yesterday the very cutest white fluffy puppy came running up to me, so I bent down to pet him and like dogs will do, he immediately rolled over onto his back so I could scratch him on the tummy. I obliged, but almost as soon as I did, he started squirting pee straight up in the air! I thankfully pulled back just in time, but I wonder if I’d have laughed as much if Ben hadn’t been there. Anyway, given that I don’t have a video camera on me at all times, I didn’t get it on film or I could have maybe won ten thousand dollars.

The Return of Ashlee Simpson

Was it just me, or did Don Pardo’s announcement of “The Return of Ashlee Simpson” on SNL this weekend sound an awful lot like he was promoting a horror movie? Not quite as frightening, perhaps, but watching Ashlee Simpson, lip-synching or not, I feel as though our cultural life has gone to hell in a handbasket. (As you may know, going to hell via handbasket is way worse than going there any other way. I guess handbaskets are slow? I’ll let you know when I figure out exactly what a handbasket is.) I’m up for decent pop music, but this was an alarmingly and blatantly packaged, absurdly dull product, so much so that I almost feel bad for Ashlee, given that she’s, you know, a person. But watching her made me yearn for, like, The Return of Hanson. There’s nothing about Ashlee that I get, and yet, she’s selling records, to eleven-year-olds, I can only guess, still, I’m counting on my unborn future eleven-year-old to have better taste than this.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS OR I'LL CUT YOU

I'm jus' keeeedeeng. About the cutting.
But -
NY’s awesome Happy Ending Reading Series is coming to Chicago, Wednesday October 26, 7:00 pm, The Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia.
I am the host.
Elizabeth Berg, Joe Meno, Amy Krouse Rosenthal are reading.
Sundayrunners is playing.
Money will be given to charity.