coexistapart's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- concrete canyons I have become utterly exhausted by the Presidential race here. Every day while I've been in NYC (or in New England) with Melinda, we turn on the news in the morning and it's a) the Presidential race, and b) the stock crisis. I'm truly exhausted by the mud-slinging, policy-changing, cracked-out-smiles of them all. Even Meghan McCain's blog which includes a "song of the day" feature that I love is exhausting; I also have a long list of entries from various bloggers in Google Reader that I'm simply not reading because they're all "a lone voice of blue in a sea of Red Sea-inspired red." Yes, because of course, the government is not in any way indicative of the choices of the people. Hello: Americans got themselves into this mess. If you even see it as a mess. I think the hardest thing for me, having come from such a liberal background in a liberal country, IS to be forced to confront the substantial news "bias" that awaits conservatism in this country. I've made no bones all along about being anti-Obama; he may be super intelligent, but he's such a smooth talker with the best answer for every question that I can't help but doubt a lot of his intent. Liberals have berated me for saying that McCain is an alternative; frankly, if you're a die-hard, no-holds-barred, nothing-inflames-you liberal then yes, that certainly is NOT the case. Not voting Democrat would be a travesty.... But I've also come to realize, throughout this election where I don't even have the right to vote, and following my own country's election where they didn't let me vote, why I understand that people would randomly switch parties during an election that features candidates that displease them. Obviously over the past couple of years, I have become increasingly Right because my boyfriend is quite Right. He's not a Bible-thumping Christian by any means, but he is interesting to watch: someone who served his country for 20 years, but now makes just enough money to suit his materialistic needs so long as the government largely keeps its grubby hands off of it. Sometimes he will just say the darndest things that, to me, in the past would have appeared to be so politically incorrect or insensitive; now I'm just awed that someone is ALLOWED to say that, or at least get away with it unscathed. I've been cut off at the knee so many times, called racist, elitist, any number of things. I just took it in stride, and believed it to be true (at least in some part--why would they say it if they didn't mean it?) In the past I never publically declared things I believed, particularly if they were unpopular, because it just got me in trouble. Do I like affirmative action? Not really. Do I think it worked in the 50s, 60s, and 70s when blacks needed a step ahead? Sure. Do I think it works now? Not really. Did affirmative action keep me out of Middlebury? Probably not. Do I think intravenous drug users should get clean needles to help keep disease down? I guess. Do I want to pay for said needles? No. But in the same way that I never qualified for financial aide at my university because MERIT-BASED dispensation was predicated on need-based prequalifiers, that doesn't necessarily make it fair to me to be white...just because faulting white people is the hip thing to do now. Yes I might have a lot of money, and yes that might piss you off and make you jealous, but I have as much right to work my butt off and get award money for my hard-earned grades than the next person. Put us on the same level: either needs-based, which I do NOT qualify for, or merit-based, which I often should but did not at my school. Incidentally, I learned yesterday--in the process of requesting some paperwork for my current scholarship applications--that I graduated at the 71st percentile from my university last year. I requested the Arts & Sciences statistics, instead of senior students (who all take bird classes, and do exceedingly well), which means that I was the top 29% of 23, 818 students. Yikes. Do I think that Obama has a chance to win the election? Certainly. The late night comedians continue to rip into McCain & Palin for any number of things as Obama gets a free pass for being black; what white man can get away with making fun of a black man? I mean the closest we came was coming back in the car from Long Island. Michael Pollan was on NPR discussing the major article he wrote from NYT magazine on food issues two weeks ago. He talks about the new President recreating the WWII effort of converting part of the White House lawns into vegetable gardens; "if the First Family went out and picked some vegetables every once and a while, it would look great...a wonderful inspiration to the nation to make these personal changes during hard, economic times. And they would inadvertantly becoming part-time locavores." Except, with Obama, they would end up looking like slaves. I don't know how I got onto this political rant; it's been a long time brewing, and frankly I could have written a more extensive and comprehensive dissertation other days during this past month, but now here I'm starting to get hungry and I haven't said any of what I came to say! As usual. I'm still in NYC. I've been in a kind of funk since we got back Monday; I can't tell if I'm homesick, or just in a lazy mood where I really don't feel like doing anything. I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge on Tuesday and took the subway back to Union Square. That was a reasonable development considering that I've been to NYC so many times without taking the subway; it really wasn't such a big deal given that I was so prepped for it to be terrible and difficult. Yesterday I went to the theatre both at 2pm and 8pm, which I'll talk more about in a bit, but generally just wandered around killing time, reading Paul Auster, and consuming Pinkberry. Today I know I should get out and go do something, whether trying to get tickets to "Fuerzabruta" or "A Man of All Seasons", but I just can't seem to get inspired; part of me wants to get all caught up on this blog business, put Melinda's opera coat on eBay, then stall and go get lunch/coffee, just watch a movie and do nothing. Which is always a shame when I get like this (the last time I recal is possibly in Malaysia--haha, malaise--two summers ago) but I just feel like a homebody today. Plus Jackson's wife Trish is coming to stay with Melinda for a few days; her train is supposed to get in around 2pm, so I do have half a mind that I can stay around Union Square on the basis of needing to "let her in" to the apartment. The next 24 hours should be interesting given that Trish does not know about Jackson's public (locked) blog which I read for about 18 months before he got all pissy and I stopped 2 years ago. He's a conceited, self-absorbed bastard a lot of the time; we all are in our blogs, but this was just getting a little bit much for me. I mean he lives in a ramshackle house out in W. Virginia, working for his father's insurance firm. So I have read all kinds of terrible things about his wife (complaints that she doesn't clean the home; that she's obsessed with Harry Potter; and the bizarre anal sex scenarios he envisions with her) so I feel like I have an unfair advantage "knowing" her--without her having the chance to defend herself, or create a first impression--but tonight I'm just supposed to pretend like hey, I'm just some nameless girl from Canada, eh?!? I'm excited to go home tomorrow. A small part of it is certainly that I've been wearing the same clothes day in, day-out for almost 10 days. I wasn't expecting to be in this climate. I wasn't expecting to be wearing clothes most days frankly. This weekend will be busy. Big's coworker is having a housewarming party; we are now also going to the John McCain rally in Mesilla, a historic area of town maybe 20-25 minutes away from the house. I'm interested because Big is passionate (I can't remember the last time he was this excited about anything, let alone articulating that he actually really really wants to do this), and hey I've never been to a live political rally of this scale; I'll get to see Cindi McCain as she continues her living rendition of Oscar de la Renta's Fall 2008 collection. And even if he does not become President on November 4--a possibility that is increasingly real, and increasingly depressing--that doesn't make it any less relevant. Sunday I think we are going out for brunch. Sunday I have a few mundane things on eBay ending, and this week I would like to post a LOT more items to finish next week. Things is I don't think I can take Friday or Saturday to prep them, so I may just end up posting Monday and see how it goes. I can't believe it's already the end of October; if I go London it will be in about three weeks. I'm not too excited about it. As it stands, I'm inclined to go for far fewer days than I originally thought (8 or less) because I'm just not interested. I need to go though, especially with Amy backing out of India. And we can work such that I leave from Denver (Lufthansa, so Star Alliance) and return for American Thanksgiving. I came on here to write about the plays I saw yesterday; now it's less of a critique and more of a report. At 2pm I saw Equus with Daniel Radcliffe. If you're a HP fan, you'll be a little disappointed; Daniel is in a psychiatric ward, causing him to spend a lot of time pretending to be asleep or in his room on stage, just not necessarily acting. The psychiatrist is excellent, trying to sift through his family home life to understand why he blinds these six horses. The horses they recreated on stage with these tall, black men in suede jodhpurs on horseshoe stilts and these silver metal sclupturesque heads. It was pretty creepy actually. There is also this huge theme of religious overtones that I had no knowledge of prior to seeing Equus. Equus (pronunced Ek-wus) ends up sounding a lot like Jesus. He represents this purity and religiosity that Alan (Radcliffe's character) experiences growing up with his mother whispering gospel in one ear, and his father working studiously on the Sabbath (or going to porn, as the case my be) in the other instance. He adores this gory poster of the Christ laden with chains at the crucifixion at the of his bed. There is some question as to weather his childhood dream might have homoreotic allusions that get lost in the play, that when Alan gouges out the horses eyes because they "see" him having sex with the girl (Stephanie?) it is because he's not supposed to be having sex, period, or because he's not giving himself to Equus or Nugget...so celibacy in Christ? Alan does run around naked. There is no question of being able to see HP's "peen" as the case may be; the scene is them going to the barn/stables to have sex. A game of "I'll take of my clothing, if you'll take of yours ensues." It should be pretty clear that the actors will get naked, although I wonder that they don't have more complaints given that there was no oral or written advisory anywhere (on the playbill, in the theatre, what have you) advertising the arguably graffic, but tasteful nudity. Both actors take off their clothes at the ends of this box bed that has straw lighting projected on it. They kiss, awkardly, he keeps getting spooked. Eventually the gurl lies down and Alan is essentially between her legs, all but putting it in her (6" above) as he argues with his psychiatrist across the room. The play involves a lot of in-situ recreation of the events. After ostensibly having sex with the girl, he goes and fights the horses in the stables, runs around fighting his dreams and delusions, jumping around completely naked and doing leaping kung-fun moves in fighting these horses. As Melinda asked there is no question of angles, or where you're seated: you're going to see everything. Now granted I was sitting front row, middle of the mezzanine, so if you were peeaking around/through other peoples' heads it might be less of an issue, but to me the scene is long enough to see everything, think about it, and look again. The second play that I went and saw was Arthur Miller's "All My Sons." Again, I went in totally cold on the plot just hoping to catch a decent show with some celebrities. I knew that Katie Holmes played the daughter (in-law) but I had no idea the cast also included Diane Weist (Law & Order), John Lithgow (Third Rock from the Sun), and Patrick Wilson (Broadway actor whose face I recognize). The show was very good overall, a tale of tragedy in the years following WWII. A lost son, a waiting fiance, a local town's industry, that sort of thing. The play went by much faster than Equus. Katie Holmes was good, but not stellar. She had that forced voice of someone who sounds like they have to speak LOUDER BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A MICROPHONE. It felt kind of forced, and I thought "well geez, this is going to be annoying," but then I remembered that she was like this in Dawson's Creek, although then I took it as a Joey Potter idiosyncracy. I haven't seen enough of her other movies to really put my theory in to play, but I guess that's just how she acts? It was great seeing her on stage. She's very pretty. I was saying to Melinda last night she's one of the few actors I would ever say I looked up to, in terms of fashion or style, because they have a simlar body type to mine. Katie Holmes has huge feet, and very nice buff arms (not Madonna skeletor arms, but just arms that look normal and then she grabs someone or something and you desperately want those vague lines of definition), and she's not as skinny in person as you would think. She has a tiny little mommy pooch, you know a little bit of a pudge below the waiste line, but otherwise a very cute, attractive girl. I waited outside afterwards with everyone else to see what would happen. They had a traffic cop there to smooth traffic so her Escalade could leave very quickly; she had a gigantic, non-descript, leather and heavy metal expensive purse on the arm of her bodyguard. She did stop and take some pictures, sign some autographs for several minutes. Her hair cut look terrible in person and she was wearing a white winter coat with skinny jeans; part of me felt bad, staying to gawk, but then another part of me was happy that she's not as drugged or controlled by Scientology as the media suggests. 9:29 a.m. - 2008-10-23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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