Thursday, February 14, 2008
That was only one topic for ranting.....
delays in blogging....
Good Grief, it's been nearly a week since I posted. Somehow, between work, tutoring, rehearsal, babysitting and pathetic attempts at sleep, I just haven't been able to sit and concentrate long enough to rant about anything.
I've found a couple of rant-worthy topics, though. The first is television. When I'm home, which is not often, I've been watching a fair amount of TV. I've needed to give my brain a rest, and the zombie box is great for that. Except when it pisses me off, which happens more often than not. Monday, I watched The View. Please don't make fun of me for this! Whoopi Goldberg is one of their hosts now, and she's funny and insiteful....Anyway, they referred to the whole TV reporter saying that Chelsea Clinton was "pimped out" thing. The women all said that the comment was in poor taste, but they never ventured into why it was bad. No one mentioned that it was wrong because it was totally sexist. No one thought to bring up that comparing political work done by a woman to prostitution is deeply, incredibly offensive. Seriously, that 4 women could completely overlook that glaring fact was pretty disturbing to me.
Later that day, I watched a show that is even more embarrassing than the View. "Today on Tyra, teen pregnancy!" O.M.G........Tyra Banks has decided that she's the next Oprah. Only at least Oprah is better at hiding her judgment. Tyra pretends to ask probing questions while really just being not only judgmental but rather stupid as well.....What was most annoying about the show was how they pretended to show all the different choices made by pregnant teens, but succeeded in villainizing every one of those choices. They featured one 30 second story by a girl who had an abortion. Of course, who did they find but a girl whose mother forced her to abort, leaving her very upset. Of course abortion is going to be a negative experience if you didn't choose it yourself! That's not what's going to be remembered, though. People are going to take "abortion is bad" from that story, not "letting someone else make your decisions for you is bad."
Even worse, the girl has found herself pregnant again, by the same guy, because in her words: "It's his decision whether or not to wear a condom." Even when pressed by Tyra, this child refused to take any responsibility for her own body. It was so depressing to see a kid who was that controlled by everyone else in her life. I wondered whether she was really that passive or whether this is the effect of all that purity-ball-your-parents-control-your-thoughts-and-decisions-till-you-find-a-man-to-take-over-all-your-responsibility shit.....
ARGH!!!!
On a totally separate topic, Ellen Hargis, a wonderful soprano who lead the workshops I attended at the Vancouver Early Music Festival 2 years ago, was nominated for a Grammy. She and the other Boston Baroque performers were nominated for Best Opera for their recording of Lully's Thesée. It was really cool to see an early music ensemble up there. Usually, regular opera people look down upon early music folks (even though they're generally much better musicians than standard-rep opera singers), so to have a Grammy nom. is really cool. They didn't win, sadly, but a nomination is cool nonetheless!
okay, forgive the spelling errors, please, since my spell-check button isn't working.....
Sunny Sunday
Sunday, February 10, 2008
We've had lovely sunny weather all week, but the temperature was really low. I was determined to actually spend some time basking in the bright sky, but had to do so in a heavy coat and scarf and all that. Yesterday, finally, the temperature crept up enough to actually make it comfortable to be outside! I hope that today is the same (which judging by the great rays coming in my windows, it should be).
We had our first full run-through of the opera on Friday night. Some parts went fine, some were rather like enormous traffic jams onstage, and I heard the best stage direction ever. The guy playing Jupiter was on stage, and couldn't remember where to exit. The director yelled: "Just get of the f&*#ing stage already!!!"
My comments from the music director (not, mind you, the stage director) were that I was "too obnoxious and over the top" and that the characters still need to be sympathetic.
Well, not only is the second part in direct opposition to what we were told by the stage director (who wants all the gods and goddesses to be as mean and nasty and horrible as possible), but what about the first part? Cupid is essentially an inebriated, oversexed baby for god's sake! How is that not obnoxious???????
Okay, fine, I guess I could tone down the air guitar a little......
**********
Last night was friend G's 40th birthday party. I volunteered to make a cake, mostly cuz I needed an excuse to finally use the glorious, wonderful KitchenAid standing mixer that I got for my birthday. I tried Cook's Illustrated's "Old Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake." Oh. My. Lord. it was delicious. Absolutely, divinely delicious. I skipped the chocolate frosting (for whatever reason, I've had really bad luck with C'sI frostings) and just did whipped cream. Yum.......
The result was similar to, although I think much better than, Neldam's Dream of Cream cake.
Neldam's is an historic Danish bakery in Oakland. Their cakes are amazing, and I've loved the Dream of Cream especially since I was a kid. This was more intensely chocolatey and moister. I'll still love you, Neldams! I'll just love you for your strawberry cake and gingerbread people!
The recipe is part of the "premium content" on the Cook's Illustrated website, so I can't link to it, but if you're interested, email me and I'll give you my password.
odds and ends
Thursday, February 7, 2008
I finally got around to dealing with my dead plants this week. Over the summer I planted several herbs, a really cool type of fern, and some flowers in my window boxes. The flower and fern are in one box, planted in Miracle Grow from my mom's house. The herbs were in hippy-dippy all organic potting mix. Well, after several months of my very half-assed watering, guess which ones died and which didn't? If you guessed that the Miracle Grow plants did better, you were right. They're doing great.
The herbs all died. Or so I thought. The oregano, mint and lavage all bit the dust, but when I took the pots down and pulled out the dead plants, I found that the chives are hanging in there! Or they're the Jesus of chives and have resurrected......not sure which! Either way, I got rid of the dead stuff, and replanted the chives. I'll try to be more attentive and not let them die this time! I would like to try the mint and oregano again, cuz those are both favorites for cooking. Maybe I'll do them in separate pots in the back yard, so they have more room.
*******
My luxurious 3 days off from rehearsal have ended, and it's back to work....Today is "publicity photo" day, so we were all asked to arrive nicely dressed. Actually, we were commanded to arrive in "skirts/dresses and character shoes" for the women and "slacks and nice shirts or sport coats" for the men. This is something that makes me nuts. It's not that I'm anti-skirt. I do wear skirts or dresses occasionally, but I want it to be on my terms. I hate being told that I have to come to rehearsal dressed in a way that will completely get in the way of being able to move easily.
Actually, though, I get out of the skirt requirement because my character, Cupid, is a boy. It's the principle, I guess, that bugs: being told to dress according to stupid gender role crap......
Okay, I'm needlessly griping, aren't I?
I voted!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Yeah, you're saying, so did I. Whooptie-freakin'-do.
I spent about an hour and a half yesterday morning trying to decide who to vote for....I really didn't want to vote based on personality or "gut feeling" or whatever, because that's a really stupid, cop-out way to participate in Democracy. I finally had to sit down with a check list. Each canditate got a point if I liked his or her stance better on a particular issue. I was using stated positions as well as voting record.
The trouble with that is that senators are elected to represent a particular body of people, and to look out for their specific needs. So, a person could decide that what's best for their state might not be best for the whole country......That got too complicated to think about, so I let it slide.
In the end it was very close. My winning candidate only had 2 more points than the losing one.
On the California side of things, I became convinced that the state has it's head up it's butt with regards to what things should get funding and what shouldn't. Also, how to fund is an issue. The gambling propositions bothered me most significantly. There were 4 on the ballot, asking us whether 4 of the "gaming tribes" of CA native Americans could expand their casinos with the a higher proportion of the revenue going to the state.
The issue of whether native tribes should be allowed to have casinos in a state that otherwise bans gambling has already been decided. That means that my stance against gambling at all is rather a moot point. Still, I don't see the logic behind the idea of basing part of the state budget on people (many of whom will come from the sector of society than can least afford to lose money) getting screwed out of their earnings. "Let's get all this money for the state! There are no downsides! Oh, wait, what? People are losing all their money? Who cares, the state gets more!"
Argh!!!
Anyway......
It was interesting for about 5 minutes to see which states were going to which candidates, but I'm hoping for a little rest from all the election stuff. I'm particularly bored and pissed off about how mainstream media insists on saying that Clinton's victories are because of "women and white people" while Obama's are because of "blacks." Stupid news-media with their insistence on over simplifying and making it seem like the entire democratic electorate is stupid. Thanks guys.
That's about all for today, folks.
Hope all is well.
Losing Respect
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Ordinarily, I really like Alternet. There are good, in depth articles, many of which talk about current events that are significant and interesting, but that corporate media doesn't seem to care about.
This article, however, really made me want to vomit. Was the most recent debate less than completely engrossing? Okay, I can believe it (I was at rehearsal, as usual, so I missed it). But phrases like:
Sure she's as bland as Obama, perhaps even marginally blander, but at the animal level, she triggers a neurochemical jet that sets off the very first hate most men feel when they encounter a powerful and threatening woman (like, say, I dunno, your 4th grade teacher Mrs. McManus? or the dean Ms. Mead, the wrinkled-mouth Episcopalian baboon who kicked you out of school and told you you'd never amount to anything?).are massively unnecessary.
Really? Seriously? That's what the idiot wrote? Yup.
The whole article is incredibly offensive, not only to Senators Clinton and (less so) Obama, but also to Americans in general. Apparently we're all mindless baboons. I think that underneath the spewing, relentless garbage, the guy's point is that HillaryHate is not good, but it doesn't matter, since he's just as offensive as the perpetrators thereof.
I'm really disappointed in Alternet right now. Bad website, go to your room!
*******
Still haven't chosen a new candidate......
Links!
Friday, February 1, 2008
The internet has so many wonderful ways to waste time...Here are some fun little things:
You like I can has cheezburger? Well, there is a new and very worthy offspring:
Check out the Fail Blog: http://failblog.wordpress.com/
It has the air of photoshop about it, but whatever. Pretty hysterical.
If you need a guide by which to live your life, try folksongs: Making Light explains.
And finally, things you never thought about when it comes to octopuses
*******
Now that Edwards is out of the presidential race, I need to go think about who I'm going to vote for....
