There is so much about The Beach Boys that is hard to believe. Toward the bottom of the list (but still on it) is the fact that “Don’t Worry Baby” was originally released as the B-side of “I Get Around”. Some of us consider “Don’t Worry Baby” to be the definition of a perfect record, as beautiful as anything “America’s band”, or any other, ever released, and to think of it playing second fiddle boggles the mind. What accounts for its greatness? First, and most obviously, “Don’t Worry Baby” boasts one of the most memorable opening couplets of all time,…
Understanding Authenticity and The Lawrence-Hathaway Carnival Ride of Attraction/Revulsion
Two fascinating deconstructions of our collective obsession with “authenticity” appeared this past week, both of them confirming its status as cultural little ‘l’ law numero uno (for the moment). It’s interesting for a number of reasons, and not just because Mr. Artfully Inauthentic himself, David Bowie, released his first new album in 10 years on Tuesday. For example, while the exact shape of things like Success and Beauty may always be changing, at least we all tacitly agree that those things exist. Authenticity, on the other hand, is a phantom. Not only does its pursuit preclude its attainment a la…
Lighting Sixteen Candles at Lehman Brothers: When the Worst Thing Is the Best Thing
I’ve noticed a thread that runs through a few of my favorite (relatively) recent films. Win Win and City Island and Ruby Sparks and Secrets and Lies and even last year’s Flight–all highly recommended–tell stories where the thing that everyone is dreading, the outcome that the characters are working tirelessly to avoid, turns out to be the key to their personal happy ending. Films, in other words, where the worst thing that could happen turns out to be the best thing and vice versa. This is what John Z talks about so beautifully in the opening to Grace in…
Rom-Com Obstacles and Mockingbird at the (Alternate) Oscars
In this month’s issue of The Atlantic, critic Christopher Orr asks, “Why Are Romantic Comedies So Bad?” He kicks off by quoting well known rom-com producer Lynda Obst, who recently claimed that this year has been “the hardest time of my 30 years in the business.” As an outspoken fan of the genre, I can’t say that I hadn’t noticed the decline in both quantity and quality these last few years. Normally February is chock-full of solid if formulaic romantic comedies, but the pickings are particularly slim this cycle. In fact, when The Onion published its fake headline earlier this…
Over the Hill and Under the Law: Girls, Math and the “Prime” of Life
In The NY Times Magazine a couple of weeks ago, Carina Chocano launched another one of her missiles of insight, this time at the double standards about age for men and women in a column entitled “Girls Love Math. We Never Stop Doing It.” Her jumping off points being the pilot of Mindy Kaling’s new show, The Mindy Project (in which a 31-year old Mindy expresses more than a little angst about being ‘over the hill’, marriage-potential-wise), and a recent debate about the guidelines for runway models, i.e. that they must be at least 16 years old. But as worthy…
Husbands, Love Your Wives… S’il Vous Plait
Ephesians chapter 5, especially beginning at the 22nd verse has been popping up in my life lately almost on a daily basis for different reasons. As a result I keep thinking about the short film “Bastille” from an anthology of films called Paris, Je T’aime (Paris, I Love You), which my wife and I saw at an independent theatre several years ago. I find this short film to be a very “French” exposition of what self-sacrificial love might look like for a husband attempting to love his wife “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that…
Merciless Momshells and Repentant Paparazzi (Or, Why I Love Jessica Simpson)
“Can a Mom Get a Break?” Janet Min asked in last Sunday’s NY Times. And the answer, of course, is a big N-O! As if the ever-escalating parenting crossfire weren’t enough, Min explores how our cultural Law of Skinny-Sexy has essentially revoked its, um, grace period when it comes to post-pregnancy. It’s a startling expose of the absurd/tragic degree of condemnation that new mothers live under–condemnation which, according to Min, is exacted primarily by other women, with female celebrities serving as the mediators/proxies/scapegoats/atoning sacrifices/etc. The standards here may be absolutely impossible–ridiculously so!–yet that doesn’t seem to have any bearing on…
Mothers and Daughters and Bears, Oh My! Pride and Expectation in Brave
Just in time for Independence Day, a wonderful (if spoiler-heavy) review of Pixar’s latest from resident animation guru Jeremiah Lawson. Have a great Fourth and we’ll see you back here on Thursday:
Now in its 17th year of box office activity, Pixar may have entered into chronological adolescence, but the studio is far from becoming a brazen teenager who’s unaware of the past. With Brave, the people that brought us the Toy Story trilogy–arguably the greatest film trilogy originally conceived as a story for the screen–have given us a movie that, at first glance, runs the risk of being confused with…
Addiction / America / Church / Gender / Identity / Law / Literature / Music / Psychology / Radio / Religion / Social Science / Theology / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Jewish Anxiety, Christian Juvenilia, Male Demise, Cheap Law, Underachievement and Imperfection, Bearded Brooklyn, Ram and Beach Boys
1. “Do The Jews Own Anxiety?” asked Daniel Smith in The NY Times last week, and his answer may surprise you. A member of the tribe himself, Smith traces the public (gentile) perception of Jewish neurosis, as well as how its poster-boys (Woody Allen, Philip Roth’s Alexander Portnoy, etc) have almost gleefully perpetuated the stereotype, and managed to eclipse such once well-known non-Jewish neurotics such as Soren Kierkegaard, Emily Dickinson, Ingmar Bergman and William James in anxious notoriety — to say nothing of our favorite “patient of great significance,” Dr. Luther! My own experience would be that those whose neuroses…
Another Week Ends: Attachment Parenting, Sendak on Innocence, Self-Disclosure, Fraudulent Psych, Prometheus, Avengers, and Josh Hamilton
1. Why Is This Attractive Woman Breast-Feeding This Giant Child? asks Hannah Rosin over at Slate, in response to Time’s, um, eye-catching cover this past week. You know the one I’m talking about – at least you do if you’ve seen it (below). The story within, bearing the not-so-subtle title of “Are You Mom Enough?”, profiles the controversial world of radical attachment parenting and the man behind it, Dr. Bill Sears. Now I’m as big a proponent of breastfeeding as the next guy (…), so the reason I include the article here has nothing to do with developmental health or…
Are Stage Mothers the New Tax Collectors? Toddlers, Tiaras and Dieting 7-Year Olds
A couple of notable new volleys in the parenting wars world. Doubtless by now you’ve heard about Dara-Lynn Weiss, the New York City mother who set off a firestorm by writing an article for Vogue detailing her, um, zealous efforts to curb her 7-year-old daughter’s eating habits. Apparently the poor girl in question was failing to “self-regulate” adequately at the preschool snack table. Weiss has been publicly reproached on every website imaginable (“I’m pretty sure Weiss just handed her daughter the road map to all her future eating disorders,” wrote one commenter on nymag.com), and it’s hard not to concur…
Demi Moore’s Deepest Fear
Are you insecure? Hate your body? Fear the sheer unknown-ness of your future? Lay awake wondering if you’ll end up alone?
Would it help if your father was a famous race-car driver? And if you’d been married to the bassist for one of the biggest bands of the 1980s and were now married to the guitarist for a big indie rock band? What if you turned a career as an actor into a career as a sought-after photographer? And you had three attractive kids. And you were rich and beautiful?
Not enough? Let’s try another route. What if you were not only…
Children / Death / Film / Gender / Grace in Practice / Humor / Literature / Religion / Social Science / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Colbert’s Gratitude, Eagleton’s Jesus, Silent Men, Parenthood, Buck, Twilight Sparkle, and Sendak on Blake
1. Midway through The New York Times Magazine’s lengthy profile of America’s favorite all-around man-of-excellence Stephen Colbert, a bomb drops. To comment on his words might detract from their power. Holy Smokes, ht NM:
In 1974, when Colbert was 10, his father, a doctor, and his brothers Peter and Paul, the two closest to him in age, died in a plane crash while flying to a prep school in New England. “There’s a common explanation that profound sadness leads to someone’s becoming a comedian, but I’m not sure that’s a proven equation in my case,” he told me. “I’m not bitter…
The (D)Evolving Dreams of an Everyday Housewife: Bravo’s Postfeminist Status Olympics
This is so good. In the NY Times Magazine recently, Carina Chocano traced the strange subversion of the word/concept “housewife,” particularly how the Bravo “Real Housewife” brand has taken the conventional notion of the word to its semantic extreme opposite. What was once a term that connoted humble domesticity, frugal compliance and resignation now signifies unfettered indulgence and plastic ambition, not to mention a revulsion to any actual housework. Yet ironically, as Chocano points out, the archetype has maintained its judgmental undercurrent, serving as a backboard against which to define ourselves: a lightning rod for disdainful self-righteousness in other words…
Ease My Worried Mind: Insomnia, Control and Mother’s New Little Helper
A few weeks ago, The NY Times published a worthy rejoinder to all the recent hubbub about the Mancession with a look into what has become something of an epidemic of sleeplessness among American women, “Sleep Medication: Mother’s New Little Helper.” We’re fond on this site of using 3am mental traffic as a barometer of what’s really going on inside a person – what keeps you up, in other words – mainly because sleep (and dreaming!), as an area of our lives not subject to control, is a window into reality, who we actually are as opposed to who we…
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