In response to Beth Mann and Alysa Salzberg's open calls:
1. Poetry. This is going to surprise a whole hell of a lot of people, considering I have an M.F.A. in writing the damn stuff. I can dash off sonnets and triolets and terza rima. But let's face it: most poetry, my own or others', is utter crap.
2. Tennessee Williams' heroines. Yes, I live in New Orleans. Yes, I like "A Streetcar Named Desire" (though I feel his personal best is "Night of the Iguana"). But the man wrote three types of women: maiden, mother, and drag queen. While I'm sure his roles are fun for actresses to play, they aren't so much female characters as female caricatures. Which brings me to:
3. Drag shows. I've got nothing against the LGBTQ community. As long as you're all consenting adults and you aren't destroying any happy homes and you're taking appropriate disease precautions, I don't care who you're sleeping with. I care even less about how you dress either in private or public. Maybe I've just gotten jaded from living in the French Quarter, but it seems to me that drag shows are utterly predictable--let's put a man in an evening gown and have him play a histronic diva. Aside from the fact that we've seen this all before, there is of course the minstrel-show aspect--men, straight or gay, and women straight or gay, and all the people of either sex who fall somewhere in between or elsewhere, can't be so easily pigeonholed. Somehow, though, it's acceptable to overplay all the negative stereotypes of women--self-centered, overly emotional, catty--for laughs. Yeah, not a fan.
4. Lost in Translation. I'm supposed to love this movie. Not only are Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannsen excellent in it, it's like Roman Holiday for horrible cranky people who were born pessimistic and cynical and unsatisfied. But I don't.
5. David Duchovny. I'm not speaking of his skills as a thespian (which, other than playing Agent Mulder, seem to be near-nonexistent) or his decency as a human being (which I file under Things That Are His Wife's Business). I'm talking as a sex symbol. The X-Files premiered when I was 13 and went off the air when I was 22. I watched that show for an hour a week throughout my entire adolescence. If he didn't do it for me back when I had far more hormones racing through my bloodstream than I knew what to do with, he's not likely to start doing it for me now. (Also, he might be verging on being a candidate for the anti-Dick Clark club, i.e. male actors who age faster than thought scientifically possible. Other members: Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, and Albert Finney.)
6. Beer. Yes, I'm German. Yes, I pretended to like this in college. But I didn't and I don't.
7. Raw oysters. Again, yes, I live in New Orleans. Yes, I love living in New Orleans. Yes, I love most of the Louisiana cuisine. Yes, I love FRIED oysters. Yes, I know what they say about oysters on the half-shell...and it's complete bullshit. I don't know about y'all, but nothing gets me out of the mood faster than wanting to hurl because those are just plain disgusting.
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loveinmexico
Rosycheeks
Lary9
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Comments
And I can only eat raw oysters when drunk and money is riding on it.
Miss N, I think I love you. Truer words were never wrote.
One thing that's worse than drag shows are the amateur variety. When I worked in the corporate world they were a feature at the company's big Christmas bash. Some guy would put on a bad wig and dress, under which there'd be a couple of beach ball sized falsies. It invariably brought the house down. I stopped going after the first.
We're in opposite camps when it comes to beer and raw oysters.
Mendacity!!! The only time I visited New Orleans, in 1976, I asked a couple of apparent locals on Bourbon Street if they knew where Williams had lived. Their response: "Tennessee who?" I was too young when I saw "Cat" to understand why Newman and Taylor never got things going, I read "Iguana" but don't recall seeing the movie - Burton and Taylor, right? Maybe I was afraid there'd be mendacity in that one, too.
I agree with you on drag shows and David Duchovny, who reminded me of science teacher I had in junior high. Damned near stabbed myself with a dissecting knife falling asleep over my frog cadavre. If it hadn't been for Scully, I'd have skipped X-Files altogether.
I liked Lost in Translation, but that was before I learned I was supposed to like it.
Beer, yes; oysters, fried in fritter batter. I've done the snot-with-hot-sauce-swallowing gig but only to prove my manliness. And nobody gave a shit.
Oysters, nope. Beer, not regularly. Poetry? A lot is crap, and that that is not and chosen by those who know, I don't get. But sometimes I totally get it, and it shines a light and casts a shadow on a feeling or idea in a way that I've never seen it before. Overall, I like it. Even my own sometimes. Drag queens...no opinion. Tennessee Williams heroines? I sort of like some of his plays.
"Lost in Translation" was wonderful for me because I went to see it with my daughter Cassie who spoke Japanese and translated the Japanese for me as they spoke. It was the equivalent of hearing the jokes and craziness from both sides of the globe's mouth. What the Japanese characters were saying was funnier than what an aging Bill Murray said, but also made his lines twice as funny because they totally missed the Japanese point.
So, I'm with you mostly. BTW, excellent job!