Finished Streaming...

UnReal  and I loved it. (Not only because I don't especially love reality shows, although I don't,at least not the competitive ones) The characterizations and performances are really good...a terrific balance between  that "tragic inevitability" thing beloved by tragedians and little glimpses of possibility where you could imagine the crew of Everlasting making better decisions. It's interesting to see some critiques of the whole #ladyboss mindset that don't try to turn the clock back and send women all the way back home.  Rachel(and Quinn, the devil on Dana Gordon's shoulder, (now that it isn't Ari Gold, I should say,played with a kind of jaded relish by Constance Zimmer,) may find their playful sides or peace of mind(could almost write "piece"---there's lots of sexual situations on this show) in the arms of their guy of the moment, but the show never implies that they are any kind of permanent rescue or solace. It's plainly a story about women and mentoring, and the damage the wrong kind of examples and cultural messages can do.While the on-screen contestants play out the bright fairy tale onscreen, the "Everlasting" production team wanders through the creepy forest. I had seen Shiri Appleby either as a teen, or at twenty playing teenaged on some show about a foster child that was trying to gather "Party of Five's" sloppy seconds at one point, but she was the best thing about the show, even after her character slept with her math teacher.  Rachel is a very multifaceted character who makes you root for her even if she is being a shit. She might count as mental-health disability representation, too but I'm not quite sure about that.

Although I am impressed that the writers did manage, as the seasons went on, to make loutish producer Chet(played with multiple layers by Craig Bierko) at least occasionally sympathetic.. Many a feminist might start out hating Chet, but I came to find him at least as confused and manipulated as Rachel. 

Editor's note:
I made some changes to this.  Spotted a typo and finished some thoughts that didn't fully make it to the page yesterday...if it's just a little, I don't say anything, but mentioning it seemed like a thing to do this time.

Somehow, I have to invest...

 in *my* work, because being the wind beneath somebody else's wings is a mixed bag at best. But I don't really do things that people can *watch* in a stretch-goal sense.

I Can Shoot A Three If I Want...

 Promoting something for work...if the spirit moves you, vote or share.(Vote and Share, if you're in Cali)

California Leavin'(Yes on 33)

Thoughts on Knife...

 

Maybe I never felt smart enough to read Salman Rushdie, at length at least.(When the news of the fatwa reached Arizona, I did try to read that, in my teenaged quest for quiet rule breaking…most of the culture behind it escaped my knowledge, but the works-on-multiple-levels sort of wordplay in the literally heavy book did hit on at least some of the levels, sometimes. Rushdie is a witty writer, even when we don’t get the full joke.

 But if this blog truly has a job, I wouldn’t feel like I did it if I didn’t read and make notes on “Knife” since there is so much inside it that has also been here, in a halting way: crime, disability/recovery, and writing. I admired when on page 63 Rushdie wrote that he wanted his attacker, known in the book as  A, to “look me in my one eye, and tell me the truth.” Because everything the young man did say seemed so painfully inadequate. A. might have been radicalized by Islamic-fundamentalist You-tube videos.   Rushdie writes that he might not have been there if his airconditioner hadn’t gone out, if his newly-married life hadn’t hit such a high, and, of course, if he hadn’t written a book in “Satanic Verses” that had become That Book for so many. (His assailant barely knew about that, it should be noted, but that kind of notoriety does appear to leave a trail.) It’s hard to read that and not fall back into that perversely-comforting true-crime trap, that in some ways, might be part of the real draw for some of us: Suddenly, instead of a lonely-and-broke Saturday night(again), it seems suddenly perceptive not to have a date for six years, forcing  The Friday’s Killer to look elsewhere for his yummy treats.

Surviving provides Rushdie a different sort of irony in providing the nearly-miraculous to a skeptical atheist.Another surprising thing he writes about is the sense of personal rejection he felt during the years of the fatwa and that he never expected, even as a free-speech crusader, that his reputation might take such a turn.   I suppose I thought that maybe he wrote all of Satanic Verses thinking, maybe, “That’ll show ‘em,”(if maybe not so much that a head of state of a “brutal regime” might take notice and turn his full powers against him.) but he says now that he did not.  Although he’s been through a lot of things that could be humbling as hell.  It might be hard to recapture what composition was really like.

In addition to writing, and a body that’s not regulation—though I don’t remember my initial trauma, the author and I share guilt and loss about surviving so many friends and associates. It’s hard, though Rushdie says it better than I just did.

As One of The Palest "Living Single" Fans,

 This was a cool bit of news.Research proves that Maxine Shaw, the brave and endearingly voracious "attorney at law" from the sitcom has inspired enough Black women professionals to inspire a curriculum.

Who says TV can't teach you anything?