Don't Give Up On Me....

i have been too busy of late with preparation for my new class, beginning july 16, to put much time into my blog or my own other writing.  it's a shame b/c the class itself is grist for the mill--it combines my old women in media with the new focus on gender studies rather than women's studies, and our department is making the transition from women's studies to gender studies---a huge mistake, i think, when both are so large and so important; itself something to write about-- though i did a large post on that 2 years ago, it's probably worth repeating.  ironically, though i took the new course protesting all the way, and still protesting, i'm loving the research i've been doing,  largely on transexuality, and have found some wonderful clips on both tv and film.  so when i have time, expect many posts thereon. in the process i've been watching all of the old 'judging amy' show, convinced more than ever of its importance and longing more than ever for its return [after ten years, hardly likely]. and have had to use a real textbook, which is of course loaded with academic language, invented to obscure understanding rather than expand it.  another post or 10.  [this one isn't in the text, but i'm sure it will be in the next edition: a friend told me about it, and i looked it up, finding 2 pages to explain it and 2 more of notes. the word, my friends, is 'cis-sexual.'  i assume as educated people you all know what it means?  if not...i will explain it in a future post.  so expect to see me asap, as i privilege the polysemetic narrativity of the chronotopic structuralism......

 my 2 great nieces  --growing like weeds. fortunately, i love weeds.....

Drop Dead Diva review

for those of you breathlessly awaiting the news....it was so good!  much as i love the show, it can get gimmicky and silly at times; i hated the finale last year [yes, i can finally say this publicly, since we got our new season and it started off so well].  it was crammed with silliness, gimmicky to the hilt, etc.  last night's episode, by contrast, was clean, crisp, clear: the right combo of funny and serious,  and it  moved the plot in what i hope remains a sensible direction.  i hated the idea of the original jane coming back in a new body; it's enough that the show is premised on one dead person coming back in a new body--are we suddenly to believe that the earth is populated with people who are actually dead while other people live in their bodies?  but given that they were going to do it, they did it interestingly.  old jane--fat, bland, humorless old jane--is now in the body of a sassy young model-type beauty: the perfect reverse image of shallow model deb in the body of fat jane.  if they do it right, this can actually add to the complexity of the original idea of a conventionally sexy woman suddenly trapped in the body of fat and brilliant woman. we've seen 'new jane' [and since we've always known the character as jane, 'jane' will henceforth here mean that character] grow into her combination-sensibility role--how will 'old jane' do that?

  the wonderful lex medlin, who had looked forward to what had been more than hinted at --having the original jane's soul in owen's body--got to do that briefly, in jane's dream.  medlin had felt that as an actor it would be fascinating to play a woman in a man's body, sans camping. in the moment he had, he showed he could do it: a gem of a tiny part.  and we still have him as the beloved owen.  as always his acting was stellar: his stoical, honest anger at what jane has done to him combined with his equally honest pain was, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, 'awesome.'  i do think, though he would deny it, he's the best actor in the cast.  but everyone else was terrific.  the star, brooke elliot, was the best i've seen her--and that's saying a lot.  her brief scenes with medlin were perfect, her contrition, heartbreak, and confusion a perfect complement to his emotions.

even the new guardian angel--played by a young tv hunk actor--was less silly than i thought it would be.  jane confronts him with the question that had bothered me: if the guardian angel is a narcissistic young man, what can he offer to a sophisticated woman who's been through  a huge range of experiences, and grown from them?  his answer: i was the only one who'd take the job; you have a pretty scary rep in heaven. and his involvement in his new body is fun. he's only just figured that he has a physique women go for.  he's clearly never been embodied before, and is confused though pleased about the whole idea. jane's response to him is, finally, good. just leave me alone; i don't want an angel hanging around interfering with my life anyway.  again, if they continue handling it well, this could be a lot of fun.  (and i was glad to see the last angel, luke, allowed to leave gracefully.  fans couldn't stand him; i thought he was fun and well acted].

so we're off to a good start. and we fans, who helped them get revived, can feel even prouder of our work. like the writers and cast, we have justified our faith in the show.

A Thought

Sometimes you just have to shake hands with your inner jackass.

Father's Day--Remembering my Dad

he died in 1994, and there is not a day passes that i don't think of him, and miss him.  he had flaws, god knows, and my brother Warren and i speak of them often.but mainly we speak of the enormously good things about him, and one of us ends up saying, 'i'm just grateful he was my father.'  this is a picture from the 1950s, maybe early 60s, when he was a model ['a male model??" people would ask in amazement, and i would try not to snap, 'no, he's a female model, can't you see?'' his disliked modeling, having chosen it  to pay for the acting jobs he kept trying to get, and kept with it because you don't change professions with a wife and 3 young kids to support.  but he'd likely have hated anything else even more: at least this wasn't 9 to 5, every day, five days a week.  and it's hardly a coincidence that warren and i both ended up as freelancers.  pop was the one who first helped me try to understand human evil, and though no activist himself, his compassion for people was my first step toward activism.  not because it was 'politics,' but because it was about human beings, it was about caring.  once when i was very young we were at the beach, and some teenage kids had dragged out of the water a very large but harmless fish, and were beating it with boards that had nails in them.  i was horribly shy, but too upset not to confront them, screaming at them and crying.  they laughed at me, and pop gently pulled me away.  'you shouldn't interfere, they might try to hurt you,'' he said softly, but the tone in his voice and look in his eyes were pure pride.  his little girl was fighting for justice, even toward a fish being tortured.  he loved that i joined the civil rights movement, the anti war movement, the women's and gay movements.  having been in theatre, he had a lot of gay friends who became family friends, beginning when we kids were too young to know about sex and which kind was 'good' or bad.' i somehow understood that these men were couples like mom and pop, or single friends with specific personalities, so by the time i learned about homosexuality it seemed pretty routine to me.  my brother keith one day in the car said something about 'faggots,' and pop stopped the car, turned around to keith, and said, very softly and calmly, 'you do know when you use that word you are talking about uncle walter and ti and paul and other people you love.'  keith looked startled, and that was how he learned about homosexuality.  he also introduced me to P.G. Wodehouse novels, and to reading as a pleasure: he would often stop off at a charity place called the Opportunity Shop in Manhattan, and pick up second hand books for himself and for me.
this was meant to be brief, and yet it seems only a tiny bit about this man who shaped my life and beliefs.  but i do hope he is somewhere now where he knows his kids still love him, and dream of him, and know that if there is an afterlife we'll find him there, and all will be well....

my oldie but goodie on Henry viii

reading more on Henry's wives, specifically the new bio of anne bolen, and decided to give a plug to my 1980s  DIVORCED, BEHEADED SURVIVED, about all the wives.  remarkably, though it was never much of a seller, they've never dumped it, and it's still around.  i think it's really good!  wanted to add a photo of the cover but [a] it won't scan the whole cover, no matter what i do, and [b] when i had the same problem getting it to facebook, 2 of my friends separately sent it and looks beautiful.  but blogspot doesnt think it's a picture, presumably b/c it also has words, and won't print it here, which seems ridiculous.  so if i've captured your interest, you'll have to check it out under the title, and there you'll see a wonderful picture of the book.   [hint: in the book, i show anne bolyen as a victim of what we now call 'sexual harrassment,' or even 'stalking,' and offer pretty good evidence for why, whatever henry's problem with anne of cleves, she could NOT  have really appeared ugly to him in her picture.]

so if you're looking for some cool summer reading, check my cool book.

this advertisement has been endorsed by me.

Another Gorgeous Baby

the practically newborn son of my dear castle colleague Rene Pijles---wonderful expression!