“God, that song is so annoying,” Ms. Perry said, when “California Gurls” came on at one of her promotional appearances.
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So apprently the new look sweeping the hipper parts of New York City is “The Elaine,” as in, Elaine Benes on Seinfeld. Yes, trendy women are rocking floral dresses, blouses with lace insets, and denim jackets with fringe. I guess this is no worse than the other ridiculous trends Chloe Sevigny has started, but really, this is a trajedy. Elaine looked dorky and square in the early ‘90s, and her look is no better today. So let’s keep our heads about us, middle America, and sit this trend out.
This is Elaine saying, “Seriously?” to those New York girls.
Some notes from the article in the New York Times about this trend:
- Chloe Sevigny says she doesn’t have a TV. Those people drive me nuts. People who broadcast the fact that they don’t have a TV only do so because it makes them feel superior to all of us plebes who they believe worship at the altar of TV. It especially drives me nuts when the people who are unnecessarily sharing this information star on a TV show, as is the case with Ms. Sevigny and Vincent Kartheiser, of the wonderful Mad Men. If we were all as “enlightened” as they are, they would be out of their jobs.
- Apparently these neo-Elaines are “too young” to even know who it is they’re emulating. Not true. These women, who are probably roughly my age, are either too pretentious to admit that they know about Elaine, or dumb.
- The women featured in the article were the ones wearing super short miniskirts a couple of years ago, and looking back on it now, they’re embarrassed of the way the dressed. Will it take them a couple of years to be embarrassed about the way they’re dressing today?
- “But now, if you happen upon an old episode, Elaine just looks cool — and of-the-moment.”
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A young Saudi woman was recently walking through a park with a young man. A member of the Hai’a, the religious police, stopped the pair to ask for proof of their relationship as it’s illegal for a woman to be alone with a man she’s not related to. The man apparently fainted after being confronted by the police officer. So the woman attacked the police officer, sending him to the hospital. The unidentified woman could now possibly face a prison term and lashings for what she did.
I know that according to MLK Jr., Gandhi, and, most significantly, Jesus, violence is not the answer. But can you imagine how this woman must feel, living in Saudi Arabia, being told she can’t dress the way she wants to, drive herself, or spend time with the people of her choosing? Can you imagine how she must feel to be told every day, by her country’s leaders and their interpretation of religious law, that she’s not as smart or valuable as her male contemporaries? Can you imagine the catharsis she got from wailing on that religious cop? I think she’s awesome, and I hope she doesn’t have to suffer for her bravery.
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You may have already heard about Reykjavik’s new mayor, Jon Gnarr, but I feel I must blog about him in case there’s any of my 12 readers who haven’t heard of him yet. He’s an Icelandic comedian who decided to run for mayor after the collapse of Iceland’s economy. He formed a new party, the Best Party, and became mayor after winning 34.7% of the vote.
Some highlights from the New York Times article (which you should probably just go ahead and read for yourself):
- Gnarr promised a classroom of kindergartners a Disneyland at the airport.
- “No one has to be afraid of the Best Party because it is the best party. If it wasn’t, it would be called the Worst Party or the Bad Party. We would never work with a party like that.”
- The Best Party won 6 out of 15 council seats, so Gnarr needed a coalition partner; he ruled out any party whose members had not seen all five seasons of “The Wire.” (He ended up forming a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats “despite Mr. Gnarr’s suspicion that party leaders had assigned an underling to watch ‘The Wire’ and take notes.”)
- “At 11, he decided school was useless to his future as a circus clown or pirate and refused to learn any more.”
- His foreign relations experience includes “a radio show in which he regularly crank-called the White House, the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and police stations in the Bronx to see if they had found his lost wallet.”
The article has more details on the punk rock members of the Best Party and Gnarr’s campaign promises regarding polar bears and free towels.
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Ms. Magazine’s blog is upset because child prostitutes in Bangladesh are being given cow steroids. Brothel owners use these steroids to fill out the young girls to make them appear older. Older prostitutes use them as a food substitute, in addition to taking them for their “beauty” effects. One prostitute said they make her more attractive, which leads to more clients, which helps her buy her freedom back from her brothel owner.
A group called ActionAid is working to get the steroids off the market and away from madams and prostitutes. An ActionAid worker from Bangladesh said “We are creating awareness amongst the sex workers about the drug’s side effects. We are also holding meeting with the quacks who are selling the drug. In addition, we are reaching the policy makers in drug administration and civil surgeons who can really keep track and play an effective role in stopping this.”
I agree that forcing anyone, young girls or adult prostitutes, to take cow steroids is wrong. But I think the main issue here is the fact that these people are prostitutes. And from the quote from the aid worker, ActionAid has some degree of contact with these sex workers. Might it not be better to use their contacts and influence to get these people out of their current situation? Wouldn’t getting these people away from the brothels negate the need for the steroids, and get them away from the women pushing the steroids on them? And get them out of a life of selling their bodies?
I know it’s Pollyanna-ish of me to think that an aid group should be able to rescue the hundreds of thousands of sex workers in Bangladesh, where some prostitution is even legal, but I think it’s a shame to waste whatever influence this group has by talking about steroids. Why not talk to the girls about freedom? About the value of their lives?
What do you guys think? Am I being too hard on ActionAid?
A couple of groups I know of who are working to get child prostitutes out of the brothels and into a safe environment are Love146, Children’s Hope Chest, and She Dances. Any of them could use whatever help you could offer to help rescue young girls.
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As promised, pictures!
Todd said I was putting too many pictures in this post, so he made me create a Flickr slideshow. To read my pithy comments, click on “Show Info” in the upper right hand corner after starting the slideshow. I answer all the burning questions, such as what I ate for breakfast and what books I read. There’s also scenery pictures and one of me pretending to be 10 years younger than I really am.
So I think that’s all I have to tell you about our Mexico trip. (Until I remember something else.) We had a really great time and are so grateful for Jan and Janine’s generosity.
If you want more info on Rovia, like how it actually works and how you can go on a vacation like ours, with maximum relaxation and very little critical thought required on your part, head over to Todd’s blog. (I would discuss Rovia here, but I was alone, in our room, in bed, watching Rocky III during the meeting in which Todd learned about it, and I’m still kind of fuzzy on the details.)
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So we’ve been back from Mexico for about a week now. We’re back to cooking our own food and picking up after ourselves, theoretically. (It’s going to be hard to not have someone else pick up my empty water glass as soon as I put it down on the table, at least until I have Todd trained.) Anyway, I figure it’s about time to give the people what they want.*
Sunday morning we met our new BFF, Frieda, at Cabo Adventures. Despite the fact that she weighs 400 pounds and subsists on raw fish, which we all know I now have an aversion to, we were fast friends. She kissed us, “danced” with us, and dragged us around the pool with us on her belly. It really was a lot of fun and I’d recommend the experience, but only if you get the two-for-one deal we got since we were travelling with Rovia. Otherwise, the price is a little steep.
After doing our best to rinse off the slimy fish smell Frieda left on us, we proceeded to the photo processing center where Cabo Adventures continues its fleecing of American tourists. One picture cost $25! We were so offended! But Frieda looked so cute, so you can see our $25 picture below.
We had a sad realization on our way to meet Frieda. You see, on the way to the resort from the airport, all we saw of Cabo looked eerily American, with landscaped medians and double-decker strip malls filled with Subways and Blockbusters. Seeing this, we decided we didn’t need to worry about any excursions into town because we’ve been to suburban Dallas and we’ve seen all that before. But on our way to the marina we saw the real Cabo, with windy little streets and open air restaurants and signs written in Spanish. By the time we saw this, though, we were down to our last $12 in cash, on our last full day in Mexico, and had already bought souvenirs from the vendors who set up shop in the hotel’s courtyard the day before. So we went to Mexico without seeing “Mexico,” which is slightly disappointing.
The rest of Sunday was spent laying by the pool and watching the most spectacular of all the shows the RIU Santa Fe had to offer, their Traditional International Dance show. Actually, the show was an abomination. The “traditional” dances included a Las Vegas showgirl routine (complete with g-strings), a Broadway show (similar to those seen two nights earlier in the resort’s “Broadway” show), a Can-Can dance (complete with lots of booty flashing), a tango (which was actually really impressive), and a finale that I can’t adequately describe in words. The women were in some kind of faux animal skin get ups, with lots of dangling strips of fabric. They kind of looked like slutty Eskimos. The men wore white pants and an assortment of white tops, including one see-through mesh top and one top that had sleeves but no front or back. The sleeves-but-no-shirt guy also had on a white cowboy hat. We struggled to determine which country they were “honoring” with this dance, and at first Todd thought it was possibly an homage to gay German night clubs. We finally thought that maybe it was supposed to be some kind of Brazilian Carnivale** dance, but we’re still not sure. Below is our attempt to document the spectacle.
The next morning we got up early and ate a quick breakfast so we could have a couple more hours by the pool. Of course, the universe conspired to make our last day there the one with the best pool temperature and the least amount of people, meaning we left it with the best possible experience fresh in our mind. The universe can be cruel.
By noon we were safely on the bus Rovia put us on, on the way to the airport. I was looking forward to Kansas and its buildings in conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (elevators!) and coated Ibuprofen, but not much else.
Upon landing in Houston we remarked on how nice it was to be in the States again, with air-conditioned terminals and such well-organized customs processes. “Americans are awesome!” we said. “We have tons of customs lines open, and a dude who tells you which line to go to so they all move at about the same pace! So much better than that cattle call ‘process’ in Mexico!”
But after getting through the first customs desk we found we still had about five more security checkpoints to go through before we could get on the plane to Wichita. “D’oh!” we said. “Mexico’s customs process seemed more hectic, but it was actually faster because there was only one step!” We were moderately shamed.
We made it back home around midnight and learned the weather here had been over 110 degrees with 95% humidity for five days straight. Mexico, in August, had highs in the 90’s with no humidity and a cool breeze. Also, no bugs. I’ll let you guess how we felt about this.
Thanks to our friend and house sitter Cliff, our house was still standing and our cats were still alive. They were pretty mad at us, but they were alive.
And thus ended our magical Mexican vacation. Tomorrow I’ll post some pictures, and then I’ll never speak of it again, promise.***
*If you’re not sure, “what they want” is details of our last few days in Mexico.
** No offense to Brazil, or Carnivale,
***Probably.
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When traveling the world when I was younger, my family used to say “we’re on vacation” to give ourselves permission to do something we might not ordinarily do. For example, if we wanted to have an extra piece of chocolate cake, we’d just say “we’re on vacation” and proceed to eat the cake with no guilt.
The other night Todd and I ate dinner at the Asian restaurant on the property. I don’t usually eat sushi, other than California rolls, but I thought “I’m on vacation,” and proceeded to try exciting new foods.
Yesterday I woke up feeling nauseous and shaky. I and everyone around me thought that maybe I was dehydrated, so I proceeded to consume a very large amount of water in a very short amount of time. It made me feel worse, but I pushed through and drank even more water. I barely made it back to our room before all the water came right back up, and I felt much better. I and everyone around me decided it was probably the sushi that made me sick, not dehydration. I still wasn’t 100% so I spent the day in bed watching Rocky IV. I realized last night during karaoke just how much Spanish I’d learned during the day, but I still feel like yesterday was a total bust.
This morning I woke up feeling much better. The sun is shining a little brighter, the pool is a little more sparkly, the flowers are giving off an even sweeter aroma, and I am giong to lay by the pool like I’ve never laid by any pool in my life.
Tomorrow is our date with the dolphins! We’ll let you know how it goes.
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After some slight turbulence that almost made me lose my pretzels, we made it to Cabo San Lucas! The group that arranged our trip picked us up right outside the airport, led us through a really easy sign-in process upon arrival at the resort, and had our bags delivered to our room. All this meant that we haven’t had to think about anything since getting on the plane in Houston. This is good since packing took about all the brain power we had left.
After dipping our toes in the very cold Pacific Ocean, which has a very violent tide that nearly dragged me out to sea, we went to dinner at one of the on-site restaurants. The food was good, especially the fried chicken, but the best part may have been the really nice waiters who seemed to honestly care about the state of my soda. The Batman on top of the roof was also a highlight.
Entertainment last night was a condensed, live-action “Mamma Mia.” Yes, we watched a Mexican take on an American adaptation of Swedish songs. Needless to say, it was fantastic.
We ended the evening watching Little Miss Sunshine, complete with Spanish subtitles. I learned a lot of spanish vocab words, particularly cuss words. Apparently I didn’t need to listen to my Raul Malo CD to brush up on my Spanish skills.
Today will consist of free food, the pool, free food, the beach, free food, and another magical show.
The group we’re with organizes excursions, and we’re trying to decide between swimming with dolphins and snorkeling. The nice man assured us we wouldn’t just be saying “hi” to the dolphins, we’d actually get to hug them and stuff. And snorkeling involves one of the biggest coral reefs in the world, and free food. Please let us know if you think we should go with the dolphins or the snorkeling. We promise not to be mad if you make the wrong decision.
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Two of my favorite people from teh 1980′s, Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, are going head-to-head in a battle for the ages. They are appearing together in the Syfy movie Mega Python v. Gatoroid. Debbie’s going to be an animal rights activist, and Tiffany will be a park ranger. And they will supposedly come to blows.
I had a Tiffany tape when I was younger, and I did love her mall-dancing and red hair, but my allegiance belonged to Debbie Gibson. Debbie was the one I tried to copy by drawing an upside-down smiley face on my knee. And Debbie was the one I was a little over-offended for when, as a teenager, I heard someone comment on how “immature” her voice really was.
But even with my love for Debbie, I have to bet on Tiffany winning their fight. Debbie grew prissy as she got older and demanded that people call her “Deborah.” Tiffany did Playboy. I think we know who wins.
Anyone care to disagree with me? (Sadly, we have to wait until 2011 to find out the results.)
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