Bush:Reagan …

Chris Suellentrop writes: “Conservatives keep praising George W. Bush as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Let’s hope they’re right.”

He says this as if it were something earnestly to be wished. The context is the luck Reagan had in his second term (or, more specifically, toward the very end of his second term and the beginning of Bush Sr.’s, when the Soviet Union’s lease on viability just happened to run out). The subtext is more interesting. It appears to consist of Suellentrop’s cringing, “don’t-hit-me-again-please” defeatism. He’s like the battered wife who believes her man will change if he has enough time and she finds a way not to piss him off too much. In other words, Suellentrop is looking at the same dynamic brought about by the same agent and expecting a different result. In some circles outside the Beltway that’s one definition of psychosis.

Call me curmudgeon, but I may be the only person in America who starts drumming the desk with impatience every time I start to read a Dave Barry column. His bag of tricks is so small, and so shopworn, it’s almost as if he’s writing the same column every week. His favorite trick is the Giant Hyperbole. Here’s how it works. You start with a mundane premise—say, going to a barber—and then you cast the familiar, ordinary barber in some kind of monster by taking a “new, humorous look” at barbers. You say something outrageous like: “The barber then took out a pair of pruning shears and trimmed my ears down to the size of pussy-willow buds.” And that kind of shit has America spitting Sunday morning coffee all over their newspapers? And he does that again and again and again. It’s like playing peek-a-boo with a baby. No matter how many times you pop your head up over the couch, the baby still thinks it’s funny. Well, as Mencken said, nobody ever went out of business underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Whoa, are we a bit swollen with our estimation of our own intelligence? I am an intelligent, well educated American, and Dave Barry still makes me laugh out loud. Because you prefer a certain type of humor does not make you more intelligent, or the rest of us less intelligent. I also love subtle humor, but I don’t discount the genius behind Dave Barry’s style either. Perhaps because of your prejudice against this type of humor, your ponderous intelligence is kept from perceiving the wit and freshness behind the style.

I take exception to the assertion that femininity and feminism are mutually exclusive …Femininity has never been solely about women’s helplessness and need for men. It is a sexist mindset that causes society to speak of traditionally “feminine” attributes pejoratively. What is inherently bad about nurturing, being more emotional, being peaceful and gentle, and other such traits except for their association with women?

Our society values “masculine” traits such as aggressiveness and strength not because these are inherently better, but because it still values men more.

Feminine has been reduced to a strategem for selfishness. So, for that matter, has feminism.

It need not be a strategy by which women differentiate themselves from men to obtain male approval and thus their rewards from society. It can be that sum of strengths that make women distinct from men, granting them different gifts and making them fundamentally attractive people. In so much as women are more similar to each other than they are to men, the traits that make them such are ‘feminine’ and the successful cultivation of these strengths makes them more attractive women. But their attractiveness is second to their being actually better people by cultivation of virtues.Being feminine, then, means to become a better person in the way that women are generally most suited, as a part of being a better person in the whole - not a way of being a more successful greedy person. In fact, classic feminine virtues include a sense of community, eschewing the most destructive aspects of individualistic competition.

This is pure bollocks. Feminists did not invent the notion of traditional femininity as destructive competition. They described the reality of the situation. Women of the Nineteenth Century did not squeeze themselves into whalebone corsets out of a desire to express their feminine virtues and sisterly solidarity. They did so because this was the only way to secure themselves a prosperous married life.

Furthermore, as you well know, one does not get ahead in a capitalist job market, or in the academy, by being dainty and accommodating to the rest of the community. Your patronizing desire to convince young women that they should steer away from the values of competition and individualism, regardless of whether your intentions are good, is profoundly sexist and opposed to equality between men and women. Because our economy and public life are structured on “masculine” terms. Traditional femininity, no matter how you slice it, amounts to a second-tier support role in society. It is the desire to smash this “feminine mystique” which stood in the way of professional achievement that motivated the feminist movement in the first place.

Patronizing backhanded compliments of feminine virtues simply uphold sexist mores. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay respect to the dictates of these archaic, discriminatory “virtues.”

On a parting note, paragraphs like this make me physically ill.

“I’m not at all opposed to certain women cultivating their athletic prowess… but if they have to try every single sport before they find the one they will train in, it will really hinder them.”

This is true for EVERYONE. There are female triathletes and discus throwers. There are male dancers. People should develop according to their own strengths and personal tastes. This has absolutely fuck-all to do with whether one is “masculine” or “feminine,” and women are quite capable of figuring these things out for themselves, thank you very much.

The author’s definition of femininity doesn’t work with the author’s definition of feminism. The rest of us needn’t fall into that neurotic trap. You can too wear lipstick and be taken seriously in what you do. Just like men can wear ties, their own nonsensical cultural symbol of oppression.

In fact the author herself attempts to demolish the entire existence of femininity by pointing out that people grow old. Well, yeah, they do. But that doesn’t mean a woman (or a man, for that matter) can’t still be feminine. The author conflates femininity with youth, beauty and artifice, when none are necessary components. Neither, I would argue, is weakness. Kipnis defines femininity in relationship to men. However there are millions of lesbians who would find that ridiculous. Heck, so would Van Morrison, who noted decades ago that all the girls go out/dressed up for each other.

Kipnis’s definition of feminism is equally shrill and monochromatic. If power means you must reject the notion of working to attract the opposite sex, what are all those middle aged male execs doing in my gym? And is Kipnis saying that fat women aren’t feminine? Or that you have to be fat to be a feminist? Ensler, and Kipnis obsess on the body weight, the externals, without truly understanding the meaning of attraction. It’s the person, ladies, not the meat wrapping.

Analyzing feminism and femininity as if they were both dirty words describing incompatible sex acts, Kipnis displays her own prejudices but doesn’t enlighten us any more than Ensler or LaBute on the topics. Luckily the world’s not looking to any of them for its definitions of love and attraction.

Examine “The Inner Stone” more carefully, for instance, and you will find that a highly sophisticated artist’s hand is behind it. Aside from the fact that Noguchi carefully chose the stone with attention to size, shape and color … he judiciously edited it, altering its profile by drilling through it, so as to contrast the highly lacquered smooth-bore finish with the roughness of the outer surface. Just as significantly, Noguchi didn’t just design the rock, he also designed the pedestal on which it stands, making it an integral part of the composition. The red oxides of the stone are echoed in the mahogany red of the lintel, just as the rough log-like posts contrast with the lintel’s lacquered surface, echoing the smooth/rough dialogue found in the stone. Finally, the combination of stone and stand can be seen together as a kind of glyph that resembles nothing so much as a Chinese character, reminding the viewer that Chinese characters began their existence as pictograms as well, and echoing yet again Noguchi’s Asian heritage.

So the idea that Noguchi stood back and let his materials do the work obscures the fact that Noguchi was an extremely conscious artist who was able to impose his artistic sensibilities in a way that was practically invisible, so that the natural beauty of his materials didn’t get lost. He is one of the greatest sculptors this country has ever produced.

Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that the definition of an artist was someone who could hold two mutually contradictory ideas in his head at the same time and still function. Are you guys all artists?

Just reading Armond’s posting, and his “12 worst list”, turned my bullshit detector to red alert.

I understand that writing for an alternative newspaper requires that you sometimes take out-there views and present perspectives that are greatly divorced from the common. But of all the pretentious criticism from hack writers—and I worked at a college newspaper, so I’m quite familiar—this is truly the most self-masturbatory orgasm of the written word that I’ve seen. (And, to boot, I’ve even read “The Hours.”)

I never thought popular entertainment needed to be this obscure. Maybe the critics this week are merely reflecting a cinematic world grown alienated from most Americans; at least so far it seems the movies they are most passionate about most Americans would never pay to see. I can imagine what this says about most Americans from the critics’ point of view, but can’t help reflecting that most of the movies we now consider the very greatest were in fact able to attract large popular audiences who didn’t need to tie themselves in literary knots to explain why they liked them. And the very worst movies? Why dwell on those?

Members of any specialized group need some amount of validation, an assurance by other members of the group that they belong. That need shouldn’t come at the cost of irrelevancy to the great number of people under no illusion that movies will ever represent the pinnacle of human thought or decisively impact great affairs.

Sideways backlash … A sudden navel-gazing realization that most critics are “middle-aged schlubs” who enjoy the fantasy of middle-aged schlub “wine critic” Giamatti getting the pretty girl? Why didn’t you folks tell us this when you were raving about it three months ago?

Why pick on Amazon? They’re such a first-class operation in every other respect. They don’t bug you with spam; they hold your shopping cart items indefinitely, or at least until you work up the gumption to pull the trigger and order; they rectify all returns and disputes in your favor in a pleasant, expeditious manner. So can’t you cut them the teensiest bit of slack on this latest experiment in short-film flim-flammery? …The films (and I’ll grant you they are every bit the empty nothings you describe) are just another experiment by Amazon in trying to (a) move product, and (b) ingratiate themselves with their customers. I’m sure these will pass in time. Remember that idiotic Gold Box that used to blink at you from the top of their front page? It didn’t have the desired effect and eventually they gave it the heave-ho. You should trust that they won’t keep doing these film shorts a minute longer than they have to.