A Grand Day Out
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Radio Shakesville
A Grand Day Out
Here is a link to the podcast blog where you can download the show.
You can also play the show in a pop-up.
Track list is available here.
The show is available via Feedburner.
The RSS is here, if you need it.
Question of the Day
What was the last personal project you took on that did not go as planned? Did it turn out worse or better than expected?
I've been crafting a bit lately. Any new clothes and holiday or birthday gifts must be homemade this year due to budget considerations. But for various reasons, I have been catastrophizing the slightest difficulty or failure. I tried to make a body lotion the other day that failed spectacularly. "Flocculation" is fun to say, but considerably less fun to clean up. I was miserable, even though the first rule of DIYers must be, "have a sense of humor about your own disastrous attempts".
The bright side is that my lip balms, cleansers, and anhydrous body butters have been going splendidly. And I need those small successes to get past the EPIC FAIL of that ill-fated body lotion.
I also cursed about once per minute while making my new bamboo rib knit tee, which was a complete pain in the neck. The bamboo/cotton rib knit (from fabric dot com) is gorgeous and so comfortable to wear, and it does not pill as badly as bamboo jersey. However, it is difficult to work with. It is mushy to sew and very hard to keep on-grain. I had to cut everything out in a single layer. Worse, I had to cut the back out in two pieces and have a center-back seam. Now, the bright side of a center-back seam is that I can take the back in to make it fit better (my waist is a pattern-size or two smaller than my hips).
But I could not see the bright side until the thing was done. Turns out, you can't even see the center-back seam (photo below the fold). At the end of all the cursing, I did get the tee I wanted-- a bamboo knit with elbow-length sleeves, a neck high enough to protect against every itchy sweater winter has to offer, a nice drape, and supreme softness--for the cost of about $7.00.
Sure, there is some rippling in the sleeve hems*, in spite of the fact that I interfaced all the hems to prevent rippling. I don't know where my sense of humor about such SNAFUs went, but I think the solution is to keep at it and accrue some small victories.
*I think this is due to stretching the fabric over the free-arm of my sewing machine. 
Me in my new black bamboo rib knit T-shirt. The back is similar to the front. You get to see my vintage Stetson instead of my face, because these are the Internets (hat from Alley Cats Vintage on Etsy).
Monday Random YouTubery
[Video Description: dancing clips from 40 different movies set to the song Footloose. A couple brief scenes may be NSFW]
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by limes. Limes: purveyors of fine flavonoids, sesquiterpenes, and L-ascorbate for thousands of years.
Andy: Happy National Coming Out Day, to One and All and Tea Party's Anti-Islam Adherents Seek International Allies
Laila Lalami: I Am Fodail Aberkane
Deeky: Quote of the Day
David M. Dismore at Ms. Magazine Blog: October 10, 1911: A Suffrage Cliffhanger In California (via Sociological Images)
Maud Newton: E.B. White on the tricky valuation of a writer’s time. This post reminds me something else I read recently, Being a "Real" Writer, by Ladysquires.
blue milk at Hoyden About Town: For our sons but not for our daughters. (Update: please also see Echidne's posts on the subject of this survey. H/T dmriley7 in comments here.)
Lab Rat: Throat bacteria that destroy invaders
Audio links from The New York Times ArtsBeat Blog: Mario Vargas Llosa Speaks About the Nobel Prize, Literature and More. (There are eight audio clips; I am not able to transcribe them.)
Krystal D'Costa: What Are Those Darned Neanderthals Up to Now?
Language Log: Liu Xiaobo
Swift: Experiments in the workshop: Intense conditioner with all my conditioning agents
Share your links in comments.
The Overton Window: Chapter Fifteen
[TW for discussion of Rape Culture.]
I don't understand Glenn Beck. I don't understand this book. I don't understand his characters. Or maybe, I don't understand Glenn Beck's relationship with his characters. Because he doesn't seem to like them all very much.
Which is okay, if you're Bret Easton Ellis and your characters are supposed to be unlikeable dipshits. But Molly is our heroine. Why is Beck playing her as a goggle-eyed rube while at the same moment lambasting nefarious (and nameless) elites for viewing his precious teabaggers as goggle-eyed rubes?
They got out at the corner, and as Noah signed off with the driver, he saw Molly standing there on the sidewalk, looking all around as if she'd just stepped off the last bus from Poughkeepsie, taking in the ritzy sights of the Upper East Side.
"Is that where you live?" she asked, pointing.
"No, not there. See those flags? That's the French Embassy."
So Molly is too stupid to tell the French Embassy from Noah's swanky apartment building? But she knows the truth about Freedom and Patriotism? Maybe because she's a Real American she doesn't give two fucks about the French and their Socialist embassies. Or something. Incoherence, thy name is Beck. Though, it's not just outside that Molly is agog: "The instant he'd keyed them inside, Molly took off to explore, marveling at the panoramic floor-to-ceiling view, running from room to room like a toy-starved moppet cut loose in FAO Schwarz."
Also, douchebaggery, thy name is Beck. Backing up a bit to the elevator ride to the twenty-third floor:
They walked inside and made their way across the ornate lobby to the elevator bank. As the double doors were closing a hand reached in to stop them. They reopened to reveal a lanky, fiftyish man in a blue jogging suit. He was flush from a morning run, a rakishly handsome fellow with dark, thinning hair and sharp blue eyes. He thumbed his numbered floor button and those blue eyes gave Molly a leisurely, detailed once-over, which she seemed just barely able to coolly ignore. When the elevator stopped and opened at his floor, the guy glanced to Noah with a subtle nod before he departed, a man-to-man stamp of approval indicating their shared good taste in fine feminine company.
As paragraphs go, that one is pretty fucking awful. Fine upstanding patriot is ogled by Noah's pervert neighbor. Sheesh. Really, on top of the writing ("fine feminine company") it's tasteless, offensive. It stopped me in my tracks, the objectification of our supposed heroine. And somehow, it manages to get even worse with the next few lines. Read it again:
They walked inside and made their way across the ornate lobby to the elevator bank. As the double doors were closing a hand reached in to stop them. They reopened to reveal a lanky, fiftyish man in a blue jogging suit. He was flush from a morning run, a rakishly handsome fellow with dark, thinning hair and sharp blue eyes. He thumbed his numbered floor button and those blue eyes gave Molly a leisurely, detailed once-over, which she seemed just barely able to coolly ignore. When the elevator stopped and opened at his floor, the guy glanced to Noah with a subtle nod before he departed, a man-to-man stamp of approval indicating their shared good taste in fine feminine company.
The doors hissed closed again, leaving the two of them alone.
"Was that who I think it was?" Molly asked.
"Eliot Spitzer."
"The governor. Of New York."
"Former governor. And maybe you noticed just then, if you hadn't already read about him in the papers, that he's also a total horndog."
No. Fucking. Way. Right? This isn't possible, is it? This is not actually a book that someone wrote, someone else edited, some company published. Along the way someone created a cover (someone created several covers, actually), and someone typeset it, and there were marketing meetings and sales conferences about it. This shit was printed and bound and boxed up and loaded onto trucks and shipped to book stores all over the country and clerks at shops everywhere unpacked those cartons and put the books on shelves. This. This book. All of that happened with this book. With its paragraph about Elliot Spitzer being "a total horndog."
Sit down and think about that for a while.
Okay. Molly and Noah shower (separately) and head to their beds and things just get worse. I know I keep saying things get worse, but they do. They really do. Whenever I think this book can't possibly get any more awful, it somehow manages to. I mean, logically, you'd think, at some point, we'd reach the nadir and things would turn around. "Hey, that was horrible, but at least it wasn't as bad as chapter nine!" But no. There is some force at work here making each chapter exponentially worse, like a Fibonacci sequence of hack writing.
Sitting in bed after 24+ hours awake, Noah attempts to read himself asleep, but is interrupted.
He heard a soft knock from the hallway, looked over, then sat up a little straighter when he saw her peeking in.
"Me again," Molly said.
"Hi." He laid his book beside him, holding his page.
"I used your phone. I hope that's okay."
"It's fine, anything you want."
"I was calling about Danny. Remember him? Danny Bailey, from the bar?"
"Yeah. I wish I didn't, but yeah."
"Nobody remembers seeing him after the raid, and he wasn't with the rest of us at the police station. I called around to see if anyone had heard from him."
Hey, Noah, remember that guy whose speech you derailed that ended with you up on stage giving your own speech? Remember him? No? The guy who was awful cozy with your date early in the evening? Not ringing any bells? Oh, oh, I know! He's the guy who was shot at! After which everyone ended up in jail? Remember him?
I hate stupid questions.
So, yeah, plot point, Danny is missing. He's no doubt been abducted by the "contract security forces" the busted up the teabagger rally. I know, I know, I just ruined the upcoming thrill of a later chapter when this is all revealed. I am a bad person. On the plus-side, we don't know if he's dead or not, so there is some suspense in this revelation. Right?
Who cares anyway? Let's find out what Molly is wearing!
The faded jersey was much too big, of course, and she'd gathered the slack and tied it up, leaving a spellbinding glimpse of a taut, smooth waist above the northern border of a lucky pair of his own navy boxers.
Her hair was down, towel-dry and glistening, dark and curly and caressing her shoulders as she walked.
Are you hot? I am totally getting hot just reading that. I'm not really. But Noah is:
"I thought you were going to sleep in the other room."
"Do you mind?"
"No, not a bit. It's just like that time my aunt Beth took me to the candy store and then wouldn't let me eat anything. I didn't mind that, either."
"I'll go if you want."
"No, stay, stay. I'm kidding. Kind of. Just try not to do anything sexy."
Just try not to do anything sexy. Or what? There is nothing quite as charming as being vaguely threatening to a half-naked woman in your bed.
She ran her hands through her hair and stretched again, wriggled herself under the covers, and rolled onto her side with one arm across him, the long, cool silkiness of her bare legs against his skin.
"Now see?" Noah said. "That's what I just asked you not to do."
Okay, let me interject here and tell you nothing happens. Good, bad or ugly. They just fall asleep cuddled up together. But Noah does deliver his now immortal line.
"I'm only getting comfortable." Her voice was already sleepy, and she shivered a bit. "My feet are cold."
"Suit yourself, lady. I'm telling you right now, you made the rules, but you're playing with fire here. I've got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don't tease the panther."
Don't tease the panther. I don't know exactly what that means. Maybe it has something to do with his "outstanding record of success with the ladies." But, basically, it sounded like Noah was threatening to rape her if she got too sexy. I doubt that was what the author intended to convey here, but hey, welcome to Rape Culture. Our hero is a wild animal that can't be stopped once he gets all wound up, and that is supposed to be sexy.
Anyway, Molly kisses Noah (on the cheek) goodnight, and he lies there in bed, "having begun to dream quite a while before he finally drifted away."
And with that, Part One of this thriller draws to a close. I just hope Part Two is more than just Noah's Saturday night at the Knitting Factory. I can't take another night of speeches.
National Coming Out Day
Here in the U.S. and other places it is National Coming Out Day. Yay for coming out! Boo for shame and bigotry!
Forgive me if I may stumble into ineloquence here:
Hugs all around for those who come out today. Coming out isn't easy for many folks. But it can be one of the most important things we, as queers*, can do. Only once the atmosphere or fear, shame, guilt, self-loathing, bigotry and hatred has been done away with, will coming out no longer be an act of courage.
Gentle hugs and understanding too, for all those who cannot come out. For those who would suffer real consequences, at home, at work, in service to our country. One day things will be different. That day, hopefully, will be here soon.
And thanks to allies everywhere, for the support, for being friends, for being partners, for being lovers, for being there on the behalf of equality and justice, for being there for us, when we need it, and even when we don't.
Happy National Coming Out day.
*however you self-identify.
Blog Note
Liss is away taking care of personal matters and will not be posting today. She may be back tomorrow. I'll keep you updated as information becomes available.
Radio Shakesville
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Unsung S/heroes Teaspooning to Eradicate the Ultimate Injustice
by Shaker Kathy
[Trigger warning for violence and dehumanization. Thank you, Liss, for giving me the privilege to write this letter to all the Shakers out there!]
Dear Shakers,
Please bear with me. This is going to be a long post.
Today is October 10, World Day Against the Death Penalty.
Imagine being accused of a crime you didn't commit.
Now imagine being condemned to die for a crime you didn't commit.
Here is a stark fact: 139 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973. That is approximately one for every eight executions. How many more were the victims of state-sanctioned murder for crimes they did not commit? We don't know.
Is one innocent person murdered by us, the taxpayers who fund the death penalty, worth it?
I am going to humbly ask you all to do a lot of heavy lifting with your teaspoons today, but I want to introduce you to just a few of my heroes, who tirelessly work teaspooning away the oceans of injustices and privilege in our society that led them to prison and ultimately to death row for crimes they did not commit.
And they were the "lucky" ones. In spite of the unimaginable pain, suffering and injustices committed against them and their families and loved ones (and make no mistake, a death sentence is visited on the entire family, not just the individual), they were ultimately exonerated and released. Some spent close to two decades on death row, almost a whole generation. Some came within hours of being murdered by the State. They left prison not knowing how to use a cell phone, what gel deodorant was, never surfed the internet. Most received no compensation. With a couple of rare exceptions they struggle financially, and all of them will suffer forever the trauma of their experiences.
And yet my heroes chose to dedicate their lives, and re-live their hell on earth every time they publicly speak, to educate all of us – including those progressives against the death penalty, but who usually don't give it too much thought with all the other urgent issues we face today – about why state-sanctioned murder is unacceptable and has no place in the only Western democracy that continues to execute its citizens. (By the way, a 2005 Gallup Poll had 58% of Democrats supporting the death penalty – support for the death penalty is more non-partisan than many progressives think. Roughly 63% of our citizenry still support it, although recent polls suggest more support for a moratorium on executions. Progress of a sort, I guess. Personally, I have very liberal friends who support it, and a few very conservative family friends who are against it. I bet you do, too.)
How do I know all this? These heroes are my bosses.
Image Description: A few of my heroes and bosses (clockwise) – Delbert Tibbs, Gary Drinkard, Shabaka WaQlimi, and Randal Padgett.
I work for them at Witness To Innocence, gently cajoling, bargaining, and otherwise trying to convince my fellow citizens to host them at their colleges, schools, houses of worship, and professional and civic organizations and conferences so that people may hear their powerful, compelling stories of heartache and hope, inequity and injustice, and leave with hearts and minds changed and charged up to take up teaspoons against the death penalty.
Although they shouldn't have to, my heroes are dedicated to illuminating the inhumane logical conclusion of the almost all the intersections we blog incessantly about or demonstrate against, but rarely connect when it comes to the death penalty.
They travel the country and the world to tell us about who gets to live and who is condemned to die and why. Racism, poverty, class, poor legal representation, political cowardice and corruption, torture (one of my heroes, Harold Wilson, served in the same prison where some of the guards eventually wound up torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib), the shredding of fundamental constitutional rights like due process, abuse of state power, police coercion and brutality, prosecutorial misconduct leading to wrongful convictions in too many cases to count, shoddy forensics, perjury, false identification, our national ethos that believes violence based on vengeance is the solution for all our country's problems both at home and abroad, and on and on and on. In short, our criminal justice system is fundamentally broken because our society is.
Let me briefly tell you about just a few of the men I am privileged to work for. I will link to their longer stories, and I really hope you will honor them and their work with me today by spending sometime with them. 
Image Description: Shujaa on the podium with Ron Keine and Curtis McCarty.
Shujaa Graham, the son of sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, spent much of his youth in juvenile detention centers and wound up in Soledad Prison when he was 18. There he taught himself to read and write, studied world history, and became a leader in the Black Panther Movement in California prisons. He was framed for the murder of a white prison guard, and sent to San Quentin's death row in 1973. The district attorney systematically excluded all African American jurors. He was finally found innocent and released in 1981. Shujaa now travels around the country and around the world speaking about racism, the death penalty, and gang violence. Not surprisingly, one of his favorite audiences is young people. Shujaa and his wonderful wife Phyllis, a long-time activist on social justice issues and nurse, both serve on our Board, as well. I have heard Shujaa speak – he leaves his audiences in tears and transformed, and has hugs for everyone who wants one.
Ron Keine, one of our assistant directors for communications and training, found himself framed for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a University of New Mexico student in 1974, based on a bizarre campaign to coerce testimony from somebody who knew nothing about the crime or Ron. He was finally exonerated in 1976 after the murder weapon was traced to a law enforcement officer who confessed to the crime. Because of the corruption surrounding Ron's case, the assistant prosecutor was disbarred and three sheriff's detectives were fired because of their actions in the case. Ron is a life-long Republican who regularly gets on his Harley and rides hundreds of miles on his own dime to join vigils where executions are taking place, will speak to everybody and anybody about his experiences, politics be damned, and recently wrote this awesome op-ed about his experiences. I hope you will read it.
Then there is Delbert Tibbs, a former seminary student, poet, writer, and Florida death row survivor who was convicted of rape and murder in 1974 by an all-white jury in less than two days, based on the false eyewitness testimony of the 16-year-old rape victim. Delbert was "lucky" – celebrities like Joan Baez, Angela Davis and Pete Seeger – who wrote a ballad, "Ode to Delbert Tibbs" – rallied and raised money for the Delbert Tibbs Defense Committee. He was able to hire better legal representation and get a retrial, but it was 1982 before the district attorney dropped the case. Very cool fact: Delbert and his story have been portrayed on stage and screen by the great actors Delroy Lindo, Danny Glover and Charles Dutton. In spite of advancing age, Delbert still keeps a busy schedule, talking about his extraordinary journey at colleges and churches around the country. He is also one of the biggest-hearted and hopeful persons I have ever met. Delbert works closely with Ron as an assistant director of communications and training, too. Watch "The Exonerated" to hear the story of Delbert and other exonerees.
(That picture is blurry, but made me *blub* - Juan and his mother reunited following his release.) Finally, I want to introduce you to Juan Melendez, who spent almost 18 years on the Sunshine State's death row. His case truly represents the perfect storm of intersectional bigotry at its worst. Juan could not afford an attorney, spoke little English, and his alleged victim was, like in all the other cases, white. The prosecutor deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence. Juan's co-defendant was threatened with electric chair unless he implicated Juan, and only received a sentence of two years probation after testifying against him. Had it not been for the fortuitous discovery of a transcript of the taped confession of the real killer sixteen years after Juan was sentenced to death, he almost certainly would have been executed.
Juan is on the Board of our organization, and has a passion when speaking about his experiences that is breathtaking. Like Shujaa, he loves talking to youth, but will go anywhere and everywhere to speak as a dedicated abolitionist. An internationally acclaimed documentary was made on his case, Juan Melendez 6446. Judi Caruso, Juan's lawyer and partner, has been an indefatigable activist in the anti-death penalty movement, and has worked with Juan to have him speak to audiences around the world and to get his documentary distributed to anyone who is interested. So shoot me an email via our website if you are interested in acquiring a copy at a very low price. It is a great teaching tool.
Very cool fact about Juan: He along with other exonerees met with Gov. Bill Richardson in the campaign to end the death penalty in Juan's current home of New Mexico. Gov. Richardson specifically cited the possibility of executing innocents when New Mexico became the most recent state to outlaw the death penalty in 2009. There is no better example that teaspooning makes a difference!
I am leaving out so many others here, whose stories are just as outrageous and compelling, so I hope you will read about the rest of them at our website. And order from your local library or purchase the books that have been written about the cases of Freddie Lee Pitts (our Board chair), Invitation to a Lynching, or Randy Steidl, Since When Is Murder Too Politically Sensitive?, the horrific story of how the Governor's Office in Illinois was actually involved in framing him for a murder committed by a major campaign contributor. John Grisham couldn't make these stories up.
Now comes my pitch – the biggest teaspoon of all for you to lift is to spread the word far and wide about these and the other exoneree heroes I work for, and hopefully somebody at your college, place of work or worship, civic club, etc. will extend a warm invitation to them to come share their stories. I won't lie – it will cost, as these events help supplement their mostly very meager incomes, and their travel costs are not subsidized – but I guarantee a life-affirming, inspirational experience that will motivate people to become more aware, more educated, more outspoken and more active in ridding the world of the death penalty and the causes behind its existence. My heroes and bosses will go to the four corners of the earth, and I will work with you to make it happen.
Finally, if you can stand ONE FINAL teaspoon on the issue of wrongful convictions, I want Shakers to give a special shout-out to Julie Rea Harper, who is organizing the first-ever conference of wrongfully convicted women, along with activists and academics, in Troy, MI, this November 5-7. Julie was accused of killing her beloved 10-year-old son, Joel, who was actually murdered by serial killer Tommy Lee Sells. The Illinois prosecutor in the very conservative county where she was tried used her ex to turn the jury against her by falsely claiming she wanted an abortion when she was pregnant, I kid you not. It worked, and Julie was sent to prison for 65 years, and served three when she was finally exonerated. She is my new shero.
Justice is a slow moving train, but thanks for hopping on board with us today.
Sincerely,
Kathy
Open Thread
Hosted by Gilda Radner.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by her.
And I really, really miss her.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
WTF
A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.When the FBI left Afifi's apartment, they told him, "You don't need to call your lawyer. Don't worry, you're boring." Um.
It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.
The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi's apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.
Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, cooperated willingly and said he'd done nothing to merit attention from authorities. Comments the agents made during their visit suggested he'd been under FBI surveillance for three to six months.
Suffice it to say, Afifi did call his attorney, who "said this kind of tracking is more egregious than the kind her office usually sees."
"The idea that it escalates to this level is unusual," said Zahra Billoo. "We take about one new case each week relating to FBI or law enforcement visits [to clients]. Generally they come to the individual's house or workplace, and there are issues that arise from that."My head is swimming with reactions to this story, but the thought that keeps floating to the top is the bitter irony that about half this country thinks our president is a secret Muslim trying to covertly turn the US into a radical Islamic nation, while, in reality, the FBI under his administration's governance is harassing US-born Arab-Americans for no discernible reason.
However, she said that after learning about Afifi's experience, other lawyers in her organization told her they knew of two people in Ohio who also recently discovered tracking devices on their vehicles.
[H/T to Shaker Selby.]
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Trigger warning for Fred Phelps and homophobia. The image has been placed below the fold because of the signs Phelps carries in it, which are real and undoctored examples of his typical fuckery.]
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
I Write Letters
Dear Martha Plimpton:
I adore you.
When I was 11, this totally awkward thing with too-short hair and too-big glasses, kind of a tomboy with a best friend who was prettier than I was, and already having begun construction on a fortified wall of sarcasm behind which I'd hide for the next ten years (or so), I saw Goonies. It is a film remembered primarily as a boys' adventure, but tucked in among them was Stef Steinbrenner, this totally awkward, kind of a tomboy, sarcasm-wielding revelation.
Stef Steinbrenner pretty much rocked my world.
She was a girl like me, or, at least a girl I wanted to be—a smart and adventurous and tough and cynical and vulnerable and sentimental and funny girl. With gigantic glasses. I lived and died with every step that Mikey and Mouth and Data and Chunk and Brand and Andy and Sloth took, too, every one of the nine billion times I watched the movie until I wore out my VHS tape, but it was Stef whose Converse I felt like I really filled.
Then there you were the year after, as the rebellious daughter of Christian missionaries in The Mosquito Coast. Emily Spellgood was not at the center of story, but she was important. She was dependable, resourceful. It was because of your real boyfriend—and my imaginary one—River Phoenix that I wanted to see the film. But twenty-four years hence, it's you I remember. And by the time Running on Empty came out two years later, I wanted to see it as much because you were in it as because he was.
I was just at the age then when I was starting to notice actors who chewed the scenery, to tell the difference between good actors and bad. And it was watching Running on Empty, for the third or fourth or fifteenth time, that I saw how good you really are. Good like whoa. You were the only girl whose picture, cut from teen magazines, hung on my wall. You and River and Tom Cruise.
I watched for you in other films: I saw Parenthood (oh how I loved Julie Buckman! Julie Buckman and her shaved head!) and Stanley & Iris and Inside Monkey Zetterland because you were in them. I watched Law & Order: SVU because you were a guest star.
And I danced with delight when I got tickets to see you at the Steppenwolf in Chicago. Martha Plimpton at my favorite theater. Oh. Mah. Gawd. You were so good. So fucking good.
When I read that this season's new shows included a sitcom featuring you and Cloris Leachman (who, let's face it, deserves a letter like this of her own), I was so there. And, yeah, you aren't "the only reason 'Raising Hope' could be the best new sitcom of the season, but [you are] the main reason," and it is indeed because of the "incandescence in the way that [you manage] with two words to morph into a comically hardened, uneducated, working-class mom without becoming either a caricature or a cruel joke." You are, as always, good like whoa—but now you're making me laugh.
And the thing about Virginia Chance—mother, grandmother, granddaughter, provider of elder care and child care, cleaner of homes she dreams of owning, realist, optimist, and world-class malapropism machine—is that I really like her. She's hard but she's nice. Of course that's down to the writing, but it's easy to see how Virginia would be a harpy or fool if she were inhabited by someone less deft at her craft than you are.
(I apologize in advance that it's destined to be canceled, since virtually every sitcom I've ever watched and enjoyed from episode one goes off the air in record speed. I'm sorry, "Everything's Relative." I'm sorry, "It's Like, You Know…" I'm sorry, "Sports Night." I have many more apologies to make, but I digress…)
While watching the latest episode, I thought about how Virginia is flawed but well-meaning, moving into middle-age still open enough to the possibility she could do better, be better, and I realized that you have created yet another character that I wouldn't mind being a little bit like.
Over the years, I've read articles about you that have suggested if you were a little more conventionally beautiful, looked a little less like your dad, perhaps, that you might have had a different sort of career (thus far). That's probably true. And for all the things that alternate career universe might have given you, selfishly I'm glad for all the things the career you've had has given me.
...And all the other totally awkward, kind of a tomboy, sarcasm-encased girls who maybe felt a little feistier, a little less self-conscious, a little more rebellious because of the characters you played, because of the way you played them.
Thanks, Martha.
Love,
Liss
