Hosted by Bob Arctor.
SHOCKING!
Currently on the front page of CNN:
I'm not sure why we're supposed to be "shocked" that Danny DeVito's and Rhea Perlman's marriage has ended. I mean, intellectually, I understand it's because they were together for 40 years, and because we collectively subscribe to forever fantasies that elide unromantic realities like human beings change. Or don't, when they need to.
And I also get that our exhibitionist-voyeuristic, celebrity-obsessed, no-boundaries garbage culture conspires to make us feel like we know something intimate about the relationships of famous people, and I get that we believe in increasingly cacophonous invitations to insert ourselves into other people's private lives even when it's not those people themselves doing the inviting.
Still.
We should tell those narratives to fuck off and stop being shocked!
The truth of a marriage lies between two people alone (or any long-term partnership, between whatever number of people)—and parts of what holds it together, or tears it apart, reside secretly in individual hearts, bindings or fissures that are unknowable, or indescribable, even to the person in whom they reside.
No one knows everything about any relationship, even the people in them. Which is what makes loving another person terrifying, and what makes it exhilarating.
And also makes other people's relationships none of our business.
My best to Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito, and may they find whatever they need.
Get to Know a Contributor!
True Fact: Deeky W. Gashlycrumb's favorite street magician is David Blaine! If ever you see Deeky on the street, don't approach him! He may be practicing how to levitate!
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 8 October 2012: David Blaine stands under lighting bolts at the start of his latest performance, "Electrified", in New York. [Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/GettyImages]
Quote of the Day
"I don't know if you guys saw the debate last week. I take a lot of pride in that, because—I don't know if you noticed, but I was—me and my brothers were responsible for my dad doing so well. We were the ones, as kids, that kept saying the same thing over and over. And we'd say the same lie over and over. And my dad learned then, not to believe it. While we didn't go to any of the formal debate preparation, we did the real hard stuff. So, as a father, he learned how to debate an obstinate child. We had a lot of fun, we had a lot of fun watching the debate."—Josh Romney, one of Mitt Romney's five sons, bragging about being a liar (just like Pop said!) and calling the President of the United States of America "an obstinate child."
Neat family.
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Song Lyricists. Go!
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
Let's Talk About the Steel Magnolias Remake!
As soon as Lifetime announced that it was remaking Steel Magnolias with an all African-American cast, one billion obnoxious blog posts asking "What's the point?!" were written. (I refuse to link to them! You can Google them! If you are so inclined!) Ha ha sure. What's the point? Once white people have done something, there's no point to anyone else doing it! Words for racists to live by.
I was very excited about it! Because I love Steel Magnolias, not so much for the story centered around the tragic Shelby, but because the characters are sort of great and they have something lovely to say about female friendship and they are gifts to great character actresses who are not in their 20s. And so many great actresses were attached to the remake! Phylicia Rashad and Alfre Woodard as Claree and Ouiser—YES PLEASE!
And they were all very good! The remake was not as good as the original, owing to the disparate budgets of a feature film and a television movie, a disparity which was reflected in fewer locations (e.g. the voice-overed ending with black and white stills vs. a big outdoor Easter party), and lesser-known actors cast as Drum and Jackson, who faded into the background even more than Tom Skerritt (though as equally as Dylan McDermott, virtually unknown in 1989).
But it was still solid, and I really enjoyed it. I particularly loved Rashad and Woodard, and I adored Condola Rashad (Shelby), who I'd not previously seen in anything else. I will never not cry at M'Lynn wondering how Jack Jr. will ever know how wonderful his mother was, and I will never not laugh at Ouiser snorting: "My secret's out—I'm having an affair with a Mercedes Benz!"
And I was not alone in my enjoyment! Steel Magnolias "delivered an average of 6.5 million total viewers in its premiere, according to Nielsen," making it #3 "on Lifetime's all-time most-watched list."
I complain bitterly about the entertainment industry lazily remaking everything under the sun, but, as long as remakes are de rigueur, this is the way to do them: Remake them with a purpose. Give proven material to a reimaigined set of actors, thus potentially introducing the material and the actors to new audiences.
Did you watch it? What did you think?
Daily Dose of Cute
There once was a dog named Zelly,
Who melted hearts into jelly
With a wee piggy nose
And ears of Doritos
And the world's most nommable belly.
Number of the Day
20%: The number of USians who now "say they are not part of a traditional religious denomination," according to new data from the Pew Research Center.
Not all of that 20% is godless. Some are atheist; some are agnostic; some are god-believers or spiritualists who are unaffiliated with organized religion; etc.
Younger USians are even more irreligious: One-third of adults under 30 say they are they are atheist, agnostic, or "nothing in particular."
In The News
[Content note: rape, homophobia, racism, police harrassment, violence]
All The News In Fits and Spurts:
Convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky has been sentenced to not less than 30 years and no more than 60 years in prison with credit for time served.
Paul Ryan goes Galt: The veep contender walked out of an interview yesterday when asked how lowering taxes would solve gun violence in U.S. Also, Paul Ryan is kind of a racist.
Charlie Fuqua, Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, believes we need to enact the death penalty for rebellious children. Really. He said that. Good christ.
Sriracha is the new bacon. See: Sriracha ice cream sandwiches.
This narwhal is all that stands between us and penguin world domination!
When Mitt Romney was a college freshman, he told fellow residents of his Stanford University dormitory that he sometimes disguised himself as a police officer. "He told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler." What a creep.
The antigay Liberty Counsel filed a civil rights lawsuit on Thursday against California's recently passed law banning "reparative therapy" that attempts to turn gay children straight. Of course they did.
Still with this bullshit? Michigan state representative Tom McMillin says that being gay is a choice.
The swimming trunks Daniel Craig wore as Bond in Casino Royale sold for close to $72K at a charity auction in London. Obviously.
What happens when you add Schaefer Beer to a Moog Synthesizer? You get an awesome commercial!
By the Way...
Republican presidential candidate and current leader in the national polls OMG Mitt Romney gave a much ballyhooed foreign policy address yesterday. It was garbage.
I Write Letters
Dear Sanctity of Marriage Folks:
Because voters in Maryland, Minnesota, Maine, and Washington will be voting on marriage equality-related ballot initiatives this November, I'm seeing and hearing a lot of your tiresome "sanctity of marriage" nonsense again.
And while I realize it's a largely futile effort to appeal to whatever infinitesimal traces of reason and decency you may yet have buried beneath the metic fuckton of desperate insecurity about your super-special relationships losing the shimmering, golden glow that only denying equality to same-sex couples conveys upon your gloriously gilded unions, I'm nonetheless going to give it yet another shot.
You and I have talked plenty of times before about this issue, and we've gone over how marriage equality won't force you to get same-sex married, and how more inclusive marriage actually enhances the institution (at least from my perspective), and how hypocritical it is that you want to prevent same-sex couples from getting married while retaining your own right of divorce, and how losing privilege isn't the same as losing rights, and how rights aren't a zero-sum game, and how extending basic equality doesn't actually harm you and in fact is the decent and democratic thing to do, and how religious supremacy stinks, and other things, too.
I've also mentioned in the past how I don't like my marriage being appropriated by your "hetero marriage is the only and best marriage!" arguments. And that's because my marriage isn't sacred—and I want the right to define it that way. You want religious freedom, and I want freedom from religion, and I explicitly do not view my marriage as sacred.
God has fuck-all to do with my marriage.
Religion has fuck-all to do with my marriage.
In fact, none of the things that are associated with sanctified marriage have anything to do with my marriage.
Our marriage is a contract taken out in a courthouse between two atheists, one of whom was divorced, neither of whom were virgins, both of whom are intent on not procreating, and each of whom made a commitment contingent on continued happiness and fulfillment, not on some terrible belief that ending a dysfunctional relationship is a failure while grimly sticking it out for "eternity" is a success.
We are not interested in a consecrated union. We are not delighted by the idea we were ordained to be together. We have no need of the weight of eternity on the foundations of our partnership.
We want the choice to be together, so that we may choose every day whether to be together.
There's nothing sacred about my marriage—and I like it that way, thank you very much. It is earthly and profane and eminently human by design. And by virtue of the two people who comprise it.
And the blanket assertion that marriage—any marriage, my marriage—is sacred, as long as it's between one man and one woman, undermines my ability to define my marriage outside of your religion.
You are the ones trying to redefine marriage. My marriage isn't yours to redefine.
And it sure as shit isn't yours to appropriate, to subsume into the sanctified marriage borg, in order to deny access to someone else.
Knock it off.
Contemptuously,
Liss
Great Campaign Ad, or Greatest Campaign Ad?
As you may recall, during last week's debate, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said that one of his plans to reduce the federal deficit while simultaneously cutting trillions of dollars in taxes was to cut funding to public television: "I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS.... I like PBS, I love Big Bird—I actually like you, too—but I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for." Never mind that PBS' entire federal subsidy is equal to six hours of defense spending.
Anyway! The Obama campaign is out with a new ad, invoking this now-famous moment in the debate, and it's pretty damn amusing.
Obama in voiceover, over image of him campaigning: I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message.Well played, Team Obama. Well played.
Male voiceover, of an ominous quality generally used in scary movie trailers or campaign adverts about how terrible one's opponent is, over correlating imagery: Bernie Madoff. Ken Lay. Dennis Kozlowski. Criminals. Gluttons of greed. And the evil genius who towered over them? [silhouette of Big Bird through the window of a corporate tower] One man has the guts to speak his name.
Mitt Romney at debate: Big Bird.
Mitt Romney at a campaign appearance at a deli: Big Bird.
Mitt Romney at another campaign appearance: Big Bird.
Big Bird: It's me—Big Bird!
Voiceover, over footage of Big Bird: Big. Yellow. A menace to our economy. Mitt Romney knows it's not Wall Street [Wall St. streetsign] you have to worry about—it's Sesame Street! [Sesame St. streetsign]
Mitt Romney at debate: I'm gonna stop the subsidy to PBS.
Voiceover, over image of Big Bird sleeping in his nest: Mitt Romney—taking on our enemies no matter where they nest.
An Observation
An excellent observation, in fact, made my Shaker GoldFishy to me via text earlier today, and shared with his permission:
It is just me or are the news media treating "fact-checking" like a cool new gimmick instead of something they should be doing all the time? Srsly.He is so, so right. And by couching stories assessing the debate, for example, as "fact-checking," the media is also resisting holding candidates personally accountable for strategic dishonesty. It's an oblique, and passive-aggressive, way of calling out lies, in a way that reinforces the cynical narrative that "all politicians lie, anyway," thus tacitly discouraging the idea we have a right to expect more.
Elementary
Does anyone else want to talk about Elementary? Let's talk about Elementary!
The newest iteration of the Sherlock Holmes franchise, starring Lucy Liu as Watson and Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes, has aired two episodes so far, and I liked them a lot!
Now, I would pay to watch Lucy Liu read the
And I bet you will be AMAZED to hear that the world did not SPIN OFF ITS VERY AXIS, nor have there been any reported plagues of locusts, nor did my head EXPLODE AT THE SIGHT of an Asian American woman playing a character that is WHITE and MALE in CANON!
(Note: I'm pretty sure the same results would have occurred if Liu had been cast as Sherlock. Gasp, etc. To the fainting couches.)
Iain, who is a huge Sherlock fan and also British so thus EXTRA CREDIBLE lulz, also really likes it. As we excitedly watched both episodes back-to-back, snuggled up under a big comforter, he declared that he likes it even more than the Benedict Cumberbatch-Martin Freeman version. I said, "We like it so much it's sure to be canceled instantly!"
SO LET'S ENJOY IT WHILE WE CAN!
I Play Bingo: Archbishop Poopypants Edition
[Content note: This post contains reference to anti-gay bigotry and fearmongering, as well as appropriative Holocaust references.]
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey (aka "Lord Player") is at it again:
The former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has accused David Cameron of "plundering" the institution of heterosexual marriage to promote same-sex marriage rights. Allowing gay marriage would cause deep divisions in society "without giving gays a single right they do not have in civil partnership", he said....CALLING NAMES! Yes, that was definitely the problem in Nazi Germany. And that was definitely when anti-Semitism started. Or, uhm, something.
Carey claimed that in some countries where same-sex marriage had been made legal – including Mexico, Brazil and the Netherlands – it had led to unforeseen consequences such as three-person marriages.
Asked about opponents of gay marriage being described as "bigots" – on one occasion by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister – Carey said: "Let us remember the Jews in Nazi Germany. What started against them was when they started to be called names."
*sigh*
I have tried, previously, in this space, to explain to him politely, if snarkily why his remarks are absolutely bullying and heinous--and why, as the former symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, his words are influential, and dangerously so, with the power to bolster those who would use his vision of Anglicanism to persecute LGBTQ* folk.
Mysteriously, he does not seem persuaded by my overtures. Could it be that he does not read Shakesville? INCONCEIVABLE!
So, since appeals to his human decency and Christian charity don't seem to be working, let me put it in terms His Grace might actually care about.
You, sir, look like a jackass.
Your latest screed isn't even worthy of analysis, but it might make a fair Special Edition Archbishop Particularly Poopants Primate Bingo card. Mark off a space for....
*Unsubstantiated claims that legalizing same-sex marriage will "plunder" opposite sex marriage!
*Claiming that marriage won't give any rights civil partnership doesn't! Because the fucking right to marry clearly doesn't count!
(That square comes with a special bonus in Lord Player Particularly Poopyants Primate Bingo, since he spent a great deal of energy lobbying for the Prince of Wales' right to... wait for it... marry!)
*Bizarre claims about countries where same-sex marriage is legal! Because no one can use teh Google to find out if you are full of shit.
*POLGAMY OMG! OMG!
*Completely un-ironic invocation of Nazi Germany. Because it is so totally cool to appropriate the persecution of Jews to make claims about gay people, who were also persecuted by Nazis. Cool! Very cool, Lord Player! (Hint: it is not actually cool.)
*Also, same-sex marriage = JUST LIKE THE REICHSTAG FIRE! As recorded by that well-known historian, Professor Poopypants Primate, (retired).
...and BINGO! I have won a prize! Okay, so it's a deluxe set of sherry bottles shaped like C.S. Lewis' head, but it is still a PRIZE.
And all that was in just one article. Unreal. Lord Player, I think it's official. You need a nap.
Quote of the Day
"The death penalty? Give me a break. It's easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state."—Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, on how being a "textualist" interpreter of the Constitution makes "some of the most hotly disputed issues that come before the Supreme Court among the easiest to resolve" for him.
Sure. Sure it does.
What a d-bag.
[Via.]
