Self-Care as a Political and Spiritual Act

I had a birthday not so very many days ago. Mr. Mezzo had rather the thoughtful and aspirational gift for me: a bathtub tray. You know, one of those things that allows you to have a glass of beverage (wine, water, pick your poison) and a book propped up while soaking in the tub?

My unfolding internal study of this object and its meaningfulness to me is, if nothing else, a nice capsule example of the ways I am — for better or for worse — so often deep in the study of my life, even down to its tiniest details.

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Many Hands Make Light(er) Work

I am usually able to sustain a pace of approximately one essay per day here on JALC. Certainly, I have fantasies of writing lots more than that: sometimes those fantasies express themselves in the desire to write shorter or faster posts — which is probably obvious, considering the number of times I (falsely) promise at a post’s outset to write something quick. Usually, though, these fantasies take the shape of the “megamillions dream” — the notion of suddenly, magically having enough financial resource that I could stop working for other people’s companies and instead write all day.  The interesting thing, as I’ve been studying these fantasies, is that I’m not in any self-delusion about the writing being quick and effortless.

i_poop_rainbowsI can’t find it now, but I remember reading some snarky-brilliant quote once about how “everyone wants to have written a novel, but very few people actually want to do the work of writing said novel.” I get that writing take work. Between research, drafting, outlining, writing, editing, and posting, I usually spend between 2-3 hours per night here on JALC. So I’m not imagining that essays will magically spring from my typing fingers like unicorns shitting rainbows. However, the thought of having 10-12 hours a day I could devote to those tasks, and the idea of what I could produce in that sort of space? I cannot deny it’s a seductive notion.

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The Ethics of Looking, Part 2

660px-J.P._Losman_tackled_in_the_end_zone_by_Ty_Warren_2006-09-10I mentioned recently that I’m a sports fan. I grew up watching Pittsburgh Steelers games on TV with my Dad, and then as the Bill Belichick era commenced, added the Pats to my regular Sunday rooting roster. I’m not the number crunching, stats analyzing, fantasy football-playing kind of fan, but I know my linebacker from my running back, and I can get passionate enough during a game to yell at the television set — as if my voice will magically fly through the ether to affect play in favor of whichever team I have labeled to be “the good guys.”

I mention all of this because I am still wondering about the ethics of what we choose to watch — only this time, I don’t have the benefit of getting all up on my morally superior soapbox like I did last night. Tonight, I am contemplating my own complicity in supporting the NFL’s culture of violence and misogyny.

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The Ethics of Looking

There is yet another piece of leaked media making the Internet rounds and causing all sorts of emotional upheaval and outrage. This time, it’s the video footage of then-Baltimore ravens player Ray Rice beating his then-fiancee unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator. Mainstream news outlets have — with breathless, parasitic glee — been showing and amplifying said video under the umbrella of its “necessity” for reporting the news. (Or raising awareness, or truth-telling, or whatever sort of claptrap bullshit justification serves as today’s flavor.)

Which means I am back to thinking about the ethics of what we choose to watch.

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Comedy on a Pedestal

One of the things I did accomplish over the weekend — though here, I’m defining the verb “to accomplish” very loosely — is clear some of the detritus off of the DVD player. Some of this was deleting things I’d watched already and saved for some inexplicable reason; some of this was ruthlessly deleting things I’m a) never going to watch or b) can find On Demand if the temptation to view ever becomes undeniable. And some of it was watching shows I’d taped in past weeks. Like the Emmy telecast.

Which means I am now finally qualified to comment on Vergara-gate 2014.

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Peeping Thomas

Tucked in the back of the Philadelphia Art Museum‘s modern galleries is a peculiar, enigmatic piece by Marcel Duchamp. Etant donnes was the artist’s final work*: he spent the final two decades of his life working on the piece after telling the world that he had retired from art-making. Upon his death, the work was discovered and, as per the stipulations of Duchamp’s will, installed at the PMA never to be moved or lent out to other sites.

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Valhalla was Co-Ed

QUICK HIT: The choir season starts up again tonight, which means my Wednesday posts for the foreseeable future will have to be:

  1. Pre-written and scheduled
  2. Quick and somewhat insubtantial
  3. Non-existent in a “night off” kind of way)

Obviously, today I’ve chosen option 2. Well, not entirely obviously, since I could have pre-written and scheduled this post. But trust me: I didn’t do that. Because my life and to-do list are not currently at such a level of organization and under-controlness. I’d love to tell you otherwise, but I don’t have it in my to maintain that level of facade.

Where was I? Oh yeah: QUICK HIT tonight. In more ways than one. (Go below the fold to see what I mean…)

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Not Flawless, but Feminist

I watched the first 20 minutes or so of last week’s VMAs on the night of the telecast, using the miracle of DVR-time-shifting to watch a small bit of the ceremony after the True Blood finale concluded. And even though I wasn’t wearing my pre-cog goggles, I will say that the performances I watched had a bit of a feeling of prelude about them. Like I couldn’t have told you what the main event was going to be, but those opening acts most certainly were not it.

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Avert Your Eyes

I lead a strange sort of double-life when it comes to things popular and pop-culture-like. On the one hand, I feel as if I live my life on the “geek culture” fringe — as evidenced, I’m sure, by past references to Comic-Con staples like Joss Whedon, True Blood and Game of Thrones. There’s lots of big “mainstream” hits and trends — Survivor, American Idol, Real Housewives all spring to mind — which have in their own time and place saturated the airwaves, and yet which I have never ever seen. Quite frankly, sometimes my monastic schedule, with its endless cycle of work, write, study, sleep, even keeps me from staying up-to-date on geek culture. (This many weeks later, and I still haven’t seen Guardians of the Galaxy. Guess that’s another membership card I’ll be handing in…)

On the other hand, my continued engagement with mainstream morning news (GMA) and print journalism (Entertainment Weekly) means I have a pretty good sense of what the pop culture trends and happenings are, moment to moment.

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