Despite all that said in previous blog re Yankee Stadium and materialism–good luck to the Yankees!
Go Yankees!
All rights reserved. Karin Gustafson
Posted tagged ‘manicddaily’
All that said–
October 29, 2009Speaking Out on the Number 4 Train – Greed, Girls, Yankees
October 29, 2009Writing a daily blog can do strange things to you. One of the more dangerous is that it strengthens the propensity (already outsized in most bloggers) to openly speak your mind.
This was brought to my attention last night when I was jammed on the Number 4 train heading for Game 1 of the World Series. The guy squeezed next to me had a slightly pudgy face that was decorated by half-there facial hair (some form of beard or goatee, probably intended to better define his face shape.)
He noticed, in the mass of people clumped around the subway pole, a tall pale guy, whom he recognized. The tall guy held the hand, knotted around the pole, of a young woman who looked up at him with eyes thick with make-up, shiny with adoration. (It turned out these two had only been married for a month.) But I digress.
The pudgy guy, clearly hoping to impress the tall guy, told him about that big things had been happening in his life. He’d gotten married the previous year; his business, four years old, was doing great; he was employing his brother; his wife was expecting.
After asking the tall guy where he lived, he revealed that he’d “closed” on a place in mid-town Manhattan last week.
Finding out that the couple had just married, he asked the tall guy where they’d honeymooned. “Nice,” he said appraisingly.
They talked of a mutual friend who was also doing great, the pudgy guy said. This friend had had a student loan business which he sold for $150 million dollars last year, then, “two weeks later,” the pudgy guy went on, “the government changed the regulations for, you know, student loans, and the place literally closed its doors. Busted.” He grinned widely.
(For government “changing regulations”, the blogger in me thinks “cracked down on corrupt business practices.”)
“Beautiful,” a third guy said. I don’t know if this third guy, young, short, bristly, was a stranger or friend. It’s hard when everyone is cheek by jowl, arm by guy, to know who’s with whom.
Who was going to the Yankees’ game and who was just headed up to the Bronx was a bit clearer. For example, a very slight Hispanic girl, just opposite me, who had worried eyes, a worried complexion, a small stud below her lower lip, and a large rumpled SAT prep book under one arm, looked like she was probably not going to the game. (In fact, she got off in the Bronx, but before the stadium.)
“Well, you must be doing okay,” the pudgy guy said to the tall guy, “if you can buy Yankees tickets.” He rubbed middle finger to thumb, moola-style. (He had season tickets himself.)
(I should note here–yes, to make myself look virtuous–that my ticket, the most expensive single ticket, other than for a flight, that I’ve ever held in my hand, was given to me.)
Trying, I think, to change the subject, the tall guy at the pole asked the pudgy guy when his baby was due. The pudgy guy pulled out a cell phone and directed it to an image of the baby’s sonogram, which he pressed across multiple limbs to his friend’s face.
This might have been a touching gesture. But he kept saying, “you can see he’s a boy, right? I mean you can’t miss it, right?”
The tall guy tried to say something about how amazing it was that the pudgy guy had a sonogram on his cell, but the pudgy guy wouldn’t let go of the fetus’s penis. “Look at the size of that. You know what that is right? I mean, how can you not see it?”
The tall guy said that he knew what it was. “You’re happy then, with the baby coming?”
“Oh yeah, sure. I’m just so glad it’s not a girl. I’d just hate to have a girl.”
The blogger in me could suddenly no longer control myself. “I think you’re horrible for not wanting a girl,” I said loudly. “And I think your friend who made the 150 million for selling his worthless company was horrible too.”
As silence descended over the car, I was glad I had not added anything about the guy’s obsessing over the size of his son-to-be”s genitalia.
No one looked at me, except the third guy, who sneered. “No, it wasn’t horrible. I don’t want girls either. And what that guy did was great. That’s what capitalism is all about. That’s what the Yankees are all about too, that’s why we’re all here. To beat these guys from the start.”
I, thought about the incident repeatedly during the game. It was a game in which one had a lot of time to think about things (such as, will anyone ever hit one of Cliff Lee’s pitches?)
I really do like the Yankees. Despite their ridiculous pay scale. But when you go to the new stadium, when you sit in a large crowd many of whom have paid hundreds of dollars for this ticket (and have a season of them) , beneath the bright lights, in the freezing cold, surrounded by $10 special hot chocolate cups, $8 beers, and small private suites which have crowded full bars, big TVs and a real Las Vegas feel, you become conscious of a few things which are both obvious and, to me, unpleasant; (i) sports is a big, greedy, business; (ii) the players are highly-paid, highly-skilled entertainers, and (iii) many fans, particularly now that the prices have gotten so high, are demanding consumers, some of whom look to the highly-paid, highly-skilled players to act out their own (slightly impotent) macho instincts.
You can’t blame the players for the business aspect, and you really can’t blame them for taking advantage of the big bucks. Many of them grew up in poor or working class families and have worked incredibly hard to hone their skills. (Mariano Rivera apparently practiced pitching rocks as a child.) In fact, it’s amazing to me that so many players are so genuinely devoted to the game, so genuinely excited by their victories, so seemingly tolerant of their team members.
You can’t blame the fans (or at least some of them) for acting like consumers, getting irritated not just when their team is losing, but because the show is not up to the high admission price.
But because the amounts of money involved are so large, something has gotten very out of whack. And strangely enough, it almost makes the TV experience feel like the truer sport experience, simply because the audience there hasn’t paid hundreds of dollars for its seat and doesn’t have to look at signs that say things like “Make Noise,” and “Win It For the Boss” (meaning George Steinbrenner.)
The game can also be watched on TV even by those folks getting off in the Bronx, before the stadium is reached.
Go Yankees! Going to Game 1!!!!
October 28, 2009I was going to write about re-watching movies tonight, BUT I was given a very generous gift of a ticket to the Yankees’ game, Game 1 of the World Series. The WORLD SERIES!
I’ve never been to a world series before; (I’ve only been to a couple of live baseball games); and I understand that elephants are not allowed to play.
Accordingly, the pictures below are not really accurate depictions of what I hope to see and not see tonight. But in the interest of keeping true to the name of this blog (ManicDDaily), and in the hope that my good intentions (at least) will bring the Yankees good luck…..
What I Do Not Plan To See Tonight
What I Also Don't Plan to See Tonight
Go Sabithia!
Go Yankees!
All rights reserved. Karin Gustafson
What Makes Young People (And Some of Us Others) Re-read
October 27, 2009For those of you who actually follow this blog, and don’t just click on a link that happens to mention Robsten or the Twilight Saga, I’m sorry! There’s not been much poetry over the last couple of days, but a lot of clicks.
Yes, I like the clicks. (And, strangely, “Robsten” seems to generate a whole bunch more than, let’s say, “sestina.”)
But I want to explain to you (who may not understand why in the world I write about this stuff) that I truly am interested in a couple of facets of Twilight mania (besides each of Rob’s cheekbones.)
First: despite all the poetry I’ve posted on this blog, I am mainly a fiction writer, primarily for children and young adults. As a result, I am fascinated by the question of what makes people read a book again and again. And I have to say (without mentioning anything about my own experience) that the Twilight mania proves Twilight et al. to be a set of those much re-read books.
It’s a given that books that generate this type of obsessive re-reading are not always particularly “good” books, i.e. well-written. In fact, many “good” books, that is, really profound, original, heart-wrenching, or poetic books, are not the most dog-eared at the end of the day (or lifetime.) It’s almost as if such books are too sharp, too bitter, too stinging, to be savored again and again (in the same way that grapefruit is not typically considered a comfort food.)
This is not to say that much re-read books are poorly written! (Charlotte’s Web and Harry Potter are much re-read great books.) Only that good writing alone does not make a book a good re-read. (Nor does a good plot, good jokes, good suspense, even though one or more of these is likely to be present.)
So what does make a book a good re-read?
To me, the distinguishing factor is that the book creates characters with whom readers like to spend time, sometimes, too, a world in which readers like to spend time.
Reading a book is a commitment. It means hours in which you are not conversing, i-ming, watching TV; hours, in other words, in which you are alone. Sometimes, in fact, a book is a way to be alone, a path to privacy in a place with hard-to-place boundaries, such as a subway, or, if you are a child, a family dinner.
Because of the inherent solitude of reading, it is important that the main character is good company—fun, cool (but not too cool as to be unempathetic), willing to share confidences. Being admirable is helpful too, as long as there are also sympathetic and/or humorous failings and idiosyncrasies. (Sam Vines, Captain Carrot, Granny Weatherwax in Terry Pratchett, even Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie.)
The world of a much re-read book can, of course, have its dark side. But it is hard to repeatedly spend time in a world that is overwhelmingly creepy or frightening. (The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and even Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier, are obvious examples of wonderful books in which the worlds created, or re-created, are just too horrific to motivate re-reads. On the children’s shelf, similarly, the later tomes of the wonderful, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, that is, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, also, with the exception of certain scenes, get both too threatening and rarified for a child’s immediately repeated visits.)
Ideally, the created world, even if dark, has a fun, semi-magical side. (Hogwarts, obviously; the barn in Charlotte‘s Web, Florida, as seen by Carl Hiassen, Discworld, as envisioned by Terry Pratchett.)
Re-reading is a particular practice of the young and the young (or perhaps, immature) at heart who can repeatedly find sustenance in something that’s already well-digested. (Sort of like baby penguins.) This may be because the young (and not young, but immature) are themselves subject to (i) so much fluctuation, and (ii) so much beyond their control, that they find special comfort in the predictability of a “known” fiction. The combination of the familiar with the fantastical may be especially appealing.
Romance makes a great re-read as well. First love is a story that has been told again and again and again; is it any wonder that some people don’t mind re-reading the exact same version of it?
Which brings me back to Twilight.
Tomorrow or in the near future (if I get time), I’ll write about the second facet that I find interesting—that is, what makes people re-see a movie, as opposed to re-read a book.
In the meantime, check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson on Amazon.
Hey Rob! Hey Kristen! The Jury’s In Session!
October 26, 2009I’ve always thought that one of the biggest difficulties faced by any celebrity is the inability to spend time peacefully and quietly in public.
Robert Pattinson (surprise!) is an obvious case in point. This, in fact, is one of the main reasons I am so interested in him. (NOT because of his chiseled good looks, his self-deprecating charm, any confusion I have between him and Edward Cullen, the sweet, rich, loving, handsome vampire he portrays. Not even his hair.)
No, I find Rob fascinating simply (okay, partly) as a study in modern day fame: the poor guy’s life has been upended.
Sure, there’s been good stuff—movie contracts, money, a possible love relationship with Kristen Stewart.
But look at what’s come along with all of that—virtual (in all senses of the word) non-stop surveillance.
Rob may be fairly private in his hotel room (maybe), but he cannot do anything in a public space without the constant click and taunt of paparazzi–paparazzi, combined with the more welcome, but undoubtedly wearing, attention of fans.
What’s a teen idol to do?
Jury Duty!
I have recent first hand experience of jury duty (if not, of actually serving on a jury), so I feel quite qualified to make this recommendation.
Think about it, Rob. Jury duty has not even been that bad for me, who, despite my persistent blogging, does not have either name or face recognition. For someone like you, who could not film Remember Me on the streets of New York this past summer without (a) a security detail, (b) a Pattinson “lookalike” (or at least “dressalike”), (c) a 7ft. high wooden box to stand behind; and (d) a gang of paparazzi, jury duty could be a real godsend.
Here’s why:
1. Photographic devices are not allowed into most court facilities. (Which is great news for the media-pressured; the soft shushing of colored pencils is a lot more soothing than camera clicks.)
2. There are loads of law enforcement officers in courthouses either (a) enforcing the law, or (b) under indictment. Either way, they will not take kindly to paparazzi pulling out their iPhones for a sneaky snap.
3. The jury areas (at least in New York County) are quite pleasant, especially if you avoid the relative comfy seats in the main windowless jurors area, and go for the uncrowded wooden benches in the outside hall where large, south-facing, windows give sunny views of downtown Manhattan. (It’s almost like a spa! With benches!)
4. Okay, the pay’s a six or seven digit cut from your current wage scale, but jury duty offers a young actor a great opportunity to study human nature in all its varieties and vagaries. The emotional gamut runs from bored, to worried, to bored, to scared stiff, to bored, to deceptive, to bored, to confessional, to bored, to greatly greatly relieved, to very very sorry.
5. Not only no paparazzi, no werewolves.
6. And, hey, Rob, if you’re enjoying the peace and quiet, you can volunteer for a three-month trial. (They may even let Kristen serve too!)
For more Rob, Kristen, Robsten, Twilight, and other silliness of many descriptions, check out other posts from my homepage – https://manicddaily.wordpress.com.
Also, if interested in children’s books, check out 1 Mississippi, by Karin Gustafson, at link on homepage, or on Amazon.
Go Yankees! Hoping For Luck.
October 25, 2009Go Yankees!
Top of the Ninth, Yankees ahead, Mariano on the mound, hoping for luck, continued luck. (And pennant.)
If you like elephants, with or without baseball, check out 1 Mississippi, by Karin Gustafson, at link on homepage, or on Amazon.
For Romantic Twihards – Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa…errr…Robsten (Maybe)
October 25, 2009This morning, I wrote a post that suggested that many Twilight fans may not be rooting for “Robsten” (that is, a real life romance between Robert Pattinson and Kirsten Stewart) because it runs counter to the whole gist of the Twilight fantasy (which is the nearly perfect Edward Cullen pursuing the nearly ordinary Bella Swan.) The emphasis of the Twilight series on Bella as “everygirl” (who is secretly strong, brave, and deeply attractive) made me think that many fans may be hoping for a romance between RPatz and another everygirl (that is, a fan rather than a movie star.) Given the lives of the two Twilight stars though, I compared the magic (and likelihood) of such a fan-tastical relationship to the existence of Santa Claus.
Thinking about this post later, I worried that I was a bit ungenerous to Twilight fans. Frankly, I think many fans find the alleged romance between Rob and Kirsten to be fairy-tale-like enough to be perfectly satisfying. In other words, for these New Moon-struck fans, Robsten may be Santa Claus enough.
Then I wondered, what exactly makes these fans root for Robsten?
1. Rob and Stewart are simply both so young.
2. And good-looking.
3. Not just plain old ordinary good-looking—go-together, top- of- wedding-cake good-looking.
4. Kirsten is very pretty, but, at least when playing Bella (and not going too heavy on the eyeliner), has a definite American girl-next-door quality.
5. The paparazzi have hounded Rob and Kirsten enough to give them an “underdog” quality. (You really can’t have a fairy tale without an underdog quality.)
6. The alleged interest in Pattinson by established female stars, such as Shakira, makes Kirsten a double-underdog.
7. Most importantly, if “Robsten” is real, other elements of Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, also become credible … elements such as the existence of perfect male romantic heroes pleading for marriage (and abstinence beforehand), the happily ever after ending for one and all (even third wheel Jacob), one little bite turning Bella into a super-model.
(The repeated requests of certain Twilight fans to Rob to “bite them” tends to support this last theory.)
For prior post in favor of Team Fan (and no Santa Claus) check out: https://manicddaily.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/is-there-reall……errr…-robsten/
For more Robsten, RPatz, Stewart, and Twilight, check out other posts in thosoe categories, by going to my homepage: https://manicddaily.wordpress.com.
For Wishful Twihards – Is there really a Santa…errr… Robsten?
October 25, 2009Waiting to get my hair cut yesterday, I happened onto a magazine covered with pictures of Rob and Kirsten. (To the non-cognoscenti, Robert Pattinson and Kirsten Stewart.)
Yes, I only happened onto the magazine (OK!), although I confess I had noticed it before (on nearly every newsstand I walked by.)
The headline is something like “Welcome to Our Home” and describes the 34th floor of a hotel in Vancouver as the Robsten “love nest.” As “proof” of the Kirsten/Pattinson relationship, the article declares that Rob refused to leave Vancover during a recent solo one-week break, because Kirsten was stuck there still filming.
During my shampoo, I tried to reconcile OK’s article with (i) recent reports in other “news” sources of Kirsten firmly disclaiming any love relationship with Pattinson, and (ii) the sinking feeling in my stomach. That sinking feeling reminded me of the terrible disappointment I felt in the December of my fourth or fifth year of life when, after I had badgered her nonstop for several weeks, my mother finally admitted that there was no Santa Claus.
It was odd. I had been quite sure that there was no Santa Claus. I had gone through the impossibility of it repeatedly in my head; my endless questions were framed with the statement, “I already know the truth, so just tell me okay?” But when my mom actually said the words aloud, tears sprang to my eyes, a huge lump filled my throat and chest, and I could hardly stand to believe her.
“Reliable reports” posit that Summit Entertainment, the maker of the Twilight movies, won’t let Rob and Kirsten admit to their relationship for fear of scuttling the credibility of the Jacob-Bella focus in the upcoming New Moon and Eclipse movies. (For any non-cognoscenti still reading this post, Jacob, played by brawny Taylor Lautner, is the werewolf rival, of the divine vampire Edward, played by RPatz.)
That doesn’t make sense to me. First of all, even the most rabid Twilight fans must know that the Twilight movies are just movies. (Although some are crazed enough to seem to need Midsummer Night’s Dream’s Peter Quince explaining that “Lion” is really played by a man.) Still, it’s hard to see Jacob as a credible rival to Edward, even in the books.
Even so, Summit may be on to something (besides publicity) in keeping “Robsten” under wraps. The fact is that the people who like Twilight like fantasy. And the true fantasy of the books and movies (other than the werewolf/vampire bit) is not the love affair of two super-glamerous, wealthy, and successful movie stars who are constantly thrown together, but the unbreakable romance of the nearly perfect (though secretly flawed) Edward and the nearly ordinary (though secretly attractive and brave) Bella, despite all of his efforts to keep his distance.
As a result, I suspect that the true Santa Claus story for most fans is not the real-life probability of “Robsten” but the other-wordly possibility of Rob holding out for a real life Bella, someone who, like them, is loyal, brave, true, klutzy, and, with the right makeover, could look really great.
Sorry, girls, but I don’t think there is a Santa Claus.
If you’re interested in slightly silly…errr… thoughtful posts re RPatz, Robsten, and Twilight, check out my other posts in those categories, especially post discussing why some modern females prefer Robert Pattinson to Marlon Brando, and why I know my feelings for RPatz are strictly maternal. Find these from ManicDDaily home page: https://manicddaily.wordpress.com.
Also for subsequent post re Yes, Virginia there is a Santa…errr… Robsten, check out: https://manicddaily.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/yes-virginia-t……robsten-maybe/
Another Poetry Exercise Sample – Family Finishes
October 24, 2009In the last couple of posts, I’ve discussed a poetry exercise for the inspirationally-challenged. (See prior posts for the inspirationally-challenged for detailed instructions.) The exercise basically involves choosing a craft or occupation, and listing the verbs associated with that craft or occupation. These tend to be strong, particular, and colorful words and verbs. These are then used in the drafting of your exercise poem.
Here is another set of examples, which again, I’ve grouped as a single poem since they were all based on the same exercise. This one involved the craft of carpentry. (See e.g. “level,” “sand,” “smooth,” “measure,” “adorn,” “glue,” “hammer,” “file,” “nail,” “shape,” “cut,” “drill,” etc.) I haven’t been able to locate the list of exercise nouns in my disorganized notebooks, but I know I included certain good generics like “mother”, as well as the nice specific tangible words “tulips” and “stickiness.”
Family Finishes
I.
The perfect mother sands the child down to her image, or
an image, filing away the
unsightly, the angry, the unspeakable.
She drills in a face fit for a pageant, as
smooth as balsam, as modeled as
the keel of a canoe.
Cutting the child to measure, she
ignores the stickness of any unseamed tar.
II.
A family levels itself to just folks with enough distance,
an occasional pageant – picnic or funeral – joins the blood again,
a bienniel application of glue.
The occasions are muddled with the stickiness of the blood, the
mother hammering away at the grandmother, the son
nailing the father, the family portrait gathering a sullen patina.
III.
Steeped in tradition, the young mother thought
to measure out love in spoonfuls,
smoothing away excess and screwing it into a tied-up sock.
Blasphemy to mount to ecstasy over your child. No. Passion
was to be hammered down to fit the furniture, adorn the home,
like a bowl of tulips shaped to
its interval. But the small white
fist that gripped her finger leveled her training,
proper restraint transmuted from an aged wine to water,
casks burst to loose a stream, river, flow barely banked,
clear, sparkling.
All rights reserved. Karin Gustafson
Also, check out the updated page re ManicDDaily. With a photo! (Ha.)
ManicDDaily 
Recent Comments