Mississippi Moment

This morning, I'm at the salon, having my eyebrows waxed by a man with frosted tips, a lot of hair product, and a lisp. Okay, nothing out of the stereotypical ordinary, right?

Wrong, because I'm in Mississippi. He's married to a woman, has children, and spends our time together telling me about this great church camp he takes his kids to, where they get to shoot rifles and learn archery while camping. Why a church camp includes the training and use of a .22 rifle is beyond me, but then again, I ain't from around here.

how come I've never heard of this guy?

Oscar Micheaux

I was wandering around my twelve channels yesterday afternoon, the television a wasteland of dudely sports (golf, car racing, basketball, blah), and I ran across a short documentary on Oscar Micheaux, independent black filmmaker. The most prolific indie filmmaker of the early 20th century, who did everything from write the screenplay to casting, production, direction, distribution, and when he had to, town-to-town PR at each black theater. He produced a direct response to Griffiths' Birth of a Nation, the pro-Klan epic that is cited in nearly every film survey as the Great Birth of Cinema, though the racist narrative is usually glossed right over. He was one of the first directors to successfully jump from silents to talkies. The dude was a one-man movie industry.

How come I've never heard of this guy?

Oh, right: he was a black filmmaker. He made movies starring black people, for black people. Un-frackin-believable, the stuff that's buried skin-deep in this country.

splain me this

Last Tuesday afternoon, deep into the funk of a fresh new flu, I was ensconced on my couch watching bog-knows-what on the television. Trash, no doubt. Sniffling, coughing, etc. Right? Suddenly someone is in my driveway honking. I ignore it. They honk again, and again, insistently. I think, "Well, perhaps they are trying to pick someone up and have the wrong address. I will open the door a smidge and let them know I'm not who they're looking for." As I'm in my pajamas, I peek out the door as the person is honking (AGAIN) and she starts shouting to me, asking about the status of the house next door. Her engine is running, it's desperately in need of a tune-up, and she has imperiously honked until *I* came outside to answer her fucking stupid ass questions. Jeezus. NO, I do not know if it's for rent. Do you see a sign? I don't. NO, I also do not know if it is for sale, or rent-to-own, as noted previously: there's no sign. No, I don't know who owns the fucking house. If I did, I'd call them and tell them to clean the place up. This whole conversation, mind you, held while she sits regally in her loud-ass car and I am on the porch in PJs. Apparently she couldn't be bothered to step out of her fucking car like a civil human being and knock politely on my door. NO, I had to come outside and shout over her engine. Who does that? Seriously? Who the fuck does that?

At the end of the conversation she says, "Sorry I woke you up," as though I was a lazy motherfucker who should've been awake at 2 pm and I said, "Actually, I'm home sick." Instead of apologizing she said, I swear, "I've been sick for three weeks." Which information is of no use to me.

I really am left with a giant case of What The Fuck here, because since when is it my job to come out of my house to answer your random questions upon being summoned by your horn?

oh, jeebus.

pole dancing parties

That liberal-media-bastion, the New York Times, is at it again. Herewith, a story about women going to "pole dancing parties," learning to pole dance because it's good exercise, because it'll make their men happy, and of course buying some new shoes in the process. Christ. Where do you start with crap like this?

Let's start with this lovely quote:

It taps into this kind of exhibitionism, or show-womanship, among younger women who did not grow up with the gender politics of the sexual revolution

Uh-huh, right: the sexual revolution ended in 1973, and there have been NO GENDER POLITICS since then. This is code for: "young women who have been fooled into thinking feminism has done its job because women are allowed to have jobs & votes." I call bullshit. I also note that most of the women interviewed were over 35, and many were in their 40s and 50s. I'm guessing most of these women remember the fight for ERA, women's liberation, and the sexual revolution. Hell, *I* remember the sexual revolution, or at least phase two of it.

Here's another choice nugget:

...most of its instructors were stay-at-home mothers looking to earn a little extra at night after their children were in bed — though one man signed up with his wife, she said.

“He knows how the men benefit after the party,” Ms. Huitema said.

Ah, yes, because men with stay-at-home wives don't get any benefits at ALL from that relationship, right, until mommy tucks the kids in, straps on a g-string and some stilettos, and starts hanging off a greased pole. Woohoo! Suddenly, the life of the husband has some bright little light in it: he can get his pornified sexbot at home, in his own bedroom, instead of online or at the titty bar!

This, however, takes the cake:

"Their entire world is reduced to caretaking, and this is sort of the opposite of that"

Actually, NO, it's exactly the same thing as that: it's taking care of their husbands' sexual desires, not their own. They're just going from taking care of children to taking care of men.

Naturally, it's being billed as "empowering," because, as we all know, conforming to the sexbot ideal is empowerful. Really! Spend your voluminous spare time acting out your husband's adolescent fantasies! Spend a lot of money on a pole and some trashy shoes! It's GOOD FOR YOU!

Jeezus.

new york crud

Scintillating details of my trip to frigid New York City will have to wait. I am currently in a haze, induced by codeine cough syrup, ingested in response to a hacking, congesty crud acquired in an airplane, subway, hotel conference room, museum, deli, movie theatre, or possibly Bloomingdale's.

At least one person in a conference session sneezed on the BACK of my HEAD and didn't bother to apologize, and another sat in front of my snorking, horking, snotting, and generally making me gag, when she should've have kept herself and her germs in isolation. Jeebus. My only consolation is that her clingy whiny boyfriend probably got her crud, too.

Jezebella is fixin to go on tour...

to Noo Yawk City, woot.

On the schedule: Kiki Smith show at the Whitney, Design Life Now at the Cooper Hewitt, the new MoMA expansion/reinstallation, and Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, which finally has a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Sunday, the Whitney, I have a drink at Sardi's, go see Spring Awakening, thence out to dinner.

Monday, shopping (Town Shop for bras, Saks for Bobbi Brown makeup, and H&M for a cute new outfit that will be up-to-date in NYC, but is ahead of the curve in Mississippi)

Tuesday, dinner with mathematician ex-boyfriend, thence to the Cooper-Hewitt

Wednesday, Brooklyn and conference

Thursday, MoMA in the morning and then two (TWO!) job interviews in the afternoon, then dinner with my grad school best pal Sam

Friday - Saturday, conference nerdifying, including an all-day Feminist Art Project session on Saturday

and, sadly, Sunday: I have to come back home

We are just going to have to pretend like it is NOT Mardi Gras, and most definitely deny any knowledge of this thing they call Valentine's Day. I refuse to acknowledge a holiday designed to make single people feel like crap for weeks on end.

Report to follow. Possibly with pictures, even.

Molly Ivins

Look, I'm not smart enough to figure out how to embed a YouTube video, so please click on this linky here:

Molly Ivins

for a video of Molly Ivins in her usual fine form: smart, funny, and fired up.

She died of the dread breast cancer earlier this week and she will be missed.