YA Who Enter Here…

Since JA’s is closed until the all the body parts are found, I find myself scuffing rubber along the boulevard looking for a fresh watering hole. A block or two north, I find Dana, dainty feet propped up on a weathered table, on the patio of YA-YA’s.

YA-YA’s is where the young adult crowd hangs out, sip non-alcoholic drinks and shows off footwear combos. I notice Lemony Snicket wearing two different shades of Crocs™ and an ascot dyed in primary hues. For some reason this is considered cool. I am long past wondering why this sort of thing becomes trendy. I stopped asking after Ponchos and Farah Fawcett were considered hip. These days ‘being hip’ means my butt has it’s own zip code.

Rowling force-feeds pasta to a restrained supermodel in the back, as Judy Blume sits at the bar, smoothing down the faded feathers in her hair. In a corner, Kenneth Oppel and Eoin Colfer play chess over hot chocolates. The ‘bar’ hums with hushed discussion, like bees around pop cans

The buzz is all centered around KaavyaGate. The Outrage. The Plagiarism. The Ivy League Backlash. The Packager. The Marketing Machine. The Confusion. The Scandal. The Conspiracy. The Re-write. The Lost Movie Deal and Two Book Deal.
Collect them all!

It’s astonishes me that this girl’s parents felt compelled to hire someone to the tune of ten of thousands so their daughter’ resume included an insane-money book/movie deal so she would be chosen go to Harvard and learn how to balance expenses and income columns.

“Why a half-mil advance to a 17 year old girl not legally considered an adult, for a book not fully written?’ Dana squeezes a fresh lime into her diet cola.

“I can understand the why’s.” Actually, I can’t, but add stupid money to any equation and it’ll cancel out logic. A thin waiter with a pencil-thin goatee brings me a double Shirley Temple with a Scream. “With that sort of coin at stake, it’s the ‘How’s’ that intrigue me.”

Dana waves to M.G., her face a seething montage of conflicting emotions.

“The Harvard types do have a knack for getting published, though,” I comment. “Kaavya and Harvey Mansfield being two of their poorer results.

M.G. limps in, brushes a few scorpions from her blouse and dumps herself into a bright yellow Muskoka chair. “I hate spring cleaning,” she hisses and orders a small bucket of bourbon.

The waiter’s nostrils flare in indignation. “Madam, this is YA-YA’s. We do not stock bourbon or any other fermented beverages. We cater to the writer’s of the young adult market, who are not permitted to cuss, criticize society’s taste in body image, engage in sexual relations – even if married – and most certainly do NOT drink alcohol in public.”

“Look, Fauntleroy,” M.G. dangles a writhing scorpion from her fingertips. “Get me a bucket of bourbon pronto or I’ll stuff this down your trousers so he’ll see to it you’ll have to dress on the left for the rest of your life.”

“A $500,000 advance.” Dana shakes her head as the waiter, whimpering, scuttles away. “Make’s ya sick doesn’t it?”

I savor the bubbly ginger on my dry tongue and sigh. “Only if it’s not for Louis Sancher.”

Get F'ed. Again.

Fucked Again is Sandra Ruttan's latest in Demolition Magazine.

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.
Personally, I would totally would pay cash money for anything she writes aobut the Scottish Mob.

If Noir isn't your thing - well,
Firgitabootit.

http://www.demolitionmag.com/IssueTwo/spring06contents.htm

Bardawill’s Best of the Net:

The Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing contest* has always appealed to me. Reading the best of the worst can teach one how NOT to write. This can be more useful (and amusing) than all the sites that teach you how TO write.

The BLBWC is the literary equivalent of putting one’s hand on a hot stove, as it were.
_____

Scott Adams’ Dilbert Blog** is heating up with hard questions these days. Tired of the political arena over at Eisler’s blog*? Well, Religion is the hot topic at Dilbert, where his karma is running over people’s dogma.

_____

Fark.com*** is always a hoot. Stupidity never goes out of style, especially if it’s true.


* What am I? Your mother? Google it.
** Link at left.
*** If you need help with this one, then you can’t be helped.

And He’s Got Some Skill At Baritsu

I turned up at JA’s on Wednesday. A clean-up crew works overtime removing what looked like the aftermath of a food fight from the ceiling and walls. The bar’s mirror has several hamburgers still plastered to it. I give Pettus a nudge and ask what's gone down. He winces, chokes out something about Goldberg’s blog, the anti-Christ and hamburgers, then continues ordering and pounding down beers as if it's last call during the Apocolypse.

Other men sit sullenly, lower lips thrust out, meaty fists clenched so tightly that their thick frosty beer mugs creak in protest. The hell?

I peer around the bar and notice an unusually large herd of unrestrained feminine wiles are off the leash. The sharp scent of freshly bleached hair contrasts with the dull tang of newly waxed legs, minty-breathed freshness, the heady - almost earthen - whiff of recently applied mascara.

The rumours are true then. There’s a new boytoy in town. I spot him in the corner talking earnestly with a group of political junkies. On all other sides tables are packed with sighing, mooning ladies. A harried waiter heaves trays of fruity drinks over to the new guy’s table.

“Courtesy of the Bunions, and the red head in the corner, and the open-minded Chinese lady on your left, and the brassy blonde lying on the bar with the 12 pack of donuts, and the limber brunette…”

I vaguely hear the guy next to me thump his fist on the bar. “Two posts! The bastard!” His tears liberally salt his beer. “Just two bloody posts and they’re all over him like stink on a skunk. It’s effing worse than high school!”

After a few moments, I scrape my tongue off the floor, rip my eyes away and lean on the bar for support. Ric rubs his faceful of newly cultivated stubble. He eyes my reaction philosophically. “Picture’s worth a thousand words, isn’t it?”

Uncharacterically, I change my order to a lite beer and desperately try to recall if I’m having a good hair day or not. It’s not often you see a guy so good-looking you’ll put on make-up just to read his blog.

A wave of girly giggles precedes a woman in a deep purple merry widow outfit as she steps up to the mike. Wielding a 12 string Ukulele she softly sings:


I am just a Cyber Vixen
I am a naughty girl
Oh, I play poker for pills
Until I lose or hurl.
Now, ladies in the blogosphere
Beat a fast path from here to there
This blog, so hot and fine
You’ll hang on his every line

His name is Barry Eisler
Ex-CIA, this guy
It seems that he was born
To make the ladies sigh
Barry could read a phone book page
And yet he’d still be all the rage
This scruffy lad into martial arts
Who talks what matters to our hearts

We are surfing to Barry Eisler’s blog
A world away from rambling whines
Surfing to Barry Eisler’s blog
To drool online
Cuz he looks so Ralph Fiennes

Now you're a good commentator, Eisler
But I swear you make me mad
Beware blog seppuku
You scruffy, stubbled lad.
You’re talking of Da Vinci
Can the Internet stay free?
The laws are changing in this Frey.
The blogoshere controlled? No way…


Now hold your head up, Eisler
See America will hear
Without freedom to speak, we’re doomed
As you are well aware
Log on and speak your mind
We need far more of your kind.
To speak these things and feel no fear
I pray your blog helps guide us there...


We are surfing to Barry Eisler’s blog
Political punditry’s best shot
Surfing to Barry Eisler’s blog
Boring, it’s not
….And he looks so damn hot.

The ladies whistle and cheer, but Barry sits oblivious, his hands busy as he illustrates how you can kill a man using only a pickle and a yellowed copy of SPY magazine.

I finish my beer and attempt to sashay toward the ladies room to check my hair, but I slip on a damp patch and break my fall on a small twelve-stringed instrument.

Did I mention I hate Wednesdays?

_____________

( for the curious…Sailing To Barry Eisler’s Blog is sung to the tune of Sailing to Philadelphia, by Mark Knopfler)

Happy Easter Weekend everyone.

See you next week.

Remember.
You're nobunny 'til somebunny loves ya.

.
.
.
.
.
Oh... and ladies...

check out the hottest thing in the blogosphere:
http://www.barryeisler.com/blog.html

My chocolate eggs just spontaneously melted.

Nothing ruins a romantic Saturday night with the Hubster...


like having to hold down a struggling and high-strung border collie as your spouse uses pliers to de-quill her muzzle because it tangled with a porcupine.

Which makes me wonder....
How DO those little spikey buggers make whoopie?

Well, I'm officially out of the running at Miss Snark's 500 word contest.

I am number 48, for the curious.
Writing Legally Blind Date still fun as hell.

Go vote for those who achieved perfect scores.
(linkie at left)

And a shout out to Jeff Stehman - whoever you are...
Thanks for the kind words, dude.

Manliness from Heaven
E. Ann Bardawill (2006)

In my dictionary “manliness” and “femininity” are described as virtues.
Virtue is defined as “the quality of excellence.”

For a man to be manly is a virtue.
For a woman to be feminine is a virtue.

Conversely, to describe a man as ‘effeminate’ is considered derogatory,
and to describe a woman as ‘mannish’ is considered derogatory.

Cultural extremes of these virtues - take Japan, for example.
The Samurai were considered embodiment of manliness.
Warriors trained in Warfare, Philosophy and bound by a strict code of Honor.

The Geisha were considered the embodiment of femininity.
Ladies trained in Beauty, Art and bound by a strict code of Esthetics.

The Samurai influences the political and spiritual.
The Geisha influenced the cultural and spiritual.

Logic.
Emotion.

Or as one writer I know puts it,
Form and void.

In the art world, this is known as positive and negative space.What isn’t there is often as important as what is. So. How can one be better than the other, when one cannot exist without the other?

Men and women are different, both biologically and in terms of how they think, and consequently, what they value.

But balance is everything.
Thinking too much is as bad as feeling too much.

Logic needs emotion to establish significance.
Emotion needs logic to establish resolution.

TANGENT:
Right now I believe that one of the biggest blows to the current evolution of human philosophy is the popularity of Viagra and plastic surgery.

It used to be that the elderly became more thoughtful when no longer distracted by carnal pleasure. Like one who is blind finds their hearing becomes more acute, one who is celibate finds their powers of reason sharpen. Generally, after the male and female hormones settle down, people relax and reflect on a life lived and put it into greater perspective. But some men futilely grasp at recapturing the illusion of being eighteen again by taking a little blue pill and some women stuff bags of silicone in their bodies, get face lifts, nips, tucks, etc and futilely grasp at their fading youth and beauty with sharpened, fake nails.

PROBLEM: Manliness doesn’t come in pill form and you can’t get femininity from a surgeon. These are empty gestures at best.

Conclusion
“Manliness” and ‘femininity’ are ideals.

Like Forest points out, the ideals change from culture to culture and from
gender to gender. What men find manly and what women find manly can be very different things.

Hard to define or not, you tend to know it when you meet it.



**Passes Forest cookies and burned CD of me doing Marlene Dietrich impersonation**

Last night, on CBC’s Sunday report, I watched Carole MacNeil squash Harvard’s Professor of Government, Harvey Mansfield, like a bug. The really sad part is that wasn’t her intention. She just asked him a logical question.

And what was this complex, gut-wrenching query that caused Harvey to cry (rather girlishly),

“I surrender! I surrender!”

‘Define Femininity’.

I should explain that Harvey Mansfield just wrote a book.
And what is his book about? It’s titled ‘Manliness’.

So, in retrospect it seems logical that if you are going to go to all the trouble of writing a book about what defines “Manliness”, and then go on TV to promote said book, that you also ought to define it’s counterpart ‘Femininity’.

On Sunday Report, Harvey defined Manliness as “Confidence in the face of Risk”.

Quotes from Harvey Mansfield: (Link to full article below)

“While maleness is partly just a fact of biology, in humans it is linked to thinking and reason in ways that make manliness something much more than mere aggression. In humans, masculinity is more than just defense of one’s own; it has been extended to require noble sacrifice for a cause beyond oneself.

Certainly, women reason and sacrifice too, and they are not devoid of aggressiveness. But their participation in these things is not “equal.” As Aristotle said, men find it easier to be courageous--and women find it easier to be moderate. Of course, you cannot avoid Aristotle’s qualifier, “for the most part.”

(Note from E. Ann - Aristotle is also on record as recommending men wait until age 37 to marry, and then to choose a wife 20 years younger. Women, in Aristotle’s perfect world, would be ruled by men, except in the domestic affairs where women were encouraged to reign supreme.
Okey-dokey then.)

Here’s the link to the article quoting Harvey’s above.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.10/13-manliness.html

And here is an article on a debate between Harvey and a feminist.
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17576/article_detail.asp

Highlights:

Mansfield, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government, is quoted as saying:
"It was men who destroyed the World Trade Center, and it was also men who rushed in to save people who were trapped. Perhaps women still need men to save them from men," Mansfield said.”

Uh-buh?

Um… Harvey, are you suggesting the firefighters went into the Twin Towers to save women only? Can you hear yourself? Oh! And Harvey? It was TERRORISTS who destroyed the World Trade center. And judging by the suicide bombers these days, terrorists come in BOTH genders.

Other Highlights:

“Cott (The feminist who debated against him) questioned Mansfield's insistence on using manliness as an ideal term.

"There must be a better term than manly. Nobility, character, courage, and integrity are wonderful principles for human behavior. Why not dispense with trying to save the word and hold up these other terms as ideals?"

But Mansfield could not accept this compromise.

"Principles are all very fine, but they need someone to stand up and vindicate them, to risk one's life for them in extreme cases. Principles don't establish themselves. They need someone to defend them." ”

Honey? Take out the garbage and defend my principles, mmmmkay?

UPSHOT:
This Harvard man is so ham-handed at expressing himself he’s certainly not doing men any favors.

The interviewer on Sunday report, Carole MacNeil, a congenial journalist as ever I’ve seen, didn’t even ask him hard questions and he STILL crumbled like a cookie.

And then (after Carole drove a 4x4 through the holes in his argument) he basically went on to say that women would be better off doing housework.
(He later decided that hadn't been the best word he could have used)

CONCLUSION:
If Mr. Mansfield gets a spot on Oprah, he better wear full body armor.

ASSIGNMENT
How do you define ‘Manliness’ and ‘Femininity’?

Test next Monday.
Spelling doesn’t count.
;-)

One should never write and post while doing serious cold medication.

I just reviewed my submitted story to Miss Snark's Writing contest and found several typos.

For the record, I am heartily ashamed of my atrocious errors and omissions.

**headdesk**

Ah well.
At least my pity party has a open bar.