Do you ever feel like you're on this bike, and you've been pedaling in place for a really long time because your tires are stuck in mud, but when you finally break and decide to check out what's going on and you look behind you and you see an entirely different landscape and you look in front of you and the horizon has gotten infinitely closer and it turns out you'd been moving all along?
I feel like that all the time. Happy new year.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Rebel girl, you are the queen of my world!
Today, whilst on the phone with my boyfriend, I said that I'd been listening to a lot of Bikini Kill lately. "Oh," he replied. "Goodbye." I laughed.
"I mean, if you wanna grow out your armpit hair and rip your bra in half, go ahead," he continued.
"At this point in my life, I think I'm less likely to become a true riotgrrl, so don't worry about it," I responded, jokingly.
Thinking about it, if I had gotten seriously into Bikini Kill when I was 14 and getting into punk, I might have turned out to be a super-feminist Kathleen Hanna wannabe with an attitude and a nose ring and an uncensored hatred of patriarchy. I consider myself a reasonable feminist who just wants a continuation of the progression society has seen in the past 20 years or so of equal rights. But shit, growing up with my mother who is an ultra-feminist to the point of having a "women can do everything better" standpoint, listening to Rebel Girl in my formative teen years could have sent me over the edge.
I was reading about the mini-feud between Bikini Kill and NOFX recently. First of all, I love reading about band feuds. It just makes me feel like the world of music, which seems so large and intimidating and all encompassing, can actually be really small and splintered. Anyway, apparently Kathleen Hanna called NOFX a bunch of misogynists (perhaps for their numerous annoyingly uninformed songs about lesbians?) causing them to write the song "Kill Rock Stars," a direct attack on Hanna.
"Kill the rockstars" how ironic, Kathleen
You've been crowned the newest queen
Kinda like the punk rock Gloria Steinham
You can't change the world by blaming men
Can't change the world by hating men
Alternative\Republican
Just cause I don't know the reason you're so pissed
Don't dare tag me mysoginist
I thought the goal here was mutual respect
Not constructing a separate sect
I wish I could have seen Courtney
Demonstrate some real misogyny
Can't change the world by hating men
While I am certainly not a fan of NOFX's "Creeping Out Sara," (Maybe I just pissed her off when I asked her if her sister and her had ever had a threesome/Where they both ganged up on one girl/
A fourgy or a five-some/ Do they think strap-ons are groovy?) and also the Courtney Love ref was kinda lame, I can see Fat Mike's point on this one. It's really hard to get people to listen to you if you're constantly berating them. Feminism is such a sore point with men now because they've been hearing about it from strongly opinionated women like Hanna, who don't see a discussion to be had--only a lesson to be taught. I've seen this at AU with Women's Initiative. WI claims to want to create a dialogue between men and women, and then turn around and make sweeping statements about men based on the few shitty sexist assholes they've come across. And it sucks for everyone involved. Men feel attacked, and thus feminism gets a really bad rap. The riotgrrl movement was a really awesome way for women to get out into the music scene, which I really appreciate because that's a tough thing to do--especially in a typically boys-club genre like punk or hardcore. I think it was fucking great that this movement happened, and I think women needed it. But besides empowerment within the female community, I don't know how much positive impact the movement had on society as a whole.
"I mean, if you wanna grow out your armpit hair and rip your bra in half, go ahead," he continued.
"At this point in my life, I think I'm less likely to become a true riotgrrl, so don't worry about it," I responded, jokingly.
Thinking about it, if I had gotten seriously into Bikini Kill when I was 14 and getting into punk, I might have turned out to be a super-feminist Kathleen Hanna wannabe with an attitude and a nose ring and an uncensored hatred of patriarchy. I consider myself a reasonable feminist who just wants a continuation of the progression society has seen in the past 20 years or so of equal rights. But shit, growing up with my mother who is an ultra-feminist to the point of having a "women can do everything better" standpoint, listening to Rebel Girl in my formative teen years could have sent me over the edge.
I was reading about the mini-feud between Bikini Kill and NOFX recently. First of all, I love reading about band feuds. It just makes me feel like the world of music, which seems so large and intimidating and all encompassing, can actually be really small and splintered. Anyway, apparently Kathleen Hanna called NOFX a bunch of misogynists (perhaps for their numerous annoyingly uninformed songs about lesbians?) causing them to write the song "Kill Rock Stars," a direct attack on Hanna.
"Kill the rockstars" how ironic, Kathleen
You've been crowned the newest queen
Kinda like the punk rock Gloria Steinham
You can't change the world by blaming men
Can't change the world by hating men
Alternative\Republican
Just cause I don't know the reason you're so pissed
Don't dare tag me mysoginist
I thought the goal here was mutual respect
Not constructing a separate sect
I wish I could have seen Courtney
Demonstrate some real misogyny
Can't change the world by hating men
While I am certainly not a fan of NOFX's "Creeping Out Sara," (Maybe I just pissed her off when I asked her if her sister and her had ever had a threesome/Where they both ganged up on one girl/
A fourgy or a five-some/ Do they think strap-ons are groovy?) and also the Courtney Love ref was kinda lame, I can see Fat Mike's point on this one. It's really hard to get people to listen to you if you're constantly berating them. Feminism is such a sore point with men now because they've been hearing about it from strongly opinionated women like Hanna, who don't see a discussion to be had--only a lesson to be taught. I've seen this at AU with Women's Initiative. WI claims to want to create a dialogue between men and women, and then turn around and make sweeping statements about men based on the few shitty sexist assholes they've come across. And it sucks for everyone involved. Men feel attacked, and thus feminism gets a really bad rap. The riotgrrl movement was a really awesome way for women to get out into the music scene, which I really appreciate because that's a tough thing to do--especially in a typically boys-club genre like punk or hardcore. I think it was fucking great that this movement happened, and I think women needed it. But besides empowerment within the female community, I don't know how much positive impact the movement had on society as a whole.
But Bikini Kill is sweet--they're rough and rude and unapologetic, and sometimes you need that. I'm a feminist and I believe all that Kathleen Hanna, Kim Gordon, and Allison Wolfe believe about reproductive rights, rape, domestic abuse, and freedom of sexuality. But I know that to really see equality--to really get both genders on the same page--there may need to be less screaming, and more listening.
Monday, December 13, 2010
127 Hours.
Aron Ralston was 28 years old in May of 2003, hiking Blue John Canyon in Utah when a boulder became dislodged and crushed his right forearm, pinning it against the wall of the canyon. He stayed trapped in the narrow crevice for five days. 127 hours-- until finally, in order to get out alive, he cut his arm off with a dull pocket-knife.
I was 12 when this happened. "Holy shit," my dad told me when I got home from school one day. "A hiker in Utah cut off his own fucking arm with a knife. A fucking pocket knife! His arm was trapped under a boulder. So he cut it off. Can you believe that?" I couldn't.
After seeing the film 127 Hours today, I can. James Franco plays Ralston, a mountaineering adrenaline junkie with the knowledge and the balls to bear out most of his daring adventures. But, like most of what happens to us in life, a stupid, simple slip of his foot ended the life he had lived up until that moment. In the course of probably 30 seconds, Ralston found himself in a narrow chasm with a 400 pound rock on top of his right arm.
127 Hours could have been claustrophobic. Dull. Slow-moving. Torturous. But it wasn't--it was one of the most compelling movies I've ever seen in my life. The camera was constantly moving, cutting back to images, flashbacks, fantasies. We saw Ralston's thoughts, his memories, his desires. Counterposed with the fast-pace journey of his brain was the slow turn of days into nights as Ralston tried every escape method he could with painstaking concentration.
After spending 75 minutes or so with Ralston, watching him narrate the occurrence on his Camcorder, mentally beat himself up for not telling anyone where he was going, attempt to erode the rock with his knife and drink his own urine, I was ready for him to cut his arm off. There was no other way to get out alive. I could see it, and so could Franco, as he bent his arm backward against the boulder and broke it. In a five minute sequence, he tied a hand crafted tourniquet around his bicep, jammed his pocketknife into his arm and began to saw.
I don't know that anyone can perceive desperation and willpower until they've seen this movie. As stupid and arrogant and dangerous as it is to not tell anyone where you're going, one has to admire someone like Aron Ralston. Holy shit.
I was 12 when this happened. "Holy shit," my dad told me when I got home from school one day. "A hiker in Utah cut off his own fucking arm with a knife. A fucking pocket knife! His arm was trapped under a boulder. So he cut it off. Can you believe that?" I couldn't.
After seeing the film 127 Hours today, I can. James Franco plays Ralston, a mountaineering adrenaline junkie with the knowledge and the balls to bear out most of his daring adventures. But, like most of what happens to us in life, a stupid, simple slip of his foot ended the life he had lived up until that moment. In the course of probably 30 seconds, Ralston found himself in a narrow chasm with a 400 pound rock on top of his right arm.
127 Hours could have been claustrophobic. Dull. Slow-moving. Torturous. But it wasn't--it was one of the most compelling movies I've ever seen in my life. The camera was constantly moving, cutting back to images, flashbacks, fantasies. We saw Ralston's thoughts, his memories, his desires. Counterposed with the fast-pace journey of his brain was the slow turn of days into nights as Ralston tried every escape method he could with painstaking concentration.
After spending 75 minutes or so with Ralston, watching him narrate the occurrence on his Camcorder, mentally beat himself up for not telling anyone where he was going, attempt to erode the rock with his knife and drink his own urine, I was ready for him to cut his arm off. There was no other way to get out alive. I could see it, and so could Franco, as he bent his arm backward against the boulder and broke it. In a five minute sequence, he tied a hand crafted tourniquet around his bicep, jammed his pocketknife into his arm and began to saw.
I don't know that anyone can perceive desperation and willpower until they've seen this movie. As stupid and arrogant and dangerous as it is to not tell anyone where you're going, one has to admire someone like Aron Ralston. Holy shit.
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