Well-behaved women seldom make history
I’ve been tagged by Nick Barrowman at Log base 2, with the historical figure meme. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to pick a historical figure and list 5 random/weird things about this person.
I had to think really hard to pick my favorite historical figure. I don’t think I can name my favorite ice-cream flavor, let alone a favorite historical figure. I thought about William James, because when he was at Harvard he was a buddy of Charles Pierce, which is the historical figure chosen by Nick.
But–sorry Bill–it ought to be a woman. A crowd of bad-behaved women came to mind:
- Emmeline Pankhurst (“Be militant each in your own way. I incite this meeting to rebellion.”)
- Rosa Parks (“When they stood up and I stayed where I was, he asked me if I was going to stand and I told him that ‘no, I wasn’t,’ and he told me if I did not stand up he was going to have me arrested. And I told him to go on and have me arrested.”)
- Anaïs Nin (“I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy.”)
- Josephine Baker (“I wasn’t really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on.”), and
- Rachel Carson (“The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the convenience of man.”)
I wonder why I thought of them. I suspect that it’s because women need to be good to the point of sanctitude or quite bad to become historically famous. And bad girls tend to be more interesting.
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So I picked the baddest woman on the block, Mary Jane West, know to the world as Mae West. I’m pretty sure she counts as an historical figure. She was born two centuries ago–exactly on August 17, 1893. And everybody who is still famous after so many years deserves her place in History, wouldn’t you say? [or shall I say Herstory?].
Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara at the premiere of War Made Easy
Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara listen to Norman Solomon, founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Solomons’s documentary, War Made Easy, premiered tonight at the Quad and will be playing through March 20.
Can Dance a Little
Do you feel discouraged? Do you think that your life is a failure? Are you ready to give up?
Some people buy motivational books and read motivational quotes when they feel demoralized. I’m glad they can find solace in those books and quotes. I can’t. I’ve always found motivational stuff depressing and unhelpful, but I’ve found something that works much better for me: I love reading about famous people’s failures.
I found an inspiring collection of notable failures browsing the Self-Efficacy page created by a group of Emory’s researchers (self-efficacy is a concept developed by psychologist Albert Bandura, which describes our belief in our own ability to reach a desired outcome; it turns out that self-efficacy perception is a good predictor of our success).
This quote, in particular, made me laugh aloud:
After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.”
And you may also be interested to know that Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because ‘he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.’ Charles Schultz “had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff “and Walt Disney wouldn’t hire him.” Lucille Ball was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, “Try any other profession.” Robin Williams was voted “least likely to succeed” in high school. August Rodin’s father once said, “I have an idiot for a son;” he was described as the worst pupil in the school and rejected three times admittance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. And, of course:
Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was “sub-normal,” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.”
Don’t you feel better already?
The point is: perhaps what keeps us from succeeding is our fear of failing or a false believe that if we were really good we would succeed sooner, faster, and most of the times. And our belief that if somebody tells us we are bad, we must be bad.
So, if you feel a failure, rejoice: perhaps you are on the 999th step of the 1000-step invention of the light-bulb.
Congratulations to Al and to the Environment
Today, Al Gore and a United Nations panel shared the Nobel prize for Peace for their work on global warming. Thank you, Al.
Blade Runner’s Memories
[Spoilers alert: Don't read this if you've never seen Blade Runner but you are planning to]
Husband seems to believe that watching the same movie over and over again is fun. He likes how old movies feel familiar–you’ve learned all the lines by hearth and known exactly what to expect. They become part of you, and it’s almost like watching yourself. To me, watching the same movie twice feels like a waste of time. I like novelty. Familiarity bores me.
Well, except for Blade Runner, of course. I lost count of how many times I saw Blade Runner.
I blame Ridley Scott for the multiple versions that continue to crop up every decade: the first and studio-engineered voice-over version (“Families considering viewing this film should avoid the original like the plague; instead go with Ridley Scott’s vision” write Afsheen Nomai and Marjorie Kase in Common Sense Media), the Director’s Cut, and now the “Director’s Final Cut”.
Yes, Blade Runner is in theaters again (well, at least in one theater, the Ziegfeld in NYC) and yes, I went to see it again. (I wonder, how many times can a director make the same movie?)
I just cannot resist existential sci-fi, the type of sci-fi that explores other worlds and creatures as a way to reflect on what makes a human being human (is it emotions? memories? dreams? compassion? empathy?).
Blade Runner’s cinematography and the atmosphere are still amazing. Inside buildings and in the streets everything is dusty, messy, and wet. You can almost smell the moldy and rotten stench of the street of 2019 Los Angeles. Most scenes are dark, but bright artificial light intrudes and blinds. And it always rains.
Some scenes are more violent than I remember, probably because even the first time I had to close my eyes (this time, I knew exactly when it was time to keep my eyes shut). Watching replicants die was hard the first time, and hasn’t got any easier. They die with a fight, and they are painful to watch. But this is exactly the point.
Replicants are the scary others–so strong, unpredictable, and merciless–but killing dangerous creatures who don’t want to die still feels very much like killing.
Above all, Blade Runner is a movie about memories. Are we our memories? What if our memories are not real? What happens to our memories when we die?
At the end of the movie, Roy saves Deckard life, and it’s for not compassion or a sudden awakening of empathy. Roy needs a witness. A part of himself will continue to live if somebody listens to his memories and survives: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
Time to die.
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