Savannah Lee http://savannahspage.com/ A writer's blog. en Copyright 2010 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:45:30 -0600 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Spring cleaning: not as bad this year as it was last year I had feared it would be worse--much worse--because I let go of the house with both hands this past year. Instead, I've been pleasantly surprised. There hasn't been as much junk to wade through. Apparently we're getting better at figuring out what to do with stuff we can't figure out what to do with. (Other than putting it in an ever-growing pile by the desk/table/couch.) But yeah, I've been scrubbing and vacuuming and dusting and rearranging furniture. So that's pretty much it. No new news. http://savannahspage.com/2010/03/spring_cleaning_not_as_bad_thi.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/03/spring_cleaning_not_as_bad_thi.html Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:45:30 -0600 I hate figure skating now something I wrote on this blog about the gymnastics competition of the most recent summer Olympics:
[The Chinese competitor] nailed her first [vault] beyond all nailing, sending the commentators into raptures. I am pretty sure one of them said, "It feels like destiny here!" Then she completely blew the second one. She didn't even land--the floor rudely cut her off while she was still struggling to get out of her mid-air gyrations. She found herself on her knees before the world. ... Can't everybody see how stupid these competitions are? I mean...those two vaults, the nailed one and the blown one, the triumph and the disaster, each from THE SAME GIRL AND WITHIN TWO MINUTES OF EACH OTHER...don't they show how stupid the whole concept of these competitions are? How arbitrary they are?
In the figure skating, there were no "blown vaults." Everyone in the last group skated cleanly. And then they got scored. Gold medalist Kim Yu-Na scored way beyond silver medalist Mao Asada (and, indeed, everyone else on planet earth). This created the impression that Mao Asada "lost" to Kim Yu-Na. Which I find so blitheringly, phantasmagorically stupid that I honestly do not think there is a combination of Anglo-Saxon gerunds profane enough to express it. George Clooney once said, "I don't know how you compare art." Yeah, I don't either. And what happened on that ice last night--look. If you want figure skating to be a SPORT, reinstate the fucking compulsory figures and make the "programs" into a series of exercises like in a dance class. Everybody waits in a line and goes through: TRIPLE LUTZ! Kim....lutz...score. Asada...lutz...score. Rochette...lutz...score. Etcetera. Once everyone has done that particular trick, the next one starts: AXEL! Kim...double...score. Asada...triple...score. Rochette...double...score. Etcetera. Each skater gets two chances at each trick, like the freestyle aerial skiers do. They can wear the same uniforms as the speed skaters. THAT would be a sport. What happened last night was a highly athletic form of art. It unfolded for us like a modern dance program, each piece technically stand-alone but oddly, subterraneanly linked, like the roots of a series of ferns. It unfolded like fiddleheads in the mist. And then it got ranked. Which can only do untold violence to the souls of those both watching and participating. Why, I ask you, why IN FUCK was Mao Asada left decimated and feeling like she'd failed after her perfectly emotionally coherent and fluid performance? Because people gave her numbers which said 205 as opposed to the numbers for Kim, which were 228. I completely deny that those numbers were meaningful in this context. I realize the judges think they're based on something, but they're not. Not if you accept that this is a "program," a performance. Art needs room to breathe. You let it into the room, the rules change. Figure skating ignores that, using art for its own ends and then violating its spirit with crass, reductionist ranks and numbers. Get those stupid numbers the FUCK OUT of there, or put those girls in speed skating suits and make it about tricks and lines. Sports are such a travesty.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/03/i_hate_figure_skating_now_1.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/03/i_hate_figure_skating_now_1.html Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:23:05 -0600 Milkshakes?? Count me in! ritual "libation" was a milkshake), I have joined the First Atheist Church of True Science (FACTS). You all should know that I took this important step with due solemnity and seriousness of purpose (aka giddy delight). Wish me well, friends, as I vest myself in the all-important FACTS Ritual Garb--silly hats are involved--while striving to follow my new church's stringent teaching with regard to money.
"Inasmuch as it violates the FACTS Second and Third Suggestions (i.e., "Be honest" and "Do what's right"), we strongly disapprove of using monetary instruments that say "In God We Trust" to make any Church-related purchases. (We disapprove of using such instruments for any purchase, but - unfortunately - there are often no other choices available.)"
Oh goody, I have an overly-literal, daily-life-impeding rule to get around! Just like Catholics and Buddhists! I feel so included. Let the search for loopholes begin! To wit--I'm hoping debit cards will get around the prohibition, since they are monetary instruments, but do not "say" "In God We Trust." If they are indeed permissible, that'll actually be great, because I never have cash anyhow. Sometimes, when making a ridiculously small off-the-cuff purchase for which I am forced to use my debit card, I have felt embarrassed. But now, I can swipe my card for that fifty-nine-cent candy bar with pride. I will say, "CASH is AGAINST MY RELIGION. It says 'In God We Trust,' and I belong to the First Atheist Church of True Science. So I can't use it. Thanks for understanding. Have you heard the good news about atheism? Check out our church! You can join online. Yeah, no, I know it makes no sense to call an anti-church a church. Or a non-religion, a religion. You're right. It is absurd. But this is America. We eat absurdity for breakfast. Know why there aren't any American surrealists or Dadaists? Because our REALITY is surreal. Just think about-- What? How many people have piled up behind me? Oh. Sorry." I hope to find a minister of my new non-faith so that I can earnestly confess some of my doctrinal fears. Such as: --What if I unthinkingly yell out "Oh God" during sex, or "Jesus" if I hit my thumb with a hammer? After such lapses, how shall I purify myself? Must I recite from Brecht's Life of Galileo, or will a mere contemplation of a single physical law (lighting a candle, boiling some water, dropping a shoe) suffice? --Also, can I get extra credit for writing erotica? I'm sure that puts me well beyond the pale of even the Unitarian Universalists, especially the bondage stories. --When making the FACTS Libation, if we are found not to have any ice cream in the depths of our freezer, is it permissible to substitute frozen yogurt? --What about a combination of kefir and ice cubes? --May I still continue to listen to kirtan, despite its frequent references to deities such as Shiva and Krishna? What if I preface each theistic song by saying the word "Disbelieve!"? Will that be sufficient to neutralize the "effect" of the theistic words? --And how about the fact that I'm even talking about something as metaphysical as some mysterious "effect" which is supposedly produced by someone singing a song about Shiva? Clearly, I have a long way to go in ridding myself of un-Scientific thought patterns. I must humble myself and repeat the Catechism (of my own devising):
"Atom. Atom. What a beautiful word."
--Tillie, "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds," Paul Zindel (1964)
Well. I've always believed that. And now, I must go. May probability work in your favor as often as possible, my fellow bits of "matter with curiosity" (Richard Feynman).]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/03/milkshakes_count_me_in.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/03/milkshakes_count_me_in.html Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:59:54 -0600 I'm still here. Really I am. I'm so here, I'm in three anthologies this year! Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 9. My essay "The Other Side of the Story: Elia Kazan as Director of Female Pain" appears in the forthcoming anthology Kazan Revisited. And an all-new erotica, "The Poetry of Pigalle," is set to appear in the forthcoming Sex and the City: Paris collection. So that is what I have been doing, as well as following through on Family Illness Drama '09, and starting yoga teacher training. Add that to my duties as a dance mom, and all I can say is, my husband is a very patient man. As for me, I'm in a state of complete bewilderment. When the hell did I get a life? I never thought I'd have one. It never occurred to me that a life could sneak up on me. I thought that was something you had to deliberately pursue. Apparently not.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/02/im_still_here_really_i_am_im_s.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/02/im_still_here_really_i_am_im_s.html Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:09:16 -0600 Sixteen Factors Personality Test
Cattell's 16 Factor Test Results
Warmth ||||||||||||||||||||| 66%
Intellect |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74%
Emotional Stability |||||||||||||||||| 58%
Aggressiveness |||||||||||| 38%
Liveliness |||||| 14%
Dutifulness ||||||||||||||||||||| 70%
Social Assertiveness ||||||||||||||| 46%
Sensitivity ||||||||||||||||||||| 66%
Paranoia |||||||||||||||||| 54%
Abstractness |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82%
Introversion ||||||||||||||||||||| 66%
Anxiety |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74%
Openmindedness ||||||||||||||||||||| 70%
Independence |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Perfectionism ||||||||||||||| 50%
Tension ||||||||||||||| 46%
Take Cattell 16 Factor Test (similar to 16pf)
personality tests by similarminds.com So I guess I'm really independent (i.e. I don't mind eating alone, which is one of the questions), and really abstract, but not terribly lively :) Works for me. Now go read the wonderful new blog of one of my editors, the writer and poet Bill Noble.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/02/sixteen_factors_personality_te.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/02/sixteen_factors_personality_te.html Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:24:52 -0600 For everyone who needs to hear it, whoever you are and whatever the reason You do too." Still the most revolutionary words on the planet.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/02/for_everyone_who_needs_to_hear.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/02/for_everyone_who_needs_to_hear.html Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:54:08 -0600 Keith Olbermann Kicks Ass, Takes Names Keith Olbermann on Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh's cruel response to the Haitian earthquake. ]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/01/keith_olbermann_kicks_ass_take.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/01/keith_olbermann_kicks_ass_take.html Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:50:23 -0600 So let's see, what am I grumbling about these days? the positively Bush-ian refusal to answer Helen Thomas pissed me off good and proper. Thanks. What else? I know I've been mad about stuff, this is me after all. What do you mean, tell them stuff I'm happy about. Happiness is a private, secret blessing. When facing outward at the world, it is our duty to focus on the stuff that's going wrong. Nobody improves by talking about what's going right. Nobody...huh? Able to figure out what's fucked up just fine all on their own? Well...of course, but see, it's still important to...You're getting a headache? Oh. OK. I'm sorry. # So: snow tires. I just got some this winter. I love them. I want to have their babies. Even my husband, who for the previous twenty years had staunchly maintained that snow tires make no difference whatsoever, has been forced to concede that they are in fact All That. Snow tires make me happy. Yes they do. Candles. I just found a package of tapers that I totally forgot we had, and have been burning them ever since. Why? Because I figured out that the thing to do is lodge them in a bowl with craft sand. That fixes a problem which, for some reason, has dogged me forever: every taper holder I have ever used is either too tight or too loose. Sand, however, is just right. That makes me happy. Knitting. Seriously, who ever knew that knitting was so fun? I like to sit in my window, watching the little chipmunks and bunnies pick through the drifting snow, and knit row after row. Those who know me will at this point be saying "Who are you and what have you done with Savannah," because I never look out the window. I never even open the curtains. Except now I do! And it makes me happy. DanceSpirit magazine makes me happy. Know why? Because I found a copy in the waiting room of my daughter's dance school which gives you awesome instructions for how to get clean without taking a shower. The key is baby wipes. As a mom, I started laughing out loud while at the same time almost slapping myself for being so stupid. Of course! When you've just come out of a five-hour rehearsal--or you have exactly three minutes to get yourself ready for the day--you can wipe yourself down with baby wipes! How could I not have figured this out during all those diaper changes? (Oh, and sprayable dry shampoo, too. We shall have to investigate that. If such a thing could actually work with my hideously fine, thin, limp hair, it will truly be a dream come true.) Next, if somebody could invent a set of sweats that truly does look cute while being warm and soft and comfy AND covering one's navel (i.e. you can wear it past the age of nineteen), my life would be downright complete. So that's the Happy Report: snow tires, knitting needles, candles, faux-showers, and the prospect of The Perfect Sweats. Now about those melting glaciers and signs of national decline...]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/01/so_lets_see_what_am_i_grumblin_1.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/01/so_lets_see_what_am_i_grumblin_1.html Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:11:35 -0600 I'll spare you the story of my Christmas virus, how's about that? AMERICA'S MOST CHEESE-SHAPED DADS!") is a sign of the Apocalypse, or actually an improvement, gawd help us, on what came before. 2) A Top Ten list of the most terrifyingly stupid and sinister things said in America during the past decade. 3) Something to do to take your mind off your existential despair at the above. (I finally learned how to knit right before my Christmas virus and have been clicking madly away ever since. I'm on my third scarf, and I can't even purl yet.) 4) You will need to make an entire afghan to get yourself through this one: secret detention in the USA! Gives "So I put my hands up" a whole new meaning. 5) Okay, now buy some red, white and blue yarn and celebrate the fact that despite the present darkness, the fight ain't hardly over. With these groups and individuals striving for Truth, Justice and the American Way, this generation will yet redeem the promise. 6) Enough politics. Time for some New Year's resolutions! I hereby resolve to: --Take more hot baths --Spend more time in Paschimottanasana --And Ustrasana --Did I mention baths? --And baths. --Eat more lentil soup --And more cookies --Get to all the remaining Alexander McCall Smith books on my list --While taking hot baths --And making a sweet god of kindly laughter. Happy New Year.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2010/01/ill_spare_you_the_story_of_my.html http://savannahspage.com/2010/01/ill_spare_you_the_story_of_my.html Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:23:45 -0600 Men don hijabs for social protest made my day. They put on hijabs and chadors to show solidarity with an Iranian activist AND with Iranian women. Gentlemen, I salute you.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/men_don_hijabs_for_social_prot.html http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/men_don_hijabs_for_social_prot.html Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:17:27 -0600 Dorm living for grownups: the time has come twenty hours a week maintaining their homes. That's a whole other part-time job! No. This is stupid. I hereby declare that every home in America shall be transformed into a luxury garden condo. Every building which houses these units shall have a dining hall, a laundry service, and a housekeeping staff. Although the mortgage/condo fee will be larger, I bet that economies of scale will mean overall savings to families who will no longer have to shop for groceries (or order in Chinese). Plus, maybe families can volunteer on cleanup or something to get a discount. Regardless. What I'm trying to say is, it's not 1725 anymore. The DIY household no longer makes economic or time-management sense. We live in a dual-career, long-commute, over-scheduled world, yet our living arrangements cling to the fantasy that there's endless amounts of time (and money, in the case of retail groceries) to shop, cook, clean, wash, and fold. Why? That nice, big kitchen with the granite countertops? That's not an opportunity, folks. That's a relic. That's a $50,000 chunk of cognitive dissonance. Instead of a kitchen, we need a doorway--a doorway to the downstairs dining hall. Besides, the best way to honor the domestic arts is to professionalize them. That's a language everyone can understand.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/dorm_living_for_grownups_the_t_1.html http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/dorm_living_for_grownups_the_t_1.html Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:24:44 -0600 Sorry to be late again Family Illness Drama '09 combined with Midwestern Weather Drama '09 was enough to sandbag my blogging this week. More life-changing decisions for my sick relative (and more procedures in his immediate future). Ridiculous amounts of snow. Just gotta ride it out. http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/sorry_to_be_late_again.html http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/sorry_to_be_late_again.html Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:09:58 -0600 Exciting MBTI update I've been wrestling with my Myers-Briggs type. The search is over. Extensive reading, dialogue, discussion, and road-testing in online communities have convinced me that, l'INTJ, c'est moi. INTJ women are believed to be .5% of the population. Yep, it's us and the crickets. Near as I can tell, INTJ women are wildly overrepresented on Teh Intarwebs, where we flock to get down with our bad logorrheic, intuitive-yet-analytical, tough-minded, secretly vulnerable and yearning selves. What does it all mean? Not much. But it's fun :)]]> http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/exciting_mbti_update.html http://savannahspage.com/2009/12/exciting_mbti_update.html Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:01:07 -0600 No. It is not. Next? Is the Spirit of Competition in the Soul of Yoga?" To which this startled yogini can only respond, "God, I hope not." The article reports on the yoga competitions which are springing up like mushrooms. I'm with those who view this as a catastrophe worthy of the Apocalypse. How well you do an asana is NOT measured by how far forward or backward you can bend. Leave that to the contortionists. In strictly physical terms (not even touching the spiritual issues), how well you do an asana should be measured by how correctly you're moving biomechanically. The cause. Not the effect. Here's what my teacher taught me: If the asana comes from the right wellspring within your body, if you're nutating when you're supposed to nutate and counter-nutating when you're supposed to counter-nutate, if your psoas is doing its job and your thigh muscles are not overcompensating for everything on planet earth, then it really doesn't matter if you move two feet or two millimeters. Seriously. I fear, however, that competitive yoga will crush that already poorly-understood fact and give people the idea that they have to hyperextend from here to Pluto. My worst nightmare is if yoga does indeed become an Olympic sport. It will become YET ANOTHER honey-trap for perfectionistic, self-hating 15-year-old anorexics with loose joints. Stop and think what a competitive yoga studio would be like. ASSISTANT COACH: I saw you sneak that Skittle, Melanie. Give me twenty Sun Salutations with full Chaturanga and go weigh yourself. MELANIE (drops dead of heart failure in the middle of Up Dog) ASSISTANT COACH: Hey! Did I tell you to do Prone Mountain? Seriously, people. Let's just not go there. Okay?]]> http://savannahspage.com/2009/11/no_it_is_not_next_1.html http://savannahspage.com/2009/11/no_it_is_not_next_1.html Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:13:53 -0600 Sigh. Sigh. Buddhism, bye-bye. see what's in front of you. And indeed you do offer techniques, such as Samatha-Vipassana meditation and zazen, which produce this effect. I really appreciate you for that, and if you don't mind, I'm going to keep doing those practices. They make me happier and more effective in my daily life. But some Buddhists, it turns out, do not stop there. They do not practice your techniques simply in order to be happier with the lives they're living now. No...some Buddhists, and I really didn't want to admit this to myself, but it's true...some Buddhists practice your techniques in order to influence what happens after they die. I can't be a part of that. I just can't. I will not support any system which makes people think they can control what happens after death. I mean--take a look at what people DO when they believe that! For lord's sake, the monks of the Theravada school aren't allowed to listen to music! What the hell!! Music is a basic human impulse, it's a need. You can't take it away from people! You just can't. Period. Yet they have taken it away from themselves. Lest by enjoying it they generate "karma" and thus ruin their chance to escape being "reborn" after death. I can't go along with that. I am not going to give up Tchaikovsky and Keith Richards because something might happen to my consciousness-elements after I die. And if I meet someone who does, I am going to tell them this, and beg them to save themselves from their salvation. I am going to beg them to "kill the Buddha," which is what they're supposed to be doing in the first place. I guess that's what I'm doing now. Just in a way I never could have foreseen. It's been great. I'm sorry it didn't work out (or maybe it did...!). I still love you, just like I still love Jesus. I always will. Take care.]]> http://savannahspage.com/2009/11/sigh_sigh_buddhism_byebye.html http://savannahspage.com/2009/11/sigh_sigh_buddhism_byebye.html Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:06:36 -0600