Who's the Bigger Jerk? Demon or Boyfriend?

The question "Paranormal Activity" poses is who's worse for Katie?
Phantasmic and breathing dudes both think they own the rights to her, only one expects a bit more from the one who has a pulse and consent.
Micah's scarier than the dude from the beyond, hands down.
He's like the George Bush of boyfriends, braying "bring it on" in a macho-fronting display.

Technophobic Dilemma

Why is there a little underlining thingy which prevents me from entering chosen letters in the correct order for a text on my stupid fucking Nokia phone?

There's no rhyme or reason to the order shit gets inserted.

How do I get rid of this?

Vodafone was predictably useless.

Grrrrr.

Medbh's Favourite 20 Films from the Aughties

List time!
The 20 films are in no specific order, although I did want to start with "Children of Men" (2006) because that's the one I've watched more than the rest. A female messiah picture holds endless appeal; the film also renders the evils of patriarchy with gut-wrenching clarity. Even Michael Caine gave a stellar performance. Clive Owens is a dreamboat here.


The second half of "Deathproof" (2007) makes me squeal with delight everytime. Love the cast.

"Let the Right One in" offers the most compelling interpretation of the vampire myth with an emphasis on gender and power. It's a perfect film.

"Adam and Paul" (2004) captures the underbelly of the Celtic Tiger with superior characterization.

The old man and his dogs are particularly haunting in "Amores Perros" (2000).

"The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001) assembles a cast of lovable kooks.

"The Hurt Locker" (2009) drags with the overtones of macho warmongering, but damn if the suspense doesn't make Hitchcock look like a punk.

"The Descent" (2005) still scares the shit out of me after 4 viewings.

"Pan's Labyrinth" (2006) crafts a brilliant fable over the horrors of war.

"The Gift" (2000) has Cate Blanchett at her best in a tightly paced touch of Southern Gothic.

"Shaun of the Dead" (2004) expertly blends comedy and horror.

"No Country for Old Men" (2007) has the best coiffed killer in cinematic history.

"Chopper" (2000) features the king of psychotic "semi-bloody illiterate" thugs.

"The Devil Wears Prada" (2006) nails the trials of career gals. And Meryl Streep is divine.

"There Will be Blood" (2007) felt like an instant classic when it was released. How can you not love "I drink your milkshake!"?

"The Wind that Shakes the Barley" (2006) serves up revolution as a family drama without resorting to cardboard cutouts.

"28 Days Later" (2002) has to figure on the list. Scary zombies done right.

Kevin Smith's work needs a slot on the list. I'll go with "Clerks II" (2006).

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) underscores the physical beauty of martial arts.

"I've Loved You so Long" (2008) conveys the smouldering aftermath of moral decision.

Why am I so Cold?

Two pairs of socks under the wellies. There's nothing like the cozy feel of having warm and dry feet at the beach on a chilly grey afternoon.

He's eating a clam.

Crabs are his favourite find on the beach.

Kima discovered a deflated rugby ball for solid chewbering fun.

Snapped this before he became Omar's snack.

Most cream sauces translate to the equivalent of a head cold on a plate, any mention of which on a menu steers me away as surely as if it were marked 'herpes.' Heaping gobs of cream, butter and cheese have scant nuance or flavour in order to justify the enormous fat content involved. I'll never forget the forced breaking of bread with the boyfriend and our joint crooked lawyer while we were still heavily scarred and broken after the car accident. I was served the lone vegetarian entree on the steak place's menu: pasta primavera. Thick slabs of frozen vegetables that never saw a natural spring lay choked with white sputum masquerading as a culinary standard. I suspect that a traditional alfredo sauce has little in common with the bastardised version I've encountered sitting at or serving tables, but that will just have to remain one of those conjecture thingies.

Until dinner at Dunne and Crescenzi on South Frederick Street earlier in the week, where I met a proper cream-based sauce on ravioli melding raddichio, walnuts, cheese and basil with a sauce that must have had the icks leavened out with some red wine to lend it such a warm tint and smooth finish, by far in contrast with the molten mound of white phlegm you normally get stuck with. The service was shit, maybe because we only asked for water on the table, which is a shame really since they have such an extensive wine list. I've thought about that ravioli no less than fifteen times this week.

We'll be back, for sure.

The Romance that Killed Love

"Love Me if You Dare" ("Jeux d'enfants") serves up several compelling reasons why you should never fall in love. Accidental arguments against amorous attachments are all over the film.

You know it's wretched when the lovely Marion Cotillard is unbearable.

Here are some of the reasons you should never fall in love:

Love becomes synonymous with games and all manner of mind fuckery. This includes leading you to believe you're getting a marriage proposal when he really asked another woman just to demonstrate he holds the power. "You said I could never hurt you. Now I have." He therefore wins the round.

Love is defined by cruelty to each other and anyone else who happens along. He's a tyrant and she's a creampuff. Marry other folks to fill in as interim spouses then rip their hearts out when you leave them for the one you really love.

Love means being humiliated by the one who holds you in affection by daring you to wear your underwear on the outside of clothing to an important exam, for example.

Love is selfish. You lost someone or suffered the indignities of an impoverished life, so you can spend the rest of it caring only about your own pleasure. No one else matters.

The film was doomed from an early dream sequence where the characters as children are in the Garden of Eden and the old beardy dude warns them of their punishment through original sin, also known as mars and venus gender roles. She'll have to abide high heels, diets, exfoliation, face lifts and will have to do the cooking. The fictional father in the sky has reserved the worst for the male of the species. He'll have to endure such torments as dinosaurs (so a creationist wrote the film?) the A-bomb, Hitler and Elizabeth Taylor.

Grim indeed.

The winky authentication of gender norms stinks of retrograde conservativism rather than a progressive Gallic esprit de corps.

No Fantasy Allowed, Girls

Jezebel had a post linking to a story over at Cinematical about a 17 year-old girl in Michigan who was bitten on the neck by a 45-ish dude during a screening of "New Moon." This happened after he made a string of sexual suggestions to her in the theatre. What a nightmare that girls are not safe even when going to see a film about chaste vampires.

The comments by two scumbags which follow are typically victim-blaming and representative of a commonly held view towards the lack of agency for vagina-bearers.
Not only do these dudes think she had it coming, the core of their response is that no girl can retain a private fantasy without the interruption of dudely advances.
Jared Harris' exercises shitty logic:
"Isn't the lesson of the film that women really want a much older guy who is very aggressive towards them and ends up biting them? Sounds like that girl just got her Twilight fantasy come true."
And then there's Cidknee:
"Sounds like both parties are confused. She thought she wanted a bitey, older, stalker perv and he thought she wanted him." Sexual assault as "confusion" you say? Would that be because men and women are unable to communicate in the mars and venus mythology worldview?

The pornification of culture strikes again.
This bit about "fantasy come true" washes out as pure nonsense bent of the sex industry. It's a way to shut women up, blame them, insist that they had it coming or wanted the assault.
Dudes, life is not really designed to mimic your jerk-off fare.
Many men have become warped by the porn narrative that assures them that all women want it all the time with all men.
No, really, we do not.
The young woman in the audience was sighing over a dude who may be technically old, except he's really played by a young actor.
Young women should be able to create and keep their own fantasy life free from the advances of strange perverts. A fantasy is just that.
Sexual chimera keeps girls and women in charge and is not necessarily a scenario we want to share or act out with anyone, let alone some creepy fucking dude behind us in the cinema.
Fantasy is separate, private and none of your fucking business.
Girls may swoon over the heavy-browed lads onscreen, but that doesn't mean they would consent to such antics in reality.
What a dire state of affairs when dudes think they have a right to control or direct our imagination.

Girls, you're better off dead

"I wasn't gone."
"I was alive in my own perfect world."
No, sister, you're dead.

There are only about ten red flags in the two minute trailer for "The Lovely Bones."
And by red flags I mean caution signs that signal a crippling headache induced by the presence of mars and venus gender roles which put a sentimental veneer on patriarchy.
14 year-old Susie Salmon gets raped and murdered.
We are to assume that's the only way she gets to live in an ideal world and ultimately to heaven.
Dead girls are more important than the living.
Guess what? Even when you're dead you have to devote yourself to caring for others.
According to "The Lovely Bones," the natural order revolves around a predatory man offing girls who then passively float around limbo-like while they worry about the family's trauma.
This heaven bullshit pasted on top amounts to emotional larceny wherein a savage act of violence mutates into a "beautiful" and "touching" fable.
Fuck that.
All the horror bleaches out in the saccharine affair just so the viewer can say "aw."

This is not my idea of entertainment.

Genesis of a Crush

This was the origin of my lust for Adam Horovitz when I saw "Lost Angels" back in '89.
Was met with blank stares by Ladies Who Lunch at the reference, so here it is.

Florence the Lap Cat of Patriarchy.

There's no shortage of shit to roll your eyes over when it comes to pop music. For women hit-makers, all too often the themes revolve around being done wrong by a man; how they are the hottest women in the club or sexier than the competition; or how many luxury goods they have as a stand in for how valuable they themselves are. You find all the above compressed in the recent videos by Ms. Lopez, where she grinds and shimmies while moaning about sugar or shoes, with plenty of close-up shots of her red lips designed to scream fellatio. Jenny from the block prompts more of a wince as a response than some of the truly appalling pop confections out there. No, my gasping horror this morn stems from the report over at the Guardian on research into how women use violence in song lyrics as a coping mechanism for their own experiences of assault or abuse. Not my cup of tea, but apparently Tori Amos has helped women come to terms with some awful shit. The article mentions the Florence and the Machine song "Kiss With a Fist is Better Than None" So I watched the video.
Here's a sample of the lyrics:

You hit me once, I hit you back
You gave a kick,I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed
My black eye casts no shadow
Your red eye sees nothing
Your slap don't stick
Your kicks don't hit
So we remain the same
Love sticks, Sweat drips
Break the lock if it don't fit
A kick to the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better then none

Got it, ladies? Violence=Passion.
It's okay if he hits you!
It means he loves you, has the hots for you.
Take the black eye, bruises and broken bones as a sign of his affection.
How I despair for women who love the boot on the neck.
Not even that lady lumps song troubled me as much as this for the dangerous message sent to girls and women about the nature of romantic relationships.
Florence, you are one sick bitch.
And for now, the ranking lap cat of patriarchy.

During the daily sweep up of endless amounts of dog hair and sand, I was listening to this on the laptop. Mr. M comes in and busts a move to impress his canine fan club.

With broom held aside, "Shit, do you realize that the music of our youth is now probably called 'classic hip-hop' or some such old-ifying label?"
(We saw the Beastie Boys on the Check Your Head Tour in 1992 before we left Philly for the cold Midwest. The husband had hair down to the middle of his back then. And I remember that video turning up on "Beavis and Butthead" where they wondered if they were watching the Weather Channel. Also keep in mind my massive crush on Adam Horovitz).
"Better 'classic' than 'oldies.'"
"Hmmm."
"They were the first hipsters."
"No, there have always been hipsters. The British Romantics of the early 19th century were hipsters."
"They were the first to do that 'ironic dressing' thing in the "Sabotage" video."
"Right, the whole ugly-clothes-are-funny thing."

We didn't mention the cancer.
The thought of folks your own age contracting the ultimate dread is too much to contemplate.

Wicklow Way in Enniskerry

Don't worry, the blog won't be morphing into a showcase for my middling photography.

These shots are from our hike on the Wicklow Way with the pooches today.

Windy as fuck it was once you got beyond the waterfall.

A huge gust blew me over against the rocks twice.

Omar and Kima were chewbering the deer carcass on the return.

Rome Part 2

This is the Italian memorial for the unknown soldier. These dudes posted out front wore one of many different types of uniform present in the city. This ain't the birthplace of mars and venus without macho men fitted with machine guns all over the place. Verily, it's clear why Italian women are on a birth strike. Seven day-old pasta clotted with dog hair has more appeal than the macho dudes who occupy as much physical space as they can manage while yelling into a mobile. That dude was trebled on every street.

The rest of the photos are from the Roman Forum, Palatino and Colosseum.

It was the highlight of the trip.

Look around at all the layers of construction and take heart in the human impulse to pull ourselves out of the muck, to organize and create a civil society. Except for the bloodsport in the Colosseum, that is.

Now I know what antiquity smells like after rounding down to the crypt area on the way to the Palatino. A blast of dust bellowed more layers of compressed feet, blood, shit and collective sweat than anything else I've encountered. When I thought the odour had finally dissipated, there was another note of terra firma tempered by humanity. The tang of history hung in the air to let us know we are but lyrics to the cheesy Kansas song.

The murder that fascinated the Beats and serves as the narrative focus of the jointly written novel "And The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" doesn't happen until twenty pages before the end. William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac wrote alternating chapters in 1944 in what's being billed as crime fiction. The slim novel plods along spending most of its pages on folks scrounging drinks and disparaging gay men and lesbians. When Columbia student Lucien Carr killed the gay man who had been a mentor of sorts, all the Beats quickly embraced him and outwardly conducted themselves as though David Kammerer was not really a member of their circle. In this fictional account, there's little doubt that the incident acted as a purgative for their own self-loathing over same sex attractions and dalliances. In his chapters, Kerouac openly flashes admiration for the heroic dudeliness of the act of murder.

A big fan of the Beats as a teenager, I had to struggle to remember what it was exactly that I liked about them after forcing myself to finish this listless and pedestrian little book.

A character in Hanif Kureishi's "The Buddha of Suburbia" counsels that the worst thing you can do to Kerouac is read him at 35. No shit. Reading him at 40 had me blushed for reserving such fondness for him in my youth.

Wife killer and mama's boy write a book.

Take a pass.

Obligatory Photos Part 1

You can imagine how many folks came by to lay their head in the missing noggin spot. This is in the garden to the National Museum, along with the next two shots. Antiquity's beauty is strewn all over Rome. Often, it felt like we were walking on a film set.

Piazza della Repubblica was fairly hopping.

The temperature may have hit 23C.

Most of our meals were taken outside.

Romans, by contrast, were wrapped up for a cold winter's day.

The idea of an industrial belt sander's utility to grind down all the dead shit on my wounded feet holds so much appeal. We melted into the jacuzzi on the first night to soothe away the crimps and grime from so many hours hoofing it. What a contradiction you find in the streets of Rome: the traffic moves at racetrack pace, yet the citizenry stroll about without any sense of destination or timeframe. Fast cars coupled with slow walkers keep you on alert.

Trevi Fountain.

Mr. M's impression of me throwing in a coin launched a fit of hysterical giggles.

Rome has the sublime tucked around every other corner.

Pantheon before nightfall.

Mr. M enjoyed the re-branding on evidence where the church converted all the old pagan sites to their team.

The level of detail and design inside was impossible to capture with the shitty camera.

All around posted signs cautioned folks that it was a sacred place commanding silence.

Inside the Pantheon was as noisy as an after work pub.

My second pizza of the day was relished at a cafe on the Piazza Navona.

Patriarchy A Go-Go

The mystery of what happens to Art History majors a decade after graduation has been clarified. Minted AH folks are roaming the Vatican with various degrees of desperation in an attempt to parlay their education into a few bucks by acting as personal tour guides. Now that I think about it, I should have stopped to ask at least one of the four American women or the one British dude how much they charge for their education. The women looked like Vassar types in fraying J Crew. The dude with the Oxford accent shouted after us in his clippity voice that "there is literally no information available on the art so good luck trying to go through it alone." Ah, the "expert" dudes are always fitted with a smug assurance of their own brilliance. Ripping out my eyelashes sounds like more fun than having to listen to him for three hours. Same goes for the tour our hotel sponsored for 59 Euro per person. It was only three subway stops away on the Metro which cost 1 Euro to ride. Tickets to the Vatican--to see all the art--are only 14 Euro. These shady tour operations feed on folks who are too terrified to negotiate the streets so they'll pay through the nose to have someone else take them around. Same thing with the bus tour to the Colosseum. The tour bus clip-joint charged 20 Euro for the short trip that was easily taken onfoot. How do you get to know a city if you refuse to perambulate?

Mr. M took far more pleasure in the Vatican than I did, although he half expected some monumental change to occur due to the interpellation in my childhood, like I would be worrying beads by the end or something. As if. St. Peter's Basilica and Square felt closer to a military compound than pilgrimage site. There were angy-looking dudes barking orders all over the place. Be-smocked junior priests swaggered around like rock stars. Folks from all over the world came to dip their fingers in the holy-holy. We stopped to watch a beaming novice nun squealing to have her picture taken. Inside, there was hardly a face without a camera affixed. Our camera was kaput (it's 5 years old and no longer holds the charge), but I was okay with that, because while I did want to visit, there's no pressing need for me to save any of the images on view from the font of patriarchy. The splendour of dude culture is as exaggerated as you imagine. Fictional and historical peen-bearers who carved power from the subjugation of women and impoverished indigenous folk appear preserved in marble for eternity. The Vatican is one big patriarchal wank-stain of self-pleasure and glory. No need for me to see it pop up on my screensaver.

In the Basilica, standing in front of yet another tomb to a dead pope, the grand black marble door underneath slowly opened. Mr. M looked forward with anticipation, as if the Rat was going to show his face. Turned out to be an elderly janitor with a mop and bucket. Mr. M said it made his day, this Monty Python moment of showing the human toil necessary to keep the place running. He was also visibly interested in the Map Room, one of the many galleries on the way to the Sistine Chapel. Mr. M could have easily been saddled with the appellation "Mr. Map" on this blog because the man is mad for them. The walls were festooned with a series of detailed cartography of Italy, accompanied by paintings which depicted incidents of religious significance. Yes, it was impressive.

For me, the highlight was getting to view Michaelangelo's Pietà. It was the most human image in the place.

We'll be chillin' in one of the cradles of global patriarchy for a spell.
The early days of the city were a rape-0-rama for the founding Romulus and his cohort dudes.
But hey, the only way to avoid patriarchy would be to enter one of those sensory deprivation tanks of the type featured in that boring David Cronenberg movie.
Besides, they have pizza.

"Cannibal Women in the Avacado Jungle of Death" (1989) rates as a really shitty satire of feminism and gender politics. Starring Shannon Tweed, Adrienne Barbeau and Bill fucking Maher, the film sets feminism up as a great big national boogie man on par with Cold War communism. This film channels the funny bone of the MRA set; dudes who rail on about the feminist conspiracy keeping them down will eat this shit up. According to this script drippy with mars and venus gender mythology, a swathe of jungle running from Bakersfield, California down to Mexico serves as the "avacado belt" which is essential to national security. Government dudes prevail upon a Woman's Studies professor to confirm the rumour about the women warriors who inhabit the jungle. Shannon Tweed's Professor Hunt admits the legend about women eating men in the form of beef jerky with a side of guacamole. The dudes strong arm her into agreeing to do down and "reason" with the radical feminist cannibals. It was funny to think that any WS department would have the kind of funding and resources the film imagines.

There are a string of unfunny jokes such as when the student Bunny (Karen Waldron) asks Prof. Hunt if it's true that feminists eat men, the shoulder padded lady responds "No! Well, not many" Har-dee-har-har. Bill Maher's character enters as the only dude among a ninja, wrestler and a crazy Vietnam vet who's brave enough to face the horrid throng of pirana women. Maher's character is a delusional stalker type who proclaims love for Hunt even though they only had a one night stand. In his mind, that means he owns her. This film fashions a clumsy satire full of false notes and lady hating.

The only truly funny part comes at the clip above near the end of the film. Hunt gets to confront the leader, Dr. Kurtz (Adrienne Barbeau) who was the self-described token feminist of the talk show circuit. Her plan was to write a memoir about her stint as leader of the pirana women. Kurtz (in a nod to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness") pleads "you don't know what it's like to face David Letterman with a book on male insensitivity." With her dying breath she gasps "Oh, god, David Letterman. The horror! The horror of that show. The horror!"
Now that's pretty fucking funny.
Watch that and skip the rest.