The Mothra Effect, or: sensitive dependence on unexpected conditions

What happened was this: I was on the phone to cancel my credit card, having left my wallet on the plane, having called the airline and been told to fill out the form online, having insisted that I’d just gotten off the plane, that my wallet was definitely on the plane, that please could they connect me to the San Francisco desk as they’d probably found it by now, being on hold only to learn that no, my wallet had not yet been discovered, having gotten mad at myself for doing such a dumb thing, having only left my wallet on the plane in the first place because I’d gotten it out to pay for drinks, two whiskey gingers, having not been charged for the drinks, having said quietly to my boyfriend, woohoo, free drinks, and having not put my wallet back in my purse, having forgotten about it, having exited the plane.

So I was on the phone with Chase to cancel my credit card. The customer service rep expresses sympathy with me for having lost my card, offers to put a 48-hour hold on my card, I agree, and he asks me,

So, what’s it like, living in California…

[I laugh]

...with that movie San Andreas coming out?

What movie? I ask, I don’t know anything about it.

You know, it’s about the earthquake, the big disaster.

Ok, I say, I definitely know about the San Andreas fault, but I don’t know anything about the movie.

But what’s it like living so close to that?

I don’t really worry about it, I laugh again. I’ve lived in California almost my whole life, and I don’t really think about it.

I like your attitude about it, he responded approvingly.

You can’t really predict earthquakes, anyway, I add, so I don’t see the point in worrying.

But aren’t you concerned that there could be disaster at any moment?

I mean, everywhere is a little bit like that, right? Some places have hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis.

Yeah, but doesn’t it concern you that disaster could strike at any moment?

Well, really, the way they exaggerate these things for movies, too. I mean, Hollywood. You know, the last big earthquake we had here, that broke the bridge, only one person died, and that was because they were doing something weird with their car. The way they depict it in movies, it just doesn’t match the historical reality.

And wasn’t that with Mothman, too?

Ok, what? I laugh hugely. Mothman? What is Mothman?

You know, half-moth, half-man.

Wait, what does this have to do with earthquakes?

They saw it on the bridge, right? Before the earthquake.

I don’t know what you’re talking about man, I feel like I’ve stepped into an alternate reality here.

Yeah, well, it is 1:30am here in Florida, so…

All right. I don’t know. No one in San Francisco talks about Mothman.

You can watch it on Animal Planet, look for Lost Tapes.

I definitely will.

And I did.

attention to detail

is always appreciated. 
 (for comparison, see one of my other former zip codes in the city:)

no place like it

I went back to Orangevale for Easter. I got to eat this:

admire these:

and laugh at the contrast between my father's and my mother's reading material (left to right, respectively).

phrase of the day

edifice complex

thank you to this sad story about a planned bridge in Germany that might take a chunk out Germany's Riesling vineyards.

the appreciation of spam

It was recently brought to my attention that this is not necessarily very standard practice, but I keep my email very tidy. All the messages in my inbox have been read. All the spam is deleted daily. Apparently not everyone does this, but I can't imagine I'm in a huge minority (am I?). At any rate, it's had one immensely positive benefit. I always read my spam subject lines before deleting them, as every once in a cerulean moon something worthwhile from someone I like ends up there. Most of the time, however, I get spam about where to buy prescription drugs, and how to enhance the size of my penis. (And may I take a moment to say how touched I am that so many people are concerned about the size of my penis. Thank you.) But at some point last spring that changed, and the subject headings went off in what I can only describe as increasingly bizarre and at times mysteriously Lewis Carrolian directions. I offer you here a sampling in chronological order from May to present:

Euro emo mass suicide
Turn from sparrow to eagle
Hitler's son found!
See her instantly geeked!
Use mind to improve your fang
They whistled and warbled a moony song
O lovely Pussy! Oh Pussu, my love
And besides, to the Crumpetty Tree
and put the bun on the window sill to cool
Said the Yongy-Bonghy-Bo
The Pobble swam fast and well
Hello, deepshit!
Infection in our cinema
pragmatistho
Give squish mittens DUE attention
They gayest gay ever
Who had a little curl
Close by the king's castle lay a great dark
It is no giant but a disgusting frog
Sensation. Hitler was a woman!
How the silly frog does talk!
The old man said, Old woman, bake me a bun!
Dude, your snake sucks!

I find the recurring themes particularly amusing.

it's a shame

Crossing Van Ness two days ago, I walked past a man with a crutch under one arm. "You don't have anybody to hold your hand on a Sunday?" he called out to me. "Somebody needs to get their ass whupped! You tell him I said that." By this point I was laughing. "You tell him. You tell him you met a nice black man who wasn't hitting on you or nothing and he said that was a shame, and he needs to get his ass whupped. And if he wants to talk about that, he can come right down here to Pronto Pizza and I'll tell him about it. Somebody needs to get his ass whupped. You tell him."

"I will." I said, "I'll do that." But I didn't.

anti-quote of the day*

" 'Feminism' had come to seem, well...just the teeniest bit tiresome."
- Terry Castle, quote of the day on DoubleX

Why is everyone so damned intent on taking the joy out of feminism? I know it's trendy, but don't they know how much fun feminism is? Certainly Terry Castle seems aware of the pressing necessity for it still, the deep injustices that it tries to address, draw attention to, remedy. But the light, the also-necessary brightness, the ability to highlight the absurdities of patriarchy, masculinity, femininity, heteronormativity, the invaluable license to laugh at the strictures that terrified and straight-jacketed generations before us. It's invigorating! It's exciting! It's so wholly necessary! Like a telescope looking both into and out at society, history, culture, feminism allows us to focus on things that before had at best been vague blurs. It is equally relevant to micro- and macrocosmic ideas, issues, plans, designs. It makes me use these cheesy metaphors!

I agree with the point that certain strains of academic feminism can become staid, crippling, insular, largely irrelevant. But why does Castle avoid the liberating and embracing notion that feminism is for everybody?


*also not a daily feature

When I was a little girl, nobody ever told me that sexism could be so boring

In his tedious, unsurprising, and tragically unfunny article attempting to convince me and explain to everyone else “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” Christopher Hitchens manages to recycle or regurgitate most – all? ah, but who wants to count – of the dominant, easily accessible, and entirely unproved patriarchal platitudes about women’s relationship to humor.

Before you ask: yes, I am aware that this article appeared in a column entitled “Provocation.” I am equally aware that Hitchens is generally more interested in loudly exclaiming his point of view than engaging in any sort of dialogue. I could say, I suppose, that this is because he’s a man, and as such chiefly interested in the sound of his own voice. But I’m actually rather bored by such lame and predictable gender stereotyping. Would that we all were.

The article is jam-packed with such smug expressions of condescension as “…Women, bless their tender hearts, would prefer that life be fair, and even sweet, rather than the sordid mess it actually is.” Hitchens also refers to women as “cunning minxes;” whether or not this is an intentional slant rhyme with cunnilingus I’ll leave for someone else to decide.

Hitchens is not, of course, claiming that women have no sense of humor – after all, they laugh at men’s jokes. Nor is he claiming that no women are funny. He is happy to acknowledge that some are. Just not many. And not often.

He bolsters his claim of general female unfunnyness with such nods to scientific fact as “[women] are partly ruled in any case by the moon and the tides.” Well, of course they are! When I’m menstruating, I always think to myself: how lucky men are not to be partly ruled by the moon and the tides! Damn you, tyrant moon! When will you lift your cruel lunar tax, and give my people full enfranchisement! This of course explains why a woman can’t be president. She has a secret loyalty to the moon and the tides. Why, she’d sell the U.S. short at the drop of a hat! Or perhaps that bit was meant to be a joke. In which case, and it pains me to say this, I do believe I’ve heard it before. Starting when I was twelve and off and on with slight variation but without cease ever since. For a dash more science, Hitchens cites a Stanford University School of Medicine study which surveyed – brace yourself! – ten men and ten women. But of course, if it was done by Stanford, it must be conclusive.

“Good grief!” he moans at one point “Is there anything less funny than hearing a woman relate a dream she’s just had?” Yes. Many things. Let’s start with pick up lines, and move on from there.

Hitchens continues (and continues and continues, as this back and forth has gone on long past the publication of his article) to assert that men have to be funny in order to pursue women, and that women don’t have to be funny, because they don’t have to pursue men. He doesn’t seem bothered by his yawn-inducing attitudes of male as active pursuer and female as passive recipient of sexual interest. Not to mention his heteronormativity. But while we’re on the subject, let’s mention it. He never addresses this question, but I wonder: would Hitchens argue that gay men aren’t funny?

Furthermore, he is so good as to inform us that “[t]here are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians.” I looked for a citation, but it didn’t exist. Why not? Because he made it up. Because as anyone – anyone! – can tell you, there are far, far more male stand-up comedians than female stand-up comedians. Why that is may be a different matter (I’ll take the sexist climate of the stand-up community for starters), but the sheer wild imbalance of the ratio effectively makes his assertion impossible.

All of this, of course, not having been quite enough, Hitchens is happy to remind us that “[f]or women, reproduction is, if not the only thing, certainly the main thing.” Ah well, so much for the past hundred and fifty odd years of feminism. Glad that’s over with.

I do not feel compelled to make the case that women are in fact as funny as men. I contend that the burden of disproof lies with the opposition, and that I am thus far unimpressed and unamused – unless of course, the whole thing was supposed to be a big laugh at all of these outdated, unverifiable, and old-fashioned assumptions.

But I doubt it.

Perhaps I shouldn’t expect anything better from Hitchens, however. Despite his lefty credentials, he’s often shown himself to be primarily interested in polarizing and pontificating.

Of course, the truly interesting question here is: why the eff ewe sea kay did Vanity Fair – which, last time I checked, was still a women’s magazine – publish this piece?

Maybe in a future issue, they’ll publish shocking – and provocative – works of “journalism” such as: Why Women Aren’t as Smart as Men. Too obviously sexist? Okay, how about: Why Women Aren’t as Interested in Making Money as Men. Because as we all know, women just don’t make as much money. Well, they’re just not as greedy! You see, women, all women, have BABIES, and so they’re more compassionate. More nurturing. Less cut-throat, less competitive. By nature. What, you don’t believe me? But it’s science!

p.s. I know that this article originally appeared in January 2007. Well, I’ve only just come across it, via something else (I seem to remember it being thoroughly panned in bitch magazine). Come on, you’re shocked I don’t read Vanity Fair?