Continuity Errors

 Tonight, I went to see Continuity by Bess Wohl at the Shotgun Players.

Upon entering, I opened my program to find, as always, a slip of paper for the raffle. Each slip has a topical question related to the play that the audience must answer in order to enter the raffle.

The question they selected to precede Continuity was "What would you give up to preserve the environment? (in five words or less)"

 

my answer -- "Everyone: get more vegan NOW!"

 

  I didn't win the raffle, but the two prizes were a ticket to the Champagne Staged Reading series, and a five-dollar voucher for the farmer's market, provided by the Berkeley Ecology Center.

 

I'll rip the bandaid off now, Reader. I didn't like the play. So I'm going to start with the things I did like about it.

 

The Good Things About the Play 

 

I enter the auditorium, and the stage is made up into a movie set with a big iceberg. 

 

 This is a cool iceberg. Moving on.

 

There was one actor playing a beleaguered PA on the set, and his physical comedy was outstanding. There was one perfect scene in which the writer and the director are having a very private, emotional conversation, and the PA comes in to get a soda for the diva lead actress. He is there rummaging through a cooler as loud as humanly possible, for at least 90 seconds. He's taking every single can and bottle out. He is jostling all the ice. He is trying with all his might to find the one Diet Dr Pepper at the bottom of that cooler so the lead actress doesn't have a conniption. The timing is managed so that it goes through that perfect cycle of "Ha, he's digging through the cooler... Ugh, he's still digging through the cooler.... HAHAHAHAHA HE'S STILL DIGGING THROUGH THE COOLER." A very tough needle to thread, so credit where it's due. Shoutout to actor Matt Standley.

Here is where my compliments end. 

It's a play about making a climate change movie in Hollywood, and yet it has shockingly little to say about either climate change or Hollywood. I'll handle these issues one at a time, starting with...

 

Hollywood

 

The premise, as it was described, is that the film director, Maria, is trying to make a thoughtful film about the climate crisis, but has been stymied at every turn by studio interference. There is very little evidence of this throughout the play. We hear that the studio wants certain cuts to lines, we hear that the studio added a big climactic scene near the end, but we have no sense of what the movie would have been otherwise. There is no sense of loss or meddling or sacrifice. The action of the play concerns trying to film the last scene they need, during their last day on location.

 In this scene, the antagonist is a former climate activist turned ecoterrorist. He's planning to plant a bomb that will cause a tsunami to wipe out parts of the West Coast, in order to get people to take action on climate change before it's too late. However, the whole bomb plot was apparently a studio invention. What would the movie have been otherwise, if this is the climax?

A different play might have been trying to comment on the fact that big studio movies have villains wantonly kill innocent people because otherwise their leftist views would come across too sympathetically. This play is not trying to make that kind of comment.

 

In between takes, there are some passing remarks about the role of women and people of color in Hollywood, some comments about trying hard to fit a Hollywood mold of masculinity in order to play to the widest possible audience, but these comments are never taken anywhere. 

 

The actors all have their interpersonal problems, especially Nicole, the lead actress, whose main personality trait is that she's acting like a diva. We learn that she is also dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, a fling with the screenwriter, and a cocaine addiction. These things are all played for laughs, though, to varying levels of success. No offense to the actress playing her, but the sequence where she gives the coked-up version of her monologue overstays its welcome.Then, the writer gives her Valium to calm her back down, which leads to a bizarre dream sequence where she and the PA sing "What's Up" by Four Non Blondes.

 

Climate Change 

 

I feel duped. Everything about the marketing of the play -- the description on the website, the materials in the program, the question for the raffle-- primed me for an incisive critique of climate change. Reader, very little of the sort happened.

Or so I thought when I left. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if that was the point? I will find out over the course of writing this.

Maria, the director, wants to make a big, successful climate change movie in order to get people talking about it. They have a climate science consultant, Larry, on set to make sure the film is as accurate as possible. Larry makes the only good points in the play.

In his first appearance, he comes in to make a correction about the script, and he gives this warning: people in power are already eager to believe that climate change is a lie, so if anything in the movie is false, people will jump at the opportunity to write off all of climate change as false. This seems to light a fire under the asses of the writer and director, so they change some lines to make things more accurate. (The tsunami will now only wipe out PARTS of the west coast, rather than the ENTIRE west coast as originally written). Larry's presence gives the whole proceedings a sense of stakes. However, the actual plot of the play hinges more around getting Nicole to cooperate on set and actually finish filming the scene.

 

Near the end of the play, they finally get their singular good take of the scene, and right in the nick of time. (Another quibble: the big ticking clock of the play is that they are "running out of sunlight," but everything about the production seems to suggest that they're inside on a soundstage. They say out loud that they're filming in New Mexico for tax reasons, so did they just put a big foam iceberg outside in front of a bluescreen? Why are they on location then? Why aren't they just inside?) We get the scene, performed well instead of comically badly, with Nicole finally delivering her speech about not giving into despair, because there are still things worth living for in the world. 

 

Right before they try to set up another take, Larry the science consultant comes in again, and essentially gives a monologue about climate despair. He says that unless things change very drastically very quickly, all human habitats will disappear, and the next species that comes along after us will only have a paper-thin stratum of rock and geological evidence of an era of increased carbon as evidence that homo sapiens ever existed.

 

This, of course, is a major buzzkill. Everyone begins to wonder why, in these conditions, make a movie at all? A movie won't change anybody's minds. If anything, watching a climate change movie replaces activism for a lot of people (an Artaudian take, by the way) so it might even be counterproductive. All the most important activism is boring and invisible, and anything flashy and public only exists to make us feel better.

 

The play didn't have the balls to end there. But they don't give us a hopeful ending, either. What we do get is a final scene of the director and the screenwriter sharing a personal moment. It ends in a way that makes me think only of Oh, Hello!: "You always have to end a play on an insignificant line that makes you go, 'was that the end of the fuckin play?'"

 

So after writing out my impressions of the treatment of climate change, I'm still conflicted. On the one hand, having the science guy come in at the very end of the play and just drop the bomb of "by the way, none of this means anything" feels cheap and unearned. Nothing else in the play is leading us to this conclusion, really, except for the male lead's comment in the first scene that recycling is pointless. It feels like we were watching a mildly-funny workplace comedy about the production of a movie that just so happens to be about climate change, and then, all of a sudden, we get hit with a wave of climate pessimism and sent home. We didn't watch a play about climate change. We watched a play. Then a guy told us about climate change afterwards.

 

On the other hand, is that what Wohl was going for? Is the point that we do plenty of things as distractions, or to make ourselves feel better, when in reality, climate catastrophe is inevitable? Is the point that we've been avoiding reality the whole time, and now is the time to actually sit with the facts of our situation? I'm not satisfied with that interpretation, either. If making a liberal movie is counterproductive, doomerism is doubly so. And if that was the intended message, the play did not make that clear formally or textually.

 

I suppose that by making me confused and mad, the play has succeeded in making me feel something. However, here's one last damning bit of evidence: it did not get a standing ovation, outside of maybe half a dozen real enthusiasts.

 

emilyjones digression

Not to get too participation-trophyish about it, but the standing ovation has been, in my opinion, heavily watered down. It used to be a mark of a performance that really moved you. You stand when you see the best performance of your life. Now, people stand for every performance. The situation at the SF Symphony is even worse. We're standing for minutes at a time, as the conductor comes on for a second, third, fourth bow. I think this trend is more apparent at "highbrow" entertainments like the symphony, because there's also a social component. By standing, you are signaling to everyone around you that you sufficiently enjoyed and, more importantly, understood the work. It's like when I was a worship leader in church. There's a pressure to perform being moved. First you stand. Then you raise a hand up. Then two hands up. Then you fall to your knees. Of course, if you're doing this, it's because you're also in the front row where everyone can see you.

 

Final Thoughts 

The program features a tagline that says "The time for science is over. It's time for action." How does this relate to the play I saw? "Action" also means "lights, camera, action." However, why is the time for science over? Doesn't the emotional and thematic core of the play revolve around the contributions of the scientist? Maybe the point is that if you actually listened to the scientist, there would be no movie. In order for there to be the time for action, you have to end the time of science.

 

The more interesting interpretation of the tagline would be, "We need to stop saying that we need more evidence for climate change. We all know it's real. Let's actually fucking do something." 

 

I think this tagline is emblematic of a play that wants to live with both interpretations, but by doing so, does justice to neither.

Go Bears

Imagine how happy a rehabilitated bird of prey must be when she's released back into her habitat.

 You, Reader, imagine it. I don't have to, because I'm certain I understand the feeling: after three weeks away, I'm finally back in Berkeley.

Yesterday I stepped out of the Oakland airport, into perfect, 75-degree weather, with no humidity. I walked through this clear blue day directly to public transportation, which I get for free as a student.

Arriving at my apartment, I found it to be intolerably hot because it has no air conditioning and very poor ventilation. Not to worry, though! I walked directly to a nearby secondhand store to buy a fan for my window. I ate an entire block of tofu for dinner and got ready for bed.

This morning I wake up hungry for a savory breakfast, so I eat a pack of dal and a scallion pancake. Then I put on my off-brand Birkenstocks and leave the apartment. I stop at a cafe for an oat milk latte for the walk, and a vegan soyrizo empanada to eat later for lunch. Just before 11am I arrive at my destination: the independent movie theatre to watch a screening of Maurice.

The cinema shows a very homemade-looking ad against upzoning and replacing the local Berkeley businesses with five-over-one apartment buildings; a PSA thanking us for supporting the "dream and the reality" of going to the movies; an announcement that all of their screenings on Tuesdays are captioned for accessibility; and a land acknowledgment. 

A brief digression: 

Maurice is an amazing film, by the way. I knew very little about it, because the Dark Academia girls on tumblr love it only for the first 30 minutes where they're students at Cambridge. But the whole movie is beautiful and gripping and devastating. Spectacular score with lots of classical music. The director does such a compelling job of showing how watched Clive and Maurice are all the time. You can never let your guard down, you can never fully show how you feel, because someone is always there to see. The sheer repression of the environment just starts to seep into your skin.

 After the movie, I walk to the local grocery store to buy ingredients for the next few meals I plan to make: Tabbouleh with chickpeas, pasta salad, and peanut noodles. I also get some apples and bananas for snacks. I walk home, carrying this heavy and bountiful harvest. I prep my tabbouleh and put it in the refrigerator. I realize I also want cherries so I can make a homemade sorbet. I ask my roommate what else she needs from the store, and I return to Berkeley Bowl, because the grocery store is so close I can just go there twice.

 

On the way there, I see a flyer for queer furry reiki. I scan the QR code. I still have not actually looked at the web page. I return to the store. I eat free samples of nectarines and buy two. I get mint and limes for Maya so she can keep making Brazilian limeade. I get two pounds of frozen cherries and vanilla extract for my sorbet. And, as a treat, I get an 8-pack of tangerine lacroix on sale, to make mocktails with.

 

On the way home, I see a flyer for "trauma-informed, neurodivergent-friendly" house cleaning.

 

I get home and start watching a video of 1970s encounter group therapy. While doing that, I eat a beautiful plate of tabbouleh lettuce cups and dolmas. 

 

And since then, I've just been chilling in my Berkeley apartment. So happy to be home.

 

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers!

As I sit here at the airport, on the way home from Alabama, I can already feel my mental health improving. As much as I enjoyed spending two weeks visiting my mother, every single thing about that environment is perhaps hand-crafted specifically to give me evil thoughts.

I'm annoyed and concerned with this fact in equal measure-- annoyed because it is simply unpleasant to be in an environment like that, and concerned because spending a couple weeks in a different place shouldn't be enough to make a supposedly healthy and recovered person struggle.

"Triggered" is too strong a word for what I felt. "Bothered" feels more proportionate.

Readers, I think it's time for another list.

Things About My Mother's House That Prompt Disordered Thought Patterns (Number 4 Will Shock You!) 

1. Constant diet talk 

 My mom has been trying to lose weight probably for as long as I've been alive. I grew up seeing bikini pictures from women's magazines taped over the StairMaster next to sheets of paper listing goal weights and measurements. So the idea that a woman should always be vigilant about her body is something that has always been in the back of my mind. It takes on something of a different tone though now that I'm an adult. Now, for the first time I've been consciously aware of, my mom has a goal weight that is less than what I weigh. That is a strange thing to grapple with. My mom is talking about the things she should and shouldn't eat, about being "good" and "bad" with the things she chooses, about wanting to have a "total reset" during her wellness retreat. We go down to the community center to meet her friends at the coffee social:

"Are those lemon poppyseed muffins? How are they? Worth the calories?" 

 

2. Surrounded by weight loss materials

 My mom's on-again-off-again relationship with weight loss has resulted in the accumulation of a massive amount of stuff. The back wall of the living room is stacked at least three feet high with weight loss books and specialty diet cookbooks. Oftentimes these books are for diets that directly contradict one another. That doesn't matter, though, because it's not the point. She was never going to follow, Keto, Paleo, the South Beach Diet, the Flat Belly Diet, the French Woman Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, Whole 30, and whatever else, all at the same time. In fact, several of these I don't remember her ever doing. Four Paleo books has not resulted in a Paleo diet.

I walk into her bedroom to check my outfit in the full-length mirror in her armoire. I open the armoire and it's full of exercise dvds.

I check the medicine cabinet to get allergy meds or melatonin, and it's full of weight loss supplements, of varying levels of safety and efficacy. I go to the pantry to find some food to eat. More supplements: green juice powder, protein powder, fiber supplements, protein bars, that fat-free powdered peanut butter.

She has a full exercise room in her new house, full of every gadget imaginable: yoga balls, medicine balls, dumbbells, resistance bands, weighted hula hoop, jump rope, aerobics steps, trampoline, treadmill, rowing machine, and stairmaster. Paradoxically the exercise room is so full there is almost not enough room to use any of that equipment.

My mom's approach to health (and to most things) is that if she can just find the right thing, the problem will be solved. If something is wrong, then there must exist some book or some gadget that can fix it. If it doesn't work, then that must have just been the wrong thing. We move onto something else. 

 

 

3. No exercise during the day

Living in a neighborhood that is not walking distance from anything, and having no plans most days, I have no externally imposed reason to leave the house. Normally at home I would be walking around a lot -- going to the grocery store, walking to campus, sometimes walking somewhere like a bar or to the movies. Here, unless I make the active decision to move, there is no reason to move. That means a couple things: Firstly, I always have to remain aware of how much or how little I've exercised during the day. Not a particularly sustainable thought pattern for me. Secondly, all the moving I do ends up taking the form of structured exercise and "workouts." If I walk for an hour in Berkeley, it's because I needed to go somewhere and then come home. If I walk for an hour at my mom's, it's because I did an hour-long workout on the treadmill, where I am presented with too many statistics for my own good. I'm thinking about the distance, the incline, the speed, the time, the calories burned. My constantly-optimizing tendencies lead me to pull up calculators: how many MORE calories would it be if I went just a little bit faster? or just a little bit steeper?

This isn't to say that I don't have a cruel attachment to my step count at home; I absolutely do. It is just somewhat harder to avoid here.

 

4. Have to plan all my meals

Just as being in a sedentary environment forces me to constantly think about my exercise, being in a vegan-hostile environment forces me to constantly think about food. Where are we going tonight? Do I need to eat before we leave? What can I make for dinner tonight? How much of my stuff is left? These practical questions end up slowly morphing into How much have I eaten today? When should I eat next? What should I eat? Why am I eating so much unhealthy food? Why am I hungry at all if I haven't exercised? 

Stuck in an odd in-between space, because I am preparing all my own meals for the most part, but I can't make everything I want to, and I don't have all of my normal staples, so it's a balance between what I want to/can eat and what my mom keeps around. The things I can make are not nearly as nutrient-dense as the foods I make at home, so my plantmaxxing numbers are way down from my normal averages.

 

5. Scales

My scale died a year or two ago, and I decided to simply not replace the batteries and put it away in the garage. I haven't regularly weighed myself in ages. My mom has a scale, though. (Two scales, actually) So one day while she was at work I decided to go into her bathroom and weigh myself. I get on the scale and am so shocked I get on the other scale for a second opinion. Reader, I weigh about ten pounds more than I thought I did, or about ten pounds more than I did when I was regularly weighing myself. Seeing that number (152, if anyone is being nosy) brought up a lot more for me than I expected. First of all, it is almost as much as I weighed in 2020, before I fell into any toxic weight loss spirals. That means that after all of that, I've gained basically everything back. Not a fun thing to realize. Secondly, this weight is about ten pounds more than my mom's goal weight. Lastly, and the thing that bothers me the most, is that I don't know when it happened. 

Logically, I have no reason to be upset. If we're staying numbers-oriented, my waist measurement is actually within about half an inch of where it was back when I was measuring, so it's not a question of all-over weight gain. I kept taking lots and lots of bodychecking mirror pictures to make sure I still looked normal. I guess I wanted to have it both ways: my body changed noticeably last year (wider hips, bigger chest) in a short span, and I wanted that without it also making the scale go any higher. If I have a complaint about that I can take it up with the laws of physics, I suppose. 

Even though I have no logical reason to be upset, I noticed I still felt very upset because of a perceived loss of control. When I was rapidly gaining weight in 2022, I found it extremely distressing, so I ended up establishing a set of conditions for myself: essentially, if I'm eating as healthy as possible and also exercising enough, and I still gain weight, that's ok. In short, my recovery was conditional on my continuing to do everything right. 

Now, I'm very rarely that strict --Readers know that I love snacks, treats, fun drinks, and all those things-- but every once in a while I find myself thinking that I've forgotten my mission of remaining totally in control. 

 

6. Too much downtime 

As I've mentioned previously on this blog, having too much time on my hands is a recipe for disaster. Too much time to myself means too much time to think. Too much time to think means too much time to scroll. Too much time to scroll, when that scrolling is taking place in a house filled floor to ceiling with the ghosts of failed weight loss attempts, leads to thinspo pinterest. Thinspo pinterest is, at least, marginally better than thinspo tumblr, due to the site's far superior content moderation.

My old lifestyle board, "trying to lock in without becoming patrick bateman," wasn't enough anymore. I had to make a second, private board called "and so what if i AM patrick bateman?"

 

 

Thinspo, Fitspo. Cheesy motivational quotes. High volume low calorie recipes. Workout plans.

Taking after my mother, I aggressively and obsessively collect these, regardless of whether I will actually act on them. More often than not, I don't; I just start collecting posts that will simultaneously fuel and appease my anxieties. Usually when the time rolls around for me to start doing any of the things I saved, I will have already gotten over the particular episode I was experiencing.

However, this time I am still thinking about it. Nothing drastic really, not even any specific strategies in particular. Just the recurring thought that I should probably start taking measures to lose about ten or fifteen pounds in about as many weeks. And I keep thinking about this, even though it's probably in direct contradiction with my other goal, which is to get stronger, build muscle, etc. 

---

All of the discussion above just proves the point that I have goals, and I have metrics, and those two things are actually unrelated activities. I need numbers to look a certain way, because, well, those are the best numbers and I need the best numbers! And sometimes those numbers actually are divorced from my real goals. For example, do I actually think I would look better 10-15 pounds lighter? Unclear. But 135-140 are just excellent numbers. Real top-shelf numbers.

It also shows that the reason I do so well at home is because I have set up an environment that specifically avoids all of my normal triggers. That fact is somewhat troubling, because it means that my ability to be normal about food is still tied to my ability to be completely in control of it. At home, I can make my meal plans, do all of my prep, make sure I walk enough, follow all my routines. I feel okay eating whatever and whenever I want, because I only keep healthy foods in my apartment for the most part. I've continued the habit from the Dark Times of knowing at least three days in advance what I'm going to eat for each meal.

(I've actually continued a lot of habits from my Patrick-Batemanest times. All my jokes about horsegirl tendencies date back to that era. But apples, oats, carrots, and walking are all genuinely awesome so I kept all that up. Dance videos, too.)

Honestly, I am getting bored of thinking about this and writing about it. If I can't be bothered to write any more I certainly can't ask my devoted Readers to read any more. 

There's an unfortunate loquaciousness that accompanies self-awareness! 

The 80s are Back

June 6, 2026. Birmingham Alabama. Iron City.  

The event: The Molly Ringwalds. "Experience the 80s"

Reader, it was evident looking around the crowd that almost everyone in attendance had already experienced the 80s, when they occurred 40 years ago.

My Mom and Her Friends

About six of my mom's friends were also at the concert.

"Your mom's a wild woman, Emily"

"How do you like Alabama?"

I like it, it's nice.

"Liar!"

"Watch out, Louise, you're going to spill a drink on someone's HEAD again!"

"Emily, how old are you? 26? OH you look beautiful!"

"Look at those fishnets you're wearing. Like Madonna"

When I got to the venue, I wasn't in the best mood. I was approaching the end of my rope, the end of my tolerance of Alabama. I ached for missing my perfect boyfriend. I was tired, since I was up so late the night before talking to aforementioned perfect boyfriend, which only made me miss him more. I wasn't being ornery, but I wasn't exactly high energy, either. For reference, six minutes before the band is due to start, they blast "Bohemian Rhapsody" through the speakers. I look around, I bob to the music, I do not sing along.

The Show Starts

At long last, the band comes onstage. Luckily, cover bands don't have opening acts. That would be funny. Just doing covers of a small local artist. Or, better yet, doing covers of the cover band you're about to see. 

Anyway, the show starts. A cover of Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend." I continue moving to the beat a little bit. In a sensitive style. However, we're standing in either an advantageous or disadvantageous position, depending on your view. My mom, her friends, and I are standing near center stage, only a few people back from the front. As a 5'8" woman in platform boots, surrounded by shorter women, in a crowd that is mostly shorter women, I stand out. And I am in the band's direct line of sight. The lead singer points at me, and gestures for me to smile: called out for being too low-energy during the very first song. My mom and her friends all find this hysterical and turn to laugh at me. For the rest of the show, whenever that guy is singing, I feel obligated to perform extra enthusiasm, for fear of getting a bad grade in audience etiquette. The stark contrast between the women around me and myself wasn't helping, either.

It's true. My mom is a wild woman. She was having the time of her life, jumping up and down and singing. She's thrashing her blonde curly hair around, getting dangerously close to the 13 year old kid behind us who was very clearly dragged there by their parents. (If anyone needed to be told to smile by the lead singer, it was them...)

 During the second song, either because I am smiling enough or maybe as a tactic to get me to smile enough for him, the lead singer looks me right in the eye again and throws me a drumstick. I catch it and tuck it into the inside pocket of my denim jacket.

Now I really need to look enthusiastic in case he looks at me again.

 The Band

 (from left to right) Guy who threw me a drumstick, bassist tearing up "I Love Rock and Roll," Drummer who came to the front to sing "Fight for Your Right to Party," and Devo Guy.

Being enthusiastic for the band ultimately did not prove difficult. They're all very talented. The aesthetic is somewhat baffling, though. Each member is dressed like a completely different archetypal 1980s musician. It's like a fruit salad of 1980s signifiers.

The most impressive part of the concert was the fact that the band members kept switching instruments. Every single one of them sang lead on at least two songs. Mr Drumstick moved between rhythm guitar, keyboard, lead vocals, and bass. 

The man dressed as Freddie Mercury sang, played keyboard, and played drums on a couple songs.

And so on and so forth.

You may notice I said "the man dressed as Freddie Mercury." While the other members of the band were dressed as 80s musician types, this guy was just dressed as Freddie Mercury, complete with a drawn on mustache. Whenever he sang, he did distinctly Freddie Mercury body language-- the way he holds the microphone, his posture, gesturing with the mic stand, strong gestures with a fist held out or pointing a finger. 

The real star of the show, for me, was Devo guy. I believe the rest of the band made him be Devo Guy so he wouldn't completely upstage them. He was the lead guitarist on every single song, and also the strongest singer. They were all very good, but Devo Guy blew them out of the water. His "Rebel Yell" was ridiculously good, and so was his "Separate Ways." And on top of that, he had a great guitar solo on "Purple Rain." He couldn't have all the glory, though, so I bet his bandmates made him wear the silly red Devo hat and jumpsuit.

 

Each member of the band had a fake name and persona. The strange thing, though, is that all (I think?) of these personae were English, with accents that resemble nothing that occurs naturally on this planet.

 

The singer who threw the drumstick to me was saying things like

"Give it up for the bass gee-tah!"

"I want to hear you singing. I don't want to sing it by meself" 

 

Sometimes his "o" vowels were accented in a kind of Alex-Turner-Arctic-Monkeys way, which is to say, from Sheffield I guess. But I think sometimes he would forget he was supposed to be doing that.

The accents had a similar level of realism to the bassist's hair-metal wig or Freddie Mercury guy's groucho-marx drawn-on mustache.

 

I'm being snarky, of course, but it was genuinely a fun time and a good show. After a few songs I did get into it. After all, what else can you expect at a show where they by definition ONLY play the hits?

 

We all went crazy to "99 Luftballons." English version, so, 99 Red Balloons, I suppose. The synth bass was great, and we were all jumping around.  

It reached a peak for me when they did "Under Pressure" near the end of the night. That is my song, and it's my boyfriend's and my go-to karaoke track, so it has extra importance. The singer did do a bunch of Freddy Mercury Live Aid call and response with the audience, to mixed success.

 

The End

 

The encore was "Sweet Child O Mine," which really got the crowd going. My mom wants a picture with the bassist, because his hair metal wig looks shockingly like my mom's real hair. Alas, the band disappear right after the show, so we do not know where to go to get a picture.

 We turn to leave, and my mom's friend Sherry turns to me and says

"No wonder the singer looked at you!"

She puts her finger on the bottom of my lace bra top.

Hm?

"No wonder the singer looked at you! You looked hot!"  

Certainly not because I was the tallest person in his direct line of vision. But you know what, I'll take it.

 

We make our way out. We consider buying merch. There's one cute cropped tank top with Molly Ringwald on it, with the text "THE MOLLY RINGWALDS .com" covering her eyes in a Sex Pistols-esque fashion. Without the .com I would've been tempted. The intrusion of online branding into even band merch could only make me think of this:

 

 

All in all, a successful and fun evening in downtown Birmingham.

"The Big Country"

 

For your listening pleasure while you read. 

Dearest Reader,

I'm writing to you from the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. Things are certainly different around here. To quote Shakespeare, "let me count the ways." Maybe this will end up an SEO-friendly listicle.

1) Environmental concerns

1a)  I understand that most of the time I live in the beating heart of Woke, but it is quite the culture shock to come here, where people simply do not care. Recycling has barely caught on -- Hoover doesn't have the infrastructure to recycle glass. They collect plastic recycling, but I doubt anything actually comes of it. The Bay Area also has municipal compost collection, though I understand that's an outlier. It feels foreign to touch a styrofoam cup.

1b) There was an event in the neighborhood that my mom wanted to attend (we missed it because we were getting drinks with her Situationship): a presentation from Virgin Cruise Line. Drinks and snacks provided, presentation about a cruise, big giveaways. The idea that 1) they would come do that in a residential neighborhood, and 2) anyone would go, was shocking. Why would you leave your house to go to what amounts to a timeshare presentation? And secondly, a cruise is perhaps the worst thing you can do for the environment. I understand that my mom lives in a 55+ exclusive community, so the cruise line people probably came to shoot fish in a barrel. 

1c) Everyone is driving around in either big trucks or crossover SUVs. I feel very small and vulnerable on the high-speed stroads in my little Toyota Corolla. The streets are very wide. The distinction between road and freeway is practically a formality, because either way it'll be three lanes in each direction of people driving entirely too quickly. The parking spaces are extremely large; parking aforementioned Toyota Corolla takes absolutely no skill at all. I could pull in at any angle and still be inside the lines practically. Driving through my mom's neighborhood, she complained that the streets needed to be wider to accommodate more parking. Every house in the neighborhood has a driveway to park in, and there are huge turnouts on one side of the street for parking, but with cars this large it hardly feels like enough.

2) The Burbs

 2a) On the subject of driving, people around here sure do a lot of it. My mom lives in a newly-built (still actively being built) subdivision, on the outskirts of town. Reader, her old house that wasn't on the outskirts of town still was not very close to anything. The nearest non-residential structure of any kind was a coffee shop one mile away. (Longtime fans will recognize this as the coffee shop where I worked for three months during the pandemic) Now, after driving a mile you haven't even left the subdivision. 

Yesterday my mom and I wanted to go out to lunch. Taziki's was our compromise pick, which my mom was excited about because "They just opened one that's SO close!" Open Google Maps. Almost four miles away. This is a bit of a culture shock to me. If I went four miles from my apartment I could be anywhere in Berkeley, Emeryville, or North Oakland. Four miles from here and you've made it to the next subdivision over, next to the big football stadium.

2b) It is a very Ring-camera-on, who-goes-there neighborhood culture, in ways that feel charged on race and class lines. People are suspicious and on the lookout "while the neighborhood is under construction," i.e., while the neighborhood is full of construction workers.  

3) The Style

There is an extremely different aesthetic here, even among young people, even in casual wear. You can always tell a southern college girl from a west coast one. There are colors that people wear here that people don't wear at home.

In fact, in looking for a photo example for this post, I just googled "big coral color t shirt" and the next google recommendation was for the brand Simply Southern.

 

You can spot a young southern woman at 50 paces, because she will be wearing a shirt in one of these two colors. It will be oversized, to the point where it almost completely obscures the short shorts she's wearing underneath. The hair is always straight, always blonde, either left down or up in a very high messy bun. I have never seen someone dressed like this in California.

It is a very standardized look. I understand why my mom felt self-conscious for a long time over having curly hair. Even curly blonde hair instead of straight blonde hair makes you stand out. I get the overwhelming impression that I visibly don't fit in here. And this is coming from a skinny young white woman-- in a teal shirt, no less! The situation is somewhat better at this coffee shop; one of the baristas has cool piercings, and there is one couple sitting here who have dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings. Ah, but they're leaving now! My point here isn't to claim that I look extremely alternative. My point is that around here I am almost always the most alternative looking person wherever I go, which is saying something, seeing that if I took out this nose ring I could be in a period drama.

4) Culture Clash? 

The other day, I tried bringing up to my mother the points that I made in my post, "Airing Out my Family's Suspiciously Clean Laundry." She didn't really get it. I don't think she was even willing to admit that the standard my cousins were setting was extremely conservative. After I told her all the differences, all the things that I thought set my brothers and me apart from our cousins, I asked her what she thought. And she said, "All you've told me is that people in different parts of the country do things differently." She's right, I guess. I told her that I hoped my cousins didn't end up conservatives. She said "Well, I left college as a conservative." She's just being obstinate because she knows I can't handle Alabama for long periods of time. She's not a conservative anymore and she is completely fed up with her conservative friends. But to acknowledge that in the conversation would also be to admit that my cousins are growing up in the same conservative environment that she's frustrated with.

 

And I recognize that I'm guilty of the same thing that I'm accusing my mom of doing. A frequent source of tension between my mother and and all her children is that she cannot conceptualize somebody liking something that she personally doesn't like. She doesn't like cats, so it never occurred to her that my brothers were emotionally attached to their cats. She doesn't like vegan food, so it doesn't make sense to her that anyone would like it. She doesn't think PhD research is fun, so for a while she was not very supportive of me pursuing it. (I had the one mother in the world who wished her daughter would go into show business instead of academia)

 

I'm the same way. I keep trying to show the things that are normal to people here but aren't at home. I keep pointing out the big trucks, and the wide roads, and the meals full of dead animals, and the sea of blonde hair, and the needlessly gendered products. It seems like I'm doing the same thing as she is, but I feel justified in my case because I am doing it to be a leftist and a feminist killjoy. In today's world, SOMEONE has to be a feminist killjoy!

 

I point to something that's causing friction for me here, and I'm met with "Well, that's not the way people do things here." I know that's not the way people do things, but it should be!

 

 

I will be happy to return to the "bubble" I have been accused of living in. Though I will miss all the free refills.

My Response to The Daily Wire (Because Surely Everyone Was Wondering)

Through some twisted maneuver of data brokering, I have been added to the email list for The Daily Wire. No action was taken on my part; their emails just started appearing in my inbox a few days ago.

Today, out of morbid curiosity, I opened the daily digest email they sent me. One headline caught my eye: "What 'Bridgerton' Gets Wrong that 'Pride and Prejudice' Got Perfectly Right." As a dedicated Janeite myself (a real Austenhead) I felt as if I was the right person to respond to the article, even though I've never seen Bridgerton.

One of my fears going into this is that I might be put in a position where I have to defend Bridgerton. I will if I must, but I really do not want to. I haven't seen it, no, but I am not a fan of the costumes, or the general aesthetic, or especially the music. If you're a fan of the modernized regency genre, more power to you -- I enjoyed Mr Malcolm's List enough-- but I absolutely cannot in good conscience condone listening to the Vitamin String Quartet.

Without further ado, let's analyze the latest droppings The Daily Wire has excreted for us.

First, we need to think about this title:  "What 'Bridgerton' Gets Wrong that 'Pride and Prejudice' Got Perfectly Right." Framing this as a question of right and wrong is automatically suspect. My first impulse was to guess that it was a comparison of general historical accuracy, and if that is the case, of course a novel written in 1813 is going to be accurate to the customs and manners of 1813. However, historical accuracy is not the authors' (Holcomb and Jensen) concern here.

This is how it starts:

 

If we're going for a conversational, opinion-piece tone, like I also am here, I guess you can make a broad claim like "Ladies love" such and such. I don't know what style guide allows you to put in quotation marks the titles of books and movies that are italicized according to every single major manual of style, but I can let that go as well. Let's continue.

 

1. Ah, there it is, the conservative point you're trying to make.

2. Did you really need to cite a source for the fact that Pride and Prejudice (see? italics) doesn't have any sex scenes?

3. One is a film and the other is a TV series. Get an editor.

4.  Is it necessary to cite numbers for the popularity of Pride and Prejudice? Just one paragraph ago you were content to just broadly claim that "Ladies love" it.

 

1. Bridgerton is a television show, not cinema. This article is part of The Daily Wire's series "Upstream," the purpose of which is to engage with the "general culture." You would think that your culture writers would know the difference between a TV show and a movie, but this is the second time in as many paragraphs that you've messed that up.

2. By your own admission, it's the predictability that is turning off audiences, not the sex.

 

1. Are you really saying that women shouldn't want satisfying sex? If you're married, as I imagine Daily Wire contributors all are, I hope your husband sees this and gets his act together, Christ.

2. You are conflating two things that are actually not equivalent. Bridgerton is not an Austen adaptation. It takes place in a fictional reality that shares some surface aesthetics with the Regency period, but it does not really take place in Regency England in any meaningful way, from what I've come to understand. I could be wrong though.

 

1. I think you're greatly underestimating how horny Jane Austen novels are. Of course there is going to be less physical touch in a society with strict social rules regulating it. Therefore, you have to read so much more into any touches that do occur. The fact that nobody is having sex in Austen novels is possibly the horniest thing about them. It's about repression, it's about desire. Sure, there are no heaving bosoms and there is no bodice ripping, but the significance of these dance scenes should not be ignored. All these physical touches are extremely charged. Even Madame Bovary, a novel about having wanton affairs, doesn't have sex scenes, because that's not how books were written in the nineteenth century. I realize I'm placing too much emphasis on the books when these authors are really interested in the screen adaptations, but any adaptation that's even a little bit faithful is not going to invent from whole cloth sex scenes that weren't there in the books.

2. "Physical chemistry means little without the quick-witted interactions" etc. Oh, characters don't have compelling chemistry unless they also talk to each other and have an interesting relationship? This is groundbreaking stuff, alert the presses. The lack of little nuggets of wisdom like these are what kept your fearless leader Ben Shapiro from becoming the screenwriter he always wanted to be.

 

1. Please just admit you haven't seen a good romance movie. I am not going to try to defend "Wuthering Heights" or Bridgerton, but you can't use these as your only points of comparison just because they are inspired by the 19th century. In fact, from what I've heard, Wuthering Heights would have benefited from being hornier!

2. I think you are treating sex and romance as two diametrically opposed forces, and I pity you for that. 

Well, this is just true. Congratulations on having read a book.

 

1. It's not that everyone knew Wickham was a philanderer and was just fine with it. The moral of his character, and of the whole novel, is that you can't judge someone based on first impressions. Wickham seemed like a charming man, but he was a liar and a scoundrel who ran off with Lydia without any concern of what that would do to her reputation. Yes, Lydia agreed to go, because she was a stupid sixteen year old girl, but it was really a larger failing that allowed that to happen. Nobody in her family could recongize Wickham for what he was, so nobody stopped her from going. That's a simplification, but it isn't ONLY a matter of Lydia having too low of standards.

2. However, I have to concede that this Daily Wire interpretation actually isn't a misreading of the novel. You easily can and maybe should read Austen's novels as her opinions on different kinds of guys, and she clearly thinks that the Wickham type sucks and you shouldn't fool with them! And he is contrasted against Darcy, who is the most suitable partner and, more importantly, a proper gentleman.

3. What gives me pause about this, though, is how they seem to think the next paragraph follows from this pretty milquetoast analysis of the novel. What expectations are being placed on women? Are we all being asked to run away with the Wickhams of the world? Is having premarital sex in any form, equivalent to running away with Mr Wickham?

 

1. The moral of their article: women need to stop focusing so much on having good sex, and instead focus on finding their Mr. Darcy.

2. Jane Austen writes all kinds of men, and the majority of them suck, because her art imitates life.

And a parting note: This is a thorny topic to write about, because this article is based in a surface level but not inaccurate reading of Pride and Prejudice. It is true that Austen novels can be mobilized toward conservative ends! It is possible to read them as proto-feminist literature in some ways, but they aren't fundamentally radical. This isn't a case where you can accuse conservatives of deliberately misreading a piece of art in order to suit their needs. It would not be worthwhile to argue with them on those grounds. Jane Austen was a moderately well-off woman living in England at the turn of the 19th century; her literature is generally in favor of the hierarchical class structure. She pokes fun at nobility, but due to their personal failings as individuals, rather than as the beneficiaries of a flawed system. She writes three-dimensional, interesting, brilliant female protagonists, but they all end up in the suitable marriages they "need." All of this is plainly in the text, of course. The real question to ask The Daily Wire is, why did you stop updating your values after 1813?

On Madame Bovary

 

Seeing emilyjones in an English seminar is like seeing a frog on a lily pad, I have been told. Or at least, I have said to others and they have voiced their assent.

Yes, Reader, I never feel higher up on the food chain than when I am tasked with preparing a juicy morsel of close reading to share with the class. The undergraduate close-reading essay is a genre that I mastered, turned into an art form. The way Vivaldi was able to churn out lovely and functional concerti by the hundreds, by relying on repeatable formulae, I was able to spend the last week of an academic term mass-producing literary analysis.

I miss it, Reader. I miss it. One might consider it a moral failing to be so emotionally attached to Winning at English class. One might call it "peaking in high school/college." But if that's the case, it stands to reason that if I never leave school, I never stop peaking. Checkmate, atheists! Maybe that's a secondary strand of that urge that calls some people to become teachers. Do we like literature because we're good at it, or are we good at it because we like it? An age-old question.

Anyway, now that I have finished pontificating about reading books --

hold that thought. I need to look up the etymology of "pontificate."

Before I look it up, I'm going to hazard a couple of guesses: 1, and more likely) probably comes from Latin, some kind of verb like pontificare, and it might have to do with the word for bridge ponte. I'm not sure how those could be related, but fascism and fajita also come from the same Latin root word so who's to say. 2, a wild card pick) it would be funny if it was a latinate-sounding word that actually came from Middle English. In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer describes Absalom yelling "in Pilates voice," i.e., like Pontius Pilate, who in medieval religious plays was known for being very loud. So it would be very funny if it was Pontius --> Pontificate. Being loud like Pilate.

Place your bets, Readers. To the OED I go.

(drumroll)

It was number 1.

 

Pontificare! And it originally had to do with "performing the duties of a Pontiff." a position in the Catholic church.

But of course, I had to see if my ponte/bridge hunch was right, so I had to go to the etymology of Pontiff.

Pontiff is a borrowing of the French pontife, which comes from the classical Latin pontifex which is -- hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen--

 

 Sure, it "may represent merely a folk etymology" but you have to admit I did a pretty good job, seeing as I do not actually know Latin; I'm just a good guesser.

---

That digression aside, my whole reason for writing this blog post at 1 o'clock in the morning, was to talk a little bit about Madame Bovary. The discussion I was having with my darling boyfriend and most devoted Reader brought me around to understanding Emma Bovary a little bit better, or at least being able to articulate better what I found so intriguing about her in the earlier parts of the book. Those early stages of the book being, of course, before she falls victim to a shady lender and escapes her debts via a handful of straight arsenic.**

*Aside #1: Spoiler alert for the 1857 novel, sorry. and *Aside #2: In hindsight, it's the funniest Chekov's Gun ever. Midway through the book, Homais the pharmacist is yelling at his assistant, quite out of nowhere, like "How dare you go up into my private room! That's where I keep all the chemicals! The ARSENIC is right next to that pot you grabbed! WHAT IF SOMEONE GOT POISONED?" And it is through some plot contrivance that Emma is present for that conversation that has nothing to do with her.

The thing that cuts deep about Emma Bovary is the sense of ennui that feels immoral to have and even more sinful to admit to having. I understand that very well. She is an interesting and compelling character because she makes extreme and irrational choices that are nonetheless rooted in feelings that are easy to understand.

I understand being in a relationship and having the vague, gnawing feeling that things are supposed to be better, you're supposed to be happier. You can't put your finger on any particular thing that is wrong; you just don't feel the way you expect to. It makes you feel like an ungrateful woman at best and an insatiable whore at worst to acknowledge it. It's a kind of feeling that you are certain only exists in literature, so you're destined to keep circling around and, with any luck, at least asymptotically approach that thing that remains out of reach. If we're getting psychoanalytic with it, it's a Desire, Not only that, it's a desire that you feel stupid for having, which is what separates you from Madame Bovary. She takes that desire at face value; she wholeheartedly believes in the existence of capital-r Romance, and if it doesn't find her, she will go out and take it.

I remember a moment, less than a year into my first relationship. I took my then-boyfriend to see a local production of Romeo and Juliet. At the end of the play, Reader, I cried. I cried not because of the centuries-old tragedy being played out in front of me, but rather I cried for myself--vain, narcissistic tears. I had simultaneously watched the play and watched myself watch the play, and in doing so, I realized that I had never felt anything as strongly as Romeo or Juliet felt. I realized that there was no classic romance that I could project myself onto with the man sitting next to me. No models in literature or film or even television for the kind of relationship I was in, because we didn't have the kind of rapport that made for interesting art, even if it did make for an adequately healthy and comfortable relationship. I was grieving the loss of the relationship I thought I had. I was moody and distant for the rest of the evening, emotionally fragile for reasons I couldn't fully articulate to myself, let alone explain to my partner. 

For a moment I considered ending things right there. I didn't. I stayed for three more years, because nothing was wrong. At times things were even very good. But, looking back on it now, I get the sense that the feeling I had at Romeo and Juliet never quite went away. There was a sense that I was missing something, which feels bad to admit, or that I was missing out on something, which feels ten times worse to admit. I had love, but I wanted passion. I was being worshiped, but like an idol you keep high on a pedestal out of fear of getting it dirty.

Wanting something is always a mortifying idea. Wanting something without actually knowing what it is, is practically unthinkable. So I simply didn't think it most of the time. A more lighthearted example than the Romeo and Juliet one, I would watch a lot of Frasier (Readers know I still do). I would hear the way Niles talked about his doomed relationship with Maris:

Niles: It doesn't burn with the passion and intensity of a Tristan and Isolde. It's more comfortable, more familiar. Maris and I are old friends. We can spend an afternoon together - me at my jigsaw puzzle, she at her auto-harp - not a word spoken between us and be perfectly content.

 I would immediately understand that Niles was using comfort as a substitute for passion and that it reeked of "cope," as they say. I also immediately understood that on some level I was doing the same thing, but I was convincing myself it was different. (Once a Nilesbabe, always a Nilesbabe.)

There's the vague ennui that creeps in time to time, but that's not the same thing as a real problem in a relationship, so there was no reason to address it. Why would you sacrifice a perfectly good thing out of the possibility of having more? Did Aesop write the fable of the Dog and His Bone for nothing? Things were as good as they could possibly get, I told myself, and only anxiety and greed would ever  make me think otherwise. (You might notice that my self-reproaches took on something of a Protestant flavor.) I never wanted someone else, I only ever wanted something else. A feeling I couldn't describe, and therefore convinced myself didn't exist.

Madame Bovary is starting from the same place but doesn't hold herself back like a Christian.