My New York Times debut

So a couple weeks ago Eric & I were interviewed for a Sunday Styles article about the "growing trend of home butchering." Our butcher, Jeffrey, was being interviewed for the piece, so he invited us to come to his class so it would have a better showing and we could say good things about him.

The piece is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/fashion/25meat.html

They got a couple of things wrong about me. I'm an assistant editor (I don't want to overstate my occupation) and I went to a college with lots of vegetarian and vegan students. I didn't live in a vegan house. Today, after some debate, I wrote in with the two errors, so we'll see if they fix it. I started thinking about all that misinformation being circulated through the internet, years later, and decided to nip it in the bud.

Here's the slideshow (I start at slide 8), where they paraphrase me. You can see Eric on my left!

Britney Spears adds to cultural dialogue

If I want to talk about hook-up culture, do I want this effing lame article from the New York Times, complete with line graphs?

Or do I want the song "Blur" by Britney Spears, which sexily recounts getting blackout drunk and waking up the next morning unsure if you've fucked the guy sleeping next to you. Of course, the song adds vague date rape/personal responsibility through the chorus:

"Can't remember what I did last night
Maybe I shouldn't have given in
But I just couldn't fight
Hope I didn't but I think I might've
Everything, everything is still a blur"

In case the idea of a girl giving drunken consent to sex (...and how to we distinguish this from sheepish shame?) isn't enough, her song "Trouble" has this gem:

"You and I, left alone cannot be trusted
There's a lust we can't control
Slowly undress, chest to chest
And unless I say goodnight,
I know we're only gonna go too far
Please, I'm not quite ready for that next level
One kiss and that spells trouble (Trouble)

But you could talk me in, talk me into it
If you wanted to
You could talk me in, talk me into it
If you only knew"

I hate to horse shit in your parade, but this idea of coy refusal of sex when you really-kinda want it is effed up, and why people get date raped. Seriously, Britney, it's okay to want sex and ask for it, you shouldn't have to hold out until the last moment, get talked into it, or be so wasted you can justify your forwardness by how drunk you are.

I hate to proscribe behavior; Britney's songs reflect reality. There is something hot about being submissive and conforming to the stereotypically feminine role. In each of these songs, there are moments that frame the faux-submission and let us know she's somewhat complicit ("You and I, we can't be trusted" in "Trouble; the irreverent "Turn the lights out/This shit is way too fucking bright /Wanna poke my eyes out/Just let me get my head right /Where the hell am I?" in "Blur")

There's a lot going on in these songs, they're speaking to a lot of discourses going on about female-male relations. Britney gets my credit for lyrics like "I''m into phonography" (What? seriously? Okay, whatever...) and "Touch of My Hand" on her last album or so, her response to the Divinyl's "I Touch Myself."

So I am going to backtrack a bit: I think the songs are shocking, and I think they talk about some pretty effed up stuff, but let's face it, many of us have been there, done that, many of us have also been sexually assaulted (fun fact!), the world is messy, and I think it would be worse for songs to all conform to IDEALS, not REALITY.

This last idea comes courtesy of Miles Forman, who hosted a Q and A yesterday after a screening of his 1960's Czech New Wave film, Fireman's Ball, a comedy banned in the communist country for portraying REAL people, not socialist ideals of how the world will work out. Presenting facts, impressions, etc., leads to discussion (my blog post!) and I'm not going to force Britney into saying something more positive about women.

However, as far as subversive songs go, I still LOVE The Trucks (who I saw a couple years ago at Capitol Hill Block Party) and their song "T*****s" (your guess, this is the song's name from when I got it off iTunes). Oooo, and Peaches!!! Both of these chanteuses have these songs about using men, and the androgyny is soooo refreshing! I heart them so much.

I've had a couple glasses of Cab, so forgive me if this post is a bit crazy. Off to a party (and coming home alone, esp. after getting fired up about this post!)

NY Times strikes again! Dinner party for under $30...per person, with potatoes!!!

Okay, so I'm not the only one who hates the New York Times (see: earlier post, "I had almost forgotten how much I hate the New York Times") for making assumptions that the world round, uniformly wealthy, is v. concerned about incurring excessive dinner party expenses.

Here' Jezebel commenting on a rather ridiculous "budget dinner party" article.

One of many gems:
"Perhaps the most annoying thing to come out of the economic crises are the stupid articles that keep appearing in publications like The New York Times, wherein a fairly well-off person marvels at the deals he or she can find when they shop like the poors at the dollar stores and Kmarts of the world. Even more infuriating is the idea that $238.40 for one dumb party is some sort of economic success, considering that many families in this country can barely afford to put food on the table."


the poors! sound like a lolcat. but it's true!!!

I had almost forgotten why I hate the New York Times

The New York Times' article "Finding Your First Apartment" epitomizes all I hate about the Times. It gives advice for an incredibly small slice of privileged New Yorkers, while ignorantly assuming that 'everyone' has the same problem finding the "elusive $2,000 apartment". Why not just re-title the article "Ivy League Finance Majors move to city and discover New York apartments are hard to find and must live in Upper East Side instead of Murray Hill'. Moreover, the article isn't even right - most Wesleyan people, even those in finance, live all over the place, at all kinds of different price points. It's totally stupid and New York-centric. In anthropology we dealt with similar questions ("ethnocentrism") and the way out was through post-modernism: acknowledge you are coming from a certain perspective, insert yourself into the story, and let the audience make the judgment about how your personal point of view affects the story you tell.

If this author talked about writing his article from his cushy apartment, mentioned his son's search for a two-grand apartment fresh from school, etc., etc., I wouldn't fault him for it. I also love reading magazines like New York Magazine, which by their brand name assert a specific point of view. Yes, I know the Times is left-leaning (Republicans love to mention this), but aren't papers supposed to at least pretend to be papers of the people? I'll have to think about this more...