Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

A new Kohl’s opened in our area and I, who find this the haven of good deals on socks and other stuff, wanted to see if it had any potential.  Sydney dropped me off and went to pick up groceries.  I asked if he wanted to come in–and I got “a look”.

I picked up a couple of things for me, a couple of things for him, and showed him the pants I bought him before we left the lot, hoping he could tell me whether I’d gotten the shade of brown right.  Sydney laughed and informed me that I didn’t know how to shop.  (!!!)  Apparently his idea of shopping is to buy something, and if you like it, wear it a lot, starting immediately.  If you don’t like it, put it in the back of your closet and wear it some years down the road when you rediscover it.  If it’s really bad, wear it when you spend your days at home (I’m imagining the rejected prom dress being worn for vaccuuming days).  Returning is not an option for him.  As one who wants to make sure new stuff serves the intended purpose, so as not to waste money buying three things that “will work” over the years when one that actually worked would do, I find this idea of “shopping” incomprehensible.  As one who wants to avoid spending any time in shopping malls or taking time away from work for clothes, Sydney finds my incomprehension incomprehensible.

All this to say, if you catch Sydney wearing something strange, blame it on one girl’s attempt to shop for clothes for a man who doesn’t help pick out, won’t return, and hasn’t revealed the secret art of shopping for men–or at least, a rule that I can deal with.  Already bewildered by the subtle shades of khaki in a man’s wardrobe and appalled by some of the dress-shirt colors I’ve seen in stores, I already thought I had a learning process ahead of me–without any lessons from Sydney himself!  However, I will say in Sydney’s defense, I thought he looked sharp when I met him, and I have had one classmate ask me (when frustrated by her own philosophical male’s uniform of jeans and t-shirts) “How do you get him to look nice all the time?”  So maybe if I stayed out of it he would do just fine.  But I would probably die of frustration from watching in the wings.

Erin

1) The Australian performer Stelios Arcadiou has had a third ear grafted to his arm. It’s supposed to be art. The ear isn’t functional, though he is hoping to eventually install a microphone in it so that audiences will be able to hear what his extra ear picks up. See here for a rather grotesque photo.

2) If you’re a philistine rube like me, you might again have doubts about what gets passed as art these days. But, of course, I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this art. After all, as Mia Fineman points out:

For those who believe that painting must be about something more than just color and gesture—like craft or technical skill or mimetic representation—abstract paintings by children and animals provide the ultimate refutation, proof that modern art is indeed a hoax. But such skeptics profoundly miss the point of the art they’re trying to debunk. Yes, anyone can pick up a brush and slather paint on canvas in a drippy style that evokes Jackson Pollock. But it took an artist like Pollock to step back from his own work, which at the time looked unlike anything that had come before, and say, with bold conviction: “This is it. This is what modern painting looks like.”

I get it now. What I’m supposed to admire is the conviction. You know, the conviction to declare that what you’ve made is something that it obviously is not. Oops, there I go again. Never mind me — I’m just a farmboy from Nova Scotia. I’m sure that if I had been born in one of those sophisticated, cosmopolitan places like London or New York City I too would be able to appreciate ears on arms, decomposing rabbits strung up in front of the museum doors (they would make good fertilizer), and so on.

3) But I can’t resist pointing out what the next advance in art clearly should be. Think cross-fertilization between Arcadiou and Mapplethorpe.

Sydney

I don’t think I’m actually a technophobe.  Curmudgeonly, perhaps, and resist to trying new programs or reading new media outlets, but, as Sydney can tell you, I’m that way in all walks of life 🙂  But today the topic is headphones.  I’m not against headphones, per se, but for crying out loud, couldn’t they make headphones that not only provide sound to the individual who desires it, but also prevent it from being transmitted to those who don’t?

I have written many a paper with a rotation of Bach’s cello suites coming through my headphones, helping me to focus down into the world of my laptop and the blank page; I know the need to create your own space through music.  But many students are now wearing their headphones into quiet study spaces around campus, or as they settle into their chair before class, so that we’re all treated to their choice of music.  I, who have pretty good hearing, particularly if it’s something I should ignore, suddenly get the sense that I’m shopping in a mall that pipes in music overhead, or perhaps a grocery store, or an elevator.  It’s very disorienting.

Erin

“This morning Ginia [Virginia] wanted Thoby [her older brother] to give her something which he had, but he wouldn’t, so she went up to him and gave him a hug and said, ‘Please Thoby give it, Darling Sweetheart Boy,’ but Thoby still said, ‘No I won’t.’ Then she went up to him and tried to bite him and said, ‘Nasty Pugwash horrid disgusting boy’ and afterwards he gave it her.”

– Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

I had a few thoughts about the man’s response to the ad below.  One big part of me was thrilled: in this day and age, after so much fighting over women in the workplace, I am guessing that one of the most satisfying things a man can do is to say to a woman like this, “You want it, you go get it!”   Amen.

But another part of me felt my blood run cold: it’s like high school prom all over again.  The women who are upperclassmen find themselves in a tight situation: they’ve finally reached a point where they get to go to prom, and the guys chicken out of asking anyone in their own class (women who might say no) and ask freshman girls who are almost sure to say yes, since doing so is their only chance of attending the prom.  Arm candy without risk or commitment, youth as a constant threat.

I was thinking about this in terms of working at a university.  Cute young girls walk in my door every day, and I could see how working on a college campus would be a really bad idea for someone who is plagued by major body-image issues.  There’s no better way to feel out of it, whether it be in fashion, hairstyle, fitness, or culture.  Obviously, beauty of a youthful sort (which is all society seems interested in nowadays) is not the thing to cling to if you want your life to get better, rather than take a nosedive, as you mature.

I would be very interested to know how the guy who responded to the ad would describe the appreciation or depreciation of other women who put forth qualities other than beauty.  In effect, why would a guy marry when he can lease?  The woman in the ad gestures toward the “genius” level of a competitor, but the guy who responded is right: it’s a trade of looks for money.  But say a woman put forth her abilities in terms of making the husband look settled, a man of responsibility, and not just some young cad–i.e., things many companies look for when they’re making partnering and high-level management decisions.  Say she put forth her mind, which will obviously just accrue interesting stuff over time, or her mothering potential, things that might play out in the long run.  Would he then appreciate her?  Some guys might, yes.  But I’m not sure about it, since these things are a bit more difficult to see, and have a lot less obvious value in our culture.  With our attention to beauty and a youth-oriented culture, marriage is fighting an uphill battle.

Erin

People are so entertaining. Here’s the opening of a post on Craigslist:

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy. I’m not from New York. I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 – 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Things get better. Here’s part of one response that she got:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament.

Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here’s how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity…in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold…hence the rub…marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. In case you think I’m being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It’s as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Wow. Read more here.

Sydney

The Graduate School has approved my request to have one of my fellowship semesters moved forward so that I don’t have to TA in the spring. This is good news, since I’m hoping to spend Hilary term at the University of Oxford (and trying to TA a section from several thousand miles away is probably not the best idea). Not everything is quite in place yet, but that is one significant obstacle out of the way.

Sydney

Sydney’s lasagna is delicious, but we both ate heartily and hardly made a dent in the large dish!  We both come from families of four, and we both tend to think of cooking in terms of four, rather than two.  But I think a lot more of leftovers now than I did as a kid!

Erin

Sydney just put a pumpkin lasagna in the oven (wow, I can’t believe that’s lunch around here!), but he apparently thought that wasn’t enough food, so he dug out the pumpkin pies he made yesterday to start us off.  I don’t actually care much for pumpkin pie, but even I acknowledge that his is very, very good.

I think I’ve had a few too many rich dinners in the last few days to make my stomach entirely happy, however, so I was trying to beg off the second piece that Sydney had set out for me.  He, in response, said something to the effect of “People always eat a quarter of a pie at a time.  That’s how you eat pie.  When I was a kid I would always try to get away with eating half a pie.”  That right there told me we were working with two very different conceptions of portion size.

Erin

This summer Sydney grew really ugly pumpkins. Squash, actually, but hideously ugly all the same. Of course, Sydney vigorously disagrees. I’ll offer no response except a note that everyone who has seen these things says something like, “Whoah, does your pumpkin have some kind of disease??”

One thing we didn’t realize about these squash is that they often, as with the first one we brought home, weigh something like thirty pounds. That’s a lot of squash, even for two people with appetites like ours. So this weekend, which is also our fall break (we get Monday and Tuesday off), is also pumpkin weekend. Sydney has culled something like 30 recipes involving pumpkin or squash, and is now proceeding to make dish after dish. Pumpkin pie is on the menu, as is a pumpkin lasagna.

This evening when I left to take care of the dog, Sydney started cooking. He made a pumpkin casserole (it has a fancy name I don’t remember), wild rice with sauteed onions, and a dessert of baked spiced apples and pears. Yum. Unfortunately, our dinner began with a minor problem: Sydney lifted the leaf of our table, put his plate on it, and the leaf immediately collapsed, dumping the pumpkin on the floor. A whole plate of lovely food–orange food, I might add, on cream carpet. So we mourned the lovely plate as Sydney got himself a replacement meal and I scrubbed the floor. After that, however, all was peaceful and delicious. We’ll just be sure to check that the leaf is locked before testing it with a dinner plate from now on!
Erin