Alex in Wonderland

Now this is cool--one of the theater troupes at my school is putting on Alice in Wonderland, with a modern twist!
I sure want to see it. People call it a kids' classic, but it's really just as trippy as when you read it when you're older. I didn't read it until last summer. I think the reason people call it a kid book is because you can probably appreciate the scattered storyline better when you're a kid. When you're a geezer like me, you start trying to make sense of it, and the mind-altering nature of the book takes its hold on you. I read both Alice and Through the Looking-Glass this summer in about three days. They're so good, but trippy as all get out.
But what a following it has. Even though the Disney version didn't do it justice in the least bit, it has amassed its own culture and following. So much artwork and music and characters and kitsch-culture has been inspired by it. The Beatles reference it in "I am the Walrus" (ever wonder who the egg man is?). The band Jefferson Airplane has several songs inspired by it, and their singer, Grace Slick, is now a painter who makes lots of fanciful, Alice-esque pictures. Made me realize why they took all the drugs they did--they probably needed them to make that book seem normal! Guess the hallucinogenic effects of one cancel out the hallucinogenic effects of the other.
So for the play, the theater troupe had better keep it faithful to the story and find a way to make it as warped as possible! I can't wait till they're showing it.

Under the summer rain, I burned away

Well, this is funny to have two summer-song titles for blog titles! Only AFI rocks a bazillion times harder than Seals and Crofts (then again, that's not very hard to do). It did rain a bit today, but that is not the subject of my post.

Yesterday was the LAS career night. I was kind of disappointed with it, because there was not much of a diverse group of people to talk to. I am talking about diversity in majors. Most of the people there were alumni who had become bankers or doctors, with LAS majors in Economics or Finance or any kind of Biology. When you're majoring in English with a double-minor in History and Gender/Women's Studies, there really weren't many people there to talk to or relate to. There were absolutely no GWSers, and the history folk I saw all had "law" added to their field. But I met a few cool people including some folks who work at RCS. So it wasn't a total waste. I didn't press and starch up my power clothes for nothing.

Then the meeting for one of my clubs. I'm an "officer at large" at one of them, so I have to go to the planning committee meetings. I love the planning committee for the most part because it's a great look at what goes on behind the scenes. And being on the planning commitee means that you are qualified to go to the county events as well. So I head up to the meeting (which is just one floor up from the career fair) with a fabulous array of ideas for the club. But what a shock! Only a third of the officers are there, and the meeting was lackluster. The girl who's the president looked like she needed a nap and she acted like she was about to doze off any second. I laid out my fabulous ideas, but people had next to no response to them other than "Whatever you want, Alex." I asked them if they could help me/if they had questions/comments/whatever, but alas, no response. Everyone was painfully silent.

The meeting was over. I gathered up my stuff, much discouraged, and began to head out. But who should I hear but Abby the social director? "Hey, Alex, wait up. I've got something to ask you!"

Aha! Someone cared! I was all ready to hear her questions and enlighten her with my fabulous ideas. All was not lost! Then she continued--

"I've been wondering this for a while, but I usually haven't gotten around to asking..."

"What's that, Abby?"

"Where do you get your clothes? I just love the little outfits you always wear."

Sigh.

Summer breeze...makes me feel fine

This sure has been one unseasonably warm September. The forecast for this week ranges from the high seventies to the nineties. I remember last year on my birthday I was wearing two shirts and tights under my skirt. This year, it felt like a summer day. It's more summer weather (but then again, this was a really hot summer) than fall type.
Well, that's good for going tailgating on the weekend and for going out. Who wants to get dolled up and go out and freeze? No one! Hopefully we have a warmer winter. I liked having the snow day last year, but I didn't like plodding through the snow to get to play practice or to run errands. One of the days in early November (I believe it was the day I saw the playhouse dance), the high was nine degrees. If I'm going to be taking the bus to get to work, I sure as hell don't want to be waiting out in the cold (my clients had better appreciate that!).
Guess the clothes and gear and chocolate perfume I bought for the fall will have to wait. I love fall fashions, but there's a time and place for those. This ain't it.

Two outta three ain't bad

So yesterday I went to see the acoustic set of the Pygmalion music festival. I had such a good time at it last year that I had to go again! This show had two things going for it from the start: being at my absolute favorite coffeehouse in this area and having last year's headliner, Ms. Lynn O'Brien (I've seen her twice). There were four other acts, three of which I'd never seen.
So my friends Addie and Kelly and I headed over to Paradiso, and the place was PACKED. Had we gone later, there would've been standing room only. It was packed, with the singers by the window. There was a miramba player who did her instrumental part before and between acts, and she had a cool sound. Kinda hypnotic, and kind of sounding like it came from outer space or something.
Lynn was the first act. I loved her at last year's show and at my feminist conference, but here she was even better. She was performing by herself (instead of with her family members backing her up) and she's really matured as an entertainer. She is a lot more confident and played some crowd-pleasers toward the end (my favorite is this slinky number called "Italy"), calling for the audience to join her in. My statement about her last year still holds--her music packs a groove so deep you need thigh-high leather boots to get through it! Only this time add some stiletto heels to the boots!
The second act was a guitarist named Angie Heaton. She sounds something like Shelby Lynne or Sheryl Crow, kind of old-time sounding rock but with some alt-folk thrown in there. She had a violinist play with her, which added a mournful tone to her tales of love and loss. She got the timid miramba player in on the fun by asking her to play along. Now I know what you're thinking. "A miramba for a bass line, Alex? Are you serious???" you ask. Well, let's just say that it sounded pretty damn cool! Angie's voice and stage manner have a sassy swagger to them, which is incredibly addictive!
Now for the third, this guy named Ryan Groff took the stage. Let's just say we didn't get past the first song. I don't know where this guy learned to sing or write, but he sang in this horrendously warbly falsetto and had some of the worst lyrics I've heard (the most clever line was a warbled-out "the people of the Midwest have giant hearts inside their chests," which was absolute torture to listen to). I felt like my eardrums were being churned up in a blender just listening to him (and he was one of the quieter acts)! So we left after that song, but hey, at least we got two good acts out of the deal. And I know who to avoid and who to see at next year's Pygmalion.

My birthday!!

I'm now officially the g-word: a geezer!

But I'm older and wiser and more opinionated than ever, and dammit, I love it!!!!

Ay, Wednesday is such an awkward day for a birthday, especially if you scheduled an interview the next morning! This weekend is sure to be fabulous, since the Pygmalion festival begins today and I will be off and rocking!

Still, I think this has been a good birthday. My buddies have been so cool and have planted surprises for me throughout the day! I've arranged all the cards I received up on my wall, and it's been a really good time. I can't wait till the weekend!

Star-struck

Some days I just plain don't get it.

One of my good friends reads the tabloid magazines with all the hot new gossip. She says it keeps her sane when she studies for her LSATs. Two years ago, my then-roommate gave me a gift set with an assortment of perfumes. I love perfume and beauty products, and I noticed that many of them were from a famous person's own line. Provocative Woman (by Catharine Zeta-Jones), Lovely (by Sarah Jessica Parker), and Golden Goddess (by Kimora Leigh Simmons) to name a few. (Actually, that Provocative Woman one is pretty good, and I wear it a lot.) At the two vintage boutiques I frequent, Dandelion and Le Shoppe, it's always the clothes endorsed/designed by the stars that sell the fastest. My cousin couldn't wait to tell me about spotting Vince Vaughn at Once Upon A Bagel because Mr. Vaughn lives in Highland Park too. Back in senior year of high school, people talked and heard more about Brangelina than about the awful tsunami in Asia. And I'm sure if you asked anyone, they could tell you more about Paris Hilton's prison term than about what's going on in the world now.

So my question is...
What in the world is our preoccupation with celebrities? Could someone explain that to me, please?

Now before you accuse me of acting all high and mighty, I will say that I too have read some of the celeb articles. As a designer of accessories, some of my ideas do come from what I see on others, so I have read up on them. But that is my disclaimer. Most of the time, it really gets annoying when people are all gaga over the famous among us. What's even more annoying? Hearing some lunkheaded actor or model or singer or athlete TALK about their fame! You know what I'm talking about. Folks whose interviews consist of, "Well, uh, I'm going to, like, clean up my act, uh, because, like, people look up to me" or "Yeah, I, uh, think we're, uh, gonna have to win more, er, games if we expect to, you know, get into the playoffs." REALLY?? Now why didn't I think of that?? Thanks, guys, for your fabulous insights! They really enhance my knowlege of your career!

In grade school, I had a really good friend named Ryan. Ryan is the son of one of the former Chicago Bulls players and now general manager of the Bulls. So in grade school, we were good friends, partly because I was one of the few people who treated him, well, normally as opposed to being all starstruck. He didn't like it when people went all starstruck just because his dad was (and still is) famous, and he was nice and modest about it. When I met his dad, I found him to be just as nice and down-to-earth as his kid was. He wasn't self-absorbed, and it seemed like he just wanted to be treated normally too. But that is the case with many celebrities. It's kind of a pain in the butt for them because it's hard to go places without being recognized (or going with bodyguards even). (And if you step out of the house to take out your garbage or grab a latte at Starbucks and you go without your makeup or signature clothes, you can bet that the tabloid magazines will have that featured the next day.) It's probably tough on the dating scene because even if you are famous, the question of whether your partner loves you for you or for your fame lingers (which is probably the reason for so many celebrities marrying other stars, because then the playing field is somewhat level). Many check into hotels under fake names.

So why is it that we idolize and want to be like the celebrities? It seems like they want to be more like us!

Who invited you?

If this is a private party,
What are you doing in this place?
You don't have an invitation
You don't have a reservation
And you didn't come as someone's date.

So who invited you along?
And who's watching out for you tonight?
We've got security guards at all the doors,
But you've managed to get in all right.

A chill came through the room when you entered.
And all eyes were on you as you passed,
I saw smiles and smirks and "hey, how you been?"'s
And I wanted to get away fast.

I'm pulling this black tie off of my eyes
You know I know the person you've been on the side.
It is far too late--my voice gives me away,
You've seen me; there's no time to hide.

Polite goodbyes take too long to make,
Gotta thank the host before I leave,
Head out of the party and step through the door,
Before your voice calls out, "Alex, it's me."

The Woes of an English Major

I normally consider myself to be a fairly calm and balanced person, but this made me want to rip out all of my hair and throw a dictionary through the windows of the English Building.

Apparantly our illustrious President has gotten into our English-language lexicon (or should I say dyslexicon?). For there, on the Merriam-Webster dictionary website (http://www.m-w.com/), the entry for the word "nuclear" says that it can be pronounced either "nu-clee-er," the correct way, OR (and THIS is what really pisses me off) "nu-kyu-ler" (the way our president mispronounces it).

Just because he is the president doesn't mean he's got control over our language. Since when has nucular been a word??

So this has got me thinking, as a good patriotic American, that if the word "nuclear" can be pronounced as nucular (and recorded as such in the dictionary, thanks to our president), then shouldn't the word "vernacular" have the alternate pronunciation of "vernaCLEAR" ? That would sound ridiculous! Almost almost almost as ridiculous (or ridicleas? why stop there?) as nucular!

We are living the age of the ridicleas nucular vernaclear. Or should I say the Bush dyslexicon?

The Family Values Tour

Okay, KoRn and Evanescence and the other nice people on that summer tour will have to forgive me for the title. I always find it funny that some of the darkest, creepiest, most morose and gloomy bands on earth always can be found on a tour named "Family Values," because they're the last thing anyone would think of when you think of family values.

But that got me thinking, what does family values mean, anyway? I recently had a conversation with a relative, and she was saying that this nation would not be in the state it was in if people "had more family values." I was pretty sure that my definition of it and hers were not the same thing, and her statement "Well, people need to be more God-fearing" only drove that difference home. Then I realized (as she elaborated onward) that that wish for "family values" meant the same thing a lot of the conservative right supports--"traditional" family (where the wife stays home and takes care of the kids and the husband is the breadwinner), an end to accessible abortion, prayer taught in schools, and absolutely no civil marriages/adoptions for the gay community.

I know she has a right to think what she wants to think, but I had to let her know that some of her reasons were wrong and that she left many more effective things out.
You want to talk family values?
I'd start by doing just that--valuing families. Raise the minimum wage. A family living on minimum wage cannot easily support itself, as they would be well below the poverty line. Maybe create accessible childcare at work. That way, not only would new jobs be created (by increasing the need for people to staff and maintain that childcare), but the parents wouldn't have to worry about their children when they're at work.
Another thing would be to improve the public school system. No, I don't mean call for prayer in public schools, but instead of give everyone a safe and clean and accessible environment. If kids are the future, then you need to treat them like a good future. It's disgusting to see how some public schools are clean and bright and have everything the students need and how others are dank and gross and generally unsavory places.
You want to talk about God-fearing?
Then start by living out your words. Why not start with getting rid of some of the evil you've helped create? Allowing millions of people to live on the streets without a home is evil. Not allowing a woman to have an abortion (a relatively safe procedure) when her life is in danger is evil (funny how that crowd never mentions protecting the life of the mother. Is her life less precious than the life of something that's still part of her?). Letting millions of people go hungry is evil. Fostering prejudice against any particular group (and then saying "that's the way things are" or "they're disrupting our way of life") is really evil. All of those are things that threaten the dignity of some families (and of life too).

So why doesn't the family values crowd talk about that or take steps or change all of that? The first place they can start is right here.