|
My New Favorite Thing VD Attack Plan (1973) The Walt Disney Educational Media Company clearly did not have the same budget as Snow White or Bambi; nevertheless, the film features trademark Disney craftsmanship. Among the crowd of snickering germs, individual germs snicker in their own particular ways, and the score, with its oboes, bongos, and strings, is perfectly militaristic and sinister. I certainly learned (and retained) my lesson from VD Attack Planit is so much more compelling than the typical STD movies in which stern doctors try to scare the libido out of teenagers. Travel Naturally magazine
These concerns aside, Travel Naturally is, as it turns out, a promotional vehicle for a California-based travel agency. Still, theres more here than tour packages and child porn. My advice to the editors: fewer naked children, more nude middle-aged men with backpacks. And NEWS, more news, like the brief about a plot by teenage boys in Connecticut to run naked through a local convenience store. Then there are the TNT!MEN: Totally Naked Toronto Men Enjoying Nuditythey held a parade to protest public-nudity laws. Another story recounts a mishap during a hockey game, when a man wearing only his red socks ran out on the ice, fell, and had to be carried away on a stretcher. Such stories, threaded with goofiness and carnivalesque politics, are something everyone can appreciateeven if you dont get off by watching naked people play volleyball.
The calendars commentary ranges from the inexplicable ("Visit Texas and buy a 10-gallon hat"), to the quasi-threatening ("Always ride the roller coaster at an amusement park"). At times, the calendar lets slip an indication of a mind-set that is scary. "Dont be afraid!" says one page. "Paint your living room your favorite color!" Okay!!! Wyeths 365 Days actively encourages you to deceive yourself and others about how happy you really are. At Christmas, you are supposed to "make everybody feel like they gave you the perfect gift." Escaping from the crushing agony of depression is not enough; things have to be perfect. The entry for September 11, which I imagine induced a crisis meeting of Wyeths copywriters, is particularly disingenuous: "Lets fly our colors proudly as one nation united." Its not just that its okay to be depressed on that day. Wouldnt it be a little creepy not to be depressed? This kind of shrill optimism, in which bad things are simply papered over and everything is just great, all the time, actually sounds a little unhealthy. Heres the thing: Every shred of evidence from thousands of years of human history indicates that life mostly sucks. Sometimes, it really sucks, and sometimes it just kind of sucks, and sometimes, just sometimes, it doesnt suck at all. In fact, sometimes life is as great as Wyeth wants you to think it can be. But Wyeth shouldnt be in the happiness business; it should be in the antidepression business. Theres a lot of ground between wretched misery and ecstatic elation, those zones and tropics of humdrum okayness or not-so-goodness or aint-half-badness that most of us live in. J. M. Tyree
Mario, I fucking hate you you said you had to work and then whys your car HERE at HER place? Youre a fucking LIAR. I hate you I fucking hate you. Amber P.S. Page me later Thanks to people like Amber who misplace things and people like Davy Rothbart who pick them up, Found is my new favorite page-turner. Every item in Rothbarts carefully curated magazine tells a great story that is refreshingly beyond the narrative-commercial complex. Alexandra Ringe
Elaine S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989
Abelsons evenhanded and accessible social history provides a glimpse into the golden age of the department store and some of the contradictions contained within. At the time, shoplifting was seen as yet another sign of the emotional instability of women, but Abelson carefully places the crimes in a social context in which women were responsible for doing all the household shopping yet were given no control over how money was spent. According to feminist tracts from the period, every expense down to the last spool of thread had to be explained and justified to the husband. Abelson quotes one woman who reminisced: "In my girlhood we spoke with awe of my contemporary, Louise de Loven, who had a bank account and could sign checks!" Moreover, many stores had a deliberate policy of encouraging women to buy more than they could afford. In 1895, the Dry Goods Economist reported that successful retailing rested on the ability to "sell goods when a customer is supposed to be through with her purchasing; to sell a customer something she had not the remotest idea of buying." Clerks were taught to tempt customers, and in-store displays were designed to play on their impulses. Stores also used deceptive marketing tactics, such as hiring people to dress rich and stand transfixed before window displays, as if considering a purchase. Though shoplifting led to huge losses in sales, the department stores resisted taking actions to curb theft. Some had learned the hard way that apprehending highly respected uppercrust community members wasnt such a good idea. Other shoppers tended to believe the suspects denials and would accuse the store of thuglike police tactics. According to a newspaper account in 1899, "high class stores would rather lose hundreds of dollars than be associated in the public mind with police court trials and sensational arrests." Considering the brouhaha surrounding Winona Ryders escapades at Saksand the "Free Winona" T-shirts made in her defenseI suspect that very little has changed. Carrie McLaren
When Pootie Tang came, and went, in July of 2001, it was received with less fanfare than Chris Rocks previous movie, the ill-conceived Heaven Can Wait remake Down to Earth. The few who did see it were treated to a fast and funny script, stellar casting, and some great subversion of the mainstream. The film effectively pokes fun at corporate greed, portrayals of black sexuality, and marketing hype without coming off as dogmatic or shrill. Lance Crouther plays the titular Tang, a man too cool for wordsliterally, he speaks in a dialect unlike any known languagewho fights crime when hes not running his successful Chicago nightclub, recording number-one hits, or filming public service announcements encouraging children to eat vegetables and say no to cigarettes and malt liquor. When Dick Lechter, the head of Corporate America (played by Robert Vaughn) takes notice of plummeting sales, he attempts to buy Tang off. Ultimately, Pootie Tang is a hero not so much for kicking ass and loving ladies, as for respecting women (mostly), resisting the financial lure of marketing black coolness and okay, he is a hero for kicking ass, but he does it in a cartoonish way. His temporary downfall comes not from a beating at the hands of his nemesis but from the publics perception that he has sold out and turned his back on his values. Pootie Tang doesnt leave you hanging on the edge of your seat until the conclusion, but it propels you from scene to scene so you can enjoy the charismatic Crouther interact with Rockwho plays two roles, Pooties friend and his fatheras well as a talented cast of comedians, including David Cross, Todd Barry (as seen on the cover of Stay Free!), and Andy Richter. If nothing else, Pootie Tang is worth seeing for a hilarious performance by Wanda Sykes and the best pie-related love scene ever filmed. Joe Garden
You can read about Johns case and others on FeralChildren.com, a site devoted to children who grew up without the support of other humans. Some were victims of child abuse. "Wild Child" Genie, for instance, spent her childhood locked in a bedroom; Anna was kept in an attic. But the most interesting cases are the kids raised by animals. Traian Caldarar ran away from home in Romania and was found last year eating a wild dog. When discovered in 1996, the "Nigerian Chimp Boy" dragged his arms on the ground, made chimpanzee-like noises and clapped his hands over his head in the way that apes do. Shamdeo was raised by wolves, bore sharpened teeth, ate his meat raw, and preferred darkness to daylight; found in May 1972, he eventually learned sign language. The details on FeralChildren.com are sometimes sparse, and you have to take it all with a bit of skepticism (though Ssebunya makes for a damn convincing monkey boy). Nevertheless, the articles and interviews linked from the site provide fascinating insights into the human condition. As these stories indicate, many of the habits that we consider natural or innately human are in fact cultural or socially taught. Though their circumstances differ widely, feral children tend to have a hard time not only speaking, reading, and writing, but also walking, sitting, standing, smiling, and crying. (Genie, for example, expressed very little emotion and exhibited a curious "bunny walk.") They tend to move as animals do, and their bodies adapt accordingly, developing muscles and joints accustomed to walking on all fours. Many children also seemed impervious to rain or changes in temperatureone boy delighted in playing in the snow while nudesuggesting that our sensitivity to temperature is culturally influenced. These findings have limited scientific value, as many of the abandoned children were probably retarded or otherwise disabled in the first place. Still, the site reminds me of primatologist Frans de Waals work. De Waal has spent years documenting the habits that animals teach one another. In certain parts of the world, monkeys wash potatoes, fish for ants, and rub stones togetherpractices they learned from their mothers and peers. By prodding us to acknowledge that we are animals ourselves, FeralChildren.com slyly suggests that howling may be no more natural to wolves than singing show tunes is to humans. Carrie McLaren
|