What I've Been Up To

Shtuff Fellow-ette's been a-Readin:

Under the Banner of Heaven, By Jon Krakauer. In Cold Blood stlye true-crime narrative mixed with sickly engrossing details about the ways of Mormon fundementalists, from the inbred horrors of Colorado City Az/Hillsdale Utah, to the raving lunatic who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart and took her as his second wife, so that he could "live the principle." Puts some context behind the soap-operaisms of Big Love.


44 Scotland Street, by Alexander McCall Smith. An ode to Armistead Maupin's fucktastic Tales of the City series (if you haven't read it, read it!) set in stuffy Edinburigh. Smith's characterization and sympathy are well in evidence here, but the unresolved story lines and unnecessary philosophical meanderings make me long for Precious Ramotsowe!


Empire Falls, by Richard Russo. I thought this book was a tour de force, a story of fractured, miserable small-town life post-industrial era, with jobs and dignity fled, and childhood rivalries playing out in the next generation. A really straightforward, but tragically deep, narrative with (do I hear it?) echoes of Middlemarch. Or maybe that's Middlesex?


The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. A ripping good yarn, and an examination of the tragedy, the layers of violence, that is modern Afghanistan. Perhaps some of the symbolism is too overt, the parallels too pat, but I couldn't put it down!

SNL: You're on notice.

What makes me think Matthew Perry has taken over as head writer of Saturday Night Live?

I decided during last night's premiere that there's something more than a wee bit wrong with SNL these days. The show has become profoundly conservative. Unlike shows on cable run by Stewart, Colbert and Co, (and even Trey Parker and Matt Stone) which critique conventional wisdom and the status quo, SNL parrots our cultural idiocy, jumping on the bandwagon of mocking anyone who is already being lampooned or chastised by the press. For instance, Darrel Hammond coming out in Bill Clinton regalia and calling his Fox News interview a "hissy fit" is simply put, BO-RING, and also rather reactionary. That the big political joke came from an alleged affair between Clinton and Condoleeza Rice is a sign of just how dry the well has run.

The only belly-laugh moments of the entire broadcast came in "Hugo Chavez' political round up" which brought together Kim Jong Il, Ahmadnejad, Chavez and Musharraf... and while the individual caricatures were hilarious, the jokes could have been much more pointed (no Holocaust denial? No reinforcement of the fact that some of Chavez' criticisms might be legit?). The skit ended with a lame gesture to the all-American audience; if the dictators could live in any country, they all averred, it would be the United States. There went the edge.

Seth Myers, who replaces Tina "I want to be a cool girl like Lindsey-Lohan" Fey at the Weekend Update desk, actually had much sharper zingers than Amy Poehler did, and didn't get the applause he deserved. And Brian Williams, who cameoed for five minutes, showed seriously impressive acting chops. Maybe he is the right choice for fillin Tom "Jesus lacks my authority" Brokaw's shoes. Meanwhile host Dane Cook, is quite possibly the worst comedian in the history of the genre: you know who he hates? "Negative people, man." Me too, Dane. Me too.

Also, the Killers were kind of cute and awesome.

over and out.

/Fellow-ette

Colbert Scandal A-Brewin'

Truthiness, part II.

Looks like I'm not the only one peeved at the friggin' NY Times for ommitting any mention of the Colbert speech at the White House Correspondents' dinner... so now the Grey Lady has changed its tune to "Cry Me a River." Does that make any sense? Whatever, I'm going with it.

Check out this string of livid comments from smart people. If the Times doesn't publish the angry letter I sent on Monday (I'm giving them til Friday-- you here that Times:? You're on notice.), I will posts its contents here, because frankly it was so unbelievably witty i need to show it off.

So stay tuned, faithful readers.

"Truthiness to Power"

Stephen Colbert is more my hero than ever.

Watch an excerpt,



or

Read this story about what he said at the White House Correspondednts dinner.

Some key quotes:

And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.


Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.


I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes Bdecisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!


Okay,I could obviously keep going and going and going. But seriously, this shit is amazing.
So in honor of the man himself, here's my own anti-dead-to-me list:

Badass celebs who stand up for shit:

Neil Young (hear living with war here)
Stephen Colbert
Pink
The Clooneymeister
Brangelina (mostly cause they be so hot right now)

Alright, that's it for now. I am in awe, Stephen.

and don't forget to THANK STEPHEN!

Plagiarism 101?

My former stomping grounds, The Harvard Crimson, reported last night that superstar author Kaavya Viswanathan’s "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," bears a "striking similarity" to another chick-lit gem, "Sloppy Firsts" by Megan McCafferty.

The whole thing feels damn uncomfortable. It's true, as one blogger noted that Harvard is FILLED with schadenfreude (check out this story we ran back in the day) and likely to salivate with unbecoming glee even before we hear from all sides. That's why this news makes me uncomfortable of course-- it taps into my barely-supressed schadenfreude as an aspiring writer (like everyone at Harvard), and also gives rise to a huge amount of pity and bewilderment. I feel immature and naive on a daily basis, as this blog can attest to. How can someone three years my junior be expected to stare down the pressure she has, and will? But that's how it works, sadly. Pop stars younger than she are held up to the lens of the press with even more vicious regularity. Young women in particular court publicity--and succesful, pretty young women are primary targets for tear-downs. We're still not comfortable with the heights they reach.

But there's something about being a wildly successful, precociously talented anything at a young age, that seems to go hand in hand with a certain pressured recklessness... as well as an abundance of connections, and a more-than-healthy dose of good luck. It's the first of those three qualities that perhaps leads to those yet-to-be-explained "striking similarities"... or in the case of another young Harvard hotshot recently disgraced, out-and-out fabrication.

At the end of the day, this will only inch the book up the bestseller list. But the biggest question is, how is it that we live in a society that enables this sort of thing to occur over and over again? The answer, in my opinion is the inflation of the fame-money nexus. If you have it, if you want it (or if you want it for your child/protege/client), you forget the rules. From Lindsay Lohan on down, we're so obsessed with the next hot young thing, that we forget about the young part.

PS heehee

All the news that's fit to gossip about: Duke Scandal, Free Teacher Housing, and of course, Tomkat's baby

Fellow-ette is back in Cambridge Mass, scene of her former days as a rabid intellect (or just rabid). And so, as her fellow perfects the last phrases and grafs of his Reggaeton review for the Boston Phoneix, she finds herself back to browsing Google News aimlessly, trying to draw connections between today's headlines and her job.

The first one is obvious: they're so desperate for teachers in NYC that they're offering math, sci and special ed teachers meager housing subsidies to convince them to come. What have I to say about that bold move by Bloomberg and Klein? Merely the same old thang: more money is good, anything that helps move teaching from vocation to profession is good, but what would be even better would be making the experience of teaching more professional. Small classes. Competent, caring APs and principals. Small classes. Schools that actually are communities instead of hierarchies. Small classes. Less disciplinary responsibilities and more focus on content.
Oh, and class size.

The second headline I'd like to comment on is the ever-brewin' Duke scandal, which just sounds sketchy all around to this former reporter. These lacrosse players appear to be a bunch of overprigileged, over-testosteroned, bigoted jerks, but the evidence against them is also unclear at the moment, making the entire situation upsetting--gender-wise, race-wise, age-wise and class-wise.
The saddest part to me is that yes, many young people are coarse, many young people fuck up, many young men abuse their strength, and it's never right. But most of them don't get a chance to get backed up by wealthy lawyers and defended by host of indignant sharers of the elite-sphere who see this arrest as an intrusion into the established order. Situations like this one make the racism and closed doors, which my students rant about only semi-knowingly, all too apparent. And also just brings to light the brutality of our current society and the horrible behavior of young men, whose problems (across lines of class and race) are a crisis in the making. More on that some other time.

The final headline of the day is less serious: TomKat's kitten! Hurray for weirdness in the celebrosphere. I hope Suri hasn't been planted on the planet by the anti-scientologist aliens her rents are always talking about. Glorp. Gleep.

That's it for today.
And as a coda: decision-making is tough. Should fellow-ette blow 40 of the DOE's precious bucks on these?

Weigh in, dear reader.

Sopranos rundown

I love love love Tony's newfound consciousness... even though it brings him steps closer to being whizzacked.

I hate hate hate the homophobia the show brings to light so brilliantly, which hits too close to the home of my minigangstas and their constant slurs. How hard it is to achieve tolerance when it isn't taught to us.

And how can we not hope that Vito will find peace and redemption in "Live Free or Die" NH (easy on the symbolism, Chase and co.!)? Even if it's as futile as wishing the water in a turgid white mountain waterfall will stay still for just an instant...
but oh, what an instant.

*
Today I developed a photo of three of my favorite ninth grade mini-Gs, and found myself fawning over them. The wonders distance works.

Mo' Sopranos

Greetings, Sopranos Fans:
To those of you who are arriving at AGW due to a google blogsearch for our favorite noir-mobster-generally-deep-stuff weekly tv show, all I have to say is come for the gabbagoo, stay for the wit and searing social criticism from the front lines of narrowing the achievement gap.

And as for last night's episode-- it was a nice day for a white wedding, and my heart went out to Johnny Sack. The themes of violence and retaliation and loyalty always hit me hard when I return to my gangsta's paradise after a Latte liberal weekend in upper manhattan.

For more in depth Sopranos commentary, try our compatriot shook (with comments from MV) or defamer. Or check out this silly Sops parody.

(For those coming to discuss the urgent state of urban public Ed-- what wonders are found in a week only three days long! My kids are angels, the sun shines on them all.)

Hi-larious sopranos parody....

teehee.

Pink's "Stupid Girls" Hits Home...

Fellow educators who are sick of watching the embedded misogyny of the average teen, regardless of demographics (although I'd venture to say it's worse in educationally-deprived areas like mine, where there's not even one or two maverick feminists in an average class), this video is a refreshing change...



My favorite part is where she contrasts the girl being the next president with the one dancing in a video next to Fifty Cent-- although her spoof of Jessica Simpson falling of the truck she's cleaning is pretty hee-larious.

Pink, like George Clooney and Kanye, is the rare celebrity who speaks up on matters bigger than his or herself. Underground rappers and songwriters are political-- and maybe that's why they stay underground.
When I think about the incredible lack of real role models my students have, I wish more celebs would get the guts to be political. They have no obligation to do so, but the world of good they can do for the average media-worshipping teen alone is amazing. My students, as I did when I was a their age, are absolutely obsessed with pop culture, without the critical distance we mediaphiles get when we get older and more cynical. Come on, people! Speak up!