John McCain--Voldemortesque and Gollumnish?

Canvassing

I spent this Saturday knocking on doors along winding country roads, neath the glorious autumnal foliage of New Hampshire. Nary a sound disturbed the tranquility there, save the occasional roaring of pickup trucks and epithets hurled at me and my fellow canvassers. JK, there were no epithets, only a few scary dogs, and a lot of polite, salt'o'the earth New Hampsherites.

This is my third election canvassing, and it's frustrating work, but it feels good do actually do something rather than just obsess over polls and cable bloviators.

I'm looking forward to next season, when I can enjoy the reds, oranges and yellows of New England as they blend in with the dark green fir trees--all sans the election-related pit in my stomach :)

Justin Timberlake Hearts Obama, and Choice!

Via E! Truly amazing.

I'm not here as some dude who writes goofy songs," said the pop stud, in town to helm the PGA's Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, which teed off today. "Me and Jess, we're here as Americans. We're here as humans because this is something we had to do."

Pointing out that our next president could have a huge say in who sits on the U.S. Supreme Court for generations to come, and therefore play a role in the future legality of abortions, Biel added: "Nobody should be able to say what you can do with your body."

"I give Jess the right to choose where we go to eat all the time," Timberlake joked. "The funny thing is, what the woman chooses is usually right."

Well said, JT. Bringing reproductive justice BACK.

Monday Evening Poem, Autumn Edition 2

John Keats, To Autumn

1. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,	10
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
2. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;	15
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;	20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
3. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,	25
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;	30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Off to the Poetically Craggy New Hampshire

with its poetically craggy undecided voters.

Yes, I'm going to be door-knockin' for Barack this weekend in the Nawth. See you on Columbus Taino (and all indigenous people) genocide memorial day, readers fair.

Adieu!

The Madwoman in The Attic

As promised...

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, Second Edition by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

My review

The Madwoman in the Attic struck one of the first blows for feminist literary criticism and a uniquely female literary tradition. It's near and dear to my heart because it's the first extended lit-crit I've ever read, and also because it's about my favorite bunch of novels: Victorian (well, 19th century) women's fiction. There's also an awesome section on Victorian poetry. Hellooo, Goblin Market!

The basic theory of the book is that women writers twisted the Madonna/whore stereotype back in on itself, using doubles and alter egos to show different paths women take in a patriarchy, and alternate modes of handling female confinement: submission, madness, deception, searching for an equal (male) partner.

This book is where the theory of Bertha Mason, Rochester's mad first wife, as Jane's alter ego in Jane Eyre, an expression of her inner rage, first became popularized. Gilbert and Gubar--aka the "Gs" as a friend calls them--also discuss some of my other favorite literary interpretations: Heathcliff, yes THAT Heathcliff, (Wuthering Heights) as the essential feminine, the unfettered wild womanly spirit that Cathy must subsume to enter society. Catherine deBourgh in Pride and Prejudice as a possible projection of Elizabeth's future. The sea, in Persuasion, as representing an egalitiarian, romantic space far from the gender roles of society where equality is possible. Or how about Will Ladislaw in Middlemarch as the ideal partner for a woman because of his matriarchal lineage, his cast-out status, and his lack of threatening qualities. (He's a real ladies' man).

Obviously, I eschew the idea of literary theory as being some sort of be-all and end- all. Certainly feminist, Marxist, Freudian, historicist or whatever theories all need to be balanced with each other and an appreciation of the texts we read themselves. But sometimes lit-crit can be fun, a nifty prism through which we re-enjoy our favorite works, and this book is totally one of those times! Word to that.

View all my reviews.

If Charlotte Bronte's Words Were Used to Smack Down Sarah Palin

Bitter Girl tells it like it is. Go to her blog for the full taste. (h/t bronteblog)

Here's the most deliciously Charlottey bit:

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

And yes, I did bring LOLCharlotte back. She never gets old, just like her damn fine novel-writin'. Heck. You betcha.

Did Percy Shelley Un-Egalitarianize Frankenstein?

According to a new edition of the book, which breaks down Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's original Manuscript of Frankenstein and separates out the talented but troublesome Percy's corrections and edits, her original draft is actually much more accessible. Via Jacket Copy:

The results are fascinating. We read a more rapidly paced novel that is arranged in different chapters. Above all, we hear Mary’s genuine voice which sounds to us more modern, more immediately colloquial than her husband’s learned, more polished style.

Think of all the eighth graders in the anglophone world, forced to read Frankenstein by their school's curricula, who might wish that Percy had minded his goddamn business when editing his wife's draft!

(No disrespect to Percy, yo. Did you know he advocated Irish independence and distributed pamphlets on birth control in his day? The man was way ahead of his time, he just wrote more floridly than Mary).

Religious Nutbags Are All The Same!

I've got religious extremism on the brain--it's the high holidays, after all, and I just saw Religulous (which was a very good, if confused, film).

I just thought I'd highlight some seasonal ridiculousness showing how extremist Jews and Muslims disagree on everything except how to (mis)treat women.

Via feministing;

• The Associated Press reports that in Israel's Orthodox Jewish community, there are groups of extremists out to "stamp out behavior they consider unchaste."

They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.

In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men.

Via Salon's Broadsheet, reporting on some similar action in Saudi Arabia:

But, as Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan has found, [the niquab] isn't a satisfactory way to battle fleshly temptation, as it leaves [women's] eyes visible to men -- and eyes are incredibly seductive, especially when they are the only part of a woman's body that is revealed. His solution: one-eyed veils.

Last week, the cleric made the call for Muslim women in Saudi Arabia to adopt a veil that covers all but one eye. Habadan believes that "showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye makeup to look seductive," the BBC reports.

These guys have so much more in common than they act like they do, what with the bombing and the threats and the settlements. Can't they come together over their hatred of the wimmin and the gays? And while they're at it, join up with the members of the FLDS, my favorite sect, and the extreminist evangelicals in this country, and have a heterosexual god-fearing cuddle fest.

As Suzanne Riesman puts it:

Peace be upon us. Not only between various religions of the world, but between the factions within them. May the universal religious war on women end in 5769.

The Ghost of Tom Joad-Springsteen-Monday Morning Lyrics

Men walkin' along the railroad tracks
Goin' someplace there's no goin' back
Highway patrol choppers comin' up over the bridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretchin' 'round the corner
Welcome to the new world order

Families sleepin' in their cars in the Southwest
No home no job no peace no rest
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad

He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
Waitin' for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
Got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand
Sleepin' on a pillow of solid rock
Bathin' in the city aqueduct

The highway is alive tonight
Where it's headed everybody knows
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

Well the highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad.



Listen here.

Bruce Rocks for Change, 10.2.08

So almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about a Springsteen concert I attended at MSG, during the kickoff leg of the Magic tour. I saw the Boss again at Giants stadium this July, and the E-Street Band's show had changed a bit in the ensuing months, gotten looser, longer, and more hopeful. This led me to anticipate that once the E-Street band hung up its amps, guitars, and so on, the Boss might hit the trail for Obama.

I was right! Today my man and I went all the way down to Philly to volunteer for Obama and to see the Boss headline an awesome rally for Change. It was truly spectacular, moving and inspirational. when Bruce goes acoustic, the poetry of his words is so apparent, and he picked really hauntingly poetic songs: "The Ghost of Tom Joad," "No Surrender," "Thunder Road," among them. Then he finished off with "This Land Is Your Land," a tribute to Woodie Guthrie, which I found so moving in its simplicity and given the history of the song as a "people's national anthem."

The only downside is that now I am so fatigued that I can barely move, and I still have my long list of assignments to work on before the Day of Atonement hits my Jewy ass. Oy. But it was so worth it.


Enjoy this clip taken today of Bruce's long, long, long, but really great speech followed by "The Rising."

AND REGISTER TO VOTE.

Sarah Palin Flowchart

funny cuz it's true.

She's a gosh darnit, gee, say it ain't so Joe, hockey mom, Joe six-pack, shucks, darn tootin' right, rufflin' feathers maverick!*

*you betcha

Come on Be A Follower!

A few updates from fellow-ette land.

I'd just be so tickled (if you have a blogger account) if you'd become a follower of my blog. I'll follow yours! It can be like middle school! All followers, and all miserable.

Also, if you have a chance, check out my new website design: I did it myself using basic (basic basic basic) html, but I think it looks rather nice.

And if you miss my ramblin' and rantin' about politics on this blog, here's a roundup of my recent published work on the subject.

The freelance writer-cum-educator life is killing me right now. At the moment, I'm stressing out about the following stories:

• local news story on school overcrowding (this may be the most complex of all. Seriously--school rezoning?)
  
• several profiles of female leaders including some biggish names
• A political piece on election ads relating to reproductive rights
• A book review of a long, depressing book that is headed towards an unhappy ending :(
• A slew of new students, out of the blue!
  

These are all reasons to give me some love!! Comment, and be included in my new comment widget. Follow me, and be included in my new follower widget.

Or ignore me while I type my poor fingers to the bone. That's aight too.

Stephen Colbert, Egalitarian Bookworm, Compares the Candidates to Shakespeare

With special guest Stephen Greenblatt, my former professor! He compared McCain to Macbeth and Prospero (with Bush and Lieberman as Banquo and Caliban, respectively) and he compared Obama to Hamlet (with Rev Wright as the Ghost, amazin') and to Puck cause he casts a spell on us foolish mortals, over hill and over dale.


Egalitarian Bookworm Stephen is so back!