SPENT: The Game; or I miss the Connor Family

"This is the game that moves as you play" - The Have Nots, X

This is another entry in my "I don't really play video games but" series.

Early this year, the Urban Ministries of Durham collaborated with an advertising agency on a pretty amazing project. They've put together a video game called Spent that mimics what it's like to negotiate the world when you have had all your middle class safety nets taken away and you are starting from zero. You have no savings and you are an unemployed single parent.

Your first task is to find a job. The first thing I did was try to get a temp job, during which, I promptly (and expectedly) failed the typing test. This has happened before in a much more real life and humiliating setting. So I got a job in a restaurant and had to buy the damn uniform. I opted out of their health insurance plan as I could not afford the premiums. The game says "Better not get sick!". Tell me about it. Fuck you, game.

And the game goes on. Rents are raised unexpectedly. Things go wrong. You get sick. All of this costs money and it inevitably snowballs. You have to make awful choices, like if you are running out of food money, do you take the ten bucks your kid's grandma sent him? I ran out of money on day 6 the first time I played. The game gives the option of "asking a friend for money" via facebook. I didn't try this. Also, in real life, when you are poor, most of the people you know are also going to be poor. Also, no one likes to ask their friends for money.

Being poor is really, really expensive, you see.

Here's the thing, and I'm always shocked how the privileged of this world aren't aware of it (and, really, I'm one of them. But I had the incredibly illuminating early learning experience of growing up around people who were far, far more privileged - for the most part- than I was). This is the deal: if you are a white, abled, middle class/upper middle class person, all you have to do is not fuck up. And then everything will be more or less okay. Of course, awful things can happen to anyone - disease, tragedy, what have you. None of us are immune. But a safety net helps greatly. If you are working class or poor, really, everything has to go right. You have to be smart and lucky and work very hard. To transcend one's milieu, you have to be special in one way or another. If you are rich, you can be kind of average and not work that hard and maybe you won't have the best life ever, but nothing truly disastrous will occur either.

And if you are a poor person, and have bad luck, you are going to be royally screwed. Spent demonstrates this tersely and clearly.

The class based nastiness in our culture seems to be going through a really bad phase. Sneering at poor people seems to have become a national past time. A co-worker this week is going to a "White Trash Party". Which, as far as I can tell, is a bunch of rich people making fun of a bunch of poor people. This is really complicated stuff, entwined with all sorts of issues of race and gender (non-white people and women are more likely to be poor), and lord knows, I don't have any answers. But maybe the first thing we need to do, is to have maybe just a tiny bit of empathy.

Television seems to be going through a particularly vile patch of worthless rich people worship (and much as I love Top Chef: Bravo, will you please just shut the fuck up and go away please?). Occasionally you see a poor or working class person who is presented for the purposes of mockery. There was a pretty great piece up at The Awl the other day about a truly repulsive new TV show called Repo Games which is worth a look. As mentioned here before, Jennifer L. Ponzer's book, Reality Bites Back is pretty much a must read at this point for anyone who has even a passing interest in what we watch. She points out, in great detail, how these shows reinforce a truly regressive version of the status quo. One in which poor people and women are to be ridiculed and to be Paris Hilton's fake BFF is something that one humiliates oneself to be.

Empathy happens when people acknowledge that other people are, like, human. And have exactly the same sorts of feelings they have. It's the opposite of objectification, that often misunderstood concept that strips people of their humanity. Which brings me to a piece in this week's New York Magazine, written by Roseanne about her show (Read it! Seriously, just read it. God I love her. She writes as only someone with nothing else to lose writes). I don't think you see enough about Roseanne when you see articles about remarkable and groundbreaking television. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe because it was a sitcom about a family, the most standard television format imaginable, it gets looked over. Maybe it's more insidious. I don't know. I miss the Connor family, and loved them as did the millions of other Americans who made the show number one in the ratings for half a decade. The Joss Whedon penned "Brain Dead Poet's Society" makes me cry just thinking about it, in which Darlene reads her poem in which she writes "too short to be quarterback, too plain to be queen".

So what I'm saying is, it would be nice if there were some working class Americans on TV who weren't the objects of ridicule. And I'm no Socialist, but this ultra-Capitalism we seem to be embracing is so culturally unhealthy and just gross. So, obviously, this grim little video game isn't going to do much in the face of all those "Housewives (TM)", but it's so bracing after a media diet that can seem like the equivalent of having frosting for dinner. Sweet, but so, so sick-making.

Castles and 18th Century Theatrical Design: Whee!

One day last week I had a few hours to kill between work and drawing at the Society of Illustrators, so I walked a bit in Central Park and wandered into The Met.

Whenever I visit this most glorious of New York City museums, I always start by seeing what they have up in the constantly rotating Drawing and Print Gallery on the 2nd floor. The current exhibit, which is pulled from the permanent collection, is pretty fantabulous. They've pulled out all the big guns with Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and William Blake well represented. I remember being twelve or thirteen and staring at the famous self-portrait Dürer drew when he was thirteen and being completely upset that I wasn't as good. Yes, for what it's worth, even when I was a child I compared myself with the Renaissance greats. One of my favorites is included, "The Sea Monster" (at left). I love the tortoise shell being used as a shield and the romantic castle of my dreams situated in the landscape.

Also on display, are a number of 18th and 19th century stage designs. Most are ink and watercolor. There are some glorious ones for a mid-19th century Magic Flute, and an 18th century design (at right) for a sadly unidentified production drawn by Johann Heinrich Ramberg that made me want to jump into my trusty (imaginary) time machine and create something in his glorious, repurposed space. There are more - beautiful Italian watercolors and chalk drawings and an interior of The Met Opera House from 1884 that put the currently used software to shame. Why is it that so many useful modern instruments also neglect to be beautiful?

The current exhibit is up through June 12.

I also made a quick sweep through the Alexander McQueen exhibit, and it even more wonderful than hoped. More on that later!

Class: Cephalopoda

My fascination with squid and octopus and all the members of the illustrious Class of Cephalopoda (Phylum: Mollusca, Kingdom: Animalia) began almost ten years ago as I worked on what I referred to as my 9/11 play. It remains unfinished and is likely unfinishable. I called it Tricks With Make-Up and it is set in a barroom in which all surfaces are obscured by a dull gray ash. Whether it is purgatory or some kind of post-apocalyptic liminal neverland, remains unclear. In it, a Bird, a Killer, a Spy, a Victim, The Last Leopard and The Second To Last Leopard (Felidae Panthera Pardus) enact various power plays. Bird, in particular, is a monstrous, Stalin-like figure (in her home forrest, she sports the title "Chairmistress of Freedom, Animality and Discipline").

But it was a mess. A Frankensteinian creature created from pieces of other projects, ruminations on Jack the Ripper, reading I'd done on animal behavior and the deep, strange nihilism I felt after the fall of the towers which engendered a certainty in me that the human species was a complete failure in evolutionary terms. And I had an equally crazy design concept. I thought there should be a giant, animatronic squid suspended from the ceiling with enormous tentacles that wrapped around the audience. During the play, the tentacles would move with a barely perceptible slowness, the audience unaware of what was happening until the tentacles were everywhere, trapping them in their seats.

Now, I realized that the the chances of this design concept coming to fruition were, to say the least, low. But in preparation for the momentous day when my most extravagant dreams could become perfectly realized, I started researching squid and the other members of the family cephalopoda and became, in a word, obsessed. Giant Squid seemed more like creatures from the imagination of a 19th century fantasist, rather than something that could actually, you know, exist. Where we have water in our bodies, they have ammonia. Their espophogus bisects their brains. They possess a starting and uncanny intelligence. They use tools. Octopuses are prone to nervous upset and have been known to start eating their own arms. They are beautiful and other-worldly. They are nearly all venemous to one degree or another. They are beaked. There may be even larger, completely undiscovered squid that live in the deepest, most unknown parts of the ocean (some electrical pings indicate that this is not fantasy).

I joined all the squid list serves, I read all the latest scientific findings. They are amazing. I think one of my fascinations with these remarkable creatures is that they are nothing like us. They are completely, to their core, other-worldly and unknowable. Chimps and Bonobos are near relatives; dogs and humans have co-existed for millions of years and likely evolved symbiotically (for example, humans exhibit dog-like pack behavior that doesn't occur in other primates); dolphins, if fish shaped, are fellow mammals, and seem at least somewhat willing to interact with us. But with the clever cephalopod, we have no common language of any kind. Any attempts to get through have been met with a blank wall of nothing.

In our depictions of the residents of other planets, we most often have dreamed up humanoid creatures. Even if they were hostile, we could still interact. And if they were utterly unhuman (like Aunt Beast in a Wrinkle in Time) we could still breach the difference through touch or sound or something. Thus far, there has been no cephalopodean Rosetta Stone of any sort. To be honest, I don't know if I want one.

But I'm an artist, not a scientist.

My BFF sent this to me yesterday, a gorgeous film of a Dumbo Octopus. You can watch it here, as Blogger is being all fiddly and will not upload it.

Feed

I'm slightly embarrassed that I spent my New Year post singing my own praises, so I thought I could launch into the second decade of the New Millennium singing some other people's, too.

I have a list of links to friends' blogs and some other interesting destinations to your right - and I realize I've been fairly awful about updating it. The blogs whose RSS feeds I subscribe to are the ones I look at every day (more or less. Or whenever they post. Or whenever I get around to it.). The list is somewhat arbitrary, so please don't be offended if your blog isn't listed. It also doesn't mean I don't read it, as I look at lots via places like facebook.

If you know of something you think I might enjoy (or that my readers would), please feel free to leave the address in the comments. Or, if you like, you can post on the wall of our facebook page.

So. These are the (few) blogs I subscribe to.

1. Allure: Blog dedicated to the screen stars of the 20s and 30s. He posts tons of really lovely photos. I particularly enjoy his posts on some of the lesser known actresses. Here is some great commentary and photos from a 1927 edition of "Film Fun", including:


2. BibliOdyssey is, of course, legendary. They post large sets of images from books, often related to science. But not always. The following is their sub-heading:

Books~~Illustrations~~Science~~History~~Visual Materia Obscura~~Eclectic Bookart.

They usually post every few days, and whatever they post is always worth a look.

3. Chenille L'Oiseau: I found this charming tumblr because she (and I use that pronoun with great trepidation) began following me. She posts mostly photos, mostly surrealist. She is fond of bird imagery. They're clearly sourced and pretty much always arresting. She also has a Randomizer that's, like, the best. I'm probably capable of sitting on my couch clicking it until I die of hunger. Okay, next random image is:


4. Coilhouse. The magazine is great, too. I've discovered numerous wonderful things (including my recent obsession with La Vie Parisienne) through them. They recently posted this holiday themed video. My 16 year old self just died of happiness.



5. FIDM Museum: i.e. the blog for the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum in Los Angeles. They post their acquisitions. Uncle Nick from Season 2 of that show I used to watch teaches there.

6. Film Gab With Werth & Wise: classic film conversations between two very knowledgeable film scholars. Okay, okay - as always, in the spirit of full disclosure, Mr. Werth is a very good friend of mine. It's always worth (accident!) reading.

7. Fucked in Park Slope. My neighborhood blog. I love them. They're fucking hilarious. Do yourself a favor and read the entire Mama Rosa saga. It's fucking epic. This, my friends, is why the internet was invented.

8. The Vintager: Another great fashion blog, all images collected by the vintage minded J.B. Taylor. She often includes vintage photos of her mother, which are lovely.

9. Fresh365: Vegetarian recipes. They aren't intimidating or preachy and completely embrace the use of butter and cheese.

10. Okay. I look at Style Rookie, 13 year old Tavi Gevinson's blog. She's made a freaking career out of it. Did I say she's 13? It makes me want to vomit. But it also makes me glad. Yay! The interwebs! They can bring fame and fortune to dorky girls who like to make collages. Which, overall, is a good thing. But it also kinda makes me want to kill myself.

11. The Daily Otter. As they put it: OMFG otters!

11. The Flapper Girl. Someone else who posts great vintage images, such as:


12. Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books: written by the guy who ran BlackMask.com, the greatest website in the history of the internet. But, like Icarus before him, he flew too close to the sun, and down he tumbled. Only substitute "intellectual property attorneys" for "sun". This is someone who lives and dies for pulp, and whose empire crashed into ruins over the publication rights of a few (uncollected) Dashiell Hammett short stories. Alas. We have all suffered.

13. Travalanche: Well, of course. Yes, this is the blog of my darling, brilliant inamorato, the man often known as (and self-styled) Trav S.D. But all that aside, he has created an extraordinary web resource. Bios of all vaudeville luminaries (some more luminous than others) spanning the decades, and all in one place. He writes about other things, too: books, art, burlesque, and (of course) theater. Really, kids. He's the smartest man I know.

14. Things have been awfully quiet of late at Women Running From Houses. Which makes me very sad, as it was (is?) an excellent, insanely narrowly focused blog. If you read lots of Pulp Gothic Romance, you will undoubtedly understand. To wit:


I swear there used to be another blog that featured book covers that had to include a woman holding a candle and a mansion, but I might be making that up.

Hm. I never really looked at them all together before, and I realize I'm far more likely to hit that little RSS feed button if you post lots of pictures rather than lots of text. I also really dislike bloggers who natter on about themselves, so I will keep the commentary to a minimum.

But please, as I wrote above, if you want to sell me (or my readers) on your blog, now's the time. I'm normally awfully strict about not permitting blatant self promotion in the comments, so this is pretty much your only shot. I'll look. I promise. And if I like what I see, I'm an avid linker and reposter.

May the servers we post on, but don't own, never fail.

The Sick

Hello, my dear readers. I had The Sick, resulting in an unfortunate and unscheduled pause in my posting. But now - I'm back!

Here's a picture of a pretty girl. Posting begins anew.

Twilight Watch, Part 5: The Final Chapter

I give up.

I tried, I really did.  

I can't read any more.

I just can't face it.

Sigh.

I'm on page 51, and the thought of opening it and reading fills me with dread.  I can't stand the thought of talking about it any more.

I list all the books I own that I haven't read yet in the back of my current notebook.  I've been doing this since high school.  The same list has been carrying over since then.  I cross off the books as I read them and then transfer the list to the next notebook.

The list is now crazily out of hand.  There are lots of books on it I can't wait to read.  

Life is short, life is hard.

I really can't waste any more of it reading something I can't stand.  I just can't bear to think about it any more.  I'd rather write about books I like.

Sorry.

There are stories about girls who date vampires that are great.  This isn't one of them.

Twilight Watch, Part 1

I just can't do it.  I almost bought tickets online to force myself to go, but I know I would rather waste the twelve dollars than watch. Sigh. I cannot, I repeat, I cannot. I feel that I must. I've been writing about female directors, with a special emphasis on American women. Genre films are of particular interest to me.  The goal has been achieved. A film directed by a woman has a monster opening weekend- 70 million dollars. Domestic! Gift horses. Mouth. Sigh. I am incapable of either seeing this film or of keeping myself from counting teeth.

The film is Twilght. I have not seen the film and I haven't read the book. I have no right to comment.  There is a 2:15 matinee.  It's now 1:52.  Can I make it?  I still really, really don't want to go.  I'm really pleased for Catherine Hardwicke.  

That's a total lie.  The entire thing makes me angry.  Updates on my attempts will follow.

There is clearly no pleasing me.