Gina Harris's Blog, page 134

Band Review: Rick Rocker

I found a disconnect with Rick Rocker. The name sounds cheesy, as if it's meant for a parody of an '80s DJ. The page statements about instant anthems seems to continue with that.
That led me to go in with lowered expectations, but I found the music enjoyable, sincere, and in the case of "Into Your Arms" absolutely beautiful. The guitar is pretty well-executed too, especially on "Lady In Red".
Music videos have a little bit of that cheese as well - "Say What I Say" gives us a day of frolicking at Coney Island and more cowbell - but they appear to come from an honestly good-hearted person who is good at music.
Rocker has lived in New York City all of his life, so maybe the positivity is his way of rebelling. I think what he is doing works.
http://rickrockermusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/RickRockerMusic
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmTVqHgNhLW08vMXDStHfWA
https://twitter.com/RickRockerMusic

Perilous times

I don't always remember how a book gets added to either a specific reading list or to my general reading list, but I know with this one.
The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914, by Philipp Blom
I had seen an article mentioning the book. This was in 2013, and the book was published in 2008, so I don't think it was a regular review. However, there must have been buzz about it for some reason. I know because I was out with my sisters and a friend of theirs and the friend was talking about the time period, and how it felt like everything was on the edge of disaster.
That caused me to go back and find the article, both to send her a link to it and to find the name of the book to look into it myself. Then it was kind of a disappointment.
My former government teacher gave it a really good review, and I respect that. Part of my feeling was that it didn't really connect the dots and make a case for itself. As it covered various changes that were going on in society, they all felt separate, and I don't think they were. However, I also felt like I needed to know more about some of the topics, so maybe if you are already well-informed on this time period, then this book ties it together really nicely.
It is also possible that I was caught up so much in individual issues and problems that a focus on the zeitgeist was not what I was looking for. (Though I still feel the zeitgeist is precisely what was not captured. Maybe there were too many changes for there to have been one.)
I don't rule out learning more things and then going back to this book. That could end up being very helpful.
And I cannot rule out us currently being on the brink of terrible things either. Perhaps the book will resonate more now.

Field study

Right now I appear to be choosing the books that did not seem to relate to the key topic at the time I was reading them, but they have other purposes.
Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children, by Michael G. Thompson, Lawrence J. Cohen, and Catherine O'Neill Grace
While there were some chapters on older children and peer pressure, a lot of the book focused more on early childhood development. I was not having much contact with children at the time.
That changed as I got called into nursery. I am in junior nursery. That is technically supposed to be 18 - 24 months, but because there were so many children in the senior nursery (2 years old to 3 years) I got to spend more time with many of the children.
This is such a rich developmental age. They are learning to play, and they can be at the stage where they start forming friendships, but they aren't necessarily. Sometimes this results in side-by-side play, and sometimes the preferred method of interaction is snatching toys from someone else. And sometimes it is selecting a toy, bringing it to me, and repeating.
Not everything that I observed came from this book. Sometimes there were things that people I know had mentioned about their children. That stage where little boys always have their hands down their pants? Psychology 101. (I am not a Freudian, but he did observe real things.)
There are personalities that emerge, but there are also phases that are not a part of the personality. This one will get over hitting people. That one may not stop being bossy any time soon.
One girl initially wanted to spend a lot of time cuddling, but it gradually became less and less as she would play more. She would still run back sometimes to recharge. She had cuddling relapse the day we had extra children and extra noise. I realized that I was providing a sense of security so that she could feel safe to go out into the world. If there was ever a time when I wondered if what I was doing was important, that settled it.
One thing that I knew and was reminded of was how much parents worry. Yes, some are worse, but worrying is still pretty normal. And one thing that was in the book, but that is also observable, is that a lot of the worry is unnecessary. A lot of these things are really very normal, and they end.
Of course, I never expected a year where there has been such sharp veering from normal; I may end up becoming more pessimistic. But if there are things where I can know that it is okay, and channel my energies elsewhere, I will take that.

Homework

I think I am going to try and blow through some of the books from the Long Reading List this week.
Behind the Mask: Adolescents in Hiding, by Dennis Rozema.
This book was not as good as some of them. It resonated because there are many quotes from teenagers that sounded like my teenagers. That's probably the issue right there; I knew it was for some people, but it was not for me.
If I had read it when I was in high school - when I had put up those walls and they hadn't started getting any cracks yet - well, I might not have accepted it anyway. As it was, I read it in 2013, after I had spent years of becoming more open, first in conversation and then via the blog. I don't have much left in the way of disguise. That's intentional, and it sounds scarier than it is, because maintaining the facade is no fun.
I did appreciate that the book had assignments. None of them ended up being particularly relevant for me - that happened with a different book - but for its target group they were probably good exercises.
I'm thinking about that now for two reasons. That starts with an awareness of the practical side of my progress. Yes, writing about everything so much has played a role, and the reading, and those have been assignments in themselves. Beyond that, the things that put it into practice make everything so much more concrete. Taking selfies, and trying to dress up, and forcing myself into social situations, and all of these tasks that I have given myself matter. They translate the cerebral into the tangible. The body doesn't automatically follow the mind but you can make it happen.
The other reason I am thinking about it is the question of what I would recommend. When I see people going through issues that I at least partially relate too, despite our differences, well, what would be a good map? If I were to write a book, what would be in the book? This has been a pretty messy process, and it's available on the blog, but that could take a lot of digging.
It could be fair to say "Think about the thing you would most like to change about yourself, and then think about a step you can take in that direction." People should be able to get some ideas from that, and surely some of the ideas would be good ones, but there are probably more effective paths.

Band Review: Duncan Hendy

Duncan Hendy is a composer and does soundtracks.
Soundtrack compositions can be difficult to review. Separate from the work it accompanied, you cannot assess how well it supported the work. Because it was written to complement and not distract, it may not stand apart well.
Within this context vacuum, there are some very modern and abstract sounds that art rock fans could enjoy, especially on "Persistence of Sound and Vision". Whovians may appreciate "Tempus Atque Relativae Dimensiones in Spatio". Those references to time form an acronym, and faint echoes of "Tomorrow" within the piece seemed clever and appropriate.
The most memorable piece for me was "Silent Sirens", which created a nice tension that seemed appropriate for the title.
http://www.duncanhendy.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/sydswine
https://twitter.com/DuncanHendy

Band Review: Season of Ghosts

Season of Ghosts does its music on a grand scale.
The band is driven by singer Sophia Aslanides, formerly of Blood Stain Child. Sophia keeps in touch with her metal roots, but accompanied by orchestras and synthesizers and done at higher octaves, Season of Ghosts is not metal. They self-describe as intergalactic.
Looking at recent bands reviewed, Season of Ghosts seems like the natural result of combining Orisonata with Samantha Scarlette. There are gothic elements combined with cuteness, but the incorporation of mythic themes and push of large sound sets everything on a grander scale.
(Also, there is not the morbidity that would make sense with Goth.)
One frequent shortcoming for these types of projects is that songs may run together and not be easily distinguishable from one another, even though there is a sense of beauty with the individual tracks. As it was, the one that stuck in my mind the most was the instrumental, "There and Back Again", simply because the lack of vocals made it different.
That being said, there is a performance video of their song "Dream; Paralysis" available if you want to get an idea of what they would be like in concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_nGz_I4MMU&feature=youtu.be
http://seasonofghosts.com/
https://www.facebook.com/seasonofghosts/
https://www.youtube.com/user/seasonofghosts
https://twitter.com/sophia_sog

Seeing and hearing each other

I want to go back to that Cracked article I posted earlier:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/how-men-are-trained-to-think-sexual-assault-no-big-deal/
David Wong makes a lot of good points, and there is room to expand on the reasons, but what is missing is the female perspective.
This makes sense based on the article, its purpose, and conception. When he acknowledges what he once thought women thought, it is clear he is not saying that we think like that. It would probably be overly presumptuous for him to speculate now, but I am still struck by the difference between the perception and the reality.
This is what the author wrote that he would have said at 20, which should have been around the mid-90s if I am understanding correctly:
"In this modern world, the quality of a woman's life is overwhelmingly dependent on what kind of man she can attract -- a woman married to a capable man is simply going to have a higher standard of living, period. Her self-worth is thus based largely on how desirable she is to men, and on how many men are pursuing her at any given moment. The need for more suitors is due to the law of supply and demand. It is to her advantage to create competition by tempting as many men as possible, then making it difficult for any single one to gain her attention.
Thus, women gain power through rejecting men, and those rejections have nothing to do with how they truly feel."
The first sentence has more truth than it should. Woman do not receive the same level of compensation as men, regardless of their skills, abilities, and labor.
That should be an indictment of society, but it ends up being something that makes a woman more likely to be a trophy. Just that her financial worth is seen as less supports the belief system that women don't deserve as much. Prejudices are good at self-enforcing cycles.
" Her self-worth is thus based largely on how desirable she is to men..."
Yeah, that has been pretty true, though not necessarily the way he thought. I grew up feeling like it was practically a duty for a women to be attractive. I'm not sure that it even occurred to me that it was for the purpose of attracting men - it was just something you needed to do, and I couldn't do it.
It took a while to begin to see it, but over time I found it really hard to find any women who felt like they were pretty enough. Some of the most beautiful women I have seen have never felt it. Okay, tastes vary, and maybe there would be others that would be more generally regarded as beautiful, but it is amazing how aware of their flaws they are. Girls who seemed so popular and confident worried about things that never would have occurred to me about them. Advertising certainly knows that there is always something else that you need.
Many women do work very hard at being attractive, but it is not so much scheming to attract more men as it is giving in to pressures to look a certain way and be a certain way just to be good enough to avoid mockery. Present the right style to be worth something!
There may be a potential power rush in rejecting men, but a lot of women find it terrifying. They have good reason for that. Women get verbally abused and beaten and killed for that. There are always moments when you realize how vulnerable you are, and how little your desires matter to the other person.
I did not get asked out a lot, so there weren't a lot of opportunities to reject, but I can look back now and see times when what I thought of as teasing could have been flirting. For example, one guy once made a polygamy joke: I could be his third wife but he would have to be my first husband - stupid joke, or also an expression of interest?
If someone was interested and I stayed closed off, I suppose that could have felt like rejection. If so, I guarantee it was never about power. I never saw myself as desirable and it was too humiliating to risk any openness or vulnerability.
So when the author says that he never forced himself on a girl because he would have to lose weight or make the football team to do that, well, you can and should note the problems with that mindset, but I can also take a moment to appreciate that in this toxic culture it is not just the girls and women who are made to feel like they are less. It's not good for anyone.
I do have one story about being hit on. I met Chris through a good friend, from whom he got my number. He called and was asking me questions that were leading to sex, which I explained was something that I felt belonged inside of marriage, thus killing all of his interest in me. The next day I asked my friend about this creep, and what I had not realized the day before was that they were going steady, but now they weren't. She had similar views on chastity, so he clearly started off in the wrong area, but he just kept asking girl after girl until he found a girlfriend, and they stayed together at least through the year.
I don't necessarily think of this as a happy story, because I have to wonder about the self-esteem of the girl who chose that pimple-faced horn dog and the presumed teen sex that resulted. Despite that, when you told Chris "no" he backed off. He didn't stalk you, he didn't try and wear you down or make you feel guilty, and he didn't try and use physical force - he just moved on to the next girl.
His hitting on me while dating my friend does not seem like the act of a respectful person, and his preoccupation with sex certainly seems like he might be the objectifying type, but at least he was capable of hearing and believing "No". 
Bless him for that.

Why I never saw the movie

CN: rape
Yesterday's post concerned fairly trivial things, so when I identify male entitlement to women as a problem, that might seem like a stretch. So a girl gets kissed when she doesn't want it? Big deal!
We could argue over the size of that particular deal, but it comes up in other ways too. Yesterday, about the same time I tweeted out that day's blog, someone else was tweeting about a bar he knew being closed due to a fatal shooting. One guy was hitting on a woman, ignoring her rejection, and when another guy tried to back her up, the first guy shot him.
Comments were interesting. One person said it doesn't pay to get involved; just let women handle their own rejections. Of course, women get shot in a lot of those circumstances too. Sometimes it takes a surprisingly long time for any charges to be filed. How does that make sense if we believe women have the right of refusal?
There are a lot of directions we could go with that, but right now I want to talk about Nate Parker.
The release of Parker's film The Birth of a Nation was overshadowed by learning that he and his writing partner, Jean McGianni Celestin, had been tried for rape. Celestin was convicted and served some time. Parker was acquitted. The main difference appears to have been that Parker had previously had sex with the victim and Celestin hadn't.
When it was discovered that the victim had committed suicide, there were some expressions of regret, especially at the beginning, but Parker eventually became more frustrated, saying he was falsely accused and proven innocent.
It is possible that on one level he believes that. The jury appears to have believed that the woman's willingness to have sex with him one time vindicated him, and he could easily believe that. I have not read anything about him saying that Celestin should not have been convicted, but their continued association and collaboration may indicate that. Maybe the jury's disagreement was on whether Parker's continued right to sexual access included the right to bring a friend.
I was interested in the movie upon first learning of it but not sure if I would see it, wondering if the importance of the content made it worth seeing the violence that would be depicted. Then, learning of the rape, the question was whether it was more important to support a Black filmmaker or to not support a rapist. Those questions always wait for an answer until I see some reviews.
It quickly became apparent that I was not going to see it - that what was done with the material did not justify seeing it. I can't find the article that was most influential on me now, but here are two that cover some of the key issues.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/nate-parker-failed-birth-of-a-nations-women.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/movies/how-the-birth-of-a-nation-silences-black-women.html
It feels ironic that these two rapists made their characters' main motivation avenging rape, but if women are your property maybe it makes sense.
It is not surprising to me that they do not give fair representation or agency to the women in the film. That makes perfect sense.
I know I'm going long, and there is some awkward bluntness, and this is not a pleasant topic, here so close to Christmas, but it is a religious holiday coming up, so let me be a little religious.
In my church we go over the steps of repentance pretty regularly, which starts with recognition. You have to know that you did something wrong. There will be remorse where you feel sorrow for that sin, and then you will ask God for forgiveness. Also, you need to do restitution if possible, and turn from your sin, never doing it again.
I have criticized non-apologies before - "I am sorry if I offended anyone" - because it is not really acknowledging that something hurtful or damaging or wrong was done.
Looking at Parker, I see more how it holds him back. This should have been a great film. There are some decent historical sources for inspiration, there are current social ills that make it timely, and this nation needs to deal with its past. But Parker hasn't dealt with his. It holds back his art. It holds back his growth as a person.
What he should have said could have been something like this.
"At that time my friends and I were preoccupied with sex. It didn't just feel good; it felt like victory. In that pursuit, we did not think about the feelings or needs of the women around us. We did not intend to cause pain, but we did not care enough to think about whether we were. We only thought about ourselves and we caused irreparable harm. We were not unusual in those feelings, as shown by my acquittal, but they were wrong, and we were wrong."
That is a hard thing to say. It's hard to admit you did something criminal. It's hard to admit you did something ugly. It's hard to believe you did something cruel when you didn't feel cruel.
It's just needed. We spend too much time dehumanizing other people so we can get our way over them and not feel guilty about it. Something better starts with looking around and recognizing the humanity all around us, one person at a time.

Consent again, plus mistletoe!

Sometimes, around this time of year, my mind goes back to what is possibly the angriest I have ever made anyone not in my immediate family.
It was 1996. I think Toy Story was just coming out on home video, and there were a lot of commercials for it. (That is relevant.)
It happened at a church Christmas party. This was a singles ward, which is also relevant.
I saw a guy sneaking up behind my friend Elizabeth with mistletoe. I called out a warning, allowing her to duck away and thwarting the kiss.
Ironically, I like the idea of mistletoe. I have worn it in my hair before, not that it led to any kissing. That's the thing, though, I would never have used it to force a kiss on anyone. Having a form of encouragement around for people who might be inclined to kissing is cute and fun. Using it to get past a lack of inclination is gross.
In this case, I knew Liz had not had her first kiss (it is not at all unusual to have Mormon girls in their 20s who haven't kissed yet; we must not date right) and that was not how she would want her first one to happen.
That was not just because of Liz, although she was very grateful. I had a friend in junior high who had her first kiss taken from her by Travis, and he was gross.
I feel bad labeling another human being "gross", but as 13 year old girls, that was how we felt. He had horrible acne, which I had heard at least one funny but not nice joke about. He was socially awkward - possibly not neurotypical, but you can still respect boundaries and he didn't. It seems like every school had one guy like him; there is always someone gross who obsesses about kissing the girls.
So one day she was on her way into school and he just goes up to her and kisses her on the lips. There was no warning, no invitation, and his technique was like a goldfish. We tried consoling her that there would still be the first time that she kissed someone. Then it would be her choice, and it would be good, but it simply shouldn't have happened. I wasn't going to let it happen to someone else.
This guy was also a type I have met many times. He was recently out of the military, very brash and enthusiastic, but not as endearing as it could have been, mainly because he thought he was so much smarter than he actually was. He looked like he felt super-clever on his approach, and then he looked really mad at her escape.
I don't remember how mad he got because of that moment, but because of how much he held onto it. For weeks after that, I was his enemy. There were glares, and I could not say something good about someone or be complimented in his hearing without some kind of derision.
That's where Toy Story comes in. In the commercial it showed Mr. Potato Head removing his lips to kiss his butt, as a sign for sucking up (I believe because of Slinky Dog's expression of faith in Woody). This guy made a clumsy allusion to that, but he did it to a really nice and caring person where she did not get what he was going for. Then he had to be more specific, and she was like "Gina is a really good person and you can't really know her if you're saying that."
That is probably one reason why this was not traumatic for me. I don't love having people holding grudges against me, but it was clear that this couldn't damage me, and anyway, sisters before misters.
It still made an impression because it seemed so disproportionate. Don't sneak kisses on people, don't force kisses on people - you do not have the right.
But maybe that's the problem; on one level he thought he should have the right. Maybe he knew he didn't, but he didn't want to think about that.
It seems possible that my interference was more offensive to him because I was not a girl he wanted to kiss. I do occasionally hear accusations of ugly girls being jealous and trying to sabotage guys with pretty girls. I guess that could happen, but that's not what was going on there.
If it's part of that mindset where men want to acquire women, where there is a sense of property, and there is some contest involved, well, then I guess that could make my interference an assault on his masculinity - perhaps even a worse one symbolically if the penalty for insufficient masculinity is getting stuck with an ugly girl.
That sounds pretty gross, so I would hope it wasn't that, but if not it was a really outsized grudge.

Band Review: Ray Toro

I have one complaint about the Ray Toro's solo debut, Remember the Laughter; "Isn't That Something" is too short.
It's not ridiculously short, clocking in at 3:04, but it feels like going a little bit longer would move me from thinking about getting up and dancing around to actually doing that. While there are ways in which that would be totally inconvenient, it's still very appealing.
As it is, the track probably works better with the overall feel of the album, which is more reflective. In interviews Toro has referred to looking at old photographs. That is exactly how listening feels: there is nostalgia, and bittersweet loss, and there is hope because there is so much love.
There is a series of five short, non-musical tracks scattered throughout that increases the overall effect of going back through memories. Emotional recollections dominate, but some memories come almost as flashbacks - with an image or sound or smell that moment has crystallized around. Together they create a very moving work.
It may also be the most surprising of the post-My Chemical Romance solo projects. We all know that Ray can do blistering guitar. There is very little of that here, but why should there be? We already knew about that, and he can do so much more.
That is why I am not complaining about the omission of "For The Lost and Brave", released shortly after the death of Leelah Alcorn. There is a unity of sound and feeling to the album and this song would not fit in with it, so the choices made were reasonable. But it should still be heard, and can be:
https://soundcloud.com/therealraytoro/for-the-lost-and-brave
That link goes directly to that song, but the full Soundcloud page, in addition to the album tracks, has some other demos, including a demo for "Isn't That Something", which is promising, but not as good as the final version. That is interesting to check out as well.
Ray Toro is one of the greatest guitarists out there, but he is more than that, too, and it is good to hear.
Remember the Laughter is available through iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1159818828?ls=1&app=itunes
http://www.raytoro.com/#home
https://www.facebook.com/Ray-Toro-796927577025200/
https://soundcloud.com/therealraytoro
https://twitter.com/raytoro