K.A. Laity's Blog, page 157

Things to Celebrate

UPDATE: I'll be reading as the narrator for the College of Saint Rose Women's Initiative's presentation of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues Saturday night at 7pm. The show plays on Sunday at 3pm with my fabulous colleague and friend Angela Ledford as narrator. Tickets benefit Equinox. Girls Next Door will be performing at the interval.



The desk wombat announces (though the odd angle makes it look like a two-legged creature, eh?) that there is some news to share. First, that my William Blake-inspired short story "Eating the Dream" has received the FEMSPEC: The Best of the Second Five Years first prize in fiction. They're going to announce the prizes at the Popular Culture Association Conference in San Antonio and also at Wiscon, but I won't be able to be there. FEMSPEC also gave prizes for criticism, memoir and poetry. A big party has been planned to celebrate. Congratulations to all the winners!



The other good news is that I have my ticket to Rome for spring break where I will be staying with the fabulous Alessandra. I can't wait! I've never been to Italy. I was hoping to go last fall, but things didn't quite work out. So tell me your useful Italian phrases and recommendations! I definitely want to see the Caravaggios and probably the Coliseum and the catacombs and who knows? Dance in the Trevi Fountain! I want to relax and eat good food and drink good wine and laugh and talk. Whatever happens, I'm sure I will have a wonderful time.



Kit Marlowe has been busy, too, talking about making book trailers at Tease Publishing's blog and she'll be reading from The Mangrove Legacy for the Tuesday Talking Teaser this coming week over at JoJo's Books.TODAY! Kit is the Friday Guest at Isabel Roman's blog: stop by!

BitchBuzz: Should Writers Abandon Social Media?

Three guesses what I'm going to say -- what's that? You only need one? Yeah, go on then. Read it anyway:

Should Writers Abandon Social Media?By K.A. Laity

Is social media getting to be too much to manage?



This week over at Publisher's Weekly, Andrei Codrescu castigates the use of social networking as a complete waste of time. His interactions with his 5,000 "friends" has left him bitterly disappointed, complaining that "the camaraderie utopia of Facebook and every other social network is just pixel puff, literally a u-topos, the nowhere place where data bots work overtime to reduce you to a brainless consumer" and further, it's "nothing but lies and fake grins," so you can't even get good material out of it.



Codrescu declares, "The time has come for writers to become inaccessible again." Not, he says to cultivate a mystique, but because "no real writers ever lay down anything real in public." Anis Shivani's "New Rules for Writers" (which may or may not have been "satire" as belatedly claimed) likewise suggests avoiding publicity and shunning crowds. Writers need to be solitary iconoclasts: not a good match for social media. Most writers, however, are not likely to follow their urging because social media still offers the best way to get the word out in an ever-expanding market. But many do feel a sense of exhaustion from keeping up with everything.

Read the rest: http://tech.bitchbuzz.com/should-writers-abandon-social-media.html#ixzz1CuWn5VbU



Codrescu ought to have looked around a little more, because apparently "real writers" do "lay down" something real in public, especially when they think they're talking between friends (h/t Simon Mason) and don't expect their words to be lifted from Facebook and printed by a newspaper. You may know how to use the privacy settings, but does everyone you know know?



And Codrescu? If you can't get good material out of Facebook, you've really got to get more interesting friends. I'm surrounded by passionate, funny, knowledgeable and fascinating folks who inspire me. I love the internets!



-- and have you checked out the latest pages of JANE QUIET ? Awesome work by Elena! We finally gave the new arc a title, too.

Top Ten: "High Plains Lazarus"

Snow Day

An official snow day: a rarity! It's eerily quiet around here. The only birds to be seen are the crows. The usually-busy street below my eyrie has only the occasional car. The drummer downstairs, however, is home. It was snowing quite hard yesterday morning as I walked to campus. During the short walk, here's how much snow accumulated:

Crazy, huh? And it continues to fall. Well, I plan to use the day to get some writing done of course! So go entertain yourself. What, you're bored? Well, I'll read for you for a little while, but then you'll have to find someone else with whom to while away your day. If you need something to do, start planning your submission to The Journal of the Women's League of Ale Drinkers .  All right, then?

Tuesday's Overlooked Film: Old Acquaintance

Why do I like pseudonyms? I don't know. I'm sure it means something. For the first novel I wrote back in high school, Ace Spies Incorporated (my friend Carla claims to have the only existing copy as blackmail material), I gave myself a nom de plume. Weird, eh? So my taking up the moniker Kit Marlowe continues an existing habit.



The original Kit Marlowe was of course the playwright who would have outshone Shakespeare had he lived (being far more daring and audacious). Less well known is Bette Davis' character from the movie Old Acquaintance , a big favorite of mine, based on the play by John Van Druten (he's worked on the script, too), who also wrote Bell, Book and Candle (love that movie, too). Bette Davis stars as Kit Marlowe and Miriam Hopkins as her best pal who envies her success and then emulates it. Of course, Kit Marlowe is the "arty" writer while Miriam Hopkins' Millie Drake is the popular romance writer. Why didn't I choose hers as my rom nom de plume? What can I say? I'm perverse that way.



One of the gratifying things is that the friendship between Kit and Millie outlasts both their rivalry and the man they both love. In fact, you can easily read the film as a coded lesbian narrative, with a lot of elements coming across as far campier to a modern audience than they would have done to most contemporary viewers, I suspect. Just look at the masculine way they dress Davis at the start in contrast to Hopkins' flounces and frills. Davis actually has a tie. She's very guy-ish and at their reunion at the train station gets swept away by a giggling gaggle of co-eds -- her fan club -- leaving the jilted Millie fuming and spilling milk (literally!). Hopkins' character embodies the ideal of the flibbertigibbet, but she's spurred on by a very strong sense of competition with her best friend, yet can never quite settling for winning. She alienates her husband and then her daughter, both of whom turn to the more gentle Kit for comfort. Kit continually forgives Millie's excesses despite the latter's lack of emotional generosity, until one day her patience finally runs out -- and provides one of the most satisfying cinematic moments ever:









The film was remade as Rich and Famous in 1981. It was George Cukor's last film and starred Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen. I also have a fondness for that film, though it's not as good as the earlier one. I do love the way Bergen, upon having her work called "trash" by her increasingly estranged husband, snarls to correct him that it's "successful trash!" Here's to success, however trashy.



See the full list of TOFs over at Todd's blog.

Twice as Fast

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

I shall now attempt to run twice as fast...



Sorry for being so quiet lately: I am a victim of my own fabulousness. I'm hoping that by the end of the week I shall have a couple of things sent off and will be able to relax a little more.

Happy Birthday, Miss Wendy!

You'll always be Pasty to my Edina :-) Have a great day whatever you do!

BitchBuzz: Made (Over) in Dagenham & News

Good news: "High Plains Lazarus" finished 9th in the Predators & Editors poll for Best Horror Short of 2010. I seem to be the only woman in the top ten. Thanks to everyone for their support and voting. It's always awkward asking people to vote for you, but I'm learning to be a little more shameless.



If you need a chuckle, stop by and read my piece for Polite Company Magazine, "Deleted Scenes from the State of the Union." I'm particularly proud of the birthers joke.



I'm still buried under the madness of the semester's start. Ay yi yi -- why re-entry has been so difficult, I don't know, but it has. I have to find some way to get minions. It's the only answer. But of course, the main event: my column for this week incorporates (obliquely) my review of Made in Dagenham, grumbles about the inflated praise for The King's Speech and the Oscars' preference for women who are mad, drunk or dying. Bleh:

Made (Over) in Dagenham  We don't really need to see the true grit of history, do we?



The road to Oscar success for women can be easily codified, as Film Site does for us:



"Biographies of remarkable, real-life individuals (showbiz figures and entertainers) and portrayals of the mentally ill are heavily represented among Oscar winners (and nominees), particularly in the acting awards. It helps an actress's chances of winning (or being nominated for) an Oscar if the character dies during the movie, or is alcoholic (or drug-addicted), or is a murderess."



It seems that Natalie Portman will most likely prove the winner this year, despite the incredible performance turned in by Jennifer Lawrence in the finest film of the year, Winter's Bone , for her turn as a prima ballerina falling apart, given that True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld received a nomination as a supporting actress, despite being the star of the film.



It's ironic that a saccharine "biography of a remarkable, real-life" man, The King's Speech, has scooped so many nominations when somewhat less saccharine "biography of a remarkable, real-life" woman, Made in Dagenham, was overlooked completely (right down to the Billy Bragg-penned theme song sung by real former Dagenham worker, Sandie Shaw)...

Read the rest at BBHQ: http://culture.bitchbuzz.com/made-over-in-dagenham.html#ixzz1CG9jcRzS

Ironic

[image error] Today in the New Media class, we're talking about blogging. I, however, have nothing to blog. Instead I already have a bunch of grading to do, teaching to prepare, schedules to finish working out for the rest of the semester (now incorporating visits by prospective new faculty -- hurrah!), a proposal to get sent off (also hurrah!), a website to update, a meeting to schedule, and a mind to recover in the process (ha!).



And though I thought it was over, there are a few more hours to vote for my voodoo zombie western "High Plains Lazarus" in the P&E poll . Short stories are not the most lucrative market, so this may be the most I 'earn' from this one until I can turn it into a novel (it's in the queue, but the queue gets ever longer).



So I leave you with a link to a story in The Saint Rose Chronicle by one of my students from last spring's version of the New Media course. Good to see she continues to pursue her interests. I take credit for nothing.



The word "ironic" still makes me think of that song. You know the one -- the one that's not actually ironic.

Tuesday's Overlooked Film: The Knack...and How to Get It

Before I get to the main event, some links to share: I am the Tuesday Talking Teaser over at JoJo's Book Corner, answering questions and reading from Pelzmantel, and Kit Marlowe is the featured blogger today over at the Noble Romance authors' blog, writing about her inspiration, P. G. Wodehouse.











Fresh from the success of helming the Beatles' films Hard Day's Night and Help!, Richard Lester chose to adapt the play The Knack by Ann Jellicoe. I plan to pick up the original play (and Jellicoe's essay, "Some Unconscious Influences in the Theatre") to see how her work compares to the film, as I suspect there will be some significant differences.



There are all kinds of Lester-ish touches -- I particularly love the OAPs as Greek chorus. The art direction is marvelous; from the opening frames onward there's a marvelous look to the film, often taken to be a signal example of the British New Wave cinema. The black and white palette offers a chance to explore shadings and shapes, glossy blacks and dazzling whites. From the start we have Lester's playful surreality as Michael Redgrave's neurotic schoolmaster Colin imagines the endless line of women, all dressed identically in their white tops and swinging medallions, waiting for the door to his housemate Tolen's (Ray Brooks) room to open and admit the next one.



Colin seems about ready to burst from sexual frustration and looks unfavourably on Tolen's suggestion that his mate Rory McBride -- similarly blessed with "the knack" -- should move into the vacant room, but Tolen tries to convince him that he'll pick up tips galore. Unbeknownst to both, however, the clever if often non-sequitor-spouting Tom (Donal Donnelly) has already moved into the room and begun painting everything white ("I can't bear brown"). He also moves all the furniture into the hallway, leaving the room looking rather like a John and Yoko space.



Meanwhile, girl from the North, Nancy Jones (played by the 60's zeitgeist Rita Tushingham) wanders through London trying to make her way to the YWCA and being led astray by everyone she meets. Having experienced at first hand the reluctance Londoners have to admit they don't know where something is, I was amused. Tushingham's Nancy seems content to keep looking, entertaining herself with the people she finds, but doggedly keeping on until she runs into Tom and Colin as they've located the bed the schoolmaster thinks will be key to his finding "the knack" -- a huge metal Edwardian affair. The voyage of the three and the bed through London is a delight of silliness and surreality (likewise the farcical doors scene a bit later).



If you're wondering why this film has been overlooked by many, I can tell you in one word: rape. This is why I really want to read Jellicoe's play. The attitude toward rape in the film is, well, strange. It's not simply some loathsome male rape fantasy like Straw Dogs, but it is partly that kind of outlook. When Tolen makes a move on Nancy, to her obvious discomfort, he tells her "No one's going to rape you. Girls don't get raped unless they want it." Yes, loathsome. But it doesn't end there. There's a real reluctance to let things go quite in one direction. At first Nancy seems to change her mind, mostly out of curiosity, but when Colin and Tom balk at Tolen taking her up to his room, Tolen takes her out to a park and tries to persuade her to more intimate contact which she refuses and then faints away. Discovering her senseless body, Colin and Tom accuse Tolen of murder, but when Nancy comes round, she accuses him of rape.



The succeeding scenes are quite strange: Nancy goes around shouting "rape" to people, who react in very different ways, but she can't get the word out when she comes up to a constable, though there's a pregnant pause as she opens her mouth. Returning to the house, the camera angles give all the power to Nancy the accuser, who retreats to Tolen's room and strips. The last part of the film shifts the power to Nancy and to Colin, making clear that their real connection between the two virgins becomes more important than the "fake" Tolen who gets exposed as ineffective -- and humiliated by Rory McBride who fills the Albert Hall with his women. Eventually he joins the chorus as Nancy moves into the house, flagrantly embracing a sexual life with Colin -- if we believe the fireworks in the sky as they walk chastely hand in hand. I can't help seeing the last part of the film as embodying both the male fear of rape accusations (look how quick the media are to cover false accusations, while the numerous daily rape go unreported) but also a rather idealistic belief in a less manipulative kind of love.



Tolen's smug arrogance ("All women want to be dominated") does get shot down by the end and the hapless Colin wins the girl, but it's such a bizarre little time capsule, I really don't know how to think about it. Have you seen it?