I just ordered myself this ‘fancy’ new cordless hand-vacuum from Amazon… the new Dirt Devil Kone in Plum ($39.99). If it weren’t for the fact that I actually need a cordless vacuum and have been checking Target and such places for one lately, this would be a purely esthetic-driven HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE purchase and, therefore, pathetic. It sure is perty, though.

Thinking about this whole vacuum thing, I remembered a Bugs Bunny cartoon I watched in my youth where Hansel and Gretel stole the witch’s broom and quipped, upon escaping her clutches, “Ah, your mother drives a vacuum cleaner!”

I couldn’t remember if the witch had a name, so I did a little searching. Her name was Witch Hazel (oh, how clever). The episode was called “Bewitched Bunny” and it’s from 1954. Here’s a Chuck Jones sketch:

The episode was apparently quite controversial. At the end of the cartoon, the witch sprinkles herself with magic powder and turns into a beautiful female rabbit. As Bugs walks away with Hottie McBunny there, he ‘turns’ to the camera and says, “Ah sure, I know! But aren’t they all witches inside?”

In 1998, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council handled a complaint from a woman who wrote in to her local station, which had played that cartoon some weeknight during The Bugs & Tweety Show. WELL, it’s interesting to read the case. Here’s a quote from the complainant’s letter:

Televising this anti-woman cartoon demands that you personally offer a televised apology to woman viewers of Global Television. This can best be done during the “First National” news program and repeated at the 11 p.m. news program. A copy of this complaint is being mailed to the CRTC.

And a portion of the reply:

In the episode you refer to, one could argue that the female character (the witch) is portrayed as strong and intelligent, while the males are seen as weak and somewhat naive. While Bugs Bunny warns the witch that “any rabbit’s too smart for you”, she actually outwits the rabbit, not once, but three times in attempting to catch him.

And the reply to that:

I did not complain about the witch! She was behaving like a witch, not a woman!

I complained about the statement by Bugs in regard to the attractive female rabbit, “aren’t they all witches inside?” Implying that all females are evil and destructive.

This is the basis of my complaint.

If the audience had been adults, perhaps we could chuckle and forget it. This cartoon was aimed at children who are forming their attitudes to men and women. Therefore, this cartoon is not only offensive to women, but gives a wrong idea of women to impressionable children: women are evil inside. “Aren’t they all witches inside?” This means I am a witch inside, Charlotte Bell is a witch inside, and Gretel of the cartoon is a witch inside. Misogynistic attitudes do not belong in children’s cartoons.

If my wrist is feeling better tomorrow, I’ll amend this entry to add my two cents. It’s hurting me right now, so the one-handed typing is becoming even more frustrating.

Basically, it will be something about applying current social/moral standards to works created in a very different social climate and accepting them as historical works. A cartoon shown at 5 p.m. is vastly different from a Saturday morning cartoon or one shown in a morning block of children’s programming. Parents should be aware of what their kids are watching and be there to navigate situations like these; for all we know, they could be terrified at the prospect of a witch plotting to fatten up and eat children. For that matter, the stories of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen aren’t really for sensitive children of today either; they’ve been Disney-fied and bowdlerized into oblivion and bear no resemblance to their original forms.

My apologies. I must stop now. I need to take some Motrin and get to bed.

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A release about their new recommendation systems, Suggester and UnSuggester.

UnSuggester is a brand new idea in recommender technology. Recommender systems usually work by similarities. Amazon’s “Customers who bought this item also bought” and LibraryThing’s “People with this book also have” are typical of the type—What books do people buy together? What books occur often in the same member libraries?

UnSuggester flips this logic: What books DON’T occur in the same libraries? We took our “similars” algorithm and changed “sort ascending” to “sort descending” and—hey presto!—instead of similar books, we get opposite ones. You bet we’re going to patent it!

How does it work?

UnSuggester starts by finding every copy of the book in question and all of its owners. So, taking Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War as an example, LibraryThing finds the 600-odd people who have entered this ancient classic in their account. Then it makes a big pile of all their other books, a pile of some 623,000 books in all. Then it does a little math. If LibraryThing has seven million books, then a pool of 623,000 book is about 8% of the total. If this pool were average, it would also contain 8% of the Harry Potters, 8% of the Derridas and 8% of the Danielle Steels. But this isn’t so. People who own Thucydides aren’t a random cross-section of the book-loving public. For example that 8% also contains almost half the Caesar and Plutarch in LibraryThing. At the other end of the scale, Thucydides-fanciers are particularly immune to the novels of Marian Keyes and Dean Koontz. The greatest disconnect occurs with Louise Rennison’s popular, teeny-bopper chick-lit novel Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging : confessions of Georgia Nicolson—the top UnSuggestion.

Looks like I’m not going to get any work done today.

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I had a visit with the venerable head doctor today. We talked about how frustrating it is for me to be so dependent upon my family with this whole wrist thing… and then I told him about the book I read last week; another book about depression.

The focus of this one was CBT - no, not some S&M reference, but cognitive behavioral therapy. The case studies were interesting enough, but very little of what the author (a psychiatrist himself) said seemed realistic or effective. What it boiled down to in his anecdotes was that while medication and therapy are OK, the only way to snap out of depression (and he proposes that it is entirely curable and not necessarily chemical) is to “simply” realize that you are embarking upon these negative thought patterns yourself and that if you keep telling yourself that “it’s all in your head,” you’ll be better before you know it; that if you recognize the cognitive distortion and dissonance, you’re there! At the cusp of healing!

It just seems too neat; too easy; too much like bullshit.

The one realization I had while reading this book didn’t come directly from the book, but was the result of some thinking about what the book was saying (or not saying).

Depression… glass. Just to mix things up.
For a long time, I didn’t believe that therapy could help me. Even after I made the decision to seek help and found a doctor — who is neither condescending nor overly “squishy” and more like a sage uncle — who made me feel comfortable and like I was actually learning something from talking to him, I still refused to consider medication for 6 months. After 6 months of talking and still experiencing deeper and longer bouts of depression, despite my newfound understanding and way of looking at things, I agreed to try meds. Personally, my overall experience has been good; with one exception, I’ve responded well to the meds (4 different ones over the past 4 years, with one of them being taken for a total of 2 weeks before I started getting jittery and stopped taking it.)

So, I was telling my doctor about the realization I experienced while reading this book and reviewing my personal history: that I have been experiencing this treatment rather passively. I take my pills; I talk to the doctor and take home a few nuggets of good advice and things to think about each time. However, they only stick with me for a few days at most before the next batch of crap overtakes me and I cease to know how to function.

He agreed that if this is a concern, I need to be active and pro-active about it; that I need to build up my internal points of reference (since I’m forever comparing myself to others - if only in my own mind) and work on developing some strength of will (or whatever you would call it) that will allow me to be less critical, negatively and cynically analytical and hard on myself. I have to remind myself that my little internal mirror is warped and smudgy, so I’m not getting the best reflection.

Perhaps most importantly (and this is what I told the doctor in response to his assertions, condensed above) I have to accept the fact that I’m cerebral, analytical and cynical and not see those things as being “bad.” If reflected outward and focused on the right things (here, I imitated the Dr. Evil pronunciation) somewhat like a laser, they are very good things and provide me with my humor and enhance my intelligence. I don’t say this to toot my own horn, but to mention two things that I can actually hold dear and feel pride in.

Those are two things (humor & intelligence) I can say are wholly and unequivocally mine, unlike a friend (who may have other friends), a significant other, material possessions (because despite the pleasure they provide those things can disappear or be taken away), a job (since the work you do doesn’t always provide you with a sense of deep and complete satisfaction or accomplishment, though I am lucky to have this be the case more often than not) or any physical attributes (since age or illness or life can take those or change them).

I guess two more things I can add to the list are openness and honesty. I realize that my openness may be too much for some people or situations, and that’s something I can work to temper; honesty is always good, even if it’s not pleasant or pretty.

Can I work with those four? Humor, intelligence, honesty and openness - and build up from there, holding those truths to be self-evident? Nations have been founded on fewer adjectives.

Yes. I believe I can. It’s not an easy thing, especially after 28 years of berating myself and using self-deprecating humor to “cast the first stone” since it hurts a lot less that way (queue Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown”) and there’s a perception of having the upper hand.

OK. End monologue.

My left arm really itches, so I’ma get the coolant-free compressed air can and spray some air down into my cast.

Awwww, yeah. My boy GBS comes through with a quote that will work as a partial mantra:

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

‘Tis time to settle into bed and read. These Alice Munro short stories are great; admittedly, I have not been a fan of short stories before. I like hers, though. They’re not so polished and neat as to appear contrived (”everything tied up neatly in a bow”), but they’re clearly finely crafted - I’m jealous and impressed. A good combo.

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From the New York Times op-ed page:

Two years ago, people were talking about permanent right-wing dominance of American politics. But since then the American people have gotten a clearer sense of what rule by movement conservatives means. They’ve seen the movement take us into an unnecessary war, and botch every aspect of that war. They’ve seen a great American city left to drown; they’ve seen corruption reach deep into our political process; they’ve seen the hypocrisy of those who lecture us on morality.

And they just said no.

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So, before I left work for convalescence, I got those really nice ‘get well’ cards from my co-workers. One co-worker suggested I Netflix some Joan Crawford movies; of the ones he mentioned, the only one that was available from Netflix was “Queen Bee.”

Dude. I keep re-watching the first few minutes since it has so many great quotes. Hilarious, though unwittingly (?) so. The quotes listed as memorable on the IMDb quotes page for the movie aren’t even close.

Now, I have to wonder if this was recommended because the main character’s name (the villainess played by Crawford) is named Eva. I don’t think I’m much like J.C. at all… so I’m OK.

I will, at some point, jot down all the kitschy, catty bits.
Here’s a bit for now. I’ve included the captions for you:

I’m going to have to send a big old thank-you email to the co-worker who introduced me to this film. It might’ve been years before I got to it on my own!

And now I will read some more stories from Alice Munro’s Selected Stories, one of my new Amazon purchases.

P.S. Here’s a laugh, too. It’s been around a while, and the laugh track is annoying, but who’s really watched everything on YouTube? I advise watching with the sound off.

P.P.S. I now have 859 of my books cataloged via LibraryThing. Awwww, yeah.

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Gama Birds PompidouCanvas exterior, vinyl piping, contrast blue interior, inside zipper pocket. 13″ x 7″ x 4″

It’s such a fine line. Do I need this bag? Sort of, because I’m a chick and we essentially carry our lives around in our bags. This bag looks like it would hold my iPod, cell phone, notebook, a book for reading on the train, wallet, cosmetics bag, checkbook, eyedrops, pill organizer, and perhaps even lunch if I was careful.

Not too bad for $54, either. But we shall see.

There’s a world outside of my purse lust; here are some interesting bits from today:

• Comedy Central’s blog broke the news about Rumsfeld’s resignation last night. Ha!
• The movie version of Neil Gaiman’s “Stardust” is apparently a strong enough film to be considered for summer blockbuster placement: it’s been moved from March 2007 to July 2007. Yay!
• The United States is in the midst of a helium shortage. Really.
• The Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
• In Missouri, a new constitutional amendment protects the right to conduct embryonic stem-cell research.
• And then there’s this picture posted on Wonkette.com. Great viewer comments, to boot! (Why does the phrase, “borne to heaven in angel-drawn chariots or whatever” make me laugh?)
• Britney and K-Fed called it quits. Oops. Avoiding a cheesy joke.
• I had some very tasty pad thai for lunch.

That’s it for now.

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Something I just read on the RSS feed from BoingBoing:

From Warren Ellis’s BAD SIGNAL mailing list: “Karl Rove is not Aleister Crowley, Severus Snape, Darth Vader or Satan. You can kill him by ensuring your vote is counted and being vigilant at your polling station.”

Tee-hee-hee.

Our little town got some new-fangled voting machines for this election. When you walk into the booth, there’s a huge screen in front of you. It’s the paper election ballot that you get in the mail prior to election time, except that this time it’s laid over buttons that light up when you push the box containing your chosen candidates name. Once you select the candidates you want, you press a big red button on the bottom of the panel to cast your vote. The machine issues forth an electronic (and rather triumphant / video-game sounding) trill to let you know you done good.

The only ways that could be messed up:
- the trill means nothing and your vote isn’t cast
- the paper with all the names is misaligned, thus leading to inadvertent button-pressing (highly unlikely)

I overheard the election volunteers talking about the machine since there was a guy stationed next to it counting the paper ballot stubs (that voters sign) and comparing them to the votes the machine counted. The little old lady next to him mentioned that at 4:00, they had counted 461 and the machine had only counted 456. Not horrible, but I wonder what the accepted margin of error/standard deviation is.

Anecdote: a few years ago, when my father learned that I was registered as a Democrat, he said (quite seriously, and in Polish - but this is a pretty literal translation), “so I’ve been nursing a viper in my bosom.” He doesn’t have a bosom and the idea of my father as nurturing nurse is beyond incredible… but I think it’s funny. I wonder how many Republican parents out their think of their Democratically-affiliated children as vipers.

After voting, I stopped at Staples with the family (since we all went voting together) and got a spiffy new notebook for work and some good new pens - that are only available at Staples since they’re a Staples product. They’re the Staples Opti-Flow pens. Very nice.

I haven’t had dinner. No wonder I’m ravenous. I’ll check election results while I’m at it.

Update: Big surprise. My historically blue state of NJ continues to be blue. 70% blue, actually. As of 3 minutes ago (9:50 pm) the Democrats had 101 House seats versus 79 GOP seats, but with 255 seats still undecided. I’m going to go to sleep, but I hope to wake up to a more equal House, or one that’s a little bluer than today.

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I should be totally jazzed about going back to work tomorrow and, in many ways, I am. However, I’m extremely nervous and scared about how my inability to use both hands and the tremendous slowness with which I can use the “functional” hand will impact my work life. It’s sucking the joy right out of me.

I’m nervous enough that I felt sick to my stomach at dinner (7pm) and ate some dry wheat toast and a bit of Boston lettuce as a salad for dinner; in short, I’m worrying myself sick. I took a sleeping pill at 9:30 and then a Percocet at 10 since my wrist began to throb painfully - and I still can’t relax enough to fall asleep. Usually, one Percocet tablet will knock me out 15 minutes later. Tonight, it’s getting to be two hours ‘post-ingestion’ with no effect.

Until I decided to get out of bed and occupy myself with this, I was in bed worrying and thinking and (mentally) carrying on about the friend issue I mentioned earlier today. Here I was, thinking it had been 20 minutes since I last looked at the clock when in reality it’s been an hour and 49 minutes. This realization, plus the fact that I was about to start crying and was listening to the sound of my pulse “in” my pillow and getting angry at it (like you’d be upset over a very noisy ticking clock or dripping faucet when you’re trying to fall sleep.)

Time to just browse some sites until I get drowsy… distraction is key.

Update: from the NPR “Arts & Culture” RSS feed… and on their site.

I need to find one of my CDs. It’s a compilation of different performances of Barber’s Adagio - the one pictured here, actually. It’s got a choral version, several string renditions and one performed by the Canadian Brass. I’m sure there are lots of people out there who’d poo-poo this piece as “too popular,” but the NPR piece puts it in an interesting historical context to explain part of its popularity.

Here’s an excerpt:

The “Adagio for Strings” was written by American composer Samuel Barber when he was in his 20s. With a tense melodic line and taut harmonies, the composition is considered by many to be the most popular of all 20th-century orchestral works.

“You never are in any doubt about what this piece is about, says music historian Barbara Heyman. “There’s a kind of sadness and poetry about it. It has a melodic gesture that reaches an arch, like a big sigh… and then exhales and fades off into nothingness.”

And the drugs are kicking in. Sleep time.

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I’m feeling a sudden rush of “wanting to do stuff.” It’s probably some sort of Joni Mitchell/Big Yellow Taxi-effect: “don’t it always seem to go / that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…”

Not having the use of this left hand has me planning all kinds of craziness for when I can use it again. This might end up being a good thing; I’ll be doing Pilates and yoga again since they won’t cause me pain. I’ll start running since I won’t have to worry about the utter discomfort of running while wearing a cast up to my elbow and sweating into it.

I want a new digital camera with better macro features since I want to get more into photography. I want to finish cataloging my library and start adding reviews of and excerpts from books. I already checked the copyright law on this. Using a segment of a work to review it is acceptable under the fair use doctrine:

How much of someone else’s work can I use without getting permission?

Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See FL 102, Fair Use, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.

And now…

the dangers of affiliation

A general life question. Have you ever met a friend of a friend who rubbed you the wrong way so much that you questioned your very friendship with the aforementioned friend? Not because that friend is an unsatisfactory friend, but because his/her friendship with this other individual made you feel sort of crappy about yourself (as in, “if this is the type of person they befriend, what does this say about me?“) and led to doubting the nature of your friendship? Not seriously, but enough to keep you awake? Especially when your friend knows damn well that you don’t like the other individual at all based on previous experiences. Sigh.

Yeah. It’s also nice to know that the person who rubs you the wrong way has been invited to participate in evening plans BEFORE you’re already out of the house and totally reliant upon someone else for transportation home. It’s also nice to know the proposed plans for the evening in their entirety before you leave the house; finding out about part 2 when you’re already out of the house also sucks, esp. when part 2 was apparently decided upon via group email earlier in the week (an email in which you were not included) and which leaves you sounding bitchy and nasty when you say, “F**k no - I’m not doing that.”

Do I have a right to be annoyed over this?
Yes.
But it’s fruitless to hold onto it.
I’ve vented and now I’m going to be OK.
Talking about it with the friend in question would (no doubt) lead to conversations including the phrases “being the bigger person” and excuses re: a busy schedule and the need to multi-task the social life. If it comes up again, though, I will assert from the outset that I do not wish to participate in “hang out with as many friends as possible to consolidate social life” events and that’s that. I’d rather wait a few months until I can get some pleasant time with a friend than just see them for the sake of seeing them.

I can be patient and deal with months of silence; at least I don’t get upset over that. It’s infinitely preferable to questioning an otherwise-good friendship.

(Getting pretty good with one-handed typing…)

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From ShowBizSpy.com:

Borat is often doing a parody of prejudice which, because it is so over-the-top, arguably ridicules, undermines and discredits bigotry. However, I worry that certain underclass types might take Borat seriously. They could see him as reinforcing and validating their lumpen mentality.

Taken at face value, the film seems very offensive to women and minorities. But the sub-text is quite complex, ambiguous and often subversive.

Many of the victims of his scurrilous send-ups are small-town Middle Americans. Borat gives them the rope to hang themselves. He’s baiting them. They express real ignorance and prejudice, whereas Borat is only acting.

It was really, really funny. Wrong - especially the scenes at the B&B and the rodeo (for vastly different reasons…) - but a piercingly funny/disturbing social insight/commentary.

But I wonder if the people reviewing this movie as a piece of social commentary aren’t also getting pranked in some way since there are also scenes which are purely sophomoric humor… and which self-righteous liberals could call “ground-breaking” (feelin’ all open-minded and whatnot), when they’re really just fecal/scatological jokes most often heard coming from the mouths of teenage/college age boys.

What a dilemma.

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