Carrie on, carrie on...because it doesn't REALLY matter, Ann Hornaday.

Dedicated critics of the Sex and the City series kind of counter-intuitively throw around the term “old slut” when trying to prove their point. Their point, in my opinion, is more often than not backed by the kind of idiotic rhetoric typically employed by Bible-thumping parents who want Mark Twain books eradicated from local libraries. “The show is supposed to be about female empowerment, but they’re just total whores,” I’ve heard acquaintances screech. Diehard fans know to counteract this approach with one of two attacks. One -- by definition, female empowerment is a movement designed to be about EMPOWERING FEMALE CHOICES, whatever form they might take. The only part of the SATC series in direct counterpoint to this idea is only embodied in those critics who use derogatory female slang to describe women at all. Two -- if you were a diehard fan (having given the series its’ due) you would know that the whole premise of the show is about navigating relationships -- commitment, marriage, love, the humiliations involved in pursuing any of these. It’s not about sex per se, it’s about life; perhaps more accurately, a specific lifestyle. The really raunchy bits in the show are usually just character fodder for Samantha, or (more cynically) just victorious assertions of power from the Big Guys at HBO flaunting their lack of censorship. I only like to accept criticisms about “Sex and the City” from people willing to concede the above paragraph’s two points, or people who have actually spent a lot of time digesting sample episodes from various seasons of the show. More than any other program I’ve willingly enslaved myself to over the past ten years, it seems to be this one that elicits unparalleled, ferocious controversy.

So women have a right to sex. As much as they can get, as old as they are. These women are often jaded and live in New York. They like fashion. The jig is up: I watch “Sex and the City” because I am the woman who moved to New York (in one sense at least) for Labels and Love, who likes fashion and da boyz. I am the kind of fan who was always going to follow and defend even the most despicable version of the spin-off movies imaginable, because practically each episode over the six year run has prompted a question (a voice over, rhetorical, pun-filled Carrie Bradshaw question) that I’ve likely asked myself in some form or other throughout my city life. Do we need drama to make relationships work? Is honesty really the best policy? Are we sluts? I like brunch. I like Smith Jerrod and Steve and Harry Goldenblatt. Thus take your PILLAR of salt.

Bearing my existing love in mind, I figured that “Sex and the City 2” would be the kind of oddly likable disaster that its advertising seemed to swear. Objectively, there were a lot of cards stacked against this film. Sequel to a romantic comedy? Yikes. See “Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason” (or rather, DON’T see it). Same clothes plus six years? Erkgsh, okay. Light-hearted vacation romp sub-plot…in the Middle East? Touche. I’m almost surprised there wasn’t more trepidation from the most manic within the fan club about the potential this recipe might have held for “abomination”. There was always the light threaded fear that characters would become caricatures and Carrie would take Big back, but it was easy to trust the ever-present hands of Michael Patrick King, and SJP, and Patricia Field. Besides, everyone knows those light-threaded-fear ships sailed somewhere before the end of season six. (I still don’t know what people are complaining about whenever they suggest the Girls have become fops. They were always fops. They were always only slightly complicated archetypes with a lot of opinions. You can call that a caricature if you like, but if that’s an onerous definition I question why people like you go to the movies at all.)
Perhaps because I did go in with such low expectations, I liked “SATC2” because it was nowhere near as awful as it may have been. Like a lithe ballerina in a dodge ball match, the film was able to artfully dance around what could have been its horrific, condemning obstacles. The foray into the Middle East always tiptoed just a little to the left of politically incorrect and culturally insensitive: each almost-blunder (How does the girl in the birka eat a French fry?!) was tempered with some fun cultural tidbit (The beautiful souk, the beautiful desert…). More disturbing than the general portrayal of the Middle East (Marrakech as Abu Dhabi) was just the jarring-ness of seeing the Girls there. But it wasn’t the jarring-ness of Blackface poorly handled, it was the jarring-ness of your Southern aunt attempting to order food in Spanish from a legitimate Tex-Mex restaurant. Slightly uncomfortable, but -- if you dig deep within your soul -- not necessarily offensive.

I was kind of fussed by the Big Gay Wedding in the opening scene of the movie. Stanford Blatch and Anthony Marentino have felt like a sour couple since SATC1, where the rest of the gay world seemed to vanish from New York’s background and leave these two enemies alone to duke it out…and then get married…because they’re the two gay characters. But even amidst the opulent wash of Liza Minelli singing a version of “All the Single Ladies”, that same comfortable, goofy feeling of your Aunt stumbling through Spanish verb tense kicks in -- Anthony, at the altar, breaks down and confesses that he really does love Stanford. I want to give the gang kudos at this point for putting one of the first mainstream gay weddings put on the Silver Screen into such a fabulous, glittery context -- even if it is that term (hushhushhush) un-politically correct. Moreover, it’s splashy, fun, it’s a romp, and it’s still truthful to the context. It’s harmless.

Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte are who they always were. This is the most comforting. If you are a true fan (the kind who likes brunch, the kind who likes these women for what they represent, the kind who respects this lifestyle even if they can’t fully condone every particle of it) this will guide you through the brackish water of opulent, outrageous dress-up clothes, tepid puns and half-baked subplots that leaves you questioning your own moral codes and standards of “political correctness”. I probably sound like someone defending a pretty bad movie with a pretty uppity set of personal values, but I’m certain this film can be appreciated even by those who can’t tell you where Carrie’s ficticious apartment address is. As always, the greatest thing about the series is that everything from the dialogue to the situations is lifted straight from the comfort of a Girls’ Night sleepover, where we tend to handle the issues of our lives with humor, tongue-in-cheek self deprecation, shopping and cocktails. And what should a movie about women being empowered have but these qualities, and fuck all the conventional rest? It never was conventional or proper to be a single city girl in the first place. It’s almost odd now that conventions -- be they civic, social or cinematic -- were ever expected of a piece like this in the first place.
And if I were a political person meant to comment on Abu Dhabi, and the gay wedding, and the vague thread of international sisterhood that follows everyone around, I might say to the world…lighten up. We did not always look to Hollywood to guide our moral compass. Political correctness is irrelevant and dull.
I like the old sluts.

Three Good Stories

You are getting older. Don't do anything about it.

It has begun.
The ennui.
It settles and looks like fine dust and a very dull headache and sunlight, the ugly kind. I keep "forgetting" to take showers. I eat a meal at one in the morning. I sleep till one in the afternoon. I budget, and plan, and do things halfheartedly and haphazardly. The light and the heat make me think of sex.
It might be even harder with Lovely Things on the horizon. They're taunting in their far-awayness. More pressing is the Money, for this is the artist's first encounter with the weight of paper. Meaning, I need 400 euro for my travel plans. SOS.
I just finished these two surprisingly similar (theme-wise, anyways) non-fiction memoirs. One was "Slouching Towards Bethlehem", by Joan Didion. Pause for a minute and say her name a few times. It's a very good name. The second book was Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast". Pertinently, "Slouching..." is a kind of massive metaphor for the end of the Hippie Movement, in tandem with Joan's own disillusionment with a lot of things. It's also happy, and about where and how she comes to find peace in her native California. The ending essay, though, (called GOODBYE TO ALL THAT) is horribly striking as its about her outgrowing New York. After I read it, I watched some Sex and the City episodes. Wondered if I would ever outgrow New York. Then, I thought about beauty. You see, I'm also reading "The Unbearable Lightness of Being".
New York, I think, is very beautiful.
Ernest (we're on a first-name basis) was maybe even more immediately pertinent, because "A Moveable Feast" is an account of his early years in Paris with Hadley. And Gertrude Stein. And F. Scott. The whole memoir is so drenched in nostalgia. My favorite essay ended with this beautiful beautiful beautiful line about him and Hadley planning their day, and realizing that despite their poverty they were very happy anyways, very very happy. PARAPHRAZZED: "We ought to have knocked on wood. The whole apartment was full of it, but we didn't knock on wood for luck." And just...isn't that sad? Here goes the world, whizzing past your ears. Like a gnat. Like a summer afternoon.
And then I spoke to a woman who had just had a baby, who maybe wanted to hire me to take care of it. She offered to drive me home after the interview even though I'd taken the Metro. When we were in the car she confided, "I never thought I'd see the day when going to the grocery store or leaving the house for twenty minutes was like...freedom." I can see it. I could see it in their piles of books and their bold, modern color scheme and that silly, laughable way he held his baby, a way I'm certain Dr. Spock might have corrected had he been present. She's writing her dissertation, this particular Mom. And I pictured it! I pictured writing an opus and I knew for certain I could do it. I pictured always regretting never going to a singing audition. I pictured young months, years, in Paris, in California, I pictured being in love, and could not even worry about its imminent, impending closeness (which implies its imminent, impending end). I raise fret-blistered fingers upwards to try to snatch at things that look like tools.

You see, I think a year ago I would have just read "A Moveable Feast" or "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and thought they were very sad and depressing and just left it at that. I might also have thought they were romantic, but so incredibly distant in their romance. The whole thought sequence would likely have ended ultimately with me feeling sorry for myself, and my lame life and my lame habit. This woman writing her dissertation, and this husband unsure how to carry a squirming baby, they would have seemed far far away as well.

I listen to that song "Time" by Pink Floyd, and cannot explain to anyone else why I think it's actually kind of optimistic (it isn't. I am wrong).

No, no, here it is.
I never used to read non-fiction.

Back in the Days When I was-a-teen-aga

The most memorable part of high school (which is in fact not a pretentious or sweeping statement to make, because I am now far enough away from high school that whatever comes to mind first is by default the most memorable, oui?) may have been anticipating "Stadium Arcadium."

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were, for me, The Thing. They were basically the only band I elected to let myself like that produced good music at any point over the fifteen or sixteen years I'd been alive by then, as opposed to...before that. Courtney Burtraw and I used to sit in the Silver Chips computer lab and spend time preparing for this album to come out. We made charts and lists and exotic plans to follow the band over the summer, and abroad, and to Albany when it seemed as if they weren't planning a pitstop in Washington. I watched the "Can't Stop" video (By the way...) and the "Dani California" video every day, unironically. I was wide eyed and faithful and there was absolutely nothing as exciting as holding my breath in anticipation for this album to come out. And it was the last CD I consciously bought, before I started cheating and using iTunes and what have you to get music.

This isn't serving a greater point. It's not particularly well-written or insightful, which is kind of a bummer because the whole need to impart this two paragraph memory came from a Chuck Klosterman essay I just read and decided to recreate in personal terms. But I'm kind of content to bask in this very warm, snuggly memory and leave you to do the same. Make your own intellectual leap, I'm going to listen to the Zephyr Song.

Like shouting at the wind or shining from the inside-out?

I wonder about the significance of witnesses.
Yesterday my directing teacher highlighted something we all must have assumed was true but never really allowed ourselves to believe: the first few years out of college, you will mostly be making work exclusively for an audience of your friends. The imagination fills in the grubby Brooklyn warehouse spaces, the lovable archaic reno-tenements and peoples' living rooms with dimmed kitchen chandelier lighting design (may have just made up that last one). There are a few things sort of funny about this:
Friends have a civic duty (bypassable in the art world, presumably) to applaud you for whatever you do. As honest and direct as they could possibly be, it's like 67% likely that they'll still cushion whatever truthful feedback they might give your work with a "but I love you!" or not even want to enter criticism at all with a demeaning and dismissive: "that was so great!". You'll feel as if you've done something fine. Everyone could be lying to you. Now the question arises: are you actually making work FOR your friends (for them to dislike, or pretend to like, or love, whatever) or are you making work for the entire world but have only managed to round up acquaintances for whatever reason? Two caveats: limited audience, limited interpretation. Secondly, no criticism, no improvement or perspective. And one other thing, depressing and dangerous to suggest -- why would you ever want to make theater just FOR YOUR FRIENDS? Shouldn't the goal always be to transcend space and time and populace with your missive? If all this is so, how does one take these "first few years out of college" with the seriousness required for creating amazing art?
On a physical note, my caffeine headache is rolling over the hill and it feels like someone is squeezing my brain between two palms.
What is this thing to which we want to dedicate our lives?
Maybe it's a need. I think it's compulsion, honestly. I don't think anyone could answer really well for why they have to do theater and not...correspondence journalism, in terms of even those artists with grand delusions of helping heal the world with their art. I've thought a lot this year about how theater is a language just like dance or mathematics or Swahili, and if you feel the need to speak at all you want to do it in your own vibrant, native tongue, the tongue that thrills you to your core.
And I guess discussions (peace talks, relationship dramas, those kinds of things) are usually most productive when everyone speaks the same language. Anything, anywhere, is most productive when everyone speaks the same language. Use your English, no, I don't mean Language language.
Pfuh.