Maira Kalman’s Pink Chair

 

Clothing Lines

While we’re on the subject of literature – I have made a discovery! Much like the intrepid explorer who wanders through a hostile jungle only to stumble, suddenly, into a death-trap swamp hidden under the debris, I have been wading trough reams and heaps of chick-lit, only to discover a sub-strata.

I like to call it Frock Fic.

Where chick-lit deals with the emotional rollercoaster that is coming of age, finding a man, having him find you and then settling down, Frock Fic uses the same rollercoaster as disguise for a wardrobe party.

The real drama of the story isn’t whether she’ll get or not get her man – it is in the height of her heels and the cut (probably bias) of her skirt. Instead of dialoguing, there is cataloguing of designer items. Instead of detailing the thoughts of the heroine, there are in-detail descriptions of the detailing on her jean-pocket. Let us look, for example, at the terribly addictive Luxe series:

Superficially, it is the story of the blonde, the brunette, the raven and the redhed – all on their semi-moral hunts for hubbies. Set in 1900, in New York, they all have class, sass, and sometimes cash. Seems basic.

The more you read, however, the more you realise that this is truly, as with all the best fiction, a tale of many layers. Literally. No one can make but the slightest appearance in the story without an in-depht portrayal of her gowns, and buttons, and capes, and brooches.

Given the fact that the author is constantly changing the scene, leaving no one in the same shirtfront for more than five stanzas, this leaves little space for delving the emotional depths of the dashing beaux and belles. The length of their bangs however, are given with exactitude.

Confusing? Frustrating? Yes, until one realises. This isn’t a story about love – it’s a story about lace. The clothes are the point of this drivell ever being written.

 Which makes it much, much, easier to place this Frock Fic in it’s correct literary tradition. The fashion blog. Most of these are – I tell you they must be – fiction. Look at the outfits depicted there. Pleather shorts with zebra booties and a corselette. Pink socks in brown pumps with plum harempants and taupe spangles. Orange eyelet bathingsuits with furry trim – in December!

Or else: excruciatingly beautiful, heart-renderingly perfect, absolutely fabulous clothes. Costing a kings bloody ransom. And displayed on the lithe frame of a highschool student earning a maximum of peanuts (that go uneaten) for her babysitting.

In related news, I will now put on comfy slippers and log on to Sea of Shoes: my kind of bed-time story.

Swedish Academy Internet Debacle Cause Ill Gotten Gains to Be Spent on Comfortable Shoes

So by now you’ve all read the Literary Saloon, right, about the link doing the rounds at the Svenska Akademin?

“The referrer logs for the Literary Saloon yesterday — when I’d mentioned that the Müller-odds were worth paying attention to — showed several visits from mail.Svenskaakademien.se        

Visits from the Swedish Academy (who select the Nobel laureate) aren’t that unusual, but more than one in close succession is — and this indicates someone there was mailing around the (well, a) link.”

What can we learn from this?

a) Maybe they should get one academian on there who knows which button turns “on” the computer. Nothing against age and wisdom, but there is something to be said for being rudimentarily aware of the world around you, even if you do, you know, dig books.

b) Everybody does it: procrastinating at work by googeling themselves. I’ll be doing it myself in a few minutes, checking the rating for “bitter shoe fetishist who thinks the prize should have gone to Candace Bushnell.com”

c) When standing around in a hot and crowded room, waiting for the clock to chime and the little man to come out of the gilt door, you’ll wish you’d worn sneakers. (Though heels are a must if you want to see the little man over the heads of the sweating camera men).

d) If no-one else at work follows the Literary Saloon, you can make a killing in the office laureate betting pool.

Breeze

There are two things to do with Gone With the Wind.

1. You may submerge yourself in it:

The night of my tenth birthday was spent in a Kazakstan airport. This was back in 1991, and things weren’t so pretty in Kazakstan. The airport was half built, or half crumbled, some walls seemingly plastered together with Alpine-landscape fag-ads. The lavatories smelled suspiciously like the airplane breakfasts served by Aeroflot and we huddled on black leather couches.

Sometime later we touched down in Singapore. At the Raffles, we had Singapore Slings and the waiter asked if we wanted refills, and I knew the word for yes and said it quickly, and my mother laughed. We heard the story of the tiger shot in the bar, and stroked our hands along the ridiculously sumptios dark-green painted wood and the creamy white walls, and then we went back to our hotel, where a chinese man bleeding from the head slumped outside our door. No lock.

And then we were on the high-octane blue seas, visting small islands were the police travelled by canoe, and platforms out in the middle of the ocean where everything was crusted with salt, and we sat in the shade and showered in the rain and we ate rice and chicken, or chicken and rice, till all of the chickens on the island were dead and then we had pancakes.

We travelled down rivers, in the jungle, and ate tiny fish in hot sauce for breakfast at the Muslim mayor’s house. The cat there lived in the kitchen on a sewing-machine and we all slept and bathed with our clothes on, and the days were hot and dusty and the nights were hot and dusty, too.

In the big cities we bought fresh clothes and orange-juice, I had silver braclets and sat on dusty steps waiting. This I remember from the photos taken: we all look a pale green in the strong light and the mosquito-bites show and my ponytail is very severe and not at all flattering, and in the mirrors my mother shows up a star or an explosion right between my short,  little 8-year old brother and my pre-pubescent self.  

And in all the pictures my eyes are fixed, not at the beautiful if slightly off-focus scenery, nor at the elephant dipping his tusks, nor at the big yellow fruits piled high, but on the pages of Gone With the Wind.

I was Scarlet and Melly, and fell down stairs, and felt a twinge, and wore the green velvet curtains. I hated Ashley and I loved Rhett and I didn’t know it and the baby sure was ugly, and I wondered, like the old shrew, what the inside of a whorehouse would be and would there be chandeliers?

I had never heard of race and I had no idea what corn-bread would taste like but I was dying to try, and I wondered what a 17-inch waist would look like and I skimmed my on the surface of the placid djungle river and pretended it was taffetta. I had never seen – nor have I still seen – taffeta.

I touched the dusty ground of Asia and pretended I grew cotton, and a hat from Paris, and I was raging mad at Scarlet for building an ugly house, for if Rhett said it was ugly then of course he was right, and if his moustaches tickled then I wouldn’t settle till I found someone with a moustache with which to tickle, and I decided then and there to be careful about puckering up for a kiss because Rhett said it was silly and would kiss me for real instead. 

And when I got to the end I started again.

2) You may write a book about it from a feminist perspective, like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/books/review/White-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

History in the Making

1.

Stockholm Oct-May sucks. Most months average seven days of sun. Needless to say, none of these fall on weekends. You need to be resourceful if you are not to succumb to severe depression. For me, this has so far meant keeping a good library, a well stocked larder, and an eye on the TV-guide.

But then I met the Better Man. Being Better, he does not approve of lazing. Which explains why, this Saturday, instead of looking at glossy pictures of celebs at (my) home in (my) underwear, I was brought to the (National) Historical Museum.

Probably the Worst Museum I Have Ever Visited Including the One Room Museum of Musical Instruments in Simrishamn, Where They Have Hitler’s Harmonica, If I Remember Rightly.

2.

Sometime lateish lastish century, someone got the idea that linear history was old hat. The tune of history lessons changed. No more chorus chanting of the names of old kings. Instead, independent thinking and analysis became the order of the day.

Which is all very well. But as it turns out, a plausible analysis can be quite hard to pull off with any success, if it has no facts to prop it up.

Alas, the Swedish govt remedied the complete failure that was modern history lessons by slashing them altogether. I believe the argument went, verbatim:

“If we just teach all the kids In-Design, they will turn into Art Directors. And Art-Directors have no need of history. They only need tight pants.”

3.

Unfortunately for all, before the Swedish educational system collapsed completely, it managed to turn out some academics. Since they need to be employed, and the Art-Director business is rather crowded at the moment, some kindly spirit has given them a haven: a sanctuary – work at the (National) Historical Museum.

To this venerable institution, they bring with them their rather philosophical take on History: that It may or It may not have happened. And so, at the Museum today as in Schools of yore, it is out with the info and in with the yadda-yadda-yadda.

In all aspects of Museal life, they have decided to stay well clear of any hampering facts. At least I can see no other way to explain why they have put on such a realistic staging of wartime Britain. All the signs have been taken down and one is left to grope geblinded for das ladies room, der weig to the Viking exhibition, and Het Gift Geshoppe.

4.

It gets worse though. For the good people of the Historical Museum are not content to withhold information. Wanting the public to truly grasp the Enigmatic Qualities of What (May) Have Gone Before, they bombard the hapless visitor with an infinite number of frankly impossible questions. Without any previous information, one is expected to ad-lib answers to questions that have baffled scholars (sic) for centuries.

“What happened to the Raspberry Girl?” they ask me in connection to a few rags and bones.

Huh? Is my best answer, given that I do not personally know the Raspberry girl, have no idea of where she was found or when she may have lived, and they BLOODY WONT TELL ME.

“Was It Found at the Magical Lake Urgu Murgu (spelling optional)?” another sign queries, regarding a small heap of scrap metal.

Again, I must answer – yeah, perhaps? What is this lake? Who calls it by that name? Why did no one question the use of the word Magical? I will never know.

Most bizarre though, is putting an Arabic, a Celtic and a Buddhist artefact in the same display, with the caption “Is It Not Strange That These Were Found Together?”.

You tell me. I think its doubly strange showing them without any mention of trade-routs or sackings.

5.

And then, after a few hours of relativist guesses, one is presented with a rather sharpish slap in the face of any but the secular. At the end (or possibly beginning?) of the tour, after a room with (possibly) religious (possibly) 11th century (possibly) wood carvings of (possibly) Saints, we came upon a humongous Vagina.

The Vagina was made of red velvet. From inside the Vagina came the sound of piped music. Peering into the Vagina, we saw a video of a lactating white lily. Walking through the Vagina, we found ourselves suddenly in the café.

I am not supremely religious or feminist. But I do find it odd that the most definite statement this Museum makes is one that is A) offensive to people of faith and B) offensive to people who’d rather have Female Strenght and Importance Through Time represented by something less bio-centrist than Labia.

6.

I can draw no conclusions. I can only sigh, and ask… Or wait: actually, I can, and it borders damn well near on fact:

The (National) Historical Museum in Stockholm caters exclusively to those who have a substantial prior knowledge of the subject, who are comfortable with Swedish cultural pre-conceptions, and intimately acquainted with the Museums lay-out.

Which seems rather a slim demographic to warrant state funding.

7.

Caveat: there may have been more signs, information I did not see. Possibly in the attic.

I’ll Know Whom You’ll Be Doing Next Summer

And while on the subject of technical…uh, stuff: here’s a site that has got me rather uncomfortably perched on a fence, (an action rather fitting for my new birdy self). www.bok.nu.

It tells you what you will like too read. And with whom, most likely.

Rather a bland selection of titles, but still, a better way of finding internet shags than those based on height.

Poetry+Islam= Poetry-Slam?

Atypically, I decided to do some research. Here are some actual facts I’ve found on the Shiaite-Lit discussed in last post.

1) Poetry is big(ger) than fiction.
2) Spoken Word, or storytelling, is more culturally/historically typical than writing stuff down.
3) This is the link to Palestinian Literature on Wikipedia

4) There are 468 hits on Palestine Fiction on Amazon, including this one

5) This is The Book I obviously have to read, while you wait with bated breath, to know more.

Wonderful Wizard Oz

I do not care deeply about the sufferings of others, as epitomized by the multiple conflicts in the Mashreq. I even fell asleep trying to watch Syriana last night – and it had George Clooney in it, no less.

The explanation for this lack of interest is as embarrassing as it is simple: lack of knowledge.

The vast majority of people seem to have bought Jihad: the Cliffsnotes, enabling them to rest comfortably assured on guilt and solution. Me, I still hum and haw equally at death of all and sundry, irresponsibly irrespective of which heaven/hell they are bound for.

Sure, I studied history. But just enough to hypothesize about it repeating, not enough to be sure beyond doubt of Who Started It, It being Israel-Palestine, or Afghanistan, or Iran.

To me it looks a grubby mess of Colonialism and Antisemitism, Zenophobia and Anti-Feminism – the only agreement seeming to be, in the face of Science, on the goodness of raw oil.

As for whether an egalitarian feminist development of Muslim culture without the interference of West is possible (that is, peaceful progress without armed men Bestowing Liberty onto less responsible, and most disturbingly of all, oddly dressed, peoples) it seems to me a problem more complex than how to keep a sling-back on while hurrying for the bus. Alas, I’d rather leave it well alone.

But it will not be left alone, at least not while am reading book by Amos Oz, Sipour Al Ahava Vehoshekh or A Tale of Love and Darkness. It has got me thinking, dammit, and therefor I suspect it of being Good Literature. When was the last time I heard about or read a Great Palestinian Novel?

Never. Which poses a few questions:

Firstly. What are the odds that the same majority that HAS read Placing of Guilt for Dummies, has also read hard to come by works and let the artistic depiction of a struggle affect their deep understanding of the conflict?

Secondly. Literature not being found easily on the Internet does not mean it does not exist. But what if there is actually a per cent lack of Palestinian fiction? Is a People without a voice more or less likely to be repressed than a Nation producing Nobel-class texts?

Thirdly. In case there is great new literature coming from Gaza or the West Bank at the moment – is the fact of it not being translated and/or promoted abroad a sign, or not a sign, of the world being willing, or unwilling, to listen and empathize with their side of the story?

Fourthly. Does my assumption that modern Palestinian literature would have to be topical – suffering war-time topical – signal that Palestinians have been reduced in the eyes of many to a point where love-stories, plain and simple tales of coming of age, or works dealing with the every day angst of every day life, would seem abberations, forgettings of primary concerns. Like if life went on.

And so:

I refuse to believe that the One book being read in Gaza is the Fusty One. It would be very enlightening to be given a sample of the rest.

Maybe it would even get me chanting, loud and clear, one way or the other.

Cnt, Unt, Cut,

Morning paper has me dying to know:

In Arts section, a piece on the Swedish version of Let’s Dance, written by Sonja Schwarzenberger, editor of what was and might still be (ask someone who reads it, like the Better Man) our most theoretical and opinionated feminist magazine.

And I quote/ish:

“When told to move more like man and woman – what is one to do? Hike up ones skirt and show ones c*nt?”

Why the censure? And by whom? A surefire way, anyhow,of removing focus from quite interesting subject at hand.

My Feminist Snooze

I am reading somewhat at the moment, given that I am banned from leaving the garret, and am finding it quite the feminist awakening. My two current Ab Fav’s are about the havoc wreaked on women’s life by the folly of Men,  and being a susceptible sort of person, I am starting to wonder whether,  judging by this Overwhelming Literary Evidence, we wouldn’t be better of without them.

The contented librarian turns long suffering lunching lady in American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, because of her awful husband (and also, on a deeper level, because of running down the love of her youth with a car).

The silly dancing giraffe turns bulimic media whore in The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown, because of her awful husband (and also, on a deeper level, because of the unrealistic manly ideals instilled by Barbara Cartland).

However, since I do not really feel up for this budding separatism  – am too dependent on mascara in my old age to take in ideas that may lead to a short crop or ban on red shoes – I am thinking of breaking the spell with Love in a Cold Climate, which judging by the cover is more Femme Fatale than Femme GLBT, by Nancy Mitford.

But then again, she was a Nazi, wasn’t she – which might not be the  best way to turn for ideological guidance.