On Maurice Sendak, 1928 - 2012
@frigwiggin That book is just so full of ineffable longing (for salamis and mops, but also the infinite) and the specificity of his dogs just kills me. & you know how all his book dogs were loving and exact portraits of his real dogs, & he confirmed in an interview somewhere that Castle Yonder is death, which, you know, on the very first page, it says Jennie had everything, even a master who loved her, but she didn't care, in the middle of the night she packed everything in a black leather bag and left to have new experiences -- and on the very last page Once Jennie sent her master a letter. This is what it said: Hello, As you probably noticed, I went away forever. [...] I can't tell you how to get to the Castle Yonder because I don't know where it is. But if you ever come this way, look for me.
anyway I trust we are all crying now!
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On Maurice Sendak, 1928 - 2012
Chicken Soup with Rice was the first book I remember reading. When I was four I would come in to preschool every day and sit down in the reading corner and not talk to the other children and read that book. Every day that book. It doesn't even have a plot! What a boring child I was.
His Grimm illustrations are really something.
1
On Maurice Sendak, 1928 - 2012
He was the best. Higglety, Pigglety, Pop! is the best. His Nutcracker sets are the best. I am watching out beady-eyedly for anyone to dare say it isn't so sad because he was old, as if terror of death doesn't grow with every year you get closer to it and as if he didn't talk all the time about how frightened of it he was. This is only because I deal with grief by seeking out opportunities to become enraged.
Outside Over There is the best. Dear Mili is the best. He is the best.
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On [Dear Internet]
@atipofthehat Dude, oh my god. There was this one time on one of the interminable "Ask a..." comment threads, the ones that exist only to let everybody get their aggression out, when I said something that was confrontational and completely correct and a bunch of people decided I was some kind of humorless sex-negative sea-hag, and said so, even though that is two-thirds false, and I forget if they went on and on high-fiving one another and textually smirking for hours and hours, but in my mind they did, and you may believe I thought about writing an irritated yet earnest point-by-point refutation of their dickish misunderstandings just like this. But I didn't because just LOOK at what it LOOKS LIKE, jeez. Jeez!
There are plenty of lady-oriented internet places where all the women commenters talk a good feminist game but in practice make pets of the rare male visitors and fawn over them, and give them plenty of conversational slack they don't give each other, and frankly the Hairpin teeters on that precipice from time to time, but everybody yelling at you is fundamentally a sign of respect. Everybody ganging up on you because they think you are wrong happens to women here all the time and just get that OH IT'S BECAUSE A MAN CANT HAVE OPINIONS out of your brain before it festers. Come on. Come on! Let it go or argue more but don't do that thing.
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On [Dear Internet]
@atipofthehat You know what is tragic? I found your comment irritating for the reasons already laid out by many others, but I still assumed you were right. I mean, before clicking and reading it, I trusted that it was a piece with its heart and politics in the right place, but probably of eye-rolling sentimentality and mediocre style.
Then I read it and it was completely fine and pretty good! But if you want to level some more very vague but completely confident criticisms at the writing of any other woman whose work I don't yet know well, I'll probably believe them, too. because, I mean, sexist cliches sure sound plausible.
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On The Agonizing Ecstasies of Male Contraception
@idealogicRoom "There needs to be a way for men to opt out of an unwanted pregnancy"
Oh, is nobody else dumb enough to jump on this one? OK, I'll do it!
The way for men to opt out of "an" (weirdly depersonalized way of saying "their," no?) unwanted pregnancy is to get an abortion. I know that trans men, the only men for whom this could be an issue, can face extra obstacles to accessing such health services, but the laws themselves and the medical process aren't actually any different for men than they are for women, are they?
If you weren't talking about pregnant men, maybe you didn't know that there is already absolutely no obligation whatsoever for men to participate in anyone else's pregnancy. They do not have to help any pregnant woman (or man) deal with her or his checkups, labor, delivery, hospital stays, lost wages, buying maternity clothes - none of it. Opting out of unwanted pregnancy is a done deal and always has been.
In fact, if a man wanted to opt in to a wanted pregnancy, he'd be out of luck -- financial help, moral support and a comforting presence is all that medical science and the laws of physics allow him to provide.
Sorry you didn't know!
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On Really Good Books About Real People: Part One
@VolcanoMouse SO GOOD. but I have to warn that lots of times, people who love TSH don't love Tam Lin, I think because it has the opposite kind of pretentiousness (opposite like green is opposite of red, not like bad is opposite of good.) & everything sucks compared to The Dubious Hills EXCEPT MAYBE the sequel to it that she is almost finished with, maybe????
but anyway, Tam Lin has a lot of 18-year-olds-talking-like-grad-students wish fulfillment, and a fair amount of yearning after sexually-untouchable beauty, and a lot of conversation about English and Classics, but none of the clammy-handed grasping social climbing anxiety of TSH. It is a great book but for a different kind of person. But I love them both so clearly a single person can be both kinds of people.
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On Really Good Books About Real People: Part One
@dahlface Waking the Moon (Elizabeth Hand) and Tam Lin (Pamela Dean). The latter has more classics and the former has more murder but they both have a little of each. & the are both COLLEGE COLLEGE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE fantasies like nothing else BUT The Secret History, and each other.
0
On Ask a Non-Monogamous Couple
@hotdog On the one hand, opiates are terrific so this is not exactly what you would call a damning comparison. On the other hand, running down love with dismissive faux-scientistic garbage about "limerance" and "new relationship energy" and "candy brain chemicals" and whatever else is number one on the list of awful things polyamorous people do, and number one on the list of reasons I can't stand 'em as a culture even though the essential concept of non-monogamy is inoffensive and I have had my share of married boyfriends [1]
So I guess what I am saying is I kind of agree with your point, but you are using the unbearable vocabulary of poly people to make it, so your argument eats itself?
[1] that is, one. Two would have been more than my share. He was a pain in the ass but his wife was nice.
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On Everything You Need to Know About Online Dating
@Nicole Cliffe Also works if you really do care about height (I will theoretically date tall guys if they have some really amazing qualities to compensate for their physical imperfections but really it is probably more respectful to let them find someone who finds that kind of thing attractive.)