Category Archive for Books & Movies

My husband Rick/Dick and I saw Across the Universe at the movies the other night and I was struck with how very free–tortured, but free–those kids were. It was the 60s in the height of the drug years and escalaltion of the Vietnam War and the protests. They were struggling but they were struggling together. They were experimenting but they were growing. I was reminded about how it was to be young and broke again. The highs. The lows.

And I think of how it’s different now.

We fought against “The Establishment.” Kids now are the establishment and are not comfortable in it. They are changing it from the inside out. They are networked and they appreciate design. They don’t like management. They are self-motivated and they want to be guided by collectively-held values. They don’t like the constraint of roles and rules. They want to make up their own roles and rules, as they go.

We jumped into our lovelives and marriages. Young adults now are scared and tentative, worried about commitment and their futures and getting everything right. And then, when they do make the big decision, their weddings are huge fairy tale productions, girls dressed up like princesses, moving toward a Perfect Day which can only be a letdown when the Perfect Man fails to live up to the standards of the Perfect Life.

We just had our babies. Oh, with some thought into home vs. hospital births, breastfeeding, cloth vs. the new throwaway diapers–we even took childbirth classes. My mom came to help out with my first one and she really did help me. For women now, it’s a major research project. And their lists of dos and don’ts overwhelm me.

This is a generation of women who as girls were on the soccer field, who made high scores all the way through school, who are educated and equipped to do a lot more than house work. They are A students. We’ve taught them to be strivers and perfectionists.

Marriage and motherhood is the opposite of striving and perfection. It’s an art. It’s an enormous skill set and mind shift.

Too often women aren’t getting the basics of living with others, much less a man. One thing that the communal living of the 60s taught us–Sharing apartments and houses with an odd assortment of people taught lots about just getting along.

Also, probably most important, you never know enough bout yourself or your man or marriage before you get into it. You can’t. Marriage is a learn-as-you-go project and the only thing to do is open yourself up and enjoy the ride.

What I wish for young women today? Joy. Love. Fearlessness. Just keep out there and look for love. Create it. Have fun with it. Play. And, when it’s right, dive right into the unknown.

I watched the first episode of this show twice. The first time, I called my husband in (”You’ve got to see this!”), and we had to replay the hand job scene (”Was that real?”). When I watched the show again, it wasn’t because it was so interesting to me, but because I was trying to determine my response to it…

These characters are not likable — they can barely crack a smile! Where is the humor? Where are their friends? They all seem to have an enormous amount of time on their hands — and use it to wallow in their misery.

The young engaged couple have sex in a parked car, on a public street, in broad daylight. She shows a hint of relief afterwards (they’ve been fighting), but that’s it. There’s not even a glint in his eye.

The woman trying to get pregnant is frowning and tough when she gives her husband a hand job. The only laugh (albeit, a small one) in the entire episode was after they had sex in a bedroom on someone’s expensive brown comforter during a dinner party while people were talking in the next room.

The middle class, educated woman suffering from her husband’s sexual disinterest mopes and whines about it a bit. Then, when he blows her off, she whimpers and sneaks off to a therapist. There’s no taking action: no Googling “male sexual problems”; no calling her girlfriends. We’ll have to wait and see what he’s all about. For all we know, he’s gay and keeping the family going in quiet desperation. Then again, maybe he simply has low testosterone and needs a pill. Or, he could have some other deep, dark secret.

Guess we’ll see — if we care enough.

What was even more shocking to me than the sexual voyeurism was the therapeutic voyeurism. Victims of their own shame and pride, the characters continually lie to the therapist, to each other, and to themselves. While it could be funny, the result is just sad and depressing.

I would hope we’ll watch these couples bloom under Jane Alexander’s therapeutic care, but after seeing episode 2, I’m not optimistic. At the rate they’re going, these couples will grow to be like Jane and her husband. So urbane. So very wise. So very, very serious.
The very real, far-from-perfect couples interviewed after the show laughed and poked fun at each other. They had great facial expressions of disbelief, disgust, and irony. You can bet those women talk with their girlfriends.

One flat, angst-ridden couple would be fine, but all three? Come on, HBO. Where’s the life?
Is everyone who wrote, produced, and directed this program on medication?

Thank you, Joan Strega, for a lovely and very personal tribute at blogcritics.com to Tillie Olsen!

I read in the New York Times that Tillie Olsen has died.

I read her story, As I Stand Ironing, for a literature class, and I have schlepped that anthology around for over thirty years. I pulled it out again today.

“As I Stand Ironing” is the story of a working woman at her ironing board when her daughter comes through, hellbent on going the same way her mother did, and all the mother can do is stand there ironing.

Last June Dick and I were in Marfa, Texas, at the Brown Recluse. Great food, an old house, a young NYU grad owner with a great used book collection on old bookshelves against the walls. In short, heaven. Read the rest »

I tricked my husband into seeing The Holiday. Cameron Diaz did There’s Something about Mary and Jack Black is a guy’s guy, right?

He rolled his eyes at the movie’s preoccupation with relationships. It’s a relatively new thing for my 60-something husband–this insight that the primary concern of young women is relationships–and, even though I spent four years writing a book about women, men, and love, he’s continually amazed by the extent of it.

He was particularly grossed out by Jude Law’s weird daddiness. Law and Diaz lying in the pink tent with his two little girls with the stuffed animals gazing at handmade stars hanging on strings. Please. Cameron Diaz shows at the door? A real man hits the grandparents on his cell in an instant. The little girls and tents can wait a day. They’ll survive.

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