"Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
-Albert Einstein
6/30/08
6/25/08
GIRLS LIKE US by SHEILA WELLER coming up!
I never blog on any book that isn't intriguing and creatively, interestingly written, and so you can figure at four stars on anything I post. GIRLS LIKE US is a terrific book and I'll soon be blogging on it!
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF QUINCY JONES (By Quincy and a Lot of Other People!)
The Autobiography of Quincy Jones
C 2001 Quincy Jones (What about all those other people?)
Doubleday
What ABOUT those other people who wrote this "autobiography?" Well, they include Quincy's brother, his ex wife Peggy Lipton (who has more recently written her own memoir), and his best friend, each who have a chapter that moves the story along. But doesn't the term "autobiography" (as opposed to biography) mean written by the subject himself? The use of other narrators on this book is effective and the chapters Quincy wrote himself are quite creatively and humorously written too (or did he have a ghost writer?) so I tend to think that the idea here was to take the same story and introduce a variety of viewpoints, most of which are harmonious with Quincy's POV about his life; no one has anything too bad to say about the man though (moral judgement call!) he is a self confessed DOG, yes he is...
To focus on my favorite part, the chapter Quincy we suppose wrote called "My Life As A Dog," I particularly enjoyed his telling of the story of how he became enamored with an mysterious woman who he almost never met, but who had his (phone) number as well as the numbers of a good number of other famous musician type dogs, and managed to seduce his imagination...
Page 160 - 161- 162 - 163
"My most vulnerable point as a dog- and one of the most bizarre in retrospect -involved an incident that would take place in the wake of a numbing marital breakup. (Note the downsizing of the event with that word "incident" CT). On September 6, 1986 I got a call at the Bel Air Hotel from a woman who called herself Ariana... Later it came out in Vanity Fair magazine in an article called "The Obsession with Miranda" that Ariana had gotten through the phone defenses of no fewer than thirty-seven guys....I'll always be grateful for her making me risk love again after my nervous breakdown, even if it was only "phone jones" in the beginning. At the time I met her (he barely did! CT) I was totally shut down emotionally....She played all of us like a Stradivarius - a pound of world-weary dogs who'd heard and seen it all.... After eluding my bodyguards and ignoring the advice of my best friend, I took a limo downtown with champagne and a hamper of smoked salmon sandwiches in a box, all excited. It had been seven months now, and I was finally starting to be able to feel love again....
6/21/08
MIRROR WORK
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
Look in the mirror and say aloud "I AM A WRITER!"
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
Look in the mirror and say aloud "I AM A WRITER!"
SUMMER SOLTICE - What Sort of Summer Will It Be?
What sort of summer will it be? One to get through or one to remember? It's ungodly hot in Los Angeles these last few days with the record breaking temperature of 109 a few miles from where I live... Who cannot believe in those ozone holes when they feel themselves to be as good as a steak in a fry pan? And so the last few days I have knocked out into an allergy ridden - heat soggy siesta! Oh to sail away!
I'm way too sexy for my SHORTS!
And there are so many men and so very little time these days...
Shall we have some FUN?
I'm way too sexy for my SHORTS!
And there are so many men and so very little time these days...
Shall we have some FUN?
6/18/08
THE SECRET LIFE OF HOUDINI by WILLIAM KALUSH and LARRY SLOMAN
THE SECRET LIFE OF HOUDINI
The Making of America's First Superhero
By William Kalush and Larry Sloman
C Light and Heavy Inc 2006
Atria Books, publisher
This book situates the famous escape artist and entertainer in the context of the fraudulent Spiritualist movement (he rejected it and became an adversary which may have lead to his death being murder by poison) and the times he lived in, which was the first World War, when he may have been something of a spy operating in Europe with his traveling show as cover. Would Houdini create and be the spectacle that he was then, now? He had many imitators but no one quite as daring or committed to escapology as he. I thought his tricks were merely magic but learned they were actually physical, visceral, experiences that needed ingenuity, muscle, and undeniable courage; he allowed himself to be buried six feet under in a coffin and clawed his way up through the earth, bruised and bleeding.
page 186
"On March 13 (1907), before his jump of the Seventh Street Bridge in Pittsburgh, Houdini told a reporter from The Pittsburgh Leader that the day before the leap he sent a cable to Hardeen (his brother), who was doing a similar act then in Europe, and the charges came to exactly $13. That same day Houdini's mail consisted of 13 letters. He switched rooms at his hotel and the new room was no.26, divisible by 13./ The letters contained 13 new challenges, the license plate of the auto that drove him to the bridge totaled up to 13, and the cinematographer who was filming the jump had exactly 1,300 feet of film in his camera.'
"I feel nervous today," Houdini said. "There is a goneness in my innards that isn't pleasant." He ate an apple to settle himself down, then dove. It was exactly. 1:13.
"In a minute and a half from the time I struck the water I had freed myself and was ready to rise to the surface," Houdini told the press. "Small boats were cruising about looking for me, and, as luck would have it, I came rushing up at great speed just underneath on of these crafts. So rapid was my ascent that in rising I hit my head a fearful blow...and sank back into the water again stunned and bleeding. When I struck that boat I thought of the thirteens of the day and concluded that it was up to me to battle for my life. Just when it seemed that all was over with me, I rose to the surface and willing hands dragged me to safety. It isn't any fun taking your life in your hands. Really, I'm in earnest. If a fellow wasn't married it would be a different thing, though even a single man oughtn't to be hankering for chances to risk his life."
Houdini seemed conflicted when facing these challenges. For the most part he left his destiny to Fate. "While the manacles and shackles are being adjusted so that my limbs are powerless to move, I seemed conflicted when facing these challenges. For the most part, he left his destiny in the hands of Fate. "I looked down at the water flowing so far below; then I make up my mind I am going to do it," he told a reporter. "From the time I let go till the moment I strike the water everything is blank, and my ears are filled with strange songs. If the season be winter with the temperature of the water in the vicinity of freezing, the ordeal is one to be dreaded....."
page 328 (re. World War I)
In one fell swoop, Houdini's midlife crisis had been solved. Escapologist, illusionist, collector, businessman, author, philaphropist - all his myriad identities suddenly paled in comparison with his new vision of himself: Houdini the Patriot.
The Making of America's First Superhero
By William Kalush and Larry Sloman
C Light and Heavy Inc 2006
Atria Books, publisher
This book situates the famous escape artist and entertainer in the context of the fraudulent Spiritualist movement (he rejected it and became an adversary which may have lead to his death being murder by poison) and the times he lived in, which was the first World War, when he may have been something of a spy operating in Europe with his traveling show as cover. Would Houdini create and be the spectacle that he was then, now? He had many imitators but no one quite as daring or committed to escapology as he. I thought his tricks were merely magic but learned they were actually physical, visceral, experiences that needed ingenuity, muscle, and undeniable courage; he allowed himself to be buried six feet under in a coffin and clawed his way up through the earth, bruised and bleeding.
page 186
"On March 13 (1907), before his jump of the Seventh Street Bridge in Pittsburgh, Houdini told a reporter from The Pittsburgh Leader that the day before the leap he sent a cable to Hardeen (his brother), who was doing a similar act then in Europe, and the charges came to exactly $13. That same day Houdini's mail consisted of 13 letters. He switched rooms at his hotel and the new room was no.26, divisible by 13./ The letters contained 13 new challenges, the license plate of the auto that drove him to the bridge totaled up to 13, and the cinematographer who was filming the jump had exactly 1,300 feet of film in his camera.'
"I feel nervous today," Houdini said. "There is a goneness in my innards that isn't pleasant." He ate an apple to settle himself down, then dove. It was exactly. 1:13.
"In a minute and a half from the time I struck the water I had freed myself and was ready to rise to the surface," Houdini told the press. "Small boats were cruising about looking for me, and, as luck would have it, I came rushing up at great speed just underneath on of these crafts. So rapid was my ascent that in rising I hit my head a fearful blow...and sank back into the water again stunned and bleeding. When I struck that boat I thought of the thirteens of the day and concluded that it was up to me to battle for my life. Just when it seemed that all was over with me, I rose to the surface and willing hands dragged me to safety. It isn't any fun taking your life in your hands. Really, I'm in earnest. If a fellow wasn't married it would be a different thing, though even a single man oughtn't to be hankering for chances to risk his life."
Houdini seemed conflicted when facing these challenges. For the most part he left his destiny to Fate. "While the manacles and shackles are being adjusted so that my limbs are powerless to move, I seemed conflicted when facing these challenges. For the most part, he left his destiny in the hands of Fate. "I looked down at the water flowing so far below; then I make up my mind I am going to do it," he told a reporter. "From the time I let go till the moment I strike the water everything is blank, and my ears are filled with strange songs. If the season be winter with the temperature of the water in the vicinity of freezing, the ordeal is one to be dreaded....."
page 328 (re. World War I)
In one fell swoop, Houdini's midlife crisis had been solved. Escapologist, illusionist, collector, businessman, author, philaphropist - all his myriad identities suddenly paled in comparison with his new vision of himself: Houdini the Patriot.
6/16/08
CHRISTINE TRZYNA on ARTHUR KANE + ROBYN HITCHCOCK's TRIBUTE
video replaced 2018
Robyn Hitchcock's Tribute to Arthur Kane, deceased, once upon a time of the New York Dolls. Click on the title above to get to the song played in concert...
CHRISTINE TRZYNA on ARTHUR KANE
For several years I was deeply involved in genealogy projects and used the Latter Day Saints Family History Center (which I like to call The Salt Mine) very often. Missionaries come and go there, but several had long term assignments. One of those with the long term assignment was Arthur Kane. He had put about two-three years in about the time I met him and was feeling sure that his Bishop would "call" him to do three more. Thing was, he had hopes of going on a rock and roll tour again. If not the New York Dolls exactly, then to Japan with some of the Dolls and some of Blondie's old band.
First or early impressions can be wrong, but because he was so much younger than most of the missionaries, a man, and he was not married, Arthur stood out among the ladies and the typically very married, as a missionary. And he was lonely.
Partly because of his looks, partly because of the white white shirts and conservative ties he wore tucked into black blue jeans with boots, I imagined Arthur to be two things he was not: wealthy to be able to volunteer time so young and, with his white-pinkness and blond and blue eyed looks, coming from a long line of rugged Utah pioneers. Later when I did some genealogy work for him, I learned his was a family born of Irish immigration and that the problems between the Catholics and the Protestant Irish had been the issue in his family that lead to immigration. He needed to induct some family into LDS heaven and so I embarked on research for him to find his father.
It was months before I understood that he was no ordinary born to the faith Mormon, but one of LDS's best missionaries, who used the bus on weekends to make home visits and convert others to LDS, as he had been when, just when he was contemplating suicide, there was a knock on the door. He was not sold on LDS but he told me "You have to choose something and stick with it." Ours was a momentary friendship that revealed all his conflicts and anxieties.
Arthur talked in a whispery raspy rapid fire voice and still had a tang of New York accent. I imagined him leaving family behind in New York to come to Los Angeles, and he had. The New York Dolls. As he saw it they were his only true family....
C Christine Trzyna 2008 All Rights including Internet and International Rights Reserved
christinetrzyna.blogspot.com
NEW YORK DOLL
Lyrics from a website about Robyn Hitchcock
I never finished the bookThere's always someone to be loved
Or to be forgotten
But if you take a long look
Well there's always someone
Young and fresh
Or cold and rotten
One in a million
People touch you
How do I explain?
Sincerely I remain, Arthur Kane
I was a New York Doll
I was really something
on the map that never ends
I was the pulse of it all
But there's always poison to drink alone
Or to share with friends
One in a million
People hit you like a window pane
Sincerely I remain, Arthur Kane
I found myself in the church
I needed something
Bigger than the world I knew
But in the library of your memory
People live in their books
till the pages close
Close on me like they're gonna
Close on you
One in a million
People matter
Then they go again
Sincerely I remain, Arthur Kane
Arthur Kane
6/15/08
NEW YORK DOLLS - ARTHUR KANE's LAST PERFORMANCE and A WISH CAME TRUE
Arthur Kane told me that he practiced bass every day and wanted to go on tour again. He said he still owned his clothes from his New York Dolls days and still wore them out to clubs... He lived alone in West Hollywood with his cats. And then, one day the phone calls he'd hoped for came through. This is his last performance before he died with what was undiagnosed leukemia.
UPDATE JUNE 2022 - sorry no video!
COMMENTARY on "NEW YORK DOLL" MOVIE TRAILER
This is the film documentary made to focus specifically on Arthur and his unusual life. I have never seen the film beyond this trailer and am not planning to. I have my own notions and experience of Arthur, perhaps a different story to tell someday, and don't want to be influenced by it!
Coming Up : A Mini Tribute to ARTHUR KANE
Been thinking about Arthur Kane, now on The Other Side....
6/13/08
QUICK BOOK REVIEW : I KNEW A WOMAN by CORTNEY DAVIS
I KNEW A WOMAN
The Experience of the Female Body
by Cortney Davis C 2001
Random House, New York
Cortney Davis is a nurse practitioner and poet, and what she wrote, "I Knew A Woman," is a beautiful book that follows her professional and private responses to some of her patients at a low-income and homeless gynecology clinic. One reviewer, Sapphire, says it better than me when she calls this book "an extraordinary blend of memoir, fiction, and clinical detail." I followed especially the story of Lila, the homeless teenager pregnant and living in a car with her legal adult boyfriend, as she grasps independence to make a life with her just born baby. It just so happens that I know someone in almost this same situation, a young woman with few choices who makes dumb choices when she can, who has just passed through my life, and I felt some synchronicity was involved in my reading this book.
I tend to walk around a library and let books fall off the shelves to my feet begging to be read... OK, not really, though that has happened...
I see how I become interested in a book because of the art of the book at times, lured by cover art, typography, and that was the case with this one. I was in for a wonderful surprise of a book, one I could not anticipate, at once titillating my interest in Womans Studies as well as the secrets of the female body, one of which I am in this life.
I don't think I will ever quite think of a visit to the doctor (or nurse practitioner) the same. I know now that they are judging me and my health from the moment I walk in, even based on what I am wearing and my attitude, and that they may cloak what they are really thinking or know about my condition from me for reasons of professionalism. I will be more sure than ever that they intuitively know if I am sick and what my prognosis will be while also being willing to give hope a greater chance than there is reason for.
Cortney Davis too reacts to her patients relating their desperation or poverty in terms of her own life experience. Page 118, hardback:
"What if there had been a fire? What if someone had broken into my apartment - not an uncommon occurrence in that neighborhood - and found my son and daughter? When I look at Lila, I remember being alone and poor and at my wit's end. When I look at Lila, her swollen belly, her thin lips, her jangle of earrings and chains, I remember something a great poet once told me. "Poems that are too perfect," he said,"like lives that are too ordered, lack the human mistakes that make them real." Because I never forget the reality of what I've experienced, I can forgive many of the mistakes I see my patients make. Because I know that I am a different person now, I trust that they, too, will change; that the girl Lila is now is not the woman Lila will become."
The Experience of the Female Body
by Cortney Davis C 2001
Random House, New York
Cortney Davis is a nurse practitioner and poet, and what she wrote, "I Knew A Woman," is a beautiful book that follows her professional and private responses to some of her patients at a low-income and homeless gynecology clinic. One reviewer, Sapphire, says it better than me when she calls this book "an extraordinary blend of memoir, fiction, and clinical detail." I followed especially the story of Lila, the homeless teenager pregnant and living in a car with her legal adult boyfriend, as she grasps independence to make a life with her just born baby. It just so happens that I know someone in almost this same situation, a young woman with few choices who makes dumb choices when she can, who has just passed through my life, and I felt some synchronicity was involved in my reading this book.
I tend to walk around a library and let books fall off the shelves to my feet begging to be read... OK, not really, though that has happened...
I see how I become interested in a book because of the art of the book at times, lured by cover art, typography, and that was the case with this one. I was in for a wonderful surprise of a book, one I could not anticipate, at once titillating my interest in Womans Studies as well as the secrets of the female body, one of which I am in this life.
I don't think I will ever quite think of a visit to the doctor (or nurse practitioner) the same. I know now that they are judging me and my health from the moment I walk in, even based on what I am wearing and my attitude, and that they may cloak what they are really thinking or know about my condition from me for reasons of professionalism. I will be more sure than ever that they intuitively know if I am sick and what my prognosis will be while also being willing to give hope a greater chance than there is reason for.
Cortney Davis too reacts to her patients relating their desperation or poverty in terms of her own life experience. Page 118, hardback:
"What if there had been a fire? What if someone had broken into my apartment - not an uncommon occurrence in that neighborhood - and found my son and daughter? When I look at Lila, I remember being alone and poor and at my wit's end. When I look at Lila, her swollen belly, her thin lips, her jangle of earrings and chains, I remember something a great poet once told me. "Poems that are too perfect," he said,"like lives that are too ordered, lack the human mistakes that make them real." Because I never forget the reality of what I've experienced, I can forgive many of the mistakes I see my patients make. Because I know that I am a different person now, I trust that they, too, will change; that the girl Lila is now is not the woman Lila will become."
6/12/08
QUICK BOOK REVIEW : JOE DIMAGGIO by RICHARD BEN CRAMER
Quick BOOK REVIEW by CHRISTINE TRZYNA
JOE DIMAGGIO - THE HERO's LIFE by RICHARD BEN CRAMER
OK, I admit it. I could care less about baseball (though I could care even less than that about football!) So why would I read a biography of the baseball great Joe Dimaggio? I admit it is because of my curiosity about Marilyn Monroe. Yes, I too read books on Marilyn, who has more books written about her than just about ANY famous person on earth, more than Elvis, or Princess Diana. I can't say exactly how I originally approached this subject - events that happened before my time- but let's say I've read on the Kennedys, and so I became acquainted with the mysterious death of Marilyn (I have never in my life seen her in a movie!) and her marriage to Joe Dimaggio.
FOR MARILYN FANS this book does not disappoint with information about her relationship on Joe in details I have not come across before. For instance, I used to believe that Joe hated the Kennedys (and Sinatra) because they had mob connections. But now I know, Joe had those connections too. I am more convinced than ever that she did not commit suicide due to the facts presented in this book by Richard Ben Cramer, which state that Marilyn had just ordered an expensive wedding dress to rewed Joe and had everything to look forward to. In fact the date of her death and their wedding date were so close you have to wonder if someone was OUT TO GET JOE!
I appreciated the description of Marilyn visiting the troops in Korea. I began to realize that she could be a dare devil, hanging out of a copter that went circling the camps in the freezing cold, as men inside held her feet to the floor. I came to understand that Joe had given up on trying to control and change Marilyn to loving her as unconditionally as he could but that more than anything, he waited her career out, and was there for a second time around that never happened...
JOE DIMAGGIO - THE HERO's LIFE by RICHARD BEN CRAMER
OK, I admit it. I could care less about baseball (though I could care even less than that about football!) So why would I read a biography of the baseball great Joe Dimaggio? I admit it is because of my curiosity about Marilyn Monroe. Yes, I too read books on Marilyn, who has more books written about her than just about ANY famous person on earth, more than Elvis, or Princess Diana. I can't say exactly how I originally approached this subject - events that happened before my time- but let's say I've read on the Kennedys, and so I became acquainted with the mysterious death of Marilyn (I have never in my life seen her in a movie!) and her marriage to Joe Dimaggio.
FOR MARILYN FANS this book does not disappoint with information about her relationship on Joe in details I have not come across before. For instance, I used to believe that Joe hated the Kennedys (and Sinatra) because they had mob connections. But now I know, Joe had those connections too. I am more convinced than ever that she did not commit suicide due to the facts presented in this book by Richard Ben Cramer, which state that Marilyn had just ordered an expensive wedding dress to rewed Joe and had everything to look forward to. In fact the date of her death and their wedding date were so close you have to wonder if someone was OUT TO GET JOE!
I appreciated the description of Marilyn visiting the troops in Korea. I began to realize that she could be a dare devil, hanging out of a copter that went circling the camps in the freezing cold, as men inside held her feet to the floor. I came to understand that Joe had given up on trying to control and change Marilyn to loving her as unconditionally as he could but that more than anything, he waited her career out, and was there for a second time around that never happened...
6/10/08
FRENEMY - A New Word For Me
I just learned the word FRENEMY reading a Vanity Fair interview with Ivanka Trump. A great newish word for a false, user friend.
6/8/08
6/6/08
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT ?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
TO BELIEVE?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SEE IT TO SEE IT?
TO BELIEVE?
6/5/08
quote from CAN'T BUY ME LOVE by JONATHAN GOULD
page 323 regarding 1966 and Bob Dylan's influence on John Lennon.
"In his efforts to conform to this austerely autobiographical standard of "first person music," however, Lennon came up against the very limitations that fiction was designed to overcome. Autobiographic writing places inordinate demands on the quality of a writer's experience. And while the cult of celebrity may be based on the premise that fame itself is an exaltation, exposing its beneficiaries to realms of experience and awareness of which ordinary people can only dream, the reality for John Lennon (no less than for other celebrities) had settled into something more mundane..."
"In his efforts to conform to this austerely autobiographical standard of "first person music," however, Lennon came up against the very limitations that fiction was designed to overcome. Autobiographic writing places inordinate demands on the quality of a writer's experience. And while the cult of celebrity may be based on the premise that fame itself is an exaltation, exposing its beneficiaries to realms of experience and awareness of which ordinary people can only dream, the reality for John Lennon (no less than for other celebrities) had settled into something more mundane..."
6/3/08
MARK TWAIN quote
"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one” - Mark Twain
6/2/08
DUMBING DOWN AND SILENCE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW
DUMBING DOWN AND SILENCE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW
This morning I was thinking about how I've been expected to DUMB DOWN at various moments in my life. (If you've been reading this blog you know that I am using the word moment to mean anything from an instant to a long period of time, an era.) I think this is something that women are expected to do more than men. And I think women correctly perceive that in moments dumbing down is actually a survival skill. For instance it allows you to survive a meglomaniac boss and pay your rent.
Luckily, although I absorbed the concept of dumbing down, and have realize I was cooperating or collaborating to be not the best I could be, unlike some young women my mother didn't actually lecture me to do so. I learned that other teenagers mothers DID, telling them to stifle their intelligence, to not be intellectual, to let him "win," as well as pretend helplessness in order to prove their femininity. My mind rebelled against these notions, but for a long time I acknowledged that I was not exactly independent and what right then did I have to express contrary opinions and still be kept ?
NOT BEING AS TALENTED AS YOU ARE as a writer, can also happen in writers groups and in literature and creative writing classrooms. I recall one star pupil at a local community college where I studied writing who always used to preference her presentations of short stories with a whinny, "It's not very good but...."
Actually she was a very good writer, but I had to wonder why she chose to enter into the competition with a handicap like this phony self esteem problem. Perhaps it's that some women are afraid to compete and be seen as not nice, not... well... women.
For here goes the opposite problem. The competitive person who is hellbent on winning (whatever it is, the love of a professor, etc.) even if they have to play dirty, who uses psychological warfare among their companions and peers to get the advantage. I met a couple women like that in college.
Competition itself isn't the problem then. It's not even especially a feminist issue. It's the dirty play.
The other day, in a particular moment, someone startled me by asking me "The question about you is are you stirring the shit or trying to smooth it." I blurted, "Well I'm not a kiss ass, I'm more of a political activist as a type of person." But later I realized that I was being challenged about telling what I know though it might anger some people and really challenge the status quo or KEEPING SILENT, which is another way of DUMBING DOWN! A nd I wish I would have had this more thoughtful comeback; "Actually I don't believe any shit should exist at all!"
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved 2008
This morning I was thinking about how I've been expected to DUMB DOWN at various moments in my life. (If you've been reading this blog you know that I am using the word moment to mean anything from an instant to a long period of time, an era.) I think this is something that women are expected to do more than men. And I think women correctly perceive that in moments dumbing down is actually a survival skill. For instance it allows you to survive a meglomaniac boss and pay your rent.
Luckily, although I absorbed the concept of dumbing down, and have realize I was cooperating or collaborating to be not the best I could be, unlike some young women my mother didn't actually lecture me to do so. I learned that other teenagers mothers DID, telling them to stifle their intelligence, to not be intellectual, to let him "win," as well as pretend helplessness in order to prove their femininity. My mind rebelled against these notions, but for a long time I acknowledged that I was not exactly independent and what right then did I have to express contrary opinions and still be kept ?
NOT BEING AS TALENTED AS YOU ARE as a writer, can also happen in writers groups and in literature and creative writing classrooms. I recall one star pupil at a local community college where I studied writing who always used to preference her presentations of short stories with a whinny, "It's not very good but...."
Actually she was a very good writer, but I had to wonder why she chose to enter into the competition with a handicap like this phony self esteem problem. Perhaps it's that some women are afraid to compete and be seen as not nice, not... well... women.
For here goes the opposite problem. The competitive person who is hellbent on winning (whatever it is, the love of a professor, etc.) even if they have to play dirty, who uses psychological warfare among their companions and peers to get the advantage. I met a couple women like that in college.
Competition itself isn't the problem then. It's not even especially a feminist issue. It's the dirty play.
The other day, in a particular moment, someone startled me by asking me "The question about you is are you stirring the shit or trying to smooth it." I blurted, "Well I'm not a kiss ass, I'm more of a political activist as a type of person." But later I realized that I was being challenged about telling what I know though it might anger some people and really challenge the status quo or KEEPING SILENT, which is another way of DUMBING DOWN! A nd I wish I would have had this more thoughtful comeback; "Actually I don't believe any shit should exist at all!"
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved 2008
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