30 Rock binge

Currently watching at least one episode of 30 Rock a day. I blame it on Netflix and their instant tv watching abilities. But I love this show! It's about television, smart women, cultural mockery, vaudevillian slapstick and sharply sketched characters.
LOVE! IT! Tina Fey really rocks my world, pun intended :)

Vampire Romance

Vampires are back in style! Or vamping their way to the forefront of American culture. True Blood & Twilight both feature pale tortured male vamps in love with beautiful, vulnerable young women. The thing with vamp stories is that it is almost ALWAYS about a male vamp and a human woman. The traits of a vampire- the strength, the predatory ways, the penetration of the fangs- make it a traditionally masculine role. The human woman is frailer and is the prey. The interesting thing about male vampires is that they are the most tortured, melancholy, romantic of males. For some reason, their undead state and superhuman strength (not to mention godly beauty) allows them to be in touch with their emotions, wahoo!

Both series are also based on books, which says something both about the long literary history of vampires and also their place in pulp/romantic fiction- or women's fiction. Debate about the literary merit of this genre continues and it might not help that they are so ripe for film adaptation. Lots of imagery, action and making out. The True Blood books are definitely aimed at women. Twilight is aimed at young people in general but makes its audience mostly out of females from 14-24 (the money market).

And they both feature prominent female leads, the same as Buffy. (for a very fun time, check out the mashed up sequence where fans have edited Buffy into Twilight so that she kills Edward). And so I watch them. And I wonder where the female vampires are. Why are there no female vamps? Of course, they are given side stories in all of these texts but that is not a focusing relationship. Hard to picture a rock hard, physically strong woman in a romantic relationship with a comparitively weaker, normal and non supernatural man? Because then it's not sexy if she scares him, if she bites him, if she dominates? Hmmm

And once again Jezebel proves how awesome it is by commenting on the this exact topic:
http://jezebel.com/5301189/the-allure-of-books-with-bite

Crawling back to Netflix

So...I caved. I went back. After six solid months off the juice, I just couldn't take it anymore. Yes this happens to coincide with the end of the television season and the beginning of the giant reality wasteland that is summer programming. But it's also because Netflix now offers instant streaming for Macs (before it was just PCs)which means I can watch stuff on my computer now! And we all now how much instant gratification is important to Americans. So far I managed to watch the premiere of Nurse Jackie (on Netflix as a promotional tool) and it was good! Smart show, cliched premise, good acting. I also watched the first episode of the Tudor's, season 2- all of which is available instantly on Netflix. There goes my social life! But seriously, I just couldn't hold out any longer- there was a back list of movies I've been wanting to see for a while. So for $10 a month, its really not bad- almost cheaper than going to see one movie in the theater. But we all know that I'm a film and media junkie and i need my hook-up, stat!

Twelfth Night in the park

was magical! really fun. The weather turned out to be perfect, with pink & blue streaked skies, perfect temperature & no rain. This version of 12th nite was definitely on the campy side. They played up the cross-dressing homosexual tension & the foolery, so that it was light hearted & fun. The play, especially the side story of Malvolio's hubris, has elements of humiliation, discomfort, madness and power that can be played on to bring out the tragedy in the story. However, this version was sort of like 12th nite recession style: all upbeat and funny and happily queer. I had a great time and thought that Anne Hathaway was perfect!! She has such an interesting look, not at all typical but very compelling.

A fabulous NYT write up:http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/theater/reviews/26night.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1246024924-uM4JzSAGby7CSemiB3CQSA

Digital, baby!

TV has pulled the plug on analog, sorry poor old people with old tvs. It's all sexy digital now, yeah baby!

and i scored tiks to Shakespeare in the Park's Twelfth Night (my abs fav shakespeare play) with Anne Hathaway (adorable!). I'm super duper excited and hope that this miserable rain takes a hike, because I don't think sitting through several hours of drizzle would be good for my cold. Yay Shakes!

wow

My manager is leaving to go back to grad school...big drama! 2 weeks left to soak up all the answers to every problem. sigh.

Long week

It's been a long hard week. In addition to my full time job, I squeezed in 20+ hours catering in the last three days. And it was not glamorous. It was hard and dirty and now I'm really tired. Last night I realized ten minutes after my bath that I had only shaved one leg- and this was at 2am. And today at work everything feels overwhelming- find myself on the verge of tears. I need to slow down I guess.

Last night could have been cool. It was the Apollo's 75th anniversary and they decked out the back parking lot in a completely white tent with white carpeting, huge chandeliers covering vines, gothic white mirrors: such a 70s vibe. But the party was teeming, the trays were huge and heavy, and I just wanted to sleep.

Sigh...

Deja Hood

So I have this thing in NYC where I won't go to a certain neighborhood for weeks or months, and then I go there three times in one week. It happened to me with the world trade center- I hadn't been there in a year and then I went there to cater, for an event and with friends all in one week. It's like NYC has a weird flux movement and certain places don't exist all the time- or maybe the city is just too big!