Topic 158: The Penalty of Violating Convention

Carol:

The Penalty of Violating Convention

  

My family history research has provided an interesting window into some of our country’s most significant—and controversial—periods in history. Take the War of Independence. We call the families who fought for separation from England “Patriots,” so we may oversimplify the political positions and issues that split communities and families in Colonial America. In fact, only about 40-45% of the Colonists were Patriots, and a full 40% were neutral. Not only did about 20% of the population remain loyal to England, but others choose not to take sides, and still others were religious pacifists who paid severe penalties for choosing NOT to fight.
 

One such group, of course, was the Society of Friends (Quakers), which at the time was about 10% of the population. Fundamental to Quaker philosophy was not only pacificism but equality regardless of race or gender. Early American Quaker women enjoyed incredible freedoms, and the Society itself condemned slavery far ahead of the Abolitionist Movement.
 

At their 1774 General Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia, the leadership ordered a letter to be sent to all members of the Society to maintain their principles of pacifism and peace. The letter reminded Quakers that “under the King's government they had been favored with a peaceful and prosperous enjoyment of their rights” (Wetherell), and it suggested that members who disobeyed the orders be “disowned.”  Expulsion from the Society of Friends meant not only separation from the religious community but family members as well, and a common reason for excommunication was marriage outside of the denomination. 
 

Betsy Ross (1752-1836) is a name we all recognize from our earliest lessons in American history, credited with making the first American flag. But she was born a Griscom, one of 17 children of a Quaker family who upheld both the philosophy of their denomination and its simple lifestyle.  Her own great-grandfather Andrew Griscom, a Quaker carpenter, had arrived in  the Pennsylvania colony a year before a much more famous Quaker, William Penn, founded Philadelphia. When Betsy Griscom eloped in 1773 with John Ross, an Episcopalian, she was “read out” of the Society of Friends. Although she was reinstated after she was widowed, and later joined a group of disaffected Quakers who supported the Revolution, now called “Free” or “Fighting Quakers.”  By the end of her life, the last Free Quaker meeting house was closed. (source: Betsy Ross)
 

Those Quakers who remained non-combatant during the Revolutionary War often received vicious treatment from their neighbors. The Bull family of Dutchess County, New York, may be a typical example. Quaker John Bull had immigrated to this area near the Hudson River in the mid-1700’s along with 9 children, including 6 sons. According to family genealogy, two of the sons were taken prisoner during the War of Independence and sent to New York.
 

The treatment of Quaker non-combatants in New England was not less severe than that meted out to their co-religionists in Pennsylvania, as one of the Bull brothers died from violence and privation, while the other survived only long enough to be rescued by his relations, and died soon after. (Bowerman)

Quakers George & Phoebe Bull

Generations of the Bull family would suffer temporary excommunication for marrying outside the denomination or by joining a liberal branch known as the Hicksites. Many of the Bull family immigrated to Canada, where many of the Quaker pacifists and Loyalists from the Revolutionary War had moved decades early (The United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada estimates that 1 in 10 Canadians has a Loyalist ancestor.)
 

Despite its long history of peace and equality, the Society of Friends had its own penalties for members who violated its religious and social conventions. And that’s no Bull.
 

Sources:
Betsy Ross: Her Life. 
Bowerman, Dr. A.C. “Genealogical List of the Bull Family of the County of Prince Edward, Ontario.”
United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada.

Megan:

The Convention of Violation without Penalty:

a brief survey and critique of reality television

Nowadays, it seems that if you violate conventions, you are rewarded with a reality TV show. Shows like 16 & Pregnant, Sister Wives, 19 Kids and Counting, Hoarders and the obviously named, Taboo – draw upon the novelty of people who live or act contrary to what is common and acceptable in our society. The arguments against reality television are fairly well-known, as its detractors tend to be loud and smug in their derision.

These shows reflect a dangerous sociological evolution, wherein people behave badly in order to get their own show. Jennifer Del Rio, a 16 year old mother of twins, is being sued by the father of her children who claims she got pregnant to get onto the popular MTV show. Whether or not this is true almost doesn’t matter. Supporters of this show claim that it portrays the harsh reality of teenage parenthood and relationships. It is true that these girls are rarely able to finish high school or maintain a good relationship with the fathers of their children, but they are paid for being on this show. Perhaps they are unhappy, but surely they must be financially secure. I have no idea what they are paid, but generally viewers assume that if you are on a TV show, you get money for it. Reality TV is not actual reality – people act differently when they know they are being observed. Not only that, people act differently in order to ensure they are observed.

These shows also uphold the  unhealthy standards of beauty so often represented in films and advertising. Even music competitions like American Idol, The X Factor and The Voice which claim to be talent-based, constantly refer to cultivating brands, having “the whole package,” and in the case of The X Factor, that certain je ne se quoi, the unknown quality that makes one unique. These shows pretend to promote individuality, but instead conventional beauty is valued over talent, The exception is when  the person is unattractive but super-talented, in which case their strangeness and ugliness is part of the spectacle. Look what happened to Susan Boyle – the shock expressed by the judges and audience during her audition indicated that it is hard to believe talent can come in a misshapen, ugly package. After her makeover (and her breakdown), when the novelty wore off, Ms. Boyle was marketed to a demographic closer to her age who still appreciate music for the sound and not the image in the video.

 The Voice, with its blind auditions gives the impression that the acts are chosen with no regard to the contestant’s appearance, but you can see the delight on the judge’s faces when they turn around and see an attractive face and body. It’s the first thing they comment on. From that point in the show, the judges compete with each other to shape the real people into marketable, Hollywood cookie-cutter pop-stars.

My mother likes to watch the cooking competition shows, but occasionally I discover that she has clogged the TIVO with Reality Housewives of Atlanta, (or Houston, or Beverley Hills.) I have only seen the previews for these shows, but as far as I can tell, the allure to the public is rich people behaving badly. Despite the dramatic and ridiculous way these women are portrayed, they cater to an envious audience who aspire to their wealth and circumstance. These shows portray extreme moments edited together to seem like a coherent, and achievable lifestyle.

Despite the fact that I obviously fall into the loud and smug detractor category, I do watch some of these shows. After 4 years without a television, I find myself oddly transfixed at times by the bizarre scenarios playing out on screen. But I think these shows are dangerous because they manipulate people’s emotions and insecurities, their dreams and narcisstic tendencies, present illusion as reality without acknowledging the fiction.

Topic 154: Personality in Apparel

Carol:

 Hats Off to the Ladies

Darn it if I didn’t miss another big event. April 25 was the official Red Hat Society day. In case you haven’t seen or read about the Red Hat ladies, they are a social organization for women over 50. The first lines of Jenny Joseph’s 1961 poem “Warning” was the inspiration for the Red Hat Society

“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.”

The RHS official website makes it clear right at the beginning; these ladies all about fun, frivolity and friendship
 
The word that comes to mind when I see the Red Hat ladies is “crone.” No, not the hunched over, wart-faced witchy types depicted in films, but the archetype of the wise old woman who gathers the young children around her knee for winter stories and passes on life knowledge to her daughters.  The modern crone is a woman who wears her aging as a badge of survival and celebration, comfortable with a new phase of life that is more about gain than loss.
 
I only know one “Red Hatter,” for sure. She has always been fun and frivolous, and she always wears purple to offset her bright red hair. Maybe she read Jenny Joseph’s poem a long time ago and turned to purple when she was young. The poem is not about being old really; it is about being young. Its title is “Warning,” and only the first half of the poem describes the freedom of old age when women can not only wear what they want but act how they want, “and make up for the sobriety of [their] youth.”  The rest of the poem is about the responsibilities young people have, the social and parental duties, the pressure to conform . Joseph throws in a little teaser in the last stanza, a thought that maybe, just maybe, there is room to “practice” the audacity of personal freedom right now, before women get old.  Like I say, my Red Hatter friend doesn’t need the empowerment of a Red Hat Society to make her feel comfortable in her red and purple-ness. She already had it.
 
I have another crone friend who makes me laugh whenever I think about her. She is more of a “Mad Hatter” than a “Red Hatter,” and she has a an outrageous costume for every occasion. Go to her house for the Academy Awards, and she will be dressed in a tiara and long white gloves. She has a hat with sparklers that light up for 4th of July, and rabbit ears for Easter. She honed her talent for frivolity from 20-something years of teaching first and second graders. Her frivolity and lightheaded joy for life is not shallow; it was hard won from a tough childhood.  Her hugs and hats are celebrations of survival.
 
I have another crone friend who makes me applaud whenever I think about her. She was all about hats for a while, for a year that was the antithesis of frivolity and fun. It was the year of wearing hats to cover the bald head from chemo and radiation. It was about a Knit Hat Society of friends who banded together to help her fight the cancer, shopped and cooked and called and cried…and laughed.. ,with her.  I know that behind the “in your face” bravado and the hats there had to have been times of emotional meltdown, but boy did she show me what strength and friendship are all about.
 
I love seeing the Red Hat ladies congregating at the Courthouse Square or meeting for tea in the Wild Iris. But, I already belong to a Society of Fearless and Frivolous Friends, and I take off my hat to them all. 

Sources:

Joseph, Jenny. "Warning." poemhunter,cm. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/warning/

Red Hat Society Official homepage. http://www.redhatsociety.com/index.aspx



  

Megan:

Impersonality in Apparel

Didn’t we already have this topic? For someone who cares as little about clothing as I do, it’s hard to come up new material for another essay.

Instead, I’m going to rant a little bit about what I think is a size-ist policy in mainstream department stores (Size-ist, by the way, is discrimination against people of size.)

Before

After

A few weeks ago, I was watching an episode of What Not to Wear, and Mindy Cohn (Natalie from The Facts of Life) was their victim guest. I really liked her original style, which featured tunic shirts and leggings and comfortable shoes. She looked like she was always on the way to a yoga class, but the woman mostly does voice work now, and it’s nice to be comfortable. After the makeover, she looked pretty nice too – but anyway, she made a point during the episode that resonated with me: Most stores do not stock cute clothes for bigger women.

I shop at Kohls a lot. I’m aware that their clothing is not quality, but they fit my other requirement – cheap and comfortable. What annoys me about that place, is that the first thing you see when you walk in are all the super cute summer dresses on display. I love dresses. One of my favorite things about being back in a consistently warm climate is that I can wear sundresses every day if I want for about 6 months of the year. So, I see the dresses and get excited and then head over to the area with clothes in my size, and there’s nothing. Lots of pants, lots of big shirts, and maybe only two styles of upper-arm-concealing, hide-your-problem-areas-with-excess-fabric dresses. It is extremely frustrating.

This is an old argument. I know that the excuses. It is easier to design a dress in a smaller size because the measurements tend to be more consistent. When you get to the bigger sizes you get people with small hips and a giant bust (or the reverse),  all sorts of fruit shapes (apples and pears and bananas, oh my) and maybe it’s not economically viable to design affordable clothes which account for those variables.
 
Except that I know it is done. We have Maurices, a mid-priced store, in our mall that stocks sizes 0 - 24 – cute and casual as well as professional clothes for plus sized women – and nearly the same dresses for the entire range of sizes. Lane Bryant and Torrid also cater to the bigger sizes, but I would have to drive to Phoenix to shop at those stores, and also they are not very affordable if you are unemployed.

I’ve read that it is harder for overweight people to achieve promotion to higher paying jobs because they are often perceived to be lazy. This perception can only be reinforced by the ill-fitting and unattractive clothing lines available to the lower incomes. I’m not saying the general lack of fitted, cute and sexy options is part of a conspiracy to make plus-sized women feel bad about themselves – there are plenty of other outlets to feed our insecurity. I’m saying there is a market. No matter what their size, most people feel more confident when they look good. Increase our options and maybe we’ll shop more.  And that’s good for the economy, right?

/rant

Topic 148: Temporal Halos

   
Carol:

            Word Play

Today's topic is second choice. The one we threw back was not appealing to either of us, and we only allow ourselves one "throw back." So, we're stuck with "temporal halos." I vowed with T148 not to do any research, resort to Google for ideas, and not to spend many hours on it because there is just too much fun stuff going on around the house right now. There are puppies to play with, after all. Instead, I'm going to play one of my favorite games. Fictionary.
 
We used to play Fictionary on Saturday nights with our college friends while  were waiting for Saturday Night Live to come on. The game is cheap and simple,  requiring  only a dictionary, paper and pencils. The idea is to find a really obscure word in the dictionary and then make up several definitions for it, the more elaborate the better, then read them out loud along  with the real definition. Winners are the ones who guess the correct meaning of the word. Winners are also the ones whose phony definitions get chosen instead.  I love this game because it takes full advantage of my experience with word play. During detention time at my Canadian junior high school, I was required to either memorize stanzas of poems or copy out the dictionary pages. Very civilized, eh?  I write good dictionary.

I’ll use today’s topic “temporal halos” to illustrate. Here are 3 possible definitions, with a whimsical nod to some of my favorite TV shows.

(1)    The Bio-medical Definition:  According to the medical sleuths on House, temporal halos are bio-electrical phenomena that show up as round shadows on brain scans. Generally, temporal halos are symptomatic of increased neural activity in the temporal lobe, neuropathic manifestations if you will, that most frequently signal the presence of brain lesions.  What causes these brain lesions will only be revealed at the 55-minute mark of a 60-minute, high-stakes,  medical guessing  game. Diagnosis: epileptic seizures brought on by pulsating waves of, not STD’s as you might suspect, but HDTV’s that are left on all night  when people fall asleep on the couch instead of going to bed at a normal hour.

 
(2)    The Paranormal Psychology Definition: The science team on Fringe identifies temporal halos as emanations from doppelgangers who travel between parallel universes. “Temporal” here refers to time and space aberrations as opposed to brain abnormalities. While the Housian bio-electric halo is distinguished by its silver metallic flicker, the Fringian halo appears as a translucent rainbow much like the delicate  multi-colored shimmer of a soap bubble or oil puddle.  This halo only manifests for that split second when the doppleganger slides through one world into the other, pushing through a kind of osmotic, membranous force field that keeps parallel worlds from bleeding into each other.

(3)    The Prismatic-Pyramidic-Spiritualistic Definition: Reruns of  Michael Landon’s Highway to Heaven provide convincing proof for a third definition, much favored by crystal collecting Sedona psychics. Angels walk among us, heavenly guardians, ephemerals  whose presence in the temporal world is kept secret lest humankind become distracted from performing everyday functions or acts or bravery. These Earth Angels use eye-deceiving clothing to hide their wings, but their temporal halos can be seen with the peripheral vision, what we might call the Divine Parallax View.  These halos present as auras rather than the gold disks represented in traditional sacred iconic art. Unlike the Housian and Fringian temporal halos which retain a fixed ring shape, the Landonian halo appears to vibrate and even elongate during high-intensity intervention, we might say a heavenly adrenaline rush.

 
There you have it, three plausible and distinct definitions for an archaic expression.  If you want to play the game, post your own definition. But….no googling,  no Merriam-Webstering, please.
 


Megan:

 

Mom is right. There IS a lot going on around here right now and my essay did not get written.

Topic 129: Penalties of Success

Carol:

Go to the Penalty Box           

One of our friends from college  was always looking for the best deals.  One summer Russ came back from Mexico bragging about all the stuff he had bought. He pulled up his sleeve to show his proudest purchase. “Guys, can you believe I only paid $30 for this Omega watch? Take a look.”  As Russ  pulled the watch off his wrist, the little gold horseshoe on the clock face came loose and dislodged in the hands of the watch.  Imitation may be flattering, but it is also costly. Consumer Reports estimates that legitimate businesses lose nearly 250 billion dollars a year in sales to counterfeit merchandisers.
 

If one penalty of success is unwanted imitation, another is notoriety. Successful people have little privacy. The missteps of famous celebrities like Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson make money for “entertainment” magazines and talk-show hosts, but successful people are rarely portrayed with compassion or insight. Nor are their family members, who then become “collateral damage” through the media attention.  Take, for example, the son of Bernie Madoff—the most successful of Ponzi schemers, at least until he got caught.  Forty-six-year old Mark Madoff committed suicide on the 2nd anniversary of his father’s arrest. According to Madoff’s lawyer, “Mark was an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime” (source: Reuters).
 

Successful people may seek fame regardless of the loss of privacy. But, they may not anticipate all the consequences of courting the public eye. The penalty for James Frey put him in a league of his own. Frey is the author of A Million Little Pieces, whose critical reviews  sent him on the Oprah Show, was “outed” for fabricating parts of his so-called memoirs. Random House settled a law-suit by disgruntled book buyers at a cost of 2.35 million dollars. The damage to his reputation wasn’t permanent;  he may make a million little dollars on the success of his book turned teen-age science-fiction film I am Number Four. Don’t look for his name on the book, however. He and collaborator Jobie Hughes publish under a pen name, Pittacus Lore (source: Wikipedia).
 

Of course, plenty of people are successful without being famous. Do the successful folk in our own families pay the price for being good at what they do?   My son  son taught me a lesson about success when he was in high school. Because he had shown a strong aptitude for mathematics, we pushed him into accelerating his math studies to include a college calculus class at the same time he was working part-time, playing guitar in a band, and taking a full course-load at the high school.  When I applied a little pressure to work harder in the college class, he remarked “Just because I’m good at something doesn’t mean I like it.” Duh—I have thought about that comment often.
 

Closer at hand, my writing co-conspirator  pays the penalty for being the most proficient “techie” in our household.  Yesterday, I decided to reconfigure my workspace and started moving everything around without unplugging the computer, the modem, the printer, or the screen.  The penalty of that hasty, lazy whim was that I pulled some wires loose.  Megan was not pleased to be rooting underneath my desk reconfiguring a tangled mess of wires by flashlight.
 

Everybody knows how Megan’s cartoons really add just the note of humor to The Daily Theme essays. I can only imagine what she would have come up with today. I asked her if she had the time, but she said no. I guess I’m in the penalty box now.

Sources:
James Frey. Wikipedia.
 Mark Madoff death.
“Real or Fake? Counterfeit Merchandise can Threaten Your Safety and Fund Crime.” Consumer Report  Jan 2008. 

Megan:

Penalties of Celebrity

I bet celebrities are counting on there being a special place in hell for the paparazzi . But those photographers wouldn’t be taking the pictures if there wasn’t a market for them. Tabloid magazines and websites wouldn’t buy them if there wasn’t an audience eagerly waiting for the next picture of Suri Cruise, Brangelina, or the Twilight kids. I have always been a part of this audience, but recently I’ve started to feel uncomfortable about the role I play in supporting this part of the industry.

As I’ve mentioned before, I see almost every mainstream movie that comes out (I like Independent films too, but they hardly ever make it to my local cinema). Naturally, I have a curiosity about the actors who star in these movies. One of my favorite TV shows is Inside the Actor’s Studio, and although I was not previously a fan of his work, the interview the Dave Chappelle changed how I thought of Hollywood. In the interview, he was speaking of Martin Lawrence, Mariah Carey and his own public “breakdown” when he left his show at the height of its popularity and went to Africa:
 

What is happening in Hollywood? Nobody knows. The worst thing to call someone is crazy. It’s dismissive. I don’t understand this person. So they’re crazy. That’s bullshit. These people are not crazy. They are strong people. Maybe the environment is a little sick.

Since he gave this interview in 2006, we have watched Britney Spears shave her head, Joaquin Phoenix freak out in a very elaborate hoax, and now we are watching Charlie Sheen implode. If there was ever a reason for not doing drugs – aside from their illegality – look at what they do to the people who otherwise have everything going for them. 

For every Charlie Sheen, you have dozens of actors who aren’t wasted on live television, who aren’t modeling for the paparazzi every night in front of nightclubs, who remember to put on their underwear. Because there are so many examples of celebrities who are able to cope with their fame, it is easier to put the blame on the ones who can’t, the ones on drugs.

But I think it’s more than drugs.  I think the condition of celebrity will eventually be studied in college psychology classes. I don’t think a person can withstand that much scrutiny, such a loss of privacy without it having some sort of negative affect on their mental landscape. Sometime last year, Kristen Stewart compared the effect of the paparazzi with rape – an analogy that drew derision from the public and the Internet. But maybe she was just using the only other word for such persistent violation that she knew. 

Sure, there are financial compensations… these people live in mansions, can travel the world, and have trainers and personal chefs and nannies for their kids.  But they aren’t famous because they are rich – there are CEO’s who make more money, who can walk down the street without getting mobbed by fans and photographers. Celebrities are famous because we recognize them; we can pick them out of a crowd, like we could a family member or a friend. But we treat our family and friends with more respect.


Inside the Actors Studio: Dave Chappelle 2006.

Topic 124: A Curse of Cleverness

Carol:

The Case of the Curse of the Clever Cogitators

Pushing my way through a daily theme topic to actually arrive at a subject is like taking one of those psychological quizzes—the free association game. This morning,  I discarded the first thoughts  to pop into my head, mostly quick images of the ravens, coyotes and foxes from childhood stories with morals about “being too smart for my britches.” Then I thought about one of my favorite television sleuths, the intellectually clever but emotionally stunted San Francisco detective Adrian Monk.
 

The USA network introduced  Monk in 2002, and for 8 seasons we watched Tony Shaloub as the obsessive-compulsive PI  teeter between genius and paralysis as Monk gradually reveals the obsessions, phobias and fears that overshadow his life. Somebody added up all those fears—312 including harmonicas and ladybugs—and put them on the internet.  During Season 2 we were finally introduced to his older brother Ambrose (played by John Turturro), who makes a living   translating technical manuals into multiple languages he has taught himself ( at least 7). Ambrose may even be smarter than Adrian, but he is cursed by insecurities and fears that have turned him into an agoraphobic who hasn’t left his house in 32 years (source: Wikipedia: Monk TV Series).
 

If the story of the Monk brothers and their cursed brilliance sounds a little familiar, consider another pair of siblings known for their logic, problem-solving abilities, and powers of observation. Let’s go backwards about a hundred years to Victorian London. 
 

Older by 7 years, Mycroft was apparently the more gifted of these London brothers.  Apparently, he was most productive when allowed to sit around and think, which may account for his rotund silhouette.  Most often he was ensconced in a comfortable corner of the Diogenes, a “gentlemen’s social club for the unsocial.”  He held a mysterious government job that took full advantage of his encyclopedic memory and deductive abilities His brother was often exasperated at his lack of drive and lassitude but nevertheless spoke of Mycroft’s indispensability to members of the government Ministry: 

They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential.  In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national policy. He lives in it (Source: enotes.com).  

Although rarely seen outside his club, illustrator Sidney Paget did capture Mycroft Holmes’ image for the September 1893 issue of Strand Magazine.
 

While the elder Holmes maintained a comfortable anonymity, the younger Holmes  achieved such prominence in his profession that he gained international and enduring fame. His cleverness first came to public attention in 1887, and his exploits continued to fascinate the public for the next 30 years in four books and fifty-six essays, most of which are narrated by his long-time  assistant and biographer who shared a flat with him for many years and who captured his eccentricities with astute detail: 

 …now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion (Source: A Study in Scarlet). 

Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the great detective in fiction and in film, known for his cleverness.
 

Tired of watching Monk re-runs? Already seen the latest Sherlock Holmes incarnation with Robert Downey Jr.?  You don’t really need to wait until the sequel comes out next December. Just tune in on Monday evenings to watch a clever but flawed detective in action,  a drug addict, prone to melancholy, a cold façade, no sentimental attachments.  Gregory House. Elementary, my dear Wilson.

Sources:
(1)    from The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans. Enotes.com
(2)    Sherlock Holmes. The Official Website.
(3)    Doyle, Arthur Conan. A Study in Scarlet. Page 12.Googlebooks

Megan:

The Curse of Being Too Clever

I mentioned this topic to a friend of mine and she said, “Well, that will be no problem for you because your posts are always so clever and funny and inspiring and amazing – in fact, they are the best part of my day... my life even. ” Well, she said the first part about it not being a problem, and she may have said the rest but I had stopped listening – completely overwhelmed with the pressure I was now under to compete with myself.  After several days of stress, combined with following the very unfunny news of the world, I have now decided not to even try. Instead, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before – write a review. And to punish my friend for ruining this topic for me, I’m going to review a show she’s never seen.

Last night, as I checked once again to see if The West Wing had been added to Netflix On Demand, I discovered Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – Aaron Sorkin’s television follow-up to the political masterpiece.

Studio 60 only lasted one season, and according to some reviews was abandoned by viewers after the early episodes.  I watched 4 episodes last night, and have every intention of seeing the series through, but I can see what went wrong. The West Wing raised the bar – for good television and for Mr. Sorkin.
The two main characters on Studio 60 are Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford. After 10 seasons on Friends (a show I loved by the way), Studio 60 feels like quite a promotion for Chandler Bing. But this is not where Josh Lyman was supposed to end up after leaving the Bartlett Whitehouse… directing the fictional equivalent to Saturday Night Live.  Of course, I realize that the actors are separate from their most famous characters, but Josh was my favorite. And although Danny, Whitford’s character on Studio 60, is just as fast-talking, intelligent and intense –  the energy feels misdirected. Rather than helping to craft democratic policy, the best result of all his hard work can only ever be a successful TV show.

Both West Wing and Studio 60 are behind the scenes views of a fast paced and high stressed work environment. Things are continuously going wrong at the last minute and the bantering dialog is usually exchanged between the characters as they are on the way to somewhere else. Loyalty and hard work are valued; drug abuse and impulsive decisions are common themes. The characters in both are well-developed, interesting and flawed human beings. But only in one of the shows do we feel like there are real world consequences to their actions. But one has the President of the United States while the other, only a president of a fictional broadcasting company.  We’re not dealing with national and natural disasters here, but power outages and poor ratings.

Watching The West Wing was my primary form of escape while I lived in England. While I watched that show, Jed Bartlett was my president, instead of George W. Bush. I owned all 7 seasons, and when I dismantled my life over there and got rid of all my belongings, leaving behind those DVDs was my only regret.

If Studio 60 had proceeded The West Wing instead of following it, I’m sure it would have survived its first season for all the reasons I’ve already said. The writing is excellent; the back stage view of a broadcasting corporation is genuinely interesting. I have found comparisons to 30 Rock, which I haven’t seen, much of, but Studio 60 is a serious show with funny moments – 30 Rock seems the reverse. But, while watching a TV show about the making of a government can absorb your attention completely, watching a TV show about the making of a TV show, you never forget where you are.

Topic 120: Living Caricatures

Carol:

Live from New York, It’s…..

After Marc’s graduation from law school in 1974, he got a job that took us right back to the same area of west Los Angeles where I had lived as a kid. By the fall of 1975, we had begun our careers, bought our first a home half a mile from Santa Monica beach, and settled into a comfortable routine with a constellation of college friends who had also gravitated to the LA area after college. Weekends we played softball or volleyball at one of the local parks. Evening get-togethers involved marathon, cutthroat monopoly games or Pictionary.  By 11:00 p.m. we would settle around whichever apartment’s  television set  and get ready for our favorite group ritual – watching a brand new NBC comedy show called Saturday Night Live and its cast of “Not Ready for Prime-Time Players” that included  Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and Chevy Chase.

What I loved most about the early SNL was its spot-on caricatures of political figures and its lampoons of current affairs on “Weekend Update.” On the national scene, it was Year 1 for Gerald Ford and Year 1 for Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford. All it took for President Ford was one stumble debarking from an airplane, and Chevy Chase turned the incident into a signature, weekly pratfall that usually opened the show.  Chevy  Chase as Gerald Ford the bumbling klutz.  The skits worked because the audience became part of the joke, anticipating that whatever political situation of the week was satirized, it would always lead up to a crazy, slapstick moment with Chevy/Ford on the floor. What a relief after the Nixon years to be able to laugh at national politics.

Over the next few years, our little SNL fan club broke up as we pursued careers,  started families and gradually moved out of LA.  Despite his popularity as the stand-out of the first-year cast, Chevy Chase didn’t last. The cast and quality of the show changed over its first ten years, and although SNL still seemed to be a star-maker (Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Phil Hartman in the early 80’s), I don’t really remember much political humor until Dana Carvey joined the cast in 1986. He may be best known for “The Church Lady,” but he also revived the political satire with caricatures of George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.

We lost patience with SNL after a while, too hit-and-miss with the humor, too many commercials, too late at night.  The current version of “Weekend Update” seems embarrassingly lame compared to the consistent quality of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I never watch SNL on Saturday night, only the recorded version to  catch the opening monologue, fast-forwarding  through the commercials, mediocre skits, and ear-jarring musical guests, all in hopes of catching a glimmer of that satirical brilliance that poked fun at a parade of Presidents and political campaigns: Darrell Hammond as both Clinton and Gore, Will Ferrell as George W, Tina Fey as Sara Palin, and now Fred Armisen as President Obama (a somewhat controversial casting choice, I understand, but I like him). 

Caricature is about exaggeration, not imitation. It’s about capturing and stretching the essence, the humanness of public figures, whether their big ears, their verbal or physical klutziness, or their speech patterns and facial tics. And I think good caricature of a living person can’t step too far over a line towards meanness or sarcasm.  Especially at SNL where this Saturday night’s caricature may end up on next Saturday’s show.

Live from New York, it’s….Sarah Palin!

Sources:

Wikipedia: Saturday Night Live. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live

Megan:

Family Caricatures

I can’t remember whether I mentioned this before, but my brother – who has always been my harshest critic when it comes to the things I write – told me I was being too hard on Merriam-Webster. He believes that it is unfair of me to judge them (it?) for using a variation of the word being defined in the definition if the word being defined is not the root word itself (read that slowly, out loud and it will make sense). Maybe he is right, but then they go and do this:

Definition of CARICATURE
1: exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics
2: a representation especially in literature or art that has the qualities of caricature
3: a distortion so gross as to seem like caricature

For the purposes of this essay, I am going to utilize the 3rd definition – and write about something that seems like a distortion, but is in fact a truthful representation. 

One of the unexpected pleasures of this  project has been the opportunity to make fun of my parents on a regular basis. In real life, my father is a serious man, he is an excellent lawyer and he cares about people. Everyone who knows him knows he is a good and interesting man, if somewhat easily distracted.

But, I am not exaggerating when I say that yesterday afternoon  he read aloud to me from Consumer Report for 45 minutes. It was the automobile edition, and according to him, the 'most important issue of the year.' I guess it was an odd coincidence that  both the top rated and lowest rated cars (Nissan Altima and a Volkswagen Passat respectively) happen to be sitting in our garage at this exact moment, but still I was not interested in hearing the rankings of all the cars in between.

I decided to distract him. He’s not great about making repairs around the house, and he will literally run away when insects are involved, but when it comes to disposing of dead animals he usually takes care of business.

 “Dad, did you get the dead mouse out of the laundry room?”

“I completely forgot.”

“How could you forget? Don’t you know that mouse has kept us hostage all day, prevented us from entering the laundry room and that I had to wear ill-fitting and unattractive clothes today – clothes that looked so weird that the friend with whom I had lunch asked me, after a bathroom break, if I had changed since we’d met  because she’d suddenly realized how weird I looked and that it was all the dead mouse’s fault and also yours for not taking the time to remove the body before going to work this morning when it was first mentioned to you?” (Where dead animals are concerned, I am prone to soliloquy).

So, he put down his magazine, went into the kitchen and returned with an empty bag – the kind that used to contain a loaf of pre-sliced whole wheat bread. He puts the bag inside out on his hand and used it to talk to me like a puppet: “This is a good bag to pick up a dead mouse,” said the bread bag puppet.   And then he walked downstairs to the laundry room.

He couldn’t find the mouse at first, so he shouted up to me and I shouted up to my mom in her office to find out where it was (this is like the 9th dead animal to be found in or around the house since I’ve moved back here, but the only one I did not discover myself). After a series of directions yelled from upstairs to me and relayed down to him, and a comment about the surprising softness of the mouse,  he came back up the stairs empty handed.

“Where is the mouse?” I asked him.

“I put it in the pail where we put the lint from the dryer.”

“So… it is still in the laundry room?”

“It is in the plastic bag.”

“That doesn’t matter. You have basically wrapped it like a present and laid it on a pillow. It will attract other creatures. Other creatures will come to the place where we clean the clothes and they will chew holes in the bread bag and use the lint to make nests inside our clothes. There will be a smell. And the clothes will remain unclean.”

“I’ll empty the pail tomorrow.”

But he won’t. He will forget.  I bet you a billion dollars.

Topic 95: Human Blindness

Carol:

Justice Blindfolded

Not all talk at our dinner table is about punctuation, genealogy, and dogs.  Table talk  also reflects my husband’s interests, such as the latest issue of BMW Rider’s Magazine, hot headlines from the New York Times, and The Law.  Contrary to the lawyer/shark/bottom feeder jokes, Marc and I both consider his career an honorable profession.  So,  when we drew topic 95,  I thought about  the symbolism of the famous statue “Blind Justice.”  My subsequent search for information about the term led me in several very strange directions.
 

The most common Google links led to films and TV. The 1994 HBO film  centers around a gun-fighter who was blinded in the Civil War.  The 2005 TV series involves a New York Detective, oh my, blinded in the line of duty.  Despite creator Stephen Bochco’s success with such mega-series as Columbo, Doogie Howser M.D, L.A. Law and NYPD Blue,  Blind Justice didn’t make it past the first season(source: IMDB).
 

My next search  led to a forty-page pdf document called “Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth.”  The report was written by Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center whose website provides easily accessible fact sheets and educational materials indicating that Lady Justice is not blind to color. For example,  DPIC’s “Facts About the Death Penalty” (updated 14 Jan. 2011) cites several studies showing that the odds of a defendant receiving the death penalty increase  when the victim is white, regardless of the race of the defendant (source: DPIC website).
 

My search for “blind justice” next took me to a book called Blind Justice (2009) The cover photo reveals that its author Craig B. Brown is also Judge Brown, so I skimmed  several pages of the introduction out of curiosity.  Much to my surprise, his title is, oh my, a play on words; the now retired honorable Judge Craig B. Brown of North Carolina is blind.  Since I could only read a few pages of the introduction without having to buy the book, I googled Judge Brown to find out more about him, expecting a fascinating story. Which I got.
 

Judge Brown had  been the subject of controversy  over a 2008 high-profile murder case where 17-year old Lawrence Lovette was accused of murdering two North Carolina college students. During a bond hearing,  Judge Brown called on state law-makers to enact legislation to curb gang violence in what amounted to a four-minute speech. This diversion from typical proceedings in effect “branded” the defendant as a gang member, such prejudicial, unsupported assumptions potentially tainting the jury pool.  Defendant Lovette is still awaiting trial, ineligible for the death penalty because of his age at the time of the crime. His older co-defendant pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. His plea bargain was supported by the family of 22-year-old victim Eve Carson, who have publically stated that neither Eve nor her family believe in the death penalty.  Judge Craig Brown resigned two months after the controversial bond hearing, a year later releasing his book (source: Winston-Salem Journal). If you want the “rest of the story,” Brown writes about the case in Chapters 14 and 15 of Blind Justice.
I don’t know what new project Stephen Bochco is working on these days, but there is a story to be told. A blind, retired Judge from the South becomes a writer-advocate to fight street violence. The series will  need a catchy title, though, a play on words perhaps?   
 

Sources:
Blind Justice (2005). ABC Television program       
“Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth.” 

Brown, Craig. Blind Justice. Google Books. 2009
Death Penalty Information Center
Death Watch North Carolina “Durham Judge Who Made Gang Plea Resigns.” Winston-Salem Journal 07 May 2008
  
“Judge: Nc. Needs Anti-Gang Laws Now. WRAL.com. 19 Mar 2008.



Megan:
I didn't write today because I was preparing for a phone interview. 
So, I'll be back tomorrow.  

Topic 93: The Glamour of the Past

Carol:

Upside, Downside
 

Glamour is not a word I use very often, and I associate it mostly with Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, and other Hollywood stars of the thirties and forties who glide out of their boudoirs in slinky dresses, hair shimmering in waves, puffing on gilded cigarette holders. Glamour is about attraction and artifice, trompe l’oeil. Scarlet O’Hara understood glamour. My everyday world isn’t about glamour, which is just fine with me. I know people who are beautiful, even elegant, but I don’t know anyone who is glamorous. Well, that’s not true. Have you met the Crawleys?  

It should be no surprise that a retired English teacher would be addicted to European period pieces, and right now that means Masterpiece Theater on PBS, specifically Edwardian England and the seemingly glamorous lives of the Crawley family of Downton Abbey, the latest import from Great Britain’s ITV 1. At first I thought the key theme of the mini-series mimicked Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with its gaggle of girls and preoccupation with arranging good marriages, and financial security, for a houseful of young women.  But, as the episodes take us more closely into the lives and worldview of Lord Grantham, his American wife, and their three daughters, we see more complexity in their relationships and the whisper of the social and political upheaval that will amplify with the Great War and Depression.
 

Most English period pieces are also about class, distinctions of birth and upbringing that have nothing—and everything—to do with money. Sometimes, listening  in on the servants’ gossip as they relax “below stairs” after dinner, I am reminded of the 1970’s Upstairs, Downstairs, the first Masterpiece Theater program I ever watched, which ran for sixty-some glorious episodes. It too began in the days before the Great War when the aristocratic world of the English class system was beginning to fray around the edges before it would be ripped apart after World War I, but Upstairs, Downstairs was plunked right into the elegant heart of London where Downton Abbey is set in the lush Hampshire countryside of the imposing, elegant Highclere Castle.

 

Whereas Upstairs, Downstairs moves the audience between the interior worlds of the Aristocrats above and the servant class below, we might almost rename the current series  "Inside, Outside."  The audience is taken from the opulent but sometimes stifling interior of the Abbey--with its elaborate staircases, corridors and rooms within rooms—to the incredible, spacious expanse of lawn and lake surrounding the Abbey. After the drama and intrigue of Inside, we take a giant, relieved breath of the fresh Outside.
 

Most significantly, the Abbey becomes a character in the drama, and we begin to understand that Lord Grantham’s primary concern is not the future of his daughters but the future of the Estate. And, not as a piece of property, but as a living entity with its own complex eco-system.  We also begin to understand that the Abbey gives as much as it takes; the valets, butlers, housemaids, chauffeurs, grooms and cottagers on the Estate, whose jobs seem so redundant and ridiculous to outsiders, all play a role in the life of Downton Abbey, and in turn are provided security and stability. One of the most revealing and dramatic scenes takes place between Robert Crawley and his distant, middle-class cousin Matthew Crawley. Lord Grantham politely but firmly rebukes the young heir to the Abbey for humiliating the valet  Moseley by not letting the man do his job. By dressing himself, serving his own food, and letting Moseley stand by idly, Matthew demeans the servant and makes his job seem ridiculous.
 

I am ecstatic to find out that Downton Abbey has at least 4 remaining episodes after I watch Episode 3 tonight. I get at least another month of vicarious living in the elegant, glamorous world of Lord and Lady Grantham. And, when the season is over? Good news, those of you who enjoy the glamour of the past…. a brand new mini-series is in mid-filming for 2011 release,  an English period piece called…. Upstairs, Downstairs.
                           
Sources: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstairs,_Downstairs
http://www.itv.com/dramapremieres/downtonabbey/ 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606375/


   

Megan:

After reading the topic I first thought of my journals and questioned the motivation for documenting some of my very worst behavior… nothing glamorous about the feelings I have while reading what I was doing this time last year.

So, instead I though of nostalgia for the Good Old Days and some of the popular entertainment, which inspires that feeling through Masterpiece Theatre/BBC productions of period pieces, fashion trends and archaic writing equipment. You watch a show like Mad Men  and although it's sort of a dystopic view of history, with infidelity and alcoholism and sexual harassment, everyone gets really excited about the accuracy of the wardrobe.

And I thought about my courtyard flat in England and how it was a perfect vision of a country cottage, straight out of Cranford or Sense and Sensibility. The big house was even called Norland. In addition to cobblestones, ivy covered rock walls, tiny door ways and hidden staircases, and exposed beams, my little flat also had no central heating, damp mold in the corners, uneven floors, weird drafts and a beautiful Georgian window with little panes of lead glass. The window was added part way through my stay at Norland. My landlords were doing restoration work on the 250 year old property to fix some of the shoddy modernizing construction that happened over the centuries. A fireplace so large you can stand in it was discovered behind a wall upstairs. My landlady ran screaming through the court yard calling to all her tenants that she had discovered history. 

They also restored the barn and carriage houses adding 3 more apartments to their tenancy. I was offered one of the new flats, but even the addition of a clawfoot bathtub didn’t seem worth all the effort and paperwork it would take to change my address from Flat 4 to 6. And still there would be no central heating.

When my landlords decided to change my window from a large single pane to authentic reproductions of the original lead paned sash window, I was sure they told me the window would be energy efficient and warmer. That turned out to be a lie. The first window they bought did not fit, but they didn’t realize that until the old window had already been taken out. So, while waiting for the replacement to be built, I got a board instead and had no natural light for 2 weeks.  The flat had never been warmer.

My flat. Left window was authentic, Right window replaced after this photo was taken.

Topic 61: The Necessity of Being Amused

Carol:

Lighten Up!

I love the word “amuse- bouche.”  In case you aren’t a fan of Top Sous-Chef, an amuse-bouche is a one-bite appetizer that kind of teases the taste buds into action. Translated from the French, it  means “amuse the mouth.” If you watched The Next Cast-Iron Superstars, you’d know it is often a small, off-the-menu “welcome gift” from the chef at high-end restaurants. In my  circle of friends, on the rare occasions when we go to a fancy restaurant, the arrival of an amuse-bouche first evokes suspicion (“I didn’t order this, how much is it going to cost?”) then relief (“It’s free—good deal!).

I really enjoy watching those cable TV “last one standing” reality shows on the Home and Gardenia Channel or Bravissimo. Whether it’s dueling designers or competitive cook-offs, I record them all -- for delayed gratification, to give myself a little amuse-bouche for the eye and brain when Milo and I are the only ones home or the first ones awake. They are a guilty pleasure, light entertainment. I actually prefer to watch them alone—not just the food and design competitions but shows like Dancing with the Stars on Stilts or So You Think You Can Juggle.
 

I never watch reality shows live. I have my own techniques for fast-forwarding through the episodes. We have satellite HDTV (another guilty pleasure), so I have four options for fast-forwarding. Speed #1 is for stuff that’s a little boring. I can still see everything that’s going on, but it just looks peppier …and funnier, like a 1920’s silent movie. Speed #1 is also handy to get through the first weeks of competition before the dead-bang loser, born with two left hands, second-rate minor political hack gets kicked off the show. Speed #2 is for getting through the small-talk fluff in between the end of the dance (or the bake-off or the room make-over) and the announcement of the scores. Speed #3 is for getting through the commercials. Speed #4 is for those occasions when I need to start back at the beginning and fast fast fast forward to where I was when I fell asleep. That happens a lot.

Let me clarify that I do not watch all reality shows. I have very clear limits when it comes to wasting my time. My competition shows have to be NICE --nothing cut-throat or humiliating, which lets out America’s Next Top Idle Rich and Survival of the Sickest: South Bronx. If the guys on Extreme Challenge: Bon Voyage Cake start throwing frosting, I grab the remote and hit Speed #2.  At the end of Couture Island Cincinnati when the celebrity judge gets ready to announce “Pack your pinking shears and go,” I keep my hand on the remote so that I can hit “delete” just as the biggest fashion flop for the week starts to weep and moan.

The world is a pretty serious place, full of tragedy, ignorance and crime. Am I just using television to escape from reality?  Or, is harmless amusement a necessity, a counter-balance to the weightier issues of the day?  I say, YES, such little amuse-bouche entertainments are important. I need a calorie-free taste of Pound Cake Cook-Off or a little adrenaline-rush of Roller-Derby Runway so that I can handle the stress or emotions of …. CSI: North Dakota, NCIS: Navajo Nation, Law and Order: Bermuda Triangle and Dancing with the Human Target.

Megan:

A Dirty Protest

I thought I had a sick sense of humor until I started working in the prison. Everyone knows there are certain professions in which one has to develop  “gallows humor” in order to cope with the pressure and stress of the environment. Law enforcement and corrections are two, as well as the military. After a few months in the prison, my capacity for finding humor in awful situations expanded to the point where I was worried about myself.

Some prison anecdotes would probably suit this topic, but I’m having a hard time thinking of any at the moment. The further I get from that time, the harder it is for me to see the funny side – maybe because I no longer need the humor to get through the day. Here’s an excerpt from an email I got recently from someone I used to work with:

“hello u shite head, hows things. jail is much the same, a few punch ups, a throat slashed, normal stuff.”

And, he’s not being funny there (except in the greeting). That is normal.  But it’s not my normal anymore. Although my life is boring by comparison, it is a relief not to have to worry about finding heroin in library books or weapons hidden in the shelves or contamination from a dirty protest…

Actually, I still deal with dirty protests.

I think I’ve finally broken the dog of his habit of peeing on my bed.  Milo has had a love/hate relationship with my bed for a long time (or maybe it’s the other way around).  When we first got the dog, I let him sleep on the bed with me. It was a new bed. I had suggested to the parents that, at 25,  maybe I was too old to sleep on a twin bed.  So, they got me a queen size , over stuffed mattress which seemed bigger than anything I’d ever seen before. I have to jump to get in the bed. But almost immediately after we got the dog and the bed, I moved back to England again and Milo had my room, and the bed, to himself for 4 years. 

When I moved back this summer, I discovered that I had developed an allergy to the dog. Also that he took up too much space on the bed. And when he urgently needed to look out the window, he stepped or even sometimes sat on my face. That’s just not a good way to wake up.  So just after I wrote our first entry on this website, I evicted him from my room. And he soon began his guerrilla attacks. 

For a month or so, he was hitting my bed two or three times a week. My father suggested putting him down, but Milo is pretty sweet otherwise and anyway,  he belongs to Mom.  I reminded myself how much I love sleeping on clean sheets, and that because of Milo, I was getting that experience more often, but still … I worried for the mattress.  And the carpet.  So, I emptied a bottle of Febreeze and started closing my door.

I’m hoping we can come to a compromise. I don’t like restricting his access, as there are already many places in the house he is not allowed.  I’ve gradually let him back in under supervision. We haven’t had an incident in about two weeks, so I’m starting to relax a little bit. As I write this, I can see him lying at the top of the bed, his head resting on the window sill, surveying his kingdom and waiting for Mom to come home.

Topic 47: The Failure of Success

Carol:

One Day You’re In, The Next Day You’re Out

So says former super-model  Heidi Klum each week on Lifetime network’s reality show Project Runway. The show was “In” according to the ratings game if we look at the numbers for its opening night of the fall season. But, the Nielsen ratings for October  25 show it as coming in #13 behind  the NFL, NBA, WWE and something called Pawn Stars (Source: The Nielsen Ratings) Such is the nature of success—one day you’re in…..

Circa 1860

By any standard, Charles Dickens was a success. First published when he was only 25, he wrote 15 major novels before his death. When lecture tours brought him to America, he was followed by droves of readers as unrelenting and adoring as today’s celebrity fans. Although he admitted that he “wrote for money” and catered to his readers, Dickens believed that literature should teach moral lessons and expose social and economic wrongs. When Charles Dickens died on June 9, 1870, the London Times paid tribute to those lessons in its obituary describing him as “the greatest instructor of the 19th century.” (qtd inMelani).   

Yet, Dickens was an unlikely success. Poor judgment and   financial misadventures sent  John Dickens to  the  notorious debtor's prison Marshalsea along with his wife and all of their children except for 12-year old Charles, who was put to work at Warren’s Blacking Factory. The trauma of that experience would figure in many of his novels, and debtor’s prison would become a  setting for Little Dorrit.

One theme in that novel centers around the financial world. Mr. Merdle, a banker, concocts an elaborate financial scheme, dupes a number of investors based on the attraction of a “get rich quick” pay-off:

The fund promised high and unwavering annual returns, but you had to know someone to get in on it. And that was really all it took to attract credulous investors, that and the sterling reputation of the banker behind it, a financier revered in privileged circles as ‘the Man of the Age.’ (Dickens qtd in Stanley)         

Merdle’s elaborate scheme results in the ruination of several characters whose lives were intertwined with the novel’s young heroine Amy, known as “Little Dorrit” and the humiliation and downfall of his own family.

Despite his popularity, Dickens was criticized by his literary contemporaries, such as Oscar Wilde and George Meredith, who wrote

Not much of Dickens will live, because it has so little correspondence to life. ..
If his novels are read at all in the future, people will wonder what we saw in them  (qted in Melani). 

From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, in fact, his reputation waned and his books were relegated to the children’s/young adult section of the library.

George Meredith’s criticism of Dickens seems ironic today. A poet and novelist, Meredith published a best seller called Farina: A Legend of Cologne the same year that Little Dorrit was serialized. Yet, Dickens' novels are now considered masterpieces of British literature, and Meredith's name and novels are unfamiliar to most Americans. 

Charles Ponzi circa 1910

What of Meredith’s comment that Dickens “has so little correspondence to life?”
Sixty years after the publication of Little Dorrit,  a real-life Merdle was playing out his creative financial schemes in New England, targeting working people with the promise that their $10 investments would yield “high and unwavering” returns. Nearly ¾ of the Boston Police Department invested in the “get rich quick” scheme before investigations revealed the fraud and sent off to prison the mastermind of this financial scandal who became famous. His name? Charles Ponzi.

 Just ask Mr. Merdle, Mr. Ponzi and, oh yeah Mr. Madoff. One day you’re In, the next day you’re Out.
 

Sources: 

Melanie, Lilla. “Charles Dickens.”  

The Nielsen Ratings for Week of Oct. 25--  

Charles Ponzi—NY Times archives 

Stanley, Alessandra: “Dickens and the Business Cycle: The Victorian Way of Debt.”
The Victorian Web: “Charles Dickens”
      
 

Megan:

A Successful Failure

Sometimes we get a topic and I think it’s gonna be really good.
It’s like ooh, what a clever title. Oxymoronic.
I think: Oh yes. Very interesting. I’ll write about the time that … um…  I could say…

Sometimes I have no thoughts on a topic whatsoever. This is one of those times. For three days I’ve been chanting the title to myself, sometimes reversing it and … still nothing.

                                             
So, what is success? According to Merriam-Webster  :

1. obsolete : outcome, result 

2 a : degree or measure of succeeding*

b : favorable or desired outcome; also : the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence  

3: one that succeeds*

*This ongoing problem reminds me of a time a prisoner held up a copy of the Oxford Concise English Dictionary and asked me if it was a good one. I said, “Yeah, pretty good.” He looked at it doubtfully and then said, “But Miss, does it have ALL the words?”

Merriam-Webster do not have ALL the words, that’s why they keep reusing them in the definitions.

Back to the topic... I could say something cliche about the American Dream of success and bootstraps and entrepeneurship and how it’s turned into a nightmare. I met a lot of people while I was living abroad who did not like Americans or George Bush’s foreign policy, but they all wanted to live here. I blame Bay Watch. And Friends.

I think success is a system by which we measure ourselves against each other. It seems to rely on achieving the recognition of other people (of society), of meeting their standards instead of your own. If you only had to satisfy your own expectations what would you require, what would you have to achieve, to call yourself a success? But that’s a question that doesn’t really work, because our points of view have been affected by society, our values have been shaped by our families, communities and laws. I can’t tell if the things I think I want (good job with steady income, family of my own) are really what I want, or what I’m supposed to want. Is there a difference? If I choose to reject society’s definition of success, will the cost be too high?

I could say that, having been turned down for yet another job that I really wanted, and still living with the parents – I am a successful failure. By the standards I arbitrarily set for myself (or that were set for me) awhile ago, this is pretty much my nightmare except: It’s not so bad after all. In fact, I like it. My parents like it too.  The future is so uncertain right now that it’s really easy to just live for the moment. Today my two biggest problems are this essay, and then convincing my mom to go to a movie.  She would rather go tomorrow. I say, what’s the difference?