Busytown by Jolisa Gracewood

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Busytown: I believe in miracles

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  • Paul Robeson,

    I want a cup cake.

    Since Feb 2008 • 87 posts Report Reply

  • Hadyn Green,

    I want a cup cake.

    I'm hoping that when I vote that someone will have cupcakes waiting for me. But for some reason I just don't think they will (sigh)

    By the way, am I the only person who, after reading the title of the post, is singing "You Sexy Thing?"

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    By the way, am I the only person who, after reading the title of the post, is singing "You Sexy Thing?"

    No sirree, you are not the only one at all. 'Yesterda-ay, I was one of the lonely people...'

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    No, Danielle, I think you're onto it... I just get all tangled up when I try to figure it out, the warp and weave of different prejudices, and different reactions to being called on them. And how they're played off against each other too. The whole Hillary vs Barack thing being virtually a replay of the US suffrage debates of the late 19th C.

    I agree that the "story" of women's civil rights is harder to write, in a way. I wonder if, because women are so thoroughly "integrated" in the ways that Kyle describes, they're more forgiving/amnesiac about the great wrongs of patriarchy past, and more inclined to think that sexism has been dealt with, or that any given incident can be written off as an anomaly?

    Whereas it would be very hard, almost impossible I'd say, to be a person of colour in this country and not see any given slight (being followed around a shop, say) as part of the larger network of discrimination and oppression (because fully 1/9 of your brothers were incarcerated, as opposed to single digit percentages of white men, say).

    I dunno, just thinking aloud. And I do think I'd have been moved to see Hillary on stage with Chelsea and her mum, and a crowd of cheering/weeping women and their cheerful men. I just don't know if it would have felt so universally moving, and I don't know that I'm happy about that, because isn't that insidious sexism at its best?

    Or is it just that Hilary is such a chipper technocrat and child of relative privilege, whereas Barack is the ultimate unconventional-childhood success story, which adds emotional heft to his already awesome story?

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    By the way, am I the only person who, after reading the title of the post, is singing "You Sexy Thing?"

    Y'all did click on my YouTube embed, right? I want the whole country up and boogying, now.

    (Just trying to pass on my election ear-worm to the rest of you...Now how do I make it stop??)

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    I think the non-citizen franchise is a wonderfull thing (but then I was disenfranchised for 20 years) roll on no taxation without representation

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    I want a cup cake.

    Here, have one of these.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    Do we feel sorry for her?

    I did at first, but then you read things like this from Newsweek and question whether all that nastiness was straight from her, not from the "McCain campaign":
    Palin launched her attack on Obama's association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain's advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • Hadyn Green,

    Y'all did click on my YouTube embed, right? I want the whole country up and boogying, now.

    I'm at work so I bypassed it. I don't know how I missed this though:

    How’d ya know I needed you so badly/ How’d ya know I’d give my heart so gladly?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report Reply

  • Carol Stewart,

    Jolisa, your coverage and cupcake photos have given me lots of vicarious enjoyment - thank you!
    As for relative oppressions, there are still a few to go, including first openly atheist president. That will be a biggie.
    What is the secret of your beautiful icing..?

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I just don't know if it would have felt so universally moving, and I don't know that I'm happy about that, because isn't that insidious sexism at its best?

    I think also (and I can't explain why) that the Civil Rights movement was something that white people got actively involved with to break the oppression - Freedom riders, marching, fundraising, organising voter registration and education etc - whereas that's less the case for women?

    Also, easier to express our white guilt by going over there and helping fix the crappy situation that 'we' have left black people in, than dealing with it in your own backyard where it's much more personal and deals with one on one relationships?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    I ludicrously and egotistically flatter myself that I commissioned this post, and that's just wrong... nonetheless, it's exactly what I had in mind, the antidote to the insufferable wet blanketism of the last, interminable thirty-six hours. Thank you Jolisa, knew we could count on you.

    Agree with everything that has been said about the difference in symbolism and import of a hypothetical Clinton victory. Deportation from the native continent, slavery, lynchings... the gaping wounds of history are just so stark and well documented and precise, whereas sexism know no latitude and yes, Danielle, of course it hasn't be quite as universally denounced and rejected, but still, if only by a matter of degrees I'd have to say that this victory for this candidate in this country is probably a bigger deal at this time in history. Here's hoping a woman president not named Palin will follow and we can shed some tear and raise a glass or three about that. See you all here in eight years?

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    the insufferable wet blanketism of the last, interminable thirty-six hours

    Thank you for that.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    __By the way, am I the only person who, after reading the title of the post, is singing "You Sexy Thing?"__

    No sirree, you are not the only one at all. 'Yesterda-ay, I was one of the lonely people...

    And that!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Kate R,

    I just don't know if it would have felt so universally moving, and I don't know that I'm happy about that, because isn't that insidious sexism at its best?

    Seems to me it is just that a win by a woman would have been much less historic. If it had been Hillary she may have been the first woman to lead the US but Golda Meier was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969 and Thatcher of the UK in 1979. So, not exactly new territory for the rest of the world.

    Wellington • Since Oct 2008 • 3 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    if only by a matter of degrees I'd have to say that this victory for this candidate in this country is probably a bigger deal at this time in history

    I agree with you. One of my lecturers when I was doing my MA said that the ways in which different societies stress their inequalities sort of... define those societies, explain them - give you an analytical framework to work with, as a historian. She used 'class' as the primary idea in England and the USA's was, of course, 'race'. (Not that class struggle doesn't exist in the USA. Just that it wasn't the defining characteristic of the country's social issues.)

    the gaping wounds of history are just so stark

    Yes. The amount of verklemptness (is that a word?) I have is related entirely to this. As Jolisa said: relief, shame that it took so long, and joy. I suppose if you find history irrelevant (and a scary number of people do), those kinds of emotions seem excessive. And I think that they almost *have* to die down eventually: he can't maintain that kind of responsibility for all these feelings. It would be stultifying.

    Did anyone link to Condi Rice reacting to the news? She was clearly absolutely elated! I've never seen her so perky. Weird and cool, even if she did sell her soul to the Bush administration...

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    verklemptness (is that a word?)

    It's a word if you want to use it that way.

    Assuming we're talking Yiddish, farklemterheyt would probably be what my great grandmother would have said. And die Verklemptheit is good German, although I'm not sure whether it's idiomatic in the emotional context.

    Literally it's to be seized up or stuck, and hence metaphorically to be overcome with emotion. Possibly it shares a root with "clamp" and might be related to clamming up. But it's the feeling when you are so overwhelmed that nothing can come out.

    (Pardon the lecture, but I've noticed a recent tendency in NZ, where people sling around Yiddishisms they've heard on US television in ways that just aren't right because they've inferred the meaning from context incorrectly. Not that you did, but I thought I'd get proactive).

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    Damn. Verklem__m__theit. Which means "inhibition."

    Note to self, always check dictionary before embarking on pedantic exercise.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Agreed, Kate and Danielle - Hillary's success (cool as it might have been) would have been a "first" only for the US. Whereas Obama's is way more symbolic -- on a par with, say, Nelson Mandela becoming President of the country that had locked him up.

    And verklempt! That's exactly the word. Funny how in Yiddish it means all choked up, whereas (according to Wikipedia at least) the German word it comes from "emotionally inhibited in a convulsive way." I was feeling it in the Yiddish sense, for sure.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Whoops, Steven got to it first. I'm just intrigued by the cultural aura that clings to each version of the word...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Stephen, sorry. [Kicks self for misspelling a name, especially given frequently urge to kick other people for misspelling one's own name].

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Veronica Pushcum,

    It's called sentimentalism.

    Sentimentalists are they who seek to enjoy Reality without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done.

    --George Meredith

    Since Jan 2008 • 3 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    Just to nerd right out here:

    - strictly, there's no "p" there, in speech or writing. I think the Yiddish spelling is fe-alef-reysh-kof-lamed-ayin-mem-tet/**פארקﬥעמט**. YIVO transliterates it far-klemt.
    - most of the actual usage by Yiddish speakers I have googled up is about sadness and depression. There is a happy verklemmt but it's clearly one that arises out of deep tragedy. Thus, a very appropriate word.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    It's called sentimentalism.

    <shrug> I'm sure there's plenty of that around too. I'm frankly not sure where the line is drawn, or how you get to be the person that makes that call, or even if it matters. If sentimentalism makes people act slightly less like dickheads to each other, I'm all for it. Just call me Marianne Dashwood.

    Way to harsh the mellow, though!

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    Uber-Yiddish-Nerd time:

    עס האָט מיר פֿאַרקלעמט דאָס האַרץ

    es hot mir farklemt dos hertz, it constricted my heart.

    farklemt.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

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