Weekly Girl Crush: Podcast Edition

If you’ve had even a passing acquaintance with me, then you’ve likely already determined my Homeric epithet: I’m clearly podcast-listening Anna. It’s not just that I begin approximately 85% of my sentences with “I was listening to this podcast that said…”, but I also rarely walk more than four feet without reaching for my earbuds. I’ve started measuring all train rides not in minutes passed but in number of podcasts consumed. And, what’s worse, I’ve recently changed my iPhone settings so that I now listen to all podcasts at 1.5 times the speed and, thus, can ingest even more delightful knowledgeable goodness.

I know: It’s a problem.

But in the midst of all this witty chatter and educated analysis, I’m constantly surprised by the limited number of feminist-themed podcasts available over at iTunes. Feminists on the Internet are certainly not a rare breed, but the ratio of feminist bloggers to feminist podcasters is about the same as the ratio of people who watch House of Cards to the number of people who can name the current majority whip. But, thankfully, a few brave ladies have sorted out their business, set up a microphone, and begun righting this imbalance. Continue reading “Weekly Girl Crush: Podcast Edition”

Weekly Girl Crushes

Image Credit: David X. Prutting / Newscom
Image Credit: David X. Prutting / Newscom

1. Icona Pop

Icona Pop’s anthem for millennial female badassadness clearly should have been the song of the summer. But, alas, we were all too busy listening to Alan Thicke’s douchy son being a douche. But we can now make up for this by listening to our favorite Swedish duo’s newly released album. It’s catchy, witty pop featuring yet another lady anthem, much lesbian innuendo, and not a single reference to anyone from the cast of Growing Pains. Fall 2013 is winning.

2. Messy Nessy Chic

Who wouldn’t want to spend hours looking at old-timey photos of abandoned Victorian tree houses, vintage sass, and the real Jessica Rabbit? People who hate fun, that’s who. Normally, whimsy is something I actively avoid, but I’ve been obsessed with the Messy Nessy Chic website ever since I happened upon their post about Hilda, the forgotten American pinup—who perfectly encapsulates everything that’s right about this site. It’s twee. It’s quirky. It’s beauty before Photoshop. And it’s totally destroying my productivity in the best possible way.

3. Lorde

Pop music is supposed to celebrate three things: excess, poor judgment, and inexplicably expensive spandex. So if you try to listen to any type of pop “music with a message,” you’ll likely give it about 45 seconds before switching back to Kanye. Pop isn’t supposed to take itself too seriously. But then here comes some 16-year-old Kiwi to prove us all wrong. Lorde’s single “Royals” is an ode to anti-materialism that somehow manages to be fun. That’s no mean feat. And she makes spare videos featuring random, dancing New Zealand teenagers. And she’s holding a rat on the cover of her album. And she has big 80s hair. I like this chick.

Weekly Girl Crushes: Uterine Edition

 

Image Credit: W.W. Norton
Image Credit: W.W. Norton

Girl Walks into a Bar … Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle by Rachel Dratch

Landing a featured role on Saturday Night Live is apparently WAY simpler than finding a suitable mate in NYC. To which I say, indeed. Rachel Dratch is mostly known for her Debbie Downer character and her infamous exit from the original cast of 30 Rock, so you might buy this book thinking it’s another Bossypants or Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?. But no. It’s a pregnancy memoir wrapped in a dating memoir surrounded by snark—so much delightful snark. When she enters the house of horrors world of over-thirties dating in NYC, she notes that friends are always telling her to watch out for red flags, which in normal cities usually refer to the simple no-nos of dating—like a man who wears a wedding ring, has a bed temper, or under tips. But in our fair city, she dates a man who may totally be a cannibal. And cannibalism is, admittedly, kind of a nonnegotiable. And then, in the ultimate dating urban legend, she meets a normal human male at a bar—only to discover that he, of course, lives in northern California. After disregarding the first rule of dating (i.e., that long-distance relationships will destroy your soul and make you THAT girl who is always crying on the B train at 8 AM), Dratch coughs up the airfare … and ends up pregnant. After a few months of dating someone who doesn’t live in the same time zone, she’s knocked up in her mid-forties. There are like four female urban legends in there. During the course of her pregnancy, she laments the fact that baby books are all written for women in “normal” cohabitating relationships. One book suggests that husbands should take their pregnant wives to see “the new Anne Hathaway flick.” There are so many problems with that sentence—the least of which being the fact that the latest Anne Hathaway flick was Les Miserables. Once Dratch gives birth to her son, she becomes the least annoying attachment parent ever, by which I mean the only attachment parent I have ever heard of who didn’t make me rethink sexual reproduction altogether. While this story may sound like an Anne Hathaway flick circa 2005, the book doesn’t have a tidy ending. But it does have a hopeful ending. And it offers women throughout the five boroughs an excellent piece of dating advice: if you want a committed relationship in NYC, find someone who doesn’t live here. Continue reading “Weekly Girl Crushes: Uterine Edition”

Weekly Girl Crush

 

Photo via: Ilka Hartmann
Photo via Ilka Hartmann

Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis by Alice Kaplan

Midcentury Paris frequently serves as the backdrop for stories of American men on the cusp of artistic achievement, whose exploits feature the following: sex with nurses, sex with prostitutes, sex with older housewives, sex with younger schoolgirls, and alcohol—endless supplies of alcohol. The Parisian adventures of soon-to-be-renowned American women are somewhat different. For one thing, there are far fewer nurses. When Jacqueline Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis each traveled to Paris, they weren’t fighting a war or attempting to contract every known STD. They were simply young women with student IDs. The Parisian year was traditionally intended to endow young women with an appreciation of French culture so that they would be able to quote Proust while serving hot dogs to their future children. This plan didn’t work out so well. Even the more conventional Jackie, a daughter of the moneyed elite, went a bit too far in her studies, eventually becoming a first lady who was often criticized for being too cosmopolitan, too cultured, and more specifically, “too French.” Sontag went even further to become the cautionary tale par excellence. Parents beware: if you send your daughter to France, she will enter the country as a young wife and leave a bisexual, Marxist intellectual. Frightening, I know. Both women would return to Paris multiple times throughout their lives, checking in on the city like old lovers. But, unfortunately for them, Paris had already moved on—to Angela Davis. If Kaplan teaches you one thing, it’s that the French LOVE Angela Davis. Like, they’re really, really obsessed with her. Countless French films, songs, and novels feature Davis and her iconic story of 1960s political turmoil. Nevertheless, unlike other notable African Americans—such as Josephine Baker and James Baldwin—Davis didn’t consider Paris a racial utopia. Davis does describe receiving better treatment in Paris than she did in her native Alabama (but, really, is this surprising?), yet she also understood that she was of “symbolic usefulness” to the French. By treating her better than they treated the Algerians, the French could term themselves progressive and tolerant—even if their country’s racist narrative remained unchanged. By studying a country’s racist framework as an outsider, Davis gained a better understanding of the underpinnings of ethnic discrimination, fueling her radical political awakening. Davis may not have particularly loved France, but the country seriously couldn’t get enough of her. There is no Susan Sontag Street or Jacqueline Kennedy Way in Paris, but there’s more than one Rue Angela Davis. Continue reading “Weekly Girl Crush”

Weekly Girl Crushes

Photo Credit: Jacob Krupnik
Photo Credit: Jacob Krupnik

Girl Walk // All Day

When you are walking through Central Park and run into a roving pack of modern dancers, there is normally only one option: flight. But Girl Walk // All Day has made me rethink my blanket policy on impromptu modern dance performances. Starring Anne Marsen as “the Girl,” Girl Walk // All Day is a 75-minute film featuring Marsen and two male dancers who stomp, flail, and pirouette through all five boroughs (yes, even Staten Island). We first meet Marsen in a claustrophobic ballet studio. But the classical music soon gives way to a soundtrack by Girl Talk as Marsen ecstatically breaks out of the studio’s four walls. This rupture of the public/private divide generates much of the humor, tension, and joy in the film. Although a vague narrative of “the Girl,” “the Guy,” and “the Creep” runs through the film, the “story” of each scene emerges when Marsen invades the private space of others. A few of the bystanders clearly recognize that they are being filmed, but the vast majority respond with genuine confusion, laughter, awe, and, only rarely, complete disinterest. In one particularly fascinating section, Marsen carries countless shopping bags as she stumbles through a hoard of Occupy Wall Street protesters. Some begin clapping, assuming she’s a performance artist denouncing capitalism, while others actually mistake her for a clueless shopper. Neither of these interpretations is entirely correct, but this is unimportant. What matters is that the private thoughts of the bystanders affect the public performance. Whether she is being championed by tourists on the High Line or being chased out of Yankee Stadium by security guards, Marsen is challenging our urban propensity to turn on our iPods and shut out the city. While NYC is known for its stoic citizens who could see a man change his pants on a subway train without reacting, NYC is also famous for forcing people to live their private lives in public: we make out in front of Grant’s Tomb, have screaming fights inside a Duane Reade, and then cry on the Q train all the way home. Girl Walk // All Day gets at this essential contradiction of urban living, celebrating the chaos of the city and the quiet lives of its inhabitants. Continue reading “Weekly Girl Crushes”