Quote

From Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran-Foer:

(a character writes in her diary about the "Sadnesses of the body")

Mirror sadness; Sadness of [looking] like or unlike one's parent; Sadness of not knowing if your body is normal; Sadness of knowing your [body is] not normal; Sadness of knowing your body is normal; Beauty sadness; Sadness of m[ak]eup; Sadness of physical pain; Pins-and-[needles sadness]; Sadness of clothes [sic]; Sadness of the quavering eyelid; Sadness of a missing rib; Noticeable sad[ness]; Sadness of going unnoticed...

I read this and thought it was beautiful. I hope it translates to people who haven't read the book.

DC Madam: A Very Personal Eulogy From Susie Bright

Susie Bright, author of a bunch of great sexual politics books and all-around awesome lady has a touching post up on her blog about Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the DC Madam who hung herself recently.

I have to quote the whole thing, because it offers tremendous insight into Palfrey, and it's a wonderful picture of a woman seeking to understand another woman:

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the "DC Madam" whose call-girl service got busted in the cross-hairs of partisan payback, has committed suicide. She hung herself at her mother's home in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Susie's talk with Jeane, 2007 (mp3): Link

Transcript of DJP interview: Link

Jeane, I am so sorry. I know you swore to me that you'd never serve another term in prison for prostitution, or anything else. You almost lost your eyesight the first time. I'm sure you asked your lawyers if there was any hope for your sentencing, and I guess it must have looked bleak.

I know how pissed you were. This was an act of revenge, and I know who you're determined to haunt.

You were righteously furious at all the men who "walked away."

I'm sure that goes quite a ways back, but it certainly includes the esteemed gents on your client list: Louisiana fundamentalist, Senator David Vitter; Abstinence Ambassador Randall Tobias, who squashed AIDS funds all over the world; "Shock and Awe" war profiteer, Harlan Ullman.

And that was just the expendable layer. None of them were charged with anything; all are living quite comfortably, in particular because they have no conscience whatsoever.

Was Jeane suicidal, in the first place? Yes, but I'd describe that carefully. She wasn't irrational to think she wouldn't survive another round in a penitentiary; her health was poor. And she was brittle, the kind of person who is aware of her considerable intellect and education, but who finds herself in unlucky and vulnerable situations over and over again.

She was gullible to the wrong kinda guys, the kind of men who turned her out when she was young, whom she mistakenly placed faith in when she was looking for love, or a safe harbor. She's the kind of woman who should've been groomed for university when she was young, and cultivated for her bright mind and sensitivities. Instead, she was exploited and wasted— and her bitterness, her depression, was a result of that cruel awareness.

She tried to "go straight" after the first round in prison, and of course, was undermined by the typical prejudices against her record. She became more angry about the hypocrites, and determined to beat them at their own game. But it's clear that when Cheney bigwigs were on her tail, she wasn't going to beat their surveillance and manipulations.

Why doesn't everyone kill themselves when they're facing hard odds like Jeane did? Well, that's the million-karma question. All I can offer at this point, is painfully prescient rhetoric: Hell hath no fury like a smart woman scorned.... and justice has NOT been served.

Wonder Woman Written by an Actual Woman!

After 66 years, Wonder Woman finally gets a female scribe, adding to a recent increase in comics geared toward women.

The cleavage and underwear stay, though. If she takes that bustier off, she loses her powers...to keep her male audience! Whamo!

Anyway, maybe the Amazons will be cooler.

Now that we're calling some comic books graphic novels, it seems okay to market to the breast-addled sex. "Marketing" meaning writing all-female comics and toning down the helpless female thing a little bit. Though I never got into comics myself, I'm always for toning down misogyny!

It's not gone yet, though...

Isabel Allende is a Goddess

Sure, I haven't loved every one of her books, but this is a great speech. It's worth watching the whole thing. I promise.

From last year's TED conference:

Chuck's Women (some spoilers)

Just finished another Chuck Palahniuk novel (Invisible Monsters) featuring crazy people doing crazy things. I've only read three Palahniuk novels, but in the last two, women were the protagonists. Well, as much as there is a protagonist in any of Palahniuk's novels.

Though Diary is written in the voice of a woman, it was really Invisible Monsters that got me thinking about the way Palahniuk treats women in his novels. Palahniuk's worlds are magical in a grotesque kind of way, but his characters always have one foot in reality. Even if it's an unsteady foot.

Diary is the diary of a woman trapped in a city that happens to be sucking the life out of her for the sake of tourism dollars. Misty Marie Wilmot keeps a "coma diary," keeping track of her husband's attempted suicide coma. Misty is unwittingly at the mercy of the town, but she's a strong, sensible woman (again, to the degree that anyone's sensible in a Palahniuk novel). I think he did a good job here.

But Invisible Monsters was more my speed. The book takes place in a supermodel, Hollywood, sex-change fantasy. The main character is a model. When we meet her, her jaw has just been shot off. She can't speak, has to write everything down. She's hideous. She meets a man who's going through a sex change op. Brandy Alexander takes the main character on a wild ride where the main goal is to score pills from old ladies as they pretend to look at said old ladies' houses. A man joins them, but the main character, who goes by many different names, starts feeding him female hormones to make him un-lovable.

The plot has a lot of twists, some more predictable and believable than others, but the woman in this novel...her goal is to be ugly. Her goal is to leave a life where everyone is telling you how to breathe, how to look, where to sit. Her life has been a lie.

When looking at Palahniuk's women, (in the two I've read with women for main characters) you have to remember that his worlds are fantastical. Okay, normally I wouldn't buy that a woman shot her own face off because it was the only thing she could think of to make her less beautiful. And Misty has a very real relationship with her daughter...until she believes that her daughter's dead based on loose evidence. But within the walls of these worlds, Palahniuk writes very honestly. His women have a true voice. And it's one of the main reasons I like his work so much.