Bossypants

I just read Bossypants by Tina Fey for my book group. I loved it. We haven’t discussed it yet, but these are my discussion questions, sent by email to the group with the warning not to read them if you haven’t finished the book yet (so I issue the same warning to you!) I think this counts toward reading 14 books by women writers in 2014! (First list to come on Friday, here in the blog!) I also read We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy, by Yael Kohen, because it was in at the library, and Bossypants (at first) wasn’t (but then it came in, and now I have returned it, if you need it!)

My bossy questions (and partial answers/comments + page numbers, hardback):

When did you first know you were a woman?

What is your shaving your legs/first period story? (TMI!)

Any instances of “girl-on-girl sabotage” (p. 39) that you care to report? As in:

--convincing the guy not to cast the blonde who “stole” her boyfriend

--getting the YMCA office job that Donna wanted

Any adolescent or grown-up appearance issues you care to divulge?

Peeing in jars, ever been around that? [Yes, if they were Arby’s cups. At the theatre with no dressing rooms, in a weird rat-infested hallway in Piper’s Alley, behind Second City.]

“I Don’t Care If You Like It” chapter! Love letter to Amy P., etc. “It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good.” (p. 144) [Preference ≠ Evaluation]

What about her workplace advice to women, re: “’Is this person in between me and what I want to do?’ If the answer is no, ignore it and move on…If the answer is yes,…I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece ‘Over! Under! Through!’…If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk.” (p. 145)

Have you ever written letters you’d never send (but might indeed publish in a funny bestseller?!) (“Dear Internet” chapter)

“The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter” chapter:

“May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.”  Discuss.  (Maybe also in the context of The Innocents, by Francesca Segal, the retelling of The Age of Innocence in the tight British Jewish community—Ellie, the beautiful model who could never fit back into that community.)

Also, “Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance.”

Did you know she had a scar? [I didn’t, even after being told once or twice.]

What should Tina Fey do with her “last five minutes” [of fame]?

Abie Baby

Background music:
"Abie Baby" from the musical, Hair

Happy Birthday, Abie Baby,
Happy birthday to you, yeah!

Also, happy birthday to Charles Darwin! Thank God we evolved!

Also, my white geraniums did bloom, in case you are keeping track!

I reviewed this wonderful book of poems, The Girlhood Book of Prairie Myths, by Sandy Longhorn, in the EIL Blog today at Escape Into Life.

The beautiful cover art is by Marilyn Strother. The book can be found at Jacar Press.

Longhorn, Lincoln, and I have the prairie in common on this Random Coinciday and Hump of the Week in the blog.

Farewell to Art

We said goodbye to Art White, a sweet man, on Saturday, at a lovely service with New Covenant Community at the Campus Religious Center in Normal. He died at home on Tuesday, in hospice care. It was good to hear his family, friends, and colleagues speak of him--with laughter and tears. He was "a peach of a man," a thinker, a seeker, and, later in life, a poet! He wrote his first poem in a poetry workshop of mine, and I got to read it at his service, along with one of his favorites, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost. Art used to call me up and recite "Stopping by Woods" to me, or to my phone machine if I wasn't home. "And miles to go before I sleep." No more miles to go.

At the service, we learned that Art drank Scotch with some friends, bourbon with others, and sometimes martinis, which reminded me that he had taken me out for a martini once! Wooee! (It's a little odd to forget a martini date...  Or is it?) And with some pals he drank coffee or tea. I held hands with my dad (bourbon) during part of the service, and then he went up and spoke, too. Art hired my dad at Illinois State University. The whole past washed over us yesterday....and again today in church, on the 50th anniversary of the Beatles, when Russ the pianist played "Yesterday." Sigh....

The past washed over me in various ways this weekend. I judged individual events and performance-in-the-round at a regional speech tournament, and I was on speech team back in high school. My mom was my speech coach! What sweetness, joy, talent, and intelligence I saw in these young performers!

Meanwhile, my husband had taken his team of 7th graders to a volleyball tournament up north. I'd had a chance to see them play Thursday and Friday. More joy, talent, and spirit!

And, to make it a Random Coinciday in the blog, I received the next theatre review from Scott Klavan in New York this weekend, and posted it tonight at Escape Into Life. Scott reviews Bronx Bombers at Circle in the Square, a baseball dream play, and his review is also a thoughtful essay on sports vs. theatre in terms of 1) the human condition 2) commercial success. I like the background idea that being braver about the human condition might actually lead to greater commercial success.

These crows belong to John Wentz, the wonderful artist who also accompanies the theatre review at Escape Into Life.

February Psalm

We shoveled ourselves out by 4:30 today, in the feeble sunshine, just in time for night to fall. I say "feeble sunshine" in contrast to the "feeble winter" of another February in Sam Rasnake's fine poem "February Psalm," up today at Escape Into Life. Because this particular winter's not a feeble one. The art by Chris Ballantyne is gorgeous and scary at once, you'll see!

Well, you can see a bit of it above. We have white roofs around here, and our own roof has a drift like a curling wave on it--a surfer's wave, or Camille Claudel's wave. It's all quite wondrous. But there's been a wave of grief, too. All around me, friends are losing their fathers. It's a very hard winter for some. "So," as Emily Dickinson has said, "let us keep fast hold of hands, please, that when the birds begin, none of us be missing!"

White Geraniums

My white geraniums, brought indoors for the winter, are just about to bloom. I hope they won't be dissuaded by the latest polar vortex and the snow about to come. They are white, after all, and the scene beyond the glass patio doors simply mirrors them. Right now their clustered buds stand on three straight stems that resemble weird green eye stalks.

But these camellias are by Jonathan Koch. And the lemony and the citrusy lantana have been blooming happily in their hanging pots, so I am cheered, though, today, unable to convince myself to go outside. I had promised myself (and others) to mail things, and I still do have time tomorrow, when it will be a little warmer, before the snow arrives around noon.

So I've been doing indoor editing chores today, work I love. And I finished A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore, a writer I love. She can be hilarious, though this is a serious one. With hilarity in the background in the justifiably witty prose style.

January has been hard. Good things in it, yes. But hard things, too. 2014 has begun with lots of uncertainty, most of it lingering from 2013. I'd like some resolution. Of a good sort. Meanwhile, more snow. And this same, sad magnolia. I'm glad it's February.