1.) Chuck Bass (not Ed Westwick, not “Gossip Girl,” just Chuck Bass)
Okay, maybe a little bit Ed Westwick if I get to post this:
2.) Slavoj Žižek : making Lacanian theory and neo-Marxism just as sweaty and Slavic and HILARIOUS as you always dreamed!
3.) Theorizing about the secret (tainted?) love between Jeremy Piven and John Cusack.
4.) THIS:
i.e. kidnapping Christopher Doyle and making him photograph my every whim.
More to come…
Here is Michelle with her sass face on, speaking eloquently about being a total badass.
It might be a cop-out to write about my personal hero Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama since, 1.) like, everyone on planet Earth with a lick of sense is also obsessed with her and 2.) unlike most of the inane things I write about, this obsession is neither superficial nor transient, rather it has been sustained over long months with little sign of waning.
Let’s get to the roots of this business.
TFJ. Oh hai, alien teleprompter.
A mere year ago, I found myself lamenting (as I am wont to do) the absence of sass in the American media. and Society In General. Sass is the most valuable asset a woman in the public eye can bring and it has been sorely lacking for too long, having been upset by the meek and enormously overrated values of NICENESS, POLITENESS, SEXY FACE, and BEING INARTICULATE. Lest we begin to enumerate the flaws with the Sassy Black Woman stereotype or bloggers who confuse wit with being lazy bitches, suffice it to say that real-ass sass has been in short supply over the years.
Enter Michelle.
Why, yes, I am the smartest person in this room (high school cafeteria?). Suck it.
Michelle is a Sass for the 21st Century. She is Sass for the Recession. She is Sass for the Age of Responsibility.
Michelle Obama is obvs. well versed in the nuances of public service, the foreign and domestic policy changes that best be on the horizon for this country, and clearly an extremely accomplished scholar, legal mind, mother, and wife. But she understands something that has been missing in America for a long time (something that, in all fairness, her husband totally gets, too): nothing that is worth doing can be done without a sense of humor.
True, Michelle Obama is not funny ha-ha, but she is so fucking on top of everything, so adept at seeming totally together, that she can afford to be just a little bit snarky, a little less serious than everyone else in the room. And if there’s anything out country needs to survive the next few years, it’s gonna be a sense of humor.
Yes, the woman knows how to dress. Yes, she has guns of mighty power. Yes, she is the mother of two adorable and seemingly incredibly well behaved children. But this woman is more than the sum of her parts. She is who I want American woman to model themselves on now and in the future: she is a human being who is not defined by any one thing.
I keep waiting for the moment when I become less obsessed with the Obamas in general and regard Mr. President with some serious disappointment, but despite the shitshow that has befallen our nation in recent months, I remain totally enchanted. There is probably something in the water, but it’s better than the eight years of self-loathing and deep resentment that characterized my formative years (we’re still talking politics here…).
So, even though I have no desire to go to Princeton or wear Michael Kors, I find myself consistently down with Michelle O. I will even admit to have occasional dreams about going to the movies and/or shopping for ice sculptures (???) with Michelle and the kids. I will admit this, albeit it somewhat reluctantly.
May this obsession and I have a long and exciting life together.
About two years ago, my pseudo-sister announced to friends and family alike that she was joining the Gotham Girls Roller Derby League.
We thought that was kind of weird
Flash-forward to present day and OMG there is nothing cooler than GGRD (as us aficionados call it). I had been to some of the bouts (again, that’s insider talk) and seen the incredible level of commitment the players put into playing derby, but it was not until recently that I truly understood how deeply rad GGRD is. The players work incredibly hard to promote the sport and are pretty much unapologetic about how it completely takes over their lives. In short, my obsession is their level of obsession. How meta.
The league is one of many in the nation and is comprised of four teams:
The Brooklyn Bombshells
The Bronx Gridlock
The Queens of Pain
The Manhattan Mayhem
The reputations of the four teams were described to me by an un-named member of the league as follows, “Bronx is made up of divas, but they’re very good. Brooklyn are a bunch of head cases, emotions flying all over the place. Manhattan is, like, unemployed and never shows up for practice, but somehow manages to show up on game day. And Bronx…is very hardworking. And, maybe, like, promiscuous?”
I spent a good amount of time with each time while making a short documentary on the league and was deeply impressed. Some members of the league spend up to 30 hours/week on practice and other derby-related matters. The sport, the support, and all the PR and promotion are totally DIY, so much so that a member of the Bombshells described derby as “every waking moment.” As much as roller derby may conjure ideas of Charlie’s Angels and booty shorts, this is a full-fledged sport that requires skill and dedication. Well, they kept the booty shorts, but we live in the age of American Apparel, so what you gonna do?
They’ve gotten a lot of press in the past year, but members of the league have expressed dissatisfaction with some of the press angles. While articles and profiles have concentrated on the GGRD girls as being some kind of strong and sexy! stereotype or dwelling on their derby alter egos, they seems to have skimmed over the fact that derby is such an enormous part of these people’s lives. It is, people. It is.
Perhaps the most potent point of my obsession with the GGRD is spending a lot of time thinking about what my Roller Derby name would be if I played. Some (redic) names of players include: Hard Anya, Barbara Ambush (“the mother of all your worst fears”), Sarah Impalin’, Luna Impact, Beyonslay, Fisticuffs, etc. Apparently, in some other league, some girl is called Sarah Problem, which is magic.
Apart from being cool and motivated atheletes with aggressive graphics on their promotional posters, the Gotham Girls are also quite punny. Every year they hold a Derbytaunt. Their games are presided over by Jeer-leaders. It’s sweet. It’s so sweet I want to become a diabetic.
So, GGRD. Topical and sassy. My two favorite things in one rad package, on wheels.
GGRD website: http://www.gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/
Grace Chang is a movie star from Hong Kong who was very popular in the 1950s and 60s. She’s kind of like the de-sexualized Marilyn Monroe of China in the 1950s because she has crazy eyes and dances and sings like a bird upon wing
I was first introduced to Grace Chang (or Ge Lan, 葛蘭) when I saw her 1959 Cathay musical “The Air Hostess,” which tells the touching story of an uppity young woman who becomes a flight attendant, rocks a whole bunch of pastel pencil skirts, and may or may not be accidentally involved in a jewel heist. Grace Chang is perhaps not the most gifted actress I’ve witnessed (even in the notoriously well-crafted genre of the Hong Kong musical…) and exudes a frightening earnestness most often associated with American Idol-winners, but she has a undeniable magnetism. As a result, I’ve youtube’d as many of her songs as I could get my hands on and have freaked my roommates out for the past few weeks by singing Grace Chang songs in garbled Chinese nonstop.
This song, Oh Calypso is particularly catchy and features some wild bongo-ing, something about which I am always enthusiastic.
Oh Calypso (我爱卡拉苏 - Wo ai ka li su) - Grace Chang (葛蘭 - Ge Lan)Some of Grace Chang’s inflections are sort of terrifying and I often find myself unnerved when she bears her teeth and hits high notes, but she has inspired in me a previously unexplored desire to dance and sing in Mandarin while carrying a cup of tea and balancing a book on my head, so I’ll give her due in the hall of obsessions.
I was particularly pleased to find the following comment on youtube regarding a Grace Chang video. While I may not be the only enthusiast, I may be the only one who makes any sense:
this woman
is a jewel
that never stops
to shine
Deep.
It should also be noted that the music of Grace Chang plays a prominant role in the otherwise deeply depressing Tsai Ming-Liang film “The Hole.” When I saw the epigraph Tsai included in his otherwise totally distopian film, “We are grateful to have the music of Grace Chang, even in the year 2000,” I knew he was my bretheren. Except not, since I am neither Chinese/Taiwanese nor a prominent film director. Whatevs.
我喝醉了
Other Grace Change links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aebrT_HFrA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XMAIOvJgQ&feature=related
This is just weird:
I’ve tried to start this blog a half dozen times to consistantly dissapointing results. The basis of my blogging is clearly to blame. I develop short, intense obsessions with things before totally losing interest and blogging has been no exception. But this, my friends, is not blogging. It’s Tumblr’ing, which is apparently like watching HBO instead of lame, poor man’s TV. I like lame, poor man’s TV because it was never the home of Carrie Bradshaw and it would never assume that I want to watch “Fool’s Gold” three times in a weeked (I don’t), but I will give tumblr the benfit of the doubt.
Here is where I will hopefully begin a long and fruitful (?) relationship with tumblr. Please bear witness to my shortlived mad obsessions with ideas, facets of pop culture, food products, places, and probably some conspiracy theories before totally losing interest weeks later.
