Jacquelin Cangro

Another dismal attempt today to expand my Korean language knowledge. After seven months in this country, I’m afraid I’ve grown in every area except Hangul vocabulary. I am language stupid. I can cook rice like nobody’s business. But I cannot tell the Korean vowel "o" apart from the "ew."

On the suggestion of a guy who I barely know (that’s how it is here in Korea; you randomly meet someone at some cultural spot and then you add him or her to your Facebook profile. You get bored one night. You message. You get jealous about all the cool things the other person is doing. You sulk.), I ventured out to a new area of Seoul to attend a beginner’s Korean class. I’ve tried this all before. About four months ago I joined a class at Sogang University (a reknowned language school here) but dropped out after only three weeks. The class was full of Asian women who knew so much more than me. The teacher would ask me a question in Korean. The women, feeling sorry for me, would whisper me the answer.

This new class is purely for beginners, he promised me. Ok. It’s also in an area of town which hosts an incredible amount of salons and gelato cafes. I stopped at a cute second-floor cafe to warm up. A place called Special Coffee in Yongsan-gu near Sookmyung Women’s University. I didn’t make it to the class. I wandered around the university, walking in and out of the frames of pictures taken of graduates on the granite steps, beaming and full of promise for a new future. White girl found an interesting gallery full of white sculptures. No Korean class.

I wonder: did I sabotage myself? This friend gave me little direction. But I should know better in Seoul. I used to get lost driving around Carson City, Nevada. Of course a university has many buildings and many classrooms.

Just to prove a point to me, that grim God directed me to the subway station at exactly the right moment. There is my friend, fresh from his Korean class. "How did I like mine?" he asked. I am forced to admit that I’m here, but I didn’t find it. It wasn’t at the university, he explained. Didn’t I check out that website he sent to me? He gave me such a disappointed look, almost to say, "You are such a stupid girl."

I wanted to smote my princess forehead. Yes, the website. I had forgotten about that.

But then he changed. He looked a bit down, too. He questioned whether he’ll use this language in his next life, his real one, back home. All said before he jumps on the train going in the opposite direction.

I think that’s how we all feel — we’re going in the opposite direction of all our friends back home. We left careers. Or we couldn’t find a job after college. Our friends work at Starbucks. Or they had to stay in their careers because debt threatens to swallow them. They gained a spouse and a house. But not us because we’re here. We came here because we didn’t know what else to do with ourselves. And here we don’t belong either — but that’s a different story.

I have to admit it — I like being an outsider looking in. I am an island in this urban market.

But the experience could be so much richer if I wasn’t so solitary, if I could understand the Koreans. We profit off the Korean culture. Why am I not motivated to learn the language? Many Westerners do. And they love it here. They stay. I have many friends who use Korean every day.

I know of others who live here for years and can’t say one sentence.

So which am I?

I sit in a coffee shop and read a two-month old Economist. So this is me, a girl whose mind is elsewhere.

But I’ll try again anyhow. Next week. I have five more months in Korea and I would feel sad if I gave up already.

Becky Ann Bosshart

Don’t want your child to see Dexter on CBS? Shut the TV off and put your kid to bed.

A few days ago I noticed in a local newspaper that Marcia Weedon, the director of the Rhode Island Chapter of Parents Television Council got both her logic and panties twisted in an op-ed about the show Dexter. The children will see the show! Think of the children!

I would like to ask Mrs. Weeden a question: don’t you have anything better to do with your life?

You talk about keeping children safe. What about children who witness (not on TV but in real life) domestic violence? What about children who don’t just witness but are victims of domestic violence? Sexual abuse? Neglect? Do you care about any of this?

You claim that hundreds of thousands of children see 10 p.m. shows. First of all, this is on the parents, not the television networks. I know you don’t want to hear that because that means you actually have to take responsibility and act, and we can’t have that now. Afterall, the TV is your favorite babysitter. Also, I know parents don’t believe in bedtimes anymore — just let your kids fall asleep to cartoons or run around till they cry and pass out — but that sure would fix this problem.

Second, Weeden seems to think that children somehow cannot see shows that air on cable, but have 20/20 vision for broadcast stations. What is the difference between airing Dexter at 10 p.m. on Showtime or at 10 p.m. on CBS? Not a damn thing.

Third, you really need to let go of Janet Jackson’s nipple. Just. Let. It. Go.

I’m not going to get into the plot or character analysis for Dexter because I haven’t seen it. I want to, but I did not watch last night. I’m waiting to watch it on DVD. Also, I may be 27 years old, but I’m in bed by 10 p.m. on a Sunday night — I have to work in the morning. Twenty years ago, I would’ve been in bed long before that — I had to get up for school the next morning.

It’s so simple: children should not be seeing even half of what is aired on television (but I didn’t hear anyone complaining whenever Jack Bauer cut off an extremity). Here’s the solution to that — shut the damn thing off. Take the remote. Move the TV to your bedroom. Act like a parent. Act like an adult. And quit whining about this nonsense. Do something real to help children.

Jennifer Leblanc

Finally — someone who lives in the real world.

Katie Couric interviewed Michelle Obama this past week and asked her: "First Ladies have adopted causes…Have you thought about what cause you would really like to adopt and pursue and push into the forefront?

Mrs. Obama’s response was, for me anyway, a blast of fresh oxygen after years of old men blowing hot air and noxious gas in our faces:

…I am a mother and a professional — and a wife. And I know the struggles of trying to balance work/life/family. And I know that it’s something that every woman that I know is struggling with, and every family in America is impacted by the challenges that we face when we try to do it all without resources and support … informal structures of support.

The only way that I manage every day is because of all these informal support structures in my life, whether it’s my mom or a set of girlfriends or the flexibility on a job because I’m a vice president and I can set my hours when I need to. I’ve managed because of that. But how on Earth are single-parent mothers doing it, nurses and teachers and folks who are on shifts?

People who don’t have access to decent childcare. You know, folks who don’t have good health care and where the school systems aren’t where they need to be, so they’re worried about whether their kids are getting a good education. You know, all of this takes an emotional and psychological toll on women and families. And the truth of the matter is that we are only as strong in this society … as the health of our families and the people who head them. But we haven’t talked enough about that in just real practical ways. I mean, up until this point, as a woman, I’ve been told, "You can have it all, and you should be able to manage it all." And I’ve been losing my mind trying to live up to that. And it’s impossible. It’s impossible. We’re putting women and families in a no-win situation.

Couric: Especially if they don’t have the flexibility that you …

Obama: …Which the vast majority of women in this country don’t. They’re not earning enough to cover childcare. They don’t — you know, I met … a woman … she’s working two jobs: a full-time job and a part-time job. She has two kids and a husband. They don’t have healthcare. You know? She has a seven-year-old and a three-year-old, you know? I mean, you know she’s not healthy. You know she doesn’t have time to get mammograms and Pap smears. You know that she doesn’t feel secure about what kind of mother she is.

And she’s not fully invested in any of the jobs that she has because she’s trying to do it all. That’s how women are living in this society. And that transcends race and socioeconomic status and political affiliation. I can go into any town, anywhere in this country, and I can spend hours talking to women about this impossible balance and the toll that it’s taking.

So we have to talk about that. And we have to design policies that have meaningful impacts on the quality of life of women and families. And that’s something that I know I can speak passionately about because whether I’m in the White House as First Lady, as long as I have kids and I’m trying to have a life, I’m gonna be trying to make this balance work, wondering every day whether I’m being a good enough mother, whether I’m spending enough time with my kids.

What happens when they have a crisis and I’m flying around somewhere? My challenges are much more public, but they’re the same as most women. And we need to figure this out. And how do we define roles for ourselves as women that are healthy and balanced and make sense?

Finally, we get to hear from someone who will not tell us A) women need "get back in them kitchens and raise them kiddies"; B) feminazis ruined our lives — as "having it all" was not the point of any wave of feminism, nor was the "no-win" situation we are in now; C) the usual about family values, and then turn around and make excessive, damaging domestic budget cuts that make it impossible to survive alone, nevermind as a family; D) while pointing her finger at us and instigating another BS mommy war, that we either need to dump the kiddies off and make a living, or forget our intelligence and future accomplishments and spend our days cleaning and watching Elmo.

When Obama talks about not having time or money for essential medical tests for women, I imagine funds going back to Planned Parenthood locations that usually don’t even conduct abortions but simply provide low-cost healthcare. I imagine funds going back into family-planning programs and birth control so that married couples do not have to deny their basic human need, and right, for physical affection to avoid making another hungry mouth to feed. I imagine funds going back into day care (like progressive, happier, saner European countries that give a shit about their citizens). I imagine a better life for women, children, men, families, America.

We need a First Lady with a brain, a heart, and opinions. We don’t need an educated woman married to an illiterate who believes in one thing but stands by smiling as her husband ruins the world. We don’t need a First Lady who will go to underdeveloped countries, where girls and women are raped systematically during wars or contract HIV from their husbands only, and condescendingly tell them to practice "abstinence."

We need a government that will not do this:

"Mothers Scrimp as States Take Child Support: The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers’ payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children."

Women will not stop working. People will not stop having sex. This is the 21^st century, not the rose-colored 1950s. We need people, men and women, in the White House who will stop wishing for the good old days and start making our present life better.

Jennifer Leblanc

Theresa Duncan, a glamorous 40-year-old artist and writer, killed herself last summer. Her soul mate, Jeremy Duncan, also an artist, followed her a month later. They were art pioneers, lovers, intelligentsia with blue-collar backgrounds, paranoid conspiracy theorists, and too young to die for nothing.

I’m aware that animated films and CD-ROM games made Duncan famous, but I’ve never seen them. Instead, I’ve been obsessed with her blog for the past three weeks. I’ve read every word, studied every picture, clicked every link, and I only wish there was more — something, anything. She called it "The Wit of the Staircase" or, as she explained:

"From the French phrase ‘esprit d’escalier,’ literally, it means ‘the wit of the staircase’, and usually refers to the perfect witty response you think up after the conversation or argument is ended. ‘Esprit d’escalier,’ she replied. ‘Esprit d’escalier.’ The answer you cannot make, the pattern you cannot complete till afterwards it suddenly comes to you when it is too late."

To honor her, someone created a tribute blog, "Children of the Staircase," but it’s not even good enough to share a title. "Wit," in my opinion, is one of the best blogs ever created (and prolifically maintained). The layout is simple — three narrow columns, black background, tiny white font, very few links, simple author photo. Every post is topped by a stunning photo, usually a high-fashion portrait, and sometimes a quote or line from a poem or song. She did not personally write many of her posts; she chose to quote, at length, from whichever fascinating article or site to which she was linking. She blogged about the most fascinating things: an article in the U.K.’s Telegraph: "How the Nazis gave us Disco;" from The Independent in Ireland: "Revealing Photo Album of Ireland’s Wildest Women"; Dispatches from a female Iraqi blogger, with a rare personal photograph from the 50s of Iraqi college girls, looking so ordinary, so every-woman, in suits and pumps, smiling together in the sunlight. Beneath that, a recent picture of women in Iraq dutifully marching, every inch of them covered, hidden, denied.

My personal favorite: From "Today in Literature," the time Carson McCullers, Isak Dineson, and Marilyn Monroe had lunch together, discussed literature, and then danced on the table (even if the last part is not true, it’s too cheeky to not imagine).

When she did write the posts, she kept it short and went for the jugular. Unless she was writing about perfume. She deserved a book deal for this alone. Very few people can appreciate a variety of scents, nevermind write about each one so passionately.

She idolized Kate Moss like a teenage girl, calling her "the bride," convinced that Moss and Pete Doherty (the walking syringe) were a classic love story, instead of a couple of undernourished drug addicts.

The definitive article written about the couple in Vanity Fair explains how, unfortunately, Duncan’s extreme political beliefs contributed to her unnecessary end. When Beck (yes, of "Devil’s Haircut") backed out of her movie Alice Underground, she and Blake became convinced that Scientologists, all the way up to Tom Cruise at Paramount, were out to end their careers and destroy them. After moving back to New York and into St. Mark’s Rectory, they came to believe that the CIA was after them, too. This stemmed from their new friendship with their landlord, Father Frank Morales, a noted activist and conspiracy theorist who runs Episcopal St. Mark’s. During their friendship with Morales, Duncan and Blake were publicly adamant that 9/11 was "an inside job," claiming "they are even running ads on the Cartoon Network recruiting people to be in the CIA!" and that (metaphysically, anyway) Dick Cheney is the devil (well, most ordinary folk believe that anyway). I’m not saying that Morales has any fault in the story — he is who he is. But the coincidence and timing of encountering Morales’s controversial views must have exacerbated their paranoia.

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon this story so many weeks back. I remember a blurb somewhere about a young couple who were harassed to death by Scientologists. I don’t doubt any negative claims against the Hollywood cult, but in this case, there’s not even a hint of Scientology involvement. Even their closest friends didn’t believe their harassment claims.
If you omit the conspiracy theory posts, it’s hard to believe that "Wit" was created by Duncan during her turbulent last years. She still found so much beauty in the world. Her intellectual curiosity certainly wasn’t suffering, nor her ability to expand upon any subject. This blogger was bold, articulate, confident, and eclectic. Duncan was a woman who fully understood herself. It’s just not clear when she stopped wanting to understand how to live in the world. After reading every post, following every link, you become haunted by esprit d’escalier — what would Duncan say about this or that. What would you say to such an artist now that she’s gone? Nothing good ever comes of suicide.

I have a favorite post, entitled "Who the fuck is we?" It was written in response to Dawn Eden’s plea for our half of humanity to keep our knees together or risk every emotional ill known to us. Coincidentally, I found it just when Lori Gottlieb decided to "we we" all over single women in Atlantic Monthly. Also, Thursday was Valentine’s Day, and this year I was in a particularly hippie-peace-love mood. A close friend found a good man — the first one ever! Another spent this Valentine’s Day with his newest and dearest valentine — his new baby daughter. And every fiber of me wanted nothing more for this phony holiday than for the people I love to feel love. So I couldn’t muster up a pissy response to "just settle down and get married," nor do I see the point. Having someone tell me what to do with any part of my life (nevermind with whom I will or will not choose to create a human being and spend every moment of my life) doesn’t make me angry. I simply don’t care. I will do as I please, just as others will continue to wag their finger at me (even when they’re no different at all). But I can’t resist lobbing the delightful phrase, "Who the fuck is we?" in Gottlieb’s direction. I’m going to let Duncan wrap this up for me:  

Sisters of the Staircase, take a moment to reflect on how often some insipid book or article by and about an individual woman’s unique experiences overuses the word "we."

…To which Wit replies "Who the fuck is we?"

Whether I agree with her or not, I don’t like the automatic assumption that I think like the writer because we accidentally share a gender. It’s a kind of insidious hypnosis this "We…We…We" directed at women.

The author describes her sexuality as swinging from promiscuity, which she seems to think Germaine Greer somehow told her to do, to complete chastity because in her opinion that’s the fastest way to get a husband. She also frets, just like so many brainwashed magazine propagandists before her, because she is unmarried at 37.

There’s a ton of talk like this from even smart women, I’m sorry to say…It is sad that our culture encourages this helplessness and lack of differentiation in women.

Wit encourages the author to learn to say "I" so that she can finally take responsibility for herself and figure out what her real problems are aside from the stupid false measure of how much or how little she is fucking. This will help her realize who she wants to be absent some propagandizing internal voice that tells her she isn’t anybody if she’s not attached to "us" — whether that means a gender, a Mommy, or a man.

And that’s not what "we" think, sweetheart, that’s what I think.

Jennifer Leblanc

I was talked into attending the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade by a few friends. Each year people dress in their strangest to be part of the festivities along Sixth Avenue.

It’s simultaneously fun and ridiculous. One of those once-in-a-lifetime events that seems to be a great idea, like driving across country and skydiving, but then as soon as you set off, you immediately can’t help wondering why in God’s name you agreed to do it.

The parade is nothing more than an excuse for people to dress and behave in ways they wouldn’t normally dress and behave. This is despite the fact that only five people actually have a view of the parade itself. Most everyone else mills about the sidelines bumping into one another, craning to get a glimpse. When my friends and I realized that we wouldn’t even get close enough to the parade to crane, we went for a drink and headed home. I didn’t find this upsetting in the least.

As it was the thirty-fourth year of the parade, the police and MTA had the proceedings down to a science, sort of. Some subway station stairs were changed to entrance only and some were exit only. They set up miles of blue police barricades to shuttle people more efficiently, and officers positioned themselves every few feet, above and below ground. One crucial bit of information they left out was to put up signs to tell passengers which station entrances to use. My friend, who takes the same train, and I tried to get underground at one of the Christopher Street station entrances. After we were halfway down the stairs, a policeman told us in an exasperated voice that this was exit only. We were to go back up and cross over Christopher Street to enter via a different set of stairs. My reasoning that we were almost to the turnstiles was met with a motion of his hand to leave.

We followed along the barricades, at a pace equivalent to the movement of tectonic plates, to cross the street. In this 50-yard walk, I saw Superman, two pirates, a pregnant nun, and the Tasmanian Devil. When we reached the station entrance we felt certain we were told to use, another policeman asked, “Where do you think you’re going?” I wished I had dressed as Dorothy and could click my ruby slippers to magically transport me home. He pointed to yet another set of stairs, this time on the same side of the street. With considerable effort we got back into the crowd and shuffled along. It was the height of the parade and throngs of people who thought they were going to see something were still pouring into the Village. Finally we got to the one place at which the police allowed us to enter the station. I swiped my metrocard and the train came within a few minutes packed with passengers. But this was no normal train. The doors slid open and the first one off was a man wearing a coconut bra over a green turtleneck. Then a menagerie of animals, long-dead historical figures, and superheroes followed. Just before the doors closed a monkey hopped out drinking an iced latte. They don’t call this the urban jungle for nothing.

Jacquelin Cangro

If you’ve read any of my other pieces, you know how I feel about turning books into movies. With a few exceptions, it’s usually disaster, a crime against literature. The Namesake is one of those exceptions.

Screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala and director Mira Nair were ideal for this project because, as the finished product shows, they both share author Jhumpa Lahiri’s gift of subtlety and a less-is-more approach. In fact, I’ve never seen a movie in which one line, tenderly spoken, can express so much of a character’s inner life. That is also where gifted actors come in. Kal Penn, Tabu, Irfan Khan — geniuses.

Take note everyone — this is how you make a movie out of a book.

Jennifer Leblanc

Today it is cold enough to wear my new winter coat, a gray peacoat.

After a wamer-than-average winter, everyone is eager to change their closets to sweaters and corduroy. Proving it, most people on the 2 train are a little too bundled for the temperature in the low 40s this morning.

I snake my way through the crowd on the train and hang on to the overhead bar. I feel as Sex and the City-sophisticated as I’ll ever get — I’m reading The Atlantic Monthly. My hair is cooperating since the lower humidity has cut me a break. Maybe I’ve even lost a few pounds. A seat opens up and I decline — why sit when you’ve got the confidence only a new outfit can give you?

At the office a co-worker says, "I like your new coat."

"Thanks," I reply, a little confused. "How did you know it was new?"

"The price tag is still hanging from your armpit."

Jacquelin Cangro