A Real Hero

I know so few people that I truly identify with, but yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to meet a kindred spirit. Unfortunately, because of where I work and who she is, I can't say her name or reveal much else. You can find her on google if you type in the recent journalism prize being given by the P______er organization, which awards only one prize to an artist who is not a writer. One you find her name, you can type that all as one word, add a .com, and see why she's up for it. She's a genius. And I don't throw that word around. And not a socially indept genius, either, as is romanticed so often, but a real genius, a practical and practicing one. Perhaps a made, not born, genius.

She said that there are so few people like her that she has a small pool of about 25 people IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that even fully understand what she does, and out of them NONE of them really have the time to delve into her work and offer advice/comment because their so busy with their own work. She works all day, obsesses over her processes, has giant "maps" of her work plans, cannot distinguish life from art, etc. etc. She has chosen not to have kids because she would not have been able to achieve all of this if she had. Men in her field do the sexist thing where the wife at home takes care of them, and she doesn't have that privilege. Either way, she's glad, as having kids would have distracted her so much from artisitic creation that her entire world view probably would not have led her to her present status. She values isolation and loneliness, even from her own husband. Despite all that she has achieved, her greatest works "no one wants to listen to," even the ones commissioned for huge amounts of money. AND she's a teacher, too! She STILL works for a living and will continue to work even if she gets the prize money. "Even to be nominated is to basically win it," she says. At age 50 or so, she looks and seems 30: the loneliness that goes along with doing what she's most passionate about and what almost no one on the planet can or wants to do, I believe has added years to her life. So there's hope!

Neko Case Youtube Video Roundup!

This video for Porchlight is from the Brit show Bad Girls (trivia: Porchlight was also used in what Showtime show featuring a rag-tag gang of women "friends" from LA? Hint: three words and the second begins with "L"!

Ten Reasons Neko Case Rules

1. She sounds like she has a cold and for some reason that works.


2. The deep red bells haunt me.


3. All creatures on the earth stop what they're doing...and listen.


4. Her pants rule.


5. She's a ginger.

...Love, Neko

New Tori!

It All Evens Out

1. The Sopranos season premier was better than most films I've seen recently. As GC calls it, 'little one-hour masterpieces." Somehow, I see why they justify their $100 box sets, as it really is the cost of that many minutes in film, "not TV," as HBO says. Not that I will buy it. I want single episodes in my collection: last night's; last season's meditation on mob masculinity's relationship to homophobia; the Pine Barrens episode directed by Buscemi; and the one directed by Mike Figgis.

2. I'm in abusive relationship with two cheap DVD players. One, the multi-regional (even PAL) Sampo, won't play discs very often, but when it does, they're in awesome surround sound. The other, the Sungale, has shitty sound, but always plays discs--until it decides to carve a circular scratch into them. So I thought I might buy this:


because I want it anyway (someday) and it would absorb the cost of a new DVD player, too. Notice the cylon fighter control. I bet your hand mushes right into that thing while another line inserts into your spinal column. Fuck yeah! But it costs mimimum $600. When I took my car in today to fix a flat, get it inspected, and get an oil change, guess what? It will cost me $600! Irony is a bitter old man with a grey beard, fishy breath, and cheap coffee he brews on the stove of his one-room shack.

3. In talking with my new friend S about literature, I realized that as much as I have contempt for "feel good" texts, she knows infinitely more about her chosen genre--romance novels--than I do about my genre. I know I won't be able to read many romance novels, but I'm fascinated by their ability to manipulate readers using the keep-the-lovers-together-then-pull-them-apart method. Like I don't LOVE keep-the-monster-away-then-make-it-jump-out.

4. I've been re-reading my dissertation and am horrified by the number of typos. I am cursed never to see them until after the whole world can download them.

5. The Halloween trailer is finally out. I say with trepidation, it could be good. I liked The Devil's Rejects, but not so much House of a Thousand Corpses. I'm not expecting the usual shot-by-shot aping of Carpenter's masterpiece, but a making it bloodier and grittier: grindhousier. Let the flaming begin on this one: I won't defend him. But I think we just can't tell.
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/halloween.html

Oh, Kermie....