Posts by Jolisa
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Fantastic speech... at least on paper. I dunno, is it just me, or was the delivery a little stiff? He flubbed a few laugh lines by churning through them at the same measured pace (e.g. "eight is enough"), and the final sentences didn't sound like an ending - I thought he'd skipped a paragraph. He just didn't have quite the same awesome, bouncy energy that he had four years ago. All those "thank yous" at the beginning, too. No ready-made quip like Bill "I love this! But we've got work to do" Clinton.
Could it be (gasp) that the poor man was nervous (huge crowd, huge event) or a little frightened (touch wood, hand on privates as Giovanni suggests, and let's just not think too hard about where all those brilliant speeches got MLK)?
Or was he just going for a rock-steady statesmanlike vibe, hence the more metronomic than usual delivery?
Tooling around the usual places on the internet I see lots of raving enthusiasm, including plenty of people who said the speech made them cry. Hmm. The only bit that brought tears to my eyes was seeing his lovely daughters up on stage at the end, in a blizzard of confetti, and framed by the pillars of what, if you sort of squinted, looked like the White House.
I liked that. A lot. The Hillary-mad crazy old ladies (and you know some of my best friends are Hillary-mad crazy old ladies) that I heard on the radio earlier today insisting they wouldn't vote for Obama because he'd stolen the nomination from their woman candidate -- maybe they could meditate on the image of two young black girls growing up in the White House, with their dad as president of the gosh-darn USA? It certainly cheers me up!
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Here's the other thing I can't figure out. If there's so many eager beavers (as it were) willing to pay good money for even half-assed (as it were) encounters... why on earth are any of us doing it for free -- and with the same old same old partners, no less -- instead of giving up our day jobs and hitting the streets? What are we, crazy? </rhetorical question>
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What we're missing in New Zealand is resourcing for investigative reporting and heavily researched feature writing.
Agreed. I also think we're missing decent venues for really full-on cultural critique and commentary, where top-notch critics can go to town in more than 600-words-or-less, and are compensated properly for their expertise and insight. (Think the books/culture pages in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, the London Review of Books, the NY Review of Books, and others -- it's not just intellectual window-dressing, it's real content).
But that's just me...
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Yes, imagine a world without unconditional love as the alternative. Shudder.
And hmmm... isn't that the world in which the vast majority of sex workers (male, female, adult, child) find themselves? I mean, if we define unconditional love as "I will feed and house you if you find yourself short of cash or out of luck"? Because it's a fair bet that most people in the industry -- barring the occasional self-actualizing Ren type person (see also Tristan Taormino, Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle, Buck Angel, and many more) -- are doing it to pay the rent and groceries, not to top up an already adequate living obtained somehow else, or to, y'know, express themselves (cue Madonna, "C'mon girls...").
[Which is pretty much the conclusion Wendyl Nissen comes to in that excellent column - she can't pay the bills by only doing it with/for/to nice guys. Only the luckiest of us can, whatever the work.]
It's not news that for the overwhelming majority, sex work is a "choice" like working at WalMart with no health insurance and no union protections is a "choice" -- except with vastly crappier working conditions.
So, but, and, maybe there's a connection between writing about it and feeling a little bit sovereign over it? Y'know - like, if you can retool and recount your experiences for the Village Voice and eager grad students and a world wide readership, and thereby earn some cash and some respect, you're doing a different kind of sex work, one that does provide you with a more reliable sense of agency? (Cf. the occasional book about finding oneself while working in Starbucks, or on a building site, or wiping bums in a hospital, or some other gritty, underpaid, under-respected job -- the unlikeliness factor is crucial to the genre, as is the exceptionalism).
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Thanks, guys... glad it struck a chord.
Jackie, what an affecting story. I hope David S manages a similar conversation with his Dad, although I guess we have to respect people's right to *not* want to tell their stories, especially the traumatic ones.
I'd love to hear the stories if you do have a breakthrough, David. J Force is a particular fascination of mine, esp after reading letters in the Turnbull from one chap who couldn't figure out why his Japanese neighbours were a bit annoyed about the fact that the New Zealanders didn't take their boots off when they came into the house... ouch.
And likewise I'd love to have had a chance to ask Aunty Nora her stories. They also served who only stood and waited (and, like my nana, kept an axe behind the washroom door in case the Japanese unexpectedly turned up in Naenae).
Love Sam Hunt, and Neruda too, so thank you for that fantastic poem as well.
Oh, and David H: Funny you should mention that, comrade! Watch this space.
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I am utterly bemused by the idea that a nice frock and a bit of lippy could change my life.
P'raps not your life, but your day, potentially? I've found it so.
Thanks Emma and Anjum for both sets of links. I'm tending to Anjum's side of things, if only because I'm old-fashioned and useless at pole-dancing.
Which is not to say sex-negative. Just questioning the excessive public commodification of desire, which has always struck me as a largely private thing.
And the commodification of pretty much anything will tend to map onto already established isobars of power, as inflected by gender, race, socioeconomic status, etc etc etc. Or is it a chicken and egg thing, and those fault lines create the commodification in the first place? In any case, claims of empowerment inside that structure might well be approached sceptically.
Flashbacks to Femst 101...
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I love the idea of a DIY site - if only to make Jane Clifton scream louder about demarcation...
You don't think writers like Jane Clifton mightn't constantly be on the lookout for interesting new gigs that might allow them to work beyond the parameters of what they're currently doing?
Or that a hypothetical Crikey-like site might not benefit from recruiting a few high-profile eyeball-capturing names at the outset?
Like the Huffington Post, except, y'know, properly paid.
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No worries, George - not so much derailing as going off road. And what's the point of a bike if you can't do that every now and then?
The bubble bike is brilliant. And I love that Copenhagen blog. Not just for the gals in their cute dresses, I'm at least as interested in what the bikes are wearing. What I wouldn't give for one of those low slung cargo bikes with the front kid seats. Way more sensible than the (increasingly) top-heavy rear seat I'm currently using...
This is how biking often looks in my town, alas. (If you click on the video, language definitely NSFW). Although we're steadily trying to change it.
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I could also be a grump and disdain the amount of energy required, compared to the simple, beautiful and amazingly (99%) efficient bicycle
Oh, that reminds me of my favourite antipodean invention of late:
More here. Lovely! And vastly more pleasing to the ear than the D.A.F.T...
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I'm in two minds about the Greenwich thing.
At this point, I'm just kicking myself for missing the chance to use "Greenwich Mean Time" as my headline...
Kids playing wiffleball on public land? Seems entirely reasonable and wholesome.
Kids putting up fences and "pouring concrete" on said land? Can't say I'm in favour.
I know what you mean, Amy - and yet, how much concrete was it? Enough to hold up a post? And very quickly sledgehammered out by the town's hitmen. I think sinking a post is a very useful life skill, and wonder if the city could have been cleverer about channeling the kids' enthusiasm... were there other neglected sites in town that could have done with a clean-up? Other places where good fences (and fence-posts) could have made good neighbours? Other bored kids who might have been roped in to construct a playground or something?
On the other hand, turning it in to an official project negates the whole point of kids generating their own fun.
I couldn't find any recent updates on the situation in Greenwich, but the slide show Field of Dreams No More on the local paper's website tells a version of the story...