Devonshire Jones

For me, the answer to yesterday's post was "go for a walk on Kilburn High Road and have a quiet pint in a pub" followed by "write a strongly-worded letter".

One of the things I am getting from Reform Jew-Being is that I am conceiving my feminism more confidently and more, uh, righteously, I guess. Like, I am thinking of gender equality (and mutability) as more of a fundamental fact that not everyone has recognized yet, rather than "just" a social issue, which is how I was sort of thinking about it before.

So that's made me less prone to getting unhelpfully worked up, and slightly more able to go "okay, what is the most right and useful thing to do here?" and then do it. I think. It has also made me realize how much more work there actually is to do, which is upsetting, but I would rather realize that and get on it than not realize that and not get on it.

Here is the email that I wrote, which contains a description of the incident that made me >:|-face: ( Email )

Now, I went back and forth about whether or not to bring this up because it seemed trivial and ambiguous. But then I decided that it is important to flag up even small "everyday" occasions of sexism when I am in a position to do so and have someone reasonable to bring it up to. I think it's important to try to classify sexism as non-normative as much as possible, but of course it's not always easy or clear how to do that.

Okay, after responses to this poll I am going to book tickets to All's Well at the National for the 7:30pm show on Tuesday 4 August. I want to book these by the end of the week if possible.

If you're planning on coming, could you please leave a comment or drop me an email stating the following:

1. "I'm planning on coming!"
2. what tier of seat you would like:

£10 - circle
£15 - side stalls
£30 - center stalls

You can see the seating plans by clicking on one of the dates at the booking page.

I'll be booking Friday morning so please let me know by then.

Thanks!

ETA I'm planning on kicking it in the side stalls, FYI.

So, internet, what do you do when you are randomly depressed about pervasive sexism?

I woke up this morning and found my internet was out, and also I couldn't feel half my face and had a serious case of Mouth Fur. Awesome. Fortunately when I called the tech support number, the guy was charming and funny, and after a few minutes I had woken up enough to try to get my flirt on.

ME: So, how's your day been?
INTERNET SUPPORT GUY: Fine, fine, thanks. We've actually just got started.
ME: Oh, yeah?
INTERNET SUPPORT GUY: You're just my third caller, yeah. Right, if I could confirm the name on the account?
ME: Miss Rosalind McClure. That's Miss.
INTERNET SUPPORT GUY: ...Thanks.

Sadly that did not go anywhere and my internet was fixed very quickly.

Now, I am hung over and mossyteethed because of a great Midsummer Night's Dream readthrough in Finsbury Park yesterday, where I met a lot of really cool people and had a great time playing Lysander. I like Lysander best because he is so earnest. Also, the subtext for pretty much every single one of his lines is "yes, but do you realize we could be having sex right now?" I tried to get this across, but I'm worried that I was a little too subtle.

There is an exception, which is a line I always thought was interesting, from the Pyramus and Thisbe play that the lovers are heckling.

BOTTOM: [that big hilarious speech that ends in 'Die, die, die, die, die.']
DEMETRIUS: No die, but an ace, for him, for he is but one.
LYSANDER: Less than an ace, man, for he is dead. He is nothing.

Now, obviously they are making quote-unquote 'jokes' about gambling and how 'ace' sounds like 'ass' if you are in the 16th century and drunk, but that is such a weirdly nihilist line in the middle of the wacky comedy! And when I was reading over the script, I remembered an interview (which I can't find now) with Sam Rockwell, who played Flute/Thisbe in the 1999 film version with Kevin Kline and dozens of other famous people.

That film's Pyramus and Thisbe scene:



Rockwell said he was going for the idea that actors can find truth in storytelling no matter how incompetent the production around them. I mean, "His eyes were green as leeks" is an actually poignant line, I think. So I tried to carry that idea of surprising emotional resonance over to my reading of that line, which was Lysander getting drunkenly choked up. I mean, the lovers run around all play going I WILL DIE IF I CAN'T BE WITH THE PERSON I LOVE >:( and generally acting about sixteen and thinking they are immortal. I thought it was an intriguingly reflective thing for him to say. Character growth? Perhaps. (Although probably not.)

I think I have a thing for clueless bright young men in Shakespeare who have flashes of nihilism in the middle of a lot of angry adolescent posturing, and whose names start with "L". Like Lysander and Laertes and the Lancaster boys.

Anyway, I met about ten really cool people who I'm looking forward to spending more time with. Also there are pictures coming soon from mostlyacat. And I would like to thank wildeabandon for being my bad-influence buddy both on and offstage, and mirrorshard for organizing the whole thing.

YAY WEEKEND

Jew-Being 101 tonight had a great guest speaker from the University of Haifa talking about conversion in the Talmud. Most of the classes until now have only looked at theology through the lens of "why do we do this cultural thing?", so it was very exciting to start tearing apart some text. I think a few of the converting-for-marriage members were a little blindsided, but I had a fantastic time.

Afterward, the speaker, my rabbi and three other class members were hanging around, ostensibly to clear up after a youth concert that had taken place earlier in the evening, but really to keep talking. We'd just about finished when my rabbi went, "!! We never finished the wine from yesterday's study group!", darted into the kitchen and came out with two bottles of Banrock Station Cab Sauvignon and a stack of plastic cups.

One of the things I am enjoying most about Reform is that I do not have to negotiate the base assumptions that I hold about equality, feminism, patriarchy, etc. whenever I start an argument/discussion. "Feminism is necessary (even thought the feminist movement has its own issues) and egalitarianism is important" and "Western society and religion is the product of a patriarchy that needs to be actively countered" are given. I don't need to spend half the time explaining them to people. You can just go straight into "okay, how do we make the world a better place?"

And also how, when you are having a good gritty text discussion that no one wants to leave, the worship leader goes, "I know what will make this better! Booze for everybody!"

IDK, I am seriously about two orders of magnitude happier with every single thing in my life since I started doing Jew Stuff. It's really working for me, guys!

Following on from this post about the production of All's Well that Ends Well now running at the National, this is an organisational poll if you're interested in seeing it. Tickets are £10, £15 or £30, the show is great.

Poll #1426319
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I can come to an All's Well outing at the National on

If there's a conflict with something I've forgotten, or a show you definitely can't make, please let me know in comments or email!

HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT

I don't know if I've mentioned this before? But I really love my little neck of London. Today I walked from my flat down to Regent's Canal, which, you guys, it's so pretty! It was realyl nice, even though I was still suffering from the second of my five worst-ever recurring hangovers. (Protip: when you have been out getting friendly-tipsy with random Americans all afternoon in a park, DO NOT go home to change your shoes and then immediately head out to the pub. STAY HOME. DRINK WATER. You will end up dropping your bow at 3 am and it will be really embarrassing for all parties involved.)

Anyway, northwest London! I LOVE IT SO MUCH. Here is a Flickr set of pictures I've taken over the past few weeks. My favorites are below the cut:

( NW6 )



YAY SUMMER.

1. This spring, I signed up for John McCain's March Madness bracket pool because I thought it would be great fun. (It was! I was in the 95th percentile! Too many others had Arizona State to win.) It also accidentally got me on John McCain's mailing list, which I remain on because it, too, is great fun.

He switches between sending out polls like

Poll #1424788
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What do you think is the best course in Iraq?

And letters like the following:

My Friend,

Nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause greater than yourself, something that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone.

As Americans, we will gather with friends and family this weekend to celebrate our nation's independence. We are very fortunate to live in a nation that grants us freedoms that many of our fellow world citizens are not granted by their home countries.

I believe Democracy is a cause worth fighting for, as evidenced by the milestone Iraq celebrated this week. Transfer of power is rarely easy, yet building a democratic government and liberating a nation from tyranny, while often difficult, is a sacrifice worth making in the end.

This Fourth of July, I ask that you take a moment to reflect on what it means to be free and how truly liberating it can be to serve a cause greater than yourself.

Sincerely,

John McCain

I just don't know what to do with this guy. He's a misogynist jerk with a secret core of sweet privileged idealism. And he loves Twitter and Arizona State.

2. I do know what to do with his former running mate, though! RESIGNED!

RESIGNED

3. You guys, you know who I miss? Rod Blagojevich. Governor Mark "hiking in the Appalachians means I'm doing my Argentinian soulmate" Sanford just isn't cutting it. :( Come back, Blago, I miss you! ♥♥♥

[SCENE -- studio apartment, Kilburn. 8pm, Thursday. OUR HEROINE lolls on her stomach on the single bed that takes up 70% of the room. A homemade blended margarita in a plastic martini glass rests on the floorboards. She lifts her head to glance at a TO-DO LIST draped on the dresser.]

TO-DO
Mail contract & invoice to Kensington & Chelsea
Give MBA recommendation forms to boss and friends
Install language-learning software
Learn Hebrew
Retrieve salad bowl from neighbor
Call bank
Write fic for histories ficathon
Write blog about American cultural imperialism in the capital of a former empire
Write feminist TV miniseries based on Wars of the Roses
Write fic for ficathon which I am too embarrassed to mention here
Call Sainsbury's
Top up electricity
Learn that Joe Cooley tune
Learn those jigs in A
Do laundry

[OUR HEROINE reaches for the margarita on the floor and brings it feebly to her lips]

OUR HEROINE [faintly]
Chips...dip....

This is just to gauge interest.

I've been tossing around having a Slings & Arrows readthrough for about two years. It's a Canadian television comedy about a regional theater/Shakespeare festival. There are three seasons of six one-hour episodes each. It's pretty much brilliant. There are good jokes, and really great characterization for everybody, and people yell at each other about art a lot.

Characters
There are five or six leads that are around for all three seasons, plus four or five recurring thematic roles that are technically different characters in each season (The Put-Upon Ingenue, The Big-Name Star, The Ambitious Corporate Psycho, The Earnest Guest Artist), and another five or six recurring parts that are almost all comedy gold. Here is a fandom overview that outlines the characters and the premise pretty well.

When? Where?
Next year, because this one is halfway over (the fuck?). I have not decided whether it would work best as an overnight thing or over a weekend in London with some people only coming for part of it. This is because...

Readthroughers
I would like to have some people who don't usually do big readthrough things, because I think it's a good gateway drug introduction, it has great writing and contemporary dialogue and is, fundamentally, about people dressing up and being goofs and how that maybe makes them better people and the world a better place.

THIS MEANS YOU!

Poll #1424204
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Slings & Arrows read through sometime in 2010?

1. Oh my god, it's actually hot outside. This isn't even like the fake-actually-hot of a month ago, when it was only like 75 degrees, this is like low 90s! I am very excited! I am wearing a super-cute sundress!

2. borusa and I went to see Steen at Hyde Park Calling yesterday, which was DELIGHTFUL. My favorite part was when he went out to get the request signs, and he had some trouble getting back on the stage, so he kind of fell backwards and went "Somebody get me a fucking elevator! I'm 60 years old!" while Steve laughed at him.

The weather was perfect for a music festival, it was warm but intermittently cloudy, so we could wear summer clothes but not get sunburned. And drink all the beer in the world. I saw a guy buying a case of Tuborg from behind the bar and walking out of the beer tent with it braced on his shoulder.

Some people had these awesome beer-guitar-bandolero things slung around their necks, but when I stopped a woman who was wearing one, she said they had been almost out when she bought one. :(

So the concert was great, and we met up with my boss and some press/journalism/marketing people who were really nice, and we all did the requisite jump-and-point-at-the-stage move on "TRAMPS LIKE US!" in "Born to Run", and the only flaw was when, when the show ended and I'd been having a conversation with this guy standing in front of us about Rosalita and Jersey Catholics, this happened:

ME: Hold on a sec, I'm gonna hit on this guy and then we can--
THIS GUY: [is dashing for the toilets]
ME: ...oh. :(
borusa: Also I think he was married.
ME: What?
borusa: He was just giving off that 'married guy on a leash' feeling. I don't know.
ME: ENGLAND I HATE YOU.

On the bus home afterward I sat next to a woman who had also been at the concert, and after going "oh my god he is so bendy for an old guy!" "Right?!" for a bit we somehow got onto Wilfred Owen and Sigfried Sassoon and their big gay love. It was really nice.

3. There is a Fourth of July picnic run by American people this Saturday (which is, in fact, the Fourth of July!) It runs from 3-7pm, and is £5. I will be going, and it would be fun to have people to go with. However! You should let me know in comments or by email by Thursday, because you have to be a US citizen to buy tickets (which I am!).

Google tells me there is going to be a WAY BETTER and FREE one at Battersea Park with FIREWORKS, which I will probably head out to at 2-3pm. FIREWORKS! FREE! BAR! BALLOONS! JOHN PHILIP SOUSA! TimeOut listing is here.

I am never sure if British people are offended or irritated or what around (US) Independence Day, but it is an important holiday to me with a lot of special associations, and I would like to share that with people.

4. Recent discovery: Sainsbury's 4-for-92p bitter is, if not delicious, way drinkable for something that is 23p a can.

It's past midnight on a Wednesday and this total babe of a guy wearing jeans, an untucked blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and an acoustic guitar just walked down my street, playing The Rolling Stones' "Angie".

Man, I love wearing heels, because I have so many cute pairs and they make me feel competent, fierce, aggressive, and also really hot. I'm sure the patriarchy has something to do with this.

HOWEVER, new medical studies say that they are in fact not too great for your body in the long term! That they, for example, screw up your back, hips and spine, and shorten your calves, and makes your Achilles tendon shrink and all sorts of irritating things.

I have been noticing that I cannot stretch my calves as much as I know I used to be able to! I was a dancer in high school for god's sake. I think I may be killing my swing, salsa and martial arts skills!

INTERNET DOCTORS: Do you think that if I do more leg stretches and do some exercise-style walking in flats, I will fix the effects of my great shoes? Or will I have to find some flats I like to wear out in public more?

I am thinking of organizing an outing to the production of All's Well That Ends Well now on at the National, which is an awesome production of one of my favorite comedies, and also part of the Travelex £10 season so tickets are way cheap.

It's in the Olivier Theatre and the pricing tiers are as follows:
£30 for centre stalls except the first two rows
£15 for side stalls and very front of balcony
£10 for first two rows of stalls and sides and back of balcony.

So hooray for publicly-funded theatre.

Questions for interested people:

(1) It will be in either the last week of July or the first week of August – are either of those particularly bad for anyone?
(2) Would you prefer a weekday evening (not Friday) or a Sunday afternoon? Sunday matinees are 2:30 so that should be plenty of time for church people to get lunch.

I am keeping discussion over on Dreamwidth to streamline organization, but everyone should be able to comment there using OpenID: http://roz-mcclure.dreamwidth.org/892385.html

The other day at work it was Coca-Cola's somethingth anniversary of something, so they sent us like six dozen old-school bottles. It was awesome, until we realized that no one had a bottle opener. I fell into a round of self-loathing and guilt because I usually always have a bottle opener, it is very important to me to be The One Who Always Has A Bottle Opener, and I had left it in my fiddle case during what should have been my day of triumph.

Eventually we took up a collection and sent one of the media reporters to buy one from the newsagents downstairs. TRAGIC.

I am trying to figure out what I want to do once I've got my stupid MBA! Everyone I complain to is reassuring me that when I have one, a sparkling avenue of better-paying jobs will open up, but I have yet to figure out what those are, or if they are jobs that anyone would actually want.

Man, this would be so much easier if I were sham marrying someone! I could get all sorts of work and residence rights after two years, instead of five, and I wouldn't have to stay here all the time, and then I could move wherever in the EU forever. Maybe I should advertise on Craigslist.

I took a bus by the Iranian embassy after work to see if there was still a protest going on. There was! It was energetic -- there was a sign-making bench and the megaphone was cycling through two or three chant leaders, one of whom was a woman. A lot of the protesters were covering their faces with scarves or signs.

The police presence was significant but unaggressive.

Flickr set here.

I think I need a new camera! Or to figure out how to use the one I've got. This picture, for example, could have been amazing if I'd got the exposure right.

I also took some video but it's taking like an hour to upload.

ETA here it is!

Oh, last night I met voleuse and her cousin, who came to a session and bought me a drink! We only got to chat for about ten minutes at the bar, but I can assure you that she is a real person with at least one really cute yellow shirt! I love it when internet people are as cool when you meet them as they are on the web. The session was a bit low-energy, but that has to happen sometimes.

This morning I went to a lecture on Jewish music which was held at my shul, as part of my decision to Get Out and Do Culturally Jewy Things. The lecturer started out with a few identifiable common characteristics of a lot of Jewish music, like fourths and B minor and melisma, but he gave that up after about ten minutes to just play us lots of examples of music from Jewish communities around the world. Which was still really interesting.

Afterward, I walked up to Joseph's Bookstore to pick up a few feminist tracts I'd ordered that were in, and one of the guys from the lecture was at the adjacent cafe reading a book. Mysteriously, I managed to get a date American-style (i.e. by flirting with people you have met less than three hours before) rather than British-style (as far as I can tell, either blinking awkwardly at each other until you're drunk enough to snog, or being set up by one's friends). I have a date, guys! With a dude who goes to music lectures at 10 am on Sunday mornings! Also he is not too tall! I'm psyched!

Look, it's a sunny day outside! I bought a giant box of blueberries for £1! Today I am totally going to clear out all of the beer cans clunking around my stove and put them in the recycling today, totally!

PS the Shakespeare Histories Ficathon II is doing signups through tomorrow and people, you should really get on that!

THE TESTIMONIALS OF AWESOME MEME! // ME!!


LET US TALK ABOUT HOW GOOD THINGS ARE SOMETIMES AND TRY TO PRETEND IT WILL ALL BE OKAY.

Tube strike, you are so frustrating! Although I did get to leave work 45 minutes early to go jostle at the northbound Kensington Olympia platform with 200 other people. Also the Jubilee line is still running! I'm confused? But pleased!

I took my stupid GMAT yesterday morning and got an embarrassingly low score in math due to not having studied at all. (I may, uh, have forgotten what pi represents. Whatever, it's been like five years since I have had to do math that wasn't about time or tipping.) But I made it over the minimum score for my stupid MBA program, so there, it was a perfectly useful three hours and £250. OH WAIT.

I updated my new "feminism and whatever" blog, A Second Judith, with some gripes about how hard Helena and Diana in All's Well get hammered by the patriarchy, and that made me feel less cranky, sort of.

On the weekend I made myself a "no more buying booze until you drink all the booze you have" rule. This was to preempt my doing things like going "Oh man, that nice fruity red is 3 for £10 at Sainsbury's!" twice a week and building a small pyramid of unopened wine bottles in my wardrobe, but I've just realized that I have an almost-empty bottle of ouzo that might be this plan's undoing. We shall see, ouzo. We shall see. >:(

It's cold! I want it to be summer again!

cereta is having a really interesting, extensive discussion about rape and men on her LJ.