Rainboots and Gender

[A not entirely serious reflection on the issues presented.]

What got me thinking about this is a male colleague who likes to say, whenever it rains, "I hate wet" - it occurred to me during yesterday's rainstorm that he might not mind it as much if he were wearing rainboots rather than dress shoes, and keeping his feet dry.  Then I started looking around and noticed this local phenomenon:

Only women wear rain boots or galoshes in the rain. Men wear sneakers, loafers, dress shoes, or (rarely) work boots; no wellies. Is this a truth universally acknowledged? Or just American (east coast) urban business areas?

It's clearly a matter of convention, but a curious one.  As if rainboots are OK for women and children, but not for men.  And of those three groups, only women voluntarily choose to wear them (at least in my experience, children wear them under protest).

The funny thing about it is that rainboots are not inherently feminine -- to the contrary, they are emphatically utilitarian and unisex in form.  They are not flattering to the female leg, even though one can get them with cute decorative colors and designs.

Some of my correspondents have pointed out that there is a practical reason for male office workers to eschew rainboots - they would have to carry spare shoes for the office (or else clunk around in boots all day), and their shoes are bigger than ours (more annoying to carry) and they don't typically carry bags or purses that could contain such shoes, etc. etc.

But I think it goes beyond the merely practical, to a sense that manly men can "tough it out" or something; that it is somehow a weakness to adapt one's footwear to the elements in a torrential downpour.  Men could easily wear the rubber slipcovers that they used to decades ago (my dad among them), but I haven't seen this in modern-day NYC.  

Much Ado About Nuthin'

Tonight I saw my first-ever "Western" version of Much Ado, which the company describes as follows:

Set in the gun-slinging Old West, Shakespeare’s romantic comedy of wills and wit tells the tale of two couples, Beatrice and Benedick, who trade barbs instead of kisses, and Claudio and Hero, whose innocent young love is torn apart by the dastardly Don Jon. Throw in some clowning by Dogberry, the master of malapropisms, and original music by Jonathan Sanborn, and we’ve got an afternoon to delight theatergoers of all ages! 

It was a lot of fun; the actors brought great physicality (including physical comedy) into it, though they had to go perhaps a little more carefully indoors than they would have outside in Riverside Park.  Still - martial arts cartwheels from Dogberry and his deputy in a lovely scene with their reluctant prisoners who try more than once to escape the buffoons who've nabbed them.  Really nice.  Some good singing voices, with original music.  I was tempted to sing along with the Hey Nonny Nonny.  No gimmicky re-interpretations (thank goodness), but good solid interpretation that helps breathe life into the Bard's words even for those who might find some of the language obscure.

For what it's worth, this was also probably the most racially integrated production I've seen of the play.  Both Claudio and the Prince are black, as well as Dogberry's deputy.  The Prince's villainous bastard brother is white, however, as are Beatrice, Benedick, and the rest of the cast.  Still, it's a start!  I was wondering at one point if Claudio's insecurity about Hero (and his and the Prince's readiness to believe the worst of her) would be given racial overtones, but I don't think the actors or director "went there" ultimately.

This Claudio makes clear his contrition by kneeling and handing over his gun and his sword to Leonato when he tells Leonato to choose his own vengeance - I thought that worked well.

The one jarring note, for me, was the friar - he presents his idea to save Hero as if he thinks it's pretty ridiculous.  It felt like a post-modern wink-to-the-audience schtick; not my favorite.

I hadn't heard of the Roundtable Ensemble before (although they list productions as far back as 1999), but they are a good addition to my watchlist for Shakespeare in the parks.

(P.S. It occurs to me now, can we say Leonato = lion-born?  That would be pretty cool.)

What I accomplished this weekend

Here's a positive spin on things (rather than focusing on all the things I did not find time for):

• Made my first-ever batch of pumpkin cornbread.  (Very easy, and super-moist.)
• Made my favorite muffins (yum).
• Moved some clothes and pictures out of the construction zone.
• Caught up with a friend who has agreed to serve as "back-up" executor for my future will.
• Wrote a few more paragraphs of a book review.  
• Drank bubble tea and ate chocolate with friends.
• Worked out during 2+ episodes of BtVS.
• Finished season 2 of Game of Thrones.  
• Went to church in nice clothes.
• Washed the dishes, put away some shoes, books, etc...

Well, gosh, that seems all right then, doesn't it?

Much Ado About Nothing

This is one of my favorite plays.  Probably the very first version I saw was the Branagh film -- and that set the bar fairly high. (My one complaint at the time was that they overdid the joy scenes with cliché, and that Branagh gave himself the cooler of the two - splashing in a fountain while Thompson merely swings on a swing.  The fountain-splashing is inherently cooler because you can splash around in a fountain with total abandon... a swing is far more limited in its motion, essentially restricted to a single arc.)

So tonight I saw the Whedon version.  This was also really good; I walked away with my spirits lifted and my heart filled with joy.  Here's a slightly abridged version of what I told the sponsor:

It was really beautiful and very funny; I loved it.   

It is up there with the Branagh version, and may even be a little bit better in some ways; I think the limited palette of a black-and-white film heightens the overall sense of warmth. The soundtrack was excellent too.  

The Claudio/Hero subplot is always a tough sell for modern audiences, because Claudio (like Othello) is so quick to believe the worst of his beloved, and Claudio's repentance doesn't entirely seem to justify his reward at the end.  So it really depends on the actors to make it as convincing as possible.  Much must be done with body language, tone of voice, facial expressions....  If I were to suggest any changes for the way this is handled (not that anyone's planning to do that), it would be to have Claudio show more outward signs of his devastation as if his repentance and regret made him physically ill; it might even work for him to collapse at the feet of his "new" bride before he learns who she is.   

The idea that Beatrice and Benedick had a previous sexual encounter is an interesting one, and it sort of works between them in some ways (although to my mind it does not really explain the dynamic between the characters).  But it strikes a jarring note once everyone (including Beatrice) starts focusing on Hero's purity.    

I found myself wondering why the characters drank so much, and ultimately figured that it was to give the impression of upper-class folk staying at someone's vacation home for a long weekend or something.  

I smiled broadly throughout the film, and laughed out loud often.  I grew misty-eyed at certain points. Some great actors there, with really good comic timing and very expressive faces.  Beatrice, Hero and the priest were especially engaging. Nathan Fillion clearly was having a blast as Dogberry.  

All in all, I highly recommend it.  It's accessible, warm and funny. 

Stream of Consciousness

• recently got to handle my first snake (caught by my brother; apparently it lives in the stone wall by their house).  It was surprisingly soft and velvety to the touch.  My nieces are cool with snakes.  Which is pretty cool.
• bought a small canister of asafetida, based on my recollection that Madhur Jaffrey characterized this spice as "indispensable" to Indian cuisine.  The sealed plastic container, from inside a plastic bag, has left a lingering stench in my backpack six days later.  I'm nervous about opening the container now.
• was thinking to go rollerblading today, and then head to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.  And a yoga class.  Instead, I've spent hours researching my proposed topic for a chapter in an upcoming book... and certain other papers that I'm thinking to present and/or publish.  I'm on the rooftop deck though, enjoying bright cloudy skies.  So maybe this is a good day to work out in the gym. 
• just accepted an estimate for one home improvement project.  Two more in the works - need to figure out soon if I'll go forward.  Fingers crossed.
• oh, and the paper proposal that was just accepted for Mythcon?
  Title: "First Contact: Man in the Landscape of Tormance and Perelandra."
  Abstract: Lewis wrote that "The real father of my planet books is David Lindsay’s Voyage to Arcturus, which you also will revel in if you don’t know it." This paper will compare Maskull's introduction to Tormance and Joiwind with Ransom's introduction to Perelandra and the Lady, with an eye to understanding Lewis' authorial choices in depicting his own alien and exotic flora, fauna, and landscape.  
• highlights of some presentations I enjoyed at Kalamazoo:

• DIY astrolabe session - learned out to figure out the time of sunrise and sunset with a few pieces of paper

• Anderson & Rateliff talking about women in JRRT's professional life... with Flieger & Chance not only in attendance, but actually cheering from the audience at times.  Pretty darn cool.  

• math prof argued that invisibility cannot happen without rendering the invisible person [in this case, a hobbit] blind, whether the light goes through the hobbit or around the hobbit.

• on a Game of Thrones panel, when responding to a question about differences between fans of the TV show (or a film) and the book, one panelist mentioned stained glass windows (they were for those who couldn't read the bible for themselves)

• GoT fan community tends to defend GRRM as a "lone genius" whose vision is supreme and unquestionable; they tend to defend complaints about Westeros as sexist/misogynist, racist, and violent by claiming that this accurately reflects "medieval times" - but without any understanding of the actual historical period (their source appears to be GRRM himself)

• a plenary speaker showed us some of the ways stuff spread in what I'll call the Greater Mediterranean region.  Included: a really cool map showing the spread of the Black Death, and a map showing that traders crossed the Sahara not like modern day long-distance truckers, but in a series of short, overlapping circuits.  

• a talk on the Smithfield decretals featured a picture of the Hellmouth!  The point of this talk was that it was pretty weird for a legal treatise to include a running series of diagrams in the margins about the encounter between the "three living" and the "three dead" (but the expanded moment of encounter is perhaps intended to encourage reflection on morality and salvation, perhaps appropriate for the law) 

• another speaker on the same panel (re text and image) mentioned that putting words into a rising and falling scroll was intended to reflect the inflections of actual speech.  Also, she was talking about a particular medieval document made by or for a leader of a convent, which showed (a) OT men in a circle around JC, who is speaking to them in direct lines, with no response from the men; and (b) NT women in a circle around JC, who is still speaking to them in direct lines, but the women each respond in a curved arc of dialogue; the words of one woman end in JC's chalice.

That's all for now.  Gotta get to the library for a few things I can't access online!

1776: A Look at Our Founding Mothers

In honor of Mother's Day, my mom went off gallivanting somewhere, leaving yours truly at loose ends.  So I decided to focus on educational pursuits, particularly an edifying historical re-enactment of a critical period in our nation's history.

Yes, this was the musical 1776.  I'd never seen it before - very fun!

NY - Miss Lewis Morris (fore)
SC - Miss Edward Rutledge (aft)

PA - Miss Benjamin Franklin
(A Machievellian figure, but she gets the job done)

Seriousness of purpose, even during the do-si-do 

New York abstains.  Courteously.

Determined delegates

Mr. John Adams prepares for take-off?

A bucolic scene

Happy Mother's Day, with mango lassis!!

Kalamazoo

The Waking of Angantyr: A Poetic Drama (text by Deborah C. Rogers)

Performed w/ the assistance of the WMU Theater Dept

Fountains in twilight

Close-up on the tulip

Goslings! Large, gangly, adolescent goslings!

Red-winged blackbird

Your friendly neighborhood airport

The Palisades

I've heard that the Palisades were a great place to hike, but never made it out there until today.  

Sal graciously drove down and picked up a few of us city folk for the adventure.

Cool rock formations

A solitary pillar

Goose, nesting right on the trail

Ahoy there!

The Cliffs of Insanity?

Shadows on the Hudson

View upstream

It was really a perfect afternoon.  Good weather, good company, good hiking.  

* * *

In the evening, I watched an episode of BtVS and saw this t-shirt:

Does our fearless leader have a secret sideline business???