Barackometric pressure

Just a clever title. (Not that clever.)

What I was really thinking of was the academic job search (MY search, of course) as a barometer of the economy as a whole, like anything else. Watching searches slowly get axed is about as disheartening a thing as you can imagine; talk about things being totally out of your hands.

But Barack's upcoming infomercial made its way into my consciousness and my title. I'm seriously worried about backlash; it's a show of excess wealth at a time when I think a lot of people are going to bristle at the slightest show of excess. If you have read any of the comment strings on articles about the planned Grant Park rally, you'll know what I mean.

Not Latinaface

Good news, actually; an Argentinean actress has been cast as Maria in the upcoming Broadway West Side Story revival. (Good luck with that, given the economy -- though revivals might do better than new shows, at least.) When I was in NYC in August, the rumor among the theatrical types I talked to was that Lea Michele from Spring Awakening was going to play her, and one girl in particular expressed her very strong feelings that this was just wrong when there are so many wonderful Latina performers. It's interesting that they're choosing to import, rather than casting an American of the required ethnicity; same thing was done for Miss Saigon, excuse being that there just wasn't one of the right caliber. I find these things hard to believe. It's easier and perhaps creates more buzz to identify the top guns elsewhere (this Argentinean actress is of some note on their B'way scene, so it wasn't a talent search like Saigon's) and import them with some fanfare. On the other hand, new stars like Lea Michele are found all the time, so why not look around close to home and save yourself the visa paperwork? I'm just musing, but I'd be curious to know how these things work.

What hath oil dependency wrought?

One seriously annoying commercial, that's what. Anyone else been assaulted with these stupid Volkswagen commercials starring Brooke Shields claiming that women are having babies just so they can buy the SUV? Interesting way to dance around the issue of ridiculously bad gas mileage and pitch SUVs as absolute necessities/luxuries. Completely offensive, of course, to anybody who's ever known anybody dealing with infertility or other baby issues.

Mortally afraid

Somewhere in this harried weekend, I managed to devour a fantasy novel (first in a while) by famed writer Tanith Lee called Mortal Suns, set in a vaguely ancient Greek kind of world ruled by polygamous kings. It's unbelievably eerie and has some gorgeous descriptive writing; you can understand both these attributes when I say that the main character is an otherwise beautiful princess who is born without feet and is sent away by her mother to the Temple of Death; said mother then almost dies of supernatural feet kicking about in her womb.

Creepy as it is (and that's the tip of the iceberg), the writing does at least carry it along for the first half of the novel, but after that, when the romance gets going, phrasing takes over for any kind of characterization and the whole thing falls apart, character, plot, even imagery, and all. It's a pity, really.

A voice in the wilderness

Le blogue Bérubé is back, boys and girls. That's right, one of the 100 most dangerous liberals in America is blogging again to see us through these woeful times. Link is my slowly growing blogroll below and to the right.

Pre-Happy Days

Last night I finally got around to George Lucas' American Graffiti, which various people had been telling me to watch. If I had any nostalgia for the golden days of the sixties and a bunch of horny, self-obsessed teenagers, no doubt I would have enjoyed myself immensely. As it was, it was the '60s evacuated of almost everything that makes the the decade interesting to me, and instead was just white high schoolers riding around for a night. Will I go to college? Should we break up? Where's that hot chick? I love Steven! I hate Steven!

The most enjoyable part was probably marveling at Richard Dreyfuss -- was he ever that young, really? He at least brought a tiny bit of depth to his character. All in all, if you want to watch a movie with roller-skating waitresses bringing food to drive-through diners, there are more interesting films, like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. There are only the tiniest mentions in this one of things like race relations or Vietnam -- the "where are they now" sentences that end the film tell us that the geeky guy was reported MIA in Vietnam. And incidentally, in a final act of sexism, the "where are they now" only mentions the main four boys. Nothing about the girls. If I hadn't been mildly annoyed by the film already, that would have done it.

Feed the rich

It drives me stark raving insane to see people complaining about increased taxes on the wealthy and calling it 'socialist' (because it was unwisely framed as spreading the wealth, or sharing the wealth, or whatever). Again, I have never been an ardent Obama supporter, but this issue has always bothered me.

Don't people think?

Consider it as an exchange for services rendered. For example, I, in my unwealthiness but (to be Bourdieuvian for a moment) being possessed of much social capital, fly numerous times a year to numerous destinations, two of them international last year. This means, just off the top of my head, that I require the FAA, TSA, passport services, international customs, a reasonable amount of intelligence devoted to ensuring that nothing national security related happens to me in the air, regulations ensuring that Boeing made my plane without child labor, environmental regulations ensuring that said plane emits only its fair share of pollutants, foreign consulates in case I get arrested or get ill, some type of economic negotiations ensuring that my $2 will get me one British pound rather than a sixpence... I also use the oil that will be pumped out of Iraq by Bush's cronies after this multi-xillion war, or already is, since the Iraqis are having a terrible time building their own oil business without the cooperation of the multinationals.

Now, on the other hand, I do not own a yacht. I do not go on boat trips of any kind, and I but rarely make it to the beach. The Coast Guard and I are only distant friends.

I have no car. I am not on highways that often. The DMV and I are only occasional acquaintances. Pave the interstates, by all means, I still need them occasionally. Police presence, sure. Regulate car manufactures, work with labor unions, inspect mines from which metal is drawn to make sure they're safe; I need all that, too.

Everything takes maintenance, and if you live the high life using and abusing the structure, you pay your fair share. Now, I agree with Josh (I think it was) on the West Wing, who said that as we ask rich people to pay for so much, we should at least not hate them for it. Fine by me. But I think they need to consider what they're paying for.