This is a post that comes five days late, but do you really expect any better of me?
I am normally not one for New Year's Resolutions. The "loose weight/get in better shape" resolutions fall by the wayside all to quickly. The "spend more time with family and friends" resolutions are not applicable to me. I have no substances to eliminate forever from my life (I have excellent relationships with sugar and coffee). I have no debt to retire. I really do enjoy my life; I need not resolve to do that. As I am still in high school, I learn new things every day. And I really am an organized person in spite of the appearance of my desk (cut me some slack; midterms are coming up). These, the most common resolutions, have no relevance to my life.
However, the topic has been on my mind recently. A friend recently shot me an email asking me a few questions about my habits regarding New Year's Resolutions for the Greenwich Academy Press (our school newspaper); and I have been considering the prospect of resolving something since I received that email. For that reason I have resolved something!
This year, I will be posting a new piece of writing for every day. That doesn't necessarily mean that I will have a new piece up every day (I'm failing miserably at that already). There will be, by the end of next year, 365 pieces of writing on a blog. Not this one. I will conveniently link to this new blog on the right sidebar as soon as I have set it up in order to avoid cluttering up this blog.
It all feels so official now, having written it out. People of the Internet, I am committed. This shall occur. And now for the requisite New Year's Question: have y'all resolved anything? Talk to me in the comments. It makes me feel cool.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Friday, 9 December 2011
Why I No Longer Need to be Told to Be an Empowered Woman
Yesterday morning the president of The White House Project came to talk to my school. Before I get in to talking about the actual assembly, disclaimers need to be made...
- I am not anti-woman, but I am by no means a feminist.
- I have seen way too many of these "be an empowered woman" assemblies for them to make me feel anything but cynical.
- I think this project does great work for women who need it. The girls of Greenwich Academy do not need it.
Disclaimers accepted? Good. Let's move on. (profanity exists on occasion below)
I take serious issue with listening to women talk to girls about being empowered when they grow up. Not only does it presuppose that we need empowering, but I really feel like it also, in a reverse psychology kind of way, tells us that we need to fight. I believe in equality for everyone (in the modern era, I interpret "All men are created equal" to mean all people), but I am really tired of hearing that I need to be a conniving bitch to get that equality (and that the equality needs getting in the first place). Additionally, I'm tired of being told that the only way for me to show that I am an empowered woman is for me to run for office or be in a position of leadership in the workplace. I respect our speaker yesterday for mentioning that we need more women in academia, but I still feel like these speeches force me into visible positions in the world. There is nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom, in fact it's incredibly difficult to be a mother. I resent the fact that we are told that being a stay-at-home mom isn't good enough. On the flip side, I remember a few years ago I saw a dance project about mothers. The thesis of the project was that mothers can be anything but that "anything" was defined as various kinds of home makers. That I don't agree with.
All in all I respect the message of the assembly: don't just say, do. The White House Project proposes to bring women out from behind the scenes into the foreground. I totally respect that. However, I had a question about Ms. Dufu's anti-lobbying message. She says that we shouldn't lobby for our rights, we should get ourselves elected so that we can get done what needs to get done on our political agendas. So I ask her this:
All in all I respect the message of the assembly: don't just say, do. The White House Project proposes to bring women out from behind the scenes into the foreground. I totally respect that. However, I had a question about Ms. Dufu's anti-lobbying message. She says that we shouldn't lobby for our rights, we should get ourselves elected so that we can get done what needs to get done on our political agendas. So I ask her this:
- Have you ever run for anything?
Exactly.
Monday, 5 December 2011
(Communist) Party Rock Anthem
I believe it is an accepted fact that nothing productive is accomplished on the last day of a MUN conference. And if it isn't it should be.
Sunday marked the last day of PMUNC 2011, and the Politburo of the USSR marked it well with an execution, an invasion, superlatives, dirty MUN puns, and "In Soviet Russia..." jokes. Comrade Voroshilov was accused of and promptly executed for: "shaving off the wise, glorious facial hair of Comrade Stalin while he was in a wise, glorious, illustrious, and patriotic drunken stupor; telling the entire Leningrad district that he does in fact feel pretty; conspiring to slowly poison the committee with the sound of his voice; defacing the body of glorious Comrade Lenin in unspeakable ways; and replacing all the signs in the Moscow District that say CCCP with a crudely drawn CCCPenis". We invaded ECOFIN and brought the same charges against them. Superlatives were granted for "Most Likely to Go to Jail", "Most Likely to Be an Informant" (all of us; we're soviets), "Best Facial Hair", "Best Actual Communist", and "Best James Franco Look Alike". To assuage your concerns, none of these were granted to me personally, but we all had a good time laughing about what a great time we had. But my favorite part of Sunday was definitely the dirty MUN puns. One of my friends has an axiom, "All jocks think about is sports; all nerds think about is sex" and no where is that more evident than at a Model UN Conference. Admittedly, parliamentary procedure lends itself to dirty puns ("Motion to table the chair" or anything involving the word "caucus"), but what surprised me the first time I went to a MUN conference was how easily the United Nations itself lends itself to dirty jokes ("For a third world country, you're awfully developed" or anything involving the country "Djibouti"). Long story short, Model UN is awesome.
But on a serious note, I think Model UN is a quality exercise. I not only enjoy myself while there, I enjoy doing the research for my committees. Writing a position paper is an onerous exercise, but you are forced to learn about a new angle of historical or modern international relations. And I find it interesting. I really wish my delegation went to more of these events, because I would go to as many of them as I could. If any of you reading know of any conferences that are still open for registration, please let me know in the comments, because I am currently trying to figure out if I can attend more as an independent delegate. Even if it's for next year, I'd love to begin figuring things out!
Sunday marked the last day of PMUNC 2011, and the Politburo of the USSR marked it well with an execution, an invasion, superlatives, dirty MUN puns, and "In Soviet Russia..." jokes. Comrade Voroshilov was accused of and promptly executed for: "shaving off the wise, glorious facial hair of Comrade Stalin while he was in a wise, glorious, illustrious, and patriotic drunken stupor; telling the entire Leningrad district that he does in fact feel pretty; conspiring to slowly poison the committee with the sound of his voice; defacing the body of glorious Comrade Lenin in unspeakable ways; and replacing all the signs in the Moscow District that say CCCP with a crudely drawn CCCPenis". We invaded ECOFIN and brought the same charges against them. Superlatives were granted for "Most Likely to Go to Jail", "Most Likely to Be an Informant" (all of us; we're soviets), "Best Facial Hair", "Best Actual Communist", and "Best James Franco Look Alike". To assuage your concerns, none of these were granted to me personally, but we all had a good time laughing about what a great time we had. But my favorite part of Sunday was definitely the dirty MUN puns. One of my friends has an axiom, "All jocks think about is sports; all nerds think about is sex" and no where is that more evident than at a Model UN Conference. Admittedly, parliamentary procedure lends itself to dirty puns ("Motion to table the chair" or anything involving the word "caucus"), but what surprised me the first time I went to a MUN conference was how easily the United Nations itself lends itself to dirty jokes ("For a third world country, you're awfully developed" or anything involving the country "Djibouti"). Long story short, Model UN is awesome.
But on a serious note, I think Model UN is a quality exercise. I not only enjoy myself while there, I enjoy doing the research for my committees. Writing a position paper is an onerous exercise, but you are forced to learn about a new angle of historical or modern international relations. And I find it interesting. I really wish my delegation went to more of these events, because I would go to as many of them as I could. If any of you reading know of any conferences that are still open for registration, please let me know in the comments, because I am currently trying to figure out if I can attend more as an independent delegate. Even if it's for next year, I'd love to begin figuring things out!
Solving the Korean War
Saturday's PMUNC sessions involved settling our second major question: Soviet Involvement in the Korean War. Admittedly the people on my committee were less interesting in this question than in the German Division question, but I think the Korean Conflict turned out to be quite interesting.
We began the session in October 1950 as the UN coalition forces bear down on the Yalu River. These UN Coalition forces (from our perspective) threaten the sovereignty of two communist nations (North Korea and China) and have demonstrated capitalist imperialism by over reaching their assigned mission by making incursions into North Korea instead of simply defending South Korea. To be honest, I'm beginning to think the historical committees are designed to make the delegates appreciate what good decisions were made in the past; as our crises played out, we found ourselves adhering more and more to the course of the actual conflict. Of course we weren't perfectly historically accurate, but we came pretty damn close. We began by resolving to send overt humanitarian aid and covert military aid to both the Chinese and North Korean armies and asserting the rights of Communist Nations (simply put, they have the right to exist and other communist nations have the right to defend them). Then one of our planes got shot down. A few press releases later, we get word that the Americans are positioning nuclear warheads in the Yellow Sea to bomb China and North Korea and the Chinese forces have simply attacked the Americans (sorry, UN coalition forces) without any directive from Moscow or even close to enough equipment. We drafted some more press releases, positioned our troops in Eastern Russia in the event of an attack on our sovereign territory (that was a directive I sponsored with the delegate who played Marshal Zhukov) and drafted a peace treaty between the Americans and the Chinese. Long story short, we narrowly avoided nuclear war. We also drafted what would have been a precursor to the Warsaw Pact if it had happened in real time. The document created an economic union between soviet nations and created a mutual defence clause. This all happened in the space of seven hours. If that's not enough reason to put Model UN kids in charge of the real world, I don't know what is.
All in all, I had a great time at this conference. I was originally unsure about it (and by unsure I mean less than excited), but it really turned out to be a great time. As we say on committee: "Long Live Brosef Stalin, wise, illustrious, glorious, and patriotic leader of the Broviet Union!"
We began the session in October 1950 as the UN coalition forces bear down on the Yalu River. These UN Coalition forces (from our perspective) threaten the sovereignty of two communist nations (North Korea and China) and have demonstrated capitalist imperialism by over reaching their assigned mission by making incursions into North Korea instead of simply defending South Korea. To be honest, I'm beginning to think the historical committees are designed to make the delegates appreciate what good decisions were made in the past; as our crises played out, we found ourselves adhering more and more to the course of the actual conflict. Of course we weren't perfectly historically accurate, but we came pretty damn close. We began by resolving to send overt humanitarian aid and covert military aid to both the Chinese and North Korean armies and asserting the rights of Communist Nations (simply put, they have the right to exist and other communist nations have the right to defend them). Then one of our planes got shot down. A few press releases later, we get word that the Americans are positioning nuclear warheads in the Yellow Sea to bomb China and North Korea and the Chinese forces have simply attacked the Americans (sorry, UN coalition forces) without any directive from Moscow or even close to enough equipment. We drafted some more press releases, positioned our troops in Eastern Russia in the event of an attack on our sovereign territory (that was a directive I sponsored with the delegate who played Marshal Zhukov) and drafted a peace treaty between the Americans and the Chinese. Long story short, we narrowly avoided nuclear war. We also drafted what would have been a precursor to the Warsaw Pact if it had happened in real time. The document created an economic union between soviet nations and created a mutual defence clause. This all happened in the space of seven hours. If that's not enough reason to put Model UN kids in charge of the real world, I don't know what is.
All in all, I had a great time at this conference. I was originally unsure about it (and by unsure I mean less than excited), but it really turned out to be a great time. As we say on committee: "Long Live Brosef Stalin, wise, illustrious, glorious, and patriotic leader of the Broviet Union!"
Friday, 2 December 2011
Welcome to PMUNC
As of last night, I am Nikolai Bulganin on the Politburo of the USSR, 1945. Why? you may ask. Because I am a member of the Greenwich Academy delegation at the Princeton Model UN Conference. Just when you thought I couldn't get any nerdier, you find out I'm a Model Government kid. In my defense, I am no where near as intense as some of the other kids. I thought my binder was good, but some kids have 3 1/2 inch binders that legitimately don't close. But enough about Model Government kids, lets talk about historical international relations!
My committee this year is the Politburo of the USSR, so all the delegates are different members of the main policy making body of the Soviet Union. I'm pretty sure the only downside of being on this committee is having to memorize multisylabic russian names. As of our fourth committee meeting we have resolved our first crisis topic: policy making regarding post-Nazi Germany at the Yalta Conference. One thing that's really cool about historical committees is the ability to correct the mistakes of the past. Of course that's not to say that we have, but having the knowledge that we can is really cool. I think my committee this year strikes an interesting balance between historical accuracy and fantasy. We all represent different soviet Russians and we (for the most part) portray them with historical accuracy, but we have to respond to fictional crises. Today, we were threatened by an Allied that to invade the motherland (which was later discovered to be a bluff) and a Japanese attack on Soviet territory near Vladivostok. Both were dealt with quickly and efficiently. So efficiently that we had time to draft and pass a treaty regarding the division and governance/management of postwar Germany as well a the extraction of reparations from German territories. In the midst of all this directive passing, three of our number were sent to the gulag and two executed. It's been a busy day. Personally, I'm very impressed and happy with our plan for reparations; I think it's comprehensive and effective. I have some reservations regarding the way our treaty divided up Germany, but that's mostly because the plan I sponsored with Korotchenko which comprehensively went through Germany province by province and divided it between the Allied powers didn't get passed. I think the one we did pass is too general.
All in all, I'm really happy with what has gone down already in my committee. I'll do my best to keep y'all updated, but I'm currently blogging from my phone because I'm too cheap to pay for internet. Tomorrow we begin our next topic: how to handle Soviet involvement in the Korean conflict. Can't wait!
My committee this year is the Politburo of the USSR, so all the delegates are different members of the main policy making body of the Soviet Union. I'm pretty sure the only downside of being on this committee is having to memorize multisylabic russian names. As of our fourth committee meeting we have resolved our first crisis topic: policy making regarding post-Nazi Germany at the Yalta Conference. One thing that's really cool about historical committees is the ability to correct the mistakes of the past. Of course that's not to say that we have, but having the knowledge that we can is really cool. I think my committee this year strikes an interesting balance between historical accuracy and fantasy. We all represent different soviet Russians and we (for the most part) portray them with historical accuracy, but we have to respond to fictional crises. Today, we were threatened by an Allied that to invade the motherland (which was later discovered to be a bluff) and a Japanese attack on Soviet territory near Vladivostok. Both were dealt with quickly and efficiently. So efficiently that we had time to draft and pass a treaty regarding the division and governance/management of postwar Germany as well a the extraction of reparations from German territories. In the midst of all this directive passing, three of our number were sent to the gulag and two executed. It's been a busy day. Personally, I'm very impressed and happy with our plan for reparations; I think it's comprehensive and effective. I have some reservations regarding the way our treaty divided up Germany, but that's mostly because the plan I sponsored with Korotchenko which comprehensively went through Germany province by province and divided it between the Allied powers didn't get passed. I think the one we did pass is too general.
All in all, I'm really happy with what has gone down already in my committee. I'll do my best to keep y'all updated, but I'm currently blogging from my phone because I'm too cheap to pay for internet. Tomorrow we begin our next topic: how to handle Soviet involvement in the Korean conflict. Can't wait!
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Venus in Fur
I do not generally make it a habit of buying scripts or books for the productions I see. Those who know me know that I collect posters as visual reminders of these productions (unless they're really bad), but scripts are another thing. I buy scripts when I think I have missed something in the sheer density, intensity, and rapture of seeing a production. David Ives' Venus in Fur is one of those productions.
It's described as "A Power Play" and I think that is one of the most perfectly accurate descriptions of a show I have ever read. It centers on the audition interaction of Vanda and Thomas as she auditions for the female part in his adaptation of Sader-Masoch's Venus in Furs. The book itself is also hard to describe, but suffice it to say that the term "Sado-Masochism" comes from this author's name. Of course that statement suggests that the play (and the play-within-the-play) is SM porn, as the character Vanda suggests. It's not. It's so much more than that. The only way to describe it it's as a power play, a play about power.
I don't really want to say any more than that because, in my mind, part of the joy of the show it not knowing what to expect; but I will direct you to "Did He Like It?" . It says everything I want to.
Friday, 21 October 2011
On Being a Hipster and Coherent Shakespeare
I never thought I would say this, but I have genuinely liked a slightly abridged, American production of Shakespeare. This past weekend I headed into Greenwich Village to see Fiasco Theater and Theater for a New Audience's production of Cymbeline and it was really good.
Of course, going into Greenwich Village, one cannot help but feel like a hipster. The streets are lined with establishments of nonconformity. And it turns out that hipsters travel in packs. This I did not know. But lo and behold, I saw packs of 20-somethings cultivating their looks of disdain at the likes of you and I and their carefully chosen ensembles, designed to look like they were not quite so carefully chosen. But I really can't mock. I'm something of a hipster myself. In any event, I had a delicious (probably fair trade and organic) lunch at a tiny little cafe and headed off to the Barrow Street Theater.
This Cymbeline will probably be the only Cymbeline I ever see. It is very rarely produced and probably, rightly so. It's called a problem play with good reason. Every trope that Shakespeare ever used or created is in this show. And that's not a criticism; Shakespeare was a great writer and knew how to use them properly. However the plot of Cymbeline is so complicated that it is even a bit of a headache for the most dedicated of Shakespeare fans. Which is why I'm kind of glad they abridged this. Which is not to say it was any shorter than your average Shakespeare fare, the Fiasco Theater company simply, judiciously took out some of the less relevant side plots. This rendered the play far more enjoyable and much easier to understand. Nor did they try to set it too complicatedly. The set consisted of a sheet, two boxes, and a trunk, and it was perfectly done. This minimalist staging framed the show without overwhelming it or rendering it incomprehensible as many productions seem to do. They also set music to the show, which is something I greatly believe in. I'm not calling for musical versions of every Shakespeare drama - that would be ridiculous, excessive, and silly - but they were originally performed with music incorporated into the transitions and when modern companies do it right I think it adds a lot to the performance. It really was a wonderfully comprehensible production of an incredibly complicated play and I really encourage y'all to get tickets.
If I haven't sold you, let Ben Brantley of The New York Times help. There are two reviews there; one is from the original production from earlier this year and the other is for the one that's currently on. They're the same production, just in different locations
Of course, going into Greenwich Village, one cannot help but feel like a hipster. The streets are lined with establishments of nonconformity. And it turns out that hipsters travel in packs. This I did not know. But lo and behold, I saw packs of 20-somethings cultivating their looks of disdain at the likes of you and I and their carefully chosen ensembles, designed to look like they were not quite so carefully chosen. But I really can't mock. I'm something of a hipster myself. In any event, I had a delicious (probably fair trade and organic) lunch at a tiny little cafe and headed off to the Barrow Street Theater.
This Cymbeline will probably be the only Cymbeline I ever see. It is very rarely produced and probably, rightly so. It's called a problem play with good reason. Every trope that Shakespeare ever used or created is in this show. And that's not a criticism; Shakespeare was a great writer and knew how to use them properly. However the plot of Cymbeline is so complicated that it is even a bit of a headache for the most dedicated of Shakespeare fans. Which is why I'm kind of glad they abridged this. Which is not to say it was any shorter than your average Shakespeare fare, the Fiasco Theater company simply, judiciously took out some of the less relevant side plots. This rendered the play far more enjoyable and much easier to understand. Nor did they try to set it too complicatedly. The set consisted of a sheet, two boxes, and a trunk, and it was perfectly done. This minimalist staging framed the show without overwhelming it or rendering it incomprehensible as many productions seem to do. They also set music to the show, which is something I greatly believe in. I'm not calling for musical versions of every Shakespeare drama - that would be ridiculous, excessive, and silly - but they were originally performed with music incorporated into the transitions and when modern companies do it right I think it adds a lot to the performance. It really was a wonderfully comprehensible production of an incredibly complicated play and I really encourage y'all to get tickets.
If I haven't sold you, let Ben Brantley of The New York Times help. There are two reviews there; one is from the original production from earlier this year and the other is for the one that's currently on. They're the same production, just in different locations
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