MagicThought

The typewriter thing made me think of a musical called “Thoroughly Modern Millie” about a woman from a small town in the 20s who moves to
New York to become a stenographer.  Well, Wikipedia summarizes it well:

Thoroughly Modern Millie tells the story of a small-town girl, Millie Dillmount, who comes to New York City to marry for money instead of love – a thoroughly modern aim in 1922, when women were just entering the workforce. Millie soon begins to take to delight in the flapper lifestyle, but problems arise when she checks into a hotel owned by the leader of a white slavery ring in China. 

She interviews for a man (Trevor Graydon III) who tests her stenog skills by dictating an outrageously complicated letter. She ends up getting the job because she is quick and accurate. In fact, she is so good at her job that Trevor Graydon starts to call her “John,” his implication being that she is as efficient at her job as a man.

As far as the typewriters go, there is one song called “Forget about the Boy” (I KNOW RIGHT?) where all the Typists (a whole chorus of professional women) sing while sitting at their typewriters.

“No canary in a tree for me
This canary’s ready to fly freeCut the cord
Is that a man I once adored?
He’s nothing but an albatross
No great loss
Doublecrosser
Forget about the boy
Pull the plug
Ain’t he the one who pulled the rug
He’s lower than an alley cat
Dirty rat
And I flatter
Forget about the boy
Forget about the boy
Forget about the boyAnd in the moonlight
Don’t you think about him
Sister, you’re much better off without him
You can blow the blues a kiss goodbye
And put the sun back in the sky
For when he comes crawlin’
I’m not fallin’”

 -Erin

Bruce Springsteen’s latest CD was released today. It’s called, “Magic.” Reviews say its his most political cd yet, largely about the Bush administration. His last CD, in response to 9/11, was called “The Rising.” Hmmmmm. First “The Rising,” now “Magic.” Funny how those old Hebrew notions keep coming back to haunt us.

Here are the lyrics for a song called “Long Walk Home”
Notice the father, the law of the father, (Courthouse), and the reference to the Ten Commandments — “Set in Stone”

My father said “Son, we’re
lucky in this town
It’s a beautiful place to be born.
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
You know that flag
flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, and what we’ll do
And what we won’t”
It’s gonna be a long walk home.

A section of the typewriter article found on Wikipedia that was particularly interesting…

When Remington first started marketing typewriters, the company assumed the machine would not be used for composing but for transcribing dictation, and that the person typing would be a woman. Flowers were printed on the casing of early models to make the machine seem more comfortable for women to use. In the United States, women often started in the professional workforce as typists; in fact, according to the 1910 U.S. census, 81 percent of typists were female. With more women brought out of the home and into offices, there was some concern about the effects this would have on the morals of society, both by moralists and pornographers. The “typewriter girl” became part of the iconography of early-twentieth-century pornography. The “Tijuana bibles” — dirty comic books produced in Mexico for the American market, starting in the 1930s — often featured women typists. In one panel, a businessman in a three-piece suit, ogling his secretary’s thigh, says, “Miss Higby, are you ready for—ahem!—er—dictation?”

 Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter

According to the NYT the “Bionic Woman” was the most watched show on Wednesday night. In our current cultural moment this makes a lot of sense. The paternal symbolic is in deep trouble. Father/son Bush have emasculated the US in a war that we can’t win, with a country/society that, like Dracula, adheres to the past and resists the modern — cultural and technological. If Bram Stoker is right, it will take a bionic woman, a Minna who can master the symbolic, to save us. If you saw the Democratic debates the other night it was pretty clear that most of the male candidates were utterly feminized in Hillary’s presence. And at one point, when it was pointed out that her position on “torture” was different than her husband’s, she said, “Well, I’ll talk to him tonight.” Hmmmm….

NBC’s ‘Bionic Woman’
A Show of Strength
NBC may have another science-fiction hit with “Bionic Woman,” starring Michelle Ryan, which earned Wednesday’s top ratings among adults 18 to 49, Nielsen estimated. In total viewers, the series drew 13.6 million at 9 p.m.

Here’s a review of tonight’s first episode of Moonlight, the new vampire tv show. Notice the vampire’s assistant is a female web journalist. Notice that her name is Beth, a letter of the alphabet, as in Aleph, Beth. Notice the coupling of the symbolic (rule book — the law and writing technology) with the imaginary (the kitchen — usually the domain of the maternal) in the article’s subtitle. Notice that the vampire is portrayed as a sex-less metro-sexual, intimating that he doesn’t need to have sex to reproduce. And I love the concluding thought: “In almost every way, ‘Moonlight’ demands that we question the grounds for its existence.” I would suggest that we can explain why such a new show exists.

September 28, 2007
TV Review | ‘Moonlight’
Vampire With a Rule Book and a Mighty Fine Kitchen

By GINIA BELLAFANTE
Mick St. John has the best kitchen of any character on network television. I take that back: he has the best kitchen on television, period. It goes beyond the standard chrome-and-granite generics of television culinary spaces, with open shelves that display a beautiful collection of bulbous glassware. It’s like a lab, but a warm one where you might actually enjoy a good risotto, and it looks out onto Mick’s lattice-walled living room with its Modernist collectibles.

Visions of all this are far too fleeting in “Moonlight,” a CBS series beginning tonight that, despite all the set-design talent behind it, is distressingly not about furniture or appliances at all.

It’s despairing to write these words, but the procrastination has gone on long enough: “Moonlight” is a frothily toned detective series in which a metrosexual vampire (Mick, played by Alex O’Loughlin) functions as chief private investigator. It’s a tease, really, to know that all those perfectly appointed rooms exist merely to establish the particularities of Mick’s vampirism. I was hoping I’d be directed to points of purchase.

Forsworn here are all the old metaphors of sexual predation. Mick is a vampire as late-stage consumer capitalist. He doesn’t exist if he doesn’t buy, choosing to get his blood supply from a dealer rather than sucking it out of victims. “Most vampires don’t have boundaries or rules,” he explains in an expository opening scene that is meant to look like a documentary interview with him. “But I do. I don’t hunt women, I don’t hunt children, I don’t hunt innocents.”

But the producers are onto a conceit that seems purely accidental. Vampires with a conscience are like cheerleaders in habits: what precisely is the point?

Mick is motivated to solve crimes involving vampires who are less morally inclined. He is righting the wrongs of his species and receiving vague assistance from a Web journalist, Beth (Sophia Myles), whose life he saved from a pernicious female vampire when she was a little girl. That was decades ago; Beth has blossomed in womanhood, and Mick, given his agelessness, still looks as if he could audition for a remake of “Beverly Hills 90210” during the college years. He loves her, but he fears revealing himself, and he sleeps in a freezer devoid of Frette sheets.

Ms. Myles, who was so captivating as a vampire victim in a recent PBS version of “Dracula,” just gets to play around as a ding-dong here in her role as a newscaster for Buzzwire, an online tabloid for which she racks her brain coming up with alliterative headlines.

In almost every way, “Moonlight” demands that we question the grounds for its existence. As soon as it goes off the air, I’d love to borrow the decorator.

My favorite part of the movie is the first scene with Jonathan and Mina. They are sitting in a gazebo like area, holding hands and facing each other. Then, the fade out effect is done with a shrinking black circle. This cuts to a tunnel with a train going through it.  Although, we do not see Jonathan and Mina get “down and dirty” it is obvious what occurs. But for those who can’t quite imagine the connection: The train is a sizable penis, entering (and exiting) a tunnel- the depths of a women’s genitalia. I thought this to be very creative and tasteful on the directors part.

Hey ya’ll! Since “premier” week is right around the corner I was browsing the network’s internet sites, completely excited that the return of Grey’s Anantomy is less than a week away, when I noticed a new show called “Moonlight.” The description it gives about the show is ”When a series of vampire-style murders plague LA, immortal investigator Mick St. John sets out to find the culprits and re-connects with a woman from his past at a crime scene.” Vampires in LA? Impossible! Anyway, I am sure the show will be cheesy and inaccurate but it could be something entertaining to watch! If you are interested it comes on Fri, Sept 28 at 8:00pm on CBS!  See ya’ll in class!

~Corene