Don't Gel Too Soon

The Wolf of Wall Street: Greed, Sex, Cruelty and Martin Scorsese

I understand about Martin Scorsese.  I really do.  From Mean Streets to Taxi Driver, Raging Bull to Goodfellas to Boardwalk Empire, much of his work has been dark and violent.  Decent people don't show up very often and when they do, they seldom prevail, so when we went to see The Wolf of Wall Street this weekend, I wasn't expecting a pleasant experience.  I was not expecting what I got, either.

By the end of the film I was so angry I was shaking.  After three hours of unrelenting greed, emotional violence, ruthlessness, the cynical exploitation of the weak, casually abusive and emotionless sex, indescribable disregard for and destructive treatment of women, it was tough to walk out of the theater without throwing something.  

It was excess beyond anything that words could describe; images, sadly, are more successful.  There's nowhere to hide and there are so many moments where we wish we could.

I was a broadcast producer in the and 80's and covered the excesses of that time.  I knew that, in Bonfire of Vanities, Tom Wolfe was demonstrating his skills as a reporter as well as a novelist.  

Even so, the rank, brittle ugliness of this film, of these people and of the fact that much of the story really happened turned what we know into what we wish we didn't.  The criticism by the daughter of one of its main characters, that it glamorizes the Belfort universe and makes them some sorts of rakish sweetie pies wasn't what I saw. The are all reprehensible from first to last.

Of course the film wouldn't have had the impact it did if it hadn't been so well-made.  Its impact is indisputable.  Even so - maybe his next undertaking, after all this darkness, will bring us the Scorsese behind The Last Waltz and Concert for New York City.  After all, they say music tames the savage beast, and in this film, he certainly unleashed a hell of a creature.

iVillage Heard Women's Voices Before Anybody Else Knew How to Listen

 

 

Women need tribes.  Need each other.  

Two of the first online people to figure that out were Nancy Evans and Candace Carpenter Olson, the co-founders, along with two others, of iVillage.  Together they built the best online home women will ever have.  Parent Soup, where I worked for four years, was a mommy site before mommy bloggers or Babble or BlogHer.  Vibrant, warm and well-led, it served - and listened to - women with inclusiveness and respect.   

Well before blogs or social media, iVillage's topical message boards,  conceived as support communities like those in AA, engaged the site's visitors and provided a sense of home and ownership that didn't seem to appear anywhere else online.  They shared parenting and relationship advice and once, right before my eyes, rescued a woman from a terribly abusive relationship as all the members of the board came together to support her.

Today we learned the site will "be shuttered" and folded into the TODAY SHOW Online  under its current owner, NBC News.  

It's sad.  To get an idea of how wonderful it was to be part of what we created there, consider the deluge of comments  that followed a single post earlier today.  All of us are, I suspect, as surprised as I am at the depth of emotion this news has evoked.  We were all so proud to be part of what we knew was a remarkable creation.   And we learned so much.

My own first assignment was to design an education site for parents.  (The logo for "Education Central" appears at the top of this post.)  I took the initial outline to Nancy, who was Editor-in-Chief.  Looking up from her desk, she asked  "Have you looked at the message boards?"  I shook my head.  "Well go read the message boards, use what you find there, and then bring me what you have" she said.  She wouldn't even look at it I did that, and she was right.  

Rule one: listen to the community.  There was so much within those conversations that revealed what should appear on the site.  I've been preaching that lesson ever since.

iVillage believed in its communities, in their hearts and minds.  It gave countless women voices they would never have otherwise had and paved the way for the powerful women bloggers who have emerged after them.

Its leaders also believed in us, from novices to old hands like me, and in our mission: give women a home online and hear what they say there.  Believe, more than anything, in them.

 

 

 

 

 

Do We Love this or What?

TWITTER and JEWISH MOTHERS; Do we laugh or...well....not?

OK so I'm busy and this is just a video but it's so strange - see what you think.

Unplugged for Shabbat: Something the "Cool" People Want Too. Wow.

Are you unplugged?  It's Friday morning and soon Shabbat will be here.  I'll light the candles and we'll go to friends for dinner and tomorrow to services and to lunch (I'm bringing part of it).  Later we're going to another home to be part of what they call a "shabbat hangout" where the kids all play and the parents (and their older friends, like us) talk, and study and enjoy the peace of 24 hours of an unplugged, non-electric, non-driving, non-cooking,  non-working life.* 

We started living this way five years ago, as I've often documented here (I dare you to read this one about observant Judaism and Patti Smith), and now it seems that others -- many of them cool hipster digital types, -- are looking to do the same.  Take a look.

Over these years I've struggled with keeping kosher, with the role of women, and with much else.  But there are moments of such beauty and meaning that I find myself spinning - knowing why I'm here and wondering at the same time.

I've always been Progressive; worked in the anti-war movement and the McCarthy campaign - and was in Chicago at the 1968 convention, and when I first found observant Judaism and Shabbat, it felt counterintuitive.  Too many rules.  Sometimes it still does.

But the reason why Unplugged is so great is that when you start, you think Shabbat will be what you hate.  No more errands or Saturday manicures or movies.  No phone calls or emails or web wandering. 

And then you unplug.  And even if - as I suspect will be true for many -  you don't go the way we went and adopt (almost) the entire package, you find the peace of what Josh Foer, in the video, calls this "ancient" idea, and are grateful for it.  And for the people around you -- IRL -- close, and easy and at peace.

*OK I admit it.  I'm really glad the health care vote is on Sunday; if it had been on Saturday it would have been a real pain.

This Is Up on Lisa Ling's Facebook Page: Save Women, Save the World

She calls it a "potential game changer" in Afghanistan.  Over and over we've learned that when women are empowered educationally, economically or politically the standard of living rises.  This is a great example. 

Women Bloggers Are NOT Cute Little Girls: Tell the New York Times

  What is it about women who blog that scares s o many people - even other women -- even the New York Times?  Once again this time, they've decided to offer an "analysis" or a "portrait" or an I don't know what about bloggers who are women and moms.  And when they do, they write with a condescending, bemused attitude that is what I remember from the early days of the women's movement, when men would joke about our desire to open our own doors, earn our own livings, make our own decisions.  It was kind of cute to want to be able to get credit cards without a husband's permission, to cover a story without having to go up in the balcony, to keep our names when we got married.   Feminism was just so adorable.

Now, we're free on so many levels, and one manifestation of that freedom is the vibrant world we've created online.  Sisterhoods that cross race and politics and religion and age as we share ideas and pain, joy and pride, birth and loss and every other story that is part of living a life.   There have been a couple of wonderful responses to this irritating TIMES piece (and it's not the first...)  One of my own favorites, Mom-101, whose admirers are legion, wrote 

"...once you get past the first half of the article, there's actually some solid information in there....But I wish [all] that had been to focus of an article about my favorite blogging community that just made the front page of my favorite section of my favorite Sunday paper.  I wish it had opened with the yearning of bloggers for the community to return to good writing, and the evidence that in the end, that's mostly what pays off....  

Of course, there are more.  My friend Danielle Wiley, known to many of her friends as Foodmomiac but also an executive at Edelman PR, has also weighed in.

I invite you to read the full piece and form your own opinions, but sentences like “bringing together participants for some real-time girly bonding” might very well stop you in your tracks. As I write this, my husband (and fellow Edelman executive Michael Wiley) is at SXSW. Would Mendelsohn classify that experience as macho bonding? Or would she write that he is attending a conference for the purposes of education and networking? Why do people, including Ms. Mendlesohn, continue to refer to networking among women as girly bonding? I seriously doubt the participants at Bloggy Boot Camp were wearing jammies and braiding each other’s hair. However, from the tenor of the piece, it was pretty easy to jump to that conclusion.

Here's the bottom line:  I'm old enough to be the mother of both of these women and many of their peers yet they have welcomed me as a sister - a blogger and a friend.  They've honored the sappy posts I've written about my sons and my marriage and they've shared ideas and advice in comments, in twitter and even in real life.  They and their compatriots are talented, skillful compassionate, ornery pioneers who have built what I think of as the new quilting bee, the new Red Tent where they share the wisdom and mysteries that are women's lives.  And they do much more - just go check out the list in Liz's post.  Not for one moment are they silly or unaware or careless or trivial.  And to gain a few points with silly headlines and denigrating phrases isn't bad taste, it's also bad journalism.  Go see for yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

On the Arrival of a First Child: Thirty-five Years Ago

HTML  

Two years ago I wrote this piece to honor the pending birth of a friend's child.  It's about the first days after the birth of a first child.  Yesterday marked the 35th anniversary of that birth - so, one more time, here's the memory - with gratitude and love.

What an emotional shock it has been to write this.  I need to start with that; the feelings, years later, are still there.

What an emotional shock it has been to write this.  I need to start with that; the feelings, years later, are still there.

Since this baby shower is for one of my favorite bloggers, and friends, I'm grateful to be part of it.  Our task is to share those lovely early moments with our brand new children.  That's why I've added this - which may be the most perfect photo I own because it says just what we all know.  The connection of a mother and newborn is so complete that it's almost impossible - even with writers as remarkable as this community -- to describe.  At least I can't find words that say what I know this photo says.

This is actually my second son, very soon after he arrived.  He's 28 now and more extraordinary than even I, proud mama, could have imagined that cold November day in Roosevelt hospital in 1979.  He and his brother both started off with beautiful souls though.  They are beautiful still. 

When I think of those early days, it isn't all the getting up at night (although it could be) and it isn't that I had so much trouble nursing that I needed to supplement (although it could be) and it isn't the absolutely perfect terror that I might do them harm that accompanied the first days of their lives (although it certainly, indubitably could be.)

Nope.  Here's what I remember, and what I wish for the two of you and all you other moms and moms-in-waiting:  it's a cold winter night, maybe after about a week as the new parent of son number 1.  It's dark, but out the window you can see the boats going up and down the Hudson River (even though our windows leak so there's ice on our windows, on the inside.)  You hear a cry and struggle out of bed, grab a robe, go retrieve this new little person from his crib, change him and move with him to the bentwood rocking chair (of course there's a rocking chair) facing the window.  And you hold him in your arms and you feed him.  The dark envelops you, the dim skyline across the river in New Jersey is the only light you have, except for the tiny pinpoints of light on the tug boats and barges as they make their way.  And it's silent.  Not a sound.  And, with this new life in your arms, you rock gently back and forth.  The gift of peace of those nights in the rocker was so intense that as I write this, I can feel it. If I let myself, I could cry.

I remember watching my mother with each infant - can still see her face as she responded to them,  thinking to myself then "Oh.  This must be the way she was with me.  How beautiful.  How beautiful."

And I remember this.  My parents came to us very soon after our first son was born, helped put the crib together, celebrated with us.  Late one night, as I stood with our baby in my arms, my dad walked into the room. Looking at the two of us, in perfect peace, he said to me  "NOW do you understand?"  Of course I did.

Jewish Women, Feminists, and Esther -- Across the Centuries

How can there be a women's story that women are not allowed to tell?  Today is Purim - the celebration of the rescue of the Jews from the Persian King Asueras' evil adviser Haman.  In a classic (and highly fortunate) intermarriage, she became the favorite wife of the powerful king.  Unaware that she's Jewish, he's chosen her from all the maidens of Shushan and fallen for her - hard.  The story is intricate but it ends with a bad guy trying to get the King to kill all the Jews (sound familiar?) and the Jewish Queen Esther convincing the King that the bad guy is indeed bad, and thus saving the day.

It's an old story with both sexist and feminist implications but today it emerged with a new life - at least for me.  Here's why: it's required that Jews hear the story of Esther, the Megiila Esther, read twice during the holiday.  It's read with a melody - a "trope" that's quite lovely.  Usually, in observant Judaism, men preside.  Prayers and readings are the domain of the male voice.  But women are "permitted" to read the Megilla for a gathering of women.  It's a act of Jewish feminism.  And that's what happened this morning.

I wish I could describe the emotion that arises as one hears the women's voices together, and the single voices, one by one, reading out the story.  It's an act of faith, an act of love, really, but it's also an act of community - the community of women coming together to share the story of a feisty queen who overcame fear to save her people.  

Of course you would be correct to suggest that the simplest solution would be to choose a branch of Judaism that has made its way past such rules and you'd be correct.  But we've chosen, despite the difficulties, to live this life, partly because of the very community that produced this day.   And it comes, as a friend reminded me last night, as a package.  So there will be moments - many of them - of frustration and anger.  Of a sense of deprivation and loss.  And the, just when it seems terrible -- something lovely happens.  Something like today.

Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck and Roman Holiday: a Political Lesson? No, Really.

It was a fairy tale about a princess on a journey. Doing her duty, kind of like Diana (but, since she was played by Audrey Hepburn, even classier,) she came to Rome, after Athens, London and Paris, to conclude her mission. 

But she was young and beautiful and sick of receptions and parades. And so, in the middle of the night, she snuck out the embassy window and ventured across the Piazza di Spagna and into the Roman night. 

If you know this movie at all, you remember with sweet nostalgia the way you felt the first time you saw it.  The princess asleep near the Trevi Fountain on the Roman equivalent of a park bench is awakened, like Sleeping Beauty, by reporter Joe Bradley, played by Gregory Peck. ( If the film has a flaw, it's that we know some of what will happen once we see him there.  He's a good guy and that's who he plays.  He is Atticus Finch, after all.)   

The film was released in 1953, right in the middle of the 1950's.  Written by Dalton Trumbo, "Roman Holiday" was credited to a "front" named Ian McLellan Hunter, because Trumbo, blacklisted as a member of the Hollywood Ten, wasn't permitted to write for movies any longer.  It's one of the darkest chapters in Hollywood history, very much a part of the image of the decade and a sad facet of a beloved film that won three Oscars and introduced the world to Audrey Hepburn.

There's something else though.  The people in this film behave well.  There are things that they want, desperately, but there are principals at stake, and they honor them.  When Peck meets Hepburn, he doesn't recognize her but lets her crash at his apartment.  Once he figures out who she is, he knows this "runaway"  could be the story of his life.  Even so, after a brief, idyllic tour of the city, (SPOILER ALERT) she honors her responsibilities and returns to her royal duties, and of course, he never writes the story.  It was very much an artifact of the "Greatest Generation" ideals, manifested with such courage during WWII and very much the flip side of the jaundiced (and just as accurate) Mad Men view of the 50's.  Duty and honor trump romance and ambition. 

Once again, I'm struck with admiration for the people of these times.  Yes the 50's did terrible damage and made it difficult to be eccentric or rebellious or even creative.  But films like this one, or Now Voyager and similar films of the 40's, sentimental as they may be, remind us of what else these people were.  They'd lived through the Depression and the war and they had an elevated sense of responsibility.  As we watch much of our government (and some of the rest of us) disintegrate into partisanship and self-interest, it makes a lot more sense than it did when we rose up against it all in the 1960's.  Doesn't it?