Argobot

At the beginning of December, I was diagnosed with an early stage breast cancer.* Yesterday, the chemotherapy I am on finally made my hair fall out, so I shaved my head. On top of all that, I am engaged. Both these experiences are making me reevaluate my idea of femininity and what "being a woman" means. I already knew that a lot of the more stereotypical parts of being an engaged straight woman didn't appeal to me (no diamond ring, no here comes the brides, no plans to change my name, etc), but what I didn't know was how much some of that stuff I would find appealing. Meanwhile, dealing with a cancer that is affecting such a female part of my body, and knowing that by the time I get married it will be with a newly reconstructed body, has led to a lot of questioning. Will I still consider myself a woman if I get a double mastectomy? If I lose my hair? (Answered this one last night: yes) If I can't breastfeed my children? The children question looms large for me, both in regards to marriage and the cancer. I always knew I wanted a kid, but I didn't realize how strongly until I was confronted with the possibility that it might not happen. What does it say about me as a future partner and mother if I needed fertility treatment (that was incredibly successful, I should say) to preserve my reproductive ability? I know that I still am a woman because that's how I choose to identify, but since I was born in the biological body that most fits me, I've never had to think about what being a woman means. It's kind of a nice benefit of all this bullshit and my hope is that I will come out the other side with a better appreciation and sympathy for those who struggle with this question their entire lives and not just in a temporary way like I am. *If you follow me on Twitter, you probably are already aware of the diagnosis. I don't want to turn this into a thing. All things considered, I'm doing really well. Still in grad school, still running, still reading a ton, etc. I'm posting this here because I trust this forum, and this particular part of the forum, to not treat me any differently. I still think that Chait piece was mostly correct and hope that all of you who disagreed would continue to disagree with the same vigor and honesty. I know that sick people can make the healthy uncomfortable, so I will try to limit my references to the cancer. Thoughts of womanhood and femaleness have been pretty constant and I thought this would be a good place to share.

I read The Love Affairs of Nathanial P by Adelle Waldman this weekend. This book had a lot of fanfare when it came out in 2013, and I must admit that this book deserves a lot of the praise it received. It's the first book from this generation that I think does a really excellent job of capturing what relationships and the interaction between men and women feel like (sadly limited to a heterosexual perspective). I'm desperate to get men to read this book, both because I think it would be incredibly value and because I want to know if it tracks with their own personal experiences. I probably shouldn't be posting this in the feminist thread, but I'm using the excuse that it is, if not a feminist book, certainly a book about women and society. Here's a review from the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/love-actually Really recommend it to anyone who might be interested in the subject!

There's a new collection of previously published short stories out, but Alice Munro is retired from writing (sadly). (Also here is where I went today, because I am a woman obsessed)

EVER THING WRITTEN BY ALICE MUNRO. (Start with Dear Life and work your way back.)

That's just shaming people into being silent, but they still hold their negative views. I just don't see how that's good for the advancement of society.

I know that people of privilege are likely to say things that are wrong without realizing it and deserve to have their mistakes pointed out, but not in the gleeful way that the Internet usually devolves too. Sacco said a dumb thing, but the response was gross and ultimately useless. You can't shame people into being more considerate. All this dog-piling does is create a culture of fear where people are afraid to say anything, because they have no idea what might set off the mob.

And Cooper's just awful line about it being better to believe in a world with the supernatural than a world where a father will rape and murder his daughter. That line is garbage and the perfect capper for the horribleness of the end to this episode.

Great piece from the Awl on the Dead Girl trope in fiction and reality. It covers Gone Girl, Serial, and some real life cases and looks at what makes men act the way that they do. I really enjoyed it. http://www.theawl.com/2015/02/the-husband-did-it Choice quotes: "This is why Nick’s is the more damning characterization: because Amy bears no resemblance to any person who has ever walked the planet, but she bears a resemblance to women as conceived of in the nightmares of men like Nick, and there are many of those men walking the planet. For “decent” guys like Nick, comfortably vested with patriarchal authority, the nightmare is to no longer be the narrator of their own story. In Gone Girl, Flynn cracks open the culture and lets Nick say one of our unsayable beliefs: that it is scarier for a man to be accused than to be killed." and "It’s clear we love the Dead Girl, but we don’t empathize with her. If we did, we might ask why we did nothing to protect her—why we, as Prickett writes, 'make these crimes by emasculation feel as common, and unstoppable, as acts of god.'"

Was Truman ever bumbling? He's seemed pretty competent from the beginning, just a little out of his depth when it comes the Laura Palmer case.

The presence of DFW, Zadie Smith, and Alice Munro is making this my current favorite thread. (Danielle, please make the next Idle Thumbs episode a stealth Bookcast revival where you talk about Infinite Jest.)

Really great post, but I liked this part especially.

Edit: whoops

Is it really fair to call this book masculine? It does have a disproportionate number of male characters, true, but if we're using the words masculine/feminine in the traditional way, I'd describe this book as the latter. DFW's writing has such a strong self-reflexive, emotional component; contrast that with something like Hemingway or Updike and its clear that DFW tends more towards the traits that we stereotypically associate with women. Maybe male-centric is the better word. I really hesitate to use that as a criticism though, as I'm not convinced that it's inherently wrong for a story to predominately feature men over women, if the author justifies that decision. If someone has a counterargument, I'd love to hear it, as I think this is an interesting topic. Or we can keep talking about the challenge of reading this book. I don't think it clicked with me until after the 200 or 300 page mark, but once I got used to the rhythm of it, the remainder of the book was a breeze in comparison to those first few hundred pages.

Re: the rings There's "coming full circle" closure for Cooper and Donna in this episode. Cooper's closure is obvious; he solves the case that originally brought him to Twin Peaks. Donna is a little trickier, but it's interesting that her plot in this episode ends with James riding away on his motorcycle, in contrast to the pilot, where she and him take a ride together. Plus, her discovery of Maddy's death provides nice closure on the Laura loop. Is that too much of a stretch? James giving Donna a ring was so strange (I completely forgot that it happened in this episode), so I hope that there is more purpose and meaning behind it than just "this a thing teenagers might do after having sex for the first time" and is entirely unrelated to Cooper getting his ring back. (Also, maybe the sub-meaning is that Cooper and Donna are now secretly married. Twin Peaks Season 3.)

Rewatching this show is making me realize how challenging it is to satisfyingly structure a TV show around a mystery. The medium does not allow for a coherent resolution. Twin Peaks and all its successors (X-Files, Lost, etc) establish rules for their respective universes early on, but as the episode number grows, those rules start to loosen until they effectively disintegrate into nothing. Twin Peaks internal consistency manages to hold up better than others, because it only had 1.5 seasons to ruin itself in, but it's clear that even at this point in that everything is starting to fall apart. It makes me so much more appreciative of True Detective, a show that is a great spiritual successor to Twin Peaks. It sets up rules and follows through with them to the final episode, so that everything feels narratively sound. Having one writer in charge of all eight episodes in your mini-series also helps the narrative cohesion. It kind of makes me feel more hopeful for Twin Peaks season 3, if it is kept to a limited number of episodes and Lynch/Frost are the only main writers. (And also if they don't try to connect both seasons, the movie, and all these tie-in books, which is a huge caveat but maybe the show won't be that bad?)

My reaction is entirely influenced by having seen FWWM. When I first watched this show, I think I was generally fine with how Leland's story ended (Although, I must admit that the way this show is written is a really cop out for general murder mystery shows. Bob is a real 'have your cake and eat it too' kind of killer, in that we have known about him for a long time, but were just unaware of the details surrounding him). Maybe you'll feel differently after you watch the movie, which I really recommend that you do.

I have to say, after seeing this episode a second time (and having also seen FWWM), I'm pretty disappointed in the way Bob is explained here. The idea of it being more comforting to know that an ancient spirit is responsible for Laura's abuse and death, rather than her father, is not only insulting because that's not how the real world works, it's also an incredibly unsatisfying way to end this plot thread. I know that Lynch and Frost were being pressured to wrap up Laura's killer, and that might explain why this episode shortcuts to "magic" for most of its explanations, but it could have eased up on how much responsibility is given to Bob and how little is given to Leland. FWWM spoilers Repeating this from above: I just really dislike how this episode essentially lets Leland off the hook. Again, what a disappointing end to his story. Him being absolved of his crimes by seeing Laura in his last moments do not mesh with anything that has happened previously, or anything that happens later.

This episode has my absolute favorite scene in the whole series: the moment between Donna and Leland. What an absolutely perfect and creepy scene. Lara Flynn Boyle plays the horror and her dawning realization of what Leland is so well.

Am I the only one who thinks that Norma's mom hates Hank? She called him Henry twice, even after Norma corrected her. It's clear to me that Hank is just another part of Norma's life that her mother criticizes (even though it's entirely clear that she has a similar poor taste in men).

Ah, I thought that was the case but wasn't sure! Oklahoma would be the favorite of someone like Leland (and Cooper).

I don't understand the value of evaluating from an individual level. How could you ever discern changes in the world? If you look at individual, everyone will have a period where their life is worse, leading them to conclude that the world in general is worse off. There's is a nativity that comes with saying we are living in the best possible time, I agree, but that seems less harmful than encouraging everyone to look at the world through the incredibly myopic view of their specific experience.

Some things I noticed watching this episode a second time: There's a picture of Harry S. Truman in Sheriff Truman's office In the flashback scene with young Jerry/Ben, young Ben is also smoking a cigar The scene where Cooper walks up behind Leland is very reminiscent to Cooper's dream where the Man from Another Place is shaking, also with his back to the camera. Both Leland and the Man are holding on to a pole of some kind. The dream connection was the most interesting part to me, since I feel like most of it is not ever directly explained in the show and it was nice to piece some of it together.

I agree with Doyle that the predictable Internet reaction has extended the reach and lifespan of Chait's article, but it comes of as less of a condemnation of Chait and more of a condemnation of how the Internet reacts to everything. You could make the same social media free labor argument about an old Doyle piece where she goes after the A Song of Ice and Fire books. When that article was written a few years ago, it also spawned endless response pieces (many were from feminists). I doubt that Doyle wrote her piece with the intention of exploiting social media, and I give her as much benefit of the doubt as I give Chait. I'm not really sure how or why those two scenarios are different.

Here's a good follow up to the Chait piece http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/01/28/jonathan_chait_s_anti_political_correctness_essay_unpacked.html

It's a huge stretch to link trigger warnings in college to government support. The former is an excuse for an 18 year-old to avoid challenging material that may go against their worldview (again, the entire point of getting an education and becoming an informed, sympathetic human being) and the latter is an attempt to correct a market failure by protecting the very poor. And if you truly believe that people en masse are capable of making the right choice for themselves, then you would have to oppose most government programs, which are based on the idea that people quite often are incapable of doing just that.