Glory Box

Carol Gilligan writes longer, more phrase ridden, sentences than I do! The Birth of Pleasure is a bit of a trudge because of her highly complex sentence and paragraph structures. I like the ideas behind it, but I cringe for two reasons, ungainly sentences that include five or six ideas all at once and therapy-speak. It starts reading like a self-help book with end notes. I do like the premise though, that our cultural stories and therefore our language and attitudes about love are rooted in patriarchy and tragedy. S0meone else could argue they are also rooted in comedy, the only difference being whether the story ends with a wedding or a funeral, but let's roll with her premise. We are stuck in ruts about what we allow ourselves to say and do in the name of love. Maybe there's an unsung tradition hiding in our bones and literature that shows a way out. Maybe there is another voice that has been there all along and we need to go find it. Maybe the voices can mix in equality, exorcising the anger and bitterness first?

I'm only on page 27, so that's as much as I can really say. I'm worried because the next section starts with the story of Eileen and Alex - a couple in therapy. I never find these "true-life therapy stories" auspicious or even compelling. I'm hoping it won't feel like the author is taking peoples' problems and stretching them to fit her theories. I hope she gets back to the forgotten or buried narratives - because that's the territory I wish to visit. Some of you know how much.

So I'm listening to Hole - which I rather missed out in in the day because I was already into Sonic Youth, Throwing Muses, Kristin Hersh , Belly, Alanis, P.J. Harvey. And I also thought Babes in Toyland and L7 were rougher - though never bought any of their records. Not to mention Seven Year Bitch, who's drummer I knew from high school and whom we ran into one day working at the co-op market under the freeway in SOMA. Angry music about female empowerment.


Courtney - we loved to hate. We thought she was like a cartoon character, and that her antics made it harder for serious bands fronted by serious women to get their due. But then (or now) I realize, what a double standard that is. Did Sid Vicious undercut the importance of the Sex Pistols (well, yeah, sorta, for all the wrong reasons)? Does the existence of Motely Crue wipe out the genius of Motorhead? Does fiddy cent toss the significance of PE out the windah? Eh, in some ways, yes. But whatever. Courtney was a rockstar, lewd, crude, uncalled-for, and for girls that missed Patti Smith (the poet and rock icon, not Patty Smythe), Joan Jett (and the Runaways), Poly Styrene, Wendy O. Williams, Courtney was the revolution - televised.

So I'm listening to Hole - while picking up my white collared shirts from the cleaners and dropping off a suit. So I'm listening to Hole - while planning my action items for my day. So I'm getting angry and depressed at the same time.

I'm listening to Hole and every horror story I've heard from women I know comes back to me - the rapes and molestations, the botched abortions, the academic frustrations with professors that told them point-blank that engineering is not for girls, the consuming battles with their mothers who FEARED the inevitable retribution for standing out in a crowd. The heat coming out of the pit when the girls surged forward for Kim Gordon as Sonic Youth's punishing elevating noise groaned and scraped - "C'mon get in the car . . ."

And I go back to conversations in recent days with young people burning with idealism and frustration with injustice . . . compromises . . . children . . . stability . . . suits at the dry cleaners . . . and a rising chant at stage right - "fuck you" and the self-violence, the anger turned inward that overwhelms in either drugs or suicide or creeping malise, like Courtney, or the 60 year old mother loaded on psychoactive medications fulfilling scrap books of family memories - memories she doesn't even have after the second glass of wine went down, but the pictures are there. Yeah, the pictures are there. This is my life in this book. At least I think it's mine. And the cancer is my bitterness finally killing me. Taking my breasts and my womb first. And the cancer is my bitterness starting with all your favorite parts. I should have started sooner, fuck you. Embrace me, love me for what we've done.