By now, everyone and their mother has seen Beyoncé's Formation video. The think piece cottage industry has dutifully performed its reactionary function with assiduous alacrity, SNL has done a spoof, we've almost (but not quite) gotten to the inevitable backlash.
My immediate reaction to the video was a deep understanding of why black social media was so enthusiastically embracing this recognition from their self-anointed Queen coupled with a healthy dose of skepticism about Beyoncé's sudden political awakening. I had an in-depth conversation with Dr. Rei about it, where we discussed whether this piece was "for" a non-black audience and who gets to say whether Bey is "authentic" or not, and I've had some time to marinate in this and absorb some thoughts from people much smarter than I, enough to formulate a tenuous, hopefully reflexive response, with the caveat that, as regular and faithful readers of this blurg now, I have not now, or ever been a member of the Bey-hive.
1) I made peace with the authenticity of Bey's strategically timed-political awakening (the timing, not necessarily the authenticity as a whole). If she wants to get overtly political in her work now, then she's a grown a** woman, making her way in a workaday world, so if she wants to address this head-on now, then by all means, go for it. And if it makes her basic white girl fans take a minute to contemplate the larger issues and systemic oppression of black bodies in contemporary North American society, all the better for it.
2) I would argue that the imagery of the video, the aestheticization of the black experience and the signifiers of southern blackness that she/the director (and for the purposes of this writing, Bey herself will stand in for the choices of the director) are invoking, the heavy hand with which these are put into play, diminishes the affect and meaning. There are real bodies that drowned in New Orleans. Creating that stylized aesthetic distance is somewhat problematic, but I'm not sure where I stand on that, only that I have misgivings.
And because I am now, and forever more rooted in a Marxist understanding of class and cultural studies, I would argue that the substitution of Bey's body for those real people, is a semiotic leap I cannot, in good faith, take. The class privileges afforded to Bey separate her from those bodies. Those people drowned not just because they were black, but perhaps moreso because they were poor, and the collusion between those two lines is impossible to untangle. If Bey was actually in Katrina, there is no way that George W. Bush himself wouldn't have sent Air Force One to lift her out.
I get what she's getting at, but despite her southern black roots, I feel like the association has been severed. You can't be BFFs with Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, possibly the personification of clueless white/class privilege and then think that your black female body can be inserted into that symbolic narrative.
Or can you? I don't think so. I am also suspect of the invocation of Katrina, over 10 years after the fact. But who am I to say? Am I allowed to talk about this? Do identity politics and resistance necessarily entail a zero-sum game where we have to pick which of our identities we privilege - why does Bey have to choose whether shes' identifying as a woman, black, or rich?
Post-colonial studies taught me about strategic essentialism as a tool for working around the homogenizing effects of global capitalism. Is that what Bey is doing?
3) I think it's important to divorce the reception of the video and read that as a separate thing. There's the video itself, the audience, the constructs that make the production of such a video possible (music industry), the author of the video, and meaning is constructed in the spaces between all of these forces/actors. I think the fact that for the most part, black social media lauded the video and wanted to see this mass-market representation of a particular black experience reflected is in itself, a worthy by-product and its own discussion. Who is the audience for this video? Is it white America? Is it black America? Is it a primer for white America to understand black America? Does this hunger for reflection trump the more problematic, perhaps (and I say, perhaps) exploitative elements of the imagery?
I haven't come to a conclusion on this, but these considerations, this nuance, is all a necessary part of the conversation.
Less controversial - Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau's cringe-inducing number at an MLK event:
I showed this to Academic Book Club last week. When I showed it to the Dotytron, I was like, "Isn't this the worst?!" and he's like, "Totally, she white-lines it through 9 different key changes in that last line!" which I think misses the point, but is so endearingly Dotytron.
Pretty low-key weekend up ahead for us, for which I am extremely grateful.
I am easily the meanest parent by far in my Academic Book Club (the Dotytron too, by extension). Last night we talked about allowances and one of our member's issues with telling her 9 year old that just because so-and-so has an iPod touch it doesn't mean that she'll be getting her own.
You know what I tell the Big Yam when he says that something is "mine" (as in his)? I say to him, "Nothing in this house is yours. It's MINE. You don't own anything. You didn't earn it." LOL!
Then we got onto the subject of chores and I was saying that the Big Yam's job since he's been just under two or so is to feed the cats in the morning and at night (and to set the table). Book Club was impressed and one of the members says, "Maybe I'll try that with my daughter. Give her a sense that making an effort to help out around the house counts." And I was all, "Uhhh, HOLD THE FARM. Making an effort DOESN'T COUNT. The job has to be done right," and I told them about how when the Big Yam spills the cat food on the floor (which he did for a few days on purpose because he liked the sound or mess or something), I made him pick up each and every piece and put it back in the bin.
In the Dotytron-Lagerfeld house, making a superficial effort ISN'T ENOUGH. We are firm believers that kids have to be enticed (read: forced) to do things that they dislike, or that are hard, or that are unpleasant, and they do them to a certain standard because eventually, they push through and discover that doing so is intrinsically rewarding. The Dotytron's entire job is based around dealing with kids who have been told their whole lives that lip-service "effort" and "trying" is enough. Then these parents send their kids to schools and leave teachers to deal with their messes. That's not okay. Not in our books.
In my house growing up, we never had our own money. There was no allowance, no money for chores. You did your tasks (and please note, the kids in my family did A LOT - like, when we went on family trips, my mum and Big D would NEVER, EVER, EVER carry their own luggage...my mum bore 4 children so she would have 4 bellhops. Heck, when I was a kid, my mum would make us carry her purse because even doing that was too taxing for her) because that's just how it was. Everyone had a role in making sure the family functioned and the parents' role was to earn money and put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies and the kids' role was basically to do whatever your parents told you to do. If I had even asked for an allowance my mum and Big D would have 1) yelled at me; then 2) asked me why I thought I needed my own money when they provided everything I needed/required and if I wanted more, all I had to do was ask (with the knowledge that I would more often than not get turned down).
The idea of my kid coming home and whining about "So-and-so has an iPod touch and why can't I have one wahwahwah" is appalling to me. I'd be like, GO LIVE WITH SO-AND-SO'S PARENTS THEN, YOU INGRATE. Exceptionalism is a combination of innate personality and also being pushed. You don't get to become a driven, motivated individual by getting iPod touches and whatever the heck crap else you decide in your pea-brained head you want.
Then my friend C asked about whether the other book club members eat together consistently as a family. JJ and I were the only ones who said yes. Everyone else was in the trap of cooking separate meals of what the kids would like to eat and then eating another meal themselves of what they wanted. I just...don't have the time or inclination to do that. We always ate together as a family growing up and I really believe in family meal time as an important focal point for the day - especially with today's families, when you're all careening off in different directions for 10+ hours every day - I think it's vital to forge those connections and centre yourselves around the table. Dinner is the meal I look forward to all day, so the idea of eating whatever bland food my kid might want is not for me (in my case, the "bland" food would be super-spicy Indian food, but that's neither here nor there). Also, by the end of the day, I'm lucky if I have enough gas to get through dinner, clean-up, a bit of play, stories, bed, and gearing up to do it all over again (to say nothing for an hour for my own pursuits), so the logistics of making two meals is simply not in the cards.
Part of the reason I subscribe to Baby-Led Weaning is because of this idea that's central to it - you have to take a macro, long-range view of what your kid is eating and trust that they self-regulate. So yes, the Big Yam wasn't a super-fan of the clam linguine, but over the course of two weeks, he's getting the protein, carbs, vegetables, and essential vitamins and minerals that he needs. Especially given the varied menus that I construct, if the Boobla has bits and pieces, the long-range view is that he's getting what he needs.
Anyway, they were all APPALLED when I told them that one of the things we do when the Big Yam is misbehaving at the dinner table (throwing food on the floor, being disruptive, screaming about being done when we're not done eating) is turn his high chair around and basically, disallow him from being part of the table. They were shocked and basically thought I was a monster. But here's my rationale: I think that participating in the dinner table (with the dinner table as a microcosm for society as a whole) is a privilege that requires you as an individual to accept the rules of behavior that are part of your social contract with the other members of your family/dining companions. Failure to exhibit acceptable behavior and respect for your dining companions means that you get taken out of the situation until such time as you're ready and able to resume upholding your end of the contract in good faith. The Dotytron is such a fan of the practice that he thinks we should continue it into like, adulthood. Can you imagine a teenager with his back to the table, being all like, "I can HEAR YOU RIGHT NOW"? It's pretty funny.
So my friend JJ was like, the way that we do things might work for us, but it won't work for everyone, because some kids will starve themselves to death. And in my head (and this is how I'm a horrible person), I was like, well, if the kid doesn't even have that most basic of survival instincts, don't they kinda deserve to die? It's like this Louis CK bit that another lady was talking about last night; she went to see him do stand-up and he apparently said this thing about how, have you ever considered that kids with peanut allergies are meant to die from exposure to peanuts? Hahahaha. So dark.
I dunno. I just finished reading a book about kids living in slums in Mumbai who sometimes have to eat frogs and rats fished out of the sewage lake on their slums. If those kids can eat that, then a middle class kid in the developed world can stomach something other than plain pasta, methinks.
Here's the thing they don't see though: when it is time for play, or fun, the Dotytron and I go WHOLE HOG. Like, we ramp up the fun in direct proportion to how hard we come down. This is one of the discipline-y things the Dotytron learned in this book he read a couple of years back on classroom management. The idea being that you basically don't want it to be a carrot or stick situation. You want to get to the point where the kid governs him/herself (shades of Foucault!) out of the desire to continue to be able to do fun/awesome/happy things. The disciplinary mechanism should fade into the background. It's not overly censorious - you try not to react (like, don't get into a screaming match, don't raise your voice). Instead, it's more like you're so bored by the kid's disobedience/acting out that you present this impassive, stony, façade while simultaneously and immediately ceasing the fun thing you had been doing. Few things rattle kids like impassivity. We also try to treat the Yam like a sentient, rationale being with agency and we appeal to his reasonableness. We do this by, for example, telling him that he has to stay sleeping in his own crib all night and that we are here, and we would never let anything happen to him, and that we love him. We also do that couples-therapy thing where we acknowledge his emotions at that moment, "I know you're mad/angry right now" "I know you want to do XYZ right now and you're frustrated because you can't" but still explain why the way he's expressing those emotions aren't appropriate.
That's really just a long way of saying that me and the Dotytron are hella fun. I make myself look like a giant goon by chasing the Big Yam around doing monster-face or pretending to be an alligator with my arms as big snapping jaws running around after him in the summer. The Dotytron jams with him all the time or will spend sooo long at the play kitchen engaging in imaginary play or building trains. The other night, we made this giant fort in our living room and the Big Yam's face when he went in...I wish I had a picture...he was beaming with this pure, open-mouthed smile of joy while we turned off all the lights and read stories by flashlight and told secrets.
So yeah, I'm pretty mean. But I can be pretty fun sometimes, too.
This is a Yam-heavy post, y'all. You've been warned. Here are some things that happened on the weekend:
Offering Elmo a hot dog
Still Life With Hot Dog
These two run the worst kitchen in town. You don't get anything you ask for, food falls on the floor and that walk-in is a s**tshow.
Trying to break into Bert & Ernie's apartment building. Smallest, most persistent J-Hos ever.
This is what the fashion magazines would call "a look." Crown, fuzzy jammies, and matching yellow high heels.
The Big Yam reading the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Sorry our house is the most low-lit ever. That look he gives at the 35 second mark after running through that epic list of foods is classic Yam.
The roomie came over for dinner tonight and brought a lasagne she had made. YESSSSSSS...MADE-BY-OTHERS-LASAGNE!!! We had it with a caesar salad and leftover peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip blondies JJ brought to book club.
Gah! Super-busy lately and yet still feeling kind of blah and uninspired. Don't have any dinner ideas, don't want to do my crafting/sewing projects, feel like the house is a mess, always running around like a chicken with my head cut off AND one of my profs is on my jock about a (4 month) late paper. BOOOO! She gave me a B+ on my first assignment AND inquired about the late paper in an email where she cc'd the prof who's teaching the second part of the course, which I thought was kind of shady - like, I'm up to date so far on term 2, so why you gotta call me out? I feel like it's going to colour his perception of my work. I was all complain-y about the B+ and received no sympathy from the Dotytron, who was like, "there's only so far you can coast and not do any work - considering you didn't do ANY research, you should be happy with the B+" - which I guess is true - but I want to be able to coast, not do any work, and get an A- at least! C'MAAAAAN.
Here's a photo of the Big Yam looking all proprietary and ready to leap out of the exersaucer at the first intruder:
And here's a photo of him and H at the One of a King show. We stayed for 5 hours and had a really good time:
So far, I'm really liking the crowd at the drop-in centre. Yesterday, I had to go pee and hesitantly asked a lady, "what do you do when you have to go to the bathroom?" and she was all like, "just put him down! Ask someone to watch him! I'll watch him!" all shouty-like. It was pretty cute and they're very welcoming there.
Today we're off to meet S for a walkabout around St. Lawrence Market (and hopefully the fancy Joe Fresh at Queen's Quay), then library, home, dinner, and Momma & Poppa D over to put T to sleep and we go play dodgeball. Tomorrow is class all day and then our friend G's birthday get together.
my new recreational dodgeball team, the admiral akbars, who acquitted themselves admirably yesterday in their first TWO games (we got scheduled with a double-header.) we got spanked the first game and doled out some spankings in game two. amazing!!! it was so much fun to play with people who are all kind of good friends/grown-ups/adults/good sports. it's the best when the only poor sport you have to worry about is me trash-talking my little keister off on the sidelines.
our first game was a rough one as no one except for me and the dotytron had played before...some of our skater high school crew were totally taken off guard by how much of a cardio workout it is when you're hustling. our buddy gaz turned to me at one point, sweating and huffing, and asked, "ummm...isn't this game played in quarters?!? when do we get a break?" and i had to inform him that we play straight through. we were down a few people so we didn't have enough subs, which would have helped. the first team totally docked us spirit points too, which was hella annoying and totally a beginner's pettiness - considering they won like 16 to 4 - really? you're going to be giant babies about the spirit points?
the second team was a total team of n00bs, which is fine, but they were classic n00bs who LOVE LOVE LOVE to know selective rules of the game and call you on the ones that they know. SO ANNOYING. i talked it over with their team captain in the beginning who agreed that all headshots would be an out (the thrower is out if it hits you in the head.) normally, more experienced teams just call head shots a wash, because when someone is ducking and gets hit in the head, then it turns into an argument about whether or not it was an actual headshot, etc. i offered them the headshots is a wash option during the pre-game captain parlay, and they declined. so at one point, our buddy gets hit in the head when he was ducking and we called the thrower off the court and the other team is all like, "ummmm, he was ducking!" and i'm like, "UMMMMM...YOU GUYS ASKED FOR THIS!" lol!!! i hate n00b teams. like, know the rules...and don't get upset when WE know the rules.
the other best thing about my new team is that they're all gainfully employed and pay you right away for the dball registration. SO ACES.
also introducing, MY NAME IN A ROUTLEDGE BOOK:
this is the book that our friends (and my former profs) J & S wrote - the book launch was a huge deal! i'm so proud of them! even though i did barely any work they were so sweet and wrote my name in the acknowledgements, which means that MY NAME IS IN A BOOK PUBLISHED BY ROUTLEDGE and IN A SERIES EDITED BY A PRETTY EFFIN' BIG HEAVY-HITTER IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE WORLD. whaa whaa!
the book launch was swinging cuz it was at the munk centre for international studies and apparently they have a zillion dollars at their disposal, so free wines and drinks and good canapes and a lot of them. J & S were also totally adorable and gave me a shout out in their thank yous at the book launch which was ever-so-lovely but made me feel like crap because it was so completely unwarranted...seriously...i barely did A THING. but they were so gracious about it.
i'm so glad i know those guys! we had dinner with L and J & S at tacos al asador (i know, my second time in as many nights) where i stuffed myself with FOUR items, before the game (chorizo tostada, chorizo soft taco, al pastor soft taco, and pork crispy taco - yum yum!)
the dotytron had met me in the afternoon because i took the afternoon off to go to an appointment and he wanted to go with me...which brings me to the last introduction of today...
INTRODUCING...
THE FATBURGER AKA SPUMANTE BAMBINO:
CRAZY, EH?!??? i'm not going to be one of those crazies who posts all this shiz non-stop about being knocked up and loving my midwife on facebook, but since my readership here only consists of good friends and family (and strangers) - i figured it be good to have a centralized place for this ish. i'm way more comfortable with people close to me, or strangers, knowing my business than acquaintances and facebook friends-types...like the people you kinda know but don't want knowing too much about your ish, 'naw mean?
so yeah, i'm knocked up...passed the 12 week milestone yesterday, but we've still got to go through genetic testing to make sure it's not a centaur or a unicorn (or a seedy samurai, or omarion) in there. incubating a bambino is enough to make you lose your mind if you're a hypochondriac. seriously...i've been obsessing over the photo trying to see if i can detect any weirdness, and since the fatburger looks like a giant blobby shrimp (but NOT a b.c. spot prawn, which was the associative metaphor i was trying to use because it's really b.c. spot prawn size and not shrimp sized, that is until i realized that i REALLY LOVE EATING b.c. spot prawns and therefore associating the fatburger with things i love to eat wasn't the best idea), it's really easy to find abnormalities.
whatever will happen will happen. it's a goddamn miracle that the dotytron has got it. it'll be a goddamn miracle when and if this thing comes out okay. and it'll be a goddamn miracle if it makes it to my age. seriously. life is a confluence of miracles and accidents narrowly averted to get you to wherever you happen to be at. an endless string of potential hazards (physiological, mental, environmental, emotional) that you want to be protected from and that you DEFINITELY want to protect your potential progeny from. so fraught. it's a wonder people do this crazy business of parenting and child-rearing at all.
the only way i can manage is to not think about it and not try to come to terms with the fact that i'm going to be responsible for something FOR LIFE and focus on the stuff i know i can control, like list-making, and conceptualizing the fatburger's room decor and thinking about linens. ha! that i can do.
i also find it hard to match people's enthusiasm. i think it's cuz i process stuff super-quickly. so whereas i can revel in the details of everyone else's momentous life events (marriage, home ownership, relationships, parenthood) when it comes to my own stuff, i'm like, "i've processed this...carry on...next." like i find talking about myself extremely boring. i love any forum to sound off on OTHER STUFF (ie. offer unsolicited advice/opinions on/to all and sundry) but when it comes to this stuff (getting hitched, having a bambino) i don't super love talking about it non-stop other than to touch on it (and my specific experience) briefly.
all part of me hating to be defined, i guess. the roomie and the dotytron are calling it me "being at war with the pregnancy" cuz i hate being defined by something that feels like it's happening TO ME kind of against my will. so far i've been pretty lucky, no sickness, no nausea, food aversions, headaches **knock wood x 100000000000000** just tiredness. but i already hate the way that people treat you like you're going to break at any second and i also feel like this is an INCREDIBLY raw deal for women and women's bodies. i don't want to be a ginormous whale criss-crossed with a network of varicose veins and swollen bits (even if dr. rei's sage advice is: at a certain point/age, it's best not to look too closely at other people in general, and women's legs in particular.) i don't want to be not able to run and play dodgeball into the summer. don't want it!
also, the idea of being at home with a BABY for a full year is giving me chills. nothing but baby talk? no workplace gossip? nothing to research? oy oy oy.
anyway, so that's what it looks like at 12 weeks. crazy, eh? we'll see what the results of the genetic screening are. wish us good health and send good vibes our way!
tonight we're having dinner with the work girls, G, M, K, their respective menfolk and G and M's adorable sons at M's parents' chinese restaurant in markham, which is known for their peking duck. i'm THRILLED and super-excited for the eats and the hangs.
this was my shameful, shameful dinner last night (but times the chicken x 4):
eeks! the day started off on the wrong nutritional foot when i had a bowl of mini-wheats and then went to work was was confronted with a pancake breakfast - featuring box mix pancakes, ready-crips bacon, overcooked and unseasoned scrambled eggs, syrup, juice, and fruit. so OF COURSE even though i knew all those things wouldn't taste the way they would be if they were made with love and care, i still tried to make my own mcgriddle by sandwiching the eggs and bacon with the pancakes and sousing the whole lot in syrup. it was a miserable failure. A MISERABLE FAILURE THAT I STILL ATE.
so then i met dr. rei for lunch and figured, hey, while i'm already at it, i might as well go eat a street meat polish sausage. which resulted in a horrendous case of the thirsties all afternoon.
and then i figured that since i've already gone whole-hog, i might as well indulge my lust for all things deep fried and go with a fried chicken and kd dinner. oy. the fried chicken is from city fried chicken on the danny. the person manning the fryer at this (halal) place is a 14 year old kid. seriously, i've never seen anyone else working there. he's kind of earnest and bespectacled and very good at his job. the dotytron and i call him "the young entrepreneur" - that kid fries a mean chicken. the skin is so crispy - no breading to speak of - all fat globules are fried away and leave only a shimmering, crispy, herbed flecked, lightly dredged chicken piece with moist, flavourful meat. i loves me some halal fried chicken. also - they ONLY do thighs and drumsticks, which means that rather than dealing with white meat that i don't care for, i have a 50% chance of getting my most favorite part of the chicken with each batch. score!
then i drove myself (I DROVE MYSELF) to academic book club which was at J's house. this book club is REALLY fun! i really really liked it and stayed way later than i thought i was going to. it's nice to round out my friends list with such accomplished, smart (mostly white) WOMEN. like, they're all grown ups. most of my female friends aren't grown ups like that. they either are kind of on the older side (like say, momma d or the ladies in my work book club), or youngish like me and the way i behave (by young i mean, in terms of behavior and outlook, not necessarily age), or my group of fabulous girls at work. but these are all WOMEN. who kind of talk like grown ups and have uniquely (i would say uniquely) white, upper middle class anxieties about parenting and whatnot.
it's kind of a nice change and a window into a perspective that i don't usually get to experience first-hand. they're all pretty pink, but liberal in the theoretical, political sense, as opposed to the kind of association with a really marginalized community sense. ie. they can all understand heteronormative privilege, but it's not necessarily the kind of group where i could talk about non monogamy or like drug use or something. or rather i could, but it would become a "thing" - if you know what i mean? one of the women wanted a ride to the subway because on the way to J's house she passed a park and people were smoking hoolies. you know, THAT kind of lady.
but they're all super smart and funny and seem to appreciate my zany, brash take on the world. i should note that they're not all academics, but for the purposes of differentiation, i'm calling this my academic book club. the character in the book we were reading ("white tiger" to be reviewed later) is a member of a low caste in india and rises up and kills his master (who, for the record, is kind of a d**k) so one of the questions we talked about was "could you do the same thing [kill someone]?" and they were all like, no way! that guy was so amoral! and i was like, "why are we even ASKING this question?" OF COURSE i would kill him (under the logic and conditions and auspices of the book)! i was like, "i mean, i wouldn't necessarily bludgeon him to death though." and then one of the ladies asked, "well how would you do it?" and i said, "oh, i'd connect a hose to the tail pipe of the car [the protagonist is a chauffeur for the d**k bourgeois guy( and run it into the car and kill him via carbon monoxide poisoning...or i would poison him - maybe a heroin overdose?" and then they all were kind of laughing but also giving me the sidewayseyes.
ANYWAY, last night to bring to book club i made these dulce de leche cheesecake bars, which were dead easy and sliced and cut like a dream, as long as i used a hot knife that i rinsed and dried in between cuts:
they were pretty tasty!
tonight i'm finally going to scratch my burger itch by trying this new place, great burger kitchen that's around the corner from us. they claim to be "purveyors of fine poutines" and are doing the organic, locally sourced, naturally raised beef for their burgers thing. we shall see. we're having the roomie over for lowkey hangs and movies tonight.
my name is karl lagerfeld. i'm a lucky button, buckshot shorty, and an industrious pig. i write about food, popular culture, film, books, politics, theory, and the ephemera of my life. a can of chinotto once ruined my night. the rest, as they say, is history.
