This was just published in herenb in an education supplement aimed at helping high school students figure out what’s what with post-secondary education. Hence the not-so-Boston-Marriageish tone.
Dear High School Student:
So, you’re going to graduate this year. Congrats. It’s an exciting time – perhaps just as exciting as the whole cap-and-gown deal is planning what’s next. More than past generations, you are being bombarded with messages about making sensible decisions about what, if any, further schooling you pursue. You’re being urged to learn a trade or, if you simply must attend university, take a subject that will earn you a job when you’re finished. You need to know not only what you’re going to be when you grow up, but how you’re going to get there as quickly as possible. Read more...
The Backstory:
A few months ago, I found a copy of Cosmo lying open on my living room coffee table. In an article’s subtitle, emblazoned beside Megan Fox’s slinky form, was the word natch. Natch? I have a pretty crackerjack vocabulary, if I do say so myself, so when I saw this unrecognizable word, I wondered if natch was the latest euphemism for vagina. I figured that was likely—it was Cosmo after all, the magazine that manages to essentially reprint the same article on how-to best blow your man issue-by-issue, if not every fourth article. But then as I muttered the full headline out loud, “Now that [Megan’s] acting in her first true starring role—as a hellacious man-eater, natch—blah blah blah” I realized that natch is an abbreviation of naturally, spelled phonetically. (I also felt really slow on the uptake.) Read more...
Thursday, January 14, 2010
We all have our vices. That little something that we try to hide from the rest of the world – something we do to escape our reality. For some, it’s more of an enthusiastic hobby. For others, it’s a convenient service without which they can no longer live, like a phone that provides email and internet service and ‘apps’ (damn you Apple!). And for an ever growing portion of the population, it’s an addiction. Read more...
Saturday, January 2, 2010
It’s that time of year when oh-so-many of us sit down to draft a list of life-changes we are pledging to make during the new year. It’s a an understandable ritual: gorged on regret after the excesses of the holidays and fueled by vigor inspired by the impending changing of the annum, we are ready to pledge to be better, wiser, and slimmer. Read more...
Saturday, December 19, 2009
There’s a near-endless list of holiday season movies, from the animated (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, innumerable versions of The Nutcracker), humorous (The Santa Claus, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Home Alone), to the classic and endearing (Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life). However, if you’re interested in more non-traditional holiday fare, this list is for you. Some of the films are explicitly Christmas-themed, while others feature the holiday season as a backdrop—but they all have moments that hit a certain fuzzy-light-cold-snap-egg-nog note that smacks of the essence of that holiday feeling.
Gremlins Read more...
Monday, December 14, 2009
(This is second article detailing my meeting with the Guerrilla Girls. Yes, I wrote multiple articles. Cause they really are that fantastic. I promise, there’s only one more account coming your way, once it’s published in January.)
This fall, I stood in the Acadia University Art Gallery, incredibly excited and, frankly, terrified. I was there to meet a pair of artists who had just launched their exhibition—two women who are not only internationally recognized artist-activists, but personal heroes of mine: The Guerrilla Girls. Read more...
Thursday, October 29, 2009
“So, what kind of slut are you being for Halloween?” a male friend of mine asked me this week.
I wasn’t taken aback by his question, because it’s a reasonable one. Nowadays, Halloween, for women, is basically all about being as slutty-looking as can be.
I know this isn’t exactly news. Many of us have made this obvious observation. A character in the film Mean Girls summarized the situation quite astutely when she explained: “In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In girl-world, Halloween is the one night a year a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it. The hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears.” Read more...
Thursday, October 22, 2009
“Pray to end abortion.”
That’s the mantra of the religious, anti-abortion campaign that’s currently taking place across the United States and Canada, including an effort focused on Fredericton’s Morgentaler Clinic.
The campaign, 40 Days for Life, began in a lone Texan town in 2004, but has grown significantly since then. Now, anti-choice activists in cities across the U.S. and Canada and a few overseas adopt the bi-annual campaign and simultaneously carry it out in their own locality. The campaign, based on the biblical theme of 40 days as a time of transformation, involves 40 days straight of fasting, praying, awareness raising, and constant prayer vigil outside of facilities that provide abortions. This fall campaign began September 23 and carries on until November 1. The campaign has a singular goal: to end abortion. Read more...
The autograph. Such a commonplace item in our celebrity obsessed lives these days, it bears a bit of investigation, doesn’t it? Watch any sort of red carpet event and one is bound to see a shot of celebrities with pieces of paper thrust into their faces, attached to hands that don’t seem to have corresponding bodies. Read more...
Kathe Kollwitz at the Acadia Art Gallery
They’re mercilessly sharp, irreverent, and funny; they’ve been featured in the Tate Modern, Pompidou Centre and the Venice Biennale. They’ve been solicited to produce art for the Washington Post, have launched devastating billboard critiques of sexism and racism in the Oscars—and they’ve just invaded the East Coast for the first time, wearing gorilla masks, of course. Read more...
Dating is a difficult and often awkward situation that we insist on throwing ourselves into time and again until it gets so bad that we will marry anyone to get out of it, isn’t it? I recently went on a date with a man. The date went from going well, to not going well, to going well again, and finally ended well… I think. There was a kiss at the end of the date, that’s good, right? And a request for a second date (surely, that’s good). Then two days later a two line email (not so good) saying I’ll call you when I am coming to town again (ummm). Fine? Then nothing (not good). For two weeks (bad). Then a text message (boooo), saying that things have been very busy and he will email soon (weak). Then the email comes (whatever), Read more...
Friday, September 18, 2009
I went to the fair last weekend. Coupons for the rides were one dollar each!! You may be thinking that that sounds reasonable? However, you must factor in that no ride at the fair actually takes one coupon – even kiddie rides are more than one! It took three tickets to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl. Four of us got on the ride, so that means we paid twelve dollars for one two minute ride (it might also mean we’re suckers)! Twelve dollars for a carnie ride?? What the heck?! Bracelets (unlimited rides, for those not so well-versed in the fair lingo) were $25! Just a few days ago, I posted an article on this site about how old I don’t feel, and now I am going to age myself and say: in my day. Here it goes: in my day, a bracelet was $8! Of course, I never seemed to have $8, so the bracelet was still way outside of my financial grasp. But now, a family with two kids at the fair would have to shell out fifty bucks for a day of unlimited riding! Admission for two kids at Canada’s Wonderland is sixty! I just don’t think the Orono fairground and Canada’s Wonderland – the land of wonder for an entire nation – are on the same amusement level, so why the comparable price? I looked around at the ride workers and none of them seem to be wearing three-piece suits – not a single Rolex to be seen – so it isn’t a strong Carnie-union driving up the cost of my ticket. Buzz Hargrove is nowhere in sight. Read more...