Tag Archives: history

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: My Show for All Seasons

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Feminism, Pushpins (Daily Life)

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My Netflix habits are stupidly predictable. Every time I open up my laptop, or power up my PS3, the same sequence of inane ritual ensues: I stare long and hard at my current video queue, mostly containing television shows my friends recommended and intellectual films I found compelling, at least in theory, when I hadn’t had a busy day at work, or, been chasing after a lively three-year-old who was happily determined to vanquish all of the monsters in my apartment (they live in the upholstery, apparently). Should I watch the American House of Cards? No. I’m not in the mood to watch people be crafty, amoral, douche-canoes to each other. How about Broadchurch? Oh God, no. David Tennant without a Scottish accent makes my heart melancholy (seriously, the world is a much sadder, blander place if Mr. Tennant isn’t gustily rolling his r’s). War of the Buttons? Le Sigh. Not at all. I’m too tired to struggle through the French and watch people, especially young children in Nazi occupied France, be horrible to each other.

Media, media everywhere, but not a thing to watch.

I then quickly scroll through the other suggestion lists that orderly present themselves on the screen. I’ve watched pretty much everything from the “Period Drama Featuring a Strong Female Lead,” section. Heck, I’ve been watching and reading stuff in that category since I was twelve. The same goes for ” Film Based on a Book.” Usually, I’ve already read the book and don’t want the film to ruin it—or, I’ve already watched the film, because I read the book. “Quirky Independent Films” are never quirky or independent enough for me and “Action and Adventure” only catches my eye when the Marvel Universe or Neil Gaiman are doing the storytelling…or, if Daniel Craig is running around being James Bond.

I sigh. Media, media everywhere, but not a thing to watch. Then I laugh. There, in my “Watch it Again” section, is the face of a high-cheekboned women with a black bob and a white cloche hat.

“Well Miss Fisher, it looks like I’ll be watching you—yet again.”

If you aren’t familiar with Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, I highly recommend that you look into it (or at least watch the above trailer to see if it’s for you). Shown on both the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and PBS, the show’s two seasons follow the adventures of the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, modern woman and clever lady detective, and her circle of lively, eccentric, compassionate, friends and colleagues. These adventures take Miss Fisher and the viewer through the decadent and difficult world of 1920s Melbourne, complete with jazz clubs and anarchists and couture fashion and rum smugglers and post World War trauma and lots and lots of glamorous parties.

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is my show for all seasons. It’s writing and visual aesthetics never fail to engage me, no matter how tired my brain is. If my brain is completely shot after a long day, I can enjoy Inspector Jack Robinson’s expressive, grey-blue eyes, Miss Fisher’s stunning Art Deco wardrobe, and all the handsome fellows Miss Fisher sensitively and unapologetically makes out with. But, if my brain wants to be more engaged, I can marvel at the show’s fastidious historical detail, allowing my imagination to enter the world of 1920s Melbourne and experience its joys and worries as my own. And, if I am in full possession of my faculties, I can contemplate the beautifully written, real, complex main character. As a main female character on a popular television show, Phryne leaves me breathless. She is how women should be written—as capable, yet vulnerable human beings, full of strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. This is a character who is the sum of her experiences, and those experiences are pretty horrific: a sister murdered in her childhood, the horrors of WWI (where she served as a medic), an abusive relationship in her early twenties…yet, she lives her life with joy in the face of the trauma and the grief. Sometimes, those experiences paralyze her, but those experiences also make her compassionate, generous, and courageous. One of the things that keeps me coming back is watching her struggle with her past while boldly propelling herself into her future, determined to learn and to live life to the hilt.

Wild Jazz begins to blast from my speakers. Unlike an American sounding David Tennant, watching an episode of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries for the fifth time doesn’t make my heart melancholy. It makes my heart pretty darn happy.

On Bobbed Hair and Freedom

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Fashion, Feminism, Literature, Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

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Image courtesy of: Lillian Goes Vintage

As the days begin to get warmer and we begin to anticipate spring, I get to anticipate something else, just as lively, just as youthful: bobbing my hair.

After work, I shall happily walk to my downtown salon where my stylist will greet me with a hug and a smile. It will be under her loving and creative eye that my thick, wavy locks will become straight and precisely angular. Transformed, I’ll step out into the New Haven night, my gait now adjusted to a new-found, joyous swagger.

I used to have long hair as a teenager. Like really, really, long hair. All the way down to my waist. It took forever to wash and dry every morning because it was so thick—I’d spend at least an hour on its upkeep everyday. And, in order to tame its long, wild waviness, I spent a lot of my allowance and summer job money on hair products and blow dryers.

But, when I bobbed my hair in my early twenties, something wonderful happened: My hair regiment became both luxurious and speedy.

Now, I could justify buying expensive hair products. A twenty dollar bottle of shampoo would last me months rather than weeks. And, if I’d let my bob air-dry with a little bit of leave-in conditioner, I could fill up my mornings with new activities. That hour I used to spend washing and drying my hair I currently spend on doing household chores and writing. Both activities are much more sanity-inducing and soul-nurturing than standing in front of a mirror, blasting my head with hot air, ever was.

Transformed, I’ll step out into the New Haven night, my gait now adjusted to a new-found, joyous swagger.

 

I must confess that wearing my hair in a bob makes me feel like a rebel. Though, given this haircut’s legacy, I think that I have every right to feel a bit daring when there is more of my hair on the salon floor than on my head. Did you know that in the 1920s bobbed hair was met with raised eyebrows and shock? Young women who undertook the cut were considered unladylike upstarts by America’s then older generations. Simply by shedding those extra layers of tresses, young women began to give themselves permission to take new, individual risks in their daily lives. Risks that worried the conformist, virtuous group-think of those who came of age in the mid to late Nineteenth Century.

My favorite contemporary example of this courageous personal daring occurs in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” Bernice, a pretty, but timid and dull Midwestern girl, visits her lively East Coast cousin, Marjorie. To help her overcome her dullness (and give herself something to do), Marjorie teaches Bernice how to flirt with rich, Ivy League boys, an action that costs Marjorie her own popularity. To regain her status as alpha female, Marjorie then emotionally blackmails Bernice into getting her hair bobbed—right before the young women attend a ball at the home of a staunch anti-bob society family! So, what does timid, dull Bernice do in return? Not what you’d expect. Her short hair gives her the freedom and the courage to enact revenge on her catty cousin in a rather fitting way: Marjorie also gets her hair bobbed before the ball…but, the cut happens with a pair of household shears and while she is asleep.

I think about Bernice a lot as as I rush around my house in the morning, barely keeping to schedule, but always deeply grateful for those few extra moments of writing time, or chore time, the a.m. hours continue to grant me. I think the older generations of the early Twentieth Century were right to fear the bob. It did (and does) give a rather particular freedom to women. The freedom to pursue personal development rather than a generic, societal beauty role. Though Amanda Palmer said it (or something very similar to it) about the maintenance of female body hair (or perhaps it was one of her fans who said it and she took up its mantle), I think it also applies to the bob: “The less time I spend on hair care, the more time I have for the Revolution.”

I couldn’t agree more. Even if my “Revolution” is an open space for morning writing and chores, my bobbed hair and I definitely have more time for it.

Favorite Irish Folk Songs: The Minstrel Boy

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Literature, Poetry, Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

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Today is the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade here in New Haven. In a matter of hours, the Green will crowd with lawn chairs as politicians, veterans, and Irish step dancers walk the ways once inhabited by downtown traffic. Upon the breeze will dance the sour smell of beer with the gamey smell of porta-potties…

…and bands of bagpipes and fifes and drums will all play the same arrangement of “The Minstrel Boy.”

If you’re like me, you’ll start to feel a berserker-like rage, rising from the depths of your gut, after hearing the same damn version for the twentieth time. In a row. Without any breaks.

No need to give in. Instead, just listen to this lovely and very different arrangement of the song by Irish folk great Tommy Makem. I promise that it will sooth your ear fatigue and refresh your soul! And most importantly, it will give you a chance to hear the beautiful verses, written by Thomas Moore. Many believe he wrote it to honor his Trinity Dublin classmates who participated / died in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Enjoy today’s merriment! Tomorrow, we look at a quieter group of folk songs, to help sooth the inevitable hangovers you’ll get from today.

Favorite Pick-up Lines from Classical Literature: Post the Second

14 Friday Feb 2014

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This past Wednesday, I shared with you, my gentle readers, four of my favorite pick-up lines from Classical Literature. It is Friday, and as I promised, here are the final four:

5. Confessions, Augustine of Hippo
“Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!…You called and cried aloud, and shattered my deafness; you flashed and blazed like lightning, and routed my blindness. You cast your fragrance, and I drew breath, yet pant for you; I tasted, yet hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I was on fire for your peace.” ~Augustine

Whew. Though Augustine wrote this to God, it’s still pretty sensual. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to be called a “Beauty so ancient and so new”? Plus, how do we know that he didn’t express the above sentiments to another human being at some point in his life? He was quite the player in his youth, if you know what I mean. He totally got a girl pregnant, then peaced out. But, thank goodness he started writing such exquisite things to God. It’s hard to pull crap on an omniscient being. So much better for him, the ladies, and the growth of the Christian church.

6. “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” in Flappers and Philosophers, F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Do you think I ought to bob my hair?” ~Bernice

Oh beautiful, dull, awkward, Midwestern Bernice, trying to get the attention of champagne-guzzling, Ivy educated, easily distracted, Northeastern boys. The pick-up line, given to her by her worldly cousin Marjorie Harvey, does get those silly boys’ attention (like a lot), and almost leads Bernice into social suicide after she gets said bob (hint: Marjorie Harvey is a horrid, horrid human being). Though luckily for Bernice, when she loses her long, sumptuous locks, she finally finds her backbone.

7. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation [for loving Mr. Darcy]. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that it had begun.” ~Elizabeth Bennett

Pride and Prejudice has many wonderful pick-up lines in it, but this one, this one is my favorite. These three sentences always give me chills when I read them, and I’ve been reading them since I was twelve! I love Elizabeth’s honesty and awe as she reflects on the growth of her attachment to Darcy. But then, for me, that is the beauty of Elizabeth and Darcy in the first place. They challenge each other into spaces of deep introspection, and from those places of introspection, they both discover new things about themselves. A couple who is willing to self-reflect and learn from one another is a fine couple, indeed.

8. Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare
“Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.” ~Benedick

Beatrice and Benedick, just the cutest in all of Messina. Here are two characters who have similar personalities and totally get one another. Benedick knows that he and Beatrice are high-spirited, witty, merry-makers who aren’t the types to get all moody, and googly-eyed about each other (::cough::cough:: Claudio and Hero). Wooing peaceably is so not their thang–and that’s what makes this line so charming. They see, and woo each other, just as they are.

And there you have it–eight of my all-time favorite pick-up lines from Classical Literature. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing about them! And, if you are at all inclined to use any or all of them, do use them with prudence. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Favorite Pick-up Lines from Classical Literature: Post the First

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Oh, hormones. We humans have those, don’t we? And ridiculously enough, we’ve had them for quite some time and seem to act on them in lovely, earnest, and slightly odd ways. Whether dressed in togas, powdered wigs, corsets, breeches, or rolled up stockings, our fore-mothers and forefathers have always desperately tried (with varying success) to get into the togas, powdered wigs, corsets, breeches, and rolled up stockings of the slamming hottie of their sexual preference. How do we know this? Classical Literature tells us so. I find that Classical Literature, especially the novel, is a warm-hearted record of how our not-so-distant ancestors navigated those big, giddy, feelings. Feelings that always seem to manifest when human beings attempt to pursue companionship and population extension.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share eight of my favorite pick-up lines from the classics, four today and four on Friday. Here, in no particular order, are the first four:

1. Daniel Deronda, George Eliot
“You look good. Perhaps it is God’s command.” ~Mirah Lapidoth

Oh Mirah, your aquatic suicide (death by drowning in a water-logged cloak) was just thwarted by the super compassionate, super thoughtful, super hot Daniel Deronda. Yes, Daniel does look good (in both the moral and physical sense, this is a Victorian novel after all). And darn right it’s God’s command!

2. A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
“For something tremendous has happened; I must face it without getting muddled. It isn’t exactly that a man has died.” ~George Emerson

George Emerson: so earnest, so poetic, so determined to understand all the feelings that holding an unconscious Lucy Honeychurch are causing in his nervous system. Even though he and Lucy just saw a man get stabbed to death, holding her in his arms totes got him thinking about…other things.

3. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
“I see what you think of me. I shall make but a poor figure in your journal to-morrow.” ~Henry Tilney

Henry Tilney is just the best. His statement to Catherine Morland allows him to do two things: 1.) Show Catherine that he deeply understands the trivialities of women (he knows that a young lady’s relationship to her journal is important!). 2.) Gauge how Catherine feels about him through her reaction to his self-deprecation. Clever, clever boy, he must have a sister. Oh wait, he does have a sister!

4. Tom Jones, Henry Fielding
“Your situation, Mr. Jones, is now altered, and I assure you I have great satisfaction in the alteration. You will now want no opportunity of being near me, and convincing me that your mind is altered too.” ~Sophia Western

Sophia does not suffer fools. Especially the misguided foolishness of one Mr. Tom Jones who, though swears that he has loved her since childhood, proceeds to sleep with half the women in Georgian England over the course of Fielding’s 800-page tome. Though Tom finally falls into both money and redemption (and also wants to fall into Sophia’s arms–hey-o!), Sophia knows that only time will allow her to trust his sincerity. Her wisdom and sense in the presence of such a charming rake is quite admirable.

There you have it: four down and four to go. See you on Friday…

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Life Force

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

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“Sarah, do you think you will wear this?”

A hand small, withered–yet elastic in its joints and tendons–darts into the periphery of my right eye’s vision: at its finger tips, a glint of lush purple-red. I put down the butter knife I am using to make a sandwich.

“What is it, Grandma?”

“It’s my mother’s wedding ring.”

I take the ring with its high golden Tiffany setting and hold it in my left hand, the kitchen’s afternoon light catches the large ruby at the ring’s center, sending the stone into glittering fits of red. This was the ring my great-grandmother wore on her wedding day. The ring she kept on her bedroom dresser for most of the Depression, because she didn’t want the suds and grime of her extra cleaning jobs to ruin it.

I turn the ring to get a better look at the stone’s cut, and another reddish flash shouts from further down my hand: another ruby, jauntily tilted in its golden Art Nouveau setting. A ring that belonged to my other great-grandmother. A much-loved piece of jewelry she wore daily from high school graduation until her fiancé replaced it with a fine, large diamond in a band of platinum.

“Yes Grandma, I think I will wear it. Thank you for passing it along to me.”

Gently, I slip my new ruby ring onto my left middle finger, two different rings rest side by side. Yet, both bands share the unquenchable fire of the ruby, glittering eternally in each setting’s center–a purple-red hue that surely matches the purple-red blood flowing through my finger’s veins, through the veins of my Grandmother’s wrinkled hands.

A life force that endlessly sparkles with my family’s DNA.

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(Re) Discovering Tutankhamen’s Tomb

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

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On November 26, 1922, Howard Carter and Lord Caernavon opened the tomb of Tutankhamen, the boy king of Egypt. Howard Carter held a candle up to a small crack he made in the door. In response to this sudden illumination, 3,000 year-old gold glittered its greeting while long, lithe likenesses of animals stared back, dispassionately, with ebony eyes. This cache of ancient treasure left its discoverers and the Western world breathless. Dazzling the imagination with images of wealth: bright, decadent, and exotic.

And at 5:30 p.m. every weekday, until I turned ten, I helped Howard Carter and Lord Caernavon open the tomb again.

Getting teased on the morning bus and eating a somewhat soggy peanut butter sandwich for lunch didn’t seem to matter now.

Dad at the office, Mom in the kitchen, my brother in his room—I was alone, happy to keep the company of my thoughts. Opening the bottom cupboard of my bookcase, where I kept my favorite books, I pulled out an ink-colored paperback: Tut’s Mummy Lost…and Found. It was a little above my reading level—the sentences were long and winding, easy for a second grader to understand, but still too labyrinthine for a first grader. But I didn’t care. It wasn’t the book’s words that enthralled me, it was the pictures.

Sitting cross-legged on my family’s living room floor, I turned the pages until I found the picture that I wanted: the illustrator’s interpretation of what Carter saw. Getting teased on the morning bus and eating a somewhat soggy peanut butter sandwich for lunch didn’t seem to matter now. I had discovered something! With Carter and Caernavon by my side, we stood in an ancient ante chamber, lined with three golden couches, sleek and animalistic. Chests and statues, stunningly be-jeweled, were piled from floor to ceiling. Delicate flower wreaths, a brittle witness to our wonder, sprawled across the hoard—untouched, since the day of Tutankhamen’s funeral. I no longer sat in the living room. I sat on the floor of a desert tomb, each sand crystal glistening quietly in the glow of Carter’s candlelight. While a perfume, definitely floral, but drier than the smell of a spring hyacinth and muskier than the smell of a cluster of summer honeysuckle, seeped into my nose.

“SARAH! Come now or your dinner will get cold.”

Dad was home, calling me away from my thoughts and into the kitchen. The multitudinous grains of dessert sand lost their crystalline edges and softened back into the small, fuzzy bulbs of Berber that carpeted my family’s living room floor. Slowly, I stood up, turning off the living room light. I slipped Tut’s Mummy Lost…and Found back into the cupboard. King Tutankhamen’s tomb was closed, once more sealed up in the darkness of time.

Until 5:30 tomorrow.