So I read Jezebel fairly regularly and was psyched to see Moe (or her sister, actually) delve into a lil' bit of lit/film theory today. A drunken Marxist read of the new Sex and the City movie, actually. Which is an excellent idea. But so many people seem to think capitalism=consumerism. It is disheartening. And it makes the analysis of the movie not make much sense. Commodities aren't 'bad' because they're material! Quite the opposite actually! Marxism is into materialism, not so down with idealism. And commodity fetishism has to do with production not consumption. Or, rather, it refers to the obscuring of the labor power that produced the commodity such that value appears to inhere in the commodity itself. If you buy some cheap food or whatever, that is just as much a commodity as Carrie's shoes. The misinformed bourgeois idea that Marxism is an anti-consumerist thing, anti-materialist, anti-ownership thing--ugh, just totally wrong and harmful. Anti-materialism is a particular kind of bourgeois hippie thing itself. Not Marxist. Things that matter in Marxist thought are who owns the means of production and who gets the surplus value produced by the worker.
Though I still am most pleased this is being discussed on Jezebel. And, since I usually see boy movies and end up analyzing dude-rubrics, I am now totally going to see Sex and the City for similar kicks. I absolutely hate that shit, but I now feel dissociated enough to be curious how it functions.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Where Does One Eat in the Detroit-Metro Area?
I asked myself over and over again when I moved here. So, nearly a year later, I know some places. My suggestions, should they interest you:
Breakfast:
Toast. Ferndale. Absolutely luscious breakfasts, very rich, kind of overfilling but it's worth it. The menu is genuinely creative (beets in an omelet? so good!) as well as delicious. And, as you might expect, the toast (or any breaded thing) is really, really good. Lots of veggie options. (Also, they do lunch too--I've just never had it before.) Most of the entrees I've ordered have been around $10. My favorite breakfast place of all-time. Way way crowded most all the time but terribly so on the weekends (over an hour's wait the times I've inquired).
The Flytrap. Ferndale. Also a fantastic breakfast. Diner-style but a more upscale and way hipper. They have lunch/dinner too; the fried rice is my favorite thing. Also the flying salmon burger. Their whole pasta menu is great (if sometimes too rich), and they have vegetarian biscuits and gravy on Sundays. Also killer milkshakes. This place is ridiculously crowded on weekends too; go during the week to avoid a wait.
Lunch/Dinner
Slow's. Detroit, in Corktown. Barbecue. Has vegetarian options, plus all sorts of meat (including really good fish). Pretty fantastic, good bar atmosphere too. And it's a beer bar. They have a great beer menu, many many things on tap.
Inn Season. Royal Oak. All vegetarian. This one I've only been to once, but I had amazing curry there the other night.
Tripti/Gandhi. Hamtramck. These are two Indian/Bangladeshi restaurants located side by side with a shared kitchen. The Tripti side is more run down and, judging by the spiciness, I suspect the food is more 'authentic.' Gandhi is a way 'better' atmosphere, but perhaps less interesting. Also, Tripti is CHEAP. Like, unbelievably cheap for some of the best food I've ever had. You should go there. Gandhi is a bit less cheap, but still the prices are fine. Do the okra masala, a mango lassi, and one of these awesome pink doughnutty things.
Tokyo Sushi. Royal Oak. Good sushi, affordable prices, and way more authentic and better than any other sushi I've had in this area. (I.e., not designed for people to go there strictly as some sort of conspicuous consumption and where stupid clothing and want stupid giant rolls are named after American cities).
Cafe-Style
MOCAD. Cafe inside the museum. Detroit, midtown. Simple sandwiches and soups, but really good. And they have yerba mate. And you can sit there and read, in the sun, with art right nearby.
Goldfish Tea. Royal Oak. By far the best (and only) real tea place around. Chinese tea only, so you miss out on Gen Mai Cha and the like--but the tea is really good, so, no matter. Wu Yi Yan Cha, Lapsang Souchong. Or anything really, they're all good. Or go for the Ki Dong if you're feeling adventurous.
Bean & Leaf. Royal Oak. Lots of laptops. Good enough tea. It's pretty much the atmosphere that sells it, I guess.
Avalon. Detroit. A bakery mostly, of really really good bread. You can also get sticky buns, cherry bars, all sorts of pastries. And tea, maybe coffee (?). Not really a place to study, but a place you should pass through all the time.
Pinwheel Bakery. Ferndale. It's a bit of a toss-up between here and Avalon, but nonetheless the fare ends up being a bit different. Pinwheel is full of cookies and cupcakes (though lots else too). Cheddar and dill popover is my favorite, along with rosemary shortbread and chocolate chip cookies.
Breakfast:
Toast. Ferndale. Absolutely luscious breakfasts, very rich, kind of overfilling but it's worth it. The menu is genuinely creative (beets in an omelet? so good!) as well as delicious. And, as you might expect, the toast (or any breaded thing) is really, really good. Lots of veggie options. (Also, they do lunch too--I've just never had it before.) Most of the entrees I've ordered have been around $10. My favorite breakfast place of all-time. Way way crowded most all the time but terribly so on the weekends (over an hour's wait the times I've inquired).
The Flytrap. Ferndale. Also a fantastic breakfast. Diner-style but a more upscale and way hipper. They have lunch/dinner too; the fried rice is my favorite thing. Also the flying salmon burger. Their whole pasta menu is great (if sometimes too rich), and they have vegetarian biscuits and gravy on Sundays. Also killer milkshakes. This place is ridiculously crowded on weekends too; go during the week to avoid a wait.
Lunch/Dinner
Slow's. Detroit, in Corktown. Barbecue. Has vegetarian options, plus all sorts of meat (including really good fish). Pretty fantastic, good bar atmosphere too. And it's a beer bar. They have a great beer menu, many many things on tap.
Inn Season. Royal Oak. All vegetarian. This one I've only been to once, but I had amazing curry there the other night.
Tripti/Gandhi. Hamtramck. These are two Indian/Bangladeshi restaurants located side by side with a shared kitchen. The Tripti side is more run down and, judging by the spiciness, I suspect the food is more 'authentic.' Gandhi is a way 'better' atmosphere, but perhaps less interesting. Also, Tripti is CHEAP. Like, unbelievably cheap for some of the best food I've ever had. You should go there. Gandhi is a bit less cheap, but still the prices are fine. Do the okra masala, a mango lassi, and one of these awesome pink doughnutty things.
Tokyo Sushi. Royal Oak. Good sushi, affordable prices, and way more authentic and better than any other sushi I've had in this area. (I.e., not designed for people to go there strictly as some sort of conspicuous consumption and where stupid clothing and want stupid giant rolls are named after American cities).
Cafe-Style
MOCAD. Cafe inside the museum. Detroit, midtown. Simple sandwiches and soups, but really good. And they have yerba mate. And you can sit there and read, in the sun, with art right nearby.
Goldfish Tea. Royal Oak. By far the best (and only) real tea place around. Chinese tea only, so you miss out on Gen Mai Cha and the like--but the tea is really good, so, no matter. Wu Yi Yan Cha, Lapsang Souchong. Or anything really, they're all good. Or go for the Ki Dong if you're feeling adventurous.
Bean & Leaf. Royal Oak. Lots of laptops. Good enough tea. It's pretty much the atmosphere that sells it, I guess.
Avalon. Detroit. A bakery mostly, of really really good bread. You can also get sticky buns, cherry bars, all sorts of pastries. And tea, maybe coffee (?). Not really a place to study, but a place you should pass through all the time.
Pinwheel Bakery. Ferndale. It's a bit of a toss-up between here and Avalon, but nonetheless the fare ends up being a bit different. Pinwheel is full of cookies and cupcakes (though lots else too). Cheddar and dill popover is my favorite, along with rosemary shortbread and chocolate chip cookies.
A classic
in case you haven't seen it. Also, this version contextualizes it. Perhaps should get a tv. Tv is good.
The Weirdest Sport
Making a horse dance--should perhaps be done ON a Nintendo game, in one's undies, while stoned and eating Fritos. But, I'm really into doing it in a top hat, in real life, too.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Reading Books
I am oh-so-taken with the Jezebel feature Fine Lines, in which Jezebel writers review 70's & 80's children's & young adult books for girls. (I was particularly elated by the Little House in the Big Woods review, Little House in the Big Woods being the first book I ever read on my own. Alas, when I went home for Christmas I could no longer find my copy of it to reread. I did, however, hit some Baby-Sitters' Club.)
Anyone know anything about current Young Adult lit? I have a suspicion that class difference was represented more in popular culture in the 80's than it is now. And that there were all sorts of working-class characters running around my childhood reading. Actually, even the Baby-Sitters Club book I read while at home pointed out which of its characters were rich and which were kind of poor. And there seemed to be more stigma attached to wealth. Also, lots of single parents and discussion of raising kids alone. AND, I'm quite curious if kids' books now do the same thing. I just sort of doubt it.
This is not a class thing exactly, but just have a look at what 'they' have done to Paula Danziger's The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, recounted on Jezebel a few weeks ago.
The 1974 cover:
The 2008 cover:
Fuck.
Jezebel writers and commenters have pointed out that a lot of the books reviewed there have feminist characters or some sort of feminist bent. And I feel quite lucky to have been learning to read in the decades directly following 2nd wave feminism. Maybe all these books are still read by kids; I hope so.
Also, though, there's a lot of comment about the pioneer/stranded on an island/roughing it sort of strain in that lit. (The Little House books, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Caddie Woodlawn, etc.--not all necessarily written when I was a kid, but definitely popular then.) In hindsight, this inducing of fantasies of independence, isolation, living off the land, Jeffersonian democracy seems merely to have been ushering in acceptance of neoliberal economic policy. The model of class is 'ancient,' in Marxian terms--no one appropriates your surplus labor. That 'ancient' model as used to manipulate people into thinking that having no government controls on things is somehow good for them. Or that it allows for freedom, and that 'freedom' means anything and is desirable. So that Pa in Little House is free to hunt in the woods, be a real man, feed his family with very little abstraction of labor (supposedly), and people are free to exploit one another, and 'corporate citizens' are free to do whatever the fuck they want too.
This mini-analysis is totally painful, in that I really spent most of my childhood reading books about being stranded on an island, watching movies about being stranded on an island, or pretending that I was, in fact, stranded on an island.
Also, also, speaking of YA novels. There are a lot of still-more terrifying ones. E.g, this:
A few summers ago I tried to work for the Institute of Reading Development, the worst organization in the world. It's a corporation that rents out space in public schools and university campuses in the summer (which makes it look more legit) and teaches kids (& adults too) to read faster, more effectively, and with greater pleasure. I went through a few weeks of training and then quit because I didn't so much want to teach little kids to be racist and sexist. No kidding, all the materials they handed out to parents referred to students only as he. Because "she/he" etc. is "too awkward" and they didn't want to be confusing. Additionally, they hadn't updated their materials in a very long time and the examples of high school textbooks that they taught from actually referred to nations as she. Like, for example, Her people number 1 million. That kind of thing. Also, this book:
But the worst was the A Day No Pigs Would Die, which is about rural Quakers in Vermont and falls into the neoliberal/ancient rubric sketched above. It also is all nature-y and naturalizes rape and the idea that women's purpose is to bear children. It is very sucky. Perhaps I will write a more detailed description later.
The classes at IRD are taught by guilt-ridden grad students who are very hard up for money. I assume most of them work around the texts in some way, but there also seemed to be very intense surveillance of teachers.
I am glad that company paid me a lot for training and that I then left them with no employee, thus wasting their money. But I rather wish I'd gone through with it and just taught the texts in totally insurrectionary ways until I was fired.
I shall leave you with Cyndi Lauper, representing non-bourgie people in the eighties.
Anyone know anything about current Young Adult lit? I have a suspicion that class difference was represented more in popular culture in the 80's than it is now. And that there were all sorts of working-class characters running around my childhood reading. Actually, even the Baby-Sitters Club book I read while at home pointed out which of its characters were rich and which were kind of poor. And there seemed to be more stigma attached to wealth. Also, lots of single parents and discussion of raising kids alone. AND, I'm quite curious if kids' books now do the same thing. I just sort of doubt it.
This is not a class thing exactly, but just have a look at what 'they' have done to Paula Danziger's The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, recounted on Jezebel a few weeks ago.
The 1974 cover:
The 2008 cover:
Fuck.
Jezebel writers and commenters have pointed out that a lot of the books reviewed there have feminist characters or some sort of feminist bent. And I feel quite lucky to have been learning to read in the decades directly following 2nd wave feminism. Maybe all these books are still read by kids; I hope so.
Also, though, there's a lot of comment about the pioneer/stranded on an island/roughing it sort of strain in that lit. (The Little House books, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Caddie Woodlawn, etc.--not all necessarily written when I was a kid, but definitely popular then.) In hindsight, this inducing of fantasies of independence, isolation, living off the land, Jeffersonian democracy seems merely to have been ushering in acceptance of neoliberal economic policy. The model of class is 'ancient,' in Marxian terms--no one appropriates your surplus labor. That 'ancient' model as used to manipulate people into thinking that having no government controls on things is somehow good for them. Or that it allows for freedom, and that 'freedom' means anything and is desirable. So that Pa in Little House is free to hunt in the woods, be a real man, feed his family with very little abstraction of labor (supposedly), and people are free to exploit one another, and 'corporate citizens' are free to do whatever the fuck they want too.
This mini-analysis is totally painful, in that I really spent most of my childhood reading books about being stranded on an island, watching movies about being stranded on an island, or pretending that I was, in fact, stranded on an island.
Also, also, speaking of YA novels. There are a lot of still-more terrifying ones. E.g, this:
A few summers ago I tried to work for the Institute of Reading Development, the worst organization in the world. It's a corporation that rents out space in public schools and university campuses in the summer (which makes it look more legit) and teaches kids (& adults too) to read faster, more effectively, and with greater pleasure. I went through a few weeks of training and then quit because I didn't so much want to teach little kids to be racist and sexist. No kidding, all the materials they handed out to parents referred to students only as he. Because "she/he" etc. is "too awkward" and they didn't want to be confusing. Additionally, they hadn't updated their materials in a very long time and the examples of high school textbooks that they taught from actually referred to nations as she. Like, for example, Her people number 1 million. That kind of thing. Also, this book:
But the worst was the A Day No Pigs Would Die, which is about rural Quakers in Vermont and falls into the neoliberal/ancient rubric sketched above. It also is all nature-y and naturalizes rape and the idea that women's purpose is to bear children. It is very sucky. Perhaps I will write a more detailed description later.
The classes at IRD are taught by guilt-ridden grad students who are very hard up for money. I assume most of them work around the texts in some way, but there also seemed to be very intense surveillance of teachers.
I am glad that company paid me a lot for training and that I then left them with no employee, thus wasting their money. But I rather wish I'd gone through with it and just taught the texts in totally insurrectionary ways until I was fired.
I shall leave you with Cyndi Lauper, representing non-bourgie people in the eighties.
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