OMGG

I'm giving a paper on class, sexuality, and transgression in Gossip Girl tomorrow, and I was just planning on giving the version I presented at the Oxford Radical Forum until a friend of mine who's watched every episode multiple times mentioned that she's planning to come and has tons of questions. And I suddenly realized that this paper probably sounds good to academics who have never watched the show or devotees who don't regularly think of pop culture in Gramscian terms, but not to the tiny but terrifying group of people who are at the middle of that Venn diagram. And now it is midnight, and I'm pounding tea and trying to trick Slideshow into letting me do impossible things.

The worst part was that I poured myself a cup of coffee, pulled up the paper, and sat down to do this at about 4pm this afternoon, and then David called and this happened:

"Hey, what are you up to?"
"I just sat down at my desk."
"You should probably take a break."
"I can't. What's up?"
"They just set up a Moon Bounce across the street."
"Don't move, I'm on my way."

Now I'm sunburned and totally screwed and I have some kind of weird anti-gravity rickets.

My Fair Lady

You know how sometimes, you watch a movie for a second time and you notice things that you totally missed the first time? That happened with Free Willy, which 10 year old Ryan thought was a pretty good movie about whales and 23 year old Ryan thought was a profound morality tale about capitalism, environmentalism, and the foster system. Yesterday, it happened again with My Fair Lady, which turns out to be way more ideologically charged than I remember it being when I watched it in eighth grade in Ms. Del Val's music class. If you haven't already, go watch it, spend ten years developing a basic familiarity with Marxist and feminist thought, move to the UK for two years, and then watch it again. It is profound.

(It probably doesn't help that I'm out of TV shows and have been watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 reruns pretty much non-stop all week, so it took every ounce of self-restraint I had to keep the running commentary in my head instead of muttering at the screen. One person couldn't, and blurted out that this reminded them of their Rhodes interview.)



(I appreciated it so much that I almost high-fived them.)

With a Special Cameo of the Late Bea Arthur as Sandra Day O'Connor

The Daily Beast just did a mock casting for a movie about Sotomayor, and it pretty much defines the phrase horrifantastic.

If I Were A Senate Judiciary Chair

My new criterion for supporting judicial nominees is that they have to be pro-Nancy Drew. It seems like an arbitrary litmus test, but I kind of suspect it would check out about 100% of the time.

A Match Made in Hell

I just found this photo of the award-winning Candy Pie (TM) in someone's Facebook album. I look like the offspring of an unholy tryst between Martha Stewart and Dexter.

Brooklyn!

Since I'm moving there at the end of August, procrastinating by looking at New York real estate suddenly isn't procrastinating anymore. I'd been hoping to live with friends in Washington Heights and Queens, but both Plan A and Plan B would have me working in near the Financial District and that means that pretty much all of my plans make no geographic sense whatsoever. And this means that I'll probably be needing a loft in Brooklyn, which is unfortunate because I didn't really pick up a whole lot of Brooklyn geography when I lived in Washington Heights but extremely fortunate because it gives me an excuse to spend the next three months screwing around on real estate websites looking for lesbian communes around Park Slope.

A Helluva Day to be Unhealthily Obsessed with the Judiciary

I feel for folks in California, but I kind of think that this might turn out better for the Left in the long run. Even when it's valid, overturning a popular referendum never looks good for the side that pushes for it, and doing it on this issue in particular would give a lot of priceless ammo to pundits who (unjustifiably) freak out about judicial activism whenever courts apply the Constitution to any problem that hadn't been foreseen by, say, Thomas Jefferson. Especially since Obama picked Sotomayor and the concept of judicial activism is going to be very, very prominent during her confirmation, it might be best for the Left if they overturn Prop 8 in a referendum in 2010 and have a saner, less bombastic conversation about judges, law, and policymaking that'll probably end up with better, more sympathetic judges getting approved for the bench. In the meantime, I'll be giving to the Courage Campaign.