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The Human Touch: Pretty Woman Grows Up

I recently wrote in passing about a romantic comedy from the very final days of the previous millennium, which reunited director Garry Marshall with his very successful old leads Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Even more recently, I was watching the original flagship movie, Pretty Woman, and a lot of things sprang to mind. Like Focusing mainly on Vivian’s point of view, the story of Pretty Woman morphs early on into a stylized, granted, PG, version of An American Pillow Book for the lady into the intricacies of the art of subtle, understated seduction of a man. Like Instead of bringing the hammer down about such notions as the story’s implicit go-ahead for buying people and treating others like merchandise, and the shallow presentation of values and what is considered the good life, I think interpreting Pretty Woman as a story of the transformative power of the human touch and finding sexual freedom at any age, and through it, individual freedom, a clearer sense of identity, and contin
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The Eye. A Horror Story. Chapter Two: PULP FICTION

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How long do you reckon birds live, darling? There was an eclipse today, real pretty, Liz. It happened in late evening, just before sundown. The clearing behind the main house went all quiet, and the skies turned into orange and dark grey. The sun was partly covered behind whirls of thin clouds, so when the moon eclipsed it, it looked all soft, like soft ice dropping on your chin that time on the pier, and I’ll be damned if it weren’t orange and vanilla that day, too, darling.  Nothing moved, the moon covered the sun for maybe a few minutes, and during that time, the weirdest thing happened. I kept thinking of this book I read as a young boy, where this housekeeper lady offs her no-good husband during an eclipse. I kept watching the clearing and the sky looking all mystical and the tree line, the sky was so nice I tell you, but then, I spotted a deer on the clearing. It was hard to spot at first, since the eclipse seemed to drain the color from the landscape, and everything was this pal
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How the Literati Is Like a Beauty Pageant

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1. It’s who you know. 2. Dismissal has as often to do with fringe factors as not having the right face. 3. Pick a lane, but not any lane. Pick one that thrills the right sort of audience, deals with the right political agenda, and/or trending ideas, i.e. in writing, against the current, but not too much so to not make people uncomfortable about the wrong things; in pageantry, with the current, since those in power can snap you like a twig. 4. Ostracizing becomes a relay sport, kind of like in high school. NOTE: Major difference: pageantry; the panel will give more favorable reviews if bosom buddies and late-night calls to hotel rooms; literature; being too close to gatekeeping professionals leads automatically to near-invisibility and being left to own devices. 5. Devices are all one has. One has better learn how to use them.  6. If anybody is ever rude to you - sneeze muffin.* 7. The swimsuit round is the definitive round. A year ago, I applied, at my publisher’s request, and his enth
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These Boots Were Made for Beyoncé, Were They Not?

Some years ago, I wrote a piece on this blog on my secretly harbored love for country music in general, and Dolly Parton in particular.  After the release of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter last Friday, I revisited what I had written so that I wouldn’t repeat myself any more than is my signature repetitive streak.  Beyoncé hails herself the Queen, and why not? For she is the most, the wildest while also the most controlled, and the most extravagant popular singer in the world today. When she releases new music, the world stops. As it did this time, too. She is the most important artist right now to voice her opinions on any given topic, because she is widely revered and extensively heard. You cannot ignore Beyoncé if you tried. She doesn’t have powerful friends in high places; she is the place of power incarnate, and what she has already done, her body of work, will not be equaled or ignored, ever. No one can erase her or take her place. She has mythologized her persona and her family, and wi
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The Eye. A Horror Story. Chapter One: SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL

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1. The first time I saw Joni’s Eye was after a huge argument with Lizzie. Of course, being the chicken I used to be back then, the entirety of the fight had taken place within my dishwashing, soul-searching, rage blowing, bile-venting, and finally, teary admission of defeat and loneliness-succumbing, mind. Father was, for once, at his book club, and I was both happy he was out of the house and scared to be alone. Isn’t it amazing how one can wish so much for something to happen, and when it does, be not kind of sorry it did, but apprehensive, and waiting for the other shoe to drop? I was wearing my reading glasses to get all the grease stains out – I just hated how Father had become so neglectful, he who had always preached about the hospital corners when Mom was alive, and maybe it was the old age, too, and for the life of me I don’t know why I just couldn’t find it in me to say something about it. But that night, getting him to agree that a little night air might be just the thing, I
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Not The President's Men - Matti Kuusela, the Journalistic Narrative Reimagined, and How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

In an all-but forgotten Garry Marshall -helmed romantic comedy from a little shy of the Early Aughts, a quick-witted newspaper columnist, played by the ever-charismatic Richard Gere, hears a story at his local watering hole. A heart-broken man sitting at the bar next to him, nursing a beer, bursts into an emotional diatribe about his would-be fiancé, who had just left him at the altar, and, according to him, a number of others before him.  Inspired by the man’s story, Ike writes his column of the week about this incident, titling his piece humorously The Runaway Bride. After the story has run in the paper, he is surprised to find his editor fuming at her desk on Monday. The alleged Bride has contacted the paper, demanding, with heated words, a correction on the column, and has included a play-by-play with the sum total of 15 downright mistakes or erroneous conjecture in the piece.  Fired and at his wit’s end, Ike decides to write a follow-up on his original story; he will travel himsel
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