long recap post
so.
it's ramadan.
yesterday my mom and I went to visit the episcopalian nun who manages the convent house she stayed in the year she was commuting to chicago.
I never knew episcopalians had nuns.
the guesthouse is a wood building tucked behind a stone-row-house-church on a big avenue just north of downtown. we walked -- we ran, because it was raining, through a gate and a little garden area behind the stone church to get to it. it smelled like mildew, and the floor was uneven and the furniture was secondhand, but it was really lovely.
the only guest was a retired woman with blonde hair and grey capris who'd sold her apartment a couple years ago so she could travel. she country-hops for a few months at a time and then comes stateside and stays in the guest house, or with her daughter. she doesn't own anything anymore, just travels.
the nun was big and jolly and talkative, we stayed for a couple of hours and talked about God and the church and the muslims and jews. she's taking a biblical hebrew class from a rabbi, she loves it. whenever she gets the urge, she walks down to the Subway and tries to convert the Hindu man who works there. she says the women priests in the anglican church are mostly militant lesbians. and she likes interfaith dialogue, but she's pretty convinced most of the world needs to get to know jesus a little better.
we had fun. she asked me about sufis, and the quran, she seemed genuinely interested. and she hugged me when it was time to go.
other weekend things
friday night:
-saw two rock bands and a performance piece at a sketchy ghetto church off the highway not too far from my apartment. one of the bands' lead singer was friends with matt gottlieb, a GwenFriend who invited kurt and jon shalvi to the show, and they invited me. I liked it very much.
saturday:
-slept in, did not see kurt's mime show.
-saw nuns.
-rented the Boys of Baraka. a superdepressing documentary about inner-city Baltimore kids who are chosen for a special private school in kenya. the school was amazing for the kids, but it felt like it could have been run anywhere rural - they didn't actually go to school with any kenyans, they just lived in a compound near a village in the countryside, and they mostly stayed by themselves.
the school was run by bleeding-heart americans who kept asking the kids things like: "how does it feel to see people here who look like you?" and "even though they're poor, do they seem happy to you?"
and in the end, they all had to come back to these terrible lives with drug-addicted parents and overcrowded schools.
depressing.
chased it with Richard Pryor's "Live! In Concert." my dad loves him - he laughed til he turned colors. he's a funny man.
sunday:
-slept in again. fasted. went for a walk by the lake, because it was gorgeous out, blue and warm.
-watched I Shot Andy Warol, about the militant lesbian feminist (the episcopalian priest type ;) who'd developed a manifesto on the superiority of women and lashed out at Warhol because he refused to publish a play she'd written. she seemed pretty brilliant, obviously nuts, and she had a terrible life. Valerie Solanas.
The guy who played Warhol was very good - we saw a PBS documentary on him recently. the actor channeled him well.
Stephen Dorff, the guy from Blade, played Warhol's transvestite starlet. I wonder if macho men are drawn to these kinds of roles out of fascination or irony or an attempt to prove that they're Serious Actors. anyway, he did a good job with it. I was impressed.
it's interesting how anti-feminist the gay & transvestite culture was (is?), and how anti-transvestite the feminist lesbians seemed to be.
I don't like Andy Warhol.
the woman who directed it, Mary Harron, also directed The Notorious Bettie Page, which I haven't seen yet, and American Psycho. Psycho was way more disturbing, but better-done. Bios are hard, there's always too much to fit in, and doing it deftly takes a very specific talent, I think.
-knitted, a lot. finished the body of dad's sweater. it looks okay. I have to wait for more yarn to come in before I can do the sleeves. bought some really expensive yarn to do a tank-top for my sister. someday soon I'll post pictures of everything.
I am a woman alone.
it's time for bed.
it's ramadan.
yesterday my mom and I went to visit the episcopalian nun who manages the convent house she stayed in the year she was commuting to chicago.
I never knew episcopalians had nuns.
the guesthouse is a wood building tucked behind a stone-row-house-church on a big avenue just north of downtown. we walked -- we ran, because it was raining, through a gate and a little garden area behind the stone church to get to it. it smelled like mildew, and the floor was uneven and the furniture was secondhand, but it was really lovely.
the only guest was a retired woman with blonde hair and grey capris who'd sold her apartment a couple years ago so she could travel. she country-hops for a few months at a time and then comes stateside and stays in the guest house, or with her daughter. she doesn't own anything anymore, just travels.
the nun was big and jolly and talkative, we stayed for a couple of hours and talked about God and the church and the muslims and jews. she's taking a biblical hebrew class from a rabbi, she loves it. whenever she gets the urge, she walks down to the Subway and tries to convert the Hindu man who works there. she says the women priests in the anglican church are mostly militant lesbians. and she likes interfaith dialogue, but she's pretty convinced most of the world needs to get to know jesus a little better.
we had fun. she asked me about sufis, and the quran, she seemed genuinely interested. and she hugged me when it was time to go.
other weekend things
friday night:
-saw two rock bands and a performance piece at a sketchy ghetto church off the highway not too far from my apartment. one of the bands' lead singer was friends with matt gottlieb, a GwenFriend who invited kurt and jon shalvi to the show, and they invited me. I liked it very much.
saturday:
-slept in, did not see kurt's mime show.
-saw nuns.
-rented the Boys of Baraka. a superdepressing documentary about inner-city Baltimore kids who are chosen for a special private school in kenya. the school was amazing for the kids, but it felt like it could have been run anywhere rural - they didn't actually go to school with any kenyans, they just lived in a compound near a village in the countryside, and they mostly stayed by themselves.
the school was run by bleeding-heart americans who kept asking the kids things like: "how does it feel to see people here who look like you?" and "even though they're poor, do they seem happy to you?"
and in the end, they all had to come back to these terrible lives with drug-addicted parents and overcrowded schools.
depressing.
chased it with Richard Pryor's "Live! In Concert." my dad loves him - he laughed til he turned colors. he's a funny man.
sunday:
-slept in again. fasted. went for a walk by the lake, because it was gorgeous out, blue and warm.
-watched I Shot Andy Warol, about the militant lesbian feminist (the episcopalian priest type ;) who'd developed a manifesto on the superiority of women and lashed out at Warhol because he refused to publish a play she'd written. she seemed pretty brilliant, obviously nuts, and she had a terrible life. Valerie Solanas.
The guy who played Warhol was very good - we saw a PBS documentary on him recently. the actor channeled him well.
Stephen Dorff, the guy from Blade, played Warhol's transvestite starlet. I wonder if macho men are drawn to these kinds of roles out of fascination or irony or an attempt to prove that they're Serious Actors. anyway, he did a good job with it. I was impressed.
it's interesting how anti-feminist the gay & transvestite culture was (is?), and how anti-transvestite the feminist lesbians seemed to be.
I don't like Andy Warhol.
the woman who directed it, Mary Harron, also directed The Notorious Bettie Page, which I haven't seen yet, and American Psycho. Psycho was way more disturbing, but better-done. Bios are hard, there's always too much to fit in, and doing it deftly takes a very specific talent, I think.
-knitted, a lot. finished the body of dad's sweater. it looks okay. I have to wait for more yarn to come in before I can do the sleeves. bought some really expensive yarn to do a tank-top for my sister. someday soon I'll post pictures of everything.
I am a woman alone.
it's time for bed.