Dec 12, 2022 - But I digress...
It’s a holiday season extravaganza! Except that I’m a real killjoy on the topic! In this episode, we’re discussing being secretly uptight, Triangle of Sadness, season 2 of White Lotus, Jenn’s favorite new book, friendships that can’t time travel, holiday party outfits when you’re middle-aged, our favorite go-to gifts, mammograms, listener questions and a whole lot more. Do tune in, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget: we have merch!
Share this post:
Kim France
I was born in Houston, Texas in 1964 and have lived in New York City since 1988. I had a long career in magazines, working at Sassy, Elle, New York, and Spin, and in 2000, I founded Lucky magazine, which I edited for ten years.
Comments
I was born in Houston, Texas in 1964 and have lived in New York City since 1988. I had a long career in magazines, working at Sassy, Elle, New York, and Spin, and in 2000, I founded Lucky magazine, which I edited for ten years.
Edna St. Vincent Millay all day!
I’m just getting into The Old Man and highly recommend if you haven’t watched it.
I loved The Old Man, and reading Vulture’s commentary on each episode only added to the pleasure. Sample line (approximately): “John Lithgow with two-day stubble is a thirst trap, don’t @ me.”
John Lithgow is 77. I’d love to see someone call a 77-year-old woman a “thirst trap.” Will never happen, of course. Not sure why men have it so easy that even when they are actually OLD, they are still considered sex symbols, while women are culturally done at 50.
Just finished this morning’s podcast. I didn’t get bored. And speaking of clothing…the other day I was walking Betty and we were stopped in an area where a lot of people gather outside one of the more popular Austin restaurants. It was a mild day and I was enjoying people watching when I spied what appeared to be a mother and daughter waiting to go inside said restaurant. The daughter was dressed for work in a skirted suit, but the MOM!!!!….she wore a long sleeved western shirt in a retro wester print (I could see bucking broncos, but wasn’t close enough to see details) with the sleeves slightly rolled up, a just below the knee super pleated skirt in a silvery metallic fabric and a pair of closed toe sling back one or two inch block heeled pumps in gold. She. Looked. Awesome. And I thought this is how we should all be dressing––fun, lighthearted, comfortable and shiny. I would love to see the inside of that woman’s closet! I should also add that she did not look like the delightful ladies of Advanced Dressing on Instagram. This woman looked very chic and sophisticated. I know it doesn’t sound like it. I should also add (also) that when I got home I looked into my own closet and didn’t find a single lighthearted fun piece of clothing. Very telling. Will keep my therapist busy for years.
been thinking about how to recreate this outfit nonstop for 24 hours. I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!
That outfit does sound truly wonderful!
I’ve been trying to commit Ozymandias (Percy Shelley) to memory for a while now, figuring it’s A) a good party trick and B) probably good for flexing mental muscles. I’m going to redouble my efforts with a line a night now.
I think it was Jill Kargman who on her IG compared mammograms to a panini press. Leave it to her to find that sliver of humor…
Oh Kim. I, too, was once married to a poet and had poetry kind of spoiled for me. But here are a few more poets that I still like to read: Emily Dickinson, of course, Billy Collins, Naomi Shahib Nye, Gwendolyn Brooks, Frank O’Hara…
I am an unapologetic philistine; I will cross the street to avoid poetry, with the exception of cynically humorous poets like Philip Larkin and Dorothy Parker. As Kim perfectly described her poetry aversion the “deliberate obtuseness” turns me off. When my husband died after a long illness I was very ambivalent about dating and having another man in my life. Sadly, that wasn’t because he had been the love of my life who I was sure no mortal man would measure up to. Then a brief poem somehow wandered into my orbit, titled Pigs Can’t Look Up.
Pigs can’t look up
But I could pick a pig up one night
and raise it to the sky and tilt this pig ever so gently.
I can make sure this pig’s eyes line up with the stars.
Imagine seeing the stars for the first time.
I want to be treated that kindly
And see the stars for the first time.
That little poem rocked my world. It instantly made me realize that I did want to be treated that kindly. A year ago a widower I knew emailed me, inviting me to lunch. And he continues to show me the stars and more for the first time.
Congrats on making your post read like a mini-screenplay – you rock Mimi A
I also find poetry hard to wrap my head around but then I found Kate Baer. https://www.instagram.com/katejbaer/ Her new book And Yet has just been published and she has completely changed my mind!
Speaking of a poetry, I had to choose a short verse for a calligraphy class, using whichever style I wanted. I picked Shel Silverstein:
“Can anyone lend me
Two eighty-pound rats?
I want to rid my house of cats.”
The instructor shamed me for the content. I quit the class. It was a recreational class, but silly me — recreation does not mean fun. That’s my poetry experience: poetry and calligraphy are only for depressives.
Wow – your calligraphy instructor had no sense of humour. That Silverstein quote is brilliant. I love calligraphy, like certain poets, and don’t care at all for cats.
Tanya, you reminded me of something I wrote years ago. I’m going to attempt to put it in the following comment (though, the presiding Kim is welcome to remove it in case the comment section should be a poetry free zone).
Simile by S.E.C.
When someone learns I write poetry
and then tells me, “I hate poetry,”
I want to offer as reassurance:
“That’s okay. I hate assholes. So,
we’re even.”
I’m not being fair. Take away the
jerks who utter such things and you’ll
find two other types. First, there are
the ones who find poetry embarrassing,
tender, intimate, an unsolicited secret
bestowed upon them. I don’t blame them:
you can’t control what embarrasses—for
some, it’s characters bursting into song
and dance on the street in a musical.
Then, there’s the other type: the ones
who have had something terrible done
to them in the name of education—and
we all know, when something terrible
done in the name of education transpires,
hatred comes and marks like a cigarette
burning through a new dress.
More succinctly: these are the ones who
had a horrible high school English teacher.
My mother was a good English teacher so
I was immunized against them and can spot
their work—third-rate con job on those who
just stepped off the bus, new school, first
time in the city.
They tell the innocents that they’ve been
doing it wrong, that they can’t read poems
like they listen to songs, that loving Shel
Silverstein doesn’t count (though, you ask me,
Shel Silverstein and Robert Louis Stevenson
and all the others who write poems children
love, they count double), that if they’re having
fun, they’re doing it wrong, instead they must answer,
What does it mean? What is a dactyl? What is
sprung rhythm? Can you give an example of
synecdoche? What are the numbers for sonnets?
What does the poet mean in the sixth stanza
when she says what does she mean? To not
answer is to be banished, to answer wrong turns
you stone, the sudden death question is what
does it mean?
It’s a con, like selling tickets to a free concert
in the park and the con is able to succeed
because too many people have never enjoyed
decadent reading, experienced a voluptuous
giving over of space in one’s head to another
voice, and thus, don’t complain at the repeating
spike in the ear of what does it mean what does
it mean what—
What does it mean, I ask you. That question
asked makes me think they want to take a poem
as a butterfly, pinning its live wings to a board to
immobilize to label its parts as proof of learning,
thrown out after finals.
Wouldn’t it have been better if those sorts of
teachers had devoted their lives to making a
new, improved vacuum cleaner, the world
would have appreciated a better vacuum
cleaner in place of teenagers humiliated into
loathing Eliot, Robert Browning, and anyway,
the reason I’m rambling in the territory
Archibald MacLeish already covered in
superior fashion is that I wanted to get at,
I don’t want anyone reading my poems to
feel she or he is on the outside of an inside
joke. I know what it is to walk down a
hallway and know the laughter is directed
at me and would never want to do that
to someone by way of a poem.
Not to imply that I was a martyr deserving
no reproach. There were a few times I
astonished myself with cruel remarks to
others for no good reason. What did it
mean? It meant nothing other than I was
a teenager and my prefrontal cortex was
still developing and my sense of long
term consequences and other people’s
feelings was not what it is now. Having
been on both sides, I can say, everything
built on meaning and cruelty doesn’t work.
The only way poetry can work, I figure, is
that everybody can come in, anyone can
come in, everybody can come into a poem
until the accumulating words overcome
like the sea reclaiming them, briefly, the
sight of the arching wave is meaning enough
for them a moment later as they stand, gasping,
wet, salt on their tongues.
All the spaces were collapsed in the ridiculous passage above. So, let me stress that I indicate in the second stanza that I DON’T think anyone is an asshole for hating poetry. Now, I will scurry away from this comment section.
Thank you so much for sharing this piece. I’d read more if it’s on offer!
D., I “feel so seen,” as people sometimes say now. I *did* suffer educationally at the hands of people calling themselves poets, and I *did* despise poetry for a long time afterwards. In retrospect, maybe I just wasn’t groovy enough. (They were basically teaching, I guess, free verse? To middle schoolers. Everything we wrote was really really amazing. Like that. I have forgiven them. I hate to imagine it from their side!) Oh and this was middle school, iirc which I may not. I had at least one really excellent English teacher in high school – I say she is excellent bc I still remember several things she said, though sadly I have lost most of my grammar. No, I mean, sadly I admit that I have lost it. We analyzed Pink Floyd lyrics, among other things. (I have forgotten her name. I’ll have to dig out a yearbook.) … … … In the middle part, I used to read the poems in the New Republic, I guess in the 90s or so, and some of those I liked. And I had a friend who liked Delmore Schwartz. Shakespeare and the Greeks I always liked, and should memorize but haven’t. … … … Long story shorter, eventually I realized that song lyrics are also poetry, and now I don’t hate it anymore – though I am still *resistant* unless it has been set to music. … … … I think there are just a lot of untalented poets, the same as in the visual arts. One must learn to weed through them to get to the good bits.
Apologies, I meant to address the above comment to MJ, in light of the sorry calligraphy teacher lacking in Shel Silverstein appreciation. Though, I hope “Millay All Day” Tanya enjoys the comment thread as well.
I just finished the previous episode, where you and Jenn discuss Christmas music. If you want something seasonal but different, I strongly recommend Songs in the Key of Hanukkah. http://www.erranbaroncohen.com/songs-in-the-key-of-hanukkah/
Kim, I signed up for a poem a day email from PoetryFoundation.org. Daily poem may be anything from any time…if I scan a few lines and not into it, or it’s a 12-stanza Old English poem, delete. But I have found some amazing poetry that speaks to me via this email. Highly recommend as an easy “in” to poetry.