Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Friday, January 28, 2011
Sunday, November 28, 2010
For My Love Who Is Far Away: Response to e.e. cummings "I Carry Your Heart"
I carry your heart and your love with me and it warms my days and gives light to my dark nights... I carry your heart and it softens my edges and fills me with love for you, and, in turn love for the world... I carry your heart, and it reminds me that you will soon be home with me and that makes me happy.
e.e. cummings "I Carry Your Heart
e.e. cummings "I Carry Your Heart
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Barbara Koziak: Shepherding Romance -- Reviving the Politics of Romantic Love in Brokeback Mountain
Shepherding Romance: Reviving the Politics of Romantic Love in Brokeback Mountain
By BARBARA KOZIAK
Genders
[1] The recent film, Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee and based on Annie Proulx’s short story, received an overwhelmingly admiring response from newspaper and magazine film critics, won a series of prominent film awards, and roused a large, fervent fan base. Several large on-line discussion forums created in the months following the film’s release analyze every scene, symbol, and character, and remain to this day communities with interests that have expanded beyond the film. Coinciding with the emergence of You Tube and a new amateur video culture, fan enthusiasm created both lyrical tributes and hilarious parodies on video websites. A mini-Brokeback tourist industry emerged, with one website devoting itself to mapping and photographing every shooting location for every scene. These web-based responses culminated in net-generated cultural activism and even the popular naming of a new syndrome, “Brokeback Mountain Fever.”
[2] Such exuberant responses to the film appeared in the midst of a politically treacherous period for sexuality in public life. In the years before the film’s appearance, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled state anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional in their 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas, five U.S. states enacted civil union or domestic partnership legislation while a handful of others recognized some spousal rights, and Massachusetts legalized gay marriage. On the other hand, during the 2004 election season, eleven states passed amendments or laws effectively barring same-sex marriage, and the red and blue state divide has largely formed around such prominent issues of sexuality and marriage. Political events after the appearance of the film were similarly ambivalent: Connecticut legalized same-sex marriage in 2008, four other states enacted some form of civil union or domestic partnership laws, and New York now recognizes all marriages contracted in other states. Pulling in the opposite direction, the rush to exclude gays and lesbians from marrying continued with eight more states in 2006 and three in 2008. The last group included the stunning reversal through popular ballot of the California Supreme Court’s approval of gay marriage. Remarkably, although politics have been dominated by a sharp backlash against the early victories for gay rights, over the same period, popular support nationwide for gay marriage has been slowly increasing (Campo-Flores 38). Just this year, in the space of a week, legislators in Vermont and the courts in Iowa legalized same-sex marriage.
[3] To explain this growing support, cultural studies scholar David Shumway has argued that we should understand the changing social and narrative context for heterosexual relationships. In particular, Shumway claims that a new class of intimacy narratives in literature and film, in which people expect multiple relationships requiring intensive communicative work, has prepared the straight world to accept gay unions. However, unlike the intimacy narratives Shumway discusses, no single narrative work in the late twentieth century has so broadly appealed to both gays and straights. Although the approval has hardly been universal, popular gay websites and magazines were enthusiastic. For example, AfterElton.com’s list of 50 greatest gay movies begins with Brokeback as number one, and The Advocate featured several Brokeback themed covers. In addition, the film won numerous awards, including MTV’s Best Kiss award and the Academy Award for Best Director (if not for Best Picture), and it continues to appear in popular newspaper and magazine lists of the most romantic movies. The studio, Focus Features, understood these possibilities and worked to broaden the film’s appeal beyond GLBT and art house audiences principally by marketing the film to women, and particularly by branding it as romance (Lippman). This wide embrace is significant since Brokeback Mountain encompasses a classical romantic love narrative, not an intimacy narrative.
[4] In fact, the film arrived at a particularly strange, uncertain moment in the cultural course of love. Some have argued that romantic love emerged in the West in the milieu surrounding the production of French troubadour poetry of the twelfth century, gained widespread popularization in the nineteenth and twentieth century, but lately has been successfully challenged by new modes of heterosexual relations (Shumway, Modern Love; Bloch). In response to this historical thesis, a new debate has emerged on the cultural universality of such a love (Cheung; Janowiak; Gottschall and Nordlund). Others argue that romantic love as currently practiced has undergone a dangerous intensification (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim), while others examine how it has been infiltrated by consumerist desires (Illouz). More recently, some sociologists and historians have reemphasized the historical and psychic disjunction of love and marriage (Coontz), how marriage was traditionally not based on love, and how the effort to link the two has destabilized marriage. Feminist conversations, which in the second wave often critiqued both marriage and love (Beauvoir; Firestone), more recently turned to examining sexual desire and marriage in the midst of the politics surrounding gay and lesbian unions. This new conversation in feminist theory has been relatively silent on romantic love (Card; Josephson; Ferguson; Shanley). Those early second generation feminists had often seen romantic love as a velvet trap for women, but their analysis was rightly devoted to this trap, and they often ended on a utopian hope for a transformed love. It is time to reconsider the socio-political effect of romantic love narratives, particularly because Brokeback and the emergence of online communities enable us to reexamine both a new iteration of this orthodox tale and its contemporary reception.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
By BARBARA KOZIAK
Genders
[1] The recent film, Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee and based on Annie Proulx’s short story, received an overwhelmingly admiring response from newspaper and magazine film critics, won a series of prominent film awards, and roused a large, fervent fan base. Several large on-line discussion forums created in the months following the film’s release analyze every scene, symbol, and character, and remain to this day communities with interests that have expanded beyond the film. Coinciding with the emergence of You Tube and a new amateur video culture, fan enthusiasm created both lyrical tributes and hilarious parodies on video websites. A mini-Brokeback tourist industry emerged, with one website devoting itself to mapping and photographing every shooting location for every scene. These web-based responses culminated in net-generated cultural activism and even the popular naming of a new syndrome, “Brokeback Mountain Fever.”
[2] Such exuberant responses to the film appeared in the midst of a politically treacherous period for sexuality in public life. In the years before the film’s appearance, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled state anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional in their 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas, five U.S. states enacted civil union or domestic partnership legislation while a handful of others recognized some spousal rights, and Massachusetts legalized gay marriage. On the other hand, during the 2004 election season, eleven states passed amendments or laws effectively barring same-sex marriage, and the red and blue state divide has largely formed around such prominent issues of sexuality and marriage. Political events after the appearance of the film were similarly ambivalent: Connecticut legalized same-sex marriage in 2008, four other states enacted some form of civil union or domestic partnership laws, and New York now recognizes all marriages contracted in other states. Pulling in the opposite direction, the rush to exclude gays and lesbians from marrying continued with eight more states in 2006 and three in 2008. The last group included the stunning reversal through popular ballot of the California Supreme Court’s approval of gay marriage. Remarkably, although politics have been dominated by a sharp backlash against the early victories for gay rights, over the same period, popular support nationwide for gay marriage has been slowly increasing (Campo-Flores 38). Just this year, in the space of a week, legislators in Vermont and the courts in Iowa legalized same-sex marriage.
[3] To explain this growing support, cultural studies scholar David Shumway has argued that we should understand the changing social and narrative context for heterosexual relationships. In particular, Shumway claims that a new class of intimacy narratives in literature and film, in which people expect multiple relationships requiring intensive communicative work, has prepared the straight world to accept gay unions. However, unlike the intimacy narratives Shumway discusses, no single narrative work in the late twentieth century has so broadly appealed to both gays and straights. Although the approval has hardly been universal, popular gay websites and magazines were enthusiastic. For example, AfterElton.com’s list of 50 greatest gay movies begins with Brokeback as number one, and The Advocate featured several Brokeback themed covers. In addition, the film won numerous awards, including MTV’s Best Kiss award and the Academy Award for Best Director (if not for Best Picture), and it continues to appear in popular newspaper and magazine lists of the most romantic movies. The studio, Focus Features, understood these possibilities and worked to broaden the film’s appeal beyond GLBT and art house audiences principally by marketing the film to women, and particularly by branding it as romance (Lippman). This wide embrace is significant since Brokeback Mountain encompasses a classical romantic love narrative, not an intimacy narrative.
[4] In fact, the film arrived at a particularly strange, uncertain moment in the cultural course of love. Some have argued that romantic love emerged in the West in the milieu surrounding the production of French troubadour poetry of the twelfth century, gained widespread popularization in the nineteenth and twentieth century, but lately has been successfully challenged by new modes of heterosexual relations (Shumway, Modern Love; Bloch). In response to this historical thesis, a new debate has emerged on the cultural universality of such a love (Cheung; Janowiak; Gottschall and Nordlund). Others argue that romantic love as currently practiced has undergone a dangerous intensification (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim), while others examine how it has been infiltrated by consumerist desires (Illouz). More recently, some sociologists and historians have reemphasized the historical and psychic disjunction of love and marriage (Coontz), how marriage was traditionally not based on love, and how the effort to link the two has destabilized marriage. Feminist conversations, which in the second wave often critiqued both marriage and love (Beauvoir; Firestone), more recently turned to examining sexual desire and marriage in the midst of the politics surrounding gay and lesbian unions. This new conversation in feminist theory has been relatively silent on romantic love (Card; Josephson; Ferguson; Shanley). Those early second generation feminists had often seen romantic love as a velvet trap for women, but their analysis was rightly devoted to this trap, and they often ended on a utopian hope for a transformed love. It is time to reconsider the socio-political effect of romantic love narratives, particularly because Brokeback and the emergence of online communities enable us to reexamine both a new iteration of this orthodox tale and its contemporary reception.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Revolution By the Book: Redefining Our Relationships -- An Interview with Wendy-O Matik
Redefining Our Relationships: An Interview with Wendy-O Matik
Revolution By the Book
...
I attended a workshop of yours back in ‘08 at the Longhaul and recall you speaking of open love not only positively transforming the ways we live our individual lives but also having an impact on the larger injustices of capitalism and the patriarchal pyramid of oppression and exploitation. Tell us a little about how you see one having an affect on the other.
Radical love has the potential to shift the dominant paradigm, to embrace institutional change and to dismantle systems of oppression, such as capitalism, greed, and patriarchy, but only if we’re interested in smashing the system and rebuilding it with a more holistic paradigm to replace it. As a feminist and anarchist in spirit, open relationships go to the very core of patriarchy and threaten to disrupt men’s historical control over how we love, who we love, how many we love, and so on.
The societal and cultural reality is that we are a far cry from sexual equality in this day and age. Men, straight or gay, have benefited from the luxury of sexual liberation without so much as their moral values being scrutinized by society. Women, whether straight or queer, have no such freedom. Labels such as “slut” or “nympho” continue to plague women who seek sexual autonomy. These stereotypes and misconceptions are perpetuated in the media, government, educational system, religious institutions, and even within the women’s movement. We still have a long way to go before we can dismantle these derogatory perceptions and liberate ourselves from the social constraints that have been imposed upon us since birth. The first place to start is with one’s self, confronting your own self-imposed guilt and your fears of stepping outside the standards of societal norms. It starts with freeing your mind, body, and heart to love openly despite judgment.
Who are some of the most influential authors in your approach to relationships & love?
To name just a few:
1. The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities by Dossie Easton & Catherine A. Liszt
2. Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet by Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio
3. Living My Life: An Autobiography by Emma Goldman
4. Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino
5. Polyamory: The New Love without Limits by Dr. Deborah M. Anapol
To Read the Entire Interview
Revolution By the Book
...
I attended a workshop of yours back in ‘08 at the Longhaul and recall you speaking of open love not only positively transforming the ways we live our individual lives but also having an impact on the larger injustices of capitalism and the patriarchal pyramid of oppression and exploitation. Tell us a little about how you see one having an affect on the other.
Radical love has the potential to shift the dominant paradigm, to embrace institutional change and to dismantle systems of oppression, such as capitalism, greed, and patriarchy, but only if we’re interested in smashing the system and rebuilding it with a more holistic paradigm to replace it. As a feminist and anarchist in spirit, open relationships go to the very core of patriarchy and threaten to disrupt men’s historical control over how we love, who we love, how many we love, and so on.
The societal and cultural reality is that we are a far cry from sexual equality in this day and age. Men, straight or gay, have benefited from the luxury of sexual liberation without so much as their moral values being scrutinized by society. Women, whether straight or queer, have no such freedom. Labels such as “slut” or “nympho” continue to plague women who seek sexual autonomy. These stereotypes and misconceptions are perpetuated in the media, government, educational system, religious institutions, and even within the women’s movement. We still have a long way to go before we can dismantle these derogatory perceptions and liberate ourselves from the social constraints that have been imposed upon us since birth. The first place to start is with one’s self, confronting your own self-imposed guilt and your fears of stepping outside the standards of societal norms. It starts with freeing your mind, body, and heart to love openly despite judgment.
Who are some of the most influential authors in your approach to relationships & love?
To name just a few:
1. The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities by Dossie Easton & Catherine A. Liszt
2. Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet by Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio
3. Living My Life: An Autobiography by Emma Goldman
4. Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino
5. Polyamory: The New Love without Limits by Dr. Deborah M. Anapol
To Read the Entire Interview
Monday, February 15, 2010
Greta Christina: A Skeptic's View of Love
(Courtesy of Laura W.)
A Skeptic's View of Love
Greta Christina's Blog
...
And it's gotten me thinking about the whole idea of soul-mates, and romantic destiny, and there being one perfect love for you in the whole world. All of which I think is a load of dingo's kidneys.
And I don't think I'm being unromantic.
First, obviously, I think the whole "soul-mate/ romantic destiny" thing is just wrong. Mistaken. Not true. I don't think we have souls, much less mates for them; I don't think there's an invisible hand pushing people together (and if there were, it'd have a seriously sadistic sense of humor, what with putting people's true destined loves on opposite sides of the country and whatnot).
But maybe more to the point:
The "soul-mate/ romantic destiny" vision of love puts the focus on love as something you feel -- rather than something you do.
It puts the focus on love as something that happens to you -- rather than something that you choose.
And I find it much more romantic, and much more loving, to see love as something we do, and something we choose.
When we see love solely as something that we feel... then what happens when those feelings change? As they inevitably do.
And when we see love solely as something that happens to us... then what happens when the going gets tough, and we have to make hard choices about the relationship? For that matter, what happens when something else happens to us -- something that conflicts with the love? What happens when we get job offers in other cities... or when other romantic prospects appear on the horizon?
Of course a huge part of love is the way we feel about our beloved. The feelings of tenderness and passion that well up in me when I look at Ingrid, the feelings of anxious excitement that I had when we were first starting out...that's an enormous part of what we have between us. And of course a huge part of love is the feeling that something has hit you out of the clear blue sky. When Ingrid and I were first going out, I used to say that I felt like I'd been conked on the head with a giant vaudeville rubber mallet. If love didn't have the power to knock us out of our tracks and into a whole new life, it wouldn't be what it is.
But I don't think that's enough. It's enough to get love started -- but it's not enough to sustain it.
I think what sustains love is doing the dishes when you promised to. Remembering the book they said they wanted, and getting it for their birthday. Skipping the movie you wanted to see, to go with them to a party of their friends who you don't know very well. Remembering which kind of seltzer water they like when you go shopping; remembering how they like their burgers cooked when you're making dinner. Sitting with them when they're grieving... and restraining your impulse to always try to fix things and give advice and make things better, and instead being willing to just sit still and be with them in their pain. Asking if there's anything they need from the kitchen while you're up. Wearing the stupid sticky breathing strip on your nose at night so your snoring doesn't keep them awake. Bringing them endless cups of tea when they're sick. Keeping your temper in an argument, and remembering that as angry as you might be right now, you love this person and don't want to hurt them. Saying, "I love you." Saying, "You're beautiful" -- not just when they're dolled up for a night on the town, but when they come home from work and you notice that they look particularly fetching. Noticing when they come home from work looking particularly fetching. Going to their readings, their dance performances, their office parties. Going to their family gatherings, and treating their family as your family, too. Going to the vet together. Trying out music they like, books they like, recipes they like, hobbies they like, kinds of sex they like, even if you don't think it's your thing: not just because you want to make them happy, but because it's part of who they are, and you want to find out more about them, and share the things that matter to them.
In the inimitable words of Tim Minchin, "Love is nothing to do with destined perfection/ The connection is strengthened; the affection simply grows over time... And love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience and synergy/ And symbiotic empathy or something like that... " Sure, the feelings I have for Ingrid have a lot to do with the giant vaudeville rubber mallet I got conked on the head with when we fell in love. But they have more to do with the eleven plus years we've spent together: the meals we've eaten, the parties we've thrown, the vacations we've taken, the arguments we've had, the sex we've had, the griefs we've borne, the thousands of nights we've spent sleeping in the same bed, the long conversations we've had about politics, about religion, about books, about our friends, about our cats, about bad reality television.
And none of that has anything to do with fate.
To Read the Entire Essay
A Skeptic's View of Love
Greta Christina's Blog
...
And it's gotten me thinking about the whole idea of soul-mates, and romantic destiny, and there being one perfect love for you in the whole world. All of which I think is a load of dingo's kidneys.
And I don't think I'm being unromantic.
First, obviously, I think the whole "soul-mate/ romantic destiny" thing is just wrong. Mistaken. Not true. I don't think we have souls, much less mates for them; I don't think there's an invisible hand pushing people together (and if there were, it'd have a seriously sadistic sense of humor, what with putting people's true destined loves on opposite sides of the country and whatnot).
But maybe more to the point:
The "soul-mate/ romantic destiny" vision of love puts the focus on love as something you feel -- rather than something you do.
It puts the focus on love as something that happens to you -- rather than something that you choose.
And I find it much more romantic, and much more loving, to see love as something we do, and something we choose.
When we see love solely as something that we feel... then what happens when those feelings change? As they inevitably do.
And when we see love solely as something that happens to us... then what happens when the going gets tough, and we have to make hard choices about the relationship? For that matter, what happens when something else happens to us -- something that conflicts with the love? What happens when we get job offers in other cities... or when other romantic prospects appear on the horizon?
Of course a huge part of love is the way we feel about our beloved. The feelings of tenderness and passion that well up in me when I look at Ingrid, the feelings of anxious excitement that I had when we were first starting out...that's an enormous part of what we have between us. And of course a huge part of love is the feeling that something has hit you out of the clear blue sky. When Ingrid and I were first going out, I used to say that I felt like I'd been conked on the head with a giant vaudeville rubber mallet. If love didn't have the power to knock us out of our tracks and into a whole new life, it wouldn't be what it is.
But I don't think that's enough. It's enough to get love started -- but it's not enough to sustain it.
I think what sustains love is doing the dishes when you promised to. Remembering the book they said they wanted, and getting it for their birthday. Skipping the movie you wanted to see, to go with them to a party of their friends who you don't know very well. Remembering which kind of seltzer water they like when you go shopping; remembering how they like their burgers cooked when you're making dinner. Sitting with them when they're grieving... and restraining your impulse to always try to fix things and give advice and make things better, and instead being willing to just sit still and be with them in their pain. Asking if there's anything they need from the kitchen while you're up. Wearing the stupid sticky breathing strip on your nose at night so your snoring doesn't keep them awake. Bringing them endless cups of tea when they're sick. Keeping your temper in an argument, and remembering that as angry as you might be right now, you love this person and don't want to hurt them. Saying, "I love you." Saying, "You're beautiful" -- not just when they're dolled up for a night on the town, but when they come home from work and you notice that they look particularly fetching. Noticing when they come home from work looking particularly fetching. Going to their readings, their dance performances, their office parties. Going to their family gatherings, and treating their family as your family, too. Going to the vet together. Trying out music they like, books they like, recipes they like, hobbies they like, kinds of sex they like, even if you don't think it's your thing: not just because you want to make them happy, but because it's part of who they are, and you want to find out more about them, and share the things that matter to them.
In the inimitable words of Tim Minchin, "Love is nothing to do with destined perfection/ The connection is strengthened; the affection simply grows over time... And love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience and synergy/ And symbiotic empathy or something like that... " Sure, the feelings I have for Ingrid have a lot to do with the giant vaudeville rubber mallet I got conked on the head with when we fell in love. But they have more to do with the eleven plus years we've spent together: the meals we've eaten, the parties we've thrown, the vacations we've taken, the arguments we've had, the sex we've had, the griefs we've borne, the thousands of nights we've spent sleeping in the same bed, the long conversations we've had about politics, about religion, about books, about our friends, about our cats, about bad reality television.
And none of that has anything to do with fate.
To Read the Entire Essay
Friday, January 01, 2010
KCRW's Bookworm: James Galvin -- As Is
James Galvin -- As Is
Bookworm (KCRW)
One of our most tender poets (tough but tender), James Galvin, investigates his growing tendency toward poems that express his bitterness— toward politics, environmental despoilment, big business. Still he affirms, in poems that breathe with sweet relief, the ongoing possibility of love.
To Listen to the Reading
Bookworm (KCRW)
One of our most tender poets (tough but tender), James Galvin, investigates his growing tendency toward poems that express his bitterness— toward politics, environmental despoilment, big business. Still he affirms, in poems that breathe with sweet relief, the ongoing possibility of love.
To Listen to the Reading
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Creative Screenwriting: Screenwriter Nancy Oliver -- Lars and the Real Girl
Lars and the Real Girl Q&A
Creative Screenwriting
Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Nancy Oliver about Lars and the Real Girl
To Listen to the Interview
Creative Screenwriting
Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Nancy Oliver about Lars and the Real Girl
To Listen to the Interview
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