will the history girls please stand up?

Last night I stayed up way too late watching the National History Bee, televised for the first time this year. While as a history major I was obviously really excited by the concept, the execution was not so great. This post isn’t about the execution, however, because there was something worse happening on screen than Al Roker’s forced humor (bordering on meanness), or the color commentary, or the fact that Dallas, M.A.S.H., and I Love Lucy were all answers.

Out of 16 finalists, zero were girls.

Yep. Zero.

Honestly I don’t know who to be upset with here. The Bee’s sponsor Houghton Mifflin Harcourt probably wasn’t like “omg guys let’s keep out ALL the girls they have cooties,” and if it was the boys who got the questions right, it’s not like they were going to be like “nope, sorry dude, we have a quota we’re taking this girl instead.” But somewhere in the path to the History Bee finals, someone failed. Girls weren’t encouraged to apply, girls weren’t supported in their classes. I don’t know. But I refuse to believe that there wasn’t one middle-school girl in the entire country smart and educated enough to be among our nation’s top 16 history geeks. Why wasn’t she there?

And maybe this lack of girl contestants made me even more aware of the lack of women’s history questions. I stopped counting at 6, but there were definitely no more than 10 in the almost two hours I watched, and about half of the female figures only got “partial credit,” as part of a group of men (Vivian Vance and Desi Arnaz, for example). That is something I can be upset at the Bee for, and I am. Surely Oprah, Mother Theresa, Betsy Ross, and Anne Frank are not the ONLY women who have contributed to history. I remember five musical questions, all male-oriented. What about Janis Joplin? Josephine Baker? Loretta Lynn? Should we count the Verdi question as partial credit because the answer wasAida?

At least they mentioned women’s suffrage. I guess.

Frankly: I’m disappointed in you, National History Bee.

I would be interested in your theories about the lack of female contestants or questions, because I really don’t have any. Hit up the comments.

it’s a wiiiiilde wednesday!!

Aubrey Beardsley illustrated Oscar Wilde’s Salome, creating one of my favorite books ever because omg Beardsley is a genius illustrator. However—and perhaps not surprisingly—the two ended up not getting along very well. Wilde complained about the art, and in retaliation Beardsley drew this cartoon, responding to Wilde’s claim that he never did any research.

Why is it always the most volatile of artistic relationships that produce some of the greatest art?

bookgasm

So I am currently reading two books: Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick and Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog. Both are basically fabulous. Today I want to talk about the Herzog book because I’m basically bookgasming on every single page.

First, some background. Werner Herzog is one of my favorite directors; you’ve probably heard of Grizzly Man, that was his. But back in the ’70s and ’80s he was making movies with a man named Klaus Kinski, a brilliant madman of an actor. Aguirre: Wrath of God is one of the famous collaborations. Also: Fitzcarraldo.

Fitzcarraldo, set in the early 20th century, is about a European opera-lover (Kinski) in the Peruvian jungle who decides to become a rubber baron (also he wants to build an opera house). He gets his parcel of land for rubber harvesting, but for some reason—my memory gets a bit sketchy on the details here—he has to get a steamship from one river to another in order to get to the land, and he decides the best way to do this is to drag it over the top of a mountain. Here’s the trailer if you want the flavor:

So Herzog decided the best way to film the steamship being dragged over the top of a mountain in the Peruvian jungle was to actually drag a steamship over the top of a mountain in the Peruvian jungle. From the book, a conversation with the movie bosses:

The unquestioned assumption is that a plastic model ship will be pulled over a ridge in a studio, or possibly in a botanical garden that is apparently not far from here–or why not San Diego, where there are hothouses with good tropical settings. So what are bad tropical settings, I asked, and I told them the unquestioned assumption had to be a real steamship being hauled over a real mountain, though not for the sake of realism but for the stylization characteristic of grand opera. The pleasantries we exchanged from then on wore a thin coating of frost.

That ended up being an adventure. Throw in a totally crazy leading man and the making of Fitzcarraldo becomes the stuff of legend. There was a documentary made of the making of the film (Burden of Dreams) which I like almost as much as the film itself.

Here is what the filming of Fitzcarraldo looked like, from another famous documentary, this one by Herzog, called My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski. Herzog is the dude with the bandana headband near the end; you’ll figure out Kinski on your own. (even if you skipped the last clip you should watch this one…)

Which led to this, one of the most famous stories to come out of Fitzcarraldo:

So that’s what Herzog was working with. The book I’m reading is his diary from the time of filming, recently published for the first time. I haven’t even gotten to Klaus Kinski yet and the book’s already a firecracker. And so beautifully written, it’s like poetry on every page (it was translated from German, but still). Peru is “a sleepy country at which God’s wrath has cooled.” The room he is using at Francis Ford Coppola’s house has “windows that are filled with this demented light.” And I love all his little stories.

In the Rio Santiago the body of a soldierwho had been shot came floating along, on his back, swollen, the legs bent at the knees and the arms bent likewise; he looked as if he were raising his hands. Birds had already hacked out his eyes and eaten away part of the face. The comandante here advised letting him float by—so as to avoid any trouble; they would have to deal with him farther downstream. He gave the swimmer a gentle nudge with his boot, and the corpse spun around once before the current took hold of him.

Basically you should read this book. I mean, I’m barely 20 pages into it, so obviously this isn’t a proper review at all (see all the youtube videos?) but wow. So good. Bookgasm.

In closing, one more video that you should watch even if you don’t care about anything else in this post. See, Kinski wasn’t originally the lead, it was some other guy who got fired or quit or something so they had to totally restart filming. This video shows a scene first done by the original actor and then by Kinski, and wow. Oh yes, and the reason you should watch it? Mick Jagger’s in it. Good thing Herzog changed his mind about that.

black-eyed peas: the legend is true

I am sick. And I know exactly who is to blame for this:

Um, what?

I hear you say.

I did not get my black-eyed peas yesterday. Black-eyed peas must be eaten on New Year’s day in order to ensure luck and good fortune for the coming year. (My mother is from the South–I have learned not to question these things.) And I tried, I really did. I bought them and everything. Was all ready to make them. But then at the last minute I decided to go to a friend’s house in Providence, where there would be NO black-eyed peas. I went and it was a lot of fun but of course I was worried about ruining the rest of 2009 just because of one day of foolishness.

I called my mother and was told that if I ate the black-eyed peas today it should be okay; I even got my little brother to promise to eat a double-serving to make up for me.

But apparently it didn’t work, because here I am, snotty and coughing. Happy New Year, my ass.

The black-eyed peas are now cooking. Hopefully if I eat enough of them I should be okay…

the faces may change…

Today I was at the mall, shopping for funeral clothes, and I stopped in the food court for some super-yummy fake Chinese food. And in the line next to me were four men, maybe in their late 20s or early 30s, wearing gray army camo. They all looked tired.

Every armed services person I see these days looks tired.

Then I took my yummy fake Chinese food and sat at a table to eat it. At the table next to me were four old men, smiling, laughing at old jokes, just sitting and talking–about Germans and Germany, and U-Boats, and World War II.

Who knew there was poetry to be found at the mall food court?

And all I could think was, I hope the four young men get the chance to turn into the four old men.