Or Culture Schlock. In some ways the whole blog is about the title subject, but more and more, American schlock is finding its way to German arteries, waistlines, and blood sugar: the fifteen-year-old just had another wireless-LAN party with his pals (translation: all-nighter devoted to the kind of computer games that Mom does not like, accompanied by potato chips, tortilla chips, pork-rind thingies, chocolate, and of course coca-cola--every VERBOTEN thing under the sun that originated in the U.S. of A.)
Nevertheless, I find a few moments of Culture Shock had indeed escaped this anecdotal blog, and I list them here for your delectation:
(1) Once, long ago in a Bavaria far away, when I was still pregnant with my firstborn and my husband and I were taking an afternoon "nap"--the kind we're only awake enough for on a Sunday afternoon these days--a knock came at the door. Our elderly neighbor had invited us for coffee and cake more than a week before, and truth be known, we had forgotten all about it. I vaulted out of bed, hastily donning a robe, and opened the front door, only to find standing there, freshly coiffed and almost wringing her hands, the lovely old lady, behind whom I could see her open door leading into a living room with a white-tableclothed, freshly-laid table with porcelain gold-and-white coffee cups.
"Come you?" she asked.
Yes, I said yes I, er, did, I mean, yes. And she never knew that I meant that in both senses of the word.
(2) I love to window-shop. And I especially like to look into the windows of jewelry stores and gaze at the pearls and the semi-precious stones. So imagine my surprise when I found something in the window that I particularly liked, such that my gaze wandered above to look for the name of the store, but the word "Schmuck" hit me first.
Now, for German readers, in American English, a schmuck is a jerk, a dick, literally (Yiddish, in use since 1892) a penis. But here, "schmuck" just means jewelry.
And that all made sense, in a way--the family jewels are one's most prized possession.
(3) Stoppersocken remain a required item here, especially for children. I kept forgetting to buy them for my kids and the other mommies kept shaking their heads and insisting that my child would CATCH a COLD!! These socks with little rubber treads attached to them are what children put on their feet after they take off their shoes upon entering the home of a playmate or their kindergarten homeroom; some schools ask children to put on "house shoes"--study rubber-soled shoes that I mistook for sneakers and bought for one of my children once. They were too young to wave them at me and inform me that these shoes could only be worn indoors, but I soon learned. I also learned that I was expected to provide house shoes to guests, who do sometimes bring their own because they know that I always forget, and put them on when entering other persons' homes. But I always think: who wants to wear old sweaty slippers that have been on somebody else's feet?
Everybody in Deutschland, it seems, except me.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
The Critical Mom Rediscovers Poetry
These are the times that try anybody's soul, and the band-aid to slap on the bruise is a good poem. I've been re-reading Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, Charles Simic, and all my favorite Seventeenth-Century English religious poets, the ones with the numbers games and the word-play and green grass in a green glade. I go for the direct, the obviously autobiographical, although I'd use the term broadly. I find, having written a poem or two, that the combination of a bad headache, a touch of flu, and exhaustion can produce a nightmare, the contents of which easily fills a poem. But here's a tribute to some favorites, all found online, and why I think they're great:
Letter to New York, by Elizabeth Bishop
For Louise Crane
In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:
taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road gose round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,
and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,
and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so teribly late,
and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.
--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.
Now this is a love letter to a great city written by someone who catches the mood of the place exactly--even though she didn't live there, in fact, spent much of her time in Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, and Brazil.
Another favorite: Robert Lowell's
For Louise Crane
In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:
taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road gose round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,
and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,
and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so teribly late,
and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.
--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.
Now this is a love letter to a great city written by someone who catches the mood of the place exactly--even though she didn't live there, in fact, spent much of her time in Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, and Brazil.
Another favorite: Robert Lowell's
"To Speak of Woe that Is in Marriage"
"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
—Schopenhauer
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
—Schopenhauer
"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.
Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . .
It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust—
whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.
My only thought is how to keep alive.
What makes him tick? Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . .
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf
The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms.Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.
Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . .
It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust--
whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.
My only thought is how to keep alive.
What makes him tick?Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . .
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant.
Not too many guys can really take a title from Chaucer's Wife of Bath and update her complaints--this 1976 poem seems to me to do just that. And who'd think of rhyming "disputes" with "prostitutes?"
Here's another, from Sharon Olds:
Primitive
I have heard about the civilized,
the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are
savages. You come in with a bag,
hold it out to me in silence.
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it
and understand the message: I have
pleased you greatly last night. We sit
quietly, side by side, to eat,
the long pancakes dangling and spilling,
fragrant sauce dripping out,
and glance at each other askance, wordless,
the corners of our eyes clear as spear points
laid along the sill to show
a friend sits with a friend here.
the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are
savages. You come in with a bag,
hold it out to me in silence.
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it
and understand the message: I have
pleased you greatly last night. We sit
quietly, side by side, to eat,
the long pancakes dangling and spilling,
fragrant sauce dripping out,
and glance at each other askance, wordless,
the corners of our eyes clear as spear points
laid along the sill to show
a friend sits with a friend here.
Here is love, here is marriage, here is passion . . . and here is Moo Shu Pork. Add a glass of wine, and I'm in heaven.
"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
—Schopenhauer
"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.
Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . .
It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust—
whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.
My only thought is how to keep alive.
What makes him tick? Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . .
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf
"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
—Schopenhauer
"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.
Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . .
It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust—
whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.
My only thought is how to keep alive.
What makes him tick? Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . .
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf
"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
—Schopenhauer
"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor's edge.
This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.
Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . .
It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust—
whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.
My only thought is how to keep alive.
What makes him tick? Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . .
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf
"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
—Schopenhauer
"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open. Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen. My hopped up husband drops his home disputes, and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes, free-lancing out along the razor's edge. This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge. Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . . It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust— whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five. My only thought is how to keep alive. What makes him tick? Each night now I tie ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . . Gored by the climacteric of his want, he stalls above me like an eleph- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15282#sthash.IPl2N79W.dpuf |
Thursday, February 13, 2014
How to Get Banned by the BBC Website
(1) You don't have to write !@#$%^&!!! or even &*()_______++++{}:"|M<>‰ˇ›fifl‡!!
(2) You don't have to write a single four-letter word.
(3) You don't have to pose threats. Or even say so-in-so ought to be dealt with by the likes of Tony Soprano.
(4) You do, apparently, have to say that somebody did something bad. Even if you were under the bed watching that person do the bad thing, but it has not yet been proven in court that the bad deed was accomplished, the English can take you to court. Even if the criminal is now dead, his family can claim defamation.
So I'm actually not sure whether my remark that Woody Allen incriminates himself every time he breathes did it, or my remark that Oscar Wilde had sex with underage boys and gave his wife syphilis. Possibly both. Now, Oscar Wilde died in 1900, but his grandson lives on, and once upon a time he wanted to sue me for libel--not because I said in my book that Oscar Wilde had sex with men, but because I said in my book that Oscar Wilde had syphilis, and gave it to other people, including his wife. Folks have been fighting over that finding for more than a decade--check out the controversy on Googlescholar.
In any case, I received an e-mail from DoNotReply at the BBC thanking me for contributing to their web site, and saying that my posting contravened one of their House Rules. My comment was "considered to have broken" the house rule about "defamatory" statements. I was invited to go to a link explaining the rules, where I found a photograph of Caroline Langrishe as the barrister Georgina Channing in the third series of 'Judge John Deed'--she is wearing one of those white curly wigs, with her own blond locks and cute diamond earrings peeking out.
I got it! Women can be censors too. What an accomplishment.
My comment had been appended to an article entitled, "Did Woody Allen Times opinion article change any minds?"
So here's the post that they deleted. I find that it did, after all, contain a hint of violence:
Allen incriminates himself every time he breathes. Farrow is straightforward. Allen dodges, shrugs, and marries his girlfriend's daughter. He's a terrible man, a great artist. I laugh at The Importance of Being Earnest although Oscar preferred underage boys and gave his wife syphilis. I love Allen's films, but if he ever comes within ten feet of my daughter, he's dead.
Now, I wonder whether one of the following would have allowed my post to remain on the Beeb's website:
(1) Reportedly,
(2) In my opinion . . .
These terms are generally resorted to by American academic publishers, but seldom bothered with by American newspapers. Or blogs. Which brings me to my next question: is my blog going to be prosecuted under
(a) German law
(b) American law
(c) international law
(d) No law, 'cause I'm nobody (who are you?) and nobody reads this and I don't make enough money to keep a student alive, although I'm 57.
Let's suppose somebody, like maybe even Woody Allen, reads my blog and doesn't like my remark that I believe Dylan Farrow and that his attempt to refute her story does the reverse. I'll go one further. Reader, go through his stories and his screenplays; watch interviews with him on the topic of whether he molested Farrow, watch every film he's made.
Then try to find the stomach to say she's lying, or "deluded." I bet you can't do it.
But I would also like for Woody Allen to avoid the fate of Oscar Wilde, whose best play folded soon after he was arrested. The Importance of Being Earnest premiered at the St. James Theatre in London on Valentine's Day, 1895. When on 5 April 1895, Wilde was arrested on a charge of "gross indecency" (that was the legal term for any kind of gay sex not involving anal penetration) his his name was removed from the program and from all advertising for the play. The box office collapsed immediately and the play closed on 8 May, having run for 83 performances. The New York production on Broadway folded after twelve performances. The play was not revived in the English language until years after Wilde's death. Only the Germans translated and performed Wilde when his name was still considered unmentionable in the English-speaking world.
A great work of art is still a great work of art, no matter what. And I speak as one whose grandfather, a painter still known for his lyrical busts and portraits of Anaïs Nin, molested her mother, and whose father, a not untalented pianist and teacher, got drunk and molested her. And I still say, reject the man and embrace the artist. The name constantly associated with Allen now on blogs is Roman Polanski; let's try another for a change. Go to posts on DemocraticUnderground.com and find the question "What has James Levine (the brilliant director of the Metropolitan Opera) done that was so bad?" answered with: "I wouldn't leave my kid alone with him." Other posts implied an omnivorous sexual appetite involving harassment of any female crossing his path--along with young boys. Arthur Fiedler's daughter, whom I knew, lowered her eyes when talking about Levine's interest in young boys--a topic not included in Molto Agitato, her book about the Metropolitan Opera. She got into plenty of trouble with her own family for spilling the beans on Dad in her book, Papa,the Pops, and Me, also because people don't like to separate the man from the artist. You don't have to live with Allen, or Polanski, or Levine. But still, you don't want to be deprived of the ability to admire them. Forget it. Admire the art: it stands by itself.
Now, Wilde's "crime" was not being gay, but forcing a population devoted to repressing a number of sexual desires to face them. His boyfriend, irked because the British public discreetly looked away as he held hands with Oscar in a popular watering hole, fired a pistol at the ceiling. Forced to look at what they absolutely did not want to see, the British public took revenge. Allen's crime can't be compared to Wilde's, because Allen in secret took advantage of a child, and harmed her. He severely damaged another life. Oh, in my opinion, ye who judge. That goes for every word in this, and all other posts. If Wilde was a crusader for gay rights, from whose early advocacy has come genuine civil rights, we don't want to go down the same road with Allen. He's in any case not campaigning for the "rights" of the pedophile. He's denying all, and saying the charges are "ludicrous" (his word). Even he knows he's supposed to think what he did was bad. What I'm hearing as I watch him is "I don't remember anyway and it wasn't so bad and jeez, the kid didn't mind in fact the kid seemed to like it and probably the time she didn't she forgot about it and oh, she's such a great little kid and why is this such a problem anyway it all happened a long time ago and only once and anyway it doesn't matter." You're never going to get any answer other than that out of him; he will never see it any other way. He will never be moral. But we can be moral. We can watch and learn and warn children, and we can have not sympathy for the devil but understanding for a pathetic person with zero impulse control. Let him make movies--they are terrific movies!--and parents, watch your kids.
(2) You don't have to write a single four-letter word.
(3) You don't have to pose threats. Or even say so-in-so ought to be dealt with by the likes of Tony Soprano.
(4) You do, apparently, have to say that somebody did something bad. Even if you were under the bed watching that person do the bad thing, but it has not yet been proven in court that the bad deed was accomplished, the English can take you to court. Even if the criminal is now dead, his family can claim defamation.
So I'm actually not sure whether my remark that Woody Allen incriminates himself every time he breathes did it, or my remark that Oscar Wilde had sex with underage boys and gave his wife syphilis. Possibly both. Now, Oscar Wilde died in 1900, but his grandson lives on, and once upon a time he wanted to sue me for libel--not because I said in my book that Oscar Wilde had sex with men, but because I said in my book that Oscar Wilde had syphilis, and gave it to other people, including his wife. Folks have been fighting over that finding for more than a decade--check out the controversy on Googlescholar.
In any case, I received an e-mail from DoNotReply at the BBC thanking me for contributing to their web site, and saying that my posting contravened one of their House Rules. My comment was "considered to have broken" the house rule about "defamatory" statements. I was invited to go to a link explaining the rules, where I found a photograph of Caroline Langrishe as the barrister Georgina Channing in the third series of 'Judge John Deed'--she is wearing one of those white curly wigs, with her own blond locks and cute diamond earrings peeking out.
I got it! Women can be censors too. What an accomplishment.
My comment had been appended to an article entitled, "Did Woody Allen Times opinion article change any minds?"
So here's the post that they deleted. I find that it did, after all, contain a hint of violence:
Allen incriminates himself every time he breathes. Farrow is straightforward. Allen dodges, shrugs, and marries his girlfriend's daughter. He's a terrible man, a great artist. I laugh at The Importance of Being Earnest although Oscar preferred underage boys and gave his wife syphilis. I love Allen's films, but if he ever comes within ten feet of my daughter, he's dead.
Now, I wonder whether one of the following would have allowed my post to remain on the Beeb's website:
(1) Reportedly,
(2) In my opinion . . .
These terms are generally resorted to by American academic publishers, but seldom bothered with by American newspapers. Or blogs. Which brings me to my next question: is my blog going to be prosecuted under
(a) German law
(b) American law
(c) international law
(d) No law, 'cause I'm nobody (who are you?) and nobody reads this and I don't make enough money to keep a student alive, although I'm 57.
Let's suppose somebody, like maybe even Woody Allen, reads my blog and doesn't like my remark that I believe Dylan Farrow and that his attempt to refute her story does the reverse. I'll go one further. Reader, go through his stories and his screenplays; watch interviews with him on the topic of whether he molested Farrow, watch every film he's made.
Then try to find the stomach to say she's lying, or "deluded." I bet you can't do it.
But I would also like for Woody Allen to avoid the fate of Oscar Wilde, whose best play folded soon after he was arrested. The Importance of Being Earnest premiered at the St. James Theatre in London on Valentine's Day, 1895. When on 5 April 1895, Wilde was arrested on a charge of "gross indecency" (that was the legal term for any kind of gay sex not involving anal penetration) his his name was removed from the program and from all advertising for the play. The box office collapsed immediately and the play closed on 8 May, having run for 83 performances. The New York production on Broadway folded after twelve performances. The play was not revived in the English language until years after Wilde's death. Only the Germans translated and performed Wilde when his name was still considered unmentionable in the English-speaking world.
A great work of art is still a great work of art, no matter what. And I speak as one whose grandfather, a painter still known for his lyrical busts and portraits of Anaïs Nin, molested her mother, and whose father, a not untalented pianist and teacher, got drunk and molested her. And I still say, reject the man and embrace the artist. The name constantly associated with Allen now on blogs is Roman Polanski; let's try another for a change. Go to posts on DemocraticUnderground.com and find the question "What has James Levine (the brilliant director of the Metropolitan Opera) done that was so bad?" answered with: "I wouldn't leave my kid alone with him." Other posts implied an omnivorous sexual appetite involving harassment of any female crossing his path--along with young boys. Arthur Fiedler's daughter, whom I knew, lowered her eyes when talking about Levine's interest in young boys--a topic not included in Molto Agitato, her book about the Metropolitan Opera. She got into plenty of trouble with her own family for spilling the beans on Dad in her book, Papa,the Pops, and Me, also because people don't like to separate the man from the artist. You don't have to live with Allen, or Polanski, or Levine. But still, you don't want to be deprived of the ability to admire them. Forget it. Admire the art: it stands by itself.
Now, Wilde's "crime" was not being gay, but forcing a population devoted to repressing a number of sexual desires to face them. His boyfriend, irked because the British public discreetly looked away as he held hands with Oscar in a popular watering hole, fired a pistol at the ceiling. Forced to look at what they absolutely did not want to see, the British public took revenge. Allen's crime can't be compared to Wilde's, because Allen in secret took advantage of a child, and harmed her. He severely damaged another life. Oh, in my opinion, ye who judge. That goes for every word in this, and all other posts. If Wilde was a crusader for gay rights, from whose early advocacy has come genuine civil rights, we don't want to go down the same road with Allen. He's in any case not campaigning for the "rights" of the pedophile. He's denying all, and saying the charges are "ludicrous" (his word). Even he knows he's supposed to think what he did was bad. What I'm hearing as I watch him is "I don't remember anyway and it wasn't so bad and jeez, the kid didn't mind in fact the kid seemed to like it and probably the time she didn't she forgot about it and oh, she's such a great little kid and why is this such a problem anyway it all happened a long time ago and only once and anyway it doesn't matter." You're never going to get any answer other than that out of him; he will never see it any other way. He will never be moral. But we can be moral. We can watch and learn and warn children, and we can have not sympathy for the devil but understanding for a pathetic person with zero impulse control. Let him make movies--they are terrific movies!--and parents, watch your kids.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Dylan Farrow's "Father"
I believe her. She's telling the truth. The more Allen talks, the more he incriminates himself. His New York Times rebuttal is all about himself and his needs and his anger and his accusations. Dylan Farrow's straightforward remarks contrast starkly with Allen's Miss-Piggylike shoulder-shrugging denials. Allen's
romance with Soon-Yi Previn floodlights his narcissism. Of all the
young girls in the world, he chose his girlfriend's daughter. Previn
may not actually have been under
the legal limit, but that's beside the point. Allen's relationship to
Previn's adoptive mother, the court's decision to remove him from
Dylan's life, the fact that he is old enough to be Previn's
great-grandfather all militate against the idea that he could be
innocent.
The details Ms. Farrow offers--the thumb stuck in her mouth, the face breathing into her naked lap, are convincing, but her symptoms convince even more: Dylan Farrow's despair expresses itself in self-cutting and a desire to destroy Woody Allen. Her unwillingness or inability to separate the bullying pedophile who took her up to the attic with the witty, brilliant filmmaker tends to confirm her story as well. The private self is not the public self. But how can you believe that when the public hero who seduces your seven-year-old self is the father who is supposed to be protecting you? You don't know why you are with him in this dark upstairs place, but he's promising to give you things and take you to Paris. All this--and seven years old is, in my experience, old enough to remember accurately--leaves you feeling guilty no matter how many times your therapists tell you it wasn't your fault. It leaves you with the feeling that the last person you can trust is yourself--because somehow, none of this would have happened if you had only been good. It leaves you with despair and with problems that seem too shameful to mention. You must have done something. So you feel untrustworthy, and trust no one, even when you want to do so.
Why did a roomful of psychiatrists at Yale insist that Dylan Farrow couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality because she said, "I like to cheat on my stories?"
A child who has been molested wants to control what happens to her body, and at the very least what happens to her story, because the story has become the only thing in her life over which she can exercise control. The last thing any seven-year-old--even one who has not been molested--needs in order to be able to tell the truth is an army of adults in white coats waving anatomically correct dolls.
Who does her brother, Moses the family therapist, imagine he is, insisting that Woody Allen could not possibly have molested her? Moses Farrow's degree in family therapy gives him no authority to say or to know this. Dylan Farrow is the only person in the world who knows what really happened.
But it's a failure of judgement to equate the artist with the man. The man Woody Allen seems to believe that Farrow's revelations just don't work in the conversation right now and maybe even believes himself when he says she's lying. His genius for lying seems just the quality that serves his art so well.*
So it's not surprising that people are equating the man with the artist. But they're different things. Subtract art, subtract inspiration, subtract genius from Allen, and what would he be? I think he'd be worse. I'd bet that a talentless pedophile spends more time seeking out and molesting children than a pedophile whose art takes up some of his energies. When I pick up the DSM--the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association--it's got case studies of bus drivers and "semi-skilled" men who go after any child of either sex who crosses their path. Of these types, maybe the Bible has it right--just tie a millstone around their neck and let them be dropped into the sea. Artists are more complicated. If I could throw out the bad father and keep the artist, I'd do it--that's a problem King Solomon couldn't solve.
I went to the same school as Dylan Farrow, but never knew her--many years separate us. I learned of her revelations through a message sent by an alumna who is a clinical psychologist and knew Farrow as a child. The psychologist applauds Farrow's bravery, wondering what the school should do to protect girls better. The classmate who sent the link on to me wrote, "I'm not sure how to respond to this. Thoughts?" To me, this question broadcasts an unwillingness to face Farrow's confession--we all want to blot it out. Unfairly, I sent a detailed, enraged description of my own experiences, in essence the same, to my classmate, in a foolish attempt to jolt her into doing what I think everyone reading Farrow's story should do: write to her and say: "I believe you! Thank you for telling us! We support you!"
But that doesn't mean I'll never see another Woody Allen movie. It means that I'd never let him walk into the same room as my daughter.
*For further details, see Oscar Wilde's The Decay of Lying: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/decay.html
The details Ms. Farrow offers--the thumb stuck in her mouth, the face breathing into her naked lap, are convincing, but her symptoms convince even more: Dylan Farrow's despair expresses itself in self-cutting and a desire to destroy Woody Allen. Her unwillingness or inability to separate the bullying pedophile who took her up to the attic with the witty, brilliant filmmaker tends to confirm her story as well. The private self is not the public self. But how can you believe that when the public hero who seduces your seven-year-old self is the father who is supposed to be protecting you? You don't know why you are with him in this dark upstairs place, but he's promising to give you things and take you to Paris. All this--and seven years old is, in my experience, old enough to remember accurately--leaves you feeling guilty no matter how many times your therapists tell you it wasn't your fault. It leaves you with the feeling that the last person you can trust is yourself--because somehow, none of this would have happened if you had only been good. It leaves you with despair and with problems that seem too shameful to mention. You must have done something. So you feel untrustworthy, and trust no one, even when you want to do so.
Why did a roomful of psychiatrists at Yale insist that Dylan Farrow couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality because she said, "I like to cheat on my stories?"
A child who has been molested wants to control what happens to her body, and at the very least what happens to her story, because the story has become the only thing in her life over which she can exercise control. The last thing any seven-year-old--even one who has not been molested--needs in order to be able to tell the truth is an army of adults in white coats waving anatomically correct dolls.
Who does her brother, Moses the family therapist, imagine he is, insisting that Woody Allen could not possibly have molested her? Moses Farrow's degree in family therapy gives him no authority to say or to know this. Dylan Farrow is the only person in the world who knows what really happened.
But it's a failure of judgement to equate the artist with the man. The man Woody Allen seems to believe that Farrow's revelations just don't work in the conversation right now and maybe even believes himself when he says she's lying. His genius for lying seems just the quality that serves his art so well.*
So it's not surprising that people are equating the man with the artist. But they're different things. Subtract art, subtract inspiration, subtract genius from Allen, and what would he be? I think he'd be worse. I'd bet that a talentless pedophile spends more time seeking out and molesting children than a pedophile whose art takes up some of his energies. When I pick up the DSM--the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association--it's got case studies of bus drivers and "semi-skilled" men who go after any child of either sex who crosses their path. Of these types, maybe the Bible has it right--just tie a millstone around their neck and let them be dropped into the sea. Artists are more complicated. If I could throw out the bad father and keep the artist, I'd do it--that's a problem King Solomon couldn't solve.
I went to the same school as Dylan Farrow, but never knew her--many years separate us. I learned of her revelations through a message sent by an alumna who is a clinical psychologist and knew Farrow as a child. The psychologist applauds Farrow's bravery, wondering what the school should do to protect girls better. The classmate who sent the link on to me wrote, "I'm not sure how to respond to this. Thoughts?" To me, this question broadcasts an unwillingness to face Farrow's confession--we all want to blot it out. Unfairly, I sent a detailed, enraged description of my own experiences, in essence the same, to my classmate, in a foolish attempt to jolt her into doing what I think everyone reading Farrow's story should do: write to her and say: "I believe you! Thank you for telling us! We support you!"
But that doesn't mean I'll never see another Woody Allen movie. It means that I'd never let him walk into the same room as my daughter.
*For further details, see Oscar Wilde's The Decay of Lying: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/decay.html
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