An Open Letter to John Mayer

A couple of weeks ago, I had a craving for a vanilla latte. It happens from time to time. And it led me to the Starbucks drive-through, where hip, friendly barista Eric prepared the desired latte. During the preparation, however, a somewhat bizarre incident occurred. A skinny kid with orange, curly hair - presumably another barista, although I can't really be certain - popped into the window, handed over a postcard, and said, "Here's something on John Mayer, and, uh, how cool he is." Then this mysterious messenger, possibly some sort of elf employed by pop stars to regularly solicit coffee shop customers, disappeared again, without a trace.

It was an awkward bit of promotion in the first place, and doubly ineffectual considering who the recipient was - namely, me. Because I am not a John Mayer fan. I know you're all gasping and clutching pearls at that revelation, because you were certain the Slayer playlist was just a front for illicit John Mayer fandom. But, no, in all honesty, I really don't like the stuff. It bores the hell out of me, frankly. But despite that, or ironically because of it, I have my own John Mayer story to tell. And here it is.

I saw John Mayer in concert once, a few years back. I went with a friend who is a fan and needed a companion, and well, I'll obviously go to see just about anything. I honestly enjoyed the first opening act, singer/songwriter Martin Sexton (the second act, Guster, is easily the most annoying and untalented band I have ever personally encountered and if I ever get around to becoming that rock vigilante and destroying every weak, whiny, fluffy-haired excuse for a band the world over, they're at the top of the list). And then the Mayer. Who, contrary to my punk-snob expectations, didn't suck. In fact, I was very impressed by John Mayer himself. That boy can play guitar. The best parts of his show were easily the times when he went off on his own with just his electric guitar, into these great bluesy riffs, including a great song with aforementioned Sexton. To this day, if I had the opportunity to see him in some little basement blues club while he just played guitar, I would totally be there. As long as he promised none of that singing Top 40 hits stuff.

The worst part of his show was the audience, largely teenagers who knew the songs played on MTV and couldn't care less about hearing anything else. You could completely tell when they lost interest in what Mayer was playing by the audible rising buzz of conversation, which was how they filled the time until he played something else they could sing along to. After spending fifty percent of the show in the middle of that, I finally disengaged myself from the crowd, found a bench outside the tent, and enjoyed the Cleveland summer evening.

And so ends the first phase of my John Mayer tale. Still wasn't a fan, but gave him props when the subject came up. Which it hardly ever did. (Too busy getting drunk at Slayer and Misfits shows.) I didn't think much about the matter until recently, after the odd Starbucks promotion incident. I decided to do some Googling, which turned up John Mayer's blog.

And what do you know? He's pretty funny. He writes about zombies. And his numerous posts dedicated to different guitars and musical equipment smacks of a charming geek nature. Plus, the more I think about it, he's only four years older than I am, and obviously incredibly successful doing what he loves, and I respect that. All of which makes me realize it's about time to write an open letter of truce - nay, appreciation - to one John Mayer.

Dear John Mayer,

Sorry about leaving your show that one time. Now I think you're a pretty cool guy. Not like you care that much, but, you know. Just saying.

Good luck with everything. If you're ever bored in Ohio sometime (which, if you're ever in Ohio you probably will be, it's kind of what we do here), I'll buy you a beer. Maybe we can go visit the weird barista guy at Starbucks. He thinks you're really cool too.

Lots of love,
Jen

Technorati tags: John Mayer

The Weekly for 10/27

Dayton Art Institute's Rembrandt Exhibition. I am going to go see this tomorrow. I figured I wouldn't have such a good opportunity to view a collection of Rembrandts for a very long time, if ever. It's been a long time since I've been able to art it up at a museum, one of my favorite pastimes, so I'm looking forward to it.

Firefox 2.0. Slightly sleeker interface, better tabbed browsing, and the wonderful automatic spell check. Approval registered.

Ten Worst Portrayals of Technology in Film. Not to be such a nitpicky, uber-geek about this, but they never get this stuff right. I even got irritated the other night at my beloved Law and Order: CI (and even more beloved Detective Goren) for the most inaccurate hacking of a computer logon password ever. There should be a serious market for technical advisers to media writers. Guys, it would save you a ton of complaint email from geeks like me with nothing better to do.

Oldest Computers on University of Iowa Campus. Seriously, after you work at a campus IT department for a couple of years, stories like this aren't nearly so funny. Somebody's got to support those dinosaurs. Although it does improve my memories of certain professors who refused to upgrade from Word Perfect for DOS or relinquish their five hundred floppy disks.

The Killers' Video for "Bones." I was really excited when I heard that Tim Burton was going to be directing this. But the result left me a little disappointed (not unlike the entire Sam's Town album, although I will admit it's growing on me a little bit). It's a cute video. I guess I just wanted it to be more non-music-video-ish. I get tired of the same formula, pacing, and shots. Skeletons are always a nice touch, though.

Jack Black's Anti-Piracy PSA. Save the rocket sauce.

Iggy Pop's Concert Rider. If I were a rock star, I would require that all my roadies be this funny.

Star Wars Desert Set Photo. Browsing on stock xchng, I found this interesting shot of the original Star Wars set, many years after the fact. Mos Eisley, if I'm not mistaken. And if you know me at all, you know there isn't much chance of that.

Feminist Filmmaking the Marie Antoinette Way

I have a very long, complicated, tortured affair of opinions about Sofia Coppola. This is a common malady, as far as I can discern. It seems that very few film critics can pinpoint exactly why they like or dislike (or revile or worship) her. In the wake of the opening of her Marie Antoinette, I started thinking about the matter again. And while I definitely didn't crack the entire enigma that is Sofia, I think I managed to work out two facts: 1) I don't like her filmmaking style, and 2) why I don't like her filmmaking style.

[As a quick disclaimer, however - I have not yet seen Marie Antoinette. I think, in general, it's a good policy to not talk too much about things I haven't experienced; but in this case, I'm largely discussing the aura and phenomena of the film, and its director's past films, as opposed to a straight-up critique of the film alone. So I'm giving myself a pass this time.]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Sofia Coppola owes a great amount of her success to her lineage. Having Francis Ford as a father undoubtedly gave her a head start on learning how the make films, not to mention bestowed upon her some of the best networking opportunities available. It's probably not worth harping on this overmuch, despite the fact it always has bugged me, and always will. But it does set the stage for a character very much like the historical persona of Marie Antoinette herself: privileged, distant, and concerned with matters internal rather than external. The heroines of Coppola's first two films, Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides, followed similar patterns. It's almost impossible to not loop them together as a fairly accurate and cohesive representation of Coppola's experience, values, and perspective. That is, if Coppola is in truth a filmmaker who is capable of accomplishing such representation.

And she most certainly is. Coppola is extremely talented, she has incredible taste, and a finely-tuned instinct about how to fit the various aspects of a film's puzzle pieces together into an impressive whole. Her films are beautiful, exquisite at times. Delicate, fragile, understated, and often misunderstood. As are her heroines. As she herself is. And this is where we drag in the charge of feminism.

Sofia Coppola is one of the most well-known and famous women working behind the cameras in Hollywood today - and she became well-known for that work, which is different from a famous actress who one day takes up directing or producing. She has an Oscar for screenwriting from the Academy that has given very few such awards to women (and absolutely none to female directors, thus far). Her films to date, (including early short films like Lick the Star) have all featured female protagonists making their way through a world often overwhelming and unjust towards young women. On top of this, she herself is a model of femininity - pretty, stylish, demure, for whom Marc Jacobs has even christened a handbag. She's a real-life philosopher-princess. She's a natural candidate for feminist heroine. And reviewers have hailed her as such (here and here, just for example). But I have my doubts that her style of feminist filmmaking is doing women, or film in general, any favors.

Let me recycle some of the terms of description I've already used: distant, fragile, demure, understated, misunderstood. Concerned with matters internal at the expense of matters external, and with the almost overwhelming pressures stacked up against women. The choice to make a sympathetic film about Marie Antoinette is a very telling one. It makes Marie into a victim. It makes her wronged and helpless and lost. And it pushes to the forefront the idea that Coppola has essentially been toying with all along - the idea of womanhood as victimhood.

At this point, we're still in valid feminist territory with this conclusion. She could be seen as a feminist heroine for drawing these parallels and holding them up for examination. But my question is - what's the next step? What should we women do about it? Instead of offering solutions, it seems as if Coppola is glamorizing the problems. She depicts women caught in overpowering life circumstances and unjust power structures great and small, and lays the blame and responsibility of change on the powers that be rather than the women themselves.

Feminist filmmaking? Not for me. I want to see women on film clear-minded and actively engaged in the world around them, not lost waifs in search of an audience. I want to see women on film as agents of change, not victims of fate. And I want to see women making films who are dedicated to leading the revolution, not willing to be swept away by it. If Sofia Coppola grows into this - fantastic, she'll have my full attention. But otherwise - I think it's time to keep looking elsewhere.

Technorati tags: Sofia Coppola, Marie Antoinette, filmmaking, women and film, film

Ohio Voting Guide

I just sat down to fill out my absentee ballot, and it seemed like a good invitation to compile my political recommendations for online consumption. Be advised all this is comes from a philosophically-evolving, left-leaning libertarian, who has a hard time explaining what that even means.

The Issues: This year I have a pretty good perspective on the issues up for vote because I spent a large part of my summer working as a petitioner to get most of the issues on the ballot. (Granted, I did the work mostly for the money, but it had a bright side.) Anyway, here's the deal:

» Issue 1. Concerning worker's compensation - it appears on my ballot, but apparently has been officially withdrawn. I think it is a matter of questions with the petitions' validity. Which I can tell you firsthand is a bitch to insure, even with the best intentions and strategies. The referendum was very complicated and hard to understand anyway.

» Issue 2. Amendment to raise minimum wage. Includes some exceptions for small businesses, family-owned businesses, etc. That's pretty much all that's to it. This is where my left-leaning tendencies come into play - vote yes on 2.

» Issue 3. Familiarly known as the Ohio Learn and Earn initiative. This is the controversial one, at least for the conservative moralists (although, I suppose, what isn't). Basically, this constitutional amendment will allow slot machines at seven racing establishments across the state. 30% of the revenue will be used to fund college scholarships and grants for Ohio students; the rest goes towards establishment owners and operators, local governments, gaming addiction servies and a commision on gaming integrity.

The real issue at hand here is if one feels she has the right to tell other adults what they can and cannot do with their own time and money. I say, people can do whatever the hell they want without directly hurting someone else, in which category slot machines and gambling in general falls, and if as a result, money is made available for deserving students to attend college, by all means make it possible. Vote yes on 3.

Oh, and if you don't really care, then do me a favor and just vote yes, just to piss off all of the old, bitter and possibly crazy people who felt it necessary to literally scream at me on the street because they don't like gambling.

» Issue 4 & 5. Now I start to show my libertarian stripes in earnest. Both Issues 4 and 5 deal with laws against smoking in public places. Issue 4, in general, overturns many smoking prohibition rules already in place and makes future local prohibitions invalid. Issue 5 seeks to prohibit smoking within places of employment. There's a lot of fine print in these two, so please take the time to read the details on the OhioVotes informational pdf. Essentially, I don't think the government should be telling people if, when, and where they're allowed to smoke. I don't smoke, and I don't prefer to be around it; but I also do not believe this makes me inherently more special than those who do. While I wrote only two paragraphs ago that the one restriction on people's behavior I concede is when it is directly harming others, here we are talking about a nominal, temporary contact that will not necessarily cause permanent harm - and if even the smallest chance of direct harm does exist, I do not believe it is larger than the harm caused by a governmental imposition of preference on its citizens as a whole.

If you don't like direct sunlight and are scared of skin cancer, then you don't sit at a sidewalk cafe that puts you in the line of it. It's that simple. You certainly don't all ban sidewalk cafes that are in the line of direct sunlight. If you don't like smoke and are scared of lung cancer, then you don't go into an establishment that allows smoking. If enough people are boycotting an establishment because of a smoking policy, the establishment itself can make the call on whether or not it wishes to change its policy. If it does, then the smokers who previously patronized it will find or create someplace else to go, and vice versa if the policy is not changed. The bottom line is that individuals are capable of making their own choices about what to do and where to go without the government mandating it for them. They can enact the change they wish to see with their own power, instead of expecting it to be done for them by a condescending, micromanaging, Big Brother agency. Vote yes on 4 and no on 5.

Candidates: I'm not going to go into much on candidates. I got sick a long time ago of making compromises, picking the lesser of two evils, etc. So I'll only mention the libertarian candidate for governor, Bill Peirce. A highly educated economist, Peirce is the best bet for economy improvement, and is dedicated to ending eminent domain abuse. If you're into that, then go for it. In any case, you can make a stand against Blackwell's attempts to squash third parties.

Technorati tags: Ohio election, libertarianism

The Weekly for 10/20

» Obviously the most important news this week: Jeffery wins Project Runway! He wasn't my favorite at the beginning, but he was by the end. And if I could afford it now, I'd be bidding the hell out of the auction for his red polka-dot finale dress. Don't tell me I couldn't totally rock that dress. Because I could.

» Fashion Designers Introduce Less-Than-Zero Sizes. So I've finally figured out why I can't find clothes that fit me - the trend of "downsizing," or giving standard sizes lower numbers so women feel better about their sizes. Which results in naturally small women (like me) being pushed into the negative size range, and thus into seeming obscurity. While it's great the majority of women feel better about buying clothes, I, however, feel like a freak because I search months for one pair of jeans that sort of fits. I have had it suggested to me that I am in fact a freak, though, so maybe that accounts for it.

» Richard Dawkins on The Colbert Report. Give 'em hell, Dick. Except, of course, it doesn't exist. But I mean apart from that.

» Scarlett Johansson To Make Tom Waits Cover Album. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, and no.

» Most mothers don't get enough sleep. Thank god someone put the time, money and effort into doing a scientific study on this. Instead of, oh, I don't know, simply asking any given mother on the face of the entire planet.

» Rock Band Name Origins. For those times when you absolutely have to know what KDFDM stands for. Or how the members of Aqua were inspired to name themselves.

In WebsiteNews: I fell behind on my post-publishing schedule this week (it was a terribly complicated and demanding one of a publishing a post a day), but I'm going to catch up this weekend. I actually have most of them written, just not published. I can always crank out a weekly list of snark, though, so there you are. Next week should see me on a regular post-a-day schedule. I also have finished all the pages of the site except for the portfolio pages, which I will also catch up on this weekend.

In JenNews: In case you hadn't heard, I now have a new cell number, contact me if I missed getting you the info. Work is going well and I am actively looking for apartments in the city. I have a viewing appointment this weekend that very likely could be the one. Oh, and I have awesome new boots. That's all you need to know.

National Novel Writing Month

You may not be aware of this, but every year, come November 1, an alarmingly large number of people across the world commit themselves to writing an entire novel by the end of the month, for no good reason whatsoever.

This might not be entirely true - there are reasons. It's a challenge, obviously. For those of us who scribble regularly and suffer from writer's block at times, it pushes us to learn the habit of writing no matter what the circumstances. And it's a lot of fun to be involved in the creation of something like a novel. Not to mention that since so many people do particpate, there's a vibrant and supportive online community, as well as active writing groups who meet in person throughout the year.

But NaNoWriMo, which is essentially a competition to write 50,000 words of fiction within a month's time, is still a bit of a strange endeavor. I don't know exactly what attracts its participants year after year after year, but even after two failed attempts in 2001 and 2002, and not even any attemtps after that, I know I still thought about it every November.

The idea of being a "writer," with a novel and everything, is an alluring one. I've been a writer in some form or another since I was nine years old. For a long period of time it was my sole aim in life. But it takes a lot of discipline to keep it up. The extent of my material reward for years and years of doing it has been one short story published in a very small publication for no pay, and that's it. Of course the personal reward can make up the difference, but it certainly doesn't make a livelihood. And if you devote yourself to making a livelihood, you will struggle to find enough time and energy to write. I finally decided that I needed to live more before I could write more, at least in the way I wanted to, and so I gave up writing full-time to go back to school and, well, live. I continue to keep a freeform journal - which, being a common practice of hundreds of disgruntled teenage girls as well, probably doesn't do a lot to further my cause as a real, honest-to-goodness writer.

But last week I got a great idea for a novel, and, well, November's just around the corner. Why not try again.

If I make it to the finish line, I intend to polish up my opus and make it available for free download as an ebook. If you're interested in being a beta reader/editor of the first draft, leave me a comment or send an email.

[image credit: taliesin @ morguefile.com]

Technorati tags: National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, writing

The Weekly for 10/13

» CBGB Closes after 33 Years. I remember reading a long time ago that this was going to have to happen eventually, due to the lease contract, but I couldn't quite believe it. So I chose to forget about it. But, sadly, it's happening all the same. Also, Paul Collins contributes an insider's memory of the schmucks who played CBGB.

» Red iPod Nano. Oooohhh. Pretty. Hope they keep it around for a few months, when I'll finally be able to justify dropping the cash for it.

» Littourati. Blogging the locations in Kerouac's On the Road.

» David Lynch Self-Distributing Three-Hour Epic. Let's get this clear - I love David Lynch. But that doesn't mean that I sometimes don't have the faintest clue what the hell he's doing. This digital feature, Inland Empire, may very well fit in that category, considering it apparently, "showcases musical dance sequences, sitcom-style family scenes featuring people with rabbit heads and dramatic episodes with actors speaking Polish." It's like he's dedicated himself to making the Log Lady look completely normal.

» Wil Wheaton Reviews Old Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes. Because someone had to. Wait - no, not really.

» Bookslut's Review of Lost Girls. Part of the reason I love my comic book habit is that it's relatively cheap to maintain (at least in comparison to my desired fashion or technology habits). But Alan Moore's Lost Girls is a hardcover set that retails for about $70, which means it's going to be a little while until I can get my hands on it. I will, however, finally get my hands on it, because I can't wait to read it.

» Oh, and another friendly Project Runway fan is totally going to get this for me, right?

[image credit: nataliedee.com]

Meet the New Boss

I have just relaunched deliberatepixel.com with a different format. Care for a quick tour?

The biggest change is the fact that only one blog post at a time is displayed on the front page. This means I'm definitely going to be putting more effort into blog entries with more length, depth, and original content. I've fallen into the habit lately of simply linking to other sites, and it's time to move away from that. But since I do still like some of those one-liners, I'll be compiling all of them into a large weekly post every Friday. I also intend to put more effort into producing at least one, if not more, post/s per day.

I have also excised a lot of dead weight from the content pages. The main content page now is the current page, where I keep the lists of books, music, film, and video games I'm currently consuming, as well as past and future concerts and film festivals. I have always had some of this information in my blog sidebar, but instead of the information just disappearing when I was done, I'm now archiving it in respective lists. Right now I'm coding it all in HTML, since there isn't a ton of info, but eventually I may move it all into a more powerful (and searchable) database format.

To take a page from Google, I'm going to officially label this site version "Beta." I have new features I'll be implementing over the next few weeks, including stylesheet swtichers to adjust text size and layout colors. I will probably also be making slight layout adjustments, since this layout format and color scheme is a new one for me. I've never done a light-on-dark layout before and I'm overly concerned about readibility (hence the prospect of style-switchers). Leave any comments, well, in the comments, and feel free to make suggestions. Comments are open to anyone (i.e. you do not have to have a Blogger account to leave one); however, I have turned on both word verification and moderation.

Oh, and if you've noticed the design of my MySpace page changing with alarming frequency - I've been matching it up to the various site designs I've been developing. But once I get this one locked in, it's staying for good. Until I change my mind.

UPDATE: I went through a couple of different adjustment and color schemes, but nothing was working for me - so I've stripped it down to black and white, got rid the the light-on-dark layout, and came up with this. I'm still building pages - if you come across a missing link, stay tuned, it will be there soon.

IE alert - for some reason Internet Explorer is displaying my Last.fm and Flickr boxes incorrectly. I'm not sure exactly what is causing the problem, but since it doesn't interfere with readibility, fixing it is not my top priority. A really good way to fix it is to view the site in Firefox.

[Photo credit: lemort @ morguefile.com.]

The Weekly for 10/6

» Daily Show coverage of the Foley scandal. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?

» All Women Team Takes Yahoo Hack Day Top Prize. "The winning project, called Blogging In Motion, combined a camera, a handbag, a pedometer and the Flickr API to create a device that takes a picture after every few steps and then automatically blogs those pictures." Team features past Project Runway contestant Diana Eng, who is one of my artsy geek girl heroines.

» Theater Owner Shuts Down Theater for Lack of Good Movies To Show. I think it would be really awesome if he started a trend with this. Not that Hollywood would feel much hurt with the cushion of all the huge conglomerate multiplexes still up and running. But it would still be awesome to see it happen.

» Lucasfilm Leaves Movie Business. In related news, George Lucas isn't making movies anymore. Reasoning? "We've moved away from the feature film thing because it's too expensive and it's too risky." It's not quite as risky if you make movies that don't completely suck. But the thing is, I know people, myself included, who saw Episode III more than once in the theater, even though we knew from the start the movie sucked. If you can't even make money with audiences like that, I guess it's time to pack it up. (Hat tip: Slashdot.)

» Hollywood Is Calling. If for some reason you find yourself needing to send me a token of your appreciation, I humbly request that you NOT arrange a telephone call to me from Saved by the Bell's Mr. Belding. A card is just fine.

» Baby Rock Records. Lullabye renditions of the Pixies, Tool, and Queens of the Stone Age. Sweet. But where's the Ramones? Those songs would make great lullabyes. And Elizabeth already has the proper threads. (Hat tip: ExplodingBoy).

(Image credit: the fantastic Married to the Sea.)