The pernicious pinkification of little girls

By kate on May 29th, 2009

This vehement guest column from the Times Online UK had me raising my arms and shouting “amen!”

“All the Disney princesses are there in a terrifying tableau of simpering, gurning girlishness. Why are all these princesses, the apotheoses of modern girlhood, clasping their hands together in front of them, in an expression of coy submissiveness?” (whole article)

I’m relieved that Ruby has thus far been able to hold onto her own opinions, more or less, after joining preschool. She actually seems more tuned into “boy characters” like Batman and Spiderman, who she has brought up by name, than any of the princesses (or Dora, or whoever). Her stated favorite color is a sophisticated-for-preschool purple, rather than pink.

While she does enjoy dressing up, dancing around and being “fancy”, she does it with her own crazy tastes and ideals, rather than conforming to the princess standard. This is a kind of girlishness that’s just fine with me.

Filed under: life, parenting, pop culture | Comment now »

How I choose my SIFF movies

By kate on May 18th, 2009

Every year, I try to go see some movies at the Seattle International Film Festival. I’ve had a few off years lately, but I had a great time in 2004 and 2005, so I’m ramping it back up this year and planning to see fourteen films. A few years ago, I described my film selection process this way:

“The process is very instinctive (and random). I’m basing my choices solely on the paragraph-long blurbs in the festival program, which is pleasantly limiting and challenging. It’s a lot like a puzzle, to try to figure out the most optimal viewing schedule based on the movies you REALLY want to see, and the movies you ‘kinda’� want to see.”

I thought I’d expand on that a bit in case anyone is looking for guidance. The SIFF schedule can be an intimidating thing to get started on. I use the Seattle Times SIFF Program Guide (mostly because it comes out early and comes right to my house with the paper).

First, I sit down with the guide (a tabloid-style section about the size of the weekend entertainment section) and three colors of highlighter pen. I quickly read through the paragraph-long film descriptions. After each blurb, I mark it in one of four ways: no mark if I have no interest in the film, one color for films I MOST want to see, a second color for films I’d like to see, and a third color for films I’d see if it were convenient. These are usually quick, almost instinctive decisions.

Next, I turn to the schedule grid. I highlight all the films I’d previously marked with the same color, making sure to highlight every showing of each.

Then comes the puzzley part: I eyeball the grid and try to identify a handful of days containing a clump of films I want to see that are showing at the same theater. I circle potential days. I check over the films I most want to see, and check if they’re included in those days (or decide if they’re worth seeing on a separate day). I re-read descriptions for non-marked films sandwiched between ones I want to see and decide if they’re worth seeing. I cross-reference the potential movie days with my real-life calendar to avoid conflicts.

Finally, I check with my husband and make sure it’s OK with him that I spend so much time away from the family in the upcoming month. I try to cluster as many movies together as I can to minimize the number of days involved, and remind him that May is an unusual month.

Then, it’s just a matter of buying tickets (single tickets for matinee showings, cinematic six-packs for non-matinees). It’s too hard to try coordinating other people’s schedules with all this, so I try to drum up company after I’ve already bought my own tickets. I don’t plan to post my schedule publicly, but I’m more than happy to share it with you if I know you.

Note: there’s a new site called b-side festival genius that purports to help you with your SIFF schedule. I tried it after the fact but didn’t find it as useful as I had hoped. Your mileage may vary.

Filed under: film, seattle | Comment now »

Where should we eat tonight?

By kate on May 12th, 2009

As a Blackberry user, I’ve long been jealous of Urbanspoon‘s excellent iPhone application, which includes a slot-machine randomizer to help you decide upon a restaurant. While it’s still not available on the Blackberry (despite my pleas), anyone with a Flash-enabled browser can now use the slot machine!

Seattle restaurants on Urbanspoon

You can use it right here on this page, on the Urbanspoon site, or you can embed it in your own website.

Filed under: technology, work | 1 Comment »

Goodbye Seattle P-I

By kate on March 17th, 2009

It’s a sad day in Seattle as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stops its presses for the last time. I wanted to write a post today about what our society is losing as newspapers close down, but I re-read my 2005 post, “Why Newspapers are Still Relevant,” and realized it’s all pretty much there (except the new sense of urgency and despair I now feel).

We won’t entirely lose the editorial voice and professional journalism from the P-I as it continues online, although from what I can tell, these will be provided by a skeleton crew of less-experienced employees. And you know what? I’m the kind of dinosaur that still prefers a newspaper, �so I’ll be resignedly reading the Seattle Times. I’m sure I’ll see relevant and important P-I articles online as they pass through the blogging echo chamber, but that’ll only be supplementary.

I’d like to explore a fantasy for a minute, if you’ll bear with me. Those of us who specifically appreciate what a paper paper can offer (e.g., large format, skimmability, article curatorship) are certainly a shrinking group, but there are still hundreds of thousands of us out there (if not millions). I accept that the old-school printing press/delivery approach is becoming expensive and obsolete, but maybe there’s another solution that technology can offer us. What about a home printer that works as usual, but with the addition of a spool of newsprint? Imagine a software back-end that allows an editor to do his or her editorial work to digitally create a newspaper (or even several variants), and then “publishing” it online to any subscribers with such a printer. This could be an editor at a single paper, or someone syndicating content from multiple sources. Those with a printer could even do some small-scale distribution if they found it worth their while.

As our numbers shrink and we become less attractive to advertisers, the onus falls more heavily on paper readers to pay for our preference, and this is one way it could work.

Filed under: current events, media | Comment now »

Simple Gifts

By kate on January 20th, 2009

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in a place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

‘Tis the gift to be gentle, ’tis the gift to be fair
‘Tis the gift to wake and breathe the morning air
And everyday to walk in the path we choose
‘Tis the gift that we pray we may ne’er come to lose

‘Tis the gift to be loving, ’tis the best gift of all
Like a quiet rain, it blesses where it falls
And if we have the gift we will truly believe
‘Tis better to give than it is to receive

CHORUS:
When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Today, at the inauguration ceremony of President Obama, a quartet of musical greats played a song specially arranged for the occasion (by John Williams) called Air and Simple Gifts.

As moved as I was by the swearing in and Obama’s speech, hearing this music moved me the most. Simple Gifts is a traditional Shaker song that my dad used to sing to me. He learned it during his childhood in Pennsylvania. I’m not much of a singer, but I chose that song to be the one I’d sing to Ruby as a lullaby. Not only is it a traditional family song, but the plain, simple lyrics perfectly illustrate the values I want to pass on to my child.

When the first notes of Simple Gifts rang out from Anthony McGill’s clarinet, I was overwhelmed with joy. Joy that our new president’s team had selected this humble American folk tune to share before assuming a mantle of such power and prestige. With the whole world watching, the quartet could have played any of the hundreds (thousands?) of songs celebrating pomp, greatness, victory, or heroism. Instead, we were offered a beautiful tune that reminds us what is really important in life: the simple gifts of gratitude, fairness, gentleness, love, and humility.