Motherhood, Mayhem and Mumbling
A dear friend sent me the link to this video and I’m kinda hooked. Funny how much I’ve been drawing from Youtube lately, it is unintentional! At the same time that I don’t want this to become some kind of personal guide into online videos, I love it when I am introduced to new music that touches me, and this definitely does. Voice like dripping honey on a warm sunny afternoon.
(Bitch)
:p
Don’t you just love television?
Such a broad medium. Can capitalise on anything! Death, in particular, for the subject of this conversation, is quite striking.
Dude dies.
Suddenly, Kill Bill 1 & 2 is gracing my screen.
I *feign outrage*.
Truth is, I rather like it. I Love It In Fact.
All these years of action heroism being the domain of Arnie; Beefy; What’s-His-Face-O’Farrell; Ludicrously-Named-Vin Diesel. I bet all these men have hands as soft as 300 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, but it just seems right that they get these really ridiculously OTT action roles, where they massacre millions, and we never even stop to consider how outlandish it is because they are strong, hard men.
So, despite the obvious cash cow mooing in the fields of my televisual incarceration tonight, I rather enjoy seeing those same outlandish roles applied to women. Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, I SALUTE YOU. You are HARD AS!
The suspension of disbelief necessary to make female roles such as this believable requires a bit of art; but we are so used to Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis playing characters way outside the scope of their reality that we don’t even question it as being fantasy! So tonight, mysterious death in Bangkok or not, I’m indulging in a hardcore motherfucker woman fantasy of my own.
Ahhhh… That’s why boys like these films so much… And who says women don’t get hit just as hard in real life!
I’ve been away, folks.
BUT NOW I’M BACK!
And this is how I feel…
PJ Harvey, 50ft Queenie:
Hey I’m one big queen no one can stop me
Red light red green smack back and watch it
I’m your new one second to no one
No sweat, I’m clean, nothing can touch me
I’ll tell you my name F U and C K
50ft queenie force ten hurricanes
Biggest woman I could have ten sons
Ten daughters ten queens
Ten foot and rising
Hey I’m the king of the world
You ought to hear my song
You come and measure me
I’m twenty inches long
Glory glory lay it all on me
50ft queenie 50 and rising
You bend over, Casanova
No sweat, I’m clean
Nothing can touch me
Hey I’m the king of the world
You ought to hear my song
You come and measure me
I’m twenty inches long
Hey I’m king of the world
You ought to hear my song
You come and measure me
I’m thirty inches long
Hey I’m king of the world
You ought to hear my song
You come and measure me
I’m forty inches long
Hey I’m king of the world
You ought to hear my song
You come and and measure me
I’m fifty inches long
50ft queenie
Whoop! Whoop!
Roughly 36 hours left until I make my way to Rio. I’ve been in such disbelief that I haven’t even given my itinerary much thought, other than making sure I visit the Vila Mimosa(which is a slightly scary prospect). In fact, all I’ve been doing is wasting my energy thinking pointless, annoying drivel about the girth of my hips and how there is nowhere to hide when you’re wearing two minuscule swatches of lycra. Why oh why do we do it to ourselves?!
Anyway, I came across an old video from 1953 of the previous incarnation of the Vila Mimosa, before it was moved to its current location. I would recommend watching it to anyone interested in the subject, and even those who might admire this vintage recording’s eery, unsettling quality on a cinematographic level. The current Vila is still eery and unsettling, yet in a way the cinematographer did not capture in this video. You can watch it here.
Well we had Dame Judi Dench talking on the radio this am, and she mentioned how somehow Easter is another one of those big family occasions, and yet it is not half as stressful as Christmas. Funny that, isn’t it? Must be because most of us aren’t quite as poor as we would be at the end of December. And the days are longer, too.
Anyway, I have had a pretty grim beginning to Easter, because I’ve seen FOUR bunnies lose their lives today, which is probably more than I ever have in one go.
One: Death By Fox; Two: Agony by getting leg massacred in rat trap and subsequent mercy death by rifle; Third: Death by shotgun; Fourth: Whole Baby rabbit getting half-swallowed by Golden Retriever on post-lunch countryside walk.
I’d much rather think of bunnies hopping on Easter. Like this:
Why is it that when I mention to anyone I would love to learn to poledance I get this stifled snigger? I swear the boyf would take the mickey out of me for years if I dared to take a lesson. Either that or dump me.
I almost did once, because I thought it would be a fun way to look after my figure. And then I found out I was 4 months pregnant. And pregnancy+poledancing seems like a bit of a dangerous sport, so I gave up on the idea. No drinking, smoking or pole dancing allowed when you’re up the duff.
And then I came across this video and it really made me wish I could do it:
It’s a wonder I never ran away with the circus in my youth. I think this is amazing. And not in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge way either! I think I have a complex about being born in the jungle and not having opposable toes.
* Visit the Vila Mimosa again and write some more
* Have highlights put in hair
*Have a manicure and pedicure once a week (Luxury!!!!!!!)
*Eat lots of sushi and barbecue
*See Nana and Grandad
*Get a nice tan
*Buy a pair of nice cheap perky bum jeans
*Try to see as many of my nearest and dearest as I can
*Spend some time stretched out on a beach like an overweight albino lizard
*Forget my worries and put life back in order
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!
I find this song really comforting.
Reads out like a lullaby:
Don’t be scared no, no
We ain’t prepared no, no
Dreamt of ventures and
Woke up to the sound of the trenches you dig in my mind
Ah, you’ve got a lot to learn
What’s a kingdom
To the man who has sold off his soul just to claim it
Sirens, harlots, bohemians, coloured haze of the street horizon
Ah, you’ve got a lot to learn
Oh, he’s got some time to burn
Don’t you know you got nothing to dread
Don’t you know you got nothing to dread
Don’t you know you got nothing to dread
though you know you’ve got a coffin to drag
A hit and run is just not fun
Lock up your fine sons my dear
The grave of love
We’d cuddle up
Drink summer beer
And then smoke tea
She’s like the devil to the moon
she’s howling, laughing, joking like a kingsnake crawling, crawling
And the herd and the masses, The rings and the turkey, The trimmings the trappings you know you’ve gotta have it all
Don’t you know you got nothing to dread Don’t you know you got nothing to dread.
Don’t you know you got nothing to fear,
every girl’s got a secret to wear
You know you got nothing to dread
everyone’s got a secret to wear
You know you’ve got nothing to dread
every girl’s got a secret to bury
To dread, to dread, to dread, to dread
To dread, to dread, to dread, to dread
… that you can fully appreciate what an incredible achievement it is that we grow up to think of our toilet habits as second nature.
There is joy in picking up random publications abandoned by other commuters on the Underground. This week I picked up the Guardian’s G2 supplement (Wednesday 18th March, 2009) with a sort of disinterested apathy that was quickly replaced by serious pondering.
Have you ever heard a group of newly-birthed mothers talk? It often works like this:
‘I was in labour for 52 hours! 52 hours! She was completely stuck in there, poor thing! The surgeon kept hovering over me with a scalpel but I threatened to disembowel him if he dared come within 20ft of my bed. Thank God for the Epidural, though. Did you tear?’
‘Yah, I tore a whole 6 inches but I was soooo not going to have an Epidural, darling. I wanted my birth to be sacred, little Hermione was born sans anaesthesia. We had Annabel Karmel come in person to my water birth to stir-fry the placenta with Tofu! So nutritious! Really the BEST for breastfeeding, darling. How about you, Dotty, how was your labour?
‘It was really, really hard… Unlike anything else… I pushed so hard that I shat myself.’
It is said that childbirth requires as much energy as running a marathon, so it’s no wonder we treat it like a race. Women can get more competitive about it than they would about the girth of their thighs. But Viv Groskop reports a whole new trend in one-upwomanship about to sweep the planet: THE ORGASMIC BIRTH.
YES! Women, you no longer need to be afraid of genital mutilation or protracted pain! We now have people who want women ‘to break through their fear and have a beautiful experience of birthing’. Well, birth IS a beautiful experience, although for some this beauty is not dissimilar to that of Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Most of us will come back home with a child we do not wish to flush down the toilet straight away.
According to Marsden Wagner MD (should that read ‘Male Douchebag?), ‘It’s got to be how it is when you make love with someone. It’s got to be safe, secure and uninterrupted.’ I am guessing his sex life is an insufferable bore.
Humour aside for a moment, I can almost see how this phenomena could be more than a myth created by smug Earth mother types. Contractions rise, peak and wane just like orgasms, and trust me, leave your eyes just as watery and your head just as fuzzy. And it is true that ‘the noises women make are similar to those of love-making – which can embarrass their partners.’ Maybe some EXTREMELY FORTUNATE women have a little switch in their brains that makes all these feral sensations shift from excrutiating pain into excrutiating pleasure. Remember Barbarella, when she is in the ‘Excessive Machine’(thanks, Posie for reminding me of that one. Good thing old Barbie showed Durand Durand who is boss)? Hmmmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. And who doesn’t like a gentle little bite on the nape of the neck? Or a little crack of the whip? Or like, when something hurts but it’s a nice kind of pain, a really nice kind of pain? Or when… Ah, I digress.
I just know that when the Epidural kicked in, the feeling of pain sweeping away from my body was like being on cloud 9 with a battery operated Johnny Depp and beautiful sunsets and wonderful music and exploding ecstasy for ever and ever and ever.
Until the bloody thing wore off, of course.
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