Eccentric Flower:199811/unisex sins and oz

twelve eleven robin's-egg blue

unisex sins and oz

i don't feel like using capitals today, or being really fastidious about my sentences. you can live with it, right?

i described my outlook as a blue sky with fast-moving cumulus clouds. mostly good disposition but every so often something blots out the sun for a few seconds.

or the flip side: i don't stay in bad moods for long, which is a good thing since i get them so often.

today's bad mood is brought to you by the boston globe. read the article on the way out of the house, got irate, folded it up and brought it with me, and by the time the first round of crises is over with and i can type this, i'm no longer angry over it.

of course, i will vent here and you'll think i'm angry. remember though that you're on electronic delay. this is old angry.

anyway ...

the article was about people giving children unisex names, and the slant of the article was negative. although the author (one joe kahn) noted a fair number of people who have done well despite having a name "meant" for the other sex, the overall tone was of annoyance, with people who have such names citing the way people assume their gender before meeting them, and so forth.

well, guess what, mr. joe kahn, wrong approach. the idea is to fight the assumptions, not the names. the idea is to get to a point where someone can have a "boy" name and not have people assume they're a boy, sight unseen. the names aren't the problem. and quoting "experts" who say things like "androgynous names unfortunately don't stay that way; once a boys' name becomes a girls' name, it's usually a one-way street" just exacerbates the same old problem, which is that it's okay for girls to be boys, but not for boys to be girls.

i get so tired of this. so tired of telling people that myths get stronger the more you repeat them. and i'm re-annoying myself so to heck with it.

i wrote a book with a main character whose name was robin. aside from the fact that my mother has been nicknamed that since birth, it's a nice unisex name. i'd like to be named that. i'd like that book to be finished one day. i'd like a lot of things. and yes, i got the email, whoever you are.

in other news ...

i missed a titling opportunity. i should have called the previous postcard "omission, commission, emission." but i didn't. marc noted today that i didn't cover nearly all of the possibilities - there are also such subclasses as

- things you did in good conscience that only later turned out to be wrong

- things you avoided doing based on sound knowledge that was itself inaccurate

- things you did with intent to harm, that instead benefitted the recipient, unbeknownst to you

- things omitted which looked beneficial at the time, but later turned out would have been lethal

but marc is a philosopher and you can see that he's more interested in slopping around in those vague concepts of "good" and "evil," whereas i try to avoid those mud puddles whenever i can.

finally ...

i got some interesting urls and mail about the wizard of oz. beth, who understands the glories of children's books, could not believe that marc has never read a single oz book! beth, you're going to help me double-team marc until he reads them all,right?

nonelvis, ever since we went to the movie, has been trying to find dirt on a wild theory she once heard that the whole movie is an extended metaphor for the united states going off the gold standard. she finally found a site that discusses it (along with other wild ideas).

judy sent me this document from a reviewer who's in the nasty position of having to review a film everyone already knows about, and therefore has no recourse but to be snide and funny. actually i think this guy genuinely loves the movie and is just having some fun.

however - i just bought a copy of the classic cult movies by danny peary, and when peary talks about th' wizard, it's clear he loves the movie too, but he does something i've seen few people do - he is openly critical of it, picking apart its more gaping holes.

he points out one that has always annoyed me, that the central "lesson" of the movie is a flawed one. what does dorothy learn in oz? that "there's no place like home." but home is horrible for dorothy - she has no peers that we ever see, she's living on this dreary marginal farm with no outlet for her imagination, her aunt and uncle, though i'm sure they love her, are fairly remote ... and miss gulch will still want to have toto killed when she gets home, something she's apparently forgotten.

it's worth noting that in the books, dorothy makes three separate trips to oz. (right, beth? been a long time.) the first two are accidental, the third not, as i vaguely recall; she brings her aunt and uncle in with her and stays in oz.

it's true that there's nothing like the feeling of belonging. that there's nothing like having a family and friends. but as far as "there's no place like home" is concerned, oz can kick the snot out of kansas any day.

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