In a glimpse into your eyes
I see calmness of soul,
a product of your smile.
A careful study of You,
like an eight unit course,
a precision of aesthetics.
The ball of your eyes,
the succulent flesh of your face,
the hairdo, all make without
doubt a perfect compliment
of You.
Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Why Women Apologize and Should Stop
EVERYONE
knows what dirt tastes like. Last week, I ordered a salad at a
restaurant and found myself crunching on a shoddily washed leaf. I took a
few more sandy bites before explaining the situation to my waiter,
apologizing and asking to see the menu once again.
When
my second-choice dish arrived, 20 minutes later, it was blanketed in
bacon. I don’t eat meat, a dietary restriction for which I was “very
sorry.” By the time a plate of edible food appeared, my fork had been a
casualty of the confusion. Unable to catch the waiter’s eye, I walked to
the kitchen, where I apologized to a busboy.
For
so many women, myself included, apologies are inexorably linked with
our conception of politeness. Somehow, as we grew into adults, “sorry”
became an entry point to basic affirmative sentences.
True,
this affliction is not exclusive to our gender. It can be found among
men — in particular, British men — but it is far more stereotypical of
women. So, in the words of a popular 2014 Pantene ad, why are women always apologizing?
One
commonly posited theory, which informs everything from shampoo
commercials to doctoral dissertations, is that being perceived as rude
is so abhorrent to women that we need to make ourselves less obtrusive
before we speak up. According to a 2010 study in the journal Psychological Science, “women
have a lower threshold for what constitutes offensive behavior,” so are
more likely to see a need for an apology in everyday situations. We are
even apt to shoehorn apologies into instances where being direct is
vital — such as when demanding a raise.
I’m
dubious about this catchall explanation. The bend-over-backward
compulsion to avoid giving offense might account for plenty of
unnecessary “pleases” or “excuse me’s,” but it doesn’t sufficiently
account for the intensity of a “sorry.”
Here’s
the paradox: Every day, we see more unapologetically self-assured
female role models, yet women’s extreme prostration seems only to have
increased. A recent “Inside Amy Schumer” sketch wonderfully skewered our
propensity to apologize: One by one, various accomplished women on a panel apologize,
first for trivial things like being allergic to caffeine, or for
talking over one another, but finally for having the gall to exist in
the first place. The discrepancy between what those women offer the
world and how they conduct themselves in it elevates the sketch from
amusing to disturbing.
This
is not to suggest that all men are rude and unapologetic and that women
are the inverse, but something incongruous is happening in women’s
behavior that can’t be chalked up to reflexive politeness. Look at the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new ads warning
New York straphangers against inconsiderate behavior, like eating on
the subway or manspreading. Graphics depict men displaying almost all
these behaviors, except, perhaps in an effort to provide gender balance,
the one that advises women to avoid elbows-out personal grooming.
Advertisement
The
scenario seems ridiculously unrealistic — and not just because it’s the
only one I’ve never witnessed firsthand. The ads are saying that men
are far less likely to be conscious of personal space than women. So
why, even after making ourselves physically smaller on the subway, are
we still the ones apologizing?
I
think it’s because we haven’t addressed the deeper meaning of these
“sorrys.” To me, they sound like tiny acts of revolt, expressions of
frustration or anger at having to ask for what should be automatic. They
are employed when a situation is so clearly not our fault that we think the apology will serve as a prompt for the person who should be apologizing.
It’s
a Trojan horse for genuine annoyance, a tactic left over from centuries
of having to couch basic demands in palatable packages in order to get
what we want. All that exhausting maneuvering is the etiquette
equivalent of a vestigial tail.
When
a woman opens her window at 3 a.m. on a weeknight and shouts to her
neighbor, “I’m sorry, but can you turn the music down?” the “sorry” is
not an attempt at unobtrusiveness. It’s not even good manners. It’s a
poor translation for a string of expletives.
These
sorrys are actually assertive. Unfortunately, for both addresser and
addressee alike, the “assertive apology” is too indirect, obscuring the
point. It comes off as passive-aggressive — the easiest of the
aggressions to dismiss.
So we should stop. It’s not what we’re saying that’s the problem, it’s what we’re not
saying. The sorrys are taking up airtime that should be used for making
logical, declarative statements, expressing opinions and relaying
accurate impressions of what we want.
We
are not sorry to ask for an email that should have been sent to us
weeks ago, or to expect to receive the item we paid for, or to be bumped
into on the subway. Yes, we should take the shampoo commercial’s advice
and weed out the word when it’s superfluous. But it’s just as important
to articulate exactly what we mean in its place.
Julia Child, a consummate charmer, said it best: “Never apologize.” Probably because she never asked anyone to eat dirt.
By SLOANE CROSLEY
source: NEW YORK TIMES
MARY KAY- poem
MARY KAY
You caused it...
And everyone knows it.
When you are going to a party,
And your face is so messy
I rescue you with a pity.
So that you can look really pretty.
Yes i know...
And many trousers troop after you like flies
Trailing you here and there like spies
Some even take you for Mrs. Nice.
Not knowing all were lies.
But it's not my fault...
Since 'his' eyes control 'his' mind,
Many minds will likely remain blind.
Oh! what a charming charm to bind.
Sincerely, to me, Mary Kay is kind.
Nemesis...
But what a sorry case for me,
It rained and my face you need to see
How it became a factory of cocoa tea
Just as the sky started to pee.
Metamorphosis...
Different now my face; he chased me away
This time, sadly, my outing didn't pay
And i pray never again to have such a day
When all will know i use Mary Kay.
Since then I've learned to stay indoor
Whenever there will be a downpour.
20-06-2015
Friday, 19 June 2015
‘Doctor Faustus,’ All That Heaven Won’t Allow
Psst,
Mephistopheles, are you still around, making deals on behalf of the
Devil? Promise to give me back the two hours I spent enduring the Classic Stage Company’s
misguided production of Christopher Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus,” and
maybe we can come to an agreement. Eternal damnation doesn’t seem all
that bothersome if my memories of this show, starring Chris Noth as the titular soul seller and Zach Grenier as Mephistopheles, can be permanently erased.
The
production, directed by the veteran Andrei Belgrader, employs a heavily
adapted text by David Bridel and Mr. Belgrader. Language has been
modernized: “thou” becoming “you” and “hath” becoming “has,” etc.
Characters have been tweaked or eliminated, speeches curtailed. Some
innovations are helpful, such as having Wagner (Walker Jones), Doctor
Faustus’s loyal assistant, pipe up with translations of the Latin that
Marlowe sprinkled through the text.
Others, not so much. This updated colloquial comedy is not an
improvement on the original. (And if thou cannot improve on
centuries-old comedy, thou art in trouble.) But, in general, the
emendations and cuts are not particularly detrimental to the drama,
since there isn’t much in the first place. “Doctor Faustus” is not a
text of particular sanctity; it’s rarely performed, and rather than a
“tragical history,” as it was called, the play is more a moral (or
rather amoral) pageant depicting the title character romping through the
world, causing mischief after making that famous pact with the Devil.
Mr.
Noth deserves some credit for undertaking this challenging and not
entirely rewarding classical role. Then again, maybe some therapy might
be in order, too? Well known for his television work — scouring the New
York streets for villains on “Law & Order,” toying with the heart of
poor Carrie Bradshaw on “Sex and the City”
and later playing the tough governor of Illinois on “The Good Wife” —
he has made sporadic appearances on the New York stage, most recently in
Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man.” He’s a fine actor with natural magnetism
and a smooth, dark voice.
But
the ornate and often arcane language of Marlowe (even without the
“thous”) does not come naturally to him, and while Mr. Noth does his
best to animate Doctor Faustus’s strange odyssey, he fails to imbue the
character with either any exultation in his dark powers, or the
subterranean ambivalence of a man whose conscience eventually begins to
gnaw at him as the final reckoning approaches.
Mr.
Grenier (who also appears on “The Good Wife”) fares better as a rather
gloomy Mephistopheles, who first shuffles onstage looking like a slab of
concrete accessorized with the agonized faces of souls in torment, and
then shows up again clad in the humble garb of a monk. Mr. Grenier’s
black-velvet voice wraps itself around the language with finesse, and
his great, doleful eyes suggest that Mephistopheles is, as he admits,
“in hell” even on earth, having once been an angel basking in the
presence of God before he slipped up and got in cahoots with Lucifer.
Now
he glides down, or rather up, whenever someone praises the Devil and
damns the Lord, as Doctor Faustus, sated with learning that doesn’t
satisfy, does in the opening scene. After signing a blood pact with
manly fortitude and staunch enthusiasm, Faustus is granted 24 years of
life with Mephistopheles at hand to do his bidding. Then his soul will
be damned to hell, of course.
By
today’s standards, unfortunately, the wicked fun and games Faustus and
friends get up to don’t appear particularly naughty or even enjoyable.
Sure, they tease the pope and a cardinal by making their food and drink
disappear. (Ha-ha.) At the behest of an emperor, Faustus conjures the
spirit of Alexander the Great. And, in one of the play’s most famous
sequences, Faustus raises the spirit of Helen of Troy. Here played by
the comely Marina Lazzaretto, she slinks out of her stuffy formal gown
to enfold Faustus in a naked embrace.
But
mostly, these diversions seem rather tame: It’s not really all that
much fun to chat with the seven deadly sins, for instance. (Most of us
have at least a nodding acquaintance with a few of them.) Mr. Belgrader
and Mr. Bridel have tried to enliven the proceedings by inviting some in
the audience to join in the revels — Mephistopheles teasingly searches
the seats for the embodiment of the sin of pride — but these devices are
not terribly inventive, either.
Watching
over these shenanigans are Wagner, played with sly humor by Mr. Jones,
and two dumb-and-dumber rustics: Robin, played as an uber-doofus by
Lucas Caleb Rooney, and the still dimmer bulb Dick (roughly the
equivalent of Rafe in the original text), whom Ken Cheeseman portrays as
a yokel who garbles his English oddly. Still, as I mentioned earlier,
the updated shtick Mr. Bridel and Mr. Belgrader have fashioned for these
fine comic actors, while certainly easier to comprehend in terms of
language, doesn’t exactly render anyone helpless with laughter.
The
production’s central problem remains Mr. Noth’s inability to invest his
Doctor Faustus with palpable inner life. He’s not terribly convincing
either in his moments of unbridled pleasure and pride in doing dark
deeds, or as a tormented man grappling with the vestiges of his
conscience. In the end, Mr. Noth’s Faustus comes across as a man who
doesn’t actually have a soul to sell. Turns out this time the Devil got a
raw deal.
Source: NEW YORK TIMES
Can You Be My Ododo?- POEM
So afraid to let you know
A fear of a NO response makes it so
Please, can you be my ododo?
As in me, the feeling's gone viral
Though conscious with my moral
Please, can you be my ododo?
There's something about you, so special
It's deeply rooted in your frontal
Please, can you be my ododo?
I'm wary with the way i feel
Don't blame me, it's simply my reel
Please, can you be my ododo?
NEWS:Charleston Killing-The Culprit Caught at Last
A 21 year old white killed nine people in a church. A Boko Haram?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/us/charleston-shooting-dylann-storm-roof.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/us/charleston-shooting-dylann-storm-roof.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a woman called by a devaluing name will only be weakened by the misnomer- Maya Angelou
MAIDEN POST: INSPIRATIONAL
You are the product of your mind; your mind processes who you will become.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)