Et tu, Carrie?

A few years ago, Fran Lebowitz was asked about the recent proliferation of strollers and such on Manhattan's landscape. She replied, essentially, that these same people already have the rest of the country, so why did they need to overrun New York?

I felt something analogous at the 3:15 showing of Sex and the City today. The film is aimed at the type of women who go to New York and take the SATC tour, who don't catch that what made the show great is that its smart, flawed characters would never do something so passive and contrived. The big screen adaptation is a hackneyed romantic comedy and if I hadn't looked forward to it all year, I would have bailed around the time Charlotte, literally, shits her pants. (Okay, I know you don't see a lot of that in rom-coms, but it was the hoariest, dumbest sight gag.)

I completely respect Michael Patrick King, Sarah Jessica Parker, and crew, and I know the financial and demographic aspects of a wide-release feature are very different from that of a premium-cable series. But still. Three fourths of pop culture is aimed at the tour bus women. Couldn't we have kept this one for us?

Lightning round:

As I've noted, the novel has been usurping most of my upright hours. But I've been feeling a bit better lately (again w/ the wood-knocking), so I'm going to try and resume posting here several times a week. To catch up:

1) Still can't wrap my mind around events in Myanmar and in China.

2) Feel awful for Ted Kennedy and his family. While I've made cracks about him before, I usually agree with his policies, but that's not even the point. Brain cancer is a horrific diagnosis and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

3) R.I.P. Sidney Pollack. He made it look easy.

4) The good part, as it were, of Hillary's RFK comment is that it irrefutably proves a point Phyllis Chesler made over 30 years ago in her seminal work, Women and Madness: that women are humans, with all the greatness and folly that entails. I.e. it's a mistake to cast women in the saint roll because it's infantilizing and, ultimately, inaccurate. In general terms, women and men's strengths and weaknesses are sometimes different, but on the whole, each sex brims with total awesomeness and absolute crap. And maybe that's the strongest argument for shattering the remaining glass ceilings: not all that much is going to change.

5) While we're on the topic, and I've made this point elsewhere, but of course we're going to elect a woman president in the near future. I don't understand all the teeth-grinding editorials suggesting we might not. Women are almost 51% of a nation of roughly 300 million. All of our stars aren't hitched to Senator Clinton's campaign and it's a little bizarre to suggest otherwise.

6) If this doesn't swell your heart with lovely and buoyant feelings, go ahead and swallow the last pill because you're already dead:

http://jezebel.com/5011617/adorable-dog-adopts-orphaned-baby-bunnies

I'll weigh in on a panoply of things...

...later today or Friday. This past week has been a miasma of health and real estate snafus, but I'm pleased to report the novel is still going well. (Wood knocked, salt thrown over shoulder. All that.)

In the meantime, here are excellent recent interviews from two of the very best ladies.

Toni Morrison in Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1738303,00.html

Amy Sedaris in The Onion's A.V. Club:

http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/amy_sedaris

On a somewhat related note, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker have endorsed Barack Obama and Maya Angelou is backing Hillary Clinton. Any election wherein authors' support is trumpeted is kind of great.

Myanmar: How to help

CNN has put together a comprehensive list of the best relief agencies regarding Myanmar's cyclone:

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/

Nope, no discernible connection:

1) Media bloggers who use the term "Fey-tigue" regarding Tina Fey are irredeemable cretins who will toss the Devil's salad in hell, with their eyes open, listening to Jon Bon Jovi discuss how critics don't take him seriously but that he's in it for the fans.

2) When Hillary says she'll "obliterate" Iran if it launches a nuclear strike against Israel, she's being forthright about U.S. policy, if shockingly cavalier concerning civilian casualties. If anyone attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, the U.S. will be ensnared, essentially, in World War III. You can't blame her for the honest response, but I wish she hadn't sounded like Tony Montana while discussing a nightmare scenario that literally could eradicate swaths of humankind.

3) When was the last time you had Eggs Benedict? How great does that sound right now?

4) The cherry blossom trees near my home are blooming and even if Seattle is still ridiculously chilly, it's lovely to watch spring poke through the blanketing gray.