Blogcritics Author: Murphy

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

California Politics Cut the Fat

Murphy — Fri, 3 Nov 2006 19:23:12 EST

I’m horrified by the recent comment John Kerry made. He made a huge error of judgment. But the people who gave him a microphone and platform to deliver his error made the bigger error.Is this really the best the Democrats could come up with?Maybe the problem is the people who run for office are a particular personality, a sort who wear mirrored sunglasses with the mirrors facing in.Locally, there is a new development in my state’s race. Remember the big gubernatorial recall? Schwarzenegger ousted Gray Davis.In California, the lieutenant governor runs separately from the governor. The lieutenant governor during all that time was Cruz Bustamante. Bustamante is not running for lieutenant governor again. This time he’s running for insurance commissioner. This would be cause for a very large yawn, except for one thing -- Cruz B. has lost weight.Weight loss is a personal triumph. Good for him. But it’s a personal triumph, nothing to do with politics. Except he has run some campaign ads trumpeting this accomplishment. They begin with the words, “I was really fat.”I had no current knowledge of Cruz B. when I heard that ad. But I was caught up short with this unusual and utterly absurd campaign.I was trying to talk to my co-workers about this ridiculousness, and I couldn’t remember what office he was running for. No problem, I’ll just look up Cruz Bustamante on Google, and his campaign web page should pop right up.This is what popped up: Start With CruzBut there's no political material anywhere on this site -- it’s a diet and exercise site! Here’s my thought: Cruz B. doesn’t want to be insurance commissioner. He wants to be the Richard Simmons of the new millennium. And he is spending his political war chest money on this website to start the marketing.

Murphy Horner is a long-time BlogCritic. Murphy's first book The Parable of Miriam the Camel Driver draws from her experience in corporate America to examine the bigger questions about balancing career and creativity. Murphy Horner has been working as a conferencing technology professional for a decade. Her university alumni association has recognized her as a noted female executive. Currently she is working on a travel memoir and can be found facilitating a writing group in her town of Claremont, Ca.

Book Review: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

Murphy — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:42:47 EDT

I just finished Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. Remember the Wizard of Oz? And the green Witch with the flying monkeys? Well, this book is supposed to tell her story.I confess I didn’t really have high expectations when my book club chose it. It was a popular book and had even been made into a Broadway musical — two things that made me dismiss it as intellectually shallow.I could not have been more wrong. What a page-turner! I couldn’t put it down. Maguire creates a full and detailed world. In his hands, Oz has climate, ethnic groups, competing religions, and mythology. Politics create rifts and alliances.As for the heroine herself, he begins early with her. He starts with her conception and early life, but she becomes a real person to the reader when she arrives at the university. She is a hotheaded activist and sincerely believes in doing what's right even at personal cost.She is a powerful woman. The ties and interpersonal tensions that guide her choices are utterly familiar to modern readers. Her loves and insecurities are poignant and universal.What exactly about her is wicked? What does wicked mean in her world - or ours?With the title he has chosen, Maguire is not being subtle. He quotes Tolstoy, Defoe and L. Frank Baum (the originator of Oz) before the book starts. He wants to analyze wickedness in this book.The story itself, though, doesn’t seem to address wickedness conceptually. What it does address is the person of the Wicked Witch. If she is taken to embody wickedness, then the filling out of her character and personality in this story makes wickedness extremely ordinary and normal.She herself seems to live leaning over the edge of despair, feeling herself at the mercy of forces outside her control. With this position, Maguire would imply that evil itself is merely a misunderstanding. And this makes me understand that I definitely underestimated this book.I’m going to go find all the other books this guy wrote.

TV Review: The Red Green Show

Murphy — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 08:46:05 EDT

My friend described this show to me long before I actually got to see it. “There is this guy, Red Green, and he’s part of the Possum Lodge. He’s hilarious. He has all these friends and his nephew Harold…. Every episode at the end, they say the man’s prayer: I’m a man...and I can change...if I have to...I guess…”I honestly couldn’t picture it, but he was so excited. I finally got a chance to see it for myself this last year. I have not been this into a Canadian PBS show since Degrassi!The show is only on certain PBS stations. So, it’s hard to find. 2006 marks the 15th and final year of The Red Green Show. Thank God for reruns. I’ll be watching this — waiting for all the episodes I’ve missed. They also made a movie Duct Tape Forever! I’ll have to keep an eye out for it.It’s so silly, and very refreshing. It’s a nice change to have a truly entertaining show that’s utterly clean. Comedy that’s not shocking? That takes talent.Of course, Red Green (actor Steve Smith) is part of every show. He also has a rotating cast of regulars who come through. There is Dalton Humphrey, the proprietor of the Everything Store, and Winston Rothschild III of Rothchild’s Septic Sucking Services, just to name a few. My favorite character is Red Green’s nephew Harold, played by Patrick McKenna. Harold has a lot of trouble with the ladies, and everything his Uncle Red has to say he takes with a grain of salt. Red has no respect for Harold’s opinions either, though, so it works out. Duct tape, backyard projects, practical jokes and misadventures take up their time. Flannel shirts are the fashion.The show has virtually no women, although the personalities of the lodge members' wives dominate the background. They are frequently referenced while the guys are considering their plans. Of course, Red Green has this advice: “Remember, if the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”Each episode makes the grade by following their formula, but still being totally unexpected. And any TV show ever that makes it through to 15 seasons is remarkable. It is hard to convey the genius of this show; you just have to see it.You really have to see it. Really!

Book Review: Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence

Murphy — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 18:59:44 EDT

D.H. Lawrence is scandalous. He's most famous for Lady Chatterly's Lover, which announces its scandalousness loudly by having "Lover" in the title. It screams, "Sex is happening here!" This got the book banned and censored. Even better! Nothing so titillating as a banned book.Yeah, except, a lot of the time the books that are banned are not as raunchy as the imagination of the people who banned them. True smut is seldom banned; it's just put in the back room and left for the pervs who want it. And D.H. Lawrence's smut is sort of weak and intellectual. Yes, Lady Chatterly had a lover. And yes, Lawrence tells all. But when you get down to it, the 'all' is kind of disappointing. He tells it like it is, and wouldn't that just be the definition of "prosaic"?In daily lives, relationships are like that. They're not scandalous—even the scandalous ones.Well, I read Lady Chatterly a long time ago, and that's not the book I'm reviewing now. I picked up Women in Love because I knew D.H. Lawrence was a highly regarded author, and I had only read LCL and one short story by him. I wondered if his other books were worth reading.Women in Love starts with two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun. Both of them are extremely modern ladies, but with really old-fashioned names. Gudrun especially has that contrast. I didn't even know Gudrun was a name, it's that archaic, but she herself is an artist. She makes her living at it, even. Ursula is a little more tame; she is a teacher.There sre the men, too. Gerald Crich and Rupert Birkin reveal themselves as the love interests for the two women in love.All these four are strained to the breaking point with their sensitivity. They are constantly in rapturous heights, or seriously believe that they will die of their disappointments. It seemed comical to me, after the first time, how overcome they are by their feelings.And they are constantly in highly intellectual discussions. What is the meaning of things, really? And they come to conclusions, by paths not apparent to others, which are very definite. All so important. Love to them is not a soft pillow to fall into and languish upon. It is an argument to resolve, or a cause to take up. They snuggle sometimes, and ask "Do you love me?" of one another. But they have previously torn to shreds any assumptions about love and what the word means, so both the question and the answer are blind groping.Now add to the two cute hetero couples a strong homoerotic tension between Rupert and Gerald. Whew. Even I felt a little steamed up by some of the scenes between those two.All of these characters seem to want so much. They don't believe in anything they have known, but they want to find something that they don't know to believe in -- a phrase which sounds utterly nonsensical and as if I could have lifted it directly out of the novel. I don't think I am inadvertently quoting, though.These people are so modern; they seem unable to exist with any satisfaction in the world they are in. Gudrun, who is the most modern of the group, can find no satisfaction of mind anywhere. She does however, enjoy nice stockings. That particular detail shows that Lawrence is in charge of this book of contrasts.Bibliomania tells me "Lawrence maintained that it was his finest work." It was finished in 1916, but not published until 1921. I can tell that it fishes deep into the spirit of the time. Many of the ideas and impulses described seem so in keeping with what I know of the period, I could imagine that it would resonate strongly with his contemporaries.It's not an easily understood book, but I'm glad I read it. Especially now that I know he thought it was his best. I don't feel like rushing out and reading the rest of his books, but if one came to hand, I wouldn't turn it away.

Reflections on the LA Immigration Protests

Murphy — Sun, 2 Apr 2006 12:04:17 EDT

On March 25, a huge number of people showed up in downtown Los Angeles to draw attention to illegal immigration. What sort of attention did they draw? The estimated half million people who were there paid attention. From the reports I heard, you couldn't even move without paying close attention.The gathering had been promoted by Spanish radio stations for weeks. Viva la Raza everywhere. I don't understand Spanish, so I didn't know about it until I spoke with my co-worker. Gus was born in Mexico and has a lot of family still there. His father applied for immigration to the US and legally brought his whole family to America when Gus was little.Gus told me how the radio stations had been ramping up for this protest event for a long time. "I just had to shut it off. It made me really mad." He remembered the work his father did to gain entrance to America. He told me how these protestors had one hand grabbing for instant American citizenship, and the other hand reaching to pull Aztlan -- legally known as the state of California -- back into Mexico.That seems to be a bit of a conflict of interest. But we could hardly expect otherwise with that many people involved. It was a lot of people! In my mind. It was really a big story - a huge cultural event.And it wasn't just the Saturday protest. Myspace.com had been organizing a walkout for high-schoolers. The teenagers left school and went downtown to protest longer. Monday had a big crowd of kids holding signs. They had even blocked the 110 freeway with their march.I heard the morning news the next day, exclaiming, "The kids were walking in the freeway! That's so dangerous! Someone could get KILLED!"I know that stretch of freeway. It is never free-flowing, never. Those kids were never in danger, which is a good thing.I wanted to hear what other people were saying, so I tuned into my radio stations to hear what the reports and opinions were. What a revelation! Here is the line-up:KPCC [NPR]: a feature about the California condor KCRW [NPR again]: a sampling of eclectic alternative music Power 106 "Where Hip Hop Lives": Destiny's Child is getting their Star on the Walk of Fame KISS fm [ugh...Ryan Seacrest]: Destiny's Child is getting the Star! And King Kong DVD is out today KBIG [80s, 90s and TODAY!]: King Kong is out on DVD Latino 96.3 Reggeaton and Hip Hop: ~~Now this is where it gets interesting...The reggeaton station is a Spanglish station, and reggeaton is teenager music. Mostly the DJs speak English with some Spanish. Usually they are repeating the same thing, once in Spanish and then again in English. It's about 90% English, 10% Spanish.But not Tuesday. It bumped up to about 60% English, 40% Spanish during the high school walkouts. They were talking about nothing else. They were taking calls from teenagers to ask about what they thought, and how they felt about the protests. It was from there that I first began to understand the role Myspace played in organizing the protest. To hear the excited kids calling in on cell phones to talk about their opinions - it confirmed to me how important this event was to these kids. It probably was a life-changing experience for them.But I wanted to hear more. I button-punched to the other radio stations, thinking they must be taking calls too. There was a deafening silence on the subject.The only other radio station I found talking about it was KPFK, an NPR Pacifica station. They are fringe of the fringe, and I can always count on them to report on any given protest.This is my point in writing this. Our free and democratic society seems very willing to ignore the issue. What kind of all-men-are-created-equal institution can get up and say there are jobs that Americans are unwilling to do (presumably because they are distasteful - beneath them) but are willing to exploit non-Americans into doing?Mainstream culture is humming with its fingers in its ears. The top radio stations don't want to talk about it. Even NPR. Condors! There's relevance for you.This is a serious issue for our whole nation. This is not something only Spanish-speaking media outlets should be covering.Those in positions of influence, our journalists and univerisity professors, should be listening and proposing solutions. The politicians and policy-makers need to put their heads together and find a new way to come to terms with this situation. We need a way that is fair and respectful of the equality of all humans.What's happening right now is not working.

Book Review: Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Murphy — Sun, 2 Apr 2006 08:35:57 EDT

In this story, Orwell tells how he lives when he finds himself basically destitute. While in Paris, he runs low on money and then gets robbed, leading to a stretch of out-and-out poverty. Since this misfortune starts in Paris, it is easier to accept. Why otherwise would a well-born Englishman end up dependent on the generosity of pawnbrokers to get food? As the story progressed, I could accept the plausibility of his dire straits only because he was in a foreign place. I've been in foreign places, and things are different there. I would accept discomforts and experiences that would have been unacceptable at home, because things are supposed to be strange when one is traveling.Things got pretty strange for Orwell. He writes of how he has to fake solvency to keep his landlady from kicking him out. He writes with both feet on the ground. The descriptions are utterly realistic -- he gives exactly the sort of detail I would ask for if it were a friend of mine telling me their story over a drink. He gives exact numbers of how much things cost, and tells about the way he had to smuggle food into his room. He mourns that he must waste money on the more expensive bread, because the cheapest variety will not fit into his pocket for smuggling.He does eventually find work as a dishwasher, which gives him enough sustenance to form the idea to ask for help from a London acquaintance. Alas, things don't always work out as intended.The characters that fill the Paris portion of the book are vividly drawn, including people living in the shadow of misfortunes of health and love. The cheap Paris boarding house included a share of impractical dilettantes as well. After he crosses the channel, the London characters enjoy the same brilliance of description.While the Paris paupers have their own methods of getting by, the British differ substantially. It took the author some time to get the hang of homelessness in the UK. He describes the wandering life, going from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. In the contemporary term, they are formally known as casual houses or informally as spikes. This is George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984. There were some well-reasoned political thoughts regarding poverty. The book was published in 1933, which means the stories related must have happened during the Great Depression. There was a whole lot of poverty to ponder at the time. A lot of people were beginning to think "whatever we've been doing, we should stop and do the opposite." There was evidently a lot wrong with the world, in many people's eyes.So, Orwell took the opportunity to propose some new activities for homeless people. And he talked about the prejudice held in the hearts of most comfortably situated folks. He would have us realize that tramps are people, too. This book was set about 70 years ago. When I picked it up, I wasn't sure I would like it. I was utterly amazed by it. I don't think I'll forget it. Of course, I couldn't help comparing it to Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. I admit, I've only read portions of that book, but I know that it is hugely popular, even spawning a musical of itself.I feel like Orwell happened upon his down-and-outness a little more honestly than Ehrenreich. She meant it to be an investigative journalistic experience, but Orwell just found himself poor and kept his eyes open to the experience. He was not ashamed of his life experiences. He published them and gave all of us a gift in the form of this book.As a final word, I'd suggest that those interested experience the audio-book version as I did. Frederick Davidson did an excellent reading of the many, many accents of the characters in the book and made them vibrant.

Book Review: Walkin' the Dog by Walter Mosley

Murphy — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 04:02:24 EST

My home is in Claremont. I picked it carefully, because I wanted a 'good' neighborhood. You all know what that means, right?I wasn't so sure that I knew what that meant. It is my habit to question everything, and I think that the idea of a 'good' neighborhood is potentially prejudiced. So, I wanted hard data to make the determination. What makes a neighborhood good or bad, really? It's a complicated question, but I chose to look at crime.I went to this site to take a look at crime statistics, and just to keep it simple, I focused on murder. What I found shocked me. How many murders does it take to be a crime wave? How much does it take to get press?In 2003, Compton had 43 murders, Inglewood had 32, and Long Beach had 49. That is a lot of murders. But not, apparently, enough to worry about. It did not raise the alarm, not for those cities. These areas are acknowledged black neighborhoods. Known 'hoods. And murder has come to be accepted there. But accepted by whom, exactly?My town, Claremont, had 0 murders. It is part of its appeal, to be quite honest; I prefer to live in a place with a low chance of being murdered.But we share a border with a known brown town, Pomona, which has a high Latino population. Pomona had 17 murders in 2003. In 2002, there were 18 and 2001 had 19.Claremont stayed steady at zero.What's up with that? A line, a two dimensional line of no thickness at all separates these two places. One side, someone murders someone else every three weeks. The other, people don't kill each other.People say, "Just avoid Pomona. It's not a good neighborhood."But people are dying over there. Is that what we are supposed to do for our neighbors? Just avoid them when they are in trouble?Pomona kills people. But Claremont doesn't. What does Claremont know that Pomona doesn't? I almost feel like there should be an exchange program. Maybe some people from Claremont should go over and have a cultural exchange with Pomona, so the Pomona residents could learn to use alternatives to murder to solve their life situations.People say to me: "Oh, Pomona is suffering under discrimination and poverty."But being poor doesn't make you kill. And discrimination doesn't either. It's a separate leap, to murder. What inspires that leap?This is a sticking point in my relationship with my neighbor, Pomona. How do I relate to this city that allows murders at such a high rate?To my jaw-dropping amazement, I read a book about this very problem. Not exactly my same viewpoint, but a new angle on the same problem.Walkin' the Dog by the incomparable Walter Mosley tells about a murderer. A man out of prison for nearly a decade, walking the free streets of South Central and trying to figure out his life. What does he do with himself and his rage and his unexpectedly returned independence?He struggles. He thinks and he works and he talks. He struggles against the gravity-like forces that pull him back to crime and prison. They are the things he knows, after all.But he wrestles the demons and finds a flicker of epiphany. This book, like many great books, cannot be adequately reduced to plot summary. The story is an amazing journey of bleak honesty and real hope.I have no doubt that the problems in Pomona and Inglewood and Long Beach are partly the responsibility of the police and the legal system. I also believe that the people in those cities have decided to allow a heightened amount of crime. They share the blame.And I have a share of the blame too. I participate in the blind eye, in the lack of outrage and grief. I don't know what I can do. But I know that I have to keep looking for a way to work on making it right. There may be an epiphany waiting for me, and that's worth looking for.

Sniff...Our Little Internet Is Growing Up

Murphy — Sun, 5 Feb 2006 16:36:15 EST

Other people started the Internet. The military started off with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Just like General Eisenhower had to use the threat of military action on our own soil to push through funding for the interstate highway system, it was the threat of nuclear disaster that let the government come up with an inter-network of communication technology.Well, we aren't even close to tapping all the possibilities DARPA started, what has come to be the world wide web, that trinity of double-yoos. It's my Internet. I'll share it with the rest of you, but it is mine like the air I breathe.Grizzled military contractors in their 60s will scoff at me, but I was an early adopter of the DARPA enterprise. My college had a system that connected up with it, and I latched on like a leech to that possibility of communicating with interesting people. I spent hours and hours chatting via green glowing text with all the other people who lived by the light of the computer lab monitors. It was 1990 and no one had heard of e-mail.Back in the college days, I learned nothing about computers. I mean, nothing. I knew to hit the enter key when I was done, but not much more than that. I did ask for help to understand, I did. But I can't help it if the nerd boys in the lab dissolved into blushing confusion when I asked them to explain. They just found it easier to do it for me. Speaking face to face with a freshman coed was too much.I repented at my leisure for not asking more questions.But look at us now! In a satisfyingly ironic twist, I now work as a video conferencing professional. I have progressed to a pretty darn sophisticated method of e-communication.And email and the Internet are huge and getting bigger every day. I have been able to take my English major writing ambitions and get my stuff out there. I have my own blog, and I even have been a major contributor to starting up this cool website, Blogcritics.I heard about BC, and it fit exactly what I wanted at the time. It was a place that was designed to get more of an audience than my own little web page. Okay, so I really didn't see how it could actually make a profit, but I was living in Silicon Valley at the time and had seen about 10 bazillion start up companies with worse ideas. Funding wasn't my problem. BC was a place where I could be published and be read by more than just my mother. And I was thankful to Eric Olsen and Philip Winn for giving me that chance.I practiced the art of writing, doing tons of reviews of whatever came across my path. I got pretty competitive with other writers, wanting to stay in the top ten frequent posters. It was fun! I admit I tossed off some posts that were fairly content-free at times. But then, I also composed some really great bits on Blogcritics.Lo and behold. I got to be a significantly better writer through the process of exercising that writing muscle. I wrote and wrote and finally began to work on some projects that were bigger than a website could hold.I outgrew my blog. I was struggling out of the chrysalis and discovered that I didn't have a home there anymore.Which is not to say I don't still enjoy tossing off the occasional posts on my blog. And whenever appropriate I cross-post to BC. But, as a writer, I'm in a different space. Doing reviews of things doesn't interest me as much. I have my own things to say.Okay, so, while I benched myself, the game goes on. BC has become a force, winning awards and attracting new contributors and becoming positively successful and viable. Way to go!Now I am in the terrifying position of having completed--or nearly completed, there is still the last editing--a longer book-project. In giving myself a shake to look around at how to position my book in the market, I remembered my old stomping ground. Blogcritics would be a site to be seen on, so I could get some publicity as an author and sell some books.So, I started posting a few things, and tossed off a review that I didn't put that much effort into. I knew it was short, but it was the sort of thing I would have thrown up in my old competitive-to-be-a-top poster days.I was shocked to get this reply from Connie Phillips: "I wanted to drop you an email to let you know I have put a hold on the article you have in pending...You have a really interesting seedling started here, and I'd love to see you expand on your thoughts just a bit. Give a little bit more information about the CD itself, or..." Seedling indeed! Who did this person think she was? I stewed around about it. Hmph! What was wrong with my post? What were other people posting anyway?I went back to the site and did some reading on the music section. I saw post after post of lengthy reviews, full of interesting info and opinions about the album and artists.Wow. Blogcritics sure has come a long way.Connie had the annoying quality of being right. I knew I had done a half-assed review, but I arrogantly thought that half-assed was good enough for the Internet.Not so, my friends. We complain all the time about the sucky state of old guard journalism, and the dividing lines being blurred. The stuffy suits in the Times and News towers say that they have the right to be right, that they are more professional and accuse us bloggers of poor spelling and merely opinionating.Well, I'm no Instapundit, but I have the right to be right as much as anybody. However, the bar has been raised and we who have the soapbox have the responsibility. Here on the World Wide Web, we have the generational turnover of fruit flies. Been on the web two years? You're the elder statesman! No more screwing around. "Good enough" isn't good enough anymore.The "child" I helped in my small way to bring into the world grew up to tell me to get with the times. Now that I'm over the shock, I'm really proud.Fact is, I will probably never be as frequent a poster as I was in the early years, but I will never again take this forum lightly. With my right hand raised, I swear I will always and forevermore spell-check.

Valley of the Shadows

Murphy — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 17:09:08 EST

Fight the powers that be! I'm talking about non-conformity!But I'll tell you the truth, I'd like to be an undercover non-conformist. A little conformity is a comforting thing. Enough to get through the door.'Cause I always think I'm a little off. Not quite like all the other non-conformists. As if I am unaware of the three sheets of toilet paper dragging off my shoe.Somehow, if I start talking about what's on my mind, people give me a blank stare and say, "Whatever."But I've got the floor, and you don't, so I'm going to speak my mind.I got this new job. And I've moved to a new place. Okay, I'll be honest, I bought a house--one that June Cleaver would be proud of, with a lemon tree in the front and roses on the side.This freaks me out a little. Because I do not want to wear a twin set and eat off the kitchen floor. I want to be that creative artist type that stays up all night drinking and toking with their other creative friends and being REAL.Isn't that what the L.A. life is all about? Except I don't drink much and I don't like drugs. And I get really sleepy around nine thirty, so no one would hang out with me.I guess that's the life in West L.A. I live on the East of L.A., and I am just like everyone else here. We get up early and speed to beat the sunrise, speed to the screeching halt of the bumper in front driving 5, 20, 10, stop and then start again with the miles per hour for the hour or the hour and a half that it takes to finally stop at the parking lot and the padded cell walls of the cubicle.It's not so bad. I like mornings. And maybe this is the real L.A. after all. Maybe you crazies from the West are going to crash and burn back to where you came from while we east enders drop the grains of sand into our 401Ks 'til our time runs out, the mortgage is paid, or we retire--whichever happens last.Maybe this is the real L.A. Los Angeles is full of Valleys, did you know? Any dip between these many hills is a valley.Quite honestly, I love my commute. I drive a short jaunt on the 10, exit right and downshift my manual transmission to 3rd so I can power up the crest of the 57. Below me, just at sunrise, the North Horizon is a range of green tree and gray rock mountains which, when hit by the slant light of dawn, get pink or orange or purple mountain majesties.This is the San Gabriel Valley. Yes, the Holy Angel Gabriel, the mouthpiece of God. And I hear it every morning, the messenger of God proclaiming that I am redeemed.But that is the second valley of my daily journey. I had to climb to enter the Angel's valley. I asked around and discovered that I live in Pomona Valley. Pomona is the name chosen for this place when it had few houses and more fruit trees. Pomona is the Goddess of the harvest. I dwell in the Valley of the Goddess. Which is most excellent, because I am the Queen of Pretty Things. It's a long story, but I've been the Queen of Pretty Things for almost seven years now, a position that carries a lot of responsibility. As the Queen, I am pleased to find my dominions in the Valley of the Goddess.As I am pleased to be greeted by the Valley of Voice of God, traveling through it every day to the very end. I know it is the very end of the San Gabriel Valley, because my cube window faces a big Rock. The rock is part of a mountain, and where there is a mountain, on the other side is a Valley. This valley is well known: the San Fernando Valley.Fernando... OOooo Fernando... ABBA? This is the Valley of the Dancing Queen.I travel there less frequently. I suppose that's just as well.

Play Review: The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

Murphy — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:59:07 EST

I saw this performed by the local high school. They set it in the wild west, which allowed Kate to actually shoot at her suitors.I love Shakespeare. I love that the high school does a play by the bard every year. I wish, of course, that they also learned to slow down and enunciate their words, but what can I expect for 7 dollars?...But this play turned my stomach. What starts out as a strong woman, someone I could cheer for, turns into a broken woman bleating the message.Petruchio 'tames' Katherine buy torturing her with lack of food and sleep deprivation. By the end, she will do whatever her husband Petruchio says -- and eloquently defends her 'choice' to do so. It's horrifying.Yes, it's a comedy, and it is a successful one. There are a lot of funny moments. But the scene where Kate begs the servant for food did not make me laugh.It was a different time, I tell myself at my desk as I look at the framed poster of Rosie the Riveter. It was a different time.Dr. Laura would say that it makes sense, what Kate says at the end: "Thy husband is ...one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance commits his body To painful labour both by sea and land, To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; And craves no other tribute at thy hands But love, fair looks and true obedience; Too little payment for so great a debt."Dr. Laura posits that men love their women and will do all kinds of heavy lifting if their ladies are sweet to them and show appreciation.To a large degree, I concur. I think that women need to recognize and appreciate the good stuff men do for them and not sweat the small stuff.So what if he is lounging around in his ratty sweats? Don't nag him to throw them away. Sit down next to him and he's more than likely going to put his arm around you and give you a kiss.So, if that is the message to take away from TOTS, it's not a bad one.It was a different time, right? Then, women were utterly dependent on their men to make money and provide food and a place to sleep.I was talking to my co-worker, a man born in Costa Rica, about my impressions of the play."It's still that way in some places," he said.We've got a long way to go, baby.