Surrey with the Fringe on Top

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Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry...I took approximately ten forms of public transportation today including the subway, the R 5 regional rail, the #47 bus (twice), the feet, the Pony Express, and the rickshaw. Consequently, I opted not to take the Greyhound to New York as planned, though I will have to catch it in the a.m. in order to get to downtown Manhattan for the AWP Conference plus lunch with Joe, whom I never thought I would see again. Bet he wears his khaki coat. There will be a Penn State reunion this week--hoping to see Jeff and Carla and Matt Siegel and Hoffer and Matt Perez and Adam and Dave and last but not least, Luke, Liz, Snake and Tessa (though Tessa is last on my list of individuals to see).
Had my philosophy and pop culture class last night; I think I'm going to really like it though I did space out a bit when we were discussing philosophy and style. I'd like to write one of my papers on the philosophy of the show, Intervention, how they subscribe to the idea that addiction can in some ways be traced to a problem in childhood (divorce, rape, a bad coach, homosexuality amid a Midwestern Christian family), how the addiction can only be helped through a recovery program, how the family is scripted to say things like "Your addiction has effected me negatively in the following ways...", how addiction is a disease and not a life-style, how the loved one can only be helped by being confronted directly through this "intervention" process, how they lie to the participants to get their story, how the family is often culpable in enabling the addict by giving them money or shelter, how it is often an emotionally manipulative show, how not every piece ends happily, how they use music to create even more pathos. The episode I watched last night was about Emily, an anorexic and there was this really great moment at the end where she was at the recovery program and said, I see now how I need to change. It's like this light bulb went off. Then a black screen comes up, the part where they tell us how Emily is doing and it says "Emily lost an additional 7 pounds after entering the program...She then agreed to be fed by a tube. She is now in another recovery facility in Anchorage, Alaska."

Comments

PattonPottery said…
Don't forget Oscar -- Oscar's pretty cool, too.

I wish we were on that list, but alas, we cannot make the trip. . . .
2:59 PM
PattonPottery said…
Don't forget Oscar. Oscar is pretty cool.

I wish we were on your list of people to see, but alas, we can't make the trip. . . .
3:09 PM
Aimee said…
I forgot about Oscar! I bet I wouldn't even recognize him, though he has the greatest name.

Maybe we should all meet up in Philly some time.
9:44 AM
Jacob Russell said…
For a couple of years, doing radiographic transcriptions at Jefferson Hospital, I sat at a keyboard next to a woman in her 40's. All of 65 pounds. People would get out of the elevator when she stepped in... like they thought she had AIDS. Anorexia and pop culture would be a subject worth exploring. As though it was something that only happened to young girls who looked at too many pictures of skinny fashion models.

Emily Bronte read Vogue?

There's a book, Holy Anorexia, on how anorexia was valorized in the middle ages... fasting for God.

I wrote a story... imagining an American girl with the sensibility of Simone Weil: A Theology of Anorexia

... that would be a good subject, how we make cartoons of people with afflictions we prefer to mythologize, rather than understand.
8:37 PM
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