The Meaning of Marylin

True story: Eons ago I had a roommate who decked our whole apartment living area in Marylin Monroe garb --- framed photos, decorative boxes, throw pillows and blankets --- and yet, when you asked her what her favorite Marylin movie* was, she'd draw a blank, blinking stare. Clueless, not conflicted: she had never seen a Marylin Monroe film. In fact, she didn't know much about Marylin beyond the superficial (pretty, white, blonde, and famous). This surface level adulation, the association with my roommate (who was terribleawful in other ways) and her decorative tackiness, along with the onslaught of Marylin's legendary image as THE pinnacle of glamour above all led to me being turned off by the idolization of Marylin Monroe, and even Marylin: The Person to some extent. 

Yeah, I know, Kim there's people that are dying...

For someone who believes variety is the spice of life, the imagery of Marylin while dazzling and iconic, did seem somewhat...typical and too white beauty-centric for me to immerse in --- this knowing she wasn't the only vibrant, glamorous and talented personality to come out of the golden ages of Hollywood history. As a Black woman, I looked to a different, often ignored spectrum as I preferred to celebrate Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Diana Sands, Marpessa Dawn, and Dorothy Dandridge (whose life and death have eerie similarities to Marylin...). Women who did the most with the slither of spotlight they were warranted. Women who were also beautiful and talented, and bonus, 'looked' more like me --- their representation mattered more, honestly.

So why did I read a book about Marylin after all this judgement and pettiness? Well, because a) I love diving into a good Hollywood biography/memoir, b) Quarantine binge watching led me to view Lifetime's mini-series The Secret Life of Marylin Monroe, and I felt a lot was missing and wildly fictionalized (I mean, it was on Lifetime...), and c) I wanted to give Marylin --- the woman and the enigma --- a chance to re-introduce herself. 

Let me clarify: I don't dislike Marylin Monroe. Even with the oversaturation of her image, it is without fallacy. She was a beautiful, captivating icon for the ages. Her cotton candied blonde bombshell image, white skirt blown up by hot subway air still haunts and arouses 58 years after her death, remaining a constant in replication, whether to push many a product, personify Hollywood hierarchy or is emulated to imitation from fashion editorials to drag shows. We feel that with Marylin's image around --- if we can slip into it someway --- we're closer to the star spangled fantasy of fame. That if a simple girl named Norma Jean Mortensen could make it, we can too if we just pout our lips, thrust out our busts, and talk breathlessly. Still, nobody has come close to replicating her aura, try as many have. 

Her and James Dean share a similar mythos for their image and tragic short lives, and how they represented this sort of Americana image of youthful success and sexiness, and the tragic pitfalls of it. Unfortunately, Marylin being a woman is scrutinized to a greater degree than James Dean, whose rebellious persona is lauded as ideal masculinity, whilst Marylin is subjected to this "beautiful bimbo blonde" sex object stereotype. It's also why Marylin's misunderstandings are what intrigue me as well, considering how I had my own. 

Marylin was more than just beauty marks, diamonds, mental illness, and the Kennedys, and I wanted to know more beyond the superficial and speculative. I wanted someone to really show me a side to Marylin that I might have overlooked, and misogynistically misunderstood. 

Well, as with a legendary icon, there are lots of sides out there to explore. Zillions upon zillions of books about Marylin exist. Zillions upon zillions of stories, conspiracies and contradictions, observations and opinions about who and what she was also exist. It was difficult to weed through the inaccurate, exploitive, conspiracy riddled, fictitious, and outdated texts to find a book that eschewed such star biography hallmarks, but luckily for me, Charles Casillo's Marylin Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon won out as while being a fan, he doesn't stan to where he's skimping on facts and flaws. He offers several viewpoints, none not too flattering or too scathing, making for an informative balance. 

Casillo also avoids framing Marylin's life as "Wikipedia page as a book", where even as linear it is, it's a surprisingly fresh take at her life. The writing is also vibrant and lyrical, never tedious, this even when Casillo is attempting to "armchair analyze" Marylin's thought processes, and give through behind-the-scenes accounts of Marylin's filmography. He places you into the spin of 1950s and 1960s Hollywood and its politics, its dazzle and its difficulties, and how Marylin navigates it to success and tragedy...and it's pretty riveting, thought-provoking stuff. 

Changing My Mind On Zadie

Zadie Smith's prose and I do not get along.

I tried befriending it when I started (and stopped) reading White Teeth and On Beauty a few years back, this on the recommendations of well-meaning bookish friends. Of what I read, I felt afterward...detached...disengaged...just dunce cap dumb. Her prose just flew over my head, making me second guess what I read, how I read it. Did I not get it? Do I even know how to read? Ugh.

I saw a reviewer on GoodReads brand her right: she is a "glib genius". Her text truly preens in the mirror with little regard. Now, don't think me emerald green envious of her obvious gifts. Smith is an intelligent and perceptive writer who crushes stereotypes that woman of color can analyze Middlemarch one moment and label 50 Cent as a "leading man" with a straight face the next (and all in the same book, mind you), but she's still in a glass casing of academia, removed from a sense of realness.

I thought Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays would be an easier meal to digest and get on the right track with Zadie instead of a sprawling novel that I'd end up getting lost in. All it is is a collection of essays that cover various subject matters ranging from literature to film, and just possibly Smith would be better read in smaller, concise portions?

No such luck.

Changing My Mind --- while meant to be an inconsistent collection of random thoughts --- works in theory, but on paper the thought processes within just don't come together in an effective way.

How To Write An Autobiographical Novel

"The story of your life, described, will not describe how you came to think about your life or yourself, not describe any of what you learned. This is what fiction can do--I think it is even what fiction is for"

I find a lot of writing books redundant.

I should clarify: I find a lot of books about the instruction and lifestyle of writing to be redundant. Even a little pointless, and sometimes polarizing after a while.

It's not because I don't like to be told what to do, it's just that you can read so much advice, so much instruction that you spend more time on reading about writing, than actually writing. Also sometimes after reading, I'm left with a tinge of inferiority, that I don't fit the "criteria" for what makes one an illustrious author. How I didn't go to this school, graduate this particular program, know these awesome kooky writing peers, don't live in this bookish cliquish area, not tapping into the right writing 'zen'...catch my drift? Some authors just polarize, marginalize an aspiring writer, making them feel as if us peon hardscrabble scribes can't live up to whatever impossible lifestyle standard, all cause we are not this, that, and come from a certain background.

Granted there are some writing books that don't waste trees, and authors who in innocence just want to humble brag and dish freely about their writing lives, but I myself have certain criteria for what constitutes as a biblical tome for the written word. I prefer a book where the author is conversational, not instructional, and that they come from a real place, not some mythical fantasia of vintage typewriters, high-rise socials, and wrap-around scarves, pipes in the crooks of mouths. Leave that pretension at the doormat, I don't want it tracking in my house. I tend to like a book that just gets to the damn point, and tells me how fucking frustrating, spirit shattering, bloodletting, and all-around grueling writing is, while patting me on the back in support, showing me its ultimate rewards. I like a book that possesses lines like these:

"I think writers are often terrifying to normal people--that is to non-writers in a capitalist system--for this reason: there is almost nothing they will not sell in order to have the time to write. Time is our mink, our Lexus, our mansion. In a room full of writers of various kinds, time is probably the only thing that can provoke widespread envy, more than acclaim" 

"Being a writer can feel a lot like writing and giving up on writing at the same time." 

"Writing fiction is an exercise in giving a shit---an exercise in finding out what you really care about." 

YES. This is what I want. Give me more.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Aretha Franklin's homegoing was a complete circus of odd to me.

Eight long hours where a bevy of questionable men made it a mission at the pulpits to scream about Idiot Orange In Chief and other random non-Aretha related topics. Eight long hours that occupied a mixed bag of performances that (to me) failed to stir the soul, where the corpse changed costumes four times, a minister groped a pop star, who wore club gear to a funeral, that led to a former president to ogle at her...*exasperated long sigh* Eight long hours that seemed removed from its honoree, and a complete affront to a woman who was a musical legend, a deity diva whose soundtrack called and responded to a generation. From the onset, the whole affair almost seemed designed as if nobody knew who Aretha Franklin truly was.

Then again, Aretha seemed to want it that way.

This is something author David Ritz points out in the introduction for Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin, the struggle he had at getting Aretha to tell her side of the story when he wrote an early biography of hers. She was not interested, that is, unless it was on her terms. Fine. Yet, the woman loved to fabricate, spin her own fairy tales, convince herself of the what-could-be, so anything coming out of her mouth outside of singing came to be taken with showers of salt. Her protection of herself in controlling her own narrative may seem laudable. As a woman of color, not too often we're given carte blanche to our own narrative, but it does do a disservice because we never do know who the real Aretha is. This book doesn't exactly skirt from that either.

Catwalking With The Muses

Walking With The Muses is a literal escapade into the intoxicating swirl of the 1970s fashion world, as told by a true BAP (Black American Princess).

The title is perfect as supermodel Pat Cleveland truly walks (or more so) struts and twirls side-by-side with her "muses" which are a colorful cavalry of creatives from the 1960s and 1970s. Halston, Karl Lagerfeld, Andy Warhol, Antonio Lopez, Stephen Burrows, Yves Saint Laurent, Diana Vreeland (and an extremely weird) Guy Bourdin are all ruminated on, as are legends and icons like Marian Anderson, Nina Simone, Salvador Dali, Diana Ross, and Liza Minelli. Also a peppering of paramours such as Muhammad Ali, Mick Jagger, and Warren Beatty (who's kinda an ass) are kissed, and lead to some juicy tells. And to round out the glittering world of Pat Cleveland, along for the ride are a who's who of top models of the time like Donna Jordan, Sterling St. James, Naomi Sims, Marisa Berenson, Grace Jones and Jerry Hall.

Oh yeah, this book is deliciously gossipy and drops names like cookie dough batter on a baking tray, with Pat being that personable and glamorous griot, delivering a vibrant oral history that is nothing short of fun.

As a fan of this era, and the 1970s fashion culture in general, I was enthralled reading about Pat's adventures in couture paradise. From spiritual awakenings during her flower child days, sojourns in Europe and Africa, pre-gentrified New York City in all of its 1970s era grit and artistic gusto, near-death experiences (Pat clearly has nine lives...), to even an UFO sighting (!), Pat pours an effervescent cocktail of stories and keeps the libations flowing. Still her grandest adventure is being the daughter of artist Ladybird Cleveland, and their relationship, while marred by the exit of her musician father and Pat being passed off to some less than supportive relatives for a short spell, is a beautiful meditation on the mother-daughter bond, and the intimacy that it so entails.

Choices

The harpoon moment during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice occurred when California Senator Kamala Harris asked nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh if there were any laws, on the books, that give the government power to protect the male body. With this question she was met with a furrowed brow, some beads of sweat, and not a clear answer. She repeated the question, and Kavanaugh, assembling the few brain cells he possesses, replied thus: "I'm not thinking of any right now."

This exchange lets us know three things: 1) Harris is one bad mutha, and deserves to be a Senate majority leader, 2) Kavanaugh is an unqualified sexist assclown, and 3) it's 2018 and this is where we are. We are in a time where a senator has to pose a question like this, and that the question is met with pause, with a dumbfounded look, and with a muddled non-answer. If anything, this disqualified him for me, this even before all that would emerge about Kavanaugh in the coming weeks. It was a simple "yes or no" question, "no" being the answer, but it was his lack, his reluctance at saying this, pissed me off.

There are numerous things that make Kavanaugh unfit for the Supreme Court (and a lot of it goes beyond the scope of just his opinions on Roe v. Wade and women's bodies), but the strongest stench that permeates off of him is his utter disdain and disinterest of women, and the frenetic need to control said women. I don't care if he has a wife and two daughters, or that his staff is comprised of all-women. Hitler had a mother, and a girlfriend, and women who followed him throughout the Nazi regime. There is no such thing as a "good sexist".

Pushing aside a lot of the ugly that occurred during, and in the aftermath of a hearing where a woman had relay the most traumatic moment of her life to a prying audience of strangers, and an Angry White Man who conveniently made himself the victim made me return to a read that made one of the deepest impressions on me last year. So I write this on the eve of the assured confirmation (barf) for Kavanaugh, and wonder still: will we ever get to a point where women and their bodies are left the fuck alone?

Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, by The Nation writer, Katha Pollitt didn't have to convince me of anything, even at the time of reading it. I have a fierce belief that women, from all walks of life, deserve choices and to rule their lives the way they see fit. I'm against patriarchal-driven governments and churches, and rooms filled with avaricious white men making decisions towards people and matters they know nothing about, and choose to know nothing about when it's all said and done. Pollitt didn’t need 272 pages to convince me that pro-choice is a balm to aid a bulk of our societal ills or that "abortion opponents" (her wording) have ill-informed, insincere thinking, and yet, she converted me, a 100xs over converted, confirmed, and made me stand stronger in my convictions that pro-choice is what I believe.

So why are others so feverishly against abortion? To quote Janet Jackson: "cause it's all about control" --- but control of what?

Pro takes on the heft of such a question and outlines how abortion opponents, and even some defenders, use their words as weapons to terrorize and hold women hostage within their own bodies, and how there are layers to how society as a whole punishes, controls, and shames women ---- particularly women of color, and women who live in a poorer class bracket. Though its a book preaching to the pro-choice choir, Pro is mostly written for the "muddled middle", those who sit on the fence about reproductive rights, or don't think two ways about it. Pollitt dispels a lot of doubt, and puts forth a lot of potent truth, as she gives clear and reasoned arguments to time-worn conspiracy theories and junk science, making sense of what "pro-life" is, what stokes people's fears about legal abortions, and how we should re-frame the concepts of sex, childbirth, and motherhood for the sake of our future.

Mucking Around With Mitford

"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty" - Jessica Mitford

I must admit that today's political climate (and the exposure of Hollywood's sexual abuse "open secrets") has reinvigorated my love for investigative journalism.

For a time, the media seemed to allow one of its cornerstone mediums to sit on a shelf and collect dust as a new form of communication sashayed its way in. That new, sexy moll was the quicksilver truth serum known as social media. As it caught on, it became the fastest, most effortless way to compartmentalize and digest news, and it gave us a gift in return as it stoked our need for instant gratification and affinity by way of shares and likes.

Not that there is anything wrong with seeing those little hearts light up or wanting to nosh on your news in bite-sized tweets, videos, and memes --- I too enjoy the zip n' zeal of Samantha Bee's half-hour, hunkering down in forums of interest, and getting my point across in less than 140 characters (or is it 280 now?) --- but with the good comes the bad, and with every push towards progress, "clickbait" and "fake news" were bred as journalism's unfortunate new reckless onuses.

Instead of safeguarding how we share and report news I hate to say that journalists slept at the wheel. It often pained me to see falsities not taken to task, opinions weren't constructive but an exercise in ignorance and assholery, where we seemed closer to an Orwellian' "doublespeak" vocabulary that backed people into corners, and bred a sense of classist and racist entitlement. With such a breakdown of ethics, a laziness towards protecting the fourth estate was inevitable, and why I shouldn't have been surprised at the media's contribution to the rise of the walking bowel movement that is currently residing in the White House.

News isn't supposed to be glamorous, but it isn't supposed to erroneous either. It's to give voice to voiceless, not turn the volume up on those who are already screaming. Now we're getting a brisk, frigid shower wake-up to why you can't have it both ways, that you can't refashion the news just because the outcome doesn't suit you. Such distraction and ill-informed tactics do in fact dumb down a sizable portion of the population, and make it easier for propaganda-driven media conglomerates and cyber warfare to slink in.

Not only that, it allowed people to forget that fact checking, interviewing, extensive research, and the exhaustive and meticulous organization of such matter are elements that are essential for journalism and its assembly, and that all these elements work to expose and bring down corruption. It's bad enough with the current Fool In Chief we are gaslighted into believing that facts, realities, and just literal common sense are figments of the imagination, but for someone who came of age during drastic shifts in media --- where the Internet pretty much changed everything --- it was obvious to me that journalism took a hit, and began to dissent into fallacy and well, fuckery.

Time will tell if we're witnessing an All The President’s Men on steroids moment, where careers will be made (and others will crash and burn) and where we stop trying to legitimize talking heads and web darlings as "journalists". American journalism at current, to me, continues to be in a state of flux. It still wants to flirt with the loudest foghorn in the room, all while not checking any balances, but if there is anything  positive that has come out of the current presidential shitshow, the fourth estate --- the art of hunting and gathering, reporting and being forceful in corralling answers to inform the masses --- got its groove back and proved it wasn't totally knocked out by emojis and snapchats.

This new era of journalism was in the back of my mind while reading Poison Penmanship last year, and reworking this review for this year. I wondered what its author, the late Jessica Mitford would've thought of the "alternative facts" clusterfuck that became American journalism. What would she have thought of the Liar In Chief?  The infiltration of the fake news she so often rallied against in her hey-day? What response she'd have if she'd heard the authoritarian bravado of former Press Secretary Sean Spicer when he said that we should "disagree with the facts"? Maybe I answered my own questions, because within the pages of this 1979 collection of Mitford's greatest hits (and misses) is an honest and fierce exploration of the world of investigative journalism, and a woman who reveled passionately in it to seek the unfiltered truth.