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The link to the Academy of Bards' Valentine Special. Enjoy!

Ladies, gentlemen and those in between - the proprietors of the establishment would like to thank you for participating in their survey...

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! Feedback. Or even snarkback. I'll bloody well take it. You people think I sit here whining because I like the droning fan sound emanating from my cpu? Hell no! I do it so that I can get jolly little notes from the likes of you. Naturally.

Good to know you're surviving the weather in your parts! Presently, we've got about a foot of snow outside our windows... From the notes, looks like sex and romance is the main interest for you lot.

So okay, here's the deal - on Valentine's day - there'll be a bit of fluff posted on the Academy site (I'll provide a link, when there's one to post). And sometime after that, you'll get the rest of Marjorie's parts, promise. Major changes are afoot in the Bruleedom, windows of opportunity for perpetrating this sort of indiscretion are narrowing - so I took your pulse, I read your words, urgency did not characterize the response, which is all well and good, as I've pressing things to attend to.

<turns in a pronounced, flouncy sort of manner, comme Eloise in boots, and exits stage left>

Kisses and such.

~Brulee

Untrustworthy Narrator

Lots of fuss in the media recently about James Frey and J.T. LeRoy - two people who lied, lied, lied and got way caught. Frey, as everyone must know by now, wrote a memoir... that turned out to be more of a novel, really. And J.T. LeRoy wrote lurid novels, supposedly informed by his tragic and tortured life as a drug addict and prostitute, which turned out to be as fictional as, well, him.

There was a good discussion about these goings on and this phenomena in general with Simon Dumenco on Studio360. Thomas Hoving is also a guest on the show, he's annoying in that macho aesthete way, but especially in the know.

This all reminds me of an experience I had not too long ago when I stumbled across an untrustworthy narrator... She wasn't underfoot, so much as she was in hand - I was reading. It was a memoir of sorts... two guesses where this is going?

I got three chapters into the book and an uneasy feeling began to creep out of my subconscious, "Psst! Psst! There's something fishy goin' on here." I read on, with an increasingly wary eye to sentiment - to the underlying tone. You see, the overall tone was meant to be cheery, sensitive and uplifting - and yet, there was a striking undercurrent of nasty. This cheerful woman had an axe to grind, only, she was grinding it in between the lines, sly like. By the end of the book, I came to believe that she wasn't even aware of it. Not all nastiness is intentional.

Funny how you can come across this kind of thing in books... It's kind of like when you meet someone who reminds you of someone else you've known, but you can't quite put your finger on who it is exactly... until that person screws you over in exactly the same way someone else once had, and you say, "Right! That's who they reminded me of!"

One of the benefits of age (if you weren't born with bullshit radar) is that you pick up on this sort of thing faster. There are, of course, people who remind you of, and are like, the pleasant folks you've known too - which is super and a terrifically important thing to pick up on early in life, as to surround yourself with folk who can positively reinforce why it is that spending time with people can be less than a painful exercise. But just now I'm not on about positive and super folks, I'm focused on this untrustworthy narrator I stumbled upon. I've come across them in fiction before, being, as they are, a classic literary device, but I don't think I've had the necessary experience or insight to spot such ingenuousness in memoir. Not until this lady with her axe.

Perhaps experience has made me wary... You see, I was once burnt rather badly by an untrustworthy narrator in non-fiction. I was young and impressionable, and a friend who was Guatemalan and had come to the states as a political refugee recommended a book to me - he wanted me to understand the plight of his people - the book was Rigoberta Menchu's "I, Rigoberta". It's a gut wrenchingly tragic telling of her family's suffering at the hands of the military in Guatemala during the long-running civil war there. It tells of the suffering of the native population of Guatemala, the Mayan Indians. It's a nightmarish accounting of torture and degradation. It burned a hole in my head. It burned a hole in a lot of people's heads. Rigoberta Menchu won the Nobel Peace prize in 1992.

There was just one problem with her book - it wasn't true. The degrees to which it was and wasn't true are in dispute, but the dispute is real - as is her relationship with some very savvy political activists. She claims that the stories in the book that didn't happen to her, but that she told as happening to her, did happen, they just happened to someone other than Rigoberta Menchu... so, it's sort of a collective memoir... representing the spirit of the truth.

Was the situation in Guatemala nightmarish? Yes. Did Rigoberta Menchu's book bring a lot of attention to it? Yes. Does that justify her lies?

Nowadays, I tend to be wary when reading accounts and tales and such. Two films that explore the untrustworthy narrator superbly are: "Joe Gould's Secret" and "Shattered Glass". Good flicks, especially "Joe Gould's Secret". If you've ever been lied to and/or been made to feel like you're nuts by a charismatic and charming psychotic, you might find "Joe Gould's Secret" interesting. It's a darned good film in any case. "Shattered Glass" explores the journalist Steven Glass' rise to fame, and fall from grace, when he was exposed as an untrustworthy journalist/narrator - he'd fabricated tons of his content for his articles in "The National Review".

It's fascinating, really, that line people cross - the how and why of it. Are the untruths circumstantially, willfully or psychotically induced? Is it a combination of these things? Is it something else? Gives the little gray cells a stir.

In case you're wondering, dear reader, about the quality of my narration, I wish to assure you that my untruths are fabricated with the utmost care and consideration to your gentle dispositions. As narrators go, I'm, like, most untrustworthy and whatnot. Quote me at your risk - believe me at your peril. Fact check me baby, I'm lyin' like a rug.

In the news

And so it goes...
The Cheney Factor (American Progress, 02.10.06)

This librarian has been publicly attacked hereabouts for having the unmitigated gall to ask the the FBI to follow the law... Gah!
Newton library forces FBI to get warrant to seize computers (Boston Globe, 02.26.06)

Odd headline...
Bush rallies scandal-rocked Republicans (Reuters, 02.11.06)

Nigeria tests children for bird flu (Reuters, 02.13.06)

For a comprehensive week in review, give Harper's a try:
Harper's Weekly Review

Or Scott Simon and Dan Schorr on NPR:
Week in Review: Cartoons, Gonzales, Patriot Act (NPR, 02.11.06)

Bizarre, in so many ways...
Pregnancy test may lie behind deadly frog fungus (Reuters, 02.02.06)

Sigh...
Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation (Electronic Frontier Foundation, 02.06)

Can I sign ours up? I'd fly them there free!
Pigeons get backpacks for air pollution monitoring (Reuters, 02.01.06)

It's me again. You were expecting someone else, perhaps? No such luck.

Given that I'm about to spoil you people rotten one day soon, it's probably not such a bad thing it's me. Someone else might not post whatnots the likes of mine... They'd post them as theirs and then where would you be? On someone else's site mostlike... but then, let's not get overly technical.

Speaking of spoiling, I think it's time you people did some spoiling of your own - oh yes, me thinks so! I want to hear what it is you'd like more - a new story, or the rest of the old one. And tell me what you'd like to hear more, and less, of in the Seen. And tell me about the weather in your neck of the woods while you're at it. E-mail your response through my super-duper spam-killing form thingy on this page...

Provacatrix

Oy! Oy! Oy!

Listening to Nora Vincent (rumored to be a conservative lesbian columnist...), author of "Self-Made Man" talk about her 18 month experiment passing as a man, I had a moment... Sort of a twitch, really. She spoke about how when she approached women, as a man, she was treated as less than human, and she lamented about how women treated men so poorly - she spoke about how suspect she felt as a man...

A little something for you to consider Nora...

"Women make up 3/4 of the victims of homicide by an intimate partner. Actually, 33% of all women murdered (of course, only cases which are solved are included) are murdered by an intimate partner. Women make up about 85% of the victims of non-lethal domestic violence. In all, women are victims of intimate partner violence at a rate about 5 times that of males."

Use your brain! It's a pretty basic survival issue. How many women have I been sexually harrassed by? Hmm, let me think on it a minute - um, NONE. Can't say the same for men. Gee, maybe if I'd been dressed and passing as a man I could have gotten an inside view and better understood, even sympathized with that old guy who got his jollies out of grabbing at me in the hallway at that one job... Perhaps we could have sat and chatted about how much it sucked that young women weren't as interested in us anymore (when we gave them a choice... heh heh). Yeah, maybe I wouldn't have minded his groping and wouldn't have threatened him that time - wouldn't have gotten up in his face and spit cold fury at him while he tried to twist my arm - maybe I wouldn't have - if I'd had more sympathy for his waning virility...

I'm not saying, by any means, that women don't harass or assault one another, or men, sexually. I'm also not saying, certainly, that all men are out to assault women. That's not what I'm on about. Women can be nasty and mean and despicable and bitter and predatory and cold and superior and excessively competitive and all the rest. Neither sex has a monopoly on human shortcomings or frailty. But statistically, we're not as physically threatening - snottier, possibly, sure, but when's the last time that landed you in the hospital?

Funny thing about that old creep at that job - everyone thought he was this sweet guy, a guy's guy, a real charmer. When he died, people sat around talking about what a good guy he was and how much he loved his wife... People are multi-dimensional, he was probably a nice guy in some respect, to someone, but to me, he was a pathetic asshole.

It's tough not being one of the boys... it's especially difficult for some non-traditionally feminine lesbians - but the reality of the matter is, unless you're Daddy's one unusual human being, Daddy just isn't going to accept you as one of the boys. No matter how well you can change a tire or fold a map - it just ain't gonna happen. Ya gotta let that one go. You're not his son, you're his freakish daughter - he may grow to accept it, sorta-kinda, but he's not going to see you as one of the guys (unless, as stated, he's an exceptionally evolved freak himself). Neither are the guys going to see you as one of them - 'cuz you ain't one. By and large, guys treat guys as guys - women are from Venus - or wherever - and we treat one another with a suspect eye. (In my limited experience, this seems to vary between ethnicities and cultures.) Someday, many eons from now, people might learn to treat one another as people. However lovely that will be, we don't live in that world today.

In general, I'm suspect of women in media who solicit my sympathy for the male condition. Why? Because, when I've encountered it in the past, there's been an underlying misogyny in the complaint about how we treat men. Does that mean that women in media can't speak out on behalf of men without an underlying misogyny or conservative agenda? Of course not, it's just that in the media, a lot of this sort of thing is designed to agitate the feminist nerve and stroke the male ego.

While I'm less interested in the goings on of the opposite sex, I'm very interested in exploring the cross-section of culture, sexuality and gender. Even so, I'm not as interested in focusing on the rituals men share with one another, as much as I'm concerned about, and directly effected by, how they treat women. Perhaps if I were more interested and engaged, more sympathetic to the dilemma of their being the recipients of higher salaries, of being the larger, more aggressive and violent sex, of being the ones who shoulder the responsibilities of nations and history (throughout much of which our sex has been considered property...) - they'd be liberated from the confines of cultural expectations by my deep appreciation of their hobbled condition...

I had a conversation with a male co-worker once whose feelings had been hurt by a woman - he was totally pissed off. So pissed off, he told me about it (me, that not-male, but different enough somehow from other women that things get talked about in my presence...). They'd driven to her apartment, she had to run in and grab something and would come back to the car. He moved to accompany her. She asked if he'd wait for her instead. He did, and realized that the reason she'd asked him to was that she wasn't comfortable - that maybe even she was worried he might assault her. True, they didn't know one another all that well, "But hey," he fumed, "That was rude! "

"Let's put aside the possibility that she might have left dirty dishes in the sink that she didn't want you to see - let's say that had nothing to do with this and you're right, and she really was being cautious because she doesn't know you well. You'd have preferred that she invite you up, just to spare your feelings?" I asked.

"No - so I wouldn't have felt accused of being a rapist or something."

"Okay, so if you have a daughter some day - god forbid - and a guy she doesn't know well offers her a ride, then wants to come into her apartment with her, she should do it, let him in. And if she gets assaulted, or raped, then, oh well, at least she wasn't 'rude'? What kind of a doink are you? Why should this woman put her personal safety before your easily hurt feelings? And maybe she did invite a guy up once, and had a bad experience - ever think of that? It's not such a far fetched idea - it has been known to happen."

"But I wouldn't do anything like that!"

Sigh - I didn't say he was bright. He also had trouble understanding why it was I'd asked him to stop touching me (something he did casually several times after we'd first met). "But I'm a touchy-feely kind of guy!" He'd grinned.

"But I'm not a be touched and felt kind of gal," I'd replied.

"The other women don't mind it," he whined.

"Have you asked them?"

"Well, no, but I figure they'd say something if they had a problem with it."

"And you'd tell them that you were just a touchy-feely kind of guy, and the other women didn't mind it, so they should get with your program and accept your harmless idiosyncrasy. Regardless of the fact that they don't want your hands on them. Has it ever occurred to you that the fact that you're their supervisor might make them hesitant to say something? Come to think of it, I've not seen you touching Janice [his female supervisor]."

"Oh come on! Everyone knows I don't mean anything by it!" He exclaimed.

He dated several of the women he supervised...

So yeah, women treat men who are strangers as suspect, Nora, with good reason. Maybe as a 5'10" dyke, you've not been privy to the treatment that some of us shorter, less brawny, women have been - maybe you should try wearing dresses and slouching for 18 months and report back to us on how that goes.

Pfft!

Note: Am I saying don't read her book? I've not read it, and have simply jumped all over a perceived sentiment that was formed by a strongly conditioned mind - so I can't really say what you should do. You're an adult, in any case, so make up your own damned mind. I will note, however, that since I've typed this, I happened across this very book in the bookstore. "Gads!" I thought, and picked it up - "Let's give it look-see." To start my perusal, I turned it over and glimpsed the first publicity blurb, before even finishing it, my eye was drawn to the name of the blurb writer - Camille Paglia (another conservative lesbian media provacatrix). I returned the book to the shelf. And rested my case.

And believe it or not... on my way to that self-same bookstore, I passed two young men engaged in heated conversation. "All a woman in this state has to do to get a restraining order is ask for one - do you know what implications that has for the man?" The other participant in the conversation, let's call him Harold, said, "But if she's asking for one, she's probably got a reason." The crusader for male justice, let's call him Bly, said, "Oh sure, at the drop of a hat, she can legally mandate that he can't come near her. You think all of these women have pure motives?" Harold, obviously not brushed up on the topic, wasn't entirely won over by Bly's impassioned reasoning, "Well..."

Me, I picked up my pace. If I didn't get away from Bly, I was going to have a hard time not asking if he happened to know one of the primary causes of death for women in this country - right up there with cancer, Sweetheart. Then pin his scrawny little law school ass (did I mention I was near a law school at the time?) to a nearby post and tell him that if he wanted more attention from women (sounded like he had some resentments buried in this department), this probably wasn't the way to go about getting it.

©2001-2006 C.Brulee
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