Chicks I Like, And Would Like To Be

This weekend I met Thea Sharrock.

She is an awesome director. Most recently, she directed the revival of Equus currently on Broadway, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths. She is 31 years old. (Possibly 32.) She was Artistic Director of the Southwark Playhouse when she was 24. Peter Hall talked her into directing Blithe Spirit. There are rumors that she might be the next Artistic Director of the Royal National Theatre. She has a wedding ring and a baby. (Both of which I saw.) She looks incredible.

31 years old.

She came to my school to lead a weekend-long workshop on Noël Coward, which we directors got to attend. She is wonderful--very open and intelligent and nice, and the workshop was great. She was particularly nice to the directors--we were told we'd be observing silently, but she totally made us act, which was a lot of fun.*

So, this woman is living the dream. It is awe-inspiring, and also just plain inspiring. It is also, of course, very very intimidating. I am almost 27! I was already focusing on the fact that I should've written "Thunder Road" by now--now I know I also should've run a reputable theater. Of course, Sharrock has been in theatre school since she was nine, so that gives her a bit of a head start. But the strange part is that working with her put the idea in my head that, for professional purposes, I really do need to lose about 20 lbs. Go figure.

The thing is, I was told YEARS ago that "a woman can't succeed as a director in [New York] unless she's a lesbian." It was clarified for me that it didn't matter with whom you were actually sleeping, but it was important to seem pretty dykey. Sharrock did not seem dykey per se, but she definitely looked like what I realized was my concept of the quintessential Female Director: dark jeans, white T, flat ankle boots, no make-up whatsoever. We directors get head shots at the end of the year, and the word is that they encourage us to cultivate a persona--most of last year's head shots scream "I AM A DIRECTOR." My flatmate is horrified by this, but I'm looking forward to it. I definitely plan to push my Knowing Tough Girl self-image.

I will almost certainly be wearing make-up, however. Cross your fingers that this doesn't ruin my career.


*For me at least. At least one of my compatriots wanted the floor to swallow him up. Thea Sharrock seemed to appreciate this.

Read More...

Summary only...

Chicks I Like: Grey Hoodie Edition

If you read the blogs I do, you'll have heard the name Sarah Haskins before--she is a web-wide girl crush for the eFeminist set. I, too, have fallen hard. She is the creator and star of a new feature on Current TV called Target: Women. Humorously taking on the ridiculous ways in which the media try to interact with women, her most recent topics have been bridal shows and the McCain/Obama showdown for HRC's supporters. But most of us first came to know her and love her for one reason: yogurt. Enjoy.

Read More...

Summary only...

Chicks I Really, Really Like: Doogie Howser Edition

Totally stolen from Jezebel, here is the story of Alia Sabur, THE WORLD'S YOUNGEST PROFESSOR.

(At 18 years old, she's broken the record set in 1717 by some 19-year-old bewigged dude.)

There's really nothing about this that isn't perfect. Dr. Sabur has her PhD in math--so much for girls sucking at that--and she teaches the subject at Southern University at New Orleans, which she chose because she wanted to help people still recovering from Katrina. As her résumé shows, she has six different publications to her name, and her teaching philosophy takes into account "students with non-traditional backgrounds" and posits that, being close in age to most of her students, she "can understand better what they might find interesting, or difficult." Also, as the Today clip shows, she reads Jezebel!

Alia, you are inspiring and awesome. The next time you come back to your hometown of NYC, look me up and I will totally sneak you into a bar.

Read More...

Summary only...

Chicks I Like: Figs and Thistles Edition

Today is a very special day, my friends: the 116th birthday of my favorite poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay!

(February 22, 1892–October 19, 1950)

As you may know, Millay was the first woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for her book The Harp-Weaver, and Other Poems. You might know her long poem "Renascence," or if you grew up in NYC you might remember her "Recuerdo" as among the early batch of poems up in the subways (back when they were still good). But her best-known poem is probably "First Fig," which in its entirety goes:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--

It gives a lovely light!

Truthfully, she may be most famous for her bisexuality and her bohemian lifestyle. (But then whom among us is not?) She was one of those Greenwich-Village-in-the-1920's types* who had lots of beautiful affairs with lots of brilliant people, and when she married in 1923, she and her husband had an open relationship. Part of my love for her is due to her awareness of the masculinity within her--she sometimes wrote from a man's perspective and as a child went by "Vincent," as she thought "Edna" was plain. Her poetry is beautiful and lyrical (often with a 'fear of commitment' theme, which is always fun), and she turned political as World War II drew nigh, so good on her. She died in her early 50's, less than a year after her husband died. Now, on her birthday, I share with you my favorite of her poems--which is also my favorite poem, period. You can probably tell why.

Witch-Wife

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

This is, of course, a small sample of how wonderful her work is. But you don't have to take my word for it!


*In high school I used to make pilgrimages to the tiny house on Bedford Street where she'd lived for the years during which she wrote Harp-Weaver and met her husband. It had been converted from a stable and is about 9 feet wide, no joke.

Read More...

Summary only...

Chicks I Like

(Cuz why not, right?)

As an avid reader of Jezebel, I have of late fallen totally in love with Editor Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan.

(Pictured here with Dr. Ruth, whom she accosted at a Cosi.)

Yes, she posts under the name "Slut Machine," and yes, she is awesome. After I'd already started to fall, I finally realized that in the stupid "Jezebel Moe says she's not a feminist" thing, Slut Machine was the official feminist. Which is when I was like, "Oh, not only is she awesome for slutty reasons, but also for theory reasons." But whatever, back to the slutty stuff.

I've only just recently started reading her own blog, One D At A Time. (It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize what the D stood for.) First of all, I'm totally jealous of the fact that she talks about her sex life the way I wish I could. I was of course jealous of the sex she was having, and I like that she dated the founder of Burning Angels because a Burning Angels performer once spent an evening at a club telling me and my hot indie rocker guy friend that I was gorgeous and should be on the site*. But then just now I read an old entry in which it is revealed that she has lived the goddamn FANTASY OF MY LIFE, namely fucking two hot British guys at once. Sure, her encounter didn't actually go that well, but the fact that she made it happen thoroughly makes her my idol.

That being said, why is it that all the cool sluts do coke? I will never in my life do coke, for various reasons, and I'm wondering if that's what's required to attain the status of ladies such as Slut Machine and Lisa Carver. Does Rev. Jen Miller do drugs? I don't know, that might be worth finding out. (Um, why would that be worth finding out?)

Anyway, I hope you guys come to love Slut Machine as much as I do, if you don't already. Wow, that was a lot of internal links!

*This actually caused me to buy a short-term membership to the site, and then I saw on her blog that she supported Bush and I lost my taste for it.

Read More...

Summary only...