Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The Griffins shortlist, Madonna, and a few pilfered poetic tidbits.

I got into a discussion about Madonna (!) today, her age, specifically, and it was most astutely pointed out to me that the world is making some huge broo-ha-ha (sp?) that she's turning 50 this year, while when Bowie and Jagger reached this age, people barely raised an eyebrow.
It's a gender-particular thing, this obsession with aging. It's real in so many contexts: I see more girls around me freaking about their age than guys, and it's some genetic necessity I think that prompts it. Which reminds me...someone pointed out to me recently that even the term "girls" and "guys" has some age-preference disposition to it; "girls" being more commonly used for young females, while "guys" remain age-anonymous.
Quite frankly, it's all kind of ass.

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I then went to the Griffins shortlist readings, and tried not to notice that of the 13 nominees/translators on stage, only 4 were women. I'm usually quite good at remaining oblivious to these sorts of ratios, and I don't usually dwell on them, but today i cast my ballot that, should reincarnation exist, I would most definitely like NOT to be born female in my next life. For so many reasons, but the above are today's.

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Stepping off my little soapbox, I enjoyed the readings significantly more than i did two years ago when I went. I'm blogging a few beautiful snippits that etched themselves in here:

...not everything buried is dead. - David Harsent

SIX MILLION CELLS and i'm supposed to be in charge?! - Ko Un

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