The pro-patriarchy censorship of the Hayes code

I just caught the pre-code Stanwyck film Baby Face (1933). Turner has put out a DVD with both the censored and uncensored versions on it. I am thoroughly impressed. It’s a melodrama but with a good story that was hacked up by the Hayes code for the theatrical release. It’s fascinating to watch both versions and see what changes the censors wanted.

Stanwyck plays a woman who has been prostituted by her father since she was 14. After her father is killed in an accident she decides to go to New York and use her feminine assets to climb the corporate ladder and exploit weakness in men for her own material gain. If you’ve seen the recent French film Secret Things you’ve seen a watered down version of this story that plays up the sexuality, and creates an overt sexual relationship between the two women.

Save the world, read a comic book

This year I’ve been working on filling in gaps in the books I’ve read. I’d never read Ender’s Game, Ringworld, Somerset Maugham, Gabriel García Márquez, Cormac McCarthy, Don Delillo, and many more. As good as all those books are I feel they lack a vitality that I get from the comic books of Grant Morrison or Alan Moore. The novels all exist in a very finite universe limited to that book. They may alter the way I understand the world but they don’t give me any new tools to change it.

Temptation and Self-Sacrifice

I picked up a copy of W. Somerset Maugham’s book The Razor’s Edge from the library this weekend. I really enjoyed it but this quote stood out as particularly wicked and clever:

D’you remember how Jesus was led into the wilderness and fasted forty days? Then, when he was a-hungered, the devil came to him and said: If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But Jesus resisted the temptation. Then the devil set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down. For angels had charge of him and would bear him up. But again Jesus resisted. Then the devil took him into a high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world and said that he would give them to him if he would fall down and worship him. But Jesus said: Get thee hence, Satan. That’s the end of the story according to the good simple Matthew. But it wasn’t. The devil was sly and he came to Jesus once more and said: If thou wilt accept shame and disgrace, scourging, a crown of thorns and death on the cross thou shalt save the human race, for greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus fell. The devil laughed till his sides ached, for he knew the evil men would commit in the name of their redeemer.

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Truth and Faith

I’m listening to the podcast of Bill Moyer’s Journal from 5/11 when I hear these lines from recent Regent University grad Carly Gammill:

Part of the goal of many of us who are going out from this institution from here on to make it clear and accurate what it really means to be a Christian leader to change the world, which is not to indoctrinate anyone but to share the truth and to offer the truth and to rely on the truth in the way that we handle our lives as an example to others. (emphasis is mine)

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Curious case of the Pilot Hi-Tec-C

Pilot Japan sells a 0.25mm gel pen. When I asked why it isn’t sold in the US the gist of the response was this:

Due to our marketing agreement with our parent company, and in some cases patent restrictions, we are unable to either sell or stock this item.

I was encouraged to travel abroad if I wanted this pen. The closest I’ve found in the American market is Pentel’s Sunburst which comes in at 0.30mm. The majority of gel pens in America are an obese 0.70mm, some with inferior gel inks that spread even wider depending on the paper. Practically like writing with a marker at that point.

Fun Home

After books like this I lament my lack of a silver-tongued gift for persuasion. I’m robbed of the secondary pleasures of waiting for a friend to read it and hoping they feel the exuberance and tenderness I felt as I reached the end. The book is a memoir of Alison Bechdel’s youth in a rural Pennsylvania town and her father’s death while she was away at college. It opens with her and her father playing airplane as she recalls the story of another father and child, Icarus and Daedalus.

Blame it on the rain

North Texas competitors continue to underperform. The Dallas Mavericks finished first in the regular season and were bounced out in the first round of the playoffs. The Dallas Stars ambled through the regular season and hit a first round playoff exit.

Now comes news that five time national spelling bee competitor, and favorite to win it all this year, Samir Patel is out. Bummer. North Texas seems to have hit a slump. I blame the rain.

Rain, rain, rain

In a little over six months Texas has gone from 77.4% of the state in some kind of drought to 29.5%. I remember driving past fires in North Texas last Summer because it was so dry. I don’t think the state has been this well hydrated since I’ve lived here.

As I write this yet another thunderstorm is pounding Dallas. It’s been maybe a decade or more since I’ve been around thunderstorms this strong, especially with this kind of daily regularity. I miss the stretches of no rain that spanned for months.

Dialectic that powers the American Religion

Bloom points out in The American Religion that Mormonism, in the early days especially, was driven by a dialectic between the need to create the new Kingdom on Earth, but to also remain outside the mainstream. This conflict powered the growth of Mormonism.

I’m seeing this same dialectic play out in the comments on Free Republic about Reverend Falwell. Here are some relevant comments:

Hatred of Falwell by those on the left illustrates just how effective he was. The darkness hates the light. A man is sometimes honored by the number and passion of the enemies he makes. This is exactly what the Bible warned would happen. Right[e]ous people WILL be persecuted, even after their death.

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Haters

Farmers Branch mayor against 2903

But still, as one Kentucky demographer put it bluntly, “If I’m an old white person, I better be interested in how these young, Hispanic kids are doing.” Since 1990, 80 percent of population growth in this country comes in the form of black and Hispanic kids, yet they’re not getting the same schooling as their white counterparts. So the choice really is, Either there’s no one to support you in your old age or it’ll be minorities whom you better supply with an education that will maintain your desired lifestyle–by buying your house, having high enough incomes to attract the doctors you want in your community, and the like. In short, your good life depends on theirs–simple as that. http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/05/immigrants_as_throughout_histo.html

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