Cosmo: Making Girls Everywhere Dumber -- Especially Me

I love jezebel.com. If you want to see what I think when I pick up an issue of Cosmo (consciously or unconsciously) please refer to the following diagram from Jezebel's post about Cosmo's March issue.



I went on strike last year, swearing off Cosmo due the explosively bad effect it had on my body image and biological clock issues. But somehow a subscription found its way to my door -- thank you Blockbuster free magazine deal at sign up. So, I read it every now and then. It has some good shopping tips, up to date make-up stuff, celebrity gossip and then I'm just flipping through a little... and Kate Hudson is giggling about being divorced and her shoes are so glam! And, ooh I wanna know How to Be Just Bitchy Enough so I keep flipping, and suddenly -- shame spiral. Then one day I walk into my living room and S goes, "Hey! That new issue of Cosmo is crazy! Some really interesting articles." Apparently, placing the magazine in tantalizing, easy to reach places (read: bathroom), led S, D and R to have some needed to be heard guys' perspectives on the articles in the issue. What ensued over the course of the next couple hours was hilariously honest discourse about the truthiness of the magazine, and since then, every new issue will usually spring up another similar discussion.

S thinks the articles are fascinating studies of the female psyche. D and R think they're absolute horse crap and the magazine should be burned, but that it still provides some insight into general girl-thought strangeness. I always ended up understanding the most when I acknowledged the disjunct between thinking logically (them), and thinking so hard that you're trying to think logically but end up thinking stupidly (me + Cosmo). They've taught me to read the magazine with a skeptical, yet non-chalant, eye. Everything is a joke, and while there may be a hint of truth buried in the articles, sort the facts from the extrapolated and suggestive theories. Better yet, pretend Maxim made a spoof of itself and the spoof now has a circulation of 2.9 million readers. Simple enough as a concept, yes. But comprehending the idea fully that the "woman's sex bible" was total horse crap after reading it throughout my formative years, was like prying my hands off the world's last bowl of Udon.

Our most gratifying moments usually revolve around debating the "what he really means when he crosses his arms, scratches his armpit, blinks, sneezes, or breathes" section. The gist is usually:

See: These are kind of right! C'mon. (Reading) He's Oddly Distracted -- it means he's so embarassed about something, or maybe totally hungover, or maybe told a friend of yours a secret, or maybe he lost your cat, or maybe...uh...

R: He killed your sister and forgot to tell you that he did that and then he ate your dog. This is ridiculous.

See: So it's a little out there. But I've seen a lot of guys do that stuff. I mean a LOT. D used to do that stuff when we first started dating!

D: Yeah, remember how well that worked out. "You blinked hard! What are you hiding that you don't feel you can be honest with me?!" Now, we talk.

See: Hm...

S: It's just a quick and flawed way to simplify guys. These are just insecurities from the early months of dating played way up. It's all so individual. Once you get to know your partner, you can discuss what's going on.

See: But... that's not the fun part! You guys have officially made being psychotic and over-analytical totally lame.

I take it back, mostly reading Cosmo with my roommates and D is like the embarassing wake up call all of my girlfriends and I never wanted during round robin discussions of "the undecipherable boy codes." There's significant value in understanding real men. But what's the fun in it if you can't idealize, sexualize and demonize them for at least a little bit? Right, right, balance between the two parts. Fun and logic -- like Battleship or Monopoly! So there you have it, four years at a women's college + one year of living with guys = objective perspective on men. Until I read a Cosmo. Or see a guy talking to a girl while raising his eyebrows and scratching his nose because did you know that means he's totally lying to you about like, everything?

Elizabeth Gilbert and Creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love. The epic woman's tale of finding yourself in foreign lands after a torturous divorce and rebound relationship gone wrong. Ostensibly, this book is everything that I, and any woman familiar with self-loathing and flagellation after being steamrolled by "man," could hope to read. It should appeal very particularly to women with firm groundings in feminist and independent female thought. Yet, I got maybe forty pages in before I dropped it on my bookshelf in disgust. (The first twenty-five pages is morose and self-pitying, with overly perverse depictions of her balled up on bathroom floors sobbing into tile. Really, uplifting. Try reading it.) I should go back and muscle through the pity since her trips to Italy and India are apparently transcendent vicarious experiences. Especially given my upcoming "walkabout" in Europe. But in the meantime, I'll just post the talk she gave at TED in Long Beach a couple days ago.

She talks about being a writer to some extent, but mostly she discusses the origins of creativity, and why it's often thought of as a torturous and soul depleting process in recent years as opposed to -- wait for it -- the blessing of an unknown being, inspiration from on high, or simply being in the right place at the right time.

I live in San Francisco, so mind you I am big on understanding. (Momma See last night actually said, "You're so tolerant with people. Maybe you shouldn't always be so tolerant, because until you demand, people won't perform.") Since moving home from Boston, I've become a little too "oh, you're such a special little snowflake" for my own tastes. But what Gilbert is suggesting -- the Daemon, deity, or whatever you want to call it, who visits you as you're working and imbues your work with creative genius -- is both the best and most ludicrous presentation of the creative process I've heard in awhile. I believe in the concept of divine inspiration. It's been around for millenia, and if anything I think talent and ability are gifts given before we're aware of their existence. But mostly, and I am a bit biased, I think Gilbert is a bit of a gas bag. My guess is she gave the speech as some disclaimer to how potentially bad her next book is going to be. Then again, if I were in her shoes (and really, who am I to critique since I'm not a New York Times bestselling author, now am I?) I would probably feel the same way.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, she brings up an interesting idea about how we find inspiration. Or, rather, how we pursue inspiration by writing endlessly in spite of the long bouts of uninspiration between one good piece and another. But I hate that she presents it as this idea unique to her and a very select few. Many writers and artists, with the exception of the ultra narcissistic ones, feel that there is an ebb and flow to their talent. When there's an ebb, they usually start praying to God or bartering with the devil to get the slightest hint of creative ability. While I was at Robert Mckee's seminar last march, one of the best pieces of wisdom he offered us (and one which will stick with me probably for the rest of my life) is that 90% of what you write is going to be absolute shit. But you keep writing so you can get the 10% that is absolute gold.

Hopefully my diatribe hasn't swayed you from watching the twenty minutes of her talk. If you've never thought about the creative process in this way before, it's worth hearing just so you can turn it over in your head a few times. I'll give Gilbert credit for that. You're not the only one who thought that up, but keep spreading the gospel, sister, apparently that's what you're best at.

P.S. Does anyone else think she seems kind of like she's trying to look like Steve Jobs at MacWorld?

Grammys zOMG Moment

To be replaced with a real post later:

M.I.A. started having contractions at the beginning of the Grammys broadcast last night. She was so ridiculously pregnant, and yet totally not going to bail out on the performance.

Impressive commitment? Or terrifying disregard for the safety and health of your, at that particular time, unborn child?

It's like Sarah Palin re: Trig. Except this time M.I.A. isn't evil the way Palin is. She's just crazy.