Save cheese!

While the US government is on the verge of a mental breakdown trying to figure out how to save the faltering makers of cars that nobody seems to want to drive anymore, Italy has got its priorities straight. The country is bailing out its Parmesan makers. This is no laughing matter: after all, if you can’t buy a Chrysler, there is always Honda. But what would happen to my pasta without Parmesan?! It’s not like you can replace it with cheddar and it’ll still get you from point A to point B!

A Christmas Tale

Well, last night, while my counterpart was finding out whether Size Matters, I went to the movies with my mother. The selection of parent-friendly movies at the moment is quite slim, so we settled on A Christmas Tale, a French film with Catherine Deneuve and Chaira Mastroianni (daughter of Marcello and Deneuve in real life). It turned out to be the third over-two-hours movie in a row that I’ve seen about disfunctional families (the first two being Rachel Getting Married and Amarcord – a Fellini film from the 70s) in less than a month.

Not surprisingly, the movie got rave reviews from both Salon and the New York Times (and a whooping 89% on rottentomatoes.com). I think it’s mandatory for reviewers from those publications to worship any film that is a) in French, b) over two hours long, c) has Catherine Deneuve in it. But I must admit, the movie is quite powerful. It is centered around a French family, the matriarch of which (Deneuve) gets diagnosed with cancer fairly early on, and for the next 2.5 hours we watch their stories and their dynamics unravel. The most interesting point of the movie, which is eloquently summarized in Salon, is this:

…[T]he painful, wonderful, freeing truth that Desplechin gets at in “A Christmas Tale” (as he did in “Kings and Queen”) is that sometimes people feel the most lost within the context of their own families — the very context within which they should feel most at home.

It is true. We watch these people, who have known each other their whole lives and who love each other almost out of habit, realize how little they really know about one another. The house, another powerful character in the movie, connects them all with its own personality, history, complexity. And Deneuve is still, after all these years, magnificent.

Serious Important Post

Well, in an effort to save this blog from becoming a sex-blog only (in fear that we’ll run out of material due to Sarayana’s limited experience in the area…), this is going to be a Serious and Important Post.

The New York Times published this article today that discusses the role of the financial meltdown on men’s self-esteem. The premise is that the author, a psychiatrist, has noticed a rise in male patients who have been coming to him with anxiety, and his theory is that the economic crisis is destroying their self-confidence. I found this quote particularly interesting:

I have plenty of female patients who work in finance at high levels, but none of them has had this kind of psychological reaction. I can’t pretend this is a scientific survey, but I wonder if men are more likely than women to respond this way. At the risk of trading in gender stereotypes, do men rely disproportionately more on their work for their self-esteem than women do? Or are they just more vulnerable to the inevitable narcissistic injury that comes with performing poorly or losing one’s job?

I can’t decide if it’s good or bad that women’s self-esteem is not as tied up with their careers as men’s. On the one hand, this may just be because women have not been dominating the workplace long enough for this to occur. On the other, it may be because women do not feel pride about their professional accomplishments as often as men. Or perhaps women are just more realistic about their professional success and take a more holistic approach to happienss. Just earlier today Sarayana were discussing whether sometimes professional disappointments actually stem from troubles at home.

The bigger question that arises from this, though, is whether this means the demise of the Wall Street/Corporate Asshole-type dudes who have been ruling the streets and bars of Manhattan for way too long?

Post-Thanksgiving blues…

Well, though Thanksgiving brought with it a Sarayana reunion, the sales were pretty pathetic and the weekend simply went by too fast. The time between Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays used to be characterized by final exams, but only one of us has to deal with that this year (obviously, not the one writing this!). Now it’s just a struggle to make it through the next three weeks, which is when we are going to have our fabulous Yucatan adventure!

And while I was focusing on spending my non-existent money, it seems that Angelina got pregnant yet AGAIN? I think this makes her officially a pregnancy-addict (Heidi Klum is apparently one).

Also, this past Sunday’s NYTimes brought some of the best name-couplings ever. There was the Joo-Fee marriage (you can hardly get any better than that!), and the Shah-Sheth (ok, maybe you can get better than Joo-Fee!). May the Joo-Fees and the Shah-Sheths live happily ever after!

Important topics of the day

First of all, this takes Nicaragua (or at least the capital) off the list of potential countries to go to in December. Not that we’re cowards, but let’s just stay away from big angry crowds.

Second, I can’t believe this is advertised as “jeans.” I mean, they’re basically rust-colored leggings that cost over $100! I dare you to find anyone who will buy them.

And finally, this just made my day.

I had a pretty delicious burrito for lunch and a good latte after, so I’m good to last through the end of the day.