V: Valentine's Day on This American Life

Valentine’s Day on This American Life

Genre: radio

Another This American Life episode for V. Rather than cover the idea of falling in love and the overwhelming emotion of it (which is normally the story we get in books or movies or when a couple’s telling us how they got together), this episode is about stories that happened to couples “decades after the moment their eyes first meet.”

In Act Two, Veronica Chater interviews her parents. They’d been married for 45 years, and in that time had never gone on vacation, and never been apart for more than two days. As her dad put it, “I detest shopping. I detest eating out. I detest motels. I detest beaches. I detest anything having to do with what most people go on vacations for. For me it’s the opposite of having fun. It’s a purgatory.”

So when Veronica’s mom decided to go off to a Mexican resort with a friend, Dad (a former cop and corporate security consultant) prepares for the vacation as if she’s going to a war zone. He’s completely convinced that “two naïve women” are just asking for trouble going to Puerto Vallarta by themselves (as they talk, it’s hard to tell whether his wife is more amused or insulted, but you can tell she’s been dealing with this quite calmly for years). He gradually works himself into a frenzy as the day gets closer and closer, even getting to the point where he invites himself along. He writes to the Mexican authorities to inform them he plans to come into their country armed, and wants to know what’s legal. When his friends tell him that was a really bad idea, he decides to stay home after all.

Mom prepares for her vacation by shopping, packing, writing out her itinerary, and preparing meals for Dad to eat while she’s gone, as he doesn’t cook. She’s more worried about how he’ll cope without her, which he thinks is ridiculous as she’s the one going off to another country. As she hands him the list of chores to do while she's gone, he's instructing her on how to jam her hotel room door shut with a chair.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. J

I’m the one in my marriage who’s super-vigilant about being safe, and it was fascinating and a bit uncomfortable hearing my viewpoint taken to such an extreme.

Act Three is about monogamy, narrated by a 39-year-old man who starts out by talking about the couple across the street, who have sex in their living room and can be heard from outside (and he’s not the only man in the neighborhood who knows and arranges to be outside at around that time).

It’s funny and thought-provoking. Somewhere in the middle he says:

“That's why monogamy has such a bad reputation. It's boring. Monogamy is the habit of not acting on what you want. I even hate the word itself. It sounds so staid, so bourgeois. Monogamy, like a board game, the approximation of excitement.

Sometimes, of course, I hear about open marriages. Jung had one, Sartre had won, Henry Miller, Dickens, Freud. I hear about open marriages, and they seem like some fabulous, exotic city that I've always wanted to visit but never seem to get to. Istanbul, open marriages are like Istanbul. Some ancient, mysterious place where there are minarets and strange music, where one entire civilization suddenly ends and a whole new stranger one begins, a whole new religion even, the mysterious east. I've always wanted to go to Istanbul.”

Despite the quote, he ends up at a rather interesting conclusion, a different way of looking at monogamy than he did at the beginning. And it wasn’t the way most people look at it (whether they’re for it or not). Which is why I love This American Life. They always find new perspectives on familiar subjects. Of course, reading a transcript is not the same as listening to the story they've built using peoples' voices and music and whatever else. I highly recommend streaming This American Life online if you don't live in an area that has it on the radio.

T: Timeline & Testosterone

Timeline by Michael Crichton
Genre: historical, SF, suspense/thriller

General premise A group of archeology students goes back in time to rescue their professor from 14^th century France, and find out that medieval times were even more brutal and ruthless than they’d thought.

It’s a typical Michael Crichton book – brilliant scientists with little common sense, backed by corporations with dollar signs in their eyes, and a bunch of well-meaning, highly-educated people stuck in the middle. Crichton is pretty much the only author I admire who did zero character development. At least, that’s what I remember of his books – thrilling stories, cardboard characters.

Gerard, looking hot
and mysterious.

I saw the movie first. It was terrible. It shouldn’t have been – I still don’t get how they messed this up. BUT. The premise was so intriguing that I thought, “I’ll bet the book is just incredible.” And it was my introduction to Gerard Butler, looking ridiculously hot in 14^th century period costume. J

There’s a jousting tournament in the book, so I’ll put in a quick plug here for the History Channel reality TV show Full Metal Jousting. It’s exactly what it sounds like – a bunch of guys competing in a modern-day jousting tournament for $100k. When I first heard of it, I thought, “You can’t be serious!”

And then I immediately set the DVR to record it.

I loved it. The guys came from all sorts of active backgrounds – one firefighter, one polo player, a couple of marines, a couple of rodeo cowboys, and then a handful of horse trainers, show jumpers, and a whole bunch of Medieval Times knights. That last bunch, oddly enough, were apparently at a disadvantage, because even though they were the only ones to have handled a lance before, theatrical jousting is not about eliminating your opponent. It’s about looking great in a saddle and falling dramatically out of it without getting hurt. They had to unlearn how they sat, how they held the lance, what to do when they got hit.

The horses were awesome. So gorgeous. So much personality. They ranged from those that were dependable but kind of staid, to those that took off like bullets, but constantly fought their riders for control.

And I loved the modern take on medieval armor.

 

Speaking of “manly men”…

Testosterone on This American Life

Genre: radio

This American Life is hosted by Ira Glass, one of the best story creators of our time. I don’t know of anyone else doing quite what he does. His radio show puts stories together around a theme for each episode. I’ve heard Ira Glass speak live twice, I’ve listened to This American Life for years, but it wasn’t until I tried to analyze how they put together such enthralling stories around usually-normal situations that I truly began to appreciate his genius, and the subtlety of it.

 

I could spend all day recommending specific TAL episodes, but for “T” I’ll stick with Testosterone. The First Act was an interview with a man whose body stopped producing testosterone for four months before the doctors figured out what was wrong with him. He talks about how lack of testosterone meant lack of desire for anything. And how unexpectedly pleasant it was, because if you don’t want anything, then you don’t psychologically want for anything.

Act Two was about Griffin Hansbury, who started out as a woman, but got testosterone injections and now lives as a man. This one’s particularly interesting, because you can hear the interviewer’s horrified fascination as Hansbury “confirms” pretty much every stereotype you’ve ever heard about men vs women, and, as the interviewer puts it, sets gender relations back about a hundred years. I put “confirms” in quotes because the testosterone injections meant that for a while, Hansbury (who is 5'4" and smallish) was walking around with the testosterone levels of two linebackers, and so I’m assuming the effect was somewhat exaggerated. Hansbury talks about everything from the change in his interest in science to how hard it is to concentrate around women. But he also talks about how he’s gone from being this really cool woman everyone admired to being a nerdy-looking guy who’s now caught up in this very male fight for dominance every time he steps out on the street.

Act Three follows the staff at TAL after they decided to get their own testosterone levels tested for the show. First they ranked each other, guessing who would have the highest levels. Everyone agreed on which woman would have the highest (except that woman), but for the guys it was a toss-up, because they each had traits that tend to go with high testosterone (one of them created the show and was the boss, one of them was muscular and balding, one of them played lots of sports, etc), but none of them considered themselves to be “manly men” (like NFL football players or whatever). And as the day of the results grew closer, more and more of them agreed that this had been a terrible idea and it would forever change the way they related to each other – but they still wanted to know who “won”.