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Oct. 19th, 2013 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "Arizona Lawmaker: When I Called Obama ‘Der Fuhrer’ I Didn’t Mean Hitler:" http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/10/2766641/arizona-legislator-hitler-denial/
* "Top 10 Ways Ted Cruz & the Tea Party Weakened America with Shutdown:" http://www.juancole.com/2013/10/weakened-america-shutdown.html
* "Anonymous Park Rangers Speak Up:" http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/15/1247544/-Anonymous-Park-Rangers?detail=email#
* "My Skin in the Game: How Ted Cruz and the Right Want to Help Cancer Kill Me, and Maybe You:" http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/my-skin-game-how-ted-cruz-and-right-want-help-cancer-kill-me-and-maybe-you
* "Cryptographer Adi Shamir Prevented from Attending NSA History Conference :" http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2013/10/shamir/
* "Homosexuality Is Undercounted; So Is Homophobia:" http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/16/homosexuality-is-undercounted-so-is-homophobia/
* My Mother's father looked a lot like Henry Fonda. He was a strong man, who worked into his early 70's when he had a series of micro-strokes that led to stroke dementia. He was literally driving to work when the first symptoms popped up. Within a month the stubborn old coot who took me for walks in the woods was a ghost of himself. He withered and died over the course of about a year, during which "On Golden Pond" came to our local 4th run Arpit Theater. My Mother had to leave in the middle. It was too intense seeing a man who looked so like her father in a movie like that. As an adult, I was shown "Once Upon a Time in the West," which was a surreal experience, given the resemblance. My Mom and I had a long talk about it and all the ways it was weird for her too.
The year "Misery" came out, friends and strangers started coming up to my mother and telling her, "You look just like that Lady from Misery," which was an asshole thing to do, we all thought, given the sort of things that character does. People did it for years. It was a bit of a relief when "Fried Green Tomatoes" came out as people started saying "You look like Kathy Bates" instead of comparing her to a violent stalker. The thing is, they weren't wrong. My late Mother did look a lot like Kathy Bates. We took to following her career. It was nice to be able to show her how nice Ms. Bates looked in "Six Feet Under' and we rooted for her directing career. It's a weird sentimental thing, I suppose. My mother was never considered conventionally good looking and as a child I remember strangers coming up to ask her when the baby was due when she wasn't pregnant or make rude comments about her looks. Something about that made us want to see a woman who looked so much like her succeed, if that makes sense. When she turns up on Craig Ferguson, the only Late Night chat show I watch if you discount Stewart and Colbert, it makes me happy to see her so clearly having a good time.
"American Horror Story: Coven" is a whole other level of weird and complex for me though. The character is nothing like my mother, but oh, does she look like her in her later years. I think of my Mother's nightmares of suffocation after her lungs started to go terminal and I combine that image with the character buried alive and... yeah, a whole other kind of weird for me. Oh, I can separate the two, but now and then, I catch a glimpse of the character and it takes a moment. It's only been two years, I suppose it will be less weird when a few more pass.
* "Top 10 Ways Ted Cruz & the Tea Party Weakened America with Shutdown:" http://www.juancole.com/2013/10/weakened-america-shutdown.html
* "Anonymous Park Rangers Speak Up:" http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/15/1247544/-Anonymous-Park-Rangers?detail=email#
* "My Skin in the Game: How Ted Cruz and the Right Want to Help Cancer Kill Me, and Maybe You:" http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/my-skin-game-how-ted-cruz-and-right-want-help-cancer-kill-me-and-maybe-you
* "Cryptographer Adi Shamir Prevented from Attending NSA History Conference :" http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2013/10/shamir/
* "Homosexuality Is Undercounted; So Is Homophobia:" http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/16/homosexuality-is-undercounted-so-is-homophobia/
* My Mother's father looked a lot like Henry Fonda. He was a strong man, who worked into his early 70's when he had a series of micro-strokes that led to stroke dementia. He was literally driving to work when the first symptoms popped up. Within a month the stubborn old coot who took me for walks in the woods was a ghost of himself. He withered and died over the course of about a year, during which "On Golden Pond" came to our local 4th run Arpit Theater. My Mother had to leave in the middle. It was too intense seeing a man who looked so like her father in a movie like that. As an adult, I was shown "Once Upon a Time in the West," which was a surreal experience, given the resemblance. My Mom and I had a long talk about it and all the ways it was weird for her too.
The year "Misery" came out, friends and strangers started coming up to my mother and telling her, "You look just like that Lady from Misery," which was an asshole thing to do, we all thought, given the sort of things that character does. People did it for years. It was a bit of a relief when "Fried Green Tomatoes" came out as people started saying "You look like Kathy Bates" instead of comparing her to a violent stalker. The thing is, they weren't wrong. My late Mother did look a lot like Kathy Bates. We took to following her career. It was nice to be able to show her how nice Ms. Bates looked in "Six Feet Under' and we rooted for her directing career. It's a weird sentimental thing, I suppose. My mother was never considered conventionally good looking and as a child I remember strangers coming up to ask her when the baby was due when she wasn't pregnant or make rude comments about her looks. Something about that made us want to see a woman who looked so much like her succeed, if that makes sense. When she turns up on Craig Ferguson, the only Late Night chat show I watch if you discount Stewart and Colbert, it makes me happy to see her so clearly having a good time.
"American Horror Story: Coven" is a whole other level of weird and complex for me though. The character is nothing like my mother, but oh, does she look like her in her later years. I think of my Mother's nightmares of suffocation after her lungs started to go terminal and I combine that image with the character buried alive and... yeah, a whole other kind of weird for me. Oh, I can separate the two, but now and then, I catch a glimpse of the character and it takes a moment. It's only been two years, I suppose it will be less weird when a few more pass.