I never would have guessed that a book about an old, chubby spy would be so engrossing, but the fact that I’ve been completely submerged in the world of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for the past two days proves otherwise. I avoided reading this famous John le Carré novel out of a stubborn hatred for the ‘thriller’ genre, so it’s incredibly humbling to admit that this novel has completely destroyed my preconceptions of what a spy story could mean.

The novel starts in what must be one of the most off-putting opening scenes that I’ve ever read. I’d been led to believe this book was about a British spy, but the first chapter is told from the perspective of a chubby British schoolboy. Spy books generally start off with some kind of isolated incident; a crazy action scene to get the plot going and the reader curious about the mystery that awaits her. Conversely, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy begins in the most banal way possible. It’s an opening that fits with the themes of the book, but it does absolutely nothing to pull the reader in. That disconnect between the story and the reader only increases as the actual plot gets going.

The first 50 pages of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are unquestionably one of the most challenging pieces of writing that I have ever read. Not only does le Carré make no effort to force the reader’s engagement with the story, it seems like he is actively working against you. Characters are introduced and disappear, unfamiliar names and places are mentioned and never explained, and everyone speaks in half-sentences and impenetrable code. It feels like you’ve been thrown in a story that has already halfway begun, which is technically true, since Tinker Tailor is not the first novel to star George Smiley. But le Carré has absolutely no concern for new readers. You’re completely on your own in figuring out what everyone is talking about, which helps heighten the underlining current of tension and haziness that this book posses. Even when you’re able to form a general outline on what’s happening and start to nail down characters, everything still feels slightly out of focus. I learned quickly that trying to get a firm grasp on this story is like trying to grab at air, so I abandoned myself completely to the narrative and trusted it to take me where it wanted to go.

The novel methodically makes its way through the networks of the British intelligence system, breaking everything down to its discrete parts and then resembling them into a mass of bureaucratic entanglements. Where the James Bond stories focus on the spy as an autonomous unit, Tinker Tailor is more interested in showing how individual actors influence the group and vice versa.  It’s a study of interconnectedness and the main tension of the novel revolves around how Smiley will ever be able to untangle the whole mess. 

I keep coming back to the word ‘methodical,’ but it’s such an apt description of this story. Smiley and his allies gather their information either by cross-referencing reams of intelligence reports or by interviewing various British government personnel. There is no bombast to the work Smiley does. By the end of the novel, we’ve barely had the opportunity to leave London. The present-day action exclusively occurs in England and the majority of the foreign intrigue scenes – the bread and butter of most spy stories – occur in flashback. Even the climax is utterly ordinary: after days of painstakingly piecing together information, George Smiley confirms the identity of a suspected British mole by hiding in a darkened parlor room and eavesdropping on a conversation between two men. We’re never told exactly what the words of this conversation are; we’re just treated to the fallout. But what we are told is that Smiley acts out his triumph while not wearing any shoes, just socks. It’s such a perfect example of this book’s fascination with the mundane and the image of such an intelligent spy, standing in a room with only socks on, is incredible.

I enjoyed this story for what it gave me and for what it purposefully withheld from me. I will always appreciate a writer who is confident in their abilities — and by extension, the abilities of their readers — to make the story work without needing to be explicit with details. It’ll be interesting to watch the 2011 movie – which I’ve heard nothing but praise for – to see how well the ambiguity of the story translates from the book to film. 

Today is the 20th anniversary of Jurassic Park, which was reason enough for me to sit down and watch it again. Like most pivotal movies from my childhood, I have rarely revisited Jurassic Park, so it was interesting to watch it as an adult. But I don’t really want to talk about the movie. I want to talk about my Goldblum crush.

I can remember being younger and having an innocent, ill-defined crush on Jeff Goldblum’s character in the movie. I was ten and couldn’t put into words what my attraction to the character was or even say that there was an attraction; I just knew that I liked Ian Malcolm and was always disappointed that he didn’t end up with Laura Dern’s character. Now that I’m older, the Goldblum crush seems nonsensical and slightly embarrassing, a standard reaction to the majority of my prepubescent memories. Sarah at ten liked Ian Malcolm because he wore black, was funny, and had glasses. Sarah at twenty-four likes the character for all those same reasons (despite my shame, Goldblum crushes just won’t go away), but feels much more conflicted about it. It’s one of the sadder, less discussed parts of growing up. We lose our ability to form child attractions, attractions that are uncomplicated by the knowledge that is forced upon us as we get older. At ten, most children barely have a concept of what sexuality is, let alone the vocabulary to explain why they feel an emotional attachment to a different person. But once you understand what sex is, once you start to actively seek out sexual connections instead of arriving at them accidentally, the whole idea of ‘crushes’ becomes a little bit duller.

That’s not to say that I wish I could remain in some kind of sexual arrested development. I know what it means to be an adult and be in love, I understand all the joy and banality that comes with it and I embrace it. But I won’t deny that some days I long for the unlimited emotions I was able to feel as a child, when I wasn’t weighed down by thoughts of sex, or responsibility, or anything else. Childhood crushes are always larger than life, because that’s the only kind of emotion children can have. I relish any opportunity to momentarily relive that feeling, even if I have to arrive at it by watching a 20 year old movie about a dinosaur park.

Last night I watched Upstream Color, the second movie from the prodigious director, Shane Carruth. I still haven’t seen Carruth’s first movie, Primer, but Upstream Color was enough to convince me of his talents a filmmaker.

I won’t bother summarizing the plot of this movie; it’d be an exercise in comical failure. If you haven’t seen the movie, go watch it. If you have seen the movie, then you already understand what I’ll be talking about. Ignoring the worm-pig-orchid triangle that makes up the movie’s central ‘sci-fi’ (?) plot, the romance between Amy Seimetz’s and Carruth’s characters was some of the most affecting storytelling I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. Here are two characters — especially Seimetz’s — that are emotionally damaged and struggle to not let their baggage affect their burgeoning romance. The fail spectacularly, of course, but they both learn to accept and deal with each other’s damage throughout their early courtship and eventual marriage.

The frankness with which Seimetz’s paranoia and emotional self-sabotage is portrayed was the best part of the movie for me. Every scene between her and Carruth was uncomfortably close to the emotions or distrust that I’ve felt in my own relationships. After watching the movie, I had a strong desire to go hug my boyfriend and apologize for being such a headcase.

The core romance helped anchor the rest of the movie’s surreal plot, which in the hands of a lesser director may have come across as too overreaching, too ludicrous. But Carruth makes the strange worm-pig-orchid story work. This triumvirate of weirdness allows Carruth to explore the question of identity: how do we form our identity and do we form this identity independent from other influences? In interviews Carruth has explained that the pig-human psychic link is meant to represent the various influences we take in while constructing our identity: Our religious background, our family, biology, and any other numerous factors. These all contribute to our creation of ‘self,’ sometimes in ways that we’re not even aware of.

Beyond the discussion of identity, I have absolutely no interest in reading interviews where Carruth ‘explains’ the events of Upstream Color or any of  the many websites that are attempting to ‘solve’ this movie’s central mystery. In a time where movies are trying to copy the Inception-style of ‘mystery,’ where the film feels less like a story and more like a connect-the -dots game, it’s refreshing to watch a movie that doesn’t provide all the answers, but still manages to make logical and narrative sense.

I’m not sure how to end this, except by saying that if you haven’t seen this movie, go watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again.

Up until a few days ago, I’d never seen a full X-Files episode. Sure, I’d seen bits and pieces of the show — it’d be impossible not, growing up in the 1990’s — but those pieces were mostly from later episodes, when I was old enough to understand and not be instantly terrified by everything on screen. I was born in 1988, so I was too young for many of the big cultural touchstones of the 1990’s, but because I was technically alive while they were happening, many of those touchstones occupy a part of my intellectual head space. I find that I feel nostalgic for shows that I never actually watched as a child and only have a tangential relationship to. That strange disconnect is one of the reasons why I’m even bothering to watch The X-Files now, 20 years later. The other reason is because I finally watched Twin Peaks.

Now I feel absolutely no nostalgia for Twin Peaks; I was barely out of diapers when it first aired, so I wasn’t aware of its existence until I was much older. On a whim that was buoyed by the ease of the Netflix Instant queue, I decided to watch a few episodes of Twin Peaks. I’d like to write about my experience watching Twin Peaks at some point, but for brevity, I’ll just say that the obvious connections the show had with The X-Files (none more apparent than David Duchovny’s minor role as a FBI agent) is what made me want to watch the latter show in the first place.

So I sat down to watch a show that would have fit nicely into my niche interests (sci-fi, witty dialogue, sarcastic boys, pant suits) had I only been a few years older during its initial run. I was hoping to like the show, but I can’t deny that I had the same fear I experienced when I started to watch Twin Peaks: a fear that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this very popular cult TV show. This fear was amplified with The X-Files, because that show more than Twin Peaks feels like it is part of my cultural development, even if I have no claim to it beyond being alive and aware of its existence. I was afraid I wouldn’t like the show and I was afraid what not liking it would say about me. I started watching the show not only with my pseudo-nostalgic baggage, but also the neurotic need to suss out a clear feeling of ‘like’ or ‘dislike.’ But after five episodes, I’m still not sure which side I fall on.

I can certainly see what attracted so many people to this show in the first place. It’s a good show! Duchovny is great, Anderson is great, everyone is good. The stories are interesting and affecting, and the first episode that deals with alien abduction of teenagers in the forests of Oregon (with imagery that feels like a nod to Twin Peaks) does what every successful pilot should do: set the mood and tone for the whole show. I’m having fun watching and I fully plan on watching a few more episodes. But I have to admit that the show is not what I expected it to be, based on the the information I’ve gathered about it through cultural osmosis.

My major gripe with it so far is how explicit the alien element is. The impression that I’ve always had of this show is that Mulder and Scully investigate strange cases that may or not have a supernatural/alien explanation. I’d assumed that the show would leave the explanation up to the audience’s own interpretation. Instead, the pilot episode indisputably shows that aliens are real and are responsible for strange occurrences across the country. It turns out that Scully’s legendary skepticism — which I always assumed was based on the fact that the strange cases she investigates have a plausible explanation beyond ‘aliens’ — is based largely on her just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is a later season one episode where Mulder walks into a room just as a woman starts to use her telekinetic powers. Mulder is lifted several feet off the ground, as objects fly around him, all because of this woman’s supernatural abilities. Literally seconds after Mulder is put back on the ground and everything returns to normal, Scully walks in. It’s too convenient and feels exceedingly cheap on the part of The X-Files writers. 

Scenes like this are common for Scully in the first few episodes. And even when she is present during these scenes, even when she does witness extraordinary events that she freely admits don’t make any logical sense, she still plays the part of the skeptic, to the point were she starts to come across as willfully ignorant and maybe even a little dumb. The pilot episode does a good job of setting her up as a non-believer but then slowly whittling down her assumptions until she’s clearly not sure what to believe anymore. But then it’s all forgotten in the next episode and she’s back to playing the role of the doubting Thomas. This reset happens at the beginning of every episode.

Meanwhile Mulder’s fantastic conclusions — which so far have been completely accurate — seemingly come from the faintest of evidence. Maybe someone who is obsessed with the supernatural like Mulder is would actually make these weak connections, but as a viewer the constant formula of ‘something weird + ???? = aliens’ starts to grate after awhile. 

I think the show would have been stronger if it played to the middle more: showed more evidence that would support both Scully and Mulder’s conclusions, while not making it clear who is actually correct. That’s what I’d always imagined the show was like and to have that image be destroyed by actually watching the show is completely strange and bizarre. It makes me want to revisit other TV shows that I’m aware of but have never actually seen, just to further explore how off base my perceptions of certain pop culture institutions are.

Even though The X-Files is not exactly what I was expecting it to be, I’m still really enjoying myself while watching it. The 90’s nostalgia alone (those pant suits!) is enough to make me keep watching, and the fact that the show has pretty good writing and excellent acting doesn’t hurt either. I’m still not sure if I like the show or not, but I’m certainly enjoying what’s happening so far and am willing to stick with it to see if it will eventually win me over (I’ve been told by friends to keep watching until season three and then bail after season six).

I love the Venture Bros. I’ve loved this show since its first season, when it was a poorly concealed parody of Johnny Quest, and my love continues to grow as it moved past its early parody and slowly became one of the most deep, thematically interesting shows on television. The Internet loves to give shows like Arrested Development and Community credit for their numerous call backs and references, but Venture Bros has been doing that same thing — with much defter hands — for five seasons now. It’s the only show that can have a reference to Andrea Dworkin and a fart joke in the same scene, and actually make it work, without seeming overwrought or overwritten.

Venture Bros is the best adaptation of Infinite Jest that we will ever get. It deals with many of the same ideas that DFW wrote about in his novel — family, love, what it means to be a fucking human being — and it manages to handle these ideas in the same surreal, but honest style that DFW was so fond of. It has made for some of the most compelling television that I have ever seen.

The new Ender’s Game trailer was released this week, which led to a flurry of hand-wringing articles over the ‘ethics’ of seeing a movie related to Orson Scott Card — known homophobe. I can only assume that people will continue to churn out these articles until the movie comes out, so get ready for a lot of nerd waffling. Would that I could walk up to every person who is debating if they should see this movie and simply tell them: DON’T.

Because that’s the easiest answer; if Card’s real-life, very gross politics offend you and you feel guilty for seeing this movie, then don’t. But if you’re still trying to come up with excuses for why you can see this movie, here are some counterpoints to help you not go:

1. But I loved the books as a kid!

So? Are you a kid now? Have you read those books since your childhood? Speaking as someone who absolutely loved Ender’s Game and the more ‘mature’ Speaker for the Dead, I can safely say that what you liked as a kid probably will not stand up to your adult-level scrutiny. Anyway, who cares if you liked it as a kid? Why does that automatically mean you have to see this movie? Michael Bay is making a TMNT movie, which I’m sure you also loved as a kid, does that mean you’ll see that movie too? Movie studios are going to keep monetizing our nostalgia because we stupidly keep letting them. Here’s your chance to stop this cycle and prevent the inevitable Animorphs movie from getting made.

2. But plenty of other authors are racist/sexist/homophobic

True. Do you read their books too? If they’re a modern author, I seriously doubt it, which is probably why I have seen a few articles that try to use older authors as a defense for why it’s ok to read books written by people with less than progressive views. “TS Elliot said a lot of terrible things about women, so it’s ok if I see the Orson Scott Card movie.”

What bothers me about this argument is, of course authors from two hundred/one hundred/50 years ago were terrible misogynist/anti-Semites/homophobes. Attitudes like that were culturally normal! For us today, however, saying something that is blatantly homophobic is not cultural sanctioned, and should rightly be criticized. Orson Scott Card is not writing over 50 years ago, he’s writing today, and today we know a little better about how minority groups should be treated in literature. (Also, please don’t use TS Elliot as a defense for Orson Scott Card, it invites unfortunate comparisons that only diminish your argument for why it’s OK to read Card.)

3. But I’ll see the movie and just donate to a gay rights group later

I saw this defense get used a lot when the whole Chick-fil-a fiasco was going down. It seems like the perfect ‘have your cake and eat it to’ but what it really shows is how you’re willing to put your selfish needs before the rights of an entire group of people. Is eating a shitty chicken sandwich really more important than standing up for gay rights? Are you so incapable of looking outside of your own desires, that you can’t possible conceive of not eating shitty chicken sandwiches or not going to see a mediocre sci-fi movie based a series of books written for children? How about you donate to a gay rights group and not see the movie at all?

Now, do I think that not going to see Ender’s Game will end bigotry towards gay people? No, I don’t. In the grand scheme of the fight for gay rights, Ender’s Game is just a little blip. But the attitude that surrounds stuff like Ender’s Game is what’s the problem. It shows that the second people are forced to even consider choosing between not supporting homophobes or giving into their own desires, they often will go with their desires. And that’s sad. It’s sad that we are so incapable of empathizing with other people that we can’t even stop ourselves from watching a shitty sci-fi blockbuster.

Look, I know it’s hard to police everything you consume and make sure it wasn’t created by a terrible person. I’m sure that there are lots of authors or movies that I like that were made by someone with less than great opinions on gay people or women or other groups. But that doesn’t mean we should give up trying. It’s a constant struggle, but the fact that we even have the option to ignore that struggle shows what a privileged position we’re coming from. As a straight white woman, I could just ignore all of this and go see Ender’s Game and my life would be exactly the same, because I’m privileged. But I support gay rights and I know that if I make this concession and see this movie, I will implicitly be supporting a system that allows men like Orson Scott Card to exist and have a very public platform and I just can’t do that with a good conscious. 

Also, seriously guys, the movies looks really bad.

“I don’t like that woman.” Arya Stark, in reference to a creepy woman who  has randomly shown up at her group’s hidden camp in the middle of the woods.

“That’s because you’re a girl.” Smirking dude.

Do you get the HILARIOUS joke here? Smirking dude is telling Arya that she doesn’t like this suspicious woman not because she’s obviously suspicious, but because Arya’s a lady and all women are threatened by other women. It’s why women have no female friends and attack each other on sight.

I was ready to excuse this rather dumb (and sexist!) joke because it was being made by a character who clearly doesn’t matter (but who knows, given the way GRR Martin stories are written, this seemingly throwaway character could end up being the new king next season), but the most recent Game of Thrones episode had so many tone-deaf moments about women and gay men that I couldn’t ignore it.

Shortly after this great little scene about how women hate each other because we are all jealous/threatened by another female presence, there are several scenes where different characters make ‘subtle’ allusions to the fact that Loras Tryell is gay. By ‘subtle’ I mean that everyone keeps mentioning how much Loras just loooooves fashion. He just loves a gold, green brocade. Also, he is concerned about the correct usage of brooch vs. pin, because he’s gay, duh.

To top of the gay jokes and the women are all jealous monsters joke, there is a scene at the end of the episode where a character—who we’ve been led to believe will be important in some way—is unceremoniously killed off-screen. We only get to see her post-death, where it is clear that she was killed in a extremely sexualized manner. SHOCKING.

Now, Game of Thrones has a reputation for killing of characters at random (note: this does not mean that Game of Thrones has good writing), but the death of this character wasn’t random, so much as it was clearly a desperate attempt by the writers to quickly get rid of a side character as they struggle to contain a story that is already bursting with characters and plot. So this lady had to go, but it wouldn’t be Game of Thrones if the writers didn’t use one last opportunity to demean a female character by having her sexually brutalized for ‘dramatic’ purposes.

Seriously, this show is gross. I’m still watching it because I enjoy the majority of the actors and the plot is soapy enough that it keeps my attention, but after tonight’s episode, I doubt I’ll be able to watch more. 

 ”If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble.”

That quotes comes from an interview Claire Messud gave in The Atlantic about her most recent novel. The interviewer admitted to having a hard time ‘liking’ the novel’s main character, and this was Messud’s response. Disregarding the sexist undertones in this question (read any writeup on this interview for a discussion of its possible sexism), I think Messud’s statement brings up an interesting point about adult reading habits.

There’s a definite trend of adults who read books that are geared toward young adult readers. Ever since the Harry Potter series became a huge success, it’s not uncommon to see adults reading books like The Hunger Games or Twilight or any of the other series that are aimed at the teenage set. I have to wonder if the reason so many people my age and older are content with reading YA fiction is because they haven’t grown out of the idea that we’re supposed towant to be friends with the characters in books.

When you’re younger, the reason you read is primarily for escapism. The characters in YA books are meant to act as friends for the reader. All the popular books I loved as a kid either had characters who I wanted to be like or at least wanted to be friends with. But as I grew up, my literary needs changed, and I stopped seeing books as a substitute for friendship and more as a way to learn about the world around me. Suddenly the interiority and complexity of a character was more important than whether or not they’d make a good friend.

Maybe the adults who read YA fiction haven’t been able to make this shift. And can you blame them? Reading is hard enough as it is, and then you expect adults to devote hours of their time to the inner problems of some not so nice characters; it makes sense that people would want to avoid that. It’s easier to watch a character like Walter White on TV, where there’s a barrier of protection between his inner-self and the audience, than it is to read a book with a Walter White-type figure, where the complexities of the character are focused directly at the reader with a laser-like intensity. Visual media never affords its audience the chance to truly explore a character’s mind, whereas that’s all books offer, and I can understand why that might be something to avoid.

But I also think it’s a shame that adults might avoid books because they don’t like any of its characters. It seems too easy of an excuse to avoid any critical thinking. Having characters that you want to be friends with certainly makes reading easier, but personally I don’t believe reading should be easy. If reading is easy, then nothing is being challenged, the reader isn’t being forced to examine themselves or their world, and the whole purpose of reading is lost. 

There’s a blister on the back of my foot. Every day it scabs over and every night I reopen it when I go running. My shoe has a permanent red spot in its heel — a small sign of my evening ritual.

I love running. I love how it allows you to be completely aware of your entire body while at the same time it forces you to ignore any pain or weakness your body may feel. I’m far from a great runner, but I’m at the point where I no longer feel the need to run because of any obligation to exercise; I run because I enjoy it.

I also hate running. When I run, it’s one of the few times I’m completely alone in public and therefore, it’s one of the few times I’m aware at how much people look at me. It’s a disorienting contrast: being so in touch with the physical actions of your own body, while also being so painfully aware of how others are so blatantly scrutinizing that same body. Most nights I can block it all out and just pay attention to what my legs are doing, but not tonight. 

The second I saw the car, I knew it was bad. It was stopped in a small side street, engine on. There was no other traffic preventing the car from moving, and I instantly knew the car was waiting for me. As soon I as I ran by, the lights turned on and the car pulled out alongside me. For a brief second, I thought it would continue on at a normal speed and leave me behind. But it quickly became clear that the car was slowing down, slowing down so it could pull up alongside me. The car was so close that I could now see its passengers: two young men, maybe my age, maybe younger. They both were looking at me. I tried not to look back — looking usually encourages them. I tried to just pay attention to running, to breathing, to not panicking. Then the car sped away. I saw one of the men in the car laugh. I kept running and tried not to cry.

The blister on the back of my foot is bleeding again. I wish that was the only mark my nightly runs leave on me, because at least this mark is something I have control over. At least this mark is something that I can stop.

Rock Paper Shotgun has a great interview with the lead writer from Dragon Age III on accepted sexism in the gaming industry. The whole interview is worth a read, but the crux of the argument is that the gaming industry makes excuses for not pursuing boarder gender representation, because it ‘doesn’t sell.’ I see this tautological excuse come up a lot in the games industry—games with equal gender representation don’t sell well because there aren’t many games with equal gender representation—and it absolutely infuriates me. Even people I really admire in the industry, like Ken Levine, seem willing to accept this idea as fact. I attended Levine’s Bioshock panel at this year’s PAX East, where one of the female audience members directly questioned Irrational’s decision to put Elizabeth—a female character that members of Irrational had just spent an hour praising—on the back of the game’s cover. Levine’s response basically boiled down to: ‘we make decisions because that’s what marketers tell us will sell, don’t worry about the cover and just play the fucking game.’ His call to stop harping over the cover was met with raucous cheers from the crowd (mostly men) sitting around me, as they happily applauded a woman being shot down for expressing her discomfort over how her gender is marginalized in a community she loves.

In Levine’s defense, he quickly apologized on Twitter after the panel. I know that he’d been fielding variations on this same question for months at this point, and a PAX panel was probably not the best forum to restart this discussion. Levine and Irrational are not solely responsible for changing the tide of women in games, and it does seem unfair to lob complaint after complaint at him for a cover design that everyone has mostly forgotten. On the other hand, his defense props up the bullshit accepted wisdom that so many other game devs tout when they explain why they can’t put more women in games. It’s an incredibly insulting idea that women in games mean the game won’t sell; not only to women, but to men as well. Because seriously, what kind of mouth-breathing troglodyte is incapable of enjoying something because it has a female protagonist? Who are these assholes and why does the gaming industry continue to defer to them? If the success of your game depends on appealing to this group of people, then maybe you shouldn’t make that game.

I’m glad that people like the Dragon Age team are standing up to this bullshit and refusing to submit to marketing wisdom that may have been true 15 years ago, but has absolutely no place today, when half of the games community is made up of women. I really believe that the industry is heading in a better, more egalitarian direction and that in ten years this dust up over female characters will be laughable. But for now, it’s important that men and women in the industry and the community continue to openly and publicly support the idea that a female presence is not going to completely tank your sells. That’s the only way we’ll ever be able to prove how utterly wrong this ‘accepted wisdom’ really is.

A little background: I recently read this story on sexual harassment in the video game industry and was moved to write something. Just based on the many, many comments attached to that story, it’s very clear to me that a lot of guys are confused about how to speak to women in public. So, please, confused men, allow me to educate you:

If you see a woman in public, please do not feel the need to yell something out to her about how nice her legs/boobs/etc look. This is not a compliment, it is harassment. As someone who has been ‘complimented’ in this way, I can tell you that it does not feel good; it actually feels incredibly embarrassing. Every time someone has made a comment to me in public, I felt ashamed. Why do I feel ashamed? I feel ashamed because it’s a reminder that as a woman, my body is constantly on display and that certain people feel entitled to examine and comment on it; because it’s an emotional violation that makes me want to lock myself away and never show myself in a public space, for fear of the unwanted attention I might attract; because it shows that no matter what I do or say or accomplish, by the mere fact that I’m a woman, I will constantly face objectification based on my appearance; because it fucking sucks.

Now maybe if you’re a decent sort of person, you can see the problem with street harassment. What you might be having a harder time understanding, however, is the appropriate way to speak to a woman in a bar or other social setting—places where people usually go to meet someone. Well let me clear that up for: the same rules apply.

It’s just as gross and demeaning to tell a woman she has ‘nice boobs’ whether she’s in a bar or on the street. Sure, you can try to defend it by saying the woman was ‘dressed in a certain way’ and clearly ‘intended for someone to notice and compliment on her boobs/legs/butt/whatever’—but you’d be horribly, stupidly wrong. Yes, when women go out to a bar they tend to dress nice, (men do this too, it’s a thing). And yes, sometimes dressing nice or looking attractive is part of an attempt to meet someone and maybe, possibly have sex. But that does not mean that a woman is specifically dressing for your pleasure nor does mean she’s giving you consent to objectify her. If you want to flirt with someone, then flirt! There are less gross, more successful ways to get a woman to be interested in you, and they don’t have to involve reducing her down to a specific body part you happen to like.

Really, the best way to sum this all up is by saying that if you want to compliment a woman in public, treat her like a fucking human being and not a blank slate with appealing anatomy attached.

Every so often, articles will crop up on the Internet that involve a lot of hand-wringing over the meaning and use of the word ‘feminism.’ Does the word fail to properly depict feminism’s goal of gender equality because it specifically denotes ‘female?’ Is this a bad word? Why are so man young women nervous about labeling themselves feminist? These articles always engender lots of arguing from all sides of the feminist universe, with an occasionally sprinkling of inflammatory anti-feminist comments, but very rarely do they get close to discussing anything substantive.

The reason a lot of people—especially young women—have a hard time identifying as feminist is twofold: 1. A lot of people don’t understand what ‘feminism’ means. They’ll say something along the lines of: “I believe women can do anything men can do, but I’m not a feminist,” which is infuriating to anyone who has ever read bell hooks; 2. Women, especially younger women, are afraid of alienating their male peers by identifying as feminist. I can attest to point number 2, because I used to be one of those women. When I was younger, and so focused on how others perceived me, I was afraid of labeling myself as a feminist. Who would want to hang out with a girl that’s going to complain about how women are portrayed in a Transformer movie?—was a common defense I had for not being more vocal about my beliefs. How will I ever find a boyfriend, was another, shameful fear I had about calling myself a feminist. But then, as I got older, and more confident in expressing myself, I stopped fearing the dreaded f-word, and more importantly, stopped having the desire to date anyone that would be potentially hostile to my feminism.

I understand where this frustration over labeling oneself as feminist comes from, but I have a hard time feeling to upset about it. At some point, people grow up realize that’s it’s OK and even important to express themselves, and learn to feel comfortable with feminism.

It’s a widely known Internet fact that if you’re a woman—especially if you write about being a woman—you will experience some kind of harassment.  Guarding against this harassment is similar to “protecting” yourself from sexual assault: don’t go around asking for it and it won’t happen, as if it is completely dependent on women to prevent trolls from calling them a bitch online.

Now I’ve never experienced the full weight of Internet misogyny, but I’ve also been very conscious of what I’m saying online and who I’m saying it to. And that’s bullshit. That’s bullshit that I, or any woman, have to even think about this for a second; that the fear of what reaction I might get is preventing me from expressing an opinion. Women shouldn’t have to worry about what kind of clothing they wear when they go out at night, and they shouldn’t have to worry about what beliefs they express in public or online. Self-censorship for fear of backlash is a terrible thing, and I for one am going to try and stop being afraid of the online misogynist boogieman.

In the past year, I’ve read two books whose focus was memory: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante. Both books use memory as a way to tell their stories, but the role that memory plays in each book is widely divergent. In Sense of an Ending, memory is a philosophical; Barnes uses it to show how we create our own understanding of our past that often does not match up with reality. Memory is a construct.

Compare this to Turn of Mind, which deals with memory as a physical idea—by showing how fragile our minds and our memories are to biological factors, in this case, Alzheimer’s. In Turn of Mind, there’s never any question on the validity of a memory or why a certain person would choose to remember events in a certain way; instead, memory and identity are excepted on face-value and are linked with the physical body. As goes the physical, so goes memory.

Of the two, the philosophical examination of memory is what interests me more, probably because it is a less horrifying. I’d much rather prefer ruminating on the philosophy of memory construction, than have to confront the reality that regardless of whether not memory is constructed, it will ultimately be betrayed by your physical body.

The one thing that both books agree on is the link between memory and identity. Once you remove the former, the latter ceases to exist.