There's safety in numbers when you learn to divide

[sovay]

I slept about three hours last night. I slept about three hours the night before. I don't think I slept a lot on Tuesday. This post is apparently composed of things that have annoyed me over the past week. Why the hell not.

1. Ian McEwan's The Imitation Game (1981). The title caught my eye in the drama section of the Harvard Book Store on Saturday; I had never heard of it and thought instantly it might be about Alan Turing. It is in fact about a young woman who joins the ATS, is assigned (unknowingly) to the Ultra project at Bletchley Park, and is completely screwed over by her intelligence, her independence, and her refusal to conform to feminine stereotypes even in an ostensibly more open-minded environment than the munitions factory she was expected to sign up for, along with all the other girls in her town, in the first act. I would not have found this story any more cheerful, but I would feel much more positively toward it if it had not also contained a brilliant, socially gauche codebreaker named John Michael Turner who invented the title game and explains it in the exact words used by Turing in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," and is straight, sleeps with the heroine, and betrays her with the same thoughtlessly sexist male privilege as his colleagues. Okay excuse me what? I have enough problems already with Enigma (2001), which substitutes a fictional heterosexual hero for Turing. (Seriously, I don't care if Tom Stoppard wrote the script, it is not okay to have the pivotal cryptographer with two girlfriends casually allude to one of them that he's solving the Entscheidungsproblem.) Is there a point in substituting a fictional heterosexual schmuck?

2. Whoever owns the car I saw parked outside of Not Your Average Joe's in Arlington Center on Wednesday, covered in campaign stickers with the slogan written across its back windshield: "VOTE ROMNEY—IT'S A MITT-ZVAH."

I am not sure how political I am in public. It is probably obvious that I feel strongly about certain rights. My very first reaction:

YOU FAIL TIKKUN OLAM FOREVER I HOPE THE GHOST OF EMMA GOLDMAN NEVER LETS YOU SLEEP.

3. The fact that I am not in New York City right now, seeing Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance, because somehow this month became just as complicated as September and I don't have teleportation.

And the middle of this week was just demoralizing. On the other hand, I am meeting Matthew this afternoon and this evening I am going (for a change) to the opening night of the Post-Meridian Radio Players' Tomes of Terror: New Arrivals and I just found out people are still buying copies of A Mayse-Bikhl, so here's the traditional wish for a better weekend.

[edit] And sigerson just sent me Tiny Charles Darwin! The afternoon is definitely looking up.

Comments

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

1. Wince. That's... Jesus. No. I was pretty ambivalent about McEwan before this; I don't think I'll bother with him at all now.

(I really don't know how you'll feel about this, but I've just read a review for a novel that pairs Mordred with Turing - who may be an AI - in modern-day Toronto. I've not read the book.)

2. That's a good curse. I need to find a biography of Goldman, too.

*I am not sure how political I am in public.*

I have one default assumption about most of my friends, that they're left-wing. I try not to make any other assumptions.

I hope the rest of the day is good to you. I see Rob's directing one of the plays; tell him I wish him luck.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

To a better weekend!

You were the one who sent me the link to
yiddishcursesforrepublicanjews.com
right?

"May you be reunited in the world to come with your ancestors, who were all socialist garment workers!"

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for your lack of sleep, the noxious McEwan novel (at least it's 1981 and not 2011, but still...), and the ghastly car and slogan.

Very sorry for the demoralising mid-week and the fact that you're not there to see God of Vengeance.

I'm glad Tiny Charles Darwin has improved your afternoon, and I hope the evening and especially the opening night have been enjoyable.

I didn't sleep well last night, either--I'd wonder if it's something spread across the internets, but I think in my case it was more likely a dose of "OMG I'm 37 since this morning and it's twenty years since my seventeenth birthday and maybe my girlfriend from then was really my only chance ever and [blah] [blah] [blah]."

I hope you'll sleep more tonight, or at least soon.

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Okay...so that is a horrible bumper sticker. (Among other things, I don't understand Jews (or any minority) who vote Republican. You know they hate you, right?) and your response is amazing. I think "YOU FAIL TIKKUN OLAM FOREVER I HOPE THE GHOST OF EMMA GOLDMAN NEVER LETS YOU SLEEP" would make an excellent t-shirt.

also *hugs*

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

YOU FAIL TIKKUN OLAM FOREVER I HOPE THE GHOST OF EMMA GOLDMAN NEVER LETS YOU SLEEP.

And that is definitely the correct reaction to have!