Housewives are ushering in the end times.

May 1912 cover of The Housewife

No, this entry has nothing to do with those housewives of network television notoriety who on a weekly basis strut about from one melodrama to the next, requiring a costume change whenever they make a house call or pick up the telephone. However, let it be known that Nicollette Sheridan has the most frightening cleavage on TV. I wish wardrobe would stop putting her in anything low-cut. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. I continue...

No, this is not a diatribe against housewives. I'm not taking any position in regards to the "rightful place" of a mother. Let the mother decide what is best for her family and herself. On a personal note, I treasure the environment created by my stay-at-home mom - "stay-at-home" being a ridiculous misnomer; with four kids under her charge, she rarely managed to stay at home and never seemed to pull off anything resembling downtime. She was a constant for us, in a different way than my father. She was the center around which we whirled. We never needed to fear because she could always be reached - coming to our rescue, whether it be the minute disaster or the vaguely epic ("I forgot today was picture day! Mom! You don't understand! I can't wear my glasses in the yearbook photo! I need my contacts! Ohhh, this is worst thing that has ever happened under the watchful eye of God!). Additionally, I don't consider either option - housewife or working mom - to be emblematic of modern-day feminism. Both can be empowering or subservient roles, and I do think that it is possible that either position can be the wrong decision for the given situation and that ultimately the decision can be made for the wrong reasons. I continue...

This little post is about the wrangling over the term itself, about whom can be knighted "housewife" and who's been vested with the authority to bring the ceremonial sword tap-tapping down. And if it is the aim of some women to relinquish the title, is it acceptable for other groups to claim it?

Singer/songwriter/professional quirky girl Nellie McKay has a number on her debut album, Get Away From Me, entitled "I Wanna Get Married." In a clever, tuneful manner McKay rejects the once seemingly mandatory role of housewife relegated to women. Her position on the issue isn't cutting edge and probably wouldn't even make waves in Oklahoma. Women have been abandoning the housewife role for decades, ever since they began burning their bras and realized they'd need to get jobs in order to replace those crispy, smoke-infested, absolutely unwearable brassieres. However, the song is a charming journey into the tabula rasa life of a woman who wants no identity apart from husband and children. Life outside the framework of her picket fence is inconceivable. For women like McKay rebellion is found in the shedding of such a deadweight, ridiculous moniker as "housewife" and all the Brady-goodness it represents.

But now the twist: What happens when others wish to occupy the housewife role? when these applicants aren't quite so traditional?

A month or five ago I was at a club listening to singer/actor/annoyingly apologetic YouTube poster Jay Brannan who is part of the ensemble of John Cameron Mitchell's endearing new film Shortbus - if your lexicon is comfortable allowing "endearing" to include that which is sexually explicit. One of the songs in his set very well could have been titled "I Wanna Get Married" or "Please, Please, Let Me Be A Housewife." A few years back, when he was in a relationship in California (which resembles NYC in its percentage of obvious sinners, remember?), he wrote about his desire to be nothing more than a housewife for a husband to return home to. In a clear, easy voice he sang about wishing he could fix his man drinks and cook meals and various shit. For Brannan, as a gay male, rebellion is found in assuming the mantle of housewife for himself, the very one being cast off by a segment of its original wearer, the heterosexual female. Controversy results from a simple act of conformity, of emulation.

Poppa-Top Poppa from the Tracy O'Neal Photographic Collection at GSU

What a stir we have here! But in reality nothing new is understood about the larger cultural context from which the housewife predicament has been pulled. Under this ambitious social umbrella one can encounter fun, dinner conversation ready topics like gender, sexuality, structure of the family, gay marriage and gay adoption rights, and why Star Jones Reynolds is America’s favorite drag queen.

So often that which seems to offend our sense of what is decent may only be an affront to the current, culturally ingrained norm. In recent years I have been trying to pull together a comprehension of "natural" and the significance of its definition, considering both denotation and connotation. What does it mean when someone says, "That's just not natural"? Are we referring to the nature of the wild? the nature of the test tube? the nature of reason? of the airplane which gives man its unnatural wings? of the life-extending medical devices and modern-day magic potions? of life-extinguishing solutions? the nature of the biological family? of the extended family? the nature of tradition? of religion?

In light of what is "natural," are women the only ones who have the right to be so desperate in the abode? And does our familiarity with the comforting picture of a woman in an apron preclude us from allowing others to engage in families and in the home in meaningful, beneficial ways?

Untitled 96 - Cindy Sherman

NYC is ushering in the end times.

Now, for some of my readers hailing from or currently residing in America's midsection, a region whose moral pants are securely being held up by the dependable, panic-inducing constriction of its Bible Belt, the title of this post is an obvious and uncontested fact. Is the sky blue? Is New York the devil's playground? The Big Apple has been ushering in the end times for decades and will continue to do so until God torches it Sodom & Gomorrah style in order to provide lesson material for Sunday School classes across the nation. Because of this, one of the absolute worst insults to be smacked with in my hometown is the slanderous "East Coast liberal" label, and nothing says over-intellectualized, godless, effeminate, spineless-due-to-their-not-eating-meat, suspiciously French "East Coast liberal" like a New Yorker.

Last summer I was back in Texas working with my dad. We stopped by a local, family-owned meat processing plant, efficiently ran by a Mennonite husband-and-wife duo, for a service call. Dad looked over a new project with the husband, and, since my general ignorance regarding all things electrical would contribute nothing to the early planning stages, I was freed up to talk to the wife who was manning the storefront. She is a wonderful woman, quick to laugh, possessing a vigorous life energy and perhaps a slight bawdiness. She was bewildered and somewhat horrified to discover that I was moving to NYC.

"But there are so many sinners there...and in California."

"It's not like we don't have sin here in the Panhandle."

"Yes. But I guess there it's just more obvious."

And all this after she told me one of her sons could very easily be a Calvin Klein model. Could there be a secret stash of People magazines hidden behind those church cookbooks in the home of this particular world wise Mennonite?

Because today I picked up the first roll of film I've had developed in about three months, I thought I should post some of my favorite shots in a tribute to New York City, Home of Obvious Sinners. Disclaimer: I'm still getting to know my computer and all-in-one printer/scanner/copier - Why won't you print? Oh, why won't you ever print!? - and I'm not entirely content with the image quality here.

But don't feel neglected, Texas. I have close to twenty-five rolls of film waiting to be developed in a shoe box on my closet shelf, rolls containing nothing but pit barbecue, rodeos, tractors, Rocky Mountain jeans, and dirt roads.

New York City: Home of Obvious Sinners

This is a tight shot of the shop window for the Louis Vuitton store on 5th Avenue before the holiday exhibit went up. I like pulling a thing out of its contextual surroundings to make it appear unfamiliar, strange, abstract:

(Left) An autumnal view of Central Park as I walk from the N,R,W subway stop along Central Park South on my way to work.
(Right) From the same vantage point, The Sherry-Netherland and the GM Building side-by-side but with a palpable generation gap. The GM Building (on the right) is home to my glorious, bewitching, kinda tacky, debt-inducing FAO Schwarz:

Really love this one. I caught one of my more interesting coworkers in all his tightly groomed fierceness and showing hints of those unsettling and dangerous undertones which sometimes violently jerk out from underneath his pert, calculated composure releasing rushes of profanity and indignant anger.

These two Midtown shots were probably taken from Park or Madison Avenue. When the architecture is so similar, sometimes the divisional lines between buildings can blur in a mirage of reflective glass, concrete, steel, and upward motion:

A close-up of the floor levels for one of the elevators in the GM lobby. I couldn't get the picture to scan without the faint line crossing the upper half:


Windows at Bergdorf Goodman.
(Left) An unfocused look into a window at the men's store displaying clothing items by Burberry (on 2) and Jil Sander (on 3). I tried flirting with both the white lettering and the clothes inside, giving neither my full attention. The scan for this one isn't very satisfying.
(Center, Right): Street scenes reflected on windows at the women's store across 5th Avenue.

REAL LIVE NEW YORKERS!!!!!:

The Cascade Laundry facility on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. I pass this everyday on the walk to and from the G line. I already associate the harsh smell of the chemical cleaners with those workdays which require me to wake up before even the Good Lord. If we were supposed to get up before noon, God himself would have created alarm clocks. Oh, you blasphemous hordes!:

And finally, meat...somewhere. It must have been a street festival. Definitely not a protest march:

Wishing everyone a wonderfully unnerving new year. I feel that mine can't be anything less than spectacular, but in what manner? Finding myself ringing in 2007 at an outrageous party attended by Michael Musto, Johnny Weir, Amanda Lepore, and both old and new friends must entail either fantastic success or unyielding doom. I wonder which one of these strangers next to me on the N train is Lot. It might do me some good to introduce myself. I hear he has connections you wouldn't believe.