Why Dear Abby Sucks

I have an obsession with advice columns. I read them voraciously. Carolyn Hax, Ask Amy, Annie's Mailbox, Dear Prudence, Dear Margo, Miss Manners, Classic Ann Landers, and Dear Abby. I try to hold off reading any for a few days or a week and then read them all at once in a massive advice binge. It was this habit of mine, of reading seven or eight columns at once, that first alerted me to the fact that Dear Abby is the worst advice columnist in the history of the world.

A little history, because the column hasn't always been this bad: The original "Abigail Van Buren" was Pauline Esther Friedman Philips, the identical twin sister of "Ann Landers," Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, and they feuded for much of their adult lives over their warring columns. (There's a really good biopic starring Wendy Malik.) While Ann Landers was always the superior column, Dear Abby held her own quite nicely until 1995, when Pauline Philips was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and her daughter, Jeanne Philips, took over advice-giving duties.

The first thing you'll notice when you read a Dear Abby column immediately after, say, Ask Amy, is that Jeanne Philips is not a very good writer. If you read her column after you've read Miss Manners or Dear Prudence, you'll discover that she's not funny, even when she tries really hard. After a Carolyn Hax column, you'll realize that Dear Abby's counsel is superficial and trite, when not completely wrong-headed. This is the biggest problem. Her advice is really bad. Let's look at some recent examples:

To a young woman whose coworkers disrupted her reading in the break room:

Another thought: Place a Do Not Disturb sign with large lettering next to you if you think it will help them get the hint.

Really, Abby? Putting a sign up telling her friendly coworkers to leave her alone is going to foster a harmonious work environment? Good call. Or how about this one? A professional pianist is having difficulty. He plays in stores, restaurants, and lounges and his patrons often ask him questions midsong. Because he cannot play and talk at the same time, he has to either stop playing or ignore them until he finishes. What to do? Abby starts off with,

I have it on good authority, as well as personal experience in piano bars years ago, that many pianists can not only play and talk, but also play and sing.

You guys, Dear Abby is kind of a bitch. Maybe many pianists can, but this guy can't, and he's the one asking for help. Also, I think playing and singing is called self-accompaniment and is different than carrying on a conversation that has no relation to the music you're performing. This one's the worst in the last month. A woman sought counsel when the son she gave up for adoption in her youth found her. Her husband has threatened to leave her if she tells their adult children about this son or has any contact with him. Here's what Abby says:

From the tone of your letter your husband is the dominant partner in your marriage. If that's the case, and you really think he would leave you after all these years because you leveled with your children about the fact that they have a half-brother, then keep the secret.

However, if your relationship with your husband is anything approaching a partnership, then stand up for yourself and make it clear that you are the sum total of all your experiences -- both the joyful and the painful -- and you need to see your son, thank his family for the love and care they have given him, and let your adult children make up their own minds about whether they want to be contacted.

So if your husband is domineering, just keep your mouth shut, because it's better for you to lie to your children and ignore the son searching for his history than to be without your controlling spouse. Implicit in this advice is the idea that by marrying someone controlling she has given up the right to make her own choices. It also seems to say that her domineering husband is right to be ashamed of her and her past choices. The second paragraph--suggesting the exact opposite course of action, but only if her marriage is a partnership--makes clear that remaining silent and kowtowing to her husband's every whim for the rest of her life is her punishment for choosing such a poor mate. Apparently no one can change their circumstances or correct their mistakes in Abigail Van Buren's world. And that's a world I don't want to live in.

Torpor

Noun
Middle English, from Latin, from torpere
1a. a state of mental and motor inactivity with partial or total insensibility
2. APATHY, DULLNESS, LETHARGY

I have a few posts partially complete, but I just can't seem to make myself do anything these days. Maybe tomorrow.

I Heart Modcloth: An Investigation

Sometime in the spring of 2007 I happened upon a lovely little online clothing store called ModCloth. They sell funky vintage clothes and cute clothes by young independent designers. I've gotten a lot of my favorite pieces there, the ones I go to when I have to look great. In fact, I just picked out a dress to wear to my boyfriend's brother's wedding. I've been looking for one for weeks. (No, I'm not going to tell you which dress. I don't have the funds at the moment and don't want you, my imaginary readers, to buy them out before I save up.) One of the best things is that if you buy it on ModCloth you're unlikely to see anyone else wearing it.

Unless you buy this dress:



I tried this dress on in Urban Outfitters a couple months ago when I was looking for a dress to wear to The Phantom of the Opera. It was adorable, but the straps needed to be shortened and I thought it was just too young and cutesy for a night out. It wasn't what I needed at the time, but I've secretly been coveting it for awhile. It's near the top of my Things to Buy When I Get a Job list.

And then the other day I headed over to ModCloth and saw it priced almost twenty dollars below Urban. And I got really happy and came over here to write a post entitled "An Ode to ModCloth." But when I went over to Urban to double check their price, I noticed something interesting.

It's not the same dress.








This is the dress Urban Outfitters is selling:


It's very similar. Weirdly similar. Like, beyond coincidence. In fact, I spent awhile clicking back and forth between two browser windows to make sure it wasn't a trick of the lighting. (Yes, I still use IE6, what of it?) But the straps are clearly not the same. And the bodice of the Urban dress is more of a royal purple than ModCloth's violet. And if you look at the back, the bows appear to be different colors as well.

Urban Outfitters seems to have a long history of plagiarizing young designers' work, so I set out to investigate. It was long and arduous and mostly consisted of emailing Alicia at ModCloth and asking her annoying questions about who designed the dress and how I could contact them and what the style number of the dress is. She was lovely and gracious enough to promptly respond to all of my inquiries. The dress is by Staccato, and they say that although they do sometimes sell to Urban UK, this dress was only sold to boutiques and specialty stores. I was unable to contact Urban Outfitters.

I don't want to accuse Urban Outfitters of stealing the design outright, but they're practically identical. The color changes are the equivalent of the accent and chewed fingernails distinguishing Susan from Sharon in The Parent Trap. This goes beyond the "on the wind" situation in which two comedians tell similar jokes about a current event or two designers make similar pleated skirts in the hot color of the season. These dresses are distinctive and someone spent a long time making sure the cut and colors and proportions were just right, and someone else spent a few minutes copying it. That's a shame.

Whatever happened, check out ModCloth. It's full of sassy clothes that will make you look super stylish, and they don't plagiarize.

My Geek Tyranny

Okay, so I'm more of a nerd than a geek, but the boys over at Geek Tyrant let me contribute to their lovely site from time to time. Today I reviewed the new Guillermo Del Toro book, The Strain, for them. You can read it here.

Read this book! Scarlett Thomas Edition

I was at a bridal shower on Saturday, trying to be unobtrusive while the bride opened her gifts, when my boyfriend's aunt started grilling me on what I wanted to do with my life and what's wrong with me to make me such a loser, ending with a lecture on how if I just listened to her I could be a Success! Anyway, in the midst of this harangue, she asked me who my favorite writers were, and I started telling her about Scarlett Thomas, whom I adore. I got all excited and happy talking about her, as well as my other favorite authors, and then she suggested her own since mine clearly weren't up to snuff. And yes, Aunty, I did pick up the not so subtle insinuation in your suggestion that I read A Light in August because it's the easiest Faulkner.

Possible future in-laws aside, the whole experience reminded me that I should blog about the awesomeness of Scarlett Thomas. She's a writer from the New Puritan school, which is all about telling a story as simply as possible. I've read two of her books, and I loved them so much I gave them away. That's the highest praise possible from me because I hoard books. I keep them and read them over and over and over again and get mad when people touch them. So for me to give a book away I have to feel strongly that everyone in the world should read it.

The first book I read is Popco. It's about a cryptanalyst/toy designer who solves a seemingly unbreakable code and finds a hidden pirate treasure. The End of Mr. Y, cover adorned with the tantalizing tagline, Would you read this book if you knew it was cursed? is about a graduate student who finds an extremely rare book holding the secret to linking into the consciousness of, well, everyone. Both books are suspenseful and dramatic and funny and touching and chock full of information. Everything I know about homeopathy, cryptanalysis, pirates, toy and puzzle design, and thought experiments I learned from Scarlett Thomas. I read an interview with her on Bookslut, like, a year ago, and she said that when she sets out to write a book she makes a list of everything she wants to learn about and then comes up with a plot that connects them. Luckily, she only wants to learn about really interesting things, and she passes it all on to the reader.

So buy her books if you're too lazy to read encyclopedias and tedious technical manuals but still want to learn cool stuff while engrossed in a compelling plot.

An Ode to Up

Way back in November I saw Bolt. I wasn't really interested in seeing the movie, but I was very interested in the boy that invited me. It was a sweet, entertaining movie, but what really piqued my interest was the trailer I saw for the movie Up. I thought it seemed like a really fun, creative concept, and it was Pixar, so I knew it would be good. What I didn't know was that it would be among the most beautiful love stories I've seen on film.

The movie opens with an old timey newsreel telling the story of an adventurer exploring South America, while an enthusiastic young boy we'll come to know as Carl bops in his seat. On his way home from the theater, he hears the sound of a fellow adventurer coming from a dilapidated old Victorian house. It's Ellie, the most kickass girl I've seen in a theater this year. They become friends, and Ellie shows Carl her scrapbook, the first few pages filled with her plans to move to South America, the rest of the pages blank, waiting for mementos of adventures to come.

The rest of their story is told quickly and mostly silently. They get married and move into the Victorian house where they met, fixing it up and dreaming of their future. When Ellie is devastated to learn that children aren't possible, Carl cheers her up by reminding her of her childhood dream. They start saving for South America, but life continually intervenes. Ellie dies before they can go.

The bulk of the movie is made up of Carl's decision to fly their house to Paradise Falls to fulfill Ellie's dream and his experiences on the way there, and it's lively and fun and entertaining and full of twists and turns. But the best moment in the movie is when, discouraged, Carl flips through Ellie's scrapbook, and for the first time sees that Ellie didn't leave the pages blank; she's filled them with pictures of her life with Carl. That's the adventure she had.

I get restless in my life. I know there's so much to do and see in this world that I'm unlikely to see and do it all before I die and that fills me with wanderlust. It's nice to go to a children's movie on a Saturday expecting a fun and silly two hours and leave full of hope that if you do it right, everyday is an adventure, even if it's just a picnic with someone you love.

Herstory: Eleanor of Acquitaine

Awhile ago while I was on a Peter O'Toole kick I watched The Lion in Winter and developed an Eleanor of Acquitaine obsession, which led to some research. She was an amazing and accomplished woman. Here are some highlights:

• Wealthiest and most beautiful woman in Europe in the 12th century
• Educated in the cultural center of Europe
• Duchess of Acquitaine and Countess of Poitiers in her own right
• Married King Louis VII of France
• Went on Crusade and dressed herself and her women as Amazons
• Had several affairs, including with her uncle and her future father-in-law
• Divorced King Louis VII on grounds of consanguinity
• Immediately proposed to Henry, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, and heir to the throne of England, 12 years her junior and a closer relative than Louis
• Alongside Henry II, built the Angevin empire while bearing 8 children
• Became estranged from Henry and aided her sons in rebellion against him, after which she was imprisoned for 16 years
• Ruled England while her son King Richard the Lionheart was on crusade and in prison
• Implemented the jury system in England
• Travelled to Germany to negotiate his ransom
• Continued to advise her son King John into her old age
• Took the veil at Fountrevault

The really frustrating thing about her is that in the Middle Ages women didn't matter, so there are few surviving records. The chroniclers seldom mention her, although Bernard of Clairvaux did call her a whore a bunch of times. Reading biographies of her there are very clear descriptions of what her husbands or sons were doing, followed by sentences like, It would appear that at this time Eleanor was... or, We can assume that Eleanor... or, Historians believe Eleanor... We know that she was beautiful, but we have no specifics of her appearance. Historians believe she had red hair. They also think that she was tall and thin and not too curvy based on the fact that she was able to disguise herself as a man when she was 51. Meanwhile there are several precise descriptions of Henry II. The Courtly Love tradition began at her court in Poitiers, but Henry and the church destroyed all its records. It is believed the forerunner of the jury system began there, which would be important, but only if she were a man.

This woman was the Queen of France and England and held Acquitaine and Poitiers in her own right. If her life is so undocumented, what about the lives of the women around her, the ladies, nuns, and peasants who led less extraordinary lives? If a queen and crusader deserves so little ink, what did they think those women deserved? And is the intense scrutiny given to powerful women today a step up or just a lateral move? Would you rather have no records of your appearance, or miles of newsprint describing your cankles and pantsuits? And why are anonymity and scrutiny our only options?