Lantas apa yang membuat sineas ini berbeda?

Bagi saya pendekatannya yang sangat tidak Amerika amat menarik. Dia mungkin tidak menerapkan faham ideologinya secara terang-terangan macam Ken Loach, si kiri abis asal Inggris itu, di filmnya. Toh saya juga tidak tahu ideologi apa yang dia percayai. Yang pasti, Wes amat senang bermain dengan simbolisasi. Dalam Royal Tennenbaum, pola standar drama Tragedi Shakespear-an ditampilkan dalam konflik keluarga absurd. Sementara di Life Aquatic, sekali lagi pola tragicomedy ala William Somerset Maugham muncul, hanya saja dia memanfaatkan setting absurd tim peneliti eksplorasi laut. Dan puncak pencapainnya, menurut pendapat subyektif saya, ditumpahkan dalam The Darjeeling Limited.

Menyebut Darjeeling sebagai film indie Amerika generik sangat merendahkan menurut saya. Pendekatan yang sangat sederhana di film ini akan membuat malu sineas - sineas Indonesia yang doyan sekali menyebut diri sutradara Indie, tapi hasilnya nol besar dalam penyajian karya. Tidak ada plot yang eksperimental, tidak ada kesan berlebihan, walau tidak bisa dibilang sederhana juga. Saya menyaksikan aura yang berbeda dengan rata-rata film indie yang saya lihat.

Dengan pledoi seni, sering saya dipaksa untuk tidak memahami esensi film yang saya tonton. Kasus ini tidak hanya untuk sineas Indonesia lho.
Menyaksikan film-film Wes, saya disambut oleh aura yang hangat, macam kawan lama yang mengajak anda mengobrol dengan santai. Humor keringnya selalu berjalan mulus. Tidak berpretensi untuk lucu seperti misalnya adegan ular kobra lepas di pertengahan bagian Darjeeling yang sangat slapstick, tapi nyatanya membuat saya tertawa sampai menangis.

Simbolisasinya sangat menarik, dengan sarkastis dia menampilkan prasangka ala orang Amerika ketika menggambarkan suasana kereta di India yang berjubelan manusia layaknya kereta kita saat musim lebaran tiba. Tapi penonton non Amerika tidak akan merasa direndahkan ketika menyaksikannya.
Epiphani atau pencerahan yang dialami tiap karakter, semisal rasa tanggung jawab tokoh Zizzou yang akhirnya muncul karena memiliki anak di Life aquatic, atau kesadaran untuk berani menghadapi realita hidup bagi karakter-karakter Darjeeling berjalan mulus dan wajar.

Intinya, senang melihat ada sineas Amerika baru yang mengusung absurditas tanpa membebani karyanya untuk menjadi absurd. Hal yang pikir saya di era kontemporer ini berhasil dilakukan dengan total oleh sutradara Shinichiro Watanabe asal Jepang. Di Indonesia sendiri, bagi saya belum terlihat sutradara yang mau bersusah-susah menciptakan pola pendekatan personal macam itu.

Ada Joko Anwar memang, tapi caranya menyerap pendekatan Noir terlalu berlebihan, laiknya penulis pemula macam saya yang bernafsu menunjukkan bahwa saya bisa membuat tulisan bergaya liris ala GM. Kemajuan kualitas sinema Indonesia membutuhkan sineas yang mau sedikit berusaha tampil dengan mengedepankan hati. Karena penyakit sineas muda jebolan sekolahan yang punya pengetahuan sinematografis tinggi di negara ini, adalah belum berhasil membuat karya yang tulus. Liar yang tulus, absurd yang tulus, atau realis yang tulus.
Susah mungkin, tapi toh itu bukan sesuatu yang mutahil. Gaya sinema asli Indonesia memang tidak mungkin, karena seni ini bukan kultur asli kita, tapi pendekatan Indonesia ala Nya Abbas Akub merupakan contoh yang kongkrit. Kita dapat merasa bahwa menyaksikan film macam “Kipas – kipas Cari Angin” atau “Cintaku di Rumah Susun” sebagai film Indonesia sejati. PR besar kita memang di departemen skenario, tapi sikap skeptis saya mungkin akan berubah sembari menanti Laskar Pelanginya Riri Reza. Semoga antusiasme saya terbayar lunas.

     From the view of employment, why they are prefer male employee to female employee? I think, because female employees have much more possibility of quitting job than male employees. Here are 2 reasons. First, it was common that women’s early retirement for ages. It mean, “Marriage and giving birth” was the time for quitting job for the most of women. About 10 years ago in Shimane prefecture in Japan, a survey that “The reason why they quit their job; event for the women who quitted her job when she got married or gave birth to their baby” was operated. According to the survey, 32.6% of them answered: “Because I want to devote to do housework”, 23.9% of them answered:”Because it seemed to be difficult to work taking care of family”, 13.7% of them answered: “Family required me to be house work”, and 9.8% of them answered: ”The company promoted me to quit my job.” Because women’s early retirement was a common sense for both men and women in the old Japanese society. To train those of who may leave company in a few years is waste of time and money. Therefore, employment would not want to entrust the important job to women, and it result to be form male dominated company.  This kind of sense would be deep-rooted in the modern Japanese society.

     Second, there is no enough system for women to continue their job after giving birth to their baby. Actually, to work taking care of their baby is too tough. Without the cooperation with husband and company, it is too difficult for women who became mother to continue her job. In some countries, “child-care leave” is provided for women. However, less than half of female workers use this holiday in Japan. The main reason for it is, “worrying about whether I can return-to-work”, “no place to leave my child”, etc. Therefore, a number of women quit her job when they get pregnant, and a few years later their child turned 5,6 years, they start to look for job. In a lot of case, they only can find part-time job. The income of part-timer is far less than full time worker.

How can it realize that equality of work between men and women? I think it would be a task for Japanese society that to make good environment for women to continue their job after giving birth to children. If this problem is solved, the quitting job rate for women would decrease, and more companies take a positive attitude for women’s career. Only women can give birth to children, so it is not easy for men to imagine how tough to give birth and raise them up. I think men should make effort to understand it. Women should have the right to work in the same condition as men, and it could not realize without the corporation with husband, company, and government.

VENICE

When John McCain chose Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) as his nominee for vice president he complimented his campaign with historic significance, new life, youthful vitality, an energized base, conservative credentials, executive experience, and a partner for the reform he advocates.  But few things in life are rarely all good, and the selection also comes with some perils.

By selecting a little-known political figure, McCain has invited the kind of media scrutiny that only comes from embarassing them with such a surprise.  Almost overnight he created a cottage industry dedicated to the examination of all things Palin that has already produced claims such as Palin was for earmarks before she was against them, and Palin abused executive authority for personal purposes. 

Sometimes legitimate, most often not, the beehive of the blogosphere is already buzzing with activity and has produced claims such as Palin supports Alaskan secession from the United States, and Palin is not Trig's mother but his grandmother.

The "angy left" and its affiliated reporters and bloggers will not be deterred by what was unquestionably an effective acceptance speech.  As endearing as Palin's well-written and well-delivered speech may have been to Republicans, it raised the bounty that will be claimed by whomever produces the October surprise that brings her down. 

The math is also perilous for McCain.  Unlike the 2004 campaign, which sought to broaden and turnout the base, success in 2008 will depend upon building coalition.  McCain's gamble is that Palin will help him lock in resistent conservatives within the Republican Party, and appeal to disaffected Hillary Clinton voters in the Democratic Party.  Her speech surely helped a lot with Republicans and perhaps a little with women, but where independent voters will turn remains an open question, as does Palin's appeal to these voters.

America remains a republic with a representative form of government, however, and whatever perils may be attendant with this selection, there remains the hope that more voters than not will look at Sarah Palin and conclude that she represents their lives, their customs, their thinking and their interests.  If she can do that and draw more support for McCain then the Maverick may indeed come up all aces.

I dind't do a good job explaining what I really was describing here, because the topic of the essay was given already so the professor knew what I was talking about (not sure if that's a good thing or not), but for you all, the description is of the front lawn of Anderson University. If you haven't seen it, here's a picture:

Without further ado, here it is.

An Emerald Sea
by Noah Taylor

                One step at a time, I descended the sweeping cement staircase framed elegantly by wrought iron. As I looked up from the ground, my eyes set themselves on a marvelous sea of emerald grass that I had never paid much attention to before. Mesmerized, I forgot my previous mission and stepped forward to the shore of this dry ocean of green waves; ready to dive into the landscape before me, I stepped toe-first onto the grass, as I would have in testing a pool of water. The entrancing emerald grass was not as beautiful as it was soft beneath my feet.

                Leaving my flip-flops behind, I trod across the windswept field to the wise, grandfatherly trees that stood at attention before me. My fingers running across the trunk of a scholarly oak, the breeze whispered past my ears, reminding me of my Granddaddy’s content sigh. Handsome as they were, the trees were so tall; they must be there to hold up the sky, I thought to myself. Goliath himself would have cowered had he crossed path with such living, breathing sculptures of God’s grandeur.

                Looking to the heavens to thank God for His creation, I realized the green clouds looming overhead. These were not gloomy clouds, but accents of the grass ocean below. At that moment, a raindrop-shaped leaf fluttered down and landed on my head. Taking it into my fingers, I examined the lemon-lime markings that highlighted its delicate vein system. Only a true thinker could have designed such an involved schematic.

                Reaching the opposite shore of this emerald harbor, I discover the passing cars and traffic noises once more. As I looked again to my feet, a line appeared. It was a line between the black pathway that ran before me, and the mystic lawn that lay behind me. Even more, though, it was a line between the present and the timeless.

Words above and video below posted by AssociatedPress

If I were playing the part of a movie pulp fiction detective (think Bogart's "Sam Spade"), and a leggy blond perched on the end of my desk asked me to take the "Too Happy for Words" case, a mystery in the form of an essay, the first question I would have is: Why in the world did someone (me, in real life) doodle a guy chasing a hare (or is it a rabbit?) on the last page of an otherwise straightforward essay about marriage, motherhood and fiction writing? I'm sure of one thing, the real me didn't unconsciously doodle the image as an audition to illustrate the text. If by some chance I were to get such a gig, a rabbit would be the last thing to occur to me. I just re-read the McDermott essay (excellent, by the way), and there are no rabbits or hares in it; and discounting human babies, no small animals of any description. So far, then, my investigation has dead-ended.

The "Too Happy for Words" essay by novelist Alice McDermott ("A Bigamist's Daughter, "That Night," "Charming Billy"), is collected in the book The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work, a paperback published in 2003. From the rereading I've concluded that the essay is concerned mainly with the different attitudes to marriage and motherhood held by some wary young feminists and their older "sisters," many of whom have married and are, on the surface at least, happily raising kids. It seems the question the younger women are asking (and some of the older women are asking themselves), is to what extent, if at all, does familial devotion stunt their ambition and creativity. Here's how Ms. McDermott puts it: "I wonder if it's superstition: if we feel that to admit to such contentment in life would compromise our status as artists—perhaps recalling the poor actress in The Portrait of Dorion Gray who fell in love and lost her talent." And Ms. McDermott goes on, "As a writer I recognize that much of this can be accounted for by the demands of plot—no doubt all happy mothers are like happy families: alike. And as Tolstoy warned us, sustained joy doesn't make much of a story."

This final McDermott quote I marked provides the clue I need to solve the case. On the last page, just above my doodle, she writes: "Fiction requires the attendant threat, the dramatic reversal, not only because these are the things that make for plot and tension and a sense of story, but because without them any depiction of our joy might appear overstated. We hesitate to include in our fiction what so often strikes us in life as something too good to be true."

Put another way, Ms. McDermott is talking about conflict, the device that drives all story telling. And with that I think I've found my little insight, the knowledge which logically leads to a solution of the original query. Rabbits are famous for having lots of babies, right? In fact, they are the very symbol of fecundity—motherhood squared, so to speak? And is there anything cuter than little bunnies hop, hop, hopping in a field of flowers or down the road? But what happens when you add a man pursuing the bunny with something else in mind, perhaps something sinister like dinner? With those questions in mind I think I can say that the mystery of the connection between and among marriage, motherhood, fiction writing, and my doodle, is solved. My unconscious illustrator seems to have come up with an idea my conscious mind would have surly missed, or rejected: The "attendant threat" of a man on the hunt, and the joy he finds in that, contrasted by the sheer terror felt by his prey. Case closed.

"The Tale of the Hare" is the second in a series of occasional posts under the title Marginalia. In these posts I will display and comment upon a full-page scan from one of my personal library books on which I've doodled and/or underlined—or, as some would claim, otherwise defaced a scared text (to the true bibliophile all text is scared). These folks, shocked by the desecration, predict (and seem to wish), that I will suffer some vile punishment for my transgressions.

Please leave a comment with your first 50 words on the topic "Liz and Sarah."

First of all, plagiarism is a huge issue, that isn't tackled simply by the use of detection software. The detection software is only part of the picture, and only works if used as a deterrent. We need to educate learners about what is acceptable or not acceptable, we need to look at the systems in place to deal with instances (and ensure there is consistency across the institution) and most importantly look at the design of the assessments that we are asking the learners to complete.

Some people are concerned that there are ways to 'cheat' the system, and also that it sometimes runs a check that doesn't detect something that is actually plagiarised, but I still think that as a deterrent it still works. To use an analogy, when I was younger a nearby town invested in boxes for 6 speed safety cameras but only bought one camera which it moved around the 6 boxes. As a driver (not myself being a law abiding citizen, but my friends...) you only had a 16% chance of going through the box with a camera in, and therefore an 84% chance of not getting caught, but you still slowed down for all of the cameras. A similar situation arises with TurnItIn, as long as the learner doesn't know what is going to get detected it acts as a very powerful deterrent.

When I used to work at a University there were many lecturers who wanted the learners to see the results of the TurnItIn output - which altough I appreciated their view point, I personally prefered them not to see the output, as you were giving them additional opportunites to cheat, as they could keep submitting plagiarised pieces of work, until they found one that wasn't detected.

Some people argue that because some things slip through and other's don't it isn't a fair system. Again I think it is a fairer system than what we had before. When I taught before this came along, I would look at work, if I thought it was lifted from the Internet (and it was usually quite obvious) I would set about trying to locate the source by doing Google Searches or using Alltheweb.com (another search engine from before the Google days) . If I found the source then great I could then deal with it, if I didn't then I had to mark the work as if it was the learner's own - this to me was very frustrating, it was also based on my ability to search, and the amount of time I wanted to spend, and although I tried hard not to do this, it was hard not to prejudice against learners, who you knew had a history of cheating. When TurnItIn came along I ran everything through the system, this saved me huge amounts of time, and took out any element of prejudice. Yes some pieces of work may have slipped through, and if I thought that they were copied then I could still do the Google searches. I would also look at what TurnItIn had actually compared, as many of the cheat tactics that people employ actaully change the text so that it looks normal when printed on paper but it usually has extra invisible characters in it, or large chunks (the copied bits) missing. By looking at the raw text, it was very easy for me as the tutor to identify attempts by the learners to 'cheat' the system.

The end result of me using TurnItIn - learners learnt very quickly that trying to cheat me, wasn't a good idea, and the amount of work handed in that was plagiarised fell from being more than 50% to only a fewinstances.

Some people only submit work that they suspect is copied. Personally I submit all work - if nothing else, once the work has been submitted to the system, this then enters the pool that other work is checked against. This stops the work being handed down to next years students, as well as hopefully reducing the sale of essays on eBay which I blogged about previously. It also means that if someone has copied work from behind a secure system, this won't be detected by TurnItIn - however the second time that a student copies from the same secure system, TurnItIn should create a match between the 2 pieces of work (even if they werne't actually copied from each other). I feel that as educators we have a duty to drive plagiarism out, and a major player in this is for people to use TurnItIn wider.

I leave behind the candies, the sweet smell of the candies. I miss my father and my brother, too.

I leave behind a beautiful yellow bird. The bird is mine, but the bird has to leave to fly back to his home. I love this bird so much. I want to take him with me forever, but that is impossible.

I leave behind my favorite food, chilaquiles con crema. Mmm, I love it so much!

I leave behind the air where I breathe when the stars shine so much the sky expands into blue.

I leave behind my house and both my parents and my cousins I play with. We play, running, jumping, and holding hands. We are the best friends in the world. I leave behind my best friends, Sarahy, Adriana, and Lilian. Lilian and I once went to the same school, and we would run together holding hands.

I leave behind my toys. I leave behind my doll, the one I play with every day on my bed, dreaming that I am the mama and she is my baby.

I leave behind so many other toys. And also my other friends. Their names are Rosario, Pilar, and Asucena.

I leave behind the flowers in my backyard. There, in my backyard, I play with my many cousins and my many friends. We play the cachadas. We play hide and seek.

By Aline, 7th grade
[photo by Jamuudsen via flickr]

Perhaps no precedent provides greater guidance on vice presidential selections than that of 1988.  That year Democratic nominee Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis chose the long-serving Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate, and Republican nominee Vice President George Bush chose boyish and manic Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana.  Even the most partisan observers of that campaign would acknowledge that Bentsen was the better prepared president-in-waiting, but it proved not to matter.  That November Bush defeated Dukakis soundly, winning the last presidential landslide.

That year proved that whatever vice presidential selections are made, elections ultimately turn on the nation's attitudes toward and comfort with the presidential candidates, and that even running 36-year veteran Senator Joe Biden of Delaware against 44-year-old Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska won't change that.  In the end it will be about Obama and McCain, not their running mates.  That's why two other precedents are noteworthy.

Those who believe that there's no way the nominee of an incumbent party of an unpopular president can be electorally competitive should revisit the 1976 campaign.  Just two years removed for the resignation of disgraced President Richard Nixon and the disasterous losses of the 1974 congressional elections, no one gave Republican President Gerald Ford a chance against former Democratic Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia.  And yet Ford won 27 states and was just 9245 votes in Hawaii and Ohio shy of re-election. 

There are also aspects of this campaign which reflect the dynamics that played out in 1980.  That year there was an uneasiness about the better known candidate, but uncertainty about the ability of the lesser known candidate.  Sound familiar?  That year the campaign remained statistically tied heading into its final weekend before former Republican Governor Ronald Reagan of California gave voters the reassurance they needed that he was up to the challenges of the presidency.  He went on to win 42 states in one of the largest landslides in history. 

The greatest guidance for 2008 can be taken from 1976, which proved that major parties can overcome great obstacles to be competitive, and 1980, which showed that whatever the perceived advantages of one candidate over another voters are capable of great patience in reaching their decisions. 

That's why it shouldn't prove surprising that in 2008 voters are demonstrating a capacity to give John McCain the the Republican Party he leads a chance to chart a new and worthy course, or that they appear to be availing themselves of every bit of information about Barack Obama before making a choice. 

It has been 20 years since the nation witnessed a landslide election.  Of the four elections since 1988 only once did the winner have a popular vote majority (George W. Bush in 2004).  This election seems poised to repeat this pattern, but which precedent will hold?  Will voters ultimately reject the incumbent party as they did in 1976?  Will voters again embrace the outsider as they did in 1980?  Or will they make different choices?  We'll have our answer in 60 days.

My motivation to write differs from Orwell's drastically. I did not read much when I was young and I did not write well. I eventually turned to writing to sort out my thoughts, but now I write because of a purpose. This purpose drives me to find ways to change the world, and writing serves this purpose. However, Orwell wrote from within a self-nature and changed the world. I am writing to change the world but have gained a self-nature to write instead.

Thousands of protesters gathered in St. Paul, Minn., the site of the Republican National Convention. As tensions mounted between those gathered and police, AP photojournalist Evan Vucci was in the middle of the crowd.

So I'm white, and white people have a) a lack of history of racial oppression and b) done enough bad shit, that I have yet to encounter a 'white stereotype' I actually find offensive. I'm not sure one exists. But I have a feeling the experience is different for black kids, Chinese kids, and so on. So how exactly do they feel when they see characters like this? These can't be images they look up to or are empowered by. These are caricatures, not role models, and with the serious lack of any minority in any media outlet, I dare say we'd do better with a fair and balanced (the real kind, not the Fox kind) representation than Holly Golightly's super.

At which point I must raise my hand, and ask: Where is the argument for people who knew what their issues with HFCS were?

And also what mom thinks liquid sugar counts as 'moderation', but that's a totally different can of worms.

First: How is HFCS not an artificial ingredient? I'm not totally up on the process but I think there's a bit of man-made intervention in extracting and concentrating liquid sugar from corn. It is, at least, something I've failed to encounter when eating a cob. Some clever advertising wordsmiths can probably argue that HFCS can be an artificial ingredient without containing any artificial ingredients, and since the ads only say it doesn't contain any artificial ingredients... etc etc. Sure, fine. Still, highly processed, even if they haven't thrown anything in to make it moreso.

Second: My issue is, in fact, that HFCS is made with corn, so thanks for pointing that out guys. Out of all the sugar sources in the world - cane, beet, maple, etc etc - why try to squeeze blood out of a stone with corn? Because there is too. damn. much. The Farm Bill subsidizes corn production, meaning farmers get a set price for their product regardless of market demand. So if you know how much you're going to get, and it's not going to change, why not grow more? So Americans are left with more corn than they can eat, and while, as a friend pointed out, exporting to Mexico would be awfully nice, what with the corn shortage there that led to tortilla prices skyrocketing to the point of unaffordability, we turn it into other things instead. HFCS, ethanol, animal feed (resulting in the need for antibiotics, but still, another issue...).

From pbs.com:

"While Americans have been eating sugar in one form or another for centuries, the influx of high-fructose corn syrup into everyday foods—even those not normally associated with sweetness—has helped boost overall sweetener intake by 19 percent since 1970. As a result, Americans now eat about 523 more calories each day. And about 76 of those extra daily calories come from sugars and sweeteners like HFCS. At last count in 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that Americans eat 79 pounds of corn sweetener per year—a four-fold increase from 1970."

HFCS is cheap. It's not much for companies - who, pre-60s, did just fine without sugar in their unsweetened products - to throw a little HFCS in there and get a bit of the crack addiction effect. And thanks to that, I can't buy a loaf of bread anymore. It is a long and arduous task to find a single one (even whole wheat, even though those are often highly processed and just dyed brown, but again, another issue entirely) without HFCS in it. My toast does not taste sweet. I don't want it to be sweet. Yet HFCS is there, in all its pure, empty-calorie glory.

Also neatly addressed by the quote above is the last point: HFCS is indeed equivalent in calories, and empty nutrients, to sugar. Yet because it's so cheap, it pops up more than sugar ever dead, so we're eating it more, and we're getting fat. Now, I believe in America's spirit of determination, and I'm sure they could get fat without HFCS. But it's not really helping.

But until any altruistic billionaires start buying air time for King Corn to compete with Sweet Surprise, I'll just have to hope everyone else knew why HFCS was bad news, and is less than persuaded by the 'Aw, you don't know what you're talking about' argument.

I think a lot of people are going to give me shit for the artists I chose. Why Paula Cole? Isn't she pop? Why Tori Amos? She plays piano! This blog has been pretty traditional in its definition of rock & roll. But when I was looking for women to talk about to explore the creation of an American female narrative in 90s rock, I needed 4 women who were writing their own songs, getting radio airtime and not overtly political. Sure, I could have chosen L7 or Bikini Kill, but they were coming from an entirely different context than the 4 women I did choose. Sure, Exile in Guyville is political - it's a response text, how could it not be - and Tori Amos covering an Eminem song about murdering his wife is also a political statement (as is that whole album of covers, Strange Little Girls, in which Amos tries to bring out the female voice within each of the former hits), but what these 4 women have in common, I think, more than anything, is that they are all storytellers. They have things they want to write about, both from their own person perspective and from the perspective of characters they create in their song lyrics, and what is interesting to me more than those overtly political statements is the profoundly disenchanted, cynical voice and narrative that is created when you add all these stories up.

I think of all 4 women, Tori Amos is perhaps the best and most complete storyteller, even if you don't know what she's talking about half the time. Breathy inflection reminiscent of Kate Bush, an awesome voice, a confessional attitude, great lyrics and mad piano skillz would all be enough to make excellent albums, but Amos knows how to combine all of her talents, emphasizing what is needed to best tell the story. She seems to inhabit her characters fully, whether her characters are outlaws, gay men, washed up models or herself, reliving her own rape at knifepoint (as in "Me and a Gun").

I want to talk about three of her best-known songs, and explore how they fit into the "narrative of guilt" I've been talking about for the past two entries. "Cornflake Girl," from 1994's Under the Pink is maybe the quintessential song about being an outsider. The idea of a Huck/Ahab sort of mentality is problematic in the context of being a female rocker, because you are already an outsider, and if my assertion that women of this time period were more exploring the guilt that came with being an outsider, of wanting that freedom but also having the enormous pressure to conform that comes with being female in general, then "Cornflake Girl" is an anthem for the age.

[audio http://badassmusicblog.wordpress.com/files/2008/07/01-cornflake-girl.mp3]

Amos' words are chosen so carefully and are so painstakingly assembled (she is truly a craftswoman in this regard) so that you have no idea what she is actually talking about, and yet somehow, emotionally, you fully understand that when she confesses in a downbeat, morose way that she "never was a cornflake girl," she is talking about sex and her own understanding of her sexuality.

I also interpreted a "cornflake girl" in Amos' world as being the kind of girl who could deny herself what she wanted (cornflakes having been invented, the urban lore goes, to sublimate sexual feelings so that people wouldn't want to masturbate). And yet again, we have lyrics that say one thing, but the underlying emotion of the song both in Amos' delivery and in the forceful piano notes, is of anger.

And the man with the golden gun
thinks he knows so much
thinks he knows so much, yeah

Knowing what we know about Amos' history, I don't think I'm going out on a limb here to point out that the song seems to be about feeling a kind of guilt for her rape because of her sexuality.

"God," also from Under the Pink, is Amos essentially scolding God for not being around when she needs Him. I say "Him" because in this version of Amos' God, God is definitely not a woman.
[audio http://badassmusicblog.wordpress.com/files/2008/07/02-god.mp3]

God, sometimes you just don't come through
God, sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God, sometimes you just don't come through

You could argue that Amos isn't addressing God specifically, but rather using the word "God" as emphasis. I think in context, and with the song title being "God" that she is indeed addressing some idea of God, and that again, she is mad. But here what's interesting is the pronouns. In the middle of the song, amid cascading piano, Amos screeches – well the proper word would be "screeches" but that makes it sound like she is off-key or anti-melodic and she is in fact still singin' pretty – "would you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall?" (emphasis mine) implying that God has a certain apathy toward the female gender.

There are funny bits of the song, when she characterizes God as being a dude with a golf club in a "4 wheel" headed off "south," presumably on vacation. The anger she feels at a deity who has turned his back on her is palpable, but what strikes me about this song is that in her vocals, Amos almost seems to give up a little. Never do you hear her ask God to help her, to come back from vacation. Instead, she simply scolds and moves on. This is a quintessential aspect of the female narrative of 90s rock, the idea that we (as a gender) and they (specifically) have somehow been left behind, left out, exiled.

Finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about one of Amos' later 90s efforts, "Raspberry Swirl," a single for which she was nominated "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" at the Grammys in 1999 (the album it was off of, From the Choirgirl Hotel, was released in 1998).

[audio http://badassmusicblog.wordpress.com/files/2008/07/04-raspberry-swirl.mp3]

I chose this song because it's a little weird. You can barely hear the lyrics. The song sounds like its name, a swirl of tart-and-sweet lyrics and breathy sounds with layer upon layer of complexity. It is a great song to end a discussion of Amos with, because there is an anthemic feeling to it. There is also an undercurrent of sapphic love, and though Amos says the song isn't about sex specifically, she has admitted it was written for her best friend, who was having a rough time with men.
Things are getting desperate
When all the boys can't be men
Everybody knows
I'm her friend
Everybody knows
I'm her man

Here Amos is willing to play around with her sexuality in a playful but forceful way. It's almost as if she's daring the men in her friend's life to be as good as she is to her friend. And while there's no hint of the guilt I've been describing in this song, I think it's interesting on a gender-play, feminism level. I also think there's a fair amount of anger in this song too. You think "Angry Girl Music" and you think about Liz Phair and Bikini Kill, but all of the women rockers from the 90s I've explored have been angry in their own way, and mostly about misogyny/gender identity/feeling like an outcast.

Amos' contribution to the narrative women wrote on the airwaves of the 90s is an emotional connection to her characters whether they are substitutes for her own viewpoint or not. She has a gorgeous voice and is a talented - if often obtuse - writer, who manages to describe that feeling of being an outcast and of exiling yourself because of perceived differences that so often were wrapped up in the idea of a "feminine" sexuality. It's the exact same thing Liz Phair is angry about; the Madonna/whore complex that seems to trap women into feeling guilty about what for men would be "normal" or "healthy" sexuality. And how that sexuality gets twisted even more when you've been the victim of a sexual crime. This is what we're left with after the women's movement of the 60s and 70s. We have the tools and power to be as sexually free as men are, but not the societal acceptance to do so, and I think because rock & roll is so closely tied up with men's sexuality, the guilt for women that is wrapped around our sexuality became a huge theme for women rockers of the 90s.