Author Archives: doscats

About doscats

Social crirtic and writer. Ph.D. University of Minnesota (American Studies)

Will it be Barry or Barack?

Growing up working class and biracial in Utah, son of a Mexican American man and Scots-Irish woman, in a white, politically conservative, Mormon community, I was always reminded to “not cause problems.”

Especially by my Mexican American father.

It made sense to me as a young boy, at the time.

I considered myself a “Mormon” boy, preparing to inherit a spiritual wealth of blessings if I simply obeyed the Ten Commandments as most good Christian boys understood them and acted within the additional spiritual obligations that Mormon boys understood to be their future rights. Continue reading

Samantha Bee and “melodramas of beset manhood”

Here’s a wonderful segment that encapsulates in general terms scholar Nina Baym’s prescient critique of male writers’ and literary critics’ anxiety over their loss of control over the definition and boundaries of the American literary canon, especially as the loss relates to increasing influence and visibility of women.  (Of course, the obvious limitation of the piece is the primary representation of white men and women.) From The Daily Show two nights ago, the wonderful Samantha Bee.  (Next to Tina Fey, one of my favorite women comedic performers.)

[flowplayer src=Samantha_Bee.flv]

Mika’s cultural angst

I’ve been up for almost two hours this morning. (It’s 6:50 am as I type this.) I guess six hours of sleep was enough rest.

Baldo and Chica were in their selected sleeping sites, but anticipating my rise.

I got up, performed my regular routine including feeding the kids and letting them outside.

While I was brewing my morning java and making breakfast sandwiches for me and dad I occasionally glanced at the TV broadcast of Joe Scarborough’s “Morning Joe” to get some reliably annoying neo-con conventional wisdom.

I don’t know why I watch the show—I originally started watching it while I lived in St. Paul, Minnesota last year, during a one-year visiting assistant professorship at the University of Minnesota—but it wakes me up and motivates me in subconsciously useful ways. Continue reading

In the stream…

Let’s see…

It’s been a while since I’ve done this writing thing.  Not that I haven’t had ideas or even motivation.  There’s plenty of worthy stuff and crap to comment on, but sometimes life’s river takes one for a ride before an exit from the current can be found in order to put things (materials and concepts) into order, so to speak.

(“Just breathe,” I remind myself.)

And so it goes.

Three weeks ago a nephew was found lying on the ground next to his vehicle, dead from a gun shot wound . There are suspicious circumstances surrounding his death that may never be completely investigated or understood.  (Sad, difficult days.) Continue reading

“Gloom and Doom”

Maybe I should adopt my father’s “gloom and doom” perspective on life after all, after Baldo failed to perform his part of my bathroom ritual this morning.

After brushing my teeth and shaving I did my due diligence by gradually closing the bathroom door without securing it shut so that he could push it open with his head just enough to squeeze through and enter while I sat on the toilet.  I enjoy his part of the ritual: his growling, purring, and whining, an insistence that he be petted and groomed by his “human” beguile and distract me even as I attempt to take care of my “business.” (Yes, we are all multitaskers even though I do not bring my mobile phone into the bathroom with me.)

I waited and waited and waited for Baldo to enter while I sat there letting thoughts run through my mind, but he never poked his head through the door. Continue reading

Happy New Year, Desire, and Suffering: Another Attempt

Preface:

Okay.  I submit to the overwhelming pressure of readers–one in particular–of my blog to re-post my defecatory New Year’s shout-out.  I suppose a good, committed writer should have no fears, experience no self-doubt nor give in to personal second guessing about what words one puts on paper or the computer monitor.  But I did, worrying a little too much about possible negative reactions to me addressing my biological functions in order to satirize the whole new year’s resolution thing and more importantly, worrying too much about readers’ opinions of me.  I suppose, though, for anyone who already knows me and my writing and the way I perceive the world in absurd terms, the notion that I could disappoint them and lower myself more in their eyes by writing absurdly and grotesquely in order to make them laugh from deep in their gut is indeed absurd.  They probably expect even more absurdity, profanity, and grotesqueness from me than what I have delivered so far in any of my writing.  And they probably deserve it!  (Go ahead and laugh, all you *&%%$&s, $$%(*)*&(rs, *@%$%$^%$$s!!!!!  (Hee, hee…I love y’all!)

So here’s the piece I originally posted on New Years Day with only a couple of minor edits.  Also, I forgot the original post title, but I think the new one is close enough.  I think the colon(ized) title makes this a very serious piece! (Is that an unintended, unconscious, grotesque pun I just typed that inadvertently refers back to the introduction of the piece?  I think so!!!  Whoopee!) Continue reading

Chica in the “Bite” box

Cats, at least my cats, really like boxes.  I don’t know if it’s the scent, a certain pliability when they lie in them, or the fact they can chew them up and spit them out.  They’re part toy, part comfort zone when they snuggle up inside.

Whatever it is, I’m careful to keep boxes they might like to sniff and make home.  The “Bite” box that once held fly fishing wading boots now is home to both Chica and Baldo.  In this rough looking episode, Chica’s well protected from Baldo’s intrusive presence and desire, but eventually she wants out.

[flowplayer src=chica_in_Bite_box.flv, splash=chicas_nose.jpg]

update 11-24-09

I’ve been busy without being real busy.

You know, busy doing seemingly endless tasks that don’t seem that important, but that take a lot of time to complete.

I recently installed Windows 7, so I’ve gradually been getting it up and going.  It’s still not fully functional, but so far I like it.  It does seem quicker and more efficient than Windows Vista.

I had been using my laptop with pre-loaded Windows Vista as my primary computer because Windows XP on my desktop quit on me a couple of months ago and I couldn’t perform a clean re-install for unknown reasons.  And then Vista started slowing down so I gave in and bought Windows 7. Continue reading

(Post) Colonial Vampires

While driving home from fly-fishing yesterday afternoon, I happened to listen to a PRI: The World story about a recent blog written by the current British ambassador to the United States.

It was about his observation of the trend that British actors are popular fill for vampire roles in mainstream film, American television series, and an upcoming PBS drama.

The PRI piece about the blog and the ambassador’s blog itself are “fun,” slightly tongue-in-cheek pieces about this phenomenon which on its face seems verifiably factual.  I don’t intend to fact check the actual numbers of British actors versus American actors in vampire roles.  Even if the view of a trend is a British conceit, there might be something to it.

The pieces got me thinking because, like a lot of material in popular media including superficially “intellectual” sites like NPR, PRI, etc. there is still a lot of description that passes for or at least implies “explanation.”  And in the current cultural epoch where assertion attempts to pass for description, explanation, and analysis all at once, a bit of analysis from them would have been interesting. Continue reading