TV Rev-“The Bachelorette”-Ashley’s a bit of dingbat,no? Book Rev-“A Thousand Chestnut Trees”-a novel about Korea. Kaitlyn has first dance recital, some garden pics including a video of …bees? In political, a linked list of what we can expect from a next Obama term. And Michelle’s heart seems to be fine in this Guest writer entry.
Pic of the Day
Bachelorette Ashley Hebert, Does She Have a Brain In Her Head?
ABC’s web site for this show
Below, from the show’s web site, re Summer 2011’s bachelorette, Ashley Hebert:
That bit about Ashley being a “brainiac” is a bit hard to believe.
Although I know full well that this show, like many reality shows, is scripted. Drama, intrigue and questionable actions must be inserted to keep the viewer on the edge of his or her seat, to have him or her want to return for the next episode to find out what the outcome is.
Not complaining about the bit of melodrama inserted into these shows, wrestling is a sport that is heavily scripted, soap operas are entirely scripted. Reality shows fall somewhere between soap operas and wrestling. There’s a talent and more than a little truth to such scripting.
During this season of “The Bachelorette”, we had some goofball show up wearing a mask. Then there was Bradley, the most recent, as of this writing, bit of scripted drama on this series.
The clue was right from the beginning Ashley told Chris Harrison, the Bachelor series’ host, that she’d been forewarned about Bradley, that he was not on the show for the “right” reasons.
There are certain buzzwords used on reality shows. The Bachelor series has a dictionary of these buzzwords. A contender for the Bachelor(ette)’s heart is often described as being on the show for the “wrong” reasons.
This means that a guy or a girl signed up for the series as a contender for the season star’s heart but he or her is really in it for exposure only.
There’s one in every Bachelor(ette) season. For Jillian it was some Texas guitar player looking for music contracts rather than the Bachelorette’s heart.
This concept creates a lot of drama and interactive dynamics as the other contenders for the Bachelor(ette)’s heart try to tell the Bachelor(ette) about the deceitful one without being viewed as filled with sour grapes.
Viewers get to munch popcorn and watch the poseur as he/she makes their moves to fool the Bachelor(ette) that they are after their heart when they are really hamming it up for the cameras, looking for exposure to a future of stardom. The Bachelor(ette) is unaware of the deceit being pulled on them and continues along with the show’s original intention, which is for him or her to find a husband or wife.
On the very first night Ashley announces that somebody or other who knew Bradley told her that he was up to no good, that she should watch her heart.
The viewer then sits up straight in the chair, antenna out, ready to scrutinize the evil Bradley for deceitful actions.
Heh. Adding to the drama, Bradley graciously plays his part, telling about his bad intentions during his solo vignettes before the camera. On one camera solo, Bradley tells the camera (hence the Bachelor(ette) viewing audience) that he thought Brad’s first choice during the Bachelor series where Ashley lost the guy (Emily), was way prettier than Ashley, that Ashley did nothing for him. The audience then gets all mad (as the scripters would intend I imagine) and watches the interaction of Ashley and Bradley knowing that Bradley doesn’t get turned on by Ashley and is only there for giggles and grins.
I don’t believe for a minute that Ashley got all hot and bothered by Bradley, particularly since she got a warning. Supposedly.
Logic dictates that Ashley would be on her guard with Bradley. Instead she falls in love almost with the guy? Falls in love with him after only knowing him for couple of hours?
I got a bridge to sell anybody believes this.
But hey, it makes for good reality TV and on some level there’s a little truth to it.
Ashley feels like Bradley is very handsome. Well he’s a nice enough looking fellow but Lord the woman’s got a stable of guys all wanting to marry her and they are all competitive with Bradley in the looks department.
Bradley tells the camera in a solo vignette that he’s ready to go home, that he’s bored, he reminds that Ashley does nothing for him. He says, and I quote “I’m going to make Ashley cry.”
Indeed Bradley does go to Ashley’s place, he tells her he wants to go home, that he misses his daughter. Bradley proceeds to play act his part as heartsick father. Ashley acts the lovesick maiden, the audience out in TV land across the fruited plains hoots and hollers and throws objects at their TV screens.
Adding to the drama, Bradley says goodbye and Ashley, dear Lord, she curls up into a ball and sobs her little heart out.
Over what?
This guy who she’d already been warned about, who pretty much had nothing more to offer her than the 25 other guys waiting in the wings to date her…what a hoot.
So just as Ashley appears to have recovered from her heartbreak with this season’s Bachelorette’s villain, she tells host Chris Harrison that she can’t effectively move on until we see Bradley one more time.
The audience across the fruited plains waits with bated breaths for this evil fellow to return, they shout to Ashley in their living rooms, the throw popcorn and lament how dumb she is.
It’s great scripting. We shall see how it all turns out.
”One Thousand Chestnut Trees” (a novel of Korea) by Mira Stout
So I’m a bit fascinated by Korea in that I am confused as to why this tiny country is divided in half and why the northern half has to suffer so while the southern half explodes in a economic bomb of capitalism. Indeed a famous Internet picture gone viral depicts a view of the Korean peninsula shot from outer space, allegedly. The northern part of the peninsula shows few lights while the southern half is light-filled, very telling when contrasted between north and south.
One can almost hear the song and the shouts of busy vendors from the peninsula’s southern half with only the sound of bored crickets coming from its north.
Further, America once engaged in some kind of military action on the Korean peninsula, back even before I was born, and it ended up like Vietnam and probably like Afghanistan will, unresolved, more of the same, the country still divided.
“One Thousand Chestnut Trees” is fiction, written by Anna. Anna’s mother was born in Korea, her father was American.
The book was a choice of my book club so it’s not something I picked out, or would have picked out on my own. Still, I was quite delighted at the choice because, as stated above, I’ve had an intrigue with Korea for quite a while.
Kim Jong-Il, a real little basket case of human being, makes me wonder what this creep wants, as he allows his citizens to starve or forces them to serve in the military, while he watches endless porn films. He’s a puppet of the Communist Chinese, as I understand it, but I wonder why.
To my surprise, according to this book, Korea’s always been a country kind of dominated by other far eastern cultures, particularly the Japanese!
Stout is a very good writer, let me state up front. She was but a young thing when this book was published, in the late 90’s.
She does like to write about food but I took no offense.
Above is but one example of Stout’s many descriptions of Korean food. It’s as if the reader will better understand the Korean culture the more she describes their food, their food stores, their gardens, their pantries.
Well I thought it was okay and if that was the intent, it worked. As I read, Koreans do seem to spend a lot of time preparing their food. Korean homes have cellars filled with foodstuff, barrels of kimchee in every room, pickling is a cultural must and there must always be a great deal of spicy heat in Korean food.
As an aside, once in my rather restricted life, I actually went to a Korean restaurant. It was husband’s idea, he being a man that thinks you can’t possibly make food too spicy and Korean food is known far and wide for bringing tears with each hotly seasoned bite.
Of course they served us a little dish of kimchee. Kimchee is hotly spiced cabbage. Not sure what the Korean fascination with cabbage is but most cultures do tend to eat those foods that grow well in their climate. Cabbage is the sort of vegetable that likes a colder climate and Korea does have brutally cold winters.
Anyway, the one and only time I ate kimchee, well it was okay. The cabbage wasn’t shredded, as the Germans shred cabbage for sauerkraut. The kimchee we had consisted of little “wedges” of cabbage. Hey, I like cabbage but husband never met a vegetable he liked so was really taken aback.
As I recall is was quite fiery and while I’m glad I got a taste, I doubt I’d have any stocked in my fridge.
Just what a culture’s food preferences tell about that culture is unclear. Mexicans, for example, like spicy food. Far eastern cultures are known for their love of spicy food; Chinese, Thai, even Japanese, food is considered spicier than more Anglicized cultures eat.
Do cultures who love spicy food have more emotional people than the Norwegians and their lutefisk?
Does a culture than spends so much time in preparation of its food indicate a populace that is more oriented to hearth and home than fast-food America that loves to eat on the run?
Whatever the conclusion, the reader of “One Thousand Chestnut Trees” would very likely conclude that its author considers such cultural eating habits as telling as to the people of the culture, if for no other reason than Stout has food descriptions on every other page it seems.
Moving on beyond the food, this was a well-written book, a great story, revealing a glimpse of Korea beyond what they eat and how they prepare it.
The book begins with “Anna”’s mother telling the story of her childhood. They were a noble Korean family, hints of a royal lineage abound, whatever that means in Korea. Much of the book is taken up by the details of a life in a country under control of the Japanese.
I’ll stop now and note that Stout mentions North Korea and Kim Jong-Il infrequently. Most of the discussion of Korean history is about that country’s domination by the Japanese. There is a section toward the middle of the descriptive about the Korean war and the split up of the country.
Still and so, I was quite astounded that Korea was so dominated by the Japanese. In fact, Anna’s mother, as she tells her story, had to learn Japanese, attended schools taught by Japanese, lived in fear of the Japanese overlords.
I think of Korea as being quite far removed from Japan. Further, I find it hard to wrap my mind around the mild-mannered, ever-bowing Japanese people as being warlike and domineering. Of course there was once an emperor of Japan, who did order the bombing of America, quite a dumb thing to do. America dropped a couple of bombs and I suppose that’s when the era of the Japanese as conquerors and overlords ended.
At some point the Chinese got all involved with Korea and it’s not at all clear to me why. At some point, as we know by, if nothing else, the long-running TV series “MASH”, America got involved in Korean affairs.
Couple of things caused me thought as a result of reading this book. There must be something logistically positive about the location of Korea. It is a peninsula, this is well-known. If a country wanted to invade Asia it would seem that Korea would be a good launching point.
Second, Koreans are really a very peaceful bunch, maybe because they spend so much time preparing their food.
For while Anna, and her mother, tell the stories of their lives in Korea, they don’t dwell in great detail on this history and the politics of the region.
But that was not the intent of the book.
Anna is depicted as a half-Korean/half-American struggling to find her heritage and identity through a long visit to her mother’s homeland and a search for the one thousand chestnut trees planted by a relative as monument to the mansion of their land, its harmony, peace with nature, love of all Korea had to offer. Anna’s mother tells her story of an oppressed childhood, her survival of the Japanese oppression, her job at the American army base and eventual move to the United States.
While I tongue-in-cheek poke a bit of fun at all the food emphasis while pondering the meaning of this, I did conclude that the Koreans are a clannish lot, very polite, bending over to a dictator rather than fight. Beyond Kim Jong-Il and his forced conscripted army, Korea is not a people of soldiers. Americans would never have tolerated another culture’s takeover of its country, forcing all to learn their language and be taught by their teachers.
And yet I come away with respect for the deep love Koreans have for their country, how they kept their heritage tight in their hearts even as another culture stomped all over their daily lives. A reader grasps quite well that no matter how many armies should invade, there will always be a Korea and there will always be Koreans. No conqueror or invading army will ever erase their culture and their love of their land.
Stout is a gifted writer. This book is filled with jolting adjectives, descriptive words that surprise in the usage yet cause the reader to stop, if only for a millisecond, to ponder the oddity of some pairings. It’s a good writing technique, a sign of a writer not afraid to challenge the reader to consider for just another part of a second what is being expressed.
I’d recommend this book for anyone looking into an insight of Korea. It’s a good read, I hasten to add, but the desire to learn more about that mysterious peninsula of the far east is needed for complete enjoyment of this novel.
Kaitlyn’s Dance Recital
For as long as I can remember there’s been a Jeannette’s School of Dance , some thirty years now,located in a little brick building on Glen Burnie’s Crain Hiway. I’d never been inside and I often wondered if anyone had.
Kaitlyn had been attending dance class, this I knew by discussions with her mother. It was only on 6/18/11 that I learned that my very own granddaughter was a student at Jeannette’s School of Dance on Crain Hiway!
Beyond an endless program of adolescent dancers that I did not know, punctuated by the one and a half minute that Kaitlyn was on stage, an announcer that needed to go back to announcer school, and an addled, perhaps Alzenheimer-impaired appearance by Jeannette herself, there’s not much else to say on the matter but display the pics I took and below this, a very blurry video of Kaitlyn’s actual performance.
Well hey, it’s cute. The non-Announcer guy said the taking of videos was not allowed that Jeannette’s School of Dance can then sell their own “professional” videos. I surreptitiously put up my video recorder and recorded anyway, risking jail, perhaps capital punishment. It’s not easy doing this in the dark and only a grandmother could love the result.
Enjoy Kaitlyn in “It’s a Hard Knock Life”…
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