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The Church of Frittatas and Freedom

June 28, 2015 in Cat Lady Matters, Church Matters, Country Matters, Feminist Matters, Food Matters

I got up at 5 am–the monk hour, the high priestess hour–and meditated, Gracie creeping quietly into my lotus position as we breathed in the morning’s sweet, post-rain cool drifting through the open window. Opened to light and sent it down my spine, everywhere I sensed darkness. Then, armed with strong French press coffee and heated cream, I began a new notebook as I have countless times since I was a little girl. So much happened in this last week: so much tsuris, so much joy, so many breakthroughs. I wrote into all of it and began to chart a course about where to go from here. Finally I stood and did what I’ve been doing ever since I became a grownup: I tied on an apron, pulled greenmarket booty out of my refrigerator, and began to cook my way out of the confusion. I diced spring onions, kale, red potatoes, mushrooms; sauteed them with fresh corn and thyme and olive oil in my old cast iron pan. Grated asiago cheese. Beat eggs with sea salt and cracked black pepper. Poured them over the vegetables and slid the mixture into the heated oven. Cleaned my kitchen; sang a little bit and then a lot. (Sorry, neighbors.) When the holy frittata cooled, I sliced a piece onto my favorite vintage plate, climbed on the fire escape, and toasted this Sunday morning with a fork, my quiet cat once again by my side.

This is my life today. It could be worse. It could be better. It will be both at different points in the future just as it has been in the past. But it is fully mine, and I worked hard to ensure this could be so, and I do not forget that. I celebrate that our government now legally upholds same-sex partnership just as I celebrate my right, so new in the history of humankind, to live independently as a woman.  In this moment–as in all moments of true spiritual communion–I am grateful to be grateful.

Kody Keplinger, YA’s Leslie Knope

June 15, 2015 in Book Matters, Feminist Matters, Film Matters

Kody Keplinger may be the Leslie Knope of Young Adult fiction. Like the “Parks and Recreation” public servant whom she adores, the unflagging Kentucky native is all about feminist positivity and five-year plans, and so far she’s right on track. As a seventeen-year-old high school senior, she wrote The DUFF, the New York Times-bestselling YA book about Bianca, a high school student who discovers she’s the “Designated Ugly Fat Friend” of her ultra-hot besties. Now at the ripe old age of twenty-three, Keplinger is a New York City resident with four more published YA novels under her belt, and The DUFF has been adapted into a smart-as-a-whip, critically acclaimed teen flick starring Mae Whitman, Bella Thorne, Allison Janney, and Ken Jeong. I talked with Mz. Knope er Keplinger about the adaptation process, size acceptance, and the genius of Mae Whitman.

Lisa Rosman: Let’s start with brass tacks. What inspired you to write The DUFF while you were still a student?

Kody Keplinger: It was hearing the word DUFF being used in my school. That is not a word I made up. Actually, I did research on this after the fact – it apparently got popular on some reality TV dating show in the early 2000s – but I first heard it my senior year, when a girl was talking about a boy as “The DUFF.” Continue Reading →

Taking Back ‘Rosemary’s Baby’

June 13, 2015 in Book Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Film Matters

Ever since the Australian import “The Babadook” came out last year, I’ve been rethinking “Rosemary’s Baby,” which celebrates its forty-seventh anniversary on June 12. On the surface, a mother and child haunted by a children’s book character has little to do with Roman Polanski’s 1968 opus about a woman who’s been knocked up by the devil. But both are those rare films that herald rather than demonize mommies. From “Psycho” to “Mama” to “Alien,”  motherhood and its associated female biological functions have always loomed as the ultimate horror in American cinema. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy