Trivial Annoyances

[sozamora]

Why aren't some time-honored phrases good enough for today's parents? Why is a child spending the night with a friend now referred to as a "sleepover" and playing with a friend at their house a "play date"? Somehow, it seems silly, almost pretentious, something for which I have very little patience.

I don't think sleepover is that new. I'm pretty sure I've heard at least going back to the 80s or 70s.

Play date does sound silly, but I always assumed it didn't just connote one kid going to another kid's house to play. I've always heard it in the context of a scheduled supervised play session for smaller children in which parents visit and socialize with other parents as well.

[tippy]

LOL.

Have to admit, I don't know what else to call a sleepover... Staying the night? A slumber party has to involve more than two kids. A menage... oh wait!!! that can't be right either.

[tippy]

Rita, I think on this now post Valentine's day there was an article in Modern Love about a writer loving someone with bad grammar, but I didn't have time to look at it. It did make me think of you though.

My objections to the Woody Allen article, is the Woody Allen article, rather than the sentences contained within. The whole situ makes me verily confused.

[Ron Thorne]

LOL.

Have to admit, I don't know what else to call a sleepover... Staying the night? A slumber party has to involve more than two kids. A menage... oh wait!!! that can't be right either.

Well, we used to simply call it "spending the night". It's trivial, I admit.

[tippy]

You're right. That's the phrase that sleepover replaced. "Mom, can I spend the night at so'n'so's?" "Ask your dad."

[LennyH]

My objections to the Woody Allen article, is the Woody Allen article, rather than the sentences contained within. The whole situ makes me verily confused.

I try not to give Woody a free pass because I've been a fan of his. I have to say, though, that I've read quite a bit about this situation and the idea that he molested Dylan seems fairly implausible to me. The whole thing is quite bizarre, though.

[Ron Thorne]

You're right. That's the phrase that sleepover replaced. "Mom, can I spend the night at so'n'so's?" "Ask your dad."

Exactly!

Great to see you posting here again, young lady.

[tippy]

Tx, Ron.

Lenny, I think it's fair to say that not many men end up with their adopted daughters, and not many women could come out of such situation gracefully (i.e., not feeling the bitterest and most enduring rancor). That's an extreme no one wants to go through. It's taboo for a reason. It would be hard for the saintliest I should think to feel motivated to continue to cultivate a parental relationship with the rest of the children. Allen has had plenty of accolades over the years, and it ends up looking like anti-Oscar press which is not befitting the seriousness of the charges. But at the same time, I simply don't know what happened, nor can I, so it's kind of frustrating. People argue against the death penalty because mistakes are made. Similarly, being tried on the opinion pages of NYT is just not good enough. Can't think of a worse accusation. Mad at myself for even talking about it. grrr

[LennyH]

Tippy and Scott, I will not defend what Woody Allen did with Soon Yi (meaning that it was stupid and wrong, based on the fact that she was the adopted daughter of his long time girlfriend) but there are inaccuracies that have been floating around on this subject for years.

Soon Yi was NOT Woody's adopted daughter. She was the adopted daughter of Mia and her ex-husband, Andre Previn. She was also not, as I hear people say sometimes, Woody's step-daughter. Woody and Mia were never married and also kept separate apartments during their relationship.

So call it gross and wrong and you'll get no argument from me but, while entering a relationship with the 19 or 20 year old daughter of your girlfriend shows very bad judgement, it is NOT the same as molesting a 7 year old girl and I don't think it's fair to say that having a sexual relationship with a woman who's young, but of legal age, makes someone more likely to molest children.

There are a bunch of reasons I think the molestation was "fairly implausible", but I won't go into it in full detail. It is pretty strange, though, that, during the heated custody battle, Woody was allowed this supervised visit to see Dylan and this was the one and only time he supposedly molested her. Weeks earlier, Mia had said what great father Woody would be and made the argument that his adoption of Dylan should be approved. This is from Moses Farrow, who is now 36 and a family therapist:

"Of course Woody did not molest my sister," says Moses, who is estranged from Farrow and many of his siblings and is close to Allen and Soon-Yi. "She loved him and looked forward to seeing him when he would visit. She never hid from him until our mother succeeded in creating the atmosphere of fear and hate towards him. The day in question, there were six or seven of us in the house. We were all in public rooms and no one, not my father or sister, was off in any private spaces. My mother was conveniently out shopping. I don’t know if my sister really believes she was molested or is trying to please her mother. Pleasing my mother was very powerful motivation because to be on her wrong side was horrible."

Moses hated Woody when everything went down but they buried the hatchet at some point. A team of specialists at Yale New Haven hospital investigated and determined that Dylan was not molested (but that Dylan probably did come to believe that she was molested and was also probably coached into that by her mother). No charges were brought against Allen. Mia, at times, displayed some strange and erratic behavior and certainly comes across as vindictive and maybe, at times, unstable.

I can only judge by what I've read and certainly don't consider all of these sources to be reliable but, based on what I see, I stick with "fairly implausible" and am currently okay with giving Woody the benefit of the doubt.

[bluenoter]

You're a really good editor. . . .

Thank you, walto! Useta be, anyway.

I wish I'd had someone like you available to copy-edit my books.

Hmm . . . I'd like to PM you about that at some point. Thanks again!

Rita, I think on this now post Valentine's day there was an article in Modern Love about a writer loving someone with bad grammar, but I didn't have time to look at it. It did make me think of you though.

Thank you, Tipitina niña! Here it is: Learning to Silence My Inner Editor


I've taken care to read everything about the Farrow/Allen/Farrow accusations but won't be commenting on them.

[bluenoter]

I've taken care to read everything about the Farrow/Allen/Farrow accusations but won't be commenting on them.

Why not?

Because I'd be taking a "believe the woman" stance, but with very little conviction---not enough to argue about (I mean "discuss") that unholy mess. Plus once I refuted the "he said" quotes with "she said" quotes, I'd be done.

BTW, re our new member . . .

[LennyH]

I've taken care to read everything about the Farrow/Allen/Farrow accusations but won't be commenting on them.

Why not?

Because I'd be taking a "believe the woman" stance, but with very little conviction---not enough to argue about (I mean "discuss") that unholy mess. Plus once I refuted the "he said" quotes with "she said" quotes, I'd be done.

BTW, re our new member . . .

Fair enough but, honestly, I think it's a bit of a cop out, Rita. I mean, you say you aren't going to comment but you really just did and I think you're wrong in assuming that you'd take heat for it. I really doubt that you're going to find people on this site that are going to take a strong Woody Allen position. This subject has come up before and I recall zero fireworks. What I wrote above is as far as I'm willing to go.

[bluenoter]

Fair enough but, honestly, I think it's a bit of a cop out, Rita. I mean, you say you aren't going to comment but you really just did and I think you're wrong in assuming that you'd take heat for it. I really doubt that you're going to find people on this site that are going to take a strong Woody Allen position. This subject has come up before and I recall zero fireworks. What I wrote above is as far as I'm willing to go.

Same here.

[walto]

It's definitely a "hot button" topic. (I think that's the right expression.) The only interchange I've had on it was on twitter. I made the (admittedly pop-psychological) point that Woody Allen had always seemed interested in maybe too young, but always post-pubescent, women, and I wondered if sexual preferences for 16-year old Mariel Hemingway types were likely to extend down to toddlers. I received a very powerful rebuttal involving BBC radio personality Jimmy Savile. Apparently, the same sort of argument had come up in Savile's defense, but it turned out that he was indifferent to both age and gender in his abusive activities.

I note too that while Allen expresses a lot of moral indignation about Farrow's use of Dylan to make her case, he shows no reluctance in utilizing Moses' testimony wherever he thinks it might be useful. I do think both Farrow and Allen are at least a little nuts, but my conclusion here is that we're never going to really know what the hell happened.

I'm curious how people line up on the Roman Polansky affair. There, too, the documentarian ended up being extremely sympathetic to his subject's case. He convinced me that the trial was a travesty, anyhow.

BWTHDIK?

[LennyH]

I'm curious how people line up on the Roman Polansky affair. There, too, the documentarian ended up being extremely sympathetic to his subject's case. He convinced me that the trial was a travesty, anyhow.

Totally different thing, IMO. Men (or many men, anyway) might be attracted to young women (not talking about children, here. I mean post-pubescent) but, in the society that we've grown up in, it's not okay to have sex with them. This has been well established and we all were taught to know better. Based on what we know, Polansky was guilty of statutory rape and rape in general.

Soon-Yi was of legal age and, to me, and based on the information we have access to, Woody is guilty of very poor judgement and betrayal. Those things certainly don't equate to rape.

I still shudder at the assertion that someone pursuing young women, meaning young women of legal age, is somehow evidence that they molested a per-pubescent child. I guess if someone has a desire to be with women or girls under 18 then being with a woman that's barely legal is somehow the next best thing in the eyes of some people, but lots of men would be with younger (but legal) women if they could. To me, no matter how attractive a 20 year old woman is, she's a kid. She's not yet, maturity-wise, a woman. But lots of men (look at rich and powerful men, who are in a position to do so) end up dating much younger women just because they can. I'd agree that an older man who goes for young women is more likely to desire under-aged women than the rest of the male population. My problem is with making the assumption that any particular man that goes for a young, but legal, woman is probably guilty of child molestation.

[tippy]

"My problem is with making the assumption that any particular man that goes for a young, but legal, woman is probably guilty of child molestation."

That's fair. I think what is dicey and haunting though is that he didn't just meet Soon Yi when she was 18, 19 or 20, but knew her some years before as the partner of her mother. Certainly he must have played parental figure to her in some ways. That still does not make him a child molester, but it's extra creepy and would give any mother pause to have her boyfriend take up with one of her brood. You know, how long has this been going on? It's certain to have been a developing attraction at least.

There were a couple of smart letters to the editor today, including one that said, hey, if you guys care about Dylan's festering wound, tell her the truth. On the other hand, one of those scenarios could result in hard time.

I honestly don't know how to lean either way. I want to believe that it's not true, and none of this has anything to do with a desire to watch movies or whatever. I am sure I will still view his films. It does seem more horrible from my point of view to disbelieve a person who endured something like that though. But that's just my choice, others who have read and know more - I'm not going to - are probably going to have a better handle on it. And what I think in the end doesn't amount to anything for the people involved anyway.

[Monte Smith]

A friend and I got into the Allen/Soon Yi discussion a little while ago. I said I thought that it was sick, and she said that it wasn't necessarily sick for Allen to have a relationship with his partner's adopted daughter, but I meant that it was sick to have a relationship with Woody Allen.

[LennyH]

"My problem is with making the assumption that any particular man that goes for a young, but legal, woman is probably guilty of child molestation."

That's fair. I think what is dicey and haunting though is that he didn't just meet Soon Yi when she was 18, 19 or 20, but knew her some years before as the partner of her mother. Certainly he must have played parental figure to her in some ways. That still does not make him a child molester, but it's extra creepy and would give any mother pause to have her boyfriend take up with one of her brood. You know, how long has this been going on? It's certain to have been a developing attraction at least.

There were a couple of smart letters to the editor today, including one that said, hey, if you guys care about Dylan's festering wound, tell her the truth. On the other hand, one of those scenarios could result in hard time.

I honestly don't know how to lean either way. I want to believe that it's not true, and none of this has anything to do with a desire to watch movies or whatever. I am sure I will still view his films. It does seem more horrible from my point of view to disbelieve a person who endured something like that though. But that's just my choice, others who have read and know more - I'm not going to - are probably going to have a better handle on it. And what I think in the end doesn't amount to anything for the people involved anyway.

Yes, it's creepy for sure. I've tried to make sure that people at least state the situation correctly. To say that she was his step-daughter, for example, like people often do, is not accurate. But, even when you get the facts straight, it's still creepy. If you watch Hannah and Her Sisters, there's a scene at one of the Thanksgiving dinners where a young Soon-Yi is sitting around a coffee table with a bunch of other kids.

It is horrible to disbelieve a person who went through that but it's also super hard to brand someone a child molester if they aren't. It's a lousy situation. Unfortunately for Dylan, she believes it happened regardless. So, to her, it did.

[tippy]

LOL, Monte. Lenny, I guess since this subject has become a board killer - not maybe that that's hard to do or anything - I am going to change the subject. I was looking up some Buddhisty quote I heard on NPR - something about the key to life or happiness or something being that there is nothing to attain, never found the quote, but instead I ran into this guy Mr. Money Mustache. Anyone find him annoying? (Or not. I certainly like the anti-consumerist philosophy.)

[walto]

I hadn't heard of Mr. Money Mustache until you mentioned him. Reading a couple of his entries just made me feel bad about myself.

[tippy]

Well, that's annoying. He's not perfect, Walto. He shops at Costco, has a smart phone and his wife has all of the clothes she'll ever need through her old age.

[walto]

I think he gets to call most of the shots in his family. I've pushed eliminating our land line and cable tv on several occasions. I don't make the rules, though. Everybody would have to agree, and that's never going to happen. Maybe he ended up with a mate who agrees with him on everything, or maybe he's just really bossy, but the farthest I've ever gotten was dropping HD (to save $8 per month)--and that was a very hard sell. I mean, I can't even get people to turn lights off when they're leaving home here.

(Not that I'm so great about saving myself--I never shut off this computer, e.g., and whenever I think something might be breaking (my e-book, our coffee grinder) I get anxious and mmediately buy another one to be safe. So I've got two of a bunch of stuff for no reason.

It may be that only an individual can "go off the grid." No family ever really can because a family is itself a grid.

PS: That's not only tres deep, it will remind some people of a particular River Phoenix movie. You're welcome.

[tippy]

Can admit that I'm off the grid. I get no tv stations whatsoever. No lympics, no news. No nothing. That is not really my choice though. In that HBO show Newsroom they said something about how we (the citizens) owned the airwaves and that I was supposed to get broadcasted programming, but I don't. Cable has it all scrambled and taken up, right?

Interested in the cheapo phone service plans though. Anyone have one to recommend?

My latest Apple itunes password which I have to jump through hoops (reset) every single time is "Fuckyouapple[number]". God, they drive me nuts. But they did accept it. Hoping to listen to Beck.

[tippy]

So far, no luck. Shoulda created that password in all caps. Trivial annoyance: Apple makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

[tippy]

It's iTunes that drives me batty. On top of it being very difficult to access my purchases there, or record them or import them to my music library - which I've never figured out - they don't let me reuse passwords so I have to get a new one every time. At least, thank God, they don't ask me 20 questions anymore and will send me a reset password link to my email. I won an iPod shuffle at one point, which I thought was cool, but it's full now and I don't know how to trade tunes out either.

On the other hand, amazon cloud went into my computer and imported my entire music library without my permission. Whatever. I guess that's just the way it is now.

I use to get a smattering of tv stations, mostly fox and pbs, with a digital antenna until last spring when I got new windows and I haven't had any stations since then. I am going to try a stronger antenna.