Monthly Archives: May 2013

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Thalia’s Challenge!

Thalia Balak

5/27/2013

 

Once upon a time

There were two girls, Annabelle, who was ugly yet smart, and Marigold who was pretty but not very smart. These two peasants were the best of friends.

When they were taking their daily walk they came across an old witch. She had lost her three most valuable potion ingredients, a Dragons egg, The Water of Youth, and a very rare berry called a Biting Berry. She begged the girls to help her find them, to which Annabelle and Marigold, for they were very nice went off in search of the ingredients.

On their way to the Dragon’s lair, Annabelle noticed a wolf sitting on a bench, curious, as wolves did not normally sit on benches; she nudged Marigold and pointed towards the wolf. For Marigold was not the sharpest sword in the armory, she walked to where the wolf was sitting, tapped him on the shoulder and proclaimed in a loud voice “Hello Mr. Wolf, what troubles you so?  To which, surprisingly, the wolf replied: “My friend the Dragon has stolen the enchanted egg of a witch, thinking that it was his!” Marigold who was very kindhearted told the wolf that she would help him convince the Dragon that the egg was not his. With that the girls, with the wolf not far behind them, continued their journey.

When they reached the Aragon’s lair, the wolf entered first, Marigold second, but Annabelle stayed out of the cave, she did not want to risk her life for a potion ingredient. After a moment she heard from outside a loud roar and a high-pitched squeal. Marigold! Annabelle yelled. She ran into the cave where she saw Marigold was fawning over a tiny baby Dragon, as it had turned out the ferocious beast was just an overprotective mother who had seen the Dragon egg, and had mistaken it for her own. The girls said goodbye to the wolf and the Dragon, and left in search of the fountain of youth.

On their search of the fountain of youth, Annabelle noticed an angry bee, nudged Marigold and started to warn her not to approach. Unfortunately Marigold did not listen; she instead walked up to the bee and proclaimed in a loud voice “Hello Mr. Bee, what troubles you so?” to which even more to the surprise of Annabelle, the bee yelled in its tiny, angry voice “First of all, Sweetie I am a female, and second of all, my hive has been stolen!” she huffed “but I don’t expect You to be able to help Me!” to which a now annoyed Annabelle replied “look, Bee either let us help you, or get out of our way!” the bee pouted and finally looked up, “fine help me but no funny business or ill -“ “yeah yeah yeah, we won’t try to steal your honey or something…” Marigold interrupted. With that the bees lead the way to her nest, which to Marigold and Annabelle’s luck, just happened to be in the tree over the fountain of youth. Marigold, being the bravest, began to poke at the hive, until, finally, a wasp poked its head out of the Bees nest, “what do you want!” it said “we were just-“ Marigold started, “we were just-“ “admiring your hive, where did you get it?” cut off Annabelle hastily, “yes” added Marigold “it’s quite nice, did you make it? It doesn’t look like a wasps nest, I fact it look more like a bees nest…” she trailed off. “It is most certainly MY nest, are you accusing me of-“ SPLAT! Marigold had squished the wasp, she turned to the bee, “Now, I have done what you have asked, the wasp is gone, now you must let us be, and let us fill a bucket of water from the fountain!”

The bee thanked the girls and entered her hive, leaving the girls to get the water and continue their journey. Now all they had to find was the Biting Berry.

When they got to the bush where it was supposed to be, they found a spider’s web, the spider’s web had the berry stuck on it, and the spider was trying, and failing, to get it off. Annabelle stepped forwards and asked the spider if he was ok, to which the spider replied “this berry is stuck in my web, and is eating all the flies I catch!” Marigold reached for the berry, only to get bitten. Frowning, Annabelle plucked a leaf from the bush and a stick from the ground, and forced the berry onto the leaf, Marigold got her purse ready for the berry, and Annabelle dropped it in, the spider thanked them and the two young girls set off in search of their home.

Upon arriving in their village, the met the witch and gave her the ingredients, the witch in return gave them a large sack of coins, and thanked them profoundly, the witch left and the two peasants were left back to their normal lives, but this time, they notices that the bees around them were being very helpful, the wolves had stopped eating the cattle, and the spiders were eating all the bad bugs.

“Maybe” mused Annabelle “just maybe, doing the little things to help people and animals alike, they will help you back in return…”

FIN

 

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Show #11: the Merida makeover, gender roles, and Strong & Sexy Women!

Talked about the Merida makeover scandal and other issues about gender roles in modern culture and in the past.  We also raised the important issue about how girls are forced to make a binary decision between being sexy OR strong. WHY NOT BOTH!?! we’ll devote much more time to this in the next show.

Merida makeover

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Excellent modern version of the fairy tale MULAN by Genevieve Cooper

Excellent modern version of the fairy tale MULAN by Genevieve Cooper <–PDF

Mulan Challenge by Genevieve Cooper (2013)

Miranda never did anything that was easy. Perhaps it was because she liked the challenge or perhaps because she always went after things that required intellect, not the
ability to cheer or dance or cook. Throughout school, she always excelled in academics, a leader among her peers as student government president, president of the debate team and consistent winner of both the science fair and spelling bees. In doing so, her peers were often boys; she learned that aggressiveness, a competitive spirit and critical thinking skills were all necessary characteristics in the hobbies she enjoyed, but also in her interactions with her male peers. In middle school, she ignored gossip about who was wearing what and instead debated who built a better volcano. In high school, she avoided the talk of who was sleeping with whom and instead debated the need to add a recycling program to the campus. In college, she avoided sorority rushes and instead wrote an honors thesis on human rights, equality and international law. By the time she reached corporate America as recent law graduate, she fully new the people who surrounded her—men.

Looking into the mirror, Miranda saw a young woman stare back decked out in an Ann Taylor suit she found at the outlet mall; she would say that it was a black suit but
most women would categorize it as charcoal. Her dark hair was long enough for her to push behind her ears; only a few strands fell forward into her face. Most women would
complain about how flat and boring their hair was with Miranda’s do, but she loved the convenience of only having to brush through the strands to complete her look. Her beauty routine consisted of applying mascara, which often resulted in her poking her eyes and using a generous amount of chapstick that she usually ate off five minutes later. Mac Cosmetics, Smashbox and Lo’real were all words never used in her vocabulary, much less hair dryer, smoothing serum, or moisturizer. If she could wear crocks to the law firm without being laughed out, she would have a closet full of them in every color.

So, when it came down to getting ready in the morning, Miranda puts her focus on finding a decent breakfast in under five minutes, scoring a sit on the subway and
making it into the first elevator upon arriving at the firm. Once getting to the fourteenth floor of the firm, avoiding the disappointed fashion stares of the receptionist and
secretaries required much more of her attention than whether or not she was swishing her hips enough to appease her male colleagues. While she was one of the hardest working, if not the hardest working partner at the firm, she had to work significantly harder to prove herself to her peers and her clients. And because of this, Miranda has a tendency to isolate herself in her work, put on a harsh exterior, and become quick witted and savvy in her speech. Bitch, dyke, spinster, lesbian, ugly, honestly, the list goes on to the names given to her because of her passion for her work—but why? Because in a male dominated world, once a woman challenges the norm and enters it, she declares war.

The ultimate battle in the war that Miranda fought each day she entered the firm, occurred when her increasingly growing stomach gained some unwarranted attention.
Skeptical glances, whispers out of the corner of mouths, hidden points to her stretched stomach became more common with each day. However, the hardest tactic to decide
was wear does a professional woman finds professional pregnancy pants? Because this concept is virtually nonexistent, Miranda’s Ann Taylor suits became tighter and tighter, and her collared shirts no longer had a slight intake at the waist and her pants often could not button. In attempts to maintain her professionalism, larger male button downs became her only option, covered by an equally large male blazer draped over her ever-growing stomach.

Once her stomach could no longer be ignored, one of the partners sat Miranda down to discuss the complications of her arriving child.

“Miranda, you are clearly pregnant. When did you plan on telling us?” He addressed. Miranda stared blankly back and replied, “I had no intention on making an
announcement to you or anyone else in this firm. The condition of my body, my sex life, or family conditions have nothing to do with my work.” While he considered this for a moment, Miranda took in a sharp breath and continued, “well, actually…now that you mention it. With the arrival of my child, my financial responsibilities will in fact grow; so perhaps, we should consider the possibility of a raise.” Now this was a statement that caught her partner off guard even more so then the first declaration by his peer. Yet, after he let that set in, he couldn’t ignore the fact that the other two partners, and even himself, did in fact get a raise with the growth of their families. “While I am a single mother to this child, I still have a family to take care of. This war on women can only stop once we acknowledge the injustice between genders….its your move,” Miranda explained and left her partner once again, speechless.

 

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Show #10 with Molly Conole

We talked about a lot of things related to gender roles and had with us a special guest Molly Conole who talked about her amazing Mother-daughters production IUWe! Coming to the Orlando fringe festival — starting tonight!
More info here: http://www.iuwe.me

We also had an amazing listener’s challenge with a strong modern interpretation of Mulan by Genevieve Cooper