Category Archives: winter

On Frozen (spoiler alert)

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The latest animated film from Disney is out, and it’s a doozy. Talk about turning tradition upside down, this movie takes the Disney princess paradigm and rips it apart. The cute young prince is a traitor, and it’s a working class fellow who shows what it takes to be a real man. The story is an old one, perhaps the oldest one, about two siblings who get into trouble and end up apart. This isn’t Cain and Able, but Elsa and Ana, close as young children, find themselves separated by more than space as adults. As it is with almost all Disney products, the dark cloud of loss hangs over the film when the girls’ parents are lost in a shipwreck, turning the young girls into orphans. The movie recounts the coming of age of both sisters–one will be queen, the other, trouble. The wild card in this magical kingdom is Elsa’s powers over cold, ice, and snow, and her inability to control those powers. The movie quickly settles into a permanent winter, Elsa has exiled herself from her kingdom, and Ana has set out to save her accompanied by a man who sells ice, a goofy reindeer, and an even goofier snowman–the court jester of the film. The film’s academy award winning song, “Let It Go,” is Elsa’s anthem of release, liberty, and freedom from the constraints of the male dominated patriarchy under which she has been living her entire life. It is her now absent father who has condemned her to a life of solitude, away from her sister, in which she must not use her powers, which are a metaphor for female agency–the ability of women to decide their own futures regardless of what the male members of the family might have to say. Elsa is strong, powerful, not a helpless Disney princess that needs saving by some handsome male character, albeit woodsman, prince or whatever. Elsa is eventually saved by Ana who makes a gesture of true love toward her sister. Elsa’s anthem, “Let It Go,” underscores her ability to recognize publically that she is a strong woman with the ability and desire to make her own decisions about her life and that the patriarchy can go take a long walk of a short pier. In the end, the typical Disney prince has been cast into exile, the castle doors are flung wide, and Elsa will just be herself now that she has nothing to hide. She will not be someone else’s idea of a perfect helpless female, and she doesn’t need any males around to reinforce either her authority or her identity. She rejects spurious myths about femininity, about how good girls act, and about female passivity in the face of male authority. She rejects tradition, embracing her new identity as an independent and happy person who can live on her own. The movie does not end with any weddings, although one wonders about Ana and her ice salesman boyfriend–she has been learning about love from a snowman who likes warm hugs.

On Frozen (spoiler alert)

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The latest animated film from Disney is out, and it’s a doozy. Talk about turning tradition upside down, this movie takes the Disney princess paradigm and rips it apart. The cute young prince is a traitor, and it’s a working class fellow who shows what it takes to be a real man. The story is an old one, perhaps the oldest one, about two siblings who get into trouble and end up apart. This isn’t Cain and Able, but Elsa and Ana, close as young children, find themselves separated by more than space as adults. As it is with almost all Disney products, the dark cloud of loss hangs over the film when the girls’ parents are lost in a shipwreck, turning the young girls into orphans. The movie recounts the coming of age of both sisters–one will be queen, the other, trouble. The wild card in this magical kingdom is Elsa’s powers over cold, ice, and snow, and her inability to control those powers. The movie quickly settles into a permanent winter, Elsa has exiled herself from her kingdom, and Ana has set out to save her accompanied by a man who sells ice, a goofy reindeer, and an even goofier snowman–the court jester of the film. The film’s academy award winning song, “Let It Go,” is Elsa’s anthem of release, liberty, and freedom from the constraints of the male dominated patriarchy under which she has been living her entire life. It is her now absent father who has condemned her to a life of solitude, away from her sister, in which she must not use her powers, which are a metaphor for female agency–the ability of women to decide their own futures regardless of what the male members of the family might have to say. Elsa is strong, powerful, not a helpless Disney princess that needs saving by some handsome male character, albeit woodsman, prince or whatever. Elsa is eventually saved by Ana who makes a gesture of true love toward her sister. Elsa’s anthem, “Let It Go,” underscores her ability to recognize publically that she is a strong woman with the ability and desire to make her own decisions about her life and that the patriarchy can go take a long walk of a short pier. In the end, the typical Disney prince has been cast into exile, the castle doors are flung wide, and Elsa will just be herself now that she has nothing to hide. She will not be someone else’s idea of a perfect helpless female, and she doesn’t need any males around to reinforce either her authority or her identity. She rejects spurious myths about femininity, about how good girls act, and about female passivity in the face of male authority. She rejects tradition, embracing her new identity as an independent and happy person who can live on her own. The movie does not end with any weddings, although one wonders about Ana and her ice salesman boyfriend–she has been learning about love from a snowman who likes warm hugs.

On sleet

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Sleet is one of those easy metaphors for the difficulties life drops on your head: frozen rain. Walking in the sleet this afternoon, I was reminded that you cannot only not predict what might happen at any given moment, but that life is a tenuous adventure at best. Sleet stings as it hits your face, cold and icy. In vain, you put up your hands to block this icy sand that hits your tender skin. Sleet is anti-aesthetic. Snow gently falls on valley and field, horse and rider, but sleet just piles up in the corners like so many dead crickets. Sleet is death-like, the bottom pit of winter. It freezes on your windshield, turns into shiny ice on overpasses, turns steps into a death trap. Whatever is bad and evil and uncomfortable about winter is embodied in those stone-hard pellets of ice that tumble aimlessly through the sky and hit you on the head. Sleet seems to be an outcast of Hell, even unworthy of one of Dante’s circles. Cars spin madly out of control, people slip and slide wildly in a surrealistic comic ballet, and your tulips develop a shiny death glaze that will leave them brown and wilted. The birds hide, the peach blossoms fall off, and the squirrels sleep the sleep of the just plain tired.

On sleet

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Sleet is one of those easy metaphors for the difficulties life drops on your head: frozen rain. Walking in the sleet this afternoon, I was reminded that you cannot only not predict what might happen at any given moment, but that life is a tenuous adventure at best. Sleet stings as it hits your face, cold and icy. In vain, you put up your hands to block this icy sand that hits your tender skin. Sleet is anti-aesthetic. Snow gently falls on valley and field, horse and rider, but sleet just piles up in the corners like so many dead crickets. Sleet is death-like, the bottom pit of winter. It freezes on your windshield, turns into shiny ice on overpasses, turns steps into a death trap. Whatever is bad and evil and uncomfortable about winter is embodied in those stone-hard pellets of ice that tumble aimlessly through the sky and hit you on the head. Sleet seems to be an outcast of Hell, even unworthy of one of Dante’s circles. Cars spin madly out of control, people slip and slide wildly in a surrealistic comic ballet, and your tulips develop a shiny death glaze that will leave them brown and wilted. The birds hide, the peach blossoms fall off, and the squirrels sleep the sleep of the just plain tired.

On snow drifts

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Snow drifts are silent frozen sentinels that stand guard at the gates of winter. Mother Nature, and her helper, the North Wind, work tirelessly throughout winter to sculpt these waves, frozen in time and space until the sun comes out in March. Drifts clog driveways, block up doors and windows, and turn short cuts into dead-ends. Built out of the fluid dynamics of blowing snow, drifts grow in the wake of falling snow, a function of wind and the obstacles the wind and snow encounter. Most of the time you can stand back and just admire the strange fractal art of these strange white waves that don’t move, but a big drift is also a brick wall that must be dismantled if the sidewalk is to be cleared or the driveway made passable. Drifts are made of packed snow which is a whole other animal and bears little resemblance to the white fluffy stuff that gently falls in the woods at the end of the day. Snow drifts are both elegant and beautiful, and at the same time, they are deadly and malevolent. You can’t break through with your car without hurting yourself and hanging up your vehicle. Snow drifts are silent car traps that can hang up the sturdiest four-wheel-drive and leave it with its wheels spinning. The snow is as tough as steel and as delicate as lace. And when the sun comes out, it begins to shrink like the Wicked Witch of the West. Drifts are ephemeral, three-dimensional, chaotic, unpredictable. Drifts are what remind us that we are not in control–never were in the first place.

On snow drifts

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Snow drifts are silent frozen sentinels that stand guard at the gates of winter. Mother Nature, and her helper, the North Wind, work tirelessly throughout winter to sculpt these waves, frozen in time and space until the sun comes out in March. Drifts clog driveways, block up doors and windows, and turn short cuts into dead-ends. Built out of the fluid dynamics of blowing snow, drifts grow in the wake of falling snow, a function of wind and the obstacles the wind and snow encounter. Most of the time you can stand back and just admire the strange fractal art of these strange white waves that don’t move, but a big drift is also a brick wall that must be dismantled if the sidewalk is to be cleared or the driveway made passable. Drifts are made of packed snow which is a whole other animal and bears little resemblance to the white fluffy stuff that gently falls in the woods at the end of the day. Snow drifts are both elegant and beautiful, and at the same time, they are deadly and malevolent. You can’t break through with your car without hurting yourself and hanging up your vehicle. Snow drifts are silent car traps that can hang up the sturdiest four-wheel-drive and leave it with its wheels spinning. The snow is as tough as steel and as delicate as lace. And when the sun comes out, it begins to shrink like the Wicked Witch of the West. Drifts are ephemeral, three-dimensional, chaotic, unpredictable. Drifts are what remind us that we are not in control–never were in the first place.

On falling down in Chicago

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So, Friday night in downtown Chicago, on Michigan Avenue, I slipped and fell in a puddle of ice water. Now before you all make lots of jokes about how clumsy I am, imagine first the scene and circumstances: it was dark, raining, the temp was around freezing, there was a ton of traffic, and the city of Chicago had not cleaned up its corners. It was hazardous. I slipped on an invisible piece of ice that was camouflaged by bad lighting and lots of water. The good thing was that I did not stick out my hands to break my fall, that bad thing is my left elbow took a beating. My butt landed in a pool of icy water that broke my fall. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and all of sudden I was sodden and soaked and looking up into the Chicago night sky. I suspected I was hurt, but I popped up immediately, much to the horror of those standing over me. After a quick assessment of my graceless return to earth, I realized that although my elbow was really unhappy, the rest of me, though cold and soaked, was probably okay because my derriere gracelessly landed squarely in a puddle of ice water which had curiously reduced and deflected and absorbed the force of the fall. Though my pride was damaged and wet and cold, I decided to continue on to dinner. At the restaurant, they gave me a bag of ice for my elbow along with my risotto. I continue to recuperate. My elbow is bruised but healing, my soaked clothing has been dried, and my pride, well, I decided to leave a bit of that on Michigan Avenue.

On January

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The first month of the year is also the coldest month of the year in the northern hemisphere. This is even more true as a frigid arctic vortex spirals out of northern Canada and crawls into the midwest with unbelievably cold temperatures. Between the mean-spirited arctic wind, the cruel sub-zero temperatures, and the relentlessly ironic snow, a person might make plans to move to Arizona sometime in the very near future, if not yesterday. Living in the middle of a January winter is a challenge, but is it a challenge everyone wants to face? Since I now live in Texas, I don’t have to deal with winter. Perhaps it will be a little chilly tonight, but what’s one night compared to ninety nights of cold, black ice? I totally understand neighbors here in Texas who have vowed to never live in ice and snow again–they hate it. Yet, there is beauty in winter, and I know many people who just laugh in the face of sub-zero temperatures and endless drifts of snow as trivial circumstances that defeat only the weakest of minds. Are they sturdy or foolhardy? I couldn’t say, but I see the beauty in having four seasons–you really learn to appreciate the warm sun in spring, and frosty nights of October. Change is good, invigorating, makes you feel alive. I see January as just another challenge, no better or worse than 105F in the shade in central Texas in August.

On January

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The first month of the year is also the coldest month of the year in the northern hemisphere. This is even more true as a frigid arctic vortex spirals out of northern Canada and crawls into the midwest with unbelievably cold temperatures. Between the mean-spirited arctic wind, the cruel sub-zero temperatures, and the relentlessly ironic snow, a person might make plans to move to Arizona sometime in the very near future, if not yesterday. Living in the middle of a January winter is a challenge, but is it a challenge everyone wants to face? Since I now live in Texas, I don’t have to deal with winter. Perhaps it will be a little chilly tonight, but what’s one night compared to ninety nights of cold, black ice? I totally understand neighbors here in Texas who have vowed to never live in ice and snow again–they hate it. Yet, there is beauty in winter, and I know many people who just laugh in the face of sub-zero temperatures and endless drifts of snow as trivial circumstances that defeat only the weakest of minds. Are they sturdy or foolhardy? I couldn’t say, but I see the beauty in having four seasons–you really learn to appreciate the warm sun in spring, and frosty nights of October. Change is good, invigorating, makes you feel alive. I see January as just another challenge, no better or worse than 105F in the shade in central Texas in August.