"My Short Skirt"
by: Eve Ensler
**This is a poem that I heard my senior year of high school when I went to a community production of "The Vagina Monologues." I remember being in awe of the things I had just heard from the three women on stage and this was the last thing that was read. I was crying at the end because I was so touched by what I heard. I thought that this was a very important poem for our time and I picked it as my monologue because it touched me so much.**
It is not an invitation
A provocation
An indication
That I want it
Or give it
Or that I hook.
My short skirt
Is not begging for it
It does not want you
To rip it off me or pull it down.
My short skirt
Is not a legal reason
For raping me
Although it has been before
It will not hold up
In the new court.
My short skirt, believe it or not
Has nothing to do with you.
My short skirt
Is about discovering
The power of my lower calves
About cool autumn air
Traveling up my inner thighs
About allowing everything I see
Or pass or feel to live inside.
My short skirt
Is not proof
That I am stupid
Or undecided
Or a malleable little girl.
My short skirt
Is my defiance
I will not let you make me afraid
My short skirt
Is not showing off
This is who I am
Before you made me cover it
Or tone it down.
Get used to it.
My short skirt
Is happiness
I can feel myself
On the ground.
I am here.
I am hot.
My short skirt
Is a liberation flag
In the women's army
I declare these streets,
Any streets
My vagina's country.
My short skirt
Is turquoise water
With swimming colored fish
A summer festival
In the starry dark
A bird calling
A train arriving in a foreign town
My short skirt
Is a wild spin
A full breath
A tango dip
My short skirt is initiation
Appreciation
Excitation.
But mainly my short skirt
And everything under it is
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
My experiences with theatre
I haven't had many experiences with theatre in my life, but the ones that I have had affected me greatly and made me appreciate the theatre a lot.
Once I hit high school, I immediately signed up for the drama club to experience what it was like to be on stage and the different components to putting together an entire show. My first performance was on stage my sophomore year. I played a mean, grumpy drill instructor in an odd comedy called "The Interview." It took two characters at a time, one was the interviewer and one the interviewee. After the original banter with the employer and job seeker, the interview ends with a big laugh and the job seeker then becomes the interviewer and another unsuspecting candidate for this "dream job" comes through the door for another round of torture. I loved the idea of playing someone completely unlike me and understanding the timing that a comedy took.
My next adventure was my junior year when I played Scrooge in an all female version of A Christmas Story. After that, it was my senior year playing Glenda, the good witch, in the Wizard of Oz.
My favorite experience was seeing the Broadway show Cabaret. Didn't actually get to see it live, but I watched the DVD of performances and also watched the movie with Liza Minnelli. I fell in love with the music and the characters. It was such an odd story, but very intriguing at the same time. I am still waiting for it to come back around again so I can experience it live.
Once I hit high school, I immediately signed up for the drama club to experience what it was like to be on stage and the different components to putting together an entire show. My first performance was on stage my sophomore year. I played a mean, grumpy drill instructor in an odd comedy called "The Interview." It took two characters at a time, one was the interviewer and one the interviewee. After the original banter with the employer and job seeker, the interview ends with a big laugh and the job seeker then becomes the interviewer and another unsuspecting candidate for this "dream job" comes through the door for another round of torture. I loved the idea of playing someone completely unlike me and understanding the timing that a comedy took.
My next adventure was my junior year when I played Scrooge in an all female version of A Christmas Story. After that, it was my senior year playing Glenda, the good witch, in the Wizard of Oz.
My favorite experience was seeing the Broadway show Cabaret. Didn't actually get to see it live, but I watched the DVD of performances and also watched the movie with Liza Minnelli. I fell in love with the music and the characters. It was such an odd story, but very intriguing at the same time. I am still waiting for it to come back around again so I can experience it live.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Week #5 Literature Excerpt
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns."
I was 13 years old when I read these first lines to the novel, "Lolita" by Valdamir Nabakov. I was on vacation in Florida with my mother and my cousin and was looking for a book to read on the flight home. I read the first two paragraphs and something in me told me that I needed to buy this book. Even through the exhaustion of a week long trip, I read the book in two days. Being so young at the time, I understood what I was reading and the way the words were put together and the eloquence of the writing touched me deeply. I knew I was reading a story of a girl about my age and her much older housemate turned stepfather turned lover. Being older now, I still can't get this book out of my head. I read it at least once every year or so just to go back and be taken away by the beauty of Nabakov's writing. Because, although this is a story of a young girl having an unnatural relationship with a much older man, it is really a story of love. After reading this story, I realized how much Humbert (the older man and main character) truly loved this girl, Lolita. He cared for her as he had cared for the first initial girl to steal his heart when he was Lolita's age. He consummately searched for the girl from his past, even though his age progressed and time moved on. If you don't have time to read the book, you should at least give the movie a try. Adrien Lyne's version with Jeremy Irons, not the 1960s version with James Mason.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns."
I was 13 years old when I read these first lines to the novel, "Lolita" by Valdamir Nabakov. I was on vacation in Florida with my mother and my cousin and was looking for a book to read on the flight home. I read the first two paragraphs and something in me told me that I needed to buy this book. Even through the exhaustion of a week long trip, I read the book in two days. Being so young at the time, I understood what I was reading and the way the words were put together and the eloquence of the writing touched me deeply. I knew I was reading a story of a girl about my age and her much older housemate turned stepfather turned lover. Being older now, I still can't get this book out of my head. I read it at least once every year or so just to go back and be taken away by the beauty of Nabakov's writing. Because, although this is a story of a young girl having an unnatural relationship with a much older man, it is really a story of love. After reading this story, I realized how much Humbert (the older man and main character) truly loved this girl, Lolita. He cared for her as he had cared for the first initial girl to steal his heart when he was Lolita's age. He consummately searched for the girl from his past, even though his age progressed and time moved on. If you don't have time to read the book, you should at least give the movie a try. Adrien Lyne's version with Jeremy Irons, not the 1960s version with James Mason.
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