These people are all in their sixties now...

Or older.

Either somebody slipped her the final script or Eileen Sutton is really clever.

Eileen Sutton‏@eileensutton

I think I know how Mad Men ends... http://bit.ly/1QFqlNb 

My mirror opposite

I read somewhere that full siblings are your closest relatives, and if that's the case then my brother Brian, born thirteen months after me, is technically the closest of all my relatives. But we represent a complete failure of nature and nurture to influence beliefs and behavior. Not only are we closely related genetically, but we were raised together in the same houses, with the same cast of characters, and went to the same schools. We even both played sports although I only lasted for two years in girls softball, which I joined up in the first place to show that I could play sports like a boy - I was pissed off about the unfairness of the world towards girls long before I heard of feminism, and being good at sports was the universally agreed-upon way, so it seemed to me at the time, of getting respect.

But while there were many talented athletes on "The Bensalem Doves" and we won the championship both years I was on the team, I was personally terrible. Mainly because I never felt like I really understood the rules of softball and also because I had stage fright and was terrified of screwing up. Which only made me screw up more. But I'm sure I took it all much more seriously than my team coach, whom I remember looked like Suzanne Pleshette (or "Bob Newhart's wife" as I knew her then)  holding her cigarette between two long and well-manicured fingers and chuckling when any girl screwed up.

And yet with all that in common we could not be more different. In every important socio-political way we are polar opposites: Republican vs. Democrat; anti-abortion vs. pro-choice; devout Catholicism vs. atheism; hunting/fishing/football vs. arts/science/philosophy. And on and on.
I was reminded of all this because this past Easter when the whole family was together I mentioned to the other siblings that Brian had defriended me on Facebook over something derogatory I had said about the Catholic Church. So he re-friended me, only to have us immediately disagree about something. And then there was the police sympathizers up in arms this weekend over the fact that a few high school students somewhere in suburban New Jersey did artwork on the theme of police brutality. Resulting in the Facebook exchange between my brother and I that you can see in the image posted here.

I've taken it for granted most of my life but it really is weird when you stop and think of it - in spite of our nature/nurture commonalities, I have almost no memories of my brother and i together when we were young. Just two I can think of: when we were toddlers, and we suddenly realized tomorrow was Christmas and we hugged each other in ecstatic anticipation; and then when we were pre-teens, singing along together to Carly Simon's "Your So Vain." And that's it. And I don't think we've ever had any actual conversations as adults without it almost immediately turning into an argument. We have nothing to say to each other.

Although as a rule my family is not big on communication. When we meet up for holidays there's barely enough time to bark out the latest big updates of your life (and thanks to Facebook even that's not strictly necessary) before someone turns on the TV and at least half the family plunks down to watch the professional sports game of that season.

But also I think my family generally finds me boring - I can say all these things here because they find me so boring that not one of them, I am confident, ever reads this blog. And I don't exactly find them riveting. They have zero interest in the life of the mind, except sporadically, my youngest brother Paul, who is also politically liberal. To be fair there are very few people anywhere interested in the life of the mind, and when you find one of them you gotta cultivate them and hang onto them for dear life. That's a reason why I stayed with my old boyfriend John for over ten years, in spite of the fact that he was a suicidal manic-depressive and incredibly self-centered and didn't appreciate me at all (until I was ready to leave him, and then he decided to propose.) But he cared about the arts and sciences and philosophy. He was a remarkable autodidact, and I could literally talk to him for hours and not get bored.

And that's why I miss my dear beautiful friend Earl so much. He's been dead for almost 18 years now. Wow. I think one of the few ways to avoid social isolation in the US, especially as a member of the lower-middle class, is to be a sports fan. Even dear Earl, who was beleaguered by all the people who wanted to spend time with him (I have never had that problem), once admitted to me that he didn't like sports very much but he followed them because that was one of the few things he could talk to his father about.

It's amazing to me how much closer I felt to Earl, whom I mostly knew as a work colleague and object of unrequited love, then I've ever felt to my own brother. I don't believe in the supernatural, in spite of the strange occurrence surrounding Earl's death, but it does make you think that what really matters is the communion of souls. Earl was a soul mate. My brother is a virtual stranger.

Rightwingers and cops freak out over high school art, call for censorship and a "station house adjustment"

Todd Cashdollar

8 hrs · Connect with NJ.com ·

I am embarassed, shocked, dismayed, angered, outraged, chagrined, and disgusted, that this is going on in my hometown of Westfield, NJ.
In a day and time in which drawing pictures of false prophets like Mohammed would get us in trouble, because of sensitivities, that something this gross and moronic would be allowed!
I am thoroughly disgusted

N.J. students' art depicting police brutality sets off controversy

The artwork depicts images of officers shooting, a target on a silhouette with his hands up, a bloodied body stabbed by a police shield and other scenes on a...

NJ.COM

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• Barbara Guglielmi Mendoza likes this.
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  Barbara Guglielmi Mendoza Sorry for the rant but this make me sick to my stomach.

  1 · 7 hrs
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  Todd Cashdollar I don't blame you. It's outrageous! What happened to you and your daughter is messed up! So angering!

  1 · 7 hrs
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  Barbara Guglielmi MendozaThey are pathetic. They should think about putting this kind of effort into dealing with the drug and alcohol problem at the school. They work so hard to cover up so much and the funny thing is the police help the kids who live in that town all of th...See More

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  Aileen Ann I think the artist deserves a "station house adjustment" ... my brother had one. He did a lot in later years -- but he never once crossed the line.

  1 · 6 hrs

Be it right or be it wrong

The only thing I ever knew from Chaka Khan, back in the old radio days, was "Tell Me Something Good." I was so missing out.

Schopenhauer's Cat

One of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's endearing traits is that he loved his poodles. So I thought he was a dog person, although I think it's silly to have to choose between being a dog person and a cat person - dogs and cats are all so lovable. I have cats now, but when I was growing up I had a dog named Cookie and we were close. So close that when she had a litter of puppies she decided to have them in my bed.

So I can't understand this either-or point of view. Which even shows up in discussions between philosophers. David Skinner asks David Cartwright:

I don’t know how else to put this: Was Schopenhauer a cat person or a dog person? 

A dog person. He owned a series of poodles, calling each “Atma” formally and “Butz” informally. He once told a dinner companion that when his dog was mischievous, he would scold it by saying, “You are not a dog, but a human being, a human being,” and he claimed that this would shame the dog.

With all this evidence I was surprised to read this in Wikipedia:

...Schopenhauer settled permanently in Frankfurt in 1833, where he remained for the next twenty-seven years, living alone except for a succession of pet poodles named Atman and Butz. The numerous notes that he made during these years, amongst others on aging, were published posthumously under the title Senilia. 

Schopenhauer had a robust constitution, but in 1860 his health began to deteriorate. He died of heart failure on 21 September 1860 while sitting at home on his couch with his cat. He was 72.

It doesn't say the name of his cat, unfortunately. Possibly Atma too.

The Wiki entry reveals that there is a definite disagreement over whether the name is Atma - as the two philosophers named David have it, and Atman, as Wikipedia has it.

I suspected that there might be more to Schopenhauer giving his poodles all the same name besides lack of imagination, and I think I might have just found it:

In 1844, writing in the second volume of his magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer made a curious statement:

I know quite well [Schopenhauer wrote] that anyone would regard me as mad if I seriously assured him that the cat, playing just now in the yard, is still the same one that did the same jumps and tricks three hundred years ago; but I also know that it is much more absurd to believe that the cat of today is through and through and fundamentally an entirely different one from the cat of three hundred years ago.

Amazingly enough, Schopenhauer defended that statement throughout his magnum opus. The cat both is and is not the same cat that frolicked similarly three hundred years ago.

As far as Schopenhauer was concerned, they virtually were all the same poodle. 

In any case, there are worse ways to die than sitting on your couch with your cat.

Apparently there was a Google doodle dedicated to Schopenhauer on February 22, 2013 on his 225th birthday. It features him walking Atma, appropriately. It only showed up in Germany though, which is why I didn't see it.

Yes absolutely Harriet Tubman should be on the $20 bill

The campaign to replace Andrew Jackson with a woman on the $20 is well underway and Harriet Tubman is in the lead in the voting. This is absolutely the right thing to do. Eleanor Roosevelt, who is in second place in the voting, is a good person, but she certainly never risked her life for her causes. Harriet Tubman escaped slavery then spent years risking her life to free other slaves.

She is a great American hero and few people deserve this honor as much as she. As the W20 website notes:

Soon, Tubman began her forays back into Dixie, rescuing siblings, nieces, strangers and, on her last trip, her aging parents. In 11 years of leading missions and guiding others in how to lead, she is believed to be responsible for the freedom of hundreds. She frequently outwitted her pursuers, using disguises and evasive tactics, later boasting she never lost a single passenger on the road to freedom. During the Civil War, Union soldiers, who had little knowledge of the country beyond their own small towns, relied on Tubman to guide them when poorly drawn and outdated maps could not. A gifted healer, Tubman also nursed the wounded.

And all this while there was a bounty of $40,000 (about a million in today's dollars) on her head.

Fun facts about Harriet Tubman.

Nice work NYTimes

I remember the first time my daughter took me to a nail salon in Astoria, for a Mother's Day present. I couldn't believe how inexpensive it was to have some poor woman wash and buff my feet and paint my toenails. I gave the woman who worked on me a tip that was about twice what the actual service cost, and I made sure I slipped it to her without anybody else noticing.

Later my daughter asked "why did you give such a big tip?"

"You just know they are being exploited," I said, "look at them - all Asian women and Latinas, you know they are being ripped off because they're immigrants or can't speak English."

And unfortunately I was correct - and it is even worse than I imagined. The NYTimes did a series of articles last week about the horrific exploitation of the woman who work in these salons - and as if wage theft and unpaid overtime and 24 hour shifts and low wages and toxic chemicals weren't bad enough, it turns out the mostly Korean-run salons had an institutionalized racist system for paying workers - Koreans were paid the most, then Chinese, then other Asians and Latinas were paid the lowest.

As today's NYTimes editorial said:

Across the country, countless workers in the nail salon industry, mainly immigrant women, toil in misery and ill health for meager pay, usually with no overtime, abused by employers who show little or no consideration for their safety and well-being. It is a world of long days and toxic chemicals, where the usual protections of government have failed, at all levels.

Luckily Governor Cuomo of New York has taken decisive action: Cuomo Orders Emergency Measures to Protect Workers at Nail Salons

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered emergency measures on Sunday to combat the wage theft and health hazards faced by the thousands of people who work in New York State’s nail salon industry. 

Effective immediately, he said in a statement, a new, multiagency task force will conduct salon-by-salon investigations, institute new rules that salons must follow to protect manicurists from the potentially dangerous chemicals found in nail products, and begin a six-language education campaign to inform them of their rights.
Nail salons that do not comply with orders to pay workers back wages, or are unlicensed, will be shut down. The new rules come in response to a New York Times investigation of nail salons — first published online last week — that detailed thewidespread exploitation of manicurists, many of whom have illnesses that some scientists and health advocates say are caused by the chemicals with which they work.

This is what journalism is supposed to do - comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Happy Monday

The Group report

I read McCarthy's The Group, which I disliked - and in fact I skimmed much of it after the first three chapters or so, but it was pretty slow-moving in the middle so I didn't miss much. McCarthy's style is to throw in all kinds of personal details about minor characters (usually the parents of the Group members) into the narrative, which slows down the story to a crawl.

Although there is a certain frankness about sex in the book, unusual for the early 1960s, there isn't much else that's very similar to Sex and the City, at least the TV series - I haven't read the Bushnell columns. The Group is much more socio-politically aware - at least if dropping the names of magazines like the Nation and The New Republic counts. Although there is the author's obsession with describing characters clothing in great detail at odd moments - fashion obsession is very SATC-esque:

She and Kay were just the opposite of each other, Kay had been telling Mr. Bergler this afternoon.
"Really?" said Mr. Bergler, "How?" In college I wanted to be a director," Kay replied. "Come here, Helena," she called loudly. "We're talking about you." Unwillingly Helena approached; she was wearing a skullcap hat and a black velvet dress, with buttons straight down the front and a little old-lace collar with her cat's eye broach. "I was saying I always wanted to be a director." Kay continued.

Not only is there no point in suddenly mentioning what Helena was wearing, but I was completely unable to discern what the outfit signified, if anything. It was published in the early 1960s but it was set in the early 1930s, so who knows what a black velvet dress says about Helena? She's a goth?

However, the section about the Payne Whitney made it all worth it. The description of the place echoed Monroe's story - it sounds like very little changed in thirty years.

McCarthy:

At eleven thirty there was a knock. A young psychiatrist with glasses had come to talk to her. "We were hoping to see Mr. Petersen this morning," he said with an air of disapproval, so that Kay felt she ought to apologize. He took notes while she told him her story. When she finished, breathlessly, and was waiting to hear his verdict, he sat for a few moments in silence, riffling through his notebook. "Why do you place so much importance on your belt?" he suddenly demanded. "The night nurses reported that you first became very unruly when they asked you to give it to them... "It's not my fault-" she began. "Just a minute," he said, "I see that you've used the expression 'his fault', 'my fault' and their equivalents thirty-seven times in the course of our talk. I wonder if you'd like to give me your thoughts on that." 

Monroe:

There was no empathy at Payne-Whitney -- it had a very bad effect -- they asked me after putting me in a "cell" (I mean cement blocks and all) for very disturbed depressed patients (except I felt I was in some kind of prison for a crime I hadn't committed. The inhumanity there I found archaic. They asked me why I wasn't happy there (everything was under lock and key; things like electric lights, dresser drawers, bathrooms, closets, bars concealed on the windows -- the doors have windows so patients can be visible all the time, also, the violence and markings still remain on the walls from former patients). I answered: "Well, I'd have to be nuts if I like it here" then there screaming women in their cells -- I mean they screamed out when life was unbearable I guess -- at times like this I felt an available psychiatrist should have talked to them. Perhaps to alleviate even temporarily their misery and pain. I think they (the doctors) might learn something even -- but all are only interested in something from the books they studied -- I was surprised because they already know that. Maybe from some live suffering human being they could discover more -- I had the feeling they looked more for discipline and that they let their patients go after the patients have "given up". They asked me to mingle with the patients, to go out to O.T. (Occupational Therapy). I said: "And do what?" They said: "You could sew or play checkers, even cards and maybe knit". I tried to explain the day I did that they would have a nut on their hands. These things were furthest from my mind. They asked me why I felt I was "different" (from the other patients I guess) so I decided if they were really that stupid I must give them a very simple answer so I said: "I just am".

Funny coincidence

I spent my recent downtime with a cold watching the entire run of Sex and the City. Since I've recovered, I've been back to researching the life and times of Marilyn Monroe for this play I'm writing, and I read up on the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in Wikipedia:

The poet Robert Lowell wrote of his hospitalization at Payne Whitney, Marilyn Monroe was hospitalized there in early 1961, and Mary McCarthy based her book, The Group, on her inpatient experience.

I ordered a copy of The Group as soon as I read this to see what McCarthy had to say about the Payne Whitney, and the book has just arrived. 

Meanwhile I looked up McCarthy to learn more about her, and Wikipedia included an entry on The Group. 

And that's where I read this:

The Group, 1963, is the best-known novel by American writer Mary McCarthy. It made New York Times Best Seller list in 1963[1] and remained there for almost two years.
The novel caused such a scandal that it was banned in Australia. 

When an editor suggested to Candace Bushnell that she write "the modern-day version of The Group", she wrote Sex and the City, a collection of revealing essays that became the popular TV series and film. As Bushnell summarizes: "The Group reminds us that not much has really changed".[2] Except that today, most of these topics are not as taboo.

Wow. Just weird.

Newsweek: Mary McCarthy’s ‘The Group’ Was the Original ‘Sex and the City’

Make a deal with God

Interesting Monroe roles

Although Monroe famously left Hollywood to try to be a real actor in New York in 1954, due to being fed up with dumb blonde roles, she didn't always get those roles - although she was usually not the lead in the non-dumb roles, except for "Don't Bother to Knock."

Interesting Salon article: Marilyn Monroe, babysitter.

Here is Marilyn in Clifford Odet's "Clash by Night" - Odets was primarily a playwright best known for WAITING FOR LEFTY, and his plays dealt mostly with working class people as in this movie. Marilyn's part in this is definitely not typical. It's a minor role, Barbara Stanwyck is the female lead, but somebody on Youtube very kindly created a video that shows all Marilyn's scenes from "Clash by Night."

When asked by Edward R. Murrow about her roles, Monroe mentions "Asphalt Jungle" as one of her best parts. Here she is acting the shit out of her role in this clip:

Another interesting artifact of Monroe-belia is this 1963 documentary, narrated by Mike Wallace. And it ends with an especially good passage:

...she also left us warmth and wistfulness. And the knowledge of her vulnerability makes each one of us, perhaps, less lonely.

Boy if I can get that sentiment across in my play (which I may also turn into a screenplay) I will be very happy.

And she could sing too

So much is made of Marilyn Monroe's face and body that her really excellent singing voice is rarely mentioned. But she could really sing. What could have become of that voice if she'd had classical training from an early age?

Thanks to Youtube, it is easy and quick to research the career of Marilyn Monroe. What would have once taken weeks to research in the library, or days if you had access to a film archive now takes minutes. You want to listen to Marilyn Monroe sing? Just go to Youtube, type "Marilyn Monroe" and "singing" et voila.

Here she is singing a rather peculiar song, "Specialization" with Frankie Vaughn from the movie "Let's Make Love." I found it interesting that they reference Elvis Presley, one of the few American entertainers from that period whose fame, and longevity of fame, matches Monroe's. As far as I have discovered, she never met him, but what a couple they would have made. Wow.




My favorite Monroe singing performance so far though is "I'm Through With Love" which I think stands up to any other version recorded, including Ella Fitzgerald's - who Monroe loved and was a big influence on Monroe's own vocal work.

Marilyn Monroe was an exhibitionist

Of course it shouldn't be surprising to learn that an actor is an exhibitionist. Such a trait is helpful to an actor.

But what exactly is exhibitionism? Don't we all want to be looked at, sometimes? How often do children call out "look at me"?

On a clinic level, "exhibitionism" means more than just wanting to be looked at. According to the Merck Manual of Psychiatric Disorders exhibitionism is a paraphilia:

Exhibitionism is characterized by achievement of sexual excitement through genital exposure, usually to an unsuspecting stranger. It may also refer to a strong desire to be observed by other people during sexual activity. 

Exhibitionists (usually male) may masturbate while exposing or fantasizing about exposing themselves. They may be aware of their need to surprise, shock, or impress the unwilling observer. The victim is almost always a female adult or a child of either sex. Actual sexual contact is rarely sought. Age at onset is usually the mid 20s; occasionally, the first act occurs during preadolescence or middle age. About 30% of apprehended male sex offenders are exhibitionists. They have the highest recidivism rate of all sex offenders; about 20 to 50% are re-arrested. Most exhibitionists are married, but the marriage is often troubled by poor social and sexual adjustment, including frequent sexual dysfunction. Very few females are diagnosed as exhibitionists; society sanctions some exhibitionistic behaviors in females (through media and entertainment venues).

For some people, exhibitionism is expressed as a strong desire to have other people watch their sexual acts. What appeals to such people is not the act of surprising an audience but rather of being seen by a consenting audience. People with this form of exhibitionism may make pornographic films or become adult entertainers. They are rarely troubled by this desire and thus may not have a psychiatric disorder.

As it says, exhibitionistic behaviors in females is sanctioned by society. And I'm sure it helps that MM was beautiful. Not only did many people not mind her exposing herself, but they'd pay good money for it too. So what might be classified as a psychiatric disorder in some people is a lucrative career for others.

Even the Merck manual acknowledges that there are at least two expressions of exhibitionism - genital exposure, usually to an unsuspecting stranger; and have other people watch their sexual acts, but it seems to me that what Marilyn was doing doesn't quite fit either category, and yet it certainly seems that she could be classified as exhibitionist.

Two items from the Donald Spoto biography:

"I dreamed that I was standing up in church without any clothes on and all the people there were lying at my feet on the floor of the church, and I walked naked, with a sense of freedom, over their prostrate forms, being careful not to step on anybody."  (p. 24) 

Quite simply, Marilyn posed nude because it pleased her to do so. The shy girl who tended to stutter during first takes on a movie set remembered (or was creating) the dream of her childhood: she was naked and unashamed before her adorers. Proud of her body, she often paraded unclothed at home; indeed, a casual visitor to Palm Drive might glimpse her naked passing from bedroom to bath to swimming pool to cabana. “I’m only comfortable when I’m naked,” she told reporter Earl Wilson. Yet in her nudity she was both innocent and calculating. (p. 152 )

Monroe wasn't having sex in front of others, and she wasn't surprising strangers with her nudity, but it's clear that she enjoyed being naked and liked being seen naked.

It seems that exhibitionism is classified as a disorder only when it's done by amateurs in awkward, transgressive social situations. But was Monroe any less of an exhibitionist, in the sense of enjoying being seen naked, than any garden-variety flasher?

And is there a difference between an exhibitionist and a narcissist? I'll have to look up "narcissist" next.

Astoria Graffiti

Took a walk to Astoria Park today and saw some very good graffiti on the way.

Seems to be a sci-fi theme on the left, religion on the right

I think I've seen this artist's work on the 7 train.

I was especially taken by the psychedelic duck or whatever it is.

The face looks like Luis from Sesame Street.

The draftsmanship here is excellent.

This woman was passing by and asked me
to take her picture. I offered to send it to her
but she said she didn't have an email address.

You have to see the air - you can't believe it

Another great comment: "there isn't any me."

This lady could hang out with Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks, born to be wild

Oliver Sacks

Poor Oliver Sacks has terminal cancer. He wrote a piece about it in the New Yorker last month.

Here he is back in his younger days - whoah!

This is even more surprising than reading about the massive quantities of hallucinogens he took in the 1960s.

Come to me

SATC: in summation

Well thanks to my cold I was able to  lie around on my sofa for days and watch all six seasons of Sex and the City. I did come to like the characters, mostly, and especially the interplay among the four main female characters. I find it impossible to meet up for brunch with even one friend in New York City on a regular basis, everybody is so busy (and often out of town on the weekends), while SATC presents four women friends who hang out together very frequently. It's enviable.

I will not miss the Carrie high-pitched squeal/shriek. So annoying for a grown woman to make that sound. And I won't miss her horrible relationship with that Big character.

Although I was glad to see the Big character show up at the end of season six to get Carrie back from France and from the much older man Carrie was living with in Paris, played by the former ballet dancer Baryshnikov.

There is a scene at a party in the middle of season six in which Carrie's editor, played by Candace Bergen, complains to Carrie that she can't find a man her own age to date, and men like the character played by Baryshnikov date women Carrie's age instead. This situation of course is still going on in the world, but now more women are deciding to date younger men. It's fascinating to realize that the word "cougar" is not used once, even in reference to Samantha, during the entire run of the show.

And speaking of Samantha Jones, many women wish they could be just like her, or to put it in modern lingo Samantha Jones is my spirit animal.

I was intrigued to see that Julia Sweeney was credited as a creative consultant in at least one episode of SATC. She also makes an appearance as a nun who has cancer (Samantha Jones helps her get a coveted appointment with a popular oncologist.) Sweeney is well-known for having survived cancer, and for being an ex-Catholic atheist. You can listen to her discuss both things at This American Life.

And I had another connection to the series - another actor I worked with turned up on the show. You can see her in the Self Help section of a bookstore, chewing on her hair, which is meant to give the Charlotte character the impression that weirdos hang out in that section. And in fact this actor is much more eccentric than just chewing on her hair. This woman, who has also appeared in minor roles on other TV shows including (of course) Law and Order, refuses to eat vegetables. Ever. And she has a rule about her wardrobe - she only wears purple Monday through Friday, but weekends she can wear any color. And then there was the time I stopped by her apartment in Greenwich Village to drop off a script in advance of a reading of a play of mine that she was cast in. I had to go to the bathroom, so right after I handed her the script I opened my mouth to ask her if I could use hers, but before I could get a word out, she pushed me out the door of her apartment.

So I developed a theory that she was able to afford her nice apartment in the Village on a TV-show-extras salary because she moonlighted as a dominatrix. And she had somebody tied up in her apartment when I stopped by and didn't want me to see them and that's why she so rudely pushed me out the door.

It's just a theory, of course. Actually she had an awkward personality (in addition to her food and clothing eccentricities) and didn't wear makeup, and was fairly prudish and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she was a life-long virgin, who possibly didn't even know what a dominatrix was.

So I am going to miss watching the adventures of these characters, especially the aspirationally fabulous Samantha. Buzzfeed provides 12 Life Lessons from Samantha Jones.

One more connection between me and this show - back in 2009 I wrote and produced a play, FOX FORCE FIVE that included a reference to the show - long before I saw a single episode:

   BETH 

So I hear you’re a big fan of “Sex in the City.”

   EMILY 

Yeah. How about you?

   BETH

I only watch cop shows. Where girls like Carrie end up on the slab. After falling off of their five-inch high heels.

And it's true, Carrie does wear ridiculously high heels a ridiculous amount of time. I sure won't miss that.