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Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett review – remembering terrible men

Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett review – remembering terrible men

In the latest novel from the acclaimed avant garde author, the narrator considers the impact of the relationships she’s left behind “English, strictly speaking, is not my first language by the way,” Claire-Louise Bennett wrote in her first book, 2015’s Pond , a series of essayistic stories by an autofictional narrator. What was her first language, then? She doesn’t know, and she’s still in search of it. “I haven’t yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things.” Bennett was concerned then – and remains concerned now – with finding words to make inner experience legible, and to make familiar objects, places and actions unfamiliar. Pond was a kind of phenomenology of 21st-century everyday female experience, concentrating on the narrator’s momentary physical and mental feelings and sensation, isolated from the larger social world. Bennett became an acclaimed avant garde writer, and if acclaimed and avant garde may seem at odds, then that tension has powered her books ever since, as she’s been drawn to working on larger scales. In Checkout 19 she showed this phenomenological vision unfurling across a life. It was a kind of Künstlerroman, a messy, sparkling book that threw together the narrator’s early reading history with her early story writing (she retold the picaresque antics of her first literary protagonist, Tarquin Superbus) and her experiences of menstruation and sex. Continue reading...

My 5-Year-Old Daughter Said She Wanted To Take Pole Dancing Lessons. Here's What I Told Her.

My 5-Year-Old Daughter Said She Wanted To Take Pole Dancing Lessons. Here's What I Told Her.

“Mom, how do I get rid of these wrinkles?” My 17-year-old daughter Amelia tugs at her oversized T-shirt – the one with the red race car on the front – that she wears over her cut-off shorts. I want to freeze the moment right here and never let her get any older. Better yet, I want to wrap my arms around her and squeeze her back down to kindergarten. Just for a day. But it’s impossible. Instead, I play it cool. “Oh, no problem – throw it in the dryer. I just put some stuff in there that’ll take them out.” The author's daughter, Amelia. She reaches arm over arm and shimmies out of the shirt without blinking. She doesn’t think for a moment about being nearly naked in front of anyone. She wears string bikinis like bakers wear aprons. Amelia loves freedom. Bending over the hot dryer, I spot a corner of an old snapshot of her and her brother that hides almost out of view under the appliance. I inch it out with my big toe. Joseph’s staring at the camera, a look of sheer dread and confusion on his face, as if the world could end in a moment. In contrast, Amelia is popping into the picture behind him, bright brown eyes sparkling with enthusiasm and wide, jazz fingers spread apart at each knuckle. I stifle a chuckle as I remember this day over a decade ago. The author's children around the time they visited Las Vegas. Five-year-old Amelia sauntered through a Las Vegas hotel lobby. Before her father’s and my eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, she slipped away, inching her way to the edge of a narrow dance floor between the check-in counter and a bar that was, on that day, a stage topped with an exotic dancer. Her chubby pointer finger suspended in the air. With a faraway look in her glassy-chestnut eyes, she inhaled the lovely stripper’s sparkly red leotard, transfixed by the woman’s moves on the pole. I could see Amelia’s chest rise and fall as her quiet breath exited and then sucked in again through her tiny, slightly parted, rosebud lips. “Oh God!” I whispered to no one in particular as my eyes darted over to my clueless husband, who was busy checking us in. I began to worry. What’s going on in Amelia’s mind? Will this have some kind of damaging effect on her? Is she in danger? Trying to be casual, I quietly slipped beside her and whispered, “Boo.” She paid me no attention. “Hey, you! Earth to Meals!” I waved my hand in her face and pinched her elbow playfully. “Hey, honey, we got our room, we better go.” She craned her neck to force herself to face me earnestly, though her eyes kept darting longingly back to the woman on the bar. “OK.” Her chubby cheeks were forlorn. “But Mom? I wanna take those dance lessons.” The author and Amelia around the time of the trip to Las Vegas. I held back giggles. What do you say to a little girl who lets you hold their soul like that? I know many people might be horrified if their daughter saw a pole dancer at such a young age. Old Puritan belief systems have deep roots in us. But as a parent, I’ve never wanted to hand my preconceptions about the world and the complex behaviours of humanity to my children. It’s because I’ve learned as soon as I say I’m absolutely right about something, I often find I’m absolutely wrong. I grabbed Amelia’s hand to go, but then I stopped myself because my daughter was still admiringly transfixed on the dancer. And suddenly, I wanted to admire her too. She was in her early 20s, confident, and her face held the wide smile of the little girl she once was. Perfectly made. And strong as hell, climbing that pole. “I’m with you,” I elbowed Amelia. “I wanna take those lessons, too.” This woman, strong and sexy, yes, but also seeming to feel joy in her body. She moved so naturally and to her own rhythm that I suspect she knew how beautiful she was – on the inside. I prayed my Amelia would feel that someday, too. I mean, maybe not pole dancing, but who knows? She never asked about the dancer again. I did enrol her in more traditional dance classes later that year. She towered over the rest of the petite girls, though, and she didn’t follow the choreographed moves like the others. It was like she felt the music in her own way and leaned into her awkward confidence. I was proud. Eventually, she grew to 6 feet and took up basketball. Now, as we wait for the dryer to finish, I hold the photo up to Amelia. “Do you remember this moment – seeing the dancer in Vegas and wanting to take her lessons?” She tilts her head, then says, “Maybe?” before it seems to dawn on her. “Ohhh, yeah.” “Do you remember what you said?” I ask sheepishly. “Didn’t I ask to take those lessons?” “Uh-huh.” I grin at my daughter, who’s now almost as tall as the pole. “Would you still ... want to?” She pulls out her phone. Searches for lessons. A whole slew of bright red circles fill the map on her screen. “Mom. We should do it.” “OK, but what we should really do is push-ups,” I lower myself to the kitchen floor, “to build up arm strength – I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as she made it look.” The buzzer sounds on the dryer. Amelia retrieves her warm T-shirt. “Thanks,” she says. The author's daughter, Amelia, playing basketball. Her athletic yet soft and feminine frame takes up a lot of space – space she owns. Space her body deserves and enjoys. Her shoulders draw back before she throws the shirt back on, grabs her phone and spins around. “I’m going to hang out with friends before practice.” She glances back. “Sign us up.” And as she strides away, I reach out my hand like a benediction because I can’t help it. One hand suspended in ether, just like hers was that day in Las Vegas, and I rest my other palm on my chest. I think of the beautiful dancer from a dozen years ago and sigh. Thank you . I pray she’s well. I pray for her and all people who dance and sing and for those who do sex work and fight daily against stereotypes of damaged or, worse, criminal . I whisper to her through space and time: You helped us both understand and love our bodies. I breathe deep and thank all women – happy I am one. We are connected, and since we only get this short time in which to be housed in these beautiful bodies, I pray for the whole human race in this moment, too: to open our eyes, accept new possibilities, have fun and move our bodies however we want to. The gift – no, the right – of living shame-free. Because once, a decade ago, an innocent little girl’s sincerity and sweetness instantly eradicated all the negative ideas about women and stripping and sexuality I’d grown up with. Kerith Mickelson is a freelance writer and high school English teacher. When she’s not playing darts and cooking with her three kids and husband, she leads yoga and tai chi classes. On weekends, she coordinates skateboard events for foster kids. She writes about memory, motherhood, illness and faith, sometimes rooted in Catholic ideas, sometimes Buddhist, sometimes drawing on images of everyday beauty in family and the fragility that comes with loving deeply. Her writing is featured in Notre Dame Magazine and Her View From Home. Her work also earned honourable mention in the 2024 Writer’s Digest Writing Contest in the spiritual writing category. Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com. Related... I Found The Perfect Surgeon To Do My Tummy Tuck – But I Couldn't Stop Thinking About 1 Thing 'I Think We Have A Dead Bedroom. My Wife Has A Wildly Different Take.' My Historic Home Is Beautiful. It Was Also Slowly Killing My Triplets.

The Secret of Me review – documentary tells tragic story of childhood intersex reassignment surgery

The Secret of Me review – documentary tells tragic story of childhood intersex reassignment surgery

Grace Hughes-Hallett’s film focuses on the story of Jim Ambrose, who was raised female after he was born with atypical genitals Although this documentary spreads its net wide to encompass the recent history of intersex identity in the US, mostly it centres around the story of Jim Ambrose, who until he was 20 years old was called Kristi and raised female. Raised in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, Jim was born in 1976 with XY chromosomes and had atypical genitals. So his parents, under the advice of a local doctor, decided to have surgery performed on the infant to create more female-looking organs, and then raised him as a girl without ever telling him the truth. It wasn’t until he read about intersex people in a university feminism course that he realised who he really was. Although Jim would go through further painful surgeries and much mental anguish, eventually he would find his voice as an activist, a place within the increasingly visible intersex community, and a loving partner. The emotional climax of the film follows Jim as he prepares to meet the surgeon who operated on him as a baby. The encounter doesn’t go at all as you might expect, given footage earlier in the film where one intersex person talks about getting revenge using a rusty knife. Let’s just say. The phrases “at the time” and “in retrospect” get invoked a lot. Continue reading...

Labour MPs call on Rachel Reeves to scrap council tax

Labour MPs call on Rachel Reeves to scrap council tax

Exclusive: 13 mainly northern MPs say a new system should better account for higher house prices in south-east More than a dozen Labour MPs have written to Rachel Reeves calling on her to scrap council tax, as the chancellor faces mounting pressure to overhaul Great Britain’s property taxes in next month’s budget. Thirteen MPs, mainly from seats in northern England, wrote to Reeves last month asking her to abolish the tax and replace it with another system that better accounts for the steep rise in house prices in London and the south-east over the last 35 years. Continue reading...

‘Risky is the best way to be’: Tim Curry on sexuality, surviving a stroke – and 50 years of stardom

‘Risky is the best way to be’: Tim Curry on sexuality, surviving a stroke – and 50 years of stardom

From Rocky Horror to the Muppets, Curry’s extraordinary career made him world-famous. Then, a stroke left him paralysed. The actor talks about his cocaine years, his friendship with David Bowie – and the moment his mother came at him with a knife ‘It’s difficult not to see it as a kind of finale,” says Tim Curry of his memoir, Vagabond. That he’s written it at all is a surprise. Curry has always liked the comfort of privacy – my efforts to persuade him to do an interview with the Guardian began more than five years ago. At 79, he still prefers looking forward, too, which is how he has covered so much ground in his career. Boundless energy has been the actor’s hallmark. He once exerted so much while filming the murder mystery comedy Clue – in which he plays the frantic, sharp-tongued butler Wadsworth – that a nurse who took his blood pressure on set told him he was at risk of having a heart attack. I’ve always tried to make my villains amusing. It gives them a bit more edge Continue reading...

Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2 review: the most comfortable noise cancelling headphones

Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2 review: the most comfortable noise cancelling headphones

Premium commuter cans upgraded with longer battery life, USB-C audio and improved sound, but still cost a lot Bose has updated its top-of-the-line noise-cancelling headphones with longer battery, USB-C audio and premium materials, making the commuter favourites even better. The second-generation QuietComfort Ultra headphones still have an expensive price tag, from £450 (€450/$450/A$700), which is more than most competitors, including Sony’s WH-1000XM6 . Continue reading...