I haven't been feeling very well for the past several days, I seem to have the flu that everyone else has. I keep popping sinus pills from the medicine cabinet at work, but it doesn't seem to help. Nevertheless, it's given me the chance to consume a lot of media... My favorites:

Movie: The Execution of Wanda Jean (2002)... A really heartbreaking documentary that HBO made of Wanda Jean's last pleas for sentence commutation and her eventual execution in the state of Oklahoma in 2001. She was the first black woman to be executed since the 1950's and the reinstatement of the death penalty. The documentary was interesting because I had never heard of this case before, but I found the approach to be somewhat problematic and strange in parts. Wanda Jean Allen was given the death penalty for murdering her lover, Gloria Leathers, whom she met while serving time in prison for another murder. There seemed to be a lot of domestic abuse in the history of their relationship, which the film did a really poor job at addressing, probably because there really hasn't been much of a discourse on abuse in same-sex relationships in this country in any kind of substantial way. Additionally, the film seemed to champion the efforts of Wanda Jean's all-white legal team rather than Wanda Jean's tenacity and dedication as well as her family's support. One of her lawyers was particularly patronizing and almost creepy towards Wanda and her family. The footage of Wanda Jean's family seemed to suggest a lot of dysfunction and/or lack of communication. I wonder how this would have been different had they given a member of the family a camera to interview each other with, rather than having strangers all up in their business while their sister/daughter's life was on the line. In any case, the documentary is valuable simply for preserving this strange and sad case in history.

Short Story: "Majesty" by Miranda July in McSweeney's #21. Elements that make up a great story: sex dreams; young royalty; All I need is a miracle, all I need is you; dogs named potato; and sex dreams involving young royalty.

Essay: "After the Flood" by Scott Russell Sanders in Staying Put: Making Home in a Restless World. I was visiting my grandparents in Eddyville, Kentucky for Christmas and my dad took me and Riley down to see the Eddyville Penitentiary. It looks like a castle. It's old and hulking, tons of steel and stone, and has a sense of permanence that is eerie. It's right on Lake Barkley and is surrounded by houses. My dad told us that this was the new Eddyville--what was the rest of Eddyville is at the bottom of Lake Barkley. This phenomenon of damming and flooding of entire sections of towns that are below a certain sea level or somehow unimportant, worthy of flooding, is one of those things that seems to have been so rampant that it doesn't get much attention. Eddyville's neighbor, Kuttawa, is also partially under Lake Barkley... My mom tells me stories of before there was a Monroe Reservoir here in Monroe County... It's difficult to imagine. This essay by Scott Russell Sanders is an eloquent discussion of what it means to him and his search for his roots that his childhood memories are essentially underwater.

Radio Program: NPR's Hidden Kitchens. I started actively podcasting more than just Democracy Now and This American Life, trying to explore a little bit. In listening to last week's rerun of Living on Earth, I discovered a discussion of this NPR program by the Kitchen Sisters. Basically, they opened up a hotline to listeners all over the country and asked them to call in to report their "hidden kitchen" stories--meaning, places where food is made that is either illegitimate, off-the-radar, has cultural significance, or forms the glue of a community. Obviously, this encompasses a great many things, and the stories that they've compiled are fascinating. My favorites were their segments on the George Foreman grill as a sort of "hidden kitchen" for people experiencing homelessness or living in single rooms without kitchen facilities--where they would plug in this appliance and make anything from grilled cheese to hamburgers. They even had George Foreman on and he talked about his history of hunger. When I heard the synopsis of this show, I thought 'they've got to have some prison-cooking on here,' and sure enough--they did a segment on Robert Wilkerson (Angola Three) making pralines in his solitary cell!

Music: Lila Downs La Cantina -- Amazing voice, amazing songs, gets me out of bed.

In other news, it's 1 o'clock in the morning and the only thing going on at the UGL circulation desk is the security guard softly singing along to "Maneater" by Hall and Oates--Huh??