Salon.com > Megan Wood

“Girls’” reluctant star

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 21:00:00 +0000

It shouldn’t be surprising that Jemima Kirke, the scene-stealing actress from Lena Dunham’s indie hit “Tiny Furniture,” has gone on to become one of the scene-stealing stars of Dunham’s upcoming HBO series “Girls,” which premieres this Sunday to dazzling critical acclaim. On-screen, Kirke comes across as carefree and glamorous, the kind of friend with a cool-girl vibe that can lead to a lot of fun trouble. In both "Tiny Furniture" and “Girls,” Kirke plays characters who are similar to real-life Kirke: well-traveled, funny, super-stylish and British (the accent, in case you were wondering, is real). Like the other stars of "Girls," Kirke's parents are famous: Her father is Simon Kirke, the drummer from Bad Company, and her mother is interior designer/muse Lorraine Kirke.

What is surprising is that Kirke considers herself a painter, not an actress, and had to be coerced to get in front of the camera. Kirke received her BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of design (you can see some of her oil portraits here). She met Lena Dunham at St. Ann’s high school in Brooklyn Heights and agreed to help her out with “Tiny Furniture” after college. She is also the mother of a toddler. (Full-disclosure: I first met Jemima because I occasionally baby-sat her daughter.)

When engineering fails

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:00:00 +0000

As long as humans have been building, they’ve been failing too. Society and civilization, from the first irrigation systems to the Brooklyn Bridge, have been designed by a flawed culture. Sometimes, even with today’s technology, design fails. Bridges collapse, ships sink, apartment buildings crumble. As we build even more daring structures, the likelihood of disaster increases, unless we’re willing to learn from past failures instead of focusing only on past success.

In his latest book, “To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure,” Henry Petroski, professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University and author, previously, of 17 books on engineering including “The Evolution of Useful Things,” explores how structural failure is affected by cultural and economical limitations. By critically examining the interdependency of people and machines related to bridge collapses, airplane crashes and space shuttle failures, Petroski discovers that understanding failure is the only way to bring successful design and engineering into the future.

The future of sexual harassment

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 12:45:00 +0000

These days, it’s impossible to discuss sex in the office without immediately thinking of sexual harassment. The term shows up everywhere, from the campaign trail to, most likely, your nearest office cubicle. But the concept of inappropriate sexual behavior has evolved dramatically since the 1860s, when women first took jobs as clerks in the U.S. Treasury office. Over the past century and a half, people of both sexes have gradually rethought what is and isn’t appropriate sexual behavior in professional environments -- a transformation that has paralleled dramatic reconfigurations in our conceptions of gender, equality and work itself.

In her new book, “Sex and the Office: A History of Gender, Power, and Desire,” Julie Berebitsky, professor of history and director of the Women’s Studies Program at Sewanee University and author, previously, of “Like Our Very Own: Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood,” explores a vast array of sources, including advertisements, advice guides, archival sources and actual experiences of male and female office workers, to better understand which of our attitudes have changed, and which have stubbornly remained the same. It's a dramatic reminder of the fact that men have claimed to be hardwired for sex -- and women have been accused of being temptresses seeking special favors -- long before Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas.

Inside the sexual counterrevolution

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:00:00 +0000

These days, watching politicians debate sex legislation feels a lot like watching footage from decades ago. In the last few months alone, Rick Santorum has called contraception “dangerous,” Mississippi’s Initiative 26 nearly granted “personhood” to fertilized eggs and thereby potentially made birth control illegal, and the anti-gay rights movement once again garnered headlines around the country. While politicians argue endlessly over what Americans should be doing in their bedrooms, statistics show that middle America agrees on legal abortion, gay civil unions and access to birth control. So why are politicians debating issues that have long been settled, while more pressing topics like unemployment, renewable energy and overseas wars remain on the back burner?

Historian Nancy L. Cohen, author of the new book, “Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution is Polarizing America,” explains how America’s conflicted attitudes toward the sexual revolution have fueled America’s political wars for the past 40 years, causing a deep divide that has remade the cultural landscape. Cohen describes how a minority of America’s population is making antiquated decisions about legislation that infringes dangerously on the rights of America’s majority.