Diary of a Wrinkle

From that wild period of time in the desert. My teeth look white and not because of urine, it’s rather all to do with polishing my teeth with coconut oil.

Who knew that once upon a time urine had such immense value that the Romans actually traded in urine! In last month’s Smithsonian news an article about the uses of urine was indeed an interesting eye opener. Of course, over the years I heard about the medicinal qualities of urine; I recall reading the novel Freedom at Midnight, where there was mention of Gandhi’s use of urine, and I also witnessed a friend of mine rubbing urine on a cut. She swore that it was a cure-all for things of that nature. Had I remembered basic chemistry, I would’ve taken her seriously, but there were other extraneous circumstances that sort of pushed that piece of information to the wayside. Read More

Here’s one episode from a monologue that I wrote long ago titled The Male Perspective. It was one show out of many that I had created for Playfilm.net, my online production company together with my cinematographer friend Scott. It was probably one of the few online webseries pre-YouTube. The formatting would not transfer onto this page properly, so excuse the mess. This show was about the complex relationship between Greg and his girlfriend, but from a male perspective as the title so aptly suggests. What makes this monologue fun is that it’s written by me, so inadvertently it’s about how I perceive men in relationships. It’s split into short rant-type monologues, which makes for a quick, fun read. How does this connect with The Diary of a Wrinkle? Well, it still involves women’s issues that we can easily relate to. Read More

Old Hollywood Blvd (photo credit, LA Public Library).

For those of us who know the truth—that Hollywood-type glamour only exists in the movies, the classics that is—the idea of glamorous Hollywood Boulevard still resonates in our minds because of our penchant for romanticizing about the past. Even so, a couple of weeks ago I decided to give Hollywood Boulevard yet another chance; it had been about eight years since the last time I visited there, and the memory of my disillusionment and disappointment when I realized that Hollywood Boulevard was nothing but an overrated, and overcrowded dump, had become a distant memory—enough for me to go there one more time. Read More

Jack’s safe place, tucked right under Greg’s armpit (photo credit, Levinsky)

Apparently, the arms are the least attractive part of the female body! Funny, but I don’t feel this way at all, but it’s a fact according to Desmond Morris in his book The Naked Woman — A Study of the Female Body. The safest place to touch a woman, in a non-sexual way, is on her arm. If we were to think of the arms in evolutionary terms, then perhaps this makes a little bit more sense because the arms used to be our front legs. When man began to straighten up, those front legs transformed into very important tools to help us grip, climb, throw etc. Typically, the female arm is much more delicate than the male arm and although the following statement will annoy some of you, statistics teach us that most men are more attracted to slender arms rather than large, developed muscles that we see when female bodybuilders flex their muscles. Those types of builds remind them of the male body rather while they are programmed to seek out females that will help carry on their genes–this is a scientific fact that transcends all cultures and borders. Therefore women who are feminine looking with an hourglass figure will gain the most attention, but in terms of weight this standard of beauty differs from culture to culture depending on the availability of food– the more scarce the food, men tend to go for women who are heavier. Here in the West, some men don’t even like toned female arms even though that look conveys a healthy candidate, good nutrition and exercise. The male’s longer and stronger forearm is a testament to their evolutionary purpose, to be the aimer and thrower, reminds us Morris. Who knew, but even the angle of the female elbow is different from the male’s whose wider shoulders keep the arms dangling away from the body as opposed to the female design, and this is another one of those important gender signals. Read More

Leon with his father, Chemush, outside their home, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

On this blog I like to present different types of thought-provoking material, and this time I have chosen another poem that deserves your attention. More often than not, we are so consumed with our modern-day lives that anything from the past either, movies, radio, even books seem unnecessary because for some people they are not as relevant anymore. However, take a moment to enrich yourselves, and read this beautiful poem written by a man who had experienced Apartheid in South Africa, and his memory is that of a young boy surrounded by prejudice and apathy. He possesses a sense of humor and straightforward honesty throughout his recollections that make his experience all the more biting and relevant. Politics and policy intertwined with everyday life. “Snippets of Memory–A Work in Progress,” is a poem written by Leon Levinsky, my father. Read More

Light skin, light eyes, straight hair = perfection, so it seems.

How many of us have seen a commercial on television for a skin lightening wash used to lighten the genitals? If you live in India then you would nod your head, and acknowledge this phenomenon. It’s no secret that in many different societies there are certain beauty ideals that would make westerners raise an eyebrow, and under the same token those societies that we deem as holding the strangest ideals and beauty regimens would feel the same about us. Not many societies promote the look of stick-thin women with artificial looking beauty or consider such a look remotely appealing. However, as much as we already know about different beauty ideals from around the world, even the Indians’ preference for lighter skin, I still managed to feel surprised by something that I had read in an article posted by the BBC News Magazine about Indian women and their concern for fair skinned vaginas. Read More