October 9th, 2011
Another sad loss of someone who died much too young, at 56. I didn’t know Paula personally, but always admired the radical legal vision of her work at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, NGLTF, and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
There’s a very good obituary in the Times that cites an article she wrote back in 1989.
“When analyzed from the standpoint of civil rights, certainly lesbians and gay men should have the right to marry,” she wrote in the fall 1989 issue of Out/Look magazine as part of a debate with Thomas B. Stoddard, a colleague at Lambda who strongly favored same-sex marriage. “But obtaining a right does not always result in justice.”
Ms. Ettelbrick continued, “Justice for gay men and lesbians will be achieved only when we are accepted and supported in this society despite our differences from the dominant culture and the choices we make regarding our relationships.”
I remember that debate in Out/Look very well—it helped to shape my own thinking about what is gained and lost as a liberation movement begins to achieve success. I don’t want to be accepted because I’m like everyone else. I want to be accepted despite the fact that I’m not.
It’s very sad that her work was cut so short.
October 5th, 2011
I’m watching footage of the Wall Street protest. Everyone’s using their iPhones to photograph and videotape the police whacking people with batons.
This is my first computer, in 1992–a Mac Classic. I continued using the Apple Stylewriter black and white printer that I bought at the same time through the next 3 or 4 computers. I finally had to retire it not because it stopped working but because its connection cable had become obsolete.
October 3rd, 2011
Here’s Best American Comics 2011, hot off the press. I was the guest editor this year. There’s some amazing stuff in this volume. Work by Gabrielle Bell, Joe Sacco, Dash Shaw, Chris Ware, Jaime Hernandez, Kevin Mutch, Eric Orner, Kate Beaton, Gabby Schulz (Ken Dahl) and many many more. Jillian Tamaki did the cover and Robert Sergel did the endpapers.
It just got a very nice review in the Austin Chronicle.
I’ll be traveling to do a few bookstore events soon. This Saturday, October 8, I’ll be at Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago. Next Saturday, October 15, I’ll be on a panel at the Boston Book Festival with Dan Clowes and Seth. And on Tuesday October 18, Gabrielle Belle, Kevin Mutch and me will be at the Union Square Barnes and Noble in NYC.
Also, it’s LGBT History Month. And I’m an icon! One icon a day for 31 days. It’s a very peculiar feeling to be considered “history.” A great honor, of course, but also disorienting. Watching the 10-second little slideshow-with-dramatic-voiceover about myself, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia for the present.
