I wish I were blogging about something highminded like today’s anti-DOMA decision in MA. But I really just wanted to show you this interesting photo I took three weeks ago. I had intended to take a photo of the cat, but I inadvertently got Holly and me in it too in an unposed triple portrait. I like Holly’s big halo. The really interesting thing is that even though this was taken on June 15th, I’m wearing a down vest, Holly’s got a fleece jacket on, and the cat is seeking out the heat of the laptop. Tonight it’s a different story. The cat’s splayed on the tile floor trying to cool down. Holly is wearing, I swear to god, a gauze india print dress. All the fans are on.
I’m very annoyed because I just spent half an hour on the phone with the satellite tv people. Holly’s been obsessed with this LeBron James thing for weeks, and tonight was his big announcement but at 9pm the tv wouldn’t work. The technician at Dish Network was having trouble diagnosing my problem because he was so distracted watching LeBron James on tv deciding to go with the Miami Heat. Heat? What kind of a name is that for a team anyway?
This is a photo of Stormé DeLarverie from JEB’s 1987 book of photographs, “Making A way: Lesbians Out Front.” It was taken in 1986 when she was the bouncer at the Cubby Hole. She used to perform as a male impersonator with a troupe of drag queens in the old days. Michelle Parkerson made a documentary about her.
Check it. Howard Cruse’s groundbreaking graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby has just been reprinted by Vertigo. You can read more about it at Howard’s blog. I got to write the introduction, which was a great honor. Howard has been a big influence on me in my cartooning career—if it weren’t for him, I might have gone to law school or something. If you’re in the NYC area, you can see Howard in person along with dyke cartoonist legend Jennifer Camper, and the amazing Ivan Velez Jr, creator of Tales of the Closet, at the below events.
Serious Funnies
Howard Cruse, Jennifer Camper, Ivan Velez, Jr.
Slide show, spirited discussion and book signing
Wednesday, June 16 — 8pm
BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance
841 Barreto Street, 2nd Floor
Bronx, NY (718) 842-5223
for directions: http://www.BronxAcademyOfArtsAndDance.org
Jim Hanley’s Universe
Howard Cruse, Jennifer Camper, Ivan Velez, Jr.
Panel moderated by Joan Hilty and book signing
Thursday, June 17 — 6 – 8pm
4 West 33rd St. (opposite The Empire State Bldg.)
(212) 268-7088 http://jhuniverse.blogspot.com/
Queer Comix
Howard Cruse, Jennifer Camper, Ivan Velez, Jr.
Slide show, spirited discussion and book signing
Friday, June 18 — 7:30 – 9pm
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen St (between Stanton and Rivington)
(212) 777-6028 http://bluestockings.com/
It’s an odd sensation, reading an academic examination of my work. It’s sort of like being psychoanalyzed in public, but not exactly, since it’s the book and not myself on the couch. And because I don’t really have any training in critical theory, I only have a partial grasp of what people are talking about. The QTP’s article is called “In the Queer Archive.” I can’t really summarize it accurately, but it’s about the way I try to provide documentary evidence in my memoir—maps, photos, newspaper reports, etc.—and how that relates to something that Jacques Derrida calls “archive fever.” Here’s a nice disorienting quote.
We know, of course, that the historical person Alison Bechdel is distinct from the “I” of the narrator’s voice, and that this narrating consciousness, whose words fill the top of many graphic panels, is also none of the past selves, the Alisons aged two to twenty whom we see on the page. In part this proliferation of subjects is endemic to the autobiography, which must re-create past selves through retrospective projection and, in so doing, must cause them to anticipate the author who is to come.
Hmm. I’m not sure which Alison is making this blog post. The one who logged in to WordPress and hit “new post,” or the one who is just about to hit the “publish” button.
Thanks to my pal Ruth Horowitz for alerting me to this very wonderful video by the University of Washington’s Information School (and for giving me the opportunity to redirect our attention from my recent ill-advised haircut).
Did you ever feel like you couldn’t stand your hair for one more second, that you just had to buzz it all off? This afternoon I asked my neighbor if I could borrow her clippers. She said sure, but why don’t you sleep on it. Please sleep on it. I said well, maybe, but give me the clippers. Then Holly came home and suggested that I sleep on it. I said, no, I really want to do this. Then she grabbed the clippers and ran around the house with them and hid them somewhere. I promised her that I was just going to use the #4 blade, which wouldn’t cut very much off. She said okay, and showed me where the clippers were.
Lookit this cool video about what seems to now be called the “Bechdel Movie test.” I just have to apologize to my old karate buddy Lizzie Wallace, who I TOTALLY stole this idea from. I tried a while ago to re-name it “The Ripley Test” after Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien. But it didn’t get any traction.
Thanks to my pals Ruth Horowitz and Jake Weisman for alerting me to this.
My pal Hilary Price, the Rhymes With Orange cartoonist, just came for a visit. Here’s a screenshot of her drawing a monster. I love the final touch—the eyebrow.
I just hung this hummingbird feeder outside the window by my computer. This little bird is almost constantly sipping from it. How am I supposed to get anything done?
