DTWOF episode #504

February 22nd, 2007

Sorry. I should’ve put this up yesterday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Barbara Gittings, 1932-2007

February 20th, 2007

Barbara Gittings died of breast cancer Sunday. She was a lesbian activist since olden times. I’ve always been very moved by photographs of her at a demonstration in Philadelphia in 1965. Everyone decided to dress very conservatively, to help make their point that they were just like everyone else and deserved equal treatment. What impressed me, I guess, is not just the bravery of these pre-Stonewall activists for putting themselves out there like that, but their willingness to look kinda dorky while they did it.

Thank you, Barbara. Here’s a link to a proper obituary.

Three Items

February 20th, 2007

Katie here. 

I’ll start with the items most pertinent to this blog, followed by the digression

The appearances page is updated with a few more details about Alison’s upcoming appearances…hopefully, we’ll hear more soon about other locales where she will appear.

Today, the spamfilter deleted the 20,000th piece of spam. I guess this is momentous to me because I play with it so often, but it seems to be picking up fewer and fewer of your comments, so that’s good news.

And finally, Read the rest of this entry »

sketch diary 2/14. Snow Day.

February 14th, 2007

Today I almost killed my visitor from London, Helen Sandler. Read the rest of this entry »

blogswap

February 13th, 2007

Helen here. This feels highly experimental and postmodern. It has just taken us about an hour to figure out how Alison and I can swap blogs for one post. Anyway, i’m in her house in the woods and Alison tells me that if we stepped outside right now we would die from the cold, so it’s a little like a hostage situation with free stir-fry.

Earlier she somehow persuaded me (an unfit city girl in new long-johns and what i am reliably informed are the wrong kind of winter hiking boots) to go snowshoeing, which is where you put tennis-racket-type things on your feet and walk in the snow. But you probably know that. We saw where the deer had spent the night. Here’s Alison pointing out their ‘deer-beds’ as she endearingly put it. I think she looks like a knight.

She filmed me, i photographed her, and now we are sitting next to each blogging about it. From a ten-minute experience during which i fell down three times, we sure got a lot of mileage.

It has suddenly struck me that some of you might choose to comment on this post, which is kind of intimidating to me. So now i think i’ll go and eat a chocolate.

Nice meeting you,
H

guestblogger

February 13th, 2007

My friend Helen Sandler is visiting from the UK. We’ve been talking about how stressful we’re finding it to maintain our blogs. So to give ourselves a break, we’re going to swap.

cartoon playground

February 6th, 2007

Funny Times has created a site where you can make your own cartoons. I guess I can retire now. Actually, though, it’s pretty cool.

stranger than fiction

February 6th, 2007

Today Nerve.com put up their comics issue. It includes an interview with me about Fun Home with a guy named Peter Smith. I had a good time talking to him, and during our conversation he revealed to me that his mother had just written a memoir about her father. Who’s your mother? I Read the rest of this entry »

autobugography

February 6th, 2007

I’m sorry I’ve been absent from the blog recently. It’s not because of anything anyone said! I’ve just been really overwhelmed with stuff. I haven’t even had a chance to read the Salon article about author blogs yet. I’ve been trying to get some important work done, and dealing with all the backlog of administrative things that built up while I was in France for a week. Not to mention the Read the rest of this entry »

Pas de tables

February 1st, 2007

Here I am having dinner in Paris Monday night. Did you know that in France, they have no tables? It’s true. This was a lovely meal I had at Hélène & Ghanima’s apartment. Hélène teaches at the University of Tours, and arranged the academic part of my trip. On the left is Karim Chabani, who read a paper about Fun Home called “Double Trajectories” at my thing in Paris last week. And in the pink sweater is Agnes Muller, who read a paper called “Image as Paratext.” It was very pleasant being psychoanalyzed by them.

That’s the back of Ghanima’s head, and her son Alain. And I’m on the right. Ghanima made a Moroccan dish called bastilla, and a flourless chocolate cake, both of which were divine.

I’m really sorry I stopped posting–things just got too crazy at the Angoulême festival to keep it up, and now that I’m home I’m swamped with work. I’ll try to catch up soon. I’ve only had time to skim the most recent comments here–I’m looking very forward to reading that article Maggie Jochild linked to, the one about author blogs. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my relationship with the blog, and wanting to figure it out.