big day
April 21st, 2014 | Uncategorized
Hol and I are on our way to Charleston. So is the cast of the musical “Fun Home.” Tonight we’re going to do a presentation at the College of Charleston together. I think it’s going to be pretty amazing.
For a little context, here’s an article about it from the Times.
36 Responses to “big day”
I’m so proud of you all! My pal Frieda gave me a copy of the sound track to Fun Home and it’s such a moving piece of musical theatre and shortlisted for the Pulitzer, and what can I say Alison– you rock!
Thanks for coming down South. You know you’re not in Vermont anymore when it takes an act of censorship by the state Legislature to draw hundreds of allies and LBGT folk together in one room. This was the single largest queer-friendly crowd (aside from Pride) we’ve been in since leaving Vermont for Charleston last January. Moving evening.
I just attend the 7pm show. So moving!! Thank you for sharing your story. Pretty amazing is spot on!!
I’m kind of glad the state legislator showed their ignorance by cutting CofC funds b/c of your work. Y’all probably wouldn’t have come otherwise! So many more people are talking about the controversy and showing their opposition to backward, outdated thinking.
I have such optimism after seeing tonight’s turnout – optimism through tears though. I’m touched deeply and on so many levels.
[…] Alison Bechdel and a expel of a off-Broadway low-pitched instrumentation of her striking discourse “Fun Home” packed Memminger Auditorium on Monday night with a span of shows featuring songs from a Pulitzer-nominated strike play amid ongoing protests on campus by students vicious of state politicians’ bill cuts over a school’s assignment of “Fun Home” as a summer reading book final year. [Alison Bechdel blog, PC, ABC News 4] […]
So glad that you all are doing this.
My husband, Craig, and I witnessed the amazing presentation of the 9:00 pm show. I feel privileged to be there and in such wonderful company. Thank you, Allison…for everything.
Just saw an article about this on the front page of The Washington Post online. I’m sure all of you will be amazing, as is your book. If the College of Charleston needs the $52,000 that may be cut, I’m sure a crowdsourcing fundraiser would raise that much and then some in no time.
I hope the musical comes to DC soon. Best wishes!
Some folks have talked about the performance in Charleston as a provocative gesture to the SC legislature, but Alison has made it fairly clear that she could care less about butting heads with those guys. One might as well talk to a brick wall!
I think anyone who has really read DTWOF or the books knows that they are intended to honour the lived experience, and aren’t about shock value. It’s marvellous that Alison and the Fun Home cast went to Charleston to offer solidarity (and maybe a bit of solace) to queer youth. Well done, youse.
To the theat-ah!
[“Alison Bechdel will receive the [Lambda] Foundation’s Trustee Award for Excellence in Literature […]”
Article available [HERE] –Mentor]
Ann Patchett has written very interestingly about facing a similar situation in SC in 2006, over her book Truth and Beauty:
“The Love Between the Two Women is Not Normal”
Any plans to take the show out West? What an incredible way to present this story!
The Latta, South Carolina, town council has unanimously passed an emergency ordinance blocking the firing of police chief Crystal Moore, the 23-year-veteran of the Latta police dept. who was recently fired by the new Latta mayor. Coincidence, you say? Ha! 🙂
[AB, FHtM, and SC in Slate: Click [HERE] — Mentor]
[For those of us who weren’t there: [CLICK HERE]…
…and be sure to click on the link “View the Entire Photo Gallery”
(I’m especially fond of the distinction between “Small Alison”, “Medium Alison”, “Adult Alison” and “Real Alison”) –Mentor]
The Women in Black photo (36 of 41) is my favorite! 🙂 Also, biscuits and gravy (another photo in the series) was something I learned to love when I lived in New Orleans. Coarse-ground black pepper is the key. Also, I’m must admit that I’m intrigued by Michael Cerveris’s comment on lemon in chicken soup. Intriguing.
(#15) Doubly so!
Adding lemon to a chicken broth is a Mediterranean thing, I think. The key is to perfectly clarify the the chicken broth. I don’t really have measurements for this, because you just have to do it by eye and taste, sorry. Basically, just make a mirepoix (sauteed vegetable mix), push it up a little by adding garlic to taste, then add broth. Get it very hot then add cold cooked chicken cut thin and lemon zest to taste. (You add the zest earlier than the juice because you need the extra cooking time for the oils in the zest to break out into the broth.) Then cook through, adding lemon juice towards the end, probably about half a lemon per pint, though it depends on the size of your lemon and how lemon-y they are. If you haven’t clarified the broth properly you will get icky bits floating in the broth, but this probably won’t affect the taste too much. You can make this heartier by adding more vegetables (carrot julienne would work nicely with the citrus, probably) or a thin pasta.
Interesting (LondonBoy #17). I don’t think of myself as a cook, although I used to come back to Smallville from the University of Kansas on weekends to cook for my father… this is the sort of recipe I’d have tried! 🙂
In case folks hadn’t seen this: "Fun Home Literary References".
It looks like the SC Senate voted not to cut the funding. You’ll never convince me this concert production and display of solidarity didn’t help that happen. Way to go!
Blogjack: people may be interested in this piece on the diversity of American comics from the end of the thirties to the beginning of the fifties. It’s light on details but that means it doesn’t take long to read. If, like me, you don’t know much about comics history, you’ll learn from it.
The author (the sff novelist Saladin Ahmed) mentions the Bechdel Test. He gets bonus points for understanding how minimal it is: he criticizes later comics for not even passing it.
@Andrew B (#21)
Interesting article… Also note that there is often a silver lining within the cloud.
One of the unintended outcomes of the Comic Code was MAD Magazine. EC Comics (which published many of the titles and genres banned by the CCA) started publication of MAD in 1956 after the CCA essentially made all their existing business illegal. Bill Gaines was the publisher of EC and MAD, and the editor was Al Feldstein, the artist who wrote/illustrated the controversial black astronaut comic mentioned in the article. Feldstein died last week at age 88.
http://www.technologytell.com/entertainment/43097/mad-magazine-ec-comics-artist-editor-al-feldstein-dies-88/
MAD had an enormous impact on many of us Baby Boomers, AB included. AB’s DTWOF marginalia and parody product names are directly descended from/influenced by MAD.
I remember hiding copies of MAD, and surreptitiously reading them under the covers with flashlights. And of course, the only way I learned English parts of speech was via MadLibs. [N.B. Decliqueification – MadLibs are/were a small pad of pre-written stories with blanks for critical words, listed as nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, proper nouns, etc. The players provide the missing words (the more preposterous, the better) in advance of reading the story, filling in the blanks with the list of words as the story is read aloud.]
(… goes back to her [adjective], [adjective], [noun], while [verb] her [noun] [adverb] …)
Any other Canadians notice that a certain gross Tory rag actually ran a couple of stories about women cartoonists, just in time for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival?
I remember reading my father’s copy of Mad Magazine back in the 60’s, after he was done with it. He was a big J.R.R. Tolkien fan, as well. Typical 60’s American dad (?) There is push-back on the Smallville school board’s plan to add LGBT to the school district non-discrimination clause. The key School Board meeting will be tonight. I plan to be there.
… and, HERE is a Moo U student newspaper article about a recent transgender-related event that was organized by the local human rights group that I serve as secretary. Although it was inexplicably not mentioned in the article, after the event I presented Adam (the transgendered man on the local billboard for the Face of Trans campaign) with one of my old suit vests.
[
“Fun Home Aiming for Spring 2015 Broadway Arrival”
More [HERE] –Mentor]
I’ve already been telling my students that 2015 will be a year long remembered – NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arrives at Ceres (the largest asteroid), NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flies past Pluto and its moons and now… those talented kids are hitting the big time! 🙂
Btw, by a 5 – 2 vote, the addition of LGBT to the Smallville school board’s anti-discrimination policy passed its second and final reading yesterday evening. The school board president said before the meeting (with, I think, unintended irony) that he was determined to “stand his ground” and get the addition made. With last night’s action by the board, it has been made.
Cheers to you, Kate L! And I share your excitement about New Horizons, I’ve always been fascinated by Pluto.
Thanks, Acilius! 🙂 Tomorrow morning at local planetary dawn, Smallville progressives will once more assemble to take the high ground along the entrance to the coliseum where Moo U’s Spring Commencement will be held. We do this to force the Westboro Baptist Church folks down the hill and away from the graduates, their friends and family. Meanwhile, the Kansas Board of Regents has issued a new policy allowing for the firing of faculty on the basis of what they post in social media. (Sound of knocking on the door behind Kate L) Hey, who’s that at my door at this time of night? OH, MY GOD, IT’S THE REGENTS! I BETTER SIGN
In case anyone’s following here but not on Twitter or Farcebook … FH the Musical won a stack of “Obie” awards. I have no idea what those are but people who care about live theater seem to think they’re a big deal. Can’t hurt the chances for a Broadway production.
It would kind of suck if Sydney Lucas has gotten too old by next spring and somebody else has to originate the part of small Alison on Broadway. (I mean, it would suck relative to a world in which she gets to originate the role on Broadway, not that it would suck relative to a world in which the show never makes it to Broadway. I hope I’m just being my usual anal retentive self and I didn’t really need to explain that.)
Anyhow, congratulations to Kron, Tesori, Lucas, and all the other winners.
Andrew B: You forgot the hyphen… Or possibly you didn’t. Can we get some guidance on this once and for all, please?
… Andrew B (#30) so facebook and tweeter are where everyone went? I was getting worried! 🙂 A moment ago, I checked my facebook account, and just saw a birthday greeting for my birthday – in 2013. Anyway, take a gander at this photo from a recent Date with Hate Moo U graduation counterprotest to the Westboro Baptist Church (who are down the hill because of our presence, and out of the photo). I’m wearing the grey top.
LondonBoy, I just looked up that strip. It was the January illustration from the 1990 calendar. People born in January 1990 are now 24. How is this possible? (And don’t give me any simplistic reductionist stories about “arithmetic” or “the period of the earth’s revolution around the sun”. Harrumph.)
People who like to do dtwof fanfic: what do you suppose Harriet is up to now?
(Also, if you’re looking for that strip, it’s in Indelible AB but not Essential dtwof — because it was originally a calendar illustration, not part of the biweekly strip. Took me a while to figure that out.)
Kate, I think more Facebook — I don’t use it, but I’m pretty sure Acilius and others have said there’s some communication among dtwof fans there. I only mentioned Twitter because that’s where I found out about the Obies. Alison tweets rarely. If you do a search on “Bechdel” on Twitter, you mostly find numbskulls who are confused about the Bechdel Test.
[FYI:
"National Park Service looks to add historic LGBT sites" (e.g. starting with the Stonewall Inn)
Article [HERE] –Mentor]
((Mentor #34) Great! 🙂 My own private LGBT historical site is the house at the end of the cul-de-sac that runs by the east side of my house in Smallville. It was where the first openly gay couple in Smallville lived in the late 60’s, before they were shunned by the neighbors and left. I wonder where the women are, now, and I still think of it as their house. 🙁 Meanwhile, the Harvey Milk commemorative U.S. postage stamp is, as the Post Office would say, coming out. And, George Takei twittered the following Star Trek – related image.
[AB has been kind of busy recently, so here are a couple links:
– Lambda Literary Awards for Excellence in Literature: [CLICK HERE]
– Article on talk at BAM [CLICK HERE]
–Mentor]