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frivoling as the world burns

February 15th, 2009

Since I stopped writing Dykes To Watch Out For last spring, I really haven’t been following current events very closely. This seems like the sort of thing one should not admit in public, so I’m not sure why I’m telling you. I didn’t know about the flap over Read the rest of this entry »

got it

February 7th, 2009

After shooting many minutes of video in which nothing whatsoever happens.

farrago, jumble, miscellany, salmagundi, gallimaufry

February 5th, 2009

Whoever makes a coherent comment incorporating all the random items that comprise this post WINS!

1. Last night I went to Outright Vermont, our local queer youth organization, for their annual celebration and awards ceremony. Here are some pix taken by the board chair, who is also a professional photographer.

2. Here’s my cat watching a hairy woodpecker this afternoon. She hurls herself against this window fifty times a day, but I have yet to capture that part on video.

3. A concerned citizen emailed me to notify me about Rachel Maddow’s appearance on the Martha Stewart Show. She thinks Martha has a crush on Rachel. Just watch Martha’s hand on the carrots–that’s all I’m saying.

4. Here’s an interesting argument in the Women’s Review of Books by Carole DeSanti about “what women writers’ lives look like these days.”

5. The phenomenal Gretchen Phillips has just released a new album, “I Was Just Comforting Her,” and is about to do a West Coast tour.

what’s the world coming to?

February 1st, 2009

A whole buncha people emailed me yesterday about this article in the New York Times about womyn’s land. Yes, with a ‘y’. Yes, in the Times. Also, I just noticed Ready2agitate linked to it on the last post. Thank you all.

It’s a pretty cool piece. True, it’s about the increasing rarity of womyn’s rural communities, and their aging and dwindling populations. And true, it’s in the “Fashion and Style” section. But whatever. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thoughtful, respectful look at real lesbian lives in such a mainstream forum. And I’ve certainly never seen the idea of lesbian separatism given any air time whatsoever unless it was to skewer it. There’s a little bit of a “quaint and outmoded” vibe to the article, but it doesn’t poke fun at these women.

Also, there’s a great slide show with narration by the dykes who live at Alapine, a lesbian-only community in rural Alabama.

sexual dissidence

January 28th, 2009

Today I’m going to be Ginger! (I would say Sydney, but in my entire DTWOF oeuvre, I could tellingly find only one scene where she’s actually teaching a class, and it didn’t work out of context.) My friend the Queer Theory Professor has been out with a broken arm, so I’m going to teach her class this afternoon. ENGS 296 A, Sexual Dissidence. Well, I’m not really going to teach it so much as go in and talk about my memoir Fun Home, which was on the syllabus for this week.

If you happen to be in Burlington, VT this evening, come over to the Outright office for their annual reception. I’ll be there schmoozing.

And thanks to NLC for sending me the link to this really cool Gigapan photo of the inauguration. You can zoom in and out of the crowd like in Google Earth. Can you find Yo-Yo Ma taking a picture with his iPhone?

Do you know what “bonkbuster” means? I didn’t.

January 23rd, 2009

Our friend June has written a very incisive essay on the role of secret service agents in lesbian romance fiction.

1.20.09

January 20th, 2009

I was planning to have a normal work day, but it’s not going very well so far.

a short film about the weather

January 15th, 2009

I was just talking to a friend in San Francisco who said it’s been weirdly warm there. The magnolias are blooming and freaking her out. That makes me feel grateful for the very cold weather we’ve been having here in Vermont. But I was happy about it already. Here I am this morning. It looks like it might be even colder tomorrow.

this is not a real post

January 13th, 2009

…it’s just a query. I’ve been googling all day long to no avail trying to find something out, and it just occurred to me that the people of this blog might very well have the answer.

Does anyone remember a children’s educational tv program from probably 1970, where a guy in a suit and narrow tie would read a book to you? Actually, he would read the first chapter, and then urge you to finish it on your own. At my quasi-experimental school, we would actually watch this show–unheard of in those days to have kids watching tv in school. So it was on during the day. I kinda remember something about birds in the logo…or a mystery…maybe it was set up like, here’s the beginning of the book. Now you be the detective and find out how it ends. I remember watching The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe on this show. And My Side of the Mountain. And racing right out to the library to get the books.

It was probably on PBS, right? Hmm. PBS was founded in November of 1969, taking over the operations of NET, National Educational Television. Actually, NET kinda rings a bell.

Anyone?

Anyone?

the holland book

January 7th, 2009

Jeanette Winterson just wrote a very funny column in The Times (UK) about buying The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For at her local bookshop, The Borzoi, in Stow-On-The-Wold. That’s an actual place, not made up for effect. I just googled it. It’s in Gloucestershire, which is sort of interesting since I’m in the middle of reading The Tailor of Gloucester. You might think a person could get through the Tailor of Gloucester in ten minutes or so, but I’m on my third night now. It has great soporific powers.

Winterson also talks about being identified as the “homosexual authoress” in her small village. “I suppose I should be writing racy novels in a tweed skirt and brogues, but then everybody else around here wears those.” This calls to mind my own experience of lesbian rustication here in New England, where everyone dresses like a butch dyke, even the gay men, which is sometimes confusing.

But I digress. I think this is Winterson’s influence, as you will see if you read her piece.