Come to my Essential DTWOF reading in NYC tonight!
November 16th, 2008 | Uncategorized
If yer in NYC, come to my reading at the Upper West Side Bunns & Noodle at 7pm Monday night, 11/17! Look, here’s a drawing my friend Riva Lehrer made of me gesticulating wildly on Thursday at my Chicago event. She’s an amazing portrait artist. She says I have hands like a Byzantine saint. Hmmm. That was the first Byzantine saint I randomly came across on Google Image Search, and I must say, the resemblance is alarming.
60 Responses to “Come to my Essential DTWOF reading in NYC tonight!”
This calls for a special Byzantine-themed edition of DTWOF.
Modosia and Sydneycopius would be demonstrating outside the Hagia Sophia, when suddenly the Plague of Justinian would kill off all the homophobes. 🙂
This calls for a special Byzantine-themed edition of DTWOF.
Modosia and Sydneycopius would be demonstrating outside the Hagia Sophia, when suddenly the Plague of Justinian would kill off all the homophobes. 🙂
oh my god, those portraits by Riva on her website are startlingly beautiful. thanks for sharing that with us Alison (and Riva) and have fun in NYC.
We already have your books in shrines; a small step to hair combings, fingernail clippings, and the like…
Wow. Riva’s work is stunning. (Is her name pron. like “riv” as in “River” or as in “reeva”?)
Whoa. It’s a good thing I only have to type this — it’s hard to talk with your jaw on the floor. How the #^%#! does she do that?
Incidentally, could you post your itinerary here at some point? If you’re going to pass through the DC area, I’d love to be there.
Yeah, um, Riva’s art? Fucking amazing. Thanks for leading us to that.
I was telling a friend about speaking with you the other night at Women & Children First, about your horrified response when I said I’d just spent the last few days up at my mom’s house, helping her decorate for Christmas.
“Oh my Godddd!” I intoned, mimicking you. “There ought to be a laaaaw!” (FYI to blog readers: Alison, like many, was perplexed by the earliness of our Christmas decorating, until I explained that my mother operates a B&B and guests start expecting Christmas stuff to be up by Nov. 20th or so.)
“What are you doing with your hands?” asked my friend.
I hadn’t realized how I was waving my hands around, kind of continually bending them at the wrists. “Oh,” I said, “It’s just…what she does.”
P.S. That Byzantine saint has just got to be you in a previous incarnation. Now I’m off to look at more of Riva’s art.
Ng Yi-Sheng—oh, if it had only happened thusly!
Alison, thanks for the great link to Riva Lehrer. Obviously deeply talented, and helping me break down stereotypes of people with disabilities. Really powerful. Thanks again.
Alison’s Schedule
(Check the Appearances section of this blog for updates.)
Monday Nov. 17,
NYC. I’ll be at the Upper West Side Bunns and Noodle on Monday November 17th at 7pm.
Tuesday evening Nov. 18th
Cambridge MA. I’ll be at Lesley College doing a reading for the Center for New Words. Follow that link for details.
Wednesday Nov. 19th
Northampton, MA. Broadside Bookshop at 7pm.
December 2
Bear Pond Books, Montpelier VT.
December 3
Flying Pig Books, Shelburne VT. 7pm.
Have I mentioned how Montreal is a wonderful city? hmm??
i’ll be there! looking forward to it!
Alison, I’m so glad you posted Riva’s drawing! What a delight to see it on your blog.
Riva came up and showed it to me while I was waiting in line for you to sign my books at Women and Children First. The people in line behind me also saw it and were oohing and aahing. It’s an impressive and lively sketch–a warm up for more work to come, no doubt.
Ready2Agitate, Riva’s name is pronounced like “reeva”.
Ginjoint, that was you who asked that question. I remember. Now if I could’ve only seen who you were. It was very crowded that night.
I’m so excited! I’m coming to Bunns & Noodle tonight! I know it’ll be jammed, but I’ll try to come up and say hello and thank you in person for my copy of “Essential.” A ce soir!!!
Thanks Louise. If I mention her name to others, I want to pronounce it right. Her work is very moving and I’m still seeing it in my mind after traveling through her on-line gallery. Helps me to reframe my own illness/disability issues.
ps How many bloggers will be in Boston 2morrow? Just curious…
What, no appearance in Philadelphia? Alas!
We really enjoyed having you at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore when Fun Home first came out.
But at least we have a big stack of Essential out on display to tantalize all the fans!
(Okay, I guess it’s not really tantalizing if you can actually acquire the books and they don’t vanish when you reach for them, even if you can’t get them signed on site.)
Have fun in NY!
http://wonkette.com/404434/christian-group-lays-off-hundreds-after-spending-all-money-on-prop-8-passage#more-404434
Two words: HA HA!
Just to remind anyone who’s in London at present to visit the exhibition of Byzantine art at the Royal Academy. I’m not certain that the picture of Saint Theodosia included above is in the exhibition, as I don’t have the catalogue to hand, but there is certainly a very similar icon there. It’s a very good exhibition, and some of the icons from Sinai religious community are particularly impressive. I got particular pleasure from identifying the double icon of SS. Sergius and Bacchus for some visitors who couldn’t read Greek. Naturally, I explained *exactly* who they were.
Greetings, Dyke Watchers. Thanks to all of you who have visited my website after Alison posted the sketch. If you would like to comment on any of the work, or have questions, feel free to reach me by the contact link on the Circle Stories site. If you’re in Chicago you can see some of the real work by calling Printworks gallery.
Alison’s work is full of generosity, authenticity and wit. Hope you get to see her on tour.
By the way – Philadelphia – do you know about the work of Philly artist Judith Schaechter?
http://www.judithschaechter.com/Home.html
Riva Lehrer
Thank you AB for the link to Riva’s site……I am in awe of her work…..as an art therapist i find it inspiring and encouraging not only for myself but for those that I work with.
Come to Albuquerque, Alison. We don’t have our Full Circle bookstore anymore but there still are a lot of us dykes here and we have a great list serve that publicizes events. C’mon!
DeLand, I really needed that! THANK you.
You’re welcome! And the picture of the Sculpey lesbians with their cats is funny too, no?
Say, isn’t that Mo and Sydney…?
Riva, thanks for reminding me of Judith Schaechter. I met her many years ago when my partner took a class from her at Pilchuck Glass School. I found her a charming purveyor of marvelously disturbing images.
It is (moderately) fitting that your first hit was Saint Theodosia. She was martyrized for shaking the ladder a guy was using to reach and destroy an icon. She shook the ladder so strongly the guy fell and died as a result of the fall (this is why I think it is only moderately fitting: don’t like to associate AB to violent behavior). Who knows, maybe the Saint liked drawing. Plus, the more I think of the word “iconoclast”, the more Tin-Tin-esque memories come to my mind.
Aw, hell. The book tour started out in DC and I missed it.
I spent most of that week teetering on the event horizon of a diabetic coma, so I wouldn’t have gotten much out of it if I’d gone.
Still, crap.
On the other hand, the last time I missed a reading I really wanted to get to was Douglas Adams at Books & Books in Coral Gables in the early ’90s. And back then, the option of communicating with a beloved author, artist, etc. in this kind of forum just wasn’t an option. So I never got to communicate with the man (who had the temerity to suffer a massive M.I. in 2000).
Sorry, I get particularly fatuous when I go without sleep for more than 36 hours…
Well,well, well…looky here at what I just found!
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20081118/BUSINESS/81117054&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
(Hope this link works-if not, just wait for that annoying news carousel to fall on article about Holly)
Congratulations!
My partner and I are totally into compost now too, and Quebec City seems good on taking green stuff and not putting into the regular dump-they do, I believe, mega-composting. The community garden at Univ. of Laval has a massive pile too. Good stuff.
Hey, thanks, Calico for that link to great article about Holly in today’s Burlington Free Press! She’s about to officially launch her amazing and beautiful website WasteFreeLiving any second now. But it’s all up and running, go see.
THANK YOU to everyone who came to my Bunns & Noodle reading last night. That was such a lovely crowd. And lookie here! Our own Cybercita!
And Brooklyn Phil, with his friend Kathy!
I was so star struck that I couldn’t even speak! Thank you so much for being Alison! Much love from New York City.
Good golly, dzieger, my heart goes out to you! 🙁 (Type I or Type II, if I may ask…?)
And hola Cybercita – great picture – so glad to see/meetcha! 🙂
Hey! Comics Should Be Good over at Comic Book Resources finally got around to Fun Home in their monthlong survey of LGBT comics.
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/11/18/a-month-of-good-lgbt-comics-fun-home-a-family-tragicomic/
The comments board should be entertaining. The first commenter, a guy who can’t spell “metaphor”, wrote an amusingly pretentious comment accusing Alison of pretentiousness!
Reading the goodcomics.com page, it suddenly hit me (like a damn gong being let off next to my ear) that “Fun Home” can be read as “fun. home”. Funeral home. How did I miss that?
apropros of absolutely nothing: does anyone else think that the facebook “no picture” icon looks a little . . . familiar?
I’m so glad everyone had a nice time. The best part about AB’s book tour is that it makes us *all* Dykes To Watch Out For. Anyone else notice that Brooklyn Phil looks like a nicely coiffed and cheerful version of Stuart? \(^^)/
gosh, sorry i didn’t get a chance to meet the other bloggies! i was sort of thinking of wearing a name tag.
it was a wonderful evening last night. i was so glad to be there.
mc, in fact that’s what Alison and her family used to affectionately call the funeral home… that’s where the name o’the book came from.
Brooklyn Phil and Cybercita!! nice smiling faces!! yes, BP does look like a well groomed and leaner Stuart!
A (slightly strange?) heads-up for folks who might be going to the reading tonight at Broadside Bookshop in Northampton:
I wasn’t sure of the location of the store, so I looked up the address (247 Main Street, Northampton, MA) on Yahoo maps to get driving instructions.
However, the search turned up *two* separate results. I just assumed this was some sort of duplication of the record, so I just picked one.
But on closer examination it turns out that these are two, completely different addresses.
So, if there is any confusion, you want the one that is right next to Smith College. (It turns out I had initially picked the wrong one.)
Not sure what the problem is, but I figured it might be worth mentioning for other folks who, like me, will be trying to find the store on a dark (and possibly stormy) night.
Saw AB in Boston last night – very fun.
I’m left pondering her comments abt the gang. She said it turned out that Clarice & Toni are actually happier apart (I guess this is a no-brainer, but we all debated this for so long, it was just so interesting to hear it from AB!). And that she never could understand the attraction betw Mo & Sydney, except that they are both so individually extreme, they kinda needed each other to cancel each other out. (Again, probably obvious, but still, hearing it from AB was fascinating! um, OK, maybe it was kind of surreal too.)
I guess I also didn’t realize that she may not return to the strip? (the audience actually gasped) But we release you, Alison – you’ve brought such joy to so many people, go on, girl, and follow your joy! 🙂
I’m gasping too—even though I figured it was a pretty good possibility. Kind of hard to read about it here in black and white, though…
Of course, one perfectly reasonable option would be for Alison to continue to own DTWOF in all its various forms, and simply invite someone else to draw the strip. Mickey Mouse is still Mickey Mouse, even though Walt Disney is no longer here to draw him. A few months ago we saw some examples of DTWOF drawn by others, and some of those were excellent. A new cartoonist could easily run storylines past AB, be paid on a piecewise basis (from syndication income, with AB keeping a licensing and management fee and some sort of royalty). For a young cartoonist just starting out, this could be a great opportunity: by doing the job for a reasonable period of time (AB would specify some minimum) she would add a great line to her resumé and get some stable income to help her as she started out in her career. Of course, this would mean some stylistic changes in the strip every few years, and inevitably storyline emphases would change, but with AB overseeing things there would be no shocking departures, just a new eye on our old friends. And, of course, Alison would be able to return to the strip any time she wanted – or be free to write DTWOF specials, or concentrate on other creative endeavours.
Lemme post a YouBoob funny pussy cat vid to provide an oasis of calm amongst the panic:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ-jv8g1YVI
(It’s a cat riding a roomba – whatever that is).
Sorry, but in my opinion, only Alison can do “Dykes.”
Some folks are great illustrators but have no understanding of language play or the beauty of brevity. Other write storylines which are stale, predictible, or forced.
If DTWOF disappears, I’d rather see an artist or writer develop their own vision, not create a 3rd rate version of someone elses.
I agree, only AB can do the strip. I recommend everyone to read or re-read the Introduction strip in “Essential,” because that has helped me understand why she may be needing to move onward. I’m going to miss DTWOF so much, not just for the writing, but for the exquisite cartoon technique; Alison’s a master of masters! As for me, to whom comics mean so much, I’m coping with this “loss” by thinking that I used to live in this great neighborhood with all these interesting, passionate people, but they moved away and now I’m not involved in their daily lives anymore. I’ll be wondering how various characters feel about news developments, and how their personal lives are going, but I’ll know they’re doing okay off in the ether somewhere, and that will just have to do. [oh no! too maudlin?] And I’m so looking forward to the incredible stuff AB will do in the future.
Just my two cents…
Kassie, I agree. I’ve got to admit, tho’ I was laughing through the introduction, I was also getting a weird “Stardust Memories” sort of vibe when the thought occurred to me “she doesn’t want to do this anymore…” So I can’t say I’m shocked or suprised. But a world w/o Mo?
I think I need a beer…
Here’s a reading from San Francisco!
Enjoy!
Damn, Can’t embed heres the link…
http://fora.tv/2008/11/10/Alison_Bechdel_Essential_Dykes_to_Watch_Out_For
Sorry to alarm. I hadn’t heard it either till she said it last night. And she wasn’t exactly “announcing” but kind of thinking out loud. Her feelings & reasons were apparent, though. I mean, 25 years of a deadline every 2 weeks (!) followed by a stunning debut as a graphic memoir artist-author, followed by a second book deal….
Guess we’re lucky enough to stick around and find out!
She seems to need time to regroup, though. Of course after she said this, the Q&A quickly turned to thoughtful Q’s e.g. how come before she could write a book AND the strip and not now? Would she bring story-lines to closure first? etc. (and even this one: Will you still keep your blog going??? …to which she laughed shyly, and said, I dunno… it sure is a good distraction!) (while pondering if – as someone asked at her LA appearance – it dissipates her autobiographical focus to keep an on-line diary-cum-blog…(!))
Eepers, I sound like a big dorky fan recounting all these details, huh?!
ian, thanks for posting that cute cat vid! a roomba is a robot vacuum cleaner. and apparently a really cool cat toy.
Nice to meet Cybercita and Brooklyn Phil! Great smiles!
Yeah, I too have noticed how in both recent interviews and when I heard Alison speak last week that it seems the strip hiatus has become permanent. When I’m not in denial, I feel really sad.
Ian, that video is hilarious – I think my cats would hide under the bed, not ride it. (P.S. – a Roomba is an automatic vacuum cleaner/Hoover, take your pick.)
Thank you to Riva Lehrer for introducing me to the work of Judith Schaechter. I was almost late to work the other day because I couldn’t leave her website.
Ooops, didn’t mean to repeat what Cybercita said – cross post.
Oooh thanks Ginjoint & Cybercita! It’s so nice to chat in a place where I can post a cute cat vid without coming across as too gay … 😉
Ian, there’s no such thing as “too gay”!
(If I were in the mood to get on my soapbox, I’d be pointing out the internalised homophobia implicit in your worries about being “too gay”, but it’s late and I’m tired…)
Oh, I did love the video, though.
Reminds me of the strip where Carlos explains to Raffi: Well it *IS* gay if you mean wonderful and beautiful and sexy and cool and fabulous (I’m paraphrasing, natch). Ian, you just might be!
I can’t believe it! .. You posted that Roomba cat video here? I’ve seen that in every place I’ve gone on the web. EVERY place. You can’t get away from videos of cats riding around on vacuum cleaners! Well, it’s web 2.08 I guess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIjE8BVV-VI
Well thanks R2A(2)! You can say things like that all night long! All compliments welcome, you’ll find your cheque on the sideboard next to the Tanquerey. Gay IS good though …
LondonBoy, I’m saying this with love. Lighten up already. Your soapbox is not needed. I’ve plenty of issues to keep my therapist busy, but internalised homophobia’s not one of them. I seriously only worry about being too gay when I’m surrounded by neo-Nazi skinheads with “queerbasher and proud” tattooed on their foreheads.