Polari

I'm always fascinated by slangs and margin or traveler languages.  Today I ran across something about Polari, a slang used by queers, sailors, and showpeople, and based on Romany, thieves' cant, and other languages.

Ex.  "Oh varda that bon chicken the one with the lovely dark riah, such a handsome eek."

Yesterday I was reading prisoner memoirs from the late 1800s U.S., which are full of takes on the grafter's tongue.  Some words still in use today, others not.

Polari uses "blue" for gay, which is an interesting connection to the Russian galoboy ("blue" as gay slang for "gay"). 

There's a great scene in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine where guys talk Polari in a flashback to the early 70s, with subtitles.  Since that movie is about "Maxwell Demon" - a Ziggy Stardust clone - as possibly an alien and definitely pointing us towards the stars, it's even a link to scifi...  Someday I will rattle on about Bowie as seminal (yes) 70s gay scifi...  Haynes captured that, as did Lev Raphael in a short story from his first collection the name of which I'm blanking on.

Apparently Polari is used in a Dr. Who episode too.  Interestingly, a linguist who wrote rather extensively about Polari also studied Internet trolls and discourse.  Talk about good use of time: 

"In this paper the concept of the "moral panic" is applied to computer-mediated communication through a qualitative examination of the case of a "troll" poster to the Usenet group alt.tv.melrose-place over a four month period. The notion of Internet identity construction is analyzed as a collaboration between participants, and the resolution strategies that the participants used in order to neutralize the moral panic are examined."

Reading the NYT and listening to Wiscon panels

both remind me of how opposed het feminist and lesbian agends can be.  The book about girl pilots in WWII who befriend each other...  especially if you know anything about how freeing service to their country was for dykes of a certain generation, such as Mary Renault... ending up just a smart book about the power of female friendship, it *is* like Neverland. 

In that "you will never be represented properly because our needs come first, always" kind of way.  I hate listening to how disappointing it is for a subtextual situation to become textual canonical lesbianism.  Will we ever move past Xena wank, really?

The vendor selling X:WP merch at Wiscon was kind of a throwback.  But it was refreshing, nonetheless.  What kickass at least arguably lesbian heroine has surpassed her, truly?  Plus it was "Bitter Sweet" X n G.  Still stunning.

Here's half of what  I'm crabbing about: Rowr.  We're looking for diametrically opposed experiences from that rare book with no cute-boy (or Alpha male) romance...   I get it, but I can't agree you should win every time in books that sell wide.  It's privilege and power.  I usually don't give a dime, but this stupid electoral ploy has gotten my dander up.  Must you claim exclusive rights to evrything, particularly our subcultural subversive liberatory histories?

The marathon was cancelled...

But luckily I'm a lazy runner and only registered for the 10k.  It was at night, a hilly course from the Capitol, around the U-W Madison campus, and up Observatory Hill, then down, then up again, and back to the Capitol.  Which means up a nice grade right before the final sprint.  Some nice views of the lake, glowy lights, and generally friendly runners.

The real reason for being there was of course Wiscon, the feminist science fiction convention, which was mellow and full of good conversations.  The Genderfloomp dance Sunday night and the hotel pool were the highlights for me, as well as several panels I'll discuss later and, of course, the Farmers Market.  My pointy Nina Hagen/Madonnaish costume was well-received.  Hopefully I didn't hurt anyone with the 'cones'...  If so, sorry...

We got to sneak away to visit my friend's hometown and a neighbor's goat and sheep farm for a picnic in the blazing sun.  Brats in beer and potato salad, rhubarb crisp, strawberry shortcake, and Norske Nook raspberry cream pie.  The kids sprayed us all with water to keep it from being too decadent.

Then it was back to debating race vs. class, planning for the zombiepocalypse, and plotting against the heteropatriarchy.  All in a normal days' work for the feminist cabal...

Addendum:

Apparently my partner in gender crimes (and probably crimes against dancing) came in third in her age group in the 10k.  (She's on the cusp of an age ranking change, so it's a good time to dominate...)

And I'm forgetting the sushi dinner with Mpls friends, the Outer Alliance party with book giveaways and good book suggestions, as well as friend Catherine Lundoff's release party for Silver Moon, her menopausal werewolf novel.  Seeing my Clarion West classmates Erin and Mike.  And much more...

An old gem

Butches of Madison County.  By Ellen Orleans.  Almost made the driver veer off the road from laughing...  I think that's a recommendation...

So let me get this straight...

Target, the corporate chain my GF loves to hate, who still defends their funding of Tom Emmer, the man who loves to hate, is now trying to sell those he hates t-shirts proclaiming pride in that which he hates, just in time for Target's unwillingness to oppose new more official, add it to the state Constitution hate.  But only online, not in their stores where straight people might get upset at the idea of gay pride and rainbows being sold next to the beer and hunting shirts.  And only in June, not, say, election time when the issue will be more live.  And the designs... you can do better if you actually attend Pride.  Or even making your own with a Crayola.  At age 5.  On Mars.  Because you would.use words like "Gay" or "Queer," or maybe "Lesbian" if you're really out there, instead of vague euphemisms.  With puffy rainbows.

Seriously?

"Target is not anti-gay," Michael Francis, Target's executive vice president and chief marketing officer, told The Los Angeles Times. "It's important to set the record straight..."

Poor choice of words.

I predict the GF will not be shopping there any time soon, despite it being the closest retailer to work.  Hate on.  They too too crazy.

Well, honesty, I'm holding out for Brony tees, at least.

Busy week

Last week, despite ongoing lower back pain, I managed to engage in a whirlwind of activity, including running the TC one mile (9:10, not bad for me,  and taking it easy with no sprinting.  Yes, I'm slow...).  We had a good time watching the Masters and then the pros duke it out.  4 minute something races go by fast...

Then we went to see Amy Ray at the Turf Club, a great small show.  The Butchies on backup was a nice surprise.  All the freaks and the fags at the rock show...  Plus random bar flys and some young straight chicks flaunting their engagement rings.  Um, no waiting in solidarity while the rest of us wade through pending constitutional amendment madness, I guess.  Seemed somewhat clueless, in light of the lyrics being ground out on stage.

The lady and I are contemplating the best t-shirts to make for Pride.  Something about the discount on taxes we expect for constitutionally-enshrined second class citizenship.  Not sure why the Minnesotans United people aren't playing up that possible up side of the whole debacle...  JK...

Sort of.  I'm really not keen on being fully taxed to pay for all straight people to be awarded those 515 federal marriage benefits and the 1k plus state ones.  Fund that selfish stuff yourselves and let my taxes go to the services to keep disabled folks independent jobs for all those young folks looking for some kind of leg up that the legislature didn't think we needed this year...  I don't think we'll be the only ones talking about this after election time if the hate crime enactment measure passes...

Dragon is a go!

Call me geeky, but I find this exciting:

"SPACEX LAUNCH! May 22, 2012 Falcon 9/Dragon launched successfully at 3:44 AM eastern. This marks the third consecutive Falcon 9 launch success and the fifth straight launch success for SpaceX. The Dragon spacecraft separated and the solar arrays have deployed. Watch the press conference at 5:30 AM Eastern atwww.nasa.gov/ntv."

OTOH, commercial space flight, OTOH, dudes in their backyard making a spaceship...

Mostly I'm happy because it makes the space opera I've been writing much more feasible for its time frame...

Ya Dracula...

Watching Novhnii Dozor/Night Watch, the Russian movie based on the book series.  Just got to the part where the little boy the vampires want to eat is watching the Dracula episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in Russian).  So far a decent horror thriller, not too gross or stupid...

We learn:

Some people are born different from others.  It's not good or bad, just different...

And everybody likes pelmeni/dumplings.....

Nice views of the power going out on Moscow at night from above.

Prong collars have no power if you don't believe in them... (for sure)

Wholesome vampire-filled fare...

The Ghostbusters nostalgia works too.  Plus, Best. Use. Of. The. Spine. Ever.

And the credits song based on my favorite Ray Bradury novel pretty much clinches it... Might have to read these.

Divided attention

I got on to reading The Hunger Games so we can go see the movie, mostly so I can gripe about it in an informed manner.  It hasn't really held my attention yet, 75 pages in, but the GF liked it, so I'm plowing forward.

Meanwhile  I'm also well into Celluloid Activist, the recent biography of Vito Russo, author of The Celluloid Closet and a stellar gay (GAA) and then AIDS activist in NY.  Here's a rousing speech from him.  Here's an interesting interview with  Rachel Maddow about her AIDS activism, on a sort of tangent. 

Well, then I am also taking notes on Queer Injustice, by Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock.  I went to college with Joey, who is now a fierce lawyer and directs the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul.  Watching a bio of William Kunstler a couple weeks ago made me remember I'd never got to this book.  A much-needed look at the stuff the large G-and-other-people organizations don't address, or at least not well.  Speaking of which, the City Pages had a weird article about local woman CeCe McDonald, who is on trial for murder after being trans-bashed and fighting back.  A glass in the face and all.  The City Pages has difficulty actually formulating ideas in their reporting on local people and events.  It's very post-Facebook coverage.  Typos and all.

Paris by night

Also cool.  A past  NASA photo of the day 

NASA's photo of the day

is pretty cool.   The link 

More on The Businessman

It's the little details of Minnesotan attitude that make it so readable and funny to me, one of those things one either loves or hates.  Like this:

The son-in-law of the middle-aged Minnedota woman ghost is eating a huge spread of chips, beer, pizzas, dip, liver sausage, and BLTs, and she thinks,

"Her son-in-law had never seemed so alien to [her] at this moment.  To have made such a pig of himself at some grocery store and to not have yielded to a single sweet.  No cookies, no ice cream, no Sara Lee cake- it seemed perverse and unnatural."

Hee.

Haring

Google's page for Keith Haring just looks so corporatized.  In the year where finally a good AIDS documentary (United In Anger ) came out...

I want to see this but probably can't swing it, even to visit my baby niece:the Brooklyn Museum Retrospective. 

Greatly missed.

The Businessman

Is compulsively readable even as it should not be.  It's a weird mishmash of gothic horror, pop culture, traditional Minnesota, philosophy, poetry, random spearing of science fiction tropes and authors, homage, and satire, with all kinds of pompous random asides.  Of course I love it.

I disagree with her on the book's appeal/success, but here's an intersting review by Marion Zimmer Bradley back in the day from the NYT.  I find the book deeply entertaining, like the whole Supernatural Minnesota series, and the horror is not the supernatural hoohah but the aspects of Minnesota and America that he satirizes, as clearly as he does in his futuristic SF.  Plus I like the word and idea games he plays, very Melville, especially The Confidence Man, which dove in so wholeheartedly to allegory and satire and all the trickster talents.

Here's a more sympathetic review, with more background, from the Tor blog.  The comments mention that Disch once sold the magnegic potholders a character buys, like the creepy kid who sells them in the book.  Cool detail.

But I like eating gross dead things...

It's been a long week of rice and recovery for the dog, with sleep deprivation for me.  Cleaning up after the canine while researching lesbian werewolf stories for a panel in June at the Golden Crown Society conference... it's making me grumble, "What's so glamorous about the canids anyway?"

Addendum:  Today I lost 6 hours of writing at work after a bone-head move my addled brain made.  Good work too.  There goes all my productivity for the week/month...  I have no interest whatsoever in redoing all that work, but will have to anyway.  Thankfully I had to leave early to take the dog to the vet or I would be pulling my hair out.

Seeing if I have energy left to write vs running to de-stress...  A no-brainer today.

Oh yeah, I got a new PR in last Saturday's 10k, by 5 seconds over Thanksgiving's race.  OK for all the slacking since the 10 mile, though I'd hoped for better with all that long running...  At least not regressing...

Addendum 2: Running helped.  The lakeside park was full of people doing spring things, biking, running, fishing, canoeing, teams playing fastpitch softball, soccer, and tennis, and wearing out dogs of all kinds, including a wheelie corgi.  Gotta love spring, especially after the crazy storm earlier in the day.

Happy May Day

Missed the picture as the Morris dancers ran to not get hit by the light rail, but...

Sarah Schulman on Gentrification of the Mind

Sarah Schulman has another intriguing book out: Gentrification of the Mind.  It's on my short to-acquire list, along with Carol Anshaw's new novel,  Carry the One and Saladin Ahmed's debut novel,  Throne of the Crescent Moon.

Alas, I am doing the usual thing where I wrestle with too many books at one time.  The current reads are Celluloid Activist, the bio of Vito Russo that was nominated for a Lammie, and Tom Disch's The Businessman is going down like a smoothie with maybe too many raspberry seeds in it.  I keep having to stop to pore over pretty passages...

Anyway, here's an interesting interview with Sarah Schulman to whet your appetite for a hefty hardcover (or e-book but only in adobe editions):  from 12th Street.

One of many good quotes:

"12th Street: Do you see Occupy’s strategy as queer?

Sarah: No. I think that having winnable doable goals backed up by direct action is a strategy of profoundly repressed people in crisis. Gandhi used it, Martin Luther King used it, and the Labor movement used it. People who have to have change or they will die use it."