Riding shotgun

Some really nice photos

 Of lesbian/queer writers.  An intereznii site I had not run across yet.  Nice series about pulp and interview of Ann Bannon, which is how I found it...

Strange Frame

I missed the hype for this, which apparently was shown at Dragoncon: "Strange Frame," Produced: 2012 Director: G.B. Hajim, Starring: George Takei, Claudia Black, Tara Strong, Ron Glass, Cree Summer, Tim Curry, Juliet Landau, Alan Tudyk. 

Wolfe Video sez: "This gorgeous animated sci-fi story is centered around the theme of the transformative power of love between two women. As our story begins it is the 28th century, 200 years after the Great Earth Exodus. We’re on Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons. Our hero Naia (prolific voice actress Tara Strong) is a feisty, young singer-songwriter who falls in love with the beautiful saxophonist Parker (Claudia Black —Farscape, Stargate SG-1). The two embark on their new relationship and also form a new band —and now they have to not only make it as musicians but also to fight for their freedom. ..."   More and a trailer here. 

Wow.  Can't wait til 3/19...

Pet peeve

The homonym spelling error that most makes me pull my hair out actually hit the NYTimes Magazine: "loose" for "lose."  It's so prevalent I dare say it threatens to overtake the proper spelling.  Call me a pedant.  I hate hate hate it.

Speaking of word wars, Edmund White's "The Married Man" is very compelling, and he keeps teaching me new French words I did not know.  The protagonist is an American living in France who eventually tries to go back to the U.S. with his younger French boyfriend, who is not yet divorced with his snazzy wife.  U.S. immigration snags and the self-doubt of being the older, seropositive partner take over, and the culture shock of teaching on a liberal arts campus makes the situation worse. 

His observations on language and behavior are pretty entertaining.  And I can root for him even more because I know he will never loose his marbles no matter how far or hard he falls off his rocker...

"...and go in peace"

For some reason Najara from the Xena:WP episode "Crusader" is on my head talkin'...  Sitting on the couch warming up while tofu is cooking, watching "By Hook or By Crook" again with my lady, decompressing after skiing (cross country) at Fort Snelling.  Twilight snow, it's pretty.

Weekend

The library tossed up a couple gems this week in the rustle through the DVD bin. 

Andrew Haigh's "Weekend" was a surprisingly intelligent romance, and it moved along despite being a quiet, understated, somewhat moody character study.  A one night stand in a midlands English city leads to a very interesting set of discussions and confrontations between two guys.  Reviews such as this sum it up well, but it's more about interaction than plot.

"My Brother is an Only Child" (Mio Fratello e Figlio Unico) from 2006 won 4 Donatello awards, like the Italian Oscars, and was actually quite good.  1960s Italian politics splits two brothers, between communism and fascism, but life is complicated.  The language seems made for arguing, and everyone does, a lot.  Cool cars.

"By Hook or By Crook" (2006) is a classic butch film, made by the former owners of Red Dora's Bearded Lady cafe (in 90s San Francisco).  Silas Howard was in Tribe 8 and now makes films, and Harry Dodge does theater and art videos.  This film made Sundance, and is a really interesting mix of stuff that has/had not been put into a relatively well-distributed film before, class, gender, mental illness, sexuality, and the self-consciously freewheeling SF dyke/queer scene from a particular moment in time, before things got less fluid all over queerly gendered America...

"Cronos" is Guillermo del Toro's breakout debut feature film, and I have never seen it, only read and heard about it.  SF time travel horror fantasy gothic goodness, en espanol...  Should be interesting.  Hard, freezing rain is supposed to fall all day and night, so it's nice to have a break from shoveling planned...

Cyberlandia

An interesting piece on the role of lawyers as cyberwarfare becomes a major arena for modern conflict, from the ABA journal.   This too. 

An interesting aspect of the Gessen book about recent Russian politics (The Man Without a Face) is the role of Facebook and Twitter, not just in organizing protests but used by top officials to promote their censorship and prohibitions on dissidence.  Branding, for dictators...

Yo

To the brilliant mind who was brave enough to say "dyke" on my answering machine, I'm astounded by your perspicacity and powers of observation.  Really.  And shamed, so ashamed.  It's like you spoke my innermost secret out loud... Kind of like my very gay blog...

I hope you're the wonderful spirit who's been harrassing my girlfriend, 'cos my estimate of your moral integrity and intelligence is soaring that much more.  Really.  Cheers.

Snow makes Minnesotans happy

Brains!

Well, actually seitan, the vegan brains substitute.  Same difference...

Train's coming

It's hard to blog with frozen fingers.  The driver actually waited for the two people who were struggling  to get the ticket machine to work fast enough to make the early Saturday morning train- 15 minute intervals in wet freezing air.  A minor miracle.

Off to work overtime, I am starting back on "The Married Man" after finishing the Gessen book last night and Tove Jansson's The True Deceiver the night before. 

Jansson manages to compress seething emotions and explosive interactions into so few words, it's scary.  Really intense reading.  There's a lesbian subtext in this novel, like The Haunting of Hill House, but nothing explicit like the last one I read.  (Name escaing me, two artists living together.)

The book about Putim, The Man Without a Face,  is kind of a wild ride- much like Russian history and novels, things just get worse and worse...  It is a good primer for reading the current news from there, with more depth of understanding of what's really going on beyond the headlines.  Honestly, it makes one scared to write a review with any substance, and even more scared for the author.  Being out in Moscow with three dependent children is dangerous enough at this time...