Taking notes on Eminent Outlaws

And they thought she ate cats.

I'm going back over Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America, by Christopher Bram, taking notes this time.  It's really an interesting nutshell of one take on the social changes that led to this current moment of public displays of gay (swype keeps wanting to write "gassy") affection and institutionalization in the non-psychiatric sense.

Speaking of which, one of the more interesting biographical sketches in the book is of the early life of Allen Ginsberg, about whom I knew only the later highlights.  I hadn't really taken in just how long he tried to live as heterosexual, living with his parents after eight months in a psychiatric hospital (following an arrest for helping steal a car for a joyride and drug possession) and even while living in New York. 

I did not know the world basically owes his later body of work and influence to a psychologist who said, essentially, " Why not live with the guy if you want to?" and "Oh, everyone gets old.  There will still be people who will like you."  So he moved in with Peter Orlovsky, set off hitchhiking across the country, and wrote "Howl."

Amazing what a difference the different shrinks made.  Tho not surprising, pre-APA rethink...

We watched "Kolya," that Czech movie from the early 90s that won an Oscar but I never got around to seeing.  I was afraid it would be cloying, but it was quite restrained, and politically charged.  The kid speaking clearly enunciated Russian was a bonus. 

I'm reading a Norwegian police procedural by a real life cop from the same small seaside town (Closed for Winter by Jorn Lier Horst).  It's OK but not great, not bad as a slice-of-life mystery.  We finally got to go skiing (Nordic) after yesterday's break in our thaw, so reading about snow is not quite as exciting as it was two days ago...  I can't lift my legs very high now, but it was fun in the moment...

Anyway, back to work.

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Translating Dostoyevsky

http://www.moscow-russia-insiders-guide.com/dostoevskaya-moscow-metro-station.html

An interesting piece on the Victorian woman who made Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekov, and others accessible to Victorian Anglophones, and several more generations:  Constance Garnett.  It highlights the tradeoff between accessibility and accuracy.  Would they get a crack translation if they hadn't been popularized first?  Or is that a false choice?  Maybe now but not back when?

I got a copy of Crime and Punishment in the original, so I am going to have to read it very very slowly.  I read it breathlessly in translation at thirteen, likely Garnett's translation.  The Classic comic from my Dad's dog-eared collection got me hooked.  There probably isn't a more bowdlerized translation, but it got this reader on the road to learning the language and pursuing rereading several times.  Don't judge a book by its cartoon...

Check out the metro station,  here. 

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Bringing you back

The best version of an old school tune I've seen:  Serve your fellow man.   And the original:  TVP.  And  YMCA.  How people miss the text- it sure ain't subtext- is beyond me.  The foray into  New Wave is pretty awesome, too.

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Quiet night

Coming home after work Christmas Eve

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Dear White People

MOA 12/20/14

All year, I have wanted to see this movie. 

It was supposed to come to the MSPIFF, but it was not finished in time.  Then it previewed here while I was out of town. Finally, it is in general release.  Timely.

The real action in town:  Yes.   Yes.   Yes.  Live blogged.

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Stilyagi/Стиляги

Hipsters (Stilyagi/Стиляги, roughly those obsessed with the latest styles, followers of fashion) is a 2008 Russian musical about youth rebel group centered around djazz and clothing in bright primary colors in the Stalinist '50s.  I got it to work on my ochin plokho Russkii Yzook, but the music and costumes are snazzy and it's very watchable.

Wikipedia says it's fictional, which.is true of the particular charasters. A Russian magazine begs to differ: Stilyagi IRL.  I thought the Hipsters seem a lot like the youth who hung out in the park in the '80s.Hipsters reminded me of Little Vera, from 1989, but much more fun.

Singy Bits and the awesome song "Человек и Кошка" ("Man and Cat")- Yeah.  

I recently read half of White Fever by Jacek Hugo-Bader, a Polish journalist who decided to drive across Siberia, a formidable endeavor as he explains.  Here is a good review explaining the range of topics he covers, from The Guardian. He also has a huge section on the history and ways of Russian hippies and their slang, which is entertaining. Olduvuis should enjoy it... If not, take a Heik back to your Flet...

Also in looking for Stilyagi, I found an interesting set of articles on Russian graffiti/ Post-Soviet Graffiti.

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As 2014 careens toward its end

Another pleasure of 2014 is seeing so many high school and 20 something folks speaking their minds and being active about systemic injustice.  Also seeing over-thirty friends get involved for their first time.  I'm so jaded, having done police brutality and prison activism and researched the stats and stories starting over 20 years ago now, and having worked for a public defender in a notoriously racist county and then rural legal aid. 

It's really nice to see people discover the power of working together and stuff like all those cheesy old chant slogans.  They're cheesy, but so true.  It's not fun being an old fart who sold out and has to keep most thoughts to herself, but I had my say back in the day and it's more interesting to hear what people made of everything that's been said and done and see what they come up with to address the here, now, and future.

I'm not saying people can afford to not study history deeply or not talk to the old folks who truly have something to contribute.  Just saying Right on.

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On the Ice

From www.ontheicethemovie.com

Netflix occasionally has gems.  When dogsitting, I have been watching movies.  "On the Ice" turned out to be a well-made film using local non-actors who did a great job. 

The movie was shot in Barrow, Alaska.  There is a lot of snow and ice there, which was weird to see during our thaw and rain.  Snowmobiles are the main form of transportation, which remined me of the teens who drive in endless circles around this gas station off 35 by Northfield.

Like the promo materials say, two Inuit teens who are best friends cover up the accidental death of another friend, in the midst of the usual teen romantic turmoil, drinking, and drug experimentation. 

Things go south, and the young man playing the protagonist really shines as the good kid who is caught between the values he was raised with by his solid father and grandmother and his best friend, whose father drank himself to death.  The friend role involves drunken rages and impulsivity, the stuff of many stilted teen movies and afterschool specials, but the tension between the two keeps it real.

This reminded me that I did not discuss "The Lesser Blessed," the movie based on Richard Van Camp's novel about Tlicho/Dogrib teens in Canada.  That movie was similarly well made and acted, creating a bleak and tense atmosphere that did the novel justice.  The guy playing the protag, Larry Sole, carries the movie, which also has Benjamin Bratt and Kiowa Gordon.

Both worth checking out:

On the Ice trailer

The Lesser Blessed trailer/ imdb entry 

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Writing on the fly

This week I was reminded why I so rarely write review or nonfiction anymore, besides noodling here, where my phone throws up random typos that I don't catch from time to time, much as I try. 

I agreed to write the yearly roundup on a tight schedule.  I went in early to work and wrote in the coffee shop, stayed up late after a long day at work, where I write like 20 pages and read up to 1,000 pages of records a day.  I got my thoughts on the pleasures of 2014 and my Christmas mailing done.  I finally got some sleep.

And then I realized the stupid mistakes I had made, like mangling the plot of Belle because I could not remember and the reviews I googled were no help.  I misspelled Cheeky Frawg Press's name, dumb stuff like that, which is no worse than most published books or major newspapers these days.  But of course that bugs me to no end, 'cos I pride myself on clean copy. 

And worse, I totally left out one of the best books I read this year, Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist, likely because I could not read the notes I scrawled on the back of a gym schedule while on the train, d'oh.  I have the ability to focus deeply for long periods of time but also have to use checklists and phone reminders due to mental disorganization and memory lapses.  It's some mental tradeoff for being able to hold a world of information in my head and manipulate it visually.  I am also a Virgo.  This combo means I do not like to agree to short deadlines where I may not get to proof a day later, after the errors come to me in my sleep...

So, ya know, I'm mentioning Bad Feminist here again.  It is an amazingly thought-provoking read.  Here's a recent sample of the kinds of essays Gay makes look deceptively effortless in the book: Roxane Gay talking about how we don't hear stories about rape and abuse well.  Here's what led me to it, another great essay summing up the journalistic fail at Rolling Stone so well. 

I wish I had time to try and write intelligent stuff for the internets, and fiction, and act up, but I have a job to do as a public servant and it ain't happening, so I'm really glad so many people are, who most likely have more intelligent, timely, and informed things to say anyway.  And access to their thoughts is so much faster than ever.  That is truly one of the great pleasures of 2014.

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Trapped

Well, not exactly, but it keeps snowing and I am dogsitting baby dog, who cannot be left alone.  Her BFF is working on her Flyball Master title while we shovel and cook up CSA veggies for the week.

The salad is an odd amalgam of veggies and crap I cleaned out of the fridge and cupboards, but it worked.  Chioggia beets, microwaved til tender and chopped, orange pieces halved, a few chopped walnuts and pepitas for protein, and lettuce. 

The dressing is tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, a touch each of cumin, turmeric, garlic powder, onion powder, and mustard, and palmfuls of parsley and arugula.  Goes with the potato, leek, carrot, arugula soup I made yesterday.  Fennel lemon peel bread is rising, using up some old buttermilk powder that was hardened into a ball. 

Slightly more hospitable in those dark corners of the kitchen...  Puppy helped by licking the floor.  Then we worked on the project of getting her to pick up a toy or ball and bring it back.  She will sometimes do this in the yard, but mostly if BFF the ball hog competes for it, growl growl. 

In the house, she's too shy and cautious, even with treats.  So far, she'll catch a soft cat toy but not a ball, but then spits it out.  Or nose a ball but not pick it up, with scorn and groaning about not just getting treats for offering downs and cute poses.  Shaking took a while, but now she offers the spotted paw almost every time, with only slight disdain.

I'm trying to finish Bad Feminist (Roxane Gay) before it's due.  It's very good, but better in chunks with breaks in between essays.  To think about them and because a lot of the subjects are heavy: racism, rape culture, Penn State, body image, eating and weight, even her pop culture analysis is not lite.  She almost has me convinced I should read the rest of The Hunger Games, which is a feat. 

Mostly I am nodding my head, glad *someone* can say all these things so well, in current terms, without making me groan or bite my tongue.  The dog is not impressed, but I will have to buy my own copy, as I suspected based on her columns, short stories, and tumblr posts.

Anyway, time to punch down dough and go shovel some walks for folks who need a hand.  We'll see how good her heel is, though she did great running yesterday, not pulling me over in slidy freshly falling snow.  Though if i'd had a sled or skis I think we would have been in business. 

She woofed at another (full) husky, very excited, which she has not done before then, before SIBERSKI SNEG!  (Even when the dude who has his Husky pull him on a scooter on the sidewalk goes by.)  Better than the Chewbacca yowl she sometimes does when she feels Treats Are Due for some feat of obedience.

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QOTD

"The heart is clearly not on a happy picnic in this novel." -review of The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

It made *me* laugh...  The review is interesting, though.  As the one of In Cold Blood.  Kind of old fashioned, but insightful.  I was researching Norman Mailer, because my reading lately keeps mentioning him and his books (like his battles with Gore Vidal) and then a documentary about Provincetown had him in it.  (Apparently he lined his yard with lime to keep Roy Cohn cooties away from his sons.). Not sure I can go there, though.

I plowed through the bio of Edmonia Lewis last night.  The authors are odd and do a lot of grandstanding, but there is a solid recounting of the horrible events that happened at Oberlin College and how whitewashed the history of that has been (like much of the college's handwaving about its evangelistic and racially divided past).  The plates of her sculptures are also worth moving through all the words.

Doctor Sleep was awesome, except that it made me want to read The Shining again.  (Too scary.)

Now I'm starting a book about travels in Siberia and the history of the Cossacks as shock troops of the tsars, River of No Reprieve by Jeffrey Tayler.  So far it explains the origins of many place names and words in Sibir and gives a good recounting of Ivan the Terrible's reign.  Not far off from Game of Thrones...

Today I'm looking forward to more yard work and gutter cleaning to get ready for Snowmaggedon 2014.  (Ten inches!  Only in early November does this freak us out here in Nordilande, more change is hard than fear of snow.  The city thinks it will be street cleaning for fall leaves the next three weeks, ha.)  Hopefully I will get to running with Ms. Betty, the husky/border collie who barely has to move to pull at the leash at my pace.  Yesterday I made soup and enchiladas verde with the bounty from the final farmers market two weekends ago and my first CSA box.  That should get us through the adjustment to Winter Has Come...

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Necessary fripperies

(A commenter on a Guardian excerpt from the book called it a frippery. She read the frippiest part of the book.  I would not call even that a frippery, but I believe more in books as life's bread...)

I spent a fair amount of free time over the last year searching out essays and interviews by Roxane Gay, after stumbling on an essay and her tumblr.  Now there's a collection, and it's funny, biting, deep, and oh so jaded that it's fresh again.  She really is a pleasure to read, and not a guilty one, despite the "bad feminist" schtick.  We know what she's getting at with that, and she's right to strike that pose in this cultural moment.  It is demanded of a thinker.

I've been doing too much dog training to read the title as I should, but: Bad Feminist.  Worth checking out.  I may say more layer on it, but I have trouble getting around to virtual socializing these days.

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Ruska-aika

It is fall-to-winter again.  I'm not sure how that happened.  I was cold and snowed in and lazy, then just stayed lazy while it was briefly warm and darn hot.  Now I should be raking leaves but it's very windy.  That's my excuse, anyway.  Plus I'm warming my cat up.  He gets cold with all that long fur.

Instead I was watching a film about much-harder-working people, and working on my Finnish vocabulary:  Finns in the UP.  The 80s hair is cool too...

I was reading more Scandicrime books, but the Swedish thriller was very derivative and word heavy and the Finnish comedic noir was too crass and head hopping for me.  So I have nothing new to recommend in that vein.  The GF is hooked on Sigurdadottir's thrillers, and the latest ghost story is good: I Remember You.  Creepy.

I just started a biography of sculptor Edmonia Lewis that promises to be earth I shattering.  I'd like to learn more about her, anyway.  I know about the mysterious scandal at my alma mater but not enough about her art and later life.  Sounds like a lot of research went into the book, so we'll see...

Tomorrow the NY marathon is supposed to have massive headwinds.  The Lakefront marathon in Milwaukee was unreasonably cold when I spectated a couple weeks ago.  Good luck peoples.  I think I'm glad to be a lazy lump this season and only swimming, followed by the hot tub or sauna.  Did I mention it's cold? 

The trick-or-treaters last night were all bundled up or moving fast, and my fingers almost froze to the metal bowl.  Luckily, they did not snatch up all of the Pirate's Booty (cos you have to have a gluten free candy alternative these days, not just non-peanut).  That should keep me from raiding the leftover chocolate for a few days, time enough to dump it on my coworkers instead, that fine Halloween tradition.

The plan is to be less of a lump this winter despite ghost torn glute pain and the ice, frigid air, and snow they say is coming.  Skiing, running, writing, rah.  NaNoWrimo is here.  See, I'm throwing out words pell mell already...  Time to sit down and direct them a little more productively, then.

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Kaupunki

I'm sorry, but any language that calls a city "kaupunki" has my vote.

Yeah.

Vote Helsinki 2017.

Scandisff panel worth listening to...

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Graham

A couple of good obituaries for a much-beloved teacher for CW '07:

UK and I09. 

As usual, other people say it well so I will keep quiet.  Tomorrow is 9/11.  As Graham said in the journal entry, life puts things in perspective, dunnit.  I learned something from that man, though.

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Night songs

We got free tickets to see Rosanne Cash last night.  She played at the  staid St. Kate's auditorium with a mellow but skilled band and really sounded good.  She played her new album in full and some old hits and country standards.

For some reason, a song about her family's home in the sunken land of Arkansas made me think about Minnesota poet James Wright.  His work is very rich and dark, so I guess that makes sense.  The poem I was thinking of is about a condemned man at his grave, but this is a good one too:  Yo, Minneapolis. (Not really the title.)

I'm reading Christopher Bram's biography of (male) gay writers of the 40s through 90s (approx.), Eminent Outlaws, and the section on Frank O'Hara reminded me of Wright too.  I had never seen the paintings of Wynn Chamberlain until I googled them upon reading about his portraits of O'Hara.  Wow:  This may disappear. This page has his The Barricade and a picture of Johnny Cash's childhood home, a little bit of synchronicity, as well as Jacob Lawrence and a lot of other amazing stuff: Crucified Land.

Bram's book is truly fascinating, a mishmash of biographies of writers like James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams for the 60s, and lots of backroom gossip and historic commentary such as a discussion of what led to Boys In the Band and what effect it had on media homophobia and on the atmosphere for gay literature.  The rise of gay publishers, magazines, and bookstores comes in the 70s, and Bram notes things like the key role of those back wall rack sales in propping up gay bookstores.  The demise of those bookstores is due to more than just online book sales; the internet moved the cruising and page viewing online too...

I'm only in the mid-70s right now, but expect it will continue to be interesting...  The footnotes are rich, too, with links to gems like James Baldwin videos on YouTube.  The idea that i can go online and view his debate with William F. Buckley or his talks on Malcolm X instead of just reading about them in books from dusty lower shelves in old bookstores still blows me away...

I also just finished Pissing In a River by Lorrie Sprecher (The Feminist Press, 2014).  It's an awesome exploration of classic punk music, direct action politics with a 90s British feminist edge, OCD, and the aftermath of rape in lesbian relationships and friendships/ communities.  She put the soundtrack in her head into mine, in a good way, which really enhanced the story.  There are a lot of words spent on lusting after guitars and classic guitar sounds, but I'm totally a rapt audience for that.  Last night, it was making me drool over the lead guy's oh so country Telecaster...  Pissing In a River kicks some a$$...

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Admitted

This made me laugh:  Esp. the comments. 

I did not post.  Wiscon went bust.  The world went boom.  I went traveling and turned slightly pink in the sun.  Saw sea turtles and neon fish and a little octopus up close.  Now I'm home and fall is closing in.

I read some good stuff.  Will have to write about it some time. Just finished a Swedish police procedural that was only ok.  Currently devouring Lorrie Sprecher's new novel after a looong time, Pissing In a River.  Yes, punk dykes and activism.  It's good.  More later...

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Flurry, and then a lull

Things have been a little crazy, in fits and starts, thanks to new dog and swollen red eyes in old dog. 

New dog solved her problem of not being able to separate from old dog by destroying a wire kennel.  Old dog is doing better with meds, and out running two miles as I speak.

I got drenched yesterday on my way to work, with an umbrella.  The pic does not convey the size and strength of the pillar of water coming off the roof of the library 50+ feet up.  Storms are headed in, but right now Teenage Kicks is on The Current and zucchini chocolate cake is demanding my attention while I cruise through Helsini White by James Thompson.

A lite noir is welcome after finishing Patti Smith's book about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids.  I've been putting that off because it looked fluffy, but it was actually quite engrossing and had a lot of heft in terms of talking about artistic process and how different people work and what support they need and don't need. 

The anecdotes about various New York art and music scenesters and the era are not hoary but unique to Patti's birdseye view of the nexus between visual arts, poetry, and music in the 70s and early 80s. 

I learned a lot about other sides of Mapplethorpe I did not get from the big moment his work had in the early 90s, and actually gained more appreciation of his contributions and the thought he put into every aspect of his work including framing.  I took away a somewhat reductionist view of his work from the rw flap in Cincinatti andthe in-depth criticism of Kobena Mercer and others.  Now I want to go back and view his body of work with this memoir and that body of criticism both in mind...

Next I have to dig into Fire In the Belly, the David Wojnarowicz bio by Cynthia Carr.  I started it but it's too heavy to carry to and from work, and library books came available and had to be read.  The Smith memoir is a good wedge into the world Wojnarowicz lived in and his work.  I'm still working around a storyline set on the fringes of that whole scene, trying to soak up more of the fire and despair of the era to cut through today's filmy layer of... not sure what, but it obscures my vision of the past a little too much right now to really get the piece in full fighting trim.

An interesting take on what has changed in the world of rwc censorship pushes: from The Economist, of all places.  NYT with similar sentiments.  Oh the times (and Times) they change, tho notsomuch.

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Pride, or something

I had to stay home to do new dog things, and clean up after a shy bladder accident.  But I'm kinda over Pride this year anyway. 

Target is selling t-shirts with big rainbows.  Straight models preview Ragstock's Pridewear. Straight people predominate at lesbian music shows and clubs, and push us aside as they move up for a good view.  They write, and sell, more lgbtaiyeah characters than the hardcore queers do.  It's their pride at being so tolerant.  Our party got taken over by Coors fifteen years ago, anyway, when people were dying in the streets and they were reaping the benefits of homophobic sales practices.  I wax and wane each year between cynical and excited.  Yeah, I'm a sour old puss.

This year, I'll stay home, drink local brands, and read our herstory, Jeanna Cordova's rocking bio.  It did not rain for Pride, tho, despite stormy weather warnings.  God hates fags, does he?

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Popping back up

Betty

We had serious flooding.  More storms are supposedly headed this way, but there has been a little dry time. I have a new dog panting in the chair after running around my house hyperventilating for an hour and a half.  She is very skittish after being rescued from a hoarding situation.  I am reading a Finnish mystery that is so-so.

She calmed down and enjoyed walking in the quiet early morning and then with a dog friend, thankfully.  Resting quietly on the mat after many many treats.

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More than you ever wanted to know

About Finnish. Yes, that many cases.

Wiscon was, as they say here, interesting.  I'm gonna be the butch and keep my own counsel.for now. Have to think a little harder.  The Helsinki in 2017 party rocked, tho, and I hope my contribution led to one more person reading a good Finnish book.  And maybe fire.

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Yargle bargle

What happens if I commit to buying some books, feeling so self-satisfied about supporting local bookstore Uncle Hugo's?  Of course.  I must then stumble on cache upon cache of reviews of Books I Must Read Right Now. 

A  bio of Essex Hemphill and Michael Callen by Martin Duberman. Suddenly a million decent-sounding lesbian novels and poetry books.  A reprint of Cheryl Clarke.  A new Achy Obejas book, and it's poetry.   A biography of a founder of the Lesbian Avengers. Oh, man... THIS.  A bio of Donna Minkowitz that references Tolkein.  A  bio of Valerie Solanas that takes her seriously! Bio, bio, bio.  A new novel by Michael Nava!!  A ton of stuff I can't begin to link to or my wrist will fall off as it has been threatening to do... I feel like I made this post before, and in fact I did, about sff.

What is a butch to do but spend more time at work, racking up overtime, leaving less time to actually read these books.  Isn't it enough that I just started Hild, which weighs more than my cat, with five other books and a Finnish language CD set also in process?  Does it pay to fervently wish for a renaissance of lgbtaiqyaya... quiltbasgsoundstoomuchlikecarpetbaggerwhichwasgoodbutbadtooandanywayit'snotknownoutsidesffniches lit'r'ture? Of course not.  We can't actually afford to need new books, much as we crave them.  But nothing will stop us from devouring them, as soon as possible, nonetheless.  Nonesuch.  Nevermore.  Quack.  Quack.  Duck, Duck... Gray Duck!  Waaaaaaahhhh!!!!

Yes.  It is definitely spring.  At least there are (for now) free thrills, like Autostraddle... And Wiscon, which May showers usually bring.

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Not Before Sunset

A review of Troll: A Love Story (American title)/Not Before Sunset (British title, and apparently more literal translation) linked to this song with English subtitles , Päivänsäde ja Menninkäinen, sung by Tapio Rautavaara.  Something like the sunlight fairy and the goblin.  Here it is with  Finnish subtitles, so you can sing along.  This adds another layer to the book, as I prepare to reread.  The wordplay in the book is fantastic, even in translation, and the play on "fairy," natch. 

Really nice voice.  Sadly, seeing any video on youtube makes me want to hear "What Does The Fox Sing?". My niece has warped my brain forever.

I just finished Antti Tuomainen's The Healer, which was an interesting mix of detective thriller and realistic apocalyptic SF.  The novel reads as very poetic in the translation by Lola Rodgers, and apparently in the original Finnish, appropriately enough for the poet protagonist.  But it really moves along too.  Tapani is searching for his wife, a journalist who was investigating a serial murderer/environmental activist, who turns out to have ties to almost everyone Tapani turns to in his search.  I want to say more, but later, it's long after sunset and this goblin must crawl into the cave.

I'm working my way through the Lethe Press Wilde Stories anthologies, too, after seeing their pretty covers on the library shelf next to a book I was looking for.  So far some really good stories, even the Lovecraftian one.  (As far as I can tell, Lovecraftian.  Not my thing, and not always pulled off very well.  But with a light touch, yeah.)  Stories I had not read yet by Richard Bowes and Christopher Barzak, hard to resist. More later on those books as well...

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The fair food fight

I've been trying out new podcasts lately and have been impressed with KCRW's shows on the entertainment biz and national news.  The show "To The Point" has interesting interviews with a range of participants and recently covered the farmworker organizing that's been going on.

The show discusses the Immokalee tomato pickers contracts with growers and,more recently, Walmart.  It also discusses a study done about sexual exploitation of female migrant workers.  Check it out.

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Just One of the Guys

An interesting monograph, discussed on video: Study on transgender men in the workplace by Kristen Schilt.

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Making Time

I finally bought some books I've been meaning to read.  I tend to get around to shopping all in one moment after putting it off for too long and then being indecisive. 

I did not do the smart thing and go to the lists I'd made (one list being too organized).  Instead I did some searching based on topics of interest and luckily landed back on a review of this book I'd been reading about and kept meaning to pick up.

Now that I've just leafed through it for a few minutes, I can see I'm gonna need to push other stuff aside and make some time to really focus on this book.  Julia Serano's last book, Whipping Girl, was good, but Excluded is an intervention into movement talk talk talk on a different level.  It comes from a particular angle that just strikes me as timely, personally in my own reading, thinking, and blah blah blah, as well as politically at this juncture in sociocultural time, more broadly. 

All the books and projects are clashing and demanding, but this  fits in with the stuff I've been rereading and trying to put together: some Mathilda Sycamore books, some 70s feminist biographies, some rereads on intersectionality, and this documentary from last year's MSPIFF that keeps sticking in my head about adoption and women being fired from jobs or kicked out of school and sent to homes for unwed mothers pre-Roe. 

Gender, revisionism, historical contextuality, and the bigger picture are all on my mind, not really meshing, and just thumbing through this book, it seems to be right on point.  I could surely use some help thinking through this cluster of ideas more clearly.  Here's hoping...

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Digital branding as labor

I've been busy reading theory on the web, a lot of disparate stuff, trying to see what I've been missing over the last period of burying my head in fiction and mostly either hyper-local, NPR-style, or sff-focused blogs and podcasts. 

Found a lot of interesting article I haven't had time to digest, but this from mimi thi nyugen is really thought provoking and apt in terms of the usual advice to sff authors, despite the different employment relationships involved in publishing.  The impressive to sell and brand yourself to sell your products does have dangers such as the ones she explores.  Her blog, Thread and Circuits, is chock full of posts and essays worth browsing.  I have to avoid this for the moment, though, or I will never get this other research done...

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Theater under a dictatorship

We went to see "Dangerous Acts of Unstable Elements in Belarus" on Saturday, which won Best Documentary for the MSPIFF film festival, among many other awards.  And yes, it was that good.

The film follows a free theater troupe from its vaguely hidden house in Minsk to New York and London after artists are denounced and members of the troupe are arrested and sought for arrest after the presidential elections in 2010.

As one troupe member says, "There's a joke in Belarus, where the head of the electoral committee says to Lukashenko 'There's good news and bad news. The good news is; you're president again. The bad news is; no one voted for you…'"

The actors flee the country by various means as the opposition candidate is imprisoned, and they proceed to put on a visceral and inventive show off Broadway that directly discusses the rigged election, the brutal crackdown, and the torture methods used on dissenters like themselves. 

Just as they win an Obie, most members return to Belarus to continue operating the free theater while three apply for political asylum from London.  The mix of interviews, filming while actors talk to family members in Belarus by Skype, footage of the demonstrations and TV coverage in Minsk, and portions of the plays and rehearsals is very effective and is a great study the power of theater, music, and art to convey what words like "dictatorship" alone cannot.

Showing again at 7ish Tuesday 4/22 as an encore performance at MSPIFF, St Anthony Main theater.

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We Are the Best

I was looking forward to Lukas Moodysson's new movie, We Are The Best (transl.), because a.) his teen girl movie Show Me Love was very good and b.) this one involves punk rock circa 1982 in Stockholm.  The 80s hair did not disappoint, and the girls were surprisingly energetic as well ad endearing and funny.

Here you can find a clip, for the flavor (and pink spandex): We hate the sport!  The music is great, and touches like fishsticks and the teen Swedish metal band are a real blast from the past that translates past Swedish borders. 

Here is an interview with Coco Moodysson, whose autobiographical graphic novel inspired the film: Cool.  I highly recommend it and may have to see it again.

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Gratuitous use of gears

Gears!!

The Magic Flute: Now in Steampunk!

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MSPIFF

It is in fact time for the Minneapolis Film Festival to dominate my time for three weeks, and drain my wallet.  I have seen four films so far and missed about six that I really wanted to see but conflicted with work or swim class.  I just mapped out the rest of the schedule, but seriously, how does one decide when three to four must-sees are scheduled all at the same time, and many start at 9:30 or 9:45 p.m. mid-week.  It's tough to prioritize. 

Today I got to work ridiculously early so I could trot across the bridge and see "Harmony Lessons, " from Kazakhstan.  I have a soft spot for Kazakh movies- they're often very beautifully shot and the kind of lyrical, highly allegorical type of film I like, and it doesn't hurt that I am usually practice my limited Russian.  Harmony Lessons is more in Kazakh but well-acted, by non-actors including the lead who was discovered in an orphanage, and really provocative.  Reviews on the web do it justice and compare the filmmaker to lots of famous auteurs like Bresson. 

They do not lie.  The film is brutal and not for the squeamish but many-layered and very worth seeing. Here is the trailer, with Russian subtitles, all I could find...  More later on the other films I've seen.

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The internets

The beauty of the Internets these days is that, as many drawbacks as it has, it puts an amazing amount of information at your fingertips that would never get to you in a lifetime b4 web 2.0.

Apparently I massively insulted Johanna Sinisalo, whose works I have read translated into English whenever I could find them and tried my best to describe as freaking brilliant, deeply layered, and wickedly incisive in a review I got asked to do on the fly and got paid a massive $5 for. 

My writing can be opaque and obscure.  It often gets misread.  For my lack of skill in using words to convey what I mean, "Olen pahoillani."

Thanks to FinnishPod101.com for their great language videos.

If the translation of Sinisalo's books is truly distorting, that's sad, but they still come across as freaking brilliant, deeply layered, and wickedly incisive.  I find it hard to believe that the translation is highly problematic because they're such a great read, even in the translation to English. 

In French too.  I had to see, since a diligent search revealed a preference for that translation and that I can confirm with my piece meal polyglot skills despite no solid Finnish friends that would appreciate a perceptive deconstruction of their Finnish masculinity.  Really not that different, from what I can tell, except the French title, Oiseau dr Malheur might be a huge compliment, alluding to Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal.  That book that made 13 bearable for this teen queer, that magnifique ode to the Imp of Perversity.  Or not- it's what popped into my head on seeing the title, thoughts formed by the French canon gleaned through the tutelage of a African American French teacher who studied at the Sorbonne, one of the best teachers I've ever had on all schools of life- professionalism, translation, exactitude in writing, fairness, collegiality, comportment- hands down.  Madame, I hope I do you no wrong here, but yes, I've let my translation skills become shamefully rusty.

In the British to American translation, Birdbrain comes off as deeply feminist and brave as truth-telling.  And Troll: A Love Story/ Not Before Sunset comes off as incredibly queer and witty, even if that was not the intention or effect in the original, in its American English translation.  Seriously, anything I might have done to make anyone *not* read these books or the amazing short story "Dollface" despite all the awards they've won is a heinous disservice, cos this writer is one of the best feminist and SFF writers out there right now, no mistake.  Read her.  Can I be more clear?

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Fire In the Belly

Spring brings everyone out of the woodwork.  We meet our neighbors again.  Go places.  Do things.  Try to catch up, make up for lost time.

Deadlines, headlines, fresh bullsh*t, annexations, power moves, sloppy footwork, out of nowheres, sideswiped, blindsided, sluggish with a hint of snow, allergies, smudges under the eyes, nodding off on the train... It must be April on the way.

People die in April, like they do in early winter.  It becomes a rhythm you get used to, when everyone is dying.  And then it slows, and slows some more, and people are astonished at death again.  But the rhythm's still there.

That makes it a perfect time to read "Fire In the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz," by Cynthia Carr.  580-some pages is daunting, but the man was fascinating, brilliant, and burned fast as hell in the too-short time he had.  His autobiography is the first thing to read, but this bio's got art and stories and a sense of history and moment.  Remember Jesse Helms, the NEA, and FDA, all that ancient history?   Yeah.  Gonna take a while to plow through but I'm not stopping 'til I'm done.

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Speaking of generations

Great crowd scenes up front, as well as concerts:  Stones in the Park 7/1969 and  Some Girls tour, Texas.  The latter reminds me of Foxes, the Jodie Foster Cherie Currie movie...

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Suburbia (1983)

This review of the Penelope Spheeris film "Suburbia," one of the few movies I remember vividly from those misspent teenage years, really nails the 80s for Gen X.  1000misspent hours, indeed. 

Millenials feel they're in a similarly overwhelming dystopia, but those in NYC and SoCal don't realize those cities were like presentday Detroit, no one remembers stagflation and long gas lines, and the looming threat of thermonuclear war that was more real than it now seems, in the era of Red Dawn and Footloose remakes. 

The way WWI, the Depression, WWII, the Cold War, the repressive 50s and McCarthyism, the Vietnam war, and everything else that was era-defining in the past seems either faded or overhyped.  Only in retrospect.  You had to be there, and if you were lucky enough to survive, you remain jaded about all teens and twenty-somethings to come and their sulks and rebellions.  Generational gaps are endlessly funny things. 

I love reading intergenerational discussions on the interwebs of who had it worse and who's more annoying.  The idea that anything changes is so micro-focused.  The glaciers melt, the mountains crumble, and the core belches.  Stars burst into life, fade away and radiate.  One thing I love about 80s punk and new wave was a baseline awareness of this bigger picture peeking through so many songs- Atomic!

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Shaking off the blahs

The Metrodome is now a small section of riser, a pile of rubble, and a bunch of tall cranes against the sky.  The streets are no longer covered in two inches of ice, and the roofs are no longer buried under two feet of snow.  I am trying to pull out of hibernation mode to glimpse my own shadow.

I'm reading Dust Devils on a Quiet Street by Richard Bowes in ebook and The Flamethrowers in book book.  Of course the Bowes is brilliant, and the latter is much more interesting than the other NYTimes list book I just read.  Motorcycles, conceptual art, and Italian leftists- what could go wrong?

Finished Once a Runner by John Parker and, after wading through the purplish prose and laddishness of the beginning, see why it's a runner classic.  The unfocused feel of the first half mirrors the protagonist's mind, and by the end the writing is tight and knifeblade sharp, like a runner in the race of his life.

I really want to read the Tapir book but I put it somewhere in my house where I can't find it.  Scouring the corners is my weekend plan, along with taxes.  And maybe looking at dogs, as well as spectating at flyball dog's tournament if I can fit it in with swim class.

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Questionable Practices

“Without Eileen Gunn, life as we know it would be so du five or six North Americans currently able to write shor near enough.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

Now *that's* a review to envy...

I was excited to be first to get ehands on the ebook from Hennepin County Library, once it came in.  As Le Guin says, Eileen Gunn books are a rare event.  I will probably end up buying this at Wiscon, especially if a friend is working the Small Beer Press table, but a preview is a treat.

So far the first story drew me right in.  It's snowing heavily outside at 7:45 a.m. on this holiday morning.  I'm thankful not to have to shovel, try to commute, and shovel again.  A good book to read is even better.

I saw "Flight," with Denzel doing his Denzel scene chomping thing.  It was ok, but not as good as the Olympic skating, which has been good but not great.  (I missed the pairs team competition, which sounds like it was sizzling.)  Nothing at Sochi has been really riveting, that I caught.  Sort of, "Oh yeah, he got the medal."  Partly, some people, like the long track speed skaters, just make it look too easy.   I realize it's not...

I did get to benefit from having watched a  bunch of skate skiing technique videos on Youtube.  It was more exciting to watch the X-country/Nordic ski races and understand more what they're doing at different points.  V1, V2, etc. 

Same with swimming, I learn best by watching people do it and trying to visualize their technique as I try it.  In swim class, this really Zen swimmer was in a lane nearby showing perfect, relaxed form.  Now I have something to think about to slow down my crawl, so I can breathe properly.  Making slow progress toward being able to swim a sprint triathlon.

Interviews

An interview of  Marijane Meaker (Vin Packer, M.E. Kerr), and one with
Billie Jean King.   They both shed interesting light on lesbian history, on how far we've come, and what still persists.  Nice photo of King at the height of her powers, too.

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Socked with snow

Surprise, that scant inch overnight plus two in the daytime... more like six plus by noon.  Peak at rush hour, of course.  Bring back the below zero.  Oh wait, that happens today too.  Welcome to Minnesota. 

I was listening to a podcaster from Chicago talking about the unusual just below zero temps.  Unfortunately, for us it's below -15 that's been freaking endless.  People's cars start in their garage, they go to work, car sits in outdoor lot, and whammo- it won't start.   Makes for fun times. 

The lightrail is better but understaffed from sick calls and trains get stuck and block other trains from mechanical problems.  Buses, luck be with you, too.  Siberia has it worse, I keep reminding myself...

So, The Virgins was underwhelming, though I did finish it.  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was due and I could not get into it again.  I'm bad at rereading light material, and the tech references - digital watch as state of the art- are very dated now. 

I'm trying a new workout schedule, mostly based on the Furman FIRST 3-2 plan for an intermediate 5k.  Interval run, tempo run, long run, and two cross training days.  Biking and swimming, with skiing and snow shoveling to vaguely train towards a sprint triathlon.  But more focused on upping my base running pace a little.  I'm so slow I'm a little off their pace chart...  Hope to get on it.  We'll see.  This first couple weeks is to shake off the cobwebs and see if I can handle the workload.  It's a little easier to get to the gym with no dog clock, so we'll see...

So cold

It's wearing everybody down.  The streets and gas stations were full yesterday with everyone rushing around to get ready for the next plunge well below zero, after only two days of partial- warmer but biting wind- relief.

The CSA farm is still keeping me cooking new things.  For warmth, I roasted carrots, parsnips, and cauliflower with olive oil, garlic and thyme last night and this morning made soy honey pumpkin to go with the chicken I needed to finish.  Beet meze, beet quinoa salad and borscht are all in the fridge with carrot ginger soup.  I still have a celery root, cabbage, and parsnips to eat before the next pickup.  May have to make something for the party of a coworker who is moving to Florida- good timing on her part.

I'm taking swimming classes at the Y to further my triathlon goal and so far it's fun and productive.  The age range is broad and the teacher is skilled but mellow.  My motivation to walk ten blocks to the gym after work to practice is nonexistent, the gym is full of January members, and there's no way I'm running outside at night.  I've managed to do some yoga and Nordic tracking, with running and skiing warmer weekends, but it's the blah season.

The GF got Netflicks and we started watching "Orange Is the New Black," which is surprisingly watchable and addictive.  I tend to dislike many of the shows and movies that get raved about as great lesbian or LGBTQAYaYa treats, but once in a while...

Teen werewolf movie "Jack and Diane" not so much.  Hated the werewolfy interludes, tepid, treacly dyke drama, and gratuitous college rape video scene.  Yeah. 

"Making the Boys," a doco about Boys in the Band, was interesting, with footage I'd never seen of gay Hollywood in the 60s and interviews with a range of people that had informative stuff to say that was not duplicative of the many films made about the Stonewall era.  I hadn't realized how many of the original cast died not long after the movie came out, in the early first waves of the AIDS epidemic.

I'm reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which was good enough in the first 50 pages to make me buy it when the library ebook came due.  It just got nominated for a PKDick award and has interesting things about gender and occupations, in a space opera-y setting.  So far the genderfrack aspects seem tacked on and showy, but I'm not that far in.

Also The Lovers, which I read about in the NYT Book Review and am bored with.  I reread After Delores by Sarah Schulman in a new Arsenal Pulp Press edition and enjoyed it and the new preface by her, classic Schulman incisiveness.  I just found two bona fide new lesbian novels that look promising, off the shelf, we'll see.  Have to save them for a reading drought moment...

Actual writing work has been occuring, nothing to write home about but better than the deep freeze of December.  Thoughts stirring again.  A couple of my CW classmates have things coming out- novels and a short story in Asimov's this month for Domenica Phetteplace.  Yay.  The latest installment of the Nightshifted series for Cassie Alexander, although it sounds like it's ending.  Fun reads, especially if you like actual medical knowledge in your supernatural romance...  Inspiring me to get going.

Still sad

I had to put Dusty to sleep last week after her back legs finally stopped working.  It was very cold and snowing and I figured that was coming on one of those types of days.  She did enjoy eating snow and patches of sun, but little else, in the last month or so.

She could not walk well in even five inches of snow, and this made her very sad as a snow-loving dog from Hibbing, MN.  Even when shivering, she refused to wear a coat to supplement her thick Shepherd mix fur.  But she kept up a good front to the end, worried more about failing me than her own pain, it seemed.  A great dog, and my first.

Fox sounds

The mystery I'm reading prompted me to look up just how a fox sounds.  Of course the search pulled up my niece's favorite video...  Tosch tosch tosch tosch tosch tosch tosch...

The hunting and dog interaction videos are cool too, but the scream, wow.  My dog was very upset when I played those...

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/what-sound-does-fox-make

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Turnips

I'm browsing recipes this morning, while listening to Teenage Kicks on The Current, of course.  David Bowie turns 67 on Wednesday, she tells me, which makes me feel very old.  I'm having flashbacks of staying up late to try and tape videos (DC did not get MTV or any cable til I was gone, so no going to friend's houses for that).

Turnip tart, with variations from Stilton to goat cheese to vegan cream to simple carameized turnips, is looking like the best bet.  I used Daikon radishes, cabbage, and turnips in a kim chi vermicelli bowl for breakfast.  Golden beets will go part to juice and likely borscht, but maybe I can find something

new on the internets...

Boiling diced turnips in a little water flavored with soy sauce and honey is surprisingly good.  The CSA is keeping things interesting this winter, though each biweekly box feels a bit overwhelming at first, even split between 2-3 households.

We're having one and a half days of 20 degrees between deep freezes, so I'm shopping and maintaining the car, then holing up to write and finish watching a bad British sitcom before it's due.  Went skiing (cross country) on New Year's Day and fought finger frostbite half the time, though it was stil fun.  Not as crowded...

I did indeed finish Reamde in 2013, and enjoyed it to the end.  Neil Stephenson's other books that I read have lost me before or at the 3/4 mark, but this stayed interesting.  I'm now working.on a Sarah Schulman reprint, After Delores, and a gory Icelandic mystery.  Then I think the Tapir book is next.  A little shot of science in mid-winter goes a long way...  Anyway, happy new year and stay warm and dry if you can...