!! Showing at Intermediate Arts:
FILM:
Thought Woman - The Life and Ideas of Paula Gunn Allen
A film by Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe, Music by Lauralee Brown and Neeconis Women Singers
March 14, 2015 | 2:30PM
GET TICKETS!
$5-10 sliding scale | Proceeds to benefit Nibi (Water) Walks
Seating is Limited
"Where I come from, God is a woman. Her name is thinking..."
-Paula Gunn Allen
Paula Gunn Allen was a Two Spirit/lesbian from the Laguna Pueblo people. She wrote the groundbreaking book The Sacred Hoop-Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions as well as novels, essays, poetry and literary criticism. Thought Woman-The Life and Ideas of Paula Gunn Allen is a personal, beautiful film about a brilliant, hilarious woman and her bold thinking on politics, history, and spirit. Stick around after the screening for a Post-Show Dialogue with Sharon Day, Coya White Hat-Artichoker and Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe moderated by Meena Natarajan.
Trailer
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Doco about Paula Gunn Allen
Edmund White
Friday, February 13, 2015
Myths and Legends
They have their place and role to play, but also their downside. An interesting review of the book I'm reading because the first reviews I read told me I shouldn't: The New Inquiry Examining The Book of Matt.
Some other interesting review around, too, but I have to get back to reading before the book is due. Got a lot of catching up for Hugo noms and voting, too,since I bought a membership to support Helsinki(!). Problem with reading mainlyby end of year Best Of lists and what's on the shelves in the library...
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Public transit
I wrote a whiny rant about smokers on the platform and too much cologne on the train, but my.phone ate it. Heh. Keeping me honest, I guess...
"Smokin' on the platform...
Make sure ev'r'body basks in my cologne." Isn't that how the song goes? I've been avoiding going to the gym in part because the walk down Nicollet and other downtown streets means breathing second hand smoke for ten long blocks. Definitely "Paradise By the Dashboard Lighter."
And this one goes out to all those inveterate smokers who also have to inhale: "Livin' on the nebs." Weak, yeah, but so is that shizzle.
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Saturday, February 7, 2015
Sounds like...
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| Engraving, 1886, MR2.9SP3.1Yp2, MNHS.org |
Stone Fox, a blast from the SF past. (Started as a Runaways cover band.). This Sheffield band, Hands Off Gretel!, is not them but not bad: Punk not dead.
And from the usual winter weekend cruising abandoned building and local history sites, "Where There Are 16,000 Germans, There Will Be a Brewery" Cool photo site, lots of grain elevators. Some nostalgia as the latest Hiawatha Ave elevator got auctioned off and no doubt will turn into more unneeded condos. Where the photos are from, as we'll as MN History Museum and eBay...
If I Ever Get Out of Here...
The best part of this book is at the end where author Eric Gansworth thanks Wacky Packages for teaching him to think critically.
Not really, but this YA novel is full of twisted truths like that and has a similarly cracked yet wholesome sense of humor. It's at heart a novel about friendship and not afraid to admit that boys can care about each mother deeply and touch each other's lives.
Gansworth also does not flinch from discussing how racism corrupts professional and personal relationships, the history and current flavor of Indian-hating in small towns, ostensibly in the 1970s, or the taste, touch, smell, and feel of poverty on the rez. The man can really write. It's rarely if ever forced or overdone, which is tough in YA, with ALL TEH BIG EMOTIONS. The Tuscarora reservation in upstate New York, like Lewis the protagonist, is flawed and complicated but home, the Lewis, his mother and uncle, and his best friend are deeply human and unique at the same time.
The protagonist's profound love for the Beatles and Wings was hard to stomach at times (sort of joking), but music was a through line that worked well to push up the intensity level of the conflicts between the main characters and others in their community. The friends clearly care about it together the way true fans care about their fandom, and that honed the edge of the big plot points to the point of drawing blood without hyperbole or melodrama.
The difficulty of dealing effectively and ethically with being bullied as a teen without backup from the school or greater community is the other main theme of the book. There is a bit of a deus ex machina here, but it's true nonetheless. It points out that ultimately it's often up up to adults in the community to step up and stop school bullying, because adults are often the drivers and protectors of the bullies. Which means kids shouldn't be ashamed to need, ask for, or demand help and protection when skillz are not enough...
Keepin' it real with a droll and matter-of-fact tone always wins my admiration. I only started this as one from a list of 2014 YA books to check out, but it's already one of the best books I've devoured in the Xmas break aftermath. (And I've been no slouch over the last month.) It's hard to say more without spoilers, like any book that's not just a well-worn groove in a well-known genre, so go read it!
Monday, February 2, 2015
Reading about Tom Disch today
He would have been 75 today. Alice Sheldon's centenary is coming up in August, I think for Worldcon. Time to do more rereading...
This made me laugh, from Goodreads review of On Wings of Song: "I read this book years ago and remember nothing about it except the intensity with which I hated it, especially given the title, which sounded like it would be a beautiful uplifting story!"
Did not get the memo, from Camp Concentration, etc...
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