May 04, 2005
Across the finish line!
Just entered the final grades for my last course. Hasn't really sunk in yet. Huge load fallen etc. etc. Though I have a pile of other pressing things, all due yesterday. Still, hope to get back to my usual level of posting pronto. Just after I go and have a nice nap. Just for a little while.
Meanwhile, for your perusal: Idioms illustrated by fourth graders (via BoingBoing) and heroes of atheism mugs and tea-towels (via things magazine). Major sellers, it would seem.
And, Mark Woods reminds us that it is the thirty-fifth anniversary of Kent State.
April 25, 2005
Does writing change anything?
asks Salman Rushdie. The answer is yes:
When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced. We love relatively few books in our lives, and those books become parts of the way we see our lives; we read our lives through them, and their descriptions of the inner and outer worlds become mixed up with ours — they become ours.
[Last week we honored] the memory of Susan Sontag and Arthur Miller, great writers, intellectuals and truth-tellers. The old idea of the intellectual as the one who speaks truth to power is still an idea worth holding on to. Tyrants fear the truth of books because it's a truth that's in hock to nobody; it's a single artist's unfettered vision of the world. They fear it even more because it's incomplete, because the act of reading completes it, so that the book's truth is slightly different in each reader's different inner world, and these are the true revolutions of literature, these invisible, intimate communions of strangers, these tiny revolutions inside each reader's imagination; and the enemies of the imagination, politburos, ayatollahs, all the different goon squads of gods and power, want to shut these revolutions down, and can't. Not even the author of a book can know exactly what effect his book will have, but good books do have effects, and some of these effects are powerful, and all of them, thank goodness, are impossible to predict in advance.
Literature is a loose cannon. This is a very good thing.
(Link from Third Wave Agenda).
In his Herbert Read Memorial Lecture (Feb. 6, 1990), Rushdie said,
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way. The reason for ensuring that that privileged arena is preserved is not that writers want the absolute freedom to say and do whatever they please. It is that we, all of us, readers and writers and citizens and generals and goodmen, need that little, unimportant-looking room. We do not need to call it sacred, but we do need to remember that it is necessary.
Rushdie is one writer who reconciles the political v. aesthetic schism. Or, at least, he sketches out a common vocabulary for us to talk about it.
[cross-posted to The Valve].
April 18, 2005
LGF quiz
Late German Fascist? or Little Green Footballer? You be the judge. From General J.C. Christian via Echidne.
I scored 85%. Mainly by separating the quotes by levels of literacy. Piece of cake.
April 16, 2005
Andrea Dworkin remembered
Since my earlier roundup there have been a lot more posts about Dworkin and her legacy. Go to Rad Geek People's Daily for some marvellous posts, and a comprehensive list of links.
April 13, 2005
Andrea Dworkin, R.I.P.
Andrea Dworkin was part of the coming-of-age of many women of my generation. With her death, much else has also passed away.
Obituary in the NYTimes (registration required), The New York Sun, and a balanced retrospective with some good links in The Guardian.
Jenny Diski, "Oh, Andrea Dworkin: rev. of Misogyny: The Male Malady by David Gilmore, London Review of Books.
The Andrea Dworkin Website, including The Andrea Dworkin Lie Detector and links to Dworkin's writings.
Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon, "Press Release About Canada"
Wikipedia – first with the news (via Kameron Hurley). More on CultureCat, feministing.com, Pen-Elayne on the Web (and here).
Bloggers take note — Ampersand, blackfeminism.org, Echidne, feministe, Jessica, Christine (some good links), Pinko Feminist Hellcat (excellent links), XX (more good links) — even those with reservations. There are lots of others. She was important.
Some notable posts:
Rad Geek, Andrea Dworkin media blackout lifts, a little, More by and about Andrea Dworkin, May she be at peace: Andrea Dworkin, and Andrea Dworkin does not believe that all heterosexual sex is rape.
Susie Bright, Andrea Dworkin Has Died.
Cleis, In electric memory of Andrea Dworkin.
Flea, Andrea Dworkin, on the "I didn't always agree with her" syndrome.
my name is Andrea. it means manhood or courage at Nyarlathotep's Miscellany (via Echidne)
Some quotable quotes:
"[A] Leon Trotsky of the sex war," according to Punch1
"Dworkin is one of the few remaining specimens of pure countercultural Romanticism: fierce, melodramatic and utterly convinced that all truth can be found in her own roiling, untempered emotions."2
"She was a warrior."3
"[I]t's tempting to say that if Andrea Dworkin didn't exist, we would have had to invent her.
Which, come to think about it, is exactly what we have done."4
E.: It is so hard to write you. Why am I doing it this way, not intending ever to send this letter, still with one eye to publication, a grand concept for a book in some sense, and still with one eye, that poets conscience, to a future which becomes increasingly impossible to imagine. It seems the only way I can bear the passion behind the language, the memory, the desire, the only way not to be burnt up by what I feel. You come over me in waves of memory, especially when I sleep, and I wake up in sweat and trembling, not knowing where I am, not remembering the years that separate us.5
1 Adam Bernstein, Washington Post (Tues. April 12, 2005): B06.
2 Laura Miller, Rev. of Heartbreak, The New York Times Book Review (2002).
3 Lisa Jardine on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
4 Louise Armstrong, "The Trouble with Andrea."
5 Andrea Dworkin, First Love: a chapter from an unpublished novel.
(Thanks to Murray Littlejohn for some of this material).
March 26, 2005
SF lists
Awhile ago I noted China Miéville's list of fifty sf novels for socialists. Since he doesn't "know any longer what socialism is," waggish recently posted a list of sf novels for liberals. Not to be outdone, the fellows at SFSignal posted a series of lists, among them "SF for Imperialists" and sf for people who "want Arthur to rule" (links from Matthew Cheney).
March 18, 2005
Sherrie Wolff,
a prominent Democrat from Colorado, has been on campus for the past two days. She gave a lively talk yesterday about women and development, and was on a panel today on women and democratization with our local MPP and outgoing leader of the provincial NDP, Elizabeth Weir. Elizabeth met Sherrie on a project they worked on together, in Cambodia. A group of us went out to dinner last night to D'Amico's, a local eatery. A stimulating evening.
These two events were the highlights of our International Women's Week celebrations. One final event on Monday: the students from my Writing by Women class are performing an early Suffrage play, a comedy called "How the Vote was Won." Very funny, and the students are great in it. We've staged it but we're only doing a read-through, not a full production. Less pressure, more fun.
March 15, 2005
How the Vote was Won
An early-twentieth-century suffragist comedy in one-act by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John.
Local readers: come to a read-through by the students of ENGL3622: Writing by Women II, on Monday March 21 at 2pm in the Whitebone Lounge at UNBSJ. All welcome; free admission.
Part of International Women's Week @ UNBSJ.
Download the poster (11"×8.5" PDF).
March 08, 2005
IWD 2005
From A History of International Women's Day in words and images by Joyce Stevens
Happy International Women's Day, sistern and brethren.
Local readers: don't forget International Women's Week @ UNBSJ.
Loads of vaggin' good links:
Sharon at the beautiful Watermark offers a comprehensive IWD link roundup.
Sharon across the pond has a series of wonderful links, historical and literary.
feminist blogs, a collection of, well, feminist blogs, has many, many entries today.
The goddess calls on us to work towards making our towns nuclear non-proliferation zones.
Jessica at feministing sends greetings then offers two good reasons against post-feminism.
Tiffany at blackfeminism.org offers some links.
Gina at misbehaving has some global links.
Cleis provides some welcome context.
P.Z. Myers tells you what.
Kameron Hurley posts on Fat Actress and polyamory.
Trish Wilson, at XX, offers two thoughtful posts, one on abusive relationships and the other on so-called "Friendly Parent Provisions." And on her own site she posts on the rarity of women film directors.
Take the superhard IWD quiz (link from Rox Populi).
Flea asks, "what would your professional name be if you were a stripper?" Me? Fluffy Highway 53. Shake it.
And what am I doing to celebrate? I've been building up the appropriate section of my blogroll.
And then there is the classic "Thank a Feminist," turning up just everywhere:
If you're female and...
...you can vote, thank a feminist.
...you get paid as much as men doing the same job, thank a feminist.
...you went to college instead of being expected to quit after high school so your brothers could go because "You'll just get married anyway", thank a feminist.
...you can apply for any job, not just "women's work", thank a feminist.
...you can get or give birth control information without going to jail, thank a feminist.
...your doctor, lawyer, pastor judge or legislator is a woman, thank a feminist.
...you play an organized sport, thank a feminist.
...you can wear slacks without being excommunicated from your church or run out of town, thank a feminist.
...your boss isn't allowed to pressure you to sleep with him, thank a feminist.
...you get raped and the trial isn't about your hemline or your previous boyfriends, thank a feminist.
...you start a small business and can get a loan using only your name and credit history, thank a feminist.
...you are on trial and are allowed to testify in your own defense, thank a feminist.
...you have the right to your own salary even if you are married or have a male relative, thank a feminist.
...you get custody of your children following divorce or separation, thank a feminist.
...you get a voice in the raising and care of your children instead of them being completely controlled by the husband/father, thank a feminist.
...your husband beats you and it is illegal and the police stop him instead of lecturing you on better wifely behavior, thank a feminist.
...you are granted a degree after attending college instead of a certificate of completion, thank a feminist.
...you can breastfeed your baby discreetly in a public place and not be arrested, thank a feminist.
...you marry and your civil human rights do not disappear into your husband's rights, thank a feminist.
...you have the right to refuse sex with a diseased husband [or just "husband"], thank a feminist.
...you have the right to keep your medical records confidential from the men in your family, thank a feminist.
...you have the right to read the books you want, thank a feminist.
...you can testify in court about crimes or wrongs your husband has committed, thank a feminist.
...you can choose to be a mother or not a mother in you own time not at the dictates of a husband or rapist, thank a feminist.
...you can look forward to a lifespan of 80 years instead of dying in your 20s from unlimited childbirth, thank a feminist.
...you can see yourself as a full, adult human being instead of a minor who needs to be controlled by a man, thank a feminist.
— Author unknown
Thank you.
February 15, 2005
IWD2005
Spent much of the day working on a page listing the events we are planning to celebrate International Women's Day this year. Since March 8 falls on our winter break, our campus will celebrate the following week. In fact, we're taking the whole week. Anyone reading this who wants to plan an event or otherwise get involved, please let me know.
February 03, 2005
Bombing for Choice
Just came across this, via feministe, and have added it to the sidebar:
Anti-abortion ideologues beware: I'm promoting objective, factual information on: You can too. Join me in Bombing for Choice.
I know some have questioned the efficacy of googlebombing, but if nothing else, it starts discussion.
January 31, 2005
It's the most wonderful time
of the year.
Well, not really. But I'm short on time and material.
Here is My Creepy Valentine and Chocolate Voodoo Doll (via Fishbucket).
Apropos of the card, above, my women's writing class is planning a performance of Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John's How the Vote Was Won: A Play in One Act, a very funny piece suitable for a group (Literature of the Women's Suffrage Campaign in England). I will post more. Or not.
January 20, 2005
I love this guy.
I do. He's the thinking woman's Sean Connery.
SF
Farah Mendlesohn is doing a survey for a book on children and science fiction. She blogs at The Inter-Galactic Playground.
Benjamin Rosenbaum has released his amazing story, "Start the Clock," under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike license. What a fascinating idea (via BoingBoing). I hope he, or someone, traces any offshoots.
"I'll be a postfeminist in a postpatriarchy, or, Can We Really Imagine Life after Feminism?" by Lisa Yaszek. Part of this essay discusses sf as it relates to "postfeminism":
[F]for feminist authors, SF’s insistence on historical mutability and utopian possibility provides an ideal narrative vehicle through which to posit and explore the always necessary and political question, “what comes after patriarchy?”
(link from Mark Woods).
StarTrek R.I.P.? Not in our hearts (link from The Website at the End of the Universe).
January 13, 2005
It's a baby if she says it is
Lauren at feministe posts a slew of links under the title "Thursday Feminist Reading Material." Was particularly moved by Ayelet Waldman's post about her own second-trimester abortion and the necessity of developing more nuance in pro-choice rhetoric. It ends, "Listen to the pregnant woman. Value her. She values the life growing inside her. Listen to the pregnant woman, and you cannot help but defend her right to abortion." I spent a decade as an activist in the pro-choice movement and have never wavered, but having fertility problems and then finally a healthy pregnancy of my own certainly broadened, and deepened, my beliefs. Though I suppose all those years doing posters, media bites and op-eds has paid off because I still seem to have managed to come up with a slogan. Not a very wise slogan, perhaps ...
January 11, 2005
Unwanted children
Most are probably aware of the ill-considered bill which, had it become law, would have required women to report stillbirths and presumably miscarriages to local authorities within twelve hours. Most are probably also aware that "after a firestorm of controversy spread across the World Wide Web over the weekend," John Cosgrove, the proposer of the bill, has withdrawn it.
Posting has been fast and furious: Democracy for Virginia has a series of comprehensive posts. See also
Pharyngula: "Virginia is for hateful loons"
iBeth: "Safe Havens": Terrible Idea
The Well-Timed Period: "Del. Cosgrove: Don't Relax Just Yet"
Bitch Ph.D (and here)
apostropher: "All your baby are belong to us."
Rosemary Hurford is spitting mad.
getupgrrl's vagina is angry. And how.
Dr. B: Pardon My French.... and The Power of the Blogosphere.
A rant from Echidne.
(Not) Mousewords: "First these women blog, and next thing you know, they'll be letting them vote."
Our sisters to the South just dodged a bullet. But while they are jubilant, I don't suppose anyone is forgetting that that particular gun is still cocked and loaded.
Oops, a double entendre. But I don't feel in the least amused, writing this.
Sharon has an excellent post, outlining the history of legislation against infanticide in England (she also links to two excellent bibliographies, btw).
This whole story — apart from the apparent power of blogging — is disheartening. My dissertation was about infanticide in Britain in the 18th- and 19th centuries, so I am familiar with the history Sharon outlines. And with the hysteria over the visions of "dead babies on rubbish heaps" that gripped England in the Victorian era. And the ludicrous, punitive, and ignorant responses of the authorities.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
December 14, 2004
1984
Maud blogs about the new McCarthy era south of the border. The thin edge of the wedge; no doubt the current administration would be most comfortable with all books being banned. Well, all but one. And not the King James version, either.
December 06, 2004
Day of Remembrance
Today is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada, the day on which we remember the victims of the Montreal Massacre at l'Ecole Polytechnique on December 6, 1989 and all the other victims of violence against women, and reaffirm our committment to fight against the systemic violence against the most vulnerable in our society, and globally.
And local readers: don't forget the meeting later today, in the Faculty/Staff Lounge at UNBSJ, to discuss IWD 2005.
New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women Events Calendar.
December 02, 2004
Round up
Ten worst Xmas stories ever, from John Scalzi (from Crooked Timber). These are brilliant: Chomsky deconstructs Christmas; Dorothy Parker drunkenly imperils Santa's chastity; Orson Welles practices for The War of the Worlds; Ayn Rand, via an elf, convinces Santa to go on strike; Captain Kirk comforts a lonely Mrs. Claus; the Village People sing "Oh come all ye faithful", and more!
Thailand to bomb southern provinces with origami peace cranes (via Boing Boing).
Michael Allen evaluates the recent stories that Irish Murdoch's Alzheimer's was evident in her writing long before her diagnosis, and speculates on how one's writing might evolve over the course of a long career.
Sharon Claire points to the Britain in Print project.
wood s lot wishes Jonathan Swift a happy birthday.
The other Miriam deplores bad adaptations of The Christmas Carol and points towards a misguided/satirical/drug-induced (?) plan to make a movie about the Marquis de Sade reincarnated as a California teen. Dude, where's my clit ring?
She also links to a good article on altered books.
Plep points toward illegal art and Giant Burning Man Panoramas.
Mirabilis tells of a "new cross-platform email program from Mozilla called Thunderbird, reminds us of Viviana, the patron saint of hangovers in good time for the holidays, and alerts us to the problem of the illegal immigration of American liberals:
In the days since the election, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.
Life in the Present points towards "100 jokes". Henny Youngman, Roddy Dangerfield. Actually .. don't even go.
Update (3/12/04): Attribution for a link corrected. Sorry, Claire! So many of you U.K. historians, some with multiple sites; I get confused!
December 01, 2004
Counting the hours
One ... more ... class.
Had our last prose narrative meeting this past Monday. A small, but very good group. We had discussions, rather than classes, and that was a pleasure.
Gender Studies finished today. Much larger, but also a good group. Quite a few of them clearly engaged with the course, and with each other, and I was glad to be able to offer them something to move on to (we are organizing for International Women's Day, starting next week;1 there may be some action on campus climate issues as a result of recent — and some not-so-recent —anti-transgender harassment).
The intro. class will continue next term.
Marking-marking-marking for the next who-can-tell-how-long, but it all has to be tied-up before Dec. 14th when we leave for NYC for ten days or so.
1 Mon. Dec. 6 at 1:30 in the Faculty/Staff lounge, if anyone is interested.
November 28, 2004
Tell it, Sister!
Sharon asks, "Is a working father good for the child?"
Pericat demonstrates le plus ce change....
November 27, 2004
Well I'm back
An interesting evening: a reading and the ballet. I generally have to work hard to convince myself to go out again once I am home, and after a long week it was difficult to go back into the cold and leave a warm house, a pre-schooler getting ready for his bath, and a soft bed. But I did, and am glad.
Beth Powning reads well. I haven't read The Hatbox Letters but from the two excerpts I heard, it is, at least in part, an intensely nuanced exploration of loss and loneliness. In other words, although I recognize the artistry, I doubt I will read it any time soon.
There is an interesting congruence between Powning's novel —
When Kate Harding, recently widowed, receives nine antique hatboxes — family letters, diaries, and memorabilia — from Hartford, Connecticut, she finds herself drawn back to the childhood summers she spent in Shepton, her grandparents’ Connecticut house.
and the ballet, Les Portes Tournantes, in which there are also documents from the past in the form of "a mysterious black book."
It appears that this evening was my time for dabbling: first a reading from a book I likely won't read, and then the first ballet I've seen in well over a decade. The first Act failed to draw me in, though the second did, despite my reservations about the narrative as some sort of wish-fulfilment story for children of divorced parents, and my discomfort with the theme of two mothers who leave their children. Boy children. (Wonder what my little sprout is doing? Is he upset that I went out? Why am I here watching a narrative about abandonment since to do so required me to temporarily abandon my son? And of course, when I got home I found that he had had a fine evening with his father, played for ages, and went easily to sleep. So.)
One thing I found interesting about the performance was the consistent focus on other forms of artistic production: one character is a painter, and paintings are a significant part of the set. Another is a musician; a "string quartet" dances their performance with their instruments. The artist's mother, danced by the magnificent Evelina Sushko, was a pianist who accompanied silent films in Cambellton, N.B. Textual documents — the mother's unmailed letters — are central. And of course the ballet itself is based upon Jacques Savoie's 1985 novel.
But much of this is still dabbling. The fact of the matter is that I could not bring myself to care very much for any of these characters, Powning's or the dancers' (with the exception of Sushko's solo in which she gives up her infant son. Yeah, there's a theme here). I was irritated with Powning's widowed Kate; she seemed so solipsistic, so bogged down — or even luxuriating in — in the minutia of her existence. (Big caveat: yes I know I only heard two small sections.) Jaded? Cold? Tired? Insensitive? Overwhelmed? In denial??? You be the judge.
Turned on the ignition in the car afterward and was blasted with some screaming metal on the campus radio, flipped to the "Golden Oldies" station but it was even more maudlin than usual, so settled on the CBC. And caught the tail end of the last in this year's Massey Lecture series, A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright:
Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water — the very elements of life.
The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?
In A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.
Finally, some perspective. There will be no readings, no ballet, after the apocalypse. But on the plus side: no critics, either.
Globe and Mail review of the ballet.
Part one of the Massey Lectures is available on audio.
A Short History of Progress available from Anansi Press.
Interview with Ronald Wright. And another.
Wright's novels, A Scientific Romance and Henderson's Spear.
Civilization is a Pyramid Scheme: The Maya's ruined temples reveal a frightening message for us all, says archaeologist Ronald Wright (originally published in the Globe & Mail 08/05/2000).
November 24, 2004
Just say no to consumerism
Nov. 26 is Buy Nothing Day. And if that gets you motivated, you could go on to join the Christmas Resistance Movement (both from wood s lot). As for me, I will try to remember to pack a lunch Friday.
November 23, 2004
WWFD?
"What would Freya do?" is my new blog motto.
What is she on about? you ask. Go here.
November 16, 2004
Alix Olsen
Folk poet and so much more.
Visit her site.
Critics write: "Slam superstar Alix Olsen gives voice to the voiceless," and "She will make you laugh your head off and then cry your eyes out in the space of five minutes."
November 22, 2004
Ganong Hall Lecture Theatre, UNBSJ
Doors open 4:45pm
Show 5pm
Free Admission
Presented by the Faculty of Arts, the Gender Studies Programme, and the Women's Resource Centre
Update (19/11/04): Alix Olsen's Canadian dates have been cancelled; no word yet on rebooking. Too bad; it looked to be a good show.
November 11, 2004
Lest we forget
Thoughtful post and comments at Crooked Timber.
Michelle puts it in perspective, and offers a link to vintage postcards at First World War.com.
Had a discussion yesterday with a colleague who does not ever wear a poppy because he is a pacifist. I, too, would describe myself as a pacifist, and I used to wear a peace symbol on and around Nov. 11 when I lived in Toronto, a peace symbol which I seem to have mislaid now that I live in New Brunswick. Where, for the first time in my life, I have bought poppies from the various old codgers or pimply cadets who sell them. It's almost a different country here. I was puttering around the house today, trying to burn my lines into my memory (which is another story. Amazing what it does to one's sense of well-being when one's mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's) when I heard bagpipes playing nearby. Now I don't live near the centre of town, I live in what are called the suburbs here (though in southern Ontario this type of neighbourhood would be regarded as being in the country). Someone practising for something or other, yeah, but it seemed a symbol of the ubiquity of a certain shade of historical sensibility in this province.
My father was born in 1915. He remembers the Zeppelins over London. His uncles fought in the trenches, wearing goddamned kilts that froze out in front of them horizontally when they sat down for too long. Which I suppose would have answered the age-old question, if anyone had cared. The "Ladies from Hell." Or in hell. Lots of family stories about one uncle who had a plate in his head, another whose lungs were destroyed by gas, and a third who was never the same after the war: he flew into rages.
My father was the same age as my son is now when the war ended. He will turn ninety next March. Perhaps it is knowing that WWI is at the far edge of living memory, that it is soon to join the Boer War on the flat pages of history books, that has prompted me to drop a loonie into the tray and pick up a poppy.
A poppy which I promptly lose. Those straight pins never keep them attached for very long.
One of the two characters in "Mortal Remains," one of the three plays we are doing, is a veteran of WWII. My character's late husband was also a veteran. The play was written two decades or so ago. Those characters could not be written now; the play has become a period piece in a very short time. It feels important to do it now, while it still makes some kind of sense.
If I could only remember my lines.
November 06, 2004
And here's a parting shot
from Giornale Nuovo which brings to mind the U.S. election. And not just because most everything brings to mind the U.S. election these past couple of days (I worked it into a lecture on Pilgrim's Progress yesterday. Which I suppose is not really that much of a stretch).
November 05, 2004
Maud knows what to do
Here is some good advice. Though the truth, even when available, can so easily be ignored. But if there are enough voices ...
November 04, 2004
Cue Hendrix guitar solo
This makes me feel a little better (certainly better than this or this or this):
Click for larger image.
(From Jeff Culver via Boing Boing).
November 03, 2004
Message to fellow Canadians
Ho ho, my frostbitten compatriots, our plans for world domination continue apace. But someone squealed. She will have to shovel the driveway.
Then, there is this. I did my bit years ago. The rest of you: act now! Thanks, Chuck.
And the world
is even less safe this morning than it was before.
November 02, 2004
Here's crossing our fingers
for all our American friends. And for the rest of us, too.
October 22, 2004
Phyllis Chesler has lost her mind
Just heard Chesler being interviewed on the CBC this morning, and she said that she was voting for Bush (whom she described as an "alpha male," appealing in times of trouble), largely because of concerns about terrorism and the Middle East.
And I just had my innocent Gender Studies students read an article of hers in their anthology. On reproductive rights, luckily, on which she still has a clue.
How could someone who says she has never voted Republican in her life choose this election to do so?
July 31, 2004
Parodies
A few days ago The Little Professor posted a link to the fifth annual Faux Faulkner and Imitation Hemingway Contests contest. I particularly like the Faulkner-writes-Piglet entry:
“Yes,” Piglet said, “Yes.” And will be: more tracks and even more after them, unhurried and without increment, save the increment of there always being two more: following, leading, a doomed and final charge of Hefalumps, moving through land that was always theirs and beyond which they will, can know nothing: “I’m getting very hungry,” said Pooh.
And Tom Runnacles at Crooked Timber notes that the UK government treats its citizens like bears of little brain.
June 29, 2004
Could've been worse.
A lot worse.
The election results are almost in and the winner is: the devil that we know.
Lots of Canadian bloggers have commented, some extensively, some making thoughtful comparisons with their home countries.
Prize for most suggestive post: Mark Woods' series of links about Carl Rakosi, beginning with this excerpt from "The Citizen" (1996):
And everywhere
the same old working man,
his nose to the grindstone,
expecting nothing,
not knowing where to turn.
Like Prometheus, the citizen,
who rages, “God
damn this debasement!
Must we become cynics?”
Oh, citizen!
June 28, 2004
To my compatriots:
[Unless you plan to vote Reform Alliance "Conservative." In which case — hey, look over there!]
June 21, 2004
Which twin has the Toni?
Well if this isn't enough to make one believe in phrenology, I don't know what is...
Choosing a novel
for my upcoming introduction to gender studies course.1 I had thought of Morrison's Beloved, of course, but it's been done to death and I wanted to do something Canadian. I want something accessible, that treats gender and race issues, by a contemporary author. One of my colleagues recommended I look at
Anita Rau Badami's The Hero's Walk and Tamarind Mem,
Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night, and
Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters.
I think that I will go with Tamarind Mem. The Hero's Walk is set entirely in India, and I wanted to be able to talk about cross-cultural experience. Desirable Daughters fits the bill and I look forward to reading it myself, but I think it might not be entirely accessible to a lower level class of non-English majors, and Cereus Blooms at Night is wrenching, even just skimming through (it is for that reason that I thought of, and discarded, Ann Marie MacDonald's Fall On Your Knees: it is simply too daunting to think of reading it again, even though I know students love it.) But there is still time to drive the staff at the bookstore crazy by changing my order, so if anyone has any other suggestions, please don't hesitate to send them on.
1 Issues of Gender (ed. Ellen G. Friedman and Jennifer D. Marshall) is the main course text.
June 15, 2004
Various follow-ups
More LotR pastiches. Some of these are really clever. At Making Light.
Women voting: from a UK perspective. Check out the suffrage board game! (via misbehaving).
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step: blogging Ulysses (via Edward Champion). This guy is gonna get sued.
On comics: two posts from Edward Champion: Comics as Literature — Some Starting Points and Someone Cuts Through the Swath. Next, manga is encroaching on US bestseller lists. And, Weirdwriter thinks much the same as I do about comics, but argues the point better. Finally, talk about Art! Isadora Duncan, eat your heart out.
June 14, 2004
I wear lipstick and I vote
One of my commentors pointed towards Women's Equality is a Must, a site put together by a coalition of Canadian women's groups to promote participation in the upcoming election.
Addendum (4:56pm): This from the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women (NB Women's News 14/6/04):
ELECTION UPDATE
How many New Brunswick women are running in the upcoming federal election? Eight, out of 40 candidates (20%): 1 Conservative, 1 Liberal, 2 NDP and 4 Green.
How many female candidates overall nationally? 303 of 1,307 or 23% of candidates. (1993: 23%; 1997: 24%; 2000, 19%).
NDP 31%
Liberal 25%
Bloc Québécois 24%
Green Party 23%
Conservative 11% (source)
How do the parties' policy platforms compare on women's issues? See comparison of 3 major parties' platforms, by Michelle Smith.
View Still in Shock, a document modeled after the much-acclaimed Shocking Pink Paper, published in 1988 and 1993 by the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (abolished in 1995).
Expecting a visit from an election candidate? Print a list of questions to ask. Ex.: What will your party do to extend Canada's human rights legislation so that the fundamental human rights of Aboriginal women living on reserve are protected? Will your party support a publicly funded, universal, high quality, inclusive, not-for-profit child care system? Will you and your party support the introduction of some proportional representation into Canada's electoral system?
June 07, 2004
Reagan reconsidered
More links (now this is more like it):
Joseph Duemer on Reagan's Legacy.
Juan Cole on Reagan's Passing (via Sharp Sand).
Charlie writes about how Reagan almost killed him.
John Quiggin on Risk and Reagan
Echidne culls some good quotes from The Guardian.
Michael Bérubé on A wingnut credo.
"Ronald Reagan — The Bonzo Years" (via Shatnerian).
Mark Sarvas offers a Reagan Corrective and links to Steve over at Splinters.
And award for best title of a post goes to the Rake for "Ronald Reagan is dead and I don't feel so well myself."
Update (8/7/04): And,
George makes a good point, and Edward Champion avoids the whole topic.
(10/6/04): And from Respectful of Otters.
June 06, 2004
Ronald Reagan, 1911—2004
"Reagan's Liberal Legacy" by Joshua Green (Washington Monthly) (from Alas, a Blog).
"Ronald Reagan 1911-2004" by Steve Gilliard (from Alas, a Blog and Lying Media Bastards).
"Detractors of CBS' The Reagans Rewrite, Distort AIDS History" (via bentkid).
May 28, 2004
Must ... control ... fist ... of death!
I just had to delete thirty comments all from some porn site promoting more varieties of rape than I would have thought possible. And, I'm very bitter for having now been made to think about them. So, here are some light-hearted links. Go on, chuckle!
Finally — American politics explained.
The 100 Worst Porn Movie Titles (from the Rake, living up to his name). I'm trying to decide between May the Foreskin Be With You, Ass-Hole O Mio, and Yank My Doodle, It's A Dandy. Okay, you may not want to visit this page. But at least there's nothing about rape there.
Gawker says that Soul Plane is "the Citizen Kane of blacksploitation airline industry films." Shatnerian says that this is "The Movie Blurb of the Day. I say, they are both right.
Stephany Aulenback's Beckett for Babies project continues apace. I regret not having sent in a photo of the Jinker Boy, but he is just so purposeful.
Check out The Blog of Death, a blog of obituaries (link from Portage). Okay, that one's not funny. But now I feel better.
Thanks for being there.
May 26, 2004
Some links
Feministing has a post about Cindy Sherman, Photographer extraordinaire, and links to some other feminist artists (Yay Guerrilla Girls!).
The Ex-Classics Web Site takes on the needful task of reproducing texts formerly influential, now out of print, such as the Newgate Calendar with its tales of crime and depravity.
Million Book Project (via Maud).
Two very funny links from Boing Boing: Donald and Mickey insinuated into various canonical works of art, and famous nudes with clothing on.
This is doing the rounds. Reminds me of those little videos of Dave Pogue on the Macworld CDs. Do those guys go to some speech school somewhere?
Common Errors in English and How to Recognize Plagiarism (both via Palimpsest).
The Power of Woe, The Power of Life. Images of women in prints from the Renaissance to the present (from Plep).
Amnesty International’s annual report for 2004 now out (via Crooked Timber):
Around the world, more than a billion people's lives were ruined by extreme poverty and social injustice while governments continued to spend freely on arms.
May 18, 2004
The snack that smiles back, and other book news
Three posts on politics and literature at The Reading Experience.
Collecting bizarre books (via Mirabilis).
From Giornale Nuovo: a suit of books (playing cards with images of books rather than hearts or spades) by Jost Amma, published in 1588.
Pepperidge Farm is suing St. Martin's over the cover of Tom Perrotta's new novel, Little Children, which features two goldfish crackers (The Literary Salon).
The Little Prince tattoo (from Maud).
Nobel prize laureate Wole Soyinka tear-gassed and arrested (via Bookslut and The Literary Salon).
May 16, 2004
Well worth a look
At wood s lot: Adrian Rich, the People's Park, Brian Eno, Aleister Crowley, and lots of politics.
May 12, 2004
Googlebomb update
Alex Halavais points out that the recent googlebombing of the word "jew" was only successful in the short term, questions the efficacy of the whole strategy, and links to yesterday's Wired article. Google's arguments seem solid, but as Wired notes, it is interesting that no other search engines turn up the white supremicist site. Couple this with Google's anti-porn option, and where is the free speech argument?
May 09, 2004
"Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage"
Ampersand posts about the radical roots of Mothers' Day.
Addendum (1:45am): Two posts at Blog Sisters about Mothers' Day: its origins, and its significance this year because of the war.
April 26, 2004
Some links
Poetry in your pocket (via Culture Cat).
Tracking kids with Lego writstbands (via slashdot).
Zombies are the new Republicans (via the chutry experiment).
A woman who says her iPod is better than her boyfriend (via Cult of Mac).
Screensaver mimics airplane window (via Cult of Mac).
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: a punctuation game (via forty.something. And no, you may not know my score.)
La Gringa asks, "What would Joan Jett do?" (W.W.J.J.D.?)
Marching for women's lives
Go to ms. musings for a series of exhilarating, exuberant, posts on the march yesterday.
Addendum (4:27): More on the march, from feministing.
Update (9:57): Edward Champion is underwhelmed by the coverage in both the media and the blogosphere. (Hey, I blogged it! What am I, chopped liver?)
(11:04): And feministe has lots of thoughtful material.
(27/4/04): And Geekery Today.
Democracy in action
The Green Party of Canada has a wiki. How cool is that? Via Boing Boing.
April 25, 2004
Politics and art and sf
Against his better judgement, Kip Manley weighs in on the politics and art debate with a post subtitled "Why I Don't Trust Aesthetes." He includes a link to a horrifying story about an interview Donna Minkowitz did with Orson Scott Card, and makes some excellent points about choosing whether or not to read sf, specifically, on political grounds:
... science fiction is largely a fiction of setting: the bulk of the iceberg that’s unseen, underwater, is the act of world-building, and in that act, politics is paramount. (One is building a polis, after all.) (Oh, hey, look! World-building again!) —Therefore, it’s all-too-appropriate to keep in mind an author’s politics when considering their science fiction: an author who, say, considers homosexuality to be an aberration, is un- (or perhaps less) likely to build a world that would appeal to a reader who does not. There’s an assumption clash: one of his fundamental, foundational bedrocks is abhorrent to me, and vice-versa.
... I’ll allow as how there’s frequently large gaps in the jerry-rigged polis left as exercises for the reader: one can hardly describe every kitchen sink, after all; one must make assumptions, and count on the reader doing likewise (which among other reasons is why fan fiction [and slash fiction] is so popular in science fiction). But that’s precisely why when those assumptions suddenly clash, it’s unsettling, even violently dissonant ...
(And he goes on to quote one of my favourite writers. Read the whole post.)
Of course some sf writers reproduce the here and now in the if and when, while some mainstream writers create a strange new world in the suburbs. But Kip is correct; the particular characteristics of sf add a twist to the whole question. If I list the writers whose heads I don't mind living in for extended periods, they are often fellow travellers of one stripe or another, because in sf they are the ones asking some of the "what ifs?" that I interest me as well, even if, as is often the case, I didn't realize it before picking up the book.
Let's go back to Matthew Cheney's post of ten days ago, in which he argues not only that there are aspects of sf which make the politics of the author particularly significant, but that sf, broadly defined, is the main locus of political imaginings in literature:
It seems to me that books such as The Grapes of Wrath are anomalies in the history of fiction, and that the majority of political art — political art that lasts more than a few weeks, that is — has utilized imagination and fantasy to explore truths which lie beneath the surface of the morning paper's headlines.
Which opens the door to a discussion of definition of the genre. Another discussion; not this one.
April 22, 2004
Stand up for Women's Lives
The March for Women's Lives! will take place in just a few days, on April 25, 2004.
Several posts about abortion in the last little while: see particularly Lauren's searching entry at feministe and ampersand at Alas, a Blog, here and here.
Addendum (23/4/04): (And George's post, here.)
April 19, 2004
Politics and art II
The conversation about politics and art continues apace. If you haven't read it, check out my previous entry and follow the links. Dan Green and Edward Champion have each posted thoughtful explorations of what it means to be an aesthete, in part in answer to my rather offhand characterization in the earlier post (think Oscar Wilde with the green carnation here). I could have been clearer: I was referring to the ultimate position on some sort of continuum rather than to individuals who consider aesthetic values paramount in all the nuanced ways in which it is possible to do so. But then I suppose I should have said that.
In a comment to the earlier post Edward Champion suggested that we are manoeuvring around a semantic difference, and I am increasingly convinced that this is, in part, true. We are all referring to "politics" at cross-purposes. I do in fact mean "by saying everyone is 'political' we mean everyone has his/her interests," as Dan Green puts it. He also writes, "If we are all 'political creatures who exist in the world,' are we not also 'sociological creatures,' 'historical creatures,' 'cultural creatures,' 'economic creatures'? Such abstractions are so cosmically extended as to be meaningless." To my mind the term "political" includes all these other ideas, but even so I don't feel that the term is meaningless. I suppose what I am really saying is that I am a materialist. That is how I look at things, at everything. That does not mean that I don't appreciate aesthetic values; it just means that I don't think they were inspired by the muses ("muses" meaning, something outside of history). This doesn't mean that I "prefer" politics over art; it means that I understand art — individual instances of it, our appreciation (or not) of those instances, as well as "art" as a concept or concepts — as arising from material conditions.
I am sympathetic to the irritation of people on the aesthetic side of this debate — if we should even put it that divisive way — when they feel that they are being patronized by the claims of the politicos that they are simply ignorant of the politics that are so manifestly there for anyone with eyes to see; sympathetic, because I myself am irritated by what seem to me to be parallel claims that my perspective is impoverished, that I am blinded by my agenda into merely exploiting artistic products for didactic purposes, that I can't even enjoy the beauty of a sunset without thinking of the pollution that is contributing to the display and cursing the multinationals that are destroying our grandchildren's birthright.
Not sure how to wind this up; clearly this is an old debate, but it rarely fails to draw us in. And as my mother used to say, usually in an (unsuccessful) attempt to end a conversation that was getting too fractious, "Well wouldn't life be boring if we all agreed?" Yes, especially as the quality of the disagreement has been particularly fine, of late.
Update (21/4/04): The discussion continues to be lively over at The Reading Experience.
Reversing vandalism
For a year, an unknown person mutilated copies of books on GLBTQ topics1 in the San Francisco Public Library and left them with little typewritten advertisements for a Bible radio station inside. He was finally caught, but what to do with the books? Click here to see "Reversing Vandalism," an amazing collection by various artists, professional and amateur, made from the damaged books.
"For Duf" by Dacey Hunter, courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library.
[The glass highlights the words, "What were you afraid we would learn?"]
1 Okay, I'm being snotty, quoting this. So be it: "Though the vandal had clearly relied on the library catalog to seek out books on gay issues, he evidently did not understand the search results: Among the books destroyed were works by author Gay Talese and those concerning the Enola Gay, the famous World War II warplane..."
April 17, 2004
Academic freedom
From Ampersand at Alas, a Blog:
Odds are you haven't heard of Title VI of the International Studies in Higher Education Act of 2003 - but if it passes the [U.S.] Senate, it'll be an enormous loss for academic freedom and free speech.
It already passed the House last fall (it's bill number is H.R. 3077), and is expected to come up in the Senate soon. If it becomes law, what Title VI will do is creat an "International Higher Education Board," which will review International Studies programs at universities and reccomend to the Secretary of Education and Congress which programs should continue getting grants.
April 16, 2004
Politics and art
The discussion is spreading. Maud Newton writes, very reasonably,
I wouldn't necessarily avoid a writer's work based on his or her politics — and I wouldn't "boycott" a book or call for anyone else to do so because an author's beliefs are offensive to me personally. But absent some independent reason for believing that the book would resonate for me, I might be less likely to pick it up.1
The comments section of my own original post has also become quite interesting.
Edward Champion agrees with Jessa Crispin that art and politics are separate. Kitabkhana is in accord; he writes that authors are not their books. Champion writes that when he tried to think of "great art" that is political,
The only immediate examples that came to my head were Elizabeth Gaskell, Arthur Miller, and Margaret Atwood. But even in these offerings, the politics is relatively subdued, more subject to a reader's individual impressions. It's a far more subtle thing for Atwood to point out the politics of gender in Cat's Eye by showing us how girls are reluctant to touch bugs in a university building, implying that 1940s society carried an unspoken stigma that an entomologist's line was verboeten to women.
Whoever said that politics could not be subtle? I think there is a straw man being set up here: when people hear the words "politics" and "art" together they think of the most heavy handed examples — Soviet "socialist realism" perhaps. I think that Mark Sarvas falls into the same trap in his thoughtful post.
I agree with Matthew Cheney here: all writing — all human endeavour — is political in one way or another. It could not be anything but, as we are all political creatures who exist in the world. The absolute disdain for politics of the aesthete is in itself a political choice. Of course, to a large extent when we are talking about artistic products, given our culture's continuing Romantic hangover, the inherent politics are not always overt or even conscious. But that does not mean that they are not there.
Rasputin at Sloganeering raises the economic question: every dollar you spend on a book in one of Card's endless series is a dollar that he in turn could be funnelling to political groups with whom you may violently disagree: " if you're a particularly sensitive sort, you can almost feel your money going Alliance for Marriage as soon as it leaves your hand." (Which doesn't preclude going the second-hand route, for the conscientious-but-curious.)
I want to be clear that I am not advocating boycotting Orson Scott Card — fat chance — or suggesting that I only read writers who share my particular brand of politics; as I commented about my earlier post, I would have precious little to read if that were the case. What I am saying is that I need reasons to read something, and if there is nothing on the plus side to weigh against a known negative, then I am unlikely to crack the cover. As I also commented earlier, life's too short. I used to finish any book I began, out of some sort of misplaced pride or sense of duty. No longer. And I'll never get all those hours back, either.
But at least I'm not a fantasy reader.
1 Matthew Cheney responds to Maud's admission in the same post that she doesn't read much sf with a wonderful list of suggestions.
Correction (11:28pm): s1ngularity.net link currently not working; go to the main page and scroll down to April 14/04.
Update (17/4/04): Jessa Crispin has two more links on Card.
April 13, 2004
Off my list
Well now I don't have to feel guilty for never reading Ender's Game: Orson Scott Card authors homophobic diatribe between novels. Via Alas, a Blog.
Update (15/4/04): Bookslut gets misty-eyed about Orson Scott Card. She writes, "His politics and his books are separate." I don't see how they could be, and in the one book of his I have read, they weren't (see comments). But I love Bookslut and will certainly not stop reading her, despite a slight lack of rigour in this single instance.
More Googlebombing
Why type Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew?
Addendum (12:22am): Times of India article about why Google won't pull the offensive listing.
Update (14/4/04): Just typed in "Jew" in Amazon.com's new search engine, A9.com, and the notorious site is nowhere to be seen.
April 08, 2004
Steve Jobs: "Who writes software in French!?"
Plep links to "Resisting Cyber-English" by Joe Lockard (Bad Subjects 24 [Feb. 1996]), an article that is no doubt even more pertinent eight years on. Lockard concludes,
...the overwhelming predominance of cyber-english establishes, through language/class, a monologic and declamatory relationship with the other-than-anglophone world rather than a dialogic and supple relationship. Maintenance of online language/class structures recapitulates offline English-only monologism, which has encountered historic resistance. For those seeking alterity, the character of trans-language software has been configured by marketability rather than communicative needs. Grassroots non-anglophone cyber-access and empowerment hover temptingly at the horizon, but remain vastly distant.
He does offer a sliver of hope, however, in the final paragraph:
In practical terms, English rejectionism in cyberspace without any acceptable substitute is a self-defeating exercise in purposeless autonomy. That leaves anglophones pursuing Gramscian 'badness' in the paradoxical binds of a double consciousness, an awareness of the repressive effects of cyber-english even as we benefit from its use. Double consciousness, fortunately, is a very productive site of practice.
April 05, 2004
Googlebomb against fascism
This in from Crooked Timber: apparently the first site that comes up when one does a Google search for "Jew" is an anti-semitic hate site. Help correct this by including the word Jew on your blog or website, linked to the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew.
Addendum (2:48): Liz at mamamusings suggests links to "Who is a Jew" in addition to/instead of the Wikipedia link.
March 25, 2004
Noam Chomsky has started a blog
here.
Link from Crooked Timber.
March 11, 2004
Whew! This could never happen here
Birmingham University has become embroiled in a controversy because of plans to ban personal websites on university servers. Story from Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber.
Borders
From wood s lot: some very funny bumper stickers. My favs:
Bush in '04: A Thousand Pints of Lite
Bush/Cheney '04: Because FREEDOM can't suppress itself
Bush/Cheney '04: Don't switch horsemen mid-apocalypse
Bush/Cheney '04: Hey, look over there!
And, two articles on "Euro-lish."
February 24, 2004
Not sf
This via jill/txt: according to The Guardian, there is a recent Pentagon report that not only acknowledges the existence of global warming, but warns that we are facing a global catastrophe.
February 15, 2004
Improving the cityscape
This from Plep: a link to the Billboard Liberation Front. What it says. With links to other culture jammers.
February 13, 2004
And two from Plep
1. Positioning composers politically, for those who think art is "above politics." According to this, Wagner did not get such a bad rap after all.
2. "Cold Off The Presses is a growing collection of classic anarchist pamphlets and journals." I like that one of them is called Lucifer: The Light Bearer.
February 03, 2004
No poetry at the White House
Here, via thinking with my fingers, is a link to "The White House has disinvited the poets" by Julia Alvarez, written after Laura Bush withdrew an invitation to poets involved in the antiwar movement. It is rather sweet about the First Lady, "married to a scarier fellow" than any poet.
A sadder companion to an earlier post about the lack of poetry in Washington.
Unelectable reprise
Those of you who were following the unelectable meme—and you know who you are—may be interested in the following exchange taking place on H-Mac. It started with some poor fellow from France, who probably didn't know what he was stepping into, posting a message about miserable failure. I followed up with a post mentioning someone unelectable. These two messages were promptly followed by two others, both rather tetchy. A non-polical forum, tricks are for kids, crypto-politics, yada yada yada. Both respondents freely, one might even say obliviously, admit to more egregious actions themselves. My response is a model of wit and restraint. I am shocked, shocked at this lack of civility among Mac users.
No word yet from France.
February 01, 2004
You know that satire is dead,
as Neil Gaiman writes, when you read that some right–wing nutbar has proposed Dubya and Tony Blair for the Noble Peace Prize "for having dared to take the necessary decision to launch a war on Iraq without having the support of the UN." Mind you, it sounds like all and sundry can make nominations, including "members of parliament and cabinet ministers from around the world and some university professors."