Looking for Dates at the Free Lizzy Borden Protest

Or, the 19th century Eileen Wournos as a Social Occasion



I am taking a sick day, which is good news for my blog and bad news for my landlord, on whom I now have time to concentrate my wrath about the lack of hot water in my apartment. But meanwhile, The Legend of Lizzy Borden (1975) is on Oxygen, and I'm enjoying seeing how - apparently - Lizzy's case brought out a lot of proto-feminists in the creaky old year of 1893, when suffrage was a distant pipe dream, and the first women's college - my alma mater Vassar - was just being established. Just like how the Lesbian Avengers would have parties to rally support for the lesbian "serial killer" Eileen Wournos, on death row in Florida, on the grounds that she was a mentally retarded prostitute and therefore could easily be telling the truth that all those men she killed in fact were trying to rape her... Never mind that Eileen truly is - how shall we say it - unbalanced - and was converted to Christianity and disavows her lesbian identity (it was her lesbian lover who turned her in)... It still makes for a good case to talk about prostitutes' rights, what constitutes consent, and how the media will convict someone before a court sees the legal process through. However, Eileen was convicted of all of her murders (12, I think), and she even confessed to them on the bad advice of her lesbian lover. Lizzy was acquitted, despite all the evidence.



So why doesn't the "she's just a nice good-natured innocent victim of the partriarchy" argument work anymore? I'll think about it and let you know. Meanwhile, I'll just stay with my imagined scene of big-hatted cameo-throated lesbians cruising eachother outside the Lizzy Borden trial.



Here is a link to a virtual tour of the Borden house and other Lizzy resources, including a newsletter with all the latest theories of her case.

"Come in! Come in! Fortunate favourite of the Queen-- or else not so fortunate." said Fenris to the turncoat Edmund.




There are only three coworkers in the office with my today after this gruelling long week of meetings. I left out on my desk the copy of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe that I'm reading, and I've so far had unsolicited conversations about Turkish Delight, about the masculine and anti-fertility-deity nature of the White Witch, and her origin as a Daughter of Lillith, and how Lucy and Edmund- who introduce Narnia to the world of man- do it through potentially erotic encounters with mystical beings of the opposite sex...



In case you haven't read it, I did manage to find an unpretty version of the LWW text on some Russian website (that has all the books of The Chronicles of Narnia, it seems). However, it is in some awful font with no text wrapping, so I recommend you cut and paste to a more readable format before attempting to read... or better yet, go buy the book and curl up with a lapcat and a cup of tea and read it in a sunbeam.



One of my coworkers hasn't read it, another has read it twice, and the other has read it twenty or more times over the course of his whole life.



Of all the many sites I have cruised today to find more information about the morphology of words invented in the text of Narnia, two have caught my attention the most. One is a compilation of descriptions of meals eaten in The Chronicles and the other is Wizard Words which tries to source terminology invented by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter books. Horrifying as it is, I haven't read the Harry Potter books, but I saw the movie and was fascinated by the use of Latin in the dialogue-- and now that I'm studying Latin it is interesting to learn how Rowling played with it to create mystical-sounding nonsense words.



The author of this Wizard Words site didn't hestitate to throw in a little political history to spice the mix, either:



Binns

------- Professor of History of Magic at Hogwarts



Leon Trotsky wrote that the Mensheviks, a Russian revolutionary faction, belonged in "the dustbin of history". The phrase has become a cliché. Dustbin is a British word for garbage can. This helps to convey the impression that Professor Binns is dry as dust, and the history he teaches is mostly rubbish.

"You would think a band of Amazons was battling." - Statius AD 92




This is what happens when you get cable and/or purchase sets of whole show seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena the Warrior Princess at the same time. You start giving your Latin tutor enormous headaches by insisting on translating all the texts about battles which do not specify the third person singular person's gender as female (Her troops were sent but never arrived. The spears of her men were found in the center of town. She killed the man who slaughtered the inhabitants.) My tutor never fails to assume the male gender of the unspecified third person singular, I never fail to assume the female. Click here for more information on real written and archeological evidence of a legacy of real-live ass-kicking women warriors who fought fierce battles against and alongside men in ancient history.



I really am such a stereotype sometimes. Oh well.

Another Pearl From Nanna and a Note on Gender



Nanna is my bellydance teacher and she frequently imparts pearls of wisdom that are good for dancers and good for anyone. I have classes on Tuesdays and so today I have a new pearl.



Have a focus-- inward focus, or outward focus. Focus gives strength.



At this point in class another dance student who is studying massage therapy showed us how much strength someone's lifted arm gains when the person just focuses a little attention on it. If you move through life inattentive to your own movement and action, you will move through with a fraction of the power and strength you could have with just a little focus and attention on what you are doing.



And a note on gender. I wrote my definitions for sensual-living-related terms a few days ago-- and I neglected the many varied words I use to describe differently-gendered people. It's just the truth that someone in my presence is experienced by me as a gendered being, and if they are living (or preferring to try to live) as a boy or a girl, I will refer to them as a boy or a girl. I dated a self-identified bi-gendered person once, someone who 12 hours of the day passed as a man and 12 hours of the day passed as a woman, but in my presence she was a she, and liked to be called a she, so she remains a she in my stories about her. However, I will tell the details of her gender identity in pertinent contexts. Her bigendered nature was not the most remarkable part of her-- she *passed* as both genders, and liked to screw with people's assumptions all across the board, blurring the lines around her (Filipina) ethnicity by using exoticized pseudonyms, and wearing blonde wigs. Unfortunately, she kind of ended up stalking me, but from afar (she lives in another city), so I lovingly owe her the credit for inspiring the phrase "slacker stalker." She shows up at my performances most of the time, but when she misses one, I complain that my primary stalker lacks ambition.



A short collection of some of my favorite gender-identifying terms: trannyboy, trannygirl, third-gender, genderqueer, androgyne, gynandrone, genderfuckr, boi, grrrl, and of course the old stand-bys femme, butch, FTM, and MTF. Construct your own gender? Why not! But gender is a private thing, a secret set of personal beliefs, kind of like a religion, so before you offend someone with your assumptions of heteronormativity, female or maleness, or Christianity-- just ask!

Sample dialogue: Q. Are you a bidyketrannychaserwitch?

A. Why, hell yes! Thanks for asking!

The Slacker Stalker Guide to Big Time Sensuality

Because I had to go crack open the subject of my sordid sexual history and all... I might as well define my terms.



I actually wrote a nice poem that sort of rhymed with a list of what I called "San Francisco Alternative Terminology for the World 'Girlfriend'" but I don't want to start blogging with my own poetry, so here is a less poetic, functional and easy-to-use guide to my personal metrosexualesque (jaded urban) sensualist terminology.

girl

an estrogen-based life form, or someone who lives 24/7 as though s/he were one.

boy

a testosterone-based life form, or someone who lives 24/7 as though s/he were one.

date

when a boy and a girl are involved, this is a simple matter: you meet to get to know eachother and the sexual tension is usually evident as part of the proposition; when it is a boy and a boy, I understand that it is clear from word one when it is a date or not and exactly what kind of sex is expected (or not); when it is a girl and a girl, dissertations can be written on when and whether the participants know it is a date. In my life, it is when a pre-set (more than an hour before) evening appointment is made for the clear purpose of getting to know one another with the evident intention of eventual romantic intimacy. I pretty much never get dates, but if I got one, I think this is what it would be.

relationship

a vile, vile word, used for the purposes of emotional blackmail so often that I recommend that it be added to the list of poisonous swearwords along with the word (if you are polyamorous) scheduling (see below). A relationship in my world is what happens when you know eachother's name and/or any non-disconnected phone number. Having one entitles you to stalk the person from afar, but not much more.

polyamourous/ polyfidelitous

the first describes someone who can hold up more than one meaningful relationship for more than one date each, with everyone knowing about everyone else; the second describes someone who makes a commitment to more than one person so that they (usually) all have to agree before proliferating their dating efforts, which leads to the dirty dirty word...

scheduling

the common root cause of anxiety attacks and depression among polyfidelitous people. So many lovers, so little time, so tiny the print in our little date-planners...

fling

the amino acids of the protein that is romance, necessary and often found in easily-consumable pleasures, like fried chicken. Just kidding. Fried chicken is more of a commitment- it leaves grease stains that last. Hickeys and bruises fade (and don't photograph well): you get no real battle scars to show for your trouble. A fling is any mutual and consensual sexual experience that lasts 10 minutes or more. I don't use the term one-night-stand because in my world those last so long they tend to become synonymous with the...

extended fling

...which lasts minimally for 1-3 nights or the equivalent (if you are situated where you have white nights around the summer solstice). By the end of one of these, you have no commitment, but you generally do have a relationship (see above). These are fun, but a burden, because in the lesbian world, they open the door to the U-Haul Syndrome, an affliction which plagues mostly rural dyke communities, but against which nobody is immune. The U-Haul Syndrome is where two lonely girls who have the time and the money (if only barely) to do so move in together as soon as they know eachother's name and one working phone number.

girlfling/ boyfling

what you call the participants in any sort of fling, usually means "just a fling," without the extended road warranty.

girlthing/ boything

the panacea of the dating-terminologically-delayed, this makes do while you are awaiting permission to use one of the terms below...

girlfriend/ boyfriend

used to describe someone who has been in an extended fling with you for four weeks or more, often used on the sly for a while before being agreed upon in private in a two-person consensus usually secured through fancy home-cooked meals, anniversary gifts, and/or blackmail.

partner

is anyone who lets you call her/him your "partner" in public- other pronunciations include "parrrrdner," "attorney at law," and "pooky-boobs." Just kidding on that last one. It is definitely an avoidable term, in other words. But I like it for its easy use in declension.

domestic partner

means that you've got a certificate number attached to your non-heteronormative relationship.

significant other

abbreviated s.o. ("esso")- implies a meaningful, committed relationship that lasts from one night to a lifetime or beyond. Preferred term for bisexual women describing their male partner within the earshot of a lesbian of unknown bifriendliness.

long term emotional entanglement

describes almost every significant relationship the Slacker Stalker has ever had.

fuckbuddy

strictly a anonymous or pseudonymous trick- or one that you wish was- and to whom you give one working phone number, but not two.

Before you all embark on the high seas of romance armed with these handy terms, remember what Bjork says (warns): "it takes courage to enjoy it, the hardcore and the gentle, big time sensuality."

some people leave no electronic footprints

which is frustratin' somethin' awful to your casual armchair stalker


I am - for it seems the forty billionth time (but really just about the third time) - trying to find some electronic footprints left by my ex-girlthing in St. Petersburg, Russia. It seems there aren't any for a fifty-something non-English-speaking butch dyke roadside-flower-kiosk-employee with no college degree and whose 15 minutes of fame was founding the first Russian lesbian club Sappho and taking them to a last place finish in team handball (Team Sappho) in the 1996 Berlin Eurogames. Look up Natasha Petrova Ivanova and you end up with too much information about an Anastasia Romanova imposter. Maybe she's going by her nickname, Ivanov. Oh well, the slacker stalker has been forced to admit defeat. Again.

Homesick for An Adopted Home

Somehow, when I lived in Russia all the hijinx of the US government seemed distant, predictable, even funny.



My cable tv has started including suddenly my old favorite channel- American Movie Classics- and today they are playing that creaky cold war movie White Nights which I haven't seen since it came out in 1985, or maybe 1986. In 1989 I went on a student trip to the Soviet Union, because it was either there or Emden, Germany, where I would have to live with the exchange student I had been forced to endure from there, who was a racist nationalist. I also thought the Evil Empire would be cool. I didn't think I would feel like I'd come home. I learned Russian and went back there to live.



Now, I find myself in homesick tears watching the defected Mikhail Baryshnikov do a heartfelt, grief-filled dance to the dissident song "The Horses" of the Russian bard Vladimir Vysotsky on the stage of the Marinsky (circa the Soviet Union it was the Kirov), a gorgeous theatre in Petersburg where I tried to see a performance at least every other month, and every time I've been back. What that dance, on that stage, to that music must have meant for Mikhail. I can only imagine. It brought together the old Russian empire design of the theatre (see in this Quicktime tour the box for the royal family center-screen), the Soviet conditions, and the resistance music.



I remember watching this movie when I was 12, when we borrowed the VCRs and movies from U-Haul (where my mom rented out trucks). I was suckered in by the creepy music making the Russian landscape seem creepy, never for a moment doubting the good intentions of the US Americans. It's not a great movie, but it brings out two realities that are very true for me: the existance of Russian petit tyrannies over individuals, and US American racist arrogance towards non-white artists. The movie never relents-- they are always cutting to scenes in Petersburg that wrench my insides with longing. The storefront of a reliable, good bakery on Nevsky Prospekt. The griffin bridge that's next to the Economic Institute where I used to crash on weekends, and next to the club where I went to the club "Joy" whose gay dance party on Saturday was called "Greshniki"-- sinners-- but which on Friday was the lesbian night club -- and was called "Greshnitsy" -- girl-sinners.



The pale yellow of Leningrad-Petersburg's buildings, the gorgeous Italian-style architecture- music to my eyes. The cobblestones my tired feet knew so well. There is nothing like it in this country. I have the lukewarm unreliable hot water, but I don't have the cobblestone pereulki, the sidestreets winding you into the maze of bridges.



Oh, and for the record, I'm not really a Communist. I'm not really a Capitalist. I've decided recently that I'm a Pagan Theocrat- we should all worship the Earth and regard Her protectors as our leaders. Our holy ghost if we need one can be Judi Bari.



If the environment was a little less abused there, and women were a little less targeted by crime, and, oh, maybe if Natasha hadn't dumped me the last time I was there, I would go back to Petersburg in a heartbeat. Maybe the United States' international policy of violence against anyone who doesn't let us control their oil production wouldn't feel as much my problem as it does. Then again, maybe it would start to make sense.



I did hang an American flag (stolen off a mailbox by a girlfriend after a concert on the first Lollapalooza tour as a token of affection) in my one-room apartment in Novgorod. Next to a picture of Ani Difranco. If the boys I hung out with said anything overly sexist I would point to the flag and say "you're on American territoritory here, that shit don't fly." But of course, I used Russian swear words, since Russian boys are allowed to say things in front of Amerikanki womenfolk that they aren't allowed to say in front of Russian young ladies. I would always embarrass them parroting back their horrible turns of phrase. Finally, on Valentine's Day, I got my Russian boyfriend to teach me the grammar system of "mat"- the forbidden swear language. Ah, the romance.



Tomorrow I am getting together with my bay area Russian-speaking dykes potluck and conversation group. I hope there is some good gossip from back home, and if I'm lucky, dish about Natasha.

Living and Dying with Dignity

I want to wish everyone a Happy National Joylucklovefun Day. Actually, the correct name for the holiday for Colombians today is "DIA DE AMOR Y AMISTAD." For people in the US it is probably going to be called a National Day of Remembrance and Blood Vengeance. A survivor of the WTC disaster, Laura Manning, talking with Terry Gross this morning said she was completely happy that US troops wrote her name on a bomb to drop on a target in Afghanistan. I can't judge her for feeling that way. But the only way I know I'm going to get through this state of perpetual war with any dignity is to try to hold on to at least a molecule of a feeling of mercy towards those who violently attack a perceived threat- perpetuating hate- in the name of religion and God, and likewise a molecule of a feeling of mercy towards those who are reacting violently to being attacked in the name of religion and God- perpetuating more hate. I also try to drive as little as possible, since oil is the beast behind so much violence. I also go to places sacred to me and cry to the gods of my heart that I might see justice done on this earth, in my lifetime, to the highest good of all living beings, and that I might live with dignity and gratitude, the state of grace.


I am not "pro-death" and I am not "pro-life." I will not judge someone for defending themselves, or ending their own life, or ending the life of an unborn fetus, in an effort to avert disaster from themselves or their loved ones. But I will not advocate for another person to put an end to another person's life and call that justice done. I will not advocate for soldiers of this nation to die in Iraq to avert the development of nuclear arsenals by a tyrant displeasing to our government. Saudi Arabia's royal family funds the development of Iraq's nuclear arsenals- a royal family unpunished and even lovingly- kiss kiss, both cheeks- embraced by the Presidents Bush. Does anyone remember Iran? How we - with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and the UK- helped Iraq develop biochemical weapons to use against Iran? This war we are waging is not random, not arbitrary, and yet it is not in the cause of human rights or democracy. If you think it is about justice, then watch the money, see who benefits from the threat to the US government's targets, and watch who we are not attacking. Never attacking. These allies are not countries who are defenders of human rights, and they are not democracies. Some of them have nuclear capability, and some use biochemical warfare. Why is the US in bed with the nuclear-sabre-rattling Pakistan? Pakistan would be inconvenient to hate right now. Where is the virtue and dignity in my country's oil-addicted alliances?



Today I also mourn the anniversary of my beloved's final diagnosis of cancer of the vertebrae- a cancerous broken neck, a metastisis from her breast cancer. She elected to end her life after a series of radiation treatments that burned her throat and all but prevented her from swallowing even her pain medication for weeks. Today I sent my yes-vote to a national referendum sponsored by Death With Dignity, a group advocating the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.



That about summarizes all I have to say about life and death. This recent poem by Ani Difranco recorded on her new album So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter says some other stuff I believe about the US, my home, this big, muscular, beautiful, confusing, burned, bludgeoned, head-sick, body-sick, heart-sick country.

A long blog today. That's what you get for letting me listen to NPR on a Saturday.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Postcards of Rubble

The Pottery Barn Theory of Regime Shopping~~~~

Tom Friedman of the New York Times was on NPR this morning talking about his Pottery Barn Theory regarding the plans the US always has about taking down a government and rebuilding something they like better. You break it, you bought it. Do we really want to be responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure and government of another country, and setting up the first secular, oil-rich, democratically-elected, free/fair-market-friendly, Arab/US-backed government in the Middle East? That region has no model for that kind of state. Our ally states- whose leaderships were in no way elected in free/fair elections- will not be liking the new US outpost in their midst. Turkey- a serious military power and important US training ground- will have none of us as long as we're trying to make alliances with their arch-enemy, the Kurdish insurgent groups. The US and UK are poised to start ripping down this hopelessly complex and ancient set of structures in the middle of the Middle East, in Iraq. I'm not going to say anything about the atrocities of Hussein's regime (and how they've been exaggerated in the US press- see a blog by Tom Tomorrow addressing the infamous false baby-incubator-theft story), in any case I don't think this tyrant is something we can afford to break. And plus, according to international law, acts of unprovoked aggression by one state against the other are criminal.



Tom Friedman also pointed to the mess in Afghanistan, where the current leader survived an assassination attempt this past week. He collects postcards for his wife, and he bought her a pile of them in a hotel in Kabul. One postcard depicted "The Ruins of the Afghan Museum." It's like a joke. You know you've been at war too long when you are selling postcards of rubble. These governments we want to break have normalized a culture of constant warfare. Who are we to think we can end those cultures in a grand renaissance of freedom, democracy, and abundant human rights for all? This might sell to the mainstream press and public, but what genius really thinks we can actually do this in Iraq? Selling such a gameplan is like trying to sell office space in that pile of rubble north of Battery Park. Are we selling postcards of that yet?



What a silly question. I guess it's a consolation that some things still make me cringe. Oh goody, here's one that looks like one of those souvenir cartoon maps, like the one of Amsterdam showing hookers mooning the stoned locals, only this time it's cartoon buildings burning. Yeah, a "day of infamy"- where tragically HUNDREDS of cartoonists and graphic designers simultaneously had brain farts.

I found another blogger against the new war, and a slacker-in-arms, concerned that we have forgotten our original impulse in invading Afghanistan: read the comments by the Slacktivist.

As pointed to by my friend and another blogger against the new war, Interesting Monstah, read an anti-war activist information resource list from the Nation.

The Arm of Laocoon ~~~~


or, the Debut of the Slacker Stalker's Fractured Fine Art History (Pun Intended)

It turns out that if you can stick out the collective committee-driven creative process, you can lose a whole right arm and get it back again. Maybe not for 1,956 years, but eventually, you can get that first, best arm back. In the first century "before our era" (B.O.E.) (as the academic secularists in Russia still say instead of "B.C.") a committee of three Greeks, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, created a monument to the suffering of a Department of Psychic Works employee for the City of Troy who warned the devastated remnants of leadership to Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts (Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes!). He and his sons were killed in an accident while they were tidepooling (by serpents sent by the angry goddess underwriting the Greek effort), and the Trojans thought that was proof of malfeasance of that particular DPW employee, Mr. Laocoon, and proceded to solicit gifts from their enemy Greeks, who obliged. Troy was destroyed by the Greeks about 1184 B.O.E. Look at the face of Laocoon's monument and know the suffering of the passionate public servant hung out to dry by management. Meanwhile, the story of the monument. The statue was unearthed in 1506 O.E. when Michelangelo was on the gallery circuit, trying out his new "bag of rocks" muscle-bound floppy-wristed rentboy look in the medium of marble, and he got a look at the 1st century B.O.E. sculpture, which had lost its right arm. He came up with a theory of how the arm should look- bent backwards over the head- with a nice limp wrist. The owners of the galleries (failed artists) told him to stick to his girly pietas. Their non-union and probably heterosexual stooge, Mr. Montorsoli, glued a macho John Travolta disco-pointing arm on the figure in 1532 O.E. In 1905, B.C.E. (Before the Communist Era, when bourgeois sculptures were reconstructed by committee, ushering in the artistic school of Futurism), an archeologist was in a marble-cutter/ antique shop and discovered a nice limp-wristed arm, and he, a Mr. Ludwig Pollack, was a secret partisan of the Michelangelo School of Laocoon Armism - the MSLA (a turn-of-the-century kind of gay social club), so he knew that this was the original lost arm of that bereaved public servant, and so it was.



Mr. Laocoon was finally made whole again in 1957 O.E., after the fall of the Communist Facists (and their long-lived but unproductive Komitet for Creative Reproletarianization of Antirevolutionary Art by Propertarianists-- CRAPKOM) ...and after other partisans of the MSLA found the rest of the pieces that comprised the supporting fragments of the arm. It took them a long time because of the early-century invention of absinthe, popular among the Armists. OK, I made that last part up. Nobody knows why it took so long, except that every stage of this sculpture's life involved committees, and no doubt then committee meetings. Eventually the suffering Laocoon was made whole. Don't he & his son look happy about it?



I wonder why I can't find an on-line postcard of Laocoon. I guess that facial expression just doesn't say "have a nice day." Here is a PDF of a lecture on the real history of "Laokoon" (the metric spelling). Read a linked-up version of the story from the Tufts 'Perseus' network of Classics databases here.

Last Call~~~~


My girlfriend was hijacked by breast cancer, her body destroyed by disease, her mind by terror. After her diagnosis of involvement of bone cancer in her neck vertebrae on 9/11/01, we went shoe shopping. She responded to the terror of her diagnosis and the global paroxysms of terror after that date by trying to make "normal" happen as often as it could. She cleaned the house. She bought me small gifts. She made breakfast while I watched CNN. She kept me as close as she could, which meant not as close as before in some ways, closer in others. She stopped smoking her medicinal marijuana and she started to dream again. We stayed up late in eachother's arms talking about dreams. She called me the Sunday before she ended her life and left a message: "Hi baby. I'm just calling to tell you I love you, I really do. I'm ok. I hope you're ok. I'll talk to you soon."



Today NPR is playing excerpts from the Sonic Memorial to the Trade Center. The recordings of the last phone calls sound like that last message my paramour left me. Nonurgent, heartfelt, normal. These sound remnants are the aural postcards of rubble.



I kept that last message until Sprint PCS suddenly deleted it. It's too gruesome to lose the last recorded sound of a silenced voice, but like a postcard- you can only re-examine it so many times. It's hard to admit that I am more than the sum of my loss, and that this lost sound postcard is really not more than a postcard. Someday I'll let go of my anger at losing that last message, and their subsequent shittiness in their treatment of me in my distress, but for now I stoke a little fire in my heart and wish nothing but humiliation and disaster for a stupid cell phone company.



P.S. If you also hate Sprint PCS, you can post your complaints to SprintDidABadThing. I'm sorry that I can no longer find IHateSprint.com - which looked like the corporate site, except for the animation of a guy pooping on their logo.

In my search for more bad Leonard Nimoy poetry...

I have found a kindred blogger who also appreciates the danger of "crossing the beams" of Star Trek and Tolkein elements with that dancing and singing Hobbit video by our friend Spock -- that I blogged about 2 weeks ago. Sorry about adding a Ghostbusters reference to that volatile mix.

This apt observer of culture has a blog that is classified by Google as "Recreation > Humor > Bizarre > Farts" -- another obvious reason you should check out the spiffiness that is Mr. Pants.

I have so far failed to buy a copy of or find online anything worth mocking from Come Be With Me, but I have found another Nimoy video clip, of him performing his song "Highly Illogical." I also present to you The Leonard Nimoy Estrogen Brigade (LNEB). I am disappointed the page doesn't include seem to include photographs of its "18 and over" female members.

Now, to close, I'm going to join Joan Houlihan, a poetry snob, in quoting some bad U.S. American poetry from a book by Ellen Bass, a book lauded by the popular U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

"They pulled you from me like a cork

and all the love flowed out. I adored you

with the squandering passion of spring

that shoots green from every pore. "

Human parasite extractions! Popping noises! Green lasers shooting out of every pore! It's a Sci-Fi thriller stanza! "But if this be pleasure, in what does torture lie?" moans Ms. Houlihan. The article (and poem) in its entirety is linked at The Arts & Letters Daily but can also be read in its original context in her column "The Boston Comment" at Del Sol - "locus of the new literary art."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Removing All Sorrow"


I'm a 29 year old kind-of-widow whose lesbian partner died last October, and as my dear-departed's 51st birthday approaches- and the 1st anniversary of the shitty event that happened on the day after her birthday, 9/11 - I've been noticing a word turning up in lyrics of the sad songs I listen to that seems to beg to be examined: Nepenthe. I'm not a lyrics-listener usually (I'm still sometimes shocked to find out what Led Zeppelin's songs are talking about even after playing the tapes ragged for years), but sometimes a word gets stuck in my mind like a catchy tune. Don't ask me what kind of music I listen to that uses words like Nepenthe. I can't remember what albums I'm listening to-- I'm a widow: I have griefheimers.

From Webster's as found on Bibliomania...


"Nepenthe: (Ne*pen"the) n. [Fr. Gr. removing all sorrow; hence, an epithet of an Egyptian drug which lulled sorrow for the day; not + sorrow, grief.] A drug used by the ancients to give relief from pain and sorrow; — by some supposed to have been opium or hasheesh. Hence, anything soothing and comforting. Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe. -- Poe ."

Poe's quote is part of the wish for forgetfulness from the narrator of "The Raven" who couldn't bear to live with the memory of a lover who had died.



The herb the ancients called Nepenthe was probably actually borage, a weed often found in garbage heaps and at the edge of gardens. Borage may be descended from a word meaning a couragous man in a Celtic tongue- "barrach." It may also come from a corrupted version of the Latin "cor" (heart) plus "ago" (I bring)- or courage, "I bring heart." Roman soldiers were given borage-steeped wine before battle. It makes you absolutely forget sadness and fear, and dwell only in the moment. Borage oil, something you can buy in any health food store, is sold as a source of healthy fatty acids, for heart trouble.

What my widow friends call griefheimers, absentmindedness due to grief, is the opposite of Nepenthe's state of mind-- it is dwelling so completely in the past that you forget the moment absolutely. It makes you lock your car keys in the car while it's running. It is a constant state of un-heartedness, humiliation-- spoiled food, stained clothes. Nepenthe is mental bleach.

Some mental bleach, as recommended by a widow friend:

equal measure boiling water and whiskey

a spoonful of honey

a squirt of lemon juice.

(a traditional English hot toddy)

"Stay calm and work with simple ideas." -- Nanna Candelaria

I love my bellydance teacher Nanna's pearls of wisdom. Tuesdays are the nights I harvest my pearls. Tonight she talked about creating a routine in bite-sized chunks, staying calm and working with simple ideas. She also said (I'm paraphrasing) "find the places in your body that are calm and stay with them."

Some other Nanna pearls, talking about moving your hands into position consciously: "How you got there is part of why you're there." Another one, talking about visualizing planes of horizontal movement: "If you hold these things in your mind, they will happen in your hands." And another: "Look for opportunities to open your chest." She was talking about keeping an open posture in your upper body. Talking about holding different volumes of movement in mind: "move in your full dimension." So much about dance is also about projecting yourself into physical space with control and precision, and Nanna's advice comes back to me in stressful work situations all the time.

Read another professional dancer's rave review of Nanna as a dancer and teacher. This link has a link to Amira, where Nanna performs. Read a short article Nanna wrote about taking her troupe Tabu to an international dance festival in Beijing. This link also has a nice picture Nanna uses for promotion. Sign up for her Wednesday beginning (levels 1 & 2) bellydance classes at the Berkeley YW. Upstairs there at my links list of "Some Obsessions" also has a link to a nice photo of Nanna with her troupe in action.

Sometimes she thought about packing it all up and moving into town.

This was the caption on a favorite old t-shirt of mine, under a picture of a pretty young cowgirl kneeling on the ground and looking up at the moon. Then I packed it all up and moved into town, leaving my horse and saddle behind.

Today I'm homesick, even after a day (yesterday) of homie-hop at the hip-hop stage at gay pride Oakland, organized by Juba from the Deep Dickollective (D/DC). A whole ten-minute freestyle with a stage full of queer rappers, mostly butch men and women, mostly but not all African-American, was the phenomenal climax of the show. It may have been the first ever city gay pride hip hop freestyle, at least maybe the first publically-sanctioned one of that magnitude. And most of the rappers in that freestyle were young- some barely drinking age. As D/DC sings (and thank the gods for this fact): "Why keep on trippin'-trippin'-trippin...? We are your future."

So why am I homesick? If I wanted more laid-back music there was the womyn's (wymyn's?) stage where someone I know saw a nice lady playing solo acoustic guitar and singing a song about yoga. Oh it wasn't (all) that bad. That stage also featured Kindness, and they do rock, they do, with Dawn Richardson of 4-Non-Blondes at the drums and bassist Catherine Chase and Shelley Doty (a guitar superforce). So, what don't I have here that I had back in the sticks?

See a web cam where I'm from.

OK it's not exactly where I'm from, it's about 2 hours east of where I'm from. And this is 43 hours west of where I live now. If I pointed my Toyota at Northern New York and started driving today, just three days' drive.

Now, to pull out my fiddle and polish up some tunes for a hoe-down this afternoon for some other expat citified hicks who grew up with live music as something you do for eachother as a way to pass the time, with whom I went to an empty San Francisco bar last night and saw The Trout Band, which may or may not have included some of these people. (This picture speaks a thousand twangy words.) The commonplaceness of live music is something the rural US has in common with urban Russia-- another part of the mysterious conglomerations of reasons why I ended up there at age 20, I guess.