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A Bay Area Poet SpeaksAlexandra Naughton and I first met about two years ago when I was writing a piece on foot fetish for The Bold Italic—it's not one of her "things" as they say, but she had seen my call-to-arms on Yelp for potential subjects and had a strange foot story to tell; we met at the Madrone Art Bar on Divisidero to talk toes, writing, and why the Bay is so wonderfully odd after a lifetime of being an East Coaster. (She's from Philly; I'm from New York.) I didn't know it then but it was the beginning of a beautiful—but digital friendship—where I could witness firsthand her sprawling indie-dark darling influence on the World Wide Web. Her steady stream of Facebook statuses casually garner 85 'likes' and inspire a throng of heady comments. Her comments are alternatively witty, honest, perceptive, self-deprecating, knowingly narcissist and sexy—in short, it's a persona that's an Internet wet dream. By day, Alexandra helps run what I can only understand as a kind of modern day Elks Club in San Francisco—by night however, she's a bona fide whirlwind of literary exploits. She's founded her own literary 'zine and publishing "house" Be About it! in addition to her own blog, Tsaritsa Explains It All—which delves into everything from social commentary to art, to hip-hop, sex and books. Oh, and she's also launched a reading series, and published her first collection of poetry, I'll Always Be Your Whore [Love Songs for Billy Corgan] with Punk Hostage Press in January.
On the cusp of her book tour where she'll traipse across ten cities in ten days, we sat down in her North Oakland apartment—finally face to face again after two years—and talked about the sheer joy of being published, why she hates poetry and obsessive love. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Romantic rejection is real.By Ghia Vitale QuailBellMagazine.com In the eyes of Elliot Rodger, he died a “perfect gentleman” whose needs were callously disregarded not only by women but the world at large. Rodger resented his “selfish” mother for failing to marry a wealthy man and condemned his father for his failure to financially succeed in the film industry. His father was the assistant director of The Hunger Games, an acclaimed and commercially successful film. His mother paid for his college education and apartment by the skin of her teeth. However, Elliot clearly thought he deserved more. According to him, only affluence could cure his chronic case of involuntary celibacy and win him the conventionally attractive women whom, he felt, owed him sex for being such a "gentleman." None of blond, white, modelesque women he lusted after ever had the chance to experience his extraordinary chivalry because he hardly ever spoke. That silence was probably one of the better options available to him, for if he had actually spoken to the “pretty blond girls” he put on a pedestal, he would've immediately revealed his racism and condescension. Media outlets are shaming the MRA, anti-Pickup Artist, and Bodybuilding.com communities for fueling Elliot's fire. But it's essential to note that those groups also thought that he was a total creepshow and often told him so. Rodger was nowhere near as “nice” as he thought he was. Although his reaction was extreme, his complex was not atypical; that's why when his parents informed the police about the disturbing YouTube soapbox that he used to broadcast his egotistical angst, law enforcement thought nothing of it after briefly visiting him. However, Rodger's grandiose sense of entitlement reflects a larger epidemic, one that appears to be especially present in young men: he had a raging case of Nice Guy Syndrome, and not surprisingly, he was never nice in the first place. Public awareness of Nice Guy Syndrome has steadily risen over the past few years, but the ruthless slaughter committed by Elliot Rodgers has thrusted the complex into the spotlight. Don’t confuse genuinely nice people with Nice Guys; nice people do nice things out of the kindness of their own heart, regardless of whether or not they are sexually or romantically interested in an individual. If someone they want to date isn’t interested in having a romantic relationship with them, they will resume the friendship or move on with their lives. Sure, they might shed tears over it, but they don't fault the rejecter for not being attracted to them. Hopefully, they don't resent themselves for not winning that person's affection.
Nice Guy Syndrome includes a myriad of attitudes and behaviors that revolve around social ineptitude, emotional immaturity, and a lack of respect for themselves as well as others. Nice Guys get angry when their crushes want to remain friends. The afflicted complain about how women only like “jerks” who treat them like garbage. Nice Guys claim "being there” for women is the fatal move that gets them sentenced to an invisible prison known as “The Friend Zone.” They claim that their love lives wouldn't be desolate wastelands if they just weren't so goddamn nice. Some say it’s another sexist myth, but the Nice Guy phenomenon goes much further than that. It’s one about the unhealthy interrelational narratives, standards of attractiveness, and cultural perceptions of masculinity that American culture endorses. Much like how girls get the message that they have to be thin and attractive in order to be loved, guys are taught to measure their personal worth by the amount of ass they kick, the money they make, and most importantly, the sex that they (don’t) have. Kicking ass, making money, and having sex—this is the fool-proof formula that supposedly makes them catnip to the pussy they so fervently desire. Romantic rejection therefore becomes a form of invalidation. In turn, many boys get the message that platonic friendships with women only serve as evidence of their personal inadequacy, a cheap consolation prize for not making her panties melt off. There's some kind of societal conspiracy to exclude them from the secret orgy of life, the V. I. P. section for beautiful people. Well, the people that seem more beautiful than them, anyway. The entire thing is a massive cultural delusion because attraction cannot be reduced to an equation. In reality, Nice Guy Syndrome stems from social misunderstandings and emotional immaturity. Complaints about getting "Friend-Zoned" are an immature person's way of saying, "The person I like doesn't want to date/have sex with me." Young people are especially inclined to buy into the whole sham. As people mature, they realize that this social script is mostly a generalization that we’re conditioned to believe. Relationships aren’t that simplistic or formulaic. I know where these Nice Guys are coming from and my being female does not invalidate the fact that I am, in fact, a recovered Nice Guy. I am sharing my experience with the world because I want Quail Bell readers to have happy, fulfilled lives. I’ll gladly throw my ego under the bus if it means that people will finally understand the true nature of Nice Guy Syndrome and why it happens. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Hateful Male EntitlementBy Zack Budryk QuailBellMagazine.com On May 23, 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, a student at University of California Santa Barbara, stabbed three men to death in his apartment, drove to the Alpha Phi sorority house, and, when no one answered his knocks at the door, shot three nearby women, killing two and critically wounding a third.
After Rodger finished his spree and took his own life, the trail he’d left behind materialized, including a video in which he expressed his hatred of women and vowed to exact “retribution” on them for not having sex with him, and a rambling, self-aggrandizing manifesto (it literally begins with his birth) that culminates in a call for women to be put in concentration camps. I was transfixed by this story as both a feminist and an autistic person; some shameful, selfish part of me, knowing the existing stigma, always silently repeats “please don’t be autistic” whenever such an incident occurs, having watched that kind of harmful speculation unfold in the wake of James Holmes’ and Adam Lanza’s killing sprees. I suspected it might be the case for Rodger even before his father’s lawyer announced it as though it explained everything. If you watch Rodger’s final video (and I don’t blame you if you don’t), he clearly thinks he’s in a movie. Rodger’s writing was difficult to read, not least because, at the risk of focusing on the wrong thing, he is a terrible writer (awkward, non-conversational “big words” like “exquisite” are used over and over again, he makes multiple-page digressions on Pokemon and masturbation, and he switches tense completely at random several times). The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Our Social Media Wall of LoveBy The Quail Bell Crew QuailBellMagazine.com Here are just a few screenshots of our favorite Quail Bell Magazine mentions on Facebook and Twitter from the past few days: #Imaginary #Nostalgic #Otherworldly #QuailBellOnFacebook #QuailBellOnTwitter #QuailBellSocialMedia #Retweets #Posts Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Return of the Moon PrincessBy Fay Funk QuailBellMagazine.com In mid-May Hulu announced that it has acquired the rights to broadcast the classic anime Sailor Moon. There’s more good news for Sailor Moon fans: The show is getting a reboot in July 2014 called Sailor Moon Crystal, and some still artwork has already been released. Even though I haven’t seen Sailor Moon in years, this news made my heart flutter, and it goes deeper than just nostalgic excitement. Sailor Moon showed me early on that women can do anything. It introduced me to feminism before I knew what feminism was. Sailor Moon didn’t just show that females can be tough, it showed that femininity can be powerful and world-changing. Femininity and heroism are not mutually exclusive. Unlike in other cartoons, feminine behavior is not a sign of weakness, and any tough woman is basically a man with breasts. With it’s sparkly transformation scenes and twirly dance attacks with names like “Rainbow Moon Heart Ache” and “Moon Gorgeous Meditation,” Sailor Moon is definitely not a traditionally masculine action show. But they defeat their enemies just as well as Superman or Goku. There’s no need to be manly to be a hero. But Sailor Moon isn’t just feminine, it’s feminist. The mostly female cast come from a variety of backgrounds, and there is no one right way to be a girl on Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon/Usagi (or Serena as I knew her) is hyper-feminine, and a selfless leader. Sailor Jupiter/Makoto/Lita is a tall girl with a violent streak who still has a soft spot for boys and cooking. There was a Sailor Scout for everyone. As a kid I most identified with Sailor Mercury/Ami. Shy and smart, her passive nature often got her written off as weak. Sailor Mercury really possessed a different kind of strength: intelligence and strategy. She could also muster alarming aggression at times, but reserved that power only for when it was necessary. Mostly though, she used kindness. All the Sailor Soldiers did. Sailor Moon is a show about love. I think that’s what made it so progressive. Love has been at the heart of all progressive movements, from feminism to civil rights. Relationships between people drive the action more than winning or being the best, frequent superhero cliches. Those themes are remnants of the conquerors. Love, all kinds of love, romantic and platonic, even loving your enemies is the central theme of Sailor Moon. One of the most beautiful relationships on the show is the lesbian love between Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, who were changed to cousins for the English dub of Sailor Moon in a cowardly move by the English translators, DiC and Cloverway. The change went about as well as you can imagine, and instead of hiding the homosexuality the relationship appeared incestuous. I knew, even at nine years old, that Sailor Uranus and Neptune did not have a platonic relationship. At one point during a major battle it looks as though Sailor Neptune has died, and Sailor Uranus made it clear she wants to die as well. That’s the reaction someone has to losing the love of their life, not their cousin, and it was all very weird. I felt simultaneously relieved and furious about being duped when I learned years later that Uranus and Neptune were actually lesbians. It may not have been the intention of the translators to make Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune incestuous, but the results show just how deep disgust with LGBTQ people runs. This perfectly lovely romance was warped into something legitimately disturbing, and validated everything homophobes believe about gay people. Children like me were misled, and DiC and Cloverway actually furthered the notion that homosexuality is disgusting and wrong in opposition to Sailor Moon’s actual message of love and acceptance. Relating to Sailor Mercury was a big step towards accepting myself as a child, and too many young girls who might have felt a connection to Sailor Uranus or Sailor Neptune were denied that opportunity. Fortunately, the episodes that have aired so far on Hulu have not been censored. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune do not appear until much later in the series, so it remains to be seen if their relationship will be visible, but all reports indicate that they will not be hidden. It looks as though Sailor Moon will finally get to take a true stand for love and justice. #Nostalgic #Nostalgia #SailorMoon #Hulu #FeminismInSailorMoon #LesbianLoveOnSailorMoon #FeministAnime Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Some Chatter about Chatter, a Chicago Lit EventBy Quail Bell Social Butterfly QuailBellMagazine.com Windy City writing and printmaking are the belles of Printers Ball, a premiere literary event started in 2004 by Poetry magazine Associate Editor Fred Sasaki. The Printers Ball takes place June 28th at Hubbard Street Lofts in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood. We emailed Angee Lennard, director of Spudnik Press Cooperative, which tasks itself with organizing the Printers Ball, and asked her a few questions about this year's sparkling event: QB: This will be the tenth Printers Ball. That must mean a lot of pressure to be extra banging. What will make this Printers Ball the Printers Ball of all Printers Balls thus far?
AL: There is a lot of pressure to throw the biggest and best Ball yet, but this is a challenge we were thrilled to take on. One highlight of the event that pays homage to the history of the event are the pop-up readings. We decided to include twice as many performers as usual, allowing us to showcase like never before the diversity of talent in our city as well as bring back performers from previous Printers Balls. We have increased the participatory aspects of the ball as well, with the majority of programming being hands-on experiences, like our program with Pixiehammer Press. Skillful poets will write a love letter or a hate letter to anyone, on your behalf. QB: The website describes the event as "quintessentially Chicagoan." How are you honoring that promise? What do you think sets Chicago's literary and printmaking culture apart from other cities'? AL: In truth, "quintessentially Chicagoan" is hard to define because we have a really diverse city. However, I will say that our literary and printmaking culture has as much to do with the artists producing work as the audience that supports their practice. Audiences tend to be more than spectators, acting as contributors and advocates. For example, our presenters include Pup House, a shadow puppet troupe, who will create in interactive shadow play with Printers Ball guests. We are teaming up with Maria's Packaged Goods, a landmark bar in the Bridgeport neighborhood that is known for their involvement in their community as much as their delicious local beers. Our city is also prolific and inventive. For example, Chicago is the home of Brain Frame, a performative comics reading series that is constantly breaking stereotypes with visual artists exploring how to translate comics into live experiences. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Rumblings of HonorBy Papa Quail QuailBellMagazine.com Rev 'em up! We're going to the Wall—the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, that is. Rolling Thunder Run to the Wall is an annual motorcycle rally that takes place the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. This year about 400,000 motorcyclists rode from the Pentagon parking lot in Arlington, Virginia to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. The rally, which has taken place every year since 1988, represents the participants' continued demand to find Prisoners of War and Missing in Action service men and women from past U.S. conflicts. The event is less commonly known as the Ride for Freedom. Quail Bell Magazine's Papa Quail attended this year's Rolling Thunder and took a few pictures with his smartphone: #Nostalgic #RollingThunder #MemorialDay #VietnamVets #WWIIVets #WashingtonDC #WashingtonMemorials #USA Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Pen your way to a Motor City homeBy the Quail Bell Editors QuailBellMagazine.com "It’s like a writer-in-residence program, only in this case we're actually giving the writer the residence, forever." The common refrain is that writers need peace and quiet to concentrate and process their experiences and their research in order to write well-crafted stories. But writers also need a supportive literary community and financial stability—facts that have only more recently become topics for open discussions about M.F.A. programs, for instance. Writing groups, a local reading series, university library access, and other literary and journalistic resources can help any writer. Free rent is also nice. Write A House is a Detroit-based nonprofit that gives homes to qualified writers who already live in the Motor City or are willing to relocate there. The team teaches young folks carpentry skills and renovates old houses that are then awarded to writers. They aim to support three low- and moderate-income writers every year. Those writers are then expected to write and bolster Detroit's literary community. Write A House is also working on producing a literary journal to artistically document their renovation process. The website states: "Our long, long term goal involves building a literary colony in Detroit, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves." Well, they're already on their way! On May 12, 2014, the Write A House blog announced it had cleaned out its first house set to be renovated. Now to turn that house into a home. Are you a writer? Apply for a house. WriterHouse.org #Imaginative #MichiganNonprofit #DetroitNonprofit #DetroitArts #LiteraryDetroit #WriterResidencies #WriteYourNovel Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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On the 'Most Inclusive' Poetry Fest in the Big AppleThe New York City Poetry Festival is run almost entirely by Nicholas Adamski and me. Nicholas also co-organizes The Poetry Brothel with me. Of course, we also have a slew of friends, volunteers, and interns who help us out. Liz Axelrod has been huge on development for us. Lisa Marie Basile manages our social media presence. Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein and Jordana Frankel run the Children's Poetry Festival. We couldn't have done made past festivals happen without former interns Conor Messinger, Emma Timbers, and Elizabeth Von Klemperer, volunteers like RA Araya and James Cook, and active supporters like John Deming at Coldfront Magazine and Jen Benka at the Academy of American Poets. Nick and I first conceived the festival while planning The Poetry Brothel's summer residency on Governors Island in 2011. We looked at the beautiful triangle of grass sprawling out in front of our house, and realized we needed to host a poetry festival there. Our mission as collaborators has always been to present poetry in beautiful, innovative, and "not boring" ways in order to re-introduce the art of poetry to the general population. The New York City Poetry Festival draws inspiration from a vast history of summer festivals, from ancient to the present, to celebrate the vibrancy of the poetry community in New York City. I am the Executive Director of the festival with a staff of volunteers, which basically means that I coordinate all of the minute logistics that go into the festival's production, and I also execute a bunch of those logistics. I organize the development, programming, and publicity for the festival. For this year's festival, I wrote grants, sponsorship decks, and budgets and disseminated them; I put out the call for participants and have managed all of that information as it has come in; I had a new website designed, and I write and manage all that content; I co-directed a Kickstarter video and launched a (successful!) Kickstarter campaign; and now I am beginning to coordinate and train all of our staff. I basically read and answer A TON of emails. Governors Island is a magical relic of New York's history, a pastoral island that somehow exists in one of the biggest cities in the world. The Trust for Governors Island is also incredibly supportive of the arts. We chose July because it is a hot and sunny month in the middle of summer. Festival highlights include our headliners: Paul Muldoon and the Wayside Shrines, Mark Doty, Joyelle McSweeney, and Matthea Harvey. Paul Muldoon will be playing music with his band. Other highlights include the Brooklyn Brewery Beer Garden, where we'll be serving $5 beer all day; The Poetry Brothel, in an old, dark, candlelit officer's house where poets will give private, one-on-one poetry readings; The Ring of Daisies Open Mic; The Children's Poetry Festival, where there will be writing games and an all-kids stage, and The Typewriter Project, where attendees are invited to write a few lines on an antique typewriter in a rustic, wooden booth. I usually tell non-poets there is a ferry ride, cheap beer, delicious food, and a solar powered merry-go-round. Non-poets love this festival! This is the most inclusive poetry festival in New York, if not the world. We invite all poetry organizations, large and small, to participate, and we have them curate their own readers. It is also free to attend and free to participate. #NYCPoFest #PoetryFestival #StephanieBerger #GovernorsIsland #NYCArts #LiteraryFestival #NYCPoetryReadings Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Flexing at Château de Verdeonne The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop hosts writing and yoga workshops in the NYC metropolitan area as well an annual retreat in Picardy, France, located one hour from Paris. Our two-week retreat in summer 2014 will be our third annual writing retreat in France. Each year, we try to make the experience even better for participants. Your contribution can help us fund this wonderful experience by providing scholarship funds and helping to cover some of the overhead costs of the trip. Read Jessica Reidy's recent essay/interview about the retreat. #CambridgeWritersWorkshop #France #JessicaReidy #Yoga #CreativeWriting #FrenchCastle #AwesomeRetreat Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Happy Cinco de Mayo! (We guess.)Today America celebrates a Mexican holiday that ain't that big in Mexico. It's weird and hypocritical. Our top Cinco de Mayo reality check thus far? Anthony Bourdain's. That being said...have fun anyway? #CincoDeMayo #Mexico #MexicanHolidays #WeirdRelationships #WeirdHistory #WTFUSA
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They Want to Ride Their Bicycles, But How? "Ever bike? Now that's something that makes life worth living!...Oh, to just grip your handlebars and lay down to it, and go ripping and tearing through streets and road, over railroad tracks and bridges, threading crowds, avoiding collisions, at twenty miles or more an hour, and wondering all the time when you're going to smash up. Well, now, that's something! And then go home again after three hours of it...and then to think that tomorrow I can do it all over again!" -Jack London I'm all for folks riding bikes, no matter where they live, from New York to Kansas to Hawaii. So when I heard about a national bicycle race coming to my very own Richmond, Virginia, I didn't think much of it. Living in a city, you learn to make time to overcome these events, especially on weekends. But then I noticed a sign saying one of the main roads I take every day would be closed, not for an hour or so as we have with parades or foot races, but all day. I started to wonder what exactly was going on.
The race, which took place this past weekend, is called the 2014 UCI National Championships. Leading up to the race, I discovered this was a actually a two day event, complete with a three-day consumer expo, as a test event for the 2015 UCI World Championships. How much bigger would the World Championships be? Instead of two days, it would run eight days. And the courses closed for the race would expand from a 0.9 mile area to a race running from a nine-mile circuit all the way up to a 33-mile circuit. So I began thinking, if the 0.9 mile race disrupted the city as much as it did Friday through Sunday, what would a 33 mile race do? On Friday alone, 36 points were closed. That's not counting 'No Parking' areas, as well as the additional routes closed Saturday and Sunday (up to 39). Now, it's one thing to sit in traffic. It's another to have to leave work early, as I know some folks had to do. The Virginia State Government estimated that this small race would impact 12,000 state workers on Friday. The city bus line, GRTC, issued a warning of major delays, saying its routes would be following detours that 'may change without notice.' The Richmond City government said it would 'remain open,' yet warned folks going to City Hall and social services that there would be delays and parking issues, and to rely on online methods. Additionally, the city left this little note at the bottom of their homepage: "The Richmond General District Courts, the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court and Clerk’s Office for the City of Richmond will be closed on Friday, May 2." To say this event had a significant impact on Richmond and Richmonders is an understatement. But how much did it cost the city to put on? For this portion of the race, it's hard to tell. The problem with these types of events is that when they are sold to city leaders, the economic studies put forth with them tend to be based on assumption. The example sold to our city leaders for the upcoming 2015 race says that it will generate $129.2 million dollars for the Metro Richmond Area, according to an article by Scott Bass in alt-weekly, Style Weekly. Yet according to that same article, the metrics of the economic study are questionable, and rely on assumptions about the way visitors spend their money. Bass refers to as "Substitution Effect, which dictates that the money spent in one place is diverted from another." For instance, if a person is local, and would have purchased a meal in the city that day anyhow, but instead went to the race and bought it there, did the city gain any in taxes? Not at all. So these studies are effectively guestimations, taking what it guesses will be in attendance, guessing where they will spend that money, and guessing that they would not have spent it anyhow. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Romanticism & Eroticism at RVA First FridayBy Quail Bell Social Butterfly QuailBellMagazine.com Tomorrow is the last Richmond First Friday of the VCU academic year. And then River City clears out, yielding to a slower pace of Belle Isle rock-hoppin' and PBR sippin'. We'll never stop trumpeting Richmond, Virginia—the birthplace of Quail Bell Magazine—but with both our editor and art director packing up and moving to Washington, D.C. just about now, this feels like the end to Quail Bell's Richmond chapter. Our 'farewell RVA' show pick? Original Beauty: Portraits and Fallen Pastorals. From the press release: Corporate & Museum Frame is excited to present Original Beauty: Portraits and Fallen Pastorals by Richmond-based artists, Joseph Johnson and Spencer L. Turner, which use traditional tropes related to beauty to explore race, media culture and the erotic. Johnson's photos, taken ten years ago, feature several nude African American women in classic poses of beauty. His lens, both direct and sympathetic, ties his models into a centuries-long dialogue about the nature of aesthetics and the cultural filters that can obscure and pervert our sensibilities. Turner's work explores the distortions created by the nature of our hyper visual media culture and the struggle to create meaning in a time of such cultural upheaval. Couched in the language of Romanticism and referencing a famous literary relationship of influence between John Milton and William Blake, Turner's photo montages challenge viewers to critique the way in which they consume information and suggest a reassessment of values in the post-internet age. #OriginalBeauty #LossOfEve #Photography #ArtEvent #SpencerTurner #RVA #Art
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Meditations on Mi Gabito Writing about this will take all of my energy, as Gabriel García Márquez (nay, let me call him Gabo, or Gabito, for should writing be my life then he is my father, for he engendered and birthed into me taste, style, passion, love) has smitten me. It’s a long relationship, one of embarrassment, tragedy, mourning (the Spanish word, luto, captures more musically the weight of the term), love, and cholera.
My first foray into the world of Macondo came from his iconic story, “The Handsomest Drowned Man,” and I abhorred every minute of it. To this young David, a man wrapped in naiveté, one who considered only science fiction and fantasy to be inventive and good uses of art, who asked for dystopian mechanics or nothing, the folkloric tale of a town swept off its feet at a dashing young drowned man left me nothing. An Orange County kid can’t even think of the word folkloric without frothing irony, the concept bringing about only the kitsch a suburbanite can expect from native customs. My only brushes with such ways of thinking came from the postmodern, hyperreal world of the California I-15, where Baker’s world-largest thermometer stands. But even this is simulacrum of small town, a place pretending to be kitschy and quaint for the sake of tourist revenue. It’s attempted folklore, diametrically opposed to Gabo’s tale. Of course, it wasn’t till my personal boom at age fifteen, when I revisited the story of Esteban and his swollen beauty, that I understood the mere attempts at folkishness that plague Southern California. For those unaware of the history of Orange County, we were founded by a Klan member, there’s a church on every block, and our one claim to fame is giving birth to Richard Nixon in a little home in Yorba Linda. We attempt to look the part of Nixon’s silent majority, folksy, conservative, Republican, church-goer. When the Oakies came they settled two places, the Valley and Orange County, and we collectively long to be Midwestern, to be folklore. Orange County has no more oranges, but we embrace this pastoral identity, turning a long dead industry into our symbol of greatness. A brush with pastoralism, sans kitsch, could only lead to a disaster of identity, an engendering of otherness, and a deconstruction of previously held ideals. At fifteen, I made it big. At the end of my life, I’ll be able to point to most anything that happened in my life and trace it, like chisel in a rock face, back to that glorious year. To hear nostalgia uttered forth by an eighteen year old might declare itself camp and melodrama, but that year I was first published, a limerick in a little zine. That year I made the first poem I consider to be “art,” about three friends and their terrible landlady. I had a first date. I met my best friend. The landmarks of life all came at once, in that beautiful year. But above all this, I acquired something immutable, a feeling, not an experience, a feeling called taste. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Brown v. Board of Education—a LandmarkPhoto from the film Stolen Education. The George Mason University community and the public are invited to attend a symposium with experts discussing the U.S. Supreme Court landmark ruling on Brown v. Board of Education and screening a new film. The symposium, Unspoken Histories of Unequal Education, marks the 60th anniversary of the ruling and is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday, April 28, at Mason Hall on the Fairfax Campus. Admission is free, but RSVPs are suggested. The event is hosted by the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). The historic Brown v. Board of Education case, while focused on the integration of African American students in the nation’s schools, was never simply about African Americans’ rights. The film, “Stolen Education,” depicts how the nation’s “separate but equal” laws also profoundly affected Mexican-American students. “I was touched by the film’s story and its unspoken history of desegregation, racism and educational inequality,” saysRodney Hopson, the CEHD professor who is convening the symposium’s panel along with Jenice L. View and Sonya Horsford, CEHD associate professors. “It gives us another way to understand the story of a nation that has historically struggled to ensure the right of education for all, and especially those of color.” In the film, 9-year-old Lupe had already been in the first grade for three years. This was not because of her academic performance, but because she was Mexican-American. School administrators and teachers argued this practice was necessary because—as they stated in court in 1956—the “retardation of Latin children” would adversely impact the education of white children. Lupe’s son, filmmaker Enrique Alemán Jr., recaptures the remarkable story of the schoolchildren who changed education in Texas. “This event resonates especially strongly within the Mason community because of our culture of diversity and inclusion,” says Mark Ginsberg, CEHD dean. “We are honored to have such an esteemed panel of experts on campus to help us understand the challenges and find innovative actions that bring about the kind of sustained change and authentic equity that the Brown v. Board of Education decision envisioned.” Panelists include:
This event is sponsored by Masons’ Office of the Provost; CEHD; Center for Education Policy and Evaluation; Department of African and African American Studies; and Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Multicultural Education. Promotional support is provided by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, D.C. Additional support is from Mason’s Diversity Research and Action Consortium and the Leadership Education and Development Office. #GMU #BrownVBoardOfEducation #UnspokenHistoriesOfUnequalEducation #StolenEducation #Film #Racism #Education
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Genderqueer Identity in the Spotlight Photo of Mo Karnage wearing their "Vagina is for Lovers" shirt at Richmond City Council on April 1, 2014 Getting news coverage for any political issue is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you want news coverage because it is an opportunity for people to hear about important issues and to hopefully hear about the stance you are supporting. This is a good thing, and largely a necessary thing for any social movement. We need information to get out to people who might want to join us or might become convinced by our points. This is how the whole process works.
On the other hand, you have the anonymous Internet trolls. These are the people who miss the point entirely, misconstrue your position, attack you for real or imagined aspects of your personal life, and generally do their best to demean and insult anyone they do not agree with. Over the years I've gotten calloused to the point where I am mostly not upset by the cruel, inaccurate, and absurd things posted about me anonymously on news article comments sections. Lately I've found them largely humorous. How you might want to deal with the trolls in your life likely depends on your personality, coping mechanisms, etc. But mostly I'd have to recommend ignoring anyone talking smack anonymously. If you are engaged in your community and receive news coverage because of your activism, you are making strides. You are bravely taking actions to make positive effects on the world. Which means that folks who are not even brave enough to attach their names to their statements are way below your league. Don't worry about what they think, you are great. A recent Style Weekly article about a City Council Meeting in my home of Richmond, Virginia has got a pretty interesting comment thread. One troll attacks me for my name, Mo Karnage. This poster says, "Her name is Moriah Karn...not 'Mo Karnage' as she refers to herself". My preferred pronouns are they/them pronouns for starters. But the juicy part is this—the commenter's name? Joe23223. Weird name right, wonder what his parents were thinking? I'd put money that he isn't named Joe23223 at all!!! What a hoax. His legal name is probably Joseph 23223. However, I have a lot of better things to do in my life than try to police what other people choose to call themselves. Names and pronouns are things that should be up to the individual. Not everyone will choose to take the time and money to legally change their names, and why should they? To please anonymous scaredy-cats on the internet? I don't think so. Other commenters on the article have gone back and forth over my gender. One used male pronouns for me, and another replied attempting to 'correct' the person using male pronouns. Gender enigma. Then we get to my most favorite comment of all. Wendy Gale March broke out her transphobia with this one: "The detainee is not a threat to public safety and 'Mo' needs to acts properly when addressing other 'adults.' Does she really want to hear 'Mommy who is that scary man-lady' at the Monument Avenue Easter Parade?? Name-calling elected officials in public chambers reduces any credibility." Clearly, Wendy was going for a transphobic insult here, but I have found the statement empowering and affirming of my genderqueerness. I am a big scary genderqueer, a frightening man-lady who will not back down when fighting for justice. I'm glad that folks in favor of the privatization of a local park and in holding up the crumbling gender binary find me threatening. On my good days I am indeed a threat to their ways of life. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
One Community's Struggle for Memory In a film and multimedia oral history, Memoria Presente tells the story of a community trying to deal with its past in order to change its present. Check out the Indiegogo campaign here. #CrowdSourcing #DocumentaryFilm #Interviews #Argentina
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Maybe shut your trap or shut your shop?We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Signs with these words can be seen on businesses throughout the country, from antique shops to restaurants. No sandwiches or coffee for you if you are rude or dirty, or inappropriately dressed. And yet it’s so much more complicated than that. Businesses cannot refuse service to someone for being a woman, or being an African-American. They could in the past, of course, during an ugly time in American history. Boycotts and lunch-counter protests changed that, changed the law. Some beliefs though are hard to shake. In February Arizona attempted to pass a law that would allow businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ people on the basis of religious rights. The bill made it much farther than any piece of legislation so discriminatory should, and passed both the House and the Senate before being vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer. This is as it should be; discrimination at this level is both legally and morally the antithesis of everything the United States holds true. There is a next step though, that many people have been taking recently: opposing not just discriminatory business practices, but discriminatory beliefs of owners and employees. The most recent and largest-scale to date I have seen is the resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich after the dating-website OKCupid blocked users from using the browser. When users tried to view OKCupid in Mozilla a message popped up about the CEO’s $1,000 contribution in favor of the anti-gay marriage bill Proposition 8. Users were ultimately able to use OKCupid through Mozilla, but the message sparked massive criticism of Mozilla, and Eich resigned just a few days after being appointed. Just today I saw another, similar criticism, on a local level. The Portland Mercury published an article about the anti-gay Facebook comments of Chauncey Childs, owner of a soon-to-be open market in Portland. Calls for a boycott of her business have already started. A different business owner, Nick Zukin, who owns the restaurants Mi Mero Mole and Kenny and Zuke’s, came out in support of the Childs. His feeling is that business owners should be able to think however they want, and not be “economically segregated,” for those beliefs. Unsurprisingly, calls for a boycott of his restaurants are now being made. In one regard, Zukin is right. You can say whatever you want, even if it is hateful. But freedom of speech has never been consequence-free. That’s a fact that the loudest proponents of freedom of speech often seem to forget. The government cannot silence you, but the general public does not have an obligation to listen to you or support you. In fact, freedom of speech means anyone can come right back at you with their own opinion. That’s what OKCupid did to Mozilla, and what the boycotters of the restaurant are doing now. I can choose not to eat at Kenny and Zuke’s for any reason I want, whether it’s unappealing food or hateful speech by the owner. That is not suppression. That is business. While hateful speech can get you fired, or cause your business to suffer, though it doesn’t always. Look no further than Daniel Tosh, the mediocre comedian who in 2012 made a horrific rape joke that put him at the center of a massive controversy. He still has a highly-rated TV show on Comedy Central. Such is how freedom of speech goes. Say what you want. You might be just fine, or you might lose everything. You might keep your TV show, or you might face “economic segregation.” It all depends on if people still want to listen to you. For every Daniel Tosh there is a Brendan Eich. I love freedom of speech. I love it when a person shares exactly who they are, especially when what they have to say is heinous. There is no better way to determine what person, business, or organization I don’t want to support. So say whatever you want. Say it as loudly as possible. But be ready for the consequences. #FreedomOfSpeech #Rights #Portland #SmallBusiness #OKCupid #Firefox
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The Band of RomaPapusza suffered for the song of her people, but what if we all sang at once? Today we celebrate the Roma. We celebrate the plates of food we leave for our ancestors to keep them loved and fed even in death. We cover mirrors, TV and computer screens, and bowls of water after someone dies, just long enough so that they are not trapped by their own reflection as they pass through the veils. We keep our homes and our bodies meticulously clean because the world is split into that which is pure and impure. The spirit is pure; that’s what we want to be. We believe in kintala, or karma, because what we do matters and we mean to do good. We love The Goddess of Fate and her many names and forms, Sati-Sara, Sara Kali, St. Sarah, The Black Madonna; and we believe in free will. We remind you that "Roma" is our preferred term, not “Gypsy,” a name that has been turned against us, warped into “gypped,” gyppo,” and the lowercase “gypsy,” the one that doesn’t recognize us as a proper noun, never mind a proper ethnic group. We celebrate that some of us chose to reclaim the word as we wish. We remind you that we, as a culture, are fractured by distance, persecution, and illegal deportation, and we are working to unify, to overcome discord and fight for our basic human rights. We celebrate that we are not homogenous and yet, we are united by our origin. We came from India, migrated in the 11th century, and the Rromanes (Romani language) root is Sanskrit. We are different clans—Kale, Kalderash, Lovara, Sinti, Manouche, Vlach, and many more, all with unique customs, dialects, and worldviews. We are individuals: rich, poor, artists, lawyers, blacksmiths, fortune tellers, musicians, doctors, dancers, mechanics, horse dealers, car dealers, janitors, politicians, activists, writers, professors, actors, executives, beggars, volunteers, producers, landlords, and linguists. Opre Roma: we rise up. We are loving friends, partners, parents, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. To say “I love you” we say, “I eat your heart” or “I eat your belly” because love is voracious and can never be close enough. My grandmother survived WWII Germany as a Romani woman. Now she likes to say, “I am a weed. No one wanted me, they tried to destroy me, but I grew. I am a weed and I’m proud. And I’ve always liked weeds best, anyway. Wild, strong, and very pretty.” Today we raise awareness that half of Europe’s Romani population died in the Holocaust, what we call O Porrajmos (The Great Devouring), and 2 million Romani lives lost is a modest estimation. We are rarely invited to or acknowledged in Holocaust remembrances or memorials. Sometimes we are not even allowed in the gates. We remind you that Roma were slaves alongside African Americans in the United States, and in the Balkans for four centuries. We are forcibly sterilized in Europe and the U.S., alongside Native Americans and African-Americans. We remind you that the government takes Romani children in the United States and Europe from their families because it is assumed that Roma cannot be decent, loving parents. We remind you that America has “Gypsy Crime” task forces that decide Romani fortune tellers are scammers and white fortune tellers are not. America, the country that swears to the flag not to indulge in racial profiling, blatantly profiles its Roma, just like Europe. We remind you that skinheads set Romani encampments on fire across Europe with Molotov cocktails, burning men, women, and children in their beds. We remind you of the Jobbik Party. Roma are forced into camps with no running water, waste management, electricity, or shelter. Roma are denied a right to education, or forced into special education classes because it is assumed we are mentally deficient. Amnesty calls the Romani human rights crisis “Europe’s shame,” and Roma endure hate crimes, are not allowed in shops, and are kicked out of countries because the politicians believe we cannot assimilate, that we are vermin, that Hitler didn’t kill enough of us. We remind you that Roma say, “Fuck you, Fascists. We rise up.” You learned none of this in school. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Zero's TaleWes Anderson is a director who loves to play with nostalgia and the retro in order to create memorable and great comedy films. Whether it's using elements of the French New Wave to tell a children's adventure tale (Moonrise Kingdom) or using the tropes of Jacques Cousteau to create one of Bill Murray's finest roles (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), Anderson's film have a distinct style to them that makes them stand out compared to other comedies and dramas. Everything he creates looks like it's straight out of a childrens book (or, in one case, is an adaptation of a childrens book, with 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox), and this can add to the nostalgia the viewer may have towards periods like the 1960s or 1970s.
Anderson's new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, is probably his most nostalgia heavy film to date. The film opens in the present, with a young woman reading a book titled The Grand Budapest Hotel in front of the grave of Zubrowka's (the fictional eastern European nation the film is set in) finest author. The film cuts back to 1985 when the author (Tom Wilkinson) explains how he came to write the story. The film then flashes back to the 1960s when the young author (Jude Law) meets Zero Mustafa (F. Murray Abraham), the owner of the hotel. Zero tells the young writer the story of how he came to acquire the hotel, flashing back to 1932. It's here that the story mostly switches back and forth between Zero's story as a young lobby boy (played by Tony Revolori in his first major film role) working in the hotel under the tutelage of M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and the dinner conversation the older Zero and the young writer have. Already, the viewer is thrust into a real nostalgia heavy tale. The viewer is given four removed narratives in order to tell the story, and this is a move that clearly affects the story. Every time the tale goes back, the story's events become a lot more susceptible to the nostalgia filter. What we are seeing on screen may not be the true story of what happened when Gustave was accused of murdering Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), but the story we are shown is presented as truthful by the person telling the tale. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Mockery of The RVA Brand Richmond, Virginia has experienced a lot of change and attempts at change over the past several years. One notable example? The city's branding. The branding of RVA has been one of the more successful campaigns, as a recent article attests. A collaboration between a variety of groups, including the Martin Agency and VCU, the RVA logo has been personalized to fit many applications. But activists have recently reclaimed the logo, completing changing it to communicate their social messages. Local activist Alan Schintzius pointed out that the RVA abbreviation had common and frequent usage that existed before it was taken and adopted by VCU and Venture Richmond. Aaron Reinhard is a local businessman who owns RVAstickers, which he says is now often confused by customers with the Venture Richmond stickers. Reinhard's company has been around since 1953. The powers and missions behind these branding campaigns do not speak to all Richmonders. These branding attempts are seen as part of a larger gentrifying marketing strategy, which does not speak to them and does not include them. Venture Richmond has been a spearhead of the RVA logo, and involved in many aspects of pushing that logo and image of the City. For many Richmonders, Venture Richmond is part of the problem with the City. Venture Richmond is a non-profit organization which receives hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money from the City annually. Their CEO Jack Berry makes over $200,000 a year. But Venture Richmond is involved in many, many projects which are finding strong resistance within the community. From Venture's attempts to gain tax exemption for an area near Tredegar Ironworks that they want to use as an ampitheater, to their support for the Revitalize RVA plan, the organization is currently up to it's gills in controversy. There have been claims that Venture Richmond is violating the IRS rules regarding non-profit status and need to have that status revoked. There have also been claims of shady dealings between Venture Richmond and Mayor Jones (who sits on the board), including giving them and their campaigns a free ad in a Parks and Rec publication and more. With so many creative people in this city, it is then no surprise to find that there is a new move of Richmonders who are re-branding some of the corporate brands that are pushing a certain image of Richmond. What seems to have started when local activist F. T. Rea posted a handdrawn sketch of a "Looting RVA" logo (below) has blossomed into a full on re-branding effort by the people in opposition to Venture Richmond, Loving RVA, the Revitalize RVA Shockoe Stadium, and more. The motivation behind the initial Looting RVA drawing according to F. T. Rea was, "a sarcastic response to what I viewed as a propaganda piece that richly deserved to be mocked. I certainly didn't mean to say anyone is literally looting Richmond. But I did intend to provoke viewers into thinking about the motives behind the public relations campaign, itself."
Then a person who prefers to remain anonymous created this digital version of the Looting RVA logo, saying, "I don't really need or want personal attention for the redesign. I'd rather it serve as a public resource that can be continually edited and revised to bring attention to the poorly thought out stadium plan by the mayor and his and Venture Richmond's ongoing attempts to privatize the city." The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
An Artist Chasing ChaosYou may have seen Jacob Eveland's work before, either here on Quail Bell or at exhibitions featuring Richmond, Virginia's rising artists. Having spent his childhood in the country, Eveland draws inspiration from nature, animals and history. We caught up with Jacob to ask about his new solo show, "Chasing Chaos," which will open at New Normal Apparel on April 4th and will include a gallery show, apparel designs for sale and a live painting session by the artist. Your show is called "Chasing Chaos." What is the idea behind this? In addition to my signature illustration work, I've created over 60 small pieces for this show. I experimented with them to learn how mixed mediums play off one another. It's a series of numerous varied pieces moving in one direction. This group of works is related to a graphic novel I am working on, sort of a sub-story. Can't give all my secrets away...I will reveal more about my graphic novel at the show. Your work tends to feature animals and inspirations from nature, which you've said stems from your childhood life in the country. Has living in a city affected your work or changed your inspirational process? I don't feel living in Richmond has changed my inspiration. I love living in the city and appreciate the culture and diversity it offers. To me, Richmond has a small town feel similar to the town I moved from. Like Lebanon [Virginia], it's surrounded by inviting natural settings, is rich in history and touts beautiful architecture. I spend a lot of time hiking in the surrounding parks, and exploring along the James River. Will we see your pen and ink illustration style in this show or have you been experimenting with any new mediums? I will have pen and ink illustrations in this show, but I have been experimenting more with different mediums. These variations are apparent in the 60 pieces some I did for this show. What is the process of preparing to do a live painting? I start with a rough sketch to develop my composition. Secondly I refine my sketch and build a panel large enough to accommodate it. Prior to painting at a show, I complete the outline in pencil. I make sure I've packed the necessary equipment: drop cloth, paint brushes, paint buckets, rags, water to ensure I don't have any glitches once I've started. I'll be replicating my black and white ink work via my live painting. Do you think creating pieces in front of a live audience changes the relationship of the artist and the spectator? I have only painted in front of an audience once at a gallery show, and while painting public murals. It's similar to an art demo. I've done them for high school and VCU students. Observers are always unsure if it's okay to talk to me while I'm working. I really enjoy talking with the spectators, and assure them that they won't disrupt me if they ask questions or make comments. I like the rapport between artist, created work, and observer. It gives the work meaning and helps bring it to life for people who don't create art. It gives them a better understanding of the process. It can be a little awkward at times when your back is to the observer and you're communicating without looking at them. I like to be fully engaged when talking to people, so I try to spend time with them face to face, too. I enjoy connecting with the spectators at a show; it's energizing to explain my work and share in their reaction to and feedback about it. For this show, I plan on spending quite a bit of time talking to my guests, and will focus on painting when traffic slows. Sometimes you just need to read the crowd to figure out what makes sense: communicating about art or creating it. "Chasing Chaos" opens on Friday, April 4th at New Normal Apparel (212 E. Clay St. Richmond, Virginia). See more of Jacob's work here. #Interview #ArtistInterview #JacobEveland #ChasingChaos #SoloShow #NewNormal #GalleryShow #Illustrator #RVA
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Art and AviationLast year, Japanese anime director and animation icon Hayao Miyazaki announced that he would retire from directing. This isn't the first time the director said he would retire, as he previously claimed that Princess Mononoke (1997) would be his last film as a director. If Miyazaki does retire from directing, than that means that the 2013 film The Wind Rises will be his last picture. While Miyazaki will still be a figure around Studio Ghibli working on other projects, The Wind Rises may be the last time the studio releases a film that is pure Miyazaki. If that's the case, then how does The Wind Rises hold up? The Wind Rises is both an example of Miyazaki's auteur status and a departure from what he regularly produces. The film is a fictionalized biopic of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, an aeronautical engineer and chief designer of many of the airplanes used by the Japanese military in World War II. The film follows Horikoshi as he grows into adulthood, showing his education and the challenges he faces as an airplane designer and engineer. The story, which also blends a novel by Tatsuo Hori into Horikoshi's life, also shows how Horikoshi's relationship with a young woman named Naoko affected him and the work he created. The film is not intended to be a faithful representation of Horikoshi's life. Naoko never existed, and many of the events that Horikoshi deals with also never happened. However, what is important is how Miyazaki uses the elements of Horikoshi's life and Hori's novel with his aesthetic to tell a story. The Wind Rises is not a realistic movie, but it never attempts to be wholly realistic. The film blends magical realism with Horikoshi's life. Throughout the film, Horikoshi and an Italian plane designer named Caproni share dreams, each man sharing their ideas about art, beauty, and airplanes as they continue to meet in the dream scape. There is no real explanation behind these dreams, but they do add to the greater themes of the story. Horikoshi's dream in life was to build airplanes. He and Caproni saw the beauty in aircraft and the freedom that flying gave a man. However, both men lived in countries that fell into war, forcing the men to use their creations as weapons. Horikoshi at one point jokes that a plane of his would fly easier without the guns, but this is merely laughed off. Despite building tools of death and destruction, Horikoshi learns to love life and to love his craft. It's his relationship with Naoko and his dream meetings with Caproni that allow him to avoid falling into cynicism. This is important because of what Miyazaki said in a recent interview. The director criticized Japan's anime industry, claiming that most of it is decided by otaku, or anime fans, who fail to observe real life when they create anime and manga. The Wind Rises can be seen as an allegory for these feelings. Horikoshi is a pure artist and dreamer, but he has to compromise his talents to create weapons of destruction. His major accomplishments in life will be regarded for how they were used in war, even though all he wanted was the freedom to fly and create. For Miyazaki, he is an artist living in a culture where most anime is based on various fetishes. Because of that, The Wind Rises is also a subversive Miyazaki film, while still retaining a lot of his trademarks. The hand drawn animation is gorgeous, and the scenes of flying and other more fantastic sequences like the dreams are truly visual marvels. However, it's also a more down to earth story, lacking a lot of the fantasy that can be found in films like Castle in the Sky or Spirited Away. The Wind Rises is more like other films produced by Studio Ghibli like Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies or Yoshifumi Kondo's Whisper of the Heart, where they use the medium to tell realistic stories with touches of fantasy all while keeping the human drama present. With this, Miyazaki's final film is one that is quite the departure from his previous works, but probably one of his better films. It's not going to be as popular as Princess Mononoke or My Neighbor Totoro, but it's still quite an accomplishment. This film could have easily been a live action drama, but animating it allowed Horikoshi's tale to be told in a much more elegant way. If this really is his final film, then it will be an appropriate end to the legacy of one of the greatest animation directors ever. If it isn't his last film, then hopefully this will be the end of one era and lead to the start of something even greater. #Film #FilmReview #HayaoMiyazaki #Retirement #Anime #Japan #TheWindRises
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Hats off to The Gay FCCBy Fay Funk QuailBellMagazine.com On Feb. 23, Alec Baldwin published an essay in New York Magazine entitled “I Give Up” announcing his retirement from public life. Following a violent altercation with the paparazzi, in which Baldwin called the man a “cocksucking fag” and referring to a tabloid reporter as a “toxic little queen” after a tweeting scandal involving Baldwin’s wife, Alec Baldwin faced massive amounts of criticism from the press and LGBTQ organizations. He lost a job as an MSNBC talk show host, likely because of the homophobic outbursts. The backlash prompted Baldwin to pen the essay in which he quits his public life, though he is continuing to act in movies and on TV. It’s always saddening and enraging when an actor I like reveals homophobic tendencies, but I see Baldwin’s display with as much bemusement as anger. He has become a parody, an example of life imitating art, and I don’t think he even realizes it. Alec Baldwin starred on one of my favorite shows, 30 Rock, as Jack Donaghy, the impossibly rich and successful Vice President of NBC who serves as Tina Fey’s character, Liz Lemon, mentor. He’s the perfect parody of a white man, clueless as to the difficulties of his subordinates, claiming in one episode that, as the decision makers, white men have it much harder than women or African-Americans. He is so privileged he can never really face the consequences of his actions, though of course he doesn’t see it that way. Jack Donaghy’s idea of a failure is not making as many millions of dollars in a day as he had hoped, or being forced to ask the Obama Administration for bailout money for his company. And yet despite his fortune and his power, Jack Donaghy sees criticism and attacks at every turn, from Democrats, from business rivals, and sometimes from his own staff.
Tina Fey wrote in Bossypants that she always pictured Alec Baldwin in the role, saying “I liked the idea of writing Alec Baldwin as a powerful conservative, having him articulate passionately the opposite of everything he believed in real life.” I think that was part of the beauty of the character, the disconnect between the deeply-held beliefs of Jack Donaghy and Alec Baldwin. Baldwin has been vocal about his political beliefs throughout his career, and is strongly liberal. He was in on the joke. He was aware that rich white men like him were very fortunate and very mockable, and was happy to twist the knife. That’s why it was so funny. Only someone who understood exactly why what he was saying was so wrong could convey such obtuse ideas so hilariously. Somewhere along the line it seems Alec Baldwin stopped getting the joke, and he became the person he so gleefully ridiculed on TV. It’s clear on the surface-level of his essay. In the first paragraph he refers to Andrew Sullivan, Anderson Cooper, and other members of the media as the “Gay Department of Justice” and a few paragraphs later refers to a transman he meets as and “F-to-M tranny,” then tells him he wants to “learn about what is hurtful speech in your community.” The absurdity and misplaced drama of his statements are things you don’t see much outside of, well, a TV show. After reading this part I thought to myself that Tina Fey must be kicking herself, because it’s the perfect premise for a 30 Rock episode. Jack Donaghy is taken to trial by the Gay Department of Justice, a new government institution under the Obama Administration, and attempts to manipulate them by pretending to be sympathetic, unknowingly throwing out homophobic and transphobic slurs at every turn, thus satirically showing how little straight white men know about LGBT people, despite believing they have superior knowledge of everything. Things still work out for him at the end of the episode. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Translating Film to Real Life Most folks who know me would not be too terribly surprised to hear that last night was my first time ever, in my 27 years, watching the Oscars. My dad would also not be too terribly surprised to hear that I went to bed and read before the show was over. Typically I feel like those types of award shows represent a more mainstream culture and are not very relevant to folks within subcultures or countercultures. But my mom and aunt wanted to watch, so we did.
I am not an "up to date on all the movies that come out" person. But from what I did see and hear, I have extracted two main issues, from which I am drawing a further conclusion. And both of these issues have a personal connection to me aside from the political one. Both of the movies and the media around them feature someone I went to college with at the small Hampshire College. Which explains part of my enthusiasm for engaging in these Oscar topics. The two issues stem from the two films Dallas Buyers Club and 12 Years a Slave, which deal with transgender people and AIDS and slavery respectively. The conclusion I am drawing is that movies that deal with important topics are great conversation starters, but the movies themselves are meaningless unless we tackle those issues in the real world. While my mom and aunt find Jared Leto to be very attractive as "hot Jesus," Jared Leto is a cis gendered man. Trans women do not have access to many roles in film, and to give a significant role of a transwoman to a cis man is an insult: a missed opportunity at best and transphobic at worst. Again, this is a movie which I have not seen yet, although now I am interested. And I am glad to see a movie which deals with both AIDS and transgender identity being a part of popular culture. These are two areas in which we need more attention and education and storytelling and history preservation. We can do better than Jared Leto in the role of a transwoman. Because that role and that story, do not belong to straight cis men. Jared Leto may be just a lovely actor, but it is truly not his story to tell. I also think that placing cis people in the roles of trans people opens the arena up for the sorts of joking that sets us back in terms of transgender issues. Ellen Degeneres, the Oscars host, and a lesbian (to my knowledge, though we have not really talked too much about it, me and Ellen), cracked a joke at the beginning of the Oscars, when I was still awake, about Jared Leto being the prettiest princess there. For folks who are transwomen, that would not be a joke. Jokes about cross-dressing and trans people are not steps forward, and are part of the hateful and misunderstanding culture that results in so much violence towards trans people. This is a helpful reminder that cis gender people need to work on their transphobia and dealing with their cis privileges. Intersectionality is a real factor in our lives, and one which means we may have to temper our jokes at the very, very least. Additionally, Dallas Buyers Club is touted as a true story. But the character Jared Leto plays is made up. Time Life writer Steve Friess wrote an interesting article tearing apart the character played by Jared Leto, and explaining all the ways in which the portrayal of this fictional character is transphobic. Friess mentions Jos Truitt, a wonderful person I went to college with who now is the Executive Director at Feministing. Jos slams the point home in her article saying, "No matter what Dallas Buyers Club does as a film, the narrative around this movie, the fact that a man in drag is playing a trans woman, perpetuates the stereotype that we are men in drag." Jos' full article on the Golden Globes and Leto is definitely worth reading. |
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