As usual, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments is on just in time for Easter. I love it for all its corniness, and I’ve seen it more times than I can count, but if it’s on – I still get sucked in. My favorite exchange is when Nefertiri (Anne Baxter) tells Ramses to bring back a sword with Moses’ blood on it, and Ramses (Yul Brynner) replies, “to mingle with your own.”
But for anyone who thinks men look effeminate in skirts, I might recommend you check out some of it – at least the beginning, where you get to see Yul Brynner in a skirt.
That’s about as far from effeminate as I can imagine.
And if you really want to get to know Yul, you can see him in all his glory. Yep, I’m a fan, and have been since the first time I saw The King & I.
Molly the Cat
A cat got herself stuck in the walls of a building in the West Village. She’d been missing two weeks – and presumed stolen because she’s a pretty cat – but then the walls started meowing.
With the help of remote video cameras, a whole fish donated by a nearby restaurant owner, and a guy named Kevin Clifford, Molly was rescued.
What caught my attention was that Kevin Clifford was described as a miner who extended his workday to help get Molly out, and I couldn’t imagine what a miner who lived in NYC could possibly be doing. But it turns out, Kevin Clifford isnt’ a miner per se, or rather, he’s a very special kind of miner called a sandhog. (I confess, I’m really antsy to get back to working on my novel that concerns – you guessed it – both miners and sandhogs.)
But either way, he loves animals, and Molly is now hiding/resting under furniture in her owner’s apartment after time in spent of flashbulbs, chaos, and crowds. Hopefully everyone’ll go away shortly so that she won’t want to find a new wall to crawl into.
Please Donate
If you can, please donate to help us keep doing what we do. Thanks to all of you who have contributed in the past.
Last month I was asked how much money I needed, and what it was for, so I thought, for the sake of my newer blog readers, I should explain a little. I’ve put a longer explanation of why we ask for donations on the “please donate” page, but mostly I’d love to encourage people to do a monthly subscription fee – especially if you’re a regular board user (lurker or active poster). Some of you are doing so already, and I really appreciate it.
Seven Years Scratched
So it turns out Betty and I scratched the Seven Year Itch, as today is our 8th anniversary of meeting. And since we were practically married on the 1st date – or at least knew we were fated to be together, or something like that – it’s *really* our anniversary, though why not celebrate both? (The other is the day of our wedding, and not the day of our legal marriage, which was the day before our wedding in a no-frills ceremony at Brooklyn City Hall. So we really have three anniversaries, but this is getting ridiculous now.)
To us! To trans couples! To another 80 years (at least, if the marvels of medical technology keep up). To my beautiful, sexy girlfriend and my delicious husband!
(In a week in a half it’ll be 8 years since I first met Betty, too. When she was “Betty,” I mean.)
Another Pole
I just found out (thanks to PBS’ New York Voices) that Maurice Sendak is Polish. The “Wild Things” were based on his relatives, who he described as ‘speaking Yiddish with Polish accents.’ I knew they seemed familiar (though my relatives didn’t speak Yiddish, just English with a Polish accent).
So there’s me, and Maurice Sendak, and PJP II, and Andy Warhol. And Chopin.
Need a Title
I’m at that point that I need a title for the next book, and my choice – Boy Meets Girl – has been ixnayed by the powers that be.
So I’ve set up a poll for title ideas that have been kicked around, so do come vote – but also feel free to post one of your own!
Five Questions With… Holly Boswell
Holly Boswell helped launch the transgender movement with her groundbreaking essay “The Transgender Alternative” in 1990. S/he has been the chief architect of Southern Comfort‘s programs since 1991, and is a regular presenter at several conferences. In 1986 s/he co-founded the Phoenix Trans Support group in Asheville, NC, in ’93 founded the alternative Trans-Spiritual community known as Kindred Spirits, hosts the Bodhi Tree House, and directs the Traveling Medicine Show.
1) Recently our message boards have been discussing the way “transgender” seems to be coming to mean – in the popular/media usage – “transsexual.” As someone who self-identifies as a transgenderist, how do you feel about this new usage?
I reject the usage you describe of the term “transgender” as coming to mean “transsexual” — if indeed that is really happening. That is totally erroneous. “Trans” means to cross: either vestments, gender, or biological sex. All of these categories cross the lines of gender, which is why the word “transgender” has come to be an umbrella term for the entire Trans Community, such as it is gradually formulating itself out of its own amazing diversity. Transsexuality comprises only a small (perhaps 10%) segment of the overall Trans Community, and yet it receives the lion’s share of attention because it is so dramatic and sensational. Please, let us respect our terminologies, as well as the roots of our word meanings, so that we can continue to make sense out of our own personally complex equations, without abandoning our ability to communicate our truth to mainstream culture through a common language.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Holly Boswell”
^ Random Photos
Just for fun, I decided to make the photo box in the letterhead above random, so now, every time you come to the blog, you’ll see a different photo.
It seemed a trans imperative, since I otherwise don’t have a “photos” page on this website.
Someone Needs to Make Porn Like This
A beautiful Campari commercial.
Betty looks like the woman, but I’ve got a few more pounds to lose and a lot more hair to grow, and you know – I’m still not going to look like her. But I aspire to. (Okay, I just checked the model’s stats, and I’d have to grow a few inches, lose more chest, waist and hips, and probably 50 more pounds. But I can dream. Or alternately, I can just be a shorter, slightly curvier version.)
(Thanks Marlena for finding it, and VeronicaMoonlit for finding her name.)
More Writing Life…
… and then there’s that other issue with writing, and that’s being friends with other writers. I had a writing professor who used to say that he preferred friendships with painters. Because when your painter friend asked you to see his new work, you could spend an hour, and go. But with writer friends, you have to read the whole book, and you have to say something intelligent about it, not just in general, but with some detail, to prove you read it and that you were paying attention at the time.
On top of that, they often have questions: Did that metaphor at the beginning of Chapter 3 work for you? Do you think most people know what Borg means, or do I just know a lot of geeks? Do you think I need to footnote who Dagny Taggart was?*
Annoyances, the lot of ’em.
Thanks to my friends, who for all these years have answered my annoying questions, and read drafts of mss., and second drafts, and then even finals, to see if I made it not suck in the end.
* Coming soon, to a theatre near you.