Fox Cities Book Festival: April 17 – 24

Posted by helenboyd – April 18, 2013

The Fox Cities Book Festival started in earnest yesterday and I saw one author right out of the gate: James Loewen, otherwise famous for Lies My Teacher Told Me, but who spoke yesterday about sundown towns. And he was amazing. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, please do.

Otherwise, there are a ton of other readings and authors and contests and events and all sorts of things. The very last event is with my colleague David McGlynn who will be talking about his memoir A Door in the Ocean – which didn’t start out a memoir – and how it got that way.

There are YA authors, mystery authors, science writers, journalists, poets, comic book collectors; historians, teachers, moms, and survivors.

It’s pretty cool. Go see stuff.

Burmese Punk Rockers

Posted by helenboyd – April 18, 2013

burmese punks

This is my favorite thing of the year so far.

& I’m sure many of you recall the very first Burmese punk, right? (She was born in Rangoon/Yangon.)

#13?: NZ

Posted by helenboyd – April 17, 2013

New Zealand has made same sex marriage legal. They’re the 13th country in the world to do so. & Guess what? The US isn’t one of them.

(I can’t quite sort if they are the 13th or 14th. Seeing conflicting #s from good sources, so here’s a list.)

  1. Argentina
  2. Belgium
  3. Canada
  4. Denmark
  5. Iceland
  6. Netherlands
  7. Norway
  8. Portugal
  9. Spain
  10. South Africa
  11. Sweden
  12. Uruguay
  13. New Zealand

Haiku Day!

Posted by helenboyd – April 17, 2013

No really, it is. Here is mine inspired by the Wisconsin winter:

Winter should end now

It has been cold much too long

Ass is frozen off.

This person has been writing one daily, about which I have to say:

daily haiku?

why try so hard for brevity:

blog instead.

Still, they’re fun to write. Leave one here.

MWMF: #wrongsideofhistory

Posted by helenboyd – April 16, 2013

Or, as one Nadia from Brooklyn put it, “Do I really have to sign a petition telling women not to participate in an event that discriminates against women?”

And yes, Nadia, you do.

C’mon, MWMF. Get on the right side of history already. You’re better than this.

& thanks to the Indigo Girls and Andrea Gibson from dropping out this year.

Love to Boston

Posted by helenboyd – April 15, 2013

Two Explosions Rock Boston Marathon Finish Line; At Least 2 Dead, 23 Injured: how terrifically sad and confusing and horrible.

You can find people or report information about people at this Google People Finder.

Musician: Ryan Lee

Posted by helenboyd – April 15, 2013

This musician, Ryan Lee, just sent me an email out of the blue: he’s a queer musician who’s doing some gigs in the area in the next week so I thought I’d give him a plug. I’m not so much of a singer/songwriter type, but I know a bunch of you out there are, so check him out. I found his story about upending and remaking his life pretty cool. He’s got upcoming gigs here in Appleton, in Green Bay, Madison, Waukesha, Minneapolis, and lots of spots in-between.

15 Years

Posted by helenboyd – April 14, 2013

So many anniversaries: today, 15 years ago, I met the person I married.

Some days it is hard to imagine how much we have been through in that time, and other days it is as if nothing has changed.

Still other days I am astonished by the luck I had in finding someone who loves me so much, who has taken such good care of me through some difficult stuff, and who has, in turn, asked much of me.

(for life’s not a paragraph)

Happy Beckett’s Birthday!

Posted by helenboyd – April 13, 2013

April 13th was his birthday, and somehow, I am not surprised he was born on the 13th too. samuel beckett

from his novel Molloy – by Samuel Beckett. This is one of my very favorite sections.

“I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones. Yes, on this occasion I laid in a considerable store. I distributed them equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I have just described. And so on. But this solution did not satisfy me fully. For it did not escape me that, by an extraordinary hazard, the four stones circulating thus might always be the same four. In which case, far from sucking the sixteen stones turn and turn about, I was really only sucking four, always the same, turn and turn about. But I shuffled them well in my pockets, before I began to suck, and again, while I sucked, before transferring them, in the hope of obtaining a more general circulation of the stones from pocket to pocket. But this was only a makeshift that could not long content a man like me. So I began to look for something else …”  (found here)

Smith Admission Petition

Posted by helenboyd – April 13, 2013

Change.org has a petition in favor of Smith changing their admissions policy to welcome trans women.

Bro’s Little Pony (Really)

Posted by helenboyd – April 11, 2013

They’re called bronies.

Worrisome Precedent: Chris Wilson Sentenced

Posted by helenboyd – April 10, 2013

So this is worrying: a man in the UK has just been convicted of fraud for not telling a woman he was having sex with that he was trans: Three years probation and 240 days of community service for non-disclosure with an intimate partner. Unbelievable.

And while he did also say he was 16 in order to have sex with a 15 year old – when in fact he is 22 but looks younger, as trans men often do – that is not the offense he was charged with. I don’t think anyone in the trans community would be upset if that were the case. But no, his charge was “obtaining sexual intimacy by fraud”:

Setting the sentence, judge Lord Bannatyne said he recognized Wilson did not ‘dress’ as a man in order to commit offences, but always dressed that way.

Lord Bannatyne also said Wilson never set out to deliberately harm his ‘victims’ and he would review whether Wilson had broken the terms of his probation order in April 2014.

He added: ‘These are very unusual offences. I have accepted that you genuinely feel that you are male rather than female.

‘I believe this obviously significantly reduces your culpability. I believe that this can be dealt with by the imposition of a probation order.’

That is, he didn’t get put on a list of sex offenders for life, but only for 3 years due to these “unusual offences”.

Imagine if we convicted people who didn’t admit that they were married before sex. Or if they said they had more money than they did, or a different job. Imagine.

But with trans people, the culture of discrimination allows for this prejudiced and bullshit treatment.

In the meantime: what is the punishment for an adult who lies to a minor in order to have sex? To me that’s both fraud and statutory rape, right? But I don’t know what the laws are in the UK, so someone, please fill me in.

French Senate Says Yes

Posted by helenboyd – April 9, 2013

179 – 157!

Equal Pay Still Isn’t

Posted by helenboyd – April 9, 2013

Today, women have finally earned what it earned men to earn by the end of 2012. That is, it takes 15+ months for a woman to earn what a man makes in 12.

Employers can check themselves by doing a self audit.

Women can learn how to negotiate better salaries.

And you can post this on Facebook, as Senator Tammy Baldwin has, to remind people that this is a ridiculous situation.

& Here are a few amazing graphs proving that this income disparity is NOT about women having children.

Two Tune Tuesday: Pretty Green

Posted by helenboyd – April 9, 2013

The Jam meets Mark Ronson meets Santigold. Cool. I heard this the other day in a bar and was fascinated: I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a cover of “Pretty Green” before but I definitely had never heard one that reminded me of The Slits.

That’s Santigold on vocals.

Here’s a live version of the original Jam song, & here’s the original recording. If your life sucks, listen to more Jam. I swear it works.

RIP Margaret Thatcher

Posted by helenboyd – April 8, 2013

… and here are a bunch of songs expressing similar sentiments.

LGBTQ Immigration Stories Needed

Posted by helenboyd – April 6, 2013

From NCTE:

The U.S. Senate is close to announcing its plan to reform our immigration system. But as we’ve learned from this Congress, we’ve got to build up our tools to fight against attempts to exclude LGBT people from immigration reform.

We can do that by sharing the stories of LGBT people whose lives have been affected by our dated immigration laws.

Share your immigration story here or post this on Facebook to encourage your friends to submit theirs.

It really matters that we all come out for immigration reform and the fact that there are transgender immigrants is just one reason to do so .

NCTE is prioritizing immigration reform because it’s a moral issue to address all of the indignities that every immigrant in our country faces, including everyone who is without documents, faces inhumane treatment in detention centers, or is in deportation proceedings because their relationship isn’t recognized by our government.

If we are able to collect the stories of LGBT immigrants, we can build the public education campaign we need to get real reforms that help real people.

Join us in collecting these stories now.

Back in the NY Groove (While Still in WI)

Posted by helenboyd – April 5, 2013

It thrills me to no end that I am going to a retreat this weekend with a bunch of students from NYC. Why? Because I won’t have to talk so slow and constantly regulate my enthusiasm and keep myself from interrupting. I won’t have to count to three when someone is done speaking just to make sure I’m not interjecting too quickly. I’m not particularly good at doing those things, mind you: I’m still from New York and have all the speech patterns Deborah Tannen talks about in this article.

A Californian who visited New York once told me he’d found New Yorkers unfriendly when he’d tried to make casual conversation. I asked what he made conversation about. Well, for example, how nice the weather was. Of course! No New Yorker would start talking to a stranger about the weather—unless it was really bad. We find it most appropriate to make comments to strangers when there’s something to complain about—“Why don’t they do something about this garbage!” “Ever since they changed the schedules, you can’t get a bus!” Complaining gives us a sense of togetherness in adversity. The angry edge is aimed at the impersonal “they” who are always doing things wrong. The person is thus welcomed into a warm little group. Since Californians don’t pick up this distinction between “us” and “them,” they are put off by the hostility, which they feel could be turned on them at any moment.

But around other New Yorkers I can fucking relax and expect people to be a little louder, a little more dramatic, to clip my sentences and know, when I clip theirs, that I am only showing enthusiasm. More→

Integrate Prom?

Posted by helenboyd – April 4, 2013

I’m sorry — what did I just read?!? Is it 1953 all over again?

These students in rural Georgia have decided it is ABOUT TIME their prom become an integrated event. Yes, integrated, as in race integration.

I have to say I’m flabbergasted.

Support them by liking their FB page.

Frida.

Posted by helenboyd – April 4, 2013

This is Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo

You’re welcome.

(It’s from an article about her wardrobe being putting on display in Mexico City, at long last. I really hope it travels somewhere closer so I can see it.)