From the all-women edition of The Onion, this headline:
& Don’t miss the Mother’s Day cards, & this unfortunately too-true publishing update.
Ours.
Is anyone else watching this remarkable Planet Earth series on the Discovery Channel? It’s astonishing, though not for the faint of heart; I alternate between wondering why life (& death) have to be full of so much suffering, but then crying at how beautiful some of the scenes and animals are.
Watching a whole herd of elephants play in the water is really a thing of joy.
20/20
Tonight’s 20/20 is going to feature a Barbara Walters special concerning trans children.
10PM EDT, ABC-TV.
Born in the Wrong Body
I’m up in the middle of the night for no reason whatsoever, so I wanted to let people know they should keep an eye out for an MSNBC program called Born in the Wrong Body. We caught it tonight & were pleased to see the focus on a younger trans generation, since their situation is sometimes very different than ours.
I especially loved a male partner’s description of being with a transwoman, which he explained by saying: say you like hamburgers but you don’t like fries, & someone offers you a happy meal – you’re not going to turn down the whole thing just because there’s one part of it you don’t like.
Clever. I wanted to wish all the young adults and the author Cris Beam – whose book Transparent is (I think) the impetus behind both this show & Barbara Walters’ upcoming 4/27 show on trans youth – the best of luck.
(& We are, of course, discussing it over on the mHB message boards, though feel free to post a comment here if you’d prefer.)
Green Man
My friend Lara (now infamous since she’s in the new book) sent me this story involving gender roles & green politics, written by No Impact Man – who is trying to live in such a way as to create no impact on the environment as a result of his living / breathing / consuming. Interestingly, in listing all the manual labor involved in doing such a thing, a woman wrote to him to make sure that if greens would embrace a ‘no impact’ life that the chores do not once again fall onto the women & not the men.
His response and musings on the question of gender roles & on manual labor in general are interesting, radical & green, but also smacking of male privilege: it’s one thing to do some manual labor as an experiment – & one for which he’s gaining a great deal of attention – & another to do it, day in & day out, for an entire lifetime, with little thanks or recognition. His situation is such that he already has the understanding & education to put his manual labor in context; it has a theoretical framework that instills value that your average housewife would not have to give her “perspective” while washing another 40 lbs. of family laundry. But still: he seems like a decent guy, & his blog is an ongoing interesting read for the kinds of values he’s examining.
It IS Earth Day today, so I moved this post to suit. What are you doing to lessen your impact?
Interview with Betty
Upon our return from Harrisburg, I find San Francisco’s Bay Windows has run an interview/article about Betty written by Jake Anderson Minshall.
Derek & Romaine & Me
For those of you who have Sirius Radio, I’ll be on The Derek & Romaine Show tonight at 7PM.
You can listen to it online, if you sign up for a three-day registration with Sirius. Then find OutQ (it’s channel #109) & then The Derek & Romaine Show, which is on from 6-10PM, & I’ll be on starting at 7PM.
Nikki G.
Did you see the stunning & empowering Nikki Giovanni delivering a poem at the Virginia Tech service today? Was she remarkable or what? & A snappy dresser, to boot.
When I grow up I wanna be just like her.
It was as if her presence was to prove the point of why we need poets, as a culture. The spontaneous school cheer that went up was heartbreaking and healing, at once.
The Fringe Interview
The interview I did just last night on KDVS with DJ Cariad is already online. The listing is DJ Cariad – The Fringe (128kbps).m3u
The interview begins at 4:40, & goes for about an hour.
If you’re coming here as a result of that interview, welcome!
The Fisher King
I just happened to catch that beautiful scene in The Fisher King where love turns Grand Central into a waltzing ballroom. How fantastic a scene that is, probably one of my all-time favorites in movies. But then, it’s one of my favorite movies, too.