I’ve got my feminist hat on

First and foremost today, I am wearing my feminist hat. Now that I’ve said it twice I might have to get a real hat. Quote of the day: 

“Masculinity is what phallotarians do to keep women feminized. Femininity is what women do to keep from being pathologized, criminalized, ostracized, jailed, raped, and butchered”

 – curtesy of Twisty at http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com

This quote puts into words something I think I have long had an intuition about. Knowing that if I don’t display an appropriate level of culturally sanctioned feminity when out and about people could stare or make comments. If that sounds daft or extreme I agree, but that doesn’t stop it happening. And I’m lucky that that’s only one end of the scale that leads ultimately to violence.

Is it wrong that I’m looking forward to reaching an age where I will no longer be considered fuckable so that I will no longer be subject (object) of the public gaze?

In other news: I have been a total slacker with my writing. I wonder if I should start writing something else; another major project or something that exists only for me. The short stories I wrote last year were what I thought a short story should be. I want to be absurd, ridiculous, but when I sit down to do it I get blank page anxiety. I bought a book called “Gasoline” by Dame Darcy, a visually pleasing work with lots of illustrations. This is the kind of thing I love, so why am I not writing it? Because silliness is inappropriate? Because it won’t win any prizes?

I have not been wasting my time though. It has been gorgeously sunny ( I can scarcely believe winter is over, I’m sure it only snowed last week and christmas was the week before). I spent half the weekend reading in the garden amongst my swaying laundry and cats who like to poke their faces through the back of the bench.

Icon of the week: David Bowie

No one can deny that David Bowie is cool, and in this picture also rather hot:

I realised while looking for this picture that all the people on my list so far have been devastatingly attractive. Even Virginia Woolf was considered a great beauty in her day. The debate is open as to whether this makes me shallow or bisexuals unnaturally gorgeous…

David Bowie came out to the media in the 80s but later regretted it when the American press focused on that above and beyond his creative endevours. I can understand the irritation of sexuality becoming a defining feature – it’s something that doesn’t effect most of what you do most of the time. Bowie wanted to be known for his music, his acting and art. His art is awesome by the way: http://www.bowieart.com/ My art teacher told me that he spent a lot of his time in the art studios after they refused to let him do music.

Bowie has always been around in the background of my life. From childhood with cult movie Labyrinth to finding out that he went to my school there has been an aura of undeniable, demigod-like awesomeness. To find out that someone of this stature is part of the bi-club pleases me muchly.

Birmingham Book Festival

Yes, we the birminghamese have learned our words and there is now so much interest in books that we have our own library. And the library is giving us a festival!

http://www.birminghambookfestival.org/

It’s now halfway through so I doubt I’m going to do them any advertising favours here – though do look out for next year’s. I took partner to see Mark Thomas speak about his new book Belching out the Devil about Coca Cola and how many evil things they do in so many different countries.

This was extra fun for me because partner enjoys coke frequently. Ha. He may still go for it, it’s just not as easy when you know they pay workers less than a living wage in Turkey, they drain and pollute the water supplies of Indian villages, they use child labour in their sugar cane fields and turn a blind eye to their trade-unionist staff being shot in their bottling plants in Columbia. I can’t wait to read the book. I’ll let you know how it is. (we also got his previous book “As used on the famous Nelson Mandela”)

The great thing about Mark Thomas is how ordinary and approachable he is. He’s enthusiastic and good humoured with his blokey London accent and attitude – the opposite of the activist stereotype. (who does fit the activist stereotype? if you know, please share). I think it helps ordinary folk to put a person they can relate to to serious issues; it shows that you don’t have to be snobby or a hippy to boycott things, and you don’t have to be a raving loon to care about what goes on in the world. Good stuff.

When I first set this blog up I thought “gosh, why ever would I want to create a load of pages? I can’t even think of one” and now I’m getting overrun as I think I should add one for things worthy of boycott….

Master Plan(TM)

I thought it only fair to update on the Master Plan(TM) seeing as I was so excited about it last week. Although I experience the world in real time people reading back might not be, and in the interest of having consistent plot threads tying my incoherent life together I feel I should make more effort to address that.

So. Master Plan(TM) is dragging somewhat. The stories for Scarlet are not spontaneously finding themselves written, which annoys me because if I could sell one I could afford to go the dentist for the first time in 5 years. My current excuse is that I downloaded yWriter in anticipation of NaNoWriMo and that if I turn on my laptop I will prematurely ejaculate text all over it because it’s that sexy. Like all commodities I acquire I believe it will make up for my personal failings in a way that simple motivation never could. At least I am ready for nano, part 2 of the Master Plan(TM), and haven’t completely given up all my plans and aspirations yet.

inspire, aspire, perspire, expire…

Need more latin.

My secondary excuse is that I should be sewing my mum’s christmas present before I lock myself into my writing pod for November. This excuse would be fine if I hadn’t just spent the weekend reading and watched University Challenge last night. That show made me laugh far more than I was expecting. I think they were getting the giggles too, it’s possible they had shrooms in the green room to relax the contestants. I might have to watch it again – the obscurity of the topics tickled me eg: name the owner of this dog and which 19th century novel they appeared in.

Bisexual Icon: Brian Molko

Gosh, I almost forgot to do this for this week. Goes to show the shelf life of my good intentions is about 2 weeks. I’ll add the icons list to my 101 things and see if that helps – possibly not if I get bored of that in 2 weeks…

Icon of the Week: Brian Molko

 

Apart from rumours about a random girl in my year 11 class Brian Molko was the first person I really heard of who identified as bisexual. I was 17, in the darkest depths of teenage angst, and Placebo really spoke to that market. More edgy than current emo music Placebo made me feel dark and powerful and marked my first real step away from mainstream music into developing my own tastes.

I thought Brian Molko was beautiful, probably the first man feminine man I ever saw (and a secret fetish of mine ever since). He has the kind of voice often called haunting but I think it’s more demanding – gathering in your attention so he can hook you with his penetrating eyes. I enjoy his music, and although no longer my favourite I will look out for the next Placebo album.

The Master Plan

I’m itching to get going on the laptop and scratching because I ate a Wispa yesterday (and some toffees) causing reactions. We’ll forget that I’m weak and a dumbfuck and move on to the part where I get to talk about cool things.

I will be fully laptopped within a day or so at which point the Master Plan(TM) will kick in. The Master Plan involves me writing 10 erotic short stories meeting the open submission criteria of Scarlet magazine, then picking the best one and flogging it to them. I must do this all before the end of the month because I have signed up to http://www.nanowrimo.org for November, part 2 of the Master Plan. Last year I failed to launch when I caught a bad cold and missed the first week. This year I’m going to nail it. I have an idea in processing that should be ripe by then.

Goddamn I hope I don’t flake out like I usually do.

Do I sound American to you? I’ve totally been reading too many American blogs. At the end of the gig on Friday I had a definite US twang but I think that was more nerves at being in the presence of greatness.

Icon of Last Week

I do somewhat suck for not posting this at the weekend like I said I would. It’s typical of my disordered function. And also my home computer isn’t ready yet so it’s still hard to get online at home.

Drumroll please: tstststststststststststststststststsah!

Bisexual icon: Amanda Palmer

taken by Beth Hommel

In the full glory of her performance outfit, taken when she was still intact. When I saw her she was a bit damaged with her foot in plaster. And freezing her ass off. She looked so small at the signing table after the show, huddled over her pen with her foot on a stool. On stage she was fucking amazing. The woman has presence like I’ve never seen, she’s a born performer, and the show she’s put together with her friends raises the bar for live performance.

She shared the stage with Zoe Keating, supercellist, and Jason Webley accordion-hobo. They were equally engaging and completely contrasting in style and execution – she looped phrases through her laptop, he brought a maraca made of a plastic bottle full of coins. Between us me and partner bought their CDs and got them signed, took their pictures and joined their mailing lists. Taking little bits of them to keep for ourselves.

My favourite souvenir is the stem of flowers Amanda threw into the crowd that I caught. I’m going to press one of the flowers under my book mountain. I’ll probably forget about it for 2 years then rediscover it and relive some Amanda-based joy. At the moment I’m looking up lyrics as it’s the way she writes about things and the choice of subject matter that gives her punk caberet style the extra layer of depth missing from a lot of music.

I’m so excited – that friday feeling

Explicit joy of anticipation. Except only on the inside. Oh I’ve mentioned it to a few people over the last week but I’m afraid to acknowledge how excited I might actually be about going to see Amanda Palmer tonight. Amanda Fucking Palmer. Phenomenal woman. Musician. Performer. Artist. Icon.

Yes I said Icon. Tomorrow (unless I am unable to claw my way to the interwebs) I will post about the show and add AFP to the icons list. rar.

~*New Feature*~

I’m sure you are amazed by my misuse of random characters. What could it be, this new feature that requires such juvenile decor? It is:

Virginia’s Bisexual Icon of the Week!ta da!

In light of one of my recent posts about how I missed out on a significant event in my life because I didn’t know bisexual was an option, I have decided to start compiling a list of prominent bisexual people. How dull monosexualism will seem in comparison!

First up: Virginia Woolf

As a woman so awesome I named my blog after her Virginia Woolf has to come first. She was an intelligent and sensitive woman and born into the privilege of literary high society. It was a natural progression that surrounded by creative people on all sides she should become a novelist herself, pioneering modernist styles with strong psychological development of her characters.

Virginia was a feminist and advocated that women have the potential to be equal to men in creativity given the time, space and freedom from financial worry to do so. In her upper class Bloomsbury group and creative circles it was common to take a lover in addition to marriage, so although she was devoted to her husband Leonard she simultaneously had another long term partner, Vita Sackville-West.

It is thought that childhood abuse from her half brothers and deaths of many significant family members in her youth triggered fragile mental health for the rest of Virginia’s life. She had multiple breakdowns and it has been theorised that she may have been bipolar. At the age of 59 she drowned herself.

I think Virginia Woolf means something to me because I empathise with the way she writes about things. I know what it feels like to dissociate from the world because I’m so tangled in a web of my own thoughts (albeit less well constructed thoughts than hers). I understand how emotion can be there beneath the surface without being acknowledged, and what it feels like to be torn by something you refuse to admit exists. Virginia speaks to a side of my character that very few people do.

Caught in the minor details

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2008/09/but_is_it_femin

The F Word has a great blog post today about something that has been on my mind regarding the ole feminism. When you join the feminist club part of the membership package includes a high powered snark cannon with a lasersight that reveals potential sexism everywhere. It’s easy to fire it off at every little thing you see but you might as well be shooting gnomes in your garden for all the good it will do. Yes, you’ll have significantly improved your own garden but what have you actually achieved for the greater good?

I don’t actually know the answer to that. I do feel better for not sweating the small stuff and stressing over things that aren’t important to me. For example, I don’t wear makeup because I’m lazy and it annoys me, not because I’m making some sort of feminist stand. But feminism defends my right not/to wear makeup if I want to, and supports my right to autonomy in all things. Now that I’ve shot that gnome I don’t need to think about it or debate it any more; it’s just not that relevant.