Prop 8 the Musical

From "The Bell Jar"

do suicidal artists know something we don't?






"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
Sylvia Plath

What It Feels Like For A Girl*

*Borrowed from a beautiful revolutionary in the West, "What It Feels Like For A Girl" will be a new installation for this sad, neglected blog. W.I.F.L.F.A.G. will explore what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. Don't be shy (to post). We're all girls.

(Excerpts from a paper written by me, E.K. May, about the Madonna/Whore complex)

In sexual politics and cultural standards, female virginity is the ultimate good. A woman’s values are said to be determined by virginity (or the guise of virginity). Aside from her looks, a woman’s purity is to be safeguarded and treasured; by herself and one man. Conversely, female promiscuity is the ultimate bad; she is damaged but desired. Women must be the virgin or the whore and men will marry one and screw the other.
The virgin/whore dichotomy has long existed in sexual politics; from the Virgin Mary and the sinful temptress Eve; to the moral crusaders and the prostitutes of nineteenth century America; to Mary-Ann and Ginger here on Gilligan’s Island.
There is a hierarchal desire to categorize a woman into archetypes, linked almost exclusively to her sexuality. Hillary Clinton is a wench and a ball-buster. Sarah Palin is a mother, but a Mother I’d Like to Fuck (MILF). Lindsay Lohan is a whore. Miley Cyrus is a virgin (or a Madonna). But it is the ladder two stereotypes encapsulate the cultural expectation of female sexuality. The standard of two sexualities allows men to hate or idolize women (Leslie, 2007). Men can have their wife and their fantasy too; have their cake and eat it, too.
The Madonna is the utmost moral woman. She is on a pedestal; pure, chaste, and sacrificial. On the opposite end of the sexual spectrum of womanhood is Eve. Eve is the antithesis of Mary’s morality; she is the image of the whore. According to the book of Genesis, Eve is created by God from the rib of Adam. She is made from Adam’s rib and is therefore positioned as lesser and beneath him. Eve is tempted by the serpent to eat from the tree of knowledge. She complies and lures man (Adam) to eat also. She establishes original sin in humans. She cannot deny herself the fruit; she is lustful and carnal.
The juxtaposition of Mary as the virgin and Eve as the whore is contradictory and seemingly obvious. Yet, the common bond these iconic and immortal women share is less conspicuous. Mary’s selflessness brings forth the son of God, and Eve’s temptations create sin in which man takes part. The virgin/whore archetypes create an adventurous problem for man, “the Madonna as his dutiful helpmate and vision of purity, the whore as symbolic of the dangers and temptations he must overcome.” While women chose whether to be the Madonna or the whore, men choose who they want sexually.
The dichotomy of said virgins and whores is an abstract and culturally constructed concept of female sexuality. The division of women in to categories of virgins and whores is certainly the ideal, but moreover, it is an idea. That is to say, the virgin/whore dichotomy does not actually exist. Mothers and good women are not virgins; they bear children through sexual intercourse. A whore is not actually a whore. Certainly there were prostitutes, but a whore is usually only a woman who overtly takes pleasure from sex. But as sexuality, gender, and time progressed, and sexual standards evolved, curiously, the virgin/whore dichotomy persisted as the expectation for female sexuality: the faithful and the fantasy.

Home Sweet Stuff

Home Sweet Stuff
By Meredith Rivlin
There is a man in Burlington who, like many residents, bikes everywhere. But he is not like them. He is a 40-something Jamaican man whose trove of possessions is attached to his bicycle. The bike’s frame is not a fancy one, like the bikes of Burlington residents: it has three gears at most and is gray or black; I can’t remember these details because it’s not the bike itself that draws attention—heads turning, cameras flashing. It is what some consider a collection of junk, piled precariously in baskets and tied onto the frame of his bicycle, questionably secure. There must be over 100 objects, vestiges, and relics attached.
I’ve never spoken to the man—Super Birdman, I think he calls himself. But I’ve seen interactions between him and others; tourists take out their cameras to snap a picture of the foreign sight they saw in a town that turned out to be sublimely familiar. Barely speaking, Birdman waves his hands up to lenses like a celebrity (and he is!) evading the paparazzi, and says “no” to the people hiding behind their cameras. He points to a sign on the front of his bike attached to a basket, next to a fake flower bouquet, a radio, and a small, round fan, that reads “Pictures: $2”. People are baffled and displeased as they replace lens caps and wait to hear the digital “ping” of their robotic medium. They walk on to the next scene available for point-and-click-and-delete-if-necessary shooting, declining the pseudo-beggar, the one who looks least pathetic and only asks for money when about to be violated photographically. So the smug family walks on to mumble about how he should get a real job, and that it’s just not fair—they’ll have to relive this scene with that damned language, those “remember when”s, instead of scrolling through their 21st century slide show.
Birdman is like any tourist attraction here in Burlington and like the other marketed attractions, there is a price of admission. Whether or not the Birdman would explain his kitschy collection or just pose (I wonder if he would smile?), only those desperate and removed and bored enough to pay the money for a photograph know. Perhaps he buys more things, or maybe pays rent for a place where he keeps the rest of his larger treasures.
Or maybe it’s for an empty house. A bed, maybe a few plates on which to eat. The rest is attached to his bike which he rides up and downhill, on busy streets and side roads, as he pulls a fast one on American tourists who think that their possessions define them as people. What is so striking about Birdman’s collection is that it is so portable. Imagine the weight of all your belongings everywhere you go, his loaded bike demands of us. Would you need the space of a large van, or would a bike and some baskets suffice?

Injustice Anywhere

Barbara and Robin Levine-Ritterman became the first same-sex couple married in Connecticut since the state passed gay marriage

On November 4^th 2008, America won by electing Barack Obama as our president. Liberals stood with wide eyes and gaping mouths in disbelief; the youth were filled with hope and alcohol; and an African-America was judged on the content of his character, not the color of his skin. From Democrats to Republicans; activists to apathetics; atheists to crazy Christians; Indiana to Indonesia; from puppies (especially Greyhounds!) to polar bears—we all won on November 4. In California, however, it was a different story.

California. The home of Hollywood, the Redwoods, and a heady girl named Kelly. California is surely a mystical place and has certainly set the pace for American radicalism and progressive politics.

In May 2008, California became the second state to legalize same-sex marriage asserting that under its constitution, marriage limiting to only a man and a woman violated the equal protection clause. California granted a seemingly basic human right, marriage, to gays; in short, the bill allowed consenting adults to marry whom they love.

On November 4, however, that right to marry was taken away from gay Californians with the passage of Proposition 8. Joining thirty other states, California has now restricted marriage to one woman and one man. While I don't think California gays recently joined in holy matrimony will be returning their wedding gifts to Crate & Barrel anytime soon, the passage of Prop. 8 was undoubtedly a huge setback for the LGBT community.

While Prop. 8 dehumanized gay commitment, another proposition on California's ballot granted some living creatures a more humane way of life. Proposition 2, or the Standards for Confining Farm Animals, requires that calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely. In the crudest of terms, Prop. 2 insures that animals have wiggle room before they are slaughtered (and that is why I am a vegetarian).

Farm animals gain rights, people loose rights. Without a doubt, Proposition 2 is a great thing; animals deserve ethical treatment even when they are raised simply to die. But shouldn't gay men and women receive just treatment when they simply want to be legally committed?

Perhaps animal rights was more tangible and safe for the average California voter to support. Annually people donate more money to animal shelters than to women’s shelters because cats and dogs are presumed helpless. Women can leave abusive relationships and people can chose to be gay. I realize the two issues are not mutually exclusive; it is not quid pro quo. But the fact that these two propositions were side-by-side on the California ballot simply highlights the disconnect of humanity.

In the aftermath of the passage of Prop. 8, California is already rethinking the decision. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed disappointment at the measure’s passage.
“It is unfortunate, but it is not the end because I think this will go back into the courts,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said. “It’s the same as in the 1948 case when blacks and whites were not allowed to marry. This falls into the same category.”

And as Martin Luther King once said, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Please watch Keith Olbermann's powerful and eloquent condemnation of Prop. 8:

End of an Era

Forget Bush. The Obama presidency holds greater significance for the counterculture (or American Apparel fanatics as it may be).
Park Slope blogger declares: "OBAMA VICTORY RENDERS HIPSTER 'MOVEMENT' OBSOLETE—Neo-Cynicism Now Strictly For and By the Fags.'"
Urban Outfitters is selling the "hipster" lifestyle, maybe they can put a slouchy hat and suede boots on Hope, too.

I Wish I Had a River

Happy Birthday, Joni