Politics & Culture Reviewed
January 2nd, 2013
Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics
Irresistible Revolution is intended for a broad and general audience. The book turns an experienced and thoughtful lens onto many common controversies, rhetoric, and strategic questions that face contemporary social change movements: pursuit of broad or narrow agendas, integration of economic and racial justice, integrating sexual orientation and gender identity in human rights frameworks, the persistence of sexism, the dilemmas of bipartisanship, and the challenge of seeing beyond the short term to secure gains made for the long run. Order this book now - click on Amazon.Com on this linked page - or order from your favorite indy bookstore - click now ...Irresistible Revolution Early [...]
August 8th, 2012
Pussy Riot in Russia – Challenges Church, State and Putin
The feminist punk band Pussy Riot comprised of Maria Alyokhina, 24, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were arrested and imprisoned in March 2012 for the above performance at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. The words to the "Punk Prayer" they sang are: (Chorus) St. Maria, Virgin, Drive away Putin Drive away! Drive away Putin! (end chorus) Black robe, golden epaulettes All parishioners are crawling and bowing The ghost of freedom is in heaven Gay pride sent to Siberia in chains The head of the KGB is their chief saint Leads protesters to prison under escort In order not to offend the Holy Women have to give birth and to love Holy [...]
December 7th, 2011
Free Money: Patti Smith in Paris November 24, 2011
In this moment of OWS and greater awareness of economics and human rights, Patti's performance of Free Money brings out the poignancy and spirit of the moment. Another great resource for folks to look up is the new book Economic Policy and Human Rights, Edited by Radhika Balakrishnan and Diane Elson (Zed Press, 2011).
November 15th, 2011
Women As Public Intellectuals: The Legacies of Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan
A much shorter version of these remarks was given on November 8, 2011 at the 2011 Jane Jacobs Forum, hosted by the Municipal Arts Society at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. The Forum was titled "Women As Public Intellectuals" and featured me, Roberta Brandes Gratz, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Sally Helgesen. The moderator was Robin Pogebrin. In considering the legacies of Jane Jacobs, Betty Friedan and Rachel Carson we might start with a political analysis of three threshold concepts: public, intellectual and woman. But it is the word “as” in the title of tonight’s program that interests me most: women as public intellectuals. As is a powerful little word. Commonly, it [...]
December 23rd, 2010
Remembering Susan Sontag
At the end of December it will be six years since Susan Sontag died. Susan Sontag has been one of my heroes ever since I read Against Interpretation when I was 16. I never met her, or heard her speak, but my father not long ago told me a wonderful story of meeting her in the mid-1960's in NYC. In 1965 or mid-1966, my father came to NYC and stayed with some friends. My dad was in his mid 30's, teaching and writing (novels, stories, plays) in India. Through a rather random set of connections, he ended up in NY invited by a former writer at the New Yorker to a party. He went alone and said it was quite a highbrow affair, he said Stephen Spender was there among other writers and [...]
November 5th, 2010
Musing about Punk, Women’s Music and Me
As I got ready for the 70's Lesbian Conference that the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies hosted the weekend of October 8-10, 2010 in New York City, I started to think about how important music was to me in the 1970's and 1980's -- X-Ray Spex to Alix Dobkin, Richard Hell and the Voidoids to Holly Near, Joni and Grand Funk Railroad to Parliament and Marley, and lots of somewhat obscure girl bands (Ova, UT, Au Pairs, White Women, Slits, to name a few. Music got me through - and there was little predictable in my likes. Here is a vintage video of one my heroes, inspirations and thrilling performers from the 1970's. This first video is of Patti in 1976 in Stockholm doing an early [...]
October 23rd, 2010
Punk heroine Arianna Foster AKA Ari UP RIP, 48
Arianna Foster died on October 20 of cancer. I loved The Slits. Watching Ari perform was exciting, joyful, unpredictable, made you want to play-- women rockers just did not look or sound like this band. The Slits were founded in 1976 by Arianna and Paloma Romero (who went on to found The Raincoats) and included Tessa Pollit, and Viv Albertine. Typical girls 1979 Their version of Heard it Through The Grapevine is a classic. Here is a version from the 2009, when the band had been reformed with a new configuration (still fronted by Ari).
October 12th, 2010
Feminist Classics Reading Series – Ken Reads Pat Parker
Ken Reads Pat Parker Poem from UVaid on Vimeo.On the streets of Provincetown this summer some of us started a reading series where we read "feminist classics" --poetry and prose by anyone the reader or participant defined as a feminist. This is a video of Ken, our town crier, reading the poem "Where Will You Be When They Come?" by Pat Parker. It's quite wonderful to hear Ken, who is a terrific reader, and to see him connect with the meaning of Parker's poem as he reads it - for the first time.
September 21st, 2010
Engendered.Org and its I-View Film Festival
var so = new SWFObject("http://www.avstv.com/tv/player.swf",'single','400','335','9'); so.addParam("allowfullscreen","true"); so.addParam("allowscriptaccess", "always"); so.addVariable("playlistfile","http://www.avstv.com/playlist-single.php?vid=11754"); so.addVariable("image","http://www.avstv.com/images/090810/I-View_Film_Festival.jpg"); so.addVariable("logo.file","http://www.avstv.com/avslogo_url.png"); so.addVariable("logo.hide","false"); so.addVariable("skin","http://www.avstv.com/modieus.swf"); so.addVariable("autostart","false"); so.write('avsvid11754'); New York amazes with the variety and depth of the talent it houses. One treasure of an organization, [...]
September 10th, 2010
Adele Bertei and The Bloods
Okay, I am going to carbon date myself in these pages, by featuring amazing music that I came up to! I'll never forget seeing The Bloods -- who were fronted by Adele Bertei, who continues to make amazing music (see second clip above, also from You Tube). Here is one of their early songs -- Button Up -- no video but it is so worth a full listen! I'll never forget being in Thompson Square Park in 1980, I think it was when we ran into The Bloods playing one afternoon. Bertei started out by reading from Valerie Solanas' The S.C.U.M Manifesto and then threw copies of the book into the crowd. I still have a copy! I'd never heard or seen a performance quite like it, I was [...]
