GUESS WHAT, WEIRDOS? A-Camp, that’s what! In four short weeks, we’ll all be up on that mountain having the time of our queer lives, but until then, we’ll have to just keep dancing on our own. Patience is a virtue. No time like the present except the future is more exciting in this case. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. HERE’S SOME MUSIC TO PUMP YOU UP FOR CAMP.
The point of this piece, this entire long piece, is to convince you all, as a collective unit, to go out and subscribe to your state and/or local newspaper en masse if you have the means to do so. And you should do this because it is an act of rebellion.
Our collective girlfriend, Rachel Maddow, has asked us repeatedly to do this. Most recently, it was in response to The Star Ledger, New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper, undergoing cuts so massive that one almost can’t believe they’re happening.
My favorite lesbian movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, is not even technically a lesbian movie.Technically it’s a movie about two women who live together, raise a child together, defend and love each other, and have sexually-charged food fights in a Totally Heterosexual way. The relationship is a lot less subtextual in the book (although it’s never actually spelled out in the book either, you’ll have to read fanfiction for that), but I’ll always love the movie all the same. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it over the years, as it was a regular feature in the network TV Saturday Afternoon movie line-up throughout my own formative years. It’s also probably the only queer film you can comfortably watch with your foot-washing Baptist granny. While the queer aspect may have been covert, the relationship between Idgie and Ruth was a strong, positive and beautiful one which made a big impression on my own burgeoning yet equally subtextual queer identity. Before I even could fully articulate why, I thought the picnic scene where Idgie pulls out fresh honeycomb from the hive for Ruth was one of the most romantic scenes in film. All I want is someone who is willing to stick their whole arm in a tree full of bees for me. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?
Welcome to your Orphan Black recaps! Have you been watching since the beginning? Did you mainline season one all over again? Or did you, like Forever Intern Grace, just dive the fuck into season two? Were you confused? She sure was.
To quickly recap the series for all you noobs, Orphan Black is about grifter and single mother Sarah Manning whose life gets fucked sideways when she sees her doppelganger commit suicide. When Sarah takes over her life/work/boytoy, she discovers that she is one of many human clones in existence, and she joins forces with her clone bros to find out what the fuck happened to them.
Why are we recapping this show? Well, aside from being excellent, one of the clones, Cosima (aka dreadlocks adorkable clone) is gayer than a handbag full of rainbows. And she has a hot French girlfriend and it’s COMPLICATED, like most hot French girls are. And all the clones are played masterfully by Tatiana Maslany, who is perfection/your new girl crush.
Hey, there, Autostraddlers. Looking at me now, what do you see?
Well, okay, don’t look at The Wild Thing.
I mean, if we were passing each other on the street and you saw me. How would you read me?
Before you could even think about it, your brain would probably stamp me: FEMALE. I can’t really blame your subconscious for doing so. Part of being a living thing is to recognize stuff, categorize things, figure out who ‘s who and what’s what and what the hell is going on out here. Our brains do this kind of stuff all the time, although we can train ourselves to critically examine those thoughts when they do.
The nominees for the Eisner Awards were announced last week. The Eisners (named after legendary comic creator Will Eisner) are kind of like the Oscars of the comic book world, except that instead of an exclusive Academy voting on them, any comics professional can go and vote. As you can see by the list of nominees, it’s not that common that women get nominated for Eisners. Out of the 30 categories and more than 160 nominees, only 35 belong to women. Since that’s the case, I wanted to make sure I did what I could to draw attention to these super talented artists, writers and creators who brought us amazing comics this year.
Stumbled upon some Autostraddle archive and this was under their ‘songs about underwear’ playlist and I have not stopped listening to it. Imagine the things you could do with a song like this…
“Even after the storyteller is assassinated, the story continues and can never be captured,” performance poet YaliniDream says in her poem “I Choose Peace.”
Yalini’s belief in storytelling to create space for people of marginalized identities who are navigating oppression and diaspora forms the motivation for her writing, performance and collaborations with other artists. She is, as she says, of “Lankan Tamil blood, Manchester-Born, Texas Bred and Brooklyn Steeped.” At UT Austin, she studied theater and Plan II (a squiggly, wonderful liberal arts major that I also did!) and began to engage in radical activism and examine how to use art to inform her politics and vise versa. These days, she’s based in Brooklyn and travels around the world to perform poetry, theater and other arts and create workshops and dialogues around feminism, queer identity, race, nonviolent resistance, art and more.
A-Camp 5.0 Special Guest Staff: Fit For A Femme - Aja
A-Camp Activities: Mommy Queerest, QPOC Panel, Interracial Relationships discussion group, DIY Flower Crowns, & 1 on 1 styling sessions with Fit For A Femme!
What are you most excited about for A-Camp 5.0? FFAF: Meeting other queer moms, bear hugs, Klub Deer dance parties, howling at the moon
What’s your favorite thing that you’re packing for camp? FFAF: Inappropriate footwear
We’re so amped to party with you and dance, howl at the moon, talk about parenthood and love, and a thousand beautiful things. See you on the mountain, Aja!!
Fourteen years ago, I moved out of San Francisco to the suburbs, to shack up with my betrothed. When you do that, move out to the suburbs, San Francisco revokes your queer credibility card at the westernmost point of the Bay Bridge. San Francisco looks at you with an expression part pity, part genuine concern and asks, “What’s it going to be like for you out there?” as if you’re moving to the unforgiving Sahara, sans provisions. At least that’s what it was like fourteen years ago.
When I first saw the trailer for MTV’s new teen dramedy “Faking It,” I was confused, but mostly appalled. Really? A show about best friends deciding to masquerade as a lesbian couple in order to improve their popularity? At a time when LGBTQ kids are still bullied mercilessly in the majority of American high schools? Seriously, there haven’t been two actual lesbians topping the marquee of an American TV show about high school students since the short-lived Nick series South of Nowhere got the ax six years ago, yet somehow a show about two fake lesbians got picked up?
As I mentioned last week, this will be my last Star Trek N00b recap!
That’s right, pour out a bottle of yer fave cheap booze. I am no longer a Star Trek N00b. In an attempt to jump rank, I am currently at Ensign tryouts.
Don’t worry, I’ll still be around writing for the Geekery section and working on all sorts of nerd culture and gaming posts!
With that said, let’s get onto the TIME TRAVEL.
1960′s Space Race
Hmmm, just to get some context, here’s some of the big Real Life space happenings in 1969:
The Soviet Union sends the Venera 5 probe to Venus, followed by Venera 6.
The Soviet Union transferred crew members between two docked spacecraft, the first time this has ever been done.
NASA sends the Mariner 6 probe to Mars.
After extensive test runs, NASA’s Apollo program successfully lands men on the Moon twice in this year.
