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guest post @ first the egg: swallows and amazons!

06 Monday May 2013

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My friend Molly is running a delightful series of guest posts from her friends about their favorite books from childhood. The first part of my contribution (because I never did learn to keep it snappy) went up today:

When I told my mother about this blogging assignment, she pointed out that of all the noteworthy books from a seriously bibliophilic childhood, there was really only one book (or, rather, series of books) that I could choose: the Swallows and Amazons novels by eccentric Englishman Arthur Ransome. …

…While some later novels — particularly Pigeon Post and Great Northern? – take on more serious “adult” concerns such as the danger of drought and the importance of protecting endangered species, the stories remain child-centered and full of imaginative adventure. My only caution for parents would be that they are, as with all works of fiction, a product of their time — in this case early twentieth-century imperial Britain. The children imagine themselves as British adventurers in a world for of friendly and unfriendly “natives” (the adults), and like all children sometimes reflect the prejudices of their elders. Much like the presence of Native Americans in Laura Ingalls Wilders’ Little House books or the misogyny with which Susan Pevensie is treated in The Chronicles of Narnia, the problems with race (and to a lesser extent gender) in Ransome’s work can hopefully be treated with light parental skepticism that encourages critical thinking rather than serving as cause to dismiss the series overall. As a child for whom Swallows and Amazons fuelled literally years worth of imaginative outdoor play, I can’t but hope future generations will find as much pleasure in them as I have.

Check out the whole post (and the rest of the series!) over at Molly’s blog, first the egg.

blogging at In Our Words: we can give them words: clearing space for children to explore gender and sexuality

14 Tuesday Aug 2012

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I wrote another post for In Our Words this week on how parents (and allies) can support children in their gender independence and sexual fluidity (I’m not sure why the editors lopped “sexuality” off the title I supplied).

To begin with, don’t conflate gender expression with sexual preference. Our culture does this constantly, whether in the assumption that princess boys will grow up to be gay or that women who are butch sleep exclusively with lipstick lesbians. Some of those boys will no doubt grow up with same-sex desires, and some women who refuse to wear skirts are queer. One does not lead to the other. While grown-up queers often retroactively identify nascent gayness in childhood gender rebellion (“I was never good at sports”; “I hated playing with dolls”) and the gender police often conflate gender non-conformity with queer sexuality, they’re two different aspects of identity and experience. Children negotiate gender roles from the moment of birth, when they’re assigned a gender and adults interact with them accordingly (see Fine and Rivers & Barnett in the reading list below).

Children are also sexual beings, it’s true, but sexuality in the adult sense is something we grow into. It’s a process. And presuming adult sexual preferences for a child — whether it’s teasing them about a playground “boyfriend” or assuming their gender non-conformity will lead to same-sex desire — is unfairly boxing them into predetermined categories. We cannot know what the gender and sexuality landscape will look like as they grow into adulthood, and we cannot know what words they will choose to describe themselves. All we can do is give them a multitude of words from which to choose.

You can check out the whole piece — including my “suggested reading” list (I’m a librarian after all!) over at In Our Words.

blogging at In Our Words: holding the space: being good allies for our straight co-conspirators

01 Wednesday Aug 2012

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these folks desperately need allies (via)

I’m blogging at In Our Words again this week, with a post on how queer folks can be good allies for straight folks. This was a piece pitched by the blog editors that I thought was an interesting concept, and once I started thinking about it I realized I had some notions (I know, right?!) about how we might go about that. I ended up with one concept, five specific tips, and a word of caution. Here’s one of the tips:

While remembering fluidity is possible, it’s equally important to honor a person’s present self-identification. After all, we expect straight people to respect ours. Regardless of a person’s past relationship history or how they may identify in the future, it’s a basic tenet of respect to accept their self-understanding in the here and now. I’m as guilty as the next queer person when it comes to speculating who might be “on our team,” but too often attempts to uncover queer sexuality in straight-identified folks fall back on harmful stereotypes of sexuality and gender that reinforce, rather than subvert, heteronormativity (e.g. “he’s a ballet dancer, how can he expect us to think he’s straight?” or “that haircut is totally dykey”;  wink wink, nudge nudge). We need to trust straight people, as much as we trust queer people, to name their own desires as best they can.

Check out the rest at In Our Words.

If you’re a straight reader, I’d love to hear what you think queer folks can do to support your own resistance to heteronormative bullshit. And if you’re queer, I’d love to hear how you support your straight family and friends.

Share in comments, here or at IOW.

blogging at In Our Words: to be and to have (a wife)

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

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This week I have a guest post up at In Our Words on why I wanted to get gay-married:

I’ve learned that being public about our relationship matters to me. That naming has power. I relish naming her my girlfriend my partner my future wife in conversation with others. I want (need?) everyone to know we are a social unit, and exactly what kind of unit we are.

It matters to me that bystanders be in no doubt that we are in each other’s pants on a regular basis, thank you very much, and they will just have to deal. Because the public sphere is mine as much as theirs, and I’m not backing down from making promises to be and to have before witnesses. By just being who we are, building a life together, we change the meaning of marriage – I believe for the better. And that’s an act to be proud of.

So as a queer feminist and historian, I see marrying my fianceé as both an intensely personal act of commitment and also a deeply political act: inventing the future we’re hoping for. Becoming Future Wife’s Wife is a material statement that we have the right to act on our desires, to form families that work for us, and to name our relationships with the rich weight of history behind us, if that language feels right to us.

You can read the whole thing over at IOW. It was a surprisingly difficult piece to keep on focus with, and I’m still not entirely satisfied with the end result — but I learned some stuff about how I think and feel writing it, which is always the ultimate goal! That, and encouraging others to reflect as well. So I hope folks find it a thought-provoking read.

reading the (lesbian) classics: hello, groin

04 Monday Oct 2010

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As explained in the first installment of this series, “reading the (lesbian) classics” is a monthly(ish) series of posts in which Danika Ellis of The Lesbrary and I read our way in a very haphazard manner through queer literature.  Our method is basically picking out the books that sound like a fun time and taking it from there!) and chat about it, and then post our conversations on the interwebs. For this second installment, we read another young adult novel by Canadian author Beth Goobie, Hello, Groin (2006).

This month, because of busy schedules, Danika and I exchanged our thoughts via email, rather than chat (as we did last time), so the nature of the exchange is a little more long-format rather than conversational. I color-coded our contributions in hope that it makes the reading a little easier for y’all.

Also, I don’t hide the plot spoilers on my post, so consider yourself warned if you care about that sort of thing. Danika posts our conversation with the plot spoilers obscured (unless you highlight them), so head on over to The Lesbrary if you want the “safe” version.

Danika: I guess to start off with, we could talk about the handling of teen sexuality in AOMM [Annie on My Mind] vs HG [Hello Groin]. HG doesn’t actually have any lesbian sex scenes (spoiler!), but it does have a lot of sexuality in it. I found it really interesting that Dylan is not a virgin. Neither is Joc, of course. And sex is a frequent topic of conversation and speculation. It seemed really true to the reality of teenagers at this point in time. What did you think?

Anna: Wow, so there’s a lot to unpack in your opening comment, and I’d love to tackle it all eventually! I was very struck by the fact that, despite the frank acknowledgment of sexuality in HG there was no lesbian sex (I was so disappointed!). The (mostly implied) sex is hetero sex, and masturbation, neither of which are demonized but both of which are not a substitute for same-sex love scenes, and I thought it was an interesting choice for Goobie to back away from being sexually explicit in that instance when she had not with other aspects of sex and the fact that teenagers can be sexual beings, and that this isn’t divorced from other aspects of who they are in the world.

In fact, I felt in a lot of ways that Dylan (our narrator) is a lot more uncomfortable about her same-sex desires than Liza was in AOMM. She acknowledges her discomfort directly in the book, quite early on, in chapter five when she addresses the reader and says, “The main question here, I suppose, would be, What was the big deal? Most people didn’t go into a major funk over sexual orientation anymore–a lot of lesbians and gays were out these days.”  And yet, for Dylan, it’s not so much a question of sexual desire but social identity: “I just didn’t click with them,” she says, “They were all really different than me–besides our hormones we had nothing in common.” 
To me, that’s a pretty major shift away from understanding your sexuality in terms of specific, personal desires and specific relationships in AOMM towards understanding sexual orientation as a form of group belonging in HG. And, ironically, the greater visibility of the LGBT community in Dylan’s life means that she has a much stronger sense of what it “means” to be queer. Therefore, because she can’t see herself as part of that community, this becomes a roadblock to her acknowledging, and feeling comfortable with, her desire for Joc. In AOMM, nearly the opposite is true: it is the lives of the lesbian teachers (embodied in their home and relationship) that help Annie and Liza see that being together is possible. It’s a dawning awareness that takes place almost in isolation from their peers.
What do you make of the lack of relational lesbian sex scenes in the book, and the fact that Dylan’s dawning awareness of her desire for Joc is depicted primarily in terms of solitary sex and her internal physical reactions, rather than exploration as a couple?  And (major spoiler!) I was particularly struck by Dylan’s desire to slow things down with Joc when they finally got together, rather than dive in and get to know her very willing partner on that level.  What are your thoughts?

Danika: Interesting. You know, I’ve never really considered how there is no explicit lesbian sex in HG. It seemed to fit with the models of lesbian teen books I’ve read before, like Empress of the World and Bermudez Triangle (correct me if I’m wrong; it’s been a while since I’ve read them). But you’re right: why shouldn’t these teen lesbian books include lesbian sex? After all, AOMM did (even if it was a little “off screen”), so you would think by this time we’d be more frank. When I think about it, though, I don’t know if I’ve read any teen lesbian books with actual lesbian sex scenes, even any that are comparable to AOMM.
I think the scenes of masturbation and talk about hetero sex was pretty explicit in HG. You’d be hard-pressed to find a reader who didn’t catch on that Dylan was masturbating. It’s kind of an ongoing theme at some point.
Hmm, that’s a good point. HG offers a sort of double-edged sword of queer visibility. Dylan knows what being a lesbian is, and she even personally knows lesbians. She doesn’t think they have miserable lives. But that idea of a queer community, which can be life-saving when coming out, can also seem too exclusive. If you don’t fit in in the queer community, can you really be queer? Can you be queer in a straight community? And that’s been an ongoing issue with queer activism: the “extremist” queer people want to create our own community, our own world, or at least radically reconstruct dominant society; the “moderate” queer people want to tweak dominant culture to allow us to assimilate. Even within lesbians I’ve met I’ve heard both “Why can’t I just sleep with girls without having it define me?” and “I love the lesbian community”. I think it’s really important to have both, to have a place for queers who feel displaced in straight/cis society to be around people they can relate to, as well as accommodating queer people who just want to fit into dominant society. Unfortunately, in Dylan’s case, the community was too small to really be inclusive, and the straight/cis world wasn’t going out of its way to be queer-positive.
I think we see this positive aspect of queer community/role models in AOMM and the downside in HG. I mean, if the teachers in AOMM had been people that Liza didn’t like, or didn’t relate to, would that have made it even harder for her and Annie? It’s hard that queerness has these two elements: the queer culture, with a rich history and literature and activism and entertainment and social scene, but it’s also something that is so very personal and individual, and has to do with the most private parts of ourselves.
My first instinct to respond to the lack of lesbian sex in HG is that it doesn’t fit the storyline. HG is about Dylan coming to grips with her sexuality and sexual orientation, with her desire and what that means for her identity. Getting together with Joc was really almost secondary to that. It was the final step in that journey, in that arc. The story of Joc and Dylan as a couple isn’t really included in HG. I don’t feel like you could really have them have sex after years of repressed desire and then fade to black, because it would leave too many questions. And answering those questions would require a whole other book!
That’s my first instinct, but I know that it’s really easy to dismiss these sorts of questions by saying “That’s what the story demanded”, so I’d like to look more closely at it. I really quite liked Dylan’s insistence that they move slowly. I thought the “I’m in love with this finger” line was absolutely adorable. I feel like them having sex right then would be too fast, because they had only just acknowledged their feeling for each other, their sexual orientation, and Joc hadn’t even come out to her mom yet! It would have been too many emotional experiences at once for them.
I think it’s exactly what you touch on: the “dawning” of her sexuality. The title alone implies that Dylan is only beginning to know herself. I think that the book was working up to this point, to this careful introduction to sexuality. I guess it also is in contrast to Dylan’s previous sexual encounters. She’s forced herself to have sex before, because she felt like that’s what she’s supposed to do. She’d been pressured to have sex with her boyfriend the whole book. I think maybe Dylan negotiating with Joc about sex shows her new understanding of her sexuality, her ability to not repress her desire, but also not repress her better judgment. I’m not totally satisfied by that answer, though. What do you think? Was she afraid of backlash about have lesbian sex in it? She already addressed drinking, drugs (briefly), partying, homosexuality, queer desire, teen sex, and female masturbation. It doesn’t seem likely that she thought lesbian sex was going too far. Do you have any theories?

Anna: I like you analysis of the two-edged sword of queer “communities.” In my own life,I can think of examples where the HG model has been in operation as well as examples where the AOMM experience has been really helpful.  Particularly in smaller populations (I’m thinking particularly of the insular spaces of teenage peer culture, so often segregated in schools), the “queer” community, in my experience, tends to be dominated by — as you put it — “extremist” personalities. And if you don’t see yourself mirrored in those personalities, it’s hard to see how your life is going to improve by identifying with them. Coming out, in those cases, seems ripe for being rejected by both the dominant culture (for being queer) and the queer community for not being the “right” kind of queer. As someone with more fluid sexual attractions, for example, I was timid about voicing my same-sex desires for many years because I perceived the potential for rejection by the lesbian girls I knew for not being lesbian enough, and I really didn’t see myself reflected in the lives of the few bi women I met at college. So I sympathize with Dylan’s struggles to name her desires openly, even though she knows inside herself where her attractions lie.
As someone in my late twenties, too, when reading YA literature I wonder what role my adult expectations play in the sense that there’s not “enough” sex in HG? And whether, as you say, having Dylan approach her relationship with Joc as something special, more intimate, and therefore something to approach slowly and cautiously, might be a legitimate reflection of age rather than prudishness on the part of the author? When I was Dylan’s age, would I have wanted to go from zero to sixty in a sexual relationship? I suspect with the right person, yes, given my personality :).  But I also think it’s legitimate for an author to write characters who are slower to feel sure about how they want to express their sexuality in relationships, even when they know it’s a relationship they want to be in, and be sexually active in, eventually.  An example of a similar “taking it slow” approach that is nonetheless sex-positive (and more sexually explicit) is the novel This Is All by Aiden Chambers, although I think that novel had other issues. However, the (hetero) couple at the center of the story were both very purposeful about choosing the time and place to be sexually intimate for the first time, yet also joyful in the moment as well. I rather wish HG had gotten to that point. In part because, from a political and cultural perspective, there’s such a persistent stereotype that lesbian relationships are more romantic than physical. Clearly, Dylan and Joc are both highly physical, highly sexual beings. But the fact that this grinds to a halt when the girls come together in bed was frustrating to me.
Have you read other books by Goobie and if so, how does the treatment of sexuality compare? Going back to our last conversation and the example of David Levithan, he writes romantic stories with explicit sex and without explicit sex, and I enjoy them both, so perhaps it is unfair to place the burden of expectation that this ONE novel do everything at once! I know that, as you pointed out, YA authors often have to tread a very careful line between exploring issues that they feel are relevant to teenage lives and also not being too heavy-handed with the Real Life Issues stuff. Likewise, the balance between including stuff about sex without being so controversial that young people can’t get their hands on the books!
Of course, resourceful kids (with access to a good library!) can get around this by going straight for adult lesbian literature, if they know where to look. It’s interesting to me that, with the emphasis on the library book display, that Dylan did not reference more lesbian-themed literature, or at least didn’t seem to see books as a resource the same way that Liza did in AOMM.  I know, as a teenager, that novels like Fingersmith (to give one example) were a wonderfully safe and private way to explore same-sex desire and sexual arousal. Do you have any thoughts about the role of books in HG, particularly since we discussed this as such an important element of AOMM?
Danika: Yes, again, that idea of having a shared culture is amazing when you identify with that culture, and alienating when you don’t. The queer community, like the feminist community, still has a while to go to actually be as inclusive as they claim to be. Luckily, I think that a lot of girls (not so much guys) in high school now are feeling more comfortable coming out as queer, especially as an unlabelled queer. I think, in some situations, at least, we’re seeing more acceptance of people being true to themselves without necessarily claiming a title. A lot of teens are now saying that they don’t feel the need to label their desire. Speaking of, I found it a little disconcerting that Joc uses the word “bi-curious” to describe herself, and then has her mother label her “lesbian”, and Dylan thinks that label will take a while to get used to… but that’s not Joc’s label. I mean, I think that since Joc has been attracted to Dylan for years now, she’s probably more towards bisexual than “bi-curious”, but there’s no reason to think she’s gay.
When I first read this book, I was in my late teens, and I don’t remember thinking that it lacked sex. I really liked how it handled their sexuality. But now that you mention it, I hadn’t considered how their sexuality ends when they’re in bed together. That is problematic. I keep coming back to not knowing how it could be fit into the story, though. Dylan wants to wait until they’re both more comfortable with each other, with the idea. I know that when I first realized I was attracted to girls, I didn’t immediately want to have sex with them. It was a slow process of wanting to kiss them but not anything else, and then maybe a little bit further, but not “all the way”, etc. I know when my girlfriend first started realizing she liked girls, she was first just puzzled about why she wanted to write girls poetry. And then actually doing anything with girls was a whole other process. I think I thought I was going to pass out the first time I held a girl’s hand. It’s overwhelming to begin with. (Or maybe that’s just me…) I think that Dylan and Joc would have waiting at least a month or two before having sex, which is a perfectly valid thing to do in any relationship, and I don’t know if you could really fast forward a month to the sex scene and then fade out. At the point we end the book on, Dylan and Joc are still adjusting to switching from “best friend” mode to “girlfriends” mode.
I’ve only read one other book by Beth Goobie, and that was Something Girl, which was about parental violence, so it didn’t include any sex. I’m fairly sure that this is Goobie’s only queer book, but I could be wrong.
On of the reasons I really like HG was the literature subplot (there’s even Harry Potter references!), just like I liked AOMM for that. I really like how the idea of censorship got woven into how Dylan feels like her sexual orientation is censored, but also just teen sexuality. The display really seemed to let her work through her own feeling about sexuality and censorship. There was also the reoccurring Egyptian Book of the Dead theme, which I liked, and it also let her work through her feelings. The scene with “I have not eaten my heart? […] No heaven for you then, eh Dyllie?” was haunting. I thought that was very effective.
Again, it’s funny how I never noticed that before. Dylan sort of sees Foxfire as a representation of lesbians, but it’s not explicit, and she never seeks out other books. Are there no others at the library? The librarian doesn’t seem like the type that wouldn’t stock queer books. Was Dylan not aware of them? She volunteers at the library; she should be pretty familiar with the material. How odd. I guess that Dylan really doesn’t see the books as a resource, which, now that you mention it, seems odd. She likes the library, she seems to enjoy books (she talks reverently about a shelf of books near the beginning of HG), but we don’t see her reading anything that isn’t assigned, and she never seeks out lesbian books. I think that might have been an oversight on the part of the author, because it seems like something Dylan would do, or would at least consider doing.
On another note, though, I kind of wonder about it being a sort of curse of plenty. In AOMM, it was fairly easy to know which lesbian books to read, because there weren’t very many! You could conceivably set out to read all of them in your lifetime. Now, though, there are enough lesbian books that it can be overwhelming to know where to start. I don’t think that would’ve stopped Dylan, though, so I really think that was an oversight.
Have you read Beth Goobie’s explanation of writing HG? It’s really interesting and encouraging.

Anna: Thanks for the link to Goobie’s comments. I was particularly struck by the comment that some have criticized her book for being “surrealistically positive,” since I read it as much more of a mixed bag.  Perhaps what people were reacting to is the fact that, while teenage sexuality — and coming to grips with one’s sexual desires — is central to the story, same-sex attractions aren’t presented as a problem, something to be overcome and/or something that is going to damage the character.  Until very recently, I think, literature with gay or lesbian characters presented those characters as somehow inherently tragic and wounded, whether those wounds were the result of being internally disordered somehow OR whether those wounds came as a result of living in a hostile culture.  AOMM tries not to do this, but Liza’s public acknowledgment of her relationship with Annie, and the discovery of the teachers’ lesbian relationship, is still dramatic and painful for people. 
In HG, the issue isn’t so much homosexuality but teenage sexuality. Homosexuality, as you say, isn’t being censored — teenage sexuality is being censored.  And I think that’s an interesting angle. In some ways, I agree with Goobie that this is the direction we’ve moved in — people are more willing to think about the diversity of sexual orientation, but they’re still very, very uncomfortable with teenage sexuality.
On the other hand, the recent flurry of suicides by queer students who have experienced bullying here in the US (in part because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation and/or gender expression) belie somewhat the rosy picture that Goobie’s adolescent informants painted.  I’m skeptical that the (mostly straight) students she interviewed or otherwise talked with really understand what it means to be a non-conforming teenager and all of the internal and external pressures non-straight teenagers might face to just conform already! Another example of this disconnect would be the wide-spread perception that college campuses are generally lgbt-friendly, whereas the 2010 CampusPride survey of queer faculty and students indicated an enduring pattern of harassment and hostile climate that has pushed over a third of the individuals surveyed to seriously consider leaving their place of employment/studies.
Returning to the book-and-library theme, as a librarian I was so pleased that the school librarian in HG was seen as such a supportive character! She comes across as a real advocate for the students, even if she couldn’t overrule the school administrators about Dylan’s book display.  But, as you say, the book theme doesn’t develop as much as it could, and it does seem strange the Dylan doesn’t seek out information in the library or in books that might help her make sense of her desires. Certainly, in the face of a local queer community I didn’t feel I could connect with, literature and online networks were where I was able to piece together a broader context for my own sexuality (though not until college and post-college, so perhaps I’m placing too much expectation on a high school student to have herself sorted out!).
The commentary from Goobie that you linked was interesting in that it was similar to some of the commentary in the back of my copy of AOMM, which contained an 25th anniversary interview with Nancy Garden.  It is interesting to me that Garden wrote the book very much out of her own personal experience — writing, perhaps, for the teenager she herself was.  Whereas Goobie seems to have taken a more distanced approach, interviewing teenagers and writing a story that is not so clearly connected to her own personal feelings (from the brief commentary you linked to, one gets no sense of her own orientation.  It’s not like I don’t think only queer people can write books with queer characters and/or protagonists, but I wonder how that effects the stories they tell and their narrative priorities. Do you have any thoughts about this?

Danika: It is odd that people thought it was fairytale-ish, considering how hard Dylan fought against her sexuality to begin with. I think what they were criticizing, though, was the way the parents and other students dealt with Dylan and Joc coming out. In AOMM, even if we don’t see any disowning by the parents, Liza and Annie still face huge consequences as a direct consequence of being outed, and so do their mentors. Joc and Dylan don’t see this, other than with Joc’s brother.

It is a very interesting direction to take, because in some ways, while HG is a “teen lesbian book”, it’s not about being a lesbian. It’s about being a sexual being, and it’s just that differing sexual orientations tend to be the times when we really critically look at sexuality. So the lesbian theme, though it can be seen as the major theme of the book, can also be seen as secondary to the theme of teen sexuality, and that lesbianism was just the easiest way to confront sexuality.

Aah, but you have to be very careful about that. It’s clear that definitely, a whole of teens face incredible pressure and harassment for their perceived sexual orientation. Many queer kids are disowned by their parents, a disproportionate amount commit suicide: you can’t deny that it is still nowhere near being an accepting or even safe environment for queer teens in North America as a whole. But, the cases that you are talking about are from the United States. The thing I noticed about Goobie’s commentary about HG which I really appreciated was that she was careful to set it in a very specific location and was telling a very specific story. Dylan’s story isn’t supposed to universal, it’s supposed to represent the reality for teens from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She didn’t interview students from all over NA, or Canada, or even Saskatchewan, but just that specific city. And that’s how students responded. So she shaped her story around what these teens represented their lives as, the stories they told, the experiences they had. She wasn’t trying to impose her own idea of what growing up queer looks like, partly, I suspect, because she didn’t. I fully agree that queer youth face a huge amount of difficulties coming out or even just appearing queer (regardless of whether it’s true), and those stories need to be told, but we don’t need that to be the only story told. I don’t think we have a lack of stories about how hard it is to be queer. I don’t think it’s a hugely underrepresented narrative, to be told that coming out means losing your friends and family. It is true in some cases, and it’s a story that deserves to be told, but it’s not every queer youth’s story, and even if it is, it’s not necessarily something you want to hear reinforced over and over. It can be heartening to read a positive portrayal of coming out, even if it’s not something to relate to.

I can attest that these students were not necessarily making it up; there’s definitely a chance that that’s just what being lesbian/gay looked like in their school. When I came out as bi, there were at least half a dozen other girls in my (small) high school who I knew also were out as bi, and those were just the ones I knew of. When I came out as gay (standard disclaimer: coming out as bi was a transitional thing for me, but it’s definitely not transitional for all or even most people), I knew of at least one other lesbian in my high school, and she was fairly popular. I was very out, and no one gave me a hard time. I never faced any harassment at all, my parents were okay with it, my friends were okay with it… I had an even easier time of it than Dylan did. (I lived on Vancouver Island in British Columbia; it’s a pretty hippie place.) I think we have to be careful not to generalize people’s experiences with being queer. Just because it’s a positive story doesn’t mean it’s unrealistic.

Yes, I definitely think that Dylan and Joc not exploring more in the library or even online is a bit of a plot problem. It seems unrealistic. Joc mentions in passing that she got the term “bi-curious” from “the net” (do teens actually say “the net”? Don’t we all say intertubes now?), but that’s as far as it goes.

I would suspect that Goobie doesn’t identify as queer, yes. I think that’s why she did the interviews; to get more of a context to what real teens’ experiences with queerness look like. I’m always happy to see more queer books, no matter what the sexual orientation or gender identification of the author is, but I do think that it’s important that queer people are able to tell their own stories. It’s fine if straight, cisgendered people are also telling queer stories, just as long as they aren’t creating the dominant narrative, because you do definitely get a more nuanced view of queerness when you live it.

Anna: I was thinking about Goobie’s non-queer identity yesterday, after I wrote you, and also about the fact that she is an established author of young adult literature, which in some ways has its own very specific conventions. If I remember, Nancy Garden wrote AOMM very early in her career — and wasn’t it her first novel for young people? Whereas Goobie set out to write a YA novel. And I think this does something to change the tenor of the book. Especially since it’s in a contemporary real-life setting, then it’s really hard not to read everything she writes into the novel as some sort of object-lesson. In part because that’s how real-life teen literature is often reviewed — on the adult perception of whether or not it’s “appropriate” and something young people can relate to. And there’s this expectation that it will have some sort of moral value. It’s very difficult to write teen fiction that is accepted as a story without some sort of message.

The issue of depicting sex falls into this category. If you’re writing science fiction, fantasy, even historical fiction or magical realism — your teenagers can be sexually active and there isn’t the expectation that you will write in stuff about safe sex, for example. Or about waiting until marriage, etc. The teenagers are just characters within these other universes. Whereas, in YA fiction in the contemporary world, there’s the expectation that it will somehow interact with all of the expectations surrounding management of teen sexuality, risk, etc., that goes on in the world around us. It’s no longer acceptable for it to be just a work of fiction.

I know from talking to my queer friends, for example, science fiction and fantasy authors like Tanith Lee and Ursula LeGuin were often where they found stories about characters and relationship models they could somehow relate to. I still remember vividly my first exposure to the modern, queer concept of polyamory being through the ElfQuest graphic novels series that my brother and I used to read (checked out from, bless them, our local library!) … the elves in that series were straight, bi, gay, and existed in a network of group marriages. It offered me a different model for intimate relationships that I could think about, but not be threatened by, because it was so clearly fantasy. It makes me wonder how large a role genre fiction plays in the queer community in positing alternative ways of being, and whether — in the end — genre fiction (not to mention the proliferation of fan fiction and slash narratives that queer mainstream television and fiction storylines) ends up being more powerful in some ways in connecting teens with their sexual selves than even the best real-world YA fiction.

And I think I’ll leave it there — feel free to add any last thoughts and I’m looking forward to doing this again at the end of November.

Danika: I think that’s probably a good place to end. I don’t think I have anything more to add. Thanks for doing this with me! 

reading the (lesbian) classics: annie on my mind

28 Saturday Aug 2010

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Welcome to the first installment of a new series, “reading the (lesbian) classics,” in which Danika Ellis of The Lesbrary and I read our way in a very haphazard manner through queer literature (our method is basically picking out the books that sound like a fun time and taking it from there!) and chat about it, and then post our conversations on the interwebs. So here’s the first installment. This time around, we read Annie On My Mind, by Nancy Garden, first published in 1982.

Warning! Mild plot spoilers ahead for those of you who care!

Anna: So [rubs hands together] … how shall we begin our conversation?

Danika: I’m not sure, I feel like I must have forgotten half the book… might as well start with first impressions and just see where it leads us.

Anna: [laughs] Had you ever read it before?

Danika: I have, once before. I remember when I first read AOMM I thought there was something a little bit off about their relationship. And now I think I know what bothered me. I don’t know if it’s because it’s set in the 80s, or if it’s Nancy Garden’s writing, but they both seem a lot younger than what they’re supposed to be.

Anna: Yes! They’re supposed to be, like, headed for college and they act like they’re in middle school.

Danika: I know it’s in a sort of self-conscious “girls our age aren’t supposed to do this” way, but I still liked it a lot better once I started thinking of them as 13-year-olds instead of 17-year-olds. And it’s not just them: even her little brother seems at least 4 years younger than his given age! And her classmates!

Anna: Yeah. I don’t think I noticed it so much when I was younger, because I read it when I was about thirteen myself? It was about the only lesbian YA novel my library had (early to mid-90s). To be fair, that was before the real boom in queer YA fiction. AOMM was probably one of the few available. And not a bad one to have if you’re only going to have one (no one dies!) … but yeah, I agree with you that, especially this time around I was left thinking, “wow, and these are supposed to be seniors?”

It’s not even Annie’s imaginary world … it’s more the school politics and so on. Like, no one has a real sense of a world beyond the microcosm of the prep school.

Danika: Yeah, the ear-piercing! Again, I was thinking “Well, maybe it’s just because this was 30 years ago…?” But it definitely seemed a bit off

Anna: Part of it probably is the era … and the fact that Nancy Garden was probably, on some level, harkening back to her own teen years which would have been in, what, the 1950s? 60s? When maybe ear piercing was more risque?

Danika: Aaah, yeah, that might have been part of it.

Anna: I also wondered if maybe part of it was an attempt to make the drama center around something other than the fact that Liza was discovering her sexuality? So she invented another drama about the prep school that seemed kind of forced?

Danika: Maybe, but it turns into it being about her sexuality anyway.

Anna: True.

Danika: I remember when I first read AOMM I thought the girls’ meeting seemed really forced. And I definitely agree with that the second time around. The singing, the sudden friendship… again, it’s the sort of way children interact, not teenagers.

Anna: Yeah — teenagers are more self-aware, and self … restrained? I made instant best friends with kids in art class when I was, maybe, six! Not when I was seventeen. At seventeen I was like, well, maybe going for coffee after class and see how that goes. But since NG wanted the girls not to be at the same school, she had to find a way for them to run into each other.

Danika: Still, I think she could have done better than “Don’t stop [singing]. Please.” “Oh, you startled me!” That just sounds really forced.

Anna: I’d forgotten how much class is an implicit part of the story. The way Annie comes from a “bad” part of town and everything.

Danika: I forgot that, too!

Anna: I was thinking, vis a vis reactions to queer teens, that it was interesting that Liza’s sexuality was more controversial in her upper-class world than it seems to be in Annie’s world.

Danika: Yes, because everything was controversial in Liza’s little world. The ear-piercing I guess was supposed to highlight that, but it seemed odd anyway. The only question with Annie was whether she was going to tell her family or not, so I don’t think we ever see how her school would have handled it, but presumably they have more important things to worry about.

Anna: It would have been irrelevent in Annie’s school (I’m assuming); no one cared about her there. I got the sense she was nervous about telling her parents, but her family was portrayed as fairly accepting and encouraging. I got the sense that they would have been baffled and maybe a little worried or hurt, but there wouldn’t have been all the drama that Liza had in her family and at the school.

It was interesting to me how it was almost reversed … or maybe that’s not quite what I’m thinking of. But today, we think of urban upper-middle-class folks as fairly cool about queer sexualities, etc. Whereas we think of lower-class people as reactionaries. Culturally. And in this story, the opposite was the case. I doubt those stereotypes would hold up [in real life], but it’s interesting that she chose to write it like that.

Danika: That is the framework we generally use. But Liza’s privilege paralyzed her. Her school was so caught up in itself that no one could step out of line. It was a weird relation between them.

Anna: Yeah. Maybe I’m just too midwestern to understand the world of elite prep schools!

Danika: Yes, it was really weird seeing into that strange boxed-off world.

On a slightly different note, I was writing down some thoughts as I went, and on page 49 of my version, I thought Garden was foreshadowing the reaction to her coming out. It was when the parents found out about the ear-piercing, and the mom is pretty accepting, but the dad freaks out. So it surprised me later when he was actually really great about it.

Anna: Good point. I was really intrigued by a number of the adults in the story, actually … and the way in which adults were portrayed in relation to the young people.

Danika: How so?

Anna: Well, I was impressed that the adults at the hearing were not portrayed as monoliths, as monsters, and that a couple were standing up to the schoolmistress, even if for their own reasons. And I thought it was an interesting (and positive) choice to give the girls such human mentors, themselves lesbians of an elder generation.

Danika: Yeah, that’s very true. The thing that stuck with me most about AOMM has always been the teacher couple (oops, spoilers).

Anna: (warning! warning!)

Danika: Actually, the thing that stuck with me the most was their book collection. Lesbian books inside my lesbian book! Wow! Their presence really made the story. (The teachers, not the books.)

Anna: I agree about the teachers. In contrast to the caricatured headmistress and the reactive parents, the two teachers came across really human, but also kind and supportive, generous, and sheltering without being controlling. I wondered in my notes whether this was a conscious attempt to counteract the specter of the gay/lesbian predator?

And yeah, it was fascinating to have the books play such a role in a couple of key scenes … from what I’ve heard from queer people of earlier generations, that was often the case! that they first discovered language for who they were from books … all the more reason to be a librarian-advocate for lgbtq teens!

Danika: Aaah, I hadn’t considered that! Of course! Because the lesbian teachers were fantastic teachers. If I may quote my favourite line from the dad’s reaction (though he goes on to say he doesn’t think gay people can be truly happy), “Oh, look. What difference does it make if a couple of teachers are lesbians? Those two are damn good teachers and good people, too, as far as I know.” I mean, wow! Surprise acceptance!

Anna: Hehe. Yeah, exactly. Because there’s that interesting conversation between the girls and the teachers. after the teachers have been fired. where the women acknowledge that if they don’t press charges, they should be able to get good references … because the school won’t want to admit that they fired the women for being lesbian … but they also fear for their ability to be hired if they were really out. So a real catch-22.

Since we’ve talked a lot about where the story felt kind of forced … one of the ways in which I was really impressed with it was the fact that it a) had a couple of really sweet scenes in which the girls clearly make love, even if off-screen (so to speak), and b) that this is really seen as 100% a good thing, despite what happened with their teachers. Their sexual exploration doesn’t spell doom for them as individuals or for their relationship. I don’t think many YA romances with straight couples were that whole-heartedly enthusiastic about young love back in the late 1970s … Even Judy Blume’s Forever, despite the positive sexual experience, ends with the relationship ending.

Danika: That’s true. It’s a bit of a bittersweet book, because Liza gets suspended, nearly expelled for being gay, the teachers get fired, and we know the whole time that they end up drifting apart after they leave for university. But it’s also a lot more positive than most of the queer books (YA or not) available at the time. They do end up together at the end, and there’s a lot of support of same-sex love. I also liked reading it for all the tropes and patterns that young queer love, young closeted love takes. Like how you could totally tell they were in love with each other before they knew. Like the classic game of “how much physical contact can we have before it means something?” (shoulders touching, hand holding, etc.)

Anna: Yes! Which I feel like is something that is still confusing to kids (or perhaps I only speak for myself) … since you’re trained, culturally, to expect that opposite-sex intereactions are laden, but not same-sex ones, so you aren’t so self-conscious and things kind of sneak up on you way more than with opposite-sex relationships.

Oh, and it was also nice that neither of them really “went straight”. Annie was pretty sure she was gay, and Liza wasn’t sure, but was definitely leaning towards accepting it.

Anna: I agree! That actually seemed a little dated (in a nice way?) to me, since I feel like if this book had been written today, you’d get this whole “am I bi? am I gay? am I just questioning?” thing going on. Which is absent entirely: Liza comes to the realization she’s “gay” full-stop.

Danika: That’s true, it definitely has that all-or-nothing mentality that we’ve (thankfully) shaken off a little more by now

(Oh, wait, I take it back: Annie did try to be straight! Back when she was younger. In her words: “It was ridiculous.” That made me laugh.)

They are super cute when they are together and happy.

Anna: Yeah, and as you say there was that added element of the reader being “in the know” in part because Liza’s spoilered it for us at the very beginning with the framing narrative.

What do you think of the function of the framing narrative as a literary device? Do you think it adds anything to the narrative that we kind of know it ends badly (at least in the short-term) before the story begins?

Danika: I was pondering that the whole book. I kind of get why she did it, because she needed the drama to keep the story moving through the happy couple parts, but it did add this element of doom that, frankly, no queer book really needs any more of. I guess it works overall, because we get the (spoilerspoiler) happily ever after following the long(ish) separation and we process it with Liza as she processes (and processing is a classic lesbian thing to do), but I’m a little divided on it. What did you think?

Anna: Hmm. Tough question. Retrospective narratives can sometimes work pretty well, but I agree with you that the last thing any queer teen book needs is more angst! That’s why I adore David Levithan’s work so much — his love stories are so ebullient. As a kid, I always felt like the way Liza blamed herself for the punishment exacted on the teachers (or, more accurately, for having made love in their home while she was house-sitting … what the hell was so shameful about that?) was really exaggerated. Like, shouldn’t she have been pissed at the secretary who had the vendetta? And the schoolmistress, etc.? But maybe that’s a personality thing — I always had an over-developed sense of self-righteousness as a child 🙂

Danika: Ah, I loved Boy Meets Boy for that! It’s like a combination of cotton candy and sinking into a hot tub. It’s just so refreshing to read a happy queer love story. I still want my lesbian version of that.

Anna: Totally! I feel like YA lesbian fiction is still waiting for its Daniel Levithan (if you have any recommendations, I’d love to hear them!)

Danika: I don’t know of anything quite so positive, though I have read some good ones. Hello, Groin by Beth Goobie is my favourite.

Well, I can see why they were a little ashamed. In the teachers’ bed…? That’s bad taste. What I couldn’t see, though, was why they opened the door! They didn’t have to answer! -sigh- The secretary was definitely over-the-top. The absolute poision she was spitting out was painful to read.

Anna: … I guess. I did a lot of house-sitting in high school and college and I always slept in the homeowner’s bed (clean sheets, granted) so it didn’t feel so weird to me. but that wasn’t in the deal Liza made with the teachers, so I guess that is a little different. Oh, totally with the door! [headdesk] Why oh why did she have to answer????

Danika: Especially before getting dressed!

Anna: Despite the secretary’s religiously-motivated poison, I was actually surprised by how little religious conservatives and the religious right as a force opposed to sexual expression appeared in the novel (contrasting, again, with the way it figures in some Levithan stories) … I think that’s another way this dates the story, since it was set just as that force was gathering.

Danika: True, I mean, when she faces the commitee/council/whatever that was, they basically say “Hey, this is none of our business”, which is pretty good for the circumstances.

Anna: Yeah, I think it’s interesting how the battle-lines are drawn ever-so-slightly differently than we’re used to in our generation. The religious element not quite so strong, the class element more so. Being queer still being a threat to one’s overall reputation/status even in secular society. (Not saying that’s totally gone away, but you wouldn’t think in Liza’s New York or at MIT it would be an issue!)

Danika: Hmmm, yeah, I can see that…

Honestly, I’m kind of surprised Liza wanted the school to survive. I know she has sentimental attachment to it, but even before they knew she was queer, Poindexter (go to love that name) was absolutely heinous, from the patronizing way of talking to running the meetings when Liza was supposed to be running them.

Anna: Yes. Again, another way in which they seemed young for their age. By 17, you’d think she’d have more perspective. I can see a younger child being invested in the school that had been a second home, but most seventeen-year-olds I’ve known (including myself!) are a bit more jaded!

Danika: Very true. By 17 I had distrust for all authority, definitely including my school.

I don’t know if you read my review and conversation about Well of Loneliness, but I saw a couple of comparisons between it and AOMM that surprised me.

Anna: Do tell!

Danika: Well, for one, both the protagonists were horrified at people hating them being gay, because they both felt that their love was the “best part” of themselves, or some variation on that. Also, both have a scene with the couple being happy that is described as an “illusion”. It’s just funny because WoL is mentioned in AOMM as part of the teachers’ book collection.

Anna: Yes, it was fun to see the lesbian classics appear on their shelves 🙂

Danika: Especially Patience & Sarah, because Liza and Annie read it, and this time I have, too!

Anna: I read once an essay that was talking about how generations of queer folks locate themselves in history through alternate means than family ties, since so many of them don’t come from families where the parents are themselves queer — and literature was one way.

Danika: That’s exactly why I feel that queer lit is so important. It is a foundation to the queer community.

Any last thoughts?

Anna: Not that I can think of — other than that I really enjoyed the chance to re-read this with someone else, and I’d totally be up for doing it again!

Cross-posted at: Danika @ The Lesbrary | Annie On My Mind Conversation.

Watch for the next installment in reading the (lesbian) classics sometime in late September of early October! At Danika’s suggestion, we’re reading Hello, Groin, by Beth Goobie (2006). We thought we could use the book as a chance to consider where lesbian YA fiction has come since the “early days.”

"both choices are radical": the decision not to parent

06 Friday Aug 2010

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In response to my last post about the children-as-people thing, my awesome friend Laura Cutter sent me this thoughtful email, which I repost with her permission. I think it’s super-important to underscore the fact that arguing that children (and by extension, their caregivers) are marginalized in our society doesn’t mean that people (read: women) who are not parents (by accident or choice) don’t face enormous social censure.

No one’s interests are served, I’d argue, by turning this into a case of oppression olympics, trying to parse out whose pain is more exquisite than the next person’s. Instead, we need to place the blame where it belongs: fucked up cultural norms that demand one single best way for women and young people to be in the world and be in relationship with one another. The human species is just too awesomely diverse for us to waste our time on that sort of one-size-fits-all crap.

Without further editorializing, here’s Laura.

I really appreciate your post from today – I find it heartbreaking when various groups (who are themselves often marginalized) insist on further marginalization. In my more pessimistic moments, I wonder if our biological minds, which from very early evolution needed to separate, delineate, and categorize everything from people to plants in order to survive, are somehow on overdrive – pushing us apart. That being said. One of the things that really struck me about your post and the links you added was this:

Our generation is one that is rapidly moving towards a time where some of us are choosing to have children. That is right now, the present. But what everyone seems to be forgetting is that many of our ideas and experiences were not formed in this cultural moment. Just as some of us remember feeling marginalized as children, others of us remember being told constantly that we would and should expect to have a child/children. I remember feeling livid as my protestation that I never wanted children were brushed aside by adults who were certain that they understood me better than I did. I am very aware that my own community and intellectual life is quite rarified – it is for many of us. But the underlying assumption to many of these arguments seems to be that it is so acceptable not to have children that the women who now choose to have them are the new marginalized poster child (red is the new black?). Many of us still must validate, on a daily basis, our choice not to have children. We experience invasive, insulting, manipulative, and inappropriate responses from people who, in other circumstances, would never pass judgment on another person’s choice. This is my point: both choices are radical. Both choices carry tremendous cultural significance and personal meaning. In my world, it is still radical to choose not to become a parent, and I carry with me all the baggage of years spent being told that my choice was wrong. But I understand and respect that for many other women, the decision to choose parenting means other sacrifices, for which they, in turn, are judged.

* * *

I feel like it happens this way (as my friend Marie-Laure says, “tell me a story”): I have kids and you don’t. In you, I see all of the people who told me that having children was a waste of my talent, a second choice, a vote for the patriarchy. I also see all of the freedom and choices that you have in your life and think it’s a little unfair and that your life must be easier than mine. In me, you see everyone who told you that you were born to have children, that it is natural and beautiful, that you would never be complete without them, that you will change your mind. I also see all of the social acceptance and special treatment that you have in your life and think it’s a little unfair and that your life must be easier than mine. But of course, that’s not who you are and that’s not who I am, but when we (especially women), have these debates, we bring into them all of this damage and judgment and project on each other with our own insecurities. I do think this parent/not parent issue really is a false dichotomy and everybody knows that progress is never made when everyone is just in fighting.

"don’t ever link those two things again…" (4 of 4)

27 Saturday Feb 2010

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And….finally, after a couple of weeks’ hiatus, I bring you the fourth and final installment of a guest post by Hanna, cross-posted at …fly over me, evil angel… (if you missed the first episodes, you can read installment one, installment two, and installment three before proceeding further).

a quick review from…well, the last time this was on a saturday: in the spirit of “don’t complain about something if you’re not prepared to do it better,” i noticed over the past couple of weeks two lists — one from wired and one from a blog i know not of called ink-stained amazon which i have to say is beautiful to look at it — that both purport to be ‘essential lists’ of ‘geek culture’ quotes.

ahem.

okay, so the wired list starts off with monty python and the holy grail and the amazon list includes the sarah jane adventures — but i’m still not wildly impressed with either one.

i figured i could do better.

then i thought about it and realised that, on my own, i didn’t have the time to do better so i roped in my ever-patient girlfriend to help me do better. 🙂

first off, a couple of notes:

1. this is for fun. if you’re not amused, go read something else. i won’t be offended, promise. that being said, suggestions and additions (politely phrased!) are welcome in the comments. but keep in mind this is installation 1 of 4! not everything will fit in here.

2. these are probably mostly going to be dredged out of my memory, anna’s memory, imdb, or official show/movie sites. inaccuracy is, therefore, almost inevitable. not to mention repetition of shows or characters. if this annoys you– well, make your own list. 🙂

3. i’m not aiming for some kind of “worst to best” or “best to worst” list. they’re here because the two people making the list think they’re fun or because one of us was able to strong-arm the other into including them. brief context is provided where anna or i thought it was necessary.

5. i am aiming for 4 posts of 25 quotes each over the next 4 weeks. tune in each friday/saturday for your new installment! and here’s the link to the first post, and the second, and the third.

okay, and that being said…

1. The Doctor: “Allons-y!” Pretty much any episode of the new series with David Tennant (we’ll miss you, Mr. Tennant, sir.)

2. Gareth Blackstock: “I am Gareth Blackstock; I am seriously unpleasant!” Chef!, can’t remember which episode. Something in Season 1, I feel.

3. The Player [to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]: “Until next time.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

4. Leela [to someone attempting, foolishly, to grab her]: “Touch me again and I’ll fillet you.” Doctor Who, “The Sunmakers.”

5. Lola: “Burgundy. Dear God, tell me I’ve not inspired something burgundy.” Kinky Boots.

6. Cat: “I’m lookin’ nice. My shadow’s lookin’ nice. We’re a great team!” Red Dwarf, again, something in the first season.

7. Spongebob: “I came over to see if you wanted to go jellyfishing, but I can see you’re busy having an episode.” Spongebob Squarepants, something in the first season…er. I can’t admit to remembering the name of this episode but nothing from Chef! or Red Dwarf — I just can’t!

8. Han Solo: “Hey — it’s me.” Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

9. Jared Grace: “I was reading in a footlocker!” The Spiderwick Chronicles.

10. Sarah Connor: “Do I look like the mother of the future? I can’t even balance my checkbook!” Terminator.

11. Danny Archuleta: “It has not been a nice day!” Predator 2.

12. Ianto Jones: “Because I know everything. Also, it’s written on the bottom of the screen there.” Torchwood and I am ashamed to say, but I have no idea which episode it’s from. … Second season? Maybe? Oh, help.

13. Son of Mine: “He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing – the fury of the Time Lord – and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind.” Doctor Who, “Family of Blood.”

14. Sarah Jane Smith: “There are two types of people in the world. There’s people who panic — and then there’s us. Got it?” The Sarah Jane Adventures, “Invasion of the Bane.”

15. Eddie Izzard: “I have penis nonchalance, really.” Live at Wembley.

16. Sam Winchester: “You’re…afraid of flying?” Dean Winchester: “Why do you think I drive everywhere!” Supernatural, “Phantom Traveler.”


17. Willy Wonka: “Everything in this room is edible. Even I’m edible. But that, children, is called cannibalism and is frowned upon in most societies.” Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

18. Dr. Frank N. Furter: “But isn’t it nice!” The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

19. Willow Rosenberg: “The library. Y’know — where the books live?” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Welcome to the Hellmouth.”

20. Reverend H.W. Smith: “This is God’s purpose, but not knowing the purpose is my portion of suffering.” Doc Cochran: “If this is His will, He is a son of a bitch.” Deadwood. Sometime around the end of the first season.

21. Carmen Ghia: “May I take your hats? And your swastikas?” The Producers.

22. Protagonist: “My name? Well, if you knew that, you’d be as smart as—” Layer Cake.

23. Nina Conti: “That’s a sweet voice on a monkey but with breasts it’s bloody sinister.”

24. Arthur Burns: “You shot me, Charlie. What’re you gonna do now?” The Proposition.

25. Norman: “What about me?!” The Dresser.

And I know I strayed a bit from my original self-issued mandate with 22, 24, and 25.

But…sue me, really. 🙂

They’re all amazing movies. If you haven’t seen them — why the hell are you still sitting here reading this? You have watching to do!

in leiu of part four, we bring you men in kilts!

13 Saturday Feb 2010

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So it’s been one of those weeks where every day seems to run from about six am to midnight without a lot of time to stop and pause for breath. Let alonge movie quote blogging. So Hanna and (much more tangentially) I are taking a pass this weekend on the final installment of the movie quotes post.

If you are absolutely positively dying to read lists of things related to film and our commentary about them, then you can enjoy last years’ list of twenty-nine of our favorite romantic movies.

Meanwhile, we were sucked into watching the latter half of the opening ceremony of the Olympics last night and were completely won over by these guys (and gals)


Who played fiddles, had GREAT body art, and did step dancing in doc martens to boot


And in case you happened to miss the show, here’s the answer to the mystery of who was going to carry the torch on its final leg to the stadium.

Enjoy the long weekend, sports (if you like that kind of thing) and movies (if you enjoy that). See you back here next Saturday for the concluding installment of “don’t ever link those two things again…”

*image credits: Winter Olympics – Opening Ceremony and 95658513PB085_Olympics_Open @ Flickr.com.

"don’t ever link those two things again…" (3 of 4)

06 Saturday Feb 2010

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guest post by Hanna, cross-posted at …fly over me, evil angel… if you missed the first two, read installment one and installment two.

a quick review from last week saturday: in the spirit of “don’t complain about something if you’re not prepared to do it better,” i noticed over the past couple of weeks two lists — one from wired and one from a blog i know not of called ink-stained amazon which i have to say is beautiful to look at it — that both purport to be ‘essential lists’ of ‘geek culture’ quotes.

ahem.
okay, so the wired list starts off with monty python and the holy grail and the amazon list includes the sarah jane adventures — but i’m still not wildly impressed with either one.
i figured i could do better.
then i thought about it and realised that, on my own, i didn’t have the time to do better so i roped in my ever-patient girlfriend to help me do better. 🙂
first off, a couple of notes:
1. this is for fun. if you’re not amused, go read something else. i won’t be offended, promise. that being said, suggestions and additions (politely phrased!) are welcome in the comments. but keep in mind this is installation 1 of 4! not everything will fit in here.
2. these are probably mostly going to be dredged out of my memory, anna’s memory, imdb, or official show/movie sites. inaccuracy is, therefore, almost inevitable. not to mention repetition of shows or characters. if this annoys you– well, make your own list. 🙂
3. i’m not aiming for some kind of “worst to best” or “best to worst” list. they’re here because the two people making the list think they’re fun or because one of us was able to strong-arm the other into including them. brief context is provided where anna or i thought it was necessary.
5. i am aiming for 4 posts of 25 quotes each over the next 4 weeks. tune in each friday/saturday for your new installment! and here’s the link to the first post and to the second…
okay, and that being said…
1. Madame Klara Goteborg: “I may have been a distraction to men — never a burden!” Journey to the Center of the Earth.


2. The Doctor: “What’s wrong with this jumper?!” Doctor Who, several episodes from Christopher Eccleston’s sole (bastard) season.
3. Eddie Izzard: “I grew up in Europe…where the history comes from.” Dress to Kill.

4. Pennywise: “Everything floats down here.” It.

5. Ianto Jones: “Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch.” Torchwood, “They Keep Killing Suzie.”
6. Peasant: “Help! Help! I’m being oppressed!” Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
7. Nanami Kiryuu: “Oneeeee-samaaaaaaaaaaa….” Shoujo Kakumei Utena, more episodes than I like to remember.
8. Jake of New York: “Go, then. There are other worlds than these.” The Gunslinger.

9. Bernard Woolley: “It used to be said that there were two types of chairs for two types of ministers. One sort folded up instantly; the other went round and round in circles.” Yes, Minister, “Election Night.”
10. Dave Lister: “Look out, Earth! The slime’s comin’ home!” Red Dwarf, “The End.”
11. Sarah: “You have no power over me.” Labyrinth.
12. The Ood: “Your song is coming to an end.” Doctor Who, “The Planet of the Ood.”
13. Sally: “I feel there’s something in the wind / That feels like tragedy’s at hand…” The Nightmare Before Christmas.
14. Tom Servo: “If you get near a song, play it!” Mystery Science Theatre 3000, “Mr. B Natural.”
15. Jeff Slater: “We’re entering a weird area, here.” Tootsie.
16. Bernadette: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — no more fuckin’ Abba!” Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.

17. Leia Organa: “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” Star Wars: A New Hope.

18. Don Logan: “You’ve got lovely eyes, Deedee. They real?” Sexy Beast.
19. Mau: “Does not happen!” Nation.
20. Granny Weatherwax: “I can’t be havin’ with this.” More or less any of the Witches books in the Discworld series: Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, etc.
21. Kyle Broflowski: “I learned something today…” Any episode of South Park between the 1st and 8th seasons…’cause that’s as far as I’ve seen!
22. Ray: “One gay beer for my gay friend and one normal beer for me ’cause I’m normal.” In Bruges.
23. The It Man: “It’s….” Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
24. Captain Jack Harkness: “Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, ‘That could be more sonic?'” Doctor Who, “The Empty Child.”
25. Sullah and Indiana Jones: “What are you going to do?” “I don’t know — I’m makin’ this up as I go.” Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.