Music | Barbarella Psychadella Music | Becoming a Great Woman of Letters, one jello mold at a time.

‘Music’ Category

A dress and a song, Episode 6: Vera Lynn, We’ll Meet Again

October 2, 2009 by ms. xandra

This just in: college freshmen do not get Dr. Strangelove.

It was going to be beautiful. The exciting and intellectually stimulating discussion I had planned on the red scare was going so well, and my students seemed honestly excited and engaged, and this was all leading up to what I had pegged as a grand finale: we would watch the clip from Dr. Strangelove about the commie plot to flouridate water, and everyone would laugh and it would crystallize everything we’d been talking about and we would have a really fun time talking about nefarious communist plots before I sent them home for the weekend. Instead, they watched the Strangelove clip and promptly shut down. They sat there. They stared at me. Nobody said anything. The half hour of really great discussion that had preceded this silence was but a distant memory, vanished, like the fart of a hummingbird on a windy day. I vamped for a few minutes. I dismissed them five minutes early.

So, dear students who do not understand why Dr. Strangelove is so funny, I dedicate this post to you. Most importantly, though, I dedicate this song, sung by Miss Vera Lynn, the Forces’ Sweetheart, and set to a delightful scenic montage by Mr. Stanley Kubrick, to you:

Fun fact that I learned from wikipedia that is therefore undeniably true: The BBC included this song in a package of recordings that they made especially for listening to in your fallout shelter, to keep those nuclear winter blues away.

And maybe next time we have a class about communists, I will wear this dress to really get the point about the red scare across: for it is certainly red, and at a mere $450, the price manages to be pretty scary:

(from Timeless Vixen Vintage)

Or there’s always this red atomic number; truly a McCarthian delight:

(from Sydney’s Vintage. Also, you should totally click through on the above photo and check out the back of that dress!)

Category Dress and a Song Project, Fashion!, Music | Tags: | 1 Comment
A Dress and a Song, episode 5: I’m Blue (The Gong Gong Song)*

September 28, 2009 by ms. xandra

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Ikettes!!!

Oh, the Ikettes. Your name is only slightly less stupid than Ray Charles’ Raelettes, and you have inspired me to recruit my own team of backup singers named after myself: The Xandrettes. (Auditions are tentatively scheduled for next month, please forward C.V.s and audition tapes to lady.xandra at barbarellapsychadella dot com. Chief requirements for being a Xandrette: ability to sing at least mostly in tune for at least 50% of the time; killer dance moves; disregard for personal dignity. I cannot pay anybody but I will take you out for cheeseburgers once a week. In return you need to sing backup for me while I’m teaching discussion section to college freshmen. It’ll be the ultimate.)

The girl group era was full of these silly named bands of backup singers who didn’t really get a lot of credit for anything they did personally. Like, did you know that DeeDee Warwick and Cissy Houston (yes, of course, related Dionne and Whitney) founded the Sweet Inspirations, the band that sang backup for Dusty Springfield on Dusty in Memphis? I only learned that about a year ago, and I have spend a lot of time sitting around listening to Dusty in Memphis, so it is kind of shameful that I didn’t figure this out sooner. Anyhow, these back up bands are hard to track because their membership changed all the time – but the original Ikettes were Delores Johnson, Eloise Hester, and Joshie Armstead. They sang with the Ike and Tina revue, but also managed to swing a few hits on their own, but had a really rough time actually getting paid for anything, because Ike owned their name. He would also have more than one set of Ikettes active at a time, sending one on tour, and keeping one to sing with the Revue. At one point, one gang of Ikettes (Robbie Montgomery, Vanetta Fields, and Jessie Smith) tried touring under a different name, the Mirettes, but didn’t have much success, probably because they didn’t have the clout of the Ike and Tina association (not to mention, Phil Spector production) supporting them.

I’m Blue (the Gong Gong Song) was written by Ike Turner and was recored by that original group of Ikettes in 1961, with Tina Turner singing backup. (And later, Salt N Pepa sampled it in Shoop!) How do I love this song? Oh let me count the ways. First of all, I love it because of the admitedly silly onomatopoeic title. Why don’t more song titles refer to the way song sound? This is what I want to know. I like how guttural and angsty those gong gongs sound. I love how the song is slow and driving but is still the kind of song that’s danceable. And I love the sound of the Ikettes’ vocal timbres.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Shangri-Las do a version of this song that is good, but probably not their best track – I’d actually heard the Shangri-Las version first, and it became the one track on my Shangri-Las record that I’d skip because I didn’t like it. The Ikettes version floored me the first time I heard it. I can’t put my finger on why the Shangri-Las version just doesn’t work for me There’s just something less convincing about it. I am going to sidestep arguments about authenticity here because the very concept is verboten on this blog, but I do think you could say some interesting things about what cultural and social factors (ie: race and class and different performances of femininity) might inform the differences between the two versions, which is something I might use as an exercise in the girl group class I’m teaching in the spring. The Shangri-Las just sound too polite for this song, and race and class obviously have something to do with it. Even though the Shangri-Las were kind of seen as bad girls among girl groups (ie: they wore pants and stood near motorcycles), their whiteness still mitigates what expectations their vocal performances of femininity would fulfil. Those expectations are different for the Ikettes, as black women.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

But enough important voice, it’s time for dresses! So, any time Tina Turner is remotely involved, you want to be wearing something that will show off your legs and thus your killer leg-related dance moves. I mean, look at Tina and and the Ikettes cut a fucking rug – this is in 1966, on the Spector-produced Big TNT Show (which I saw on the big screen this summer, and it was every kind of amazing. Also, Tina is a goddamn force of nature, and we should all aspire to be her when we grow up):

So there is really only one place I can take this, and that place is the glorious land of go go dresses.

I love the side buttons on this one. Not to mention the color:

(from Old Age Vintage)

And this, well, this is just too spectacular for words. The seller describes it pretty accurately: “best print of all time.”

(from Maiden Rapture Vintage)

I really love this particular sartorial period. There was lots of swingy a-line action going on, not to mention great colors. It is becoming increasingly evident that I really should have probably been alive then if only for the purpose of accumulating a really fantastic wardrobe.

Also, I found you these go go boots. I really can’t decide if I even like these boots or if they just upset me. Someone make up my mind, please. You obviously shouldn’t wear them with the op-art dress because then it will look like the 60′s have barfed on you, but maybe you could wear them with the turquoise.

(from Valentine Vintage)

Luckily, my Secretboyfriend John Fluevog has invented a dancing shoe that I strongly recommend wearing with everything, ever, especially with turquoise go go dresses:

*Sadly, no, there is no connection to the Gong Show.

Category Dress and a Song Project, Fashion!, Music | Tags: | 5 Comments
A Dress and a Song, episode 4: St. Louis Blues

September 26, 2009 by ms. xandra

Sorry this is late – I meant to post yesterday, I really did, but teaching four hours of section kinda knocked the wind out of me. I’m happy to report, though, that I think my students this year are going to be really great – they’re all freshmen who haven’t learned how to not do their homework, so they all showed up to the first day of school having done all of their reading, a veritable miracle. Anyhow. Look at this dress!

(from B and Lu)

I love this dress. I love this dress so much that I bought it. Sadly, you are not going to get a self-portrait of me in this dress because it is currently at the tailor because it is too long and gave me a bad case of the Stumpy Leg. One of the perennial problems I have with fat girl clothes is that so many of them are clearly designed for fat girls who are also statuesque amazons, and the last time I checked, statuesque was not an adjective that is easily applicable to yours truly, even when I am wearing Very Significant Shoes. And yes, shortening a dress is normally something I could easily do myself, but because of the fancy decorative bit at the hem, I wanted to keep the bottom edge, which meant the dress would have to be shortened at the waistline, so I decided to entrust this job to a professional. I will admit right here that my sewing methods tend to be pretty sloppy and haphazard because they are based largely on trial and error (and I would like to take this opportunity to bemoan the loss of home ec in high schools. I never got to take home ec. I don’t know how commonplace home ec is in high schools anymore, but I think that at the very least basic hemming is a skill that every teenager, be they boy, girl, or magical unicorn child, should be taught), so they really aren’t suitable for use on anything that I don’t want to accidentally ruin. (And this is why I buy all my fabric at two bucks a pound at the Michael Levine Loft in the textile district.) I was all set to try this job myself, and had the dress all pinned up and ready to go, but then suffered an enormous crisis of self-confidence and decided that it was not the job for me, and thus my dress has been sent away to sleepaway camp, and hopefully will come back a better person.

But anyhow. I love this dress because of the vintage detailing combined with a pretty contemporary color scheme. I bought it in black and red, but it was a tough call because the dove grey is really lovely as well. And I WOULD HAVE gotten the purple, except that they hadn’t released it in purple yet when I ordered, jerks. The one qualm I had about this dress is that it’s vintage pedigree is kind of ambiguous – I think it looks sort of late 1920s, early 1930s flapper-y, but there’s also something about it that is ever so slightly 1980s-ish, which is generally a sartorial period that I prefer to avoid. But I’ve made the cognitive leap and I’ve put that out of my mind, because I still really love this dress. I can imagine one of the great early blues women, like Bessie Smith or Lucille Bogan, on stage in this dress. This dress is also one of the rare occasions where I really appreciate jersey fabric, which I normally sort of hate because of how stretched out and shapeless it can be. Here, though, because it’s such a high quality jersey, it has an amazing sheen and drapes amazingly well. So it’s like a fancy dress made actually wearable because when I spill my lunch on it (inevitable) I can just throw it in the wash.

And for a dress that makes me think of the blues, what better than the indomitable, hard-drinking, beautiful Miss Bessie Smith, with St. Louis Blues?

This clip makes me want to wear my hair like the women sitting at those tables – all swept to the side in the front and pinned back. They look so dignified and glamorous.

And because I like to give props to my fellow Canadians whenever I can, I think you should go listen to Little Miss Higgins. I saw her at Summerfolk a year ago, I think? And she was lovely, and there’s a wonderful version of St. Louis Blues on her album. If you paired today’s dress with a pair of cowboy boots (which I obviously am going to do as soon as I get it back) and then taught it to sing, it would sound like Little Miss Higgins.

Category Dress and a Song Project, Fashion!, Music | Tags: | 3 Comments
A Dress and a Song, episode three: Mary Lou Lord, She Had You

September 21, 2009 by ms. xandra

I have this funny ability to remember, with startling accuracy, the circumstances under which I have acquired almost every album or book or dress that I own. I bought Mary Lou Lord’s Got No Shadow at Randy’s Records in Owen Sound, the store that we used to frequent in high school – I remember digging around for musicals soundtracks with Leith, and then later, digging around for Monkees albums with, you know, some guy, name best left unspoken. But anyhow. I don’t know if Randy’s is still there, but it was the kind of record store that was dingy and dusty and Randy was sort of weird and, I think, lived in the back of the store, and I’m pretty sure he’d listened to every album that came in because he would have something to say about every album I bought. And I remember him telling me that this Mary Lou Lord album wasn’t very good. But I bought it anyway, because I knew she was on Kill Rock Stars for a while and had some connection to Kurt Cobain and the whole Seattle scene, and that struck me as decent enough pedigree. And the album is fine – it’s not the most revolutionary thing I’ve heard by any means, and coming back to it years after the fact, I notice that the first half of the record would really benefit greatly from kicking the tempo up a notch or several. But there are a few really great songs on here. After the slightly plodding first half, it’s like someone showed Mary Lou an electric guitar and was like “HERE. Try this. It’s called an electric guitar,” and things generally get better. Jingle Jangle Morning is really deliciously poppy, and there’s a fun cover of Shake Sugaree. I think my favourite song on the album, though, is She Had You.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

She Had You fascinates me because of how bitter it is, and also because it speaks to class tensions in a really powerful way. The song is about a girl who is described as a “waste of space,” but managed to one up the song’s protagonist because she managed to get the guy or girl that the protagonist wanted, and still wants. The line that really sums it all up for me is “she never made it, she’s selling Avon, but she had you,” which is one of the most evocative lines I’ve ever heard in a song because it encapsulates so many things at once: firstly, the idea that there’s something contemptible about not having the wherewithal to get out of the small town where you grow up; secondly, that there are certain careers that are more intrinsically valuable than others (ie: selling Avon); and thirdly, that even if you make it out of that small town, even if you’re doing something seemingly productive with your life, what really matters is the relationships you’ve had along the way, what really matters is getting what you really really want. (Zigga zig ah.)

And obviously, I don’t really hold with the sentiments that the character in the song is espousing, but I think they’re the sort of things that we believe in without really wanting to. I’m not going to lie, I shake my head when I think of the people that I went to elementary school with who still live in Nowheresville, Bruce County, even though I know that I was able to leave because I come from a pretty privileged socioeconomic position and had certain choices open to me that other people don’t have. I find She Had You really compelling because of how it raises the question of who gets to leave and who stays behind. It’s a song about privilege and memory and resentment and how our pasts create our presents.

Seriousness aside, though, Mary Lou Lord supposedly dated Kurt Cobain and famously fought bitterly with Courtney Love, and it’s kind of fun and juicy, if far fetched, to imagine that she’s singing to Courtney. Just saying.
Anyhow, this song is very 90’s alternative scene to me, so I was on the lookout for a dress that wasn’t necessarily “vintage” from the 90’s (I maintain that anything more recent than 1985 is not vintage, it’s just second-hand, which, I acknowledge, is my own totally arbitrary definition) but would be the sort of dress that would look good with a pair of 18 hole Doc Martens. Something that Mary Lou or Courtney, or, like Kat Bjelland or someone might wear on stage. I like these:

(again, from Thrush, on Etsy, a shop that I seem to browse pretty frequently)

(from Rusty Zipper Vintage)

Category Dress and a Song Project, Fashion!, Music | Tags: | 1 Comment
A dress and a song, episode 2: FASHION EMERGENCY!!!

September 18, 2009 by ms. xandra

OMG OMG! Some people got a ticket to the premiere of The White Stripes: Under the Great White Northern Lights at TIFF on Friday! Some people asked me for a White Stripes makeover! (So what this means is: yes, I do take requests.)

I like the White Stripes because I have a soft spot for crazy, potentially egomaniacal artist-types who never say anything that makes sense (see also: David Lynch). And I like the White Stripes because I sort of appreciate Meg White’s extraordinary rudimentary approach to the drums, which seems to be based largely on hitting things really hard and flailing, which is kind of what I am like when I play the drums (ie: the two times in my life when I have been entrusted with/allowed to touch the drums). But what I really, really like is the way they really sleekly bring in rockabilly and 60’s garage rock influences that sound really tight but are enveloped in a wash of feedback. I love giant masses of feedback and distortion. I think I told someone once that I find it really relaxing to listen to, and then was told that I’m crazy.

Anyhow, Tanya sent me this clip, and I think you can really hear that stuff in it. And I think there’s something in particular about “You’re Pretty Good Looking” that makes it sound like the 60’s garage bands that are in all of those Frankie and Annette movies. (And also starting at about 1 minute in, the chord progression is pretty much exactly the same as the bridge of the Shoop Shoop song.)

But what should Tanya wear when she goes to seduce Jack White???

Well, a red dress obviously. And, pardon my French, but I fucking love this particular red dress:

(from Thrush, on Etsy)

And it’s perfect, because it’s got just enough of a rockabilly sensibility to be totally cute and retro without being all costumey.

And I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures of Jack White recently, but right now he sort of has this, like, cowboy steampunk thing going on, right? And he’s always wearing really good hats, right? Like this:

So I think a hat and suspenders are totally necessary. You can’t wear suspenders with a dress, but you can wear this:

(From AudraJean, on Etsy. Also, Audi has a blog that I really love.)

And also I found you these hats. I can’t decide which one is best. I guess it all depends on how badly you want to sleep with Jack White:

(From Babydeeere, on Etsy)

(from Rock Zombie Oldies, also Etsy)

And my Secretboyfriend John Fluevog recommends these:

Category Dress and a Song Project, Fashion!, Music | Tags: | 3 Comments
A Dress and a Song, episode one

September 14, 2009 by ms. xandra

So, it is that time of year when I tend to take stock of my blogging activities and realize that said activities are kind of diffuse and purposeless and all over the place, and that I still haven’t figured out how to become a millionaire by blogging, which obviously is the entire point of blogging, right? So, I’ve decided to start a project on this blog, on one hand to give it some structure, and on the other hand, to force me to do more (non-academic) writing. It’s a project that combines the two things I spend the majority of my time doing, namely: thinking about music and looking at pictures of vintage dresses on the internets. And here’s what I’m going to do: Every Monday and Friday, I’m going to pick a song that I think is interesting for some reason. And I’m going to pair each song with a dress that matches the song, so, like, the ideal dress to wear while listening and/or dancing to the song in question. Mostly they’ll be vintage dresses (but they won’t all be, because I already know what Friday’s dress will be, and it’s a new dress but kinda vintage looking), and they’ll all be dresses you can get from independent, lady-owned businesses, because I think we need to be supporting independent, lady-owned businesses. Occasionally, I may also regale you with a dress from my rather large closet of Far Too Many Dresses.

Which brings up a rather troubling point: I own Far Too Many Dresses, and have thus declared a state of No Buying Clothes, which is going to last until Christmas, I swear to god, because I recently had the idea that maybe I should save some of my paycheque with an eye towards buying something like, say, a car, after I finish my Ph.D. rather than just blowing it all at the Fairfax Trading Post every Sunday. So this will be a challenging project, because I will be forbidden from actually buying any fabulous dresses.

So anyhow. This project is officially starting now. And I’m starting with a trip in the wayback machine, to when I was but a wee lass, only just fourteen years old. As a wee lass, only just fourteen years old, my heart burned burned with unquenchable ardour for the music of one Bif Naked. And I was recently reacquainted with said ardour when I was at home, organizing the giant Rubbermaid tubs filled with my stuff, that live in my parents’ basement, one of which contained all of my old CDs, which I subsequently put on my ipod, because, as a musicologist, I insist on carrying Every Song, Ever around with me in digital form, just in case of an emergency where I might need Some Song I Haven’t Listened To in Ten Years. And that is how, friends, I found myself on an airplane, three hours away from Los Angeles, having watched all of the available episodes of Summer Heights High that were on the in-flight entertainment system (aka tiny television set that hurts your eyes) listening to Spaceman on repeat.

You know, there was a time in my life when this song was the awesomest thing in the world. Then somewhere along the line, I discovered Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground and became pretentious. But more and more I have been turning back the clock to my non-pretentious years, because things were a lot more fun back then. So the upshot of this is that everything that was awesome when I was 14 is awesome again, and is allowed to happily co-exist with everything that was awesome and pretentious when I was 19, which is in turn allowed to co-exist with everything I think is awesome now (ie: Dusty Springfield, The Shangri-Las, Frankie and Annette movies), resulting in a juggernaut of awesome.

And let’s just talk about that Spaceman video for a second. First of all, I had forgotten that Bif Naked manages to channel both Cher and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, while wearing a suit jacket made out of plastic wrap raincoat and somehow not even breaking a sweat. That, my friends is talent. Or something. I also appreciate how she totally owns that matte brick red lipstick, and seems unashamed of the fact that the set of the video is the Canadian poor woman’s version of the set of Scream.

And I really truly love this song, mostly because it is about space and is basically told from the point of view of an X-Files extra. This song was actually pretty important to me when I was 14 and living in shitty old Port Elgin. It’s so quintessentially representative of that particular moment in the 1990s, when the X-Files was really good, and there was that television special about Roswell that my dad wouldn’t let me watch, and I saw the movie Contact and decided to be an astronomer when I grew up, and my favourite shirt was a baby tee with a green alien face on the front, which I would wear with Mod Robes, because, lo, I had style. I kind of wonder about that particular cultural moment – because it wasn’t just me that was into aliens, it was kind of a zeitgeisty thing, and I wonder what sort of social and cultural impulses the alien abduction thing was responding to at that particular time. It’s part of a aesthetic of escapism and exploration and wonder, and, as this song pretty clearly indicates, deep dissatisfaction and longing.

Of course, the question on everybody’s mind is: when a spaceman comes to rescue me from my deep dissatisfaction, what on earth shall I wear?

Pair this dress:

(from LouLou’s Vintage, on Etsy)

With these boots:

(from LorrelMae, also on Etsy)

It’s, like, perfect Barbarella-inspired mod 1960s but would probably also fit in pretty well at a rather unfortunate 1990s rave, so that’s my pick for listening to Bif Naked and dreaming about outer space.

Or, pile your hair up on your head, spray paint it purple and throw on this pointy-shouldered item and you will totally be channelling 1950’s pulp queen of outer space:

(from Posh Girl Vintage)

Alternatively, nothing says “Spaceman, Oh, Spaceman, Come rescue me from this (and also make me queen of your intergalactic empire)” like an op-art gown:

(from LuciteBox)

Category Dress and a Song Project, Fashion!, Music | Tags: | 3 Comments
I have officially declared this summer the Summer of Romantic Comedies Made Between 1960 and 1965

July 27, 2009 by ms. xandra

You should start with these:

Where the Boys Are – which I just finished watching five minutes ago. It is the greatest film I have ever seen. Connie Francis is in it, she plays a hockey player. We don’t get to see her playing hockey, though, because the movie is set in Fort Lauderdale. There’s a scene in a nightclub with a synchronized swimmer. There are stupid hats. There is a pretentious jazz band that plays a genre that they inexplicably call “dialectic jazz,” except for when Connie Francis sings with them, and then they play a genre called Neil Sedaka. And everybody falls in love and tragic things happen and nice things happen and there’s lots of making out. AN EXCELLENT FILM.

Lover Come Back – really, Doris Day’s hats are the centerpiece of this film. Also, you should watch this one alongside Down With Love, and you will notice that Down With Love is not exaggerating the ridiculousness of Doris Day/Rock Hudson vehicles, not one little bit. Also, this film features Fake Science, one of a few of my favourite things.

Get Yourself A College Girl – This is basically Where the Boys Are, except for they go skiing instead of to the beach. And it has even more ridiculous and elaborate musical numbers (The Animals are in it! And The Standells! And that lady who sang The Girl from Ipanema! So basically, it is a perfect movie if you ever find yourself stuck with a musicologist who you need to keep distracted), and there are really stupid costumes, and Nancy Sinatra. Recently my criteria for choosing films has been “does it feature co-eds on vacation wearing stupid hats, and also musical numbers that involve the lead characters standing around watching a band, and therefore have absolutely nothing to do with the plot?” and this one fits the bill rather well.

Sex and the Single Girl – Actually, this might be the greatest movie I have ever seen. Edith Head did the costumes! And Lauren Bacall is in it! And Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood! And there is a half-hour long car chase to LAX where they play musical taxicabs and eat pretzels! Basically, everyone spends the entire movie running around being irrational and looking fabulous. Natalie Wood plays Helen Gurley Brown, who, in this film, is not, in fact, the editor of Cosmo, but rather is a psychologist. A very fabulously dressed psychologist. Also, there is a subplot involving hosiery.

Incidentally, I am also reading the book Sex and the Single Girl right now, and it is a rather delightful combination of brilliant wisdom and complete and utter lunacy, of the kind that could only emerge from 1962. I’m thinking of maybe doing a week-long blog project where I try to actually follow Helen Gurley Brown’s advice and see what happens. It will probably end terribly, as so far, two chapters in, the crux of her advice seems to be “sleep with married men and make them buy you things,” which seems like, you know, a terrible idea.

PROJECT FOR NEXT WEEK: See all of the movies that feature Paula Prentiss and Jim Hutton as co-stars.

Category Awesome, Culture, Media, Music | Tags: | 3 Comments
My personal favourite is “stake driven through the heart.”

January 26, 2009 by ms. xandra

Hey, remember that time I got really depressed about boys and started quoting Sylvia Plath, like an angsty 17-year-old? I promise it won’t happen again, at least not this month (note that there is hardly a week left to the month).

But anyhow. On to more important things, like…

DJ mixing class! So great. It is me and Shelina and a bunch of 18-year-old boys who needed to be told that the term “mix tape: comes from “cassette tape” which were these things we used to record stuff onto back in the 1990s. Golly. This week I am going to mix The Shangri-Las with MC Lyte and it is going to be super awesome. Also, today I picked up a record of horror movie sound effects (including: Arm Chopped Off, Sawing Leg Off, Grave Digging (In Stoney Ground), Grave Digging (In Wet Ground), Eerie Wind, Weird Wind, Wind Howling in Ship’s Rigging, and, inexplicably, The Electronic Swamp), which clearly means that I am going to be named Most Likely to Succeed by my DJ School Yearbook.

And now bedtime, for a have a long day ahead of me tomorrow in which I will read that entire Paul Gilroy book and think of lots of intelligent things to say about it for my meeting on Wednesday.

Oh, hey, also: someone is finally starting a Fringe Festival in Los Angeles! Which means that I might finally have a venue for this one-woman show I am working on (as of this morning) about how shitty everything is! Tanya is my Associate Producer. WE’LL SEE YOU AT THE TONY AWARDS!!!!!

Category Academe, Angst, Music | Tags: | 5 Comments
It’s Christmas: time to get serious.

December 25, 2008 by ms. xandra

1. So, it hasn’t been a very good month or so, for those of us who, um, have rather specifically nerdy tastes in rather specific areas, for we have lost three of our greatest Grand Crazy Ladies: Yma Sumac, Majel Barrett Roddenberry (wife of the late Gene Roddenberry and voice of the computer on numerous Star Trek series, not to mention the actress responsible for creating the inimitable Lwaxana Troi), and, today, Eartha Kitt. Miss you, Eartha.

And yesterday we lost Harold Pinter. Wonderful people are dropping like flies, what gives?

2. I found myself in this really weird position oh, a couple of weeks ago, I guess, where I found myself in an argument defending Catholics. This was weird because, once upon a time, I was Catholic, but I’m not anymore because, well, I don’t actually believe in the Christian god, and I have obvious huge political reasons for wanting to distance myself from the doctrine of the church because they continue to preach some pretty fucked up things. And also I am a huge fan of birth control. It’s the greatest. So I am pretty much a non-fan of the Catholic church. (And also, transubstatiation is just plain creepy.) But anyhow – having said all of this, I think it’s really important to distinguish between the offensiveness of church doctrine and the way church members actually live their lives, because there are thriving leftist activist communities within religion that work for inclusion and change but often get overshadowed by the crazies. And although I’m not religious by any means, I have a lot of respect for the work that they do, often in opposition to official policy, but the person I was arguing with was a pretty ignorant jerk who would have none of this. Anyhow, the point of all this rambling is: this post, about a Christmas service with Benedictine nuns was up at Shapely Prose (best blog ev-arrrr!) today (re-posted from last year) and it is really wonderful and great and really makes an important point about the kind of alliances we need to be building as feminists and activists. And also it’s just a beautiful thing to read for Christmas.

(Cross-posted at Through the Bassline)

Category Culture, Music, Politics | Tags: | No Comments

Newer Entries