the littlest meap

I got back yesterday from 10 days in Miami, FL, at the GALA (Gay and Lesbian Association of) Choruses Festival 2008. GALA involved eight days of, well, choral music. And gay people. And fun.

The title of this post is based on “It is the Song,” a piece commissioned for the Festival Mixed Chorus, of which my own chorus, the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, was a part. In the interests of this NOT being the post I will be writing all my life (which, unlike the song I have been singing all my life, is NOT a metaphor for being a homosexual), the rest of the post will be divided into short and useful sessions. If you wish for a day-by-day breakdown of witty one-liners, please see the Twitter updates on the side of this page.

Lessons learned

1. Bear soup is not somewhere you want to be. Fortunately, the bears will be too busy paying attention to each other to notice you, especially if you hang out in the deep end.
2. I have a massive intellectual crush on Eric Lane Barnes. I purchased two CDs of Captain Smartypants music because of this. It was the right decision, even if neither of them includes “Battle of the Gay and Straight Composers.”
3. I will buy things if they come with free kisses from gay Irish blokes? Whatever, dude, it was a totally awesome tee-shirt, I would have bought it even without the free kiss.
4. Certain composers of music about new stupid boyfriends and santa’s cocaine are unable to tell short brown-haired women apart from each other. This composer I will not name, because I hang out with him periodically and he still can’t tell me apart from other women (or remember my name ever, which I’ve known for a while). At the whole situation I snort.
5. Despite the seeming unlikelihood of a deaf person choosing to spend a week of their life at a choral festival, every group must have a sign interpreter. This is, apparently, because one of the founding goals of the Women’s Music Movement was to reach out to all women, everywhere, with their strummy music and expressive sign language. The latter part I learned when a Cris Williamson sing-along turned into a Cris Williamson sign-interpretalong.
6. Gay mens’ choruses and women’s choruses (almost never called lesbian choruses, but many of them restricted only to bio-women who only date bio-women) are ::completely:: different animals. So different, in fact, that it seemed slightly discordant having them at the same music festival. Gay mens’ choruses, are, for the large part, pretty campy. Lots of show tunes, impressive classical music, and humor. Women’s choruses, however, are for the most part a part of the Women’s Music Tradition, and are basically a choral version of Cris Williamson or Holly Near or Ani Difranco. They are there to be serious and change the world, and you better know it. Or they will kick your ass. Or sing “The Great Peace March” again.
7. I am, weirdly, totally fine with the racial stereotypes played with in an elaborate routine that shows the Lone Ranger and Tonto falling in love, but very uncomfortable with white gay people appropriating black freedom songs for their own movement. I thought a lot about this–does it mean that I’m more ok with being racist against Native Americans than against black people? Ultimately, I decided that it meant that I’m totally cool with taking racist tropes and turning them on their head and mocking them, but not ok with blind copy-and-paste appropriation of another group’s struggle and art. That and trying to squeeze “homophobia” into a verse of “Turn Me ‘Round” just sounds dumb.
8. Florida: hot in the summer.
9. Free public transportation: awesome, but also a hangout for homeless people.
10. Cuban food: nothing resembling vegetarian.
11. Holly Near: actually a celebrity. (I am always skeptical when people tell me that people from Mendocino County are celebrities–for example, have any of you ever heard of Spencer Brewer? But in the case of Holly Near and Seabiscuit, it turns out to be true.

Highlights of “things Molly scribbled in her 200-page program”

• “Boys like me like boys like me.” - a line from Eric Lane Barnes’s “The Theme From Pants” (performed by Captain Smartypants)
• “Gender and sexual identity/ is a very personal thing you see/ so the rules aren’t what they seem to be” - from David Maddux’s “The Gender Polka” (performed by CHARIS - the St. Louis Women’s Chourus)
• Amazing Grace to the tune of The Water is Wide? Good. Huh. (”Grace”, arranged by Mark Hayes, sung by Illuminati, from Columbus, OH)
• Why do cellphones always ring in quite a capella moments, and not loud ones? (During perfomance of New Jersey Gay Men’s Chorus)
• I call bullshit on this sign interpreter. (Scribbled down during Seattle Men’s Chorus performance of “Every Sperm is Sacred”)
• Slash fan fiction and pulp novel conventions: discuss. (During Seattle Women’s Chorus’s performance of a show they recently did about the works of Anne Bannon. Much of which was written by ye olde E.L.B.)
• ! (This by the listing for the Turtle Creek Chorale’s a capella rendition of the William Tell Overture) (During which time the chorus had an elaborate set of signs like those used in football stadiums, with which they had created highly-detailed Lone Ranger/Tonto fan art. I kid you not.)

New games we should play
(In the style of the and the Peter O’Toole game (People You Thought Were Dead Until They Turned out to be Still Alive) Fay Wray game (People You Thought Had Been Dead Until You Read Their Obituary and Found Out Were Alive All This Time))

The George Michael Game (People you thought were already out until they had big media comings out) and The Seabiscuit Game (People your hometown claims are celebrities, who actually turn out to be celebrities).

What about your own perfomance, Molly?
How about we don’t talk about that? The monitor, which would have allowed us to hear ourselves on the stage with lousy acoustics, was down. I could really only hear me, the piano, and maybe one or two people near me. Apparently other people in LGCSF couldn’t even hear the piano.

I reiterate, let’s not talk about that.

I spent the summer I was 17 in central Massachusetts, just outside Worcester. I’d taken US history the previous year, and had gotten to the state level with my History Day project on Hamilton and Jefferson. So to say I was a little bit fixated with the Founding Fathers would be… a bit of an understatement. And here I was, on the side of the country where it ALL HAPPENED, and I was thrilled. I’d grown up spending the Fourth attending the Frontier Days parade in Willits and associating the holiday with rodeo. That year, though, I spent the fourth of July watching fireworks over the harbor in Bar Harbor, ME. The history I’d loved and the location I was in were united, for the first time ever, and I was radiant with the idea of this country that I lived in.

Flash forward to the summer I was 24 (which is to say, today). It was my third summer back in California after going to college in Massachusetts. And, just like every summer since the one when I was 17, the history was gone again. I tried and failed to rent 1776, so instead I stood out barbecuing tofu kebabs in the Mission and listening to hipsters accuse each other of being anti-American(1). And then I watched Zoolander.

In short, I had a day off of work, and a really fun night with my friend Jen. But it was a great day celebrating the Grill Things In the Summer While Fireworks Boom holiday, and not the Hey Remember When Jefferson Was Self-Aggrandizing in the 1890s and Convinced Everyone To Celebrate His Achievement On the Fourth of July and Not Any Of the Other Big Dates In the War holiday, which is kind of sad (2).

But something kind of hilarious did happen when I was leaving Jen’s:
Bizarre European: Is it okay if I urinate on somebody’s home?
Me: Whatever, dude. ::walks bike to corner::
European: ::follows:: No, really, I’m not going to get arrested or anything?
Me: ::Looks at him blankly::
European: You aren’t an undercover cop, are you? You aren’t blending in like a local with your bicycle and the thing in your hand [a bike helmet] waiting for me to pee, and then you’ll arrest me?
Me: You’ve caught me. I’m an undercover cop.
European: ::starts explaining why he wasn’t able to pee in a bar::
Traffic light: ::turns green::
Me: ::bikes away, relieved::

(1) Note to self: When you see a t-shirt with the text “Die hipster scum” for sale, and you think to yourself, “I should get that. It would be ironic and hilarious” then you have already lost.
(2) I kind of broke up with Jefferson in college. I sort of refer to him in the style of a bitter ex these days.

For your further education, I’d like to shine a little bit of light on two very different people who are infrequently confused, except by me.

Jon Sims was a luminary of the San Francisco gay music scene in the 1970s, founding the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Freedom Band and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus in 1978 and going on to found the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco in 1979. Fun fact: the Freedom Band was the first orchestra or chorus in the world to have the words “gay” and/or “lesbian” in its name. He went on to found several other gay music groups and died of AIDS in 1984. He is remembered by his namesake organization, the Jon Sims performing Arts Center in San Francisco, which closed down last year.

John Simm, on the other hand, is a British actor of some repute, known primarily (to me at least) for his roles as Sam Tyler on Life on Mars and as the Master in season 3 of the new Who.

Yes, I realize that the two men have about as much in common as carnal embrace and Fermat’s Last Theorem. But surely you can see how a member of LGCSF, who is also the sort of geek prone to watching tv shows like Doctor Who and Life on Mars, might periodically pause to consider which of the two she is hearing about at any given moment?

I was writing an awesome post recommending music I like, but it turns out that WordPress.com doesn’t like links to the iTunes music store at all. Just like they don’t like javascript, or web forms, or really anything that could make me a quick buck on the internet. For this reason I’m in the process of migrating over to a more flexible platform.

Until then, though, I offer you some recommendations of excellent things I watched on the internet this weekend instead of being useful.

Cubby Bernstein, Tony award consultant: The hilarity of the entire cast of Xanadu making fools of themselves on YouTube for no pay is not lessened by the fact that it resulted in a overall total of zero Tonys for the show. It’s still a clever campaign, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Nathan Lane puts in a particularly excellent performance in episode six. Recommended by the New York Times.

Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death: Rowan Atkinson[et al.]!Eight. Jonathan Pryce!Master. Script by Steven Moffat. Four regenerations, 900 years in a sewer, hearty Doctor/Master action and Daleks, Daleks, Daleks. This is me. This is my glee. My fingers are crossed. We are like this. (The link is to part 1.1 of 2.2 total parts). Recommended by Wikipedia.

The Scream of Shalka: Richard E Grant!Nine (which, ironically, Curse of Fatal Death also has). Derek Jacobi!Master. A clever companion who can stand up for herself, silly geologists, and more emo than you can shake a stick at. Plus, it’s hosted on bbc.co.uk and they let Americans see it, which kind of astounds me. Recommended by Aria.

Chronotron: I almost forgot to include this, but it is awesome. It is not in fact an online video but a really fantastic flash game. You time-travel in a little TARDIS-looking box, and to defeat each level successfully you need to cooperate with past and present versions of yourself. For example, you have to stand on a button to hold a door open, and then go back in time to walk through the door while the past version of you is holding it open. Strategy is somewhat like Robo-Rally.

Today’s useful lesson: dental dams were originally invented for dentistry! Some context:

Dentist: Molly, do you know what a dental dam is?
Molly: Yes.
Dentist: Have you ever used one?
Molly: Er, yes?
Dentist: Well, we’re going to be using something slightly different. It’s a lot better because it provides more suction, and it’s got this area where you can rest your jaw.

The other device was indeed much nicer to have stuffed in my mouth for two hours than a dental dam would have been.

With all the preparations for Pride this year, it’s already a breathless season. Increasing the fervor of the season, of course, was the beginning of gay marriage in California yesterday at 5 pm. I watched coverage from some of the first gay weddings last night, live on the local news. It’s exciting to live in a state with legal gay marriage again.

On the other hand, a visit to my old roommates last weekend gave me another reminder about the problems that come along with gay marriage–the enforcement of the same norms that affect straight people. For as long as gay relationships exist only outside the law, all sorts of extra-legal legal precedents can sneak their way in. In the case of my former roommates, three lesbians who decided to raise a child together, gay marriage ruins the hopes they had of securing a three-parent adoption for their little girl once she was a toddler and they could argue their parental rights.

For so long, homosexuality has been an outstanding shelter for any number of norm-violating sexual and romantic arrangements–polyamory, kink, domestic partnerships without marriage, etc.– that heteros have engaged in too, but which have generally been more accepted in the queer world than in the world at large. With the harsh light of legal marriage shining on gays and lesbians, will we all line up and join the establishment? What happens to folks who don’t want to?

I continue to hold out hope that the government will step out of the business of providing “marriage” as a concept and will just do civil unions, leaving folks to chose whatever idea of marriage works for them, be it traditional or nontraditional. (This is one of the times I side with libertarians on an issue.) However, the precedent does not seem to be heading that way.

In other news, looks like Google is branding search results containing terms related to gay pride with rainbows. For a limited time only! Catch it while you can!

ETA: As usual, Alison Bechdel has commented on a similar aspect of things that is both subtler than what I’ve said here, and more poignant.

When I saw Randall Monroe speak last fall, he said that people are always claiming that he is secretly watching them and stealing their lives. This of course was not true–he was totally innocent.

I believed him at the time, of course. But that was before he stole my “every subject is ultimately reducible to mathematics” game!

ETA: My alt text, “Off the panel on the right, there’s a logician wondering why the mathematician is still bothering to prove things in the object language.” doesn’t seem to be hovering over the image for me. It’s supported, though, by this guy

I am a Registered Female, and so naturally I get regular email from NOW in my college email account (I think I may have been signed up when I participated in a pro-choice rally at some point?) Periodically I agree with what they have to say; periodically I roll my eyes. Never have I been made more angry by NOW than I was this morning.

BELOW THE BELT: HISTORY, LEGACY, AND THE SHAME OF MEDIA

Hillary Clinton’s campaign inspired millions of women across the
country, and the increased female voter turnout has helped many women
running for office - but will those women candidates now face a media
gauntlet that is more about their gender than their qualifications?

I understand NOW endorsing Hillary Clinton for no reason other than her gender. They are, after all, the National Organization for Women, not the National Organization for People Whose Politics I Agree With. But to continue blaming her gender for the fact that she lost after the last six months is dishonest self-victimization.

Clinton ran a close race; she lost relatively narrowly. The media dismissed her EXACTLY as they would have dismissed a man in her position. It is not her femininity that made people predict that she would lose; it was the fact that she spent most of the last six months behind in votes and behind in delegates. Before Iowa she was the media’s darling, and the fact that Barack Obama took over that position has entirely to do with their relative position in the race and nothing to do with either his skin color or her gender. (The decisions of a lot of the voters were doubtless affected by these things; both issues came up frequently in the news; but they did not affect the relative assessment of who stood where in the race)

I look forward to voting for a woman candidate for President, but I will do that only when there is a woman who I agree with running for office.

ETA: Ok, I just re-read the original statement, and it was probably not worth nearly as much anger as I threw at it just now. The real thing I’m upset about here is the fact that NOW doesn’t seem to be seeing the victory of a woman getting as far as Clinton did. They, like the Clinton campaign in general has been doing since she fell behind, have resorted to gender-based victim playing rather than taking an honest look at the race and the many other factors that have resulted in Obama winning.

This morning…
[random coworker]: Molly, I hear that you and Erica might be roommates.
Me: Yeah, we talked briefly about it. How did you know?

Today at lunch…
Erica: Molly, we probably shouldn’t tell too many people that we’re going to be roommates, because that might mean it will all go wrong!
Me: I think it might be too late for that…

Soon we will return to your regularly scheduled long, interesting entries. In the meantime, please allow me to cross-sell my new photoblog, coming to you as soon as the DNS propogates: http://photos.meaplet.com

Jen: i need to know the name of your first pet and the street you grew up on
me: are you trying to break into my bank account?
Jen: it’s for my blog
me: Is this going to be my psueudonym?
Jen: yes
you’re going to come to my imaginary dinner party
me: Ok, but it can’t be my first pet, because my parents foolishly let 3-year-old Molly name the cat. Can it be another pet?
Jen: it has to be your first pet
me: Can I lie to you?
Jen: nope.
me: Stovepipe
I will sound like the Hobo at your party

Clearly I should just give up and take up lint-knitting as a new hobby, if “Stovepipe Hawk” is my porn name.

Other hobo-related events this weekend:

• Noticing the huge amount of lint in the garbage bag by the dryer. Perhaps it is in fact asking to be knitted?
• Read Water For Elephants, which features an excellent description of a Hobo Jungle ::and:: the recurring risk of becoming a hobo.