Category: arts

Glee: Let’s talk about “Glitter Bombing”

Glitter bombing is not a Glee-ism. It’s actually a recent but recurring political act, with real world history, usually carried out by activists against anti-gay politicians. In fact, the only instance of glitter bombing not related to LGBTQ issues on the Wikipedia page is in its “in fiction” category — and that is Schuester’s use of the tactic in “The Purple Piano Project.”

I wanted to point this out, because most of the discussion I’ve seen of Schuester doing this revolves around either his immaturity or the wackiness of Glee, but without the non-fiction political context, I don’t think that’s a meaningful conversation.

The thing is, I can’t quite figure out what Glee was trying to do with this. Was this another case of Schuester thinking he’s doing the right thing and not? Let’s face it, Sue may say all sorts of appalling things to Kurt, but she also gave him solos, stuck up for him on the atheism thing, and doesn’t seem to hold his queerness against him any more than she holds anything against anyone.

Schuester, on the other hand, spends a huge amount of time being exasperated by Kurt’s queerness (something which previews for next week’s episode suggest will be back), trying to be supportive, and basically just doing things (when he does anything at all) that aren’t about Kurt but are about himself.

So one easy argument is that Schuester is being incredibly appropriative in an incredibly inappropriate way.

The other possibility is one about how Glee defines queerness. By using Glitter Bombing to defend the arts, Schuester suggests that the arts are inherently queer, that his glee club is inherently queer. And not just because it’s more filled with LGBTQ people than he knows.

Certainly, there are a lot of people on Glee besides Kurt, Blaine, Santana, Brittany and Karofsky, with arguably queered sexuality. Tina and Rachel are both othered at various points for liking sexual activity. Artie, through both words and deed, points out that his wheelchair doesn’t getting in the way of his sexual abilities. The women Puck desires are not an expected or necessarily accepted part of his sexuality in the WMHS environment. The intersection of Emma’s OCD and her demi-sexuality has been a near constant topic. And I certainly know more about Schuester’s sex life than I ever wanted to (remember his ex-wife?).

Glee is very insistent that everyone is not just the underdog, but really weird and possibly revolting to someone out there. Sometimes the show is awkward about it; sometimes it’s hilarious. Often it’s both. And, when we look at the ways in which it uses songs (stretch those lyrics, stretch them!), it’s easy to assume they’re just stretching the meaning of Glitter Bombing here to this larger underdog story. On some level, everything on Glee is a metaphor about LGBTQ-ness, and all the LGBTQ content on Glee is also just a subset of a larger story about a broader sense of queerness.

But, at the end of the day I don’t think that’s what is actually happening around this particular act. I do think this is one of our first hints that Schuester is going to remain ineffective, boggled and cruel through obliviousness when it comes to Kurt (and the other LGBTQ kids he’s aware of), because he, like pretty much all the characters on the show, is too wrapped up in his own drama to engage other people in a useful way. Schuester taking Glitter Bombing, screwing it up on behalf of the arts, and then finding a way to mess up the equilibrium of any number of the LGBTQ characters? It seems like a given at this point, and last night’s episode warned us that that’s coming loud and clear.

Trash day is totally out of order

Like most of New York City, we survived the hurricane without major incident: some expected basement flooding that isn’t technically our problem; mistaking a neighbor’s woodsmoke grilling in 40pmh winds (who does that?) for a fire; one of the cats falling into the bathtub filled in case of water problems; and me getting beaned on the head with a tree branch. If any of this sounds dramatic, I assure you it was merely humiliating.

Tomorrow, assuming all goes as planned, we leave for San Francisco. I’m looking forward, in my weird way, to airport time; and also to scarf weather upon arriving in SF. Patty, I hope, won’t hold the weather against the city — she likes it much warmer than I do.

Of course, our immanent departure means I have a ton of work to do before we leave. And of course, that work is staring me in the face when I’d rather be restringing my guitar and taking a dance class (both of which I actually hope to do today, but doubt I’ll have time to).

In the meantime, I’m once again behind on Torchwood and desperately want to write about this piece on “The Downside of Immortality” in The New York Times that uses it as a hook for the author to basically promote his new book.

However, I am fascinated by a drive-by assertion in it, that implies we are crueler when reminded of our own mortality. This, when connected to the systems we have in place to seek immortality (including, as noted in another drive-by remark in the piece, the desire for fame), actually presents some pretty interesting ideas about the why behind the need for statements like “Don’t Read The Comments On News Articles”/”Never Read Anything Anyone Says About You on the Internet.” — basically, since the appearance of “Internet fame” is easy to come by, so’s the random nastiness that pools in various parts of the Internet in various ways. The article, alas, isn’t really about this, and is brief and full of poorly-supported pessimism. I’ll probably check out the book for more complete arguments, and also because of my whole interest in how people respond to death.

Meanwhile, and ever so faintly on point, my buddy Jill just linked me to an amazing mashup called “Stayin’ Alive in The Wall,” which yes, is the Bee Gees mashed up with Pink Floyd.

I can’t really top that, so I’ll leave you there.

It is really early in the morning on trash day

I cannot believe it’s already Friday, although that’s to the good, because I have a bucket of random things to tell you. Other than that part where our house (still) smells like burnt cookies because of a microwave incident with a desert item from a local restaurant.

First, to get my own crap out of the way — yes, there with be a non-Kindle ebook edition of Bitten by Moonlight via B&N/Nook, and I should have a link for you within a couple of weeks.

Next, New York, in a lot of ways, sucks. It’s expensive; it involves huge amounts of contact with other human beings when you’re not in the mood; the subway gets filled with water in the most disgusting and mysterious of ways. Even as someone born as raised here who loves this place, sometimes it still makes me furious. But, that said, we put up with all the utter crap that can be living here because that’s just the toll for awesome.

So seeing a fabulous gig in a tiny space for free with a bunch of my random friends at six in the afternoon in the middle of a spectacular electrical storm? That’s why I’m willing to pay what I pay for rent. Anyway, it was most awesome, and I’m sort of keeping it close, but I’m dying for Charlene Kaye to record her new song about aliens. It was one of those moments that are why you go to see live music, where everyone in the room is transfixed and transported together. Weirdly, it also reminded me of something about binary stars someone wrote about a bazillion years ago at a Guitar Craft workshop I was at. Also, there was a hilarious moment involving a Justin Bieber song; I feel morally obligated to tell you that.

Meanwhile, I haven’t promoted a crowd-funded project in a while, but I’ve got one for you today. It’s for UK-based (I believe you can donate from anywhere; I just have to figure out the site so I can throw in my own contribution), queer, feminist opera company Better Strangers Opera. Yes, you read that right. I’m far, far from any sort of expert on opera, but I do love it and it’s saved me with its beauty in some pretty dark moments. The Crowdfunder project will help stage “Ah! Forget My Fate: A Complete History of Women in Opera (Abridged!),” which the creators describe as “part chamber opera, part cabaret” saying “it offers a pithy and poignant overview of the duplicity, the daring and the many deaths of women throughout the operatic tradition.”

In other news, after many logistical snafus, it seems like Patty and I are on for the Diner en Blanc experience, which is NEXT WEEK. Which means we need to hurry ourselves up with getting supplies. So glad we live near Ikea. And anyway, it’s another excuse to buy the Swedish pegboard furniture version of gluten-free raspberry cheesecake.

Finally, I am still behind (one episode and soon to be two) on Torchwood and writing about it for you. Now that “Sanquali” and promotion there of is out the door, I’ve got a lot of other things that need my attention: edits on a book chapter, collaborative projects ahoy, a trio of journal articles (so not even kidding, and you wouldn’t believe the timeline) and whatever is next all by my lonesome.

But, all is not all work and and no play! If you’re at the Dances of Vice “Under the Sea” prom thing this weekend (OMG, what am I going to wear? Well, my tux, if it is neither pouring rain nor above 80), do say hi. And if you have any restaurants recs for when we’re in San Francisco at the end of the month, let us know (although poor Patty, I think I’m making us go to In-and-Out Burger the second we get off the plane).

Moving is its own time zone

I’ve been absent of late. Not just from this blog, but from my life. The thing about moving is that there is only moving.

The good news is that we have a date, a plan, keys to the new place and a fabulous couch on the way. We’ve also just come back from the beach (which is its own post because of the town we usually go to and its part in America’s wacky religious history). But it’s crunch time now, and I doubt you’ll hear much of anything from me, deep or casual, beyond a bit of Twittering until the move is done.

But, I can still tell you a few random things, including that a guy I’ve known in passing forever (seriously, he’s like a random spoke in every social circle I’m in, it seems), is doing Kickstarter fundraising for his board game, Oh My God! There’s an Axe in My Head!.

I also just want to jump up and down briefly not just about the fact that I’m going to see Darren Criss in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, but that one of my dearest friends is coming to NYC for the first time to go with me. Apparently we’re going to be going to piano bars and Ghostbusters locations. Nerdiest weekend, EVAR. Although, I can’t help being put in mind of the fact that about a billion years ago this happened.

Meanwhile, in an effort to foster discussion (no, really), I need advice on what color claw caps to get the cats to protect the new sofa. Weigh in! Or something.

Finally, as an aside, I post a lot about my personal and my working life here and the giant grey area in between. What I do post here isn’t, however, comprehensive. It can’t be, and it shouldn’t be. I have lots of balls in the air all the time with both short- and long-term projects and possibilities. And just because I totally talk about some stuff before it’s ready for public consumption doesn’t mean I’m obligated to talk about anything before that moment happens or that I actually have any consistent habit or policy around that sort of stuff, because I totally don’t. The more the Internet gives us the illusion that we can see the whole of anyone’s life, the more it actually becomes impossible for that to be the case. It’s sort of a neat trick, but one I suppose we’re all still learning how to navigate.

Anyway, I promise, thinky thoughts will be back next week. This will finally include some writing about the latest season of Torchwood and possibly something on the ever wavering semi-structure that is Glee‘s fourth wall.

Weekend wrap-up: logistics, logistics, logistics and Paul McCartney

Patty’s parents are in town so Trash Day around here sort of got trashed. On the other hand, we did get approved for our shiny new apartment (we’re signing the lease tomorrow and now we just have to figure out if we’re going to be able to paint and what day we’re moving), and they took us to see Paul McCartney last night.

McCartney, I suppose, isn’t really my speed (although considering the stuff currently in rotation on my iPod, that seems inaccurate). But Patty’s parents are as fannish about all things The Beatles as I am about my own obsessions, so there were were, and it was a pretty mind-blowing show in terms of technical skill, audience engagement and sheer length. And, of course, I knew a ton of the songs, and the audience was just so so so present; Billy Joel made a surprise appearance at one point, and I certainly teared up more than once (the entire audience singing “Blackbird” in the appropriate context; a lengthy mention of John Lennon; the overwhelming sense that this might be one of the last chances to see McCartney like this).

Unfortunately, we also discovered that you can’t bring laptops into Yankee Stadium because they “might interfere with the internal communications systems.” Whatever. Yankee Stadium is not an airplane, and that’s all crap too. But we had to (and thankfully we could) check our bags at a parking garage a couple of blocks up that does just that for people like us. So now we know, and so do you.

I don’t really have a lot of links this week. Life here at home has been so busy with logistics, I feel like Patty and I haven’t even really had time for ourselves. It’s how are we going to do what when, and if you’ve never done the apartment search in NY, I can’t really describe the level of stress involved. But considering a couple of hours we got to spend in Brooklyn yesterday with an old (and complicated) friend of mine, I’d be remiss if I didn’t link to an article on the impending destruction of the building holding Mars Bar.

The building, and the one next to it, is part of an older, uglier, more brutal New York. And Mars Bar a the site of not just a lot of the stupidity of my 20s, but also what passed for my family in my twenties. Year after year, it seemed, I wound up there in the winter with a group of people I’d met in an online community, until someone would invite the whole crowd to their house to continue the party, and we’d walk outside and it would start to snow. That snow, then, always felt like my good luck charm.

Sure, we went other times of year; I think it was summer the time we actually got kicked out of the place. But if I’m telling the story, it will always be winter, my friend Tom slinging an abandoned Christmas tree over his shoulder as we walked through the snow for no good reason.

So on that note, I have some work to do before catching up with Patty and family again this evening and before we throw ourselves back into the logistics again tomorrow.

Oh yeah, and for those playing along at home, there’s still plywood on our window.

screw trash day, let’s talk about marriage equality

It’s been a long week of hard work and hard play, and I’m paying for it today.

That said, Glee Live was super fun last night, with the added bonus that they were filming for the 3-D movie, so we got some extra treats, like Jane Lynch and Gwenyth Paltrow. I was also pretty much in the perfect seats by the small stage. So, life was sweet, and while it was entirely less emotional than the somewhat surprising even that was the Darren Criss show, it was pretty lovely. Also, hilariously, it was Marci’s first concert ever. I can’t get over how weird that is.

In other news, I have news I can’t news at you yet. But some nice contract issues got resolved this week for things I have coming out in 2012. Announcements soon.

Additionally, we seem to have a pregnant squirrel nesting at least-part time in an empty flowerpot on our windowsill. This has caused much excitement on Twitter, so if you want to follow along I’m @racheline_m over there.

Mostly though, I’m preoccupied with the looming marriage equality vote that may or may not happen in New York State. Briefly, our Assembly has passed a marriage equality bill every year for years, and every year the Senate manages to either block its passage or its even coming to the floor. Last year, I watched the vote live, thinking I’d get some sort of West Wing miracle of human decency, and even while I wasn’t expecting it to pass, I cried when it didn’t.

This year, there are two days left in the legislative session — today and Monday. We are within one vote, with several swing votes in play, of it passing. The general consensus is that it will pass, if the Senate lets it go to a vote, which they seem disinclined to do. 58% of New Yorkers support marriage equality. The bill has carve-outs (which aren’t even legally necessary) to “protect” religious institutions from having to marry people they don’t want to marry.

I’ll be frank, marriage equality is a ridiculously fraught issue for me. Marriage is a fraught issue for me — I have a lot of feelings, often conflicting, about it around gender, generational expectations, queer culture, and desire. But it’s utterly central to my being deemed fully human by the state. It is to me not a referendum on my relationship, but on my humanity and safety. And it’s been all I can think about for the last week (seriously, half my tweets from the shows I was at this week were about marriage equality).

It is so heartbreaking to wait. It is so heartbreaking to be told that human rights or desire or activism or love are simply not enough for people to be able to stomach my full inclusion in society. It is so heartbreaking to hold my breath while people have a nice little vote that feels too much like an exercise in junior high bullying on whether or not I get to be one of their kind today.

That we are on this cusp of change is a place I never expected to see in my lifetime. But now that we’re here, I am impatient; I am scared; and I am unable to fathom how people can say “this is a hard issue” when we’re just people with messy apartments and funny pets and boring jobs and so much goddamn resilience asking to be heard, when the ask should never, ever, not once have been necessary.

For those that say patience, for those that say next year, for those that say we have endured so long we can endure a little more or wait for demographic change to save us, I say this: every day we don’t have marriage equality is another day that someone doesn’t make it to the finish line with us. There are already so many people who should have gotten to see a day that isn’t here yet and didn’t get to because of ignorance and fear and disease and hatred. We can’t wait. It’s so cruel to make us wait.

If you live in New York State, please, call the undecided senators immediately. Please also call your senators to either thank them for their support or to tell them where you stand.

I know not everyone can call for all sorts of perfectly legitimate reasons. But “I don’t feel like it,” “I really unprefer the phone” and “I’m not an activist” aren’t really good enough today.

Darren Criss at Irving Plaza

To be fair, I avoid live music in NYC nearly as much as I can. We have a lot of venues here with bad acoustics and terrible sight lines, and shows here are expensive and difficult. I lived in DC in the early ’90s where I went out every night and saw everyone AMAZING in tiny clubs for like $10, and I’ve been ruined for most shows ever since.

So when I dropped a bit of change to go to the Darren Criss gig at Irving Plaza, I was very clear with myself: this wasn’t about seeing a gig; this was about being fannish, and it would be a silly, wacky lark, the end.

Um, no.

It was seriously one of the most ridiculously amazing live shows I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen everyone.

Criss’s show could have been negligible in any number of ways. And, at the top of that list, at least if you push aside the inherent oddity of being in a crowd that’s 98% female and 90% under 22, was that it could have been very trite and fluffy. He’s a joyous performer known for singing pop hits on Glee and writing ridiculous musicals. Sure, it’s fun, but the “there’s no there, there” argument isn’t really that hard to make.

Except there was real ballast to this, even as he was able to have all sorts of people join him on stage (from Starkids to Warblers) that certainly hit all the fandom buttons. Maybe it’s got something to do with the way we see so much more of the fame process in the age of Twitter and Tumblr, but there was just a touch of sorrow to his acoustic version of “Teenage Dream” and the whole crowd I was with sort of all looked at each other with a wordless sort of ache during key lines in “Part of this World.”

But perhaps most remarkable (I mean, other than my hearing may never recover from the screams that greeted certain on stage guests — oh my god, Naya Rivera), was how an audience that was the epitome of kids screaming “I love you,” somehow morphed into a whole lot of people loving themselves and the moment more than some untouchable idol.

We hung out in the balcony (because we are clever and wise), sang along with all the songs, watched scads of people in the crowd below blow bubbles (yes, really, it was that much of a hearts in my eyes love-in), and kept checking Twitter for updates on the equal marriage legislation currently on the move in New York State. It was, sort of by accident, a whole bunch of things that matter to me, all happening in the same room at the same time; and it’s always that sort of serendipity I go for more than anything.

It was also one hell of a nostalgia trip — for being 16; for sinking into Harry Potter fandom in my 20s; for having silly day dreams about boys when I was twelve.

Finally, it was also a lesson in ambition and graciousness (of the sort I probably need early and often). I’m not always kind, and I don’t always want things for the right reasons; of course, none of us always are, none of us always do. But if there was ever a demonstration of the links between generosity and success and love shared being love multiplied, this was it.

Utterly freaky, gorgeous experience. If you are even slightly maybe a fan, if you get to see Criss play a gig, it’s a don’t miss. Just, bring ear plugs; my hearing may never be the same.

overheated trash day

Sorry I missed trash day last week folks. Housekeeping has never been my strong suit.

Around here life is quiet, but busy. I’ve just worked two 14+ hour days in a row, and Patty’s been recovering from an awful cold/flu thing. It’s also about a bazillion degrees in New York so we’ve been sticking charmingly close to home.

That said, we’ve been enjoying ice cream from Jeni’s. It’s an Ohio thing, but us New Yorkers can find it at Dean & Deluca. The price will appall you, but trust me, worth every penny. Honey pistachio? Brown butter almond brittle? Goat cheese and fig? Yes, please.

The week ahead promises to be sillier than I’m necessarily comfortable admitting. Friends are in from out of town; Marci and I are going to Glee Live, and just to own the concept of a week without any dignity at all, somehow I’m going to both the Darren Criss concert and the Charlene Kaye gig the night before (look, she does a jazz version of “Mad Tom of Bedlam,” so no matter what you think of the rest of this paragraph, you sort of have to admit that’s made of win).

Sometimes I think I’m in fandom because I was so bad at being twelve when I was twelve; I’m much better at it now. And speaking of the fannish experience, Patty’s got me watching Yami no Matseui which is so fandom’s id I don’t know what to do with it. It’s an education, and I’m enjoying it more than I would have expected.

All of that aside, I’m still doing stuff and some of it I’ll even talk about here!

First up, I just recorded a podcast as part of an amazing panel of women for Broad Universe that was super fun on LGBT themes and writing. I’ll link to it when it’s up.

Also from the department of the sound of my own voice: if you want to hear me talk about gender identity, bullying and be sort of loopy before getting on a plane to Los Angeles, the recording of the Livestream I did with the Harry Potter Alliance is up. There are things on there I wish I’d done better or said more clearly or judiciously (this is always true), but overall, I think it’s decent and hopefully useful to someone. It was a valuable learning experience for me and really fun.

Meanwhile, someone quoted a bit from my essay in Whedonistas as the lead-in to a discussion/poll about the “Xander gives Buffy advice about Riley” scene. I find that scene appalling. But other people don’t. I’ve already said my bit in the essay and am not engaged in the convo, but you can chat about it on LiveJournal.

Nearly finally, I have a story coming out in an anthology edited by Joselle Vanderhooft. The anthology is called Bitten by Moonlight, the story is called “Sanquali,” and it involves lesbian werewolves (as the whole antho does) and an alternate mannerpunk Rome. It’ll be out from Zumaya Books super soon, and when I have a link, I will update/share.

And last but not least, while I’ve already blogged this on LJ, my awesome nerd buddy of awesome, Christian, needs some help taking his top off (totally safe for work; he’s a transman working hard to afford some expensive surgery; and you can help by buying his stuff).

Have a great weekend, and remember kids, no matter how fannish you are about someone, unless they’re trying to crowd surf, don’t pull them off the stage.

i learned to speak in dance

Dance was pretty much not just the first thing I was really good at, but really the first thing I was good at, at all. But while my peers went to ballet school and dreamed of pointe shoes and being in The Nutcracker, I wound up at The Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance as soon as I was old enough for them to let me in.

I don’t recall whose idea this was — mine or my parents’ — but looking back on it, it seems about, among other things, how much I wasn’t made for the world of ballet. I was not P&G, I did not have long hair, I was terribly fragile but not at all delicate.

Martha Graham’s dance probably taught me more about being a woman than anything else I have ever done. It taught me more than Hewitt, where I mostly felt inadequate at performing my gender; and more than my parents, who were shocked and confused when I took it upon myself to shave my legs because that’s what all the other girls were doing.

But the things Graham dance taught me were weird. Weird for an eleven-year-old anyway. Because they were about sex and death and ritual and a life spent on the ground. Sometimes, when I think about how I’m too serious, or don’t get teasing, or do all this scholarship about sex and gender and mourning and death, or felt so proud of the way I endured the relationship disasters of my 20s, I think, this is all Graham’s fault for teaching me that a girl’s fate is grief and vengefulness.

I don’t mind, really, but it’s a funny legacy to carry around in my body. It’s something I’ve lived with longer than almost anything else about me, after all.

Graham is the subject of today’s Google Doodle. She would have been 117 today. She died when I was 18, at college and unable to pursue dance because of health problems and needing to have the financial support of my family to attend school. I remember coming home to go to the celebration of her life and her work at City Center. I remember thinking I should have been up there. I remember thinking I would never be able to iron my hair straight enough to be a “little Martha,” and so maybe nothing was so different from ballet in the end after all.

But I speak the way I speak as much because of her as because of all the speech therapy I had growing up. And it’s such a funny, funny thing to see the way I move, and the way I hurt, dancing, spritely, in my web browser.

Other lives. We are always in some way leaving them.

How can April be almost over? trash day

It’s Friday, but you can barely tell around my house. Patty and I are both deep in about 27 different kind of work in that too much to do and not enough time sort of way. Does this mean I skipped watching the royal wedding as it happened for the greatest hits version at a respectable hour? You bet.

That said, I am aiming to finish all my revisions on the Dogboy & Justine script today and get that over to Erica who will then perform magic I don’t even actually know how to describe (because it’s not just that she writes the songs, it’s that she goes STRUCTURE! and has an ear for playfulness in language that I don’t and makes it all better).

Meanwhile, at the end of next week I’m in Boston for work; Patty’s coming along and we’re going to stay the weekend. Still sorting out hotel nonsense, as Boston’s kind of evil that way. On the other hand, yesterday, I scored a JetBlue fare not for this trip, but a later Boston trip for $9. Yes, you read that right. $9. Which came to a bit more than twice that with taxes. I’m as boggled as you are. Part of me will miss my Amtrak experience for that trip, but I’ve come to discover that while I don’t really like commercial air travel, I do really like my airport time; it makes me feel like the world is happening.

Yesterday, I wound up having to call some company to update my alumni information for some directory they are putting out that costs $100 and that I’m not going to buy. In the course of the discussion, the man on the phone mentioned he has one daughter in J-school in NYC and one in Syracuse and I wound up giving him some advice for them. It was a nice conversation, but a strange one. It reminded me how complex life is: I worried he’d become icy when I mentioned my partner, because he said he was from Texas; but that was fine. Yet, in the end, I was mostly aware of how afraid I am of my own gullibleness as I found myself wondering if the daughters even existed or if he made them up to build rapport so I would buy the damn directory.

From around the Internet, I’m going to refrain from linking you to video of Fox news explaining why Glee is gay propaganda, which means I also have to refrain from ranting about that sort of nonsense. It’s always a catch-22. Do I passive-aggressively say yeah, being gay is AWESOME, people threaten to kill you for who you’re attracted to and deny you your civil rights? Do I reassure people we aren’t recruiting? Or do I actually do the whole being gay is actually awesome, you should try it thing and think about how ludicrous it all sounds? This is me, too tired to be outraged or clever. Hey, has anyone blamed the recent horrific tornado action on homosexuality yet? If not, someone should get on that so we can get it over with.

Meanwhile, to follow up on something I mentioned a while ago, Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who was sexually assaulted in Egypt, is speaking out about her experiences and what female journalists face around the world. She is such a hero for going public with this, and it’s the existence of people like her that make me feel so strongly that we should use the word hero sparingly. It’s for the big stuff like this.

Finally, I’ve not seen the new Doctor Who yet. I’m aiming for the end of the weekend.