Monday, November 28, 2011

One of many Rants

It seems appropriate that I find myself blogging more now that I am actually reading more blogs and discovering their potential.

I'm torn though, because I want to be an educated, vocal, revolutionary, feminist, blogger, and enter the conversations around the world...

But I also want to be a good Homemade blogger, and talk about how the spontaneous party in my room last Saturday ended with us all wrestling, leaving blood on the wall, and rug burn on my face.

I am loving my LIFE, I just can't write papers...

It was this very week last year that started my "downfall" (Depending on how you look at it). December 2, 2010: COLLEGE ROCKS. December 4, 2010: Woke up cuddled between Mary and Paul. Went to class. Slept till noon. Did nothing else.

Then I hit puberty.

Feminism and Women's Studies is great and terrible for this problem... because it addresses this problem exactly! The problem being, how do we live HUMAN lives in a HUMAN world that also expects us to behave like machines.

Grrrrr Industrial Revolution.

How do I be female bodied, and queerly cis-sexual, in a world where gender and sex screws with everything... significantly my trains of thought, where post-modern sexual expression, gender roles, career paths, and life choices are all mashed into one "Complicated" glob of personal/political discourse, that no one really understands?

Hey, y'all should follow my Tumblr: princelilykrakensnake.
It's fun.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Late November

I've been trying to stand by Jacqui Devries', "You don't have to be working on your paper, as long as you are sitting in front of it" method, to no avail. I feel like back in her days... you know, of oil lamps and type writers (JUST KIDDING, JACQUI!)... she didn't have to deal with the challenges of Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook. So, I can still sit in front of my paper, but it does no good since by the time I am bored with everything else, I am also bored with my computer screen.

I set myself a reasonable goal of SIX pages today. Three for Women's Studies, three for Globalization. If I follow the same pattern tomorrow, with revision on Monday, I will actually have something to show as a rough draft by Tuesday. Of course, that means starting.

Step one: Open Microsoft word.

All right. That much closer.

I got back from Ogilvie last night, changed into my magical black power suit (might warrant a whole post entitled, "Deploying sexuality, employing sexism") and then went to my FIRST non-Augsburg, Non-Renaissance, Non-Taps gig of my musical career.

I played fourth part in the band, "Swing Beat" at the Wabasha Street Caves. Zomgzzzz.

I was the youngest member of the band, but in the old range of the audience. I didn't mess up that much, but I also didn't rock. I want to be Trumpet Andy, moustache and all.

Ooh! And after the first set, the band leader came around with little red tickets that said, "Liquor" on them. With mine, I went to the bar, handed over my ticket and said, "Summit Epa!" and received, for my very own, a delicious, plastic cup of beer, without even a check of my id, 'cause I'm with the band.

I lamented the plastic cup part a bit... something about drinking beer out of a plastic cup in the caves where John Dillinger once lurked kinda killed the mood.

I'm already more of a musician than many of my counterparts could dream, but I want to be a musician!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N70ghC4mxcY
Look, the Brass Messengers! Trumpet Andy talked to me about them, but I was too excited expressing not only my knowledge of their existence, but also my stalking escapades, to hear what his involvement with them was. I almost want to say that he's in this video, but I am pretty sure that's Trumpet Phil.

Andy said that Minneapolis is a great place to be a trumpet player.

((( I WANT TO PLAY TRUMPET!!!)))

No one has contacted me officially about Advent Vespers yet. That's this week. If no one does by Monday, I'm getting my ticket to the Brass Messengers Cd Release party at the Cedar Cultural Center on Saturday. Mom said that she talked to Twan, who knows the drummer (with a Finnish name) and he said that there will be poetry, and dance, and all kinds of festivities. Hell yeah.

I bailed on Duluth. I would have just been rolling in around now. I feel bad, but Jeanne was understanding. She has homework too.

Ok.

Action.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Call for Support

Friends, Comrades in the Struggle, Onlookers, Americans,

Hear me now.

As I sit in the secret "Brian Krohne" room, bracing myself for my first dive into the written leg of my paper(s), I seek encouragement.

Discouraged from the streets, I turn to the blogs. Remarkably clever writer for Al Jazeera, Danny Schechter reinforces my pessimism. "...for some, the novelty wears off," he writes. "Only the mass media keeps the democratic illusion alive, between commercials of course... But the US media prefers to dwell on the sensational rather than the analytical with more pandering coverage of GOP candidate Herman Cain's alleged sexual pecadilloes years ago than the deepening crisis that confront us today..."

*Sigh*

Yet, Don Hazen of AlterNet assures, "You can't fight hopes and dreams, or the need for jobs and a decent life, with pepper spray and police batons... We are a society that deserves and will in the end achieve something much better, more humane and more sane than we have now. ... So New Yorkers and protesters and their allies and friends across the country and globe: Take a deep breath. There is a long road ahead, but every day and every obstacle overcome leads to a better tomorrow. We just have to stay strong and refuse to take no for an answer."

Please, as I re-post this everywhere, I need as many of you as possible to reply with reasons why there still is a chance. That it is not about the sexists, and the power hungry, but rather unified voices and hope for a better world. What is your story?

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Cedar-Riverside Homework Tour

Today's Cedar-Riverside Homework Tour began at approximately 1:30pm with a backpack laden walk to the intersection of Cedar and Riverside, where I enthusiastically entered Keefer Court Bakery and Cafe and ordered a long awaited chicken and pea-pod combo plate with fried rice, and two cream cheese puffs, accompanied by hot, jasmine tinted tea.

I only had time to read two pages of Steven Gregory's, "Devil Behind the Mirror" before my glorious platter arrived.

I ate all of it. Every last bit.

As I left, I got a coconut custard bun to be eaten as a reward if my next destination proves successful.

(THIS NEIGHBORHOOD IS WONDERFUL).

From Keefer Court, I crossed the street to Hard Times, where the atmosphere of Led Zeppelin, organic cuisine and house plants put me in a romantic mood.

Instead of writing pining tomes to my lover however, I must make a bibliography... which for me is almost as steamy.

Coffee I can almost chew, a coconut bun, squeedly classic rock electric guitar solos... !

I love it here.

Onward.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Occupy Patriarchy! A Rant on the Perhaps Imagined Experience of Gender at Occupy Minneapolis

First, I will share a link to an awesome blog post by Kathy Miriam:

http://occupypatriarchy.org/2011/11/04/manifestoing-feminism-occupy-patriarchy/

I share it because I spent my early afternoon today at the occupation in down town Minneapolis, a 10 minute bike ride from Augsburg. The Wall Street protests have been occupying a significant amount of my time and energy lately, since I am writing my big, final women's studies paper on the movement through a feminist lens.

There are so many great things about it, and coming off of years of dreaming of being alive in the sixties to take part in those social changes, to be part of this is exhilarating. I've been browsing blogs and news articles, and reading books on post-modern feminism and justice movements and getting really, really excited.

And then I actually go to the protests (I've been a couple of times), and consistently leave feeling down trodden, hopeless, and peeved at being called cute by old men. The General Assemblies are disorganized and inefficiently run by the loudest voices of those who don't even believe in consensus. Cocky, twenty something, white boys with personal missions.

Ok. Just one cocky, twenty something, white boy in particular, that while he does a lot for the movement, and gets his name in all the papers, he still calls old ladies "F*cks" behind their backs and wins NO points in my book. So there's him.

Then there are the old men who seem to think that because I make eye contact with them, we're best friends. NOT that I don't like old men. I love old men! I can spend hours talking to them about history, politics and our current situation just fine. I get aggravated when they start calling me cute and dominating my conversations.

This rant should be going in a word document to be used in my paper...

Today, when I interviewed women, they listened to my questions, and answered accordingly. They did not linger, or call attention to my intelligence or glimmering eyes.

The men listen to one question and then talk at me for thirty minutes about how they feel about the money system, or where they were when the moon landing happened.

Why is it important that my eyes sparkle with intelligence, that I probably have a man in my life, or that I am cute enough to be mayor?*

Why can't I skirt the crowds and do my work without being gendered? SEXUALIZED!?

It's not fair, and in a movement that strives for fairness and an equality of voice, it's discouraging to see patriarchy dominate on the street level.

That's where my heart and mind is this evening, I'll keep you posted with hopefully more positive reports.


*Yes, this happens.