ain't no holla back girl part duex

July 1st & 2nd

7 PM at The Pioneer Theater
55 East 3rd Street (between Avenues A and B)

For tickets, go to
http://pioneertheater.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=31271
http://pioneertheater.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=31272

The Film

1.3 million women get abortions each year in the U.S. alone. For most it is a secret. The debate itself is loud and paralyzing while the voices of the women who get abortions are submerged. "Speak Out: I Had an Abortion," directed by Gillian Aldrich and co-produced by Aldrich and Jennifer Baumgardner, documents the stories of 11 women ranging in age from 21 to 85.

Why speak out about our abortions? Every major advance in reproductive freedom was preceded by women telling the truth about their lives. Around the turn of the century, Margaret Sanger shed light on the women who were dying early and miserable deaths due to a lack of birth control and near-constant childbearing, ushering in birth control. In the late 1960s, women began speaking out about their illegal abortions, accelerating the movement for abortion rights.

Women telling their stories now—when abortion is legal but still so stigmatized that it’s never discussed in polite company—could launch a new arm of the abortion rights struggle, whereby women personalize what has become a vicious and abstract debate.

the daily hate

Go to hell Norman Mailer.

i AM learning to love you more

I first saw Miranda July speak in London in the winter of 2001. She was doing an artist in residence project at Lux. and showing her film "Getting Stronger Everyday."

The film made me feel emotional in that vague and indescribable way that sometimes comes over the top of your chest. There was no narrative (that I can recall) -- the result being that you are forced to reckon with the actuality of a character on screen with whom you have a limited experience of, little knowledge about, and even a less clear sense of when your encounter with them might end. That replicated a range of emotions, for me, that narrative film can't illicit.

Examples: On the subway, I see a person for maybe ten or eleven minutes of their lives. Yet that interaction -- watching a man struggle to get his paper under control or a child prostrate for her father's attention -- can leave me emotionally shell-shocked for the entire day. I find myself wanting to touch people (on the hand, top of the head, my head on their shoulders) more often then I have chance to admit.

Miranda July came up afterward, lugging an enormous bag of stuff. She had the casual approach that I associated with an indie ethic (I knew her, at that point, mostly from her riot grrrl-ish connections and her video chain letters (see Joanie4Jackie). My friend E. submitted a stunning video in 2001 that consisted solely of choppily edited clips of her talking about being gay, young, and in Oklahoma. Anyway, at the Lux showing, she came up and gave this casual breakdown of her creative process, her stay as an artist in residence, and her thoughts on that day and London with a sort of breezy self-conscious surety that I hoped to be able to mime at some point in my own life.

July also runs learning to love you more. I want to get a temporary tattoo of one of Morgan Rozacky's neighbors. I have also recreated a scene of someone else's snapshot, although something between shyness and laziness prevents me from submitting it.

All this is to say that I'm sure you've heard some of the hype coming from Cannes and Sundance. Or maybe you're not, since this is a good indie film made by a woman who is not a famous directors daughter and that doesn't star any hunk-of-identifiable-celebrity-love. Still, I want you to see You and Me and Everyone We Know I'll do an extended review later. For know, I'll say that there is child sexuality, a scene of two girls running that is so complex and familiar that it panged, and a strange eerie humor that I find delectable.

i heart the cliche

things i do not take enough note of:

the ritual of the train.
corner bodegas.
night life.
the grandiosity.
cheap non-chain food.
the clarifying power of small spaces in relation to belongings, symbolism, commercialism, and self-definition.
the sheer number of people i interact with.
parking and driving could be so much worse.
street steam.
newspaper stands.
fresh challah.
the confidence.
the solidarity of the city.
access.
the gays.
the sense of a connection to the greater world (generally, artistically, culturally, intellectually).

things of interest for u.s.

the patriot act is up for renewal. so is VAWA.

yet all the fire from 2004 seems to have been thoroughly squelched. i think i hear crickets when it comes to organizing for actual values legislation. why are dems talking about reframing the values debate, but when given the opportunity (civil liberties, safe families, protecting battered women and children) they are quiet.

I know its fun to march in the streets wearing a "my bush would make a better president" t-shirt. But everyday politics have to become important to young progressives. I promise, this asshole




gets juicy just thinking about the privatization of national forests. We have to be equally energized by boring legislative process.