Hi, Kender!!

Dear Kender:

I have been meaning to e-mail you, but I want to thank you for your kind condolences following my mother's death. It means a great deal. Come to New York and let's all get a drink!

In the meantime, per your request, a topic for debate: "The American Civil Liberties Union: 'Awesome'? or 'Totally Awesome??'"

;)

Warmly,

Lillet

I Love Corvids

Check this out!

Temper

tem·per Audio pronunciation of "temper" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tmpr)
v. tem·pered, tem·per·ing, tem·pers
v. tr.

1. To modify by the addition of a moderating element; moderate: “temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom” (Robert H. Jackson). See Synonyms at moderate.
2. To bring to a desired consistency, texture, hardness, or other physical condition by or as if by blending, admixing, or kneading: temper clay; paints that had been tempered with oil.
3. To harden or strengthen (metal or glass) by application of heat or by heating and cooling.
4. To strengthen through experience or hardship; toughen: soldiers who had been tempered by combat.
5. To adjust finely; attune: a portfolio that is tempered to the investor's needs.
6. Music. To adjust (the pitch of an instrument) to a temperament.
v. intr.
To be or become tempered.
n.
1. A state of mind or emotions; disposition: an even temper.
2. Calmness of mind or emotions; composure: lose one's temper.
3.
1. A tendency to become easily angry or irritable: a quick temper.
2. An outburst of rage: a fit of temper.
4. A characteristic general quality; tone: heroes who exemplified the medieval temper; the politicized temper of the 1930s.
5.
1. The condition of being tempered.
2. The degree of hardness and elasticity of a metal, chiefly steel, achieved by tempering.
6. A modifying substance or agent added to something else.
7. Archaic. A middle course between extremes; a mean.

Re: Archaic number 7: There seems to be no middle course between extremes these days: I'm up and down and just plain mean! Being "tempered" by recent events, does that make me mid-temper? And therefore at present, by necessity, ill-tempered? Or just a fucking bitch?

An alchemical image comes to mind, where the wolf's paws are cut off and he is burned in the bottle before turning into gold. Something like that. But I find nothing poetic about picking a fight with one's poor husband and then accidentally shoving one's fist through the glass door in a rage. That's just pathetic.

These days I am many things I hate. I have felt abandoned by my mother my entire life: now that she is actually gone that feeling is back the way your hair smells foulest as the shower first hits it after a stupid night out. Is there anything original or special about this? Hell no. Is it anyone else's fault? No. Get it together, self: put one foot in front of the fucking other, and simply deal.

Jumped The Snark

Saturday I went to the Renegade Craft Fair in McCarren Park to meet up with Gotham Knitter and the ladies of Superette. A good time was had by all, and I was very impressed with Ann and Dabney’s wares! There was some mighty cute stuff at the fair: I got a super-cute shirt for our nephew Franco, [and wanted one for myself and Trey!] More than making me want to buy stuff, however, the fair made me want to just go home and make nice things.

One thing I did notice, however, was the majority of the people in attendance were clearly *not* the typical Williamsburg hipster: the crowd was more rockabilly West Coast than surly Royal Oak: brighter tattoos, brighter hair: the Phylum Ultra Lounge rather than Phlyum Post-Electro-Clash. A pronounced marked tribal difference, and it cracked me up, how “alternative” aesthetics, like all fashions, tend to self-select into a kind of conformity.

A vein of this same conformity undergirded the merchandise on display: countless T-shirts with silkscreened bird motifs: the pleather wrist cuff, the vintage hardback turned journal: the alternative “monster” peluche… I began thinking about this idea of “alternative” crafting: is it really “subversive” to knit something with a skull-and-crossbones motif? Is a spike of yearning in the collective unconscious manifesting in a thousand semi-decontructed silkscreened bird T-shirts? One can argue that all fashion trends are such manifestations: what does this one mean?

For a moment I thought of Marie-Antoinette, playing shepherdess in her faux farmhouse. But then I thought, is that really any different from me playing at gardening in our meager backyard, painting watercolors or knitting scarf after superfluous scarf? It’s fun to MAKE stuff. What’s won is done: joy’s soul lies in the doing, yes?

At drinks with Ann I joked about how the perfect craft fair product would be the alterna-monster doll wearing a deconstructed bird-motif shirt, and we had a good laugh about it. Sunday morning I woke up inspired by what I thought would be a hilarious joke. But halfway through my project, I was in love with my new friend, CRAFTY!

So thank you for the inspiration, Superette and Renegade Craft Fair! And for the reminder that as paper beats rock, love ALWAYS crushes snark.

Fearful Symmetry

More than usual, I have had animals on the brain. In particular, the tendency of people who employ "anthropomorphism" as a perjorative term when anyone speaks of animals as anything more than biological automata.

Humanity's desperate need to marginalize our non-human brethren is the same desperation that fuels humanity's need to confer absolute moral authority on Daddy God. Curious, isn't it, that the ID-types disparage natural selection because it supposedly reduces humans to biological automata [when nothing could be farther from the truth] clinging to a religion that makes them theological automata. Both stances seem to me a radical abdication of responsibility: of personhood. Saying "God gave me dominion" is as morally bankrupt as "it's just a stupid animal." Not to mention the elephant in the room: [ba dum-bump!]

The essential fact glossed over in the attack on anthropomorphism is that humans are animals. Our relations to animals is not a literary exercise in creating charming metaphors. As the philosopher Mary Midgley puts it: "The fact that some people are silly about animals cannot stop the topic from being a serious one. Animals are not just one of the things with which people amuse themselves, like chewing-gum and water-skis, they are the group to which people belong. We are not just rather like animals; we are animals." To act as if humans are a completely different order of beings from other animals ignores the fundamental reality. -- Jeffrey Masson

I was re-reading this passage on the train this morning, and then, lo! synchronicity: I offer you the featured story in today's Seed.

As a human woman, I don't feel one bit diminished in acknowledging the complexity, individuality and theory of mind of my fellow animals. If I did, I'd be no better than that girl who chooses only the company of girls she finds "non-threatening". Why go to a party where you are the only "smart person" in the room? What kind of "person" does that make you? Seriously, ask yourself.

I did.

Just A Hunch

I think the role of Al-Zarqawi in the Iraq quagmire has been exaggerated, that he may or may not be actually dead, and the Bush White House is going to use his reported death as a reason to a) show that we are "winning" or B) pull out under the excuse that "we got our man finally" or some other bullshit.

Just my pre-"press-conference" hunch. But it's 8:15 am and I am fucking exhausted.

I mean, look at this craven one-two punch of media bullshit: the anti-gay marriage hoopla and now you killed Al-Zarqawi? IN THE SAME WEEK. Right.

Marriage

I think it must be pretty obvious to readers of this blog that my marriage is of supreme importance to me, verging on the sacred. Every aspect of getting and being married has been a deeply defining moment, a particle-not-wave affirmation: from rushing to City Hall to get Trey on my insurance because I couldn't bear waking up at 2 am anymore to see the love of my life in agony: to all the stress and worry about creating something meaningful and joyful for our friends and family: to how knowing that I have a future with someone and a potential family of my own has radically altered my awareness of how dangerous and insane the world is becoming: to experiencing what "husband" meant in the aftermath of my mother's death, and how wow! we are related! [Think of how you have an aunt and uncle, and then think about how those two were strangers at one point, like, they dated and shit, and now they are part of this familial fabric. Crazy! Actually, the "family tree" trope doesn't make sense, unless each marriage is shown as a graft. 'Cause, that's like incest, yo! But I digress.]

The point is that I take marriage very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that when Trey and I were planning our wedding ceremony, I was frustrated because all the traditional vows we examined (and yes, we looked at the CHRISTIAN vows, too, as a model) had all these diappointing aspects. "'Till death do us part?" "As long as we both shall live?" That sounds like you are looking for an out, to me! So instead of: I Lillet, take you Trey, to be my husband, to live with you in marriage I said:

I, Lillet, take you, Trey, to be my husband
To live with you in marriage forever and ever

and concluded with:

And joyfully forsaking all others, be faithful only to you, for always.

NO mournful, foot dragging compromised forsaking! No "out!" FOR ALWAYS.

I take marriage seriously, which is why I find this "Defense of Marriage" amendment thing such a fucking travesty. What the hell are you defending it FROM? Does Julia Butterfly Hill need to climb up into the belfry of Saint Patrick's so a wrecking ball won't raze it, therefore allowing Tommy Mottola a shot at child bride number 4? That bunker buster test isn't slated to decimate all those drive-thru chapels, is it?

What "traditional marriage" are theese people defending? You mean, back when marriages were arranged for the consolidation of bloodlines or property? Or the good ol' days when the woman was the property of her husband? Do we need to re-introduce livestock as bride price? How about the nice thing that if the husband dies the wife becomes the concubine/property of the brother? [THAT'S why Kim Basinger wanted a divorce!]

America is all about cash and prizes, and, as Gotham Knitter told me in the limo we hijacked from her straight brother's FIRST wedding 12 years ago (to go to a girl party at Gay Pride): "WHERE'S MY CA$H AND PRIZES?" But beyond that, where is her shot at that affirmation? Where is her sanctioned "yes" to creating a life with someone?

As a happily, proudly married woman: guess what? I WOULD LIKE EVERYONE ELSE TO BE HAPPY, TOO. I don't need other married people around me to make me feel like I've done the right thing -- I just know how happy it has made me. If you want to say that kind of 'yes" with your love, than I say AWESOME!! I know how scary and great it is, and I will buy you a drink and bake you a cake! It doesn't diminish me in any way -- what kind of small minded, cold hearted, insecure maniac would I that make me?? The logic of these DOMA douches dictatees that I should petition to have George and Laura Bush's marriage annulled, Britney and K-Feds' too! Hetero marriages that appear shitty and obscene are legion. This is the same junior high mentality of:

OMG, that unpopular girl copied me and is wearing my knee-high pastel tube socks!! The ones I bought at Thom McCann TWO WEEKS AGO! THE NERVE! Let's beat her up!

Wow, what kind of CHRISTIANS are you venal, small-minded jerks?

Shortly before Trey proposed, he had come to see my band play. My friend Simon and his partner Kurt were there: it was one of their last nights out before they packed up and took off for Kansas for six months: they decided to quit their jobs and work on their paintings together in a quiet place. As Trey took me home in a taxi, I told him drunkenly that "I love you so much and I know we can be just like Simon and Kurt and I would move to Kansas with you so we could just be together and work on stuff and I want to be married to you just like that!"

And Reader, we were married. But they aren't. And that is fucking wrong, even though they are already married to the hundredth power.

So let's DO something about it already. Let's not let these dried-up, joyless fucks piss on the 14th Amendment anymore! Equal protection to drive off the cliff holding hands!

Come On, Feel The Noiseuse

Can't Go On/ I'll Go On.

Holy Shit, America Really Hates Us

I was so busy seething over that douche Chertoff that I didn't find out about the Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game until just now. This game, based on the wack-ass books by Tim LaHaye, allows players to assume the role of theocratic paramilitary soldiers, rampaging through the streets of Hadi-- oops, New York murdering New Yorkers and leaving the bodies piled up in the street, yelling -- I shit you not -- "Praise The Lord".

magine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice.

So THAT's why Murka is so pissed at Osama and the rest of those towelheads: they beat you to the punch!

Seething, Seceding

Courtesy of ABC News:

New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. (Click here for the actual document.) That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent--from $207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006.

The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation's most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.