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Monthly Archives: March 2006
It’s rare to read anything that might acknowledge gender as performance in the mainstream press, so I really liked this quote from Felicity Huffman about preparing for her role in Transamerica:
“It made me think of my own femininity and my own lack of femininity, because I take it for granted. It became a lesson in learning femininity as if it were a foreign language. Everything was studied, unfamiliar, everything I had to practise. You become extraordinarily self-conscious.” (Guardian Weekend)
Oh, if only:
“Gay marriage could be legally recognised in Victoria by the end of the year, with an independent MP preparing to introduce legislation into State Parliament.” (Age)
“New by-laws championed by Tangerang’s ambitious mayor, Wahidin Halim, aim to run gamblers, drunks and prostitutes out of his satellite city on Jakarta’s outskirts. They are enforced by a small army of “public order officers” who cruise the streets able to arrest at whim.
The move has created a de facto curfew for women in Tangerang who, if they are caught alone at night, must prove they are not prostitutes.
As well as banning “physical intimacy” in places visible to the public, a by-law states that any woman “who behaves suspiciously” in streets, hotels, theatres, coffee shops
Is it tragic that I’m excited by this? I’m hoping it’ll also include good films as well as ‘hit movies’.
“Channel 4 has signed a multi-million dollar deal with 20th Century Fox to buy the rights to a raft of hit movies.”
BBC
These clips from the BBC’s Planet Earth are brilliant. I couldn’t help but laugh at the bird of paradise, jumping and clicking like a lunatic and I loved the moment it turns around to reveal blue, blue eyes, though it also kinda scared me.
Some quick book reviews…
Paul Theroux’s “The Happy Isles of Oceania”. While a nice break from grey London skies, Theroux has an irritating habit of following a fresh, perceptive comment with an vexatiously inane comment. Amazingly, this travel book didn’t make me want to pack my bags and visit the countries he has. It did, otoh, make me want to start canoeing or sea kayaking again.
I’ve also recently read Ann Bannon’s “Odd Girl Out”, and “I Am a Woman”, partly because I love pulp fiction and I guess partly because it puts modern lesbian life into perspective.
Ann Bannon’s website includes the introduction to “Odd Girl Out”, which includes the fabulous phrase, “She found herself climbing down a ladder of flesh into a cesspool of Lesbian depravity”. Not so fabulous if that was the only depiction of lesbians available to society, but I wouldn’t mind climbing down that ladder now.
Ah, Australia. My travelling correspondent reports the following conversation:
me: [My friend Mia] was complaining about the lack of types of tofu in london supermarkets
mum: there’s not much here either…
me: no?
mum: …I think there are only 4 types at coles. And it’s not local and fresh.
me: the tofu is imported?
mum: no, it’s from nsw or vic. In chinatown they make some types in the shop.
“In the original ad, two well-dressed women engage in a lengthy round of violent kung fu fighting in a basement before sharing a passionate kiss, followed by a head-butt.
…
The true inspiration for the ad, he says came during a day at the park during a recent trip to San Francisco where
“One of the biggest and most complete giant squids ever found is on display at London’s Natural History Museum.” BBC