Let's see...

• Haunted walking tour of Chapel Hill: lame, but a lovely stroll around the neighborhood
  
  
• ellybug's belated birthday party: pumpkin "picking" (they were left near the vines, anyway); baby goats; hay rides; corn maze; cotton picking; hay mountain (still not queen); devil's food cake with salty caramel icing (thanks, Shayna!).
  
  
• NC State Fair: swings; bumper cars; carousel; way too much food, fried or otherwise = awesome. Inflatable machine guns decorated with the American flag, not so much.
  
  
• Class on Wednesday: our Hebrew Bible prof/former Baptist preacher read "The Raven" to the kids. Fan-bleeding-tastic.
  
  
• Judg(e)ment House at Pittsboro Baptist Church: much larger and more elaborate than the other one I'd visited years ago. Brought home some of the responses I've been getting to teaching Hebrew Bible this semester. Teacher/actor: "Remember, it's in the bible. And that means its..." Children/actors: "TRUUUUUUUE!" Also, puppet ministry. Awesome.
  
  
• Punkincarven: the Restabbening at Casa de lukecampagnola. Again, Luke shames us all with his creativity.
  
  
• Nosferatu: screening in Hillsborough, with live orchestral (or at least piano/tuba/theremin) accompaniment. Got to hear badger do his thing. Theremin + German expressionism + older ladies selling fundraiser popcorn with fake puncture wounds on their necks = good times. Neat.
  
  
• Halloweening the new digs: candles everywhere; the obligatory pomegranate; a princess o'lantern (hint: I didn't carve it); Alfred, Lord Tennyson in my witch hat; a cauldron full of goodies and almost enough trick-or-treaters to get rid of 'em; more punkincarven; and back-to-back seasonal screenings of the Garfield Halloween special, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!," Type O Negative videos, and "The Nightmare Before Christmas;" and puff-pastry cheesy pumpkins. Oh, and we put on some costumes. (Photos on Facebook. I'll work on getting some over here.)
  
  
• Impromptu potluck at Casa de K: started with Afghani pumpkin yumminess and ended at apple crisp. Yes. Have some.
  
  
• Franklin Street: less mobbed than in previous years, but still wholly in the spirit of the season. Running tally of "that's not a costume, that's your underwear" stopped at 65. The costumes infinitehotel and I put together (hint: international anarchists from the future/mid-90s) were recognized by exactly one of the approximately 500 costumed folks we passed last evening. The fellow nerd in question was dressed as Mid-Life Crisis Harry Potter, complete with receding hair line and beer belly.
  
  
• Milltown: beers and more ironic, less slutty costumes. Followed by...
  
  
• Tripe taco at the roving taco cart. Only one of us ate this. Hint: it wasn't me.

Then we went home, washed our faces/heads for about half an hour, and collapsed. And that is how we do Samhain in the south. Happy new year, y'all.

Hello Lazyweb,

Sorry for the onslaught of posts today. I was studying; and then I was slacking; and now I'm supposed to be working again. So now I'm on the computer and blabbing at you. I'll stop eventually.

Quick question for the alt-clergy folks (ULC, etc) -- have you acted as out-of-state clergy in Massachusetts?

I'm trying to decide if I'm better off filing as an out-of-state clergy person or as a one-day officiant. I don't want to file the paperwork and have them tell me ULC doesn't count. The woman at the Clerk's office seemed to think it'd be fine; but I thought I'd check with y'all. Thoughts?

Really grading now,
M

I've been off McSweeney's for a while, but I kind of love this:

"Karate, now—that is fun. But it also requires a lot of discipline—more than I really possess, to be perfectly honest... If I were good, I wouldn't get hit in the head so much. My one real talent is my ability to absorb damage. I can take a punch, even though I'd rather not, and perhaps this is what makes me so bad at getting out of the way. Still, karate provides a structure that lets me fight without seriously hurting someone—or getting seriously hurt myself, or arrested. So far. And that has been fun."

also

"Target observations are just part of the background noise of my mind. The woman who puts her hand on my shoulder as she squeezes past me in a crowded conference room: how many of her fingers could I break? The guy standing a little too close behind me in the elevator: back fist to the face, or elbow strike to the solar plexus? It's nothing personal. It's just hard to turn off, that's all."

The column looks new, but I'm digging it. Bitchslap: a column about women and fighting. Once again reminding me that I've been here for three years without finding a dojo. Bad redhead.

infinitehotel, badger, a friend-o-league (which is what happens when you make friends with your work colleagues) and I caught Michael Chabon's reading at the Armory in Durham this evening. If I wanted to make out with his prose before, this evening's reading made me want to write his prose adolescent-awkward love letters that crib heavily from early Ani Difranco lyrics. (You know, while she was still both really earnest *and* not heart-breakingly disillusioned.) He spent the bulk of the evening first explaining the passionate longing behind growing-up-fanboy, and then the ridiculous joys of creating a family of fen. Here:

Perhaps there is no perfect word for the kind of people I have raised my children to be: a word that encompasses obsessive scholarship, passionate curiosity, curatorial tenderness, and an irrepressible desire to join in the game, to inhabit in some manner—through writing, drawing, dressing up, or endless conversational riffing and Talmudic debate—the world of the endlessly inviting, endlessly inhabitable work of popular art. The closest I have ever come for myself is amateur, in all the best senses of the word: a lover; a devotee; a person driven by passion and obsession to do it—to explore the imaginary world—oneself. And if we must accept the inevitable connotation of hopeless ineptitude that amateur carries, then at least let us stipulate that we shall be hopeless and inept...in the most passionate, heedless, and whole-hearted way.

From Manhood for Amateurs. Get it. Seriously. This essay alone (and maybe the glow of self-conscious delight on Chabon's face in having conjured such marvels as geek-spawned Who-heads) as made me rethink having kids in a way no mere biological clock or parental thumb-screwing ever could. And then, then, he talked about comics. Love, baby. Love.

So many problems with this, scholastically speaking. (Comps once again denudes my soul of poetry.) But I'm loving it against my will. From Xaviére Gauthier’s "Pourquoi
Sorcières?"

Why witches? Because witches sing. Can I hear this singing? It is the sound
of another voice. They tried to make us believe that women did not know
how to speak or write; that they were stutterers or mutes. That is because
they tried to make women speak straightforwardly, logically, geometri-
cally, in strict conformity. In reality, they croon lullabies, they howl, they
gasp, they babble, they shout, they sigh. They are silent and even their
silence can be heard.

By way of Naomi Goldenberg's "Witches and Words." Yum.

I oughtta be packing, so here's an unnumbered list of random things going on.

• Dreamwidth: Got an extra invite code lying about. You want?
  
  
• Artsyness: heliopsis: rocks the house. Lovely brunch (served by gay boys in PJs), cool light installation in SoWa (which is apparently a place now), delightful tromp about the Decordova sculpture garden (my first time!) under mostly sunny skies, and an opportunity to finally meet H (who is not hard on the eyes, in case you wondered).
  
  
• Furniture: I have some stuff I'd prefer to sell rather than pack. I'll gitcha pictures, but in the mean time, if you're in the market for a cute-if-lightweight table and chairs set, or an adorable but strangely space-consuming stepladder bookshelf, let me know.
  
  
• Geoffrey: Got to catch up with readingthedark yesterday. I heart him.
  
  
• Labyrinth Sing-a-Long: see also kiss_me_judas and his main squeeze. And, of course, the prominent bulge of one David Robert Hayward-Jones, displayed 'pon the screen in its full glory. Why, WHY does Sarah opt for a screaming baby over a goblin queendom? That never made sense to me.

I've seen half as many of you less than half as much as I'd like. I'm in town until Monday, and have designated Thursday (and possibly Wednesday, but definitely Thursday) as an outing day. If you're at all interested in joining me for

• the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum
  
• the glass flower collection at Harvard
  
• the Boston Public library
  
• Trident books on Newbury
  
• (this is optimistic, but) the arboretum in JP
  
• or just general trompings about the Common

drop me a line and I'll let you in on my schedule. Hope to see a few more of you before I scamper south again.

Spring being what it is (i.e. distractingly gorgeous and also choked with end-of-semester madness), I haven't had much time for non-scholarly reflection of late. For manifold reasons, this poem keeps popping into my head at inopportune moments. I'm happy; I'm healthy; I'm where I want to be. But there seems to be a lot of this going 'round:

WE stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
--They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing....

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

~ Thomas Hardy, "Neutral Tones"

What is it about melodrama I find so consoling?

I should, of course, be writing for school right now, but I wanted to stash this thought while it's still fresh. I am, against my better judgment, lurking on dot_pagan_snark. This is against my better judgment because, frankly, I'm judgmental enough on my own. I don't need my intellectual snobbery cyber-reinforced.

Today, there was a minor kerfuffle (nb. That word is in Firefox's dictionary. Interesting.) about Hela's standing in the Norse pantheon -- which is of interest to me, since I'm currently editing a paper on someone who's *very* invested in Hela's divinity. (These terms get weird outside a protestant context.) The powers-that-be were baffled that the snarked party in question was talking about Norse god/desses and didn't know Snorri was.

So, two thoughts.

1) Fair. I know about [this much] about Norse lore, and *I* frickin' know who Snorri is. Come the fuck on.

2) (and this is what I want to think more about) There's this tacit but violently policed Pagan Hierachy that happens both online and throughout Pagan communities. To some extent I understand it -- Pagans are, after all, voracious readers (cf. Berger, Cowan, etc.); and a DIY religion requires a fair amount of independent research. As an academic, I have very little patience for people who don't do their homework.

We could make the argument that quite a bit of Paganism (and Evangelical Christianity, but that's another book waiting to happen) credits personal experience as religiously authoritative. Not applicable here, for the most part, since Norse Pagans (Northern Trad. Shamanism being an exception here, of course) don't hold with the Unverified Personal Gnosis.

What I'm thinking, though, is that there's a level of classicism operative here that deserves picking at. (Cf. McCloud, sorta) If you're not particularly well educated--which I think it's fair to assume is largely a class issue--where would you go to find out about Norse Paganism? How about the big shiny friendly-looking book titled Norse Magic? Conway's crap, obviously. But how would you know that coming in?

I'm not saying that poor Pagans are stupid, or incapable of locating historically verifiable information. But I think, to some extent, we're judging people who haven't really been taught to research things on their research abilities. This seems sketchy.

The Burning Times piss me off. Matriarchal pre-history pisses me off. And it bugs me that often the most visible members of my (broadly interpreted) religious tradition can't spell. No pun intended. I'm all for people reading more and better books. But I'm wondering if shame is the best way to make that happen, particularly if the people we're shaming are already at an educational disadvantage.

Of course, if I publish something on this, then I'm a published Pagan academic writing on other published Pagan academics, which puts me at the absolute top of the chart up there. I win. So much for classist concerns.

File this under all the other things going on that should get proper entries and won't because school ate my brain, but

ellybug, lukecampagnola, and I (and badger and superbigrobot, as it turns out) saw Amanda Palmer this evening at the Carrboro Arts Center. This was awesome on several fronts:

• venue: small and intimate. Great acoustics.
  
  
• set list: completely random, but lovely. And she closed the show with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, so double swoon.
  
  but most importantly
  
  
• cuteness: Amanda Palmer fed ellybug chocolate cake after the show.

That's right. Amanda Palmer, chocolate cake, ellybug. Seriously, so cute you could die. ellybug brought the cake with her for Ms. Palmer, who kindly shared. (Also, she hugged me. Amanda, not ellybug. Well, not *only* ellybug.)

We left lukecampagnola camped out in the hallway, soaking up the geek love. And the recording came out surprisingly well -- much better than the BSO show. I'll break it down into separate song mp3s ASAP; so if there are fan-folk out there who want copies, I'm happy to share the love.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled thesis, already in progress.

Spent this morning at traffic safety school in the arguably rural south, which deserves its own entry. Maybe later. Right now, I'm rassling with Revision. I hates her. dreams_of_wings recently suggested that She is a "Stone Cold Bitch," one with "pointy pointy fingernails." I myself have begun to think of her as that bunny from Holy Grail. Sure, she seems innocuous. Mais non. When you're least expecting it--and, may I add, without a Holy Hand Grenade to, well, hand--she leaps up and

Yes. That. Next time, I'm just going to include the stupid argument in the paper instead of not getting to it until the conclusion, on account of professors don't generally read papers backwards. Or something.

ellybug gamely joined me for an impromptu jeans shopping expedition yesterday evening. This expedition was frustrating, because jeans shopping is always frustrating, AND because I just bought bloody jeans in January. But they are too big, despite the fact that they fit two bloody months ago. I blamed the stretch-factor, since they fit fine when they come out of the dryer but not two hours later. Sigh.

So we went to the store. And I explained to the nice sales lady that my pants were too big. And she looked at me, shook her head, and replied, "that's because you've lost weight." I do not know this woman from Chavvah. I stared.

"Have you been trying to lose weight?" she asked. I continued to stare at her. I think she thought I was a little slow. She's not entirely wrong.

"Um, not really. I've been going to the gym a couple times a week. I guess maybe I might have lost some weight. Not much, though."

The sales lady proceeded to pick up pants two sizes smaller than the ones I was wearing and force me to try them on. (This is another moment wherein we <3 ellybug, 'cuz she hates clothes shopping and yet stuck around for half an hour while I tried on clothes. She also said encouraging things about my butt the whole time. That's love.)

Um, I somehow lost two pants sizes since Solstice. I'm eating a bit better (though not this week), and exercising a bit more (though not last week), but nowhere near the level of physical activity I maintained over the summer. Nevertheless, there it is. My butt shrunk while I wasn't looking. Which makes this the smallest my butt has been in, like, years.

This is nice, I guess, though the lingeringly Catholic side of me thinks I should have had to work harder to get here. I'm less impressed with myself and more just, you know, kind of surprised. Still, I bought the smallest size in the big girl store. So that's something.

Also, I think "my skinny jeans are a size 14" should be a country song.

That is all.

(queenofhalves, consider this a public confession.)

So I'm writing a bunch of stuff right now, which is great in some ways and crap in others. I like writing most days, despite my whinging. But, as happens when I think too hard about anything, mundane details tend to fall out of my head.

CONTEXT: Remember the graphic novels and religion conference I participated in last year? It's (fingers crossed!) turning into a book. I'm supposed to submit my chapter by 15 April.

I emailed the editors yesterday to say that--what with all the other writing I'm doing right now--I'm not sure I can make the deadline. Would 1 June be okay?

They responded that they'd like to be done with the editing by then, so would 15 May be doable?

And that is when I realized that, in spite of (or perhaps because of) all the scheduling I've had to do in the past few weeks, I FORGOT ABOUT MAY.

You remember May, right? It comes BEFORE JUNE, and AFTER APRIL. Every year. Yeah.

So then I had to confess my utter retardation, and explain that yes, I could definitely have something in by 15 May. Probably earlier.

SMRT,
M

Thesis ate my brain. But--since I've been slacking by looking for new apartments--I shall briefly share this with you.

puzzling

Let us ignore, for the moment, that I read ALL CAPS posts as though they were being spoken aloud by Strongbad. I appreciate A HUGE OUTDOOR AREA TO PLANT A GARDEN as much as the next green witch. But why, I ask you, would an apartment listing tell me which vegetables (E.G., BROCOLLI, ETC..) to plant? I'm confused.

UPDATE: ellybug and I have decided that E.G. Broccoli is my new MC name. Also, OkCupid just tried to set me up with a ferret. True story.

Also also, Can we start a magazine for Better Homes and Whore Gardens? With, like, carrots and cucumbers and other slutty vegetables?

Three entries in one day is a bit extreme, particular since I've been out of things. But holy crap, Saul Williams is coming to UNC tomorrow. For free. And then for $10 -- US premier of Kessler's arrangement of Williams' "The Dead Emcee Scrolls."

free

$10

Hot like fire.

Submitted for your approval:

legaldrone just "messaged" me (terrible verb) to inquire as to why an attractive, formerly "popular," in high school parlance, female of our erstwhile acquaintance is visibly flirting via Facebook with a far less attractive, notably less formerly "popular" male erstwhile acquaintance. Her question boiled down to "why is $HOTGIRL flirting with $RECENTLYDIVORCEDSIGNIFICANTLYLESSATTRACTIVEMALE? It's disconcerting."

I think two things about this question.

1) legaldrone is right. That shit is wack. And that shit is funny. That shit is funny and wack.

and

2) Exchanges like the one she and I just had are the reason I loathe and crave facebook to begin with. As I said to her: "I am overwhelmed at the ridiculousness of both of us. We are, right this second, talking about the inappropriate flirtation of two people about whom we do not give a fuck and whom we haven't seen in over a decade. Facebook is simultaneously wondrous and absurd."

Or, as infinitehotel is wont to say: "The internet! Because high school wasn't stupid enough."

Mostly just stashing this quote; I'm using it for a proposal to the Pagan Studies group at the AAR on the role of SF/F in contemporary paganisms. From the now defunct "Why Wiccans Suck" site, may she rest:

Hecate was not a beautiful scantily-clad maiden dancing through the flowers with elves and faeries. She had three heads.

PS? My proposal definitely starts "once upon a time." (This is the *other* proposal I'm submitting to the AAR. The first one is nice and sensible and more likely to garner the approval of them able to hire me. This one's just for fun.)

Because lots of you don't live in Boston, and might not have heard about this. (Thanks, heliopsis, for the heads up.)

Cambridge Rindge and Latin has one of the oldest high school Gay-Straight Alliances in the country. Fred Phelps, of "God Hates Fags" protesting and internet fame, dislikes this. You remember Fred Phelps, right?

Yeah, that Fred Phelps. He'll be at the school on 13 March, expressing his displeasure.

Project 10 East, the GSA in question, and Driving Equality are hosting a Phelps-a-thon in response. They're taking pledges for every minute Phelps is on their sidewalk. The money goes to Project 10 East, to help make Cambridge Rindge and Latin a more welcoming place for queer students. And Fred Phelps gets a thank you card for the donation. Good deal.

Donate here, if you have the means. And if not, please pass the word along.

Remember, god is our best fag. Xe'd want you to pass along your pennies.

Meditations on a new writing instrument...

From Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker

If this typewriter can't do it, then fuck it, it can't be done.

This is the all-new Remington SL3, the machine that answers the question, "Which is harder, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov while listening to Stevie Wonder records or hunting for Easter eggs on a typewriter keyboard?" This is the cherry on top of the cowgirl. The burger served by the genius waitress. The Empress card.

I sense that the novel of my dreams is in the Remington SL3--although it writes much faster than I can spell. And no matter that my typing finger was pinched last week by a giant land crab. This baby speaks electric Shakespeare at the slightest provocation and will rap out a page and a half if you just look at it hard.

"What are you looking for in a typewriter?" the salesman asked.

"Something more than words, " I replied. "Crystals. I want to send my reader armloads of crystals, some of which are the colors of orchids and peonies, some of which pick up radio signals from a secret city that is half Paris and half Coney Island."

He recommended the Remington SL3.

My old typewriter was named Olivetti. I know an extraordinary juggler named Olivetti. No relation. There is, however, a similarity between juggling and composing on my typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like part of the act.

I have in my cupboard, under lock and key, the last bottle of Anais Nin (green label) to be smuggled out of Punta del Visionario before the revolution. Tonight, I'll pull the cork. I'll inject 10 cc. into a ripe lime, the way natives do. I'll suck. And begin--

If this typewriter can't do it, I'll swear it can't be done.

It's a Dell, not a Remington. And I have no intention of painting it red. But by Loki's twisted forelock, it sure feels good under my fingertips.

Quick thoughts on Babylon, AD, such as they are.

( I remain unconvinced that this film could be spoiled; however, for the sake of good form )

When even SF crypto-Catholic action can't get me interested in a film, something has gone seriously awry. The maps were the most interesting part of this movie. Sad, sad, sad. Fortunately, The Chronicles of Riddick is currently making up to me via extreme hotness. So that's all right, best beloveds. Do you see?

By way of told_tales. I've had narratives on the brain lately. Something about this hit me hard.

We owe it to each other to tell stories,
as people simply, not as father and daughter.
I tell it to you for the hundredth time:

"There was a little girl, called Goldilocks,
for her hair was long and golden,
and she was walking in the Wood and she saw — "

"— cows." You say it with certainty,
remembering the strayed heifers we saw in the woods
behind the house, last month.

"Well, yes, perhaps she saw cows,
but also she saw a house."
"— a great big house," you tell me.
"No, a little house, all painted, neat and tidy."

"A great big house."

You have the conviction of all two-year-olds.
I wish I had such certitude.

"Ah. Yes. A great big house.
And she went in . . ."

I remember, as I tell it, that the locks
Of Southey's heroine had silvered with age.
The Old Woman and the Three Bears . . .
Perhaps they had been golden once, when she was a child.
And now, we are already up to the porridge,

"And it was too— "
"— hot!"

"And it was too— "
— cold!"

And then it was, we chorus, "just right."

The porridge is eaten, the baby's chair is shattered,
Goldilocks goes upstairs, examines beds, and sleeps,
unwisely.

But then the bears return.

Remembering Southey still, I do the voices:
Father Bear's gruff boom scares you, and you delight in it.
When I was a small child and heard the tale,
if I was anyone I was Baby Bear,
my porridge eaten, and my chair destroyed,
my bed inhabited by some strange girl.

You giggle when I do the baby's wail,
"Someone's been eating my porridge, and they've eaten it —"
"All up," you say. A response it is,
Or an amen.

The bears go upstairs hesitantly,
their house now feels desecrated. They realize
what locks are for. They reach the bedroom.

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed."

And here I hesitate, echoes of old jokes,
soft-core cartoons, crude headlines, in my head.

One day your mouth will curl at that line.
A loss of interest, later, innocence.
Innocence; as if it were a commodity.

"And if I could," my father wrote to me,
huge as a bear himself, when I was younger,
"I would dower you with experience, without experience."
and I, in my turn, would pass that on to you.
But we make our own mistakes. We sleep
unwisely.

It is our right. It is our madness and our glory.

The repetition echoes down the years.
When your children grow; when your dark locks begin to silver,
When you are an old woman, alone with your three bears,
what will you see? What stories will you tell?

"And then Goldilicks jumped out of the window and she ran —
Together, now: "All the way home."
And then you say, "Again. Again. Again."

We owe it to each other to tell stories.

These days my sympathy's with Father Bear.
Before I leave my house I lock the door,
and check each bed and chair on my return.

Again.

Again.

Again.

~ Neil Gaiman, "Locks"