| America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. |
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| Everything's coming up Gina, apparently... |
[09 Nov 2008|01:51pm] |
I got back to San Francisco to see two of my favorite writers read, back to back. San Francisco, I love you.
TODAY: Sarah Schulman!
Sarah Schulman reads from her novel "The Child":
Sunday, November 9
3pm
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia Street, San Francisco
TOMORROW: Alison Bechdel!
ALISON BECHDEL
Monday, November 10
7:30 pm
talk & booksigning
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For is the collection Alison
Bechdel fans have been waiting for! Gathering material from 11 earlier
books, as well as 60 new strips never before published in book form,
this new book from the author of the celebrated Fun Home chronicles
the lives, loves, and politics of Mo, Lois, Sydney, Sparrow, Ginger,
Stuart, Clarice, and others. Don't miss this special event - an author
talk and slideshow with the one-and-only Alison Bechdel.
Alison Bechdel is the author of numerous collections of commix,
including the national bestseller and National Book Critics Circle
Award Finalist Fun Home (named Time Magazine's #1 Book of the Year).
Since 1983 she has been chronicling the lives of various characters in
the fictionalized "Dykes to Watch Out For" strip, "one of the
preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre" (Ms.). The strip is syndicated
in 50 alternative newspapers, translated into multiple languages, and
collected into a book series with a quarter of a million copies in
print.
Carrie Evans of The Booksmith's staff
The Booksmith on Quills TV
Carrie Evans of The Booksmith staff was on NBC11's Quills TV to chat
about books. You can see the video and the books she chose to speak
about here.
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| my first real vacation-y vacation in a long long time |
[07 Nov 2008|01:42pm] |
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mood |
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laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaid back |
] |
I'm visiting Seattle and being sweetly swept off my feet by the pretty grey, the excellent coffee, the used bookstores full of hidden treasures and soft comfy couches, and the cute queers who seem to flirt with me everywhere I go. I think the only way this could be a better vacation is if people were giving out free candy, blowjobs, and hundred dollar bills on every corner. (Hey, Seattle, stop slacking and get on that!)
It's about liking the city, yes. But more than that, I think it's just that I'm getting in time to recharge. Every trip I've taken in the past three and a half years (other than two seperate weekend trips to Santa Cruz) has been a working trip, a Trip For A Reason. So even if I've gotten in dancing/art/hanging out/exploring/sweet sweet lovin', all of that has been packed in alongside workshops, teaching, and/or performance. My Portland trip, while lovely, was packed with work, and then I also squeezed in sweetheart time and seeing as many friends as possible. It was great, but since I've arrived in to Seattle, I haven't worked at all. I feel like such a slacker! Wednesday I explored Capitol Hill at a very leisurely pace, had dinner with my friends Elisabeth and Megan, and went back to their house to watch bad but hot queer sci-fi and eat ice cream. Yesterday I explored Fremont, spent two hours in a bookstore, and then brought my newly-purchased books to a cafe, where I proceeded to slowly sip a mocha and read. Then I had dinner with my friend Ivy and went dancing at a fetish club. Today I slept in, had lunch with a sweet boy I met at the Femme Conference in Chicago, and am, at the moment, enjoying sitting at a cafe, writing for myself -- not on deadline, not for someone else. There are several enticing things I could do with the rest of my day, including soaking at the $10 hot tubs and a dancing at the local dyke bar in the evening...
But holy shit, none of them are urgent! There are no looming deadlines, there is no hust-ly bust-ly feeling in my body! This is an amazing and luxurious thing, and something I could sure as hell get used to. Viva la vacation.
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| a mostly joyous & very big update from the road... |
[05 Nov 2008|01:44pm] |
* Last night, while friends of mine were watching the election returns, I was on a train from Portland to Seattle. It was, to say the least, bizarre to be on a train -- without cell service for half of the ride -- during the hours of 5pm-8pm on election night. I was calling and texting friends and family like crazy -- "What's up w/prez? Prop 8? Prop K?" Then, inevitably, my phone would cut off. Ten minutes, later I'd get ten texts all at once.
Ma was the one to call me about the presidential election: "Gina, Obama won!" We squealed and laughed with each other for a few minutes. Then my phone cut off. My service came back, I called Ma again, and we laughed some more. Then I realized everyone around me was dead silent and I felt conspicuous about being that loud bitch on her cell phone, so I said good-bye. But Ma called again five minutes later. "Hey Ma, is everything okay?" "Yes, yes, I just... Jesse Jackson is on TV and he's crying. This is amazing, Gina."
It is amazing. I'd been scared that the election would either get stolen like it did in 2000 and 2004, or that Obama would get elected but then be assassinated. Okay, maybe that's a titch hyperbolic, but shit -- just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you! I still can't really believe it. * I was on that train from Portland to Seattle because I've been travelling through the Pacific Northwest since Halloween night: teaching two all-day writing workshops & then doing a reading at Reed College in Portland; getting in some much-needed time with my brilliant, hot, & awesome long-distance sweetie; and, yesterday, heading up to Seattle to visit my old & dear friend from high school, Elisabeth (who you might remember from such excellent nerdgirl anthologies as She's Such a Geek).
It's been a fantastic, if slightly packed, trip. I'm very happy to be sitting at a cafe in Capitol Hill right now, with no plans other than lazily wandering around till Elisabeth gets home, at which point we will spend our evening... uh, probably in our pajamas, watching movies and playing with her cats. I know a lot of my writing is all about the backrooms of bars and sex parties and late-night adventures, but goddamit, people, teaching and writing all day and then reading/performing all night is exhausting. I loved being in Portland and teaching at Reed, loved the ways that people were excited and sweet and seemed really touched by my work and words -- but I'm absurdly excited about having a quiet night. It's taxing to be "on" 24/7, and as extroverted as I am, sometimes I need a re-charge.
* Some more about the election: I'm way bummed about Prop 8 winning in California, and about Prop K losing in San Francisco. I'm really impressed that K got 43% of the vote, though. I think that sets us up really well for getting a bill to decriminalize prostitution passed during the next San Francisco election. Also, I want to say here that I'm extremely proud of all of the amazing and hard work my friends and colleagues -- especially my friends Violet, Patrasha, and Sadie -- put into the campaign. You're stars and angels, darlings. This is by no means a defeat; this is the start of something great. Thank you for doing such an incredible job.
* Portland is a funny place. It was charming in some ways, but it felt very much like a town to me. I'm realizing that while towns are nice for me to visit, they're not places I could ever see myself living. Seattle, on the other hand, really feels like a city, and I like that a lot.
* My "You Can't Say That" workshop (about writing about secrets) could have been better -- it was the first time I ever taught it, and it was a learning experience for me as an instructor. I learned some really valuable things, esp. about what pushes my buttons as a teacher, and ways to challenge myself the listen to and critique writing that's hard for me to stomach (horror writing, for example), but that is still important for the student to share. Lots of food for thought.
* "Hot, Not Throbbing" (the sex writing workshop) was fun fun fun! One of the exercises I used was to have people write personal sexual Yes/No/Maybe lists, and then write erotic language Yes/No/Maybe lists -- which we then proceeded to write up on the dry erase boards at Reed. It was a real testament to how everyone's taste is different -- some people hate the phrase "making love," for example, and some people like using it in some contexts, so that went up on the "No" and the "Maybe" lists. It was kind of amazing to see a big board in this very collegiate atmosphere full of things like:
Yes:
- fuck
- clit
- words with hard sounds
- power dynamics
- eroticizing things that usually aren't eroticized -- queerness, fatness, trans-ness
- "pleasure"
Maybe:
- vanilla sex
- fruit metaphors
- "making love"
No:
- "give pleasure"
- fruit metaphors
- "making love"
- "love muscle"
- "boobs"
- masturbation euphemisms w/the word "bishop"
I really wish I had forgotten my digital camera. I so wanted to take pictures.
* Savvy Plus is a pretty amazing fat girl clothing store in Pdx. I found a gorgeous green lace shirt (which I'm wearing over a slip right now), and the perfect red Marilyn Monroe dress. Pictures forthcoming.
* My reading on Saturday night was in a chapel, and went like a dream. Toni, you woulda been proud of me.
* It's time to go explore Seattle. That's all she wrote, folks!
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| Reed College gigs this WEEKEND, WEEKEND, WEEKEND! |
[28 Oct 2008|12:30pm] |
I'm going to Reed College this weekend to host two creative writing workshops, as well as a reading and a Q&A. All the events are free! Portland friends, please come out!
Bio & schedule below!
xox,
g.
--
Saturday, November 1st
12 pm-4pm, Eliot 314, Reed College
You Can't Say That: Writing About Secrets, Lies, and Other Forbidden Topics
The pieces we are the most terrified to write are also usually the most powerful, potent, and juicy words we can put to the page – but everything from fear of community or family retaliation to just plain fear of embarrassment can keep us blocked from writing what we really need to. Traditional writing classes don't teach us how to be accountable to the people in our memoir, how to gather strength from writing vulnerable fiction, or how to take care of ourselves when we're writing poetry about "the hard stuff." In this writing workshop, we will cover strategies for staying accountable to the characters in our stories while also being accountable to our own truth, and how to take care of ourselves when we're writing about painful, traumatic, secret, or just plain embarrassing things.
A note: While we will be discussing writing about "hard stuff" in this workshop, it is not designed to be group-therapy. Some of what we write or talk about might be difficult; please remember to take care of yourself.
8 pm (sharp!), Reading and Q & A, Chapel (Third floor, Eliot)
Sunday, November 2nd
12 pm-4pm, Writing Workshop, Eliot 314, Reed College
Hot, Not Throbbing: Writing About Sex Without Reaching Into Your Bag of Cliches
Writing about sex can be a joyous and hot thing -- but erotica can very easily turn more laughable or flat than sexy. How do we write sexually-explicit work without overdoing it or boring the reader? In this workshop, we'll discuss how to avoid cliches, create believable and sexy characters, and get dirty in that good way.
A note: If you want to engage in a debate about how queers, trans people, pornography, sex work, or sadomasochism are totally sending us to hell or totally oppressive and anti-feminist, this is NOT the workshop for you. For god's sake, no haters, please.
Instructor Bio:
Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, sex worker, pervert, and Paisan. She grew up in San Francisco, where she cut her activist and artist teeth on the riot grrrl and queer arts movements in the 1990s. Her fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places, including: Baby, Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing, Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women, TransForming Community, That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical Politics Meet, make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for long-running queer performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at San Francisco's Center for Sex & Culture (where she also serves on the Advisory Board). She can be cruised online at ginadevries.com.
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| I met Patti Smith tonight... |
[19 Oct 2008|11:03pm] |
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music |
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"come, my one, look at your world, don't let it bring you down" |
] |
Patti Smith was doing a Q&A tonight at the San Francisco screening of Dream of Life, a new documentary about her work. I met -- and somehow, amazingly, because my life is really charmed -- got to speak with her. Melissa and I spent most of the screening with our eyes as big as saucers, occasionally nudging each other, like, Ohmygodwe'reinthesameroomasPattiSmithohmygodohmygod!
There are so many times that Patti Smith's music has really saved me. I think about middle school, high school, about myself as a girl, listening to Patti's records on my dad's big clunky earphones, curled up on the living room floor and shutting out everything except her howl, low and hot in my ear. Patti Smith helped me understand that I could be bigger and braver than I was -- and maybe that's a cliche, because I'll bet she's done that for entire generations of girls, but it's the absolute truth for me.
Patti Smith was the soundtrack to my riot grrrl and queerpunk years just as much as Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney, but her albums aren't just the nostalgic records I put on when I wanna relive my sullen punk youth the way those bands are. When things were blowing up in my personal life a couple years ago, I listened to Horses every day for months. I put Twelve on repeat two weeks ago when I was having a particularly grueling day. Every time I've put on one of her records, I have gotten exactly what I need in that moment. I can't say that about any other musician, even other musicians I whole-heartedly adore. Patti Smith's music is intense, and brutal, a lot about prayer and sex and destruction and connection, and, to understate, not exactly the most happy-go-lucky thing one could listen to. Somehow, though, her music always rejuvenates me -- that's the gift of it, at least in my life.
I've always really loved the unapologetic and complicated sexuality in Patti Smith's work, and that's the one thing I've always wanted to hear her talk about -- how sexuality influences her artistic process. So, I gathered my courage and asked her about that during the Q&A:
"I'd love it if you could talk about sexuality influences your work, and I'd also love to know what the significance of the cross you wear in the film is." She answered the cross question first -- it was a gift from a friend after her husband passed in the mid-nineties. She talked a lot about how she's always been drawn to iconic religious imagery even though she was raised Jehovah's Witness, and Witnesses don't do icons. Hearing her talk about that was fascinating -- I'd actually pegged her as Catholic because her music has always seemed so full of what I think of as Catholic imagery.
And then, she started to answer the sexuality question. She seemed a little confused about why I'd asked about sexuality -- she mentioned that there wasn't a lot of sex in the film and she didn't quite know why I was asking about it. I honestly felt embarrassed, like, Great, what the hell, I just made Patti Smith uncomfortable, I can go crawl under a rock now -- but then, something amazing happened. She started talking about losing her husband, about aging, about how grief and getting older have affected her sexuality and how that's affected her work, how sexuality used to be a bigger part of her work than it is now. But that it's also still there, it's still a part of it, because it can't not be. It was a really sweet, vulnerable, complicated answer. I felt absolutely blessed to be there to hear it -- albeit conspicuous and slightly nervous.
Afterwards, Melissa and I ended up in the same line as her trailing out of the theater. It was so crowded that she was literally rubbing elbows with me. So, I caught her eye and said, "I'm so sorry if I made you uncomfortable by asking that question..."
She smiled, and said: "Oh, wait, what did you ask?"
Melissa: "She asked the sexuality question."
And Patti Smith looked right at me, chuckled a little, and said: "Well, I answered it, didn't I?"
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| Apologies to the next table over... |
[17 Oct 2008|09:31pm] |
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mood |
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socially inappropriate |
] |
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music |
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but okay with my social inappropriateness |
] |
At dinner with a friend:
Friend: So I've been dating this woman V., I don't know if you ever met her...
Me, perhaps a little too loudly: I had sex with her! Wait, actually, you and I had sex with her together, remember?
(The table next to us goes completely silent for a full minute.)
After they leave:
Me: Wow, I am such a loud bitch. "YEAH, WE TOTALLY HAD SEX WITH HER!" I can't be taken out in public, I am really sorry...
Friend: No, it's San Francisco, they should really be used to it by now.
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| Sex Workers' Writing Workshop in Oct & Nov + Pacific NW Events! |
[13 Oct 2008|09:20am] |
Hi gang!
There will only be ONE Sex Workers' Writing Workshop in both October
and November:
The October SWWW is: October 15th, 7-9pm, Center for Sex & Culture,
1519 Mission, San Francisco (that's this Wednesday!)
The November SWWW is: November 19th, 7-9pm, Center for Sex & Culture,
1519 Mission, San Francisco (since I will be in Portland the first
week of November! Details below!)
SWWW will resume our normal schedule of meeting the first & third
Wednesday of the month again in December.
Aaaand, Pacific Northwest folks: Details on this are forthcoming, but
I will be teaching two writing workshops and doing a reading at Reed
College in Portland, Oregon, over the weekend of November 1st-2nd. One
of the workshops will be about how to do sex writing without sounding
like a bag of cliches (title forthcoming), the other will be about
writing on secrets/the things we "aren't supposed to say." I'm also
hoping to travel to Seattle, WA to do some gigs there in early
November, since I'll be in that neck of the woods. Stay tuned, and
tell yr friends!
xox,
Gina
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| Sluts Still Get to Say No |
[12 Oct 2008|11:27am] |
Cross posted to The Bilerico Project.
I got another one of those gross MySpace messages this morning. You know, the “hey baby, nice tits, I want u 2 suck my dick” kind?
I get sexually harassed on the internet -- and on the street -- a fair amount. I've developed a thick skin about it, because if I got seriously traumatized every time someone made an uncomfortable comment about my sexuality, gender, or body, I'd never go online or leave the goddamn house. Sexual harassment is pretty par for the course for women (both cis and trans) in general, but I've participated in a lot of discussion recently about sexual weirdness towards women in online communities – everything from gross MySpace messages like the one I just received, to outright stalking. A disturbingly high percentage of men on Teh Interwebs see "woman" and "internet" in the same sentence and just assume "sexually available." The same way that a disturbingly high percentage of men see a girl walking down the street and think "Hey, she's A WOMAN, therefore she is sexually available to me and I am entitled to say whatever I want to her."
I know that, in my case, a lot of the web harassment has to do with the fact that I talk about sex, I openly cruise on the web, and I've got sexually suggestive photos of myself online. I'm aware that that makes me an easy target. But I'm wary of people who tell me that if I didn't post such sexy photos or talk about cocksucking, I wouldn't get harassed. That's disturbingly close to "Well, you wouldn't have been raped if you hadn't worn that dress!"
Posting a photo of yourself on Flickr where you show some cleavage is not asking for harassment. The same way that wearing a low-cut top walking down the street doesn't mean you suddenly want everyone you pass to comment on your breast size. Having a profile on a personals site is not the same thing as asking for harassment. The same way that being sexually open and exhibitionistic doesn't mean you're immediately consenting to sex with every person you meet.
It's possible to be slutty and not want everyone's attention all the time. It's possible to invite people to cruise you, to welcome desire, and to still say no sometimes. Saying yes a lot doesn't make a slut's "no's" any less valid.
I also think it's important to distinguish between flirtation and obnoxiousness, because I'm sadly certain that some of the dudes writing those “baby, I want 2 hit it!!!1!” messages really do think they're being flirty and not creepy.
Flirtatious and cordial cruising done with some style is a hot and excellent thing. I once had a woman flirt with me online by emailing me that she loved my writing, my curls, and my vintage dresses, and that I was exactly the kind of girl she wanted to... Well, that's between us. It was nice and sexy without being sleazy. She obviously respected me (and for the record, she got dates out of it).
I think the key to internet flirting is also the key to in-person flirting: a balance of confidence, humility, and grace. Don't presume the other person is going to say yes. Don't act all entitled to their attention and/or ass. Just be your sweet, sexy, and charming self, and hope for the best.
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| Of Mangos, Queens, & Gossip |
[11 Oct 2008|03:51pm] |
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mood |
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i love october! |
] |
+ Last night, Mangos with Chili rocked the fucking house. SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!!!1! It was such an amazingly curated and executed show -- every single performer was so goddamn good. You HAVE to go see them if they are coming in to your town, for real.
+ This morning, I got brunch and then went shopping for slut wear (I snagged three pairs of fish & diamond nets, and a fushcia patent pleather rhinestone-studded wrist cuff) w/ the amazing Queen Bevin.
+ Tonight, DANCING DANCING DANCING:
(03:49:43 PM) B: gossip
(03:49:47 PM) B: at cats club
(03:49:53 PM) B: which costs all of seven bux after ten
(03:49:55 PM) B: five before
(03:49:58 PM) Gina: what kind of music do they play?
(03:50:07 PM) B: 80's
(03:50:10 PM) Gina: YES
(03:50:10 PM) B: lots of darkwave
(03:50:13 PM) Gina: DANCING DANCING DANCING
(03:50:14 PM) Gina: YES
(03:50:14 PM) B: lots of kitsch
(03:50:24 PM) B: they will snicker at the crowd
(03:50:35 PM) B: and do bauhaus / joy division
(03:50:36 PM) B: then BAM
(03:50:39 PM) B: Tiffany.
(03:50:39 PM) Gina: HAHAHAHAHAH
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| BEVIN IS A SHARK!!! LEAH IS A SHARK!!! ZULEIKHA IS A SHARK!!! |
[10 Oct 2008|02:43pm] |
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mood |
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SHAAAAAAAAAAARK!!! |
] |
There is no bigger pleasure than hearing Leah, Zuleikha, and myself screaming chants on FemmeCast.
Check out Episode 5 to hear some my best & brilliant friends shark-sharking it up. (I also make a tiny little cameo as an early-adapter shark -- but most of what you hear from me is just chanting.) Also -- MANGOS WITH CHILI!!!! TONIGHT!!!!! YOU BETTER BE THERE!!!
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| being the little dog |
[05 Oct 2008|12:41am] |
|
Riding home from my night job around 11 tonight -- zipping through the Tenderloin and Hayes Valley into the Mission on my little pink bicycle, enjoying the eerie way City Hall glows at night, how empty so many of the TL sidestreets are and how you can really zoom down the hills, feeling tired, but happy to be on my bike -- I witnessed some borderline domestic violence out on the street. I intervened, because that seemed like the right and ethical thing to do. I'm glad I did, but it was ugly, and also a little scary.
I was standing with my bike at the crosswalk at Grove & Gough, waiting for the light to change, and this couple walked by across the street from me, a drunk-seeming guy and his angry-seeming girlfriend. They were yelling at each other, and most of what I could hear was the woman repeating, "Leave me alone, leave me alone, go away, I don't wanna talk to you right now, you're drunk, you're an idiot, leave me alone, go away, drunk, stupid..." And the boyfriend imploring "Candace, Candace, come on, let's talk, come on Candace, talk to me!" I crossed the street so that we were on the same side of the block then, and by this point they were maybe 20 feet in front of me. He grabbed her arm once pleading with her to talk with him, and she shook it off, telling him to go away. Then he grabbed her again, even more forcefully, while she was crying out "Leave me alone!", which really made me flinch. I looked around and saw that there were other people walking down the street, so if it came down to it, I'd have some kind of back up.
"Ma'am!" I shouted. "Ma'am, Ma'am, CANDACE?!" He left go of her when he heard me shout her name, and glared at me. I kept talking, loudly: "CANDACE, are you OKAY? Do you NEED anything?"
"No, thank you, he's just an idiot!" At which point she picked up speed and got several feet away from the grabby boyfriend.
The guy shouted "Hey, screw you!" at me pretty half-heartedly/drunkenly. He seemed really ashamed that someone had noticed him yelling and grabbing at his girlfriend -- which was exactly the point. When people notice that you noticed their fucked-up public behavior, they tend to not do it any more. Which makes me glad that, in general, when I see shit like this, I glare or yell, I make a scene and make the person aware that they are being watched and dissaproved of.
But, I also thought a lot about this line in one of Thea Hillman's poems, about being a little dog who barks at the bigger dogs, not aware of your size. That's what yelling at this guy tonight felt like. He was big and muscley and easily three times my size, esp. considering how short I am. He could have very easily kicked my ass, and I sensed that he kinda wanted to-- what kept him from doing so was probably a combination of my being a young-looking woman, my being a stranger to him, and the presence of the other people on the street. I think it was good that I called attention to his behavior, and it seems like it made some space for Candace to get away, or at least dodge being grabbed and thrown around for a bit longer.
But I'm also just feeling like a little dog in the aftermath, kinda scared and shivery and wondering why I wasn't entirely thinking of my own safety. Feeling like it was smart that once Candace ran away, I crossed the street the other direction and biked away, too.
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| Help Heal Fran |
[04 Oct 2008|12:21am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 determined |
] |
I read at benefit for my beloved friend and colleague Frances Varian on Wednesday night. Two nights later, I'm still a little choked up about it. I was wanting this post to be smart, political, incisive -- but I've been staring at the screen for an hour, trying to make the words come together, and really, all I'm able to write about is the strange mix of rage and hope that I'm feeling.
Fran has late-stage Lyme Disease, a progressive, debilitating disease which can be fatal if it is not treated properly, and which infects 200,000 new people each year -- surpassing new HIV infection rates, and surpassing cases of West Nile virus. Every new article I read about how patients with Lyme Disease are generally treated is turning my stomach -- how many people get the run-around from doctors, get told they must be faking it, get told it's not real, basically because of corporate greed and government cover-ups. The film Under Our Skin has some amazingly informative trailers up on the website. If you want more information about the history and politics of Lyme, please give it a look.
And if you've some cash to spare, even just $5-$10, please please please make a donation to Fran's Lyme-Fighting Army. Fran needs as much community support as possible right now. It's really important that we help each other in times like these.
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| HELLA PRETTY ARMY + Sex Workers' Writing Workshop Sked + Pacific NW in November! |
[30 Sep 2008|01:44pm] |
Hi friends!
Tomorrow night I perform at the HELLA PRETTY ARMY, a benefit for the
bodacious and beautiful Miss Frances Varian. More details below the
asterisks -- come out, come out, please!
The Hella Pretty Army: A Benefit for Fran Varian
Doors at 7pm, show at 7:30pm
$10 - 20 (no one turned away for lack of funds - but it IS a benefit)
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 552-7399
In other news: There will only be ONE Sex Workers' Writing Workshop in
both October and November:
The October SWWW is: October 15th, 7-9pm, Center for Sex & Culture,
1519 Mission, San Francisco (since Fran's benefit coincides with the
class)
The November SWWW is: November 19th, 7-9pm, Center for Sex & Culture,
1519 Mission, San Francisco (since I will be in Portland the first
week of November! Details below!)
SWWW will resume our normal schedule of meeting the first & third
Wednesday of the month again in December.
Aaaand, Pacific Northwest folks: Details on this are forthcoming, but
I will be teaching two writing workshops and doing a reading at Reed
College in Portland, Oregon, over the weekend of November 1st-2nd. I'm
also hoping to travel to Eugene, OR and Seattle, WA to do some gigs
there in early November, since I'll be in that neck of the woods. Stay
tuned, and tell yr friends!
xox,
Gina de Vries
----------
October 1, 2008
The Hella Pretty Army: A Benefit for Fran Varian
On October 1st an army of San Francisco's revolutionary and passionate
writers, musicians, performers and art makers will come together at
the San Francisco Center for Sex and Culture to throw a big ass party
and benefit for Fran Varian.
Poet, activist and organizer Fran Varian has spent her life creating
art, and poetry that is intense, powerful and a politcal punch in gut.
Giving voice to the women, the fighters, the poor, the queer, the
disenfranchised, Fran has spent her artistic life fighting for
people's rights and voices. In addition to her art - she has also
spent her entire life as a health worker, counselor and activist for
the rights of women around health care and reproductive freedom.
Ironically it is a lack of access to health care that has brought Fran
to a serious health condition. Recently diagnosed with late stage Lyme
disease, Fran is literally battling for her life after 14 years of
mis-diagnosis allowing this disease to destroy her system. At this
stage of the illness there is only one type of treatment that has
shown positive results and this benefit is fighting for the funds to
ensure that Fran can complete the full cycle of treatment.
With performers including Mark Growden, Lauren Wheeler, Vagabondage,
Meliza Bañales , Katrina James, Heathen Machinery, Steven Schwartz,
Gina de Vries, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Storm Florez and
more, a silent auction that includes one of a kind art, couture
fashion, handmade chapbooks and more, plus rumors of an onsite kissing
booth the night is sure to be a celebration of life, art and the power
of people coming together to help someone that has dedicated their
life to helping the community.
If you would like to help Fran win the battle against Lyme Disease you
can donate on her profile here
http://goodbadgirl.livejournal.com/profile
Come to the show and join Fran's Hella Pretty Lyme Fighting Army!!
The Performers
Mark Growden is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, painter,
printer, and father based in SF. Some people think he smells good.
Lauren Wheeler is a recovering slam poet who competed at the National
Poetry Slam in 1998, as a member of the renegade Team SF-Mission
District, and again in 1999, as a member and the coach of Team Ithaca,
NY. She has featured at Cornell University, where she studied English
Literature, as well as in Los Angeles, Miami, and throughout the Bay
Area. Lauren curated and hosted two poetry series in Ithaca, Tongue &
Groove at Stella's Wine and Whiskey Bar and Re-Verse at the Oak Café,
and was a core organizer of the ForWord Girls poetry and spoken word
festival in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Lodestar
Quarterly, Other Magazine, and 365 Tomorrows.
Walking the dirty streets of the big city and the farm towns,
Vagabondage sings you tales of lonely alleyways, late night bus rides
and unfortunate incidents with spicy spicy food. Comprised of a poet,
an actor, a storyteller, a ham, a vaudevillian, an accordion player,
two guitar players, a kazoo player, and two singers, this duo will
sing songs to make you laugh, cry, and raise your glass and sing
along.
Steven Schwartz is not Andrei.
Katrina James had her first short story published in 1998 and has been
creating a steadily growing body of tales ever since. She also
co-produced the cult public access show kittypr0n and has acted in and
worked behind-the-scenes on several San Francisco stage productions,
including Night of the Living Dead, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
The Twilight Zone, and Zippy the Pinhead. She currently spends her
days disguised as a mild-mannered office manager.
Meliza Bañales is originally from Los Angeles. She has taught writing
at UCSC and SFSU as well as at numerous conferences and workshops. She
has been writing and performing for the last fifteen years. She
published her first poems when she was seventeen in The Lesbian News.
She went on to become the first Latina to ever win a Poetry Slam
Championship on the west coast in 2002(Oakland), the 2002 winner of
the People Before Profits Poetry Prize, and published her first book,
Say It With Your Whole Mouth, at the age of twenty-five which went on
to be nominated for the Poetry Center Book Award in 2004. ( Read
more... )
Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, and Paisan. Her
fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places,
including: Baby, Remember My Name, Dirty Girls, TransForming
Community, That's Revolting!, Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical
Politics Meet, make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was
a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for queer
performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT
blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at
Center for Sex & Culture. She can be cruised online at
ginadevries.com.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer,
performer and high femme powerhouse. The author of Consensual Genocide
(TSAR), she has performed her work widely throughout North America and
Sri Lanka, including performances at Yale University, Oberlin College,
University of Southern California, Swarthmore College, louderARTS,
2006 Pride Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka's second ever Pride), and the
immigrant rights rallies and benefits for queer youth centers down
your block. Born and raised in the east end of the Rust Belt, aka
Worcester, Mass, she left the United States for ten years at age 21 to
learn from Toronto's radical South Asian and queer of color literary
and political communities. Obsessed with documenting queer/trans of
color, mixed-race, Sri Lankan, high femme and survivor stories, her
work has been anthologized in Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race,
Time and Place, We Don't Need Another Wave, Colonize This!, With a
Rough Tongue: Femmes write porn, Without a Net, Dangerous Families,
Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws, Brazen Femme, Femme, and A Girl's Guide to
Taking Over the World. She writes regularly for Bitch, Colorlines,
Hyphen and Make/Shift magazines.
From 2003-2007 she produced Toronto's acclaimed Browngirlworld
queer/trans of color spoken word series and is one of the co-creators
of Toronto's Asian Arts Freedom School, a writing and radical Asian
history program for APIA youth. Newly relocated to Oakland after
running away from America for a decade, she is completing her MFA in
creative nonfiction at Mills College, touring her one-woman show,
Grown Woman Show (which will be produced by the Asian Pacific Islander
Cultural Center at SomArts in June 2009), and finishing her second
book, Dirty River, a memoir of coming of age as a young queer mixed
brown survivor in the late 90s. She is a member of the Revolution
Starts At Home Collective and INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence,
and a co-founder of The Femme Sharks, a posse of tough, loud-mouthed
femme girls of color who are the leaders and defenders of our
communities. She is a keynote speaker at the 2008 Femme Conference and
a 2008 Poetry for the People Student Teacher Poet at UC Berkeley. She
remains in love with the unending possibilities of transforming of
oppression and abuse, with fierce queer and trans POC genius and
toughass central Massachusetts girls. Her websites are
brownstargirl.com and myspace.com/leahlakshmi.
Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Storm Florez is a Mexican
Amaricon FTM, genderqueer singer/songwriter, performance artist, and
live sex show instigator.
Storm currently lives in San Francisco. He has performed his music and
spoken word across the US and co-produced and performed in the
pornarific cabaret Trans as Fuck in San Francisco in 2004 and in West
Hollywood in 2006. He recently curated and performed in Trans as Fuck
at the National Queer Arts Festival on June 7th.
http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Q
Fest08/TransAs.html. Storm's National Queer Arts Festival performances
have also included: Intercourse (2001), Viva La Joteria (2004), Home
Queer Home and Transforming Community (2007). Other venues and events
include: Transgiving (Los Angeles), CB's Lounge (New York), Mable
Peabody's Beauty Salon and Chainsaw Repair (Denton, TX.), WIMINFEST,
(Albuquerque, New Mexico), Gender Pirates (San Francisco), Fairybutch
(San Francisco), Perverts Put Out (San Francisco), Mixed Fruit (San
Francisco), the San Francisco Trans March and the San Francisco Trans
stage at SF Pride. Storm's writing has been published in BANG
magazine (out of Stockholm, Sweden), From the Inside Out: Radical
Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond (Manic D Press) and his own self
published The Pussyboy Chronicles and The Pussyboy Chronicles volume2
(Sticky Press).
The Hella Pretty Army: A Benefit for Fran Varian
Doors at 7pm, show at 7:30pm
$10 - 20 (no one turned away for lack of funds - but it IS a benefit)
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 552-7399
|
|
| The Revolution Starts at Home tonight! HELLA PRETTY ARMY next week! |
[24 Sep 2008|02:42pm] |
Hey friends,
The launch party for The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Partner Abuse in Activist Communities is TONIGHT!!! I'll be reading with two of my best girls and founding Femme Sharks, Zuleikha Mahmood and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. The Revolution Starts at Home is a brilliant zine two years in the making about confronting abuse in activist communities. You don't want to miss this. Really.
Launch Party!
The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Partner Abuse in Activist Communities
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
7:30 PM
Modern Times Books
888 Valencia Street, San Francisco
Featuring readings by
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Zuleikha Mahmood
Gina de Vries
and others t.b.a.
Free! Copies of the zine will be for sale.
Two years in the making, this amazing zine/book (it's 113 full-sized
pages!) explores the nitty-gritty of what community accountability
strategies look like in real life, and describes many ways to build
safety from violence and walk towards justice and accountability in
our communities. Featuring writing by CARA, UBUNTU, Philly's Pissed,
Mango Tribe, Ana Maurine Lara, Peggy Munson and many other amazing
contributors, the launch of this long-awaited, life-saving zine is not
to be missed. Come for readings, discussion, cupcakes and celebration!
Co-sponsored by INCITE! Bay Area and CUAV (Communities United Against
Violence). For more information, email brownstargirl@gmail.com
... AAAAND! Next week! The Hella Pretty Army! A benefit for wise, beautiful, & fabulous Frances Varian. I can't say enough good things about Fran, and she needs community support right now. Come out, come out!
The Hella Pretty Army: A Benefit for Fran Varian
October 1, 2008
Doors at 7pm, show at 7:30pm
$10 - 20 (no one turned away for lack of funds - but it IS a benefit)
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 552-7399
On October 1st an army of San Francisco's revolutionary and passionate
writers, musicians, performers and art makers will come together at
the San Francisco Center for Sex and Culture to throw a big ass party
and benefit for Fran Varian.
Poet, activist and organizer Fran Varian has spent her life creating
art, and poetry that is intense, powerful and a politcal punch in gut.
Giving voice to the women, the fighters, the poor, the queer, the
disenfranchised, Fran has spent her artistic life fighting for
people's rights and voices. In addition to her art - she has also
spent her entire life as a health worker, counselor and activist for
the rights of women around health care and reproductive freedom.
Ironically it is a lack of access to health care that has brought Fran
to a serious health condition. Recently diagnosed with late stage Lyme
disease, Fran is literally battling for her life after 14 years of
mis-diagnosis allowing this disease to destroy her system. At this
stage of the illness there is only one type of treatment that has
shown positive results and this benefit is fighting for the funds to
ensure that Fran can complete the full cycle of treatment.
With performers including Mark Growden, Lauren Wheeler, Vagabondage,
Meliza Bañales , Katrina James, Heathen Machinery, Steven Schwartz,
Gina de Vries, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Storm Florez and
more, a silent auction that includes one of a kind art, couture
fashion, handmade chapbooks and more, plus rumors of an onsite kissing
booth the night is sure to be a celebration of life, art and the power
of people coming together to help someone that has dedicated their
life to helping the community.
If you would like to help Fran win the battle against Lyme Disease you
can donate on her profile here
http://goodbadgirl.livejournal.com/profile
Come to the show and join Fran's Hella Pretty Lyme Fighting Army!!
The Performers
Mark Growden is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, painter,
printer, and father based in SF. Some people think he smells good.
Lauren Wheeler is a recovering slam poet who competed at the National
Poetry Slam in 1998, as a member of the renegade Team SF-Mission
District, and again in 1999, as a member and the coach of Team Ithaca,
NY. She has featured at Cornell University, where she studied English
Literature, as well as in Los Angeles, Miami, and throughout the Bay
Area. Lauren curated and hosted two poetry series in Ithaca, Tongue &
Groove at Stella's Wine and Whiskey Bar and Re-Verse at the Oak Café,
and was a core organizer of the ForWord Girls poetry and spoken word
festival in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Lodestar
Quarterly, Other Magazine, and 365 Tomorrows.
Walking the dirty streets of the big city and the farm towns,
Vagabondage sings you tales of lonely alleyways, late night bus rides
and unfortunate incidents with spicy spicy food. Comprised of a poet,
an actor, a storyteller, a ham, a vaudevillian, an accordion player,
two guitar players, a kazoo player, and two singers, this duo will
sing songs to make you laugh, cry, and raise your glass and sing
along.
Steven Schwartz is not Andrei.
Katrina James had her first short story published in 1998 and has been
creating a steadily growing body of tales ever since. She also
co-produced the cult public access show kittypr0n and has acted in and
worked behind-the-scenes on several San Francisco stage productions,
including Night of the Living Dead, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
The Twilight Zone, and Zippy the Pinhead. She currently spends her
days disguised as a mild-mannered office manager.
heathen machinery: writer, mother, explosives expert. what's the worst
that could happen?
Meliza Bañales is originally from Los Angeles. She has taught writing
at UCSC and SFSU as well as at numerous conferences and workshops. She
has been writing and performing for the last fifteen years. She
published her first poems when she was seventeen in The Lesbian News.
She went on to become the first Latina to ever win a Poetry Slam
Championship on the west coast in 2002(Oakland), the 2002 winner of
the People Before Profits Poetry Prize, and published her first book,
Say It With Your Whole Mouth, at the age of twenty-five which went on
to be nominated for the Poetry Center Book Award in 2004. ( Read
more... )
Gina de Vries is a queer femme writer, rabble-rouser, and Paisan. Her
fiction, journalism, memoir, and smut have appeared dozens of places,
including: Baby, Remember My Name, Dirty Girls, TransForming
Community, That's Revolting!, Bound to Struggle: Where Kink & Radical
Politics Meet, make/shift magazine, and Curve magazine (where she was
a columnist from 1997-2004). Currently, Gina curates shows for queer
performance series San Francisco in Exile, blogs for national LGBT
blog Bilerico, and teaches a writing workshop for sex workers at
Center for Sex & Culture. She can be cruised online at
ginadevries.com.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer,
performer and high femme powerhouse. The author of Consensual Genocide
(TSAR), she has performed her work widely throughout North America and
Sri Lanka, including performances at Yale University, Oberlin College,
University of Southern California, Swarthmore College, louderARTS,
2006 Pride Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka's second ever Pride), and the
immigrant rights rallies and benefits for queer youth centers down
your block. Born and raised in the east end of the Rust Belt, aka
Worcester, Mass, she left the United States for ten years at age 21 to
learn from Toronto's radical South Asian and queer of color literary
and political communities. Obsessed with documenting queer/trans of
color, mixed-race, Sri Lankan, high femme and survivor stories, her
work has been anthologized in Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race,
Time and Place, We Don't Need Another Wave, Colonize This!, With a
Rough Tongue: Femmes write porn, Without a Net, Dangerous Families,
Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws, Brazen Femme, Femme, and A Girl's Guide to
Taking Over the World. She writes regularly for Bitch, Colorlines,
Hyphen and Make/Shift magazines. From 2003-2007 she produced Toronto's
acclaimed Browngirlworld queer/trans of color spoken word series and
is one of the co-creators of Toronto's Asian Arts Freedom School, a
writing and radical Asian history program for APIA youth. Newly
relocated to Oakland after running away from America for a decade, she
is completing her MFA in creative nonfiction at Mills College, touring
her one-woman show, Grown Woman Show (which will be produced by the
Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center at SomArts in June 2009), and
finishing her second book, Dirty River, a memoir of coming of age as a
young queer mixed brown survivor in the late 90s. She is a member of
the Revolution Starts At Home Collective and INCITE! Women of Color
Against Violence, and a co-founder of The Femme Sharks, a posse of
tough, loud-mouthed femme girls of color who are the leaders and
defenders of our communities. She is a keynote speaker at the 2008
Femme Conference and a 2008 Poetry for the People Student Teacher Poet
at UC Berkeley. She remains in love with the unending possibilities of
transforming of oppression and abuse, with fierce queer and trans POC
genius and toughass central Massachusetts girls. Her websites are
brownstargirl.com and myspace.com/leahlakshmi.
Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Storm Florez is a Mexican
Amaricon FTM, genderqueer singer/songwriter, performance artist, and
live sex show instigator. Storm currently lives in San Francisco. He
has performed his music and spoken word across the US and co-produced
and performed in the pornarific cabaret Trans as Fuck in San Francisco
in 2004 and in West Hollywood in 2006. He recently curated and
performed in Trans as Fuck at the National Queer Arts Festival on June
7th. http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest08/TransAs.html.
Storm's National Queer Arts Festival performances have also included:
Intercourse (2001), Viva La Joteria (2004), Home Queer Home and
Transforming Community (2007). Other venues and events include:
Transgiving (Los Angeles), CB's Lounge (New York), Mable Peabody's
Beauty Salon and Chainsaw Repair (Denton, TX.), WIMINFEST,
(Albuquerque, New Mexico), Gender Pirates (San Francisco), Fairybutch
(San Francisco), Perverts Put Out (San Francisco), Mixed Fruit (San
Francisco), the San Francisco Trans March and the San Francisco Trans
stage at SF Pride. Storm's writing has been published in BANG
magazine (out of Stockholm, Sweden), From the Inside Out: Radical
Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond (Manic D Press) and his own self
published The Pussyboy Chronicles and The Pussyboy Chronicles volume2
(Sticky Press).
additional performers to be announced!!!
If you have something (your time / silent auction items / performance)
to donate for the show please leave a comment.
|
|
| ATTENTION SEX WORKERS WRITING WORKSHOP ATTENDEES! |
[16 Sep 2008|10:12pm] |
Sex Workers Writing Workshop has changed days and locations FOR THIS WEEK ONLY.
Workshop will be held at Gina's house in the Mission (about a 10 minute walk from CSC) on FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, from 7-9pm.
Email Gina @ queershoulder @ gmail.com to get the exact address.
Sorry for any inconvenience! We'll be back at CSC on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday nights of the month in October!
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