Dear Renee "Bubble-Butt": (Barfly magazine) Renee when you brought the pretty pink see-through glass or maybe even crystal shaped all fancy and breaking the sunlight into triangles and bouncing them around Mrs.Garvin's classroom in first grade, the perfume container with a squishy end on it that you could squeeze, an ATOMIZER you said, and i remember because i had never heard that word before, that word ATOMIZER, and you brought it out of a big brown paper grocery bag and

email magdalen23 att gmail.com if you'd like to be warned, er i mean notified, when my new projects launch & such.

unwrapped it in front of everyone for Show 'n' Tell, that day when we dragged all our desks and chairs into a big circle that got too close to the edges of the room? After recess when Mrs.Garvin in her always nice and kind and sweet and

the new issue of Plazm magazine wants to jump into your arms.

wouldn't get you in trouble voice like Mr.Rogers, when she made us all put our heads on the slick lacquered desks so our eyes were hidden in our arms, when she asked "Who did it? No one will see, just wave a tiny bit and I will know," and nobody said they did it? Well it wasn't your best friend slash best enemy Skip who did it, even though you sobbed and jumped up out of your desk screaming, "You did it Skip you KNOW yo udid it! I HATE YOU!" and attacked him with your claws, and Skip crouched behind his freckles saying

so in 2010 i finally went to Rapa Nui, a.k.a. Easter Island, for performative rituals & other such artistic mayhem. the Easter Island Project had already been going on for three years. now a new website + an installation at the Cooley Gallery caseworks series in Portland will tell the story of this big, long interdisciplinary art experience thingy. email me or follow my rarely active Twitter feed @magdalen23 to find out stuff about it.

No Renee No I didn't do it I did't do it... It was me who smashed the atomizer into a thousand tiny pieces Renee. Not because I did't like you. I just kicked it on accident, squeezing around the big circle of desks to go to recess. I pretended I couldn't hear a magic shattering sound when I shoved a paper bag out of the way with my foot. But I did hear it. Renee, I think that must be what Tinkerbell sounds like when she comes. All the Rage (Bookforum) A few years back, Bad Girls were all the rage, so to speak. Mainstream media indulged Courtney Love's efforts to give hellion chicks a bad name, and fashion revelled in the nihilistic imagery of Heroin Chic. The heavy burn of PJ Harvey and the sweet psychosis of Björk got a fair shot in the music world, which had long grown accustomed to Madonna's T&A strategy of girl power. Grrls ran riot. The Internet and a growing 'zine network made it easier for unruly gals to find each other; simultaneously, all kinds of sexual and fetish practices came out of the closet and the body modification subculture exploded. Magazines like Bust and Bitch brought younger women's real experiences to the forefront of the new feminism, and writers like Elizabeth Wurtzel titillated the mainstream with sloppy stories of excess. It was a primo time to get a Bettie Page tattoo, stomp around in big boots, scrawl "BITCH" across your belly onstage, or otherwise cause a big female fuss. Then the pendulum swung back to center, as pendula are wont to do. Nowadays, mere shoplifting is considered ultra-taboo. Bust changed its style, Courtney went Versace, and the girls in Sleater-Kinney are all into gardening. Heck, so am I. But I'd still welcome an antidote to the overdose of Britney-obsessed baby dolls and Baby Gap-obsessed thirtysomethings.

you know, i think this non-page of a homepage was much more interesting a couple weeks ago. it was just all these blobs of text from way-randomly cut-n-pasted things i'd had published over the years---like what's still here---but without these little links and comments and stuff like this one. it was devoid of context.retro and early 90s looking and devoid of context.

Fire up Inappropriate Behaviour, an assemblage of transgressive essays and stories. The Bad Girl zeitgeist has been known to sink beneath the weight of its own knee-jerk negativity, badder-than-thou posing, and played-out shock tactics. Largely, editors Jessica Berens and Kerri Sharp do a bang-up job defending the faith, letting a hodge-podge of naughty Catholic girls and corporation-bashers, bestiality explorers and pop culture commentators speak with truly original voices. Bestiality? We'll get to that, you pervs. First let's deal with the volume as a whole. Imbued with gonzo playfulness and extreme individualism, these voices are all over the map in terms of style, format, and approach. If you think "Free Winona" T-shirts are scandalous, try reading Helen Hastings' hilarious rant in favor of matricide. Then delve into musician/performance artist Lydia Lunch's frank admission that the idea of gestating and bearing a child gives her the creeps; she also notes that "every new mother believes her little cherub is the most awe-inspiring angel to ever be shat forth upon this ungodly planet." Novelist Tama Janowitz recounts having a miscarriage during a fancypants event at MOMA, and names her tale "Performance Art." Deviant Desires author Katharine Gates holds forth brilliantly on the subject of guns as toys for sexual gratification, and co-editor Sharp presents a fascinating look into historical witch cults, exploring "girls whose antics will never be appropriated into today's anodyne goddess workshops."

now i'm not so sure. i kept the retro look but i added these blobs of text telling you to contact me, buy the magazine i edit, blah blah. so. why compromise one's vision, i mean, even if one's vision is admittedl silly?

No coherent message or grand step forward for feminism is offered. None is necessary: just taking these subjects on pushes both boundaries and buttons. But the general tone of chatty familiarity and humor make even esoteric subjects like satanism and sex with Cthulhu — oops, there's that darn bestiality! — seem friendly. Other voices offer more palatable but empowering fare, such as 64-year-old Zaida's piece encouraging older women to learn bellydancing. Only occasionally should these voices have been muzzled. In Mikita Brotman's "Why I hate Gwyneth Paltrow," the Offensive Films and Hollywood Hex author barks about how mainstream movies suck, occasionally pausing to rant about women's treatment in and by cinema or to make ludicrous, unsubstantiated claims such as "The truth is that nothing can happen in the theatre that can't happen more effectively on the screen." Brotman appears to be afflicted with bad-for-its-own-sake syndrome: she really, really wants you to know she's soo bad-ass, she doesn't even like indie and art-house films! This rebel is above Lars Von Triers! She hates Björk, Susan Sarandon, and Gwyneth Paltrow!

i because i knew Boing Boing would be linking to me, and i thought, oh shit, if i just have up my dumbrush of words, i won't be able to, like, DO something with these people who link through. i must gather them and force them to follow me or buy my stuff or whatever. because that is what these internets are about. right?

This is the kind of crap — self-congratulatory, chest-puffing scenester noise — that gives Bad Girls the wrong kind of bad name. It's our job as Bad Girls (even Bad Girls Who Engage In Writing & Other Suspiciously Dorky Activities) to save our species from shrill lecturers like Brotman, waffly sellouts like Courtney Love, and pouty Prozac princesses like Elizabeth Wurtzel. "So what of bestiality?" I hear you asking crankily. "Isn't that just another shock tactic?" Well, yeah, but the short chapter "Pets' Corner" actually raises discussion of the sexual relationship between women and animals to a higher level. In "You sexy beast: Lapdogs and Other Perversions," Kathleen Kiirik Bryson discusses the possibility of interfertility between animals and humans, among other issues. Penny Birch has not one but two degrees in zoology — and she writes fetish stuff. Who could be more appropriate for an essay on octopus-fucking? "Squiddly-diddy" is one of the book's greatest moments, exploring sexual imagery in paintings and erotic fiction with a rare combination of informative analysis, tongue-in-cheek hilarity, and polymorphous perversity. The how-to section at the end might be absurd, but without it, we wouldn't get such memorable quotes as, "putting crab meat inside your vagina will certainly get you penetrated."

if a tree falls in the forest and there aren't any spotted owls left to tweet it, then what would be the sound of one branch clapping?

Or you could just masturbate like a normal person. That's the activity slyly celebrated in Cyndi Lauper's song "She Bop," later appropriated by Lucy O'Brien for the title of her 1995 book. She Bop was published to some fanfare: here at last was an engaging history of women in popular music, written by an actual woman who'd been in a punk rock band, the Catholic Girls. Author of biographies on Dusty Springfield and Annie Lennox, O'Brien had established herself in the male-dominated realm of rock journalism, writing for NME and other publications throughout the 1980s. She Bop II is an engaging read, primarily teaching history via short biographies of female artists, contextualized within larger trends. All-women WWII big bands, barely-known backup singers, hard-luck blues mythologies, punks and modern divas are connected with O'Brien's analytical but accessible threads. Her skill as a matter-of-fact storyteller weaves the book's diverse subjects together and propels the reader through various genres and trends, from blues to torch singers, rap to Riot Grrl, androgyny to Britney Spears. O'Brien tries to simultaneously celebrate women's contributions to popular music and sympathize with their victim status within the industry's sexist heirarchy. "Behind the Music"-style bathos and generic, look-what-the-dominant-straight-white-males-did-to-her attitude often combine to undercut the sense of accomplishment and triumph that would otherwise buoy up She Bop II. This is hardly unique to any writer covering an "oppressed" group, but here it grows frustrating: space limitations prevent her from elaborating on how exactly sexism works in the music industry. Some claims of sexism come off as unsupported and easily dismissed, when in fact they might be quite relevant. Instead, space is

and now for something completely different.
no, wait, actually. let's just continue with our regularly scheduled granted for emotional involvement with the story. Take Phil Spector session singer Darlene Love, for example. Granted the better whoah, that was intense, manpart of three whole pages, she sang lead on 15 hits for other acts; when she tried to get a solo contract, Spector "relegated her to the background." Horror stories about the infamously megalomaniacal '60s producer are par for the rock journalism course, but we don't really need VH-1 style tidbits like, "It got to the point where if she was driving and heard one of her songs on the radio, she would stop the car, break down and cry." It's still an absorbing book, with the new edition featuring chapters on various post-1995 trends, non-artist women in music (businesswomen, DJs, journalists, etc.), and women as music consumers. O'Brien takes on Bad Girls and sweethearts with equal respect, and women deserve to have both sides well-represented in the media and in music. After all, there's more to life than octopus sex. A COMPENDIUM OF MINIATURES BY TIFFANY LEE BROWN With book artist Clare CarpenterTiger Food Press 2007 Note: numbers will not appear in actual book 1. HOME is like a sweater you knit with your hands, but the end of the yarn is snagged someplace far behind. With every step you take, you make a new stitch. But with every step you take, you drop the previous one. If only you could stop walking, you might have a sweater someday. 2. INSOMNIA is like a nest of bees in your heart. It throws punches against your ribcage with its own rhythm, its own life. Creatures are in there doing strange dances to the moon. They're making sweets to serve their queen and constructing elaborate hexagonal palaces in your veins, your aorta, your vena cava. They are bowing now: once to the left, once to the right, rubbing antennae with each other in gestures like cheek kisses. "O please, silence," you whisper, "silence and forever sleep." But secretly, you would never wish them gone. Without the bees, there would be no honey. 3. OPPORTUNITY is like a stranger in a black raincoat. He flashes perfect white teeth and walks over to your bus stop in a brisk line. His hand is outstretched. You automatically shake it. He wants to know your name, wants you to walk to his apartment. You find it peculiar that he actually thinks you'll follow. Maybe he wants to fuck you. Maybe he'll offer you crack. Maybe both. You grasp your purse to your chest and press your back against the bus sign. You plumb your feet into the sidewalk cement and put on your city face. You will never speak to anyone again. 4. FEAR is like a nun who cannot walk on her own two feet, so she borrows yours. 5. HOPE is like wind in the palm trees. It bends slender limbs and wipes wet and sand and salt onto the ragged flags of fronds. The leaves click: ticky-ticky, ticky-ticky. And every so often, a meaty coconut drops. 6. ACCEPTANCE is a taxi ride to a far-off airport. You pay tolls, your phone runs out of batteries, the rain hasn't stopped in sixteen days. The tunnel floods. "The car, she is now boat!" the driver tells you in his sticky Egyptian accent, plunging through the one remaining lane. He wants to know why you have not married your boyfriend. He wants to know why you don't want to have kids. He says boyfriends are just for sex. He says ever since that one condom broke and his wife got pregnant, they stop, right at the end. He pulls out and "trows everyting away." You are supposed to feel uncomfortable now, and maybe you do, but you just raise an eyebrow. "That's not a very effective form of birth control," you admonish him, then flip open the dead phone. "Excuse me, I have to take this call." 7. HATE is the pearl in a stubborn oyster. 8. EXHAUSTION is like an orphan in a grey sundress. In summer she lays across your doorstep, legs splayed, begging for a glass of water. You bring two glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. Come winter, she asks for one box of matches each night. She will not come inside for cakes and tea. One day you find her huddled on the stoop, frozen, no heartbeat. You kiss the bluish blush of her cheek and give her a proper burial with hired mourners and a priest who speaks only Latin. The grave itself you leave unmarked. 9. LIFE is just a bowl of cherries, split skins, pits, stems, dark juice laughing down your chin, fruit flies hovering above. It's like a box of chocolates, a mountain railway, a taxi, a bicycle, a cup of tea. A rose, ice cream, lemons. Melting fast? Make lemonade. 10. LUST is a leaking ship in the ocean of your guts. The iron hull glides through acres of organs, splitting smooth muscle, unmooring livers and pancreas from their harbors. The ship spurts gallons of hormones like an oil tanker. Your whole body lists and is finally subsumed. 11. HISTORY is a chainsaw. A big one, gas powered; you can barely wield it alone. The instructions have disappeared. You approach the forest in moccasins and a hard hat. You take down trees dead and living. You make timber for dollars and firewood for the cold. The sun breaks through dark, mossy cathedrals and sparks hidden seeds and suckers, pine cones and roots. Come spring, the forest will explode with saplings, its remaining trees entangled in poison oak and strangleweed. Scotch broom will march side-by-side with Himalayan blackberry in an eternal battle against you, against the trees, against the small gentle herbs. Then you will wish you had read the manual. 12. JOY is like your grandmother's perfume. It's powdery and flush with flowers, redolent of dashing flappers and immense sun hats on California beaches. It lingers in her rooms and snuggles in the deep white fur of the coat she left you. Inside the jewelry box, too. You wish you could buy a bottle—if only someone could tell you its name. If only you knew whom to ask. 13. DELIGHT is like the soft approach of feral kittens. 14. EPIPHANY is like a school of fish that takes to the skies, flying over traffic lights, trash cans, playgrounds and parks. The fishes flash silver, reflecting on the streets below. Do you hear them gasping? That is the sound the rain makes when it breathes. 15. LOVE is an egg. You place it in your palm and stroke its brown or white skin. You balance it between your teeth, conceal it gently behind closed lips. You smooth your tongue around its rough, chalky hide. Then you gasp it down whole and let it settle in your belly. Here it will stay until one day you fade around it and melt into the earth. 16. COMMITMENT is like rain in Oregon. You wake up every morning and there it is. It cups your house in its liquid hands and fills your gutters to overflowing. It makes green things grow tall and lush, rivers run deep and invincible. On sunny days it seeps up through petals and pine needles, roots and aqueducts. Other days, it makes mud too thick for walking, and you cannot leave the house. You pace the house, restless and lonely. Then you smell its perfume in a dry, empty room and part the curtains, watch it finger the window with long, slow rivulets. 17. DOUBT is like an old friend. You played together as children. Now she leans toward you over dinner. "If you and your boyfriend ever need a third," she says, "I hope you'll give me a call." 18. HOPE is like a slow walk down a slow street. Birds arrange themselves in unexpected clumps of juniper, calling out as you pass. Trees part to reveal the deep blue throat of the sky. Leaves unhinge their stems from twigs eight stories up, then fall, perfect and lifeless, at the tips of your shoes. Boxers, daschunds, and golden retrievers present themselves at the ends of bright leashes for your caresses and sweet-talk. Babies wiggle their plump, stubby fingers at you from the safety of overstuffed strollers. Then you reach the park, where an empty swing awaits. 19. SUSTAINABILITY is a jackrabbit in the heat of a desert day, stretched out in the yucca's shadow, ears erect, breath rapid, ready to bolt; taking the time not to. 20. TRUST is like an 83-year-old woman in the West Hills. You get lost among the trees and cemeteries, the ivy and mansions. At last you find her, pretty and sparkling as your new ring. She asks about your house; you tell her about the roof. "You seem so young," she says. "You look like a college girl." You say, "I feel young. I just got engaged." She sighs. "A new roof and a new husband? Your life sounds marvelous." Your breath draws in and sticks to your lungs. Your blood holds each molecule of oxygen and refuses to let it go. At last you breathe out. "It is marvelous," you say. "It truly is." 21. ENLIGHTENMENT is like a fuzzy bee that crawls down your pants. Sometimes it hums, sometimes it quiets, and sometimes it sends you howling down the street, naked. 22. SLEEP is like a train. When you're on it... when it passes your stop... trundling... 23. DEATH is like a cup of coffee. It arrives at the end of a meal-after the oysters, after the soup, after you've sucked the meat from the little quail's bones. It's warm and wet and bitter. It rattles your saucer and stains your teeth. It's dark and soothing. You pour in sugar for good luck. It makes conversation linger. It draws out the night. But when the pot runs dry, you know it's time to go. The Bubble of Silence: Are some topics unfit for polite conversation? (Oregon Humanities) By Tiffany Lee Brown It's time for my writers group. Four or five of us meet every few months, some of us friends, some mere acquaintances. Writing is an isolating profession, so the real-life connection is nice. "What are you working on?" Adrian* asks me. He's a writer by day, a filmmaker by night. "Well, a bunch of things." I'm a writer and editor by day, an interdisciplinary artist and performer by night. "I just finished this really interesting play called House Bound." "What was it about?" "Mm," I reply, sipping my pinot noir. "My piece was about, uh, well, grief. The grief of being biologically childless." Silence traps our table in its invisible bubble. Through its membrane I hear the dim chatter of hipsters schmoozing at the bar and a Tri-Met bus beeping near the curb. Adrian's pregnant wife Willow throws him a panicked look, while Casey stares at his feet, which is pretty hard to do in a booth. Though I told Casey weeks ago about my situation, about how I've been in hell and trying to write and perform my way out of it, he's a discreet, tasteful person and didn't pass the information on to the others. Now I've floated a proverbial lead balloon over our cheery group. This moment, five seconds by a stopwatch, lasts five hours in the alternate space-time continuum of the social faux pas. If I'd announced that I was having a baby, the others would have heaped congratulations on me. If I'd brought out a photo of my lovely stepdaughter and told them of her soccer exploits, they would have chuckled and asked questions. Even if I'd softly admitted that I'd been having a hard time since my aunt passed away, they'd have offered condolences or a hug. But childlessness is a pain experienced in silence. There is no place in civilized conversation for such discussion. No one really knows what to say, and there are no social rituals with which to mourn miscarriages or unsuccessful fertility treatments. Anonymous strangers will discuss it on the Internet, and occasionally close friends will commiserate over their shared grief. But the topic is usually avoided in everyday conversation, as if such grief is somehow too intimate to talk about. In discussions with Internet strangers and with close friends going through similar struggles, I hear the same stories over and over. We feel awful about our intense feelings, which are hormonal and uncontrollable. We feel guilty for saddling our families and friends with our depression and sorrow. We feel lonely and left out of normal socializing but also left out of the natural world, the great cycle of life. Some express shame that their bodies--or God--won't allow them to become "real women." The grief of childlessness visits us for many reasons. Some are infertile. Others don't have a partner and don't want to be single parents. Some, like me, have medical conditions that would make raising a child even more difficult than it normally is. And some of us fell in love with men who already have children from previous relationships and don't wish to have more. Even if we think we ought to be satisfied with full, rich lives beyond procreation, even if we have loving and healthy relationships with stepchildren or adopted children, some women have astonishingly powerful biological clocks. The deep need to procreate hits us with a staggering intensity, as primal and undeniable as the need for food, water, and sex. The enormous role of children and family in our cultural, community, religious, and political environments reminds us constantly of what we've lost--what we've never had in the first place. I've spoken with many women online who feel that they can't even tell their close family members about their struggles. Many of us feel ashamed to discuss childlessness in public for fear of undercutting the joy of parents and families. And when we do bring it up, we often hear clueless, insensitive, and sometimes cruel responses ranging from "You're being a selfish whiner--get over it and move on with your life" to "Why don't you just get a puppy?" So, most of the time, we keep the discussion safely shut away. Back at the restaurant, I rescue our table from its awkward silence. "I was working with this amazing group of women," I say blithely, as though no shadow had passed over our chat. "Artists and writers. Over at Performance Works NorthWest." We are back on solid ground. Willow talks about her new screenplay. Adrian catches me up on the dating adventures of a mutual friend in San Francisco. Casey tells the tale of a recent backpacking trip in the Gorge. But then Adrian talks about how exciting it is to be an expectant father, and Willow describes the irritation of swollen feet and morning sickness. My stomach clenches and tears well up in my eyes. It is, at this stage of my grieving process, an uncontrollable response. I'm proud of myself for getting through the entire conversation, but when I get home, I cry for hours. Weeks later, my doctor tells me I should avoid babies, young children, and pregnant women as much as possible. The trauma of my grief is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder: a baby's cry can trigger severe emotional reactions in me just as the sound of gunfire can trigger a soldier's shell shock. It turns out that this "selective avoidance" technique is quite commonly prescribed to infertile women and others who are in mourning over the children they do not have. My infertile friends have offered similar advice for such situations. "You shouldn't be there in the first place!" one woman insisted. "Touching babies or even hugging a pregnant woman sets off all those hormones. You don't need that." "Make sure you order lots of wine," another woman advised, "and eat sushi if possible." I grow accustomed to the loneliness, though I miss my godson, and avoid barbecues, family picnics, and baby showers. When restaurant hosts attempt to seat me near little ones, I gather up all my gumption and ask to be seated elsewhere. I recently turned down a request to lead an art and writing workshop because many participants were to be young mothers with infants in tow. I shop for groceries late at night, when most moms are putting their toddlers to bed. At the checkout stand, I turn away from the dozens of celebrity magazines cooing over the "baby bump" of some actress or other. Ten years ago, I was a fearless third-wave feminist writer, publishing stories in various magazines and books about living a happy, fulfilled, child-free life. Now I am an embarrassing wreck who bursts into tears at the sight of Angelina Jolie. I'd like to think I'm the sort of person who brings dark issues to light. I'd like to be a brave writer, a courageous performer, and a shamelessly confessional artist. When people like Sue Coe and Karen Finley created art about rape back in the 1980s, they helped open up a secret, silent issue--a discussion our culture needed to start. Whether or not one liked the work made no difference: It started conversations and asked tough questions. As an artist, I make videos starring characters like Log Baby and Poppy the Stop-motion Sperm. I collaborate with performers like Emily Stone, who danced in one of my videos when she was nine months pregnant and nursed her child onstage in House Bound. As a writer, I explore the social, personal, spiritual, and political aspects of childlessness. As a performance artist, I initiate rituals where people grieve and then let go of grief for a while. Right now, I'm working on the Easter Island Project, a long-term series of artworks about creation based on my research into childlessness. The project involves appreciating the many non-biological ways people can be creative and nurturing, yet it also questions the human desire to constantly and mindlessly create. Audiences, including childless women, participate in making the project with me. Online or at live performances, they offer their own creations--sculptures, poems, music, the eggshell of a newly hatched bald eagle, a beautiful seed from a tree, and an original painting that an artist tattooed on my hip. Next summer, I will integrate these creations into a performance I'm doing on barren Easter Island in the South Pacific, in the shadow of the island's famous monolithic sculptures of giant heads. As a brave artist and writer, I make childlessness a part of the conversation. But I'm not a brave artist and writer all the time: I'm just me. When my friends talk on the phone about the details of raising their babies, when I hear their little ones playing in the background, I don't tell them how painful it is for me. I don't tell them it breaks my heart when their toddler gets on the phone and greets me by name. I don't tell them how much I miss being able to hug their child and swing him around the room until he shrieks, delighted and dizzy. Instead, after the conversation is over, I cry, because I'm not that brave. At times like these, I think maybe there's a good reason for the bubble of silence: it keeps everyone separated from one another, safe and sound. Months pass after that awkward writers group meeting. The other writers invite me to a reading, and a few hours beforehand, it occurs to me that Adrian and Willow might bring their new baby. I try to be brave, but I feel like a loser who can't be around babies, like someone who makes everyone uncomfortable. I call Adrian and leave him a message, casually asking, "What's going on tonight?" Willow, who has just brought a beautiful new human into the world, returns my call. I see her number on the caller ID and freeze. Art opens up a delicate space where we can explore unspoken and uncivilized matters. Sometimes it coaxes silenced voices into everyday conversation--but not today. I let the phone ring and ring. Maybe tomorrow I can write a performance piece about my nonexistent baby, but for tonight I'm staying home in silence. *Names and details have been changed. © 2008 Oregon Council for the Humanities Oregon Humanities magazine Letters and Errata from Hot Geeks, a zine I edited in the long ago mid 1990s. Magdalen, your zine is proof that I wasn’t crazy, or not alone at least, when I threw out the biker boy (the one with the hair and the drugs and the small winkie, in Helda 4) for Timothy whose hair won’t comb down and devises small cities, to scale, with bridges and moats, out of matchsticks. First he designs them using a DOS software that you must enter all the coordinates into before it will draw a line, he does not understand why I think it would be fun to burn down the matchstick cities, keeps me happy, will not buy contac lenses, can not talk out loud in groups of three or more other persons. In public he wears Christmas socks his mum gave him (gold Xmas trees). CUTE! Hey Frat boyfriend from my aborted freshman year at WSU, are you listening? Biker boy and grunge-boy-went-Mod after you got signed? Swanky guy with red car who thought you were a painter? Timothy gives me multiple orgasms every time! Geeks rule! --Sal E, Helda [Thank you for sharing, Sal E. Wish you would’ve included your return address or email or something so that I could beg you to write for our lovely magazine. If you see this, write in again! And hey, send us a copy of Helda. - Ed.] what the criticks say about Hot Geeks! “This ‘zine pissed me off....I’m a geek, damn it, and there is no such thing as girls who love geeks.” -Joe in Zine World [Joe, you’re hanging out with the wrong girls! Hope you get some soon. Smooches.-Ed.] Lost Books thingy for Tin House, an unedited early version. Just looking at it briefly I'm thinking I would've edited out a lot of the I's, even though right now I'm writing a lot of I's. It's "The Wonder of Me" New Journalism. Anyway. Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal by J-B Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard Marlboro Press, 1986 Paperback, 200 pp, ISBN 0-910395-21-7 A couple years ago, I was working as the Creative Director for a non-profit project with West African musician Youssou N'Dour. I was soon to visit Senegal and the magical-sounding city of Dakar. So I nosed around Powell's, trying to find a book about the place that wasn't a cheesy travel guide or continent-wide history. Oh, did I find a book: a nasty, graphic tale of adventure, madness, suicide, mutiny, and -- a personal favourite -- cannibalism. Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal by J-B Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard recounts the true tale of an 1816 shipwreck and the endless calamities that plagued its survivors. In 1986, the Marlboro Press re-published the 1818 London translation, preserving its grimly dramatic language and spotty editing. Rather than a decadently-apportioned cruise ship like the familiar Titanic, we're aboard The Medusa, a frigate charged with delivering Senegal back to the French after a time under British rule. The newly-appointed governor is aboard, as are various respectable colonial sorts like doctors and engineers. From the very outset, our journey is plagued by ill omens and incompetent navigation. Rather than a glacier, a reef eventually grounds The Medusa. In this story, however, the shipwreck is just the tip of the iceberg*. When the frigate's escort of three small military craft don't turn up to help, about 150 survivors rig up a raft from the ship's remains. The huge raft is to be towed by a handful of lifeboats, including the governor's suspiciously undercrowded 14-oar boat. The rich people here don't kick up their boots in the face of terror and become spunky musical heroines. No sir. They do as most wealthy politicians probably would: they literally cut and run, the governor's boat loosening the last tow rope and abandoning the raft at sea. Few of the deserted commoners survive. Savigny and Correard brave fights and insanity, starvation and thirst, sharks and malaria, but it's political intrigue that grinds them down. First in St.Louis, a northern colonial outpost in Senegal, and then back in Europe, the French try to suppress the survivors' full account of The Medusa's doomed expedition. Narrative... has its flaws. It is no Alexandria Quartet, weaving plots and characters through lush expanses of description. Nor is it the peppy encapsulation the subject would probably receive today. But geeky romantics like myself are charmed by the book's clunky 19th century realism, its lists of technical details, crew names, and supplies. Best of all is the narrators' overwrought sense of apology and self-abasement. The two men build up a quiet volcano of righteous indignation at cruel fate and unnecessary evil, yet they repeatedly bolster the class system that nearly killed them: But an extreme resource was necessary to preserve our wretched existence. We tremble with horror at being obliged to mention that which we made use of! we feel our pen drop from our hand; a deathlike chill pervades all our limbs; our hair stands erect on our heads!—Reader, we beseech you, do not feel indignation towards men who are already too unfortunate; but have some compassion on them, and shed some tears of pity on their unhappy fate. Those whom death had spared in the disastrous night... fell upon the dead bodies with which the raft was covered, and cut off pieces, which some instantly devoured. Many did not touch them; almost all the officers were of this number. This stuff is the real deal, not some literary exercise churned out by an Iowa alumnus with a trust fund and a nurturing agent. Narrative... is more reminiscent of a Vietnam War movie than a work of literature; it pleads for understanding from a largely apathetic public and the unresponsive government who started the whole thing. Unlike such a movie, Savigny and Correard had no director, no multi-million dollar budget. These survivors sat down and desperately blurted out their story, hoping for acknowledgement and recompense from their government and countrymen. As for me? I worked and played hard during my few weeks in St.Louis and "Camp Daccard," which barely resembled Savigny and Correard's antique descriptions. The Senegalese peoploe were lovely, the music stunning, our hosts impeccable. Instead of dropping us in the ocean, Air France bumped us up to First Class, and we ate delicious yassa poulet rather than day-old French soldier. Life is good for us relatively-rich Americans. I just hope we keep our tow ropes fastened. *Ha ha ha. (This asterisk was not included in the original piece.) Penny's Horoscopes (for the Lost In Space movie website). I wrote the entirety of this character's site (spunky 15-year-old space traveller) at www.dangerwillrobinson.com for New Line Cinema (who gave me four days to do it!). Kill Your Television? But it’s paying a musician’s rent! The Portland MercuryBy Tiffany Lee Brown Moby has sold more cars than a fleet of Scott Thomasons. King Black Acid accompanies extreme sports programs. Is “television” a synonym for “sellout,” or is there something more to soap themes and toothpaste jingles? As groups like Low, King Black Acid, and 3 Leg Torso can attest, licensing music for TV involves a bunch of issues: artistic, ethical, and—of course—financial. I’LL HAVE THE GOAT MILK YOGURT, PLEASE. When Alan Sparhawk of Low first heard Nick Drake’s classic “Pink Moon” being used in a car ad, he thought, “Oh man, what’s going on?” But the dismay gave way to excitement. “There are people now in high places who make these decisions who are kinda more hip… The early ’90s people that used to go to the shows, and be on the scene, are now making the advertisements.“ And a good thing it is, for Low and the baby recently born to two bandmembers. Low’s dreamy version of “The Little Drummer Boy” has been heard by millions of new listeners, thanks to a Gap holiday ad about sweaters. The Gap has been heavily criticized and boycotted due to its overseas labor policies and deforestation in Northern California; when their ad agency sought out Low, Sparhawk says “there was a bit of wincing” all around, with bassist Zak Sally saying, “Oh, Gap. I hate those people.” But deciding where to draw the line is never easy when it comes to personal politics. “Someone could accuse Fugazi of selling out because they started using regular yogurt instead of goat milk yogurt,” Sparhawk jokes. For Low, a commercial’s actual content is important. They’ve turned down liquor ads, he says: “We’re actually kinda spiritual people…I would have a hard time with half-naked people playing beach volleyball to one of our somber little ditties.” CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS Other musicians aren’t concerned about content. “It’s good, when money’s circulating, to be on the receiving end,” laughs Courtney von Drehle, whose local band 3 Leg Torso licenses songs for television. “I’m not a whole lot into indie credibility or whatever. I’m struggling to make a living, and I figure that’s the way it is for a lot of musicians.” Daniel Riddle’s solo work and songs with King Black Acid have appeared on the MTV program Undressed, extreme sports shows for the USA Network, and commercials for a certain controversial athletic shoe company based in the Portland area. “I don’t want to advertise the company in an interview,” Riddle says conspiratorially. “That would be product placement, which I charge for. But if Cocoa Puffs wants me to wear a Cocoa Puffs T-shirt on my rock video, I would consider it for a year’s supply of Cocoa Puffs…” Whether it’s for an ad or one of the many indie films and professional skate/snowboard videos featuring KBA’s music, Riddle doesn’t worry too much about content. “I personally just love all that stuff, even the ones that don’t pay—it may sound weird, but I’m a musician and I just really want people to hear my stuff. I know that’s not cool.” Likewise, Stephanie Smith was excited when her Portland band Spectator Pump placed two songs on a certain WB program: “I mean, it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer! It’s not like I was embarrassed for my music to be on there or anything.” Smith also digs the feedback she receives as Buffy viewers worldwide discover her music via fan websites. SEND IN TWO BOX-TOPS FOR FREE NATIONWIDE EXPOSURE! You don’t wanna sell your soul for no money down, zero interest, and no monthly payments ’til hell freezes over. Unrepresented, unsigned musicians—and those who like to avoid taking things seriously—should get realistic and be prepared for unexpected offers. It really does happen; in fact, it’s happened to me, and I was utterly unprepared to talk legalities with major television producers. To avoid getting caught with your corduroys down, register with BMI or ASCAP, the organizations that gather royalties; keep an updated list of several entertainment attorneys who’ve been recommended by fellow musicians; and register copyrights as appropriate. If you do field an offer? “I’m big on seeking professional help,” says von Drehle. When 3 Leg Torso first licensed their music for a Ron Tonkin ad through a local organization, they got a “terrible” deal—even though he tried to get advice from the musicians’ union. Now 3 Leg Torso lets their manager negotiate deals. Their music graces everything from European animal commercials to local Oregon Lottery spots—even a 17-part Bosnian reunification comedy show. Sometimes, smart musicians simply pass up deals altogether. Kneel Cohn of Portland’s Strongbox said nuh-uh to having his music heard by thousands of Fox Sports cable viewers. “The production company didn’t want to give me any money up front, at all,” he explains. “They were saying ‘We’ll use this song, and you’ll get exposure.’” But Cohn licensed the song “Prozac Smile” to appear in the movie Blast. “I did accept it because there was money in it,” he says frankly. “Money up front, and money on the back end of it.” Even rawk stars on national commercials may not be seeing much of their “sellout” cash. If you’re the average major label band, says Sparhawk, you’re probably stuck with what industry types call recoupable debt—which means “the only thing you get is the honor of being on the commercial. They own the masters. If you own your stuff, you come out a lot better, definitely.” HONEYCOMB’S BIG—YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!! Whatever a musician’s philosophy, music listeners and rock critics sometimes get a bit huffy about hearing their musicians on TV—especially in the fierce, obsessive world of indie fandom. Sparhawk admits, “I’ve been afraid of people getting in my face, but I have an answer for them: ‘Oh yeah? Well, I have a nine-month-old daughter! Wanna see DIY? You go have a kid, there’s nothing more DIY than that!’ …I have a life to answer to other than my own. If I can make sure she can go to the hospital if she gets sick, then, yeah, you can use our song, as long as it isn’t a complete raping of our music.” Riddle says he’s gotten “a couple of jabs from the press” about commercial work. Then again, “When people are all struggling artists together and one artist has a little bit of success, the rest of them tend to get jealous or angry or whatever. I think that’s probably why: the people who jabbed us in the press were wondering why they weren’t writing copy for Honeycomb commercials.” “I’m not really that concerned about what people think about me doing commercial music,” continues Riddle, who works as a carpenter to supplement his musical income. “When I’m covered in grime and dirt and working my fuckin’ ass off, when I get off work and walk out in public, I feel just as stupid as I would if I was doing a commercial for an Exxon oil spill cleanup. At some point, I just have to feel good about what I’m doing, about making music, period. And that’s the bottom line.” FEB 28 Penny's World HOROSCOPES ARIES: The Moon is new and it's in your sign, so you should definitely have an interesting weekend! Penny sez you should go for it; meet new people or share a deep secret about yourself with an old friend or your current flirtation/boyfriend/girlfriend. You're going to have more energy than many other signs, so put it to good use. Throw a party or find some other means to get people going (can't expect all those interesting things to just happen all by themselves). A creative project might be a good outlet, and you can also use your spiritual intuition to rewarding ends. But remember your symbol is the ram: don't accidentally push right through a friend's defenses and knock her over. TAURUS Taurus people are Earth signs, and this weekend is excellent for doing earthy things. Tilling soil or preparing beds for planting is perfect, if you're into gardening, or do something else that involves making your living space more beautiful and more connected. As I gaze into my crystal ball I also see a lot of crankiness potential. (Okay, there's no crystal ball, but I *can* see stars out the window!) Resist the urge to grump out -- be mellow. Take a bath, do something soothing instead of biting off someone's head. If you cannot make Mr.Cranky go away, use his energy for good and not evil: mutter to yourself while doing some manual labor you've been avoiding. GEMINI Gemini, you are such a babe! So this weekend, let up on the self-criticism and see what the outside world is up to. People should be feeling springy, so don't be shy. Join others for a brisk walk, invigorating bicycle ride, or a muddy game of football in the park. At the very least, get thee to a shopping mall or someplace else where people hang out -- relax, putter around, and do fun, useless things. Just stop *thinking* for a little bit, especially about yourself. You'll feel refreshed afterward, and maybe even giddy! CANCER Hello, my sensitive little crab-creatures. You've got a nice weekend happening, if you want to take advantage of it. Quietly retreat from anyone who just might happen to be imploding, and enjoy your own groovy vibe, rainbow sister. (Do not be afraid: that hippie-talk was a joke.) This is a fabulous time to take on a big chore that will make your life better in the future, especially if it gets you outdoors a bit. Run an errand across town for your mom, help your brother clean out the gutters, or maybe plant some bulbs. And if something's been hanging over your head -- a term paper, messy room, or the need to dye your roots -- deal with it pronto while the stars are on your side. LEO All work and no play make lions very dull -- as dull as a gorgeous, regal creature like yourself could possibly be. So let up, indulge in some mindless entertainment, and consider springing a romantic surprise on someone who floats your boat, rocks your dock, or makes your tummy tingle. You may find yourself on a compulsive shopping spree, so leave the credit cards at home if you think that a few pair of Kenneth Coles will cause regret in the morning. Stay up all night with a fellow fire sign -- an Aries friend would be perfect, but Sagittarians are always a kick -- for quality time and high amusement value. VIRGO You tend to get uptight about *things* sometimes, about objects and possessions and money. But guess what, Virgo darling? That is absolutely okay. Right now you can feel totally justified about spending time on these matters, because Penny told you so! Draw up a budget if you don't have one, take stock of what you have and what you'd like to have. Spend some quality time with yourself, clear out the basement, formulate some clear goals. Do not -- I repeat, do *not* get sucked into watching TV or otherwise wasting this valuable moment of contemplation. If this all sounds like a drag, remember that there are fun aspects to taking a few days off from your social schedule: you can sleep in late, paint your nails, or write a letter to a far-off friend. LIBRA March kicks off with usually-balanced Libra types feeling kinda, well, unbalanced. Basically things are going along just fine, so don't get paranoid or anything… this is just a fortuitous time to attempt something new. Your normal mode of dealing with things, and your daily rut or routine, will make you feel more awkward. Select something specific and change it -- even if it's something you feel weird about or you're worried other people will disrespect. Chill out and give it a try; you may find that you like change! It will work out especially well if you try to help out other people this weekend, too. Be your ultra-clever self and find a way to do both at once! SCORPIO You Scorps make other signs nervous at times. It seems like you're the deepest and darkest of the water signs, so we might be fascinated but scared at the same time. This is merely testament to your natural wonderfulness and depth of spirituality, of course. With the stars in their current alignment, you can actually make some money off it! How, exactly? What am I, omniscient? I don't know! Be creative and honest -- you'll find the right thing to do. Don't be tempted to exaggerate, though, or tell an outright lie about what you can deliver. Keep it clean and have a great time! SAGITTARIUS Sag's can certainly go off on their famous fun-binges this weekend. Everyone loves you in your high energy, ultra-enthusiastic mood; the Moon in Aries sets you up for thrills like nothing else. Go someplace you've never been before -- somewhere outdoorsy like a park or a sporting event. If that thought makes you groan, use your hyper energy in a social way -- head to a new club, theatre, or cafe. You'll be a hit at parties this weekend, but don't spin too many tall tales about your adventures. Someone will tell on ya. CAPRICORN Greetings, Earth-puppy. However boring it may sound, your house is the place to be this weekend. Organize your room! Fix that rickety old chair! Take out the trash -- even if it's not your turn! Need to take a break? Snuggle with a snuggle-bunny, if you have one, or knock around with a friend, eating pizza and watching Xena reruns. You're actually gonna have a much better time doing all this than you would running around, so enjoy it while Penny, the Great Astrologer, tells you to. You'll get a nice surprise soon, or hear from someone you thought had disappeared. By cleaning up your psyche *and* your surroundings, you'll be prepared to meet upcoming opportunities. AQUARIUS Are you Aquarians grumpy that the Sun has moved over into Pisces and out of your precious sign? Not a bit. You're having a breakthrough time. New ideas are buzzing through your mind, new people are proving fascinating. Non-Aquarians might not understand what's going on with you, but don't worry about what they think. Will you be upset by this Moon in Aries deal? Nope: it causes your famous brain to work even faster. Reign that sucker in, and it'll produce some serious results this weekend. Get rid of distractions, and hunker down to the intellectual work at hand. Whether that means writing a symphony or catching up on your math assignments, you'll be especially productive throughout the weekend. PISCES As the Sun continues its way across your sign after pulling an eclipse there earlier this week, you can turn down the intensity for a day. Take a deep breath and look at where your life is sitting, *right now.* Try not to be judgmental, just check everything out and pat yourself on the back for the accomplishments you've made -- and the subtle but strange times you've been through recently. Make a list, if that will help, or talk it over with a friend, teacher, or family member -- they might have a helpful perspective. See what a good job you've done? Now reward yourself with something that makes you feel even more happy and healthy. AHHH & WOW: ARTIST & WRITER RESIDENCIES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST (2GQ) There's nothing to refresh the soul like an artist or writer residency. In the Northwest, residencies at Soapstone, Hypatia, and Caldera plucked me out of everyday life and into nature. They offered silence and solitude. Most importantly, they reminded me why I do the work: I do the work *to do the work.* Living in a lull, a bubble in the woods, I'm not thinking about how to pay the rent or whether I should hire a videographer to properly document my next performance for $3000 so I can try to get another grant someday. I'm not scrambling to doctor appointments and art events. I'm not on the freakin' Internet all day. I am responsible to no one except myself. I'm just being. I'm walking. I'm feeling the rain on my neck. I'm building fires to keep myself warm. I'm writing, writing, writing... making, making, making... I'm sleeping, too. I'm having afternoon tea and playing solitaire. It's bliss. Productive, amazing bliss. HYPATIA: COUNTRY LIVING, PEACEFUL WRITING Hypatia-in-the-Woods is a new residency, nestled in the countryside near Shelton, Washington. Roomy and beautiful, Holly House emanates a calm, almost solemn feel, with few distractions. It's all about natural light, wood burning stove, high ceilings, and wood. The library consists of one discreet bookcase. Other than that, I felt alone, at peace, the house a blank slate encouraging me to cleanse my inner self, to make it a blank slate that I could write on. Outdoors, it's country livin', with some neighbors nearby, the sounds of chainsaws, dogs, and firearms in the distance. I brought rubber boots and a pair of Docs, perfect for stomping through the trees and sliding down mud hills past "No Trespassing" signs (should I admit this?) to visit abandoned oyster beds on the canal nearby. Days, I often drove into the subdued, extremely Northwesty logging town of Shelton. At the delightful Sage Bookstore, I'd enjoy a moment of civilisation: check my email, drink a latté, browse books, even chat with a few friendly locals. I might stop and look at the mill or the fog-shrouded Olympic mountains in the distance. Then back to walking and back to work. Writers and artists setting out on their first residencies sometimes ask me what it's like, what they should do. They seem to feel a lot of pressure: whether ten days or ninety, this is time they've carefully carved out of their lives for their creative practice. Doesn't that mean they should crank out a bunch of stuff, finish a particular project, come back from the woods with a shining trophy of art? A novel? The best poem ever written? Well, maybe, but for me, residencies serve best as an ongoing part of an ongoing process. My artwork and writing compose a lifelong creative pursuit, after all, one studded with too few extended periods of reflection. Perhaps it's because I write all the time and have no trouble being prolific, churning out miles of prose, songs, and poetry of dubious quality, but what I call "the not-writing" is harder and often more worthwhile than the busywork of blathering and editing. Working with an incredible educator and artist named Laiwan, I came to further appreciate the value of "doing nothing," or in my case, of forcing myself to do nothing. Ironically, the peaceful cradle of an isolated residency retreat usually produces a huge rush of inspiration. After the not-writing and thanks to the contemplation, words and performance work surge through me, scrambling to get out. I arrived at Hypatia with a restless, driven mind. Having been on several residencies by this time, I knew better than to push myself into insta-productivity. The ritual of unpacking my food, clothes, and writing gear soothed me, as did numerous walks in the woods. Making tea, sweeping the floor, watching the birds: these were important daily activities. The first few nights, I watched episodes of Battlestar Galactica on my laptop. This was hardly a Thoreau-worthy move, but for some reason I needed it. These activities loosened me up after a few days, prepping me for the real work. Wrestling an angel, a demon, an alien from the depths of my own brain was my uncomfortable task. Writing about the creative process, I was mired in that process myself. Contextualizing a bunch of my art and writing that had been inspired by the misery of the biological clock and unfulfilled maternal desire wore me out, but the peace I allowed myself in Holly House helped me keep going. (Much of this writing ended up in my Master's thesis, which is sort of explained by this newspaper article, and some is making its way into my new book, based on the Easter Island Project.) Best of all, I was visited by a surprise poem at the very end of my stay; for me, this is a typical pattern, an entire new work arriving to me within the last 48 hours of a retreat or residency. Residency founder Elspeth Pope lives in the main house, a hundred yards or so from Holly House. Otherwise, I could see no neighbors' houses from my retreat-except birds. Over the kitchen table, a window framed the neat nest of a jay family, whose daily dramas ran the gamut from feeding the chirping chicks to holding a shrieking vigil when under lengthy observation by a marauding owl. There may have been a phone; there was definitely no Internet, and if I needed to make a phone call, I'd use my cell in town. Hypatia are having serious financial trouble, so if you're in a charitable mood, consider them as a candidate for your largesse. You can also shop online for prints, books, and crafts to help the cause. If you apply for a residency and are accepted, plan to offer a couple hundred dollars to offset the costs of housing you. Hypatia residencies are intended for women, incidentally. CALDERA: ON THE EDGE OF COMMUNITY My first residency took place about twenty-five minutes' drive from Sisters, Oregon. Apparently I had perfect timing: my residency was sandwiched between an enormous wildfire that struck many of the Caldera property's trees and the completion of Caldera's Hearth Center, which offers art and dance studios, and community space. Coming in after the fire meant a shortened residency period of two weeks, but it also offered incredible solitude and stunning hikes through blackened stumps on white hillsides, tromping through melting snow and seeing the first bursts of Central Oregon springtime. (And getting assaulted by the accompanying allergies, but hey, that's Oregon for ya.) My compact and cosy A-frame cabin looked over an actual babbling brook. I heated the room with a wood stove-what Northwest residency would be complete without one?-and cooked fine, simple meals in the fine, simple kitchen. My writing table sat in sunlight much of the day, though my most productive hours ran late into the night. Compared to my cluttered studio and office at home, the cabin felt tidy and manageable. I came to Caldera with the goal of exploring multiple modes of storytelling: how I might tell the allegedly "same" story in short fiction, in hypertext fiction intended for the web, and write it up as a performance piece. That particular project was educational in the long run, but I deemed it unpublishable. Going for other projects as they came to me in quick strokes of inspiration, I jammed out tens of thousands of words without even trying, and suddenly found a previously onerous task-finalizing seven poems for inclusion in a new anthology by Water Line Press-to be unexpectedly smooth sailing. Ahhh! I met a few other residents during my stay. We'd socialize a bit, maybe share dinner or a bottle of wine now and then, but largely I was on my own. The painter painted, I wrote, and the playwright from Texas wrote, too. He and I drove to Black Butte Ranch one night for damned good Northwest cuisine. If I really wanted to, and I rarely did, I could get a sketchy cell signal on the driveway outside my cabin. A tiny "data shack" provided a crappy old PC connected to a slow modem; here I could check email and visit The Well now and again. The clunkiness of the setup, however, discouraged any Internet malingering. An urgent work matter did come up; the following day, I spent a few hours on the Internet at the Sisters Public Library and picked up some toothsome local emu meat at the tiny natural foods grocery. Despite its lonely, woodsy feel, the property sat in a valley just beneath Highway 126; I grew to accept the occasional roar of trucks as part of the scenery. Another New Oregon/2GQ artist, Clare Carpenter, spent a month at Caldera after the community center building was finished. This meant she could spread out her visual art materials in an expansive studio, and she reported spending quality time with other residents. I don't know what the current Internet status is, or whether the residency retains a feeling of isolation for some residents. Supported by the Wieden family, as in Wieden+Kennedy, Caldera is known primarily for its summer camps for at-risk youth. But if you can manage to get in as a winter or shoulder-season grownup, you may have an incredible experience. GATHERING MOSS AT SOAPSTONE You know those periods of life change that come in years rather than weeks, those sumptuous yet painful transformations that end up defining who you are for decades to come? Yeah, those. My last one, four years of exploration and loss and creativity and grief and weeping and all that fun stuff, was book-ended by two life-changing residencies. Both occurred at the inimitable Soapstone. I don't think this was a coincidence. Located in residential, rural territory near a fish hatchery and some logging work-some of the ugliest damned clearcuts you'll ever see are just ten miles upstream-Soapstone's unique architecture, locked gates, and small chunk of woodsy acreage cocoon the residents in a protective atmosphere. My first trip, I stayed in the newer cabin, the Water Studio. Working in front of tall banks of windows and under the rain-drenched skylights, I watched fast-running Soapstone Creek swell into a torrent during a long storm, and gasped when a bald eagle swooped by, ten feet away, and hung out on a branch. (He or she came back a few times that week. Can I just say Wow?) I don't remember what I was supposed to be working on; in actuality, I finished up a story for the Literary Cash anthology, cranked out some poems about eagles and prose about the art-making process, and shot some video. Soapstone is quite well known, particularly in the Portland literary world, where it enjoys the support of local luminaries like Ursula K. Le Guin (founding president), Judith Barrington (former volunteer director), and Ruth Gundle (director until quite recently). Though I was housed near only one other resident each week, I felt keenly the sense of community permeating the retreat. Books, anthologies, journals, and chapbooks featuring the work of residents stuff themselves into the library shelves; stones carved with the names of donors and their favorite writers line a creekside path. Women tell their stories in guestbook-style journals; recent residents might even leave you food in the fridge. I met a total of three other residents and had a fantastic time with them, bonding particularly with Shelley Washburn, profiled here on Soapstone's blog. In all three cases, our interactions felt interesting and joyful; we were making dinner together, sharing thoughts about writing, and yes, cracking that bottle of wine sometimes, but never tromping on each other's mental or physical space. After all, we came to Soapstone to work. There's no cell reception, but you can use the house phone to call long distance; it's "free," which means you pay a small phone fee with your registration, and you have to pay even if you don't intend to use the phone. On my first trip, I borrowed a dialup Earthlink account (remember those?) and got online a few times for essential tasks. On my last residency, I didn't bring a computer at all, having rediscovered the startling difference between writing by hand and writing to a screen. This residency took place in the Wind Studio. Wind consists of several treehouse-like platforms connected by ladders, all rising above the main house's shared kitchen facilities. At the top balances the one and only Cube. Large, round windows are cut into this small wooden cube with its built-in writing tables, drilling a porthole to the creek, the woodshed, the trees, and eerie moonrises looming against the navy-blue sky of late November evenings. Think about it: you're in a cube, floating in the sky! Wow! Getting restless upstairs, I spent a great deal of time downstairs, writing at the kitchen table and stoking Wind's awesome new wood burning stove, The Queen, who has replaced the cranky old Dutchess. Thank goddess I was laptop-free this time, because it turns out they now have wi-fi at Soapstone! Ugh. For the Internet addict, of which alas I am one, instant access to email and Facebook is hard to ignore. Solitary residencies take you away from your everyday life: that's the whole point. For me, the Internet represents daily life. If I wanted to stay connected with my friends, family, responsibilities, work, and worst of all an influx of media (the news, YouTube links, etc.), I could just stay here in Portland all the time. So I'm glad I'd brought pots of ink, dip pens, Sharpies, and paper. These worked especially well in the Wind Studio, since I could leave a blank notebook and some pens upstairs and downstairs, without having to haul a laptop up the ladder every time I changed writing tables. Soapstone means walking beside the creek, under scrub oaks and alders, and walking along the backroad highway to the fish hatchery. It can also mean driving to the Coast once in a while; Manzanita and Nehalem are only about twenty minutes away. Here I wandered the beach, loaded up on food at the Little Apple grocery, and browsed magazines and drank coffee at Manzanita News & Espresso. One day I drove all the way down to Bay City just for the oysters. Residencies at Soapstone are supported by community volunteering and fundraising. Don't miss their raffle, which features ridiculously good prizes that I never win. SOMEDAY: NEW OREGON RESIDENCY EXTRAVAGANZA (S.N.O.R.E.) Someday, I hope to found a New Oregon residency program. We have a potential spot in the woods for it-country livin', not wilderness, but peaceful nonetheless-and I can't imagine a better way to give back. Residencies rock. Please show your support for the organizations here. If you want to be part of building a new residency program, albeit one that might not have a physical location for many years, email me at magdalen23 att gmail.com. And whoever you are, I hope that someday you get to experience a residency program. Wow, and ahhhhhhh. Title Long Lost - Reviews of An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn, by Alan Licht. Chicago: Drag City. 76 pages. $11.98. and When Surface Was Depth: Death by Cappuccino and Other Reflections on Music and Culture in the 1990s, by Michael Bracewell. New York: Da Capo. 320 pages. $17. From Bookforum. Tiffany Lee Brown I fear for my generation. If these guys are any indication, we're products, consumers, and creators of a fun but frighteningly fluffy culture. We're nostalgic, infantile, and a bit sad. We're halfhearted gonzos hemmed in by jittery po-mo tendencies. We still sound lost, just like we did when the "Generation X" tag first got stapled onto our greasy foreheads. But in their musings on late-twentieth-century culture, both downtown scenester guy Alan Licht and English novelist/culture-crit gent Michael Bracewell let the light shine through. Culture, it seems, will inspire and engage us, despite its often insipid trappings and the depressing theories it inspires. An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn has nothing to do with Martha, the cute lil' pixie-haired VJ on the earliest incarnations of MTV who now pops up on pimple cream commercials. It's a "highly subjective survey" of the 1980s and '90s that features hilarious meanderings on cheesy new wave tunes and teenaged life in the suburbs, written by an independent musician whose unapologetic subjectivity and straightforwardness make for a gratifying read. The personal aspects of his story do contain universal implications-universal to music freaks, at least, and self-identified outsiders. "In a way," he writes, "commercial radio and MTV were the perfect soundtrack for the jail sentence of suburban adolescence." Licht finds nostalgia approaching alongside the early stages of middle age. Suddenly, the pop and new wave tunes that he rejected as a supercool teen seem quite enjoyable, more so than a cherished punk single from the same era. So he subjects songs like Quarterflash's "Harden My Heart" and DFX2's "Emotion" to offhand musical and cultural analysis, avoiding any temptation to transform these nuggets of '80s excess into lime-scented Proustian morsels. In his comment on the Sparks/Jane Wiedlin bubblegum/club classic "Cool Places," Licht notes, "Like the show Square Pegs or the movie Valley Girl, this gets the school-misfits-out-on-the-town vibe just right." And for that extra-creamy, chocolate-nougaty Gen-X touch, he throws in a bit of irreverence and irrelevance: "Jane was my least favorite Go Go after the fat one." Licht contemplates the '80s fixation with '60s culture, something also discussed in Bracewell's book. But the simplest answer to this apparent cultural conundrum mostly eludes them: During the '80s, most Baby Boomers were in their twenties and thirties, like we Gen Xers are now. Just as we're currently waxing nostalgic about Spandau Ballet videos and second-wave punk rock, they were getting all dewy-eyed about long hair and free love. Never mind for a moment that most of our generation beat up its punk rockers, new wavers, and goth kids; forget that most '60s kids never marched on Washington, dropped Owsley in a paisley-painted VW bus, or had an orgy in Golden Gate Park. What's important is that as people grow older, we attempt to extract meaning from the era of our youths. In our world, culture is frequently a mediated and media-dictated experience; thus our attempts must be at least partially manifested as media. And as we grow older, we gain control of the airwaves. We're the art directors brought in by aging upper management to market stuff to both our own generation and the youngsters. Naturally, the musical and fashion detritus of our own youth culture slips in (subversively, we'd probably like to think). The first section of Martha Quinn ends with a bang. Seemingly devoid of that passé old attitude of irony, Licht extols the virtues of Peter Cetera. Yes, that Peter Cetera: cornball balladeer and former Chicago frontman. Better still, he favorably compares the "soppy e-z listening" of Cetera to . . . Glenn Branca. It's astonishing, it's a big ol' giggle, and yet Licht's change of heart should ring true to many aging music geeks: "Glenn Branca is no longer the good guy, Peter Cetera the bad. It's all just music." This marvelous depiction of all-grown-up-now musical epiphany gives way to ruminations about New York City and the transition of its indie music scene from '80s to '90s. Licht then wraps up the alternative music and culture of those decades in an amusing but unoriginal chapter entitled "The Clintonization of Rock." It is nice, however, to read reminders of just how fucked-up the '80s were for its youth, and to know that some Gen-Y kid will read these words and begin to comprehend what powerlessness and fear we felt in that Reagan-Thatcher nightmare. As Licht puts it, "The film Terminator really captures the feeling of that decade." Things degenerate when he identifies the moment grunge died (for him personally, at least). From here on out, his observations exactly mirror every drunken conversation you've ever had with an aging indie hipster/music geek/Gen X cultural observer: Computers isolate us, overproduction of music is bad, CDs suck & vinyl rocks, the promised electronica revolution never really happened, and let's not forget "What's up with those kids today?" If you don't regularly engage in such conversations, by all means study the last chapter of Martha Quinn and gain insight into our rather pouty and predictable souls. And to answer your question: Grunge died the moment Alan Licht heard Tortoise for the first time. Licht's book ends with a whimper, but Michael Bracewell's begins with one-a stupendously self-indulgent description of a color drawing by Adrian Wiszniewski (Culture Vulturing City Slickers, 1986) that the author has decided illustrates the point of his first chapter, which has something to do with endless cityscapes and yammering yuppies. But then we get into the book's juice: Bracewell's eclectic array of subjects. Pop kids Hanson nestle up to The Carpenters and Quentin Crisp. Interviews abound: Patti Smith, Howard Devoto, Gilbert & George, Bryan Ferry. One moment Bracewell fawns all over artist Tracey Emin; the next, he's cavorting with fading popsters Duran Duran and boundary-stretching Beatles/Fluxus icon Yoko Ono. He rhapsodizes at great length about Morrissey, then offers the obligatory searching-for-authenticity-in-a-terribly-postmodern-world-while-being-too-cool-to-be-postmodern rant. Sounds kinda fun, doesn't it? Incredibly, Bracewell has managed to turn this fascinating group into a confusing, pretentious read. Perhaps the England Is Mine author tried to compile an existing body of articles into a single volume and connect them with grand cultural statements. Had he simply lined 'em up and thrown in some glossy photos, When Surface Was Depth would have made an admirably intellectual coffee table book. Instead, he shoehorns everything into five poorly-argued sub-theses involving infantilism, the gentrification of the avant-garde, post-industrial consumer mentalities, and "death by cappuccino." The results range from tiresome to bewildering. Take the section entitled "Retro: Running out of Past." It kicks off with a lengthy description of a scene in which "all you can hear is the amplified sound of your own breathing-those classic deep sea diver Darth Vader exhalations . . . We're yomping along across granite hard terrain . . . huge great retro-burners . . . Not Neil Diamond, but almost, a kind of Gothic Neil Diamond." He's describing some artwork there, kids. Next comes a discussion of how the '90s recycled elements of the '70s, about which Bracewell seems awfully surprised, and maybe even offended. Velvet Goldmine (1998) is presented as an emblem of glam's resurgence, though in actuality many glam revivalists started in the late '80s and were not aping some goofy film. Then he reminisces about seeing his first punk rocker in 1976. Rod Stewart makes an appearance. Bracewell notes once again-as though we haven't read this time and time again in other sources-that trends were recycled a lot in the '90s. Boy were they ever! Without warning, we're plunked into an interview with Alexander McQueen. Great interview, but did it really require that ridiculous windup? In Bracewell's solid interview with Michael Caine, the actor discusses how the media created the concept of "The Sixties" for that decade's own youthful inhabitants. Bracewell follows up with, "The Sixties made Caine, and Caine defined the Sixties as a timely embodiment of the class blurring but ultimately class-conscious zeitgeist." Later in the article, he briefly mentions the influence that Caine and the '60s had on the '90s, but the interview is mostly typical: the actor's life story, personal tidbits, explorations into the impact of certain films. It segues unhappily into six short sentences relevant to Bracewell's thesis. "Retro, let us be reminded, was the Past robbed of its history. Likewise the immediate oppositional thinking that had developed during the late Sixties suddenly seemed remarkably relevant to the cultural materialism of the '90s." This sorry attempt to glue subjects together isn't a cute pastiche or clever assemblage of fragments. It's just irritating. So is Bracewell's writing style, especially when he's theorizing instead of merely exploring his subjects and their artwork. When Surface Was Depth is an essentially British book, referencing Brit pop culture and politics in ways that Americans may not filter correctly. Bracewell also forgets-as do so many cultural critics-that cities like New York and London do not singlehandedly comprise "culture." His lengthy descriptions of the glossy, shallow, monified existence that was NYC in the late '90s are accurate enough (hey, I was there too), but the vast majority of participants in North American and UK culture were not living at the Royalton Hotel in 1998. Much of the decade's definitive UK/US cultural action occurred elsewhere-the Bay Area's Internet revolution, Scotland's literature and film insurgency, and the Pacific Northwest's "grunge" movement-but you won't read much about it here. Not that the book is really about '90s culture to begin with. Its subtitle, Death by Cappuccino and Other Reflections on Music and Culture in the 1990s, both obscures and belies what lurks within. When Surface Was Depth is actually a compendium of pieces about phenomena from the late twentieth century, many of which achieved cultural significance in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. The title presents its own problems: Hasn't surface been depth since World War II, and haven't we beaten that little pony within an inch of its life? Bring them together and you have a title weighted with all the smug finality of academia dropping an anvil on culture's unsuspecting head. What can't be drowned out by Bracewell's clunky writing is a sense of his subjects' force and inspiration. Even if their interviews allegedly serve some miserable thesis about the emptiness of po-po-mo culture, they are powerhouses of art, music, and the popular imagination. Their beauty makes itself evident in their own words and sometimes in Bracewell's, too. Perhaps his editor will pound his manuscript into a compelling shape before it hits the shelves. If not, just opt for Alan Licht's gentle nostalgia, or skim When Surface Was Depth for quotables. Here's one now: "And as for Ren and Stimpy, their mantra of 'Happy, happy, joy, joy' is arguably one of the saddest lines ever written." Tiffany Lee Brown and the group Brainwarmer recently released the CD Elliott Smith's Guitar. Miss Brown edits the webzine Signum, at www.signumpress.com. Miniature Things I Wrote for Bust Pat BenatarThere's a kind of falling in love where you want to be the other person, rather than wanting to do them. That's how it felt when I fell in love with Pat Benatar at age 11. She was tough, but sang in a high, undeniably female voice. She was cute, but favored emotion over sexy moves. I hadn't heard of the Runaways or Kate Bush yet, but it might not have mattered: Pat was down to earth and girly, but she rocked. Guess what? She still does! Crochet goddess Jodie Rogers took me to my first Pat Benatar concert last year, and Pat still exuded all the rock star strength you can possibly pack into such a tiny frame. Her voice is still an operatically-trained onslaught of pop-rock sincerity. But now she shares a decidedly maternal feel-good vibe with her audience, hanging out with her guitarist husband and teenage daughter onstage, laughing about the passage of time. She shows up on cable TV, doing specials about rock moms, and unabashedly admitting that she was always afraid of Joan Jett. She's allowed herself to grow up, without abandoning the work she loves – even though rock & roll is usually a puerile, male-dominated enterprise. I'm in love all over again! Mary Magdalene
magdalen.com

this is the website of tiffany lee brown. sometimes there's a lot to see here, and sometimes she takes it down or moves the index page or otherwise messes with all the goodness. this appears to be one of the latter times.

if you really care about some of her old projects and news, see her blog.

current projects include directing the nonprofit organization neworegon.org, editing Plazm magazine, and writing the Idea Lab blog for Syfy.