I am Giddy with Green Porno

The internet kicks my ass once again!

I read about this Green Porno thing a couple months ago, I can't remember where but it might have been the print copy of Bitch Magazine. It sounded fantastic, and I duly searched the internet, but it quickly became clear that it was not available yet. There is no way to adequately explain what Green Porno is, so I will just say that Isabella Rossellini made some (very) short films demonstrating how certain insects mate. They are all of the following: bizarre, hilarious, to the point, graphic, slightly anthropomorphized, impressively costumed, and minimally set. They are exactly what I hoped and dreamed when I first read about them, and watching them I felt a euphoria similar to that I felt when I saw the Spock Impersonator Oil Paintings of Professor Snape and Company.

I really cannot explain how random and amazing this is, so will just urge everyone to enjoy them here.

It's super cool that the Sundance Channel would fund something like this, and especially that they would then make it available on the internet, where it rightfully belongs. Isabella Rossellini is obviously beautiful and accomplished, but it took watching The Saddest Movie In the World last year to make me realize how truly interesting she is. I didn't love that movie - it was quite strange and the black and white vaseline lens is not my cup of tea - but I appreciated how much she seemed to enjoy playing a legless beer baroness, and that her presence in the movie added a certain legitimacy to such a singular, abstract and artsy work. That she would create (write, direct and star in) Green Porno is inspiring, and her obvious glee playing the male insect roles makes me happy for myself as a viewer and her as the agent of these one-minute shorts. I tend to like anything gender-bending anyway, and I feel like I should say something about that aspect here, but the shorts are so far outside any frameworks I already have to work with that any sort of analysis would require too much thought process for me at this time.

As with the Snape oil-painting post referenced above, I feel the need to end this post thanking the internet at large, and Isabella Rossellini in particular, for the existence of Green Porno. My definite favorite is the Bee, so if you're only going to watch one, click that when you get there.

For the record, I owe somebody a hat tip for the link but cannot for the life of me figure out who. Where did I see this last night when I was stoned roaming the internet? I've gone through my internet history and searched some of the websites I frequent, I really can't figure it out. Sorry whoever you are.

(Cross-posted at You All Everybody!) Read more!

My Cats: Gobble and Amelia

I am experimenting with using flickr to upload photos, so here are some pictures of my cats.

This is Amelia, looking regal and uncompromising, which is how she expects to be treated at all times:


Amelia's about six years old and I've had her since she was a kitten, which makes me feel aged. I got her after a a break-up with a long-term boyfriend who'd been allergic to cats. A friend's neighbor found a box of abandoned kittens and brought them home, where they would wander over to frolic in my friend's backyard. Amelia was clearly the runt of the litter, but also the kitten most likely to start shit with her larger siblings, and i was charmed. I had planned to name her Sexy, sheerly for my own amusement at the idea of coming home to call, "Hey, Sexy!" When I went to pick her up, though, I found that the eight-year-old whose fingers she nibbled to wake up every morning had named her Amelia Earhart, which was too cute to deny.

As cats go, she's fairly demanding. She expects an immaculate litterbox, all doors to be open all the time, and me to remain immobile on the couch so she can sprawl across my belly in comfort. When these are not options, she complains. She's very vocal - I'll post video eventually. She's hissed at me just for closing the closet door, but she can also be very sweet and demonstrative.

This is Gobble, who I've had for a year and a half now:


I got her at the local county shelter, where she was waiting for a home after being fostered by a relative of one of the shelter workers. She was a little older than I liked to introduce to Amelia, but she had all her shots, etc. and came highly recommended by the shelter workers, so I set her up in the pending-new-housemate extra room for a couple days before the Amelia introduction. She was extremely skittish for approximately one hour, after which she did a complete turn-around and loved on everyone present then ate her body weight in kitten kibble. The Amelia introduction is another story.

Gobble is still skittish about a lot of things and does not like to be petted in passing. If you try she'll give one warning paw smack before she starts biting. If she knows you, though, it's simply a matter of time before she'll approach. Then she is ridiculously sweet, butting her face into your hand for rubbing and gazing open-mouthed into your eyes with adoration while you stroke her.

As the photo may indicate, Gobble loves the sink area the most, and will rub against the back of your calves while you wash the dishes. She's not very vocal, but when she does make noise it's unexpectedly strange, including a fast clicking noise from her mouth when extremely excited by birds outside the window. I named her Gobble in part for her style of eating (she dive-attacks the food then jerks backward so it flies upward through the air to land in her mouth), and in part for the turkey gobble sound she makes occasionally when playing by herself in a cat freak-out. Gobble deserves more attention than she gets because Amelia is such a me hog, but as she's gotten bigger she's taken her place more and more.

A typical day's interactions with my cats include Amelia sprawling across my belly on the couch, head resting on a bosom, and Gobble on the headrest next to us, stretching down just enough for her paw to rest on my arm. When I go to sleep at night, Amelia goes to her cat pad on top of a hight bookshelf across the room looking down on me, and Gobble resting in the hammock of the cat tree above my bed, also looking lovingly down at me. At those times especially it somehow feels like family, and I can't imagine my life without them. Read more!

All About my Mother. OK, Also my Grandparents and a Whole Bunch of Other Relatives.

So it's Mother's Day, and as such it seems to be expected for Moms to get breakfast in bed, treated like queens, etc. etc. The last three or four years that has not happened for my Mom, and I think our Mother's Day tradition is the perfect example of how totally awesome she is. This year, my Mom organized brunch for almost 50 people, in honor of all the mothers in our family, and particularly my grandmother.

My mother's parents died a number of years ago, but she is very close to my Dad's parents, and in fact they moved in next door to said grandparents, which is a whole other story. Both living grandparents now have Alzheimer's, and have really deteriorated the last couple years, to the point that they can't be trusted home alone for too long or simple things like making toast turn into kitchen fires. My grandparents had ten children (Irish Catholic, represent!), and all but one live in California, most in the immediate area. All have married and had children but one, and he re-married and has a stepdaughter, so in essence every single one of their ten children has children. I honestly can't keep track of all the kids in my extended family, but my grandparents have approximately 30 grandchildren and at this point more than ten great-grandkids in addition to that. Side note: It's reassuring when an aunt or uncle whispers "who's that kid?" to me while a toddler crawls around on the carpet. I am the least likely family member to have that answer except the out-of-state unlce and family, and it's a total bonding moment.

I grew up somewhat isolated in the country and we didn't see my grandparents and family nearly as much as they saw each other, so I was never as comfortable with the huge extended family network as they clearly were with each other. I have chronic outsider feelings in most situations and family gatherings - Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc. - are arduous and feel interminable. Wailing kids, packs of wild young cousins running underfoot, polite and uncomfortable conversations with well-meaning but obliviously ignorant or fundamentally catholic aunts and uncles I have nothing in common with, this is what family holidays are to me (here's a small sample from my old blog). I'd like to avoid them altogether, but these things are important to my very excellent parents so I go to every fucking one.

Today I arrived at my parents, as requested, at 9:00 AM to be put to work. My mother asked me to go next door to borrow knives, then immediately decided she should go herself since my grandparents may have forgotten about today's event and she would be better to explain it (my grandma continually mistakes me for one or another cousin, but they are with my parents all the time, are aware to some degree of how much they lean on my parents and don't have a problem remembering them). They'd told my grandparents about this all week, and my grandmother at least three times yesterday. As my mother tells it, this morning she wished grandma Happy Mother's Day and reminded her of the brunch today. She explained that almost all her kids and her grandchildren would be there to honor her for Mother's Day, and grandma put her hands to her cheeks and exclaimed, "Oh, my goodness!" like it was a surprise party just for her. Obviously, grandma was thrilled.

My mother made orange scones with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert, bacon, a vegetarian egg-strada (vegetarian for ME, the only vegetarian in the family, because she is thoughtful like that), and fried potatoes. Other relatives brought quiche, ham, sausage, and a variety of coffee cakes and cinnamon rolls. We served coffee, tea and mimosas, which was my responsibility for all new arrivals. My other job was to give every single mother, including my great-grandchildren-producing cousins, and two sets of parents-in-law from one aunt and another uncle, one of the freaking ORCHID CORSAGES my parents had bought to make the day even more special. My mother was worried she may have miscounted and there might not be enough corsages, so we saved one in the fridge for her to put on only after she was sure all the other mothers got one (they got exactly the right number, so she eventually did get to wear her corsage).

To make this event happen, my parents spent the last two days cleaning their house, readying the outside garden area, borrowing a couple tables and a bunch of chairs from an uncle on my mom's side, and setting up one table in their enclosed patio and five outside tables, replete with tablecloths, vases of flowers from their garden (on every table - my dad is adorably into flower arranging), glasses, and all of the silverware they could get from their own stores and my grandparents. For smaller gatherings, it's always my job to set the table, but they had most of it done before I got there so I just had to fill in the blanks.

Because my mother likes to entertain people "right," in a way that my very alzheimered grandmother more than anyone else would appreciate, she was awake until 11:00 PM last night ironing napkins. Her biggest regret today was that my uncle's in-laws, a friendly and vivacious couple of sixty-odd-years, ended up sitting where she thought just kids would be, at the end of the row of outside tables where there were plastic instead of real glasses and some of the tableware was plastic.

They still had ironed cloth napkins, though!

My Mom spent her Mother's Day cooking, organizing, worrying about people getting enough food/drink, generally running around finding serving spoons, etc., and trying to make a very special holiday for everyone else. I think it's nuts for her to do this on what is ostensibly "her day", and freely say so, but it makes her happy so whatever. When I arrived she squealed and gave me a huge hug, told me how happy she was I was there, talked to my brother on the phone, hugged me again and told me how happy she was that I was helping, went next door to spread the word to my grandparents, came back and put the eggstrada in the oven and started cooking bacon and readying the potatoes and onions, opened my present and told me how thoughtful I was to get the Juno soundtrack, spread some family gossip while taking out the crystal glasses for me to place, spared a moment in the kitchen to chat with almost every newcomer, and on and on and on.

When the extended family finally all left - a full five-and-half hours AFTER scheduled brunch time, it was clear that this is pretty much the pleasantest holiday gathering my family has. Which is due entirely to my Mom's vision and preparation, and to my Dad's assistance. Point of this whole thing being: my Mom is teh awesome. I'm very impatient with most extended family stuff, but somehow when I'm involved in a way I know makes her very happy and I have a role that keeps me busy, I'm happier too.

After everyone finally left, we finished cleaning the big stuff and looked for a movie to watch on pay-per-view. I convinced them to go with Death at a Funeral, which my Dad nearly fell off the couch laughing at. So I guess it was a pretty great Mother's Day.

In about a month we get to do it again for Father's Day. I will suffer through it and be grateful to my parents too, again. Read more!

Earth Day 2008

I'm pasting this from my old blog, where for some reason I made it into it's own page rather than a blog entry. Why yes, I am new at this.

Some interesting Earth Day-related posts I read today:

1. At Shakesville, Shaker Rana posts on the ways gender is embedded in the environmental and green movements. I liked it as food for thought. My housemate, who liked it also, had one criticism in that she thinks some of the stereotypically feminine focus on personal, consumer changes have more to do with generational differences than gender differences.

2. At i09, Annalee Newitz writes about futurist Jamais Cascio’s theory that Earth Day, when framed as a discussion on saving the earth, should really be termed Human Civilization day. Since the planet will eventually recover no matter how much damage we do, what we are arguing for ultimately has more to do with human civilization surviving. This one I also liked as food for thought, although I was grateful to see someone in the comments catch that this perspective overlooks all the species humans wipe out in the meantime.

Read more!

The Story of Stuff

I just would like to recommend this, a short video called The Story of Stuff about what goes into creating and getting us the myriad things that we consume, found via Jack at Feministe. One thing that stood out especially is that 99% of what goes into making something is thrown out within six months of receiving it. Holy shit, our system/way of life here is so broken. I'm not even sure what system I'm decrying, except to say a lot of them, or maybe the greater US system of irresponsible, unbridled capitalism all our smaller systems contribute to. Read more!