Susie Bright's Journal

The Quote of the Year End Day

I belong to a "quotation of the day" email list, where I get a little pearl of wisdom each morning, befitting the day's offing. I love it.

Quotation of the Day for December 31, 2008

We Have Been Here Before

I think I remember this mooreland,
The tower on the tip of the tor;
I feel in the distance another existence;
I think I have been here before.

And I think you were sitting beside me
In a fold in the face of the fell;
For Time at its work'll go round in a circle,
And what is befalling, befell.

"I have been here before!" I asserted,
In a nook on a neck of the Nile.
I once in a crisis was punished by Isis,
And you smiled. I remember your smile.

I had the same sense of persistence
On the site of the seat of the Sioux;
I heard in the teepee the sound of a sleepy
Pleistocene grunt. It was you.

The past made a promise, before it
Began to begin to begone.
This limited gamut brings you again. Damn it,
How long has this got to go on?

- Morris Bishop (1893-1973), The New Yorker, October 29, 1938.

Submitted by: thom newlin

The Quotation Of The Day Mailing List

A Working Class Broad Is Something to Be

R. Gay is a Midwestern-dwelling writer whose new story, “Broads,” is the first chapter in my new Treasury of erotic short stories.

Jimmy Nolan has a thing for broads—loud, brassy women who sit with their legs open and drink beer straight from the bottle—women who always say exactly what they’re thinking and for better or worse, mean what they say.

Jimmy Nolan has a hard time meeting broads.  He’s not quite sure if this is the result of geography, circumstance, or personal limitation.  Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend Marissa was the antithesis of a broad—pale, thin, precise and polite with a watery voice and weak handshake. She says that Jimmy isn’t the kind of guy broads go for.

What is it about the nebbishy guy being the new working class sex hero today?

For so long, the iconic male hero has been a guy with rippling muscles and chiseled features. The heroine likes the bad boy who treats her like crap but knows how to
make her moan.  That is well and good. I don't mind that guy.

But I think there is also space for the narrow, timid somewhat invisible guy who finds a way to make himself seen in the world. There's space for the guy who is nice and kind and I think that we need to stop equating kindness with weakness. They are not synonymous. By that same token, kindness is not antonymous to sex appeal.

I love that your story is the first vanilla story I've ever read about fisting.

It’s always been fairly surprising to me that fisting is considered taboo and  kinky and wrong. I realized this while watching a depressing Lifetime movie called Human Trafficking with Mira Sorvino, when one of the trafficked women was lamenting her unfortunate circumstances by crying, "They fisted me," in a tone that implied that
being fisted was one step away from death.

To my mind, the pussy is the perfect place for a hand. Writers these days (and I don't exclude myself) want to be as "edgy" as possible, so they create hot scenarios where they push that sexual envelope. They take something like fisting and make it seem like a dark, dangerous thing. Perhaps it has simply never crossed a writer's mind to treat fisting as normal as other, more socially traditional forms of sexual interaction.

The good news is that it crossed my mind. I just loved the idea that there is this sweet guy who wants to use his beautiful hands to please the woman with whom he is infatuated.

How would you describe yourself in a phrase, school-wise?

If navigating a university is a game of chess, my favorite move is castling.

Have you ever held Political Office?

The more interesting question, I think, is have I ever held a political member in his office?

What comes to mind when you consider your ancestors, who they were...

My ancestors were free.

I’m Haitian, and it’s always been drilled into me that my ancestors were free and that my ancestors put the idea of freedom into the consciousness of the American people. I think knowing that gives me extra confidence (as if I needed that).

Do you have any noteworthy collections?

I collect old and new Monopoly sets from around the world.

Photo: Duane Dial, Mamluke's Flickr stream. 

Interviews: To read all forty of the Erotic Treasury author Q&A's, find the PDF here.

Eartha Kitt: The Genius, The Purr, the Deep Down Goodness

Eartha Kitt: 1/17/27 - 12/25/08

Take Me To Your Jelly Leader

Today, I'm off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a new generation of children who've never seen the Pacific Ocean like this before.

Someone called MBA one of "10 Things You Have to See Before You're 10" which made me smile— but it's a really a place that invites multiple pilgrimages over a lifetime.

Here are live webcams of their OuterBay exhibit, Kelp Forest, Aviary, Otters, and others. Just remember there's no substitute for petting the head of a manta ray— softer than goofer feathers.

The MBA is a revelation compared the aquariums I visited as a child in the 60s... where you peered into a series of "boxes" with plant and marine life hiding around. With MBA, it's like the sky— or in this case, the ocean— opens up. The anchovies swirl over your head— yes, you read that right. The comb jellies, as seen above, seem to be sending you secret messages. The architects of MBA give as much thought to mind-blowing design as they do to science, and so it's no wonder the whole environment is a psychonaut's delight.

The latest gizmo from MBA:  Seafood Watch for Your Cell Phone

I'm a Lumberjack and I'm Okay

In the war for blue jean supremacy, there is no more worthy, yet neglected contender than the Wild Ass Jean, complete with six Wild Ass bachelor buttons and red suspenders. Fleece lining, your choice!

I spotted these jeans on the street, not because of the double-duty denim craftsmanship, but because of the little tag on the rear pocket that featured a little donkey kicking his hind legs like he really means business!

Once I arrived at Bailey's woodsman supply site, I realized that I was one chipper behind the curve. The work clothes and boots they offer are the warmest, ruggedest, and strangely, most flattering work togs I've purchased in years.

As a seamstress, I can tell you that making your own jeans is for "advanced members" only. (See my Craft Liturgy: "Life's Too Short for Pants"). For those of you who won't be turned away, I suggest starting with Sandra Betzina’s Vogue pattern #7608— plus her book, Fast Fit. You will also need two sewing machines set up— one for straight stitch, one for double— plus a serger, if you hope to finish your jeans within a month.  There is no ballgown that takes as much labor and finesse as a tailored pair of Western jeans— but your buttons will burst if you pull it off successfully!

UPDATE: Email Bailey's to get on their waiting list for the next supply of Wild Asses! Many sizes are already gone for the Xmas rush.

The Bunny Trip

I was a high school swim team score-girl before I was a commie.

I’m glad things ended up that way, because otherwise I never would’ve been able to touch the Playboy Bunny, and carry on my sensual, if guilty, disposition.

The high school swim team was my ticket to an almost-prom, to halcyon schooldays, to a bartended, dress-up affair. 

The Trotskyists, the Yippies, the lavender pinkos— they gave me guns and a good deal to think about, but nothing soft or fluffy.

I went to a school called University High— a white, mostly Jewish school in West Los Angeles. Its public face was one-part Hollywood Colony, one part UCLA professors' kids.

In the ‘70s, there was no truly integrated school in the district. A discreet number of black students from South Central Los Angeles were bused into white schools from the time they were in Kindergarten.

It was not a two-way street. It was a cradle-to-cap affair.

Daughter Songs: Death and Loss at the End of the Year

My mother died four years ago, on a Christmas week. My father passed the next winter, when the light started changing and the warm days were gone for good.

A nurse called me one night from my mother's hospital bed and talked about the winter chill—  how when the temperatures suddenly dropped, even though everyone was well-heated in the nursing home, a score of people would pass away. The dying of the light at the end of the year was more than just a metaphor.

I feel a kindred spirit with others who've lost close friends and family during the holidays— our memories of those relationships, warm or troubled, close or estranged, are overwhelming this time of year.

I was fortunate to find a book after my parents died, called Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents, which is a collection of interviews with an incredibly diverse group of people who don't mince words about the transformation of loss.

Who knew that actor/rapper Ice-T got his nickname as a result of how cold he became as a child when he lost his mom and dad. I sobbed over Geraldine Ferraro's story, of all people. Each story is  illuminating and comforting, especially during the holiday mania, when "false consciousness" seems to be in overdrive.

Listening to my parent's voices, the little bits of recording I have, is especially poignant to me, more than photo albums. Both my parents were linguists; that's how they met as students, each interested in Native California history.

The only recording I have of my mom, Elizabeth, is her interviews with elderly Patwin tribe members in the 1950s, sharing stories and songs from the last of the original fluent speakers. Even though I don't understand most of what they're saying, I'm spellbound by the timbre of my mother's voice.

In my father's case, Bill Bright, he was a veteran broadcaster from KPFA, and delighted in being on the air. I interviewed him about his life and language interests at length on my Audible audio program: 

MP3 file: Bill Bright, 8/13/28 - 10/15/06

In the first segment, Bill talks about his book, Native American Place Names in the United States. You will learn why the origin of the town name, Loleta, CA, comes from an elderly Wiyot man telling a lumber baron's wife, "Let's fuck!" There's more than one story of American place names like this!  He also explains the political and sexual controversy behind the much-abused word "squaw"—which is a lot more complicated than you might think.

In the second segment, I asked my dad what was his first experience was of looking at something "erotic." He describes a series of "Tijuana Bibles" that circulated on the Oxnard Union High School playground in the 1930s— and how his eyes were opened when he came to Berkeley in the post-war years.

At the end of our interview— and this part always makes me cry— Bill recounts some of Coyote's mythic and erotic misadventures. He sings me a song, in the Karuk language, as a girl would sing to capture the attentions of a young man she might have her eye on. He has such a beautiful voice! He learned this song from Nettie Rubin, one of the native speakers and consultants he met when he was just a young man with a wire recorder, traveling up the Klamath River. She told Bill that since he didn't have a daughter, she was going to have to pass on all her special "daughter songs" to him.

Photo: Elizabeth and Bill Bright, 1954, on Army leave in Florence

Rick Warren Can Either Come Out of His Closet, or Go Take a Hike

Who the fuck— many of you are asking today — is Rick Warren?  And why is he threatening to stink up Obama's inauguration?

Well, Obama invited him. He invited this Billy Graham-pretender pastor to give the invocation at the big ball.

This is a guy who believes that every abortion is a holocaust, who thinks the Iranian PM should be assassinated by early this afternoon, who campaigned like Atilla the HUN for Proposition 8, and yet whines that he "has eaten dinner with gay people, so don't call me phobic." 

Oh yeah, and he will fight stem cell research with his last dying breath. Don't I wish.

My beloved Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly writes:

After having had a chance to sleep on it, does Barack Obama's decision to invite Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his presidential inauguration look any better? Actually, no. I'm probably even more annoyed about it now than I was yesterday.

That said, I've been curious to see what others have come up with as a defense. I suppose, to borrow Rachel Maddow's phrase, I want someone to "talk me down."

I can't talk you down, Steve, and here's why:

 1. The only reason this "invitation" flies at all is because anti-gay and sexually divisive bigotry is still considered palatable, while racial and ethnic bigotry is not.

No one can imagine a pastor being invited to speak at any Presidential event who'd made a career of racist invective— and then  compounded it by whining, "I'm not phobic; I love all the little colored people!"

2. Warren has ALL the earmarks in his behavior that we saw with Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Bob Allen, David Vitter, Jimmy Swaggart, et al.  Look at his history... where have you heard ALL this before?

 If this dude isn't found in a bathroom with a wide stance and a hooker in the next year, someone's not doing their job. Paging Jeff Gannon!

I have a different nomination, if Obama would like to take a second look.

Of course, my first choice would be an The Giant Spaghetti Monster.  But if you have to go X-tian for the inauguration, how about Reverend Angela Denise Davis, a black Southern pastor, graduate of Vanderbilt divinity school, who belongs to CLOUT: Christian Lesbians OUT: "proudly progressive, actively anti-racist, creatively spiritual, milagro-bound."

I'd go to one of her services in a minute!

Photos:

1. Portrait of a drowning man: Orange County Register

2. A real church sign, not a fake! This is from a fundie church outside of Columbus, Ohio. Thanks, Tamara!

3. Some of the nice, equality-loving, caring, Christian Lesbian Ministers that Obama could choose from...  from CLOUT.

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My First Vlog — With a Little Help from Brian Eno

BoingBoing asked me to make a video for them to introduce myself to their readers. I'd never tried any of the various "recording" apps on my computer; it's something I always thought I'd take a class in— someday.

Instead, it was more like the swim class where they throw the six-month-old into the deep end. I made this by myself, over about three hours. Yes, three hours to clean up, script, mike and light, rehearse, record, and export just a couple minutes of video.  At least I didn't drown!

I gave myself some inspiration for both action and intent by using Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's infamous "Oblique Strategy" cards.  The card I picked for the day was: Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle.

Works for me!

I made this with my Mac's iMovie application. I have no idea how to edit anything, so what you see is what I recorded. I put on mascara and lipstick; I fooled around with the natural light and a couple lamps.  I was blind with technical ignorance, but I got a kick out of the result. I shall try this again with some meatier material!

Perhaps I shall throw a shoe at someone.

Do any of you vlog? Do you like it? Are they any talking-head vlogs you find captivating? I want to get inspired.