BIDPL Review of Zines

I picked up this zine at The Fest in Gainesville this past October.
(I also picked up what they call "the Fest AIDS," but that went away.)

Nuns I've Known by Prunella Vulgaris is a refreshing take on the Catholic school-survivor memoir. Vulgaris wrote a few paragraphs each on eight nuns who taught her in school. She remembers them vividly in all their banality and horror. She remembers some of them affectionately, even if it is sometimes a rueful affection. Others, like Sister Clement, who wore spike heels, she just can't seem to get out of her mind.

A feminist and a punk, there's a lot she remembers with anger.

Like Sister Rita: "Her thing was abortion. She was obsessed. Every morning for a whole year I had to look at a poster-sized picture of a fetus after it was aborted, or on its way to getting aborted, or something. Really, abortion appeared to represent EVERYTHING to her, everything to do with morality, the Catholic faith, rightness, sexuality, femininity. The topic was a receptacle for all her rage, all of her frustration and apparent problem with sex, all of her self-righteous nonsense. This is what seems to happen to people who become preoccupied with this topic from the 'pro-life' perspective, and there is something mind-blowingly unwholesome about it. They find a way to work it into EVERY conversation. Why is this what is on your mind all the time? Doesn't that seem wrong just on a spiritual and, like, human level? Their interest wasn't political--it was personal, detailed, gory, repulsive."

Maybe you can get a copy at www.myspace.com/prunella_vulgaris

Reader Submissions #2

This bad idea comes from Keri in Las Vegas:

Many moons ago, I was still in high school, and a bunch of friends and I went drinking in Mt Charleston. I drank a bit too much and needed to take a piss. I walked away from the campsite and started peeing on a small hill (the idea, I think, was for the pee to run downhill and avoid getting on my shoes. I was drunk of course, and lost my balance and started tumbling down the hill, mid-stream of peeing. So, I rolled all the way down the hill, with my pants around my ankles, peeing on myself as I rolled down. I made it back to the campsite pantless, covered in mud, pine needles, and my own urine.

Bad Idea Icon of the Month

Dorothy Parker is the supreme patron saint of Bad Idea Potluck and thoroughly embodies all our highest aspirations. Not least because she was a much greater writer than the quotes and comical poetry for which she's famous would lead you to believe.

Still, this poem remains my chant for dark hours:

They say of me, and so they should,
It's doubtful if I come to good.
I see acquaintances and friends
Accumulating dividends
And making enviable names
In science, art and parlor games.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice,
And though to good I never come
Inseparable my nose and thumb.
— Dorothy Parker

Madeline

Madeline opened for Adron at Star Bar last night. She was so great it kind of hurt a little, especially since I was at that moment convinced that I would never really like another folk musician. The Dutchess and the Duke don't count because it's really pop music and I only love them by way of hating them for breaking my heart afresh every time I hear "Scorpio."

But Madeline was monstrous. She reminded me of Buffy Sainte-Marie and no one reminds me of her. Madeline's voice is higher and more delicate and pretty (crystalline even) but it has a similar power. And by power, I might mean vibrato.

She also has a kind of human-ness and sincerity that is out of fashion at the moment. It enables her to be exactly who she is while getting away with a song about Johnny Cash being bored in heaven. It's a little Dorian Gray-eerie when she sings about hard living because she looks exactly like Anne Hathaway, but I still bought it.

So, I let her unlock my personal stores of regret and remembrance with all her love songs. But she has this skill that made it worth the trouble: She can draw the poison out.

With The Dutchess and the Duke, you don't get much in exchange for your suffering.

I'd question my own ravings, but this was a show in a bar and she was the first act and no one was talking over her. They listened like kindergartners at story time. And then they were consistently unruly for the rest of the night.

She has an new album called White Flag.

Madeline

Hammerhead Andy

I'm trying to figure out how I went to see the best, funniest most varied burlesque show of my life at Alcove Gallery the other day (It was an omnibus show put on by Blast-Off Burlesque with special guests from Syrens of the South.) but the most heart-stopping part of the show for me was this blockhead guy, Hammerhead Andy. He pounded a nail into his head through a nostril (gently tapped, really) crunched up a light bulb in his mouth and may have drank bleach. His partner "The Mysterious Masticator" may have eaten cat feces for our edification.

So, our question for the day is: Why is this hot? Because it is. If you don't believe it in this context, consider all of the women you know who refer to one or more members of the Jackass franchise as their "husband."

I think it is hot for the same reason androgyny is hot, it totally destabilizes the patriarchy. For a dude to do physical harm to himself in order to amuse me, he has to give up some of the power and dignity that goes with his normal role as a straight guy. It's not generally emasculating, though, and this holds true for straight cross dressers from Eddie Izzard to the New York Dolls. It just creates a situation of sexual anomie.

I'm saying that applying a staple gun to your scrotum (or dressing up like an organ grinder's monkey and mortifying your flesh on stage) is a kind of atavistic gender activism, that it creates an archetype of liberated and liberating masculine chaos that is not traditionally aggressive, and is, therefore, dead sexy. I'm serious about this. Think how disappointed these guy's dads must be. Think how much worse that is than disappointing mom.

To clarify: traditional, unmitigated patriarchal archetypes are not sexy. They are boring and suffocating (unless we're talking about campy fascist role playing or something.)

I think these things occurred to me because the show, a send-up of '60s sci-fi called Mysterious Mysteries of the Unknown featured a drag king, a straight male strip tease and nearly every other point on the spectrum of performative sexuality. In this gorgeously kaleidoscopic context, Andy's act seemed like a variety of straight drag. Tellingly, the "Mysterious Masticator" affected an upper-class accent and wore a mask, claiming that, if his identity were known, he could lose his standing in society for the strange arts he practices.

I think it's also interesting to note here that side-show geekery and burlesque have gone skipping hand in hand almost since they were invented.

For some reason, human suspension (see image below) or any other kind of self mutilation done without humor and/or claiming to be art doesn't turn me on. The straight face ruins everything and makes me question your sanity and your motives.

Freetail Therapy

Clothing swaps (naked lady parties if you're nasty) are an at-home miracle of social engineering. You bring your unwanted clothes and then try on all the unwanted clothes everyone else brought. Usually there is some arrangement or order to this. Or, at least, the piles of clothes are organized by size and general garment type. Other than that, they are often free for alls, but they tend to be social rather than anti-social occasions. Far more so than the average party where everyone may or may not know each other. For one thing, girls tend to strip in front of each other, so you have twice the normal number of exposed tattoos for conversation pieces, and you're naked, so no one can really get away with acting too snotty. Plus, if everyone gets naked then you know everyone is pretty down.

Women who have never been to a clothing swap party are often skeptical: "What if there isn't anything in my size?", "What if everyone else brings crappy clothes and I give away nice ones?" All I can say is that they have a way of working out just fine.

The best thing about an event like this for a chronically misguided person like myself is the benefit of unsolicited advice. That's another thing that just sort of happens at these things. They have a way of marrying the wisdom of the crowd with a personal shopper so that everyone receives the equivalent of expert (and often psychologically insightful) advice: "You keep trying that on with different things. Just take it."

Good clothes sometimes fall into the wrong hands and end up looking like bad clothes. Clothing swaps are a natural way of setting things to rights. This last one was the best yet. I left in a complete new outfit. Behold.

BIPL Review of Books

With clearly illustrated flow charts representing the progress (or not) of the soul in 91 world religions, this book brings home a certain point to me. My life would be a lot more interesting and full of possibility if I believed in something invisible. (Though, atheism is included, along with satanism.) I don't get to propitiate my ancestors with food and hell money like Confucians, or wear a cool sword and change my name like the Sikhs. I won't undergo spiritual possession, either. No killer jewelry, no confession. Just modern love.
The trouble is, all the really cool religions don't go recruiting door to door. Dear Voudou, Shinto, Santeria and Sufism, please send missionaries to Edgewood (near Target).

Dogfish Head'Etre

Dogfish Head beers will resort to violence, and some of the IPAs are no better than common thugs, but the Raison D'Etre is more of an intellectual bully. A few sweet, caramel-y sips launched me into a full-on, old-school existential anxiety attack. It was like getting forced out of a car onto a deserted city street on a rainy night, however, the lingering aftertaste of drunk quickly soothed my fear and emptiness. This beer actually is the cause of, and the solution to all life's problems. I give it five stars (and gaze at them from the gutter).