I have two favorite artists right now--my third has gone missing--does anyone know what happened to Luca Tripaldi? But anyway--my two favorite artists are Katrine Kalleklev and Camilla Engman. Katrine has just posted some new images on her blog, and I want to share them. They are, top to bottom, "The Loneliness" and "The Emptiness."

Oh, Orenthal James, what can I say? I find it truly fascinating that we can convict you of crimes against property when we could not convict you of a crime against a woman.

I know, you are a black man, and that fact cannot be discounted in our racist culture--but it still amazes me that in general crimes against women count for so much less than theft of property. Maybe its just that we are so obsessed with our stuff that we react so powerfully against theft--but come on! You killed your ex-wife and a man who happened to be there, too. Is this a kind of delayed justice? I don't know.

What would Noam Chomsky say about all of this bulllshit and fake patriotic hoopla last night? Did anyone else notice that McCain began speaking at 9:11 p.m.??

What the fuck was that? Was that supposed to be symbolic? Oh my god, so moving. It makes me sick.

By the way, what the fuck was Fred Thompson trying to say? "When you lived in a box . . ." How many times do we have to hear about John McCain's suffering? How is it relevant?

You know, John McCain's choice for VP is not really that surprising to me. She is an ultra-conservative, anti-choice, pro-abstinence, pro-gun, anti-wilderness, the evangelical's darling, choice.

The fact that her 17 year old daughter is now 5 months pregnant should be none of our business, right? Her life is her own. Her choices are her own, as every woman's should be. But here's the problem--when you are a rabidly anti-choice candidate, and one who believes in and promotes abstinence only sex education (which has been proven to increase unsafe sex practices while it does little or nothing to delay sexual activity) your choices and your daughter's are fair game.

Your daughter's pregnancy is an example of your policies, Ms. Palin. Having your 17 year old daughter hold your infant son Trig to hide her pregnancy is a cheap shot, and now you've made her a target. Obama is wrong on this one--you and your daughter are fair game.

Game on, I say. Let the battle begin.

Late summer yard beauty . . .

A few days after the official beginning of summer, I thought a some photos of the beauty in my summer garden would be nice . . .

I recently went to California to visit my 80 year old mother. Isn't she beautiful? She is really an amazing woman. She has a cat named Blanco who loves to eat her vanilla ice cream cone from McDonald's. He is a nut case. Here is a picture of him.

Here's a little tribute to some of the dogs in my life. I love these little furry persons. They are so kind, loving and generous with their emotions. Why can't people be more like them?

From top to bottom, these creatures are: Albina (who likes to squeeze into Marcy's teeny bed when she visits), raccoon visitor (I know she's not a dog), Morran (Camilla Engman's beautiful oft-photographed puppy), Gibby (who recently left this earth--we miss you!), and Marcy (my little chihuahua).

Here is another artist whose work I really like. His name is Kit Malo. Or her? I don't really know. Does it matter? Not really. I love this image--it is so emotional and lovely. You can get some of her/his work on Blueflip Art. Very reasonable, too, besides being just gorgeous. This print is called "Entre le Loup et le Chien."

Wow. Katrine does it again, with a beautiful, mystical piece of art entitled "I do not know you." I can't really articulate or even describe how much I love this piece. I love the way the figure on the right is looking at the woman on the left--and how she is spurning him, just a little bit.

Katrine will be showing some of her work this spring in Hollywood, California, at a gallery called Tinlark. The show will be from April 12 to May 10. Go, Katrine!

Marcy enjoying the view from my Mom's window.


Here's my mom's birdbath, full of lovely fall leaves.


Here's some salvia I planted in my mother's backyard in Burbank, California, two summers ago. She's not a big fan of these plants, but I love them, especially when they're blooming. I took the picture last summer.

feminist motivations . . . (these are from a talk I gave recently to college students)


don't do your boyfriend's (girlfriend's) homework. or write their papers. ever.

don't go out with anyone who makes you feel bad about yourself--even a little bit.

do spend time with people you love--and the people who love you.

don't ever have sex unless you really, truly want to. seriously.

it's okay to ask for pleasure! if the person you're intimate with doesn't or won't reciprocate, dump them. seriously.

don't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror. don't stress about how you look. you look great, believe me.

do love your body. I mean really love it. it's a fabulous, amazing machine--take good care of it, feed it well, use it well, love it.

get to know your body--what makes it happy, what gives it pleasure. boys know this already. but who tells girls its important to know this? I'm telling you now. you need to know how to make yourself happy before anyone else can do it.

don't ever criticize other women for how they look, dress, how much they weigh. criticism of women's appearance perpetuates devaluing women and reinforcing the wrong idea that women are primarily valued for how they look.

realize that everything is political. the personal, in particular, is political. each and every action we take is a kind of political moment. what you put or don't put into your vagina is political. think about this: if your husband beats the shit out of you they used to say "that's a domestic matter--between the husband and his wife."

Stephen Colbert is sexy. He is very smart. Smart is sexy, no? I realized last night that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have made it a little more bearable to live in a world that looks to Dick Cheney and George Bush for leadership. Thank you, guys, for your scathing sarcasm and withering insight into our pathetic administration.

Here is a little photo tribute to the love of my life, Marcy Keeton Younger.

Art obsession continues. It's truly amazing how much incredible art there is in the world. One of my very favorite artists is a Norwegian named Katrine Kalleklev. She sells some of her work on Etsy and also has a blog (see links right) that showcases her stuff. She is very nice, too, and always sends me a note or little extra with her art. I admit I am slightly crazy about her work. It is really just so beautiful and moody. She also has a cat named Julius.

Here is one of my favorite pieces by Katrine. It is titled Girl and the House.

The other day here in Des Moines it was very sunny--almost painfully so--but it was very beautiful. The snow and ice were sparkling and glaring at me under the crazy sun and I couldn't believe how amazing it all was. The streets were glowing, shining away, everything seemed illuminated in a strange and ferocious way.

Okay--this may be a bad thing to say, but why does no one ever talk about the fact that every time someone shoots up a place and kills a bunch of people the shooter is male? I know there are rare exceptions, such as the woman in Baton Rouge a few weeks ago, but almost all of the shooters are men. Why is it that this little fact gets omitted from news reports? They usually tell when someone is black, or white, or latino.

Is it because white males are the default for human in our society? Is it because we expect shooters to be men? I think it is because they are the default, and women and people of color are the "other" in our lovely culture. But here's the real issue--their sex is not mentioned because there is something deeply wrong with masculinity in our society and no one wants to talk about it. Notice that I said there is something deeply wrong with masculinity--not with men. I will acknowledge that most shooters are white males, yes, that is true, but the problem is not with sex--it is with gender--it is with masculinity.

Carol Clover argues in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws that sex proceeds from gender in the modern horror film. What she means is that characters perform gender. No matter what a character's biological sex is, they are coded male or female according to how they "perform" gender. So you are female if you scream; you are not necessarily screaming because you are female. So in the case of all of these shootings, the shooter is male because he is shooting--he is not shooting because he is male.

What I'm saying is that something in our culture--something about how we teach men, primarily, about what it means to be masculine, lets them believe that it is a appropriate expression of anger to buy guns and use them to annihilate a bunch of people.

Here I am, in the middle of February, waiting for the end of winter and just the tiniest bit of spring. Please, oh weather gods, send us some warmth!

What I really want to say is that I love my dog, Marcy, and I feel very badly for her (a 9 pound chihuahua) in this weather. I know its doubly hard for her to go outside and pee or poop.

Here is my pictorial tribute to her and to this frozen wonderland we call Des Moines, Iowa.

Apparently there is this thing called tagging--and a blog I read all the time by artist Ashley Goldberg www.kittygenius.com posted her experience of being tagged, and so I responded with my own seven random facts. Here they are.

I introduce my Chihuahua Marcy as my "partner."

Sometimes at night, just before I fall asleep, I swear there is someone in my doorway. This has been going on for years.

When I watch television, I can't switch between channels randomly--I have to go up or down the numbers in order.

I believe in zombies.

When I was born, my mother said I was very "simian-like."

I used to work for Aaron Spelling!

I lived in the same apartment for 13 years to the day.

Ashley's artwork is just amazing, and she is the nicest person I know from the web whom I have never met in person. The above prints are "You Were Saying" and "Heartbreaker." If you want to see her work which is totally fucking great and very reasonably priced, go to her Etsy shop, which is www.ashleyg.etsy.com and is also linked on her blog. I have about a million pieces of her work. Lucky me!

When I was in college I used to write poetry sometimes, like any lunatic english major. I usually began a poem when something momentous or annoying happened, or when I had an epiphany of some kind. The other day I found a bunch of crap I wrote in a file, and actually found a few things I liked. Here's a poem that I wrote when I realized the jerk I was dating at the time was a jerk. His name was Michael Riedell and I think he is now a high school teacher which I find rather frightening.

I like to think that I learned something from every relationship that I've had. In part because of my time with him (besides learning what total assholes humans can be) I actually did learn many things about myself including becoming aware of some of my own vulnerabilities. I don't regret many things I've done in my life; I do regret wasting precious time on him. At least I got a poem out of it.


marriage

when he hears the word marrriage
more than three times
in as many days, he begins
to itch in places he didn't know existed
he starts to eye the windows
of travel agencies
he wonders about the limits
on his visa and mastercard

the itch gradually subsides
until he gets to waremart
where he slowly becomes aware
he is shopping with a woman at his side
the aisles of the store contract around him
eggs become orange juice
milk flows into wine
he takes refuge in a magazine
she continues to shop
not unaware of his proximity to the floor
as food fills the cart
the need to move
the urge to scratch
become central
outside, he feels relief
until he sees a woman
selling chocolate roses for valentine's day
he looks at her, then at the woman by his side
no, he says to himself
but the woman he loves hears him
he sees her mouth move
but does not hear the words
he glides the cart with some effort
toward the car

at home, the air is still and heavy
he opens all the windows
gulps the mobile air
and wonders where to scratch
the woman who was beside him
who is beside him
puts her hand on his neck
he feels her warm lips
and looks at her
he sees himself
alone on a mountain top
in the wind
the woman says
I could spend my life with you
and shuts the door
he watches her through the open window
and does not move