1 TWO MOTHERS – Germany – Director, Anne Zohra Berrached
REACHING FOR THE MOON – Brazil - Director, Bruno Barreto
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14 Theorhetorically Speaking By Nikki McCauley 18 Transgender CON By Chris Angel Murphy 18 Alcoholism, The Thinking Disease By G-O Digillio TENTS 32 Living Out By Sally Sheklow
33 Positive Reflections Inside LN By Dian Katz, MS 42 Words That Make Sense 11 POETRY By Toni Hart 13 MUSIC 19 LIFE COACH’S CORNER 19 QUEERLY QUESTIONING Lifestyles 20 MOVIES EYE C 22 LOLs 10 Politically Speaking 24 HOT SPOTS By Donna Wade 26 BOOKS 12 Comic Of The Month 38 COMMUNITY ACCESS By Linda Montgomery 40 THE WEEKENDER 40 TRAVEL 15 Humanity Here By Karen Williams 41 FEMASTROLOGY 16 HERstyle By Christin & Ashley Kelly-Brown 27 Interview With Katherine Forrest By Terry DeCrescenzo 34 Miranda Otto By John Ester
28-31 Cover Story JANIS IAN : Still Connecting In All The Right Ways Cover Photo Credits: Lloyd Baggs By Nat Burns
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com 5 LESBIAN NEWS
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7 CYNDI LAUPER’S TRUE COLORS FUND ANNOUNCES 3rd ANNUAL “HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS” BENEFIT CONCERT
Star-Studded Concert to Raise Funds and Awareness for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth Homelessness
Saturday, December 7th at New York’s Beacon Theatre
October 21, 2013 [NEW YORK] – Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Fund Launched in 2012, the Forty to None Project grew out of a yearlong in- today announced the 3rd annual “Cyndi Lauper & Friends: Home for depth assessment into this crisis and the existing resources to address the Holidays” benefit concert on Saturday, December 7th at New York the issue. The project works to bring the number of homeless youth who City’s historic Beacon Theatre to help raise awareness about lesbian, identify as gay or transgender from 40 percent to none by educating and gay, bisexual, and transgender youth homelessness and funds for the engaging the public, advocating within government and media, creating organization’s Forty to None Project. empowering experiences for these young people, facilitating leading research, and aiding service providers in building their capacity and Cyndi Lauper will be joined on stage this year by P!nk, Josh Groban, creating an inclusive environment within their agencies. Susan Sarandon, Nelly Furtado, the Indigo Girls, Rosie O’Donnell, Ingrid Michaelson, The Hives, Matt & Kim, Hunter Valentine, The Cliks, and 100% of the net proceeds from the concert will go to underwrite the Forty returning host Carson Kressley. Additional guests will be announced to None Project’s many programs, including its efforts to ensure that gay soon. Tickets will be available at Ticketmaster.com starting Friday, and transgender youth are protected in the upcoming reauthorization of October 25th. the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act and the expansion of the Camp “Home for the Holidays is once again going to be an amazing night of True Colors program, with camps taking place in New York, Minnesota, music and comedy in support of a cause close to my heart, homeless gay and Texas for gay and transgender youth living in out-of-home care. and transgender youth,” remarked Lauper, co-founder of the True Colors Fund. “I’m proud that we have built a show that not only sells out every “Cyndi Lauper & Friends: Home for the Holidays” is proud to have the year, but has become well-known for bringing together a stellar array support of Platinum Sponsors Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, of artists to help change the world through an evening of incredible American Airlines, and the Jason Mraz Foundation, Gold Sponsors performances. This year’s concert will help us to continue to move our Barclays and The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., and Silver Sponsors Forty to None Project’s work forward to help these young people live Chipotle Mexican Grill, Johnson & Johnson, Kinky Boots, The Madison happy, healthy and productive lives.” Square Garden Company, Masie Productions, Oriental Medicine Specialists, and Van Gogh Vodka. In America, up to 1.6 million youth are homeless each year and up to 40% of them identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Yet, only up to ABOUT THE TRUE COLORS FUND 7% of the general youth population does the same. The most cited reason Grammy, Emmy, and Tony award-winning artist and advocate Cyndi for this disproportionate rate is family rejection based on the youth’s sexual Lauper co-founded the True Colors Fund to raise awareness about and orientation or gender identity. These young people are being forced out bring an end to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth homelessness of their homes at an alarming rate and a national effort is needed to help through its Forty to None Project, and to inspire and engage everyone, them. Seeing this need, Cyndi Lauper and her True Colors Fund created especially straight people, to become active participants in the the Forty to None Project, the nation’s first and only national organization advancement of equality for all. solely dedicated to addressing the issue of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth homelessness. For more information please visit http://www.truecolorsfund.org/ homefortheholidays and www.fortytonone.org.By Nat Burns
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9 Politically speaking Fukushima’s Continuing Threat Playing a potentially deadly game of pick-up sticks, blindfolded | By Donna Wade
orry to be a downer at the holidays, but there’s an environmental disaster the decision has been made to remove the spent fuel rods to safer storage. The unfolding in Japan and I feel duty-bound to bring it up. computers and regular equipment used to perform this task were destroyed in S the initial events. To do this manually, they have erected a huge crane to remove There hasn’t been a lot of coverage in the mainstream media about Japan’s them individually from the pool, no easy task. They can combust without coolant. Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant since the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami When low on fresh water for cooling workers use salt water, which degrades the crippled it in 2011. Maybe they don’t want to scare the crap out of their audience, integrity of the canisters. because this story of incompetent, penny-pinching crony capitalism terrifies everyone who ventures a closer look. Accidentally knocking two together can cause an explosion and chain-reaction fire that cannot be controlled. Removal would be risky enough on the day before The plant has been leaking over 70,000 gallons of highly irradiated water into the the 2011 quake. The fuel rods are no longer neatly stacked and secured. They’re Pacific ocean every single day for over two and a half years, a fact that TEPCO, all jumbled. And because many of the rods were placed in storage in 2010, they Japan’s power company, failed to admit until July of this year. And we wonder are much more radioactive than rods stored longer. If a leak breaks out in that why deep water oar fish are washing up on southern California beaches? The half- pool, scientists have determined that anyone attempting to fix it would receive a life for cesium 137 (time it takes for half of the element to decay) is over 30 years, lethal dose of radiation in under a minute. and it doesn’t sink, so fish swim through it, ingesting the radioactive particles. Every blue fin tuna caught off California shores and examined by independent Oh, and they can’t really see into the pool, so think of it as playing pick-up sticks researchers carried radiation traced to Fukushima. with telephone poles, coated with sensitive high explosives, blindfolded. With a crane. This is 14,000 times the radiation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki serious. Enough to make Chernobyl look like a mere dress rehearsal to Fukushima’s Apocalypse. The Japan Times reported on Unit 4: “Removing its spent fuel, which contains Enough for the esteemed physician and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott deadly plutonium, is an urgent task….The consequences could be far more severe to say in an interview that if the spent fuel pool at reactor 4 ruptures, she’s moving than any nuclear accident the world has ever seen. If a fuel rod is dropped, breaks her family to Australia because south of the Equator won’t get as much radiation or becomes entangled while being removed, possible worst case scenarios include as the northern hemisphere. a big explosion, a meltdown in the pool, or a large fire. Any of these situations could lead to massive releases of deadly radionuclides into the atmosphere, putting TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.), Japan’s power company, has under 1000 much of Japan — including Tokyo and Yokohama — and even neighboring employees and enjoys the confidence and financial support of the government. It countries at serious risk.” relies on a corrupt system of subcontractors and their subcontractors for the 5000 or so undertrained “technicians” to staff Japan’s 50 reactors, all of which have In that event, scientists predict the radiation would hit the west coast of the U.S. been offline since Fukushima melted down. TEPCO is at best incompetent, as within a few days. That makes this a U.S. national security issue as well as one evidenced by the history of accidents at the Fukushima facility. They cut corners of public health. to save costs without regard for public safety just like American companies do. Removing fuel rods like this has never been attempted on such a scale. TEPCO The low-wage technicians doing the clean-up live and work in horrendous and the Japanese government insist they have things under control. The Japanese conditions. Their families have moved away -- low morale, depression and Prime Minister assured the world they’d have it all cleaned up in time for the 2020 alcoholism are rampant in the tent city TEPCO erected for them. Most of them Olympics. They have not asked for our help. But can the world just sit by and have no clue how much radiation exposure they’ve endured. watch a company with 10 major incidents at that facility in the past six months try to tackle something of such consequence without the assistance of the world’s Personally, I don’t think somebody with a bad hangover and the shakes should be best scientific minds and nuclear experts? If they screw this up, everybody pays, handling the most deadly substance men have ever unleashed, do you? But, wait! and dearly. There’s more! I hope our leaders find the political will and have enough credibility left with the Did you read about the unprecedented 3-core meltdown? Fukushima workers world to find a solution. But I’m not laying any bets on it. cannot find the cores of three reactors. Since they must be cooled, workers just aim their hoses where they think (hope) they are. The melted cores, called corium [email protected] lavas, appear to have burned through their concrete floors and are working their way through the ground to the fresh water aquifer below the site. If the lavas breach the aquifer, scientists believe the unprecedented release of radiation could cause the evacuation of Tokyo, if it doesn’t just cause a huge explosion, blasting radiation into the atmosphere and over the globe.
The building housing Reactor 4 also stores over 1500 thin spent fuel rods, each 15 ft long and weighing over 600 pounds. The building is starting to buckle, so
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com POETRY
California Christmas By Morag Hillsinger
Thanksgiving in my rear view mirror anticipation on my face A tree today? Why not, I say! Lets decorate this arid space.
We find an urban tree lot where my girl and me can choose the one Pine scents permeate the air Unruly friends create more fun.
She wants a tree the size of City Hall I say “That’s for a shopping mall!” We laugh--it is a yearly fight expressions bathed in colored lights spark memories from gifts and friends we choose a tree/the debate ends we gather all the orphans who became our family of choice and dress the tree, our designor friend says “really?” in his drollest voice then clucks and roll his eyes at me as I choose garish ornaments my wife will solve this te ta te Jim BrBrittitt with chocolate and assorted mints Realtor 760-774-1621 SUNNYSUNNY PALMPALM SPRINGSSPRINGS DRE # 01885340
Then we trudge through crowded streets to Windermere Real Estate Coachella Valley find 1255 East Ramon, Palm Springs, CA my favorite Dickens (with the ghosts) V 760-323-3730 F 760-323-3139 [email protected] we DVD a crackling fire coolhomesinpalmsprings.com open cider, crack a toast the front porch light --finally off the cats have stopped distressing tree the moon has risen, someone coughs its quiet as our town can be
We fall asleep, the night air chilled and dream of present, fire and friend Our hearts are joyous, Christmas filled while angels smile as they descend
We may not have a snowy ground Marshall Fields, Currier or Ives We have something far more precious here Ordinary LN lives! [email protected]
11 Comic Of The Month Vickie Shaw
| By Lynda Montgomery
LM: Sadly, I know exactly what you are talking about; it does feel like you are high. It would be nice if our minds had a search button like Face-book! Thanks for your honest answer, I read somewhere that all good comics are liars, Would you agree with that? Be honest. VS...Honestly we lie; I will say anything if it is funny, There is nothing I won’t say if I think its funny, nothing. That is what I think makes great comics; the ability to take the step beyond safe if it’s funnier. The surprise, the unexpected, and if that means taking liberties with the truth, so be it.
LM: I think we may have something else in common. Did you take a comedy class with Judy Carter? VS: Yes I did and Judy is a very important mentor in my life, not only with comedy but with my coming out. It’s a long story but when I met Judy and took a weekend class of hers in Huston, I was a married mother of three, southern Baptist, Republi- can women’s club, etc . . . . You get the picture. I was just starting to do stand-up. At the end of the class, Judy did her show, and came out as a lesbian; I thought lightening would hit the club. I was so closeted, I though I could not even say the word lesbian without catching cancer! I ended up in LA helping Judy with her comedy thing in Big Bear. While I was at her cabin, I saw some copies of the “LN”, and I couldn’t even look at the cover. Dear Lord, I looked at the cover on the “LN” and became demon possessed! The rest is history!
LM: Yes you are now demon possessed and it’s all Judy Carters fault; way to go Judy, it’s always a good tip to leave the “LN” lying around. Look at you now, do- ing gay comedy and telling the world about your lesbian relationship with a police officer of the law, Sergeant Patch. Does she ever want to lock you up for some of your jokes? VS: Never, I make her laugh on stage, but not so much at home. She was told from day one, that she would be in the show, so she knows if she does something stupid, it will be in the show no matter what. Back to the first question, I will say anything if its funny, she has said that she will be watching me sometimes, not realizing what I will be saying and suddenly she hears the beginning and will say to herself, “oh dear God” LM: I know your family also includes kids and grandkids; that’s nice and all but what about pets? VS: We have two obnoxious dogs, one is a Pom-poo, (but be careful if you Google Pom-poo because you will get a bunch of fetish stuff about people and poo if you know what I mean). Our Pom-poo is called Pumpkin Patch, get it? And we have a Bishon-noodle called Cabbage Patch, get it…Sergeant Patch..cute huh? I hate both dogs and when they die of a tragic accident, and they might, our next dog will be named Nicotine Patch!
LM: Wow, you are honest, I’m guessing the dogs came with Sergeant Patch. I’m his was an over the phone interview, so to add impact, I would suggest that afraid to ask if you have any cats…let’s switch to a fashion question…how long you, the reader, give me a Canadian Accent and Vickie a strong Texan drawl. does it take you to pick out an outfit for a show? TAlso to get a visual, I am wearing dog hair covered sweats and Vickie is in VS: Being the high femme that I am, it depends on the show; actually not a lot. formal attire, always the “high femme”! It’s harder to shop for clothes for the stage than pick them out when I’m packing. Sergeant Patch has a harder time picking out clothes just to be in the audience! She LM: Vickie, I have seen a nd enjoyed your act. Have I done some shows with you? goes into full blown collapse. I have to shake her by the shoulders and say “the Sorry to ask, but my memory is shot. I can’t remember if I saw you from the audi- audience is full of lesbians. It will be casual group”. For a night out they have their ence or from back stage...do you know who I am? Be honest. nice Khakis... Now in LA you girls dress lots more than the rest of us, but never VS: Yes, I believe we have worked together, but my memory is shot too. If we were the less it’s casual. doing this in person, I usually remember faces. Have you ever seen someone you know well, and they show up someplace they are not meant to be? It’s a mind f_k, LM: So true, I put on my dressy khakis just to call you...I was remembering back that’s unbelievable, it’s better than drugs! when it was shocking when we said we were lesbians on stage. Now with all the fa- vorable things happening for us, gay marriage etc, do you miss the good old days?
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com Notes From Nat Looking for those perfect holiday gifts? I think I’ve found mine.
| By Nat Burns
irst up is something for all the kiddies on your list. Grammy award winning Another premium offering for the older crowd is a new Christmas album by inspirational singer, songwriter and author Janis Ian has just released her first children’s book. pop pianist, Jim Brickman. The Magic of Christmas, featuring beautiful renditions of such F Called The Tiny Mouse, it’s actually a book and CD combination about a mouse classics as “Angels We Have Heard on High”, “We Three Kings”, “Hark the Herald Angels who decides he is bored with his privileged life and runs away to sea. He becomes violently Sing”, “What Child is This” and “Silent Night” is perfect background music for holiday seasick and when he is looking around for a bathroom, he winds up in the captain’s room entertaining. Three tracks on the album have guest vocalists― Megan Hilty (Wicked), Sandi where he discovers the captain is actually a cat. Terrified, he jumps overboard. After almost Patty(Hello, Dolly!) and Grammy Hall of Famer, Johnny Mathis. drowning, he winds up on shore, saved by a girl mouse who later becomes his wife. They have many children and he tells them often all about his sea adventure. Brickman is a firm believer in music as part of one’s daily life. This is why he has recorded inspirational albums, romantic records and of course Christmas albums. The holidays seem This book is based on a song called “The Tiny Mouse” that Ian wrote for the British Olympic especially important to him and this year will mark his 18th annual holiday tour. Flotilla celebration. She was commissioned to write a song that could be played as the tiny boats went down the Thames. She wrote it and then gave it to a friend, who happened to Though a songwriter and pianist, Brickman is also a radio show host. Since 1997, he has work with a publisher and suddenly, she had a book deal. The oversized picture book has hosted his own radio show called Your Weekend with Jim Brickman, which is carried on a CD in the back that children, parents and teachers can use in three ways―listening to it radio stations across the U.S. He has also released three PBS specials featuring his and as they read it, playing along on an instrument or singing along with the instrumental track. other’s music. There’s a copy of Ian singing “The Tiny Mouse” with a full band, of her singing with just a © 2013 Somerset Group guitar and then there’s the instrumental version, like a karaoke track. And there’s also sheet www.jimbrickman.com music in the back of the book. Wishing all a fabulous holiday season. It’s illustrated by notable artists Ingrid and Dieter Schubert. The focus of the book is to encourage children to read and to find simple pleasure in singing. Ian has taken a special ‘Til next month, interest in the book and she has participated in numerous readings and promotional events. Nat On the website thetinymouse.com children can read interviews with the mouse and they can download free posters and music. It may just be the perfect gift, especially for musically [email protected] inclined children. www.thetinymouse.com www.janisian.com
VS: We are still there, I don’t think things have changed that much. Yes, obviously, society wise things are changing rapidly but comedy is comedy. Tragedy with timing. Lesbians are talking about being lesbians, black comics are talking about being black, and straight male comics are talking about their dicks!
LM: Lets be inclusive, gay male comics are also talking about their dicks, but that’s enough about dicks for the “LN”...next question...have you had a memorable heckler? VS: Yes, in Memphis, there was a drunken woman (always the worst) sitting second row center. She kept screaming out and her friend would take her outside, and I would think thank God. Then they would come back in and I t would start again and if that wasn’t bad enough, she came in with a giant paper penis on her head that she kept putting on and off. The lesbians behind her were getting pissed, and then if that wasn’t bad enough, she started standing up and flashing me. Boobs looking right at me; she flashed me again and again, the whole show. Fun
LM: Sorry about that, I was excited and you’re right I was drunk; on that subject, what is your favorite adult beverage? VS: It depends on my mood. Doesn’t alcohol always need a mood? If you don’t have a mood, an adult beverage will give you one. Miller Lite draft with a lime when handy, and early in the day, a vodka martini, dirty, blue cheese stuffed olive, to begin the evening, and red wine for the duration. Does that make me an alcoholic?
LM: Maybe but a healthy one, you hit all the food groups, and comedy can be stressful. Wine is good for stress! Does it bother you when people imitate your southern accent? VS: I don’t realize when they do, because everyone I know talks like me. People will tell me, listen I’m talking, just like you, and I have no idea!
LM: I never thought of that, I’ll stop doing it to my Texan friend, and she probably thinks I’m a Texan too. So to finish up, how long do you see yourself doing stand –up? VS: Forever. I’ll be at my assisted living home doing standup every night and the good part of that; it will be a new show every night to everyone. They will think I am a genius. It’ll be great! Uptown Gay and Lesbian Alliance Serving Cypress Park, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, Glendale, LM: I hope I’m at the same home, I can be your opening act...or maybe heckle you again! Highland Park, Montecito Heights, Monterey Hills, Mt. Washington and Pasadena Vickie has lots of shows coming up, and will be sailing on many of the “Olivia” cruises...me too I hope! www.ugla.org [email protected] • (323) 258-‐8842
13 Theorhetically Speaking The Surgeon General
| By Nikki McCauley
ow deep the rabbit hole… Howl taking over my soul- Hyphenated American’s have been lynched, been denied the right to vote, branded with a sense of humor, a sense of activism and a have had property illegally confiscated and have been denied to access H sense of duty. My responsibility, raise the awareness of readers to both private and public facilities. To which, I add the Hyphenated of national rhetoric espoused on page, over wifi, cable and the broad- American is still racially profiled, wrongfully imprisoned and worst than bands of information. Unfiltering-loosely regulated, unadulterated forms death, the target of psychological warfare rendering many to a mentality of entertainment… Allan Ginsberg, I pay homage… of self hatred and negation.
Recently, I read an article by Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III, in which he responds Dr. Leon, III then asks us to consider the government sanctioning of to the comments of Dr. Ben Carson, a world renowned Hyphenated- the Tuskee syphilis experiments of 1932 and the Greenwood b**bing American Neurosurgeon, most notably, the first Hyphenated-American of Black-Wall Street in 1921 because of an unfounded accusation and surgeon to separate conjoined twins and to become the youngest man to finally the sterilization of poor women in North Carolina from 1920 to head a surgical department. Dr. Carson, no stranger to struggle; was raised 1970 to control birth rates. To which I add, “The middle class is rapidly by a single mom with only a third grade education, who wonderously, disappearing and we are genetically engineering non nutritious food! Do produces a brilliant son, who solely navigates his way passed hallowing we need healthcare or human care? streets of guns, gangs, murder, pimps and racism into University. Then onto Hospital surgical rotation and now onto the political circuit. Ben Thus is Obamacare on par with these atrocities? The real questions, the Carson, a modern day Batman, skilled to save lives and equip to see in rabbit hole questions… the dark. Before I answer, let me express, I have no affiliation with either Dr. nor What was the comment of controversy? While addressing the 2013 Values do I take allegiance with either. However, this discourse left me leaning Voter Summit in Washington D.C. on October 11th. Dr. Ben Carson said, more to one than the other. “You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery… It is slavery in a way, because it is making So, is Obamacare about health care or is it about control? Does Dr. Ben all of us subservient to the government and it was never about health care. Carson speak for conservative interests or does he speak from experience? It was about control.” After all he is a Doctor, a Neurosurgeon, in fact. Are his statements a bit of misdirection and slight of hand while the real trick is happening An assertion that concerned Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III and in effect caused right before our eyes? Or is the surgeon general skillfully giving us a him to challenge the position and point of view of renowned Dr. Ben warning concerning not only our health but our very freedom? I leave Carson with some of the following commentary and considerations: you to decide. Commentary- 1st since the 13th amendment was passed, abolishing slavery; which [email protected] incidentally, still allows slavery as a form of punishment for crimes,
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com HUMANITY HERE Home For The Holidaze!!! | By Karen Williams
raveling for work as I do, I often reflect on what home in those big hotel rooms, filled with privacy and very little I have visited many domiciles of my friends and means to me. After all, I have a physical place that I call company. I decided to relegate time to visit with friends acquaintances and marveled at the different manifestations T“home” and then there’s the home that resides in my while in certain cities. They were glad to host me. I was of spirits and hearts. They’ve shown me that home is truly heart. By nature, I am what folks would call a “homebody,” treated to their gracious company, home-cooked meals in where the heart is and when I return to my hotel room, I a proverbial nester. I love the physical comforts of being in lovely homes, and laughs with their families and friends. carry their spirits with me. Onstage, I share my stories with one place...with my sofa, TV, ottoman, stuffed animals, and What fun! a sense of joy and oneness as I invite audiences to honor favorite blankie. Not the kind with arms in it, just a warm and our true home that lives in our warm, compassionate and fuzzy familiar one that I can curl up with! Yet, I have this In one of my comedy routines, I assert that the favorite sport loving hearts. calling that requires that I pack my bags and go to different of lesbians is camping. My retort: “I hate camping! Maybe places to stay, most times in hotels and sometimes, at friends’ it’s because I’m from New York. We don’t call it camping. I plan to be home this holiday season...to be with my homes. We call it homeless!” Well, I could certainly feel “home- hometown friends, to relish the decorations a town, to serve less” as I go vamping around the country and the world, meals at the local church this Thanksgiving, to put my When my children were young and I had the opportunity with only the bare essentials in my suitcase, if I didn’t carry Buddhist spin on my holiday tree, and to bring in the New to escape to a luxury hotel, I felt like I’d arrived at “my the spirit of home with me. Year full of personal resolutions and prayers for the world. I home away from home.” There was no greater delight for enjoy the “holidaze” with all the shopping and cooking and me than room service and eating on the bed in the big fluffy Today, I identify the comforts of home with the appreciation good times. I also plan to be mindful of the ways that I can robe, knowing that someone else was going to clean my that I get to do work that I love and to share it with people further contribute my time, energy, resources, and humanity room the next morning. For years, armed with my feminist who are grateful for the exchange. Home means so much to everyone I encounter with the spirit of appreciation, for consciousness around women’s work, I cleaned the room and more than the physical house that I own (well, that the bank that which I get to receive and what I get to give. made the bed before the maids arrived so they wouldn’t have lets me live in...that’s another article). Home is felt in the to work as hard, maybe even get off their shift a little earlier. hugs and warm embraces of dear friends, in the smiles of Won’t you join me in sharing the gifts we can freely share- their children and purrs of their pets. our smiles and our laughter. It took many years before I realized that I was getting lonely [email protected]
CHANGE OF PACE
FRUSTRATED WITH THE SAME OLD ACCOUNTANT?
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15 Herstyle HERstyle Holiday Shopping Favorites
| By Christin & Ashley Kelly-Brown
that time of the year again when many of us that can have you in and out of the holiday hustle in a breeze. get excited to bundle up, wear a scarf, and go From fine jewelry to ’Tomboy Tailored’ threads to stocking ‘Tisgift shopping for the ones that we love. Well, I stuffers that are sure to exhilarate. We’ve even got a little guess you can call it exciting when you have to battle traffic to something for the furry friends we love. During this season the shopping center, circle aimlessly for parking, shove your of giving, feel good knowing that you’re not only supporting way through droves of holiday shoppers inside understaffed- some LGBTQ businesses, earning some extra brownie points overly crowded stores, just to purchase that one special gift from your other half, but also knowing exactly what you for the woman in your life on possibly the biggest shopping want before your hit the mall… we suggest shopping online. day of the year?! Yeah, it’s pretty exciting. However, we think that we can help you decide on some very cool gifts The new iPhone 5c is innovative, has personality, and
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com available now through multiple cellular providers and Shepard Foundation and Marriage Equality USA. For more comes in some amazingly prideful colors. Which color information, visit www. loveandpride.com fits your mate? When it comes to our little furries, Butter (our 5yr. old pug) and Cauliflower (our 11-month old pitty) are absolutely head- 16 GB, starting at $99* www.apple.com over-paws for the Halo Holiday treats in vegetarian ‘Pumpkin & Peanut Butter‘. Co-owner and our gal, Ellen DeGeneres All races, all genders, all sexes, all MAC cosmetics presents does an amazing job keeping these products corn-free with one of their amazing androgynous holiday gift sets. ‘Stroke no added salts or sugars, and full of doggie-goodness. They of Midnight’ Grooming kit is a perfect addition to anyone’s even have some yummy treats for your felines too! brow routine. Now this lesbian right here is had to tell you about my favorite $49.50, MAC cosmetics. www.maccosmetics.com lip obsession. The EOS (stands for Evolution of Smooth) lip balm spheres come in the coolest shaped packaging, Philosopher of fashion and innovator of Tomboy tastiest flavor combos and the best moisturizing possible for Tailors, Zel Anders created a tailored fine clothier in San aiding weather-burned lips. These little gals price around Francisco, specializing in custom-made suits and shirts of $2.99/ea and make for the perfect stocking stuffers! They’re the finest quality that are made-to-measure in the material, holiday collection comes in a cool trio set with Sweet Mint, cut and fit that you want. Finally! A woman after our own Pomegranate Raspberry, and Limited Edition Vanilla Bean. hearts, who knows this blossoming niche market. A tomboy My new favorite is the Blueberry Acai! MWAH! knows what a tomboy wants. Absolutely in love with these Wingtip Dress boots. Will these suit the tomboy in your life? www.evolutionofsmooth.com
Tomboy Tailors If this upcoming release doesn’t get you ladies in the 50 Post Street mood, then check the thermostat cause it’s HOT! “Love Level One, Crocker Galleria, #11 Burns Bright” is the December release of Radclyffe’s latest San Francisco, CA 94104 romances. Intrigue, erotica, love and lust is just the perfect (415) 354-5694 www.tomboytailors.com recipe for a snuggly evening next to a warm fire with some proper arm-candy to your side. Have quite the sweet tooth huh? Well, we’re certain that this will curb your significant other’s appetite. From the amazing www.amazon.com/loveburnsbright Good Vibrations women-friendly sex store in San Francisco and Berkeley, Ca. behold the too-cute-to-eat ‘Sweet Cakes Gift-giving isn’t always about what you get, but where Cupcake’ Vibrator. Five vibration modes include 2 intensity you go. The premiere lesbian travel and vacation company, speeds and 3 pulsations. The Sweet Cupcake comes in a retro OLIVIA Travel based in San Francisco is the ultimate escape metal tin for storage and makes for a tasty stocking stuffer! for the couple or single that wants to feel free in their new Ooo la la! vacation surroundings. Between chartering whole cruise $56, Good Vibrations. www.goodvibes.com ships and completely taking over gorgeous resorts, OLIVIA makes sure that your experience is not only one to remember, Fine Jewelry designer, Lauren Bedford Russell has gone but also one to revisit time and time again. Take it from us. from being one of the hot names on Showtime’s’ “The Real From the moment we spent our honeymoon with the ladies L Word” to being one of the most sought-out fine jewelry of OLIVIA, we knew that this would be the gift that keeps designers in the industry. Be sure to check out some of her on giving. For more information on booking a cruise, resort latest collections at www.lyonfinejewelry.com. or ULTIMATE Escape, visit www.olivia.com 18 K Gold Plated ‘Freedom City Equality’ Necklace by LYON Fine Jewelry, $ 190 [email protected]
There’s nothing like a bit of bling to really put the twinkle in the holiday glitz. These stunning 18K White Gold earrings with 1.40ct Hoops with Peace Charm by Love & Pride are sure to make any lucky lady’s heart melt away. Love & Pride is a proud supporter of the Human Rights campaign and portions of the proceeds gets donated to the Matthew
17 TRANSGENDER Holidays Are Different Now
| By Chris Angel Murphy ne of the best gifts my ex-partner gave family even welcomed her by giving Kate her For Thanksgiving, my grandma and I spent time me was the renewed love of holidays. own stocking. in Vegas. It’s crazy because she hasn’t been for OWhen my relationship with my family 20+ years and so much has changed. My friend fizzled over the years, I turned into the Grinch I still have one remaining Easter egg from 2011 Michele and I are flying to London the day after and loathed holidays. Even worse, holidays when the eggs all fell from her top closet shelf. Christmas. Michele and I will be gone from then have a way of sneaking up and hit full force Not sure if they broke from the fall, or if it was through January 4th. On January 2nd, we’ll be so there’s no escape until they’re over. From because the cats appreciated the new toys. I’m in Paris for the day. We don’t have much else Halloween up through January, I used to feel confused as to what to do with it because we are planned aside from that at the time of writing cold and distant until I began dating my ex- no longer together but I suppose I will sort it out this but I am excited because it’ll be a healthy partner years ago. in time. There are cards with heartfelt messages distraction. and signed with love and gifts, such as the spork My heart grew and I looked forward to necklace, from my first birthday with her. That all being said, I’m not sure what next year traditions such as decorating Kate’s apartment, will look like for the holidays. Since I’m single only to have the cats plot destruction and chaos. I’m sad. Holidays are forever different now. I am and will graduate in May, it’s possible I could What melted my heart the most were the two no longer able to share them with Kate. My dad move. I could sit here thinking up hypotheticals stockings she hung on the wall with our initials won’t be here to tear open his presents at a snail’s all night but I don’t really know. Things change, for Christmas. For Thanksgiving, we cooked pace or amass more weapons. My grandma will yet we can best honor those changes by rolling together (though it was mostly her, to be be packing and preparing for her move from with it. In honor of the New Year approaching honest). Kate recreated some of the traditions a place she has called home for more than 40 and all of the closure I’ve had this past year, I’m she shared with her family and we took pictures years. It’s been breaking my heart to watch her happy to look at 2014 with a sense of wonder of the meals. Once, her family flew out and they toss nearly all of her holiday decorations in the and optimism. made pasta. She even spent holidays with my trash, as she no longer feels the holiday spirit family as she watched me basically swallow my with her son gone. Kate and I won’t be sneaking [email protected] grandma’s deviled eggs, one after another. Kate off at a New Year’s party to share a kiss. would laugh while watching my dad’s eyes light up when she brought her toffee candy over. My ALCOHOLISM, THE THINKING DISEASE The Promises Can Come True | By G-O Digilio
hat’s on your list for Santa to bring this “If we are painstaking about this phase of our can happen. All of these things do happen. I have Christmas? Something to warm your heart? development, we well be amazed before we are half way seen the joy attained by thousands and thousands of WA better life? Toys? Being happy, joyous through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new people willing to do the work to achieve happiness. and free? If this has been a crummy year and you happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut Unfortunately it does take work. There is no magic expect the miracle of Christmas to fix you, there are no the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity wand. There are no results from wishing on a star. I instantaneous cures. A better life means doing the work and we will know peace. No matter how far down the know I repeat this a lot but it is imperative for people to get a better life. If your existence has been marred scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can to know (as they in recovery say), “It works if you and damaged from alcoholism and/or addiction, things benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity work it” or “Half measures avail us nothing”. A very will only get better if you decide to be in recovery and will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and dangerous process is to dabble just a little in recovery do the work. What do you get? The answer is found in gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. work and expect major benefits. What happens with The Promises. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. doing the minimum and expecting the maximum, is Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. that people then say that they have tried (when they The following quote is taken from one of the books We will intuitively know how to handle situations which only did a little) recovery work and because their lives used in recovery. Although there is no mention of this used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is are NOT appreciably better, bemoan that recovery section in a table of contents or in an index, it is referred doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. does not wok. RECOVERY DOES WORK. THERE to as “The Promises”. The general consensus among IS HOPE. THERE IS A BETTER WAY. practicing alcoholics and addicts is that there had better Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They be a good reason to stop using alcohol and drugs. The are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, [email protected] questions frequently asked are “What’s the point? Why sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we should I even bother? Why should I do all this work?” work for them.” Among the people active in recovery work, the answer to those questions is found in the promises. What an unbelievable guarantee. All of these things
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com QUEERLY QUESTIONING Final Goodbyes | By Juno Parrenas, PhD
ow do you say a final goodbye? How do you decide and generous adult. She was allergic to formal religion but when the threshold of pain is too unbearable for a nevertheless had her own holiday rituals: crepes on Christmas H loved one to endure? morning and New Year’s Day walks on the beach. I remember tagging along on one such bright morning to mark the beginning These difficult of 1998. I had just finished my first year of college. She had questions are given me a photo album a week before for Christmas and so disturbingly I showed her the contents. I was 18 and gleefully, perhaps close to me recklessly, experiencing life, freedom and pleasure. That photo now, as people album shamelessly showed it! Page after page, I explained what in my life must she was looking at: my first-ever Folsom Street Fair. She didn’t say their final cast judgment or try to correct or repress my behavior. It was as goodbyes to dear if nothing fazed her. I will always appreciate her open-minded loved ones. In a attitude towards everyone she met, including me. space of only one week, I find She departed with dignity and grace, surrounded by her loved body relative to the toxicity around us, the exhaust fumes, the myself writing ones and on her own terms. Her family respected her wishes city smog and to what extent such toxins will encourage the three different through to the end and beyond. My sister’s mother-in-law was growth of cancer in his body. If that moment comes, how would sympathy cards. One is to the family of a personally influential able to express her wishes and her loved ones saw them through. I be able to tell when the pain is unbearable? How could I face person in my life who I met twenty years ago. Another will go But what about those who must decide on the behalf of others? that responsibility without regret—regret about being too early to a friend, who had to part with her close canine companion of or regret about having waited too long? twelve years. And a final one is to a past mentor, whose equine Joy bubbles between my dog and me when we play and cuddle. companion had to say a final goodbye after twenty years together. This joy makes our world. I imagine both of my friends know During these holidays, the absence of a person, a dog, and a A human. A dog. And a horse. All three were immensely loved. this feeling, of hiking with a fluffy dog or cantering with an horse will be strongly felt. And it is in that moment of missing All three transformed the lives of those who were lucky to be elegant horse. Yet, I cannot ignore that my dog is aging. His these loved ones that we reminisce how much our lives have close to them. And all three died of cancer. joints have started to give out and his eyes are beginning to changed for the better because of them. My sister’s mother-in-law cast an early impression on me. develop cataracts. When my dog and I walk in the neighborhood, Without her knowing it, she taught me how to be a kind he sneezes when smoggy cars pass by. I wonder about his small [email protected] LIFE COACH’S CORNER
| By Kristi Pallino
is fast approaching. Many What exactly is your true essence? It is your the negativity is replaced by positive affirmation, people set New Year’s energy, spirit, intuition, inner Buddha, higher you finally have a reliable foundation on which to 2014 resolutions but find that in Self. Allowed to reveal itself, it is the same energy build your life. a few weeks, it was easier said than done. Why is that creates masterpieces, like Michelangelo, or this? Beethoven. Think of building a house. First the foundation needs to be poured to establish a strong platform. Resolutions can be a great way to set the intention Oprah says that she learned how to get out of her Then we raise one wall at a time. You can’t rush for change. But without positive beliefs and own way. This is the formula sisters—to get rid of this process and build the roof before the walls. positive action, they remain just that—intentions. your mind’s limiting thoughts! Time to eliminate phrases like: I can’t, it’s too hard, I’m too old, I In this metaphor, each wall represents the essential Why does it seem to be such a struggle to make the don’t have money, I don’t have time... When you building blocks of your new life. For example, changes we thought we wanted? In my experience speak this way your whole body and mind believe the first wall may represent your health; the as a Life Coach I have met my clients’ “struggles” it. Don’t let your mind pull you into this self- second could be personal development, the third first hand and I believe the struggle itself is part of sabotaging trap. meditation, etc. It’s up to you to identify the key the problem. Struggle births fear, low confidence, elements that are needed for you to live a healthy feelings of lack and being stuck, and most of all, Now, what to do next? It is very important to fill the and happy life. feeling stagnant in one’s life. now empty space in your mind where the negative chatter used to sit with positive beliefs, affirming Now that you’ve got some tools, it’s time to get The great news is that there is an opposite to this who you are and who you want to become. started! If you have any questions, feel free to state and it is “your Truth.” The truth of who you e-mail me. I am always here for you—that you can are has been leading the way since you were born, Your body and mind may be slow to embrace this count on. Happy Holidays! but somewhere along the line, the mind tries to concept, because they are so used to living with take over and riddles the essence with nonsense. “The Struggle.” But this is the fun part! Now that [email protected]
19 MOVIES EYE C Vocal disc(h)ords Sini Anderson and The Punk Singer
| By John Esther
story long overdue, of debt and I’d be stoked if using the word, punk, meant that a bunch of feminists would Sini Anderson’s get paid! Adocumentary, The Punk Singer, chronicles the LN: What do you think you have in common with Kathleen? rise and plateau of one of SI: We are both Scorpios who are into design and unsolved mysteries. rock and roll’s true feminist icons, Kathleen Hanna. LN: It seems you and Kathleen are close friends; The lead singer of Bikini what efforts did you take to Kill and Le Tigre, was remain objective? one of the foremost agent SI: I didn’t. It was never provocateurs of the so- my intention to be objective called riot grrrl movement in the telling of her story. I -- remember, genres are love her and I’m inspired by patriarchal constructs, her. I wanted to show people reinforced and insisted why. upon by the marketplace – Hanna’s rose bloomed LN: Mainstream media during the 1990s where she were often unkind was hailed by iconoclasts to Kathleen and her and reviled by the bourgeois feminism. How have the status quo. In 2005 Hanna MSM changed in regard to stopped singing and people outspoken female singers? wondered why. SI: Children of the 90’s are now working as journalists! Some of them are even feminists. Go figure. Using some great archival footage, gathering a wide LN: To the cognoscenti Kathleen is a pioneer yet people like Courtney Hole, Alanis collection of interviewees Morrisette and Madonna are hailed as feminist pioneers by the patriarchal media. What and putting it in a style complimentary of its subject, Anderson’s The Punk Singer takes its is your take on that (if you agree)? fair shots at music, media, marketing and manmade constructs. SI: What does “cognoscenti” mean? Yes, you should print that I asked that question.
Formerly the Chief Curator/Artistic Director for The National Queer Arts Festival, Anderson LN: Where do you see was born in Chicago, lived in San Francisco and now resides in Brooklyn, New York. In authentic feminism in this exclusive interview, we music today? spoke to the 44-year-old SI: I’m not into judging Anderson about her feature what is authentic or not film. authentic. It’s not my brand of feminism. I just find the Lesbian News: How kind of feminists that move would you describe your me and support them. childhood? Sini Anderson: Kind LN: Do you have any plans of like an Augustin to make a feature film on Burrough’s book but that’s a Kathleen? If so, who do different film for a different think should play her? time. SI: I just did make a feature film about Kathleen! It’s LN: When did you know you called The Punk Singer. I think you mean narrative feature and if you do the answer is, wanted to be a filmmaker? nope… I don’t. SI: When I was 20 I saw Jane Campion’s film, An Angel At LN: How is Kathleen these days? Are you still in touch? My Table and I was blown SI: I think she’s doing really, really well. Her health seems to be on the upswing and her new away. She was talking about class, abuse and insanity and I didn’t know you could do that album is awesome. I’m stoked she’s making work again. and though I didn’t start making films then, I did start writing. I also had the desire to make music videos after I started listening to R.E.M.. I had this plan to find Michal Stipe and LN: What do you like to do when you are not making films? propose a barter, me directing a music video in exchange for R.E.M. paying to fix my teeth SI: Therapy/self-help. I can’t stop trying to help myself. It’s totally fun. (It didn’t happen). LN: Are there any particular social causes you are passionate about? LN: What filmmakers inspired you? SI: Yeah, the rich people getting richer and poor people getting poorer. SI Jane Campion is the biggest inspiration. LN: Lastly, what do you think about these interviews where you talk about yourself and LN: Why did you want to make The Punk Singer? your work? Do they serve the film? Should the work just speak for itself? SI: I dared Kathleen Hanna to tell her story and she dared me to make a film. It’s a classic SI: To tell you truth no one really asks me about my life, just Kathleen’s, so I’m totes into feminist recipe. the personal questions. Thanks for asking.
LN: Once the term “punk” was a sign of rebellion and iconoclasm. Today it has been commodified into a marketing niche. What were your intentions behind the title? SI: Well, “The Punk Singer” is a title of a Julie Ruin song but it’s also a statement to refer [email protected] to Kathleen Hanna as “The Punk Singer;” a statement that does not feel like a stretch to me. Also, if the term “punk” can be marketed, then great! Because this film is still in a lot
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com 21 LESBIANS ON who’s LOCATION
La Gay & Lesbian Center’s who? 42nd Anniversary
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com Opening Night at SER!, Lambda Brunch and Andrea Meyerson’s Documentary Party
23 HOT SPOTS
| By Dian Katz, MS
ow! Here we are again ladies. Another year of Hotspots coming There are plenty of places that have wonderful holiday dances, plays and to a close. Where does the time go? Year after year, I write this theater. So just go online and search for one near you. If you’re in Chicago Wcolumn always asking the same question. I write about all of lesbo ladies, and looking for some sort of classy theater type venue for you these great places and events to attend. I get emails and messages from all and your babe, how about this..The 13TH ANNUAL DANCE-ALONG of you and the wonderful lives you lead. Thank you for keeping LN a part NUTCRACKER on December 1st at the Chicago Cultural Center of your family and Hotspots a part of your lives. I enjoy sharing all the in Chicago Illinois! I knoooooow plenty of you love those sugar-plum thrills with you and hopefully, keep you smiling and laughing throughout fairies prancing around. Hey quit your giggling.. There ARE some of us the months. who do! It’s a wonderful way to get some culture!! For more information: http://www.bing.com/events/search?q=13th+Annual+Dance-Along Wanting to support organizations that help our community? GLAAD +Nutcracker&p1=[Events+source=%22vertical%22+qzeventid=%2 TIDINGS will going on Sunday, December 15th in Los Angeles from 2z361036083%22]. 6:00pm-9:00pm. It’s a fabulous holiday gathering of LGBT folks celebrating and learning about “GLAAD’s growing impact in Hollywood There’s another Nutcracker going on in San Francisco on December 14, and our work to encourage leaders in the TV, film and news media Yanno, since I know how much you love the Nutcrackers. Oh stop it! industries, to feature diverse stories about LGBT people that inspire You know you do! Quit trying to butch it up so much and just admit lasting change.” You’ll be glaad you did go! hahah.. Silly me.. glaad you it damn it! It is called the 2013 DANCE-ALONG NUTCRACKER: did go, get it? Glaad... glad... Ah come on! Please tell me you got it! Okay NUTCRACKERS OF THE CARIBBEAN! They say there will be whatever! Whether you laugh with me or at me, head over to the computer pirates in the ballet. Arrrrrrrrrg. Ahoy matey!! Alright, alright, I’ll stop for more information and type: http://www.glaad.org/glaadtidings. acting like a pirate. But I LOVE pirates. Have I ever told you about this one time... Ahem.. sorry.. my patch got in the way of my eye and I Another organization that benefits our community, especial our LGBT couldn’t see what I was saying! What? So, this event will take place at youth, and is rockin’ the holiday season is THE TREVOR PROJECT the Yerba Buena Center for the ARTS, San Francisco. I just love all of on December 8th at the Hollywood Palladium! It’s in Hollywood!!! Ya these nutcrackers!! I’m going to be so nutcracked out by the time I finish gotta love Hollywood. And I KNOW you will just love their event.. typing this. For more information, put your parrot on your shoulder and TREVORLIVE is an annual event that brings all the top celebs and type: www.DanceAlongNutcracker.org. I crack myself up. I said, put your corporate leaders out who support the LGBTQ community! “Trevor “parrot” on your shoulder. Get it? Pirates, parrots. Oh for pirate’s sake!! Project is the nation’s leading provider of crisis intervention and suicide Never mind! prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender and questioning youth,” says Trevor. I personally think The Trevor Project is a fabulous If you’re anywhere in the New York area, I know you’ll be having a festive organization. Our youth need somewhere to turn especially when they feel season. New York is soooo beautiful at this time of year. Please hide me there is no way out. So if you want to help, you really need to help support in your suitcase. I promise I won’t take up too much room or bother you Trevor and one way is to attend their annual event! So go get your tickets much.
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com | By Dian Katz, MS
LESBIAN NEWS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HOLIDAY PERFORMANCES DECEMBER, 2013
Dec. 17 – Jan. 5 at the SABAN THEATRE. “STOMP” - For tickets www.ticketmaster.com or phone 1.877598.8497. For more Info. go to www.stomponline.com
Dec. 11 – 29th at the PASADENA PLAYHOUSE. “Aladdin and His Winter Wish” – For tickets www.PasadenaPlayhouse.org, or call 626.356.7529 for more info.
Nov. 21 – Dec. 29th at the Orange County Great Park Festival Site in Irvine. “TOTEM” For tickets and Info. www.cirquedusoleil. com/totem. Totem will also start performing in Santa Monica Jan. 17th, 2014
Dec. 14&15 & Dec. 21st&22nd at the Long Beach Terrace Theatre. Long Beach Ballet annual holiday classic “The Nut Cracker”. For tickets & more info. www.longbeachballet.com and all Ticket Master outlets or call 877.852.3177
Dec. 1 – 21st at the Macha Theatre. World premiere MARILYN-MY SECRET. For tickets& more info. www.machatheatre.org or call 323.969.7482
Dec. 24th at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at The Music Center. 54th Annual FREE L.A. County Holiday Celebration. 3:00PM- 6:00PM doors open at 2:30PM. Patrons can come and go throughout the 3 hour performance. Reservations for tickets to the show or parking are NOT necessary. Over 20 performing artist from across Los Angeles County. Including our Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. Admission and Parking are FREE. For more info. www.HolidayCelebration.org, or call 213.972.3099.
“HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM YOUR LESBIAN NEWS FAMILY”
25 BOOKS High Desert | By Teresa Decrescenzo
High Desert By Katherine V. Forrest Spinsters Ink, Midway FL www.spinstersink.com
t last. After nearly a decade of waiting, of the most desolate spots – quirky, sullen, suspicious, LAPD Detective Kate Delafield has finally leave-me-alone survivalists whose least favorite Areturned. Now retired due to LAPD category of people is police detectives. mandatory retirement age, Kate’s demons have returned. She is once again in trouble with While Kate is digging alcohol, and her long-suffering but still devoted into the mystery of what lover, Aimee, is once again keeping her distance has happened to Joe from Kate. Aimee has drawn the line in the sand. Cameron and where he She is deeply in love with Kate, longs to be with is, she is at the same her on a permanent basis, but will not tolerate time part of a small Kate’s drinking. Aimee is 100% clear about her support team watching boundaries. For her part, Kate is so mired in her over the imminent death grief, a grief that has multiple sources, that she can of Maggie, the former barely keep her psychic head above water. owner of a local lesbian bar. Everyone loves Maggie, including Aimee, who tries to cooperate with the In this fragile condition, brittle, angry and depressed, Kate has taken to sleeping agenda of not running into Kate as they each come fitfully on a recliner, where she is when the doorbell rings and an unexpected and go to continue the death watch at the hospice visitor is framed in her doorway. Captain Walcott, Kate’s boss at LAPD has where Maggie is impatiently awaiting the end of her come calling, something that LAPD Captains do not do with subordinates, retired life. Of course it is inevitable that Kate and Aimee will encounter each other as or not. Kate is shocked but does her best to recover, feebly offering Captain they make their ritual visits. Forrest also takes advantage of this plot line for a Walcott some oatmeal cookies, while desperately longing for a stiff drink. welcome bit of nostalgia, bringing us back to the days where lesbian bars were where we all went for solace, friendship, and a safe haven from an unfriendly After a few minutes of LAPD gossip, Walcott gets to the point of her visit. world. The deathbed scene right after Maggie dies is one of the most moving Without exactly using the word “missing,” Walcott discloses that Kate’s long- images I’ve ever encountered, as the group of women who loved Maggie cover time LAPD partner, Joe Cameron, has disappeared. Wanting to protect Cameron her and her bed with flowers, rainbow flags, and even an LAPD badge. It’s as from official inquiries from LAPD brass, Walcott is not ready to officially request effective a piece of writing as Joan Didion’s in “The Year of Magical Thinking. an investigation into his disappearance, so she asks Kate to unofficially look into where Cameron might be. Kate readily agrees, but As the mystery hurtles toward a fiery conclusion, Kate struggles to keep her not before an unpleasant confrontation with Captain drinking at least enough under control to be capable of continuing to try to help Walcott about Kate’s drinking and Aimee’s departure, Cameron survive, grapples with unspeakable grief over the loss of Maggie and the which leads Kate to resume an iffy psychotherapy ever-present pain of the loss of Aimee, and is barely kept in emotional check by relationship with Dr. Calla Dearborn, which the steady influence of Dr. Dearborn. eventually proves to be critical to Kate’s survival over It seems almost clichéd to say that this latest installment in the Kate Delafield the next days. series was worth waiting for, but it really was. The writing is crisp, the primary story line is gripping, and the several simultaneous subplots are each compelling After some careful sleuthing that includes trespassing in their own right. There’s a reason Katherine Forrest has won four Lammys and which makes Kate very uncomfortable and leaves her countless other awards from literary groups. Let’s hope that she decides to follow feeling as if she has violated Cameron’s privacy, Kate Kate in retirement. So much remains unresolved for Kate that it would be too bad concludes that Cameron is, indeed, missing. Was he not to find out how it all ends. kidnapped? Is he on an undercover assignment? Is he even still alive? She’s fairly sure that Cameron is still alive, or at least sure that he engineered his own [email protected] disappearance carefully, so as to make it look as if he wasn’t missing at all. Why would he do that?
The harrowing adventure that Kate embarks upon takes her to the high desert region of Los Angeles County to the outskirts of Victorville, to a trailer park where she encounters exactly the kind of people you expect to find living in one
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com INTERVIEW WITH KATHERINE FORREST
| By Teresa Decrescenzo
very reader of LGBT fiction Of course, given that Kate is such an iconic figure in lesbian mystery fiction, we all want to recognizes the name of Katherine know where she came from. What inspired Forrest to develop this character? EV. Forrest, often referred to as the mother of lesbian fiction writers. “It was never my intention to write a police procedural! In the first book, “Amateur City,” Gentle mentor to hundreds of fledgling I wanted to write a mystery set in the business world that I knew intimately, featuring the and accomplished novelists, Forrest young woman who becomes “ear-witness” to a murder her very first day on a new job. When is probably best known for her Kate I realized that of course a murder would require police presence, I was well aware that, thanks Delafield series, though she also has to the feminist movement, women police professionals were moving into the higher echelons a science fiction trilogy with a huge of police work—they’d won their discrimination court battles of the early 80s. So the choice following to her credit, and of course, of investigating detective was obvious to me.” the groundbreaking lesbian love story, I understand Kate is the first lesbian police professional in American literature. “Curious Wine.” Written nearly thirty years ago, “Curious Wine” is still the “So I discovered. All I knew at the time was this LAPD homicide detective walking onto the go-to lesbian romance for contemporary page and telling me, “Hey, I’m the most interesting character in this story. Here I am a closeted young women. lesbian in a high profile, high pressure, high-visibility job in a macho male paramilitary organization where they scorn me as a woman and despise any and all gays.” Since my great With the long-awaited ninth Kate passion as a lesbian writer was and is the closet and its devastating consequences for our Delafield mystery finally about to be community, Kate and I were a fictional marriage made in heaven.” available in bookstores and online, the LN decided it was time to sit down Over the novels, Kate remains a pretty hard case about the closet. with Katherine Forrest for an in-depth conversation about where the inspiration “For sure. I wish she’d also told me back then, “If you think I’m coming out on the job anytime for Kate Delafield came from, why the soon, forget it.” She became so maddening at times, I’d scream and want to shake her to make long wait for this book, and will there be a next Kate Delafield novel? Spoiler alert: Kate does her see what she was doing to herself. But Kate is Kate. She does what she does even as she not die in “High Desert,” though she certainly comes very close. edges out of the closet with each of the books and with the evolution of our fight for our civil rights. Even late in the series, with the door of her cage standing wide open, she clutches at the Forrest lives in the low desert in California with her long-time spouse, prominent psychotherapist reasons so many of us still believe for staying inside it. Like so many of us, she is so very slow Jo Hercus, and two very large, happy cats in a rambling, spacious house surrounded by palm to see how corrosive her choice has been to her life. How it’s isolated her on the job, opened trees and cactus, and populated by an entire rainbow’s worth of hummingbirds nurtured by the a schism within herself and with the woman she loves, contributed to her growing reliance many feeders hanging on the property. on self-medicating with alcohol. The closet absolutely kills us, and the Kate Delafield series if anything is a study of a woman arguing the very best case for being in the closet. As “High When asked why we’ve been kept waiting so long for this latest installation in the Kate Desert” opens, it’s one of the factors that Delafield series, Forrest responded, “Well, I was board chair of Lambda Literary Foundation, have damn near killed her.” home of the Lambda Literary Awards and an organization so crucial to our community that I felt committed to remain there till I was confident it was on firm footing. Plus, I returned to She’s truly in a world of trouble in High editing our own lesbian writers, becoming supervising editor for Spinsters Ink and editor-at- Desert. large for Bella Books.” “Yes. It’s caught up to her, all of it. She continued, “These two activities took all my time, but I have to confess in the background Everything in the preceding eight novels of all that was my sheer reluctance to tell Kate goodbye. Kate and I have been hanging out has been building up to this crossroads together since 1984, and I felt a deep-seated resistance.” where Kate finally collides with her most challenging case: herself.” Does this mean that “High Desert” will be goodbye? But she does find a pathway. “Because I know her so well, I understood that she absolutely, one way or another, had to leave LAPD because if she didn’t, the psychic costs of the job would do her in. And as “High Desert” “Maybe not quite what readers of the series might expect, but yes she does. If Kate has opens, they almost have.” maddened me over the years, I admire her tremendously. Even with her great flaw, she’s the personification of female strength, decency, integrity, and possibility.” No “spoiler alert” here. The question was simply posed that, given the way “High Desert ends, it seems there could be more about her, though. Forrest responded, “Maybe. Now that I’ve seen her through the events of that novel, life for Kate Delafield post-LAPD may be worth continuing to record.”
Let us hope.
27 JANIS IAN Still Connecting in All the Right Ways
By Nat Burns
photo credit: Lloyd Baggs
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com ow many of us remember Janis Ian’s life changing song “At NB: Which was very successful. Seventeen” and how we instantly related to it? That was more JI: Oh yes, it’s done all right. We won the Grammy for the audio book so we’re than forty years ago and Janis Ian, who is now in her early sixties, happy with it. continues to remind us about two things. One, that we were once Hall seventeen and two, that music should be a joy, not just the means to an end. NB: SciFi is an odd little rabbit track for you to take. People took your songs and created short stories about them? Her new book and CD combination, called The Tiny Mouse, is bringing this JI: Yes. We picked twenty four of my favorite authors of science fiction, which second point into fruition. It relates the brief seagoing adventure of a tiny is what I grew up on. I see science fiction as having a lot in common with jazz mouse and the whole focus of the book is to encourage children to read…and and folk music. They’re all alternative forms of some genre and you have to be to find the pleasure in singing. pretty dedicated to be part of them because they don’t pay a lot.
Ian is a songwriter, singer, musician and author who leapt to stardom at a very early age. She was thirteen when she wrote and sang her first hit single, “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking)”, about a forbidden interracial romance. It became a hit in 1967 and the ensuing controversy about the song rocketed Ian into the public eye. In 1975, she released her biggest hit “At Seventeen” about adolescent popularity, cruelty and angst. The song won the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, beating out Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. The song’s album, Between the Lines, hit number one on Billboard. It quickly went gold and later earned a platinum certification for sales of more than one million copies in the United States.
In addition, in 2002, “Society’s Child” and “At Seventeen” were both elected to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Ian has also been honored with a handful of JPF Music Awards and in 2010, Berklee College of Music honored her as An Artist For All Times with their first Liberal Arts award. Recently, Ian has won another Grammy Award― Best Spoken Word Album for her autobiography, Society’s Child. Even with all these accolades hovering around her, Ian has kept her feet firmly on level ground. She lives her life by her own individual code of ethics, working to help others and also letting listeners know what is good and right in the world, whether through her songs or through her actions.
In 1998, after her mother, Pearl, passed away from multiple sclerosis, Ian began The Pearl Foundation. This non -profit organization formed after an online auction to fund college scholarships, in which Ian and her fans raised more than $73,000. That money was used immediately to fund a perpetual scholarship at Goddard College, Pearl’s alma mater.
The Pearl Foundation mission statement says that knowledge is the greatest gift of all and also states that people are essentially good. Through education, the foundation states that it hopes to change people’s lives and make the world a better place. The foundation has given away, to date, more than $700,000 NB: In your opinion, does writing columns and books blend well with toward education. music? JI: No, not really. They are very different forms just like narrating is very NB: Congratulations on winning the 2013 Grammy award for best spoken different from singing. Columns for the most part, like when I was writing word album. How awesome was that? You were up against some steep for The Advocate, they are all made up of one thousand words by rule and I competition. could deviate two plus or two minus from that but it had to come in at that. It JI: Thank you. That was pretty amazing. I never expected that I’d be able to was a very strict guideline. When I was writing for Performing Songwriter, it win but that seems to be my fate. My last Grammy that I won in, I think ’76, was very loose but still had to conform to topics of things that would interest had Linda Ronstadt and a host of other really amazing singers up against me a performing songwriter. Books are completely different and audio books are too. So I think what I have to do is plan it so I’m only in categories where completely different yet again. And children’s books are completely different there’s huge competition. from all of that.
NB: That’s a good plan, I think. So, this isn’t your first Grammy? NB: How do you explain the fact that you’ve been able to cover all these JI: No, I have three actually. This makes my third. Best recording, best singer. areas? Are these all aspects of your personality? It’s pretty cool. I have nine nominations in eight different categories. JI: I just fall in to them. I wrote “The Tiny Mouse” when I was commissioned by (British jazz vocalist) Dame Cleo Laine and Stables in the UK to write NB: That shows you are doing something right. something that would literally be played when the tiny boats went down the JI: I’m not sure if I’m doing something right or it’s that people just like what Thames as part of the Olympic Flotilla. I wrote it for that and then gave it to a I’m doing. Which is even better friend who represents some publishers just because I thought she’d enjoy it and the next thing I knew, I had a book. That was pretty cool…pretty seamless. The NB: The Tiny Mouse is your first children’s book. Let’s talk about that. audio book―I had a number of blind fans who really wanted to hear the book. JI: Yes, I’m very happy with it. It’s part of my plan to remind the world that I’d been trying to work for Lighthouse for the Blind and organizations like the we’re supposed to do things that make us feel good and not because we’re copyright office to see whether they could help fund something like that when talented or seeking stardom. Audible approached me. I really think that if you are staying on the right path and don’t interfere with yourself too much, and you just work really hard all the NB: This isn’t you first book though, is it? time, which is what I do, things start to fall into place. JI: No. My first book was a book of poetry when I was sixteen. Then the Stars anthology, which is twenty four stories by science fiction authors, based on my NB: If meant to be. songs. And then, more recently, my own autobiography. JI: One hopes.
29 NB: Tell us about The Tiny Mouse book. NB: What’s it going to be called? JI: Well, the poor little fellow…he decides he is bored with his fabulous and JI: No clue (laughing) wealthy life and he decides to run away to sea. So he packs his little bag and he runs off to a ship and gets on the ship and discovers he is not meant for NB: There’s a CD that comes with The Tiny Mouse—what’s on it? the ocean. He becomes violently seasick and when he is looking around for a JI: There’s a copy of the song itself with me singing with a full band and there’s bathroom he winds up in the captain’s room where he discovers the captain is, a copy of me singing with just a guitar and then there’s just the band version so of course, a cat. So he realizes he has to escape and he jumps overboard. He that anybody could sing to it like a karaoke track. And in the book there’s also uses his tail for a rudder and he grabs a flounder, a fish out of the ocean and he a transcription, so if you makes a sail out of it and winds up ashore. He almost drowns but not quite and play a bit of guitar, a bit is made much fuss over by the woman who becomes his wife. He survives to of piano, you can play tell the tale to his children. The cool thing about this book is not just the story. as well. We just tried The story is cool but the illustrations are amazing. Ingrid and Dieter Schubert to make it as friendly did the illustrations and it’s the first time they’ve ever illustrated a book that’s to people and with as not one of their own. So it was a big deal. many giveaways as possible. If people go to thetinymouse.com they can read interviews with the tiny mouse. They can download free posters and some music. They can do all kinds of stuff.
NB: There’s also a YouTube project aligned with this book and CD? JI: There’s YouTube videos which you can link to from thetinymouse.com or from my Facebook page for The Tiny Mouse and there’s two videos of me trying desperately to teach my dog, Gracie Mae, to read.
NB: How did that go? JI: Oh, she was all right. She’s moving forward slowly, one step forward and five steps back.
NB: The idea of putting this CD out with these awesome features, was that your idea or a collaboration? JI: No, no. That was me. My dad was a music teacher and firmly believed that everybody should make music because it makes the heart feel good. And I think that in this day and age when we have so many television shows that are promoting you can win at this if you have the right clothes, the right look, the right voice. Everything has to be perfect, you know? It worries me that kids are growing up with the concept that singing is only for professionals. And so a lot of the thrust for me with these various giveaways and these ideas is that it’s not just for professionals, it’s for everybody. Because even the professionals started because it made us feel good, not because we wanted to be famous but because singing felt good. So I want to encourage kids to sing and to read and to enjoy the music.
NB: Do you really believe music can change lives? JI: Oh, I know it can. Of course it can.
NB: I guess it can be a real saving grace for the less advantaged kids.. JI: Oh, I think it can be any child’s saving grace, it depends on what you mean by less advantaged. I know kids who are surrounded by every advantage in the NB: Why do you think they chose to illustrate this one? world but their parents are never around. So how do you measure that? JI: They loved the book. They loved the story. They loved the song. And they loved the idea that I wanted to make the music available along with the book NB: The new children’s album―will that have a similar theme to The Tiny and that we also included a karaoke version of it so children who wanted to sing Mouse? along could make their own little records, their own little videos using it and JI: No, I don’t know. Right now I’m just trying to get through my end of year have a big time. Also that teachers and librarians could use it. So that people stuff and I am not even going to think about it until January to be honest. But will just remember that we sing because it brings us joy not because it’s going it’ll be all original, all new. to make us famous. NB: So are you touring right now? JI: No, I’m actually at home. I’m ramping down on touring. The only touring I NB: Do you have plans for future children’s books? have planned right now is three weeks in the UK with Tom Paxton next March JI: Yes. I’m spending next year working on a children’s album and hopefully and then I believe two dates in the U.S. That’s it. another book.
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com NB: I bet it’s nice to be home. You’re on the East Coast? remember that it ends. It ends really fast. It ends always a lot faster than you JI: I live in Nashville. Been here for twenty five years so it’s as much home think it will. It’s usually through no fault of your own. Just times change and as anyplace has ever been. This is a nice place and it’s been very good to me. you are no longer the flavor that everybody wants. So be prepared for that. I think I’m very lucky that my talents have allowed me to move into areas other NB: On a personal note, why did you leave music for nine years to study than trying to grab that brass ring. I can do a children’s book. I can do an audio theater? And what brought you back? book. I have four books by other authors coming out that I narrated. I could go JI: I really needed to learn some things that weren’t what I did. So I studied into that field. I could do all kinds of things that don’t require my being famous script interpretation and directing and movement and theater. I studied ballet or being onstage. If you are going to be a performer, have several alternatives. with Zhou Shaolin at the Peking Opera Company. I studied piano. I just learned That’s always good. things that were not being a singer songwriter and a performer. I came back because I’d written a couple of songs that I really wanted people to hear. Like NB: You’ve met a lot “Tattoo”, and I didn’t think anybody would ever record them. I was doing pretty of incredible people well with other people’s cuts of my songs like Bette Midler, John Mellencamp, during your career. Can Joan Baez. A bunch of pretty good people. But I knew nobody would record you give one instance in certain songs and I really wanted them out there. which you met someone that just knocked your socks off? JI: Oh, God, there’s so many. Ella Fitzgerald. Frank Sinatra. Sarah Vaughan. They stand out. And when you see someone you know like Paul Fieg, who is just coming off directing The Heat. I just watched it last night and I emailed him and he was so happy to hear from me. When you see somebody that you know, whose work you respect, having success, that’s a really good feeling too. You want your friends and colleagues to do well.
NB: Any plans for marriage? JI: I am married. We were married in Toronto in 2003.
NB: Where were you when DOMA was repealed in mid-July? Did you celebrate? JI: No. We were already married, so for us it was just the icing on the cake. It is a great thing though. Obviously. Now we’re dealing with pension funds and social security. We’re just about ready to file our first ever joint tax return. So that’s amazing too but for us, we’ve been good for ten years. We just had our tenth anniversary.
NB: Happy Anniversary! Did you ever believe that you would see such rapid changes to gay and lesbian rights in your lifetime? NB: You’ve been doing this—writing and performing music for fifty years. JI: No. I would never have thought that, never have dreamed in a million years To what do you attribute your success—beyond talent, of course? that we would be able to get married legally anywhere, let alone in the United JI: Work your butt off. But don’t work your butt off at things that you think are States. It’ll be great to watch what happens next and God bless Edie Windsor. fun to do necessarily only. You’ve got to work your butt off at the business end too. To work your butt off to become better. Work with people who are better Windsor, as you may remember, was the lesbian widow who successfully sued than you are now. There are a bunch of articles on my own website at janisian. the federal government for not recognizing her marriage to Thea Spyer and com that would probably―hopefully―be helpful to somebody younger. But overcharging her almost $600,000 in estate taxes after Spyer passed away. I think the main thing is just… this business is a business of failure, not the business of success. You’re going to fail so many times and you just have to get There are a huge number of notable lesbians throughout our history but Janis used to that and accept that it is part of the drill and move on. You can’t let it Ian is one of the most profound. She led the way by pointing out the obvious make you crazy for more than a day. and then working consistently to make it all better.
NB: Great advice. I understand you once had a problem with your www.thetinymouse.com www.janisian.com management not looking out for your best interests. Would that be part of your advice, be careful who you trust? JI: No. I’d start with trust no one. End of discussion. Because nobody is going to care as much about your money and you as you do. So you have to be really careful. That doesn’t mean you can’t delegate. I trust my partner Pat absolutely but we’ve been together twenty five years. She has access to everything but in terms of financial people we keep things very close. They are divided among a lot of areas and most of them nobody has access to but us. I think….also just 31 Living Out Auntie Mame Jingle Thighs Thursday, December 19 | By Sally Sheklow
6:00pm - 7:30pm Jiggle thighs, jiggle thighs, jiggle all the Absolut hosted Pre-Reception way 7:30pm Oh what fun it is to have a pair of Auntie Mame screening women’s le-egs (2x) Join Outfest for our annual ringing in of the holiday season with the Dashing and divine sublime AUNTIE MAME starring Her legs look like mine Rosalind Russell in the title role. Whether it’s Ample and robust your first or your fiftieth Legs a girl can trust viewing nothing compares to sharing the wit and wisdom of Womanly and round AUNTIE MAME with an audience Sexy and alive of devoted fans! What fun it is to see and feel A pair of women’s thighs Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, LA, 90028
For more information, visit outfest.org. O! (Chorus) Tickets at fandango.com. Ev’ry woman here No matter what her size Has probably once wished She had different thighs But that all has changed We’re in a brand new phase We’re happy and we’re proud to have Substantial women’s legs O! (Chorus)
What a work of art Lying on the bed With those thighs apart Oooh! I lose my head Jiggling all around A sensual delight Let’s liberate ourselves and lose Our fear of cellulite
O! Jiggle thighs, jiggle thighs, jiggle all the way Oh what fun it is to have a pair of women’s le-egs Jiggle thighs, jiggle thighs, jiggle all the way (Rousing finish) Oh what fun it is to have a Pair. Of. Wom-en’s. LEGS!
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com Positive Reflections What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?
| By Dian Katz, MS
ost of us have something in our lives Is it rational or irrational? And even if it is What about those who say it’s out of our that we fear. Rarely, is there a person rational, can we change that? For example, hands and it’s fate or it’s divine will? Our MwhoL.A. is fearless GAY across & LESBIANthe board. We some may think they have lost the chance at higher selves want us to become the best all have some degree of fear in a particular something because of their age. So why not we can. Our higher selves want our souls to area and have BEACHno idea just howCENTER’S much it might break that mold and be the first person to do evolve by facing our fears and not running hold us back. In other words, what would our whatever it is at that age! But how do we get from them. This means, it’s necessary to feel lives be like if weBEACH weren’t afraid? CLASSIC rid of that nasty fear that holds us back? our feelings and do what we have to anyway, despite them. Our bodies are meant to respond to fear by Fear itself is not the problem. Trying to utilizing the “fight or flight” syndrome. rid ourselves of it most likely isn’t what’s Feelings are just feelings. They really can’t This means we experience fear as a sign necessary. What we do with the fear can make hurt us by experiencing them. The sooner that danger is near. When we see a fire, or all of the difference in the world. Fear can we are willing to allow ourselves to float a dangerous situation, adrenaline pierces motivate us. It can drive us to new heights. through the uncomfortable feelings, the through our bodies to help us fight off the It can tell us something about ourselves. quicker we are to becoming master of our enemy or run from the actual danger. On Remember, fear is produced in the body own emotions. No higher power wants us to the other hand, for this topic, we are talking by chemicals such as adrenaline. There are be imprisoned by our own minds. Fate only fear that is more psychological than life adrenaline junkies who thrive on that feeling. offers the opportunities for us. It’s up to us threatening and physical danger. This type of So what we need to do is take that feeling or to take them. fear can be something large and intense as a emotion and reframe it, using it as a motivator phobia or simple as not being able to say no and for excitement. Sure you say, how can Now let it be said, if we have a chemical to a friend who wants our attention. Either one face her fear and say she is excited while imbalance and no amount of feeling our way, large or small, psychological fears can doing so? Go deeper. Look at what we get feelings or facing our fears will change create tremendous roadblocks in our growth “not” doing it and think what we’d get if we anything, then this does not apply. These and success. How? “did “do it. Things would be so different and are only tools one can utilize to achieve that could be exciting! And even if it didn’t great things. Someone with a chemical To begin with, when we let our fears get in work out the way we wanted, we don’t need imbalance must be balanced out first through the way, we may not take the necessary risks to stop. We don’t need to quit. We can make it medication. Then, she can use these tools to that would better our lives. We might pass a research game by searching for the formula better her life. If anyone is suffering to the up a job offer which will then be passed to that does work and discover which ones don’t. degree where fear is consuming most of her another individual. We might not go after the All we have to do is tweak the formula until waking moments and she feels paralyzed or girl we are interested in, never knowing if she we get it right, rather than just throwing in emotionally stuck, then a skilled therapist would have said yes. We might not go after the towel and saying, “see, it didn’t get me can help. Someone in the helping profession our lifelong dream and forever look back with anywhere.” can determine whether medication is needed regret. There are no guarantees in life so we and/or also provide additional help to move don’t always get second chances. Of course, The simple act of walking through whatever forward. allowing fear to get in the way of something we fear, feels so empowering. And believe me, we wish to do or have, lowers our self esteem whether one wins or loses what she desires, The bottom line is we all have fears. No one and takes a toll on our overall well being. the empowerment alone is invigorating! is going to come to us with a magic wand Psychological fear is in the mind. So when and zap it all way. It’s there for a reason and So again we ask, what would we do if we we change the mind, we can change what we it’s part of the exciting adventure of life. It’s weren’t afraid? Would we chase our dreams? do. Sound too simplistic and crazy? Are we time for us to suit up, show up and face those Would we go on a travel adventure that grips willing to challenge ourselves? Are we ready fears. It’s time for us to never have to look our soul? Would we go after the girl we are to do what’s necessary to make some changes back and say we didn’t try. That is success! crushing on and ask her out? in our lives? Of course we are. Our fears have already made us miserable. They already put [email protected] To answer yes to any of the above, we might us right where we are right now. So we have have to ask ourselves what we’re so scared the ability to change that. about? What is the core reason for the fear?
33 THE POETRY OF LOVE AND LIFE Miranda Otto and company are Reaching for the Moon | By John Esther
rom her early childhood years, Australia’s Miranda Otto possessed the proverbial acting bug. The daughter of actors Barry and F Lindsay Otto, Miranda would and her friends would write, direct and produce their own little shows. During her high school years she would appear in Emma’s War. During these times she was training to be a professional ballet dancer. Eventually she would give up dance and put her energies into acting.
This paid off as Miranda began appearing in such notable films as The Last Days of Chez Nous, The Nostradamus Kid, Love Serenade, Doing Time for Patsy Cline, What Lies Beneath (starring then-A list actors Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer), Human Nature, Being John Malkovich and, of course, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as Éowyn, the goddess of nerds worldwide.
In her latest film, Miranda takes on what may be the role of a lifetime: American poet Elizabeth Bishop during her tumultuous yet productive years in Brazil where she lived and loved with noted architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires).
Directed by Bruno Barreto, Reaching for the Moon focuses on these iconoclastic Lesbian News: How would you describe your childhood? women who lived on their own terms -- individually and as a couple. Miranda Otto: Slightly nomadic, really. We lived in Brisbane originally and then we moved to Hong Kong for a period and then I moved to Newcastle and my In this exclusive interview, we caught up with Miranda to get her thoughts on father was living in Sydney. So I moved around a bit. I had my dad’s family and love, life, passion and poetry. I had my mom’s family, so I was lucky. I had a lot of different influences and
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com lived in different places. I think I had a really good childhood. I was very much York and she was telling people, “Oh, it’s Carnival in Brazil and if I were there I an only child. would be dancing.” And she was showing people how she would be really going for it. I loved that story because it was highly unexpected. You would think that LN: When did you first decide that you wanted to be an actor? she would be more inhibited than that but she wasn’t. MO: My father is an actor, so I had been around the theater. My mother was an actor before she became a dress designer. I kind of always had been around LN: Why did you want to make this film? actors. I acted non-professionally as a kid. I had friends who were children of MO: I loved the story. I was sent the email offering me the role and I read about actors also. I went to a lot of shows. There were always shows for Christmas ten pages of the script and thought that I just really wanted to do it. It’s rare that holiday. I loved doing it, but I never thought I would get to do it as a career. I you find such interesting female characters. It was interesting to have a lack wanted to be a dancer at one stage. I wanted to be a doctor at one stage. I went of an essential male character, so now the female characters ended up much through a lot of different ideas and I guess acting was something that I always stronger than they normally do. It was more fascinating to me. I didn’t know did but I never thought I would get to have as a career. In my last year in high anything about Elizabeth Bishop. I remember I shot an email back off to Bruno school, someone had seen me in one of these non-professional plays that my saying that I loved this film and these brilliant women. That’s how I thought of friends and I put on and asked me to audition for something and I ended up the film. It was just so intelligent, so interesting and modern and exotic. I just getting a film. Even after that I wasn’t sure I would make that as a career. really fell in love with it.
LN: What do you think you would be doing if you were not in show business? MO: Whenever I am not acting I always think that I would love to be in the art’s department. That’s where I would really love to work. I am always fascinated by what the art’s department does and what they come up with for the sets and all the props and everything. That is where I would have really enjoyed working.
LN: Is it still really rare to find good scripts with strong female characters? MO: I think in TV there are more but it’s hard. I don’t want to moan about it but the really good roles don’t come up that often.
LN: What do you think you have in common with Elisabeth? MO: In some ways the way that I was brought up was in that kind of East Coast LN: What do you most enjoy about acting? mentality. I relate to her… I talk about it in Australia as people coming from a MO: When I think a project is good and it’s really going well, it is the biggest Presbyterian background or a Catholic background and there is a big difference high. When you really feel completely set and that you have really put yourself between them. Though she was not Presbyterian, I think it’s a similar kind of into something else, it really is quite an amazing feeling being able to completely thing. It’s a very WASPy kind of upbringing. I had that. I think she was a great transcend into another place. That is the biggest kick in acting. Some of the other lover of beauty and had a great lover of beauty. I am also kind of a perfectionist, things I love about acting are some of the amazing people I have met through I think. being an actor and some of the amazing places that I have been. That is another thing that I really love about being in this business. The big thing that keeps me LN: The film is about winning and losing, ultimately losing. What doyou coming back for more is really nailing it, really. think of the way Elizabeth Bishop deals with it? MO: In what way? In her loss of Lota? I think Elizabeth Bishop suffered loss LN: What do you dislike the most about acting? a lot in her life. She lost her father when she was very, very young. And then MO: Sometimes I feel like as you get better and learn more about what you she lost her mother to a mental institution when she was five. Then she was are doing there is less and less work available. It’s an annoying thing. Being a sort of shunted around from different grandparents and constantly being moved. dancer would be worse because your career is so short, in terms of dancing. I She lost a lot all through her life. At some point she became better at letting suppose one of the other things about acting is that you meet all of these amazing go of things than Lota is. Lota is someone who had won at all times, she is so people but you lose touch with people. incredibly confident. Anything she sets her mind to she just does. In some ways she is really unprepared for loss, whereas Elizabeth expects loss. She expects LN: I know that you trained as a dancer in your youth but I wouldn’t say that that that is what life is all about. In some ways she is stronger at dealing with Elizabeth Bishop was much of a dancer in the film. How was that for you in it, because it’s just another blow to absorb, really. I think she was absolutely the one scene where you were dancing in the film? devastated by Lota’s death. I think in some ways, an artist like that, one of the MO: That was really hard to do because I actually really enjoy dancing and I most profound relationships is really with their work. I think without it there is a really liked the music but I had to remember that I was acting a certain age so part of them that is almost unreachable to other people. Part of them that, if you I had to keep that age in my body. And I thought that she couldn’t be too good are in a relationship with them, that you can never really understand or know. of a dancer but that she really enjoyed dancing. She was in in Seattle or New You don’t know what it is that really inspires them or where they get it from or
35 what that talent is. IT’s kind of elusive. I think that in this story, that’s slightly been going through it for a very long time in Australia. They are kind of a low- hard for Lota with Elizabeth, that there is a part of Elizabeth that remains only key group but they do fantastic work mentoring children and just sometimes for Elizabeth. giving them the basic tools. In Australia kids are not really given pens and pencils and books in schools. You are kind of expected to get those. So they LN: These were independent women who lived uncompromising lives in the come in a fill in those gaps for families cannot afford those basic things. 1950s, but it was in Brazil – MO: I was amazed by the way that they kind of worked it all out! And she says LN: Switching gears, what are your guilty pleasures? to Mary, “Well, you want a baby, I’ll get you a baby.” It’s so modern. Here we MO: Old movies. Chocolate. Travel. I love traveling. Good food! I love eating are in 1950 and they were coming up with solutions to things that we are still out when I get the chance. trying to grasp. I mean, where I live in California and earlier this year they were closing down the street in front of us. I asked why and was told that gay marriage LN: Lastly, what do you think about these interviews where you talk about has just come through. I was like, “Really?” I mean, it’s California and it’s only your work? Do you think that they serve the work or do you think that the just come through? I was kind of shocked that it had taken so long. I mean, work should just speak for itself? MO: It’s kind of a different world. I have to say that I love going and seeing a German film and not knowing any of the actors in it and just completely immersing myself in the story. I love that. But in the world that we live in, it just doesn’t work like that so it’s a part of what we do now, talking about ourselves and our work.
SHOOTING FOR THE STARS Tracy Middendorf and the luna(our)cy of love
In Reaching from the Moon, poet Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto) would never have met the love of her life, Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires), had it not been for her college friend, Mary, who was the lover of Soares until Bishop came along.
Playing the role of May is Tracy Middendorf whose work has been seen on dozens of television shows – from Carrie Brady on Days of Our Lives to the recent, Boardwalk Empire.
In this exclusive interview, we caught up to Middendorf to get her thoughts on Sapphic love, Brazilian style. you’re looking at these women in 1950 who just lived how they wanted to live. Lesbian News: Why did you want to make this film? LN: How do you think it would have been different for them if they lived in Tracy Middendorf: I’m also passionate about Mary’s part in the story. She Australia? was tall and thin on the outside yet she held the “family” together with her MO: It would have been harder, it’s true. I mean, Australia was full of women silent strength, determination and absolute love for Lota. She was cut off from after the war who lived with other women who were called aunts. Because there her family in the U.S., having been rejected by them for being a lesbian. She were so many men who were killed during the war in Australia (the Second met Lota, quit her career as a dancer, moved to Brazil and raised four adopted World War, but also the First World War), they were just seen as women who daughters. And in the end she outlived both Elizabeth and Lota and spent the lived with each other. Nobody was there to [question] the relationship. It was rest of her life in her adopted country of Brazil. She must have had incredible quite a common thing but they were just very discreet. strength and will. And how could anyone turn down the opportunity to shoot
LN: What you hope audiences get out of watching this film? MO: There are lots of things I hope they get out of it. First of all, I hope that they are introduced to two people who they didn’t know very much about. I certainly didn’t know very much about either of these two women and I found they were fascinating. I hope that they are moved by it because I think it is a moving story. I hope that they want to find out more about Elizabeth’s poetry and that they want to find out more about Lota and Brazil. There are a whole lot of things to take away from it.
LN: What can you tell us about your upcoming projects? MO: I have a film coming out in January called I Frankenstein.
LN: What do you do when you are not working? MO: I have a daughter and when I am not working I try to spend as much time as I can with her so that she’ll forgive me for when I am working ridiculous hours on things. I read a lot. We go to the park a lot, do family stuff, watch movies. I’m trying to think if there are any things sort of out of the box but those are the things I mostly spend time doing.
LN: Are there any social causes that you support or are involved in? a movie in Rio. I fell in love with Brazil and the wonderful people I met there. MO: I am involved with The Smith Family, which is involved in helping give The city of Rio is a dichotomy of riches. It is located right on the ocean yet education to disadvantaged children. I am very passionate about that. They have surrounded by tropical mountains and dotted with Favella’s. There are wild orchids growing among graffiti covered walls. And the people I met were so
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com warm and gracious. No one ever complained about the long days, the food poisoning (that most of the crew got) or the rain and clouds that ruined countless AND NOW A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR shots. I was absolutely stunned by their sunny demeanor and joy. An interview with Reaching for the Moon’s Bruno Barreto
Lesbian News: What do you think you have in common with Mary? TM: There wasn’t much known about Mary because most of the books and bio’s focused on Elizabeth and Lota. Given that, I’m not sure how correct I’ll be in describing our similarities. But from what I did gather I think that I’m physically similar to Mary; I was a dancer as a child and still have that same sort of physique. And from an early age I knew I wanted to have children and a family which, I’ve gathered, was a strong desire for Mary. I also consider myself to be a very loyal and steadfast friend as well as a bit stubborn like she was.
LN: Where you familiar with the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop before the film? If so, what did you think of it? Did it change after making the film? TM: I was familiar with some of her poetry. In high school I had a couple of years where poetry was all I read -- I was one of those gals. I had read a few of her more famous poems but had no idea of the scope and breadth of her work.
Lesbian News: Why did you want to make this film? Bruno Barreto: I wanted to tell this story to talk about loss. I really went for a love story in which Bishop and Lota are the main characters and to talk about loss. I found the dynamic between the two characters very interesting because Bishop starts out like a weak and alcoholic woman and she gets stronger and stronger and Lota gets weaker and weaker because she is avoiding loss – she just ignores loss. I thought that dynamic and reversal of roles was very interesting.
LN: Which character do you identify with the most and why? BB: In different ways, both. I felt very much like Bishop but the other way around -- being a Brazilian who lived in the United States for 20 years. So I felt like Bishop with this continental drifting and cultural clashing. Bishop lived in Brazil when the coup d’état happened and I was here [in New York] when September 11 happened. But I do identify with Lota a little bit too – I have a hard time dealing with loss. I brought some of her poetry books with me to Brazil and had a wonderful time discovering her discovering Brazil. I felt like I was living her poetry with her. LN: Lota and Elizabeth live pretty uncompromising lives, at least in terms of Her words are as sensual and complex as the country. the 1950s and 60s. By that standard, Brazil seems extremely progressive at least by American standards in terms of sexuality? LN: How do you think the film informs younger viewers about lesbian and BB: Lota was part of the ruling class and they lived in a state that was like a literature history? cocoon. As Bishop says to Mary in the beginning of the film, “We can live TM: Well, it’s obviously a wonderful piece of history because of these two here and people don’t bother us much.” For the people who didn’t know them, amazing women. And it will inform young viewers that lesbian relationships they wouldn’t imagine that they were together, and for the people who knew, did exist then and in fact have always existed. The movie doesn’t make issue of they weren’t flaunting their sexual preference in anybody’s face. They were the fact that they are lesbians and therefore I think it will not be an issue. Young discreet. It doesn’t mean that the culture is progressive. people will see this love story and hopefully see it as “normal” love - fraught with the difficulties and passions, joys and sadness that many relationships have LN: As someone who has lived and worked in both America and Brazil, do and that they will be moved in some way by the strength and will and intelligence you see American films as quite conservative when it comes to sexuality as that these women possessed in a time when most women were forced to be expressed on the screen? homemakers or secretaries. I love the vitality and spirit of the women in this BB: I don’t think it is only American films, I think it is American culture. There movie and I hope that young girls everywhere are inspired by them and by what is definitely a preference for carnage instead of carnality. It’s a very Protestant women can achieve if they follow their passions. But I think the bigger picture trait, I guess. There are advantages to that – you have built an empire. Even and what I hope viewers of all ages feel when watching Reaching for the Moon when it’s in a weak moment, like now, it’s still very strong and it’s fascinating. is that it’s an often sad, sometimes funny and always truthfully told love story I’m not saying that it’s better or worse than Brazil. about two artists who fell in love in Brazil in the 50’s. LN: How would you characterize the attitude toward the gay and lesbian LN: What do you like to do when you are not making films? community in Brazil? TM: My most passionate projects these days are taking care of my two boys, a BB: Brazil is an inherently liberal, but racist country even though they don’t short film that I’m planning to direct, a series that I’m writing and my fundraising think they are racist. Everything is very hidden and very hypocritical. In the US project Shutter To Think. Shutter To Think is a collection of photographs taken it is much more transparent. by well-known actors, writers, directors and musicians. The sale of each print goes to charities that fund girls’ education around the world.
37 COMMUNITY ACCESS
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(562) 984-8400 Gay-Straight Alliances West Hollywood Presbyterian Church (213) 381-8500 LONG BEACH/SOUTH BAY/ Holy Spirit Fellowship Church [email protected] (323) 874-6646 visit our website at Battered Women Support Group ORANGE CO. (562) 428-5037 www.wehopres.org (818) 887-6589 More Light Presbyterians New Port Beach TUESDAY Lesbian-Friendly Group for Battered Garden Grove Center has a new (949) 644-1341 MONDAY Women (310) 264-6644 location: The OC Center Marriage Equality California, Bakers Lesbian-Friendly AA L.A. (213) 381-8500 1605 N. Spurgeon St SAN DIEGO COUNTY field Chapter (661) 204-3180 Groups / Meetings (323) 463-4266 Santa Ana, CA (714) 953-LGBT (5428) www.thecenteroc.org WEDNESDAY Battered Women Support Group San FRIDAY SUNDAY Fernando Valley (818) 887-6589 Bible Study 7:30pm Lesbian-Friendly Battered Women Support Latinas SUNDAY Christ Chapel of North Park San Diego (909) 987-4342 Group (310) 264-6644 (619) 542-1113 L.U.N.A. program of Bienestar Sabor A Mi. East LA (323) 727-7897 Dignity/S.D. Catholic S.D. THURSDAY 909-397-7660 VIDA Hollywood (323) 660-9680 Calvary Open Door Ministries Long (619) 645-8240 Growing and Supporting Christian Beach (562) 925-3533 www.open-door- Lesbian and Gay Historical Society Gay and Lesbian Alcoholics Anony Families 562-925-3533 Spirituality ministries.org (619) 260-1522 mous (AA) meets at 3816 River Blvd, www.open-door-ministries.org Christ Chapel Orange County, MCC S.D. San Diego (619) 521-2222 or Bakersfield at 7 p.m. Beth Chayim Chadashim. Rev. Lillian Lobb www.mccsd.org Parents, Friends and Families of TUESDAY (323) 931-7023 www.bcc-la.org Services: Sundays 10:00 A.M. Worship Lesbians and Gays (661) 632-2510 Congregation Kol Ami West Hollywood Service: Wednesdays 7:00 P.M. TUESDAY Latinas (323) 606-0996 22722 Lambert Street, Suite 1712, Lake FRIDAY Goddess Temple Forest, OC 92630 949-376-2099 Common Ground Gay Youth Services Latinas in Recovery AA Meeting L.A. www.goddesstempleoforangecounty.com Christ Chapel MCC Santa Ana, (760) 744-0220 California State University Bakersfield (213) 381-8500 6:00 pm service Rev. Rev. Randy Besta Gay Lesbian Straight Student Network Latinas and Friends 323-259-1051 or Healing Life Christian Home Group Service: Sunday 10:00 AM. 720 N. WEDNESDAY Contact: [email protected] e-mail [email protected] 562-925-3533 Spurgeon St. Santa Ana 714-835-0722 Sabores Los Angeles Contact www.open-door-ministries.org Glory Tabernacle MCC Service Long Beach LGBT Center San Diego (619) 692-2077 A SPECIAL NOTE TO OUR READERS Joseph Cervantes (323) 727-7897 Saint Monica’s Catholic Church Coco (562) 981-6808 www.glorytabernacle.com x 224 – If you know of spiritual/support/ (310) 991-0365 Goddess Temple www. Women to Women (619) 692-2077 group meetings or events happening in goddesstempleoforangecounty.com your area and would like to have them Groups / Meetings Groups / Meetings 11:00 am service THURSDAY added to our Community Access page, Unity Church 935 East Broadway, Long please email the name of the Group/ Gay and Lesbian Assoc. of Santa Clarita Lesbian-Friendly AA L.A. (323) 463-4266 Beach, Ca 90802 11:00am Service Mira Costa College LesBiGay Organization, the day of the event, their Valley (GLASC) 7:00 pm www.glasc.com (213) 381-8500 Followed by Fellowship Association (760) 757-2121 ext. 8918 telephone number/website/email address, Lesbian Chat Conversation Group L.A. W30 plus Lesbian Chat (323) 461-2633 along with the name of the county, to: (323) 860-7302 Women’s Al-Anon West Hollywood FRIDAY [email protected]\ Bienestar Los Angeles (323) 727-7896 (323) 656-5336
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com 39 The Weekender TRAVEL Festive Colonial Williamsburg Take a Moment for the Soul | By Barbara Horngren | By Barbara Horngren
ne of my favorite places is Colonial Williamsburg. Partly that’s because I first ake Atitlan is in the heart of the Guatemalan southwestern wall are believed to be the only Osaw it in April, when there still was snow highlands. The name means “place of the remnants of the Second Temple enclosure that on the ground in Massachusetts, where I was living Lwater” and, at 1,120 feet, it’s the deepest was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. It’s at the time. In Virginia, home to Williamsburg, it lake in Central America. Atitlan is volcanic in a site so holy it often calls forth tears from the was bright and sunny and grass cutters were plying origin and silvery and calm in the early morning, people worshipping there, hence its common their trade. That was years ago and even now I can with only a few small fishing boats to ruffle the name, Wailing Wall. The faithful leave messages smell the sweet chlorophyll emanating from the surface. Gazing at it at that time of day I felt a to God in the cracks between the limestone grass cuttings when I think of that day. peace that seemed to float from Atitlan’s depths to slabs. I stayed there a while, too, then found a the depths of my soul. scrap of paper on which to write a message of But as special as that day is to me, it’s not my my own. On the other side of the wall and rising favorite Colonial Williamsburg memory. That Call it meditation. Call it introspection. Call it above it is the Dome of the Rock, the place from would be Christmas – any Christmas. This is such reflection. Call it contemplation. Call it quiet which Muhammad is said to have ascended to a delectable place then, I make an effort to be here for Williamsburg’s holiday festivities often. time. No matter where I find myself I find some heaven. This is Islam’s third holiest site, and it is place to practice it. Sometimes it’s in a church – an architectural masterpiece, as well. Williamsburg has been described as “the town any church. Sometimes, as at Atitlan, it’s in the that incubated American ideals…where patriots outdoors, in nature. I’m not there for a religious I visit various houses of worship in major and such as Patrick Henry, George Washington, and experience so much as a calming, peaceful one. smaller cities all over the world. When they offer Thomas Jefferson challenged British authority And, even on my busiest trips, ones filled with space and opportunity to sit inside and meditate, and called for America’s independence.” This is every cultural and historical site there is, I can I do, because I think that people who worship en the largest outdoor living history museum in the find some space to ponder and contemplate. masse leave energy in that place that settles upon U.S., with a historic area that includes hundreds of everyone who visits. When they don’t provide 18th-century buildings and others reconstructed to Of course, many churches I visit on trips are opportunity, I find a spot just outside, where I can fit right into that time. With its notable structures, tourist sites in their own right, and I visit them not see the churches and consider the communities costumed interpreters, and holiday decorations, it’s because I’m a follower of the faith, but because that worship therein. a wonderfully colorful site for a holiday vacation. they have features that are stunning -- like St. Peter’s Basilica in the home of Catholicism, Some outside sites seem to cry out for The holiday season literally begins with a bang in Vatican City. contemplation, too, like the vortexes in Sedona, Williamsburg. In the 18th century, when this was Arizona. They have an energy field all their the capital of Virginia, it was believed noise would St. Peter’s Basilica stands on the site where Peter, own. The vortex that particularly calls to me is frighten off evil spirits. Since that time cannon fire the apostle considered the first pope, is believed in Boynton Canyon – a three-mile hike gets me has kicked off the festivities here. It’s followed to have been crucified and buried. Completed there, and I sit, sometimes for hours, in feminine by fireworks and the Grand Illumination, which between 1506 and 1626, the interior has 45 altars, energy, at the Kachina woman rock formation, to calls for the lighting of thousands of candles in a 715-foot-long nave, and a huge dome. Could do my contemplating. the windows of private homes and shops and other I find quietude there? Not really; it’s a tourism public spaces. mecca for Catholics and non-Catholics alike and Lake Atitlan called to me that particular morning, The period from the Grand Illumination through the very busy. But I could appreciate some of the too. I had awakened with the dawn and wandered end of the year is chock full of candlelight concerts, finest artworks of the 16th century. Bernini’s, to the shore, hoping to be on my own for an holiday-themed lectures and films, and lantern-lit Michelangelo’s…viewing them is a meditation in hour or so. It proved to be an excellent place for walking tours that focus on the wreaths, garlands, itself. reflection. Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism, said, and greens that dress city buildings. There is “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. feasting aplenty at Williamsburg’s restaurants and In Istanbul is the Hagia Sophia, considered the If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If colonial era taverns, too – oyster and lobster pies, epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was a you are at peace, you are living in the present.” roast barons of beef, chocolate chestnut pudding…. mosque with a richly decorated interior; now That day my present was fixed. I was going to it is home to a museum. In the north corner of visit several of the Mayan villages that line Lake A schedule detailing all holiday events and meals the building, the “Sweating Column” holds a Atitlan. And, after my interlude on its shore, I at Colonial Williamsburg, as well as information on wish hole. Legend has it that if you complete a was at peace. tickets and advance reservations where necessary, 360-degree rotation of your thumb in the hole, is available at www.colonialwilliamsburg.com. you will be granted one wish. It also is said the [email protected] hole weeps water that provides healing qualities.
Jerusalem’s Western Wall calls Jews from Israel and around the world to prayer. It and the
Lesbian News Magazine | December 2013 | www.LesbianNews.com FEMASTROLOGY | By Victoria Bearden December Sun Sign Profile: Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
ild ponies, scaling Everest, New Years Eve, Aries (March 21-April 19) Aries (March Libra (September 23-October 22) You’ll Cabaret, fireworks, impassioned political speeches, 21-April 19) Even if things feel a bit slow have a great time sharing your ideas with W dirty jokes, daring acts of bravery, people running naked through the mall. Meet Sagittarius! They are a crazy grab right now; you can still garner success in your others this month. People will be interested bag of energy. Like their polar opposite Gemini, your typical outer world this month. Make some plans, in your proposals, so have some! Try not to Sag’ does not want to grow up. This can be either charming or put some things in motion, and connect with let drama on the home front get in the way, annoying, depending on the situation. In the case of Walt Disney, we’re all pretty glad he never grew up. If you’re in love with a people who can help you both socially and as some people in your inner circle might be non-committal Sag’ who is still clinging to their teenaged dating professionally. very cranky during the holidays. sensibilities in their 30’s or 40’s, well, that can be a bit of a challenge for some. Taurus (April 20-May 20) Your Scorpio (October 23-Novemeber 21) Of course all Sagittarians aren’t the sizzling, silly, sexy, sporty, connections with others will be intense You are getting a respite from any of the madcap variety. This sign is also known for their idealism and you could get swept away into drama and intensity that may have come up and interest in truth and justice, which is why they often end someone else’s drama. Resist the urge and during Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio this up working in the courtroom. Their passion and propensity use the earthy alignment in Capricorn to get Oct/Nov. Enjoy it! Find your center, use your for persuasive speaking can lead them to the podium, or the pulpit. Their wanderlust gives them great appreciation for other things going the way YOU want them to this creativity, and connect to the earth. cultures and foreign lands. Their enthusiasm for life is infectious month! Resolving money matters will be and their ability to “think big” can lead to many breakthroughs important, too. Sagittarius (November 22-December and innovations. For most Sag’s, the glass is a little more than 21) This will be an enjoyable time and half full. Gemini (May 21-June 20) Relationships others tend to resonate with your energy. All Of course, when they’re not busy saving the world, they have are highlighted and single Gemini’s might systems are go! The one thing that could get been to know to have tremendous expertise in being foolhardy. be considering getting serious with someone in the way? You’ll be very, very tempted to Outrageous to God-awful in 60 seconds. To them, arguing is special. Sharing and connecting will create spend tons of $$$ this month…and may regret both a sport and an art form. And when that fails, they are great at cussing. Their drive for freedom can make it hard for them to harmony and progress, both personally and it later! make choices for fear of being “trapped.” professionally. Don’t be afraid to commit to things now, if they make both logical and Capricorn (December 22-January 19) As performers, they have gobs of sex appeal and lean towards being “over the top” in their expression. Christina Aguilera, emotional sense. Your intuition is working splendidly. It Britney Spears, and Miley Cyrus are all Sagittarians. Over the would be wonderful if you would follow it! top criminal Ted Bundy was also a Sag’. Cancer (June 21-July 21) You will be Avoid the tendency to let your moods turn torn between going full tilt and taking sour and participate in activities that represent Sagittarius gets along well with fellow Fire Signs Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius as long as competition doesn’t become a deal time for your own R and R. Try to do both, if spirituality, creativity, and healing. breaker. Air Signs Gemini and Aquarius will find flamboyant possible. Your tendency to do a lot for other Sagittarius exciting, but Libra may want more commitment. people is lovely, but sometimes, you really Aquarius (January 20-February Sensitive signs Cancer and Pisces might be blown out of the could benefit from allowing others to dote on 18) This is a good month for social water by Sag’s gregarious ways, but Scorpio might be up for the challenge. Earth Signs Taurus and Virgo may not appreciate you. interactions, but your energy could be their frenetic energy, but sturdy Capricorns, who often have a little disjointed. Less is more. Set some planets in Sagittarius, might be a good match. Leo (July 23-August 22) This should specific goals and take a few things off your be an extremely fun month for you. But plate. It will be more satisfying in the long Femastrology Horoscopes for December 2012 your tendency to take on too much could cost run. For all the Sun Signs: December gets off to a good start with you! Holiday burnout is a real possibility for some planetary harmony and a New Moon in Sagittarius on the you, so if it is at all possible for you to pace Pisces (February 19-March 20) Your 12/2/13. But by mid-month things start to get a little wonky. yourself, you will have a much better time. awareness is heightened, your creativity With Venus, the planet of love, going retrograde in Capricorn on December 21, it may be quite a challenge to get along with Watch your health. Take extra vitamins and is running strong, and your compassion is relatives or mates during the holidays. Try not to sweat the small do things that boost your immunity. boundless. What will you do with all this stuff, even when others seem moody or unreasonable. There’s a inspiration? Avoid scattering your energy and Full Moon in Gemini on December 17 that could lead to inspired thinking. And Winter Solstice on December 21 looks like a Virgo (August 23-September 22) It’s nice go manifest something wonderful! peaceful and healing day. Astro-Opportunity Days: December 1, to be home for the holidays, and you will 5, 9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 28 30, 31. Use these days to increase find great enjoyment being with loved ones your potential for success in your endeavors. and participating in holiday activities. But you’ll still be thinking about your projects, and there is energy available for that, too. [email protected]
41 Words That make sense Are We Seniors Becoming Obsolete? | By Toni Hart
s we enter our senior years, we often feel that for you. If you could not keep up with the mainstream And...oh lordy...... doesn’t anyone remember how to life has passed us by. When we were young, of the class, the gracious instructor always had cook? We seem to have forgotten all the healthy, fresh Athere were so many things to do and so many suggestions how to take the poses at a slower pace. ingredients since the manufacturers have us psyched choices to make. However now that we may live at a And the movies and television programs...... What that the food they make can get to the table faster slower pace, it seems that all the fun things are for happened to the love stories that used our imagination and is healthier for us with the addition of the boxed the young. instead of showing every last detail (in 3D, no less)? “helpers” that line the grocery shelves and are loaded Today after one of these movies, you feel that there with salt, sugar and fat. If you glance at today’s magazines or browse through is nothing sacred anymore. Not to forget the current Yes, the good ol’ days were something else. However, the stores, it becomes obvious fashion designers do crop of bloody dead people walking around in the I do love the ease of today’s appliances - stoves, not have the over 70 crowd in mind as they create films plus an assortment of weapons that will give microwave, dishwasher, washers and dryers. They fashions. Do they really think we would go out in see- you nightmares. Where are the fine tuned comedies, allow us to have more time for things other than thru clothes or garbed in the mini skinny attire seen the musicals, the adventure films that kept you on the housework - like the internet!. I also love packages on the fashion runway? How do they think we could edge of your chair? How many names of stars are of frozen fish and chicken already cleaned, skinned totter in six inch spike heels? If we did, hospital wards memorable like Gable, Tracey, Hepburn, Grant? & boned and frozen vegetables ready to be cooked would be full of ladies with all sorts of broken bones. or added to a casserole. These help you whip up a And....Have they totally ruled us out at the beach? sumptuous, healthy dinner in a snap. Now, if they What makes the fitness experts think we could The women’s bathing attire is less than barely there. could only think of a way to get the dishes from the possibly compete in a hard yoga class or spinning or Where do we hide our extra curves and lumps, bumps, table into the dishwasher. Oh well, I guess that’s heavy handed exercises? I so enjoyed the lovely yoga varicose veins and surgery scars? Those of us still coming. classes that I attended years ago. They were slow, slightly shapely, are now relegated to those skirted graceful and energizing with lovely Asian music in the models in catalogues that date back to the beginning [email protected] background. When you finished a session you were of time! relaxed and ready to cope with all the day had in store
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