When I first heard about Pussy Riot’s new video — featuring their first English-language song — I figured I was going to write something snarky like You know, P.R. might be on the side of the angels but their music really sucks.
Because up until this time, it did.
No more. I Can’t Breathe is an important, rebellious-verging-on-revolutionary, moody, enraging engaging piece of protest music. And on top of all that, it’s goddamned good!
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Time for a quiz.
● Cossacks horse-whipped women.
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● Citizens reacted to news of FDR’s death.
● At least four state legislatures considered bills to restrict the teaching of evolution and biology in schools.
● Fully one quarter of the nation’s population was unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
● Another state legislature worked diligently on a law to deny certain people the right to marry.
● Lawmakers working hand-in-hand with wealthy donors succeeded in defeating a labor movement.
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● A man running for Attorney General of a large state told victims of domestic violence they should stop complaining and be thankful they have men.
● A learned, accomplished black man was characterized as a “subhuman mongrel” and a “chimpanzee” by a celebrity spokesbeing for a Right Wing political organization.
● A southern state OK’d a Confederate flag display.
● Yet another white man was exonerated for killing a black man whose actions mildly disturbed him.
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● Athletic team officials worried that a homosexual man may taint their locker rooms.
● A state legislature voted to permit teachers to spank students (so long as they don’t leave any marks).
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Hurry now and make your selection: Time flies!
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Krista Detor’s brand spanking new CD and accompanying book are on sale now at the Book Corner. And she’ll be peddling both the Flat Earth Diary and Notes from the Bridge when she dashes off to Europe for a live tour this spring. She’ll hit Germany, Holland, England, and Scotland.
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Tons o’B-towners dig Detor the most, but it’s a good bet not too many will stage-door-Johnny her all the way across the Atlantic Ocean just to get their mitts on her stuff. So buy it here in So Cen Ind. Whaddya waiting for?
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BTW: KD and Arbutus Cunningham have tinkered with their sweet musical, The Breeze Bends the Grass, and, in fact, have come up with a whole new shebang of it. The re-designed and re-imagined four-act theater production will debut at the Brown County Playhouse in Nashville on June 6th.
Oh yeah, that Detor gal is a juggler.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love — love! — the fact that NPR anchors and reporters have to say the words Pussy Riot.
These are people, the stereotyping section of my brain has concluded, who’ve never uttered the P-word before in their lives. Whereas it’s my fave appellation for a woman’s business — a pussy is, after all, warm, snuggly, and comfortable. Rather like a de-clawed cat, no?
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Now, the C-word. Uh uh. That’s bad sauce, babies. It’s a harsh, hateful word. Yet, even some feminist-y women occasionally drop it when referring to a dame they particularly detest. I strive never to use it because of its hard-edge and insulting connotation.
It’s a word I imagine frat boys bandy about while sitting around and philosophizing. If frat boys use it, I have to eliminate it from my vocabulary. I’m also thinking of refusing to use the word the in my speech, which I suspect will be a tad more problematic.
In fact, if you want to distinguish between, say, odious porn and glorious erotica, simply use my handy C-word system. If the book or video uses the C-word in its title or the term is used liberally (eek, such an unfortunately choice of a word) in its content, the work likely will not be of art at all but rather a crushing, repulsive, quasi-violent put-down of the female sex.
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Anyway, I’ve been wondering how media outlets like the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, or the Rush Limbaugh radio flatulence-fest refer to the two erstwhile jailed Russian members of the punk group.
Well, let’s find out, shall we? The Grey Lady (an antiquated nickname for the NYT which, in its historical stuffiness, largely eschewed photos) seemed fairly itchy when first called upon to name the band. In the story dated August 17, 2012, telling of the band’s conviction and sentence on charges of hooliganism (which, itself, is a fave word of mine), the paper waited until the second graf to even mention PR’s name and even then acted all peevish about it. “[M]embers of a punk band called Pussy Riot…,” the copy read, as if to plead, Hey, don’t blame us.
As the fairly long story continued, the paper seemed at pains to avoid mentioning the name again, only doing so three more times, once to huff, “But while the women became minor celebrities, Pussy Riot is far more political than musical: Its members have never commercially released a song or an album, and they do not seem to have any serious aspirations to do so.”
In case anybody doesn’t get the gist of that graf, the Grey Lady is saying, Good heavens, no proper young ladies who employ such déclassé verbiage should ever be taken seriously!
Guaranteed the editors of the NYT are, at this very moment, on their knees praying Pussy Riot will disappear from the Earth forthwith so subscribers can safely return to the reading of more refined topics like sub-Saharan genocide or teenage rape in Ohio.
Despite bannering a variation on the name of one billion people’s lord and savior in its very name, the Christian Science Monitor went full Pussy Riot within the first nine words of its article on the band’s conviction and sentence in 2012. And the funny thing is, as I type this, the CSM page is still up on another window and its auto-play ad is running a faux doc on meterologists, air force commanders, and other scientists and officials tracking Santa and his reindeers’ flight over this holy land. Hehe; I love funny juxtapositions, natch.
Now then, how about the troggiest of all Oxycontin-head troglodytes, Rush Limbaugh? A casual google search shows — get this — absolutely no mentions of Pussy Riot by the King of Blowhard Kings. Imagine that. Here was his chance to either slam Vladimir Putin and the hated Russkies for being such stone-headed tyrants or to savage a band of slutty sluts who had the temerity to desecrate the Orthodox home of Jesus H. Christ himself. Yet Rush couldn’t even bring himself to address the issue. Who knows? Perhaps he digs their music and is torn. Or maybe he feels young women should be allowed to make the occasional public mistake without being ripped to shreds by porcine conservative commentators?
As they used to say in my old neighborhood, Whaddya, stupid?
I’m betting Rush and his merry band of keyboard clackers were paralyzed by Pussy Riot’s very name. You know the scene in the movie The Big Lebowski where Maude asks the Dude what his feelings are on the word vagina?
Maude: Does the female form make you uncomfortable, Mr. Lebowski?
The Dude: Um, is that what this is a picture of?
Maude: In a sense, yes. My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal, which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.
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The Dude: Oh yeah?
Maude: Yes. They don’t like hearing it and find it difficult to say….
I can see ol’ Rush reading about the Pussy Riot story the first time and then dashing off to the lavatory to scrub his hands and face.
My feeling is Rush et al would be far more comfortable had the Russian performance artists named themselves Cunt Riot.
Now, that’s a name they could get behind.
Merry Christmas!
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“In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that means apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.” — Stephen Jay Gould
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Soma Coffee may not be the next Starbuck’s but owner Bob Costello has opened up his second location in Bloomington this week.
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Throwing the doors open Monday, the new Soma at 3rd and Jordan looks to draw students who’ll walk across the street from the IU campus. Just don’t try parking there.
Costello’s empire now includes the original Soma and the Laughing Planet Cafe at Kirkwood and Grant and the Village Deli just around the corner.
Speaking of Soma, some habitués have begun to play euchre there every Saturday morning. Steve Llewellyn has dubbed them the Euchre-ists.
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After a fit and a start or two, Bloomington’s Science Cafe returns to life Wednesday, September 12th.
Alex Straiker and his colleague at IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Jim Wager-Miller, have at last got the ball rolling for the weekly series of lectures and discussions open to the public on any and all areas of science.
Our town’s original Science Cafe was started by Erika Biga Lee but she found herself too busy to run the show after a while. Straiker worked under her while the Cafe’s first incarnation was still up and running.
Rachael’s Cafe will be the home of the new version, every Wednesday evening at 6:30.
BTW: Straiker points out another big science event on campus this fall. The son of Henrietta Lacks will visit IU November 14th to talk about the part of his mother, who died more than 60 years ago, that’s still alive.
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Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951. Cells from the growth were cultured to produce the HeLa Cell Line which has been used by scientists for research since then. In fact, Straiker says his gang over at the IU brain lab have used some of those cells in their own work. Lacks’ story got plenty of pub when the book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” became a New York Times best seller. The book was published two years ago but still ranks No. 2 on the NYT paperback nonfiction list.
Details are still being worked out for David Lacks’ appearance here. Stay tuned to the IUB Themester Facebook page for more info.
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My fave part of the Pussy Riot story?
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Imagining the mental gymnastics previously staid radio and TV newscasters have to go through to say the words Pussy Riot without falling to pieces.
They redeem their decorum by stating the girl band has been found guilty of hooliganism. I bet they want to repeat the word hooliganism over and over again, just to wash the taste of Pussy Riot out of their mouths.
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The theme song from one of my fave TV shows of all time, Mystery Science Theater 3000.
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Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.
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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.