Audre Lorde
 

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"I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell."

"If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."

"There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt."

"Your silence will not protect you."

Federico García Lorca


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“To see you naked is to recall the Earth.”

This may mean more to those from Michigan, but I would hate to see this lady just be a footnote in queer history: Ruth Ellis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Ellis_(activist)

Ruth Ellis was an out African-American lesbian most of her life. She and her long-time partner, Babe Franklin, opened their home to runaway gays and lesbians. Today, there is a LGBTQ center in Highland Park in the metro Detroit area named for her (the Ruth Ellis Center) that serves as short-term and long-term shelter for LGBTQ youth or young adults. It is one of 4 shelters in the US that is dedicated to this purpose.

Cool! I had no idea he was family. I love him.

Personal hero
 

Dorothy Allison - Author, Femme, fellow redhead, and amazing mentor.

Dorothy has written numerous books but is probably most famous for "Bastard Out of Carolina". If you havent read it, I demand you get yourself to the nearest library and get it now. It is simply amazing.


I'll post my pic with Dorothy from the last Femme Conference if I can find it.


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Amber Hollibaugh - author of "My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming her Way Home"

Another MUST read.

Amber is a fierce, kick-ass Femme activist and has the most amazing energy.

http://www.lesbianhealthinfo.org/amberhollibaugh.jpg

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha - FIERCE as fuck Femme Shark, author of Consensual Genocide.


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Jewelle Gomez - Another FIERCE Femme author. Jewelle wrote one of my favorite books of poetry, "43 Septembers".

And here she is with what she calls her "Happy Medusa" rolls :)

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Frida Kahlo
 

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I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.

I love you more than my own skin.

I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.

Mary Daly
 

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A woman's asking for equality in the church would be comparable to a black person's demanding equality in the Ku Klux Klan.

Courage to be is the key to revelatory power of the feminist revolution.

Why indeed must 'God' be a noun? Why not a verb - the most active and dynamic of all.

We will look upon the earth and her sister planets as being with us, not for us. One does not rape a sister.

Women have had the power of naming stolen from us.

Tegan and Sara--Canadian Musicians (who happen to be sisters and out)
 

The Village People
 

http://www.officialvillagepeople.com...m.php?gal=MTI=

And....God-des & She....

Most people trying to foray into the hip-hop world try to conform to the stereotypes,” says GO NYC magazine. “For God-Des & She, by bucking the standard, they created their own. In other words, while most aspiring rappers try to set the bar, God-des & She ARE the bar.”

A hip-hop/pop/soul duo bred in the Midwest, God-Des & She now play to packed venues all over the world, from Lacrosse, Wisconsin, to Stockholm, Sweden. Ever since they appeared on Showtime’s The L Word three years ago, performing their infamous single “Lick It,” the pair haven’t had a moment’s rest, selling over 30,000 albums, holding down the #1 song spot on MTV LOGO with their song “Love You Better,” and signing autograph after autograph for eager fans. With their new unreleased album, God-Des & She are about to blow up—big. Produced by Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy, Wu Tang, Burning Spear, Aerosmith), their new album confirms their status as an underground act about to hit the mainstream.

God-Des & She met in Madison, Wisconsin in 1999. God-Des was making her name as a solo act when she first heard She singing in a local rock band. Soon after, God-Des asked her to do some hooks for a new song she was working on. They discovered that they had more than musical chemistry—they had musical alchemy. God-Des hails from a family of classical musicians: her dad was the trombone professor at University of Michigan for twenty years and played a wide musical range of commercial gigs, ranging from The Flintstones theme song to playing in the studio with Neil Diamond; her mother is a cello prodigy who performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age fifteen before performing in the Motown studios with groups like The Jackson Five and Carol King. In contrast, no one in She’s working-class family is a musician; yet, her powerful, natural talent couldn’t be contained. (Nowadays the workers at She’s father’s factory in Wisconsin smile and proudly jam out to the newest God-Des & She tunes during work). As different as their two backgrounds were, when God-des and She riffed together the first time it was as if they were one person, one mind, one past—and, as it turned out, one future. Combining God-Des’ irreverent rhymes with She’s soaring voice, they created shimmering, irresistible tracks which were soon captivating crowds in Madison and beyond. “Needless to say,” She notes, “I don’t sing with that rock band anymore.”

In 2004, the duo moved to New York City. They’d gotten too big for Madison and it was time to reach the new, bigger audience that was meant to hear them. “I remember the day we arrived in New York,” God-Des recalls. “As we drove into the city I was thinking, ‘Oh shit. We’re really doing this. This is for real.’” And real it was. They pounded the pavement in New York. They garnered a devoted following but even with all the shows in and outside of New York, it was a challenge to stay afloat. “I’m the master at staying a month behind on my rent,” God-Des jokes. “Or two.” Both God-Des & She worked many an odd job to support their budding career. God-Des worked as a security guard and a beer distributor, among other things. And She worked as a waitress and a meat slicer in an Italian deli in Queens. “We had some hard times,” She says, “and a number of times we thought about giving up. The only thing that kept us going was knowing our music meant something extremely special to our fans.”

In 2008 God-Des & She released their second album, Stand Up. By then their hard work was paying off and they were able to live solely off their music. The pair was featured in two documentaries, had appeared on The L Word, held the number one spot on MTV LOGO for 15 consecutive weeks, toured all over the World, and garnered frequent write-ups in magazines and blogs. Their fan base had grown tremendously and their musical style had evolved. “We went from a duo where the rapper rapped all the verses and the singer sung all the hooks, to totally infusing our styles and doing songs that are nearly impossible to define and place in any musical box,” says She. Fans continually told them at the now-famous post-concert autograph signings, there was no other group like them. When you hear a God-des & She song, you know it is them.

In early 2009 God-Des & She took a brief break from their busy touring schedule—eight to ten shows a month all over the country and world—to cut a new album. They teamed up with legendary producer Brian Hardgroove. “This is our best album yet,” says God-Des. “It takes all the strengths we’ve been honing over the years and puts them together to create something new.”Indeed. The new album is a genre-straddling tour-de-force, which frustrates categories and simple descriptions. It fills a massive void that is missing in current popular music. It offers songs honoring their hip-hop roots (“Respect My Fresh”). It has songs to get even the least confident dancer up and “shaking it” in the club (“Love Machine,” “Drum Circle”). Songs to roll the windows down and scream every word (“Get Your Bike,” “Spin The Bottle”). Songs to make you think (“Blue In The Face,” ”Radio Up”). And even the All American Rock Song (“Change”) to play at every football stadium in America. She’s breathtaking alto crackles and burns throughout, leaving you with goose bumps. And God-Des’s lyrics turns language into a playground for her to do wild somersaults in. “They are easily as good as the best that hip hop has to offer,” Hardgroove says of the duo, “and far more interesting.”

So what’s next for God-des & She? More of the same: loyalty to fans and their artistic vision. Only difference is now they’re taking it to a whole new level. “Let’s just hope the world is ready for us,” say’s She.


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I love her to death!

Lindsay Lohan

http://www.hamaraphotos.com/hollywoo...shion-show.jpg

Alison Bechdel is a cartoonist. She is the creator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and wrote the acclaimed graphic novel Fun Home. Fun Home chronicals her very interesting childhood. Fun Home was one of the best books of 2006, hailed by Time magazine, Publishers Weekly and many more. I meet Alison in 2007 at Comic Con. She is a fabulous!

http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/

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It's Phranc!
 

Phranc! Singer, Artist, Tupperware peddler!

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LOL. i had almost completely forgotten about Phranc, though i had one of her records (Folksinger) back in the day, when i went to a show in Detroit to see The Knitters and she was opening for them. She still has the flat top. She still looks good. i gather she took up the tupperware gig to contribute to family income though she apparently loves the stuff.

God, i loved Lorca back in the day.

Gacela of Unexpected Love

No one understood the perfume
of the shadow magnolia of your belly.
No one knew you crushed completely
a humming-bird of love between your teeth.

There slept a thousand little persian horses
in the moonlight plaza of your forehead,
while, for four nights, I embraced there
your waist, the enemy of snowfall.

Between the plaster and the jasmines,
your gaze was a pale branch, seeding.
I tried to give you, in my breastbone,
the ivory letters that say ever.

Ever, ever: garden of my torture,
your body, flies from me forever,
the blood of your veins is in my mouth now,
already light-free for my death.

----

The author of my favorite book of all time -- Country of the Pointed Firs -- Sarah Orne Jewett

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