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Showing posts from June, 2011

Why WisCon? A Quest: Utopia Found!

I learned about WisCon , the feminist science fiction convention, while writing a paper on feminist literary utopias for my MFA in creative writing . I knew, one day, I would have to go. WisCon 35 was my year. I was dubious though, "Wisconsin?" It seemed far to go from Seattle. And, "Utopia?" Yes, quite a bit actually, as it turned out. But I took a long route to WisCon. In high school I was reading Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. Asimov, especially, amazed me. I had a job shelving books at the Yakima Public Library and, with godlike omnipresence, Asimov had books in every section — science fiction, non-fiction, mystery, poetry! My mother modeled some feminist ideals and my dad gave me Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves , but my brother provided my first formal introduction to feminism. He brought me Ms. Magazine , "Have you read this?" Then, sometime in college, perhaps after my in Women in Politics cla...

From Seattle to Madison, Wisconsin via Dallas

Taste: Tibetan, Himalayan, Nepalese; today's tarkari: grilled zucchini, garlic, Ajwain seeds and fried mustard Sight: a pink cowboy hat with sequined rim and a tiara; nose twitch; Leonora Carrington's surrealist art Sound: Lake Monona, Lake Mendota; trilling laughter Touch: sanitized, clean sheets Smell: sanitized, clean sheets Extra:   his father left him $1 million; vegan investment talk; a Ph.D in horticulture, and his time at a Zen Buddhist monestary; "People who dent the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons...from within." — Ursula K. LeGuin; "Hope cruelest of the evils that escaped Pandora's Box." — Doc , Mary Doria Russell; Geoff Ryman's reading of "K is for Kosovo (or, Massimo’s Career)" from Paradise Tales at WisCon35; Karen Joy Fowler's reading from her novel in progress Chimp ;  Pamela K. Taylor's "50 Fatwas for the Virtuous Vampire" in the Nov., 2010 issue of Apex Magazine ;

Kids these days

Taste: creme, vanilla, almond, vegan marscapone Sight: Keds, skinny blue leggings, a half satin green jacket, a black hat with a floral band, wavy, permed hair, a goldfish keychain; her careful evaluation of her torn jeans, flip flops, and puffy, pink, lips; Keds, swing, shift, swing, shift, shift, shift; biting lip; folded hands Sound: beat, beat, beat — tinny, pop Touch: a pat on the head Smell: frying eggs, French toast, diner Extra:   a present — short red hair, piercing blue eyes, hairless nude, small genitals