A Tale of Two Divas.

To put this post in its proper context, I think it will help to relay an anecdote from my recent past: A few weeks ago, bogged down by weather & month & school & brain, I moped over to a friend's room, in search of Southern comfort. After a good few minutes of rant & rehash, he & I decided that the best cure for my woes would most certainly be a viewing of our favorite show, RuPaul's Drag Race—a reality competition that combines the hands-on construction of Project Runway with the self-presentation of America's Next Top Model, all seasoned with the delectably acidic sass that only a gaggle of drag queens could muster. In short, it's brilliant, & its third season is now well underway, so we clicked over to Logo Online—where, upon beholding the title of the latest episode, we began laughing, in earnest & profound joy, for a solid five minutes: it was called "Queens in Space."

One more time: Queens in Space.

Really now. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a description that encompasses everything I hold dear more apt than "Queens in Space." It's Bowie to Bolan & back again—silvery 80s sparseness with gaudy beehive dos—a decade-spanning, pulpish amalgamation of all that is good & true. (In fact, it has since entered our canon of personalized & snappy slang terms: a mantra to remind us that, when life gets you down, it's ok: there will always be Queens in Space.)

The point of this introductory digression is, of course, partially to inform you of the beauty that is my new catchphrase, but more so to highlight the rather ridiculous extent to which I love queer-bent pop culture. I know: it's the oldest (& most gratingly annoying) line in the book: a girl claiming to "actually just be a gay man, LOL"—but I can assure you that, from top to toe, when it comes to (majoritarian) taste in pop ephemera, I pretty well fit the bill. I swoon for anything Camp—brashness, glitter, big hair—that gloriously whisper-thin line between self-parody & sheer, unadulterated fabulousness—&, most importantly, divas.

I love a good diva.

—_—_—

Early last year, this love was both electrified—&, honestly, tested—when I attended the sheer explosion of capital-E-Excess that was the latest Kylie Minogue tour. Flanked by a sincere & fanatical squadron of greying V-neck chest hair—&, clung elbow-close, the friend who had convinced me to accompany him in the first place—I did my very best to bop & jive sincerely, fighting to keep my eyeballs from overflowing with Glitter & Feathers & 60-Foot Projections of Muscle-Hunks Showering—my ears from cracking under such a persistent & glorious Disco Beat-Down.

In short, the show was nothing short of Spectacle, catered cannily to its predominant audience—&, while it was certainly a night to remember, it did disorient me somewhat: I began to doubt, in earnest, my penchant for the Truly Fabulous. What kind of a diva-lover could I be, when I couldn't even make it through a night of Kylie without a desperate desire to sit down, cool off, & chug Nirvana until my pores seeped plaid testosterone? I mean, it's true: my railings against Gaga certainly certainly don't fit my contemporaries' typical pop paradigm—nor does my intense & equal (or, often, exceeding) love of Grungy Guitar Boys.

Of course, all hope is far from lost: living, as we do, in a postmodern world of ever-blending lines, there are plenty of outlets for my cross-genre adoration. Semi Precious Weapons, for example, are tops at combining a gender-bending aesthetic with driving garage rock:

Equally on-the-nose are Hunx & His Punx, whose (utterly excellent, previously posted) single calls out this very demographic, referencing Joey Ramone & John Waters in turn:

It was in this vein that I found myself thinking several Saturdays ago, when I was treated to another live Diva sighting: again in the company of an enthusiastic friend, I trucked along to a concert of longstanding Swedish pop icon Robyn, whose three-part album Body Talk has garnered recent worldwide success. The audience was, as predicted, predominantly flamboyant gentlemen—glitter-bedecked & skinny-jeaned, with the occasional be-bloused female compatriot, & her occasional sulky baseball hat boyfriend.

Though I had sincerely braced myself for another Eleganza Overload—dieting down to only one viewing of Guy Pearce's "I Don't Care If the Sun Don't Shine" per day for weeks beforehand, just in case—it was ultimately all for naught. The curtain opened on a sparse stage, just band & mic stand, & even the singer herself was refreshingly unadorned: patterned leggings, hiking boots, & a cropped blonde mop-top—stylish but functional, comfortable, performance-ready. As the concert surged on, my friend & I couldn't but squeal back & forth, "She's just so cute!"—& it's true: with her smaller stature, squeaky accent, & unabashed enthusiasm, she almost can't not come off as adorable. But more than that, Robyn's performance just feels earnest—gimmickless but never artless, uncomplicated without being braindead, only after what it's after: fun, feel-good pop.

In this fan interview, for example, she just seems so lovely & sincere, without any of the intentional stupefying or egoistic pretense that's come to dominate her peers. Just to drop a cherry on my already overflowing praise sundae, she actually opines: "For me, pop music & integrity never contradicted each other," citing acts like Kate Bush & the Talking Heads, then reasserting, ever-sage, "I don't think of what I do as art. I make pop music." (Ah! Yes! Swoon! I'm about ready to kiss her on the mouth.)

I walked away from that concert buzzing with reinvigoration & revelation: Robyn is the diva for us pseudo-glitterati, an act toned down in glitz & budget, perhaps, but never lacking in pizazz. There are no back-up dancers—there is no disco ball: what there is, is a supremely dedicated performer, quite literally running up multiple flights of stairs to reach her faraway audience, singing ceaselessly through a stumble over her platform Timberlands. Her lyrics may not be brain-knottingly eloquent, but they're more than sufficient—even admirable, when you consider that she's writing in her second language & still manages to outmaneuver most American Top 40 Pop. (I'm looking at you, Ms. Perry...)

In short & in sweet, Robyn has clearly made music that, quite simply, she would like to dance to—so dance she does, constantly, with sharp akimbo arms & tectoniqueish fluid jaunts. &, transported, I couldn't help but follow.


Today's Headphone Fodder:

Dancing On My Own—Robyn.

Heart-wrenching, limb-shaking—a perfectly poignant but never sentimentalized (&, indeed, crazy-catchy) personification of Unrequited Love.

This choice was a difficult one, of course, so I'll feature some runner-ups: un-un-danceable "Fembot"; bopping & jiving "Cry When You Get Older"; brain-invading, minor-keyed "Time Machine"; &, most (second) favorite of all, "None of Dem": Platonic disaffected acerbia, with a driving backbeat to boot.

To Keep & Bear Arms.

So... Wait. Let me get this straight.

The Second Amendment of our United States Constitution reads as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Now, let's backtrack about 23 words, back to those first four.

A well regulated Militia.

& we'll add the next bit, too, as that comma is clearly olde-timey; the only way the sentence makes grammatical sense is if the whole clause reads thus:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State...

Meaning: "Assuming that a well-regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State." Meaning, not only is the right to bear arms predicated on a well-regulated Militia (not three guys in a Dodge Durango)—or even a "Militia" being a system of organization that people are apt to utilize—but the intent of this Militia was that State could protect against State—as in, if Massachusetts decided to take over Connecticut (a choice, by the way, that I would have no problem with), Connecticut should be able to have guns to defend itself.

All right. That said, explain this to me:

An explosion of cases will keep courts busy for years defining gun control's new limits now that the high court has ruled that wherever they live, Americans have a right to possess guns, at least for self-defense in the home. (AP)

Really. Someone. Please. I am at a loss. This just quite literally does not make sense to me. Nowhere—nowhere—in the 27 words of that amendment does it indicate that arms are appropriate for home use. In fact, it indicates quite the opposite: a well regulated Militia—State defense, not self-defense. I feel like the court just redeclared drinking illegal, ruled that the way we count people includes fractions again: it's as if they ignored the first line of the amendment entirely.

Because, being a Fruity Liberal Wuss (or, as I like to put it, Someone Who Prefers That More People Stay Alive Than Not), I read this amendment as self-abolishing; once a well regulated Militia is no longer necessary to keep individual states free, then the government can infringe to its heart's content. Otherwise, why on earth would the framers of the Constitution have phrased it that way, with a conditional/descriptive clause at the start?

Because my point isn't provable beyond a reasonable doubt, I do accept the opinions of those who say the Framers intended every (able-bodied, male) citizen to have ready access to a gun. However, I would still contend that these "arms" were probably kept in a local storehouse somewhere, for use by the Militia—or, even if they weren't, even if everyone walked around brandishing muskets like so much Kleenex, that America in 1776 was a fundamentally, unforeseeably different place from the America we know & love. What I mean is: this law seems, on several levels, so insanely outdated as to boggle the mind.

Ultimately, I feel about the Constitution the same way I feel about the Bible: you implement the core tenets of each—be they Love Thy Neighbor or Checks & Balances—updating or forgetting entirely the rules that attempt to regulate specific behaviors—such as Sodomy or Gun Ownership—based on the understanding, which I don't think is a particularly hard sell, that progress happens. Destinies get Manifested, & it may be necessary for the Law of the Land to adapt. Put it this way: Thomas Jefferson could never in his wildest dreams conceive of anything like the AK-47, let alone buying one on the internet.

Unlike other socially incorrect laws (read: those involving slavery), this one has remained unchanged, never successfully challenged, because it's essentially impossible to make a clear case for its outdated status (that doesn't employ hyperbolic examples of former presidents & assault rifles) while "arms" are still around. Guns exist; the law talks about guns; ergo, the law ought to exist. But, really, let's take a look at what we've done:

Alito essentially repeated the formulation used by Justice Antonin Scalia two years ago that the court was not calling into question "long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."

This is seen as worthy self-congratulation: that we don't bring guns into schools or sell them to the mentally ill. That's considered restraint. That's appropriate regulation. I mean, I just— ...—

These are weapons.

They take lives.

They negate others' existence—void all on which we predicate anything, ever.

I don't care if the person in your sights is Bad or Intimidating or Trying to Steal Your Flatscreen TV: they deserve to be imprisoned, not shot. Even if you disagree with that as a general statement, I would hope you still see the importance of letting the state & its judicial system—or, at the very least, trained police officers—be the ones to make the fatal call.

Am I wrong? I mean, I understand that the game changes once there's a Violent Intruder in your very own home, but I also just don't see the practicality of personal gun ownership in this scenario. For example, assuming you’ve gotten the gun to Protect Your Family, the precautions necessary to truly ensure your child doesn’t blow his or her head off all but nullify any chance of its ready availability in an emergency. Of course, the only response to this foreseeable snag is to be less & less safe—to leave off those child locks, to carry a concealed weapon in public—which will only cause far more hassle, more violence, more death than this could ever be worth. Because honestly, I think what gun owner hopefuls are after is not actual Protection, but the illusion of protection, of security—&, honestly, the illusion of their own Heroism.

I find it frustratingly coincidental (curse you, O Great Screenwriter) that I just spent the other night thinking/writing about Vigilantism: it strikes me that those who would take advantage of this country’s ever-dwindling gun regulation probably think something along the lines of, “Well, I’ll get this gun, just in case; I won’t intend to use it much, but the second someone threatens me or my loved ones, I will spring into action!!! Ka-pow! Ker-chop! Shazaaam!!!!!!” Everyone wants to be the Hero, rightly lauded above all, responsible for having protected Life—paradoxically, of course, in this case, by dealing Death.

& consider this: were I awoken in the middle of the night by suspicious noises, I would absolutely take my (legally purchased) handgun out of my night stand, creep downstairs, & in my panic, probably end up shooting some local teenagers kicking a beer can around my front yard. My point is: 1) people who don’t function well under pressure shouldn’t have the power to kill on sight, 2) that the government can’t (either actually or practically) test for things like competence under pressure, & that therefore, 3) sanctioning guns in every American home—for this & reason upon reason—is effectively sanctioning hundreds of thousands of Accidents Waiting to Happen, & fatal ones at that.

If you feel you need more convincing—that you have a personal tale of gun success to trump my ham-handed examples, that you just like guns & don’t see the big deal—take a gander at the list of gun regulations that could be overturned under the new ruling. One that especially worries me is the misdemeanor domestic violence caveat: that most convicted of domestic violence are technically not serious enough felons to prevent them from now buying a gun, which means that children & spouses of abusive partners have a whole other level of Fear coming their way.

But really, though: let’s please return to the heart of this matter—what stops me from even really engaging in this debate, leaves my brain somewhere behind, bashing again & again against this impossibility like a wind-up toy into a wall: this decision is just not supported by the Constitution of the United States of America at it is written.

I don’t understand—I really just can’t, on many levels—but I can feel that something is rotten in our state, & it’s becoming increasingly clear that Heaven won’t direct it: what we need is a goddamn Well Regulated Militia.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Rock 'n' Roll Never Looked So Beautiful—Semi Precious Weapons

(Live, Bowery Ballroom, 4/26/10).

To: spw@semipreciousweapons.com 4/27/10, 12:11 AM

Subject: Beautifully fucking done.

Let me start out by saying I have never written a fan letter. (I think they're sometimes silly.) However, let me also say, I have never seen a show as brain-bending, gut-wrenching, simply-fucking-transcendent from beginning to end as tonight at the Bowery Ballroom.

You encompass everything I love about music (megawatts of Raw Power coupled with glitter-glamourous stage aesthetic), & though I haven't been there from the very beginning, I've been with you a good long while, & it's so, so, so excellent to see you positively zooming upwards. Today our love, tomorrow the world—& so it goes.

You are glorious, & you are the future. You are shiny, make-up-spattered titans of rock-&-mother-fucking-roll. I salute you with all the love in my heart.

xxx,

Anneliese

You Love You: The Album. Now available on iTunes.

Do it. You will not be sorry.

Girly Until Proven Innocent.

So, here's my thing: I tend to like "guy stuff."

& when I say "tend to," I mean strongly tend to: action movies, male authors/musicians, men's clothes, men as friends—to the point where a large part of my identity, at least through middle- & high-school, was "One of the boys! You can hang out with Anneliese, guys: she's just like a dude! Let's invite her to creepy (almost literal) circle-jerk parties where we talk about our favorite kinds of porn!" (True story. For all you girls who wondered what the boys did at their sleep-overs: just forget you ever asked.)

Throughout of all this, though, there has been the little inkling in the back of my brain—the kind that gets magnified to Posting Status by entries like this one on my favorite feminist blog—that calls out, "BOOOO! BOOOOO! BAD FEMINIST! YOU SHOULD LIKE WOMAN THINGS!" over & over on a loop, like that anxiety dream from The Princess Bride. I mean, I often just tell that inkling to sit back & recognize that I have a fucking favorite feminist blog in the first place, but today, for whatever reason, that's not enough. So, here goes: a reckoning with myself about what it means to be a feminist who prefers non-feminine things—&, ultimately, a reckoning with the Man about why all things designated as "feminine" kind of suck.

First off: having grown up with an active awareness of what it means to be transgender, I can say confidently that I feel no need to redefine my gender at its core: I am Woman. Yes, I like the man stuff (& the man clothes, a lot), but I also like dresses sometimes, & Feelings—& while I understand (of course) that those things in & of themselves do not a lady make (as I would hope more Manly Men could key into them, please—especially the dresses), I can assure you that I know, deep down in that little place you don't even have to look for, that I am female. Not even genderless or in between somehow: I have two X chromosomes & I invite you to hear them roar.

In fact, if we're being honest, I am particularly attracted to (both practicing & the people who practice) androgyny, drag—the kind of gender expression that knowingly adopts the stylings of its opposite on occasion without any actual wish to become. Here, for fun, are some pictures:

All of which is to say: this strength in my identification as Woman, even as I wear tailcoats & combat boots, makes it particularly difficult to convince myself that I am a legitimate, card-carrying feminist & not just some ship-jumping patriarchy-lover who, when the going gets tough, sides with the winning team.

I suppose my dormant insecurities were provoked somewhat by this comment on this Totally Brilliant feminist philosophy article that you should all read (& that I have no personal stake in, no siree...), in which a transman openly (admirably) discusses the automatic privilege that males (or, those perceived as male) are awarded in our society. It's eye-opening, to say the least, & though you could probably already imagine, it's important—& a little frightening—to hear it from someone who's actually seen both sides, like Tiresias championing the female orgasm.

Things complicate when it becomes clear that, not only does the Current State of Things want to reward me for any male qualities I might exhibit, but, in fact, tends to designate things as "for women" that I actually really hate. I rarely wear make-up; I loathe the very concept of designer labels; perfume gives me headaches; wedding dresses are hideous; facial masks remain a mystery, as do bath salts; & I do not identify in any way with that blonde girl from Grey's Anatomy, nor do I feel compelled to see movies with her in them (or, for that matter, Grey's Anatomy). Also, I think it goes without saying that I'm bothered by all people who are shallow, vain, overemotional, manipulative, shrill, & on & on—& though I've known more than a few men who fit that bill, for whatever reason, our society has decided that these qualities come standard with a vagina.

I mean, really: who in their right mind would want to be seen as delicate, vacuous, or easily grossed-out? & yet, according to the archetypal Woman our culture checks all us ladies against (e.g., "Hilary Clinton isn't womanly enough!"), it would seem that each female is unwittingly branded at birth with a list of these "feminine" qualities that she must cross out (or not) at her own behest. In my experience at least, you are Girly Until Proven Innocent (zing!), assumed unable to kill bugs or do math until you make a great big scene of yourself. As a young lady who who wants to make clear that she thinks stylized gun violence & electric guitars can be really fucking awesome—&, most importantly, that she has worthwhile opinions on both—it seems to be up to me to yell out, "I'M NOT ACTUALLY GIRLY, P.S." at the top of my lungs whenever possible. For example: after spending the year with a roommate who was stereotypically Feminine to the nth degree—including 24/7 make-up, tight-fitting, silky clothes, & a perfected Airhead Giggle that only surfaced around Y chromosomes—I found myself saying "dude" far more frequently, excluding entirely the occasional dress or skirt, even ironically putting up a poster of a badly photoshopped conventional Sexbomb. Looking back, I think this was my way of reminding those who came by the room—including, of course, myself—that I was not like that, okay?!?

Ay, so, here's the rub: is the way I comport myself born of my own true desires, or just some race to elude presumptive adjectives? Were it the latter, perhaps I would be worthy of the guilt I harbor, but honestly, I think the developmental threads are woven a bit too tight to tell, now that my Tabula is far from Rasa'd. All I know is that my affinity for button-downs & dude-books feels organic, & that's enough for me.

But I think I've hit upon where the feminist bloggers—& feminists in general—are coming from: outrage at the general presumption that the Feminine has become something from which one must distance oneself in order to be taken seriously. Though the ways of this roommate (& the legions like her, as trained by Cosmo & Co.) are often silly, that doesn't mean that all people who prefer to smell like flowers are inherently superficial, that everyone in high heels is a de facto ditz. (Recognizing, of course, that a large number of women feel expected to smell like flowers & wear high heels. Hell, I feel expected to, I just choose not to—then doubt myself & end up writing meandering entries on the subject.)

Needless to say, it is endlessly fucking frustrating that men are still somehow regarded as superior in the World of Today, & one of the reasons, I would posit, is this relegation of Femininity to the Girly, to trivialities & fashion—& the ensuing conflation of this conventional female gender expression with the females themselves. (Even the word—"Girly"—implies something juvenile & not worth your time; the Platonic "Girl's Night Out" is often expensive, appearance-based, self-indulgent. Meanwhile, you would never call a man who expresses masculine qualities "Boyish," you would call him Manly; he & all of his Manly Man Pals would go on a Guy's Night Out—"Guy" being ambiguous in age & quality (e.g., "you guys" as referring to a mixed-gender group).)

Ultimately, in order to combat this, it becomes necessary to redefine what is Powerful as something other than what is Masculine, thereby divorcing what is Feminine from what is Weak & what it means to express Femininity from what is Shallow. Until that time, though, it's important to get people who are "Girly," especially highly visible people, to prove themselves as other stereotype-breaking things: levelheaded, intelligent, etc. One way to accomplish this, of course, is to promote (& promote the promotion of) female contribution to media; when an argument is made, in the blogosphere or otherwise, that feminists ought to appreciate books written by women or movies that prominently feature realistic females, I think that is exactly the verb intended: "appreciate." Not "obsess over," not "discard other things in favor of," but just that: appreciate. Make sure they're seen & heard. I couldn't agree more—& this, I think, is my potential saving grace.

Because, culture & roommates aside, the truth of the matter is that I genuinely happen to prefer—though not as a rule—literature & music that have been created by men. My favorite writers include Nabokov, Palahniuk, Poe, Auden, & though Woolf comes next, it remains an overwhelmingly male list—though not closed to new additions. As to music, I often describe my favorite genre as Boys With Guitars Playing Dirty, Dirty Rock—all the way from early Beatles to Bowie to Semi Precious Weapons—but that doesn't mean I'm not crazy about Patti Smith or Holly Brewer, Beth Ditto or Nellie McKay. I just find it difficult to cast a net for "women's music," because there is a hefty amount of it that's not quite my style; I actually think I'm guilty of having once uttered the words, "I just don't like women's voices as much"—the very statement that my favorite feminist blog (&, in fact, my favorite writer on that blog) spends a good amount of time ranting against. What rescues me from self-flagellation (&, hopefully, from her scorn), though, is that when I said "as much," I meant "as much," not "at all" by any stretch—that I support & praise women media-folk regularly. I believe wholeheartedly that there are & have been great artists of both genders—& that, as they're often marginalized, lady artists deserve a leg up—but still, I, personally, am more apt to like Pynchon than Austen, Joey Ramone than Janis Ian. & that's okay.

So, do I long for Brontë readings over an Enya soundtrack in a room of scented candles? No. Do I respect fluffy pink slumber parties & mani-pedis & silky tops? It depends. But do I champion their right to be respected? Absolutely. (Especially the scented candles.)

More than anything, though, do I wish the Powers That Be would stop equating femininity with stupid things it ought not be equated with? Yes, please.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

In honor of today's Deconstructing Femininity theme, I call upon a gender-bending icon for the ages, who's equally likely to appear in a mustache/suit combo as truly breathtaking drag, who famously opined "You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis & Kathie Lee; I don't care! Just as long as you call me." That's right, boys & girls:

Tranny Chaser—RuPaul.

There are many interesting points to debate about the role of male-to-female drag in the definition of femininity—or, for that matter, the role of gay men's fantasies of women in general—but for the moment, can we just say that RuPaul is fucking fabulous? Can we just get that out of the way? Not only is (s)he a pioneer for drag & LGBT rights across the board, but her message of acceptance transcends labels: "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?" concludes every episode of Drag Race—which are words everyone needs to here, as often as possible, especially when growing paranoid that they somehow don't measure up.

So, please, even if you're skeptical, take a listen (or six). I mean, sure, the song is a wee bit ridiculous—but so very excellently so. Seriously, let Ru welcome you to her stratosphere; it's well worth it. You can't regret the candy that you never had, after all.