Rachel Lynn Brody's Blog, page 17

Everybody’s Free (To Get Burned If They Don’t Wear Enough Sunscreen)

I had an adventure over the weekend involving turtles and a tropical island. More about that later – I’m waiting for some photos to come back before I blog about the actual adventure.

But one part of my adventure was less enjoyable than the rest, and it’s the one I want to write about today:

I am currently sporting one of the worst sunburns I’ve ever had in my life.

Crispy baked human cracklings, anyone?

Before the lectures start: yes, I wore sunscreen. Yes, it was sport/waterproof/sweatproof. Yes, I re-applied. And then I ran out. And somewhere between getting on a boat and getting off the boat, I set up a crispy baked pork rind situation on my back. Those glossy bubble-shaped things?

I’m sorry to be graphic (who’m I kidding, no I’m not) but I take sunburns and suntanning pretty damn seriously. My everyday moisturizer is SPF 50. The sunblocks I had with me were SPF 30 and SPF 55, respectively. I usually wear a spray-on Neutrogena spray with an SPF of somewhere between 70 and 100, even though everybody says it doesn’t make a difference at that level of sun protection, because I’m a very pale lady with no “base coat” tan. I get about one mild burn a season when I get caught unawares, but this level of YUCK has not been seen since I was in second grade and we went to Florida and two weeks later all the skin peeled off my nose and started bleeding everywhere in the middle of one of the church services I went to every week with my mom and siblings.

The worst thing about sunburn is that it takes a few hours to start showing real damage, so you don’t even realize that while you’re hanging out on a boat, sipping Carib beers and taking the occasional tequila shot from one of your fellow adventurers, that you’re also slowly broiling yourself. Because you’re re-applying sunscreen, see? So how could you possibly be destroying your skin cells?

In the last 72 hours I’ve rubbed more plant- and foodstuffs all over my body than Samantha Jones in a foodkink episode of Sex in the City.

About 18 hours after I got burned I finally found an aloe plant (craftily hidden in plain sight outside my hotel room door); as one friend said:

@libraryyeti @girl_onthego The plant is literally all over her.

— aboleyn (@aboleyn) September 8, 2013

I even stripped a few leaves for gel, which I put in a small container and brought back on the plane with me (and yes, I declared it at the border back into the states). Once I was home, I headed straight to CVS and picked up:

Solarcaine spray with numbing agent
Ibuprofen
Vitamin C
70 SPF sunblock spray from Neutragena

I also heard (and did some research to back up) the idea that olive oil can be helpful for retaining moisture in your skin and helping keep it from peeling (though I feel like by 48 hours after the fact, once the blisters had really come up, it was probably too late to keep that from happening), so I slathered on some olive oil last night. Whether it’s ultimately helpful or just makes my skin feel softer where there aren’t any burns, I dunno, but by that point I didn’t even care. (Some research showed that coconut oil might also be useful – unlike other oils, these two get absorbed into your skin, so don’t lock heat in and worsen the burn, according to what I was able to find and read.) One friend recommended using witch hazel or having an apple cidar bath, but a nurse friend veto’d the witch hazel idea (while saying the rest of the plans sounded like they might be useful).

I remember the moment in my adventure when I thought, “Maybe it’s time to sit in the shade for a while.” Then I smeared more sunscreen on and got back in the sun anyways.

It’s not that I wish I hadn’t – I had an absolute blast – but I do realize the wisdom in a move made by two more experienced adventurers: early on, they both pulled out close-fitting long-sleeved nylon shirts and put them on. “I wonder why they’re doing that,” I thought, because I’d seen them both putting on sunblock for most of the morning.

Now I know why.

And next time I go adventuring, I definitely plan to get a long-sleeved nylon top of my own. And maybe some pants, because for the first two days after I got the burn, I could barely sit down.

My lesson? If you’re going somewhere sunny, bring along at least three times as much sunscreen as you think you’re going to need. And some aloe gel. And maybe a large sheet to wrap yourself up in to keep the sun off your body.

Oh well. The rest of the adventure was a blast, and the blisters will fade in a week or so. (And then in 30 or 40 years, I can deal with the fallout from the skin damage that’s been done). Until the blisters fade, though, I’m rummaging through my closet for the loosest fitting, non-bra-est-needing clothes I can find, and hoping my stock holds out until either the blisters go down or we hit the weekend. Whichever comes first.

Please, please, if there’s anyone listening with the power to affect that – let the blisters go down first.

Everybody else: I have sunburn now, but sunburns aren’t cool.* Wear more sunscreen.

 

You might also be interested in:

Hot Mess: speculative fiction about climate change (A collection of short stories on climate change and its human repercussions. While there isn’t a story about a girl who bakes herself to death, though a couple of stories come close).

 

*Obligatory Doctor Who reference.

 

Ticket to LARP – The Brick Theater, The Dance & The Dawn

I got a notice in my email about “The Dance and the Dawn” this morning, taking place at The Brick theater in Williamsburg. Playing from September 7-14th, the performance takes the shape of “live action theater-style gaming.”

You sign up for a ticket, attend the evening in question as your assigned character, and bring along your own costume. While much of the evening is spent waltzing, the show’s page over at the theater’s website says there will be a brief lesson beforehand, so non-dancers shouldn’t worry.

If anyone goes to check out this production, let me know what you think of it – scheduling means I won’t be able to go take a look myself.From the summary, the play sounds like a free-form, stylistic piece rather than a tight narrative, which makes sense given the performance style.

Ultimately, the production’s success will depend heavily on the preparation and enthusiasm of its audiences. After completing a questionnaire and being assigned a character, a little homework is required – as the site says, “If you show up having read those materials…” you’ll have a good time. One hopes all the audience members arrive prepared for their roles, and wonders what happens in the event of someone not turning up to use their ticket.

With the ending left to the participants, and for a ticket price of $20, this sounds like it could be an intriguing evening of high-involvement theater.

 

Related reading:

The Donners are Deaded: Discussion of a Work in Progress
British Theatre Deathmatch: Sleep No More vs. War Horse

Bacon-wrapped Mac & Cheese Parcels

For someone trying to eat low-sodium, I talk a lot about bacon.

This time around, it’s because we threw a wedding shower for a guy I work with and decided on the over-arcing theme of bacon.

I decided to make these tasty (and fattening, oh so fattening) finger foods a couple of times – once as a practice run and the second time for real. Photos are from both rounds.

To start:

1. 1 package bacon

2. 1 package pre-made/refrigerated mac & cheese. (I would highly recommend using homemade or creamy store-bought mac & cheese; the tiny noodles in Kraft mac & cheese seem like they would dry out very quickly.

3. Toothpicks

 

 

4. Baking sheet (with edges and, I recommend, tin foil)

5. Cooling rack (metal so you can put it in the oven, keeps the bacon bites from stewing in their own fatty juices.)

Step 1:

Separate pieces of bacon out from one another.

Slice each piece in two

Lay crosswise on the plate.

(So, you’d cut each pictured strip of bacon in half, and lay them in “x”‘s.)

Step 2:

Plop some mac & cheese into the center of the two pieces. Not too much. You really don’t need much. Maybe a teaspoon.

Step 3:

Fold the four ends of bacon up around the mac & cheese, and spear them through with toothpicks. I was able to get it down to two toothpicks in best-case scenarios, but if you have to use more don’t worry about it. This is just to hold the parcel together till the bacon cooks into its shape.

Step 4:

Repeat until you have used up all the bacon and mac & cheese.

Step 5:

Put in oven (follow directions on bacon package for heat setting). It will probably take between 20-30 minutes to cook, but go by sight, because my oven isn’t very good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 6:

Let cool for a little while once it’s out of the oven.

Step 7:

Devour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more about delicious things I make from pigs:

Butchery Lesson, Part III: Makin’ The Bacon
Butchery Lesson, Part II: Start Spreading the News
Butchery Lesson, Part I: I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This
Low-Sodium Pernil recipe

 

 

 

 

 

Context and Bagels

@girl_onthego lard isn’t used anymore, When they banned saturated fats it became illegal. You might find it at market?

— CP#NoDramaSec (@TwinnerCat) August 13, 2013

 

I was talking to my roommate earlier tonight and mentioned people saying that bagels were fattening. We talked about it for a while, and neither of us was able to think of why bagels, of all baked goods, would be particularly fattening. Full of carbs? Yes. Low in fiber? Sure. But where was the fat coming from?

I started asking around on Twitter, and @TwinnerCat chimed in. Bagels used to be made with lard – okay, but “used to be” in what sense, that we would have heard this said in our lifetimes? That there would have been a time when it was so widely used that its absence was noted so strongly? While I waited for an answer, I looked for a recipe for bagels that used lard.

Were the bagels being fried in lard? Was lard somehow mixed into the dough? Because if it was, wouldn’t that result in something more like pastry?

Digression: A few weekends ago, my mom and I made cookies; I accidentally dropped the sugar in with the dry ingredients instead of beating it into the wet ones (including butter). What resulted was a cakey, floury thing, kind of like a scone. Instead of a cookie. The order you mix things in matters. 

A look at this recipe showed that the lard is not used the same way as it would be in a pie crust, where it’s mixed in with the dry ingredients. Interesting. It reminded me of the cookies. The order things were mixed in mattered, because a bagel does not taste like a pie crust.

Back to the original thought: bagels stopped being made with lard at the same time “they banned saturated fats.”

A ban on trans-fats seems to have arrived in America in 2007. This intersects with my last year in Edinburgh (I say, by way of excusing why I didn’t notice). By 2011, a BMJ (British Medical Journal) study recommended a global ban on goods high in saturated fats as a first step towards preventing cardiovascular disease.

But “they,” in this case, and according to Wikipedia, are the Food and Drug Administration, which makes the ban sound more like a labeling requirement. I’ll need to look further into this if obtaining lard for the cooking experiment becomes a problem, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it in specialty shops around NYC, so I don’t think things will get to that point.

If it does, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

Same thing for the baking project.

PS – Here’s someone else’s bagel-baking adventure. Enjoy.

Turning the Tables on Banks

Some interesting stories have been coming out recently about how citizens and municipalities are trying to flip the script on banks and financial institutions, and I thought I’d share.

First, a Russian man who wrote his own credit card rules is now in the middle of suing the bank that signed off on his altered terms.

Second, and perhaps more interesting: this story about how a California town is using eminent domain as a way of helping residents who are in danger of losing their homes.

These stories break the mold of the financial industries/private citizen narrative; the California situation goes a step further and shows how the government can use regulations to help its citizens in times of need.

Will other municipalities take the opportunity to examine their relationships to banks? Will citizens of Richmond and other Californian towns have this reading of a law that’s generally used to kick people out of their homes as a resource going forward? I don’t really understand how the vaguely-termed “Wall Street” – the banks, I would assume? — can sue the government for exercising its right to eminent domain – after all, corporations are people, aren’t they? Are individuals allowed to sue when the government takes over their home to build a highway?

These two cases show individuals dissatisfied with the status quo fighting back on their own terms. In the case of the Russian man and the credit card terms, he used the inflexibility of the corporate system against them: he knew that nobody was actually going to read the terms he altered and sent back (and I don’t get why the bank in question thinks he’s guilty of fraud; it’s not as if he tried to hide what he was doing), and now it appears he may stand to make a profit from his strategy.

In Richmond’s case, the idea that a municipality can use eminent domain for the public good in ways that alleviate stress on an entire community is a very attractive one. What if cities took the approach that a stable neighborhood with homes owned by individuals was better for the community than one where homeowners were drowning under debt, and what if they acted on that notion?

It’s worth keeping these cases on your radar while they’re debated and decided; depending on how they’re resolved, there could be some extremely interesting repercussions in the future.

Fanfic, Hugh Howey, the Silo Saga & Amazon Worlds

Amazon announced Kindle worlds a few weeks ago, and I took some time to talk about why I felt like the salivating hordes might want to hold their breaths when it came to the question of, “How long till Harry Potter?” Alloy, I pointed out, has always been a media packaging company; aligning with Amazon via Kindle Worlds is very much inside their wheelhouse. If Alloy was a trailblazer towards legitimizing fanfiction, it was because the company had positioned itself uniquely with successful series and television transfers like The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars.

On Monday, Amazon announced that the newest Kindle World open for play was Hugh Howey’s Silo Saga. Who’s Hugh Howey, you ask?

Hugh Howey wrote WOOL, a self-publishing phenomenon. And now, Hugh Howey is the first major independent self-published author I’ve heard of whose work is being served up by Kindle Worlds.

What does that mean? Howey will get a cut of every piece of Silo Saga fanfiction that sells via the program. Howey will likely never have to work again in his life. (Not that he won’t – a counter on the sidebar of his blog lets readers know what’s coming next, and how far off it is.)

With their announcement (which took place on Monday, via email), Amazon blew a whole new field of income open for those one-in-a-million writers who strike it big in new genre fiction. They also widened the playing field yet again: shifting fanfic, e-publishing and traditional media closer to a truly collaborative model.

An issue I’ve had with entertainment technology in the last few years, but never really verbalized outside of long bull sessions with friends, has been its shift towards top-down creation of media and the machines we use to make it. From hardware to content, tablets to televisions, the evolution of leisure and technology have edged away from the low-barrier Super 8 and VHS camcorders of the 80s and 90s and towards more sophisticated digital editing and filming technology – with far higher financial bars to entry (up until the relatively recent prosumer-level cameras available on some of today’s handheld phones). Similarly, while a laptop’s primary function is as a mobile data entry station, tablets are designed for the intake and consumption of media: at least when it comes to writing something longer than a grocery list, would you rather type on an iPad or the $100 keyboard peripheral you bought to go with it? While peripherals adapt the workspace to be more creator-friendly, they allow technology’s default to be one of consumer, rather than creator.

Since its inception, publishing has been a top-down business whose profitability has been in the consumption of media, not in its creation. (In fact, take a look at the number of public-domain works available as self-published books to get an idea of how necessary a living creator is to the process of publishing novels. It’s much easier to make money off writers after we – then our copyrights – are dead.)

The default mode of interaction in most media has been set – for a long time – to consumption.

On the other hand, Western civilization has a terrific history of derivative artistic creations. An overwhelming amount of paint has gone into creating fan art for the Bible, for example, and the plays of Shakespeare can be seen as fannishly adapted by every theater company that re-stages them.

By choosing to take a self-published writer and open his sandbox – and the earning potential of his work – to other players, Amazon (who, yes, is definitely an invested player in the equation) is levering “their” phenomenon to a playing field equal to Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries, not to mention sci-fi’s own more traditional-media representative Neal Stephenson. While E.L. James and the Hollywood adaptation of “50 Shades” stretch self-publishing in one direction, Kindle Worlds – and Howey’s inclusion in it, alongside the other creators of the featured worlds – push it in another.

Which widens the playing field for everyone else, and opens a new arena: fans who don’t just read, but contribute. Who become collaborators in the worlds they love.

That’s a level of involvement that reaches a step further than the world that came about when the first writers of Kirk/Spock sat in their basements with their typewriters and mimeographs of the 70s, and it means that this landmark announcement from Amazon is one that self-publishing writers should take notice of.

 

Like Amazon, I have a foot in the game. Check out my Amazon Author page for information on my plays and short stories.

If you’d like to be kept up-to-date about new happenings, subscribe to my mailing list here.

Useful Links:

Amazon’s Kindle Worlds
HughHowey.com
My Amazon Author Page

Edit: I shared this blog with Howey this morning (8/1/2013) and he had this comment:

@girl_onthego Great write-up! And any royalties beyond my advance will go to charity. Wasn’t about the money for me. Was about the authors.

— Hugh Howey (@hughhowey) August 1, 2013

 

Now for Kindle! Mousewings: a post-apocalyptic urban fairy tale

“If you were three mice in a cage, one of you would be the weakest mouse. When the other two mice got hungry enough they would eat the weakest mouse. Eat it until its tumors were lying exposed on its back, or till someone from the lab came in and gave it a shot. Put it out of its misery. We’d do it for a mouse…”

It’s the end of the world. A disease decimates the population. A cancer-researcher’s home is invaded by two escapees from a housing project, making their way to the coast. A giant bird-turned-man haunts her memories. Mice turn cannibal under pressure; are human beings any different?

Over the last two years, I’ve uploaded my produced plays to Amazon. First POST, then Playing it Cool, then Stuck Up A Tree.

Now it’s time for Mousewings.

Rob Flett and Catriona Grozier in Mousewings.

Mousewings was produced in Edinburgh during the 2007 Fringe – my last Fringe in Scotland (for the time being). Written in response to a call for work from the Bedlam theater, a venue run by Edinburgh University, it was also the first play I wrote for a specific commission. As part of the Traverse Young Writer’s Group, I received an email letting me know about the opportunity, and a short while later was sat opposite the venue manager and publicity manager in a pub near Edinburgh Uni, describing two possible plays they might be interested in staging. When I finished, the venue manager nodded and asked, “Which one are you more interested in writing?”

Alastair Gillies and Rachel O’Conner in Mousewings.

Thus began production work on Mousewings. I contacted Emma Taylor, the director I’d worked with on Stuck Up A Tree, and asked if she’d be interested in working on this one. We held a casting call and found our Bird, Sylvie, Rin and Kyle, and the adventure began in earnest. I reached out to graphic design companies, and Definitely Red created a creepy, haunting graphic for our posters, postcards and program. Rehearsals were held in the Edinburgh Playhouse’s event space, discussions of the play’s relationship to pop culture introduced me to The Walking Dead (the graphic novels) for the first time, and I got to watch Emma and the cast bring this eerie twilight horror tale to life. It was nothing short of thrilling. The play hit its mark, earning reviews that proved it from a number of publications during the Fringe.

After many months and a few false starts, I’m thrilled to announce that Mousewings is now available on Amazon, exclusively for Kindle.

I hope you enjoy the play.

Buy or borrow Mousewings on Amazon.

Comparative PRIDE #MondayBlogs

Last weekend, a Scottish friend and I drove from New York City to Toronto – to see the city, yes, as she’d never been to Ontario before, but also, once I spoke to some friends, to attend the city’s Pride parade.

I’ve attended a couple of New York city’s Pride parades, and my friend from Scotland has been involved for years in helping out at Edinburgh Pride – so seeing a third country’s Pride event made for an interesting study in cultural differences.

Two years ago, after marriage equality was passed in New York State, I went to the Pride parade and was overwhelmed by the obvious joy that crackled on the streets. Inspired, I went home and wrote Millennial Ex. Given how lively the streets outside The Stonewall Inn were after the SCOTUS decisions on Prop 8 and DOMA, I was interested to see how the landscape might differ in Toronto.

Granted, I’ve only seen parts of the NYC pride parade, but like much of what goes on in this city, it’s about spectacle. (I’m not saying this is a bad thing, necessarily, just noting that it’s present.) I found this to be less the case in Toronto – while a few of the floats had pumping music, dancers and costumed drag queens, the overwhelming majority of the marching groups were exactly that: people supporting Pride and the spirit of joy and solidarity that makes it an accessible and inclusive celebration.

Relating the names of organizations who’d marched by to a friend after the fact, I listed police precints, local radio stations, fire departments, educators, political parties (including the Premiere of Ontario and her supporters), PFLAG groups (that, along with an explanation of what PFLAG is…) and more. When I had finished, my friend commented, “it sounds so mainstream!”

She was right. It wasn’t something I gave much thought to until after our discussion, but I’ve been thinking about the “fringe-ness” of some of the LGBTQ events I’ve been to in the past and thinking about how the Toronto Pride Parade felt more like the parades I grew up watching for any other holiday – sure, there was one group of naked men advocating foreskin pride (separated, I noticed with a sense of irony, from a Jewish faith-based group), but other than that the event could have been a longer version of any municipal holiday parades I’ve seen over the years; compared to the overwhelming nature of the NYC floats or the simplicity of the Edinburgh parade (as related by my another friend, “All the gay people pretty much get in a group and walk down the street together!”).

I don’t know what conclusions to draw from the atmosphere at Toronto Pride and how it compares to Pride in other cities, particularly American ones. I know that Canada has had marriage equality since 2005, thanks to Wikipedia, but I never went to a Pride parade there before this was the case, so I have nothing to compare it to.

That said, now that DOMA isn’t going to exclude same sex couples from the federal benefits side of marriage, and more states are treating same-sex couples equally under the law, I wonder how much longer people like my friend will be acting under the misapprehension that LGBTQ and allies are a societal fringe, rather than part of everyday, mainstream life.

What does it mean for a movement to move from the fringe to the center in the public eye? In some ways, it reminds me of Vaginagate and being contacted by women who wanted to take part but weren’t in environments that would allow them to stand up and speak – for example, one woman who got in touch to say she loved the idea but would probably be institutionalized if she stood up in public in her town to take part. It’s easy for me, as a straight woman, to sit in New York City, one of the most liberal cities in America, and opine on the state of the gay rights movement – but how long will it take for changes in the legal system to trickle through to social behaviors in other parts of the country?

Not long, I hope. Toronto Pride was inclusive, celebratory and spread across multiple strata of Canadian society, and to this outsider, it demonstrated that a support network exists for LGBTQ individuals in Canada, in almost any social or work-related organization they might be a part of.

The only downside to attending was that I missed the post-DOMA-decision festivities here in NYC. Given that people were popping bottles of champagne in the street outside The Stonewall Inn the Wednesday before the parade, I’m sure the Pride parade here was an intense, intense celebration.

Happy Pride, everyone.

 

Driving in Weather in a Ford Focus

This week, a friend and I rented a car and drove across the state of New York to visit my home town.  For the first time, I am consciously aware of having not enjoyed the car I was driving.

When renting a car, the most important factor I’ve considered in the past has been cost. This puts me solidly in the “economy” section of options, much to nobody’s surprise ever. In the past , I haven’t needed to give much thought to factors like a car’s weather-worthiness, and it’s only because of the few extremes we hit on this trip that I would absolutely not recommend driving the Ford Focus anywhere that doesn’t offer a consistently mild climate. Northern California, maybe.

Why? Because other places have weather, and this little car failed to prove its mettle in inclement conditions.

On the way up, after creeping through bumper-to-bumper traffic that stretched from Queens to the Tappen Zee Bridge, we were finally underway and almost to Albany when I noticed that the gray clouds overheard just a few moments before had grown more distinct and ominous. “You know, I think we’re going to get some rain,” I said, and no sooner had the words left my mouth than—

WOOSH.

The heavens opened. Cue panicked search for the windshield wipers. At first, I had to use the wash-the-wipers button just to get them to go; pretty soon, my co-pilot and companion was able to locate the proper buttons and we got the windshield wipers working. This was the first moment it became apparent that driving the Ford Focus in the rain was going to be distinctly not awesome. Rather than swinging pleasantly in sync from side to side, the wipers were at odds with one another, both swooping in and out at the same time.

The aesthetics of the issue moved to the back-seat as the downpour continued; trundling along at a pokey 40 mph (down from the NYS Thruway’s ubiquitous-in-practice 75), visibility became worse and worse. At one point, I think traffic had slowed to the mid-thirties, and despite this we still couldn’t see what was going on through the rain on the windshield.

We appeared to have hit the limits of the car’s engineering.

It became a bit of a joke as we hit scattered showers on our way home, but a nervous one – ultimately, we got off the thruway an exit early because torrential rain meant there was no way to drive at a safe speed on the highway.

At the end of the holiday, driving home, we ran into another environmental situation: once the outside temperature passed about 93, the amount of relief provided by the A/C (on full blast) became notably less than before. As my friend pointed out, it was possible that after a 2000-mile trip, the system needed to be topped off. But added to the earlier issues with the rain, it was enough to convince me that the Focus wasn’t the kind of car I’d want to use if I were driving in, shall we say, serious weather.

It gave me some insight into how tricky buying a car must be;  as my friend and I discussed, if we had been on a test drive and not encountered that kind of weather, we wouldn’t have known of the Focus’ apparent shortcomings.

Luckily, I’m not in the market for a car, and don’t plan to be for a while. But when and if I am, at least I’ll know two more things I have to be wary of when making my purchase.

 

 

More Blogs About Cars:

Has the Auto Industry Lost The Millennial Generation?
Weekend of Epic, Part 2(A): Babeland, Fast Cars, Fast Tattoos & Not-So-Fast Burgers

You’ve Gotta Give It To Texas (TwitterJailed)

The things you love and hate about a place are flip sides of one another.

My dad tells me that the law has to be followed and faith had in it, and sometimes this goes against my instincts. You’ve seen my blog posts and the things I say on Twitter. You know how much I rail against institutional injustice.

Tonight I’ve been watching the Wendy Davis filibuster on #SB5. We’re now down to the last 28 minutes, and it’s been asked that something be reduced to writing – in “as big a font as possible.”

I’m in Twitter jail as I write this. I would (please, Twitter, please listen to me!) pay $5/month to know I wouldn’t go over my rate limit.

Politics are theatrical. In college, one of my drama classes was with a director, Kaz Braun, who had escaped the Communists. Later, I took an honors seminar with him; the topic was THEATRICALITY. I did a presentation on a segment of the Liz Taylor version of Cleopatra and played the segment of the film that dealt with her arrival in Rome. I talked about political theater and making an impression; Kaz gave me some positive feedback.

Watching Wendy Davis’ filibuster and the coordination of multiple roles between members of her (and opposing) parties, it’s fascinating to watch how the process of political theater is borne out. Sides debate one another, rules are obeyed…it’s like watching mathematicians try to keep track of parenthetical parts of equations.

I love how Van de Putte keeps coming up and being like, “So, like, parliamentary inquiry, can we talk about this other thing?” I don’t entirely get where she’s coming at it with her pulling up of women being recognized – so far, the body’s done nothing (that I’ve seen, in terms of points of order) that discriminates against recognizing women in terms of participation in parlimentary democracy. And the Gallery’s gone out of control again.

Texas has a fierce individualism that must speak to some part of my familial DNA; my brother and sister each made Austin their home, for periods of time. I can hear that individualism being screamed down from the Gallery in a building that I saw from 6th street and (is it called) Capitol st.(?)

The same ferocity of belief that I resent when it comes to religion and textbooks reflects in the passion of Sen. Davis and her supporters and the doggedness of their opponents. We love and hate the life’s flip sides.

We’re down to thirteen minutes, and the guy at the mic just said “we’ll suspend the roll call vote till we have order” – but they’re still calling the rolls! “We tried to do it,” said the president of the debate, because at this point we all know that the women of Texas and the members in the Gallery are going to keep screaming until they hit midnight, Austin Time.

What does he mean by “it”? We tried to hold the roll call? The vote? Table things? Stop the filibuster? Are the women in the gallery jubilant? Are they enraged? Where is Senator Davis in the video coverage? (After all those hours on her feet, I’d chip in to get her a back massage!)

The more time that goes on, the more happy and frantic the sounds from the Gallery seem to become. There’s an endless sea of men in suits with shirts and ties on the screen; all are shaking hands, all are civil. At one point –

I’m out of twitter jail!

 

At ten past one, it seems the chamber is emptying out. In my best estimate of humanity, I imagine a series of cordial hand-shakings and casual invitations to barbecues and iced tea buffets.

The sound returns.

And at twenty minutes past the hour, or thereabouts, it looks like TX Republicans are filtering back into the chamber–

News outlets are reporting that Texas has passed SB5 (#sb5); it’s currently 12:22 am.

So yeah. You’ve got to give it to Texas.

Just not for the reasons I had hoped when I started writing this blog.

Updated, 8:42AM EST 6/26/13 – According to reports, the vote that took place after midnight was ruled invalid some time after this blog was posted and I went to sleep. Glad to hear it.