Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Ani Difranco concert review

Even the rain, which had been angrily asserting itself all day, was no match for the one woman folkie army of an Ani Difranco concert at Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park. A benefit concert for the normally free series, the ticket buyers were rewarded with a blissfully rain-free sky, and a set energizing enough to make even the most committed cynics grin and dance and sing along. I stopped listening to Ani Difranco after my freshman year of college out of an unfair combination of snobbery, a declining interest in anything vaguely related to folk music, and the sense that if too many people at smith liked her than I certainly couldn't. Turns out I was just jealous. Live, she's simply a good time, equal parts warm, funny, and profane.
All that time spent singing about not being labeled paid off. Her fan base might cause the casual observer to write her off a one-trick lesbian folkie pony, but as this concert proved, the woman’s got range. She was just as engaging playing "You Had Time" with its slow, plaintive, finger-picked intro as she was with the angrier "Gravel" with its hard charging guitars. You had time is achingly beautiful, a lament from a singer just back from a tour, that was supposed to give her time, time to sort out the relationship. She’s back and tired, and knows it’s all wrong, but she just can’t make up her mind. Even though, as she’s reminded “You Had Time.”
“Gravel” is even closer to the epitome of romantic ambivalence, but instead of soft and lilting, she’s growling. An old lover shows up. Against her better judgment, she invites this person in, and spends the rest of the song trying to figure out whether they can just get on a motorcycle and run away and leave everything behind, even though “you were never a good friend, never a good lay.” So her voice and the drums and the power chords charge on, because “maybe you can keep me from ever being happy/but you’re not gonna stop me from having fun.” This was a particular treat, a deviation from her set list. Even after years and years of touring, she’s still full of surprises. It was a career spanning set, with newer songs leaning toward the acoustic, wistful reflective side. Which while less invigorating than the kiss-offs, she’s certainly earned.
Her voice was another revelation. I used to get annoyed by all the scatting and vocalizing on Dilate, but here she effortlessly switched from a rich, soothing alto to angry growl, always entirely convincing. Some of her angriest songs are sung softly, particularly Napoleon, with its outrage at someone (someones?) who try to be more than their height would suggest. It makes it all the more subtly effective, when this woman with the soothing voice just happens to be cursing you out. In key.
The between song discussion was as funny as ever. She referred to her six month old as "the titty sucker," and welcomed the audience to "Brooklyn Pride, I mean, Celebrate Brooklyn." Noticeably absent was any discussion of who she had the baby with, whether there is a man, a woman, or none of the above in her life. Does it mean she's less famous if no one cares? Or maybe, does it really not matter that much to begin with? That she can still sing politically charged songs whether or not her current life choices match the lyrics? Has the ability to make her audience have a damn good time finally the most important thing?
This particular audience was certainly in love, enough to ignore the conventional boredom stance of many New York concert goers and sing along with 32 Flavors, her ode to the joys of diversity within just one person. We were forced to admit that yes, dancing, is fun. And it shows the performer you have a pulse. It was nice to be at a concert where that was encouraged. I think everyone went home feeling just a little bit lighter that night.


Thursday, August 16, 2007

Can't I Just Be Attracted to PEOPLE, Not Genders?

At first I thought that Jennifer Baumgardner's new book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics was rather old-hat (in addition to having a simultaneously embarrassingly euphemistic, and awkwardly labeling title). However I just finished reading it, and actually I like it quite a bit. She doesn't discuss continuums and fluidity as much as I'd like, but she has some really interesting points, once she gets past establishing that bisexuals aren't just confused straight people, and that women can have sex with each other, actually.

I particularly liked her chapters on relationships (individual and political) between bisexual women and a). straight America b). self-identified lesbians and c). straight men. Also, what was very cool was her discussion of the different relationships bisexual women have with men and women, and whether it's possible to have the kind of relationship one has with a woman with a man (and vise versa). She talks a lot about bisexual women bringing "gay expectations" of equality and lack of gender roles to relationships with men. Concurrently, she also discusses the "straight expectations" of acceptance (not just passing) that bisexual women bring to the LGBT movement, as well bringing expectations of sexual aggression/assertiveness to their relationships with women. And, of course, she also discusses at length Ani (and also Anne Heche), and the casting out of women who date men after being with women.

Perhaps the most interesting part however was her (unfortunately brief) discussion of the privilege accorded to bisexuals to not only be able to pass, but to not have to fully experience the constant oppression faced by people on the extremely gay side of the continuum. She emphasizes this point with her response to Melissa Ferrick slamming a bisexual woman for suggesting that it was unfair that she couldn’t bring her male partner to an LGBT awards ceremony. "Ferrick is right,” she says. “Bisexual women don't know what it's like to be lesbian, if there are even universal elements of lesbian experience. I didn't have a crush on my gym teacher. I didn't insist my name was Billy and wear a blazer to kindergarten. We might not have been terrified to look around the locker room in high school because someone might think we're staring too hard. We don't always have to 'watch our backs' when we're holding hands with a new love.”

I wasn’t even aware of this privilege until a friend told me that she had wanted to kill herself when she was coming out. Like Baumgardner, I don’t identify with the metaphor of “coming out” at all, and I didn’t have a whole lot of personal angst over it. I’m not gonna lie—I had a little bit of angst—but nowhere near contemplating suicide. In fact, this past January, rather than having angst over being gay, I angsted over whether or not I should go to the community college’s LGBT meeting in order to meet some friends. Such meetings, I felt with some derision, were only for people who were so unenlightened as to feel their lives were over when they realized they were gay. It really wasn’t until I had this conversation with my friend that I realized how privileged I was to never have such an extreme identity crisis and depression. My question however, is whether that is really a privilege of “bisexuals” or whether that privilege was more related to me attending Smith College, the "bisexual incubator," as Baumgardner calls it.

In any case, Baumgardner suggests that we need such semi-privileged people, who are in many ways unaware of the fear that the more oppressed experience, in order to push the movement forward. She quotes Ellen as saying that she never would have burst out of the closet so blatantly if it hadn’t have been for bisexual Anne Heche pushing for their relationship to be conducted in the same way that she would conduct it with a man (holding hands in public, etc). “A gay person would never have let me be so public because a gay person would know what would happen," Ellen says. However, Baumgarnder stops just (disappointingly) short of suggesting that bisexuals (and those attracted to people, not genders) are misunderstood as confused because they are ahead of their time and the LGBT movement as a whole.

I’ve had that feeling in the past with a new friend who self-identified as lesbian. She kept inadvertently assuming that I was lesbian and I kept awkwardly being like "No, no, I don't identify as lesbian." She understood that I didn't identify as "lesbian," but I was afraid she thought that I was just being coy and politically correct about not labeling and not liking the word "lesbian". Which is true enough, but really, I'm not a lesbian, yo. I don't want to rule out half of the population forever just because at the moment I'm primarily attracted to women. That could very easily change.

Which leads me to the primary problem I had with Look Both Ways. I felt that Baumgardner's description of bisexuality, and sexuality in general, was too static. As I said, she never really gets around to critiquing the idea that it's either gay, straight or exactly in the middle of the two. But moreover, I wasn't feeling the love for the fluidity of identity and sexuality. Of course she talks about the attraction of Anne Heche, Ani and even herself to both men and women. However I felt that the book assumes a constant attraction to both genders, rather than an ability for that attraction to change and flux in its proportions (not to mention attraction to people who don't fit into neat little gender boxes). As I said, I'm primarily attracted to women now, however I feel like it would be limitingly short-sighted of me to call myself a lesbian and completely rule out the possility of my attraction changing depending on the people I meet. At the same time, I feel it's inaccurate to call myself bisexual because at this point in time I'm NOT attracted to men. It all comes down to the people you fall in love with, I think, not the gender.

At any rate, Baumgardner’s book is all very interesting, but it doesn't make me dislike the term "bisexual" any less. Her discussion has a lot of really interesting points, but it is disappointing in it's lack of a fluid approach to gender and sexuality. Although she does sort of hint at that towards the end, with this parting thought: "If Kate Millett said that 'gay' was a term that straight America made up to deal with their own bisexuality, then maybe 'bisexuality' is a term we use to deal with our own fear of sexual fluidity and the dynamic nature of attraction."

More Interesting quotes from the book:

"Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality." --Kate Millett

"In the same way that I didn't recall 'losing my voice' at age ten (as "Reviving Ophelia" would have it), I don't relate to the gay catchphrase 'coming out of the closet.' I reject its implication that I have been harboring a shameful secret or have forced a part of myself to fester alone in a dark, windowless space."

"Look, I'm not a lesbian," the activist June Jordan said to me with more than a touch of exasperation during a 1996 interview. "As of 1991, I have identified as a bisexual. I resent this huge resistance to complexity."

“[But] Ferrick doesn't know what it's like to be [bisexual], and feel like her relationship with a man negates her relationships to the queer music world. And Ferrick doesn't know what it's like to be me and have to constantly crowd every conversation with sign posts ("ex girlfriend," "ex boyfriend," "baby's father") to indicate the whole person I am."

"What Anne [Heche] symbolizes to me is the great what—what if it were okay for gay people to have straight expectations? Not to 'pass,' or become palatable, or go back in the closet, but simply to expect what Heche took for granted: to not have to be careful and quiet about her love life."

Don't Be Boxin'!

Ever been on facebook? Ever seen those boxes where you're supposed to check whether you're male or female? Or what about on OkCupid, where you have to check if you're gay, straight or bi? Or even the boxes on facebook where you have to check if you're interested in men and/or women. Are you ever left staring at the screen thinking, "What box do I check??? I can't check ANY of those boxes!!!"

The LGBT movement is seeing an upswing in publicity and visibility lately (which is all very wonderful), however we here at Don't Box Us are dismayed by the black and white way this issue is portrayed by all sides. Either you're gay or you're straight. Either it's a choice or it isn't. Either you're in the closet or you're out. Either you're a man or a woman. Either you had intercourse or you didn't have sex at all.

As June Jordan said to Jennifer Baumgardner,* "Look, I'm not a lesbian . . . I resent this huge resistance to complexity." We too resent this resistance to complexity, we resent it hugely. As recent graduates of Smith College, we feel rather like we're stating the obviously passé, but the world isn't black and white. It's made of lots of nice little continuums and spectrums. Clearly (and somewhat shockingly to us), this idea isn't passé to most of the world. Thus, Don't Box Us will be dedicated to all issues which don't fit into nice little boxes of 'gay' vs 'straight', "woman' vs 'man', 'white' vs 'of color', 'in' vs 'out', etc.

Consistant with the theme of not boxing, of coloring outside the lines if you will, Don't Box Us is not going to limit itself to just talking about LGBT issues. We're inclusive, yo! We're way into litereature (rebellious ad otherwise) and literary/cultural critisism so there will probably be a fair bit of that. And we all have our own little pet issues (*cough cough* independent bookselling) that will probably make their appearances as well. Also, posting will probably be pretty sporadic at first while we get things sorted out. Watch out!

PS- coauthors (i.e. badass writers) please feel free to edit this or add your own stuff if you disagree. -- Sarah

*Baumgardner, Jennifer. (2007) Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: New York, NY.