Our Next President: Barack Obama

Obama now has the majority of pledeged delegates, and has just won Oregon.

The Va-Jay-Jay Monologues (for F & AK)

Frida Kahlo in drag.

I finally made it to Courbet at the Met last night. 

I was fascinated by the parallels between the marketing of this show and the point of view about Frida Kahlo at the Philadelphia museum: biography, spectacle and scandal. 

The first room was all about biography and self-portraiture.

The artist is pathologized as a mad man and his life is defined in terms of "scandal." Of course the titles of some of the pictures themselves (including the branding image, above) promote this view of the romantic artist bucking tradition and shocking the Establishment, a pose emulated by artists since, notably by Dali. This is seen as a heroic, modernist, original gesture when enacted by a male artist. However, in the case of Kahlo, it leads many critics to view her as neurotic, narcissistic and pathological, a trivial and popularized superstar marginal to the grand narrative of modernism. 

A fantastic sight-line becomes visible that leads the eye to this painting -above- of two women in bed "Sleep." After years of looking at it in slides or books, the details finally came into focus. Of course the phallic surrogates on the night table - the two glass jars - and the lovely vagina stand-in - the glass, inscribe heterosexual sex into the frame. But I had never noticed the labial folds of the rumpled sheets, particularly the fabulously informe reddish-pink section that is revealed immediately below the dark-haired woman's hand. 

Surely others have made the comparison between Kahlo's two nudes and Courbet's iconic "lesbian" picture. Conversant with Freud, Kahlo cleverly parodied his view of homosexuality as pathological narcissism, punning on the view of women as self-involved by rendering what some view as a double self-portrait. 

And others have commented on the racial politics in play - these are also of course part of the tradition of images of lesbians, racialized as one dark, one light - brunette and blonde, butch and femme, sinister and pliant....and all those cliches. Which come down to us today in A Shot of Love With Tila Tequila, a reality TV show in which a "bisexual" bi-racial predatory femme tries to find "true love" among a group of men and women. (Even I cannot bring myself to watch this show.)

A fabulous room dominated by the sleepers is chock-a-block with precursors to pin-up girls, and centerfolds. Here, Courbet's loving attention to pert nipples and dimpled buttocks does not always apply to the women's faces -- these are not important, anyway. 

A large wall splits the room in two, behind is the picture that pops up if you type in Courbet into Google images, the most searched, the most iconic, the most unseen. Prudishly, the curators deem the vagina to end all vaginas as "indecent" while a festival of phalluses populates the Greek and Roman galleries, among other locations. Here, the veiling indicated by the sheets and the shadows in the slits between the sleepers' scissored legs goes up to the torso to give us the money shot. Almost like a murder victim shrouded and splayed. The fact that this was owned by Lacan is so over-determined that it is hilarious. We had never seen the fabulous Masson picture painted to conceal the "lack." That alone was worth visiting the show. 

I was told that one of the review of the exhibition WACK! was headlined "The Vagina Monologues" but I think the Courbet reviewers might have also used the same title.

Edwards Endorses Obama

Edwards just endorsed Obama. There was clearly foreshadowing in the past few days, but I still plotzed when I saw this. This is just fabulous on many counts but especially as it will de-rail HRC's hateful race-baiting. Pat Buchanan realizes this and so is having a panic attack on Chris Matthews. He is actually defending HRC on her racist and condescending remark that she is the candidate of "hard working White people," claiming that it was the press that posited that "stupid White people" were needed for a candidate to win. I am delighted that Buchanan has finally owned up to what he really thinks about some of his supporters, White men without college degrees. And people who won't vote for Obama "because he Muslim." 

And now Buchanan is claiming that Obama's being African-American is an asset, and that he is winning based on the African-American votes. Would it be that there was a majority of African-Americans in the US. Sadly, what we actually have is a majority of ignorant assholes like Pat Buchanan with gun racks, the collected works of Thucidydes and all the other Greeks beloved by the Neo-Cons (and I know of what I speak I trained with said neo-cons in the 1980s as a Poli Sci major), pornography under their beds, and a Klan hood pressed and ready in their bedroom closet. Do people not remember what this guy was saying during his apogee in the 1980s? Why is he suddenly a pundit? 

And last night's discussion of the role of Puerto Rico was also priceless - here, Matthews attempted to seem even-handed about us but again did not distinguish between those of us living on the Island or those of us here who may vote for President, nor did he explain that the plebiscites are non-binding, only the US Congress may grant us "permission" to be Independent, or decide to make us a State. One of those telling "those people" was heard. And finally, Matthews wittily (or so he thought) asked rhetorically why those in the Panama Canal may not vote if a US Territory is able to do so. (For me, this raises the question, if McCain, born in the Panama Canal zone, may run, then can a Puerto Rican?) 

This is the kind of scintillating political debate we get in US television.

Dali on "What's My Line?"

WTF???

One of my favorite local news anchors, Sue Simmons, pops off when she forgets to remove her mic as they cut to a commercial. As she does so, she utters the words I often wish I could shout out to many journalists when I am watching TV news. 

"Ethnically-correct" dolls

So this is actually more like "Things I love (hate) right now."

A while back I was chatting w/my goddaughter, who is half White & half Japanese & she made me aware of the American Girl dolls. She was telling me that she wanted Samantha because she "looks like me." I almost began to cry. Then I told her that when I was a girl, I had no dolls that looked like me. Her mom got on the phone & began to tell me about how expensive the dolls are, how little girls are obsessed with them, and how one can order a custom-made model to look like a sinister doppleganger of the girl. Yikes. A flurry of emails ensued between me and several lady friends deconstructing the dolls. Another friend told he she abhors the dolls but her husband spent a fortune on one for their daughter.



This is another American Girl doll that appears to be somewhat Asian. She is part of a series of historical dolls that come with stories. She dates back to SF in the 1970s. Now, if I was doing a 1970s SF doll, miss thing would have a nice Angela Davis Afro and come with a bong & a birth control packet as accessories.

My sister & I had hit a Toys-R-US, a place I rarely visit (though with the recent fertility boom among my friends I see myself as a frequent customer from now on) and I was mesmerized by the BRATZ. Another friend says they look like hookers, clearly problematic, to say the least. And she is right. But at least they are racialized to look Black or Latina. Below is "Yasmin" who looks a bit too much like J-Lo, but props anyway because she looks Latina.  





This is the American Girl that, were I to order a custom-made doppelganger, would be "me" - according to them: medium skin, dark brown hair, brown eyes. Disturbingly, they don't have an Asian girl. 

Many years ago, I was given this Puerto Rican Barbie. I was delighted although disturbed by the light skin and Creole outfit. There are also a series of "Teresa" dolls, including one that comes with a boom box that if you press the button spits out an old school rap. Hey, it's better than the White blonds! Recently a friend told me that Barbie was the macabre brain-child of a (clearly self-hating) Jewish woman! 

Meanwhile, this is the doppleganger of one of my "nieces" - half Puerto Rican/half Canadian. Love her!!!!! 

And, for the Grand Finale, another one of the American Girl "historical" dolls, a (sanitized) runaway slave!!!!!!!! Even I can't go there. 

Shandisimo!!!!

Given my drag alias - LaShanda - one of my favorite people spotted this restaurant in Brazil and sent me a photo. Fabulous!