Summer Reading, Having Me a Blast

I have 25 books from the library (yay for free books!) and almost 10 more that I own, all of which I want to read but probably won't finish entirely cover-to-cover. I've read parts of most of them, but during the summer I find it difficult to focus on a single book when it's not required. Too much to learn and ponder (in a social justice framework, not in a colonizing manner)!

Recommendations, reviews, or critiques? Let me know; it's always good to expand my mind through shared knowledge.

• This Bridge Called My Back: Writings from Radical Women of Color, Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga
• Moral Disorder, Margaret Atwood
• James Baldwin: Collected Essays, James Baldwin
• Our Bodies, Ourselves, Boston Women's Health Book Collective
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown
• Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown
• Stonewall: the Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, David Carter
• Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, and Bad Girls, ed. Laura Harris and Elizabeth Crocker
• Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, ed. Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman
• Built to Win: the Female Athlete as Cultural Icon, Leslie Heywood and Shari L. Dworkin
• Lady Sings the Blues, Billie Holiday with William Dufty
• the Vintage Book of International Lesbian Fiction, ed. Naomi Holoch and Joan Nestle
• Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, bell hooks
• Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center, bell hooks
• Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings, Zora Neale Hurston
• Bitchfest: 10 Years of Cultural Criticism, ed. Lisa Jarvis and Andi Zeisler
• Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace, Serene Jones [Note: I don't currently self-identify as a Christian, but rather am intrigued at proposed intersections between these two fields of thought.]
  
• the Winona LaDuke Reader: a Collection of Essential Writings, Winona LaDuke
• Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen
• Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
• Sexual Politics, Kate Millett
• Feminism without Borders, Chandra Talpede Mohanty
• Sisterhood Is Powerful, ed. Robin Morgan
• Feminist Frontiers, ed. Laurel Richardson, Verta Taylor, and Nancy Whittier
• the Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, David Roediger
• the Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom, Barbara Smith
• Sleeping Beauty, Indeed, ed. JoSelle Vanderhooft
• Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, Oscar Wilde
• Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England, ed. Jack Zipes

Also on my list to read:

• Gender Trouble, Judith Butler
• the Dialectic of Sex, Shulamith Firestone
• Female Masculinity, J. Halberstam
• Lover, Bertha Harris
• Brave New World, Aldoux Huxley
• the Female Man, Joanna Russ
• a People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn

Finally, I've also read:

• the Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall
  
• White like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, Tim Wise

A Love Letter in a Time of Departure...and Revolution

Yesterday, many great people officially ended their academic careers at my college. For the past 9 months, I gladly spent time with good friends, members of the class of 2010. These students and colleagues of mine inspire me to strive for change while they continue to thrust themselves into struggles for social justice. These extraordinary people have lovingly and patiently aided in fostering the personal and intellectual growth of many other students, including myself. I have begun to learn how to examine and question my own privileges in order to dismantle the systems which perpetuate the existence of such privileges. I truly cannot thank the class of 2010 enough for being caring friends, exceptional mentors, and humbly passionate leaders on the local, national, and global stage in a challenging era.

People like these do not come around often. However, they leave their profound legacy within all of those whom they have loved, to whom they have given their time and affection. Though the college will soon unabashedly pester these friends of mine for their money, the real gifts of the class of 2010 are the positive effects of their dedicated actions and words.

It was delightful to meet the families of the graduating students, to see whence their virtuosity has originated and subsequently bloomed. I myself am in transition to a new university (although for the time being I happily maintain my library card, college e-mail account, and other trivial but memorable services). Though I will be in the same city, I am glad to be exiting my college at such a high peak of the celebration of the aforementioned wonderful people.

Sia expresses my sentiments well in the song "You Have Been Loved".



Love,
Lolly.

An Angry Punk Named Kate Nash?

A few words to describe the new Kate Nash: angry, emo, punk, screechy, and a bit disappointing. When I saw her come onstage I was overjoyed and immediately noticed her darker garb, thinking, "Ooh, look who's the latest hottie." In general I was quite thrilled to see Kate with a good friend; we danced gladly as Ms. Nash performed barely 1 hour's worth of songs, occasionally passionately.

Her ankle was injured, so she couldn't have been in the best mood, but she maintained a very "eff-you" attitude throughout the concert. She only sang maybe 1 or 2 of her older songs from the album "Made of Bricks", including the fabulous "Foundations". I'm pretty sure that album was the reason most of us were there to see Kate. However, she was quite high-maintenance, insisting that the entire crowd be silent while she sang the mellow, pouty "I Hate Seagulls", from her new album "My Best Friend Is You". I didn't really have that much of a problem with that insistence, except that she was very pouty for the duration of the time she was onstage.

My friend and I simultaneously realized after several songs, "She hates a lot of things." Overall at this concert Kate was simply very negative, always complaining, never really very empowering. Fairly unfortunate. It seemed in a way she was trying to be sort of feminist, through a strange spoken word piece called "Mansion Song" in which she says "I wanna be fucked and then rolled over because I'm an independent woman of the 21st century." This shows an understanding of feminism as equated primarily with 'sexual liberation' i.e. "I'm empowered because I go and sleep around a lot. I emphasize my physical self to an extreme degree. I get pushed around sexually sometimes, but it's my choice, and therefore I'm free." You are still caught in that social system, Kate! You can never fully escape and have complete independence of these forces! So Kate's is not my version of feminism, but I would love to have a conversation with her about the subject.

Side note: The opening band "Supercute" = exceptionally annoying, and not unique. I thought 8th grade was over, please. Apparently not. My friend and I were irked that they did a synchronized, uncreative dance behind Kate while she sang an upbeat song. Said we, "Get off the stage because you have boring and sheep-like dance moves." My friend and I longed to be up there dancing, not only because we enjoy creativity but also because Kate said it pleased her when she saw people dancing in the audience. There were only a few of us.

Ironically, it was an all ages show, so there were a lot of middle-aged mothers and their preteen/early teen daughters. I can't imagine they had a very good time, but in a very German schadenfreude way I found that slightly funny. Nonetheless I was of course discontent overall, but it did only cost $5. Still...Kate Nash, really? I don't mean to sound bitter but these are my honest ponderings.

The only really nice thing Kate said to the crowd was "I like it when they have the lights on you. You can see how beautiful you are."