culture consumed (February, 2020)

[hermionesviolin]

live theatre

• [ASP] Bright Half Life (lesbians)
  
• [ArtsEmerson] Detroit Red (Malcolm X in Boston)

tv

• The Good Place 4.13 (series finale)

music

• Kesha's High Road (Thom said: "Kesha’s new album has a song called “Kinky” that is very explicitly about ethical non-monogamy. It’s not exactly about what I’d call polyamory. But it’s definitely about non-monogamy. And it’s explicitly about being ethical. It’s also about other forms of kink, but honestly, it’s 90% about fucking other people.")
  
• Della Mae's Headlight (because Thom)
• and a few songs (also because Thom, because honestly, who else talks about music and makes me care?)
  • from Fun Home -- "Changing My Major" and "Ring of Keys"
  • Delta Rae - "Only In America"
  • Dawes - "A Little Bit Of Everything" (“I think that love is so much easier than you realize. / If you can give yourself to someone, then you should.”)

books

• Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes (Medford LGBTQ book club -- because the author was probably queer, though it's not a particularly queer book per se; it's a novel about a young Black boy growing up in small-town Kansas in the early 1910s)
  
• Victor LaValle's DESTROYER written by Victor LaValle & illustrated by Dietrich Smith (The Root: "Victor LaValle masterfully reimagines Shelley’s Frankenstein for the modern era in his graphic novel Destroyer, a timely and powerful read that re-energizes the Gothic genre.")
• 10 picturebooks (8 about gender/trans/queer stuff)
• The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn (for feminist sci-fi bookclub, though it mostly felt like historical fiction, honestly)
• Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji & Anthony G. Greenwald (which was published in 2013, and it shows)

movies

• Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) with Thom
  
• a lot of ridiculous porn at my friends' annual party -- themes this year included walking & "All good sex partners come from the ocean"
  • Matzo Maidels -- a few minutes of film from 1923 (I was reminded of Stag: The Illicit Origins of Pornographic Film at The Museum of Sex) with a contemporary Jewish voiceover, which was very weird
  • The Tale of Tiffany Lust (1979 -- we got this because it was likely a Radley Metzger/Henry Paris film); fast-forwarding through the sex scenes meant we were sometimes confused about the plot, but it's also a confusing movie (a woman tries to cheat on her husband and does lots of voyeurism but ends up going back to her husband for reasons we didn't understand; we also disapproved of the dude who stalked her after she ran away from him mid-makeout)
  • Boys in the Sand (1971, Wakefield Poole) -- we watched the beginning for someone who was gonna be leaving early, though we did watch long enough to see the protagonist's male lover appear out of the ocean and for someone in the audience to say, "They're getting engagement cock rings."
  • [WoodRocket] The Goo Place -- I had forgotten how good WoodRocket is in terms of attention to detail with its parodies -- indecisive-Chidi!!!
  • Nerds Rule!: Labyrinths & Lesbians -- cheerleader stepsister (we're all over 18! we don't need a babysitter!) disrupts a D&D game
  • Captain Marvel XXX: An Axel Braun Parody -- I felt so pandered to in the Carol/Monica bitch fight, though I really could have done without the ragging on Brie Larson (the rest of the meta/self-referential/whatever is fine); also, Yon-Rogg should never get to have sex with Carol, even if she does top him.
  • Skyrim Cosplay -- the actress' aesthetic was amazing (actual implanted horns?!) but otherwise this was meh (at least one person was also disapointed that we didn't get skyrimming)
  • Love Emergency -- this was so bad we noped out pretty quickly (commentary from the room included, "Ugh, leave the moralizing about homelessness out of my porn. And the excitement about a gross patient dying.")
  • [WoodRocket] The Loin King -- this was a musical! AMAZING! (I mean, the sex is boring -- once you hit the one sex scene you can stop, because there's nothing else -- but we don't watch these for the sex).  I mean, it's the production value one has come to expect from WoodRocket (a guy in a t-shirt that says  "Look at me I'm a snake"), so it's kind of terrible, but it's also AMAZING.
    
  • Wakefield Poole's Bible (1973) -- D & A got this specifically for me, which I very much appreciated ... though it's very avant-garde, so I'm not sure I would say I actually recommend it; we didn't fast-forward through any of it, which is almost unheard of for us.  (The same person who was so resistant to us watching this later said this was maybe the best porn we've ever watched, and I felt so vindicated.  Though let me be clear: there is almost no sex in this film, and also I'm not sure I would recommend it period.)  The Bathsheba chapter confused us until we realized the guy at the beginning was Uriah, not David.  I still quibble with some characterization, but at least it made more sense.  It went slapstick at the end, which was WILD!  And then a sharp tonal pivot as the next chapter opened with death.  It was billed as the Samson and Delilah chapter but wow, choices were made.  Thing I said: "Samson killed a lot of people, but none of them are canonically blue."
  • [WoodRocket] Dick Hard -- solid attention to detail, including "Yippee ki yay, stepmotherfucker."
  • [WoodRocket] Game of Bones: Winter Came Everywhere -- definitely not WoodRocket's best work, though I did enjoy the pointed anti-Trump commentary at the beginning (given the prominence of a Wall in GoT, it isn't difficult); also, 😂 "step-nephew"
  • The Brat -- another terrible feature length film -- a woman doesn't like sex and one of her attorney husband's secretaries tries to seduce him/steal him away; my chatlog includes "Okay, this lesbian scene is almost redeeming The Brat (1980-something?)." but as the movie neared its close, someone in the audience said to her husband, "Are you falling asleep? But they're having sex in the bathroom, to 'The Devil Inside.' And still not kissing very well." (about a het scene, to be clear)
• Tracers -- fannish movie night -- wow, this was not a good movie; and not just because of the compulsory heterosexuality (though yes, Nikki deserved so much better)

 fanvids

All hail Elizabeth Swann, Pirate King.

elipie said, "So #TGIFemslash needed a vid to I'm On A Boat for Club Femslash, and I discovered that the song was exactly the same length as my Pirates of the Caribbean/Elizabeth Swann vid, In The Bullpen... and it mashed up shockingly well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nhujNZO5A"

This is the original ("The Bullpen" vid).

Though when I think fanvid for "The Bullpen" I always think of the Natasha vid which introduced me to that song.