Not a Real Post

Just a quick note to say hello and how inspired I've been lately.

Saturday night was Amy Goodman and her brother David Goodman. So awesome! It was great to see such a huge turnout for an event advertised only through community and independent media outlets in town.

Amy Goodman is an amazing speaker. I don't know how she is able to remember dates, names, stories, and little details while building up big arguments. Looking forward to reading Amy and David's latest book.

[Also, I ran into an undergrad art buddy of Porkchop's. A lovely coincidence. I hope we can meet up with said friend again soon because she's such a good person.]

Today, I heard Mark Rank (a professor at Wash U's school of social work and author of this recent book) speak about poverty in America and how we are all directly or indirectly affected by it. Rank was a really really excellent speaker and delivered a quite rousing address.

The events for the Goodmans and Rank reminded me of how nice it is to be surrounded by groups of people who take certain ideas as foundational starting points. I love it when I don't have to argue with others about why America needs universal healthcare, or about how our current welfare policy is junk, or about how corporate media outlets - even supposedly liberal outfits like the New York Times - are keeping American citizens uninformed about what's really going on in the world.

Comfort zones. I like them, and I'm reminded that I need to seek these out more often.

In other news, I went to this reading tonight. It was enjoyable, except for the guy who kept asking questions like: "How do you start a blog?" Dude, you're at a book reading for a book that started as a blog....surely you should have already asked yourself that question and perhaps looked on the internet to find the answer. The same guy also kept referring to the internet as the "net." Does anyone really do that any more?? Web, maybe, but net? I don't think I've heard that in quite some time.

Saturday night, I'm going back to Left Bank Books to hear Alison Bechdel talk about Fun Home (see here for event info). Like my friend BD, I used to read Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For comic when I received the Lesbian Connection (oh my gosh! LC has a website!). If you ever attended the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, you probably also signed up for a free subscription to the LC. And maybe you read DTWOF, too.

Anyway, I'm interested to read Bechdel's new graphic novel, since it's about her childhood and growing up with a funeral home in her house and coming out and suicide. Sounds like it will be quite uplifting!

But, seriously, Porkchop received Fun Home in the mail last week. A mysterious package that turned out to be a present. So, I really don't have a reason not to read it.

Have a good night!