Yearly Archives: 2012

Annual “Best of” Lists for 2012

Top 10 Science Stories of 2012 – Discover Magazine

2012: The Year in Pictures – New York Times

2012 Year in Pictures: Part I – The Big Picture, Boston.com

2012 Year in Pictures: Part II – The Big Picture, Boston.com

2012 Year in Pictures: Part III – The Big Picture, Boston.com

The 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2012 – Time.com
“TIME’s social media editor Allie Townsend & social media associate Amy Lombard pick the 140 Twitter feeds that are shaping the online conversation in 2012.”

2012: The Year in Words – Merriam-Webster Online

Best Books 2012 – Goodreads
“Announcing the winners of the 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards, the only major book awards decided by readers.”

Best Books 2012 – NPR
NPR puts together a number of “best of” lists for literature in different genres.

Best Books of 2012 – Barnes and Noble

Best Books of 2012 – Publisher’s Weekly

10 Best Books of 2012 – New York Times
Wow – women actually have 3 of 10 spots on the list! Way to go, NYT, you guys are making progress. Maybe next year, we’ll even get 4 spots, given that women write 70% of all the books published.

Favorite Book Cover Designs of 2012 – NYTimes.com
“We asked people in and around the world of graphic design to name one of their favorite book covers from 2012 and briefly describe its appeal.”

Best Movies of 2012 – Roger Ebert

Best of 2012: The EW movie awards – Entertainment Weekly

Best of 2012: The EW TV awards – Entertainment Weekly

The Naughty and Nice of 2012 TV – everybody and television

Best & Worst of the Year – TV Guide

The Best Albums Of 2012 – VH1

50 BEST ALBUMS OF 2012 – Rolling Stone

The Best Games of 2012 Awards – Gamespot
“There was a noticeable change of direction for the gaming industry in 2012. As many developers shifted their gaze toward the next generation, the big-budget games that would normally fill our time were in much shorter supply.”

Continue ReadingAnnual “Best of” Lists for 2012

I am a feminist and I’m not afraid to say so

Everyone’s afraid of the stigma of calling themselves a feminist, but they want to say things that are empowering to women. I feel like I’m back in the 1980s, when I came out as gay, and everyone else came out as bisexual first and then came out as gay five years later. The problem is that every time you do this, you reinforce the untrue stereotypes about what a feminist is by suggesting that those bigot-created stereotypes are true. So no matter what your message of empowerment actually is, you’ve undermined that by suggesting that the anti-feminist crowd has some sort of point when they tar and feather women standing up for basic civil rights.

It sucked when gay people did this shit back in the 1980s, and it sucks when you do it today. If you truly do believe that women and men should have equality, suck it up and own the word “feminist” – it’s a badge of honor that some truly extraordinary women have claimed for themselves over the years, and it’s one that you’ll wish you wore much earlier than you did.

Roxane Gay catalogs a list of women who’ve lately claimed that they are “not a feminist, but…” : You Can Stop Saying “I’m Not a Feminist But” Now..

Former French First Lady Carla Bruni said, “There are pioneers who paved the way for us. I am not a feminist activist at all. On the contrary I am a true bourgeoise. I love family life and doing the same thing every day,” and “In my generation we don’t need to be feminist.”

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo said, “I don’t think that I would consider myself a feminist. I think that I certainly believe in equal rights, I believe that women are just as capable, if not more so in a lot of different dimensions, but I don’t, I think, have, sort of, the militant drive and the sort of, the chip on the shoulder that sometimes comes with that. And I think it’s too bad, but I do think that feminism has become in many ways a more negative word. You know, there are amazing opportunities all over the world for women, and I think that there is more good that comes out of positive energy around that than negative energy.”

Lady Gaga said, “I am not a feminist. I hail men. I love men. I celebrate American male culture.”

Katy Perry said, “I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women.”

Taylor Swift is not a feminist. Instead, she thinks, “I don’t really think about things as guys versus girls. I never have. I was raised by parents who brought me up to think if you work as hard as guys, you can go far in life.”

Artist Marina Abramovic is not a feminist nor is actress Melissa Leo.

Designer Vivienne Westwood is not a feminist but that’s just because she’s rich. She said, explaining why she’s not a feminist, “Another reason is because I live in the privileged world and I would never accept the idea that somehow I am a victim of society. Just by being born a woman.”

Madonna is not a feminist, she’s a humanist.

Demi Moore is not a feminist. She said, “I am a great supporter of women, but I have never really thought of myself as a feminist, probably more of a humanist because I feel like that’s really where we need to be.”

Dame Stephanie Shirley, a British philanthropist, said, “I am not a feminist but I have always fought for women.”

Fuck that noise.

Continue ReadingI am a feminist and I’m not afraid to say so

Ryan Murphy does hate lesbians, apparently

Via Vulture magazine, some interesting commentary of last night’s Glee episode, which I have yet to see. Glee Recap: Carefully Chosen Bells and Whistles — Vulture.

Speaking of chaos, if you’re a casual Glee fan, you might have missed out on exactly how directly last night’s episode knocked down the fourth wall between it and the show’s more vocal fan base. It all starts when Sam leaves a trail of Cheerios for Brittany, which she eats off the floor as she makes his way to him. This is a rare moment of character-related continuity for Glee, since last season Brittany ate a candy bar right out of an actual cat’s actual litter box. Sam tells her that he likes her and they do a surprisingly nice rendition of “Something Stupid.” But when Sam leans in for a kiss, Brittany backs off, and when he asks what’s wrong, Brittany says, “It’s like all lesbians of the nation — I don’t know how they found out about Santana and I dating, but once they did, they started sending me tweets and Facebook messages on Lord Tubbington’s wall. I think it means a lot to them to see two super-hot, popular girls in love, and I worry if they find out about you and I dating, that they’ll turn on you and get really violent and hurt your beautiful face and mouth.”

Angry, violent lesbian stereotype aside, the problem with Brittany’s explanation is how transparent of a reference it is to the Twitter kerfuffle that’s been brewing lately between Ryan Murphy and some of the more ardent Brittany-Santana fans (a group that obviously isn’t comprised exclusively of angry lesbians). Essentially, it really is just that: a spat between fans who are mad at the creator of their favorite TV couple and the creator who’s mad at them for being mad. (The dispute gets more complicated when looked at against Murphy’s track record with lesbian characters on his shows.) Frankly, if I were Ryan Murphy, know what I’d do instead of getting into Twitter spats? I would float on a raft of rubies in a swimming pool full of melted-down gold while negotiating the purchase of the Boston Celtics.

If you don’t want me to watch your show, Ryan, that’s fine – just say so. No need to be a hateful jerk about it. I have better stuff to do anyway, like writing more fully-crafted thoughtful lesbian story lines of my own. I honestly would be perfectly happy with a Brittany/Sam storyline except that:

  1. The sum amount of screen time that Brittany and Santana got through their whole relationship was less than what they have shown for Brittany and Sam in one episode.
  2. Santana’s coming out story was really terrible in a whole bunch of ways.
  3. Ryan Murphy has been such a hateful bitch over twitter towards lesbian fans of Glee.

Glee has done wonders for gay male visibility on television with Kurt and Blaine’s story lines. They’ve been pretty shitty when it comes to lesbian story lines, however. Santana’s coming out storyline was a pretty sexist slap in the face to lesbian fans, and Murphy has been cranky about the backlash to that episode ever since.

All of our regular television programs have been languishing on our DVR since I’ve spent so much time writing lately, and we’ve been particularly neglectful of Glee given my ambivalence about it over the last year. Not even listening to Lea Michele singing can get me to turn on the show anymore. I haven’t quite deleted them, but I may be fast-forwarding through most of the episodes for the Rachel Berry scenes going forward. It feels weird to take that approach to a show that has actual gay characters, as opposed to mere heavy lesbian subtext like Rizzoli & Isles and Once Upon a Time. But being openly hostile to legitimate criticism about lesbian visibility is really problematic.

Continue ReadingRyan Murphy does hate lesbians, apparently

Adorable Gay Men get marriage license

Via the Maddow Blog – Pic: Way past wonderful – The Maddow Blog, these two adorable gay men are applying for a marriage license in Washington:

Randy and Larry Get Married

Randy and Larry Get Married

One month after Washington State voters approved the state’s marriage equality law in Ref. 74, same-sex couples get marriage licenses for the first time on December 6th, 2012. At around 1:30am, Larry Duncan, 56, left, and Randy Shepherd, 48, from North Bend, Wash. got their marriage license. The two plan to wed on December 9th, the first day it is possible for them to wed in a church in Washington State. They have been together for 11 years. Originally from Dallas, Texas, they moved here 7 years ago because it’s more gay friendly. Randy is a computer programer and Larry is a retired psychology nurse.

That is very sweet, and totally different than the story that I made up for them which was this:

I love these two dudes. They look like two hunting buddies who spent so much time out in the woods together, that they were like “Larry. Let’s get married so we can spend all of our time hunting in the woods together. I love hunting in the woods with you. We could hang out in the woods all day, and cuddle up in two sleeping bags zipped together at night, next to the fire.” And Larry says, “Randy, that sounds lovely. I will make you coffee in the morning, and s’mores at night, and we will kill some deer and eat them, along with a salad that I’ll make you, because we need vegetables.” And Randy says “Cool, we’ll get a marriage certificate, then. We live in Washington, so we can.”

Continue ReadingAdorable Gay Men get marriage license

For Good – Kristen Chenoweth and Anna Kendrick

Posting in case Stephanie hasn’t seen this awesomesauce yet… Kristen Chenoweth and Anna Kendrick singing “for Good” at the Trevor Projects‘ Trevor Live benefit.

Not only is the song really good, the reactions of the women filming the song are pretty adorable, too.

(Stephanie has a crush on Anna Kendrick. Kirsten Chenoweth is on my short list.)

Continue ReadingFor Good – Kristen Chenoweth and Anna Kendrick

Some other NaNoWriMo Thoughts

Trying to write 50,000 words in a month felt like holding my breath under water – everything else was suspended while I worked on writing. I basically ate, slept, went to work and wrote. I cut out television, most socializing and practically all other stuff that invades my day. Trying to keep the house clean, pay attention to twitter or running errands all those distractions went on the back burner. (Facebook was a must, though – because interacting with the NaNo Indy group was a lifeline to keep me going.)

It worked, largely because I removed a lot of barriers to focusing and getting in the zone to writing, and the forced deadline can work wonders.

Is that sustainable, though? Can I really zone out my friends, turn off the television and blow off the house all the time?

I wish there were a better way to balance. Because not writing is not an option, now.

Cutting out the television is pretty easy. Helping around the house, running errands and socializing are more difficult. I’m considering whether twitter really has much of a place in my life anymore.

I need to simplify things so I can both write and interact with my spouse and go to my job without becoming an ascetic.

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated on this matter.

Continue ReadingSome other NaNoWriMo Thoughts