Support the VEA

We had sworn off doing any more vagina-related posts because the traffic they bring is just too weird, but when my overworked typist stumbled across the image above (provenance unknown, alas) on Facebook, she couldn't resist. Longtime readers know that the preferred description around here for lady people is vagina-equipped (which we're pretty sure we started using during the 2008 election). Nonetheless, we appreciate the appeal to natural law in the VEA's claim that women are endowed with their lady parts as all persons are endowed with rights to, you know, life, liberty, and blah de blah de blah. We are also totes on board with the slogan, Screw us and we multiply, and the hilarious reclaiming of the creepy Masonic emblem on the back of the dollar bill as a symbol of the might of a million vajayjays. We're down with that, obviously.

So, who'll be the Mockingjay for this fiery band of vulvalogocentrists? Who are we prepared to declare as the VEA's Soldier of the Week? Who is endowed with or schooled in the perfect combination of media-savviness and sistah-hood to deserve this honor? So many sheroes, so little time to blog them.

We might have given the nod to the official go-to gal of Roxie's World, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had a brilliant week this week, achieving "late-breaking adoration" and "pop cultural ascendancy" -- in addition to the global domination she has enjoyed for the past few years -- by being cool enough to catch the wave of the Hill-arious Texts From Hillary meme launched by Adam Smith and Stacy Lambe. (That's the final image in the series there on the left, with Mme Secretary's actual texts to the site's creators. Here's the concluding "thanks for the meme-eries" message from Smith and Lambe.) How good was Clinton's week? WaPo declared her the Internet's "new queen of cool." Jezebel gushed that she had managed to "make herself seem even more badass than she already was. Well played, Hillz." Shoot, even the execrable Maureen Dowd, whose psychotic anti-Clinton ravings during the 2008 primary battle earned her this blog's undying enmity, had a nearly nice column on Clinton's "newly cool image," though she couldn't resist tossing off a couple of gratuitous digs -- e.g., saying that the pictures that launched the meme make Clinton look, "as Raymond Chandler would say, . . . 'as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.'" Ah, MoDo, you never disappoint.

Anyhoo, we take nothing away from Hillz's glorious achievement in opting instead to name actress and activist Ashley Judd the first (and perhaps only -- you know how lax we are about these things) Soldier of the Week for Vaginally Endowed Americans. Judd had a pretty awesome week, too, and not just because Becca Winstone, the character she plays on her new ABC series, Missing, added bank robbery to the impressive set of kick-a$$ skills the retired CIA agent has at her command. (Shoot, in the first episode alone, Becca garrots a guy, breaks into a jewelry store and a warehouse, gets through a couple of high-speed chases while wearing wildly inappropriate footwear, reconnects with a sultry, torch-carrying ex-lover, and does a decent job of speaking several languages. Also: She gets shot, falls into a river, and survives for episode two. Quel surprise, oui?)

Don't get us wrong. The Vaginally Equipped Americans of Roxie's World are devoted fans of Missing. It is totally formulaic and often gobsmackingly implausible, but it is utterly delightful to watch Judd's Winstone haul a$$ all over Europe in an effort to find her kidnapped son and solve the mystery of her late husband Paul's life and death. (Paul was also CIA and was killed by a car bomb ten years earlier.) The plot may not be believable, but Becca is, thanks to Judd's steely eyes and razor-sharp maternal instincts. What can we say? We think the world could use a few more vengeance-seeking soccer moms who can fight like a ninja and hack into a computer.

But that's not why Judd is our VEA Soldier of the Week. Nope, she gets the nod and perhaps a mockingjay pin of her very own for her righteous response to a flood of snarky commentary and speculation about the state of her face, which has been puffed up recently by steroids she took for a nasty sinus infection. Judd used the occasion to offer up an indignant yet nuanced reply that took on the whole machinery of patriarchy and the way that public as well as private conversations about women's bodies are used to rob them of their power and dignity by reducing their personhood "to simple physical objectification." It's a smart, fiery piece that acknowledges women's complicity in the problem. "Patriarchy is not men," Judd explains. "Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. . . .It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it." Sing it, sister!

Judd didn't just write her little diatribe and go back to the business of being famous -- and beautiful. She followed up by doing a powerful interview with NBC's Brian Williams in which she talks about the experience, contextualizes it through deft comments on the hypersexualization of girls and women, and invites others, men included, to share their own "puffy-face" or "big-butt" moments, stories of being shamed or hurt by judgments about their bodies. She's also continued to bang the drum on Twitter, with a steady stream of affirmations and links to other posts (by far less famous people) on the subject. You don't follow @AshleyJudd? Well, sucks for you, sweetheart. Melissa McEwan does, and so do we, as of this week.

Ms. Judd, paws up to you, for talking back to patriarchy rather than being shamed or silenced by it. You recognized a teachable moment and used the power of your celebrity to make the most of it. Vaginally Endowed Americans and fair-minded individuals everywhere salute you for your honesty and your astuteness. You are our VEA Solider of the Week. Peace out.

(Photo Credit: Richard Drew, via)

The Quiet Season

Or, Things We Did While Not Attending MLA 2012

Dr. Crazy went and so did Undine, but for the first time since 1995 neither of the English profs of Roxie's World attended the annual convention of the Modern Language Association, which concluded yesterday in the highly caffeinated city of Seattle. We're huge fans of the organization and its annual shindig but opted out this year because we weren't giving papers or shopping book manuscripts or serving on search committees and therefore couldn't quite justify the time and expense of a cross-country trip. So, what'd we do instead?

We burrowed in. Hunkered down. Laid low.

We decluttered. Depilated. Decompressed.

We ran a little. Walked a little. Finally tried Zumba. (Verdict? Not sure yet. Further research will be necessary, but Moose is not convinced her cardiovascular health requires quite that much hip action. She also recalls, however, that she felt similarly skeptical after her first aerobics class, once upon a time in the 80s.)

We toiled happily away on the kind of work that is hard to do when classes are in session and the calendar is a multicolored vortex of obligations. Goose had a 2-day team meeting for one of her electronic projects. Moose shifted into cruise-director mode to hammer out the details for the upcoming celebrations of her queer studies program's tenth anniversary. (I know: ten years of queering the turtle! Can you stand it? Click here for some of the scoop on what's in store. Details coming soon.)

Oh, and we watched us some basketball, because our fifth-ranked Lady Terps needed us to make sure they got through the weekend with their perfect record in tact. Fine, sophomore forward Alyssa Thomas helped, too, with her 24 points in Friday's heart-stopping comeback against Georgia Tech and her buzzer-beater that put Sunday's road game against Carolina into overtime, but we know that our passionate devotion helped carry the mighty women of Maryland to 16-0. 16-0!!!

After the haircut (the aforementioned depilation), Moose was hungry and so took herself to lunch. She had tapas. And a glass of white wine. It was Friday. She had gone for a run. Tapas is the perfect way for Lifestyle Adjusters to dine well without having to declare PointsPlus bankruptcy. She had a shredded cod salad, because a friend whose judgment she trusts says that if cod is on the menu you should always order it. She was not disappointed.

Then she went to a museum, because it was there. And there is a Gertrude Stein show she's been meaning to see for months but hadn't yet and now it's about to leave town, so she finally popped in. It's not the bestest exhibit ever, despite the forthright documenting of Stein's sexuality and her relationship with Alice B. Toklas and some marvelous images of the two women and their dog Basket, but it's well worth seeing. Moose was pleased to be able to snatch a pic of Jo Davidson's massive terra cotta sculpture of Stein, which she likes to think of as the precursor to the bronze Thinking Woman she brought home with her from New Mexico a couple of years ago.

What else did we do while not schmoozing, boozing, and cruising at the MLA? We watched Homeland, all 12 white-knuckle, Claire Danes-ilicious episodes. The show strains credulity in precisely the ways our pal Jill Dolan blogged about in November (before the season had ended) and its finale is vexing in all the ways David Haglund and June Thomas discuss in Slate. Nonetheless, the writing (if not the plotting) and the performances make Homeland riveting to watch. It's a fraught and fascinating piece of post-9/11 cultural work that deftly probes the psychic costs of living with and in the massive state (in)security apparatus that took hold in the United States in the wake of the fall 2001 attacks. Danes plays Carrie Mathison, a CIA officer haunted by the feeling that she missed something on 9/11 that might have thwarted the attacks. Damian Lewis plays Nicholas Brody, a Marine sergeant who was held captive by Al-Qaeda for eight years and has just been released and returned home. Carrie believes he was turned while in captivity and is now part of a plot to attack the U. S. Much of the thrill of this taut, smart thriller is in watching the dynamics of the Mathison-Brody relationship and trying to figure out who is manipulating whom and to what end. How much of what happens between them is personal and how much is a matter of each working to advance the goals of their competing missions? We don't want to give anything away. Go watch the show if you can. Then come back here prepared to discuss Homeland's complex racial/sexual/religious politics and the burning question of whether Claire's electroshock therapy will erase the crucial piece of evidence she recognized in that last moment before the big buzz jolted her brain. Hurry! We are dying to have this conversation with you!

One more thing we did while not attending the MLA? Moose took a lot of pictures with her new iPhone 4S, which is, as the hype suggests, equipped with a camera so good you might be tempted to stuff all your old point-and-shoots in the back of some closet. Both photos above were taken with her fun new toy, as was the one below, which we offer by way of returning to the theme of quietness and winter rest with which this post began. Here's hoping you've found such time at the beginning of this brave new year. Peace out, my pretties, and, again, a very happy new year to you and yours.

End of Spring Break Link & Photo Farm

Or, Notes on Stuff We'd Be Blogging About If We Had Time to Blog, Which We Don't Because My Typist Actually Took Something of a Break This Week and Now Has to Spend the Day Doing Everything She Was Pretending She'd Get Done Over "Break"

(Photo Credit: Moose, with Hipstamatic, 3/26/11. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.)

Big Love: Series Finale. It's been a week since (spoiler alert!) the queerest show on television ended its five-year run on HBO not with a whimper but a bang that liberated the three sister-wives of Bill Henrickson to fulfill the dreams of non-Mormon Sapphists from sea to shining sea. You know the burly girls of Roxie's World were pleased with the show's Thelma & Louise & Nicki denouement. Beyond that, we have little to say, except that we will miss a show that stayed so true to its characters and was so deeply intelligent about complex intimacies and, you know, one of the wackier religions ever to have gotten hatched on American soil. There's a lot of great stuff out there on the winding down of the show. Take a listen to Terry Gross's conversation with Big Love's creators, Mark Olsen and Will Scheffer, or check out Allyssa Lee's interview with them in the LA Times. It's kind of cute to see the show's two (gay, male, married [to each other]) chief architects seeming wounded and perplexed that the audience pretty much wanted Bill to die to get him out of the wives' way, while they saw his death as a way to preserve his vision without having to figure out how he would support his large family once he had lost Home Plus. Vision, schmision, the audience seemed to say. Kill Bill, and the sister-wives will figure it all out. Which the final scene, eleven months after Bill's death, makes clear is exactly what happened. You go, Barb, priest-holder you. Whatever the heck a priest-holder is. Margene Without Borders, we heart you. And Nicki, we're pleased to see you found the milk of human kindness we always hoped was flowing somewhere beneath your sociopathic surface.

Anyway, for commentary on Big Love's big ending, click over to Undine, Troy Williams, and, again, Allyssa Lee.

College Basketball: Oh, kids, we have nothing to say but "Go, Butler" (in the non-ladies' tournament) and "Please, Stanford?" (in the women's). We were looking forward to having a big blog trash talk smackdown with UConn-loving Tenured Radical, but our beloved Lady Terps got spanked bad Tuesday night by Georgetown, thus denying the little Turtles their chance to go up against the big bad Huskies in the Sweet 16. See ya next year, TR, when Maya Moore will have finally graduated and gone on to a better place (the WNBA? ESPN? grad school?) and our tender Turtles will, we hope, have toughened up a bit on the defensive end of the court. Also, good thoughts go out to Terps forward Diandra Tchatchouang, who tore her ACL in the Georgetown game. The official French speaker of Roxie's World offers a hearty bon rétablissement to Diandra, who hails from La Courneuve, France, as she recovers from her injury.

Death: Death had another big week in the world. What with new revolutions and civil wars breaking out on a daily basis and the toll from Japan's triple-dip disaster still rising, one feels sheepish even mentioning that the nation's supply of Feisty Old Broads took a couple of significant hits this week with the deaths of Elizabeth Taylor and Geraldine Ferraro, but, well, that's the way it is. We raise paws in honor of these gutsy women, pioneers in their different ways and worlds, and thank them for their courage and tenacity. Gina Barreca's got a nice feminist tribute to Taylor up on the Chronicle (H/T Goose) focused on her early, unsung role as Helen Burns in the 1943 version of Jane Eyre. Moose and Goose fondly recall going door-to-door for the Mondale-Ferraro campaign in a small, conservative town on the Jersey Shore back in '84. It was the first but by no means the last time they passionately committed themselves to a losing cause. Twenty-seven years later, they have no regrets.

Who's Reading Your E-Mail? Moose was experiencing fear and loathing of her in-box long before she read the story of University of Wisconsin historian William Cronon being harassed by the state's Republican party, which is using open records laws to gain access to his e-mails since Cronon started writing blog posts and a New York Times op-ed piece focused on the GOP's recent activities in the Badger state. Now, her fear has turned to panic, as she worries that she could get canned for using state resources to mock her state's governor as a fauxgressive pretty boy. Or for her stubborn refusal to use her several different e-mail accounts to separate her professional life from her personal life, her political life, her blog life, and her online shopping life. Historiann has proposed that academics at public universities forward all of their e-mails to Governor Scott Walker and other Republicans in the state. Tenured Radical has a great post up that includes Walker's e-mail address (govgeneral@wisconsin.gov) and lots of terrifying reminders about how e-mail is never private and nothing can ever really be deleted and your university computer can be searched anytime. Moose read that post and has been sitting quietly in a chair ever since. Just staring. And deleting lots and lots of e-mails. See previous paragraph about her fondness for lost causes.

So, kids, how are your brackets holding up? And how did you waste your spring break? Here's another pretty glimpse of how time slipped away in Roxie's World. Peace out, lovelies.

(Photo Credit: JK, Sister of the Goosians, 3/25/11. Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC.)

Gay Action Figures of the Week

• Pretty Boys Division: Glee's Chris Colfer
• Tall Girls With Short Hair Who Vaguely Resemble Moose Division: Glee's Jane Lynch

Why? Because, dahlings, the moms have gone Hollywood (read all the way to the end of that link or you won't get the cryptic allusion), and so we care deeply about profoundly superficial things like the Golden Globe Awards and the silly, sardonic, or sentimental speeches actors make when they win them. And because Glee is the queerest thing on TV ever, the best excuse we've found yet -- and, trust me, we are always looking -- for spending Tuesday nights on the couch belting out big songs.

At the Globes this past Sunday evening, Colfer and Lynch ran the table in the Best Supporting category for their performances on the show as, respectively, Kurt Hummel, the brave, tender faggot with the gorgeous counter-tenor voice, and Sue Sylvester, the ambiguously gay cheerleading coach whose diabolical machinations are often as close as the show gets to having a plot.

Lynch, shown at left (via) at the awards show with the woman she wed last summer, Dr. Lara Embry, picks up a bonus Gay Action Figure of the Week for her acceptance speech, which was a funny send-up of the winner's obligatory performance of false modesty that ended with an utterly unselfconscious shout-out to "my wife Lara" and their two children. Oh, Jane, you are so suave, so splendid, so deft with the deadpan line and look. You make tall girls everywhere want to square their shoulders and stride gleefully across the stages of their lives. We would dream of gay-marrying you if you -- and, oh yeah, we -- weren't already taken.

Meanwhile, the luminous Colfer, at left (via), whose character's torment at the hands of a homophobic/gay-panicked bully has sparked tears and motherly/teacherly fantasies of rescue over the course of this season, was poised, eloquent, and fierce in accepting his award. He opened with a quip about having dropped his heart "somewhere between Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore" and ended with his own very special shout-out:

Most importantly, to all the amazing kids that watch our show and the kids that our show celebrates who are constantly told no by the people in their environments, by bullies at school that they can’t be who they are or have what they want because of who they are. Well [pause, wave trophy in air], screw that, kids! Thank you [exit smiling].

Yes, my pretties, we understand that visibility in pop culture is fairly low on the totem pole of queer political aspirations (or maybe it isn't -- guess that depends on the queer, doesn't it?). Still, we feel moved to celebrate these proud, public actions by Lynch and Colfer as modest yet significant contributions to the cause. There are still stunningly few openly gay actors in Hollywood, so Colfer in particular, at the ripe old age of 20, is to be commended for beginning his career by being unabashedly out and vocal on issues of importance to the community.

And Glee, for all its flaws (and we admit there are some), deserves its own bit of commendation for its commitment to queer plots and characters and for the extraordinarily good timing of its attention to bullying. (Oh, and that EW there on the left, with Colfer and the adorable Darren Chriss on the cover, should be on newsstands now.) We may be biased, but we think the show is at its best when it focuses on Kurt's proud yet uncertain efforts to grow up gay and strong. We are genuinely conflicted about who sings the best (Kurt? Rachel? Rachel? Kurt? Mercedes? Rachel?), but Kurt's stories win hands down for their emotional texture and their potent political force. Colfer's pitch-perfect performance makes the character's dignity and vulnerability so clear that the audience can't not root for him. We want a world in which Kurt can thrive. We want to hold his hand and try, together, to bring that world into being. Don't we? Yes, Kurt, we do. We want to hold your hand, too. Peace out.

Glee Minus 8 Days and Counting . . .

. . . Until we find out which of these splendid outfits Sue Sylvester will sport in the Season Two premiere of G-L-E-E-E-E-E:

(Photo Credit: Todd Heisler, New York Times, 9/12/10)

Can you stand it, darlings? Are you nervous about how the show will hold up under the pressure of sophomore year, a pressure intensified by two Emmy awards (yay, Jane!), that killer Springsteen sendup that opened the Emmy show, and a New York Times mag story declaring it a "bona fide phenomenon?" (Click on that Times link to see the whole glorious gallery of Todd Heisler photos from the set of Glee. You'll be glad you did.) The Times credits the show with "inspiring a resurgent interest in musical theater among young people," which we're pretty sure means it is making kids gay, something we think all the best shows do. (You know, like this one.)

Our pal Jill Dolan over at The Feminist Spectator did a nice piece on Glee early last season that did a great job of capturing the show's "incipient queerness" and its gently satirical take on adolescence and the pop-cultural faith in big dreams and bigger song-and-dance numbers. We think Jill's right, though we have to confess we turn off our irony meters every time Lea Michele, who plays Rachel, opens her mouth. Her sublime duet with Chris Colfer (Kurt) on "Defying Gravity?" Her audacious take on a song we thought no one on earth but Barbra Streisand should be allowed to perform? We think the show is seriously invested in the potent combination of discipline, desire, and jaw-dropping talent that fuels Rachel, or maybe that's just us, or, more precisely, the one of us who felt like a nerdy outsider in high school, except, of course, for those moments on stage, when the lights go down and the music begins and everything is . . . possible.

I gotta fly once, I gotta try once,
Only can die once, right, sir?
Ooh, life is juicy, juicy and you see,
I gotta have my bite, sir.

We digress, darlings, as we are wont to do when reminded of old dreams and the different forms they assume over the course of a life. Suffice it to say we are looking forward to S2 of Glee, which we hope will do a better job of negotiating the politics of race and disability than it did in its freshman season. Much as we adore Rachel, we hope to see and hear more of Mercedes this year, and we pray every night before our shrine to Judy Garland that the show's writers will realize that disabled characters can bring more to a plot than opportunities for able-bodied characters to be inspired, ennobled, or "helpful." Please, folks, this year could we let the deaf kids perform a song all by themselves? I mean, srsly, imagine that!

Have a Gleeful week, my pretties, and remember that in our book every single one of you is the rose of sheer perfection. March your band out. Beat your drum. And when it's your turn at bat, slam the little sucker right out of the park. Because you can.

(H/T to a Queerly Optimistic friend for knowing we would want to peek inside Sue Sylvester's closet.)

Summer Monday Food Blogging

Yes, we've done this before, almost a year ago to this very day as a matter of fact. Good things are worth repeating, don't you agree? It's summertime, kids. The days are long, and the humidity here in the East is as thick as a wet wool sweater. Let's amuse ourselves with pretty pictures and ideas for delicious seasonal eating.

Par exemple, here's what Moose whipped up for brunch on Saturday morning:

The name is not especially sexy -- Open-Faced Sandwich with Ricotta, Arugula, and Fried Egg -- but the taste was delish. The recipe is from Moose's favorite source of food porn for the conscientious, Cooking Light. That perfectly fried egg is sitting on a piece of grilled bread covered by a spread of part-skim ricotta, parmesan, and fresh thyme and a bed of arugula lightly dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. The lemon adds a nice little zing that tricks the mind into thinking it's getting a rich, decadent Hollandaise sauce. It was a yummy, summery, and satisfying way to start the day.

Last evening, the moms headed up to Rodgers Forge for five courses of food porn for the sybaritic produced by the beloved Candy Man, his sidekick the Cock-Eyed Optimist, and the world's most sophisticated 10-year-old. The feast started off with an answer to the question on the minds of every Gleek in America: What Would Sue Drink? The answer, of course, is The Sylvester:

Here is Candy Man's recipe for this refreshing, complex, and slightly dangerous beverage:

The first step is to make a berry syrup, which the Candy Man adopted from a recipe in The French Laundry Cookbook:

1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
6 peppercorns (I used green), lightly crushed
1 pint raspberries
1 pint small strawberries
1 small sprig mint

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cook 45 minutes, then strain out the solids. There will be 1 to 1.5 cups syrup; can be refrigerated in a covered container for up to a month.

For the Sylvester:

1 T of the above berry syrup
2 T lime juice
mint leaves, mottled in syrup
2 shots rum
1 shot ginger liquor
A little bit of seltzer

Serve with adorable dumplings filled with a single blackberry and a touch of goat cheese (see lower right corner of above photo), and your guests' bouches will be so amused that their cheeks will ache.

These drinks are so good that we bet Sue Sylvester would slip into her zoot suit to enjoy one. After two, she'd probably be able to embrace Will Schuester without feeling an urge to vomit down his back. After three, well, we can't even write what we might imagine on this family-friendly blog, but we can tell you it would involve a bullhorn and, you know, a bowl full of Cheerios.

(Photo Credit: Fox, via)

Peace out, darlings, and let us know what summer delights you are enjoying!

(With love and thanks to all the boys in Rodgers Forge.)

Happy Fricking Mother's Day

The salty women of Roxie's World honor Mother's Day with one of the many side-splitting bits from Betty White's flawless, hilarious appearance as host of Saturday Night Live last night. Here, the near-nonagenarian sits down with Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon for an episode of their pitch-perfect parody of an NPR cooking show, "Delicious Dish." (Can we pause briefly to say how utterly delightful it was to have so many of the veteran funny girls of SNL back together for last night's episode? In addition to Gasteyer and Shannon, we got to spend time with Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph, and, my oh my, what wonderful company they were! Maya doing her killer Whitney Houston! Tina wisely not doing her already worn-out Sarah Palin and instead playing an earnest census worker trying to get information out of White's marvelously loopy old lady in a bathrobe! [Hulu has a collection of 19 vids from the episode up, including some that didn't make it to the show. We highly recommend doing some browsing there, perhaps while sipping a Mother's Day mimosa. You'll be glad you did.])

Anyway, this muffin skit, in which the three women deliver one deadpan double entendre after another, is a worthy successor to the insanely funny "Schweddy Balls" bit that Gasteyer and Shannon did with Alec Baldwin several years back. Who says fiber isn't funny? The regular gals of Roxie's World are here to tell you it is. Click on the vid, kids, and prepare to die laughing. Is there any better way to go?



Happy Mother's Day -- to all the moms, all the bonus moms, all the non-moms and anti-moms and the muffin-loving honorary moms. Hug 'em if you can, and send 'em a giggle if you can't. Laughs make the world go 'round, my sweet, funny, aging children, today and every day.

Sue Says, "Vogue"

And in Roxie's World, what Sue says goes.



That is all. You may go to bed now. Sweet dreams, my little Cheerios.

Mental Cases

As in . . . .

1. State of Nebraska is just a governor's signature away from requiring that women seeking abortions be screened for "mental and physical problems that might result from an abortion." Nice. Meteor Blades over at Daily Kos has a helpful chart doctors might want to use to help them decide whether the brainless unstable ninnies who come to them for help in exercising their constitutionally protected right to reproductive freedom are mentally tough enough to live with the alleged, possible emotional consequences of the procedure. Outlook? We'd say for straight sexually active women in Nebraska it's cloudy with a chance of baby. Here's the handy chart (picked up via Nan Hunter):

2. Glee returns with fresh episodes tonight, and we're a little mental about it here in Roxie's World, because, you know, our heads are aching from trying to keep up with the late-season twists and turns on Damages. (OMG, there's that red car! She totally bought that red car we've been seeing all season!) We need us some singing and dancing and we need it now! Advanced word on the 9 new eps is good. We will put up with having to watch a budding romance between Will and Emma and ongoing drama between Rachel and Finn for the thrill of seeing Kurt join the Cheerios (what? no same-sex love interest for the finest interpreter of Beyoncé the world has ever known?) and, of course, the endless delight of seeing what deliciously diabolical Sue Sylvester will do. Mark your calendars now, Gleeks, for the all-Madonna episode on April 20. We don't know what Sue will do that night, but here's a peek at what she will wear to inspire the Cheerios to scale the heights of Material Girlishness:


You heard it here first, darlings. Don't say a word for the rest of the day, 'k? You'll want to save your voice for the power ballads, won't you? Come back here when it's over and tell us what you thought. We'll be here, honor bright. Sing your little hearts out. It's good for your mental health.

Damages

In Which an Embarrassing Blog Note Becomes the Occasion for a Weird Photo Essay in the Edgy Visual Style of a Favorite TV Show

Embarrassing Blog Note: Light posting likely ahead for the next little while, kids. My typist, who is not as young as she was two weeks ago, took a nasty tumble yesterday on her way to a meeting with her dean and either broke or badly sprained her left wrist. (Yes, she went to the meeting, with a bloody knee and searing pain in the wrist. Five minutes in, concerned that the look on her face might make the dean think she was angry, she confessed what had happened, which prompted an outpouring of maternal/deanly solicitude. Moose was hoping the solicitude would lead to a massive budget increase and the promise of a shiny new College of Queer Studies but had to be content with a free ride to the health center, which, under the circumstances, was greatly appreciated.) The hand is in a splint, and she is as comfortable as handfuls of Motrin can make her (and, yes, she has access to stronger painkillers should they prove necessary, thank you). We'll find out Monday whether she'll end up with a cast. Meanwhile, she ponders the irony of getting a workman's comp injury while on leave from a job that typically doesn't involve a high degree of risk of physical harm anyway. Funny, yes?

Late last night, after chasing a handful of Motrin with several glasses of wine, Moose repaired to the upstairs bathroom with her iPhone and started taking pictures of her wounded paw, because nothing happens in Roxie's World without somebody thinking, Hey, look -- blog fodder! And then, of course, she started noodling around with her favorite photo apps, ToyCamera and CameraBag, and the next thing you know she's plotting out season four of Damages:

Ellen Parsons, having quit the firm yet again, is on her own at last, launching a solo criminal defense practice in a seedy part of town. Business is slow, because dumpster guy has told all the neighbors that Ellen's blood-stained bag did not match her shoes, so she whiles away the long days in her office by composing bizarre images that she mails anonymously to Patty Hewes. Patty, busy suing a major East Coast university on behalf of an employee injured in the line of duty, isn't fooled for a second. From the comfort of her recently renovated loft, she sends Ellen a copy of Photoshop for Dummies along with a curt note: Get a life, Ellen. Move on. Ellen reads the note and cries quietly at her desk, but then picks up her iPhone and begins shooting again, unable to resist trying to force Patty Hewes to pay attention to her. Somehow. Anyhow. Even contempt is a form of recognition. Ooooh, Ellen thinks. That "Lolo" effect is cool. Patty will love that, won't she? She has to . . . .





(Photo Credits: Moose, in the bathroom, on her iPhone, 4/2/10)

Happy Easter/Passover/Pagan Festival of Spring, my little chickens. May your gardens be prolific and your bones be strong. Peace out.

Snow Daze

(Photo Credit: Moose, 2/7/10)

The Knickerbocker record is safe, but we had ourselves a $hitload of snow here in the national capital area over the weekend, kids. At this point, we are way over trying to measure the stuff, though Moose did of course take a stab at that when the storm finally ended late Saturday afternoon. She measured 20 inches up by the house, but it was much deeper out in the remote section of the ridiculously large backyard, which she visited yesterday to check on a stand of Leyland cypresses she planted back in '95. She has always called those trees her "mighty sons" (don't ask me -- it's some cryptic Willa Cather joke, I think), and they seemed to be struggling under the weight of the wet, heavy snow. She borrowed a long window-washing tool from a neighbor to shake some of the snow and ice out of the branches. That's the kind of thing Moose does when she feels anxious about a situation but can't do much to change or improve it. Heaven help us if she starts obsessing about ice dams. Goose might have to summon an army of mighty sons and daughters to restrain her from climbing out on the roof to shovel off snow if that happens.

Goose has been encouraging Moose to take pictures of the storm and its aftermath as a way to keep her safely occupied. Here is a public link to the album she uploaded to Facebook. You can access it even if you are not Moose's friend, even if you are famously Facebook-phobic or Facebook-contemptuous. (Yes, Historiann, that includes you.) It documents the storm from the first flakes on Friday to the start of the big dig-out on Sunday. WaPo has a gallery of photos up that is almost as impressive as Moose's. It's here. Oh, and if you're interested in how DC's famous and powerful are coping with the snow, click here. (Short version, with spoiler: Power couple Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan spent Saturday glued to the TV and their computers, as Greenspan prepped for a scheduled appearance on Meet the Press Sunday morning. Gee, and I would have figured those two crazy kids would have spent a snow day doing unspeakable things on a rug before a roaring fire!)

The storm has had a significant impact on the DC-area chapter of the Aging Sisterhood of Righteous Academic Fem Bloggers. (Sisterhood of the Non-Traveling Laptoppers?) Moose has been reluctant to type for this blog, thinking she needs to conserve hand and shoulder strength for shoveling out the next dump of snow being predicted for Tuesday night. (Five to ten more inches! Good times, people, good times.) Clio Bluestocking finally broke a prolonged blog silence this morning, with photos and a detailed description of her efforts to dig her car out of her apartment building's parking lot. (Clio, baby, we've got shovels! So near and yet so far! Here's hoping the white merlot hasn't run out yet!) Meanwhile, the indefatigable Margaret Soltan of University Diaries has decamped to a hotel on Rockville Pike, because her home in Bethesda has been without power since Friday night. She is back to blogging, though, and wins the prize for most poetic description of the storm:

The snow came down thin and sifty like confectioner’s sugar, but when it finally stopped the whole world was whipped cream.

Moose might have said the whole world was mousse, but, well, she is not a poet and Soltan is, so we'll defer to her. Moose was rather pleased with the FB status line she came up with to go with the photo at the top of this post, which she took first thing Saturday morning: Moose awoke to diamonds, she typed, as the morning sun transformed the ridiculously large backyard into an ocean of tiny sparkles. Nice try, Moose, but don't give up the gig as a lit critter, 'kay?

Meanwhile, inside the house, the moms polished off the last of the baked potato soup last night while watching Super Bowl commercials (H/T June Star) and waiting for Big Love to start. They've got a big box of Clementines to ward off scurvy, plenty of booze, and a bunch of chicken thighs destined to become a hearty but low-fat stew this evening. They've amused themselves by watching basketball and were tickled pink that the Non-Lady Terps used a blizzard of 3-point shots to immobilize the visiting Tar Heels of UNC, handing Coach Roy Williams his worst defeat in ten years. They also caught the premier of HBO's riveting biopic Temple Grandin, with Claire Danes in the title role. Danes is amazing, as are Julia Ormond as Grandin's quietly determined mother and Catherine O'Hara as an empathetic aunt. Directed by Mick Jackson, the film does an exceptional job of showing viewers how Grandin, an autistic, views and experiences the world. It doesn't entirely avoid a narrative of heroic disability, but there is much that is heroic in Grandin's story. More importantly, the film -- and Grandin herself -- asks us to look at autism not so much as a disability as a difference in neurological development and function. Grandin is fortunate in having had strong allies and advocates, but her success as an animal behaviorist and livestock consultant must also be credited to her having made the most of autistic modes of seeing and being. Temple Grandin is a powerful argument in support of neurodiversity.

So, no serious signs of cabin fever so far in Roxie's World, though that could change quickly if water starts pouring out of ceiling lights (meaning that ice dams have started to melt and the water has nowhere else to go because downspouts are frozen solid) or if Tuesday night's storm proves to be as big and awful as some of the predictions are beginning to suggest it might be. The moms will be okay as long as the liquor holds out and the cable stays on, but, hold onto your hats if they can't tune into Damages Wednesday night with a little nip of something to warm their tummies. That just wouldn't be fair . . . or pretty.

Be well, my little snow angels. Tell us how you're holding up and what your strategy is for getting through the next round. Good grief, kids, what shall we call the next one when we haven't even dug out of the last one? How about, Say It Ain't Snow? Leave your suggestions and the tales of your adventures and tribulations in comments.

Cute blue and white guy on the right is Moose's new Facebook doppelganger. Because Roxie's World is firmly committed to seasonally appropriate identity costuming. Peace out.

Helping Haiti

We had another post in mind for today, one that involved high degrees of snark regarding the decline and fall of NBC and the epic knicker-wadding going on between Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, two individuals about whom we could not care less if we tried. (Steve Pearlstein has a good piece on the brouhaha in today's Wa Po, arguing that NBC's "late-night farce is emblematic of just about everything that is wrong with American business these days." Meanwhile, in the Times, Maureen Dowd proves she was always cut out to be an entertainment reporter with a column focused on the burning question of how NBC president Jeff Zucker manages to survive, given the amount of damage he has done to the peacock network. Here's hoping MoDo will keep her jaundiced eye more on Hollywood in the future. Jeff Zucker deserves her. Hillary Clinton and the rest of the nation's grownups do not.)

Anyway, we were going to propose that Wanda Sykes be brought in to broker a peace deal between the warring tribes of aging Leno-ites and Conan's vengeful barbarians. We think NBC would do well to fill its entire prime-time schedule, five nights a week, with the wit and wisdom of Wanda Sykes. We'd tune in, and so would every other vagina-equipped person in America.

The terrible news from Haiti today has diminished our appetite for snark, however. As the dimensions of the tragedy there begin to emerge, we pause to send good thoughts in the direction of the island nation and our deepest condolences to those who have lost friends and family. We also urge readers who can to make a contribution to the earthquake relief effort being organized by Partners In Health, the international health and social justice organization founded by physician and anthropologist Paul Farmer. It's super easy to give. Please do so if you can.

Peace to those who are gone. Love and healing to those who remain. Dogspeed, friends.

(Photo Credit: Ivanoh Demers, Associated Press, 1/12/09. New York Times caption: "A man carried a child outside the Hotel Villa Créole on Tuesday evening. Haiti sits on a large fault line that has caused catastrophic quakes in the past, but this one was described as among the most powerful to hit the region.")

Hillary's Elbow

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had surgery today to repair a broken elbow after she fell Wednesday in a parking garage at the State Department on her way to a meeting at the White House. The surgery, we are pleased to report, because we care deeply about the SOS and all of her body parts, was a success.

Which means we are now free to ask,

Is the elbow the funny bone -- or is it not?

NOT:

If you are comedian Craig Ferguson, who had this to say in response to news of Clinton's injury:

Not such a great day for Hillary Clinton. She fell down, broke her elbow . . . . You know, Fox News is going to be all over this story. This proves the Democrats are weak. Reagan fell over 10 times, didn't even break his hair.

Now the official report said that Hillary fell while she was walking to her car in the parking lot of the State Department. But Hillary likes to exaggerate, so she's telling everybody it was sniper fire.

The Secret Service performed beautifully but they had to use the Jaws of Life to cut Hillary out of her pantsuit.

ALSO NOT:

If you are comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who offered this doodalicious little quip:

Our secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is in a cast. She fell and fractured her elbow. Fortunately, her scowl broke the fall, so she is okay.

COULD BE:

If you are Dave Letterman, who said this, perhaps hoping not to infuriate the only two women left in the country who aren't outraged at his tasteless jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter:

When he heard [Clinton] broke her elbow, Rush Limbaugh sent over some painkillers. So she's going to be fine.

MOST DEFINITELY IS:

If you are Melissa McEwan, goddess of Shakesville and most righteously hilarious feminazi on the face of dog's earth (except for my typist), who had this to say on the subject of Hillary Clinton's broken elbow:

The fall is just a cover story. It's really a repetitive strain injury sustained from four decades of nudging dudez in the ribs to get shit done or get the hell out of her way. Feminist elbow.

Now that is funny, Liss. Thanks for showin' 'em how it's done. You get a PAWS UP from the funny girls of Roxie's World, and the SOS gets two Vicodins and this inspirational poster for Edie Falco's delicious new show about another woman with her own wicked case of feminist elbow. Get well soon, Hill. The world needs you, and we love you.

Q&A

1. Roxie, how's the dying going? Weren't you supposed to be dead by now?

Indeed, I was, thanks for asking, but I hope loyal readers won't be disappointed to learn that I am way behind schedule on the whole dying thing. Perhaps I have picked up my typist's habit of procrastination, or perhaps my primary vet, Dr. Kevorkavet as she is known in our house, was off in her prediction (dramatically announced here) that I would expire in two weeks without treatment. The sand has run through the hourglass she set up for me two weeks ago this very day, but I live and breathe, beloveds, and don't have any sense that the curtain has risen on my play's last scene, so put your hankies away until further notice.

I am still on what we are calling hospice care but doing well under the tender supervision of an expanding platoon of nurses. I've been off all medications for more than two weeks. My back legs aren't working, but I am not in pain, so Moose has decided I never was in pain and that the problem with my mobility in the past couple of years was probably due not to arthritis but to a neurological condition that causes weakness but not pain. (We'd have to do a bunch of tests to confirm that diagnosis, but, frankly, at this point, we have more faith in our guts and good sense than we do in doctors, so we are opting not to do that.) I continue to eat, drink, and poop normally, and my coat is so soft that Moose buries her nose in it at least once a day. I use my front paws to scoot around the house a little and can still take a few steps out in the yard. I remain alert and content. At least once a day, I cover Goose's face with kisses just to let her know who is boss.

2. If a tree falls on the White House lawn and nobody hears it, is it still George Bush's fault? (Apocalyptically bad weather in the DC-area again today, kids -- It has to be somebody's fault.)

Absolutely. I think this AP video proves that beyond the shadow of a doubt:



3. Will the terrorists win if American cartoonists depict Dick Cheney as a leather queen doing a really kinky dom scene?

Oh, hell, no. Cheney sent our kids to Iraq to make the world safe for just this kind of stuff:

(H/T: Mel.)

4. If Obama is a "fierce advocate" for LGBT equality, what would an un-fierce advocate be doing on DADT, DOMA, ENDA, and other issues?

Excellent question -- Let's hand that one off to Butch PhD, since she came up with it on last night's show:



5. It's summer. Soon it will be too hot to go outside. I can't afford a vacation and, really, if I write all summer long I run the risk of finishing that dissertation and having to go out on the job market in a year when there will in all likelihood be no jobs whatsoever. What should I watch on TV?

Easy: Get Showtime for the summer and watch Weeds (season 5) and the brand new Edie Falco vehicle, Nurse Jackie. Granted, that is only an hour of viewing pleasure every week, but, hey, you can watch each episode two or three times and tell yourself you are looking for clever pop cult references to sprinkle into the diss that you aren't finishing! We continue to worry about the dark turn Weeds has taken, but it pairs brilliantly with Nurse Jackie, where Falco's Eliot-quoting, oxy-snorting, nun-educated tough girl is riveting. The show is smart and stylish, and the supporting cast (which includes Anna Deveare Smith!) is strong. We have a hunch Nurse Jackie is going to make us long for a check-up. (Watch the first episode of Nurse Jackie here. See Mary McNamara's review of both shows here.)

What else have you got cookin' this summer, kids? Let us know. If my death is on hold, I better get back to living at full throttle, and that means making sure my legions of loyal fans are well and happy and pleasantly distracted from the seriousness of everything. Don't be strangers, darlings. Give your old pal Roxie a click sometime. You won't regret it. Peace out.

To Bea or Not to Bea

Sorry for all the death blogging lately, kids, but people we care about are dropping like flies, so what are we to do? Anyway, at least with Bea Arthur we get to put up knee-slapping vids that make you laugh while you contemplate mortality. Regrettably, we can't put up the full six minutes of Bea's killer (get it?) performance at a 2005 Comedy Central roast of Pamela Anderson (because the meanies of Viacom have had it taken down off the YouTubes over a copyright claim), but here are a couple of choice morsels that show Bea at her dead(get it?)pan best. My typist is particularly enamored of these bits because Arthur, in reading selections from Anderson's 2005 novel Star Struck, compellingly reminds us of why, in the biopic of Moose's life, the part of her dissertation director, a formidable founder of feminist literary criticism, was to have been played by Beatrice Arthur. Alas.

Here's Arthur, setting up her readings from Anderson's novel, in full-on professorial style:

Roast of Pamela Anderson - Bea Arthur Roasts Pam's Novel | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

And here she is on the subjects of intimate bargaining, the hydraulics and mechanics of sex, and, yes, anal eroticism:

Roast of Pamela Anderson
Bea Arthur Uncensored
comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

Yes, Bea Arthur was queerer than you are. And funnier, too, but that's all right. Need something a little less risqué to talk about around the water cooler tomorrow? Treat yourself to the full 7 minutes of this highlight reel from the first two seasons of Golden Girls. qta passed it along via Facebook, and we pass it along to you as a way of saying, you know, thank you for being a friend. Peace out.

RIP Bea Arthur

With thanks from the tall girls who, instead of going out for the basketball team, auditioned for the choir and stood shoulder to shoulder on the back row, belting out the alto line of "The Impossible Dream" with visions of you dancing in their heads.

With admiration from the pretty boys who couldn't help loving a genetic woman who really ought to be played by Harvey Fierstein in the biopic.

With gratitude from every golden person who ever sat alone in front of the TV laughing with delight at the wit, wisdom, and deep kindness of Dorothy Zbornak and her feisty pals.

Thanks for walking tall, singing loud, speaking out, going gray, taking up space, and offering the world an advanced seminar in the semiotics of eyebrows. We needed it. We needed you. You will be missed.

New York Times obit is here. Money quote? In response to a reporter's suggestion that her character on Golden Girls bore more than a faint resemblance to her path-breaking title character on Maude, Arthur said:

Look -- I'm 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice and I have a way with a line. What can I do about it? I can't stay home waiting for something different. I think it's a total waste of energy worrying about typecasting.

In high school, according to the Times, she was shy about her height but overcame it "by winning over her classmates with wisecracks. She was elected the wittiest girl in her class."

Ms. Arthur, my typist loves you with all her big and tall and sometimes witty girl's heart. Dogspeed.

And because you always felt like something of a bosom buddy, we'll send you off with this song from Mame (for which you won a Tony). Here is Arthur with Angela Lansbury. Wait for the 3-minute mark, when the two golden gals of the theater shimmy across the stage together for the big finish:



Sentimental Bonus Track: Arthur as Dorothy on The Golden Girls, singing "What'll I Do?" It's lovely and a little bit funny, as only Arthur could be: