I've developed a bad habit of going to the Los Angeles County Museum's exhibits at the end of their run, and as a result, I haven't bothered to blog about the last few I've seen. However, there's still time for Angelenos to see Dali: Painting & Film, especially with the holidays coming up.

I'm not a big fan of LACMA's blockbuster exhibits when they are organized around a single artist or movement. I much prefer their major exhibits when they present a definite slant or perspective, even if the result is a partial rather than a comprehensive view of the subject.

Dali: Painting & Film focuses on an aspect of Salvador Dali's work, the connection between his paintings and various film endeavors. This framework offers more experienced viewers with a new way to look at familiar Dali pieces as well as previously unseen material. For those who might be seeing Dali in depth for the first time, the exhibit sketched in enough of Dali's biography and other important works to give a sense of his overall development and contribution as an artist.

I knew of some of the connections between Dali and film on entering the exhibit, but hadn't realized Dali was so influenced by film comedy. The exhibit traces Dali's famous melting watch image back to the silent film Safety Last! and documents Dali's attempt to work on a project with the Marx Brothers, who he thought of as surrealists.

The dour side of Dali is present in his more autobiographical paintings, which often revolved around his troubled relationship with his father. The dreamlike imagery of these paintings shows up in Hitchcock's Spellbound, for which Dali designed a dream sequence. You can watch the scene on YouTube here.

For me, the highlight of the exhibit was being able to finally see Destino, the animated short created by Disney based on ideas and storyboards provided by Salvador Dali. Although Dali worked with the Disney Studios on plans for the film during the 1940s, the short did not actually get made until 2003. There have been a few showings of the film in Los Angeles, but Destino has never been widely released and is not available on video or DVD.

The action reminded me of a ballet in the way the main characters' movements expressed emotion and narrative. As we sat together watching the film, it became clear to me and the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend why it was not made earlier: there is a sensuous and even erotic quality to the female lead. It's not titillating so much as it is bold.

As the female character explores her dreamlike surroundings, there is a playful metamorphosis of objects as she interacts with her environment. A bell becomes a ballerina, insects turn into bicyclists. Emotions transform, too, as grotesque imagery suddenly gives way to a sorrowful tableau. The emphasis on transformations surprised me, since so much Disney animation is based on a quasi-realism.

Dali, however, embraced the theme of metamorphosis in his non-moving work, as shown in the painting I've included above. This was one of my favorite works from the exhibit, using sequential doubles to indicate transformation.

There are some segments of Destino on YouTube but they don't give a very good impression of the whole. There are also very few still shots from the film available on the web, due to obviously well-policed copyright restrictions. I hope the short will be released on DVD at some point; in the meantime, grab the chance to see Destino if you have the chance.

Today, there was an international show of support for the writer's strike, with demonstrations held in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, France, Mexico and New Zealand.

There's been tremendous fan support for the writers on the web, but it's also good to see that people understand that the writers' fight for fair pay is every worker's fight.

If you haven't done so already, you can sign a petition in support of the writers.

I'm making up for the time since my last post with a catch-up post, summarizing my experience over the last few weeks. I decided the easiest way to do this was to divide the major events in my life into two categories: those keeping me sane and those driving me towards the brink. Here are my highs and lows of the past month:

Keeping me sane

• The Force is with me. The sister and I went out one night together and bought matching Sony PSP Star Wars Bundles. We had both held out on the system until now; she wanted it for Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, and I wanted it for Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. We both love Star Wars, and Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, the game that came with the bundle, proved to be more fun than I expected.


• Karma junkie. Under the Bush administration, I've become impatient with reading the news. I want my news straight up these days, that's why I depend on Max and Stacy's daily Karmabanque podcast. They don't futz around with the intricacies of party politics. They just give me what I want to know, raw: who made how much money killing, oppressing and impoverishing who. Their Gulag Wealth Fund provides a shorthand method of tracking what's really going on.


• Screamin' like a banshee. Joe sent me the CD of Siouxsie Sioux's new solo album, Mantaray, for my birthday. It's pretty gorgeous. Years ago, I remember hearing Siouxsie and the Banshee's song "Desert Kisses" when Kaleidoscope first came out and thinking to myself, "This is kind of lesbian." That's also been my reaction to almost every song on Mantaray. In this case, however, Siouxsie's said a few things in the press to confirm that interpretation.


• Girly stuff. I really, really like the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend's Elmo panties. The hot pink ones, with "Love Me" written in bubble letters above the picture of Elmo on the crotch. I know, I know. TMI.


• Aspirational television. I have been totally hooked on the show Damages. Week after week I've watched in awe as Glenn Close opened my mind to immense new vistas of bitchiness. Through the character Patty Hewes, Close has brought me to understand levels of bitchiness I never even knew existed. I ask myself: can I possibly aspire to such intensely bitched out behavior in my lifetime? Am I up to the challenge? Thank you, Glenn Close. You have raised the bar for me.

• Where there's fire there's smoke. The air in Los Angeles after the Southern California fires has been an abomination--a miserable, foul toxic brew. There is just no way to explain to you how bad the air feels, tastes, smells. The best word I can come up with to describe it to you is: chewy.


• I was robbed. Anyone who has had a girlfriend knows there's a brief window of time after your girlfriend has swiped some an item in your wardrobe when it's possible to get that item back. If you act forcefully within this time period, taking back the item in question, one can retrain the girlfriend, much as one would an errant puppy: "No. Put that down. Put it down. No! That's not for you!"
  However, if one misses this brief window, one has no option but to give the item up. And so I say now: "Goodbye, faithful bedroom slippers! Fare thee well."


• Another one bites the dust. Johnny Bacardi is leaving the blogosphere after five years of publishing The Johnny Bacardi Show. But all is not lost, as he can still be found on livejournal and at his Elton John blog.


• La nausee. While shopping in the Container Store with the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend, I suffered an existential meltdown as I was confronted with the full extent of my own lack of organization. I shuddered as the world was revealed as just so many things in need of being boxed.


• Don't tell mama. I missed Lucy Lawless's show in Chicago, a fact of which I am not proud. But I poured over the pictures and commentary from the event, and I contributed this lovely wallpaper derived from the show, which I encourage you to download. I will be there both nights of Lucy's Roxy shows in January. Email me if you want to meetup.

There is a lot of wildlife here in Los Angeles. Although it's just my impression, I have the sense that there have been more wild animals roaming the city than usual, owing to drought and recent wildfires. Reggie, however, is an exotic animal, raised illegally as a pet and then released into the wild as he grew larger.

Although I understand the harm that can result from introducing exotic animals into the ecosystem, there's something about exotics in Los Angeles that sort of fits. In an environment like this, it would seem odd if 7-foot alligators weren't running loose.

When it was discovered that Reggie the alligator was living freely in Machado Lake, many failed attempts were made to capture him. Reggie's ability to elude capture for two years made him into a local legend and won him many fans.

Eventually Reggie was captured in the grand L.A. manner, with helicopters hovering overhead to record the scene on film. Recently, Reggie was re-introduced to the public via his own private exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo. There was much fanfare, as the public came out to celebrate the People's Alligator.

However, shortly after his debut at the zoo, Reggie went missing. He was found lounging under a tree in the children's petting zoo. No one was hurt, or eaten. But I read that Reggie was put on 24-hour watch to prevent him from escaping again, in addition to the microchip he already wears for tracking purposes.

It's clear to me that Reggie symbolizes people's desire for freedom, and that why he's so popular. But I have to wonder, if Reggie were a person, what kind of person would he be? Would he be the homeless person who is offered shelter only to run off to live under a bridge? Would he be a gun-toting survivalist giving the finger to the government?

Yesterday the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend and I went to see WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Geffen Contemporary, a satellite location of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

I had read that the show was monumental in scope and the truth is that it was completely overwhelming. WACK! covers feminist art from the 1960s to the present day, both in the U.S. and abroad. The physical layout of the show was confusing and mazelike, and a minimalist approach to labeling (no narrative context, no translations) made it difficult to get a handle on many of the pieces on display.

Nonetheless, it's a collection that's worth making an effort to see and understand. WACK! represents the work of over 120 women artists, including Mary Kelly, Tee Corinne, Faith Ringgold--whose work is pictured here--Barbara Hammer, and Judith F. Baca.

The WACK! website seems to contain much of the context that wasn't present at the exhibit. There are photographs, exhibit walkthroughs, and podcast lectures by represented artists as well as feminist art historians available online for free. Also, the exhibit catalog is massive and well-organized, providing additional depth to this encyclopedic show.

Artwork from the late 1960s and 1970s in the U.S. forms a major portion of the show. One of the pieces from this period that intrigued me was General Strike Piece, by Lee Lozano, an avant-garde NY artist. In a series of written pages from a peyote-fueled journal, Lozano chronicles a series of acts she takes in pursuit of "TOTAL PERSONAL & PUBLIC REVOLUTION."

Another work, Prostitution Notes, by Suzanne Lacy, consists of handwritten or drawn notes on cardboard documenting the working lives of L.A. prostitutes, as well as her own reactions and relationship to the women she observes. Like Lozano's piece, Prostitution Notes, is as much about self-interrogation and self-discovery as it is about confrontation with patriarchy.

Some of the art in WACK! struck me as strongly dated. Visual works that incorporated magazine advertisements as a means of critiquing the representation of women seemed to veer into kitsch. Similarly, a few works that were taken as powerful gender critiques when they were originated seemed crude in light of more recent art informed by gay, lesbian and transgender perspectives on gender.

I enjoyed many of the sculptural and installation pieces in the show, including walking into Faith Wilding's cavelike Crocheted Environment, shown here in an older photo. My girlfriend and I were both mightily impressed with photos of Ana Mendieta's earthworks series, Siluetas. Mendieta created a working volcano shaped like a vagina and then documented it in the act of exploding. We loved seeing the earthworks vagina spewing red hot fire. I wish the MOCA gift shop had printed Mendiata's work on a coffee mug--I would have bought it.

Today is my friend Joe's birthday. Since I'm writing about that, I suppose it's time I let everyone know that Joe is going to be abandoning leaving me soon for a new job in the Midwest. Joe moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school, and so his leaving is something we both knew would be coming one day. I've got him til mid-July though. Congratulations and Happy Birthday Joe!

Friday night, the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend, Joe and I went out to celebrate Joe's birthday at a local ex-pat Italian restaurant. We enjoyed a very leisurely meal, toasting Joe's birthday as well as the recent death of Jerry Falwell. Joe remarked, "When I heard he died, I thought the only thing that could be better than this is if it happened on my birthday."

There was a certain "last hurrah" feeling in the air, knowing that Joe would be leaving soon. Though you never would have guessed mourning was on our minds based on how Joe and I wolfed down individual chocolate souffles. I will miss seeing Joe's sly looks, like the one he gave me as he gazed at our empty souffle dishes. There will be a whole lot of Google Talk in our future, I'm guessing.

Since I'm going to be driving out to Palm Springs for Dinah Shore, I figured I would use the occasion to pimp my ride. Because we all the know the ladies enjoy a good ride. Actually, it has less to do with impressing women and more to do with anticipating traffic. I've heard that the road from L.A. to Palm Springs is basically one long caravan of dykes before Dinah, and if the traffic is going to be bumper to bumper I'm going to want some music to calm my nerves.

After checking around on various audio forums, I decided I wanted to upgrade my head unit (heh, heh) to one that could play mp3 CDs and integrate with my second-gen iPod Nano. I wound up choosing a Pioneer model based on my online research. It has this very cool blue readout with a slew of different visualizations, including a movie of dolphins frolicking in the ocean.

Next I made the decision not to install the new unit myself. I don't mind opening the computer or other electronics but I'm not ready for car electronics yet. Plus I'm a busy lesbian and sometimes one just has to pay for these things. I also decided I did not want Circuit City or some big box store messing with my car. So I went to California Car Sounds on National in Los Angeles and they did the installation and setup for me. These guys were cool so if you're looking for a car audio shop in L.A., I had a good experience with them.

Last weekend, the Cute-Little-Red-Headed-Girlfriend and I went to see the "Shared Women" exhibit of lesbian feminist art at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) in Hollywood. The show was brought to my attention by the New York Times, where it was favorably reviewed alongside the massive WACK! exhibit happening at MOCA. I also discovered, via art.blogging.la, that there are a number of female-focused shows being held across Los Angeles to coincide with WACK!

Stepping into the "Shared Women" show transported me back to the mid-80s, when so many gay and lesbian artistic endeavors were overtly activist and mobilized around the issue of AIDS. It was a time when gays and lesbians in the U.S. still thought of themselves as part of a liberation movement, as opposed to a highly focused consumer segment or an incredibly large and enthusiastic group of wedding planners. (Sorry. That was bitter.)

I had a small point-and-shoot camera with me, so I was able to take a bunch of photos at the exhibit, which I've put up as a set at the photo-sharing site Zooomr. They're not great quality, but you can view the photos in whatever size you wish, download them, read my embedded notes, or comment on them. Warning: these photos are not even remotely work safe. There are many, many vaginas and sex acts represented. Click on this link to view the set.

The exhibit's title, "Shared Women," brought to mind a number of associations: sharing, sampling, collectivism, wife-swapping. After seeing the show, all of those meanings seem to have been intended, plus a few more: sharing of bodies and identities, sharing as a group celebration, and sharing as the result of exclusion or "non-sharing."

Sharing through exclusion was the theme of the first piece I saw, a collection of homemade commemorative plates depicting the First Ladies of the United States. Their photos had been taped on a hodge-podge collection of cheap, transparent glass plates. The DIY nature of the piece was certainly contemporary, while also underlining the relationship between craft, kitsch and women's work.

There weren't any exhibit notes that I could take home with me, so I can't identify most of the artists in the show for you now. But I recognized the work of the next artist I saw, Nicole Eisenman, who I've previously written about. Spread across two walls and the floor below, Eisenman's work focused on the lesbian body.

Looming large over the installation was an image of the L Word's iconic character Shane, pregnant, with a phallic arm ending in a clenched fist emerging from her vagina. In a word balloon Shane asks, "How can I get people to pour their love into my emptyness?" On the floor beneath Eisenman's assemblage lay a sculpture of two lifesized beavers engaging in oral sex. The receiving beaver lay in ecstasy on her back, tiny paws waving in the air.

At the other end of the room was a large purple mural by a Canadian group of artists called "Welcome to Gayside." The mural was of a large fantasy landmass with gay-, lesbian- and transgender-themed geographic features and populations. Interspersed on the map were small drawings showing gays communing with the natural world. My favorite of these showed a naked lesbian finger-fucking a sheep.

Someone working at the gallery told me the sheep picture had caused some consternation among visitors to the gallery. I thought it was a hilarious send-up of the belief that lesbians, and women generally, are not as sexually aggressive as men, nor as depraved in their tastes. I also loved the way the image parodied lesbians' own beliefs about themselves, in this case, the idea that lesbians are all animal lovers.

I was really excited to see four pieces by G.B. Jones included in the show. Her drawings depict lesbian dramas in the style of the infamous gay artist and pornographer, Tom of Finland. The stylistic translation from gay male to lesbian subject matter serves to highlight cultural differences between the sexes, yet her drawings still retain the erotic charge of Tom of Finland's work.

There was a video piece by Tara Mateik on display called P.Y.T. In this faux-music video, an androgynous figure dressed as Peter Pan dances and and lip-synchs to the Michael Jackson song "Pretty Young Thing" while clips from filmed productions of Peter Pan roll in the background. You can watch a clip from the video here.

The "Shared Women" exhibit is on view at LACE through April 9.

View more photos at my page.

There's been this circles-and-portals theme on The L Word this season. It ties in to the show's affiliated social networking site for lesbians, called Our Chart. I like the features on Our Chart--the blog, the videos--but I haven't actually created a chart for myself yet.

In honor of the L Word's finale next Sunday, I thought I would offer my own circles meme for any and all to take up: If each character on the show is represented by a circle, how would you merge the circles in order to define yourself? Or, more simply, which characters are you most like?

I ripped off the above format from indexed to create a diagram of myself connected to Bette and Shane. I also labeled the parts of Bette and Shane I relate to with quotes from the show: "little freak" (from Season 4, episode 1) and "bombastic bully" (from Season 4, episode 8). Who are you most like?

I had to pick up a copy of Wildstorm's Red Menace series as soon as I saw it on the rack (it's what my FBI agent would expect me to do). It's such a fabulous story! And of course when I say fabulous I don't mean just any fabulous, I mean Commie Pinko Homo Fabulous.

Red Menace is a six-part comic series set during the McCarthy hearings, and although the focus of the title isn't on McCarthy, the story weaves in significant people and events from that era. The plot involves a costumed superhero, the Eagle, whose loyalty to the state is questioned. I'm not sure where all the story threads are headed yet--they include mobsters, Soviet spying, and the mentoring of a younger hero--but so far the comic has tons of retro style and atmosphere and I'm enjoying the ride.

Much of Red Menace is set in Los Angeles, and I really like the way the artist has captured many of the architectural oddities of the city. Whether the story unfolds at the Pantages Theater, in front of a neon-lit nightclub, at the race track or inside a cheesy west coast apartment, the attention to setting gives the title a unique feel.

Last weekend, the Cute-Little-Red-Headed-Girlfriend and I went to the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens to see the art exhibit Constable's Great Landscapes: The Six-Foot Paintings.

The exhibit focuses on a series of Suffolk landscapes Constable painted over and over during his life. The show reveals that Constable chose the imposing six-foot format for his paintings not for aesthetic reasons but simply to get the attention of the right people, in his case, the Royal Academy.

The exhibit reveals the creative and technical processes Constable used to create his landscapes on a grand scale. Most of the six-foot paintings are hung beside six-foot oil sketches, which are much more dynamic than the finished painting. In other cases, the larger paintings have been scaled up from smaller though finished paintings. By viewing the sequence of paintings that led to the final six-foot version, one can see Constable's editing process as he removes or changes elements or alters the mood of the landscape.

I was very interested in the scaling techniques that Constable developed to create his six-foot landscapes. I recently purchased David Hockney's updated thesis, the controversial Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, which reveals the various ocular devices used by artists throughout the centuries to create realistic perspective. Often thought of as "cheats," Hockney shows how these projecting devices were part of the craft of painting and held closely as trade secrets among artisans.

In the digital age, when the use of technology to create art is often viewed with suspicion--especially if the makers are amateurs--I found it refreshing to see such a revered painter as Constable as part of this history of artistic tinkerers and crafters.

So far, I've managed to resist falling prey to the dunny collecting passion. Dunnys, for the uninitiated, are a fiendishly cute series of artist-created collectible toys. They're sold in blind boxes, so you don't know which one you're getting when you buy them. And they're produced in varying numbers, so some are rare while others are more common. They're also immensely popular collectibles here in L.A.

I first witnessed the madness dunnys can inspire in one of my co-workers, whose rapidly growing collection of dunnys slowly took over his workspace. One day, I watched over his shoulder as he browsed auctions for some of the more hard-to-find dunnys on eBay. He confessed to having participated in several bidding wars over the toys, and that's when a steady voice inside my head first cautioned me: "Don't go there, don't go there."

That voice has stayed with me, despite the release of the right-up-my-alley Los Angeles series of dunnys, the terribly adorable Batman-inspired dunny, the unconscionably precious blue-meenie-style dunny. But with the release of the Azteca series, designed by 12 Mexican artists and designers, I give up. Just watch this sweet fan-made film featuring several Azteca dunnys hitting a dunny-blind-box-shaped pinata and then you try to resist.

Amanda and Michelle of The Girls Productions! offered a peek at what they've been up to lately on their blog. Turns out they've been laboring on a lot of fine art and schwag to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disneyland. I've put up a sample of the art that they'll be showing at the gallery above the ride on March 18. This print is called "Showem your larboard side" and depicts the famous auction sequence from the attraction, in which the pirates are all shouting "We want the Redhead! We want the Redhead!" You can check out the rest of their Pirates work here.

Last week, the character of Phyllis Kroll was added to The L Word. I'm really happy about this new character for a number of reasons. I think it's fantastic that the series is including older women as cast members and showing them to be active, sexual beings.

Phyllis is in her 50s and has enjoyed a long conventional married life when she begins to reconsider her sexual orientation. I don't know what is true today, but when I first came out, it was definitely more common for women to come out after having married than before. Coming out in one's teens was not a typical experience back then, and I sometimes wonder how much things have changed. In any case, I think Phyllis's narrative is an important one to include on the show.

While it's unusual for television to promote older women as sex objects (there are exceptions, of course, like BSG's Mary McDonnell), I don't think it's unusual in terms of lesbian sexuality. In my experience, lesbians have tended to be more flexible than the mainstream about what constitutes female beauty. It's nice to see that reflected with the inclusion of attractive older characters like Peggy Peabody and now Phyllis.

But the best thing about Phyllis, in my opinion, is the casting. Cybill Shepherd's great with goofball humor, and I love her past work, including two (!) Martha Stewart TV-movies that I absolutely howled at, and her sitcom, Cybill, which dealt with a variety of women's issues. Plus anyone who dated Elvis is just inherently cool.

But my most positive associations with Cybill Shepherd stem from her willingness to participate in the 1993 March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights at a time when things were not so rosy for gays and lesbians. I was at that march and I remember the lift that it gave people to see a Hollywood celebrity in the streets with us. I will never forget it. In the complicated playbook of my affections, if an actor who plays gay gets 10 points for bravery, an actor willing to march with gays gets about 1000.

You can hear Cybill Shepherd talk about her activism for gay and lesbian and women's causes on this week's L Word podcast.

"I am not watching one more time!" I vowed to those in the room. "It's over! I'm done with it! They have so jumped the shark for me!"
My outburst came moments after the marathon watching last year's Academy Awards show with the Cute Little Red Headed Girlfriend, Joe, and the Sister. I was pissed over Brokeback Mountain's losses, which I attributed to homophobia. I was expecting my pals to join me in my righteous anger, but instead I was faced with smiles and soft chuckles. I was confused.
"Don't you agree with me?!" I asked.
"Yes, we agree with you," the Girlfriend said jovially. "It's just that you say this every year."
"No. I mean it this time!"
Okay, so let's just say I meant it for several months. Until the Academy announced that Ellen DeGeneres would be hosting the awards in 2007, and I came to terms with the inevitable.
But I'm going to need help getting through it. So this year, inspired by the annual State of the Union Address Drinking Game, I'm going to devise my own Academy Awards Drinking Game. Every time I hear a reference to piracy, copyright or DRM technologies, I'm taking a drink.
This year, I think I'll be pulling for The Devil Wear Prada. It's a hard choice between Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep, but you know, I just loved that moment when Miranda Priestly commands Andrea to get down on the carpet and hike up that ugly skirt immediately.
Wait, it didn't happen that way? Actually I went looking for Miranda/Andrea fan fiction and found some at a Russian livejournal site. I thought I had explored the outer reaches of slash fan fiction before, but until you've used Google's BETA Russian language translator to read a femslash story, I don't think you can really say that you've explored all that the genre has to offer.