Michelle Schwartz Chronicles

New Post on Cameracratic! Raging against the machine (Chapters/Indigo)

michelle — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:42:00 +0000

Angels in America

michelle — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:42:04 +0000

Tony Kushner was recently denied an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York because one trustee launched into a tirade against him at a board meeting, claiming Kushner was viciously anti-Israel and using the information from one website as proof. No other board members came to his defense or even asked for more detailed evidence proving these claims to be true. So, if we are going to judge a man based on random quotes found on the internet, here is what Tony Kushner said regarding Israel after the controversy surrounding his honorary degree from Brandeis University:

“I love Israel, but as a great fan of pluralist secular democracy, I don’t have faith in nationalist or tribalist solutions for the problems of oppressed and persecuted minorities; I have great faith…in a steadfast, absolute refusal to conflate government with religious principle or ethnic identity. I love Israel, but I am neither a Zionist nor an anti-Zionist; I’m a Diasporan Jew who isn’t willing to say that the history and culture of the Diaspora was merely a long prelude of weakness and misery leading to the founding of a Jewish state and the invention of Jewish military power – I think there are other kinds of power, there’s an alternative history of power to which Jews have made important contributions. Though I think nationalist solutions to the problems of oppressed minorities are usually mistakes, I love Israel, I am moved and excited by its culture, its meaning in Jewish history, but I’m critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people, I’m opposed to the occupation, the settlements, the barrier wall, and attacks on civilians, whether the civilians are Palestinian or Israeli. I love and admire the Palestinians but I believe that in the midst of their suffering some Palestinians have made their own terrible mistakes. I tend to believe that people make mistakes because of their suffering rather than some inherent evil. Threading through all of this error and anger, on the Israeli and Palestinian sides, I see histories of persecution, injustice and suffering in collision.”

Not exactly worthy of nightmares

michelle — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:57:26 +0000

Constance Crompton and I recently ventured South to the States for the Women in the Archives Conference at Brown University. Adventures were had, microbrews were enjoyed, architecture was admired, archives were discussed. We had some free time after the conference, and one of the conference organizers suggested we use it to visit Swan Point Cemetery. There were lots of old gravestones, she noted, as well as many bird-watching opportunities. Finally, she pointed out that H.P. Lovecraft was buried there and that his fans were always leaving “weird stuff” by his grave. Well, I am never one to turn down the promise of “weird stuff.” I have never even read H.P. Lovecraft, but I had created quite a vision of what might be there. I was imagining his grave might look like something along the lines of this:

Or this:

Or even this (we were in a university town, after all):

Sadly, after marching around in a freezing cold drizzle of rain for an hour while scrutinizing a cemetery map that would probably more accurately be described as Kafkaesque, rather than Lovecraftian, what we found was this:

Oh. How understated. No wonder we couldn’t spot it from the car – I was looking for some sort of monstrous obsidian pyramid, possibly topped with some tentacled beast, possibly with a vortex opening in the sky above it. This rather pedestrian gravestone wasn’t WEIRD at all. The best effort towards “weird” was made by whoever left the toy dinosaur:

We made our own “weird” offering of a Canadian penny. Sadly, Cthulhu did not make an appearance in order to thank (or eat) us.

Rage: The Toronto Bathhouse Raids

michelle — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:27:34 +0000

Last night I was lucky enough to attend a screening of Track Two, a 1982 documentary on the Toronto bathhouse raids. After nearly being lost to time and decay, the film has finally been digitized and made available in its entirety for free online, thanks to the generosity of Xtra! and the Pink Triangle Press.

The screening took place at Buddies in Bad Time Theatre and was sponsored by Queer Ontario and Xtra!, with proceeds benefiting the 519 Community Centre’s Seniors program. In attendance were two of the filmmakers, Gordon Keith and Jack Lemmon, as well as The Body Politic‘s Ken Popert and Gerald Hannon. It was a truly amazing experience to share a room with so many of Toronto’s gay liberation activists, without whom queers such as myself wouldn’t have all the rights we have today.

After the screening, I spoke with the filmmakers, who wanted to know how I, as a woman, felt about the movie. They said they had tried very hard to show lesbian contributions to the fight, and they were curious to know if they were successful. I told them that it was incredibly powerful to see the footage of lesbians taking to the street in defense of the men and the gay community as a whole. It was also thrilling to see interviews with some of my queer heroes, Pat Murphy and Chris Bearchell, and rousing speeches from Margaret Atwood and June Callwood.

Watch the entire film on YouTube, or read more about it and download a copy from Xtra!

International Women’s Day on PROUD FM

michelle — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:53:05 +0000

Thanks to my lovely connections, my co-curator and I were able to score not one, but two interviews on PROUD FM, Toronto’s queer radio station.

Roberta and I talked with Mike Chalut and Jonathan Rosa on The Mike Chalut Show with Acey Rowe [mp3]

I also spoke by phone with Pearse Murray on his What’s Going On segment [mp3].

Thanks to everyone at PROUD FM for helping us publicize the CLGA and International Women’s Day!

International Women’s Day: From Installation to Grand Opening!

michelle — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:36:22 +0000

The opening night for International Women’s Day: Toronto Women and the Struggle for Equality was a great success! We gave out free copies of Shameless Magazine and held a raffle to raise money for TRCC/MWAR. Karlene from TRCC gave a great talk about the history of Women’s Day in Toronto. To see photos of the installation to the opening, check out the Flickr set:

New Post on Cameracratic: North Slope Graffiti!

michelle — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:30:33 +0000

Read more!

I’m curating an exhibit!

michelle — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:15:42 +0000

For one night only, my life’s ambition was complete

michelle — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:23:40 +0000

Last night, my goal was achieved – I, Michelle Schwartz, was the number one hit on Google for “angry butch lesbian.” Thank you all for your assistance. I feel like together we really made a difference. Okay, that might be a bit of an overstatement, but I hope we all at least had some fun helping me complete my journey to the top. Click the image to admire:

Sadly, by morning, my title had been usurped by that stupid gamer forum. ::shakes fist:: But that’s okay, at least I got a screencap of my moment of glory. And with that, I hereby end my quest. This blog will now resume being a infrequently updated catalog of my dull academic pursuits and occasional forays into cooking. The end.

Advice from an Angry Butch Lesbian

michelle — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 17:54:47 +0000

After yesterday’s post, I went out for the night. When I came home, I decided to check and see if the Google robots had done their work. And lo and behold, they had! Click to enlarge:

That’s right – yours truly is now number two, three, and four in the listings. At the end of this campaign, I hope to usurp the number one position from that stupid gaming forum. I wish the search terms had been “angry butch dyke,” because I always prefer “dyke” to “lesbian,” but whatever, I will take my Google popularity where I can get it.

As the ~~self~~ Google-appointed expert on being an angry butch lesbian, today I will be writing a critique of the site ranked right below me:

wikiHow: How to Be a Butch Lesbian

Before we get down to the nitty gritty, please be aware that you will be getting advice from someone who looks like this. So, in old school forum parlance, your mileage may vary.

Okay, so, generally this WikiHow isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read on the internet, but as I once read a fanfic in which the cast of Law & Order: SVU were all 15 and went to a British boarding school, that’s not saying much.

First, I will take their quiz:

Why do you want to be butch?
To fulfill Google’s vision of me, clearly.

Do you feel attractive and natural in this look? Or is this just a cheap scheme to get women’s attention?
Hah! Wait, what? Have you been to a dyke bar lately? Every woman there–butches, femmes, and everyone in between–spent hours picking out the perfect outfit as a cheap scheme to get women’s attention. In the words of my hero, Effing Dykes:

When the first lesbian opened her eyes on the first morning of the dawn of the world, she put on a plaid shirt and walked to the first co-op, where the cute cashier promptly hit on her. They were fruitful and multiplied, and that’s where baby dykes come from.

If it weren’t for these cheap schemes to get women’s attention, there would be no lesbians at all.

Can you handle people knowing about your sexuality? How will others react?
OMG, what if they don’t like MEEEEE!1eleventy!

I would argue that most queers have to make the decision that visibility and honesty is more important to them than safety or acceptance, not just butches, although it is true that butch women take on a greater burden. Of course, the most flaming, twinkiest gay men also take these same risks, so this alone can’t define butch.

Develop more masculine mannerisms

The only part of this paragraph that I completely agree with is “Don’t slouch,” but that’s more of a general rule than a butch rule. And since my working definition of butch seems to be “I know it when I find it attractive” and I find slouching to be a total turn off, I will say that “don’t slouch” is a perfectly fine rule. The rest of the paragraph’s directive to mimic the movements of “popular guys” seems more appropriate for the Drag King Manual than butch instructions. Butch lesbians are cooler than men, therefore they don’t need to study men for tips.

Get some masculine clothing

Okay, I will second the importance of not wearing clip-on ties. The rest, WRONG. A true butch can wear whatever she wants and still be butch. I believe Yoda once said to Princess Leia, “Gold bikinis do not a butch make, but do not a butch unmake. From within comes the butch, not from without.”

Also, every lesbian wears t-shirts with cool designs on them. The butches cannot keep this one to themselves.

Shoes: You really only need 3 pairs: comfy shoes, dress shoes and boots

WRONG. A butch only needs her boots.

Boxers – No butch should wear girly undies.

WRONG. Butches can wear whatever underwear they want. Would you tell this woman “I’m sorry, but your fishnets aren’t very butch”?

No, you wouldn’t say that, because you would be too busy quaking in fear.

As an aside, we went to the opening match of the Toronto Roller Derby last night and it was super fun (except for the snow storm and the fact that the organizers only ordered one pizza at a time for a ravenous crowd of hundreds). I became totally obsessed with Land Shark (pictured above), who was the badass jammer for the Death Track Dolls. I don’t know if she would call herself butch, but at the arena there is a five foot tall photo of her with a mohawk and a face covered in blood, so… whatever she identifies as, she’s fucking hot.

So, returning to the topic of the post, the same rules apply to makeup and short hair. True butches can wear all the makeup and have as much hair as they want. True story: the butchest woman I ever saw was buying a latte in a coffee shop in Cody, Wyoming. She had long blonde hair and I believe she was wearing a pink cowgirl shirt. She also broke mustangs for a living and was 99% pure muscle. ROWR.

Be active. Try to get into a sport or just work out.

Pshaw. While I certainly enjoy a muscular woman, there is no butch imperative to be sporty. Eileen Myles is more butch than all of you, and she’s a chain-smoking poet.

You doubt me? Eileen Myles has been immortalized as a Celebrity Lezbian Fist. Have you been immortalized as a Celebrity Lezbian Fist? You haven’t? Then I’ve made my point.

Be chivalrous and gentleman-like.

Ugh, no, don’t do this. Chivalry=Misogyny. Women don’t like to be treated like small children who can’t take care of themselves. The world should dump “chivalry” in favor of “common human decency.” There’s nothing specifically “gentleman-like” about holding a door or letting a pregnant woman have your seat on the subway. Everyone should do this.

Finally, there are these final tips. This is a touchy subject, for sure, but as your friendly angry neighborhood butch, I am going to dive right in.

Don’t hate men or straight people. This makes you sink to the level of homophobes.

WRONG. I am so sick of this argument! Sigh… where to begin? Straight men have used their dominant position in society to oppress women and queers for centuries. Homophobia has led to queer men and women being beaten, imprisoned, humiliated and murdered. Hating your oppressor for treating you this way does not equal homophobia. I try not to feel hate, but I do feel anger, hence the “angry” in “angry butch lesbian.” When things like this stop happening, I will stop being angry. Which brings us to my final point:

“Angry lesbians” do not attract friends, get good jobs or get girlfriends.

LIES! Angry lesbians may never be popular with the dominant hegemony, however they certainly won’t have trouble attracting friends or girlfriends. Look at me, for instance. I’m totally angry–even Google agrees–but I have great friends and a great girlfriend. Some people even find my anger charming. But it’s not just me. Some women, like Diane Dimassa, have even turned their anger into an entire career. And all lesbians face job discrimination, not just the angry ones. The job discrimination, by the way, is part of the reason we’re angry in the first place.

So that’s it, that’s my advice from an Angry Butch Lesbian. You’re welcome. In conclusion: