Author Archives: Cathy de la Cruz

by | December 20, 2016 · 9:00 am

We’re Obsessed With: Astro Poets

Started by “actual living poets” Dorothea Lasky and Alex Dimitrov, the new Twitter account Astro Poets is everything anyone could ever want from the internet all in one 140-character space: astrology by poets for everyone.

For those who don’t know, I’m obsessed with both astrology and good writing which is why I can’t get enough of this account. Lasky and Dimitrov are funny, charming and masters of their form. The Twitterverse is so lucky to have these two and I am so lucky to have had a chance to ask them a few questions about their absolutely magical collaboration known as Astro Poets.

Astro Poets cross

Dorothea Lasky and Alex Dimitrov

 

Cathy de la Cruz: What made you start the Astro Poets Twitter account?

Dorothea Lasky: The account was started on a whim one night. Alex had put a poll on his Twitter asking his followers whether he should date a Taurus or a Virgo that night. I voted for Taurus and that prompted Alex to ask me if we should start an astrology Twitter account. I said yes and he put a poll up asking people if we should start one and lots of people voted that we should. So we did. We both agreed going into it that the largest goal was to bring people some laughs during what has been a bad year.

Alex Dimitrov: I think we’re both pretty funny people and also we both really get… how do I say this… human nature. We finally decided to share that in a more public way. I mean we both have so much going on in our lives, this is kind of a side project that speaks to the entertainers and prophets in us… but it might turn into other things!

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by | December 16, 2016 · 12:30 pm

Rah! Rah! Roundup

rahrahroundupAll Oklahoma facilities licensed by state health officials that have public restrooms will be “required to post signs directing pregnant women to seek services other than abortions…It is unclear whether the signs are required to be posted in both male and female restrooms.”

“There are so many reasons why we smuggle our desire, why we keep it hidden in secret compartments and rarely offer others a look, but primarily it comes down to fear. Fear of what someone else will think, fear that you won’t get what you are asking for, fear of humiliation, fear of giving someone leverage to hang over you, fear of actually getting what you desire.”

“Trump won the Presidency by gas light. His rise to power has awakened a force of bigotry by condoning and encouraging hatred, but also by normalizing deception.”

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by | December 2, 2016 · 9:00 am

Rah! Rah! Roundup

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“Three noes, one for each of us: my rapist, the Institution, and me.”–Melissa Ferrone and Kelly Sundberg

“I know it may seem silly to talk about television and movies when hate is on the rise and the very soul of our country is at stake, but this is the exact time that artists must speak up.”–Jessica Mason

Finally! A menstruation coloring book.

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by | December 1, 2016 · 9:00 am

WE WERE THERE: Josie Long’s Something Better

Josie Long

It has taken me over a week to write about Josie Long’s off Broadway stand-up show, Something Better. It’s not that I didn’t like the show—I did, I liked it a lot, but since T***p (I can’t even say his name) became the President-Elect, it’s been hard to feel good about doing anything (including writing) that isn’t direct political action. This all feels releavant since Something Better is the British comedian’s response to feeling the same kind of defeat I’m speaking of, when her native UK withdrew from the European Union earlier this year. Long didn’t know what her U.S. audience would be going through when she wrote the show and booked this tour. She didn’t know how close to home her material would hit.

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by | November 22, 2016 · 9:00 am

Support Wendy’s Subway in Memory of Carolyn Bush

Two years ago today, Weird Sister had our Launch Party at Wendy’s Subway, a non-profit library and writing space in Brooklyn.

Carolyn Bush was one of of the co-founders of Wendy’s Subway and she would have been 26 years old last week.

You can read more about Carolyn here. You can support the legacy she helped create by going here or here.

<3

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by | November 18, 2016 · 9:00 am

Rah! Rah! Roundup

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“There comes a time in every person of color’s life. Do you stay and become the resident educator, surround yourself with bigots and help them achieve a basic humanitarian skill set? Or do you save your self and your family and move back to a city where diversity is the only fresh air?”–Margaret Elysia Garcia in Hip Mama

Are you an employer of a domestic worker who is being targeted post-election? Here are resources to support the women, people of color and/or immigrants who may work in your home. 

Check out Electric Literature’s “Practical Ways for Writers and Teachers To Get Involved” supporting communities that Donald Trump’s presidency has put at extreme risk.

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by | November 17, 2016 · 9:00 am

You Could Be There: SOLOCOM 2016 Picks

2016_solocom_icon_reversedIf you don’t already know, SOLOCOM is NYC’s Only All-New Solo Comedy Festival. The fest takes place November 17-20 and since comedy often gets a reputation for being…less than feminist (ok, that’s an understatement), I felt it my duty to highlight the most subversive shows being performed at the 4th Annual SOLOCOM.

SOLOCOM was founded by the wonderful Peter Michael Marino who to this day remains the only teacher in my many years of schooling–comedy and otherwise to say that misognist, homophobic, and racist writing would not be tolerated in his classes (I remember seeing one male student leave and never come back). I have followed Marino’s work as a performer and the work he supports as a producer and festival programmer ever since.

Marino, over email said that he created SOLOCOM four years ago “to provide artists with a nourishing platform to debut brand new work solo comedy material.” Having worked in the solo show and comedy genre for so many years as a solo writer, performer, producer and director, he thought there was a gap in solo performance that needed to be filled. “Many solo shows can fall into the category of naval-gazing and sentimentality, and I wanted solo artists to have a place to create work that had a comedic bent while having universal themes and mold-breaking concepts of execution.”

Additionally when asked about why it’s important for people to start to dust themselves off from our collective post-election mourning, Marino said: “We need comedy and entertainment now…more than ever.”

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by | November 8, 2016 · 12:00 pm

WE WERE THERE: Readings and performances in response to Zoe Leonard’s I want a president

I want a president

“I want a president” on display at the High Line

Readings and performances in response to Zoe Leonard’s “I want a president,” featuring: Eileen Myles, Justin Vivian Bond, Sharon Hayes, Pamela Sneed, Wu Tsang, Fred Moten, Morgan Bassichis, Mel Elberg, Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade, and Layli Long Solider

Sunday, November 6th, 2016

Chelsea Market Passage, on the High Line at West 16th Street, NY, NY

 

To make the private into something public is an action that has terrific repercussions on the reinvented world.
—David Wojnarowicz

Spotted at Interference Archive

Spotted at Interference Archive

The night before I went to see readings and performances at the High Line in response to Zoe Leonard’s work I want a president, I found myself in front of a poster that said “Defeat Reagan in 1984.” I couldn’t believe how much it felt like I was staring into the present when I looked at it. It was probably the most simultaneously punk rock and haunting image I’ve seen this year.

I got to the High Line the next afternoon with a few minutes to spare. Then I remembered how long the High Line is (1.45 miles) and how I hadn’t looked up where this event actually was. As I walked along, annoyed at tourists who simply walked the pace I would walk if I was on vacation—I thought about the first time I ever went to the High Line. I was on what I thought was a date or didn’t think was a date until we were there. That’s the feeling the High Line gives me. By the time my maybe-date and I finished dinner and got up there it was sunset. It was beautiful. I thought we should kiss. And when we didn’t, I still thought it was beautiful, just disappointing. We never went out again. But that’s what I think of when I think of the High Line—somewhere that bourgie people go to kiss because of the view. I say this all to explain why it feels so completely radical to have Zoe Leonard’s I want a president installed there.

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by | November 4, 2016 · 9:00 am

Rah! Rah! Roundup

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“When my teacher saw it, he saw (this is the story I have overwritten on top of him, anyway) the intellectual limitations of a little black girl. And I wanted, still want, to be able to go back to and explain that even if I couldn’t make the thing work, I had a vision.”–Aisha Sabatini Sloan reviewing Renee Gladman’s Calamities 

“I still think that speaking up is itself a vital and powerful act.”–Artist Zoe Leonard on her I Want a President which is currently on display at the High Line in New York City

“A new report released by the Rockefeller Foundation and and the Global Strategy Group found that the media could be having an impact on the way we perceive women in leadership.”

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by | November 3, 2016 · 9:00 am

How to Not Tell a Rape Joke–Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It: A One-Lady Rape About Comedy Starring Her Pussy And Little Else!

Performance still from ASKING FOR IT

Performance still from ASKING FOR IT

Asking for It: A One-Lady Rape About Comedy Starring Her Pussy And Little Else! is a performance that’s very much about performance. It’s a one-woman show where the performer runs out into the audience to steal sips of audience member drinks, leaving lipstick trails on our cocktail glasses. The character that Adrienne Truscott portrays is a party girl who just wants to go out and have fun. Along the way, she encounters a bartender who wants to get her blackout drunk so that the men at his bar can have their way with her… again. When told from this character’s perspective, the idea is horrifying. Then you start to realize how nonchalantly this “joke” could be told from a comic’s mouth into a microphone. Truscott’s anonymous character is the female butt of a misogynist joke manifested in the flesh. She’s the embodiment of the woman whose body and misery is someone else’s punch line. Truscott wants the audience to remember that the woman on the receiving end of a rape joke is in fact a real human being who statistically is out in the world being assaulted somewhere right now.

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