#sarah marcus

[zay-amadahy]

For anyone who was unaware, I am currently obsessed with the Riot Grrrl movement and in particular this book and the zines from this time. Probably a good thing too cause I have two 25 page (each) research projects that are centered around Riot Grrrl. But seriously people, look up that movement because they were a bunch of amazing grrrls who made a huge impact on our world, and the lives of young girls. If your not into reading, check out the zines because they're rad.

[kareninaeoreileao]

(...) going to punk shows where the mosh pits were terrifying; she'd go home with cigarette burns on her back. She never danced at a show until she moved to Olympia at eighteen. "It was really spiritual for me" she said. "It made me feel like who I was really supposed to be: my essential self. I belonged there, dancing." The other girls picked up Michelle's dance too, and they'd all do it together, facing the stage, rapt, performing complete absorption in the band that was playing - both as a retort to the slammers, who didn't ever seem to care what was happening on stage, and as a defiant embrace of fandom, so long a disempowering stance for girls but now rehabilitated. Because their fandom could draw art into the world, pull it into the open like heat bringing blood to the surface of skin. By going wild when Bikini kill or Bratmobile played, the girls were making a promise to one another that as soon as one of them got a project going, there would be an adoring passel of girls up front, dancing like crazy. "Writing to that audience that I knew was immediately going to be there - it was an opportunity for me, for sure" Corin [Tucker] said.

P. 135, Girls To The Front: the history of the Riot Grrrl, Sarah Marcus.

[leahumansky]

[katward]

January Books

A new year, a new book count! The grand total for January works out to 6, including one non-fiction work. A month heavy on narrative and plotting, less so on beautiful language and formal inventiveness.

Girls to the Front, by Sarah Marcus History of the Riot Grrl movement of the early '90s. A little too earnest in its approach--Marcus was clearly too invested in the movement to be able to step back with a clear, historical eye for the weaknesses and problems, though she effectively recreates the excitement and thrill of it. Would have worked better as an oral history.

Zero History, by William Gibson My first Gibson, and not as heavy on the shockingly foresighted understanding to tech and the way we interact with it that I expected. I guess you can only predict the modern internet once in a career?

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins Fun, though sometimes aggressively aware of its own "kookiness."

The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman Man, I love the personalities who make up newsrooms. The vignettes here are both funny and affecting--a hard balance to pull off, especially when some of the characters are hard to feel empathy for.

Transparent Things, by Vladimir Nabokov A slight Nabokov, though pretty. Felt lighter in all his usual strands, and since I find the theme fascinating (memories, how we remember, how we control what we create) I could have used more.

The Submission, by Amy Waldman Interesting evocation of an alternate NYC, exploring the repercussions both here and around the country/world if the 9/11 Memorial had been designed by a Muslim American. Waldman has a good grip on storytelling and drawing interesting, if not always dimensional, characters.

[sadgayfriend]

Mass culture always contains cleaned-up, camera-ready, variations on the underground, incorporating just enough of whats "edgy" to maintain its own relevance. Sometimes-if we're lucky- these transformations result in mass culture that's more interesting than usual...and that perhaps even helps spread progressive values. But if a political idea is showing up in mass culture, that's because it's happening somewhere else in a more concentrated grassroots way.

Sara Marcus, from her book Girls to the Front