Sunday, November 07, 2010

Sunday Radical Roundup: Bones, Dykes and `Toons

Bones:  Where I went to college, when someone said "Bones!" legend had it that various men soon to be employed by the national security apparatus would leap up and leave the room in a huff.  Myself, I never saw it happen.  But in the History Department at Brigham Young University they probably do run out of the room when someone says "bones," just for good measure.  Radical readers recall that week before last, a box of human skulls arrived by USPS.  They have now been partially identified, according to KSL-TV's website, as being the remains of people who lived between 1100 and 1300 A.D.  This means they are probably not former history professors, but probably the ancestors of native people.  For future reference:  according to my local expert, it is illegal to buy or sell human remains as souvenirs, and if you happen to locate unidentified remains in a house you are cleaning out, it is also illegal to mail them across state lines.

KSL still does not know why these remains were mailed to BYU.  Revenge perhaps?

Dykes: Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.  However the exciting news is that DYKE: A Quarterly, described as "a magazine of Lesbian culture and analysis" that was published by Liza Cowan and Penny House between 1975 and 1979, is building an online archive.  So far only a few issues are up, but it's like getting a breath of fresh air from the past.  Put on your overalls and bandanna and beam yourself back to the past, Scottie.  "What is DYKE?" issue one asks. "DYKE is a magazine for dykes only!  We will speak freely among ourselves.  We are not interested in telling the straight world what we are doing.  In fact, we hope they never even see the magazine. It is none of their business.  If they chance to see it, we hope they think it is mindless gobbledygook.  We are already thinking in ways that are incomprehensible to them." (4)

'Toons:  Followers of Tenured Radical were pleased, appalled and/or frightened last Monday to see that we have a whole new way of expressing ourselves through Xtranormal's animation program.  The series "Planet University" was launched with the pilot episode, "I Want A Raise."  As one anonymous commenter pointed out, "'I want a raise' voiced in slightly stilted British accent [is] a catch-phrase just about to take off on my campus." Soon I could be the academic version of the Rickie Gervais character on Extras who can't get a job in a real movie, but then writes a horrible, and horribly successful, sit-com where he has to wear a fluffy wig, squint and say "Arr ye 'avin' a laff?  Is 'e 'avin a laff???

In addition to the several thousand hits "I Want A Raise" received in the course of a week on one of your favorite academic blogs, people who while their lives away on the Xtranormal website seem to be finding it too.  Let's hope to God it doesn't inspire them to go to graduate school.   The big news is that Roxie's World has now taken up the challenge with:  "I Want To Be Promoted."  Sing it, Roxie!

5 comments:

Comrade PhysioProf said...

Yours and Roxie's are good, but I am concerned about the lack of appropriate language.

Roxie Smith Lindemann said...

Now, Comrade, you know we are ladies and that ladies can't get by with such salty language as you menfolk can. ;-)

Thanks for the shout-out, TR. See you in Hollywood, girlfriend!

Apropos of Dyke Quarterly: Moose went to the CLAGS shindig on dykes in the 70s a few weeks back and attended a session that featured the women of Dyke Quarterly, Heresies, and Lesbian Connections. Fabulous! And you are right that it is awesome to have an online archive of at least some of these materials. If anyone is foolish enough to go to grad school in the humanities ever again, there will be some wonderful dissertations to be written. If only!

liza said...

Claire, thanks so much for posting the info and link for DYKE, and for the image, which was the cover of issue number one. Woodcut by Marlene Miller.

Drink a toast to the old days.

Roxie, glad Moose was at the workshop. It was so much fun. Now I'm praying that someone will want to do a dissertation using the DYKE Archive, and hey...I'm still very much alive and willing to be interviewed.

Anonymous said...

TR, I would like to take credit for the success of "I want a raise" as I sent it to everyone I knew, it was too good. I eagerly await another.
Also, rumor has it that another female professor of color will soon be leaving one of the departments you reside in. Do you have any sense if this is another in the long, conspicuous pattern of Zenith tenure denials to faculty of color?

Rebel Girl said...

We discovered you a awhile back- and we like your spirit.

here's one of our films:


http://dissenttheblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/morning-matinee-rebel-girl-meets-book.html

and our blog:
http://dissenttheblog.blogspot.com/

We're a small community college in ultra conservative Orange County, California...

Cheers!