Shakesville

Dominique Pamplemousse Needs Your Help!

Hey there, hi there, ho there Shakers!

Some of you might recall early last year my writing about a new adventure game titled Life Flashes By, by indie game developer Deirdra Kiai. The really cool thing about how Deirdra approaches her games is her refusal to conform to "dudebro" game development.

In her first posted comment on Shakesville, Deirdra wrote:

I find myself writing the games I want to write in whatever spare time I have -- games with strong characters, personally meaningful themes, accessible interfaces, and an all-around focus on good storytelling

While there may be times and places where I find myself simply wanting to veg with a mindless action game, I have always loved and appreciated games that can draw me in with a great story. I suppose my love of the sci-fi/fantasy genre has contributed. If I can truly immerse myself within a game's story line and character development the same way I can with a favorite book, then in my mind the game has succeeded. When Deirdra was gracious enough to let me voice a couple of characters in LFB, I really appreciated the depth of the script while going through my parts, and even more so when playing through the finished product.

The industry needs more games like these.

And that is what brings us to Dominique Pamplemousse (if you don't love that name, I don't want to know you). Deirdra has already started development on her new game, Dominique Pamplemousse in "It’s All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!" Not content to rest on her previous animation laurels, Deirdra is taking on stop-motion animation and musicals! However, Deirdra won't be able to realize this vision without some help in the funding department.

So, I ask my fellow Shakers to please consider helping out Deirdra by visiting her project page and throwing some copper in the till, as it were.

Sometimes, Melissa posts a question asking if Shakesville was a movie, which actor would portray you. Well, I feel that if Shakesville was a game, Deirdra would be the developer.

Carry on.

Open Thread

Divine as Arvin Hodgepile in 'Hairspray.'

Hosted by Arvin Hodgepile.

Question of the Day

What the fuck?

Photo of the Day

US Olympic gymnast Gabrielle Douglas lifts her arms in the air in celebration after the women's team took gold

Gabrielle Douglas of the US (center) lifts her arms in celebration after the women's gymnastics team final in the North Greenwich Arena at the London 2012 Olympic Games July 31, 2012. [Reuters Pictures]

Not to take anything away from the four other young women who comprised the Dream Team, because they are all SO AWESOME, but Gabby really has my heart.

[Previous Gabby.]

Today in Dipshit Birthers

[Content Note: Racism.]

Blah blah the President is black and foreign blah blah scary unamerican yawn:

The latest GOPer to dabble in the ridiculous fantasy that President Obama wasn’t actually born in the United States: Rep. Steve King (R-IA).

During a tele-townhall meeting late last week, King was asked about his views on whether President Obama is a natural-born American citizen. The Iowa Congressman noted that his staff had investigated the matter and found birth announcements in the two Hawaii newspapers the week after Obama's birth. However, King went on to float the absurd notion that his parents "might've announced that by telegram from Kenya."

Ha ha that definitely seems very likely! I think you've cracked the case, Sherlock!

You know, at this point, if it turned out to be true that President Obama was born outside of the United States (that is not true), the primary thing that these knuckleheads would have proven is that the natural-born citizen requirement is stupid.

Chick-Fil-A Bigot Day Open Thread

[Content Note: Violent homophobia.]

Well, if you're like me, you've spent at least half your day barfing at straight conservatives posting obnoxious shit about eating at Chick-Fil-A to "support free speech" and whining pitiably about intolerance for Christians if you have the unmitigated temerity to suggest that there is a material difference between: 1) Using corporate profits to fund organizations which lobby for legislation to codify LGBTQI inequality in the US and to criminalize homosexuality and make it punishable by death abroad; and 2) Merely voicing an opinion about same-sex marriage—the latter of which is how this entire debacle is being (mis)characterized in the media.

And then there are the (mostly) straight progressives posting obnoxious shit about how they know it's wrong to support Chick-Fil-A but, gee, oh boy, those chicken sandwiches are just so darn tasty! Jesus Jones. If your palate trumps your principles, your principles are garbage.

I know a lot of contributors/mods and Shakers are dealing with the same shit, so I thought it might be good if we had a safe space in which to talk about it.

Chick-Fil-A can kiss my ass. Now and forever.

Daily Dose of Cute

Dudley the Greyhound in close-up, looking up with a sweet expression

Last night, I was watching the Olympics when Dudley came and sat in front of me and started whining, which is his usual way of communicating that he wants something. He'd just been out, he'd eaten, and there was water in his bowl, so, for a moment, I couldn't figure out what he needed.

"What is it, boy?" I asked him. I reached my hands out to him, and he put his long face in my hands, which is his habit. He whimpered. "I don't know what you need," I said to him.

He rubbed against me, then sat again, and tilted his face toward the space beside me on the sofa, which was covered in pillows. He stood again and snorted at them impatiently.

Zelda has taught Dudley, by example and generation of envy, how to cuddle. It's still new to me, his desire to be so close. I realized he wanted me to move the pillows so he could hop up and snuggle in beside me.

I shifted the pillows onto the loveseat and patted the space where they'd been. "Up," I said. He leaped up, in his typically graceful way, and turned in a circle before setting in along my side, his chin on my knee. He gave a heaving sigh of contentment, and I stroked his ears.

I never imagined the dog who, when he first came to us, peed with fright every time I got near him would someday beg to be near me. He is so not the dog that came off that horrible track anymore, and it makes my heart full.

Cloud Atlas, Lana Wachowski, and "Coming Out"

So, I don't think it's a secret that The Matrix is one of my favorite films and The Wachowskis some of my favorite writers/directors. I can spend a truly embarrassing amount of time detailing why Speed Racer was super underrated. But I won't! You're welcome.

Anyway! I am so excited about Cloud Atlas (which was co-directed by Tom Twyker, the director of Run Lola Run, another film I love) that I can barely contain myself, and I was all a-squee when The Wachowskis, with Twyker, did a promotional tease for the film, since their on-camera appearances are extremely rare.

I was annoyed, however, that this video has been widely cited in the media as Lana Wachowski "coming out" as transgender or "revealing" her "new identity" or "making her debut" as Lana "after years of hiding."

Lana Wachowski's transition has been known for many years. The duo once known as "The Wachowski Brothers" have instead been known as "The Wachowskis" for quite some time. This may be the first time Lana has officially done press as Lana, but she didn't fail to exist as Lana before this moment.

Not officially announcing to the media that one is transitioning doesn't mean one is "hiding," or has secreted oneself away before a dramatic "reveal."

There's a lot of problematic framing around issues of sexuality and reproduction and gender and "coming out," especially around famous people, by virtue of our culture of judgment and entitlement. We aren't owed information about famous people's private lives, and narratives around disclosure which imply famous people are "hiding" something about themselves that they've simply chosen not to share with the public in a grand pronouncement reinforce the erroneous notion that we are owed details about their bodies, choices, and lives.

The idea seems to be that if someone gives access to one part of themselves by living a public life, they are tacitly granting access to all of themselves—that they are no longer entitled to boundaries.

No. Everyone is entitled to boundaries.

Clearly, Lana Wachowski was "out" to the people close to her, and she was "out" enough that I've been thinking of her as Lana Wachowski for years.

Which frankly makes it pretty shitty to accuse her of "hiding" or "debuting" or whatevthefuck. Especially given how that framing plays into transphobic scare-stories of trans* people who secret their identities in order to prey on unsuspecting cis folk.

There's a way of honoring Lana's trailblazing as the first out trans* director with such massive mainstream success, and the bravery of her public transitioning, that doesn't implicitly levy negative judgment on the way she did it, or how publicly.

Anyway. This was a long-winded introduction to saying there's not a lot of good coverage of what is apparently Lana's first official press appearance after beginning her transition (The Advocate's piece is the best I've found), but yay for Lana, one of my favorite filmmakers ever, and here is a place to talk about her and her new film.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

King Sunny Adé: "Ja Funmi"

Wednesday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by pink hair.

Recommended Reading:

crunktastic: Gabby Douglas Leads Team USA to the Gold

Jamilah: There Are Olympians Without Countries—and Millions of Regular People, Too

Maya: Olympic Weightlifter Zoe Smith Tells Femininity and Sexiness Policiers That Weightlifters Don't Care If You Don't Find Us Attractive

Andy: Amtrak's Beautiful New Gay Family Ads

Digby: Our Marie Antoinettes Are Getting a Little Bit Nervous [Content Note: Violent metaphors.]

Annie-Rose: Tennessee State Rep. Claims Obama Will Fake Assassination to Prevent an Election

Melissa: In Appreciation: Lupe Ontiveros

Angry Asian Man: Battle Royale Could Become a US Television Series [Content Note: Violent imagery.]

Leave your links and recommendations in comments...

Top Five

Here is your topic: Top Five Authors You Find Yourself Most Often Recommending to Others. Go!

Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.

So, Gore Vidal Died

[Content Note: Rape apologia; transphobia.]

Gore Vidal was a great writer, in the sense that he knew how to craft a fucking sentence. And during his life, he made some very important and interesting observations, about important and interesting things.

But it isn't the elegance of his craft or any of his keen observations that come to mind when I think of the name Gore Vidal.

It is Gore Vidal saying, about his friend Roman Polanski raping a 13-year-old girl: "I really don't give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she's been taken advantage of?"

There are plenty of people who would say I'm being unfair, to overlook a lifetime of work for one comment. To which I can only say that I am offering Mr. Vidal the same contempt in return he had for raped teenage girls, like me.

And that's all I really have to say about that.

Garland has more to say, on the subject of Vidal's rape apologia and his deeply transphobic novel, Myra Breckinridge.

Mitt Romney Is a Terrible Candidate

image of a piece of dry white toast

A piece of dry white toast is what the name Harry Reid conjures for me. The Democratic Senate Majority Leader is, I'm sure, a very nice man, but he is, to be charitable, a less than dynamic politician. No one has ever accused Harry Reid of being an attack dog. Or even a wild piece of rye toast. He's pretty bland, is what I'm saying.

So it's truly indicative of what a terrible, and weak, candidate Mitt Romney is that even Harry Reid is going all pumpernickel toast on his ass:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has what he says is an informed explanation for why Mitt Romney refuses to release additional tax returns. According a Bain investor, Reid charged, Romney didn't pay any taxes for 10 years.

...Saying he had "no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy," Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.

"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

"[The media] have said his wealth is $250 million," Reid went on. "Not a chance in the world. It's a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don't pay taxes for 10 years when you're making millions and millions of dollars."

Yowza!

The best part about this interview is that Harry Reid, who the article amusingly notes is "known more as a back room brawler than a public flamethrower," is the fact that Reid doesn't even know if it's true that Romney hasn't paid taxes in 10 years and says it anyway, thus making it a challenge to Mitt Romney to prove him wrong. Which is a pretty shady move straight from the Karl Rove playbook. Or would be, if a candidate's tax returns weren't a totally relevant and fair issue.

Good one, Senator Reid.

NB

Snoop Dogg Changes His Name to Snoop Lion. Please proceed accordingly.

Open Thread

Divine as Babs Johnson in 'Pink Flamingos.'

Hosted by Babs Johnson.

Question of the Day

What was the last thing you bought yourself in celebration and/or to reward yourself for accomplishing something?

Quote of the Day

"In sum, having considered the purported rational bases proffered by both BLAG and Congress and concluded that such objectives bear no rational relationship to Section 3 of DOMA as a legislative scheme, the Court finds that no conceivable rational basis exists for the provision. The provision therefore violates the equal protection principles incorporated in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution."—US District Court Judge Vanessa L. Bryant, holding today in a federal case in Connecticut that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, is unconstitutional.

Bryant, in a case brought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, follows several other federal judges over the past two years to have reached the same conclusion. Federal judges in Massachusetts, California — in two different courts — and New York also have found DOMA's provision defining "marriage" and "spouse" as only being unions of one man and one woman in all federal laws unconstitutional, as well as one federal appeals court.

Bryant — appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush on April 2, 2007 — found that laws that classify people based on sexual orientation should be subject to heightened scrutiny by courts — as the Department of Justice and plaintiffs argued in the case — but found the provision of the 1996 law unconstitutional "even under the most deferential level of judicial scrutiny."

Bush appointees are ruling DOMA unconstitutional. Those dominoes, they are falling fast.

[H/T to Shaker GoldFishy.]

Whoooooooooooops Your Rape Joke

[Content Note: Rape joke; violence.]

So, I'm just watching this video of one of my favorite comedians, Paul F. Tompkins, interviewing fellow comedian Zach Galifianakis, and I get to minute 6, at which point begins a segment innocuously titled "On Encouraging Friends."

ZG: I convinced my friend Jody to come out to California, 'cause I thought he was really funny, and try stand-up. So he comes—he moves out [laughs] to California, and he's like, "What jokes should I do?" 'cause I was gonna take him to an open mic, and I said, "Well, just do that thing that you said on the phone to me once. That was funny." So he gets onstage at The Gypsy Café, and his opening joke was: "I'm designing a board game for children and adults to play together. It's called Suck My Dick or I'll Break Your Neck." [PFT laughs; ZG laughs.] Now, I'm like, "This is a good joke!" [Makes a face that implies there was dead silence in response to the joke.] I mean, there was nothing—you could—it was also followed by the cappuccino machine, you know, making it worse." [PFT laughs.] But, uh, yeah, that was it. He never—he never did it again.

What a loss for us all, I'm sure.

I'm not even really sure how to describe what my reaction was to getting blindsided with a joke about sexual violence while watching a video that I was hoping would make me laugh. I wasn't triggered; I rarely have physical reactions of anxiety anymore. But I did have a conscious thought about that being a rape joke which inevitably evokes a certain feeling, an unpleasant visceral memory, of being a survivor of sexual assault.

I went from feeling invited to sit in a room with Paul F. Tompkins and Zach Galifianakis, listening to them talk, to feeling like I was trapped in a room with two men who think that joking about sexual violence is funny. It was a discernible shift in my perception, and my sense of safety.

I imagine a lot of survivors of sexual violence know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's hardly the worst feeling I experience as a survivor with PTSD, but it's a terrible feeling all the same, in all its banality.

I'm not writing this because I'm mad. I'm not mad; I'm tired. And I'm not writing it to make another argument about rape jokes potentially triggering survivors, or how rape jokes empower rapists; I've written enough on those subjects in the last few weeks.

And I'm not writing this for Galifianakis, who has enough integrity to refuse to work with Mel Gibson, but is totes cool about working with convicted rapist Mike Tyson. I don't expect that he cares very much about dismantling the rape culture.

I'm writing this because I have always regarded Paul F. Tompkins as a thoughtful guy, and I hope he will see this and consider what it means that I watched that video hoping for some fun escapism, and instead landed squarely in the center of a history I cannot escape.

I am, unfortunately, part of a large demographic. One out of every 6 women. One out of every 33 men. People with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harm. People who could use a laugh.

I am writing this hoping that Paul F. Tompkins will reconsider if he really wants to be the sort of comic who creates with his comedy a space that is unsafe for survivors, for people who are his fans, who seek out his content to be uplifted.

I always liked him because I thought he wasn't that sort of comic.

Photo of the Day

image of two male Olympic synchronized divers mid-dive, gripping their legs and making twisted expressions of deep concentration and physical difficulty

Bronze medalists Nicholas McCrory, front and David Boudia, rear, from the US compete during the Men's Synchronized 10 Meter Platform Diving final at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Monday, July 30, 2012. [AP Photo]

One of my favorite things about the Summer Olympics is the diving. And one of my favorite things about the diving are the mid-dive expressions on the divers' faces captured in still photography. They're so great! And I am pretty sure I pull the same expressions just watching them do those amazing dives, lol.

Today in Mitt Romney Stands in Front of Something

image of Mitt Romney standing at a podium in front of a banner reading in large text: 'Wolność i Demokracja' to which I have added a dialogue bubble reading: 'Hey, does anyone know how to say 'freedom & democracy' in Polish?'

Well, Mitt Romney's Disaster Tour was a huge success, in case you were wondering. His campaign declared it so.

[T]op Romney strategist Stuart Stevens later held a gaggle with reporters (damage control?) after Romney's speech to push back against the perception the trip hasn't gone well. The highlights, [NBC's Garrett Haake] notes, include Stevens pronouncing the trip a "a great success, generally."

So there you go. It must be true.

In other news about how successful the trip was, Romney's traveling press secretary Rick Gorka yelled at reporters today before Romney's big speech in Warsaw.

When members of the press tried to ask Romney about some of the mishaps on his trip, his traveling press secretary Rick Gorka verbally dressed down reporters. Here's a transcript of the questions and Gorka's response:

CNN: "Governor Romney are you concerned about some of the mishaps of your trip?"

NYT: "Governor Romney do you have a statement for the Palestinians?"

Washington Post: "What about your gaffes?"

NYT: "Governor Romney do you feel that your gaffes have overshadowed your foreign trip?"

CNN: "Governor Romney just a few questions sir, you haven't taken but three questions on this trip from the press!"

Gorka: "Show some respect"

NYT: "We haven't had another chance to ask a question..."

Gorka: "Kiss my ass. This is a Holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect."

Moments later, Gorka told Jonathan Martin, a reporter for Politico, to "shove it." About a half-hour later, the aide called reporters to apologize.

Ha ha what a great campaign! A great candidate with a great team! I can't wait to not vote for him!

Finally: Do you want to find out who Romney's running mate is five seconds before the rest of the world? THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! lulz.