Looking for People for Fun and Art

Okay, here’s the pitch: I work too damned much. So much I am beginning to seriously fry, and so social/recreation/art/fun must be had.

So I’m putting out the call for folks who might feel the same to form a pool/group/bunch to do it together, or at least share ideas and resources.

Off the cuff, here are some ideas for things to play with:

• Composing and posting weird ads in local papers (tied to larger project, like an interactive game?)
• Fake fundie protest at a local science museum
• LED Throwie party
• “Invisible city:” poetry written across the city – except visible only with UV lights
• Pick a corner of the city, everyone takes pictures of it over a period of time, posts the result to Flickr (experiment in subjective reality)
• Create fake campaign posters (as surreal as possible)
• Leave pages cut from a favorite book around the city
• Become ‘payphone warriors’ (www.payphonewarriors.com)
• Anything these folks do

The only thing I ask is for there to be a few simple rules:

Don’t waste people’s time: if you’re interested then be interested and not just say so and then vanish, not answer emails, or not carry through on plans or commitments.

No egos, please: I don’t care who you are or who you think you are. So what if you’ve been involved in the Cacophony Society for fifteen years or been listed on boing boing twice? Everyone involved is equal, no one is better than anyone else, and everyone has something to bring to the party -- or is at least worthy of respect.

If you’re interested write me at zobop@aol.com

Lisabet Sarai --

-- liked Filthy. Thanks, Lisabet!

When Insults Had Class

(compliments of my pal, John Montgomery)

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Winston Churchill

"He is a modest little person, with much to be modest about."
-Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
- Clarence Darrow

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea's of any man I know."
- Abraham Lincoln

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
- Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
- Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend....if you have one."
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
- Winston Churchill, in response

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
- Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
- John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
- Paul Keating

"He had delusions of adequacy."
- Walter Kerr

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."
- Thomas Brackett Reed

"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he over came them."
- James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
- Charles, Count Talleyrand

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without an address on it?"
- Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde

Call for Submissions

My pal, Ellen Tevault, is doing a book. Send her stories, true believer!

Excelsior!

#

Call for Submissions – Superqueeroes (tentative title)
Edited by Ellen Tevault
Published by Haworth Press
Submission Deadline: February 1, 2006
Payment: $ 50 and 1 contributor copy

Superheroes are everywhere. Are they among the queer/lgbt community?

I want to read about original superheroes from all aspects of the queer community – drag king/queen, MTF, FTM, transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, butch, femme, bear, twink, genderqueer, intersex, etc.

Queer/lgbt community. I DO NOT WANT FAN FICTION. No blatant use of trademarked characters or veiled use of them either. Original characters and plots are necessary.
Guidelines:

1. Stories should be between 1500-6000 words in length. Email me if your story is longer or shorter.
2. Stories should have fully developed characters and plots.
3. Stories can be erotic if necessary to the plot, but this is not an erotica collection.
4. Name, pseudonym if used, address, phone number, word count, and email should appear on first page.
5. Each page should double-spaced and include your name, title, and page number.
6. Include short bio (50 words) with story.
7. For previously published stories, you must include publication history with the story.

Mail stories to:

Ellen Tevault
P.O. Box 199032,
Indianapolis, IN 46219.

Email me at superqueeroes@yahoo.com with any questions. DO NOT email stories to the above address unless requested.

Ellen Tevault has published lesbian stories on various websites and in Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, Faster Than Light zine, Early Embraces III, Perfect Valentine, and After Midnight, including a forthcoming story in Lipstick on Her Collar. She has also published articles in various local small publications. Her male pseudonym has published in Bearotica and Muscle Worshipers. This is her first trip into editing an anthology, so be patient with her. In turn she will keep her internal super villain under control.

A dear friend --

-- and a great writer. I can't rave too much about AF. Here are two of her sites:

The FAQ on her homepage

Her great Spalding Gray site (miss ya, Spaulding)

My Rig

It ain't much, but it's served me well: a iBookG4, iPod mini, and run-of-the-mill cell. You're looking at it in "sideways on the couch websurfing" mode, but when I'm seriously working I put it on an AirDesk stand (highly recommended). The novel is not one of mine, btw; it's Jean Shepherd's legendary hoax 'I, Libertine' (with Ted Sturgeon). For the three I wrote on this rig, you should check out my amazon link to the right.

More Quotes

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russell

Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous.
-Will Durant

There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.
-James Joyce

You laugh at me because I am different; I laugh because you are all the same.
-Daniel Knode

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
-Sir R. F. Burton

You don't have to give the Republicans Hell. All You have to do is tell the truth, and they'll think that it's Hell.
-Harry Truman

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
-Bertrand Russell

But we, wretched unbelievers, we bear our own burdens; we must say, 'I myself did it, I. Not God, not Satan; I myself!'
-Olive Schreiner

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
-H.L. Mencken

The way to see by Faith is to shut the eye of Reason.
-Benjamin Franklin

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
-Thomas Mann

Edward R. Murrow

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear - one, of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men; not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were - for the moment - unpopular."

The United States --

-- is full of idiots

I have a hobby

But you can only do it once.

Alan Moore

-- is one of my favorite writers, and after this interview with The Onion he's also one of my favorite people.

Wonder how Ann Coulter fills her books?

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!