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Renetta (family history)
Maybe it's just the fog, and the mother-of-pearl light, melancholy yet warm, which it imparts to summer days here on the coast, but sometimes, like this morning, I imagine I can almost feel something...
View ArticleThe Statue of Liberty is a "demonic idol"
This rank — and, dare I say it, un-American — idiocy deserves the widest possible notoriety; and by rights should be hung around Rick Perry's neck until his potential candidacy sinks once and for all...
View Article"People need to know."
Anyone reading this will likely be aware that yesterday Governor Brown of California signed a bill requiring that "the contributions of gays and lesbians in the state and the country be included in...
View ArticlePosted (almost) without comment
News broke Tuesday that a lesbian couple who attended the exhibit Seeing Gertrude Stein Sunday at the Contemporary Jewish Museum had been approached by a guard who reprimanded them for holding hands...
View ArticleA poet dies
A poet is born A poet dies And all that lies between is us and the world ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti That's how Mr. Ferlinghetti began "An Elegy on the Death of Kenneth Patchen." Today's New York Times...
View ArticleHe taught me to fish
[Originally posted at Street Prophets and at my personal blog on June 7, 2011. After some thought I have decided to share it here.] ——— First, ostensibly, for trout that, half-hidden, flashed and...
View ArticleRuth Brinker (1922-2011)
She slipped away peacefully on Monday, this model of compassion and service, but the bright beacon of hope she lit in a dark world will shine brightly forever; and the practical, real-world help she...
View ArticleGFHC Open Thread: Two bicentennials
In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter years in it, and he sells it before the roof is on; he plants a garden, and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing; he brings a...
View Article'All Work or No Play' (Labor memories from the illegitimate theatre)
Nearly a hundred years ago the practitioners of a trade that had traditionally been regarded as barely a step above prostitution formed a union. The growing resentment of the men and women of the...
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GFHC (Family History) Midweek Fix: Charles Price, surveyed
Well, my obsession continues unchecked: digging up arcane tidbits about various ancestors — and placing them in some sort of historical context. Here's the latest installment. Until lately I didn't...
View ArticleGFHC Open Thread: Scary Monster edition
I was working on another piece for this week, but a poltergeist in the computer had other ideas. Instead, here's a sort of GFHC trick-or-treat for Halloween weekend. :-) I suppose most every family...
View ArticleGFHC Midweek Fix: The sins of the (great-great-grand)fathers
GFHC regulars know that I've been mining 19th-century journals and memoirs in pursuit of family history. The following nugget has no direct* connection to my ancestors, but I found it too entertaining...
View ArticleCranberry sauce from a can
Mom's cranberry sauce was a thing of beauty, concocted of fresh berries, sugar, spices and orange zest, slow-simmered on a back burner while she attended to the rest of the feast. Made with love and...
View ArticleDid you hear the one about the two Kossacks...
No, they didn't walk into a bar (that I know of, anyway). So it's pretty likely you haven't heard "the one about" them. Whoever they are. This was the burden of an email I woke up to this morning: Two...
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GFHC Midweek Fix: An American Carol
My family connection to this story is gossamer thin, so this is really more "history" than "family history." But since it's a nice story for the season, and largely unknown, I offer it here. Genealogy...
View ArticleReason number gazillion why I love Christmastime
Just tottered down the block to the corner donut shop for a chocolate croissant. In line just ahead of me was a large black woman wearing a bright green vest with "S.F. Parks and Recreation...
View ArticleMy Favorite Christmas Eve: or, How My Posse Made the Yuletide Gay
A dear friend here at DailyKos, Cronesense, used to host a diary series called STORYTIME, in which she would share hers on a particular theme and invite commenters to add their own. I loved those...
View ArticleA little 'Messiah' theatre
Okay, I'm a Christmas geek, so it's probably not surprising that I am also a Messiah dork. A scratchy old LP recording of Handel's oratorio with Eugene Ormandy, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the...
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GFHC Open Thread: A Look Back, A Look Ahead
Janus, Guardian of the Open Door Thread. A Look Back So, I started this Group, see, and I really didn’t know what I was doing. I still don’t know what I’m doing. I think many of us would take (polite)...
View ArticleHonoring Barbara Cook
One of my resolutions plans for the new year is to do more writing about things I love, like art, music and theatre. (BTW, is there a group specifically for theatre dorks?) Early last week I DVR'd...
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GFHC Open Thread: Why they do it, why I do it
As promised (or threatened!) some weeks ago, here's a look at what's behind the Mormon obsession with genealogy. After that, I'll append a few words about my own philosophy as a family history geek....
View ArticleThe Mother of Civil Rights
I wrote this for Street Prophets in February, 2010 to mark Black History Month. It is reproduced here with only minor formatting changes. ~SLK A woman of color encounters — and fights — discrimination...
View ArticleBrothers and Sisters: "Loved long since, and lost awhile"
Tomorrow is my birthday. I mention the fact not because I seek attention — or sympathy (well, not exactly!) — but for another reason: tomorrow I'll be 57, and that has led me to reflect, for the...
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Monday Night at the Theater: Sacred and Profane
This is a piece I wrote for another blog about a year ago. ~SLK Jerry Springer: The Opera had its premiere at London's National Theatre in April 2003. Jerry Springer: The Opera
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GFHC Open Thread: Caroline
This, my first contribution for Women's (Family) History Month, is a brief introduction to my third-great-grandmother, Caroline Wright Pitt, an ordinary woman who passed through some extraordinary...
View ArticleBrothers and Sisters: Mansions
Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may...
View ArticleMonday Night at the Theater: Friendship "Top Ten"
This post highlights various flavors of friendship — new, old; sarcastic, sincere; romantic, platonic; life-changing, deadly. Most of these "Top Ten" selections are duets, as befits the subject; most...
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GFHC Special (Women's Family History Month): Emmeline
This is a repost of something I wrote for Women's History Month a couple of years ago at Street Prophets. Since then I have learned that Emmeline is in my family tree. Not a blood relative (we are...
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Brothers and Sisters: Gifts
And let her loves, when she is dead, Write this above her bones: "No more she lives to give us bread Who asked her only stones." - Dorothy Parker, "For a Sad Lady" Have you ever felt like the lady in...
View ArticleMonday Night at the Theater: 'On the Steps of the Palace'
Because the theaters are dark on Monday nights. "Inspired by Bruno Bettelheim's 1976 book, The Uses of Enchantment," Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods... ...intertwines the plots of several...
View ArticleMonday Night at the Theater: "It's a new world. Love."
Everyone has probably heard of Fiddler on the Roof, the Broadway musical (and movie) based on the Tevye stories of Sholem Aleichem. Fiddler opened on Broadway on September 22, 1964. An immediate hit,...
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GFHC Open Thread: Getting Poetic
This is a different kind of post for me, a mostly silly collection of genealogy-related poems I've picked up here and there over time. Most of them aren't very good (and some are really bad,...
View ArticleMonday Night at the Theater: "The full-length velvet glove hides the fist"
I wrote this on Bastille Day a couple of years ago for another blog, and am just lazy enough to post it here since it hasn't been seen here, I figured why not? It's a few days after the holiday, but...
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The White House and AIDS
President Obama's White House has released a video to mark the 2012 International AIDS Conference. Some activists are carping that the president won't be appearing personally at the conference, and...
View ArticleMonday Night at the Theater: 'Candide' at Lincoln Center
Candide has one of the more interesting histories among Broadway musicals. Its first run in 1956 was not a resounding success, despite the collaboration of some amazing talents, including (in addition...
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GFHC: Charles Price, surveyed
Until lately I knew almost nothing about Charles Price, my grandmother's great-grandfather, beyond his name and the relevant dates of birth and death. For reasons any family historian will recognize,...
View ArticleShe speaks for me.
This drag queen speaks for me. This fabulous, fierce, funny, articulate Irish drag queen speaks for me.All my gay life I've been looking for just the right words to express the reality I've lived (and...
View ArticleMeanwhile, this happened last night
ESPN:SONOMA, Calif. -- Baseball history was made in Northern California wine country Thursday night when the sport's first active professional player to come out as gay pitched a shutout before an...
View ArticleMonday Night at the Theater: 'The Gondoliers' in concert
One of the best things about YouTube for classical music lovers is the number of complete BBC Proms concerts available for viewing. Watching live performances is always better than merely listening,...
View ArticleCranberry sauce from a can
I published this diary for Thanksgiving, 2011. Because it got a favorable reception then, and because this year is the 40th anniversary of the event described, I venture to re-post it now with the hope...
View ArticleMy Favorite Christmas Eve: or, How My Posse Made the Yuletide Gay
A dear friend here at DailyKos, Cronesense, used to host a diary series called STORYTIME, in which she would share hers on a particular theme and invite commenters to add their own. I loved those...
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Woozle Wednesday
Those of you who already either know me or know of me know that I am a massive woozle person. I grew up with both cats & dogs and I love both. I do not discriminate against any animal & love...
View ArticleWoozle Wednesdai
Those of you who already either know me or know of me know that I am a massive woozle person. I grew up with both cats & dogs and I love both. I do not discriminate against any animal & love...
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My sweet Dixie thanks you, I thank you!
Back in 2012 my doctor recommended that I get a dog, both for companionship and to help get me out in the world. I was isolating pretty badly as a result of AIDS-related depression and a dog seemed...
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"Pootie" this, "pootie" that. Good grief!
Hello, Dixie here. I hacked my human's account because I wish to demand equal time for those of us of the canine persuasion (some of you call us “woozles,” which always makes me give serious side eye...
View Article"Yes, We Can"
My title does not refer to Barack Obama's famous slogan, but predates it by a good three decades. Nor does it refer to César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, or the UFW. But it is inextricably related to all of...
View ArticleI did a short rant...
...on Facebook, primarily aimed at my many Mormon relatives and friends, about today's unforgiveably partisan SCOTUS ruling. Maybe it's worth your time to read, maybe not, but here it is.Religious...
View ArticleLooks Like it's Curtains Soon for the Sarah Huckabee Sanders Show
I literally learned the news of SHS's White House departure from this tender farewell message on Facebook. 😎 💅 😂 xFacebook ContentAnd from—where else—The Hollywood Reporter:Press Secretary Sarah...
View ArticleA Conservative(!) Rationale for Defunding Police
This is something I put together quickly for the benefit of conservative family and friends on FB; I venture to share it here in the hope that, despite my lack of expertise and the distinct possibility...
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