Saturday, February 09, 2008

On Men, Women and the Rest of Us


I went up to Smith College in Northampton MA. last night to listen to Kate Bornstein. The show was very good but the drive up was horrible. A normal one-hour drive took close to two hours because we left at 4:30 and hit all the rush hour traffic in Hartford and Springfield. At the theater, I was talking to an acquaintance who works at a ski area in southern Vermont and she pointed out that it is also winter vacation week for a good number of schools and many families are heading north for a ski week. We were planning to go out to eat at Northampton Brewery but because of the heavy traffic, we had undercooked pizza instead at a pizzeria across the street from Smith College.
Kate Bornstein read from her book “Gender Warrior: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us”, this is the third time that I saw her performance and she is still just as fresh and witty as the first time I saw her. One of the skits that she did was called “Who are You?” and it was about her “Coming Out” to her Jewish mother told from her mother’s point of view; how at first her mother disowned her but shortly afterward accepted her, in a heavy Jewish New Jersey accent her mother called her “My son the lesbian” to her friends. In another skit, she made fun of pronouns… “You, has no gender. Me, has no gender, while she does.” and she performed the skit using a Brooklyn accent of a teacher.
If she come to an area college near you, go and see her you will have blast!
Oh, about the card! Towards the end of her show she was talking about her latest book, “Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws” and she was telling her secrets for living outside the box… do what ever you have to, but just don’t be mean and if you get sent to hell just tell Satan that Kate will do your time for you, since she is going there anyway. What's a couple more eternities.

2 comments:

  1. This sounds like a wonderful evening, outside of the traffic and undercooked pizza. ;) I'm sure the speaker more than made up for it!

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  2. Love Kate Bornstein.

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