Gangs of cats with thumbs

Apple Pie Moonshine is real?! Just make sure to bring your own glass.

CBR-III Book Review #2 - How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less

A few years ago Sarah Glidden went on her “Birthright” tour in Israel with a mission to figure out the history and politics of the region. She’s honest with you from the start that she’s going with a chip on her shoulder; she’s troubled by how Israel was created and the situation with the Palestinians. She obsessively studies Middle Eastern history so she can compare it to what the tour guides tell her, and is positive that the whole trip is going to be some sort of exercise in Israeli propaganda. What she finds is a lot more complicated than that.

Just as a travel book alone this book would be good, but on top of that are some really touching stories about being Jewish and the history of Israel. I like Sarah Glidden’s illustrations, and her use of watercolours is really nice. My favourite parts are when Glidden illustrates her thoughts invading her reality: trying to imagine what the Six Day War looked like when all she can see is empty fields and there’s no big budget American war movie to use as reference (Israel vs Syria vs dinosaurs!), debating Zionism with a diorama of some Russian kids who started a kibbutz in the early 1900s, the legal trial that goes on in her head while she’s trying to process everything she’s seeing (the case of Birthright Is Brainwashing Me VS. Birthright Is Not Brainwashing Me), the ghosts that stand beside her and the people she talks to. There’s a good mix of humour and sadness.

My dad actually lent me this book, so if you’re looking for a book to ease into comics with it seems like this would be a good one. It’s not preachy or manipulative at all with its sometimes difficult subject matter, just a good story. And it helps back up my theory that everybody really should travel a little bit just to help shake their biases and preconceptions.

Side note - The girl from Orange County is a monster. Why is there always one in every tour group?

CBR-III Book Review #1 - King Kong Theory

I am not remotely ashamed of not being a hot sexy number but I am livid that — as a girl who doesn’t attract men — I am constantly made to feel as if I shouldn’t even be around

The opening few pages of King Kong Theory are kind of worth the price of the book alone - a sort of love letter to the women and men who can never live up to what society expects them to be. For the rest of the book, Virginie Despentes uses stories about her own life to talk about larger issues like rape, prostitution, porn, and marginalization.

I found the essay on prostitution really interesting - Despentes actually was a sex worker for a while in the early 90s. She talks about how she actually quite liked sex work; she chose all her own clients, made decent money, and regained a lot of the confidence that had been stolen from her after her rape. The most regret she feels is when she has to tell people about it and deal with their reactions. I think Despentes was pretty lucky while she was doing sex work, but she’s not saying that her experiences are the norm. She’s mostly talking about her experiences to prove that with the right conditions, sex work could be a lot safer.

Virginie Despentes is an engaging writer, and kind of a punk badass too. King Kong Theory is a quick read (137 pages), but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I finished it. It made me remember the story of Pamela Jean George, a woman who was raped and murdered not too far from my hometown when I was 15. And how at the trial of her murderers, the judge reminded the jury right before they started deliberations that “she was indeed a prostitute”. And how then the jury handed the murderers a lighter sentence of manslaughter. And how maybe we should be listening to women like Virginie Despentes more often.

Rural Alberta Advantage’s new cd is coming out on March 1st. I pretty much never see live bands, but I saw them in Edmonton last year and they were so good. When they sang Frank, AB the crowd started singing the last few lines together, the band quit singing, and it was the best moment I’ve ever had in a bar. Remember - March 1st!