A TOC blog post about a beauty event I attended in the South Loop.

Yo mama, you rock!

Venus Zine gives a Mother’s Day shout-out

By Venus Zine Staff
Published: May 12th, 2007 | 6:49pm

TO: LINDA KALWINSKI
FROM: GRETCHEN KALWINSKI, VENUS ZINE WRITER
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how über-DIY my mom is. I have fond memories of my hippie-parents building their own garage and cutting labels off clothing to protest advertising. But my mom’s Lately, I’ve been thinking about how über-DIY my mom is. I have fond memories of my hippie-parents building their own garage and cutting labels off clothing to protest advertising. But my mom’s Do-It-Yourself attitude wasn’t just ’60s counterculture-nonconformity, it was necessity. She came from scrappy immigrants who re-used every plastic baggie, every piece of aluminum foil. Then her father died when she was 16, and DIY took on a whole new meaning for her family — making their own clothing, canning vegetables and fruit actually helped the 6 of them survive. During my childhood, she managed to work full-time while also making clothing and costumes for us kids, designing her own “Snugli” before they were popular, cooking from scratch, baking elaborate birthday cakes in the shapes of trains and animals, and still attending every game, every dance performance. Even now, when it’s no longer financially necessary, she re-uses materials, gardens, and makes clothing herself. I believe that every creative urge, every cooking, yoga, or gardening impulse that my siblings and I have, we owe to the DIY street-cred instilled by my amazing mother when we were kids.

Time Out Chicago / Issue 107: March 15–21, 2007

Chicks and balances

A debut author upends chick lit with an unflinching look at poverty.

By Gretchen Kalwinski

If there existed a polar opposite to chick lit, Corrina Wycoff’s O Street (OV Books, $17.95) would exemplify the genre. The debut author isn’t interested in romanticizing love, motherhood, hardship—or anything at all, come to think of it.

O Street collects ten short stories about Beth Dinard, who spends her Newark childhood caring for her mentally ill, homeless, junkie single mother. “Visiting Mrs. Ferullo” shows Beth following a neighbor home, longing for the home-cooking aromas that waft from the woman’s apartment. In “The Wrong Place in the World,” adult Beth is in Chicago trying to stabilize her life even while her brutal memories affect her relationships and attitudes about class and work. When she gets a phone call informing her of her mother’s death, it triggers a relapse into old, destructive patterns. It’s tempting to read the tightly linked stories as a novel, but Wycoff stresses the importance of the form.

“In a linked-story format, I can present other points of view as short pieces of contrast,” she says. “I wanted to structure the book so that it begins and ends with a death, because I wanted it to read as a cycle. Linearity, to me, seems more of a construct than cycles.”

A single mother herself, Wycoff says the stories should not be confused with autobiography.

“They are based on a political truth: Single mothers fall through the cracks in this country, and the cracks grow in proportion to these women’s economic challenges, making inaccessible the so-called American Dream,” she says. “When my son was born, I’d not yet gone to college, and money was extremely tight. I drew on that experience…but by the time I wrote about it, [I] had changed enough that it didn’t resemble my ‘real’ life at all.”

In one scene, a depressed Beth wishes that she could “grow into someone new—someone who could easily have had two parents, good breeding, hearty suppers and piano lessons.” Passages like these strike unexpected chords. Though many contemporary narratives deal with women’s physical and spiritual transformations, few do so at the poverty level. This is, of course, no grand coincidence: Poor women face even more barriers than their male counterparts in getting their stories told.

“The second of these I wrote when my son was two years old,” says Wycoff. “I wrote it, in part, in reaction to all of the sentimental, dreamy writing about motherhood. ”

In Chicago, Wycoff met UIC’s Cris Mazza, an award-winning author who has waged a one-woman war against the chick-lit genre. Since then, Mazza has become both her creative muse and mentor.

“Twelve years ago, I read How to Leave a Country, and decided I needed to read everything she’d ever written,” Wycoff says. “She was the reason I chose to go to college and, later, graduate school at UIC, and she helped me see that the disparate single-mother stories I’d written could be linked.”

Because of the book’s gravitas (the title story is especially harrowing), getting O Street published wasn’t easy.

“I got about seven rejections over the course of four years, all from small presses,” she says, “many of whom called the collection ‘too dark.’”

Indeed, Wycoff portrays the gritty, sorrowful elements of her characters’ lives head-on and offers no easy solutions—no one’s riding up on a white horse, but neither are the stories bleak. Instead, drama and tension are delivered in such a subtle but detail-infused way that the reader becomes invested in Beth’s plight early on in the collection. The collection will likely elicit Dorothy Allison comparisons for its depictions of poor women and lesbian relationships, .

Wycoff is working on a novel now, and is planning another about teaching at a community college.

With chick lit down, it looks like the vaunted “university novel” may next.

Wycoff reads this week.

We Don’t Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists
Edited By: Melody Berger
Publisher: Seal Press

Editor and founder of The F-word zine Melody Berger compiled this collection of essays to critique the ways that contemporary feminism is discussed in the media. “We don’t need another wave,” she writes in her introduction. “We need a movement.”

The foreword is by Bitch Magazine editor and founder Lisa Jervis, who says that the “wave” terminology has outlived its usefulness and is often used by the mainstream press to position 2nd and 3rd wavers as “anti” one another, (i.e., 2nd Wavers reject humor and sex; 3rd Wavers aren’t politically active). Jervis’ take is that the idea of a simplistic generational divide serves no one, and that we should keep discussing the main point—gender justice—while retaining myriad voices and opposing perspectives that move in the same direction: forward.

Topically, the essays run an impressive gamut—covering everything from Latina reproductive rights activists, a critique of the GLBT wedding industry, the organization of sex worker rights, one woman’s reclamation of sexuality after abuse, and the inherent issues of being one-half of an interracial lesbian couple. One of the contributors is Jessica Valenti, who runs a blog called feministing.com, and writes with intelligent passion about the image problem of the word “feminist” and why women shouldn’t shrink from it, in her piece, “You’re a Feminist. Deal.”

Another stirring essay is by Kat Marie Yoas, who grew up in a trailer park, and later ended up in academia. Yoas grapples eloquently with the complexities of living simultaneously in two disparate worlds, including identity-confusion, class-anger, and insulting assumptions made and spoken by her colleagues. In “Steam Room Revelations,” writer, teacher, and filmmaker Courtney Martin tells of coming to term with body issues and self-consciousness via a raucous group of older women who frequent the steam room at her local YMCA.

What’s thrilling about the collection is how firmly grounded in activism the contributors are. The diverse bylines are made up of educators, artists, poets, filmmakers, founders of non-profits, students, performers, all who live and breathe the issues they’re writing about. I’d nitpick that several of the confessional poems embedded in the collection don’t serve it well, but mostly this is a gaggle of brash, fun, enlightening, fearless, and on-point essays by people working in the trenches of contemporary feminist issues, and for that it’s well worth your lunch money. —Gretchen Kalwinski

UR Chicago / Sounds section

Interview with: Christine Baze
By: Gretchen Kalwinski

Christine Baze wants to reach every “woman and every man who has a woman in their life that they love” so that she can scare the hell out of them. With good reason — she’s trying to prevent other women from suffering as she did in 2000, after being diagnosed with cervical cancer and having a hysterectomy 10 days later, throwing her life and musical career into disarray.

During recovery, Baze learned about cervical cancer and HPV (high-risk types of the virus cause cervical cancer and low-risk types cause genital warts). She also watched Harold and Maude, a film famous for its humorous morbidity and spirited, 79-year-old Maude. Inspired by Maude’s yellow umbrella, Baze began playing music again and decided to incorporate cervical cancer awareness into her message. She started the nonprofit organization Popsmear.org and the Yellow Umbrella tour, an annual musical benefit that educates women about preventing cervical cancer.

HPV is extremely common — almost 80 percent of women will get the virus by the age of 50. It gives no symptoms and is transmitted through sexual contact. Annual Pap tests are supposed to catch precancerous cells but they don’t always do so, and Paps don’t test for HPV, so it’s important to get both the liquid Pap and HPV test. “People say, ‘It’s too invasive to get in the stirrups or get a finger up my butt,’” Baze says. “But you know what’s really invasive? Getting a radical hysterectomy or internal radiation. Getting a Pap or an HPV test — that’s going to save your life.”

Having HPV doesn’t mean you’ll get cervical cancer: The immune system usually fights off the infection. But when high-risk types of HPV persist, precancerous cell changes can occur and cause cervical cancer. However, because it is one of the few types of cancer for which the cause is known, Baze says it’s beatable. “We’ve got the answers and we can’t say that about any other cancer.”

Baze’s initial reaction to her own diagnosis was disbelief. “I was healthy and having the time of my life,” she recalls. “After the disbelief was incredible horror and anxiety.” But her compassion made her an activist. “Cancer disempowers you because your own body is betraying you,” she says. “But after chemo I felt so empowered and started getting onstage saying, ‘Hey ladies! Pay attention! This can save your life.’ It worked — and now I’m in my fourth year of touring around the country doing essentially the same thing.”

This fall, Baze and headliner Kaki King (previous lineups featured Ben Folds and the Samples) will perform in 35 U.S. cities, including Chicago. The tour is also sponsored by companies doing work related to cervical cancer, such as Digene, the makers of the HPV test.

Baze, whose new album, Something New (Lime Green), mixes jazz with electronica, says her musical sensibilities shifted post-cancer. “I was trained as a classical pianist and did that for 20 years, then just before cancer my music had a nonsensical, whimsical attitude,” she says. “Now the songs come from a place of deep appreciation of my life. These days I think about the gift of cancer, the enlightenment that comes with it.”

The tour reflects the same spirit. “We’re celebrating the passion of music and the passion of life,” Baze says. “Even the venues and promoters have been so supportive; these guys come up to me at the end of the night like, ‘Hey Christine, what’s that test? HPV? I gotta tell my wife.’ And they write it on their hand to remember, which is so cool. If that happens once every show, everything I’m doing is worth it.”

Words: Gretchen Kalwinski

The Yellow Umbrella Tour hits Schubas (3159 N. Southport; 773/525-2508) October 14; Something New is out now

For more SOUNDS coverage, pick up the latest issue of UR Chicago in streetboxes now

Published in Venus Zine, Spring 2006

Memoirs of a Muse by: Lara Vapnyar

This first novel by Lara Vapnyar tells of a modern muse living in New York and obsessed with the great Russian writers, Dostoevsky in particular. The main character Tanya emigrates from Russia to the States, after deciding in adolescence that she is not gifted in her own right and asking, “could I fight death by living my life to the utmost degree?”

Tanya’s ideas about muses went far back into childhood, when her grandmother warned her about the trials and tribulations of the role. Still, Tanya is so impressed (and turned on by; she masturbates while thinking of Dostoevsky) the great writers that she decides to achieve immortality by inspiring another person’s work. Vapnyar’s lyrical style is notable for its fine detail, economy of words, and tight, crackling dialogue, best evidenced in the gender-interplay between Tanya and Mark Schneider, the writer that (in the absence of Dostoevsky), she takes up with. Mark is confident, with well-honed tastes in everything from coffee to clothing to architecture, and he enjoys schooling Tanya on the tenets of his sophisticated world, paying for her clothes and food, and letting her live with him. In turn, she listens to his childhood memories, discusses his work, brings him coffee while he writes, sleeps with him, and undresses the way he requests, until the affair turns up its eventual pitfalls.

However, the reasons why a modern-day woman would choose this role instead of pursuing her own path, are left unanswered. After all, which of us in adolescence had a declared passion, other than the prodigies or geniuses? Why did Tanya lack the curiosity to find and develop a talent of her own, rather than glomming onto some dude? We never discover why Tanya decides on such a lazy route at such a young age. To be sure, muse-dom is a complicated notion to tackle, especially since muses are usually female and have roles similar to that of “kept” wives and mistresses. In the latter half of the book, Tanya begins to understand what her role entails, and Vapnyar handles the contradictions of a muse’s role with intelligence and dry humor and earthy, womanly insight.

– Gretchen Kalwinski

Published on VenusZine.com, November 2005.

You’ve come a long way, lady
Ladyfests are gaining steam ‘round the globe

By: Gretchen Kalwinski

The first Ladyfest took place in 2000 in Olympia, Washington. In addition to bands like Sleater-Kinney and Cat Power performing, the weeklong event hosted bands like the Rondelles, Neko Case, and Mary Timony, and a dizzying array of varied spoken-word artists, authors, and visual artists, along with workshops and dance partiesOlympia festival, an astounding 80 Ladyfests around the world have been successfully planned, testifying to the need for this sort of event. Ladyfests should not be mistaken for a franchise, however, and the different Ladyfests are not related to one another, except in spirit. The varied places around the world that have hosted Ladyfests include Bloomington, Indiana; Chicago; San Francisco’s Bay Area; Nantes, France; Glasgow, Scotland; Toronto; Los Angeles; Stockholm, Sweden; Melbourne, Australia; Seattle; Berlin; Napoli, Italy; and Vienna, Austria. In 2005, approximately 30 Ladyfests were scheduled to take place worldwide. Venus interviewed organizers and performers from this year’s festivals in Brisbane, Australia; Guelph and Ottawa, Canada; Denver; Lansing, Michigan; and Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Organizers
Ladyfest organizers as a whole are a determined lot with an idealistic focus and an overabundance of energy. They also are uniquely open-minded about their attendees and welcome all genders, unlike the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, for example, which restricts attendees to only biological females. Sarah Brown of Ladyfest Ottawa noted that their demographic was “definitely young women 18 to 30, but we had audience members of all ages and genders.” Fellow Ottawa Ladyfest organizer Natasha Beaudin attributed their good turnout to dynamic and feminist-oriented programming, affirming that, “it was definitely a better turnout than one would get [from] a lecture on feminism, for example.”

Ladyfest Guelph organizer Ashley Fortier was impressed with the event’s large attendance and the variety of ethnicities that were represented, especially given Guelph’s small population. “It was a very diverse crowd, especially at the hip-hop night,” she said. Ladyfest Out West organizer Shannon Perez-Darby commented on the queer focus of their festival’s performances. “Over 75 percent of our performers were queer, lesbian, gay and/or trans identified,” she said. The organizers of Ladyfest Guelph went a step further by specifically listing their event as”anti-oppressive, feminist, queer and trans-positive, DIY, and collective.”

Local Focus, Broad Appeal
The 2005 Ladyfests had varied concentrations in their different locations. Some had a heavy hip-hop presence, while others were more film-centric or focused on performance art or workshops.At Ladyfest Ottawa, the closing party with the Gossip was the most popular event, and Alix Olsen was a “big hit” in Lansing, Michigan. The best-attended performance at Ladyfest South Africa was a band called Electro Muse, a string quartet that combines drum‘n’bass tracks to trip-hop.

Workshops also drew in enormous crowds. Sarah Brown of Ladyfest Ottawa mused that, “A panel discussion on privilege in activism was one of our best-attended events. Bookbinding also had high numbers.” Nearby in Guelph, the workshop on urban gardening was hugely popular. Oftentimes, decisions about performers and events were made broadly and then localized, with organizers focused on bringing in as much local talent as possible. “We included similar broad themes like music, art, politics, film, etc., but then tried to re-appropriate it to the Brisbane context,” said Ladyfest Brisbane organizer Nikola Errington.

Similarly, Ladyfest Ottawa included local talent such as Les Alumettes, Sarah Hallman, Daydream Square, and the Hussies. Ladyfest Out West brought in resident spoken-word artists Jeanette Henriquez, Angela Palermo, and Isis, in addition to well-known local activists Ashara Ekundayo and Kelly Shortandqueer MC and the Denver band Supply Boy.

The Talent
When asked about their Ladyfest experience, performers often got gushy. Susie Patten was double booked at Ladyfest Brisbane with her bands I Heart Hiroshima and the Mean Streaks, and she enjoyed playing to the crowd’s enthusiastic response. “My bands played first and second, so we thought that there’d be a pretty quiet vibe around, but everyone was really into [it]. The crowd response was fantastic. Maybe that was just because Kate Bush was played in between sets.” Patten attended other Ladyfest events while on location and said that “apart from the rad music, the photography exhibition was probably the highlight — so much awesome talent.”

Patten said the only changes she would make for future Ladyfest stints are that she’d like to play last. “And for Cat Power to support us, and maybe even for her to fall in love with me,” she said. “So realistic.” Deb Cavallaro of the Golden Circles called the Brisbane Ladyfest an “intimate, beautiful, dynamic, honest, and inspiring gig. As far as sisterhood goes, there was a fair bit of that feeling going around that night and [it was] kinda great … when you look at the stage and see more than one woman out there.”

Organizational Challenges
The momentum for these festivals seems to be only increasing as time goes by. In 2002, there were 13 Ladyfests; in 2004, the number had reached 26, and in 2005, close to 30 Ladyfests occurred around the globe. This steady growth is encouraging to those of us who aren’t having our needs for this kind of event met in mainstream culture. However, there are definite challenges in planning these festivals. First, there is no one source of income or funding for Ladyfests, and one of the first things that organizers are obliged to figure out is how to raise funds through advertising, fundraising events, or auctions.

Ladyfest Ottawa raised funds via craft sales, bake sales, film nights, rock shows, garage sales, art parties, and bottle drives. Sarah Stollak and Latricia Horstman of Lansing, Michigan’s Ladyfest invested the money from their tax returns to fund their town’s festival, in addition to applying for grants and selling ads to local businesses. Ladyfest South Africa secured Jose Cuervo as a sponsor and “used most of the funding to pay the marketing and printing” costs for their festival. There are definite challenges to organizing other than finances. Many organizers struggle with the admittedly valid critique that Ladyfest and events like it can work to marginalize women artists and performers. Being cast as an “alternative” culture can run the risk of alienation, an important point to consider when in the planning process. Others depict the female nonprofit organizing process akin to a series of infighting sessions, characterizing women’s managerial styles as too emotional or complicated.

However, the typical response from a Ladyfest organizer is that although the planning completely consumed their life for the better part of a year, the payoff was enormously rewarding. Most organizers said that they’d do it again but would change small parts of the process. For instance, they suggested a different organizational structure, setting earlier application deadlines, and, as Nikola Errington of Ladyfest Brisbane said, “we would try and make EVERYTHING all-ages.”

When asked if she’d program another Ladyfest, Sarah Brown said, “Hell yes. Organizing this festival is so rewarding. It deeply affects your life, and as an organizer you have the privilege of watching it affect others.” Latricia Horstman muses that she set out on a mission to bring Ladyfest to Michigan in a way that changed her community’s mindset, all the while having fun and providing a fantastic opportunity for folks to get involved and learn. “The ultimate goal for everyone participating or attending: to have fun, learn something, and have some money at the end to give to a charity,” she said. “Every year we’ve done just that.”

Good Deeds, Progressive Values
Ladyfest South announced on its Web site that it is a forum for “radical and progressive women everywhere” and goes above and beyond the call of duty by not only paying their performers, but raising a good deal of cash for local social-service projects that assist women, such as the DeKalb Rape Crisis Center and the Women’s Center to End Domestic Violence.

Ladyfest Mexico will be held in Monterrey in February 2006, and the organizers are calling for submissions of women artists, including photographers, writers, actresses, filmmakers, musicians, and fashion designers. The festival will focus on subjects such as the situation of women in politics, society, and the economy, with a critical reflection of the role assigned to women in the work-field and family by societal and moral values.

The possibilities of Ladyfest seem endless. As long as there are women producing good work, there is a seemingly endless array of locations and venues for Ladyfests to showcase them. It is of note, though, that what most of the organizers, participants, and attendees are ultimately working for is a world where the kind of work, art, and music featured in Ladyfests around the world would automatically be showcased and valued by a larger and more diverse demographic of society. We’ve come a long way, ladies, but there is still a long way to go.

The Future of the Fest
Some upcoming Ladyfests in 2006 are in Atlanta and Monterrey, Mexico. For more information about past and future Ladyfests, visit http://www.ladyfest.org.

All photos courtesy of Nikola Errington of Ladyfest Brisbane 2005.

Top photo: Stitch N’ Bitch event
Middle photo: Scout Niblett performing
Bottom photo: Women in Activism workshop

Book review published in Venus Zine, Winter 2005

I’m with the Band
By: Pamela Des Barres

Pamela Des Barres embraced her “ultimate groupie” moniker with the 1987 publication of I’m with the Band— a merry recounting of her friendships and trysts with some of rock’s elite, including Captain Beefheart, Jim Morrison, and Frank Zappa. This new reprint includes an epilogue by Des Barres and an affectionate forward by Dave Navarro, who calls her “one of the most unique and important rock historians of our time.”

After graduating in 1966 from high school in Reseda, California, Des Barres hung out with bands nightly in Hollywood. Bestowing oral sex to rock musicians testified to her belief that these musicians were on earth to do great things and that she was here to cater to them. Although written when Des Barres was 39, the book maintains an adolescent tone replete with cringe-worthy puns and lifted song lyrics. For example, several chapters after she recounts fainting while seeing Jim Morrison perform, she muses about Michael Des Barres, the rocker she will eventually marry; “I kept him all to myself and tried to set the night on fire. Girl, we couldn’t get much higher.” Seriously. Or: “I soon found out that the answer to any and all questions was blowing in the wind.”

Her visceral, high school obsession with the Beatles, Paul Anka, Rolling Stones, and the Byrds became lust and lifestyle by her late teens. Her perspective might be easier to comprehend if she were a sex-positive, 1960s free-love explorer and adventuress, but she wasn’t — she states repeatedly that all she really wanted was to be the wife of a rock star. Des Barres was trying to be part of music in the best way she knew how — offering her body to it, and this makes her story a sad one. In one poignant scenario, Des Barres trespasses and is forcibly removed from Beatles property, and while being driven away in a police car she notes a contemptuous, sorrowful look on John Lennon’s face.

Des Barres’ deference to “her” musicians is, for lack of a better word, icky. Although claiming lack of any regret, the updated epilogue of the new edition reads, “I have spent so much time wistfully flitting about, caring for creative souls and — wonder of wonders — I have finally come to recognize the potency of my very own creative soul.”

–Gretchen Kalwinski

–published in Venus Zine / Issue 67 / Winter 2002.

Buttongal: Chicago’s One-Inch Buttonmaker

Christen Carter reignited the one-inch button market in 1995 after talking with a button-making friend in London and realizing that few people were doing it stateside. Carter saved her pennies to invest in a button-making machine, named her company Busy Beaver, and worked solo for the first few years. The business grew organically, and now employs four of Carter’s friends, who work out of Busy Beaver’s headquarters – Carter’s apartment in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village. After producing 7,000 button designs, Busy Beaver decided to take on a new challenge – dispensing buttons from gumball machines. Carter scored a load of vending machines and is dispensing one-inchers at various Chicago restaurants and hangouts.

How did Busy Beaver get started?

I was living in London on a work exchange through Indiana University and a friend was making buttons over there for bands and his own promotion. I realized that nobody was really offering custom buttons in the U.S. anymore, so he showed me around his machine. I had gotten sort of friendly with Guided by Voices in London, and when I came back to the States; they asked me what I was planning to do. I said that I was thinking about making one-inch buttons for bands, and they said they’d be my first customer. That really made me go out and find a machine and figure out how to print (I just used the IU computers) and figure out pricing (which I’ve never changed). I then went through my record collection and sent fliers to all those people and it just kept growing.

It seems like button-making could get monotonous?

Very true! Pressing and pinning are really repetitive. But it’s a good job for people who don’t mind just thinking or listening to music or NPR while working.

Who are some of your well-known customers?

Sleater-Kinney, Lost Goat, Paul Westerberg, the Butchies, Le Tigre, Tracy + the Plastics, Stereolab, Beck, Tenacious D, NOFX, Slayer, and Fisher Spooner.

You employ your friends and work out of your apartment. Do you sometimes have to be the boss and say, “OK, we’re done having a beer, guys. Let’s get to work”?

I’m not completely comfortable being a boss. I had to learn how to deal with being communicative, but now I’m more comfortable. But I sometimes ask, “Do you think you’ll be OK to come in tomorrow morning or are you going to be hung over?”

What are the biggest perks of running your own business and working from home?

We can cook food while we’re working and the kitties are nice to have around. If I ever worked in an office, Max and Floyd would have to do some serious adjusting.

What’s your workaday schedule?

We work like mad Monday through Thursday and take Friday off unless it’s super busy. But I work really late when it’s busy; otherwise, I usually wrap up about 7 p.m.

There are several button Web sites that look like yours (www.busybeaver.net), and some of them even have similar price gauges and timelines. Since you were the one who got this button thing going again, what’s your take on the competition?

I think there’s room for us all. I honestly feel like we’re a great business and do a great job, so that’s all I can do. But it’s sort of a nice feeling to have set a standard in the independent one-inch buttons world.

You had an opening party for your button machines in September. How did the project begin?

It’s working out really well, and I love doing it. I was talking to a New York friend who has a vending machine in a record store there, and me and Rosie [Sanders, a Busy Beaver employee] decided “We have to do that here!” We scored vintage vending machines on eBay, and asked some friends [including Archer Prewitt, Jessica Abel, Emily Counts, and Paul Koob] to design buttons. The next exhibit will be in December or January, and I think the theme will be a scavenger hunt.

If the vending machines do well in Chicago, would you be interested in expanding to include more artists and venues in other cities?

I’m not sure, I guess we’ll see. We have 20 machines and 10 are en route, so there’s room to grow. There’s been some interest from people in New York, but we haven’t figured out how to refill, do maintenance, etc. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

Expanding?

Sure we could grow and I’d like that.

Any advice for potential entrepreneurs with original ideas?

For people who don’t like paperwork, I say just go for it and deal with the paperwork after you’re actually earning a little bit. And don’t be shy about promoting your ideas, talk to people about it.

—Gretchen Kalwinski
Chicago, Illinois

–published on Bitch Magazine [http://bitchmagazine.org/] website, August 2002.

Kiss My Bass

Bass Beer is evidently trying to narrow its target audience to include only upwardly-mobile misogynists. The brew’s new commercials feature young, conventionally good-looking white guys in neutral-colored clothing pontificating to the camera about their philosophies of life. In one ad, a guy simply enumerates the things that women do to attract him in bars. “Bring on the flirtation,” Mr. J. Crew challenges. “The hair-toss, the unbuttoned button, the leg cross, the licking of the lips, I know you see me, I see you.”

It’s hilariously presumptuous of Bass to imagine that this guy attracts women using that crap—but the apparent belief that all women in bars are posing and preening on his behalf is not as funny, given how many men explain away rape by claiming they were “led on” by a woman’s clothing or behavior. It’s a small step to imagining that if you’re in the same bar with this guy, talking with friends and occasionally crossing your legs or smoothing your hair, he’ll assume the two of you are engaged in some sort of urban foreplay.

Another commercial in the campaign offers us a second clean-cut white guy—this time with a basketball as a prop—with his own observations, among them “If you’re going to draw a map of your life, do it in pencil,” and “There’s a difference between the right girl and the right-now girl.”

Both commercials make plain that for Bass Men, women are disposable, sexualized objects that entice and attract, but certainly aren’t equals. The difference between these and other misogynistic beer ads would seem to be that the beers marketed as working class are more obvious in their imagery, their sexism more honest. These Bass ads frame their spokesdudes as the kind of man every khaki-wearing college graduate should aspire to be, and this makes their sexism all the more insidious. Personally, I think I’ll be switching to Pabst.

—Gretchen Kalwinski

–published in Booksense magazine and website, Winter 2001.

Young Wives Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership

Editors: Jill Corral and Lisa Miya-Jervis Published: 6.01.2001

“In this book of essays feminists relate their struggle to create modern partnerships with their loved one(s). There are essays on lesbian marriage, mixed ethnicity partnerships, cohabitation, the decision to have a childless marriage, how housework is shared, and what to do about last names – all narrating how a couple has negotiated their relationship to make it work. This is a look at modern partnerships that takes the old-fashioned trappings and myths and gently dismantles them with honesty and intelligence.”

–Review by: Gretchen Kalwinski
The Booksmith
San Francisco, California