Margaux Laskey

Gwethalyn Graham: A Liberated Woman in a Conventional Age

admin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:23:00 +0000

Barbara Meadowcroft promises in her introduction to Gwethalyn Graham: A Liberated Woman in a Conventional Age that this book is no definitive biography. How refreshing! Can there really be such a thing anyway? She argues that no one is ever truly known “even, or especially, to those closest to them,” and I would agree. It’s in this vein that she invites her “readers to view [the book] as they would a sketch in which the gaps in the pattern must be filled by their own imagination.” Meadowcroft does a wonderful job piecing together bits and pieces of her research to give us some insight into who this complicated and conflicted woman was—not just publicly, but privately.

Gwethalyn Graham is credited with almost singlehandedly putting Canada on the literary map. Until the wildly successful publication of Earth and High Heaven in 1944, Canada stood in the literary and cultural shadow of the United States and Europe. Graham’s book—a powerful novel about the love affair between a Christian woman and a Jewish man—was revolutionary at the time as it was the first book to openly confront the anti-Semitism of wartime Canada. It was the first Canadian book to make it to the number one spot on the New York Times' Bestseller List, where it stayed for thirty-seven weeks. Graham won two Governor-General’s Literary Awards for her work. She was a social activist who wrote and campaigned tirelessly to expose injustices in her beloved Canada. And yet, she remains largely unknown, having slipped into relative obscurity after her second marriage, then tragically dying of brain cancer at fifty-two years old.

In Gwethalyn’s time, she was a renegade. She was outspoken about her beliefs on anti-Semitism, racism, and the revolution tranquille. She traveled widely. She had affairs. She had sex. She (allegedly) had abortions. And, she was a single mother, supporting herself and her son by writing openly about all of these things—practically unheard of at the time.

Meadowcroft’s portrait of Graham isn’t all triumph and independence. Graham was a brilliant artist who experienced some public success, but never quite found happiness personally. She spent much of her life battling poor self-confidence and a negative body image. She always longed for a healthy, happy, lasting, romantic relationship, but she had a habit of choosing adulterous, verbally abusive mates. She was an arguably neglectful mother, leaving her son with friends and nannies for long stretches of time while she went off to work on her writing or to travel through Europe.

Meadowcroft makes no bones about it, Graham made some poor personal choices, but she also cautions against judging Graham. As creative, working women, we still struggle with these issues today, but at least we have role models who came before us. Gwethalyn had none. She was carving out a path. A messy path, but a path nonetheless. As women writers, we all owe Gwethalyn Graham a thank you note.

Written by: Margaux Laskey, February 28th 2009

The Mammy Project

admin — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 23:04:00 +0000

The Roundtable Ensemble

Michelle Nicole Matlock’s one-woman show, The Mammy Project, is a provocative piece of theater that entertains and educates through a series of vignettes that deconstructs the controversial history of the Mammy stereotype.

Matlock builds her show around two stories - the life of Nancy Green, a former slave who was hired as the first-ever Aunt Jemima for the World’s Fair in 1893, and Matlock’s own experiences as a full-figured African-American actress who thought she’d never have to play the part of the mammy-maid in today’s entertainment business, but found herself getting cast in those roles anyway (Matlock actually auditioned for an Aunt Jemima commercial, but didn’t get the part because they wanted someone “more motherly”). From there, Matlock takes the audience on a journey through the life of the Mammy stereotype via a series of scenes - some shocking, some outright hysterical and some devilishly both.

One particularly powerful segment has Matlock portraying an auctioneer selling a “slave of dreams,” “a mild mannered maid (who) only knows how to smile…with prize-chocolate milk on tap for the young’uns.” This scene alone is disturbing enough, but then Matlock steps up on the auction block and replays the scene acting as the slave that was just sold. Grinning but clearly terrified, she displays her shackled hands to the prospective buyers. The theater is in complete silence. There are no sound effects. There is no speaking. The audience is completely uncomfortable, and that is absolutely how it should be.

There are plenty of serious scenes that make you want to squirm in your seat, but Matlock also uses laughter throughout much of the show to educate and enlighten by surprise. She mocks the Mammy stereotypes portrayed in the media – Hattie McDaniels scolds Scarlett for “sucking dick,” Imitation of Life’s Louise Beavers becomes a red bustier-clad stripping lesbian, even Oprah, the “corporate mammy” doesn’t escape unscathed:

You’ll constantly be looking for me wherever you go…You might even start lookin’ for me in one of them TV talk shows. Oh yes, I’ll tell you stories and sing you songs…I’ll tell ya what to buy and what not to buy. What books to read. You will cry and cry.

You do laugh, but you gasp too, because Matlock has made you see something you never saw before, and that’s always a little scary-wonderful.

Matlock’s show makes you realize how embedded the Mammy stereotype is in our culture and how it has, like so many stereotypes, simultaneously been a source of subjugation and empowerment. Nancy Green drew criticism from the African-American intelligentsia for her portrayal of Aunt Jemima because it perpetuated the Mammy myth, but it provided her with the financial independence a former slave might never have experienced otherwise. I’m not an African-American woman, but based on what I heard in the talk-back session after the show, many young African-American women still feel the pull of this contradiction in their own lives. Matlock’s show confronts the audience with this predicament, provides no easy answers, but invites the audience step out of the box and “pave a new road. Cuz fantasies,” Aunt Jemima says, “only live as long as you let them.”

Written by: Margaux Laskey, March 18th 2007

Scrappy: A Crafty Zine for Scrappy People, #1: Stitches

admin — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:18:00 +0000

By Niku of The Ephemeral Mailbox Museum

A couple of years ago, my grandmother gave me her sewing machine (circa 1940). Have I used it? Hardly. To hem a pair of pants a year or so ago. So I was thrilled when I was chosen to review Scrappy: A Craft Zine for Scrappy People, #1 Stitches. Perhaps it would be just the push I needed to unveil Grandma Betty’s machine and get to creating fabulous, designed-by-moi outfits!

Scrappy is an adorable handmade zine that is perfect for the beginner seamstress (or the hibernating one) looking for a little inspirational shove. Niku, the author, started sewing because she was unable to find a pirate skirt that “would fit a more voluptuous figure.” Scrappy was born out of her love for crafts, and Niku decided to dedicate the first issue to sewing since it’s one of her “favorite crafty activities.”

She explains the basic stitches – the blanket stitch, the whipstitch, the running stitch – and the basic tools – an iron, scissors, pins – necessary to begin. From there, the rest of the zine is dedicated to a number of simple and sassy projects: a reconstructed cardigan, all sorts of cozies (toilet paper, zine, tampon, and vibrator), curtains, and the de rigueur headband.

Visually, the zine is a joy. Xeroxed onto lavender paper and tied together with a fuzzy black string, it’s both typewritten and handwritten with old photos and vintage clip-art interspersed throughout, so even if you don’t want to sew, it’s still fun to look at.

Some of the illustrations are a little confusing (Niku admits she’s not an artist), but with a little experimentation, I think most folks could figure it out (She also includes her email address, so you can always drop her a line to ask for an explanation). There were a couple of pages that were out of order, and that was mildly annoying, but it’s a zine. That’s all part of the charm.

Scrappy is no hardcore instruction manual (a la Martha), thank God. It seems that the point is to explain the basics and then serve as inspiration. Niku admits that she rarely uses patterns, and instead “mostly goes by feel and makes it up as she goes.” So if you’re looking to get into improvisational sewing, then Scrappy is the zine for you.

Now, if I could just figure out how to turn the damn machine on.

Written by: Margaux Laskey, January 21st 2007

El Perro del Mar

admin — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:33:00 +0000

By El Perro del Mar

The Control Group

Listening to El Perro del Mar – a pseudonym for the Swedish singer Sarah Assbring – makes me feel like I should be a character in an early 1960s television show. The chipper, pop melodies, be-bops and sha-la-las that underscore her melancholy lyrics about life and love have earned her comparisons to the Beach Boys and girl groups from the 50s and 60s. Like those groups, she’s also a big fan of repetition, as in the song “God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)”:

God knows
I've been taking a lot without giving back
God knows
I've been taking a lot without giving back

You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back to the love

Seems boring. It’s not. And don’t all of our obsessive thoughts tend to loop through our heads in quite the same way?

Yes, you’ll find yourself bopping your head to the left and the right when you slip this CD into your player, but unlike the Shirelles’ voices that sound as if they’ve gotten a good night’s sleep and sipped plenty of chamomile tea, Assbring’s is that of a woman who has been up all night weeping and throwing back glögg. Assbring probably has a perfect voice underneath it all, but she’s just too tired and hurt to give a shit. The Shirelles give you cotton candy, Assbring gives you burnt sugar.

Written by: Margaux Laskey, January 18th 2007