Ari Moore

Fear of Fighting

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Fear of Fighting is a short novel about a woman living and working and looking for love. It reminds me, oddly, of Chuck Palahniuk's novels, though it's more comfortable with its queerness. It's got the same distasteful-yet-oddly-satisfying-in-their-rawness details and images (a half-boiled chicken's leg rotting in a refrigerator, filthy bathrooms, and all too much vomit), the same recklessly self-destructive and improbable obsessions and compulsions. It's got the same artful lists full of suspiciously quirky details, and the same intentionally, beautifully repetitive and sad images of emptiness and loneliness and the alienation of consumer-driven, urban American life.

But Stacey May Fowles balances her portrait of the grossness of human misery with beauty. There are adorable characters galore, plenty of non-gross sex, and lots of details that paint a stylish, hip mise-en-scène. The story is enriched by its characters' charmingly developed and sensitive relationships with animals. The art by Marlena Zuber is lovely and effective—and it adds a lot to the book, making it feel very much like an art piece and not just some novel. The prose is easy and elegantly spare, at times poetic. And at times Fowles' self-reflective musings and fancies work to great effect, as when—spoiler alert—the narrator illuminates the story of an abortion with great subtlety. When Marnie says in her diary-like voice, "To cope I used horrifying, shame-filled phrases like 'get it taken care of,'" she's not just explaining what she's doing or how it made her feel, but, more interestingly, is also revealing her feminist interpretation of her life.

This window into the complex inner life of a very real-feeling woman is refreshing. She lives an ordinary life that, when closely examined—like all ordinary lives—is extraordinary in its details. Similarly extraordinary-in-its-ordinariness is Fowles’ sweet little book; its honest and unassuming acknowledgments and author and printer profiles reveal a collaborative labor of love between independent creatives. The result is a a pleasure to see, to hold, and to read.

Written by: Ari Moore, March 17th 2009

ARTitude Zine (Issue #23: Winter 2006)

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:04:00 +0000

By ARTitude

Sweet and sincere, ARTitude Zine includes well-written articles by and about artists and their processes, nifty project ideas with full instructions, and full-color pages displaying readers’ work. In this issue, most of the works (and articles) were by women – and judging by the letters to the editor and the “Ask ARTchick” column, the zine provides a lot of female artists with a real sense of community.

Among the zine’s archival images of Victorian ladies and cute children holding flowers provided for readers to use in collages - and a listing of back issues including “Domestic Goddess,” “Bathing Beauty,” “Polkadots and Moonbeams” and “Material Girl” - I was surprised to see “Naughty Knotty Necklace,” a project by “sassy gal” Elizabeth Dunn. She writes, “Words like ‘Pimp,’ ‘Ghetto’ and ‘Addict’ are expressions that complement my sense of humor,” and shows us how to make her pendant emblazoned with the word “Ghetto.” I have to admit, I was hoping there would be something “edgier” between these covers, but I think “questionable” describes this suggestion a little better. Even this project, though, provides folks with the tools, information, and ideas they need to create their own unique works.

The focus of ARTitude Zine may be on collage and assemblage, but the featured work and projects include diverse techniques that range from soldering to biting birch bark, and the results look more like something you’d find at a hip craft fair than at a scrapbookers’ meetup. And while it may be a little too flowery for some folks, some women will find in ARTitude Zine a crafty community, welcoming new artists with open arms.

Written by: Ari Moore, April 28th 2007

Children of Men

admin — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:49:00 +0000

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Universal Studios

P.D. James’ The Children of Men is a story about the English countryside, devoid of the English. It is the near future, and men have become infertile. Half-deranged, aging women coo over porcelain dolls, pushing their prams through empty streets. An increasingly lonely and oppressed population struggles to maintain normalcy in Britain while chaos rules the rest of this world without hope. And from this infertile world comes new life, in the form of a Christian woman and her child. Our hero, historian and academic Theo, finds redemption in helping the mother in her quest to have her birth on her own terms, rather than turning her and her unborn child over to the authorities. In the end though, we’re left with a questionable victory: Power moves from the hands of one man to another through violence, and through the Coronation Ring, the wedding ring of England.

Alfonso Cuaron’s film adaptation, Children of Men, is radically different, set in a grittier, more action-packed dystopian London. As might be expected with a book-to-film adaptation, gripping curbside discussions have been replaced with even more gripping coffee shop bombings, and distant tales of trouble on the Isle of Man penal colony have been swapped out in favor of a kidnapping and chase in what’s become an active war zone. Interestingly, these action-oriented changes actually serve to make the film more realistic than the book – this future world looks uncannily like the present, complete with visual echoes of Iraq and Guantanamo.

The book’s vaguely Christian Madonna is abandoned in favor of strong female activists, and its messages run broader as well: Every child is precious. Violence never works, only pushing away the peace you strive for. Personal loss can be overcome by love for the collective. The future is worth dying for.

What both the film and the book have at their hearts though, is a reverence for motherhood. Children of Men shows us a future where the one constant is the power of mothers, midwives, and childbirth. In a world where women are taught that childbirth is something they need drugs, scalpels and doctors to get through, these portrayals of the strength of women and the beauty and transformative power of birth are a welcome source of hope. Maybe the future can be a fertile one after all.

Written by: Ari Moore, February 26th 2007

Pillow Fight League: Galapagos Match (1/20/07)

admin — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 22:23:00 +0000

Pillow Fight League

Pillow Fight League is more akin to roller derby than mud wrestling. Sure, there’s violence, but it’s pillow-related. And yes, there are scantily-clad females, but they’re of all different body types and genders, and their carefully-crafted characters and their costumes are the work of creativity and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. The result? Hotness.

Pillow Fight League isn’t staged, but it is theatre. The announcer, known as The Mouth, is a big guy who looks and sounds a bit like Penn of Penn and Teller. With the help of loud theme music, he introduces fighters like Betty Clock’er, Sarah Bellum, and Sister Resistor. And with the help of pillows, the women fight (one rule reads, “Loading a pillow with a foreign object such as a brick is strictly forbidden”) until one fighter is pinned or surrenders, or the referee stops the fight. They hit each other really hard. People actually get injured, though rarely. Hot pants and leotards ride up. Sailor hats and false vampire teeth go flying. The crowd goes wild.

The crowd – and what PFL does to keep the crowd – is one big reason why the whole shebang comes off as good clean fun and not the exploitative mess it could be. Largely heterosexual but queer-friendly, packed with women (some of whom volunteered jubilantly for “amateur” fights), the crowd looks more like the folks you’d see at an art opening than a boxing match. And PFL wants to keep it that way – these women don’t play at “adult” venues or sports bars.

However, PFL has some issues. With the announcer and main referee both men, and the judges largely male as well, one gets the uncomfortable impression that boys are controlling the game. And they are. While the PFL is largely women-driven, and was inspired by a pillow fight staged by a burlesque troupe, its “commissioners” are men. It’s girls-only because the commissioners have made the assumption that audiences wouldn’t want to see a boy-on-boy (or girl-on-boy) pillow fight. And – I saved the worst for last – their site is on the Beer.com Network, its logo at the bottom of every page of their site.

PFL needs new partners. Once you click on that link you get to see the much more overtly exploitative, sexist world that of which the PFL is unfortunately a part. And it’s a shame! Pillow Fight League: Hire a female commissioner, get some lady judges up there on that panel, and work with Bust Magazine or Babeland rather than Beer.com, and I’ll call you feminist-approved.

Written by: Ari Moore, February 25th 2007