Curve articles from April 2004

Curve archives from April 2004

Got my bags packed.(Frankly Speaking)
April 1, 2004... Get in shape. Quit smoking. Eat healthier. For years, these were the typical New Year's resolutions I'd heard from my friends. This year, we all made a different kind of resolution--we promised to do more traveling. In fact, we each vowed to...

Roll with it.(Out in Front)(Lesbian social and activities club Women on a Roll)
April 1, 2004... In August 1995, when Andrea Meyerson announced in the Los Angeles-based publication LN that she was forming a women's bike riding group, she had no idea that the small circle of cyclists would evolve into a major social organization with a...

Dangerous Mix.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... Are date-rape drugs a straight thing? Who in the heck thought it was? I was insulted by "Dangerous Mix" (Vol. 13, #7). This happens in the queer community all the time. We all need to be careful when we are out, no matter if it's a queer or...

The real dyke porn.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... I am an avid reader of your magazine and love what you guys do. After all, how many cool queer mags are out there? I am a reader, writer and dildo-slinger myself, and although I generally agree with everything I read in your publication, I was...

Lining the bird cage.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... My partner and I have enjoyed your magazine for years. Now we find the new issue sits in its plastic wrap for days before getting placed on the "when we have time" stack. We're sure you had good reasons for changing the magazine.... However,...

Another cheer for Tara.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... I've just discovered your magazine through my local public library, and you have no idea how much of a godsend it is. Lesbian literature of any sort is hard to come by out here. It has ideas and notions in it that I may or may not like, but as...

Disenchanted.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... As a young lesbian, reading your magazine is essentially an escape from the overt heterosexuality I am force-fed on a daily basis. For the most part, our culture instills in us the idea that a heterosexual lifestyle is the only one that is...

Happy days!(Ask Fairy Butch)(lesbian dating questions)
April 1, 2004... Dear Fairy Butch: Call me a late bloomer, but it took me three decades to figure out I'm a dyke. I've spent the last year coming to terms with my identity, all the while slapping myself on the fore-head at the obviousness of it: the years...

Lesbian-run hotel hit by discrimination suit.(Curvatures)(Casitas Laquita in Palm Springs, California)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... IN WHAT MAY BE THE FIRST CASE OF ITS KIND, CASITAS Laquita, a Palm Springs, Calif., resort that caters to lesbian travelers, is being sued by two Los Angeles men who say they were denied lodging because of their sex. Michael Cohn and Greg...

Hey! Baby.(Curvatures)(Kathleen McLellan Assensi, transsexual)(Interview)
April 1, 2004... Kathleen McLellan Assensi, 21, is a trans parent living in the San Francisco Bay area with her boyfriend, Ricky, and her son, Rio. How did you find a trans community, and how did you find a dyke community that welcomes trans women? I came...

Truth and consequences.(cases involving lesbian rights)
April 1, 2004... It's Not What You Say... What happens when Heather has two mommies... but one of them is "ex-gay"? A Denver district court judge has ordered a woman to stop preaching homophobia to her child. Cheryl Clark, who adopted her 8-year-old...

Sunshine in cyberspace.(Out on the Web)(gay-oriented web sites)
April 1, 2004... SPRING MEANS TERM PAPERS, vacations and breathing new energy into familiar routines. Visit these one-stop Web sites to make better use of your gay old time. Swap Meet www.gayhometrade.com There is plenty titillating about perusing...

Fresh as a daisy.(Horoscopes)
April 1, 2004... SPRING HAS SPRUNG, AND YOU'RE taking stock of all the new growth around you: For some of you, it's a scented bud on a vine, while for others, the new season is just a tangle of weeds at your feet. Either way, it's high time you and yours...

Cinematic journeys.(Sapphic Screen)
April 1, 2004... FACE IT: IN THIS ECONOMY, SOME of us can't simply run off to Acapulco whenever the spirit moves us. Here's a cheaper option: Take a trip on film. You could see pink in Washington, D.C., with Legally Blonde 2 (legallyblonde2.com), or marvel at...

Mara Brock Akil.(Q & A)(televison producer)(Brief Article)(Interview)
April 1, 2004... Girlfriends creator and producer Mara Brock Akil--the youngest black female executive producer in Hollywood--knows a thing or two about shaking it up. Her UPN sitcom, among the top ranked in black households, has taken on everything from racism...

3 cities, 2 budgets, 1 weekend.(lesbian travel ideas)
April 1, 2004... We asked our writers to share their favorite spots in three of the top destinations for lesbian travelers--New York, San Francisco and Vancouver. The result? 50+ great ideas on where to stay, where to dine and what to do once you get there. ...

Troubles in paradise.(Lesbofile)(Hollywood gossip)
April 1, 2004... Hurry yourselves on in here, girls, and sidle up to the Lesbofile gossip buffet, 'cause the horse is just about out of the barn. I've got so much dirt to dish, my Hoover Upright's about to blow! Ready, set, go! Freedom of Speech, Baby ...

Quote unquote.(lesbianism in popular culture)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... "It's crazy and it's bizarre, but it's also kind of amazing." >> Britney Spears to People on the flurry of media attention surrounding her kiss with Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards "It is no big deal to me. I have always been...

Afterglow.(Keeping It Real)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2004... Sarah McLachlan Afterglow Arista Records Just as her blissed-out photo on Afterglow's cover suggests, McLachlan has mellowed. The sweet and stormy rise of torment that made both 1994's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and 1997's Surfacing...

Life for Rent.(Keeping It Real)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2004... Dido Life for Rent Arista Records First, we forgive Dido for allowing Eminem to sample her golden "Thank You" on his self-obsessed, whiny "Stan." However, it did give this previously unknown Londoner some well-deserved...

Casa de los Babys.(Keeping It Real)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2004... Various Artists Casa de los Babys Hybrid Records John Sayles' film Casa de los Babys is primarily set in southern Mexico, so this soundtrack accompanies the landscape well. The movie's premise revolves around a group of wealthy...

The Song Is Love.(Keeping It Real)(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
April 1, 2004... The Quails The Song Is Love Mr. Lady Records Political plus playful is always a winning mix. This radical rock trio sings it loud and proud on their fire starter "More Gender, More of the Time," which announces, "How fixed is your...

Kathryn Grimm.(Q & A)(musician )(Interview)
April 1, 2004... THE MUSIC OF KATHRYN GRIMM (formerly of the Screamin' Sirens) is a direct challenge to the kind of profit-driven, cookie-cutter tunes that have dominated the airwaves in recent years. Grimm's style is, in her own words, "impossible to...

Lez not be friends.(Dyke Drama)(Short Story)
April 1, 2004... SHE WAS AWFUL! SHE was loud, rude, insensitive, arrogant and hairy. She never missed an opportunity to embarrass me in public. Her primary mode of expression was the shriek. Negativity seemed positively positive compared to her worldview. And...

Ellen DeGeneres.(Girl Talk)(The Funny Thing Is ...)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Ellen DeGeneres The Funny Thing Is... Simon and Schuster $23 There's no doubt that Ellen DeGeneres is funny in person. She's even funny as a fish, as her stint in Finding Nemo proved. But you can't simply transfer a funny voice...

Rebecca Brown.(Girl Talk)(Excerpts From a Family Medical Dictionary)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Rebecca Brown Excerpts From a Family Medical Dictionary University of Wisconsin Press $19.95 Rebecca Brown gives both her mother and her readers a true gift of love in penning Excerpts From a Family Medical Dictionary. It couldn't...

Lynn C. Miller, Jacqueline Taylor and M. Heather Carver, Eds.(Girl Talk)(Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women's Autobiography)(Telling Moments: Autobiographical Lesbian Short Stories)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Lynn C. Miller, Jacqueline Taylor and M. Heather Carver, Eds. Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women's Autobiography University of Wisconsin Press $26.95 Lynda Hall, Ed. Telling Moments: Autobiographical Lesbian Short...

Parminder Sekhon.(Q & A)(photographer)(Interview)
April 1, 2004... A SELF-TAUGHT PHOTOGRAPHER KNOWN FOR HER WORK IN BUTCH and Femme, Nothing But the Girl and elsewhere, Parminder Sekhon has worked since the mid-1990s with the Naz Project, an HIV and AIDS network based in West London. Her new collection of...

Odd girl out.(According to)(performing on the Late Show With David Letterman)
April 1, 2004... MY GIRL AND I WERE HAVING ONE of those arguments that you have when you've been together for more than 11 years. "Why would you grind the espresso beans for drip coffee? They're only espresso beans if you use them for espresso! Otherwise,...

Don't leave home without it.(Brownworth)(wills and the rights of lesbian partners)
April 1, 2004... DEATH AND TAXES. THESE ARE THE immutable facts of American life. Even the very poor pay taxes (although they shouldn't), and all of us will die someday. If we are fortunate, we will live long lives and die peacefully in our own beds surrounded...

Photo play.(photograph of Paris and the hazards of smoking )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Longtime CURVE contributor Phyllis Christopher recently vacationed in Paris and came away with these eerie snapshots of the City of Lights. Smoking is the number-one killer in the gay & lesbian community--not surprising, since we smoke 70%...