Curve articles from December 2008

Curve archives from December 2008

Curve goes digital: why do we need a digital edition? Because it's about time. Get, and read, curve wherever you want from the comfort of your own computer.(Frankly Speaking)
December 1, 2008... I'm not big on change. If I had my way, I'd stay in the same house forever, wearing my favorite jacket, hanging out with the friends I've had for a decade, and, well, you get the drift. But, the magazine is entering its biggest year yet. More...

Editor's note.(Editorial)
December 1, 2008... OK, first off, don't panic when you flip to page 65 and discover that something big is missing from the magazine this month. Our award-winning entertainment reviews section-the 8 to 10 pages of film, music and book reviews we do every issue-is...

What do you dread most about the holidays?(Letters)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... 33% Christmas carols--you know, the six staple songs playing in rotation in every mall and public building since Thanksgiving 33% Doing catch-up work during my supposed "vacation" 16% Driving cross-country to see my...

Careers for queers.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... While informative, sadly, the article "Working Girls: On the Clock" [Vol. 18 #8] came a little too late for me. I recently came out at a new job and quickly received an awkward phone call from my boss, informing me that the institution has a...

Surprised at November.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... I just received the October issue of curve magazine and I am shocked and appalled that you printed Victoria A. Brownworth's article, "My November Surprise" [Vol. 18 #8]. The subtitle for this article should be renamed "How to make sure John...

Curve's got curves.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... I just finished reading your September issue [Vol. 18 #7], (I know, I'm late) and I was almost in tears. I've never seen a magazine cover fashion for plus-sized girls like myself, and it made me so happy. I was going to sign up for Weight...

Fans of Florida.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... Just a note to let you know how pleased I was to read about Gulfport, Fla., in the article, "Twilight Years in the Sunshine State" [Vol. 18 #8]. It is a great place to live. Don't forget to check outprosuzy.com for networking and social...

Animal love.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2008... I just wanted to say thank you for your stand on fur and animal rights [Vol. 18 #8]! As someone who lives as cruelty-free as possible, it feels so good to know my yearly subscription to your magazine goes to support a company that respects all...

Scene.(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... 1 Jenny Shimizu came out to support the Itty Bitty Titty Committee Los Angeles DVD release party 2 Suzanne Westenhoefer (left) and Jennifer Houston (right) were married by Rev. Lorelei Starbuck at the Hollywood Chapel in West Hollywood, Calif....

Justice for all.(Out in Front)(Dara Silverman)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... For Dara Silverman, being queer is inextricably linked to her fight for social justice. Silverman should know. As a young girl, she joined her mother at the Women's Peace Encampment (a female and primarily queer antimilitarism camp outside...

Guarding our rights.(Out in Front)(Charlene Genther)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... It took getting fired to really fire up Charlene Genther. After more than 14 years as a Detroit police officer, Genther was asked by Sister Lenore Pochelski to work as a security officer at Marian High School, a Catholic all-girls magnet...

A day in the life.(Out in Front)(Sheila Alexander-Reid)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Few people know the Washington, D.C., African American lesbian scene better than Sheila Alexander-Reid. Years ago, she was an event promoter, throwing infamous house parties. Then she moved to the club scene, organizing social events under...

Sisters do it for themselves.(Curvatures)
December 1, 2008... When Lisa Thrasher, president of film production and distribution at POWER UP, produced the organization's first feature film, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, she wasn't sure how the "gentle call to arms within a love story," as she describes the...

What's Hot: 'tis the season to indulge.(Curvatures)(Buyers guide)
December 1, 2008... This holiday season start thinking like a gourmand. Our favorite treats are perfect gifts for foodies and the girls who love them. Get Your Grains Start your mornings right with Japanese 10 Grain porridge. This thick and creamy...

BUSTing out all over.(Curvatures)
December 1, 2008... The feisty DIY feminist publication BUST magazine celebrated its 15th anniversary in craftacular style with nouveau cirque-variety acts and a stellar correct performed by some of the best female entertainment around. The event, (see pg...

Remembering queer victims.(Curvatures)(Holocaust memorial for gay and lesbian victims)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Berlin's openly gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit, inaugrated a memorial to the gay and lesbian victims of the Holocaust, but--like many memorials in Berlin--not without years of controversy. The looped video visitors see of two men kissing when they...

a T-shirt with "Lesbian.com.(NEWS NOTES)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Lapriss Gilbert of Van Nuys, Calif., was escorted out of a federal building last August for wearing a T-shirt with "Lesbian.com" across the chest. The guard told her the T-shirt was "offensive" and she threatened with arrest if she did not...

The Catholic church.(NEWS NOTES)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The Catholic Church wants to exhume the body of a cardinal buried in the U.K. who died over 100 years ago and was laid to rest, at his request, in the same grave as Father Ambrose St. John. Gay activists say that the exhumation is an effort to...

Don't ask, don't tell.(NEWS NOTES)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... The U.S. military continues to discharge gay men and lesbians under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. More than 10,000 personnel have been dropped from the military, and the U.S. Army has turned to finding high school dropouts to add their...

Bekhsoos.(NEWS NOTES)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... A new online magazine, Bekhsoos, for lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer women has been launched in Beirut, Lebanon. Bekhsoos is being lauded as the first online magazine of its kind to come out of the Arab world. Most of the Bekhsoos...

7 to 10 percent of seniors.(NEWS NOTES)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... It has been estimated that the number of Americans age 65 and older will reach a total of 20 percent of the population, in the next 25 years. Of that 20 percent, it is thought that 7 to 10 percent of seniors will be individuals who are lesbian,...

Netflix gets gay.
December 1, 2008... Good news for TV addicts: Logo and Netflix have teamed up in what Joanne Jacobson, Logo's vice president of business development, calls "an industry-breaking, ground-breaking" venture. Logo, Viacom's successful gay and lesbian network, has...

She said she said.(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... "You know who I think is flawless? Alicia Keys. I think she's absolutely beautiful, such a sweetheart, down to earth. So maybe Alicia Keys." Janet Jackson, when asked by Gaywired. com who would be her celebrity girl-crush "When I have sex...

Queenie Yuk.(Open Studio)
December 1, 2008... When people first visit artist Queenie Yuk's website, Q-You.net, they are immediately greeted by colorful characters jumping on a psychedelic lime-green background. Like the story of her alter ego, SuperJuicyChicken, who has traveled on an...

A marriage? A breakup? Look like a lot of people have been naughty in Hoolywood lately.(Lesbofile)
December 1, 2008... This month: a marriage, a breakup and a whole bunch of in between. Isn't It Ironic Before Alanis Morissettle was engaged to Ryan Reynolds (who later dumped her, and is now married to sexpot Scarlett Johansson), she had some dalliances...

Can you trust a Pisces?(Excerpt)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... "Even when caught with your pants down, in mid-thrust in your partner's best friend's bed, with Marvin Gave on the mp3 and a plate of half-eaten oysters on the floor, you deny everything. It's not what it looks like. You fell out of a passing...

Unwrap your gifts.(Astro Grrl)
December 1, 2008... Sagittarius (Nov--Dec. 22) Sex: You can charm the underpants off any-one this December, But don't open up just anyone's Pandora's Box. You never know what or who you will unleash. Career: Your end-of-year bonus check is in the mail. Will...

What to do when you've cheated: should you come clean after you've been playing dirty?(Relationships)
December 1, 2008... There are times when even the best-intentioned woman goes astray. Maybe you had and Anne Heche moment, losing your mind, wandering the streets, accidentally bumping naked bodies with some other woman. Whatever your reasons, or lack thereof, if...

Under the mistletoe.(Lipstick & Dipstick)(Column)
December 1, 2008... Dear Lipstick and Dipstick: Last year I went home with my girl for the holidays. It was my fist time meeting her family. Everything was going great until she stuck her hand down my pants. I freaked out because her parents were in the next room!...

You're getting sleepy.(Health)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Making the switch from a college life to a 9-to-5 career took a toll on my usual routine of sleeping until 11 a.m. My magic bullet was a dose of Cyence Labs L-Tryptophan 1,000 mg twice a day. It's a chemical most people know of from their...

Winning the right to family health care.(Health)
December 1, 2008... When Jeanne Kornowicz applied for spousal healthcare benefits through her employer last February, she had no idea she was about to embark on a six-month battle that would eventually draw national media attention. Kornowicz, a school...

Knocked up?(Health)(New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... When my partner and I embarked upon our path to pregnancy, we found Stephanie Brill's New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth (Alyson) to be a phenomenal and vital resource. Essentially, it was our parenting bible,...

36% Gay women.(Health)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... 36% Gay women who believe routine pap smears are necessary, but admit to not having them because they either don't have health insurance or don't believe that they are as necessary for lesbians. According to a Seattle lesbian health study...

You can still buy solo.(Money)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Deal breakers, personal ads and wish lists have traditionally been useful to singles seeking mates, but in her new book, Own It! Ups and Downs of Homebuying for Women Who Go It Alone (sealpress.com), Jennifer Musselman encourages women to use...

Move over, PayPal.(Money)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... There's a reson your lesbian friends are switching from PayPal to Revolution MoneyExchange. Unlike PayPal, it's completely free and it's aimed less at paying bills (or eBay) and more at finding quick ways to send cash to your friends (to split...

Percent of gay men.(Money)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... 59% Lesbians who own a single family home. Only 41 percent of gay men can say the same. 20% Lesbians who have children younger than 18 years of age. This is true for only 5 percent of gay men. 17.3% Lesbians who...

How's your reputation?(Money)(MyReputation.com )(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... We've all heard the scary stories--a potential employer turning down an otherwise qualified applicant because her Sapphic YouTube bathtub video turned up online, or students suspended from school after authorities stumbled upon Facebook photos...

Presents of mind; it's holiday time again, and that means one thing-dyke drama.(Dyke Drama)
December 1, 2008... I am so broke from all the wedding gifts, bridal showers and "best woman" suits I have had to buy this year that I cannot afford to celebrate Christmas. I couldn't even afford Halloween this year. I resorted to giving the kids things out of my...

A matter of faith; The holiday season is a much-needed yearly reminder to bridge differences with love.(Politics)
December 1, 2008... This is my favorite time of year, as regular readers of this space know. I love the holidays--the crisp, cold nights, the sparkling lights, the festive music, the hustle and bustle, Magic is in the air. In childhood I yearned for storybook...

In the news.(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Oregon's Coquille Indian Tribe Approves Lesbian Marriage Jeni Branting and Kitzen Doyle have been sweethearts since their teens and engaged since 2001. Their dream to marry came true when the Coquille Indian tribe decided to recognize...

Christmas in the Big Easy; Skip the crowded malls and make new Orleans your holiday gift to yourself.
December 1, 2008... I'm sitting in the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Harrah's Hotel in New Orleans, just minutes before it reopens to the public--a first for the chain in its hometown since it moved its head-quarters to Florida after Hurricane Katrina--and I'm...

In search of the drag king Pharaoh: vilified for decades as a manipulative, power-hungry pretender to the throne of Egypt, Hatshepsut is finally getting her due.
December 1, 2008... Thanks to a tooth fragment stored in her mummified liver, not to mention CAT scans and 3-D computer modeling, Pharaoh Hatshepsut--history's first great drag king--has finally been found, Before the Discovery Channel produced a documentary...

Kara Cooney digs up the dirt; An expert on Hatshepsut gives us the inside scoop.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... We girls always wanted a female Indiana Jones. Now we have one in Dr. Kara Cooney--and she's hotter than Indy. Dr. Cooney is an Egyptologist, the author of The Cost of Death: The Social and Economic Value of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the...

Leslit, she wrote: an amateur Egyptologist digs into the past for inspiration.(lesbian fiction)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... Justine Saracen has just arrived from the airport on her way back from Amsterdam and Brussels, where she did a DIY book tour, but this mild-mannered former academic--who went from teaching German language and literature at Stanford University...

The original righteous babe: Ani DiFranco talks about her new album and being a mother.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... Ani DiFranco burst onto the music scene at the dawn of the 1990s. Released on her own label, Righteous Babe Records, her self-titled debut marked the arrival of an important new voice, addressing by turns the personal and the political. Almost...

Heather Caroline; Actor Heather Matarazzo often plays unloved, quirky outsiders; she now finds herself on the good side of love. How musician and playwright Caroline Murphy stole Heather's heart and vice versa.
December 1, 2008... Stacy Merkin is engaged... or rather, Heather Matarazzo, 26, the actor who played the wicked curve writer on The L Word in season four, has been engaged to the musician Caroline Murphy, 28, for about a year and a half. We talked to the couple...

Ariel Schrag is all grown up: her comics are a candid take on adolescence. Now, this cult favorite is turning her hand to TV, film and children's books.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... Ariel Schrag turned high school's horrors on their heads by chronicling each year at Berkeley High School in a self-published comic zine, Each book--Awkward, Definition, Potential and Likewise--documented her crushes and friendships, her coming...

After clinner we started walking to meet the others.(Cartoon)
December 1, 2008... After clinner we started walking to meet the others and ended up with our arms around our shoulders. It seemed to me like she had initiated it and I hoped this was the sign things would turn up. I'll remember it always but then again...

A long road to Success; Best-selling author Jennifer McMahon discusses finally making it and the worst-case scenarios that got her there.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... The media loves Jennifer McMahon. People called her "whip smart," and everyone from Entertainment Weekly to The Today Show to Amazon lauded her debut psychological thriller, Promise Not to Tell. Her second novel, Island of Lost Girls--the...

Rock the vote: Laurie Metcalf brings a lesbian presence to Broadway's election year dramedy, November.(Hot Thespian Action)
December 1, 2008... WE ALL rooted for Laurie Metcalf to come out as a lesbian when she played Roseanne Conner's rather butchy factory worker-turned-police officer sister, Jackie, on the hit television comedy Roseanne. While there were many queer characters on that...

Dance doctor; Anne Bluethenthal connects the mind and body--through dance.
December 1, 2008... ANNE Bluethenthal began her career as a choreographer in an unlikely place--a science lab at Oberlin College in Ohio, Studying psychobiology, a major intended mainly for pre-med students, Bluethenthal hoped to explore the connection between...

Drama queen ... Drag king: Jennifer Lanier captivates with humor while exploring the complexities of identity.
December 1, 2008... WHAT do you get when you combine sheer talent, rainbow moccasins and a traditional family? None of the Above, a phenomenal autobiographical performance by Jennifer Lanier. Exploring her complex racial identity, first relationships, sexual...

Finding Love in Trailerville.(Theater review)
December 1, 2008... Los Angeles is definitely a movie town. The evidence is everywhere, from the craft services trucks blocking alleys to the filming notices taped up on every other doorway from Koreatown to Los Feliz. So it's easy to forget about the city's...

It's story time; Lenelle Moise is taking the queer cultural scene by storm with her poetry, performance art and activism.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... LENELLE Moise ruffles feathers with her politically driven poetry. We find out how this "Culturally hypenated, pomosexual poet" makes storytelling her life's work. You've been called just about every adjective in the political lexicon. How...

Nothing to prove; Playwright Dee Jae Cox took on secret love and the LA theater scene this year.(Hot Thespian Action)
December 1, 2008... PLAYWRIGHT Dee Jae Cox, author of The Rape of Djuna Barnes and Letters Home, had two hits this year: the opening of her wildly popular Prove It On Me and the launch of the Los Angeles Women's Theatre Project, a nonprofit organization that aims...

Let's get physical.(Julie Fucking Potter)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... You might not believe that somebody who has given herself the F-word as a middle name would be as mush fun as Julie Fucking Potter. But it's true. This rapper-comic-performer who hails from Bakersfield, Calif., and currently resides in West...

Embodied politic.(Sins Invalid: An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility)
December 1, 2008... As the national director of Sins Invalid: An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility, and as a queer, disabled women of color, Patricia Berne (pictured left) is a leader in what she calls "she second wave of the disability rights...

Winter wonderlands.(Buyers guide)
December 1, 2008... no time lo jingle her bells? not enough moola to hit that Homo Hanukkah or Kinky Christmas all-lesbian cabaret but wand some way to celebrate? Even if the economy is tanking, that doesn't mean you can't still get (or make) her--and everyone on...

Red carpet reflections: I wanted to be a serious photojournalist. First stop? The red carpet.(I Tried It)
December 1, 2008... Christina Aguilera stepped out onto the red carpet. She eyed the teeming mass of photographers and videographers in front on her, and made her way to the center of the tiny publicity tent pitched on the sidewalk in front of the club. Over the...

Hot in Hollywood.
December 1, 2008... I should have been happy. Jane Lynch (who's done so many great films it's hard to pick one, but let's just say, of L Word fame) had just given me a hug, Ugly Betty star America Ferrera was blushing, Janson Biggs was joking about Ellen's wedding...

Hot new site.(Tech Girl)(UrbanElle.com)(Website overview)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Neither UrbanElle.com, the new website catering to lesbians of color, nor its creator, Michelle Mitchell, do things half-assed--as editor of the site. I should know. From day one, when Mitchell was still tossing around names and designing a...

Vlogging killed the TV star; These vlogs are sure to cut in on your reality shows.(Tech Girl)
December 1, 2008... I remember my maiden voyage into the World Wide Web. It's difficult now to imagine, but in 1997 the Internet didn't have graphics and the term "blog" had yet to be coined. Yet, I was amazed by the new blogging technology that allowed me instant...

Eight podcasts for lesbians.
December 1, 2008... 1 Homos (2homos.com): Roxanne and Virginia are the smart, hilarious 2 Homos of the title. Short, sweet and to the point, these frequent podcasts run about 10 to 15 minutes apiece and range from discussions of what they would do if they ran The...

Reasons we love Chagmion Antoine.(Top Ten)
December 1, 2008... Chagmion Antoine isn't your typical television newscaster--she's young, African American and openly bisexual. And she doesn't work for your typical network. Chagmion Antoine (pronounced sham-ion an-twon) is a correspondent for CBS News on Logo,...