Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Entries Tagged as 'Lit'

Wordslingers Appearance Now Online, and Poem of the Week on Deep Dish

June 4th, 2008 · Comments Off on Wordslingers Appearance Now Online, and Poem of the Week on Deep Dish · Blogs, Books, Chicago, Culture, Fringe, Journal, Lit, Performance, Poetry, Politics

For those of you who didn’t hear it on the public airwaves a couple of weeks back, because you were busy painting your toenails or defending the earth or something, my appearance on the Wordslingers poetry radio show from Sunday 5/18 is now online in the Vox Cafe archive on the Wordslingers Web site — […]

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Sunday, May 18: Wordslingers Poetry Radio Show

May 15th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Chicago, Culture, Fringe, Journal, Lit, Performance, Poetry

This Sunday evening, May 18, I’ll be appearing on the radio program Wordslingers. Wordslingers, hosted by Michael C. Watson, airs on the first and third Sundays of each and every month, and features Chicago-area poets reading their work and being interviewed live on the radio. You’d think there’d be a law against that kind of […]

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Capes and Crumpets with Roz Kaveney

May 4th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Blogroll, Blogs, Books, Chicago, Culture, Doctor Who, Journal, LGBT, Lit, Science Fiction, TV

Speaking of people on my blogroll: Pop culture critic, blogger, and transgendered activist extroardinaire Roz Kaveney of Silence Exile and Crumpets was just in town, promoting her new book Superheroes!: Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films — which I’m hoping to crack the covers of eventually. Roz is brilliant at analyzing the various mechanics […]

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After Hours Press Poetry Reading at DvA Gallery, Friday May 2

May 1st, 2008 · 3 Comments · Chicago, Culture, Journal, Lit, News, Performance, Poetry

I’ve been meaning to mention for ages now that I have a poem in the latest issue of the Chicago poetry journal After Hours … and I’ll be reading it in public this Friday night. I’ve always been really bad about actually submitting my poems for publication — I always think, here I am fussing […]

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Andy White at the Celtic Knot, 3/30/08: Follow-Up

April 6th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Chicago, Culture, Journal, Lit, Music, Performance, Reviews

Well, the Andy White show I posted about last Sunday was lovely. It was a shockingly intimate setting, a cozy and beautifully decorated back room at the Celtic Knot where Andy played for a group of about 20 of us, and he was just as charming and entertaining as any Andy fan would expect. He […]

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The ABC’s of Early 80’s Mo-Romance

February 15th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Culture, Fiction, Film, LGBT, Lit, Music, New Wave, TV, Video

And now for something a little on the lighter side — and a nice follow-up to Valentine’s Day. ABC’s “All of My Heart” + Brideshead Revisited = high school drama club heaven, circa 1982. Possibly the best combination since peanut butter and chocolate … the British horror of peanut butter notwithstanding. (Note: This may not […]

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Roundup: Flight of the Humpback Edition

November 19th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Flight of the Humpback Edition · Apple, Blogs, Books, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Feminism, Fiction, Film, History, HIV/AIDS, Human Rights, Journalism, LGBT, Lit, Macintosh, Media, Music, Nature, New Wave, Politics, Religion, Software, Tech, The Economy, Stupid, Torture

Markos from Daily Kos has a new gig writing opinion pieces for Newsweek, and he’s been in rare form with his first couple of efforts. From this week’s column: “In his first Inaugural Address, Ronald Reagan remarked that ‘government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.’ While the quip has provided […]

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Norman Mailer Yap Attack

November 12th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Blogs, Books, Culture, LGBT, Lit, News, Pets

The most entertaining Norman Mailer story I’ve read since the wake began: “The stories of his macho posturing are legion, from the time he dismissed America’s leading women writers as ‘fey, old hat, quaintsy and dykily psychotic’, to the day he encountered a passing punk while walking his poodles in Brooklyn. According to Peter Manso’s […]

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Chicago Notes: Spukt, Sweat Girls, Mr. Fluxus, Andy Bayiates, and More

November 10th, 2007 · Comments Off on Chicago Notes: Spukt, Sweat Girls, Mr. Fluxus, Andy Bayiates, and More · Astrology, Blogs, Books, Chicago, Comedy, Culture, Fantasy, Fiction, Foreign Policy, Fringe, History, Journal, Lit, Neo-Futurists, News, Performance, Politics, Theater

It’s been ages since I’ve done one of these little Chicago roundups, but there are so many head-splittingly good things going on this week that it seems like a dandy time to reinstate the tradition. • First up, this weekend is the opening of the brand-new Theater Oobleck show Spukt, written by the mercurial Dave […]

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No Backsies

October 24th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Books, Culture, Education, Fantasy, Fiction, Film, Human Rights, LGBT, Lit, Media, Politics, Science Fiction

I haven’t weighed in on the whole gay Dumbledore thing, partly because everyone is already talking about it, and I usually view OcPot as a place to post about things that deserve more attention than they seem to be getting. But Minnesota Malcolm brought it up in the comments to this post last night, and […]

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Of Dykes, Blankets, and Blockheads

October 23rd, 2007 · 2 Comments · Books, Comics, Culture, Fiction, Journal, LGBT, Lit

Via Roz, which Dyke to Watch Out for am I? Which Dyke to Watch Out For Are You?created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Mo You are Mo, a guilt-ridden, kindhearted liberal who doesn’t relax enough. You are ordered to buy a pint of non-organic, dairy ice cream and watch Comedy Central for a week. PBS […]

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The Golden Compass: Official Trailer and Featurette on Daemons

October 12th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Books, Culture, Fantasy, Fiction, Film, Lit, Music, News, Science Fiction, TV, Ursula K. Le Guin, Video

The official/final trailer for The Golden Compass is out, and the more I see of this film the better it looks. I am somewhere between guardedly optimistic and completely geeked out.   Also, here’s a nice little featurette called “Defining Daemons,” which looks at the animal companion-spirits that accompany the characters on their journeys.   […]

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Standard Bearers from the Past

October 12th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Books, Culture, History, Human Rights, Lit, Meta, News, Politics, Science Fiction, Torture

So yeah, I haven’t really tended to be one of those fancy-schmancy bloggers who manage to blog about things on the same actual day they happen. My schedule tends to keep me careening along in panic for several days at a go, and then I manage to steal a few hours to spit out a […]

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Roundup: Swiftly Tilting Planet Edition

September 17th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Swiftly Tilting Planet Edition · Activism, Books, Chicago, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Fantasy, Film, Foreign Policy, Hate Crimes, Health, History, HIV/AIDS, Infrastructure, Journalism, LGBT, Lit, Media, Nature, News, Peace, Politics, Public Transportation, Roundup, Science, Science Fiction, Tech

Eric Alterman has an outstanding column in The Nation on how the media’s mean girls (of all genders) develop the narratives they use to bring down the presidential candidates they take a dislike to. With examples of what they did to Gore in 2000, and what they’re doing to Obama and Edwards right now. Two […]

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