Tuesday, June 12th, 2007...8:38 pm
Gender Blender
Sage was lucky enough to recieve an email a while ago from Judy Horacek, whose wonderful feminist cartoons you would be familar with. She’d seen this old post which mentioned Where is the Green Sheep? which she illustrated, and thought Sage might enjoy a reading of "Growl" a book she has written and illustrated at the National Library. And he did, very much - it's a really lovely book about a toothily charming little monster. He rushed over to his Dad with it when we got home for it to be read to him, and has had it as one of his three bedtime stories each night since.
I try to make sure that Sage's books don't always feature active males/passive females and a world of unending whiteness and straightness, and I was glad that Growl is a girl monster - which Horacek talks a little about here. The first page introduces Growl, but it's not until the next page that she has a gender. Things being the way they are, this has apparently caused some surprise on occasions. Even after hearing this, and hearing the story read twice, Sage called Growl "he" when we were playing outside the library after the reading.
"Nah," I said, "Growl's a girl monster".
"Yeah, because she's a girl colour."
"What, purple?"
"Yeah."
"You've got a purple shirt on."
"I like purple. I like pink, too."
It's true. He's quite the metrosexual:
Although his dad reckons black nail polish is very rock, and not in the least poofy.
Apart from that it's just been firecrackers and looking at cats on the internet 'round here.
15 Comments
June 12th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Yeah, very rock. Um, like David Bowie. And can you get more butch than Bowie?
June 13th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Good pickup, Frisco – very Velvet Goldmine.
Shall we take bets now on whether Sage becomes a Young Liberal?
June 13th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Nice to see you’re alive though, Fyodor. Been off in the sun somewhere?
June 13th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Biggles. Healthy lashings of Sqn Ldr James Bigglesworth.
And if you wanna boost his metreosexual intake, then maybe some Worrals of the WAAF. Or Modesty Blaise with a dash of Bauhaus (the band)Made me the man I am today.
Incidentally, just heard for the first time in yonks that NYC band the Swans in a tiny open air bar on on a Greek island. If you’re thinking about visiting Greece , definately do the Cyclades. Much cooler, odder and less touristi than I expected.
June 13th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Don’t come a-cryin’ when your tacker comes home wearing a rugby jersey and spouting user-pays nonsense. And why? An excess of Right-On parenting. You have been warned.
Yes, as it happens. Well, more under it, really, and thoroughly vivant, if not bon.
June 13th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Naaah, I reckon it’s going to be an epiphany on the road to the Drag Strip at puberty for this little tacker. Give the man a V8 and a VB and put a Winnie Red between those gappy teeth.
You know, Bowie did wear the first mullet…
June 14th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Au contraire, hat-hair.
As a recent blow-in, you will not be aware, as us long-time CB readers are, of Sage’s music-genre evolution. He has ALREADY passed through the boon-boy/summerprat* phase.
I believe the next phase is either Goth or Emo, depending on his penchant for melodrama and/or Morrissey. With those nails I’m going with Goth. Austrogoth, natch.
*N.B. that’s right. Count ‘em: not one, but TWO obscure Canberra references! Better value for your Fyodor.
June 14th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Ah, this is an ‘I was around way back when’ contest is it? Well your time is over, daddi0, your old road is rapidly aging, man.
My record collection could beat up your record collection.
(The shirt is an unacknowledged masterpiece. Boy from Oz. Just sayin’)
June 14th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Yeah, sure, Old Skool. I bet you’ve got mad skillz on the electric lute, too.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I’m dope on the floor of a lady’s chamber, and you can’t touch my lascivious pleasings on the lute. My, my, my…
[Fiasco breaks it down]
June 14th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Duke of Gloucester? More Earl of Doncaster, methinks…
June 14th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Ah, don’t be hatin’, boxhead.
The phrase you’re looking for, I believe, is ‘punk rock girl with flowers in his hair’.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Orright, orright, don’t get ruffled, Duke of Earl.
He’s just about there now, isn’t he? NTTAWWT.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Definitely emo.
I reckon it’ll be “My Chemical Romance”.
June 20th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
I’d just like to thank youse all for a quality thread. It’s been a while.
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