Daily Archives: October 25, 2013

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television, Politics

The Bechdel Test

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Fall                                                                          Samhain Moon

In Modern and Post Modern we read Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel, Fun Home.  It’s poignant, well-drawn and has a lot to say about gender and the corrosive personal affects of having to hide one’s sexual preferences behind society’s gender roles.  I’m not surprised to see her in this interesting quote.  Gonna try and test movies from now on myself.  Here’s a link to her website: Dykes to Watch Out For.

“Four independent theaters in Sweden have launched a campaign to install a rating system that classifies films based on their representations of gender. Films will be approved with an “A-rating” if they pass the Bechdel test, named after Alison Bechdel, whose 1985 comic strip inspired its development. The Bechdel test has the minimal criteria that the film contains at least two female characters that talk to each other about something besides men. While this yardstick of measurement may seem easy enough, the amount of films passing the test has proven surprising scant.”

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Our Land and Home

Looking Backwards

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Fall                                                                            Samhain Moon

After a good morning with Ovid, I went out to humble myself with my chain saw.  As I’ve written here before, I’ve used chain saws since 1974, 39 years.  Long enough, you’d think, to learn not to put the chain on backwards, but I did just that this morning. When a chain saw blade is on backwards, it burns the wood, rather than cut it.  Took me a second try to figure this out.  Back to the bench.

Sure enough, the little pointy sharp things were away from the cut rather than toward it. This seems pretty basic, doesn’t it?  Well, it is.  After solving the puzzle, I turned the chain around, retensioned it and went back out.  Ah, like a knife through butter.

Cutting wood for our Samhain bonfire next Thursday.  This will officially end the growing season and as things look right now, we’ll have finished the remaining tasks in the garden by then.  We have flower bulbs to plant, garlic to plant and leeks to harvest.  With minor exceptions that’s the end of it until next spring.  Which, if the climate keeps on warming, may come soon after my birthday on Valentine’s day.  Or, as it did this year, sometime in June.  Hard to tell up here.