Female Humorous Monologues
This week we celebrated “Love Your Body Week” at Grinnell, hosted by the Feminist Action Coalition. Yay! There were (and still are) a ton of great events including a film screening and discussion, a fat activism workshop, open mic night, Grinnell Monologues (comparable to the Vagina Monologues), queer sex-ed, and my personal favorite, two masturbation workshops! It really was very comforting to see how well-attended these events actually were. I think the week did a lot to dispel the myths of apathetic college students across the country.
I think one of the best things about the week (and, coincidentally, about this blog) is that most of the events weren’t strictly serious, stuffy, or overzealous. Who says learning about your vagina has to be uncomfortable or boring? Basically, congratulations to all the humorous feminists on campus, and all of those who got over their fear of humorous feminists. Let’s keep on dispelling more myths (and yes, I probably will use this term several times. Sorry).
Finally, I really appreciated the atmosphere of communal learning that was pretty apparent in all the workshops I attended. Obviously, most people came from different backgrounds. Some were really familiar with all of the ideas being bandied about, but some, particularly at the very well attended masturbation workshop, had received very little education on such taboo topics. The fact that students who knew more were completely willing to help out those who didn’t was super refreshing. What was more refreshing was the fact that women (who attended the female identified masturbation workshop, I have no idea what went on at the male identified one) were not helping each other out of obligatory sisterhood, but out of actual desire.
I do have one question though. It seems as if I am encountering a barrage of social justice-y causes, open dialogue, and fun terms like “doing gender,” “dispel the myth,” and “social construct” just in the nick of time- before I enter the real world. Why does it have to be that way? What If we taught these terms, habits, and ideals before having them hurriedly shoved in our faces? This has been bothering me a lot lately. Obviously this isn’t going to happen any time soon given the other pressing problems in our educational system, but what is so wrong about introducing the concept of loving your body to grade school students? What if these so-crazy-they-just-might-work ideas had a place in every elementary school curriculum? We would probably live in a much more understanding environment, where no one would need to ask in a college class what “the gender binary system” is.
dyyyyyspeeeellllll mmmmmmyyyyythhhhhhsssssssssss.
I am so sorry for the above display of crazy.
R. Kelly in Chicago. (Tribune photo by Chris Sweda)
In his first hometown concert after being acquitted last year on child-pornography charges, R. Kelly was in a hurry to move on.
Before a capacity audience Tuesday in the first of two shows at the Auditorium Theatre, the South Side R&B singer-songwriter-producer-performer tried to pack two decades’ worth of hits into 90 minutes. In the first quarter-hour alone, he crammed snippets of a dozen songs, plus a bit of Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights.”It was probably just as well. Many of Kelly’s songs are more about simple hooks and salacious lyrics rather than intricate structure, and a verse and a chorus is about all anyone needs to get the idea.
The pace slowed after that, but only slightly, as Kelly made like a man on a mission, only pausing once to obliquely mention his acquittal after a six-year legal proceeding
“I’m still here,” he cried, but his tone was less triumphant or vindictive than grateful. He then swooped into his signature ballad, “I Believe I Can Fly,” which he described as his response to “somebody continuously trying to pull you under.”
“Never would have made it without you,” he said midsong, addressing the audience. “My house, my kids, my family, my band. I would have lost it all.”
Up until then, Kelly was working the audience like a yo-yo, interspersing monologues and lyrics, his voice conversational even in full flight. Asides became choruses, and instructions to his road crew became impromptu songs. A request to have a carpet removed from the set inspired Kelly to sing as though in the grip of a higher power. He accentuated the humor in his bedroom farces by breaking into an operatic baritone roar. All that was missing was a Cliff Notes version of his 22-part sex-and-soap opera “Trapped in the Closet.”
He was lean, athletic, dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt even as bling gleamed from his wrist, earlobes and neck. He performed with a smile and a slight leer, his eyes gleaming with mischief when he dropped his sunglasses.
“Have you ever made love to my music?” he asked, like a sharp attorney already knowing the response from his witnesses.
Sing-songy nursery-rhyme cadences gave the songs a playful, almost child-like veneer, couching soft-core porn lyrics. In Kelly’s songs, sex contains multitudes of scenarios, positions, partners, metaphors. Kelly played the fans like an instrument, clasping hands, collecting panties, conducting sing-alongs.
A five-piece band, three singers, three dancers and an MC performed with anonymous professionalism. They were strictly a backdrop for Kelly’s extended tryst with his mostly female audience, which stood and cheered for most of the show.
“Let’s just keep it old school,” Kelly commanded his band, which meant little more than the sizzle of a hi-hat cymbal and a drizzle of keyboards. Kelly’s arrangements emphasized a lean simplicity and he wasted no time getting to the point in his lyrics either.
His ardor -- sincere, humorous, over-the-top --- couldn’t be denied. He conjured a weird intimacy, the truncated songs turning into the soundtrack for an extended round of foreplay between the singer and his fans: “Na-na … boom-ba … don’t stop … so freaky … G-string … hotel keys.”
After simulating love-making 700 different ways, even Kelly needed a break, and wisely shifted gears.
He explored some of the darker edges of his material in “Down Low” and “When a Woman’s Fed Up,” and donned a black suit to belt out credible versions of Sam Cooke’s classic soul tracks “Bring it On Home to Me” and “A Change is Gonna Come.”
“A change has come,” Kelly concluded, before slipping into the elegant dance songs “Step in the Name of Love” and “Happy People.” They weren’t reduced to snippets. They’re ungimmicky songs, and Kelly let them breathe a bit. Then he was out the door while the bed he had made was still warm.
greg@gregkot.com
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