Roxanne Anderson and Anna Meyer are involved with Creative CityMaking, a project to engage underrepresented communities through a partnership between the city of Minneapolis and local artists. Photo by Ryan Stopera

Art And Activism In The 2020 Census

by Kassidy Tarala | May 21, 2020 | Causes, Featured – Home Page, Lifestyles & Communities, Our Affairs | 0 comments

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Creative CityMaking, a partnership between Intermedia Arts and the City of Minneapolis, forms connections between local artists and city planners to address transportation, land use, economic, environmental, and social issues.

A city is nothing if not its people. This is why a fair and accurate census is so important. If an area’s demographics are measured incorrectly, the effects are most felt by the ones who are left out: minorities. According to St. Paul’s Neighborhood House, in the 2010 Census, North Minneapolis was undercounted by more than 7,000 people, which resulted in a loss of two city council members and nearly $200 million in federal funding over ten years.

By undercounting such a significant portion of the population, residents lost political power and representation, as well as funding for schools, hospitals, roads, Medicaid, and other necessary programs. Areas that are overcounted receive more federal funding, while areas that are underfunded—such as North Minneapolis in 2010—receive less funding. Because undercounting typically takes place in minority communities, it leads to even greater disparities.

Creative CityMaking, a project to engage underrepresented communities and encourage a more responsive government through a partnership between local artists and the City of Minneapolis, addresses racial inequities by cultivating meaningful intersections between City staff and the community.

Two of the artists involved in Creative CityMaking, Anna Meyer and Roxanne Anderson, were selected from a panel to work alongside the City’s Neighborhood and Community Relations Department on the WeCount Minneapolis Census 2020 project to ensure a more fair and accurate census than the last one in 2010.

“The census has long been a tool used by the government to organize and provide resources to communities, but it has undercounted the same communities that are underrepresented in decision making,” Meyer and Anderson say. “Taking the lead from the community, the City has decided to take a different approach to the 2020 Census by investing early in undercounted communities in partnership with Creative CityMaking, and work with community-based artists to ensure everyone feels empowered to be part of the census. The City’s interest in collaborating with artists on this project is to ensure the voices and experiences of historically undercounted communities are reflected in our work to ensure a complete and accurate count.”

Creative CityMaking creates partnerships with City departments that are interested in working with communities that have not historically participated in the City’s decision making processes. Often, the engagement systems that have traditionally been used by these departments work for some people and not others, and they tend to prefer those in the community with the resources and time to engage

NOT IN KANSAS

Part-time store clerk and full-time college student, Dottie Garland gets invited to the grand opening of a new exclusive lesbian dance club by the beautiful owner herself.

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It was another day at the Ruby Slipper Boutique, Dottie was stocking shelves from a ladder when a tall beautiful woman entered the shop. She was promoting a new club she was opening and want to put the announcement in the shop window.

As a favor for the permission to place the announcement, she gives Dottie tickets to the grand opening, much to Dottie’s delight and surprise. The gift has the effect of rising the young co-ed’s anticipation for the opening night. All the while thinking only of the beautiful owner, Jacqui.

Dottie arrives, looking for the beautiful owner who is nowhere to be found. This, however, gives her a chance to grab a drink from the bar. While drinking her beer, she is amazed at the diverse group among the patrons. This compels her to go out to the dance floor and meet and dance with some of the patrons.

Several partners later, Dottie’s dancing is interrupted by none other than Jacqui the beautiful club owner. She cuts in and begins dancing with Dottie. The physical attraction between the two causes them to leave the club and continue their newfound carnal enjoyment back at Jacqui’s apartment.

Once there, both women confess their attraction to one another and the two retire to Jacqui’s bedroom to begin yet another kind of dance. The intense attraction builds into a frenzied lust and the young girl has a transcendental experience from the body shaking orgasm Jacqui gives her. Leaving Dottie confused by happy.

***

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CABIN FEVER

Two old friends, Robyn and Valerie leave their stuffy class reunion early and head back to Valerie’s cabin to renew their friendship.

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Valerie and Robyn haven’t seen each other in several years. A lot has changed for both of them in that time, and when they see each other at their class reunion there is much to talk about.

Both have a secret they are anxious to tell each other but the setting offers too little privacy and they decide to go to the out of town girl, Valerie’s place. It’s a rustic cabin situated on a state park lodge area.

The weather turns nasty right after the women get to the cabin and it seems the atmosphere in the cabin is charged with the electricity of the storm and things begin to heat up. First one then the other begins to reveal some of the intimate details of things that have happened in the time since they last saw each other.

One is going through a divorce, the other ‘outs’ herself as a lesbian to her friend. Like a fiery catalyst, the tension builds as the shock to each is jarring. Each is afraid they will cause a rift in their friendship.

Like a dam bursting, more secrets come out, and along with the amount of wine they are drinking both realize they are facing an explosive situation. Their problem and how to solve it comes to a head and they let the electrically charged, cabin fever run its course.

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The Advocate has always profiled some of the best ‘current’ LGBTQ-identified people, in entertainment media. The article below about: Good Trouble; is one such article from earlier this past week.  The show is aired on Starz Network.

Good Trouble’s Women Are Bringing So Much Amazing Queer Visibility to TV

These queer actors on Good Trouble are on our Women of the Year list for their groundbreaking representation.

By Tracy E. Gilchrist

May 14 2020 2:51 PM EDT

Pictured: Zuri Adele and Sherry Cola.

Now heading into its third season, Good Trouble, The Fosters’ spin-off that introduced rarely depicted characters including an Asian-American lesbian and a bisexual Latinx man as part of its lead ensemble when it premiered, continues to boldly portray the lives of LGBTQ-identified people and people of color.

What’s more is that several women in the core ensemble identify as part of the LGBTQ community, including Zuri Adele (Malika) and Sherry Cola (Alice), who are both bisexual, and Emma Hunton (Davia), who is pansexual. Pose’s Hailie Sahar (who is trans) plays Jazmin, a recurring character.

Like its parent show before, the Freeform series, about 20-somethings navigating love and career in a hip downtown Los Angeles communal living space, balances humor and heart with the social issues it amplifies. Now nearing the close of its second season, Good Trouble has tackled social issues including gender equality in the workplace, trans workers’ rights, body positivity, and fat-shaming, the shooting of an unarmed young Black man by white police officers, and Los Angeles’s severe housing shortage for lower-income people.

And that’s just the beginning! For all of the ground it covers, Good Trouble excavates the intersections of identities authentically in ways that resonate out in the world, and that’s in large part due to the diversity of its cast and characters.

“[Alice], a first-generation Asian-American lesbian who is not out to her parents and who is going to bizarre lengths to hide who she — it is a struggle, a roller coaster,” Cola tells The Advocate about her character. “It is such a tender and specific story that I never saw growing up. To be able to portray this character means the world to me.”

In its second season, Good Trouble introduced a love story between Alice and Joey (Daisy Eagan, a Tony winner for The Secret Garden), who came out as nonbinary. The storyline dovetailed with Eagan’s journey of coming out as nonbinary.

Meanwhile, Hunton — who’s appeared on Broadway in Spring Awakening, as Elphaba in the first national tour of Wicked, and as Natalie in the first national tour of Next to Normal — plays Davia, a teacher, and a body-positive influencer. While Davia has not articulated an identity under the LGBTQ umbrella, Hunton is expressing her identity out in the world through her work. Over the past year, she’s directed musical parodies of A League of Their Own and Never Been Kissed at Los Angeles’s Rockwell Table and Stage, in which she reclaims the narrative a little for queer people who never saw themselves in those films.

Sahar’s Jazmin, whose brother Gael (Tommy Martinez) was groundbreaking as a bisexual Latinx character, has appeared in a handful of episodes. One storyline of Jazmin’s took on workplace discrimination that trans people face. Another storyline involved Gael throwing a “Doble Quinceañera” for his sister, whose family shunned her and who wasn’t afforded a quinceañera as a teen. Adele’s character Malika, a Black Lives Matter activist, has thus far dated only men on the series, but Adele has spoken to The Advocate about why it’s important to amplify her queer identity.

“I’m so proud to be a part of the LGBTQ-plus community and I know that with this platform that I have, it’s really important to make sure that all of my intersectionality is represented because that’s the one part. You can see that I’m a woman, you can see that I’m Black, but you can’t necessarily see that I’m queer.”

A VISIT TO THE BLOG BY MY BEST FRIEND SHERRY STONE.

VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE

Sharon, a welfare mother, and an AIDS victim contemplates suicide until a mysterious woman appears and offers to solve all her problems.

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Twenty years ago, Sharon Watson’s husband left her for another guy. That is not all he left. A two-year-old daughter Lizbeth. A mountain of bills maxed out credit cards and for the topper, a deadly dose of AIDS.

She contemplates suicide but wants to be sure her daughter is taken care of. One evening while sitting in a dive bar in Queens, drinking her sorrows away, a strange young woman appears at the bar and offers Sharon a solution. A solution to solve all her problems, including AIDS. She just has to repay her benefactor. At the time, Sharon enthusiastically accepted the help.

All the promises were fulfilled to Sharon. But the stranger who by now, Sharon knew as Gabrielle had enslaved her to her submissive vampire life. Lizbeth, however, was raised normally and was never involved in the vampiric sadomasochism her mother was forced to perform.

Twenty years later, both Sharon and Lizbeth get caught up in a long-brewing vampire war. A deadly war, and one that Sharon is afraid she and her daughter will never escape, while enslaved to Gabrielle. But fate has a way of twisting things and Sharon and her daughter are given a chance at escape, but in the end, the cost is a high price indeed.

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I feel a lot could be said about this article but I believe the only real outstanding thing about it, is that it is done with style, and beautifully presented. Regardless of gender preference. 

Washington’s LGBTQ Magazine

French automaker Renault has released a car commercial that is leaving viewers in tears.

By Rhuaridh Marr on November 12, 2019 @rhuaridh

Photo: Screenshot / YouTube

https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/11/renault-clio-lesbian-commercial-video/

Airing in the U.K., the ad is ostensibly to sell the brand’s subcompact Clio hatchback — but it’s actually a beautiful lesbian romance that just happens to feature cars.

Celebrating 30 years of the Clio, it follows a young girl from Britain who heads to France on a summer vacation to stay with another family who have a daughter of similar age.

As a slow cover of Oasis’ “Wonderwall” by singer Rahel Debebe Dessalegne plays in the background, the girls connect over successive vacations until, as teenagers, romance starts to bloom.

The ad has everything, from burgeoning young love, to parental rejection, to missed opportunities, to ultimately a happy ending, complete with a new set of youths to enjoy… the new Renault Clio, we guess?

Still, the need to sell a car notwithstanding, this is a lovely, inclusive ad that could have easily featured a heterosexual couple, so kudos to Renault UK and ad agency Publicis.Poke for going the extra mile.

Adam Wood, Marketing Director at Renault UK, said in a statement: “We wanted to humanize and celebrate, not just thirty years of progress of the Renault Clio, but also the progress made within culture, society and life in that time. The Renault Clio is as in tune with the times today as it always has been.”

In a statement, Dave Monk, executive creative director at Publicis Poke added: “Britain has had a love affair with the Renault Clio since the 90s halcyon days of Papa & Nicole and wind up windows.

“Many things have changed in those thirty years. While technology, design, attitudes, and culture will always shift and change, one thing will always stay the same as long as humans have hearts: the love story. This is a simple and universal tale of two souls on their own enduring journey of life, love, and passion.”

I wish I had……JESSIE’S GIRL

Jessie Pantone returns to Pittsburgh to wind up loose ends following her promotion and ends up at a party in her honor, and then finds herself alone with her only true friend Courtney.

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Jessie has been recently promoted from her company’s Pittsburgh office to lead the office they have in Cincinnati. She returns to clear up a few loose ends in Pittsburgh and ends up at a party thrown in her honor.

Most of those in attendance are there for the free drinks, and food. Some don’t even know her name. The party is short and breaks up before 9:00PM. Jessie finds herself alone in the party room, with only Courtney one of the few employees Jessie has friended while at the Pittsburgh office.

Courtney feels bad the party was a bust and decides to take the older Jessie clubbing and show her a good time. Unknown to Jessie the club they are going to, is an all Lesbian club. It’s there that Courtney comes out to Jessie and expresses her affection for her older co-worker.

Still, in shock by the revelation, the girls scurry off to a small coffee shop and try to make sense of how each of them feels about the situation. Straight girl Jessie is flattered but confused. She is doubtful she could ever make a long term commitment to the gay lifestyle.

Courtney assures her that she wants Jessie under whatever terms Jessie will accept. One night stand or long term. The proposal from the younger girl doesn’t provide a lot of help in Jessie’s decision process. A well-timed suggestion from the waitress at the coffee shop gives them just the time they need to sort things out.

Courtney is in a win/win situation. Either decision will get her in bed with the girl she lusts for. But will it be for the night or something long term?

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THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC MAKES THIS FILM HIGHLY RELEVANT AND IS A GREAT MOVIE TO BOOT. It’s a nice article for my blog and I do hope you like Irish Film making.

Film Review: Sea Fever (On Volta and Amazon Prime)

Posted by EILE Magazine on May 8, 2020 in Culture & Arts, Reviews

Review By Frances Winston

Directed by: Neasa Hardiman – Starring: Connie Nielsen, Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott, Olwen Fouéré, Jack Hickey, Ardalan Esmaili, Elie Bouakaze

Streaming now on Volta and Amazon Prime

I have to admit that when I first saw trailers for this, I thought it was incredibly ambitious. Yes, it is essentially an international co-production, but it is from the imagination of Irish writer and director, Hardiman, and it has to be said that, in Ireland, we don’t have a good track record with sci-fi thrillers, which is the genre this places itself in.

However, this is so much more than that. Corfield plays Siobhan – a young PhD student, who has to join the crew of a fishing boat in order to collect samples for her studies.

However, when the vessel stalls, she dives down to find a mysterious creature attached to the ship. As the crew starts to get struck down, she realizes that it has infiltrated the boat in the form of deadly parasitic larvae.

As they try and find a way to destroy the unwanted guests, the various crew members are not happy at the thoughts of quarantining themselves in case they are infected, leading to dissension in the ranks, and people’s true colors coming to the fore.

Scott’s Irish accent is a bit iffy, to say the least. But outside of that, he gives a good performance as Gerard, the captain of the doomed boat. Corfield is great as the naïve and nervous science student, and acting legend, Olwen Fouéré, absolutely radiates in every scene she is in.

Indeed, all the cast do a great job, although the dialogue is sometimes clunky and repetitive – the superstition about redheads on fishing vessels will be imprinted on your brain you hear it that often!

I think calling this a sci-fi thriller is misleading. It is actually more of a horror-thriller, or a creature-feature – and a pretty good one. Although made before the current lockdown, many of the themes will resonate given our current worldwide situation.

Hardiman has done a wonderful job of creating a claustrophobic atmosphere and has included plenty of jump out of your seat moments. The pacing is great, and the suspense builds beautifully, and overall this will keep you glued.

On a less positive note, it is extremely dark (literally) to the extent it is sometimes difficult to see what is going on (and I adjusted brightness settings several times), which is a bad thing on the small screen, although it may have worked for the cinema release. There are also some clunky scenes that don’t necessarily work, and, at times, it is predictable, due to a certain amount of telegraphing. It also could probably push its premise further.

No doubt people will assume that this is a direct response to Coronavirus, despite being written and produced before lockdown. But forget about any parallels, and just enjoy this gripping and imaginative flick.

Hardiman has proved that it’s possible to make a thrilling movie like this on an extremely low budget, and one can only imagine what she could have done with more money. She has set the bar amongst Irish filmmakers for this kind of offering.

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A bitter divorce forces Traci and her mother Viv to move from their nice home in the quiet suburbs to apartment living in the bad end of the city.

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Viv and her husband endured a bitter divorce, and as those things go, the family is forced to adjust to a new life. Viv and her daughter Traci soon left their nice suburban surroundings and moved to an ‘economy’ apartment in the bad end of the city.

Traci changed schools and became the target of a rather nasty bully, Donna, who loved tormenting Traci. Unaccustomed to such behavior in the suburbs, Traci spirals into a serious depression. Luckily, she finds a friend in one of her neighbors, Sherry, and learns that lesbian love can be a beautiful way to curb depression.

Meanwhile, Viv must learn to use creative methods to make ends meet on their meager income. She makes a deal with Max the apartment manager to pay the rent in a more creative way. More along the lines of the barter system. Max, spurred by her own passions, and fetishes, is more than willing to go along with Viv’s proposal and it takes some of the pressure from Viv and Traci. But the degradation of the payment method doesn’t sit well with Viv. And even more so when Traci learns how Viv is paying the rent.

Additionally, that still leaves Traci with the bully girl and what to do about her. Using some creative thinking she finds a solution to her problem and even to her mother’s. She just needs to make a strategic introduction, of Max to Donna.

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