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November 2009

Volume 22, Number 11
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Z Matters

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Commentary

BUS TOUR
Inside Hanford
Joshua Frank


INVESTIGATION
Fiji Water & Vatukoula
Laura Kiesel


GLBTQ NOTES
New Culture Wars?
Michael Bronski


Activism

LABOR NOTES
Teacher Reformers
Paul Abowd


CONVENTION REPORT
AFL-CIO Convention
Carl Finamore


HUNGER STRIKE
Blacklisted Saharawi
Stefan Simanowitz


CLOSINGS
Factory Like a City
David Bacon


FIELD NOTES
G-20 Outrage
Orin Langelle


Features

ECONOMIC POLICY
Financial Fragility
Jack Rasmus


INSURANCE
Affordable Care?
Roger Bybee


MOTIVATIONS
Liberation Psychology
Bruce E. Levine


JOURNAL
Until Jesus Comes
Chris Lewis


Interviews

INTERVIEW
Dance Brigade
Holly Near


INTERVIEW
Beyond Hutto
DC Tedrow


INTERVIEW
Rami Khouri
David Barsamian


Reviews

BOOK REVIEW
D'Ambrosio's Cash
Alexander Billet


BOOK REVIEW
Davis's Kinfolk
David Barber


Hotel Satire

HOTEL SATIRE
Holiday Images
Lydia Sargent


Zaps

FREE LISTINGS
Zaps - 11-09
Various Contributors


NOTE: Z Magazine subscribers and sustainers have access to all Z Magazine articles here and in the archive. The latest Z Magazine articles available to everyone are listed in the Free Articles box at the top of the table of contents, and are starred in the list below. Questions? e-mail Z Magazine Online.

Holiday Images

HOTEL SATIRE

By Lydia Sargent
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November 2009
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Welcome to Hotel Satire where gals come from far and wide to learn about their true natures as domestic appendages—as well as the behavior and makeup necessary to achieve that god-given innateness. The other day we gals were in day five of our workshop on "Why Gals Are a Subspecies" when we got the news that socialist President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. We were stunned. How was it possible? This prize (and a presidency for life) belongs to our beloved George Bush for his policy of war without end, a sure road to peace, as we all know.

We were so bereft at the news that we scheduled an evening retrospective on "The Bush Presidency and How it Helped Women Achieve Liberation Through Nonentity." We considered cancelling day six and seven of our week-long workshop. After all, this news was the final straw in what had been a year of deep mourning for the end of the Bush presidency. Added to that, was a profound sadness over the McCain/Palin defeat a year ago. Mrs. Palin, as vice president, would have proved once and for all that gals are, indeed, a subspecies and, as such, not fit for public life.

But then, something amazing happened: the arrival of a Halloween costume catalog. The images in that catalog inspired us to carry on—even to write this column again after a long absence. As we paged through colorful images of galettes in princess, witch, fairy, mermaid, and carhop outfits, we were reminded of how much the upcoming holidays are about the most important way to teach gals/galettes that they are in a category "whose population is distinct in distribution, appearance, and feeding habits (but can still interbreed)"—that is, a subspecies.

 
Halloween

Let's start with Halloween. Gals, your task here is to spend days and nights sewing costumes (store bought only in a pinch) for your boys and galettes as follows: galettes wear skimpy pink tulle, organza, or satin dresses (preferably designed so their legs and arms freeze in the October chill) and carry a magic wand (or a broom) or hold a boy's hand submissively, while looking good. Very young galettes can, on occasion, wear non-gal specific outfits, like pumpkins or butterflies, as long as they look cute and stop wearing them by age 4.

Boys should wear knight's outfits or other cool costumes representing marauding, genocidal males, carrying weapons of mini or mass destruction. Boys may never, on pain of being skewered by the swords they are flailing, wear anything with pink or tulle involved. We offer several images to help get you going—the knight with his princess; the ninja with his geisha, the motorcyclist with his rider. Could these images make it any clearer? We think not.

 
Thanksgiving

As for Thanksgiving, Gals, your task is defined by the image of "The First Thanksgiving" (although you won't have the help of all the women in the village). You will bust a gut cooking the meal, making sure that, in addition to the foods they never served at the 1621 table—potatoes and corn, and some say even turkey—you load the table with native fruits like plums, melons, grapes, cranberries, leeks, wild onions, beans, Jerusalem artichokes, squash, turnips, cabbage, parsnips, onions, carrots, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, native birds and game, fish, shellfish, as well as the Wampanoag gift of five deer.

Once you have cooked the meal, do not sit with the men and eat it, rather stand behind them and serve, while occasionally rocking a cradle and serving a few Indians sitting on the ground nearby. This way gals can never lose sight of the fact that Thanksgiving, like life itself, is to celebrate the white male ability to annex whole continents, while gals serve up a massive meal for both annexers and annexees. (There are no gal annexees depicted as they are sub-subs. The hierarchy of gal subs, sub-subs, and sub-sub-subs is too complex to detail here.)

 
Christmas

Which brings us to Christmas, the best holiday of all because it is a celebration of men as God's chosen—His Uberspecies, if you will. Two holiday images clearly establish men as both the givers of gifts and the givers of life. Here's how it works. Gals, your task is to buy and wrap all the gifts, cook the meals, arrange holiday parties, take the kids to religious and secular festivities, buy and decorate the tree, and do all manner of other things to give your families a wonderful holiday. Then make sure that two white-bearded, white males—one in a red suit, one in a white robe—take all the credit.

In addition, whether you are Christian or some lesser religion, the birth of the Christ child establishes that—although gals are the ones who give birth—creating life is not about gals, for chrissakes. Think of it. Are we ever concerned over the fact that Mary (on God's says so, by the way) had to go through labor—after riding for hours on a donkey—while lying on a pile of straw in a stable with lots of animals gathered round to watch? Of course not. Who cares about her labor pains, afterbirth, umbilical chord, etc. What is of concern is the birth of a son (Jesus as the son of God representing all males as Gods), a cause for celebration in any and all cultures and religions.

The images that confirm this, Gals, are two paintings by Michelangelo. And who better to affirm for us that the act of creation is really the province of white males than a white male from the late 15th/early 16th century? In "Creation" we see that man is given life by God, by definition male. In turn, in "The Creation of Eve," Adam gives—painless, bloodless, and cordless, mind you—birth to Eve who rises from Adam, but is incapable of standing beyond a crouch in her subjection to God-man, man-God.

Gals, are you as moved as we are by these glorious (accurate, not to mention believable) images? We hope so. Happy sub-holidays.
Mermaid gal searches for feet
to trick or treat


Carhop gal searches
for serving tray


He's got a pointy thing,
she's got a smile


He fights, she fans, etc.


"The First Thanksgiving" by Leon Gerome Ferris; she's serving, they're groveling,
white males are devouring


In this version, the Indians
get to sit at the table (they outnumber Pilgrims 2-1),
while gals serve, children
hang off their aprons


"Creation" by Michelangelo: Man/God as creators/birthers, gals as clinging entourage


"The Creation of Eve" by Michelangelo: Man gives
birth to gal during nap,
gal thanks God for the
privilege of being
a subspecies

Z

Lydia Sargent, an actor and playwright, is co-founder and staff member of Z. 

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