evolve/ani difranco

I think that Ani DiFranco is fabulous. 'Evolve' is just one of what seems like a BILLION great songs of hers. Though it is the one I am singing along to right now. Righteous Babe indeed (check out her website, she visited Burma and Thailand last year with Damien Rice as part of the US Campaign for Burma) and seeing as it is International Women's Day I thought it might be a nice excercise to make a random list of women, alive or dead, that I admire for whatever reason. The women in my family and my friends are an absolute given.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Kathleen Hanna, Arundhati Roy, Margaret Cho, Jane Goodall, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Kim Deal, Joni Mitchell, Virginia Woolf, Diane Arbus, Nina Simone, Lily Brett, Mother Teresa, Gertrude Stein, Emma Thompson, Janet Frame, Patti Smith, Aung San Suu Kyi, Helen Prejean, Cate Blanchett, Billie Holiday, Lily Tomlin, Germaine Greer... I know there are soooo many more but I can hear the cogs in my brain clunking and whirring in order to think of them so this may have to be an ongoing list.

I watched 'American Splendor' last night (I find it quite difficult to spell 'splendour' without the 'u' but I can get over it... I think...) and it was really good. I don't think I've seen a film quite like it before in the way that it was constructed. I thoroughly enjoyed the texture and light of it immensely, which I guess would have something to do with the cinematographer. Harvey Pekar, the comic writer who the film is based on and features, is so down on things. He admits his outlook is all doom and gloom and I really don't think he ever tried or tries to be positive (though it may just be his disposition and it is actual impossible for him) and yet, to be quite honest, I found that I really liked him. The man made light of his own life in his writing (all illustrations of his stories were done by comic artists) and his writing was real and gritty and sarcastic and witty. Aha! Sarcasm. That's it. Gets me every time. Truly worth a look see and I may even watch it again before I have to return it.