I do wish Oldham LGBT Pride wasn't always on my damn birthday. I might go otherwise.
Though this year it does have this cake motif going on: a cake with five slices that are supposed to represent...
Slice 1: lesbian and gay
Slice 2: bisexual and trans
Slice 3: older and younger
Slice 4: black, Asian and minority ethnic lgbt and disabled lgbt people
Slice 5: LGBT Families and Friends, Families and Supporters
Now, I'm not lifting a finger to make this event happen and so my criticism comes with precisely that much importance I know. But my first instinct was, shouldn't those latter three be layers of the cake - about five layers in fact - and the first two instead be the four slices?
Or do you get extra cake for being genderqueer and bi, or Asian and gay? Perhaps it's cake as a consolation for oppression. Which, um, sort of works :)
Monday, 13 July 2009
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Gah!
You find a new print house... you adjust to the new print house... the new print house hikes its prices up. Bah! Still more frustratingly, it seems the new print house had been doing these prices for about five years and we could have switched ages ago and had a shinier looking magazine.
Between that and the year-on-year rise in postage prices we can't really dither about any longer. BCN subs are going to have to go up in price. The original idea was that the unwaged sub loses a bit of money and the waged basic sub makes a bit more than cost. In practice I think we're losing about £3 a year on the waged sub now -- and would still be doing so if we went back to our old, slightly cheaper but harder to get to print shop.
People also get confused by the way a subscription runs for two years. Simple enough to combine the two problems into one solution: a lower amount to pay each time, but subs come up for renewal yearly instead of every two years.
Now, I must get the accountant in to go over the figures with me before we set the new rates. We have a lovely accountant and I owe her some hobnobs and tea I think :)
Between that and the year-on-year rise in postage prices we can't really dither about any longer. BCN subs are going to have to go up in price. The original idea was that the unwaged sub loses a bit of money and the waged basic sub makes a bit more than cost. In practice I think we're losing about £3 a year on the waged sub now -- and would still be doing so if we went back to our old, slightly cheaper but harder to get to print shop.
People also get confused by the way a subscription runs for two years. Simple enough to combine the two problems into one solution: a lower amount to pay each time, but subs come up for renewal yearly instead of every two years.
Now, I must get the accountant in to go over the figures with me before we set the new rates. We have a lovely accountant and I owe her some hobnobs and tea I think :)
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
And now, in colour...
BCN is an amazing publication. Yes, I'm biased, but really, it's still here nearly fifteen years on and almost 100 issues notched up.
But it does have one major drawback in the modern media age. It's in black and white.
Now, I do not personally give a fig. My personal measure of how likely to be worth reading a comic is at first sight is whether it is in mono or colour - colour stuff tending to be bland mainstream pish whereas stuff in mono that is worth working hard to get out there despite that often being awesome - Hothead Paisan, Liliane, Sleaze Castle. And it's a nice bit of inverse snobbery to indulge in while ignoring that rule completely when reading, say, the Death comics.
But the masses they expect colour, and when you show them the most persistent high profile bit of your movement and it's a mono printed publication, some folks will turn their nose up. More fool them, wise readers will say, but to grow a bigger wider bi movement we need to look at how we can change some of those first impression perceptions.
This is one hell of a long preamble for the news that, fingers crossed, from issue 97 for one or two or three issues we will have a colour cover on the magazine.
Colour!
Woohoo!
It brings a new challenge though. Who or what the hell do we put on the front? Since I really got my feet under the table as editor rather than just continuing it as it had been done before we've had a long run of mono photo covers; we've had quite a range of faces from the community though too few boys amongst other matters. But colour... so much possibility, and so scary getting it right!
Suggested cover images and volunteer coverbis welcome...
But it does have one major drawback in the modern media age. It's in black and white.
Now, I do not personally give a fig. My personal measure of how likely to be worth reading a comic is at first sight is whether it is in mono or colour - colour stuff tending to be bland mainstream pish whereas stuff in mono that is worth working hard to get out there despite that often being awesome - Hothead Paisan, Liliane, Sleaze Castle. And it's a nice bit of inverse snobbery to indulge in while ignoring that rule completely when reading, say, the Death comics.
But the masses they expect colour, and when you show them the most persistent high profile bit of your movement and it's a mono printed publication, some folks will turn their nose up. More fool them, wise readers will say, but to grow a bigger wider bi movement we need to look at how we can change some of those first impression perceptions.
This is one hell of a long preamble for the news that, fingers crossed, from issue 97 for one or two or three issues we will have a colour cover on the magazine.
Colour!
Woohoo!
It brings a new challenge though. Who or what the hell do we put on the front? Since I really got my feet under the table as editor rather than just continuing it as it had been done before we've had a long run of mono photo covers; we've had quite a range of faces from the community though too few boys amongst other matters. But colour... so much possibility, and so scary getting it right!
Suggested cover images and volunteer coverbis welcome...
Monday, 29 June 2009
Bad blogger
I am a bad blogger. I've just been too busy with bi activism, lefty activism, having a love-life, work and assorted lurgies to blog here. Which is a shame as there are some rather fun developments; I shall have to try and tell you all about them soon.
Friday, 12 June 2009
"We must engage with the bisexual community"
As I'm sure to have touched on before, the City Council here has a long and proud record when it comes to LGBT issues of engaging with and advocating for the lesbian and gay communities. They've had equal opportunities policies which specifically covered gay, lesbian and heterosexual people. They've had service monitoring and targets which looked at gay, lesbian and heterosexual as the available categories, and equal opps monitoring on job applications that asked if you were gay, lesbian or heterosexual with the other two possibilities ignored.
And this has been going on for years and years. Since the first half of the 90s at least from my own experience and from all I can glean, since they first started to engage with the idea that you might be straight.
So, having increased the pressure and visibility a little in recent times, we seem to be getting to some kind of a breakthrough. One of the leading bi-marginalisers in a position of power over the years went as far this week as saying, as speaker at a conference where I had been a speaker earlier in the day, that identity politics had moved on from the time of being all about lesbian and gay, and that "we need to engage with the bisexual community and we need to engage with the trans community".
Dangerous words. Much more of this and I might be able to take more time off from activism.
And this has been going on for years and years. Since the first half of the 90s at least from my own experience and from all I can glean, since they first started to engage with the idea that you might be straight.
So, having increased the pressure and visibility a little in recent times, we seem to be getting to some kind of a breakthrough. One of the leading bi-marginalisers in a position of power over the years went as far this week as saying, as speaker at a conference where I had been a speaker earlier in the day, that identity politics had moved on from the time of being all about lesbian and gay, and that "we need to engage with the bisexual community and we need to engage with the trans community".
Dangerous words. Much more of this and I might be able to take more time off from activism.
Saturday, 30 May 2009
A rare fail for PinkNews
The pink media is all a-quiver about an upcoming Eastenders plotline in which an existing male Muslim character, who has a girlfriend, falls for an out gay man and wrestles issues of his sexuality and the rules set by of his choice of faith.
Naturally, it's all about "Eastenders to feaure gay Muslim story" (pinknews), "Eastenders reveal gay muslim storyline" (pinkpaper). Are they missing a blooming obvious word starting with "B" perchance? It's another great case of the power of cock (tm) - the way that a man may have as many mixed-sex relationships as you please but will immediately be considered gay in the mainstream press the moment he thinks about sex with another guy -- it's sexist, it's many layers of queer-phobic, it's stupid, and it probably reflects how much of the media is still controlled by people with willies.
Naturally, it's all about "Eastenders to feaure gay Muslim story" (pinknews), "Eastenders reveal gay muslim storyline" (pinkpaper). Are they missing a blooming obvious word starting with "B" perchance? It's another great case of the power of cock (tm) - the way that a man may have as many mixed-sex relationships as you please but will immediately be considered gay in the mainstream press the moment he thinks about sex with another guy -- it's sexist, it's many layers of queer-phobic, it's stupid, and it probably reflects how much of the media is still controlled by people with willies.
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
b-IDAHO?
Someone on an email list for another country's activists makes a point that chimes over here.
Whether IDAHO or the bastardisation I've seen around this year "IDAHOT": where are the bis? Are we treating it like Prides and queer conferences, a chance to fly the flag and get publicity and visibility through press releases, events or joining in at wider LGBT events to mark the date? Or are we carrying on our fine tradition of being invisible whilst padding out the crowds, the organising teams, the banner-carriers and so forth?
For once I get to be smug about it: this year's IDAHO weekend I was leading the bi segment at an LGBT conference. But if I'm honest most years it hasn't been like that; and BiMedia.Org's front page would change a lot more often if it had stories of a dozen bi things going on to mark the 17th of May.
Whether IDAHO or the bastardisation I've seen around this year "IDAHOT": where are the bis? Are we treating it like Prides and queer conferences, a chance to fly the flag and get publicity and visibility through press releases, events or joining in at wider LGBT events to mark the date? Or are we carrying on our fine tradition of being invisible whilst padding out the crowds, the organising teams, the banner-carriers and so forth?
For once I get to be smug about it: this year's IDAHO weekend I was leading the bi segment at an LGBT conference. But if I'm honest most years it hasn't been like that; and BiMedia.Org's front page would change a lot more often if it had stories of a dozen bi things going on to mark the 17th of May.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
