HAPPY BIRTHDAY JODI

I almost posted this on Facebook yesterday, in remembrance, as a Happy Birthday gesture. Usually I post things there that I think everyone should see, since although my account is private, my friends respond most on Facebook. I want my friends to respond to Jodi; I want everyone to see her words.

"hey ladies...
i'm sorry it took so long to reply to this but it's been something i've been meaning to do for awhile. tonight i was also feeling nostalgic...stalking all you girls on myspace seeing what's been going on in your lives..and the lives of friends of the liwc... hopalong, the good good, jenny owen youngs, cara beth, chugga chugga... among others. i totally miss working with all you... and i think it's about time we all get together...possibly throw up an liwc pyramid sometime in the near future... but let's talk, i miss you girlies.
xo, jodi"

These are the last words I can find from her in my e-mail accounts. Sadly, they are from about eight months before she passed. It is safe to say that we spoke on the phone after that at some point, maybe we exchanged e-mails that I can't find about whether or not we'd make it to a potluck at Beth's. I've written about Jodi before, I conjured her energy and was enveloped in my own sadness while planning and carrying out the Big She-Bang 3 in her honor.

Jodi lives in many of our living rooms, in posters on the wall, photographs in albums, in memorial zines on our bookshelves. In a more real way, she has inspired us, she lives in our hearts and molds our decisions. Jodi's death tore me up so much. It helped me realize mortality tangibly, for the first time in my life, and it showed me that this invincibility that many of my friends had come to believe was our own was entirely false. That we could lose someone who was so bright, cheerful, insightful, and real, was an arrow through my heart. The kind of instance where all you can think is that everything is unfair in the world; why Jodi? Of course, the great and expected truth is that I learn(ed) as much from Jodi in her death as in her life.

Reading this e-mail from her made me nostalgic. So many of the women we worked with in the Long Island Womyn's Collective have dispersed to different states, different projects, different lives. Yet I remain in touch with many of them. It saddens me that I was a year behind Jodi--our lives' paths would not cross again. My first "big girl job" came a year after hers and Beth's, and as I transitioned from graduating college to living my own life, Jodi's passing would be a bridge. I never wanted this bridge, and I have done my best to honor her in her passing as I don't think I did enough in her life. If she were alive now we would work side by side, infusing our work with equal bits love and biting humor, so I carry her in all that I do just like I would have otherwise.

Us girlies miss you too, Jodi. Always.

MOVIN' ON UP

While I was on hiatus, a few things happened. My friend Ben's zine Sick: A Compilation Zine on Physical Illness came out a few weeks ago. It's really beautiful and well-done, an articulate and necessary document which many of my good friends contributed to. I read the zine right after my friend had heart surgery and finished it while I was with my Dad, holed up at the hospital. It was really helpful for me during this whirlwind of a summer. If you or anyone you know is dealing with or has dealt with physical illness, especially within DIY/punk/activist communities, I highly reccomend this.

NEXT, in related news, some more of my friends re-released a documentary about the Long Island "DIY punk community" called Between Resistance and Community. I was interviewed along with a number of my girlfriends: Cynthia of Jettison Sister & Zombie Dogs; Carly of Slingshot Dakota; Krista of Carnal Knowledge & Zombie Dogs; Tia of Bridge & Tunnel & Fellow Project -- to talk about what it was like to grow up as a girl in that scene. It's a feature on the DVD. Here's the trailer:

Between Resistance & Community: The Long Island DIY Punk Community on Vimeo.

Next up, my review of the comic Jin & Jam #1, from this month's issue of MRR. The Jodi zines have arrived, appropriately in time with the 2 year anniversary of her passing.

ON JODI TILTON

I contributed to a zine about my dear friend Jodi, with the excerpt that I read on the panel we organized in her rememberance at last year's Big She-Bang. The zine will be available this week, printed by Eberhardt Press.

Here's the post about it on the Team Colors blog: http://teamcolors.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/new-zine-jodi-tilton-one-of-the-womyn-the-world-requires/

There is a PDF of the zine available here: http://www.scribd.com/full/16909776?access_key=key-1wz2rgok6bdp2d14fh6y

I've Got A Proposition, Goes Something Like This: A Brief Herstory of The Big She-Bang

Beth and I have been working on this for weeks now. I think this is the final copy which will be going in the Big She-Bang zine. [Poster by No Guts No Glory]

I've Got a Proposition, Goes Something Like This:
A Brief Herstory of The Big She-Bang

by Beth Puma and Kate Wadkins

In late 2003 there had been many rumblings of the girls and women in the Long Island DIY punk and activist community wanting to organize on their own. Modern Times Collective had been around for years, ideas for Freespace were quickly developing, and the Freewheel Bike Collective had really taken off. A lot of folks were engaged in a variety of projects at this time, ranging from animal rights to various social justice groups. The younger women involved in the community wanted to organize in a more direct way, to deal not only with all of the social justice issues they were fighting for, but for their own space in this creative and active community.

A small group of girls decided that they wanted to focus on self-taught, skill-share workshops as a stepping stone to self-empowerment. They began with a series of skill-shares on knitting/crocheting, playing guitar and bass, silkscreening, and bike maintenance, among others. They met in each other's houses and in Argyle Park, Babylon. As with many other feminist collectives, their shared experience with their immediate community brought about common frustrations. Similar to consciousness-raising groups of the 70's and riot grrrl meetings of the 90's, they started to work from their own experience, and identify the sexism they experienced on an every day level in their surrounding community. These women named their group the Long Island Womyn’s Collective (LIWC).