judecorp | As cool as I am, I thought you knew this already.

Okay, so, I have some pictures and some stuff to show, but The Girl is being the absolute best and is making me pancakes so I don't have her camera hooked up and I'm too lazy to figure out her scanner... so those things will have to come in another post. But let me say this, and I say it especially for

zuzubailey76:

DAR WILLIAMS AND I ATE DINNER TOGETHER AND DISCUSSED GENDER POLITICS.

Holy crap. I could just about die. You see, Jennifer and I went to pick up all the food for Dar. Melissa told me (no, not THAT Melissa) that only I would be allowed to bring the food up, but there was too much, so I needed my girl. Yay. Anyway, we get up to where Dar is supposed to eat and she's NOT THERE. She's still in sound check. So Patience and Erica come up, and Jonathan, and we decide that we're all going to sit there and wait because by gods, I was going to meet Dar Williams.

So finally

hopemcg brings Dar up from sound check and we all say hi, and she goes in to see her lunch and we decide to give her some time to chill. And Brett comes up and is like, "So do you want to meet Dar?" and I'm like, "DUH." So I go in, and Erica and Jen and Patience and Jonathan come, and I say something stupid like, "Hi, I'm Jude, I delivered your food." Heh. Anyway, Dar then says something to the effect of, "There's so much food here so you guys should all come in and eat some. Oh, and I have a song working itself out in my head but it's not ready yet so we can all chat." Hello, intimidating! We sit down and munch on baby carrots, and DAR WILLIAMS BEGINS MAKING SMALL TALK.

She asks if we're students and all of that, and then asks if we're from Columbus, and I tell her I'm from New England and she starts asking me if it was a shock to move here from the East Coast. Later, out of the clear blue, Dar starts talking about how someone emailed her asking her stance on the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. (For those who don't know, Michigan is currently getting a lot of heat because some people maintain that only womyn-born womyn can participate, and many other people are fighting for trans inclusion.) So, wow, loaded convo. And Patience skirts around the issue a little, saying that it's a big issue around here, and Dar gives her opinion about how women have been fighting for a safe space and how she feels that when men are taken out of the equation, women have the ability to process their aggressions and direct them toward each other, and that she would worry about transwomen bearing the brunt of that aggression and all of that.

Now I am SOOOO not quiet or shy or shortwinded when it comes to gender, but I was trying not to say too much because WHO AM I TO PREACH TO DAR WILLIAMS? Anyway, so finally I couldn't help it, and started waxing all philosophical about how the Michigan controversy causes us to really examine the concept of gender and the privilege of being born in the correct body, and I bring up social change and struggle and tie it in with something she said about the peace rally in New York City. And then, oh my god, Dar Williams said, "That's a good point." And things got quiet.

A few minutes later, she said, "I'm still thinking about what you said. That's an excellent analogy." And she said that I was right that the current dominant population is /never/ ready for social change (because she had said that the coordinator of Michigan said she would consider letting transwomen in when the population was ready for it). And she said that I was right that by polling the people who are participating in the festival, you're getting skewed results because you can't hear from the people who are barred from participating or the people who are boycotting.

Later she told me that I "made her think." And that she was /still thinking/. She signed my "Mortal City" CD: To Jude, who made me think. Dar Williams.

OH MY GOODNESS, I MAY HAVE CHANGED DAR WILLIAMS'S POSITION ON TRANS-INCLUSION AT MICHIGAN.

And that is all.