Listening: Depeche Mode
Mentally Replaying: Lysistrata, Aristophanes
I'd rather be: putting together a production of Lysistrata
Aches and Complaints: fuckimsore
Enjoying: This idea!

Sometimes I have ideas about stuff that I would like to do and sometimes there is stuff out there - artists, stories etc - that I like so much I feel almost possessive. And sometimes when someone goes public with their love for something that I love it gets annoying because it feels like I was here first! I should get to start the trend first. And it can be pretty similar with ideas that I have when someone I don't know gets the idea and pushes it to popularity before me.

But sometimes, sometimes the idea is *so* good, and the thing that I love, I love *so* much that I'm thrilled that it's getting out there and getting attention without my help.

As a theatre student I had to take a course on classical theatre, which of course meant reading a shitload of Greek classics, a few Roman interpretations and nothing else. (Aside: which was mildly annoying. I know our current understanding of drama is based heavily, or entirely, on Aristotle's plot arch and that the surviving Greek plays are very resonant with many of us, but sheesh India had brilliant plays running way before Athenian speakers broke from their Choruses.) But my favorite play was always Aristophanes' Lysistrata.

I mean who can resist the idea of Woman Power that developed in a society that held MEN as the ultimate statement of human goals and aspirations? I've always been a proponent of using what you got and if what you got includes saying yea to nay to sex then, by God, that's something else in your aresenal. With many apologies to Faith, this may be going the traditional route and playing to the ideals of women-as-sex-objects, but I've never had a problem with using and manipulating/influencing men-as-sex-consumers.

I mean, it shouldn't just stop there. And women should not be defined by the sex they may or may not provide. It's just that... If you learn how to fight with blades and guns but also happen to be good at brawling with your bare hands you shouldn't consider hand to hand combat as "beneath you." It might come in very handy some time. Personally I think that blades and guns are likely to be more reliable, but the bare hands are good to keep in mind.

I hope that made sense.

Anyway, Lysistrata: If you've never read it, is a story about a woman named Lysistrata who gets tired of just bitching with her friends about a stupid civil war that their husbands are constantly off fighting and how they only come home to have sex and then head out again. The women have to do pretty much do everything to run the households and by extension the local area/economy, etc. So Lysistrata talks the women into going on strike. They won't run the households, they won't have sex with their men, and to avoid getting raped and (more importantly) to make the point absolutely clear they move into the Treasury. They won't let the army take out any money to keep funding the war and they won't go take care of the men - cook, clean, etc.

The funny bits always have been and always will be about sex. It isn't particularly funny to watch a man beg his wife to come home and cook him some dinner but it is funny to watch a woman get a man worked up sexually and then walk away. Also funny are the various scenes in which Lyistrata has to stop women, often forcibly, from "breaking the line" as it were and sneaking off with a man to satisfy her own desires.

So the idea that I'm talking about here is something I heard on NPR last night. The Lysistrata Project will come to a theatre near you(ish) on March 3rd. All around the world theatres and private groups will present readings of Lysistrata as movement of solidarity against a likely war in Iraq.

As the story last night went the idea has worked again as recently as in the Sudan where a group of organized women took a cue from Lysistrata and forced their men to end fighting. Apparently there are some women who wish to participate in the Middle East where they would likely risk imprisonment or worse.

I love tales of brave women, so all I have to say is Bravo! and I plan to be at the local LA reading on 3 March. }:D