Butterfly Effect - ressourcesfeministes

106
1 Carnivale. “Carnivale”. Script for POW small show. First performed at Swinburne
University, Lilydale Campus. 1 December, 1998.
2 O. The O has been used by lesbian writers on numerous occasions. Olga
Broumas’ first collection of poems (1977) is entitled Beginning with O. Monique
Wittig uses the O as the first chapter opener (p. 3) in The Guérillères. These images
of lacunae recur in the text on pp. 51 and 105. As a lesbian reader in the 1970s
these circles seemed affirming of the decision I had made in regard to my
sexuality. Gertrude Stein with her “A rose is a rose is a rose” later made it into a
ring, an O, of roses. Gertrude Stein. 1935. Lectures in America, p. 231. Dante
proposed that the original (male) name of god was i. I suggest it is O. Kay
Gardner, in Sounding the Inner Landscape creates images of intervals. The O
represents unison, singing at the same pitch. Sameness. See Kay Gardner. 1997.
Sounding the Inner Landscape, p. 105. For a critique of David Le Vay’s English
translation of Wittig’s The Lesbian Body and his use of “I” in the text, see
Namascar Shaktini’s “Displacing the Phallic Subject” (1982).
3 wolf. The wolf has been interpreted as a symbol of aggressive male sexuality, but
feminist and lesbian writers have turned this idea on its head. Renée Vivien in
her story, “The Woman of the Wolf”, writes of a woman who would rather die
with her pet wolf in the sea, than respond to the sexual advances of the man
telling the story. See Renée Vivien. 1983. The Woman of the Wolf and other stories.
Barnes uses the image of the wolf to represent repressed sexuality, the sexuality
society forced lesbians to hide. The wolf, nevertheless, emerges in the dark of the
night. See Djuna Barnes. 1936. Nightwood. Was it Djuna Barnes’ wolf that inspired
the irrepressible girls at Vassar See Anne Mackay (Ed.). 1993. Wolf Girls at Vassar.
4 companion lovers. “The companion lovers gather from lesbians all of the culture,
the past, the inventions, the songs and the ways of life.” They are engaged in
much the same project as this series of poems. See Monique Wittig and Sande
Zeig. 1979 A Dictionary of Lesbian Peoples, p. 35.
5 masks. If you go to Venice look for the masks of Carnivale which are for sale in
the little shops a few steps below street level.
6 crowds. We often meet in crowds. It is safer that way. We form crowds at street
demonstrations, at dance parties and lesbian balls, when lesbian singers come to
town, and when Martina Navratilova or one of her descendants is playing on the
centre court at Kooyong.
7 joglaresas. Joglaresas were Moorish women jugglers who were part of the retinue of
the Occitanian ruling class in the tenth and eleventh centuries. It was from this
base that the Troubadors arose in subsequent centuries. An image of a late 10th
century joglaresa can be found in the St. Martial Codex, held in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, France. It also appears in Meg Bogin. 1976. The Women Troubadors, p. 48.
Referring to this time Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig say that companion lovers
began to juggle during the dark ages to cheer it up. Monique Wittig and Sande
Zeig. 1979. Lesbian Peoples, p. 88.
8 spin. Spinning is a particularly female occupation, whether it be spinning yarn,
spinning out a tale (a yarn), spinning and sparking in a Dalyesque manner or
spinning like a spider on a web.