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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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As I left my neighbourhood diner the other day, the waiter remarked, "You sure seemed to be enjoying that book." I gather I'd been chortling aloud over my pasta and pint. Great, more fodder for the neighbours' impression that I am some kind of no-good weirdo freak. No wonder I like Girls Who Bite Back, the latest project from the ever prolific Emily Pohl-Weary. I was initially a tad dubious about the topic for this anthology: female superheroes. And there are a lot of references to a certain pretty, moody blond TV icon vampire slayer. But Buffy is just a launching pad and a bunch of these essays are on a uniquely oddball edge that it feels damn good to indulge.
I'm still reading the book, and not in any particular order, but one of my favourites so far is Carma Livingstone's "Madame Mouth's Little Get Together," in which a clatch of female video game characters meet up to discuss their profession and get looped on a beverage called CircuitPlus. The cast are The Legs, The Hair, The Ass, The Brain, The Tits, and Madame Mouth. They spend the whole time agressively bickering, comparing notes on nude patches and the "bitch actresses" who are portraying them in the movie versions of their games. They all flirt with The Tits, who only has eyes for The Brain. There is violence, but I don't want to spoil the story so I'll say no more.
"Five Case Studies of Females With Enhanced Characteristics" by S.P. Bustos, is an incredibly convincing study in fictional genetics that charts mutations in the X chromosome resulting in super powers.
This mutated protein allows the subject to undergo morphological alterations of the body to resemble any person. Nerve-growth factors become up-regulated in the subject, which triggers high numbers of cells to migrate throughout the body and form various tissues, including cartilage and bone. Strict regulation of tissue formation, especially in the facial area, allows successful morphogenesis.I also very much enjoyed Sophie Levy's "A Manifesto For The Bitten," a riff on cyborgs, aliens, vampires and queers.
When cyborgs look in the mirror, do they see vampire reflections? What do they see? And how do they see it? Robot vision only becomes discernible in the movies at the point when it fails -- pixellates. Think about the last moments we share with the T-100 in Terminator II: as he dissolves himself, his vision fails, breaks up, and we are reminded (at the point of his most human action) that he is a robot. His eyes are screens upon which the world is projected. When we look into cyborg eyes, do we see ourselves reflected and distorted as on the convex surface of the television screen?I can't wait to read the rest of this strange, energetic book. The Toronto launch for Girls Who Bite Back is this Thursday evening at the Cameron House from 6 to 9pm.
For those of you in New York, go meet Emily and contributors Carly Stasko, Daniel Heath Justice, and Mariko Tamaki on Sunday, May 23, 7 pm at The Lucky Cat (245 Grand St, Williamsburg). More details about both events are here on the website.