October 17.2QÛ3 •
BOOKS
Cunt wait for the revolution?
Me neither.
Author Inga Muscio moves to Portland to raise some hell
by
M a r ie F l e is c h m
ann
he author of the increasingly pop
ular 1998 feminist manifesto Cunt:
A Declaration of Independence (with
a 2002 second edition) has thou
sands of cunt-loving fans who certainly
hope she keeps talking.
The fiery redhead moved from San
Francisco to Stumptown in June and
feels right at home. “I’ve spent most of
my adult life in the Paoitic Northwest. It
is a gixxl place for writers, in general,"
says Inga Muscio. “I chose Portland
because it seems that, unlike Seattle, the
people here have a hit of a tight rein on
developers and Paul Allen-esque dick
heads.... People here really care about
their community, about their neighhor-
hixxls.... I love how the Mount Tabor
neighborhood responded to the totally
vapid idea about covering the reservoirs.”
The 37-year-old writer continues to
he impressed with the way Portlanders
respond to oppression. "People are not
satisfied with the rote manner that the
city deals with police brutality toward
black folks and protesters.... If there
was any major city that was ripe for rev
olution, it would have to be this one.”
That’s high praise from a woman
with a vaginal manifesto. “I realized I
would write a kxik called Cunt when I
Inga Muscio reads from her work-in-progress,
was sitting in the middle of my kitchen, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and
surrounded by articles I had written in
Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society, Nov. 9 at In
the past four years,” Muscio says.
Other Words
“A few years prior, I accidentally
the store, calling a friend prior to any solo depar
turned in an article with the second ‘o’ left out of
tures, etc. And it’s best to check the comprehen
‘word count.’ My editor thought 1 had written
sive “Cunt-lovin’ Guide to the Universe” before
‘word cunt’ intentionally.... Regardless, I was
chixising your next, well...just about anything.
quite delighted with this term when she pointed
Though the second printing of Cunt fms
it out to me, so 1 stopped putting my name on my
articles and started using ‘word cunt’ and then the
been selling even better than the first edition,
and its success may very well lead to a third
number of words instead. So the word ‘cunt’ was
printing, Muscio’s new protect will more than
literallv on almost everv article surrounding me.'
likelv also he a pinnacle work. Autobiography of a
Which is quite appropriate when vou know
Blue-Eyed Devil. M> Life and limes m a Racist.
that manv of the articles had to do with cunts
Imperialist Society, due out next year, has been in
anyway. “These articles became the framework
the making for four years. In a critique of the
for the fxxik. 1 hunched them into topics and
saw a chapter on whores, periods, etc. All 1 had
faulty framework of nruxlem America, the
author explores everything from race relations to
to do, really, was fill in the many, many blanks.”
the political plundering of the people’s gtxxJwill.
ith the huge success of Cum under her
“If our present dictator is re-power-played
belt, Muscio’s second edition responds to
inti) office, my days as a U.S. citizen might, at
much of the feedback from the first,
least temporarily, he numbered.... I will finish
this bxxik here and then I will probably he trav
including what she delicately explains as “some
right-wing pieces of shit in Pennsylvania [who]
eling around a hit.”
came to a Cuntfest at Penn State.”
But she will stick around long enough to
continue her research, finish the new fxx>k and
Apparently these, ahem, rather conservative
become an active part of the Portland commu
folks, lobbied the Keystone State’s governor to
nity, contributing to, she says, “the kx^il anti
suspend funding for some schcx>l activities in
racist, pro-transgendered, pro-woman, pro-
response to Muscio’s reading. “Pennsylvania is the
community revolution I see forming. If 1 can
most racist, fucked-up state I have ever been in,
do my part to facilitate white people digging
and I’ve been in most,” she says. “By and large, 1
their heads out of their collective asses, that
don’t get much resistance. Cum tends to slip
would he nice, too. I also have a number of
under the radar, which is great. Gender-variant
really close friends here...and the roses, one
people have taken me to task, and 1 address
mustn’t forget the roses.” J H
that...hut I wouldn’t term that as resistance
because it came from a general place of love.”
I nc 5A MUSCIO will read from her book in progress
Muscio says that her writing process has not
7 pm . Nov. 9 at In Other Words, 3734 S.E.
changed “per se” since the first edition of Cum.
Hawthorne Blvd. Stay updated by visitmg
“I still have the same entirely schizophrenic
www.kalikunti.com.
reading and writing practices.”
The survival tips are what makes both editions
M arif . F leischmann is a green-eyed devil, cunt-
a full-fledged women’s user’s guide: putting nxrks
loving agitator and Editorial Assistant at Just Out.
in your ptx:ket before the late-night hike trip to
eatingout
eatingout
Thai
(ytD ae
ealingout
,
eatin« out
/f'tfT
1 /
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