Bechdel

An excellent start to the day, pre-teaching (alas, I had to slope away in order to get to my class): Alison Bechdel was in a q and a session with a couple of USC colleagues in English and Gender Studies, and with a large room full of students, with a few stray faculty scattered around the perimeter.  It was terrific to see and hear her - she was absolutely like - well, like she's always portrayed herself, so it was as if graphic memoir/Dykes to Watch Out For had sprung to life. 

Two big takeaways, for me. First - she takes photographs of herself in various poses before drawing the figures in her images - not just when she's representing herself, though, but when representing others.  And she says that doing this helps her imaginatively get into the body - and hence, I guess, the being - of others: her mother, say, or her therapist.

And then - she's currently writing a graphic novel about life on a pygmy goat farm. I will be first in line for that (of course, I've already been googling "pygmy goats," and find that they cost about $350, but of course I don't think that they would be exactly compatible with all the new garden plants).