Sound Affects (Episode 39)
Mar 13, 2019
Show notes
In this week’s featured interview, Fresno, CA music composition student Alexia Nelson talks with Robin Renée about living with autism. Alexia speaks candidly about difficulties with social cues, anxiety, sensory overload, and being misunderstood by neurotypical people. She also gives us a glimpse at her deep connection with music — favorites include Steely Dan, Devo, Mitski, and The Beach Boys. Listen in to learn about one young person’s joys and challenges, as well as some universal ways to be more understanding and kinder to people with autism.
Wendy Sheridan leads a news discussion that includes sadness about the passing of Luke Perry (Beverly Hills, 90210, Riverdale, Jeremiah) and the hopefulness of a second person possibly considered cured of HIV. Also in the conversation are votes against the Trump “emergency,” bodily autonomy vs. “host bodies,” and the “Racism Exhibit A” moment in Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony.
Want some reasons to celebrate this week? There’s Pi Day (March 14th), St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th), National Awkward Moments Day (March 18th), and National Introverts Week (March 17th – 23rd). Mary McGinley surmises about why it’s Shakespeare Week and Robin shares a bit about Bisexual Health Awareness Month. Birthday shouts go to Albert Einstein, Simone Biles, will.i.am, Bily Corgan, Queen Latifah, and YouTube star ASMR Zeitgeist.
In the Why is This Awesome? segment, Wendy celebrates the birthday of her mother, Paula Schwartz aka prolific novelist Elizabeth Mansfield. She wrote plays and musicals, and had a deep appreciation for Jane Austen. Wendy announces her upcoming project to adapt one of her mom’s musicals into a very different medium.
Things to do:
Explore information from the Autism Acceptance Month website, recommended by Alexia Nelson:
Wendy Sheridan, Mary McGinley, and Robin Renée talk women’s sexuality on this week’s episode – from Freud’s miscasting of the female orgasm to the liberation of pleasure by pro-sex feminists, personal discoveries of pleasure-enhancing household objects, and much more. Wendy shares a list of reasons women could be institutionalized in the late 1800s and Mary recommends The Birth of Pleasure by Carol Gilligan. Robin tries to talk about Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and gets the title ass backwards before singing the praises of Betty Dodson.
Opening conversations take on a more somber tone, as the news includes an Alabama editor who called on the Ku Klux Klan to “ride again” in Washington, DC and the decision on what to do when a juror dies after an opinion is rendered but before it becomes official. The Mueller investigation isn’t dead yet, however, and seems to be moving along despite rumors of its imminent end. Reasons to celebrate this week: National Women’s Day (March 8th), Worship of Tools Day (March 11th), and the birthdays of Kiki Dee, Wanda Sykes, Micky Dolenz, Bow Wow, and James Taylor. Robin remembers singer Christina Grimmie who died in a murder/suicide in 2016 and Wendy honors her father, the late Ira Schwartz. In the Why is this Awesome? segment, Robin raves about Joe Jackson and his recent show at the Scottish Rite Auditorium.
Don’t forget to “spring ahead” one hour for Daylight Saving at 2am, March 10th!
Women Doing Stuff (Episode 37)
Feb 27, 2019
Show notes
Some within our cultures and subcultures have strange ways of reacting to a basic everyday occurrence — women doing stuff. Too often there’s disdain, shaming, or disregard. Sometimes, thankfully, there’s recognition of success and accomplishment, even if in some cases, it is long overdue. This episode turns out to be a look at just a few instances of women doing stuff and the responses that follow.
Ray Cornwall, former co-host of The GAR! Podcast, comics enthusiast, and self-described geek for hire, speaks with Robin Renée this week about #comicsgate and the harassment that women and transgender people have been facing if they dare take part in the world of creating comics. We hear about “The Milkshake Incident,” online attacks against Magdalene Visaggio (Eternity Girl, Kim & Kim) and others, plus some encouraging examples of people in the comics industry who stand against Comicsgate and advocate for embracing diversity. Later, Mary McGinley talks about the black women she’s been highlighting on the Leftscape Facebook page. The co-hosts share about a few who inspire them including physicist Shirley Ann Jackson, Union spy Mary Elizabeth Bowser, and tennis players Margaret and Matilda Peters.
Wendy Sheridan is doing stuff! Her Kickstarter project, (Post)Cards Against Fascism, has been funded! Thanks to all you backers who helped make it possible. She is busy designing postcards especially suitable for sending messages to your representatives in Congress. Other reasons to celebrate this week are National Polar Bear Day (February 27), Metamour Day (February 28), National Women’s History Month and Will Eisner Week both beginning March 1st, National Grammar Day (March forth!), and Absinthe Day (March 5). Birthdays include Lupita Nyong’o, Dr. Seuss, Karen Carpenter, Anne Sabagh, and Chaz Bono.
Things to do:
Read #comicsgate posts. Consider yourself trigger-warned. This is Comicsgate
Choose Joy: A Conversation with Edie Weinstein (Episode 36)
Feb 20, 2019
Show notes
Joy is a choice and touch is essential. These are central tenets for Edie Weinstein, author, speaker, columnist, medical social worker, certified Cuddle Party facilitator, and Laughter Yoga coach. Edie has written for HuffPost, Elephant Journal, Wisdom Magazine, The Good Men Project, Beliefnet.com, and more, and is the author of The Bliss Mistress Guide to Transforming the Ordinary into the Extraordinary. She speaks with Robin Renée on this episode about her journey as a touch educator who points the way toward healing in a world in which many people grew up in families where touch was nonexistent, limited, or in some way coercive. Offering Free Hugs across Ireland, creating a “wall of love” in Pennsylvania between protesters and a story time event featuring drag queen Annie Christ, and co-facilitating a 400+ person Cuddle Party in the Washington, DC area are among the love and life-affirming adventures she describes.
In News, Wendy Sheridan tells us about the Supreme Court’s stay of Louisiana’s anti-abortion law and all discuss the complicated tale of Jeff Bezos’ extortion claim against The National Enquirer and its potential legal and political fallout. Also in this episode, Mary McGinley reveals her lonely sock problems, we celebrate World Day of Social Justice (February 20th), A Day Without News (February 22nd), National Tell a Fairy Tale Day (February 26th), and there is a strange detour into talk of Bigfoot and dinosaur porn and gay niche erotica writer Chuck Tingle (Don’t ask… Just listen!). This week, we recognize the birthdays of Walter Becker of Steely Dan, Nina Simone, Julius “Dr. J” Earving, Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, Steve Jobs, George Harrison, Erykah Badu, Tony Randall, and Johnny Cash.
Find a Cuddle Party near you. Cuddle Party is a workshop created by Marcia Baczynski and Reid Mihalko centered around communication, boundary-setting, and safe, nurturing, nonsexual touch by consent.
At some point, every medical professional will be a patient. Contact Edie Weinstein about her upcoming class, “The Other End of the Stethoscope: Listening to the Heart in Our Care,” that will be offered anywhere medical professionals work or are trained.
Wendy proudly embraces the term “Social Justice Warrior:”
Wait Your Turn? (Episode 35)
Feb 13, 2019
Show notes
Robin Renée, Mary McGinley, and Wendy Sheridan all got together at Wendy’s place to talk about “wait your turn” politics. Often in the name of progress, women, people of color, those who identify or are perceived to be LGBTQ, and other marginalized people have been told to wait. If the time for their/our justice is not now, when will it be? Are there times when the request to wait is strategic and valid? Is it always an insult and an injustice? How much does an acknowledgment of the pain caused by being asked to wait matter? The conversation winds through these questions and others, teasing out more questions and inviting continued political discussion and reflection on a centuries-old problem.
Also in this episode, Wendy goes over Robert Reich’s survival guide for two more years of Trump and Robin shares the news that beginning February 1st, New Jersey residents have the right to change their gender identity on a birth certificate. A third, nonbinary option is also available for the first time. If that wasn’t enough reason to celebrate, there’s also Random Acts of Kindness Week (Feb 10th – 16th), Valentine’s Day and National Shut-in Visitation Day ( Feb 14th), National Do a Grouch a Favor Day (Feb 16th), Presidents Day and National Drink Wine Day (Feb 18th), and National Engineer’s Week (Feb 17th – 23rd). Birthday shout outs go to Henry Rollins, Peter Gabriel, Frederick Douglass, and Wendy’s daughter Ariel Berenzon.
Things to do:
Artwork by Mitch Boyer
Listen to “More Perfect: Sex Appeal,” a story in which Ruth Bader Ginsburg convinces an all-male Supreme Court to take discrimination on the basis of sex seriously — and uses an instance of “wait your turn” politics along the way.
March and Talk Back (Episode 34)
Feb 06, 2019
Show notesPhoto by Eric A. Cheavers / Track 3 Productions LLC
On Saturday, January 19th, 2019, Rev. Dawn Fortune delivered the opening prayer at the Atlantic City Women’s March and Rally. In this week’s featured interview, they talk with Robin Renée about the experience of taking part in the inspiring event organized by and centering women of color. Dawn shares about speaking truth to power at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Jersey Shore and the message of unity through acknowledging our interwoven commonalities, differences, marginalizations, and privileges.
Wendy Sheridan reports the news that the Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in on a challenge to a restrictive abortion law in Louisiana. Also up for discussion is the arrest and indictment of Roger Stone. Later, Wendy tells us about attending a marcher’s reunion and reminds everyone to act now to support her excellent Kickstarter project, (Post)Cards Against Fascism.
At the top of the show, birthday acknowledgments go out for Bob Marley, Natalie Cole, James Dean, Thomas Edison, and Charles Darwin. Mary McGinley lets us in on the upcoming weird holidays — National Periodic Table Day (Feb 7th) and International Flirting Week (Feb 10th – 16th). Robin introduces a potential new Leftscape theme song.
Celebrate National Periodic Table Day and sing “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer:
There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium, And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium, And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium, And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium, And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There’s yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium, And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium, There’s strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium, And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium, And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium, Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium, Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium, And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There’s sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium, And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium, And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium, And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, And there may be many others but they haven’t been discovered.
Opinionated: The Cultural Activism of John Cecil Price (Episode 33)
Jan 30, 2019
Show notes
It is almost Black History Month as Wendy Sheridan, Mary McGinley, and Robin Renée welcome you to this week’s episode of The Leftscape. February 1st is National Freedom Day, which honors Abraham Lincoln’s signing of a joint House and Senate resolution that later became the 13th Amendment. Also coming up is the seasonal holiday of Imbolc and its secular analogue, Groundhog Day. On February 5th, the Year of the Pig begins and on that day we are also invited to celebrate National Shower with a Friend Day! Birthday nods and remembrances this week include Jackie Robinson, Portia de Rossi, Brandon Lee, Lisa Marie Presley, Ronda Rousey, Farrah Fawcett, Elizabeth Blackwell, Alice Cooper, Rosa Parks, and Trayvon Martin.
Featured in this episode is Robin’s interview with John Cecil Price, Philadelphia-based promoter and guitarist most recently with THe BaPTist pReacherS. He believes that art and music are storytelling, and that telling your story is, by its very nature, a political statement. As a self-described “loudmouth, opinionated huckster of unpopular thought,” he has a lot to say on topics including the nature of political parties, love, Baby Boomers, Gen Z, singer/songwriter Laura Marling, Permit Patty, The Mummers, cargo shorts, and the silver lining of a Donald Trump presidency.
In News, Wendy tells us about the Supreme Court’s recent decision to allow the transgender military ban to go forward as the lower courts work through the issue. The co-hosts consider the possibility of adding to the Supreme Court to rectify the conservative leaning. In another edition of Why Is this Awesome?, Mary raves about the “food porn” experience with cooking shows Brothers Green Eats and Flo Lum.
Want to stay politically engaged? Write to your representatives with Wendy Sheridan’s (Post)Cards Against Fascism! Support the Kickstarter project today, get your copies of Wendy’s new political postcard designs, and make your voice heard!
‘Her Stories’ with Carol Simon Levin (Episode 32)
Jan 23, 2019
Show notes
This week on The Leftscape, Mary McGinley speaks with historian and performer Carol Simon Levin. After minoring in Women’s History at Cornell University, Levin wasn’t yet on her current path of immersion and fascination with the topic. It was a chance meeting at the gym and a conversation about Emily Roebling that led to more and more research, a book, and her one-woman performances that bring to life women from history, many of whose stories have been hidden from view. This discussion winds through stories of women including Jeannette Rankin, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul. Thoughts on the voices of women of color and racial divisions within the feminist movement then and now recur throughout, and invite deep, ongoing conversation and analysis.
In the news, the government shutdown continues and problems are growing from missed paychecks to missing personnel in national parks. Some Good Samaritans have tried picking up the slack when and where they can. A federal judge has ruled against a citizenship question on the 2020 census, and we all learned that the FBI opened an inquiry into whether or not Donald Trump was at any point working on behalf of Russian interests.
This week, it’s time to celebrate National Opposite Day (No, it’s not!) and National Meat Week. Silly holidays aside, on January 27th, we have the deeply solemn Holocaust Remembrance Day. Also this week, The Leftscape sends out birthday love for Alicia Keys, Etta James, Ellen DeGeneres, Harriet Tubman, Oprah Winfrey, and Robin Renée remembers musician and friend, Warren Zevon.
Magic & Media (Episode 31)
Jan 16, 2019
Show notes
Robin Renée, Mary McGinley, and Wendy Sheridan are back from their short winter break and wish everyone a very happy 2019! This week, Robin spoke with Christiana Gaudet, one of the most recognizable talents in tarot and the intuitive arts today. She is the author of Fortune Stellar: What Every Professional Tarot Reader Needs to Know and Tarot Tour Guide: Tarot, The Four Elements, and Your Spiritual Journey. Christiana says, “… we are at our best when we think magically, but at our worst when we fall into magical thinking.” Listen in to the conversation to learn the differences between the two concepts and to consider if and how spiritual practices like Pagan ritual magick, prayer, and meditation affect our inner and external experiences. Please forgive the fact that Robin sounds like she is speaking from inside an aluminum can. Much better sound quality for The Leftscape is in the works!
Later in the show, Mary, Wendy, and Robin discuss the very helpful Media Bias Chart 4.0. This chart is a handy way to cut through the various accusations of “fake news” and to be more informed about the slant, as well as the reliability, of the news you listen to. And in the news, the partial government shutdown continues and the New York Times runs a Bruce Ackerman opinion piece on why declaring an emergency to build “the wall” would not be a legal move.
Current celebrations include National Religious Freedom Day, National Nothing Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Squirrel Appreciation Day, commemoration of the first assembly of the League of Nations in 1920, and National Blood Donor Month – the discussion of which prompts Wendy to declare, “The devil doesn’t need a lawyer!” Birthday shout outs go to Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michelle Obama, Jim Carrey, Buzz Aldrin, Tom Baker, and Jam Master Jay.
Check out the Media Bias Chart 4.0 by Vanessa Otero. What does it say about the news you consume most? httpss://www.adfontesmedia.com/
Time Passages: 2018 (Episode 30)
Dec 26, 2018
Show notes
2018 has been one wild trip around the sun. The onslaught of political news alone has been overwhelming, let alone the personal shifts and changes we all experience. There are many ways to approach a retrospective. In this final episode of the year, The Leftscape honors well-known and lesser known people who had an impact on the world, passed in 2018, and whose lights still shine.
Anthony Minson
Wendy Sheridan begins the conversation by remembering Anthony Agabatt Minson – a craftsman, a powerful worker of magick, and a true friend to all three co-hosts. Wendy, Mary, and Robin share memories and healing laughter. As The Leftscape was recorded live this week in Wendy’s home, it was extra touching that gifts “Batt” had made over the years were all around the room.
Pete Shelley
Robin Renée spoke of Pete Shelley, lead vocalist of the profoundly influential band the Buzzcocks and solo performer of the iconically queer “Homosapien.”
Cicely Berry
Mary McGinley remembered and praised the innovations of John Barton and Cicely Berry, co-founder and voice director, respectively, for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Ntozake Shange
Others we lost in 2018 include Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Mort Walker in comics, brilliant theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, Apollo astronauts Alan Bean and John Young, CSS design team member Cindy Li, UN diplomat Kofi Annan, politician John McCain, writers Ursula K. Le Guin and Ntozake Shange, activist David Stroh Buckel, journalist Jamal Khashoggi, playwright Neil Simon, celebrities/performers Penny Marshall, Burt Reynolds, Anthony Bourdain, Tab Hunter, Aretha Franklin, XXXTentacion, Mac Miller, and Delores O’Riordan, and gorillas Koko and Nico. These are just a sampling of the many from pop culture, arts and sciences, and elsewhere who are recognized in the show. Explore the Wikipedia entry on notable people who died in 2018 to learn more about their lives and contributions.
The week’s celebrations include Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and the birthdays of Henry Miller, Steve Allen, Gregg Wayans, Lars Ulrich, and David Sedaris. In shocking news, Men’s Health reports that Keith Richards is finally on the wagon.
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