For Lesbians living in the Seattle area between 1988 and 2012, absolutely the best part of the SGN was the column "A Dyke About Town," written by the pseudonymous Mercy Moosemuzzle. Mercy's hundreds of columns previewed and reviewed just about every cultural and political event of interest to "Lesbians of discernment and taste." In her lighthearted, witty style, she described disagreements and controversies in the LGBTQ community, often quoting the opinions of her many friends (on whom she also conferred pseudonyms). In Mercy's optimistic view, disagreements were temporary and resolvable; friendship and community were permanent.
Full disclosure: Marian Michener, the actual writer of Mercy's columns, was my close friend and writing buddy for nearly 30 years, until her death from Huntington's disease in 2019. She introduced me to many of my other friends, as well as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which she reviewed faithfully (under her real name) for the SGN. When her symptoms made it impossible for her to continue, she passed that gig to me.
Her first column, published in January 1988, began with a visit to the Double Header, the oldest Gay bar in the country, for the talent show: "Most of the entertainment was provided by men in drag. Most of the audience was women. What, I wondered, are all these Lesbians doing here? Girl-watching[?] No, the sentiment was one of sisterhood. These people just plain love each other. (And, unless I've missed something, the planet isn't suffering from too much of that yet.)" The column ended, "This is your correspondent on Capitol Hill with a column of news, reviews, previews, and impertinent thoughts. If you have an item you want the world to know about, you call for Mercy."
When someone posted her column in the ladies' room at the Timberline (the wonderful western dance bar at Boren and Denny), Mercy commented in print that she liked to think her opinions "are worthy of the bathroom walls of some of the best places." Then she launched into a discussion of Lesbian safe sex: "Why is it scarier to talk about sex than to actually do it? Well, keep breathing, girls."
Of moose and men
The column soon acquired a delightful moose logo designed by Mary Whisner, who signed her drawings "Ms. Ws." "Marian and I decided," Ms. Ws. said, "that the moose was gender-nonconforming, since females don't have antlers but Mercy does."
Mercy's 1989 and 1990 columns delved into a number of Lesbian community controversies: separatism, sobriety vs. bar culture, the "sex wars" about pornography and sadomasochism, domestic abuse, sex worker rights. She wrote a particularly moving installment about the AIDS crisis having brought Lesbians and Gay men together: "The sense of family connection now is so palpable you can walk across it. And it's brought us surprising happiness, with an ironic twinge at the hard way it had to come."
One particularly hilarious column describes her fruitless attempt to find a nice straight man for a straight woman friend. "Hell, just because we're Lesbians doesn't mean we don't know any straight men who aren't married and aren't intimidated by powerful women. But ever try to find one?"
Why the pseudonym?
I don't really know why Marian used a pseudonym, but my hunch is that it was a gesture of respect to her then-partner "Charity Boondocks," who was "a more closeted creature than her moose." The pseudonyms of Mercy's friends were utterly charming: a Gay male couple became "Justice Gatekeeper" and "Custard Choirboy" (the latter was a member of the Seattle Men's Chorus). When Custard objected to his name, Mercy renamed him Victory at Sea. When her friend "Fortune Sleazewell" likewise objected, Mercy changed his name to "Fortune Smiles," adding, "This is absolutely the last name change we're doing in this column, so don't even think about it, Chastity Wonders."
At the end of 1990, Mercy announced her retirement in a farewell column and advised her readers, "If the goddess had wanted you to be quiet, she wouldn't have given you opinions."
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Marian wrote a number of reviews under her real name. Then in a 2006 article titled "Dancing at the Gay Games," she revealed that she'd been diagnosed with Huntington's disease and that when the diagnosis put her priorities in order, "dancing was one of the main things on my list."
Reemergence
Mercy reemerged in 2008 and announced she was "very excited about her new girlfriend, Cuteness Bunkhouse." Cuteness, aka Carol Burton, was the best partner Marian could have wished for, and it was my great honor to be Marian's "best person" at their wedding.
In one of her last columns before it ended for good in 2012, Marian mentioned the need for an LGBTQ nursing home: "It would be nice to gather into a place with a piano bar and drag shows. The reality is that many homes are run by religious organizations that may be homophobic. Mercy herself has a disability that may require her to go into care." (That is indeed what happened: Marian and Carol struggled with a clueless Lutheran home and a homophobic hospice spiritual adviser.)
In rereading the entire archive of Mercy's columns, I was happily reminded of Marian at her best, before Huntington's robbed her of vocabulary and cognitive skills. Her sweet temperament, however, remained intact. The last words I heard her say were "Nice" and "Thank you."
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