The closest I'll ever get to Sacha Baron Cohen (and I'm ok with that)

We took a train back to New York this morning and headed to the grocery store for food and drink for tonight's fundraising party. Unbeknownst to us, a good chunk of the city's population had this, Indigenous People's Day, off. And a good chunk of them decided to spend it grocery shopping. I'd never seen such chaos at a grocery store. It even reigned in the restrooms— a long line of people snaked out the door and around the corner, while an exasperated security guard directed traffic into each restroom amidst people crying of toilet paper outages from the stalls. Over an hour later, it was off to the wine store. I was still stuck carrying my broken bag like a potato sack, which meant Lisa was stuck with the rest. She's a trooper though. We hailed a cab to the studio of artist and feminist Linda Stein, the host of tonight's party.

I'd seen photos of Linda's sculptures, but seeing it first-hand was incredible. Her most recent work, titled "The Power to Protect," focuses on women warriors, and encompasses sculpture, drawing, painting, and found objects. She was extremely interested in the work we do, and was particularly excited about our recent piece on Wonder Woman, because Wonder Woman is the original inspiration behind her Knight series.

Linda's not just an amazing artist. She's also a bad-ass, unapologetic feminist who's also well-known for her appearance in the film Borat. She told us how Sasha Baron Cohen and his crew duped her into participating by promising her that the intent of the film was to help women in other countries, that it would never be shown to US audiences. For those who've seen the film, she's the one who walked off during the Veteran Feminists of America interview. In fact she was the only one who kicked him out during movie production.

A small crowd soon gathered and we had an intense conversation about the realities of feminist publishing, the upcoming election, and sexism and misogyny in pop culture, including the problems with Sasha Baron Cohen's approach.

For the record, she did get her revenge by including him in a recent series of sculptures.