Vegetarian Star

“I like [deceased animal-rights activist and actress] Sandy Dennis. I like how both she and Doris Day not only fight for animals in a larger sense but also took them in at home. I was just looking at pictures of Billie Holiday and her dog. I like the thing, or at least the idea, of doing things for some other creature or person. It’s a very noble idea. I’m not sure it gets you anywhere, but I can kind of dig that domestic scene. I like how [comedian] Dick Gregory started out focusing on civil rights and became an animal-rights activist. I like how Alice Walker not only fights for civil rights and feminism – which is a difficult blend to pull off because it’s the whole divide-and-conquer thing; everyone’s always trying to pit activists against each other or make it seem like they’re fighting separate or conflicting battles – but she not only fights for civil rights and feminism but animal rights, too. It’s great.”

—-Nellie McKay, on her favorite activism icons, which of course, feature vegetarians, in an interview with headcount.org.

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Nellie McKay released a new album this week, Normal as Blueberry Pie: A tribute to Doris Day.

Nellie first became acquainted with the musical legend while participating in an animal rights protest, of all places.

“I was at a protest outside the aquarium in Maryland, and there was a music shop there and I picked up, just because I liked the cover, a CD of hers called It’s Magic, which had a lot of her early work for Warner Bros., and I listened to it all the way on the bus ride home,” Nellie told Vanity Fair.

“Yeah. I really love Baltimore, and it’s so sad that the harbor there is defined by the aquarium. Aquariums—it’s not the wild. They’re a business and they can’t help being a business; anything you’re going to build is not going to be the ocean.”

Nellie was elated to find out the singer she looked up to championed animal rights as well, as Doris founded the Doris Day Animal League.

“You know, I hadn’t known [anything] about her except she always looked happy in her pictures. She was one like Julie Christie or Mary Tyler Moore that I read had become involved in animal-welfare work—it does make you like people more. Becoming politically involved can alienate people but then it can make people dig you all the more. It’s like if you go to a Sean Penn movie and you think, Well, it’s not the greatest movie but I like his politics.”

Read the entire interview with Nellie at vanityfair.com.

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