I don’t feel excessively wordy in non-fiction these days, having most of my steam poured into novel writing. One thing they don’t tell you about novelling is how exhausting it is. There is so much emotional energy poured into emoting a journey for people you’ve created out of whole cloth. It’s both cathartic and cumbersome, and in many ways the hardest “job” I’ve ever had. The only job that suits me wholly, though, so I hope I never get fired. Although many days I ponder quitting, and that’s the truth!
Anyway, I have random things I mean to shout from the rooftops and so I’m consolidating them here.
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel is now available on Kindle! As are Winds of War & War and Remembrance. These were among the first ten titles I looked for when I opened that package eleven months ago. Now that I’ve got them again, I’m immersed in jolly good thick tomes. So if you follow me on Goodreads and wonder why I’m not reading anything, rest assured I am just sunk down in velvety goodness of one of these three masterpieces. (I have been pestering the Goodreads people to make “currently re-reading” one of the top standard shelves.)
- We’ve started watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand. It’s a passable way to spend a few hours, but I really feel like they’re overusing one or two cool effects. Every time I see the digitised blood fly in slow motion I feel like a person whose friend knows one card trick and keeps insisting that you let him perform it again.
- I owe the world a LOST blog entry, but I don’t know that I’ll write one until after tonight’s episode. Finding out last week that certain people cannot be easily disposed of was a galling thought.
- I think we’ve found a treatment regimen that seems to be working. Pain is better controlled, functionality is better and fatigue is better. I’m still at sea on a leaky vessel but at least I don’t spend as much time in port.
What is it with me and sea analogies anyway? I wrote a long email to two friends with a sea analogy and now I’m going around the house talking about bilges and tides like Pat Conroy on a bender. It certainly doesn’t help that the main characters in Winds of War are naval officers.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversation we had in that last post about Johnny Weir and how troubled I am that the word “queer” got tossed around here. It upset me a great deal and I wanted the conversation over with. But I still can’t stop thinking about it because NOWHERE in that post did I even mention Weir’s sexuality. Because it doesn’t matter to me any more than his favourite food or television program. Yet that was the first thing seized upon. Which makes me wonder about the world. I know I’m not a man, but the man who commented on that post NEVER comments here. Yet something about male homosexuality compelled him to do so. I think it is one of those facets of manhood that I am just not equipped to understand–that whole thing about the feeling of pressing danger from male homosexuality. I’d love to have it explained to me.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
If you ever get a legit explanation of why gay men are so threatening to straight men, be sure to share. I’ve heard plenty (put forth by men and women, gay and straight) but while many seem to have truth to them, none seem to be complete.
Anyways, I’m glad to hear you’ve been feeling better lately.
Kat I never comment because you never talk about sports.
I won’t rehash, you either understand my original comment in the context of my perception of your post or don’t.
If by threatened you mean I’m going on a family vacation in June with a gay friend and his partner, sure. If by threatened you mean I had a gay roommate years back, also sure.
The sexuality of others means nothing to me. If you wish to paint me as a sinister ogre, I would think you’d be better served to bash my dislike of the elderly. This is clearly documented on my current blog as well as the old one.
I do understand the motivation behind your original comment.
I just still don’t understand the use of the word ‘queer’.
The way I understand it, you mistook what I said as an insult against macho sports players and responded as if to say “So you think I’m a [insulting word]? How would you feel if I said someone you like is an [insulting word]?”
The only problem is that I didn’t use an insulting word. I still feel like you inferred insult when none was intended. And it seemed to me that the inferrence came from something I don’t understand.
I don’t know you, so I don’t have any idea what threatens you or compells you. I just know that SPEAKING IN GENERALITIES BASED ON OBSERVANCES OF CONVERSATIONS ABOUT WEIR there seems to be a lot of people in the sports community (a place I seldom go) who go to great lengths to focus on his sexuality.
It’s a sort of thing I don’t know that I get. I’m not into sports and I’m not a man. I have nothing against sports and nothing against men. I just–as an outside observer–gather that as a cultural group it is a place as a whole where homosexuality is very much a taboo.
Oh, and I’m not trying to paint you as a sinister ogre. That’s why I didn’t link you or mention your name. To me the discussion isn’t about YOU. It’s about the ideas you spurred me to think.
Kat, that you feel your health to be stabilizing is some of the best news I’ve had this week. Yay for you!
Glad to hear the pain is more under control.
Weir isn’t exactly Mr Ambiguous; his “air”, if not his sexuality, and our reaction to it, is part of his schtick. It just is. So, I don’t consider it off-limits when discussing his craftwork.
However, I hate the qord queer, mainly because I’m never quite sure of the proper usage. Sometimes it’s a slur, sometimes a point of pride, sometimes just a description. Since there are other ways to say the same thing, I just stay away from that one. 🙂
I just still don’t understand the use of the word ‘queer’.
That was my deal too. If he’d said “gay men” or even “effeminate gay men” I’d have totally understood his exclusive point to be about stereotypes, but he had to throw a slur in there out of nowhere. There’s a difference between saying that “‘all librarians wear glasses’ is a stereotype” and saying “‘all librarians are four-eyed freaks’ is a stereotype.”
Weir isn’t exactly Mr Ambiguous; his “air”, if not his sexuality, and our reaction to it, is part of his schtick. It just is. So, I don’t consider it off-limits when discussing his craftwork.
Slarti, I don’t follow figure skating, so I’m not super familiar with Weir (had to google him during Coble’s (I’ll try to get in the habit of calling you the name you’ve stated you most prefer) first post), but according to his Wikipedia article, he’s been mute on the topic of his sexuality. Therefore I don’t really understand how it is part of his “schtick” nor do I see how anybody’s reaction to it could ever be part of his “schtick.”
Weir isn’t exactly Mr Ambiguous; his “air”, if not his sexuality, and our reaction to it, is part of his schtick.
See, now this is where I disagree.
Because I have watched the Johnny Weir documentary (which I think you, Dolphin, would find fascinating) 3 times now. I’ve been following the reality show. I’ve watched YouTube videos of his skating performances, both with and without commentary.
1. The thing I most admire about Weir is that he doesn’t have a “schtick”. He is refreshingly open and candid. Not about sexuality–which he never discusses. But he’s up front about the politics of skating, the toll it takes on his body and relationships. And he’s never coy or simpering. He reminds me of me and of my family members in his forthrightness.
2. He does glam it up. Off the ice he does fashion shoots and runway shows. I won’t deny that. But on the ice he is no more glam than the guys with hard-to-spell last names who are his chief rivals. So to me to include that aspect of him while talking about his skating would be like watching a football game and going on and on about how this or that player really likes to eat at Applebee’s since he did a dozen Applebee’s commercials during the off-season.
This, I think, is what sticks out most to me as a largely athletics-naive person. To me, someone who plays sports does it for his or her job. Sports commentary is a sort of running performance review for them. And I’ve never once sat in a performance review for any of my jobs and had them talk about how my marriage affects my typing and filing skills. It seems jarring to me to be watching him (or indeed anyone) skate and to have the commentators prattling on and on about how a person’s private life is on the ice.
Perhaps it’s the subjective nature of skating–which you mentioned in the earlier post. But I still think it’s offside. Weir’s sexuality is not a topic he’s addressed. It’s not on the table. And if anyone asked me for my guess, I would personally peg him as bisexual. Not that I would mind if he were gay. I just think it’s an extreme sort of dangerous precedent that we automatically declare a certain set of attributes to be exclusively homosexual. I hate how the World of Men automatically decides that men who act this way or like certain activities are automatically declared “gay”.
You’re right, Weir’s sexuality should be off-limits when discussing his performances.
But, I still think his on-ice demeanor is very much part of the discussion.
As someone who is quite personally aware, I think effeminate male characteristics really have no bearing on whether one is attracted to other males, or females.
(Which reminds me of one of my pet peeves. In the movie “In Or Out”, Kevin Kline’s character only discovered he was gay after he noticed he liked showtunes and fashion. The film never mentiones attraction to the same sex. )
However, if Weir is going to design costumes that make him Lady GaGa on ice, well, that’s part of his presentation, which is part of the judging process (which I don’t like 🙂 )
But on the ice [Weir] is no more glam than the guys with hard-to-spell last names who are his chief rivals.
Well, but … that’s not true. I mean, it’s completely true of his skating. But it’s completely untrue of his costume choices. (In the sense of being glam, which has no direct or inverse correlation with sexual preferences.) I think I mentioned in the other thread that his outfits set me up to want a more out-of-the-mainstream skating performance from him. And that’s because he is glammer than others.
O/T: what’s so hard to spell about Lysacek?
make him Lady GaGa on ice
That made me smile.
The subject is fully clear but why does the text lack clarity? But in general your blog is great.