Another Reason to Abandon Identity-Based Politics: the Curse of the G/L Consonant Cluster
I work in the US for the queer non-profit IGLHRC. I make fun of the acronym of the US queer organization NOGLSTP. A respected queer foundation is about to fund GLO-P (in South Africa- I see they have just changed their name to OUT) and GAG-L in Paraguay. I don't believe we are a minority if you include all permutations of queerness, but for acronymic consonant cluster reasons alone, I vote for "sexual minorities" to replace "gay and lesbian." Think of it. SM. OrgaSM, SMile, SMash, AweSM. Of course, I always tell people we should rename our organization Up With Sodomy, and have the Up With Sodomy Singers on a perpetual world tour. But they don't let me into the branding and fundraising meetings since I kept suggesting a human rights slave auction.
I have been living both in an identity-based and in a post-identity world now for at least a decade of queer activism, and the acronymicization of "GL" is just gonna kill me some day soon now. Yes, even with all the pretty GLOEs and GLAADs and GLSTNs.
Thursday, August 29, 2002
There's only one peach with a hole in the middle. Maybe.
Mmmm. Peaches. Maybe she hadn't seen Tiny's Organic Donut Peaches yet when Peaches wrote that song.
Well, I thought a cure for my gloomy mood might be to go to Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck) and buy myself a package of those bizarre new donut peaches they are selling for $6/half-dozen. The price of a matinee movie, a luxurious novelty, they are organic- nothing but bug footprints on them. They are small, sweet, easy to eat, very sexy. Then, talking to a friend on the phone, I was musing that today is the 1/2 year mark for the birthday of my 103 year old adopted great-great grandmother, Valentina Mikhailovna, AKA my babushka. We have blogs and e-mail as a daily part of our lives, while she is still getting used to women walking out on the street wearing pants, and now we've entered a whole new state of whacky- we have donut-shaped peaches. Then, I looked them up. They are much older than Valentina Mikhailovna. The Saucer Peach, Chinese Peach, Saturn Peach, Flat Peach. The third day of the third month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar is the Festival of the Flat Peach. The other peach with a hole in the middle. As I've written this I've nibbled down four.
Mmmm. Peaches. Maybe she hadn't seen Tiny's Organic Donut Peaches yet when Peaches wrote that song.
Well, I thought a cure for my gloomy mood might be to go to Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck) and buy myself a package of those bizarre new donut peaches they are selling for $6/half-dozen. The price of a matinee movie, a luxurious novelty, they are organic- nothing but bug footprints on them. They are small, sweet, easy to eat, very sexy. Then, talking to a friend on the phone, I was musing that today is the 1/2 year mark for the birthday of my 103 year old adopted great-great grandmother, Valentina Mikhailovna, AKA my babushka. We have blogs and e-mail as a daily part of our lives, while she is still getting used to women walking out on the street wearing pants, and now we've entered a whole new state of whacky- we have donut-shaped peaches. Then, I looked them up. They are much older than Valentina Mikhailovna. The Saucer Peach, Chinese Peach, Saturn Peach, Flat Peach. The third day of the third month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar is the Festival of the Flat Peach. The other peach with a hole in the middle. As I've written this I've nibbled down four.
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Q. Where's this road going?
A. I've been living here all my life and it ain't budged yet.
This is a story translated by Paul Reps in his collection Zen Flesh Zen Bones.
The Buddhist nun Ryonen was born in 1797. Before she was a nun, she was so beautiful the monks refused to let her into the monasteries, so she burned her own face in order to be allowed to become a disciple. On her deathbed she wrote:
Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing
scene of autumn
I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no
wind stirs.
The zen koan in its entirety is: Ryonen's Clear Realization.
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Someone please bring me the head of Leonard Nimoy.
Now eez ze time on schprockets ven vee danse. Won't someone please think of the children?
For more of the dubious genius of Leonard Nimoy, stay tuned. I will share some of his gems when I get my copy of his 1978 collection of poetry "don'ts" that is Come Be With Me , as elegant and subtle as a bag of ball-peen hammers.
It should be here in a few days. However, right now you can enjoy these e-greetings with his poetry and this page dedicated to his artistic works.
Please also take the time to add your name to the petition to get Leonard Nimoy to eat more salsa . This is the English language section of the site, but it is an international movement. Apparently.
The Law of Talion
Tonight I cracked open some old journals, which is like visiting an old friend for most people, but for me (and other people who have a lot of death in their life) it's like cracking open a gate something akin to the scene from Ghostbusters where the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster got together and the Sta-Puft guy showed up. I opened my old journal from December up to a list of words I picked from a dictionary at random. The first word: "talion."
I have a talent for fortunetelling and usually use tarot cards, rarely runes, almost never less reputable tools like pendulums or stichomancy . However, in grief I abandoned tarot, and was reduced to stichomancy. The first time I opened a dictionary seeking a message from my love, who died recently, I opened and dropped my finger to "talion" - from Latin talio - retaliation - "punishment that exacts a penalty corresponding in kind to the crime."
Before my partner died we had conversations about whether or not "even a murderer" would have mercy in the hereafter. I believe she was talking about herself. She ended her own life two days later. Of course, breast and bone cancer was a great (and the official) motivation, but I have been intrigued to think that she would actually carry out an informal, vigilante death penalty on herself, in penance for a vigilante killing of a rapist-- the crime I have reason to believe she committed, based on all the facts of her life. Here is a little more on talion from a 'cool word' mailing list .
"If the punishment for an offense is exactly the same as the offense, then it is a talion, and it is talionic punishment. Example: 'For the crime of murder, the talion is death.'
"The ancient root was tele-, which had meanings related to lifting, supporting, and weighing, with derivatives relating to measuring and money. From the same ancient root:
"toll: fee paid for passage or service; extent of loss or damage;
"tolerate: to allow; to endure
"talent: marked innate ability, specific weight of gold or silver
"tola: the weight of one silver Indian rupee
"extoll: to praise highly ('lift up')"
Tonight I cracked open some old journals, which is like visiting an old friend for most people, but for me (and other people who have a lot of death in their life) it's like cracking open a gate something akin to the scene from Ghostbusters where the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster got together and the Sta-Puft guy showed up. I opened my old journal from December up to a list of words I picked from a dictionary at random. The first word: "talion."
I have a talent for fortunetelling and usually use tarot cards, rarely runes, almost never less reputable tools like pendulums or stichomancy . However, in grief I abandoned tarot, and was reduced to stichomancy. The first time I opened a dictionary seeking a message from my love, who died recently, I opened and dropped my finger to "talion" - from Latin talio - retaliation - "punishment that exacts a penalty corresponding in kind to the crime."
Before my partner died we had conversations about whether or not "even a murderer" would have mercy in the hereafter. I believe she was talking about herself. She ended her own life two days later. Of course, breast and bone cancer was a great (and the official) motivation, but I have been intrigued to think that she would actually carry out an informal, vigilante death penalty on herself, in penance for a vigilante killing of a rapist-- the crime I have reason to believe she committed, based on all the facts of her life. Here is a little more on talion from a 'cool word' mailing list .
"If the punishment for an offense is exactly the same as the offense, then it is a talion, and it is talionic punishment. Example: 'For the crime of murder, the talion is death.'
"The ancient root was tele-, which had meanings related to lifting, supporting, and weighing, with derivatives relating to measuring and money. From the same ancient root:
"toll: fee paid for passage or service; extent of loss or damage;
"tolerate: to allow; to endure
"talent: marked innate ability, specific weight of gold or silver
"tola: the weight of one silver Indian rupee
"extoll: to praise highly ('lift up')"
Read this examination of the Law of Talion , posted to the site of the Austrian group The Center for Encounter and Active Non-Violence right after 9/11/01. It hints at the need for support of the International Criminal Court, which is opposed by the US Congress as though it was another terrorist attack on our homeland.
I have no answers- only wishes for the blessing of moderation.
Monday, August 26, 2002
Welcome to the Language of No Future
This is the beginning of a blog documenting the life of my flypaper mind. I am a language person, and one of my latest obsessions is Latin. So I will begin with a thought passed on to me two days ago by my Latin tutor. The Romans, it is said, did not use the phrase "face the future." Their turns of phrase indicate that for them you face the past, because that is all that is ever known. We are all walking backward into present memory. Beyond that, there is only present expectations. The future, the unknown, doesn't really exist, and so can never be faced. On another note-- don't forget that "carpe" in "carpe diem" is using an agricultural term: "harvest the day" is closer than the usual translation "seize." Cultivation blessings.
This is the beginning of a blog documenting the life of my flypaper mind. I am a language person, and one of my latest obsessions is Latin. So I will begin with a thought passed on to me two days ago by my Latin tutor. The Romans, it is said, did not use the phrase "face the future." Their turns of phrase indicate that for them you face the past, because that is all that is ever known. We are all walking backward into present memory. Beyond that, there is only present expectations. The future, the unknown, doesn't really exist, and so can never be faced. On another note-- don't forget that "carpe" in "carpe diem" is using an agricultural term: "harvest the day" is closer than the usual translation "seize." Cultivation blessings.