“Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laid while you’re at it.” - John Cameron Mitchell
I used to think that people didn’t like being told what to do. And, while there may be choice exceptions, (“On your knees, boy.”), truth is most of us want to be told, what to think, what to believe, what to wear, what to eat, what to see, read, what one has to do to fit in, get it right (keep a job/have a life). We even seek it out, pay for it (at times, dearly).
All very human of us. We do indeed learn from, copy one another. Create new familiars.
Nowhere is this magnified, played-out more exhaustively than the algorithms of all-the-same social media platforms, our new communal “pornograph:” food porn, fashion porn, book porn, emoji porn, Brooklyn apartment porn, animal rescue porn, music porn, shopping porn, protest porn, buy this eat here brand brand brand fuck the system scroll scroll scroll link in bio.
Some might mistake this for, call this, community. At best, it may simply inform my calendar (“Oooooooo! I didn’t know this was happening!,” hopefully not past already as is often the case.)
At worst? One interchangeably bland branding publicist/influencer after another. Today’s spin and spiel. “Nothing to see here. Move along.”
Now, before you go all ballistic on me (“ballistic” gleefully reimagined in this moment) you’re speaking to someone who has as much lived experience pre-internet than with. As artist Douglas Coupland posits, “I Miss My Pre-Internet Brain.”
And, on certain days, I do. One had to go to such marvellous lengths to keep abreast of what was happening, to step out to the corner, pick up a newspaper, a copy of After Dark, Dance Magazine, Christopher Street, The Body Politic, walk the neighbourhood, happen upon a flier (either rip it off for your bedroom, or note the date/place) go to Record Pedlar for the new Smith’s 12”, the number of used bookstores you could hit on a Sunday (Glad Day, when you couldn’t make it up the steps it was so cruisy), your home branch, all a creative map of discovery, a personal way of connecting the dots, points of reference, knowing things. Mapping a life.
Not to mention the limitless possibilities of like others, getting to meet you.
A better life? No, just different. What, for me anyway, was a human scale. Expectant. Curious. Encounters. Adventures. Daily.
“She’s never wanted to be anything other than flesh and blood this lifetime.” [PIQ]
Not a chip. Not an implant. She still insists on the physical book in hand, so my eyes remain practiced, don’t lose their ability to focus/read across a page fighting their urge to scroll.
So funny, the first books: tablets/scrolls.
Don’t get me wrong, like you, I love, use it all. She just prefers paper. Easier on my eyes, brain.
But, in significant ways, life online pales in comparison. Is it just me/my age, or does it strike any of you as less human? It has taken up considerable real estate in how we engage mentally, physically.
My measure has always, continues to be, “Is there any life in it?”
“Is there any life to be found there?”
I will simply say this. The one thing that hasn’t changed for me, one iota.
All of my memories, the times I remember, recall, dream… none of these are of being online. Not one.
Have you noticed? Is it the same for you?
(There was this time decades ago I had to stop playing Tetris when falling blocks from the sky began to invade my dreams… idk, does that count?)
So, here’s your homework.
Queer icon/artist John Cameron Mitchell posted this great quote while putting on their make-up:
“Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laid while you’re at it.”
Charming John Fucking Cameron Mitchell. Two of the most outrageously queer creations I’ve ever seen was Hedwig and The Angry Inch, and their raucously extraordinary sexcapade of a film, Shortbus (essential queer viewing) and they just got off their Broadway run as the lead in Oh, Mary! only now to embark on a 25th Anniversary Movie Tour of Hedwig. (She bows.)
I believe the homework is self-explanatory and doesn’t require anything further from me. A gift from John. On Instagram.
Your voice. Life. All body baby. Whatever shape/form, the creative act always is. Enjoy.
…and speaking of sex…
I had the grand good pleasure of opening with the endlessly smart funny Andrew Kaufman at the Toronto Launch for poet, Jennifer LoveGrove’s The Tinder Sonnets (jfc, if you haven’t, grab this puss buy the book), and just I was about to exit, this young queer approaches me, “Kirby, I wanted to thank you for writing about gay sex.”
What a splendid thing to be appreciated for.
I mention this, because have you also noticed a very welcome resurgence/interest by younger queer punks and the like in vintage porn and fashioning their own anew?
An exceptional example of this is the deliciously salacious new queer sex zine BASTE created by Toronto-based Brad Avery, Daniel Ramalho (of Racket fame), and Raheem Ladha.
You know it when you see it. And these fellas simply get it [right] on the money: “CUM AND BE $AVED” [Issue 03]
I haven’t seen anything this perfectly executed since Diseased Pariah News. The spreads. The layout. The contents (“featuring scriptures, sermons, and devotional literature from our CUM-UNITY”) including an “Orange and Rum Raisin Hot Cross Buns” recipe.
My infinitely favourite, the “BASTE BIRD WATCH,” hand-drawn entries with notes of male members encountered that day.
Absolutely fucking sublime. Fills/empties me. She bows.
Kirby is the author of She, Poetry is Queer, and This Is Where I Get Off. Their latest, Fairy is out this fall from Palimpsest Press. They are the publisher at knife | fork | book.
SEE/HEAR KIRBY LIVE
28 MAY TORONTO at STANDARD TIME in support of DON PYLE ROUGH DESCRIPTION LAUNCH Tickets
06 JULY TORONTO at ANOTHER STORY in support of LOCH BAILLIE RIVER RUNNING LAUNCH
