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Thursday, June 17, 2010

A semi-personal/political Queer rant

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There is no better proof of the depth of homophobia in Canadian society at large than spending a good few years living in the Church/Wellesley Village in Toronto. I happen to be attracted to older, sometimes hairier, and much to my bleeding-heart liberal sensibilities' dismay, men of European descent. Many of these folks are the veterans of the struggle for GLBT rights, and for their efforts towards these ends I am eternally grateful.

But wait a minute. Many of these men are so damaged that their treatment of the younger generation leaves much to be desired. That they have been so shabbily treated through their lives because of homophobia and their position of privilege as the power structure of those "old white men" makes for a particularly poisonous cocktail. "The Secret" that wreaks its own havoc in the subconscious, when lived through in the open air, becomes a standard to bear, and it can become a weapon against even less enfranchised people.

In some of my relationships, I've been treated like a house boy, a trick, something useful for a few moments, but ultimately disposable. I do not like being treated as such, although sometimes out of what I perceive as necessity I will play the role. In common speech, these power moves may be thought of in the parlance of the day as "fierceness." Yeah, but maybe it's just sheer cruelty as well. I know my devotion to values such as compassion and kindness are old-fashioned, but maybe "fierceness" is just a relic of homophobic violence that we wreak upon each other.

Sometimes I find myself wishing that I could consciously change the direction of my lusts. But each attempt has failed. Alas, the damage continues to percolate across the generations.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Book Sculpture by Tom Bendtsen


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An artist, Tom Bendsten is building this huge book sculpture on the main floor of the Metro Reference Library for the upcoming Luminato festival of the arts in Toronto. He has also done work for the Nuit Blanche all night arts event in October. His work is a plastic meditation on the fragility of arguments: take a few books away and the whole thing falls like Jenga! Notice how he even uses colour as a structuring principle. Please excuse the crappy quality of the picture as I was forced to use my netbook's webcam to capture the image. LOVE IT!!!!