Meatloaf and airplanes

(trying to get people to consume what they don't want to)

It seems there is always the question of accessibility vs. honesty, peace vs. genuineness, the voice of the masses vs. my own voice. I live in a world where the only way to say what we have to say and be heard is by coloring it with a voice that's appropriate for the audience. There's this dynamic conflict between what we are trying to express (what we know to be true) and how we will be received. And how we will be received directly affects the impact our message makes on other people. It's a sort of pragmatism vs. idealism.

While in couples counseling with an exboyfriend, we talked about what pisses us off. I was infuriated when I saw that the cereal box was open . . . my cereal box. My possessions were violated and, more objectively, the cereal would become stale or fall over and spill. I decided that I was going to behavioristically train my exboyfriend not to do this by reminding him every time I observed him leave the cereal box open, to close it. I guess I was nagging him and it caused a lot of strife between us. The couples counselor suggested I observe a spectrum of genuineness and peace to deal with the situation. I would ask myself: "how important is it to me to express myself about this; how important is it to me that I not have conflict with my boyfriend" and in this way I would assess the situation and make a decision about how to talk to him. I found myself silenced by shame at the idea that I would sacrifice peace with this man I loved for my selfish desire to express myself. So the cereal went stale and he and I broke up.

(my cereal)

Sometimes vulnerable words are discarded because they are boring or ugly. Beautiful art is ignored because it is too complicated or unrelatable. Audiences still hate Schoenberg's Expressionism of the early 20th century that sought to express something without being swayed by artistic pleasantries, musical mores, or anything the audience might want to hear. I’ve never heard of anyone being offended by Mozart's music that was designed to be clear, symmetrical, repetitive, and mostly accessible. In music and maybe in general, it's hard to be heard if you're not making it easier for people to listen.

There might be a sort of compromise or a middle way. It is so important that we express ourselves honestly, but choosing the situation to express ourselves might be the key. I feel like a vapid lyer when I become a social chameleon, but sitting at home at night watching anime sort of sucks too.

(what happens when you don't make small talk with friends)

I titled this blog post Meatloaf and airplanes because I was watching Reality Bites and there's a scene where Ben stiller has corrupted Winona Ryder's documentary about her friends into this proto MTV's Real World sort of thing and as she stomps away from him, he tells her that it's like feeding Meatloaf to children that don't want to eat the meatloaf - you have to pretend it's an airplane. All the while Ben Stiller gets caught in a revolving door. I felt I needed to blog about it.

Gay is the new Black . . . or is it Black is the new Gay

     A theme in my life recently has been the relationship I have with black people. I saw the movie The Help with a friend who’s black, my family is reading I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou (a narrative autobiography about African-American girl growing up in the racially charged South around 1936), and I have been seeing a black man named Sebastian.

(Yay interracial gay Americans!)

Not that I have never contemplated the relationship I have had with black people and culture, or that I am so ignorant or unaware that this population has never crossed my mind, it’s just that I care a lot more now.

Sebastian excites me the most so I’ll talk about him first. I have been seeing Sebastian for a little over a week now and we have gone on several dates and found ourselves in a couple different situations. Something that surprised me the most about our interaction is the way we express conventional masculinity to one another. I have thought of black culture as tending to be somewhat homophobic, highly genderized (men are very manly and women are very womanly), active, passionate, physical and socially dominant. The case is similar with Sebastian but expressed in a different way (possibly because of his gay performativity). Sebastian is a ‘top’ with a low voice absent of effeminate or socially gay vocalisms. He is muscular with broad shoulders and wide feet. Like a big manly man, he seems to consider himself the default payer when we go out and is surprised when I insist on splitting the bill.

(This isn't Sebastian and I. It's another gay interracial couple with a clear black social top and white social bottom)

The way he expresses physical affection to me is a study in itself: when we hug, his hands are on my hips; he walks away from me and wiggles his fingers behind is back, affectionately beckoning me to follow; his hand is behind my head when we kiss. Sebastian is very much a man, a handsome black gay man.

Considering all of these conventional masculinities, Sebastian also comes off as having effeminate characteristics. He is very concerned with how he dresses and smells; he is outspoken and somewhat loud; and he is shorter than I am. Because of our height difference, his more masculine expressions seem smaller and it is hard for me not to physically dominate him. He brings up this difference often in conversation and seems acutely aware and somewhat disappointed in his height. I am thinking that this idea of himself is influenced more by conventions of masculinity in black culture than in general American culture or even gay culture. I say that because I am unfamiliar with his brand of gender insecurity.

After seeing The Help, I could not help but think about how close I am to the characters of that movie and about how near to us in time the events of that film took place. It was in my mother’s lifetime that black people were dehumanized to the point where they were thought of as getting “different diseases.”  That in and of itself is worth discussion and reflection, but I want to discuss both my reaction to the movie and the correlation the events and affect of the Help has with gay culture.

(a trailer for The Help)

I was so aware of my own discomfort at seeing the exclusion of black people on the screen while sitting next to by friend who is black. I was so aware of my reactions, I felt ridiculous. I simultaneously felt pity, shame and triumph – knowing it had happened, that it had happened to my friend’s family, that my family had a part in making it happen to her family, and that we as an American culture had made that institutionalized exclusion seem a sad absurdity.  White guilt at its best. It made me thing about the institutionalized exclusion of gay culture in our school system or the tedious war over equal marriage that Americans fight every day. I am embarrassed that in my time people think the gay experience shouldn’t be taught in public school, that gays get different diseases than non-gays, and that gays are seen as so different from straight people that the same legal treatment for gay straight people is not warranted.  

In The Help, Skeeter is a white college grad who returns to her hometown and writes about the experience of the black women who serve her cohorts. There is a scene where Skeeter and two black women verbalize their fear of being discovered talking in a black woman’s home – their belief is that casual interaction between races is likely to result in violence. This hurts. It echoes my own feelings holding my lover’s hand walking from my apartment to the coffee shop. It reminds me that these beliefs are in me both in relation to my new relationship with Mat as a gay man and as a black man. This is ridiculous  and wrong and, just  like in the Help, the only thing I can do to change these beliefs is to do what I want and screw the consequences – to stand up to that tall shadow in the corner that leers at me when I express myself genuinely.  The black servants fearing violence show the same indignant resignation as they meet to confess their stories to Skeeter for her to report their experience to the world.

(Totoro screeching)

            For my family book club, I chose to read I know why the caged bird sings, by Maya Angelou (the more I learn about her, the more she becomes my hero). The book is about Maya growing up in the early 20^th century in a racially segregated climate. She deals with a lot of issues, among them are her relationship with her body her gender and intimacy (she is sexually assaulted), and her identity as a black person. She talks about white people in a really distant almost mythical way. This is a little like how I have seen black culture, not individuals but the culture is so alien to me. We get a sense of her identity as a black person through her discussion of the black people in her life. She describes the man that sexually assaulted her as being ugly, ignorant, fat, and black. She describes her mother (a seemingly good woman) as ephemeral, beautiful, and white-looking. The dichotomy here seems to be that bad = black and good = white (or at least less black). This is a heart breaking correlation – that the more she is part of her racial identity, the worse she is.

            A similar thing happens in gay culture where “straight acting” is a desirable epithet and “gay acting” is an insult. This relationship of straight = desirable and gay = undesirable is so destructive to a person’s psyche – the more they are themselves the less they are valued. This CAN’T BE TRUE. I reject this, and so does Maya when she meets Mrs. Flowers, beautiful, well-established, and educated black woman who takes an interest in Maya and makes her “proud to be a Negro, just by being herself.”  

  

(Maya Angelou on Sesame Street)

I guess American culture is lacking those sorts of images – publically displayed gay black men who are simultaneously part of black culture, part of gay culture and have dignity and beauty. I could be wrong or unaware. That would be great! I want to know more about gay men and black people and that relationship. It’s exciting and complimentary. Yay different people!

I thought I knew about jenndre

I recently had an enlightening conversation with a person who is studying queer theory, literature, philosophy etc. and is earning her PhD. After talking with her, I felt freer, and more myself - partly because of the ease and honesty of out rapport, and partly because of the ideas she exposed me to. Through her life, experiences and studies, she came to know gender as a very different thing than I had.  In our conversation, the best word to convey her gender as I understood it is 'gender ambiguous' (like homo erectus but different).

This is not to say that she does not know her gender - her identity was well established, interesting and beautiful - but rather it seemed to me that her gender is found in the in-between places of conventional gender roles. She used the word "trans" to describe herself which is distinct from but related to transgender and transsexual.

(conventional display of homosexual/gay couples)

These last few days have been filled with the feeling 'I thought I knew about gender.' The question that has been burning in me since puberty "what does it mean to be gay" is still unanswered but new sister questions arise:

if there is a population unanchored by a single social-sexual identity, how big is the population (who experiences these feelings how often and in what situations); how are the gender lines blurred within the more binary genders (gay and straight, male and female) and how similar and different are the experience of the binary genders and the non-binary gender; how have I experienced the ambiguous gender experience (is it related to the distinction between top-bottom and the indistinct versatile social-sexual roles)

 (Lafayette, a character from True Blood, is a gay man dressing in womans clothing who is not a drag queen - could be transish - and isn't it interesting that a character who might be trans is posessed by both male and female ghosts)

These last few questions are the most relevant to me and to the people I study and love.

The conversation was full of subtlety and opinions but was not angry (like the stereotypical angry feminism) and was entirely accepting. This person represented gender studies not as an argument between intelligent egos and their holdfast interpretations, but a discussion between people that just care about how people experience different types of connections. She made me less afraid of studying what I love and the other people who study it.

I definitely want to explore what it might feel like to think of being gay as a mainstream gender; that it is made mainstream by the fact that is and isn't something, it is exclusive and has specific roles, protocols, and beliefs that are somewhat correlated with straight culture (or I guess non-gay culture, I don't know how to talk about that yet).

Overall, the dialog she and I had made me so freakin excited about gender interpretations and art. I just spent way too much money on gay and queer books. And I'm pretty sure I made an awesome friend.

The Goliard and his catamite

My research, if you can call it that (I don't know what else to call it, but research sounds much more official than it actually is) is concerning the work, rumors, and lives of the supposed 'goliards' of Medieval Europe.

I know . . . it's obscure.

You might be familiar with the 20th century cantata by Carl Orff, Carmina Burana. Carmina Burana is a collection of 11th to 13th century Beuren poems. Many of these poems are about 'goliardic themes' (sex, drinking and other forms of lechery written by clergy or scholars) or are written in 'goliardic verse' (a poetic form like a sonnet). Here is the most famous movement from Orff's Carmina Burana.

I recently found a poem that is most likely about Medieval, homosexual romance. (I have a big stupid grin on my face). It's called O admirabile veneris idolum, ‘O wonderful image of Venus' and it's from a collection of medieval songs called Cambridge Songs. I've read that it is most likely about an older man lamenting the loss of his younger lover, who has been seduced by another man. I have yet to hear a recording of the song, but I know there is one by an ensemble called "Sequentia." The translation is:

O marvelous idol of Venus, in whose substance there is no defect: may the prime-mover, who created the stars and heavens and who founded the seas and land, protect you. May you not suffer deception through the craft of a thief. May Clotho, who carries the distaff, cherish you. "Keep the boy safe!" not by supposition, but with resolute heart I entreat Lachesis, sister of Atropos, that she not consider pulling off the thread. May you have Neptune and Thetis as companions when you are borne over the river Adige. Why do you take flight - please tell - even though I love you? What shall I do, wretch, since I cannot see you? Hard substance from the bones of Mother Earth created humankind when the stones were cast. Of these this dear boy is one, who does not heed tearful moans. While I am sad, my rival will rejoice: I cry out like a hind when a fawn takes flight.
(Translation: Jan Ziolkowski)

Here's an image of the 11th or 12th century manuscript (note the dots and lines, if you can see them, above the text - that's some medieval notation - makes you miss staves):

It is from northern Italy during the 1000's - and it has the melody of a famous (at the time) Roman Pilgrim song, O Roma nobilis (there is an arrangement of this melody by Liszt). Here's a recording that may be accurate, or not:

The ironic thing, and the thing I want to look more into, is that in no other time in recorded Western history has there been such overt, systemic, violent, cruel, and sometimes arbitrary oppression of gay or homosexual populations - so how might have this been received by the audience? Was it coded like a late-20th century, gay romance song would have been? There is some debate whether the author was male or female, but not much.

It's all so exciting!
      

Brainwashed by pop music

So I had said that I would discuss music and gayness and so far - just gayness. So I would like to discuss pop music and where it might have come from.

My high school art teacher, Mr. F, once talked about pop music saying that it all sounds the same. I remember listening to the radio in the studio while working and hearing him say something like, "it's like they found out a formula that satisfies everyone's brain and forces us to buy into it, and are exploiting it for all it's worth."

Although I don't think all pop music sounds the same, I have to agree with him - there is a definite form to pop songs that has been established for a long time: the essential AAB - or bar form. The brain seems to be aesthically aroused and satisfied by this formula. Most art can be reduced to repetition and contrast, or a mixture of the two - variation. (This is my idea of Schenkerian analysis - I -V - I; where I is continuity or repetition and V is contrast).

AA - An idea is proposed, and then repeated. Now our brains know what's going on because we heard it more than once.

B - Wow, something different, contrasting, maybe even conflicting. Our brains are aroused.

Rounding - it's all okay, we know what's going on again. We're satisfied.

Let's analyze some Ke$ha:

Blow by Ke$ha has the bar form AAB

4 bar phrases, mostly parallel periods

A is comprised of two periods (aa,bb) and a refrain of a repeated 4 bar phrase (cccc)

A is repeated with different lyrics (aabbcccc)

B is a short instrumental interlude and repeated 4 bar phrase (go insane, go insane) (ddddd) then the refrain (cccc)

Now let's analyze something older

A Chantar is a song from the 12th century southern France by a female troubador, the Comtessa de Dia

The troubadours were sort of the pop stars of Medieval France

Kind of 4 bar phrases, contrasting periods, overall strophic form, verses are bar form AAB

A is the contrasting period (ab) and is repeated with different lyrics A (ab)

B starts higher in the voice and continues up before falling to an open cadence and then back to the rounding (cdb)

I thought this was enlightening - that really, pop music hasn’t changed much outside of the technology used to produce it. And our reactions to the pop music are similar - I mean, not to knock the Comtessa, but Ke$ha is far more exciting to me - but our brains react similarly to the more sensational music. So I guess Mr. F was kind of right with his pejorative statement about pop music having a formula that feeds pop music directly into our minds.

the slutty husband

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Hadrian's Hare

This is my first blog post ever. I've thought that blogs are indulgent but I guess I'm ready to indulge.

I'm hoping that this might be a place where I can write my thoughts about my life and my research - particularly in reference to gayness and music.

I chose the title Hadrian's Hare because there is a beautiful relationship between Hadrian, the 14th Emperor of the Roman Empire, and Antinous, a young man from what is now Turkey. After Antinous drowned in the Nile in 130 AD, Hadrian built statues and temples in the boy's honor as if he were a god. Hadrian also built a city on the spot where Antinous died called Antinopolis. Antinopolis is now a city called Sheikh 'Ibada.

This is a picture of the young Antinous who died at 20 y. and was diefied by Hadrian.

This relationship somehow speaks to me; sometimes I feel so isolated from gay culture, like I am distant from Hadrian because of time, but there is still a kinship. Modern gay men and Roman homosexual men undergo similar oppression. And the essential romance is similar. Just as I can worship the body of a lover, Hadrian deifies Antinous in stone and stories.

The Hare is relevant because it represented male same-sex love in ancient Greek and Roman culture. A hare would be given by an older man to a younger man during courtship - it was seen as an androgynous aphrodisiac and was intended to help the receiver 'receive' more willingly. If an image contains two men and a hare, then these two men were lovers. The hare was an ancient form of gay coding - or at least it is now interpreted as such. There was no need for any coded images for homosexual lovers at that time, but this interpretation of ancient art has been oppressed to preserve the heteronormative interpretations.

SOOOO..... Hadrian's hare would be a gift given by the accomplished emperor for him to get a young man into bed. I thought it was a great title.