BERNEVAL

E.B. White “Here is New York”

The subtlest change in New York is something people don’t speak much about but that is in everyone’s mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.

All over the World Wide Web are comments on the prescience of this passage from a 1948 essay. These retrospective prophet seekers lack an historical imagination (and the willpower to do a simple search on planes, buildings and popular culture). For it is evident that the informing event is the crash of 1945 into the Empire State Building. And there’s a 1977 book by Arthur Weingarten The Sky is Falling.

And so for day 1660
30.06.2011

Often fascinating in sci-fi is the description of technology. In this case a nutrient dispenser:

Tears-crying was for face-liquid. It was useless, or rather useful only as emotional expression. It was a waste product … (and she had been right in the first guess about twin eyes!) … and then the further realization that the great size she had at first attributed to the bottle was relative only to the babe. The thing was a reasonably-sized, sensibly-shaped storage container for the nutrient fluid the babe and child called milk; and it was furthermore provided with a mechanism at one end designed to be sucked upon.

Judith Merril “Homecalling” in Daughters of Earth.

And so for day 1659
29.06.2011

Queer as Folk – season finale – beyond boy finds boy – it’s about a man expressing his principles, almost losing his principles and being aided in finding integrity again.

What? It’s not about marriage? “We don’t need rings or vows to express our love.”

Brian our stalwart protagonist is indeed dancing solo at the end but he is not alone. He is in a packed club. He remains unpaired but not unloved.

We are stepping out of the diegetic. The song carries us over into the credit sequence and beyond. [The song Proud will go on to serve others as an anthem for Olympic bids among others.] Heather Small (Peter Presta Final Mix) sends us off with resonant lyrics.

I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears I know I’ve left behind
I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I am on my way
Can’t stop me now
And you can do the same

What have you done today to make you feel proud?
It’s never too late to try
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
You could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?

The party isn’t over. It’s migrated.

It’s an ending that reminds me of the commentary offered by the epistolary frame to Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance.

We don’t have to do anything with our lives. As long as you are alive, there’s an end to it. I feel like a child who’s been awakened from his sleep and taken downstairs in someone’s arms to see the party and the guests. Who knows how long it will last, who knows when that considerate adult will send you back to bed and life will once more be that poignant band of light beneath the door, beyond which all the voices, laughter, and happiness lie? No, darling, mourn no longer for Malone. He knew very well how gorgeous life is—that was the light in him that you, and I, and all the queens fell in love with. Go out dancing tonight, my dear, and go home with someone, and if the love doesn’t last beyond the morning, then know I love you.

And why make this an exclusively queer thing? After all, anyone can dance to Proud.

Here is Hemingway on Paris, a place of the mind as vital as the Babylon of Queer as Folk.

There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.

From A Moveable Feast.

And so Brian dancing becomes an icon of that place in the mind where we can go find the freedom to become and simply to be.

And so for day 1653
23.06.2011