December 2011
23 posts
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“I think it’s important for gay men to feel that they can hold their heads up...”
– Kele Okereke
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“…I could never have sex in a darkroom. It was bad enough being in clubs in...”
– Kele Okereke
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“…there are times when being the only black and the only gay member of the band… It’s like the first thing I did when I got back to London was talk to my best friend about the Whitney Houston interview on Oprah. I could never really talk about that stuff in the band. They’re not particularly hostile to that sort of thing, it’s just they don’t really get it. But before you know...
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Tumblr
only complicates my relationship with materialism. If I didn’t already have enough recent chatter of who got what for Christmas and news footage of teens being trampled for a new pair of Jordan’s, I see tons of Tumblr accounts equating self-expression with physical appearance and material possessions. I’m more than an iPhone and a cute haircut and a new pair of shoes and a good...
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The Year In Pop And Profanity →
The technological side is easy to grasp. The World Wide Web has become a new frontier for frank material that parallels Hollywood in its bawdy pre-code days. Unregulated by the Federal Communications Commission, which reins in outliers in more established forms of media — never forget the nipple slip! — the Web made a space for creative titillation and airings of the collective id....
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2012
When I think of what is to come next semester, I think of the build up in a song before the chorus. New relationships and new & unfamiliar relationship dynamics in my life suggest that 2012 will be a year of action—efficient and rational actions rather than internalized reflection on how I’m “growing up.” 2012 will be a year of thought put forth into action, not just...
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“Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to...”
– Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
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Trigger Guard by Joanna Fuhrman
Everyone I ever loved is standing on a platform with a gun. In the cartoon version, a flag pops with the word ‘bang.’ In the soap opera version, my face turns the color of merlot. In the haiku version, metal gleams in the narrow shadow. In the Republican version, two guns wrap themselves in a single flag. In the Langpo version. idolatry yips...
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One Sentence Love Story →
…the next day when he walks into Think Coffee and looks around and then sees you and thinks “IT’S REAL” and the thought registers on his face as a smile, a smile that says, with absolute clarity, “You are the only real thing in the entire world,” and that smile — not him, but that smile — is what you’re really in love with.
Sometimes the writers for Thought Catalog state the obvious....
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Understanding Infatuation
I could become infatuated with you. I really could. I could stay stuck on your giddy laugh, on our similar awkwardness and interests, on my eagerness to fast-forward through the introduction and know my way through the maze of your psyche and your past entire. But, you see, I understand the abstraction despite the little voice in my head working hard for my heart. If it weren’t for...
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Finding myself
as a non-fiction writer has made me misplace myself as a poet. I produced two poems in the past semester that seem indicative of the direction of my verse. They’re the only two poems I feel confident in letting anyone read. And I have ideas, I have specific goals for the energy, tone, and size of the work. It’s all about construction now.
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“I feel most colored when I am thrown against a...
I’m finishing up my short memoir on all the gay men I’ve met so far in my life. I focus primarily on my place at the intersection of marginalized race and marginalized sexuality, and the above quote from Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” sums up the overarching theme. As a black person in American society, I am a color above all else. As a gay...
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People are in constant competition to prove who...
In this case I use dick metaphorically to represent society’s overarching distaste for femininity. Gay men are placed on a scale of gayness according to how feminine they behave. This isn’t to mention the reaction society has to a man dressed as a woman as opposed to its reaction to a woman dressed as a man. Also consider how “butch” lesbians are often seen as intimidating;...
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I believe that, better than Starbucks coffee and Red Bull, enthusiasm and interest are the best energizers. At least for me. When I pulled my all-nighter a day ago, my fatigue waned when I got on Tumblr or revised my memoir for my non-fiction class. As soon as I returned to my historical narrative assignment, my eyelids grew heavy. For one of my finals, my teacher assigned a narrative of...
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Watch“We’re all born naked, the rest is drag.”
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Teaching children about gay couples.
When I was in high school, my Spanish teacher assigned a video project. My class had to record dating game shows. Upon showing our projects to each other, she remarked, “Some of my students got out of hand with this. There was a gay couple in a video from my other class. I told you guys to keep these appropriate.”
Last night my manager told me and other coworkers that her daughter...
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I've been M.I.A.
lately because of finals. Just dropping in to say that I’m writing a piece for my non-fiction final portfolio that I’m particularly excited about. It’s a memoir recollecting all the gay men (or the most significant ones) I’ve ever met. I’m examining their influences on my own perception of myself as a gay man. I started it last night and I have tons of ideas I’m...