Australia. Straya. Mate. Where I used to live, study, work; the country on my passport, the land I miss (the politics I don’t). My island home.
I’ve never celebrated str8 wyt valentine’s day but I always forget it was the day colonialist invader Captain Cook got himself murked for trying to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu on Hawaiʻi. This ten-year-old reminder comes from somos lobos, no ovejas. Fucked around, found out, bro.
Continuing on from my last post on the early-’90s comic She-Male Trouble, the back cover of Issue #1 is highly relevant to all the cis hysteria about us pissing where they piss. #bitchesgottapiss #utijustsayno #washyourhandscunt
I was talking with a comic artist the other day and old ’90s language became a convo — shemale, tranny, chicks with dicks, heshes — and some of that connecting to transsexual sex workers in King’s Cross, Sydney back in the ’70s, where my elders tricked on the street, stripped in clubs, and worked in brothels. Which reminded me of a comic I think I got hold of in Sydney sometime in the late-90s, She-male Trouble. I think I saw an ad for it in Horny Biker Slut, where the degen sisters first appeared. Created by John Howard, published by Last Gasp, it’s pervy, exploitative comic porn, reminds me of Oglaf!, and is the direct but largely unknown ancestor of young trans femme tumblr artists from a decade ago. Would it get mercilessly shredded on the internet today? Yup. Was it actually one of the few representations of transsexuals (period more or less correct language there) which wasn’t vaguely TERFy and exoticising academic blaahs? Also yup, along with Grooby, Shemale Yum, Bob’s Tgirls, and that original world of equal opportunity internet trans porn.
235 years of nothing to celebrate. No pride in genocide.
Always was always will be.
And some I gave their own posts to ’cos they were utter bangers, and some I might even give their own posts, ’cos also bangers. So many books. I can only take one fiction and one non-fiction with me? Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s Rehearsals for Living, and Tamsyn Muir’s Nona the Ninth. And one book of poetry? Fatimah Asghar’s If They Come For Us.
Going for a short afternoon walk and for the first time in a long time it isn’t laps of Tempelhofer Feld. along Via Pennino, Contrada Santa Croce, and Via Campoluongo. Olive trees ripe and ready for harvest, grape vines mostly already harvested (and currently the must is being siphoned next door), do not drink the water from the fountain, yes those cactus fruits are edible, and I could never get tired of this view.
Evening stroll around Bonnie’s Italian countryside villa “Not a villa” looks like at least villa-adjacent to my bogan eyes. I thought the sun and light was going to stay grotty and not put on any show, and then, surprise! Storm over Taburno massif, setting sun hitting the tuff of the old work shed, Ginger the dog posing, chooks also posing, a rainbow, cactus, and four of the five dogs allowing me a group portrait. My FujiFilm X-T4 is finally getting a workout.
Five dogs, seven cats, two ducks, a lot of chickens, heaps of olive trees, heaps of grapevines, fig, apricot, apple, persimmon, kaki trees, high hills and low mountains all round, old castles, churches, villas all over. Storms when I arrived and storms every day and night since. I’m sleeping so good.
A couple of months ago Bonnie said, “Come to Napoli!” Wednesday, my first time flying since 2019, first time out of Berlin since Miss Rona arrived (very masked and all for the whole trip), first time in Italy since 2014, I arrived in Napoli. And damn I forgot how much I love flying. The takeoff, the landing (it was a bumpy one), the hours above the clouds where the sky is a much darker blue.
Another in the small pile of books out of Aotearoa I’m getting all up in my memories about reading. I haven’t thought about Witi Ihimaera for decades. Same with Peter Wells. Old names in an anthology of mostly young Millennial and Gen Y poets and writers. Some of the other old names I can’t read past knowing they were rad-fem-les-sep transphobes back in the day. Cool if they’ve grown from that, but irrelevant to me; they did the damage then and I don’t need to read them now.
Dasniya said, on Thursday when their nohinohi little one was all big eyes and focus as I sung old Māori songs I seem to have remembered for them, she was seeing a show as Sophinesaele by Pelenakeke Brown and I said that name sounds familiar, reckon I’ve just been reading them. And I had. Her writing, A Travelling Practice, one of the couple of non-fiction pieces, and one of the couple that really stuck with me out of all the writers. The other was Jessica Niurangi Mary Maclean’s Kāore e wehi tōku kiri ki te taraongaonga; my skin does not fear the nettle, not the least for reminding me te Reo Māori is grammared but gender neutral, ia, tāna, tōna … like all the best languages. I photographed Pelenakeke’s piece and sent it to Dasniya before she saw her performance.
I should have marked all the writers I really liked. Forgot to do that with my usual oh I’ll remember of course I won’t and now I spose I could go back through. Almost finished my most recent stack of books and the upcoming pile is heavy on Māori Pasifika and I’m very fucking happy about that.
