Wasn’t going to this year. Last year I got about 2 1/2 weeks in and sawn on top of burnout / chronic fatigue / wtf ijdgaf syndrome left me shattered and pretty upset. I broke fast with my lifelong comfort food of peanut butter on thick bread.
Wasn’t going to this year. Even the thought of it got me stressy anxious sad.
Wasn’t going to this year. Told Vass that, they know what’s been going on.
Wasn’t going to this year. Day before convo with Vass:
“don’t reckon i’m fasting this year. kinda sad about that.”
“Yeah makes total sense”
“feels stink not to tho“
“I know 😒”
“still gonna try and fast the first day tho. do it for my granny”
“Ι knew you would 🥰”
“me, transparent as a window”
Got me the best Medjool dates in Berlin and a bag of Za’atar. First day was a bit hairy but found a way. Second day felt better. Third day. Still doing it for my granny. No pressure, can bail at any time, doing it lovingly and with care.
Georgina Beyer, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou, takatāpui, wahine irawhiti, trans woman, sex worker, actress, politician.
Star of Jewel’s Darl way back in ’86. The first trans MP in the world. Responsible for getting the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act passed, decriminalising sex work in Aotearoa, and for the 2004 Civil Union Act which led to legalising same-sex marriage.
I never know what to say when someone dies, even 10 years on. Gala and I joked my epitaph should be, “Fuck you looking at? I’ll knife ya.” Ten years ago, Iain Banks died. Shit joke. Unequivocally my fave author at the time. I’ve read a heap since then and in that specific genre only Tamsyn Muir and Ann Leckie have come close. Yeah, a lot of other writers are amazing and touched my heart, made me laugh, but this is the you can take a tote bag of books to a desert island kind of love and it’s those three with Iain forever first.
Like so many weird subculture scenes, Iain got the attention of way too many straight white dudes. And because he was a nominally straight white dude, with a love of fast cars, whiskey and drugs, he doesn’t get much attention outside that very mediocre bubble of dudes talking. Yeah, Excession is a banger of a space opera, but have you read Feersum Endjinn? Or Whit? That shit has radical, liberatory politics all the way through. He was writing Black, Brown, trans, queer liberation and love back in the ’90s. And he always seemed like one of those so rare, genuinely good, thoughtful, fun, caring men. The kind we need a whole lot more of.
Over the almost twenty years of this blog, I’ve written about or mentioned him in the low hundreds of posts. He even has his own tag, though for that number he should be a category. Here’s some of my faves, chronologically.
Which caused me to read some of my own writing from the last decade and I’m not as shamed or embarrassed as I feared. Which might be me lacking in self-awareness of what I’m missing, but whatever.
And what caused this — I was not paying attention and February 16th was his birthday and it’s 10 years since he died — was a thread by Assoc for Scottish Literature with a bunch of links to articles and interviews I’m going to remind myself of by putting here:
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.
Valentine’s day is boring. Instead, let’s celebrate the anniversary of Native Hawaiians killing the fuck outta douchebag English explorer Captain James Cook, on February 14, 1779.
anti-colonialism and indigenous resistance 8ever.
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
She-Male Trouble Issue #1. 1992 Back Cover, Scott Phillips
The last couple of years really feels like any culture that isn’t str8wyt dudes is getting shut down. Old Gawker went from cringe and occasionally fucked decisions to the kind of proper journalism the big rags could never do. New Gawker was a tripped-out strange incoherent joy of a group tumblr. In the future, the apparent superficiality of both versions will be recognised for their deeply relevant and incisive political analysis, and for women and femmes going hard for popular culture. For now, there’s Defector, Autopian, and other post-Gawker brilliance, but it’s still sad as fuck to lose another.
Until journalism isn’t beholden to rich white dudes who throw down 1.5 million for Napoleon’s hat, or haul bathroom sinks around like it’s a meme (haha Apartheid Clyde in Dunning-Kruger National Park), whether it’s Gawker or Twitter or OnlyFans or tumblr or MySpace or Lex, the communities served by what should be public services like libraries are going to keep getting fucked over for a buck.
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.
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.
Akwaeke Emezi — Dear Senthuran: A black spirit memoir
Akwaeke Emezi — Pet
Akwaeke Emezi — The Death of Vivek Oji
Alastair Reynolds — Eversion
Arkady Martine — A Desolation Called Peace
Arkady Martine — A Memory Called Empire
Asmi Bishara — Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice
Ben Aaronovitch — Amongst Our Weapons
Caren Wilton — My Body, My Business: New Zealand Sex Workers in an Era of Change
Celeste Bell, Zoe Howe — Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story: The Creative Life of Poly Styrene
Charlie Jane Anders — Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak
Chris Tse, Emma Barnes (eds.) — Out Here: An Anthology of Takatapui and Lgbtqia+ Writers from Aotearoa
Jessica Hansell aka Coco Solid — How to Loiter In a Turf War
David Austin — Dread, Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution
Fatimah Asghar — If They Come For Us
Fatimah Asghar, Safia Elhillo (eds.) — The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 3: Halal If You Hear Me
Fatimah Asghar — When We Were Sisters
James S. A. Corey — Memory’s Legion: The Complete Expanse Story Collection
Janet L. Abu-Lughod — Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350
Juno Dawson — Her Majesty’s Royal Coven
Juno Dawson — Stay Another Day
Karlie Noon, Krystal De Napoli — Astronomy: Sky Country
Kim Fu — Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century
Leanne Simpson — Islands of Decolonial Love
Mykaela Saunders — This All Come Back Now: An anthology of First Nations speculative fiction
Naseem Jamnia — The Bruising of Qilwa
Omar Sakr — Son of Sin
Robyn Maynard, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson — Rehearsals for Living
Having absorbed all the “Go Piss Girl” memes for years without context, I finally bailed into Gossip Girl at the start of season 2. And shortly after devoted half a day of hours to season 1. Is it terrible? Kinda yes. Is it transfixing? Also kinda yes. Do the teachers let down the whole show? Very yes. Do I care about the spoilt rich students? Some of them ambivalently yes. Is the slow growth of the relationship between Aki, Audrey, and Max beautiful? Yes. Also messy, but still beautiful. And is Zión Moreno as Luna La someone I want to binge everything she’s been in? Totes heaps yes. Does her aloofness resemble ’90s desexualised gays who never kissed or had relationships? Fucking yup. And when she ran off with – was carried off by farm boy Rob I was “Yes bitch, finally get some!” Because she’s beautiful and sensitive and feminine and has the power of creation like one of the old Goddesses and I know it’s not one of those shows but letting this part of her grow is something I want to see.
Gossip Girl, Season 1 Episode 12: Zión Moreno and Mitchell Slaggert
