This has been a busy year so far. Here’s what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks:
My review of Myrl Beam’s Gay Inc. “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?: Why Gay Nonprofits Fail and Yet Survive” appeared in Current Affairs. (February 20, 2019). It’s also available in print, in a gorgeous new issue.
Excerpt:
The gay NPIC has its tentacles within our hearts and our lives, and we are made to feel grateful for the pittances it offers us—a trans-friendly gynecolgist here, a therapist who will not try to cure us there, elsewhere perhaps a doctor who will heal and not lecture us on our sex lives—because it deliberately keeps such resources to itself, instead of working on changing the rest of the world (somewhere along the way, everyone forgot that all medical care should be sensitive to trans needs, not just queer medical centers, for instance).
I was on the Current Affairs Patreon-supported podcast, talking with Nathan J. Robinson and Lyta Gold. Do have a listen (you do have to have a subscription but the magazine and the podcast are so worth it!)
“In conversation: Yasmin Nair on Trauma, Diversity, Comedy and the Non-profit Industrial Complex”
As promised, I’ve been busy on my own site.
“Polyamory Is Gay Marriage for Straight People” (Valentine’s Day, naturally).
Excerpt:
Carefully pruned of its funkier origins in less hip and more non-urban environs, polyamory is fast becoming the way of life for a certain set, a combination of hipster-millennial-wealthy-people, and do we really want our sex lives determined by the same people who gave us mason jar salads? In the end, that particular culinary item may just be the perfect metaphor for polyamory: it looks very pretty, but it is ridiculously unwieldy (try making your way on public transportation with everything else and a couple of heavy, packed glass bottles), and much too fussy to consume once at your destination (if you forget your bowl, you’re screwed).
“On Liam Neeson and the Idea of the Erasure of the Past” (February 14)
Excerpt:
What Liam Neeson (and his handlers) failed to understand was that the idea of temporality—that life exists as past, present, and future—has disappeared from social media and, consequently, given the unduly large influence it has, from public discourse itself. Neeson’s point, one that he strove to convey, was that he had been in the past a racist…In the Good Morning America interview with Robin Roberts, Neeson said, “I’m not a racist.” Here, Neeson is again attempting to locate his remarks within a history of his life and stating that he is not, in the present, a racist.
“Cindy McCain: When Adoption Looks Like Trafficking” (February 8)
Her response to an accompanied child of a different ethnicity than the adult it was with was a complete and utter lie, and the lie didn’t simply state something that did not happen: it very clearly, in a racist state like Arizona, cemented the assumption that a white child could not possibly belong to a woman of colour, that it was not just okay but necessary that the state be called on to investigate and separate the two. Even if the child was of colour and the mother white (a highly unlikely scenario because of the reasons discussed above and because, Arizona), nothing warranted the cops being called on a family to potentially tear it apart.
Mary Poppins Returns, And Not Much Happens (February 6)
Excerpt:
Mary Poppins Returns wants desperately to be revered as an iconic film of its time. But that kind of status only comes about by an alchemical combination of cunning and haphazardness that is always, always hard to predict, no matter how many millions are poured into a production (for every Aquaman, there’s a Ben-Hur). It feels prescriptive in its constant reminder that it’s giving you, to echo another cliché, “a child-like sense of wonder.” Most of the time, it feels like every character is bounding out of the screen asking you, Do you feel that child-like sense of wonder yet? Well, DO you?
Older work, in case you missed it.
Jason Momoa, Aquaman, and the Queer Art of Friendship (January 29, 2019)
Changes (January 22, 2019)
On Nostalgia, Sex Work, and the Dancing Girls of Lahore (January 10, 2019)
Here’s a list of what you can expect.
Week of February 25:
An introduction to the long-form “When the Supermarket Died,” about the closing of the Treasure Island grocery store chain in Chicago and the changes to the very idea of the supermarket, everywhere.
“Maximum RockNRoll Goes Online,” about my brief but heady relationship of sorts with the legendary print magazine that is soon to end (it will be online).
This will be a light week because I’ve got some prior deadlines to work on, related to the book. Of course, the Oscars are on Sunday, so there may well be something to write about—Jason Momoa and Emilia Clarke are presenting, so I’ll be watching the whole thing (well, at least till they make their appearance) for the first time in years.
Some of the other long-form pieces I’m working on for this quarter:
Yes, of course, a piece on Jussie Smollett. I’ll be visiting Streeterville for this, and writing a long-form piece on the different contexts surrounding this utterly bizarre case.
And, yes, of course, a piece on the Covington Catholic school controversy.
As I pointed out, some weeks will be lighter than others. I’m still figuring out my rhythm with this new plan, but I’m generally happy with how things are going, and I should have a more detailed list of pieces that will appear this quarter, very soon.
Onwards.
If you’ve liked any of the writing linked to here—if any of it made you think, laugh, or even perplexed you in a good way (or, hell, in the worst way)—please donate and/or subscribe to help keep my work going. This work is free to you, but it involves a substantial amount of labour.