Blog

A hinge that opens the heavens
A small reflection on my daily reading. You’re at an apparent end due to a failure of wit. You can’t imagine what comes next. But you’ll recover wit, you’ll find horizon, and universe won’t end.

6 things mystified me in the trans film ‘I Saw the TV Glow’
This 2024 movie is tough to crack, but finally I think I get it. In art, opaque describes a substance you expect to see through but can’t: paint, glass, a thin layer. Metaphorically, it’s something you can’t understand.

Why are you trans?
Will they be mad that they were given a reason? If so, why did they ask? Trans people didn’t invent gender stereotypes. Collectively, we don’t reinforce them any more than anyone else. We navigate societies that stereotype us.

Why a homophobe displays a rainbow flag
They’re lying to themselves and others. The homophobe continues to share an occasional smirking rainbow and meanwhile gets away with spreading hate, disinformation, and physically violent imagery.

MAGA’s ‘not conservative’?
Well, is Trumpism conservative, or isn’t it? It doesn’t feel like natural order. It feels like state power. Some parts will be dismantled, and yet more monstrous heads will regrow.

The complicated joy of ‘Will & Harper’
Why did I wait so long to see it? The mood alternates between lighthearted and profound. Ferrell and Steele’s joy is complicated, but the film shines all the brighter for it.

How we appear, quivering
On the book ‘Deviant Matter: Ferment, Intoxicants, Jelly, Rot’ by Kyla Wazana Tompkins. We have ‘a wish to look directly at what is facing us,’ the oncoming blob, the mess we travel with and against.

GOP seeks to cut funding to U.S. hospitals supporting gender transition
Reporting by Jael Holzman asks if Democrats will allow it. If Democrats infight (‘bullying’ each other re: ‘cultural’ issues) and stop talking about the economy, they may lose even harder next time, says a pollster.

The anti-trans movement protested outside the U.S. Supreme Court
The Telegraph reports on a 17-year-old’s identity without asking them. Someday they may be ready to talk to sympathetic people who care about them, maybe including responsible journalists. It’s fine if they’re trans.