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PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@poetrynstuff
YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU CAN HANDLE CRITIQUE. YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU CAN EMBRACE BEING TOLD YOU WERE WRONG. YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH UNPLEASANT TASKS. YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU CAN DELIVER DISAPPOINTING NEWS. YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU KNOW HOW TO BE DISAGREED WITH. YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU CAN BE CORRECTED. YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU CAN BE TOLD YOU MESSED UP. YOU ARE A REGULAR GUY. YOU ARE ABLE TO DO HARD THINGS.
I THINK LOVE IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS TO OTHER PEOPLE by Michael Gray Bulla
Book review: John of John by Douglas Stuart
At it's core, John of John is a story about how important it is to live for yourself. A community full of unhappy people focused on meeting the expectations of their families, their neighbors and their church is falling apart at the seams. The world around them moved on from this pathological faith in a god that prefers suffering over joy and fear over love, by rejecting this god or changing his image to a kinder, more forgiving one, yet they still cling to it even if it harms them, gripping the sharp broken pieces of this archaic system.
It is also a story about waiting. Waiting for the right time to be happy, hoping for a better tomorrow but doing the exact same thing day after day. Waiting for change instead of making it happen. The pace of this book overall is slow and at times a bit monotonous, but it helps immerse the reader in this simple isolated way of island living.
It was not as breathtaking and heartbreaking as the previous Stuart's book, Young Mungo, but it was also way gentler and at times peaceful. It also painted a beutiful picture of a place that deserves love, even if it offers less excitement and opportunities than "mainland". A place that could be full of joy if people chose to live, instead of being forced to stay fullfiling dreams of their parents and giving up on their own.
There were moments that made my social anxiety and second-hand embarrassment flare up a lot, but I survived, even if I had to skip a minute of two in the audiobook to keep going (read by Lorne MacFadyen).
A good book that hit surprisingly close to home for me, when I am neither Scottish nor religious / from a religious community.
PS I saw some reviewer on Goodreads rage about how the main character is opportunistic, predatory and not good representation "in this political climate". Yes, the description of his physical relationship with a childhood friend could be interpreted this way, but I think calling it grooming is absurd and the way his friend struggles later on in his life is caused more by his family and being stuck than his bisexuality. Also, queer people are not just representation, they are huma, they have flaws and telling a story about a person should not be influenced by "political climate" because it leads to censorship. I do agree that the book has some incestuous vibes but only undertones.
Photo of the sky that I captured with my father’s camera years ago. In my language, sky and heaven are the same word - "niebo". It makes sense doesn’t it? There’s nothing more heavenly on this earth than a beautiful sunset / sunrise. Isn’t it a divine sight?
I am an agnostic but when I experience the beauty of nature I feel connected to the world in a way that is undeniably spiritual.
" -...Are you thinking about studying something?
Innes huffed, as if the question was absurd. As if he would never wish to bother the universe with his own wants.
Cal didn't rush in to disagree. He drunk his lagger in the waining daylight, and let Innes feel his way forward in his own time.
Eventually, after a little more Whiskey, Innes said
- I feel stuck.. and I don't know how to unstick myself.
Cal bumped his shoulder into Innes's.
- Are you sure you don't like being stuck? Isn't there a comfort in sticking? "
Quote from John of John by Douglas Stuart
HOW’S THAT HOUSE THAT RAISED YOU? - Lev St. Valentine
Andrea Gibson, "DEPRESSION [VERB]", Lord of the Butterflies
There are books out there that punch you in the gut until you fall down to your knees spitting blood gasping for air and then they kick your ribs and when you collapse onto the ground struggling to breathe they kneel down quietly beside you and stroke your hair gently and you thank them for all of it, waiting for all of this to end and dreading it at the same time.
This post was made right before finishing Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. One of the best books I've ever experienced. Audiobook was very well narrated, I will buy a paperback copy of the book to read when I feel like breaking my own heart again. If you like reading gay fiction that is not just romantasy / YA but a deeper reflection on the experience of navigating the world as a queer man and you're not afraid of heavy topics, please read this book. I promise the pain it brings you is worth it.
TW graphic violence, alcohol abuse, child abuse, SA on a minor - all of these awful parts of the plot are essential to this emotionally wreaking story, not a fetish of the author, which makes a huge difference. If you are someone who avoids the typixal toxic mlm I promise the romance part of this book is lovely.
pratchett will write an entire book about the grim reaper pretending to be santa claus while the grim reaper’s granddaughter goes about hunting down the dumbass who decided to kill santa, and then right when you think you’re done and the oddly pointed shenanigans are winding down he hits you with “humans need fantasy to be human. to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape,” and knocks you into next wednesday
— margaret atwood, speeches for doctor frankenstein
I'm sorry but I have one draft that I never finished but I laugh every time I see it
Writing Tip
Neither do i
Unreliable everyone
Good Morning, I Am Not Going to Commit Suicide Today, by Kimmy Walters
Joy Sullivan, from “Culpable”, Instructions for Traveling West
Joy Sullivan, “Culpable”, Instructions for Traveling West
[Text ID: I've always been haunted by choice. I want the city and the forest. Freedom but also babies. A home and the open highway.
I love it when other people choose anything for me—dinner spots, weekend plans, hiking trails. It's one tiny decision I'm absolved from making. To choose is to be culpable and as a former evangelical kid, there are few things I hate more than being culpable.
But being unable to choose becomes its own choice. When you don't decide, a decision still arrives.
End ID]
was gonna put this in the tags, but then had the realization that actually no i want to go into depth about this.
so basically this post made me immediately order this book and i never looked to consider there was more to this poem. but i NEED everyone who also resonated with this to read the rest of it
[Image ID: A photo of the poem "Culpable," from Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan.
I've always been haunted by choice. I want the city and the forest. Freedom but also babies. A home and the open highway.
I love it when other people choose anything for me—dinner spots, weekend plans, hiking trails. It's one tiny decision I'm absolved from making. To choose is to be culpable and as a former evangelical kid, there are few things I hate more than being culpable.
But being unable to choose becomes its own choice. When you don't decide, a decision still arrives.
Once I held the fleeting body of a farm cat newly struck on the side of a busy Ohio road. He'd gotten frightened in the rush and couldn't pick which way to go. So he stalled and was hit by the car in front of me. When I lifted the big body, shuddering and warm, I felt him die in my hands. Awful as it was, I listened to that heaviness. I knew it was a lesson. To decide is to survive.
I wrote a pep talk recently to myself on a bar napkin: no matter which road you take, it will be both glorious and unbearable. Every road is lonely. Every road, holy. The only error is not walking forth.
Yesterday, a friend in California, when giving me directions, told me I could take the trail toward the tall pines or turn left and find a field of poppies, growing gold and savage at the edge of the valley.
When I asked which to choose, she simply shrugged and said: either way, it's all heaven.
End ID]
Fuck hostile architecture, I want unhostile architecture. I want benches to be designed to be as easy as possible to sleep on. I want little places for pigeons to nest to be purposefully put on buildings. I want people designing public spaces to think about what they'd be like to skateboard on. I want "Please loiter" signs. I want people to be kind. I want...
We need cities that do not resent the fact that people live in them
We need cities that
do not resent the fact that
people live in them
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
"This is Ankh-Morpork, you know. We've got extra pronouns here."
GNU Terry Pratchett
The full quote is fascinating though, and adds an interesting context as it's Angua (a werewolf) and Carrot (human, but raised by dwarves) discussing a dwarf colleague, Cheery.
"Female? He told you he was female?" "She," Angua corrected. "This is Ankh-Morpork, you know. We've got extra pronouns here." She could smell his bewilderment... "Well, I would have though she'd have the decency to keep it to herself," Carrot said finally. "I don't think it's very clever, you know, to go around drawing attention to the fact." "Carrot, I think you might have something wrong with your head," said Angua. "What?" "I think you might have it stuck up your bum."
Sir Terry Pratchett - "Feet of Clay"
This is CARROT being the asshole. Carrot who has, throughout all the prior books, been depicted as basically the best of all possible people. He is noble, brave, considerate, kind. He is the good guy in the entire City...
... and yet, he grew up dwarf, and has picked up their more conservative views on gender identity.
Discworld dwarves start out in the books as basically a people without visible gender differences (thanks to the woman growing beards just like the men) and using "he/him" pronouns as their default. Anything else is seen as breaking the most basic of social conventions. (Dwarf dating is described early on as being two dwarves who like each other spending an inordinately long time trying to find out, as tactfully as possible, what gender the other dwarf is)
Carrot does immediately adopt the "she" pronoun for Cheery, which is but wishes she didn't make such a fuss about it. He's prepared to tolerate her choices, but he doesn't APPROVE of them, and thinks that that is enough.
Carrot, because he IS Carrot, does learn to open his mind on this subject, perhaps his final frontier of bias, but I do love that it's addressed as something he has to work on, and succeed.
And to Terry Pratchett's credit what started out as a throwaway joke about dwarf sex, gradually becomes a multi-volume subplot which is a fascinating exploration of gender and social identity as more dwarves start to "come out" as being female, and not just identifying as female, but changing their form of dress to something which matches who they are (they keep their beards though, because to a dwarf, that has nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with being a dwarf) and how their society has to adjust, with differing levels of comfort, to this new reality.
Carrot was also prejudiced against the undead early on as well. And the fact that he unlearns these views is a good example of a common theme in Pratchett's work
The overwhelming theme of Pratchett's work is change. Not good vs evil but progress vs stasis/going backwards. The protagonists of Pratchett's stories are people who can take on board new ideas and change and grow and adapt. Some of them start out as very stupid people with very stupid views in fact until they learn and grow and improve. The villains on the other hand are people who desperately want things to either stay the same or regress back to some imagined "Good old days" that they prefer.
While we're talking about Terry Pratchett gender, there's also golems, who are basically lumps of clay that have been brought to life but don't actually have any gender or secondary sexual characteristics so everyone defaults to male and he/him. As the books story goes on some of them decide to try being women just because.
Feet of Clay came out in 1996. I cannot overstate how pronoun discourse wasn't anywhere on the radar then. I'm fairly terminally online, active in fandom, and the first I can remember is some timid discussion of neopronouns in the mid-2000s, where "how could you tell other people to use them for you" was a major puzzle. (I still love neopronouns - zie/hir appeals to me in a way they distinctly doesn't, genderfluid though I am.) Pterry was so far ahead of the game, he was the very definition of galaxy brain, with extra heapings of kindness.
