#weading journal

[robertwire]

frank bidart, from "half-light"

published in 2016 when the author was in his 70's

frank bidart, from "confessional"

published in 1983 when the author was in his 40's

[robertwire]

as a real lover of the video essay. an avowed evangelist of the format. so many of the ones about wuthering heights are: bad. but thankfully we have princess weekes.

most recently: Sadly, Wuthering Heights Discourse Is That Deep

and from last year: Heathcliff Isn't White: Race, Class and Heathcliff

[robertwire]

When I say "hope," I don't mean hope for anything in particular. I guess I just mean thinking that it's worth it to keep one's eyes open.

— from maggie nelson's bluets, 32

[robertwire]

There is a loneliness that arises when we do not meet our own expectations, when the self we want to be doesn’t quite mesh with the self we are. Sometimes we reconcile that distance quickly. Sometimes we allow it to grow. Sometimes we narrow it. But whatever we do, no matter what, there is at first, I think, a loneliness. It is the loneliness of realizing, with a kind of certainty you can’t quite shake, that you are not exactly who you think you are.

— devin kelly, writing about matthew rohrer's poem "there is absolutely nothing lonelier" for his newsletter

[robertwire]

actually i also physically have to think about ilya/shane relation to Identity in the context of this Other quote from cracks in the iron closet

the american author is having a conversation with a gay russian woman who occasionally sleeps with men [keeping in mind this is the late 80's/early 90's and the author has elsewhere talked about the slow rise of bisexual and queer as identities in the us]

I explained that in the gay world where I lived, such behavior would outrage many lesbians, who would consider it a betrayal of sorts; that, in fact, even the decision by many organizations to add the word "bisexual" to their names was causing an uproar and sparking anguished debates about the nature of sexual identity and the labels we used to describe it. Ksyusha shook her head in stunned dismay and emitted a torrent of commentary on the subject.

"That's just totalitarianism, just like Communists"' she snapped. "What business is it of anyone else's who I sleep with? You Americans, you feel like you need to define yourselves always, you are this or you that. Why? You need to make up rules to follow, you all want to join in groups, to feel like you're part of something.

"But that's such a limitation, because then you don't act how you feel, but how you think you're supposed to act. So if I want to sleep with a man—please, thank you, did we have a good time? Yes? Wonderful, good-bye! What's the problem? Why should that bother anybody?"

[robertwire]

Why God Invented Cold

by catie rosemurgy

To give the people a break from repositioning their lawn chairs. To give us a glimpse of life without bugs. Without weeping welts, the odd fever, and yellow smears on our shoes.

To confuse the boys. To force them to ask, "Why do teenage girls smoke outside in January until their nipples get stiff? Why do they stand around with their coats undone and life

smacked onto their cheeks? Am I that promising?" To caution the men that the boys will turn into against following their semi-aroused girlfriends

into May lake water. Seasonal Affective Disorder. To break up lonely highways into manageable chunks. To make it clear just how stupid it is to climb the highest mountain. To encourage sweet futilities

like cuddling and mittens. The powerful sleep lobby. To give drunks a softer, deeper alternative to liver failure. Blue lips and frosted eyelashes. Ski pants, for Christ's sake. Dark roads, tight sweaters,

no boots, and stalled cars. Wanna ride, need a lift? Country love or homespun complex legal issues. His word pressed firmly against her word. Zero degrees and fourteen snowmobilers missing.

Natural selection. Two feet of fodder for made-for-TV movies and more expected. No fiber, calories, vitamins, hallucinogenic properties, or nicotine without the tar. Just pain in your membranes, unexpected falls,

sprained ankles, and hyperextended thumbs. To see if you can catch yourself. To put you down. You thought you were mean and hard to figure out until you found out about windchill.

To give us a way to understand people who won't give us sex, meter maids, Siamese cats, what it's like to kiss your best friend's lover. To distinguish the sweat of euphoria from the sweat of shock. To up the ante.

Because he could. Because he's lonely and it leaked out of him. Because he wants attention and a fluffy blanket that's big enough to cover his toes and reach his chin. To create melting. To give us another hint that the body is dead.

To add ice. To let him come as close as he can to holding some of the glittering water he made. To let us skate where we couldn't two weeks ago. To let us glide on top of darkness. To show us what it means to break through.

[robertwire]

We were talking about the great things

that have happened in our lifetimes;

and I said, "Oh, I suppose the moon landing

was the greatest thing that has happened

in my time." But, of course, we were all lying.

The truth is the moon landing didn't mean

one-tenth as much to me as one night in 1963

when we lived in a three-room flat in what once had been

the mansion of some Victorian merchant prince

(our kitchen had been a clothes closet, I'm sure),

on a street where by now nobody lived

who could afford to live anywhere else.

That night, the three of us, Claudine, Johnnie and me,

woke up at half-past four in the morning

and ate cinnamon toast together.

"Is that all?" I hear somebody ask.

Oh, but we were silly with sleepiness

and, under our windows, the street-cleaners

were working their machines and conversing in Italian, and

everything was strange without being threatening,

even the tea-kettle whistled differently

than in the daytime: it was like the feeling

you get sometimes in a country you've never visited

before, when the bread doesn't taste quite the same,

the butter is a small adventure, and they put

paprika on the table instead of pepper,

except that there was nobody in this country

except the three of us, half-tipsy with the wonder

of being alive, and wholly enveloped in love.

"Great Things Have Happened" by Alden Nowlan

[robertwire]

-carl phillips