Category Archives: GBLT Interest

Start Your Week Off Right: A Round-Up

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Here are a bunch of urban homesteader links I found, and will probably sidebar:
http://urbanhomestead.org/
http://urbanhomesteader.wordpress.com/
http://theurbanhomesteader.blogspot.com/

I now seriously believe that very few self-identified “pagans” are as committed to “sustainable living” as they want others to think they are. Oh, you and your hubbie made cheese in your basement that you shared with your “poly family” while you spend oodles of cash at the local No We’re Not Whole Foods But We’re Not a Farmer’s Market, Either? These people are living on 1/3 of an acre or less, and are producing a majority of their own diet.

I also suspect Jane Jacobs had an urban-focused spirituality. Too bad she’s no longer around for me to ask.


What?! It’s a puppy!

Sannion gave a beautiful biography of Plutarch:

in the first few generations after Octavian cemented his sole rule of Rome there was very little for a politically minded Greek to do. You got nowhere without extensive social contacts in Rome – and the wealth to travel in such circles – and even then there were limits on how high one could aspire. Many Romans looked down their noses at their Greek subjects, except when it came to the arts and philosophy where they were grudgingly accepted as their superiors. Thus many cities such as Athens, Alexandria and Antioch became little more than college towns where wealthy Romans sent their sons for proper education, deeming them worthy of little else.

This is the era into which Plutarch was born. At one point he even moved to Rome seeking a promising career. Though he made many close friends and met with modest success he eventually bumped into the glass ceiling and grew frustrated with the realization that he could progress no further. So he returned to his hometown, once the shining star of Boiotia but now a pitiful backwater, and spent the remainder of his days active in small-time local politics, serving as a priest at Delphi and pursuing antiquarian and philosophical studies.

Dver suggests to others to balance discernment with certain realities of the spiritual world some of us might not be as ready to admit as we think we are:

While discernment is extremely important, and certainly some things that appear to be messages are just random coincidences, I think we often err too heavily on the side of skepticism because of our preconceptions. That face we saw in the pattern of leaves on a tree must just be our imagination, even though it looked so much like a familiar god, even though we had prayed for a sign, because a real vision of a deity will manifest out of nothing before us, undeniable and life-altering. But why do we expect that the gods and spirits would use, as the medium of Their communication, anything other than the elements of our own physical world, when those elements are ready at-hand (and, as a bonus, easily processed by our sensory organs and brains)?

Normally, I’d put this follow-up interview of Ronald Hutton in the “Shit You’ve Probably Read Already” sub-heading, but I wanted to include a quote that actually got me interested in reading Hutton’s book:

Will you publish on the history of modern Paganism again?

Probably not. I wrote Triumph to suggest an answer to one specific question: why Wicca appeared in England, of all the places in the world, and in the mid twentieth century, as opposed to any other time. To put it another way, I wanted to show why it was that one of the most industrialised, urbanised and densely populated countries on earth happened to be the one to produce a religion drawing on ancient pagan roots and centred on nature deities, at the threshold of late modernity? In providing my answer, I also believe that I achieved three other objectives. One was to explain the national and international success of the religion concerned, and another to reassure those who knew little or nothing of it of its essentially benevolent character. The third was to show that, far from deriving from ideas and impulses which were the preserve of a fringe element in society, they drew on several which were mainstream to modern British culture, and involved some of its most familiar and admired figures. In particular, its deities, although present in the ancient world, were not those who were most central to that world’s religions but those who had become most important to the modern British in general, in a way which has not been adequately appreciated and honoured.

Oh, and did you know that Sannion hates women who get abortions? Oh, wait…:

At any rate I do not want to see people going around saying that Sannion believes Dionysos hates women who get abortions, because that is so not the point of this post.

The Barking Shaman has some words about that HuffPo article from the mother of a 7-year-old who came out as gay:

The Huffington Post ran a piece a few days ago from a mother whose 7yr old son recently declared that he was gay. It was a lovely essay about love and acceptance, with a bit of parental concern in there too. The parents are being supportive of his identity, while at the same time, understanding that what he feels at seven may or may not be how he feels in the months and years to come. They seem quite content to take him at his word and see what does or doesn’t change with time.

There have been quite a lot of people on internet message boards saying that this is ridiculous, that this child can’t know at such a young age that he is gay. I’ve seen this particularly on LGBT message boards, where people are holding up their own coming out at older ages as proof that seven is “too young.”

I’ll probably say something about this, myself (assuming I haven’t already, and then forgot to come back here and edit appropriately).

And I also found Hêrakleion, a Herakles blogger. It’s a relatively new one, but so full of good posts already!

ALSO:
Shen Hart at Ink-Stained Pawprints asked Atheists to be a bit more tolerant. I may have arrived late, but I think I “totes pwnd” a troll.

I’m glad to see some-one I don’t believe I know (on-line or off) who enjoyed my post on urban spirituality facts and the pagan community.

Just in case you were curious:
This has been the first week (to my knowledge) that this blog has had a minimum of 100 views a day.

I also learned the hard way that ReBlogging does not work with privately hosted WordPress blogs, no matter how much you’ve hooked up said blog to your WP.com account.

Shit You’ve Probably Read Already:
* Survey on Pagan Prayer
* Galina Krasskova: C is for Cultural Misappropriation
* Hark! A Vagrant – Greek Couples sketches
* Something Positive: Seasonal Spirit (I really wish those things existed)
* Oglaf: Obligation Day (NSFW)
* ETA! Darwin Carmichael Is Going to Hell: Valentine Pin-Up Boys! (sorry about the last minute add, but I had to)

Your New Old Word for the Week:
Rhathymia (ruh-THY-mee-uh): n. from Greek rhathymos (light-hearted, easy-tempered, carefree): the state of being carefree; lightheartedness.
The modern person often mistakenly sees Aphrodite as a Goddess of Peace and rhathymia, but that role belongs to Eirene.

Start Your Week Off Right: A Round-Up

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On Dieselpunk Encyclopaedia, Gotham City Revisited focuses on Toronto —gorgeous! Also check out Our Gallery: The Fantastic Art of 600v

For those who share my aesthetic and cinematic tastes:
Slow Motion Angel (Derek Jarman fansite)
Silent Hollywood: The Silent Film Database
Brand Upon the Brain: a Film by Guy Maddin (promotional site)
My Winnipeg: A Docu-Fantasia from Director Guy Maddin (promotional site)
Guy Maddin Blogathon: Confessions of a Maddin Newbie (23 Sept 2011 blog)

…and how about some gorgeous 1920s film posters.

…and some free-to-download recording from Annette Henshaw.

…and how ’bout a Roaring Twenties Tumblog?

…and while I’m on a Jazz Age / Art Deco sort of kick, have you ever heard of Gerda Wegener? She was a Danish illustrator and painter, and apparently seemed to have done a lot of lesbian-themed stuff —not my cup of tea for eroticism, but gorgeous illustrations, nonetheless. The reason she came to my attention was, oddly, not as an Art Deco illustrator, but because her first marriage (of nineteen years) was to to “Einar Wegener”, the assigned-at-birth name of the first-ever documented male-to-female transsexual Lili Elbe. Elbe lived as a woman through most of the 1920s (possibly the whole decade, the biographical info I’m finding is sparse) and started “dressing full-time” in 1912/13, after the couple moved to Paris. Elbe also modelled for Wegener’s paintings at some time prior to the move to Paris, and in 1913 Wegener’s audience was shocked to learn that her favourite petite femme fatale model was legally her “husband”. Elbe is commonly believed amongst TS/TG history circles to have technically been intersexed, possibly a form of Kleinfelter’s syndrome (though this specific is mainly believed because it’s the most common IS syndrome affecting those determined to have a “male” physiology at birth), because one of the known documents of her surgeries describes rudimentary ovaries or possibly ovotestes; at this point in medical knowledge, it’s uncertain to say much with such certainty about some-one who died eighty years ago. Elbe died within a week after a final, far more experimental surgery, implanting a uterus; her body rejected the organ and went septic, but she reportedly died happily. Gerda was reportedly completely supportive of Elbe’s transition, some contemporary accounts even suggest that she’s the one who encouraged Elbe’s transition. A year or so prior to Elbe’s death, their marriage was annulled by the King of Denmark, and soon after Elbe’s death, Wegener remarried despite her lesbian preferences. Her career as an illustrator and painter soon faded into obscurity, but what she did do in the few years afer Elbe’s death suggest that Elbe’s memory continued to be Wegener’s muse for some time later.

Wait, what? Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Ghost of Gary Coleman?

Oh, that’s right, this is a polytheism blog —how dare I forget?

You’ve all seen Myths Retold, right? Since I’ve posted about one of England’s national treasures over the past week, I just though some of you might want to check out the OLDE ENGLISH tag on Myths Retold.

Patch could use some books on Hellenic death.

As a bit of a mini follow-up to my post about the heart symbol, those of you who are into creative “pubescaping” and are bad at freehanding might be delighted to know that there’s an analogue app for that.

Dver reminds us how to get the most out of local libraries, acknowledging, as I do, that this may all be completely new information to some people (I’m still amazed at this phenomenon, myself, and I’m a little younger than her, even).

ALSO:
Cara Schulz quoted and linked to a post of mine. Hijinks ensue. I lose respect for pagans who comment on blogs. (Apparently, some-one who admits that they are more able of body, and rank higher on income and “straightness” than I do is experienced enough with disenfranchisement to tell me I don’t know disenfranchisement. Gotta love the SuperAlly™!)

And just in case you were curious:
I finally passed 200 hits in a single day this past week! Took long enough, too.

Shit You’ve Probably Read Already:
* 23 Reasons Why Dionysians are the Best Friends
* Star Foster Surprises No-one by Saying Something Over-Generalising; Gets Rather Articulately Pwnd by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus.

Your New Old Word for the Week:
Acritition: sexual intercourse without orgasm.
Some believe the orgasm is the only climax in love-making, but I can tell you of times of acritition that have been far more passionate than most times including ejaculate.

Why “Queer”, but not “Pagan”?

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I love etymology, and this leads me to often thinking of the words I use very carefully before using them. I don’t call heterosexual “straight” by default, because “straight” in this use does not simply mean heterosexual: It means “normal”, “not a criminal”, “sober”, and it evolved from criminal and drug subcultures. As homosexuality is no longer criminalised in the First World, to call heterosexuals “straight” is to reinforce homophobia, I dare say it is even an act of homophobia.

…but I digress.

First off, while I dislike the term “pagan” based on a loaded etymology, and I absolutely do not feel like it is the best word to describe my religion, I do occasionally resign to it out of convenience and knowing full well that even though it may be one of those instances where it’s simply easier than going on a long discussion I don’t want to be in (or I would have made that discussion happen and not said “I’m pagan”), I do so with the knowledge that I’m inviting in all of these assumptions people are going to make about me that are, by and large, not an accurate way to describe me or my religion at all.

While there is certainly a reinforcing etymology to these assumptions of others’, the major reason for these assumptions is the self-reinforcing stereotyping that runs rampant in the community of self-identified pagans. The fact of the matter is, the “mainstream” idea that pagans are nature-worshipping hippies dancing barefoot in the woods is because an overwhelming majority of self-identified pagans fit that description, and tend to be a bit less-than-accepting of anybody under the “pagan umbrella” who doesn’t fit that description. This is the primary reason for such a rift between the pagan community and polytheists of the recon method: A majority of “recons” are urban or at least non-rural in that they neither naturally feel nor feel any desire to need an especial spiritual connection with the rustic or even wild lands to properly practise their religion, whose who may identify as urban tend to have an especially spiritual connection to cities. A lot of “recons” are centrist, conservative, or are urban liberals who recognise that sustainable living is that of either the farm or the metropolis, the suburbs where many self-identified “pagans” actually live being an abomination.

I definitely see an emerging “post-reconstructionism” movement in the polytheist community, wherein people realise that the reconstructionist method, when applied strictly, can be limiting and allow for little (if anything) in the way of spirituality in tune with modern realities, but that does not necessarily mean that the community of self-identified “pagans” is necessarily going to be the best place for such people, especially those of us who neither have nor want nor need to have a deep spiritual void filled with the kind of minor (or major) woo that can only be found tilling the land of a homestead farm or deep in the woods and miles from civilisation.

Personally? I’ve had times where I’ve tried to get that, but I’m physically, emotionally, and spiritually allergic to the woods. One cannot make that connection happen if it’s not meant to, no matter how much one tries, no matter how much one has to fill oneself with antihistamine just to be clear-headed enough to not only be perceptive of that connection, if it’s to come, but make sure it’s meaningful. I mean, who knows? For all I know, maybe all that Zyrtec and Zatador drops and nasal sprays and various creams block that connection —but if being without all that antihistamine makes it hard to breathe in a rural place, then maybe I’m just not meant to have that sort of connection to nature? Maybe I really am better off without it, and the Theoi are just fine with that?

…but some-one recently asked me why I liberally self-aply the term “Queer”, but not pagan —after all, these two words both have virtually the same histories! Well, except that they don’t.

No, really. They don’t.

The word “queer” comes from German (versus “paganus” coming from Latin), meaning “oblique, off-centre” and has a possible relation to “quer”, meaning “odd”. The first recorded use of “queer” relating to homosexuality only dates to 1922 after the word “queer” was introduced to English around 1500, when “paganus” was first adopted as a slur against non-Christians during the Holy Roman empire!

Then there’s the fact that, based on etymology alone, I’m very Queer. Even amongst the subcultures I’ve found myself at home in, I’ve never epitomised any of them: Too dark for most Mods, too polished and classic for most Goths, too erudite for most punks, and too modern and urban for the overwhelming majority of pagans and polytheists. Even as a gay man, well, I’m of TS history, which makes me the sort of potential sexual partner many other gay men want nothing to do with. As a man of TS hostory, I’m enough of an effete that most of them will still call me “ma’am”, even after told that’s inappropriate. How any of this makes me unstrange, unqueer, seems rather, well, queer to me. If any-one has a right to re-claim “queer” from a status of slur (and a relatively new one —the term was rather benign prior to it’s GBLT associations), I think I can objectively say that I sure as hell do.

On the other hand, what right do I have to “pagan”? If this is a term that evolved from the Latin equivalent of “redneck” or “hillbilly” and now possesses a baggage that includes a highly implict and (very easily argued) enforced community meaning of “nature-worshipping”, then no, it doesn’t fit me in the slightest. A Google Image search for “pagan” or a perusal of Wikipedia’s article on Neopaganism and its contemporary photos reveals how deeply “nature religion” is synonymous with the contemporary pagan community, to the point that “urban paganism” is such a tiny niche market that only three books have ever been published on the suvject —one currently out-of-print (Patricia Telesco’s The Urban Pagan), and one is so lousy with a strong and unapologetic rural bias that, as I know my own spiritual realities, it’s riddled with fallacious misinformation (pretty much the entire Introduction to R. Kaldera & T. Schwartzstein’s The Urban Primitive is a biased screed hailing the woodlands and damning the urban lands as a bringer of doom and ailments both physical and spiritual, though it gets a little better, it’s not by much). I don’t even think the pagan community thinks they’re being as unwelcoming and prejudiced as, in practise, they really are, but when the reality of this not merely ostensible, but blatant and celebrated bias is something that one must deal with at every venture into the “pagan community”, hoping to touch based with co-religionists, other devotees of one’s patron, and those walking an otherwise similar spiritual path, then not only is it apparent that one’s spirituality is regarded as “queer and perverse” in the pre1922 sense, but also one that’s regarded as lesser and hollow, false and silly, then yes, I think I can say that I don’t have any incentive to try and rationalise any claim to the term “pagan”, as it’s being made abundantly clear that I only barely qualify —like the cisgender gay man who likes to make it perfectly clear that he’s normal, and not one of those icky fem gays or trannies, that he was in a fraternity in uni and captain of the gridiron team, and his name is Cleancut McNormaldude and just happens to be somehow “queer”. R~i~g~h~t…..

In fact, I roll my eyes at Cleancut McNormaldude attempting to claim he’s “queer” rather than “gay“, if not “homosexual” or “bisexual” are words he feels suit him, because that’s not a word that gives any accurate nuances that describe him outside of only one of the implied meanings, at best, that he’s practically watered-down the meaning of “queer” to strip it of all nuance and render it nothing more than a meaningless synonym.

When one truly loves vocabulary, it becomes apparent that even words that seem synonymous have these nuances that make their meanings truly different, even if in seemingly minor ways. These numances are important, as any Paganism & Witchcraft 101 book worth the paper they’re printed on have said before me. To say “crone” when “hag” is best can render a ritual or spell useless or change it completely, so why call myself “pagan” when it carries with it not only an etymology but a common, every-day use that implies so many things that I am not and only one thing that I am (polytheist, practising a pre-Christian religion)? Why should I not use Queer when it can easily cover all sorts of nuances about my personality and character in addition to my sexual predilections?

If you’re going to say anything at all, say it the best way that you can.

Marc Almond: Non-Stop Erotic Divo

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Marc Almond is one of those singers that I’m amazed that I didn’t get into his work earlier, but upon reflecting, I probably did at the perfect time in my life to. Probably best-known this side of the Atlantic for his work with Soft Cell, which is best known this side of the Atlantic for their cover version of Motown artist (and common-law wife of Marc Bolan) Gloria Jones’ song “Tainted Love”, Marc Almond has a career spanning nearly thirty-five years —and I’ve been told that I kinda sing like him, since my balls dropped (meaning yes, this is probably not the most- representative example of my modal singing voice —assuming, of course, my friends are telling the truth, and honestly, most of my friends who’ve heard me sing on a good day have no reason to lie to me).

Marc Almond has been openly gay for most of his career, but dislikes being labelled a “gay artist”, as he feels that opens the door for pigeon-holing and creating the false impression that his work is somehow only important and relevant to the gay community, which it is not, though some of his songs and music videos do engage a clear homo-eroticism, while others simply portray a blatant eroticism. Marc Almond has also been “out” about being a member of the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey; in the last ten years, I’ve occasionally heard that he’s since quietly distanced himself from that organisation, and I’ve yet no confirmation from the Webmistress of his official site (the most relevant contact e-mail I found on his site). While this may just be fan speculation since his accident in 2004 (much like the persistent yet completely falsified story of Charles Darwin’s “deathbed conversion”), I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were true: For every one of the “Ooh, I’m spooky! Hail thyself!” songs of Almond’s, there are at least two or three that display a clear, often urban-based spirituality; while this is technically not completely contrary to the writings of Anton LaVey, the Church of Satan understands the spiritual world to be a manifestation of the human experience, something that only exists within human reality —that is not reality as I understand it, but if that’s what works for another, then more power to them, and all the better if they can understand that this is one of those aspects of reality where understanding and acceptance is any one interpretation of it or another is subject to human experience. I cannot make an Atheist understand and accept reality as I know it any more than he can make me understand and accept theirs as a reality that is not only compatible with my experience but also one that empowers myself.

….but enough about that.

Marc Almond is one of those musicians who wears his influences on his sleeve and manages to do so without being a complete rip-off of those artists. If I had a nickel for every Goth band that or Mod Revival outfit that clearly couldn’t make something that sounded like anything but “Christian Death, only not” or “The Jam, only not” or “Bauhaus, only not” or “The Pretty Things, only not”, I could deposit those nickels into a Cayman Islands account and live comfortably, though not lavishly, off the interest. Marc Almond doesn’t do that, and he’s kind of a Dieselpunk dream singer. His personal style, as shown in his solo career, is clearly in a New Wave / Synthpop idiom, but heavily steeped in a love of Edith Píaf, Jacqués Brel, early Amerikan Jazz and Blues, British music hall, French cabaret, and with the introspective qualities of Rozz Williams and Gitane DeMone with the bite of Siouxsie Sioux and Andi Sexgang. His first solo recrd, Vermin In Ermine practically invented the “dark cabaret” sub-genre about three or four years before Rozz Williams’ Ashes line-up of Christian Death turned up the darkness and threw in a heaping helping of Dada. Yet he’s more than that, he’s one of England’s national treasures.

There’s also a highly Eroic quality to Marc Almond’s life’s work. By “big-E-Erotic”, I don’t necessarily just mean “sexy” (which, of course, it is, but that’s going to be a given —I mean, just look at him), but also hope to imply connotations of that which conveys qualities of Eros and His various epithets: Kallistos, Anikatos, Skhetlios, Eleutherios, Abros, and more. He’s one of the few true music artists, and one of the few who consistently displays a passionate joie de vivre et joi de vie. I can’t help but see, hear, taste Eros when Marc Almond’s music comes on; every single word reveals the folly of Democritus (“Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions,”).

Of course, to be fair, Marc Almond is of a similar school of songwriting as Prince, where any song that comes into his head is clearly good enough to record, even if this means recording the occasional song that just can’t hold a candle to the rest, suggesting perhaps there is a great folly to following one’s passions, but I know better, for I know that there is greatness even in what at first seems the most trite —from Vermin In Ermine‘s “Ugly Head” to “Money” from the Soft Cell demos, he manages to give light to certain truths, often of a personal yet shared nature, saying things that many have felt and wanted to articulate as something worth saying.

If I were casting an opera based on Hellenic mythology, hands down, no questions asked, my first and only choice for Eros would be Marc Almond; I don’t care that he’s fifty, that sort of thing just would not otherwise work — anyway, he looks very good for his age, and most opera are not cast with singers appropriate to the age of the role, if only cos there’s the art of theatrical make-up to take care of that. His voice doesn’t have the range that Apollon would need, and his emotive qualities as a singer are just “disconnected” enough that the passion for this art shows through, but just emotive enough that one simply cannot help but relate. The Moisai would have to be superb yet subtle emotive singers, as would Apollon, Dionysos would have to master dramatic emotions, as would Hermes and Aphrodite, but despite Eros’ purveyance over emotions, or perhaps because of it, to portray the God even in the throes of emotion, there needs to be a clear and dramatic knowledge and understanding of emotion, but a subtler feeling of it, and as a singer, Almond does that. Eros takes this knowledge and understanding and translates it into passion, which can neither be learnt nor understood, but like anything else one can feel, others can recognise when sensed, and what others want to know and understand when it can manifest as a thing of beauty. Marc Almond is nothing if not a passionate singer, and that is nothing if not a gift of Eros.

We are gathered here today to celebrate Derek Jarman

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It’s the anniversary of the birth of Derek Jarman, possibly my favourite director. If he were still alive today, he’d be 70, and he’d be fabulous.

My first exposure to Jarman’s work was possibly his most accessible film, Jubilee, filmed during two weeks using a script that changed regularly as filming progressed, influenced by the strengths and weaknesses of its cast, during the year of the Queen’s Jubilee, 1977, and released the following year. Working titles of the film included the subtitles of “An Anarchic Comedy of Sex and Violence” and “A Time Less Golden”. The overall tone and aesthetic of the film is heavily influenced by the newsworthy punk scene of the day, but met criticisms from the self-appointed faces of that scene, including designer Vivienne Westwood, who shortly after released a t-shirt “An Open Letter to Derek Jarman”, with the front and back design being a barely coherent and incredibly homophobic rant that, as best as anybody with decent reading comprehension could tell, spends around two-hundred words to say nothing more than “I hated your film, and you’re a fag.”

My opinion differs from Ms Westwood’s (who has never apologised for her apparent homophobia in the letter, leading one to assume that not only does her opinion of the film still stand, but so does her apparent opinion of “fags”). From the very first time I saw Jubilee, I saw something about myself; this was a film about oppression, a film about the Crown, a film about history, a Queer fable and parody of morality tales, a film about England, and most importantly, it was a film about what made Derek Jarman, well, Derek Jarman.

This is the way it was and is, but not the way it was told. —Derek Jarman

All of his films are like that, or so I would come to learn. He doesn’t re-write history, he doesn’t re-interpret the facts, he simply makes history relevant to his life, and his life was that of a middle class youth who rejected that life for his own, the life of a Queer Englishman who grew to reject the hushed dual life of a lavender marriage for one of the relative freedom that the world of art and theatre could offer, a defender of male femininity even when he appeared only slightly effete on most given days, a radical traditionalist with emphasis on the radical.

I am certain that the world I lived in is preferable to the one my parents lived in. —Derek Jarman

There’s something about Jubilee that says everything I ever wanted to about my British identity indoctrinated into me by my grandparents. There’s something hard to articulate about it, and must be experienced to understand. Something that only people who understand it innately will ever understand, even if those who do not can still enjoy it, still see the inherent value in it.

Jubilee, though, is not his first film, nor is it his most notorious.

Looking at historical figures and wondering: were they gay? They may have had the same sexual preferences but ‘gay’ is a late twentieth century concept. I always felt uncomfortable with it; it always seemed to me to exude a false optimism. —Derek Jarman


Sebastiane is Derek Jarman’s first feature, though technically it’s credited as a co-write and co-directorship. It’s not my second exposure to Jarman, that position is held by his biopic of Caravaggio, but it was my next after, and after Jubilee, became my most-sought.

Sebastiane is an infamous film and one I have previously written about. Two things that really stand out about this one in British cinema: It is the only film by an English director to have a dialogue written completely in a foreign language, and also that nearly the entire thing is shot with the cast in little more than loincloths, and often not even that —only the opening scene is any real exception. Also of note, it is the only film I know of written entirely in reconstructed Latin vulgaris, the common Latin of the Roman peasants rather than the “classical” dialect of the upper classes. Jarman was also very consistent in his claim that the primary reason for the film’s rampant nudity was that they’d run out of budget for costuming, and in context, it made some sense.

An orgasm joins you to the past. Its timelessness becomes the brotherhood; the bretheren are lovers; they extend the ‘family’. I share that sexuality. It was then, is now and will be in the future. —Derek Jarman

The films of Derek Jarman, as his life progressed, became increasingly more personal. This is evidenced even before he received his diagnosis of being HIV-positive in December of 1986. 1980′s The Tempest takes the classic Shakespearean play and subtly morphs it into a homoerotic fable that, if Jarman’s diaries and published prose are to be believed, had been something of a personal interpretation of the story since his adolescence. 1985′s The Angelic Conversation, another tribute to Shakespeare, is composed of a series of silent film clips laid over atmospheric music and recitations of Shakespeare’s sonnets, hand-picked by Jarman for apparent homoerotic qualities, and read by Judy Dench. The end product is something as autobiographical as only an art film can be.

Yes, all men are homosexual, some turn straight. It must be very odd to be a straight man because your sexuality is hopelessly defensive. It’s like the idea of racial purity. —Derek Jarman

Even at his most serious, there’s a clear and distinct humour permeating his films. His last film, made while blind from AIDS-related illness, is Blue; the entire film’s visuals is nothing more than a blue screen, while bignettes of monologues are read and atmospheric music plays. There’s something very tongue-in-cheek about that, a man who always made films about life and history and identity as he saw it in a poetic sense, is making a film that will give the audience a very literal interpretation of the world as he now sees it.

Until I’d enjoyed being fucked I had not reached balanced manhood. When you overcome your fear you understand that gender has its own prison. When I meet heterosexual men I know that they have experienced only half of love.

Because as an unreconstructed man you had to be in control. It is about control. If you aren’t the dominmant partner in the sex act then you are emasculated, you are unsexed. It took a long time for me to realise the falsity of that. ‘He’s uptight, tight arsed’: you’ve got all of these colloquial expressions about anal sex. It’s different to overcome that conditioning. —Derek Jarman

Possibly the primary feat that mainstream Amerika will regard Jarman for as as the director who “discovered” actress Tilda Swinton, or the man to whom Swinton was “his Muse”. Even Swinton rejects these notions, stating that, if any-one was Jarman’s Muse, it would be himself. Furthermore, it was not Jarman who “discovered” Swinton, if anything, it was her own talents, including Edinborough theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a television mini-series based on the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley that brought her to Jarman’s attention. What kept their working relationship to progress as long as it had, though, was a friendship and fondness of working together.

His background, though, was as a painter and in theatre design. He only started working in the medium of film when a friend gave him a Super-8 home movie camera in the early 1970s as a gift. This is apparent in just about every one of his films, as the visuals are deeply important to the meaning. His biopic of Caravaggio is given mid-Twentieth anachronisms in much the same way the painter himself painted Biblical and Greco-Roman figures in attire and with props contemporary to the 16th Century. The visuals in Sebastiane often come across as a Neo-Classical painting from the Renaissance. And every little cut-away clip during a lengthy soliloquy in The Tempest is just as important as the words.

THIS is How You Name a Sexual Aid Company After an Ancient Goddess

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Hathor Aphrodisia premium lubricants

image posted because I LOVE the design work on this logo

No, really, Athena doesn’t care about your sex life.

While I’m at it, The “Eroscillator” brand sure is expensive —I find this appropriate, especially considering all the graphics illustrating the superior design, and not to mention the goldtone of everything (and not to mention an actual gold-plated Eroscillator), I just can’t afford any of it.

And I gotta give props to Pjur brand’s Eros line of lubes; the Power Cream is honestly the best thing I’ve ever used.

Fund-raising goal met!

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Wow.

So, who would have thought that a couple sentences at the bottom of a net.friend’s blog post could save my day? And in less than thirty-six hours, if timestamps are to be believed. Thank you so much for this. There’s no greater feeling than being comfortable in one’s own skin, and I’m so grateful that there are people in this community who realise this sort of prosthetic for trans men is no more a toy than glasses are for those with poor vision.

Again, I extend a sincere and hearty THANK YOU to those who donated. I’m brainstorming on how best to use the difference —I’m hoping to at least get a fire pit this year, so I’ll probably set it aside toward that.

As always, my Etsy buttons are up, and I’m willing to arrange a tea or coffee reading via Skype, and I’ll probably make another donations call for Kardia tou Thespiai when it gets closer to planting season.