Status Updates From Meanwhile In Another Part O...

'Curiously, we hardly ever expect to be the object of revenge.'

'The teacher-disciple relationship often acquires the features of an erotic bond. The passing of an elder's wisdom and the physical offerings of youth are traditionally the two sides of an exchange, and the matter of moral tales and ribald stories. This exchange has a long—'

Blah blah blah.

I can't read creepy blither like this without thinking of that one substitute teacher from 'Daria' and his unpublished novel.

'"Why don't you come over to our place on Saturday to watch the Perry Como show, then drink a few too many beers and say you're too tight to drive home and ask to stay over. The only extra bed is in my room."

'"Okay," he said in that stifled voice. He seemed as startled by my efficient deviousness as I was by his compliance.'

Heh.

There's an undercurrent of parental sexual abuse in Baldwin's 'The Outing' - a dry run for Go Tell It On The Mountain, I think? all the characters have the same names - that the story never addresses outright and that I haven't seen any of the other reviews mention. Maybe I'm reading too much into Johnnie's angry inner monologue.

'I remember a psychological test[:] a previous class had warned us that if we drew a female figure, the counsellor would assume that our fantasy was to be a woman; if we drew a male figure, that we were attracted to a man. In either case we would be lectured on the terrors of deviancy. Deviants [...] always ended up murdered by sailors on the dockside. When my turn came, I drew the figure of a monkey.'