Jo > Recent Status Updates

"Instead of asking whether anyone should be locked up or go free, why don't we think about why we solve problems by repeating the kind of behaviour that brought us the problem in the first place?" Ruth Wilson Gilmore

"Th truth about sexual assault & rape & patriarchy & white supremacy & other abuses of power is tht we are swimming in them, in a society tht has long normalised them, & tht they often play out intimately.

Th truth is, sometimes it takes a long time for us to realise th harm tht has happened to us. And longer to realise we have caused harm to others."

"...I have been trying to discern when a call out feels powerful, like the necessary move, versus when it feels like a feeding frenzy."

"My third unthinkable thought - why does it feel like we are committed to punishment, and enjoying it? Why do our movements more & more often feel like we are moving with sharp teeth against ourselves? And what is at stake because of that pattern, that feeling?"

"Th tools of swift & predatory justice feel good to us, familiar, groove in the hand easily from repeated use & training, briefly satisfying. But these tools are often blunt & senseless."

"See, at its heart, fashion is like a school of fish that twists and turns and won't let you swim with them."

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?'" Aldo Leopold

"A drag queen - a good drag queen - is not there to mock women, but to transcend the limitations of masculinity."

"The gay roots of pop culture is an embattled terrain of making the people happy and being readily dismissed as insipid."

"Now drag is everyone's escapism - perhaps more like it used to be. Camp is the stuff of wedding reception. Doing the YMCA is a first-world coping mechanism. Over-identifying with the diva vocals of spurned women is no longer the sole prerogative of gay men."

"I texted him a link to a 1987 essay by Leo Bersani, 'Is the Rectum a Grave?' He texted back: Oooh. Don't tell me how it ends." 🤣

On 'queer community': "We hear the word 'community' all the time. Often it sounds like wishful thinking. Queer community is just as vague - just piling a confusing identity onto an elusive concept. Maybe 'community', as Famous says, excludes inherently. At the word 'community', both of us are prone to hear 'clique'."

Re a Wolfgang Tillmans video installation: "The video made me consider the nightclub as a site of loss - losing inhibitions, your friends, your possessions, yourself. It's a place to find something through abandonment."

"Memoir is how you groom yourself. Memoir is drag."

On the 'gay shame' movement: "It seemed though that the group's intent was generally less about introspection & more about being enlightened queers rebuking benighted gays - in which case, shame was not a reclaimed affect, but a verb: a wagging finger."

"Sometimes, Joan would watch Vanessa do a reverse three-point turn, her palm flat as it moved against the wheel. It never failed to light something up in Joan."

*screeches in gay*

"In 2004, the Anglo residents of New Masset & Port Clements threw in their lot with th Haida, signing an according that says, essentially, that they trust th stewardship of th local Haida more than that of Weyerhaeuser [the logging conglomerate] & th provincial government. One of the signatories is Dale Lore, the current mayor of Port Clements; a logging road builder by trade..."

"It seems that in order to succeed - or even function - in this world, a certain tolerance for moral and cognitive dissonance is necessary."

"Lots of ppl take inspiration from trees & forests, & we often like to think of them as sanctuaries of peace & tranquility. But this is deceptive; forests are, in fact, ruthlessly competitive places, where trees - and even branches on th same trunk - are engaged in life-and-death struggles for optimal position. Th winner in this slow-motion race for speed & light is determined by th tree or branches tht photosynthesi

"It has always seemed strange to me,' said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness & generosity, openess, honesty, understanding & feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism & self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."

"...but, always, I feel the lurking horror of an ending...is this the bind of great good fortune, I wondered? Does joy come parcelled up with the knowledge of the end of joy?"

Why do we have a "man of the people", but no female equivalent, asks the protagonist? "People, I suspect, are largely suspicious of a talkative, gregarious woman; they favour the demure and the moderate. Even the very beautiful become questionable if they're considered garrulous or especially extroverted."

"When our actions begin to integrate with our beliefs, when we are doing some of the work that we know needs to be done, we have less need for the various doubles our culture offers up disguised as a good life."

"This is th pwer of collective organizng: it expands th sense of th possible by expandng th possible 'we'. It persuades participants tht, contrary2what they hav been told, their pain is not th result of a failure of character or insufficient hard wrk. Rather, it is th consequence of economic&social systems precisely designed2produce cruel outcomes, systems tht can b changed only if ppl drop th shame&unite2 shard goal

Citing Keeanga-Yamahtta: "Struggle helps us see each other. It helps us break from our individualism & th particularities of our identities." When individuals organize toward a goal, they discover not only tht they share interests with ppl who might look (& vote) very differently from them but also tht a new sense of power flows from this alliance."

"...time2loosen th grip on various forms of proprietary pain & selfhood & reach toward many different forms of possible connection & kin, toward anyone who shares a desire to confront th forces of annihilation & extermination & their mindsets of purity & perfection... It will not be enough to protect 'our' ppl; we will need2 have th stamina of true solidarity, which defines 'our ppl' as 'all ppl'."

Citing Arielle Angel, EiC of Jewish Currents: "But what is clear is this: We are going to need each other. This means staying attuned to the possibility of a collective power, instead of attached to a proprietary pain."

"...as individuals & groups: we want separation & distinctness, & we want unity & community. Th tension is fruitful & does not need to be resolved. Th problem lies in the fact tht our culture is so biased toward one tendency over th other. It's th scramble4separateness tht is richly rewarded & encouraged in our zero-sum economy, while th urge to act in solidarity & mutual aid with others is discounted & disappeared"