MoseySusan

No. Maybe they’d appreciate it if you could see clear to throw in a box.

The jars with a wire are common at the makers market here, filled with bath products, drink mix, turned into candles…

Whether layered, jiggly, wrinkled, flappy…I’m all for living into our bodies.

Yes. But it’s been awhile, and I’m not sure where the drafts are anymore.

Although, I do wonder whether AI generates a circumcised image. Globally, only about a third of men have a circumcision, but in the US the number is closer to 80%. I wonder if the camera applies some geo-cultural metric or if it defaults to whatever the preponderance of shared digital images.

A hellscape, I tell you. It’s going to be the Agora at Athens all over again, 24/7/365 nudes everywhere. In living color. This penis, that nipple, a tuft of hair. There’ll be no escaping the beauty and balance of the human form. No more hidden information, no mystique. Just naked apes everywhere you turn.

I am also waiting for a delivery. I got a tracking number on Friday. Maybe it will arrive; maybe it won’t.

Those toes! Does he run fast?

“On belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus” It is for all ‘literalists of the imagination,’ poets or not, that miracle is possible, possible and essential. Are some intricate minds nourished on concept, as epiphytes flourish high in the canopy? Can they subsist on the light, on the half of metaphor that’s not grounded in dust, grit, heavy carnal clay? Do signs contain and utter, for them all the reality that they need? Resurrection, for them, an internal power, but not a matter of flesh? For the others, of whom I am one, miracles (ultimate need, bread of life) are miracles just because people so tuned to the humdrum laws: gravity, mortality — can’t open to symbol’s power unless convinced of its ground, its roots in bone and blood. We must feel the pulse in the wound to believe that ‘with God all things are possible,’ taste bread at Emmaus that warm hands broke and blessed. + Denise Levertov

So, what’s the final word? Are we going with Oddly or FoS?

We can start by dialing down the World War rhetoric. There are specific players in this strike, which has not risen to global-wide engagement.

I am very sad. The most beautiful day yet this year, but I’m sick with the flu mr had earlier. My covid test said negative. I’m confused and feeling ill. #2 has it also. So, no bike ride, no hike, no top rope climbing class, no swimming. Just bleh. And a turtle Blizzard from DQ.

Right? This is my modern take, too. But I just saw Rick Steves, travel guide, feature women’s forms carved in stone dating from the Neolithic. Figures of nude women are among the first artworks created by humans. Maybe these current deepfake images tap into something primitive, a need to manifest the generative power of female, to hold it, fetishized in two dimensions. lol…

Memphis.

Right. And to bring the discussion back around to the original point, I understand you to say that literary portrayal and biography of gay coming-of-age experiences are, in fact, pornography and an attempt to normalize perversion. Especially when read aloud by someone in drag. And access to pornography in elementary school is the gateway to thinking it’s ok to create deepfake nudes of classmates in high school. I have to agree that access to pornography and experimentation with nudity are common in the coming-of-age experiences for a lot of us. I can see how access to another person’s story about their developing sexuality and experimentation could cause a kid to believe they’re not doing anything wrong. “It’s in the books I read from the school library.” I agree that grades K-6 are too young for stories about being 10-+. Not enough life experiences to comprehend autobiographical accounts written by an adult who has the benefit of hindsight. Autobiography is curated memory. And has many of the same qualities as literary history. But taking a photo of a classmate with the intent to fake a nude may or may not be related to the literary canon of one’s childhood. I’m leaning unrelated. Having worked with teens for a very long time, It seems more about power than about perversity. Or about listening to a costumed actor read a book.

Outrage isn’t key information, nor newsworthy. I’ll listen to my friends repeat all the manufactured outrage, but I won’t pursue it myself.

I read NYT, WSJ, and Reuters. NPR. I’m not missing much. If it’s newsworthy, I pretty much have access to it.

I just want the same facts you have so that we’re talking about the same events. I’ve seen the reports of gay coming of age stories being removed from elementary school libraries. And of opposition to drag queen story time in public libraries. But I’m not aware of drag queen story time in schools or of the forced attendance to their reading of gay coming of age stories to children. That would be a problem for me, too. From reports I’ve read, our longstanding policy of local control in school districts is working, and parents are drawing public attention to inappropriate reading material in elementary school libraries.

My narrative includes a factual understanding of theatrical performance. It also wonders why none of my news sources includes the story about school children being exposed to sexually explicit material during story hour. That one’s off my radar. I’ve read the accounts of public library story hour with a drag queen, though.

It looks great! I like the linoleum. It’s good flooring for pets, probably has an asbestos mastic holding it down, and similar patterns and colors are coming around.

As the neighbor roars away on his Harley, I’m reminded of a favorite poem by William Stafford. Fifteen, by William Stafford South of the bridge on Seventeenth I found back of the willows one summer day a motorcycle with engine running as it lay on its side, ticking over slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen. I admired all that pulsing gleam, the shiny flanks, the demure headlights fringed where it lay; I led it gently to the road, and stood with that companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen. We could find the end of a road, meet the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about hills, and patting the handle got back a confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen. Thinking, back farther in the grass I found the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale- I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand over it, called me good man, roared away. I stood there, fifteen

More than one play has cross-dressing. And there were no female actors in theater at the time, so literally every female character was portrayed by a man in female costume.

Powder puff football…

I did mention ol Milton. But I spelled his last name wrong. And Monty Python, who were the most affective costumed performers of my formative years.