And now for something a little different...

I recently finished watching a show that, at the outset, is highly out of character for me.  It would require the most severe parental guidance warnings in nearly every category - nudity, sex, profanity, drug use, and even occasional violent images [though not easy, I've made it my aim to keep this review PG-13].  For half of the first season, my experience watching was a constant oscillation between sneering "Wow, this show is such trash" to sobbing "Oh my goodness - how is this so good?!?"  It went from being a guilty pleasure show to something much more significant.  In the process, I flew through 5 seasons in one month.

So a little bit of background on the show... Queer as Folk, which centers on a group of gay friends, aired on Showtime from 2000-2005.  It was an adaptation of a British tv show of the same name created by Russell T. Davies (just a few years before he'd revive Doctor Who).  From the clips I've seen online, the first season of the US/Canadian version (though set in Pittsburgh, it was filmed in Toronto) relies heavily (at times shot-for-shot) on the British one (1999-2000).  Fun fact... the British QaF starred Aiden Gillen (most known as Game of Thrones's Petyr Baelish, The Wire) and Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Crimson Peak) - reportedly break out performances for both of them.  The American QaF centers on Brian Kinney (Gale Harold)--a narcissistic, ego-centric, hedonistic, self-proclaimed heterophobe, and all around a-hole.  He is also the most effervescently sensual character I have ever encountered.  And I'm in love with him.

[a little bit of Ashton Kutcher, a little bit of Nathan Fillion, a lot of sexy]

The show opens on the night when, after leaving Babylon (a dazzling gay club), Brian meets a young, impressionable Justin Taylor (Randy Harrison) and takes him home.  There's no "will they/won't they" in this show--Justin loses his virginity with Brian and is completely smitten.  There are just a few problems.  Brian, 29, is a successful advertising agent on his way to becoming an executive; he owns an awe-inspiring loft, designer clothes, a fancy car... despite deep-seeded insecurities about getting older, he has it made.  Justin...is 17 and in his senior year of high school.  Also, in coming out to his parents and at school, his life is instantly much more complicated.

[Justin "Sunshine" Taylor and Brian Kinney]

On top of all that--and in some ways the crux of the show--Brian doesn't do relationships.  He does one-night-stands...lots and lots of them (e.g. in the pilot he bangs 3 separate guys in a 24 hour period, with Justin being the middle of the trio).  As the hottest stud in town, his character apparently gets so much action he can walk into a bar and sigh with boredom that "I've done everyone here."  When Justin seeks him out after their first night together, Brian tells him:

"I've had you. What happened last night, it was for fun. You wanted me, and I wanted you. That's all it was... Look, I. don't. believe. in. love. I believe in f---ing. It's honest, it's efficient. You get in and out with the maximum of pleasure and minimum of bullsh-t. Love is something that straight people tell themselves they're in, so they can get laid. And then they end up hurting each other, because it was all based on lies to begin with. If that's what you want, then go find yourself a pretty little girl... and get married."

And yet, despite his best efforts, Brian's life becomes increasingly intertwined with Justin's, often through tragedy.  Theirs is an on-and-off again, unconventional, and yet profound romance.  And oh what a romance it is...

[If nothing else, watch this "ridiculously romantic" montage...]

There's Michael, who's been Brian's best friend since high school when they both came out.  While he is the only person Brian won't sleep with, as his not-entirely-platonic friend, Michael's also the only one he'll say "I love you" to.  The pilot also introduces us to partners Lindsay, an art historian, and Melanie, an intense lawyer.  Lindsay, who'd always been the "Wendy" to Brian's "Peter," is about to have a baby--thanks to a donation from Brian.  Then there's the other best-friend pairing: Ted, a deeply insecure accountant who loves opera, and Emmet, the stereotypical to archetypal "flamboyant one" who is also one of the show's most engaging and inspirational characters.  

[L to R, Emmet (Peter Paige), Ted (Scott Lowell), Brian (Gale Harold), Ben (Robert Gant), Lindsay (Thea Gill), Michael (Hal Sparks)
Justin (Randy Harrison) and Mel  (Michelle Clunie)]

The group act as a non-traditional family through many ups and downs, united especially in their fond ridiculing of Brian.  While his actions often come off as heartless, it becomes apparent that he is willing to do what he believes will be best for his friends--even if they hate him for it.  He is willing to bear that hatred if it means his friends will have better opportunities.  He's the guy who says he won't help and then actually, quietly does all the work.  And then, there are a few times his own pain surfaces and the world seems to stop when Brian Kinney cries.  As the series progresses, he slowly, subtly changes.  Eventually, he is self-aware enough to admit:

My mother is a frigid b-tch, my father was an abusive drunk; they had a hateful marriage, which is probably why I am unwilling, or unable, to form a long-term committed relationship of my own. The fact that I drink like a fish, abuse drugs and have more or less redefined promiscuity doesn't help... much.

If nothing else, this show as a character study of what can happen when a broken person is loved. 

[Season 4 promo]

But enough of an introduction to the characters... It's worth discussing that QaF deals more frankly and graphically with sex than anything else I've ever seen - including Game of Thrones.  But there is an old adage in the study of literature (and I imagine other arts) that "It's always about sex... unless its actually about sex and then its about something different."  While a vast over-simplification, there's a reason this saying has stuck around and I've often found it's that second half that's accurate.  So while this show is unashamedly, from the get-go, in-your-face "about sex," I've found that it's actually about something else, something more.  In the world of the show, sex is a way people work through insecurities and their identities

The show is far from perfect.  It's too melodramatic.  It reinforces some at-best unflattering, at-worst harmful stereotypes.  The cast is alarmingly white.  The dialogue can be campy.  Groundbreaking for 2000, the showrunners clearly went for shock more than sophistication or nuance.  I think the reason I haven't been able to stop thinking about it is how paradoxical it is - while not always "good," it is meaningful.

In the end, Queer as Folk is a show about overcoming.  As the title suggests, the show reappropriates many of the derogatory terms used to demean LGBTQ people to make them empowering.  The characters face issues ranging from the dark--homelessness, bashing, HIV+ status, discrimination, conversion therapy, infidelity, prostitution, rape, addiction, and death--to the beautiful--adoption, reconciliation, recovery, and gay marriage...including the first legal gay wedding ever shown on US television.  While, as a straight person, most of this show was a learning experience for me, I identified strongly with their perseverance in overcoming, in loving each other, and in living the truth.  At one point in the show, Emmet is offered a relationship he wants but at the price of secrecy and he responds by saying, "I never had to live a lie. And I'm not about to start now. Not for you. Not for anyone."  Watching this show reaffirmed for me that I want to be the type of person that doesn't live a lie for anyone, that the me you get is honest even if it's raw.  

loving love

Mini-review: Eleanor & Park

This is a book I read several months ago, but due to a conversation with a colleague I realized I had never reviewed it and that I probably should.  

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Title:  Eleanor & Park

Author:  Rainbow Rowell

Published:  2012

Year I read it:  2014

One sentence summary:  This 1980's, YA, Romance isn't what you'd expect; it's about red-headed, socially awkward, physically and emotionally impoverished Eleanor and half-American, half-Korean, cool-kid Park - two different "outsiders" who discover that true love means becoming "insiders" of something beautiful.

Interesting fact:  Though it won critical acclaim and awards like Amazon's Teen Book of the Year, Amazon's Top Ten Book of the Year, and Goodreads Choice Award for Best Young Adult Book of the Year, the novel was censored in some American high schools. NPR addressed this in their pop-culture blog, saying, ""What's worrying about treating Eleanor & Park as a nasty book, or a dirty book, or an immoral book, is that it transforms talking about how to survive ugliness into something that's no different from ugliness itself. It makes the act of telling a story about rising above misery a miserable thing."

Three reasons to read it:

• This book feels like John Green (The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska) and Stephen Chbosky (Perks of Being a Wallflower) had a sister and she wrote a high-school romance set in 1980's Nebraska.  I say this because she captures the interiority of adolescence beautifully, aware of the dark, but not overwhelmed by it.  Alternating between Eleanor & Park as narrators, she carefully and graciously uncovers the different ways we suffer pain - be it poverty, racism, abuse, or bullying.  It is a profound book. 
• I read this book in one sitting.  It's that compelling.
• I hadn't read a true Romance for a while - a book about falling in love.  Romance was usually incidental to the fantasy adventure or contemporary novel I was reading.  But Rowell does an incredibly job recounting what it's like to fall in love for the first time.  She takes a few pages just to convey the sensation of what it's like to first hold someone's hand.  It may sound sappy, but it is a breathtaking story of what love is like.

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• The story does get dark.  There is mature language in an abusive context, which could definitely be a trigger to some.

Great quotes:

Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.

Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.

“I want everyone to meet you. You're my favorite person of all time.” 

I don't like you, Park," she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. "I..." - her voice nearly disappeared - "think I live for you."  He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into his pillow.  "I don't think I even breathe when we're not together," she whispered. "Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?" He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with 'I want you' in his ears. 

“Nothing before you counts," he said. "And I can't even imagine an after." 

November 1st

You are one of my heroes
This day and every day
but especially today.

Today, may you feel even a measure
of the sun's warmth on your face.
May you taste the beautiful things of life--
tea, laughter, wine, color, chocolate,
dresses with pockets, stories,
and a host of other wonders.

May you catch a glimpse of Meaning
walking through the garden of your life,
softly touching the flowers, yes, but also
the soil, the roots with Her bare feet.

Today,
you are loved.
And yesterday,
you are loved.
And tomorrow,
and tomorrow's tomorrow,
you are infinitely loved.

Mystery brought you forth, and She
sends Meaning to see you through.
And in all, They revel
in the intrinsic goodness that is you.
And in every tomorrow
you are loved.

This week I've had Birdy's cover of The National's "Terrible Love" on repeat.

"It takes an ocean not to break..."

Meditating

I've been meditating on these words and images from the Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011).  Enjoy.



The nuns taught us there are two ways through life...
The way of Nature
And the way of Grace. 
You have to choose which one you'll follow.

Grace doesn't try to please itself. 
Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. 
Accepts insults and injuries.
 
Nature only wants to please itself. 
Get others to please it too. 
Likes to lord it over them. 
To have its own way. 

It finds reasons to be unhappy--
When all the world is shining around it,
When love is smiling through all things.
They taught us that no one who loves the way of grace
Ever comes to a bad end.

Lord, why? Where were you?

Did you know what happened? 

Do you care? 

Help each other. 

Love everyone. 

Every leaf. 

Every ray of light. 

Forgive. 

The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by.

Clips: The Way of Nature & the Way of Grace  and the incredible Creation Sequence.

Metamorphosis, Pt. 4

Being
moved by a Dylan Thomas quote

while the Zimmerman who borrowed
both his inspiration and his name
croons overhead in this cafe
fueled by community rather than corporation.

A reminder that "You can find
beautiful instruments anywhere in the world."

Yes, beautiful conversations with beautiful friends
that embolden my resolve
to embrace mystery and revel in complexity.
Translating Baudelaire direct,
marveling at de Tocqueville,

Dancing away the despair.
Daring to hold both the light and the dark
within my weary soul.
Turn the corner and find beauty again.

New Year's Wishes

Copied in it's entirety from Neil Gaiman's Tumblr.  Happy New Year and enjoy:

The whole New Year’s Wishes sequence in one place…

A decade ago, I wrote:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

And almost half a decade ago I said,

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

In 2011, my wish for each of us is small and very simple.

And it’s this.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

 

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

 

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

 

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

 

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

 

And last year, I wrote:

It’s a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world. 

So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we’re faking them. 

And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it’s joy we’re looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation. 

So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.