January 26, 2002, 1:32 a.m.
The sentimentalizing work of kitsche (crying eagle
decals and endless tribute albums); the limits of queer theory and
the conceptual mobility (and not) of drag; the privileged subject of US
minority discourse; moral panics about "infection" (viral,
symbolic or otherwise) and moral claims mobilized by"identity;" the
resilience of race not as an imagined "essence" but a fluid agent of
control; therapeutic discourses of refugee trauma; coffee table
photographs of "migrations" and "refugees;" Nixon's "plumbers,"
conspiracy theories and executive "suicide;" that unwieldy thing
that is an academic career; the centerfold photograph of the (white)
"gay heros" of 9-11 in a national gay magazine -- a New York City
fireman and male police officer press chaste lipflesh under a clear
blue Manhattan skyline -- and the figure of the queer patriot who
desires citizenship in the national imaginary.
(Here I will I confess, I have no such desire.)
I am restless, distracted, overwhelmed. Where do I begin? I sit down
to write but the cat (with no prompting from me) drapes himself over the
keyboard and stares at me unblinkingly with beseeching cat eyes. Rachel
calls from 3,000 miles away and we discuss for hours her qualifying
exams, my dissertation woes, Judith Butler's The Psychic Life of
Power, her street medic training and all the ladies we
know who are in "progressive" porn films (including the now-famous
Bend Over Boyfriend). Mark and I recap the daily news over
dinner with much rolling of the eyes and slumping despair, and discuss
what a responsible photojournalist practice might look like (in the
mental notes I make, I checkmark Roland Barthes and Rey Chow for
the next time). I pray fervently that Tara isn't the one marked for
death in this season of Buffy, wonder how The X-Files
series finale will manage to tie up all the many loose and dangling
ends, and note that the appearance of mysterious infants
(Angel, X-Files) is always a bad, bad sign.
January 17, 2002, 4:59 p.m.
Someone shoot me now -- my computer just ate half my dissertation
chapter and replaced it with lots and lots of squares and assorted
symbols. I think I'll go crawl under the covers now and ponder my
future in retail.
January 16, 2002, 10:34 a.m.
listening: our collection of 80s seven-inches
I have been reading about the development of the x-ray and the lab
technicians at the turn of the century, exposing their arms to radiation
to measure its effects, even as the cancer grows, the lesions develop,
the functions deteriorate, and important things like fingers drop off
like brittle candy. The economy of suffering apparently has scientific
value as well. And I'm thinking too about the eroticism once attached to
the x-ray --thinking of those demonstrative film clips of a skeletal figure
opening a compact and applying lipstick to the vague outlines of flesh
over bone-- and how this machine that exposes intimate internal workings
was denounced as an immoral invention, a nightmare of seduction and
destruction.