Should I need to gallop over dark waters to you on short notice

[sovay]

I dreamed of running around a devastated forest with a backpack of videocassettes, which I guess is how my brain interpreted the imminent 'Thon. Have some stray links.

1. Celebrating Annie Glenn on the eve of her hundredth birthday.

2. Christopher Eccleston being candid about mental health.

3. I like both of these poems: Liz Berry's "The Burning" and Talin Tahajian's "Bad classics."

I shall return in some number of hours.

Comments

[teenybuffalo]

I was interested by the interview with Christopher Eccleston. Part of me worries that I set attractive famous people on pedestals too much, but then one of them does something like this and I think, no, it's important for people to see that fame doesn't make one immune to mental illness, loss, and deep discomfort with oneself.

The gender expression stuff was sure burying the lede, at least for me. I want him, and middle-aged and older people as entrenched in public masculinity as he, to be able to wear eyeliner sometimes if they enjoy it. And while we're at it, I want them to benefit from the new concepts of gender that I only seem to see being talked about among people my age or younger. Never thought I would say, "You should be on Tumblr!" to anyone, but here we are.

[sovay]

Part of me worries that I set attractive famous people on pedestals too much, but then one of them does something like this and I think, no, it's important for people to see that fame doesn't make one immune to mental illness, loss, and deep discomfort with oneself.

It's becoming more common, which is how I know that Paddy Considine is on the spectrum and Daniel Radcliffe has sensory integration issues and Chris Evans is an introvert on a galactic scale; it's now a thing you can talk about in interviews as opposed to a thing your publicist is paid to hush up. I also support people not being expected to disclose their total medical history, since that is its own can of boundaries.

The gender expression stuff was sure burying the lede, at least for me.

Also the first I had heard of it and something I am heartened that he is becoming more comfortable with, if he's talking about it. I am strongly in favor of eyeliner (and the rest of its metonymy) being accessible to people of whatever orientation and gender who would like it. In the meantime I remind myself that it is probably unhelpful for people with serious body issues to shout things at them like "OH MY GOD GO FOR THE ANDROGYNY YOU'LL LOOK AMAZING" even though that is my immediate reaction.

And while we're at it, I want them to benefit from the new concepts of gender that I only seem to see being talked about among people my age or younger.

Older people do talk about it! Growing up, I knew at least two people of my parents' generation who had openly expressed non-binary or genderqueer identities, which just statistically speaking means I suspect I was in the ambit of several more. Neither used gender-neutral pronouns; one used male pronouns but was very clear that his masculinity was neither cis nor het and the other switched pronouns depending on presentation. I think a serious part of the perceived absence of discussion is the difference between having a concept of something and having a particular term for it.