 |
six little things 4: hooray for reality
The supposedly generational film of my youth that I most despise is Reality Bites, so I would hate for anyone to think that this issue title, "Hooray For Reality," is offered in a spirit of irony. I prefer willed stupidity to cheap cynicism, so regard "Hooray For Reality" as an expression of hope.
I met artist Sean Neary in that brief, now historical, period — August 2005 — in which I attepted to live in New Orleans. Sean and I once attended an exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Art centering on "queer identity." We puzzled over a placard beneath a sepia-toned photograph of three muscle-boys hugging. "In the late 70s and early 80s, threeways, or sexual encounters involving three participants, were popular in larger cities, such as New York." I expressed my admiration for the final comma. Sean expressed a desire to spray paint the front of the museum.
This past October, my friend Dimitri called me to say he had been by the museum — the atrium roof of which had failed during Katrina — and saw a Dumpster full of water-damaged paperwork, distended plasterboard partitions, broken office furniture, etc. Among this refuse, he managed to spot and retrieve the little placard explaining the historical and geographic limits of the one-time popularity of threeways.
front page |