The Pink Agendist
by E.B. de Mas, reachable at: pink.agendist@yahoo.com
Month: July, 2012
July 31, 2012
The Homophobia Song
I think I forgot to post this a few months back… anyway, here it is:
July 31, 2012
Fascinating story: The HuffPo Business Model: Deliberately Obliterating the Separation Between Paid Advertising and Real Reporting – By Yasha Levine – The eXiled
Worth Reading:
“For all the problems of traditional media, at least newspapers have some sort of a wall between news and advertising. Sure, advertisers and sponsors still wield considerable influence over editorial content, but at least there is a tension between the two opposing forces. The Huffington Post, on the other hand, is about knocking that wall down—all in the name of democratic empowerment. After all, the separation between editorial and advertising discriminates against the corporate point of view. Why even have the division? Why is a CEO’s point of view less valuable than that of a reporter? Who makes that decision?
HuffPo ends this discrimination by leveling the playing field, and letting the reader decide: Rather than publishing their advertisers’ press releases and ads, editors refashion them as blog posts and articles that look like the rest of HuffPo, and allow the company to be “part of the community.”
In journalism, this is considered corrupt and manipulative. At HuffPo, it’s called “sponsor-generated content.”
Naturally, advertisers love HuffPo’s sponsor-generated content strategy…”
Click here for the full article:
July 29, 2012
More Long Day’s Journeys into Night
Jacqueline opened her eyes at 6 AM on her two by two meter Jacaranda bed, alone, as she did every day. Now in her seventies, she had taken to waking up at six because she knew that on the other side of the Atlantic it was exactly the same time her grandson was opening his eyes. Alan got up at noon, no matter where he was. If he had to, he would force himself to stay in bed, awake, looking at his watch and smoking. He used to say it was something about not conforming to silly bourgeois normality. Staying in bed until noon, what a way to be a non-conformist. He no longer took her formerly regular calls and when he did respond his answers were short and rude or long winded, full of resentment and finger pointing. It seemed he had forgotten everything they had shared. That time at the Grand Café in Moulins, the many others at Grand Café des Capucines in Paris. The many hours they spent together at the Louvre, at the Musée d’Orsay, buying books along the Seine, looking at the jewelry shop windows in the Place Vendôme. The time she wanted to buy him the leather file-o-fax at the Galleries Lafayette and they were closing. An unpleasant Algerian cashier refused to take their money and told them to come back the next day. “Ungrateful immigrant”, Lili said to him. She walked out of the shop with the file-o-fax in hand without paying. How they laughed once they were in the cab on the way home. Alan looking through the back window every few minutes concerned the police might be following them. She wondered who this American was who always answered Alan’s phone when she called, she remembered Highsmith’s Mr. Ripley. What if Alan was locked in a room somewhere or dead, and the American had robbed him? She dismissed the thought as absurd, then possible, then absurd again. After all, Alan’s letters couldn’t have been written by anyone but him. Particularly the cruel, belligerent letters he sent his grandfather who in turn had them xerox copied and sent to her as evidence that she’d created some sort of vicious, emotionless monster. She wondered where it all went wrong for him, after all, he had everything any child could dream of. Such a lovely mild-mannered father. Alan was always somewhat somber, but always funny. What humor, what wit! Even when it was cruel wit it was funny. The other grandchildren were all content, happy even. But Alan was obviously different, nothing was ever really enough for him. The others were grateful and admired everything she and Dr. Cottin had accomplished in their lives. They understood their position in the world was a luxury, to live in such a world without having to do very much except playing by the rules. Their work and connections had made it possible for the entire family to be socially recognized, invited everywhere, to live in great comfort. All the others felt they were already at the finish line, that they’d won the race. Alan behaved as if they were a platform to better things and quite an innadequate one at that. How dare he? To live in Marbella? Really? Appalling, but he doesn’t understand. All those Arabs, those pompous impoverished French and German aristocrats, and worse of all the crude Spanish. Who eats garbanzo beans? Pigs and the Spanish, that was a joke we used to make at the Lycée in the 16th arrondisement. Paris was flooded with Spanish servants after the Spanish civil war. But still, he’s my grandson and I love him. He’ll come back as soon as he realizes that lifestyle he’s chosen is absurd. I’m sure of it. One day we’ll sit again at Chez Francis in the red leather booths, we’ll celebrate one of our birthdays at the gardens at di Liana. I saw her last month, what a caricature, her bottom is as wide as she is tall. Every time Alan saw her he would whisper “popotain” in my ear, it’s what we call huge bottoms in Provence. We’d laugh. When he’s not around I don’t really have anyone to talk to, at least no one who understands everything I say. My children always presume I’m criticizing them, they twist everything. I’m sure he’ll realize one day that the gay thing is just a phase. It’s not a good life, just look at all those people, Rock Hudson, Nureyev and even my hairdresser Stephane, such sad lives, all of them dead now. I was sure Dr. Castro would have fixed all of that, but obviously he didn’t. Who knows what they actually discussed. Sometimes I have my doubts about Dr. Castro. A therapist with a son committed to a mental institution, how absurd? The love between parents and children is too primal, too natural to be affected even by what they call “mental illness”, that’s just another invention to justify people’s behavior. So they don’t have to take responsibility for themselves. Except Albert of course, his problem was addiction and that really is a mental illness. I know because I had my days of smoking and drinking, I even tried the marijuana in the 60’s. What a strange time, Luau parties, Japanese themed parties, torches in the garden. Vinicius de Moraes, Chico Buarque, all those artists and minds sitting here on our terrace. Bossanova being created on our terrace. Jean-Paul Sartre so serious and Simone de Beauvoir pretending to not be so serious when they came to stay in 1960. I wonder how Chico Buarque and Marietta Severo’s son is doing? Or was it their daughter? I can’t really remember, but I remember we were the godparents. Sometimes when I’m laying in the hammock I can close my eyes and it’s like Vinicius is right there next to me, sitting in one of the white slat chairs, cigarette in one hand, his whiskey glass between his legs, the bottle next to his foot. He’s strumming his guitar and changing the lyrics to his songs, making them up as he goes along, turning them into jokes. By late afternoon he would have gone into one of the bedrooms and come back with a pillow to make himself more comfortable. My husband, Alan Sr., would have long been in bed. He was always such a stick in the mud. Not like his son and grandsons. Oh how funny it was when little Alan had his first glass of wine, had I let him he would probably have finished off the bottle. And how all my friends loved him at parties and weddings. The husbands all refusing to dance and then Anne Marie had the brainwave to ask Alan to dance. How he looked at me! “A gentleman can never say no to a lady’s invitation”, I told him. What a sight, him so small and handsome in his dark blue suit, red tie, not even twelve years old, by the end of that night he could dance anything. He probably danced with over twenty women. They all still ask about him and how he’s doing. Sometimes I can’t control myself and I break into tears.
Lili yet again broke into tears. She looked at the stack of books around her room, there were so many it looked like art, post-modernist paneling, trompe l’oeil that was real. She reached for her reading glasses on the night stand and then for the old wooden box on the floor. It had been her grandmother’s old sewing box, but she didn’t sew, so it became a box for cd’s. She considered putting on Vinicius, but instead she chose Bethania. It was so easy to cry to Maria Bethania. It made the younger Alan so present, all that raw emotion. He loved it. Such deep, sad eyes he had, even when he was tiny, they’d fill with water when he listened to music. Lili pushed her head deeper into the pillow as if muffling the sound would also muffle the sadness. Deep down, she knew there was the risk, the gnawing, violent risk that it was all over, that she’d never see him again. He’d threatened it enough times. “If people in this family don’t stop treating me like some sort of bastard child, one day I’m just going to disappear, never come back.”- It wasn’t my fault. I know it wasn’t. I wrote to his grandfather often enough, I explained to him he should make a special effort, shouldn’t treat that woman’s children better than he treated his own blood. But he never listened. Men can be so foolish, young men and old men. Always prepared to battle each other like dogs fighting over a bitch in heat. Except men don’t even know what they’re fighting for most of the time. Victor Cousin said “Art for Art’s sake”, but for men it’s “fight for fight’s sake”- The English say it was Oscar Wilde’s line, but it was certainly not. Those English, always trying to take credit for things they didn’t do. Elgine Marbles my foot, they’re Greek Marbles. Lili took a velvet necklace box from her night table. In it she kept stones, a garnet, a blue green turquoise, a citrine, jade, sodalite, lapis lazuli and an amethyst. These were the stones she used to align her chakras. She placed some of them on her body and in her mind she could hear her grandson’s voice making fun of her rituals. The jade piece went in the center of the heart. The tears continued to stream from her eyes and ran down her cheeks and further down by the ears until they dropped onto the white linen pillow case. Suddenly she felt a tingle down her spine, goosebumps. She stopped crying, it was a bad sensation, a premonition. She picked up the cordless phone which had been laying on the bed since the night before and pressed the quick-dial button which Gabriel had been kind enough to program as Alan’s number in Spain. It rang and rang and there was no answer. She pressed the button again, it rang twice and then stopped. She didn’t understand how that was possible. And she dialled again, and again, and she resigned herself to the idea Alan’s phone must be broken.
July 29, 2012
Oxford University changes dress code to meet needs of transgender students | Education | guardian.co.uk
Oxford University changes dress code to meet needs of transgender students
Students sitting exams or attending formal occasions will no longer have to wear ceremonial clothing specific to their gender
read it at The Guardian:
July 29, 2012
The Gayest Song of All Gaydom: It Must Be Him
Lyrics: Mack David
Music: Gilbert Bécaud
Singer: Vikki Carr
oooh the nights I’ve spent with this song on repeat…
July 28, 2012
One of Many Long Day’s Journeys into Night
The scene is set in the backseat of a chauffeur driven black Mercedes W116. Nancy Reagan was telling people my age to Just Say No, Margaret Thatcher was de-regulating British banks and a child somewhere was falling apart.
Jacqueline: Why do you speak that way?
Alan: What way?
Jacqueline: Always putting so much emphasis on the H. You say Hwy instead of why.
Alan: Why do speak with a French accent, Lili?
Jacqueline: Because I’m French.
Alan: I speak the way I speak because I’m me.
J: It’s like you’re trying to stand out from the other children.
A: I don’t need to try.
J: Look at your father, you should be more like him, everyone adores him.
A: I don’t.
J: Stop saying things like that.
A: I can’t stand him. He’s an idiot.
J: Don’t speak about him that way, he’s my son.
A: He’s your idiot son. You always defend him.
J: Your mother is manipulating you against him.
A: And what are you trying to do? Manipulate me in his favour?
J: The problem is addiction, it’s the alcohol, it’s not him, he’s a wonderful man.
A: He’s a selfish man.
J: It’s the alcohol, the drugs.
A: You’ve got it the wrong way around, he’s not a failure because of alcohol and drugs; He uses alcohol and drugs to disguise the fact that he’s a failure. It’s his excuse.
J: How can a young boy like you be so unkind, so bitter?
A: How can a woman your age be so foolish, Madam?
J: Please stop doing that, calling people Sir and Madam, and do stop calling your grandfather Doctor, he hates it. I know you do it just to upset him.
A: How about Professor? Would he prefer that?
J: We’re your family.
A: My what?
Alan laughs, Lili stares through the window.
J: We love you.
A: You what?
J: We love you and we want what’s best for you.
A:
C Cm7 Am7
You always hurt the one you love
C Cm7 Dm7 G7
The one you shouldn't hurt at all;
Dm A Dm7 Dm6
You always take the sweetest rose
Dm7 G C G7
And crush it till the pet - als fall;
C Cadd9 Cm7 Am7
You always break the kindest heart
Dm Dm7 G7
With a hasty word you can't re-call;
J: Stop singing and listen to me.
A: It’s the Mills Brothers.
J: You never listen to what I’m saying.
A: I think it’s mutual.
J: Can’t you make a bit of an effort? For me?
A. Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.
J: What plan?
A: I’m going to get on an air-plane one day and none of you will ever see me again.
J: Don’t be silly. We’re always going to be your family.
A: Technically, perhaps. But one day I’m going to control my own life, and there’s nothing any of you can do about it. It’s just a matter of time.
J: I don’t know what strange things are going on in that mind of yours but in this family we follow the rules your grandfather lays out.
A: I don’t intend to be around to know his rules.
J: And who do you think is going to be paying your bills?
A: I don’t care.
J: You say that now.
A: I suppose we’ll have to wait and see then.
July 28, 2012
‘Outed’ by the Military, Some Gays Fleeing Iran – The Daily Beast
‘Outed’ by the Military, Some Gays Fleeing Iran
Jul 28, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
For at least 15 years, the Islamic Republic has quietly been offering gay Iranians exemptions from mandatory military service. But those exemptions often come with a cost.
click below for full story:
‘Outed’ by the Military, Some Gays Fleeing Iran – The Daily Beast.
July 27, 2012
American Family Association decrys the “Big Gay” Machine | W. Thomas Adkins
The American Family Association has created an online “sign the letter” form where people who believe that the LGBT community should not be treated with dignity, respect and equality can show their support of Chik-fil-A’s anti-equality stance (hat tip to Good As You).
Full text:
American Family Association decrys the “Big Gay” Machine | W. Thomas Adkins.
Could someone just PLEASE send these people a box of dildos so they can distract themselves and attempt sex lives of their very own???
July 27, 2012
Our season has begun… Ajo blanco, Lanson Brut Black Label, Big Hats
Our first guests of the season arrived yesterday. They are Absolutely Fabulous, pun intended. They’re English, they rented our guest annex 4 years ago and we became instant friends, ever since they spend 3 weeks per year here in the summer. They play wonderful music and wake me up in the morning (my morning being 11am to noon) by opening champagne outside my bedroom window. I made them dinner yesterday which began with Ajo blanco (a chilled almond soup).
- 1 cup (6 oz) blanched almonds
- 4 slices crustless stale white bread, soaked in cold water for 5 minutes
- 3 large garlic cloves (crushed)
- 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 1/2 cups (20 fl. oz) cold water
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- Salt
- 1/2 cup (3 oz) seedless green grapes
Almonds, bread and garlic go into a food processor, once smooth, slowly add the olive oil (as if you were making mayonnaise)
Reduce speed to slow and add water and vinegar
Float a few seedless grapes in each bowl to garnish
They brought us “Olympic” Champagne. Don’t worry, it’s not champagne made in England, it’s Lanson Black Label dressed in a union jack. Quite amusing. We’ll open it tonight when the opening ceremony begins. There are 5 bottles of non-olympic champagne chilling, we bought ten, but we went through five last night, which isn’t too bad, it’s only 1.25 bottles per person- of course there was also gin and wine- but it’s summer, who’s counting?
Here they are in the sun
They leave in three weeks, then we have John + 1, and then Jane + ?… then summer will be over.
July 25, 2012
I’m laughing, I shouldn’t be laughing, but I’m laughing.
I heard screams coming from the direction of the Laing house… They rent it out for weddings and events.
Between their house and our house is a quite small empty plot that will never be sold because it’s sunken between our side wall (aka The Great Wall of China) and on the other side the Laing house (we’re the 2 biggest on the street). Anyway, the owner of the land is cleaning it up hoping to make it more attractive to prospective clients.
A woman with curlers in her hair was screaming: “But I’m getting married at 6!!!!!!!! Please, please stop!!!!”
The tractor man stopped, I’m not sure if just for lunch or for the day, we’ll know at 5pm when work normally resumes.
I wonder if she’s going to end up looking like this:
July 25, 2012
How Gay are the London Olympics?
A gay dating website crashed within minutes of the first Olympic athletes arriving in London – due to the volume of demand, say experts…
…Technicians believe the arrival of Olympic teams on Monday sparked a flood of new customers – and loss of the service in East London.
Gay app Grindr crashes as Olympic athletes arrive in London
July 22, 2012
Please Sign This Petition!!! 17-year-old sexual assault victim could face charges for tweeting names of attackers
17-year-old sexual assault victim could face charges for tweeting names of attackers
A Kentucky girl who was sexually assaultedcould face contempt of court charges after she tweeted the names of her juvenile attackers.
Savannah Dietrich, the 17-year-old victim, was frustrated by a plea deal reached late last month by the two boys who assaulted her, and took to Twitter to expose them–violating a court order to keep their names confidential.
“There you go, lock me up,” Dietrich tweeted after naming the perpetrators. “I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell.” Her Twitter account has since been closed.
Attorneys for the attackers asked a Jefferson District Court judge to hold Dietrich in contempt for lashing out on Twitter. She could face up to 180 days in jail and a $500 fine if convicted. The boys have yet to be sentenced for the August 2011 attack.
“So many of my rights have been taken away by these boys,” Dietrich told Louisville’s Courier-Journal. “I’m at the point, that if I have to go to jail for my rights, I will do it. If they really feel it’s necessary to throw me in jail for talking about what happened to me as opposed to throwing these boys in jail for what they did to me, then I don’t understand justice.”
Dietrich was assaulted by the pair after passing out at a party. They later shared photos of the assault with friends.
“For months, I cried myself to sleep,” Dietrich said. “I couldn’t go out in public places.”
On June 26, the boys pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism. Terms of their plea agreement were not released.
“They got off very easy,” Dietrich, who says she was unaware of the plea agreement before it was announced in court, said in her interview with the newspaper.
“They said I can’t talk about it or I’ll be locked up,” Dietrich tweeted after hearing, according to the paper. “So I’m waiting for them to read this and lock me up.”
“[Protecting rapists] is more important than getting justice for the victim in Louisville,” she added.
A hearing for the contempt of court charge is scheduled for July 30. Attorneys for Dietrich want it open to the media, while the boys lawyers want it closed.
Both the Gannett-owned Courier-Journal and Dietrich’s attorneys “have filed motions to open the proceedings, arguing she has a First Amendment right to speak about what happened in her case,” the newspaper said.
An online petition asking the judge to throw out the charges against Dietrich, launched Saturday, has already accumulated hundreds of signatures.
“[She] should not be legally barred from talking about what happened to her,” Gregg Leslie, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told the Associated Press. “That’s a wide-ranging restraint on speech.”
To Sign the Petition Click Here
July 20, 2012
Sometimes….
Sometimes I get a nice email like this one I got today:
My dearest Edouard,
It is possible, I being who I am, that you are not entirely aware of how overwhelmingly lucky I feel to have you as my partner. If not, – I do.
Chaque fois plus.
Mike.
I hope it was a reference to Rosemonde Gérard:
Lorsque tu seras vieux et que je serai vieille,
Lorsque mes cheveux blonds seront des cheveux blancs,
Au mois de mai, dans le jardin qui s’ensoleille,
Nous irons réchauffer nos vieux membres tremblants.
Comme le renouveau mettra nos coeurs en fête,
Nous nous croirons encore de jeunes amoureux,
Et je te sourirai tout en branlant la tête,
Et nous ferons un couple adorable de vieux.
Nous nous regarderons, assis sous notre treille,
Avec de petits yeux attendris et brillants,
Lorsque tu seras vieux et que je serai vieille,
Lorsque mes cheveux blonds seront des cheveux blancs.
Sur notre banc ami, tout verdâtre de mousse,
Sur le banc d’autrefois nous reviendrons causer,
Nous aurons une joie attendrie et très douce,
La phrase finissant toujours par un baiser.
Combien de fois jadis j’ai pu dire ” Je t’aime ” ?
Alors avec grand soin nous le recompterons.
Nous nous ressouviendrons de mille choses, même
De petits riens exquis dont nous radoterons.
Un rayon descendra, d’une caresse douce,
Parmi nos cheveux blancs, tout rose, se poser,
Quand sur notre vieux banc tout verdâtre de mousse,
Sur le banc d’autrefois nous reviendrons causer.
Et comme chaque jour je t’aime davantage,
Aujourd’hui plus qu’hier et bien moins que demain,
Qu’importeront alors les rides du visage ?
Mon amour se fera plus grave – et serein.
Songe que tous les jours des souvenirs s’entassent,
Mes souvenirs à moi seront aussi les tiens.
Ces communs souvenirs toujours plus nous enlacent
Et sans cesse entre nous tissent d’autres liens.
C’est vrai, nous serons vieux, très vieux, faiblis par l’âge,
Mais plus fort chaque jour je serrerai ta main
Car vois-tu chaque jour je t’aime davantage,
Aujourd’hui plus qu’hier et bien moins que demain.
Et de ce cher amour qui passe comme un rêve,
Je veux tout conserver dans le fond de mon coeur,
Retenir s’il se peut l’impression trop brève
Pour la ressavourer plus tard avec lenteur.
J’enfouis tout ce qui vient de lui comme un avare,
Thésaurisant avec ardeur pour mes vieux jours ;
Je serai riche alors d’une richesse rare
J’aurai gardé tout l’or de mes jeunes amours !
Ainsi de ce passé de bonheur qui s’achève,
Ma mémoire parfois me rendra la douceur ;
Et de ce cher amour qui passe comme un rêve
J’aurai tout conservé dans le fond de mon coeur.
Lorsque tu seras vieux et que je serai vieille,
Lorsque mes cheveux blonds seront des cheveux blancs,
Au mois de mai, dans le jardin qui s’ensoleille,
Nous irons réchauffer nos vieux membres tremblants.
Comme le renouveau mettra nos coeurs en fête,
Nous nous croirons encore aux jours heureux d’antan,
Et je te sourirai tout en branlant la tête
Et tu me parleras d’amour en chevrotant.
Nous nous regarderons, assis sous notre treille,
Avec de petits yeux attendris et brillants,
Lorsque tu seras vieux et que je serai vieille
Lorsque mes cheveux blonds seront des cheveux blancs.
But I’ll take what I can get!
July 20, 2012
Ten Things You CAN Say to a Trans Person (Reblogged from TRANIFESTO) « dominicdemeyn
This does not happen everyday! Freshly pressed LGBTQ issues!!!
Thank you Dominic!!!
Ten Things You CAN Say to a Trans Person (Reblogged from TRANIFESTO) « dominicdemeyn.
July 19, 2012
Flamenco: Rafael Campallo, the real thing!
You’ve got to like Flamenco (music) and dance to enjoy this one. Andalusian men have of reputation of being good at…
I live in Andalusia, so I can confirm rumours are true.
July 18, 2012
Things you find at the back of drawers. That was not a good haircut, mother.
Warning to all mothers: 30 years may go by and your child
may still not forgive you for that haircut!
July 17, 2012
Zach? Mark? The Real Sex in the City: Carolina Courtland: From Your Balls to Her Heart | Staked in the Heart
Okay boys (girls and inbetweeners), if you like Sex and the City, let me introduce you to the real thing. Her name is Carolina Courtland and she can wipe the floor with Candace Bushnell’s bad mop hair. Let’s be honest, what the frack sort of name is CandAce? I’m guessing the result of a parent who didn’t know how to spell Candice. They probably also bought canday apples at the fair…
Anyway, here’s Carolina, enjoy!
