Don’t judge a Macbook buy it’s cover: Read More
i am not what you supposed, but far different
But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any
person for miles around approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or
some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss,
For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.
Text: Walt Whitman,
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand (excerpt), 1881-82
Image: Subjects, photographer unknown,
via miss magnolia thunderpussy/ipernity
Tagged: kiss, vintage gay photo, vintage male affection, Walt Whitman, Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
if i could make days last forever
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one
I want to go through time with.
Text: Jim Croce, Time in a Bottle, lyrics
Photo: Subjects unknown, via varones/flickr
Tagged: Jim Croce, late 19th century, lyrics
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
text: ee cummings
image: subjects/photographer unknown,
via varones/flickr
Tagged: ee cummings, i carry your heart with me, vintage gay photo, vintage male affection
three bears say a little prayer
This makes me really, really happy.
Thanks Stacy and Michele
Tagged: bears, gay, Glee, Say A Little Prayer
the stay of your secure firm dry embrace
It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who’d showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.
I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.
Text: The Hug, Thom Gunn
Image: Photographer, subjects unknown,
via Miss Magnolia Thunderpussy/ipernity
Tagged: poetry, Thom Gunn, vintage, vintage gay photo
if you’re going to say “I lived”. . .
Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example–
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people–
even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees–
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier. Read More
Tagged: Nazim Hikmet, Turkish poets, vintage, vintage gay photo
a happy new year
A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I’ve played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
Back from Christmas break, Happy New Year to all from Woolf and Wilde.
Text: Edgar A. Guest
Image: Photographer, sitters unknown; via Osvaldo E/flickr
Tagged: 2010, men, New Year, tuxedo, vintage, vintage gay photo
My Five-Year-Old Brother Outed Me to Santa
There are few better vehicles for outing yourself as a gay-in-the-making than the Christmas list you write up for Santa. What’s on it says a lot. When I was a kid, I asked for things like watercolor sets, musical instruments and books. Hmmm.
Equally revealing is what isn’t on your list. I never asked for baseball mitts or footballs. At age seven, the closest I got to boy toys were my G.I. Joe and Major Matt Mason. Were these early crushes, or dolls that a boy could legitimately own? Probably both.
[Bonus links — photo: G.I. Joe Steals a Barbie Jeep, and video: homoerotic subtext of 1968 Major Matt Mason commercial?]
I didn’t dare ask for the things I really coveted. With all my heart, I wanted an EZ-Bake Oven and a doll whose hair you could brush and it would “grow” like my friend Helen across the street had. I knew full well that those things were for girls though. The mere suggestion that I might like to have them too was not only off limits, it also said something about me that I wasn’t yet prepared to defend.
It’s sad to think that even little gay seven-year-olds know what they’re not supposed to want. For those whose desires are outside of what is considered gender appropriate, society gets an early start on teaching them to hide certain parts of themselves.
Enter my baby brother Brian who, in all the wisdom and innocence of a five-year-old, took it upon himself to put in a good word to Santa on my behalf. In effect, my brother outed me to Santa with this:
Read More
Tagged: brothers, Christmas, coming out, dolls, gay, gender, outing, Santa, sterotypes, toys
