home cooked theory

Queer TV #1

I had been worried about Queer As Folk. Last week I was starting to think that The L Word had killed it for me, because it draws out in an even more profound way how much Mel and Lindsay’s relationship has to bear the burden of representation. (Then again, although I haven’t watched enough to [...]

Swayed

One of the hardest things I find when working on a long project like my book is avoiding being swayed by the wind–that is, letting whatever is the urgent issue of the day somehow creep inside my thinking about a topic. Right now, for instance, everything I look at is coloured by the idea of [...]

Life is too short

…for me to read another Tom Wolfe novel. I Am Charlotte Simmons made me feel like I was forcing myself to watch an old man masturbating over college students, all for the sake of some better cause. I’m not sure when rape became a plot device, but then I don’t read a lot of airport [...]

Coffee, Literature and War

I’ve been back in Brisbane since Thursday and keep hitting a wall of tired by about 2pm. Every day I get up thinking, ‘Jet lag’s for losers’, then find myself settling in to do some reading in the afternoon completely unable to concentrate. Not even Franz Ferdinand’s new album seems to be working, tho some [...]