The Crooked Man by Charles Beaumont (1955) Bonus: No, not that one. Summary: In the future, the gays will oppress the straights! Commentary: After the hamfisted "the racial minorities will oppress the Whites!" from last night, I remember the infamous story of the Playboy story about a gay society oppressing straight people. I looked it up, and I'm going to kick off this blog with it. I feel like the fact that it exists is a classic piece of trivia, but the story itself doesn't get a ton of recognition. It's also not really that good, existing only to serve the moral, and even then not doing a great job. It opens with the "men lusting for men" verse from Romans. I wonder (not sure you could get away with it in 1955) if it would be better with a flipped version of the verse, suggesting the Bible had been altered to support the new homosexual order. I do like that "queer" is not a slur for straight people, good flup there. The gay world is, of ...
I'm sick today, so trying to make my way through a dialogue or something feels like a big ask. Something I've talked about (mostly on the Star Wars blog) is going back and looking at media that I liked as a kid. Part of it is trying to see if I still think it's any good. Part of it is looking at what influences me and my writing today. I chugged through Gundam Wing last month, but finally got around to Endless Waltz while I was sitting on the couch today. Gundam Wing is not a good show. The plot doesn't really make sense, it has too many characters (which means they can't really use them effectively), plot armor levels are all over the place, the literal teenagers act less hormonal than the adults... But it's an entertaining show, because it is fucking insane. The birthday invitation of death only caps off the first episode that includes suicide attempts, space suit kung fu, maniacal laughter, mid air mech ejections... And it doesn't really get any less...
Was thinking about doing something vaguely Halloweeny tonight, and remembered this chapter from Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury: Nothing much else happened, all the rest of that night. That's it. That's the whole chapter! I remember thinking that was so cool the first time I read it. I should reread the whole book one of these days.
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