I’ve kind of been celebrating Pride myself for six months already, and I am probably not going to go to any events or anything. But still: here we are, in what’s arguably the worst year so far for LGBTQIA+ rights since Reagan, and it’s Pride month. We’ll see what happens.
I have been thinking about the term “MOGAI” and especially that first word in the acronym, “marginalized”… and how this relates to a nonbinary identity that is in the margins. I really don’t have any deep insights about that, it’s just simmering.
I have just started reading So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. While I’m not “of color” it’s important not to read only white stories! Two other things crucial about this book that evaded the long title:
- all the interviewees are people in their 50s, 60s and 70s — something that might surprise younger folks or those who believe that it’s just an internet-fueled fad.
- they are from big cities, small towns, reservations, the Philippines, Cuba, Argentina during the “Dirty War”, diverse neighborhoods, all-Black neighborhoods, fish-out-of-water families in white neighborhoods. With those diverse backgrounds come diverse attitudes toward gender, and different ways to adapt.
I also plan to read Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson during Pride month, particularly as this administration tries to erase transgender history even from the monument that commemorates it. Marsha is the one who threw the first brick at Stonewall, but I don’t know much about her at all.
The two books I mostly recently finished were by genderqueer author Alexis Hall. The Affair of the Mysterious Letter is a retelling of a Sherlock Holmes story, but as a sort of eldritch horror/fantasy/comedy with a notorious bisexual sorceress replacing Holmes and a bizarre twist to the mystery. Mortal Follies is a tale of a woman in early 19th century Bath, discovering that she is both cursed and gay (not a part of the curse!), with the Robin Goodfellow narrating and occasionally interfering. The sense of humor is pretty great, and I’ll have to look for the author’s other fantasy novels. But they also write… baking-themed romance novels? Huh.
After waiting two years since its release (and another four years since the original version), I have finally gone for the Walrus Audio Slöer.
I found a B-stock one with minor factory paint flaws at a big discount. My thinking is, I use the Dreadbox Hypnosis very little, so this will either replace that — or it will prove to me once and for all that I just don’t need any hardware effects that aren’t in Eurorack.
I have always liked the sound of Slöer in demos. The original one was mono, which I sometimes find a bit sad with reverb. This one has stereo, more modes, and the “stretch” slider which can lower the sample rate to stretch the reverb and make it more lo-fi. That last bit is something software tends not to do (at least without faking it), so besides the fact that I know it sounds great, that’s also compelling. We’ll see how I take to it in practice, though!
Here’s a dump of some images I’ve downloaded or screenshotted over the past few weeks:
