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Jan. 25th, 2006 11:07 pm
marriage, etc.
I finished Dan Savage's new book, The Commitment, which is surprise, surprise, about gay marriage and whether he and his boyfriend should get married or not. They go back and forth for most of the book - I've been reading Savage since I was, like 15, so I already knew what I would get - clear, occasionally foul-mouthed language arguing passionately about mostly the same things I believe in.
In the book, he dissects all sorts of arguments against gay marriage, and even gay activists who "disapprove" of him as a model for gay marriage, probably for his column Savage Love, in which he tells people it's ok to be kinky.
He writes about a lot of stuff I've been musing over for a bit - about the expectations that people bring to marriage, about the symbolism, the ceremony, and how much of it is about the wedding than the actual hard work of marriage, etc.
I laughed out loud at a couple of parts - he makes fun of liberals for declaring they want to move to Canada (um, after visiting Vancouver, I kinda *do* want to move there), then in the next breath points out that at least in Canada, he wouldn't be a second-class citizen.
The other part that was really funny was the part where they plan a "not-wedding-reception" for around Chinese New Year and his boyfriend insists on a "traditional Chinese performer with traditional Chinese music." I am perfectly fine with traditional Chinese music, but even I would consider subjecting a non-Chinese person to Chinese music, especially if it's more than a hundred years old, to be a perverse form of torture. I can't even stand Peking opera - to me it sounds exactly like ambulance sirens. So I just knew they wouldn't do it, not after listening to the tape.
Do they get married? D'oh.
The next book is Vox, by Nicholson Baker. I love my university - one of my English professors assigned this novel, which is about phone sex, or if you want to be all elitist about it - the literary erotic connections and exploration of communications via old-fashioned telephone technology, and I didn't read a single word of it in college. Quite frankly, I forgot to buy the book, and by that time, I'd learned the art of reading most of the books on my syllabus in order to do well on the tests. I wonder if I have the notes somewhere. I think I started zoning out around this time, too, even though my professors were generally engaging.
I'm about a quarter of the way through. The first part was not very appealing, I have to say. Who the hell talks about "chenille" and "pointelle" when they're having phone sex? How is that sexy?
In the book, he dissects all sorts of arguments against gay marriage, and even gay activists who "disapprove" of him as a model for gay marriage, probably for his column Savage Love, in which he tells people it's ok to be kinky.
He writes about a lot of stuff I've been musing over for a bit - about the expectations that people bring to marriage, about the symbolism, the ceremony, and how much of it is about the wedding than the actual hard work of marriage, etc.
I laughed out loud at a couple of parts - he makes fun of liberals for declaring they want to move to Canada (um, after visiting Vancouver, I kinda *do* want to move there), then in the next breath points out that at least in Canada, he wouldn't be a second-class citizen.
The other part that was really funny was the part where they plan a "not-wedding-reception" for around Chinese New Year and his boyfriend insists on a "traditional Chinese performer with traditional Chinese music." I am perfectly fine with traditional Chinese music, but even I would consider subjecting a non-Chinese person to Chinese music, especially if it's more than a hundred years old, to be a perverse form of torture. I can't even stand Peking opera - to me it sounds exactly like ambulance sirens. So I just knew they wouldn't do it, not after listening to the tape.
Do they get married? D'oh.
The next book is Vox, by Nicholson Baker. I love my university - one of my English professors assigned this novel, which is about phone sex, or if you want to be all elitist about it - the literary erotic connections and exploration of communications via old-fashioned telephone technology, and I didn't read a single word of it in college. Quite frankly, I forgot to buy the book, and by that time, I'd learned the art of reading most of the books on my syllabus in order to do well on the tests. I wonder if I have the notes somewhere. I think I started zoning out around this time, too, even though my professors were generally engaging.
I'm about a quarter of the way through. The first part was not very appealing, I have to say. Who the hell talks about "chenille" and "pointelle" when they're having phone sex? How is that sexy?
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