Umberto Eco on Lists and Making Infinity Comprehensible

Just finished reading the highly-recommended "Gone Girl." It pulled me in quickly and was definitely a compelling read, but I can't say it was entirely enjoyable...I look forward to discussing it with other friends who've read it.

Would love to see this: beautiful 100-foot long blue whale kite.

Heartbreaking. I don't know how anyone could consider his execution as an act of justice. Executing a victim of abuse: "Nation journalist Liliana Segura reports on Pennsylvania's drive to execute Terrance Williams, who was convicted as a juvenile for killing men who abused him."

Image: source.

"Kaiim Viera was born 18 years ago today. He grew into a six-foot-two teen who had a knack for getting folks to laugh even when they didn’t want to. A week and a half ago, he was shot 10 times and killed. WNYC is profiling the life of every child in the city killed by gunfire. This is Kaiim’s story."

“If you asked me to draw a picture of myself I’d draw two. One would be a portrait of a happy, self-confident, regular-looking woman and the other would be a close-up of a giant gaping mouth that’s ravenous for love. Many days I have to silently say to myself: It’s okay. You are loved. You are loved even if some people don’t love you.” - Dear Sugar

“Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.” - Flannery O’Connor

"A Colorlines.com investigation that found there is an estimated 5,100 children in foster care who face barriers to family reunification because their mother or father is in detention or has been deported."

From Bard professor Daniel Mendelson, Gay TV and Me: "How my life would be different if boys were kissing boys onscreen 40 years ago -- like they are today."

Image: source.

Elton John on the price paid by HIV-positive prisoners

NPR: In Calif., Some Ex-Inmates Get Help In New Ways: "Under California's criminal justice realignment program, counties are taking over responsibility from the state for low-level felons. And that has affected how inmates with histories of mental illness move through the system even after they're released."

Boing Boing: Hand lettering the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" 

Interesting: "The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do Criminal Minds in the first place. I thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality. After that, I didn't think I would get to work in television again."- Actor Mandy Patinkin, on why he "abruptly left" the CBS procedural after only two seasons. I've definitly been a long time fan of shows like Criminal Minds, Law & Order: SVU, etc, and have really conflicted feelings about their focus on crimes against women. Great to hear his impressions, via Shakesville.

“My deepest impulses are optimistic, an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.” - Ellen Willis

Detropia is getting tons of great press, and all of it deserved. One interview: Talking to Detropia Director Heidi Ewing

"For The Children" by Gary Snyder (thanks to my PIP for the recommendation!)

For my fellow mystery lovers: Agatha Christie essay published for the first time: "Long-lost piece, commissioned by the Ministry of Information to promote British crime fiction, finally available to UK readers"

Charles Bukowski, Arthur C. Clarke, Annie Dillard, John Cage, and Others on the Meaning of Life. From Annie Dillard: “We are here to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house. According to the second law of thermodynamics, things fall apart. Structures disintegrate. Buckminster Fuller hinted at a reason we are here: By creating things, by thinking up new combinations, we counteract this flow of entropy. We make new structures, new wholeness, so the universe comes out even. A shepherd on a hilltop who looks at a mess of stars and thinks, ‘There’s a hunter, a plow, a fish,’ is making mental connections that have as much real force in the universe as the very fires in those stars themselves.”

From n+1, It Was Written: Books by Rappers

Image: source.

Yum! Fall comfort food (which I'm, truthfully, in the mood for every season): Baked Sweet Potato Fries with Parmesan & Cilantro, Stuffed Shells With Butternut Squash, Spinach & Ricotta, Baked Kale Mac-and-Cheese.

From Mental Floss, the history behind a song I love: Music History #7: “Hurricane”

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” ― David Foster Wallace, This is Water

Food, faith, pain, and communion. From the Paris Review Small, Good Things: Poetry and still life as one.

From the Hon. Nancy Gertner, The Media's Reporting On Justice Is Criminal

Image: from Tugboat Press.

From Guernica: Hipstamatic Revolution: "Avoiding the simplistic narratives of Afro-pessimism and Afro-optimism, photographers use photo-apps to represent everyday Africa."

“War/Photography”: A New Look at the World in Conflict Looking forward to reading Junot Diaz's new book.

Grantland is killing it with their (mostly snarky, sometimes earnest) monthly recaps of the NYTimes Vows (including the most Vows-y Vows ever)

From the AV Club: TV Roundtable: Law & Order: Slave to formula, or crackling entertainment?

“Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them — all the way through.” - Richard Rohr

SFGate: The crime of punishment at Pelican Bay State Prison: "Three strikes law sent man who robbed an empty house to prison for 25 yrs. He's spent 16 years in solitary confinement."

Ha: Anthropology is the worst college major for being a corporate tool, best major to change your life

The AV Club's year by year history of hip hop continues: Hip-Hop And You Do Stop. This week, 1992 and Arrested Development.

Image: source.

If you're even a casual enjoyer of poetry, I'd encourage you to subscribe to Poetry 180, a "poem a day" project aimed at high schoolers. I love getting a new poem in my inbox every morning (they are on Day 6 today).

From Jacobin: Designing Culture: Design plays a central role in cultural reproduction. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, for anyone.: "This is a big deal because one of the main ways that people are socialized is through using, observing and contemplating material objects. The idea that people learn their places in society by engaging with the physical stuff around them has a long history in anthropology..."

From Nat Geo: Criminal Defense: And Justice For All.

"To live in this world / you must be able / to do three things: / to love what is mortal; / to hold it / against your bones knowing / your own life depends on it; / and, when the time comes to let it go, / to let it go." - Mary Oliver

WaPo: Communal gardening helps refugees sink roots in a new land

Listening to: The Milk Carton Kids On Mountain Stage. Prepare to get your heart broken by "Michigan" and "New York."

Image: source.

The Path of Freedom is a short film (available online) that “enters the harsh environment of a Rhode Island men’s prison where a group of fifty inmates are transforming their lives through the practice of meditation."

Reporting Poverty: Emily Brennan interviews Katherine Boo: "Following three years of research in an Indian slum, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist discusses what language can’t express, her view that nobody is representative, and the ethical dilemmas of writing about the poor."

Locked Up Without a Key in New Orleans: the first of a three article series on the public defender shortage, and the failed promise of Gideon v. Wainwright.

We Shall Overcome: The Problem With the Body-Love Therapeutic Narrative: "Problematizing something essentially human—cognizance of our own bodies—and framing it as something that we must overcome leaves little room for a woman’s relationship with her body or appearance that doesn’t fit into this construct. That is, at the same time that the therapeutic narrative of the body gives us language we can use to relate to others, it also defines the language we’re expected to use."

“It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.” - Raymond Carver

Love letters by Iris Murdoch

Listening to: Avett Bros' new album The Carpenter, streaming on NPR. (Review by the always awesome Stephen Thompson of PCHH - "The Avetts' music aims for something bigger than itself, and damned if it doesn't find it.")

Also listening to: The Head and The Heart "Rivers & Roads" (The Doe Bay Sessions), and "Down in the Valley" (Live on KEXP)

Image: source.

Apparently this is the year that my favorite novels get made into movies; first, Cloud Atlas, now, Midnights Children. Not sure that I'll see either.

From Human Rights Watch, the effects of a failed drug policy, here and abroad. "Blacks, whites commit drug offenses at similar rates, but black men 10 times as likely to be jailed"

Finally got around to reading this, glad I did: Queer, Interrupted by Tegan Eanelli "Redemption is not to be found in the unfolding of capitalist time, but instead in its forceful interruption. Against the dogma that it gets better, we have to understand that queerness was not built on a linear progression through adversity, but was fought for against a progression which would have eliminated it."

“There are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom.” ― David Foster Wallace

I really appreciated this article, and it's got some good links: Going Public With Depression.

As I Lay Frying: donuts & literary quotes, so, sure.

Like these: NY in 50 Objects, and BBC's The History of the World in 100 Objects.

Sort of a silly title, but a good article about our consumption of cheap clothing and cotton: Are Your Skinny Jeans Starving the World? "The cotton that feeds our appetite for fast fashion is taking up room that could be used for food crops."

On Friday, I went  to see the Barr Bros and Brandi Carlisle at Britt. I didn't know much about Brandi Carlisle when I saw her last year at Britt as an opener for Ray LaMontagne, but she blew me away (and blew Ray out of the water as a performer). Both acts were incredible this time. I'm sorry to say that the Barr Bros album does not do them justice - I'll have to look for some live recordings. Random assortment: Brandi covering "Creep," playing "That Wasn't Me" (one of the most amazing songs about addiction I've ever heard), and "Keep Your Heart Young." For some reason, none of the videos I found showed what an awesome, rock n roll performer she is, but she was non stop energy, and did a cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that had even my mom pumping her fist.

Check out Immigrant Nation, the new project from filmmaker Theo Rigby: "An interactive project where you can watch powerful short documentaries, then create and share your own immigration story." I had the luck to see him screen his film Sin Pais (Without Country) at the ashland independent film fest in 2011, and have used it ever since for outreach & educational purposes. It's a great short film, and I'm always interested to see what he will do next.

“I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” ― Flannery O'Connor

Book covers that appear in The Royal Tennenbaums.

From The Awl: The Rise And Fall Of Grunge Typography

Love it - what could be more American? Dream Act Activists Push Into Mainstream With American Protest Movement Tactics 

Image: source.

Video: The Invisible Bike Helmet

Soup recipes make me excited for fall. And that's good, because in less than a month, I'm moving back to Boston; few places do fall better than New England. Yep, after 2+ years back in my small-town, rural Oregonian home, east coast city life is calling. I'll be arriving out there Sept 18th and starting my new gig on Oct 1st. Thanks for all the encouragement and support, friends and fam - you all are the best.

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.” - Jack Kerouac

Top 5 Motown Singles: 1965 and the AV Club's Guide to the Musicof Motown

Maira Kalman on thinking, feeling, walking

Image: source.

The Believer interview with Richard Rorty (old, but new to me)

Photos of San Francisco's independent bookstores, new and used. Mmmm.

He Hit Send: On the Awkward but Necessary Role of Technology in Fiction

RIP David Rakoff: On Already Missing The Angry, Passionate Writing Of David Rakoff (by the wonderful Linda Holmes), and excerpts from his Fresh Air interviews.

This week is the week, y'all: Young Immigrants, in America Illegally, Line Up for Reprieve 

“The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.” ― Rebecca Solnit

TruthOut: Michelle Alexander on the Irrational Race Bias of the Criminal Justice and Prison Systems

Gut-wrenching, heartbreaking.... From WBEZ: The weight of the city's violence, on one school principal, A principal reflects on the last 13 months: 27 current or former students shot, 8 dead.

Image: source.

"Reporter Julia Scott spent time with three people who ended up living on the streets of San Francisco after losing their homes. Scott brings their stories to this episode of American Public Media’s Marketplace, exploring the correlation between losing a job and the “downward spiral” into homelessness."

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” - James Baldwin

Worth a repeat appearance: “If you are a woman. If you are a Person of Colour. If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you’re a person of size, if you’re a person of intelligence, if you’re a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it’s gonna be really hard to find messages of self-love, and support anywhere, especially women’s and gay men’s culture. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way or else you’re worthless. You know when you look in the mirror, and you think, ‘Ugh, I’m so fat, I’m so old, I’m so ugly,’ don’t you know that’s not your authentic self, but that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself so that you will take your hard-earned money and spend it on some turnaround cream that doesn’t turnaround shit. When you don’t have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote. You will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution. And our revolution is long-overdue.” - Margaret Cho

Get it, girl. "Last week, after the BCC aired a documentary about British Olympic weightlifter Zoe Smith and her teammates, dudes on Twitter responded with some highly original quips about the athletes not being feminine enough. (Yep, people actually still say things like, “Now piss off back to the kitchen and make your boyfriend a sandwich he’s hungry.”) The 18-year-old Smith gave them the “verbal kicking they deserved” on her blog:

As Hannah pointed out earlier, we don’t lift weights in order to look hot, especially for the likes of men like that. What makes them think that we even WANT them to find us attractive? If you do, thanks very much, we’re flattered. But if you don’t, why do you really need to voice this opinion in the first place, and what makes you think we actually give a toss that you, personally, do not find us attractive? What do you want us to do? Shall we stop weightlifting, amend our diet in order to completely get rid of our ‘manly’ muscles, and become housewives in the sheer hope that one day you will look more favourably upon us and we might actually have a shot with you?! Cause you are clearly the kindest, most attractive type of man to grace the earth with your presence. 


Oh but wait, you aren’t. This may be shocking to you, but we actually would rather be attractive to people who aren’t closed-minded and ignorant. Crazy, eh?! We, as any women with an ounce of self-confidence would, prefer our men to be confident enough in themselves to not feel emasculated by the fact that we aren’t weak and feeble."

source: Olympic weightlifter Zoe Smith speaks for us all when she tells sexist trolls we don’t care if you don’t find us attractive

From Mother Jones: Plant Tomatoes. Harvest Lower Crime Rates. "Looking at Schiffer's photos and talking with people involved in urban farming, I've come to realize that their efforts have less to do with providing healthy food than they do with a reclamation of sorts, taking ownership of their community and their daily lives...  There's been a growing body of research that suggests that urban farming and greening not only strengthen community bonds but also reduce violence." [photos & text]

Image: source.

Dying of laughter. Also, maybe in love with this man: Dramatic Readings of Yelp Reviews: 1-Star Review of Stratford Diner by Dan B

From The Atlantic: What My Son's Disabilities Taught Me About 'Having It All': "Because of her child's problems, the author will never have a tidy, peaceful life. But none of this keeps her from being happy -- as long as she asks herself the right questions." (I feel like the title and summary aren't perfect fit for the article but...it's not super long, and it's definitely worth the read.)

From Salon: Not Here: ‎"Were we serious—truly serious—about making the civil massacre disappear, having it become, like the amok, nothing more than an antiquated curiosity, the history of the amok tells us precisely what to do: divest evil of its grandiosity or mythic resonance by completely banalizing it." (The article also includes some interesting notes on superheroes and their role in American culture.)

Oakland Leads Way as Restorative Justice Techniques Enter Education Mainstream: "Restorative justice attempts to break the cycle of violence by addressing the underlying cause — often, a traumatic experience, such as physical or verbal abuse or witnessing a violent crime — and acknowledging the emotional impact of such trauma on young people. Through active communication, young people in restorative justice programs have been able to overcome their violent impulses." (I'm going to a restorative justice training later this month, really excited about it!)

How has the 1976 New York of Annie Hall changed in 36 years?

Image: source.

Rilke’s Love Letters: “Now I come to you full of future. And from habit we begin to live our past.”

From Newport Folk 2012: Dawes, and City And Colour (but really just listening to The Barr Brothers' "Beggar In The Morning" on repeat)

From I Don’t Care If You’re Offended by Scott Madin, “The problem with sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist, etc., remarks and 'jokes' is not that they’re offensive, but that by relying for their meaning on harmful cultural narratives about privileged and marginalized groups they reinforce those narratives, and the stronger those narratives are, the stronger the implicit biases with which people are indoctrinated are. That’s real harm, not just 'offense.'”

Yes yes, a thousand times yes! Tales From Columbia House - Reality Bites Soundtrack (bonus points if you know which song off this soundtrack I played on the guitar and sang at my 8th grade graduation...both "played" and "sang" being very loose terms.)

“The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” ― Arundhati Roy

Cloud Atlas is one of my all-time favorite books, and when I heard they were making a movie out of it, I was baffled. For me, it was such a slow-moving reading experience, the plot almost less important that the simple but eventually sneakily overwhelming emotion that all things are inextricably linked. I wasn't sure how that would work in a movie, and I can't say this trailer makes me any more excited about the prospect.

Listening to: "Beggar in the Morning" The Barr Brothers (Live on Soundcheck)

Image: source.

Wes Anderson film palette. In case you were wondering.

NYTimes: Pinterest, Tumblr and the Trouble With ‘Curation.' I have no earth shattering thoughts on this. Yes, I willingly acknowledge all the capitalist and aspirational traps of things like Pinterest, and I also like pretty things and the illusion of "curating." Dunno.

Interesting article on the Mike Daisey debacle, the ethics of journalism, narration, and the powerhouse that is This American Life: Oh, the Pathos! "That’s why Glass had to send Daisey to the gallows for minor falsehoods that in no way obscured the greater truth about Apple Inc. Daisey exposed the fact that the aesthetics and conventions of the kind of narrative journey Glass has patented—one born of nineties boom-time decadence—were never designed to accommodate harsh economic truths, much less to promote any kind of critical art or intelligence. Glass’s reaction to Daisey’s lies, more than the lies themselves, exposed the limitations of This American Life’s twee, transporting narratives, the show’s habit of massaging painful realities into puddles of personal experience, its preference for pathos over tragedy. From the beginning, This American Life has carefully blunted the class implications of its stories. Daisey’s story was one it couldn’t contain. The lesson couldn’t be clearer: it’s time for This American Life to grow up."

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.” - Joan Didion

If you're not already reading Fit & Feminist, get over there, ASAP. They say all those things I think and feel about being a feminist who is also trying to be healthy, and they say them wisely, hilariously, and compassionately. I want to shout this whole article from the freakin' rooftops. From Stop using fitness as a weapon of hate and shame!:

     The arguers seem to believe that it’s possible to shame people into adopting healthy habits, like if you just make people feel awful enough about themselves, they’ll suddenly start doing CrossFit six times a week and banishing fast food from their lives. As if! If that were actually an effective way to do things, we’d have a nation of endurance athletes instead of a nation of couch potatoes. 


    I hate this line of thinking for so many reasons. I hate it because it doesn’t work. I hate it because it erases the existence of fat athletes, as if it is not possible to be fit without being thin. I hate it because it is so, so cruel, and treating people with cruelty pretty much runs counter to everything I think about what it means to be a good person in this world. And maybe I hate it most because it makes fitness and athletics seem like the sole provenance of arrogant jerks who think having visible abs makes them morally superior to everyone else in the world. It takes one of my greatest passions in life and turns it into a weapon of hate and shame.

This article really shook me when I read it this morning. I guess just the horror of a woman trying to do something meaningful and brave, and being targeted as a victim of assault. The fact that a man would see a young woman striving for something, and see that as an opportunity to attack her . . . Her response is incredible, but absolutely no one should have to go through this: Rower Jenn Gibbons doesn’t let attack deter her from her mission: "Jenn Gibbons was on her way to becoming the first person to row the entire 1,500-mile perimeter of Lake Michigan, a feat she was undertaking with the goal of helping raise awareness of the role exercise plays in the fight against breast cancer. She was more than halfway through the two-month journey when a man boarded her boat on Sunday and sexually assaulted her. Gibbons had been attempting to raise money for the nonprofit she founded, Recovery on Water (Row4ROW), but her focus has since changed. She is determined to finish her journey [on foot], this time as an advocate for sexual assault victims." 

Image: source.

Lucero on World Cafe.

Well said: from Ebony, What Does It Mean To Be An Ally?

Wow. A moving video of how one man's family helped him come out of the closet.

The 2012 Booker Longlist is released, further increasing my "too many books, not enough time!" anxiety. (Please, someone, buy me that tote bag, so I can become That Woman.) Also on the book front, I've found myself newly interested in finding and reading great biographies on authors I love. I've never really had this interest before - is this part of growing older, an increased interest in the lives behind the art I love? The trick is that the biographies aren't likely to be as well written as the art they are describing....Anyway, this is all to say that if any one out there has good biography suggestions (particularly on Evelyn Waugh, Henry James, or John Irving), I welcome them.

Book update? Book update: I recently finished The Burning by Jane Casey. After starting and stopping a few other mysteries, I was pleased that this book captured my attention, and read the whole thing happily. It was easy to get into, had a few different and distinct characters, an underlying sense of unease with more than one of the potential suspects, and even an obvious but still satisfying light romance. Nothing earth-shattering but an enjoyable and well paced mystery.

I'm currently reading my usual odd assortment: Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir by David Rieff (I love both Rieff and his mother, Susan Sontag, so it seemed worth checking out - although clearly not the lightest of reading); re-reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (literary comfort food for me); and slogging through The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell.

Image: source.

NYTimes: Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing His Parents. Is That Enough? Good article on some hard issues, including juvenile sentencing and rehabilitation.

Listening to: The Mountain Goats feat. Craig Finn "This Year"

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.” - Anne Lamott

On serious repeat. (The Morning Benders cover Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams")

NYTimes: Friends of a Certain Age: Why Is It Hard To Make Friends Over 30? I have so much to say about this I don't even know where to start... (Also: the NYTimes continues to baffle with it's classification of things in the "Style" section)

Image: good ol' Love & Rockets.

From the always awesome Rebecca Solnit: The Drug Wars: Apologies to Mexico

From The Atlantic: Transgender Rights in the Workplace Are Still Unclear 

In case my fervor hadn't already convinced you that CrossFit is a cult, watch this video (I know I have...6 times...)

Pretty good advice: Unf**k Your Habitat: The Depression/Messy House Cycle

On my "to read" list: Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution by David Harvey

“Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so when we speak of my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must) we mean something complicated by it. Neither of these is precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another, or indeed, by virtue of another.” - Judith Butler, Undoing Gender