Realism and Sacredness

Tennessee Williams' shocking play Suddenly Last Summer  is one of his efforts to confront, with an overwhelming amount of courage and honesty, the horror of sexual dissociation. Young Catharine, suspected of mental illness and under threat of lobotomy, is injected with a truth serum, and under its influence tells a terrible story. Her cousin Sebastian, who traveled with her abroad, exploited her to lure young men he could have sex with (as he had exploited his mother before her.) Eventually, a heated, incited mob of hungry, abused children, chases Sebastian in the streets of Spain and exacts a terrible revenge: they mutilate and murder him and even feast on his flesh. The story is too much for Sebastian's relatives to handle. It horrifies us, as well, and at the same time captivates us, as horrible things often do. There's a reason why cultural heritage is universally infused with stories of mobs and sacrifice. The classic, of course, is the Greatest Story Ever Told. The lu...

Like pretty much every decent person I know, I was outraged to find out--via tweet, no less--that our president has decided to ban transgender people from military service. This is one more example of the casual afterthought with which this administration erases civil rights and is an absolute outrage. I also agree with those who commented this morning that simultaneous occurrence of bad things (efforts to deny healthcare to millions of Americans and efforts to marginalize trans people) does not imply that one is a "distraction" from the other. It is pouring bad news, and these are just two of those. And yet, I always find myself uneasy when our civil rights struggle revolves around military service. My discomfort stems, I imagine, from having grown up in an extremely militarized country, in which two massive fictions govern the idea of service: that everyone must serve (i.e., that the army is moral and ethical and is busy defending a small democracy in a sea of hostile c...

At the corner of Castro and Market, facing the grand Castro Theater, flies our flag, high and proud, featuring all colors of the rainbow, vibrant and alive against the blue skies. Just a month and a half ago we lost Gilbert Baker, the artist who created the Rainbow Flag. Baker’s original design was to have eight stripes: pink stood for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for harmony and purple for spirit. The pressures and costs of mass production led Baker to drop two colors—pink and turquoise—and the resulting flag is now a recognizable symbol of our community. And when I look at your smiling faces today, even though you are all clad in blue and gold, I see all colors of the rainbow flag. I see an appetite and zest for life, which kept you going for three years in law school; I see a passion for healing through advocating for others; I see the desire to help everyone stand proudly under the sun; I see true commitment...