wank off wednesday: Hide/Seek is Magic

indulge me, your friend pumpernickel, in my need to let slip my past life as an art historian.

where to start, where to start... In October 2010, the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, curated an uncharacteristically progressive and queer-aware show, Hide/Seek.  It claimed to be "the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern american portraiture." In November the NPG responded to a Catholic League post that the David Wojnarowicz, "Fire in my Belly" video with ants crawling on a crucifix was too much to smut for their tax dollars to bear. The NPG conceded and took the piece down officially signing their name in the big book of censorship that keeps on growing. 

here's the thing: I am secretly thankful to our conservative counterparts --not catholics mind you, just folks that align themselves with quieting personal expression. Thank you conservative letter writers for reminding me that magic still exists. Reminding me that what you see gets translated until it suddenly, magically feels fire in your own bellies. That sexuality is undeniably palpable and you feel it too and you are scared of it because it is just that heavy. That as the proverb goes: obscenity is whatever gives the judge an erection; such a real outcome from an idea is surely magic. Yes! In the way that Sarah Silverman meant when she said "Jesus is Magic". That way! In that way that believes that objects outside the body can still alchemically change once they hit your tongue. In the way that reminds me that art and sexuality, two elusive intangible sciences are still dangerous. Thank you for reminding me that others can see that and that I must take this news as seriously as humanly possible. Thank you because I sometimes forget that expressing oneself can be a matter of life or death. I sometimes get very tired of being an huberist that doesn't believe in magic, but it is times like this that I feel cured.

this is all just a pre-game speech to remind myself why it's important to be out there doing real things about very hard to pin-down topics. the reason we three screws are together doing the work we do is because there's not enough of us writing letters/blogs/curriculums/books/policies about the things that are important to us. there's room in this sandbox for all of us, we'd love to share if you want to jump in.