Sign in with Facebook
This anxiety or queasiness in the face of impermanence isn’t something that afflicts just a few of us; it’s an all-pervasive state that human beings share. But rather than being disheartened by the ambiguity, the uncertainty of life, what
...more
“At the height of his fame, he would reassure his audience: “You’re not alone—give me your hands” [61], and then stretch out his own emaciated arms toward them, coyly allowing the tips of his fingers to graze theirs for an instant, before he withdrew, keeping their tantalizing dream of contact alive while remaining ultimately aloof and alone.”
― The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s
― The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s
“Another term emerged in 1862, in the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. ‘Uranian’ or ‘urning’ was derived from Plato’s description of same-sex love in the Symposium as ‘ouranios’ or ‘heavenly’. (‘Ouranos’ literally means ‘the pisser’, opening up a further line of enquiry.) Whatever its celestial origins, the term did not quite catch on. Who would want to be called an ‘urning’? It sounds like some sort of gnome. An ‘urnind’ was a queer female, while ‘uranodionings’ were bisexual.”
― Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day
― Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day
“The beauty and magnitude of a diva's voice resides, so the iconography suggests, in her deformity. Her voice is beautiful because she herself is not-and her ugliness is interpreted as a sign of moral and social deviance. Reading biographies of divas, I can't ignore the repeated references to physical flaws-for example, Benedetta Pisaroni's "features horribly disfigured by small-pox," prompting spectators to shut their eyes "so as to hear without being condemned to see." Audiences speculated that Maria Malibran was not anatomically a woman, but an androgyne or hermaphrodite-an aberrant physique to match her voice's magic power.”
― Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality And The Mystery Of Desire
― Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality And The Mystery Of Desire
Bill’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Bill’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
2,305 books
|
463 friends
4,709 books
|
194 friends
980 books
|
125 friends
1,309 books
|
254 friends
1,033 books
|
251 friends
65,441 books
|
3,217 friends
1,598 books
|
264 friends
433 books
|
58 friends
More friends…
Polls voted on by Bill
Lists liked by Bill
