So, I was just sitting in the laundromat washing my underwear, watching the edges of a sunset out the window, and re-reading a brilliant essay, "Romancing the Looky-Loos," from Dave Hickey's funny, rowdy book of art criticism, Air Guitar. He makes a distinction between spectators and participants of art -- or music, writing, whatever. Spectators, his jazz musician dad said, were "nonparticipants, people who did not live the life -- people with no real passion for what was going on. They were just looking. They paid their dollar at the door, but they contributed nothing to the occasion..."
Participants, on the other hand, are amazing. They breathe life into things just by showing up. This reminds me why I have such a strong, deep, lingering love for fat activists, writers and artists, lesbians and weirdos in general. Those groups have willed my work into being over the course of decades with their wild courage, their reckless needs, their sensual intellects, rebellious bodies and stunning persistence. Especially fat girls, fat queers -- oh my god, they've given me such gifts!
It's thrilling to keep expanding these circles, to get give and take from unexpected sources, to keep looking around so I don't miss energy and beauty that I may have overlooked the first time around. Livejournal is definitely helping me do that.
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