reading this week's nyer, about a sex scandal at Horace Mann (one of two or three there), the author buries this ppgh: in recent years reports have surfaced of sexual abuse at St Paul's, Andover, Exeter and other prominent private schools. (51). He then goes on to mention Buckingham Browne and Nichols. Canadians can add Selwyn Hall in Montreal, and UCC in Toronto.

Reports here, mean that those who have gone to the police, or have resulted in settlemants—reports that have been made part of the official discourse. The schools have a number of things in common—they were at the time of the reporting, or continue to be single sex, they encourage a kind of secrecy, they cost a lot of money to get into, they are boarding or have compoenents of boarding attached to them, etc etc.

Ironically—the closeness of a boarding school, might have been the schools undoing. Just as the homosocialness suggests a kind of boundry policing that allowed teachers to have sex with students to isolate them, into thinking that they were so special, that no one would understand the practice—when students returned to schools or found each other online, they found they were not alone, and a reversal of the loyalty kicked in. each of these settlements came when a group of boys got together, and worked collectively in order to find justice. There is something in the effort to make butch corps d'espirt

(personal overshare—though some of the recent renuinons online and in person have occurred since sjsa have shut down, so many of the people in the school are committed to it's program, and the loyalty does not seem to allow for this reversal to occur. The idea that what occurred at sjsa was abusive is not allowed to be part of the discourse. Also, the other schools mentioned had a sexual breach—the homosociality was breached sexually—noone at sjsa has admitted that they were fucked by other students, or fucked by other teachers, much of the role that other teachers had, was not to isolate and seperate students as a way to make them part of the elite, but to strip any indviduality off them, and working against the instincts of Selwyn or UCC.)

(which makes me think—is there scandals that are left to emerge re: Lynn Ward or Fork Hill or etc. Also, b/c of Byfield's influence—sjsa and most likely the other ones, were so fucking weird, that their might not have been distincit similarities)

Tried to explain to a flustered Adrienne Clarkson how the library at Mags worked today, and watched John Ralston Saul scare a baby into silence in the Communion Line. Didn't talk too him at Coffee afterwards, because i wasn't sure whether to say: Yr idea of the Metis concept of Canadian Identity is brilliant, or Yr reading of Foucault is hella fucked up.

four thots post dinshaw

a) So if we can agree that the essentializing project of modernism seperated sodomy, making it a social identity (and this social identity was later politicised); the medeival traditon stated that sodomy was interlocked with a set of other sins (ie lust, simony, usury, gluttony, heresy), these sins could be described as sins of excess--does the question for a queerness that seeks historical context, but refuses the essentializing instinct, become one of intergrating this history of excess?
b) could this excess of practice be seen as an excess of flesh? (thinking of Dinshaw's discussion of enlarged clits, Seneca's writing about dildos "sewn on", the dildos themselves, and how all of that could be considered a collapsing of sign and signifer?
c) does the devolpment of a theology of transubstaiton in the 14th and 15th century be a way of making the metaphorical body of Christ a self contained system, that avoids these excesses of flesh (i.e the idea that one could not perform the sacaremnt if one had a wet dream the night before?)
d) can we think of queerness in its idealizing the unstable and the liminal returning sexuality to its medeival orgins in sodomitical discourse, but w/o the prohibitive langauge?

when it comes to the queerness of Rberg and Johns, its two steps forward and three steps back

Rita Abrahamsen  explains why the intervention in Mali is not the same as the interventions in the middle east, and that Islam is not the same world wide.

The New York Transportation Department  Graphic Standards Manual was leaked. and speaking of type, the 1923 American Type Foundray Specimen Book.

Chuck's brilliant, haunting essay, on the implicaitons of McCready as a musician.

the mugsum of nothern cameron's use of mud buildings

Finnish Cabin in the woods.

Jaymanne writes brilliantly on the problems of  assuming video games are non linear, or they are the same kind of non-linearity as other kinds of texts.

SCans of the World Wide Diamond Novelty  Catalog.

26 Weird Hockey Fan Signs

Lisa Moore  writes on why poetry was so important to the second wave feminist movement, including discussions of the interactions between Lorde and Hacker.

Photos of the Maldive Pig Slaughter

Bachedlers Pencil Portrait of Ruscha, ca 74.

Blogpost from a physican, about the implications of naming pyscho-somatic conditions,  and what the interaction between body and mind means.

Fergus Filhey is an irish  collagist and abstract artist, who does v, small, messy, historically minded, bright, and quite intelligent works that build up texture thru a combonaiton of hand created mark making (drawing, painting) and thru the building up of found materials (foil, wood, plastic). it continues the tradition of the armeature becoming part of the picture plane--and is a good example of a recent trend (several of the painters in the current Collision 9 show at Parasian Laundry in Montreal, for one)

skiing through an abandonded modernist midrise near anchorage.

for all yr bowling alley side graphic needs.

apihtawikosisan writes about the slippery nature of naming in metis and aboroginal communities in Canada.


Mid 1950s video on Logging PRactices.