One small note: personally I don’t give a shit about making Dave acceptable to a ‘progressive’ or any other audience. Rehabilitation ain’t my bag. I’m more interested in transforming folks who think Dave is giving a full-bodied theory of beauty rather than doing a performance (one which I consider camp). Which is what we were explicitly up to in 1993, in the face of the AIDS plague. Neither do I have a ‘theory’ about Dave. I tried to give a performance myself, addressing my own experience of Dave. To ask whether I’m ‘right’ or not falls into the trap. Dragon is a performance— a big swing—which, if it fails, is camp. My ‘queering’ of Dave is a performance, too, a big swing, which if it fails might be camp as well. I don’t know. But if we leave Dave to the folks who worry about what is true about him or his work, we all lose.
But is your point, about it being a performance, mutually exclusive from my suggestion that you're trying to re-brand Dave in part to lower the barrier to certain kinds of people seeking him out.
Ideally some people will think he's queerly acceptable, some will think he's queerly cancellable, and they'll both buy the book (and Dan's) and be bettered by it 🙏
Not mutually exclusive! My comment is directed more at Blake’s thinking that I’m trying to do something I’m not, since I agree with much of what he argues (except for my being a pussy afraid of big bad Dave! The opposite was more the truth.) so happy you dudes are fleshing this all out.
Love reading all this frivolity!
One small note: personally I don’t give a shit about making Dave acceptable to a ‘progressive’ or any other audience. Rehabilitation ain’t my bag. I’m more interested in transforming folks who think Dave is giving a full-bodied theory of beauty rather than doing a performance (one which I consider camp). Which is what we were explicitly up to in 1993, in the face of the AIDS plague. Neither do I have a ‘theory’ about Dave. I tried to give a performance myself, addressing my own experience of Dave. To ask whether I’m ‘right’ or not falls into the trap. Dragon is a performance— a big swing—which, if it fails, is camp. My ‘queering’ of Dave is a performance, too, a big swing, which if it fails might be camp as well. I don’t know. But if we leave Dave to the folks who worry about what is true about him or his work, we all lose.
But is your point, about it being a performance, mutually exclusive from my suggestion that you're trying to re-brand Dave in part to lower the barrier to certain kinds of people seeking him out.
Ideally some people will think he's queerly acceptable, some will think he's queerly cancellable, and they'll both buy the book (and Dan's) and be bettered by it 🙏
Not mutually exclusive! My comment is directed more at Blake’s thinking that I’m trying to do something I’m not, since I agree with much of what he argues (except for my being a pussy afraid of big bad Dave! The opposite was more the truth.) so happy you dudes are fleshing this all out.
Your next book title: "Ideas That Make My Pants Crackle"
Can we simplify somehow. My Pants Crackle? Making my pants crackle?