The Library, Music and Deer

The Central Vancouver Library is a wonderful place.

Researching a book on Sexuality I was able to access the Janus Report on Sexual Behaviour and read,not wholly to my astonishment, "Age and aging are a spectre for Americans....our greatest fear connected to increased aging is fear of dimished sex."

I was equally interested in Bert Archer's, The End of Gay (and the death of heterosexuality). He considered Gay as a phase like feminism on the way to a more liberal but different view of sex, sexuality, gender and identity per se. Jeffrey Weeks, Invented Moralities: Sexual Values in an Age of Uncertainty was somewhat less engaging though came to similiar conclusions. Bert had included some stories from his own sexual experience. This made Bert a 'wetter' read to Jeffrey's 'drier' text.

Lieberman, a New York sociologist describing the traditional "functions" of the family said that as an institution it was so 'weakened' that its very survival was in doubt.

Alot of Essentialist versus Social Constructionist debate underlay the various books I perused. One book, Beyond Queer, argued for conservatism and that sex might well become a non issue in how we view the neighbours.

My eighty year old Baptist aunt in a whisper, though no one else was present, told me after we'd talked with a couple of nearly as old men, 'they're a bit light, you know , but they're very good neighbours."

All the sexologist reports do say there's far more going on than meets the eye. Frankly that's probably good for straights as well given the American penchant for couch and calories. Maybe with the aging population we should all go back into the Victorian closet if it hasn't been outsourced.

I wrote my friend in Scotland about the goings on over here and she wrote back, 'there's all manner of men wearing skirts over here too." She's praying for a flat in Edinborough. I saw my first Scottish tattoo there.

In the midst of these studies my boat surveyor, Tim McGivney recommended I not use my mast until repairs have been made to it. I'm praying that isn't synchronicity at work.

August Rush, the charming movie I just watched on TV caught my attention because of the inspiring music and Robin Williams. He's really just one of the gang with the real leads, being three children. It's one of those beyond colour movies with black people and white people naturally mixed throughout as if they all belonged there and weren't just a product of some quota system. Perhaps that's what we can expect with regard to sexuality one day. The story is about a child protege lost to his musician parents and found again through music. "The music is all around us, you just have to listen," the boy says. The family, despite Leiberman, still functions spiritually and the movie is uplifting.

Like this picture I took of two deer last summer. The beauty is all around us, you just have to see.