Month November 2019

SoCS Nov 30/19 – No tea, no shade

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I’ve been infected by popular culture!

I first heard the phrase  “No tea, no shade’ on RuPaul’s Drag Race, not all that long ago to be honest. I’m soooo late to the party with that series! To be even more honest, I haven’t watched them all. I was caught at a weak moment when I was feeling a bit under the weather, and got sucked in to the spectacle which is drag!

But then it got me thinking. Behind all the glitz and the in-fighting and the drama and the make up, RuPaul has done a huge amount to bring drag queens to the forefront of society’s consciousness and, I can only imagine, help this particular part of what used to be an underground culture, be more acceptable to people who may otherwise have been unwelcoming at best.

Did you know that the term ‘drag’ was first used in British theatre in the late nineteenth century, and was used t describe women’s clothing worn by men? Some say that ‘drag’ is an acronym for ‘dressed as a girl’ – which makes sense, but who knows. But then there is the phrase ‘putting on your drags’ which comes from Polari, the British theatre slang that was also popular with the then gay ‘subculture’ (as well as circus performers, wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, prostitutes and criminals. Sadly the language has all but died out, although the positive spin is that it has almost disappeared because gay men no longer have the need to speak in code – back in the 1960s when Polari reached its zenith, it was a crime to be a homosexual.

Anyway, no tea, no shade – or rather no arguments or insults from me!

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This is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday, hosted by the lovely Linda – please visit her here to see what it’s all about.

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SoCS Nov 23/19 – Dark Future

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Not so much an advert, in the narrow/normal sense of the word, but right now here in the UK, we are being advertised to by our political parties who are all jumping up and down shouting ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ ahead of the forthcoming general election. My doormat is littered with orders to ‘Vote This Party’ or ‘Re-elect That Member of Parliament’. My recycling bin is having a field day.

I saw something about Time Square in New York on the TV the other day and remember thinking, if all those neon adverts were replaced by men and women standing in the streets shouting, would it change our approach to advertising?

I have a sight problem which renders neon adverts and high contrast imagery a disturbing blur, which ultimately leads to unstable and irritating (to say the least) double vision. I’m starting to feel the same way about the nature of politics in my country, to be honest. it has taken a nasty, divisive, dishonest and aggressive turn whicb is unstable and far more depressing than irritating. We have had three and half years of political and social upheaval (I won’t write about that particular subject here, don’t worry). It’s very very stressful.

I will vote – I value the fact that we have universal suffrage far too much to consider not voting. I am lucky enough to live in a constituency that has a decent MP who works very hard for us.

I wish it was all over, although I dread what lies ahead after 12th December. Oh the irony that the results will be know on Friday 13th….

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This is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday, hosted by the lovely Linda – please visit her here to see what it’s all about.

Frozen in drowning fire – dVerse Poetics

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I pour myself into a paper cup and choke

on my viscous hair as it wraps

its grasping entrails around my throat.

 

I gaze upwards into the starlight of hell beneath my feet,

the bowels of the earth shining in the gloom

above my head.

 

The wonders of living are innumerable –

I observe this from my grave buried deep in the furnace.

The fiery ventricles of my frozen heart pound like a halting train

as I croak my last word at the moment of my birth.

 

I’m rusty at this poetry malarkey. I hope surrealism suits for a first venture back into dVerse for a while! Surrealism is the theme over here – do  join in!