His Amulet Failed Him
Via Captain Nemo in the comments, a tale of woe and trauma from party person Mr Jordan Bennett:
Okay so I had the most DISGUSTING INVALIDATING experience at Heaven nightclub last night,
Hey, I visited Heaven one evening in the early 90s. I’ve seen what can happen.
a place where I am meant to feel free and accepted.
A big gay club for today’s downtrodden homosexual. There is, though, the small matter of security checks. For weapons and such.
Queuing to enter the club it splits into 2 lines- MAN and WOMAN – to be checked by seperate [sic] people.
Sharp-eyed readers may have an inkling of what’s coming.
I am non-binary so OF COURSE I’m gonna queue in the women’s line in sheer protest of where I know they would expect me to queue based on my appearance.
But of course. Let’s call it intersectional decision-making. Or a contrived, rather needy, excuse for drama.
I wait to be checked nervously and then one of the security staff rudely gestures me to the other line for men. I then kindly tell them that I am non-binary whilst highlighting the pronouns on my earrings which clearly say ‘They/Them’
Sadly, however, said earrings had lost their talismanic powers:
They carried on refusing me access, repeatedly saying this side was for ‘women only’. I shamefully walk to the other side. The two distinctly separate box-like detectors for each queue added to the prison-like atmosphere. I felt invalidated and embarrassed.
Habitual self-involvement can do that, I suppose.
One of the comments below the linked article about the firings opines that minority children visiting the museum need to see themselves reflected in the staff.
The museum’s docents are nearly all white and female.
The museum’s guards and other staff are nearly all black.
Problem solved. 😉
Also: The museum’s visitors are nearly all white and Asian. Very few blacks visit except as part of school field trips. I suspect this gives a clue as to why there are zero or virtually zero black docents: Very, very few black Chicagoans are interested in the museum.
minority children visiting the museum need to see themselves reflected in the staff.
But why?
In part this is a consequence of the failure of liberalism: The eradication of legal and customary barriers to blacks was supposed to quickly result in a society in which the racial makeup of all professions and interests would match that of society. That did not happen, so the left had to find “reasons” which did not call into question the left’s assumptions.
Holy Cow!
One of the comments below the linked article about the firings opines that minority children visiting the museum need to see themselves reflected in the staff.
The volunteer staff in cultural venues here on the Soggy Isle are mostly middle-aged, middle-class, posh-ish women. It’s what they do-
I suspect it is the same throughout in the West. I have often thought that these are women whose grandmothers, in a more religious age, ensured that their local churches were cleaned and decorated and always bedecked with flowers.
We have seen that this Chicago nonsense is part of a pattern. In Britain, the same crap has damaged the National Trust. Galleries and museums are “decolonising”.
Already “problematic” statues- which are really art in the streets, squares and parks- have been removed in Britain and North America.
The next step, inevitably, will be the removal of much of the art in the galleries.
The objective is not to make any of this more accessible to blacks or any other group. The objective is to remove any celebration of the art, artefacts or architecture of western civilisation (whether that be secular or Christian).
Holy Cow!
I don’t generally follow Rotten tomatoes these days as I have largely given up on new films- there are plenty of classics that I can watch.
Am I mistaken in my impression that the divergence between critics and audience ratings has grown wider in recent years?
the divergence between critics and audience ratings has grown wider
I’m not a religious tomato-watcher, but I’d say so yes, particularly with respect to culturally “sensitive” movies. This is the largest diversion I’ve yet seen though.
But that’s the purpose of a museum – to allow me to see and experience things that are outside of my “lived experience.”
See also, academia.
Comic books have become everything Fredric Wertham warned us about.
And the way the left finds racism, patriarchy, etc. ad nauseam, in everything (except in their own politicians), they have become Wertham.
I’m sure that Niven, as an avid comics fan, was fully aware of this
I don’t agree. Remember, the genesis of the Wild Cards anthology series was a bunch of science fiction authors wanting to do superheroes “right” because they weren’t “believable” in the comics.
The essay doesn’t hold up, whether you think he’s joking or being serious, because he makes several crucial category errors. It’s like a comedian doing an entire riff on how no one takes Ralph Dibny seriously because he’s black.
(As an aside the essay would work perfectly if it were about, say, Steve Rogers; Rogers is human, was subjected to a process that increased his physical strength to effectively superhuman levels, and he’s been depicted as being sexually active without the inevitable complications being addressed.)
I don’t agree. Remember, the genesis of the Wild Cards anthology series was a bunch of science fiction authors wanting to do superheroes “right” because they weren’t “believable” in the comics.
I don’t really know anything about that series, so I cannot comment.
The essay doesn’t hold up, whether you think he’s joking or being serious, because he makes several crucial category errors. It’s like a comedian doing an entire riff on how no one takes Ralph Dibny seriously because he’s black.
Sorry, I don’t know anything about Ralph Dibney–in fact I have only a very superficial knowledge of comics. So what crucial category errors did Niven make? It’s been decades since I read the essay. I only remember that Niven said he loved comics as a kid and this was why he inserted comic references in some of his stories.
Am I mistaken in my impression that the divergence between critics and audience ratings has grown wider in recent years?
A number of bloggers have said just that.
I don’t agree. Remember, the genesis of the Wild Cards anthology…
In the anthology I first read it in, the introductory text makes clear that the essay is an exercise in, as I believe they say in David’s fay realm, “taking the piss.” It is not meant to stand up to any kind of serious analysis, just to inspire a chuckle. Which it did, at least in me.
The volunteer staff in cultural venues here on the Soggy Isle are mostly middle-aged, middle-class, posh-ish women. It’s what they do.
Indeed. I’ve just been away Ooop North for a long weekend with a group of friends whose idea of fun involves trudging round museums, country houses, Georgian theatres (well, one Georgian theatre in Richmond: the tour was actually very interesting) and anywhere else where there are tour guides or volunteer stewards. Every one of the latter was indeed a middle-aged, middle-class woman, and they did an excellent job. The visitors were more varied – men, women and a few (reluctant) children, and judging by their accents, of almost all social classes. None of them, however, seemed worried or annoyed by the consistent non-diversity of the stewards and guides: just impressed by their knowledge and willingness to help.
as I believe they say in David’s fay realm
“O see ye not yon narrow road So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers? That is the path of Righteousness, Though after it but few inquires.
And see ye not yon braid, braid road That lies across the lily leven? That is the path of Wickedness, Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
And see ye not yon bonny road That winds about yon fernie brae? That is the road to fair Elfland, Where thou and I this night maun gae.”
No mention, though, of dusty sausage rolls. Or stern-visaged henchlesbians, for that matter. Perhaps Faerie has had some…upgrades…in the last five hundred years.
Looks like Bennett has restricted access to the tweets in question. How stunning and brave.
The Wayback Machine still has his original tweets (at least for the moment).
https://web.archive.org/web/20211010113942/https://twitter.com/jordxnbennett/status/1447164876636438531
He was outraged … but not outraged enough to pass on being treated like cattle (of whatever sex) in order to enter a frickin’ nightclub. I would have bowed out right at the security lines (assuming I’d ever been cajoled into getting that far).
Regarding this is awkward
The Kid says: ““The most exciting part was definitely meeting Vice President Harris. There’s nothing that can top that. Like honestly, she just sat us down. She’s super charismatic. She’s everything that I ever thought of her, plus more,” he said . “She made me feel like one of her peers, and at the time, I felt super important. I was talking to her face to face.” Bernardino’s talent agency shared a montage on Instagram.”
Just, wow. This poor boy is meat for some charismatic psychopath’s casting couch.
Harris needed a better script and a lot more rehearsals. That performance was embarrassing.
what crucial category errors did Niven make
He explicitly states in the opening paragraphs that Superman is not human, and that Kryptonian biology can’t be compared to human biology. He actually uses a “marsupials and mammals look very similar but are crucially different in their reproductive biology” analogy. He then goes on to base his entire essay on the presumption that Kryptonians sexually reproduce and react during orgasm exactly the same way humans do, but with more force. It’s the equivalent of saying “mammals and marsupials are almost indistinguishable, but their reproductive biology is very different and OMG IT’S IMPOSSIBLE FOR A KANGAROO TO GIVE BIRTH A SIX MONTH OLD JOEY CAN’T FIT THROUGH THE BIRTH CANAL LOL”
It is not meant to stand up to any kind of serious analysis, just to inspire a chuckle.
That brother Ralph Dibney can’t get a fair shake. The man be keeping him down.
If you need a more contemporary analogy, consider any Seinfeld routine, any of which are based on Jerry Seinfeld apparently being borderline-retarded-ignorant about how the world around him works.
OK, now I’m totally confused. Are y’all trying to tell me that if Superman eats a hot dog, THEN it’s a sandwich? Because that’s what I’m picking up from all of this. Or am I overthinking things again?
In the anthology I first read it in, the introductory text makes clear that the essay is an exercise in, as I believe they say in David’s fay realm, “taking the piss.” It is not meant to stand up to any kind of serious analysis, just to inspire a chuckle.
I have that anthology, buried somewhere in piles of books. It was reprinted in the more recent anthology N-Space, in which Niven writes that “but my venture into xenofertility was only party conversation until Bjo Trimble made me type it up”. That sounds like “taking the piss”: It’s just fun, not to be taken too seriously.
Remember when the New Yorker was not pathologically politicized shite? It was always pretentiously lit’rary and snobbish in a New York way, but the left has made it unbearable:
“These days, we understand Thoreau to have been a nonpracticing gay man, whose retreat to his weatherized cabana at Walden was… an anti-heteronormative broadside.”
Via Ann Althouse, who comments “How did I miss the development of this understanding that Thoreau was “a nonpracticing gay man”? If he’s nonpracticing, and he didn’t talk about it, whence the idea that he was gay? Doesn’t that erase asexuality?”
From several commenters on her blog:
“This piece is of the same genre of those claiming Lincoln was gay because lawyers following the Circuit in Illinois at the time often shared the same bed.”
…
“The most salient points from the literature and humanities courses I took while a Yale undergrad can be summarized as follows:
1) Every author, poet, philosopher, or artist of note was LGBTQetc, whether they knew it or not.
2) Anything longer than it was wide represented a penis, and anything concave represented a vagina.”
…
“People projecting their sexual insecurities onto long-dead historical figures is so trite and boring.”
Add “political obsessions” to “sexual insecurities”.
If you need a more contemporary analogy, consider any Seinfeld routine, any of which are based on Jerry Seinfeld apparently being borderline-retarded-ignorant about how the world around him works.
One can have fun deliberately ignoring the clear meaning of something to ascribe some more amusing significance. You know you’re doing that, the people listening to you also know, and it’s all just innocent fun that is not meant to be taken at all seriously.
I’m transitioning to a male timberwolf. I’ll be protected by the endangered species act.
Am I mistaken in my impression that the divergence between critics and audience ratings has grown wider in recent years?
I’m annoyed that Wikipedia assumes a RT score has any validity or meaning. It’s bad enough we believe award shows and prizes represent an accurate critical judgment, but at least we can say “according to the Nobel Prize committee, Hemingway was given the prize because the head of the judging panel was retiring and we thought it would be a nice thing to do” (true, BTW).
But RT is not an organized collective of critics. There’s no institutional body. You can dial phone numbers at random and collect callers’ opinion into a percentage, and it would have as much validity as a Rotten Tomatoes score.
Future Daily Mail headline: Guerrilla Docents Occupy Art Institute of Chicago! Visitors surprised when innocent grannies expound to bystanders on works of art. Security called by managers, but turned back by crowds eagerly listening to informed commentary. Police use tear gas to clear gallery, arrest grannies for felony trespass.
Future Daily Mail headline…
…while the paid docents scoff “why they want to know about this sheet anyway?”
@ComputerLabRat
“Nor, apparently, can you be trans-weight – anorexics have body dysphoria as real as any of the transgender crowd, but no one is rushing to give them diet pills or perform bariatric surgery on them.”
Heh (well, no…). I’ve been saying this for some time. Also, let’s not overlook those who (I’m not making this up) identify as blind or amputees. Where’s their surgery?
Also, let’s not overlook those who (I’m not making this up) identify as blind or amputees. Where’s their surgery?
I think the trans-abled – trans-disabled? – crowd has actually gained some traction in getting stuff lopped off. I mean if surgeons are going to perform mastectomies at the drop of a hat, because some women are convinced their breasts shouldn’t be there, why not amputations for people convinced their arms or legs shouldn’t be there? The trans-race thing hasn’t taken off because the race grifter rice bowls are huge and they aren’t about to share, but anorexics, who have been around as long as transgenders have, haven’t joined the trans mafia that I know of. I’m not sure why.