November 2011
36 posts
“Towards the end of my time at St Martins, the ceramics department bought this machine that made teapots and I can remember thinking it was so pathetic. Instead of expecting people just to decorate something that is already there – moulding people to fit in with the system, to make it look pretty – what you should be doing with arts education is giving people the tools so that they can invent a totally new world of their own. Rather than fitting in with your shitty system that doesn’t seem to work anyway.”
—Jarvis Cocker
John Waters is glad that people feel comfortable coming out of the closet. And yet: “I wish some gay people would go back in. We have enough” →
ft.com
“In a rare at-home interview, the cult director opens up about being a ‘happy neurotic’ and why he’s a capitalist now…He has mixed feelings about gay culture becoming mainstream: ‘I miss it … I’m for gay marriage. I don’t want to do it, but I certainly think people should be allowed to, and I wouldn’t vote for anybody that would be against it. But at the same time, why do we have to be good now? Why can’t we be villains in movies?’”
“
“When he was in his early twenties, Garofalo had watched his mother and stepfather, who lived in Arizona, fall out of the middle class. First, his stepfather was laid off from his job as a managing systems engineer at a computer company that was failing—escorted out of the building after eleven years of employment. His parents started a small import business that failed. To keep their house, they had to commute an hour to jobs that paid less than what Garofalo was making, waiting on tables in Scottsdale. “My stepfather is one of the most principled people I know,” he said. “It was such a clear death of the American Dream—there’s no safety net. You worked all your life and are a good person and it doesn’t matter. You’re really prone to getting fucked. These aren’t people on the fringe. We’re not even near the bottom.”
—excerpt from The New Yorker story “All the angry people”.
“The point of the “It Gets Better” project is to give kids like Jamey Rodemeyer hope for their futures. But sometimes hope isn’t enough. Sometimes the damage done by hate and by haters is simply too great. Sometimes the future seems too remote. And those are the times our hearts break.”
—Dan Savage
“when i found out that jamey rodemeyer killed himself - i felt deeply troubled. but when i found out that jamey rodemeyer had made an it gets better video only months before taking his own life - i felt indescribable despair. i also made an it gets better video last year - in the wake of the senseless and tragic gay teen suicides that were sweeping the nation at the time. but in light of jamey’s death - it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it - is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality. our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered citizen of this country. gay kids need to stop killing themselves because they are made to feel worthless by cruel and relentless bullying. parents need to teach their children principles of respect and acceptance. we are witnessing an enormous shift of collective consciousness throughout the world. we are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government. i believe in the power of intention to change the landscape of our society - and it is my intention to live an authentic life of compassion and integrity and action. jamey rodemeyer’s life changed mine. and while his death only makes me wish that i had done this sooner - i am eternally grateful to him for being the catalyst for change within me. now i can only hope to serve as the same catalyst for even one other person in this world. that - i believe - is all that we can ask of ourselves and of each other.”
—Zachary Quinto
“Part of my approach to being gay in public has always been that it shouldn’t be a big deal, so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. But there came a point when I realized that that could be confused with being ashamed or being afraid.”
—David Hyde Pierce on coming out
