[-empyre-] last of the gang to die: queer relationality and "out of the blue"

[Robert Summers]

I have been thinking about whether or not to post this to the empyre
listserve, share it at the proverbial sumposium, and then reading an
advanced copy of David Halprine's, et al.'s new anthology titled _Gay
Shame_, esp. Ellis Hanson's essay on queer pedagogy, made me decide
with a resounding decision.  Yes, I shall post it!

I was standing in front of my mom's house -- I've been staying at her
Laguna Beach house for a while, another story -- and I was drinking an
iced tea and smoking a cigarette.  Walking up the street was a young
boy (17? 18? 20? 21?): he was 21 -- I would later find out.

He asked me if I was drinking a beer and if he could "bum" a
cigarette.  I told him I was drink tea, and I gave him a cigarette --
even lit it for him.

We talked for a bit: he was walking over to his friend's to "smoke a
bowl."  I laughed.

We talked some more: there was a subtext, which I was clueless about till later.

It was a random meeting: "out of the blue."  Walking the streets of
residential Laguna is not the place one would expect such an
encounter, a relationship -- no matter how brief, or how temporary.

He asked if I lived here.  I told him no. I am just visiting my mom.

He asked if he could come in out of the sun: a hot day for Laguna.  Sure.

I finally knew what this talk was "really" about.

We had sex.  In the words of Ellis Hanson, "the only good sex is the
type you are ashamed about afterwards."  Indeed, I was joyfully in
shame.  He was shameless.  Shame and shameless: separated by a suffix.

Soon enough, after our other encounter, I walked him out, he "bummed"
another cigarette (I though of Genet's Un Chant Amour).

I walked to the curb and lit up a(nother) cigarette (myself: a
metaphor for one of this actions that took place 40? 50? behind me.

I saw him walk down the street: to (really) "smoke a bowl" with his friend?

I realized this was "queer relational". This was one art of living.
This was queer: perhaps, peculiar is a better word.

I never saw him again, and I doubt I ever will.  But this does not
mean it was not a valuable experience: it was.  And, this does not
mean that there was not a relationality (queer to be sure) that took
place, which left me in a different place -- as well as leaving me
otherwise.

I guess what I am writing now (here, now) is what I wrote about Miwon
Kwon and John Ricco and queer relational a few days ago, but this took
place on a grassy lawn and then a wooden floor not the pages of books,
which is not to say those types relations are not just as valuable and
engaging and dangerous.

Shamelessly,
Robert

Robert Summers, PhD/ABD
Lecturer
Art History and Visual Culture
Otis College of Art and Design
e: rsummers at otis.edu
w: http://ospace.otis.edu/robtsum/Welcome