Issue/Publication: QSaltLake

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Hey, Red Room. Here's the latest installment of my column "Gay Geeks," which I write for QSaltLake.  In this issue: why I love 1984.

It’s summer, the season of "beach books" – celebrity memoirs, purply romance novels and, at least for those of you who waited in line for a copy of Breaking Dawn on Aug 2, sparkly vampires. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – the brain needs a vacation just as much as the body does during the hotter, dryer months. And besides, trashy books are fun. Stephenie Meyer’s unintentionally hilarious Twilight saga, of which Breaking Dawn is the final installment, has kept me and my girlfriend laughing for weeks, for example. I mean, you guys. Vampires that sparkle. In the sun. And whine for hundreds of pages. Seriously. 

But for me, the dog days of August are also a good time to catch up on that long list of books I want to read, but haven’t yet (currently, it numbers about 2,000 – I wish I was joking). At the top of the list: George Orwell’s 1984, the novel that brought us such watchwords as “freedom is slavery,” “doublethink,”  "thoughtcrime" and “Big Brother is watching you.” No, I really didn’t read it until this year. Tenth grade English was all about Animal Farm (no sex and no disturbingly graphic torture, and therefore no angry parents and well, sometimes it just takes awhile to seek things out when they’re not on the syllabus. Especially when reading and writing is your career. Although it took me long enough, I’m glad I chose this month to pick up this heartbreaking, bleak and truly terrifying book. Not just because it’s a classic. Not just because it’s timely. Not even because people who mindlessly bleat, “1984 is coming true” without having ever read the book really piss me off. I’m glad because, Cold War and Stalinist preoccupations aside, 1984 still has a lot to say to people of all races, sexes and sexual orientations. Not necessarily about the perils of totalitarian government, but about the all-too-human cruelties and lusts that construct such governments.

Read the rest here: http://qsaltlake.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=679&Itemid=55