Song of a Reformed Headhunter

 Two full days on Malecon Beach, the first spent finishing Duras's The Easy Life and drinking too many margaritas. The tripartite structure of the book is interesting. The social trigger on the farm, the psychic unravelling by the sea, and then back to the farm again to re-immerse oneself in social life. Too neat an organization perhaps? Part 1, the longest part, is gripping, but Part 2, the second longest part, is the most experimental of the three parts. Part 3 skirts the danger of feeling like a letdown, with its happy conclusion.  On Wednesday evening, we went on the "art walk" in Puerto Vallarta. Some lovely works, particularly ceramics and photography. On both Wednesday and Thursday nights, we walked by the sea, swallowed by people in the Historico Centro, around the Arches and the Sail, and then spat out into silence and solitude further south. 

  The flight from CDMX to Puerto Vallarta took one and a half hours. Our Airbnb is on Pilitas, in Zona Romantica, the gay part of town. Had lunch at Cafe de Angel, walked about in the afternoon, and then a dinner of whole red snapper in Joe Jack's Fish Shack, which was not a shack, but a popular restaurant. The server deboned the snapper expertly in front of me. After dinner, went to a bar called La Noche, recommended by Bench. On the rooftop, talked to a young server who came from Venezuela. On the ground floor, a drag performance dragged out for one and a half hours. We were seeing many older gay men with other older gay men. Guy remarked accurately that PV, with its cheaper rents and drinks, seemed to be a haven for retirees from California.

When we arrived yesterday, the Pyramid of the Sun was covered in fog. The misty cover disappeared in the course of the morning, by the time we took our photo in front of the Pyramid of the Moon. The whole complex was truly impressive. What we did not expect was the colorful murals in the complex and surrounding residential ruins. In the murals, the liquid-shaped things coming out of mouths are speech bubbles. Can you spot the "football player"? Our guide Rogelio from With Locals was excellent. He was informative and skeptical at the same time, very unusual for a tour guide.   Back in the hotel, started watching The Witcher: Blood Origin , with Michelle Yeoh in it. Then found out on IG that Henry Cavill has been dropped from both Superman and The Witcher. When Guy joined me, we watched Glass Onion , with Daniel Craig as the detective and Edward Norton as the Meta-like CEO. Not brilliant by any means, it was worth watching.

  On Christmas Eve, visited Museo Mural Diego Rivera, and saw "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon at Alameda Central," his highly personal and political mural. Then walked through the park itself, the oldest public park in Latin America, to Constitution Square, or Zocalo. Lunch at the lovely Cafe de Tacuba. Back in hotel, watched Isi and Ossi , starring a delicious Dennis Mojen and Lisa Vicari who played the innocent rich girl well.  Late start on Christmas Day. Continued reading Duras's The Easy Life Part 2, where the female protagonist goes to the beach and falls apart. Then went to the Museo Nacional de Anthropologia. Very impressive buildings housing an impressive collection of pre-Columbian artefacts. Rainy day. Back in hotel, watched Men in Black: International starring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. Hemsworth in bed with an octopus-like alien, but because it's a family movie, he does not even show his butt. Then repeat-watched Lewis on Youtube with Guy: "W...

  Yesterday, visited a place that I had always wanted to visit since I heard about it: Frida Kahlo's Blue House, or Casa Azul. It was a beautiful compound of house and garden. The great paintings were not there, as they were scattered in the world's museums, but the material remnants of one's life were. The wheelchair in front of the easel in the artist's studio. The mirror above the beds in the day and night bedrooms that enabled the artist to paint while lying down in excruciating pain. The artist's ashes in an urn in the shape of toad, to recall Diego's nickname for himself, the toad-frog. The corsets—medical and decorative—that held the broken body straight. The song written by Patti Smith, painted on the garden wall, inspired by Noguchi's gift of a display case of butterflies to Kahlo. Famously, when Kahlo had to remove her gangrenous foot, she said, "Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?" After Casa Azul, we walked to the lov...

Five of my "Ungovernable Bodies" poems have just appeared in Five Dials, a literary magazine published by Hamish Hamilton, together with work by K. Busatto, Helon Habila, Annie Katchinska, Mattie Lubchansky, Ben Miller, Tommi Parrish, and Binyavanga Wainaina. The issue is themed Unfettered Joy and Freedom. You can download the pdf for free here , and read about my shenanigans with Leroy, Carlos, Brian, Antonio, and Antonio again. Yesterday, flew with Guy into Mexico City. Five-and-a-half hour flight.  Checked into Galleria Plaza Hotel at Reforma. Met Tim for dinner at a Japanese restaurant, Wanwan Sakaba, and then got a drink at NeonSoulRave. Cute boys, but we were too tired to wait for the drag show to start at 10 pm. We are here until Tuesday. 

 Paid the last SUSPECT contributors for the year and balanced the books for Singapore Unbound. Took me almost the whole day. Then continued watching The Recruit on Netflx. A protagonist who is constantly jumping into the deep end of things in order to live on the edge and to prove himself. The show also shows the human fallout of such a life attitude. Then, with Guy in the evening, we watched the last episode of season 9 of Blacklist . The series keeps throwing up interesting ethical questions. The concluding two-parter poses the question: would you betray your leader if your leader is betraying the organization?  Today I have to pack for our trip to Mexico.

 On Sunday, we had friends over for a holiday brunch. It went on into the evening when our neighbor Judy joined us, and Guy and she immersed themselves in talk about the management of the building.  Yesterday, I read Monica Youn's From From. Still trying to figure out what to say about it in a review for Poetry School. Met Henry for dinner at Pisticci and had a good time as always. Hart Crane as Whitman's heir. The Communist Auden and the Christian Auden. That racism in the US cannot be explained wholly by white supremacy. Our sisters, and their attitudes to our being gay. Came home, and watched another episode of Blacklist , and then finished the first episode of The Recruit , starring a beefy Noah Centineo as a CIA lawyer and a magnetic Laura Haddock as a former CIA asset who is threatening to expose her relationship with the agency.

 Read A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto by China Miéville last weekend. Passionate and discerning advocacy for the continuing relevance of The Communist Manifest o for our time. Not likely to persuade any conservatives but it gives center-left liberals much to think about. Now I want to read Miéville's fantasy novels, which purportedly makes politics exciting. Yesterday, met Winston and his friend Charles, a historian of Chinatown conservation. Charles is visiting Singapore in January to learn more about the conservation of Chinatown there. Interesting to learn that scholars are leery of the term "intangible" heritage because everything can be intangible and so the term is not very descriptive. Once home. Guy and I watched Steven Soderbbergh's 2020 comedy-drama film Let Them All Talk , starring Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen, Lucas Hedges, and Gemma Chan. According to Wiki, "Much of the dialogue was improvised by the cast, and Soderbergh...

On Thursday, went back to school one more time before winter break. Took a final look at the school literary magazine The Beaver, put together by the student co-editors. The funny thing is that many of the poems and stories were written for my classes. Perhaps this is because I kept forwarding the call for submissions to my classes, and they responded. I love Twyla's feminist take on Circe and Jasmine's very Marianne Moore-like poem about a cat making itself comfortable in a damaged stone fountain. When home, started watching the Netflix TV series Dirty Lines, about two very different brothers who started a phone sex company together. One of them is a closeted gay.  Yesterday, had a productive Zoom meeting with Kim and Isabel about the SUSPECT anthology. Then a young Singaporean theater producer stayed with us for a night. In the evening Guy and I went to Peter's for his Dressing Up the Christmas Tree party. Had a nice chat with the Chinese Will (there were two Will's a...

 Yesterday watched the National Theatre production of Antigone with my XIs. A clever update to WWII (?) setting that packs quite a bit of emotional punch, especially with a very young Haimon. Enjoyed dancing again, with various people, at the school's holiday party. 

 Read Louise Gluck's The Triumph of Achilles for the first time yesterday to prepare for Poetry Seminar. Here are the famous short lyrics, "Mock Orange" and "Hawk's Shadow" that capture the Gluckian mythos and tone. I found the poetic sequences less convincing, as if length dilutes the typical intensity of her work. "The End of the World" is the most achieved sequence, I think, but otherwise she had not yet found the way to write long poems.  Watched Enola Holmes 2. Entertaining. Not done with it, as GH switched to another episode of Blacklist. After, we watched another episode of Smiley. Carlos Cuevas is endearing. The sexiness he projects is charmingly innocent and kind, unlike the sexiness of Henry Cavill in Enola.

 Started reading Gramsci's Prison Notebooks on Sunday. It will be a long reading assignment. It is already giving me ideas. Such as re-start the diary on this blog. Had an interesting discussion with my XIs yesterday that went from incest to family structure to capitalism. China Mieville's book on the Communist Manifesto was still very fresh on my mind so I was able to give crisp answers to the students' questions. In the evening, started watching Edge of Seventeen (1998), starring Chris Stafford, but was whisked away by GH to Italy when we finished watching the TV series Hotel Portolino (2022) with a winsome Oliver Dench as a traumatized survivor of WWI. 

 Column written for the weekly Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . I dreamt that 377A, Singapore's law against private, consensual sex between men, was repealed. That families of all kinds, LGBTQ+, blended, single-parent, were cherished and supported. Workplace discrimination against one's sexual orientation and gender identity was outlawed. Full housing and medical rights, benefits, and protections were extended to queer people and their loved ones. Schoolchildren were taught to love and respect themselves and others who were different from them. I dreamt that economic benefits were redistributed more evenly and fairly. No one would go hungry, homeless, or without an education. The young learned to look out for those not in their families, those supposed strangers, the poor, and to challenge the winner-take-all, zero-sum-game mentality. Secure and independent in their old age, the elderly did not have to clean tables in the hawker centers or the bathrooms in the gleam...