Dedicated with love to Zexi Li, Sam Hersh, Shawn Menard, Catherine McKenney, Jeff Leiper, Noelle Narwhal, the Ram Ranch Resistance and so many others who have been fighting to make Ottawa safe; as well as the Algonquin-Anishinaabe peoples of Ottawa and the First Nations, Indigenous, Inuit, and Metis people across Canada who have been mourning their finally-found children among this chaos.
Anybody is free to record this as long as you tell me about it; just email me a link to whatever you did with it so I’m in the loop, and give credit to Elliott Dunstan.Tablature and proper recording to follow. (Er, hopefully, anyway.)
The events retold in this song really occurred. In fact, I left out a lot.
Art by @DylanPenner
Verse 1
G The Freedom Convoy started with
D A lot of griping men
D7 With too much spite in their blood
Am G And too much time on their hands
Em They were sick of COVID—
Am Em Am Like the rest of us ain’t too
Em G D They decided they would protest it
C D G Just like the commies do
2.
So they got in their big big trucks And belched out petrol fumes They painted signs of ‘Fuck Trudeau’ And ‘We’re fighting for you too!’ They claimed cultists along the way Who hated the vaccines And claimed to all the media — We’re the biggest that you’ve seen!
3.
The cowardly lions laid red carpet Wolves in sheepcoat brought ‘em in The birds in cages sang their warnings But no-one did anything — And they stayed, and stayed, and stayed Where everybody lived And the birds all shrieked out, baby, baby, something’s gotta give!
4.
Just hold your hats, said the cops to the rest We’ll get this cleared up in a jiff Then they shot the breeze with their buddy Steve and traded off hot tips We’ll be right along, said the OPP We’re giving invitations out They might get lost in their giant trucks And we’ll have to fish them out!
5.
The grannies cluck and the soccer moms tut and the queers all look around — this ain’t our land, but we find it grand and we’d rather stand our ground For the coffee shops and the mom and pops And our sleepy big small town We’re a quiet lot but it’s what we’ve got And y’all won’t burn it down
6.
Of course they laughed in their great big cars with their great big caps and their flags Oh the poor elite has to breathe in tar, We had to get vaxxed! They laughed at one and they laughed at two And they mocked and jeered and cried Until they honked their horrible horns – – and we wouldn’t stand aside.
7.
This is getting big, said a pig to a pig should we tell them to go home? Sure, said his bud, we should break em up But leave the white old boys alone! I’m tired of this crowd that’s getting loud and telling us to do our jobs It’s a tough occupation in the heart of the nation Telling Natives to fuck off!
8.
Cause the thin blue line don’t seem that thin When you’re standing in its way But they messed up bad when they picked their lads And it’s time they rued the day The war ain’t won but we fired no guns This wasn’t Vimy Ridge But there’s honour and glory in telling the story of the Battle of Billings Bridge!
9.
Cause it starts with one and it starts with two A lawsuit, a sign or a shout And by week three, running on no sleep A group all coming out — They walked their dogs and they crossed the road And they stopped and stayed and stood Before too long the word caught on And Lord, the word was good.
10.
And three came along and four came too And five just stopped on by And six and eight said this seems great With the truckers screaming why? Cause ten turns into hundreds, boy And a hundred multiplies And the battle of Billings Bridge was born At Bank and Riverside!
11.
If hell has a sound it’s horns And the idling of a Ford It’s been three weeks, with junk knee-deep And Sloly grows the horde Not on my watch, said the Ram Ranch crew Thousands turning out And just you wait, Jim, duck your head- We’ll be round to throw you out!
12.
The grannies scowl and the moms cry foul and the queers all block the way — this ain’t our land, time to give it back to the Anishinaabe– For the children lost, and the pain you’ve caused And our sleepy big small town We’re a quiet lot but it’s what we’ve got And y’all won’t burn it down
13.
Well how does this end? Said a pig to his friend And said again to the crowd You should have kept quiet, but we won’t riot We’re just gonna get real loud! You abandoned us to the fumes and rust To the fires and the raves and the smell We won’t hurt you but when we’re through You’ll be in bureaucratic Hell
14.
The bravest soldiers don’t bear arms But Timbits, tuques and gloves Protest signs and linked-arm lines And anger born of love The war ain’t won but we fired no guns This wasn’t Vimy Ridge But there’s honour and glory in telling the story of the Battle of Billings Bridge!
15.
And it ended quiet and ended good And I suppose we didn’t know That in the night before the light Our exploits reached Trudeau He called his Cabinet to him Called the premiers in the morn And the very next day, he came to say — It’s time to kill the horns!
16.
So honkies out and turn about Fascists will not win The Ivermectin Insurrection Won’t be movin’ in If you’re young or old or shy or bold There’s something you can give Always remember we’re stronger together –The Battle of Billings Bridge!!
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. All the devils are here, wandering around trying to figure what comes next.
Preorders for Revenant’s Hymn are live and ready through Kobo, Vivlio, Apple, BorrowBox and directly from me through Payhip! The book itself publishes on March 5th, just under two months from now. Look at me, being ahead of schedule and everything. Will wonders never cease.
Revenant’s Hymn is a collection of short stories and poetry, all positioned around a central narrative about four demons stranded in the 1980s with no mission, no purpose and no master. The full blurb/marketing copy can be read on Goodreads – here, I’m going to go into a little more depth about Revenant’s Hymn and its table of contents. (And if you really can’t wait and you’re a book blogger and/or willing to leave a review – the ARC request form is here!)
No Fun To Be Alone
It was Mammon’s house in truth, only because Asmodeus hated it. They stayed in it because there was nowhere else to go. They snuck into Mammon’s bed in the night and he would rake his claws over their back and sink himself into them and lick the sweat from their collarbones. But the electric lights hurt their eyes. The ones forty years ago had been less bright; there had been more candles, more oil, less of this.
The central narrative of the book, told in eight parts; gory, sexual, and essentially a Stephen King book told from the monster’s perspective, in a way. “No Fun to Be Alone”has a non-binary protagonist, for those of you who will immediately perk up at that, although they’re not exactly the heroic type. (Sort of the diametric opposite.) If you like Kiera in Ghosts in Quicksilver or cry over the villains in shonen anime a lot, you’ll enjoy this.
Shadowplay
I can read your face but not your mind
speak slow
and I might grasp your words from the air
A rather old poem of mine that I finally got working the way I wanted it to; I’ve always struggled with writing poetry about being deaf, but I have a few I really enjoy.
Revenant
Follow the moonlight’s trail to the very end of the road, and beyond, until you reach the last bridge across the river. Cross the bridge, then burn it.
There are eight “Revenant” pieces in the collection, each of them exactly 100 words. I’m not sure whether to call them prose poems, drabbles, flash fiction or something else entirely, but twice now I’ve had people mention them as some of the more striking bits, so clearly they’re something. Like “No Fun To Be Alone”, they’re scattered throughout the collection, bit by bit creating… well, not a story, exactly. A triptych? Octych? (I don’t know why I ended up with eight.)
Concrete
call the county coroner, keep now quiet
cremate their corpses like coals and kindling
One of my structured (sort of?) poems in here, “Concrete” is what happens when I try to see how much c/k alliteration or consonance I can fit into a single poem with an identifiable topic/narrative. Turns out, a lot. I think I wrote this nearly six years ago now! I even remember where I was sitting when I wrote it.
bury your LOVERS bury your FRIENDS
Negotiating the humanity of the mental constructs that most people have and never acknowledge, never mind the ones that do emerge as acknowledged and aware, is a difficult and intensely personal ordeal. Saturday, specifically, takes a very personal glee in being something Other. She has the freedom to be, after all. Humanity is for suckers who are stuck with it.
This short story is what happens when you listen to Billie Eilish’s bury a friend on repeat while dealing with kin (false) memories and PTSD flashbacks. In case you thought the title was a coincidence. It’s taken a long time to get fully comfortable with openly talking about plurality and dissociative identity, but plainly speaking, I wasn’t exactly going to get far pretending to be a ‘normie’ writer, so why not? Please know going in, however; I have content warnings in the book as well, but this story is very strongly about suicide, sexual assault, and extended sexual abuse.
WarningSigns
Thistle, vervain, bitterroot, and all the other warning signs Begonias in their vivid blooms, flash’d alarum in designs
This one started as me just playing around with the flower meanings I was researching (for Bell, Clock and Candle) and it turned into something a little more haunting than that. Although it’s one of the many examples in the collection of me very clearly growing up on Old Books, whoops. (Does anybody use alarum anymore? I don’t think so.)
Dead Boys Don’t Bite
Dead boys don’t bite, at least, not much we’re cold and limp but fun to touch smell sweat and formaldehyde our wired jaws rigid as our spines
Ah, it’s here I should underline that this is a firmly 18+ collection, and this piece is a huge part as to why. I don’t know why I wrote a sestina form poem about necrophilia from the point of view of the victims, but I sure did! I love it a lot, although I can’t quite get over the dorkiness of my first “real” adult content being… a sestina.
Mirrors on the Ceiling
…water turns to blood in the last light of the end of the world
swallowing up the sun for all the creatures skulking in the silt.
“Mirrors on the Ceiling”was originally published in my collection Post-Traumatic Anatomy, but this republished version is actually different! Mostly it’s been formatted differently, but it adds a remarkable amount in my opinion; I also like having it against poems and stories that are as weird as it is. Like some of the other pieces in here, it is deeply about sexual assault/abuse; also keep your eyes open for many, many references, because I can’t help myself.
Mary Mary Ordinary (Where Did Your Monsters Go?)
You don’t talk about the monsters under the bed. Under the earth. Under the stone and the bones and the crying crying soil.
I suppose I can’t keep just describing my short stories as weird given that that’s All Of Them. This short story is one that I apparently wrote at some point, shoved into the depths of my hard drive and forgot about, but I know it was clearly inspired by queer censorship/pinkwashing and the witch hunts that occur with such startling regularity online. For this one, another warning for sexual assault (mentioned more than anything else), suicide and genocide, and eye trauma (somewhat graphic).
Departure
in the dark of the night before you leave you touch me like you think that I might break
Probably the shortest poem I have in here; I actually know where this one came from, and it’s an interesting story, albeit one I have to redact some details for. When I was in fandom more full-time, big bangs were all the rage, and mini-bangs (5k or so) were really starting to catch on. For one in particular, I asked if I could tell a story through poetry — and the mods said yes! Unfortunately, I left the fandom shortly afterwards, and dropped out of all the events I was in. I still have a lot of unfinished stuff kicking around, and while most of the poetry from that isn’t usable without a lot of editing, this one is still something I’m quite happy with.
Bone Rune Testament
I carve into my bones the words he promised the texts I wrote the way forward out of time that tick-tocks backwards into time and text and history we forgot –
This one is definitely a prose poem, even if I’m still shaky on the exact definition of that. “Bone Rune Testament” was previously published by VampCatMag, and I’m still so thankful, because it’s what gave me the kick to recognize that, hey, maybe people Like surrealist nonsense. This also – in its own way – inspired me to work on Grotesque, which will hopefully be either getting subbed or prepared for publishing in the next year.
Here In The Chambers Of Your Soul
Or, perhaps, you have been slipping away from me from the beginning
happy to have company but never sure what to do with it;
never sure where it is I should sit or stand
here in the chambers of your soul.
This is one of the deeply personal ones that I won’t share too much about, but it’s worth saying that intimacy – physical and emotional – is a constant struggle for people with mental illness, especially with each other, and I was feeling that a lot when I wrote this one. There’s a lot out there about how we hurt each other, but in my opinion, not enough about how we just can’t get comfortable with each other sometimes — and how there’s usually nobody to blame.
Black Blood
in spirals winding inwards and the way the clocks are counting in rhythm that is best forgot rhythm that is best forgot
…Not to out myself as a total nerd, but for all of the creepiness of this poem, I suspect I originally wrote it after watching the first season of Soul Eater.
Half-joking aside, I performed this one at an open mic once and somebody wanted to turn it into a song! I eventually said no, because I want to do more slam poetry (and maybe record it) but I was tickled pink by the idea.
Distorted Lantern
…covering up the truth that’s writ
beneath the callus of my feet
that I could leave the lantern-room,
if I dared,
I tried,
I could believe,
that t’were enough to be half-sick of shadows. that there was something more to me.
I’ve already mentioned my penchant for references and that I do spoken-word poetry, and this is a wonderful example of both! I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to perform this one one day, with all its weird rhythms; it’s also the… third? I believe, third reference to Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott in the chapbook. I have my favourites. I have no idea what to give people a heads-up for in regards to the triggers for this one, other than very intense paranoia, I suppose? But if that’s a trigger for you, then you should probably be reading a different… um… writer. (To be perfectly honest.)
The Headless, Waiting
blood beading like something precious until he startles, breathing heavy clutching at his neck in fear.
I truly believe (hope, actually) that one day somebody will ask me ‘Is this a reference to The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe?’ so I can very enthusiastically say yes and maybe startle them a bit. Specifically, the last verse of The Bells. I grew up with a bunch of little illustrated books with samples of different poets in them; while I loved all of them, my favourite was the one of Poe. It had this picture next to the last verse of The Bells of a skeleton in rags ringing the iron bells, and it is one of the most persistent images I have. If you are, however, a normal person, and can’t see the connection, I simply hope you like the poem for all its macabre nature.
Third Nature
the home that feels like you could live in it the house that feels like you could build it the hands that feel like you could move them
hovering somewhere in the
soul of the thing you didn’t even think about
On one hand, poetry should speak for itself. On the other hand, I feel like most autistic folks (those who are into poetry, anyway) who read this will know; so I say for the benefit of those who aren’t that this is explicitly about masking as allistic/neurotypical. It’s also pretty relevant to trying to mask as a singlet or sane in general, and to dysphoria. Funny thing about assembling this chapbook – turns out a lot of those are very similar to each other.
The Hanged Man
“Surely you have better things
to do –” and then he grinned,
“than stand below and watch me rot
as the witching dark moves in.”
There’s nothing more irritating than a pastiche when you can’t quite place who you’re pastiching. This poem is in a very particular style (to the point where it was rejected a few times for being too long and I’d totally blanked on the length) and I just… cannot place who it is! Definitely late Romantic or someone a touch later, but that’s all I’ve got. “What’s with the obsession with death?” That’s a long story, the short version of which is “I hung out with it a lot”.
Blue Crocus
There are no blue crocuses.
There are no birds in the sea.
There are no angels in the sky.
There are no people like me.
This one has been previously published by Umbel & Panicle! This one was based on a dream as well; I have a habit of turning my more unsettling dreams into poetry or stories, then getting a kick out of people’s reactions. My brain is an odd and dangerous place, apparently. (Before someone starts in with ‘actually’, yes, I know there is technically a blue crocus! It’s not a ‘true’ crocus. Yes, I looked that up before writing the poem. I wonder if that’s on purpose or something.)
The Dripping Tap
There is a small little receiver on the wall in front of me; a bronze affair, elaborate enough, but simple in that there are no numbers or keypad, nothing to press or dial. I have found myself staring at it, hoping I will hear it ring. Finding myself is the most apt term, it seems.
The answer to a question literally nobody has ever asked, which is “what happens when a horror writer obsessed with Lady of Shalott and Yellow Wallpaper writes an entry for Literary Taxidermy based on the first and last line of a Dorothy Parker story he’s never read?”. I didn’t win the contest, which I’m not super surprised by – I’ve changed the first and last line since to be more suiting – but I wouldn’t have written this without the contest, which is why I’m giving them a shout out here. Heads up for this one; trigger warnings apply for domestic violence, implied suicide, claustrophobia and identity loss.
Will You Love Me When I’m Gone?
Will you love me when I’m gone? When I am just a shadow on your pillowcase, a scent lingering on the floor, leftover shampoo in the shower, forgotten shoes left at the door
This might be the one in strongest need of a suicide trigger warning; not because it’s a more graphic depiction (it isn’t) but simply because this is a very, very personal poem about… well.. how inevitable it can feel sometimes. It’s not, but when it comes to mental illness, it is a lifelong struggle, and it’s not acknowledged that way enough.
ALL OUR LOVE
When she died (cause marked unknown) they flayed the flesh from her white bones and peeled the contours of her face with careful touch and subtle grace –
I’ve actually published this one on this blog before; usually I wouldn’t link it, but the context for me originally posting it is very relevant to this collection! Trigger warning for death and oppression in general, although the specifics depend on how you read it. (It was written about transphobia and transmisogyny, but a lot of people can relate in different ways.)
Red Roulette
The two of them sit face to face and eye to eye in a room without windows or door, and the gun is heavy in Jenny Crimson’s hand. Guns are heavy most of the time; this one is lighter than most, 82 percent unloaded, but still made of metal and death and a thousand timelines converging into a single hollow point.
I have no idea where the characters of Blue Lagoon and Jenny Crimson originally came from, or how they eventually ended up in a story about two alters playing Russian Roulette to determine the fate of their host, but this was the first story I ever consciously wrote about plurality. I submitted it a lot of places, and it got pretty far, but there’s something almost amusing about the number of very kind rejections I got that amounted to “it just doesn’t fit with anything else!” I’ll bet it doesn’t. It’s not exactly a common premise. This was originally published in The Shining Wire; the formatting in this version is simpler (and more accessible, although I do have ‘make an epub of TSW on the to-do list’).
Friends With Death
…in the end, we all become his subjects, citizens and serfs of the underground, full fathom five deep dead and buried – far below the skittering and the sighing of the favoured and alive —
The concept of this poem was floating around in my head for a long time before I wrote it, but essentially, being queer is an odd balance of wanting to get away from the tragic depictions of death and misery, and… facing up to how much of it our history (and present) holds. My fascination with death comes just as much from that as it does my own experiences. Trigger warnings for this one include suicide, homophobia, and some oblique-but-clear references to things like the AIDS epidemic.
Waste Disposal (Ticking Of A Damaged Heart)
There’s a hole in the bottom of the ocean floor where your concrete shoes fit perfectly…
Yes, yes, another Poe-inspired one (Tell-Tale Heart, this time) but I claim it as my right as a goth. I really, really wish I could remember when I’d written this one; just that I’ve had it around for ages trying to fix it. I actually – through a hysterically on-point issue of memory – have a different version of this in Shining Wire and had forgotten. Which… I’d be more annoyed, but it’s too ironic.
Revenant’s Hymn
I’m nobody! who are you? are you nobody too? will you dance with me with a borrowed set of feet to music that there’s no reason to cry to with memories that neither of us own playing on an old film reel?
Dickinson, this time (my gay shut-in energy, instead of my gay goth energy) but she speaks to me for a reason. This is also the poem that made me decide to put the collection together, after years of talking about a proper horror collection; it’s striking how the experiences of identity loss and dissociation are so relatable and so important to so many people, but are still a little discouraged from ‘polite’ conversation. (Only the more obvious with the dropping of the Moon Knight trailer and only a psychiatrist being a consulted instead of anybody with direct experience.)
The Transient
and there’s another art to knowing how lost you are knowing that you’re a walking fucking disaster area, knowing that everybody around you is tired, knowing that your legacy will be equal parts admiration and frustration, and knowing that you could be so much more if you just knew when to stop and when to start.
‘The Transient’ may very well be one of my favourite poems I’ve ever written. While I’m not going to publicly disclose who exactly it’s about, it’s a very transparent love letter to both the Beats and the shooting stars of the ’60s music scenes; the rockstars who lived hard and fast and died in particularly brutal ways. As a historian and poet, there’s a particular experience had when reading about some of them, especially when you disregard some of their common narratives; the sense that you’ve met them, in the friends you miss but had to walk away from before they dragged you down with them, or yourself in the mirror on your worst days, or the friend you’re worried about all the time but that you know you can keep together another day, another week, another month, another year. It’s all the more brutal when you acknowledge the unspoken truth that there aren’t ‘more’ queer people now. It’s just not as hidden.
One day, I will record myself performing this one. I am very much looking forward to it.
TWs for Certain Dark Things, and to a lesser degree this review, include violence, cartels/drug wars, and a particular character who threatens a lot of sexual violence but never thankfully gets around to it.
I’ve been falling more and more in love with Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s writing for a few years now, starting with Gods of Jade and Shadow in 2019, Mexican Gothic in 2020, and reading both Signal to Noise and Untamed Shore after that. Her books are consistent in the perfect way; they’re all massively different from each other in terms of setting and aesthetic, but all hold similar cores, similar character and romance elements, things that draw me back to the concept of a ‘Moreno-Garcia book’ over and over again. Certain Dark Things is no exception, with the added draw that it’s been out of print for years! Originally published in 2016, CDT became popular enough as a cult novel of sorts that it’s now been republished by Tor Nightfire – which is how I’ve finally gotten my hands on it.
So, to start; Certain Dark Things, like most of Moreno-Garcia’s books, is a period piece. Unlike the others, however, it doesn’t have a specific time period that it’s set in (MG is the 50s, GoJaS is the 20s, StN is the 80s, US is the 70s). Instead, CDT is a neo-noir/cyberpunk novel that creates a bizarre, alternate-history version of Mexico City that on some points, feels like it’s from the eighties or nineties (there are no computers, and cellphones appear but aren’t overly fancy), but on other points has near-future technology (ex. Cualli the genetically modified Doberman). The main point of divergence for the setting is that vampires aren’t just real – they’re everywhere. There are several subspecies of vampires, with their own politics, families and interspecies conflicts; none of them are allowed within the walls of Mexico City, which is proudly and determinedly vampire-free. Enter Domingo, 17-year-old garbage collector and homeless kid, who stumbles upon the very hungry, very alone, very desperate Atl and her dog Cualli on the subway. Atl is a Tlāhuihpochtli, an Aztec vampire, who can only drink the blood of the young and who is running from the Necros, a clan who have already killed off most of her family.
It’s hard to pin down what exactly makes CDT work for me where so many vampire books don’t. It’s not even that I’m not into vampires – they’re just so samey after a while! But I think that’s part of what makes CDT so gripping. It’s a vampire book, sure; but it’s also a crime novel, a thriller about cartels and narcos and drug kingpins, who just happen to also be vampires; and it’s also a love story with a bittersweet but ultimately happy-enough ending. (Those who have followed my frustration with romance discourse will know exactly why this hits so well for me.) Domingo in particular is a wonderful break from the usual human everyman character, in that he’s even more of the everyman; his naivete and youth is never downplayed or turned into some sort of Special Signifier of Humanity. He’s just genuinely a very sweet, very innocent person; which comes with just as much awkwardness and choking overfamiliarity as it does the feeling of being seen. I found myself identifying a lot with Atl in this book, particularly with her struggle to not get attached to Domingo because she knows that he will get hurt; not because she’s putting herself down, but because he doesn’t have the life experience to know what he’s signing up for.
More than anything, I just wish this book was longer. The narrative pacing is excellent and doesn’t need any padding; but I’m dying to learn about more of the different vampire species, or the politics in other parts of Mexico, or if Atl is in fact the last of the Tlāhuihpochtin. Still, I don’t know if Silvia Moreno-Garcia has any plans to make any sequels, so we’ll see what the future holds. A fantastic read, and I can’t wait to read more from her. (Next is Velvet Was The Night!)
Full disclosure: This is a version of a column that’s sat in my drafts for… probably two years or so now? Certainly the last draft is dated to at least six months ago. The reason I start there is because I can’t stress enough how this isn’t a reactionary post; it’s something that’s on my mind a lot, and that I struggle with how to word. Being autistic means that if I think too hard about wording something, it comes out stilted; if I don’t think about it enough, I fall back on a script and I usually say something I don’t intend to. Being too genuine, as well, usually opens one up to bullying and harassment, or even just unintentionally cruel comments.
But earlier today, I saw a mutual of mine say something that stuck with me. I’ll paraphrase it, since I’m fairly certain sending more attention her way is a bad idea, but essentially, in a reply thread, she said – almost casually – “I’ve never seen someone apologize for individual acts of transmisogyny, let alone participating in larger acts.” (She is transfem, in case that wasn’t clear.) Maybe I wouldn’t have stopped and heard that so clearly if I didn’t already have a growing friendship with her. Maybe I would have; like I said, this is something that’s on my mind a lot. I can’t possibly know.
But here’s the thing. I’ve been drafting apologies over and over again… and the reason I’ve always given up is ridiculous, really. I get embarrassed. I get squirmy. I get self-conscious. “Am I doing this for kudos, for attention, for a reward? For moral dessert?” It’s hard not to ask that, especially for someone like me who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and gets accused of being manipulative all the time. It is silly, though, because it buys into the idea that standing up for trans women gets you… well, much! If that was the case, wouldn’t everybody be doing it? It’s like when people claim that accusing powerful men of sexual abuse is a surefire way to get million-dollar settlements. (Spoiler: it’s not.) And at the same time, it’s not. I care, so much, about standing up for what’s right. It’s a core part of my personality, enough that it’s affected the characters I identify with, the way I write, the choices I make about my own life – and enough, apparently, that when I’m wrong, it sticks with me longer than it should. And I’ve been wrong. A lot. Not always by accident, either. I’ve been cruel for the sake of being cruel, because when you’re at the nexus of so many intersections at once, it’s really hard to get out of the habit of assuming everybody’s out to get you, and that your only weapon is how hard you can hurt them back.
I talk a lot on social media, in my essays, etc. about how trans women have been a huge part of my life. But I need to be more honest about the fact that as much as they’ve been there for me, I was not there for them. Sure, I tried to be. I can’t be too hard on myself for the faulty decision-making of a manic-psychotic teenager. But I wasn’t, and I’m lucky that to my knowledge I haven’t lost any of them permanently, to suicide or murder – more lucky than I can ever possibly express. It’s easy to talk about how nobody’s perfect, but a lot harder to apologize. So – I am sorry. I am genuinely so sorry, because it’s taken me this long not just to be able to face the harm I’ve done, but to understand how much harm it was. I always knew; there was a reason I hated myself so much. But transitioning, finally getting to love myself properly, means that avoiding looking at myself in the mirror isn’t an option anymore. It’s a weird duality. The longer I convinced myself that I could live as a girl, after all, or that I could live in the middle ground of not transitioning but vaguely existing as Masculine, the more angry I got with those who – from my perspective – “had what I wanted”. Not all the harm is like that, either. Sometimes, of course, it’s not as simple or clear-cut as someone lashing out. Good intentions can be just as harmful; for example, the mess around Isabel Fall’s story is too much of a mess to ever be neatly untangled at this point, but the point is that someone was harmed.
I’m sure someone’s rolling their eyes and wondering why it took me so long to say anything – I mean, first off, see point one! But second of all, I try to sit back and listen. (Which sounds funny when it comes to how much I talk, but trust me, I only say about 20% of what’s in my head. Take that as you will.) Another phrase I remember, that stuck with me, was someone – another trans woman – saying that it was all well and good that people “felt bad about Isabel. But how are you going to make sure it doesn’t happen again?” And I had nothing. No response. Because I didn’t know how to make sure it didn’t. Trying to figure it out from the basis of that particular discourse alone hasn’t gotten me anything but a migraine and dissociation problems, but it’s still stuck with me. It’s not enough to take each separate controversy and go “This woman doesn’t deserve it – but the next one might!”. It’s about figuring out how to stop it from happening. And no matter my opinions on the story, or the handling of the story, or anything like that – the reason why there was such a strong response in its defense isn’t really about the story. It’s because every single transfem person has either directly experienced or seen first or secondhand the consequences of this kind of harassment. It’s an open wound that never has the chance to heal.
You’re not wrong, though. I’ve sort of – glossed over a lot and tried to let my actions do the talking. Which is a nice thought. I mean, ideally, my actions are doing a lot of talking. I have a lot of experience with unwanted and/or empty apologies; I’m nearly allergic to them at this point. Add to that the tension of how people of colour are often expected to apologize in specific ways to white people and my complicated relationship to the concept probably, well, makes sense. But taking in the real scale of the issue – that transmisogyny-exempt trans people have consistently not just left transfeminine people in the dust, but been eager and active participants in their abuse – it’s not really enough to shove my past faults in a box and try to be better while hiding the box in a corner.
So, yeah. I’ve been a fucking dick in the past. Some of it was carelessness, stuff that others might not even remember. Other parts were me buying into ideology that I no longer associate myself with. And others still were me having only part of a narrative and not taking the time to cool my heels and head and get the full picture. There are lines that I know I haven’t crossed, but at the same time, I’m not setting the bar that low. Non-toxic masculinity isn’t meant to be a version of masculinity that abdicates all responsibility. Toxic masculinity already does that. And honestly – I’m happiest with myself as a man when I’m aware of my own strength and power, not just as an “empowered” person or whatever other buzzword you use, but someone who can and has hurt people before, and who is making the choice and the effort to do otherwise.
And, uh, this is dedicated to a girl in a dorky shirt who kissed me in front of the lockers nearly 13 years ago. I should have treated you better, but I’m glad you’re with someone who does. You helped me during some of the darkest times of my life and I owe you more than stolen kisses and bittersweet memories. One day I’ll make it up to you.
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for a recently-released movie.
Whoof. I don’t enjoy doing bad reviews; anybody who follows my reviews will notice that there’s very few truly negative reviews on here, and when they are, they’re for things that have well and truly earned it. It’s with a bit of a broken heart, then, that I settle down to write a one-star review for what could have been an excellent film – the Netflix release action-comedy Red Notice. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot, it’s got a studded cast, absolutely breath-taking cinematography and effects, and action sequences that are a joy to look at.
Shame about the nearly consciously mean-spirited ending.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh. After all, people go into heist/action movies for the actual heists and action – not for the emotional centers or for soft feelings. Still, though, there’s a bit of a gut-punch involved when there’s stark emotional manipulation involved, not just of a character but of the audience. Red Notice sets itself up quite nicely; Dwayne Johnson plays John Hartley, FBI agent and criminal profiler, who’s dead set on catching Nolan Booth, art thief and smug little prick. After catching Booth in the act, there’s a superbly shot and choreographed action sequence of Booth escaping up scaffolding and using quick thinking against the guards that chase him, even evading Hartley at the last moment. Hartley still manages to catch up with him, though – Booth’s arrested in Bali, and the precious art piece he stole is taken back by Interpol. This art piece is one of three ancient “eggs of Cleopatra”, and a billionaire is offering a massive sum to get all three at once. So when the recovered egg turns out to be a fake, Hartley’s framed for it – and put into the same prison as Booth.
So far, so good. Johnson and Reynold’s chemistry is excellent, and it’s not really a shock that Reynolds is in fine form here as a snarky little shit of a thief with daddy issues. (One wonders why he wasn’t cast as Rocket Raccoon, although I do love Bradley Cooper.) Gal Gadot makes a fantastically sassy villain, too, as the elusive Bishop who’s always a step or two ahead of them. Sure, she made a great Wonder Woman; but her as the giggly, casually threatening Bishop is spell-binding. (Can you say “bibbetty-bobbetty-sub?” I can.)
You may be wondering where all this high praise is coming from for a one-star review. That’s exactly what hurts so badly. This has all the makings of a classic. A prison escape with a helicopter, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot going head to head both on the dance floor and with some great old weapons, theatrical art-thief villainy, and of course, the growing friendship between the male co-leads interspersed with Deadpool-style “is it gay? no. but also it might be, are you sure?” And every single part of it is rendered pointless when Hartley (Johnson) is very suddenly, and very drastically, revealed to be working with the Bishop.
That’s right. Our cop main character, who we’re theoretically following, is working with the villain; and Booth, who’s gotten attached to Hartley, is left stranded in the cold. The ending puts all three of them together as co-conspirators eventually, but there’s nothing funny about the look on his face when Hartley kisses the Bishop — especially after all the casual “jokes” about how Hartley is so totally in love with him. It’s cruel, honestly. It’s nasty, in a way that likely wasn’t intended, but that really doesn’t fly with me in the year 2021. We all know what the term “queer-baiting” means. There might be some debate over the specifics; and I wouldn’t have been terribly surprised by a last-minute hookup between the Bishop and Hartley, or even Hartley and Booth not getting together (I knew for a fact that if they’d done that, it’d be in the news already). But making cheerful gay jokes about the two co-leads in between their genuine emotional bonding, only to have one betray the other, reveal he was lying the whole time, and do it by kissing the woman they’ve been chasing/rivals with the whole time? That does not sit well.
Nor does it sit any easier with me that it… well… doesn’t make any sense. The reveal of Hartley as the villain (or working with the villain) takes every bit of tension and suspense out of the movie. There’s no uncertainty; there’s no drama left; there’s no moment, according to this new version of events, where he was ever really in danger. That, or he’s absolutely terrible at this, since he trusts Booth enough to end up getting headbutted by a bull. Gadot’s villainess is thoroughly defanged; after all, she was never really in danger from Hartley. In fact, Hartley goes from being a pretty decent if slightly scary cop, to being a… pretty subpar con man, actually.
I love a good twist ending… but bad twist endings are dreadful. Not every con has to be The Usual Suspects (and I didn’t even like The Usual Suspects) – and a bad copy of Keyser Soze is visible a mile off anyway. If you make a movie for spectacle and grandeur but then destroy its rewatch value for the sake of a twist, all you’re doing is making sure that your movie has an extremely short shelf life.
…And man, I’m getting pretty tired of Ryan Reynolds’s characters getting treated weird as hell for being bi. Just let the guy play a queer man, or at least don’t be so dickish about it.
Final Rating: One star, maybe less. I’m all the more disappointed in the rest of the movie being so fun.
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Elliott Dunstan 