I appeared on the Visu.News podcast to discuss my recent article on the language media uses when discussing the police. The hosts, Aaron Cynic and Zach Roberts, had just watched the recently released bodycam footage of the police murder of Adam Toledo. They were understandably shaken, and it gave our discussion an increased urgency.
Tag: Language
Bacon: A Burning Flipside Story
Posted in Burning Man
Shredded Hate Bacon is a heavy metal band consisting of a number of Flipside’s finest. Kristen was the head “Baconette” (the SHB go-go dancers). Another Baconette and I were helping her unwind and Pyropolize after her arrival Friday evening when a crazy plan was hatched. At first, Kristen invited me to be a male baconette, an amusing concept to be sure but then we arrived at a far more brilliant notion. I could be the “bacon bitch” and cook actual bacon for the Shredded Hate Bacon show.
Most of you know I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian. Not only do I not normally eat bacon, but I usually go out of my way to avoid even touching meat. It’s kind of like dealing with cat litter — it’s OK if I gotta, but I hurry into the bathroom to wash my hands up afterwards. The idea of volunteering to cook bacon for a few hours was definitely across my boundaries. So that’s just what I did.
I didn’t just cook it though — I danced around with it. My face was bathed in the bacony smell rising off the pan for two hours. I waved the grease covered spatula in the air like a madman. I grabbed fistfuls in my bare hands. I ran through the crowd yelling ‘Bacon!’ and offering it up like the finest ambrosia. Near the end of the set while I cavorted between the Baconettes in front of the stage, bacon bowl atop my head, I lost my balance and dumped the greasy bowl on the ground and splashed it on myself.
Poly Language
Posted in Polyamory, and Sex & Relationships
One of the struggles we have in polyamory is the lack of terms to clearly describe the roles we play in our non-traditional relationships; of course it doesn’t help that these take infinite forms. Just like any subculture, we coin our own terminology. Polys talk about compersion, which is feeling happiness for our lover’s success with other people — the opposite of jealousy, in a sense. For a while, I was another man’s punalua, which is an old Hawaiian word he’d found which meant roughly, “beloved other lover of my lover.” However, whatever terms we coin for ourselves exist only within our community or the individual relationship; we cannot expect familiarity from anyone else, nor can we fault them for using the words which are available.
A Burner Lexicon: Theme Camp
Posted in A Burner Lexicon, and Burning Man
Theme Camp, –noun, Lots of people camp together at Burning Man, but only some of them form theme camps. A theme camp is an organized group which provides food, drink, exciting events, or other services to the temporary community that forms around an event. The idea dates back to the early 1990’s, with the formation of theme camps such as Christmas Camp. The oldest theme camp in continuous operation is probably Deathguild / Thunderdome, which has existed in Black Rock City since 1998.
A Burner Lexicon: Drugs
Posted in A Burner Lexicon, and Burning Man
Drugs, –noun, Officially, there are no illegal substances allowed at Burn events. For all that Burners would like to consider themselves separated from the default…
A Burner Lexicon: Hippie
Posted in A Burner Lexicon, and Burning Man
Hippie, –noun, 50,000 unwashed freaks in the desert for a week, driving mutant vehicles, sharing everything in a gift economy and dancing for hours on…