MLK Day

Is tomorrow, so I've been listening to Nina Simone.  Natch.  "Sunday in Savannah," "The King (of Love Is Dead)," and a good dose of "Mississipi Goddamn," cos no one captures better that moment, the shock and horror of having to go into the future with only an idea left of the complex man, knowing ideas get twisted around, bent, and razed to the ground, like places and people. 

Then I've been watching Amy Ray sing her new songs in concert and old duets with Brandi Carlisle, while trying to get through Dale Carpenter's book Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas.  It's very readable - I love "behind the scenes of the big court cases" books, and this one has a fascinating back story.  Especially the part where Lawrence and Garner probably never broke that law together, and the whole thing was just one fluke/stroke of luck after another... 

Ray and Carlisle provide a good soundtrack, with Amy's southern grit and Carlisle's fiery hopefulness.  I grew up on Hardwick's hateful clinging to tradition to trump over all precedent and Constitutional analysis. I never have quite been willing to pay attention to Lawrence, as it seemed like a momentary lapse, or something.  So it's really interesting to actually read about what made it happen, with Carpenter's speculation about it's import, slightly jaded yet somewhat triumphant.

Another interesting thing about Lawrence I hadn't really noticed, in ignoring the whole thing, is that this was hardly a perfect test case thanks to the racial and class complications.  It's not the case the gay aristocracy made it out to be, kind of like Stonewall...

I'm also reading a novel by Tove Jansson (of Moomintroll fame), about artists and their oddities, Fair Play, translated from the Swedish (she was part of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland).  Ali Smith wrote the introduction, and it's very terse and understated, yet intriguing, like Smith's works but, honestly, more readable to me...  Can't wait for The Summer Book, which has more family drama.

Otherwise, I am being very antisocial while actually getting some writing done and still working out.  An artist friend calls it 'hermiting.'  Yeah.  Hopefully I can keep this momentum going without losing all my friends...