In which, having no new insights about Harry Potter, I post about Gang of Four

[fire_everything]

No, not Mao’s wife and those other people who screwed up the government of Communist China. To be honest, I can never remember exactly what those guys did to be (in)famous, and have to go look it up repeatedly. They have something to do with the Cultural Revolution, which I seem to remember was neither cultural nor a revolution, more along the

Comments

[kellychambliss]

Another fabulous post, and I think that if there were any kind of reason in the world, there would be a dating site where the witty, well-read, and Ravenclaw-esque could post their blogs instead of those bizarre questionnaires.

Don't forget that after years of velvet-rose-making, First Corinthians finally took her grey pubic hairs and her no-longer-perky breasts and started an affair with Henry Porter, defying her controlling papa when she was age 40-whatever. (Okay, sure, Porter was a member of the murderous Seven Days, and didn't he once pee on a bunch of people from a balcony when the Days got to be too much for him?) But the point is, love is all around (or something). It will rear its head when you least expect it -- that's always been my experience. I met my partner in a fanfic chatroom; how's that for romance? Stick with LJ, and who knows what you might find?

(When I was about to meet my partner in RL for the first time, my mother helpfully sent me several clippings about people who had been killed by dates they met on-line. Luckily, my partner has turned out to be neither murderous nor a member of any vigilante groups.)

[fire_everything]

That description you posted a while back of how you met your partner was genuinely lovely, although I didn’t have the energy to say so at the time. For myself, I’m not sure that love per se is what I’m looking for just now - I was hoping for something more along the lines of fun casual sex, which I think I might finally have enough adult perspective on to actually enjoy for what it is.

I do think one is more likely to find love by doing something that brings out one’s best self, and letting the cards fall where they may, than by signing up with a dating service. But my current RL work does not usually showcase my best self for purposes of either love or getting laid, so this is a possibly constructive alternative. I keep telling myself that it will be anthropologically interesting, if nothing else.

I remember Henry Porter as a vaguely forbidding character, but had totally forgotten about the Seven Days and the peeing. And of course it’s his car that Corinthians throws herself on the hood of - there is that tinge of danger and/or brutality about their whole relationship. Maybe that’s what’s necessary to yank her free from the terrible stasis that her life has become, but…*makes ambivalent grimace*

[kellychambliss]

Ah, well, I wasn't seriously suggesting Henry Porter/First Corinthians Dead as a romance model /g/. There's that whole weird scene of them having sex where FC keeps saying, "no, no" (but not really seeming to object, somehow) and Porter saying, "this is for you." I read somewhere that when Morrison was asked what that scene meant, she said she had no idea, that it had just come to her. Now, I don't believe this for a minute (not about it just coming to her, but about her having no idea what it might mean or what it might say about the characters.) Still, it's very memorable.

Fun casual sex sounds good to me (in theory, I hasten to assure my partner, in case she's reading); I think you're right that you need a certain age, experience-level, and distance before it works, though.

[fire_everything]

Oh, I know you weren't! (/g/s back). I was just musing aloud, I guess, about where the line is between Forcing It a Little and Forcing It Too Much. I probably could do with a little external sexual pressure, but I don't like to think I have masochistic inclinations that I've somehow hidden from myself all these years.

Weirdly enough, I think I might buy that Morrison doesn't know, or doesn't fully know, what that scene means. She has such full command of both intellect and intuition that I could see her voluntarily deciding, intellectually, to let her intuition carry things from time to time. I'm sure that if that scene had felt wrong she wouldn't have put it in, but she has the kind of wisdom that recognizes the un-wisdom of trying to understand everything. Or something like that. :)

Song of Solomon is still my favorite book of hers (though I haven't read any of her post-Paradise stuff). Must go back and revisit it some time!