The mysterious Styles affair

Temperature: a drizzly 7.5/45.5 degrees.

Eating: almonds and raisins with some…

Drinking: …glögg!

Watching: Some documentaries I’d like to recommend and hope you have access to: Why Do We Dance?, Whose Streets?, A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power, and Bleed Out.

Listening: Don’t tell anyone but I’m already listening to some Christmas tunes.

Reading: Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World by Tom Burgis. Dearest denizens, you should read this book.

Writing: Christmas letters overseas. I still enjoy writing by hand. Gives you time to think about what to say and presses you to write only what is pertinent.

Thinking: Watching my son getting dressed for a date and being really meticulous about it brought back the Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue business. And the backlash, which in most evoked a big fat what-so-what-calm-the-hell-down. This is a threat to men and masculinity, to family values and children, some opined. How? Explain to me how a man in a dress is a threat. How is tulle, or the color pink or old rose, wearing makeup or heels, going all out peacock or just putting on some mascara a threat? Let’s step back in time and put this into perspective and think Highlanders or Baroque and Rococo; or the more recent history of pop and rock with no end of examples of men in heavy makeup, ruffles and attention-grabbing colors. What is so wrong with expressing yourself, your personality and identity through your choice of clothes and accessories? What makes some so uncomfortable with the individual choices of others? I ask again: where is the threat? There is more than a little homophobia, transphobia and misogyny in these alarmed worldviews, I think. A sense of real men, manly men (whatever the hell that means, and if Putin, Bolso, Trump and the likes are your touchstones then you need to rethink your preferences or at the very least stop trying to hang them on the rest of us) being under attack. By light fabrics and lipstick? Pastels and joie de vivre? Displaying an ability to be all you want to be, not some limited, superimposed, conventional version of manhood? Because those limits have reached a limit, that superimposed role hurts men, and punishing those who defy convention continues but leads nowhere. Climate crisis is a threat. Harry Styles is not. If you feel threatened by Harry Styles, or by anyone who isn’t a real actual threat to your health, safety and life, then that is your problem, not theirs; leave them alone. And maybe talk to someone about your insecurities? People usually only want to help. If you let them.

Feeling: thankful. The extended family is healthy, either retired or still employed, and hanging on to the hope that we will meet again soon and give one another the longest hug in the history of embraces and big giant smooches that border on drool. If that isn’t something to look forward to then what’s the matter with you? The Grinch pinch your spirit? Go pinch it back!