Fags around the world

[muckefuck]

Well, it was only a matter of time before I started getting lj-inspired dreams. Last night, I dreamt I was hanging around a bunch of dopey high-school kids. One of them threatened to "fag-punch" another, so I turned to him and said, "How does a fag punch?" He showed me, bending his wrist and ineffectually bumping my upper arm. "Okay, what's a real punch look like?" He slugged me in the arm. I "practiced" to make sure I had the distinction down, alternately "fag-punching" and slugging him in the shoulder. Then I said, "Thanks for the demonstration, because, you see, I'm a faggot and it's important that I know how to punch appropriately." He earnestly grabbed my right hand, as if he was going to shake it, and said, "I was just kidding." Without smiling, I replied, "So was I." Then I said, "You can let go of my hand now. I've already got a boyfriend."

I'm sure this visualisation exercise will serve me well some day.

The other night, after dining with welcomerain and spookyfruit again, I rode the bus back to my place and started reading a novel I'd picked up before Witch Hunt on Saturday. There was a brief (one-page) dream sequence which I read with interest. Then I asked myself, why is it that everyone complains about how boring it is to read an account of a living person's dream, but they feel differently about fictionalised ones? Is it because we expect the author has woven the dream into the narrative so that paying attention to it will actually help us understand the action further along whereas we have no such expectations with a real dream? But we know that real dreams aren't simply effluvia, that they can tell us something about a person's hopes, fears, anxieties, etc. Why should we find these more interesting for a fictional person than a real one?

I suppose that question opens a massive can about why we read fiction in the first place. I'm not sure to what degree fictional people are more interesting than real ones and to what degree it's simply safer and more convenient to read self-contained stories with a strong narrative flow than to get involved with a real person and try to comprehend the vagaries of their way of living.

But that wasn't all I had to ponder that night. ("I do my best thinking on the bus.") We returned to the Peruvian place and, once again, spookfruit left us in the dust by completely demolishing his lomo saltado. "You guys are wimps!" he said. He turned to el buen padre Augusto and repeated it. "Qué significa wimps?" he asked us. We were stuck. "Maricones?" suggested welcomerain. And I felt a little shiver.

Why? A maricón is a fag. But whereas I feel I've successfully reclaimed "fag", maricón is not my word. I don't understand the nuances of its usage, I don't know how people will react when I say, "Sí, soy maricón. Entonces...?" I'm much more confident in German. A native speaker I knew in college said he wasn't comfortable with the word schwul, because to him it had the baggage of "queer" or "fag". But I simply learned it as the German equivalent of "gay" and never think twice about it. (Interestingly, Homo is a more neutral term in German, but I like it less since "homo" is an insult in English.) Still, I wouldn't shrink from using a more negative term, like warmer Bruder or Schuchtel, since I know more-or-less what these mean and how a native speaker will react to them.

As it was, Augusto was rather put off by the word, but bemused, as if he wondered if we really knew what we were saying about ourselves. He taught us to say cobardes instead--"Con comida--cobardes." ["When talking about food, 'cowards'."] So my miniscule vocabulary has once again been expanded an infinitesimal amount. (I've picked up Borges again in the hopes of stretching it still further--or, more realistically, not losing more than I already have.) Perhaps if we keep eating there, we'll eventually be able to call ourselves 'tards, dweebs, fuckos, gaywads, tools, buttlicks, and geeks with equal facility in Spanish and English.

Comments

[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

If I knew a different word, I'd have used it - Sorry. Flaco is better, and I'd translate it as 'limp-dick', which is not homophobic per se, but technically doesn't include me in the unable-to-clean-the-plate-wimpiness. I am sure there is a more homosexual-friendly word than maricón, but I don't know any natively-Hispanic-speaking gays; and Hispanic culture is famously homophobic, which I think was indicated by Augusto's reaction.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Clearly, we both need to go out and meet some. I've always been put off by the fact that the ones you see out seem to be all teenagers with 26-inch waists. What I wouldn't do to meet a tubby Hispanic man with a pushbroom moustache in the bars!

¿Cómo se dice "fag-hag" en español?

(It was pretty sad that neither of us could think of flaco, débil, or any other translation of "weak". Augusto's suggestion, flojo, I've always thought of as meaning "lazy".)

Fiction

[lifeandstuff.livejournal.com]

I think you are on about the right way with fiction. In some way, fiction has to make sense (or people won't read it) whereas real life is just a bunch of nonsense that happens that very frequenly doesn't even lead anywhere. Also, many "interesting" things happen through crimes of omission and fictionalised crimes of commision are much more interesting. That's also why their is fairly little point to worrying about much in life. Many of the real life-changing events are the ones that hit you out of nowhere on a Tuesday afternoon (I stole that) rather than anything you prepared for or thought about.

That's why truth really is stranger than fiction. A lot of cooler true stories, you couldn't suspend disbelief for long enough to read. For example, who would read a book about the OJ trial fictionalized? It'd be so boring and makes so little sense. Or, when aliens brought me up their spaceship the other day just to talk about who would win the Stanley Cup when I don't even follow hockey. Who would believe that?

Or not.