The ninth annual San Francisco Queer Longhair Party took place on September 29, 2007, at my place. That day I wasn’t sure I wanted to have the party, but by the time it got up and running, I remembered how much fun it is to have that many hot longhairs in one place at one time. We get to hang out, remember the good old days, and meet some new longhairs before heading to the Folsom Street Fair on the following day.
Mike and Scott came early to help set up cool lighting in the front yard, back porch, and back yard.
While we were preparing for the party, a fire started on Twin Peaks.
Storm took the opportunity for a mud pack on the back porch.
(Thanks to Mike of San Francisco for the pictures in this blog entry.)
The evening before the queer longhair party, the longhairs gathered for dinner: some at a carnivorous restaurant, others at a vegan restaurant. Here are pictures of the carnivores.
(Thanks to David of West Hollywood for the pictures in this blog entry.)
I finished reading Samuel Delaney’s delightful Phallos this morning. Erudite and sexy in an overtly intellectual manner, the book recursively iterates the story of a story, delving into philosophical and political torrents worthy of the most recondite symbologist.
One example:
“Power itself is fundamentally phallic, in that it is a consensus-illusion that stands in for a material strength most of the time not there.”
Replete with a panoply of Delaney’s usual colorful nail-biters and other perverts, the false modesty of the narrator renders the sexual descriptions all the more enticing.
Finally, some good advice from the High Priestess of the unnamed god after she avoids the planned theft of the phallos by the main character Neoptolomus and the straight men with whom he plots, then finishes impaling Neoptolomus’ rear with what may or may not be the infamous phallos and offering it to him as a souvenir:
“Please, from now on, my friend, forget the lusts of these men and follow your own desires — as much as desire can be said to be ‘owned’ by anyone, or that anyone can own what chains us all, one to another. Do not try to take upon yourself the wishes of men like these, who slumber around you when you yourself are awake. For you to try to mimic their lusts is as pointless as it would be for them to try to mimic yours. Love and cherish whom you would, man or woman, when you would. For lust is never fixed. Its variety is as glorious as its superfluity. But do not treat it as a scarcity, fixing it within the straits of convention and law. Believe me, you’ll be happier. Let this petty and pretty token you take with you tonight forever remind you at least of that.”
With just over one week scheduled for my trip, I’m in El Minya. Since I last wrote on the blog, I’ve seen most of Luxor, gotten sick again and recovered, and traveled to Dendara, Abydos, Tuna El-Gebel, Beni Hassan, and Hermopolis. This evening I had a wonderful time talking with people sitting in the square in the middle of town. I’ve got a train ticket for Cairo for tomorrow afternoon. Although the trip is wonderful, exciting, and productive, I’m very much looking forward to reaching home and seeing all my peeps soon!
I made it to Luxor after a wonderfully relaxing two-day cruise from Aswan. We stopped along the way to see the temples at Kom Ombo and Edfu. In Aswan, I saw Philae, Elephantine, and other great sites. Luxor is jam-packed with sites, so I’ll be very busy here for at least a few days.
I met a really nice guy named Ahmed who came along on the cruise. Even though we registered as “friends” with the Aswan tourist police, we had to pay for two cabins on the ship because foreigners and Egyptians aren’t allowed to share the same accommodations in hotels, etc.
I apologize for the “radio silence” since Khartoum, but I haven’t seen an Internet cafe since I left there headed north along the Nile for Egypt. I’m hale and hearty, except for a small cough probably due to all the dust in Sudan. All is well with my adventures. Since Khartoum, I took a bus past Shendi to explore the old MeroĂ« pyramid cemeteries and ancient city by camel! near Barijawaya. On the next bus, I accepted an invitation from a fellow passenger to visit his home village near where Sudan’s President Bashir’s home is located. Escaping there from a near Islamic conversion experience, my friend drove me to a half-dozen hotels in Atbara — all of them full that evening. So, he put me up with his uncle in nearby Ed Damer and we visited more of his family the next day. The bus from Atbara went on a ferry across the Nile and through irrigated fields and the Bayuda Desert. I arrived in Merowe (not the same as MeroĂ«) and explored the Nuri cemetery pyramids, including that of the great Kushite Pharaoh Taharqa and his great-grandson Aspelta. The next day, I crossed the Nile again by ferry to Karima where I stayed at a beautiful and expensive Nubian Guest House. Walking from the hotel that evening, I visited the Temple of Amun and the Temple of Mut at Jebel Barkal, the sacred mountain, which I climbed to see the scenery and the sunset. Near Jebel Barkal at El Kurru, the tombs of Tanwetamun and his mother Qalhata were very impressive and, although not much remains of Piankhy’s tomb, I enjoyed being there among the 25th dynasty characters for my novel. Next came a crazy ride on the back of a bokasi truck during haboob-like dusty desert winds of at least 60 mph. Near Dongola on the banks of the Nile, I saw the ancient city of Kawa. A donkey cart ride brought me to the large mud Deffufa structure and its surrounding ancient village at Kerma. With a stop at the village of Wawa for a walk over to the Nile and a passenger ferry to the temple at Soleb, I spent the night for free in a traditional Nubian home, then by bokasi the next morning to Abri and right onto a bus to Wadi Halfa in time to buy a ticket for the ferry to Aswan, Egypt, which leaves only once a week on Wednesdays. After a 16-hour ferry ride past Abu Simbel, I’m in Aswan, Egypt, with what appears to be a hi-bandwidth Internet location. đ
In other good news, I finished the first full draft of the first part of my novel, although I have to fill in a couple of items after further research and writing. I hope you are all well. I’d love to read news from you by email. If it takes me some time to reply, don’t worry — I’m catching up with thousands of emails from when I had no Internet access.
Phil was kind enough to reserve a minibus so a group of us could go experience the weekly Sufi dancing ritual on the late afternoon and early evening of March 23 in Omdurman, just across the Nile from Khartoum. We stopped by the teachers’ apartments and picked up Brad, Rene, Colin, and Colin’s mother who had just arrived that morning from the States. Across the street from the teachers’ apartments is a building under construction where some poor people have staked out a home of their own until the construction is complete.
We met the minibus at the Khartoum American School.
The minibus brought our group to Omdurman where we spotted the two buildings enclosing tombs of famous Sufi teachers. A Muslim cemetery surrounded the two buildings.
I went inside the tombs, after removing my shoes, to check them out. The caskets looked large and specially made clothes covered the caskets. People inside touched the tomb in prayer and/or mumbled prayers while sitting or walking around the tomb.
Before the Sufi dancing got going, we experienced many preliminaries. A guy preached about the name of Mohammed, a man was selling whips, and two others played drums along with lovely chanting. Sometimes, people would approach the drummers and dance a bit with them. Some guys sat on top of the tomb structures. Many of the Sufi dancers dress in green and red robes. A procession approached with green and red flags at one point entering the tomb complex, then departing. Gradually, a large circle of participants forms around a central pole where they hang green and red flags.
As the drumming and chanting of Islamic prayers gets more intense, the inner circle of mostly men start bobbing and bowing. Newcomers greet each other with handshakes or embraces, which become blessings. One elder Sufi, adorned in beads, embraces me, perhaps recognizing a kindred spirit from afar. Some enter the circle to shuffle forward and back in a counterclockwise direction. Some carry traditional sticks, whips, or other fetishes, which are used only symbolically in the dancing. The combination of chanting, drumming, and bowing becomes meditative, even engendering trance states. Occasional passionate dancers start twirling in the dervish fashion.
We got very thirsty went to buy juice and soft drinks after the Sufi dancing.
Phil and some of the teachers from the Khartoum American School went to an international charity fair in Khartoum on March 23. I joined them.
After the fair, Phil and I stopped by the Akropole Hotel, some years ago the site of a terrorist attack in Khartoum. The staff helped us to understand that not many people are traveling north as it is the end of the archaeological season because it is getting quite hot now. Instead, most of the people staying at the hotel are now journalists covering the Darfur situation.
Next, Phil and I visited a Christian cemetery and a war memorial cemetery. Around here, Christians are buried in separate cemeteries from Muslims. Most of the Christian men died in their early to mid-forties, my age. Most of the soldiers died in their twenties, victims of the conflicts with Italy in the late nineteenth century, then around World War II.
Next, we went to some fruit and vegetable stands and on to rest at Phil’s place.
