Michael Z's Newsletter for July
Oh it's July!
Hello lovely readers! It is July, and time for a new newsletter. It is very hot in Seattle, which is not normal, and so we are melting and thinking about climate change.
I ambitiously called my last newsletter “Early June” and promised some think pieces in between. The trouble is, I got lost in those think pieces. I have been thinking a lot; even more than usual. I have even been in a better place for reading the news. For many months I’ve been reading only local news, because I wanted to know what’s happening on a scale I can affect, and often it’s where positive news actually makes it to publication.
Even if you focus on local news, if you’re on social media and have any inclination to be conscientious, national and global news will just come to you, anyway. It does for me. So, I’ve been aware of things like the US presidential debate from hell and the ongoing attacks on Palestine and Ukraine. Since I first started writing this even more wild new news has occurred.
As this awareness has increased in the last few weeks, I’ve had a desire to talk about things that Matter outside of me and to talk about things that Matter, I felt like I needed to become better informed. I got the hyperfocus bug on researching all my thoughts.
I haven’t done much research in a long time; I will fact check things I hear, but I haven’t put together anything lengthy with citations in years.
I felt very good about myself learning that those skills weren’t so rusty, and I could find solid factual information from trusted sources without agony. I was highlighting and linking and sourcing.
Unfortunately, I kind of regretted it. I didn’t like learning how many anti-trans bills passed this year; I didn’t like learning about how rough things are for people like me and people unlike me.
I didn’t want to send that to you all! I have been writing upbeat essays and newsletters in this season of my public writing. Even when I am making an argument or am speaking on an emotional topic, I think it has been focused on frustration-solution in a way that feels local and even individual; actionable and hopeful.
I don’t want to send you all sad stuff! The sad stuff has been tied to my own experiences or those of my loved ones; about the things I’m reading and thinking. But if you have been reading my Substack, you didn’t really sign up for that.
So, I made a new page on my website, which I’ll link to in newsletters when I have an update. This will be on topics I am researching and have big thoughts on, but don’t really feel like inundating you all with; at least that’s the plan for now. https://www.michaelzzaki.com/works-that-are-cited/
I follow some people that feel like an escape from hard facts, who just dig into their own thoughts, and I appreciate that. I might be that for others, so I’ll just let you know when I have something more researched.
If you do want more of that type of post though, please do let me know! It would be helpful to have a sense 😊
What I’m Reading
I just finished the memoir-history book Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin. It’s been fascinating. It mostly explores a queer culture that I haven’t experienced, either because it’s around a type of gender interaction I haven’t ever chosen, or because it exists only in the past. It centers primarily around fairly masculine gay spaces, over the course of decades.
The book opens with the author’s life in present-day London (published 2022), then shifts between the earliest years of his adulthood in the early ‘90s and the broader 20th century experience of being gay/queer/homosexual in the US, especially in San Francisco, where the author spent his 20s.
The history eventually meets up with and blends into his experience of the ‘90s and early 2000s, coming back to the present. He dips back into the past as his life takes him to London, to explore history there. The history is set around the bars themselves, and his experiences with them.
It’s primarily a memoir, and focused on gay (or equivalent) bars (or similar public-private spaces) and I’d say focused on the experience of mostly white gay people, with various references to bars that either were for black & brown people, or who turned black & brown people away. The author himself is Asian-American though. He doesn’t mention that for a few chapters, which I found interesting. His race only comes up occasionally, but mostly in the chapters about most recent life; I think likley because current queer discourse has more mainstream room for discussions on race. About the author, I have been left with the impression that he had the kind of experience where you blend in with white people well “enough” they include you for their own comfort—which gives some tangible privilege but also a sense of constant unease. He doesn’t go much into this, and I would be interested to hear more of that experience. I did notice that his Asian-American identity is in the very first line of his website, and I am really curious about how that plays into his other works and why it didn’t explicitly in this one. I am wondering how much that is where some of the “don’t belong” tone that ran throughout. I say all that having had some of those experiences myself!
Having learned so much about just these aspects of 20th century queer experience, I am so curious about the many others. I haven’t done much focused reading on queer history in the last several years—I’m excited to look up some of the writers referenced in this book and see where that takes me!
I’m currently reading Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, which was recommended to me by someone really cool, so I’m excited about that. It has a really interesting premise, which I still don’t fully understand, and I’m about to read Chapter 3.
I’m also very, very excited to read the new book Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle. I am a huge fan of Chuck Tingle; he is probably the only famous-ish person that I like to believe I can trust as a person, and I am invested enough to be willing to be disappointed. Anyway, I don’t read a lot of horror these days, but I’m looking forward to reading this one.
Rabbit Update
Tiramisu has made a hobby of pulling all of the hay out of their hay feeder into their litter boxes and onto the floor. And then eating what’s left in the feeder, instead of all that hay!
We already had to throw away basically a box worth, so now it’s brainstorming time on how to make it stop. In the past, when he gets inspired to do this, one “throwing it all out” has gotten him to give it a rest, but this time he has been undeterred. We’ve been in a constant cycle of “Tiramisu pulls out a whole pile” “Michael puts as much of it back as possible” for the last two weeks.
Today I had the idea to place a barrier in the middle of the feeder, so each side has a separate pile of hay and they can’t climb in. They eat out of a big plastic laundry basket that has some of the bars cut out (which was maybe a mistake). We made the holes bigger because we thought Tilly wasn’t able to get enough of the hay or something, back right before he got very sick. It turned out that wasn’t the problem at all, it was that he had hairballs, but alas the basket has been cut already.
Anyway if you have any ideas pleasssse share them! Help!
What I’m Thinking About
Politics/Global Events (if you don’t want to read this, skip to “Pride” or “Hobby Update”)
Lately I’ve been able to watch and read the national/global news, and so I’ve had a lot rattling around about various issues. I’m nervous about our upcoming presidential election.
I’ve also had this hard-to-articulate feeling pop up for a long time as I’ve watched people around me engaging with the Palestine-Israel issue. I have seen a lot of friends & strangers dip into antisemitism without noticing or especially caring, and it’s made me really sad. Fighting hard for justice that leads to a later injustice is such a possibility here, and it’s a really delicate activism. It really sucks when the perpetrator of human rights violations has positioned themselves as representative of a huge population that is always in standby for danger. I wish everyone understood that going in, and was paying attention to who they’re exactly listening to & what they’re internalizing (and saying/externalizing).
That’s something I might follow up with a longer thing about, but that’s the core of what I’ve been thinking and worrying about regarding that.
Pride
I’m also thinking about pride, and how this pride season has felt. I have observed a lot of political anguish and personal joys around being queer and trans. I joined some online queer groups for the first time in awhile; these are centered around joy and community, primarily. That has been sweet and lovely.
I’ve been thinking about the rising popularity of Chappell Roan, and out of curiosity the other week I was looking at the Billboard Top 100. I know that there have been other queer artists in the last several years reaching mainstream popularity, but I honestly haven’t particularly listened to most of them extensively. So seeing her and other queer artists in the top 100 and even in the top twenty was an incredible feeling!
I’ve really liked Chappell Roan’s music, and I think I would have really related to it as a teen and young adult. I have this memory of hearing Katy Perry’s “I kissed a girl” at a summer camp and all the mostly straight girls around me loudly enjoying it—because it was for them. I think it would have meant so much to me to have the music that exists today for queer women—and even for trans people! When I was a teen I had no idea I was trans, and was trying not to be gay. Seeing people celebrate all of those experiences in the mainstream is incredible.
I think the internet has really allowed small artists to get a broader audience more easily, quickly, directly.
I’m so happy that “kids these days” have so much more. I cried about this!
I think it gives me hope that popular culture has opened up to embracing queerness. I noticed in the articles I was reading even about the sad stuff, that news outlets, like the Associated Press, were aligning language with what we have generally communicated is ideal. I saw “assigned at birth” and “trans women” actually referring to trans women! We’re making progress even if there’s always going to be backlash to progress.
Hobby Update
I’ve been really into scrapbooking this year. I watch a lot of videos of people layering expensive stickers and stationary, but I have also gotten into scrapbook and “junk” journaling, and it’s been really fun. I’m proud of this one!! These are stickers and not the junk pages, but they came in a $6 sticker pack from target with like 50 stickers. It’s so fun and relaxing! I did watch a video essay at the same time, so, semi-relaxing in practice.
That’s it for this week! I would love to hear comments or thoughts on what you’d like to read from me! You can reply to this email, comment on Substack, or email me at michaelzzakiwrites@gmail.com