Telus ads keep getting better and better. This made my weekend. This is the perfect companion piece to Dick O’Clock. Do you still remember the old blog I used to run? Those were the salad days people…

Later in the week we’ll be posting some photos from the Halloween festivities this weekend. Make sure to check out my print column and the social pages in the Xtra! West for some awesome coverage by Xtra’s crew of fantastic photographers. In the meantime…

…on to some more serious things. Apparently the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival had a blogger (Nikki Reimer) who also works for the CBC. If you remember back to last week, I was one of the featured readers at Event #33: Gazebo, which is one of the hottest nights of the festival. You can imagine my surprise, now finally at home after a short tour to Ottawa and Toronto, that I found THIS online:

“Gazebo has been the Thursday-Night-Anything-Goes evening, hosted by Billeh Nickerson,
for the past 5 years at the Festival. I’ll admit that most of it was
not my particular cup of literary tea. For example, when (male) poet Sean Horlor
reads a poem about the sex appeal of tube socks, and his (male) friend
poses seductively on stage in tube socks and underwear, is this any
less a problematic representation of blazon than if the subjects in
question were male poet and female model? Thoughts?”

I’m glad you asked. I’ve got a few thoughts:

1) Thanks for the press and I hope you recognize the following as shameless leveraging of said press by me.

2) If it was a female author with a female model, I doubt this type of comment would have been posted by any reviewer, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. PS Gays have feelings too you know. Colourful bedazzled feelings that enjoy spotlights and other sparkly things…but still feelings, nonetheless.

4) Why this implicit comparison of male model to female model, which, once again, emasculates male models everywhere and continues to ghettoize male models as anything but manly? These sort of comparisons are career killers for sensitive models, just like cuts to the face and accidental death during gasoline fights. DID ZOOLANDER TEACH YOU NOTHING?

5a) When was the last time you’ve seen an impromptu fashion show conducted during a literary reading? I mean, come on, really…

5b) Are you sure I wasn’t trying to deconstruct gender bias in the (clearly) hetero-centric media by showing that is
acceptable to present an eroticized, masculine male in a
non-traditional setting such as an international writer’s festival? (see #4 again for reference)

6) Did you speak to the model to get his thoughts and reasons for participating in such a performance?

Okay okay…I’ll spill the beans. To paraphrase, he said-

Model: “[This isn’t about feminism, this is about] a homo prancing around in his underwear,
which he would want to do anyway.”

In light of this, I’d like to borrow a little something from the Spice Girls:

Gay Power!