Kielbasa, Victorian houses, cursed names

the weekly bric-a-brac

The Weekly Bric-a-Brac is a round up of short hits for paid subscribers, taken from the cutting room floor of my brain. I’ll give a generous preview in hopes you’ll want to support Disaffected with a paid subscription!

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Goals

To be the old town homosexual eccentric who rattles around this house. I'll stay up at night with an oil lamp behind the lace curtains in the tower to give the kids something to talk about.

People should be afraid to walk past Old Man Slocum’s house at night.

Pictured: a French Second Empire-style Victorian, which you know as an “Addams Family House.”

Modern luxury

Our lives are so ridiculously luxurious and we don't even know it. I "made" pierogies and kielbasa tonight. By heating them up. Someone else raised the livestock, crops, slaughtered, processed, assembled, and shipped it to a store.

Do admit.

Trump hysteria

Fulminating hatred for Trump is the most feminine emotion I've ever seen. It's entirely feminine hysteria. Yes. I cried like a fool the night he was elected in 2016. That was a hysterical, feminine, histrionic reaction.

But is it? I see plenty of men doing it, but it still seems feminine to me. Am I making that up to suit my own biases or is it?

Also, it seems motivated by an exaggerated fear of machismo. I think the extreme emotional reaction comes from seeing him as an instantiation of "abusive man." That was part of it for me.

A few social media mutuals responded:

”There’s an hysterical fear involved that isn’t masculine. Men get afraid of bears or losing their wives or children. They don’t go deranged when the party changes or some politician they don’t like or agree with gets into power. They wait it out.”

“He is the toxic masculinity that angry feminists chanted into existence. That is, I think there’s something to what you say. He’s not the best representative of the American masculine spirit, but he’s probably the best one for this fight.”

NOTE—Several people have told me they don’t see Trump as macho or masculine. Instead, they see him as whiny and feminine. I’m acknowledging this point of view so that readers know I’m aware of it, and readers don’t feel the need to be “baffled” or “correct” me for “not thinking of it.” I’m not saying that Trump is “masculine” in any absolute sense, or in any ideal sense. I am not saying that he doesn’t exhibit some of those “feminine” characteristics.

I am saying that he embodies a certain kind of rhetorically aggressive male archetype. Some of us associate that with abusive men we have known in the past.

Faggotry then and now

With the saturation of “queer” hedonistic filth everywhere, it feels harder and harder to be a 20th century, original recipe homosexual. Gone are the days of wit and elevated insult combined with flair. Even if there’s still a nominal or putative place for that “character” in culture, people are so sick of everything being fake and gay.

My friend Adam observes:

Yes. I think it’s worse, though. The quality isn’t there. There’s no arch Paul Lynde style anymore. It’s just valley girl narcissistic bimbo twinks and queeny hambeasts with clicky nails “GAGGING” on everything.