Author: stevendouglasblog

Born in 1954. Chequered career including Lecturer in English, Social Worker and Lecturer in Social Work. Had breaks related to mental health that also meant I worked in social care. Now retired.

‘“Twa Boabs”, the man laughs. “A matching pair!”’ You wait forever for a queer Ayrshire Scottish artist intent on rivaling the phallocentric Robert Burns, then ‘Two Roberts’ come at once. This is a blog on Damian Barr (2025) ‘The Two Roberts’.

September 21, 2025

‘“Twa Boabs”, the man laughs. “A matching pair!”’[1] You wait forever for a queer Ayrshire Scottish artist intent on rivaling the phallocentric Robert Burns, then ‘Two Roberts’ come at once. This is a blog on Damian Barr (2025) The Two Roberts, Edinburgh, Canongate. The power of Damian Barr’s novel The Two Roberts lies in its … More ‘“Twa Boabs”, the man laughs. “A matching pair!”’ You wait forever for a queer Ayrshire Scottish artist intent on rivaling the phallocentric Robert Burns, then ‘Two Roberts’ come at once. This is a blog on Damian Barr (2025) ‘The Two Roberts’.

To work out why I want to do tomorrow’s blog on post war queer coupledom and the ambition to make art matter.

September 20, 2025

Today’s  task ought to be why I want so much to do the blog I plan for tomorrow: the first draft of the start of which in Word I have screenshot above. I wince a bit that it feels necessary for me to pick up what in Damian  Barr’s novel is weak in the second … More To work out why I want to do tomorrow’s blog on post war queer coupledom and the ambition to make art matter.

We inherit nothing that we do not change; even in the act of claiming that it does not and cannot change.

September 19, 2025

Heritage is the subject of the moment and has an will continue to be a bone of contention. In truth we inherit nothing that from the moment of our possession of it does not metamorphose, either in its interpretation cognitively and emotionally or even its physical appearance and being, were it not so there would … More We inherit nothing that we do not change; even in the act of claiming that it does not and cannot change.

The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To me’ as soon as possible. This is a blog on that with a note on re-reading Freud’s ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’.

September 18, 2025

The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me‘ as soon as possible. There is an episode in Arundhati Roy’s 2025 memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me in which her brother, having brought home a school report saying he was an ‘average student’, is seen by her taken into … More The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To me’ as soon as possible. This is a blog on that with a note on re-reading Freud’s ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’.

Seeing the Gary Clarke Company embody the way that history in which my husband and me were involved flashes before our eyes – intense pleasure, pain and the value of contemplating past darkness in times moving apace to times of potentially greater darkness.

September 17, 2025

Seeing the Gary Clarke Company embody the way that history in which my husband and me were involved flashes before our eyes – intense pleasure, pain and the value of contemplating past darkness in times moving apace to times of potentially greater darkness. The publicity told us that ‘Detention is a powerful new dance theatre … More Seeing the Gary Clarke Company embody the way that history in which my husband and me were involved flashes before our eyes – intense pleasure, pain and the value of contemplating past darkness in times moving apace to times of potentially greater darkness.

“This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing”.

September 14, 2025

When two drunk men sing, a spirit of air and light catches the melody underlying their brawling voices and plays it it such that it enchants those who failed to do it justice by their broken voices, guttural with vomit. Shakespeare in The Tempest (Act 3 Scene 2) attempts to show how music might sound … More “This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing”.

What does your ideal home look like? Of course, it shall look like number 1, Nova Scotia House. This is a blog on Charlie Porter’s 2025 novel, ‘Nova Scotia House’, and the impossible  queer magical thinking it makes possible.

September 11, 2025

What does your ideal home look like? What does your ideal home look like? Of course, it shall look like number 1, Nova Scotia House. This is a blog on Charlie Porter’s 2025 novel, ‘Nova Scotia House’, and the impossible queer magical thinking it makes possible. The prompt question here is a kind of trick! … More What does your ideal home look like? Of course, it shall look like number 1, Nova Scotia House. This is a blog on Charlie Porter’s 2025 novel, ‘Nova Scotia House’, and the impossible  queer magical thinking it makes possible.

Topics are so aery a thing that you are only ever ‘informed about’ them, but as for ‘subjects’: only they can ‘inform’ one.

September 10, 2025

Topics are so aery a thing that you are only ever ‘informed about’ them, but as for ‘subjects’: only they can ‘inform’ one. As so often, this question attracted me not because I have anything substantial to say about it in answer but because so much of its terminology has had importance to me in … More Topics are so aery a thing that you are only ever ‘informed about’ them, but as for ‘subjects’: only they can ‘inform’ one.

Twilight answers the question: ‘What are you doing this evening?’

September 9, 2025

My mood was a mix-up, dusk and light seemed a matchTo the flow of colours in this translucent gown.Surely Night would not, when I fell in his bed, frownHis disapproval, or with his claws pull and scratchAway this feminine attire, or so he namedIt, as if non-binary being should not beFully blatant in the wide … More Twilight answers the question: ‘What are you doing this evening?’

The word ‘Dissolve’ might aid those who find the things of the world they inhabit too resistant and too ‘solid’, but it is a word that in this helpful usage seems itself to be fading away.

September 8, 2025

Colour Wheel Exhibition of Pat Steir Paintings at the Hirsghorn Museum  and Sculpture Garden, Washington D. C. 2019. Above is the most telling of n-grams I have ever seen, for it appears (remembering of course that n-grams provide neither valid nor reliable evidence for any hypothesis in scientific terms) that the usage of the word … More The word ‘Dissolve’ might aid those who find the things of the world they inhabit too resistant and too ‘solid’, but it is a word that in this helpful usage seems itself to be fading away.

Pinkwashing is not a trait, it is a strategy used to deceive. Where ‘gay rights’ trump human rights then the best trait of our humanity – that desiring free self-expression is being twisted for anti-queer means. This blog works out some issues with the help of Elias Jahshan (2025) ‘This Queer Arab Family: An Anthology of LGBTQ+ Arab Writers’.

September 7, 2025

Pinkwashing is not a trait, it is a strategy used to deceive. Where ‘gay rights’ trump human rights then the best trait of our humanity – that desiring free self-expression is being twisted for anti-queer means.  This blog works out some issues with the help of Elias Jahshan (2025) ‘This Queer Arab Family: An Anthology … More Pinkwashing is not a trait, it is a strategy used to deceive. Where ‘gay rights’ trump human rights then the best trait of our humanity – that desiring free self-expression is being twisted for anti-queer means. This blog works out some issues with the help of Elias Jahshan (2025) ‘This Queer Arab Family: An Anthology of LGBTQ+ Arab Writers’.

If it is the job of the novelist is to render the form of memory through many aspects of mind and bodily sensations, then this is one of the most superb novels ever. This is a blog on Claire Adam (2025) ‘Love Forms’.

September 6, 2025

‘Hills: … For many years these hills stayed safely in my memory. Even now, I can bring them to mind, or the feeling of being amidst them. Sometimes when I’m alone, my right hand lifts, and the hand sweeps diagonally upward, as if to trace the curving flank of one of those hills: a slow, … More If it is the job of the novelist is to render the form of memory through many aspects of mind and bodily sensations, then this is one of the most superb novels ever. This is a blog on Claire Adam (2025) ‘Love Forms’.