BeatRoute Magazine B.C. print e-edition - January 2017

Queer View Mirror
In the main room the music drowns.
Dionysus is standing tall behind the
stage as the grandmaster (daddy) of this
party. In queer temporality, industrial
time (or homogeneous empty time) cede
to operate as it has been indoctrinated
by the nation state. Normative fictions
collapse under queer time. It’s all part
of the darkroom effect, a black hole
sucks up everything into a time warp,
even the clock cannot escape, and
spits it back out into public bathrooms,
parks, clubs, beaches, bathhouses and
bars. Murmuring, moaning, ahhhhthe
liquid state of queerness
Tommy Ting
The recent events of 2016 have been
hard to stomach. On most days, I am
at a loss for words; even my senses
feel numbed. And over time it feels
like I have nothing to say. Maybe I am
suspended in disbelief, but I have always
felt so much. My ex-boyfriend told me
that feeling so much and feeling nothing
at all are very millennial queer effects.
Was that a read? Or maybe it is just a
sickness. I have consulted numerous
writings on the productivity of negative
effect, but an indifferent one? I am
unconvinced yet here I am regardless.
I have never been much of a writer
because my writings are awkward and
unsophisticated. To recount my queer
encounters this year, I return to where
I always start all my thinking: the pool.
Room #1
Five, six, seven, eight, and under!
The loss of sight heightens all my other
senses so I feel my way across this dark
and humid room with my skin instead.
Haptic-navigation. The room reeks of all
kinds of bodily and chemical fluids and
I kind of love it. As I crawl through this
swamp, I imagine liquid particles rising
and evaporating into a viscous black fog
that envelops us with a tingling warmth,
protecting us from the besieging world
outside.
Room #2
Amorous mourning
In the next room filled with blue and
red light, our porous bodies meet and
press against each other so hard it’s as if
there were a million micro penetrations
of your flesh into mine. As our bodies
enter each other so do our memories,
identities, and feelings. In this beautiful
ritual of possession and release, we
embrace the joy and suffering of things.
We fall in love and we let go of love.
Room #3
Trans-temporal drag disruptions
ing, slurping, slappings,
fuck-yeahs, the sudden
loud banging. We are
flâneurs in the dark,
cruising utopia. Queer
cultural codes become
the only form of
communication; it’s
a visual and body
language. We want
to stay here; it feels
safe here, no one
will harm us here.
Temporality takes
on different forms;
it’s thick and curvy,
smooth and lean,
hairy and sticky
or even chemically
aromatic. Queer time
ticks in all directions.
No! Not tick, dance!
Queer time is a dance,
and it moves horizontally,
side-ways, back-andforth.
It is an anti-linear,
anti-chronological beat.
The music crashes
across the dance floor, it
engulfs us and pulls us
under into its belly.
Room #4
Ah, yes, I remember it well.
Outside the time is magic
hour, golden red hues
slam deep into metallic
blues. The bruised sky
entangled and the
uncanny takes hold.
Memory is driven
by present needs to
imagine and desire
a better future. The
fluidity of time, I
invite you to swim
in it. There’s no place
like home, there’s no
place like home, there’s
no place like home.
Time is strange,
and strange is
queer.
January 2017 CITY
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