Ars longa, vita brevis

To give more context: The reviewer was Jean Lorrain, who also was gay. Both showed up to the duel and both missed on purpose.

gay people can never just ask each other out

if you're ever wondering what popular media is getting wrong about basically any premodern society, the answer is that there are never enough lawsuits

there's a common idea that in the olden days all disputes were resolved through violence, but even in settings where that was true, people would still sue each other about it.

I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture. All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line? The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy? Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess. I want the fat left it. I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence. Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."