Hothouse

By Eduardo Rincon

On its surface, J.D. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” is, in essence, a story about nothing in particular. A phone conversation, a swim in the ocean, an altercation in an elevator—there’s not much plot here, and hardly a memorable action until the story’s sudden climactic finale. But it’s precisely in these mundanities, these one-on-one conversations between characters that Salinger crafts a harrowing portrait of a man struggling to adjust to life in his own post-war world. Doing his best Hemingway impression, Salinger relies almost exclusively on dialogue that is tactfully (and sparingly) supplemented by subtle actions to indirectly construct Seymour Glass’ broken psyche, piece by inferred piece. Indeed, Seymour is the story’s main focus, but hardly its protagonist. He is entirely missing from its first half, presented instead as the nebulous subject of a conversation between Muriel and her mother who is characterized solely by clues drawn from this dialogue. Even when Seymour does enter the narrative, his development and characterization are reliant not on his actions or even his own thoughts, but rather on his conversations with those around him. Seymour’s playful, innocuous interactions with the young Sybil point to his deep alienation and nostalgia for the simpler times of childhood—especially when taken in stark contrast with his unprovoked outburst with the woman on the elevator. By forsaking traditional plot structure, Salinger creates a jagged, dialogue-heavy narrative that reflects the shattered mental state that Seymour hides behind his everyday activities. It is not by analyzing or even peering into Seymour’s psyche, but by inferring from humdrum exchanges that the story creates a troubling and effective portrait of post-war malaise. 

In the story’s first act, Salinger keeps Seymour completely in the background and uses the phone call between Muriel and her mother—through all its interruptions and trivialities—to gradually and indirectly reveal Seymour’s deep sense of alienation from those around him. Throughout their conversation, both women appear to care for Seymour’s well-being; however, their dialogue reveals a degree of self-absorption that relegates his struggles to just another superficiality. Take, for example, the way Seymour is introduced: when her mother asks who drove the two, Muriel replies with a simple “He did,” further adding that “he drove very nicely. I was amazed” (1). Despite her mother’s worry, Muriel responds with annoyed nonchalance and presents Seymour to the reader as a nameless figure. His existence is reverentially implied, not explicitly stated. Even with limited context, it’s clear that something is the matter with this “he.” And yet, Muriel immediately deflects her mother’s concern, practically infantilizing him by claiming to be “amazed” by his ability to drive “very nicely.” This bit of dialogue alludes to Seymour’s instability by bringing his motor functions into question, but he remains nameless as Muriel goes on to interrupt her mother with growing irritability, defending Seymour as one might defend a child. Indeed, she only begins mentioning him by name when stating that “Seymour told Daddy that he’d pay for [the car],” pointing to her superficiality and lack of concern for Seymour beyond his material benefits, so to speak (1). 

From there, the two discuss Seymour’s deteriorating mental health with growing urgency, but these concerns fall on deaf ears—on both sides. The mother fears Seymour may “completely lose control of himself” and Muriel describes her husband as “pale and all” (2, 3). But immediately, they devolve into petty, materialistic non-conversation as Muriel changes the subject: “Anyway, after Bingo night, [the psychiatrist] and his wife asked me if I wouldn’t join them for a drink. So I did. His wife was horrible. You remember that awful dinner dress we saw in Bonwit’s window” (3)? Upon mentioning the psychiatrist at the hotel, Muriel’s mind immediately goes to judging his wife based on her outfit as she looks to altogether avoid Seymour as a topic of conversation. And her mother, despite her previous concerns, gives in and entertains this triviality. Simply put, Muriel is obstinately convinced that Seymour is just fine while her mother sees him as a threat to her daughter. Throughout the phone call, neither listens to the other; the mother’s fear of Seymour is met with irritated insouciance, and Seymour’s troubled state—alluded to yet never truly discussed—takes a backseat to trifling, materialistic commentary. In this minimalist, dialogue-heavy storytelling, Salinger maintains an Olympian distance from his narrative, keeping Seymour ambiguous and defenseless in the conversation to create and communicate the sense of alienation and distance within him.

The story then takes a jarring turn, both in setting and in tone, as Sybil and Seymour’s playful interactions take center stage. In contrast with the phone call’s rushed and hostile mood, this segment sees Seymour genuinely connecting with the young Sybil through innocuous and even wholesome conversation, which Salinger includes to express Seymour’s longing for a return to innocence. Sybil is, of course, a little girl, but Seymour speaks to her with a degree of respect and comfort reminiscent of real, healthy friendship:

“Then the young man picked her up and laid her down on her stomach to float.

‘Don’t you ever wear a bathing cap or anything?’ he asked.

‘Don’t let go,’ Sybil ordered. You hold me, now.’

‘Miss Carpenter. Please. I know my business,’ the young man said. ‘You just keep your

eyes open for any bananafish. This is a perfect day for bananafish’” (6).

Unlike Muriel, Seymour does not patronize the young girl in his dialogue with her. Rather, he does the opposite: he meets her halfway, treating her with the respect of a fellow adult while maintaining the playfulness and curiosity of a child. Their dialogue just radiates with the exact innocence and simplicity of childhood that Seymour desires. Yet again, nothing actually happens to indicate this, nor does Salinger take us inside the mind of his protagonist to tell us; after all, Seymour and Sybil simply take a swim and talk about made-up fish. But therein lies the thematic crux of the story: the pair’s conversation is mundane, yes, but far from empty; they display mutual trust in each other, as well as a natural rhythm that indicates a genuine connection. Compared to the vapid nature of Muriel and her mother, Seymour is drawn to the childhood innocence of Sybil—not in any sort of predatory way, of course, but really more in a tragic one. He finds himself disillusioned with the post-war world around him, alienated from his loved ones as he clings to the comfort and security of earlier times that Sybil embodies. He is truly a bananafish out of water, as it were. 

It’s also important to note that Seymour is never mentioned by name again, neither by Sybil nor by Salinger in his limited narration. In fact, Salinger only makes his main character known by way of a humorous reference from Sybil: “‘See more glass, said Sybil Carpenter, who was staying at the hotel with her mother. ‘Did you see more glass’” (4)? Of course, this a pun on the name Seymour Glass, and on the one hand, it works to highlight the young girl’s childish playfulness. But as the lone reference to Seymour, it creates even more distance between Salinger and the narrative—and more importantly, between Seymour and the world around him. Notice how Sybil is formally introduced with her full name; Seymour, on the other hand, is simply “the young man” from here on out. Even when present and active in the story, Seymour is nameless, his very identity hinted at by the inference of a pun. Beneath this lengthy, innocuous dialogue, Salinger creates a portrait of a man scarred by war who longs for the solace of days gone by.

This solace that Sybil provides for Seymour, however, is merely fleeting, and it vanishes as soon as Seymour finds himself alone once again. As he returns to his room, he chooses to pick a fight with a female guest in the elevator for, apparently, no reason at all:

“‘I see you’re looking at my feet,’ he said to her when the car was in motion.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the woman.

  ‘I said I see you’re looking at my feet.’ […]

  ‘If you want to look at my feet, say so,’ said the young man. ‘But don’t be a God-damned

  sneak about it” (7). 

This altercation is both redundant and rather uneventful; it’s essentially a back-and-forth of the same two phrases, and it ends as quickly as it began. But taken in immediate contrast with Seymour’s interactions with Sybil, it’s a clear manifestation of his trauma and disillusionment with the world. His tone here is a far cry from the cheerfulness and innocence he showed moments earlier. Seymour’s remarks are hostile, and most importantly, unprovoked. The woman on the elevator acts as a foil to Sybil and her innocence, a representation of the “real world” that Seymour feels so alienated from. And for this reason, Seymour feels threatened by the woman, choosing to accuse her of something as trivial as looking at his feet. To Seymour, however, it’s not so trivial, as he perceives this to be a transgression: “‘I have two normal feet and I can’t see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them,’ said the young man” (7). On the surface, he seems to be simply lashing out, perhaps due to some personal insecurities; but in a deeper sense, Seymour reveals the true extent of his post-war trauma. He wants to be normal and for those around him to see him as such, but instead he feels scrutinized and judged “for no God-damned reason.” With Sybil gone, he is forced back into the reality that he’s so dissatisfied with. Through this unprovoked altercation, Salinger indirectly communicates Seymour’s feelings of alienation and frustration with the world that culminate in the story’s tragic ending.

At its core, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” is a tale of three conversations. In each, Salinger employs a Hemingway-esque, minimalist narrative style to explore Seymour’s broken psyche through heavy, humdrum dialogue. Through this narrative distance, Salinger keeps the reader out of Seymour’s mind and instead relies on experiences and interactions to communicate its main theme of post-war malaise. But beyond this central theme, Salinger offer commentary on another that is more universal: that the human experience, in its more straightforward form, is itself made up of humdrum, mundane moments. And like his narrative construction, it’s up to the beholder to deduce and decide wherein lies the meaning. 

By Wynn Wilkinson

Between 1337 and 1339, the early Italian Renaissance painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted a series of six frescoes in the Republic of Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico, or town hall, that have earned the artist a surprising spot on the list of most relevant Western commentators on the origin of the state, right beside big names like Thomas Paine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Painted in the Sala dei Nove, or Room of Nine, these pieces cover every wall in the meeting space where the nine elected magistrates of Siena met. Lorenzetti’s work addresses the powerful executive leaders of the republic with a particular governmental counsel and acts as a permanent installation of advice for how they should perform their duties as officials. 

Known as the Allegory of Good and Bad Government, these vivid and intricate artworks describe Lorenzetti’s visions of correct and incorrect governance. Via pigment and plaster, the Sienese artist masterfully illustrates such governmental components as ideal and deficient societal structure, the personified virtues and vices involved, and the real-world effects of both manners of rulership. Four frescoes are dedicated to the impacts of good and bad government in both the city and the country, demonstrating in an evocative, contrasting manner the probable outcomes of what Lorenzetti both proposes and warns against. Most fascinating are the Allegories of themselves: two theory-dense frescoes that demonstrate in vivid metaphor how Lorenzetti thought government must be organized in order to succeed. 

These allegories present a unique opportunity to us as observers that the typical political essay cannot: a visual representation of the flow of power. When Hobbes describes his Leviathan or Marx his dictatorship of the proletariat, we might imagine its shape, but we cannot with such clarity see each individual cog in the machine, and even the occasional in-text diagram cannot

display the system with the Allegories’ elegance. Lorenzetti’s unique representation of his political philosophy offers us the governance equivalent of a food web, a trophic dependency pattern that he believes will result in a prosperous society. As we undertake the perspective of a process ecologist, the Allegories morph before our eyes, each painted figure becoming a node in a loop with a hierarchical chain structure. We see how Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good Government is emblematic of a prosperous, functional ecosystem, while his Allegory of Bad Government mirrors a sick, decaying one. 

From this angle, Lorenzetti’s pieces contain several striking resemblances to observable ecosystemic properties occurring within nature. His Allegory of Good Government is most crucial to look at for two key reasons. First, its antithesis acts more as a reflective piece to drive home the legitimacy of Lorenzetti’s proposal. And second, the Allegory of Bad Government has undergone damage, and the fresco’s incomplete state makes it harder to comment on, in this work and in previous works alike. Henceforth, I’ll be relegating the Bad Allegory to a position where it will be called upon expressly to amplify contrasts, and will not focus on it. 

To discuss and appreciate Lorenzetti’s thesis in proper detail, we must learn his cast of characters and how they interact with one another in the same manner as might species in an ecosystem or nodes in a food chain. The first parallel between the two Allegories comes in the hierarchical organization: both use three tiers to differentiate the type of character each figure plays in the story. In the Good Allegory, the terrene realms occupy the bottom space, populated by people: citizens, the military, and so on, in an ordered fashion. Political virtues and other major symbolic figures occupy the center tier, while the heavenly virtues hover above. In both allegories, the viewer’s eye is snapped like a magnet to the large, seated figure in the middle tier, who can be considered the “Executive” of both pieces. In the Good Allegory, he is represented

by the Common Good, a regal figure sporting the Sienese black and white on his robe, while in the Bad Allegory the Executive is Tyranny, donning cartoonishly devilish fangs and horns. 

I find that these figures, and especially the depiction of the Common Good, represent at once three different elements of Lorenzetti’s theory of how governance ought to be performed. First, the Executives of Common Good and Tyranny are, in essence, emergent properties that result from governance that is attentive to the nine figures on the upper and middle tiers, i.e. both theological and political virtues and vices. Second, the Common Good occupies the highest trophic level of what might be considered a food chain, where exergy is passed through the channel facilitated by the leftmost depiction of Justice. Meanwhile, we note that Tyranny does not occupy that level due to, and this is key, a broken flow of potential energy. Finally, the Executives act as metaphors for where the Nine, should they act against or in accordance with Lorenzetti’s counsel, will find themselves. Lorenzetti demands through his art that the Nine strive to occupy the space that the Common Good does, thereby becoming embodiments of the will of the people. 

Concerning the claim of emergence, our focus is pulled to the rightmost side of the Good Allegory, which tells the story of Virtues as an autocatalytic loop. The three theological virtues of Faith, Charity, and Hope (left-to-right) hover in the celestial tier above the Common Good, while Cardinal virtues of Justice, Temperance, Prudence, and Fortitude, as well as Magnanimity¹ and Peace, surround the Common Good on a bench. In the Bad Allegory, the same cast remains, but inverted: Cruelty, Deceit, Fraud, Fury, Division, and War surround Tyranny on the bench while Avarice, Pride, and Vainglory float above. Lorenzetti is pointed in maintaining the thematic structure in both allegories. By surrounding his Executives with advisors in the forms of ¹ An important political virtue to Roman thinkers like Cicero, who will be discussed later.

virtues and vices, the artist argues that the advisors make the Executive, i.e. that leaders who are attentive to virtue will govern for the sake of the common good, while the leaders who are attentive to vice will be tyrannical. 

An inscription at the bottom of the Good Allegory written by Lorenzetti reads “[The Common Good], in order to govern his state, chooses never to turn his eyes from the resplendent faces of the Virtues who sit around him.”. This further indicates that if the virtues were absent, the Executive could never dream of embodying the Common Good. Neither tyranny nor governance for the common good are means to an end; rather they are the ends themselves, sourced from the virtues and vices present in governance. The virtues and vices form the equivalent of autocatalytic loops whose centripetal forces have stabilizing effects as the necessary building blocks, or nodes, that create the ecosystems of good and bad governance respectively. 

Due to the political context and influential theories of the age, it can be inferred that Lorenzetti believed the virtues were ever-present, further proving both that the Executives are emergent and that they act as placeholders for the Nine. In Siena, where the Catholic Church was the second key political actor alongside the Nine, theological virtues were considered to be ever-present as gifts from God, which were permanent and accessible by the Nine via religious attention. The political virtues, though not granted by God, were also accessible by the Nine; Aristotle, who impacted many political thinkers including Lorenzetti, saw moral virtue as the habit of behaving in a way that struck a balance between deficiency and excess. While the virtues on the right side are static personifications, we see Aristotelian nuance and belief that virtue is a mean in the equal focus that Justice has for distributive justice (white angel) and retributive justice (red angel) on the left-most side of the Good Allegory.

The Roman statesman Cicero was another political philosopher whose authority lived on through writings into the Renaissance, and he’s notable for believing virtue to be a private responsibility and a necessity if one wanted to be a public servant. It’s obvious that his belief in a mixed government² has also impressed itself upon Lorenzetti, who condemns tyranny but would never endorse direct democracy. Cicero, as well as Aristotle and Lorenzetti, imagined the virtues as ever-present, and humans were faced with a constant choice of whether to attend to them– a crucial decision for statesmen. It’s this decision that Lorenzetti urges the Nine to make as representatives of the republic. Should they act as a collective in accordance with the virtues offered, they will come to occupy the emergent position of the Common Good, each individual leader combining to form a sort of strongly connected component (SCC) within the system. Should they choose vice, they will come to occupy, as a unit, the position of Tyranny within the system. 

Cicero’s influence is enormous here, and both thinkers are in clear agreement that for public citizens, the pursuit of virtues and the common good are synonymous with one another. That said, Lorenzetti differs to a degree in that he identifies the common good as an emergent result, while Cicero inversely views acting in the interest of the common good as a means to harmonious ends. Therefore, in Lorenzetti’s allegories, both executives are emergent properties that reveal themselves as resulting from their surrounding structures. The common good is a goal, not a guideline, and should the Nine attain it, it will be by being attentive to the virtues, forming the loop that produces the common good as its byproduct. On the other hand, tyranny is far from a goal, but is a natural product of poor and malicious governance, one that breaks the bones and spirits of those under it, who mutter “tyrant” to one another until the descriptor sticks. 

² A blend of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy developed from ideas of Greek thinkers like Aristotle.

With the intellectual context of the piece established, we can now take a closer look at the Allegories themselves, starting with the unique emblematic character of Peace. Reclining upon a set of armor which has long oxidized and darkened through lack of use, one might argue that Peace is an emergent property of her own, a natural result of virtuous governance. Yet given her size, scale, and position in relation to the rest of the seated figures, I’m inclined to argue that she occupies the same centripetal loop as the other virtues, and is instead part of the means rather than an end. Peace is akin to a specialist species who occupies just one particular environment, which in this case is a political one where public servants attend to the virtues with diligence and respect. If they entertain vice instead, Peace dons her armor and flees the scene, as she has in the Bad Allegory– perhaps on her way to stave off the effects of wicked governance! She is not an emergent property here, but instead another emphasis that rulers must pay attention to when deciding how to govern. She’s a key component in the ecosystem, as important to attend to as any virtue, and she removes her armor because the Executive rules with peace kept in mind. Should the Executive become a tyrant and cause conflict with the people, Peace will don her armor once more, and the scene will fragment. 

Meanwhile, on the left side of the Good Allegory fresco, a separate story is taking place: the story of exergy and power flows and the answer to “whence authority?”. Justice is repeated, appearing a second time, set apart from the rest of the scene. The aforementioned inscription mentions elsewhere that “This holy virtue [Justice], where she rules, induces to unity the many souls [of citizens], and they, gathered together for such a purpose, make the Common Good [ben comune] their Lord…” It is evident that Lorenzetti considers her to be the most important political virtue. In ecosystemic terms, we might consider her a keystone species, for without her the other political virtues could not operate, and Concord would be unable to pass down the cord

that holds the Executive in check. Within the autocatalytic loop on the right side of the fresco, where attention to one virtue begets attention to another and so on, Justice occupies the functional role of a node inside the larger loop positioned around the Executive. By repeating her presence elsewhere, Lorenzetti comments on Justice as a central player within the system, making her double presence not redundant, but rather an emphasis. She must be there twice in order for Lorenzetti to demonstrate her two roles: the first as an important position in the virtues’ guiding autocatalytic loop (rightmost), and the other as an indispensable player that facilitates the flow of exergy to the people (leftmost). 

The key factor in this assessment is the placement of Justice’s head, tilted upwards, seeking the guidance of Wisdom, who occupies the highest tier of the fresco. This indicates that this is the same Wisdom granted divinely by God for which countless Proverbs are written. If, as we’ve established, highest-tier characters represent external (from God) factors, then Justice here plays a role similar to that of a producer, who gathers light from the sun and converts it to energy that can be passed up the trophic pyramid. She plays her role in the larger system, but without her production of energy, the rest of the system cannot function. The flow of energy still moves from the top of the hierarchy downwards, from Wisdom to Justice to Concord, who weaves a physical cord so that it can be grasped by the populace and passed to the Executive, who by taking the cord takes on the role of the Common Good. The idea that Concord is the link between Justice and the connection between the ruler(s) and the ruled brings to the modern mind the concept of a social contract which Lorenzetti may be seen as an early proponent of, although the social contract as we know it came much later with enlightenment theorists like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

One philosopher who many interpreters mistakenly identified as a key influence on Lorenzetti was Thomas Aquinas, but there are a number of disagreements between the two thinkers in how figures are represented. Returning for a moment to Peace, Aquinas thought peace was a passive absence of discord, but Lorenzetti has identified it as an intentional orienting force that must be addressed in order to stave off chaos. We might make an apt allusion to an ecosystem functioning on the edge of chaos, because in Lorenzetti’s ideal political environment, peace is just one of many necessary active pursuits to avoid the discord that comes from letting virtue fall by the wayside. Another interesting diversion comes in both thinkers’ representations of Charity and Concord; where Aquinas saw the former as a direct source for the latter, Lorenzetti shows the two figures in separate spheres of the fresco, both acting as related but distant steps in the process of good governance. It’s clear that Lorenzetti valued Charity a great deal, as it is the highest (literally) theological virtue acting as an external factor. Yet unlike Aquinas, Lorenzetti doesn’t view it as a driving force, the equivalent of the sun in this parallelized ecosystem. That honor belongs to Wisdom, who passes its guidance down through Justice to Concord, who hands the exergy off to the people. Therefore, according to Lorenzetti, charity is not a productive force that allows for the conditions of concord. Instead, concord is a means that results from proper attunement of justice to divine wisdom. 

Turning to the Bad Allegory for contrast, we see that its system is dysfunctional because there is no flow of exergy. The leftmost part of the fresco is intentionally not mirrored; Wisdom is nowhere to be found, and Justice is out of commission at the bottom-most tier of the fresco, unable to provide the populace with the cord with which to control the Executive. This means that no flow of Wisdom, our allegories’ equivalent to exergy, can occur. Any potential energy that once existed in this system has been sequestered by Tyranny, and although the people have

no power, Tyranny cannot receive any more because the chain is broken. We can presume that at some point Wisdom did play a role, given that Justice, who channels Wisdom, appears to have been defeated at some point in the timeline. But the days of Wisdom’s rule are long past, and the present conditions show that the Bad Allegory system is stuck in a poverty trap. There is low connectedness between the Executive, the people, and Justice, low potential due to Wisdom’s absence by Justice’s inability to act, and low resilience, which we can glean from the practical dysfunction of the crumbling city in the Effects of Bad Government fresco. 

With the lens of a process ecologist, we can naturalize Lorenzetti’s theories, holding them up to the light of environmental systems and finding the similarities and differences. The Allegories are an amalgamation of many allegories, inadvertent allusions to the natural world that justify the growth and propagation of systems we know and understand instinctively, even if we now apply a new set of vocabulary. The merism of good governance that uses Common Good as the end and Virtues as the means is told by two separate narratives that we now identify and track through nature and packaged to the Nine– the people who needed to hear these stories most. Whether Lorenzetti’s parallels with the natural world justify his theories more or less is up to the observer, but they are fascinating to explore nonetheless.

Works Cited 

Gunderson, L. H., & Holling, C. S. (Eds.). (2002). Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press. 

Jorgensen, S. E. (Ed.). (2009). Ecosystem ecology. Elsevier. 

Lorenzetti, A. (1338). The Allegory of Good and Bad Government Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy. 

Rubinstein, N. (1958). Political ideas in Sienese art: The frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and 

Taddeo di Bartolo in the palazzo pubblico. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 21(3-4), 179–207. https://doi.org/10.2307/750823 

Ulanowicz, R.E. Process Ecology: Philosophy Passes into Praxis 

By Wynn Wilkinson

This is a gay bar, Jesus. It looks like any other bar on the outside, only it isn’t. Men stand three and four deep at this bar– some just feeling a sense of belonging here, others making contacts for new partners. This isn’t very much like a church, Christ, but many members of the church are also here in this bar. Quite a few of the men here belong to the church as well as to this bar. If they knew how, a number of them would ask you to be with them in both places. Some of them wouldn’t, but won’t you be with them too, Jesus? 

-Rev. Malcolm Boyd, 1965 

Under the sticky, mid-day August heat, a party is raging in Austin. The sights and sounds are built to dazzle; every color of the rainbow streams past without cessation, overwhelming the iris with glitz and glam. Club music pumps from a distant stage where drag performers strut, undeterred by the sun’s unceasing fervor. The downtown procession glides by, showcasing the diversity of the enthusiastic, accepting community– including the wolves that have identified said community as a sound financial opportunity. A UT student with dyed hair and assless chaps strikes up friendly conversation with a graying white woman sporting a “Free Mom Hugs” shirt. A float for a company that routinely donates to the political campaigns of homophobes wafts by a socialist in a sexy cop outfit reminiscent of the Village People. Real cops, sporting rainbow armbands, march past an aging lesbian who, many moons ago, hurled stones during the Stonewall protests. A girl my age wearing an asexual pin exclaims that she likes my outfit. That I’m slaying. Thanks mama, you too!

The ritual I’ve identified is, of course, the Austin Pride parade, although for decades now, similar celebrations have and do occur annually across the country. When I attended my first Pride event, I was 17 years old, bisexual, and felt far from welcomed in the small Texas town where I’d been raised. The unrelenting summer heat enhanced by the unforgiving burning asphalt of downtown Austin set the scene for the beautiful ritual of radical acceptance that is a Pride celebration. On that special day, strangers embrace, hug, kiss, love, and hold in community other unknowns, connected by the shared experience of queer oppression, by the miracle that is queer love. Maybe your parents were closed-minded. Maybe your pastor told you you’d burn in hell. Maybe you’re new in town and are just desperate for community. Nobody asks; knowing smiles take the place of questions, skipping straight to the important bit: You– we– are here now, together. Four years later, I’ve yet to take part in a ritual where I feel more encouraged to express myself, to liberate my oft-caged queer soul, than at Pride. I’ve never felt more welcome. 

My usage of the term ritual is not accidental. Pride, to the uninitiated “baby gay” on the first steps of the journey of self-discovery, is downright baptismal. The 20th century Romanian historian of religion Mircea Eliade developed the concept of the eternal return, the argument that religious ritual symbolically transports the devotee(s) to the time of mythical inception. The Catholic envisions himself in sacred time walking alongside Jesus, the Buddhist imagines that she meditates at the feet of the Buddha. I console the skeptic that this flight need not be literal, and is more accurately a spiritual proximity to the source, a return to the elements of this life that are sacred and everlasting. I make no claims that homosexuality is a religion, but most queer people would agree that love, welcoming, tolerant, queer love, is sacred, special, fundamental. Love— romantic, platonic, agape, familial— is so often denied to us, yet here is a space where we may not only drink our fill, but our cups runneth over. Even the listless rainbow capitalism on display during the festival parades facilitates love, an object of collective scorn and ridicule, a binding agent that promotes unity in the face of deception and deceit. 

It’s significant, too, that this love is not merely an internal feeling, but an outward, expressive manifestation of care which selects a subject, be it a community, individual, or concept. The welcoming love espoused in symbols such as the various pride flags, makeup-and-fashion-based expression, song and dance— what one might ascribe to the category of “queer culture”— are devotional practices in a morality that prioritizes love as the most sacred of gifts. The famously eccentric, pluralistic Hindu saint Sri Ramakrishna conceptualized five valid archetypal forms of devotion or God-realization, one of which is friendship, another the love of a mother for her child, another the woman for her lover. A friend says to another, “Come sit with me.” Another friend remarks: “I like your outfit today”. The mother sees God in the eyes of a boy whose birth parents see naught but the Devil. She hugs him and they weep; their acceptance, care, and mutual appreciation reach to the heavens. Two men, mystical outcasts for proclaiming their truths in the tradition of al-Hallaj, discover one another in the night; each believer caresses the other’s Christ-body, recreating the reception of the Eucharist, returning by sacred time to the Last Supper of the Messiah. Beauty, truth, freedom, love– the ritual of Pride can be nothing but an eternal return, a celebratory worship of the fundamentals of human experience from which the community has so often, throughout the history of this country, been gatekept. 

After Pride 2019, while waiting for my Uber after the climactic parade and cruel sun had come and gone, I wept and wondered if I should wipe off my makeup before getting in the car. The ritual is never permanent; we must always return to the profane world. I pictured returning to my hometown, where I would concede to Caesar what is his and simply pretend that my worship had never occurred. The city skyscrapers faded into the distance as I stared out the backseat window, the lights and sounds of 4th Street an evanescent sensory experience. A light drizzle began to coat the glass, blurring my vision of the ritual site. How can you up and leave the clutches of the divine? I mentally marked my calendar for the next event, blissfully unaware of the approaching cancellations that would be inflicted by Covid. I had been welcomed to peer into the heart of God and had seen the overflowing oceans of love-blood. How could I bear to, for even an instant, look away?

By Lucia Llano

I grew up in the kind of town that made you think of your past lives often. It was a little orange city, melting, pouring over the Mexican border. It never knew of anything but itself. A West Texas town breathing within an egocentric vacuum. A living city amongst the walking dead. It made you lust after what else you could have, or rather what else you might’ve had in other lives you couldn’t quite recall. But this town. It had the kind of charm that you would never understand unless you grew up there too. The kind of charm that would sink its teeth into you. There, it’s a well-known fact that no one ever leaves. You will find generations of families living in the same yellow houses by the churches, never having ever touched the skies. This town. With the warmth of the dust storms and city lights and orange skies and punch-hole stars. It holds me like a domestic dog, on a short leash. Even when it gives me some slack, even when it lets me loose, I always find my way back in. 

I grew up here, terrified, because all the kids would say that this town was rabid. That it dug its claws into you. It was that adolescent, desert lore. We were all far too familiar with that young itch to leave and that old, beckoning ache to stay. The older I get, and the more I try to make a run for it, the more I come to believe it. Because I have tried, and tried, to cut myself free, but the truth is, no matter how far I manage to stray, I don’t think I can ever properly leave. 

This town had always demanded performance. With its red sand stage and spotlight sun. It begged you to squeeze some nectar from the wastelands. You would never understand unless it bit you, that kiss of death. Here, you woke up in the mornings and grabbed a scarf, a leather journal, some sunglasses, a cigarette, and a tall, cold bottle of Mexican coke. Just to go drive around the pavement desert. Just to wander around local corner stores with a cassette and some earbuds and ripped tights. There was not much else to do but play the parts handed to you. Today, I stumbled my way back home again, back to the city on fire, back on stage, back into my old roles. I would know it blind. Here, the heat of the Texas sun exhales off the adobe walls as you walk home, half somnambulant in the evenings. I wandered home feeling entranced, enamored by the once again familiar pebble lawns and morse code city lights. But I knew all too well that this was not the kind of town you fell for, but rather, the kind of town that grabbed you in its hands and pulled you under, the town that gave you no other option but to starve in love for it. It came with a loyalty so strong it was nearly akin to religion. And you knew no other choice but to defend it with that feminine anger, that motherly venom. And I always did. You could say it was all folklore. Told by desperate teenagers. Told by the stench of a stifled adolescence, something like the hint of vodka on your breath as you stumble past your mother into your childhood bedroom. 

Tonight, back at home, I found myself a child again. Slipping into my baby blue hand-me-down sheets. Once again, a little girl in a little yellow house pouring out by a church. And here, it’s easy to close your eyes. Between the warmth of the dust and the dirt. It’s easy to forget all else. This town, plays along, ignores the fact that I have grown far too big for it, and instead wraps me in its long, hot arms, and like a mother, tells me I am safe with her. I still find myself performing for this city. For the blue, endless sky. For the way the clouds scatter like lovers in the mornings. For the fire in the sky every evening. For the winding suburban roads and dead-end streets stopping cold at the feet of the Franklin Mountains. I am always performing. Even here, writing alone, I feel a subtle audience, somewhere inside my mind. There is always a voyeur peering over my shoulder. I write this now, to you, because I know quite well that no one else would understand. Only you could see this charm too. The appeal to the cult of the mountain valley. With these tree-lined streets. With their rock walls and mountain backdrop. They are heavy. I feel like a visitor with too much baggage stumbling down Camille Street. I sit in the red of my old teenage car, drive down the streets bordering my old high school, and find myself no longer knowing its walls. I’ve got to pull over to cry. I don’t know when this city turned ghost town. I always felt it breathe, even then. Now, I drag the old, empty shell of who I used to be after me, through the landmarks and the metaphors, the infinite sky. Like a snake that shed its skin only to crawl back in again, I park in the same spots I used to, just to sit in the hurt for a little while longer. And under this desert sun, the memories ripple. The iridescent shapes of the past still linger, sitting on the same benches, standing on the same intersections and street corners. I reckon traces of my skin are still lying there. Clear as day. I want to hear it say goodnight to me once more, that’s all I want, for it to yell at me, once more, “don’t let the desert get to you, girl, it’s only a mirage.” Only you would understand.