Silver cats and their friends between revolutions

Rarely I meet people who match my vibe and even more rare I meet those of my age who regularly read, I mean optical reading, not audiobooks.

You see, audio blindness is not a rare "specialty" of ADHD-crowd. This audio blindness manifests itself in the fact that we can't absorb information only spoken to us, and also are frequently not able to hold the focus on audio input for such a long time. If somebody tried to plan some event with me without a calendar app in front of my eyes or tells me to be somewhere without a map and a watch, they will certainly fail in their intentions.

That is why I prefer reading. After I finished the uni I stopped reading for several years because the disgust to it caused by the Russian system of education, not only higher, pushed me away from this activity I loved as a child so much. Books were my friends and teachers, and they've become them once more after the alienation has passed.

And since then, I read. I have an Android-based reader, Boox that syncs the progress made in the Google Play books app on my phone. So if I want to read on the way somewhere I always have my phone and at home I use the E-ink Boox. Boox doesn't use the blue light and is not so heavy on your eyes, also is slow as hell and won't intensely stimulate your brain before you go to bed. Also, it's quite useful to wind down before sleep without the distraction of messengers and social networks. Perfect for ADHD-people.

So the faggots. This book was recommended by a new friend I've met while on cruising in a gay sauna NZ in Amsterdam together with my huzzy. We laid on the beds in the lobby area and chatted in Russian, and I just went to the bar to get some drinks. When I came back, I realized my huzzy started talking to a guy laying nearby in English, so I joined. He didn't have any easily localizable accent, so I thought he probably won't understand me and huzzy and after a short convo we kept talking to each other in Russian discussing him in all juices.

At some point, we say something out loud and our new buddy replies in clear Russian. Oh, that moment when you realize it's not your secret language and there are, in fact, around 250 million people who speak that language. Through that well, it's not that in improbable that someone will hear our dick talks in the hallway or on the metro and understand what we are talking about. That happened before, it happened this time, it will happen again. We will keep talking dick talks.

When I meet new people, I always ask them whether they read or not and ask for their favorite book they would recommend. Nothing makes you closer to someone and understand how they tick better, than a book. A book is a commitment, and the measure of how people read reflects clearly in their eloquence, while speaking and reading. And nothing speaks for intelligence than an ability to form an interesting sentence.

The guy, let's call him Silver Cat, won me over immediately. The fact he speaks English so well and the way he spoke just made me want more and listen carefully. That could be a sign of intelligence and a start of potential deep friendship. We scheduled a brunch and I waited.

The day we met him again, I wasn't in the mood for social interactions, and green orangina helps a lot with it. We arrived at the café, and I was totally invested in finding out, what friends outside our queer community we might know in common. After three sentences we realized in we both know the Ferret and the Duchess, the fellow hedonists from Berlin we love and sniff ancient potential powders when the time is right. Nobody likes to enjoy the pleasure of life like faggots, and the Ferret and the Duchess are great allies in the craft of living the life's gifts to the full extent. Besides, everybody is sure that the Ferret is gay, but the Ferret and it's spicy.

When I asked the Silver Cat, what he reads, there were plenty of books about self-improvement and management and that is what my huzzy reads and what I don't understand completely. For developers, those books are a boner killer. I asked them then what outside that boring universe he reads, and then he said that "Faggots and their friends in between revolutions" is the book to read for every faggot, and then proceeded to quote from it. I was impressed, and we spent the entire day together and cooked salmon and cucumber salad together. This is not a euphemism, unfortunately.

To get the book in digital was quite a nightmare and here we are, I have to carry it around while my trip to Berlijn and Greece. I hate this form factor, and I usually give the book further when I finish.

I took the book on the plane, and I was blown away. I couldn't get enough of it, reading from it as if it were a bible. The style resembles something religious and the idea of having a faggot bible is tingling my brain.

The book is first released in 1977, and it explores the life of gays in America and that time. The part of it is the relationship between the faggots, their friends and the men. The hetero men who hate faggots and how the faggots find different ways to live in peace and beauty, despite the men's hatred.

Couple of quotes that will make you read this book:

The faggots consider it their sacred pleasure to engage in indiscriminate promiscuous sexuality. No faggot, regardless of their age, race or physical appearance, should ever be horny.

LOL and true.

The faggots cultivate beauty and harmony and peace, since these are states that the men do not know about. The lucky faggots live in the most beautiful places and make love in the most beautiful places and dance in the most beautiful places. Since the men are blind to beauty, they do not know that the lucky faggots live in the most beautiful places. And the lucky faggots do not tell them. Instead, they ask the unlucky faggots to come and join them.

LOL, LOL and true

For a thousand years the women did not trust faggots. They would allow the faggots to arrange their hair into elaborate, beautiful designs. They would allow them to fill their houses with carved wood and soft fabrics. They would allow them to play music at their parties. But they did not trust the faggots for they knew faggots only as men and they could not trust them.

Very true.

As a gay and ADHD man in Russia, I never felt that I belong to my surroundings. The words people said, what was important to them, were completely unrelatable for me. When I came to Berlin in 2011 and first time visited the gay pride, I was blown away. Today I understand that in Europe it's the most open and accepting parade out there, but the sensation was just overwhelming. So many queer people and allies walking together, holding hands, giving blowjobs in the woods. I felt understood, I felt seen.

When I just started reading this book years later, I felt that very feeling. The feeling that somebody separated from you by miles and years can look into your soul so deeply, so profoundly. Since 1977, legalization of gay marriages in Europe and America, many things have changed their wrappings, but the content remained the same. It was the faggots and their friends against the men.

The faggots in this book, Moonbeam, Lilac and Pinetree, are the author's friends, but they are also your friends, the archetypes falling in and out of the gay wheel of samsara. Other faces, same fates, divided by decades and joined in their addiction to cock.

A must-read for every queer and ally out there.