{"id":410,"date":"2006-10-14T02:48:30","date_gmt":"2006-10-14T06:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=410"},"modified":"2018-08-20T15:19:29","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T19:19:29","slug":"14801-%c2%a0%c2%a0stephen-fry-moab-is-my-washpot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=410","title":{"rendered":"14801. (Stephen Fry) Moab Is My Washpot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Fry has the kind of effort\u00adless tal\u00adent that makes me envi\u00adous. He is a bril\u00adliant actor and come\u00addian (Black\u00adad\u00adder<\/em>; Jeeves and Woos\u00ader<\/em><\/a><\/u><\/span>; A Bit of Fry and Lau\u00adrie<\/em>), and fine writer of fic\u00adtion, non-fic\u00adtion, screen\u00adplays and plays (I\u2019m in the mid\u00addle of his nov\u00adel Mak\u00ading His\u00adtory<\/em>). Nat\u00adu\u00adrally, such a per\u00adson would be expect\u00aded to write an inter\u00adest\u00ading biog\u00adra\u00adphy. But I was unpre\u00adpared for the extreme hon\u00adesty and sparkling wit of this book. It\u2019s devot\u00aded entire\u00adly to his child\u00adhood and teenage years, always the most inter\u00adest\u00ading parts of an auto\u00adbi\u00adog\u00adra\u00adphy, if it is hon\u00adest. His descrip\u00adtion of his first expe\u00adri\u00adence of feel\u00ading love is among the finest I\u2019ve read. His self-eval\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtions strike me as spot-on, his con\u00adfes\u00adsions to mis\u00addeeds are not twist\u00aded into self-glam\u00ador\u00adiz\u00ading. The book is absolute\u00adly engross\u00ading. <\/span>For the aspects of human cul\u00adture that offend him, he reserves a spe\u00adcial, elo\u00adquent anger:<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u201d.\u2026the con\u00adcept that real\u00adly gets the goat of the gay-hater, the idea that real\u00adly spins their mel\u00adon and sick\u00adens their stom\u00adach is that most ter\u00adri\u00adble and ter\u00adri\u00adfy\u00ading of all human notions, love. That one can love anoth\u00ader of the same gen\u00adder, that is what the homo\u00adphobe real\u00adly can\u00adnot stand. Love in all eight tones and all five semi\u00adtones of the word\u2019s full octave. Love as agape, Erosphi\u00adlos; love as romance, friend\u00adship and ado\u00adra\u00adtion; love as infat\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion, obses\u00adsion and lust; love as tor\u00adture, eupho\u00adria, ecsta\u00adcy and obliv\u00adion (this is begin\u00adning to read like a Calvin Klein per\u00adfume cat\u00ada\u00adlogue); love as need, pas\u00adsion and desire.\u201d<\/em><\/i><\/span>
\n This is exact\u00adly the right point to make. The gay-haters are pri\u00admar\u00adily haters of love<\/em>. That is why they can be dri\u00adven to a fanat\u00adi\u00adcal fren\u00adzy by the sight two men kiss\u00ading, and why they cam\u00adpaign so vig\u00ador\u00adously against gay mar\u00adri\u00adange. In the last analy\u00adsis, it is not reli\u00adgion or tra\u00addi\u00adtion, or even sex\u00adual prud\u00adery, that is the source of anti-gay prej\u00adu\u00addice, but a pro\u00adfound men\u00adtal and spir\u00adi\u00adtual ill\u00adness. If you are not famil\u00adiar with Fry\u2019s com\u00adic genius, I strong\u00adly rec\u00adom\u00admend that you rent or down\u00adload some episodes of A Bit of Fry and Lau\u00adrie. <\/em>This com\u00adedy sketch show ran to 26 episodes between 1989 and 1995. Fry and Hugh Lau\u00adrie<\/a><\/u> were roo\u00admates at Cam\u00adbridge, and worked togeth\u00ader in many projects.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Fry has the kind of effort\u00adless tal\u00adent that makes me envi\u00adous. He is a bril\u00adliant actor and come\u00addian (Black\u00adad\u00adder; Jeeves and Woos\u00ader; A Bit of Fry and Lau\u00adrie), and fine writer of fic\u00adtion, non-fic\u00ad\u00adtion, screen\u00adplays and plays (I\u2019m in \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9369,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/9369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}