4 (2010) C. E. Gatchalian My Journal Entry, April 5, 1994 Homosexuality=shamanism=the chosen=antennae of the world. Further down: Art points skyward, defies nature, transcends the muck. It is, without question, the highest human faculty. Anthropology and Camille Paglia nudging a Filipino gay boy toward self-acceptance. The ego consolidation of a newly out sophomore. But despite a newfound Buddhist emphasis on ego-devaluation, those ideas are still with me, still motor my daily existence. I want to write an essay about Maria Callas, the greatest operatic soprano of the twentieth century. Most modern classical music stars dwell in rarefied peaks, free from the glare of the masses, subjects of esoteric study. Maria Callas was an exception. She was a pre-Stone-wall icon, the gay cultural intelligentsia’s Judy Garland. To adore Callas in the twenty-first century is to retreat. Regress. Which is why I am writing this essay: to remember a fabled war-torn time. The essay I want to write is about adoration and inertia.
