{"id":160751,"date":"2015-04-03T02:52:49","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T02:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/"},"modified":"2018-09-09T11:20:33","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T11:20:33","slug":"bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-160751 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/attachment\/160752\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo1_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo1_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/attachment\/160753\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo4_250-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo4_250-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo4_250-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/attachment\/160754\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo3_400-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo3_400-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo3_400-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/attachment\/160755\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo5_400-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo5_400-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo5_400-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/attachment\/160756\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo2_400-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo2_400-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo2_400-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/attachment\/160757\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo6_250-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo6_250-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo6_250-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/attachment\/160758\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo7_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo7_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/tumblr_n3qtf69X5Z1rdkyeoo7_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay.tumblr.com\/post\/115340102224\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-when-i-was-a\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">bert-and-ernie-are-gay<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay.tumblr.com\/post\/82157362649\/when-i-was-a-st-tos-obsessed-kid-in-the-70s\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">bert-and-ernie-are-gay<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>When I was a <i>ST:TOS-<\/i>obsessed kid in the \u201970s, those Blish adaptations were my sad little paperback sacred texts. I owned them all, shabby and moldy, acquired one at a time from garage sales and thrift stores, and I read them and reread them, over and over again, the yellowed brittle papers coming out from between the cracking covers in my hands.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to remember now but that\u2019s all we had, for a long time, basically until 1982 and <i>The Wrath of Khan<\/i>\u2014I was in college by the time <i>TNG<\/i> started, and I remember we science majors (!) were so wildly excited and animatedly debated all of its merits and shortcomings, trying to decide if we could fall in love with these all-new people\u2014because for so long there\u2019d only been K\/S\/B, and that first flabby bloated three-hour-long Kubrick-derivative Roddenberry flick in 1979. My parents took me to see it and I fell asleep. I was maybe ten? But it sparked something in me, and I started seeking out the fiction. To have something more than just those two and a half seasons of episodes. To continue a relationship with these people.<\/p>\n<p>Then, just before the franchise kicked off again in the early \u201980s, I somehow got my hands on the Marshak-and-Culbreath-edited <i>New Voyages;\u00a0<\/i>and from thence their super-trashy mouth-breathy novels, especially <i>Triangle<\/i>. Man I loved those fucking things. My memory reminds me that they were terrible, truly terrible\u2014not just slashy but with overtones of this weird bombastic Wagnerian\/Ayn Randian D\/s stuff that\u2019s never explicit, because nothing\u2019s ever explicit in mass-market pulp, because it was the Reagan Era\u2014which meant I didn\u2019t have to confront any of my own nascent, burgeoning queerness. I could reassure myself that \u201cSpock and Bones are just <i>really good friends!<\/i>\u201d\u2026.and we all know what THAT was about.<\/p>\n<p>(It was the same way with Marion Zimmer Bradley; though since in her books the Darkovans, or Free Amazons, or Morgaine and Raven would regularly get naked together, that eventually became too difficult to justify.)<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been reminiscing about these paperbacks and wishing I still had mine\u2014I bought up the first series of novels as they came out one at a time from Pocket Books, from my hometown strip-mall\u2019s Waldenbooks (where I also had the good sense to buy <i>G\u00f6del, Escher, Bach<\/i>\u00a0and Douglas Adams and Madeleine L\u2019Engle and a nice hardback Thomas Johnson edition of Emily Dickinson\u2014oh, the furtive ways we survived in rural Texas, sneaking wine coolers and listening rebelliously to The Cure and The Smiths and The Psychedelic Furs). I think I owned all of them up until maybe #25,\u00a0<i><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Killing_Time_(Star_Trek_novel)\" target=\"_blank\">Killing Time<\/a><\/i>? And yep, I had the slashy version! I can\u2019t believe I let <i>that<\/i> get away. So that would have been around 1985, and I started college in 1986, at which point my confused fannishness reluctantly took a back seat to biology lab and theatre rehearsals and writing essays on Keats.<\/p>\n<p>But I still remember how thrilling it was the first time I read <i>Triangle<\/i>, sitting in the back of a Greyhound bus coming back from a week at my fellow Trekkie best friend\u2019s house in East Texas, jolted by sharp pangs of angsty feels and suffused with waves of fluffy shmoop as I understood: these two men (or, you know, uh, these three men, or whatever)\u2014they really <i>love<\/i> each other. And I knew that sensation, that intensity; I just didn\u2019t have the license to experience it in my own world, in my own felt life.<\/p>\n<p>So slash did that for me, carried that for me until I turned 19 and escaped. I owe these rubbishy nutty paperbacks my sanity, in some sense. In some sense I owe them my educated attention now, as kooky as that may sound. But I\u2019m starting to get inklings of something,\u2014and this is the way research always starts, for me, those niggling little zipperings of electric curiosity inside: why did I like something, what does it mean to me and others, why do we care so passionately about it\u2014and then one simply starts following that thread backward, back, back, patiently, inquisitively, with something like bravery or maybe it\u2019s devotion or just persistence.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>(reblogging my own self, as one does, mostly for <a href=\"http:\/\/tmblr.co\/mYkroU-Pv7b-EKHeLf5cS5Q\" target=\"_blank\">museaway<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/tmblr.co\/mYm8lGxl3yPYrLR3yYfos2w\" target=\"_blank\">catchclaw<\/a>, &amp; other any other Trek folk)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019m not wanting to hijack your post. i got into Star Trek when I was young teenager in the early 90s. We had a used bookstore in town and I had a lot of the Blish books and Best of Trek (still do, actually) and I read Star Trek books voraciously. They were an important part of my growing up too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>bert-and-ernie-are-gay: bert-and-ernie-are-gay: When I was a ST:TOS-obsessed kid in the \u201970s, those Blish adaptations were my sad little paperback sacred texts. I owned them all, shabby and moldy, acquired one at a time from garage sales and thrift stores, and I read them and reread them, over and over again, the yellowed brittle papers coming &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/04\/03\/bert-and-ernie-are-gay-bert-and-ernie-are-gay\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[18019,19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160759,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160751\/revisions\/160759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}