➰ There's little I love more than a really good sex memoir, especially a really good sex memoir written by a queer elder:

I would do anything, look any way, that would get me laid. I couldn't believe guys years later would advertise themselves by the boot brand or high-tops they wore. In France I remember men saying they were style santiags (cowboy boots) or crade (unwashed). Wasn't the body or even the personality under the look more important than the accessories? I would wear anything from a red hankie back-left pocket (aggressive penetrator) to yellow back-right (piss swallower), if I thought someone, anyone, would like that. I suppose I believed one's essence was enduring and unshod and of a neutral color and that accessories, so important to the poor and young, were immaterial.

Jocelyne Saab's filmography sounds vital for this moment:

To picture a conflict that violently reconfigured the very fabric of Lebanese society, most visibly in Beirut, Saab broke with established modes of reportage to forge a documentary form that we could describe today as essayistic, which made room for a layered apprehension of the war, its root causes and repercussions.

I'm also buying Corpses, Fools, and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema as a holiday treat. I'm particularly interested in how this work might situate transgender representation within broader film history contexts.

I'll update this note with thoughts once I've dug into these materials more deeply. I'm especially curious about how Saab's documentary approach might inform contemporary conversations about representing complex conflicts.