Aja Gabel (Lightbreakers) feat. Anthony Delaney, Guest Gay Reader

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Gaze reading where the greatsdrop by trendy authors.
Tell us all the who, what, andwhy.
Anyone can listen.
Comes we're spoiler free Readingfrom politic stars to book club
picks where the curious mindscan get their picks.
So you say you're not gay.

(00:24):
Well that's okay.
There's something for everyone.
Gays rating.
Hello, and welcome to Gay'sReading.
I'm your host, Jason Blitman,and on today's episode I have
Asia Gable talking to me abouther new book Light Breakers.
And my guest gay reader today isAnton Delaney, talking to me

(00:47):
about his book, queerEnlightenments.
as always, if you like whatyou're hearing, share us with
your friends.
Follow us on social media atGaze Reading over on Instagram.
I put out a plea last week totry to get us to a hundred
ratings over on Apple Podcasts,so I appreciate your help in
that crusade and, you know, any,any little piece of feedback is

(01:12):
always super helpful and, andreally helps get other.
Folks listening to this littleindie podcast, so letting folks
know about it, sharing gaze,reading with others always means
a lot.
Um, and I'm about to be at theTexas Book Festival where I'll
also be in person inconversation with Asia Gable,

(01:32):
uh, and previous gaze readingguest Austin Taylor.
Um, were in conversation abouteach of their books, light
breakers and notes on Infinity,so that'll be super fun.
I'm really looking forward tothat.
There, I, I think there are like15 or 16 gaze reading guests
that are gonna be at thefestival, so that'll be super
fun.
And if any of you are gonna bein Austin or in Texas, uh,

(01:55):
please make sure to say hello.
That would be really, reallyexciting.
So anyway, all right, I thinkthose are all the things for
now.
And please enjoy myconversations with Asia Gable
and Antoni Delaney.

Jason Blitman (02:08):
Asia Gable, welcome to Gay's Reading.

Aja Gabel (02:10):
you.

So happy to have you here to talk about your new
book, light Breakers.
For the people, what is yourelevator pitch for the

Aja Gabel (02:21):
It is a story about a husband and wife who.
The husband is a physicist whogets caught up in a time travel
scheme in Marfa, Texas, and thewife leaves him to go pursue her
past and all of itscomplications in Tokyo, and then
they must find their way back toeach other through the regrets

(02:44):
and traumas of their past,basically.
Yeah.

I love a moody, vague elevator pitch that gets
you excited to pick up the bug.

Aja Gabel (02:57):
There's so many different ways I could explain
it too.
Some I used to say oh, it'sabout marriage.
And I'm like, but it's aboutother things too.
It's about loss, it's aboutgrief, it's about time travel,
like it's about, you could rechoyour own adventure here.

Yeah, there's, for me I think it was very much
about what the con theconnection of your past and your

Aja Gabel (03:16):
Mm-hmm.

Right?
And like that sort of connectivetissue and what that means and
can you.
Outrun your past.
Can you revisit your past?
Can you, and we'll talk moreabout that in, in a little bit.
But something that comes upearly on in the book that is so
devastating to me that I wantedto unpack with you.
And maybe you're devastated byit too.
But that handwriting is dead

Aja Gabel (03:37):
Have you noticed your handwriting getting worse and
worse?
'cause I have.

a hundred percent.

Aja Gabel (03:42):
great handwriting.

No one learns cursive anymore.

Aja Gabel (03:46):
I know.
It's very upsetting.
I don't know what's gonnahappen.
I have children in.
In school now, and I just, who'sgonna teach them?
Who's gonna teach them?
They're on computers all day.

It's actually so funny because I just saw, I
think an ad on Instagram.
God, what in the world that welive in where they sell like
those.
Cute little worksheets with thealphabet in the like lined
spaces and where, how you learnhow to write.
But there, there are these likeindented letters and there's a

(04:21):
special marker that you use totrace the indents and then the
marker disappears.
So it's a way to like reallypractice good legible
handwriting.
And I have nieces and I waslike, I need to buy these for my
nieces.
I need to preserve handwriting.

Aja Gabel (04:37):
Yeah.

Anyway, I've, I used to get compliments on my
handwriting.
I loved writing notes andletters and things, and so that
comes up very early on in thebook, and I was like, that is so
real.
It is so depressing.

Aja Gabel (04:49):
Do you still get compliments on your handwriting?
Like it's still good?

when I, when I'm taking notes for things like
this, I'm just like scribblingand, whatever.
But if I am, if I write someonea note.
It's still good, but you have tofocus on it.

Aja Gabel (05:05):
You do.
It's a good exercise maybe.

Yeah, I think so.
It's, there's a, I think mybrain works faster than my hand
and always has, and so that hasalways frustrated me.
So I think with the advent of Ilike am more excited to get my
thoughts out

Aja Gabel (05:25):
yeah.
What is it?
It's a good, it is a goodexercise in focus and slowness,
which I think is re is gettingharder and harder for me to
implement in my life.
But yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point.

Whenever someone asks me about how I read so much
and how they say they can'tfocus on a book or whatever, I
am just like, I need to put myphone down.
I need to, essentially go into.

Aja Gabel (05:52):
And, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, so what I've been doing isI have to take a bath, like

to

Aja Gabel (06:00):
to start the reading process, start a book because my
phone cannot, can come in thebath.
And I love baths and.
Not the kind of bath that's in abook, but in the book, but and
then I'll just stay in there foran hour like reading and then I
can take it out and read and dothat.
But like to get over the hump ofthe reaching for your phone.
Yeah.

I always, I say too, like you need to get rid of
all the sensory things, and youneed to at least read 50

Aja Gabel (06:27):
Yes.
That's a great, that's a greatrubric.

Yeah, I don't consider myself reading a book
until I've hit 50 pages.
'cause I, you don't know thatyou want to keep picking it up.
But no the exercise of sittingdown and writing something, it's
such an interesting parallel tojust like how to relearn, how to

Aja Gabel (06:47):
Yeah.
I know

Anyway, such a weird little tangent.
I was not really expecting to goon this morning.

Aja Gabel (06:55):
A PSA.

I do think so there we could talk for an hour
about art versus math, whichcomes up in the book.
And, before I hit record, I saidsome sort of like joking comment
about myself being bad at math.
And you

Aja Gabel (07:15):
Yeah.

agreed with yourself.
This book is very like math,sciencey heavy.
Where does that come from inyour world?

Aja Gabel (07:22):
I love science as a sense a child.
I've loved science fiction.
And one of the first books thatI ever reread, read once and
then read again when I was a kidwas walter Tevis.
This is a different book by him,Mockingbird, but he wrote The
Man Who Fell To Earth which wasalso a David Bowie movie.
And I was, and then I watchedthe movie from the seventies.

(07:45):
I was like, very much too young,like maybe I was 11.
Like the movie should not bewatched by, it might shouldn't,
maybe this movie shouldn't bewatched by 20 year olds.
Like it's quite 1970s.
But I thought I just it didsomething to my imagination.
It like helped me expand myimagination.
But as I, and I always lovedwriting, and as I grew up and

(08:07):
continued to write and studywriting, I never thought there
weren't a lot of lit, like asci-fi or speculative writing,
not stories, novels by girls, bywomen that had love stories in
them.
And it wasn't something that Ithought was available to me.
But I always can, like some ofmy favorite movies are sci-fi
movies.

(08:27):
And that's how it shows up forme now.
The learning the math and thescience of this book.

yes, that's what I was gonna say.
I was like, this is so heady.
Not heady in a bad way, butthere's some real science stuff
happening in here.
What was learning that

Aja Gabel (08:43):
I first I thought I didn't have to learn it.
I thought that I.
Was just gonna make it up'causelike it's not real and I was so
wrong.
Because you can't, you can likevaguely gesture towards
something in a short story, butin a novel you really have to be
like, this is how the worldworks that I'm building.
And, so I had to talk to a lotof scientists on the phone who

(09:07):
did not want to tell me thatwhat I was trying to do was
possible.
I was like, but what if?
And they were like, but thatdoesn't make sense.
And I'm like, I know, but so Iread a lot of books.
I found a corner of physicsthat.
Isn't that I talk about in thebook that isn't super respected
in the scientific community thatis about quantum consciousness.

(09:29):
And I went in on that.
I read the books that thefounder of that theory wrote.
And I, what I realized is thateven though I don't want the
readers to get caught up in thedetails, like I don't want them
to put the book away and think,but like, how did that work?
I want the, you have to givethem just enough information.
To be satisfied and move on andgo to the real story.

(09:50):
And I realized that I had to be,I had to know everything under
the surface to just give themthe tip of the iceberg.
And that was really hard.
And took a lot of time.

It's so interesting and I'm curious to
hear more about that journey butI don't love fantasy novels
because I feel like.
I have a hard time with wordsand names that are made up and
they're like, hard to follow andthere are a lot of consonants,
right?
And I'm just like, who is that?

(10:25):
How do you pronounce that name?
And for some reason science isslightly easier because they're
words that you've like.
Heard of before.
Even though you don'tnecessarily understand the
concept, you're like, oh, sure.
Consciousness is a product ofclassical physics.
I can understand that meanssomething to someone who you

(10:47):
know, to people in the world.
Whereas, weird Lord of the

Aja Gabel (10:51):
I agree.
Same for me.
It takes me out to have to belike, there's elves.
What?
Like it that takes me out of astory, but I love a grounded
science fiction in the worldthat

Versus where I was like, oh, someone smarter
than me will understand this

Aja Gabel (11:06):
Yeah.

In a will understand, like the technical
pieces of it.
So there is this little debate.
About math versus, or mathversus art and math being the
basis of everything.
And then someone chimes in andsays, tell that to ancient cave
paintings.
And what are your thoughts onthat?

(11:28):
What do it's a little chickenand egg I think.

Aja Gabel (11:31):
I'm really glad that you.
Honed in on that and picked upon that.
There, I'd like to think of itas the trope of a man of science
versus man of faith.
Which I'll admit, I first heardof that and lost the TV show
lost.
But it is like a commondichotomy in storytelling.
People who understand the worldthrough science and math, and

(11:53):
people who understand the worldthrough something less tangible
like faith, but I act and Iwanted to.

We can call

Aja Gabel (12:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.

the sake of,

Aja Gabel (12:02):
And I wanted to like, I wanted to explore that, like
what would happen if those twopeople got married?
What would happen if the man ofscience in encountered a
problem, a loss in his life thatscience could not answer?
And that's w where we begin withthis couple.

(12:23):
But I really think that what,both Noah and Maya, who are the
married couple at the center ofthis book think about
themselves, is they both think,they both have belief systems.
Noah's belief system is his ishis science.
He thinks that he can understandeverything through science.
He encounters a loss of hischild that he can, like science

(12:47):
cannot answer.
And then he doesn't know what todo with his how to live really.
And then he meets Maya, who is aperson who understands the world
through art and beauty and andthat is her belief system.
And I think he resists that fora long time.
But I think what both of themcome to realize is that.
We all need ways to understandthe mysteries of the world, and

(13:11):
that both of them are equallyrelevant, real.
So yeah, that's what I think.
'cause I love to read aboutscience, but I don't understand
all of it.
But the more you read about it,the more you realize these
people are talking, using alanguage.
There's a language, especiallyin physics, that they use to

(13:31):
speak in these insanely abstractterms.
That if you don't speak thatlanguage, it's hard to
penetrate.
And and that's when I was like,oh, this is not just a truth of
the world.
It's a system of like beliefs.
Like it is a language, it's aculture.
It's like a way that youunderstand things as much as
being a visual artist is, orbeing a writer is.

(13:53):
And so that's what I, yeahthat's where that began for me
in the book.
I

Yeah, I.
I think I honed in so much onthat because I have a degree in
theater and my husband has adegree

Aja Gabel (14:07):
Oh, Oh, okay.

and so we are that dichotomy.
And just, hearing you speak, Iwas thinking how both sort of
combinations can like circle inon each other, like having faith
in science and the science offaith, right?
There can be conversations aboutboth of those things.
But like for at our wedding, wehad a cabaret performance and

(14:32):
there were singers and therewere, there was poetry readings
and one of my husband's bestfriends in college did a physics
demo

Aja Gabel (14:43):
Oh, at your wedding?
Oh, what was it?

and so she, oh my God.
The fact that I'm not gonnaremember exactly what it's
called, he's gonna

Aja Gabel (14:53):
'cause your brain doesn't understand the world
that way.

No, but the idea was she used a yardstick and
used her fingers to be evenevenly spaced on the yardstick,
and then showed how you can moveyour fingers in different
directions and they're notnecessarily evenly spaced and
the yardstick still doesn'tfall.

(15:16):
And it was about, it was like ametaphor for marriage and the
balance of how you know youwon't be equal partners a
hundred percent of the time.
The goal is to always like, keepthe marriage standing, like the
yardstick.
And so just the idea of takingphysics and turning it into
essentially an art piece interms of that presentation is

(15:39):
why I think I'm that like cycleof art versus math and

Aja Gabel (15:43):
Yeah.

is really deeply

Aja Gabel (15:45):
Yeah.
That's so interesting.
That's so interesting.
I love that.

And Noah in the book has to be creative with his
science.
And there and as an artist, youhave to think scientifically
when you are blending colors,when you are, building
something.
And so it's.
I, it was a nice reminder to methat there is so much more to

(16:15):
art than, what

Aja Gabel (16:18):
yeah.
You have to be so meticulous inart, especially in visual art
when you are, that creatingsomething can be very expensive.
You have to be very meticulousin planning and and measuring
and executing.
One thing, I was a fellow at theFine Arts Works Center in
Provincetown.
That was the first time that I.

(16:39):
It's where 10 writers and 10visual artists live together for
eight months in the Cape.
And I had never lived, beenaround visual artists like that
before, like real professionalvis visual artists.
And I was so surprised to findthat they had a, like a studio
practice.
Like I didn't know what a studiopractice was.
And in a lot of ways it's, it islike them going into the space

(17:04):
and.
Doing like testing hypothesesand that is similar to like the
methodical way that scientistshave to approach problems.
It's just the thrust is a littlebit different, but I think like
they're not as far apart as youmight, as people might think.
And I believe that's where thiscouple ends up in the book.

(17:26):
Maybe we believe the same thing.

Yeah, it's interesting'cause you say
testing hypotheses and it soundsso scientific, but when you
break it down, it really isn't.
And I'm, I, you were talkingabout going into the bath to
start a book and it made methink about Twila Tharp's book,
the Creative

Aja Gabel (17:45):
Oh, I haven't read it.
I know her, but I haven't

but

Aja Gabel (17:49):
Should I should read it?
I'll write it down.

It's like good to have as like a.
A reference point, but becauseof what you described, I think
you would appreciate at leastthe first chunk of it.
Basically, she talks about howshe has this creative habit in
order to get work done so shedoesn't just walk into her dance
studio and start.

(18:12):
Choreographing.
She starts her day by lighting acandle and doing yoga and having
her breakfast, inhaling a cab,and getting to the studio.
And it all comes back to thelighting, the candle.

Aja Gabel (18:25):
Mm-hmm.

It is that creative habit that really keeps
her going and thinking about hergetting to the studio and what
she's doing.
She's testing hypotheses of howher body will move and how other
dancers could do the same,whatever.
So it just really, again, I'm, Iam, I feel so not sciencey, but
I am, finishing this bookyesterday.

(18:49):
I am like.
It has me reframing how I'vebeen thinking about what it is
that I do.

Aja Gabel (18:55):
Oh that's great.
What a compliment.
Yeah, I wish I was.
The goal is always to be morelike that, right?
To enter your creative spacewith purpose and not a plan
necessarily, but like astructure.
And having children is, has madethat difficult.
But I am always trying to goback to that.

(19:16):
I do feel like quite adisorganized, messy, creative
person.
Maybe scientists feel that waytoo.
But.

Yeah.

Aja Gabel (19:25):
but yeah I think that's really valuable.
And there's something to belearned from the way that
scientists think about problems.
Like even just breaking themdown into the smallest possible
problem is really interesting.
Like you often sit down I haveto write a novel today.
No, you don't.
You have to figure out, a wayfor this character to realize
something or for this fight tohappen on the page or to

(19:49):
understand how this flashbacksgoing to work.
That is like a much morepossible problem to solve, and

Hmm.

Aja Gabel (19:59):
a novel as a collection of those, solve those
solutions.

That's a really interesting idea or interesting
piece to think about andsuddenly I'm like, oh, I want
to, every morning, write on apost-it.

Aja Gabel (20:14):
Yeah,

solve today, so you used the phrase, going back
to that, and something else oobviously that comes up so much
in the book and that I wanted totalk about is our memories and,
how we can only remember what wecan remember and how memory is
faulty and And, thinking aboutmemoir people who write memoirs

(20:41):
often put at the beginning ofthe book.
I changed names, I changedlocations to protect identity.
I changed this, I changed thatfor the sake of X, Y, and Z.
And at the end of the day,you're like, oh, and these are
my memories as I, as best Iremember them.
So you're like, oh, you'reessentially writing a fiction
that you like,

Aja Gabel (20:59):
yeah.

What is, when you think about your memories, what
does that, what does all that

Aja Gabel (21:04):
I think that memories for me are so much about like
the way we keep a person or atime alive in our hearts.

That doesn't surprise me that you feel that
way.

Aja Gabel (21:21):
I went through great loss when I was young.
I lost both my brother and mydad within a year and a half of
each other.

So sorry to hear that.

Aja Gabel (21:32):
yeah, it was at the time.
It's just unfathomable now, tothink about a 19-year-old kind
of going through that.
But, but at the time it just washappening and I couldn't like,
process it.
But what I did notice over theyears, and I did try to write
about it a lot, was that I wasgoing back to the moment that

(21:55):
they died in my memories I wastrying to excavate and.
Craft and put into concretethose memories.
And I didn't know why.
Like I, I was obsessed withunderstand.
I could tell you so many detailsfrom those days.
They stuck out so large andbright in my memory.
And it wasn't until maybe evenlike when I started to write

(22:19):
this book that I understood thatlike those returning again and
again to those memories.
Was like a way to try to holdonto the moment before they died
to like maybe change it.
Even though I couldn't like togo back and hold onto that

(22:40):
moment, may maybe somethingwould be different.
It never is.
Like the reality of whathappened and like how and then
it's terrifying to realize howmuch of what I remember is.
Maybe something that I justrepeated over and over in my
head that's not real.
What is, what really happenedand what is the what did I make
up in order to survive?

(23:01):
What kind of ideas did I make upto blame myself, to forgive
myself, to make it easier toremember?
And those.
Tho that understanding is whatled me to this character of Noah
and also his ex-wife Eileen,when they lose a child, like
what is the, what if that waspossible to actually return to

(23:23):
that moment?
What would that be like?
What would you give up to do it?
And I just think that they'reit's such a powerful mechanism
that our brain can do.
To remember something, to, toalmost like in neuroscientists
say that when you're rememberingsomething, the neurons are
firing exactly as if it ishappening to you.

(23:47):
There's not a different neuralthing that is happening in
memory.
It's the same neurons firing.
And in a way it is like relivingthis thing,

it's like where trauma comes from or like that,
that feeling of,

Aja Gabel (24:01):
Yeah.
It incites the same emotionalresponse.

You're not just thinking it.
You're literally feeling itbecause that's

Aja Gabel (24:07):
Yeah.
So all of that was I wouldn'tsay I understood that before I
started this book, but by theend of this book, I think I, it
helped me understand what I hadbeen doing for so many years
and,

Yeah.

Aja Gabel (24:21):
yeah.

And I imagine helped you understand what
you've been doing and why it.
Either was or wasn't helpful foryou.

Aja Gabel (24:32):
Yeah.
Like in a way, like there wasyears where I had to hold onto
that.
Like I desperately wanted tohold down to that.
And then there were years whereI was like ready to release it
and yeah, I think that, that issomething that.
That helped me not to make thisbook into my therapy, but that's
definitely

That's what they are.
Was it cathartic writing?
All of it?

Aja Gabel (24:58):
Absolutely.
Yes.
It was also the har one of thehardest parts of this book, I
would say the hardest part wasfiguring out the mechanism of
the time bath.
And then the second hardest partwas.
Figuring out how to really writeand to actually sit down and
write these, this memory of thischild dying and what happened

(25:20):
and what that felt like.
Those were two were real, reallydifficult.
But once I felt like I nailedit, it was it was the feeling
was like.
It's, it wasn't scary anymore.
And I think that's valuable.

Yeah.
There's this element of bothfacing your fears, but also
understanding how to movethrough them.

Aja Gabel (25:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that's what thesecharacters are doing.
I.

Exactly.
I wish I asked you this questionbefore this moment because while
hearing everything that you'vebeen through, writing a book
like this, I, my instinct and Ican't help but want to ask, what
memory would you choose toreturn to?
But I guess I have to ask it,what memory would you choose to

(26:10):
return to?

Aja Gabel (26:12):
I think what Ha Yeah, what the.
In the book, I think they,there's like an element of
trying to return to something tochange it and trying to, and
returning to something.
'cause you can't help but returnto it.
But then there's also momentswhere these characters like
choose to return to a memorythat is different, that is

(26:33):
better, that is maybe thebeginning of happiness.
And I think like what I wouldreturn to, there's so many,
gosh, do I have to choose one?
There.

You wrote about going back to a specific moment
in someone's life, how this islike low hanging fruit Asia.

Aja Gabel (26:50):
brought this upon myself, is what you're saying.
There are very recently Irealized that like it was
becoming hard to remember the,like my dad's voice.
And because like he died beforelike cell phones really?
And so there wasn't like, Idon't have a lot of recordings

(27:11):
of him and I, there's like a,there was a summer where he was
sick and he was at home and Iwas at home from college and we
spent the whole summer together,like watching movies and reading
books.
There's just I would love to goback to a that day, like to just
refresh in my memory what he.
It feels and sounds like becauseit's been so long, it's been,

(27:32):
almost 20 years or more.
And so yeah, that's the, that'sa memory that I wish I had, I
wish I had clearer in my mind.

Thank you for sharing

Aja Gabel (27:43):
yeah.
Sorry to make it sad.

I don't, but I, I don't know that it is sad.
I think that it, I think it's

Aja Gabel (27:49):
I don't, yeah.

It's true.

Aja Gabel (27:51):
I don't think of it as, as sad.
It doesn't make me sad.
It makes me like, it makes mefeel closer to the sound of his
voice to think about that, so Ithink that's, and that's part
of, I think the lesson of thebook too is

yeah.

Aja Gabel (28:08):
how grateful we are to have these.
People in our lives and how theycan live on in this way.

Yeah.
I, it's funny because typicallyI'll ask a question like this
and then.
S then an author might say, whatabout you?
And I get mad'cause I didn'tthink that would come back to
me.
So while you were thinking, Iwas also thinking,'cause I was
like uhoh if she comes back andsays, Jason, what about you?
My youngest sister, I have twoyounger sisters just.

(28:39):
Had a second baby and watchingmy older niece interact with my
younger niece is just very funto me.
And I, for some reason, the veryfirst thought in my mind was
curious to revisit the momentwhere I became a big brother.

(28:59):
It's such an important part ofwho I am and of my life and I
don't.
I remember being an only childand remember having siblings,
but I don't really remember thatmoment of becoming,

Aja Gabel (29:14):
How old would you have been?

I would've

Aja Gabel (29:17):
Oh, wow.
Interesting.
My son was three when he becamean older brother.
Yeah.

Take a lot of videos,

Aja Gabel (29:26):
yeah.

I don't know how old they are now, but um,

Aja Gabel (29:30):
so

okay.
But yeah, I don't know why, butthat was the first thing that
came to mind.
We're very, we're spoiler freeon gay's reading, so I don't
wanna say too much.
But.
I am curious to know what timetravel means to you.

Aja Gabel (29:50):
I'm trying to understand how my answer could
be a spoiler,

Okay.

Aja Gabel (29:55):
Now I'm nervous.

I guess there isn't really, it doesn't really
spoil anything like, especially,but.
I'll let you answer and thenI'll respond to you.

Aja Gabel (30:03):
To me it's always been a thing in science fiction
that is so deeply attractive.
I feel like nostalgia powers alot of my.
Emotional landscape.
And I really love to read aboutit and imagine like what would
happen to the world if this waspossible.

(30:25):
On a more philosophical lelevel, philoso, I think that
I've really come to believe andunderstand that our brains are
time travel machines.
And that is like something thatis just a gift and a superpower
that we can rely on in times ofneed.

(30:46):
So I guess that's, those are thetwo kind of like tangible and
less tangible ways that I thinkabout it.
Is that what you meant?

I, yeah.
A total, yes, a hundred percent.
And I think when I think it'sbecause of the words and how,
like our words really do matter,but hearing time travel, I, I
always went to science fictionin

Aja Gabel (31:12):
yeah.

And about halfway through the book, I was like,
oh, look at what's happening.
And again I, that isn't reallyspoiling anything, but I'll say
that to you and I won't unpack,I won't unpack beyond that, but
I was like, oh, there's so muchmore to time travel than

(31:33):
traveling back in time ortraveling forward in time
physically.

Aja Gabel (31:37):
Then going to yeah.
The sixties.

Or, the

Aja Gabel (31:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.

right?
That is not time.
Travel can be so much more thanthat.
And I think, again, because ofthe words time travel, I just
couldn't help but be so literalabout it.

Aja Gabel (31:54):
Interesting to hear you say that because I think
that there was also, that was alot of discussion in the
editorial process is are wecalling this time travel?
Like why do you want to call ittime travel if it doesn't
operate on the level that mostpeople think of time travel.
Like this excellent book I justread, the Ministry of Time I
thought was so great and that'slike classic time travel.

Kellyann was on

Aja Gabel (32:18):
Oh really?
I gotta go back to, I'm likeobsessed with her brain.
I gotta go back and watch it.
And I, and I.
I get why they, why theeditorial process that was
brought up.
Because you don't wanna promisesomething that doesn't fulfill
maybe.
But I think it was important forme to keep this to keep this

(32:39):
even.
I don't necessarily say thephrase time travel like a bunch
in the book.
Actually, I think I'll only sayit a few times.
And I very purposely made up newphrases for what I was just for,
what the thing was that washappening.
And and once I landed on that,like episodic folding, then I
was like, okay, like this is athing I can this is a, this is
the thing I can understand.

(32:59):
Because I think it expands thisidea of time travel.
And it does address what I wastalking about, which is like.
The fact that our brains are akind of time travel machine.
And yeah.
And that consciousness ismysterious.

My next bullet point is fascinating how you
subvert expectations of time

Aja Gabel (33:22):
Okay.
That's great.
I think that's great.
That you weren't

But that's the point of what you're saying,
right?
Like in the process it was like,when you hear time travel, what
do you expect?
I, this is such a weird out ofleft field question, but how do
you think we ever know what wewant

Aja Gabel (33:39):
Say more.

I felt like I was watching these characters make
these decisions based on And Icouldn't help but think what
would I do in their shoes andwhat choices would I make and
what do I want and what does itmean to want versus need?
And then it made me think aboutlike, where does that want?

(34:01):
Come from and how do I knowthat's what I want versus being
told by outside forces.
By, even like the stupidhandwriting thing that I was
telling you about was told to mefrom an outside force, right?
So I'm like, I don't know how toeven boil down to what I know

(34:22):
Jason wants anymore.
And I'm curious if Asia has anythoughts on

Aja Gabel (34:26):
I mean, Would you like to come to my therapy
session?
Because that's a great inroad towhat we talk about every week.
Yeah.
I think like it's so hard,especially when you're young.
Than I am when I was young Gerto make decisions not out of

(34:51):
trauma or ex external forces.
Like I think a lot of thedecisions I was making were
coming from that, from thoseforces.
And I didn't know it.
And I think it's only as anadult when.
You look around and you think,oh I've made a life for myself.

(35:11):
Did I make this life purposepurposefully?
That it, it really had mequestioning okay what do I
actually want?
And what am I just reacting to?
And what am I letting otherpeople tell me?
I should want, and I thinkthat's something that I am
always, constantly.

(35:31):
Battling.
I think that a great way tochange that frame is not like,
what do I want because I didn'thave it, or what do I want
because someone else has it.
And instead what do I want moreof?
Because it makes me happy.
What do I want more of?
Because I feel at peace whenit's happening.

(35:53):
That's, yeah.

You also just sparked in me how interesting to
start each day with a problemthat you're trying to solve.
And can that thing solvewhatever that problem is that
you're trying to solve that dayand your want can change on a
daily

Aja Gabel (36:11):
Yes.

to sort of inform that.

Aja Gabel (36:15):
I think that's also true too.
Like we, we live in this kind ofworld where.
We are, we're where things are,and institutions and ideas about
people are very rigid.
And I feel like what you wantcan and should change even on a
daily basis, and that kind offreedom makes me feel a lot
better about trying to identifywhat I want.

Yeah.

Aja Gabel (36:38):
Like today I want to eat and go outside, that's
tomorrow, maybe I'll worry aboutmoney or something.
But today that's what I want.
Yeah.

that's a really, it's a nice reminder that we can
wake up every morning and feeldifferently and change it.
And as long as, and so if youfulfill those wants today, then
tomorrow you can want somethingdifferent and.
If you eat junk food tomorrow,that's okay, because that's not
the want for that day,

Aja Gabel (37:04):
and I think.

have to be so hard on

Aja Gabel (37:06):
Yeah.
And like maybe junk food likemakes you feel good tomorrow.
Like maybe it just brings you alittle bit of I treated myself
tomorrow.
It's, this is a really cool wayto, I think, to frame the
characters that I haven't heardbefore.
Because they all are likereacting to these things and

(37:27):
then the journey is like.
They come to a place where okay,what, who am I and what is my
future if I don't just react tothese things?
Yeah.
And that's that's that hopefullywhere I end them.
But that's an interestingframework.
Thank you for that.

I that was the, my interpretation, so thank you
for that.
I had this interestingconversation with Li, Lily King
about presentism versuspluralism, and those concepts
come up in her book, the ideathat presentism meaning.
We are the present is the onlything that exists.

(38:02):
And pluralism, meaning that likeeverything is existing
simultaneously.
And obviously reading this bookthat dusted up again for me
what, where do you stand?

Aja Gabel (38:16):
It's also like a huge way to understand physics
problems too.
That is broken my brain.
So I'm like trying not to goback to the brain breaking part.
Yeah, because Carlo lli, who'sa, who's who I've read very
widely, who writes pop physicsbook, and I don't mean that
derogatory, I mean that likecomplimentary.

(38:38):
His books are beautiful.
Has an idea about time that iscalled Loop theory.
Where time, everything ishappening all at once, but you
can also loop things.
And specific events can alsohappen at once, which is not
necessarily a part of likepluralism, like not necessarily
a tenant of plural pluralism.
It's like very hard to reallyunderstand.

Right.

Aja Gabel (39:03):
I found that to be really appealing to me because
if the if the present is theonly thing that matters that is
happening right now.
Then it matters so much.
And I think if everything ishappening all the time, all at

(39:23):
once I feel much more connectedto the world and community and
people like that gives me asense of like relief.
Like we are all attached to eachother and each other's pasts and
futures in a way that I thinkmakes the world better.
So I guess I land more on thatside.

Me too.
And I also be, I think becausemy brain thinks of memories and
time travel in the same way thatwe were talking about it.
How can I not also is believe inthe right phrase, I guess
believe in pluralism, right?

Aja Gabel (40:04):
No.
Yeah.

there are plenty of people in my life that are no
longer with us, but that doesn'tmean they're not.
A

Aja Gabel (40:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.

So how those things have to exist.

Aja Gabel (40:18):
I agree.
Did you ever read Kevin BrockMeyer's book, A Brief History of
the Dead?

No.

Aja Gabel (40:25):
it's, It's really beautiful.
It's like maybe years old atthis point.
But it's about the Peep.
It's a novel about this.
City of the Dead where people gowhen they die, but people on
earth still remember them.
And then once no one on Earthremembers them anymore, then
they move on to the next place,which we don't find out about.

(40:46):
But I, I always thought that waslike such a beautiful way to
think about death and I thinkspeaks to what we're talking
about that, that do people die.
Yes.
Their bodies stop working.
But do people do, does energydie?
Like definitely not.
Science tells us no, the energydoes not die.
And in fact, in black holes andin white holes, like energy is

(41:10):
always there, just it'sexpressed differently.
And then that to me is like a akind of faith.

And our memories don't die.

Aja Gabel (41:23):
Yeah,

And so there's, they're living on in different

Aja Gabel (41:26):
yeah.

But it's funny, like when I think about big
picture.
Death and be being forgotten.
It is the idea of multiplegenerations away.
That's what's overwhelming tome.
It's, it's quote unquote beingforgotten, which is true for all
of us.
Like we all will be at somepoint.
It's very overwhelming, but.

(41:49):
My conversations do not alwayslean, heady, and gloom and doom.
But here we are.
Asia,

Aja Gabel (41:56):
you talked to Susan Orlene yet for her new book?
Excuse me while I look at myphone.
'cause I, there was somethingshe wrote in, okay.
The Marris review yesterday.
Love Mars.
You gotta talk to her about itthen you should get her on the
podcast.
'cause she wrote about pluralismas well.

(42:16):
Yes.
You gotta talk.
Okay.
It, it was in the marriagereview yesterday.
Um, she, she talked, she talkedabout exactly what we were just
discussing and I think it's

Oh, joy ride.
Joy

Aja Gabel (42:26):
It's, it's a, you know,

Yes, joy Ride.
Oh my God.
Right, right, right.

Aja Gabel (42:30):
sorry for the aside, but you gotta,

No, I, listen, I love an aside.

Aja Gabel (42:35):
I just love her and, yeah.

Oh, this is very good to know.
Um, but The book is about memoryand time and space and black
holes and history and timetravel and science and art, and
there's a lot happening.
And honestly, like my mostexciting takeaway, this is such

(42:58):
a weird macabre thing to say.
Is hearing how deeply personalthe book really is because it's
beautiful on the surface, butknowing that there's so much of
you on the page only enriches mysort of rethinking about it

Aja Gabel (43:15):
That's really good to hear.
Yeah.
Thank you for saying that.
You never know if you're likeoversharing, but it does seem
like an important part of theDNA of this book for me.

And I, for me as a reader, I feel very privileged
to have these conversationsbecause they enrich the reading
experience.
And so as I'm reading, I know Iget to ask questions, ask a fun
question to give us some momentof levity and then I'll ask my
final more deep question to sendus off.
But the levity question is, whowatches your plants when you go

(43:48):
out of town?

Aja Gabel (43:51):
Nobody, nobody.

There is a moment in the book where someone gets
their plants watered, and I waslike, this is so important.
Who's gonna water my plants whenI'm out of town?
And I wonder who's that forAsia?

Aja Gabel (44:03):
I keep a house where the plants are very low
maintenance.

They're fake.

Aja Gabel (44:10):
They're real, but they require watering.
Maybe you could go two weekswithout watering these plants
and they would be okay.
I have a really strong fiddlyfig that is it's cool, like it's
cool with me, but also I live alife where I'm not going away
for that long.
Like my, I have two children anda husband.

(44:31):
Like we're not all leaving formultiple weeks at a

Let's manifest

Aja Gabel (44:36):
Yes.
Someone in Italy invite me tocome to Italy for two weeks.

yes.
I love the author Kristin Hormeland she has a new book.
She just today revealed thecover of her next book, and it's
called Meet Me in Paris, and Iwas like, Kristen, let's go do a
book event in Paris.

Aja Gabel (44:54):
yeah.

Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Good.
Get plants that can survive ontheir own.
That's fair.
All right.
Art is ephemeral.
Science is tangible.
It comes up in the book.
Where do you fall in thisargument?
Cir kicking, finishing us offwhere we

Aja Gabel (45:14):
I think they're both ephemeral.
I think they're both have a lotof vibes in them.
I think that science is alwayschanging.
It's always changing what itthinks, and always discovering
new things and is reallyabstract in a lot of ways is
physics especially, is thingsthat we cannot see.
And in art we can see it.

(45:35):
Understanding it is like pretty,ephemeral, but I think like
ephemerality is like not bad.
That means you can approach itand take what you need from it
and give what you want to it.
I think that's like really cool.
I think tangibility isoverrated.

No, I think you're right though.
It does circle back to what wewere talking about, about, about
memory and being remembered, Ithink things being ephemeral
makes that so overwhelming.
I just watched a trailer.
For a Diane Keaton movie on mysmart TV yesterday, and it has

(46:14):
all the tracking and it has it'sfuzzy and there are things that
go in and out and I was like,oh, they didn't have a clean
version of this trailer.
They just got whatever randomass crappy version they had and
stuck it online'cause that's allthey had because it was
ephemeral.
And so that was superinteresting to, to experience

(46:35):
that and that wasn'tparticularly old.
So yeah, my background being intheater is inherently ephemeral.

Aja Gabel (46:43):
That's what makes it so hard for me to think about
even writing, like I'm, I livein the world of screenwriters
and there's so many playwrightshere.
Who, the way that their brainswork is also like mysterious to
me, but I'm like, how?
They're like, oh, come on.
You could just write a play.
And I was like, how could Iwrite a play where half of it is

(47:04):
made up in the minds of thepeople watching it?
I don't even know how to dothat.
That's so cool.

But that's true for

Aja Gabel (47:11):
yeah.
Yeah.
I guess I just get a lot morecontrol, but yeah.

Yeah.
No, that is very true.
And with a playwright, you don'tjust have the read or you don't
just have the audience, but youhave a director, you have
designers, you have, there's alot of perspectives and
creatives that come into play,and

Aja Gabel (47:29):
yes.
I'm aware of that in TV too.

Oh yeah, for sure.
This has been so lovely.
Everyone, go get your copy oflight breakers by Asia Gable and
learn what light breakers meansbecause I didn't want to get
into that with you.
That is for the reader

Aja Gabel (47:47):
Yeah.
Thank you.

Um.
Asia and I will be inconversation with Austin Taylor
talking about all things scienceand books and creative things at
the Texas Book festivals.
If you're there, come check usout and Asia, have a wonderful

Aja Gabel (48:04):
Thank you.
Thank you so much for athoughtful conversation.

Anthony Delaney, welcome to Gay's Reading.

Anthony Delaney (48:14):
so much for having me,

I'm so happy that you're here.
My wonderful guest, gay readertoday.
You, we were just talking abouthow you've been bopping around
the world talking aboutGeorgians and Enlightenment.
Before we dive in, I what areyou reading these days?

Okay, so what am I reading these days?
Quite a lot as ever.
So I am currently, yes.
Oh gosh, an awful lot.
I'm currently researching forbook two, so I will I'll just
show you what the pile beside mydesk looks like at the moment.
For listeners it's quite heftyold big library history

I was gonna say that

So they're there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah.
They're there helping me forbook two, but what I'm actually
reading for fun is this,actually I've just started, I'm
about a hundred pages in, it'sThe Demon of Unrest by Eric
Larson, Abraham Lincoln, andAmerica's Road to Civil War.
So I have been, I've beenactually, doing a combination of
re'cause obviously I, because Iread so much during the day for

(49:16):
my research, I often listen tobooks for pleasure.
So I've been listening andreading half and half with
Larson's book.
It just, my eyes get so tired.
So it's been I'm having a bit ofa Busman's holiday because I'm
reading History for Pleasurewhile I'm reading History for
Work.
But it,

what does a Busman's holiday

Oh, do you not have that?

this silly American

So a busman's holiday means it's it's a weird
phrase.
It's it's old fashioned.
So it's like when a busman whodrives the bus for his work goes
on holidays, he would have totake the bus to holiday.
So you're doing what you do forwork for a break.

Oh.

yeah, so that's what a busman's

I love that.

Now you can use that.

Yes.
What would a bus driver'sholiday is?
That's the American way ofsaying it.
It is not as cute.

It is just an accent thing, I think.
No it's a it's been interestingand it's a really, it's a,
especially in this climateLarson's book is incredibly,
pertinent and it's it's notalways an easy thing to read
when, historians will often saythat there's no such thing as
historical patterns.
I don't know if I fully agreewith that.
I can see patterns in the past.
And the pattern is not good

no, I was gonna, we're like living in the pattern
right now.

Yeah.
So it's it's interesting to, toimmerse myself in that world as
I'm watching from a distance.
Obviously I live in London, I'mIrish, but the world's eye is
trained on America at themoment, as I'm sure you're very
aware.
So it's an interesting time.

Yeah.
And on the day that we'rerecording the Wicked Sequel
trailer dropped.

I haven't seen it.

Oh first of all, it's stunning.
But it is overwhelminglyprescient.

Ah, okay.
I've seen rickett a billiontimes.
One of my,

Yeah, of course.
Of

but sometimes when you just see it, when you
know what's going on it's, that,isn't it?
It's, it brings it somethingelse to the fore.

Yeah, it's like when you walk into a big theater
and the lights go down and themusical's happening and they're
singing and dancing in front ofyou.
That's one thing.
But when are reading the news onone Instagram feed and then you
pop up and you see the Wickedfor Good trailer, you're like,
oh, this is what's happening inthe world right now.

Yeah.
Yeah, I was watching again, seeit's all coming up in art and
literature and stuff, isn't it?
I was watching the Long WalkStephen King's movie or the
movie based on Stephen King'sbook, and I was just thinking to
myself, it's not that many stepsaway from this.
It I don't wanna be toopessimistic about it, but it
just, there was just certainthings and certain times where I
was like.

(51:44):
Gosh, we're there.
We're just there.
So it's yeah, and I can't evenimagine, as I say, we're
watching it.
I can't even imagine what it islike to be there.
And to a certain extent, you'reall just getting on with your
lives, obviously.
But then sometimes it mustreally land and be like, ah,
this is happening.

You held up, this giant.
Stack of book, not just a giantstack of books, but a giant

Giant books.
Yeah.

And then the Eric Larson, she is not small

No, and that's why I'm listening.
I'm, that's why I'm listening.
It's too much.
It's too much.
And actually, when I openedDerek Larson, I was, I was
reading for the first few daysand I was like, really squinting
my eyes.
I was like, oh my God, okay, Ineed to listen to this.
So I got the audio book as well.
It and it's, it, you, I thinkwith nonfiction sometimes, often
when people are like, oh, whatare you reading?
And I say that I'm readingnonfiction.

(52:29):
People are like, eh.
Why are you reading nonfiction?
And A, because I writenonfiction.
B because it's my job and Cbecause I don't know, I like, I
really do enjoy fiction as well,but it I dunno.
I find the, when you get acompelling storyteller like
Larson is, I find the reality.
Of nonfiction just so compellingand it, it affects you in a

(52:50):
different way and it helps toinform how you're seeing the
world as well as does fiction,by the way and very usefully but
yeah, it's, it, there's an extrapertinent to it sometimes I
think.

Yeah.
There's an interesting I feellike takeaway from nonfiction,
whether it's a biography or amemoir or.
Any sort of nonfiction that canfeel perhaps useful in a time
where you feel helpless.
There's something to aboutfiction where you can escape and

(53:23):
there can be plenty that youtake away from fiction, but when
you know what you're reading istrue, whatever that

Yeah.
Yes.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
I also do think that we asnonfiction writers can learn
from fiction a little bit more.
And I, I'm I think constantly inthe process of that learning,
but in terms of accessibility,in terms of immediacy, in terms
of feelings, like I, I've reallycome to the.
Conclusion that as I'm doingthis book tour for Queer

(53:50):
Enlightenments, that facts areone thing and they're, they're
the bread and butter of what wedo as historians, but feelings
are what remain with people.
And I think we could work harderto bring some feeling to those
facts in order to communicatewith people a little bit better.
So that's one of the things thatI do read fiction for when I am

(54:10):
reading it, although my lastfiction book that I read was an
18th century novel, so I don'tget away from it at all, really.
Do I?
This is just what I do now.

It's right.
It's not even historicalfiction.
It is historical fiction.

Yeah.
It's, and it's the time period Istudy, so it's, it, there is,
again, no, no break from this.

That's so funny.
I was shocked when you saidyou're reading a lot because you
just said you're on book tourand I know so many people who
when they are on book tour,don't have time to read.
But you sound like you arediving in head first to the next
book and so QueerEnlightenments, AKA Queer
Georgians subtitle, hiddenHistory of Lovers Lawbreakers,

(54:52):
and Home Record.
Home

no.
Home Makers the

And home

No, there's one or two.
There's one or two home records.
Yeah, there is.
You're right.

Tell the people.
What is your pitch for the book?

This is a history of the long 18th century
told from a perspective of thosewho were same sex attracted or
gender non-conforming.
In the uk, as you just alludedto there, and Ireland.
In Europe, it's called QueerGeorgians because this is known
as the Georgian period becausethere was four Georgian Kings
and one William.
Tacked on at the end.
My publishers in North Americathought it was better if we call

(55:25):
it queer Enlightenments becausewe didn't want to get mixed up
with the state of Georgia, whichI don't know anything about at
all.
So I wouldn't be able to write ahistory book about Georgia.
So that's right.
Okay.
So that's what we that's whatwe, that's what we went with
over there.
And it is, I hope, an invitationfor queer people and allies and
broader community moregenerally.
An invitation back into ourhistories and histories that at

(55:48):
times yes, are difficult and aretragic.
They, we open with a difficulthistory, but.
The MO for me throughout waspositioning joy as a form of
resistance and highlightingideas of community and love and
con camaraderie and comfort anddomesticity and family and home,
and showing how we as queerpeople have access to those

(56:09):
things.
But, and I always have in thepast, but that those things have
been denied us in the centurysince.
So that's the kind of the hopethat people feel empowered to
embrace these various parts oftheir histories.

Yeah.
What this comes up every sooften on the show and in my life
in general, but why do you thinkwe forget our history?
'Cause when you look back.
There's, there are trans people,there are queer people that go
back hundreds of years, but, andall of a sudden we're treating

(56:44):
it as though things are brandnew.
Where do you think that ideacomes from?

During my PhD I coined a phrase called
autoregulation and it was to,sorry, to get very technical,
and it was to replaceheteronormativity.
Because I don't think there'sanything normal about the
hetero.
But what we find is it'sregulated, now regulated rather

(57:09):
than normativity, suggests thatthis isn't something that just
happens in nature, that, oh, aman marries a woman, they have
children.
That's the family unit.
That's not something that naturenecessarily has dictated in
legal terms.
That is something that a person,mostly a man has decided to.
Regulate against another personthrough laws.
It's a human decision thatpeople have put in place.

(57:32):
So I thought regulation was abetter reflection of what that
actually is, rather thannormativity.
And the reason we've forgottenour history, the reason we've
been denied these histories isvery purposeful.
In the final chapter of.
The book we have Mary Jones, forinstance, and Mary Jones was a
black, what we would nowunderstand as trans woman.
And she was living in New Yorkand she encounters the law.

(57:54):
Listen, she's a thief.
I can't deny it.
She's stealing a lot of stuff,but she is eking out in
existence for herself in a worldthat does not want her to exist
on many different, I think she'sprobably the first free person
in her fam from her family aswell.
She's got a lot going againsther in this society.
But she is determined.
And she is driven by thispassion to exist on her own

(58:15):
terms, and we see that sheencounters the law an awful lot.
And in one of those documents,which I have in shown in the
book.
We see that her name at somepoint in this document's
history, so the document itselfis from 1836, but that her name
has literally deliberately beenerased from the record.
So if you are talking aboutqueer people saying, oh, they're

(58:37):
trying to erase our history, andsomebody saying, that's being
very dis exclamatory, calm down.
They're not, nobody's trying toerase your history.
They literally are.
I have the document, I have adocument to prove it.
And that's one of many.
So these names are deliberatelytrying to be erased from the
archive.
We also, of course have to dealwith the fact, and this makes
things a little bit moredifficult, that certain people

(59:00):
at this period of time, men in.
England, for instance in the 17hundreds, their lives were at
stake if they were caught havingsex with other men.
So the stakes are really high,and so they are trying to.
Conceal some of this as well.
So we are dealing with thisdouble concealment.
And it's not about outingpeople.
We're 300 people, we're 300years out from this now, I

(59:22):
think, we're safe in thatregard.
And there's nobody in this bookwho I have revealed as being
same sex attracted or gendernonconforming.
These are archives that exist inthe world beforehand, but.
It does go to show that thereare hurdles that we have to deal
with in terms of queer historythat potentially other types of
histories don't necessarily.

(59:43):
But that is not to say that it'simpossible, and sometimes it's
just about knowing what you'relooking for when you come to the
archive, I think.

On the flip side, how, as a person who has done
the work and understands thehistory, are there ways that
you, besides writing a bookabout it or reading books about
it, ways to deconstructautoregulation.

Anthony Delaney (01:00:10):
That's a good question.
It's also d difficult, yes,there are workarounds.
Okay.
So one of the most basic waysthat I will, I'll say is, and I
said this to my editor when Iwas talking about this book
first and this project first,it's really important that queer
people are in these archives ordoing this work or, and showing

(01:00:31):
up in different spaces, becausesometimes your starting point is
if there are letters that I haveread as a queer person that I go
I recognize this pattern.
I know what this is.
I know what they're saying toone another, that other people
have looked at that documenttoo, but not taken the same
meaning from it.
Now.
That is not your end point.

(01:00:51):
That's your start point.
You then have to do, take thatpiece of information that you
have, delve even further intothe archive and really show in
robust histo graphical terms.
What you're saying haslegitimacy and what you're
saying is historically robust,but sometimes when and I
definitely encountered thatgoing, why has nobody.
I, this is so obvious why hasnobody looked at this before?

(01:01:14):
And it was just there.
And that's why, queer peopleshowing up in these spaces is
important.
But also we need to not I thinkthis is quite important to your
question, we need to not set thebar.
For queer histories any higherthan we would for any other type
of history.
So for instance, when I talkabout queer histories from the

(01:01:35):
17 hundreds, people say theycouldn't have been queer because
there was no such identitymarker as queerness in the 18th
century.
And that's true.
But there was also no suchconcept as Georgians or tutors
or elizabethans, and we use thatall the time.
They wouldn't have understoodthemselves as that either.
So we can't just apply even theterm family doesn't mean exactly

(01:01:56):
what it means today in the 18thcentury, and yet we as his
public historians useanachronism.
All of the time, it is just anaccepted way of doing history,
and so it's only really to queerhistories, and you'll find it
sometimes in the history of raceas well, that people will say
you can't say that because theywouldn't have said that.
Then I'm like, we're constantlydoing that, so why are you put

(01:02:18):
in the UK for instance?
I will sometimes get thequestion going, it's called
Queer Georgians.
You can't say queer in the 18thcentury, but they never ask.
About the term Georgians, whichis right beside it in the title
and is also anachronistic.
So I'm like, finish yourthoughts, finish what you're
saying there.
And just acknowledge whereyou're coming from with that, so
you

Jason Blitman (01:02:36):
And it is, there's that idea of picking and
choosing the history I feel,it's oh, it's important to
regulate this law in the UnitedStates because that's something
very specific that the foundingfather said, and yet they also
said this other thing and youdon't care

Yeah.
Absolutely.
It's this kind of smorgasbord ofpick, I'll pick and choose, but
only, and, it's really apparentwhen you look at power, which is
what I'm looking at for thesecond book.
Actually, I've just been readingabout it today, which is why
it's fresh in my mind.
But when you're looking at powerand this invocation of God in
the execution of power, Godwants this.
God wants that.
God only stands up as long aswhat God wants is in line with

(01:03:14):
what the people in power want.
Then God, suddenly God can makemistakes, and we'll write those
mistakes because we're men andwe know what to do.
So it's this, again, it formsthat regulatory thing as opposed
to this thing that magicallyoccurs in the world because it's
the right way to be.
No, not at all.
Men generally have made adecision.
To impose on other men and onwomen and on non-binary people,

(01:03:37):
whatever it might be.
So it is it's people makingdecisions for other people and
controlling them that way.

Yeah.
Ha.
Of course.
All right.
You're reading about all ofthis.
You wrote, queer Geo, queerGeorgians, queer Enlightenments.
You're clearly embarking onwriting about power.
I assume queer power, maybe notqueer power.

Kind it.
Yeah.
I can't say any much more, but

yeah, don't say anything.
Sure.
For you, for Antony, right now,what is this chapter in your
life called for you?
If you had to name this chapterin your life,

oh God.
I'm gonna, I it's literally thefirst word that came to my mind,
so I'm gonna go with it.
It's a little bit twe and it'salready taken because.
Michelle Obama has taken it.
But I, there is something aboutbecoming happening at the moment
where I'm feeling like there isslight transformation in a good

(01:04:29):
way where I'm crossing over fromone thing into another thing and
that process is gonna take awhile, but it's the process has
begun nonetheless.
Yeah, it, it feels like we are,we're coming into a time of.
Of of becoming a version ofmyself that I think I've been
looking for a while but is nowcoming to the fore a little bit.

(01:04:49):
And that's just age, I guessthat's just getting older
potentially.

I know the beauty, the beautiful things
that come

I know.
As I say, like scheduling myBotox for a couple of weeks
time, but we'll do it all.
We'll get older and get Botox.
It's fine.

That's

Yes.

You're injecting your queer power, you're.
Anthony Delaney, so nice to meetyou.
Thank you so much for being myguest gay reader

thank you so much for having me.
It's been a pleasure.

Everyone, check out Queer Enlightenments, AKA
queer Georgians, depending onwhere you're buying your books
out now and have a great rest ofyour day
Asia.
Anton, thank you so much forbeing here.
Both of their books are out now,wherever you get your books, and
I will see you next week.
Have a wonderful rest of yourday.
Bye.

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