Saturday, October 31, 2015

ProcrastiNation

When I have better things to do, I'm apt to wander off onto tangents.

I'd noticed that my 2011 post on Babe Didrikson Zaharias was consistently my most popular post according to Statcounter, consistently getting more than 15 hits per day over a protracted period of time.  Blogger shows cumulative statistics, so I found the post and discovered that it had received more than four thousand views -- 4375 as I write this now.  Most of my posts get fifty views, or less.

So I started looking at all my posts to see which had more than a thousand hits.  Some surprised me; some pleased me.  Here are the results.

The World As I Found It, 3/19/2008, 1040 views.  My review for Gay Community News of Bruce Duffy's novel about Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Limits of language: Andrew Hodges's "Towards 1984", 6/27/2012, 1051 views.  Andrew Hodges's great piece on George Orwell's blind spots about ordinary language, reprinted with Hodges's permission.

Eaters of Dust, 12/5/2009, 1053 views.  About a Nigerian novel with distinct homoerotic elements.

Seeds and Stems Will Rend My Hems, 6/6/2007, 1086 views.  My GCN review of blues-rock stylist Mitch Ryder's very queer solo album, How I Spent My Vacation.

Park Hyo Shin, 12/28/2008, 1087 views.  My appreciation of a Korean pop singer.

Gay Christians Say the Darnedest Things, 5/21/2007, 1104 views.  My first real post on this blog.  It also attracted some attention elsewhere in the blogosphere, so I'm mildly surprised it doesn't have more views.

Tenny Dearest, 1/27/2008, 1125 views.  My review for GCN of two biographies of Tennessee Williams.

Never the Twain Shall Meet, 4/24/09, 1133 views.  About a construction of eroticism between women in Thailand.  I understand why this one got as much traffic as it did: it was picked up by another site.

True Love Waits, 10/2/2008, 1182 views.  Alarmist stories about adolescent heterosexuality in South Korea.

"What Is Truth?" Said Jesting Pilate, 12/17/2011, 1186 views.  On the "liberal" media and journalistic truth.

I Am the Very Model of a Modern Homosexual, 5/5/09, 1213 views.  On orthodox academic Foucauldians.

The Common Clay of the New West, 3/12/12, 1237 views.  On "illegal immigration" and racism among the descendants of immigrants.

Bugs Bunny Made Me Gay, 5/22/2012, 1245 views.  On Glee and right-wing homosexual panic, plus genderbending in children's entertainment.

Are You Born Honosocial, Or Is It a Lifestyle Choice, 9/6/2008, 1261 views.  Fussing over the sexual orientation of fictional characters, especially Frodo and Sam; homosocial vs. homosexual.

I Do Not Like Your Christ, I Like (Some of) Your Christians, 8/2/2010, 1289 views.  On Christian atheist Frank Schaeffer and his ignorance of historical Christianity.

The Son of Man Came Not to Be Served, But to Serve, 3/24/2011, 1478 views.  Moderate respectable Christians, and why they annoy me.

Homo Sum: Humani Nil A Me Alienum Puto, 1/1/2008, 1610 views.  "Universality" in entertainment and art, especially where it involves LGBT characters.

Travel / Posting Advisory and Eternal Life, 5/19/2010, 1654 views.  Written while I was on my way to Korea in the summer of 2010, about eternal life as discussed on Andrew Sullivan's blog.  But not by Sullivan.

Marvin Martian, 12/28/2009, 1664 views.  My post on Edgar Pangborn's 1950s science-fantasy novel about benign Martians observing and interfering in humanity's history.

I Can Haz Slave Boy?, 9/13/2009, 1931 views.  Did Jesus affirm a gay couple?  Did he approve of the sexual use of a slave boy by his Roman centurion master?  Gay Christian apologetic works in mysterious ways.

Assimilation and Its Discontents, 3/20/2010, 2073 views.  A big post on the vexed topic of gay assimiliation.

The Killing of Sister Georgy Girl, 8/28/2010, 2135 views.  About the novel and film Georgy Girl, exploring their queer possibilities.

This Blog Is Not a Safe Space, Part 1, 2/15/2009, 2206 views.  The first of four posts on "safe space" in university diversity-education.

Is Park Hyo Shin Gay? Now You've Got Me Wondering, 3/31/2009, 2626 views.  I hadn't speculated about Park Hyo Shin's sexual orientation in my earlier post about the K-pop singer, but apparently some of his Asian fans looked at the name of the blog, assumed I had said he was gay, and wrote me an angry e-mail message.  This is my response, which got even more traffic than the first post. 

Just Say "Nein"!, 4/14/2010, 2864 views.  I wrote a couple of fan-fiction scripts inspired by the Sassy Gay Friend series on Youtube.  In this one, the Sassy Gay Friend visits Pope Benedict XVI. (Here's the other one.)

The Rule 3 - The Naked Kitchen, 11/26/2009, 2989 views.  I wrote a few posts on the Rule, the Liz Wallace /Alison Bechdel criterion for representation of women in cinema.  To my surprise, I found that quite a few South Korean films made the grade.  This post drew the most attention.

The Girl in the Basement, 6/4/2007, 3188 views.  Another early post, my GCN review of Kate Millett's The Basement, about the killing of teenaged Sylvia Likens in Indianapolis in 1965.  I wasn't surprised to find that this one had gotten so many views, because I'd noticed that it got steady traffic over time.

A Good Ol' Gal from Beaumont, Texas, 2/6/2011, 4375 views.  My post on the great athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias, who is widely supposed to have been lesbian.

Dude, I'm a Fag, 5/9/2009, 5681 views.  I'm happy that this post, about lgbt teenagers, diversity education, and reclaiming langauge, tops the list; I think it's one of the best, most important things I've written.  Evidently a fair number of other people more or less agreed.

So that's it.  Quite a mixture.