GLR July-August 2023

rail via Chicago to its final lap up the Seine River to Winnipeg and erected atop the beaux-arts neo classical dome of the province’s legislative build ing, where it still stands today. (Incidentally, the building’s interior is striking for its Freemason-in spired ancient Egyptian imagery.) The Golden Boy stands as a unique focal point of ancient Greek and local Indigenous cultures. Hermaphroditus is actually a nudge and a wink at the fact that it was beneath the statue that the term “Two Spirit” was coined in 1990 by lesbian Ojibwa activist-educator Myra Laramee after she had a vi sion while overnighting in a protester’s teepee out side the Legislative Building. “Two Spirit” was subsequently adopted worldwide after the 3rd An nual Gathering of Native American Gays and Les bians at Beausejour, Manitoba. Worthy of note is that the film is dedicated to the actor who plays the oracle (doubling also as a hustler smoking beneath the statue), Erryn Schau (1994–2020), an Indige nous trans woman who died of an overdose during the Covid pandemic. Over the years, The Golden Boy has been bound up with plenty of social and political controversy, and not just the predictable periodic outcries of people offended by sculpted genitalia. The Métis rebel Louis Riel, who was hanged in 1885 for fight ing British imperialism, once declared the place a temple of New Jerusalem. On ground level on Canada Day (July 1st) in 2022, two actual queens were toppled and beheaded, Elizabeth II and Vic toria, by Indigenous activists responding to the dis covery of mass graves at residential schools. Queen Victoria’s crown was removed and her “head” tossed into the river that runs behind the legislative grounds (only to be discovered by a kayaker). Her crown is still missing. Both statues are now in stor age, out of the public view, pending a decision by the government concerning their future. For decades the site was known as The Hill, a place of gay cruising and hustling much like Lafayette Park in NYC or Griffith Park in L.A. Indeed, every large North American city had its park, its “tunnels and labyrinths, shrubbery, feathery fens that led us into the altars of our imagination,” as Frank Browning put it in A Queer Geography . The surrealistic cinematography is characteris tic of the independent Winnipeg Film Group and Guy Maddin, director of at least two underground classics, The Saddest Music in the World (2003), starring Isabella Rossellini, and My Winnipeg (2007), which features Ann Savage. Laden with the symbolism of the four elements, Purple City nev ertheless maintains a camp humor. A librarian has sex with a Liberian. The Assiniboine River along side The Hill gets renamed Ass in a Boy. “We sleep in the light of the Golden Boy’s ass,” the narrator soberly explains. And Winnipeg is declared “the hermetic capital of the universe.” July–August 2023

Facts about Assamese Jewelry

On silly occasions like weddings, boys like me witness jewelry touch a woman’s skin. The gold glistening against the teak of her neck, like the bright tone of a trumpet. The shine of each leaf on the Dugdugi like the many eyes of the spider. Acting like a latch on the chest of her heart. Protecting it, holding it, carrying it till the mist of the holy hour strikes at night. the gold like arms of a chair where hands rest, firmly, without letting gravity know rebellion. Each ruby on it like half-eaten pomegranate seeds spat out by small children who hate swallowing them. We wonder how something so bright hold onto something so tart. And to these two pieces boys like me prefer Junbiri , which mimicked the pitha from my grandmother’s banana leaf, moist and cool as though sugar had other ways to exist than just in the warmth of her brown skin. But when we who hold a Gam-Kharu on our wrist by a needle are caught by our mothers, we hear them crying. Blowing prayers into air like steam on warm tea. Chanting to keep us sons from taking to gold like this. We finally see the power the bride carries. Keeping their love close by the cage of their ribs in front of everyone. While our mothers wash us to cleanse our bodies of dirt that does not exist. Pouring the very water, where soft boys like us waited to watch the reflection of our dangling earrings through ripples. The same water where we found a consort who peers through the very ugly that our mothers, at one time, refused to see. The very beauty that needs no adornments to be. M AYOOKH B ARUA Boys like me glimpse at the Golpota and touch our clavicle that would hold

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