oh-dear-so-queer

[oh-dear-so-queer]

She asked friends back home to source them for her, decorated the covers with stamps, used the line on the cover provided for her address, numbered them in sequence, and completed the place for 'graduating year' with wry summaries of the contents: one with 'Greater outer & inner mediocrity', another 'the ever present subject' – her sexuality.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

Her circle included many diarists: the economist John Maynard Keynes, who for several years was the lover of her friend Duncan Grant, used his to record his impressively wide-ranging sex life. Strangers – 'lift boy of Vauxhall' – and regular partners – 'DG' – alike were listed, and in a separate series of entries Keynes grades encounters using a letter and number code, still unbroken, in which the letters C, A and W play key roles.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

One sailor was executed for sodomy; the young boy with whom he had been caught also died, going overboard in mysterious circumstances.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

Leonardo and Pacioli seem to have become close friends; certainly, they settled into an intense intellectual relationship and stayed in each other's company through several relocations.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

Leonardo, a close reader of the work of Alberti, must have been intrigued by Pacioli's earlier intimacy with the Roman polymath; and Pacioli was very likely bowled over – as most people were – by the charming and gregarious star who shone at the heart of the Sforza court.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

Both had grown up in unremarkable families in small towns in Florence's orbit; both had a restless streak; both combined a wide-ranging curiosity with a particular fascination with geometry; both enjoyed games, magic tricks and mathematical puzzles; and both had survived scrapes with authority, occasioned, we now assume, by their homosexuality.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

At one point he was forced to move on, when in 1491 he was forbidden from teaching young men in Sansepolcro, presumably for some kind of sexual impropriety.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

As a commoner, Michael could never command a fleet or load his own cargo onto one of the city's galleys, and the most desirable of each year's subordinate postings (armiraio and homo de conseio) were not personal appointments, but awarded by election, with as many as seventeen candidates putting themselves forward for a single role.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

His curriculum vitae records another step up in 1417: a voyage to Bruges at the rank of homo de conseio.

"The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" - Roland Allen

[oh-dear-so-queer]

The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on: When we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble; some o' them, the Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had been put on board by a queer-lookin' old man just before we had started frae London. (...)"

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

[oh-dear-so-queer]

"(...) There is another sound, a queer one like—"

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

[oh-dear-so-queer]

I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like braying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield's room, which is somewhere under this.

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

[oh-dear-so-queer]

But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said: "Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. (...)"

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

[oh-dear-so-queer]

I bent over and looked too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over me.

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

[oh-dear-so-queer]

"(...) When I saw him four days ago down at his own place he looked queer. (...)"

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

[oh-dear-so-queer]

The decanter of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about.

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker

[oh-dear-so-queer]

I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits.

"Dracula" - Bram Stoker