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21st Century American Pastoralism
Jan. 25th, 2026 12:32 pmI learned that there's a hashtag #MonthofDick on bluesky and sadly it is for people reading Moby Dick and not gay hockey.
I'm currently halfway through watching Heated Rivalry and picked up a different gay hockey romance just for curiosity's sake. A colleague has been on a mission to read ALL the hockey romances -- they've read 72 so far -- and wants to make 2026 the Year of Sapphic Hockey which I find great.
So I ended up joining a book club through my record store -- it's four of us altogether, I'm the only girl and relieved by how frankly pure the other guys are, and we had a sincere conversation mulling the popularity of hockey romances right now. All three guys are straight so they are earnestly puzzled, but in a "never would have thought, that's So Interesting" way as opposed to (derogatory), and so we were discussing the attractions of enemies-to-lovers and so on.
But then today I suddenly had the thought, imagining the academic world in 100 or 200 years, and the students who would be earnestly reading and studying 21st Century American Pastoralism, the flux of novels that took place in coffee shops, bookstores, and other cozy-but-in-real-life-more-stressful-than-charming locations, and how they would be interpreting that, and also of course the gay hockey. And I found imagining this world so INTERESTING because imagine this future student who had grown up with these charming novels and then doing research about sports injuries and everything and being so upset about it, like how Victorianists really end up deep-diving into all of the medical studies about STDs and stuff.
Anyway, these are the thoughts I have when the world is on fire.
I'm currently halfway through watching Heated Rivalry and picked up a different gay hockey romance just for curiosity's sake. A colleague has been on a mission to read ALL the hockey romances -- they've read 72 so far -- and wants to make 2026 the Year of Sapphic Hockey which I find great.
So I ended up joining a book club through my record store -- it's four of us altogether, I'm the only girl and relieved by how frankly pure the other guys are, and we had a sincere conversation mulling the popularity of hockey romances right now. All three guys are straight so they are earnestly puzzled, but in a "never would have thought, that's So Interesting" way as opposed to (derogatory), and so we were discussing the attractions of enemies-to-lovers and so on.
But then today I suddenly had the thought, imagining the academic world in 100 or 200 years, and the students who would be earnestly reading and studying 21st Century American Pastoralism, the flux of novels that took place in coffee shops, bookstores, and other cozy-but-in-real-life-more-stressful-than-charming locations, and how they would be interpreting that, and also of course the gay hockey. And I found imagining this world so INTERESTING because imagine this future student who had grown up with these charming novels and then doing research about sports injuries and everything and being so upset about it, like how Victorianists really end up deep-diving into all of the medical studies about STDs and stuff.
Anyway, these are the thoughts I have when the world is on fire.
