For those of you who haven’t heard (which means you did not watch the newest season of Drag Race in its entirety, which, in turn, means you really need to rethink your priorities) RuPaul has recently come out with a new book: Workin’ It!: RuPaul’s Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style. In this multi-part series I will attempt to integrate some of the many profound insights contained in this rosy tome into my own ways of interacting with and thinking about the world. Come, friends, follow me on my mystical journey to attain Ru-vana.

[ Read Part 1 ]
[ Read Part 2 ]

I’ve always been intrigued by people who are able to have a totally practical relationship with their own bodies. Usually, they seem to be professionals whose careers depend in some way on their physical attributes: dancers, ultimate fighters, and of course our beloved Supermodel of the World. On the flip side though, there are also those who place paramount importance on the spiritual and intellectual self like religious ascetics, eccentric geniuses, and, again, RuPaul (see part one for more about his philosophy on the denial of the ego.)

The rest of us, myself included, occupy a kind of psychophysical grey area. We go about our lives drinking, smoking, and indulging in the occasional extravagant meal, only sporadically pausing to wonder if the pleasures of our consumption equal the satisfaction of the other, more disciplined half’s strictly regimented self-denial. The benefits we gain from acquisition are obvious, whereas the joys of elimination seem to be a far more dubious.

Workin’ It addresses these anxieties in a surprisingly detailed account of Ru’s first foray into colon cleansing. Airing one’s “dirty laundry” (i.e. “butt junk”), and in front of a medical professional no less, can be a strange if oddly attractive proposition. “Add to all of that the embarrassment our culture has with anything to do with bodily functions. Yes, I’m talking about ‘shit shame.’ I’m pretty sure that shit shame is what kept me (and most people) from doing a ‘high colonic’ before. But it was the promise of erasing my past from the inside out that kept me intrigued.”

Upon closer examination, we find that “shit shame” in both a literal and figurative sense is not necessarily a negative thing. The thought of our physical and emotional baggage can be shameful, even repulsive, yes, but it is also the most effective incentive towards renewal and reinvention. Nietzsche called this drive to reexamine our assumptions the “intellectual conscience.” Not to be confused with the residual guilt instilled in us by religious dogma, the intellectual conscience is the tool which allows us to transcend the values handed down to us by society and achieve something great and entirely personal. Or, in Ru’s case, “A rootie-tootie fresh-and-fruity booty!”

Next Week: A Life in Pictures, or A Look Inside the Closet of a Character Illusionist

For those of you who haven’t heard (which means you did not watch the newest season of Drag Race in its entirety, which, in turn, means you really need to rethink your priorities) RuPaul has recently come out with a new book: Workin’ It!: RuPaul’s Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style. In this multi-part series I will attempt to integrate some of the many profound insights contained in this rosy tome into my own ways of interacting with and thinking about the world. Come, friends, follow me on my mystical journey to attain Ru-vana.

[ Read Part 1 ]

Once in a while, a great philosopher will find a way to express an incredibly complex idea in such a way that it is easily, almost naturally understood and yet, still, hard to explain. The issue being addressed isn’t reduced or solved, it’s simply well put. “God is dead.” OK, good to know, Nietzsche. So, now what?

Wigs: they’re a vital source of RuPaul’s undeniable glamour, but their essential meaning remains mysterious. Do they symbolize a deep-seated shame of one’s natural deficiencies, a refusal to accept the body’s inability to express the mind’s ideal self-image, or are they like magical talismans, calling forth a new, better, more confident you from the obscure recesses of your being? Ru’s ruminations on the subject are filled with cryptic wonder:

I was mesmerized by those hairy marvels of modern man. To me, the whole concept of being able to instantly transform your identity with a mop of synthetic hair represented the totality of advancements made in the industrial age: a cheap, non-biodegradable tool of vanity. It made me feel proud to be an American.

The rest of Workin’ It delves deeply into the logistics of wigs and the insanely intricate processes required to purchase, maintain, ship, and attach them, but this passage seems to effortlessly epitomize the central tenets of wigging out. The tools of transformation are strange things indeed. Usually, when they work well it’s almost like they’re not even there. An expensive, high quality synthetic wig just looks like natural hair. As technology advances it becomes less and less distinct from the person using it.

That being the case, scientific innovation depends as much on creative people using the materials available to them in novel, perhaps even radical ways just as much as it does on the increasing sophistication of corporate manufacturing techniques. All of your latest internet sensations (Twitter, ChatRoulette, etc.) were technologically feasible long ago, but it wasn’t until they captured the public imagination that they “became a thing,” a recognizable entity in and of themselves without which much of the wisdom of Ashton Kutcher may have been lost to history.

The point here is that, yes, wigs might be pretty to look at, but they wouldn’t be worth discussing at any great length if not for great pioneers like RuPaul who chose to use them in a way that permanently altered our cultural consciousness for the better. Maybe technology will eventually overcome illness and death, but it’s people like Ru and the inspirational value of what their imaginations can achieve that make us happy to be alive.

Next Week on Future Shipwreck Book Club: RuPaul Makes a Pit Stop or Food for Thought, Fuel for the Race

For those of you who haven’t heard (which means you did not watch the newest season of Drag Race in its entirety, which, in turn, means you really need to rethink your priorities) RuPaul has recently come out with a new book: Workin’ It!: RuPaul’s Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style. In this multi-part series I will attempt to integrate some of the many profound insights contained in this rosy tome into my own ways of interacting with and thinking about the world. Come, friends, follow me on my mystical journey to attain Ru-vana.

“The most important thing… is to not take life too seriously.” RuPaul begins his introduction with the claim that this little nugget of wisdom is the most important piece of advice he has ever received. Now, at first that endorsement may come off as a bit of a contradiction coming from someone who is obviously so meticulous about the way they present themselves to the world. I’ve never done drag myself, but it seems to me that anyone who regularly engages in an intricate process of wholesale self-transformation on which their entire livelihood depends would be hard-pressed to maintain a carefree attitude. How are we, his disciples, to interpret this apparent paradox?

Though the importance of continually challenging yourself to succeed is stressed throughout the book, it turns out the crux of Ru’s philosophical argument rests not on the irrefutable strength of his own work ethic, but, in a much broader sense, on the transcendental nature of human identity. “Whatever you proclaim as your identity here in the material realm is… your drag. You are not your religion. You are not your skin color. You are not your gender, your politics, your career or your marital status. You are none of the superficial things that this world deems important. The real you is the energy force that created the entire universe!”

What is alluded to in this passage is the true danger of “taking life too seriously”, of attaching too much meaning to a particular facet of our identity: we become a disconnected, hollowed-out mess of social categories rather than a fully integrated self. Buddhist doctrine has been grappling with this phenomenon for more than a millennium and, more recently, brilliant scholars like Jean Baudrillard and Judith Butler have made it their life’s work to deconstruct the systems of meaning-making which stifle rather than articulate our sense of being.

Anyone who has seen RuPaul’s show knows that, in an open-minded environment, concepts of gender which have been hotly debated in our society for generations can be rendered border-line meaningless. Likewise, anyone who has seen RuPaul at all, in any context can tell that she, as an individual, is something far more spectacular than all elements of her ensemble. This is a serious achievement, my friends, but not too much so.