“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” This quote by 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson opens the Good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as an epigraph. There, it foreshadows a number of essential elements that make up Hunter’s classic manic eulogy … Continue reading
Scrolling through a list of recently opened exhibitions, one name gave me pause: Cumwizard69420. A name that reads as if birthed—or shat—straight from the bowels of the Internet. Cumwizard69420. A name that seems as if typed by a snickering teen signing into a chatroom in 1997. In fact, that name would not be out of … Continue reading
“Everywhere I seem to go on this island seems to me I find degeneracy. There is brawling in bars. There is indecency in public places. And there is the corruption of the young. And now I see it all stems from here—it stems from the FILTH taught here in this very school room!” So spits … Continue reading
On New Year’s Eve, the electricity in my family’s home in Pittsburgh flickered ominously and then, went dark. In the distance, orange and pink lights flashed vibrantly like strobe lights in the sky, as a buzzing sound, reminiscent of Dean Hurley’s ever-present static bursts in Twin Peaks: The Return, echoed furiously. If the impromptu disco … Continue reading
*Blows horn* *shoots confetti cannon* Happy New Year, dearest Filthy Dreams readers! Crack open some champagne and come up with a fresh way to act truly unhinged in public! That’s right–2022 was the year everyone fully lost their minds. Oh sure, it was a long time coming. 2016 was the start of collective mental deterioration, … Continue reading
Uh…shhhh…hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams readers! Are you as hungover as we are? Are you dry-heaving into those empty present boxes still littered below the Christmas tree from all the gallons of egg nog on Christmas Day and the Day after Christmas Day Holiday? Who isn’t?! Everyone knows what Christmas is about–no, not the birth … Continue reading
K8 Hardy’s Outfitumentary should be a mind-numbing watch. About an hour and twenty minutes of the artist and filmmaker showing off her eccentric outfits in head-to-toe shots almost daily for over a decade on a crappy lo-fi mini-DV camera, the delightfully and perfectly titled 2016 film, directed, produced, photographed, and edited by Hardy, could easily … Continue reading
The first we hear from Lana Del Rey on her new song “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” is a deep breath. Over a swell of strings, Lana takes a brief inhale, followed by an extended exhale as if she’s doing meditation. She’s preparing herself to sing one of the most … Continue reading
It’s cliché to point out that people in the United States now exist in completely different realities, typically broken down by political leanings. Just hop on any social media platform and you can bear witness. For one faction, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton are eating babies and guzzling adrenochrome in the basement of a strip … Continue reading
I don’t think I’ve ever come closer to seeing the face of God than when listening to Sylvester’s manic, soaring gospel cry, “Take Me to Heaven.” It’s not a fluke. Sylvester, too, saw his music in religious terms. In the biography The Fabulous Sylvester, Joshua Gamson reveals that after a particularly transcendent show, Sylvester, along … Continue reading