Welcome to Filthy Dreams
Well hello there! Welcome to Filthy Dreams, a blog that analyzes culture through a queer lens. Rather than jumping right into new content, we thought it best to introduce ourselves and our aesthetics with our Trash Manifesto
Latest Entries
The Milk of Dreams vs. Nocturnal Emissions: The Intense Pleasures and Contrasts of the 59th Venice Biennale Arte
After four days of crisscrossing Venice, mostly on foot, for the pre-opening of the 59th Venice Biennale, I sat next to a curator from Sweden on my Scandinavian Airlines flight leaving Venice for Copenhagen. As we waited impatiently inside a warming plane still on the tarmac—our delay due to the imminent boarding of the Queen … Continue reading
Welcome Back to the Pleasure Dome: “After Blue (Paradis sale)” Resurrects the Filthy Delights of Camp Artifice
Are you sick to death of sleek cinema? An overbearing aesthetic that has trickled down so far that even the most whacko experimental films and unhinged underground movies strive to achieve a similar spotless surface perfection as those boring big-budget Hollywood films? Blech! Give me the awkward, the uncanny, the janky, the shonky, the half-baked, … Continue reading
6 Videos/Films To Honor Depeche Mode’s Andy Fletcher This Memorial Day
“It’s just a question of Tiiiime! And it’s running out for you…” Whoa! Hello there, dearest Filthy Dreams readers! You startled me out of my reverie. I was just spinning and spinning and spinning like a whirling dervish, mimicking Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan. *whew* I need to catch my breath… Anyway, what’s that? What am … Continue reading
“Philip Guston Now” is an Unintentionally Perfect Satire of Contemporary Liberal Cultural Politics
“It is human to shy away from or ignore what makes us uncomfortable, but this practice unintentionally causes harm. You have an opportunity to lean into the discomfort of confronting racism on an experiential level as you view art that wrestles with America’s past and present racial tensions. You have every right to feel your … Continue reading
Are You Getting a Case of the Sinceres, Dear?: Nate Lippens’s “My Dead Book”
I’m beginning to hate the phrase “chosen family.” Conducting an interview recently for a well-known “queer” publication, I felt myself physically recoil when an interviewee used that term. Why? Because like queer itself, the phrase, to me at least, feels increasingly hollow—emptied of all meaning—especially as queer becomes a brand identity and chosen families, the … Continue reading
Wet Your Lips and Make Love to the Camera: Filthy Dreams’ 59th Venice Biennale Arte Fashion Report
On location of the 59th Venice Biennale Arte Preview for Filthy Dreams! In the next weeks, I’ll post an in-depth review of the main exhibition, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani with anecdotes about accompanying national pavilions. First impression: EXTRAORDINARY! GROUNDBREAKING! But first, a FASHION REPORT: It’s impossible to see/experience this year’s Biennale … Continue reading
Back in the Saddle Again: Orville Peck’s “Bronco” Reigns in Cowboy Camp
Where have all the cowboys gone? I’ll wait for you to finish belting the rest of that song. It’s hard to resist Paula Cole’s 1990s classic, but if we suppress the urge to run to Sing Sing to furiously (and drunkenly) yodel, “Where is my John Wayne?” we can take her question seriously. I mean, … Continue reading
Filthy Dreams’ On the Brink of a Miracle Easter Playlist
“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered… And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all … Continue reading
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis Made Me Believe In the Kingdom in the Sky
It probably says something that Nick Cave mused about becoming a cult leader two nights in a row at New York’s Beacon Theatre. This tip of the hand happened at the start of “Balcony Man,” the final comedown song on the hallucinatory album Carnage, released last year with his musical partner-in-crime Warren Ellis, that also … Continue reading
All My Love Forever: Warhol’s Love Stories That Art History Never Knew It Needed in “The Andy Warhol Diaries”
What if the artist who spent most of his career seeking to “be a machine” never really nailed it? That’s the central question of the aggravatingly flawed but incredibly moving Netflix docuseries The Andy Warhol Diaries, directed by Andrew Rossi. This expansive six-part series uses Warhol’s posthumously published diaries—or really his compulsive daily telephone ramblings … Continue reading