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
Donald Trump And The Republican Party Have Weaponized Camp (And They’re Doing It Masterfully)
Have we lost camp forever to the Trump administration and the Republicans? I know what you’re thinking, surely that can’t be! Camp is ours– the outsiders, the marginalized, the queers, the weirdoes, the outcasts! That’s our aesthetic and they can’t have it! Well, I’ve got some bad news. There was no way to witness the … Continue reading
A Conversation with Legacy Russell
Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, forthcoming from Verso Books, describes “glitch” as both an error, a “failure to function,” and thus an area of opportunity as well as an undoing. In this conversation, we attempt to flesh out parts of the whole for Filthy Dreams… Jessica Caroline: Your first chapter GLITCH REFUSES begins with … Continue reading
Memory Can Be Thicker Than Blood: Michelle Handelman’s “BloodSisters” 25 Years Later
Michelle Handelman’s tantalizing and provocative 1995 documentary BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes And Sadomasochism is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year, which will be celebrated with a digital screening at OUTFEST Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival starting on August 26. When I first sat down to watch it on my tiny laptop screen, I was filled with … Continue reading
Blake Butler’s Novel “Alice Knott” Is a Tale of Psychological Disintegration for the Age of Disassociation
If I had a favorite narrative genre, it would be what I like to call “psychological disintegration.” I’ve long been seduced by madness, the deterioration of identity. The descent into madness of the lonely civil servant Poprishchin in Gogol’s Diary of a Mad Man. The identity confusion of Trelkovsky in novelist and artist Roland Topor’s … Continue reading
All The Boys I Loved Would Leave…All These Boys Are Dead: Thomas Moore’s “Alone”
Ever since the Great Toilet Paper Hoard of 2020, marking the start of quarantine, the Internet has been full of people howling into the abyss about the agonizing pain their gnawing isolation, a collective holler of loneliness that can, at times, overpower even the accounts of people suffering through COVID-19. Months later, all these lonely … Continue reading
The Hysterical Agony And The Ecstasy Of “Supermarket Sweep”: A (Mostly) Photo Essay
Is there anything more beautiful than the dual glee and panic of a boxy silhouette of tapered jeans and blinding billowing Technicolor sweaters hurtling down a supermarket aisle as if shot from a cannon in search of a specially marked bottle of Tide? Is there anything more inspiring than a blur of Dep shellacked and … Continue reading
Out Of Sorrow Entire Worlds Have Been Built: “Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone At Alexandra Palace”
“Once there was a song. The song yearned to be sung” –Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “The Spinning Song” What makes art relevant, particularly during a global pandemic as complex as COVID-19? What does it look like to speak to a moment when creating seems useless and inadequate? How can culture have an impact … Continue reading
“Jesus Christ, Dad!”: Our 20 Favorite Moments From Mary Trump’s “Too Much And Never Enough”
“It would have been easy for Donald to be a hero,” writes Mary Trump, President and Ultimate Member of the Book of the Month Club Donald Trump’s niece and seemingly one of the only people in the Trump clan capable of human emotion, self-reflection, and complex thought, in the epilogue of her recently published, much … Continue reading
“If you really loved me…you wouldn’t rim me while I’m crying”: Diarmuid Hester’s “Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper”
“If you really loved me…”–Ziggy slugs–“you wouldn’t rim me while I’m crying.” This is John Waters’ favorite line from Dennis Cooper’s George Miles Cycle, read in a surprise appearance at an event at NYU’s Fales Library and Special Collections in 2000 celebrating the publication of the final book of the Cycle, Period. Specifically deriving from … Continue reading
10 Videos To Watch And Contemplate America On This Fourth of July: Lizzy Grant Edition
*Bang!* *BOOM* *tsssssssss* OH MY GOD! WHAT IS THAT?!! IS THAT A BOMB?! OR A BOX OF BOOM SQUAD?! Why are those explosions so close to my rattling windows? Why do they look like they’re being set off beside the NYPD precinct? Is my roof on fire? Quick! I need to grab all my Lana … Continue reading