In August, The Outline published an investigative piece on Mic.com, detailing how the co-founders Chris Altchek, a conservative-leaning Goldman Sachs banker, and Jake Horowitz, who worked as a foreign policy columnist at Change.org, transformed the news site into social justice central, exploiting identity politics to enact some elaborate and lucrative performance of allyship. In “Mic’s Drop,” writer … Continue reading
Depression, despair, despondency, longing, melancholia and heartbreak are unlikely emotions to trumpet at a time when anger and righteous indignation seem like the only affects we’re allowed to access for mass resistance and protest. Continue reading
Following yesterday’s first post of the shows we missed reviewing in 2016 due to being forced to work on other projects for cash before the windfall of the Arts Writers Grant, I’m returning to a show from much earlier this year–Mx Justin Vivian Bond’s My Model/My Self at Participant Inc. “Explain what? A role model?” exclaims … Continue reading
Samuel Beckett seems like a good place to start. After election night on Tuesday, it feels like we’re living in one of his plays. I didn’t really want to write this piece–or any election-related “think piece.” It always seems egomaniacal and self-indulgent. But, I couldn’t find a way to avoid writing about our ominous election of Donald Trump. Continue reading
In the essay collection After Sex?: On Writing Since Queer Theory, the numerous contributors grapple with queer theory leaving identity and sexuality in the dust. Heather Love’s essay “Queers _____ This” begins with her admitting her own hesitation to giving up her connection with her lesbian identity. Discussing the universalizing impulse in queer theory, Love provides … Continue reading
Is there something about music that lends itself as a medium to explore tortured and painful yet romantic and erotic queer longing? From Perfume Genius’ melancholic songs like “Hood” to The Communards’ bizarrely manic renditions of torch songs and even, appropriated show tunes from Broadway musicals such as “On My Own” from Les Miz caterwauled … Continue reading
In his book Role Models, our preeminent filth elder John Waters writes, “Explain what? A role model? Someone who has led a life even more explosive than mine, a person whose exaggerated fame or notoriety has made him or her somehow smarter and more glamorous than I could ever be? A personality frozen in an … Continue reading
Rather than depicting an It Gets Better-style representation of queerness, Perfume Genius’ album Too Bright portrays feelings ranging from disillusionment, melancholy, shame, stigma, loss and frequently a deep engagement with the sense of being trapped in one’s body. Continue reading
The first institutional solo exhibition of Bob Mizer’s expansive career, “DEVOTION: Excavating Bob Mizer” at 80 WSE delves into the little known and barely seen photographs separate from his career as the penultimate beefcake photographer Continue reading
Was Abraham Lincoln queer? Oh I know what you’re thinking, Mary: that old question again? Well stop sighing, drink your Old Fashioned and listen. New Orleans-based artist Skylar Fein’s current exhibition The Lincoln Bedroom at C24 Gallery raises and re-energizes this debate through a detailed, heavily researched, immersive installation of the bedroom, including the infamous bed, that Lincoln shared with Joshua Speed, a wealthy plantation owner’s son. Continue reading