Late last month, I nearly passed out at a concert. My senses fuzzed blank, dominated by the earsplitting, hypnotic wrath of the droning cacophony erupting from the stage courtesy of Nordra, the solo project/assault of Zen Mother’s disarmingly petite in contrast to her aural fury, Monika Khot, who opened for Zola Jesus (whose band Khot … Continue reading
You might want to spare a whole day, or better yet two, to get through the overload of video works currently on view at the New Museum. For the museum’s main event, Lynn Hershman Leeson, pioneer of cybernetic personae, has at long last been dignified with a retrospective, Twisted, which for some may conjure memories … Continue reading
The memorials in New York City that supposedly relate to the LGBTQ+ community are terrible. Uniformly god-awful. Just plain cringe-worthy. Epic fails. And that these opinionated observations aren’t even close to being controversial, just proves my point. Whether stymied by political posturing, proximity to real estate developer cash or just plain lack of aesthetics, New … Continue reading
“…all press is good press to the contemporary enemy and they absorb all weapons launched at them ‘no weapons formed against them shall prosper’ reformed as ‘all weapons against them shall prosper’ they will absorb them into their promotional machine its best to keep it private account,” reads House of Ladosha’s vinyl Untitled (a carry) in … Continue reading
Carol Rama has a few favorite colors. The one she likes best is black. And brown. And red. Black being the color that prepares one for death, sets one at ease with it. It is also the color of the wedding dress she made. It is the color of her darker side, yet also the … Continue reading
“A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it,” writes Zora Neale Hurston in Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. I picked up Hurston’s nonfictional dive into the amalgamation of Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions in the small Faulkner House Books in New Orleans, another city known for its long held connection … Continue reading
How do you measure a life? Through jars full of trash gathered during trips to Bourbon Street, Rodeo Drive and the King’s mecca, Graceland? Through a smattering of graveyard dirt collected from the graves of loved ones? Through precisely written tags on toothbrushes and assorted tchotchkes, saved for decades? Through a 585-page inventory? Well, according … Continue reading
I drool when I nap. Yep. It’s not pretty, dearest Filthy Dreams readers, but as Mariah Carey slurred in her New Year’s eve performance/art/train wreck, “it is what it is.”
Yesterday, that over-salivation both almost killed me and gave me inspiration. I dreamed I was drowning. While I couldn’t breathe in reality, in my mind, I was immersed underwater with a slow, rhythmic, Rorschach-like imagery. A bikini-sporting body appeared and disappeared in spurts of bubbles, a beaded heart sank to the bottom of the sea and a childlike voice, reminiscent of Björk, crooned Chris Isaak’s heartbroken “Wicked Game.” Continue reading
Well, I know I promised days ago, faithful Filthy Dreams readers, that I wasn’t going to do a tired old best of list, but Filthy Dreams is nothing if not inconsistent and unpredictable. While I was going to write another “making up for lost time” review of Jordan Wolfson’s show at David Zwirner, I decided … Continue reading
Most users don’t know that Google can delete your blog and email for the sole, vague reason of “violations of terms of service.” This nightmare scenario happened this June to one of Filthy Dreams’ favorite writers Dennis Cooper, erasing over a decade of content, email correspondence and a draft of his GIF novel Zac’s Freight Elevator. Launched … Continue reading