Robb Q. Telfer: That just made me tim jones-yelvington all over my new blouse!
Karen Oliveto: I am planning to Tim Jones-Yelvington with friends later this evening.
Erin Teegarden: My boyfriend and I are going to Tim Jones-Yelvington before the lunar eclipse.
Eun Young Lee: I am going to Tim Jones-Yelvington with my grandma to celebrate her birthday!!! <3
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
LIT DIVA EXTRAORDINAIRE
Yo I’m a lit diva extraordinaire
And how I’m selling out my chapbooks
You say it ain’t fair
My shit is so tight
They ain’t no limit
Just like my ass
You wanna rim it?
TJY is an event horizon. TJY traps light. Paparazzi photographed TJY wearing a black veil. Paparazzi found TJY in a cemetery, under cover of darkness. They found him perched beside an unmarked grave. They found him sucking one of those super skinny cigarettes.
TJY shed a single, sequined tear.
A reporter asked him, “Who are you mourning?”
He answered, “After the death of the author comes the rise of the LITERARY DIVA EXTRAORDINAIRE.”
Which rise is chronicled in TJY’s new TEXT. Which TEXT cannot be bought in stores, for it must be FOUND. Which text TJY has launched a nationwide, seventeen city tour to promote.
TJY appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, where Dave hung him over a tank of water and asked the audience, WILL HE FLOAT? TJY sat on Craig Ferguson’s couch while Craig joked he gave TJY fellatio in the backroom of a leather bar. On The View, Elizabeth Hasselback said, I think the tea party makes some arguments worth considering, and TJY said, I teabagged your husband last night. TJY taught Ellen how to walk in heels. On the TODAY Show, TJY showed Hoda and Kathie Lee 9 simple ways to glue sequins to their face, just in time for the holiday season.
Each of them asked:
[WHAT ARE YOU?]
I am a total effect body wash. I am the dude that hubbed your bub. I am the seventh sign of an unhealthy scalp. I am the diarrhea you trailed in those wicked woods. I am the Aeron chair you rode down the stairs with a jubilant clamor.
[WHAT ARE YOU?]
I am tense, technological, embodied. I am the sugar train that left your station but came back later with a toot toot toot. I am a facsimile of an etching inspired by a photograph of God.
[WHAT ARE YOU?]
I am timeless scat. I am one-eyed, kohl-eyed, snaked. I’m the sticky on your gut. I am frenzied, gutted clutter. I am actor Chad Michael Murray’s enormous aureoles, and also the man who licked them. I am tight kicks, electric hand claps, an electric bass riff. I am the editor of the esteemed collection, “Very Short Stories Where Bad Things Happen to Babies.”
[WHAT ARE YOU?]
I am the glass shield that sits above the food on a buffet line. I am an overpriced decorative sock. I am prevalent use of groove. I’m the earworm hook from that song you wrote about my ladyparts. I’m a heave, I’m a shudder, I’m a ho. I am the most charismatic British gym queen you ever touched.
[WHAT ARE YOU?]
I am the composer and lyricist of the soon-to-be hit single SEXT ME, a spirited dance pop response to the Brett Favre sexting scandal that signals my emergence as a !!!MULTI-PLATFORM MEDIA PHENOMENON!!!
So we are out of the closet but into what? What new unbounded spatiality?
Sexting sexting 1, 2, 3
This one goes out to all the boys wanna get with me
I’mma text you a pic of whatchu wanna see
I’mma show you my coo-coo-coochie
You can have that shit for free
Refrain:
Sext me sext me 1, 2, 3
I’mma sext you and you can sext me
Sext me sext me 1, 2, 3
I’mma sext you and you can sext me
(I’mma sext you and you can sext me)
Repeat after me: WHAT NEW UNBOUNDED SPATIALITY?
Come on baby show me what you got
You can even make it a come shot
You’re just my kind of man
What’s a matter dontcha have a data plan?
I can’t hear you!
You can wiggle your dick into your camera phone
You can show me how you’re gonna make me moan
You know what I like
You know what I like
Sext me sext me sext me sext me
…the room the den the attic the basement the house the bar the university some new enclosure who’s door like Kafka’s door produces the expectation of a fresh air and a light of illumination that never arrives…
I’m bringing words
Back to the people
This my literary church
Go on and lick my steeple
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
conjugations
Adam Robinson and Christopher Newgent Tim Jones-Yelvingtoned. Adam Robinson and Christopher Newgent are Tim Jones-Yelvingtoning. Adam Robinson and Christopher Newgent Tim Jones-Yelvington. Adam Robinson and Christopher Newgent will Tim Jones-Yelvington. Adam Robinson and Christopher Newgent could Tim Jones-Yelvington. Adam Robinson and Tim Jones-Yelvington were to Tim Jones-Yelvington. Should Adam Robinson and Christopher Newgent have Tim Jones-Yelvingtoned?
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
TONIGHT...
I will be "coming out" as a multiplatform media phenomenon.
Meaning I am going sing. POP SONGS I WROTE. And other surprises.
Come cackle at my downfall:
THE REC ROOM: COMING OUT PARTY
November 3 · 8:00pm - 11:00pm
at BLACK ROCK
3614 N. Damen
Chicago, IL
It’s your big debut. Time to show the world who you really are. Time to let the community know you’re eligible; time to tell your family the news. No matter which way you’re “out and proud”, at some point you’ve had to confess, declare, emerge. So consider this your quinceañera, your debutante ball, your coming of age. Tonight, rec roomers present creative work related to all kinds of “comings out”.
With performances by:
Tim Jones-Yelvington
AD Jameson
Allison Gruber
Ian Baaske
Mairead Case
Brandon Will
Gregg Shapiro
Anndell Quintero
Ellen Wadey
Meaning I am going sing. POP SONGS I WROTE. And other surprises.
Come cackle at my downfall:
THE REC ROOM: COMING OUT PARTY
November 3 · 8:00pm - 11:00pm
at BLACK ROCK
3614 N. Damen
Chicago, IL
It’s your big debut. Time to show the world who you really are. Time to let the community know you’re eligible; time to tell your family the news. No matter which way you’re “out and proud”, at some point you’ve had to confess, declare, emerge. So consider this your quinceañera, your debutante ball, your coming of age. Tonight, rec roomers present creative work related to all kinds of “comings out”.
With performances by:
Tim Jones-Yelvington
AD Jameson
Allison Gruber
Ian Baaske
Mairead Case
Brandon Will
Gregg Shapiro
Anndell Quintero
Ellen Wadey
Friday, October 22, 2010
Queer Pank
I guest edited the October issue of Pank to feature Queer poetry and prose.
"Patroclus, in the plain and sad way he will become famous for, says that he’ll fuck her if she fucks him first. She is a little surprised; she hasn’t ever really imagined doing that to Chiron. But Patroclus is already on his back, lifting both of his knees, two fingers in his asshole. It’s all right, he says. I’ve done it a few times before, it won’t hurt me too much. She says, How do I. Patroclus says, Spit in your hand and make your thingy all wet, then put it inside me, here. She has barely entered him when she already starts coming. Patroclus bursts into laughter beneath her. Even his laughter is plain and sad. He is wincing. She is already imagining arrows in suggestive body parts, drowning, pornographic sketches, obsessive dreams, forest stalking. Patroclus asks, What, is this your first time? Or just your first time with a boy? Her come leaking out of his asshole, making its own shapes on the ground. Fragrance of dead leaves, seaweed. She says, What’s a boy."
--from "Graphy, or The Girlhood of Achilles," by Elaine Castillo.
Said Blake Butler on my facebook wall:
"The Pank Queer issue is mega excellent...Reading through piece by piece is delicious."
Read the radness: Pank: The Queer Issue.
"Patroclus, in the plain and sad way he will become famous for, says that he’ll fuck her if she fucks him first. She is a little surprised; she hasn’t ever really imagined doing that to Chiron. But Patroclus is already on his back, lifting both of his knees, two fingers in his asshole. It’s all right, he says. I’ve done it a few times before, it won’t hurt me too much. She says, How do I. Patroclus says, Spit in your hand and make your thingy all wet, then put it inside me, here. She has barely entered him when she already starts coming. Patroclus bursts into laughter beneath her. Even his laughter is plain and sad. He is wincing. She is already imagining arrows in suggestive body parts, drowning, pornographic sketches, obsessive dreams, forest stalking. Patroclus asks, What, is this your first time? Or just your first time with a boy? Her come leaking out of his asshole, making its own shapes on the ground. Fragrance of dead leaves, seaweed. She says, What’s a boy."
--from "Graphy, or The Girlhood of Achilles," by Elaine Castillo.
Said Blake Butler on my facebook wall:
"The Pank Queer issue is mega excellent...Reading through piece by piece is delicious."
Read the radness: Pank: The Queer Issue.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Wore stiletto boots for reading last night.
First time in heels.
Actually kinda liked the way they shape your posture and stretch the foot.
Used to dance ballet. Feel like I can handle that.
It is cool to squat and actually be more comfortable than in regular shoes.
Like doing Courtney Love-ish poses with spread legs.
Did not like the instability of the spiked heel. Felt like I was going to fall. Feels like skinny heel will break off from weight.
Requires balance and keeping weight to front of foot.
Did not know abt this part.
People talk mostly abt posture and what they do to your feet and back.
Mine were covered in black sequins.
First time in heels.
Actually kinda liked the way they shape your posture and stretch the foot.
Used to dance ballet. Feel like I can handle that.
It is cool to squat and actually be more comfortable than in regular shoes.
Like doing Courtney Love-ish poses with spread legs.
Did not like the instability of the spiked heel. Felt like I was going to fall. Feels like skinny heel will break off from weight.
Requires balance and keeping weight to front of foot.
Did not know abt this part.
People talk mostly abt posture and what they do to your feet and back.
Mine were covered in black sequins.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Reasons I Feel Like a Fraud
1. I've never written a successful character-driven realist short story.
2. I've never written a successful sentence-driven hybrid literary text object.
3. One of my best-received stories, a prize winner, is a joke. (I don't mean this as an expression, like, "What a fucking joke," I mean literally, like "That's a funny joke, haha).
4. Blake Butler said humor is for cowards.*
5. My most passionate manuscripts are sitting on my desk as drafts. Some haven't been touched for nearly a year.
6. A month ago, I wrote and workshopped a new story that has so far met with the same fate.
7. I don't know how to use threaded imagery.
8. I am too influenced by/interested in pop culture.
9. I am too influenced by/interested in teenagers.
10. I am too influenced by/interested in sex I'm afraid of having.
11. Some of my published flash fictions are probably (ideas for) long stories with no follow-through.
12. Someone I trust thinks sections from my chapbook should be expanded into a novel, and I might agree, but I don't know how to write it.
13. Presses have offered to consider longer works and I haven't had anything to send them (opportunity w/o preparation).
14. I've never been published in an establishment journal. (As in one w/ some level of name recognition outside "indie lit" community, ie, University publication with some history).
15. I'm undisciplined.
16. I don't have a daily writing habit.
17. I spend more time on Google Reader than writing.
17. I'm better known for my blog comments than my writing.
18. I'm better known for my costumes than my texts.
19. I don't know how to write or talk about aesthetics. Sometimes I'm afraid I'm not smart enough to post at Big Other.
20. I've never read Deleuze, Barthes, Bloom, etc.
21. I've never read Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Borges or Beckett.
22. During the htmlgiant gender conversation, I had to wikipedia Artaud.
23. I keep saying I'm going to make a website but haven't done it.
24. I keep saying I'm going to make posters for readings but haven't done it.
25. I keep saying I'm going to make "lit crafts" to sell at readings, but haven't done it.
26. Jason Behrends solicited me for the Orange Alert podcast two months ago and I still haven't sent him my recording.
27. I was supposed to review Joe Young's Easter Rabbit and never did.
28. Scott McLanahan sent me a review copy of "Stories II" and I still haven't read it, even though I love Scott McLanahan.
*This is a paraphrase, and Blake said this during a discussion of live readings, in response the argument that humor is safer at readings, he wasn't trashing humor.
This list is meant to articulate an emotional space, not my actual values or beliefs. Many of these items are derived from fucked up external validation systems. The goal of this particular post was not to deconstruct these systems, but please feel free to do so in the comment thread.
The best response to this post is probably: OK. Now get over it and get to work.
2. I've never written a successful sentence-driven hybrid literary text object.
3. One of my best-received stories, a prize winner, is a joke. (I don't mean this as an expression, like, "What a fucking joke," I mean literally, like "That's a funny joke, haha).
4. Blake Butler said humor is for cowards.*
5. My most passionate manuscripts are sitting on my desk as drafts. Some haven't been touched for nearly a year.
6. A month ago, I wrote and workshopped a new story that has so far met with the same fate.
7. I don't know how to use threaded imagery.
8. I am too influenced by/interested in pop culture.
9. I am too influenced by/interested in teenagers.
10. I am too influenced by/interested in sex I'm afraid of having.
11. Some of my published flash fictions are probably (ideas for) long stories with no follow-through.
12. Someone I trust thinks sections from my chapbook should be expanded into a novel, and I might agree, but I don't know how to write it.
13. Presses have offered to consider longer works and I haven't had anything to send them (opportunity w/o preparation).
14. I've never been published in an establishment journal. (As in one w/ some level of name recognition outside "indie lit" community, ie, University publication with some history).
15. I'm undisciplined.
16. I don't have a daily writing habit.
17. I spend more time on Google Reader than writing.
17. I'm better known for my blog comments than my writing.
18. I'm better known for my costumes than my texts.
19. I don't know how to write or talk about aesthetics. Sometimes I'm afraid I'm not smart enough to post at Big Other.
20. I've never read Deleuze, Barthes, Bloom, etc.
21. I've never read Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Borges or Beckett.
22. During the htmlgiant gender conversation, I had to wikipedia Artaud.
23. I keep saying I'm going to make a website but haven't done it.
24. I keep saying I'm going to make posters for readings but haven't done it.
25. I keep saying I'm going to make "lit crafts" to sell at readings, but haven't done it.
26. Jason Behrends solicited me for the Orange Alert podcast two months ago and I still haven't sent him my recording.
27. I was supposed to review Joe Young's Easter Rabbit and never did.
28. Scott McLanahan sent me a review copy of "Stories II" and I still haven't read it, even though I love Scott McLanahan.
*This is a paraphrase, and Blake said this during a discussion of live readings, in response the argument that humor is safer at readings, he wasn't trashing humor.
This list is meant to articulate an emotional space, not my actual values or beliefs. Many of these items are derived from fucked up external validation systems. The goal of this particular post was not to deconstruct these systems, but please feel free to do so in the comment thread.
The best response to this post is probably: OK. Now get over it and get to work.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
announcements, links, etc.
I seem to suck at blogging elsewhere while also blogging here.
January/early February has sorta been my month of print. Several things I still haven't bothered posting (several of which have been posted a ton of other places, so it felt sort-of redundant):
~"Terr-Bear Loves Jimmy" in Ampersand Review. One of my oldest stories. Not sure I still sound or write like this?? This can be read in its entirety online, but I recommend purchasing the issue/supporting small presses. Includes writing by Jamie Iredell, Spencer Dew, Meg Pokrass and others.
~"Bathhouse in 5 Senses" in Sleepingfish. Issue co-edited by Gary Lutz. Contributor list is pretty incredible and humbling. Check out Derek White's badass "linear narrative sequence" constructed w/ excerpts from each piece.
~My story "The Lawn Guard" in Pank 4. This story placed second in Pank's 1,001 Awesome Words Contest. This issue is stuffed with shiny sparklies.
January/early February has sorta been my month of print. Several things I still haven't bothered posting (several of which have been posted a ton of other places, so it felt sort-of redundant):
~"Terr-Bear Loves Jimmy" in Ampersand Review. One of my oldest stories. Not sure I still sound or write like this?? This can be read in its entirety online, but I recommend purchasing the issue/supporting small presses. Includes writing by Jamie Iredell, Spencer Dew, Meg Pokrass and others.
~"Bathhouse in 5 Senses" in Sleepingfish. Issue co-edited by Gary Lutz. Contributor list is pretty incredible and humbling. Check out Derek White's badass "linear narrative sequence" constructed w/ excerpts from each piece.
~My story "The Lawn Guard" in Pank 4. This story placed second in Pank's 1,001 Awesome Words Contest. This issue is stuffed with shiny sparklies.
***
I will admit to being sad my nominated story was not selected for Best of the Web. Kinda taking it a little harder than I've taken anything writing-related in a while. I rarely personalize things. Still processing why this feels a little rougher. I usually try to keep shit to myself, but I feel comfortable being a little vulnerable re: this one, because I think sometimes that kind of openness can be helpful to others. I think we sometimes assume folks are impervious and more confident/well-adjusted than ourselves until we witness otherwise. That said, this is the only space in which I will exhibit said vulnerability, because this is the only space that is exclusively mine. I think it's tacky to do it elsewhere, as I'd more or less be shitting on other people I think are awesome. Please be clear this abt my own emotional state and has nothing to do w/ anybody else, esp. awesome selecting editors who decision-making processes I do not envy one iota.
All that said... I am excited to see some of the great stuff that was chosen, and especially happy to see recognition for strong younger publications like Everyday Genius, Necessary Fiction, Wigleaf, all of whose support I've seriously valued.
All that said... I am excited to see some of the great stuff that was chosen, and especially happy to see recognition for strong younger publications like Everyday Genius, Necessary Fiction, Wigleaf, all of whose support I've seriously valued.
***
One more bit of news. My chapbook "Evan's House and the Other Boys who Live There," a finalist in both Pank's first chapbook contest and Rose Metal Press's chapbook contest, will be published in Spring 2011 by Rose Metal as one-fifth of a multi-author volume. This volume will feature fellow finalists Mary Miller, Elizabeth Colen and John Jodzio, as well as a reprint of Sean Lovelace's fantastic "How Some People Like Their Eggs."
I got the go-ahead to tell people abt this early last week, but have been very hesitant to do so... in part because several of this year's semi-finalists were good friends and/or friendly acquaintances of mine, which made me feel a little uncomfortable, and in part because to my knowledge, none of the other folks have mentioned it publicly yet, and I felt weird about being the first.
But mostly because I couldn't think of any good reason to announce it. There's no preorder link, nothing to help promote yet, so it feels like announcing it serves little function beyond attracting attention.
Am I announcing it now because this week has felt a little shittier than last week? Yeah, that's maybe one reason. I am perhaps not as grown-up as I'd like to think. But still pretty mature. Hopefully.
I am excited and humbled by the book, and especially by the opportunity to appear alongside Mary and Sean, who are two of my favorites, and to discover Elizabeth and John, who are new to me.
I got the go-ahead to tell people abt this early last week, but have been very hesitant to do so... in part because several of this year's semi-finalists were good friends and/or friendly acquaintances of mine, which made me feel a little uncomfortable, and in part because to my knowledge, none of the other folks have mentioned it publicly yet, and I felt weird about being the first.
But mostly because I couldn't think of any good reason to announce it. There's no preorder link, nothing to help promote yet, so it feels like announcing it serves little function beyond attracting attention.
Am I announcing it now because this week has felt a little shittier than last week? Yeah, that's maybe one reason. I am perhaps not as grown-up as I'd like to think. But still pretty mature. Hopefully.
I am excited and humbled by the book, and especially by the opportunity to appear alongside Mary and Sean, who are two of my favorites, and to discover Elizabeth and John, who are new to me.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
I dug up my old undergraduate art history paper...
...because I wanted to refer to some of its ideas in a Big Other post...
...and discovered the paper was totally hilarious! ...Some of its sentences are just godawful:
"The artificial light casts a spooky glow over the proceedings, calling forth drunken disorientation in its depressing manifestations."
Goddamn those depressing manifestations!
"Thus, it is simultaneously nostalgic and critical, representing a time that had already begun to fade into the temporal ether."
Gotta watch that temporal ether!
"Regardless of Lautrec’s own orientation toward the female performers of Montmartre, it is clear that multiple and uniquely modern discourses of class, sexuality and celebrity coalesced within these women’s bodies."
Coalesced WITHIN their bodies? Sounds kinky.
"Would that these women could emerge from Lautrec’s canvas to claim agency and tell their own stories of choices made within their alternately constricting and liberating circumstances during an era of social change."
So long as they remember to make choices in passive voice, they will certainly claim agency.
"I imagine May Milton, now reattached to the canvas from which she was once excised, gazing out at contemporary spectators and brazenly declaring, “Gotcha!”"
Lol 4 realz.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
SINCE LAST WE MET
Since last we met:
~My story Brendan Kills appeared in decomp.
~Video of friend of the blog Meg Pokrass reading her (pushcart-nominated) story "What the Doctor Ordered" posted to Monkeybicycle's website. Search her on youtube -- there's lots more where this came from.
~I became a contibutor at "Big Other" and made my first post -- "Why I Dig Dennis Cooper."
~A small piece of mine (also about dennis cooper) appeared in local activist paper AREA Chicago in a collective article on peripheral feminisms.
~FRiGG editor Ellen Parker asked for help pimping the "Write Like Joseph Young" contest, and I do whatever Ellen tells me.
~I went to London, Paris and the Netherlands (Rotterdam, Delft, den Haag, Deventer, Amersfoort, Amsterdam). It was glorious.
~I confirmed I will appear in December's Orange Alert Readings series on December 20. Warning: I might wear makeup.
....and speaking of makeup...
...I have lately been attracted to surfaces. I mean material, surface-level stuff, seemingly "shallow' stuff... like eye makeup, glittery things, spiky pendants, Adam Lambert, Lady Gaga, vinyl couture... am I getting gayer? Maybe?
I spent several weeks obsessively reading about the "club kids" era in NYC, the outlandishly-dressed social circle that revolved around convicted murderer/party promoter Michael Alig, protag of the film Party Monster (and focal point of former "celubutante" James St. James's memoir "Disco Bloodbath.") I'm still not sure what fascinates me about them... the club kids were wildly transgressive but not at all revolutionary. They upset all sorts of conventions re: heteronormativity especially, but the were utterly amoral and had no aim or goal or mission beyond chaotic parties. Moreover, they were completely narcissistic, materialistic, hedonistic... all lookatmelookatmelookatme. Haven't we seen this all before? What about this is fresh or new or intriguing? Why did I spend weeks unable to turn away?
Yet... one gets a sense... or at least I get a sense of chaotic community reading abt and looking at them, and of a sort-of anarchic personal freedom that has maybe always attracted me even as the social movement communities I align myself with are far more oriented toward some more visionary collective liberation.
Many Queer folks have, I think, historically and currently, rejected the distinction between productive and unproductive labor and between surface aesthetics and "deeper meaning" ... I think as some theorists understand this: Because we do not (necessarily) reproduce, we are situated outside and/or have some alternative relationship to heteronormative and capitalist modes of production. We are seen as unproductive, and so many of our "shallow" rituals -- ie urban nightlife -- are politicized by some theorists and critics, are seen as a celebratory embrace of outsider status and a challenge posed to capitalist heteronormativity (of course there's all manner of capitalist and heteronormative ugliness in GLBT and queer nightlife, especially its current manifestation, but that is not really the focus of this post).
I am not really taking the time here to be coherent or accessible or explain whatthefuck I'm talking about... but hopefully it makes some kind of cracked sense.
What I know is... I have developed a newfound fascination with "glamour," particularly outlandish and sometimes grotesque or even cartoonish manifestations of glamour and its images and sensations. And also, I do not necessarily buy into the notion that material interests and an interest in surfaces lacks depth, meaning, value, whatever. I think I will continue (begin) to explore this through language? I think it is taking me somewhere I do not understand.
~My story Brendan Kills appeared in decomp.
~Video of friend of the blog Meg Pokrass reading her (pushcart-nominated) story "What the Doctor Ordered" posted to Monkeybicycle's website. Search her on youtube -- there's lots more where this came from.
~I became a contibutor at "Big Other" and made my first post -- "Why I Dig Dennis Cooper."
~A small piece of mine (also about dennis cooper) appeared in local activist paper AREA Chicago in a collective article on peripheral feminisms.
~FRiGG editor Ellen Parker asked for help pimping the "Write Like Joseph Young" contest, and I do whatever Ellen tells me.
~I went to London, Paris and the Netherlands (Rotterdam, Delft, den Haag, Deventer, Amersfoort, Amsterdam). It was glorious.
~I confirmed I will appear in December's Orange Alert Readings series on December 20. Warning: I might wear makeup.
....and speaking of makeup...
...I have lately been attracted to surfaces. I mean material, surface-level stuff, seemingly "shallow' stuff... like eye makeup, glittery things, spiky pendants, Adam Lambert, Lady Gaga, vinyl couture... am I getting gayer? Maybe?
I spent several weeks obsessively reading about the "club kids" era in NYC, the outlandishly-dressed social circle that revolved around convicted murderer/party promoter Michael Alig, protag of the film Party Monster (and focal point of former "celubutante" James St. James's memoir "Disco Bloodbath.") I'm still not sure what fascinates me about them... the club kids were wildly transgressive but not at all revolutionary. They upset all sorts of conventions re: heteronormativity especially, but the were utterly amoral and had no aim or goal or mission beyond chaotic parties. Moreover, they were completely narcissistic, materialistic, hedonistic... all lookatmelookatmelookatme. Haven't we seen this all before? What about this is fresh or new or intriguing? Why did I spend weeks unable to turn away?
Yet... one gets a sense... or at least I get a sense of chaotic community reading abt and looking at them, and of a sort-of anarchic personal freedom that has maybe always attracted me even as the social movement communities I align myself with are far more oriented toward some more visionary collective liberation.
Many Queer folks have, I think, historically and currently, rejected the distinction between productive and unproductive labor and between surface aesthetics and "deeper meaning" ... I think as some theorists understand this: Because we do not (necessarily) reproduce, we are situated outside and/or have some alternative relationship to heteronormative and capitalist modes of production. We are seen as unproductive, and so many of our "shallow" rituals -- ie urban nightlife -- are politicized by some theorists and critics, are seen as a celebratory embrace of outsider status and a challenge posed to capitalist heteronormativity (of course there's all manner of capitalist and heteronormative ugliness in GLBT and queer nightlife, especially its current manifestation, but that is not really the focus of this post).
I am not really taking the time here to be coherent or accessible or explain whatthefuck I'm talking about... but hopefully it makes some kind of cracked sense.
What I know is... I have developed a newfound fascination with "glamour," particularly outlandish and sometimes grotesque or even cartoonish manifestations of glamour and its images and sensations. And also, I do not necessarily buy into the notion that material interests and an interest in surfaces lacks depth, meaning, value, whatever. I think I will continue (begin) to explore this through language? I think it is taking me somewhere I do not understand.
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