The Magnetic Fields

WITH WHOM TO DANCE

 

 

I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY BOYFRIEND

 

(the only girl i ever loved) ANDREW IN DRAG

Stephin Merritt.  Bestie of Leminy Snicket.  Gay white musician.  Hearing disability. Dryest/saddest dude in alternative music.  Made an awesome album called 69 love songs (part of the ongoing musical project/band The Magnetic Fields) which was released in 1999 and has some of my favorite songs ever on it!!! ("the cactus where your heart should be", "no one will ever love you", "how fucking romantic", "the book of love ('is long and boring' ahahhaha)", "I shatter", "i don't believe in the sun ('how could it shine down on everyone, and never shine on me')" ahahahahah I LOVE HIM SO MUCH OMGGG

 From wikipedia:

The album was originally conceived as a music revue. Stephin Merritt was sitting in a gay piano bar in Manhattan, listening to the pianist's interpretations of Stephen Sondheim songs, when he decided he ought to get into theatre music because he felt he had an aptitude for it. "I decided I'd write one hundred love songs as a way of introducing myself to the world. Then I realized how long that would be. So I settled on sixty-nine. I'd have a theatrical revue with four drag queens. And whoever the audience liked best at the end of the night would get paid."^[11]

On seven occasions (five in the United States and two in London over four consecutive nights) The Magnetic Fields performed all 69 love songs, in order, over two nights. Several of the lavish orchestrations are more simply arranged when performed live, due to limited performers and/or equipment. 

Merritt has said "69 Love Songs is not remotely an album about love. It's an album about love songs, which are very far away from anything to do with love".^[12]

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/69_Love_Songs)

Lee Edelman WOULD LOVE HIM.

 "i made my yard a playground just in case we had a baby.  now i'm CRAZY FOR YOU BUT NOT THAT CRAZY"

side note: his lyrics remind me of these Kanye West lines from Devil in a New Dress (off of My Dark Beautiful Twisted Fantasy):

"I hit the Jamaican spot, at the bar, took a seat

I ordered the jerk, she said, “You are what you eat”

You see, I always loved the sense of humor

But tonight, you shoulda seen how quiet the room was

The Lyor Cohen of Dior Homme

That's "Dior Homme", not "Dior, homie"

The crib’s Scarface, could it be more tony?

You love me for me, could you me more phony?"

 

YOU CALLED ME MAD, (and i am mad)

AS A HATTER,

SOME FALL IN LOVE, (some fall in love)

I SHATTER.

-steve merritt

What we aim to do

(A reference to hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com Check it out, it's hilarious.)

Chang's Army

The Knife - Pass This On

I'M IN LOVE WITH YOUR BROTHER....
I THOUGHT I'D COME BY....

ok i haven't totally decided on my final project, but i am extremely inclined to write from the prompt:

Judith Butler is in a play...




;)

ART THOUGHTZ

I've been thinking about my Utopian Longing project and how many pages I have already written this semester and how I really just want to make an art.  So I turned to Hennessy Youngman to tell me how to become a famous artist just like him.

101: How to make an Art.

201: Performance Art

400: Relational Aesthetics 

The Plight of Transnational Women and How You Can Help Them

This interview with Leilani Montes, "a transnational mujer who celebrates and weaves the roles of organizer and advocate across her professional, activist and personal life" on  ColorLines caught my attention.

"Where are people looking for inspiration?

But there’s a lot of inspiration to be drawn from the idea of pa’lante siempre (always charging forward). First generation immigrants come here, and they have all the hope in the world for their kids. The inspiration for a lot of older people are the DREAM activists, they’re so inspired by this youth-led movement, what an act of resistance. That is a clear example of where the transnational story will continue."

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/the_plight_of_transnational_women_and_how_you_can_help_them.html

Gay married man who's undocumented immigrant fights deportation in California

Here is a interview with the couple I spoke about today.


A federal immigration court judge in San Francisco put a deportation proceeding on hold Friday for a gay California man who is an undocumented immigrant and married to a man who is a U.S. citizen, the couple's attorney said.  Alfonso Garcia, 35, who came to the United States as a boy with his parents, and his husband, Brian Willingham, 37, are petitioning the federal immigration service for legal residency based on their marriage, said attorney Lavi Soloway.  The judge put Garcia's deportation proceeding on hold while Garcia's legal residency, or green card, application is being processed, Soloway said.

from CNN

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

transformation

Well, looks like Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune have finished reading Les Guerilleres and have been transformed....

and joined by another... Sailor Pluto...

a big take away you should get is that butches wear lip gloss too.  and also that cosmic militant feminists are hottttt.

;)

black feminism, abolitionism and the state

Can Black Feminism Be (Quantified): A State/ment

READ IT! YOU WILL LOVE IT!

Poet Alexis Gumbs draws on Ruthie Gilmore's insistence that we commit to imagining an abolitionist state. A really lovely statement, part 1 of 4 that will build on the readings you did for Monday (no thanks to you, snow storm)--also in prep for a rescheduled Skype with Ruthie.

Stay tuned for linking these ideas to Cathy Cohen's work on Monday 3/26!

re: masculinity and faggotry

kelsey's post made me think of this new book by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (also co-founder of Gay Shame, which makes an appearance on the cover of your course readers). cover here,

link to the blog here.

SINTHOMOSEXUALS 4 NOT CLICKING

who says online activism isn't real

The babies of the future are watching you...

PANOPTICHILDREN

Lee Edelman is so over reproductive futurism.

you guys I found a picture of Lee Edelman

heh... gives 'queering utopia' a whole new meaning doesn't it?

New Masculinity

Recently I've been really invested in searching for, cultivating, & attempting to embody feminist models of masculinity. I've also been dwelling on the question that has come up a lot in class -- the oh-so-slippery 'how can we hold on to a precious, important identity category when we are also seeking to deconstruct it?'


There are some days where I decide it's probably best to just destroy the concept of masculinity altogether haha....  But as a trans person, masculinity is something I long for, and there are also days when I think there may be hope for it. And I'm not ready give up on that project yet.


Anyway I really dug Gloria Anzaldua's call for a new masculinity, but also recognize that she was speaking about/to men of color in her essay... As a white transmasculine person, the masculinity I do/will move into is linked to intensely fucked up histories of oppression and violence. So for me, stepping into that role also comes with a huge responsibility to be accountable to that history. I'm still figuring out what this means, and it's honestly kind of terrifying, but I'm planning on focusing my utopian vision project on this dilemma so look forward to that!  ;)


That aside, I have found some folks who are creating and living new masculinities, Gloria Anzaldua style... Yosimar Reyes is definitely one of them!
Reyes (20 y.o. queer immigrant poet/activist) edited a poetry collection called "For Colored Boys Who Speak Softly," which he described as an attempt to follow in the footsteps of lesbian womyn of colors' anthologies... he said that it's also important to make space for gay mens' specific struggles. A big theme in his work is decolonization and affirming that brown boys loving one another is resistant within a culture that expects them to destroy each other... this reminded me a lot of what Gloria Anzaldua was pointing towards when she described her vision of new masculinity. 


Here's some more work by him series called 'Five Tips for Queer Boys.' The words are by Yosimar, art is by Julio Salgado.

queer conversations

Okay I couldn't figure out how to embed these videos uhhh but the first link is an episode of this new series called 'Queer Conversations with Yosimar Reyes' where he interviews queer POC living in san jose & the bay area -- this one features an artist who focuses his work on documenting young queer immigrants leading local "undocumented and unafraid" protests:

http://vimeo.com/38472348

and this one is a spoken word poem celebrating brown queer boys' resilience & clubbing fearlessly... haha...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s57naUY463c

¡Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba

At minute mark (18:51) Yale University anthropologist Jafari Sinclaire Allen joins Mark Anthony Neal.  Neal talks with Allen about his new book ¡Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba (Duke University Press).  Neal and Allen also discuss the political and cultural significance of Cuba to Blacks in the United States and the power of the Erotic, per the work of the late Audre Lorde.

The whole episode is good!  The first half is with actress and playwright Chaunesti Webb, creator and director of the new play I Love My Hair When It’s Good: & Then Again When It Looks Defiant and Impressive.

http://leftofblack.tumblr.com/ 

Pussy Riot

"Odds are you've heard of Pussy Riot. They're an anonymous feminist punk band with openly anti-Putin lyrics who refuse to play in normal venues and seek to bring down the Russian government. They formed last September after Putin announced he'd stand again for the presidency in March 2012 – a scary prospect for many since poverty, terror attacks, corruption and the loss of civil rights have been the hallmarks of his reign at the Kremlin. "

"What's been your favourite gig? 
Garadzha: Aside from the Red Square, all of us are really fond of the act we did on the roof of one of the buildings of a Detention Center in Moscow, where people arrested after the December 5th post-election protests were held. The political detainees could see us from inside their prison cells and they chanted and cheered while we sang the "Death to Prisons – Freedom to Protest" song. Prison officers and staff were running around not knowing what to do – because they had no idea how to immediately take us off that roof. And they got so scared they immediately ordered a lockdown – they must've thought that a siege of the Detention Centre would come start after we finish singing. That was cool."

Read the interview here

(sailor neptune and sailor uranus)

John, I'm only dancing, she turns me on... don't get me wrong...

Well, Annie's pretty neat,
she always eats her meat
Joe is awful strong,
bet your life he's putting us on
Oh lordy, oh lordy,
you know I need some loving
I'm moving, touch me!

(CHORUS)
John, I'm only dancing
She turns me on,
but I'm only dancing
She turns me on,
don't get me wrong
I'm only dancing

Oh shadow love was quick and clean,
life's a well thumbed machine
I saw you watching from the stairs,
you're everyone that ever cared
Oh lordy, oh lordy,
you know I need some loving
I'm moving, touch me!

CHORUS (x2)
Dancing,
won't someone dance with me?
Touch me! Ohhh!

ssion - my love grows in the dark

fresh special delivery from zora tucker.

Paris is Burning

[90] Paris Is Burning [J] from japanesesuperhero on Vimeo.

Blood Memories: Utopian Longings of Decolonization

In an effort to maintain composure—to keep all my shit together—I choke down the lump in my throat. What might happen if I just slightly open my lips? That tightly wound ball of everything that I can’t say, everything that I don’t know how to say . . . might bubble up my throat, filling my mouth with thick foam. My cheeks would burn from the empty dryness of having so much to say, nothing to say, no way to say. 

I have recently become overwhelmed with a great feeling of loss, absence—a void—a void in my history, in my self. I have the sticky nostalgic residue of a past I have never known on my fingers.

The dark hills of my body have been invaded, mined.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of lush trees

Slashed, ripped up from my thick soil

Bloody roots, my roots, the roots of my people ripped up from my thick skin.

My skin is thick from hundreds of years of the hills of my body being invaded, exploited.

The roots of my trees, of my people, are severed and bloody.

Their blood, the blood of ma Grand-mere. 

 . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I dream of a big breasted brown mama holdingme.

I grasp her charcoal hair and bring it to my face. Her oils

seep into the pores of my lips and I smell

the orange peels on her sweet breath.

She rocks me, and I nestle into the rugged ravines of her arms.

She collects the waves of my bloody tears in her mouth as she thanks

God. Thank God

she has let me come home to her,

Her in me.

Her dark eyes tell me she is healing

me. She plants seeds in my soul to grow back

the lush trees that shade my heart.

And hers is pulsating with the blood of my children.

Violation, exploitation, rape.

I can hear the faint rattling of all our pain in the heaving of her chest.

And I feel our Struggle, our Survival, our Resistance

in all her veins.

I dream of a big breasted brown mama holdingme.

My body obeys the Kompa rhythms of her steady time—

she makes me move.

With her I can be soft, and tender, and strong, and speak in tongues.

Whispering tongues that crack the barriers of silence,

Whispering tongues that scream—

REMEMBER ME.

She brings me into her body’s warmth and I search

her familiar folds.

I make love to her with the coded memories on my skin.

We make love with the coded memories on our skin.

She collects the waves of my bloody tears in her mouth as she thanks

God.

She has let me come home to her,

Her in me.

ART THOUGHTZ: Post-Structuralism

Hennessy Youngman

2012 TED Prize Winner

http://www.tedprize.org/announcing-the-2012-ted-prize-winner/

For the first time in the history of the prize, it is being awarded not to an individual, but to an idea. It is an idea upon which our planet’s future depends.

The 2012 TED Prize is awarded to….the City 2.0.

The City 2.0 is the city of the future… a future in which more than ten billion people on planet Earth must somehow live sustainably.

The City 2.0 is not a sterile utopian dream, but a real-world upgrade tapping into humanity’s collective wisdom....  http://www.tedprize.org/announcing-the-2012-ted-prize-winner/

the video... http://thecity2.org/splash.php



and PS: Arizona's very own Kyrsten Sinema gave a TED talk this year!

Kyrsten Sinema, politician

“Politics are but don’t have to be rancorous,” says Kyrsten, a former Arizona state senator (about to run for Congress), human rights activist and LGBT political leader. “If we focus on relationships, find our shared values, we can win unlikely wins in unlikely places.” Kyrsten tells the story of how she defeated Senator Russell Pearce’s draconian anti-immigration bills by finding shared values with politicians and companies who would normally not be on her side. “We have to be willing to work with people different from ourselves in order to make politics work,” she says. “We must unite and conquer.”

http://blog.ted.com/2012/02/28/ted-fellows-talks-a-full-recap-of-mondays-sessions/