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Oh Grrrl! Why Are Faggots So Afraid Of Faggots?

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And so it begins! The forever notorious Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is about to wreak havoc upon conformity everywhere! I dare you to engage!

 

THE BIG BOOK LAUNCH
Valentine’s Day 2012 – Tuesday, February 14, 6 pm
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA
A delicious discussion with contributors Jaime Cortez, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Debanuj DasGupta, Booh Edouardo, Eric Stanley, Harris Kornstein, Gina de Vries, Horehound Stillpoint, Matthew D. Blanchard, and your lovely host Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

City Lights Bookstore
Wednesday, February 15, 7 pm
261 Columbus Ave. at Broadway
San Francisco, CA
(415) 362-8193
www.citylights.com
with contributors Debanuj DasGupta, Harris Kornstein, Booh Edouardo and Gina de Vries

GLBT History Museum
A Panel on the Past, Present and Future of Public Sex
Celebrating the release of Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?
Thursday, February 16, 7 pm
4127 18th St.
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 621-1107
www.glbthistory.org/museum/
with contributors Jaime Cortez, Debanuj DasGupta, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, and Horehound Stillpoint – hosted and facilitated by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
$5-10 requested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds

Pegasus Books Downtown
Monday, February 20, 7:30 pm
2349 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704-1552
(510) 649-1320
www.pegasusbookstore.com
with Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Horehound Stillpoint, Matthew D. Blanchard, and Jaime Cortez

Sonoma State University
Stevenson 1002
Thursday, February 23, Noon
Rohnert Park, CA

RADAR Book Club featuring Mx Justin Vivian Bond & Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Hosted by Michelle Tea
Saturday, February 25
Viracocha
998 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
$15, Doors 2:30/ Show at 3
Limited seating. Advance tickets available
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/220670
Books available for sale courtesy of Modern Times

University of Oregon (tentative)
Thursday, March 1
Eugene, OR

Powell’s on Hawthorne
Monday, March 5, 7:30 pm
3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 228-4651
with Ezra RedEagle Whitman and River Willow Fagan
www.powells.com

Olympia Timberland Library
Wednesday, March 7, 7:30 pm
313 8th Ave SE
Olympia, WA 98501
(360) 352-0595

Evergreen State College (tentative)
Thursday, March 8
Olympia, WA

Little Sisters
Wednesday, March 14, 7pm
1238 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC
(604) 669-1753
www.littlesisters.ca

Elliott Bay Book Company
Tuesday, March 20, 7 pm
1521 Tenth Avenue
Seattle WA 98122
(206) 624-6600
www.elliottbaybay.com
with Booh Edouardo

University of Washington
Monday, March 26, 6 pm
Allen Auditorium, North Allen Library
Seattle, WA

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?:
Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform
Edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
(AK Press, February 2012)

“These essays, alternately moving and sprightly, contemplative and outraged—display the power of presenting an alternative to the mainstream: a world of greater tolerance, acceptance, support, and creativity.”
—Publishers Weekly

You may have thought you understood human nature before you read this book; after reading it you will be humbled by all you failed to grasp until now.
—Edmund White, author of A Boy’s Own Story

Gay culture has become the ultimate nightmare of consumerism, whether it’s an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out,” what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?

These essays come like a plunge into a forest pool of revitalizing joy, honesty, and common sense. Read them. Now. No—not tomorrow. Now!”
—Samuel R. Delany, author of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots challenges not just the violence of straight homophobia but the hypocrisy of mainstream gay norms that say the only way to stay safe is to act straight: get married, join the military, adopt kids! This anthology reinvokes the anger, flamboyance, and subversion once thriving in gay subcultures in order to create something dangerous and lovely: an exploration of the perils of assimilation; a call for accountability; a vision for change.

This book plumbs the most important question facing queers in the 21st century: how the hell did we go from forming a crucial part of the ’60s “lib” rainbow, and from mastering, refining, and successfully deploying nonviolent resistance with ACT UP, only to end up creating for ourselves a world of martial and marital law every bit as sterile, constricting, and amoral as the world we once fled like the plague?
—Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men

These essays excavate masculinity, unearthing the complex and pervasive structures that police and construct it and exposing the beautiful resilience of its self-avowed refusers and failures… providing complex and badly needed ways to imagine and reimagine faggotry.
—Dean Spade, author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law

Thanks, Mattilda, for the insights, intellectual rigor and the glittering ammunition with which to destroy and rebuild.
—Mx Justin Vivian Bond, singer, songwriter, and author of Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels

Described as “startlingly bold and provocative” by Howard Zinn and “a cross between Tinkerbell and a honky Malcolm X with a queer agenda” by the Austin Chronicle, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the author of two novels, most recently So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights 2008), and the editor of five nonfiction anthologies, including Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal 2007) and an expanded second edition of That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull 2008). Find out more at mattildabernsteinsycamore.com.

Dirty Looks Is Going on a West Coast Tour!!!

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Dirty Looks presents:
CHARLES ATLAS!
-filmmaker in attendance-
Wednesday, January 25, 8-10 PM
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
$7 Suggested Donation

Program
Son of Sam and Delilah, video, 27min., 1991
Butcher’s Vogue, video, 5min., 1990
Staten Island Sex Cult, video, 10 min. (excerpt), 1999
Instant Fame! Donald, video, 5min., 2005
Mrs. Peanut Visits New York, video, 6min., 1992-1999
The Draglinquents, video, 7min., 1990
I Fell In Love With A Dead Boy (from Turning), video, 4min., 2012
Dirty Looks, a monthly platform for queer experimental film and video, presents an evening of video work by Charles Atlas. With a career that spans 30-years, Atlas is one of the world’s most stalwart and vibrant videogrpahers of queer cultures and contemporary dance. This program will host a premiere of material from Turning, a feature-length collaboration between Atlas and Antony Hegarty, on the eve of the Museum of Modern Art commissioned Antony and the Johnsons’ Swanlights performance at Radio City Music Hall. Turning will receive its premiere in early 2012. Atlas will also be featured in the upcoming 2012 Whitney Biennial. With special performances from Leigh Bowery, Antony, and Carlos Morales (via Atlas’ rarely screened porn film, Staten Island Sex Cult), the works in this program cover more than twenty years of portraiture and collaboration at the vanguard of queer artistic practice.

“New York City 1988. Raging homophobia. A killer on the loose. Disco dancing till dawn. Performers struggle to survive. Delilah seduces Samson in song. Gender illusionists go shopping. Samson and Delilah, 1991.”

DIRTY LOOKS ROADSHOW

San Francisco//

//Thursday, Feb 9, 7PM Queer Conversations on Culture and the Arts @ CCA, 1111 8th Street, Timken Hall. Screening selections from the FEMALE TROUBLE program and a conversation with Margaret Tedesco. Free.

//Friday, Feb 10, 8PM City of Lost Souls a trans punk muscial by Rosa Von Praunheim @ Artists’ Television Access, 922 Valencia Street. $6

//Sunday, February 12, 2PM FEMALE TROUBLE, a Genderfuck Program @ YBCA 701 Mission Street (at 3rd), as part of the series Bros Before Hos: Masculinity and its Discontents, featuring film and video by Steven Arnold, Rick Castro, Vaginal Davis, Zackary Drucker, Matthias Müller, Narcissister, Patti Podesta and Conrad Ventur. $8

Los Angeles//

Tuesday, Feb 14, 7PM Dirty Looks: Long Distance Love Affairs @ The Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Featuring works by Cecilia Dougherty, Deanna Erdmann, Rhys Ernst, Glen Fogel, Mariah Garnett, Jonesy, Dani Leventhal, Charles Ludlam, Narcissister, Luther Price and Michael Robinson. Free admission, cash bar.

Thursday, Feb 16, 8PM FEMALE TROUBLE, a Genderfuck Program @ Human Resources 410 Cottage Home Street, featuring film and video by Steven Arnold, Rick Castro, Vaginal Davis, Zackary Drucker, Matthias Müller, Narcissister, Patti Podesta and Conrad Ventur. Rick Castro, Zackary Drucker and Narcissister in attendance! $8 suggested donation.

Portland//

//Thursday, February 23, 8PM FEMALE TROUBLE, a Genderfuck Program @ Grand Detour 640 SE Stark Street, featuring film and video by Steven Arnold, Rick Castro, Vaginal Davis, Zackary Drucker, Matthias Müller, Narcissister, Patti Podesta and Conrad Ventur. Sliding scale $3 – 6.

The Legend of Leigh Bowery (Film by Charles Atlas)

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Saturn Nights and Ugly Duckling Poetry

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This past month has brought New York City residents more snow and slushy days spent narrowly escaping mini curbside lakes than the past few years combined. Fortunately, one of my favorite Left Coast artists arrived to help me bare it! Sadly, she left Friday morning and I already miss you greatly Ariel Goldberg… but the night before she left she took me to one of my favorite places in town, St. Mark’s Church, to see her friend Jess Barbagallo‘s new play SATURN NIGHTS. Saturn Nights is running January 27, 28, 29, 30, 31; Feb 1, 3, 4, 5 (8pm curtain) and I firstly would like to say I suggest ya’ll go check it out. It’s super weird. I’m not sure how articulate a review I can offer, but I would suggest you see it!

Saturn Nights is a dark play both in the physical sense and content wise. I tried to take notes during it, but most of my notes ended up written word upon written word that created a great collage affect that maybe I’ll incorporate into one of my paintings but due to my lack of memory, makes for difficulty in reviewing. Let me see… The play used a lot of mixed media tactics to slowly unfold a mysterious story full of dark truths and characters that seemed very odd, mundane and alone in their peculiarities with desires as American as ketchup. The acting in the play is superb and the dialogue gives attention to the small details that playwrights often overlook, offering audiences the chance to open their vision to odd complexities they’d normally not recognize. Spiritual epiphanies occur. An omnipresent radio narrator with a smooth lustrous voice strings characters along and offers weird insights into the cult of spirituality and its crossing with the cult of personality. The family the play follows believes their “dead” father is meditating in the backyard near a hole that many characters often look into simply because it seems there is something beautiful in the whole worth looking at. Many joints are smoked. Incest again tries to snare a relative. Basically, if you believe paganism should triumph over all then yes, you should see Saturn Nights. I think I’m going to go see it one more time as well!

Directed by Meghan Finn

FEATURING:

Lucy Alibar, Emily Davis, Joseph Gregori, Nic Grelli, Laryssa Husiak, LaToya Lewis, Rachel Murdy, Kristen Sieh, Anna Foss Wilson & Greg Zucculo

Produced by Wayne Petro & the longest lunch

Set Design by Mary Chan

Sound Design by Chris Giarmo

Video Design by Jared Mezzocchi

Lighting Design by Paul Toben

Costume Design by Michael De Angelis

Friday my heart began aching for love so I headed to the Old Stone House – the oldest house in Brooklyn still standing – for a poetry reading put on by Ugly Duckling Presse. Cedar Sigo, Julian Brolaski, and Kate Colby were on the bill, all are Ugly Duckling Press authors, the latter two are newbies to the press. Cedar opened up the night, my favorite line being “I have ladies eyelashes/ my ears stick out/ but I am smart” and yeah Cedar is great. I’ve been a fan of his since I lived in the Bay Area, which I sadly said said goodbye to quite a while ago.

Julian Brolaski and Kate Colby followed Cedar’s lead. Both have recently been published by Ugly Duckling and the press showed its range by housing both readers in the same night. Julian was witty, funny and very young whereas Kate was more traditional and serious in tone. Throughout the night I kept reloading pages on my phone hoping a certain someone would respond to me. I hate the anxiety and inability of being able to focus when the need for response overtakes all others. With global instant communication bound to human fingers, it seems we will never get what we want when we feel we need it.

Thank god for artistic deviations from personal obsessions, without cheap escapes I’m pretty sure there would be many more bullets in heads.

Hey California: Light Asylum Tour Dates

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Hey y’all it’s been awhile since I’ve done anything on here… so considering I’ve moved to NYC and I’ve almost survived thee hottest summer of my adult l-if-e… it’s a bummer one of my favorite things in NYC all of a sudden shows up in California. I don’t like nostalgia but I’ve played thee Magnetic Fields one too many times this summer sitting next to my many fans getting high and wishing I’d just OD. So I don’t really know why I’m going public like this but I am in a weird psychic space right now and talking somewhat nonsensically seems thee best I can do. Anyway, the kids in Light Asylum are out to play and everyone in California should put on their party hats!!

Tour Dates:
August 19th The Eagle San Francisco
August 20th The MIME Los Angeles
August 21st El Cid Los Angeles
August 23rd Moustache Mondays Los Angeles
August 26th Brookdale Lounge Santa Cruz
August 27th East Nile Oakland
August 28th Milk Bar San Francisco

Oh and here’s a video of Bruno (of Light Asylum) performing with his friend ASHBY COLLINSON for Cable Access in Portland:

SXSW VOLUME TWO

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Co written and with pictures contributed by brokenbrooklyn

Frightened Rabbit – Frightened Rabbit play indie rock in an anthemic, theatrical style that sounds way too much like U2 to be taken seriously.  This is not to say that Frightened Rabbit plan to be the next U2.  They write songs that are far more earnest and believable then the aforementioned band and are often less bombastic in their production but even with these facts accounted for it’s hard not to roll your eyes when you see them play.  Power chords strummed as if they were holy law and expressions so serious that you would think we were watching a birth, Frightened Rabbit take themselves very seriously.  Every major montage ever known to man may come to mind, or you might just stand there striking poses and pretending to work out.  Whatever this music makes you do, it will not make you enjoy yourselves.  Unless you are in the same camp as the limousine riding band that passed us by on Friday night, in which case you love U2 and sing it loudly and unashamedly with the windows down as you drive around at night.  In this case we admire your honesty but are officially freaked out.

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SXSW VOLUME THREE

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Co written and with pictures contributed by brokenbrooklyn

Strangers Family Band – The Strangers Family Band do not use computers. They are not the next Animal Collective nor a band biting off their style.  This is more than we can say for a lot of other bands gracing the music scene this year.  Strangers Family Band resurrect 70s style rock and roll and put on a fun and engaging show.  Super psychedelic and full of expert musicianship these guys came as a breath of fresh air into a festival filled with computerized band mates.

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TAYISHA BUSAY about to drop new EP SHOCK-WOO!

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Recently I got word that TAYISHA BUSAY is releasing her new EP SHOCK-WOO! next month. You’ll be able to get it through iTunes. Anyway, for those of you that don’t know, TAYISHA BUSAY is an electronic dance band based in Brooklyn, NYC, they’ve been know to roll around in piles of glitter, cuddle their keyboards, and grind up on their synthesizers while performing onstage. I’ve seen them a few times and witnessed such luscious behavior.

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Light Asylum Comes to Los Angeles

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I’m really excited to see Light Asylum play this weekend in Los Angeles. We’ve chatted about them here before… and recently they made one of the Top 40 Bands of Brooklyn List. They’re playing at Show Cave. My life has been really up in the air lately and I’m not sure how I’m going to get there though, so if you wanna car pool let me know!!

Also recently Bruno from Light Asylum posted an MP3 of a live Light Asylum song at Butt Magazine which you can find at the bottom of this post.. Anyway, I have two weeks left in the Los Angeles area.. hopefully I will see you at the show..

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Official Soft Spot video and first cross country tour announcements!

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I first blogged about Soft Spot right at the beginning of their incarnation as a two piece.  At that point in time they were still Sarah Kinlaw accompanied by Bryan Keller.  That’s not the case anymore.

Soft Spot has emerged from those early stages is a fully formed band, with Bryan and Sarah equally involved in the creative process, a richer and more encompassing sound. An energy has also evolved that is constantly brewing and yet continually exuberant at the same time.  With their debut album being self released in a few days and a tour of the Eastern United States almost upon them it is time for your attention.

They have also just released their first video to the song “Half a House” one of the highlights of their new album. It was directed Ryan Dickie with art direction by Molly Gottschalk.


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Todd P announces MtyMx, a three day music and arts festival in Monterrey Mexico with Dan Deacon, Andrew W.K. and 76ish others!

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For those of you who don’t read Pitchforkmedia religiously and for those of you who don’t go to see bands play in New York City on a regular basis the name Todd P may mean very little to you.  Todd P is essentially the premiere DIY music event organizer in New York City and one of the bigger events coordinates of his kind in the country.  Though he’s done great things for the music community of New York City and has gone out of his way to get all ages of folks into his shows, some people find it hard to forgive his love/hate taste for bands, a trait that elevates some okay (or not so okay) bands to godly indie heights and neglects other great music artists entirely.

While I am sometimes hit and miss with Todd P’s choices of indie music champions, I can’t get angry at someone for promoting what they like and not promoting what they don’t, even if we differ in opinion. It is hard for me to get my panties in a twist over someone who has put on some of the better music shows I’ve seen since moving to New York and I have more than a handful of memories I’m happy to have that I wouldn’t, were it not for Todd P.  His blog is consistently updated and friendly in it’s anonymous layout and he continues to find unique and interesting, if sometimes unnecessarily half hazard spaces to put on live performances, adding a level of uniqueness to what could otherwise be just another indie show. His constant commitment to making live music a special event is perhaps my favorite thing about the way Todd P works and it is also why I look forward to the event he just announced so eagerly.

For the past four years Todd has put on free showcases in Austin during the week of SXSW as a free all ages alternative to the hopelessly expensive and sprawling official festivities, often offering some of the best up and coming bands to be playing the festival officially.  This year, he has announced something different, a split from Austin and it’s impersonal feeling festivities and an establishment of a three day festival of his own planning called MtyMx. It’s taking place south of the Texas border in Monterrey Mexico.  It’s three days long, at an abandoned drive in movie theater, it only costs 30 dollars, almost 80 bands are playing and most of us will be sleeping in tents and having dirty hipster sex for seventy two hours straight.  If this doesn’t sound like a good time to you, you most likely shouldn’t be reading this blog.

The line up so far is reproduced here after the jump

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