Queer

TALES OF THE CITY (1978-)

January 27, 2025

Armistead Maupin’s series TALES OF THE CITY — which started off as a series of reads in the -San Francisco Chronicle- — is an array of a queer found family to be jealous of. The first collection, aptly named TALES OF THE CITY, follows the antics of naive, very straight 25-year-old midwesterner Mary Ann as she moves to San Francisco.

Mary Ann takes up residence at 28 Barbary Lane, a quaint apartment building overseen by kindly weed-aficionado Anna Madrigal. Living under Ms. Madrigal’s roof is Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, a gay man with commitment issues, free spirit Mona Ramsey, and others who help to weave Mary Ann into the fabric of San Francisco.

As you might have surmised from the title and significant cast of characters, TALES OF THE CITY is extremely Dickensian, even down to adopting some of Dickens’ predilection for the outrageous. Maupin doesn’t go as far as incorporating spontaneous human combustion into the works, but the residents of 28 Barbary Lane often do find themselves in outlandish melodramas fit for a soap opera. (It’s telling that the extreme primetime TV soap MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN is mentioned in the first fifteen pages.)

Yes, the sensational and lurid elements of TALES OF THE CITY are effectively titillating and propulsive, it’s the sense of time, place, and relationships that hooked me: Mary Ann grows more and more comfortable with counter-culture — queer or otherwise —; Mouse’s mood shifts as he longs for a substantial and fulfilling relationship, but instead fills his days with club nights and numerous hook-ups; Ms. Madrigal’s back-story and how she juggles it as well as the needs of all around her. They’re all heartfelt tales, all deeply rooted in San Francisco at the times Maupin was penning the installments for the paper: mid-70s for TALES OF THE CITY, late 70s for MORE TALES OF THE CITY, and early 80s for FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY.

As the TALES OF THE CITY books are being published to this day — although only the first five were previously published in weekly newspaper installments — it remains a fascinating document of cultural shifts, generational schisms, mores, moods, urban changes, and perceptions of societal, sexual, and gender norms. Not to mention reading about the San Francisco imagines it to be — artsy, extremely left, very weird — instead of the dudetechbro nightmare it’s become.

An aside: I’ve only read TALES OF THE CITY, MORE TALES OF THE CITY and FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY. It’s one of those series that I’m trying to slowly dole out, as its emphasis on ever-shifting culture. However, you can certainly feel the specter of AIDS looming over FURTHER TALES, ensuring that I need to emotionally gird myself for BABYCAKES, the fourth volume.

The series was wildly popular for years, was turned into a TV adaptation in the 90s which was resurrected by Netflix for a mini-series, and is one of BBC’s Top 100 Most Inspiring Novels.

However, like how MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN burned so bright in the mid 70s and is almost entirely forgotten today, it wasn’t until recently that I discovered the series. I’m certain that’s partially because some the situations and perspective and language is dated, but that’s a feature — not a bug. As we as society are rather cyclical, it’d be wise to not let the series collect cultural dust.

Lastly? Now more than ever, we need to hear liberating and enlightening and life-saving finding your own family can be, that you can find safety and security and form lifelong bonds with others.

28 Barbary Lane is fictional, but 28 Barbary Lanes exist all over. I’m currently living in my own 28 Barbary Lane, in a queer and weird slice of Chicago that I wouldn’t trade for the world. If you still haven’t found your 28 Barbary Lane, well, let Armistead Maupin pen you a map.

THE GIRLS IN 3-B (1959)

December 6, 2024

CONTENT WARNING

This post contains mentions of sexual abuse.

Valerie Taylor’s THE GIRLS IN 3-B can be summed up as ‘a 50s Chicago lesbian pulp novel’ but it’s more than that. Its focus is on three young women — Annice, Annice’s best friend Pat, and Barby — who are leaving high school and their small Iowa town to venture to Chicago seeking employment and romance; to make their own way in the urban world.

What they want is different for each, and what they do find is not exactly what they want.

Annice is a restless college poet with a part-time job looking for interesting, off-beat intellectuals, while Barby and Pat are seeking gainful employment while enjoying life in the big city.

The three of them settle together in an apartment, a place in the slums one that Barby discovered, one that she ineffectively tried to talk the others out of renting.

As the pages progress, we read about how the women are changed by their independence, altered by the urban environment, thrust into financial worry and navigating rocky interpersonal waters.

With these new responsibilities and encounters, the girls in 3-B quickly become estranged, rarely knowing where the others are, or why they’re doing whatever they’re doing. It’s a familiar story, although somewhat rare that the detachment occurs when all are under the same roof.

Part of the issue is that all three have secrets: Annice rarely attends classes or work so she can fuck around with her pretentious dirtbag asshole of a don’t-call-me-a-boyfriend-boyfriend. Pat has a severe crush on her engaged boss and has given up her brusque tomboy style and demeanor in favor of severe diets and costly fashions. And Barby?

After having been molested as a youth by the town bank’s vice-president, Barby’s now being sexually abused by the building’s caretaker. When she finally extricates herself from that, one of her older, refined coworkers — Ilene Gordon, whom other shopgirls whisper about — takes Barby to a lavish lunch, away from prying eyes. Barby is enamored and, later in the day, finds that Ilene has tucked a copy of Radclyffe Hall’s classic lesbian novel THE WELL OF LONELINESS away for her.

Matters escalate in well-worn ways. Annice gets in trouble. Pat struggles with desire and choices. And Barby? Barby finds a new world with Ilene.

“Yes,” Ilene Gordon said, “that’s the hardest part of growing up, waiting for someone else to show you your own possibilities. So often the right person doesn’t come along.”

If you’ve read the above and thought, ‘Oh, great, Barby has to deal with yet another predator’. Or you read Barby’s history of sexual abuse — which are even worse than I’ve detailed — then you as THE GIRLS IN 3-B leaning on the ‘sexual abuse made her gay’ trope. That wouldn’t be unusual. A lot of lesbian pulp works of the time routinely adhered to a Hayes Code-ish sort of unspoken regulations which punished ‘aberrant’ behavior, which meant turning an instigating person into a villain or monster and by the end of the work, the protagonist would be back in a heteronormative relationship.

That’s not the case with THE GIRLS IN 3-B. What you fear for Barby, how her queerness might be treated, how she might be taken advantage, how things might fall apart, how we as readers may have to endure a disingenuous ending to her tale, does not occur. Barby finds safety, even though their relationship means hiding their true nature.

THE GIRLS IN 3-B, while its main appeal is with the urban lesbian courtship, doesn’t skimp on Annice or Pat’s story. Annice is arguably the leading character — the novel opens with Annice, and Annice’s interests as a writer and intellectual and unconventional endeavors and experiences round her character out more than Pat. However, all three have engrossing arcs, ones that see them begin to find their footing in the world as young adults, no longer girls.

It’s an evergreen tale. The three of them naively navigate the world and encounter many of the same trials, tribulations, and pitfalls anyone would today. Apart from a handful of terms here and there, some of which have not aged well at all, it’s a story that could have been penned and embraced by youths today.

If, like myself, you pick up the The Feminist Press’ Femmes Fatale edition of THE GIRLS IN 3-B, make sure to read Lisa Walker’s afterword. Walker details the fascinating life of Valerie Taylor, as well as provides a crash course in the history lesbian pulp fiction, and the unfortunate state of its preservation. It’s vastly informative and instructive on what to seek out next, and what to hope might be resurrected in the reverent way The Feminist Press have with THE GIRLS IN 3-B.

DC PRIDE 2024 #1 (2024)

June 26, 2024

Author’s Note

A brief note: DC PRIDE 2024 takes place in the contemporary DC universe, the details and machinations of which I am largely unaware, so my apologies if some of the specifics below are incorrect!

DC has been releasing their DC PRIDE queer anthologies since 2001, predominantly to celebrate Pride month but also to extoll the efforts of comic book creatives to broaden the spectrum of those behind the masks, to help inspire and comfort all, especially teens.

The latest iteration of these — DC PRIDE 2024 — features the gamut of familiar young queer tales: portrayals of seeking comfortable spaces, finding belonging, having altruistic mentors or guides, celebrations of ‘ordinary day in a queer superhuman’s life’, facing persecution from bigots and homophobic and religious zealots and so on.

A few examples:

Gretchen Felker-Martin’s words and Claire Roe’s angular pens detail coupled-up Poison Ivy and Janet from HR navigate a planetary package pick-up that goes sideways when they encounter universe-hopping fundamentalist hate mongers!

Steel awkwardly attends her ex — Traci 13 — Pride party! Writer Jamila Rowser and artist Oneill Jones drag John Constantine into the drama!

Jarrett Williams and DJ Kirkland give a glimpse into an afternoon with Jon Kent (the new Superman), Ray (the new Ray)and friends as they roam around A-Town! (I can’t help but think of my Chicago current neighborhood Andersonville, affectionally called Aville.)

And others that are also noteworthy — including Al Ewing scripting some combative fun and downtime relaxing for Starman — but you can discover them for yourself.

There’s little something for everyone, all energetically and vibrantly told via DC characters young and old. I especially enjoyed how each pin-up is spaced through the anthology to sequentially comprise the colors of Pride flag. It’s a great book to hand to any teens that may appreciate some solace that, while sometimes couched in fantasy, is still grounded.

(I will note that, if you aren’t up-to-date with some of the more modern characters, you may find yourself somewhat lost due to the number of new-to-you heroes as often there aren’t enough pages to catch you up, but just roll with it!)

However, if you’re older and have encountered many of these narratives before, they can begin to feel a bit well-worn. While I certainly appreciate these endeavors, enthrall in the imagination and deft artwork and writerly craft, and am thankful that others will find comfort in them, it’s the reflective stories that resonate with me more, and why Phil Jimenez’s auto-biographical contribution SPACES particularly struck me.

If you aren’t familiar with Phil Jimenez’s work, he’s a long-time DC artist and writer and a comic book fan even longer. He even came out publicly for the first time via his mini-series TEMPEST.

SPACES features Jimenez recounting his youth, young him all full of imagination and yearning for idyllic and fantastical islands that were bewildering but comforting. It was Paradise Island, full of characters from WONDER WOMAN including an absolutely wild Hippolyta, but also detached from the isle of Themyscrira. It was a place of joy and weirdness, where Amazon women rode huge rabbits and everything and everyone was unbridled. (Well, except for the rabbits.)

In time, Jimenez finds himself drawing WONDER WOMAN, then penning her and drawing Themyscrira and he gets to revel in the spaces and utopian ideals that inspired him so. As time goes on, the utopias shift and change, and he changes with them in the ways that life shapes us all, how the spaces are pieced together shift, and how you look at them and live within them changes over time.

All of the above? Conveyed in under ten pages.

It’s also worth noting that alongside DC PRIDE 2024, DC has released another Pride anthology, one extolling much-missed Rachel Pollack and her contributions to the DC universe. The anthology — DC PRIDE: A CELEBRATION OF RACHEL POLLACK — includes a story from her DOOM PATROL run, as well as THE GEEK one-shot she did with Mike Allred, all in one convenient place!

DC PRIDE 2024 #1 is available via your local comic book store or can be digitally purchased through all of the normal online storefronts.

If you want to read more? The prior DC PRIDE anthologies are available through DC’s website with a free DC Universe account!

DC PRIDE 2021

DC PRIDE 2022

DC PRIDE 2023

Addendum

I will admit that, given that I bought the Babs Tarr variant cover of DC PRIDE 2024 featuring Harley and Ivy glowing in each others arms, I was really looking forward to a somewhat older Harlivy ‘be gay do crimes’ lark. While we do get a Harley and Ivy tale, it’s a preview of the upcoming Y/A graphic novel THE STRANGE CASE OF HARLEEN AND HARLEY. It’s not exactly what I had expected, but enjoyable nonetheless!

D.E.B.S. (2004)

April 12, 2024

I have repeatedly said that every film is a fetish.

There is no better example of that than D.E.B.S.

That’s a good thing! Lean into what you’re into! Taste and wants are what make folks unique and often lend themselves to wild storytelling that will resonate for years! Films are incredibly difficult to will into the world and your fetish? That can be the strongest driving force and make the difference as to whether you can realize your vision.

(Unless your tastes or wants are hateful or hurtful and, in which case? Shut your mouth, head home and lock your door because the world does not need that.)

I’d been meaning to watch D.E.B.S. for years, but never got around to it until recently. To summarize? It’s four college schoolmates who are preliminary spies and Amy — the captain of said spies, played by Sara Foster (ex-fashion model and TV host) — falls in love with Lucy (the very striking Jordana Brewster), one of the most sought-after villains on their list.

I knew this film was queer before going into it, but given that it’s a film from the early naughts I assumed the queerness was couched in subtext instead of being explicit.

No. It is very explicit, practically out of the gate. Even though it’s primarily an action/espionage film that on its surface looks like it was willed into the world by a terrible cishet dude, it is really, really queer. This is all about queer awakening from the get-go, and about moving forward into queer safe spaces.

Writer/director Angela Robinson (who also adapted the life of William Moulton Marston via PROFESSOR MARSTON & THE WONDER WOMAN as well as the severely underrated HERBIE: FULLY LOADED) goes for fucking broke here, while still having so much fun with it.

I know I intentionally buried the lede here but all of the D.E.B.S. — which stands for Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength — are young women, helmed by the great character actor Holland Taylor, with some assistance from the much-missed Michael Clarke Duncan, clearly riffing on CHARLIE’S ANGELS.

Also? Their uniforms? Catholic schoolgirl outfits. All ties, white dress shirts, and very, very, very short plaid skirts. Robinson definitely knows what she likes — with a bit of satirical (and sartorial, sorry not sorry) and is not afraid to show it off.

Yeah. Really fucking queer. I can’t imagine how many youths were lit up and awakened by this film in the early naughts.

If there’s such a thing as passing the quasi-opposite of the Bechdel test? This film absolutely does so. This is all about women and there is no moment where two men visibly talk together in the same scene. Do you know how fucking rare that is? Especially in an action/comedy film?! And I am absolutely here for it.

D.E.B.S. is spryly paced and full of kinetic action and so well-cast and so, so much fun and again! Really fucking queer in a way that doesn’t think it’s odd that it’s about two women falling in love.

It also helps that the chemistry between Amy and Lucy is off the fucking charts.

While the film absolutely flopped, it has become a queer cult favorite — rightly so, as it’s one of the few queer films that isn’t sad or fridge their queers — and just celebrated its 20th anniversary, which seems wild to me because it’d feel progressive even today.

Addendum

Don’t believe me? I’ve included a number of links extolling its virtues below!

VULTURE – ‘The Surprising Queer Joy of D.E.B.S.’

POLYGON – ‘Happy birthday to DEBS, the gay Charlie’s Angels movie that’s still too obscure’

PASTE MAGAZINE – ’20 Years On, D.E.B.S.‘ Campy Lesbian Romance Is Still a Delight to Behold’

Also VULTURE – ‘How D.E.B.S. Became a Queer Cult Classic’

AUTOSTRADDLE’S HORROR FILM ESSAYS (2022-)

October 30, 2023

I am a huge fan of the website AUTOSTRADDLE. Yes, it is a queer-centric site and I do identify as queer, but AUTOSTRADDLE is specifically a website for lesbian culture that is also trans and non-binary inclusive.

I fall under none of those labels. Okay, well, genderqueer, but I present as a dude. I feel more akin to their writing than, well, just about any other culture site out there. They have a certain sensibility — a brusqueness and forthrightness coupled with insight — that brings me joy, although I do occasionally feel like an interloper. I have numerous tabs of their posts in my browser at all times. I want to send more eyeballs forward, and perhaps you’ll enjoy it and maybe even become an A+ member. (I am a proud supporter!)

I first discovered the site via Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, who wrote for the very influential A.V. Club website before the working conditions went to shit, and she is now a writer and managing editor for AUTOSTRADDLE.

Kayla is brilliant and recently posted the sequel to her HORROR IS SO GAY collection of queer-adjacent essays about horror works, which is a far better collection than what I’ve been doing all month. Among other things, it features a deep dive on the works of Jennifer Reeder, who I have posted about and am always delighted to see others extoll her films.

HORROR IS SO GAY 2 also includes a paeon to the FINAL DESTINATION franchise, which I oddly hold near and dear to my heart. (Of course they featured the log truck. I don’t think anyone can argue against the log truck scene being one of the most spectacular horror scenes in film history.) And of course, they have a post about NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2, because how could they not?

I’d be bereft to mention their selections of horror films based on your astrological sign. While I’m not all that into horoscopes, this is fun and I absolutely cannot deny that I’m undeniably a Cancer, to a scary extent, and despite — well, this entire fucking site — I have not seen any of the films they assigned to my sign.

While I’ve always identified Halloween as Goth Christmas — see tomorrow’s post — it is also Gay Christmas and Kayla linked to a fantastic piece about exactly how it became know as ‘Gay Christmas’. This is history that should be known and she’s doing the work. I would not have discovered it if it weren’t for her or AUTOSTRADDLE.

AUTOSTRADDLE is a great site, one that really knows how celebrate Goth and Gay Christmas! I do hope that you click through to some of their non-horror posts as well, as they’re writing amazing works and I’m happy to call myself a supporter, even if I’m a genderqueer dude.

ADDENDUM

If you’re looking for more horror/goth-centric queer essays, I highly recommend GOTHIC QUEER CULTURE from Laura Westengard. I will warn you that it is surprisingly more entangled with trauma than I expected.

THE FIRE NEVER GOES OUT (2020)

September 8, 2023

As I’ve been following ND Stevenson for years through his tumblr, I am very familiar with his yearly reports. At the end of each year he would lay himself bare before his audience, emotionally unfurling himself through his sequential art to his readers. Some entries were longer than others, some were more terse than others, while some were heartbreakingly earnest and honest.

While it’s one thing to read them in real-time — year after year with the distance of hundreds of days in-between — it’s another thing to read them one-after-another in a single collection. Said collection? THE FIRE NEVER GOES OUT: A MEMOIR IN PICTURES.

I won’t mince words here: I’m old. In all likelihood, I’ve already tripped over the halfway point of my life. However, this memoir covering the adventures of a late teen to twenty-something creator endlessly resonates more and more every time I read it.

With THE FIRE NEVER GOES OUT (FIRE from here on out), Stevenson details the trials, tribulations, and difficulties of discovering and reckoning with one’s self. We watch as he goes from girly churchgoer to an Eisner award-winner for a techno-fantasy about a shapeshifting gremlin of a girl, embracing their queerness, showing weakness and vulnerability, and ultimately finding their place in society and settling into willful tranquility.

It’s an epic graphic work, one that speaks just as much with panels as it does with the space left between them. (If you aren’t aware, that’s traditionally known as a ‘gutter’, but with Stevenson it’s more like troughs.) Nakedly honest and unflinching, it’s a memoir like no other; introspection peppered with grand achievements the likes of which he — or few of us — ever imagine.

Again, I’m far older than Stevenson, but his message of opening up to people, to finding your crowd, to reckon with who you are and what you want is ageless. Stevenson skirts the issue of therapy — he does briefly discuss being bipolar early on in the memoir, and he closes noting that he finally entered therapy and reluctantly embraced meds — but, as with Julia Wertz’s IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE, both come to the same conclusion that standing with others helps the most. That facet is something I’ve come to embrace over the past few years that I’ve been in therapy.

If you’ve previously read my words, it probably comes as no surprise that this blog — to use the outmoded term — is often my own sort of memoir. Several years ago I had a number of interactions where I realized the friends around me had no fucking clue who I really was. They had no idea of my past history, no clue about my inner life, no knowledge about any of the weird shit I’ve endured, and especially didn’t realize just how severely fucked up I am.

I realized I had buried most of my past. It was something not to be seen. Every once in a while I’d let loose with it — a piece I wrote for my now-defunct games criticism site that went viral was overtly self-reflective. Offhand remarks to friends that often resulted in shocked looks. However, those have been exceptions. This site has been a way to passively address that, to tell my own story, albeit in a way that I hope doesn’t feel like it’s an exercise in self-indulgence or nosedives into ‘too much information’.

There’s so much in FIRE that I can’t help but relate to. From an obsessive, myopic approach to work, to burnout, to feeling broken, to guilt and debilitating depression and wild upswings, to fully and completely reckon with one’s self; there’s a lot of harsh realities laid bare here. I am still somewhat shocked that publisher HarperCollins read his tumblr and thought: “Yes, this is a viable piece of entertainment content” because it feels so intimate. It is so very much of a certain over-sharing internet age that to put it into print almost feels sacrilegious, but I’m very happy they did so.

I first read FIRE as a collected work in 2020, right before I dove into some pretty intense therapy. (Fun fact: it’s only become more intense!) Upon rereading it three years later, I was shocked to read how many terms he used that mirrored my own, both with my partner as well as my mental health professionals. He uses terms that encompass feelings of guilt, of responsibility, of exhaustion, of frustration, of self-loathing.

FIRE isn’t a fictional work; it doesn’t wrap itself up into a nice, neat bow. It is a portrait of a life lived, a life learned, a life changed by experience and self-reflection and self-examination.

Upon my reread, I’ve found that his journey resonates louder than before. This isn’t a pandemic thing; it’s simply a matter of coming to terms with who the fuck you are and how you want to present yourself and endure the outside world.

I realize I’m privileged enough to live in a part of Chicago that doesn’t think twice about someone who paints themself up. No one here gives two shits about your gender identity or your pronouns; most folks just roll with it. I reside in a land of ostracized people; an area of living misfit toys.

In-between my initial read of FIRE and my reread I was diagnosed as bipolar, as well as suffering from acute anxiety and PTSD and dissociative disorder. Additionally, I came out as pansexual to a few folks. (I guess a few more folks now, if you’re reading this. Yes, I’m trying to come to terms with this.) Does it externally affect anything about me? No, it does not. However, like with Stevenson, it does require a lot of internal re-centering and a lot of recalibration and reflection.

We’re all just beings, living on the fumes of whatever societal and artistic and physical means we can. We want and want and want. We want to be heard, we want to be embraced, we want to be seen for who we are, but often settle for being seen for who we think others want us to be.

I’m happy that Stevenson figured that out earlier in their life than I did, but I’m also happy that I finally made some sort of peace with myself. The fire never goes out but, as Stevenson notes with hopefulness: You can “control your fire so that it warms instead of destroys.” I thank him for instilling that comfort.

You can — and should — get your own copy via Bookshop.

ADDENDUM

Stevenson currently has a Substack and officially labels himself as bigender and you should definitely subscribe to it.

I’d like to call your attention to The New Yorker review of FIRE, which I discovered after penning the final draft of this post. We’re very much on the same page, although Stephanie Burt is far more eloquent and exacting and less navel-gazing than myself.

Lastly, Tasha Robinson’s write-up for Polygon is well-worth reading, as she dials in on a lot of what resonates about his work.

NIMONA (2023)

September 6, 2023

(Netflix) NIMONA, the illustrated comic series this film was adapted from, immediately opens with shapeshifter Nimona ingratiating herself on the super-villian Ballister Blackheart by simply knocking on his door and insisting that she becomes his sidekick.

She’s alone in the very first panel, spryly sidling up to his hideout.

The filmed adaptation of NIMONA doesn’t reveal her for 15 minutes.

Despite being the titular character, with NIMONA — the film — there’s a character imbalance. This feels more like it’s Ballister’s story (now named Ballister Boldheart instead of Blackheart), not Nimona’s, which is a goddamn shame. ND Stevenson’s original comic did an astounding job of balancing both Ballister and Nimona’s stories, how one needed the other, their push-and-pull, how they mirrored each other while also being completely separate individuals.

Sadly, what’s worse is that Ballister feels sanded away from the thornier, more morally ambiguous, more complicated character that resides in the books. Granted, while Nimona is the one who gets a richer back story later on in the film, it still feels like she’s often only there to bolster Ballister, to right his wrongs. In the comic, while Nimona constantly posits that she’s merely his sidekick, they’re more or less equals; they balance each other.

You got betrayed by someone you trusted.

I’ll note that these are disgruntled remarks from someone who expected a bit more fidelity from this adaptation. If you ignore the source material, it’s a progressive and entertaining film that is a breath of fresh air compared to many contemporary animated efforts. Nimona is brazen and fearless, with one hell of a sly grin, but still has her own insecurities and often feels like an aberration. Ballister and Goldenloin are still very gay. (Finally, a family animated feature that isn’t afraid to show two men kiss!)

The world kicks you around sometimes. But together, we can kick it back.

It’s also a visual marvel with a style all its own, even if it’s far denser than Stevenson’s evocatively simple thin line work. They capture Nimona’s wild expressions perfectly, and there’s a fluidity here that helps to recreate the kinetic nature of the original work. It feels like it’s a labor of love, encapsulated by the attention to detail paid to the end credits, of all things.

Hopefully this film will have legs, and will become the sort of work that is nostalgically discussed twenty years from now by those who stumbled upon it at a very young age. It traffics in characters that are seldom seen in family-friendly works; queer and monstrous characters who are just trying to be themselves, but are ostracized for being who they are.

Because once everyone sees you as a villain? That’s what you are.

Lastly, I’ll note that the trailer features a song from THE TING TINGS: That’s Not My Name, which I previously featured in a prior post!

BOUND (1996)

June 24, 2023

Apart from perhaps CLOUD ATLAS (which is technically a Wachowski/Tykwer film adaptation), the Wachowski sisters’ BOUND is probably their most under-seen and under-appreciated work which, sure, given it’s their first film, but still! It is a very queer neo-noir that, while stylish, doesn’t rely on the gonzo effects of their later films. In fact, one of the most effective shots simply involves buckets of white paint, squibs, and a body.

The fact that it isn’t heralded more is a shame because it’s certainly an iconic queer film, and it’s also my favorite of theirs.

I’m getting ahead of myself. BOUND is a very simple neo-noir with a small cast, smaller locales — almost all of it takes place in two Chicago apartments which, I’ll note, has appropriate trim — and some smoldering, absolutely perfect casting.

Corky (Gina Gershon) is a very butch ex-con who served five years and is now reworking apartments for the mob. She meets the apartment’s next-door neighbors, the sexpot femme Violet (Jennifer Tilly, doing what she does best) is entangled with low-level mobster Caesar (Joe Pantoliano before he was on THE SOPRANOS). Corky and Violet get lustily involved via a number of very heated scenes and, as always, watch how they handle hands. Violet decides she wants to leave Caesar and be with Corky, so Violet fills Corky in on Caesar’s task to pick-up and hand-off over $2.1 million dollars to his mob bosses.

Corky brainstorms a plan to steal the money from under Caesar’s nose. It sounds like the perfect plan.

As this is a noir work, it is not the perfect plan. Matters escalate, and quickly.

It’s worth noting that half of this film works because Gershon and Tilly have amazing chemistry and an amazing wardrobe and suits each perfectly: Corky is all leather, tight white t-shirts and dirty pants and Violet is often dressed like Marilyn in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, all glamor dresses and finely coiffed hair. The other half is because of the Wachoswkis’ script — which is far more funny than I remember — but also because of the way they visually frame Corky and Violet’s tryst; it’s restrained, knows when to linger and when to cut away, but is still tantalizing.

I’ll grant that you can see a lot of the Coen Bros. in BOUND, from some Sonnefeld zooms and heightened close-ups to the humor, but out-of-the-gate you can tell these are more-or-less nods, and that the sisters have their own voice and approach.

Lastly: as usual, I saw this at the Music Box Theatre — it was a personal print from the Wachowskis! — as part of the Music Box’s ‘Rated Q’ series, which explicitly is — in the words of Rated Q’s programmer/director Ramona Slick — “A Celebration of Queer, Camp, & Cult Cinema”.

At the time of writing this, it’s Pride month and Chicago’s Pride parade is only a few days away.

Obviously, the screening was completely overflowing with queer folk and it was glorious.

The screening opened with a pre-film, brazenly and enthusiastically over-the-top drag show in the main theater: a lot of torn clothing, a lot of skin, and folks stuffing bills into the performers’ works or throwing money at them. (I’m not 100% sure that the Music Box is zoned for all that I saw, but I will not complain!) The audience was so, so very game for it.

When the film started? Folks went bonkers but, as is the Music Box way, no one ruined the experience for everyone; there was a lot of hooting, a lot of laughter, a lot of veiled recognition at foreshadowing and villainous characters, and a lot of clapping (and even some snaps). In other words, the perfect communal viewing experience.

If you read the interview with Rated Q’s Ramona Slick, they discuss how formative cult and queer films were for them, as they lived in a small town without much of a queer community. Now they’re helping to introduce others to these films in a way that interweaves performance with projection. It also gives a venue for those who love these films and want to see them with likeminded folks instead of alone in a scuzzy dorm room on a tiny cathode ray TV and an exhausted VHS tape.

I know I endlessly beat this drum, but the Music Box has been firing on all cylinders as of late. They’ve slowly pushed back to being a repertoire theater instead of a new-release indie theater, and it’s paid off handsomely for them as practically every older film I’ve attended there has been packed to the ceiling. While that’s not the Music Box I grew up with — they have been around since 1929, and their repertoire period pre-dates the late 90s — I embrace the change. It fills a much-needed absence in the local film scene, and every screening has been a delight.

Corky: “Know what’s the difference between you and me?”

Violet: “…no.”

Corky: “Neither do I.”

HAVEN (2021)

June 1, 2023

(PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xboxes) I’ve been seeking out cozy console gaming for some time as I’m fucking sick of mindless violence, even if it hits my lizard brain in the right places. Yes, there are a lot of cozy indie games available for PC — and when I mean cozy gaming, I mean small-stakes games that coddle you and actively try not to re-invoke any prior lived trauma — but I still don’t have a Steam Deck because holy hell they are expensive, and I don’t really do desktop Windows gaming as I like to keep my office to work-things, which means that space is off-limits for gaming. So, until I rectify that or receive my long-awaited Playdate, I’m at the mercy of the Switch and PlayStation Stores.

I downloaded HAVEN on a whim, shortly after having upgraded my PS+ account to Sony’s version of the Xbox Game Pass. I expected very little but a light experience, as it looked like JOURNEY meets ENTWINED (which may or may not be currently available?).

I didn’t expect HAVEN to be so romantic.

Historically videogames have not prioritized romance and — even when they have — it’s often offered as something secondary. (Unpopular opinion, but while that has changed quite a bit recently with games like DREAM DADDY and BOYFRIEND DUNGEON and even THE LAST OF US: LEFT BEHIND, more often than not games still focus on gunplay instead of folks navigating love.)

HAVEN puts romance forward, first and foremost, and it’s amazingly handled. Out of the gate, you know these two love each other. (Yes, you can queer the romance — thanks to a recent-ish update — although it does default otherwise. I’ll give you two guesses as to which I picked, and the first doesn’t count.)

Let me rewind a bit:

HAVEN features a couple, Yu (by default the woman in the relationship) and Kay (by default the man in the relationship), who have escaped a planet that features a ‘Matchmaker’ that forces coupling based on an algorithm. The two of them fall in love apart from the ones they’re assigned and they finagle a way off the planet on a rickety spaceship not meant for the sort of travel they’re embarking on, and they crash on a slightly unforgiving planet, having to use their skills to combat the creatures that inhabit the planet while also salvaging parts for their ship.

It’s hands-down the best depiction of a young relationship I’ve encountered in a videogame. It’s messy, it’s physical, but also endearing and earnest and honest. They cook together. They sleep together. They get high together. Yu sprawls over the bed, her arm laying across Kay halfway through the night. There’s even a bit where they try to change bedroom sides because of — well, moisture — and it ends terribly, but if you’ve been there, you’ve been there! They lounge around with their guard let down, mouths agape as they feel their own exhaustion. They change into comfy clothes when they’re in their ’Nest’ (the spaceship they’re trying to repair). They occasionally quip horny remarks to each other, but it never feels pornographic, it feels sweet, which — again — is rare for a videogame, but isn’t rare for real-life.

Also, both protagonists are super-smart and accommodate each other in ways the other cannot. It’s a literal coupling of minds, and I can’t get enough of it. Just watch how they nuzzle each other!

Hell, even the idle animations! Yu will passionately throw herself against Kay, and they both will heal that way. Occasionally there’ll be a chaste kiss. When they ‘flow’ across bridges (they have anti-gravity boots that allow them to float around the planet) they often hold hands. It is adorable, and I just glow and want nothing bad to happen to them.

This is one of the few games that realizes: you don’t have to put your protagonists through hell simply for narrative escalation. Is there conflict? Yes. Are there goals to be met? Yes. Do Yu and Kay occasionally bicker? Yes (depending on the dialogue choices you make). However, it’s a loving, non-toxic relationship, and goddamn, we need more of that in gaming. If anything, it reminds me of the simple tranquility of ICO, even just due to occasional downtime. (In fact, if you wait long enough in a certain spot, both Kay and Yu will sit down and a bird will nest in Kay’s hair. It’s so cute.)

I’ll note that Polygon underscores the use of HAVEN’s loading screens, and I cannot deny that they are fabulous. They do a great job of unfurling them as you progress through the game, and they also become quite tastefully tantalizing.

Also: watch for the tactility. Kay & Yu are physical in a very comfortable way that also looks natural, which is odd for a video game, and something worth applauding. You can practically feel the drool from Yu’s mouth as she’s asleep. It may sound simple, but it’s an astounding accomplishment.

I don’t have enough superlatives for this game. While it has issues — especially with exploring, an impenetrable interface and a cumbersome fast-navigation system — I grinned and glowed 90% of the time while playing it. I just want more of this, all of this, all about intertwining. So many games suck at this, at character-forward romances with action-centric design but HAVEN absolutely nails it; it’s a gorgeous experience in every which way.

Also, the opening title sequence is amazingly opulent and kinetic with explosions of color and unfurling of watercolor emotions and I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t watched it more than a few times:

I’d also like to suggest the soundtrack video via DANGER, which is like DAFT PUNK meets HEALTH. It’s absolutely delightful while also being incredibly soft.

Goddamn, I just love to see them coupled together out in a field, nothing to bother them, just letting the sun soak in. If you’ve never done this with a loved one? Make a point to do so, even if someone calls the cops on you. (I’m not not saying that happened to me.)

(Also, I love how the seasons progress and times change in the OST as they stay stationary. So idyllic, at least until the last moment right before the very end which, oddly reminds me of the cult-favorite rhythm game GITAROO MAN, one of the few other games to nail peaceful, romantic tranquility.)

I’m astounded that this game didn’t initially launch with the feature to have a queer couple, as it feels so natural, especially considering that one of the primary themes of the game is indoctrination. This is a game that needed all sorts of different people and voices, and they managed to eventually find a way.

Lastly, check out the dev blog entry via Sony’s Playstation blog, as it has a wealth of information and insight.

I cannot recommend this game enough. I feel like I’ve been overly enthusiastic about the recent works I’ve been imbibing and — yeah, I’m prone to gushing — but this is the real deal. I’m not sure it’ll have the influence of LIFE IS STRANGE, but it deserves it.

“Love stories always end badly.” “Ours doesn’t!” “No, not ours, but ours isn’t a story: it’s even better. It’s real life.”

Original trailer:

“Until the last moment?” “Until the last moment.”

BIG SWISS (2023)

May 13, 2023

Everyone knows the saying: “Never judge a book by its cover.”

Yeah, fuck that saying.

I’ll never refuse to read a book because of a terrible cover — I just bought a used Muriel Spark book that features an extremely off-putting cover, however I’m sure I’ll love it because it’s fucking Muriel Spark — but I will often buy a book solely because of a sharply designed, well-executed cover.

Jen Beagin’s BIG SWISS was one of those books. I mean, come on, scroll back up to the top of this post. I saw the cover, refrained from opening it, balked at reading the inscription in the slipcover and thought to myself: “I don’t know what this book is about, but I know I need it.”

I’ll note that I saw that one of my favorite media critics, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, wrote the best take on this novel — which I read well after reading the novel — please: read her words! Similarly, we both were won over on the cover alone.

(Worth noting? Kayla also pays lip service to Rebecca Dinerstein Knight’s novel HEX, which I absolutely loved and spilled some words about.)

BIG SWISS is a whirlwind of a novel, all focused on a capital L Literary take on queerness, therapy, interloping, trauma, power dynamics and middle-aged insecurities. It’s about a 45-year-old fuckup of a woman falling in lust with a far-younger married woman and the cavalcade that comes with that undertaking, all while also trepidatiously straddling the trauma that both women have endured. It moves at a breathless pace and features some absolutely filthy notes that I have no idea how will be adapted in the forthcoming TV series. (Apparently it was optioned by Jodie Comer (KILLING EVE) a good year before it was even published.) That said, I certainly appreciate that they exist in the actual text. It also hedges way too close to home for me, something I never predicted based on the cover.

I read this while visiting family and couldn’t stop blushing, but also couldn’t stop reading it. It’s an exhilarating swing of a novel, one that is naked about its approach.

(Oh, I forgot to mention: there are a lot of bees. Way too many bees, and I’m someone who was told at a young age: “Don’t let a bee sting you” and I later rode a horse that trampled over a hornet’s nest and they took it out on me and also proceeded to ride a lawnmower over a wasp’s nest and they also took it out on me so I should kind of be dead by now, and I should feel a bit more affected by this material, but oddly I am not. Also: yes, I realize honeybees are completely different from wasps and hornets, but their stinger threat is still similar.)

You can purchase BIG SWISS via bookshop.org here.