How does he breathe so enmeshed in the smeared paint gruesomely tossed upon each canvas hanging in the Expressionist gallery?
Suffocated like sketches sealed beneath layers of color, wouldn't he prefer instead the clouds of a Monet? This too is pigment on canvas, yet in a Monet, he'd float alongside suspended light, hanging in the air like mists over moors. But the skies he loves—inside and outside museums—are tossed like Turner's, jagged, quilted, and harsh at their edges. L.A. got worse since its air got clearer. With the smog went the bloodshot clouds that colored long commutes. (Dec. 22)
Read MoreTime passes on my face, as mirrors remind me, but it is portraits — photographs and paintings — that make this fact unmistakeable. Our representations, preserved in time, are reminders of who we once were. But such depictions have importance outside of our own life histories since they also come to stand in for our identities. Images can answer questions that reverberate within me constantly: how did men perform in the past and, for men like me, how was their queerness marked?
Read MoreWhen news of David Bowie's death appeared in the corner of my screen, I said it aloud, matter of fact, in the cruel way reserved only for people you've never met. And yet at that moment, my friend's face sank in disbelief.
To understand what happened, she read an article as I detachedly scrolled past videos and links of his music flooding all my social media. They were all unfamiliar titles and albums, so I clicked none. And then suddenly I came across his face, a simple portrait, hair-slicked back, mouth ajar. In that moment I remembered his voice, not from any album, but from his work as an actor. Playing Nikola Tesla, he embodied the strangeness of a genius recluse, perhaps because of his own untamable genius.
Read MoreEntering the tent of her enemy general, Judith had every intention of killing Holofernes, though he did not now. She bids him drink and drink and once he fell unconscious, she removed his head. The history of art shows this story of lust and loyalty at various moments: showing her holding a sword before his unconscious form, the bloody moment when blade pierces skin, but most commonly, Judith, victorious, holding his head triumphantly
Walking through the rooms of the Belvedere Palace, I encountered this celebratory scene of death as painted by a modern master. But first I noticed the group of school children, sitting in the middle of the long, dark room, playing games and talking while above them watched Judith
Read More"Let me just put on my mascara and I'll be ready," says model Andreja Pejić in an interview back in 2010.
At the time of this interview, she identified as living between the genders and did not identify as a transwoman—as she now does—but what struck me from this quote is that she used the feminine adjective for "ready" here yet used masculine verbs for herself in the remainder of the interview. Interestingly enough, from the interviews I saw, this was the only moment that she used feminine words for herself. Was it because she was putting on makeup at that moment? What motivated her to say that word at this moment?
Read MoreI remember arising from a hammock and trudging through the lodge, my legs moving with the same consistency of dampness' smell. Though confused, though a "verde verde que te quiero verde" moment, the slowness of smell and the pervasiveness of odor mirrors the grogginess of sleep. Like the specter which haunts our sight, odor feels present yet absent.
Read MoreWhat would Rothko like here? Having himself been adopted by New York city, what would being in the Costa Rican rainforest be like? Concrete jungles don't come with wildlife and the wild and hectic of the city isn't the same as the wild and still of each second out here—a stillness without silence since murmuring is the natural state of this forest.
Read MoreAfter a summer of immersing myself in literature and journaling almost everyday, I have found that my thoughts and literary tendencies tend to settle on a few topics: family, locating oneself geographically, and more than anything the magical and inexplicable moments of joy in a world unwilling to accommodate you. Even if I haven't read them in years or have forgotten details, these are the books that have stayed with me all summer, miraculously appearing in conversations and visiting many late-night thoughts just before sleep.
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