5/21/12

You Will Know

Hey listen everybody: I am going to be reading at The Spectrum this WEDNESDAY, MAY 23RD. With M. Lamar, Tanya Philipovich, Nicholas Gorham, Elizabeth Orr and Nath Ann Carrera. I adore the Spectrum and all of the co-stars and I still have to 100% decide what I want to read. I have some ideas. I hope you can come! It's $3 at 59 Montrose Ave and there sill be cheap drinks! More info HERE.



Last Wednesday I went to go see the Blow perform at Mercury Lounge. It was really just the best. I was thinking about how I first saw them perform more than ten years ago, when they were called Get The Hell Out Of The Way Of The Volcano. Or, actually, I think the first time I saw them perform they had JUST changed their name to the Blow, and at the performance I saw (which was at 40th Street Warehouse in Oakland-- does that place exist anymore?) there was a question and answer period, and one of the questions was why they changed the name. I like the Blow, as a name. I think it's a great name. (SIDENOTE: did you know that the name of my band, Max Steele and the Party Ice, came from Khaela of the Blow? It did. The band used to be called the Icebergs. I think Max Steele and the Party Ice is a better name).

So what was the new Blow show like? There are a bunch of new songs, from a forthcoming new Blow record. The new songs sound a bit more sure of themselves, in a way that is sort of disorienting and exciting. Like how when you drink something really fizzy, it takes a second for your face to process what's happening. The performance itself was a little bit different than previous performances I'd seen, where there was an overarching narrative or story guiding the whole show. On Wednesday it felt a bit looser, structured much more subtly, simply sharing these new songs and the places they take you. The songs are a lot about, it seemed to me, getting real with yourself. In a way that the Blow's songs sometimes are: about rising to the occasion. Dealing with difficulty. It's about a kind of resourcefulness.

It was also, for me, such a really intense and nice experience to go to a show by myself, to see this band I've seen for ten years, and has been totally one of my favorites ever, and to see these new songs. And, like, the crowd, man! Listen, the last full-length album by the Blow came out more than a minute ago, and it was really rad to see this super energetic crowd excited to see what comes next. Like: oh, yeah. We're all excited about what comes next. How fortifying or something. I really can't wait for this record to come out.



Friday I went to see Jack Ferver's new show, Two Alike, at the Kitchen. It was a collaboration with Marc Swanson, who designed the set/space. I really liked the show, a lot. But it didn't make me feel good. I don't think it was supposed to. I mean, duh, right? Like, art being exclusively about enjoyment, how small of a feeling, etc. I think jack's new piece was about exhaustion and about economy and about resourcefulness. And also about trauma. And also about how to articulate, survive, and reflect the experience of pain. I always love going to see Jack's work, and he is definitely one of these things that makes me so excited to live in New York. You can just... go see Jack Ferver do his new show, and it will pretty much always be brilliant. It's easy. I felt really excited to get to see this work. It did make me feel sad. Sad, I guess, but not hopeless. It's so funny, because Jack has been giving some really pithy interviews promoting the new work, where he says that his work is not about hope, saying "I feel it’s a very corrosive thing. People can get sleepy and lazy in hope." But his work, and especially Two Alike, did make me feel pretty optimistic, in the sense of, say, widening the discussion around queerness and pain and ways of talking about it. I think: oh, cool, look what Jack Ferver did, he made this performance about these experiences which a lot of people have had, and did it in a new and interesting way. That does makes me feel hopeful. I think that is the word for it.

After the performance I went home and hung out, drinking this white wine, Cupcake brand. It was okay. Perfect Little Daniel and I went to this TOP 8 party in Williamsburg. It was nuts! Like being in the future. I saw a lot of really cute, I guess I'm going to say Seapunk kids, raver kids, kids with dyed hair. Tons of adorable chicken dressed in glossy superhero drag. It was really nice, a wonderful change of pace. I did see some of the rad kids whose tumblrs I wrote about a few weeks ago. Was nice and shy to say hi. Hello! I am your creepy aunt. I am sort of relieved and also anxious that there are all these cool parties happening and I would have no idea. A totally different world. And I like nightclubs. It's strange. You think you know the world and then you go to bed and when you wake up it's a totally different world. Or you're different. Or both! Who cares. A fun experience.

Saturday I woke up early and went to the gym and watered my houseplants and did my writing homework and then went to have B0DYH1GH practice and recording for this new project we're working on. Then we went to the JUDY! boat party! It was really the most fun. Mykki Blanco and Cher both performed. Both looked great.

I sometimes get paranoid that certain cool kids in New York are mindlessly hating on me. Like it seems to be a thing about people just not liking me. This one circle of friends. That did cross my mind on the boat. But you know what, fuck it. Some people won't like me ever because they're too busy hating themselves and I'm often a target of projection. I don't know why they're so mean to me! Some of us, I guess, are only capable of living out the things we experienced as kids. Whatever. Again, brief dark shadows.

But only for a second! It was all in all a really nice and fun and perfect evening. I was sad that it ended. It almost didn't end, really. The open gin bar was great, too much fun. I had four cocktails before the boat even LEFT. I had too too much fun. Two much fun. On that BOAT.

Sunday I took the B43 home, then back down to Prospect Park for Ben Ha'Bear's bday picnic. We got insanely, epickally, three hours in the wrong direction, LOST in Prospect Park. But I got to see the park and get some sun and walk around so it wasn't all bad. A Led Zeppelin cover and was playing. It felt like we were sent back in time. Like: Friday had been the future, and Saturday had been the open seas, and Sunday was back in time. When we finally got to the bday picnic it was just in time for cake and margaritas, so, you know. Some things work out.

I came home and finally took a shower in my newly renovated bathroom and it was great. I ate Chinese take -out and fell asleep, really hard. And then I woke up to the sounds of thunder. And now it's raining alllll day.

It felt like a really great weekend. I am okay.

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