Video still from my first video, GAY TAPE:BUTCH AND FEMME, which I made as an undergrad at UC Berkeley.
Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive Exhibition
Current exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) includes my work, Gay Tape: Butch and Femme (1985), which I made as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, and Leslie (1998), a portrait of writer Leslie Scalapino, in a new BAMPFA exhibition, Way Bay, that will open in January 2018. Way Bay–which is co-curated by Lawrence Rinder, Kathy Geritz, and David Wilson, with Jon Shibata and Matthew Coleman–”will be one of the most expansive exhibitions of art from and about the Bay Area in recent memory.” You can read more aboutWay Bay by visiting the BAM/PFA website.
video still from LESLIE, a portrait of writer Leslie Scalapino
Just published in the semi-annual art and literary culinary magazine, “Food in Transit,” an article I wrote on eating on the go in New York when you happen to be teaching at three campuses in one semester. It includes my research on some of the best and less-than-best food trucks near college campuses as well as what’s on offer at embedded cafés like Café O at The New School, and Joe’s, at the School of the Arts, Columbia University. With a special homage to The Mud Truck, usually parked just across the street from The Cooper Union.
Where to locate: Pratt News & Magazine, Dekalb Convenience, Printed Matter, MoMA PS1, McNally Jackson, Spoonbill & Sugartown, Barnes & Noble, among others.
London-based John Broadley plucks moments from film history where food has stolen the show in his illustrated series “Culinary Cameos.” Photographer Julia Gillard visits Troy, New York for a kimchi lesson at Sunhee’s Farm. Bradley Sumrall beautifully tells the story of his experience as a 20-something gay fry cook in the 90’s at The Clover Grill, a legendary 24-hour diner on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Kimberly Chou Tsun An takes us on a tour of her ex-lovers via emblematic moments in eating and cooking. Artists Ann Magnuson, Matias Viegener and Cammie Staros dine together at interior designer Alexandra Loew’s Los Feliz home discussing art history, pig farming, prep school, art world politics and more. Bruce Benderson elucidates the ancient relationship of host and guest. This issue also features contributions from Cecilia Dougherty, Charlotte Dumortier, Snacky Tunes’ Greg Bresnitz, Anyx Burd, Anya Davidson, Greg Kletsel, Josh Neal, Chef Justin Warner and more!
Video still of Eileen Myles from my 2000 video portrait, EILEEN
Communal Presence: New Narrative Writing Today, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz Conference October 2017
Two videos from my Writers Series are being screened at San Francisco’s famed ROXIE THEATER, where I personally have sooooo many memories of screenings and events from the days when I lived there. You can watch EILEEN (2000, 10:20) and KEVIN & CEDAR (2002, 8:30) on the big screen as part of the UC Berkeley/UC Santa Cruz jointly-organized New Narrative Conference. Pretty hot stuff.
Video still of Kevin Killian and Cedar Sigo from my 2002 video portrait, KEVIN & CEDAR
I’ll post more information about the conference dates, screenings, and venues as well as links as the news comes in.
Also screening with EILEEN and KEVIN & CEDAR are Marc Huestis’s Whatever Happened to Susan Jane? and Curt McDowell’s short Confessions.
These are only three of the photos I took of this expansive part of the American Northwest. This is Washington State, but it’s not Seattle. Walla Walla is a small town with suburban development that extends out into what used to be the ending place for the Conestoga Wagons of the early pioneers, the people who moved westward in the late 1800s.
Newly published WRITERS WHO LOVE TOO MUCH: NEW NARRATIVE 1977-1997, edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian
Nightboat Books has just published Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977-1997, an anthology of stories, essays, plays, and other writing edited by Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy. A kool cover by Brett Reichman, too. A lot of the writers are West Coast people, LA and San Fransciso (I really miss both cities), some East Coast, and some have got to be in-between, but if they are, I have yet to discover it.
City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, CA
Anyway, I’ve just started reading Writers Who Love and have begun with Gabrielle Daniels’ essay on Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson, “the first novel by an African American woman” to be published in the US. Our Nig was published in 1859 and I read this book over a decade ago. It’s on my shelf now. It’s amazing. My girlfriend at the time, Susan, asked me to remove it from the shelves because the title is outrageous, offensive, and needs explaining. But in 1859 it was not. I kept it on the shelf – maybe I moved it to a more private part of the house (I don’t remember). I was always the only person I knew who read this book. The daily life of a Black woman in 1850s New England. Rough, to say the least.
Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson (1859)
Henry Louis Gates has also discovered this book, and with his skills at finding people from the past, has tried to find Harriet Wilson to learn about her history, the writing of the novel, and anything else he can find about it. His claim is that it is absolutely the first African American women’s novel.
Daniels’ essay is bringing Our Nig back to me and as soon as I’m finished reading it I’ll read the book again. Yes, the title is harsh in 21st Century America – I kind of agree with Susan – but the book’s important!
There’s lots more in Writers Who Love Too Much! My summer reading. It’s a sexy, scholarly (sorry, I don’t find academics very sexy, either, but I find scholarship to be pretty sexy), writerly history of New Narrative.
Thanks to Kevin and Dodie for including me! I am humbled and also kinda proud, too.
I went to Harlem Stage last night to see Parijat Desai’s performance of her piece JustLikeThat. It was intelligent, fantastic, and the dancers are amazing. Thank you, Parijat!
The choreography presented a riff on the news – the who, what, when, where, why and how – journalism with Indian and American influences, ultimately about the collusion of mass media and corrupt politicians to more or less not inform the public of what’s really going on with the people who pull the strings.
Well, I’m not describing it very well! Go see it for yourself!
Here’s a clip from a previous iteration – this piece keeps evolving:
Video still from my 2-channel installation GONE (2001, 37 mins), starring the inimitable Laurie Weeks.
Join the Wexner to celebrate the accomplished work of female filmmakers supported by the studio throughout its 27-year history. Exploring both traditional and experimental approaches to narrative, this program includes Hiatus, Ericka Beckman’s phantasmagoric, analogue exploration of virtual reality (1999, 30 mins., 16mm transferred to video); Gone, Cecilia Dougherty’s split-screen recreation of the PBS docudrama An American Family, here starring artists Laurie Weeks and Amy Sillman and featuring music by Le Tigre and Mike Iveson (2001, 36 mins., video); and the Ohio premiere of Artist Residency Award recipient Jennifer Reeder’s 2016 film Crystal Lake (19 mins., HD video). (program approx. 85 mins.)
