Whiskers on Kittens // 3
The queer things we’ve been up to and into
… queerness [isn’t] simply a configuration of body, identity and desire, […] queerness actually names a different relationship to time and space. We’re queer not just because of the people that we like to have sex with, but that often we cleave to different narratives of life itself.
~Jack Halberstam1
Chavela directed by Catherine Gund & Daresha Kyi. If your heart hasn’t been ripped open or your soul disintegrated by one of Chavela Vargas’s haunting songs, you haven’t lived. Mexico’s queen of ranchera music is not only unparalleled as a from-the-heart singer, but also incomparable as a casanova, with lovers from Frida Kahlo to Ava Gardner. Her Big Dyke Energy shines in this documentary that lovingly and unflinchingly recounts her long life, which she lived in her way and on her terms—for better or worse. As queer people, we make sacrifices and suffer to live as our authentic selves. But as Chavela says: “One’s truth always prevails. When you’re true to yourself, you win in the end.”
Kamikaze Hearts directed by Juliet Bashore. Sex, drugs, and opera-porn! Far too little seen for far too many years, this newly-restored 1986 quasi-documentary is emblematic that all fiction speaks a truth and all truth is part fiction. At the center of Kamikaze Hearts is the beauty and difficulty in the on- and off-screen love affair between Sharon “Mitch” Mitchell (a complicated #sessy queer icon for the ages) and Tina “Tigr” Mennett, as their lives are fixed in San Francisco’s early-80’s pornographic industry and their performances tied to a porn version of Carmen. Kamikaze Hearts is equally intoxicating, dismaying, sexy, transgressive, and painful.
Above clip from Our Time (1983) by Vito Russo.
Heather
Pickle Surprise and Strawberry Shortcut by Tom Rubnitz (1956–1992). I will forever mourn all the queer elders I never got to learn from while figuring out my way of being a queer elder. (Yeah, Gen Xers, we’re elders now.) The artist Rubnitz, who The Village Voice described in 2016 as “an exuberant ethnographer of the East Village queer scene,” died of AIDS-related complications before he could become an elder. Thankfully, his legacy lives on—in part through these 1989 under-2-minute shorts. If you were alive and online in any capacity in the early aughts, you should know Pickle Surprise, but have you ever seen Pickle Surprise this clearly!? If you don’t know, find out what happens when The Lady Bunny forgets to make dessert for her ladies’ luncheon or the answer to RuPaul’s question about the location of the pickle.
Tommy Pico & Carmen Maria Machado in conversation with Camille Sojit Pejcha. As you may know, I’m a film scholar who specializes in the horror genre. So, my attention was very quickly grabbed by this Document article titled “Tommy Pico and Carmen Maria Machado investigate horror as a reflection of the American psyche.” They chat about representation, horror, and craft, including queer Indigenous people being able to be as “messy, imperfect, and flawed as their straight white counterparts,” the power of the queer villain, the link between horror and sex, and the power of art—especially for members of marginalized communities.
Musician Rebeka Warrior, né Julia Lanoë. My KOMPROMAT rabbit hole a couple of weeks ago led me to more of Rebeka Warrior’s work and her other bands, which include Sexy Sushi and Mansfield.TYA… and I’m hooked. Rebeka Warrior is a French dyke icon (aka Dykecon™) and the music she makes with her musical partners is infectious. I’ve been bopping around with this one blasting in my headphones:
Amie
Down to Zero by Joan Armatrading. I am going to early-predict that this absolute gem of a song is going to be my most played track in 2023 because it’s already on steady repeat and isn’t loosening the hook it has in me. I like to imagine it’s because Down to Zero, Joan’s second release from her 1976 self-titled album, got to my sweet Cali hippie teen mom when she was 3+ months pregnant with me and it embedded in my blood and in my bones. I grew up with Joan on an 8-track and ‘80s cassettes, and I think she’s always been here telling me: Oh the heartache you’ll find / Can bring more pain than a blistering sun.
I told my grandfather my name, a poem by Jennifer Espinoza. This poem straddles a massive canyon of queer grief and estrangement, catapulting between reality and dreams with a whisper.
Azzurro Velluto, art by Enikő Katalin Eged. These pages are from Budapest-based Enikő’s in-progress comic book called ‘Imaginary Memories.’ This sapphic artist makes dreamy, sexy illustrations in visual narratives that, as she says, “catch the moments of intimacy and familiarity in lesbian relationships.” I love how her style feels timeless and fresh and how each beautiful little moment feels like an epic.
Jack Halberstam on “Trans* Bodies and Power in the Age of Transgenderism” (2016).