Yeah, we’re still here and very queer

The 25th-28th weeks of queer things we’ve been up to and into.

I think gay people are very lucky, because we are not conventional, we are a group slightly apart. It gives us an edge. We’re good artists, we’re good musicians. And I like being gay. I wouldn’t want to be straight for anything. ~Miriam Margolyes

Welp, we had no intention of not posting for multiple weeks of The Queerest Year but here we are. We don’t need to tell all of you out there in QueerYearLand that shit is bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S) in this world… and we all know that sometimes you gotta just hunker down and do your best to get through the day/week/month. But we have still been on our gay shit, watching, reading, and listening to all the things (and appreciating those of you checking on us and telling us you miss our nonsense). Here are some highlights:

We are once again asking for your support of Queer for Fear: Horror Film and the Queer Spectator, H’s book that is available for pre-order. It’s actually one of the things that got in the way of writing here in the past couple of weeks (don’t even ask about the hell of last-minute pre-publication error fixing in a 282-page book). H has poured passion, love, and care into making this book, but you don’t need to take it from us… Check out what horror scholar icon Barbara Creed wrote about it for the book cover (sneak peek!):

Queer for Fear offers the first major empirical study of queer horror spectators, their diversity and lived experiences. It offers a new understanding of camp, queer community, queer trauma, queer live cinema, the importance of drag and camp laughter. Queer for Fear is an original, intelligent and thought-provoking study of the complex relationship between queerness, horror and the cinema. A must-have book for queer lovers of Horror––and everyone else! 

Again, because it’s an academic book, it’s ridiculously expensive, so we completely and totally understand if you can’t afford to pick up a copy for your bookshelf. BUT everyone can and should request that their university or public library purchase the book. (Yes, that’s a thing! Libraries have request forms, like this one for the Multnomah County Library system that serves Portland, Oregon.) AND for those of you reading this newsletter, you can get a 20% off the cover price with a discount code: 

• Preorder Queer for Fear from the US distributor with the discount code: UCPNEW 

• Preorder from the UK publisher with the discount code: QF20.

There’s no talking about H’s book without mentioning A’s Queer for Fear cover art (which probably is as close to having a “baby” together as we’ll ever get). Go buy a $25 archival print here, supporting both a queer artist and an independent art business. If you missed reading about the inspiration behind the painting, we gotchu:

Amie riffed off Herman Henstenburgh’s (Dutch, 1667–1726) public domain painting Vanitas Still Life, which is part of the Memento Mori art tradition that represents death and the beauty of our fragile life. To visualize the concepts of queerness, horror, and film, Amie integrated flowers that have meaning to and representation for the queer community around a skull on a classic red velvet movie theatre seat. Violets were included as a longtime symbol of sapphic / lesbian love. Green carnations have long been a visual identifier for gay men, a signifier started by our gay elder Oscar Wilde. Pansies represent the history of queer resilience and reclamation. Lavender is a symbol of queer resistance. And roses are for our beautiful trans siblings. The snuffed-out candle stands in for all of our queer elders and trans siblings who we have lost to violence, neglect, and illness. A spilled popcorn bucket shows raucous queer joy—the chaos and revelry that happens when queer people come together.

We stand in solidarity with both the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who have been on strike since May 2nd, and the newly striking Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). We not only know writers and actors who are now striking (and obviously fully support them), but also firmly believe in the power of unions and class solidarity. We are absolutely disgusted by the greedy corporate tactics, attitudes, and inactions of all the studio and streaming execs, so until the strikes are resolved to the benefit of the unions and workers, we won’t be naming or linking to the major streaming services for any of the things we write about here. (We will continue to watch streaming things unless/until the unions ask for solidarity actions otherwise—but don’t worry we have enough physical media to get us through a decade if need be.)

With that said, we highly recommend the documentary film The Stroll (2023), directed by Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker. Lovell made this film with such love and care about and for her community of trans women and sex workers in NYC. Lovell not only shares her and her friends’ stories, but also contextualizes the history of policies and politics (in service of gentrification) that have policed and criminalized these women (without abstracting, intellectualizing, or gazing at it). Lovell shows us through example precisely why a story should be told by people from within the community it’s about (particularly when it’s a systemically marginalized community). The Stroll will persist as a reminder of the trans women who took care of each other on the streets of Manhattan and stand as a vibrant love letter to this incredible community. 

It is wild how the ‘80s pop duo Wham! loomed so large in the cultural landscape of our Gen X childhoods, even though the band only existed for 4 years total. (For perspective, let us remind you that we are not far from the 4-year mark of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is actually definitely still not over thanks for asking!) Anyways, we totally enjoyed the new documentary about them simply called Wham! Our post-viewing conversations focused on sweet closeted George Michael and how his forced-outing played out in the press. He deserved better. By the way, we may or may not have watched the 4k version of ‘Freedom! ‘90’ every single day since watching the documentary almost two weeks ago. We both used to love and watch this video a lot and have to now admit that, until just the other day, we didn’t realize there were any men in the video… 

Janelle Monáe has done it again with ‘Water Slide.’ All we will say is: you should watch this video, on repeat. 

A couple of weeks ago, a few friends were going to see the Indigo Girls show at Stern Grove (here’s to free daytime outdoor shows!) and we learned that we could stream the show from our PNW enclave (here’s to having a little accessibility!). There’s much to complain about when it comes to aging in our society, but one of the beautiful things is getting to grow old alongside people who create art that you love. H has loved Indigo Girls since the 80s, especially since, at one point in time, they were the only “out” lesbians that H knew existed—a lifeline to a lonely baby dyke. Since Stern Grove, we’ve been on a bit of an Indigo Girls bender, listening to songs old and sets new. 

We love Miriam ‘I can’t resist naughtiness’ Margolyes. What’s not to love about her, with her vibrant, eccentric, honest, and raunchy lesbian ways. She is a queer elder who does what the best elders do: inspire other ways of being and doing. And oddly enough (which is fitting for Margolyes), she is the cover model for British Vogue at the age of 82. While we love when she flexes her craft in both on-screen and voice acting, we just might prefer the woman herself. You can get a taste of her irreverent and honest style in the Vogue cover story or you can learn what’s in her bag (including a whole onion and spare underwear) or you can watch her road trip across Scotland with Alan Cumming (which really is a queer delight, including the part when you watch her get the Aliam [Alan + Miriam] tartan, which is now part of the The Scottish Register of Tartans). 

This week, Anohni and the Johnsons released the wonderful My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross. There’s haunting urgency and aching beauty to the album, which we recommend you experience in video form here. While the music stands on its own as a beautiful listening experience, you can add context to the album by reading this interview in which Björk and Anohni discuss the new songs, Motown, the collapse of the biosphere, and Kate Bush (whom Björk calls “Mother!”). In the interview, Anohni says: “We carry generations of experience in our bodies, which is something that we’ve sought to dismantle, especially over the last century as we’ve forgotten from whom we descend and our longer relationship to the biosphere in order to be more compliant as consumers.” Truth, Anohni. Truth. 

In preparation for the forthcoming season of What We Do in the Shadows, we rewatched Season 4 and certainly laughed out loud more than once. Ever wanted to know what it would be like to hang in the mall with a bunch of vampires? (We sure do.) Well, watch the first episode of the new season that came out today. Speaking of television shows that we love: show creators Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi recently announced that the upcoming season of Reservation Dogs will be its last. While we are so sad to not get to spend much more time with all these wonderful characters, we love that the show is going out on its own terms. Reservation Dogs will forever be one of the greatest television shows ever made. 

Speaking of funny… Queerest Year pen pal Kelley said hi this week and mentioned this web series she made called Straight Marriage, which we promptly tore through, giggling and guffawing. Let’s get those entertainment execs to pull their heads out of their asses, treat writers and actors appropriately and humanely, and then fund Kelley and the rest of these hilarious queer actors and awesome queer crew (and the ridiculous starfish) to make a film version. 

Nimona, the animated movie based on ND Stevenson’s 2015 graphic novel, is an absolute charmer. (Thanks to Tsilli for the recc!) We didn’t know before that we could have a medieval-futuristic kink, but now we do. Nimona is explicitly and effortlessly queer and a totally cute story for all of us young and elder “monsters” and “villains” out here.

And last, but certainly not least, this one goes out to the ones we love. Thank you for sticking with us, emailing us, and reading this. Next week, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming (a simple prop to occupy our time).