Don’t miss Part One of this article written by Chloé Allyn — click here!

I return to the petite booth at Round K with two cups of coffee, one for my cousin Eddie Perrote, “Because I was so late,” I say. He smiles, like my grandmother does, and I slide into the wooden booth across from him. Nervously, with the thrill and embarrassment of meeting a family member for the first time — both of us into our middle 20s — I pull questions from my rehearsed list.

“To me, you look really native. You look a lot like your dad [My great uncle John.] Do you think other people see that? Do you ever experience anything negative about the way you look?”

Perrote, who is a freelance artist and designer relies on himself for finding work, “A lot of the time, I don’t see people face to face. But when I do, I don’t experience anything.” He continues with familiar eyes behind thick black glasses, “People don’t know what natives look like.”

Unfortunately, what many Americans think they know about Indigenous people is rooted in half-truths, microaggressions or a belief that the peoples are a thing of the past. This perspective is damaging for the identities of living Natives but also for the commonwealth of Indigenous people in modern society. Researchers have found that this lack of visibility decreased social awareness for Native rights. It is clear that conversation would benefit if there were more representations of living Natives using existing talents in our contemporary world. 

Recent attention in media like the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, two elected Native congresswomen and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s defunct claim to significant Native heritage, has brought some of the Native plight to public attention. Though there is still a gap between negative coverage and positive representation. The fight for representation, equality, and recovery is long from over, so living Natives are using artistic talents to heal the contemporary Native image.

My cousin Brigetta Miller, a member of the Mohican Nation and an associate professor of music education and ethnic studies at Lawrence University, is passionate about using education to revitalize and heal the Indigenous narrative. During the 2020 spring quarter at the Wisconsin based liberal arts college, she instructed two courses that survey the effects of colonization on contemporary Native culture. Of the courses, one titled “Decolonization, Activism and Hope: Changing the Way We See Native America,” Miller aims to honor and perpetuate Native voices in the material, voices that are often not represented in institutional education.

“The whole goal is for students to better understand colonization throughout history and identify its effects on all of us even today — systematic structures are still in place in higher education, media, literature,” says Miller, who is my educational inspiration. “I strongly believe knowledge is power and healing can only begin if we clearly understand our past, reclaim who we are, and move together toward reconciliation and creative solutions.”

Hitting the renaissance nail on the head, she concludes, “It’s an exciting time right now because we see many Native youth expressing their culture and identity in new ways. This generation is bold, bright, and beautiful!”

This bold beauty is especially true for Native artists, many of which are using their talents for exploration of identity, activism and continuation of tradition. Perrote, whose works are both bright and bold, thinks of his works as a continuation of tradition.

“Although my work doesn’t overtly cover topics relating to our traditions,” He tells me, “I feel that the content that I enjoy working with, my approach, and continuing to celebrate artistic expression and its role in our lives as storytelling, is in itself inherently linked to our culture.” Perrote, like many artists, is a living example of Native America, if not an activist in literal pursuit of justice. This representation is just as important.

Other artists and writers, though, have found a strong foothold in using identity in their work to shed light on Native rights issues. The U.S. Department of Justice found that Indigenous American women face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average, and that homicide is the third leading cause of death for Native women ages 10–25. The legacy rooted in violence against both women and Natives predates the founding of the United States, and continues today.

Artists like Valaria Tatera have tapped into the coalition for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, finding a source of inspiration and a route to healing through activism. After witnessing Native youth rising up and learning of her own thoroughly Native family history late in life, Tatera, a Wisconsin-based Anishinaabe artist, came out professionally as Indigenous, taking up her own fight. As a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Tatera combats the erasing effects of colonization with deliberate self-identification, a powerful motivator in a world of self-effacing Natives.

On the phone, Tatera’s voice is warm in my ear. Our initial meeting brings tears to my eyes, forming a connection of understanding between us as Natives and artists, over identity. It is freeing to not have to preface the conversation with a brief explanation of historical trauma, colonization and Blood Quantum — three of the greatest evils faced by contemporary Indian Country.

“Historical trauma doesn’t define me,” she tells me, “I’m not a victim and I’m taking the healing forward.” Tatera’s most recent exhibition, Good to the Last Drop, featured at Edgewood College in Madison, Wis., investigates the intersections of ethnicity, gender, suicide, missing indigenous women, commerce, and water quality. She reinforces, during our conversation, that she leaves space in the work for healing. Allowing herself to go forward in a positive way.

As I trust her voice over the phone and rely on the comfort of our camaraderie, I can see the truth when she tells me that she aims in “taking back the matriarchy.” A traditional societal value of some tribal governing. I am comforted by the wisdom of her female middle age, knowing that there is so much between us that runs understood from womanhood, art and Native identity.

As important as expression, activism and connection between members of Indian Country can be, mental and spiritual healing are the foundational steps to staying strong and reviving Native traditions. In a recent study published by The Permanente Journal for the U.S. National Library of Medicine, it was found that Native American and Alaskan people “experience more traumatic events and are at higher risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder compared with the general population.” This trauma is not only physical, but mental, and the issues compound, with a host of complications like discrimination, poverty and lack of access to medical treatment.

An interviewed Native Healer from the study suggests that historical spiritual medicine can be a particularly Native approach for contemporary Natives to not only reconnect with their health but with their heritage. “Native people are very spiritual … [some] don’t know that about themselves and [have] never been part of … their culture … never had guidance from elders.”

For Perrote, Tatera and Miller, this concept of mental health and healing are at the top of the list. When asked for advice to contemporary Natives, especially younger people grappling with identity, taking care of mental health came first.

“I feel that the responsibility of younger indigenous people is to maintain a healthy life and work to not let the systematic oppression, racism and generational trauma continue to damage our communities,” explains Perrote, and with an especially poignant and inter-generational reminder to, “Be healthy, be safe, and strive for a heart filled with love and kindness for your families, friends and ancestors.” Looking at Perrote’s artwork and hearing his wisdom on our first meeting fills me with love for art, family and my culture.

Another artist and expecting mother, Geneva Torres, who is Chiricahua Apache, Lakota and Mexican, explains her sense of duty as part of the younger generation of Natives who have the freedom of expression of identity. “I didn’t find out that I was Native until I was 15 years old. I got the sense from my elders that being indigenous wasn’t something to be proud of.”

This effect is widely imparted by the late 19th and early 20th treatment of Natives with relocation, forced assimilation, sterilization and dehumanization. “I feel the duty to show my pride in being who I am and learning as much as I can about my heritage. This task takes on generations of suffering, racism, and oppression but layers of Native beauty were still being added on as well.”

Torres hits on the sliver of beaded and deeply seeded hope that she, and I and many young Natives feel today; the inexplicable sense of age in our souls and history in our blood, in our hearts. We are still here, we look like ourselves and like our ancestors.

“My hope is for our generation to see our heritage comes from our land. My hope for my people is that we will move about like the wind once again.”

—

Chloé Allyn is a poet and visual artist living in Atlanta. She works in many disciplines but specializes in pleasure and words.

It’s that time of year, and the Out on Film Festival (OOFF) is back with another stellar lineup of films, shorts, and series all focused on LGBTQ+ voices.

Given the current state of; well everything, a festival should sound out of the question. Luckily, OOFF has multiple Virtual on Demand ticket options, running from September 24th through October 4th; all with varying levels of access to general screenings, and in some cases, special limited screenings. The lineup also includes one on one live streams with creatives like Franco Stevens, Todd Verow, Margaret Cho, and the team behind Breaking Fast. And that’s only a few; the list is full of diverse and talented artists, all with different POVs on the works being screened this year. 

Of course, the focus stays on the works themselves, and they are just as engrossing as the filmmakers. Are you looking for a documentary? You have the choice of everything from the never before told story of Truman Capote to the rise and fall of the historic lesbian magazine Curve. Or maybe you’re more a fan of fiction. Well there’s the sexy dream like sequel that is -Dry Wind- or maybe even the queer vampiric deep dive -Thirst-. Perhaps you’re short on time and need something more bite sized. You’re still covered; there’s the atmospheric animated love story -Czech Deilen- or how about -Limerence-, which promises to be mind shifting in all the best ways. 

Some of you have the opposite problem, and have too much time on your hands; no judgement, we all do nowadays. In that case, you may want to check out season two of the Emmy winning heart warmer -After Forever-, or the coming of gay odd ball comedy -Build A Boo-. And it has to be mentioned that not only is OOFF giving us diversity with the types of projects you’ll see, but also who you’ll see in them. Every background, every type of artist, and every part of the LGBT rainbow can find something to relate to or even think looks cool.

Here are our WUSSY picks, but don’t miss the full Film Guide HERE —

STARBOY by Joëlle Bentolila
Available October 2nd

A thoughtful Hasidic man begins to question if he views himself as a man. This search disheartens his wife, who is convinced he’s been possessed by a sadistic spirit. Tensions rise as the subjects of religion, identity, and love begins to permeate around the young couple. 

Porn Yesterday by Dave Quantic
Available September 29th

At first this film seems to be a lighthearted and jocose reflection on gaybies first introduction to the late night rendezvous. But it soon turns into a conversation on how a lot of queer people learn sex through porn, and how that can be damaging. Either way this film definitely promises to be gripping, in more ways then one. 

My Brother Is A Mermaid by Alfie Dale
Available September 28th

Off the coast lives a small town where two siblings swim and surf the day away. Their tranquility is disturbed as the town learns the elder one’s secret; they are a mermaid. The younger of the two now seeks out what exactly is happening with his brother, and how to be their for them in the process. 

Thirst by Steinpór Hróar Steinpórsson and Gaukur Úlfarsson
Available October 2nd

Moving across the North Atlantic, to Iceland, the people of another small town are amused by the current ramblings of a fanatic Christian women, profusely declaring that Satan has come to kill us all. Everyone mocks until it’s shown that there is something lurks the streets. However it’s not Lucifer who’s come, but vicious and thirsty vampires.

Build A Boo by Jean-Pierre Chapoteau
Available October 1st 

Ava and Taylor are two best friends who are truly starving for some loving in their lives. One night just for kicks they pull out some construction paper, write down everything they want in a partner, and “Build A Boo”. What happens though when not too longer after, they run into someone who is fits their perfect boo? 

CWCH DEILEN by Efa Blosse-mason
Available October 1st 

This animated short shows the beauty of two young women as they fall for each other. The two still have some kinks to work out, and they’re finding it difficult to see what the other is asking at times. But their love for each other will be a guiding force in this story of discovery and communication. 

Ahead Of The Curve by Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow
Available September 25th

Curve is one of, if not the first, major lesbian magazine to be at the size it was in its hayday. However, 29 years later, its faces more hardships and possible cancellation. This film ventures into the then, now, and future of a former giant of queer culture publication. 

Dry Wind (Vento Seco) by Daniel Nolasco
Available September 24th

The weather is heating up in Brazil, and so are the men to match. Maicon is new to town, and seems to have put his sights on Ricardo. This in turn agitates Ricardo’s non exclusive lover Sandro, and all three of their relationships are bound to go up in flames before the sunsets in Goiás .

Limerence by Dan Pedersen
Available October 2nd

This visual blast from the past follows a titular teen as they work their shifts at the local theater. One day a chance encounter sends them on an obsessive chase of the women they met on the job. Things continue to melt into each other as the depth of their fixation goes further and further. 

—

Daniel Shaw is a student who loves everything film whether it’s the creation or the discussion. He specializes in race theory, queer theory, and anything that sounds French enough. 

In Los Angeles, there exists a myth that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and earn their success. Everyone is tanned, conventionally picturesque, and in a state of inexplicable California bliss. In reality, the city is relentless, the heat, traffic, and sunshine never let up. It is here that a family of misfits make a home for themselves, however unconventional. Here is where the uncanny and profound story of the Dynes unfold.

Kajillionaire is a story about a family of con-artists.  Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) and their only daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), are the Dynes, a trio of grifters who hustle and finesse through life, barely able to keep their heads above water. The Dynes are outsiders, content to live on the fringe of society. During one of their biggest heists, Theresa and Robert are charmed by a stranger, Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), who attaches herself to the family. This addition brings new problems and tensions into their secluded lifestyle, and challenges their entire world view.

Writer and Director Miranda July achieves a Dickensian sense of comedy, blending existential and real dangers with humorous scenarios and recognizable characters. All the shit hits the fan at once, they are constantly running full-speed into roadblocks, swinging away in a sandpit. Time works against the Dynes. Foam literally seeps through apartment walls on a schedule, an impending tremor recurs throughout the film. In reaching for their desires, people do despicable things to each other. They are in each other’s way. No one is above judgment, and yet I am rooting for everyone to be ok.

Even the Dynes’ landlord is cutting corners, perpetually on the verge of a breakdown. The sun is always out, mockingly so. Everyone is justifiably disillusioned with the town, no one is completely at peace, and everyone is hungry for the next opportunity.

In the isolated environment that parents Theresa and Robert made, the role of the family is queered. Old Dolio is molded into a scamming tool for their half-baked plans. They interact with each other with no pretense, no regard for assumed social contracts. The only rules are the ones of their own creation.

Old Dolio must negotiate self-interest and personal accountability among selfish people. Their interdependency becomes suffocating. Amidst the family’s training and manipulation, she has lost herself, her development as an individual brought to a complete halt. The love language she learned from her parents was a false one, or at least one that leaves her unfulfilled. 

Old Dolio takes her 26-year-old body and starts over, questions what she knows. She knows her body in some instances can become a malleable sign of class and status, an object to be dressed up or down, to indicate designated positions of power. The body is adaptable. Sometimes, her body is a well-oiled machine, able to maneuver around security cameras with ease. 

But when the body is not under stress, when it is not playing the role of lanky cat burglar, how does it dance? How does the body experience pleasure? A loved one reaches a hand out. How does she want to be touched? Old Dolio must rediscover what it means to be in her own skin, and her connection with Melanie starts that journey.

The queer relationship in the film is refreshing in its sincerity. There is not much to be made from it, other than that gender and sexuality, sometimes, just is. “Perhaps the movie says a lot about gender by never speaking about it, but leaving it undefined, giving it room to exist on its own terms”, says July. The characters are allowed to simply exist, they feel authentic, unquestionably, spectacularly, real.

Kajillionaire asks questions that are continually relevant for queer young people. What is a family? Can it be forced, put on like a mask? How real does love have to be to feel it? What do you want from each other? When your foundation begins to crack, when the ground shakes beneath you, when you are at your wit’s end, out of ideas to make it work, who will you become?

—

Nicholas Goodly is an Atlanta-based poet and the writing editor of Wussy Magazine.

WUSSY is proud to present poetry by Southern writer, Gage Tarlton. 
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly. 

Genesis 

In the beginning, God made weather,
feeling a rush of inspiration upon hearing 
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons; Spring passes, 
and throughout Summer, rain comes and goes,
smelling like the words “thick” & “musty” 
in its often-lost battle with the sun. 

But one day, drained from the heat of the 8th month, 
the sun loses
and the grays hide the rays 
and the wetness of rain’s sound
cleanses the dry ground
glued to the skin of soil. 

Soil outside is soil
Soil inside is dirt
That’s what my Momma always told me
Told by hers and hers before, 
Southern womanhood falling 
as droplets of shhhh, collecting knives 
of grass. And the grass is grateful.
The grass says thank you.
The grass feels good.
The grass is full.

And when the sun regains its strength,
it returns with vengeance,
parting the grays,
halting the rain.
Taking its rightful place
and shining down again.

The grass cries out,
a sharp blade screeching 
More rain, more rain!
Do you hear the grass crying?
Can you feel its sorrow?
Do you even care?  

The sun does not hear, 
The sun cannot feel. 
So the rain waits. 
Slowly tortured 
by the heavy cries it must burden.  
The rain waits. 

In a grandmother’s slip…*

*
A secret treasure of Goodwill,
measured in its name, appearing to me
as a gift from an unknown past. I feel 
at home in its grass that prickles 
my skin like pinecones. 

*
The language of
my body is foreign to me, 
terrorizing citizens of my tongue, 
serving unknown forces, 
yanking molars from gums, 
pacifying its imprisoned anguish. 

*
Time passes through wars, through kitchens, 
mixed into pies that taste like rough anger,
lifting dough, heat rising, blazing jelly melting into 
sweat beading necklaces across my forehead -
missiles firing through pores; wounds shattering illusions;
A body mutilated, a bo(d)y no more. 

*
I wake; The final battle finally won, 
granting my wish of shape
-less skin, wind fluttering like wings of 
fireflies, clouds scattered with chirpings 
of crickets (surrender)ing to 
nothing. Everything surrendering  
to me. 

Gage Tarlton is a Southern genderqueer writer of plays and poetry. His plays have been developed with The Kennedy Center, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Kenan Theatre Company, amongst others. You can find more about him and his work at gagetarlton.com. (Twitter/Instagram: @gaygetarlton) 

The full version of this interview appeared in WUSSY vol.07 printed edition.
That issue is currently sold out / out of print.

A photograph freezes a subject in time. It arrests movement and change. It makes a fleeting moment permanent. 

But strangely, the elusive, entwined themes of loss and transformation always seem to predominate in the images of Atlanta photographer Michael James O’Brien. Whether he’s photographing drag artists, celebrities, young men, artists, models, writers, activists, or even still lifes, the notion of mutability, of an irretrievable past, of a former and impermanent self that has been willed into the present, is always foremost.

It’s not surprising then to learn that O’Brien worked as a photographer during a time of great change and loss. “A friend of mine and I were walking to take a class at the New School, Greek or something like that,” he says. “We saw a sign for ACT Up’s first meeting and we both said, ‘You know what? I don’t think we need to take Greek lessons right now. We need to do something else.’ That’s when we started going to those meetings. There were eight of us around a table.” 

Wussy sat down with the photographer, activist, poet, and teacher, now a professor at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, to discuss his life in art, words, and activism.

I was interested to learn you studied with the great 20th-century photographer Walker Evans. Can you tell me about that?

Even though he’s legendary, I have to say, at the time I was very casual about it. I liked him, I understood the work and I thought of the work as great. But at that moment in the 1970s, photography wasn’t what it became. He had his first show at MOMA when I was still studying with him. We were still on the trajectory of photography becoming an art form. 

I’d come from having majored in English and political science at Yale. I realized really quickly I wasn’t going into the state department which is what everyone in my generation wanted to do. I quickly reorganizaed myself and applied to art school. I liked photography because you could be in the world. You have to be out there or else there’s nothing in front of the camera. It was a combination of something literate and phenomenological. 

I only had enough stuff to apply to Yale because I was at the deadline, and I could just walk over and drop off my things. I did get in. I was only the student in photography. When I started, it wasn’t a discipline in grad school. It was “Fine Arts.” 

Walker kind of pulled me in. Working with him was amazing because he was at a point in his career where he didn’t have to teach. He just sort of mentored. With him, it was about content. I was the only one in the class. We would meet in an office somewhere, and we’d talk about a lot of stuff because I’d been an English major, and I kept wondering if I’d made a mistake. We’d talk about French literature or any other topic other than photography. At some point, he would zero in about work I’d brought in. He didn’t expect you to do what he did. He didn’t only teach documentary photography. He was fantastic, and the things everyone says he said, he said, like ‘Color is vulgar.’ I never took a color picture in three years. Everything was medium-format or large-format, which I still do. He had a thing about clarity and resolution. I didn’t realize some of the things I’d learned til years later because I moved to New York right after school.

Your primary subjects are people. What interests you about taking a portrait? How does a portrait happen for you?

I think it started from the beginning. First of all, I’m not interested in photographing nature. I don’t like Ansel Adams pictures. There was a hilarious time when Ansel came to New Haven, and Walker asked me to drive him around. It was exactly as you would imagine, him leaning out the window like he’d never been to a city before, waving his cowboy hat at people. He met with four or five students at a table, Walker at one end in a tweed suit, Ansel at the other looking like he just got off a plane from Wyoming. The students were busy being so excited about those nature pictures of the mountains and all that stuff. At one point, we were talking about what photography can do, and Walker said “Oh, Ansel, I will always feel that the true subject of photog is the hand of man.” That for me, that was it. For me, I only wanted to do things that indicated humans.  A camera is a machine. We made it. We’re out there doing stuff. 

The other huge thing that directed me: I was in Paris when Bressai died. I remember the headline in a bookstone: “The eyes of Bressai are closed forever.” Even before he died, Bressai’s pictures were the pictures that made me want to take pictures of people: the pictures in the Bal Masqué, the pictures in the bordellos, the pictures of the gay balls.

I think part of it is you have to balance how much time you spend alone and how much time you spend in the world. I just felt like for me the contact with people was terribly important. The trick for me was portraiture to move away from being just a picture that showed what someone looked like. It’s not just an idea of how someone looks or about making them look better. 

You photographed a lot of the stars, artists and famous drag performers who rose to prominence in the ‘80s and ‘90s underground New York scene. 

They weren’t all famous people by any stretch of the imagination. They could be guys I saw on the street. At that point, the early 1980s, nightclubs ruled New York. Everything was about nightclubs. Everything. The Mudd Club. Dancetera. Jackie 60. New York was smaller then. People had to go out if they wanted to meet someone. They couldn’t do it on Grindr, and they didn’t do it on Instagram or Facebook. They had to go out. Every single night you went out. There was no question about it. 

I never did drugs so I was aware every time I was going out, thinking about it, how it affected culture, how it filtered up and down. The AIDS crisis had started so we were starting that crossover between wild nighttime abandon and political reality. I thought: here’s an intersection between activism and nightlife. Drag queens seemed to be at the center of that. It’s kind of a capsule, a kind of history ... I did the last pictures of Dorian Corey before she went into the hospital with AIDS. I photographed people at Wigstock. I took a huge gray canvas and two friends of mine helped me get people on it. I love doing all that. 

It’s an ongoing body of work because drag has changed. At that point, it had a whole ‘in-your-face’ political dimension, and the people I photographed weren’t female impersonators. I was doing deconstructed, crazy, political drag about that moment we lived in. Even when I photographed someone like Quentin Crisp or Allen Ginsburg or Jude Law, all my work--whether I was commissioned or found someone to photograph--has always been about perceptions of gender. Always. How someone dealt with that in the world that we all grow up in. If it was Jude Law, there was a feminine side. It wasn’t about some macho nightmare. Hopefully we’ve had the last straw of that. 

Many of your subjects are famous, but in your Portrait of a Young Man series, the subjects are basically anonymous young men. 

I cut down to the basics, because I was overwhelmed with everyone else’s vision. I wanted to work with no stylists, no hair, no make-up, no assistant. Nothing. 

I started in 2000. You’d see these Valesquez or El Greco portraits called “Portrait of a Young Man.” You don’t even know who the young man is. There’s a mystery behind it. I thought: What if I did a portrait of someone and I didn’t know is that person was a drug addict or a writer or a waiter or whatever. What would it mean to have portraiture like those pictures? I’m fascinated that I have to approach this picture as a portrait of someone and interact with them without having any of the backstory … I’d be in  a nightclub or on the street, and I’d see these young men, but I didn’t know them. I didn’t have a story. I’d get a phone number and set up a one-hour timeline. Everyone had to come in black with a little white, no logos, no bright fashion, nothing. I narrowed it down to one pose, so they would become typologies. I’ve done them in many cities, including Atlanta. I’ll stop when I know it’s time to stop. 

Are there any famous subjects you’d like to photograph that you haven’t gotten the chance to yet?

The people I want to photograph are probably impossible. In the 80s and 90s, I could photograph someone like Jude Law. Nobody came to the studio. It was in my apartment. That was it. In the picture that was published, he was wearing a jacket of mine we liked better than the one he brought. That was another world. When I photographed Keanu Reeves, I went with him alone on his motorcycle to El Matador Beach. Within a year of that, you could no more photograph a famous person than fly to the moon. Seven people come. This person’s job is to stop you from doing this. That one doesn’t like the dress. That one doesn’t like the food. I stopped photographing famous people intentionally. I don’t want any part of that. 

The title of your series “Paris Interiors” sounds like something from Architectural Digest, but the images themselves are something else entirely. They’re somewhat sinister, haunting images of empty sex clubs.

I did that on purpose because i’d been doing things for Architectural Digest. I stopped. I did that series when I didn’t have to photograph Ralph Lauren sheets on somebody’s bed.  I was in Paris, and I thought about the energy that exists in those places when they’re empty. I didn’t want to photograph people in them, and even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to… It’s a little bit like when being gay didn’t mean you could get married and get a mortgage. I have no problem with that, but it never was my fantasy. In a way, I like having a sinister quality of having to go to weird part of town, people love to dress up in those situations. I like the idea of uniform. I liked the idea of dress code and uniformity.  I think people like walking down Rue Charlot in full head to toe leather drag, slipping in, going downstairs and doing whatever. I think that’s part of that fantasy that a lot of gay life has removed the necessity for but not the desire for. There was something about all that structure I find really appealing. I don’t mean that in a fascist way, at all, but there’s something about that decision to do something and stick with it. The sex club images were about: what is the meaning of that space when there aren’t people there doing what they’re famous for doing when they’re there? Each of those clubs had a whole different scenario… One of the clubs I photographed was a three story club in a bank vault right near the Élysée Palace. I thought: there’s something about the underground that’s interesting, that has its own little hive of activity. It’s sort of like doing a portrait of someone I don’t really know. They’re ominous. They’re supposed to be,. They’re not supposed to look like a funfair.

You live in the South now. Are you interested in photographing Southern subjects like the ones Walker Evans documented?

I am, but I’m not necessarily interested those Southern subjects. A lot of people are doing it. When I came down, I thought about it a lot. And I do think there are stories here that still can be told, but I don’t want to tell them. I’m not going to drive out somewhere and photograph someone. It’s not what I do. I don’t know how you extricate people in that world. I photographed some of the Legendary Children. I photographed Brigitte Bidet [dancer Joshua Rackliffe] both in and out of drag. I see all the people that are doing Southern subjects, and I think it’s amazing. It’s not my thing. I do think there’s subject matter here--I really do--but it’s not my thing. 

Michael James O’Brien is one of the curators (alongside Emily M. Getsay and Le’Andra LeSeur) of WUSSY’s upcoming ‘High Visibility’ exhibition of queer Atlanta photographers—presented with Atlanta Photography Group and Atlanta Pride.

Don’t miss the ‘High Visibility’ exhibition premiering on October 9th at 7pm EST with an Artist and Curator talkback. There will also be two Artist Talks in the following weeks — ‘Performance in Photography’ on Thursday October 15th at 7:30pm EST and ‘Unraveling the Gaze’ on Thur, Oct 22nd at 7:30pm EST.

Register and RSVP for all those events by clicking here.


—

Andrew Alexander is an Atlanta-based writer and critic. His work appears regularly in Burnaway, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other publications. He loves art, travel, bourbon and old records.

Gia Woods exudes a glam and grit many won’t dare to reckon with amongst the typical fluff of pop. Juxtaposing a sultry onslaught of emotional violence, Cut Season intentionally emphasizes the microaggressions that simmer silently in our everyday social psyches. One by one, the artist seizes her closest relationships, leading each to the chopping block, a dead-serious approach to dance music in a tome of personal confessionalism. Each of the eight pop primers of Cut Season brims with love and hate. 

This dichotomy is perhaps best expressed in the visual tone of her music videos. Her latest, “Naive”, unfurls a red carpet of seduction turned to suffocation. “Ego”, set in a miniaturized dollhouse, is a modern Alice in Wonderland of intoxicating self-idolization and materialism. In both tales, Gia lavishes in diamonds, an entourage flirting with and overtly jostling her, commenting on the push and pull of attention and how it hooks into our social motivation. “I feel like we often think so highly of ourselves that we get in the way of basic human connection and even test our own mental sanity”, Gia says of the intent behind the glitz. 

Detailing a long-term romance after its demise, the process of pain and, thereafter, the hindsight and clear perspective, propelled Gia towards creating Cut. “We both had big egos, which ties into my whole EP. Every song came together after ‘Ego’,” Gia explains. “I was writing every single day and honestly going through such a crazy period. Around the same time, my dad passed away, and he was my best friend. It sort of hit me how precious life is. Every moment counts and the people you surround yourself with matter. I’d rather be alone than be surrounded by a bunch of fake, toxic people.” 

Tiptoeing the line of stripper culture, royalty and rage, Gia’s indulgence for girly grandeur is not entirely an act. “I’m Persian. I like nice things!,” she laughs, though commenting in seriousness notes:  “Actually, that’s one thing that really separates me. You’ll begin to hear that cultural influence in my music more and more. I hope my music is an indicator of how underground pop is changing. I explore deep topics when I’m writing and I think that’s been missing for a while.” Gia’s lyrics and imagery, doused with a dark femme fire in fancifal fantasties, is further an indicator beyond the esoteric change of pop that we are seeing more and more in the mainstream:  identity is a solid factor that also sets Gia on a different level than the Hollywood hetero-norm.  

Support from the LGBTQ community has been crucial for Gia, whom she regards as “the biggest welcoming energy I’ve ever felt. Not only has it made me confident and comfortable with who I am, but it has also helped me learn how to express myself through my music and to say how I feel.” Featured in Calvin Klein’s Pride campaign, the only musician chosen amongst the queer celebs, past sass anthems like “New Girlfriend”, “Only a Girl” and “Jump the Fence” are loaded with lesbian lust and a taste for danger. Even in the most subtle representation, Gia’s identity bolsters pride into both her pop persona and style. Beyond this, it is her metaphorical analysis and anima, saddled to bodious beats, that will see Gia Woods continuously worshipped as the amazing pop artist she is. 

Original article published in WUSSY Vol. 8, updated for digital. Official release of Cut Season EP was released on all major platforms October 9, 2020. Follow Gia Woods on Instagram, Spotify and YouTube.  

Julianna Money has a gift for filling an entire space with just their voice, a lone guitar and a little bit of heartache. The bittersweet searching of “27” exhibits this ability perfectly, a hymn honeyed within the human condition. Grappling with the wild whirlwind of time as it slips by, “27” is achingly wrapped in delicate disenchantment. And yet, the execution is comforting, a croon of hope that steers one home. 

Money’s fellowship to folk and old country spans much further than their earthly years, intuitively strung in their technique and chord progressions with an old soul understanding. Their close relationship to the conversational history of these genres, heartstrings tugged, plays only one part in their passionate propel towards establishing their own voice. Naturally, Money’s songcraft has served as a coping mechanism for heartbreak, an ease for mental health’s sake, and now stands strongly as an integrated part of who they are today. Furthermore, their sonic fervor has roots beyond their well-being or record collection:  Money has been singing and harmonizing since they could first talk. 

Born into a highly creative musical family, the engagement of song, whether playing or singing, was a daily commonplace with Money’s mother and siblings. After graduating from UGA and moving to Atlanta, their passion for the medium became a palpable pursuit. From early open mic nights to songwriter competitions at Eddie’s Attic (making final round) and Tin Roof (second runner-up), Money’s live performances touched audiences with an acute, memorable presence and prose. Soon enough their first EP, Nickels and Dimes, would be released (almost a year ago exactly in October 2019). 

“27” is the second single from the upcoming album, In The Valley, a reference to their hometown Columbus, GA (a.k.a. The Chattahoochee Valley). Their first single, the moody melody “Shrug”, was revealed last week, and combined, both songs show the style in which Money has simmered and reached into to bring truth to their experiences and emotions. A poet with a soft edge of sarcasm, sprinkled with hints of humor, amid buttery vocals, make this rising ATL-based artist one to watch. WUSSY had the pleasure of speaking to the bi, gender fluid, Southern queer cowboi (she/they) about musical ancestry, queer life and the Southern spirit.

What does the song "27" specifically mean to you?

I started writing “27” about a month before COVID but I paused because I knew it was a special song that needed to come to me fully in its own time. I finished it about 2 months into quarantine and it’s been pretty wild to me how prescient it ended up being for the current times. I personally have struggled a lot with existential anxiety and despair for the majority of my 20s, as I think many in our generation have. I had kind of reached this point where my future felt so blank and empty and that felt so claustrophobic - how can you find hope in nothingness? And I was trying to figure out where I fit into the grand scheme of things - how can I make an impact? Does it matter if I do or not? Is there a path for me or are we all just pitching about wildly in the dark? The song sort of reaches this point of trying to find peace in presence - I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, but I do know that the only thing that’s real is each and every moment, and I have to try to live there. 

In the Valley references your upbringing and where you grew up. How have these themes shaped your upcoming record? 

I have had a pretty complicated relationship with my home ever since it became a concept to me when I left for college. My entire family still lives there, and I’m very close to them. That has been one of the greatest sources of joy as well as difficulty in my life, because that support and that love is everything to me, but it can also be incredibly difficult to try to find my most authentic path without worrying about their expectations. 

I went on a road trip across the US a little over a year ago, driving up to Portland, down the West Coast and back. It was a very formative experience for me, because I was really starting to embrace some aspects of my identity around that time, especially my queerness, and I felt so free and open. I came back home and had to reconcile my most authentic self with the place I came from, which I feel is a sort of circular, cyclical journey I’m always on. The record is really an examination of that journey and that relationship with the concept of home. It’s also heavily influenced by the beautiful musical history of where I’m from with some elements of blues, folk, and country. 

In what ways has growing up in a musical family informed your skill as a musician? 

Growing up among such talent made it harder to claim my own in some ways. It took me a long time to embrace my musical path because as the youngest of four very creative siblings, I compared myself a good deal. Once I got brave enough to start on my own, my siblings championed me every step of the way and are currently my main support system, as well as a huge help to me media wise. Sharing music with my siblings is also what opened my mind to all the amazing music in the world and so formatively shaped my taste. 

“there’s a struggle between wanting to flee to a place where you feel totally accepted but also wanting to be a part of the culture and traditions that you love and find beautiful”

Alternatively, has the learning experience with family and community helped you be more open in expressing yourself and stories? 

Well, it only took four questions to get me on my astrology bullshit but… as a Scorpio that sense of community sometimes felt overwhelming to me, and made me afraid to put my music and stories into the world. I’ve always been incredibly independent, so going off to college and being on my own for a while, feeling more anonymous, made it easier for me to explore some of these ideas. Now that I’m older, I’ve gotten to where the world of who I am and the world of where I came from are growing closer and closer together, and so getting to share some of these stories and tell where I came from and honor that feels like a really beautiful, special thing. 

In what ways are the Southern queer experience unique for you?

OMG! (laughs) How long do you have, honestly? I think one of the biggest things for us Southern queers is the religious indoctrination in the Bible Belt. I grew up Baptist, and that experience has affected my life more profoundly than almost anything else up to this point. I think there’s a struggle between wanting to flee to a place where you feel totally accepted but also wanting to be a part of the culture and traditions that you love and find beautiful. That’s why I love ATL so much, because you really get a lot of that intersection here.

I also think gender norms in the South are especially strict, and that plays out in a lot of different ways. I grew up in a very “Southern Belle” type of tradition, and I was very entrenched in that until I came out at 25 (late bloomer - again, the Baptist upbringing) and started to unfold some of my ideas around my gender expression. Unraveling that was really wild because I began to realize how much of these ideas around femininity, many of them incredibly toxic, had informed my own perception of my identity. Now, being on the other side of that, I’m wonderfully fluid and will be “hot girl” as fuck one day and cowboy the next. (laughs) And I love it and I feel more like myself than I ever have! 

In the context of music, I think there’s a lot of marginalization going on. Like being a woman in music is already rife with so much bullshit, and then on top of that being a Southern queer musician. Modern country music culture can be really homophobic which sucks, because my music really exists in this queer country spot - being informed by the country and folk musical traditions and also being informed by queer experiences. I’m still kind of figuring out what that means for me going forward but my goal is pretty much just always to be my most authentic self and allow the rest to fall into place. I also think there’s a movement of Southern queers championing that which is wonderful, and that’s why you have people like Orville Peck blowing up because he’s giving us something we’ve wanted and needed all along.

In the Valley was recorded at Standard Electric in Decatur, available on all streaming platforms November 12th. Follow Julianna Money on Instagram, Spotify, and Soundcloud. Check out our WUSSY tenderqueer playlist for more featured indie folk artists. 

—

Sunni Johnson is the Arts Editor of WUSSY and a writer, zinester, and musician based in Atlanta, GA.

As a Libra sun who intuitively felt a call towards balance before even understanding it, Andy Zone Six has always been attune to the nuances of his inner and outer worlds. “Being able to flex with the ebb and flow of our minds is the first step to moving through life with grace,” the East Atlanta artist tells WUSSY. “I have days I long to be surrounded by energy and laughter, contrasted by days where I don't even speak. Each provides something necessary.”

"Green Flags" is a cooling call to equilibrium, tipping the scale with charm for an uncertain romantic narrative. The lyrical lush ushers in a calm with hopes for a favorable outcome, met with an attitude of smooth assurance amid Andy Z6’s superb chill beats and new R&B style. Writing “Green Flags” was additionally an important stepping stone in Andy’s journey towards surrender. “I had to accept that I've not made it easy for people to connect with me in the past (and present) by not making myself available,” he explains. “This song doesn't apologize for it; it just helps put things into perspective.” 

The single is a fresh flora grown from a strange time-frame, a new work during the harrowing 2020 pandemic. Along with the majority of other performers in the States, Andy’s work has been affected, but isolation has also had some perks:  “To be honest, it helped me to focus a bit more. Without social gatherings lined up, I was left to my own devices. I immediately knew I had to make use of the time that we had. Luckily, when I'm left with my thoughts I have an outlet, and I can create music myself. I know that many people don't have that opportunity to record since studios were closed, so I pushed myself to work even harder as an act of gratitude.”  

Making a ritual with his distanced schedule, certain calendar days set aside for work and writing, phone on DND, still saw drawbacks. “A major part of my day to day was bumping shoulders at events, which came to a halt, but that wasn't nearly the most difficult blow to take,” Andy Z6 reveals. “I'm a very affectionate person and for most of 2020, hugs were completely taboo. In the beginning of the year, a majority of the music I wrote centered around lack of interaction and a lot of ‘you're so far away’ songs. I had to get them out in order to go deeper.

Part of Andy’s activity has been the continuance of connection through social media platforms. His recent live set was presented by Bask New York for their new Atlanta series included an endearing and candid conversation with Juliette Melody. Audiences received a sneak peak of “Green Flags” during the virtual performance along with another unreleased track, “A for Effort”. 

Naturally, the upcoming album, due in 2021, contains Andy Z6’s corral of introspection, a key theme for his trajectory overall, but amplified. “I put focus on my journey in life and how it relates to and impacts those around me. There's songs about how it feels when I never answer the phone or texts. One about what it's like to date a badass romantic,” mused the ATLien artist. “I experimented a lot with live instrumentation and collaboration. The energy is very empowering because it's written solely and unapologetically from my perspective as a queer, black artist navigating an industry and even more-so a society that claws at my feet.”

In the emergence of COVID-19 and the brighter ignition of the ongoing BLM Movement, the world outside of the self continues to reckon with a deep rift of imbalance. Andy Z6 emphasizes the need to uplift Black womxn specifically:  “Across the board, Black womxn in all sectors of society are being denied existence and economic autonomy. They are the most disenfranchised among us, therefore, they need the most support.” As we shift towards an uncertain future in an intense volatile time for this country and the world, Andy Z6 has continued with his intentions to nurture what keeps him going, channeling unease into his creative gift that is songwriting and storytelling. In this process, Andy Zone Six peels back layers and layers to his vulnerable self and discovers a root to his truth, imbuing his songs with a life-sustaining sensuality that keeps giving. 

Follow Andy Z6 on Spotify, YouTube and Instagram. Read our previous interview for the single, “SAFE”. 

Straight folks! If you’re engaged, you better get married before the Supreme Court overturns gay marriage! I know, you’re like, “Well I can wait. My rights aren’t going anywhere.” But let me tell you this, if you’re straight and you get married AFTER gay marriage is overturned, I will consider you just as homophobic as the people rooting for gay people to lose their rights. You will be nothing more than a bigot to me for the rest of your lives!

Gay marriage isn’t even the most important issue to me but you need to understand: if I don’t have a right and you rub it in my face that you do, you’re scum. You’re worthless. And you will be treated like that! If you think I’m an angry homosexual now, just you fucking wait and see the spirit of vengeance that I become. 

Weddings? Good fucking luck. If I even so much as HEAR a wedding bell, I will crash a fucking Mack truck through the wall of your wedding venue, crush your racist grandmother, and set the venue aflame. I’m GAY. Do you have any idea how easy it will be for me to get a job as a baker or florist? Please enjoy your wedding cake tainted with my feces and the bouquet laced with poison ivy. I promise you on all seven box sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I will personally make straight weddings an occasion of absolute agony—an event best known for dread, a party people will be too scared to attend. 

The religious right thinks gay people demean the sanctity of marriage? Hooboy just you wait and see what we do to the sanctity of marriage when we’re angry. I will personally fund well-armed sex workers to seduce your fathers, film them cheating on your mothers, and upload the entire thing to the internet where it will be posted on the walls of every family member until your parents’ marriage crumbles like the flimsy pretense of love it always was. Then you can agonize over whichever parent you’ll be celebrating whatever stupid holiday you straight people celebrate (i.e. Easter or Dress for Less Week at Ross). 

“But don’t take it out on me; I support gay rights!” you say as you plan your future wedding at some former plantation (because you’re racist, too). Who cares what you support? Your actions say otherwise and MY actions will say “fuck you!” Yes, this goes for family. Yes, this goes for friends. If you try to throw a straight wedding (ugh even this phrase turns my stomach), you are neither family nor friend! Honestly, even if you attend someone else’s, I know you can’t be trusted. 

Okay, fine. Here’s a compromise. For every person you invite to your wedding, you can give a queer person $1000 in “I’m sorry America is the worst nation” money. That’s enough for us to buy a gun to defend ourselves with and we still have some money leftover to fund another sting operation on a married dad so we can tear another family apart. It doesn’t mean we will forgive you or not hold a grudge, it just means we may not try to actively ruin your wedding (this is not a guarantee). 

Do you think this seems exceptionally harsh? Well why don’t you make like the only song straight people like and cry me a river! If marriage isn’t a right for everyone, then it’s truly a privilege. And the virtue of simply being straight hasn’t earned you the privilege of a dream wedding; the queers will see to that. So if your straight marriage matters to you, you better damn well do everything in your power to protect gay marriage now and forever. Put your bodies on the line, go on a general strike, and tell the people who invite you to a wedding that you aren’t going until all marriage is protected under the law. If you’re not willing to do this, you were never an ally in the first place.

—

Julian Modugno is a writer and humorist based out of Chicago, IL. He hates everything you love and won't be happy until it's destroyed and you're left with nothing.

You can follow him on instagram @historysgreatestmonster and on Twitter at @juliocentric

“Leave it to lesbians,” tweeted my friend, the comedian Jes Tom, “to call a movie ‘Happiest Season’ and it’s 1 hr 40 minutes of abject emotional suffering.” 

It rings true. While Happiest Season, Hulu’s new addition to the holiday movie cannon and the first mainstream film of the genre to feature a lesbian couple, is chock-a-block with charm and wit, it’s hard to imagine a plotline better suited to the question, “What the hell is wrong with these people?” And hey, maybe that’s the right question. What is a jolly queer time without a dollop of suffering.

Happiest Season, directed by longtime out lesbian Clea Duvall, and starring queer icon Kristen Stewart, was a watershed simply in how big of a deal it was: pre-Covid, it was set to be released in theaters nationwide. With a star-studded cast – including Mackenzie Davis as Stewart’s girlfriend Harper, Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen as Harper’s perfectionist parents, and Dan Levy and Aubrey Plaza as deliciously queer side support – and a budget large enough for lots of holiday sparkle, Happiest Season earned its Christmas movie stripes by every measure. 

So why did it have to be such a bummer? 

The story follows Abby (Stewart, in all her understated, slit-eyed glory) and Harper (tall), gloriously in love, who head to Harper’s family home for the holidays, even though Abby hates Christmas on account of being an orphan (I did say it earned its stripes by every measure). A havoc-inducing gay twist: Harper isn’t out to her family. Abby is presented instead as the orphan roommate, Harper transforms into ideal daughter form, and Abby is forced to navigate five days with what has to be the cruelest Perfect White Family since Get Out*. 

It’s painful. It’s painful to watch Harper not only deny her relationship with Abby, but go out of her way to make Abby feel unwanted. It’s painful to watch a family whose bonds seemed forged only for the sake of good PR, underneath which lives little but malice. And it’s painful to remember throughout the “hijinks” of Harper’s callous deception that somehow, by the end of the film, we’re supposed to rejoice when the couple inevitably patches things up. The depth of their dysfunction does the plot a disservice, forcing Duvall to work overtime in convincing us they belong together.

Luckily, the reprieves from this dynamic are Happiest Season’s saving grace. On the whole, everything that isn’t Harper and Abby’s relationship is delightful and gives the film its wings. Dan Levy is crisp and lovable as Abby’s gay best friend. Mary Holland, who co-wrote the script, shines as Harper’s ebulliently awkward sister. A pair of adorable evil twins add a touch of noir we didn’t know we needed in holiday movies.

But no one crashes through the wtf of this film with more panache than Aubrey Plaza. She swans into frame about thirty minutes in, sporting a sharp blazer and her signature smirk, and a lesbian icon is instantly spawned. Plaza knocks it out of the park as Riley, Harper’s high school ex-girlfriend. In the film’s best scene, over beers at a Christmas drag show, Riley reveals to Abby the true breakup story, in which Harper publicly humiliated Riley to maintain her gilded lily reputation. This scene does nothing to endear us to Harper, but everything to secure Riley as the queer lady heartbeat of the film. It’s unclear whether Duvall intended for the most electric chemistry to exist between the couple that’s not going to end up together, or a spark simply ignited between Plaza and Stewart – but whatever the case, it’s very sexy and utterly ruinous to the plot. Abby and Riley - why ever the hell not? By the film’s climax, where Harper is outed to the family but denies her relationship with Abby yet again, we’re all desperately hoping that Abby will steal the Range Rover and drive to Riley’s doorstep,, a perfect dusting of snow on her bleached and tousled mane.

But plot twists such as these do not a Christmas movie make, and of course Abby and Harper beat their way back to happiness, courtesy of a genuinely touching homily from Dan Levy about the difficulties of coming out. There’s a tearful reunion at a Love’s gas station (ah, Love’s, finally receiving its on-screen due) and by the time the snow is falling on Christmas Day, Abby has taken her rightful place in Harper’s family’s holiday photo. The holiday lights are twinkling, the gays are in love, and while it is criminal negligence not to assure us that Riley finds her own KStew, everyone does seem to be reasonably happy. I give this couple a 20% chance of making it, with red flags waving to rival the UN pavilion, but it’s a holiday movie – no one cares what happens come January 1. 

The film’s other flaws are currently being aired in the cultural ether. People are saying the film is too white; people are saying we’re done with closeted queer narratives. I think both of these things are true, but irrelevant – these criticisms spring from a scarcity mentality in which we must all agree on a single story, rather than clamoring for many. Duvall made clear this film was autobiographical, so for her, and for others, this particular story will ring true. I have no problem with a new take on an old narrative. I just wanted to believe it more. 

I wanted to believe in Abby and Harper the way we believe in every star-crossed, cardboard couple at the heart of every holiday movie. I wanted them to love each other the way the poor baker loves the disguised prince, or the stressed fashion exec loves the humble carpenter. These marriages won’t last either, but who cares, it’s snowing! Holiday movies defy every measure of credible plotline, character motivation, and weather pattern, but as long as we believe in them, they do it for us. I was so close to believing Happiest Season, but in the end it fell just a little bit short. 

That said, we lesbians love being emotionally shortchanged, so maybe it’s what we really wanted for Christmas after all.

—

* We need to just acknowledge the weird resemblances to Get Out. The palatial family homes are nearly identical, there’s an ominous overhead shot of the unwitting hero driving to an unpleasant fate, and Victor Garber is definitely the kind of white dad who would want you to know he’d have voted Obama for a third term.

Rachel Garbus is a writer, performer, teacher, and who knows what all else in Brooklyn, NY, formerly of Atlanta. She does live comedy, writes essays, and is woefully inept with all plants. Follow her at @goodgraciousrachel. 


For more Queer hot takes on “Happiest Season”, listen to the latest episode of WUSSY Movie Club:

To all my ladies, gaydies, and theydies—congrats! The year is almost over. We made it! While it felt both like it’s been 10 years and a single blurry month, it turns out we have a year’s worth of music that we didn’t have before.  

Intimate indie rock and tender country continued to flourish as we were spiraling. On the other end of the spectrum, the sometimes-harsh genre of hyperpop grew in prominence and introduced a slew of queer artists.

In the mainstream Lil Nas X, Miley Cyrus, and Troye Sivan continued to hold it down. Songs that came out last year like Clario’s tender “Sophia” became surprise radio hits.  There were also plenty of songs that queer artists put out that didn’t get broad attention but were anthems for those who heard them. 

This playlist combines it all. The first half is devoted to “vibes” and the second half is devoted to “bops.” It’s as broad and mixed as the queer experience.  Enjoy!

—

Mo Wilson is a writer and sometimes DJ living in Brooklyn. He also throws indie rock/punk shows with the booking collective Booked By Grandma and loves plastic jewelry. You can find him on Twitter @sadgayfriendx and Instagram at @djgaypanic

When Ben Wallis’s initial queerness began to sprout in childhood, he found his identity complicated by a heavy steep in alternative Christianity that operated under a colorful guise of peace-and-love. “I was raised in what was billed as a cool hippie Evangelical church, the kind where you can wear jeans and play loud music. I grew up watching insane TV shows that felt like bizarro versions of normal kids’ programming but all deeply Jesus focused,” recalls the multifaceted artist. “I thought I was going to Hell for being attracted to boys since I was in 2nd grade. Being bisexual, it was easy to hide for a long time. However, part of me losing my faith was learning to accept and celebrate my LGBT identity.” 

The retro wonderment of Ben Again’s first EP is a musical means of processing this upbringing, borrowing from the “nostalgic synth-tones from all the weird Christian videos I grew up on to express my personal spiritual journey from pastor’s kid into the queer witch I am today”. Loaded with transformational healing from an indoctrination cloaked in fear and shame, the title track “Son of the Earth” stands strongly as a pagan worship song of sorts. “It's a rejection of the idea that the world is fallen and damned, instead embracing the true beauty of the Earth and calling for us to give our admiration, devotion, and worship to our Mother Earth,” Ben muses. “I connected with this Earth and found focus in Wiccan practices, which point to honoring the seasons and the inherent power in nature. The term ‘son’ is meant to be genderless, playing off the Biblical use of ‘son of man, son of god’, etc. When I say ‘son of the Earth’, I mean that WE are all the rightful heirs of the power of Earth.”

Hailing from Jacksonville FL, Ben’s time in ATL for the last 6 years has been engaging to say the least, including coming out of the closet 2 years ago while funneling energy into many passionate pursuits. “Accepting and celebrating this as part of my identity has played a huge part in my creative development, which has led me back to music,” Ben says, noting his work in advertising, illustration, and comedy. “I found emotional release and expression in writing songs after this hard year. Who hasn’t been struggling?” With a very clear vibe that he wanted to go for from day one, Ben was able to partner with several friends to help bring ‘Ben Again’ to life. Brok Mende with Friends of Friends recorded and produced the EP with mastering by Jonathan Berlin.

The moniker serves as a reintroduction, “a response to the fact that this project is yet another creative reincarnation amongst many other endeavours”, and like his presence and familiarity in the art community as Beardy Glasses, the endearing tunes of Ben Again is another extension of the artist’s je ne sais quoi. The EP’s jangly guitars and airy keys are lifted with funky undertones, appealing immediately to dream-pop enthusiasts yet tempered with quirks indicative of Ben’s signature style. The debut holds a seasoned intuition for melody and movement; despite learning drums, guitar and piano from the very young age of 7, this is Ben’s first journey as a solo project. He sings, drums, synths, rhythm guitars and percusses as a somewhat one-person band, while friends Jordan White lended lead guitar work and Gabbie Watts provided background vocals. “Everything else is just me, so I feel pretty proud/vulnerable about the whole project,” Ben says. “I set out to create Ben Again as a persona performing emotional songs in a playful way but always straight-faced.” 

Underneath the nods to the gospel, one truly gets a sense that the lyrics throughout are much more than a philosophical reframing of traditional Christian theology. Ben Again’s values and perspective are restated with heartful guidance, almost as if it were a re-parenting with more open and accepting conceptuals of spirituality. Ben cradles the once small impressionable creative child self and allows him to be free through his songs all while introducing laughter and some serious danceability to a very vital conversation of acceptance and love. 

Ben Again will be performing his debut EP in full for the very first time on Instagram live Saturday 12/12 at 9PM EST. The EP will be available on most major platforms, including Spotify. 

—

Sunni Johnson is the Arts Editor of WUSSY and a writer, zinester, and musician based in Atlanta, GA.

When the TV networks finally called the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – after four days of ballot counting that turned CNN’s John King into a national treasure and everyone else into an amorphous pool of stress – the footage of American cities celebrating made the whole wait worth it. Whenever the cameras flashed to Atlanta, one could often see, beneath the feet of the cheering crowd, that now-iconic crosswalk on 10th and Piedmont, painted an ebullient rainbow. 

It was a striking reminder of the city’s character, both its decades-long history as a queer Southern haven, and its emerging identity as a progressive powerhouse. As leaders and locals alike enthuse over Georgia’s surprising left-ward turn – voting for a Democrat for the first time since 1992 – credit for this victory is finally being given where it is long overdue: to activists of color in general, and Stacey Abrams in particular. The spotlight on Abrams, however, can eclipse the larger picture of transformation in Georgia, and the diverse agents of that transformation. One such agent is a growing group of young progressive leaders, who are winning political campaigns in Atlanta and beyond. Many of them are Black and brown, some of them are queer, and a small but vibrant number of them are both. I talked with a handful of Georgia’s progressive leaders to find out how queer, female, and non-white politicians are changing the state’s political hues.

One thing to remember when it comes to politics: in Georgia, like elsewhere, to be in politics and not be a white, straight, rich, Christian man is vanishingly rare. The 116th U.S. Congress – the most diverse in American history – is 76% male and 79% white, and Georgia’s numbers are similar.

But those ratios are changing. While the Trump era has unleashed a Pandora’s box of American horrors, it has also inspired a new generation of political activism, with a coalition of diverse candidates built in resistance to the patriarchal white supremacy of Trumpism. Since 2016, the Georgia General Assembly alone has welcomed three queer politicians of color: Renitta Shannon (84th District), a bisexual Black woman; Park Cannon, (58th), a gay Black woman; and Sam Park (101st), a gay Asian-American. These three join Representative Karla Drenner, for years the only out member of the Georgia Assembly, to quadruple the number of LGBTQ+ representatives. 

All of these new members are progressive Democrats, committed to protecting Georgia’s vulnerable communities. And as the case for diverse representation is making clear, when marginalized people run for office to protect the most vulnerable, they don’t do so with an abstract idea of who those people are – those people are them.

“I know what it’s like to be hated,” explains Liliana Bakhtiari, a queer Muslim woman of Iranian descent who is running for Atlanta’s city council. “I know what it’s like to be hungry, homeless…to lose work for my gender identity.” Bakhtiari, who grew up in Atlanta, left her conservative Muslim parents’ home at 18 to come out as gay. She ended up homeless, drifting from couch to couch and struggling to get by. Today, 14 years later, she’s a homeowner, a human rights activist, and running for office as a proud queer woman, with her long-term partner Kris – and her parents - by her side. 

For Bakhtiari, the struggles she’s faced as a queer woman of color have given her first-hand experience with the issues that plague Atlanta’s vulnerable communities, and that experience informs the kind of representative she aims to be. “It influences everything,” she told me one recent sunny afternoon. “I think it makes me a better advocate, and a better representative.” She notes that she’s always going to run on her platform, but platforms are always personal: politicians’ agendas are molded by their experiences in the world. And those experiences help diverse lawmakers shape legislation to make room for people like them. 

Nowhere is this dynamic potential more visible than in Georgia, where newly elected politicians of color are pushing back against a tidal wave of conservative policy making driven by white lawmakers. Take the state’s “exact match” voter registration law, passed in 2017, which required that an applicant’s name match exactly between voter registration forms and records from the Department of Driver Services – down to every hyphen, apostrophe, and space. This law made national headlines when it resulted in the delay of 53,000 voter registration applications – the vast majority of them voters of color – ahead of the 2018 governor’s race. After a flurry of lawsuits and public backlash, the General Assembly took the law back up in 2019.

By this time, however, the General Assembly had its first Asian-American Democrat representative, Bee Nguyen (District 89), who knew firsthand how often government agencies wreak havoc on people’s names. To get her fellow lawmakers to understand the disparate impact of an exact-match policy on people like her, Nguyen – who is Vietnamese-American and whose last name is pronounced “win” – collected every misspelling of her own name in Assembly documents and presented them to the committee. As it happened, her last name was even misspelled on the roster of that committee. “80% of frozen registrations are people of color,” she wrote on Twitter, “and it just so happens my name & Renitta Shannon’s name are misspelled in our own committee notices.” Rep. Nguyen wrote an amendment to remove the exact-match policy, which passed as part of a larger voting law. On Twitter, an activist noted wryly that even during the hearing to repeal the policy, the committee chairman consistently referred to Nguyen as “Nugent.” 

“I don’t know what would have happened if she wasn’t there and didn’t keep the receipts – literal receipts – of the misspelling of her name,” says Maria Banjo, an Atlanta attorney and political strategist who works closely with the Democratic party in Georgia. To Banjo, the power of minority representation lies not only in its advocacy for those same minority groups, but in those representatives’ ability to give a human face to issues that may seem abstract to their majority colleagues. 

“If you don’t have any voices that can say, ‘Hey, let me tell you why this is racist, sexist, homophobic, let me give you a personal story,’ it’s going to be harder to convince others that their way of doing things may be problematic.” She adds, “It’s harder to pass these horrific laws when you’re sharing a (work) suite with someone who is going to be directly affected by it.” 

Representative Renitta Shannon, who has represented the 84th District since 2017, agrees. Her name was also misspelled in the committee documents shared by Rep. Nguyen, yet another reminder that the Georgia General Assembly was not originally created by or for people like her. Rep. Shannon moved from activism to politics in order to change that story. As a bisexual Black woman, she is in the crucible of Georgia’s changing cultural climate – and to her, it’s no accident that so many of Georgia’s voting advocacy organizations are led by queer women of color. 

“We understand that our lives are very intersectional,” she told me. “I’m not only Black, I’m not only a woman, not only queer.” Allowing lawmakers with intersecting identities into the legislative process provides insight into the real-world effects of legislation, which results in better, more inclusive laws and policy. 

This political progress begets yet more progress: having made it to the Gold Dome, Rep. Shannon is committed to bringing others with her. In 2017, she co-founded Her Term, an organization dedicated to helping progressive women run for office. In the past three years, Her Term has flipped seats across Georgia, helping to grow female representation at the state and national level. These new female lawmakers include U.S. Representative Lucy McBath, a Black woman who turned Cobb County’s 6th District blue for the first time in nearly 40 years. McBath had been a political activist since 2012, when her teenage son Jordan was shot by a white man over a dispute about music. While McBath had been encouraged to run for office by other progressive organizations, it was Rep. Shannon who convinced her. “I took her out to breakfast and explained why I thought she should move from activism…to actually running for office,” Shannon, who made the same move herself, explained to me.  “She said that a lot of folks had talked to her about running for office, but they never clearly communicated the impact she could have.” That person-to-person strategy is growing progressive movements nationwide, opening doors for more diverse candidates to walk through and change history.

Tomorrow, these leaders may bend the arc of human history, but today, they are busy flipping states: Biden’s win in Georgia, Rep. Shannon explains, is thanks to activists within diverse communities across the state, who made the case for what voting can achieve in that community. Political consultant Maria Banjo affirmed the payoff of this grassroots, every-single-voter strategy, which has garnered national attention through Stacey Abrams. “I can’t tell you how many times (we’ve) knocked on someone’s door and they’re like, ‘Wow, I have never in my twenty years here had someone knock on my door’.” 

By appealing to voters from their own communities, queer, female, and non-white activists and politicians are creating seismic waves across Georgia’s electoral topography. The stakes are high, both at home and in D.C.: Georgia’s runoff election on January 5th will determine control of the Senate, with huge implications for the Biden administration’s agenda. Whatever happens next week, the trend is undeniable: Georgia is shifting blue, thanks to the efforts of leadership within marginalized communities. 

What struck me in my conversations with these leaders, however, was their conviction that minority representation is not just good for each minority group, but for everyone – that the best policies and laws arrive through the filter of diverse lawmakers’ varied experiences. City Council candidate Liliana Bakhtiari put it this way: “The more diverse we are with our stakeholders, the more inclusive, sustainable, and well-rounded our solutions become.” Representative Renitta Shannon seconded this: “When you elect queer women of color, you actually get much better policy,” she told me. “People are bringing their whole selves…looking through a lens of making sure we bring everyone along and protect everyone.” When government is entirely white, male, straight, and Christian, the policies they create reflect that. Queer, female, and non-white lawmakers help to close the gaps in those policies, to better serve the entire community.

Before we got off the phone, Rep. Shannon thought of another way her identity as a queer woman helps her fight hard for her constituents, no matter who they are. She contemplated how to phrase it politely, and then she laughed. 

“It is just not our top priority to make sure that men don’t think that we’re a bitch.” 

—

If you haven’t early voted, plese be sure and vote on January 5th for the Georgia runoff.
You can find more information about polling places here.

Rachel Garbus is a writer, satirist, and oral history podcast-maker based in Atlanta, GA. To keep up with the lesbian Joneses, she co-parents an anxious dog with her girlfriend and goes too far out of her way to recycle glass. Follow her on Twitter @rachel_garbus.

T.T. Mahony identifies, in the most true and unflinching sense of the word, as a Weirdo. “I've always been the weird kid, a little off to the side. I felt that way even long before puberty, so when sexual identity stuff came into it, it fit pretty naturally into what I was already about,” he confesses. “I ain't running for president, so I might as well do everything extra, and I mostly have!” 

Atlantans are likely familiar with Mahony as a local musical celebrity:  the organist at Edgewood’s famed Sister Louisa's Church for Organ Karaoke and Preach-it!; The Earl's annual Charlie Brown Christmas; performing piano on various Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave tributes; organizing Bowie In Sweats around “the icon's parinirvana”; original “jokes” bands The Standard 8 and Guyliner. Like a fine art, Mahony has had a studious yet intuitive knack for entertaining audiences within the cosmos of cover songs. 

“The analogy that springs to mind is cooking a dish that people have had a million times before. The advantage of recording a song you already know people love is that the ‘appetite’ is definitely there. But the other dimension of this analogy is that it's easy to bore the shit out of people,” Mahony laughs. “If you're making coq au vin, you know people are going to compare it to every other one they've ever had--and there are likely to be some heavily freighted and treasured remembrances there, so it'd better be good. From that point of view, better not to cover a song--why fuck with someone's cherished memories or associations? But if you have your own really personal angle on it, if you're sure they've never had coq au vin this way--go for it.” 

Mahony’s parodies and portraits alike muster a certain queerdo energy, but after extensively complimenting the works of others, he stepped towards something else altogether:  the “solo act”. T.T. Mahony Is French People presents his own smorgasbord of experimental sensibilities, a merry-go-round of mastery. The man behind the best of ATL’s reenactment realm reveals himself within the wilds of genre-less bliss, which, without a doubt, sparkles with the perfected theatrics of Mahony’s comfort onstage. In and of itself, French People is brilliantly orchestrated and actualized, much thanks to quarantimes. 

“Given that I'm trying to do the right thing for my own health and everyone else's, my life has become quite concentrated. Not that I'm incredibly disciplined now (though much more so with many fewer distractions), but my life is 95% lived out in my 700 or 800 square feet in Cabbagetown--four walls,” Mahony shares of his current remote work. “When you're in the room with people, you tend to feed off what's happening. Making things to be consumed somewhere I can't see or imagine throws me back on my own imaginative resources--I end up going with ideas I've had floating in my head for a while, but never acted on.”

Undertaken around the March 2020 lockdown, configuring cohesion between different songs written over a decade found a new story altogether as French People tours through Mahony’s many moods with ease. The fearsomely gorgeous “Four Angels” encompasses ritualistic esoterics, segwaying into a heavily saturated cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, and yet, worlds apart, flow and follow. Largely composed with Logic Pro X, computronic sonics are utilized to enhance avant garde New Wave nods, with accompaniment from friends. Above all, French People is a testament to trusting the process, letting ideas breathe to, in turn, create a wonderful unique output of one’s own true flavour, in Mahony’s case a mashup of Divine meets Tchaikovsky.

All of this began as a gut feeling:  “Everybody knows that thing in their body they could never put into words, but wishes they could. For me, that's how a song starts. And I try to take a page from good writers--start with details. Start sketching something small, trying to capture just that, and work outward. Most often, you find out the thing isn't going to be at all what you planned, but you just keep going. At some point you recognize this is a thing--kind of like the first time a really small kid shows you their character. You're like,’Oh! OK. Well nice to meet you.’ Whereas before they were kind of a baby. From there (song and person), I just try to honor who and what they are, and allow it.”

The self-released record is available on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and CD.

—

Sunni Johnson is the Arts Editor of WUSSY and a writer, zinester, and musician based in Atlanta, GA.

When planning my annual Valentine’s Day shoot, I was kind of uncertain about what I wanted to do this year. After making self portraits for years now, the motif was beginning to feel repetitive. I was conceptually lost.  Then, something - or someone, actually - came to mind.

That someone was Grace. Grace and I have been distant friends for several years, but we grew much closer this summer after taking a few beach trips together. We share a ton of interests: long baths, fat liberation, and curly hair routines to name a few. I have always felt at ease with her and I couldn’t begin to think of a better person to make Valentine’s Day images with. 

After a really tough year, we were stoked to be doing this with each other and the planning began immediately . We ordered a ridiculous amount of lingerie for ourselves, huge bouquets of flowers, a bunch of fake eyelashes, and made plans for take-out. We agreed that the subject and photographer alike would be in lingerie for the entirety of the shoot. We spent a whole weekend together in a kind of platonic romance, making portraits of each other with various photo formats.

Now, in 2021, dating and casual sex is sparse and extremely risky. Existing relationships are being strained beyond belief. Now more than ever, I want to celebrate the body that has carried me through the pandemic and the friends that made the past year special. Being with friends and finding comfort together is one of the highest forms of self-care that exists, IMO. Over the weekend, Grace and I often expressed our appreciation for being on set with a friend who is also plus-size, and feeling grateful to be on set together at all. Over the weekend we created the perfect little Valentine’s  for each other.

The celebration got me thinking… what a special way to celebrate a year that has constantly been shitting on all of us - especially LGBTQIA+ folks. In the past, we tended to find a sense of community in social spaces and nightlife cultures that have vanished because of COVID.

So get tested, get together with a friend, treat yourself to some of Bad Gal Riri’s Savage x Fenty, and load up on film to document your Valentine’s Day weekend. Make 2021 one to remember. 

—

Kenedee A. Hodges is a photographic artist living and working in Georgia. She works primarily with film and alternative processes— exploring themes such as fat liberation, the female experience, love and intimacy. She is a Gemini — follow her on Instagram @kenedeehodges

Follow Grace on Instagram @shetoograceful

Whether leading the mathy Jennifer Lo-Fi or playing bass in dreamy indie outfit Barrie, Sabine Holler’s amour for composition is rooted in a passion integral to herself. “When I first fell in love with music, it was a platform of expression and self-discovery,” the artist explains. “I started writing songs as a form of therapy and the immediate response was surprisingly positive. It was where I found my community, allowing music to become a life path.” 13 years after her first release, Sabine expresses gratitude for the transformative connections and travels along the way. “Music has definitely embellished my life and given me a sense of purpose.”

Psymon Spine, with fellow Barrie contributor Noah Prebish, has been another adventure in the throes of adaptation. Joining in 2019 with ⅓ of the newest album already penned, Sabine was “more than happy to be given the space and the opportunity to create on such a wonderful and fun music landscape”. With a string of songs slowly revealed (most recently “Channels”), the “Jumprope” video was an innovation in distance, filmed in Berlin where Sabine has been residing since the COVID restrictions as the rest of the band nestles in Brooklyn. Lush with mutant no-wave funk, historically eponymous to the band’s stomping grounds, Psymon Spine’s sophomore Charismatic Megafauna (Northern Spy) arrives next Friday February 19th with delectable contributions from Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT and Barrie Lindsay.

With a roster as prolific as Sabine’s, her musical sensibilities rely on openness above all. “Just like any relationship, I believe that when we create with people, we exchange a bit of who we are and get a bit of the person in return,” she shares. “Every musical collaboration I've ever done has contributed to building my artistic identity.” The Brazilian/German singer and musician shimmers both solo, exemplified in "Hot Sauce", while adding immeasurable value to an explosion of other projects, including Ema Stoned, Mawn and the works of Sessa.

Her lengthy experience in a men-dominant industry has been complimented by many of the “talented sensitive men that I got to meet through music”. As a queer musician, however, the external social dynamics have been an additional challenge:  “Most prejudices come from a place of disinformation. I am always very proud to be who I am, and I am always very open to talking about it, and I don't let anyone judge me incorrectly because of who I am.”  

Psymon Spine’s youthful energy met with 2020’s surreality has yielded quite the learning experience. Through and through, community has been the glue. “I deeply love my friends. Some friendships took a different shape in the pandemic, and even being far away, I call some friends once or twice a week just to have a beer with them on FaceTime,” Sabine says. “It's important to help each other emotionally to go through all this madness. We definitely need more romance in the world, regardless of its frame.”

In honor of platonic love and beyond, Psymon Spine shares some of their favorite queerrific jams with WUSSY, just in time for the weekend: 

Preorder Charismatic Megafauna here.
Follow Psymon Spine and Sabine Holler on Instagram for more news.  

—

Sunni Johnson is the Arts Editor of WUSSY and a writer, zinester, and musician based in Atlanta, GA.

Only a couple days after Valentine’s Day, over one hundred art enthusiasts and queer lovers gathered on a Zoom call and strapped in for an evening of performance, poetry, original music, and smut at the fourth annual ‘My Smutty Valentine’. 

The virtual event was created and curated by Anchoress Syndicate, who describes themselves as

PLATONIC AMOROUS THROUPLE ISO:

HOT & MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS IN THE DEPTHS OF CYBERSPACE

RAW UNFILTERED RAUNCH

VIRTUAL PLEASURE PALACES

EROTIC TRANSVALUATIONS

SMUT FOR THE REDISTRIBUTION OF CARE BEYOND THE NUCLEAR FAMILY

NETWORKS OF QUEER KINSHIP IN THE FACE OF HETERNORMATIVE HEGEMONIES

It was in this spirit that I tuned into a joyous night of queer liberation, communal experience, and hot digital content created by all-queer writers and performers. Among the virtual work included this year was an ASMR video spoken to houseplants that was the stuff wet dreams are made of. There was a clairvoyant gloryhole witch with the voice of a hypnotic nightclub crooner. Sound artists mapped the body through touch and virtual stimulation. Ice cream was put in mouth-watering and compromising places. 

This was the poetry of sexual deviance, the crafted voices of dirty sex. It was an evening spent in debauchery and splendor. The Zoom chat was alive with praises and playful flirtation. Cruising was encouraged.  We were allowed to be horny art viewers in a safe and fun environment. It was the kind of performance art show that makes you crave a cigarette afterward.

‘My Smutty Valentine’ erased, for a moment, the hetero-normative lens that sees our community’s sex as perversion. In the judging eyes of the patriarchy, what our bodies do is not art. Our bodies themselves are demonized, their gaze deems our holding hands as not family-friendly, touching each other in public as an act against common decency. 

Here is the importance of Anchoress Syndicate’s mission. When queer sex is removed from the realm of the wicked, it becomes an act of raw expression, our wild spirits in motion. Anchoress Syndicate curated an evening free of shame, a world where the word taboo has no power. We observe what it looks like for our desires to get untidy, wild, a muddy pet off its leash.

 “Our cruising is citational--what are the histories of touch, care, and intimate encounter that serve as hauntological guides for innumerable undergrounds, back alleys, and bathhouses?

Our cruising is also against precedent--how do we imagine other ways of being with and together, without requisite reliance on already institutionalized forms that we know fail us, that we know we cannot delight in? How do we begin to rearticulate the contours of our desires, intimacies, and sexual publics and perversions?”

Anchoress Syndicate’s events celebrate queer sex as much as it opens up critical dialogue for overlooked sexual expression in art. Engagement with the idea of queer sex on this level feels crucial for queer people to see themselves and their sexual lives as meaningful. 

Anchoress Syndicate continues the conversation of how to talk about queer sex in art through their program Dis/Course 1: My Smutty Valentine: Queer Kinships and the Poetics of Smut with Anchoress Syndicate. Hosted virtually by The Poetry Project, Anchoress Syndicate will use this platform to create an educational syllabus of critical writing, performance and poetry on the subject of queer smut, porn, and erotics across genres. 

 “Together we will talk and write into the messy, the transgressive, and the smutty by exploring the techniques, experimentations, and legacies of artists such as Samuel Delany, Kay Gabriel, Cheryl Dunye, Sam Ace, Essex Hemphill, r. erica doyle, Lou Sullivan, Jean Genet, David Wojnarowicz, Dennis Cooper, Lucas di Lima, José Muñoz, and Pat Califia.”

This talk and its wealth of educational resources will be a primer for queer thinkers and artists into the rich world of language and performance surrounding sex. As an art-consumer, as an advocate for sex-positive practices, this is a must-watch program. Take a peak, indulge yourself, and feel free to get aroused.

For more information and to register for Dis/Course 1: My Smutty Valentine: Queer Kinships and the Poetics of Smut with Anchoress Syndicate, click here.

Each Dis/Course meeting is free and open and meets virtually on Zoom. Participants are invited to RSVP in advance to receive a packet of readings and other material to begin the conversation. Reading in advance, however, is not required, nor is any particular education background or expertise. Come, talk about poetry and possibility, teach, learn, share, and connect more deeply with The Poetry Project community.

The Anchoress Syndicate is a queer poetry and performance collective comprised of Gia Gonzales, Kamikaze Jones, and Becca Teich. They are the curators and hosts of events such as the annual My Smutty Valentine, a smut xxxtravaganza; Pink Noise, a series of experimental sound art concerts; and, with Nightboat Books, a marathon reading of The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions.

Their debauched and unblushing events incorporate text, performance, and installations that foreground the transgressive, the excessive, and the obscene, while honoring underground queer histories, cultivating DIY community, and prioritizing mutual aid.

Cruise them on Instagram at @anchoress.syndicate and Twitter at @anchoress_syndi

—

Nicholas Goodly is an Atlanta-based poet and the writing editor of Wussy Magazine.

Absolute Fantasy is perhaps the most appropriate moniker for the ambient energy stirred by LA-based creator Math Erao. Kaleidoscopic in nature, dipping from serenity to dissociation and back again, Math’s compositions are washed in a mist neither future nor past. The electro endeavour is a dreamy ascension itself, a wandering trail of far-away melodies and fog. Since 2016, the artist mentally bookmarked bytes of sound and, through what is best described as “a new musical palette”, realized an upcoming release, coincidentally, while processing personal relationships with the spaces she has inhabited, both in physical migration and gender + sexuality. 

What emerged is the sonic exploration of Healing & Dealing and “Cavern Us” is a glimpse. With waves that quietly crescendo from an ethereal gauze to an almost furied pace, “Cavern” is a complex soundscape emergently emotive from Fantasy’s previous work. Initially half-realized songs unified to reflect a past connection to Central Florida and current submerge of self in Southern California. Befittingly, Healing & Dealing is presented by DIY label + artisan shop, Never Content, a collective curated by Noah Klein, and home to many West Coast underground wonders. 

The actualization of Healing & Dealing represents a second wave of discovery for Math, “one that found me more confident in my personal and artistic life”, a sentiment felt in the underlying boldness and balance of the 5-song collection. Furthermore, the Absolute Fantasy moniker is just one of Math’s multifaceted outlets and the past year has been an exercise in utilizing creative assets to assist where greater urgency arised. In specific, the LAPD’s notorious history of police brutality found the region ripe for conversation by and for the abolitionist community during 2020. 

“My friend Zevvy Smith-Danford started In This Together LA right after George Floyd was murdered and protests started popping up all over Los Angeles. She wanted to compile everything happening across the city to make it easier for people to find things to attend,” Math explains, emphasizing that they are compilers as opposed to organizers. “Right after she started, I made her a logo and then my partner, Alisha Erao, and I began helping behind-the-scenes along with a couple of others as the page grew and started getting more and more messages.” Today, In This Together is made of a small team which vets events, plans raffles, creates educational content, and curates music compilations. Zevvy and Math both split duties of daily lists and design work. “We try to use our platform to do further good within the movement.” 

Math’s own personal soak of the socio-political is intertwined. As a genderqueer trans woman, the promotion of leftist ideas, to the best of her knowledge and ability, reflect back and intersect with a greater understanding of the importance in freedom, whether it be in identity or expression, and the stark restriction of arcane systems and limitations that tend to impose wounds of their own. Whatever form of art they touch, tomes of thought through writing, the colours of a sun-glown sky photographed while passing through the States, or creating the gradient lush of her recognizable graphic design work, personal or political, each stands solidly and sincere. Healing & Dealing is more than a calm oasis that immediately sweeps the listener into a different attunement of sensory acuteness; it moves, like wind, a journey in itself. 

Healing & Dealing will be available as a limited edition CD of 50 copies with accompanying photos, pre-order available today via Bandcamp. The album will be digitally released on March 11th, 2021 on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, etc. 

—

Sunni Johnson is the Arts Editor of WUSSY and a writer, zinester, and musician based in Atlanta, GA.

R&B vocalist and performer An Only Child shares a bit of his soul in “Live at Pioneer Works”, a stirring visual of choreography, set to their intimate compositions and sultry vocals. Honoring artistic angles of R&B (similar to that of Sade and Moses Sumney), the artist has always had an affinity for storytelling and theatre. Born and raised in New Orleans, thanks to church choir, An Only Child discovered their love for singing, eventually dipping into the study of modern dance. Past dance performances at the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, and The Whitney only further informed their love of movement and music as an intertwined romance. Now, An Only Child presents a template in which physical interpretations are paired to that of his own music.

Currently in Los Angeles, but with a long-time stomping ground of NYC, An Only Child was able to connect with their East Coast community in order to achieve the fluid feat that is “Live”, all within a week. Friend Kathleen Dycaico (who has worked with Kinlaw, Leya, and Boy Harsher) assisted in production, providing “a key role in coordinating all of the practical aspects of the shoot”. Choreographed by An Only Child, while working with a movement consultant during takes, dancers Jendaya Dash, Æirrinn Ricks and Brandon Washington swiftly picked up the intended routines within one and a half days of recording. In effect, “Live” exists as a joyous experiment in precision, planning and persistence rather than a messy social test. Though pressed with timelines, the end actualization arrived in finesse. 

“Because the performance was captured in one take, it was important that our cinematographer, Alex Wohlin, was in rehearsal with us. He and I did a lot of tests on our phones, mapping out the camera placement, which was so helpful since the camera had a precise choreography as well,” they explain, aiming to create the atmosphere of a live show. “We tried to be as minimal as possible when mixing with our friend, Michael Beharie. Crow (co-producer of Prepare the Body) played synth, cello, and guitar during the performance. I am still so shook by what he does! None of this, however, would be possible without the support from Pioneer Works. They are so generous with their space and resources. It's incredibly uplifting to see during a pandemic when so many artists need opportunities.” 

The pre-COVID of “I Don’t Go Out” sits coyly on the record, retrospectively marinated in new meaning than its original composition. “The extra time has made the creative process more difficult for me,” An Only Child admits, restless with the ongoing pandemic, preferring structure over empty schedule. “Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for having time to really take care of myself. The pains brought on by the pandemic have made it harder for me to harness my creative energy. Before COVID, I think time scarcity served as motivation for me. I struggle to complete things when the days just blur into each other.”

The debut from which the performance hails also succeeded unexpected challenges that took on transformed metaphors within the LP. Prepare the Body was surprisingly recorded just three months after An Only Child’s vocal cord surgery, along with another procedure for a ruptured Achilles tendon occurring within the past year and a half. Both were devastating considering the artist’s calling as a singer and dancer, but not without consideration of a learnt lesson. “Both injuries were extraordinary processes in letting go and trusting my body/self. I used to be way more precious about both expressions, but now I am only interested in doing what feels good for both my voice and body,” they reflect. “I've adopted a more playful yet thoughtful attitude. I think this comes across in the record as I sang from all parts of my voice. Before surgery, I was so pressed on belting my heart out. It's just not sustainable. The same goes for how I used to push my body.”

Though the record could be considered “adult contemporary”, Prepare the Body’s narrative nature collages classical, soul, folk and ethereal electronic experimentation with a flow that in itself tells a story:  “It's mapped out in a way that's similar to what it feels like to know me. I relate the album to my body, the beginning feels like who I am on the external. The middle of the record then gets more introspective which represents my internal body/connective tissue. The last few songs are so intimate that by the end, I hope listeners are left with a sense of who I am.”

Follow An Only Child on Instagram and Spotify. 

—

Sunni Johnson is the Arts Editor of WUSSY and a writer, zinester, and musician based in Atlanta, GA.

Virtual Remains, part of the 2021 Atlanta Biennial, is currently on display at the Atlanta Contemporary. Part of this exhibition includes Shane Dedman’s Physical Body of Work, a film and installation project occupying the basement space of the Contemporary. In this quiet cove lives a work that moves the viewer through the mind of a queer artist through trauma, darkness, introspection and rebirth. 

Shane Dedman’s work comprises three short films. The individual films are connected through original poetry, mostly read through voice-over. Dedman takes advantage of the storytelling potential of a subtitle, cleverly pairing the image on-screen with phrases that both describe the sound and sway the mood of the scene. Each frame becomes its own poetic composition.

The first film is called Amnesia. There is the grassy sound of cicadas and crickets. On-screen are close-ups of pages faded in black mold and violet ink spread out like an autopsy on a blanket. What was once legible becomes blotched abstractions of itself. “I can no longer look back on the document”, the voice-over reads. “An archive exists, not as truth.” As the poem continues and the notebooks bleed one into the other, we can see how our past selves are not our current selves, but mere testaments of where and who we’ve been. The poem repeats “An archive exists, not as truth, but as proof.”

Next, Aporia begins. It is a black night. Silence, then a match strike. Fire burns the notebooks. “I destroyed it all”, the voice says. Fire burns, the notebook’s ashes make grim faces between the flames, the flames dance like golden-white ghosts on the wilting paper. How very Atlanta, for Dedman’s journals to be set on fire, the evidence of a former self burned away in the darkness, artistic traces gone up in smoke. 

The burning feels like a reckoning, a ritual of healing. Dedman cuts ties with the past, a choice to be alive in the present. With this gesture, Dedman seems to step into themselves empty and unburdened. There is something meaningful, too, how the destruction of an archive on paper is being archived on film. The books transform, no longer useful in its original bound form, but given new crackling life. “It’s all gone”, the voice says. Behind the poem is the sound of rain, a far-off storm. We live out our painful catharsis, and then, who are we?

The final and longest film, Folly, plays on a neighboring screen. The viewer must reorient themselves in space for the end of the trilogy. In this chapter, we see the first body, a hand in white lace, red wavy hair, clown paint, Artemis eats berries off the branch. Artemis, our protagonist, is in a state of earthly delights, a loud chewing and burping femme wandering the dream-like landscape.
Artemis is invited to the Dedman Circus, where Dedman embodies various distinct personas interacting with each other. There is an almost vaudeville sense of humor throughout these moments. These characters perform, serve each other, irritate and bore each other. One persona charms another in a cabaret set to house music. Another reads a gloomy poem. These are the capabilities of our minds. Artemis runs through the holographic and glitching woods, toying with a stream, putting bits of the field in their hair, laying their hands over every living surface.

These films have a great deal to do with psyche, how the self deals with the self. Who are we, how do we treat ourselves, during idle thought, trauma and memory? We are contradictory and complementary, disjointed and perfectly whole.  We find answers through play, through action, by fire, by air. Through a queer lens, the film is about what it feels like to make sense of these different performances of gender and identity in conjunction with performances of style and artistry. 

Speaking as a queer person, non-binary particularly, I often find that we feel more ways about ourselves at any one time than we can portray on the outside. We contain multitudes. This is a magic wrinkle of our existence, a challenge and blessing. As complex as this feeling is to put into words, there is great care in the worlds Dedman renders. Dedman portrays nuance in a masterful and affirming way, a way the viewer can experience, take part in.

After the film, I was aware of how much I could let go of and part with, in order to reimagine who I could be. There’s so much to destroy, so much to honor, so much to build. Leaving the basement, it felt right to escape into the Contemporary’s garden of breath-giving rosemary. The sunlight was steady upon the plants’ reaching heads. I felt included in the freedom and space Dedman created,  the new spring warmth upon me, the day’s possibilities opened up before me.

Virtual Remains, curated by TK Smith is on display at the Atlanta Contemporary until August 1, 2021.

—

Nicholas Goodly is an Atlanta-based poet and the writing editor of Wussy Magazine.