Parking my car between two abandoned Ford Econolines in a quiet street in Downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District, I made the rest of the way on foot towards the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). As I approached the exhibition, I was questioning the ICA’s motivation for putting on this show, asking myself why now?  Lunar New Year celebrations fell this year on February 10, 2024, bringing around the year of the Dragon and the opening of the ICA’s new show, Scratching at the Moon, which exhibits the work of thirteen Asian American artists who have lived and worked, at various points in their ..read more

The bodies of Liberty German and Abigail Williams were found in a wooded area about 50 feet north of Deer Creek in Delphi, Indiana. They weren’t far from the Old Monon Trail, where Liberty’s older sister dropped off the middle schoolers to go hiking on an unseasonably warm day on February 13, 2017. Liberty excelled in math and science. In all the newspaper photos the eighth grader’s broad face grinned wide with confidence. Her corn-silk colored hair hung in loose waves, maybe unbrushed, or maybe just indifferent. Liberty was also the one who carried a cell phone with her that day. She loved so ..read more

I’m myself sitting in the Sistine Chapel very miserable and very sexy O Michelangelo your legacy is very gay many people ask me how I got the name Wolf yes my mother but you ask cause I appear to have earned it and, with an O-ish flare, I have I am a very average transgender but also lucky in rich, easy ways the way I feel about this is a cinematic gaggle of fingers twiddling in mwaha silk gloves Michelangelo earned a lot and was also a black pit of gay sometimes I lay on my bathroom floor and wish I knew nothing but then… I know his women have men’s bodies and the fresco babies are bellied wi ..read more

Microbe jumps right in and rides a plane into the long dark tunnel of the hold Microbe plays hopscotch on metal on plastic on leather on the rich juicy arm Microb uses pseudopods to palpate tiny hairs, a brown muscular hill Microb slurps sweat, stingy and full of salts, burps politely Micro nests for a rest in the warm elbow nook, hooks sinking Micro leaks the minutest trace of its own guest virus through Micr’s sleek two-layers deep membrane, a kiss Micr sighs in the bacterial morning, a herd of skin kin say hi Mic knows when it’s time to leave, to heave ho and go Mic slides while skin kin ho ..read more

The essay was originally accepted by Chestnut Review but was withdrawn by the author in protest. ◆ In the 90s, Faust, aka Bard Eithun, a member of the early Norwegian black metal scene, stabbed a gay man thirty-seven times. Though Faust later said this murder was not driven by the fact the man had propositioned him but was instead motivated by unresolved rage, it is difficult not to see a relationship between Faust’s attack and his victim’s sexuality, given the homophobia and misogyny that characterized black metal.  Across the ocean in New York City, Michael Alig and the largely queer cl ..read more

1. clump After the abortion, Min had asked if she could look at the fetus. The whole thing was a sort of pathetic, half-hearted procedure, where she didn’t really mind not being pregnant but also wanted to know what they’d pulled out of her, to decide if she should feel sad about it. She wanted to hold it in her hands and see if it squished like the model fetuses they used at the marches. The nurse looked at her in a sort of pitying way, and then to Jeremy, and said, unsteadily, “That’s not really how it works.” “Oh,” said Min. “Okay.” They had explained it to her, beforehand, in thorough deta ..read more

Now our tour guide starts the bus engine, and we leave the parking lot for the next destination. Reader, I am at the edge of my seat; I am about to meet my first glacier! A far bigger event than the losing of my virginity, for yes, Sólheimajökull sounds like the salient name of a someone to love. Our treasured tour guide informs us that if the Katla volcano underneath Sólheimajökull were to erupt, the glacial flow would form into a river more voluminous than the mouth of the Amazon, and Mr. Climate Change could cause landslides that trigger city-sinking tsunamis! She seems to know everythi ..read more

Time of Day: 5:38 AM. Location: Car. More specifically: 2002 Hyundai Elantra Hatchback. Headed to: Crack of dawn work shift in the suburbs. Headed from: Apartment in the South Bronx. Status: Newly married, cohabitating blissfully. When it popped out of my bag I: Screamed. Number of legs: Four. Genus: Mus musicales. In plain English, a: Mouse. Who’d been: Slumbering in, or hiding in, or rifling through my bag. And was now: Sprinting laps inside my car while I tried to not crash. My approximate heart rate: 74,000 beats per minute. What I discovered about the interior lights of my car: They didn ..read more

    Punctuation should be governed by its function, which in ordinary text is to promote ease of reading by clarifying relationships within and between sentences. This function, although it allows for a degree of subjectivity, should in turn be governed by the consistent application of some basic principles lest the subjective element obscure meaning. —Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition   Em dashes instead of commas, parentheses, or colons The em dash, often simply called the dash, is the most commonly used and most versatile of the dashes. Em dashes are used to set off an am ..read more

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