MULTI CULT

It is happening again. I'm putting on a show. Most probably a series. It's called MULTI CULT and the first one is Thursday, June 8th, at 10:30pm at Cinefamily, 611 N Fairfax in Los Angeles.

Tickets available here.

MULTI CULT is a 'ritual variety show' where diversity of experience and difference of opinion are celebrated as the true path to enlightenment. This event is the first attempt in a pointed effort to advance a way of thinking which demands mental and emotional flexibility and strength. I want to make multiplicity, doubt, and listening cool again by calling them out as sacred in an environment where they contribute to spectacular, fascinating entertainment.

I will do this by putting together an awesome and fun show that features as many different kinds of art from as many different kinds of people as I can reach and convince to work with me. I anticipate in the future this will become easier, and thus make MULTI CULT even more dynamic and complex.

The first MULTI CULT will feature performances and accompaniment by Adebukola Buki Bodunrin & Ezra Claytan Daniels; Ruji "Stargatekeeper" Chapnik; hollis j. hart; myself; Jason Ogawa; Vanja Smiljanic; Tyson Thurston; and Dav Yendler.

Check out the Facebook event for more information about the performances and links to work.

To master the ceremony of MULTI CULT, I am drawing on my experience conducting BRAIN FRAME, teaching Ritual Structure workshops, moving people with magical performance art, etc. This show will occupy the framework of a secular ceremony, with formal/experimental intention, grounding, casting, and communal altar. Tell your friends!

Danielle Chenette was kind enough to draw with me these images to promote the show.

Motivational Screaming

Life update: I've been preaching, by way of screaming, singing, and talking straight towards crooked subjects. I also moved to Los Angeles one month ago. Before we left Chicago, I executed an escalating number of performances, four in three weeks, culminating in a multi-new-media magic show. Now I'm here, and the roll I'm on has had to slow, even as the urgency propelling me mounts in tension. Somebody please, show me to a stage.

Brief respite: the footage of my performance at Helltrap Nightmare 9: Dinner with the Family is ready for you to watch! This happened on November 27th last year, when fear and grief over the success of white supremacy (the winner all along, let's be honest) was still fresh for many. I sought to galvanize my audience as well as exorcise some of the righteous fury that nobody should bother beating around the bush about anymore. I also debuted some new songs. Enjoy!



The songs are titled, in order, "Find The Tits," "My Vacant Friend," and "Floating Hope." Much, much better versions than the ones in this video are in process right now and will be available soon. Here, you can listen to "My Vacant Friend" and read the lyrics on my Soundcloud:



Thank you Emily Kempf for the awesome polaroid photo (captured at Cool Girls Show on December 7th, 2016) and for booking a great show!

Love Set

photo by Emily Esperanza at Her Environment #3

I often make art about sex and sexuality. I tend to come at it from an awkward angle (absurdism, as in Dirty Birds; horror, as in Go Down; non-human fetish, as in House Fuck and Cat Tongue) to slow down the shock value, or cover my ass, perhaps? Regardless I'm not often forthright when it comes to the dirty stuff. But I love dirty stuff, and it inspires me, and the more confident I become in my creative voice the less shits I give about letting it all hang out. So I wrote some songs about lust, frustration, and longing. I put together three pieces and called it a Love Set. I performed it first at Her Environment #3, and soon after, at Helltrap Nightmare #4, both in Chicago.

Here are the parts, polished for the internet:



Pervert in the Workplace is about being a human in an office environment, in a service environment, in an academic environment, really in any environment where the collective is oriented towards production, and regards propriety as essential to success. In this setting, the exhibition of any strong emotion apart from loyalty and enthusiasm is usually frowned upon, meaning natural and inevitable feelings like anger, despair, and lust are unwelcome and sometimes cause for dismissal. Every lyric in this chant feels familiar to me. Most have been said by me or to me. Sometimes I think I'm so good at hiding my feelings in a professional setting that I'll end up sucking everyone around me into a bottomless pit of nihilistic resentment - if not everyone, then at least the object of my envy or desire.

Don't get sentimental
There's no room for that here, there's just no room for that here
Don't get sentimental or you'll be labeled mental
I used to want to fuck my boss but now I'm the one in charge
Whether or not you are aware, the customer is watching you
Business like. Positive. (high five / thumbs up / take charge)
Protect your heart
What do I do with all these feelings?
I'll bury them in you
What do I do with all these feelings?
I'll bury them with you
I'll bury you, my boo
I'll lead you to your doom
I'll leave you there, entombed.

Oiling the Weaponry is an erotic poem (and breathy soundscape) about intense, sustained sexual desire and lack of climax. This feverish state of cumulative arousal can be both ecstatic and maddening, especially when combined with romantic negotiations. Do I sound removed enough? Reading this piece makes me real nervous.

I hold more inside my body than fits inside a body
so I'm swollen, like a fat dick
at attention, hot, thick
full of blood
building tension
in my hard head and my soft skin
Phallus
a tunnel with a tight hole, clenching
a trap door
I'm fenced in
Why don't you trigger the latch
take stock, finger my clasp
I walk a fine line
A tight wire, up high
breathless
A trip wire
one false step and I'll plunge inside
get all wet
Where does a wave go when it cannot crest?
The waves within me hard pressed
surging against my dense flesh
The wash of brine creeps higher yet
Each time a salty stain is left
Stains are caking down my legs
my clothes are all a sloppy mess
I'm soaked through, like a hot compress
my bones too
better yet
my armature
it's come unglued
It's sediment
My blood has pooled
The pressure's out
I'm under you
seething
in seizures, screaming
I see you squeezing a clotted cloth over my open mouth
juice comes out
I need it
I push you down
I bite your neck
I suck it out
We're not just friends
I leave a mark
your gooseflesh marred
The earthquake starts.
The pilot lights and bombs are dropped
The fire builds and can't be stopped
I'm oiling the weaponry
My hose is long and full of grease
I wait too long to douse the flame
my body burns
it's all the same

Somewhere is a beautiful song written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim in 1957 for West Side Story. I love musicals and this one has been really important to me (especially in seventh grade, shout out to Zella). In the movie, Maria sings it to Tony as he's dying in her arms. This song is so sad, dreamy, and romantic, a soaring illustration of impossible longing. It's appropriate for all kinds of situations. It's both optimistic and non-committal. It can be sung to an individual or a demographic. This rendition with the held tones (on choice words such as open, wait, time, and hold) is intended to evoke in its building the same sensation of fantasy and suspension the lyrics promise. It felt like a fitting way to end the set.

I'm still unsure of my abilities as a musician, which is why, as I venture into this territory, I continue to put finger quotes around the words 'music' and 'song' when referring to my own work. All of the above were composed solely on my vocal effect loop pedal. I hope to add some more complex tools soon. Maybe you'll see a post in the near future with a similar opening sentiment, but in regards to freedom of musical as opposed to sexual expression. I want both.

photo by Ryan Greenlee at Her Environment #3

remember / this / feeling

I recently gave a talk in a classroom where I focused on my interest in liminality, or liminal space. Briefly, liminal space is the time between states of being, between one solid idea and the next. Any ritual experience transpires in liminality. Any transformative experience requires liminal space. I bring up this point because it is a common thread throughout all of the work I do: creating narratives, writing speeches, teaching, entertaining, overwhelming with light and sound: activities which induce or require liminality in order to be successful.

About ten days ago I orchestrated the largest showcase of my work to date at Conversations at the Edge, a weekly screening and lecture series curated by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where I studied) and hosted by the Gene Siskel Film Center (where I work). It went very, very well. It sold out. People had a really, really good time, from reports.

The three videos above were conceived as interstitials, intended to knit together the three disparate performance pieces that made up the bulk of the show. They were written and performed explicitly for that experience - although now I am quite pleased to have some short digital work I can toss about indiscriminately, in contrast to the arduous, precious distribution and projection of analog films which is my typical burden.

You can see in my notes the development of these liminal videos. I began with a sense of what I wanted to accomplish, and an assessment of the tools at my disposal. (Skills in leading trance, an intern with access to DSLRs, metallic makeup bought on a whim from Kryolan, etc.) I listed the intents of my three performances, and hypothesized the best directions for transitioning from one to the next. I listed out all of the activities I could imagine an audience acquiescing to at the behest of a pre-recorded video.

I wrote three scripts, spoke them out loud to make sure they lasted about three minutes, then traveled to the Magic Hedge (my Chicago place of power) and recorded myself speaking, in three different environments. remember was recorded on a pier; this was recorded within shrubbery; feeling was recorded in a dirt footpath stone tunnel.

I edited the recordings and then performed along to them while my utterly fantastic intern Hannah Kim recorded my hand motions in front of a black velvet backdrop. Pro tip: applying an opaque layer of makeup to hands and forearms takes a considerable amount of time.

So how did it go? These videos were well received, and helped facilitate seamless transitions between performances during the show, providing uninterrupted liminality. They gave me time to take a breath, collect my thoughts, and change costumes between pieces. My audience responded eagerly to every instruction. I could hear people giggling when they were instructed to grab their crotches. You can listen to the live recording of this by playing the track below. I love it.

Cat Tongue

This comic is called Cat Tongue, and was just printed in The Lifted Brow, which is a superb "attack journal" from Australia. This is the first comic that I ever drew for performance first, and print second.

Here's how it looks printed in The Lifted Brow. I am so pleased! You should definitely check out this publication and subscribe if you like experimental fiction and pointed commentary.

Hey, look, my name is on the cover!

Cat Tongue is a story that came to me over a long period of time, and one that bundles several passions neatly together: lesbianism, power tools, beastial fantasy, hallucinatory psychedelia, and of course, color separation. It is also a conceptual follow-up to Go Down, the first (Cat Tongue being the second) in a projected trilogy of comics about female sexuality and oral fixation.

I drew Cat Tongue for performance at the last Brain Frame. I performed it last. It was the last Brain Frame performance ever. (I'm performing it again this month, scroll down for info.) Here's the video:



In this performance, there are three rear-projection screens. The two on either side are illuminated by 16mm film loops. The center screen shows a shifting, CMY color-separated animations of the panels advancing. I am using my trusty vocal effect loop pedal, in combination with an audio feed from one of the 16mm projectors, which is broadcasting the sound of sprocket holes running through an optical sound reader. I am manipulating these two audio inputs (vocal and mechanical) to accompany the hallucinatory narrative. In this performance, analog film machinery = wood shop power tools. When my characters lick the saw and drill, I stand and lick the 16mm projectors.

I drew this comic in about four days, which is remarkable considering I had to draw each page four times. I had to draw each page four times because I needed each color layer to stand on its own as a compelling image, and match imperfectly with its corresponding layers, in order for the separation animation to feel organic and complete.

I began by drawing the machines. Because they are an object of fantasy, they needed to have a different feeling, a different line than the organic materials (flesh, clothing, wood). I staged a photo shoot in an actual wood shop with two friends willing to model. (I captured the 16mm film that would loop in my performance during this shoot, as well.) Drawing on these reference photos and some machine manuals I have, I illustrated all the metal with clean lines, rulers, and high contrast shine and shadow. I penciled in the figures around them. Here's what my base layer page looks like:

Next, I drew three complete pages on top of each base layer, illustrating the cyan, magenta, and yellow parts of the scene. I used a brush pen and tracing paper. I drew each color layer without referencing the others, only the base page and pencil sketches.

I developed a schema to organize the colors consistently. For example: the jeans and overalls would only be illustrated on the cyan page. The shirts would only appear in the yellow layer. The white woman's freckles would only appear in magenta; her goggles, cyan. Here's a comparison of the color layers of two panels on page 3:

To complete the image, I scanned and aligned each layer in Photoshop (you can see my little triplet registration marks on the base page above). I added the machine drawings to all three color layers, so that in the fleeting instances that the animation aligned, the machines would become crisp and black while the rest of the image would continue to appear in flux.

Preparing this comic for print was a novel challenge. I ended up manipulating the text much more than I do in the video animation, for legibility. It was a delight to attempt to replicate the feeling of the cat-transformation on the printed page, by exploding the panels and totally destroying the previous implication of gutters (and thus, time).

I'll be performing Cat Tongue for a second time on April 21st at the Gene Siskel Film Center, as part of my Conversations at the Edge show. This show is a big deal: I'll be enacting three different pieces, one of which is a brand new performative-comix-reading, as well as debuting three short videos. You should come. Buy tickets here.

Brain Frame Is Over

Three months and three days ago, Brain Frame ended. I think it's safe to say that I've recovered. I have some perspective. My grieving has passed. I've been so slow to upload documentation - the final videos are going up on the website this week - because only now does it feel delightful, not depressing, to review. Here's an incredible montage of the entire Finale, by Burton Bilharz:



The Finale was better than I could have imagined. The notes and drawings left by friends and strangers in my yearbook (passed around Thalia Hall with tape reading "BOSS BOOK / PLEASE SIGN") are ridiculously, overwhelmingly kind. The mere thought of them stirs the stuff in my ribcage. Onstage, I wore overalls, safety goggles, a plain t-shirt, and sneakers I bought at a Payless in San Francisco when I was seventeen. I didn't wash my hair or wear makeup, at least until my surprise transformation at the end of the show into a golden outfit tailor-made by Ellen Nielsen.

I was dressed for the performance of my new comic Cat Tongue, but I was also dressed down for honesty. Amid mounting spectacle, I felt most comfortable representing myself as a mechanic. Above all, for me, Brain Frame was work. It was enormous work.

It was also ritual. Especially the last show. I talk a little bit about that in this great article by Sierra Nicole Rhoden. I took cues from the large public rituals in which I used to participate while growing up in the Bay Area, specifically the Spiral Dance. The altars at the Brain Frame Finale honored the death of the show and predicted the future of its celebrants. The poster was a re-imagining of the Death card in the Ryder-Waite Tarot, a symbol for change and rebirth. My introduction in the Yearbook attempts to inspire further exploration. I spoke to the audience more plainly than ever before. I talked about the potential in performative comics readings. I invited people to email me for support, advice. My intention was to release the spirit of Brain Frame, for everyone to take home in their hearts, and have it grow there.

All photos in this post by Gillian Fry

Then I went home, all hollowed out. My family did another ritual for me, privately. I went out of town for a while. I looked for other things to fill myself up, or tried to stay empty. I lost track of time, and realized that Brain Frame had been my clock. I struggled to relax around friends, without a collaboration between us. I realized that I am not the boss of every conversation. I remembered how much I like reading books. I built new shelves and cleaned up in my office for the first time in two years. I performed a new comic at a noise show. I performed in a wrestling match. I got flown to New York to show parts of my film. I got flown to Los Angeles to perform Go Down. I started my first full year as Lead Artist of the Teen Creative Agency. I picked up extra work as an Artist Guide at the MCA. I started writing in my blog again...

On Toothlessness

Photo by Tyson Torstensen

An important period in my life has recently come to an end. Eighteen years ago, at age eight, I skidded down a hill on my face, knocking out both of my front teeth and shredding my nose, lips and hand. I was on my way home from buying candy. Both incisors were inserted back into my mouth. The left one took, the right one died slowly, over three years. In 1998 this long, grey front tooth was pulled, leaving me with a flipper (a tooth attached to a retainer). In 2005, a year out of high school, I was assigned braces. They strung my falsie up with the others, sans anchor. I would flip it in circles for fun. In 2006, just before moving to Chicago, my braces were removed. My dentist glued the fake into a semi-permanent 'Maryland bridge,' cemented to its neighbors in the rear. Slowly, for seven years, it wore down into a shorter stump, straining and elongating the teeth it held on to. Finally, last summer, my new dentist and I initiated the surgical process of a permanent implant.

At CAKE 2013. Photo by Marnie Galloway

In June, one week before the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE), my dentist and his friend the oral surgeon removed my Maryland bridge, cut open and peeled back the gums across half the roof of my mouth, scraped my upper jaw bone and then drilled into it with a titanium screw about 2mm thick and 2cm long. Over the next four months, my bone would grow through the tiny hole in the tip of the screw, securing it permanently into my upper jaw. This surgery was difficult. Local anesthetic doesn't help with immense skull pressure, or horrifying sounds. I like going to the dentist, and I ask a lot of questions. For once, I wished I hadn't know the details.

At Brain Frame 14. Photo by Gillian Fry

After stitching up my gums to cover the end of the screw, I received a temporary fake. This one, instead of a retainer, was a full upper Invisalign-style clear case, with a thin white veneer where my gap tooth sat. I left the office wearing it but it had filled with blood by the time I was home. It looked like shit and it hurt so I left it out for a few days. (Then I broke it - more on that later.) When I returned to get my stitches out, I received a new temporary - another flipper. I wore it sparingly.

I made a cake for Jenna's and Krystal's birthday party. Photo by Eric Rivera

Just before Halloween, four months later, I returned to my surgeon with music and headphones. I didn't want to hear the jaw scraping gum ripping again. (Sounds like velcro.) He seemed skeptical, and I felt foolish when he completed the follow up procedure in twenty minutes with no gross sounds. I guess it's much less invasive to fold back gums and screw a 'healing cap' on to the tip of a protruding screw. This silver button stuck out just past my gum line for the next month, a touch of cyborg, molding a nice seat for the eventual implant.

A week before Thanksgiving I returned to prepare the adjacent teeth for crowning (they were damaged from the bridge) and to take impressions for the tooth sculptor who would be manufacturing my implant. My dentist shaved down my pre-crown teeth into little monster stubs. The left one started throbbing and turning red. I reminisced about the accident and how that tooth had hung by a thread before effective reinsertion. "Ah," said my dentist, "I wish you had told me this before. Once a nerve cavity is damaged like that, it will never be right again. You probably need a root canal."

Bathroom 'selfies' at the dentist's office

He left me with a temporary plastic bridge in the traditional form. The bridge was loose and my cyborg cap visible above it. Whenever I breathed in too quickly, searing pain struck through my front stub. I went in a week later for my root canal.

"I don't usually do this," he said, in the middle of the procedure, "but I think you'd get a kick out of it. Open your eyes." He was holding my swollen, half-dead nerve in front of my face. It was awesome. So tiny and gelatinous. We have a good relationship. When I asked him to use my phone to take some pictures of the hardware he was screwing into my face, he acquiesced.

Photos by John Quinn, D.D.S.

I was in and out of the office about twice a week all December. Finally, on the 26th, I received my permanent teeth. I had to return the next day because the cement in my implant came loose. But it's in there for good now! I have my front teeth, for Christmas, like I've always wanted.

This is the only art in this blog post

A lot of people get dental implants. You probably know at least two people who have dental implants. I heard, during this process, about many sympathetic experiences. A bartender, returning with my change, covertly slipped her flipper to show the same missing tooth. I wanted to write this post because it's a big deal for me - eighteen years is a long time to worry over something - and because of what I learned from choosing to be toothless for two seasons.

When I had the option, between sixth and twelfth grade, of bearing my true grin, I didn't. I only took out my fake to play tricks on people. Once, as a sophomore in high school, our spirit week theme was 'pirates.' I dressed elaborately and left my tooth at home, but in class I was too shy to open my mouth, uncharacteristic for a know-it-all.

After the surgery this summer, I thought it would be the same. I couldn't wear my temporary at first, for the blood and stitches. Tyson took me to get ice cream. Ordering my sundae, I felt sheepish, infantilized. I was terrified above all that Tyson, my partner, would find me gruesome. Getting over this (unfounded) fear was the hardest part.

CAKE changed everything. I joked with Lale that cartoonists from Providence would take me more seriously if I was missing a tooth. I quickly realized that all cartoonists take me more seriously without a tooth. The first day, I played with my temporary so much - showing off for people - that I broke it.

It's not hard for me to approach people, especially at alternative comics conventions. Toothless, it was even easier. People let their guard down as soon as we started talking. An interesting topic was always at hand. Funny faces were ten times as effective. Facing off with Patrick Kyle during the Comic Art Battle, I removed my tooth to psych him out (we were drawing cruel portraits of each other) and won.

I became comfortable socially as well as physically, leaving my gap agape. Interactions with cashiers, postal workers, servers, bankers, and other anonymous members of society remained unchanged. Friends and coworkers, people already at ease with me, were the only ones with probing questions and astonished looks.

At CAKE 2013. Photo by Jacq Cohen

In fact, the only insulting conversations I had regarding my willful toothlessness were with my dentist and his employees. They did not get it. "I would be humiliated..." "you're so beautiful with teeth..." "we have got to get that fixed!" I felt as though, taking pride in my non-conformity, I hurt their feelings.

Photo by Tyson Torstensen

I did wear my flipper for special occasions, like emceeing Brain Frame Lit and Brain Frame 13. The day I got my replacement temporary was the day I shot my Kickstarter video. In these situations, I wanted to remain focused, and I wanted my audience to focus on my presentation, not my mouth. And, I had to wear it occasionally to keep my teeth from shifting.

It was never truly easy. Every day I made a decision. At Brain Frame 14, I emceed without my tooth. I doubt anyone noticed, but that took a lot of guts. (The gap was noticeable, not my guts.) I enjoyed dressing up toothless, for a gay cruise, for my birthday dinner. I was acutely aware that the power of my toothlessness, the element of surprise, relied on my existence as a young, white, put-together woman.

At Brain Frame 14. Photo by Gillian Fry

And it was from this incongruity that I drew strength. Preparing MOCAD for Detroit Brain Frame, in a space I'd never been directing people - mostly men - I'd never met, I went toothless. Because I wanted to be an unknown quantity. As a woman in charge, who works extensively with audio visual equipment and freely exerts physical strength, I am hyper aware of bias against feminine competence. When I am presenting for the first time to a new crowd, or to a new individual, I have something to prove. Without a tooth, the proof is immediate, it goes unsaid: She is different. She doesn't care. I can't dismiss her.

On the Ryley Walker shoot. Photo by Ryan Gleeson

As the completion of my surgery neared, I grieved. A full, cosmetic smile for the first time in my life - how insincere! And what a relief. I don't miss the health concerns, exorbitant cost, and physical discomfort. My toothlessness came at an important juncture, during months of unparalleled ambition and increased visibility. I am grateful for the security it provided. Ultimately, it was like Dumbo's feather: a 'magic' talisman. When Dumbo looses his feather he thinks he can no longer fly, but he can! He could all along! I was always weird! I still am! A toothy grin also disarms.

Brain Frame Lit

photo by Lori Felker

Last weekend, a lot happened. On Sunday, Brain Frame celebrated its second anniversary, Brain Frame 13, in a performance spectacular and social event. More on that later.

On Saturday, I organized the first ever Brain Frame Lit as part of Saturday Strip: Comic Day at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

photo by Ian McDuffie

Brain Frame Lit is a new invention, arising from a unique obstruction. The MCA wanted me to organize something as part of Comic Day, but they wanted me to do it during the day, in an area full of windows. Brain Frame proper is at night, in the dark, and almost every performance utilizes digital or analog projection. Daylight would render such tools unusable.

So, I selected cartoonists with strong literary or narrative voices, and issued them the challenge of communicating their imagery through means other than projection. Everyone stepped up to the plate. I received the name Brain Frame Lit in an instant of clarity (it also looks like Brain Frame Lite, which is appropriate) and proceeded to make this stupid flier:

The performances were great. We decided to do it outside to maximize our new muse, the sun, and we maintained a full, attentive audience for the duration of the show. Halle Butler read a short story and had audience members follow along with an illustrated booklet. Eric Rivera distributed a package of drawings from Second Chances #1, and performed three vignettes from the story, in costume with a narrator. Ian Endsley ended the show with another incredible, disposable comic where each panel is drawn on the next page in a giant pad of paper. Ian rips off and casts away each page as he reads, demure, charismatic, affecting, through the comic. At the end everybody scrambles to grab the pages they'd like to take home.

For my reading (a redressing of They Glistened) I created a bunch of jello diagrams of the liquid aliens who star in that story, the Squishsacks. I drew the Jellyship, their symbiotic, organic spaceship, on the whiteboard behind me. I smashed the Squishsacks in time with the narrative, and drew corresponding, shitty diagrams on the board behind me. I had no eraser, but erased with my hands, so by the end of the performance I had black-pigmented green jello all over. I slept an hour and a half on Thursday night, and three hours (in two segments) on Friday night, and this was Saturday, and that night I slept four hours before Sunday and the execution of Brain Frame 13. Everything went really well, and I've been exceedingly happy all week.

photos by John Fecile