I start this not to suggest that there is anything I feel against this motif. I, too, am a lover of Wendy Cope’s The Orange, or Gary Soto’s Oranges, or even Roisin Kelly’s poem by the same name. My favorite rendition of this is JP Infante’s Yasica, Puerto Plata. 

“When I saw my great-grandmother peel a tangerine with her bare hands while men used knives for oranges, she became god.  I imagined what she could do with the sun.” (excerpt from Yasica, Puerto Plata) 

There is an endearment to writings like these, I think, that a lot of people find. That idea of someone taking you, the orange, in two gentle hands, tearing your skin to find what is truly you, pulpy and tender and hidden away. But why? Where does this come from? Why detach from our human selves and find understanding in citrus? 

Among the many opinionated literary folks of the world, there are some people who are completely exhausted by this idea, even calling it a cliché. Some string it alongside the common writings on pomegranate, a fruit that had come to have symbolism for feminism and love but has since become a sort of indicator for ‘bad,’ ‘performative’ TikTok poetry. The same has begun to happen with figs, after Sylvia Plath’s fig tree concept. 

But I am not here to discuss pomegranates or figs. Rather, I see oranges tumbling down into the same rabbit hole of dilution. 

For one, even as oranges find their way into language and writing time and time again, they can also be found in metaphor and phrases, like in Spanish. The phrase ‘mi media naranja’ or ‘my orange half’ refers to the idea that every person has another half that they are constantly in search of, suggesting a kind of destiny or generational connection that goes far beyond what we see in this one life we see presently. This is often linked back to the Greek myth recorded by Plato in The Symposium, where the idea that every soul is missing its other half is also expressed, claiming that Zeus caused this divide out of the arrogance of humans.

With this origin, I found a sort of poetry alone in the fact that oranges and many citrus fruits are the only fruits to be naturally subdivided, while usually for these orange metaphors the focus is primarily on the peel. You split one open — with a knife, maybe, like JP Infante’s poem — and half the work has been done for you, politely waiting with the segments in their expected places. 

I believe part of our exhaustion with oranges can be found in this. We give them surface level meaning, as surface level as the 3mm vivid, aromatic peel. The irony in this is that part of the symbolism we are always creating with oranges is about seeing things beyond their simplicity, like the orange peel theory; the idea that how or if someone peels an orange for you can indicate affection or care. 

Dare I say this theory has watered down the juice. To stop at the peel is to lose so much of the magic that can be found here! Dig a little deeper into the bright sun of it and find, perhaps, Amy Schmidt’s Abundance, in memory of Mary Oliver. 

“It’s impossible to be lonely 

when you’re zesting an orange. 

Scrape the soft rind once 

and the whole room 

fills with fruit. 

Look around: you have 

more than enough. 

Always have. 

You just didn’t notice 

until now.” 

This poem follows Mary Oliver’s Oranges, which I think also seeks further into the idea. 

“Cut one, the lace of acid 

rushes out, spills over your hands. 

You lick them, manners don’t come into it. 

Orange−the first word you have heard that day−”

(excerpt from Oranges) 

I think what often happens with poetry as it circulates online is a gradual misunderstanding of meanings. This present day loves to take a concept and spin it into one specific thing, keep it contained in a box that doesn’t allow further critical thinking or creativity (like orange peel theory!). We consume things quickly, in small rushes of dopamine that fade as quickly as they come. The same has happened to oranges.

When do the mundane things become beautiful, and vice versa? How does the repetitive nature of our modern day prevent us from being able to enjoy these poetic motifs? Sometimes things must be taken deeper than they are, looked at from a new angle, given new life. What I mean to say is sometimes you can’t garner the meaning from the simplest of explanations or viewpoints. Take a dip into another set of eyes, find the angle. 

To be able to absorb these ideas with a grain of salt — seeing past the misuse and confusion caused by modern day media — is to be able to peel past the skin, find the segments, see what more there is to something mundane.

The post In Defense of Wendy Cope, Gary Soto, Roisin Kelly, etc. appeared first on The New Absurdist.

If he were to look up, he might see his own reflection in the mirrored ceiling of the elevator. An anonymous dark head, an anonymous gray suit. But Virgil is not the type of person to look up. Instead, he tilts his wrist so that the face of his watch blinks on. Six minutes early. Perfectly on schedule. 

Virgil is headed to the third floor. In fact, the elevator will only deliver him to the third floor. What actually lies on the floors above, the land of vision and dental and paid vacation time and conference calls with the CEO, he does not know. And however splendid floors four-through-seven are in reality, Virgil’s imagination is constantly concocting something much, much greater. 

The elevator doors glide open. Already the office is dotted with faces, eyes that twitch up when they hear the mechanical thunk of cogs sliding into place. Across the rat-maze sprawl of cubicles, Jude Esperanza is standing in a cluster of employees, waiting for his turn to speak. Jude, too, looks up when he hears the elevator. Jude’s eyes land on Virgil’s face, and stay there. 

Virgil imagines the office as a slaughterhouse. Meathooks swinging from heavy wrought-iron chains. Bodies pale and doughy, strung up by the ankles. Featureless masses of skin and sinew, strawberry-red muscle and cauliflower-white fat. Nail gun, bone saw, twine. Bodies heavy and ripe for the picking. 

Virgil blinks when he hears the elevator doors start to drift shut. The office is normal again, clean and white. No hooks, no white hanging bodies. He slides his foot forward into the doors’ path. For a second they just hang there, nameless hunks of machinery. Then, a groan as they slide open again. Shaking his head like he is trying to dislodge a stubborn shard of shrapnel, he shoulders his messenger bag and walks to his desk. 

Floor-to-ceiling windows colonize the west wall. Outside, the smoggy sky, easy fodder for habitual daydreamers. Past the asphalt parking lot a smudge of black against the snow, high-rises compete for dominance over the skyline. It is a bitter, brisk day. Comparatively, the inside of the office is sterile and warm, an incubator. 

The sound of a completely superfluous briefcase being slammed on a desk makes Virgil look over. Darcy, sliding her rolling chair over the linoleum, waves. 

All of the cubicles in CronosTech offices are made entirely of glass. It is supposed to symbolize something, Virgil reasons, but he can never quite figure out what. It makes him feel like an object on display. At any rate, Darcy can always see him through their shared wall, and seizes onto any moment of accidental eye contact as an invitation to chat. 

“Hey, you!” she chirps. “How’re you holding up?” Six weeks since the operation, and Darcy is still perpetually interested in Virgil’s health. 

“Fine. You?” 

“Oh, alright. My knee’s been bugging me again.” 

Virgil frowns, an appropriate facsimile of sympathy. “Sorry to hear that.” His hand twitches toward his mouse. Darcy, not finished, inches her chair towards him. “Did you hear,” her voice the stage-whisper of the unrepentant workplace gossiper, “That 

Jude got the implant?” When she says implant she points to her temple, although Virgil knows the implant is located at the back of the skull. 

“Isn’t that confidential?” Fragments of light glint off of Darcy’s round glasses. Virgil feels a headache coming on. 

Darcy ignores him. “I mean, I’m not totally certain, but it makes sense, right? I always got the impression that Jude would do anything to get a…competitive edge.” The implant, as it is colloquially known, does not yet have an official name. Still officially in testing, the offer to install it had been cordially extended to select employees at CronosTech. When one really considers it, the name feels like a misnomer. The unassuming little chip does not truly implant something new inside its host, but takes something away. The idea for the implant is this: humans, in modern day, developed countries, no longer have any need for the sensation of hunger. Certain innovators and entrepreneurs, funded and championed by CronosTech, consider hunger an evolutionary excess, as useless as the vestigial tail, and a nuisance. So, they began developing a procedure that could eliminate it. Virgil, of course, eagerly went under the knife. 

When someone is hungry, they are uncomfortable, and therefore less productive. Since the operation, Virgil’s focus has hardened, sharp as the edge of a scythe. He’s at the top of his game. He finishes work quicker. Completes extra tasks. All the while, he feels lighter, buoyant. It’s like a tiny but impossibly heavy rock in his stomach has been extracted. 

Darcy huffs at his lack of reaction to the news. “I just thought you’d like to know.” Jude is the only person on the floor who Virgil considers his direct competitor. He had been promoted to the second floor only a few weeks after Virgil, and was mere days behind in the ascent to the third. And now the (alleged) implant. Virgil has the sinister impression that the man is gaining on him. 

He realizes he’s been staring out the window. A powdery white cloud speared on the spire of a high-rise, a car backing out of a parking space. He turns back to his computer, and gets to work. 

Lunch break still hasn’t stopped feeling strange. Each day watching his coworkers take their meals from the fridge, food smells mingling together: leftover half of a burrito, BLT on sourdough, kimchi fried rice. Sitting around the break-room table, sidelong glances, everyone pretending they don’t know or haven’t guessed. Making small talk: weather, layoffs, weekend plans. The rational part of Virgil knows that he does still need to eat, despite the lack of hunger signals to his brain, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like he’s faking it. 

Today he extracts a deli sandwich from the fridge, ham and cheese, with his name scrawled across the side of the packaging. The break room is curiously empty for the time of day. The coffeemaker burbles diligently in the corner. 

The door swings open as Virgil unwraps his sandwich, background chatter and keyboard clacks seeping in from outside. It’s Jude. 

Partially stooped and awash with the bluish light of the fridge. Jude’s long hand wrapped around a tupperware container. 

The whir of the microwave settles into the otherwise quiet room. Virgil’s sandwich tastes of nothing. Jude is staring intently at the microwave like it contains the answer to an essential question. He is an unreasonably tall man, almost Muppet-esque with his oversized, gangly limbs. The wispy ends of his hair cover the nape of his neck, where the incision scar would be. If it were true. 

The microwave beeps, and Jude sits opposite Virgil. He avoids eye contact in a way which Virgil considers a purposeful slight against him, as he pries off the lid of the tupperware. Steam rises languidly off the liquid within. Who in their right mind brings soup to work? 

“How are the reports coming?” Jude has the low sort of voice that hums in your chest. “Fine.” 

“Anya says she wants them done by Tuesday, did you get that email?” 

“They’ll be done.”

To watch Jude dip his plastic spoon into the soup, blow on it, and bring the spoon to his lips, is almost unbearable. Something about it repulses Virgil. He yearns desperately to avert his eyes. Yet, he does not, and instead watches Jude’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. Something passes in his expression, his mouth tightens and his nose crinkles almost imperceptibly, which Virgil recognizes. His suspicions confirmed: Jude has gotten the implant. 

The loading symbol is an ouroboros, never satisfied. Virgil clicks the mouse impatiently, although he knows that will only slow the machine down more. FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS: functional computers. 

The weekend had passed uneventfully. Virgil spent Friday night watching old sitcom reruns, went grocery shopping on Saturday (shopping expenses lowered since getting the implant; no use splurging on on pricey ingredients when it all tastes the same), and on Sunday called his mother. She chided him for not going to church, and interrogated him about his mental health. She was convinced that the implant was bad for him, and monitored carefully for adverse side effects. Throughout the weekend, the image of Jude bringing the spoon to his lips and swallowing painfully would suddenly appear, unbidden, in his mind, which he stamped down with the vehemence of a cowboy crushing a snake beneath his boot. 

The document loads at last, and Virgil is once again free to insert figures into his spreadsheet: numbers upon numbers. Dollar signs, expenditures, profits, slotted neatly into the green and red checkerboard. Everything in its rightful place. 

There is a tapping on the glass of his cubicle, like a bird pecking at a window. When he looks up, Virgil expects to see Darcy’s owl-eyes peering at him through the fishbowl of her cubicle. Instead, he is met with Jude’s cool dark stare.

“Sorry, it looked like you were in the zone there.” In the zone sounds stilted, almost ironic, coming out of Jude’s mouth. 

“Yeah, well.” Virgil rubs at a sore spot on his neck, which continually reappears despite CronosTech’s patented ergonomic chairs and keyboards. “What’s going on?” “The reports? I’m supposed to pass them onto Anya, and you said on Friday—” “Oh, right.” Virgil had finished them, in what some might consider a frenzy, after his and Jude’s lunch conversation. Then he had promptly forgotten about them. “I just need to print them out. Give me a second.” 

Virgil opens the document, and the ouroboros returns. His mouse hovers over the print button. Jude taps a bony finger against the top of the cubicle. 

Virgil presses PRINT. He rises from his chair at the same time that Jude starts to move towards the printer. 

“I got it—”, “It’s fine—” 

Their voices overlap each other. Eyes track them across the room, their buzz of adrenaline. Virgil and Jude plant themselves on either side of the printer, as it hacks and shudders like a cat coughing up a hairball. Over the plastic hull of the machine, Jude’s jaw is set and his eyes are hard stones. He looks wildly uncomfortable. Is he sweating? The printer spits out a sheet of paper, then another. Something unfamiliar churns in Virgil’s stomach as he watches Jude pull at the collar of his button-up, exposing a narrow strip of collarbone. 

Virgil imagines a butcher’s shop. Dull thud of knife hitting cutting board. Thick strong hands knuckling slabs of meat tender and pliant. Cleaver glinting, silver-toothed smile. Pool of red bleeding pink at the edges as it glugs down the drain. Raw crimson scent that settles at the back of the throat. Intoxicatingly sweet. Virgil takes a deep breath in.

The printer sighs, and the third sheet of paper is released. Virgil darts his hand out and grabs the stack. Jude tries to do the same, too late. His hand jerks out and slams against the printer with a thunk. 

“I’ll take these to Anya myself,” Virgil says coolly. 

When he returns at last to his cubicle, Darcy is, as usual, not working. “Jesus, Virgil, what was that?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

It is not until he sighs and clicks open the spreadsheet document again, the blue light washing over his face, that he realizes what the strange churning feeling had been. It was hunger.

The hold music is a rendition of one of Beethoven’s concertos, distorted and fuzzy over the phone. Virgil stands under the awning of the bus stop, watching the rain pour. A car rolls by, spraying up a sheet of water. A single bulbous drop lands on the patent leather of Virgil’s shoe. 

Beethoven comes to a stop. A laconic voice on the other end says, “How can I help you?” “Hi, yes, I’m calling to get in contact with Dr. R—?” 

“This is his office. What is this regarding?” 

“He implanted the CronosTech, uh, thing in me, and it’s malfunctioning.” “Are you experiencing any of the following symptoms: swelling, fever, dizziness, fatigue, memory loss, hearing loss,” The voice rattles off. 

“Well, it’s just that I’m hungry again. But it’s not a normal hunger, it’s stronger, it feels… weird. Bad.” Virgil takes a gulping breath. “I’m not myself. I’m thinking strange things.” “So.” The word is heavy, drawn-out. A shuffling of paper, a sigh. “Dr. R—’s earliest appointment slot is in February. We can have you come in then, if it works for you?”

Virgil leans his head against the cold metal of the pole, feeling slightly faint. “Hello?” comes the voice. “Are you still there?” 

“Yes,” Virgil says. “February works fine.” 

The receptionist confirms the details of the appointment, and Virgil resuscitates frozen fingers to add the date to his phone calendar. He is shoving his hands in the pockets of his coat when someone ducks under the awning beside him. 

Jude nods in greeting. Virgil forces his face into a smile. 

“I’ve never seen you take the bus,” Jude says. 

“I normally Uber.” Finances have been tight. 

Jude nods thoughtfully, like Virgil has just provided some keen insight. 

Virgil looks back at the ground. The gutter is congested with slush, gray-brown and sluggish. The churning in his stomach is back. 

“Do you ever feel,” Jude says into the thick silence, “Like you’re being compartmentalized?” 

“What? No.” 

He glances over his shoulder. “In there, I mean. At work.” 

Virgil shrugs. 

“I just…” His eyes are darting around, like he’s hunting for some secret camera or enemy agent. He looks into the headlights of oncoming traffic, pigeons resting on a telephone wire, the shuttered windows of the building across the road, but never at Virgil’s face. “I’ve been feeling claustrophobic, lately. Yesterday I nearly hyperventilated in the elevator. The third floor is so small all of the sudden. It’s like I’m a figure in a spreadsheet, and I’m stuck in my stupid rectangle. And I can’t move, even if I wanted to, until they decide it’s time to slot me into the next compartment. And maybe the next compartment will be a little bigger, but maybe it’ll be just the same as it’s always been.” 

Virgil doesn’t know what to say. He thinks he should defend CronosTech, something about the ingenuity of the company, the beauty and symmetry of it. If Jude doesn’t like being a tiny cog in an immaculate machine, that’s his problem. But the words aren’t coming, they’re stuck somewhere in his small intestine, forming a hard knot. 

“I don’t know,” Jude says. “I just feel like there’s something missing. A hole. Something like that.” 

A distant rumble. The screech of heavy, unoiled machinery. The bus is here. Jude steps towards the bus as the doors swing open. He looks back expectantly. “I’m taking the next one. This one doesn’t go to my place.” Virgil lies. The thought of 

close, humid quarters, of beads of moisture trickling down the windows, of heat and fabric and skin, of Jude’s bobbing Adam’s apple, makes him feel sick. 

The rain does not let up until the next day. Puddles in the office parking lot shimmer iridescent like the hard shells of beetles. The sun pokes reticently out from behind a fat gray cloud. Darcy is humming an infuriatingly cheery tune, breathy and soft. Virgil supposes she’s cheerful because it’s almost 5pm, when they can all pack up and go home. But Virgil will be staying late tonight. 

Anya had pulled him aside to point out a miscalculation in his most recent report. Virgil could only stand there like a chastised child, heat creeping into his face. It is unreasonably time-consuming, to fix all the incorrect dates and numbers that had spawned from the initial miscalculation. His eyes are heavy marbles in his cottony skull. Perhaps, on a brighter day, an automated solution to this problem might have found its way onto the FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS list. 

Jude is pretending their rainy conversation never happened, that he never admitted his secret seditious thoughts. He is smiling widely at everyone, baring his big chemically whitened teeth. 

All the while, the pit in Virgil’s stomach expands and expands. He had eaten his deli sandwich today, for the first time in weeks, ravenously. This did nothing to quench the hunger. It boils and palpitates within him until he is certain it will spill out in a great wave, flooding the office with a tide of want. 

Darcy says goodbye as soon as the clock strikes five, power-walking to the door with the tenacity of someone with a hot date. Virgil lacks the energy even to roll his eyes. By the time he inserts the last corrected figure onto the document, the sky outside is the color of wet charcoal. The date of his appointment with Dr. R— could not seem farther away. The printer whirrs and spits. Infernal machine, always complaining. The office is nearly deserted; the motion operated lights over every cubicle but his own have long shut off. His own, and one other, on the other side of the room. Through layer after layer of distorted glass, he can just barely make out the figure sitting behind the desk. 

Virgil takes the papers from the printer, warm like a hand, and tries to ignore the pounding that now thrums in his skull. He is ready to double over from the hunger. He lays the corrected reports down on Anya’s desk, hoping that the speedy correction might win back her favor. 

When he looks up, Jude is there. He’s breathing heavily; Virgil can almost imagine he feels the breath on his own cheek, goosebumping his skin.

The look on Virgil’s face might have registered as surprise in Jude’s mind, because he says, “Sorry to startle you.” 

When Virgil doesn’t reply, he adds, “Burning the midnight oil, you know.” “Me…too.” Virgil manages. 

“But I’m done now.” 

“Me too.” 

Virgil drags his eyes up from the floor, up Jude’s improbably tall frame. For the first time he looks, really looks, into Jude’s eyes. Inkwell black. In those eyes Virgil sees reflected the same hunger that dwells rabid and desperate in his own stomach. The wave inside him crests, foams over. 

Virgil stares. Jude stares back. 

Then, two snarling beasts, they are upon each other. A passerby glancing idly at the scene might have seen a pair of lovers, but lovers do not generally tear each other’s throats. Virgil’s teeth sink into Jude’s neck. Jude drags his nails down Virgil’s back. Blood, hot and sweet, rushes into Virgil’s mouth. The taste of iron and sweat. Jude clutches Virgil’s head, knots his bloody fingers into his hair. His face pressed to Jude’s neck, Virgil swallows to keep from choking. Jude clamps his teeth into Virgil’s shoulder, tearing away a soft chunk of flesh. 

The two dedicated CronosTech employees, locked in their embrace, crash into the nearest cubicle, which shatters into a kaleidoscope of broken glass. There is no time for efficiency, shrewdness, precision. Their work is simple. Simple as the food chain. Simple as carnivorousness. 

It is as if Virgil has been eating gravel all his life, and now he finally has tasted food. Hearty, lush, instinctual. Meanwhile, Jude writhes against him. His teeth ribbon Virgil’s flesh.

Virgil’s shoulder burns, ache laces through him, but the taste is so magnificent he does not care. He will gladly take hunger if it means such bliss.

The post Saturn Devouring His Son appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Making cloth is such a beautiful and humble practice. I am obsessed, especially because so much time and labor are involved in weaving. Within a rapidly changing world which prioritizes tech, my discipline and motivation to produce meaningful thought provoking work remains the same. I am invested in processes that are not digital, or adapted from technology, but human driven. Slow and simple traditional methods which continue to be reliable, with the use of hands instead of computers. In a capitalist world where commerce overtakes creativity for the sake of profit, my only investment is to hand produce work with commentary on what I deem neglected and important. I don’t really care about selling the clothes from my runway shows, or producing seasonal garments; my runway shows are there to tell stories, and my work is there to whisper my obsessive ideas, opinions (and sometimes secrets) to the mass public. 

A Bloodline And Their Rituals.

Growing up in East Los Angeles, we get our nutrients from the corners. East Los Angeles is where my unnamed neighbors sit next to me on the public buses and crowded mercados. It’s where artisan hand painted eyebrows became a fad and rosaries dangle from our throats. Where frightening gunshots get mistaken for fluorescent firecrackers, and add warmth to our atmosphere. Where we spill our teeth over our subhuman occupations during the heat of the summer.

The concrete is meticulously tattooed with graffiti, so pure, however its expression is often misunderstood. Our blood; it gets misplaced with a type of sticky tar. Our skin sizzles in the summer as we congregate under the sun in fields or in manufacturing factories scattered across this country. Our sweat drips and pools around our ankles, as our labor becomes someone else’s commodity. The community I was raised in, it places me under its tongue, and I’m absorbed into its gums. It’s dangerous. 

I come to realize how my Chicano identity and Latino background has become the originating genes to my body of art work and craft. The working class struggling family and community I was born into aided my drive for innovation, and a lust for “honest art” which to me, is realistic, relatable commentary on underprivileged lives. I come from a culture of people you never see featured in popular magazines or media. Our lifestyle is evident and purely valid, however I continue to find narratives of our existence to be misconstrued. I want to showcase truth and honesty. This is the significance and integrity I wish to provide through destacarse. My apparel work and runway collections have always been really personal and intimate. 

Experience From Losing Teeth

One of my first professional runway showcases featured my Fall Winter 2015 collection titled “The Boy Who Dreamt Of Losing Teeth”. This collection was inspired by my discharge from a psychiatric mental hospital. The collection focused around recovery and phototaxis organisms. The color pallet for the clothing juxtaposed dark colors such as navy blue and black, but with neon orange and faded blues. Some garments also had dead moths sewn into the linings or behind clear plastic. The models graced the stages with bloody noses and bruises (makeup, of course) and I hand constructed metal face masks that also had moths and butterflies clustered onto them. I was twenty two years old. 

Another significant collection was my Spring Summer 2017 collection titled, “Sinnerman”. This collection was really a menswear collection but had very feminine details such as hand pleated tulle ruffles and lace. Some of the male models walked down the runway in knit dresses. This collection was inspired by gender and binary oppositions regarding human sexuality My models also had their arms dyed in Japanese ink to physically represent the “illness” of being queer onto the body. This period of my life allowed the DNA for this collection to unfold willingly. 

The next collection which I feel pushed me to extend beyond personal realities and enter into political commentary was my Spring Summer 2018 collection, “Travieso”. This collection was born in the era where children were being contained at borders in cages and unmentioned presidents were specifically targeting brown immigrants. “Travieso” was a collection that drew inspiration from both the Bracero Program in the 1940’s but also the Zoot Suit Riots. I think American society heavily (and secretly) relies on immigrants for staple industries such as the garment manufacturing industry and agricultural industry. Around this time, I had gotten fired from my job for whistleblowing cruel mistreatment towards the undocumented immigrants in the company. “Travieso ” showcased garments that had hand sketched, tattoo inspired cultural imagery screen printed onto select pieces. 

The layout of this show forced the audience members to be separated by a chain link fence that ran along the runway. Audience members were seated on both sides of the fence, looking at the clothes on the models and the audience on the opposing side of the fence, as a border. This emphasis of separation was crucial to my strategy presenting a blatant division of people that I wanted to provide commentary on. It was obvious and it was cold. Lastly, the model who opened the show was wearing a hand draped chunk of metal chain link fence. This wearable piece was inspired by the reality that immigrants in America always carry the weight of the border on their shoulders.  Intersectionality is a very fascinating format, and with my work, I want to introduce narratives that allow my audience to resonate and understand immigrants, and the underprivileged. I hand construct every garment in my collections, and am hoping to showcase a new collection after I graduate from RISD. This collection will be  titled, “Dolores”, which means Pains in Spanish. My fingers are crossed. 

Left Image: From “Travieso.” Right Image from New Collection, “Dolores.”

Weaving Possibilities

I am currently developing woven textile work and learning how to weave while earning an MFA in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). I got accepted into RISD with no prior weaving knowledge, and so here is where I am completing my full circle of garment development. I feel like I have enough knowledge and experience on how to produce a garment; the final link that was missing from my skill set was the ability to produce the textile for the garments. Now I am learning how to weave both by hand and machine to produce the woven structures for my garment. I learned how to use an eight shaft floor loom, and soon I will learn how to weave using a Dobby loom and industrial Jacquard loom. Making cloth is such a beautiful and humble practice. I am obsessed, especially because so much time and labor are involved in weaving. 

  My label, destacarse., was formed originally to showcase abstract garments. Since then I have been transitioning my brand to highlight Chicano culture and what I deem as “East Los Angeles realism”. Now, I am in the early stages of investigating how my brand can really produce nearly 100% hand made and housemade goods and artwork without outsourcing. I know after I graduate, I will expand my work and products on a somewhat larger scale. Slow fashion is the way to go, and I am even considering how to find a way to produce all the textiles for my garments as well. 

  I value handmade work. Where there is technology, there is ease and a lack of trial. The trial for error is supremely human. Technology and its abilities are a major crutch on civilization. We no longer solve math problems in our head or on paper, we use the calculator app on our iphones. We have no need to write grant proposals for non profit organizations, we now use AI. Chronic convenience suffocates human motivation. All these shortcuts diminish our ability to think creatively and independently. However, as we, a society continue to use technology to solve all our problems for us, at the same time this is happening, we are beginning to undervalue the ability of craft and handmade. There is a tremendous amount of trade and skill that goes into constructing a garment, so why are seamstresses getting paid subhuman wages? Why are there declining artisans worldwide who specialize in shoes, apparel, handbags etc. Why are there no longer special members in each family who sew clothes for the family and mend on a domestic level? I think one answer lies in the creation of the assembly line, pushed by the industrial revolution. The disassemblage of craftsmanship was caused by the expansive mass producing assembly line; where employees are forced to remove themselves from a “start to finish” process, and only perform a one step task repeated in a production line. Hand making, the skill to be able to build and make something on your own, is a weapon against capitalism and in some ways can be the most political step away from government, because you no longer require monopolizing companies to sell you goods and services. In my opinion, we have to relearn these archaic ways of life. 

 I still find myself unsatisfied by all these absurd systems. At the moment, I find myself caught in the jaw of an art school. My past and future are flashing before my eyes like a fire alarm signaled during a therapy session. I come from a community where art is labeled as “Folk Art”, instead of “Fine Art”. Beyond all this I have realized that my integrity and dedication to my craft has gotten me to where I am today. Since high school, I am doing exactly what I set out to do to my surprise. I still have so much more to learn and experience. I still want to study textiles and denim manufacturing in Okayama Japan, too. Dedicating my life and labor to design and craft has been challenging, but I have a feeling that things will eventually work out. I feel like I am in my own little golden age. 

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Can you tell me anything about the name MAROU?

You know what, when I was younger I would always hear these names like Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and be like that’s a great name. These people were just born with these names? Well then they were destined to do this. Angela Peters? I can’t really see that on a marquee or anything, “Now Starring Tonight Angela Peters!” It just didn’t have that feel to it. So I was talking to my sister one day, and I thought if I really want to do this music thing I want a name. Then I can be whoever I want. I can have this new persona, I don’t have to be this shy Ang who’s too scared to even sing in her room. 

But I love that it’s not like you’ve created a persona, it’s simply that you’ve grown into who you truly are, through doing this. And it’s genuinely you, which is lovely.

Yes! So my sister was just like, “alright let’s think of a name.” And I kind of wanted it to be just one name, one word. We were at Whole Foods one day and my sister was like “what about Marou?” And I was like, “huh that kind of slaps. How’d you just think of Marou like that?” We’re in line just buying kombucha or something. And she’s like, “oh look at that chocolate bar over there, it just says Marou.” I saw it and I was just repeating the word in my head over and over like, yeah, that works. Later I was fooling around with the font and stuff, like do I want uppercase first letter, all lowercase? I figured no, I want it all caps, just MAROU. So it hits you. 

A statement.

This is MAROU. I started signing my name as that at open mics and I love it. It fits. At first it felt like this person I would step into, but now, hi what’s up I’m MAROU. I’ve really grown into it.

Before you were MAROU, do you remember what first got you into music? 

You know, I was thinking about it yesterday, it’s crazy because I remember this vivid memory of me being in first grade (laughs) and we were doing this thing of like “oh what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I was really into American Idol. I would watch it all the time with my mom, like Simon Cowel, I think it was Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson, and I told my teacher, “I want to be a singer!” and she was like “What? No!” and I was like “Okay.. I want to be a vet”. Which is weird, because I never really had any interest in singing back then, but I was like “oh that’s cool”, you know. It wasn’t until middle school, when my brother went to the Cayman Islands, and brought me back a ukulele that I started getting serious about an instrument. But then I was like “okay I can’t just play it, I have to sing too”. 

It just felt like that was a natural combination. 

Exactly, and I think even before that I always liked singing, but I was never confident in myself, because I was like, a kid. I remember when Adele was really hitting it big, I was singing her in first grade. I did a talent show and I think I sang Rolling in the Deep. (laughs) I had no reason to be singing that song when I was that young. And oh my god there was a talent show in fourth grade, where I hula hooped for one half, and the other half I sang Who Says, by Selena Gomez. 

A classic. 

I mean it was bad, it was really bad I will admit. So then I played saxophone for a few years in school. So I had little bits and pieces growing up. But I wouldn’t say I really started getting into music until my brother bought me that ukulele when I was 12. I learned Riptide, of course. I was really into Leon Bridges, so I started singing him. And then that’s when I made a youtube channel, and was like “I want to be youtube famous, I want Ellen Degeneres to discover me”. So yeah I was really into Leon Bridges,  I played some Ariana Grande. But the thing is I was just not confident in my singing abilities. 

I would tell my mom, “Hey mom I’m going to go upstairs and record a youtube video, please stay downstairs until I come get you” And she was so cool she was like, “okay do your thing”. And sometimes it would be hours. I was too hard on myself I think, because if I messed up just even a little bit, which no one could hear but myself, I’d be like no I need to start over again. And the videos never took off or anything, but it was fun. I’d come home from school and be so excited to learn a new song.

When did you get your first guitar?

My dad had one, so I always had one in my room. I always looked at it, but I never picked it up, I was too into ukulele to try anything else. But then, the pandemic hit and I remember I was just so bored. I remember getting tired of the ukulele, at least the standard one, because it was so high pitched and it didn’t really fit my voice. I bought a baritone ukulele, and that sounded more like a guitar. So when the pandemic hit I was like, why don’t I just learn guitar, because I’m already kind of playing it. 

It was April 2020, and I told myself I was going to learn the hardest song for my level, then everything else will be easy after that. I tried learning Blackbird by The Beatles. I never finished it, because I was like nah this is too hard for me right now (laughs). I also really loved writing, and I was really impatient with trying to learn chords on the guitar. I had so many songs but I didn’t know which chords to match my lyrics up to. So I would just make up chords, and be like “yeah that sounds good, let me just go with that.” That’s what I was doing for a while, I wasn’t really learning guitar, I was just doing my own thing. But it was fun. 

Do you think the pandemic and all that time spent at home encouraged you?

Yeah definitely. I was a senior in highschool, so I’d have online classes in the morning, and then my sister and I would go on our daily run. Then I’d have the rest of the day to myself, so music is what I filled my time with, which was really nice. 

You mentioned Leon Bridges, do you want to talk a little more about your influences? 

Leon Bridges definitely influenced me. I think I liked his soulful singing. It was more of the style I wanted to get into. He was the gateway into what I later listened to, like the musicians and music I love now. My sister also influenced a lot of my music tastes. 

Hmm I also remember I listened to one song by Big Thief…

Oh, okay, actually this is about to get deep.

It was the summer after my freshman year of college and I was home. I was studying animal science so I figured I had to get an internship related to that. I started working at this wildlife refuge, like 2 hours away from my home, it was insane. I’m from Jersey, and Jersey is pretty big, and this place was on the border of Pennsylvania. I was an unpaid intern…and I was working there like six days a week, and it sucked. Anyways, I had, or have, really bad OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where you have intrusive thoughts and then compulsions. 

My brain will be like “oh I need you to touch this” or “turn off this light switch five times or else this is gonna happen.” And the “or else” part was always a fear of mine. 

So that was just really bad for a while. 

I’d wake up and it’d be like, “Don’t get in the car today or else, you’re gonna die on your way to work.” I would be so scared on this long drive in the morning because of that. Even though I knew nothing was going to happen, that’s just the disorder I guess. So the two hours in the car to the animal refuge and back was just horrible. The whole way I was driving was just, “Don’t switch lanes or you’re going to get hit by a car”, or “Don’t do this or this will happen.”

So I was having a miserable time, and I remember Mythological Beauty by Big Thief came on. And there was something about it, because I just relaxed and I wasn’t thinking about any of the bad things that might happen. So from then on, I listened to Big Thief for the entirety of my car ride, and that just became my routine. I’d wake up and immediately start listening to them, because I was like as long as I’m listening to this, my mind isn’t thinking about anything else. That’s initially how I got into them. Adrianne Lenker’s voice was so soothing and I was starting to relate to the lyrics. I remember they were my top Spotify artist for the year because you know, two hours there, two hours back really started to add up. 

Now I would say they’re really an influence because of their writing style.

Back then I depended on their music, because it shut my brain off, but now that I’m past that stage in my life, I can appreciate them more as a band and less as a…

A lifeline? 

Yeah, yeah exactly (laughs).  

Inspiration

I wanted to talk about your writing process. Before you started playing music, was writing something that you did often? 

Well when I was playing ukulele, I wasn’t really too big into writing, I don’t think I had anything to write about honestly. I do have one embarrassing story though. I was in second grade and had a crush on a guy at my school, and I wrote a little song about him. And for some reason, I don’t know why I did this, but I set the song about my love for him as the background of the family computer! I was so embarrassed because my sister saw it and was like “what is this!!” and everyone was just laughing at me, which I probably deserved (laughs). 

How old were you? 

I was in second grade! I think that incident probably discouraged me without me knowing. When I started playing the ukulele I didn’t really write too much, it really began when I picked up the guitar.

A lot of the songs you write are about relationships right?

Yeah! (Laughs)

What kind of relationships are you often thinking about when you write, or create? 

I’d say 95 percent of my songs are about romantic relationships, about guys I’ve dated. And it always used to be about the same kind of guy. About me getting myself into these situations where I know I shouldn’t, but I do anyway.  Just things that don’t really work out, or I’m in it, and as I’m in it I know this isn’t going to work out but I stay anyways. I know I shouldn’t but I do. 

So it’s more singing about yourself, rather than these people. 

Yeah, it’s me singing about how I know I deserved better, and the ways I grew from those things. Like I’ve experienced going through all that, and yet here I am. 

I sing a lot about my relationship with myself too. The OCD, how that was tiring and lonely, and I felt like I was going insane. And then my sister, I have a song called Sister…about my sister.  Because she’s really been my best friend and has influenced a lot of the music I listen to now. She would always share her music with me. I have some lyrics, Sister, why don’t you come back home / Sister, why don’t you pick up the phone. We’re eight years apart, so she’d be in college and I’d be home, wishing I had her to talk to. So this song is just about, being the youngest sister and needing my best friend to help me through high school and stuff. Another lyric is, am I gonna be like you? Because I’ve always looked up to her. 

She went to grad school for photography, and I think if it wasn’t for her taking that path, I probably wouldn’t be as confident as I am now following my own path. Because my brother is a big science guy and pursued aerospace engineering, and when it was my sister’s turn she went to art school, and my parents were like woah. She kind of broke the ice ya know, so now with me doing music I think I’m able to just do it. Like, okay my sister did it so now I can do it. I’ve always looked up to her for that, I just think she’s the coolest person ever. 

So yeah, I tend to write songs about my romantic relationships, my sister, and myself. 

On that concise note, if you had to choose three words to describe your genre, style, content, what would they be? 

Hmm, okay you know what, I started writing my spotify bio recently and I actually really liked what I wrote there. Okay, I would say… (laughs) but I don’t want to sound like, full of myself. 

Disclaimer everyone, she’s not trying to sound full of herself!

I mean, probably haunting, introspective (laughs) wow this is good, and vulnerable I guess. 

Don’t you have a song called Haunted? 

Yeah I do! I like storytelling through my songs. I try to get people to feel like they can see what’s going on. That’s why I would say vulnerable and introspective. 

Getting Started

What has performing live been like for you so far? 

Well I knew once I went to college I was going to have to get over my fear of performing. I knew it was going to suck, but I was ready for it. I was working at this coffee shop, and everyone was just the sweetest. One of the managers was in a band and he invited me to open for them at their house show! I had never sung in front of anyone before. He was like “yeah this could be your big debut, open for us at our house show! It’ll be chill, we’ll have our friends over” and I was like “what!” And I knew I HAD to do this, this would be the start. 

So I did it. I remember I was so nervous and my voice was quaking, but I got through it! The next year I started playing at the open mics the cafe would have every week. I was getting good feedback which I really needed to boost my confidence. At one point I was like okay, I’m ready to move on to bigger open mics.

I was living down in Kingston RI, and I guess the big city was Providence. I called up this place Askew, which was the first open mic I went to here. It was January 2022, and there weren’t a lot of people there which was nice. I got some great feedback from a guy called Jake, I remember I saw him walking and he had on cowboy boots, cowboy hat. I was at the bar getting a water and he came up to me, and was like “that was awesome”. He was up next and his voice just blew me away, so I thought “well if this guy thinks I’m good I gotta keep doing this.” 

After that, any free time I had I would just practice for the open mic. Like practice, practice, practice. And every Monday night I would go back to Askew. That was definitely when I got my foot in the door. The next year I switched majors, which then took up a lot more of my time and I wasn’t able to do music as much. That destroyed me. So I was like alright, during the summer, I’m just gonna take a break from everything academia, and I was determined to move to Providence and do what makes me happy for three months. I wanted to immerse myself in music and work a job that allows me to do that and see what happens. 

So that brings us to this past summer. 

Yes! (drums on table) 2023 baby! 

MAROU takes off!

(Laughs) Thank you. Yeah, I mean I told my parents I wasn’t going to do an internship, and they’ve always been supportive. So I moved to Providence, and lo and behold, typed in “coffee shop jobs providence”,  cause that was the only thing I could think of. Pretty soon I started working as a barista which was great because I had my evenings free for music and performing. I was doing Monday nights at Askew, Wednesday nights at the Parlor, and then in between trying to book shows. Wherever I could, whenever I could. And that’s the happiest I’ve ever been, it’s been awesome. 

I remember one day sitting in my bed being like damn, if high school me could see me now, she’d be so surprised. 

And proud!

And proud! It just felt so right, everytime I stepped on stage. 

When I was 12, my sister took me to see Matt Corby, this indie singer from Australia. We were front row, and I remember standing there and his voice was so deep and rich. It stirred something inside of me, and I was like I don’t know what this feeling is, but I want to feel this all the time. I don’t know how, but I need this. I don’t know if I’ll be behind the stage or in the audience, but I know I have to be in this music thing somehow. 

So when I started doing these shows, I felt that again, which was really cool and very reassuring. Like here is that feeling I’ve been trying to figure out, this is what it’s been trying to tell me. The moment I felt that again I was like holy shit! I solved it! I solved the puzzle! It was my first show of the summer at AS220, and I went home after and just cried because I was so happy. 

Do you have any pre-show rituals?

Normally I call my mom and dad (laughs). I’ll be like “heyy I’m bouta perform.” Because they’ve always been supportive of me, so I like to let them know I’m doing this, not only because of me but because of them too, like “thanks guys, talk to you after!” So I do that. 

How has collaborating with local musicians in Providence been for you?

I will say, this guy Daniel Pond, who is part of Scaffolding, has definitely been a musical guide of sorts around here. He knows almost every musician in Providence. He was my go to this past summer. If I needed musicians for a gig, or recommendations for a  new amp, he would be my guy. Or if I was like “hey how do I go about playing a show at Red Ink” he’d be like “I’ve got a show lined up for you.” He’s been so awesome. 

The Making of an Album

Last year you released your EP There’s Time for Me, and there are some really special songs on there. 

Let’s see, all of the songs I’ve written, I’ve written after a mental breakdown. That’s the only way I’ve written songs up until now. I would try and sit down if I had extra time and write stuff but I just couldn’t. Nothing creative would come out. It would only happen after I got so worked up, I would be in my room between 11pm-2am and just start crying. Then I’d get mad at myself for it and want to channel that into something else. So I’d pick up my guitar. Sometimes I’d just strum a chord and instantly words would come out and it would work. 

One of my songs I really like, Midday Mourning, was written about my ferret Mimi. My freshman year of college I was really missing her.  One night I was crying and I told myself “I’m tired of crying, it feels like, not useless, but what am I crying for” you know? So I picked up my guitar to see if writing a song would give me something to put all that emotion into. I strummed two chords and the words came out, without writing anything down. But now I’m in a place where I haven’t had a mental breakdown in a while, cause I’m actually genuinely happy. So I’m kind of in a rut now honestly (laughs). That’s the only way I’ve known how to write songs so now I’m like “what do I do!” Which is great because I’m happy, but music-wise I don’t know what to do. 

You also released a music video alongside the EP for your song What If.  

So a year prior to making that video, I had expressed on my instagram that I was interested in recording my music but didn’t know where to start. So my friend was like hey I have all the equipment, come to my house with like five songs ready and we’ll record an EP. And I was like HUH? REAllY? So yeah, we did that. Later that year there was some delay with the release, and I was itching to keep creating and to get something done, so I was like what if I made a music video to release with the song! I had all this creative energy I wanted to do something with. I picked the song that meant the most to me, What If,  and I went looking for someone who could help me put all these ideas together.

How was the process of creating the video, and seeing one of your songs come to life in a visual sense? 

My friend Hayden Carr-Loize is a film guy in addition to being a musician, and he was super interested in the idea. We met up one day to brainstorm, and I knew how I wanted certain pieces of the video to go but not everything. A week later he sent me a storyboard and a full script. He was on that shit. I remember reading it and thinking, this is fucking perfect, I love this. So everyone got together and we recorded in New Jersey. We didn’t have specific places in mind, we sort of wandered around and certain things worked out.  At first I thought it was going to be really nerve wracking, but like I said it just felt so natural. Then we headed back to the city and ended up on Roosevelt Island.

 Oh! And there was a dance scene! This was one part that I knew I wanted in it. I wanted to choreograph a dance scene at the end. I love dancing, I won’t say I’m a great dancer but I love it. So yeah I choreographed it and I’m so proud of it. I knew I wanted it to be the ending of the video, I knew I wanted it to be sunset and I’d be doing this dance. So we’re on the island, up on a hill. I lay out this blanket and I just go for it. Again, I thought I would be nervous because I’ve never danced in front of anyone. Singing is vulnerable and dancing is a whole other thing. It felt so great.  Not the whole thing made it into the original video, but they did record a clip of the whole dance, which I actually just released as an alternative music video!

It was a very important music video, because it was about OCD. I wanted to encapsulate everything I’ve been through with it, and the video ended up doing exactly what I wanted it to. The dance scene was me releasing a lot of those feelings, and starting new. 

By the time the music was ready to be released I was going through a really hard time, I was going through a break up, and I really needed a win. This video definitely felt like it. 

This reminds me of something we were talking about earlier; the idea that art is not only what you do, it’s who you are. 

That’s exactly what I sing about. Like the OCD. That has had such a hold on my life for so long, and that’s why I sing about it. It’s who I was. These relationships too, I put them into song because they’ve had some kind of role in who I am today, they have shaped me. The music is a product of what I go through in life. Art is not only what you do, it’s also who you are. It manifests into what you create.

Reassurance

Could you tell me what you’re most proud of, music or otherwise?

I think number one, it would be that I’ve gotten myself to this place where if you told me to sing right now I’d be like “yeah alright get me by guitar and I’ll go right now.” If you asked me that back in high school, I would just freeze, and the fact that I can just do it now is pretty great. 

Okay wait actually, you know the thing I’m most proud of right now is my Red Door show I did this past summer! The Sharon Van Etten cover band that I put together. Let’s see, the venue was putting on a benefit show for Sojourner House, and it was a woman-led cover band event. There were a bunch of bands playing – they were doing Taylor Swift covers, Alanis Morrissette covers, and Blondie covers. There was an extra spot for a band and I was so fortunate enough to snag it last minute.

I had one week to put a band together. And this was going to be the biggest event I had done yet, like the streets were going to be closed off, there was going to be a stage, it was outside, insane. Sometimes the way I prepare for these things is I don’t really think too much about it until the day of, or else I freak myself out. So I was like, okay I know I need to get this done, I know I need to put a band together. I gotta practice, but I’m not gonna think about it otherwise. 

I was texting people I knew who were musicians, I needed a guitarist, bassist, drummer, maybe a keyboardist and then I’m good. I got all that together, and it was so great. I love being part of a music community where I can just be like hey, anyone want to play this gig with me? And a bunch of people are just like “Yeah totally!” So we met up to practice just three days before the show.

 Lets see, Keith Haupt was on drums, Niels Versavel on bass, and Ethan Dowding on guitar. We ran through like five Sharon Van Etten songs, and they had never really listened to her, so they were like we’ll just follow you, which was sick. And it went great! 

We ran through it again on Friday and then we just went for it! Saturday it was go time, and I remember being on stage and realizing this was the first time I had performed with a band, especially in such a large setting. I was also performing songs that weren’t my own. It was exhilarating. It was so fun, and I want to do this all the time. I thought singing by myself was great but no, I need a band! Having the crowd clap and cheer, it was just even more reassuring. 

Was it one of the larger crowds you’ve had? 

Oh yeah, it was the biggest crowd I’ve had yet. I know they didn’t just show up for me specifically, but even still being in front of that many people was great. 

So you mostly perform your own songs?

I mean at open mics I’ll do a few covers here and there, but if I’m doing shows I’ll do my own music. This was the first time I sang all covers. Not only was I playing somebody else’s songs, it was a cover band, so I was also trying to give off her energy on stage. And it just worked out, it felt so natural.

The next day I posted the performance and Sharon Van Etten saw it! And she reposted it! And she said was so honored. The fact that my idol said she was honored I sang her songs, was even more of a – I’m gonna say it again – reassurance. 

That you’re on the right path.

Exactly, that I gotta keep doing this, I gotta keep going.

Keep up with MAROU on Instagram, YouTube & Spotify

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“The rest of the world in which I lived was still stumbling about in search of a weapon with which to exterminate this Monster [Homosexuality] … It was thought to be Greek in origin, smaller than Socialism but more deadly, especially to children.” – Quentin Crisp, 1968

The city of Melbourne is a vain, intriguing concept for a colony of criminals, utterly ruined by the reality of people living inside of it. ‘Marvellous’ Melbourne’s pride is the honesty it brings to its inhabitants. A gust of foul wind knocks a wheelie bin on its side. A phalanx of drunken teenagers are shattered by a pram filled with groceries instead of a child. Someone in stylish overalls silently carries houseplants equal in size to themselves into the foyer of an apartment block. Above us, someone is screaming through an open window. A spotless black Tesla floats through an intersection and squashes a distracted pigeon. The obese, round bird is instantly rendered flat and deceased.

This sauna is one of two in the city of Melbourne. The other is larger and has better facilities but is more publicly a gay sauna. The inner-city location tucks itself away behind 24-hour gyms and convenience stores.

Melbourne’s fondness for poverty and prejudice always provides a short-term need for the saunas. Anyone can walk into a sauna and, for less than 30 dollars, be given a towel, a locker and somewhere to sleep. This makes saunas desirable among some homeless. Anonymity in this place is strangely sacrosanct. Despite showing ID at the front door, you can call yourself whatever you like. You can spend hours speaking to no one, but showers are communal. Rinsing off next to me is an elderly bearded man very casually whistling. He is naked but has caked his whole body in shaving cream. He looks like a very gay snowman. He could be someone’s grandfather. He could be homeless. He’s also wearing thongs and you can almost feel the athlete’s foot beneath you.

Disease is a growing contemporary issue in a venue like this. Gentrification in the late 1980s allowed inner-city police to raid gay saunas by labelling them as brothels. COVID-19 sealed these places away and has become the main reason for closing saunas down. That and the emergence of monkeypox among gay communities has given excuse to some LGBTQI+ lobby groups advocating for closing saunas. Among these groups, the gay sauna is a relic of an improper and illegal homosexuality. It should have died with the rise of AIDS and the enveloping of gay culture into the wider, western one. Stuck between graphic images of men kissing and touching of our Melbourne sauna are government and lobby-group advertisements about getting tested, using protection and staying healthy. The models in the ads look nothing like the men here. They are clean and sensible; they have had their queerness tided to be acceptable.

The maze-like structure of the venue mimics playground equipment. Ramps and corridors going nowhere. No windows, only bright electric lights. Turns left or right that loop back around to join arrow entryways, leading to lounging areas padded with pleather. It all eventually goes back to the actual sauna part of the entire complex.

This is a more conversational area. Francis is the only inhabitant of the huge jacuzzi beside myself. He’s imposing at 6 foot 4 and looks like a tattooed seal with a small, greying beard. He’s friendly and open about his hypocrisy. He swung by after work before he has to get on a train home. He has two daughters and contently married. He’s not afraid of COVID because he believes it’s a Chinese conspiracy. He’s not conservative but he doesn’t trust doctors. Then, as soon as he starts talking, he’s gone, out of the sauna and into the smoking area

Quentin believes that apps and local government will exterminate the saunas. Grindr, Scruff and other dating apps do naturally erode the population of the sauna. Those with a car or a house can more easily access casual gay sex. Rather than make the sauna less useful, instead it has become an important environment for the safety and privacy of gay men.

On TikTok and Instagram, the ‘Pride’ movement is defined by its exclusivity and commercialism. It has become a cloud cuckoo land of online advocacy. Influencers create a public and easily accessible experience that promotes a definition of normalcy for audiences. To stray outside conventional aesthetics, to not fully publicize your identity, is to not be a member of the ‘Pride Movement’.¹

While physical appearance does play a big role in a sauna where you only have a towel, at the same time you can see elderly bodies, chubby bodies, skinny bodies, scarred bodies, muscular bodies and bruised bodies. Shame becomes irrelevant when the playing field is level.

The saunas represent only one facet of a difficult gay history. As non-heterosexual relationships became more acknowledged and more accepted by conventional society, it is important for ‘Pride’ to acknowledge the history it brings with it, rather than abandon aspects of history that are unseemly to contemporary culture.

As I leave the sauna, I reflect on how unique this space is compared to everything else in Melbourne. It’s more comfortable than the National Gallery of Victoria, it has less crazy people than Federation Square, and it’s cheaper than the Docklands Stadium. But I also worry that a venue like this will be forced to close and become a museum to historical queerness so that a few commercial gays can better show their financial backers that members of ‘Pride’ can be well behaved for the majority.

Afterword: For the sake of privacy and better understanding, interview subjects for this piece have had their names and words changed.

Footnote:

1. Ami Pomerantz, Big-Girls Don’t Cry: Portrayals of the Fat Body in RuPauls Drag Race, 2017, Springer International Publishing)

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a beast with gleaming jaws and claws, which in the son’s mind, gleam

like the gleaming sword. And the lovingly polished gleaming sword

leans on the tree between them, leans on the tree in the centre

of the clearing where the son learns to recognise the song of the Jubjub bird,

and how to track the Bandersnatch, and how to polish the sword to a fine gleam.

And as the father spins his stories, the son finds his mind carried

again and again around to that gleaming sword at the centre of that clearing,

to the central tree where the sword leans,

to the shadows that circle it in the shift from day to night and back to day.

And the sword gleams from the shifting shade, flashes light then dark then light again.

“Beware my son! Beware! Beware and shun, my son,” the father says.

And then one day, son takes the father’s tales with his own taking of the sword.

Away the son, away. Away the son, we’re told.

The son aways just to return, galumphing back from the tulgy wood,

and in those hands the meaty head, his vorpal prize, it’s eyes that burn,

those precious jaws and claws. Calooh Callay. Away Away.

And in the clearing where the gleaming sword once gleamed, the father waits

alone, amongst the carcasses of Bandersnatch and Jubjub bird.

The heads of Jabberwock.

Another day, callooh, callay. Just waiting for the son’s return.

Waiting each day to cry out at his return, with eyes that watch and arms that raise.

Those precious jaws of his, those claws of his.

Callooh, Callay. Each day as frabjous as the last.

The post Jabberwock appeared first on The New Absurdist.

I kept to myself for so much of my life, I had to — for safety. When I introduced myself to others, I was a citizen, a citizen of Los Angeles, California, where I grew up. But at home and my close friends, they knew I was undocumented. Even though I explicitly talked about being undocumented throughout high school but that would change coming to college, I knew I had to keep it a secret. I didn’t know anyone on the East Coast, but soon I would find a community that understood where I came from and welcomed me with open arms. 

In my paintings, I explore the in-betweens of my past and present and how these temporalities affect the future I want to create. I build this future in my art using symbols that I find in my memories.

Process

My application of paint has changed throughout the years. I started with more expressive techniques, where I would swirl acrylic paint with different brushes. The clash of colors produced a sense of motion.

In I Gave my Rose to Gemini, the textural quality of the paint in the rapid brushstrokes allows the moon, sun, vines, roses, tunnels, and hourglass to intertwine with one another. To the right of the canvas, the birds are frozen in a moment just before contact with a swing and blooming roses. The application of the paint and the use of the brush becomes smoother, and the imagery more linear as the viewer looks towards this direction.

The symbols used, like the moon, vines, and flowers, center my story. They gave me a temporary place because they were around me. I focus on the memory, I write down what happened, what things I saw, how it made me feel, and what tangible objects I could paint. And from that, I started imagining a setting, a place where these symbols could live.

I wanted to create a world in my paintings where realism could co-exist with the emotions I put into my symbolic objects. This incentivized me to include realism alongside expressive brush strokes in my technique and is what I started exploring in my following work.

In 18 Cents, viewers see a telephone stand surrounded by heavy brush strokes. The painting uses color to emphasize a sense of reflection and abstracted form existing together with a real object.

Every object I depict in my paintings holds my memories and lived experiences. Growing up as an undocumented migrant, these objects contained my future as well. I use these symbols to tell my stories, stories that I didn’t see growing up. 

In Deconstruction of My Salvadoran Identity, I build on the rearrangement of the Salvadoran flag through various symbols and techniques related to my own experiences. Growing up, I could never represent my flag pridefully, hiding my identity to protect myself from people knowing I was undocumented. As a result, I had to navigate my identities in private, only disclosing when it was safe for me to do so. Although coming to college, I couldn’t explicitly speak publicly due to a fear that I had lived. 

The deconstruction and repetitive usage of colors from the coat of arms in the Salvadoran flag allowed me to rearrange the symbols and envision a future where documentation is not needed for my existence to be valid—bridging where I was born and where I grew up, always living in between.

I explore these uncertainties in the smaller series of flags that break from the rectangular format into smaller rectangular pieces connecting with one another. They coexist with the larger inkjet print—mediums in collage, seeing how my past intertwines with my present. Though my status changed in 2021, my future is uncertain — but I will forever be a dreamer, creating and living

Any stories that I did see in the media focused on the trauma of crossing the border, but not our dreams. With art, I could focus on certain aspects of my migration, the overlooked stories that only those who have undergone my experiences can see themselves in. That is how I could control the narrative and how I would tell these stories. 

Symbols

Sunflowers

Growing up Salvadoran and gay, there weren’t many people to whom I could reach out. It wasn’t until someone described me as his sunflower that I could see myself outside of my political body; many folks would think that I shouldn’t even be here in the US. It was a soft and gentle gesture of care, and I took this gesture and this sunflower and made it my symbol of hope, joy, love, and community. Sunflowers hold a special place in my art.  

My painting “Gansito, you made me realize that I’m not an alien, and for that, I became your sunflower. Thank you, for I have found my sun”  shows many of my life stories through symbols. I speak about migrating at the age of five with the phrase “No Soy Un Alien.” Below that, I wrote “5 y/o,” which speaks to how I continue incorporating little symbols and phrases into my paintings.

Nature

I’m invested in the connection of the body and nature and what this relationship means to create futures of belonging in my work. For me, Nature holds spaces for warmth and nurture. In Mangos Verdes con alguashte y marañones (Translation: Green mangos with ground pumpkin seeds and cashew apples), I captured a moment of longing, reflecting on a state of dreaming and how my memories of El Salvador have influenced those dreams. 

Eating little green mangos with grounded pumpkin seeds and some marañones (cashew fruit), I look up at them as if they were just within reach, growing from the fruit trees I would eat them off from. They stay just out of my reach and serve as a reminder of how El Salvador is. 

How far and how long since I’ve tasted marañones, and what that feeling would be if today I had those fruits in my hand!

I continue this theme of the intertwining of body and nature in my painting El Salvador, te digo adios, por ahora, y Los Angeles, hola, por favor tratame bien (Translation: El Salvador, I say to you goodbye, for now, and Los Angeles, hi, please treat me well).

This painting lives in my past, at the moment I left El Salvador at the age of 5. I walked and ran through unknown lands, and now that journey seems so far from reach. 

In my art, I relive those memories. I feel my body travel through those same lands of Guatemala, Mexico, and California that once were unknown to me.

How I wish I could, for one last time, say goodbye to El Salvador, goodbye to my childhood friends and family. Those goodbyes are attached to me; I pull and pull, becoming one with the ground. The roots are deep. 

My mom tells me her stories, and I narrate the memories in these portraits and landscapes. These stories, and her, are what I have. I didn’t need to say goodbye to her. 

Los Angeles became a new home. At first, it wasn’t kind to me, but I learned to keep to myself and dream between my past and future. I knew I belonged somewhere in the in-betweens, never only in one place or the other. This diptych painting tells my story of El Salvador, where I was born. 

Having the possibility to say goodbye to my friends and family, but those goodbyes would have to wait for now. Reconnecting those ties and adapting to a California that didn’t want me and didn’t value my humanity, but I kept going. 

My paintings don’t always refer to my future. I create surreal states using lush and dense environments in my paintings. The space is activated by the in-between of past and present and the stories that go with them.

In “Scars on my Memories,” the body in the lower portion of the painting represents my queer and migrant body, intertwining with nature. Banana leaves and various plants reflect an environment of wonder, mystery, and self-reflection. These small moments are seamlessly integrated into the visual representation of those events by the different plants I saw in my neighborhood. The hand coming out of the plants captures a moment of intimacy with the banana plant and how nature can represent those feelings. 

As I keep developing my visual language, I purposely bring in elements of my previous paintings and techniques. Some of my current works in progress resonate with my earlier paintings. Texture can evoke a sense of memory, creating surfaces of emotions. By layering paint and creating thickness, I can change how clear and realistic I want a symbol to be. I think that is the beauty of art; you are able to control your narrative. I can continue on this journey, expanding on the world I create in my paintings, a future of wonder. 

The post Yoba appeared first on The New Absurdist.

     ‘Yep, some ase-ole’s done a picture of the sky through a window. With little streaks like splattered raindrops. And there’s a lot of ’em as if the artist with a capital A thought they’d hit on something special. Course, they don’t look rain-like. Not in the least. For a start, they’re blue and purple and there are some stupid red bits. S’pose they think it’s artistic to shittify about like that. Is that why they’ve done it? Is it?’

     Jack Chivers spat onto the hydrangea bush after he’d got the question out. His friend Melvin watched as the slimy-spittle trailed for a minute from the leaf on top then fell in a sudden gust of wind. Jack was locked into his own head-thoughts. He didn’t see his own spit wobbling or any of the leaves on the bush, for that matter, or even the blustery garden itself. All he saw were these bright coloured flecks of paint which represented rainfall. 

    ‘So you hated the specks because they weren’t realistic enough,’ Mel said. 

    ‘It would’ve been an improvement if they’d looked like raindrops’, Jack replied cautiously. He knew he wouldn’t hear the last of this one in a hurry.

     ‘Do you think art is all about replicating what is seen?  Like a photo?’ Mel asked him. 

     His voice sounded casual but Jack was aware this was a cover-up. His mate loved nothing better than biding his time before stepping in for the attack. ‘I…, er…,’ was all he could come up with though. Then he had a bright idea. Fight off a question by asking one yourself.  

     ‘So, are you against realism in a work of art then, Mel?’

     ‘Not at all.  But it’s not the only form.’

     ‘Still, it would show some talent if the artist-so-called could manage to paint rainfall that looked like effing rainfall.’

     ‘What d’you think this artist is up to then?’ Mel wanted to know.

     ‘Why do we give him the credit of being called an artist?  Just because he’s splodging paint on a square of canvas that can be hung up on a wall?’ Jack was proud of his latest questions and would have spat onto the bush again. But his throat was dry.  So he coughed instead.

     ‘Well, isn’t art also about a vision that’s been formed in the artist’s mind?  That is to say, the artist has interpreted reality, in visual terms, drawing on the picture from within his conscious or unconscious self.’

     ‘Oh anybody could make up that crap.’ Jack Chivers, who was easily wound up when Mel began his theorizing, stamped his feet onto the ground. ‘What about the bullshit factor, Mel. Eh?  Answer me that.’

     ‘I can’t give you an answer that would be satisfactory Jack because you’re set in your opinion. That basically, there’s no such thing as art.’

     ‘Some of us can detect hypocrisy, you mean, whereas others swallow whole any old balderdash

they’re fed.’ Jack’s latest thought triggered his growing anger to the level where he was desperate to 

spit again. But annoyingly, nothing would come. He had a coughing fit instead.

     Mel waited till things were quiet again then posed a question. ‘So what d’you think would be worse, Jack – a world which had some phony artists and art in it, or a world where there were no  artists or art at all?’

     Jack saw an opening here, which he hadn’t anticipated as it didn’t often happen. ‘How do we know the difference between the so-called-true-artist-and-art and the conman?’ 

     This made Mel laugh out loud. ‘It’s not as simple as that.  Following on from your earlier points I’ll concede that we may not know the difference. But it’s also true to say the artist may not know the difference either.  Someone may call themselves an artist because it satisfies their ego need to occupy this somewhat revered social role. They may not be conning though Jack. They mightn’t know whether they’re a true artist or not, any more than their audience does.’  

     ‘Ah ha!’ Jack shouted back. ‘So if they get hold of some squidgy paint and streak it across a canvas they’ll be convinced then and say to anybody who asks: “Look here Man, I’ve put paint on a canvas. It’s an artist’s impression of rainfall. That makes me an artist. Get it?”

     ‘It’s a complex matter,’ Mel told his pal. ‘But all I’m saying is, what would a world be like if we banned any and all artists from it? Yes, the pseudo as well as the true. And in any case a pseudo could be true at a level he himself isn’t aware of and a ‘true’ though genuine could be a self deceiver.’ 

     ‘Well it would be a better fucking place,’ Jack told him. ‘That’s what I think.’

     ‘Because you’re afraid of being duped?’ Mel wanted to know.

     ‘You’ve said, yourself, we can’t identify what’s art and what isn’t. So why won’t you go one step further and say there’s no such a fucking thing? That would be the logical next step, surely.  It’s ‘cause you’re scared Mel. Admit you’re scared.’

      Mel didn’t disagree with this. ‘Yes, the outcome would scare me. I don’t feel the need to hide 

that,’ he said.

     ‘What’s there to be scared of?’ Jack asked him with a shrug.  

     ‘The mental states of those who get personal release from painting rainfall on window glass, say,’ was Mel’s reply.

     ‘Then you think that perpetuating their delusion makes for a better world?’ 

     ‘We don’t have to make a judgement. If someone paints rainfall can’t we just accept that it gives them some comfort?’ Mel wanted to know. ‘I mean, Jack, why is it necessary to fight them over it? They’re not doing any harm, are they?’

     ‘Oh, so you don’t think there’s anything wrong with delusion, you’re saying?’

     ‘There are worse possibilities. Thing is Jack, we can’t absolutely know if art is present in an 

image or it isn’t.  But if, due to this, we banned all would-be artists from existence, what kind of a world would we be left with?  What I say is, let them practice their non-art-or-art-form and an audience can decide what they want to look at and what they don’t.’

     ‘Well, I say it’s all about ego,’ Jack muttered bitterly. ‘And that goes for the audience as well as the big-I-am-artsy-fartsy. “Oh look, I’ve bought that painting; I’ve got taste.” Taste, my arse’.

     ‘You’ve got a point there Jack.  And if we think of things their way we can see that ownership places them in a superior position to those who don’t own the thing. Well, the truth is, I dislike the competitiveness that can accompany possession of a work of art too. But I guess that’s inevitable in human society as we know it.’

     ‘And money of course. Ego and celebrity, and money. And the bigger the celeb the more the money. Fuck, Mel, it’s about capitalism, pure and simple!’ 

     Mel smiled. ‘Yes, I agree, there is that. But, let’s go and take a look at the painting in the vestibule Jack. I must admit I haven’t seen it yet.’

     It was a good moment for going indoors too because the sky had darkened even further and a few drops of rain were starting to come down. Once in the entrance hall they stared at the picture in silence. Jack had made all the points he wanted to make and Mel couldn’t think of anything to say right away. He yawned instead and this drew out a smirk from Jack.  

     ‘It’s clear, from your reaction to the pic, that you’re not impressed and wouldn’t consider it to be real art,’ he said.

     ‘I wouldn’t go so far as that,’ Mel told him.  ‘Just because I’m not mad about that kind of approach doesn’t mean a thing. We all have our preferences and prejudices.’

     ‘Oh fie,’ Jack snapped, after which they both went quiet again.  

     But after a minute or two Mel said, ‘Anyway, it’s growing on me. Look at the way the raindrops kind of fizzle away at the end. That can happen in real life when they hit the glass of a window as a matter of fact. Look again, Jack, and try to think about the fizzily aspect. It has some appeal for me, I’m finding. The artist was saying something about the world we live in. That’s not the be all and end all, either. Even if you’re right in claiming the rainfall looks unrealistic doesn’t mean that there isn’t some message attached. The viewer may need to draw on their own imagination here.’

     ‘Oh and I suppose you favour the blue and purple and the smattering of ruddy-reds on top. To what end is it all for Mel?  Answer me that, if you can.’

     ‘I’ve already told you I can’t give you a satisfactory answer. You’ve already convinced yourself that art does not exist. Whatever I say won’t make any difference; it won’t get through to you.  And besides, it’s not some competition here, with me trying to force you to see stuff my way. I accept we 

are coming from totally different places on this one.’

     Jack looked annoyed again. They’d started on something that he wanted to continue with. He didn’t concretely go into things but at the same time he knew he was being competitive over this. And also, he’d have said to himself, if he had stopped to think about it, there was nothing wrong with that. All he could do for the sake of personal satisfaction at this moment was to raise another question and so he said, ‘And why would somebody want to paint rainfall for heaven’s sake?  I mean, don’t we have enough rainfall in real life to be going along with?’

     At this point they both stared at the window in the hall. Sure enough the glass was streaked with rain.  

     ‘Look,’ shouted Jack, in a triumphant tone. ‘We can see the two things at once now. Real rain and arty-farty rain. The arty-farty doesn’t capture the real in the slightest degree. Does it.’

     ‘Well, I’d have to agree with you there,’ Mel said after a while. ‘But I’ve already told you that art may not necessarily fit into the realist category.’

     ‘Ok, let’s not go through all that again,’ Jack said.  

     ‘Sure, I recognise there’s absolutely no point,’ Mel told him.  

     ‘Hey look.’ Jack’s voice was all brightness suddenly. ‘The rain has cleared up. It was only a shower.’ He felt appeased, as though the real-world had supported him by being the true and the fake one was proved to be grossly inferior. In other words he’d won the argument.

     Mel couldn’t help giving a laugh again because he saw Jack’s look of pleasure and immediately 

guessed that he took the change in the weather as a moment of personal victory. 

     It was also true to say that the outside looked more inviting than the inside. A lemony twist of delicate sunlight had appeared in the sky, which was in itself appealing. Apart from this there was already a dry look to everything. Mel was happy with the outcome too, he couldn’t deny it. As for the tenor of their conversation, it was obvious to him that no real agreement between the two of them could ever be reached, but what the hell? So, once again they’d gone round in circles and come back to square one. Now, on better terms than they had been when they’d started on the subject of rainfall they went out into the garden again for a stroll across the lawn before supper.

The post Rainfall appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Over the seasons, like a lot of people, agitation over the virus and the lockdowns made me want to embark on some ambitious project. Everyone’s quarantine pet project is different. For some people it’s baking, watching old movies, making a career change, or just trying to survive. Just be glad mine wasn’t a mixtape. It was Paintings for the Planet, a non-for-profit website where I sell prints, mugs, and greeting cards featuring my paintings of natural scenery to raise funds for environmental organizations. 

The idea came to me because I realized the intentions of a painter and an environmentalist are pretty similar. Both aim to preserve the landscapes they love. Their branches are different but their roots burrow through common ground: a vision for a peaceful relationship between humans and the forests, mountains, and rivers that sustain them. (They’re also both prone to self-righteous moralizing, but let’s overlook that one.)

A Big Challenge

As an amateur artist and college student with very little grasp of technical composition, sales, or social media marketing, starting this endeavor was an uphill battle. But I had a neurotic determination and would force it to work if I had to. First, I had to find the right materials, printing company, e-commerce platform, charities, postal service, and attitude. I’ll spare the bureaucratic details but it was a tiring, months-long preparation process.

And when I thought I was dotting every i and crossing every t, it turned out I was accidentally dotting my t’s and crossing my i’s and my other 24 letters were imploding. Every step forward came with two steps back and I was always discovering some new flaw in my plan, whether it was a typo in a bank routing number or a glitch that made all the text on my website invisible or an achingly awkward phone call with a customer support agent from a ceramics customization company. I dreaded accusations of eco-hypocrisy so I started making all my boxes out of upcycled consumer packaging. This development sounds chic until you picture me, eyes bloodshot, feverishly dissecting an empty Cheez-It box with an X-Acto Knife at three in the morning.

After a breaking point I realized I had to just launch the website before it was perfect, because it would never be perfect. I could either work out the hiccups as the business grew, or I could let the hiccups consume me and never advance. I just wanted to share my art with other people in a way that could help other people. It was a broad goal, but it was the narrow things that were blocking me from reaching it.

So I launched it, starting out with four prints then adding about two dozen more products over the course of three months. 

How It Changed Me

I practiced and got better at painting. Yes, I watched Bob Ross videos, but also about a million other YouTube tutorials about blending, lighting, and the uses for different brushes. In school I admired (and envied) my friend Anshul for being able to craft beautiful things in her art classes. I never thought I had the discipline to do it myself. I still find it challenging, but now I enjoy the calculation a landscape painting demands. It feels like a reconnection with the arts and crafts we love to do as kids, but with the patience that comes with being a few years older.

And I started seeing things. I’ve lived in my hometown for 20 years but I never understood it until now. I was a recluse growing up and mostly saw these streets through school bus windows and closed screen doors. But now I go for walks in the nature trails here for painting inspiration, and I make a trip to the post office twice or thrice a week. I walk past the gray and white houses, the Dunkin’ Donuts, the masked and unmasked pedestrians. I see the shadows of branches on the forest floor. The reflections of clouds on lakes. The way we never really see landscapes for what they are — we only make impressions of what we think they look like and fill in the distant details subconsciously. 

And when I was sending out some packages one day, I saw an old lady thanking a post office worker for his service. I saw more children riding bikes than ever before. I saw pools of rain, blades of grass, and leaves starting to creep up the wooden frame of the gazebo across from the town hall. I saw an evening fog that made the whole world look like watercolors.

People I hadn’t talked to in years placed orders and sent messages and spread the word about what I was doing. My favorite teachers from high school, my relatives, close friends and faraway ones, and complete strangers all contributed to support the conservation of New York’s natural resources. Their generosity was like a glistening woodland waterfall that never stopped cascading.  A rude voice in my mind says that they all contributed out of pity, that I was only even doing this project for clout, and that my impact was too small to ever matter. But I don’t let those thoughts linger. I’m proud of what I’m doing and I encourage you to think about what calling you have, or could hone, to find your own spark! 

Maybe you can even turn it into a cloying, self-congratulatory thinkpiece.

The post New Landscapes appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Brundage is the artist behind the wildly sensational covers of Weird Tales during the 1930s and was largely responsible for the success of their sales during a depression ridden America. She was revolutionary for many reasons, not only steamy covers for science fiction and fantasy, but as a woman making them, as well as her involvement in progressive causes such as civil rights for African Americans and the labor movement.

However, as with all legends, her caveats are overlooked. The existing scholarship on Brundage’s artwork often frames itself in the context of Brundage being a leftist and a woman artist, largely from a feminist angle.  It might make her more palatable as a feminist hero to frame her in a solely progressive light, but it is reductionist and overlooks important themes in her work, particularly her inclination to ‘yellow peril’ imagery and other orientalist themes. 

In this paper, I will consider the existing scholarship on Brundage’s work for Weird Tales through the analysis of one of Brundage’s most popular covers: The Weird Tales September 1933 issue, which corresponds to Robert E. Howard’s story The Slithering Shadow. I’ll also be offering my own input as an art historical scholar. I will discuss how queer-coded depictions of kink were another, although less obvious example of orientalist imagery in  1930s America. Finally, unlike prior scholarship on Brundage’s work, I will consider her art in relation with the writing and authors they corresponded to rather than as art alone.

1930s BDSM:  The Slithering Shadow 

The September 1933 issue of Weird Tales was one of the most controversial, and popular covers that Brundage created. Like her other illustrations, the original drawing was created using soft pastels on an illustration board before being printed on pulp paper for mass production. This cover depicts a scene from Robert E. Howard’s story, The Slithering Shadow.  Two women are set against a brilliantly red background and a massive black abstract shadow. The dark-haired woman holds a whip and seems ready to whip her victim again, a blonde woman chained by the wrists pulling against her bonds. 

The dark-haired woman wears loose, skimpy garments reminiscent of outfits worn by Middle Eastern belly dancers. Unlike her counterpart, the blonde woman is nude.  She embodies many characteristics of a classic ‘Brundage Girl, ’ including the character soft pinkness and triangular perkiness of her breasts.¹ It’s likely that the hairstyles of both of these women are based on references that Margaret Brundage had available to her in the time through fashion magazines and nudie mags, hence the coifs and curls.² The blonde woman’s chains are not fixed to anything; they float in space. Similarly, the two women look as if they have just been placed into this space. There is no illusion of depth or foreshortening, creating a poster-like quality to the cover similar to Brundage’s other Weird Tales work. 

Spurlock vs. Yaztek : The existing writing on Brundage and her work.

At the current moment, Stephen D. Korshak and J. David Spurlock portray themselves as the torchbearers to Brundage’s legacy, reviving long-lost interest held in Brundage’s artwork through a book dedicated solely to her: The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art.  

Taking a different approach, Lisa Yaztek frames Brundage in the context of women working in science fiction from the 1930s to 1960s in her book Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction.  

Both of these historians consider Brundage’s role as a female artist working during that period, and the effects it had in her work. However, they take different interpretations on what this meant. 

A woman making women

Spurlock considers the way that Brundage created these empowered female figures in the light of her own leftist ideas and interest in civil rights. According to him, being a female artist in the 1930s who created sexual pieces was inherently a means of pushing back against the norm.³ He claims that Brundage was both trying to inject her own personality and point of view into her ‘women in peril’ pieces.⁴  He also frames Brundage’s ability to get her job for Weird Tales within the context of her social scene and husband in Chicago.⁵ 

In Spurlock’s opinion, while Brundage’s illustrations catered to the male gaze, they also offered a way for women to reclaim space in a patriarchal society. He points out that in the 1930s, it was typical to show women as weak and cowering victims.⁶ He considers the ‘Brundage girls’ to “have a unique sense of dignity” compared to other illustrations portraying women of the time.⁷ Of particular note, Spurlock points out that when there are scenes of bondage or subjugation in Weird Tales, Brundage frequently had a woman in charge.⁸ 

The September 1933 issue showcases one of these scenes. Spurlock considers scenes like these to be examples of feminine strength, where these female figures can be viewed as heroic and powerful compared to weak and submissive alternatives.⁹ Their strength is further emphasized by how they struggle and resist against evil, without signs of pain or abuse on their body or emotional distress.¹⁰ We can see this in the September 1933 issue, the blond woman pulls against her chains but she does not seem to be in emotional or physical pain. Rather, her movement is considerably beautiful. She looks as if she might be stretching or lying down. Despite her binds, she is in complete control of her body.

How does a female artist make art?

Lisa Yaztek places Brundage within the context of other female illustrators of the time, for science fiction and otherwise. While Spurlock only briefly mentions Brundage’s history in fashion as something that bored her, Yaztek elaborates on how this background in ‘woman’s art’ led to Brundage’s work in Weird Tales. Yaztek points out how the aesthetic conventions of the 1930s for women and by female artists of the time lent themselves to female illustrators in science fiction.¹¹  Working in soft mediums was likely something Brundage picked up from her fashion illustration days, the familiar look of which might have contributed to some of her popularity with the Weird Tales female audience.  Furthermore, because fashion magazines of the time depicted women in bright colors and marketed a progressive and active lifestyle for women, Brundage was skilled in both portraying active women and textiles.¹²  

Like Spurlock, Lisa Yaztek considers the ‘Brundage Girls’ to be strong female figures. For her, Brundage is one of many female artists creating female bodies infused with power.¹³ Furthermore, while Brundage’s illustrations catered to the male gaze they “endowed their female subjects with personality, using their subject’s reactions to the situations at hand to critically assess masculine behavior.¹⁴  Yaszek considers the Brundage women to push back against patriarchal and Enlightenment-based conventional standards for women. Her illustrations challenge a “good woman’s place” within a rational universe.¹⁵ 

Both Yaztek and Spurlock agree that Brundage both as a female artist and her background of women’s art in fashion meant she had a good grasp on female anatomy.¹⁶ Compared to male artists who were trained in a classical mode of representational painting, women artists were simply better at drawing women and fabrics.¹⁷

Caveats: The Progressive leftist and her use of racist, orientalist imagery

However, while Spurlock frames the Brundage women within Brundage’s desire for equal rights for minorities, Yaztek takes it a step in the other direction. She does not skip over how the ‘Brundage girls’ or Brundage’s background in women’s art were used to further xenophobic sentiment of 1930s America. Brundage’s background in fashion illustration meant she knew about Eastern fabrics and textiles and could incorporate them easily into the villains portrayed on the covers of Weird Tales. Yaztek points out that Brundage’s covers fused emerging twentieth-century fears of “yellow and black perils” with a colonial American Gothic style of painting. ‘Oriental’ men were the villains of these illustrations, taking the place of the ‘wild savage’ in colonial American Gothic art.¹⁸ 

The feminist focus on her role as a female artist creating female art often means scholars put a more favorable, progressive and feminist spin on Brundage’s illustrations, especially considering her own leftist views. This leaves scholarship on her more xenophobic and orientalist themes in her work to be wanting. I appreciate Lisa Yaztek’s analysis on Brundage’s background in women’s art lending itself to her expertise in creating racially charged ‘yellow peril’ and ‘red danger’ imagery, but I also notice that it specifically points out the male-female dynamic within this xenophobic imagery. The evils of the ‘Orient’ are portrayed through an oppressive male figure attacking a blond, beautiful and innocent woman who is easily read as a symbol for America.¹⁹ I’d like to expand on that.

As such, covers like the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales don’t seem to register as particularly xenophobic at first glance. After all, there are no men on the cover, and there are no obvious signs of ‘slanty eyed’ stereotypes or plotting, magical brown-skinned villains like there are in some of Brundage’s other work. I’d like to consider how the female-on-female dynamics in this cover were a way of expressing xenophobic and homophobic attitudes of 1930s America. This is not to take away from more ‘pro-woman’ readings into Brundage’s work or the progressive characteristics of her illustrations, but rather to consider her illustrations with nuance and as products of the time.   

What is The Slithering Shadow made for?

As I was researching, I noticed that scholarship of Brundage’s covers seem to consider the art as stand-alone pieces. Spurlock acts as if the choices Brundage makes to show women in peril or flagellation scenes are completely her own as an artist. He also considers illustrations like this, scenes of bondage with a woman in charge to be visual examples of female power and strength pushing back against conventional norms.²⁰  And while it wasn’t necessary for the covers to wholeheartedly accurately reflect the contents of the magazine as long as they were visually appealing to buyers, Brundage did read each written issue of Weird Tales before creating her illustrations.²¹ The choices she made as an artist were actively based on the written content of the stories, and in the case of the September 1933 issue that story would be Robert E. Howard’s The Slithering Shadow.  

We miss an important analysis into Brundage’s work both as a whole and specifically into this September 1933 issue if we don’t consider the writing the visuals accompany. The context in which the writing and the story were created offer insight to how the visuals must have viewed as well. We have insight directly from Brundage on how the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales was received by the public. We also have writing from Robert E. Howard himself that explains some of the thought processes in the themes in his work such as The Slithering Shadow. Seeing how these two worked together so frequently and were big fans of each other’s work,²² it seems only fitting to consider their partnership when analyzing Brundage’s work. 

Fred Taraba offered this comment on the September 1933 issue: “This is more than a picture of flagellation.”²³ Brundage herself seemed to agree; in an interview she said “We had one issue that sold out! It was the story of a very vicious female, getting a hold of the heroine and tying her up and beating her. Well, the public apparently thought it was flagellation.” ²⁴ 

Despite her denial, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Brundage could not have had at least a little inkling on how the scene depicted flagellation for a few reasons. First, she was heavily involved in a counterculture social circle. She frequented the Dill Pickle Club, where artists, bohemian, and queer culture all came together and people would discuss different lifestyles and philosophies.²⁵ It’s highly likely that Brundage’s work took some kind of inspiration from this community. At the very least, she would have needed to figure out some kind of mental or visual reference for the cover illustration. Furthermore, Brundage was deeply familiar with Howard’s writing not only because she read through each issue of Weird Tales to hand pick scenes that she wanted to illustrate, but also because she was a huge fan of his work. He held similar sentiments towards her illustrations.²⁶  

Robert E. Howard and his obsession with kink and lesbian erotica

The Slithering Shadow is not simply about a villainess holding the heroine captive; both the story and the cover illustration clearly have queer and sexual elements. This doesn’t inherently mean that it was expressed in a positive light.  Howard regarded “lesbianism” as a way of showcasing the barbaric behavior of these fantastical and exotic realms in his writing and similar Weird Tales environments.²⁷ These moments of ‘lesbianism’ were never consensual, and always involved a villainous woman torturing her victim mercilessly.²⁸ At the same time, Howard’s extensive library on sadomasochism and “lesbianism,” and his own erotic poetry indicates that he had a fascination and deep interest in kink.²⁹ Howard knew that readers were interested in sexually deviant stories and illustrations and activities that challenged normal convention.³⁰  For readers that wanted “weird tales, ” this was about as weird as it could get. 

Regardless of whether Brundage considered the scene to be some form of erotic flagellation, the reality is that this sexual, sensual and queer-coded imagery was both hugely taboo and hugely popular with the Weird Tales audience. The September 1933 issue was so popular it sold out almost immediately. Taking a cue from this, Howard continued to show scenes of female on female flagellation and Brundage continued to illustrate them, as we can see from the December 1934 Weird Tales cover.  Other authors caught on that if they wanted to make the cover story, they were more likely to be chosen if they featured a woman in a state of undress.³¹ Showing scenes of sadomasochism or homoeroticism would also up their chances– after all, it was the scandal and sex that sold these magazines, even if they were about science fiction and fantasy. We can see this pattern catching on in the covers of January and March 1936 Weird Tale Issues. 

September 1933	December 1934	January 1936	March 1936

So how is this scene of lesbian BDSM “of the times?” 

Brundage’s covers may have portrayed women in positions of power and can be interpreted as working against society’s patriarchal views on a woman’s place in society, covers like the September 1933 Weird Tales were still examples of capitalizing and encouraging xenophobic attitudes of America of the time. Both Howard and Brundage’s work often centered around themes of barbarism and a romantic notion of uncivilized and exotic lifestyles. In the cover illustration, the dominatrix-like villainous has dark hair, probably based on the description that Howard offered for these characters in his writing. His character design plays into ‘good versus evil’ tropes; the blond woman is the virtuous heroine and the brunette woman is the harsh and cruel villainess.³²  These sentiments are reflected visually and brought to life by Brundage’s illustrations. As Yaztek mentioned, Brundage’s work frequently featured white, blond women in danger of an oppressor- often a ‘yellow peril’ or /red danger’ male.³³ Here the oriental stereotype is not a male, but note that the villainess is a dark haired woman wearing ‘Oriental’ clothing that Brundage was familiar with drawing. The woman herself is ethnically ambiguous, but certainly could be a Middle Eastern or Asian woman. By creating queer scenes within the context of ‘exotic’ and ‘fantasy’ worlds acts of non-heteronormative behavior were more acceptable to the public. At the same time, it was the homophobic and xenophobic attitudes of the time that Brundage and Howard employed with sexual imagery to make their content marketable.

Although homophobic and xenophobic attitudes contributed to the creation of sadomasochistic and queer coded illustrations and writing for Weird Tales, the covers still might have found appeal with female and queer audiences. Weird Tales had a relatively high proportion of women in their workspace. A decent percentage of the writers were women, as well as other artists and staff.³⁴ And while their readership was predominately heterosexual men, it certainly wasn’t limited to them.  In a discussion about the  later genre of 1950s and 1960s lesbian pulp, Paula Rabinowitz says “even if slip-wearing is not tied to a woman’s desire for women, its extravagant display of sexuality marks her as a sister rebel.”³⁵  Although this analysis pertains to work a couple decades later, I think this statement can be retrofitted to consider Brundage’s work considering both Korshak and Yaszek’s analysis of Brundage’s female figures. I also would like to consider that Brundage’s images could have been a predecessor for lesbian pulp fiction cover iconography. Lesbian pulp covers aided lesbian women on how to recognize each other by the way that they dressed through the depiction of risqué lingerie, which heterosexual women aligned to normal conventions would not find the need for.³⁶ In this way risqué and sexy fashion conveyed counterculture ideas available to women through pulp fiction cover illustrations.

The continuing effects of Brundage’s covers in art and media 

The scholarship around Brundage’s work is very clear on her impact as the ‘Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art.’ Before Margaret Brundage began producing iconic ‘women-in-peril’ cover illustrations for Weird Tales, science fiction pulp magazine covers mostly showed things like aliens and robots. She was the first of either sex whose covers featured nudes in science fiction.³⁷ As the editor of Weird Tales caught on that sexually charged imagery would help sell magazines and other pulp fiction magazines caught on, more sexualized and sensational imagery began showing up on their covers.³⁸ This type of iconography eventually translated over to comic books and mainstream media in years to come. Earlier, I discussed the possibility of Brundage’s artwork leading to more portrayals of queer-coded illustrations in mainstream media. Bobby Derie, a scholar on Howard’s writing, offers another angle. He points out that one month after the September 1933 Weird Tales, Dime Mystery debuted, the first of “shudder pulps” that focused on stories of torture and sadism on women.³⁹ He defines “The Slithering Shadow” as a potential marker indicating that there was an audience for this pulp genre.⁴⁰ Yaztek interprets Brundage’s legacy and iconography of strong and powerful women to continue in the work of female science fiction artists like Rowena Morill, Victoria Poyser-Lisi and Julie Bell.⁴¹

Concluding Thoughts

There is a strong temptation to portray Brundage as ‘ahead of her time’ due to a simplified conflation of her personal views and scholarship on her illustrations.  Her covers expressed her progressive and counterculture sentiments using her iconic women, but at the same time capitalized on xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in America.  By examining her artwork alongside the writing, it accompanied rather than considering them as stand-alone pieces, I think it helps us learn more about the motives behind creating certain types of visual imagery. It offers a more nuanced perspective into Brundage’s artmaking rather than flattening her artwork as inherently female-positive and progressive because she was a leftist and female artist.

Afterthoughts

Since I have the platform, I would also like to offer a brief review on the authors and scholars that I referenced throughout this essay. As a introduction and a book to peruse through the covers, Korshak and Spurlock’s book is adequate. However, the overall quality of the writing mediocre at its best, and repetitive and fanboyish at its worst. And the foreword by Rowena Morrill is truly awful. For a book about Brundage, Rowena Morrill barely seems to know anything about her. One of the most delusional quotes I can pick from the foreword is “The photo I saw of her looked very attractive. I have always thought it is a great advantage to the a woman in a male-dominated field. The art directors treat you better!” I could go on for a while about how insensitive and untrue this is, but there are literally interviews depicting Margaret Brundage’s experience in the book from Brundage herself that point out the contrary. I would much more highly reccomend Lisa Yaztek’s Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction. Although it may not market itself as sensationally as The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage, it offers much more substantial information on not only Brundage but other women working in the science fiction genre in the 1900s.

Citations:

1. Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 35
2.  Ibid, 117.
3.  Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 148
4. Ibid, 147.
5. Ibid, 145-148.
6.  Ibid.
7.  Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 148.
8.  Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 148.
9. Ibid.
10.  Ibid.
11. Lisa Yaztek, Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction) (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), 334.
12.  Ibid, 336.
13. Lisa Yaztek, Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction) (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), 335.
14. Ibid,  333.
15.  Ibid.
16. Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 149.
17.  Lisa Yaztek, Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction) (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), 333.
18.  Lisa Yaztek, Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction) (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), 335.
19. Ibid, 333.
20. Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 148.
21. Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 149.
22.  Ibid, 150.
23.  Fred Taraba. Masters of American Illustration: 41 Illustrators & How they worked. (The Illustrated Press, 2011).
24.  Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 29.
25. George Hagenauer, “Wobbies and Weird Tales: Brundage’s Life and Marriage in Chicago,” in The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage, ed. Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock ( Vanguard Productions, 2013), 114-115.
26.  Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 149-150. 
27.  Bobby Derie, “Conan and Sappho: Robert E Howard on Lesbians Part 1 & 2.” The Dark Man: Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies. (2017).
28.  Ibid.
29. Charles Hoffman, “Elements of Sadomasochism in the Fiction and Poetry of Robert E. Howard.”  The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, Volume 4, No. 2 (June 2009).
30. Bobby Derie, “Conan and Sappho: Robert E Howard on Lesbians Part 1 & 2.” The Dark Man: Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies. (2017).
31.  Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 19.
32. Charles Hoffman. Elements of Sadomasochism in the Fiction and Poetry of Robert E. Howard. The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, Volume 4, No. 2 (June 2009).
33.  Lisa Yaztek, Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction) (Wesleyan University Press), 335.
34.   Lisa Yaztek, Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction) (Wesleyan University Press), 396.
35. Paula Rabinowitz. Scenes of Reading Women: Feminism and Paperbacks: A Possible Origin Story. Australasian Journal of American Studies 37, no. 1 (2018), 195. 
36. Ibid. 
37. Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art (Vanguard Productions, 2013), 147.
38. Ibid, 148. 
39.  Bobby Derie, “Conan and Sappho: Robert E Howard on Lesbians Part 1 & 2.” The Dark Man: Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies (2017).
40.  Ibid.
41.  Lisa Yaszek,  Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Early Classics of Science Fiction) (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), 340.

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