- 1 min
speed round
Speculative criticism is a true, present fiction, but for the nearer future than speculative fiction. A writing colleague, Ismar advises...
- 1 min
first impressions matter
We first chatted on Facebook. We were perhaps ‘friends’ who didn’t actually know each other. I may have seen him on Grindr or a sex app,...
- 1 min
second half-life mantra
I’m writing a book on my mid-life crisis it would seem. A mantra for the second half-life has begun to emerge this catharsis: Talk to who...
- 1 min
let me see if i get this right
Upon pitching a publishing idea you have offered me a range of excuses and feigned offence in the end. Let me see if I get this right....
- 5 min
stand-off with tony
I didn’t care much for sports in junior high. The first year of high school would be easier than these exposed junior high years outside...
- 2 min
a phalanx of neutral characters
A friend and colleague once asked me a few times, why I care so much? I was recently home to Tennessee and I was reminded of the...
- 1 min
what i didn’t learn at swarthmore
I didn’t learn anything at swarthmore. I did not take a class on logic there whereby I gained an ivy league sense of rationale. I do not...
- 1 min
betrayal
You came in the form of a year. 2017 to be precise. You were not one or the other of its happenstances. You were the sum of its parts....
- 1 min
café society
I don’t think I know enough about the historic camps of Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots on Saint-Germain des Prés in Paris. Both were...
- 1 min
an ode to email
Oh email. You are not you. You are not Gertrude or Renato, Daniel or Danielle. You are not George or Sidd, Rapha or Paula. You are not...
- 2 min
kkk, v2 (days later while in tennessee)
The birthplace of the racist, white supremecist kkk is my homestate of Tennessee. Pulaski. I am back in NYC for a week. It is...
- 2 min
pricing is cultural?
I flew home from Paris on the Norwegian airliner … the one that has the ‘smoke over’ windows. I requested an aisle seat, so I didn’t get...
- 1 min
nice car
I really don’t know where I am right now. I do, but my energy level hasn’t calibrated to Brooklyn yet. I’m nice, courteous even, to...
- 3 min
referring to something not published
I haven’t hit ‘publish’ on number forty-three because I can intuit repercussions for what I want to say. Even if I think I’ve pieced...
- 2 min
vai escrever
George had his day off today. I work at home. On two occasions I was bugging him because he was bugging me. Both times he brushed me off...
- 2 min
eu sou pão com ovo
Eduardo sells peppers on Rua Humaitá at the intersection where Rua Martiniano de Carvalho becomes Rua dos Bororós. In front of the meat...
- 2 min
lose of confidence
The first big building is being built on our street. She sat on the planter in front of the last remaining individual family house on the...
- 1 min
the price of cashews
Gentrification is when cashews can cost twice as much at a new — freshly designed — shoppe across the street from the Northeastern...
- 3 min
mise-en-scène: madame satã, friday fair
Madame Satã is a club near where George and I want to move to in Bixiga. It sits on a corner painted black. The gargoyle on the roof is...
- 1 min
don’t talk to me about solidarity, starfucker
I know it doesn’t wear well. What I’m doing. You are right — therapeutically speaking — the weight of it can be bad for me. But, I remind...
- 6 min
things overheard, overheard
Yesterday I wrote to a senior peer. Someone I wish who would consider mentoring me. I came on too strong. Will he like how much I know...
- 1 min
polymathematical
I did not speak bad about you. I spoke about you. My personality is not so much multiple, but simply different with each passing day. We...
- 1 min
things overheard
Well, you’re finally a millionaire. It’s what you wanted. Uptown on the 6. Woman to woman. A loving friend grimace and clutch of the...
- 7 min
saddle sam
It is not often that we get to commemorate a former pet. Or perhaps not often that I care to. There is not much to say about Ruff — a dog...
- 8 min
things fall apart
Is the best professional one who believes deeply, passionately in his or her vocation? I don’t find myself easily attracted to a simple...
- 2 min
antiga moradia
I went back and forth to the Copan Building twice yesterday. I walked with our guest artist Akinbode Akinbiyi in the centre, introducing...
- 8 min
genocide and breakfast
I can now piece together why I spoke of genocide in #24 — non sequitur — and within the last five minutes I am aware of a particular...
- 3 min
neck of the woods
The wooded area at the back of our farm — just before the sheer ravine wall that fell off the Cumberland Plateau — was often called the...
- 1 min
questioning our affiliation
I started looking at white, gay, alpha, cis-gendered males in a whole new light, basically questioning our affiliation.
- 5 min
note to a funder
This morning my first meeting should have been at Conjunto Santos Dumont (Rua Paim), but I did things out of order and went to the Copan...
- 1 min
about the night
If one goes to the same club or hangout frequently over a long enough period of time, it stands to reason that we may notice a change and...
- 2 min
doing things out of order
I try to walk around the older woman. She sees a break in the traffic on Humaitá and cuts in front of me with a few inches to spare. I...
- 3 min
john jay hooker
David Schulman, commonly known as Skull, ran Skull’s Rainbow Room — anchoring one end of Printer’s Alley and occupying the lowest floor...
- 3 min
the liminal space between summers
I have never developed a rigid system of note taking. Sometimes I find old notebooks in which I’ve started from the ostensible front with...
- 2 min
draft statement
In the context of HIV/AIDS, continuum of care means different things. In the US it begins with ‘testing’ and in Brasil starts with...
- 1 min
in honor of my hairdresser
I don’t remember her name. Sometimes we cheek-kissed when I arrived and others I just sat down in the chair. For the past three years...
- 5 min
cost of family
Economizing relations, proximity and in some ways healthcare. Walking to the Copan to have a tedious phonecall with my mother. It...
- 2 min
rays of light
I was a bit high. I took the same street as usual from home to office, Rua Abolição. Rua Abolição has the best bloco during...
- 3 min
phantom thread
I woke up early to mark my territory. George’s dishes in the sink gave grounds for my gruff repartee. I wanted my space this morning, and...
- 2 min
águas de março
I have been waiting months to access the funds in my Banco Brasil account. It’s a small amount. After three months without transactions...
- 2 min
midday in são paulo
It is a pleasant midday in São Paulo. Saturday. It is sunny, yet the ‘waters of March’ have already begun the preceding week. Torrential,...
- 5 min
actionable advice from the inlaws
The end of last year was not as I had planned. I think living across two different cultures and cities has taught me not to sweat the...
- 5 min
how i met zimbabwe
It was the summer of 2003 that I first met Zimbabwe. After working at the ‘Festival of the Dhow Countries’ — a cultural and film festival...
- 2 min
i’m a poof
There are not any completely gay bars in York, a city of 200,000. I found the Yorkshire Arms listed as friendly and later that night my...
- 1 min
hill brothers
The story goes that the Hill Brothers were a menace. They squatted an old store in front of my neighbor’s house, one that she owned and...
- 2 min
engagement rings
I chickened out. The fancy restaurant in Sta. Teresa was the perfect place to give George the ring, but instead I slipped it to him in...
- 3 min
tectonic shift
I read about ten books at a time. But sometimes a book can take over a year to read in that configuration. The state of not wanting to...
- 2 min
curator he said, she said
When we screened the Cidade Queer film at K.o.clubmilano during the socially engaged ‘school’ at @viafarini in Milano — and after a week+...
- 1 min
unemployment: when sunday becomes monday
If one hasn’t slept, when does Sunday become Monday? It doesn’t have to be perfect, he reminds himself of the the new year’s resolution....
- 1 min
night out in são paulo (note to marina)
Lulu and I agree that Jerome is a bit snobby. Lulu and I perhaps like trashier clubs. Saturday I only waved at Lulu across the crowd at...