Though the Drag Race will crown its Season 12 champion in a Zoomed finale tomorrow night, the real winner, in my heart, will be Jackie Cox. The self-professed Persian Princess of Drag, Cox didn't just bring fabulous looks to the runway every week and assassinate her lip sync competition -- she unapologetically, thoughtfully brought her culture … Continue reading Stars, Stripes, and “Salaam, RuPaul Joon!”: A Niche Interview with Jackie Cox
Warning: This piece contains references to transphobia and quotes transphobic comments. I have no compunctions around making the claim that I am trans first and foremost because I want to have gay sex with men. I was raised to see the entertainment value of embellishment; besides, someone out there is going to accuse me of it … Continue reading The Five Chasers You Meet on Grindr
The Niche: Leo! First of all, let me just say I know it's a crazy time right now what with COVID-19 and all, so I really appreciate you taking the time to chat. Leo Tolstoy: Da, da. Talkink to you is nice break from sittink in study and smokink pipe vhile vife vatch over eight … Continue reading A Zoom Interview with Leo Tolstoy About Count Vronsky’s Dick Game
I was once a child who spent several hours a day curled up in a chair tearing through books from start to finish. I checked stacks taller than I was out of the library at a time, and almost always finished them all. But like many once-avid readers, when I hit high school, the demands … Continue reading I Learned to Love Reading Again While Quarantined (And So Can You, with These Eight Easy Steps!)
Dearest Jane, Tis I, your ye olde editor. I am writing to confirm that I have received the first draft of your new novel, tentatively titled Emma, or Clueless & Cantankerous. Whilst I agree that Emma is, as you say in your letter, “straight fire,” and, to wit, a savage satire of the class system … Continue reading What if “Emma,” But Murder?
If you asked me three months ago, in a pre-quarantine life, what my coping strategies would look like come the quasi-apocalypse, I would have lied so hard. “If this is really and truly it,” I joked in the blessed early days, “I’m shaving my head, getting approximately one million stick-and-poke tattoos, and riding a motorcycle … Continue reading Three Things My Sourdough Starter Taught Me About My Attachment Style
In a dream you saw a way to give birth to a premature baby on an airplane, and after a harrowing, hours-long labour, during which it looked at many times like the baby might not survive, you finally named the healthy newborn Ronan Farrow, and you were full of joy. In a dream you saw … Continue reading That One Jenny Holzer Truism About Dreams But It’s Now About My Own Weird Quarantine Dreams
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The year was 1956. Europe, torn up and traumatized by war, needed something that might help it heal. In came the Switzerland-based European Broadcasting Union with an at-the-time highly ambitious idea: broadcast a song contest between European countries, each represented by a performer, to the whole of Europe simultaneously. Ever since then, with the exception … Continue reading Did Susan Sontag Write “Notes on Camp” Specifically About Eurovision? Who’s to Say?
Supporting your local bookstores has never been so important. And this is especially true of queer-owned bookstores, the holy grails of non-alcoholic daytime hangout spots for queer people. I consider myself very lucky to live in a city with a small, very lovely queer bookshop, run by a married couple. It is therefore a no-brainer … Continue reading How to Order a Book From Your Local LGBTQ Bookstore When You Are Quarantined and Also Very Gay And Also Very Anxious About E-mail
