Author: Craig Gidney

Author of "Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories" (2008 Lambda Literary Finalist); "Skin Deep Magic" (2014 Lambda Literary Finalist); "Bereft" (2013 Bronze Moonbeam Award and 2014 Independent Publishers' Award) "The Nectar of Nightmares" (Dim Shores Chapbook) and A Spectral Hue (2019)
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MUSIC REVIEW: The Weighting of the Heart by Colleen. If painter Leonora Carrington played music, it would sound like this.

Colleen

It’s taken a while for Colleen’s new album, The Weighting of the Heart, to grow on me. Previous Colleen albums—the name that mutli-instrumentalist CÉCILE SCHOTT records under—have been instrumental affairs. She meticulously crafts layers of acoustic instruments and electronics to create tranquil sound tapestries. Some of the instruments she uses are antique: viola de gamba or the spinet. The new album introduces her voice into the mix. She has a winsome alto, and her lyrics are basically simple melodic chants. The focus, though, is on the dense, textural music that she plucks, strums, and loops. The hermetic and classically-minded compositions synaesthetically recall the chiaroscuro paintings of De Chirico, and the smell of potpourri. Her lyrical imagery is mysterious, magical, cloaked in darker hues. The song titles recall the titles of surrealist Leonora Carrington paintings: “Ursa Major Find,” “Geometria del Universo,” “The Moon Like a Bell.”

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BOOK REVIEW: Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene by Gerald H. Gaskin. A peak inside a magical subculture.

Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom SceneLegendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene by Gerald H. Gaskin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Legendary is a gorgeous photography book that chronicles the vibrant underground Ballroom Scene. Gaskin captures black and Latino gay men in their finery. Their outfits exist somewhere beyond couture. They transform themselves into ephemeral creatures of their own imaginations. The balls themselves, held in NYC, DC and other urban areas, are alternate dimensions, where you can let your freak flags fly. Gender warriors become proud peacocks in bold colors. The sheer beauty of these photographic compositions are astounding. Gaskin has created a visual feast that reveals this magical subculture.

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BOOK BIRTHDAY: The Woken Gods by Gwenda Bond

About a year ago, my friend Gwenda Bond came to DC to do some research for a book she was writing. Something about gods and Washington, DC. (She, her husband and I got drunk that night after dinner, so I have a fuzzy memory). Anyway, the book she was researching came out this week. I wish the book (and its author) much success.

wokengods

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My genetic curse.

It was a queer and sultry summer, the time of Wentworth Miller coming out as gay and Miley Cyrus twerking her way to scandal. I had been ill all August, suffering headaches, the loss of taste, smell and appetite. My vision was ever-so-slightly blurred. And, towards the end of the month, I had been peeing all the time. And drinking like crazy—nothing could quench my thirst. I would wake up with a tongue as dry and red as an Arizona desert. I thought this was due to my sinusitis.

RoundRock

Like many Americans, I have no insurance. So I went to the free clinic staffed by Georgetown University Medical School. The clinic is located on the grounds of DC General Hospital, where I worked as a teenager. The facility also hosts a homeless shelter and is next to the abandoned and allegedly haunted St. Elizabeth’s, a mental hospital that was almost legendary. A group of med students with an attendant physician did all sorts of tests, before informing me that my frequent thirst and urination wasn’t due to a side effect of the various medicines I take for other ailments. It was diabetes.

Everything clicked into place. Diabetes runs in my immediate family. It was probably the cause of my father’s death. I’m not a wildly unhealthy eater, but I do love sweets. (One of my dream jobs was as a pastry chef, creating architectural wonders made of sugar). Right now, I’m still processing this information. My depression has asserted itself. I have a little shame. And fear. And anxiety. The next steps will be to see a physician, and get the proper medications, equipment and a treatment plan.

I know the learning curve will be steep, and the adjustments gradual and frustrating. I am writing this to offer some support to others who have had similar experiences. And also, writing is therapy and like a religious ritual to me.

Finally, I want to thank the Hoya Clinic for their swift and professional care.

*Apologies to Sylvia Plath; the first sentence as a homage to The Bell Jar.

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Message in a bottle–support sought.

I don’t like talking about negative private things. This author blog primarily exists to share and discuss fiction–both my own and others–and has expanded into mini-essays about racism and my health. Those outlier essays are still connected thematically to the core focus, because my fiction often addresses these issues.

This post, however, will be more direct. Certain health issues have reach a critical mass with me. I suffer from Samter’s Triad, which includes nasal polyps. Last year, I confirmed that the polyps, which had been removed surgically 5 years prior, are back. This means: no since of smell (addressed in an earlier post) and constant sinus headaches. These past weeks, I have developed yet another side effect: almost everything I taste now has a weird metallic taste. I have noticed that I have lost some weight, because eating is not pleasurable. I’ve also noticed almost everyday I have a headache and pop ibuprofen like candy.

I think I need to see a doctor.

I have no insurance, so I can’t access a healthcare network.

I am requesting some help—in the form of ideas who I should turn to get some some professional help. Additionally, I could use some emotional support as well. Just someone to talk to. That’s all.

If you are so inclined, you may contact me at clgidney@gmail.com

My Kindle Fire has a name--Griot.
My Kindle Fire has a name–Griot.
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MUSIC REVIEW: Julianna Barwick, Nepenthe. Vocal Ice Sculptures.

Nepenthe

In the past, I have found Barwick’s vocal-based ambient music too wispy. A Barwick album is mostly made out of layers of her vocals that mass and drift along like dandelion seeds. It’s admirable, in the way looking at a frozen lake is. But it’s too insubstantial. For whatever reason, Nepenthe has grabbed me. There’s more structure to her work this time. And rather than just being ‘celestial,’ there is a definite atmosphere to each of the compositions–something darker and more pensive. It holds together as an album. It’s still chilly and wispy, but the melodies are stronger.The song One Half is even catchy, and has words. Nepenthe is closer in spirit to Sigur Ros than it is to Enya.

 

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H.P. Hatecraft: On Nepenthe and N*ggers

 

by Emily Balivet
by Emily Balivet

The first H.P. Lovecraft story I read was “The Outsider.” It was, and still is, a fine piece of work. It’s a poetic tale about an introvert who touches a dark “eidolon,” drinks the elixir of “nepenthe” and then joins the ghastly beings who live in the nooks and crannies of time and space. “The Outsiders” is, in addition to a horror story, a mediation on isolation and loneliness. As a closeted student in a mostly white high school, I felt like an outsider myself, and wanted to ride with the ghouls in the chilly, beautiful vistas of other dimensions.

Then I read the next story in the collection, “The Rats in the Walls.” I never finished it, because the narrator had a cat, called “Niggerman.” I have never read any other Lovecraft afterwards. I later found out that Lovecraft was a racist and anti-semite of the highest order, who subscribed to the pseudoscience of eugenics. Lovecraft wrote a poem that is practically talismanic for the White Supremacist crowd, called “On the Creation of Niggers.” Black people, like myself, are described in other stories as being bestial and like gorillas. Apologists will say that Lovecraft was a product of his time. To which I say, no. There were white progressives back then, and white people who even married black people.

I came back to “The Outsiders,” years later, and realized that there is an allegory there. Lovecraft, like the narrator of the story, lived alone in a castle of fear and hatred. He only found kinship with the ghouls and shades in an alternate universe. And what are racists, except ghouls and shades that hide out in some alternate universe where non-whites are subhuman? White Supremacy is the ultimate nepenthe.

*There is a character in the New Scooby Doo Adventures named H.P. Hatecraft.