Yesterday, I went to the Smithsonian’s Museum of African Art, and was entranced by the one piece in their collection by Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu. I immediately went home to research her, and I was astounded.Her work mixes paint and collage and she has a darkly whimsical aesthetic. Myth and the grotesque mingle in fantastic ways in her work, that examines Race and Gender.
The good folks at Rebel Satori Press have accepted my as-yet untitled collection of dark fantasy/weird fiction. No firm dates yet, but it will be out sometime in 2014. This is a themed collection; all of the stories have black/African-descended protagonists. Some of the pieces are “in conversation” with art, literature and social issues. Inspirations include the art work of Kara Walker and Carrie Mae Weems, the film Looking for Langston by Isaac Julien, among other influences.
I’m really excited about this project!
The official return of fall–my favorite season–is not until next week. But the cooler weather crept back last night. For some reason, Bel Canto’s song Picnic on the Moon reminds me of this time of year.
Rickie Lee Jones is, in her own, as bizarre an artist as Bjork. She is uncategorizable. Is she a jazz chanteuse, adding her own spin to the American Songbook? Is she a confessional singer-songwriter like Laura Nyro? She has been a neo-beat ingenue, the female answer to Tom Waits. Her music spans from jazzy, bluesy folk-rock to big band to R&B. Her albums have been all covers and at one point, trip-hop. She is an intrepid musical experimenter who willfully ignores genre classifications.
My favorite songs of her, though, are esoteric and hermetic. Her masterpiece, Pirates, closes with two weird songs, “Traces of the Western Slope” and “The Returns.” “Traces…” is a long, dark trip through an urban hell peopled with jailbait girls, gangs, junkies and the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe that seems to be a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice. The music is spooky jazz-tinged funk and has no real formal song structure. “The Returns” is an icy ballad as terrifying as anything on Nico’s The Marble Index. On the next album,The Magazine, “Deep Space: An Equestrienne in the Circus of the Falling Star” is a Satie-esque piano ballad full of metaphysical imagery (“the Lord’s face is an all-night cafe”). That album ends with a triptych of songs collectively called Rorschachs. The songs include an instrumental (an Italian classical guitar piece called “Theme for the Pope”); a spoken word piece about childhood memories (“The Unsigned Painting”) and disturbing song about being haunted by an living Id/Demon—(“The Weird Beast”).
Finally, some good news.
My YA novel Bereft has been nominated for both the Moonbeam Children’s Award and the Lambda Literary Award in the Young Adult category!
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.”
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.
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.
Craig Laurance Gidney 
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