Glass Houses, Madeline Ashby (excerpt here)
I met Maddie about a decade ago via a workshop organized by Tim Hwang; very grateful that despite never living in the same city we've remained in touch.
Julia and I saw this at BAM on Friday. I can imagine some people will find it entirely too A24 Aesthetic for their tastes, but I was captivated as entirely as the characters in the film were with their beloved TV show. It's beautiful and weird and genuinely felt like a love letter the whole way through. The ending is brutal, but I think there's still a seed of hope in it. Or maybe the hope is in the fact that Jane Schoenbrun made a movie about trans experience that doesn't pander to cis audiences (i.e., it doesn't offer some kind of redemptive assimilation or shy away from the terror within the joy of self-recognition).
For some lighthearted fun, here is a press interview where the director and stars of the movie try to work references to the Jim Carrey movie The Mask into every one of their answers.
"Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power", Audre Lorde
This essay holds a lot of the same wonder and terror for me that exists in I Saw The TV Glow. (Insert the David Lynch "Elaborate on that / No" meme here.)
"My Outdoor Resumé, Part One, Rusty Foster's Today on Trail
Submitted by Matt.
"The Garden of Time", J.G. Ballard
I haven't found much writing specifically about J.G. Ballard's use of crystals in fiction (they're mentioned in "The Garden of Time", are central to the novel The Crystal World and the short story "The Illuminated Man" that exists in the same timeline as The Crystal World).
Steve Albini in an interview with Mel Magazine
Not sure I'm living my life in a way that will make people react to my death in the way that they've reacted to Albini's death, but feel like it's important to try. Much love to the many Chicago friends who have been grieving this loss.