Review: Bhanu Kapil’s SCHIZOPHRENE

My review of Bhanu Kapil’s Schizophrene is live at Lantern Review. Schizophrenia, im/migration and the texture of fragmentation.

THEOFFCENTER Blog Salon 2: On Queer Economies

Thanks to Jesse Hewit and Ernesto Sopprani for inviting me to participate in THEOFFCENTER Blog Salon No 2: On Queer Economies. My piece, LUNCH BREAK, is inspired by a piece Pamela Lu wrote for the Poetic Labor Project in 2010.

Valentine’s Day Hangover: A Kearny Street Workshop Reading Celebrating the Chapbook

I am participating in this Kearny Street Workshop event curated by Debbie Yee, which is also a culmination of Debbie’s chapbook-making class!

Valentine’s Day Hangover: A KSW Reading Celebrating the Chapbook
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 | 6:30pm until 8:30pm
ARC Studios & Gallery | 1246 Folsom between 8th and 9th | San Francisco

Come join us for a Valentine’s Day Decompression reading and chapbook trading post! The reading is a culmination of the chapbook-making class offered by Kearny Street Workshop this month and will feature crafty workshoppers and chapbook-author guests! Goodnight, Cupid.

FEATURING
Jennifer Y. Cheng
Mai Doan
Bill Gong
Rona Luo
Jai Arun Ravine
Margaret Rhee
Debbie Yee

Review: Marjorie Stein’s AN ATLAS OF LOST CAUSES

Thanks to Mg Roberts, I had the pleasure of reviewing Marjorie Stein’s An Atlas of Lost Causes (Kelsey Street Press, 2011), which is up now in Issue 19 of Word For/Word. Hypnotic, investigative prose poetics—a twin sister, a crime, a pinhole camera, a smoking gun.

Tom / Trans / Thai Winter Travel Diary

THE NEWS!

LOS ANGELES PREMIER, FEBRUARY 25! I will be installing Tom / Trans / Thai as part of PAST PRESENT | FUTURE IMPERATIVES: QUEER SPACE TIME at Sabina Lee Gallery in LA Chinatown! I am honored to be in this past/present/future dimension of Queer Asian American Hotness with the Fabulous SuperStardom of VIệT Lê, GENEVIEVE ERIN O’BRIEN and TINA TAKEMOTO! The show opens on February 25 and runs until March 24. My experimental karaoke music video cover, FAN CHRISTY, will also debut at the opening! I will be traveling down to LA early to give an artist talk at Claremont Colleges on February 22. Many thanks to Viet and Erin for this remarkable opportunity!

THE RE-CAP!

PITTSBURGH, NOVEMBER 8: The film screened as part of the My People Film Series in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last November. I joined the audience for a Q&A via Skype from the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in California, where I was on residency. Thanks to Soham Patel, Colleen Jankovic and Joseph Hall for this amazing invitation!

IN THE CLASSROOM!

Tom / Trans / Thai will be taught in courses at SUNY Binghamton (New York), Pitzer and UC Irvine (California) this spring, and was also requested by a student doing an independent study in the UK!

THE CRITICAL ESSAY!

I finalized a draft of my critical essay, Tom/Gay, Trans/Queer: Mixed Translations Across Thai and Thai American Trans-Masculinities, which I am sending to instructors along with the film. Below is a short paragraph from its opening pages:

I am interested in bridging critical discussions regarding trans-masculine gender identity formation within Thailand and the US through analyzing the ways gender and queerness are linguistically and culturally conceptualized and communicated. In other words, I want to look at how people think and talk about gender, how people communicate and embody gender (Is gender talked about as a concept? Is gender talked about as an identity?) and the existing language around gender. I want to look at how language impacts cross-cultural recognition and connection between toms and Thai FTMs, and how language contributes to the invisibility, isolation and silencing of Thai transgender men and trans-masculine people. I also want to look at how language can be the site of building self and community.

THE CONNECTIONS!

I’m excited about Children of Srikandi, a new film project by queer Indonesian women breaking the code of silence. Watch the trailer here!

FOR MORE INFO!

Tom / Trans / Thai is a short experimental film that approaches the silence around female-to-male (FTM) transgender identity in the Thai context by addressing tom and trans-masculine identities in Thai and Thai American communities and the transnational relationships between gender and language. To view the trailer or request a DVD, please visit the project page.

Review: Pamela Lu’s AMBIENT PARKING LOT

Pamela Lu’s Ambient Parking Lot is the best book I read in 2011! Read my review at Lantern Review and you’ll find a bunch of reasons to get your hands on this brilliant book. A mediocre band of ambient noise musicians? Deadpan hilarity? Mockumentary? Death of an Automotive Dancer? See, I told you so.