Crybaby Zine @crybabyzine - Tumblr Blog

Moving on.

Crybaby is moving off of Tumblr. We’ve changed dramatically over the years and needed a change. You can now find us on crybabyzine.com ! This will remain up as an archive of the past four years.

There’s so much more to come <3

- Remi Riordan, founder, editor-in-chief

An Interview with Unbound Babes CEO Polly Rodriguez

Illustration by Danie Drankwalter

Unbound Babes is a company dedicated to helping people, many times young women and GNC people, explore their sex lives and bodies. Over the summer, I spoke to Polly Rodriguez, the co-founder and CEO of the company. We spoke about her favorite product, accurate sex education and what’s next for Unbound [spoiler, they’ve already moved into their new office]!

What inspired you to start Unbound Babes and how did you get into the sex tech field?

I mean I definitely didn't come out of school and jump right into it. I had a cancer diagnosis when I was 21-years-old that included radiation treatment. [It] sent me into menopause at 21, but none of my doctors told me that; they just said I would never have children. So it was realizing kind of how female sexuality is really underserved and how we're often viewed through the lens of motherhood and maternity [that led to the creation of Unbound]. And then on the other end of the spectrum--hypersexuality. I had my first experience shopping in the [sex] category at a shop that was on the side of the highway. It was just one of those seedy experiences that stuck with me, because when you go through menopause you basically need lube for the rest of your life. To me it was kind of strange that we had Bob Dole endorsing Viagra and men's sexual needs, yet women felt really overlooked both in the shopping experience and the quality of the product. So I went on to work for Senator McCaskill in Washington, D.C., then for a strategy consulting firm on Wall Street and then joined a dating startup. After that I started working on Unbound, but I had to save up some money before starting a business as well. So a little bit of the backstory.

What sorts of challenges have you faced and was funding difficult because it was a sex toy company with a woman C.E.O?

Two percent of venture funding went to women in 2016, which gives you a little bit of a sense of how ridiculously hard it is for women to start their own businesses and get funding. I think when you couple that with the categories that we were in, I had trouble even getting meetings with venture capitalists. Despite that fact that we had a company that was cash flow positive--doing really well, growing like crazy--the stigma associated with it made it [hard]. And then on the other side of the table you have basically a group of guys who are kind of like, “this doesn't relate to me at all.” Like, “I don't identify with what you're doing,” and, and only nine percent of venture capital partners are, in fact, women. Then it's also the fact that like there aren't that many female venture capitalist partners who're the ones ultimately are making the decision--because the way venture funding works is somebody in the room has to basically stand up to all the other partners and say, ‘I really want to do this deal, I think it's a good idea, let's do it.’ And given our category, it's really hard to get someone to stand up and do that, because people are really scared of what others will think. It's tough, but I do think it's getting better. I'm seeing more and more women get funding, seeing more funds started by women. It's slowly, but surely, changing.

When you applied for the MTA advertisements in New York City, did you expect them to be rejected and have there been any updates with that?

I did not expect them to be rejected because Thinx went through something really similar and we had kind of gone above and beyond to make sure that there wasn't any product photography. There was no nudity, there was nothing sexually explicit. It was just artistic, like commissioned art, and so when we got rejected at the same time that all of these generic Viagra company had gotten approved, it was really heartbreaking because it's just such a blatant form of sexism where they came back and were like, well that's a health issue and [what Unbound does] is not. It brought me back from going through cancer and dealing with the same thing where it was like, “this isn't like your need for touch with arousal and sexual drive is not a health issue.” But for men, it's very much considered one. So we've gone back and forth with them. The hypocrisy is just insane. So we said, that we will resubmit, but we're not giving our money until you actually institute the appeal process, because they didn't approve it until we got an entire grassroots campaign on board. The New York Times wrote about it. It wasn't until the Times asked them to comment that they were like, “okay, we'll work with you on this,” and it shouldn't take that.

So Unbound Babes has an online magazine/blog. Do you plan on expanding it or keeping it online? Are there any format changes in the future?

We definitely want to expand it; we’re actually getting ready to move to a new office. In our new office we're going to have a dedicated content room with a studio so that we can do more content focused on how to use these products and baseline educational stuff. In the next year, our plan is to triple the amount of content we're creating; specifically, we want to do more video content.

When you were a teenager, did you receive sex ed and was it sex positive at all?

I did receive sex ed. I went to public school in St. Louis, and it was definitely very focused on "don't have sex, don't get an STD"--it was a lot of scare tactics. [They told us statistics like] “one in 10 women get pregnant the first time they have sex”, which I don't think is an accurate statistic. Well, only 13 percent of states in the United States require sex ed to be medically accurate. So I mean it wasn't the worst--I feel like I've definitely heard worse. But they didn't say anything about pleasure. I think for women it's very much about defense: defend yourself, don't get pregnant, don't get an STD, and it's just tough. It's tough.

I'm from New Jersey and I'm also 19. My sex education was surprisingly progressive for what most girls and people in general experience in the US and I'm really thankful for that. But a lot of what Unbound Babes does seems to be sex education. Do you think that self-exploration, sex toys and sex ed should go hand-in-hand? And do you think they always do?

I don't think they always do. Women, non-binary and femme identifying individuals aren't given as many options in terms of how to tell the narrative of their sexual experience. I don't think there's one right way and I think if Unbound has taught me anything, it's that our range in preferences with regard to sexuality are so wide and vast, that to try to tell young people that just one thing is the thing that will work for everyone is a lie. 70 percent [of femmes] need clitorial simulation in order to orgasm and we just don't teach people that. We don't teach young women, femme and non-binary people that with regular penetrative sex, 40 percent of women have chronic difficulty achieving orgasm. And I think a lot of women put that upon themselves where they're like, “I just don't enjoy sex enough”. It's not about telling everyone you need to use all these products. It's about trying to demystify the notion that sex is just a penetrative act between a man and a woman and defined through when a man has an erection and then when a man orgasms because that's such a closed minded view. And I think if women were given the opportunity to own some products that allowed them to orgasm on their own it would be a good thing because then they can define what they like for themselves before ever even engaging in sexual activity with someone else. They can say, “oh I do like this, I don't like that,” which everyone should be able to say without guilt or shame when you're enjoying sex with someone else.

Why do you think it's important for young women to masturbate?

I think that so much of our culture and stigmas that come with masturbation stem from adults being uncomfortable with their own bodies. There's just such a puritanical view that it’s this evil, bad thing. How does something that doesn't harm anyone else and brings you happiness and joy and allows you to understand your body better, [how is that] the evil bad thing? I think it's a matter of parents needing to get comfortable with the fact that their kids are growing up and becoming adults, and wouldn't you rather them feel informed about their bodies as opposed to guilty and ashamed of their bodies. What I always say is that sex certainly makes all of us a little uncomfortable and requires us to be vulnerable. And that's not a bad thing. It may make you feel uncomfortable, but when I first told my parents that this was a company that I want to start, they wouldn't talk to me about it. They were so scared that my reputation would get destroyed, that I would never be able to get a job in sales. And I was like, “I don't understand why you guys are so scared of a woman starting a company that focuses on sex. I wouldn't be here if you didn't have sex--none of us would be here if someone didn't have sex. How is this universal truth threatening people?” I do think [that masturbation] is important and I think it requires parents being willing to be vulnerable in front of their kids.

One of my close friends and I were talking--actually about Unbound--because I was telling her about how we were doing this and she, she legitimately was like, “wait, girls can masturbate, that can work? But how does that work? Don't you need a guy?” And I said, “fuck, no you don't.” I never realized that; some people just aren't educated on the fact that you don't need someone to do it for you and it's good to do it yourself.

I think [masturbation] is now even more important because sex ed in the United States has gotten so bad. Pornography has taken over, and I'm very much pro-porn if it's ethical, but the average age of someone first exposed to pornography in this country is eight years old. So we're not talking to young people about what sex can and should look like in terms of consent, in terms of pleasure. They're just going to learn it from porn. I think we have to ask ourselves, is that really what we want? Is that the narrative and the visual of what sex should look like, that you want your kids to watch and learn from?

I know so many boys whose sex education is solely from porn and it's really sad--also a little scary. You said that you guys are moving into a new office, but what else is next for Unbound Babes?

The goals of the company have always been to take this entire product category mainstream so that people wouldn't feel like they had only shop for these products at night in incognito mode. We'll release 12 products in the next six to eight months, which we're really excited about. I think it's going to push the mission of accessibility, both in design and in price point. So right now [ what’s next for Unbound Babes] is about creating design forward products that are super affordable?

I love the jewelry that are also toys. How did you guys come up with that idea? I think it's really fun.

We got a lot of customers that would [ask for ideas inspired by] "50 Shades of Gray" (after the book sold 128 million copies). The book was overwhelmingly successful, and as result of that there were a lot of people who historically were maybe too intimidated by BDSM and kinks who wanted to explore it, but still felt like it was a little too intense. We really wanted to make products that felt like they [could] really wear their values on their sleeves and their sexuality could become more of a fluid component in their lives. We really wanted to make fashion that would transition seamlessly from day to night because nobody lugs around a whole massive thing of lubricant or a really clunky pair of handcuffs. It was just about applying the best design practices to a category that historically has not had thoughtful designers in it.

What's your favorite product that you guys make?

“Squish” hands down. I love it. The harder you squeeze it, the harder it vibrates. I like that it has a deep rumbly motor and I just think the design is really thoughtful too.

Interview by Remi Riordan

#remi riordan #unboundbabes #unbound #crybaby #crybabyzine #crybaby zine #danie drankwalter

Art and its worth: an interview with Zariya Allen

Zariya Allen walks with a careful tread. The 20 year old actress and artist grew up in Los Angeles, and has been carefully observing just how many pitfalls can be taken on the road to the type of success she hopes for: one which doesn’t sacrifice her artistic integrity.

Success, particularly for teenagers, and especially in the age of social media, can be incredibly temporary and insincere. Our generation is more fame-crazed than ever, and as Allen notes in our conversation, this desire often tends to outweigh interest in creating honest and interesting art. It’s easy to get lost in the muck of show biz if you’re not careful.

And so, Allen keeps her nose to the ground and follows one guiding principle: to create art she finds worthwhile.

Your work takes on many different forms--you act, write, create music, and perform your poetry in spoken word. What interests you in having so many creative outlets?

It’s about finding the best way to convey the feeling. Acting, writing—music or poetry—they’re all connected, for me. The more I learn and know, the more honest and specific my work can become. It’s really important to me, being able to create things that I feel reflect where I am, as opposed to just making something that’s palatable.

Do you feel pressure to commit to any particular art form, or do you think that in our current digital age, where sharing your work regardless of scale can be done at the push of a button, there is no longer the same urgency to commit to any one medium?

Nowadays, anybody can put reverb vocals over some random DJ’s track, and they’re calling themselves a musician. Even if they don’t play a single instrument or know anything about music production - same thing goes for acting, or photography. Artistry (or the state of being an artist) has become really trendy for people with no true desire to create something significant or push the medium in new directions- a lot of people just want fame- more so than in the past, with the influence of social media or social hierarchy. If anything, when everybody’s an artist, it makes you pay more attention to who's actually making good art. I think that definitely lessens the pressure to commit to one thing. I just want to be the best I can be.

Who are some of the artists and writers you admire most?

I really love Alice Walker, Essex Hemphill, Mitski, and Jeff Buckley, to name a few.

Do you think combining art and politics does more harm or good in today's culture?

Personally, I feel like any current artist that sets out with the intention of making something “political” generally can’t be coming from a purely authentic place. Especially in today’s culture- “Social Justice” has become a capitalist trend. Combining art and “politics” today is often just a thinly veiled attempt at profiting off the trauma of historically marginalized people. Of course, there are exceptions because it’s such a nuanced subject. But major production companies and individual artists alike have undoubtedly discovered the economic benefit of targeting black, brown and LGBT audiences—it’s not a reflection of some new found altruism. People are still being killed.

What are some contemporary political works of art that you found to be honest and worthwhile?

It’s the stories that are radical in their honesty and individuality that cause the most conversations. In recent years, that’s films like Pariah, Roma, Moonlight, Mysterious Skin. For books, How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti is one of my current favorites. Works that offer commentary and a new perspective as opposed to simply regurgitating the same stories of minority life and our suffering.

How has growing up in Los Angeles, and attending LACHSA, impacted your perception of the entertainment industry?

Being from here, you see how easy it is to get caught up. There’s just less fantasy tied up in it for me. Not like I love it any less. I just got a lot of reality checks, early. Fame is so fleeting. I just want to make things I’m proud of.

You also spent time living in San Francisco—did moving away from Los Angeles feel artistically refreshing or restricting?

Both. LA is such a bubble and I really wanted to get away from that for a while. My grandfather lived in San Francisco for 40 years and my dad is from Oakland, so I love the Bay, the community there and the creativity. But I was constantly going back and forth, trying to make it to auditions and gigs in LA. I became very familiar with the Megabus. Moving away made me appreciate home a lot more. But SF will always be special for me. I use to spend hours in Golden Gate Park, just writing. There’s a peace I feel there that’s hard to find any place else.

What can we expect from you in the near future? New music in February... and more poetry.

Story by Conor Hudnut

Photos by Autry Hayden Wilson

#crybabyzine #crybaby #crybaby zine

My name is Eduardo Barrosa. I am a queer Latino/sudaca

‘Carnaval no Inferno’ (Carnival in Hell, in English) is a street-carnival-party that my friends and I arrange here in Fortaleza, a city in Northeastern Brazil. The name comes from the oppressive advance of the religious and orthodox conservative community in Brazil that insists on calling us “demons” and attacks us every single day. It is created by and for Queer people—it's made for us to feel great and celebrate nuestros cuerpos in the middle of the streets.

I think Carnaval no Inferno screams “resistance” for many reasons. The party is completely independent—we do it ourselves, by crowdfunding, and without the support of City Hall or any other institution. In every single edition of Carnaval no Inferno, it feels like we’re (re)creating a brand new world where we can finally be free from oppression and experiment ourselves aesthetically the way we want.

So through Carnaval no Inferno, we’re reclaiming all the terms and words that are used against us to empower us. It is like—Yes! We are witches, brujas, demons, queers, dykes, jotas, and this city is ours, too! So it is definitely a form of protest!

All the photos were taken by me with a 120mm camera.

Besos!

Article from the Resist/Revolt Issue, buy the print issue here

#Eduardo Barrosa #Crybabyzine #crybaby #crybaby zine #resist/revolt issue #Brazil #queer

EVERYBODY.WORLD contributor Paloma is the coolest 14-year-old

Is Paloma the coolest 14-year-old? Probably, but she insists that while she’s “a pretty cool gal,” she would say her friend Guine actually is. Last February, she had her 14th birthday at the Standard Downtown where she also released her collaborative line with Everybody.World.

Everybody.World collaborates with people who’re not trained designers to design the clothes they want. Iris, the co-founder and creative director of the brand, and Paloma met in the line for the bathroom at a photo event and quickly noticed eachothers’ outfits. Later, Paloma says Iris approached her about working with Everybody.World where she eventually designed a pair of pants (her favorite pants btw!) and a tank top.

When she’s not designing clothes, Paloma is a freshman at the all-girls Catholic high school, Marymount High. She loves drawing, dancing and now she’s doing theatre at Marymount--saying she enjoys it “because [it] combines a lot of the other arts I’ve been doing.”

When asked about her idol, she listed: Dolly Parton, Mick Jagger and David Bowie because their style in the 70s was “truly gorgeous.” And also included Jeff Goldblum in her list of idols for his wacky nature.

This fall, Everybody.World released a new fall color of Paloma’s Perfect Pants.

Photos and Story by Remi Riordan

#everybody.world #paloma's perfect pants #crybabyzine #crybaby #crybaby zine #remi riordan

Starling Irving gets candid about her relish for life

My exact memory of the first time I met Starling evades me in the way that one frustratingly attempts to recall the details of a foggy memory, with only the abstract glow of the happenstance eventually coming to mind. What I can say is that her outfit was timelessly chic and masterfully put together, her smile was bright, and that our simple encounter happened as I scrolled through my Instagram feed.

Starling and I have never met face-to-face, but I’ve greatly enjoyed following along with her through the social experiment that is Instagram. Her travels, book recommendations, and diverse range of work at both The Paris Review and Man Repeller paint a picture of dynamicity and creativity of which I was curious to gain more insight. After all, how many people do you know who can pack up a green bus with a curated collection of vintage clothing and drive down the coast for a summer, selling out of the entire stock along the way?

I caught up with Starling to ask her just how she does it, and I’m happy to say that she was willing to share the wealth and then some.

You work at such an interesting crossroads: online fashion/lifestyle blog and literary magazine. How do you balance your different responsibilities?

I moved to New York on a whim with jeans, a rain jacket, and zero plans. I studied the heroin epidemic in prisons while in college, and although my research had been the most fulfilling life experience I’d ever had, I was ready to dip into some of my other areas of interest. After my flight landed in NYC, I called up a friend and asked if I could sublet his room while he was out of town. While I was there, I applied to a bunch of my dream jobs. I definitely did not expect three of them to pan out! Working in social media at a digital fashion magazine, as a poetry reader at a classic literary magazine, and as an intern at a casting agency seem like vastly different jobs, but their similarities have come to light for me. They all include the privilege of exposure to a great deal of work from artists (designers, poets, actors) and being open minded about how to piece something tangible together from that body of work.

The shorter answer is: I don’t sleep, and I have 2 giant bags every time I leave the apartment so I can run around the city getting everything done.

Is there a dream job in the works somewhere along the way?

I’ve dreamt of being a casting director for films since I was nine years old. I would watch and rewatch the behind-the-scenes DVD extras of the 2003 Peter Pan film where they show the audition tapes and I was completely enamored with the casting process. Because I know that the casting business is my end goal, I purposely wanted to stretch my mind and work in other fields that also interest me before I delve fully into casting, which is why I wound up working multiple jobs at once in NYC this year. I have no doubt that the skill sets I’m exercising in each of these jobs will improve my abilities as a casting director someday.

After growing up in Canada, can you walk us through your decision to move to and stay in the US?

I grew up in a small town on the east coast of Canada. Starting in ninth grade I had the privilege of attending Groton boarding school in Massachusetts, followed by Bowdoin College in Maine.

While in high school I spent some time working at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, and the intrigue of a big city took hold. I’m still a Canadian citizen and spend time in British Columbia on the west coast of Canada where my parents live. The technology of today’s world is making many careers less location-dependent. There are so many places I’d love to live but NYC is definitely a good place to get started.

I loved your Man Repeller piece about the best New York vintage haunts. What catalyzed your passion for vintage fashion? What do you look for when you’re on the hunt?

When I was nine years old, I fell in love with a vintage pink velvet trench coat I found in an antique shop run out of an old chicken barn in Maine and the passion grew from there. Vintage clothing is rarely in flawless condition but small imperfections just add the uniqueness of each piece. My closet is probably 90% vintage at this point.

When vintage shopping for myself, I make a list of the items I’m hunting for before I leave the apartment so I don’t get sidetracked by falling in love with a fuschia tulle ball gown I’ll have no use (or budget) for. While looking through thrift shops, I force myself to imagine what the garment will look like after I’ve washed it in my sink, dried it, and steamed it to get rid of the wrinkles. Then I try it on, and if it fits well and if I can brainstorm at least 5 outfits I would wear it with, I go for it.

Tell us about the bright green bus that you toured down the East Coast on last summer. Can you fill us in as to how one sustainably (and successfully!) runs a mobile vintage clothing business?

My bus is a 1959 Chevrolet Viking and we purchased it eleven years ago for $50. After being completely gutted, adding a 1987 chassis on it, and throwing in some zebra print pillows and tasseled lamp shades, it became my bedroom.

During my senior year of college my parents announced that they were moving to the west coast and while I was packing up my things, I was in shock by the exorbitant amount of vintage clothing I had accumulated over the years. My sister Rein and I decided to take the bus on a road trip and the vintage clothing aspect was added as a way to finance our journey. Although the Instagrams show us in floral dresses prancing around beaches and city streets selling our wares, what they don’t show is the hours of planning and all nighters we pulled getting all the necessary permits for each state (vending licenses, mobile vending licenses, parking permits, market permits, state tax ID numbers, etc.), planning our routes, and restocking by connecting with vintage collectors.

What advice would you give aspiring creatives looking to make their own mark?

My biggest piece of advice is to ask to get a coffee (or tea in my case) with every fascinating person you come across, and don’t be afraid to ask them questions. Regardless of the industry or life path of the people I’ve sat down with for tea, I’ve always always always learned something exquisite from each person. Face-to-face human connection will never fail to inspire.

Article by Sam Falb

Photo courtesy of Starling Irving

#crybabyzine #crybaby zine #crybaby #sam falb #starling irving #december2018

Where No Man Has Gone Before: Reclaiming Space with Tillie Walden

This is apart of the Gender Section of the Irregular Labs Fluidity Report, funded by Chime For Change, a Gucci organization

In her award-winning and genre-defying graphic novels, Tillie Walden has created many worlds, and I, for one, would like to live in any of them. Tillie deftly moves between space (On A Sunbeam), earth, and everywhere in between. She navigates cities (A City Inside), palaces (The End of Summer), small towns (I Love This Part) and whirls through ice rinks (Spinning). Her stories are of queer love, of fluidity, of exploration of self. Her stories are important. I got to chat with Tillie about existence, representation, and the future of publishing.

NICOLAIA RIPS I was reading some interviews you did about The End of Summer and you have a quote where you talk about falling in and letting the story affect the layout. How do you find your medium affects the narratives you write? What do you look for when you're creating a world? Does the freedom of fiction ever daunt you?

TILLIE WALDEN It's not exactly the freedom of fiction that daunts me. Sometimes just making a book is a little overwhelming. It's a huge task and once you make it, it's sort of around forever. That part of it is a little crazy. But the idea of fiction and of this endless possibility of creating a world, is always very exciting because what happens when you work on a book is, you have an idea, get really excited about it just like when you're in an early relationship with someone. Everything is new. And then you're like, oh okay this has been going on for awhile. I'm still here. We're still doing this. And it gets tiresome. So whenever I have the opportunity to create a new world, as I come up with an idea, it's a blast. I always try and come up with world elements that are things that I really enjoy drawing because with a graphic novel we have to draw something thousands of times. I really love drawing nature. I really like architecture. I'm constantly sort of shoving those elements into my book just because they're fun to draw for me.

NR On the subject of architecture and space — how does space, both literally but also figuratively, play into your work?

TW A lot of times people see that element as a background in a comic. I teach comics, and I'm always telling my students to think not of your world as a background, but as another character. It's this really special element that cartoonists get to have. In a movie, if you're experiencing a really cool space, the shot is going to change, and you're going to go somewhere else. You can't pause and put a finger on it, but you can do that in a comic. So, it's even more important to make the space somewhere that the reader wants to see more of, and wants to be sort of invited into. I'm so obsessed with that. I always think about obstructing the reader's view. Like partially open doors or stairways to make the reader want to go further into a room.

NR Graphic novels are this interesting fluid medium, but you really took that a step further by publishing On A Sunbeam as a webcomic in its first iteration. Why did you do this instead of opting for maybe a more traditional form of publishing?

TW I could publish On A Sunbeam as a webcomic because I had some financial stability from my previous books. This gave me some power in deciding what I wanted to do with my graphic novels. And books are expensive. Most of my audience are teenagers and, sure, some of them have money for that book but lots of them don't. There is a barrier in the publishing world and in what I do. My books are only in libraries sometimes, but almost everyone now has an internet connection or a device. I was really proud of Sunbeam. I felt that the story was so important for all kinds of people to read that I thought the best way was just to make sure the whole thing was free to read online, even now that it's been published in print.

NR Do you see more of this popping up in the future? Do you think the internet is going to change publishing even more than it already has?

TW I think so. I'm not one of those people who thinks that print books are dying and they're going to go away. I think print books will always be with us. Possibly even more so in the years to come as the internet gets more tiresome. But I think what we'll see more of probably is this marriage of the industry. And not really seeing the internet as a separate entity from publishing, but that is something that can work with the publishing of books. So that is what's going on with Sunbeam, right? It is a book. I am selling books, but it is also a webcomic. And they work very well together and that sort of freaks publishers out. We'll be seeing more of that in the future.

NR I love the idea of it existing in many forms. All the forms.

TW Absolutely. Get it out there.

NR Speaking of barriers, in On A Sunbeam you work within science fiction. That’s a genre typically dominated by cishet men and by a lot of rules and certain kinds of restraints. Where do you see the future of science fiction going? Do you think that genre is even going to stick around?

TW I have no idea. The funny thing is, even though I did publish a sci-fi book, I know very little about sci-fi or science at all. I mean it. Just thinking about the future is terrifying. It's not even something that I feel like I have the knowledge or understanding to really speak on eloquently. The genre will always stick around because the marketing people made it. Genre, people always forget that, it's not really for the creator. It’s for people who are finding books, because if you are looking for a book and you want to read something about space, then these categories are going to really help you out. But as a writer, I'm not sitting down and saying, "Oh, I want to make something within this little box that someone else has created." You just make a story, at the end, when the story is done, that's when someone in the marketing team is like, "Oh, I think this is science fiction." And I'm like, "Okay, fine. Do whatever you need to do." But I always try and create without thinking of genres because then I'll get trapped in there. And I think we should be able make stories much more creatively.

NR You also finished your memoir last year, 2017, when you were 22. When I wrote my memoir I got a lot of older people and interviewers asking me what I had to write about. Like, I was so young, lived so little. What is there to write a memoir about? Do you think there's something important about getting young narratives out there?

TW I think there’s something important about getting any narratives out there. I don't care if your 15 or 50, or white, or black, or gay or straight. And interviewers always do that. They try and get you into these little categories again where it's like, "Is this the young prodigy that I'm talking to? Who is this?" I don't think any of that matters. I think people should just have the time and the freedom to tell stories in any capacity. But the problem is that no one has the money or the time. And so what I'm hoping I can do more of as I continue and make more money is to support artists who don't have the freedom to sit down and take some time to write down their story. I don't think that age matters. I don't think any of that stuff matters.

NR Do you have any other advice for young authors?

TW Yeah, one of the best pieces of advice I got when I was in school and I was making comics, I think it was my teacher, James, who told me to finish everything I start. Even if I start something that I don't like halfway through. You learn as you get that skill to learn to finish things, then you actually have a shot at doing it. But if you can only ever write the beginning of a novel, you'll never be a novelist. So learn to finish. Learn to work through that self doubt and fear. Because you get that real inspiration and that real high of creativity when you take something all the way to the finish line.

Interview by Nicolaia Rips

This is apart of the Gender Section of the Irregular Labs Fluidity Report, funded by Chime For Change, a Gucci organization

#irregular labs #fluidity #nicolaia rips #crybaby zine #crybaby #crybabyzine

What death can teach us about life: talking grief with mother-daughter duo Suzy Hopkins and Hallie Bateman

I have an immense fear of death and dying. Whenever I hear anything related to death, I immediately freeze up, and a wave of uncomfort passes over me. Moreover, I regularly experience existential crises, which jolt me out of the present moment and remind me of one very harsh reality: that I, and everyone I know and love, am going to die someday. And it could be any of us. Any minute now.

It’s no wonder that when I came across the book, “What to Do When I’m Gone,” written and illustrated by mother/daughter duo Suzy Hopkins and Hallie Bateman, I was immediately drawn to it. Born out of Bateman’s anxiety over the frightening acknowledgement that she will lose her mother one day, the book offers a deeply personal set of instructions for what she can do in the days, months, and years following the eventual loss, as written by her mother herself.

Released in April 2018, the book offers loving guidance to Bateman, who created all of the corresponding illustrations, which anyone can all relate to when addressing issues large and small, such as choosing a life partner to baking a quiche. In a time when talking about death is still largely taboo and grief is often experienced behind closed doors, the book confronts loss with soft humor, appreciation, and warmth, making everyone who reads it both laugh and cry. It is guidebook to grappling with death that teaches us to honor our loved ones even after they’re gone, which I plan to keep on my bookshelf forever.

Crybaby sat down with Suzy and Hallie to hear more about how the project came about, their experience as mother-daughter collaborators, and how making the book changed their perception of losing a loved one.

How did the idea for the book come about?

Hallie: When I was 23 and visiting my parents, I had a sleepless night where I imagined losing my parents. I let myself imagine, in detail, how it would feel to lose my mother. My mom and I are very close, and it really struck a chord. I felt I’d be paralyzed without her. I imagined myself unable to function, make basic decisions, without her. The next morning, while we made breakfast, I asked my mom (a writer herself) to make me a book of instructions for what to do, starting the moment after she dies. She loved the idea.

Suzy: I’ve long thought that families don’t talk enough about death even though it’s a universal experience as central in our lives as birth. So I thought it was a great idea. And I want to leave my children some thoughts and ideas, a trace of me.

What was your process for making this book happen?

Hallie: It took about five years from the time we started talking about it to actually do it. My mom and I took a trip together to Maine and holed up in a little cabin. I brought my laptop and said, “we’re writing the book.” I started to ask her questions -- “Okay, you just died. What do I do?” and she talked and I typed. We left the cabin with a first draft and continued to work on it over the next eight months or so. We wanted to write the whole thing before getting a publisher involved so that we could make it exactly what we wanted for ourselves, first.

Suzy: Initially I thought of this just as a family project. But after a couple of days, we realized that the questions and ideas we were discussing were universal in nature. We began to think that other people might relate to the topics at the heart of it.

What was it like collaborating as a mother-daughter duo? Was it your first time doing a project together? Do you think you’ll do another project together in the future?

Hallie: In my early twenties, I illustrated one of her teenage journal entries, which was wonderful, but we’ve never worked on anything as ambitious and collaborative as “What To Do When I’m Gone”. It was incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding. My mom is as funny as she is wise, and we laughed a lot in writing it. We’re both super driven and were evenly matched in our work ethic. But we definitely fought and had disagreements. I’m so used to controlling everything about my projects, it was tough to let go and allow my mom the creative space she needed -- and the time for her to understand how the illustration was going to fit into it. I was a brat sometimes, but she didn’t seem to be phased by my occasionally bad attitude. She never doubted us. She always thought the book was wonderful, even when I was surly and believed that nobody would understand it.

Suzy: Any mom whose close with her daughter might relate to how I felt: When they leave home, you miss that regular, in-person contact. Our conversations about the book were so interesting and intimate, it felt nourishing for me: I got my “daughter” fix every day. It was the first time we’d worked together, and I have a different and certainly slower working and thinking style. Hallie moves at lightning speed, while I take time to ponder before committing thoughts to paper. It was important to me to only leave advice that I felt was very true to my beliefs, and she came to understand that, while I learned about her abilities and thought processes related to illustration and its relationship to narrative. And yes, I would love to do another book with Hallie.

This book touches on fear, loss and grief, which are things we don’t really talk about enough in public spaces. Did the practice of making this book bring up any challenging emotions for either of you? If so, how did you cope with that?

Hallie: Weirdly, I think I set a lot of my emotions aside while we wrote. I think I had to, in order to get it done. I operated off of this memory of that night when I was 23. I held that feeling very tightly but didn’t really emote. It was like data, if that makes any sense. But there were absolutely days when we were writing that it really sunk in what we were doing and it hit hard. It felt extremely urgent. Not because my mom was sick or anything, she’s totally healthy. It just felt necessary to talk about it. To spend time together and discuss the inevitable. I felt I was doing a service to my future self and to my brothers.

Suzy: Writing the scene about the first birthday Hallie will celebrate without me was particularly emotional. It was the first time I really came face to face with my own mortality. I realized in a heartbeat how many special moments in her life, and in the lives of my sons, that I will miss.

How did this book change how you feel about the loss of a loved one?

Hallie: It’s still something I know will be really hard. It didn’t erase my fear of losing my mom, but I do feel a huge sense of safety that we created our own handbook for this thing that there’s no handbook for. And even more importantly, we had the experience of writing it together. I got to ask her about everything.

Suzy: I understood grief more clearly, and what an enormous passage it is to new understanding. It made me feel more grateful for the time I have with the people I love.

Why did you choose to approach death with such a humorous and honest tone of voice?

Suzy: I’ve always found that humor helps take some of the sting out of difficult times -- times of sadness and uncertainty. And I believe honesty is everything, both in relationships and when communicating with others on difficult topics or during hard times.

What were some of your favorite instructions to write or draw out?

Hallie: I loved painting the full-page illustrations. In my previous work I’ve mostly made line drawings, messy and loose. It was such a huge shift to work in gouache and create detailed backgrounds for each illustration. “Brush the dog” is one of the ones I’m most proud of. I just love how the colors came out, and of course my mom’s writing.

Suzy: I love so many of them, but in particular, the opening scene of the grieving girl and cat on a couch, and later on, the recipe illustrations, which remind me of happy times when my kids and I cooked together.

What do you hope readers will take away from reading this book?

Hallie: It sounds weird to say, but when people tell me they cried reading it, I feel so honored and touched. From our earliest draft, we wanted our book to do that -- to allow people to cry not out of fear or sadness, but out of pure catharsis. Out of awareness.

Suzy: I hope it comforts readers who have lost or are losing a loved one. And I hope it sparks conversations in families, about a parent’s thoughts on death and dying, and what memories and family history they want to leave for their children.

What do you wish you knew about death when you were younger?

Hallie: I never knew my grandfathers, and my grandmothers were both quite old when I was growing up, and passed away before I got to know them very well. I wish I’d been able to talk to them more honestly, to let my guard down and be myself with them. I feel like I lost an opportunity to know them by trying to be a proper and polite granddaughter, and not wanting to be anything but pleasant around these fragile old women. I wish I’d known to be less wary and just try to connect.

Suzy: That it is inevitable. (Denial is a powerful force; when I was young I thought death might pertain to other people but perhaps not to me). And knowing that, spend your time wisely.

Interview by Sara Radin

#sara radin #crybabyzine #crybaby #crybaby zine #november2018

Underwear Shopping

One evening in June, when the warm Arizona air was just breaking into the sweltering heat of summer, I found myself trapped inside a near-empty Target directly across from the men’s underwear aisle out of both sheer stubbornness and abject terror. While peculiar at best and pathetic at worst, the implications behind the dilemma I faced that night are a huge aspect of my narrative as a transgender individual. What would then unfold gave me newfound fortitude in myself and my identity, presenting a somewhat ludicrous scenario that mirrors serious challenges I have to face in the world as a transgender man.

At a time, before I had come out to my parents, my mom was unsettled, then dismissive, upon my mentioning of wanting boxers. “There’d be a bunch of extra space in the front,” she said. “I’m not buying you men’s underwear.” My parents were tolerant of my gender ambiguity: a short haircut, prickly legs, and male behaviors, all of which were awkwardly underscored by girlhood and she/her pronouns. Yet, somehow, men’s underwear seemed to mark the line that they were uncomfortable with me crossing. I knew that they were against my wearing boxers because of a deeper rejection and fear of my gender queerness, but they maintained the argument that it was simply not designed for my physical anatomy. Of course, that was exactly what I wanted; I was not foregoing panties for boxers out of utility. I associated a sense of comfort and rightness with them: the classic waistband and opening at the front allowed me a secret confidence that I could not afford with my outer appearance.

Almost stereotypically, like other transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, I curbed the dysphoria by surrounding myself with more masculine or unisex possessions. Being closeted and pre-transition in all manners except my androgynous presentation, I clung to whatever material masculinity I could find. I secretly spritzed myself with my dad’s cologne before going out and stole pairs of my brother’s black basketball shorts to wear to school. So, of course, one thing leading to another, the time came to get what I felt was the true hallmark of men’s apparel: boxers.

I drove to that fateful Target on an average night, determined to buy some underwear. Once I set foot into the store, my confidence dwindled. I paced slowly through the store, filled with dread, dragging my feet across the shiny white tile and perusing fake plant decorations. I found the men’s apparel section. Yet, I was unable to move. I stood in the baby food aisle adjacent to the men’s section, legs like iron. As other customers occasionally shuffled past, I became hyper-aware of how I looked, even with my femininity smothered by baggy clothes and a boy cut. My worst nightmares played out in my head, a gruff man stopping me, “The ladies section is over there, sweetie,” or maybe a group of guys my age milling around, giving me confused looks and snickering to themselves. Maybe an employee would approach me and, in an act of discreet transphobia, request that I shop in the ladies’ section just down past the electronics. Stories came to mind, like one my transgender female friend told about how a group of men confronted her while she was shopping for intimates. My hands trembled as I used my phone.

Indecision ate up more than twenty minutes, and the intercom began alerting the few remaining shoppers that Target would be closing soon. I finally resigned. Slipping into my car, I drove away, something like frustrated tears welling up in my eyes but never spilling. A barrage of worries about being unable to face stigma assaulted me on the drive home. If I can’t even grab a box when no one is watching, how am I supposed to bear with the real challenges? There are a million worse stories my therapist draws me near as a warning, like public restrooms and locker rooms with cisgender men, workforce discrimination in a state like Arizona, debilitating financial strains of transition. And I can’t even set foot where tired suburban dads could not care less about me? My regret was unshakeable.

The following day, I intentionally gave the incident little thought until I was driving home in the evening. Abruptly, I turned around and went to Target. My fears once again eroded at my resolve, this time even before I could see inside the store, but somehow my legs had more courage than me because they strode right inside and into the men’s section, ignoring that there were people around this time. I chose what to buy, and it was done, simple as that. I was shaking a bit when I drove home, perhaps from both excitement and the rush of adrenaline that had come in response to my fear.

In review of my experiences with stigma, I did not imagine I would be using this anecdote as an example of transgender struggles, but the truth is, with my failure to buy boxers came a greater symbolism, congruence with already existing insecurities in my identity. No, I did not end all transphobia by buying underwear, and my qualms about being transgender are not going to end after I purchase new clothes or even transition fully. However, I believe this was a fine moment for me and a step forward as I worked up the courage to come out to my parents.

While this story illustrates a simple problem as an analogy for the struggles of transgender people, there are many more layers to my transness than comical trips to the store. The LGBT experience is so nuanced yet so universally alike that it is difficult to describe how my transness has intersected with my personality compared to others’ situations. And as other queer people will say, there is no single “coming-out”. I will have to come out over and over again: in underwear aisles, airports, and schools, to strangers, colleagues, and friends. To me, fear is a disease. Although diseases may be eradicated, the virus will always be lurking. I have plenty to learn before I have a proper grasp on what it is like living as trans in America, but for now, I can only hope that I have the strength to help dismantle the sentiments that caused it.

- Bryn Bell

Illustration by Kiriko Kajiwara

Article from the Resist/Revolt Issue, buy the print issue here

#bryn bell #kiriko kajiwara #crybabyzine #crybaby zine #crybaby #resist/revolt issue

Right Where They Belong: An Interview with Rachelle Vinberg of Skate Kitchen

For a girl who can’t balance on a skateboard, I have an embarrassingly large knowledge of skate culture. Well—maybe I’m not super knowledgable, but as I just said, as someone who has never skateboarded and can’t even stand up on one, it’s embarrassing.

The only part of my love for skate culture that I’m not even a little embarrassed about is my love of skater girls. Everything about them is amazing. And in a skate crew, they are even cooler—at least in my eyes.

I first found The Skate Kitchen on Instagram; a diverse group of young women documenting their tricks and lives for a huge audience. While their audience is diverse, their ability to inspire other girls is incredible. In a community where many signed skaters are men, it is always exciting to see women and queer people who have an audience. As always, representation is incredibly important. And these girls understand that—supporting and promoting other women skaters both on and offline. With events like “Get on Board! Girls Skate Clinic” to posting videos of other women skaters, they are changing the skate world—making it more inclusive and fun for everyone.

The Skate Kitchen is not only a collective Instagram and friend group, it’s also a film—“Skate Kitchen.” Directed by Crystal Moselle, the film follows the girls of The Skate Kitchen—Rachelle Vinberg, Nina Moran, Jules and Brenn Lorenzo, Ardelia Lovelace, Ajani Russell, and Kabrina Adams—and Jaden Smith.

I was really excited to speak with Rachelle Vinberg: member of the crew, lead of the film, and signed Volcom skater. Back in April, I got to speak with her about the film, her career, and what it’s like being a skater girl.

left to right Nina Moran, Rachelle Vinberg, Ardelia Lovelace, Ajani Russell, Brenn Lorenzo, Jules Lorenzo

When did you start skating and what drew you to the sport?

I was twelve years old when I started and, honestly, I got into it because I saw my cousin skating. I was visiting him and his family at the time and I just had nothing to do while I was there. I just tried it, so I guess what drew me to skating was just doing it.

How did The Skate Kitchen form?

I’m originally from Long Island and so I met one of the girls, Nina, and she lives in Brooklyn. I would just come out and visit her and skate with her. Then she introduced me to the other girls. And Nina and I actually ran into Crystal, the director of the movie “Skate Kitchen” and the short film we were in. When she ran into us, she asked us about more girls and that’s when Nina got us all together.

Skating is seen as a very male-dominated sport. And recently I was talking to my friend who said she always hears that, but doesn’t really know what that means. What does “male-dominated” look like in the skating world?

Well, I would say, if you go into a skate park, you’re gonna see guys. You might not see any girls. If you just went up to people on the street and asked them to draw a skateboarder, they’d probably draw a guy. It’s that kind of stuff. When you hear “skateboarding,” think about it—you associate it as being something guys do. If you look around at skateparks, you’re gonna see boys. Even yesterday, some guy came up to me and said, “I’ve never seen a girl skate before.” Things like that. So yeah, it’s super male-dominated. It’s not necessarily a bad thing—I don’t think it’s something men should be ridiculed for. In general, people think skateboarding’s just a guy thing. That’s why we’re trying to change it. We are trying to make it something we can all do.

Since skateboarding is so male-dominated, have you experienced sexism or misogyny in the sport?

Yeah, definitely. I feel like I’ve experienced “non-intentional” sexism. What I mean by that is, I’ll be walking down the street (I actually have this on video) I was walking down the street and this guy stopped me and was like, “Do a trick.” And I’m like, “No, I don’t feel like doing a trick right now.” He says, “It’s probably because you can’t do a trick. You look like a poser.” If you think about it, if I were a boy, he probably wouldn’t have stopped me on the street and asked me to do a trick. Why do you need proof that I can skate? I didn’t do the trick, but if I were a guy, he wouldn’t have stopped me. Things like that. Things you have to think about. It’s not like he said, “Oh you’re a girl and you suck.” But it’s the underlying meaning as to why he stopped me. And that still bothers me so much.

Did those experiences ever make you consider quitting?

No, I never really considered quitting. You know what it is? When I was younger I used to play tackle football. I was the only girl and it kind of felt similar to that. So, I mean, I feel like when I was little I had my group of friends who were boys that accepted me. I don’t really care now, but when I was younger and going into skateparks, I was a little bit self conscious. I think it’s important to just not care and not try to prove yourself to people. If that guy on the street asked me to do a trick, I’m not going prove myself to him because he doesn’t think I can do it. I don’t think that’s the right way to think about things. I think it’s important to just skate because you want to—not because you want to prove it to anyone else. But it can be intimidating—yeah.

Do you think it’s important for girls to have their own space in the skating world?

Yeah, I think it is. Well what do you mean by “own space”?

Well, my next question goes into this a little more, but the members of The Skate Kitchen are all girl skaters.

It’s not all girl skaters.

Oh! It’s not?

That’s one thing I think is really important. I guess the main five or six of us are all girls, but we skate with boys. We like to emphasize that we’re not just girls. We skate together with boys and girls. I think it’s important to have spaces—we’ll have all-girl sessions because it can be intimidating to go into parks with boys. Personally, I like to skate with boys and girls. But I know Nina likes to have safe spaces for girls. And I like that, too. But I like combining it and having everyone together. That’s just me though, that’s not all of Skate Kitchen.

Since the skating scene is so male-dominated, there are now a lot of skate collectives. There is the LGBTQIA+ collective Unity Skate and the Latinx women collective Brujas. Do you see The Skate Kitchen as another collective for underrepresented skaters or do you see yourself as a friend group?

I think both. It’s important to have the authenticity of us being friends to make it work. We’re just trying to be ourselves as friends. And being ourselves as girls in this community within itself is trying to promote something positive. So it’s doing two things at once. I think it’s important to have authenticity as friends. We’re not trying to be fake or anything. I think it’s important to have a real sense of comfort between each other. And that’ll show on social media. You know what I mean? People will see the realness and be like, “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to be.” That’s one thing we really want to make sure of—that we’re authentic and real. So it doesn’t come off as fake. If we’re real, then other kids can have their friends and have groups like that and do the same thing.

Where did the name ‘The Skate Kitchen’ come from?

Actually before I started hanging out with Nina, the name came about when I was trying to think if I were to own a skate shop what would I name it? And I was with my friends that were boys and we were coming up with names. I was thinking about when I would watch skate videos of girls, comments would always say, “She should be in the kitchen,” “that’s a weird looking kitchen”—things like that. You know that term, that girls get all the time?

Yeah, of course.

So I decided if I had a skate shop, I would name it ‘The Skate Kitchen.’ But then, fast forward a couple years later when I met all the girls, we wanted to make an Instagram account. That name kind of came back and I said, “Why don’t we just make it the Skate Kitchen?” Because we’re girls and we’re not supposed to be. That’s how the name came about. But as far as the group, it came about when we met the director Crystal. She got us all connected.

So the name is actually why I thought it was all-girls. How did you decide to include boys in the group as well?

Because we don’t actually skate together as all girls. We skate with boys as well. We’re the face of it I guess. My friend, one of the boys we skate with, has the Skate Kitchen [logo] tattooed on his chest. It would be so unfair to say we’re only girls when that’s so not true. I skate mostly with boys. You know what I mean? It’s like, I’m friends with the girls and we skate together, but it’s almost as if The Skate Kitchen is not just about skating either. It’s about friendship.

Have you seen skate culture change since you started? I feel as if it’s become way more mainstream and a lot of skate brands have gone mainstream recently. Have you seen that happen?

Yeah, I’ve definitely seen it. I see a lot more girl skaters now. I see a lot more fashion within it. But also, when I lived in Long Island, and I only skated alone, I only skateboarded through YouTube videos. Now that Instagram came about, and I’ve moved here, I skate with a bunch of people. So I can’t really tell—I think it’s just new for me, personally. It definitely is shifting with the girls—for a fact. I can’t remember hearing about or seeing girls on social media. I think it’s becoming more feminine which is a good thing—also, more creative.

Are there other girl skaters you look up to?

So many. There’s Laci Baker, Alexis Sablone, a lot of Instagram skaters like my friend Jenn Soto—she’s really good. There are so many that are really good.

And how do you think skate culture, or just skating in general, has influenced your life?

So much. Everybody that I consider my really good friend and family, I’ve met through skating. Literally everyone. So it’s weird to think about if I had never skated and who I would be. I was recently hurt and I couldn’t skate and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was really weird.

When you met Crystal, had you heard of her movie “The Wolfpack”?

No, I didn’t. She came up to us and when she introduced herself, she said she did this documentary called “The Wolfpack”. That night I looked it up and was like “Oh, she’s—this is a thing.” (Laughs)

Yeah, it’s a great movie.

Yeah, she’s actually a director. I saw part of it when I was home and that’s how I knew she did that. But before I didn’t really know her or anything.

So you watched her documentary—did that influence your decision on making the movie at all?

It’s funny, I don’t know. I saw it and then we hung out with her and we would just hangout for weeks. So I didn’t really know what she wanted to do. I had no idea. Originally, she wanted to do a little documentary on me and Nina, but she ended up just doing the Miu Miu short film. After that, I would say we just became really close—all of us became super close. Then we made the movie. So it’s almost as if the movie felt normal. I knew “The Wolfpack” wouldn’t be like “Skate Kitchen” because it’s so different. I guess I just didn’t know what to expect. We all didn’t really know.

“The Wolfpack” is a documentary, but “Skate Kitchen” is scripted. Were you a part of the decision to make it a scripted film? Is it important to make the distinction?

I don’t really know the answer. I guess Crystal would know the answer to that more. But I don’t think it could be a documentary. Because I think the story she’s trying to tell—which is a story of a girl getting introduced to another group of girls from the city and being completely taken into that lifestyle—you would have to show that in a scripted story. You know she spent so much time hanging out with us. As we were hanging out, we were growing, and she wanted to capture how she first saw us.

Your character is also supposed to be from Long Island—is the character actually based on your life? How did she decide you were the lead?

Well all of our characters are kind of based on us in a way. I guess she wanted me to be the lead because when I first met her I was from Long Island and I had just met this group of girls. They were showing me around and there was a lot of newness and I didn’t understand a lot of things. Everything was new to me, I think maybe that’s what she liked about it. I’m not really sure why, but I think that’s why. Oh well, it’s also because a lot of girls—as far as the intimidation thing—a lot of girls could relate to it. And the character is me, but it’s not completely me. I think a lot of the character is a representation of girls who are scared to skate and stuff like that—not necessarily skate. But scared to meet new people and go into a skate park. That kind of thing.

Did you have prior experience with acting?

The first thing I ever did was the short film. And I did something after that before the movie. But that was really it.

Do you want to pursue acting further since shooting the movie?

I think I do, but I’m still not 100 percent sure. I don’t know what I want to do. I definitely want to do something with film because I just feel like it looks fun. I don’t know about acting. I want to do it, but we’ll just see I guess.

How was your experience with Crystal?

Oh—so much fun. It felt like summer camp. It was definitely hard sometimes because there was a lot skating and physical labor. Skating all the time and skating when you don’t want to skate. Skating’s something for fun, something you do when you want to do it. But then when someone’s telling you, “no do it now” and “you have to be really good now.” Oh my god, I don’t want to throw myself down a handrail right now (Laughs). But that was the hardest part. It was so much fun.

It’s funny that you described it as a summer camp because for our last print issue, I interviewed Sophia Lillis from the movie “IT,” and she also described filming as a summer camp! I think that’s so sweet.

Oh really! That’s what it feels like. It really feels like that.

What’s next for The Skate Kitchen?

What’s next? Well, I think the movie’s gonna come out and we wanna start going around and touring, setting up different skate events—and just have fun. We definitely want to go around.

Crystal told me yesterday to post and ask, “Where we should go? What city we should go to?” Like 800 people commented all of their cities. So I’m gonna tell her she has to read through those. So we’re gonna go around and try to do some more things. Just have fun I guess.

Interview by Remi Riordan

Photos by Sophia Wilson

Styling by Jared Martell

Article from the Resist/Revolt Issue, buy the print issue here

#remi riordan #sophia wilson #jared martell #crybabyzine #crybaby zine #crybaby #resist/revolt issue #the skate kitchen #skate kitchen

I SURVIVE, I SURVIVE: THIS IS RESISTANCE

Zoe Yu Gilligan interviews some of her favorite Indigenous artists and activists about resistance, survival, resilience, identity, and indigeneity.

MALIA GEE WAI HULLEMAN

Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Indigenous Hawaiian), Chinese, Irish, Scottish, French.

Based in Kahaluʻu, Oʻahulua.

I am a poet, a storyteller, a human.

What do you think non-Natives need to know about the Indigenous community, about what it really means to be you?

MALIA: Young Natives. Keep smiling. Keep learning and growing. Never ever be ashamed of who you are and what your ancestors have given you. Like you, they made mistakes—they went on journeys, they lived. So do just that, with confidence and courage. Because one day, you too will be an ancestor. Live what will be told of you.

As an Indigenous person, a living testament to the resilience of your ancestors, what does the word “resistance” mean to you?

MALIA: Resistance is confidence. Knowing very well the knowledge gifted to you shall never be questioned, but utilized with gratitude and acceptance, humbly of course.

Resistance seems to have an eternal connection braided with the word “survival.” What do you think about this relationship?

MALIA: Survival and resistance hold their own waters. Survival is mindfully perpetuating because it must take place. Resistance happens purely because of each breath you take and give.

NOʻU REVILLA

Aloha pumehana. ʻO Noʻukahauʻoli Revilla koʻu inoa. No nā wai ʻehā mai au. He Hawaiʻi au.

My name is Noʻu Revilla and my preferred pronouns are she/her. I am an Indigenous queer-femme-creative based in Hawaiʻi.

Born on Maui, living/loving/creating on Oʻahu.

The blood and bones I belong to:

Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Indigenous Hawaiian) from my mother and father’s families: Maui, Kauaʻi.

Māʻohi (Tahitian), maternal grandfather: Papeʻete.

Visayan, paternal grandfather: Cebu.

German, maternal grandmother: Karlsruhe.

To poetry, education, and community building. I commit my blood and bones.

Writing poetry to the bone. Because our bones matter.

As an Indigenous person, a living testament to the resilience of your ancestors, what does the word “resistance” mean to you?

NOʻU: When we are given the choice to survive or to thrive, resistance is the audacity to claim both futures. At once a technology of survival and a collective practice of healing and thriving, resistance is what happened/what happens/what will keep happening when we harness intergenerational mana. From our ancestors to our peers to our moʻopuna to come, resistance is piko power activated.

Resistance seems to have an eternal connection braided with the word “survival.” What do you think about this relationship?

NOʻU: We need to talk about the difference between strategies we need to survive and strategies we need to heal. In my own life, it has been a tender but necessary process to distinguish between the defensive postures my body and spirit took to protect myself and my community from trauma and triggers and the vastness, the opening, the ea I needed to learn to transform, to be more than my wounds.

What do you think non-Natives need to know about the Indigenous community, about what it really means to be you?

NOʻU: Nānā ka maka; hoʻolohe ka pepeiao; paʻa ka waha.

This ʻōlelo noʻeau (Hawaiian proverb) is often translated as: “Observe with the eyes, listen with the ears, and shut the mouth.” Communication is dimensional. Yet many non-Native people, even well-intentioned allies, often prioritize one mode of communication: speaking for us, speaking at us, speaking over us. No one can learn by talking all the time. Watch and listen. Act as if you really believe we have something to teach you. We do. As my hoa Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada told the world, “We live in the future. Come join us.”

FRANK WALN

Sicangu Lakota. He/him/his pronouns.

Based on Turtle Island.

Hip-Hop artist, music producer, audio engineer, and storyteller.

As an Indigenous person, a living testament to the resilience of your ancestors, what does the word “resistance” mean to you?

FRANK: Being alive as an Indigenous person in a colonial world built on our genocide alone is an act of resistance. I believe every Indigenous person alive, from the water protectors on the front lines to my cousin in a federal prison for drugs, is resisting, whether they’re aware of it or not.

Resistance seems to have an eternal connection braided with the word “survival.” What do you think about this relationship?

FRANK: Throughout my life, I’ve survived places and situations where I had totally given up on not only myself but on life entirely. Somehow, I survived. I don’t believe we need to be doing what we’re told is actively “resisting” in order to survive. To me, survival is about listening to your spirit and ancestors, because they will tell you what it takes to survive and sometimes that’s just getting through the day. We’re Indigenous—survival was built into our coding as Nations long before settler-colonialism reached our lands.

What do you think non-Natives need to know about the Indigenous community, about what it really means to be you?

FRANK: If we truly want to decolonize, non-Natives need to give us back our land and leave us alone. We can survive and take care of ourselves. We don’t need saviors, interventions, outside solutions, colonial governments, or people with Native fetishes. The roots of our survival and health lie within our communities and are tied to our ancestors. Give the land back to respective Indigenous Nations and remove all the colonial laws and barriers built to keep us in a state of death and destruction.

CHIEF LADY BIRD

Chippewa and Potawatomi. She/her pronouns.

Based between Tkaronto (Toronto) and Rama First Nation.

I am an artist who draws about Indigenous empowerment. My mediums are illustration, painting, street art, community-based murals, youth workshops, and some textile and mixed media work.

As an Indigenous person, a living testament to the resilience of your ancestors, what does the word “resistance” mean to you? What do you think about its relationship to the word “survival”?

CHIEF LADY BIRD: In my opinion, resistance is necessary to the accurate and authentic telling of our stories. As an artist, I activate my own resistance through visual culture; whenever I create imagery, I tell my own stories of survival—Indigenous self-expression that tells a story about our active presence in the world—and assert sovereignty over my body and lived experiences. This is a form of resistance and resilience because one of the main goals of colonization was to sever our connections to our bodies, to the land, and to each other. An important part of my practice is illustrating Indigenous erotica, which is steeped in teachings of decolonial love: dismantling toxic masculinity, understanding gender and sexual fluidity, and exploring masturbation as an act of self love. As an Indigenous womxn, my existence is political but it is also pure love—it is through the love of my ancestors and my community that I am able to thrive—and by expressing this to the world, I am able to contribute to the creation of safer communities for our youth and future generations. For me, resistance encompasses love in all its forms, and the ability to mobilize and find ways to fight and protect our children, our stories, our identities, the water, the land, our bodies, our homes; all of which are integral to our survival as individuals and communities.

What do you think non-Natives need to know about the Indigenous community, about what it really means to be you?

CHIEF LADY BIRD: Non-Native people need to understand the immense diversity of Indigenous people. Our nations, languages, stories, and experiences are not homogenous and the media has worked tirelessly to ensure that the general population has a skewed perception of who we are, often creating a one-dimensional view of indigeneity as a caricature of who we really are, taking away from our beauty, resilience, and strength. Also, a word of advice would be to purchase art and craft items from authentic sources to ensure that Indigenous people profit directly, as opposed to supporting appropriated imagery and items. Cultural appropriation is really harmful and it helps if non-Native people do their research and connect with our community directly!

ERICA PURRUQ KHAN

I am of the Iñupiaq Nation of the so-called state of Alaska, with Pakistani/South Asian heritage as well. Preferred pronouns are she/her. I like men and womxn, but I’m still on the journey of self-discovery and haven’t identified with anything just yet.

My home is Utqiaġvik. My ancestors have called this place many names, such as: “a place to gather foods,” or edibles, or “a place to eat snowy owls,” depending on who you ask.

I just recently graduated with my Bachelor's in Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Often times, when people think of the term “Ethnic Studies,” they think ethnic, and people of color and their history, but it's so much more. Ethnic Studies is my own history—it's my story of survival, from all of the different colonial traumas my peoples had to endure on both ends of the world. Ethnic Studies is decolonization, and being in that department during the years of most growth in my college life, I have learned to use my creative ideas with it, such as learning how to #dresstotell with decolonizing my wardrobe, and painting, sketching, and how all of these interconnect in my life as an Indigenous person.

As an Indigenous person, a living testament to the resilience of your ancestors, what does the word “resistance” mean to you?

ERICA:

Resistance to me,

Is re-learning our way of life.

When our ancestors were forced

To think it was evil and savagery,

By outsiders and missionaries.

I've learned our way of life

Is real resistancy.

Resistance to me

Is revitalizing our tattoos

Back to our raw skin

And not caring what colonizers have to think.

Resistance to me

Is an everyday thing.

Resistance is survival

And everything in between.

Resistance is consistent.

It's everything colonizers thought we couldn't be.

Resistance is our way of life.

Resistance. It's been consistent.

Thousands of years of resistance.

And we're still here.

Resistance.

Resistance seems to have an eternal connection braided with the word “survival.” What do you think about this relationship?

ERICA:

Survival, is in my veins.

Survival, is the ancestors inside of me.

Survival, is all that I can pass down from me.

Survival, is knowledge and proof.

Survival, is my community.

Survival, is life.

What do you think non-Natives need to know about the Indigenous community, about what it really means to be you?

ERICA: The most important factor of being non-Native, or an ally, is knowing your positionality. Positionality matters wherever you are, whoever you are with, and should be thought of almost consistently. Positionality is knowing where you stand, and with knowing where you stand, you know two important steps: 1) when to step forward and 2) when to step back.

My kumu, my mentor in Hawaiʻi, taught me a very important lesson one day in our Native Hawaiian Sovereignty in the Pacific class. He used the example of Mauna Kea, a sacred mountain who has been pressured in the recent decade to build a 30 meter telescope (approx. 13 stories tall) in the center of their sacred mountain. He said words that I believe will resonate with me for some time, but can be useful for anyone who is an ally in Indigenous communities:

“I am from Maui. I'm not going to go to Mauna Kea and speak on behalf of the people of Mauna Kea first. People living near Mauna Kea are going to speak first. People living on Hawaiʻi (Big Island) are going to speak, and then the surrounding islands, and Native Hawaiians, and people thereafter. That's how it should be. Those who are taking care of the land itself should speak first, and their cousins, and friends who care to speak on that land come right after."

I've learned that respecting the land, and the first caretakers of that land, has reminded me of my positionality and where I stand. Once I know where I stand, I can assert myself better, and that's what I hope allies and non-Natives can respectfully do on behalf of Indigenous peoples everywhere. Quyanaq.

ALAINA AFLAGUE ARROYO

Chamoru (Chamorro/Indigenous of Guåhan [Guam]), Borinqueña (Puerto Rican), and Xicana (Mexican). She/her pronouns.

Currently living on Ohlone land, otherwise known as San Francisco.

I am currently a senior at the University of San Francisco, pursuing my undergrad in Ethnic Studies and Sociology. I am heavily involved with my cultural club on campus titled the “Pacific Islander Collective,” which is an organization aimed to create a safe space for Native Pacific Islanders to accurately represent the Pasifika community. I am also an intern with a non-profit organization titled “San Francisco Rising”, which aims to promote policy change in lower-income communities of color in San Francisco, and create a more just and equitable environment for Black and Brown communities in a city with increased gentrification and displacement. I am incredibly passionate about what makes my identity and the identities of those who I am close to. I am mixed-race and part of the diaspora, which has molded how I view myself and how I view the lands that I am Indigenous to, while also keeping in mind my position of being a settler to stolen Indigenous land(s). I dedicate my lifetime to protecting my motherlands that struggle under United States colonialism and imperialism. I am a lifelong learner who strives for what decolonization and indigenization are for me, in the midst of healing and re-defining and reclaiming what it means to be Indigenous to multiple regions of the world, in the presence of toxic white supremacy.

As an Indigenous person, a living testament to the resilience of your ancestors, what does the word “resistance” mean to you?

ALAINA: Resistance to me is pure existence. I believe that maintaining the consciousness of our identities grounds who we are and what our purpose is, and that is also a form of resistance because we maintain the centering of who we are and where we come from and what we have endured. I use the collective term “we” because of the resistance and the resilience that generations before me have experienced and practiced, which is what allows me to be here today and continue the work that they have done. I say “we” because the pain and traumas, and even the connections and relationships that my people and I have with our lands, cultures, and histories, are translated and passed down to future generations and beyond. Resistance to me is talking to my elders; it is keeping our stories alive and visible, and making sure that we continue to talk about our history and struggle with each other and to those who have yet to be born. By maintaining visibility, we are telling our oppressors, colonizers, and even settlers that this is who we are and this is who we have been and this is who we are going to continue to be.

What do you think non-Natives need to know about the Indigenous community, about what it really means to be you?

ALAINA: I believe that non-Natives must prioritize the position and the rights of Native people, especially if they are occupants of that Indigenous land. It is important to honor the identities and the communities that are within those spaces, but one must always take into account how to be a positive and productive supporter and ally to those who are Native to the land, and what rights they are working toward within their ancestral land(s).

Chamoru Proverb

Famoksaiyan. Na'lå'la'. Fanohge.

“A time to nurture, heal, and paddle forward. To give voice. To rise.”

- Zoe Yu Gilligan

Illustrations by Sendra Uebele

Article from the Resist/Revolt Issue, buy the print issue here

#crybaby zine #crybabyzine #crybaby #resist/revolt issue #zoe gilligan #zoe yu gilligan #sendra uebele

How “Girls and Sex” and “Slutever” taught me to talk about sex often and openly

I read “Girls and Sex” by Peggy Orenstein when I was in high school. I had only kissed two boys and liked neither. Many of my friends were sexually active, and I felt like I was behind. To me, love wasn’t why I hadn’t had sex. I had never believed in “virginity” or needing your first time to be special. Although much of the book I didn’t relate to on an entirely personal level, I saw my friends in the stories she wrote. And when she talked more generally about the way girls see themselves, I saw myself so clearly depicted. Usually cautious about media exploring young people, specifically young women, this book didn’t feel condescending, it was real and true.

The second boy I kissed was the first person I had kissed sober. I told myself I had to be sober; what if I didn’t know what to do unless I was drunk? We didn’t have sex, but I was 17 and for a second I thought about lying to my friends. But I reminded myself how silly that was—there was no reason to be embarrassed about not wanting to have sex with a 21-year-old at 17.

I still told my friends about the experience. I editorialized for sure, but it felt good to laugh about an experience I felt weird about. Finally I could add to the conversation.

A year later when I got to college, I started reading and watching more sex-related content. I watched “Slutever,” Karley Sciortino’s show on Viceland, and later read her book. And as I met my new friends from all over the country, I began revisiting the ideas in both “Girls and Sex” and “Slutever.”

Both Sciortino and Orenstein were so open about sex. Obviously, their voices were very different. Sciortino wrote from a first-person point of view. Her blog, also titled “Slutever,” began as a first-person account of her experiences. And her show was about different aspects of sex, from the sex lives of people with disabilities to happy ending massages for women. Orenstein, on the other hand, interviewed young women about their own relationships to their bodies, sex, and media.

But their openness was exciting. Even coming from a progressive town, the sex ed I received was not fun. It did not tell me that sex could be pleasurable or that masturbating was a great way to learn about my body and what I liked. Sex ed was clinical; once, we watched a baby being birthed as a way to scare us.

While Orenstein told me what sex for young women was, Sciortino told me what it could and should be. As I became sexually active, this knowledge helped me not only communicate with my partners, it helped me talk to my friends. I began suggesting excerpts and episodes to my friends when they would tell me about something that happened to them.

When a close friend of mine asked me, “When does it start happening?” in reference to coming during heterosexual sex, I was reminded of how few young women are taught about their bodies, specifically regarding pleasure. Later when I told my roommate, he texted Peggy Orenstein (they knew each other personally) and from there she sent my friend and me an essay.

In the essay “A Immodest Proposal,” Heather Corinna writes:

“With any of this, he usually reaches orgasm, and while she doesn’t, what he does sometimes feels good. She hasn’t said much about that because she figures it’s just something you get to over time. Once, he asked if there was something else he could do that she liked. She said no, because it was a question she didn’t have the answer to—she didn’t know what she liked or might like just yet. He was her first partner, after all.”

She read the essay and immediately identified with the girl. The character wasn’t a real person, but she was so many young women.

A few days later, the same friend was confused when I made a reference to masturbating. “Don’t you need someone else? You can do that yourself?” I was shocked. I’m now a sophomore in college and she is a couple years younger than me, but I didn’t realize some girls have no idea that masturbating is not only something boys can do.

I’m not a sex educator. But you don’t need to be an educator to have open conversations with your friends, so we went on her computer and ordered her a vibrator. We began regularly talking about our experiences. Not necessarily analyzing them, but thinking through them. Reminding each other that leaving is always an option, mutual enjoyment is the most important, and sex doesn’t need to mean penetration.

I’ve learned that being open with my friends changes so much for both of us. Another friend told me she didn’t masturbate because she didn’t want to only be able to come by herself; Another told me that at a certain point, sex stops being fun and just hurts—yet she usually lets the guy finish. And these conversations remind me of my habits. How I’m less likely to be vocal in my wants if I like the guy, thinking that being assertive isn’t attractive.

I, just like my friends, have so much unlearning to do. But we all recognize that. We recognize that many of our sex lives aren’t necessarily unhealthy, but they need work.

In Vogue’s Breathless column, Sciortino wrote:

“At the heart of the victim narrative is a familiar and unfortunate premise: the idea that, by having sex, men are getting something, whereas women are giving something up. It’s outdated, it’s offensive, and it’s psychologically destructive for women, because it has the power to mislead girls into thinking that having one not-ideal sexual experience means that they have lost a part of themselves. Hello—pitying and victimizing women doesn’t help us; it just dismisses the importance of female sexual agency.”

Our sexuality shouldn’t be passive—we should be able to voice our wants and needs, but we should also be given the tools to do that. Sex education in schools is nonexistent in most of the country. And with conservative politicians in power, it is unlikely that will change, but sex education doesn’t only exist in the classroom. “Slutever” may not tell you when chlamydia is detectable. And “Girls and Sex” isn’t an encyclopedia. But both educate through conversation. Orenstein talks to young women about their experiences, while Sciortino talks directly to her readers.

We can learn from books, television shows, and blogs, but we can also learn from each other. Talking to our friends often and openly about sex, masturbation, and our bodies helps all of us.

- Remi Riordan

Illustration by Anna White

#girls and sex #slutever #karley sciortino #peggy orenstein #remi riordan #anna white #crybaby zine #crybaby #crybabyzine #september2018

Decolonize Your Bookshelf with These Contemporary Indigenous Reads

One way in which I always aim to uplift marginalized communities is by supporting the artwork of people from them—specifically literary works, since I am a literavore (book-eater)—and this is what I always suggest to people when I am asked how they can best uplift these communities. Literary works are transformative experiences. For those especially written by marginalized bodies, they are key to countering dehumanization, demanding visibility, fostering awareness and comprehension of what is at stake, and bridging different kinds of people together. It is the most personal and effective way to truly learn about a person, a people, a land, a culture, a movement.

Whenever a white person attempts to spout some ignorant nonsense about racial politics to me, I almost never engage in conflict with them (regardless of how furiously irritated I am); rather, I send them links to books by women-writers of color—i.e. Reni Eddo-Lodge’s “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race”—since I have gained much of my knowledge from them anyways. Similar feelings are evoked in me every year Fourth of JuLIES befalls us. “Independence Day”? Independence for whom? And now, with Indigenous People’s Day coming up—otherwise sadly still known as Columbus Day in New York City, Chicago, and other cities across the country—my response to that question, similar to my engagements with those ignorant folks, is to celebrate Indigenous literature. I’ve curated a list in no particular order of my ten favorite contemporary Indigenous voices, from Turtle Island throughout the Pacific, who write across the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Supporting Indigenous literature is a beautifully radical act of combatting settler-colonialism and challenging the dehumanization and invisibility incessantly thrusted upon Aboriginal peoples, while also treating oneself to the exquisite variety and beauty Indigenous poetics have to offer.

Each of these writers have profoundly impacted both my writing and me. Their works are so necessary and have become seminal parts of my life: informing my perspective, helping me to grow, and even saving me when I hadn’t realized I needed the saving, the understanding. You’re welcome in advance.

“Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese

“Indian Horse” is a novel by the late Ojibwe writer Richard Wagamese, who hailed from Wabaseemoong Independent Nations in northwestern Ontario, Canada. This book won the Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature in 2013, and competed in Canada Reads that same year as well. I first read “Indian Horse” during my senior year of high school, wherein we examined the residential/boarding school systems of Indigenous peoples in Ontario and across Canada through this particular piece of literature. It hones in on the life of Saul Indian Horse, a First Nations boy who grows up in the residential school system and afterwards pursues hockey as a serious talent. The reader follows along Saul’s journey of abuse, denial, addiction, self-awareness, and eventual self-acceptance, while gaining a wider perspective on the residential school system, alcoholism, and suicide in Native communities. The gained perspective also spans the racial climate of Northern Ontario and rural Canada, really, in the 1960s and afterwards. I have never read anything quite like this book—it is sharp in Wagamese’s clear and sparse writing styling, and it is piercing to the heart through emotions evoked by Saul’s observations. Whenever someone asks me for a book recommendation that can be felt in their bones, I always recommend “Indian Horse”. Rest in power, Richard Wagamese. The impact you left on Indigenous and Canadian literature, as well as on your readers themselves, is stirringly indelible. “From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi” by Haunani-Kay Trask

For those of you familiar with Indigenous political writings—especially feminist ones—you already know that Haunani-Kay Trask is a force to be reckoned with. “From a Native Daughter” has become a classic in Pasifika publications and a go-to for contemporary Indigenous knowledge pertaining to Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians). When I began my own personal investigation of Indigenous writings and poetics, this was simply the book to read and Trask was simply the woman to be. The book is a thought-provoking, well-reasoned sociological text that acts both defensively and offensively: it defends the civil rights of and desire for sovereignty by our people, culture, and lands, while also critiquing the very institutions that withhold those rights and sovereignty from Kanaka ʻŌiwi. My favorite part, perhaps, is the essay on women’s mana because wahine (women) are the future and the struggle for liberation would not exist, nor would it continue, without us. Personally, I cannot even begin to word what Trask has done for me in my own coming of age and coming to terms with the society in which we live. So many of us are forever in debt to the tireless work she has done so we may be visible and feel as though there is a chance for change. “From a Native Daughter” remains a timeless staple on the plights of Kanaka ʻŌiwi and a framework for future efforts of sovereignty by Pasifika people.

“nipê wânîn: my way back” by Mika Lafond

The first book of poetry by Lafond published in 2017, it is an invitation to hold space with her on the journey she carves throughout the pages. It is a poetic journey and investigation of how being Indigenous has shaped her, moving between Cree and English in the poems. They act as a cultural dialogue that invests heavily into Cree teachings and the close relationship she had with her grandmother. Embodying the transformative rituals of her culture through her words, Lafond seeks out the universal love of “all people, all animals, all things/my heartbeat slows, my spirit breathes/in a circle of women I find myself/with my ancestors.” The tone of her writing is reflected in the elements of nature that inform her understanding of her grandmother’s words and how to be one with her Cree past. Indigenous Canadian literary works are some of my favorite to read, and Lafond has without a doubt become another favorite Indigenous writer of mine. Her soft way of transporting us to Cree lands to be with her, her grandmother, and her history, cultivates a feeling of deep understanding that only women of ancestries with violent pasts can understand.

“I am my grandmother’s thought. I was in her tears. I have shared dreams with her. I am a sprig of present produced by the past, cultivating the future.” (From poem “I am”.)

“I come back to find solace in my history, to see the depth of the sky once more, to fall away to peacefulness with the stars.” (From poem “homebound”.)

“from unincorporated territory [saina]” by Craig Santos Perez

This book, a finalist in the 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry and winner of the 2011 Pen Center USA/Poetry Society of America Literary Award, is the second installment in a larger investigative poetic series on what it means to be Chamoru by Craig Santos Perez. Saina is a modern ship replicated after Chamoru riggers, designed and sailed by the Micronesian people until banned by colonizers. Santos-Perez sails through a personal, historical, and cultural exploration of Guåhan (Guam) by way of a figurative Saina. The primary precious cargo on his Saina are language and identity, from collaging primary texts with traditionally oral histories of colonial abuse and dominance, to stories of his childhood on Guåhan and his family’s eventual immigration to the U.S. He probes language by working in Chamoru and English, writing of both the sorrows and possibilities in attempting to converse in the “spoken and unspoken languages of one’s Native people,” while never forgetting the trauma innate in every word of the language of one’s oppressors. This book is a warrior cry and reminder that Chamoru people have always been here and will continue to be here for thousands of more years, navigating their futures with their own Saina. This book will have you wanting to read the rest of the series before you can even finish reading it.

“Lakota Woman” by Mary Crow Dog

This memoir by Mary Brave Bird, formerly Mary Crow Dog, won the American Book Award in 1991. I bought this book around Thanksgiving of last year because a Lakota friend of the same Rez as Brave Bird had recommended it to me. Opening on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Brave Bird, a mixed-race Sicangu Lakota, walks us through her life from infancy to young adulthood, which were linked to the American Indian Movement’s many historical events throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s. She recounts her participation in the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972 and the Indian Occupation at Wounded Knee in 1973, as well as her involvement with the American Indian Church (AIC) and marriage to its spiritual leader, Leonard Crow Dog. Both revealing and moving, “Lakota Woman” largely informed my perspective on Indigenous issues in the latter part of the 20th century and elicited in me a deeper respect for the community’s elders and all they had to endure—and the fact that they still persevere today, teaching us to become the ancestors we are meant to be. Brave Bird’s writing is timeless, allowing readers to draw connections from the issues of her time to our own issues today, from Standing Rock to Mauna Kea. “Lakota Woman” is a book you will not stop thinking about, even after turning its final page.

“The Salt-Wind, Ka Makani Paʻakai” by Brandy Nālani McDougall

This postcolonial collection of poetry by Kanaka ʻŌiwi poet Brandy Nālani McDougall was published by Kuleana ʻŌiwi Press, an independent press dedicated to the manaʻo (thoughts) and hana noʻeau (artistic works) of Na ʻŌiwi (Natives). I was first introduced to this book by Layli Longsoldier, a Lakota winyan (woman) who was the writer-in-residence at Pratt Institute during my first year there. It was very pono (righteous)—we shared space and words over Standing Rock and Mauna Kea, since so many people from both movements united together to defend both sacred places, and she recommended me this book by her friend, Brandy Nālani McDougall, when we discussed the lack of Indigenous women sitting at the literary table (or any table for that matter). From the very beginning, McDougall thrusts readers into the islands’ vivid, untamed, and lush imagery, simultaneously plunging us into the rich stories and heritage of the Indigenous people of the Hawaiian archipelago in both English and ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language). We are always aware of an indisputable, invasive presence, but through her emphasis on Pasifika issues, from the retelling of the islands’ creation story to the fetishization of Pasifika women and reclamation of language, she maintains Natives’ rightful belonging to na ʻāina (the lands). “The Salt-Wind, Ka Makani Paʻakai” is the contemporary collection of Indigenous poetry we all need on our bookshelves and in our minds. It is truly a testament to the achingly gorgeous genuineness of Indigenous poetics.

“WHEREAS” by Layli Long Soldier

As I wrote above, Layli Long Soldier was the writer-in-residence at Pratt Institute during my freshman year. She is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe—a citizen of both the Oglala Lakota Nation and United States, about which she writes—and from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The title “WHEREAS” refers to the bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 19, 2009, its purpose being “to acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the United States Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.” Her own words confront those of the United States government: how it is artificial but imperious in its apologies and responses to, as well as treaties with, Indigenous peoples and tribes. Long Soldier uses the very words that seek to oppress her against her oppressors, from short lyrics and prose to longer narrative sequences and resolutions. At Pratt, Long Soldier told us that she would be happy if the United States returned the Black Hills to her people. Where her ancestral lands were stolen and small plots were cut up and designated for her people, she reclaims all space in “WHEREAS”, writing of the implications of what a reservation is and embodying them on the pages as well. This book, a National Book Award Finalist, has established Long Soldier as a voice for Indigenous peoples in literature—especially women. She and I had a wonderfully long conversation about the intersection of writing, womanhood, and indigeneity—and she has surely helped us better understand who and what “contemporary” includes and means in poetics.

“Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter” by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner

Published only last year, “Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter” has already made history as the first published book of poetry written by a Marshallese writer. Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, Marshallese writer and activist, takes the fight to save the Marshall Islands from being consumed by rising sea levels to paper: Indigenous poetics as resistance. Her voice rises with the sea levels when calling attention to decades of traumas from colonialism, racism, environmental destruction, imminent threats of further destruction by way of climate change, and of course, the legacy of American nuclear testing. (The United States, along with France, treated the Pacific Ocean as their nuclear trashcan in the latter part of the 20th century, with grave affects still seen today across the Marshall Islands, Moruroa, and Fangataufa.) From the publisher: “The poet connects us to Marshallese daily life and tradition, likening her poetry to a basket and its essential materials. Her cultural roots and her family provides the thick fiber, the structure of the basket. Her diasporic upbringing is the material which around the fiber, an essential layer to the structure of her experiences. And her passion for justice and change, the passion which brings her to the front lines of activist movements—is the stitching that binds these two experiences together.” Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner has become a contemporary symbol of Pasifika resistance and poetics, and how they are inherently bound together. Her book is only the beginning of what’s to come and will surely help usher in new Indigenous voices of Oceania. We will rise with the sea too.

“Sanaaq: An Inuit Novel” by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk (translated by Bernard Saladin d’Anglure)

The late Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk was an Inuit educator and translator from the northern Quebec territory of Nunavik. Written in syllabics and published in 1984, “Sanaaq” is the first ever Inuktitut-language novel to be published, later followed by over twenty other novels Nappaaluk wrote afterwards. “Sanaaq” is a reinvention of the traditional novel form to which most readers are accustomed; composed of forty-eight episodes, we follow the life of the titular character, Sanaaq, who is a young and outspoken widow, and how she, her family, and her small, semi-nomadic community in northern Quebec navigate changes brought by the qallunaat, the white people, in the mid-nineteenth century. And so what we experience is an achingly beautiful story of “ordinary extraordinary lives.” They hunt seals, repair kayaks, gather mussels. The spirit world is alive, though, and relations with non-human entities are always taken seriously. Still, the perpetual themes of marriage, children, and violence—in the form of an irate husband or hungry polar bear—appear throughout the novel, while the qallunaat’s growing, invasive presence and the missionaries’ imposing goals threaten to forever change the way of life for Sanaaq, her family, and her people. When I first picked up the book, it struck me as mystifyingly fascinating, and though it took me some time to adjust to the episodic nature of the book—episodes being the key word, rather than chapters or breaks in one continuous narrative—and how it does not adhere to an ethnocentric literary structure, it made it all the better, I believe. The only thing that would make it better is if we were all able to savor “Sanaaq” in Inuktitut, the true way in which it was meant to be read.

Natalia Toledo

Photo of Natalia Toledo by Diana Manzo for La Jornado.

Although I have not read a book by her—only translations of pieces in publications—I had to include Natalia Toledo Paz in this list because she is at the forefront of reviving interest in Indigenous Mexican languages by writing in both Zapotec and Spanish. Oaxaca-born, Toledo Paz lived in a community wherein Zapotec was the primary language spoken before moving to Mexico City at seven years-old. Her writing has been heavily concentrated on the subjects of indigeneity, womanhood, and the relationship Indigenous womanhood has with the environment. She is part of a writing movement using the Zapotec language that has helped propel demands for more Indigenous visibility in Mexico. Toledo Paz has said that she enjoys using Zapotec because “[it is] a great aesthetic sensibility for creating images and beauty.” Her website has poems in Zapotec and Spanish, and publications like “World Literature Today,” “Latin American Literature Today,” and “Asymptote Journal” have English translations. Her writing is of the most exquisite imagery and evokes in me feelings of oneness and tranquility with the world around me—and with the world in me too. Her poetry makes me feel beautiful. Toledo Paz is someone who we must uplift, as she uplifts us through her words.

- Zoe Yu Gilligan

Online edition of the Resist/Revolt Issue, buy the print issue here

#zoe gilligan #zoe yu gilligan #crybabyzine #crybaby #crybaby zine #resist/revolt issue

Bring the heat: an interview with Sara King

Sara King feels like glitter. The 19 year old singer from Dallas, Texas, describes her music as “glitter pop”, and recently released her first EP, titled “Heat.”

I sat down with Sara over iced coffee (keyword, iced). Her signature style is almost as dreamy as her music—she answered my questions with a never failing smile, oversized black t shirt tucked into gold snakeskin paperboy pants, statement gold necklaces, her hair pulled into a flawless bun styled with a tasteful amount of brown hair clips. My favorite accessory of hers were her gold cherub charm bracelet and her playboy bunny pink tote, both of which she thrifted, true to her style.

“I’m not only glitter pop, I’m also glitter R&B,” she said, making an addendum to her previous statement. She wants the world to know that she can do it all.

Sara’s popular YouTube channel consists of mainly covers of other artists songs, and her signature lullaby-like, dreamy voice has garnered her over 140,000 subscribers. This past summer, Sara decided it was time to introduce not just her melodic voice, but her creative voice to the world, in the form of “Heat,” a five song, glitter pop/R&B triumph.

“Heat” is a quintessential summertime record—the title undoubtedly a partial homage to the blistering Texas summers—and despite its brevity, Sara’s songs linger with the listener, making them feel like, well, glitter.

Tell me about your style—both musically and fashion wise. Whenever I see any of your Instagram posts, they are very “Sara King”...looks I could only see you pull off.

I would describe my music as “glitter pop”, because that’s what I’ve been calling it recently. There’s a lot of subgenres these days, there’s almost everything. My [music] kind of fits more in the category of glittery and fun pop music. It’s not literally pop music because it has some R&B feel to it and some other bits and pieces. I’m inspired by people I listen to, and then really girly stuff, like bright colors—my favorite colors are pink and purple, so that’s where my fashion comes in. My fashion is kind of inspired right now by 90s supermodels, 2000s Rihanna looks, you know, or Britney Spears, Spice Girls type looks. I love vintage pieces because no one else can have them, and it’s just yours.

You recently released your first EP, a little project called “Heat.” What was it like to put out your first record of original music? What has this summer been like supporting “Heat”?

It was exciting, because I’ve been doing covers for such a long time. Leading up to it, I was really done with covers, and I really wanted to put original music out. Basically, my process was that I would either come up with something on my guitar and try to write something to it, or I would find YouTube beats, like type beats or whatever, download them, put them into GarageBand, write over them, send them to my friend Herrick & Hooley (Ian and Hunter), and then rework them and make them my own. I’ve been getting a lot of good feedback, and although I had a lot of support already, this time, [the music] is my own.

You said in the previous question that you were moving away from covers, but I have to ask: what has been your favorite song to cover thus far? Why?

I think that “Sunflower” by Rex Orange County was a really fun one to cover, but it was also really frustrating. I could not get through that song, it was so hard. I had to start over at least 30 times that night, because I just kept messing up. But I loved the feedback I got on that one. It was just a fun one to sing. I love to do a lot of smooth R&B covers, because I feel like that’s what suits my voice. I feel like my low range is my favorite one to sing in. I did a Willow and SZA cover of “9,” and that one was pretty good too.

What do you want people to know about “Heat,” your next body of work and yourself?

“Heat” is just an introduction to what my original music is going to sound like. I feel like it’s cohesive, but I also feel like each track is so different. The intro [to “Heat”] is more fun, jumpy I guess. “Dreamz” is what I really like to sound like. 88 Days...I don’t know they’re just all really different. “Honeymoon” is sort of an R&B, in my feelings type song, that I want to incorporate more into my next album, because I’m not only glitter pop, I feel like I’m also glitter R&B. I feel like I’m comfortable singing stuff like that as well, and I want to incorporate that more. [“Heat”] is kind of just an intro, and the full body album is going to be more personal, probably, and have a more R&B feel to it.

Also, I’m like just waking up by the way.

What inspires your music/performances? How has Dallas, Texas, influenced you as a musician?

The thing that inspires me here are my friends and family, because they come to every show and help me feel comfortable when I’m up on stage. I don’t know what I’m inspired by in Dallas, because I’m not really inspired by places. For performances, I kind of get on stage and pretend I’m in my bedroom and singing alone. I’m really inspired by fierce ass women, I’ll watch SZA or Kali [Uchis] on stage and see them working it on stage, and be like “damn”, I want to look like that. I don’t want to say fierce, but I don’t know what else to say...maybe “grooving”. Trying to be confident.

Speaking of Kali and SZA, who would be your dream collab and why?

I definitely want to collab with a bunch of female artists that I’ve been looking up to recently. Lorde is like my favorite artist, ever. Lorde, Kali, SZA, Lana, Charli XCX. My friend Sophie Meiers. It would be really cute to collab with A$AP Rocky, you know like how Lana does. To be on that level.

What are your plans for the next year? Where do you see yourself headed musically?

I’m going to put a lot of focus into my full length album, make sure it sounds exactly the way I want it to, make sure it flows really good. Add different elements of my style in it. I’m also going to try to be doing a little Texas tour if possible, a lot of my listeners come from Texas, so I think that would be cool to do.

Interview by Zoe Allen

Photos by Rachel Aquino

#sara king #music #crybabyzine #crybaby zine #crybaby #zoe allen #rachel aquino

LA gallery Junior High intertwines creativity and social activism

There are not many cultural institutions that offer art, concerts, yoga, comedy shows, and gardening classes under the same roof, but all that and more can be found at Faye Orlove’s Hollywood passion project, Junior High.

Catalyzed into creation on 5656 Hollywood Boulevard in 2016, the project came together with the help of Kickstarter, and the carefully detailed finance information and plans for the space included on the profile in Orlove’s signature genuine, energetic style.

“With your help, I want to host gallery shows, music events, comedy nights, and most importantly, community workshops like art classes and portfolio consultations for people of all ages,” said Orlowe during the funding campaign.

After exceeding fundraising goals and opening shop soon after, the space, dubbed Junior High, has seen those initial plans turn into a packed few years of productive programming. Events such as “Royal Blood”, a recent exhibition highlighting female skaters and hosted by queer skateboard photographer Zorah Olivia, and “Miss Representation”, an art show designed to subvert classically white-centric imagery by recreating it through a WOC lens, have since helped the non-profit attract curious local viewers and tens of thousands of social media followers online.

Outside of the gallery space, Orlove also maintains a directory on Junior High’s website entitled “Mapping LA”, a strong resource for mapping the female, queer, and POC-owned spaces in Los Angeles. A recently launched gallery-associated magazine, aptly named Junior High Mag, is her latest venture. Topics such as feminism, personal expression, and conversations with artists from underserved communities can be found in each quarterly issue.

With the myriad activities and goings-on happening at the gallery each week, the question begs as to who is Faye Orlove, and how has she created such a unique, colorful space?

The self-starting curator moved to Los Angeles from Boston about six years ago, and has developed her creative repertoire through working on music videos for Mitski, Downtown Boys, and Potty Mouth, co-creating webpaper “Fvck The Media”, and fine-tuning her own artistic skills in illustration and animation along the way. Through Junior High, she has worked tirelessly to promote marginalized voices and fledgling creatives with the outlet she has built.

What is your daily work schedule like? Is it more routine/flexible?

My daily schedule changes a bit, but I try to keep a routine/at least start and end every day the same. I usually drink coffee and read dumb celebrity news when I wake up. Feed the cats. Check emails. And then I get to work drawing or doing designs for my own brand or for clients. Lately I've been going into the Girlgaze offices to help out and I've been making tons of runs to my local printer to figure out logistics for Junior High Mag. I definitely thrive with routine, so even though my work varies so much, I try to keep consistency at the very least in how I wake up.

What do you hope people take away from their visit to Junior High?

I hope people feel welcome! Like they know they are in a space that values them, that prioritizes their safety, and that wants to listen to their thoughts and ideas.

The gallery resonates with people in a unique way. What is the secret to keeping your audiences engaged?

I'm curious YOUR thoughts on this! Do you think Junior High resonates? That means so much to me! I try to infuse enough of myself into the space that people know there are real humans behind it, but I don't want to put too much of myself in where it feels like only my narrative is being included. There's a tough balance between weird corporate entity and super-insular project. I'm glad to hear it's working in some capacity!

One day last June [2017], I remember scrolling through my Instagram feed and seeing that HAIM would be performing at the space; I was blown away. How has Junior High been impacted by high-profile performers such as HAIM and Frankie Cosmos?

Oh man, yeah! HAIM was the best. Honestly, the space hasn't been affected by "high profile" performers any more than “low-profile” ones, (laughs). I think I learn a LOT from everyone we work with. Even with HAIM, the event was a collaboration. Those girls work HARD. They have a team that helps, but they were there until midnight setting up with the rest of us, you know? So even though they have a ton of followers or whatever, the event mirrored most of the other ones. We voice ideas and listen to each other, and form an event that is representative of a shared ethos and shared vision. I think the biggest impact events are the ones that are really focused on community and showcasing voices that don't have other spaces to exist. Then so many people come out to support because spaces that prioritize them are so few and far between.

Can you describe a moment (or the moment if it exists) in which you knew you had made the right choice in creating Junior High?

Yeah, I totally remember the moment. Early on, maybe a year into the space I only had one intern. And she was over at the shop hanging out with me for the day and their mom came to pick them up. And while my girl was turned away or something, her mom told me that they could see a real change in their daughter. That their kid was more confident. More vocal. I mean that was it, the only thing I've ever wanted. To help one young girl feel anything but the way I felt at that age. It's the hardest thing in the world being a teen girl. I know you always hear people say like "if my music can touch one person, then it was all worth it!!!" and it seems so cheesy. But like, legit. I guess it's true (laughs).

How was the gallery received when it first opened?

Ultimately, good. But there was definitely a learning curve. I think I wasn't prioritizing artists of color enough right off the bat so people were rightly weary of Junior High being a white-feminist space. Now, not only do I make absolutely sure that the white voices aren't overpowering, but I have different payout structures for events hosted by POC to guarantee that they are getting paid. Our events don't generally have a payout guarantee due to the nature of running a non-profit space in an expensive city, but we make adjustments to make sure artists of color feel safe, welcome and prioritized.

Have you received criticism along your journey with the gallery?

Yeah. Definitely. But I really appreciate criticism. I like when people feel strong enough about the space that they can reach out and help me be better, ya know. It's one thing to just dismiss me, but to receive actual criticism is kind of an honor. Aside from what I said before about when we first opened, we used to sell merchandise that was very cis-centric. A lot of "boobs" and "vagina"-type tchotchkes that can make trans folks feel ostracized or uncomfortable. That was a huge mistake. I still feel terrible about it. But I'm learning! And people who give me a second chance are like, the real heroes!

What advice would you give aspiring artists looking to make their own mark?

Work very hard. Nothing happens for you. If you are waiting for someone else to hand you a shop or a gig or a book deal, you're gonna be waiting a long time. I literally hate people that aren't self-motivated. LOL. This is advice for getting far in life and for being my friend.

If you weren’t running Junior High, what would you be interested in doing?

Hm, I'm doing 200 other things right now too so probably still all that. All the drawings and animations and design work! But outside of the design world completely I want to be a mom, a carpenter, and I want to be the next Rihanna. Wait no, I just want to be friends with Rihanna. But I can probably do that and do Junior High.

Interview conducted in May 2018

Interview by Sam Falb

#sam falb

An interview with Sean Baker

photo from The Florida Project

When I first went to see The Florida Project, directed by Sean Baker, I was so excited that I coordinated my outfit to match the color scheme of the movie from the stills I had seen. My expectations were high, and the movie flew above them with lavender-hued strength.

The movie is set in Orlando, Florida and centers around a six-year-old girl, Moonee, her friends, and her mother Halley living in a purple palace-themed motel trying to make ends meet while growing up, the tumultuousness of childhood framed by a reality many face, but few are aware of. After the film, I could not stop thinking about those kids and a childhood in a climate like the one in the movie. His other movies, such as the award-winning Tangerine, about transgender sex workers of color in LA's red-light district, also centers around a unique community; it's funny, sad, moving, and most of all, if you aren't like the women in the movie, it's a big step in the right direction to understanding them.

Sean Baker was born in New Jersey and went on to get a B.A. in film studies from NYU. His first film was called Four Letter Words, about young men in in the suburbs. He later went on to make award-winning movies with this same scope of submerging in on one particular community. He does not live in a hotel outside Disney World, nor does he have much in common on a surface level with the amazing women of Tangerine, yet his movies have created a prominent voice for the people in these films. I spoke to Baker on the phone about representation and its many facets, and why he chooses to showcase these narratives, ones outside of his circle.

So there’s the old saying of ‘write what you know’ and with a lot of your movies, especially in The Florida Project, Takeout, and Tangerine you tell stories outside of a community you’re familiar with. What made you decide to stray further from what you know in making films.

Well I think there are several reasons. It comes from pure interest, it comes from pure wanting to look outside of myself because I want to know more about the world we live in and I think telling universal stories that might be set inside a certain subculture or microcosm that we don’t normally see on the screen on film and television can only help the world, because what it can do is show us the universality in all of us, the common thread that makes us all human, so it stems from that it really stems from that. These are usually communities or subcultures that I had contact with and then I decided to, you know, figure out how to tell universal stories, so yeah, hopefully I answered that question.

No, yeah, that was great. Thank you. So to kind of create these vivd narratives the person who’s making them has to have some sort of connection to the story, so how did you kind of kind and create that connection, when you’re by nature removed from the community it’s focused on, if that makes sense.

Well usually the stories don’t come until there’s been time spent in that community. So usually the story comes from, I guess you’d call it the research process or just the immersion process. Sometimes it just comes to me after spending a long enough amount of time there when I feel comfortable writing a, you know, a fictional story that takes place in that world. Then I have to run it by the people I’m working with to see if it works. A good example is Prince of Broadway, because Prince of Broadway, for a very long time, Prince Adu and all his friends and I and Victoria Tate who was actually doing a lot of the research with me, she didn’t end up being one of the actors in the film, but we spent basically interviewing these guys [from this community] a lot to see and try and come up with a story and we heard a ton of different stories that provided us with detail, but nothing was really hitting home for us in terms of a narrative and then one night, I don’t know when it was, in the middle of the night, I got this image of one of these hustlers out in the middle of wintry New York having to hustle while having an infant. So that was an image that I then said “Huh, that would be definitely a plot, a hustler having to deal with a child that may or may not be his and then I passed it by Prince and I passed it by the others and one of the first things that Prince said was “Oh yeah that happened to a friend of mind, that happens in this community.” Then there was how did it happen and fishing for more details and it comes about once you spend enough time there, then I guess you’re able to pull stories out of your head that will fit in the community. The same thing happened with Florida [Project] and we were writing this character Halley for a very long time without really having met any real life Halley’s, she was an amalgamation of many different people. There was no one who directly inspired that character. And then about two weeks out in shooting we met someone we considered the real-life Halley and her story was uncanny how close to the script her real story was. Then we looked back and said “Huh, we really got there.” First off, it validated us because we’d spent enough time in the community to be able to write a character and then now we see someone that might be very parallel. I think it made me think we did our jobs. We spent enough time in the community to write a character that is authentic.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So as an artist what kind of responsibilities do you think people who tell stories that aren't theirs have in sharing these perspectives?

It comes down to ultimate responsibility. The way I think about it is that you are never going to be the voice because that would be incredibly disrespectful, but if you have a platform to amplify a voice—that's the way you do it. Go in, and I feel, it would be very disrespectful to in any way be posing any sort of script or plot. I think you need to hear from the community what type of stories they want told, and your job is to make it amplified. Now, you are a dramatist, you are a screenwriter, you are fictionalizing the world, you have to be very careful. There’s a fine line in how you represent. You go one degree too much in either direction and you run the risk of being overall disrespectful. I’m being a little long-winded there but I think it’s an incredible responsibility because these are under-represented communities, so if their representation out there is inaccurate or disrespectful or condescending you’ve done a terrible thing. So I see it as a great responsibility actually.

What would be your advice for people creating any kind of art that emphasizes voices that are not their own and speaking with them and not over them?

Definitely collaboration. Definitely taking the time, making sure that you have whatever your principle process is that can play itself out in different ways. For me, I pass the script by people in the real community to see if they approve and go through that approval process. Approval in post-production was something that was important to me. It’s about spending the time and it’s about knowing that you’re not being the voice. Making sure that the representation is, you’re never going to please everybody, but you have to be secure and you have to be confident that you’re doing the right thing.You have to say this: What would you like if somebody came to you from the outside of your circle and your social class circle or racial circle or gender circle and this person said 'I want to tell a story that takes place in your world.' How would you want to them to go about doing it? You have to apply that same courtesy to the people you’re working with.

Interview by Beatrice Irwin

#beatrice irwin #sean baker #florida project #august2018

Middle School Sucks: An Interview with the Girls of Eighth Grade

I first learned about Eighth Grade from a Facebook post Emily Robinson made. The trailer had just come out, and she shared it with her friends and family. I was one of those friends.

Two years ago, Emily (who plays Olivia in the film) and I met through Instagram—the same way many friendships are made today. We didn’t talk much over Instagram DM, but we did get Vietnamese food in the Lower East Side. We walked around Manhattan as Emily told me about leaving NY for LA, acting in Transparent, and the book she had just read, The Nest.

Even now, we try to get lunch when we are on the same coast. While we don’t see each other much, it’s been so exciting and fun to see a friend do really amazing projects.

When I first watched the trailer for Eighth Grade I was instantly excited. Not only was a friend of mine was in it, but it looked amazing.

Eighth Grade stars Elsie Fisher as Kayla, an anxious and shy teen girl trying to break out of her shell through the power of social media. It’s an incredible film because while so specific to Gen Z, everyone seems to relate to it; audience members of all different ages and generations told Elsie and Bo Burnham how they saw themselves in Kayla.

Just because the characters dab and say “gucci” doesn’t take away from the universal trauma middle school causes. Even Emily’s character, Olivia, tries to reassure Kayla, saying, “I was a complete mess when I was your age. Eighth grade is the worst.” Throughout the film, people try to help Kayla. Her dad. Kennedy’s mom. Olivia. Aniyah (played by Imani Lewis). All of these characters try to include her and reassure her that she is fine the way she is. But at the end of the day, Kayla says it best: “Just because things are happening right now, doesn’t mean they’re always gonna happen.”

I spoke to Elsie, Olivia, and Imani recently about Eighth Grade, social media, and friendship.

Elsie, I forgot exactly what you said at the LA special screening, but I remember you said you felt protective of your character. What exactly did you mean by that? And do you see yourself in Kayla?

Elsie: I see a lot of my younger self in her, for sure. But also myself now, definitely. I very much see my own middle-school self in her. You know, I feel like she’s a strong person, but she might have trouble coming out of her shell. So yeah, I want to protect her. I want to give her a hug. I think she’s on the right path, but I want to be there for her.

Based off all of the interviews you’ve done and just the dynamic I’ve seen in the screenings, it seems like you and Bo have a very close relationship. How did you work to foster that, and have you ever had [that kind of a] relationship with a director before?

Elsie: I’ve never had anything similar with a director, and Bo is much more than a director to me. He is literally like my best friend in the whole world. I mean, there were no active steps to foster that kind of thing, we just clicked once I got into the first audition. You know, it was very apparent that we were very similar people and we felt very similar things. Yeah, it was pretty nice to have someone to relate to.

What do you think the movie is ultimately trying to say about social media?

Elsie: I think the beautiful thing is that it doesn’t take a stance on social media.

Imani: Right!

Elsie: Yeah, we just wanted to be honest about it.

Emily: Yeah, totally. It kind of says nothing about it. It voices all the anxieties, the beauty of it. All the pitfalls of it and all the things in between. I think [it] depicts the internet as the world—you experience an entire range of things on the internet in a way that’s scary and exciting, anxiety-inducing and also gives you confidence.

Imani: It wasn’t super definitive about the idea of the internet. But it was kind of a diversional therapy for Kayla. It was an outlet for her to express herself freely and say the things she didn’t feel comfortable saying in front of others. So I definitely think it shows the beauty of social media.

That’s how I interpreted it as well, because we are all around the same age. But I read a review saying how some parents may take [the movie] as a warning—that that’s not what you should let your child do. Do you interpret it in that way at all?

Emily: No, I don’t think that. I mean, people should take from it what they want, but that wasn’t the intention.

Elsie: I think people are feeling so many things about it right now, but we just wanted to take inventory for a second. So of course you can have any conversation you want afterwards, but the movie isn’t a TED Talk. We aren’t like, “you should feel this way about it.”

Was there any point you felt there was a certain line or scene that wasn’t true to what teenagers are actually saying today?

Elsie: There was only one thing for me personally that I ever had changed...when I initially read the script, all of Kayla’s DMs were on Facebook. Thus prompting me to say to Bo, “Nobody uses Facebook anymore,” and then [that] became a line in the movie! And we changed all the DMs to Instagram.

(Laughs) Yeah, that’s definitely more accurate! So, Bo Burnham wrote the script—did he make any adjustments to fit you as actors so it was closer to you? Or did you really follow the script?

Imani: I think he [encouraged] us to use improv a lot more—at least in the scene in the mall cafeteria where we’re all eating in the mall, just so it seems more natural. So when Kayla approaches the table, it just seems like a normal conversation teenagers have. You know, a light debate on anything, whether it be school-related or social media-related. I feel like the concept of that conversation was constantly changing to see what seemed the most natural.

Emily: Yeah, we still filmed it as scripted. But [Bo] would throw us a line or a word for inspiration. Like, oh yeah, you know, what if there was a dead kid who someone didn’t like? (Laughs) Trying to get us to talk and have a conversation that kept us on our feet and engaged and genuine.

Elsie: On my side, I stayed pretty much true to the script. I think Bo just did a fantastic job in general.

Emily: I think the only thing that really changed, besides improvising, was Olivia was originally viewed as the alpha of her friend group. And now, because Imani—when Imani walked in, basically everyone was like, “Oh no, it’s her.”

Imani: Yeah, I was just very outgoing in a sense.

Emily: The dynamic shifted. Exactly what it needed.

Do you have any favorite improvised moments?

Elsie: I have an anti-favorite.

Let’s hear it.

Elsie: I don’t know, people seem to like it. But one of my only improvised moments was in the chicken nugget scene with Gabe. The Rick and Morty exchange is completely improv, and that is the one part of the movie I cannot watch. It’s too true to my own self—at least how I was at the time. Because I was interested in the show—not so much anymore. Oh yeah, it just makes me not feel good in the tum-tum.

Emily: I wasn’t present for my favorite improvised moment, but apparently [Elsie] was. But in Jake Ryan’s audition—do you want to tell the story?

Elsie: Yeah! So, for the first chemistry read I had with Jake Ryan, who plays Gabe, Bo was like, “Just go ahead and improvise something.” And Jake goes, “Do you like tacos?” And I go, “Yeah, yeah.” He goes, “Hard shell or soft?” Bo goes, “You have the part!”

Emily: That was amazing. Pretty glorious.

Imani: The only improv part I think I didn’t like—well, remember how I’m talking about how a friend DMed me a photo of my own feet?

Yeah.

Imani: I feel like that one line brought so much attention to how I actually feel about my feet. And I hate my feet. That was the only thing.

Emily: I remember in the scene where Kayla and Olivia first meet in the cafeteria, we hugged, and right before we hugged, I said “I’m gonna hug you now.” But that’s something I genuinely think I say. And then watching it in the movie at BAM, my friend sitting next to me was like, “Emily, that’s you.” And I was like, “Oh, you’re right!”

Elsie: That was such a great line though. Also, like, God, there [were] so many good moments.

Emily: Yeah, Bo wrote such a strong script that so many moments feel improvised when you watch them, but they were just written because he is such a genius.

Well, Emily, when I saw you after the screening, I thought the same thing—that was just you! I’m just seeing my friend play herself on screen. Emily, did you hang out with Elsie before film to create that close, natural dynamic? Because it seemed really, really natural on screen.

Emily: Well, that’s because Elsie’s delightful and is an insanely talented actor and an amazing person. We were kept from each other!

Elsie: Bo didn’t want me really to talk to anyone off set until after we were done with the scene, except for Josh. Besides Kayla’s relationship with her dad, every other relationship she has with people is unfamiliar.

Emily: He wanted to keep the electricity. (Laughs) Now [Elsie’s] tired of me.

Elsie: No! Never! I could never be tired of you.

Elsie, I just read your article for Teen Vogue last night about anxiety and was really blown away. It was just really well done and well written. I just wanted to know, how did your personal experiences with anxiety inform the way you performed and played Kayla?

Elsie: I think it just really helped me empathize with her more. It’s just such a visceral feeling, and it’s hard to describe. I have trouble talking about it, and that’s something I try to get at a little bit in my essay. It’s so much easier for me to act and feel it again rather than just talk about it. Yeah, that’s something I was excited about with the movie. You never see it portrayed—at least in kids—the way it really feels, which is just in the moment and it’s not a personality trait. It’s just happening always, and it sucks.

On the same topic of anxiety, was it scary to physically interpret the anxiety and actually play out the anxiety attack scene on set?

Elsie: I mean, it wasn’t really scary because I’ve had many panic attacks. Yay! (Laughs) Yeah, I don’t know. It was scary for me just doing the movie, because that’s just a lot of stuff to do. But that scene in particular was not super intense for me. It was weird to film actually, because one of our cameramen, Gary, he was just following me around in the bathroom, and I had to breathe a lot and pretend like I was dying. And then Bo was also in the room, and that was weird. Whatever!

Elsie, how did Bo prepare you for the car scene? And how did you approach filming it?

Elsie: We approached it just like every other scene really. Bo just wanted to be honest and portray—just be real about what was happening. There’s no need to make it over the top. I mean, Bo made sure I was comfortable, but there wasn’t a whole lot of preparation. We didn’t have rehearsals, and we just kind of went straight into it. But I mean Daniel’s just a fantastic actor, he made my job very easy.

I know when I was watching the car scene, physically, it made me feel kind of sick and really upset me. And I know you just said you approached it like any other scene, but rewatching it, how does that make you feel? How do you experience it now that you’re seeing it on screen?

Elsie: I mean, it’s a little easier for me to watch because I know the outcome. I was there, so I know what’s up. You know, I don’t think it makes me crawl in my skin as much as many other people. I kind of objectify the movie a little bit just because, after being there, I like to look more at the technical aspect [rather] than enjoy my own performance. I like to enjoy all of the other actors, but yeah, I don’t know, I don’t get as visceral of a reaction as I think a lot of people do.

Were you all fans of Bo before you landed the role?

Imani: How could you not be?

Emily: Oh, absolutely.

Elsie: Funny story! In my eighth-grade year, they had us fill out this list so if you got picked as student of the month they could display it—like, “This is how you can be student of the month.” And [the questions] were like, what are your hobbies? What kinds of books do you read? What music do you like? Who are your idols? I put Bo as my idol.

Emily: Didn’t you also call him a writer?

Elsie: Yeah, I also saw him as a writer, which he was kind of surprised by because most people call him a comedian. His stand-up is very different. It’s very rehearsed—you can see that. It takes time to write the songs. He also did the wonderful poetry book Egghead.

I know Elsie, you are the closest to middle schoolers’ age, but Emily and Imani, did the movie remind you of your experience in middle school?

Imani: Not so much for me because I was the polar opposite of a “Kayla.” I was always very outgoing, very involved in my school’s extracurricular activities—debate team, student council. I went on trips to London with my school.

Emily: That’s a cool school!

Imani: No, it wasn’t a cool school, I was a cool kid. (Laughs) But I was very in tune with myself. I knew I was going to be an artist regardless of what field it was in, whether it be painting or music or the theater or acting… It wasn’t until I was older and started thinking more about people’s [ideas of] me that anxiety started kicking in.

Emily: It definitely reminds me of my middle school years in ways that are triggering and painful, but good. But it also reminds me of my experience currently! I feel like I still am Kayla, and I feel as if I will always relate [to] Kayla. I think that’s what’s so beautiful about the movie. When you’re watching it, I think it doesn’t matter where you are in life, you’ll always be able to relate to either a time where you were Kayla or you are Kayla or you will be Kayla. It makes you live that experience in the moment, which is really special.

Did filming the movie change the way you treat or perceive social media at all?

Elsie: I perceive it differently. I definitely think about it a lot more and talk about it a lot more. I’m probably more addicted, though. I don’t use it very differently than I did. I had the hope that maybe after seeing it portrayed on screen, I might be able to take steps to make [the] experience better. But I think it’s just become more professional, I guess. A little less personal for me. Which is awesome. But yeah, I’m just as addicted.

How would you all describe the Eighth Grade set?

Elsie: The set was very amazing. All the places we filmed [in] were very beautiful, especially the two schools we filmed at. But the cast and crew were a family. It was like a summer camp or some shit.

Imani: Very family-oriented. Very comfortable space where you could just be yourself and state your opinion and you didn’t feel like, “Oh, do I go to the director and say something?” There’s always that weird little tension between the actor and director because they’re your superior and you don’t want to tell them how to do their job. But it was so comfortable, because [Bo] was constantly asking for our input.

Emily: It was super creative and collaborative. And I think what’s really special and what [Bo’s] talked about is how Kayla’s very much co-authored by Elsie, and he definitely understands that he’s not a teenager right now or a teenage girl right now. Having people that are the age and in similar positions to the people they’re playing is exciting.

What would you say the overall message of Eighth Grade is?

Emily: Your feelings are valid, and you’re not alone.

Elsie: Yeah, I think “you’re not alone” is probably the one I would choose, because the hope of the film is that you can relate to Kayla and feel good and just feel in general. I think that after watching it, at least for me and after making it, I felt better about my feelings. Because I knew other people could relate to me, and that was awesome.

Imani: I would just say to trust your process. Even the moments that seem uncomfortable [when] it may seem like you’re never gonna get through it, you just have to trust that everything happens for a reason and the things you stressed about six months ago, you won’t stress about six months from now.

Interview by Remi Riordan

Illustration by Allegra Nina

#eighth grade #a24 #elsie fisher #emily robinson #imani lewis #remi riordan #allegra nina #bo burnham #mental health #anxiety

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