#experimentsanddisorders

[christenclifford]

Tonight at 7:30 @dixonplace #experimentsanddisorders https://www.instagram.com/p/BxLMEREFAz9/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1x2aqb3sodd3p

[christenclifford]

Tuesday! Tomorrow night! FREE 7:30-8:30 two amazing readers in one hour in the lounge @dixonplace ! Tom Cole and I are so happy to have @devilintraning_ and #davidweinstein #experimentsanddisorders https://www.instagram.com/p/Bose2LbBOx7/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1orfj8l2c7ypi

[christenclifford]

And if you can’t make it to PES tonight, there’s still time to make it to @dixonplace to hear the great Margaret Rhee and April Matthis. Seriously, the pleasure I get from presenting others artists work is BIG. I live to sit in a dark room and hear words. Plus, it has kept my creative friendship with Tom Cole fresh- we co curate this series together since 2009. I love and admire Tom’s writing and art so much. #tomcole #experimentsanddisorders

[christenclifford]

She is genius. Mary Gaitskill essay about Deep Throat and Dreyer's Joan of Arc and rape and Linda Lovelace and all the grey areas of sex was phenomenal. Thank you so much to Tom Cole and Dixon Place and to Mary for supporting @dixonplace and for her work that made the packed room wild and sad. And she adored @svetlanakitto who read first and hilariously from her work in progress Purvs - dirty lez in Latvia - I am so lucky to get to present and co curate with Tom. I said it was 9 years we've been doing #experimentsanddisorders but it's 8 and some - Vera was an infant at our first meeting with Katy, strapped on. Gaitskill' s essay about Lovelace reminded me that years ago I was "hired" to work on a script for a theatre piece about Linda Lovelace. I worked so hard on it, trying to make it complicated and feminist and honest and even imagined directors I could work with. The producers had a giant haunted house in Boston and money and had been friends with Diamano, the director of Deep Throat. I had to audition as a writer and was so excited. I delivered the script as promised - working through a vacation upstate - and they then they disappeared and never even paid me. As Kip Fagen said last night, "Maybe you should have known that a porn director and haunted house wasn't a good thing" but as Mary read in her piece sometimes our instincts are damaged. I was so happy last night was crowded and a packed house and some students and old friends and new friends were there. Svetlana and Mary. Mary and Svetlana. Tom. Ellie. #experimentsanddisorders #lit #literature #dixonplace #marygaitskill #love @svetlanakitto

[christenclifford]

This photo does not capture my excitement from last night! Does anyone have a pic of Mary Gaitskill hugging me? She hugged me twice and her luminous numinous grace and intelligence electrified all of us. #marygaitskill #dixonplace #literature #lit #experimentsanddisorders

[christenclifford]

Happy birthday to me. Holy Fuck am I glad to be alive today. Last year at this time I was still in treatment, weak, shaky. I hosted Period Piece for World Menstrual Hygiene Day but I barely made it through- I remember ending the night in pain and tears. Today I felt strong and confident. (I analyze my hosting performance and find the #chemobrain lurking when I'm not as quick and light and fast with language as I was, I need to script myself a little more.)The music and poetry and the wind and the water and the smell of the Hudson and seeing @marthajoyrose and @summeronthehudson felt so good. And almost 3,000 people got to experience #mamapalooza today! I felt humbled. Like for real. I danced in the sun. I had a Facebook birthday party- I got let back on just in time for my birthday! And I have an Experiments and Disorders at Dixon Place on Tuesday. And a brother and a sister and a nephew are dropping in for a visit tomorrow night! (The psychic I went to suggested my dead brother John wants me to work on my relationships with my sisters...) Being kicked off of FB made me feel very left out- I missed everyone else's digital birthdays. I missed knowing about so many creative events. I missed some big news from real friends. I missed a job opportunity and a request from someone to write about #experimentsanddisorders . FB is real. But the censorship and flagging system just reinforces many systems of oppression. I got flagged for hate speech for hating #cancer when racist groups are allowed? #fixthat I woke up this morning grateful for my life. Ken was awake. "Do you want coffee now?" "Ten minutes please." Ten minutes later my espresso with milk and a cuddle. "We have a good life," I say. Yesterday Vera made me breakfast in bed cuz she knew I had to work. I have watched Melania's hand flicks and Macron's amazing swerve and feel hopeful.We are not alone.The WH can't erase queer life. Humans dancing and feeling will always have power. Thank you everyone, for your supper. Thank you universe, for another birthday. I look happy in this mistake selfie. I'm alive. #posttreatment #fuckcancer #feminism #lifeaftercancer

[christenclifford]

Leslie Jamison and Heidi Julavits are reading at Experiments and Disorders on Tuesday at Dixon Place at 7:30 pm and it's FREE. My students love Jamison's Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain which I teach in Contemporary Feminisms. And I loved the Empathy Exams, the one about the things coming out of your skin! And the one about the crazy marathon! And the one about being a medical actor! (I know someone who directs those scenes and I've always wanted to do it. Maybe I will, now that I have more experience, a hem!) I read Julavits' The Folded Clock last summer and was lost in its exploration of time and place. And my essay was included in Women in Clothes which Heidi co-edited. So please come join us on Tuesday night at 7:30 at 161 Chrystie Street NYC to hear two amazing writers. Previous writers in this series include Candace Williams, Celine Song, Eileen Myles, Lynn Tillman, Stacey Karen Robinson, Phillip Lopate, Alexander Chee, Pamela Sneed, Margo Jefferson, Laurie Stone, Andrea Klein and more. This is something I love doing- curating and sharing others people's work. I'm an enthusiast. #dixonplace #writing #experimentsanddisorders #lesliejamison #heidijulavits

[christenclifford]

Tomorrow Tuesday January 17 7:30 @dixonplace FREE #JoyceMiller is a writer and performer based in NYC, born and raised in Philadelphia. She has written satire for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and participated in the Animal Farm Reading Series. Additionally, she performs in numerous independent theater and film productions throughout New York City and is currently in production for a short film adapted from her satirical essay “My 28 Years of Heterosexuality Was Just a Phase”. #CandaceWilliams is Head of Community at a podcasting startup by day. By night and subway ride, she’s a poet. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hyperallergic, Lambda Literary Review, Copper Nickel, and the Brooklyn Poets Anthology (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2017), among other places. She’s earned a MA in Elementary Education from Stanford University, a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship, a Pushcart nomination, and scholarships from Cave Canem. Her first chapbook, Spells for Black Wizards, is a winner of the TAR Chapbook Series and will be published in 2017 (The Atlas Review). You can find her cuddling her pit bull while subtweeting the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (@teacherc). #writersresist #feministcurator #theresistance #experimentsanddisorders