April 6, 2006

I realized today while talking with Kat about her newly-out TG childhood friend that while I self-identify as being very straight, I don't identify as much with being a man. I mean, I certainly like being a man, I like the samurai characteristics of my personality and my body, I like many things about being male --- but I could imagine being a woman. If I were a woman, I would probably not want to change to being a man, even if I felt slightly more masculine than feminine. (Just as there is a spectrum of sexual preference, there must be a separate spectrum of gender identification and I'm closer to the middle than most people --- certainly much closer to the middle than transgender people are, who must really strongly identify with the other gender in order to consider something as radical as a sex change operation.) Thinking about it more deeply, I realized that the women I'm most intrigued by romantically/sexually are the ones I kind of want to BE. I mean, to the point that once in a while (not a lot) I sometimes imagine their bodies superimposed over mine, like a 3D double exposure. I think the erotic charge of sex for me has something to do with this desire to merge with the other person, and this also drives my romantic urges. To open up to the differences between us in a way that incorporates both my awareness and theirs, my body and theirs, my realit(ies) and theirs, not negating either and not subsuming either, but bringing the radical unknowns together so they stay unknowable yet are somehow interpenetrating.
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April 5, 2006

Remember, if you have artwork, experimental film, music, or performance you'd like to show at my next event in May, please send me an email.

Check out my friends Imagination Explosion perform at the Theater for the New City starting tomorrow and going through April 16. They will also be performing at my next event.

I've encountered mostly quite interesting people through putting on these events, but I have run into some performers here and there who are actually offended at the idea of contributing to a free community event --- they're only interested if there is money involved and quite rude if told there isn't a monetary reward for their work. Rather sad, though I suppose it's part of an attitude that is all too prevalent in some parts of the cultural scene in New York, one which I hope to counter to some extent with my events. I have nothing against money mixing with art (or money in general), but to get to the point where one is only interested in doing things if there is money involved --- and to be literally aghast at the mere suggestion of doing something without it --- no wonder some people get so stressed out here. Living that way is living in a prison of your own construction.
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