Låt den rätte komma in

I just saw the Swedish vampire movie Let the right one in. It is beautifully haunting, set in winter in a bleak Stockholm suburb in the early 1980s and tells the strange love between a young boy, Oskar, who is the target of abuse by school bullies and a young vampire girl, Eli, played by the wonderful Lina Leandersson. The movie manages to be a romantic tell of early adolescent love set amidst serial killings and horror. It certainly isn't Twilight. It reminded me of when I lived in a similar Stockholm suburb, Taby in 1984 and then went to high school in an industrial company town farther north, Sandviken. The same endless, white grey silent winter days that quickly gave into tonight, and nothing seemed to happen. The world seemed to have slowed down and you felt that you were far, far from anything that mattered. The director managed to capture young love and the bleakness of life in a winter in Sweden c. 1980.

your very own Obamicon

silly fun for all...create your own Obama-style poster obamicon http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/

working-class queers writing

Still Blue Project blog is "more writing by for and about working-class queers". Submissions include fiction, essays and poetry by or about working-class queers and queer life and include an essay on gay rodeo in addition to fiction and poetry. Check it out at http://stillblueproject.blogspot.com/ and contribute.

Tammy Rae Carland

Another artist to come out of the Pacific Northwest and The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA., Tammy Rae Carland (www.tammyraecarland.com)produced seminal queer zine I (heart) Amy Carter in the 1980s in addition to designing album covers for several punk bands including Bikini Kill. A photographer who also works with video and other media, Tammy Rae is a professor at California College of the Arts. Her work and writing have appeared in Raygun, Time Out, The Village Voice and have been reviewed in Spin, The Wire and The New York Times. I (heart) Amy Carter can be read at the fantastic Queer Zine Archive www.qzap.org

Sao Paulo days and nights

Photo by Cristiano Mascaro
I just returned from Sao Paulo. How strange it is to go back to a city that used to be home for so long as a tourist or for a short visit. It makes me see the city in a new light, with blinders down since you no longer feel obliged to try and make excuses for it. Sao Paulo is an ugly city and that makes it all the more interesting, in a way since it is a city that does not captivate you with its beauty but rather with its energy. It is a hard city to be a visitor in, perhaps an easier city to live in. You discover certain buildings that are favorites, restaurants, bars, stores, nights out. But, I cannot help but think that it is a city that could be more than it is. I am always amazed that a place that is so wealthy, dynamic and, compared to most other Latin American cities, cosmopolitan, could be so lacking in basic urban services and could treat its residents so poorly. It is a city with exclusive shopping centers that are promoted in ads with Sarah Jessica Parker but almost no democratic urban space. Paulistanos love to compare the city to others, but it somehow feels neither here nor there, a city lacking an identity of its own, which at times is also its charm.
After traveling to other cities that have faced what seemed like insurmountable problems, such as Bogota, and that have managed to make improvements in city life for many residents, I realize that having decent politicians and administrators makes an enormous difference. Sao Paulo lacks in either. Most Brazilian cities do. Sao Paulo is the prize every politician is after in order to become governor of the rich state of Sao Paulo or president of Brazil. And none of them seem to particularly care to be mayor of the city. It's a shame, it is a city that deserves so much more.

os gemeos

Sao Paulo graffiti artists Os Gemeos, Nina, Nunca, Finok and Zefix have created a 680 sq. meter mural in downtown Sao Paulo after the original graffiti by Os Gemeos was painted over in 2002 during Sao Paulo's "Clean City" campaign. As Nina puts it: "Up to what point is art dirt that needs to be erased through a Clean City Law? Art dirties the city? Sao Paulo has no horizon, only buildings. And they are grey, yellow or white. When we put color onto the walls, we are opening up the horizon".

http://www.lost.art.br/muralsp2.htm

the revolution is my boyfriend

I just watched "The Raspberry Reich", Bruce LaBruce's 2004 homo-terrorist spoof of radical chic (or agit-porn!). It's great fun and worth buying the dvd just to hear German Marxist Leninist sexual revolutionary Gudrun (Susanne Sachsse) and her modern day far-left accomplices shout out lines like "Join the Homosexual Intifada!", "Put your Marxism where your mouth is!" and "Heterosexuality is the opiate of the Masses!" The acting is awful (other than Sachsse), but who cares with lines like that? La Bruce's gay zombie film "Otto; or, Up with Dead People" is now playing in San Francisco and coming to theaters near you (or on dvd if you don't live near a theater brave enough to show it).

www.theraspberryreich.com

www.brucelabruce.com

http://www.ottothezombie.com