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booklust · 6 years

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Futurelit Vol 5: Grace Byron

This time around, I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Grace Byron, the Brooklyn-based columnist, writer and filmmaker and all-around brilliant, benevolent creative spirit whose recent book release party for NB Carrie Bradshaw (read it here via Epigraph Mag!) at Babycastles solidified my love for her and her work.

This interview was the first time I had the opportunity to conduct a classic interview over the phone instead of over text chat, or as I like to call it for reasons I’d gladly explain to you over a glass of wine, “The Tony Hawk Method.”

This resulted in a truly gorgeous conversation that flows synaptically and always takes surprising directions (Twin Peaks, the afterlife, and a tender moment involving Coldplay that occurs towards the end---when you see it then you’ll understand!). It also brought me right back to the days at my editorial internship where I would transcribe hours of interviews, but in a good way this time. I took great pains to not only get the content and diction right, but to convey the undertones of our exchange that made it so vibrant. Which, interestingly enough, makes it take on the visual form of a text chat.

Check out our conversation at the jump, with gorgeous illustrations by Becky Ebben:

You do a column called “Trans Monogamist” for the Bushwick Daily (I binged that…it’s really dope) and your latest project is NB Carrie Bradshaw (which is out now!). So I’m curious, what sort of came first: your interest in the format of an advice columnist/relationship columnist, or your love of Carrie Bradshaw?

Actually--I didn’t start watching Sex and the City until January 2017, which everyone is sort of super surprised by, and honestly? Me fucking too. Not that it’s a perfect show, but the aesthetic signals that it’s something that I should have seen a long time ago. It took me a long time to get to it. I had heard a lot of the negative stuff, which there is a lot of, and rightfully so. There’s this one terrible bisexual episode where Carrie’s just like, “I just don’t know….he’s bi .” And I’m just like… “Girl, so what.” The point is, the column writing came sort of naturally. I had a column a few years ago at my paper called Queer Art Vibes before I had even seen Sex and the City. And I was mostly writing about art, and capitalism, artists, and things I was finding interesting aesthetically. The last column that I wrote was after I had a break-up, and it was called “How To Date an Anarchist.”

Oh my God

And it got like, no comments. Because most of the columns that I was writing were about trans identity and stuff. I got all these comments like, “Why can’t people just make up their minds about gender?” And I’m just like, that’s completely irrelevant to what I’m talking about. So this column got no comments at all. There’s this huge anarchist population at Indiana University. It just closed down this month, but we had this huge anarchist bookstore that was this huge draw for the punk scene.

It was a column that didn’t make sense for where I was writing. But then as I was watching Sex and the City, and as I was doing a lot more dating my last year in college, I was thinking “yeah, this is really important to talk about.” And I started thinking of dating as a political and aesthetic and emotional practice. It’s more using this pop culture phenomenon to let people understand something about what it’s like to be trans and dating. It’s not like it’s me and my three friends that are all going through the same things. Or it’s not like me and my straight girlfriends talking about how our experiences are different. Or me and someone who is nonbinary even talking about how it’s different for both of us. But I do like that element of friendship in it, that element of comradery. But I think it’s interesting now that shows act like there’s this group of 4 friends and they’re all the same. And that was never my experience? You know, there’s always a nonbinary person, a lesbian person, and...maybe a straight man.

LOL the token straight

Right. At least that’s my college experience, where I’ve never had a group of friends that were all the same. There were always at least one other gay or queer person. It’s a helpful lens to think about dating, and think about dating how much it’s changed since the early 2000s. A column is a dispatch from the front lines, like “this is what happened this month! How’s it going with you?” The book [NB Carrie Bradshaw] has a little bit of a more narrative arc to it. But in the columns, there’s no resolution. -----keep reading below------

Right, and that’s what I like about it. There’s endless thinkpieces about dating apps, queer dating, etc, and it’s so frustratingly depersonalized. It’s very strange how the discourse tries to force dystopia instead of actually having a comprehensive view of how people feel. There’s a lot more truth in the way that you present dating than how someone tries to dissect it in a thinkpiece.

Yeah, thinkpieces are weird. I love to read them, but I also don’t know how helpful they are a lot of the time. Especially when they try to draw a definitive statement. In some things, sure, that makes sense.

Like in a college thesis, where you’re forced to come to a resolution for your life, pretty much.

What was your experience working at a college newspaper?

Basically, I came to college, and I was on the media floor--and basically what I thought that meant was cross-genre. But in reality, what it meant was journalism. And then I thought, you know, okay, it’s fine. I thought it was interesting. And so I almost went to join the newspaper as a writer and interviewer, I did a few articles. But a rule was that if you were a writer for them, you couldn’t be interviewed. And that was my biggest problem with it--I knew I wanted to do art. I knew that I wanted to get press. I didn’t want to prevent that from happening.

Right after I came out my freshman year, this guy on my floor was like, “do you want to talk about being gay at IU?” And I was like uh….sure! It was weird because it was my first time being interviewed for something real, and I was talking about being gay. But I was also trying to sneak a pitch for my website while doing it, I was like...go watch it! They promptly cut that out of the interview, though.

Good effort, tho.

I didn’t love that environment. I wasn’t taken with it. I started volunteering at a local radio station where I did stories about lots of things. That was much more interesting and fulfilling than the college newspaper. And my friend was like, “do you want to be columnist--we need one.” Not because I was special or anything, because they really needed one. And I was like, “sure.” So I started writing these extremely leftist columns, like “capitalism is the devil, and here’s why : )”

And I wrote one that was like, “nudity in art isn’t porn,” which isn’t even an extreme opinion. But I started getting all of these comments like, “Counterpoint: nudity in art isn’t not porn.” I was just like wow, I can tell that you really read this column….

People just read titles a lot of times.

Yeah for sure. Our campus was filled with a lot of views of all extremes, and not just anarchists. We also had a militant white supremacist population on campus. There were a bunch of protests from that group over the course of years--it wasn’t just one year, or just this year, which was definitely the worse than the years before. I also got tons of hateful comments from white supremacist groups on my articles. So I was just one of the people on the receiving end of those comments.

But as far as my involvement in the newspaper group itself, I think I only attended one meeting. I didn’t really feel a sense of community at IU that a lot of people there felt. I think a lot of people looked down on what I did because it was so personal. It wasn’t like I was talking about music, or like I was talking about hard-hitting stories. So I wasn’t really a part of the “IU JOURNALISM COMMUNITY.” But it wasn’t like I really wanted to be. I would still sometimes get people who appreciated my work, that came up to me and said “I love this, I love what you’re doing,” but they were usually queer people.

Which is definitely the desired reaction, which is awesome. Talking about your webseries “Idle Cosmopolitan” -- what was your favorite audience, or your favorite venue that you showed it to? And what was that sort of reaction and vibe like?

I wasn’t at all of the screenings. It showed at Bloomington at Planet Nine--which is this small VHS rental/DVD rental video place that kind of reminds me of Ghost World or something. I wasn’t there, but a lot of my friends were there, since it was my home for so many years. I assume it went well. From the pictures, I saw that it went well, at least.

It showed at Sarah Lawrence, which I know very little about how that went. I wanted to be there, but I was scheduled at work. Which is a whole thing about how I’m not a full-time artist. I say that I’m a freelance artist, which means that I make MAYBE 50 bucks a month off of my art. If it’s a good month! So I can’t always go to everything that’s happening. It’s an interesting part about being an artist in this landscape. People expect you to be global, and there’s only so global you can be if you’re working class. Which I think is important to be transparent about. It’s not always fun to be transparent about that, but it’s important.

Exactly, you want to be honest about it, but you want to portray yourself as larger-than-life-to get attention, and at least the semblance of clout (whatever that fcking means). But being an artist, you’re a part of a community, and you want to treat that community well. You don’t want to stunt and act like you’re making a living off of your art when you’re not.

It’s not cool to lie one way or the other. It’s not cool to portray yourself as a poor person if you’re not, and I’m not super poor or anything, but I’m not living off of my artwork, and I make a decent living off of my work as a childcare worker. But yeah, you shouldn’t lie because you’re fooling yourself and making art seem elitist.

There’s the lie by omission, in a way. A lot of people are internet famous, or have a certain persona that makes people say “Oh, I want to be like this person, who so clearly lives off of their artwork.” When in reality, it’s probably a side hustle at best.

Or they live with their parents. Or they have rich parents.

It distorts people’s dreams and plans--it’s important to be responsible about that.

Totally. One show I was at physically was at Secret Project Robot, at this festival of poets, and my videos were showing between poets that were reading their work. So that was interesting---I was the only video artist at the show. And as many things as I have tried--I have written poems, but I’ve never called myself a “poet.” So I thought that was kind of cool to have that multimedia experience, to see my videos projected really large in front of a big crowd of 20 or 30 people. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s actually a lot. I remember thinking wow, the crowds are gonna be so big in New York. And they are! But 20 or 30 people is a lot for DIY art. Even if you’re successful, or internet famous--it’s hard to gather a crowd wherever you are.

And it was really cool because people who were actually in the video got to see it, which was cool! Chariot is in it, and he was there, so that’s cool.

There was one livestream and q&a in the UK, which was really cool. And that was my favorite, because the moderator was super smart and always asked good question about the fantasy genre, and its intersections with queerness. It was refreshing instead of questions like-- “Why are you gay? Why is this here?” It was a good convo to have beyond the surface level.

It’s awesome that I saw so many showings of your series was in Indianapolis, in Indiana. You may not see a big crowd--DIY art isn’t an Ariana Grande concert--but What you do see is how it sort of transforms the room, and creates a living space, a community. 20 people is a community. Especially in Indiana.

Right, there’s very established artists and documentarians where the only place they have more than 20 people show up is in their hometowns. Even world-renowned documentarians may struggle to get an audience. Which is awful. But I think that one thing that is happening in the real world is that there are plenty of people I look up to, who are famous, whose twitter gets pretty very few likes! And they may have a huge amount of followers! And I’m like--why am I getting more likes than world-renowned feminist scholars? I think that’s happening in real life too. These people are having talks and showings of their work and sometimes DIY work is a different experience and maybe draws more people than these professional pieces, and there’s a community of people who can see themselves in that as artists.

I agree, it definitely changes the dynamic for people are used to when it comes to art, you think there’s the artist and this huge invisible wall and then there’s the observer, and it breaks down that dynamic.

Right, it changes the power dynamic. The artist isn’t a preacher. What we’ve seen in DIY venues is, everybody is sitting in chairs. The artist is in the front, but everyone is on the same level. There isn’t a stage to walk down from.

I think people are only starting to observe this change, and aren’t sure what to call it yet. Some people see changes like this as the death of something, like the death of some kind of empire of how art works. But especially with this project, I think I’ve not only been an optimist, but a realist in the sense that it’s for the better. So many people are screaming “death to media! Death to print!” and I’m just over here like, “You’re a Baby Boomer, please don’t talk to me.”

Ha! Right. These media aren’t dead, but they’re definitely dying. But I think they’re going to be dying for a while to come. People broadcasting the death of all of these things---like, they’re not dead yet. The Met is gonna be in trouble, but the Met is gonna be around for the next 100 years. The Met’s not just gonna crumble.

Going back to “Idle Cosmopolitan”--I love how it’s a series of very short films. And by short, I mean like, slightly longer than a Vine length. And some people may come across that and immediately compare the series to Vine culture, but my immediate thought was comparing it to poetry, with a lot of tightly-wound content being fit into a small space. So I was wondering how poetry influences your visual work, or how visual work influences your poetry, etc.

That’s interesting. I actually originally applied to go to college for poetry. I never called myself a poet, but I did think about it for a while. When I do write poetry, it’s usually about nature, and viewing nature through the lens of divinity and power dynamics. Which I think is definitely a big part of my video work. The “Queer World” in my piece is a forest. Somebody was talking to me recently, and said that “I think it’s interesting that the queer world is a forest. Do you think of urban spaces as, like, not-as-queer spaces?” I hadn’t really thought about that. But whenever I think of that sort of the afterlife, I don’t think of cities. And what’s our other option, really? Nature. An ocean would be a terrifying destination for the afterlife. I think that poetry is super important, I think when I’m writing anything, I tend towards a lyrical, poetic style. I love hard facts, but I was never super into Hemingway. I always loved the Great Gatsby. Not that I like showy, hyper-stylized stuff; I hated the Great Gatsby movie. But the suggestion of artifice, the suggestion of things like that, I think is really interesting.

There’s ton of talk about heaven and nature and sin in “Idle Cosmopolitan.” I’m sure it comes from a long line of being raised in Christianity, and having read all of the Christian classics. And as a kid, I was obsessed with the apocalypse. Once, I was between 6-9 I remember looking at clocks in restaurants and thinking, “Could this be the hour of the end?” I remember being super into Revelations, and the ghost stories that my friends and I would tell each other, and often confusing them as the same thing.

I think that’s a form of poetry true, a strange, mental form of poetry. I think the afterlife is poetic, because there’s no concrete that you can provide.

I think in terms of modality, I think I’m always writing in the form of the poetic, even if I’m not writing a poem. Even my column--it’s not a how-to column, it’s not a safari.

It’s not MTV Cribs!

Right! Definitely more reflections.

I always thought of videos sort of in musician terms, like “this is my new album---Idle Cosmopolitan.” This is the tracklist, and each has a poetic name, etc. And each year, there’s a self-image overhaul….well, there’s no image overhaul for me this year, but especially in college I was into that idea, where I wanted to amp myself up every year.

But this iteration, for me, was trying to marry these poetic ideals with my own lived experiences, to make it sort of autobiographical, but still have a flourish. I mean, I was watching Twin Peaks when I was working on it.

Yeah, I can definitely see that influence in there. Where there’s that magic-realism, but it’s so mundane. The suspension of disbelief is so well-dissolved into it.

Right as I was starting to write this, I just finished the season of Veronica Mars---I’m not sure if it directly influenced it…

But it was there

Yeah, and watching Twin Peaks: the Return. What I thought was interesting about it was its formal elements. There was this sort of suspension of disbelief present for both the characters and the audience. So then you’re just like, “Yeah, queer spirits! That makes sense!” So, it’s that magic realism that is super appealing. And also the fact that it’s episodic. One of the things about David Lynch that I’m really into is the episodic nature of his work. There’s this loose play with time and narrative, and it’s an experience.

I think what Lynch talks a lot about, especially in later seasons, is agency. But in Sex and the City, for example--Carrie isn’t a bad person, but she’s not necessarily a good person either. She has affairs, runs around doing whatever she wants, she tries to take a break from dating and has a guilt complex where she feels bad about her actions, and also places guilt on other people--it’s complex, which I think is interesting.

Like chaotic neutral, but a little more complex than that?

Yeah, definitely. I’m obsessed with people who are chaotic neutral. I don’t think I’m chaotic neutral, but I’m fascinated by that those people exists.

I’m a super-intense Virgo, Type A, Blair Waldorf type. I definitely pride myself on hard work--which could be problematic--but I have that crawl-my-way-to-the-top sort of vibe.

This character in the webseries, they’re sort of neutral. They’re a relationship writer, but it doesn’t seem like a main part of their personhood. The only thing that they seem mad about is when their boyfriend breaks up with them, which is fair. But they don’t seem to be making many choices, and there’s something very sidekick about that.

I was in this space in my life where I was having to make all these intense decisions--deciding to move to New York, having to make all of these choices about who I wanted to be as a person. The character is the exact opposite, where there’s no movement. There’s a movement in narrative, a movement in place, but it kind of happens to them.

They get a letter, a pep talk from Fate--and they’re just like, “Sure, whatever, I don’t care.” Then they enter the queer world, and they’re like “Alright.” And then the Blue Spirit is the one who was like, “No, this wasn’t actually a good choice.” And they’re like, “Okay, sure.” They never really doubt people’s motives.

There’s a sort of guilt about making choices that Type A people have. Inevitably, if you’re a type A perosn, you’re going to hurt people. Even if you’re not actually hurting them, you’re going to make choices, and choices affect people. There’s winners and losers. So what does it mean for the sort of stoner archetype, this chaotic neutral archetype, when they don’t make choices?

I’ve never been a chill person, so I gravitate towards writing characters that are like that. Because I’m always wondering….what does that feel like?

Right! I feel like it takes a lot of effort to be chill, which isn’t chill. It’s kind of a self-consuming concept. I’m not gonna say it’s the only real binary, but…

Haha, right! Ok back to influences. Actually, as far as the soundtrack goes, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback where people say it reminds them of Sex and the City, and that it’s derivative. Actually, one person said that the soundtrack reminds them of Rugrats….

Stop!!!

Right!? Well, it’s jazz, but it’s sort of this chaotic jazz.

It’s a typical theme song in a lot of ways, but it’s disarming. Which I like.

Some people said it makes them anxious.

It offsets the perceived chill in the series, which signals you to look harder.

Watching it back, I was like...something is wrong. Narratively, there’s something up. But I’m not sure if that thing ever gets hashed out or resolved, it just sort of hangs like a dark cloud.

Which is what’s so great about poetry. There’s always that lack of resolution. People always get angry at that, where they want to feel satisfied...where’s the sequel at??

Do they get the girl or not??

Yeah! It’s how we’re taught to view life. But especially with creative people, it’s paradoxical--they only thing that makes them (us) feel satisfied is poetry, that sort of form that leaves things unresolved.

Totally.

How has the internet shaped your writing?

The internet is definitely fucked up. It was created by the military, and is now owned by billionaires. That’s already strike one. But let’s assume that the internet is also provides a space that provides more access for more people. But it doesn’t provide equal access for everybody. It provides equal access for a relatively small amount of people. You have to afford a computer, internet access--and even if you go to the library, you have to afford to be there.

But let’s say it does level the playing field in that way---even still, people don’t have more of a chance of getting their art noticed because of it. It does mean more people can put their stuff out there, but it doesn’t guarantee more viewers, or more fans, or some utopia.

The internet has become this neoliberal promise of equality. This reveals itself in every aspect---who dominates media, who dominates internet celebrity, etc. This doesn’t discount the fact that there’s fantastic DIY spaces based on the internet, but there’s a lot being overlooked.

The internet as a structure is racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic. Even if we go back to technology like photography, for example, it was a technology developed to best depict white faces. It’s so great that the internet creates a platform for people, but that includes creating platforms for neo-nazis on 4chan, for alt-righters to doxx people. The web is pretty fucked up, and it amplifies our greatest strengths, like community. Especially the trans community, which is so important. But it also amplifies our problems, and reveals where we need to grow.

I don’t think the internet is the devil, but I think it makes it harder for people to feel like human beings. It mirrors capitalism, and degrades human beings in so many ways where we’re expected to become a brand, which is always tied to capitalism. We’re forced to reduce ourselves to something bite-sized, which is troubling me as a person and as an artist.

When did u start writing and being creative?

I was always drawing. I was super into Pokemon and all the Nintendo games. I was into anything cute and well-designed, like Zelda, and anything involving world-building. I was super into maps, and at a young age, I thought, “I wanted to do that.”

At a young age, I wanted to be a pop star. And I made the boys in the neighborhood be my band. Now I’m thinking that was sort of a strong signal of me being gay, haha. Boys---you’re gonna be in this band, and I’m gonna sing Breakout by Miley Cyrus.

I started getting really into bands. I was really into Coldplay, and I wanted to be Chris Martin.

STOP, ME TOO

I really liked “Clocks.”

ME TOO, when I first heard that, I was like, Now….that’s what I call music.

I also really liked “Lovesong” by Sara Bareilles, which is entirely different, but I was also like...that’s what I call music. Also Paramore and Deathcab, and I was like…..this is also Music. I still love all this stuff

I still listen to all this stuff pretty much on the regular, even though I laugh about it Yeah! And at the time, all of these things were coded as feminine. Even Coldplay, which was, not a boyband, but kind of more healing.

Right, like ~emotional boys~, ~soft boys~, this sort of soft masculinity before it was talked about and memed.

I went from wanting to be a popstar, to wanting to be in bands, to wanting to do comics, and then I was like...I want to be painter! I did a lot of paintings, and then I wanted to be an actor. I was fixated on stardom, on theater. I was in all the plays of my freshman year.

Then I moved schools, and this guy who didn’t even like me and stopped talking to me, but I liked him---I wrote this psycho-opera about him. It was all songs about him, and it was super awkward. I recorded an album about him. He started being nice to me, and then I was just like…...here’s an album…

I was like, that was fun, but then I started to getting into Wes Anderson. And Woody Allen, but #WORST. And then Godard, which was better. Then I started making movies. And I saw 30 Rock, and it confirmed what I wanted to do.

I love how you go from Godard to 30 Rock

I know!! I was very all over the map. Then I started watching more experimental films and wild stuff, so it’s been a journey to where I’m at now.

The wrapping up portion, something I ask at the end of every interview...this is actually the first interview I’ve done that’s over the phone, an actual physical conversation. And the form of how I’ve conducted each interview has really affected it.

How would you describe the future of literature in a tweet-length? Or a sort of verbal tweet length, also tweets are longer now so….yeah….

Smaller.

#nb carrie bradshaw #lit #futurelit #publishing #books #writing #spilled ink #becky ebben #idle cosmopolitan #trans monogamist #queer #grace byron

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