Pornstar Martini Volume I

Shot by Anjali Sareen

Pornstar Martini Magazine Volume #001 Fall 2023 -------------------------------------------------------Item PGS ---------------------Pornstar-Martini-------------------genesis Harriet Taylor 10-11 An affront to cunts everywhere Annie Tallis 12-13 -------------------------Negroni------------------------Stranger Jacob Staudenmaier 16-19 Typewritten Valentina Gomez 20-23 sleeping it off Holly B. McCauley 24-25 --------------------Alien-Urine-Sample-----------------the bloody curse of a writer & bubbly high Viv Briseno 28-29 live Plus Pl z Ciena Valenzuela-Peterson 30-35 honestly our glory days i remember them fondly // they’re still here Angela Liu 36-37 --------------------------------------------------------

-----------------Death-in-the-Afternoon-----------------11:11 AM Holly B. McCauley 40-43 the girls Harriet Taylor 44-49 a lesson in drifting Laura Wencel 50-51 High Noon & tonight’s the night, i’m the magician BEE LB 52-53 ---------------------Espresso-Martini-------------------Letter to Ashton Kutcher Cal Geib 58-61 Transgender Fail Movies: Buffalo Bill and a Short History of Trans-Reveal Villains in Horror Julian Avrith 62-65 No More Heroes Miguel Guzman 66-73 --------------------Adios-Motherfucker-----------------feminomenon Harriet Taylor & Jazmin Polido

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-------------------------------------------------------TOTAL: 16 CARD: ***** **** **** FACE

Thank you for visiting! pornstarmartinimagazine@gmail.com

Dear Reader, Picture this: a Saturday night, filled with the promise of release. Getting ready while dancing to your favorite tunes. Putting on the most enhanced version of yourself for your pleasure. Joining your friends and bouncing off each other’s energy. Perhaps there’s a pre-game, where you get your first taste of the night’s spirit. Hot with anticipation, you head to the function and take it all in. Drinks flow inside the venue. You find your spot and claim it, letting events and interactions unfurl as they come. Perhaps you catch someone’s eye. Regardless, you live for the moment with friends who uplift each other, who heal each other’s wounds. The crowd is a creature that lives and breathes the electricity of passion. You smile, you float, you dance. A while later, you stumble out. It’s not elegant, but you’re laughing and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. You’re ready to go home.

When I first conceived of an idea for a magazine, this is what I wanted it to feel like. I wanted to capture a sense of organic looseness; bubbling moments on an open dance floor and hidden secrets of conversations in dimly lit spaces. In particular, I wanted to create a space for queer and BIPOC voices to explore, to be exuberant, and to feel safe. Like any night out, there are always rough edges and thoughts to be continued. This is why I expose myself in my writing. Yes, my words are messy and unfulfilled, imperfect and uneven, but they are also raw and unafraid and beautiful. Pornstar Martini is all of these things at once. Every page promises a fabulous read. Thank you to the wonderful editors and contributors who made this first volume as vibrant as it is. I couldn’t be prouder of the pieces we’ve curated together, and it has been a real pleasure working with such talented creatives. My hope for the magazine, if anything, is that it shows what a joy it is to be here. Enjoy the journey, and may there be many more volumes to come. With Literary Love, Harriet Taylor Editor In Chief

1 1/2 ounces vanilla vodka

1/2 ounce passion fruit liqueur 1 ounce passion fruit puree

1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice 1/2 cup passion fruit garnish

1 shot of prosecco on the side

drink 1: pornstar martini

pornstar martini

genesis Dedicated to queer safe spaces everywhere Waiting for life to begin A worn barstool as a make-do womb A sage-green vest, meticulously ironed Ruffling a shag haircut, ten days new Twirling a silver chain With soft, strong fingers A visage of men’s cologne sprayed correctly Just above the collarbone A sapphic first date A promise to take it all in The pull of an eye towards the entrance Now understanding exactly why: There she is An apparition in baby pink Hair curling to her waist, soft willow A glowing fairy from a land afar Her face looks like it knows How to make dreams come true From that point onwards An inkling of what it might be like to know love Dark, inquisitive eyes A soft greeting, a first hug Confidence that stirs with eye contact And doesn’t it feel good To look so directly at the impetus of want? Once, not long ago Fleeting looks were a bygone dream “Two Pornstar Martinis, please” And the bartender with the green buzzcut Just knows That this is the Start Of Things Drinks arriving

Taking the shot of prosecco Bubbles punctuating the throat like electric sparks Introductions giving way to lore Coming out at twenty-one is very different From knowing since the age of four Holding space for one another Like ripping open a hole in both time and space To a newer, gayer dimension Talking hopes and comforts Giving looks that say what words never could An awkward stutter Blushing furiously Wishing Venus and Sappho could fit in a pocket Wishing for a drag From an aphrodisiac cigarette Second drink down Flowing freely from the Island of Lesbos The way she smells, like an undressed boreal forest All so prelapsarian As if Eve loved herself And the unwritten promise of a kiss Was far better than God A hand brushing a hand And then a thigh Her touch a PhD In the Quantum Physics of Sensuality Not knowing quite what to do But never feeling more correct About anything ever Will they, won’t they? It won’t last forever Whether it’s on their own terms

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Or not The night falling; Heavy velvet embroidered with warmth The music growing louder now with every pulse Those bass lines giving blessing To a crowd in communion A disco ball sparkling—a galaxy of joy, fear A mirror of a hundred exuberant bodies dancing in neon fever Vivaciously present In the urge The need The insatiable desire To get down And with that Knowing exactly what to do Taking her hand An invitation to the inevitable, the magical Two stars aligned Two martini glasses, lipstick-stained Two lines Of two words “Shall we?” “Of course.” And the thought that lingers Like liquor on the tongue: Aren’t we so lucky To live like this?

Words by Harriet Taylor

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pornstar martini

Overflowing with personality, Inner labia flowering into anticipated view, With prickled skin or tangled Strands of hair running down Inner thighs. Speckled like paint Spots of pink and spots of dark. Tasting of chilli-oiled oysters From the south of France. Beautifully Imperfect and diverse and human. And it’s such a terrible coincidence, That when your name comes up, The first think I think is “My God, What a cunt.” 12

Words by Annie Tallis

CUNTY REVOLUTION CUNTY REVOLUTI

cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cu

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1 ounce gin

1 ounce Campari

1 ounce sweet vermouth

Garnish with orange peel

drink 2: negroni

negroni

Words by Jacob Staudenmaier

You’re moving through a blizzard. It’s cold and dark, but you’re used to it. You’ve been doing this your whole life. Why should it bother you now? But God, it’s fucking cold. You wouldn’t mind a little warmth. You’re surrounded on all sides by an endless array of strangers. An infinite number of faceless figures standing in the cold. Shivering. Staring straight ahead. You can’t make out a single defining feature. Whenever you stop to ask for directions, all you get back is mumbling. You keep moving, but you’re starting to slow down. Your feet are tired and your body is numb. That’s when you see it. There’s a warm light flickering some distance away—a small campfire. Your eyes light up as you make your way towards the glow. As you approach, passing one stranger after another, you realize there’s someone already sitting at the fire. You take a few more steps and abruptly stop. You gasp.

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They have a face. They have eyes. Kind eyes. Stranger yet, it’s almost as if you recognize the person. They appear so familiar, but their name eludes you. You want to sit down with them. You want to ask them questions. Instead, you hang back—your body frozen in place. What if you’re not welcomed by the fire? A shiver runs down your spine. You suddenly feel the urge to return to the cold. You step backwards, your fears overwhelming you. But before you can leave, they turn to face you. You lock eyes. They smile. You can’t help but smile back. Your heart is beating a million times per second. Almost in a trance, you step back towards the fire and sit down across from them. The warmth feels good. You can’t believe you went this long without it. They say something to you. You could cry, because it’s the first thing you’ve understood in a long time. As if they’re speaking a language made just for you. You say something back and they laugh. The fire burns brighter. Your heart is full. The strangers around you seem to fade away. You’ve found salvation. Maybe that’s dramatic. No, it’s true. You share with them a small bag filled with your favorite things. Your favorite songs. Your favorite films. Your favorite places to eat. Eventually, you share with them a second bag filled with your secrets. For their eyes only. You’re nervous, worried they’ll see you differently. You’ve never shared so much. But your vulnerability only brings you closer to them. You talk for hours. Days. Months. You lose track of time. You don’t notice the fire starting to die down. You don’t really want to notice. You share your own warmth with them. You embrace tightly. You kiss. You lay your head on their lap and gradually drift to sleep. They hold you as the fire fights against the blizzard. You try to keep your eyes open as long as you can. You don’t want this moment to end. But it does. You fall asleep.

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Front of Book

The next morning, you awake shivering on the cold, snowy ground. You rub the sleep from your eyes and realize—to your dismay—the fire has died out. Your savior is gone; the blizzard won. You stand in a panic, whipping your head back and forth in search of them. They’re nowhere to be seen. Once more, you’re surrounded by an endless crowd of strangers, standing silently in the cold. Your eyes plead for help, but no one looks your way. You begin trudging through the snow again, this time with tears in your eyes. Your vision is getting blurry. The snow seems to be coming down even harder. Maybe you should just lay down and die. No, that’d be too easy. So you keep moving, just to let yourself feel the pain. Your vision is going dark. It’s getting hard to see. The tears stick to your cheeks. They sting. “WON’T ANYONE HELP ME?” you yell into the void. But the strangers around you don’t seem to hear. They don’t seem to care. That’s when you see it. Another fire, far in the distance. You chuckle—you’d be stupid to try again. But you’re going to try again. You start your trek towards the warmth. And tell yourself: It’s going to be okay.

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Shot by Page Murray

negroni

Words by Valentina Gomez

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Your grandfather’s typewriter was magic. That’s what my dad says when I tell him I want to be a writer. He goes somewhere else—I can see it behind his eyes. It’s where he keeps the past he usually only shares when loosened by a few drinks. It’s because of this that I only have a half-formed image of my grandfather. A Jackson Pollock painting of impressions—pieced together from the occasional wistful memory and the sugar-coated way people talk about the dead. My dad tells me about the typewriter. He says he wasn’t allowed to touch it, not even as an adult. He says his dad never moved it from the same spot on his wooden desk, and he used it so much that the oils on his fingers wore down the paint on the keys. He says it’s where he covered every single derby in Medellin for thirty-six years. He says it again: It was magic. I know part of the magic came from its ability to turn fiction into truth. Like the time my grandfather wrote an entire piece about the Kentucky Derby without ever once leaving his living room. He wove this beautiful narrative about the races—winners, losers, underdogs, sell-outs. He covered personalities and secret histories and bonds between horse and jockey. He wrote with the detail of an interlocutor—beyond even a witness. He sold the piece to a big newspaper in Medellin. Part of the typewriter’s magic extended to my grandfather’s ability to convince anyone of what he was saying. It’s a skill he passed on to his kids, and his kids passed it on to us. But like most skills, the years have watered it down, stripped the varnish off the magic and left behind a mere oddity. I could convince you that it’s snowing when it’s hailing, but my grandfather could have told you the hail was made of diamonds and handed you a bucket to gather them. It’s this skill that let him convince the local paper that he had taken a two-week trip to Kentucky, written his piece, and flown back to publish it. As far as I know, my grandfather never even had a passport. Or maybe the magic was less about what the typewriter printed and more about who it made the writer into. My grandfather was dirt poor most of his life. He and my grandmother never had enough money for all the bills. And in a world where money and influence are so often synonymous, it would stand to reason that poverty would keep him on the margins of society. But my grand-

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father had influence. He knew most of the major political players of the time. He had split a bottle of guaro with the governor and a cigar with the head of commerce. He was at every convention, fundraiser, and publicized event wearing the same black tuxedo he got married in. When my father was in medical school, most of his professors recognized him by his father’s last name. With only the typewriter at his disposal, my grandfather could make a big city into a small town, an enemy into an ally, and a candidate into a senator. Maybe the magic of the typewriter was less a gift and more a trade-off. Like rubbing the hilt of a genie’s lamp and coming to regret your wishes, the influence my grandfather’s career brought never eased his troubles. It didn’t stop the decline of my grandmother’s pancreatic cancer, didn’t make it easier to lose her when his oldest kid was only twelve, didn’t ease her pain in the final, wretched, bedridden days. It didn’t put food on the table or pay for tuition or keep the family from splintering apart like a tree stump with an ax through its middle. It didn’t keep his legacy intact, didn’t make it so that his grandkids would be able to look up his writing and find it, perusing through it at their leisure. But my dad believes in its magic—believes there was something special about the way my grandfather could sit at the table and make something out of nothing, craft a narrative without any means beyond his own merit. From the fragments I have of my grandfather, here’s what I’ve gathered this typewriter could do: write about horses, write about one particular horse who was the son of another particular horse—both of which were very important horses, write a piece about a different country despite never once having left the wooden desk in Medellin, give my grandfather enough money to buy drinks at the corner bar for him and any pretty woman, give him enough credit to know most of the up-and-coming politicians of the decade, endear him to every horse and horse owner in the city, receive over six awards for journalism in one year, make it so that every third man in Colombia has a fond story of splitting a bottle of aguardiente with him. Things this typewriter could not do: write about anything other than horses, write about horses without mentioning that one particular and very special horse, keep a job, feed the kids, pay for school, cure my grandmother,

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keep my grandfather from drinking, buckle his seatbelt when he got back in the car after his girlfriend asked him to check on the back tire, stop him from crashing through the windshield, staunch the bleeding, stop the car, save his life, print an exclamation mark—my grandfather would pencil them in by hand before submitting. I wouldn’t read a piece written on this elusive typewriter until I was in my twenties, when my father would pull up an old article about the horse my grandfather loved with a depth and exuberance he rarely showed anything else. He found it in a storage unit, cheaply framed but wrapped carefully in newspaper from 1992. I was prepared for an unspeakably beautiful narrative about an underdog’s triumphant exultation against the odds. Instead, I got a well-written if slightly cloying article about a horse race. I read the article seven times before I came to a very easy conclusion—the only magical thing about the typewriter was that it made fathers into gods.

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negroni negroni

sleeping it off words by holly b. mccauley

she lays with one arm stretched across the fluff that covers her whole room, hands raking through the hair-like wisps. the moon and the sun are locked into a race in the sky outside of her window. she sleeps and she dreams, but she will remember neither come first light. somewhere in her dream there’s a crystalline blue stream that runs through the tawny peaks of her tympanic membrane. she thinks she’s seen it somewhere before. the first boy her parents haven’t worried about lights up her phone screen on the floor beneath the clouds. in the morning she’ll open the picture of herself sitting across a diner table. she’ll know he captured the first moment she thought to tell him she loved him, sitting in front of hashbrown covered plates in a city neither of them lived in. she thought it as she was saying it, as she was throwing the words at someone who has never understood her. it surprised them both and shocked neither. after all, he lets her smoke in his car and picks her up from the airport. she knows inglewood is kind of a trek. her mother wishes she’d fallen farther away from the proverbial apple tree.

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in the morning, she’ll sit and roll a joint while wearing her father’s sweatshirt. she remembers begging him for it for years, her child eyes tracing the printed slopes of oregonian mountains that neither of them has ever seen in person. it came off a clearance rack at old navy. she stole it out of his closet the day she moved 2,000 miles away. he pretended not to notice. after all, she’s the baby. her sisters say being the baby means she always gets what she wants. she’s not sure how long this has been untrue. always? never? it’s hard to remember. she’ll make sure that the crumbles of flower and last night’s ashes don’t fall into the secondhand oxford study bible that covers most of her secondhand desk. she’ll half-listen to the mixture of lawnmower, siren, and argument that envelopes her street. she’ll wonder who decided which texts are biblical and which are apocryphal, but she won’t look it up. tomorrow, the diner boy that no one worries about will storm off, slamming the door of the car that she lets him borrow without asking. he looks at her like he could kill her. like he could run them both into a tree without a second thought. at least he doesn’t yell at her. she’ll make excuses. she does take after her mom, doesn’t she? she’s not sure he’ll come back. she’s not sure she wants him to. she’s not sure when she started having an opinion on the matter, yet she does. but before any of that, she’ll stand, ringed fingers wrapped around a fast-burning filter, the gems and faded plating flashing in the sunlight left peeking through her window. the ring she wears on her pointer is ugly, truly, and it belonged to a grandmother who never really liked her much. it’s heavy, but it makes her feel something that outweighs its aesthetic. she’s hoping one day she’ll have a name for the feeling. the universe will continue expanding faster than it’s supposed to. her heart will beat faster than it’s meant to. she’ll take a hit. maybe another. she’ll pick her phone up. open her texts. she’ll wonder, digital picture in hand, if falling in love has always been this hard.

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1/2 ounce coconut rum

1/2 ounce melon liquer 1 ounce peach schnapps 1 ounce banana liquer

2 ounces sweet & sour mix 1/2 ounce blue curacao

Top off with soda water

drink 3: alien urine sample

alien urine sample

the bloody curse of a writer Words by Viv Briseño

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dddddddddd ddd dd dd

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each keyboard stroke pops another scabbed stitch back open— the sticky, salty wetness clinging to the revised draft. the doctor rolls their eyes, looks at their notes: this again? i cough up sorry syllables murdered by memory, the loss again fresh. i wince at the needle under my skin—at least with a tattoo, maybe my body would let it heal. last stitch, you’re free to go. i slide off and back into the waiting room to ask if they take blood donations, if they would make a balloon animal out of my body and set it free, drunkenly circling the building until it heaves a dead stop-sign sigh, deflated.dddd

d ddd d d

d

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Words by Viv Briseño

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i feel op like i’m getting one of those x-rays you get at the dentist, the kind that whirls around you sans jewelry. the o radiation pops the bubbles inside my head, drops to my w w e eyes, and falls over my eyebrows, curving along my jawline, ew eeewew w e w e e e e e e w e e w w e e w e e e ee e e w w w w w chin, and vocal cords. the static decrescendos, slips down eee eeee e e ee my throat and into the pocket my lungs, rippling ebetween w w e e e lens. my sentences bloat into reality with an explosive wide eee e ee alphabet soup arranged ee by a not-so-random random nume eee be able to decipher if i knew the seed. ber generator i’dwonly e w

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my braineeiseewjello. chocolate chip cookies. fuck. e fuck. eee e w w w fuck. w eee e e e e weeeeeeeeeeeweeee fuck.

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alien urine sample Words by Ciena Valenzuela-Peterson

I’m seeing my ex-girlfriend at the function tonight, so I boot up the TerraRender. It takes an old-school organic matter printer forever to chug out a gram, but I don’t trust the cannabinoid beamtech and I can’t afford it anyway. Hardcore stoners pirate TerraRender greenprints, can find you pretty good 3D cell dupes for Pineapple Express or OG Kush, but I’m still kinda a pussy after the newsbyte on that girl who rolled malware into her j. So I just pay Bezos for my greenprints like an obedient denizen. The TerraRender finishes, so I flick the tray to settle the organic matter. The printer’s coolant steam collects near the ceiling, fogging the two basement windows that squint out meager, grotty light. I roll and light up. It used to be you’d have to speak to a real human being to get some weed, maybe even deal with the awkwardness of the Delivery Plus guy lingering on his hovercart, clearly expecting you to give him a hit. The only thing left now is the dispo-lounges, owned by celebrities and dataminer tycoons, and they upcharge for the privilege of company. I live alone—unless you count the flies that perpetually zigzag around the hallway in front of my door, even though the entrance to the basement hall is so far away it shrinks into the distance. My neighbors are all gone—dead, in one old lady’s case, or moved out because they couldn’t take living with these windows, or the way the leaden ground packing us in interferes with beamtech signal. That was my ex’s problem—the signal would cut out for a while and she wouldn’t hear from me. She came banging on my door one time, demanding to know where I’d been. I’d been in bed. I hadn’t noticed the outage, though I guess it had been a few days. The old lady down the hall wasn’t found for a few weeks. It took the smell seeping up into the Erewhon above her unit for people to finally notice. I guess that’s what my ex was worried about. But at least there’s no one around now, no one to bother with the weed smell. Cybersmoke mingles with the haze above. This strain has a webby aftertaste—probably from the cloud. Damn. I cough. There’s a nasty kick, too; I hit it, it hits back. Briefly feels like tumbleweeds are smoldering at the back of my throat. Then, I’m high.

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Time to go. The rest of the party is already pregaming at the birthday boy’s podshare, but I go straight to the karaoke bar where they’re meeting up later. He’s a mutual friend; I’d turn the invite down altogether but I don’t want to worry everyone. I fell out of touch with most of the old college group. I work from home. I pay rent. I sleep alone. I don’t do much. So it’s not like they expect me there. But the invite alone tells me my ex has convinced people there’s a reason to worry about me. I don’t know if she knows I’m coming. I don’t know what I’m going to say to her. I guess I just want to show her I’m still alive. Either way, better to reunite in a loud, dark, unsober environment. The bus pulls up to the stop, belching carbon, but the party still hasn’t migrated over from the pregame. The cyberweed’s crunchy and sizzling behind my face. Cars whiz by, close enough to lift the hair off my neck. The karaoke bar is inside an old mall—Delivery Plus Plaza, according to the neon sign, but several letters are burned out so it just reads live Plus Pl z. I wait inside. The mall’s a fluorescent atrocity from another era, tiled and bluish. The infinitely repeating pattern of columns and empty display windows makes the space look like an early AI-techture build, but it must be older than that. The place is empty—desolate, almost, save for a few stragglers, a generic mall soldier arming the door. The escalator dutifully carries me to the second floor, which opens into a wide atrium with a bay of massage chairs. Old fashioned things—good old plastic and leather. No moonlight makes it through the skylight above, leaving a dark, starless gap in the ceiling. The karaoke bar is the only storefront lit. I lean against a tile column. A man sits alone in a massage chair. He is elderly, drooping in a way that reminds me of shuttered houses, staring unseeingly ahead.

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A spotlight winks on in the middle of the atrium. Like grains of sand forming the shape of an hourglass, particles of light shift and stack upwards into a staticky hologram. It is a woman dressed in a pencil skirt, the size of a doll. An automated voice echoes across the atrium: “Please insert, tap, or scan your chip to start massage.” The man’s wearing a snazzy shirt—colorful, energetic. It looks out of place in this bankrupt mall. He dressed up for something today. He doesn’t move. The hologram does a little wink and dip, and the grains of light spill away. One minute and thirty seconds later, the hologram beams back in. The voice speaks again, but the woman’s lips are just out of sync: “Please insert, tap, or scan your chip to start massage.” She looks like a young Asian woman, but I doubt they hired a real actress to film the hologram. If they did, she must be old by now. I wonder if she has a family. I wonder if the old man imagines she is the one massaging him, not some plastic and leather. She reappears, repeats her message, winks and dips. The man doesn’t move. When my ex left, she called me a zombie. She should see this guy. The hologram materializes, winks and dips. I think I’d rather be a zombie than a hologirl. I’ll rot. I’ll chip a hole in the wall and bury my head in the lead dirt so I don’t eat brains. I’d be okay with that, I guess. If I rot at least I was once alive, and maybe the smell will affect people like that old lady and the Erewhon. I won’t be suspended particles, an image capture of an AI-generated girl, forever 20, winking and dipping every minute and thirty seconds. The woman reappears. The man doesn’t move. Is his chair even on?

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My friends still haven’t shown. I check my chip; it’s been 20 minutes. The fluorescent lights hum, magnified across the atrium. This greenprint really is crap. The man can’t be more than ten yards away from me. The space between us accordions. I want to wail. If he turned his head, he’d catch me staring. The woman speaks again, but she’s not real. We are the only two people here.

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alien urine sample

i love you babe // what else r friends for? // did you send me your address? i’m writing postcards to my friends and would love to send you one too // HELLO BITCH WHEN DID YOU GET SO SEXY // send them when you get published! i’d love to read them! // [Image description: A post by chalcedony that says: “tonight, i called my friends. we didn’t do it for any reason in particular, just to talk. after he hung up, i was filled with this great happiness. i remembered that my friends exist. i am no longer alone.] // Just thinking of kissing you makes me want to throw up. (not homophobic. just you) // I was worried you just died And then I’d have to deal with the pressure of being your final text lol // no i love sharing time with us // let me know when you’ve landed safely! // NO I LITERALLY TELL MY FRIENDS THAT IF WE ARE SINGLE BY 35 WE ARE INVESTING IN REAL ESTATE AND MOVING IN TOGETHER I DONT MAKE THE RULES // we will be companions until we die and then we will haunt someplace together // make sure you get some rest! // in another life i would have really liked doing money laundering and tax evasion with you // i think i’ve realized that i really value my platonic relationships to the level that someone would prioritize their romantic ones // go make out with your bf // i promise that if that happens i will be so normal and not annoying about it // bitch what if we opened a bookshop together // Did you know we’ve known each other for almost ten years // IM IN LOVE // CONGRATS!!!! // love this development for you though // so idk how necessary this is but i also recognize that once my friends get into their own relationships the time i spend with them will decrease // i am now further away from where i was previously // hey girl did you ever feel lonely when your single friends got in relationships // dude impending quarter life crisis // do you wanna read some sad poetry i wrote using munchkin donuts as a metaphor for me dying alone // THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO LOVE OH MY GOD // [Image description: “Now Bill, I need you to cry, and I need you to splash each other, and then I need you to go back to childhood. And then Bill, I need you to realize you cannot go back to childhood. And then I need you to cry like you’ve never cried.” —Bill Hader on Andy Muschietti’s direction during the quarry scene in It: Chapter Two] // you know that scene where jo is like women are amazing but i’m so lonely fucking mood // because you can still be nice to someone and ask how their day was without being friends // i am a brocedes bitch 100% // neither of us like confrontation but we will never been like them // YEAH BUT THE FEAR IS STILL THERE // girl am i stupid—No you just have anxiety // it’s so lonely here it’s ok we will be reunited soon! // walk a little further // have you left yet lol // i’ll always be here for you // we do need to cook sometime love is stored in the kitchen // come whenever and stay however long you want // i miss you too // ILY ALWAYS

😄

💀💀

❤🫶

💀🫡

🎊🎊

💀

Created from individual text messages sent to or from the author’s iPhone. Each color represents a different person.

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honestly our glory days i remember them fondly // they’re still here Words by Angela Liu Read 03:41

closest friend from college. met trauma bonding over prelaw fraternities and have been unbreakable ever since.

high school acquaintance. close friendship forged through writing and remote learning during COVID. have been successfully keeping up a long distance friendship across California.

college friend. met in chinese I and united over chinese diaspora. curiously became closer at the tail end of senior year after a three-hour conversation about formula one in the university dining hall.

close friend from middle school. bonded over five nights at freddy theories during P.E. and have seen each other through the lowest lows and the highest highs.

college friend. met via coffee chat in an economics club. recently losing touch since they moved to new york, but still following their accomplishments via their private instagram and linkedin.

a series of shared tumblr webweavings that somehow ended up in a shared photo album. number not saved in contacts.

college friend. met during a research conference and organized a powerpoint night for the cohort. they presented each research fellow as a type of chicken, while the author presented each fellow as a kdrama trope.

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old friend and tennis rival. the extroverted golden retriever who adopted the black cat (author). a friendship bonded by effort, commitment, and love due to distance and differing personalities.

1 1/2 ounces absinthe

4 1/2 ounces chilled champagne

drink 4: death in the afternoon

death in the afternoon

11:11 AM Words by Holly B. McCauley

A man in a flannel shirt and jeans sits behind a desk. The table in front of him is covered by a bag full of papers, a legal pad, two pens, an iPad, and a desktop computer. The wall behind him holds a bookshelf full of multi-colored spines. I sit across from him in a chair meant for a dining room. I ask him to tell me who he is. Where he came from. What weighs on him. He looks silently at the sleeping computer for a moment before speaking.

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“I was born at 11:11am. On August 21st. And I’ve always liked seven and one. Powerful numbers for me. And I was born in ‘61. So there’s a seven there And twenty-one is seven times three, whatever. You can do the numerology thing all sorts of ways. I don’t know, I think they’re just important numbers to me. They pop up a lot. I moved to Los Angeles in May of ‘91. But I think that the Northridge earthquake was the first time I felt like an Angeleno in some way. I was living in the Fairfax District then. When that quake hit, it was huge. There was a moment where I remember thinking, ‘we’re gonna have to get out of this building, because it’s going to come down.’ It was all those old wood beam, you know, duplexes. And so the sound of it, it just was like listening to the wood beams and walls banging against each other. That’s what I remember. That and the car alarms. How loud it all was. And afterwards— it was, like, 4:30 in the morning— no electricity.

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So my entire block— everybody on my street— was out in the street, which did not happen. And we were all talking and somebody was, you know, in their car because they could get radio from the car, so they were getting news. And we were… there was something kind of… there was like a perverse camaraderie or something. We had survived this thing. We were in this thing together. You know? The thing about living with earthquakes is that it becomes about preparing for any kind of big uncertainty, like anything could happen at any time. I love California. But if I’m going to stay here, I’ve got to figure out how to reckon with these things. I did talk to a Red Cross disaster specialist who’s, you know, he’s giving me all this— some practical stuff for my book on earthquakes. And I said, ‘And then once you have all your stuff, right, once you have your kit and your water and whatever, then what do you do?’ And he goes,

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‘Forget about it.’ And I go, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘There is such a thing as healthy denial.’ He’s like, ‘If you think about it every day, you will not be able to live.’ What do you do with that? You find ways to live with the uncertainty. There’s all these little tricks I wrote about in my book. Like the animals can tell when an earthquake is coming. The birds, really. They go silent. So I tell myself the birds will stop singing three hours before an earthquake. And if it seems unnaturally quiet, that’s a dangerous time. So I always like to reflexively listen for them every time I step outside. I know I’m an anxious person. But every day in Los Angeles it’s like, ‘Are the birds singing?’”

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death in the afternoon Features

the girls Words by Harriet Taylor

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July 2020. The summer is eternal and so is my screen. The air is stifling and hot. At twenty I am new to my second decade of living, but I have only come of age in the legal sense. Life is on perpetual pause. I’m living in a suspension of amniotic fluid pickled with coronavirus. I am a squirming larva. Restless mush. I have recently discovered the disappointment of losing a third of my weight and still being in the same body—stretch marks, tummy, and all. I don’t know who I am, but I want to be beautiful. I spend ninety percent of my time in my bedroom cocoon, waiting for dawn. Of that time, I spend copious hours on my phone. I swim through Instagram like it’s a swamp, looking for aesthetics to leech off of. I treat it like a job. I take the night shift. When I see her in the early morning, I understand why the light must come. A girl leaning over the camera, encapsulated in a moment of afternoon bliss. She wears a black bikini, which is mostly concealed by her honey hair stroking the dip in her waist. It flows, wisps in the breeze. She wears a bandana tied horizontally around her head. Her frame is strong and soft in perfect measure, and her tan skin shines against her gold necklaces. She is watched by an impossibly blue sky as faithful palm trees cheer her on. She is as free as time. I examine closer. Her face holds its flawlessly designed features with pride. Her nose is straight and present. Her lashes cradle her large eyes while her cheeks glow with the same natural rouge that emanates from her soft, blessed lips. She smiles easily as she takes herself in, teeth slightly sharp and turned inward. Everything points towards a distant eastern place where dreams are cast in a magic haze. She is a Romantic, a muse from a Florentine painting. She radiates a luminous aura as though she runs the stars; as though she officiates marriages between the Sun and her planets. This girl has inherited the light and it loves her like a daughter. Her name is Helena. I am an easy catch.

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I spend long days on her profile. I obsess over the way she knows herself— the way her style blends the bohemian into the modern without ever being too obvious. The way she posts oceanside flowers to prove her eye for art. I simply stare at her face and know who I want to be. I study Helena like a test, a loyal student. She only has five hundred and thirteen followers, so I must be careful. I leave no trace, only ever watching her highlights and never watching her stories. By August, I discover the basics. Helena is eighteen months older than me. She’s a Cancer to my Capricorn. She has an Italian Greyhound named Marigold and a boyfriend named Paul; they live in Ventura together. Helena loves Madison Beer and occasionally goes rock climbing. Each post of hers gives me another goal. I scour Depop for a vintage sweatshirt she wears without any bottoms to the beach. I survey sites based all the way in India just so I can buy the same incense holder as the one on her nightstand. We like some of the same 70s music, which gives me hope that my bombshell metamorphosis is possible. I catch more glimpses of her life, and I can’t help but to indulge myself. Helena’s only friends seem to be her infinite relatives, which would normally be a red flag, but someone who holds beauty like she does cannot be measured by markers of the average person. It takes me a while, but by September I have it all mapped out. Helena is the middle child of seven and has three younger sisters. She is particularly close to her seventeen-year-old cousin, Leigh. This stumps me because I cannot recreate the conditions of Helena’s support system, which must feed into her glow like a lush stream to the Nile. I can only observe. By October, Helena has gone into hibernation and I am becoming increasingly impatient for content. I need affirmation that I am on the right track, for a student cannot grade their own work. I research her family’s profiles for the sport of curiosity. I inspect old photos, looking for Helena’s

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footsteps so I can know how she became the light. Eventually, I find a Facebook profile that must belong to Helena’s mother. Ingrid is an unremarkable woman. Her long gray hair and wrinkles are worn in. She straddles the line between comforting and scary, and I note that there’s an air of decay about her face. There’s an uneasy feeling in my sixth spidey sense. Quickly, I understand why. Portraits of the Virgin Mary adorn Ingrid’s timeline like they’re close relatives. I know what’s coming. Nevertheless, I fall down the rabbit hole, suckling like a piglet on rancid milk. The number of posts is astonishing—anti-vax quotes, QAnon graphics, videos of priests with dishonest eyes. I deduce that Ingrid spends as much time on I’d-suckTrump’s-dick-if-I-could Facebook as I spend admiring her daughter. I cackle. Ingrid’s homophobia is so biblically old school that it’s actually quite camp, but I’m cut off by the incriminating photo: There Helena is, in a giant car, waving fascist Trump flags and sporting a MAGA hat like it grew from her own head. My fruit turns sour. But it’s too late. I feel my blood congeal in hatred. How can such beautiful faces think such ugly thoughts? Is this why I can’t have nice things? If Helena was someone I knew in reality, I would cut her off, block her, evict her from my life. With a presidential election coming up, she’s bound to do more damage. But there is something magnetic about my bond to her. It is the most intimate thing to see right through someone—through a lens that can only be of my own making. It’s poison. This monster is my little Frankenstein. This, in fact, is my breakthrough. Helena eventually posts again, pouting by the sea. I form my plan, which ripples through my mind like a syrupy dessert. If I can’t be beautiful, I can at least get my sweet, sticky revenge. I latch on and bite hard.

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Am I a sicko? For the next three years, I follow Helena and her family’s every move. I watch wretched gatherings, despair over Biden’s win, kids getting boyfriends and then getting dumped by said boyfriends, the tears, the mommy issues, new houses, old fights. Everyone gets coronavirus and suffers without the vaccine. I still think Helena is alluring, but her smile is starting to look like a creepy Cheshire Cat. Shark teeth. I gather my strength. I witness Helena’s two youngest cousins convert from SoCal indie kids to cowboy Republicans. I have fantasies of being a guest at the family dinner table and saying something that’ll gently encourage them to use their brains—if only I could make them see. Or I could drop verbal bombs and watch their faces shrivel in horror. But then I remind myself to focus. There is nothing I can do except help myself. I continue to feed. A cold wind blows. A pair of winters pass. With each spring, Helena seems to emerge weaker than before. She has lost a lot of weight. Where once were sovereign limbs now hang bony tendrils. Hollow cheeks, frail hummingbird. Plain white cotton and ugly frills cover where Indian silks used to worship. Her only accessory is her concave stomach. She is pale. Three years ago, Helena bathed in the sun. Now, she drowns in it. Thin bodies will always be lauded, but Helena’s conversion to conventional trends is my victory. She now looks like every other mermaidcore Bella Hadid wannabe on this godforsaken app. Ultimately, Helena has become forgettable. A face amongst many. My job is finally complete. You see, I have facilitated a simple transfer. A masterclass in puppetry. Helena will never not be pretty—looks are a stubborn thing—but I have taken from her the ability to possess beauty, to have it act at will and bewitch the stranger’s eye. I have stolen what she has never deserved. She has lost her throne in the sky.

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You see, I have feasted on virtual flesh. I have absorbed pixel nutrients. I am replete. And now, I have come into my own. I may not be outwardly beautiful, but my body is redwood-sturdy. I have acquired the mental grace of a beautiful spirit, a being of the earth and not an illusion. The cord is cut. The carcass will dispose of itself. It is finally time to say goodbye. I emerge from my incubation and take flight. While Helena will expire in summers that infest the soul, I will hitch a ride to the winter And thrive among the shadows, lurking where I belong; Where it’s much more interesting To inherit the dark Than to rot in the light.

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death in the afternoon

a

e

ss o l

d n i n

g n i t rif

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Words by Laura Wencel

i learn to drive in my roommate’s honda civic in the parking lot of a Pakistani restaurant we love, and she says i’m not allowed to touch the gas, “hands at 10 and 2 o’clock,” but i can lift my foot off the brake gently (though i never learned that way), so i yank it up and my god! we barrel forward onto a velvet highway, past an old jack in the box, through the fog of my granddad’s sigh, down the back of an extinguished horse that i loved once, and suddenly i’m plowing through the bleached curls that are growing out of your no-longer shaved head, holding my hand out to touch the lavender blooming there, but it smells like sweat instead, so i close my eyes because everything is blurry outside the car window moving quickly like that, and the honda is humming songs we used to dance to, and suddenly i’m parked on your balcony, but I’m too heavy for the ikea furniture i built for you, so i’m looking across at you because you won’t look back at me, and the air smells/is thick like toothpaste, so i can’t move closer to hear you half-whisper i thought i was supposed to teach you to drive but i can’t hear you because i’m ten steps deep into your eyes, and everything you say has wrapped itself around my ears, and i can’t focus on how you didn’t want to move away, or maybe it was that i couldn’t stay, or whatever it was that i can’t remember now because like i said, everything is blurry outside the window and that’s when my foot hits the brake and sara jolts forward and tells me i have a heavy foot, so i’ve decided to put off driving for a little longer, but i think i’m proud of myself for trying anyway.

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death in the afternoon

High Noon Words by BEE LB

When I hear shoot your shot I think hipdraw on horseback. Standoff at dusk. Shootoff at dawn. Gunsmoke as foreplay. Metal burn as main course. Pistol fucking as sloppy seconds. When I hear shoot your shot I stand with my chest out, copper blue bolo tie the brightest thing about me. Make eyes at the black suede cowboy hat more than the man wearing it. Commit to paying a month’s rent for cowboy boots. Let fear and desire kiss with tongue at the weight of a gun in the palm of my hand. When I hear shoot your shot I think russian roulette while riding cowgirl. I think I have to say cowgirl so you know what I mean but really I mean bucking bronc. Hip bounce. Twisting nasty to get a reaction. I mean the click of an empty barrel and blown wide eyes. I mean threat. No risk assessment. All dirty dare. Muddy boots on motel bed. Stetson hanging off the nightstand. Springs squeaking and tv fuzzing and light shining on sweat dripping. When I hear shoot your shot I think of playing hooky with body heat. Saddle, stirrups, spurs. Chaps. Assless goes without saying, real cowpokes know. Real cowboys use a cattle-prod. Barbed wire. Loose lead. Fitted halter. Tight tack. Head stall. Bridle. By now the gun should’ve gone off. Someone got distracted. Cleared the cartridge. Not even powder burns from the muzzle to soothe me.

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tonight's the night, i'm the magician Words by BEE LB can there be a theft worth wasting for? sure, why not. tonight anything’s possible. everyone reading my poems gets tired of me using “anything” as a shorthand for anything. i’m in love with possibility, with the future unfolding in front of me and using that specific image, like a road with oil-spill shine, brain-made image (as all images are). i would like the disaster of my personality to become beautiful again. frank would hate me, as most poets would, and i love him for it. i would like him to fry me an egg or scramble it. i would like to chop green onions to top it or wrap around the tine of my fork like a ring on a finger. where else would a ring go? you tell me! there are no kids here, right? it’s past their bedtime. i’m in love with bedtime, with dreams that follow me to sleep. waking to a bed not empty or warm. you’ve started replying to my desperate admissions of desire with easy to want more as if that means anything. if it doesn’t mean anything it could mean anything i choose. oh, let me fall in love or cliche, are they not the same thing? when i told you i thought i was bad at kissing i really did mean it to warn you, but i was just along for the ride. i love being your passenger princess. i love the tiara sitting on my nightstand, the way light shines against it, the way it could mean anything i want it to, and so it means beauty or power, which are the same thing. when i think of magic i think of the rabbit disappearing into the hat, crying hanky tears over the dramatics of it all, clown makeup running down my poor sad face. what do you think of ? i think of you thinking of me crying and giving me anything i want. that’s magic. that’s all i’d ever ask for.

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2 ounces vodka

1/2 ounce coffee liqueur (usually Kahlua) 1 ounce espresso, freshly brewed (or cold brew concentrate)

1/2 ounce simple syrup

Garnish with coffee beans

drink 5: espresso martini

Shot by Anjali Sareen

espresso martini Trigger warning: This piece contains mentions of sexual assault https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/16dgygn/letters_from_ashton_kutcher_mila_kunis_and_others/

deepthroatcircus • 2 mo. ago "He has always treated people with decency, equality, and generosity" Ashton, I guess you missed the part where he r*ped five people.

Dear Mr. Kutcher, I have attached images of grammatical edits that I would recommend you take into consideration. I also recommend that from here on out you have someone else write anything that may possibly be seen by the public, as your grammar is atrocious. That said, I would like to give you some advice on writing a letter like this in the first place. First, your “role model” of the past twenty five years is a man who was convicted on multiple counts of drugged sexual assault over the past twenty years that you’ve known him? No matter how good of a person you believe him to be, that doesn’t paint you in a very flattering light. Everyone has made bad friend choices in their life, but you need to pick a different role model. You begin painting your picture of him by saying, “he’s extraordinarily honest and intentional human being. Over 25 year relationship I don’t ever recall him lying to me.” You cannot possibly believe this is true in any positive way. Danny Masterson spent the last twenty five years of his life lying to you every single day and keeping secrets from you about what he does in his free time. Of course, he’s an “intentional human being”. That goes without saying. People who drug and rape others don’t do it by accident; it’s done intentionally, and then they intentionally keep that part of themselves from everyone in their life. That is what people do, especially people like Danny, who have something to hide. Are you saying this is a good thing? You agree that he was intentionally terrible? How does this showcase his good character?

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Your second paragraph spends a great deal of time talking about Danny’s dislike of anyone who has done drugs of any kind; and yet, we know for a fact that he uses drugs on other people to get what he wants. Perhaps instead of painting a flattering picture of his character, you have instead shed light onto his low opinion of the women that he raped. Perhaps it could be argued that while he kept you—someone who he sees as having the same amount of power that he has—away from drugs, his drugging of these women shows that he thinks of them as much less than you or himself. You write, “if I were to do drugs, he wouldn’t want to be friends with me, which is something I never would want to risk or jeopardize”, which isn’t a flattering thing to say about him, either. This is not something that a good friend would make you fear. Your examples of situations in which he has shown himself to be a good person and friend are vague, lacking detail, or otherwise non-existent. You paint him as a manipulative, fickle, and judgemental human being. I assume that is not the angle you’re going for. Finally, your sign-off is too informal and completely inappropriate for this kind of letter. You sound like you’re writing an email to a friend, not a character reference to a court judge. However, with everything else that you put into it, that makes sense. I appreciate you sending this over to me, and I hope to receive payment shortly. Unfortunately, I do not have the bandwidth to go over another draft, if you choose to write one. The best of luck to you, sir, and I look forward to reading about this in the Hollywood Reporter! Sincerely, Cal Geib

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espresso martini

transgender fail movies: Buffalo Bill and a Short History

of Trans-Reveal Villains in Horror Words by Julian Avrith

When I told my friends I was researching what I called “transgender fail movies” for a class paper and asked if they wanted to watch any with me, they vehemently denied. This was the same group that was willing to sit through Vampire Boys, a softcore gay porn movie with a feature film runtime and awful blue color grading about a gang of shirtless vampires and this random deep plunge v-neck t-shirt twink they think is the “chosen one.” Meanwhile, the “transgender fail” movies I was proposing were reasonably well remembered in pop culture, like Sleepaway Camp, Dressed to Kill, Ace Ventura, and Silence of the Lambs. So, what gives? As I’d come to find out, it’s the difference between something that’s bad in execution and something that’s bad in content and representation. In this review, I’ll be dissecting the one movie I got them to (re)watch with me, Silence of the Lambs, and try to find out why Buffalo Bill left such a bad taste in my and other transgender people’s mouths.

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Vito Russo’s book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, published in 1985, is one of the first major studies on roles occupied by LGBT characters in film. It revealed the two options for queer representation in movies: be freaks or psychopaths, or have queerness be written out entirely, especially if the movie was adapted from another work. Silence of the Lambs does both. The protagonist, Clarice Starling, is an FBI agent in training who tries to talk to Hannibal Lecter, a cunning psychiatrist and cannibal, but is roped into tracking a serial killer named Buffalo Bill with Hannibal’s help. Jame Gumb, also known as Buffalo Bill, captures women, leaves them in a pit for a few days, skins them, and uses their skin to make a “woman suit” for himself. Jame’s motive? He wants to become a woman. In one iconic scene, he dons a victim's scalp as a wig, puts on makeup, adjusts a nipple ring, and dances in a sheer, butterfly robe in the mirror. Despite this, Hannibal infamously tells Clarice during a meeting that Gumb is not actually transgender, like she assumed, because transgender people are “usually docile.” Because Gumb is a serial killer, he is not transgender, as if both conditions should occupy the same space in one’s psyche. Silence of the Lambs follows a monster theory about the category crisis that leads to the classic othering of trans people. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a decorated literary analyst specializing in monster theory, proposes seven theses about why monsters are formed and how they are depicted in his essay Monster Culture (Seven Theses). His third thesis, “The Monster is the Harbinger of a Category Crisis,” describes that monsters can scare us because they do not fit into binary categories; for example, werewolves aren’t just a wolf or a person, they are both, and that isn’t seen in the natural world (Cohen 6). In Jame’s case, the categorization crisis is societal. According to the movie, he isn’t transgender—he’s something else entirely. However, the movie portrays Jame acting feminine as monstrous. After rewatching the movie recently with a friend, they pointed out that the camera techniques employed in Jame’s aforementioned “transformation” montage (the butterfly robe one) are intended to create discomfort—long, zoomed in, and unmoving. Sylvia Howard, trans woman and journalist, describes in her article “I Feel Sorry for Jame Gumb” that their mother got through Hannibal wearing the skinned face of a police officer, but walked out during Jame’s

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scene, saying “I can’t stomach f*g scenes.” Additionally, Hannibal’s character persisted in pop culture while Buffalo Bill’s fizzled out. Besides what we can glean from the movie itself, we know for a fact that this depiction was intentional. Jonathan Demme, the director, further explained his intentions for Buffalo Bill in an interview with The Daily Beast: “[ Jame]’s not a traditional “cross-dresser,” “transvestite,” or “drag queen”—the various labels that respectfully come up for people who love to don the clothing of the opposite gender.” Besides Demme’s quote being semantically incorrect (cross-dresser, transvestite, and drag queen are not equivalent terms, nor always considered respectful), he is again asserting that Jame is fundamentally different from a transgender person. Critics of the movie argue differently. Harmony Colangelo, a trans woman and experienced pop culture writer for multiple movie magazines, writes in her article “30 Years In: A reluctant defense of Silence Of The Lambs' Jame Gumb,” that “if the insistence is that the character was not trans or gay, then there is no reason to include those aspects, other than to sensationalize and exploit the “perversion” of queer people for the shock of cis, straight moviegoers. Essentially, this movie is hovering its finger over all of the things it is denying, while chanting, ‘I’m not touching you,’ over and over.” As opposed to being a person who’s transgender, the movie ties Gumb’s transness to his monstrosity. Buffalo Bill is not the first of his kind—he descends from a long line of transgender villains (like me). According to Cohen, this archetype appearing so often reflects the hallmarks of a cultural monster. He explains this in two theses: “The Monster Always Comes Back” and “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body.” In thesis two, “The Monster Always Comes Back”, Cohen explains that the same monster can be used in different pieces of media to represent multiple things. Thesis one, “The Monster as a Cultural Body”, states that monsters are born out of the fear a certain culture has. Each time it is resurrected, it inhabits a new cultural space and morphs to retain its terror throughout time. Buffalo Bill is what could be called a “trans-reveal villain,” an antagonist of a movie whose motive for whatever crime they’re getting up to is revealed to be inherently tied to their transness. The “trans-reveal” archetype can be traced back to the classic Hitchcock film Psycho’s Norman Bates. Bates is a reserved and awkward owner of the Bates Motel. Whenever Bates feels attracted to a woman, Mother—the alter ego of his dead, abusive mother

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Norma—takes over and kills the woman. While Mother is in control, Norman wears a wig and a dress. Published in 1960, the movie’s version of Norman Bates represented the nation’s current fears of psychopathy and sexual deviance, including transgenderism. The latter was partially inherited from the serial killer Bates was based on, Ed Gein. Gein was known for killing and keeping trophies of his victims. He also considered transitioning to be a woman, and was known to the worried American public as a “transvestite.” It is not surprising Norman Bates is portrayed as feminine; he represents the death of masculinity and the rise of queerness that was invalidated as mental illness. His transgender identity is shown as a symptom of both. What makes Gumb a monster is influenced by the same ideas that inspired Norman Bates. It is implied that Gumb being abused by his family (like Norman) led to an incredible self-loathing, and thus a desire for transformation. Like Bates, Gumb was concocted at another time when queer people were receiving media attention. In the eighties, talk shows such as Donahue and The Oprah Winfrey Show started interviewing gay, lesbian, and trans people on live television as the HIV/AIDS crisis swept the nation. While gay people were receiving attention, the media simultaneously linked them to the lethal disease. It may seem like a good thing that the LGBT community was getting screen time, but it is important to remember how media is produced for the masses. In an interpretation of Vito Russo’s work on gay representation in The Celluloid Closet, Gordene Olga Mackenzie wrote in her book Transgender Nation, “popular film and TV portrayals with gay characters were not made for gays or by gays, but rather of mainstream audiences to consume images of gays within the context of dominant ideology.” Gay people were largely interviewed for the purposes of getting good ratings from the straight, cisgender audiences who consumed it. These sensationalized interviews became the cishet public’s frame of reference for understanding anyone who identified outside of the norm. In fact, in the 1980 transgender fail movie Dressed to Kill, the director, Brian De Palma, includes one of these interviews in the movie to serve as context for his trans-reveal villain. His take on the interview was included in the blu-ray DVD of the movie, where he said: “At that point on television suddenly there were a lot of transsexuals being interviewed on these

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talk shows… This concept of being in the wrong body. It’s almost like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde idea, at least the way I was looking at it.” Hello?!? Like Mackenzie describes, he saw the interview through a straight lens and derived, “Ah, different than me. Scary!”, and went on to say that with his full chest. I shouldn’t have to write a conclusion sentence, I just want to thank De Palma for all the hard work he did making an example out of himself for my review. As I was saying, many cishet Americans, Demme included, were obviously not immune to the perceived link between psychopathy and transgenderism. As Julie Tharp writes in her article "The Transvestite as Monster,” “Bill’s character exploits anxiety over gender and sexuality. His confusion and dissatisfaction with his own nature are expressed, as most dilemmas seem to be in America, in violent terms.” In these movies, being transgender doesn’t just make one a monster and an outcast, but a danger to society. Paradoxically so, if we remember how Silence of the Lambs tries to bribe the viewer into thinking Jame Gumb is something other than transgender because he is a killer. How Johnathan Demme writes Buffalo Bill shows a cultural progression in understanding trans and queer people, but reveals Hollywood’s attachment to stereotypes perpetuated by popular transgender characters, such as Norman Bates. Trans-reveal villains are an American cultural monster born out of the fear of sexual deviance, psychopathy, and the general reaction of confusion to newfound exposure to the word “transvestite.” They appear in movies of the past few decades to represent the general public’s current understanding and fears of the queer community. It’s understandable, then, why transgender fail movies were such a hard sell to my group of transgender gay friends. Despite all of Vampire Boy’s flaws, it was directed by Charlie Vaughn, and if his description on his March 18, 2023 Instagram post is to be believed (and it should), he has been “Gay since Day One”. Silence of the Lambs is an incredible movie. But whenever Buffalo Bill is on screen, I feel like I’m being made fun of behind my back.

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Shot by Marjan Alagheband 67

espresso martini

NO MORE HEROES Words by Miguel Guzmán

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Billions of dollars spent. Billions more made. Now, it all culminated in this: the ‘endgame.’ Avengers: Endgame, to be exact. I decided to partake in this grand cinematic opus by seeing it at the most spectacular movie theater of all, the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. I sat next to my friend, another Marvel fanatic, with whom I’ve seen the last several films. We were in our preferred seats—the middle of the first row at least fifty feet away from the screen, providing a good buffer and perfectly wrapping the screen’s curve around your field of view. When the previews ended, you could feel the energy rising in the theater. When the Marvel Studios logo appeared, I primed all my senses to focus on the screen.

I woke up around the film’s halfway point, unsure when I started dozing off. Hawkeye was staring at the glowing orange soul stone in his hand, crying with a little pouty face. “What happened?” I asked my friend. He seemed offended. He told me Black Widow killed herself for the Soul Stone. I assumed this was an emotional moment for the audience, but I felt nothing. Black Widow’s death was a copied and pasted dud. This scenario occurred in the last movie when Thanos shoved Gamora off the same computer-rendered cliff for the same reason. Her death was among a sea of deaths as Thanos eliminated half the universe’s population in the previous movie. With a numbness towards death and a new appreciation for time that would make Stephen Hawking smile down at me from atheist heaven, I approached the final act with more scrutiny as I broke down the production process in my mind. With all the CGI effects, the director probably had the actors standing around in front of a giant green screen for most of the film’s scenes. Some characters, like the Hulk, Thanos, Groot, and Rocket, existed only as polygons, as their respective actors provided their voices and were rigged with motion capture tools for the computer animators. Nothing is wrong with using computer effects in these movies to bring these comic book worlds and characters to life. These films do not use these techniques in the way traditional animated films do to portray a unique

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art style. Instead, Marvel’s digital denizens and environments try to coexist with the real actors and sets to make this fantasy world more believable. This is not easy to do, and Endgame required more restraint from the use of these effects than the scale of the film would allow. The movie felt more like a video game as a result of all these untamed digital creations dancing before my eyes. This viewpoint would inject itself with steroids in the film’s final act. As the film trudged to its grand finale, the CGI Hulk snapped his CGI fingers and reversed Thanos’ blip, thus bringing everyone back for a showdown on some CGI planet. I wondered how anyone understood what was going on in the onslaught of rendered imagery. Thanos’s digital army lined up against seemingly every damn character from each of these movies. Black Panther and the Wakandan army marched in through their interdimensional gateway. Dr. Strange and his sorcerers readied themselves with their CGI magic shields. The missing Guardians of the Galaxy characters returned. The audience cheered as these blipped characters charged in through their interdimensional portals and my eyes needed Ritalin. I felt like I was visiting the rich kid whose parents spoiled them with all the action figures and playsets. The film focused on some of the action with its skirmishes between Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor against Thanos, but the bacchanalia of flesh and virtual insanity had done its work. As the battle commenced, it was like that rich kid had thrown all the toys into a jumbled mess. My suspension of disbelief had disintegrated.

The final epic galactic battle left me feeling empty because this fictional world had no rules or consequences to it. Sure, a few self-sacrifices were made, but if the writers don’t like it, they can just travel back in time and have someone snap their fucking fingers to make it all better. What was supposed to be the most emotional part of the mixed reality green screen spectacle arrived when Iron Man died. He snapped his fingers with the Infinity Stones to make everything good again and said, “I am Iron Man.” His human body wrapped in fake digital armor could not handle the power of the stones like the Hulk and Thanos could, and his body shriveled into something that reminded me of a dry piece of dog poop. For some reason, I blurted out, “He looks like a shriveled piece of shit.” I could feel the glares and hear a few gasps from my outburst.

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There was little to no relation to reality or actual human emotion with what I was watching—something the earlier Marvel movies, such as the first Iron Man with Tony Stark facing the consequences of being an arms manufacturer, were able to achieve. The movie ended with a funeral, one of the few scenes that looked real (until there was a CGI Hulk in a suit and a SHIELD ship in the background). This movie reduced itself to fan service, sci-fi war porn, and cute little quips like “I love you three thousand” followed by the obligatory post-credit scene someone in the audience would record and then upload to YouTube.

When we were outside the theater on Sunset Boulevard, my friend looked around to make sure no one was near us and said, “Man, that guy you were sitting next to was pissed off about what you said.” “Really?” He nodded. As we journeyed through the parking garage to find the car, I wondered how the comment about dried piece poop managed to anger and offend. Was I much of a hypocrite if I judged my colleagues on this self-discovery? With the audience’s blank zombie-like expressions, and spilled popcorn buckets, was I any less guilty of propping up these false idols by ogling over the movies that came before and led to this bloated mess? Did these people really care more about Iron Man than the working man (or woman, or person) or about Captain America than, well, real America? In the minds and hearts of these adult children it seems the real heroes of yesteryear, the ones who put everything on the line for what they believed in, like Martin Luther King Jr. or Cesar Chavez, have been replaced. Even famous entertainers, like John Lennon and Marlon Brando, who risked their stardom for causes they believed in, cease to exist. Now? You get made-up Iron Man to look up to or some sell-out celeb (or trash influencer) selling you a corporately approved half-assed stand designed to make a quick buck and nab a few likes for user engagement.

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Thor, Spider-man, Black Panther, and their fictional ilk are destined to save the universe in the MCU from galactic threats. Back on Earth, we don’t get superheroes to help with issues such as social justice, income inequality, or climate change. Mass media does not provide us with any portrayal of the struggles and consequences of promoting solutions to these problems. Marvel offers the most basic interpretation of societal justice without the complexities and nuances of real-world issues. These are vague juvenile presentations of complex issues by corporate apparatchiks to make money but without any conclusion or commitment to the actual social issues. Avengers: Endgame was wise not to make this leap, but Marvel has dabbled in these issues with other movies that featured some of the film’s heroes. The three films that come to mind ensconced with the idea that they are valid progressive cultural products are the two Black Panther movies and Captain Marvel. The result of these attempts is diluted, and effectively meaningless. Black Panther was allegedly a watershed moment in racial equity as Disney created the first blockbuster film that starred a black superhero (sorry, Blade!) with a black supporting cast that featured the Afrofuturist country of Wakanda. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, but whatever progressive point the film’s promotion was trying to make was lip service as the plot barely touched upon themes of racism and equity—with the character of the white CIA agent Everett Ross having a change of heart over his dismissive view of Wakanda and with the vague goal of Killmonger, the film’s antagonist, to distribute Vibranium weapons to oppressed black people to enact revenge. Wakanda Forever, a movie I liked even more than its predecessor, lightly touched on the devastation caused to Mesoamericans by Spanish colonizers when depicting the origin of Namor, the film’s villain, but also confuses its messaging as its central conflict depicts a race war between Africans and indigenous Mayans. Marvel’s first movie with a female lead, Captain Marvel, served as incel and sexist troll bait due to its existence and, like Black Panther, really only pretended to be a political creature in its marketing. As those who espouse these views are idiots, it comes as no shock that the diagnosed reason for their vitriol is delusional. There are nods and winks of girl power as our hero, whose abilities are derived from the warp drive of a spaceship, handily takes on the creepy nineties men who try and boss her around early in the film. Sure, our hero was unfairly manipulated by her male mentor Yon-Rogg, but his comeuppance near the finale offered only an eyelash to any themes of feminism as

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Captain Marvel completely outmatched him in their final skirmish. When Captain Marvel’s true powers are unleashed, the conflict is fought internally and a montage of moments in her childhood where she literally gets back up after falling down intends to showcase how she never gives up. A work of Judith Butler this was not. It may seem unfair to pick on the cultural significance of expensive superhero movies that exist to make money when they make a rudimentary effort at tackling societal issues. However, these issues are not simple or basic. They are real and, in any sincere effort, require realism in their portrayal on screen from people willing to do what is necessary to see it through. Can movies do these portrayals justice? Maybe. The late Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed the Black Panther, also played the role of Jackie Robinson in the biopic 42. Boseman’s powerful performance as the legendary baseball player who battled racial intolerance and segregation showed us that superheroes can be real and that social justice requires a dose of reality, not childish corporate half-winks with comic book characters and an opioidlike addiction to CGI. Hopefully, we can all realize that too.

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1/2 ounce vodka 1/2 ounce rum

1/2 ounce tequila 1/2 ounce gin

1/2 ounce blue curaçao

2 ounces sweet-and-sour mix Top off with Sprite

Garnish with lemon wedge & preserved cherry

drink 6: adios, motherfucker

adios, motherfucker

feminomenon!

Pop culture is back, baby. What a summer we’ve had. After spending far too much on concert and movie tickets, we’ve seen it all. Whether the entertainment came from media giants or up-and-coming creators, it’s clear that the past few months have been an explosion of art and creativity. Join Pornstar Martini’s very own Editor in Chief, Harriet Taylor, and Reviews & Criticism Editor, Jazmin Polido, as we dissect what went—and what’s still—going down. What does this flurry mean for storytelling, for narrative, and for the little media rats who want nothing more than to chew up content (us)? Follow our journey as we catch up on a whirlwind summer.

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Harriet Taylor: How are we, Jazmin? Jazmin Polido: I’m sitting in my bed. I’m tired. I cried to Elemental this morning. What about you? HT: I feel like I’m in an outer space jungle. Mosquito town. I actually feel as though I’ve emerged from my little larva cocoon this summer. JP: I’ve had to adjust to being back in huge communal spaces and preparing to go out for concerts and movies—curating the clothes, the makeup, the vibes. We haven’t had that in a long time! HT: So true. The process of preparation. It feels like taking a sacrament for whichever cult you’re about to join that night. There’s nothing like the sacred ritual of getting ready. JP: Or not. HT: Highly recommend getting last minute tickets, by the way. Both laugh. JP: What I’m hinting at is the historic summer for art and media we’ve just had, especially for women and LGBTQ+ folks. There have been a lot of big global entertainment events: Barbie, The Eras Tour, The Renaissance World Tour. HT: And a lot of exciting happenings from smaller creators. The release of Bottoms, Olivia Rodrigo’s album, Chappell Roan’s album (which we credit for the title of this piece), Hemlock Springs’ EP, and Måneskin’s album. Even Rock n’ Roll is back! JP: It’s so exciting to see art of all scales and audiences flourishing. Having seen Chappell at USC’s Femfest this year, it’s amazing to see her skyrocketing at the moment!

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HT: Definitely. Femme and queer media are enjoying a moment in the mainstream. What’s interesting is we can really see the process of artistry in each creation. There are so many visuals, so much maximalism. Everything has a theme, and each theme is about inclusion in some sense because we as audiences get to participate. JP: Beyonce’s tour had such a good grip on that feel. With 70,000 people in SoFi Stadium celebrating queer culture, there was such a feeling of communal joy that made me quite emotional. Even the pre-show screen was that TV glitch with the progress pride flag colors. HT: And that anxiety-inducing hold music that felt like we were all in Beyonce’s metaphorical birth canal. Mother is birthing the queers. JP: That was similar to how Taylor Swift played “Applause” by Lady Gaga, and that was everyone’s cue to sit down. HT: It felt like an invitation to enter that space. Are you ready to be part of something unforgettable? JP: Can we talk about the rising aesthetic of Americana gay? Beyoncé and Chappell Roan both use cowgirl imagery to reference queerness. Taylor, who is literally Miss Americana, performs the most cottagecore lesbian Folklore/Evermore set. It’s giving “Make America Gay Again.” HT: All so iconic. And the Renaissance album is both a beautiful tribute to Beyonce’s uncle and a wonderful piece of musical research into Black queer culture. HT: The queers are the engine behind the summer renaissance. Regardless of whether or not artists are queer, I just want to step back and appreciate the visibility. It’s a celebration of the things we can do when we come together. JP: At the same time, however, there are still forces that wish to divide. There’s an insane amount of comparison, especially between women: Whose tour made the most? Who did it better? Down to tip jars in Starbucks.

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ON AIR

HT: The idea that there isn’t room for multiple artists to be at the top of their game is so capitalistic. It encourages people to hate on artists in bigoted ways, for example, people who use racism to prove Taylor is “better” than Beyoncé. JP: Why do artists who have a lot of love for their fans and diverse communities have to compete for space while we allow certain problematic artists to retain a platform? *cough* M*tty H*aly, K*nye W*st *cough* JP: It’s much more lighthearted to have an openness to enjoying different forms of art. Enjoy the bigger picture. HT: And there’s a misconception that engagement is a finite resource and we have to pick one thing to engage with. You don’t have to be the #1 fan to be there. You can put on different costumes. Participate in the art of observing. JP: This is reminding me of the news that music execs are “depressed” because they can’t manufacture breakout stars. Like, let’s reconsider the word “manufacture.” HT: Why not start organically with the art? Listen to who audiences are responding to. If manufacturing is so important, just start The X Factor again! JP: You can’t invent what will be meaningful to people. You have to support creatives and their audiences together and appreciate their understanding of emotion. HT: This is why industries have to pay properly for art. Looking at you, studios. JP: At least pay your writers and actors a living wage. HT: Art should be able to give you life. Literally. JP: Barbie made a billion because the creators were stubborn in their vision and trusted with it. Headline: Trusting creatives to have agency over their art makes you money! HT: Bottoms is doing well because they trusted the lesbians! JP: It makes us feel more special to participate in art we discovered ourselves, art that’s made with heart and soul.

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HT: And it doesn’t have to be high-brow. It can be so campy and silly. Just be a media rat. JP: Biggest lesson of the summer. The creative glitter in the air at the moment feels very special, and it’s been joyous to watch. We’re so lucky, since we never know what the future of pop culture will be. Let’s enjoy the ride. HT: Beautiful. HT: So in wrapping up, I’ll leave you with the wonderful request Beyoncé put out for Virgo season. She asked audiences to dress in silver; to recreate a “shimmering human disco ball each night. Everybody mirroring each other’s joy.” JP: Isn’t that gorgeous? That’s what art is for. JP: We are the visuals, after all. While editing, both authors discover the live news that Beyoncé is attending Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Movie Premiere. They spend several minutes freaking out. JP: Speaking of visuals… HT: WAR IS OVER. HT: Seriously, this is big. Beyoncé doesn’t leave the house for anyone. JP: The united front is so important. This is what we’ve been saying. HT: Support both! Wear those silver fits AND make the friendship bracelets. JP: Isn’t it amazing when women uplift each other? HT: This is what I wanna see!

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HT: Beyoncé if you see this…please…We need those visuals. JP: That is so much pressure, oh my God. HT: If Beyoncé, Taylor, Chappell, or anyone sees this… This was fun. Let's do it again.

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Contributors Volume #001 Fall 2023 -------------------------------------------------------Name -----------------------Literature-----------------------Angela Liu Annie Tallis BEE LB Cal Geib Ciena Valenzuela-Peterson Harriet Taylor Holly B. McCauley Jacob Staudenmaier Jazmin Pollido Julian Avrith Laura Wencel Miguel Guzman Valentina Gomez Viv Briseno ----------------------Art-&-Photography----------------Anjali Sareen Harriet Taylor Katie Liu Marjan Alagheband Page Murray --------------------------------------------------------

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--------------------Editorial-Team----------------------Harriet Taylor Editor in Chief Cassidy Kuhle Managing Editor Cal Geib Features Editor Rachel Roberson Fiction & Poetry Editor Jazmin Polido Reviews & Criticism Editor Holly B. McCauley Copyeditor ----------------------With-thanks-to--------------------Amanda Postman Enrique Martinez III Pexels The Literary Editing and Publishing Master's at the University of Southern California -------------------------------------------------------TOTAL: 24 CARD: ***** **** **** FACE --------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for visiting! pornstarmartinimagazine@gmail.com @psm.magazine on Insta

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Shot by Anjali Sareen