3/20/18 review of a night of political phone banking with One Colorado

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of a night in March of 2018 I spent doing political phone banking with One Colorado, Colorado's leading advocacy organization for LGBTQ Coloradans and their families.

The evening was spent phone banking in favor of the Colorado Civil Rights Division which, in 2018, the Republican-led State Senate was attempting to close down. The thread discusses that history and a lot of my experience up to then with rallying for the CCRD. It also mentions the restaurant Hamburger Mary's, which is a fabulous spot.

3/18/18 review of PCP meet-and-greet with Meghan Nutting

Here is the link to a March, 2018, Twitter thread review of a meeting at Denver's Factotum Brewhouse with Meghan Nutting, who was a candidate for Colorado's House District 5 Representative seat.

The thread discusses Nutting -- her family life, her career, and her political qualifications for office. It also discusses some of the political issues we spoke about at the meeting.

Nutting didn't win the HD5 seat. Another highly qualified person, and one of my favorite people in Denver, Alex Valdez, did. However, Nutting is an awesome person. And I believe that in 2018 she was on the Denver Business Journal's list of the top women in the energy industry in Colorado.

3/17/18 Twitter summary thread for my novel Summer Azure

Here is the link to a March, 2018, Twitter thread I did about my amateur novel Summer Azure.

This thread is a chapter-by-chapter summary of the novel. The novel is online and free to read. It's a youth/adult lesbian romance story about a reclusive businesswoman and a young dancing star girl next door. The thread gives links to each chapter in the story, as well as links to the songs referenced in the story.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order on Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is almost comically severely affected. My apologies.

3/17/18 Twitter thread about why I promote my own work

Here is the link to a Twitter thread I did in March of 2018 about why I promote my own work.

The thread was made ahead of a chapter-by-chapter summary thread I did for my amateur novel Summer Azure (you should see the link to that thread in the post above).

A lot of the things I say in this thread hold true today -- namely, that I work really hard -- granted, for the love of art, etc., but it is hard work -- to promote other people's things, so I don't feel very bad promoting my own stuff; and that I wrote my own work for reasons, and I still think the reasons are relevant, so I feel it's worthwhile to promote them.

3/16/18 review of film Love, Simon, dir. by Greg Berlanti

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the film Love, Simon, directed by Greg Berlanti.

The thread gives a summary of the film. It discusses some of the film's themes, such as community and family support, being queer locally (i.e. in your own hometown), blackmail versus openness, choosing when to come out. It discusses how I liked some of the general story tropes the film plays with. It mentions some of my favorite performances, characters, and character dynamics in the film. And it gives some criticisms I had of the film.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is moderately affected as a result. My apologies.

3/15/18 review of Museo de las Americas show Pachucos y Sirenas

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the 2018 Museo de las Americas show Pachucos y Sirenas.

The thread gives a summary of the show. It discusses the show's exploration of the Chicanx movement's use of the Pachuco and Pachuca style, including low rider cars and zoot suits, to forge their identity, how that identity was met with violent backlash, but how it also led to strength, confidence, and organizing for rights. It discusses and gives pictures of work by Kenneth Castillo, Jerry Vigil, Carlos Fresquez, Josiah Lopez, Daniel Salazar, Antonia Fernandez, and Justin Favela.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is moderately affected. My apologies.

3/14/18 review of novel Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the novel Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante, by Monica Nolan.

The thread gives a summary of the novel and some context on Nolan's Lesbian Career-Girl series. The thread discusses how the novel explores individual queerness versus queer normativity, the book's themes regarding self-expectations and society's expectations, some characters and character dynamics in the novel, an indication of youth/adult lesbian desire in the novel, the way the novel plays with pulp novel conventions, and the novel's themes on story-telling in society overall. It also gives some criticisms of the novel, including criticizing the number of characters and the stiffness of the love scenes.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order on Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is slightly affected. My apologies.

3/12/18 review of a March, 2018, Denver City Council meeting

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of a Denver City Council meeting I attended in March of 2018.

The thread discusses the topics at the meeting, including the Colorado Rapids Youth Soccer Team, St. Patrick's Day, a learning project for getting better at hiring locally and providing workers livable wages, a resolution for a Denver HIV/AIDS services fund, a resolution on rezoning some property for residences, and a temporary administrative moratorium on slot-home building.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order on Twitter's platform. This threads coherency is slightly affected. My apologies.

3/11/18 review of film The Assassin, dir. by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the film The Assassin, directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

The thread gives a summary of the film, as well as some context of the screening, which took place at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema's Sloans Lake theater's Yum Cha series. The thread discusses the film's understated feeling overall and in its fight scenes, its beautiful colors, and its somewhat difficult plot. It discusses some of the film's themes. It compares the film to detective stories and ghost or horror stories. And it discusses some of the film's interesting visual and sound techniques.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order on Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is slightly affected. My apologies.

3/10/18 review of film A Wrinkle in Time, dir. by Ava DuVernay

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the film A Wrinkle in Time, directed by Ava DuVernay.

The thread gives a summary of the film and some context on my experiences reading the novel on which it's based. My review is pretty critical. The thread discusses how I felt the film fell flat, mostly due to the writing, but also some of the music and performance. The thread discusses what I liked about the philosophy of the film. It discusses the performances -- quite a few! -- that I really enjoyed, as well as what I loved about Storm Reid's Meg Murry character.

3/6/18 review of 2018 Colorado caucus

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the 2018 Colorado caucus.

The thread gives a description of caucus. It mentions some 2018 candidates in Colorado's House District 5. It discusses the popularity of some gubernatorial candidates. It discusses some of my own experiences, with my community, and participating in the proceedings. And it shows some art that was on display at the caucus site, which was Denver's Trevista at Horace Mann School.

3/6/18 review of novel Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary, by Monica Nolan

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the novel Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary, by Monica Nolan.

The thread gives a summary of the novel, as well as a little context for it. The thread discusses the novel's readable plot, its subversion of pulp narratives, its use of two mysteries, the psychology of the story, the main character's "coming out" story, some aspects of the lesbian community of the story, and the love and sex scenes of the story.

3/4/18 review of Nancy Drew novel The Bungalow Mystery

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the Nancy Drew novel The Bungalow Mystery, by Carolyn Keene.

The thread gives a summary of the novel and some background on the Nancy Drew series and my experiences reading it. The thread discusses how the book plays with form. It explores a lot of what I call the "femme-social" aspects of the book, as well as some very clear moments of girl-girl attraction and eroticism in the book. The thread also discusses aspects of Nancy's attraction to her father, her wish to have a mother and to be a mother, and her desire to be individualistic and not tied to anybody at all romantically.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is slightly affected as a result. My apologies.

3/4/18 review of the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema's The Flames of Paris

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the livestream of the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema's The Flames of Paris, with music by Boris Asafiev and choreography by Alexei Ratmansky.

The thread gives a summary of the ballet and some context on the work, Vasily Vainonen's choreography, Ratmansky's choreography, and the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema. The thread discusses some of the ballet's themes, such as the narratives of and from revolutions, who controls narratives in society, the conflict between common humanity and wayward nobility, and the images of epochs' endings. The thread discusses the performances of Margarita Shrainer, Igor Tsvirko, Denis Savin, Ana Turazashvili, Kristina Kretova, Artem Ovcharenko, and Semyon Chudin.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is moderately affected. My apologies.

3/3/18 review of Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema's Romeo & Juliet

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of an encore screening of the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema's performance of Romeo & Juliet, by Alexei Ratmansky.

The thread gives a summary of the ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema series. The thread discusses a lot of different aspects of Juliet's character, and some aspects of Paris's. It discusses the communal, social, romantic, and emotional aspects of some of the dances. It discusses some of my favorite scenes from the ballet. And it discusses the final scene of the ballet, which is a real emotional shocker, even for an ending so well known as that of Romeo & Juliet!

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is moderately affected. My apologies.

Some quick thoughts/Support me on Ko-fi!

Thank you for checking out my blog! If you like my work, please visit my Ko-fi page, where you can support by making one-time donations in increments of $3.

This blog is a table of contents for my Twitter threads, starting in 2012, and working through toward the present. I include links to the threads, as well as quick descriptions of the threads.

From time to time, I like to do a blog post reflecting on the time frame of the threads I've most recently posted to this blog.

The threads between this post and my previous "quick thoughts" post are from the first two months of 2018.

I was surprised, as I researched this time period to find my threads, by how active I had been during this period. I knew I had been somewhat active politically. But I was also surprised to find out how active I had been in the arts scene.

As I've mentioned previously, I'd been a pretty regular art spectator since my arrival back in Denver in January of 2012. But in April of 2015, I got involved with an art gallery in Denver. My friendship with that gallery fell apart in May of 2017. And, as I remembered things, I really stepped completely out of Denver's art scene at that time.

It turns out, however, that that wasn't the case. And, especially as 2018 began, I involved myself a lot in Denver's art scene. I think I was trying to find my way back to being just a spectator -- or just trying to find my own way, given my odd, paranoid, and standoffish temperament, to involve myself in Denver's art scene. So I was way more involved than I remembered being!

I also even made a first step toward developing my own style of collecting art, by purchasing a work by a UK artist named Megan Angus, who had had her work censored by her high school because it depicted lesbian love. The work made the news. I contacted Angus and bought the work.

But that was, I hate to say, my first and last step toward developing my own style of collecting art. And I've basically stagnated ever since then.

I think during this time frame, however, you can also see my development in terms of using Twitter as an art form. I began thinking of how to direct my studies and sort of curate my Twitter threads. In particular, I planned out a lot of my threads for Black History Month and followed that plan. That sort of planning out of my threads has helped me focus and thematize my studies -- as well as force myself to study things my free-flowing brain might otherwise put off and put off.

I honestly was also a lot more involved in Denver's political scene during these two months than I'd remembered being. I attended all kinds of rallies and marches and political meetings of all different kinds on all different subjects. It's been pretty fun to remember all of those moments.

However, this time period is capped by an event that traumatized me -- possibly way more than it should have -- and also, slowly but surely, began to focus my thought very strongly in one specific direction -- again, possibly focusing me way more than I should have let it.

The event was FOSTA-SESTA. This was a law that was discussed by Congress and passed over the first few months of 2018. It ostensibly protects victims of sex trafficking. But it actually builds on anti-sex and anti-obscenity laws to make sex workers more vulnerable to state violence and other forms of violence, as well as, essentially, put any form of sexual expression online at risk of being further censored and marginalized by being lumped together with sex trafficking.

I learned of FOSTA-SESTA on March 3rd, 2018 -- way late in the progress of the bill -- from some people I was following at the time on Twitter, who were in the porn industry.

The folks on Twitter made it clear that FOSTA-SESTA was about limiting freedom of sexual expression, not stopping sex trafficking. And I could see that this could hurt not only me, a fetish artist and a fetish writer who specializes in the more marginalized fetishes, including ageplay, but more importantly a lot of my friends in the fetish art fields who had a lot more invested in making their art than I did.

I was mad at myself for not having heard anything about this law, as you can see in the tweet below.

I was mad at myself for missing this news for a number of reasons. I was trying to be deeply involved in politics, to be engaged and fight for equality, including for people like me (in all my/our aspects). And yet somehow I missed the discussion and passage of a law that struck people like me at, I'd argue, the core of our existence -- our creative existence.

FOSTA-SESTA also came at a "perfect storm" sort of time in my intellectual development. I was trying to be more politically active. But I had also spent almost two years researching issues about youth/adult love and sexuality. I had spent about five years creating visual art that questioned conventional conceptions of both youth and adult sexuality. And I'd spent about nine years exploring the meanings and self-doubts of my own ageplay and ABDL fetishes and identity.

I had already been coming to conclusions for myself about the meanings of sex laws, and what those laws actually meant to enforce. I had already been arguing that most sex laws imply that human beings are the sexual property of the state. FOSTA-SESTA, in what I perceived as its limitations on freedom of sexual expression online, further reinforced the concept of human beings as sexual property of the state.

I did what I could to raise awareness, among my Twitter followers (around 850 at the time) and among my local politicians and political organizations, about FOSTA-SESTA. I also studied FOSTA-SESTA more, to figure out what it was really all about, what its history was, etc. And so all of these issues, slowly but surely, became the main focus of my studies.

However, some of the threads above will discuss this. And so I'll leave a summary of my findings, and my developing mindset toward FOSTA-SESTA, for another "quick thoughts" post.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Please enjoy. Constructive feedback appreciated.

3/2/18 review of novel Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher, by Monica Nolan

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the novel Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher, by Monica Nolan.

The thread gives a summary of the novel and some background on Monica Nolan and her Lesbian Career-Girl series. The thread discusses how the novel plays with detective pulp conventions, its use of two mysteries instead of one, the plot and psychological parallels in the story, the way the novel plays with both heterosexual and lesbian story tropes, the sex scenes in the story, some of the life lessons of the story, and some of my criticisms of the novels.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is moderately affected. My apologies.

2/28/18 review of documentary Whose Streets?, dir. by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the film Whose Streets?, directed by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis.

The thread gives a summary of the documentary, one of the best films of the decade, which is about Ferguson, Missouri, in the wake of the murder of Michael Brown, Jr., by police in August of 2014. The thread discusses how the film examines communities, living in communities, media versus communities, how communities heal, questioning unjust realities, the generational fight for justice, and the need to just get out there and be involved.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is slightly affected. My apologies.

2/28/18 thread about the Revue Noire's issue number 20

Here is the link to my Twitter thread about the magazine Revue Noire's issue number 20.

The thread is partly a history of the magazine Revue Noire, as I learned of it from Bennetta Jules-Rosette's book Black Paris. It's also a review of issue number 20 itself, which focuses on Paris and has an article on Hip Hop in Paris. And the device or justification of this thread is a YouTube playlist, which is built around a CD that had originally been included with this issue, but which I did not receive with the used copy of the magazine that I bought.

2/25/18 review of book The Witch's Flight, by Kara Keeling

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the book The Witch's Flight: The Cinematic, the Black Femme, and the Image of Common Sense.

The thread gives a summary of the book and some background on Professor Keeling and how I learned of her. The thread discusses the book's exploration of how the cinematic helps people imagine futures, and how that imagining informs black cinematic identity. The thread discusses the book's exploration of queer black femininity and the butch-femme and straight-femme lesbian dynamic in cinema, as well as how cinema portrays the struggle for black femininity to survive in a society dominated by masculinity.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. The coherency of this thread is moderately affected. My apologies.

2/24/18 review of book Black Faces, White Spaces, by Carolyn Finney

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the book Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors.

The thread gives a summary of the book, as well as some background on Carolyn Finney and how I learned of her. The thread discusses how the book explores white versus black land ownership and connection to land; civil rights and land protection efforts; how the history slavery affects African Americans' connection to land; various media failures to represent African Americans in nature in the US; and a great number of success stories about African Americans who did and are doing great things to protect America's environment.

The tweets of some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is moderately affected. My apologies.

2/23/18 review of novel Cotton Comes to Harlem, by Chester Himes

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the novel Cotton Comes to Harlem, by Chester Himes.

The thread gives a summary of the novel and some background on Chester Himes and how I came to learn of his work. The thread discusses how the novel plays with detective novel conventions, character POVs, and even conventions of realism. The thread also discusses the novel's social layering, action scenes, and moral ambiguities.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order by Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is slightly affected. My apologies.

2/23/18 review of Denver Art Museum show Degas: A Passion for Perfection

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the Denver Art Museum's show Degas: A Passion for Perfection.

The thread gives a summary of and some background on the show. It gives a lot of pictures from the show, while discussing Degas's influences, techniques, subject matter, media, and development as an artist, as well as my own experiences with and feelings about Degas's work.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order on Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is slightly affected. My apologies.

2/23/18 review of film In Between (Bar Bahar), dir. by Maysaloun Hamoud

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of the film In Between (Bar Bahar), directed by Maysaloun Hamoud.

The thread gives a summary of the film. It discusses the film's uniqueness, in its portrayal of both Israel and Palestine. It discusses the universal women's issues portrayed in the film. It talks about what I liked about the performances and characters, and what I liked about Maysaloun Hamoud's writing and direction.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order on Twitter's platform. This thread's coherency is slightly affected. My apologies.

2/21/18 review of Globeville meeting on Denver blueprint for growth

Here is the link to my Twitter thread review of a 2018 community meeting in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver, Colorado, to discuss a blueprint for Denver development.

The thread discusses some of the aims for development according to the proposed blueprint. It also discusses some of the concerns from community members regarding things like affordable housing and good access to transit. It also discusses some of my own opinions about Globeville being a neighborhood of displacement.

The tweets in some of my threads have been twisted out of chronological order on Twitter's platform. The coherency of this thread is slightly affected as a result. My apologies.