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in Port Orchard, Washington. Welcome

0:39

to Gender Reveal, a podcast where

0:41

we hopefully get a little bit

0:43

closer to understanding what the hell

0:45

gender is. I'm your host and

0:47

resident gender detective, Tuck Woodstock. Hey

0:58

everyone, hope you've all been hanging in

1:00

there. This week on the show,

1:02

I am very excited to share

1:05

my conversation with multimedia artist, Xing

1:07

Yin Kaur. Xing has made books,

1:09

webcomics, games, tarot decks, t-shirts, marionettes,

1:11

divination tools, large immersive installations, and

1:14

animal crossing based performance art, among

1:16

other things. And in this episode,

1:18

we talk about the themes that connect

1:20

those disparate works, such as the

1:22

long human tradition of

1:25

grabbing some play and

1:27

just making a little guy. We

1:30

also talk about American myth making,

1:32

activist burnout, burning man hot takes,

1:34

and a very fun, very specific

1:37

competition that Xing took part in.

1:39

For the sake of this contest,

1:42

we classified all Giants lumberjack statues

1:44

as Paul Bunyan. Two

1:46

quick things about the interview. One is just that I

1:48

encourage you to go look through some of Xing's work

1:50

as you're listening or before you listen, because I think

1:52

this episode will just be more satisfying to you if

1:54

you have even a vague concept of what we're talking

1:57

about. You can see that at

1:59

xingkaur.com or instagram.com/sawdust

2:01

bear. The

2:03

other thing is that we recorded this episode like

2:05

a month ago just fun to let you know

2:07

in case anything seems like at all totally off.

2:10

That's probably why. And one more

2:12

thing before we get going. I know we've

2:15

been doing a lot of segments about Cecilia

2:17

Gentile lately. I just wanted you to know

2:19

that we ended up doing a spontaneous one-day

2:21

fundraising initiative where we matched all donations to

2:23

the Cecilia Legacy Fund and we ended up

2:25

donating $9,000 which is so cool. So thank

2:27

you very much if you donated to Cecilia's

2:32

Legacy Fund or if you have donated to our mutual

2:35

aid fund at some point in the past. We couldn't

2:37

do it without each and every one of you just

2:39

from the say. Thanks again. And

2:42

now it's time for this week in gender.

2:50

This week is the second episode in a row

2:53

in which our guests and I get into a

2:55

little bit of like memoir criticism during the interview.

2:57

So I figured what better

2:59

time to commission a review of

3:01

an exceptionally critiquable trans memoir. As

3:05

such it is an honor to pass today's

3:07

This Week in Gender segment over to Chris

3:09

Malcolm Belch who is not only a gender

3:11

reveal alum but also a published memoirist and

3:13

a bit of a trans memoir expert. Here's

3:16

Chris. I read,

3:18

teach, and write memoir because I believe

3:20

in the power of telling stories about

3:23

individual lived experience and in the power

3:25

of reading those stories. It's a

3:27

warm and fuzzy way of thinking but I really do

3:29

think it. Then unfortunately enter

3:31

some of the life stories that make

3:34

it to the market. I get frustrated

3:36

with the way readers, writers, and publishers

3:38

mutually reinforce a desire for human

3:40

stories to center individual accomplishment in the

3:43

face of circumstance. A

3:45

successful memoir in this paradigm stresses

3:47

overcoming a hero's journey. The

3:49

problem with this is that stories of

3:51

individual accomplishment don't do much to change

3:53

structural oppression. They just make us feel

3:56

nice for a few hours. Caitlyn

3:58

Jenner wasn't much on my radar when her memoir, The

4:00

Secrets of My Life, came out in 2017. So I'm

4:03

late to it. It

4:05

was ghostwritten by Buzz Bissinger, best known for

4:07

his book Friday Night Lights. Briefest

4:10

summary of who Jenner is.

4:12

In 1976, she won Gold in

4:14

the Men's Decathlon, an unhinged, two-day

4:16

Olympic mega event, and maintained minor

4:18

celebrity in the 80s, 90s, and

4:20

early aughts. She married Kris

4:22

Jenner in 1991, appeared in Keeping Up

4:25

with the Kardashians, and publicly came out

4:27

as a trans woman in 2015. She

4:29

ran for governor of California. Jenner's

4:32

estimated net worth is $100 million.

4:35

She's a registered Republican, but said

4:37

of her chaotic candidacy to replace

4:39

Gavin Newsom, I don't like labels,

4:41

you know. That quote captures why

4:43

this memoir has weaseled its way

4:45

into my consciousness and refused to

4:47

leave. It's an example of how

4:49

the language of identity can be

4:51

weaponized by a celebrity, large air

4:53

quotes, fiscal conservative, to excuse acting

4:55

against trans interests. I'm

4:57

not a one-issue voter confined solely

4:59

to LGBTQ issues, she writes in

5:01

her memoir. I did not

5:03

transition to become a liberal Democrat.

5:06

While Jenner notes that trans people have

5:08

it pretty bad in the US, she

5:10

says she believes that she can teach

5:12

fellow conservatives the quote, golden rule, that

5:14

trans people should not be judged on

5:16

moral or religious grounds, but rather treated

5:18

as fellow human beings. But will that

5:21

give people jobs or health insurance? On

5:24

the sentence level, the book is quite

5:27

engaging. In a lot of ways, it's

5:29

what we expect. It follows her childhood

5:31

to transition arc. There's therapists, hormones, surgeries,

5:34

and awkward conversations about her gender. Jenner's

5:36

a weird kid, obsessed with figuring out

5:38

how to be quote, cool, which she

5:41

weirdly thinks means learning to play the

5:43

accordion. She realizes she has

5:45

a knack for sports, especially football and

5:47

track. From there, it's fast forward to

5:50

becoming a storied athlete who represents, as

5:52

she says, the America of hard work

5:54

and realizing your dreams in which we

5:56

all believe. Jenner's

5:59

timeline is complicated, something I didn't know before

6:01

I read the book. She starts

6:03

taking transition steps in the 80s,

6:05

beginning hormones and electrolysis, but then

6:08

she detransitions, overwhelmed by tabloid speculation

6:10

and rejection from people in her

6:12

life. It's a common but under

6:14

published part of trans life, stepping out and

6:16

then back. I felt a lot

6:18

for us all then, for this world we have

6:20

to work with, but I also detested the connection

6:22

I felt with her during these moments. I

6:25

was pretty surprised by the frank and extensive

6:27

discussions of what I would describe as sexual

6:29

awkwardness. I'm a prude, Jenner

6:32

states plainly. She writes that

6:34

she's had few partners and is overwhelmed trying

6:36

to untangle what she calls her sexual preference

6:38

for women in the context of her trans

6:41

identity. Frankly, I think she needs

6:43

a trans group chat. I

6:45

snark posted on Instagram through much of the

6:48

memoir, especially about her disconnect from people who

6:50

are not wealthy white celebrities. When

6:52

the woman giving her electrolysis moves, Jenner is

6:55

able to use the airplane she owns to

6:57

resume her sessions. I've always

6:59

loved flying, she writes, and have owned a

7:01

plane of one kind or another since the

7:03

Olympics. There are random trans

7:05

cameos in this book, notably from other boomers.

7:08

She talks about Kate Bornstein's work

7:10

for a ham-fisted minute and later

7:13

recalls Jennifer Finney Boylan cautioning her

7:15

about airing controversial beliefs in public.

7:17

But Jenner, painting herself after all

7:19

as a renegade worthy of a

7:21

memoir, is resolute. We

7:23

insist on tolerance, but only to an extent,

7:25

she says of the trans community, a nebulous

7:28

force she reckons with as she fights to

7:30

talk about what really matters to her, how

7:32

good the movie The Danish Girl truly is.

7:37

My biggest take on this memoir is that so

7:40

much of the first section of the book is

7:42

about not being ostracized for being queer, but rather

7:44

for being dyslexic. Jenner's difficulty

7:46

reading was formative. It separated her from

7:48

family and peers, and it drove her

7:50

towards sports. It continues to

7:52

loom large as she moves into public speaking

7:54

to cash in after the Olympics. This

7:57

would offer her an opportunity to do something bigger with

7:59

her mind. memoir if she was another

8:01

kind of writer. But Jenner, cleaving

8:03

to the projects of celebrity and

8:05

conservative politicians and much of trans

8:08

memoir, isn't interested in the project

8:10

of collective liberation. Claiming

8:12

disability solidarity or noting the huge overlap

8:14

of trans and neurodivergent groups and interests,

8:16

that would be way outside the scope

8:19

of this sad little book. The

8:21

book made me smile in a sick sort

8:23

of way sometimes, and it's great joke fodder.

8:26

But in the end, I despaired. Is this

8:28

the genre we've created? Close to

8:30

the end, Jenner, trying to make some kind

8:32

of statement about how she's still learning, has.

8:35

When I became Caitlin in March 2015, I

8:38

didn't wake up and immediately have an urge

8:40

to cook and clean or so, or do

8:42

any of the tasks that women are still

8:44

assumed to do in a society still dominated

8:46

by men. Nor for that

8:48

matter, did I run to the bookstore and

8:50

buy books by such landmark feminists as

8:52

Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. I'm

8:56

sorry, what? But

8:58

actually, I think I know what. She just

9:00

stunked in the net trans memoir made. It's

9:03

all about the liberation of one, not

9:05

of all, since gender is in

9:07

you and not a material reality.

9:09

A rugged American trans individual can

9:12

be anything. A cop,

9:14

a soldier, a reality television star

9:16

turned craving conservative politician. They can

9:18

get 1.1% of the vote in

9:21

the California gubernatorial election. Okay,

9:24

that's all I have. If you need me,

9:26

I'll be off trying to find my starry-eyed love

9:28

of memoir again. Chris

9:35

is the author of The Natural Mother of

9:38

the Child. You can find him at chrismelkendellk.com.

9:41

This has been This Week in Gender.

9:53

We've got a Vaymel message for you today. Vaymels are

9:55

little messages from listeners. There is a link in the

9:57

show notes for you to submit your own. message

10:00

is from Alex Nolos and it says, do

10:03

you need gay FTM literature in

10:05

your life? Find it in Cut

10:07

and Save the Line, the debut

10:09

novel by Alex Nolos. This book

10:11

tells all from bitter fag drama

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to drag to theater school intrigue

10:16

and the FTM vlogging scene. Available

10:18

on bookshop.org and as a pay

10:20

what you want ebook via alexnolos.com/c-a-s-t-l.

10:23

Okay one more forgot and then we'll get to the interview. Here we

10:26

go. Believe

10:28

it or not I'm a pretty private

10:30

person. I don't like to share intimate

10:32

details with people I just met. I

10:34

certainly don't want strangers to be able

10:36

to look up my home address or

10:38

my family members names or any other

10:40

personal info really and that's why I

10:42

continue to use delete me. Delete me

10:44

routinely scans hundreds of data broker websites

10:46

to make sure that my personal information

10:48

is not easily available online. Delete me

10:50

can also scrub info tied to dead

10:52

names and other aliases. You

10:54

can join today at joindeleteme.com/gender

10:56

reveal and use the code TUCK20

10:59

to get 20% off your entire order. That

11:01

is TUCK20 for 20% off at joindeleteme.com slash

11:05

gender. Xing-In

11:17

Core is a cartoonist, game designer,

11:20

woodworker, and chaos machine maker. The

11:32

way we always start the show is by asking in terms

11:34

of gender how do you describe yourself? You

11:36

know I knew this question was coming. Of course

11:38

I knew it was coming. Um non-binary

11:40

on paper. Totally.

11:43

I mean we all answer it

11:45

this way right? Like it's kind of

11:47

the standard non-binary answer. It's

11:50

non-binary but also sort

11:52

of gender

11:54

agnostic kind of gender

11:56

repellent. I took on

11:58

non-binary basically the moment I

12:01

heard the word, it was like, finally

12:04

a word to describe

12:06

this, which is kind of

12:08

more of a void,

12:12

gender void, like gender miasma. But

12:14

I am so grateful for

12:16

the word non binary. I mean, I started

12:19

using they them pronouns, basically, when

12:21

my first book came out, where

12:24

I was like, okay, it is time to

12:26

just kind of I'm just I'm just going to

12:28

use they them pronouns going forward. But

12:30

I didn't do it

12:32

slowly. Like I didn't have the,

12:35

you know, the she her to she they to

12:37

they them pipeline. So I was

12:39

like, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going

12:42

to go straight to say them. But

12:44

just didn't tell a

12:47

lot of people just started using

12:49

it professionally. And obviously, my queer

12:51

friends caught on. I made no

12:54

announcements about it whatsoever. So

12:56

in a sense, it's been a very lengthy

12:59

transition to being, I guess,

13:03

officially non binary.

13:05

But it's also been really

13:08

lovely just kind of seeing who's

13:10

picked up on it. Queer

13:12

friends, of course. Yeah. And who haven't,

13:15

even though at this point, it's, you

13:18

know, out there. Isn't it funny

13:20

how sometimes we turn it into

13:22

like a little test? Mm hmm.

13:25

Paying attention. Oh, absolutely. And I feel

13:27

like I could have made it easy, right? I

13:29

could have made an announcement. He could have. I

13:31

could have been like, it's national coming out day.

13:33

Yeah. Surprise. But I didn't

13:35

want to. No, that's not

13:38

fun. No. Oh,

13:41

I relate to that a lot. And I think it is

13:44

both a reasonable thing to reject the concept of

13:46

having to come out and also something that maybe

13:48

I need to go to therapy

13:50

about, about not directly asking for things. So we'll

13:52

just set that aside and talk about something else.

13:55

It's there. I mean,

13:58

I will also add that that there is,

14:00

I think, a bit of a racial

14:03

element to that, where the

14:05

Western coming out story, at

14:08

least when I was growing up, was

14:10

very much rooted in a, I

14:13

am now going to sit down with

14:15

my family and I need to let

14:17

them know the true me, the

14:19

true person I have inside. And

14:22

this, of course, goes back to, you know what?

14:24

I think a lot of Asian families really need

14:26

to go to therapy. But

14:29

I do not feel comfortable

14:31

revealing many parts of

14:34

my true self to my

14:36

family. And queerness,

14:39

gender, honestly, isn't

14:41

even that high on

14:43

that scale of things I would prefer not

14:45

to review. So I

14:47

think culturally, it actually does not

14:49

matter to me whether

14:52

certain people in my life, certain people

14:54

in my family are ever going to

14:56

perceive me as queer or not a

14:58

woman. There's lots of other things I'm

15:00

not gonna tell them. Totally,

15:04

like if they don't know me already, why start

15:06

now with like this hard

15:08

semantic language thing? Yeah,

15:10

yeah. It's a lot

15:12

of stuff like, don't you want them to

15:15

know who you are before they die? I'm

15:17

like, they've had like 40 years.

15:21

Exactly. You could

15:23

look if you wanted. That's mad, you can

15:26

look it up if you want to. Okay,

15:28

but speaking though, of how you

15:31

grew up, where you grew up, you grew up

15:33

in Malaysia and in the Philippines, and then you

15:35

moved to the US as a teen, I was

15:37

wondering, growing up in those three different places, what

15:40

messages did you get about gender and gender roles?

15:43

Like, how did they vary from place to place?

15:46

I think in Malaysia, the

15:48

concept of queerness wasn't

15:51

really present for me at

15:53

all. Looking back at it

15:55

now, there were certainly people in

15:57

my life that were, You

16:00

know gal pals There

16:03

were people in my life who were like,

16:05

you know older women who had never dated

16:08

men who preferred to live alone And

16:10

they were just kind of thought of as strange

16:13

eccentric and some of them, you

16:15

know still may not be queer they may not

16:18

be out but There

16:20

definitely were lanes to be in in

16:22

terms of gender when I got to

16:24

the Philippines Weirdly enough

16:26

that actually felt culturally

16:30

Maybe not a place where

16:32

queerness was accepted, but it

16:34

was acknowledged. I don't

16:37

recall gay slurs

16:39

in Malaysia Totally

16:42

they may have been around but maybe I was just too

16:44

young at the time to experience it in

16:46

the Philippines There were gay slurs

16:50

It was gay slurs, but it was also just Commentary

16:53

like some words were not considered

16:55

slurs. They were just Statements

16:59

it's your gay versus like

17:01

haha your gay All

17:05

right, so generally the Philippines while

17:07

there was obviously a lot of

17:09

repression to it so Definitely

17:13

acknowledged and also, you know

17:15

my closest friends at the time there was

17:17

like a group of three of us We

17:19

worked on comics together. We all

17:21

kind of made our first comics together. We are

17:24

like, you know, 13 14 Both

17:27

of them have come out as queer So

17:30

even though we were not all out to

17:32

each other at that point at time You

17:35

know, you have queer community without necessarily

17:38

knowing it Because you're

17:40

all just little youthful queers fumbling

17:42

around in life So

17:44

I actually felt very comfortable in the Philippines

17:47

with with my particular group of friends and

17:50

then in United States I landed

17:52

straight into a private Christian school

17:55

actually and the attitudes

17:58

towards queerness and gender were

18:00

entirely what you might expect. Mm-hmm.

18:03

So definitely somewhat repressive, not

18:06

enthusiastic about acknowledging queerness,

18:09

or really any deviant

18:11

gender roles or any alternative

18:14

paths. Actually, to a certain extent,

18:17

I remember so, so clearly. I

18:19

think he was the class president

18:23

or definitely someone in a homecoming

18:25

king type role. And

18:27

I remember in senior year, he

18:29

got a tongue ring. And

18:32

the reason he got a tongue ring

18:34

was because he said he didn't want

18:36

people to think of Christians as being

18:39

staid and boring. He

18:42

wanted people to know that Christians could be kind

18:45

of cool and punk. And

18:47

that was a sort of rebellious attitude

18:50

that I experienced at the

18:53

time. So bless his

18:55

heart. It seems pretty edgy, honestly.

18:57

I feel like tongue rings are one of the most

18:59

hardcore things you could do as a teen in the

19:01

90s and 30s. Definitely.

19:04

But it was definitely showmanship

19:07

over philosophy. Totally.

19:10

Totally. OK, so you

19:12

move to the US as a teen. And I

19:14

think this gives you a sort

19:17

of common immigrant lens of like, hey, so

19:19

I got here, and I'm able to see

19:21

some of the stuff that y'all raised here

19:23

from birth haven't seen. And you

19:25

know this is wild, right? So a lot

19:28

of your work, I feel like,

19:30

is really exploring elements

19:32

of America that I just

19:34

don't think about, really,

19:37

in any meaningful way. And

19:40

one of the ways that shows up is your

19:43

work and your thoughts around American miss building. So

19:45

what is so compelling to you about American miss

19:47

building? And what do you even mean when you

19:49

say that? And here's

19:51

the thing, is when you grow up

19:53

outside of America, America

19:55

in and of itself has

19:58

a certain mythos to it. it. And

20:01

you're not invulnerable to the

20:04

kind of depression era messaging of

20:07

the West as a

20:09

as a promised place. So

20:11

I was a weird

20:13

kid. Like growing up, I really liked John

20:15

Steinbeck, probably, you know, one of those kids

20:18

who was like, No, my waves of brass

20:20

is my favorite book. What are you talking

20:22

about? You're 12. So sort of the myth

20:24

of the American dream was something

20:26

that I was exposed

20:36

to at a very young age. And

20:38

when I moved to America, obviously this

20:40

I moved to America in 99.

20:43

And you know, you are

20:45

exposed to American media, which I

20:47

didn't actually like consumed that much,

20:49

although I did. Everyone

20:51

knows what America looks like. And

20:54

part of it was a bit

20:56

of that bubble breaking, you

20:58

know, watching so much media about

21:01

American schools and American high

21:03

schools, and then getting there

21:06

and realizing, oh, the

21:08

American educational system is actually not

21:12

absolutely not. But at the

21:14

same time, I've always been into myths like

21:16

I've, you know, into Greek myths into Norse

21:18

myths. And I think it

21:21

was a natural curiosity to get

21:23

to America and be like, well, what are

21:25

the American myths? And that

21:28

ultimately led me to

21:30

Paul Bunyan, who

21:33

I am slightly obsessed over as

21:36

an American myth, because

21:38

the myth of Paul Bunyan,

21:41

it kind of follows this

21:43

vein of very commercial

21:45

American marketing, in

21:47

a way that feels so holy and

21:52

purely American to me.

21:55

And as I kept on digging, it

21:57

ended up being a really interesting vein of research because

21:59

I ended up learning

22:01

more about logging camps, which

22:04

really tied into my interest in

22:06

learning more about, you know, early

22:08

Chinese labor, really early immigrant labor

22:10

in logging camps. So that was

22:12

all super interesting and fascinating to

22:14

me. Yeah. And you wrote a whole

22:17

book about it. I wrote a whole

22:19

book. But I'm not going to ask

22:21

you about that. I'm going to ask

22:23

you about Paul Bunyan more because you

22:25

said that you felt like Paul Bunyan

22:27

felt ripe for a queering. What, how

22:30

are we going to clear Paul Bunyan? Okay.

22:32

So I, well, I sort of clear

22:34

Paul Bunyan. There's like a little 25 cent, like

22:37

pornographic zine that I've made about

22:39

Paul Bunyan that's floating around in

22:42

some places. So here's the

22:44

deal with how the Paul Bunyan myth

22:46

took form. So first it was

22:48

in the oral history. It was

22:50

a story that was passed around in

22:52

logging camps that were filled with mostly

22:55

men. And these oral histories, you

22:57

know, they were not long stories. They were more

22:59

like little jokes passed between

23:01

campmates, like at dinner time

23:04

at Bunk's. However, when

23:06

these myths started being collected

23:09

and they started being put on paper,

23:11

the people who collected these

23:14

myths were largely scholars. And

23:17

at best they were, you know, sitting folk.

23:19

One of the very first academic

23:22

paper written about Paul Bunyan myths

23:25

was done by a recent

23:28

college graduate, a woman. Her name

23:30

was Bernice Stewart. And

23:33

she goes out into

23:35

these logging camps to collect these stories. And

23:38

even she acknowledges in the

23:40

paper itself, she's like, look, I

23:42

am, you know, an early twenties

23:44

woman walking into logging camps

23:47

and asking me to tell them stories

23:50

to tell me stories. So

23:52

everyone's of course censoring themselves.

23:56

Everyone is telling stories that's going to

23:58

be suitable for a woman. in

24:00

her early 20s. Everyone's talking

24:03

to a city scholar

24:05

coming in to collect

24:07

these stories. So they are all self-censoring

24:10

themselves. But it

24:12

just feels so, so incredibly obvious to

24:14

me. A bunch of

24:16

lonely men in logging camps, like

24:21

telling stories about a 20 foot

24:23

tall giant lumberjack. Surely

24:27

there's been jokes about Paul

24:29

Bunyan's dick, but we do not

24:31

have these stories. So

24:33

I mostly feel that Paul Bunyan is ripe

24:36

for acquiring based on a mission, where

24:38

we know the jokes that happen

24:40

on construction sites. And

24:43

people have not changed. Wow.

24:46

Well, I mean, this puts a new twist on,

24:48

I know that you had a competition with your

24:50

friend wants to see who could see the most

24:52

Paul Bunyan statues in a period of time. So

24:55

I was gonna be like, hey, what was that like? What's your favorite? But

24:58

I'm like, does any of them feature like his huge dick? Or.

25:02

I feel like I can very confidently

25:04

say that there are no

25:08

Paul Bunyan statues in North America

25:10

that feature Paul Bunyan's giant dick.

25:13

Well, we gotta fix that. But

25:17

the babe, the blue ox at

25:19

the trees of mystery in Pumas,

25:22

California, I believe does have giant

25:24

nuts. And

25:26

that's as close as we're gonna get. How many

25:28

Paul Bunyan's did you see on your quest to see the

25:30

Paul Bunyan's? I think I've been to about

25:33

20. And my

25:35

friend Jesse got to about 30. So

25:37

he technically won. I really had no idea

25:39

there were that many Paul Bunyan's running around.

25:41

There were so many, there's a map I can send you. I've

25:44

made a map. I mean, the

25:47

reason why there are so many,

25:49

and for the sake of this

25:51

contest, we classified all giants lumberjack

25:53

statues as Paul Bunyan. Okay. So

25:56

the reason why there are so many of

25:58

them is because of... which

26:01

were a commercial fiberglass statue you could

26:03

purchase as a business and put in front

26:06

of your, I don't know, your muffler shop,

26:08

your restaurant, whatever. And

26:11

the first model of that was the Paul Bunyan

26:13

model. So quite a few of those

26:15

ended up around America. There

26:18

are different models. The regular one

26:20

has no beard. The Paul Bunyan

26:22

one has a beard. Another distinctive

26:24

element of the Paul Bunyan muffler

26:26

man is that he has his

26:28

pants tucked into his boots, which

26:31

is a very lumberjack kind of thing. And

26:34

then there are some other somewhat less

26:36

politically correct ones these

26:38

days. So we won't like delve too

26:41

much into those. But there's actually been

26:43

a bit of a muffler

26:45

man renaissance in recent years.

26:47

There's a group

26:49

of people. They're called American

26:51

Giants who have been they

26:53

do the most work into

26:56

both researching the history of muffler

26:58

men and also building new ones.

27:01

So they have new buffalo mammals.

27:04

And there's actually several new muffler

27:06

men popping up around Route 66.

27:08

So that's all very, very

27:11

exciting. Yeah, thrilled for

27:13

you. Well, you made this book,

27:16

The American Dream, with a question

27:18

mark about your journey on Route

27:20

66, which was almost

27:22

a decade ago now, I think. So

27:25

if you're going to do it again, see the new

27:27

muffler men, what do you think would be different about it?

27:30

There's like, obviously, new muffler men and

27:32

maybe like political differences. But I'm sure

27:35

like you're the way that you would

27:37

experience and think about things might be

27:39

different now too. Yeah, I mean, a

27:41

lot of happening in a decade, right? It's like

27:43

when I said when that book came out was

27:45

when I began identifying

27:48

publicly as non binary.

27:50

And it was also, you can

27:53

see in the book, it's the pre

27:55

Trump era. There's a image in it

27:57

of my dog peeing on the floor.

28:00

on a Trump side, although he hadn't

28:02

even won the Republican primary at that

28:04

point in time. He was still sort of in joke

28:06

mode. And first

28:09

of all, I don't know

28:11

if I would drive all

28:14

of Route 66 in the same way as

28:16

I used to, because I do

28:18

know that some of these towns

28:20

now very openly fly Confederate flags.

28:24

And I think I would be more

28:26

worried for my personal

28:29

safety than I did at the time,

28:31

both obviously at that time being younger,

28:34

being more like literally nothing's ever

28:36

gonna happen to me. And

28:39

even though I do still feel

28:41

that way about myself as

28:43

a person, I still have a little bit of like, I'm

28:46

fine. It is just so

28:48

much clearer to me that, you

28:51

know, things suck for queer people that I

28:54

know, or for people of color

28:56

that I know, all these things

28:58

are happening so much closer to home

29:00

than I would expect, you know, my

29:02

partner's trans, it's like, well, if we

29:04

did this road trip together, which bathroom

29:08

would they use in

29:10

order to like not get beaten at a

29:12

gas station? So there are

29:14

things that I have to think about now,

29:17

when doing trips like this. And at the

29:19

same time, I really

29:21

just spent a lot more time

29:23

thinking about the failures of America,

29:26

the failures of America to live

29:28

up to the

29:31

promises. And

29:33

I don't just mean like, you know, what's carved on the

29:35

Statue of Liberty. But in a sense,

29:37

I do, I do mean that. America

29:41

has failed us in so many ways. Okay, I want

29:44

to keep talking about this, but it's the gender podcast.

29:46

I can't live this slide. The way you said my

29:48

partner's trans, so you don't describe yourself as trans, or

29:50

is that just a loose inflection?

29:52

Because you're like, my partner's trans? Yeah. I

29:55

think I am still in that state. is

30:00

where I do feel somewhat awkward

30:02

describing myself as trans. And

30:05

part of that is like, yes,

30:08

I feel trans inside. And I'm

30:10

also still so very well aware

30:12

of my passing privilege. And

30:15

especially in the context I was talking

30:17

about, I am trans in a way

30:19

that if I were willing to just

30:22

swallow being misgendered, which look

30:25

at a gas station, yes,

30:27

I am, I'd be

30:29

fine. So visibly, we're thinking visibly trans is maybe

30:32

what we're talking about here. Visibly trans.

30:34

Yeah, like, yes, I am trans,

30:36

but I acknowledge that I'm

30:38

not visibly trans. And I

30:40

will admit that identifying as trans

30:42

was something that took a real

30:45

long time, man. Like, I think I identified

30:48

as non binary for like, what, six,

30:50

seven years. It's like only I think

30:52

in the last year that I've been

30:54

like, trans is an

30:57

okay descriptor for

30:59

me and my gender experience.

31:02

Because I guess in my brain,

31:04

it always sounded like transitioning

31:08

to something. Yeah. And

31:10

I was like, well, I would prefer to

31:13

transition to nothing. I'm

31:16

trying, I'm trying to transition to gender

31:19

boy, gender. So

31:21

like, is that a transition?

31:24

In the sense that like, death is

31:26

a transition, I suppose. So

31:28

yeah, like transition in terms

31:31

of death, not transition in terms

31:33

of like, a binary. Grounding

31:36

your gender in terms of death is so hard.

31:38

Okay, before I lose this entirely, I

31:45

wanted to ask one question about the American Dream

31:47

book. Because you write in the book, like most

31:49

travel writers, the center of my writing is the

31:51

overwrought trip of finding myself. I stand at the

31:53

center of my own narrative, I'm supposed to find

31:56

joy and roadside attractions to exuberantly proclaim my love

31:58

of adventure, but I'll always be narcissistically

32:01

writing about myself. And I love to ask people

32:03

about memoir, and in this case, I get to

32:05

ask you about travel writing too.

32:07

So were there certain tropes of this type

32:09

of literature, the type of writing

32:12

that you were trying to avoid or subvert when you

32:14

were putting that book together? Yeah,

32:16

I think the thing that I definitely noticed

32:18

that I was doing with this something

32:21

that I really hate with travel

32:23

memoir is the

32:26

way travel writers often just decide

32:28

to become a tourist in other

32:30

people's lives. And

32:33

I think this is true of

32:35

all memoir. It's the treatment of

32:38

other people as content. And weirdly,

32:43

I do feel that a way

32:45

around that is to be very narcissistic

32:47

about your writing because it's like

32:49

ethically speaking, the way I do

32:51

not mind other people's lives for

32:54

content is to turn

32:56

that lens in very

32:58

like acutely on myself.

33:01

So if I do

33:03

end up spending a lot of time in my own

33:05

brain, it's like, well, you know what? I

33:07

own perfect copyright to my own brain. So

33:10

I feel comfortable

33:13

in that space. And

33:15

that said, I have been writing a

33:17

lot less memoir. Yeah,

33:21

well, I was going to ask you, so you've written a lot

33:23

about identity and about food.

33:25

Also, you won Ignaz for

33:27

that. But then in this 2021

33:30

comic, I think on Catapult

33:32

that I really liked, you wrote, I

33:34

don't want to write about the diaspora. I don't want to

33:36

write about the sacrifices of my parents. I don't want to

33:38

write another food story. I don't want to draw another pair

33:41

of chopsticks. I have drawn so many. And I was wondering,

33:43

is that a feeling that you were having when you were

33:45

writing those celebrated, very popular

33:47

food and identity stories in the past?

33:49

Or was that a weariness that set

33:51

in after those were published and being

33:54

widely read? Yeah. And I think

33:56

the widely read part was really the thing

33:59

that shifted. at it, right? Like I was

34:01

writing very personal memoir and

34:03

I was putting it online. And yeah,

34:05

of course I expected people to read

34:07

it. But at some

34:09

point, there was

34:11

this transition between I'm writing

34:13

little comics and putting them

34:15

up from the on the

34:17

internet, and kind of becoming

34:20

known as someone who

34:22

wrote memoir, and

34:24

someone whose feelings,

34:27

whose brain like my brain was

34:30

now out there for

34:32

a consumption, it was out there for

34:34

critique, which actually critique I'm fine with,

34:36

but I felt

34:39

like as a human being, I

34:41

was being consumed on a level

34:43

that I had not anticipated. And

34:46

that actually just really burned

34:48

me out on writing memoir. And part

34:51

of it is kind of, you know, the

34:53

I guess monetization of

34:55

the personal essay industrial

34:57

complex that I felt

34:59

that I was being absorbed into. And

35:02

like every bone in my

35:04

body just wanted to reject

35:06

that. I think I do

35:09

not want to write was one of

35:11

the last memoir pieces I've written. I

35:14

wrote a couple more after that for catapult, but

35:16

that was one of the very last and it's

35:19

kind of one of those like, well, you know, I kind of

35:21

said what I had to say in it. We're

35:25

just like, I'm sort of

35:27

done, like excavating my culture

35:30

and excavating me. Wait, was that a

35:32

piece that you pitched to them? Or did they say like,

35:34

will you write something and you turned in a piece called

35:36

I don't want to write? So

35:41

my relationship with catapult, I'm alright.

35:43

He is I've been

35:45

working with Nicole Chung, who was my

35:48

editor with catapult throughout my

35:50

entire time with them. And we

35:52

work together prior to this

35:54

at the toast as well. Also,

35:57

I media

35:59

like actually. So Nicole has always given me

36:02

so much room to explore. And

36:10

I had, I think I had

36:12

like a regular deadline for a column

36:14

with her. And I just

36:16

kind of dropped this in

36:18

her lap. I was like, I know I

36:20

have a normal column to put up, but

36:23

this is what I got instead. And she was like,

36:25

great, I need

36:27

you to add a comma will

36:29

run. So like, I've got two

36:32

copy edits. Let's go. My

36:34

relationship with that editor has

36:37

always been just absolutely wonderful.

36:40

So I sadly I was not responding like

36:42

a little bit. I

36:46

mean, Nicole's always seemed

36:48

great. So I'm glad to hear that she

36:50

has. Yeah. So you know, you've been shifting

36:52

away from memoir also I feel shifting away

36:55

from comics and into all of this work

36:58

that I think is so

37:00

cool and also like don't really know how

37:02

to neatly sum up for listeners.

37:04

And also I wish I could show them things.

37:06

And it's a podcast. And that's really tough, because

37:08

they do really need to see it. So I'll

37:10

have to put some good pictures on Instagram. But,

37:12

you know, working in all these different mediums that

37:15

you work on, which, you know, you can tell

37:17

us more about what they are. Do

37:19

you feel like there are common

37:21

themes or commonalities that run

37:23

between your work that

37:26

sort of connects it as yours? Do you know what I mean? Oh,

37:28

totally. Yeah, I mean, I'll try to explain a little

37:30

bit about what I do, which

37:32

is I was trained as a theater designer. And

37:35

I often say that I am

37:37

fundamentally an experienced designer. And that

37:39

takes many forms. A recent

37:42

form has been games, games

37:44

and kind of weird, weirdly delivered

37:46

narratives through mail and other

37:48

things like that. But

37:50

experience design, game design, I

37:52

think that fundamentally explains that

37:55

kind of work. I think myth

37:59

making and breaking is a

38:02

continuing theme. But

38:04

another one that has been really present throughout my

38:06

entire life is just, you know, a

38:08

little guy. The long human tradition

38:12

of grabbing some wood or

38:18

grabbing some clay and just

38:20

making a little guy. And

38:22

that is extremely present and has been

38:24

in my work for, you know, over

38:27

15, maybe 20 years, right? Like

38:31

it's in my comics, it's in my

38:33

games, it's in my large scale installation

38:35

art. Like whatever work you look at,

38:38

I've got kind of this fascination

38:40

for little beasts and little

38:42

creatures and also,

38:44

you know, their relationship to humans and how

38:46

they treat these little guys. So

38:48

yeah, I think I'm just

38:50

really fascinated with aspects

38:52

of the natural world once removed.

38:54

Yeah, I mean, another theme for

38:57

your work is divination and

38:59

fortune telling. And you have a

39:01

whole section on your website that's

39:03

called games and divinations, which is

39:05

so cool. What attracts you to

39:07

making divination and fortune telling materials?

39:10

You know what, that actually, I'm sorry. I'm

39:12

talking through all this. I'm like, wait, you

39:14

have just made it really clear what the

39:16

most obvious theme in my work is. Which

39:19

is? Which is I am fascinated with the

39:21

human desire to create order in the broken

39:23

world that we have to live in. And

39:28

that's in everything. Like, you know, humans

39:30

use ritual, they use divination and it's

39:32

just our attempt to make sense of

39:34

the world. Humans tell

39:36

myths in order to explain

39:39

the world. So that

39:41

process of humans

39:43

creating things to

39:45

help them organize a

39:48

very fractured universe, I

39:50

think is probably the most dominant thing. Yeah, and

39:52

also just for the listener, I feel like a

39:55

lot of your little guys is like told

39:57

through humans like studying and trying to make

39:59

taxonomies of. little visa that makes total sense

40:01

to me. But anyway, yeah. Okay, so divination, do

40:03

you believe in divination? Or is that just like

40:05

a fun mood setting thing that you do? Ah,

40:09

it? Oh, boy.

40:11

Um, it depends. Right?

40:14

Like, I believe in

40:16

divination as a

40:19

helpful organizing principle. I don't

40:22

believe in like straight up fortune

40:25

telling. Totally. But I

40:27

do believe that fortune tellers have

40:30

a very useful purpose

40:32

that's truly, I think

40:34

very parallel to therapy.

40:38

Well, I feel like that's what a lot of

40:40

people say about tarot, which reminds me you drew

40:42

a whole tarot deck. Yeah. Anytime anyone

40:46

makes a tarot deck, I'm like, this is the biggest

40:48

project anyone could ever do. So

40:51

I thought that too. And then I got through it. And

40:53

I was like, Oh, that was fun. Let's do it Wow,

40:57

that's great. Well,

40:59

to give people more of a sense

41:02

of both, you know, the different projects you've worked

41:04

on, and also the different mediums you

41:06

worked on in the way that you can thread the same

41:09

story or the same concept through a bunch

41:11

of different formats. Can you walk us through

41:13

the different iterations that Oracle bird has appeared

41:16

in? So the Oracle

41:18

bird is one of my longest

41:20

projects. And I first came

41:22

up with this character for

41:25

an installation in Columbus. And

41:28

for context, I'm a scenic designer.

41:31

But when I quit theater, I

41:33

continued wanting to build

41:35

environments that you could

41:38

walk into and interact with. So I

41:40

still wanted to build theater just not

41:42

necessarily with the actors in it. So

41:45

I built this divination installation that audience

41:47

members could walk into and participate in,

41:49

and they would draw a divination card.

41:52

And that's actually being rebuilt in Los

41:54

Angeles right now. So it is

41:57

up at the Fisher Museum of Art. And then

42:00

The Oracle Bird has, you know, I've done

42:02

a play by mail,

42:04

not play, but you know,

42:06

I've mailed out fortune cards by

42:08

mail during the pandemic. I did

42:10

online like divination appearances as

42:13

the Oracle Bird. We were raising money

42:15

for, I generally do not remember what

42:17

we were raising money for at this point in time,

42:20

something good. And then I

42:22

also have like a mobile kind of

42:24

more guerrilla art performance as

42:26

the Oracle Bird. And that's my first

42:28

time adding a

42:31

direct performance element into my

42:33

work. So I wear a mask, and

42:35

I roll this card around. And

42:37

I dispense fortunes and

42:39

readings from the card itself. And

42:42

that was really great, because I wanted

42:44

to perform more, but

42:46

I do not enjoy being

42:48

perceived. So performances

42:51

where I wear a mask, and I'm now

42:53

getting to puppetry, which is also great, because

42:55

it's a performance, but literally no one's looking

42:57

at you if you're doing it right. So

43:01

this has all been really working out great for me. And

43:04

I, you know, after five years

43:06

or so, I do feel like I'm ready

43:08

to hang up the mantle

43:10

of the Oracle Bird. Like this game has

43:12

been with me through like

43:14

moves, it has been with me through a

43:16

divorce, it has been with me through like

43:18

falling in love again, like it's, it's been

43:20

through a lot. I changed careers in the

43:22

middle of all this. So

43:25

the game is essentially about passing

43:27

on the mantle. It is about

43:29

creating, hopefully, hundreds of just other

43:32

Oracle Birds who will now take

43:34

the story onwards in directions

43:37

that I may not anticipate, which

43:39

is great. And yeah, I

43:42

was writing a lot of the game during my

43:44

divorce. And at the time,

43:46

it was a very kind of weird,

43:49

heartbroken thing. It was about longing and

43:51

being in a life that didn't really

43:53

fit you. And then

43:56

I did get divorced and moved out

43:58

with my

44:00

partner and everything in my life

44:02

just really lightened up a lot. So

44:05

now the game is also about multi-level

44:07

marketing schemes and DRABBY.

44:11

It's a much funnier game now, so I'm

44:14

very excited about it. Yeah. So

44:17

you coined the term keepsake game. Can

44:19

you explain what a keepsake game is?

44:21

Yeah. I mean, the specific

44:23

person who actually coined it to give him

44:26

credit is actually my ex-husband who coined it

44:28

based on the games that I was making

44:30

at the time. And

44:32

we came up with these terms when

44:34

Jion Shim and I were working on

44:36

Field Guide to Memory. So

44:38

I define a keepsake

44:40

game as a game where

44:44

the process of playing

44:46

the game produces a beautiful

44:48

artifact. So

44:50

in my game Amending, you

44:53

sew a path on an actual piece

44:55

of cloth from your house to

44:58

your friend's house. And as

45:00

you go along, you pull different prompt cards that ask

45:02

you to do different things. So it

45:04

can be like you have found a dog.

45:06

A dog now follows you. Sew a second

45:08

path. And at the end of

45:10

it, you have this embroidered physical object

45:13

that theoretically is also beautiful, because I think

45:15

all embroidery is beautiful. And

45:17

Jion, people have done such amazing things with

45:20

this game. Like someone gave

45:22

it to their grandmother as like

45:25

an introduction of like, this is what

45:27

games are, if you are curious. And

45:29

here it is rooted in a form

45:31

you already understand, which is embroidery. And

45:35

I saw a picture of this and his

45:37

grandma made a whole quilt. Like

45:39

she embroidered this piece of cloth and

45:42

then quilted it. And it's the most

45:45

stunning thing I've ever seen. And

45:48

it's just been really wonderful just kind of

45:50

seeing how people take these ideas and develop

45:52

them. Fundamentally, I think all

45:54

these games are collaborative games, because all

45:56

I have done as a game designer

45:59

is. build the structures

46:01

that the scaffolding of this universe.

46:03

And then the player builds the

46:06

rest. The player runs around in

46:08

this playground and all

46:10

the little mud castles they build are their own. So

46:13

cool. Something

46:15

you said in a medium post, remember medium

46:18

that I like was if I ask a

46:20

player to learn something new, it won't be

46:22

something that will only ever exist in the

46:24

context of the game. So when

46:26

you're talking about things people might learn in the game,

46:28

are you talking about like, these like

46:30

physical like embroidery journaling, or is it something

46:33

more abstract

46:35

than that even? No, I

46:37

mean that I mean that exactly. Part

46:39

of how I make games and we're going to go loop

46:42

a little bit back to ritual here. Perfect.

46:44

Part of how I make games is

46:46

that I want games that fit into

46:48

the rituals and cadences of everyday life.

46:50

Like I've done male games where, you

46:52

know, you experience the game when you

46:55

go and get your mail, which is

46:57

something you have to do anyway. And

46:59

you're going to stand there in your

47:01

doorway and open the envelope and read

47:03

it. And I like it

47:05

when my games fit into slots like

47:07

that. I like it when they're just

47:10

kind of little delightful interruptions in your

47:12

day. I don't really make games

47:14

that are like a sit down for four

47:16

hours and do this. Although

47:19

I love those games and I play them all the

47:21

time. But I think my

47:23

games are probably best experienced

47:25

in like five to 30

47:27

minute chunks. And that's

47:29

great, because we're all busy and we all have

47:32

ADHD. So we're all busy. We all we all have

47:34

things to do. So

47:36

you listed two New Year's resolutions online

47:38

and they both really resonated with me. One

47:40

was actually really similar to something that we

47:42

had posted on the gender feel account. I

47:44

was going to read them out loud, but

47:47

I'm like, why don't you just can you

47:49

tell us about your resolutions if you remember

47:51

them? Yeah, no, I do remember them.

47:53

The first one was to

47:56

be a lot better with integrating

48:00

activism into my

48:03

everyday life. And I think

48:05

over the years, I've done

48:07

some pretty like high profile

48:09

fundraisers. And that has

48:12

been my mode of activism, my mode

48:14

of fundraising, you know, obviously like I

48:16

talk about things with some

48:18

frequency, but it's kind of like

48:20

go hard, raise a ton of money

48:23

for people who are doing amazing things because

48:25

they know what they're doing. I

48:28

respect the work that other people are doing.

48:30

And I feel that the part that I

48:33

do best is in

48:35

that amplification, isn't getting them

48:37

the resources they need to do their work.

48:40

And that has been my methods in the past. And

48:42

it wasn't always sustainable

48:44

because again, a lot of the attention,

48:46

a lot of the work would lead

48:48

to burnout. And especially

48:51

with the current Palestinian

48:53

genocide, it's just one

48:55

of those things where pushing

48:57

more money is

48:59

not something that helps right now

49:03

because the money is not getting

49:05

too Palestine. Like the problem is,

49:07

you know, our administration

49:10

is helping to bomb

49:12

Palestine. But I'm

49:14

also seeing so much activist

49:16

burnout in my circles and

49:21

things like, you know, how

49:23

can you still talk about your life? How

49:25

can you still talk about yourself when

49:27

such horrible things are happening in the world? And

49:30

I think I had this very,

49:33

this naive approach not like

49:35

recently, but you know, when I was younger that

49:37

if you tried hard enough, if you

49:40

were loud enough, if you just did

49:42

enough work, things would get better. And

49:44

I think I'm now just kind of

49:46

settling into that solid recognition that there's

49:49

a solid chance it doesn't, that

49:51

it will always be like this.

49:53

We are always going to have

49:55

to be working and fighting for

49:58

a more just world. And

50:01

if we can't integrate that

50:03

into our regular life in

50:05

a way that it just fits into the

50:07

cadence of ordinary life as Easily

50:10

as making a cup of tea does

50:13

then we're going to have very short lives

50:15

as activists I don't just mean

50:17

like because the government is going to kill

50:20

us. I mean like because we can't sustain

50:22

that level of pressure. So so

50:25

My big resolution for this

50:27

year is to kind

50:29

of integrate that practice on

50:31

such an everyday level that I Don't

50:35

like doom scroll Instagram and feel

50:37

the world is ending like I

50:39

look at Instagram I acknowledge

50:42

the brutality of what's happening in

50:44

our world and then

50:46

like I continue Doing

50:48

things I continue amplifying

50:51

I Continually like you

50:53

know working with the community around me

50:55

on things that I can fix with

50:57

my work and my hands and my

50:59

cooking Because you know There

51:01

are always things to do and we need

51:04

to do them and we need to do

51:06

them while maintaining that consistent

51:08

mental fortitude That

51:11

we that you're gonna need if you're plan on doing

51:13

this for the rest of your life Wait

51:16

before the second one I have to

51:18

say everything you're saying Makes

51:20

total sense resonates with me and is

51:22

correct and also I'm like,

51:25

okay But we also

51:27

both you and I both organize annual high

51:29

concept food themed fundraising events And I just

51:31

want to acknowledge that we have that in

51:33

common. I'm not saying it's sustainable or good

51:35

for us, but we do do it I

51:39

love that commonality. It's very specific.

51:42

I know and I'm still gonna do that You

51:44

know that that's that's part of the tradition you

51:46

want to talk about what it is? Oh, yeah

51:49

It's a project called project pizza and

51:51

been running it pricing five years now

51:53

It's very straightforward get a bunch of

51:55

artists together. We make art we sell

51:57

the art and we send that

51:59

money to food insecurity organizations in

52:01

that area. And one of

52:04

the things I'm most excited about is

52:06

in the last couple years, we've

52:09

started donating to just smaller grassroots

52:11

organizations, like people who actually do

52:13

not have a nonprofit. And

52:16

we were able to donate to

52:18

my friend who just runs a

52:20

homeless and unhoused people like

52:22

outreach in the park. And

52:25

yeah, like I feel really

52:27

good about shuttling more of this

52:29

money just into more grassroots work

52:31

in my community. Okay,

52:33

second New Year's resolution. Oh,

52:36

that's just to be bad at more

52:38

things. Yeah, I burnt out so hard

52:40

after finishing my second book, The Legend

52:42

of Antipo. Like it came out, it

52:44

did okay. And I haven't really

52:46

drawn comics since then. My

52:48

third book is very late. But

52:52

I've been really trying to

52:54

find indulgence in making

52:57

art, you know, I've taken up a

52:59

ceramics practice, I'm terrible at it. But

53:01

it feels great. And I think

53:03

I would just like to try more things I'm

53:06

bad at. And that's not about like, unlocking,

53:08

you know, the little perfectionist in my brain.

53:11

It's fun. It's fun being an

53:14

amateur. It's fun doing work outside

53:16

capitalist spaces. And

53:19

just as an artist as a full time artist, I

53:21

think it's really important for me to make

53:23

work I could not conceivably sell. I

53:26

was gonna ask about that because a lot of the

53:28

way that you operate in the world, like in some

53:30

ways reminds me of the ways that I aspire to

53:32

operate where it's like, well, I just do a little

53:34

project over here. And I do a little project over

53:36

here. And it's not really clear how this is making

53:38

me a living. But I am

53:40

doing cool shit. And I was just thinking about

53:42

like so much projects that you do. I'm like,

53:44

wait, it's like, is this all

53:46

job? Like you're making puppets right now? Like

53:49

is that job? Is that fun? Is that

53:51

fun job? Like do you always know? I

53:55

don't always know I've had

53:57

a weird ability to make

53:59

things things that are not my job.

54:03

And I think part of that is

54:05

pretty early in my career when I was still

54:07

married, I did have

54:10

the support structure to experiment a

54:12

lot. And now I do

54:14

not have that same support structure. I am

54:16

now much more solidly a starving

54:19

artist. I mean, I do okay, but

54:21

like, you know, there's health

54:23

insurance and there's... Yeah,

54:27

so I think I fairly

54:29

early established my

54:31

work as something that would

54:34

be a journey. And

54:37

like we talked about earlier, kind of

54:39

keeping these fairly consistent themes through my

54:41

work, I think I've developed,

54:43

you know, a small following

54:46

of people who are

54:48

interested in my themes,

54:50

in my vibe, and

54:52

the specific output that happens

54:54

to be in. They're

54:57

open to it. And I feel

54:59

so, so lucky to be

55:01

able to have that as a working

55:03

artist, which feels so increasingly rare

55:06

nowadays. The puppets,

55:08

you know, they were pandemic obsession. This,

55:10

I think, is the first time I

55:13

am making money making

55:15

puppets on

55:17

this residency that I'm on. But

55:20

I hope there'll be more of my life. Yeah.

55:23

Yeah. You've been to Burning Man

55:25

a number of times. What's your hot take on Burning

55:27

Man? I

55:31

think Burning Man is an absolute

55:33

blast the 10 days before the

55:35

event starts. Because

55:39

that's when all the

55:41

people who build big art

55:43

and who love building, they

55:46

love working, they love building

55:48

cities. So about

55:50

two weeks before Burning Man opens

55:53

is when the city feels the most alive

55:55

for me. It's when it

55:57

just feels like, yeah, these are my people. Then

56:00

I would say the last few years I've gone,

56:02

which again, I haven't been since I think 2017

56:06

or 2016, I spent pretty

56:08

exhausted and kind of burnt out because

56:11

I've just built a large project.

56:13

Yeah. And I'm only speaking for myself.

56:15

I know a lot of people love

56:18

Burning Man, but for

56:20

me, an important thing as an artist

56:23

was to ask, who am I building my

56:25

art for? And increasingly,

56:27

I think I got somewhat

56:30

disillusioned with a lot of attendees

56:32

at Burning Man, where

56:34

it's just like, who am I working for?

56:37

And it was just really clear to me that

56:39

what I wanted to do was build more work

56:41

in my own community. And

56:44

while there are so many people

56:46

I love that go to Burning

56:48

Man, I do feel like

56:50

the structure of the event

56:52

as a whole is not

56:54

my people. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to

56:56

be making cool art for Mark Zuckerberg, you know?

56:58

No. I

57:01

mean, I don't even want to post on his website. Right.

57:04

Totally. Amazing.

57:06

All right. Wow. The way

57:08

we always end the show is by asking in

57:10

your ideal world, what would the future of gender

57:12

look like? I mean, I think

57:15

it's everyone gets to pick. Personally,

57:17

for me, the most comfortable place for it

57:19

is that we literally didn't talk about it

57:22

at all. Like

57:24

I said, just kind of I'm so

57:26

gender like, oh, oh, I'm so gender

57:28

earth. But yeah,

57:31

I think it would be complete freedom

57:34

to choose, like complete freedom to

57:38

be whatever gender you want and to change it as

57:40

many times as you want. Like, and you just, yeah,

57:44

I would like gender to

57:46

be as easy as like dyeing your hair.

57:53

That's going to do it for this week's show. I want

57:55

to quickly note, she's hard to get a ways

58:00

that your money can be helpful. One

58:02

is to go to linktree.sargaza, and donate to the vetted

58:08

rotating list of fundraisers listed there. The other is

58:10

to donate to the Middle Eastern Children's Alliance, which

58:12

is accessible at the end of the set that

58:15

helps out. Anyway, you can

58:17

find shing at shingkor.com or on Instagram at

58:19

saudaspare. Please go look through some of their

58:21

work if you haven't. It is so cool

58:23

and beautiful. You can also get more access

58:25

to their work, including physical prints and other

58:28

little treats in the mail, by supporting

58:30

them at patreon.com/shing. We

58:33

are of course also on Patreon at

58:35

patreon.com/gender. That's where you can get access

58:37

to our weekly newsletter and bonus podcasts.

58:40

We are also on Instagram and at

58:42

genderpodcast.com where we have transcripts available for

58:44

every episode. This episode was produced and

58:46

edited by Ozzy, Linus, and Ben and

58:48

by me. Our logo is by Irat

58:50

and Lai, her theme song is by

58:52

Break Masters and Leather, additional music

58:55

by Dushions. We'll

58:57

be back next week with more feelings about

58:59

gender. Three thousand. There's

59:11

other silly scenes and self-owns throughout the

59:13

book. Jenner always refers

59:15

to bottom surgery as the final

59:17

surgery, capital T, capital S, capital

59:19

S, which makes it sound both

59:22

ominous and futuristic. She writes

59:24

that Kendall is the most down-to-earth Kardashian

59:26

because she is, quote, as at home

59:28

at a riding stable as she is

59:30

walking down the catwalk for Chanel. She

59:32

describes staring at herself wearing nothing but

59:34

her Olympic gold medal right after she

59:37

won. I mean, wouldn't you?