#melissabroder

[citylightsbooks]

5 Questions with Brontez Purnell, Author of 100 Boyfriends

Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of a graphic novel, a novella, a children's book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers' Award for Fiction, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, a cofounder of the experimental dance group the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, the creator of the renowned cult zine Fag School, and the director of several short films, music videos, and the documentary Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock. Born in Triana, Alabama, he's lived in Oakland, California, for more than a decade.

Brontez Purnell is in conversation with Melissa Broder to celebrate the launch of his new book 100 Boyfriends (published by MCD) in our City Lights LIVE! discussion series on Wednesday, February 17th

****

Where are you writing to us from?

Oakland!!!!!

What’s kept you sane during the pandemic?

Literally not a goddamn thing.

What are 3 books you always recommend to people?

Everything I've written. [editor's note! Since I Laid My Burden Down, Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger?, and The Nightlife of Jacuzzi Gaskett]

Which writers, artists, and others influence your work in general, and this book, specifically?  

THE TEACHINGS OF THE LATE GREAT REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. 

If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

Basically it would be the non-fictional version of the lesbian book store that Ellen Degeneres owned on her 90's sitcom Ellen. I think the store was called “Buy the Book”?

[ruthypie100]

#whereismymind 🖤 #Repost @itspeteski with @make_repost ・・・ u up? reimagined by @itsPeteski title via a tweet by @realmelissabroder Melissa Broder ★ twitter #sosadtoday orig via @jacquenodell #MelissaBroder #follow #thisisnthappiness #comix #comics #emoterror #vintagecomics #itspeteski #tbt #repost https://www.instagram.com/p/COSU-SOh0h7/?igshid=hefya2qinv56

[kunznicole]

Crushes are like little treadmills of hope in the abyss. We may actually be going nowhere, but there is the sensation of forward motion — something to anticipate, a reason for being, a distraction from death and larger existential questions like “What is everything?” and “What am I doing here?”

[arghwhatever]

I had felt, for a long time, that if I started crying I would not stop- that if I finally ripped, there would be nothing to stop my guts from falling out. I was scared of what might come out of me: the things I would see, what others would see. I was scared the feelings would eat me. Feelings were a luxury of the young, or someone much stronger than me- someone more at ease with being human. It was too late for for tears. I was to keep move forward on the same track in spite of life’s unsatisfying lifeness.

The Pisces, Melissa Broder. 

[veinpulp]

"I am giving you permission to tell the truth about where you are in your process of unraveling your fucked-up schemas. I am not pressuring you to dismantle anything. I am saying let's be here, undismantled, and just accept that this is where we are. Let's love each other right where we are, even as we compare ourselves to one another. I am saying, yes, baby, I know it's hard. "

Melissa Broder

[bibliobethblog]

Birthday book haul part one 😍 Thank you so much to @chrissireads and @tarheelreader for their amazing generosity! I’m a very lucky girl. Have you read any of these? What did you think? I’d love to know! 😊🤗📚 #bookblogger #bookstagram #bookhaul #birthdaybooks #robertgalbraith #lethalwhite #aftermecomestheflood #sarahperry #thepisces #melissabroder #mysistertheserialkiller #oyinkanbraithwaite #fromthewreck #janerawson #remembered #yvonnebattlefelton #whataluckygirl https://www.instagram.com/p/BxNmTwknSQ2/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=18unfeqk6d68o

[head-full-of-words]

1/22/19

I know it’s been a while since i’ve blogged. The last time I blogged, I wrote about how I hurt this boy whom I loved and how I fucked up and how I felt guilty and blah blah blah. And then I got anonymous hate mail about how I should stop talking about my sadness, because I guess there are still people out there that are unsympathetic to others’ heartbreaks. I knew that, but it’s something I pretend doesn’t exist, because wow, that’s fucked. Let people grieve?

I guess I just decided to blog because my diary/journal/thing hasn’t been my favorite outlet lately. Maybe when I get back to school, but I don’t find myself wanting to write in it very much these days. This happens sometimes; where I just don’t feel like writing in it until one day I do. I also really want to keep writing my sequel poetry book, but I think I have writer’s block. I have this professor that says you should write everyday, even on the days you feel the least inspired, but all I come up with is shit. blah. blank page. more shit. scribbles. blah. doodle doodle doodle. I’m just not sure forcing it is going to magically make art appear, ya know?

I had all of these plans this break to read the 5 million novels I impulsively bought over the summer in my adventures in New York City and that I impulsively bought across the country for Christmas. After all that reading for educational purposes, I started to miss reading for fun, and then I came home, and I started to miss Netflix more than reading. But, here I am, slowly moving through my second book on my personal-reading-for-fun list. It’s So Sad Today by Melissa Broder ((who I’m fairly certain is a Pisces, yet I seem to have similarities with her?? Who would have thought??)). I just finished two of her personal essays about love. The first one is the versions of love stories she’s lived. I love the concept and am soooooo mad she thought of it before me, and the second was about a fling-ish relationship she had for years with a younger man. The depth they had with one another was something I’m trying to grasp and even evaluate in my own life. Have I ever been able to talk to someone like that? If I have, who was it? Who was my cosmic man that I could have conversations with like that?

Side note, too: this book actually makes me want to write a personal essay book/memoir someday. I’m more of a poet, for sure, but I love Creative Nonfiction, and I guess I just didn’t know the different things I could include in that type of book until this semester and the past few books I’ve read. I think I could have some self-discovering stories. 

But, back to topic. As she discusses this young man she had a relationship-thing with, it made me think about love. We ask all of those dumb “what’s your favorite color?” kind of questions, but that wasn’t their relationship. They talked about religion and love and death and life and hope and fear and what it means to be alive... to be really alive. And I just want to know if I’ve ever had a romantic relationship with someone like that? I can tell you that my one ex has the favorite color of blue, and my other ex takes anxiety medicine, and his mom is also allergic to pet hair, so they have a hypoallergenic dog. And, my other ex’s maternal grandmother died from AIDS. But, did we talk about those deep things? The things that sometimes change, but also sometimes don’t. The things that define our status as “Christian”, “Atheist”, “Liberal”, “Conservative” ((even though we shouldn’t be categorized based on our beliefs))? 

I want that. I want to tell someone that marriage scares me, because I’ve seen it fail a lot. I’m scared that love always seems temporary, along with happiness with another human being. I want to ask someone, “how do we stop the comfortability from taking over our passion?” I want to ask someone what the scariest monster they’ve seen is, and I don’t mean the bear the saw that one time they were camping, or the tiger that they could have touched if the zoo glass wasn’t separating them, or the dragon they thought lived under their bed from too many fairytales. I mean, who is the most monstrous human you’ve met? I want them to tell me if they think Hell is real, who their favorite Greek God/Goddess was in ninth grade when we had to learn about it in order to read The Odyssey and why. Why was that mythological god/goddess your favorite?

I want that kind of love. But, it seems to be hard to find. Now that I reflect on my relationships, I always craved that. But, I seem to pick superficial people with superficial love that would rather tell you how nice your face is than how beautiful your diamond mind is. 

For once, I just want someone to have thirst for my mind, but not in the weird zombie way. I mean, I want them to learn the way I’m wired and the way I work and the reason I am the way that I am. And, that’s the same kind of love I’m always aching to give. 

[sosad-today]

https://www.amazon.com/Pisces-Novel-Melissa-Broder/dp/1524761559

[naut-illustrious]

Finally getting around to this one . . . . #thepisces #melissabroder #amreading #books #bookstagram #booksofinstagram (at Boston, Massachusetts)

[unabridgedbookstore]

Do you struggle with anxiety, existential malaise, and a low-level terror of modern life? Are you interested in investigating messy realities of female sexuality? Is merman erotica a trend you can get behind? If you answered “yes” to these questions, you may want to pick up THE PISCES! Lucy is struggling to complete a dissertation on Sappho though she knows her thesis is bunk. After carelessly breaking off her long-term relationship, Lucy decides to spend a summer dog sitting for her sister in Venice Beach, hoping the space away from her routine will help her gain some new perspective. On a midnight walk on the beach she meets Theo, a water-bound man of mysterious origin. As Lucy and Theo’s relationship develops, Lucy slowly begins to redefine the terms on which she lives. Razor sharp, eccentric, and brutally honest, you won’t read another book like THE PISCES this year! ♥️📚 #melissabroder #unabridgedbookoftheweek (at Unabridged Bookstore)

[thebookdragon217]

Thanks to @librofm for the ALC! QOTD: What book left you feeling totally confused after reading it? I listened to Milk Fed on audio and it took me a while to get through it because it is not like anything I've ever read before. The best way to describe is that it is an experience. a very weird one. I still don't know exactly how I feel after reading it. I can't say with certainty if I liked it but I'm not sure if I hated it either. The writing was graphic and packed a punch. There were times that I laughed out loud and others where I cringed and wanted to run away. I questioned if this was real life or if it was a psychedelic dream during several points in the story. The super descriptive details about food, consumption and purging were horrifying sometimes. There were plot points that felt so emotionally real, I wanted to put a call in to the protagonist's therapist. In essence this was a book about the different types of hunger you encounter in the human experience: 🍨 Hunger for human connection 🍩 Hunger for spiritual connection 🎂 Hunger for identity 🧁 Hunger for intimacy and sexuality 🥧 Hunger for maternal love and acceptance WARNING: If you have any issues with food or eating disorders stay far away from this one. If you want to experience a wild ride that will leave you confused, check this one out. Bookdragon rating 🔥🔥🔥🔥 #MilkFed #MelissaBroder #reading #bookstagram #audiobooks #ALC #Bibliophile #bookworm #bookish #bookishmug #booksandflowers #shelfie #bookphotos #booklover #bookdragonreviews #bookfeature #listeningIsReading #BooksofIG #eatingdisorder #bookactivity #booksbooksbooks #bookaddict #librofm #newrelease #books (at Bushwick) https://www.instagram.com/p/CM25A27r8cQ/?igshid=1qg6rmav8bwiw

[franciscomaldo]

#ClaireFoy protagonizará adaptación #MelissaBroder #ThePisces √ Entérate de los detalles accediendo al link de la Bio 👆🏻#musicacinetv https://www.instagram.com/p/CKh_Vt_L4r6/?igshid=10cr1bjq45atl

[ruthypie100]

🖤 #Repost @itspeteski with @make_repost ・・・ Friday night, amiright? reimagined by @itsPeteski title via a tweet by @realmelissabroder Melissa Broder ★ twitter #sosadtoday #follow #MelissaBroder #thisisnthappiness #emoterror #thiscouldbeus #itspeteski #tbt #vintagecomics don't #text me #friday #sickday https://www.instagram.com/p/CRlWmBBrTq6/?utm_medium=tumblr

[fatmalovestodraw]

Currently reading #book #sosadtoday #melissabroder

[kunznicole]

After all these years of preserving my facade in daily life, I’m fucking tired. It would probably be a real relief to just crumble. I wish I could trust that the universe has me and that I could just let go. I think my biggest fear and deepest wish is to surrender.

I would love to just stand up at a work meeting and be like, “Hi, I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I may be talking about ‘our brand’ but I’m definitely dying. You are too. We all are.”

I would love to tell a creative collaborator, “Hey, I know that you want to talk about narrative arc. But I’m actually not inside my body any more, because you’ve trapped me inside this Starbucks.”

I’d like to tell a friend, “I have more panic attacks around you than anyone else. I think we should just text for the rest of the friendship. Thanks.”

I’d like to tell a lover, “The pressure to feel close to you, while I am having a panic attack, makes me feel totally and completely alone.”

It’s probably good that I don’t say these things to people. It’s probably good that I keep pushing myself to leave the house and maintain my social masks of competence, engagement, and comfort. But what if I did tell people exactly what was going on? What if I valued my own peace of mind more than what other people think of me? Would I end up jobless, friendless, and loveless? Would I vanish entirely?

Melissa Broder

[bibliobethblog]

Hello everyone and hope you’re having a grand weekend. Today for #stacksaturday I was inspired to do an #orangeandpurplestack by the gorgeous @bookishbananna so here it is! I love how the colours look together. From the bottom 😏: The Storied Life Of AJ Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin (TBR) Islands of Abandonment - Cal Flyn (TBR inspired by my beautiful friend @sandladysbooks ) Milk Fed - Melissa Broder (TBR) Love In The Big City - Sang Young Park (TBR) Pew - Catherine Lacey (TBR) Hotel Iris - Yoko Ogawa (TBR) Love Orange - Natasha Randall (TBR) Chocolat - Joanne Harris (one of my favourite books) I’d love to know your thoughts on any of these books or authors. Let’s have a chat in the comments! #bookstagram #bookstack #stackofbooks #prettybooks #chocolat #joanneharris #favouritebooks #loveorange #natasharandall #hoteliris #yokoogawa #pew #catherinelacey #loveinthebigcity #sangyoungpark #tiltedaxispress #milkfed #melissabroder #islandsofabandonment #calflyn #thestoriedlifeofajfikry #gabriellezevin #tbrgettinglonger #whenwillireadthese https://www.instagram.com/p/CbTAiQbLgBZ/?utm_medium=tumblr