los angeles

My story ‘Motion Sickness,’ previously only available in a SOLD OUT print run of the Northwest Review, is NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE.

This story might be one of my favorites I’ve ever written. Came out of me during the pandemic when I was sitting with big thoughts about the future and reading W.G. Sebald and my spouse and I would pass the time taking long drives down to the port and back home.

Los Angeles is known for its film studios and Hollywood glamour and media production, but one of the largest drivers of the economy is actually the Port of Los Angeles, which straddles San Pedro and Long Beach, and is the largest port in North America. It has 25 cargo terminals spread across 7,500 acres and handles over $270 billion in cargo a year. It is also a port of call for multiple cruise ships.

This story is partially about my fascination with the port, partially about my frustration with what I have seen some peers do to fit in, beat back loneliness, and lose a part of themselves along the way.

Read ‘Motion Sickness’ here.

HUSBANDRY Now Available to Read Online (for FREE)

After what “seems like an eon and a half of pre-production lead up,”* my short story HUSBANDRY is finally available for the general public to read on the Los Angeles Review website without a price of admission:

Thank you for your love and support. (If you feel like sharing HUSBANDRY on Reddit or boosting it elsewhere, you will have my forever thanks.)

Sending love and a hug and a wish to tell stories on a porch together again, someday,

*according to my beloved.

HUSBANDRY available to read in Issue 23 of the Los Angeles Review from Red Hen Press

Two years ago we were rounding out our first year in Los Angeles when I won the short fiction contest at the Los Angeles Review. The news felt like a blessing on an already good year — we came West in the hope that California would be a good home for the next chapter of our lives and 2018 seemed to say: you did good.

But that was two years ago. Right now we’re in the middle of a pandemic and LA County looks like it’s in a race with Florida for the number of new COVID cases per day. We spend most of our time at home with our pets. Even though it is true that every day of our lives holds the promise of something unexpected, that truth feels more raw and real right now.

So it is with relief and hope and an attempt to invite you into my co-joy that I share the news that my short story, HUSBANDRY, is finally available to read in the late-released Issue 23 of the Los Angeles Review.

HUSBANDRY is about a bull who wakes up as a woman—and what it means to be lonely, and other, and still find your person in this world. It’s about gender and sexuality and pastoral life and what time does to who we are.

I’m honored to be featured alongside a number of amazing writers and artists and I hope you’ll consider buying a copy and giving it a read. These independent presses survive on razor thin margins and every little bit counts towards keeping them alive. If you like interesting writing that isn’t your typical cookie-cutter beach read, especially, check them out. More about Red Hen Press can be found here.

Love to all and Happy Friday!!

xo, LJ

Iconoclastic

POLITICS
Betsy DeVos doesn’t really believe in democracy, at Scalawag Mag by yours truly
Trump doesn’t understand why we had the Civil War
A statement from the Berkeley Antifascists

FILM
Dancing in the Dark, a documentary of the Black and Latino gay club scene in New York. Almost like Paris is Burning for a new generation.
BritishPathe.tv
Vintage Matchbox Cars on the assembly line
Indiscretion of an American Wife, starring Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones

ESSAY
Something uneasy in the Los Angeles Air
Crossed wires and community in 19th century dreams
Ghost in the cloud

Image credit

Whoa Wednesday

THEY SAY
Sidney Poitier is still alive and can sometimes be seen at the dinosaur McDonald’s* on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, ordering pancakes at all hours of the day. At least, this is what I learned on Monday evening when Tye Pemberton and I were sitting in our living room discussing the important details of McDonald’s new all-day breakfast policy (p.s. all-day breakfast menus vary by location). While I have never been to L.A., it didn’t surprise me that a place known as the dinosaur McDonald’s—soherenamed because it used to be a Sinclair fill-up station—would have an all-day pancake policy for one. Poitier deserves all the delicious pancakes he can eat. The man is a living national treasure. When I asked Mr. Pemberton how he knew the dinosaur McDonald’s would make pancakes for Poitier whenever he wanted them, Mr. Pemberton said he had seen it himself when he was in college.** The staff even wrote Poitier a note on his to-go box: “Only for you, Mr. Poitier.” This much is true: I don’t doubt Mr. Pemberton, and neither should you. —LJ

*Current L.A. residents invited to confirm or deny whether the dinosaur McDonald’s still stands.
**Over a decade ago.

JUST SO YOU KNOW, BLACK LIVES MATTER
In light of Steve King’s recent remarks, perhaps it is time to brush up on the subtle linguistics of polite white supremacy?
Writer Kiese Laymon takes us to church on facebook
Why I am skeptical of white liberals in the black lives matter movement

THE WORLD OUTSIDE AMERICA
What happened in Turkey?
People in China are REALLY hating on the Hague’s South China Sea decision

LITERATURE MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO WAKE UP IN THE MORNING
A new generation hilariously discovers Moby Dick
Famous authors’ handwritten outlines for great works of literature
David Foster Wallace’s syllabus for English 102 (in which he used popular fiction to blow little undergraduate minds)

SWIFTBOATING KANYE: A PRIMER
Here’s what Taylor Swift did to Kanye and then what Kim did to defend him
Here is why Taylor Swift is all kinds of fucked up, plus bonus metaphor “Darth Susan” for that coworker you despise

ART BECAUSE LIFE
Black contemporary art tumblr of glory
Do you have to be rich to make it as an artist?
Searchable database of Japanese woodcuts
Hot pictures of hot books (some NSFW)

CINEMA OBSCURA
Detour, the 1945 film noir classic (only one hour long)
The Nude Restaurant by Andy Warhol (NSFW)

MEN’S ISSUES
Nobody showed up at the Women For Trump event at the RNC
BREXIT and the glass cliff
An interview with Lisa Mae Brunson about diversifying the white bro world of tech
On the appetites of men and women
Can a woman’s voice ever be right?

FUN TIME IS ANY TIME
Chris Fleming makes me laugh
Doge dancing

Image Credit: Columbia Pictures, Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, 1967.