Category: Worldwide

In 2018, with another, more contested season of Game of Thrones still ahead of him, Peter Dinklage appeared in a most un-Tyrion production: a new stage version of Cyrano de Bergerac, which took Edmond Rostand’s classic play and reimagined it as a musical. He even did it without the iconic fake nose. Up till now, only those who got tickets to its run at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut were able to see Dinklage’s work. But that will change: As per Deadline, the Cyrano musical with Dinklage is being made into a movie.

The film will be directed by Joe Wright, of the 2005 Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, Atonement, and His Darkest Hour, as well as the much-delayed The Woman in the Window. Joining Dinklage will be The Girl on the Train’s Haley Bennett, who played the role of Roxanne, the woman beloved by Cyrano, but who Cyrano assumes will reject him because of his deformity. Instead, he lends his services to helping a more a more classically attractive man woo the woman he loves.

Dinklage’s career has been as vibrant post-Games of Thrones as it was before and during it, being one of the few actors with dwarfism who’s been able to regularly get roles that aren’t defined by his abnormality. Hell, he’s even reuniting with fellow GoT alum Jason Momoa for a movie in which he’ll play Abraham Van Helsing, famed Dracula vampire hunter. Even that, though, isn’t as exciting as him playing one of stage and screen’s great frustrated romantics.

(Via Deadline)

The NBA bubble has produced some thrilling games in its first week, with a number being decided in the final minute or even overtime, as the quality of play has been nothing short of exceptional.

On Tuesday, we were treated to another spectacular game between the L.A. Clippers and the red-hot Phoenix Suns, who entered the game 2-0 and were trying to pull themselves into contention for the play-in series in the West with another win. The Suns led for much of the afternoon in Orlando, behind tremendous performances from Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton, as their young stars continue to look excellent, as does the rest of their young core with players like Mikal Bridges taking apparent leaps.

Booker finished the game with 35 points and eight assists, including a 6-of-9 night from three-point range, but it was the midrange where he got the job done late, including hitting the game-winner at the buzzer after the Clippers tied it at 115-115. Ricky Rubio’s effort at a contested floater went begging, but Mikal Bridges was able to steal the ball after the Clippers got the rebound and Ayton swung it to Booker, who did the rest against great defense from Kawhi and Paul George.

The contest from George was textbook after Kawhi forced Booker into a spinning fadeaway, but their efforts were no matter to the budding superstar, who sunk the dagger. It should be noted that Bridges, who has emerged as a spectacular defender for the Suns, set it all up with the tipped pass for a steal to keep the Clippers from being the team with a shot to win.

The Suns now move to 3-0 in the bubble and are just one game back of the 9-seed — and three behind Memphis in eighth. As such, their chances at the play-in game are suddenly very alive after they were an afterthought coming in because of the deficit they had to make up and how many teams they needed to leapfrog. However, with the rest of the bottom of the West struggling, aside from the Spurs, things are now wide open and no one is playing better ball than Phoenix in Orlando.

WNBA players have found themselves united against one of the league’s owners in recent weeks. Kelly Loeffler, a part-owner of the Atlanta Dream and a United States Senator from the state of Georgia, has openly challenged the league and its players as they have embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. In an attempt to stir up support among conservative voters in the state of Georgia, Loeffler, who is white, has mischaracterized Black Lives Matter’s motives, and despite the fact that the team’s players have vocally opposed her and the Players Association wants her out, the league will not force Loeffler to sell her stake in Dream Too LLC.

Loeffler is, however, fighting for her seat in the Senate — she was appointed to the seat previously held by Johnny Isakson earlier this year ahead of an election. With players unable to get Loeffler out of the league, their focus has turned on boosting one of her opponents, Reverend Raphael Warnock, before Georgians vote later this year.

Members of the Chicago Sky, Phoenix Mercury and the Dream wore shirts to their respective games on Tuesday evening in the Wubble that read “VOTE WARNOCK.”

According to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, the idea came from Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm, who expects a number of players to wear the shirts.

Warnock is one of several challengers looking to take down Loeffler. Due to the lack of a primary, everyone seeking this seat is on the ballot, and according to the most recent poll by Monmouth, Loeffler leads the field with 26 percent of the vote. Warnock is in fourth with nine percent, although he has received publicity in recent weeks due to a wave of endorsements, strong fundraising numbers, and his eulogy at the funeral for recently-departed United States Representative and Civil Rights icon John Lewis.

When people think of the Deep South, especially in states like Mississippi, most people don’t imagine a diverse and accepting way of life. People always look at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted a unicorn horn when I reminisce on my time living in Biloxi and the eclectic people I’ve met there, many of whom I call friends. I often find myself explaining that there are two distinct Mississippis—the closer you get to the water, the more liberal it gets. If you were to look at an election map, you’d see that the coast is pretty deeply purple while the rest of the state is fire engine red.

It’s also important to note that in a way, I remember my time in Biloxi from a place of privilege that some of my friends do not possess. It may be strange to think of privilege when it comes from a Black woman in an interracial marriage, but being cisgendered is a privilege that I am afforded through no doing of my own. I became acutely aware of this privilege when my friend who happens to be a transgender man announced that he was expecting a child with his partner. I immediately felt a duty to protect, which in a perfect world would not have been my first reaction.

It was in that moment that I realized that I was viewing the world through my lens as a cisgendered woman who is outwardly in a heteronormative relationship. I have discovered that through writing, you can change the narrative people perceive, so I thought it would be a good idea to sit down with my friend—not only to check in with his feelings, but to aid in dissolving the “otherness” that people place upon transgender people.

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In my efforts to protect my friend, I deliberately withheld this interview until I was able to ensure that it would be published with a platform that honored the narratives of marginalized people. I have also changed his name at his request to allow for a more uninhibited conversation. He did not have to take the time to educate me or allow me to put his experience out into the world, but he agreed that the more stories like this that are out there, the more hope there is that things will change in the future.

In order to be perfectly clear for people who may not understand the term transgender man, a transgender man is someone who was born with female sex organs, but identifies as a male. Some transgender men have not hormonally and surgically transitioned to their identified sex, some have begun hormones and not completed surgeries, while others may have completed the hormone treatment as well as sex reassignment surgery. No matter where they are in the process, they are considered transgender men.

Most of this interview was conducted via email and messenger. For the purposes of this interview my friend will be referred to as “Collin,” and some questions and answers have been shortened or edited for clarity.

Jacalyn: When did you decide to have children and was your family supportive?

Collin: My life partner (who is also transgender, but not completely out yet) and I decided to try for kids very soon after we got engaged. I wanted kids before I met her, but I didn’t think I was able to have them, or honestly didn’t think I’d find someone to have a family with. It’s very hard dating, but even harder in the LGBTQI community. Especially if you’re transgender. My Mawmaw was thrilled. At first she continued to call me by my preferred male pronouns, but eventually started almost trying to convince me that my pregnancy would make me want to detransition. She then started calling me by my female pronouns, even when corrected. My sister didn’t really seem thrilled at first, but I know she was mostly concerned about my gender dysphoria and how it would affect my mental state. She’s always been my number one supporter. My in-laws didn’t react much. They’ve never been supportive of my of my identity even before pregnancy. They think I’ve detransitioned.

Jacalyn: Was it difficult to find an accepting OBGYN that you felt comfortable with in Mississippi?

Collin: I didn’t feel comfortable trying to find an accepting OBGYN. When I went to the OB, I picked the sign up paper based on my gender identity and my orientation. So I put down transgender and bisexual. When I spoke to the nurse practitioner, she said “Oh we don’t deal with that here. Those questions might be for next door.” I didn’t have time to look for an accepting doctor because my health insurance was limited to only a handful.

Jacalyn: Did you feel you had to misgender yourself or allow yourself to be misgendered to receive appropriate treatment?

Collin: I tried to correct people, but it got to the point where they didn’t seem to care, so I felt the need to misgender myself. Once I became pregnant, even more people who have known me since I came out even proceeded to misgender me, and my family members tried to convince me to detransition.

Jacalyn: Did people treat you differently as you walked through the world as a pregnant man?

Collin: I definitely got treated differently. People never really saw me as a man or woman but once I became pregnant it was different. Especially in the workforce. There was a lot of heavy movement and I was at risk since I had 3 miscarriages prior.

Jacalyn: You worked throughout a good portion of your pregnancy, do you feel your employer and coworkers treated you fairly?

Collin: Once they found out I was pregnant, one of my managers tried to tell me to get an abortion. Eventually people began to hold my identity as a man against me when I would need a break or they would follow me outside yelling at me while I was throwing up from morning sickness. This happened repeatedly. They would also make me put up all this heavy stuff over my head saying things like “You’re a man, ain’t ya. Men don’t make excuses.” Eventually I was made to use the women’s restroom at work for my safety. I brought countless notes to work from my OB but I was still treated like sh*t. I couldn’t work around busy people because coworkers would elbow me and push me in the stomach and nothing was ever done about it.

Jacalyn: Where did you find the most support?

Collin: I found the most support with my life partner. I didn’t find a good online support group until I was postpartum, but I found a motivational speaker who has a Facebook page called Biff and I. He and his life partner had a child and he was further into his transition than I. It made me emotional to see his video about his experience being an open pregnant trans man and how ugly people were to him. I ended up messaging his page and he eventually got back to me with a very supportive group that I joined. I found most of my chestfeeding support came from my sister and grandma, as well as my life partner. I’m currently a year and nine days into chest feeding and I’m about to start weaning soon.

Jacalyn: What about support at the hospital?

Collin: The one good experience I had during my hospitalization before my son’s birth. One of my nurses asked me if I preferred a different name and it made me so happy. I think she guessed or maybe heard one of my guests ask for me by my chosen name. Either way my two nurses before I got moved to postpartum were so awesome.

Jacalyn: Do you plan on adding any more children?

Collin: We don’t have plans for any more children at this time. I’m on the nexplanon implant and my life partner started hormone replacement therapy for her transition back in March. I plan to also begin my hormone therapy by the end of the year if my son has been weaned. I only wanted one child. I don’t know if that makes me selfish because I won’t give him siblings, but we’re happy with our little family.

Jacalyn: Is there anything I missed that you feel like people should know to help become a better ally?

Collin: Every transgender person is different. This is my story and my need to feel supported and safe. Just keep being an ally. Correct people if you have to so they don’t continue to misgender others. The more people you have correcting someone, eventually they’ll get it.

After speaking with Collin it’s clear that his experience of carrying and birthing a child involved parts a cisgender person would not have to endure, due to the world be set up to recognize cisgender as “normal.” It’s time we start acknowledging people for who they are as fellow humans. Using words like “tolerate” and “lifestyle” when describing the LGBTQI community makes it seem as if they’re making an unpleasant choice, instead of what it really is—living their truth, just like their cisgendered heterosexual counterparts.

When the Heat play the Celtics on Tuesday night on TNT, the game may very well determine whether the Celtics lock into the 3-seed in the East or if they will have a battle on their hands the remainder of the way in the seeding round.

Boston currently sits 1.5 games up on Miami, meaning a Heat win would bring them within a half game of Boston but a loss would give the Celtics more than a two game cushion. As such, it’s a critical game in terms of Eastern Conference seeding, but after coming up just short against the Raptors on Monday, Miami will have an uphill battle on the back-to-back as Jimmy Butler was announced as out with right ankle soreness about an hour before tipoff.

This obviously is a major loss for the Heat, as Butler is the team’s leading scorer at just over 20 points per game, while also being a key force on defense. Butler missed a practice on Sunday due to a mysterious excused absence, but did play in the loss to Toronto. Whether this ankle soreness has been a lingering issue or something new is not known, but it is something to keep an eye on going forward. Miami is obviously being cautious with their star’s health, sitting him despite the seeding implications of the game, knowing it’s far more important that he’s healthy come playoff time.

It’ll be incumbent on Kendrick Nunn, Tyler Herro, and Goran Dragic to fill some of the void of Butler’s on-ball creation abilities, and may lead to more minutes for Andre Iguodala and Jae Crowder on the wing to give them more defensive presence. Against a Celtics team loaded with wing scorers, the challenge for the Heat without Butler is tremendous, but they’ve always prided themselves on being able to have players step in and fill bigger roles when needed.

Life inside the bubble in Orlando hasn’t been without its challenges, albeit relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. The food quality has topped the list for many players and even resulted in a the breaking of quarantine protocols to get outside meals delivered.

The other main challenge is being separated from friends and family for an extended period, and thus unable, in many cases, to celebrate certain milestones like weddings and birthdays. Fortunately, the NBA is a brotherhood, and their surrogate family is there to help them share in those events.

But as it the case in so many families and roommate situations, food is liable to turn up missing. That’s what happened to Pelicans big man Derrick Favors last month when it came time to dive into his birthday cake and discovered that a theft had taken place inside the bubble.

Via Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports:

The rookies sang “Happy Birthday” after practice and Favors was notified that a cake awaited him and his teammates in their meal room. But once they arrived, the cake was gone.

Someone from outside the team had swiped Favors’ birthday cake.

But the case doesn’t stop there. In an effort to remedy the situation, team officials placed an order for cupcakes that arrived the next day. However, when they went to get the cupcakes from the refrigerator, someone had again already stolen all but one of them.

Favors, who turned 29 last month, is averaging 9 points and 9.9 rebounds so far this season for the Pelicans, but is averaging 0 cakes and 0 cupcakes in the bubble.

(Yahoo Sports)

In a rare bipartisan move, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in approving one of the most significant pieces of legislation regarding public land and national parks in generations — the Great American Outdoors Act. Signed into law on August 4th, 2020, the Great American Outdoors Act is a huge win for the parks of our nation big and small, from the sweeping valleys and mountains of Yosemite to the baseball diamond at your local park and it will provide the Land and Water Conservation Fund a cool $900 million a year, as well as authorize an additional $1.9 billion per year for the next five years to address the deferred maintenance backlog on federal public lands.

If you’ve ever used a public bathroom at a National Park, you’re well aware that our parks have been neglected for some time. The National Park Service accounts for a total of 84 million acres of land across 400 different sites, and according to Fox News, as of 2019, those parks need $11.9 billion in deferred maintenance and repairs. So while the Great American Outdoors Act won’t solve all of the problems our parks face, Backpacker reports that the $9.5 billion fund will certainly begin to address the various closed trails, run-down campgrounds, outdated restrooms, and neglected roads and access points, vastly improving the infrastructure of our nation’s park system.

One of the most significant aspects of the Great American Outdoors Act is the establishment of permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is responsible for funding smaller projects like local parks, as well as acquiring and preserving public lands. Since its inception, Backpacker reports that the LWCD has lost more than $22 billion in funding because the money is often diverted by Congress. Creating a permanent fund ensures that the money allocated to our national parks goes to the proper place.

This bill is being celebrated as a huge win for both Congress and President Trump– particularly because it can potentially create an additional 100,000 direct and indirect jobs relating to parks. But while the Great American Outdoors Act represents a huge win, according to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the president’s current nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, has expressed some worrying beliefs and is a long time advocate for the government’s sale of federal lands, is a climate science denier, and has his sights set on weakening the Endangered Species Act. Prior to his nomination, Pendley has sued the Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of the Interior repeatedly throughout his career and upon entering the BLM, generated a list of potential conflicts of interest that was 17 pages in length.

So while today marks a huge win for the public lands of America, we’re not exactly out of the woods (yes, pun intended) when it comes to the fight over conservation. Still, this step is something worthy of celebrating.

After postponing the Mulan reboot indefinitely a few weeks ago, Disney+ has officially decided upon a tactic to release what was designed to be a late-March blockbuster. According to Deadline’s report about Disney’s latest earning call, CEO Bob Chepak accounced that the movie will soon open in international theaters where possible (such as China). However, the U.S. strategy (given the obvious situation at hand) means that theaters simply aren’t a feasible option, so Disney’s laying down their law on Mulan.

On September 4, the film will come to Disney+ as a premium VOD. This will happen for a substantial price point: $29.99.

That’s a rental fee (described as being on a “premiere access basis”), not a purchase price. Presumably, purchase options will be something that’s addressed further down the line. Chepak also relayed that this Disney+/VOD move is only a one-off (so don’t get any ideas about Black Widow) and not meant to predict anything about how the studio will handle streaming and theatrical windows in the future; Disney is simply considering new distribution angles for this pandemic. More from Chepak via CNBC:

“We see this as an opportunity to bring this incredible film to a broad audience, currently unable to go to movie theaters, while also further enhancing the value and attractiveness of a Disney+ subscription with this great content.”

The $29.99 price will certainly save a family of four money while viewing at home (especially if one considers concessions), but it’s not news that theaters will relish hearing. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. is still planning on rolling out Tenet globally, including in some U.S. markets, beginning in a few short weeks.

(Via Deadline & CNBC)

“I think what we’re trying to do when we’re living out loud with our fashion is we’re trying to differentiate ourselves. We’re communicating who we are through what we have on us. Having something that is handmade or that has had a lot of work put into it, you can feel that in the garment. It’s heavier, more substantial, it feels richer and nicer.”

Art and authenticity still mean something to Emma McKee. The Chicago-based artist and designer — more popularly known as “Stich Gawd” thanks to her skill at crafting elaborate hand-made cross-stitch jackets — cares far more about quality than commerce. In a world where Warhol and Basquiat prints are slapped on t-shirts ad nauseam, little feels sacred. But for McKee, once money enters the conversation the purity of the craft begins to feel diluted.

This helps explain why the artist — who has cross-stitched jackets for stars like Chance the Rapper, Saba, Vic Mensa, Katrina Tarzian, Joey Purp, and Lil Yachty — won’t accept cash for her pieces. Instead, she prefers to trade her craft for a specified amount of a certain artist’s time.

“There is so much worth that we forget about people because we’re looking at the bottom line of things,” McKee told me recently while readying her latest project, a nine-foot-tall portrait of Civil Right’s leader Fred Hampton to be shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

The Stitch Gawd, who was born in Kansas City but calls Chicago home, puts a special emphasis on rappers from the Windy City — where her career as hip-hop’s go-to cross-stitcher catapulted her to international fame. She lives and breathes the local scene, a firmly planted fixtured in the local rap community, and to be “blessed by Stitch Gawd” is now an important rite of passage for young Chi rapper’s on the move.

If you’re rocking a cross-stitched jacket by Stitch Gawd, you’ve just about made it. The future is looking bright.

We linked up with the artist to talk about why the hell cross-stitching — aka your grandma’s favorite hobby — is resonating so strongly in the hip-hop scene, how she approaches her design process, and what she hopes to see change in the ever-shifting realm of streetwear.

How did you first get into cross-stitching?

Totally unwillingly! I’m half British, so everyone in my family cross-stitched except for me because I thought it was tedious and awful. A couple of years back I wanted to get my mom something really nice for Christmas but didn’t know what to get her, so I thought “well she’s been trying to get me to cross-stitch my whole life, let me try to whip something up for her,” so I taught myself how to do it and it came super naturally, like super duper naturally, and I thought “oh, wow I’m really good at this.”

I started wondering if I could start doing it in a less traditional way and try to make my own stuff and I did!

Cross-stitching is a very traditional craft, why did it make sense to you to filter the practice through pop culture themes?

At the end of the day, cross-stitch is just a medium right? If someone tells you they paint, you don’t just assume they do trees, or they’re an impressionist or whatever. Cross-stitch is this weird medium where the medium dictates the content, which doesn’t make much sense to me.

I wasn’t trying to do something really crazy or different, I just had all these ideas, and the one method of expression I had at my disposable that I was good at was cross-stitch.

What do you think it is about cross-stitching that seems to be resonating in the hip-hop and streetwear community in particular?

That’s an interesting question because you wouldn’t think the two would naturally go hand in hand. When you see it in person and you’re holding it, it just looks like there is so much work involved, it looks so different than anything else. I think for hip-hop or streetwear in general, any situation that makes someone think “oh shit, that looks different” is going to be a thing. Finding new avenues in streetwear and pop culture is always going to catch someone’s attention.

As far as embroidery goes, cross-stitch itself looks so different than any other form of embroidery. You don’t see it in very many pop culture arenas. I think the closest you get to see it is in some ironic Little Jon lyric cross-stitched in an episode of Girls or some shit, you usually only see cross-stitch being used ironically and I just think that irony is so played out.

Who gave you the Stich Gawd name?

The first piece of press I ever did was for The Fader and the girl interviewing me called me that jokingly and it super stuck! How crazy is that, no one knows what you’re doing, and all of a sudden the first piece of press you get, it’s like being knighted — they dub you with this crazy nickname and now peopled don’t even know my real name anymore.

They act like my first name is Stich and my last name is Gawd.

You’ve made some jackets for some of the biggest artists in hip-hop, have you been particularly starstruck by anyone?

Kanye…I was very very starstruck by Kanye, but he’s so larger than life how could you not be?. Chicago is kind of a funny place, everything is just so small. Chicago people never really made me starstruck because I’m always much more impressed.

Everybody else I’m just impressed to meet, I know their work very well, and I’ve been working on stuff for them, it’s like meeting an old friend.

Do you have a favorite piece you’ve made for someone, or is it too hard to pick a favorite?

Oh no, I have a favorite! You think that would be hard, but this is why I can’t have kids — I’d definitely pick a favorite, it wouldn’t be fair!

My favorite piece is this Long Live John Walt jacket. There is this rapper, Saba, he’s from Chicago, one of my favorite rappers of all time. I made him a piece early on, but wanted to make him something else, but what to make him totally eluded me. That’s super frustrating when you really want to make something for someone but you can’t think of what the idea is, and for everybody else, it just came so easy, but for Saba… I couldn’t.

Then this crazy tragic thing happens, his cousin was murdered at 3:00 in the afternoon, two weeks before Saba is going on his first national sold-out tour, and its the same weekend Chance is winning his three Grammys, so we were all out in LA doing that, and we hear John Walt was murdered.

So I decided I would make Saba some armor to take with him on tour. I wanted to make a portrait of his cousin so that Walt could come on tour with him. It was down to the wire, I was working on it until 1:00 in the morning, he was going to O’Hare airport at 3:00, I drove out to the Westside to drop it off.

I had never done a portrait or a memorial jacket like that, it has always been things I’ve given people, but this one… he said he felt protected in it, and that just took the wind out of me. Making a piece of art that can be in any way meaningful to a person like that, just makes my head spin.

I saw this whole different power in the medium that I didn’t really see before — to help someone. So that one really turned the corner for me in terms of how I do things, how I think about the work, how I work with people. It really changed a lot for me. It’s my all-time favorite. But my second favorite piece would have to be a new piece inspired by that one, I’m doing a 9 foot 200-pound portrait of Chairman Fred Hampton, that would be my most recent favorite piece.

So in terms of your favorite, it’s less about the technical aspect, and more about the sentimentality about who it was gifted to?

The fact that it meant so much to him, and that I could do something in such a pivotal and upsetting, just a crazy time in his life, the fact that I could offer anything that would somehow make him feel… I don’t want to say better, because I don’t want to imbue myself with that power, but to help him along, that was really meaningful to me.

That brings me to ask about your barter system… can you expand upon that and why that’s the model that works for you?

It’s kind of evolved through the years, but it has always been the same kind of sentiment. It was awfully hard for me to just design things, and sell them, it’s never been my rai·son d’ê·tre, I didn’t start cross stitching with great aspirations or to make money, I literally just fell backward into having this skill, and I was crazy good at it.

I was inspired by the artists around me, it’s hard to be like “Hey you inspired this, it took me 60 hours, and now I need you to give me a couple of thousand dollars for it,” at the beginning of a career, that’s almost impossible. So I would just trade people for stuff.

To me it was like, you Dane, can give me $20, the same $20 that Chance the Rapper gives me, and it’ll be the same $20, it’ll go as far. But if I’m trying to do a hip-hop project, 20 minutes from you is going to be a lot different than 20 minutes from Chance the Rapper. There is so much worth that we forget about people because we’re looking at the bottom line of things.

Inviting money into a conversation about art inherently changes all of it, and I’m not interested in that at all. We spend our whole lives running around trying to make a paycheck, trying to pay our bills, trying to get richer, bringing that into art is tricky business and I didn’t want to have to deal with that.

And it’s paid off in spades!

People think I’m crazy for doing it, but honestly, all the opportunities and the things that I’ve traded for have been so much more meaningful and worthwhile than money. That money would’ve been spent, and I couldn’t even tell you on what. The experiences from the bartering has just been so much more exciting to me.

It also means I don’t have to weigh myself and put a value onto myself. Forcing yourself to find value in your work and basing it on something is just inherently evil and corrupt, it doesn’t appeal to me. I make some money off the cross stitch stuff, but it’s with brands, I don’t barter with brands. Brands are not people, I allow brands to pay me and that funds the rest of the stuff.

How much input, if any, do the artists contribute to the design, and who has been your favorite to work with?

It really depends on the artist. I think that there has only been once or twice where an artist has been like “hey can I have this specific thing?” And I’ve said “Yes.” I don’t do that very often, I don’t find much joy in that, that’s just labor. In true collaboration, I’d say the input and design process is more nebulous. When I can, I like to talk to artists about themselves and the things that they love, and the things that are meaningful to them. Through that, I’ll often figure out the visual thing.

I don’t ask like, “What’s your favorite color?”

I had an outfit that I made last summer, and in our consultation talk we talked a lot about balance and equity, and that informed the entire design of the piece. You may not know that by looking at it, and there are no visual references, but when they saw it they were like “Oh, yeah of course, that’s exactly it!”

The input is like a conversation.

I loved doing stuff with SZA, she was really fucking wonderful and very giving of herself and generous with who she is. She was very lovely! She might be one of my favorites.

When you’re making a design in memoriam, what is something that you try to keep in mind? I notice those pieces have a way different vibe than your other pieces.

I want them to be peaceful and protective. The end goal with all the in memoriam pieces is to have them with the people they’re supposed to be with. Eventually, in the next couple of years, I’ll do a show, and I’ll show them off and send them back to their respective people. I did a Fredo Santana one, so when his son turns 16, he’s like three right now, I’m going to give him the jacket.

Mac MIller’s mom has already seen the jacket, and I have my route of getting it to her, so after my show, I’ll give Mac Miller’s jacket to his mom. I don’t explicitly put the ask out there to connect me, but the people always find me, it’s very strange. The Nipsey Hussle one is going to go to his sister, they’re all made with that in mind, this is a piece that is going to be with this person’s loved ones — I want it to feel peaceful and protective.

Right now, it seems like things like embroidery, cross-stitching, other hand made touches seem to be enjoying a new level of appreciation in streetwear, why do you think that is?

We’ve reached the end of Western Civilization, everything is a remix! Streetwear is such an interesting place, a lot of what we call “streetwear” is basic tops and bottoms, rewriting the rules on those, and even the classical silhouettes, is very difficult. It’s really hard to come up with something new and interesting, so when you have a handmade process that thing is inherently different and unique and one of a kind. I think what we’re trying to do when we’re living out loud with our fashion is, we’re trying to differentiate ourselves. We’re communicating, who we are through what we have on us. Having something that is handmade or that has had a lot of work put into it, you can feel that in the garment. It’s heavier, most substantial, it feels richer and nicer.

Are there any labels or brands out there that you really like what they’re doing?

Pyer Moss, I love Pyer Moss so much. Some of my favorites in Chicago — Sheila Rashid, she does the best denim. Alex Carter, she was just on Project Runway last season I believe. Kristopher Kites, he does… it’s going to sound so bad if I just say plastic necklaces, but he does a lot of really great jewelry and shirts.

And of course, streetwear god of Chicago, Joe Freshgoods.

Do you have any plans to make embroidered face masks? We’re always looking for cooler face masks

I actually just did one! It’ll probably be out once this article goes live. The problem with embroidered face masks is they have a lot of holes, obviously, so you have to be careful with how you construct them.

Because of the pandemic, we’ve reached a point where a lot of industries are being forced to hit reset — hopefully for the better. What do you hope to see in the fashion industry moving forward?

It’s the same thing I’d like to see across all industries — honesty and truth. I think we have a big problem with mass production in fashion, it’s really bad for the planet, we don’t talk about it, it’s not really studied and no one regulates it. It’s a big big big big problem.

It would be great to address that, fashion has so many wonderful and amazing things about it, but it also has a lot of deep dark holes. Traditionally it’s been a very exclusionary industry, racist, misogynistic, all those things. What’s interesting about this time period, with the pandemic and what is essentially the second civil rights movement, is that all the wiring is getting exposed. I have full faith that the bad wiring in fashion will be exposed sooner or later anyway. Bad practices under pressure don’t net very good results. It remains to be seen what will actually happen, but I would love if we can address environmental impact, and sexism and racism in fashion, that would be tight.

I would love to see more woman streetwear designers. More Melody Ehsanis. It would be really cool to see women take a much more prevalent role in streetwear, we’re doing it, it’s the best it’s been but there is so much more to do!

When The Matrix opened 21 years ago, it lit the world on fire with its reality-bending story and iconic fight scenes that Hollywood would spend years trying to imitate, but never quite matching. But tucked inside the sci-fi classic was a resonating theme of “transformation” that the Wachowksi siblings purposefully seeded into the film. As The Matrix fans would come to learn, the Wachowskis were both on a journey of discovering their trans identity in a world that wasn’t ready for that kind of message in a summer blockbuster.

In a new, socially distanced video for the Netflix Film Club, Lilly Wachowski fielded questions about the trans allegory that’s very present in The Matrix, and how she’s glad that more people are finally catching onto it in recent years despite the studio removing some of the more queer elements such as making the character of Switch a man in the real world. However, the message was loud and clear to transgender audiences who found The Matrix films to be a life-affirming experience.

“I love how meaningful these films are to trans people,” Wachowski said. “And the way they come up to me and say, ‘These movies saved my life.’ Because when you talk about transformation, specifically in the world of science fiction, which is just about imagination, it’s like world-building and the idea of the seemingly impossible becoming possible. I think that’s why it speaks to them so much.”

With the Wachowski siblings now openly out as transgender women, it will be interesting to see what new themes and genre-bending narrative they’ll bring to The Matrix 4. Not only is the filmmaking duo returning for the fourth installment, but they’re bringing along original cast-members Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss. Although, fans will be waiting a while as production on The Matrix 4 is currently on hold due to the pandemic. That was one bullet Neo couldn’t dodge.

(Via Netflix Film Club)