bring Brooke Candy to grad school please

it’s weird to miss school. in this period of life where i’ve been out of school for a few years and have applications out for more higher education, visiting a university for a scholarly thing is a weird time. all the things i missed about academia were there— the beautiful buildings, the access to knowledge, the people who have read the same bullshit i have. all the things that i didn’t miss were also there— the elitism, the classism, the awkwardness.

i did a whole big rant (not negative, just rambling thoughts) about the Music and Erotics conference on my insta story, which i saved as a highlight if you want to see my wild tired exclamations there. i had a fantastic glimpse into a world not usually available to me, and the delight of hearing Anna Elder’s voice on my work. and i met some amazing people. it’s only been a few days since then, but i wanted to share something else here, a more personal and forward-looking reflection.

the funniest thing perhaps of the whole event was that, for an conference whose topic was Erotics, it was remarkably unerotic. i suppose i expected that from academia, but the sheer distance from erotic content was almost startling. no one talked about gender performance artists like Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, about performers who finger themselves on stage like Cupcakke. i won’t say that there was nothing queer or nothing about pornographic performance, but the feeling as a whole was that concert music reigns supreme, and popular music can take a hike. the DIY, non-academic folks have never been the subject of academia, and they still aren’t. maybe if i were in school, if i had the resources to write about them, they would be.

but on the other hand, i am working on so many things that are not school. i’m embarking on a new theatre journey with Water House Collective, i’m music directing and accompanying Spring Awakening at the Secret Theatre in Long Island City, i’m arranging for Satyrdagg, i’m making art for a small group of loyal fans on Patreon; it’s not nothing. i should in some form rest easy in the knowledge that this work is enough, and that to even attend one academic conference as an independent (read: unpaid and unsupported) composer is impressive. i should further reflect that graduate school, should i get in, will likely consume all the time i have, diminishing any and all possibility for the numerous artistic diversions and practices i have undertaken over the past two years of freelancing, teaching, traveling, meandering, writing, dreaming.

i have always been the girl who brings the inappropriate book to school. i have always been fascinated by media which lacks technique, which is bad; movies like The Room and Rocky Horror and everything by Ed Wood, writers like V.C. Andrews and the Marquis de Sade, music like Gmcfosho. i want to be the girl who brings Brooke Candy to grad school. i want to be in the antique buildings with esteemed faculty discussing the finer points of Chuck Tingle’s work. that, for me, is what it means to miss school; to miss the things that i could bring to that environment, and to be both nervous and elated to bring in the newest, strangest, sexiest work that is out there to the stuffiest places in the world.

me, feeling small in front of the absolutely massive Cathedral of Learning at UPitt