Stars in My Pocket

The queer, black, poly sci-fi writer Samuel R. Delany says in his book About Writing that the most important quality a writer needs is begeisterung, a German word literally translated as “be-spiritedness.” I got my title for this piece from a title of Delany’s I love: Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.

Begeisterung helped me clarify what I loved in art: a ratty, handmade, do-it-yourself quality that I see in the Ramones, in the warbly jangle of the post-punk band Television Personalities, in Lynda Barry’s doodly drawings, in the collages of weird sci-fi and magical realism in the Love and Rockets comics.