January 27, 2025 • 40 mins
Elle Billing and Ricki Cummings discuss their recent experiences and creative work, using this episode to announce their collaborative project: Ricki talks about her new book-length poem, "The Failure Experiment," and Elle reveals her new series of paintings inspired by Ricki’s queer cyberpunk poetry and her own personal experiences of chronic illness. As they grapple with the current political climate, putting finishing touches on their work, they emphasize the importance of patience and trusting the creative process. “The Failure Experiment” drops on March 21, 2025.
Links to join Ricki’s and Elle’s creative newsletters for all the latest on The Failure Experiment, as well as all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Elle Billing (00:00):
Hi. My name is Elle. Billing. I am a
(00:02):
chronically ill queer femme, andI'm tired. I'm here this episode
and every episode to dig at theroots of our collective fatigue,
explore ways to direct our carein compassionate and sustainable
ways, and to harness creativeexpression to heal ourselves and
to heal our world. Welcome toHoorf, radical care in a late
capitalist heckscape.
(00:58):
okay, so I literally just said,my opening chats with guests are
usually off topic, and so I'mjust opening by saying that,
because I don't know how to openthis conversation with you,
because we talk all the time.
Ricki Cummings (01:11):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (01:12):
Hi. Ricki,
Ricki Cummings (01:13):
hi.
Elle Billing (01:13):
It's snowing outside today.
Ricki Cummings (01:16):
It snowed a little bit here, but it's mostly
just cold.
Elle Billing (01:20):
See, we had that really bad cold snap, and it's
snowing because it warmed up,because the air can hold
moisture again.
Ricki Cummings (01:27):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (01:28):
it was like 30 below for several days, and now
it's 20 above,
Ricki Cummings (01:33):
hooray!
Elle Billing (01:34):
and it's snowing.
And Winkie's like Snow, Snow.
I'm gonna eat the snow! Rightnow. She's like, Mother, why are
you recording? you're supposedto be eating? This is the time
when you, this is the time whenyou eat breakfast, not when you
sit on your computer in theoffice. Tried to give her a
chewchew, and she R, U, N, N, O,F, T, with it,
Ricki Cummings (01:53):
yeah,
Elle Billing (01:54):
and went and tried to bury it in her blanket,
instead of sitting and chewingon it. Because this isn't where
we chew bones. We chew bones inthe other room.
Ricki Cummings (02:02):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (02:04):
So anyway, I am drinking my coffee out of a
Hoorf mug. Did you know we haveHoorf branded mugs?
Ricki Cummings (02:11):
I knew that. I don't know how many listeners
know.
Elle Billing (02:15):
I am not great at marketing. They're adorable.
This is one of the old Hoorfmugs. It has the old logo on it.
We have a new logo that Icommissioned an illustrator to
draw Winkie, and it's adorable,
Ricki Cummings (02:33):
yeah, it's like, actually, our dog instead of a
clip art dog,
Elle Billing (02:38):
yeah, which was actually, I mean, the clip art
dog kind of captured herpersonality. It had her eyes
closed and her tongue out, whichis basically what it's like
Ricki Cummings (02:45):
to bandana,
Elle Billing (02:46):
and the bandana, which is basically what it's
like to try to take a picture ofher, because she's like, I'm not
cooperating. But I did get areally adorable illustration of
Winkie, and it's on our stickersand our mug now. So, yeah,
that's I got that, I busted, Ibusted that mug out this
morning, like I'm gonna drinkcoffee out of the Hoorf mug
(03:07):
while I'm recording this episodewith Ricki. So, oh, how have you
received care recently?
Ricki Cummings (03:14):
Um, this past weekend, there's a friend of
mine that I met in grad school,who happens to live a couple
blocks from us, and they cameover on Sunday and brought a
board game that was ourChristmas present called
(03:37):
Wyrmspan is what it's called,it's, it's, if you've seen the
board game Wingspan that tendsto be in, like, Target and stuff
like that. It's that game, butwith like, uh, like a dragon
skin over top of it. It's like,basically the same mechanics,
but dragons instead of birds.
Elle Billing (03:56):
So not worms.
Ricki Cummings (03:57):
Well, wyrm with a Y,
Elle Billing (04:00):
oh, okay,
Ricki Cummings (04:01):
yeah. So they came over and we played that,
and they brought makin's forFrench onion soup, and, yes, and
some French bread with variouscheeses upon it that we toasted
up. And it was, it was verygood. It was a very nice
weekend, and it was nice to seeother people, because it's been
(04:26):
really cold and COVID has beengross out in the land.
Elle Billing (04:32):
I mean, really, there's like, four going around.
It's like, they're calling it aquademic.
Ricki Cummings (04:37):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (04:37):
I had this Christmas crud it lasted--
Ricki Cummings (04:40):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (04:40):
ten days it was like time traveling. I was so
sick.
Ricki Cummings (04:43):
Yeah, there's like two different flus, plus
COVID plus Norovirus is goingaround, and now we have bird flu
to maybe worry about. So that'srad. I don't get out of the
apartment much unless it's forerrands and stuff like that. So.
Yeah, I just don't spend timewith other people very much. And
(05:03):
so that was that was nice. Itwas nice to have a meal and play
games and see a friend and doall that stuff, to forget that
it's winter
Elle Billing (05:15):
and soup is like the ultimate in, like comfort
food. And when somebody elsebrings you soup, that's just
like,
Ricki Cummings (05:23):
and like, the thing is, is, like, they brought
the ingredients and we made ithere, so, like, the apartment
has smelled like onion, Frenchonion soup for like, three days.
It's amazing.
Elle Billing (05:35):
Ohhhhh
Ricki Cummings (05:35):
like, yeah, it was very it was very pleasant.
Yeah,
Elle Billing (05:40):
that's really good.
Ricki Cummings (05:41):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (05:41):
I dig that.
Ricki Cummings (05:42):
Yeah. So, like, that's, that's like the external
stuff, I suppose internally Ihave, this isn't really care so
much as dissociation, but I'vebeen playing a lot of Pokemon. I
don't know what it is about thatgame, but it just like, it makes
me feel relaxed in a way thatother games don't, um, not quite
(06:04):
as much as Stardew Valley, whichis like the warm blanket of
video games. But there's justsomething about the pace of the
game. It's not it's not urgentin any way. And trying to slow
down is something that I've beentrying to do since, well, since
Monday, especially, butrecently. So, yeah,
Elle Billing (06:31):
yeah. I came home from work last night and I
walked in the door and I waslike, Oh my gosh, it smells like
cookies in here.
Ricki Cummings (06:39):
Oh, yeah.
Elle Billing (06:41):
And you know, my parents always send the dog out
to greet me when I get home fromwork. So I heard these little
clicky steps on the, on thelaminate floor and her little
tails wagging, I'm like, HiWinkie. Hi Winkie. And I popped
my head around the corner and Isaid, did someone make cookies?
And my dad said, No, I fartednext to the heater,
Ricki Cummings (07:05):
Daniel.
Elle Billing (07:07):
I I was like, oh, okay, good job.
And so then I go into thekitchen, because I usually fill
my water cup, and then go sitwith my parents and wind down a
little bit after work before Igo to bed. And I get into the
kitchen, and dad comes in there,and he's like, you can't have
Craisins, can you? I said, No, Ican't. He goes, Oh well, all
three boxes of cookie dough thatwere in the freezer. He really
(07:27):
did make cookies. And one of theclubs at school, at the high
school sells cookie dough everyyear, and he had bought three
boxes, and then he baked allthree boxes last night. So Dan's
been stre-- my dad gets reallydomestic when he's stressed out.
So he had been vacuuming when Ileft for work. So not only did
he got a new vacuum, so not onlydid he use the new vacuum and
(07:50):
vacuum all the carpets, but healso baked all the cookie dough.
Ricki Cummings (07:56):
Oh,
Elle Billing (07:57):
I couldn't have the oatmeal craisen but there
were triple chocolate chipcookies. And I did have some of
those, and the house smelledlike, it smelled like warm
cookies, and cookies were stillwarm. And so I got to have
cookies.
Ricki Cummings (08:10):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (08:11):
sit on the couch with my dog. Yeah, it was nice.
nice.
Ricki Cummings (08:15):
Yeah, I actually discovered that there are
chocolate chips in our cabinet.
And so I think somebody had anidea of making chocolate chip
cookies and just never told methat. So I'm gonna have to check
and see if we have eggs or not.
I think we do.
Elle Billing (08:34):
They'll be the most expensive chocolate chip
cookies ever made.
Ricki Cummings (08:38):
Oh, man,
Elle Billing (08:39):
except for the chocolate chip cookies that
you'll make like next month,because those will also be the
most expensive chocolate,
Ricki Cummings (08:46):
the most expensive so far, unless
Elle Billing (08:49):
unless you get like a goose that lays golden
eggs and then, and then thosecookies
Ricki Cummings (08:55):
are those for eating, though, Like, I guess
I've never are the, are theeggs, solid gold.
Elle Billing (09:03):
You know, I never really. I never thought about
that until just now. But, youknow, there are like, really
fancy restaurants that like,put, like,
Ricki Cummings (09:12):
gold leaf
Elle Billing (09:13):
gold leaf on food.
So I imagine that in someone'shead canon, as of right now, the
goose that lays the golden eggsinvolves some manner of gold
leaf with the eggs and reallyfancy chocolate chip cookies
that serve no purpose except tomake really rich people in New
York. I'm not picking on NewYork specifically as far as the
(09:35):
city, but like people on WallStreet who spend money on things
because they can,
Ricki Cummings (09:43):
yeah,
Elle Billing (09:44):
it's the mentality. There are lots of
great people in New York whodon't do that.
Ricki Cummings (09:49):
Several million in fact,
Elle Billing (09:51):
yeah, yeah. But the whole like, I'm gonna eat
gold
Ricki Cummings (09:54):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (09:55):
Thing, it comes from the goose that lays golden
eggs as of right now, that issomeone's head canon, and by
someone, I mean me, yeah, so Iwas gonna say, speaking of that,
no, there-- I have no segue.
Speaking of segues, let's talkabout failure. (laughter)
(10:17):
But seriously, what have youbeen working like? Let's talk
about the project. Let's talkabout the project. You finished
a book.
Ricki Cummings (10:22):
Yeah, I finished the book. In the book, to be
clear, I'm self publishing itbecause I am personally not a
fan of the traditionalpublishing loop, which requires
you to do all of the same workof self publishing a book, as
far as proofing and promotionand art
Elle Billing (10:43):
and marketing,
Ricki Cummings (10:44):
marketing and all of that stuff. Like, you
have to do all of that workregardless. But in traditional
publishing, somebody takes a bigchunk of that
Elle Billing (10:54):
Yeah, especially now we're like,
Ricki Cummings (10:56):
yeah.
Elle Billing (10:57):
I think Before, there used to be some advantages
of traditional publishing where,yeah, the publishing house would
do your marketing for you.
Ricki Cummings (11:03):
Yeah, they do marketing or the actual physical
publishing of the book ordistribution, yeah, right. And
we don't have to do thatanymore. With the advent of the
Internet and various print ondemand services, printing has
gotten very cheap and very easy,and so has book binding. So
(11:27):
there are lots of services.
Amazon has one, but like Ingram,the book distribution company,
they have one. Lulu.com isn't apretty old one. Wil Wheaton
wrote a book with them once. Sothere are, there are lots of
print on demand, sorts ofavenues that one can use. And by
cutting out that publishingcompany, more of the money goes
(11:51):
to me, which, as a very strangewriter, it's very difficult to
get someone that understands thework, because so much of
publishing is catching the rightperson at the right time. It's
very much a lottery and poetry,especially if you have so many
(12:15):
Book Awards and contests and allof that stuff, you have to pay a
fee to get in,
Elle Billing (12:22):
pay to play.
Ricki Cummings (12:23):
I understand that a lot of these are run by
small entities that are tryingto fairly compensate their time
and effort. But like I also needto be fairly compensated.
There's a thing that HarlanEllison said, um, once the like
(12:48):
pay the writer, there would benobody on the the television
set, on the studio set, withoutthe writer. All of those people
are dependent on the writing,and if the writing's not there,
then there's no point. So Iwould like to be fairly
compensated for my time, and theeasiest way to do that is to do
(13:10):
all of that same work myselfthat I'd be doing myself, and
just keeping all that money formyself,
Elle Billing (13:17):
right? Yeah. So all that to say, yes, you spent
three years working on a book.
Ricki Cummings (13:25):
Yeah, the initial genesis of it started
when you were still in TwinFalls. And like so many things
that happen in art, basically itwas, it was two ideas that
smashed into my head at the sametime, which was the Walter
Benjamin essay, "Art in the Ageof Mechanical Reproduction" and
(13:48):
Love in the Time of Cholera, andlike smashing those two ideas
together to become love in theAge of Mechanical Reproduction.
and then Phil -- like the ideaof multiple versions of the same
(14:09):
person, and specifically,there's a line in "Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep" byPhilip K Dick, which is the book
that Blade Runner was based on.
One character says to anothersomething along the lines of, do
you think you could fall in loveagain? And he replies, only if
she looks like you like, thatline itself is very fraught with
(14:30):
meaning, and so the book takesthose ideas and tries to
synthesize something out of it.
The title of it is called TheFailure Experiment. There's an
idea in queer theory that wasput forth by Jay Halberstam in
(14:53):
the title of their collection ofessays called The Queer Art of
Failure and, and the thrust ofthat book is that part of what
underpins queerness, quote,unquote, queerness is the idea
of failing to conform. So thecompilation of various types of
(15:17):
failure, the compilation ofvarious versions of the same
person trying something over andover and over to somehow reach
perfection and always failing.
That was the ideological centerof it. For genre considerations,
I decided to go with sciencefiction, not only because of
(15:41):
the, like, the Philip K Dickside of it, but because the
entire sub genre of cyber punkdeals with ideas of personhood
and failing to conform andbodily autonomy and all of those
things and
Elle Billing (16:01):
and also like altering the body and hacking
the body too, right?
Ricki Cummings (16:06):
Yeah, and so it seemed like a really good way to
investigate not just the queerexperience, but the trans
experience in a way that hadn'tbeen done that I personally have
seen. I'm sure there are otherpeople that have done this, but
this is, this is my version,from a like, a technical
standpoint, I decided to writeit as what's called a serial
(16:32):
poem, which was really inventedand explored by the California
poets, Robert Duncan, JackSpicer, and Robin Blaser, and
Jack Spicer in particular. Whatit is is basically it's this.
It's effectively one large booksized poem that is composed
(16:57):
effectively sequentially. Itstarts at the beginning and it
ends at the end, and it justgoes. What was always
interesting to me is that JackSpicer was roommates with Philip
K Dick at one point in time forsome period when they were both
living in Berkeley, and thatconnection was something that
was always interesting to me,because while they both focus on
(17:21):
similar themes, sometimes theydon't really overlap that much.
Like Jack was much moreinterested in language and
classics and stuff like that,and Jack was always looking kind
of backwards to synthesize thefuture, whereas Philip K Dick
(17:42):
was more-- at least at thispoint in time-- was focused on
extrapolating the present intothe future. So trying to find a
middle ground between those verythose two very different
personalities, plus taking allthose genre conventions of of
(18:03):
cyberpunk and trying to dosomething that wasn't
replicating the golden age ofcyberpunk, which I would
consider being the early 80sthrough the late 90s. As far as
references were concerned, Iused 1997 as a cutoff point.
Like, I didn't use any sourcesfrom after that, with the
(18:25):
exception of one, one poem thatuses a little bit of The Matrix,
which i i basically considerlike The Matrix is like the
crest of that particular wave.
And pretty much everythingthat's come after that has been
trying to replicate that in someway, and I didn't want to do
that, like I didn't want to keeprehashing The Matrix. I wanted
(18:47):
to go for stuff before that.
Elle Billing (18:51):
Yeah,
Ricki Cummings (18:52):
it's all one large, complicated, hard to
describe project, but like,reading it makes sense,
Elle Billing (19:04):
yes, it does.
Ricki Cummings (19:05):
I think.
Elle Billing (19:06):
I mean, I have a copy of the manuscript,
Ricki Cummings (19:08):
yeah
Elle Billing (19:08):
For reasons I will get into and, like, it makes
sense to me,
Ricki Cummings (19:13):
yeah
Elle Billing (19:14):
I guess I can get into my reasons.
Ricki Cummings (19:15):
Yeah, that would be great.
Elle Billing (19:16):
I'm gonna do one of those, I'm telling you that
story to tell you this onethings. So you said, you
mentioned that you started thisproject back when I was living
in Twin Falls, and so the seedsof my half of this also started
when I was still in Idaho. Wegot a new school librarian,
Ricki Cummings (19:32):
yeah
Elle Billing (19:33):
who went through our the library collection and
was like, Oh my God, this needsto be culled, and she pruned a
lot out of the library. Some ofthe stuff that she pruned out
was like old, racist stuff thatjust needed to go, some of it
was books that hadn't beenchecked out since the 70s or the
80s. She knew that I used booksin my artwork, and so a lot of
(19:56):
the time she would give me theopportunity to take these books
home. There was one set inparticular that I was really
interested in. And it was thehilariously anachronistic
collection of books on computersand technology, how to use the
internet, how to get a job as anengineer, um, how does the
Internet work? And it was like,all the really old stuff on how
(20:18):
the internet works. Like, thisis a list serve,
Ricki Cummings (20:20):
yeah,
Elle Billing (20:21):
and like, like, 80s style stuff,
Ricki Cummings (20:25):
yeah yeah, like, but like, cool, but
like, funny, like funny in away, of, like, We are the Oregon
Trail generation, and we kind of
Elle Billing (20:31):
it's a Vietnam song. So, like, I wanted them
remember this. But like, none ofthis is useful for anybody
anymore. I was like, I'm gonnahave fun with these. I'm gonna
really have fun with these. So Ihad this box of books, and they
came to North Dakota with me. Ihadn't used them yet. And so
when I was done with myBerenstein Bears collection, I
was still feeling verynostalgic, and I was still
(20:53):
feeling very much like using 80sand 90s color palettes. And so I
started, I started a collectionof paintings using, like,
collaging pages of those booksin there, and, like, with some
very neon like, there was a lotof teal and neon orange, or teal
to-- I like doing art that lookspoppy and fun, but really is
and fluorescent pink, and Istalled out. The paintings
(21:17):
didn't have any life in them.
And usually when I'm painting,it's a conversation with the
canvas, and they feel veryalive. And I'm talking with them
all the time. But thesepaintings, they weren't going
anywhere. Like, I had a goodstart on them, and then they
just sort of, and like I hadoriginally kind of envisioned
them as being like a women inSTEM but like, also the
consequences of technology, likethe song"Orange Crush" by REM
(21:41):
was one of those songs that wasreally sticking with me, because
the music video is, like, reallypowerful. I think it's a black
and white music video of a youngkid with, I think he's wearing
dog tags, and he's like, but thesong is really, it's about Agent
Orange,has, like, a darker underside to
(22:06):
it when you look at it, andthat's kind of what I was going
for, but like, I couldn't makeit click. And so these paintings
have been sitting in my studiofor like, three years. I'm like,
I'll get back to them. Like, I'mnot. I didn't gesso over them, I
didn't get rid of them. I waslike, at some point these
paintings will start talking. Sothen you've you finished the
book while you were here, yeah,and you were talking about
(22:30):
releasing it that this was lastsummer, releasing it this year.
And I was like, what if I finishthe paintings, and what if we
do, like, a cross promotion? Andnow the cross promotion has sort
of escalated in scope.
it's less of abecause, for one, we had a bit
Ricki Cummings (22:44):
Yeah, of a miscommunication. Like,
yeah, partly because this iswhat my brain does. It starts
with a small seed, like, what ifwe cross promote and just like,
release them at the same timeand share that both projects
with our email lists and justsort of feed off each other that
way. But my brain kept workingon that and for- forgot what the
original idea was and turnedinto, like, this is a joint
(23:07):
project, yeah.
Elle Billing (23:11):
And then I was like, oh, like, I'm like, how
much marketing are you gonna do?
Like, and you're like, Whoa,whoa, whoa, hold on. I thought
we were just like, releasingthem at the same time and
sharing them with our lists. Iwas like, oh. so anyway, we
potentially have some otherstuff planned, but it depends on
money, because things areexpensive, but the paintings are
alive.
Ricki Cummings (23:33):
Yeah
Elle Billing (23:34):
they are very fluorescent right now, but they
will be toned down, becausereference images for the
cyberpunk are, I mean, they dohave a lot of that fluorescent,
but they're all, like, tempered,right? It's like, pops of
fluorescent and like, becauseit's always raining, yeah? Why
is it always dark and raining incyberpunk movies, I don't know.
(23:54):
Probably because they're all onthe like, you said, they're all
on the coast.
Ricki Cummings (23:57):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (23:58):
there's not a lot of cyberpunk that happens in
Fargo. Okay, Now that I've saidthat, I'm like, what would a
cyber cyberpunk combine looklike? Actually, we're kind of
just living that future rightnow. Anyway, yeah, it's starting
to get into that, yeah. I'mlike, Oh, it would look like a
John Deere with an iPad in it.
We already have that. Okay,that's not interesting to paint.
That's just my life. But rightnow, the paintings are at the
(24:18):
stage of being obscenely
Ricki Cummings (24:23):
If I can interject-- fluorescent.
Elle Billing (24:26):
yeah
Ricki Cummings (24:26):
one of the things that helped, I think,
kick this idea over in yourhead, yeah.
Elle Billing (24:33):
Did you hear Winkie?
Ricki Cummings (24:34):
Yeah, I heard a Winkie. One of the things that
helped kick this over in yourhead was I got the cover art
back from my my artist, and wespent probably two weeks going
back and forth on what colorpalette we were going to use for
that cover. And once it hit, wewere like, That's it. And I sent
(24:54):
it to you, and you just like youfell in love with it, like
having a visual reference on itfor you, I think helped too.
Instead of just like, the idea,having a direction to move in
helped,
Elle Billing (25:07):
yes, and what really helped, like, enliven the
paintings, was when we were wewere texting one night, and I
was still feeling a littlestuck, because usually my
paintings are based on thingsthat I'm really into, right,
like Shakespeare, children'sliterature. I had a series of
(25:28):
paintings that were about mycaregiving experience with my
mother and dementia, migraines,you know, things that I'm like,
deeply connected to. Cyber,Cyberpunk is cool, but it's not
something that I'm deeplyinvested in,
Ricki Cummings (25:41):
yeah
Elle Billing (25:41):
and so it's, I've kind of been getting a crash
course on it,
Ricki Cummings (25:45):
yeah
Elle Billing (25:45):
really, I mean, really, you've been dripping it
out over the last three years,but it's just not something that
I have done extensive researchon the way you have. And what
really made it click for me wasjust the other night when we
were texting and you said, well,a huge part of Cyberpunk is
institutional bureaucracy anddrugs and immediate and, like,
(26:05):
we had the con-- I was like, Oh,well, I keep a bunch of, like,
my drug packets. Like, not likemy medication packets, yeah. And
I've been saving them forsomething because I want to do,
I like, doing art related to myillness and my disability. I
just, I've only dabbled in it asfar as the migraine art, but I
keep all of my birth controlpackets and all my steroid
(26:27):
packets, and I have pillbottles, and I have the inserts
from my migraine medication,those big fold out ones that
have all of like, theinformation about the drug
trials and all of that. And Ihave all that stuff, and I have
all of the paperwork fromapplying for disability, and all
of the paperwork for Medicaidand all of this institutional
(26:50):
dreck, and that is likeimpossible to navigate trying to
prove that I'm disabled. Andthat, combined with... there, I
went back through all of thosecomputer books, some really
terrifying looking, in thatcontext, terrifying looking old
school pictures of, like, oldMRI machines and like old
(27:11):
school, like laser type setups,like, it's like, oh, oh! Oh oh!
like, stuff is really startingto pop
Ricki Cummings (27:18):
yeah
Elle Billing (27:19):
and the the paintings are alive. I have gone
from, I've told you this too,like my rising sign. If you're
into astrology, my rising signis Gemini, right? So that's kind
of what like rules, my rules, myeveryday activities, my
paintings have gone from, thepaintings are dead, they are
nothing, to I have more ideas inmy brain than I have hours and
(27:44):
minutes of energy in the day toput them on the canvas. Like,
and I can't sleep at night,partly because of the political
situation right now is, like,absolutely terrifying, and
that's a good thing to put intothe paintings too, because, holy
shit. Like, am I even gonna beable to keep, is Medicaid going
to exist in three months? Idon't know. Like, I can't afford
(28:05):
$2,000 worth of medication amonth. I don't even make that
much money. I make $600 a monthdoing seed samples at the
sunflower plant. Like I am Igoing to be able to pay my brain
bill? No, this is bad. Sothere's that keeping me up at
(28:27):
night. But then there's also,like, I want to be in the studio
painting, because 12 paintingssitting there! and I go through
a phase where I work on all 12at the same time, so that the
color palettes stay the same andI'm, like, adding under layers
all at the same time, and then Ihave to pare down and focus on
one to two at a time,
Ricki Cummings (28:46):
yeah.
Elle Billing (28:47):
And then I finish them, either individually or in
pairs. And I'm almost to thepoint now where I need to be,
like, super focused on one at atime. And I that's what I want
to be doing. I don't I don'twant to be sleeping. I don't
want to be resting. But I alsoknow that, like, my body needs
12 hours of rest a day. That'sso much! like, c'mon
Ricki Cummings (29:05):
it really is,
Elle Billing (29:09):
I want to be painting, you know, and so,
like, I'm not sleeping, I'mlaying there worried about
everything and also wanting toput that energy into the canvas,
because that's how I process andlike-- I was right, like, these
paintings would come alive whenI needed them to. And like, this
is the perfect time for us to bedoing a project on autonomy and
(29:35):
personhood and institutionalbureaucracy
Ricki Cummings (29:39):
and queerness
Elle Billing (29:40):
and queerness and living under an oppressive
government. And,
Ricki Cummings (29:44):
yeah
Elle Billing (29:44):
the mood of, it's always raining. That's a mood.
It's like,
Ricki Cummings (29:50):
yeah, that's a mood.
Elle Billing (29:52):
That's a choice.
Got it, okay, I get it now, Iget it now. I get cyberpunk.
Now,
Ricki Cummings (29:59):
yeah, So when are we planning on releasing
these?
Elle Billing (30:05):
March 21
Ricki Cummings (30:06):
it is the third Friday, I believe,
Elle Billing (30:11):
yes
Ricki Cummings (30:11):
third Friday in March. So
Elle Billing (30:13):
yeah, you'll be here.
Ricki Cummings (30:14):
Theoretically,
Elle Billing (30:15):
Theoretically, you'll be here.
Ricki Cummings (30:17):
unless North Dakota turns into an anti trans
hell hole in which case, yeah,
Elle Billing (30:23):
which I mean, like, that's likely,
Ricki Cummings (30:29):
yeah, we'll see.
Enderlin's nice,
Elle Billing (30:31):
yeah, my, I was gonna say my hometown is nice.
We have proximity to Fargo.
Like, right here could be okay.
And that's honestly, speaking ofthat. That's really what's going
to happen across the country.
It's going to be very fractured,regionalized. It's,
Ricki Cummings (30:49):
yeah
Elle Billing (30:49):
it's going to be pockets. Everything is going to
be pockets. It's going to belike how there are sundown
towns, but like, the wholecountry is going to be that way
for everything.
Ricki Cummings (31:00):
Yep. Yeah. So March 21, provided we're all
still here, which we should be,yeah, yeah.
Elle Billing (31:10):
So what is, what is one true thing? We did an
episode right before Christmaswhere you kind of hit on, like,
our one true thing for thepodcast, which was, like,
awesome, but like, yeah, what isone true thing that you have
learned from this project inparticular,
Ricki Cummings (31:30):
this one is process related, I think, but it
also applies to a lot of thingsin life, But specifically it's
letting things come when theycome, I consciously decided to
work in the serial poem format,because it's not exactly stream
(31:52):
of consciousness, but the ideaof working on the same piece
throughout the entire thing asit comes, not worrying about
whether or not things are acohesive whole, because just
being next to each other theyare, and trusting myself to know
when something is done and whenit's not, because I reached, up
(32:16):
like for probably almost two anda half years on that project. I
thought I knew I had an end inmind, and then I reached that
point, and I was like, thisisn't quite there. And it turned
out what I thought was the endof, like, it's not a narrative
(32:36):
poem, exactly, but like the endof the third act was actually
the end of the second act, and Ihad a whole third of the poem
left to write, and that parttook another six months or so,
and then when I got to the endof that section, then I knew I
was done, and I wouldn't havegotten the piece that I have
(33:02):
now, if I would have stopped atthat point,
Elle Billing (33:05):
and there's so much good stuff in that third
act,
Ricki Cummings (33:08):
yeah, I not to toot my own horn or anything,
but I thought I was pretty good,yeah, it really makes me think
about that idea of art is neverfinished. It's only abandoned.
And I knew at that point that itwasn't worth abandoning. I knew
there was more to it than that,and I just had to wait. So I
(33:30):
think that's probably what Ilearned, and that it's there's
like a secondary thing of it'sokay to be weird, but that's
like an entirely differentconversation and involves a lot
more talk about influences andstuff that I we don't have time
for here. So yeah, so I thinkit's just trusting yourself and
(33:53):
trusting the idea, and I feellike that was kind of reflected
in yours too, like you didn'tjust like, oh, this is a
terrible idea. It just sat inthe closet for a few years and
percolated.
Elle Billing (34:06):
I was actually gonna say, well, could I share
mine?
Basically, yeah, is that the artwill be made. And like, in the
mean, like I wasn't stressingabout those paintings when they
were sitting there. Yeah, I madetwo other fabulous, like, two
other collections that I'mreally proud of in the meantime.
(34:27):
Like I wasn't not making art. Ididn't let that stop me. I did
my Ophelia collection and myTempest collection in the
meantime, and I'm really proudof those.
Ricki Cummings (34:36):
Yeah
Elle Billing (34:37):
and I think now is a really good time for this, for
this art.
Ricki Cummings (34:42):
Yeah
Elle Billing (34:42):
I think it's trusting, trusting myself,
trusting the art, trusting theprocess, knowing when to step
back. And the more we are doingit, the more we do the work, the
more we can trust the work, andtrust ourselves to do the work.
Because there were, like, I hadspent, like, a couple days with
those paintings where I waslike, trying to force them, and
(35:03):
I was like, This isn't working.
It was a relief to set themaside like I didn't even feel
like I was doing, like, as arecovering perfectionist, there
is definitely the risk offeeling like I'm failing. The
Failure Experiment is a fabuloustitle for this entire project,
but learning that I can walkaway from something, and then
it'll-- if it's meant to be,it'll be waiting for me when I
(35:25):
come back, or that it will comeback to me.
Ricki Cummings (35:30):
Yeah, yeah,
Elle Billing (35:31):
like, one direction or the other, like, it
will work out.
Ricki Cummings (35:34):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (35:35):
The paintings weren't going anywhere. They
were waiting. They just neededto ripen. Like, pineapples, they
take two years to grow.
Ricki Cummings (35:42):
I was not aware of that, actually,
Elle Billing (35:44):
uh huh.
Ricki Cummings (35:45):
And I-- part of my Patreon, my personal Patreon,
is that at a certain backerlevel, I will write poems for
people based on whatever subjectthey they want me to.
Elle Billing (35:57):
Um, yeah, some of them we would you disown as soon
as you send them.
Ricki Cummings (36:04):
Oh, my god, yeah.
Elle Billing (36:05):
There's been at least two that you've written
for me that we can't share.
Ricki Cummings (36:09):
Yeah, but there's one that I wrote, I
can't even remember exactly whatthe prompt was. I remember who
gave it to me, but I can'tremember what the specific
prompt was, but I ended upeffectively, I think it might
have been pineapple on pizza,now that I think about it, but
it ended up going into a longdigression about Dole and the
(36:33):
pineapple industry in Hawaii andhow completely fucked up It is
in all of that work that wasprobably like two days of work I
did on that poem. I did not knowhow long pineapple took to
ripen, like, that wasn't inthere.
Elle Billing (36:52):
That's how long it takes to grow.
Ricki Cummings (36:53):
Yeah. I had no idea, huh? Yeah.
Elle Billing (36:58):
Now I need to double check. I'm almost
positive. I don't like beingwrong when people are like,
looking, like listening to usright. How long does it take to
for pineapple to grow? Two tothree years, sometimes longer,
(37:18):
eight-- and then another sitesays 18 months or longer,
depending on the variety and theclimate,
Ricki Cummings (37:24):
huh!
Elle Billing (37:25):
Yeah, for one pineapple.
Ricki Cummings (37:27):
Well, now I know. And pineapple is just like
poetry and just like painting,they all start with P,
Elle Billing (37:36):
yep, and the enzymes make your tongue hurt
Ricki Cummings (37:42):
the enzymes in paint.
Elle Billing (37:44):
Yeah, yeah,
Ricki Cummings (37:45):
don't eat the paint!
Elle Billing (37:46):
Oh, okay, so I told my mom about that mug,
"Don't talk to me until I've hadmy paint water"
Ricki Cummings (37:51):
Yeah
Elle Billing (37:52):
but she was just painting those chairs, and I was
like, Ma, don't drink the paint.
Like, what? So then I had totell her the whole thing about
how artists are always likeaccidentally drinking their
paint water or putting theirpaint brushes in their coffee
cup. She thought that was prettyfunny. She was not in danger of
doing that. She did spill half aquart of yellow paint on the
(38:16):
hardwood floor, though.
Ricki Cummings (38:18):
Oh no
Elle Billing (38:19):
that was a that was a fun night to clean up. So
anyway, we're going to end onthat note. Don't spill paint on
your hardwood floors. But shefinished her project. The table
and chairs are done. Shefinished them two nights ago.
Ricki Cummings (38:34):
Oh, wow. Been working on that a while,
Elle Billing (38:36):
yeah, since this summer.
Ricki Cummings (38:38):
Just gotta give it time.
Elle Billing (38:40):
Yep, just gotta give it time. Watch lots of
Perry Mason. well, this was fun.
March, 21
Ricki Cummings (38:51):
march 21
Elle Billing (38:52):
pineapple, paints, and poetry. and people with
Ricki Cummings (39:01):
pronouns,
Elle Billing (39:04):
palladium prosthetics, I was trying to
think of a P, more P words,yeah,
Ricki Cummings (39:10):
I got nothing.
Thank you for joining us on thisepisode of Hoorf. To get the
Elle Billing (39:11):
Thank you.
complete show notes and all thelinks mentioned on today's
episode, or to get a fulltranscript of the episode, visit
hoorfpodcast dot com Join theblessed herd of Saint Winkus. By
signing up for our newsletter,you can get Hoorf episodes
(39:32):
delivered directly to yourinbox. What's more, you get
invitations to our monthlyCoffee and Biscuits Chat, where
you get to hang out with Rickiand Elle, talk about the show,
and connect on the topics thatmean the most to you. You can
sign up for that at hoorfpodcastdot com. If you become a patron,
for only $3 a month you cansupport the creation of this
(39:53):
podcast, help pay my editor, andjoin a community of caregivers
out here, just doing our best.
Thank you again for joining meElle Billing, the chronically
ill queer femme who is verytired, on this episode of Hoorf.
Until next time, be excellent toeach other. Hoorf is hosted by
Elle Billing @elleandwink, audioediting by Ricki Cummings,
(40:14):
@rickiep00h music composed byRicki Cummings. Hoorf is a
production of Elle & Wink ArtStudio, LLC, all rights
reserved. Hoorf can be found onall social media platforms
@hoorfpodcast, at H, O, O, R, Fpodcast,
Ricki Cummings (40:38):
are those for eating, though.
Hi. My name is Elle. Billing. I am a
(00:02):
chronically ill queer femme, andI'm tired. I'm here this episode
and every episode to dig at theroots of our collective fatigue,
explore ways to direct our carein compassionate and sustainable
ways, and to harness creativeexpression to heal ourselves and
to heal our world. Welcome toHoorf, radical care in a late
capitalist heckscape.
(00:58):
okay, so I literally just said,my opening chats with guests are
usually off topic, and so I'mjust opening by saying that,
because I don't know how to openthis conversation with you,
because we talk all the time.
Ricki Cummings (01:11):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (01:12):
Hi. Ricki,
Ricki Cummings (01:13):
hi.
Elle Billing (01:13):
It's snowing outside today.
Ricki Cummings (01:16):
It snowed a little bit here, but it's mostly
just cold.
Elle Billing (01:20):
See, we had that really bad cold snap, and it's
snowing because it warmed up,because the air can hold
moisture again.
Ricki Cummings (01:27):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (01:28):
it was like 30 below for several days, and now
it's 20 above,
Ricki Cummings (01:33):
hooray!
Elle Billing (01:34):
and it's snowing.
And Winkie's like Snow, Snow.
I'm gonna eat the snow! Rightnow. She's like, Mother, why are
you recording? you're supposedto be eating? This is the time
when you, this is the time whenyou eat breakfast, not when you
sit on your computer in theoffice. Tried to give her a
chewchew, and she R, U, N, N, O,F, T, with it,
Ricki Cummings (01:53):
yeah,
Elle Billing (01:54):
and went and tried to bury it in her blanket,
instead of sitting and chewingon it. Because this isn't where
we chew bones. We chew bones inthe other room.
Ricki Cummings (02:02):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (02:04):
So anyway, I am drinking my coffee out of a
Hoorf mug. Did you know we haveHoorf branded mugs?
Ricki Cummings (02:11):
I knew that. I don't know how many listeners
know.
Elle Billing (02:15):
I am not great at marketing. They're adorable.
This is one of the old Hoorfmugs. It has the old logo on it.
We have a new logo that Icommissioned an illustrator to
draw Winkie, and it's adorable,
Ricki Cummings (02:33):
yeah, it's like, actually, our dog instead of a
clip art dog,
Elle Billing (02:38):
yeah, which was actually, I mean, the clip art
dog kind of captured herpersonality. It had her eyes
closed and her tongue out, whichis basically what it's like
Ricki Cummings (02:45):
to bandana,
Elle Billing (02:46):
and the bandana, which is basically what it's
like to try to take a picture ofher, because she's like, I'm not
cooperating. But I did get areally adorable illustration of
Winkie, and it's on our stickersand our mug now. So, yeah,
that's I got that, I busted, Ibusted that mug out this
morning, like I'm gonna drinkcoffee out of the Hoorf mug
(03:07):
while I'm recording this episodewith Ricki. So, oh, how have you
received care recently?
Ricki Cummings (03:14):
Um, this past weekend, there's a friend of
mine that I met in grad school,who happens to live a couple
blocks from us, and they cameover on Sunday and brought a
board game that was ourChristmas present called
(03:37):
Wyrmspan is what it's called,it's, it's, if you've seen the
board game Wingspan that tendsto be in, like, Target and stuff
like that. It's that game, butwith like, uh, like a dragon
skin over top of it. It's like,basically the same mechanics,
but dragons instead of birds.
Elle Billing (03:56):
So not worms.
Ricki Cummings (03:57):
Well, wyrm with a Y,
Elle Billing (04:00):
oh, okay,
Ricki Cummings (04:01):
yeah. So they came over and we played that,
and they brought makin's forFrench onion soup, and, yes, and
some French bread with variouscheeses upon it that we toasted
up. And it was, it was verygood. It was a very nice
weekend, and it was nice to seeother people, because it's been
(04:26):
really cold and COVID has beengross out in the land.
Elle Billing (04:32):
I mean, really, there's like, four going around.
It's like, they're calling it aquademic.
Ricki Cummings (04:37):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (04:37):
I had this Christmas crud it lasted--
Ricki Cummings (04:40):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (04:40):
ten days it was like time traveling. I was so
sick.
Ricki Cummings (04:43):
Yeah, there's like two different flus, plus
COVID plus Norovirus is goingaround, and now we have bird flu
to maybe worry about. So that'srad. I don't get out of the
apartment much unless it's forerrands and stuff like that. So.
Yeah, I just don't spend timewith other people very much. And
(05:03):
so that was that was nice. Itwas nice to have a meal and play
games and see a friend and doall that stuff, to forget that
it's winter
Elle Billing (05:15):
and soup is like the ultimate in, like comfort
food. And when somebody elsebrings you soup, that's just
like,
Ricki Cummings (05:23):
and like, the thing is, is, like, they brought
the ingredients and we made ithere, so, like, the apartment
has smelled like onion, Frenchonion soup for like, three days.
It's amazing.
Elle Billing (05:35):
Ohhhhh
Ricki Cummings (05:35):
like, yeah, it was very it was very pleasant.
Yeah,
Elle Billing (05:40):
that's really good.
Ricki Cummings (05:41):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (05:41):
I dig that.
Ricki Cummings (05:42):
Yeah. So, like, that's, that's like the external
stuff, I suppose internally Ihave, this isn't really care so
much as dissociation, but I'vebeen playing a lot of Pokemon. I
don't know what it is about thatgame, but it just like, it makes
me feel relaxed in a way thatother games don't, um, not quite
(06:04):
as much as Stardew Valley, whichis like the warm blanket of
video games. But there's justsomething about the pace of the
game. It's not it's not urgentin any way. And trying to slow
down is something that I've beentrying to do since, well, since
Monday, especially, butrecently. So, yeah,
Elle Billing (06:31):
yeah. I came home from work last night and I
walked in the door and I waslike, Oh my gosh, it smells like
cookies in here.
Ricki Cummings (06:39):
Oh, yeah.
Elle Billing (06:41):
And you know, my parents always send the dog out
to greet me when I get home fromwork. So I heard these little
clicky steps on the, on thelaminate floor and her little
tails wagging, I'm like, HiWinkie. Hi Winkie. And I popped
my head around the corner and Isaid, did someone make cookies?
And my dad said, No, I fartednext to the heater,
Ricki Cummings (07:05):
Daniel.
Elle Billing (07:07):
I I was like, oh, okay, good job.
And so then I go into thekitchen, because I usually fill
my water cup, and then go sitwith my parents and wind down a
little bit after work before Igo to bed. And I get into the
kitchen, and dad comes in there,and he's like, you can't have
Craisins, can you? I said, No, Ican't. He goes, Oh well, all
three boxes of cookie dough thatwere in the freezer. He really
(07:27):
did make cookies. And one of theclubs at school, at the high
school sells cookie dough everyyear, and he had bought three
boxes, and then he baked allthree boxes last night. So Dan's
been stre-- my dad gets reallydomestic when he's stressed out.
So he had been vacuuming when Ileft for work. So not only did
he got a new vacuum, so not onlydid he use the new vacuum and
(07:50):
vacuum all the carpets, but healso baked all the cookie dough.
Ricki Cummings (07:56):
Oh,
Elle Billing (07:57):
I couldn't have the oatmeal craisen but there
were triple chocolate chipcookies. And I did have some of
those, and the house smelledlike, it smelled like warm
cookies, and cookies were stillwarm. And so I got to have
cookies.
Ricki Cummings (08:10):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (08:11):
sit on the couch with my dog. Yeah, it was nice.
nice.
Ricki Cummings (08:15):
Yeah, I actually discovered that there are
chocolate chips in our cabinet.
And so I think somebody had anidea of making chocolate chip
cookies and just never told methat. So I'm gonna have to check
and see if we have eggs or not.
I think we do.
Elle Billing (08:34):
They'll be the most expensive chocolate chip
cookies ever made.
Ricki Cummings (08:38):
Oh, man,
Elle Billing (08:39):
except for the chocolate chip cookies that
you'll make like next month,because those will also be the
most expensive chocolate,
Ricki Cummings (08:46):
the most expensive so far, unless
Elle Billing (08:49):
unless you get like a goose that lays golden
eggs and then, and then thosecookies
Ricki Cummings (08:55):
are those for eating, though, Like, I guess
I've never are the, are theeggs, solid gold.
Elle Billing (09:03):
You know, I never really. I never thought about
that until just now. But, youknow, there are like, really
fancy restaurants that like,put, like,
Ricki Cummings (09:12):
gold leaf
Elle Billing (09:13):
gold leaf on food.
So I imagine that in someone'shead canon, as of right now, the
goose that lays the golden eggsinvolves some manner of gold
leaf with the eggs and reallyfancy chocolate chip cookies
that serve no purpose except tomake really rich people in New
York. I'm not picking on NewYork specifically as far as the
(09:35):
city, but like people on WallStreet who spend money on things
because they can,
Ricki Cummings (09:43):
yeah,
Elle Billing (09:44):
it's the mentality. There are lots of
great people in New York whodon't do that.
Ricki Cummings (09:49):
Several million in fact,
Elle Billing (09:51):
yeah, yeah. But the whole like, I'm gonna eat
gold
Ricki Cummings (09:54):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (09:55):
Thing, it comes from the goose that lays golden
eggs as of right now, that issomeone's head canon, and by
someone, I mean me, yeah, so Iwas gonna say, speaking of that,
no, there-- I have no segue.
Speaking of segues, let's talkabout failure. (laughter)
(10:17):
But seriously, what have youbeen working like? Let's talk
about the project. Let's talkabout the project. You finished
a book.
Ricki Cummings (10:22):
Yeah, I finished the book. In the book, to be
clear, I'm self publishing itbecause I am personally not a
fan of the traditionalpublishing loop, which requires
you to do all of the same workof self publishing a book, as
far as proofing and promotionand art
Elle Billing (10:43):
and marketing,
Ricki Cummings (10:44):
marketing and all of that stuff. Like, you
have to do all of that workregardless. But in traditional
publishing, somebody takes a bigchunk of that
Elle Billing (10:54):
Yeah, especially now we're like,
Ricki Cummings (10:56):
yeah.
Elle Billing (10:57):
I think Before, there used to be some advantages
of traditional publishing where,yeah, the publishing house would
do your marketing for you.
Ricki Cummings (11:03):
Yeah, they do marketing or the actual physical
publishing of the book ordistribution, yeah, right. And
we don't have to do thatanymore. With the advent of the
Internet and various print ondemand services, printing has
gotten very cheap and very easy,and so has book binding. So
(11:27):
there are lots of services.
Amazon has one, but like Ingram,the book distribution company,
they have one. Lulu.com isn't apretty old one. Wil Wheaton
wrote a book with them once. Sothere are, there are lots of
print on demand, sorts ofavenues that one can use. And by
cutting out that publishingcompany, more of the money goes
(11:51):
to me, which, as a very strangewriter, it's very difficult to
get someone that understands thework, because so much of
publishing is catching the rightperson at the right time. It's
very much a lottery and poetry,especially if you have so many
(12:15):
Book Awards and contests and allof that stuff, you have to pay a
fee to get in,
Elle Billing (12:22):
pay to play.
Ricki Cummings (12:23):
I understand that a lot of these are run by
small entities that are tryingto fairly compensate their time
and effort. But like I also needto be fairly compensated.
There's a thing that HarlanEllison said, um, once the like
(12:48):
pay the writer, there would benobody on the the television
set, on the studio set, withoutthe writer. All of those people
are dependent on the writing,and if the writing's not there,
then there's no point. So Iwould like to be fairly
compensated for my time, and theeasiest way to do that is to do
(13:10):
all of that same work myselfthat I'd be doing myself, and
just keeping all that money formyself,
Elle Billing (13:17):
right? Yeah. So all that to say, yes, you spent
three years working on a book.
Ricki Cummings (13:25):
Yeah, the initial genesis of it started
when you were still in TwinFalls. And like so many things
that happen in art, basically itwas, it was two ideas that
smashed into my head at the sametime, which was the Walter
Benjamin essay, "Art in the Ageof Mechanical Reproduction" and
(13:48):
Love in the Time of Cholera, andlike smashing those two ideas
together to become love in theAge of Mechanical Reproduction.
and then Phil -- like the ideaof multiple versions of the same
(14:09):
person, and specifically,there's a line in "Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep" byPhilip K Dick, which is the book
that Blade Runner was based on.
One character says to anothersomething along the lines of, do
you think you could fall in loveagain? And he replies, only if
she looks like you like, thatline itself is very fraught with
(14:30):
meaning, and so the book takesthose ideas and tries to
synthesize something out of it.
The title of it is called TheFailure Experiment. There's an
idea in queer theory that wasput forth by Jay Halberstam in
(14:53):
the title of their collection ofessays called The Queer Art of
Failure and, and the thrust ofthat book is that part of what
underpins queerness, quote,unquote, queerness is the idea
of failing to conform. So thecompilation of various types of
(15:17):
failure, the compilation ofvarious versions of the same
person trying something over andover and over to somehow reach
perfection and always failing.
That was the ideological centerof it. For genre considerations,
I decided to go with sciencefiction, not only because of
(15:41):
the, like, the Philip K Dickside of it, but because the
entire sub genre of cyber punkdeals with ideas of personhood
and failing to conform andbodily autonomy and all of those
things and
Elle Billing (16:01):
and also like altering the body and hacking
the body too, right?
Ricki Cummings (16:06):
Yeah, and so it seemed like a really good way to
investigate not just the queerexperience, but the trans
experience in a way that hadn'tbeen done that I personally have
seen. I'm sure there are otherpeople that have done this, but
this is, this is my version,from a like, a technical
standpoint, I decided to writeit as what's called a serial
(16:32):
poem, which was really inventedand explored by the California
poets, Robert Duncan, JackSpicer, and Robin Blaser, and
Jack Spicer in particular. Whatit is is basically it's this.
It's effectively one large booksized poem that is composed
(16:57):
effectively sequentially. Itstarts at the beginning and it
ends at the end, and it justgoes. What was always
interesting to me is that JackSpicer was roommates with Philip
K Dick at one point in time forsome period when they were both
living in Berkeley, and thatconnection was something that
was always interesting to me,because while they both focus on
(17:21):
similar themes, sometimes theydon't really overlap that much.
Like Jack was much moreinterested in language and
classics and stuff like that,and Jack was always looking kind
of backwards to synthesize thefuture, whereas Philip K Dick
(17:42):
was more-- at least at thispoint in time-- was focused on
extrapolating the present intothe future. So trying to find a
middle ground between those verythose two very different
personalities, plus taking allthose genre conventions of of
(18:03):
cyberpunk and trying to dosomething that wasn't
replicating the golden age ofcyberpunk, which I would
consider being the early 80sthrough the late 90s. As far as
references were concerned, Iused 1997 as a cutoff point.
Like, I didn't use any sourcesfrom after that, with the
(18:25):
exception of one, one poem thatuses a little bit of The Matrix,
which i i basically considerlike The Matrix is like the
crest of that particular wave.
And pretty much everythingthat's come after that has been
trying to replicate that in someway, and I didn't want to do
that, like I didn't want to keeprehashing The Matrix. I wanted
(18:47):
to go for stuff before that.
Elle Billing (18:51):
Yeah,
Ricki Cummings (18:52):
it's all one large, complicated, hard to
describe project, but like,reading it makes sense,
Elle Billing (19:04):
yes, it does.
Ricki Cummings (19:05):
I think.
Elle Billing (19:06):
I mean, I have a copy of the manuscript,
Ricki Cummings (19:08):
yeah
Elle Billing (19:08):
For reasons I will get into and, like, it makes
sense to me,
Ricki Cummings (19:13):
yeah
Elle Billing (19:14):
I guess I can get into my reasons.
Ricki Cummings (19:15):
Yeah, that would be great.
Elle Billing (19:16):
I'm gonna do one of those, I'm telling you that
story to tell you this onethings. So you said, you
mentioned that you started thisproject back when I was living
in Twin Falls, and so the seedsof my half of this also started
when I was still in Idaho. Wegot a new school librarian,
Ricki Cummings (19:32):
yeah
Elle Billing (19:33):
who went through our the library collection and
was like, Oh my God, this needsto be culled, and she pruned a
lot out of the library. Some ofthe stuff that she pruned out
was like old, racist stuff thatjust needed to go, some of it
was books that hadn't beenchecked out since the 70s or the
80s. She knew that I used booksin my artwork, and so a lot of
(19:56):
the time she would give me theopportunity to take these books
home. There was one set inparticular that I was really
interested in. And it was thehilariously anachronistic
collection of books on computersand technology, how to use the
internet, how to get a job as anengineer, um, how does the
Internet work? And it was like,all the really old stuff on how
(20:18):
the internet works. Like, thisis a list serve,
Ricki Cummings (20:20):
yeah,
Elle Billing (20:21):
and like, like, 80s style stuff,
Ricki Cummings (20:25):
yeah yeah, like, but like, cool, but
like, funny, like funny in away, of, like, We are the Oregon
Trail generation, and we kind of
Elle Billing (20:31):
it's a Vietnam song. So, like, I wanted them
remember this. But like, none ofthis is useful for anybody
anymore. I was like, I'm gonnahave fun with these. I'm gonna
really have fun with these. So Ihad this box of books, and they
came to North Dakota with me. Ihadn't used them yet. And so
when I was done with myBerenstein Bears collection, I
was still feeling verynostalgic, and I was still
(20:53):
feeling very much like using 80sand 90s color palettes. And so I
started, I started a collectionof paintings using, like,
collaging pages of those booksin there, and, like, with some
very neon like, there was a lotof teal and neon orange, or teal
to-- I like doing art that lookspoppy and fun, but really is
and fluorescent pink, and Istalled out. The paintings
(21:17):
didn't have any life in them.
And usually when I'm painting,it's a conversation with the
canvas, and they feel veryalive. And I'm talking with them
all the time. But thesepaintings, they weren't going
anywhere. Like, I had a goodstart on them, and then they
just sort of, and like I hadoriginally kind of envisioned
them as being like a women inSTEM but like, also the
consequences of technology, likethe song"Orange Crush" by REM
(21:41):
was one of those songs that wasreally sticking with me, because
the music video is, like, reallypowerful. I think it's a black
and white music video of a youngkid with, I think he's wearing
dog tags, and he's like, but thesong is really, it's about Agent
Orange,has, like, a darker underside to
(22:06):
it when you look at it, andthat's kind of what I was going
for, but like, I couldn't makeit click. And so these paintings
have been sitting in my studiofor like, three years. I'm like,
I'll get back to them. Like, I'mnot. I didn't gesso over them, I
didn't get rid of them. I waslike, at some point these
paintings will start talking. Sothen you've you finished the
book while you were here, yeah,and you were talking about
(22:30):
releasing it that this was lastsummer, releasing it this year.
And I was like, what if I finishthe paintings, and what if we
do, like, a cross promotion? Andnow the cross promotion has sort
of escalated in scope.
it's less of abecause, for one, we had a bit
Ricki Cummings (22:44):
Yeah, of a miscommunication. Like,
yeah, partly because this iswhat my brain does. It starts
with a small seed, like, what ifwe cross promote and just like,
release them at the same timeand share that both projects
with our email lists and justsort of feed off each other that
way. But my brain kept workingon that and for- forgot what the
original idea was and turnedinto, like, this is a joint
(23:07):
project, yeah.
Elle Billing (23:11):
And then I was like, oh, like, I'm like, how
much marketing are you gonna do?
Like, and you're like, Whoa,whoa, whoa, hold on. I thought
we were just like, releasingthem at the same time and
sharing them with our lists. Iwas like, oh. so anyway, we
potentially have some otherstuff planned, but it depends on
money, because things areexpensive, but the paintings are
alive.
Ricki Cummings (23:33):
Yeah
Elle Billing (23:34):
they are very fluorescent right now, but they
will be toned down, becausereference images for the
cyberpunk are, I mean, they dohave a lot of that fluorescent,
but they're all, like, tempered,right? It's like, pops of
fluorescent and like, becauseit's always raining, yeah? Why
is it always dark and raining incyberpunk movies, I don't know.
(23:54):
Probably because they're all onthe like, you said, they're all
on the coast.
Ricki Cummings (23:57):
Yeah,
Elle Billing (23:58):
there's not a lot of cyberpunk that happens in
Fargo. Okay, Now that I've saidthat, I'm like, what would a
cyber cyberpunk combine looklike? Actually, we're kind of
just living that future rightnow. Anyway, yeah, it's starting
to get into that, yeah. I'mlike, Oh, it would look like a
John Deere with an iPad in it.
We already have that. Okay,that's not interesting to paint.
That's just my life. But rightnow, the paintings are at the
(24:18):
stage of being obscenely
Ricki Cummings (24:23):
If I can interject-- fluorescent.
Elle Billing (24:26):
yeah
Ricki Cummings (24:26):
one of the things that helped, I think,
kick this idea over in yourhead, yeah.
Elle Billing (24:33):
Did you hear Winkie?
Ricki Cummings (24:34):
Yeah, I heard a Winkie. One of the things that
helped kick this over in yourhead was I got the cover art
back from my my artist, and wespent probably two weeks going
back and forth on what colorpalette we were going to use for
that cover. And once it hit, wewere like, That's it. And I sent
(24:54):
it to you, and you just like youfell in love with it, like
having a visual reference on itfor you, I think helped too.
Instead of just like, the idea,having a direction to move in
helped,
Elle Billing (25:07):
yes, and what really helped, like, enliven the
paintings, was when we were wewere texting one night, and I
was still feeling a littlestuck, because usually my
paintings are based on thingsthat I'm really into, right,
like Shakespeare, children'sliterature. I had a series of
(25:28):
paintings that were about mycaregiving experience with my
mother and dementia, migraines,you know, things that I'm like,
deeply connected to. Cyber,Cyberpunk is cool, but it's not
something that I'm deeplyinvested in,
Ricki Cummings (25:41):
yeah
Elle Billing (25:41):
and so it's, I've kind of been getting a crash
course on it,
Ricki Cummings (25:45):
yeah
Elle Billing (25:45):
really, I mean, really, you've been dripping it
out over the last three years,but it's just not something that
I have done extensive researchon the way you have. And what
really made it click for me wasjust the other night when we
were texting and you said, well,a huge part of Cyberpunk is
institutional bureaucracy anddrugs and immediate and, like,
(26:05):
we had the con-- I was like, Oh,well, I keep a bunch of, like,
my drug packets. Like, not likemy medication packets, yeah. And
I've been saving them forsomething because I want to do,
I like, doing art related to myillness and my disability. I
just, I've only dabbled in it asfar as the migraine art, but I
keep all of my birth controlpackets and all my steroid
(26:27):
packets, and I have pillbottles, and I have the inserts
from my migraine medication,those big fold out ones that
have all of like, theinformation about the drug
trials and all of that. And Ihave all that stuff, and I have
all of the paperwork fromapplying for disability, and all
of the paperwork for Medicaidand all of this institutional
(26:50):
dreck, and that is likeimpossible to navigate trying to
prove that I'm disabled. Andthat, combined with... there, I
went back through all of thosecomputer books, some really
terrifying looking, in thatcontext, terrifying looking old
school pictures of, like, oldMRI machines and like old
(27:11):
school, like laser type setups,like, it's like, oh, oh! Oh oh!
like, stuff is really startingto pop
Ricki Cummings (27:18):
yeah
Elle Billing (27:19):
and the the paintings are alive. I have gone
from, I've told you this too,like my rising sign. If you're
into astrology, my rising signis Gemini, right? So that's kind
of what like rules, my rules, myeveryday activities, my
paintings have gone from, thepaintings are dead, they are
nothing, to I have more ideas inmy brain than I have hours and
(27:44):
minutes of energy in the day toput them on the canvas. Like,
and I can't sleep at night,partly because of the political
situation right now is, like,absolutely terrifying, and
that's a good thing to put intothe paintings too, because, holy
shit. Like, am I even gonna beable to keep, is Medicaid going
to exist in three months? Idon't know. Like, I can't afford
(28:05):
$2,000 worth of medication amonth. I don't even make that
much money. I make $600 a monthdoing seed samples at the
sunflower plant. Like I am Igoing to be able to pay my brain
bill? No, this is bad. Sothere's that keeping me up at
(28:27):
night. But then there's also,like, I want to be in the studio
painting, because 12 paintingssitting there! and I go through
a phase where I work on all 12at the same time, so that the
color palettes stay the same andI'm, like, adding under layers
all at the same time, and then Ihave to pare down and focus on
one to two at a time,
Ricki Cummings (28:46):
yeah.
Elle Billing (28:47):
And then I finish them, either individually or in
pairs. And I'm almost to thepoint now where I need to be,
like, super focused on one at atime. And I that's what I want
to be doing. I don't I don'twant to be sleeping. I don't
want to be resting. But I alsoknow that, like, my body needs
12 hours of rest a day. That'sso much! like, c'mon
Ricki Cummings (29:05):
it really is,
Elle Billing (29:09):
I want to be painting, you know, and so,
like, I'm not sleeping, I'mlaying there worried about
everything and also wanting toput that energy into the canvas,
because that's how I process andlike-- I was right, like, these
paintings would come alive whenI needed them to. And like, this
is the perfect time for us to bedoing a project on autonomy and
(29:35):
personhood and institutionalbureaucracy
Ricki Cummings (29:39):
and queerness
Elle Billing (29:40):
and queerness and living under an oppressive
government. And,
Ricki Cummings (29:44):
yeah
Elle Billing (29:44):
the mood of, it's always raining. That's a mood.
It's like,
Ricki Cummings (29:50):
yeah, that's a mood.
Elle Billing (29:52):
That's a choice.
Got it, okay, I get it now, Iget it now. I get cyberpunk.
Now,
Ricki Cummings (29:59):
yeah, So when are we planning on releasing
these?
Elle Billing (30:05):
March 21
Ricki Cummings (30:06):
it is the third Friday, I believe,
Elle Billing (30:11):
yes
Ricki Cummings (30:11):
third Friday in March. So
Elle Billing (30:13):
yeah, you'll be here.
Ricki Cummings (30:14):
Theoretically,
Elle Billing (30:15):
Theoretically, you'll be here.
Ricki Cummings (30:17):
unless North Dakota turns into an anti trans
hell hole in which case, yeah,
Elle Billing (30:23):
which I mean, like, that's likely,
Ricki Cummings (30:29):
yeah, we'll see.
Enderlin's nice,
Elle Billing (30:31):
yeah, my, I was gonna say my hometown is nice.
We have proximity to Fargo.
Like, right here could be okay.
And that's honestly, speaking ofthat. That's really what's going
to happen across the country.
It's going to be very fractured,regionalized. It's,
Ricki Cummings (30:49):
yeah
Elle Billing (30:49):
it's going to be pockets. Everything is going to
be pockets. It's going to belike how there are sundown
towns, but like, the wholecountry is going to be that way
for everything.
Ricki Cummings (31:00):
Yep. Yeah. So March 21, provided we're all
still here, which we should be,yeah, yeah.
Elle Billing (31:10):
So what is, what is one true thing? We did an
episode right before Christmaswhere you kind of hit on, like,
our one true thing for thepodcast, which was, like,
awesome, but like, yeah, what isone true thing that you have
learned from this project inparticular,
Ricki Cummings (31:30):
this one is process related, I think, but it
also applies to a lot of thingsin life, But specifically it's
letting things come when theycome, I consciously decided to
work in the serial poem format,because it's not exactly stream
(31:52):
of consciousness, but the ideaof working on the same piece
throughout the entire thing asit comes, not worrying about
whether or not things are acohesive whole, because just
being next to each other theyare, and trusting myself to know
when something is done and whenit's not, because I reached, up
(32:16):
like for probably almost two anda half years on that project. I
thought I knew I had an end inmind, and then I reached that
point, and I was like, thisisn't quite there. And it turned
out what I thought was the endof, like, it's not a narrative
(32:36):
poem, exactly, but like the endof the third act was actually
the end of the second act, and Ihad a whole third of the poem
left to write, and that parttook another six months or so,
and then when I got to the endof that section, then I knew I
was done, and I wouldn't havegotten the piece that I have
(33:02):
now, if I would have stopped atthat point,
Elle Billing (33:05):
and there's so much good stuff in that third
act,
Ricki Cummings (33:08):
yeah, I not to toot my own horn or anything,
but I thought I was pretty good,yeah, it really makes me think
about that idea of art is neverfinished. It's only abandoned.
And I knew at that point that itwasn't worth abandoning. I knew
there was more to it than that,and I just had to wait. So I
(33:30):
think that's probably what Ilearned, and that it's there's
like a secondary thing of it'sokay to be weird, but that's
like an entirely differentconversation and involves a lot
more talk about influences andstuff that I we don't have time
for here. So yeah, so I thinkit's just trusting yourself and
(33:53):
trusting the idea, and I feellike that was kind of reflected
in yours too, like you didn'tjust like, oh, this is a
terrible idea. It just sat inthe closet for a few years and
percolated.
Elle Billing (34:06):
I was actually gonna say, well, could I share
mine?
Basically, yeah, is that the artwill be made. And like, in the
mean, like I wasn't stressingabout those paintings when they
were sitting there. Yeah, I madetwo other fabulous, like, two
other collections that I'mreally proud of in the meantime.
(34:27):
Like I wasn't not making art. Ididn't let that stop me. I did
my Ophelia collection and myTempest collection in the
meantime, and I'm really proudof those.
Ricki Cummings (34:36):
Yeah
Elle Billing (34:37):
and I think now is a really good time for this, for
this art.
Ricki Cummings (34:42):
Yeah
Elle Billing (34:42):
I think it's trusting, trusting myself,
trusting the art, trusting theprocess, knowing when to step
back. And the more we are doingit, the more we do the work, the
more we can trust the work, andtrust ourselves to do the work.
Because there were, like, I hadspent, like, a couple days with
those paintings where I waslike, trying to force them, and
(35:03):
I was like, This isn't working.
It was a relief to set themaside like I didn't even feel
like I was doing, like, as arecovering perfectionist, there
is definitely the risk offeeling like I'm failing. The
Failure Experiment is a fabuloustitle for this entire project,
but learning that I can walkaway from something, and then
it'll-- if it's meant to be,it'll be waiting for me when I
(35:25):
come back, or that it will comeback to me.
Ricki Cummings (35:30):
Yeah, yeah,
Elle Billing (35:31):
like, one direction or the other, like, it
will work out.
Ricki Cummings (35:34):
Yeah.
Elle Billing (35:35):
The paintings weren't going anywhere. They
were waiting. They just neededto ripen. Like, pineapples, they
take two years to grow.
Ricki Cummings (35:42):
I was not aware of that, actually,
Elle Billing (35:44):
uh huh.
Ricki Cummings (35:45):
And I-- part of my Patreon, my personal Patreon,
is that at a certain backerlevel, I will write poems for
people based on whatever subjectthey they want me to.
Elle Billing (35:57):
Um, yeah, some of them we would you disown as soon
as you send them.
Ricki Cummings (36:04):
Oh, my god, yeah.
Elle Billing (36:05):
There's been at least two that you've written
for me that we can't share.
Ricki Cummings (36:09):
Yeah, but there's one that I wrote, I
can't even remember exactly whatthe prompt was. I remember who
gave it to me, but I can'tremember what the specific
prompt was, but I ended upeffectively, I think it might
have been pineapple on pizza,now that I think about it, but
it ended up going into a longdigression about Dole and the
(36:33):
pineapple industry in Hawaii andhow completely fucked up It is
in all of that work that wasprobably like two days of work I
did on that poem. I did not knowhow long pineapple took to
ripen, like, that wasn't inthere.
Elle Billing (36:52):
That's how long it takes to grow.
Ricki Cummings (36:53):
Yeah. I had no idea, huh? Yeah.
Elle Billing (36:58):
Now I need to double check. I'm almost
positive. I don't like beingwrong when people are like,
looking, like listening to usright. How long does it take to
for pineapple to grow? Two tothree years, sometimes longer,
(37:18):
eight-- and then another sitesays 18 months or longer,
depending on the variety and theclimate,
Ricki Cummings (37:24):
huh!
Elle Billing (37:25):
Yeah, for one pineapple.
Ricki Cummings (37:27):
Well, now I know. And pineapple is just like
poetry and just like painting,they all start with P,
Elle Billing (37:36):
yep, and the enzymes make your tongue hurt
Ricki Cummings (37:42):
the enzymes in paint.
Elle Billing (37:44):
Yeah, yeah,
Ricki Cummings (37:45):
don't eat the paint!
Elle Billing (37:46):
Oh, okay, so I told my mom about that mug,
"Don't talk to me until I've hadmy paint water"
Ricki Cummings (37:51):
Yeah
Elle Billing (37:52):
but she was just painting those chairs, and I was
like, Ma, don't drink the paint.
Like, what? So then I had totell her the whole thing about
how artists are always likeaccidentally drinking their
paint water or putting theirpaint brushes in their coffee
cup. She thought that was prettyfunny. She was not in danger of
doing that. She did spill half aquart of yellow paint on the
(38:16):
hardwood floor, though.
Ricki Cummings (38:18):
Oh no
Elle Billing (38:19):
that was a that was a fun night to clean up. So
anyway, we're going to end onthat note. Don't spill paint on
your hardwood floors. But shefinished her project. The table
and chairs are done. Shefinished them two nights ago.
Ricki Cummings (38:34):
Oh, wow. Been working on that a while,
Elle Billing (38:36):
yeah, since this summer.
Ricki Cummings (38:38):
Just gotta give it time.
Elle Billing (38:40):
Yep, just gotta give it time. Watch lots of
Perry Mason. well, this was fun.
March, 21
Ricki Cummings (38:51):
march 21
Elle Billing (38:52):
pineapple, paints, and poetry. and people with
Ricki Cummings (39:01):
pronouns,
Elle Billing (39:04):
palladium prosthetics, I was trying to
think of a P, more P words,yeah,
Ricki Cummings (39:10):
I got nothing.
Thank you for joining us on thisepisode of Hoorf. To get the
Elle Billing (39:11):
Thank you.
complete show notes and all thelinks mentioned on today's
episode, or to get a fulltranscript of the episode, visit
hoorfpodcast dot com Join theblessed herd of Saint Winkus. By
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(39:32):
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(39:53):
podcast, help pay my editor, andjoin a community of caregivers
out here, just doing our best.
Thank you again for joining meElle Billing, the chronically
ill queer femme who is verytired, on this episode of Hoorf.
Until next time, be excellent toeach other. Hoorf is hosted by
Elle Billing @elleandwink, audioediting by Ricki Cummings,
(40:14):
@rickiep00h music composed byRicki Cummings. Hoorf is a
production of Elle & Wink ArtStudio, LLC, all rights
reserved. Hoorf can be found onall social media platforms
@hoorfpodcast, at H, O, O, R, Fpodcast,
Ricki Cummings (40:38):
are those for eating, though.
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