The A24 Podcast All The Ways To Be with Bryan Washington & Ocean Vuong
Dec 21, 2020
Topics covered include: the purity of poetry, radical okay-ness, alternate life as a straight man, power of saying no, learning to choose yourself, exoticism of suburbia, upside of being small, letting artist expand vision through adaptation, and writing as a miracle.
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Radical Okayness In Queer Narratives
- Ocean praises Memorial for centering everyday sustaining labor and small joys instead of exoticized tropes.
- He calls this approach 'radical okayness,' a queer narrative mode that values being okay over melodrama.
Start With Love As A Given
- Brian wanted Memorial to assume love between its queer protagonists and explore how they cross gaps without proving affection.
- He framed the novel's central question around navigation and language for love rather than its existence.
Queerness Expanded Possibility For Ocean
- Ocean recounts that queerness expanded his sense of possibility and forced him to create alternative routes away from expected life paths.
- He describes choosing himself as a pivotal moment that opened unknown worlds and taught skepticism of imposed containers.