nostalgia

Hugh Ryan is an absolute superstar of queer history. His first two books, “When Brooklyn Was Queer” and “The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison,” were magnets for awards and accolades. After spending recent years immersed in cultural stories, he’s turned his investigative eye on his own coming of age with the rollicking, raw, funny and sharp memoir “My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties and Beyond.” Pivoting from scholar of history to student of life, Ryan shares lessons learned from beloved but homophobic middle school teachers (“The nicest mother— I knew could accidentally curb-stomp my heart at any moment”) to ones acquired on the dance floor (“Dancing is sex on a communal level: an embodied ecstatic ritual of union”).

Ryan swung through L.A. on his book tour, and what better place to host a paean to the ’90s than the ASU FIDM Museum, where the exhibit “Obsessed: Fashion and Nostalgia in the ’90s” is serving Westwood plaids, Calvin Klein’s minimalist silk parachute sheath and Donatella’s zipper-slashed, leather mourning dress. A fellow survivor of the era, I interviewed Ryan and the evening was introduced by the exhibition’s sparkling curator, Christina Frank, who cheekily shared period photos of the author alongside images from the museum’s ’90s archives, asking: Who wore it best? Whether it was Ryan channeling designer inspo or fashion-snatching looks from the streets, the display — like the book that inspired it — was colorful and daring, inspired and eccentric and wholly unique. At a time when nostalgia for the ’90s is seemingly everywhere, “My Bad” places the decade into context, including its paradoxical freedoms and oppressions, with the intimate, funny rough language of your freakiest, funnest bestie.

Michelle Tea: Your previous books are this amazing, accessible scholarship. In “My Bad,” your language is so different — you’re cussing! The academic gloves are off — which isn’t to say that it’s not brainy. Was this just the voice that the book wanted? It’s like, “Oh, so we’re just like sitting on the curb having a cigarette together.”

Hugh Ryan: I actually wanted to buy a box of clove cigarettes while I was doing the research, but apparently they’re illegal now because they’re deadly and full of fiberglass.

So much of it is about writing it for people today who are younger, who look up to my books and are like, “I’m going to get my PhD and be just like you!,” and I was like, I didn’t do that, I’ve misrepresented myself somehow, and I want to be really real. Also, I had this job for four or five years where I ghost wrote a kids’ books series, and I was eventually fired, because I took a beloved character — who I am not allowed to name — and made her curse, which she had apparently never done in her 100-year history. When I made her say ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ while solving a mystery, the internet went wild, and you can find the Amazon page where I am ruined. So, the ability to curse in my work and have a real voice was something that, from very early on in my career, I was like, “Oh no, I got to be real careful about being too much myself on the page.”

Ryan in ‘90s Calvin Klein; Dave Navarro walks the Anna Sui Spring/Summer 1997 runway. (Hugh Ryan; Michel Arnaud; Gift of Arnaud Associates, 2000; From ASU FIDM Museum Collection)

MT: You needed to break that pattern of self-censoring. What was it like to shift the focus of your intellectual investigation onto yourself?

HR: Excruciating. At first I really enjoyed it, when it was just this idea. I’ve never really told these stories. In the early versions of it, everything I wrote was jokey, silly, overly stylized, not honest. I wasn’t ready to really dig in. I think that I had a lot of layers of defensiveness that I didn’t even understand I had until I had to write things down. My agent kept being, “No, no, this isn’t real, stop with these jokes, it is funny, but you have to get into the serious issues.” There was a large resistance inside me. Asking, “OK, how did my experiences relate to the ’90s as a whole?” actually let me talk about myself and the time period I emerged from. I needed that scaffolding to feel comfortable.

MT: How do you feel about Gen X’s legacy as basically the coolest generation?

HR: I mean, I kind of love it.

MT: We’re having the most sex, even though we’re so old now. And we’re tough, because we’ve survived so much queer trauma. You write in “My Bad” about having Snapple bottles thrown out windows at you.

HR: If you looked queer and you were out in the world, it was just accepted that at some point during the day someone was going to be violent towards you. Verbally, maybe physically. It just was what it was. Though I will say, having now, later in my life, thrown some Snapple bottles really hard just to feel it, it does feel very good. They’re heavy, they’re glass, they explode. If you can get your hands on some classic ’90s Snapple, just throw them, just try it.

MT: We have to have a queer, Gen X ritual of throwing Snapple bottles, like a rage room.

Ryan in the ‘90s. In his new memoir “My Bad,” Ryan looks back on this time with the intimate, funny rough language of your freakiest, funnest bestie.

(Hugh Ryan)

HR: I do think that it’s easy to forget all of that, because I think we all wanted to forget it to a certain degree. We wanted to let go of our pain. Both the people who were hurt and the people who caused those hurts had some amount of evolution. This is something I think about a lot with my family. If you read the book, in the early chapters it’s rough with my folks. They were loving, but also had no idea what to do with me. I was not just gay, I was weird and trans and confused, and always making noise and acting out and being inappropriate. There’s all this tough stuff, and then we try to forgive each other and let it go, but without saying it. Writing the book was this moment of, “Oh no, am I making us talk about all the bad times again?” It took me sitting with that and realizing — that’s the only way to get to the other side. I’ve seen this change in my family, and it felt important to document how shitty it was, so we could see the change.

MT: What sign are you?

HR: Cancer.

MT: You’re Cancer?!

HR: Yeah, tell me about it. I know so little about astrology. It’s the straightest thing about me, how little I know about astrology.

MT: I don’t even know what to say, because I’m getting such Aquarius-Virgo-Gemini from you that Cancer is just blowing my mind.

HR: I do have a shell, I know that about myself. And that was my first two books. Now I’m trying to invite people in.

MT: Will you talk about the club kid scene in New York City in the ’90s?

HR: I just touched up on the edges of it. The club kid movement really stopped after effective retrovirals come in, in 1996. Suddenly club kids saw a future for themselves, and did not all imagine that they were going to die of AIDS imminently. The ones who I’ve interviewed have said, “That’s the moment at which suddenly, dressing for Friday night no longer felt like what you spend two weeks doing.” But when it was happening, it was amazing. There were these free magazines in New York City, HX and Next, little queer rags full of party promotions and photos of half-naked people in clubs, and ads for those awful viatical companies that would buy up your life insurance if you had AIDS. They were very weird, but they’re like style bibles for me. And then you would go to the clubs.

When you went to Limelight, there would be two entrances, one for straight people and one for gay people. The bouncer at the line for the straight entrance was a giant gay guy, who — this was abusive, and probably wrong, but it was very funny — he’d be like, “You two make out if you’re gonna tell me you’re gay, make out or you don’t come in.” You only got access to half the club if you went in the straight entrance — the other half was only for queer people, and so you would have these straight folks trying to get in. It was amazing, and it was a place where I came to really love my body, because up until then the only things I had been told my body were for were sports, and that was never going to be me. There, I could dance all night.

Limelight was the coolest, but I loved Tunnel. Tunnel was 80,000 square feet of nightclub in a former railway terminal. There was a room entirely designed by the artist Kenny Scharf, and it was covered in fake fur — in a club when smoking was still allowed! It was the worst smelling place I’ve ever been in my whole life. I would sneak down there wearing giant Jnco raver pants, and watch everyone. These giant pants had these huge pockets in them, and I would put a big, gallon Ziploc bag with a clean T-shirt and clean socks inside the pant pocket. When the night was done I would go out, get food, change my clothes, and put the dirty clothes inside the Ziploc bag. I still had to have the pants on. I carried like the smell of 1,000 humid homosexuals with me everywhere I went.

The club, Ryan says, “was a place where I came to really love my body, because up until then the only things I had been told my body were for were sports, and that was never going to be me.”

(Hugh Ryan)

MT: Speaking of being grimy — you were also really affected by Burning Man.

HR: I had met this guy, we totally fell in love. He was a high school dropout computer hacker who was the epitome of the bisexual ’90s — longhaired, androgynous, everything I wanted to be. You know, that very queer thing of: Do I want you, do I want to be you, should we go on a road trip or a killing spree? We were in love and I did not want to go back to school. I had had a terrible junior year, and I was looking to make new mistakes. He was like, “I’m gonna go to this thing called Burning Man, do you want to go? It’s out in the desert, there’s all this art, and it’s super cool,” and I was like, “When is it?” And it was the very first week of classes my senior year, and I was like, “Yeah, absolutely.”

It was amazing. We got adopted by these people who called themselves the Church of Mez, or Mezbians. They were extremely rich Microsoft engineers. We were completely unprepared, because we’d f—ing come in on the Greyhound bus. You’re supposed to bring a gallon of water per person per day, just to start with, and we had nothing. We had a tent and a sleeping bag, and these people thought we were somewhere between pets and aphrodisiacs.

It felt like such an amazing thing to get to touch. And I know that all of those people ended up being like fascist tech bros of today, I’m sure, and I worry about the environmental degradation that I did not know anything about. And it was so white, so many white people with dreadlocks and those terrible tribal tattoos. Like many things in the book, I have to write about it tenderly, even though I know there are so many problems. I don’t think I would be who I was if I didn’t show some tenderness towards those spaces that made me, or at least allowed me to see myself.

Michelle Tea is the author of more than 20 books for grown-ups, teenagers and children.

As 2026 reaches its halfway point, the editors of De Los are eager to talk about Latin artists to watch — and share their hottest music takes. Over the years, award-winning music journalist Suzy Exposito and Director of Latino Initiatives Fidel Martinez have documented the rise of genres like reggaeton and música Mexicana in mainstream culture.

In her work for Vogue, The Times and Rolling Stone, Exposito has interviewed influential artists like Shakira, Cardi B and Bad Bunny (the last of which made history as the first Rolling Stone cover story written by a Latina journalist).

Martinez has an impressive roster of his own, having interviewed many stars in the Mexican and Chicano music scenes, from Fuerza Regida to Natalia Lafourcade.

Reflecting on a landmark year for Latin music

On this week’s episode of “The De Los Podcast,” they weigh in on the explosive impact of 2025 on the genre: between Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl halftime show and Karol G‘s Coachella headlining performance, last year was nothing short of a groundbreaking for Latin music.

“Being there, you could feel barriers coming down,” Martinez, who reported live from the Super Bowl in February, said. “It wasn’t Bad Bunny trying to validate us in front of others. It was him saying, ‘This is who we are, and we are proud of who we are.’”

According to the RIAA, 2025 was the first year that Latin music sales in the U.S. reached $1 billion, in its 10th consecutive year of growth. In 2016, American Latin music sales were at just below $150 million.

“It highlights how quickly and with what speed the genre has been taking off,” Martinez said.

However, as Exposito notes, at times, it came at the cost of originality.

A Latin music trend that De Los is leaving behind this year

“Our generation is too married to the past,” Exposito said. “How can we evolve musically if we keep trying to re-create our grandparents’ music?”

Nostalgia, De Los editors note, has driven the wide-ranging popularity of last year’s most successful Latin projects. As Exposito says, the artists “mine the past in their own ways.”

In Bad Bunny’s “DtMF” and Karol G’s “Tropicoqueta,” classic genres like salsa, plena and cumbia took center stage. “DtMF” samples El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico while in Fuerza Regida samples Mexican classics like Vicente Fernández.

While comforting and educational for younger generations, Martinez argues that artists relying on nostalgia could turn that effort into becoming more experimental with their sound.

Some artists, however, are resisting the nostalgia trend, making De Los’ best albums list of 2026 … so far.

De Los’ 2026 Latin albums you need to hear

Suzy’s picks:

Alvaro Díaz, “Omakase”

“He’s experimental … and taking bold swings, with producers like Tainy,” Exposito said.

“Omakase,” which the Puerto Rican star released in May, blends Latin trap elements with electronic, R&B and in one track, cumbia, for a diverse, thoughtful album that Diaz equates in his De Los story to the Japanese dish omakase, or a platter decided by the chef.

RaiNao, “Marcría”

With a worldplay title that blends the words “malcriada” (badly raised woman) and “cria por el mar” (born in the sea), RaiNao’s project promises earthly, intimate lyricism with experimental musicianship.

“The way she melds jazz with reggaeton and folkloric elements, I really enjoy,” Exposito said. “I really appreciate people (like RaiNao) who can remix but also introduce seemingly disparate elements, like saxophone and Caribbean music.”

Other picks include Ibeyi’s “Offering” and Diles Que No Me Maten’s “Escrito en Agua.”

Fidel’s picks:

Julieta Venegas, “Norteña”

Venegas, who De Los interviewed last month, wrote a memoir alongside this album, which delves into her Tijuana heritage with Mexican collaborators like Bronco, is what Martinez calls “a chef’s kiss.”

“She’s such a fascinating character because she started as an indie rocker,” Martinez said. “This album is a love letter to Tijuana. It’s just the perfect fusion of tradition and pop.”

Hermanos Espinoza, “Linaje”

Two brothers from the Rio Grande Valley, Hermanos Espinoza performed at De Los’ SXSW showcase and blew the audience away with their live energy and accordion work.

“Their project talks about lineage. This album certainly has a point of view,” Martinez said. “With this album, they said, música Mexicana can be like rock and roll.”

Also on the list are Tito Doble P’s “Acomodo” and Trio Asesino’s self-titled.

To hear more about 2026’s emerging artists and De Los’ music hot takes, check out “The De Los Podcast.”

Nearly 50 years on from “Star Wars” and the launch of a media empire (large or small “e”? You decide), the fandom has become its own galaxy of warring planets. But based on the success of the streaming series “The Mandalorian,” set around the title bounty hunter, we can all agree that his charge Grogu — green, wrinkled, big-eyed Baby You-Know-Who — is still adorable. Of the many “Star Wars” offshoots, this seems to be the sturdiest.

The brand is back together for “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which is a movie, a hoped-for franchise revival, a fourth season of sorts and an affable throwback. But it’s never quite riveting enough as canon or fodder to supplant anyone’s memories of [insert favorite “Star Wars” film here].

The expectations game was never going to help series creator Jon Favreau’s big-screen version, written with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor. Granted, this upscaled, agreeably rangy treatment of an adventure storyline that wouldn’t have been out of place on the show could have attempted more. Especially when it puts sci-fi icon Sigourney Weaver in an X-wing pilot uniform as a veteran of the Rebellion, but barely gives her anything to do besides secure Mando a job and keep tabs on his progress. (Gang, try harder. It’s Sigourney Weaver.)

Aimed squarely at kids of all sizes, “Star Wars” has become a glorified tour of a billionaire’s expanding playworld and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” wants the track well-oiled, not bumpy. The simple pleasures here of good vs evil, IMAX hugeness and composer Ludwig Göransson’s space-opera-hits-the-club score, go down easy enough to not be aggravating. It’s a lot.

But it’s not this reviewer’s position to tell you what “a lot” is — loose lips spoil scripts. When the moment comes at an appropriately dangerous time for our heroes, we sense the kind of thing that only movies can do well when they’re myths writ large: slow things down, shift momentum away from the tyranny of exposition and let emotion, humor, wonder and character co-exist. “The Mandalorian and Grogu” takes the series’ thematic underpinnings — what parenting looks like between a masked human loner and an otherworldly toddler — and deepens them.

The movie takes place in wonderfully detailed environments that evoke the earlier, beloved films. You’re not being pandered to, however; the payoff is a lovely echo. Elsewhere, the action set pieces are serviceably handled by Favreau. (One of them plays like, of all things, an homage to “The French Connection.”)

Otherwise, this is another hunt-and-retrieve narrative for the bounty hunter voiced by Pedro Pascal, physically embodied in armor by Brendan Wayne and, in combat, by fight choreographer Lateef Crowder. Still independent but New Republic-curious, Mando is tasked by Weaver’s Col. Ward to find a wayward scion of the slimy gangster Hutt clan, Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), whose return will unlock some important information. Of course, things don’t go as planned, which for a while is interesting — are the Hutts like the Corleones, perhaps? — until it’s not, because then the dialogue would need to rise above the level of a middle-school play.

That being said, one of the movie’s strong points, absent its story deficiencies, is that, across its many wordless scenes, it’s at heart a solidly rousing, delightfully icky creature feature, in the vein of a supercharged Ray Harryhausen-meets-Guillermo del Toro joint. “It’s a hard world for little things,” Lillian Gish famously says in “The Night of the Hunter,” a movie nobody will ever confuse with “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” But we all know summer fare like this is only ever as enjoyable as the monsters conjured up for conquering.