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Manuel Betancourt

@bmanuel.bsky.social

1.7K followers 520 following 390 posts

Writer/critic for hire 📍LA 📚 Hello Stranger (OUT NOW!) 📚 The Male Gazed (2023) 📚 Judy at Carnegie Hall (2020) 🏰 Writer on The Cardboard Kingdom series (2018, 2021, 2023) LAFCA, GALECA, Peabody Awards Juror www.mbetancourt.com

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jan 14

My new book HELLO STRANGER: MUSINGS ON MODERN INTIMACIES is out today!

You can get your copy wherever books (and e-books & audiobooks) are sold!

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757080...

Manuel Betancourt holding a copy of his book, Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 1d

A highlight of my visit to Bend, OR for their fab film festival was time traveling to the early 2000s inside the very last Blockbuster.

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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 11d

“we heard tale of expanding the tent”

Photo of the three vampires from “sinners” trying to get invited into the juke joint where a party is happening

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 12d

Glad you’re enjoying it (and also I’m always so happy when I see library copies of Hello Stranger)!

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Marthine Satris @msatris.bsky.social · 12d

I just found this book in my library and it's everything I needed for thinking about the stirring of possibility that comes from opening into connection and frisson and being seen and known by others, and vice versa.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jul 14

Category is:

Posing with my book, HELLO STRANGER which came out six months ago today!

Get it wherever books are sold (namely, your favorite indie bookstore!); and yes, you can even get it on audiobook (read by yours truly).

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Jaime Woo @thejaimewoo.bsky.social · Dec 13

Reading the interviews of Gabriel García Márquez and this passage stands out to me, from the 1970s but relevant in this time, that in this era the fight must be for collective happiness, which as he astutely describes, is the only kind of just happiness

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ: I don't know who the hell it is that's ended up convincing us—the people who want to start a revolution-to accept the idea that revolution is apocalyp-tic, catastrophic, and bloody. We need to grasp once and for all that it's counterrevolution that's apocalyptic and catastrophic and bloody. You already know the figures: more than thirty thousand dead, thousands im-prisoned, thousands tortured by the leaders of the Chilean military coup.
My idea of revolution is of the search for individual happiness through collective happiness, which is the only just form of happiness.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jul 3

Angels in America remains my go-to work whenever I feel despondent and sink into despair.

BELIZE: Well I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. It's just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you.
The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate.
Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me.
You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean.
(A rumble of thunder. Then the rain comes. Belize has a collapsible umbrella, and he raises it. Louis stands in the rain.)
BELIZE: I live in America, Louis, that's hard enough, I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody's got to love something.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jul 3

What a fucking nightmare

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Helena Fitzgerald @hellafitzgerald.bsky.social · Jun 27

“you come up with a mean nickname to call this guy on TV?”
“sure did boss, real fuckin sexy just like you asked”

Andrew Joyce @andrewjoyce.bsky.social · Jun 27

I'm not sure this nickname will have the impact they think it will

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Helen @homotoptheory.bsky.social · Jun 26

here’s a pretty good rebuttal of the new Andrew Sullivan piece from Tony Kushner.

Oh look it was written over 30 years ago.

www.thenation.com/article/arch...

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jun 25

Love Astoria, my former home.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · Jun 25

Fascinating...

A chart showing NYC mayoral primary results (still being counted) by regions from largest to smallest, showing the top 12. Not going to recount all the numbers, but Cuomo leads in the top two neighborhoods: the upper west side and the upper east side (generally the "older" people's neighborhoods... and then Mandami wins bsically everywhere else. Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Astoria, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Washingtong Heights, Harlem, Flatbush, Bushwick and the East Village.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jun 23

So many faves I left off.

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Alistair Kitchen @alistairkitchen.bsky.social · Jun 19

I was deported by the U.S. for reporting on the Columbia University student protests.

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

How My Reporting on the Columbia Protests Led to My Deportation

As an Australian who wrote about the demonstrations while on campus, I gave my phone a superficial clean before flying to the U.S. I underestimated what I was up against.

www.newyorker.com

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On the Media @onthemedia.bsky.social · Jun 19

“Look, we both know why you are here,” the agent told me... “It’s because of what you wrote online about the protests at Columbia University,” he said.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

How My Reporting on the Columbia Protests Led to My Deportation

As an Australian who wrote about the demonstrations while on campus, I gave my phone a superficial clean before flying to the U.S. I underestimated what I was up against.

www.newyorker.com

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🎃 Fall-mode pink cat 🎃 @hugothepinkcat.bsky.social · Jun 18

CLARIFICATION :

The Trevor Project's hotline will still be live. But basically this means LGBTQ people can no longer be connected to it through the US national 988 suicide prevention hotline.

They will need to be contacted DIRECTLY

So spread this around

They can be texted. They can be called.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jun 17

Can’t really go wrong for Pride with Judy :)

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Marcos Gonsalez @marcossgonsalez.bsky.social · Jun 17

very much enjoyed @bmanuel.bsky.social’s Judy at Carnegie Hall—a perfect Pride month read.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jun 13

Never had a movie lost me so quickly as that film’s opening sequence.

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Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · Jun 13

posting about the crushing state of things and then promoting book stuff (h/t to @maris.bsky.social for this)

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Gayer Than Thou 🏳️‍🌈 @gayerthanthou.bsky.social · Jun 10

Also highly recommended: @bmanuel.bsky.social Manuel Betancourt’s book about the Carnegie Hall concert.

Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall

On the night of Sunday, April 23, 1961 Judy Garland made history. That's no hyperbole. Surrounded by a throng of ecstatic fans (3,165 to be exact), the legendar…

www.bloomsbury.com

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · Jun 1

Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

If you’re going to buy gay books this summer, may I recommend two that make for excellent poolside/beach reads?

The Male Gazed book against a naked male torso

Hello Stranger book against a naked male torso

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Chris @ottersf.bsky.social · May 21

Reading @bmanuel.bsky.social's "Hello Stranger" has added about two dozen books, essays, and films to my "for later" pile, including "Cruising", which, fucking woof. 🥵

A still from an early scene in "Cruising" of a jockstrap dance party.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · May 21

Yes! It’s a damn fine list of films if I say so myself.

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Fidel Martinez @fidel.bsky.social · May 17

This is a story I wanted to write but knew that @bmanuel.bsky.social would be better for it.

Los Angeles Times @latimes.com · May 17

Contributor: 'Andor' is very Latino-coded. Here's how.

Considering 'Andor' was created not just to explore Cassian Andor’s backstory but to flesh out the revolutionary spirit Diego Luna had brought to the character, what better place to mine for inspiration than the history of resistance and revolution throughout the American continent?

www.latimes.com

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