CINTRAFUGAL FORCE

WORDS BY ABI SLONE
ART BY CINTRA WILSON

All art by Cintra Wilson.

For the past two+ decades, the words of writer Cintra Wilson have been both a salve and a call to arms. From politics to fashion, Wilson’s insights offer readers a new perspective, a wit unmatched, and observations we all wish we were capable of making.  Her “Critical Shopper” columns for the New York Times, along with her work for salon.com and her books Fear and Clothing: Unbuckling American Style and A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined As a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations remain cultural touchstones. 

These days you can find Wilson in California writing and editing and working on her next, no doubt genius, move. 

THE CRONING: What I'd love to start talking to you about is that I'm so thrilled that you understood what we’re trying to do here.
CINTRA WILSON: Oh, no, you described it really nicely. I mean, it is a jarring title. Yes. So I mean, the first thing I thought was well, I'm not a crone yet. I have no objection to being a crone, but it's something that I think about from every angle. 

TC: I find it so interesting that we know that it's happening, we can’t deny the physicality of it but we don't want it and we're not ready to redefine what it is.
CW: I think it's a completely untouched topic. Wouldn’t it be amazing if this was sort of like, Tiger Beat for people over 50?

TC: One of my colleagues was like ‘Listen, I hit my mid-40s and I was like, fuck it. I only want to dress like LL Cool J in the late 80s and have insane and impractical fingernails.’ 
CW: Yeah. I've started dressing like MC Hammer.

TC: For me, despite what we’re told about getting to a certain age and not caring anymore, I feel like rather than not caring, you really care. You’re like ‘I am exactly who I am. Period.’ This is of course not to say that you are MC Hammer.
CW: It was really an amazing thing for me. I was trying to think (in the period leading up to this interview) about what does it mean to be older now? You know, I turned 54 in October and I realized that for me, it's really about autonomy. I stopped giving a shit what men thought. Like, completely. To the point where, for a while, I was dressing in a style that I described as lesbian boiler repair. And I just realized that all that shit doesn't matter. Like all that beauty shit.  Especially having written about fashion… I was kind of steeped in that world. I had a hell of a wardrobe… Now, what’s interesting is how marvellous it is to be autonomous.

TC: You just get to a point in your life where you just fucking get on with it.
CW: I think you kind of like hit your ideal realized self around 36,38 to 42 or something like that, where you look your best and you feel together. And then it all starts moving some other way.

TC: I feel like it takes a while to then refine that comfort. 
CW: It's like a second puberty — it's unsightly and awkward, and you find yourself in the same mindset that you were in, in a lot of ways when you're 16,17 and just figuring shit out.

TC: For me, I think about this idea that as creators, whether it's in business or in art, or whatever, we continue to create through this period — remain culturally relevant and fight against the elastic waist. Has your work changed? I like the whole like the Substack explosion — that direct communication.
CW: I mean, [for me] that gets into a lot of socio-political arguments. There’s the internet and a glut of information, but nobody reads much. What people mainly read is the headlines. And they want a one-second encapsulation, like ‘Where are the Russians.’ Nobody actually just reads for pleasure anymore because reading is a leisure activity. For people who have downtime, and nobody has downtime…  It’s kind of like being a horse in the age of the automobile. People don’t process information the same and reading has fallen by the wayside as a thing to do, especially just for pleasure. It’s become really difficult because there are too many things to pay attention to and people are too busy and people are too broke… The financial hardship in the United States is something that people don't usually talk about, but the middle class, of which I am a former member, has been completely eradicated. So I've had to make a lot of adjustments. Since the crash of 2008, my income dropped by 90 per cent. And that’s for everybody [in my industry]. That's not just me and my bad behaviour.

TC: Across the board.
CW: Yeah. I'm now trying to find different ways to be relevant. Lately, I've been doing a lot of editing, which is great. I think that's a noble task helping other people get their written work out there. I still write for the New York Review of Books and, you know, that's kind of cool and prestigious. It doesn't pay the rent… I’m having to hustle to figure out how I'm gonna stay alive.

TC: That’s a real fucking reality.
CW: A real fucking reality. And I also have no education. I got a high school GED. And you know, I took a couple of semesters of college, which was largely just Afro-Haitian dancing and pot selling. So I can't fall back on teaching…

TC: At this point in your career, would you consider writing for a completely different medium like television?
CW: Oh, yeah, absolutely. But it's very, very hard to get into and it's very ageist. I've had a couple of failed launches. I wrote this massive treatment and a script and three seasons of projected action about these four stuntwomen who become middle-aged with a lot of titanium screws, and opioid abuse and they're crazy and nobody could stand being around them and so nobody's hiring them anymore… Because they're difficult… at a certain age. You know, they don't want to just age you out, they say you’re difficult. It was called the Inflatables, and I had an animation company, and we just got nowhere with it at all. There’s this myth that Hollywood actually wants female voices. No, they don't. They don't want anything to do with it. And nobody talks about the stuff that you're talking about… this whole middle-aged thing.

TC: Do you feel like there's an opportunity at this point, being of an age where typically women disappear, to do subversive work under the surface that not everyone would be aware of, but that could make change? 
CW: That's interesting. I mean, I feel like I was a lot more subversive when I was younger. And now I've gotten criticism about my Substack from friends who were like, ‘Why aren't you being more radically political with this?’ And I was like, ‘You know what? I am in my own way.’ I did my time in the trenches with political writing.

I mean, I wrote the “C Word” for like, eight or nine years, and I just wasn't reaching anybody I wanted to reach and I didn't feel like it improved my career at all but it was something that I felt strongly about. I got on that horse and I carried that water for a long time and now it's like, why write about politics? There are other people who do that better than I do. And I can focus on my thing.

TC: What are you working on now?
CW: I'm working on my Substack which I'm proud of, and I like that. I've been doing oil painting and a  whole lot of art. It’s one little thing I do with myself. And I'm proud of that and that makes me feel good. I don't have a ton of readers, but I'm hoping that people will catch on eventually. And I'm going to be working on a screenplay with a writing partner just for the fun of it just because why not? You know, give it one last javelin hurl. I worked in Hollywood before but I didn't like it. It wasn't a huge priority for me because everything that you write gets just unrecognizable so I became an author because I wanted more control over my own words. Now there's no point in being an author, but I'm helping other people do it.

TC: There's value in that for sure.
CW: I think sometimes people just gotta ride it, got it in them and come out. I don't mind midwifing that, especially since I feel no particular drive on my own book right now. I'll probably write another book at some point and this Substack that I'm writing will likely be a memoir that I put into a book eventually, but right now it's not a priority for me. Books are the last thing I'm thinking about, which is, which is interesting because it was my life for a long time. But now I just think that whole industry is just complete bullshit.

TC: I interviewed [a successful New York-based writer] recently that not only sang your praises but also talked about the death of media — that the whole industry is dead, that the current model is dead. That there is no money. Nothing.
CW: I always supported myself as a journalist and was always able to make like a middle-class income by being a journalist and now no fucking more. I occasionally write for the San Francisco Examiner, but they pay me like $300 an article, which is less than I made when I was 19 years old. It’s humiliating. I only do it because like the editor assigns me things that I don't mind talking about, and she sends me exhibits and stuff like that. 

TC: Newspapers never paid like a glossy, so okay maybe there's a bit more flexibility. But digital payment has ruined everything.
CW: And also there's no premium placed on quality writing. I don't think anywhere you see, you see, like writing all over the place, but just like Jesus Christ, my 12-year-old niece could do better than this. There are just some hideous examples and it’s structured in a way that sort of pushes out people who demand more money. If you don't care about quality you can pay some grad students $60 to write an article. It's just gonna look like shit, but nobody cares.

TC: Nobody cares because the advertising model is so broken, that it's just about a click on a page that will make money so no one cares what it looks like or reads like at all.
CW: Oh, yeah, if I wanted to write about the Kardashians I could probably get a larger readership than I have now. But you know, I'm not that low. I'd rather set up a handjob stand by the Arco station.

TC: You should write about that.
CW: I know. It's gonna be difficult not to write about the Kardashians now that Pete Davidson is gonna be on it. 

Survival is gonna be my main subject I think at this point. It’s just like I'm still here, motherfucker. Writer since day one. I'm not going away. You haven't killed me. I haven't given up and I'm still here. It’s defiant at this point.

TC: How does that feel? This kind of defiance? There was always personality and fight in the writing that you did before, but this defiance is personal — I am still here. I still have shit to say. And I'm gonna say it.
CW: It's more existential almost. I had to figure out why I liked writing again. A few years after I left New York I was like, fuck this shit. I'm not going to attempt any journalism. I don't want to do journalism. I hate journalism. I'm looking for a second career.

The subject thing has been me worming my way back to a place of enjoyment with my writing and giving myself the freedom to do it. Like if I want to watch My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and then do an article about that season of that TV show, I'm gonna do that because that’s stimulating to me right now. I’m just going with my own stimulus as opposed to somebody else’s so I can sort of enjoy it.

TC: That's nice. That's really nice.
CW: I don't charge for my Substack because I feel like I'm woodshedding right now and I'm just building up readership. That it won't be forever, though.

TC: It’s about time that writers have an opportunity to make money off their writing in a way where they have the controls versus being paid a pittance once and then have the publication capitalize on their talents.
CW: Yeah, at some point, for example, I helped build Salon. My articles have been up for 25 years or some shit. I wrote a show for MTV, for which I got paid like $600 and it ran for nine years. At least there can be controls now. 

TC: Let’s talk a bit about your painting. When did you start?
CW: I started painting just before COVID hit. American painter Kimberly Brooks established these workshops and a Zoom painting school before COVID. And during COVID when I was in deep lockdown I figured I was going to use this time to paint my ass off and I did nothing but paint for months and months.  In a year I've done something like 68 paintings. I just went apeshit and it was such a great outlet for my creativity and such good therapy. I don't think I'm a museum-quality painter or anything like that, but I like it. My stuff is cool.

It's been really good to have a new art medium, especially since I feel like writing itself betrayed me. I thought it was gonna have legs into my 80s. But yeah, I hope that people catch on to my paintings.

TC: I hope so too.