Poison Pen

THE FOURTH EPISODE of HBO Max’s Spanish-language biopic Veneno (2020) etymologizes its title, the national pet name of Spain’s late trans icon Cristina “La Veneno” Ortiz Rodríguez. In the limited series’ most memorable sequence, Cristina (an intoxicating Daniela Santiago) descends on Parque del Oeste, the center of trans sex work in 1990s Madrid, to mark her territory among peers and bullies. Dressed in a slinky harem ensemble—complete with an ass-grazing human-hair wig and brand-new Jessica Rabbit breasts—Cristina confronts her rival, Fanny (Lara Martorell). Fanny shrieks that “a boob job

print January/February 2021

Openings: Nash Glynn

NASH GLYNN IS NUDE. Her body is pink and toned, perched in contrapposto at the edge of a classic American landscape. She’s a colossus. There’s green at her feet—definitely grass, some pines maybe, a smear of amber near the horizon. The landscape submits to the Yves Klein blue of a sky she’s turning toward, collapsing longitude and altitude in the lean of her hip. Clouds bloom around and above her; they’re mauve, like the ones at sunset over a beach town. Except there’s no sun in the sky, no source of pink to crush purple in a white cloud. In the absence of sun, there is Nash Glynn, her body