NEW LIFE quarterly

Interview with Pete Lee in Wolfman New Life Quarterly by Margaret McCarthy

Photo: Peter Dowling

Photo: Peter Dowling

I had a great time interviewing local filmmaker, photographer, and community builder Pete Lee for Issue 3 of New Life Quarterly. Check it out in print or online.

Sometimes, Pete told me, he needed to ask his crew, “White people also do this, right? And they’d all be like, ‘Yes.’ As an Asian-American filmmaker, you’re very wary of someone not getting your culture right.” Pete didn’t want to turn around and do the same thing even if, we agree, white people are over-represented in popular culture. “I still feel like I have a responsibility to reflect things honestly.”

New Life Issue 3 cover

Interview with Andrew Evans in Wolfman New Life Quarterly by Margaret McCarthy

I had a total blast talking magical illusions and non-illusory theater with local magician Andrew Evans for Wolfman New Life Quarterly Issue 2. Check it out in print or online.

And this brings us to the two audiences that are awful at magic shows. Children under a certain age are a terrible audience; they don’t know what’s impossible, and everything is already magic to them. More surprising to me, Andrew tells me that people who are high can be good at seeing through a trick. “For folks who are stoned, their mind is going, I’m just gonna get lost in this, the world is magic, right? But that’s actually when you start figuring it out. I’m designing these tricks with the knowledge that people are trying to figure them out. So the second somebody’s not in that mindset, they’re not picking up those cues, and then they’ve arrived at a completely different—and sometimes accurate—conclusion that no one else has.” 

Wolfman Issue 2

Interview with Jessie Alsop in Wolfman New Life Quarterly by Margaret McCarthy

I had the great joy of interviewing Jessie Alsop, and the equally great joy of having that interview published in the gorgeous first issue of Wolfman NEW LIFE Quarterly:


“We provide each other with a framework, and accountability. So a lot of the work that we’re doing is separate. I send her lyrics, she sends me lyrics. And primarily we’re trying to write pop music that we feel good about. I guess it’s feminist pop music, a lot of it. Pop music that isn’t damaging to ourselves or the future generations.”


Now available at a book store near you (if you are in the Bay Area), or online.

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