Formation Jukebox A column by Lio Min

Releasing the Fear of St. Vincent’s “Year of the Tiger”

I fear it and I dream of it: total honesty with my family, opening the door of my personhood and letting them see all of me.

Feb 06, 2023
The Secret Asian American History Behind New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”

I love new wave music for the way it makes me feel—like the cups of my interior and exterior worlds are overflowing. Turns out I’m not the only one.

Jan 03, 2023
What Michelle Zauner’s “Paprika” Taught Me About Making Art (and Peace With It)

What a joy it is—a singular joy, an occasion for jubilee—to allow your art’s translation through another point of view.

Nov 03, 2022
Running Up That Hill (And Dealing With God)

This is the deal I’d make with God: my devotion in exchange for acceptance of the past, peace with the present, and assurances about the future.

Oct 13, 2022
A Chinese American Fairy Tale

I love my parents because they are in me, but I wonder if, when they look at me, they see those parts or instead a shapeshifter who’s slowly taken over the person they thought they’d raised.

Aug 27, 2020
My Chemical Hormone Therapy Romance

Transition begins by insisting that you can want more. It’s a dream in the sense that it reveals the version of you that wants, above all, to be here.

Jul 09, 2020
My Years of Summertime Sadness

She’s loved and lost and lost and lost and yet still loves, and I root for this assertion to take root. Every sweetheart deserves their summers.

May 20, 2020
Love in the Time of Panic

I could live inauthentically if it meant I could live with him. But my body kept betraying me with panic, and of course he noticed.

Apr 13, 2020
Boy, You’re a Runner Now

It was the first time I’d ever pointed at myself and claimed “boy,” even jokingly.

Mar 03, 2020
Breaking Up with Your Best American Girl

Since voicing my intention to transition, I’ve been revisiting my favorite love-as-a-woman songs and reorienting myself within them.

Jan 28, 2020