iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

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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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

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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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

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 · 01/06/2025

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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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Caught TRAPEZE this weekend and boy was I not prepared for what’s ostensibly a film about watching Burt Lancaster & Tony Curtis mosey around in tights on any given shot.

Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in a shot from the film Trapeze.

Shot from the film Trapeze starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, who play trapeze artists.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

I see we’re having interactions with strangers discourse… www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757080...

Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies by Manuel Betancourt book cover.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Very excited to be part of two panels at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend with a fabulous all around cohort of queer folks!

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I suffered through its cloying ways (moreover, I also watched the similarly themed, MY PENGUIN FRIEND, which is just as baffling a proposition)

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Headed to San Francisco tomorrow for my next HELLO STRANGER book tour stop! Tuesday March 18 FABULOSA BOOKS @ 7pm

Tuesday, March 18 @ 7pm
Manuel Betancourt author of Hello Stranger: Musings for Modern intimacies at Fabulosa Books in San Francisco

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Sometimes I get dressed up and pose for photos. Thank you @queerty.com for the invite!

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

It’s been one month since HELLO STRANGER was published and no better reason to celebrate that than Valentine’s Day! If you love Before Sunrise, Closer, Take This Waltz, Weekend and the like, you’re bound to enjoy these “musings on modern intimacy.” www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757080...

Cover of book Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies by Manuel Betancourt

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

A joy to chat with @fakedansavage.bsky.social about flirting & Hello Stranger. savage.love/subscribe (Use promo code HELLO to subscribe & listen to the full Magnum episode)

Promo for episode 953 of Dan Savage’s Lovecast podcast, with guest Manuel Betancourt.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

New author headshots, courtesy of the talented John Lagucki. 💕

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

If you see this, post a fictional artist/band that you would love to see live.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

To think you could make just as fabulous a category lineup with those who didn’t get in (MJB, Kidman, Jolie, Anderson, Ronan)

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Finding some joy today in anticipation of my LA book launch, tonight at Skylight Books!

Poster for book launch on Jan 20th at Skylight Books for Manuel Betancourt’s Hello Stranger, moderated by Rasheed Newson.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Fitting that my very first in-person event for HELLO STRANGER was an ode to my chapter on figure drawing (“Naked Friends”), where I got to pose for some fab LA artists.

Stage at LA gay bar advertising Drink & Draw with photo of man in see-through body suit.

Pen and marker sketch of man from the back with arms behind his head

Sketch of man reading a book while seated on a stool.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

I had to double check that these NYC temperatures for when I’ll be there next week are, in fact, in Fahrenheit. 🥶

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

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 · 13/01/2025

Given that an entire chapter of HELLO STRANGER focuses on figure drawing (& Frank O’Hara, Larry Rivers… and even Leo & Kate in Titanic), it was a joy to catch up with my friend @octoberjoe.bsky.social ahead of tomorrow’s launch!

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Chapter 10 Stranger We come full circle with Closer once more, but not without some much needed detours into Shortbus, Larry Mitchell's The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, and the work Salman Toor to dissect cuddling as a fruitful image of contemporary intimacies.

Collage featuring a poster for Shortbus, an image from Larry Mitchell's The F*ggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, and the work Salman Toor.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Chapter 9 Three’s Company Throuples! Of course the book would get there, so I opted to look at a series of triangles, including the fictional ones in Detransition, Baby & Passages and the real ones in Paul Cadmus/Jared French/Margaret French & Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler, and George Platt Lynes.

Collage including poster for Passages, cover for Detransition, Baby and art by PaJaMa, and Paul Cadmus.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

So many comic book covers I just adore.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Chapter 8 Three’s a Crowd Films and novels about adultery seem to always tell the same story, from Madame Bovary to Little Children (yes, Kate Winslet is the book's stealth muse), so why not look Into the Woods and around Sarah Polley's work to find alternate narratives about it?

Collage of posters for Concussion, Unfaithful, Little Children, Notes on a Scandal, Take This Waltz, Stories We Tell and a playbill for Into the Woods.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Still beaming from this LA Times review of HELLO STRANGER (out 1/14!) www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

“Hello Stranger” is a lively and intelligent addition to an essential discourse on how not only accessing our desires but also being open about them can make us more human, and perhaps, make for a better world. “There could possibly be a way to fold those urges into their own relationship,” Betancourt writes. “They could build a different kind of two that would allow them to find a wholeness within and outside themselves without resorting to such betrayals, such lies, such affairs.” It’s the embrace of that complexity that, Betancourt suggests, gives people another way to live.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Chapter 7 Two’s Company No book about the strangeness of the intimacies we're supposed to yearn for could be complete without looking at the most astute musical about them: Stephen Sondheim's Company—which I study, in its various iterations, here alongside Revolutionary Road (book and film).

Collage with cover image for the book Revolutionary Road, the poster of its film adaptation, as well as photos from the many actors who have played Bobby in the musical Company, alongside a playbill for the Raul Esparza-led revival.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Chapter 6 Close Friends Yes, I named an entire chapter on everyone's favorite Instagram feature—but it mostly tees up talk of Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life (yes, really!), Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad, Michel Foucault and T Magazine's "with friends" issue.

Collage featuring cover for Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad and several variant overs for T Magazine's with friends issue.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Chapter 5 Naked Friends Turning to figure drawing, I wanted to sketch out (pun intended) the relationship between artist and model—via Frank O'Hara, his friend Larry Rivers, Peter Hujar's photography, as well as arguably the biggest blockbuster to anchor its central romance on such a scene: Titanic.

Collage of male nude portraiture and photography, as well as a screenshot of Leonardo DiCaprio from the figure drawing scene in Titanic.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

One week until my book comes out! HELLO STRANGER is about those fleeting intimacies we create with strangers, how art can help us think through the different ways we could conceive of closeness with one another. Pre-order here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757080...

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Out next Tuesday (Jan 14)! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757080...

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Chapter 4 On Cruising Yes, I needed to touch on William Friedkin's Cruising as well as Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake—twinned visions of the danger in cruising—but I wanted brighter takes on this queer practice. Ergo, turning to John Rechy and Allan Hollinghurst.

Collage of posters for Cruising and Stranger by the Lake, alongside covers for John Rechy's City of Night and Allan Hollinghurst's The Swimming Pool Library.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Thanks to @paulleocreative.bsky.social for the fab book pics! HELLO STRANGER is out next week!

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Chapter 3 On Sexting Many of us interact with strangers mostly via social media. It's why I had to make room for sexting, looking at various adaptations of Paolo Genovese’s 2016 film Perfetti sconosciuti—and two plays that similarly create tension by the arrival of strangers.

Collage of posters for Perfetti Sconosciuti, Perfectos desconocidos and Playbills for the original Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Off-Broadway program for The Boys in the Band.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Chapter 2 Meet-Cute What better trope to dissect when talking about fleeting intimacies than the "meet cute"—in films like Bringing Up Baby, Carol, Before Sunrise, Weekend and Fin de Siglo?

Collage including posters for Before Sunrise, Theo & Hugo, End of the Century, Weekend, and Carol.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Chapter 1 Hello This book was born out of my two-decade fixation with Mike Nichols' Closer (the book borrows its title from that film's first line of dialogue) but my intro touches on Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape, Nichols' Carnal Knowledge, and Adam Phillips's book, On Flirtation.

Movie posters for Carnal Knowledge, Closer, and sex, lies, and videotape.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

My book HELLO STRANGER comes out in 10 days (!) so, as a daily countdown, I wanted to share some of the films, books, and figures I look at throughout its 10 chapters. Pre-order your copy here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757080...

Book cover for Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies against an aqua blue background.

Book cover for Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies against a pale pink background.

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Manuel Betancourt @bmanuel.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

One of my favorite things about publishing The Male Gazed were the many reader pics I got sent. Excited to see the same continue with Hello Stranger (out 1.14.25). 📸 Here’s me by @mcpounder.bsky.social

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