Category: Poiesis

by jad

It is Absolutely Refreshing to be Militantly Cringe

What if you spent less time worrying about which of the things you like is cringe and just liked those things more intensely instead? I’ve always liked cautionary tales like House of Leaves because they reminded me of me and the need to check my obsessions, but as all true believers will tell you, there’s something religious about excessive devotion. We started talking about that because I’d just come out from giving a talk where I’d mentioned my feeling of kinship with James Acord, the artist born in the year of “Hiroshima” (just like I was born in the year … Continue reading “It is Absolutely Refreshing to be Militantly Cringe” →

by jad

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

We’re not supposed to talk about asteroids in spooky quadrants of the sky as hardcore materialists and dialecticians, but the mind likes to color outside the lines. I read something the other day that made me think about my need for ordering chaos and how that connects to my nurturing side. The suggestion there was love and care tends to be expressed practically, through communication and intellectual engagement; that, for this personality type, devotion comes from attention to detail and makes one primed for a vocation in education, social work, or even healthcare. But what drew my eye was the … Continue reading “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” →

by jad

Fragile Frames

The tension between slowing down and keeping up the fight; between becoming useful and being left the hell alone; between caring less and caring so much more. That’s what how this feels. Like springtime in Seattle: the tension between two fronts. There’s a season for all things; a time for expansion and a time for contraction; a time for exploration and a time to make up your mind; a time to think and a time to act. That’s how this feels. Like an inflection point. A nonlinear timeline in the upper-left corner. “Do you feel fragmented?” A friend asked me … Continue reading “Fragile Frames” →

by jad

Where the People Are

I took part in today’s “Hands Off” National Day of Action in the Seattle Center, and I have to say, it wasn’t until I got closer to the rally site that I realized how big of a thing it was going to be. A friend earlier that morning told me everyone on the bus she’d taken was heading in that direction, and trying to find another friend later that afternoon proved to be a little difficult, given the signal jamming with the sheer amount of people there. The bus we took getting back was standing room only. All I’m saying … Continue reading “Where the People Are” →

by jad

Konica C35 AF2

This Konica is one of the earliest cameras with autofocus technology, which means that it sometimes makes the strangest decisions. I think the system uses contrast between light and shadow to figure out where to focus, so I’m pretty sure I pushed its limits with the lighting conditions (it was also raining at some points) — all in all, it was mostly reliable. It feels like this could make for a great travel camera, because it’s a rare point and shooter with manual winding. I’ll have to run another roll through it soon to be sure. I went through this … Continue reading “Konica C35 AF2” →

by jad

My Heart Sees It

Someone asked me if my dad’s roll of Kodak Advantix film had been used, and I was certain it hadn’t, so imagine my heartache seeing these frames come back from the lab. This is my baby sister when she was still a baby sister. That’s the balcony at our old place; the same balcony she took her work calls on when we hung out at the same place when I was back there in January. It looks different now. So do we. I didn’t expect to see these photos so quickly. I didn’t expect to feel the way I do … Continue reading “My Heart Sees It” →

by jad

The Windmills of my Mind

My sister found and sent me a picture of a single-serving carton of the chocolate milk we both grew up on and it looked exactly the same. This set me off into a slow moving spiral of sappy nostalgia, like a wheel within a wheel, you might say, a mood that I was already in this morning, having just finished a roll of film that was in my dad’s Kodak Advantix camera—a roll he’d loaded some decades ago but never used. So now I’m sharing these random moments I’ve collected around town; quiet moments in the noise. I found my … Continue reading “The Windmills of my Mind” →

by jad

St. Patrick’s Day

I’ve marked a St. Patrick’s Day ritual of some shape or form for 16 years, and this is how we mark it in Seattle. “It’s just another Monday, right?” That’s how the guy at Market House Meats laughed off how busy it was when I was straining to hear my name being called out. The scene today was straight out of a movie, complete with a couple of New Yorkers trying to figure out how to order in that loud New Yorker way. There was a padre there and a cadre of cops too; a construction worker and a plumber, … Continue reading “St. Patrick’s Day” →

by jad

The Really-Real

Another cultural anxiety that Apple’s ‘Severance’ cashes in on is the impermanence of self; are we who we think we are? Will we always be that way? What makes me “me”, anyhow? Is an “innie” a real person or are they merely the really-real person out there ‘under the influence’? Which experience gets to have agency? Which actor is ultimately accountable? In the background of all these questions is the fundamental paradox of individuality: inviolable and sacrosanct, yet conditioned, if not determined. “Individual” literally means that which cannot be divided, and yet, we all know that our human experience contains … Continue reading “The Really-Real” →

by jad

Commitments and Crossings

I decided to throw myself into the fray and deepen my intellectual commitments by actually getting off my ass and doing the work around the same time that many of us felt that same pang in our hearts. That’s when we realized that now is the time for commitments—maybe even extremes. And how that’s playing out looks differently across this city, but a whirlwind has been kicked up, for sure. These are three separate but interconnected rallies that happened on the same day, #IWD2025, representing the broad and messy “fight back” that many of us are participating in. I stood … Continue reading “Commitments and Crossings” →