A Fire is Lit: Concert Photography

This was my first time attempting to take anything more than smartphone snaps at a concert, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Bar House wasn’t what I expected. It’s a great space but a little difficult to navigate with a chunky camera. I found it almost impossible to capture the frenetic energy from my cramped vantage point, so I’d assumed that most of my shots would have to be scrubbed off my SD card at the end of the night. But when I scrolled through them later, sitting by Fremont’s Lenin statue, I realized that much … Continue reading “A Fire is Lit: Concert Photography”

Blackletter October

[Chorus] I feel them all, great mass of colorFlooded in my bedI feel them all, great mass of colorFlooded in my bed, dissolving into red. [Post-Chorus] (Can I accept I’m real?) x Quid tandem?Privatae res vestraequo statu sunt? x Quid quiden ignis Deust est. x Ager uritururbs obsideturbelli gloria peneshostes est. x Beati qui lavant vestimentasua in sanguine Agniut sit potestas eorum in ligno vitae,et per portas ingrediantur civitatem. x Sed fugit intereafugit inreparabile tempus. Fiat. x Have fun tonight. x Assorted October scenes on expired black and white #kodakadvantix.x x x x x x

What is it?

Brown, blue, violet sky—it’s funny how tiktok trends rehash and recycle artifacts that don’t quite feel very retro, though, they must be, alas. The world doesn’t really accelerate; we just get older a lot faster every day. And so, when that kinda thing is annoying, it’s really annoying, but when it’s not, it can be prophetic, like a planetary return, or a shift in the seasons, or a long-gone friendship reborn. I used to repeat that old lyric by that half-Lebanese crooner, who, at one point, provided folks with a global reference point, like tabbouli or hummus, to place me … Continue reading “What is it?”

The Riot is the Light of the Unseen

“To be yourselfis all that you can do(all that you can do)To be yourselfis all that you can do(all that you can do)” How many of us play amateur detective in some psychodrama when we look back at lives that ended in tragedy? We go over the liner notes and find all the right clues—maybe they were always there. Or maybe the pressure to entertain a certain way was actually whodunnit. It’s hard to put the magnifying glass down; cold cases are kept warm by kinship. A song like “Be Yourself” will do that to you. What at first blush … Continue reading “The Riot is the Light of the Unseen”

Radio Dis/loc/ution

x “Zayin is masculine—ZACHAR. And there belongs to this man a beard—ZAKAN. And this man is old—ZAKAYN. And this man can look back through time—Z’MAN, and he remembers—ZACHAER, everything.” MMXX is a Spotify playlist I made in/for #TwentyTwenty and @rbinbetween. x “Only he who is beaten—KATEET, like oil which has been beaten from olives, until he is—KASHER, pure and fit, shall drink. Then Kaf turns itself into a crown.” AMALGAMA is a Spotify playlist I made during eclipse season. x “There is another kind of Resh. This is the end of pretending. ROSH HASHANA, the day of admitting. Master of the universe! RIBONO … Continue reading “Radio Dis/loc/ution”

“these ghosts, those ghosts, our ghosts”

The second volume of @thedepressedwaitress arrived in my mailbox alongside Easter blessings from the Servants of Mary, a religious order somewhere in Illinois; they’ve been sending me seasonal greetings ever since I asked for their prayers & relic fragments in a wild attempt at doing something, anything—come on, feel the Illinoise—in the totalizing face of medical certainty. I didn’t start reading this volume until today, the same day I learned about Donna Haraway’s shared Eucharistic devotion & spiritual kinship with Bruno Latour in an endnote to an essay about spiders and tentacles and corvids and lichen, the same day I took the … Continue reading ““these ghosts, those ghosts, our ghosts””

Shot A + Shot B

“The only way to understand storiessuch as that of the Annunciationis to repeat them, that is, to utter againa Word which producesinto the listener the same effect… I am hailing tonight, with the same gift,the same present of renewed presence. Tonight, I am your Gabriel!” (Bruno Latour) x Do you remember how, in Fight Club, one of the backstories we’re given for “Tyler Durden” is that of a movie theatre projectionist? How he would splice subliminal frames of lewd imagery into family films to mess with normies’ sense of reality, and how the film itself had frames of Tyler’s face … Continue reading “Shot A + Shot B”

Eyes to See

I’ve been reflecting on the days I feel moved to symbolically mark; these aren’t the same every year. I try to stay true to the heart of ritual and only speak to what’s speaking to me in the moment, though guilt is often a sneaky stowaway however I feel. Land Day came and went and I did not move past my inertia. The Gift of Tears by Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus But this morning, the plates have shifted and I remember that for all my wokeness, the first time I ever met and befriended transgender people was in … Continue reading “Eyes to See”

Interludes of the Imagination

I read my last entry out loud to Christine, and she said: “I didn’t know that you’d been thinking about these topics,” and I said: “I didn’t know I was either. It just came together.” Lines converging at the center of two circles—poeisis and ecstasy. What makes for significance? Why this story and not that? I’ve struggled with these questions like milk pails over rocky ground. I’ve hesitated. I’ve stopped. This is a memory that sauntered through my brain as I sipped my coffee this morning. There was no reason for it being there other than circumstance and how circumstances … Continue reading “Interludes of the Imagination”

Bad Like I Feel: Empathy as Solidarity

The institution that I’ve been dedicating myself to is embroiled in an online controversy, and this is valid and good, but I don’t want to discuss the specifics, as I would be doing so in ignorance of much. I prefer to avoid joining the cacophony of voices talking past and over each other. I do want to discuss some of these voices, though, because if I have skills in anything, it’s in listening for the words that people trip over in the thick of the awful din. I believe that, for most people, the human capacity to imagine worlds at … Continue reading “Bad Like I Feel: Empathy as Solidarity”