Soon will come a time when there will be questions. From coworkers. From the honorary in-laws. Maybe from extended family. The folks who ask the questions will generally mean well. They might not be deeply invested in the answers, but they will ask because it is polite, or simply because it is reflexive. So here... Continue Reading →
David Berman.
I've lived in Charlottesville long enough now to feel like an honorary native, and I am generally an existential wretch. Despite both of those things, I had never heard of our alumnus David Berman until a few months ago. David's death is the thing that thrust him into the center of my vision. Lately it's... Continue Reading →
I Would Like
to toil until 2 a.m. in the warm glow of a studio with a producer and a recording engineer, then roll out electrified and exhausted in the cool damp night to toast hard-won battles and resourceful solutions over crap diner food. I want this to be my vocation.
Target Audience.
So I'm watching a guy called Chords of Orion on YouTube, and he's surmising that his target audience is represented by an early-thirties guy named Chris, married with two small kids, who put his garage band days on hiatus to domesticate, but who is now ready to dust off the ole Stratocaster. So, how about... Continue Reading →
I've been quiet in recent weeks. Mine is not the voice that needs to be amplified right now. My voice is used to having all the freedom in the world to spout off whenever it wants. So right now I'm doing what I know how to do, which is making art based in my lived... Continue Reading →
Consider.
-A guy on YouTube who at first sounds like he's going to worship the free market zags and says, yeah, the market's gonna do what it's gonna do, and your stuff is gonna suck if you try to anticipate what the market wants and design your sh*t to pander to it, so you've gotta make... Continue Reading →
“There’s Always A Struggle”: On My Love of Ensemble Characters (with a nod to the Atlantic’s “Voices of the Loneliness Epidemic”)
So now I'm returning to this, an entry I began on March 11 when more of us probably should have anticipated how thoroughly the sh*t was going to hit the fan, but for the most part didn't. I wasn't working from home yet, nor were most of my colleagues or my partner, and I didn't... Continue Reading →
“If it isn’t the hit/It’s the thrill of the chase/You’ve got to admit/It’s a hell of a place”
Whew. I had other things on deck to write about. But something else has intervened. I'm going to start by saying I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I've had weird symptoms for months and have been putting it off, but I'm finally getting down to business. At this point I have a wager, and am... Continue Reading →
Todd Haynes’ SAFE is a Horror Movie for the Autoimmune-Afflicted (and those with otherwise “invisible” illnesses)
In my recent exploration of Superstar, I happened upon references to Safe, which I also had never heard of. The vague eerieness around it, plus my becoming increasingly down to hang with this Todd Haynes guy (the deal was probably sealed by this analysis: Press Play VIDEO ESSAY: Isolated Female Figures: The Films of Todd... Continue Reading →
A Philosopher Reflects on Death; I Discover Destroyer and Leave Things Up in the Air
Hi, All. I'm closing in on the end of a long weekend that has passed with an obscene alacrity (as they all do, anymore) and eating compulsively from a can of smoked/salty almonds with which I am now positive I can't be trusted. It feels like this long weekend has been the exact opposite of... Continue Reading →
The Sold Kingdom 