2024 in a nutshell: I dedicated myself to filling the vacancies that created the desire that has traditionally gotten me in trouble, and fought tooth and nail to see the things that do not serve me as inherently unattractive. Progress is a series of small revelations, and it is not always linear. Highlights: I busted... Continue Reading →
*"In Internet aesthetics, liminal spaces are empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal. Liminal spaces are commonly places of transition..." wikpedia.org I recently changed the online description of my music in all the places to "liminal art pop". There's a risk to that. Arguably it's not a description you can "hear" (which places it... Continue Reading →
Last night, in the Faneuil Hall Hyatt in Boston, full of too much espresso martini from a neighborhood bar… I read an obituary that made me cry. I had only a very indirect, long-obsolete association with the departed. My partner was planning where to sightsee the next day. I cried silently in the bathroom for... Continue Reading →
Earlier this month, I strayed back again to the Beacon, that old renovated theater near my hometown - the same one that stood witness to my odd, post-travel storm of ambivalence last spring - to see one of my formative influences, Judy Collins. She is 84 and still touring. I heard about the show only... Continue Reading →
This past weekend, the weekend of my forty-first birthday, I took myself out to see the Joan Baez documentary I Am A Noise. The experience might best be summed up by a conversation I overheard between an usher and a senior citizen on the way out of the theater: Usher: How was it? Senior Citizen:... Continue Reading →
My last entry already feels like a sharply different era. After the recent abandonment of some ancient musty daydreams, and the onset of something close to resignation… …of course I finally got COVID. My improbable years-long wellness streak couldn’t go on forever, especially with my making a conscious effort to get out on the local... Continue Reading →
I’ve spent the past few days exploring the cybertunnels of the subreddit r/limerence. There, folks spanning at least three generations attempt to publicly process their obsessive, unrequited feelings for other individuals. Feelings for happily married high school exes that symptomize a late-onset existentialism. Feelings for senior workplace colleagues with whom a relationship would be career... Continue Reading →
Jareth didn’t give a flying flip about anything but power. For so many eighties kids, especially goth and goth-adjacent ones, David Bowie’s spiky-haired antagonist in Jim Henson’s cult classic Labyrinth was an awakening of one sort or another. Whether he first taught one about men in makeup, mind games, moral ambiguity or the importance of... Continue Reading →
I’ve made it pretty plain that I have had one main muse for a looong time, and my recent rude awakening on the topic of limerence had to do with them. However, I’d be remiss to give them all the flowers, since when I think back, there have been MANY “Limerent Objects” (LOs) over the... Continue Reading →
Let me start by saying I remember All The Criticisms. With my last and final ex, there was a seemingly-out-of-nowhere pronouncement of dislike for my low-slung turquoise corduroys; a snickering comparison of my stompy, jerky goth club dancing to The Elaine Benes; and, eventually - when the relationship was on its last legs - a... Continue Reading →
The Sold Kingdom 