Synthpop, solarpunk & see-through dresses
Greetings from the land of measles, driverless taxis, and ominous red flag warnings from the National Weather Service, which as of this writing at least still exists!
Nope, let me try that again, this time with less doom: greetings from the place... where... H-E-B and both Selenas came from? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Look, that's the best I've got today about where I am. So, on to the point of this post:
Bright shiny things I want to share with you this week
- Are you familiar with the writer Saeed Jones? He's a miracle, and there's a new book coming out that he edited with his dear friend Maggie Smith called THE PEOPLE'S PROJECT: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward. It's available for preorder as of today, and it has all the bestest in it: Ada Limón, Ashley Ford, Kiese Laymon, and more. He also gave a talk at Harvard recently with another good friend of his (and a North Star of mine)—Roxane Gay—in which they both read some of their forthcoming work and talked about making things and telling truths in These Here Times. He refers to the experience as "the Saeed and Roxane show" and I dare you not to fall in love with them both.
- How about Tara DeFrancisco? She's an actor, traveling improv artist, and founder of The Nest Theatre in Colombus, Ohio. Her daily-ish videos are a tonic, and since I don't want to send you to the grid app of commerce and doom any more than I have to, I'll just transcribe some of her recent words here:
I think one of the major bummers that's happening right now is, instead of being worried and stressed all the time, we could instead be making cool shit together. I don't know about you, but I happen to think the baseline of humanity is joy and connectedness and actually giving a shit about each other, so: wouldn't it be cool if we actually remembered that? And that many of us doing joyful things is actually the way we support each other, and that's how we tether each other in this weird fabric that we call humanity? I don't know, I'm just talking out loud. Something to think about.
*especially if you're familiar with Tara's videos, you'll clock that she's not speaking from a place of toxic positivity, spiritual bypassing, or thought-terminating clichés. She's referencing something that can, in part, sustain us when the powers that be want us as small, scared, and siloed as possible. This, of course, includes standing up for one another, doing difficult and uncomfortable things, and using whatever privileges we have in service of those who aren't so lucky. That boils all the way down to our daily interactions with one another, however small.
So, yeah. Let's slap that "tell your dog I said hi" sticker on our silly little cars, if we have them. Let's write things. Let's stock the nearest free fridge. Let's find ways to laugh together. Let's take more breaks from the doom spiral and meet new people. Let's freak out over the fact that the cherry tomato plants in my living room are starting to bloom?!?! (Please lord don't let me kill them—we've come too far. Oh, did you know one way to help hydroponic cherry tomatoes grow is to "be the bee" and gently hold an electric toothbrush against the stems to help the flowers release their pollen onto the leaves? Well I didn't but now I do and so do you.)
- I try to be a person who's open to the beauty and meaning of modern art without falling for any old grift (which I guess is more common in contemporary and/or fine art, but that's a conversation for people more well-versed than I am), and I'll tell you what: this, as far as I'm concerned, is Art with a capital A. It provoked a whole-body response out of me, leaning in closer like someone was telling me a secret. I'll be thinking about this work, and how the artist made it, for a very long time. If that's not the point, then what is?
- Speaking of art, if you'd like to learn how to make some, or about the history of a particular period or movement, or about philosophy or renewable energy or quantum physics or screenwriting or anything else you're interested in, never forget that massive open online courses are still a thing, and they're free. For a bit of structure, edX has now partnered with Harvard, MIT, Columbia, NYU, and more for a host of (mostly introductory) courses offered online at no cost or a modest fee if you want a completion certificate. Now feels like a great time to learn something new. Forever annoyed that I didn't take more psych courses in college, I'm currently auditing an Embodied Cognition class from Cambridge online, for free, and becoming insufferable about it.
- Dig, if you will, a picture of me dancing in a more or less see-through dress at a goth club late last year at the ripe old age of... well, I'm Gen X, so that gives you a ballpark figure. And actually, there aren't any pictures of this to dig as instructed, but it did happen and I do have witnesses. The reason it happened is because one of Austin's best (imho) bands, Urban Heat, is rad enough for me to have worn such a thing to their show at this age, which is probably a blurb they should put on their next album cover. If you love darkwave/post-punk synthpop vibes (for those not of the '80s, see also: Depeche Mode, Echo & the Bunnymen, the vibe of The Lost Boys, the song "Goodbye Horses"), this band might be your new favorite thing. To pay their way back home from a European tour last year, they sold vials of fragrances they made themselves, as in with their own hands, from a little perfumery kit they take on the road with them. They named these scents after some of their songs, which inspired each formula's blend of notes. Now tell me you're not charmed.
- Also charming: the solarpunk movement, or school of thought, or aesthetic, or whatever you want to call it (although I don't think "aesthetic" quite covers it). If you're hearing the word for the first time, a relatable primer might include things like little free libraries (books, seeds, etc), no-buy groups, mutual aid, sustainable architecture, regenerative farming, social consciousness, awareness of interconnectedness, and genuinely hopeful, almost tooth-achingly earnest, ideas for our collective futures. What began in literary and artistic circles as something of a subgenre now feels more like a set of ideals to actively work toward out here in the tangle of it all. Nothing wrong with dreaming of a better world, and nothing wrong with giving it a go, either. (Rest in peace, Ursula K. Le Guin... you would've loved this subreddit.)
- Last but not least, a simple recipe I've made and loved a zillion times: lemony, parmy, oniony orzo that sort of mimics risotto but requires only a fraction of the effort. Note: it can be a vegetarian dish, depending on what cheese you use, but by no means is it dairy-free or vegan. Just five basic ingredients (plus water, salt and pepper) and guidance from Molly Baz (who, shortly after losing her home in the LA fires, used her consumer packaged goods connections to host a giant free pantry restocking event for fellow wildfire survivors). Bon appetit, y'all.
Deep breaths and big hugs.
"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."
—W.B. Yeats
04 March 2025
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