One of my favorite parts of the “L.A. All-Stars” show at Space Ten were a set of one-page zines by Madam X. Making something fun and powerful using just the front and back of a xeroxed sheet of paper—it’s a great artistic constraint.
Here’s maybe my favorite:
And the back:
Wow, with so many Reddit groups set to private, the internet legitimately feels smaller. (And it’s noticeably harder to research things.) I’m in full solidarity with the mods resisting the enshittification of their platform. Hope Reddit corporate rolls back their API BS soon.
We’re lucky as a society to have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as one of our clearest moral voices. And how great that he has his own newsletter, regularly speaking out about all manner of things. But I think we need to draw a line. He has no right to be as good of a writer as he is.
Here he is, this morning, writing about the PGA Tour’s new deal with Saudi Arabia:
The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)’s governor, Yasir al-Rumuyyan, confirmed their investment in golf will be in the billions. Perhaps the PGA’s new logo should be a bone saw.
What a great image. The whole piece is great, powerful, and fun, too.
Last night, I finally sent out “Healing a Space,", a Lightplay about my neighborhood and some things I’ve noticed over three years living here. A highlight was finally getting to write about a monstrous house we always go by on our evening walks.
It has three tiny dormer windows and then, next to them, somehow three roof hips in quick succession. For all the world it seems that three houses were teleported into the same space, their volumes overlapping in a non-Euclidian mess. We refer to this structure as either “those house” or “that houses.”
At last night’s opening for “L.A. All-Stars” at my favorite gallery, Space Ten, my brother got to take part in a performance piece that Chris Burden made in his student days.
My brother had studied Burden’s work as an undergrad himself, so it was a total highlight, courtesy of Bob and Axel Wilhite.
After years of following Los Feliz Daycare on Twitter, I did a full double take this afternoon at Joy on York.
The concept that aspiring writers must “write every day” has always ground my gears, but I could never put my finger on why. Today I realized: it makes it sound like a chore outside of life, a new routine, fulfilled through will power. When for me the durable change is to weave writing through life.
Love this album cover, the title, and how it looks on YouTube.
The music isn’t half-bad, either. Ambient-influenced, classical-inflected, full of deep-voiced strings and the droning energy and circularity of focus-core.
The fine art of bathmaxing.
Pacific Design Center, viewed from West Hollywood Park during the WeHo Pride music festival, 2023.
Like a cherry tree, I too need over a thousand chilling hours before I can produce my great gift.
West Hollywood, June 2023
easemax (v.), to arrange one’s life and actions in the way that ensures the easiest path and the greatest comfort at all moments. Jimmy hit another level of easemaxing when his boss started letting him work entirely from bed, where pajama-clad he ate snacks his mom brought in on special tray.
West Hollywood, May 2023
At some point we spoonerized oatmeal into moat eel. Now every time I eat the stuff I’m bothered by visions of a fishing rod poking through a crenel, a cauldron bubbling in a dingy castle kitchen, a fragrant bowl of fish gruel. What a time the chivalric era must have been.
It’s nice to wear a hat at the museum, to keep the light out of your eyes.
In order to actually practice (v.) we must develop a practice (n.). Otherwise we’re just dabbling (v.).
An introvert, I crave the company of friends but can wear myself out on voices, stories, conversation.
Nifty trick: in periods of heavy socializing, I stop listening to podcasts entirely.
“Mike DeWine,” screams the German villain, gesturing wildly at the grapes, the press, the fermentation vessels.
The siren call to write a scene where your protagonist makes spaghetti, listens to the end of a baseball game on the radio, eats solo, then listens to a jazz record and sips whiskey.
Many a sloop has wrecked on the perilous shoals of Murakami.
Feeling affection for the 18-year-old who wrote this, justifying a briefly-updated blog.
Affection—and continuity of self.
It’s a pity that the most noted war criminal of my lifetime took “own feet at other end of bathtub” as his preferred genre. I’d as soon not think about him during my special bathtime.
West Hollywood, May 2023.
The distance between exposing a photo and seeing it in full resolution has been narrowing for two centuries. Yet outside of elaborate studio setups, the most photographers today can do is preview on a small screen and zoom in.
A potential “new thing” AR/VR headsets might do. For better/worse.
Re: 2015 travels in Tibet: The further I get from that trip, the more impressed I am by the photos from it, all taken on a standard-issue iPhone 5. I had so much fun with that camera.
