"No, not really"

Only side effect from omi-jab is a sore arm. Feel totally human otherwise, invincible in time for the next immuno-evasive variant to arrive over the holidays.

Vibes of Ted Cruz announcing Carly Fiorina as his running mate before the primaries were over in '16 as Tumor launched his revenge/ill-conceived indicitment avoidance greatest hits grift last night. Biden's reaction, when asked if he had anything to say about Tumor's announcing his candidacy, summed up all of my current thinking: "No, not really."

Still, waiting on the signs to pop up in this red state hell – or, rather, more signs to pop up since there have been numerous Tumor/Pestilence 2020 and Tumor 2024 signs and flags that never went away from the last time we had to listen to that shit.

Tried working in the evening last night and I really dug it. Thinking the reason it never worked before was that in the pre-LAST CHRISTMAS times, I had to work then – now I'm doing it because I want to.

good mail day

principles - updated

Principles, now numbering eight, with 05:

PUBLISH SOMETHING EVERY DAY - AKA the whole point of this space over the years: the daily posts are my warm-ups, my sketches – now including actual sketches – hurled into the world simply for the sake of hurling them into the world. I don’t anticipate that anyone will read them let alone enjoy them: they exist solely because I want them to exist and find the daily ritual of their composition in the spaces between the main work to be the most enjoyable method by which traverse the route between brain and publishing. Also a useful means by which to eradicate the need for external validation.

The complete living, breathing list lives and breathes here.

this would be a title if i could come up with one right now

Inverse proportionality's vanishing act continues: whereas once fewer words in the Main Work meant more words here, they are – as with yesterday's more with more – few with few (though there are, as I let this flow, more here than on the main work so perhaps it's a return to SOP?)

What I can tell you is that Kirby has been demanding to sit in my lap – while I'm sitting in the office chair - all morning: growing up with The Morkie and The Jorkie, he's yet to understand how massive he is; three more months of velociraptor age-range that could last three years or his entire life. Whatever works: he is, utterly, Derbz.

Also: go read THE MEMORY POLICE now. It’s a fucking masterpiece.

Bivalent stabjab this afternoon; die COVID die.

(back in the) grooves(?)

Banner day yesterday of site transformation, rebalancing: added pages for Attendance Cards, for VIOLENTLY ADORABLE, and Frequencies and "latest" (back) to the About page LINKS. Hoping that Squarespace adds a Mastodon social link icon soon but I suspect it will fall under their "such and such takes awhile to implement so please be patient (while we try to add stuff and break everything)" canned response.

Also nifty: the inspirations behind my new Principles page dug my efforts.

In word-land: banner morning this morning of getting back into the fiction groove – one of those rare mornings when I have a lot to write here but also managed to get a lot done in The Work: usually the amount of writing in this space is in inverse proportion to the amount of writing in The Work – of finding what wasn't working (efforts to combine – didn't need to combine stories, only to switch the medium of one) and how to – possibly – make it work for me again; also set a goal of releasing a new Etude by year's end.

I have now listened to Mr Leonard Cohen on vinyl for the first time and it was like listening to him for the first time ever – and this coming from someone who has a piece of his wisdom tattooed on his arm, "(if your life is burning well), poetry is just the ash."

Related: this was also my first time listening to music via physical media in years and I seem to have forgotten how, the patience, the focus it deserves. Efforts underway to return to that sort of patience from streaming befitting the investment in aural physicality. As I replied to K when she asked, "Why vinyl?": streaming is an e book, cd a paperback, vinyl the hardcover.

If you haven't checked it out, that Amazon Prime documentary on the music of Bond, featuring Billie Eilish and a ton of others, is fantastic. Helped to crystalize an unrealized goal I had as a music student: to have written a song as beautiful (and tragic) as "We Have All The Time In The World" and a score as rousing and exciting as ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (still my favorite Bond film).

Today's (and all moving forward) Attendance Card drawn in 4'33": Barry said she had her students draw for the duration of a song, so I decided to draw for the duration of John Cage's 4'33". Initially conceived card as a shrug but turned into what I can only approximate as a "Hallelujah" response to Mr Cohen on vinyl.

principles

Spent the morning putting the finish touches on my principles page: seven guiding bedrocks – or at least as close as I can come to disseminating them – in an ever-updating (concrete yet maleable) list. Added it to the navigation bar. And with that, I don't think I have anything else to add. At least for now. But here they are, if you want to have a look.

(Those are supposed to be birds in the drawing below. I drew a blank.)