THE VOID (A USER'S GUIDE)

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If you've followed my work or internet brain for any period of time at all, you've no doubt learned that I call that hellish interregnum between the conclusion of a project and the start of another The Void (and yes, The The, as in The Morkie, is capitalized); this, The Void, being where I happen to be at the moment. So, thanks to a chat with the inimitable Kay Sohini (follow her work with abandon; it's brilliant) about our respective navigations of The Void, I found a way to cook a creature I scribbled into this little zine about what, exactly, The Void is. You can read it here (or by clicking through the cover above); if you'd like a physical copy, hit me up.

project updates

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I made a table yesterday for the Pondio but didn’t get it finished thanks to my stupid little propane burner fritzing out (safety features grr) and my stupid little weary exhausted brain which didn’t see fit to move it into The Shed before the rain and accompanying tornado warnings hit so it’s completely soaked and delayed while it dries out in The Shed.

While I was waiting on that to dry, I got around to putting my first little zine in ages into Affinity Publisher and moving the pages around and making it fit. Once I wrangle my brain into working on a computer again, I should be able to put it into the world.

And, after The Greeter, I’m devoid of metalwork projects – though one of K’s colleagues did supply me with a milk crate brimming with scrap metal fun…

the (as yet) unmade

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In the throes of limbo on two metal projects so here’s a list of things I’ve yet to make that I want to make:

  • a series / gaggle of weird little zines

  • a graphic novella (with or without a collaborator, though i'd prefer the former)

  • a narrative short film

  • a novella

  • a large metal dinosaur

  • a damn good track / ep that eschews my institutionalized music composition reflexes for the same visceral and improvisational central to my totally clueless – and intentionally ignorant – metalworking practice.

Do I have any of these in me still? I'd like to believe I do (99.99% that large metal dinosaur is happening this summer), but time will tell.

(IN)TANGIBLE changes

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Just sent this to my newsletter subscribers, but I want to add it here for posterity:

Greetings,

As my metalwork is suddenly starting to take off on a local level (I’m actually in the process of selling a few pieces which is still wild to me), it’s time for a different path with (IN)TANGIBLE. I really like the name and want to use it for something else, so this email is going to shift to being an announcement of when I release a new issue of the (IN)TANGIBLE zine, the home for any and all of my long(er)-form writing and cartooning (read: anything that I both love and that takes me more than half an hour to compose). It’ll be available in both digital and handmade physical editions.

If you want to keep up with my day-to-day Informalities / brainstream / sharing of personal micro-culture, Parenthetical Recluse continues to – and will forever - be my weird little slice of the internet. AND it has a comment system (again)! Here’s the RSS feed: https://parentheticalrecluse.com/blog?format=rss

(Instagram’s my only social media these days; you’re welcome to find me there if we haven’t already connected.)

Anyhow, you’ve got my email so feel free to reach out anytime. In the meantime, my best to you and yours and a heartfelt thanks for the multitudinous years of support through all the ups and downs and zigs and zags of this particular creative calling.

See you soon – be well.

tww
mon/2025dec01

currently_2025jul28

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End of summer break inbound; whereas everyday felt, for the last eight weeks, like Saturday, now they feel like Sunday. And so it goes, through the next few weeks. Things in process:

  • Final Shed transition from writing space with tools to full-on industrial art workshop. Metal and pictures and words oh my.

  • Moving rocks around nuPond. New footpath in the works for optimal gill-baby viewing.

  • Drawing little things for a zine, maybe. Words eventually, again.

  • Reading: WE ARE WATCHING, by Alison Gaylin; LOWER THAN THE ANGELS: A HISTORY OF SEX AND CHRISTIANITY, by Diarmaid MacCullough

  • Watching: PARADISE, season one.

  • LISTENING: On a BRMC binge.

  • PLAYING: ROBOCOP: ROGUE CITY replay on PS5 because my brain can handle only wanton awesomeness and occasional quirk; BALATRO and MARIO KART WORLD on the Switch 2.

  • Toying around with new metal ideas, though I might wait for the blazing heat to fuck off to work on something bigger.

status_20250710

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Things I've done the last few days:

  • Removed a dead lilac and replaced with a sweet almond.

  • Designed and printed a fucking adorable plant pot.

  • Drew a new comic that I was thinking about posting but might hold off and see how many I do and make it a zine.

  • Made a new metal piece; presently printing / prototyping plastic component.

  • Shed more skin as my latest tattoo continues to heal.

  • Fought hordes of C-virus infected in RESIDENT EVIL 6 which is a rather good time.

  • Bought a pressure washer and cleared off some of the house and yes ok fine i probably bought it to tide me over until POWERWASH SIMULATOR 2.

  • Removed big monitor from shed since I don't really need it anymore. Which I’ll probably need sooner rather than later since I just said I no longer need it.

project updates, 2024w31

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Since it's the final weeks of summer break, I'm still in that "three months of Saturdays" mode, creatively, and haven't gotten as far as I'd've liked with anything, really, but did manage to send off the first story in a collab with my best hermano from music school which he dug. Looking forward to hearing what genius sounds he concocts from my drabbled-out words.

While I'd intended to return to multiple projects left behind, only one of them still sung to me (mostly because I found my way back to it being fun to work with it again), so I want to power through it while I let seeds take root for the next stories in the collab. If nothing else, a solid excuse to fiddle about (again, still) with zines and attendant zinery.

Still hoping to move on to what I perceive as the next phase of my creative practice before year's end – though I do want to get the project mentioned above into the world first, a clearing of the decks from the before to the now.

And, finally, after four years of mucking about with fountain pens, I've returned to my favorite pen, that great workhorse among great workhorses, the Papermate Flair.