70. There
How we keep muscles warm. Spring in NYC, composites, totality.
Darkness is coming, night, and I am far from home. In the distance the sea is soft and calm. It glimmers and grows pale as the day leaves it. The blue dusk deepens; the darkness falls. Along the shore there are other places, houses and towns, but only when the darkness comes can I see them. Distant lights, mounded like embers in the blackness, and they are there and I am here.
—Rachel Cusk, Aftermath.
Issue 69 went out two weeks ago as a member-only email (exceptionally, without an online post).
Spring is squarely here in New York City, despite vestigial storms and temperature fluctuations (today, 79º, two days ago, 48º F). Coming out of winter, I feel giddy and generally up, but—as I tend to during transitional periods—also a little broody.
Every year, the uptick in temperature (real or promised) equates to steroids for the calendar. On Sunday, I realized that it was the first 24 hour period in weeks where I’ve not had something on the books. Pleasure does exact a tax; rich living has been catching up to me. I’m going to try and reel it in.
A part of me does not want to.
I’m a resident of an American mecca. Everyone comes here, in steady streams of ones and twos, all year long like pilgrims—but shifting into the warmer months there’s a heightened Oz-ness to it all. The as yet mild humidity can feel sultry, and everything gleams: sidewalks, leaves, throats.
It’s been a struggle to focus on work. I feel like I’m exactly where I want to be, and simultaneously very far from it.
In the studio
Rejections for 엄마 나라 | Mother Land have begun rolling in.
It’s a film that I knew would be difficult to program—much more so than Chamoe, which, arguably, I identify with less but which garnered laurels almost immediately. At this rate, I’m wondering if 엄마 나라 | Motherland will get even one. Deep down I knew that that could be a possibility with this film.
I’m usually sanguine about rejections (I’m nearly impervious to critique), but I’d be lying if I said that I wouldn’t be disappointed. Not because of my feelings, but because I’d like the investment to come to larger fruition; and because I also feel a responsibility to deliver to the work an audience.
I’ll wait a little longer, then look into off-festival-circuit opportunities.
Otherwise, I’ve been tinkering without much of an agenda.
One of the dangers of going “fallow” is that muscles can get cold. Tools start to feel foreign, intimidating; eventually it’s hell to start back up again.
In an effort to stay warm, I’m using TV Paint regularly, noodling on vellum, drawing. The hope is that when inspiration does strike, I’ll be limber enough to jump.
Inspired by the plastic surgery phenomenon in Korea, some explorations in TV Paint:
I’ve been imagining the composites as large-scale prints. Or multi-leaf overlays, hanging in a physical space. Animation would produce them, but not play live. I like the simplicity of the concept, but the statement still feels obscure. I’m pushing on it.
Lastly, on the writing side: I wrapped with an editor on the first essay in a collection I’ve been working on. It went smoothly, which was a relief. I learned some things about comma splices! (Pretty sure I’ll have to learn them again.)
This essay is slated to be published on April 24. Stay tuned.
Provisions
Some good things I’ve been taking in:
Crossings · Film
The documentary of Women Cross DMZ’s historic journey from North to South Korea in 2015 is finally available to stream on Prime. That experience changed my life.
The Rare Book School · Edu
My friend Frank passed this along to me and we nerded out over classes like Forgeries, Facsimiles & Sophisticated Copies and Introduction to the Principles of Bibliographical Description. I love that something like this exists.
“Some New Work” · Newsletter
Illustrator Tara Anand’s latest has refreshing transparency around details like timelines and fees on commercial contracts.
Fort Greene Orchestra · Classical ensemble
On a recent rainy evening, I listened to Mahler’s first symphony at a stone and glass Brooklyn cathedral with 77-foot-high barrel-vaulted ceilings. I almost died listening to the third movement with those acoustics. I recommend performances by this company if you live here.
“Ur Heinous Habit” · Animated short
”A blackmail email prompts a filmmaker to explore the intersection of shame and masturbation.” I’m struck by how animation amps a funny but fairly banal story to hilarious and extremely memorable.
Totality
Back in 2017, there was a partial eclipse in Palo Alto. It was surreal. Everything took on a reddish cast, as one might imagine Mars to look in a dream. The landscape bloomed with crescents:
With the intermittent cloudcover in Manhattan this year, things were significantly less dramatic. Still, I felt a lot of high emotion.
I set off for a walk as the eclipse began. There were people in the streets, heads tilted back and mouths open like baby birds. Isn’t it beautiful, I said. They took off their dark glasses to look at me. It is so, beautiful.
I ended up in a park and settled on stone steps to watch one celestial body eclipse almost 90% of another. I noticed, with mild surprise, that some people hung out in groups, eating sandwiches wrapped in paper. They laughed, talking loudly. Others sat alone and wordless like me, among foliage, or against stone walls. A few were accompanied by quiet dogs.
I watched until occlusion maximized, then began to wane. It had been about an hour since the event began. I didn’t feel as much in the end, as I did in the beginning. But I thought that was OK.
Then I went home.
I had never heard of the Fort Greene Orchestra but will look for them next time around!