False Spring
meditations on ego death and a playlist by a cat!
Last weekend, I was at a concert and the performer commented on how beautiful it was here in Portland. (It has been beautiful, unnervingly so). We were in an old church with floor-to-ceiling organ pipes, decorated with carved stars. The pipes undulated softly the entire time in a shroom-flashback kinda way so I felt like I was a lil bit hallucinating the whole time. A bunch of (men) in the audience shouted out “False Spring!” in mansplaination, and the performer sort of blinked at them. I, too, had seen that meme about false spring on Instagram, and was, in fact, thinking false spring when all the men yelled. I couldn’t tell if we were all just high on the algorithm together or if we were having a moment of psychic/zeitgeisty resonance in between smooth jazz tracks1 (or if there’s a difference anymore).
But, false spring feels very much like the vibe right now — lots of beautiful, life-affirming stuff happening with a constant atmospheric sense of impending frost, that winter may be coming back again and again.
(Just as I wrote that my kitten very loudly tried to kill a baby bird in the nest outside my office window, so, case in point. (Junie, you are always-winter-never-christmas in this metaphor.2)
Oh, so, also: hi!! Here I am, starting my newsletter back up. Because things matter so much (I want so badly to connect with you right now) and because nothing matters (fuck it), I am gonna make good on some things that have been kicking around in me for awhile.
I’m still going to talk about art that’s bringing me pleasure or solace or escape. I’m also going to add some down and dirty astrology thoughts to help us face whatever moment we’re in (and the astrological moment right now is a doozy). All the astrology will come in a separate newsletter like tomorrow I hope. And I’ll announce a new project soon, stay tuned!
Things That Have Helped/Art I’ve Been Obsessed With
The Surreal
In the grip of the death throes of the stupidest death cult, things have gotten so surreal. Maybe they always have been surreal, and we’ve been especially catching on in the past 9 years (remember the great clown panic of 2016? it’s still has never stopped feeling like there are armed clowns in the woods). I’ve been thinking a lot lately of the surrealists — it’s always made intuitive sense to me that surrealism rose up after WWI, when artists wanted to abandon the straitjacket of agreed-upon reality, after being faced with what that reality was capable of. But, it’s only been recently that I realized, or felt viscerally, that these artists were also sort of desperately groping their way to a new language because everything was falling apart, a new way of envisioning and making (non)sense of a world that felt like it was dying.
The past couple of years when I teach in high school, I always give them some surrealist photos and paintings to write about and it’s one of my favorite lessons, about not trying to make sense.
This painting I used to have a print of in my college dorm came to me in a meditation today:
Look at the black smoke of industry barreling towards their already fractured home, and the creepy watching chia pet of some dumb authority menacing these disappearing kidartists. Half here, half not. Are they becoming invisible because they’re forgetting themselves? Or are they saving themselves from total erasure by burning a history that never included them? Outside: just winter, and the maybe-hope of a ballooned escape, lots of death, a little whimsy.
Books I’ve Been Obsessed With So Far This Year
😈 I’ve been savoring ART MONSTERS by LAUREN ELKIN, reading just a chapter a day, but every time I do, it fires my writing. It’s got everything: artists pulling manifestas out of their snatches, double dildos gracing the hallowed pages of Artforum, Cindy Sherman throwing up in a beach — it’s just a parade through wolf women artists of history and it makes me want to key every Tesla I see and take to the streets with painted tits.
🐉 I have fallen to FOURTH WING by REBECCA YARROS, as have many of my friends, and it is sort of a Harry Potter experience to read the series all together, but with sex and without the transphobia. I don’t totally understand it, it’s not my normal jam at all, which is pretty exciting, in a way, it’s like like when I discovered the mystery section of the library when I was 10 and spent the whole summer gleefully covered in blood3. I do think it’s some sort of collective incantation, which is also how I felt when I started listening to Taylor Swift in 2020, and I couldn’t stop (put narcotics in all of her songs) — but it’s the most addictive series I’ve ever read. Post-Jan 20th, I was so grateful to have a fully formed world to escape into, one that bears little resemblance to ours. (Also, while the series is not primarily gay, my friend pointed out that the main dude could verrrry easily be reimagined as a masc lesbian so yr welcome).
📒 YELLOWFACE by R.F. KUANG I couldn’t put this down. It was so stressful but in a good way. It sort of reminded me like if Megan Abbott and Melissa Broder had a baby. I’m also reading KATABASIS right now which is dark academia about traveling into the underworld (comes out in Aug I think).
🐥 TRUST & SAFETY by LAURA BLACKETT I read this in one day. Have you ever had a dream to escape the heteronormative world and go upstate to live in a lesbian commune? Get ready to have that dream fulfilled … and kinda smashed!
On the Big Screen While I Stare at the Little Screen
I’m not going to say much about tv because I think a lot of people are already properly obsessed with both SEVERANCE and WHITE LOTUS, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how they are both in different ways exploring ego death and our current fractured relationship to identity in ways that feel super relevant as everything dies.
For my revenge porn fix, I’ve been binging a ton of the old John Grisham movies/Grishamcore like Erin Brockovich. It’s all as much a fantasy as the dragon porn, but it’s still comforting to watch all the bad things righted: the nazis taken off the streets, the child rapists publicly shot, the insurance companies bankrupted. But it maaaaaay be the painkillers from a surprise dental surgery that allows me to fully suspend disbelief but whateverrrr.
Things I Put In My Ears to Feel Good
Musically, I’ve primarily been living in the 70s and 80s
Mostly wordless weird disco, all inspired by this hunk after hearing him one time in a coffeeshop. 🪩
Did you know Nina Simone covered Hall & Oates’ Rich Girl? 👱🏻♀️
Africa by Toto Radio Station (all bangers)
Best songs ever, the only playlist you’ll ever need, by Elisabeth Geier
In 1988, a person named Joi Napurski had a cat named PONCHO (perfection) who would tap his tail to the beat of certain songs (I’m already crying). She made a mixtape of his favorites called MELODIES FOR PONCHO IN 1988 (😭). Many years later, she shared the track list on the internet and someone turned it into a Spotify playlist that everyone is obsessed with. Poncho had great taste, maybe we should have a cat dj our wedding. 🐈4 5
Melissa Febos’ 20th anniversary Valentine’s Day playlist does not disappoint; I’ve had Girls @ by Joey Purp on repeat for weeks.
I’m slowly listening to TELEPATHY TAPES and it’s blowing my mind. But not the content, more that it’s so rare to find something that takes telepathy and different ways of knowing so seriously. Mostly I just feel, like, immensely relieved? To have a lifetime of off-the-page experiences validated. Also Ani plugged it at her show in January, so.
Next up, I’ll talk to you (so much) about astrology, but for now, just the highlights in case I don’t send my full thing out before the eclipse:
It’s not you, the vibes are really weird right now — and will be all of March — I kind of think the theme of this whole era is paradox this week alone we have:
3/13: A lunar eclipse in Virgo (eclipses are peak weird and unpredictable and tender (this one especially so because of where it’s located) — I encourage folks not to try to work with the eclipse or do any eclipse-y rituals — I personally stay inside/lay low/go dark as much as possible on eclipse days. And I do not look at eclipses, I mind my own business, that shit is powerful). Check out where Virgo is in your chart to see where this eclipse might show up for you, where you might be asked to let something go.
3/14: Mercury (planet of communication) goes into retrograde in Aries (fire sign of action, self, doing, prone to both righteous and less righteous anger) so communication and travel will be extra unpredictable and cos it’s in Aries it maaaay be harder for everyone to keep their chill when things go south.
Venus (planet of love and sex) is already in retrograde in Aries, maybe making things more inflamed or weird in your relationships, maybe bringing up some tension around self-other, around love and freedom. This is also making pleasure harder to come by/sink into, or at least a making pleasure a little more Martian in vibe (aggressive, maybe pissed pleasure? — finding your angriest form of pleasure might be a way to let off some steam)
Mars (the fiery planet of action and rage) still interminably stuck in watery intuitive, emotional Cancer, a sign it does not do well in, making it hard to do stuff til mid April — this is the signature responsible for everything feeling kind of muddy and swampy, and for the constant energy rollercoasters - big energy surges followed by totally bottoming out in lethargy/exhaustion. That and all the tremendous, tremendous grief.
And one more kitten pic.
I listen to jazz now and have constant back pain
or it’s always christmas if you’re an innie
like covered in blood in my mind in case that wasn’t clear
please never tell me if you find out poncho was not a fat orange boy
bry and i are getting married this summer nbd