I am back from the national, state, and local forests of Oregon where I shot the overcast eclipse (clouds only enhanced it!—no glasses or lens filters needed) from the central tubercle of the outer lip of a double volcano, and appreciated well-engineered websites designed for the Good Old Internet: not unreliable, just 10kbps. Zoom engineers: insanely great work. Fireflies engineers: you don’t need 2.3MB of JS to load a meeting transcript.
I needed the escape, and I was with good friends.
And despite being off-grid and a thousand miles from anyone I knew that I knew, managed to run into my sister’s nursing school classmate’s best friend’s parents, at the only bar for 30 miles where I also won $20.22 in a 2-bet game of lupine video slots.
¶. Friday 8pm: a folk horror chamber music suite with underwater shadow ghost dance
$24, Stone Circle Theatre, Ridgewood, NYC
Overriding chronological order because this one is very special and unique. Concetta is a local composer, death doula, and adorable large dogowner (both her & dog adorable, just dog large). We met in early COVID when I hosted a livestream of her quartet, but during a runthrough she simply played violin the backyard for hours with only me as audience, as it had been weeks since she had played with or for anyone.
Now she has a 4-night run of her new project LAMINARIA, which she described in an email to me thusly:
[begun] as a concept; FOLK HORROR as a music genre, an undersea witch emerging from a kelp forest, the powerful medicinal energy of kelp which holds us on the very crux of life and death has now evolved into a multi-sensory 20 person dance theater production in a collaboration with the Wendy Osserman Dance Company. Come be enthralled and immersed in a ghostly fantasy amidst ocean waves with intricate stage lighting, live foley sound effects, dance and a 10 piece orchestra.
You can come to any show but Friday’s show is the first-ever Geistlist Corporeal Meetup. Buy each other a drink and bond over receiving the same emails. I even have a $5 discount for you with code GEISTLIST (which again will work any of the four shows, if you can’t or don’t want to come Friday).
❡. Tonight: Signal Awards Gala
you can’t, The Bowery Terrace, NoHo, NYC & RSS feeds & industry ouroborotic publications
Our little show about people Undiscarded won a Signal Award for Best Indie Podcast (twice ❨sorta❩). Tonight there’s a gala for all Signal Awardees (which apparently is the same folks behind The Webbys?). I can’t invite you but you can certainly try to crash it. Making Space with Hoda Kotb also won so I will be wearing this.
¶. Tuesday 6pm: Private Tour of Poster House
free for members, Poster House, Flatiron, NYC
I’m co-hosting a private tour of We Tried to Warn You! Environmental Crisis Posters, 1970–2020 with curator Tim Medland, but it’s only open to current members of the City Reliquary. Become one and then reply to this email for the secret RSVP link, ideally before 4pm Tuesday. Go ahead and cancel after the first $10 month if you want, I don’t mind.
¶. Wednesday 6:30pm: Gary Hustwit on film on shipping containers
$25, SVA Theater, Chelsea, NYC
You know Gary from that movie about that font: Helvetica (2007). He also inspired my educational course, because I was watching Objectified (2009) when I was applying for college and guessing at my future on line-item forms. Wednesday he’ll be presenting (introducing? hosting? not sure what that means) its premiere at SVA Theater, which happens to be where I saw the premiere of Rams (2018).
Note bene: one of the best podcasts ever made only had eight episodes, is about the history of the shipping container, and is perfect in its execution and bow-tie ending. You should also meet Barbara Pratt, who lived in one to study how bananas go bad.
¶. Wednesday 6pm: people are distancing themselves from close reading, apparently
$10, Jefferson Market Library, Greenwich Village, NYC
On my way to the above film, I hope to stop by (and maybe rejoin after) this Joyce Society lecture. Had no idea close reading is seen so uncharitably. I plan to read closer.
I do recommend becoming a Joyce Society member, if you have even a light straightforward interest in heavy wandering books. They’re fun, and I preserve an archive of their charming former Old Internet-worthy website.
Also, this lecture takes place where Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap were tried, charged, and fined for first publishing the thirteenth chapter of Ulysses in America, in which Leopold Bloom (probably) orgasms. “The trial turned on close reading.”.
¶. Thursday 7pm: a grief ritual that beckons in a new world
$15 + 2 drink minimum, Joe’s Pub, Greenwich Village, NYC
Say hi to me at Treya’s show. Buy me two drinks and maybe I’ll buy you one.
¶. Friday 7pm: Geistlist Meetup
See above.
∞. an really excellent biography/essay of/on John Fetterman (part one)
Ettingermentum “the guy who got 2022 right” Ettingermentum is writing a really super good biography of John Fetterman. I think you have to subscribe to read it but it’s worth the five bucks and you can cancel right away and still use up your first month. Or quite probably be offered a free weeklong trial anyway, I dunno how the Substack upsell logic works. If you can’t or won’t, reply and I’ll slip you a PDF.
†. preerrata
Please do reply with any corrections, dead links, or misformattings. I do tend to fix these up quickly for the web version, in case you never saw that. My first draft & mistakes live forever & only in your inbox.