it's going to be a fine night tonight

Greetings and happy equinox, everyone.

How have you been? I went through something of a thoroughly tortured transition phase over that eclipse season, and then Virgo season came along and I felt charged and promptly began to get loads of stuff accomplished. I'm a Virgo rising. For those of you who could care less about astrology musings, then I will associate all these moods/changes/feelings to the continual orbit of our planet Earth. The direction of the sun becomes less overhead, lower in the sky, and it is setting earlier every day as well. Also, just when I thought it was going to be unbearably hot for longer than I could personally enjoy, the weather broke and turned into the now familiar (and dreadful) full blanket overcast. The weather has been in the high 80ºs, then mid 80ºs, high 70ºs, and lately the mid 70ºs.

I started looking into a light therapy lamp, since the overcast–now a seemingly permanent (for now) feature of Philadelphia weather–becomes brutal when combined with the cold of the late winter months. I also thought about tanning, but not very seriously yet. The bright and diffuse blue-grey light looks good on nobody, I'll wager to say.

But back to the tortured transition – Aside from some relationship changes, I decided that I would begin to drink a cup of damiana and rose tea every day and see how that affected my libido and feelings of well-being. I'll make sure to report back. I already get a great benefit from taking a dropperful of motherwort (not mugwort) tincture everyday. Humans would be nothing without plants.

Speaking of libido, I decided to try my hand at organizing a smut zine. Here is the full call written out in detail.

Some things I’m very interested in pulling together are stories that are located *away from* sites/scenes of classic BDSM & fetish imagery and related power dynamics, particularly a climax or focus on acts of fucking. What does that leave then? For me, stories about predators and prey, watching eyes, harsh mentors, nonhuman bodies, flesh boundaries, fantastic and atemporal circumstances, eroticized physical non/contact such as fights and rituals, long setups and unresolved tensions, other worlds, transformation, loneliness and solitude, etc.

Because writers of smut who are willing to share seem few and far between, I’m definitely not condoning or dismissing hot BDSM type stories (some of my personal faves reside in Carol Queen’s The Leather Daddy and the Femme). HOWEVER, I have read and enjoyed so many freaky deek fanfics that I would like to ENCOURAGE anyone reading this to consider the wider world of smut.

Writers and readers of AU (alternate universe) fan-fiction and slashfic, I’m looking at you.

If you're at all interested, I recommend reading the full call details and definitely writing to me for any questions.

ALSO IF YOU ARE IN PHILADELPHIA AND HAVE ACCESS TO A FREE, GROUND-LEVEL, SCENT-FREE SPACE WHERE WE CAN HAVE THE WORKSHOPS, LMK! Currently it's looking like we'll have to hold them in my 4th floor apartment where I burn incense all the time....
In other news, mark your calendars for Thursday, October 18th, for another portal opening to CHROME CITY. This is Alex Smith's jawn that I ALWAYS want to call a cabaret (but when I look up what that is it's explicitly a night club show where the audience is at tables and chairs). Anyway this is the look:

***hold this space-age***

Chrome City is burnt out embers, flashing neon, crystalized planetary chaos, replicants run amok, and temporal madness in steamy Tech Noir..

crew:
Icon Ebony Fierce
Monk (Metropolarity/Cyborg Memoirs)
DJ Delish
Chaska (Seltzer) on visuals
alexoteric

guests:

special early showing of Marie Alacorn's WITNESS short film!

Camp Candle
Rainbow Crimes
Neveryona
plus more TBA

come dance, see some weird cyborgs, co-splay, fight Terminators, drive Camaros, get dazed, get confused

And in further developments, I looked up No Mercy's Where Do You Go the other day at work, and was taken on a journey through all those early-mid 90s top dance bangers that I remember blasting on Q102 and my Catholic school monthly Friday night dances (lord). I was taken in particular with Corona's Rhythm of the Night. CLASSIC ok. The black suit. Having fun. Images of carnival rides spinning. And that jawn at 1:45??????? They nevervreververrrr put that part on the radio!! Now I'm not sure if your YouTube auto-play recs will take you down this same path but here are some 'deeper' cuts that came along for me: 808 State's Pacific State, Subliminal Cuts' Le Voie Le Soleil, and Frankie Knuckles extremely heavenly and uplifting The Whistle Song.

I spent a lot of time today trying on my clothes and putting together outfits. I've been strength training at a friend's house since May and thought I outgrew my pants (which I only recently already outgrew some months before), but it turns out I was simply...bloated? Swole up? Foolishly ate box Kraft mac n cheese from the 79cent store my dad took us too and it clogged me up for days? Who knows! I'm just glad my pants still fit.

I hope all your favorite clothes still fit too, and if not, that a bountiful clothing swap is around the corner.

By the way, DHD tees are on final permanent clearance, for anyone that wanted a long or short sleeve with the DESIRE HOPE DESPAIR slogan.

This feels like my least cynical or biting or grim newsletter ever. I think in part it's because I made a decision that I had to work some joy into my life. I was feeling like hell. I'll close out this missive with a little teaser of the upcoming METROPOLARITY zine-turned-book-cause-it's-so-thick, BAD USER AGREEMENT.

Hope this finds you well and abundance flowing your way.


@}-}-;------
monk