NOTHING SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
Greetings on the evening of the super (close to earth) blood (will turn red during lunar eclipse) moooooon.
Happy new year. I don't think I've written since the calendar year advanced into 2019. I'm coming off several days worth of extreme tendon inflammation, which led me to 'spend' my 'free time' on laying around the house after I got off work. I can't tell quite yet if the inflammation flare was kicked off by doing a lot of pushups one night (since my chest/back muscles have gotten stronger from strength training), or if my new mechanical keyboard is the culprit.
I purchased a mechanical keyboard. MK fans are largely gamers and programmers, and other folk who spend a lot of time on keyboards. They have mechanical switches beneath the keys (different from most laptop and standard keyboards), and since there are a variety of mechanical switches to choose from, you can customize the kind of typing sensation/feedback. I thought this was cool, and having wanted a second external keyboard for home (since my other one is at work), I decided to get one. BUT... I now suspect that 1) the mechanical feedback itself has a negative effect on my poor overworked tendons and/or 2) I can type SO much more quickly and efficiently on that beautiful thing that I again overwork my poor overworked tendons.
Sigh. Does anyone else use a mechanical keyboard? Thoughts?
What's new with you?
As for me, a movie I was in is now online and I came out in a couple more publications. I forget if I mentioned all these last time but I just updated my website with the details on everything. There's
CLOG Magazine's issue on AI
Transcendent 3 best trans SFF of 2017 anthology
Transitional Times Transitional Body short story collection
and What Color Is Blue
Here's a few pics to pique ur interest:
FURTHERMORE
Alex Smith's ARKDUST short story collection came out, sold through 100+ copies BY WORD OF MOUTH in less than 3 weeks, and yeah, get yourself a copy via the METROPOLARITY shop here.
I've been reading here and there out of three and four different things lately. I'm reading through both Transcendent books, the AI clog jawn, Alex's book, a book called Miscegenation Blues that Leah, the author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice mentioned at her book release event. CARE WORK IS GOOD AS HELL PICK UP A COPY SOMEWHERE. So good. Necessary shit, thank you LEAH.
Aside from that I been spending mad hours binge watching historical drama Netflix series The Borgias, Juana Inés, and also Monty Don's tours of Italian and French gardens. All I gotta say is that the history of the Church and of the nation-state entities we know today is WILD. Fucked up. I really really ask myself what is the deal with human organization, on a cosmic timescale. Like I usually say, humans are so arrogant. We're just a blip in spacetime, yet here we are right now. No need to do anything other than live the way we can.
I've had a hankering to go see AKIRA on the big screen. Usually the Ritz theaters downtown have a midnight screening of it once or thrice a year. We're on the verge of 2020, when the Olympic games are near commencement in Tokyo–in the AKIRA manga and now in real life as well. I came across this short interview with Katsuhiro OTOMO the other day:
Making art requires a huge amount of energy and concentration. Drawing accurately, faithfully reproducing characters’ looks, and not relying too much on allure (drawing people too cutesy, etc.) takes tons of energy, to the point where my body can’t take it sometimes. Creativity is all about projecting everything about yourself into your work. You need to have the honesty to fully expose yourself, the ability to recognize your limits, and the power to express how you’re perceiving the world.
This validated the hell out of my own experience. The rest of the interview is good, esp if you're an Otomo or AKIRA fan.
The interview link came via this designer, David Rudnick, who I believe I first encountered on tumblr without caring to notice or store their name. Then, a while later, they ended up designing the poster for Black Quantum Futurism's Free For All event at the Philly ICA, and I was like ohhhh ok. Their tumblr is an archive of their body of work, and I juuuuust .... go hard for these designs and typography. And I low key fux with their twitter. Anyway, you know when you like someone's stuff you figure it's worth turning up some more info or an interview or something? There was this design talk that was cool cause it was concerned with history in part. And Rudnick made a dnb type mix that I enjoyed too.
I also enjoyed Estoc x BB Basura mix, some upbeat techno dance type energies in this one.
And this jawn I stumbled across that's more tripped out and purgatorial electronic sample ish. I'm not a music writer tho so don't take my word for it. [tracklist]
Not a mix, but this top ten BL manga review by MilesJai is so good. Miles Jai has TOP NOTCH production skills wow.
Then I been going back through my earrrrly Soundcloud likes and am thanking my past self for saving this Midnight Relics mix from Legowelt Official.
Honestly this handful of mixes is summing up my current internal soundscape for thinking and getting shit done. Thanks to the mix makers out there.
This concludes this cycle's newsletter. If you're on the east coast, we can expect to begin seeing the blood part of this lunar eclipse begin around 10/11pm. I thought that the skies had cleared up with all this wind but I just checked out my window again to see OVER CAST. Moon was big as hell though earlier.
BLESSED BE
@}-}-;-----------
Monk