Just Seven Things Today
Also very different than my usual
I. Thinking about the Wikipedia definition of cyberpunk being a focus on “low-life and high tech”, about midnight radio shows that bleed into the wee hours right before sunrise, about automated street lights as markers of time and safety, about neon lights as art and call signs, about always looking for light and not even realizing it.
II. Thinking about artists killing off their personas/characters as a way to let them grow into a new era, about how some fans don’t let their artists go and want them to stay in their boxes forever, about the mental breaks of artists being forced to grow quickly to keep up with trends that change by the week, about trying to fight the algo gods and trying to find a place for their legacies to live in an uncertain world.
III. Thinking about bursts of inspiration that all the gurus and coaches tell us to seize on to no matter what — but some of us have kids, some of us have illnesses, some of us have three jobs, some of us have Insert More Here, about how the advice is not wrong but also not right, about how fuck if I know what is actually wrong or right and that maybe we just try our best every day and don’t have to explain ourselves, about how overthinking and overexplaining is probably a form of procrastination and/or fear and/or trauma response and/or Insert More Here, about the urge to delete this section before anyone disagrees with me.
IV. Thinking about first sentences and last sentences, about first tracks and last tracks, about the first poem and the last poem, about the starting and the ending, but also about the messy middle, about the chaotic threads of the second in a trilogy, about Middle Child Syndrome in a trilogy, about needing the middle to appreciate the beginning and the ending.
V. Thinking about multimedia art and webweaving, about books that center around lost books, about movies that center around lost films, about being spread across multiple social medias to express the same things differently, about how we search for lost art and it becomes a kind of art in itself, about art movements and shapeshifting artists, about internet archives and websites not found.
VI. Thinking about method acting and my own version of method writing, about the necessity to let artists be true to their process but/and consent and boundaries and communication for your co-workers and collaborators are needed, about putting artists on pedestals and the dehumanization, about worshiping them to godlike standards when they excel but throwing them away when they fall, about how artists explore the highs and lows of humanity but are on deadlines to come back for the next release, about how I kinda want to delete this part too but I won’t.