[tldr i made a zine - pre-order nasty notes and bankrupt an arts institution today!]
late in the summer, no one was ready to see dance again despite us all preparing to return to the stage (including yours truly!)
a few weeks ago, i threw myself back in. i’ve seen so much in the last few weeks. what’s made the performances memorable besides the work itself lol, have been the physical sensations of coming and going to the "theater."
from fresh air to filtered staleness and the flush of old friends back to tugging elastic loops off my ears so i can taste which stage of winter/summer nyc's tropical climate has chosen this week, the blur of apocalyptic time slows as i gulp in the night. the particular trials and triumphs of another cinematic week of everyone's main character energy blur blur blurs away. sigh
that's to say, ~new york is back~, the backlog of 2020-delayed shows is still being sorted through, and it's been the most dizzying szn.
at one show this past weekend, before I could even mention nasty notes (vom), a slushee reader (hi!) began telling me a horror story of an arts gig. it was past sunset, post DST, post summer summer still humid, and i nodded and shook my head as she talked about how [--------].
and really that’s the most marked continuity i’ve been thinking over the past seven months of dreaming up this zine. from that piece to #freelanceflailing, i've been writing about this for years. i'd love to stop having awful labor relations to write about but i suppose...
i've been listening to this audiobook, a mostly chronological survey of mostly western history via the evolution of collective movement practices and rituals. i have mixed feelings about it so far so will subcrit for now, but the way the author describes the deliberate repression and co-optation of ecstatic movement into highly regimented, elites-only preceedings is so unsurprising.
the throughline of consequence-free mistreatment of freelance arts workers has an easy place in this linear narrative. how can procedures and production of art be disincentivized as much as possible?
ID: photo by benedict: an image of Tuesday's lunar eclipse between outline of leafless trues and indigo sky
from this past tuesday's full moon / lunar eclipse in taurus (shot by an iPhone 8 lolol), i've been thinking about cycles and culminations, and while i'm clear about what intentions i gave to this planetary moment, i'm also clear about what will not yet be over.
earlier this fall, i walked a runway in front of 1000+ people, my biggest (in-person, live) audience in a few years. the air was expectant. i wasn't in the mood, honestly.
yet, as i prepared to face the crowd, i remember feeling quiet emotional. nothing in front of me but the empty space and vacuum of sound. it was oddly comforting to just have my little slot of time to perform before getting to hide again. to take the book's thesis to its extreme, this is how one is meant to indulge in performance. here's your little corner, the party of your year. now zip it!
as i've zipped between multiple shows in the same evening a few times this fall, including this past sunday, i remember as the wind brushes my little face on my little citibike and my one hand twirls in the air, that the car passengers and pedestrians are getting a little show too. shh, don't tell the ruling class!
anyway, hello new subscribers willfully adding more emails to ur inbox during an apocalypse, bless bless,
benedict 🔪
some summer #bennyboosbookclub
previous slushee nodules that i thought about but did not send:
a reflection on/masterclass in marketing (nah, not for free)
a meditation / subcrit guessing games on the music phases lapsed into this year with artists whose names can be censored as ******. most recently ****** is actually [--------] and ****** was amazing live