pride and joy
hello junebugs!!
happy pride! i had an absolutely amazing time playing at the NYBG last month. thank you to everyone who came out in the heat! it was so dreamy - you can watch a video of me singing The Gardener at the gardens here!
American Folk Art Museum Livestream!
Next up is a livestream set with the American Folk Art Museum! I played live at the American Folk Art Museum in 2019 and am so excited to performing for this wonderful institution again! NYBG was amazing and also had me scraping the bottom of my barrel for an hours worth of my purely upbeat happy songs LOL so it's nice to have the chance to feature some more intimate, softer, stripped down originals this go around.
The livestream is Friday June 10th starting at 6pm EST on the museum's Facebook live! The livestream is free, but donations are encouraged! You can find further information at the Eventbrite link here.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Porch Stomp Music Festival on Governor's Island- Nick Horner Family Stage, Saturday June 18th, 4pm
Make Music New York- Tuesday June 21st
BKLYN Crepe- 11am
Sahadi's- 12:15pm
Someday Bar- 5:30pm
The Local NY- Saturday, August 13th, 8pm
Spend a weekend in Puzzleburg!
Had the pleasure of creating a delightful little theme song for an independent video game that now has a free demo on Steam! You can download it and play a little of the game, and hear my song on the title screen, and the instrumental in the map portion of the game!
A Tepid Return to Tech/ Completing the Cycle
It's been a few weeks since my digital detox ended, though truthfully not much has changed. I got a cold last week (that was just an actual cold, miraculously) so I was streaming more TV and YouTube than normal as part of resting, and felt an inkling of compulsion to doomscroll with all the awful news last week, but otherwise have stayed mostly away from the ~unnecessary technology. I download instagram on to my phone every time I want to post something, scroll for a few minutes, and then delete it once again. And I haven't even broached revisiting Tiktok yet- maybe in another couple weeks. It's nice not to feel the compulsion to check and fill every minute with something stimulating. My room is the most organized it's ever been, I've been reading more, seeing more friends, feeling more present.
I'm currently in the section in Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are where she talks about the concept of "completing the cycle" of emotions- how often we don't let our emotions or trauma move through our bodies to signal to ourselves that the stressor - the lion chasing us, as our most primal brains still interpret- is not an active danger. This has been really revelatory to me in enforcing an independent similar journey I've been going on- letting myself stim and cry as much as I need to in face of stress without judgement or rush. I know I tend to be impatient with myself and want to get myself 'back to normal' as quick as possible when faced with negative feelings- maybe you do too! A challenge for you this month to give room to the full cycle of your emotions.
Art I've Been Enjoying
Laughing with my friends, as I often rediscover, is an art form in it's own right.
Recently I've read the first two books of the Heartstopper graphic novel series and golly gee is it soft and precious.
Caleb is a trans indigenous visual artist that I've followed for a while and am in love with his art style. Warm rich colors, fantasy inspirations, beautiful queer folks in love- you can find a lot of his archive on tumblr here. Considering saving up to commission him for a portrait of one of my D&D PCs!!
Harry's House is almost all I want to talk about these days- it's simply so so good, almost unbelievably so?? It is SO so rare that I listen to an album where I don't dislike at least one of the songs on it, but this one is all winners. Was also extremely lucky to hear all these songs performed live for the first time at the NYC One Night Only show!!
Summer always brings me the feelings of freedom and adventure and joy and connection, and I'm excited to ride those feelings (and all feelings as are inevitable) this season and see where they take me!!
Thank you for listening. I'm glad you're here.
queerly yours,
Em