My big update is an early evening dance party this coming Sunday 8/23 in Philadelphia, at the newly opened Val’s Lesbian Bar. I’m so proud of my friends Julia and Clover for how successful this project has become, and if you haven’t visited yet, you should- we’ll have a brand new 4 point sound system in place for next weekend. I will be spinning house music and raising donations for Gaza Soup Kitchen, which you can also send money to here.

As longtime listeners might know, house is a newer style for me to be playing out, but it’s turned into a deep passion and I’m excited to share that with the dancefloor next weekend. You can hear a sample of some of the music I’ve been rinsing here, from a live set this past January.

More personal updates after the jump:

It’s been a summer in motion. I officiated Alexandria and Daniel’s wedding in June in Beijing, where the chestnut trees blanketed the hills with their catkins. I got to explore the city with Anna Sophie, who told me that the CCP has nearly eliminated unemployment. I did not see a single unhoused person during my time in China.

The latter half of the month was a trip in Japan with Aliza, Heath and Shosh, where I ate some of the best meals of my life, caught a cold, made field recordings, and read from Tehillim aka the book of Psalms. Some favorite meals: mushroom hotpot (pot above), seafood donburi, oyster ramen, 7/11 onigiri, and tofu and raw fish in many many forms.

In July I went to Los Angeles to meet Kip in the San Fernando Valley. We spent time with ancient trees, including the coast live oak above who literally fueled colonial development in Spanish California: its limbs were hauled to nearby kilns to fire limestone, which was used to build the bricks and tiles of the mission in the Valley. It was one of the many blessings of the summer to spend time with this ancient being.

Since getting back to the east coast a month ago, I’ve been outside as much as possible, reading voraciously, and preparing to lead High Holiday services in New Haven with Mending Minyan (register here!). Last weekend I DJed the dance party on the closing night of Let My People Sing! It was a delight to attend this retreat, explore Isabella Freedman Center, and learn a great deal of vocal music from across the Jewish diaspora. I also had the pleasure of attending with my mom, a devoted community singer.

I’ll need to devote a separate issue to processing what I’ve been reading this summer, but this newsletter’s title is a nod to Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization, a 2021 book by Rodrigo Nunes, as well as Elif Batuman’s stunning Either Or. Reading Nunes alongside Robin Kelley’s classic Hammer And Hoe has me thinking more about organizational ecology, nondualism, and the long struggle. As fires ravage multiple continents and the struggle against fascism continues, may we accept that we are part of a project of generational change, that there is no one winning strategy, and that the moments of rupture will only make sense in hindsight. Here’s a farewell by means of a song in heavy rotation: