April was my birthday month.
For me that's an exuberant personal time — not necessarily a celebration I need others to mark with me, but more of a quiet look, I did it. Another year. And now I get to see what I can create and build and watch unfold in this one. 41. Let's go.
I had planned something special for myself at the start of the year — a solo trip, as a commitment to exploring more. I took a 9-hour Amtrak from Oakland down to Santa Barbara. First time in Southern California. The resort was so lovely it was almost embarrassing — I felt like my own little princess the whole time. It was a short stay, three days, but I soaked every bit of it in. And I'll say this: train travel is now officially my favorite way to move through the world. This was my third trip by rail this year and something about it — the pace, the scenery, the fact that you can just be in transit without it feeling like a punishment — I'm completely converted.
Back home, things are evolving. The loft bed I got when I first moved in turned out to not be what I needed at all. Facebook Marketplace found someone to disassemble it and take it away — and paid me for it. So that was a win. I'm back to the floor, and embracing a Japanese-inspired, serene and cozy bedroom vibe that actually suits the space and how I want to feel in it. The living room is doing its multipurpose work/home thing, which I'm enjoying for now. I'm collecting inspiration for where both spaces go next.
What I read
I was inspired to pick up Piranesi by Susanna Clarke the way I've been finding books lately — following a thread. The YouTube channel Curiouser and Curiouser led me there, specifically an episode where she talks about the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and the concept of "the other." I'd never encountered Levinas before, and now I can't stop thinking about him.
The book itself was — it was one of those. The kind where you start dreading the last hundred pages because you don't want to leave. There are themes in it about perspective: about being in the middle of something you don't fully understand and finding a way to love it anyway, to be awake inside it. That hit for me specifically right now, with where my artistic work is going. More on that in a moment.
Highly recommend if you're the type to let yourself get fully immersed in a realistic, quietly surreal world.
I also finally got my hands on a physical copy of Company of One by Paul Jarvis, which I'm still working through. I've never been interested in more money for more money's sake — I have a strong belief that there is such a thing as enough, and that most of us don't need more and more. This book is the clearest articulation I've found of that instinct as a business philosophy. It's helping me tighten focus on the purpose of the work and how it connects to everything else in my life, rather than just chasing financial scale. It's good. It's very good.
The thing I've been building
I saw a bumper sticker recently that stopped me. It was by a brand called Tender Ghost — a little illustrated worm declaring "you've been blessed by this worm, your dreams will now come true." The joke is permission: a worm is giving you permission to do the thing you already wanted to do but needed someone — a worm — to tell you to do it.
That's the energy I've been trying to build toward. Not instruction. Not optimization. Just a small, strange, worm thing that says: go ahead.
Here's what I made.
Go Wander is the first experiment under the Dark Parlour Society umbrella. It's a series of analog fortune capsule vending machines, placed inside locally-owned independent businesses across Oakland.
For $1, you turn a knob and get a capsule. Inside: a fortune slip with a task, a place to go, a quote, a song to listen to, and lucky numbers. A wax seal sticker unique to that machine's location. A postcard that connects all the machines into a collect-all game across the city.
The fortunes are written specifically for each store and its customers — the people who already love that place. A bookshop gets different prompts than a coffee shop. The goal is to send you somewhere real, into your actual neighborhood, with permission to do the thing you were maybe already thinking about doing.
The machines are here. The LLC is formed. I've been reaching out to local shops I think would be a good fit for the first placements.
If you know of an independent business in the Bay Area that should have one — or if you are that business — please reach out. I'd love to hear from you.
In the meantime, I spent a good chunk of time building out the home base properly — the website has the full Manifesto, ways to get involved, and everything you need to understand what this is and where it's going. Worth a visit even if you're nowhere near Oakland.
For everyone not in the Bay Area — The Monthly Fortune
This one's for you.
The Monthly Fortune is $7/month. Here's how it works:
You share your name, your city, your address, and your date of birth. I write your fortune by hand — tailored to you, the season, your birth chart. A postcard arrives at your door.
That's it. Just something made for you, specifically, arriving in your actual mailbox.
This is the easiest way to support what I'm building here — and it's also just a genuinely good thing to have in your life. A handwritten postcard every month that was made with you in mind.
→ Subscribe at darkparloursociety.com/subscribe — $7/month, cancel anytime
April in Photos
This month's free printable: the Audiobook Companion
A little annotation zine for listeners — space to track timestamps, characters, passages you want to find again, and your final verdict when it's over. Print at home on one sheet of letter paper, fold it into a booklet. Comes in pre-filled and blank versions.
Free, always. A new printable drops every month.
→ Download at darkparloursociety.com/printables
More soon.
— Jem
If someone forwarded you this and you'd like to get future letters directly — including a free printable every month and updates as Dark Parlour Society grows — you can subscribe at the link below.
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