MOON BULLETIN - Q3, L1262
Did you know that every moon cycle has a lunation number? Right now we’re in number 1262, since it’s been 1262 moon cycles since the first new moon in 1923, when some guy named Brown introduced his lunar theory. But turns out there’s all sorts of different lunar numbers you can use, from the Brown Lunation Number to the Goldstine Lunation Number to the Islamic Lunation Number and much more. Everyone may agree that the moon is important, but it seems much more difficult to arrange how to count it. From now on, if someone asks me how old I am, I’d like to tell my age with my own Kyle’s Lunation Number, which started from the first new moon after my birth (on Sept 20, 1998). I’m not 26, I’m L338. For these newsletters, I’ll use the Brown Lunation Number, since it seems like the most common one.
If you’re receiving this, it means the newsletter worked - yay! I’m just figuring things out. I’m planning to send this out every quarter moon, and include events in the next two weeks. It’s a mix of smaller things that friends are hosting, events I’m already planning to attend, and things that just look cool/important! I want this list to be one of many alternatives to social media, a place of discovery and publicity. And I want more people to come hang when I’m going to something! You’ll see me at many of these, come say hello ☻
🌗 Isabel Crespo-Pardo, Maya Keren, Emmanuel Michael, Selendis Sebastian Alexander at Closeup: Third Quarter (Wed Jan 22 @ 7:30 & 9pm). A night of sweet beautiful music by dear friends in the Lower East Side — I’ll be at the 9pm show! ✿ $20.
🌗 By Any Meanz Sonically at BAM: Third Quarter (Thu Jan 23 @ 7pm). This visual montage highlights the profound influence of Black women in electronic dance music, tracing their impact from the early roots in jazz and rhythm & blues to the global prominence of dance music today. $30, $25 for members.
🌗 Trans Herbalism for Uncertain Times: Third Quarter (Thu Jan 23 @ 9pm). Bodyhack’s January party and this workshop caught my eye — join Ayelet Hashachar in the yurt for an introductory herbalism workshop as she discusses how plant medicine can be used to support trans people’s health, autonomy, and agency. $20.
🌘 McGolrick Bird Club: Waning Crescent (Sat Jan 25 @ 9am). A neighborhood get-together for birding in Greenpoint — Ben and I went the last two weeks and have had a wonderful time. There are still many birds active even in the winter! Free.
🌘 Attention Activism in 2025 at the Strother School of Radical Attention: Waning Crescent (Sat Jan 25 - Sun Jan 26 @ 12pm). Kicking off another year of attention activism with labs and facilitation trainings. Free.
🌘 Brooklyn Artists Show at the Brooklyn Museum: Closes on Waning Crescent (Sun Jan 26). Artists from across Brooklyn are highlighted in this wide-ranging exhibition that’s closing on Sunday — see below for a note from Swati who has a really special piece in the show! Pay what you wish.
🌘 ICE Watch Training in Midtown: Waning Crescent (Sun Jan 26). Our city is home to hundreds of thousands of migrants, many of whom have arrived in the last two years. ICE Watch runs these trainings regularly, so keep an eye on their instagram to attend one, especially if you are engaged in mutual aid efforts or live near a migrant shelter. Free, vetting required.
🌑 New Moon (Wed Jan 29). Happy Lunar New Year! If billions of people celebrating the new year by the new moon says anything, it’s that telling time via the moon is never going out of style. Lots of reasons to celebrate and reflect, but for this new moon in particular, I’ll be thinking about letting go of busyness. Boredom is liberating! And always free.
🌒 iiZiiT [3]: RIEGE Jewelry + Supply at Canal Projects: Waxing Crescent (Opening Fri Jan 31 @ 6pm). Riege incorporates a wide array of natural and synthetic materials, including wool, and faux fur to create large-scale woven installations and wall hangings that honor the Diné (Navajo) tradition of hózhó: a worldview which values the beauty, balance, and goodness in all things physical and spiritual. Free.
🌒 Tender Loops at Textile Art Center: Waxing Crescent (Sat Feb 1). Tender Loops is a project centered on the creative reimagination of traditional craft techniques, such as knitting and crochet, while embracing a mindful approach to material development and the longevity of physical objects. Free.
🗣️ Roommate wanted: Looking for a clean, communicative, and covid conscious QTBIPOC roommate for a 3b1b lease take over! 1,065/month with in unit laundry 1-2 mins from the kingston throop C. Move in March 1. Email seoyoungp3202@gmail.com if interested!
📝 A note from Swati (go see the show!):
They say that things, elements, matter around us have self organizing properties ; vibrant matter that shares potentialities with our imagination. The work presented at the Brooklyn museum is a sliver of this experience. The situatedness of the work surprisingly aligns with my Brooklyn apartment where I first began conceiving the idea and to the orchids at the Brooklyn conservatory which inspired this table to be taken on a walk in public parks across New York.
A simple desire for the idea of a “working environment” to become a threshold toward the great outdoors and to environmental consciousness.
The show is up until 26th Jan 2025. Here's a link :
***https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/brooklyn-artists-exhibitions-2024***
Friends, please let me know if you would like to take the table on a walk with me and talk about our local ecologies ; bring more awareness to the impact our “work” has on the environment and how we become agents of climate change, fueling the catastrophic damage we continue to witness around us.
Hope we continue to take care of each other, in the little time we get to embrace the world. My time in Brooklyn has held, sheltered all my creative visions and allowed me, a South Asian immigrant who moved to the city 8 years ago to become an architect with bright eyed dreams of speaking my truth ; of liberating a little part of reality I am fortunate to experience with tender feminist, decolonial landscapes filled with fragrances, sounds, gestures, harmonies and light that bring the idea of home closer. A home that is as exterior as it is interior to all beings.
I am forever honored and grateful to the selection committee Jeffrey Gibson, Vik Muniz, Mickalene Thomas, and Fred Tomaselli for believing in my vision. My deepest gratitude to the curatorial and the exhibition team Sharon Matt Atkins, Lauren Bierly, Jennie Tang, Kimberli Gant, Carmen Hermo and Catherine Morris who put together this spectacular show, and the great opportunity to show in my own borough. And thankful to my own team who helped me along the journey to bring this body of work to life.
Here’s reminding myself and my fellow designers that the built environment can be a slow, poetic and sacred engagement with justice, truth and beauty. Wishing to draw peace on the horizon more closer everyday.
Lots of love,