Welcome to another wonderful week in Spooky Season 👻 This week we’ve got more of the usual:

• News and analysis you might’ve missed

• Some good things, actually

• Trick or Treat Challenge Week 2!

• Upcoming events

But first…

CSAW Fundraiser!

It’s fundraising season and I partnered with CSAW to offer a FREE Political Peer Mentorship session, as well as a FREE handbalance coaching session.

If you care about creating a more inclusive and accessible circus world, donating to CSAW is one of the most effective things you can do to make a real difference. For over 5 years, CSAW has been consistently showing up for BIPOC circus artists. Month after month, year after year. Through their grant programs, ambassador programs, and advocacy within the circus community - they continue to directly support circus artists of color achieve their dreams.

So anyway, get on it!

Updates from this Week

• Thinking a lot lately about the transformation and defamation of memory

• Several people have asked me about the ceasefire, and yes you already know that’s been violated 6 ways from Sunday, but there are always other ways to be cruel and inhumane

• Using Meta platforms as your primary organizing tool continues to be a bad idea

• End of an era, brought to you by capitalism and some other sad shit

• More on this in an upcoming essay, but it’s unclear whether we’re headed for a “competitive authoritarian” (read: electoral authoritarian) future or something else, and establishment Republicans might signal what they prefer one way or the other

• When your local economy is bound up in the prison-industrial complex

• In case you wanted a thorough debunking of propaganda about what’s up in Chicago

• Sometimes people remember that the ones inflicting harm have names and addresses

• The administration got busy making new Bluesky accounts amid the shutdown. If you need to go through and block them all, here's a whole list

Some good things

• Consequences, sometimes there are some

• Cats are so pure

Trick or Treat — Week 2! 👻 🎃

It’s week 2 of the Trick or Treat challenges, and you still have time to get yours in before Tuesday!

Trick

Do a mobility drill you know you need but never do 🙃 Maybe even more than once 😇

Treat

Plan a night out this month...that has you active in your community. Use your imagination, and invite a friend!

Upcoming Offerings & Events

How to Have Tough Conversations (Oct 28)

I wrote about how to have tough conversations (and when not to) at length a few weeks ago, and I’m holding a live, virtual event on October 28th for folks who want to dip their toes in on this challenging work. We won’t solve every issue in this 90 minute session, but you’ll get the beginning of a framework for how to approach challenging political conversations with people in your life. Signup is live at the link above! I would love to see you there.

Lining Skills Workshop in Chicago

For folks in Chicago (or who can get to Chicago), I’ll be running some lining (and icarian belt) spotting workshops soon. These are meant to help you learn the ropes (eh??) if this has interested you, so you can safely begin to practice spotting skills with lines. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, check out the currently suggested days/times we’re considering and register your vote! Feel free to respond directly if you have questions.

Upcoming Essays

I teased this back in July, but I’m planning a combo video/essay series about all of the developments in trans issues and discourse in the US lately, and in particular how those are related to sports and athletics. I gathered a few “audience” questions over the summer, but if there are particular things you’ve been thinking about and would like to see reflected, shoot me an email! I’m not planning for this series to parrot a lot of already-well-traversed talking points, and I do plan on it having some personal elements, so no question is off limits.

Stay in touch

That’s all for this week!

Did you benefit from this content? Newsletters are free for all subscribers, but you’re welcome to upgrade to a pay-what-you-want tier if you found it particularly useful and want to offer support. (There may be bonus content for this tier in the future but right now, WYSIWYG).

In solidarity,

Sirus