First, Tha NEWS.

Hey sweeties! Been a bit since a real update, huh? Although I suppose that depends on your definition of "real." In this case it's mostly "something that isn't strictly an ad," which is to say it's been a month! A month is a bit! You'd probably have heard from me sooner, but it seems that the adults in the household... wait... the parents in the household caught some sort of cold and as such it's been a slimy, hacky mess around these parts. That doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything! Oh no! I've been hacking! Also I've been actually kinda sorta working on 22 CARDS. Of the 22 Major Arcana poems, I only have five left to write and one other to finish to some level of satisfaction. That's the nice part about these top-down, enforced-structure projects: I can actually keep track of where I'm at from a progress standpoint.

That's not to say I have any idea when I'll be done. I still have the pesky job of writing, y'know, the rest of the book, and I don't know how that works or what it looks like yet.

As for the poems, though, I have a way into a couple of poems sorted out, but at least one of them requires actual research, so I'm heading to the library today to pick up a book to start on that. I'm not sure if I'll get that reading done before the end of the year (or even started, as there's some backlog), but I'll at least have it on hand for when I need it.

As for updates from last month:

I'm back in Chicago, and ICE has (mostly) moved on. I guess for some dumbass reason they're in the Twin Cities area now, which is hilarious because they're basically encountering Minnesota Nice Guerrila Activism: the goons that are there are thoroughly unprepared for the weather and the locals' ability to withstand it. I'm hoping all this comes to an end soon. It's all widely unpopular. (I do worry a little bit that they're testing fences like velociraptors, but they're also extremely stupid, so we'll see, I guess.)

I have started a playlist for the 22 CARDS project, but it's currently living in Tidal, which I'm not currently subscribed to. Apparently you can still make playlists if you have an account? It's very odd.

A new thing I've been working on is something I was never seriously taught: note-taking! Some folks call it "Zettlekasten" and some use phrases like "an external brain" or "second brain," but mostly it's just trying to organize all the little bits of bullshit that accumulate in one place and letting patterns emerge from the bottom up. It's a bit like Bullet Journaling, but not quite. I'll probably talk about it more as I use it, but the book How to Take Smart Notes is where I started. We'll see!

Second, INTERLUDE.

I came to ([company founder] Jim Sinegal) once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’
~ Costco CEO Craig Jelinek

Third, CONSUMPTION.

• Two big ones from Kieron Gillen: We Called Them Giants and volume one of The Power Fantasy (with Stephanie Hans and Casper Wijngaard, respectively.) Kieron is, of course, responsible for everything you see here because of his splendid brainbox, but also because he's the whole reason I started this newsletter. I still don't know how he keeps churning the things out at his level of output. Anyway. Both books are fantastic. WCTG was more of an impulse buy, as it's the team behind DIE, and I wasn't really expecting to get kicked in the gut like I did. It's beautiful, if short. A weird little Twilight Zone sort of episode. TPF is exactly what I have been hoping it would be, which is effectively the politics of X-Men that Kieron wasn't able to do when he was writing X-Men. I've switched to a trade-wait-only method of buying comics, and while I understand it's not as good for the team, it certainly helps the story flow more. If you're a fan of the old saw that is "deconstructing superheroes," you should definitely check it out.

• One for Sorrow from Jamie McKelvie. A nice little Victorian murder mystery sort of thing. Ghosts! Conspiracy! Poker! Secret identites! Just a fun book, and I've always loved Jamie's very clean style. Being in the larger DSTLRY format really lets the book feel like a spectacle in a way normal-sized comics don't really touch on. I hope #2 comes sooner rather than later, and I'd be interested in the thing as an omnibus.

• One of the best hooks I've ever seen: In a future dystopian utopia, the ultra-wealthy are subject to a lottery wherein they either give up half their net worth to the public, or they are required to defend it to the death in hand-to-hand gladitorial combat. The current 22-time champion is Ted Brooks, and his next opponent is... his ex-wife, who has amassed a fortune of her own. Free for All by Patrick Horvath.

Fourth, HUSTLE.

The new hotness is THE FAILURE EXPERIMENT, which you can get here. It’s a serial poem based in Philip K. Dick, JG Ballard, 20th Century cyberpunk, Jack Spicer, and, well, me. THE EBOOK OF TFE IS CURRENTLY ON SALE FOR $2.99 UNTIL MIDNIGHT 12/7

confessions from a drainage ditch was released in late 2023 through Amazon, and is available in ebook and paperback formats. If you haven't picked it up, it's a great introduction to my more concrete and mainstream work.

There’s my chapbook, A Void and Cloudless Sky. By being a subscriber to this newsletter, you're also entitled to a free PDF version, which you can get here. If you want a hard copy, it’s available here.

If you're liking this whole project and want to support it directly, here is my Patreon. All supporters at all levels get access to the Patron-only content posted there—poems, notes, essays, etc. As little as $1!

Finally, THE OUTRO.

I have an idea kicking around in my head about Luddites. Like, real and actual Luddites, who spurned technology that was used to exploit and repress humanity even more by breaking machinery and revolting against manufacturing and management. I've been thinking about it a lot and seeing it through the lens of right to repair, forced obsolescence, consumerism in general, enshittification, generative AI, and the like. I think it has teeth and could probably be a longer work, but I'm not sure. It's probably something for the Patreon one day.

The thing for here and now, though, is that what you have is probably good enough. Repair and reuse isn't just about saving money, but it's better to help limit the extraction of resources around the world, it cuts down on human suffering involved in acquiring those resources, and dang it, you can learn something from learning basic (or not-so-basic) repairs around the house, or in relation to your useful possessions. Plus, you can slow down and focus on learning a skill or how something works. Learn how to sew. Learn basic plumbing. Learn what's inside your computer and what the parts do. Change your own oil or replace your own busted taillight. It's a lot more rewarding to have done something yourself, even if it's a small thing.

There's so much out there, even (sometimes especially) during the holidays, that feels empty and hollow. Do something that heals yourself or the world around you, even if that's just gluing your sexy leg lamp back together instead of throwing it out.

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PS: Starting in the next newsletter, I will start including Bookshop.org affiliate links for any of the books I link to in here. I know that most of you don’t click on anything in these, but if you do find yourself intrigued and do want to take a chance on a suggestion of mine, you’ll know that at least a little bit of that will be coming back to me. Hope y’all don’t mind, but every little bit counts.