spring the house down
Hi, I'm dusting off this newsletter in an attempt to work on reducing the severe levels of inhibition I have about sharing my creative things with others. I feel uncomfortable even writing that sentence. I have now deleted a few other sentences. I have a hard time writing about "creativity" and my relationship with it. It feels weird. But, it's prolly related to some of my other internal issues/dramas and is thus an important thing to work on.
I just finished a second round of bookbinding classes. It's something I've been cautiously interested in for the past twenty years or so, but never really did anything about. I think part of what motivated me is my current lack of desire for making a new zine. I haven't been writing for while now, but I started to feel like I still wanted to make something so I signed up for some classes. Part of the "cautious" interest is that a lot of books that I've seen are fiddly, fussy and excruciatingly detail oriented - all things that I'm not into. So much so that I hate decorating cookies. I appreciate looking at the work of other people who focus on such skill and detail, but if I have to do it I just quit.
Some of the bindings in my class were definitely in that category and I will never, ever do them again - case-bound books can fuck right the fuck off. There were a few others that were cool and felt good to work on, with names such as Belgian Secret and French Link, and I can see working with these in the future. I'm currently working on a zine/book hybrid which is typography collages with the names of guitar players who have directly influenced my own guitar playing. I'm almost done with the collages and then I'll print them out and use a stab stitch to bind them together. Neat.
People like pictures, check out this bullshit:
That top one is right before the elements were bound into a Belgian Secret binding. I kept calling it French Mystery, which I think sounds better. The bottom one is a long stitch. I prolly won't do much with that one cuz I don't like working with spines (too much detail/fuss).
One bonus thing that came out of these classes is that I remembered how fun it is to make collages. I imagine I will be doing more of that with my future book/zine hybrid deals. We shall see.
Oh, the other reason to take these classes was to force myself to get out of the house. Which I don't do much, unless I have to. I have to constantly practice putting myself in social situations and doing things that are (at least) mildly uncomfortable so that my capacity to function as a human being within normal parameters doesn't cease to exist.
Some other things I've been up to...
I've been working on an oral history project about my friend Alex who died just over two years ago now. The first year was spent grieving, largely in isolation, and then the second year was spent talking/interviewing Alex's other friends: co-workers, bandmates, partners and loved ones. And then for the past few months I've been editing it into a narrative. I'm hoping to publish it in some form, but that is still prolly a ways off. Hopefully sometime later this year, but we will see. I could get into it more here, but it would be a lot, and I'm sure I will when there's some sort of finished product.
I'm playing in two bands right now, which is pretty cool. I'm super fortunate to be in a place where I can be playing so much music. Neither one has anything officially recorded yet, but both are getting there.
Also, the radio show continues to happen. It's still called flux capacitor and you can still find it on mixcloud. The cool thing is that Beware! The Radio (the radio station I do the show for) is now licensed to play all music. Yes, all music. So now I'm able to play some other things that I wouldn't have in the past. Like Shirley Bassey for example.
Here's the newest one that's up there.
https://www.mixcloud.com/BewareTheRadio/flux-capacitor-with-keith-episode-33-january-22-2023/And you can find all the old shows with this link: https://www.mixcloud.com/discover/flux-capacitor/?order=latest
I keep meaning to get back to doing it every two weeks and every two weeks I keep fucking that up so it's still a bit irregular. Just like this email! My goal will be to do this once a month. Feel free to help keep me accountable.
In the meantime... protect all trans people! and keep loving, keep fighting.