Welcome new subscribers! It’s nice to see you.
Here are two ways to be part of my ongoing projects this week.
They’re pretty different from each other, which sometimes throws the doctrinaire for a loop. But both involve mental and physical maps. Both frame one thing as another - a sleepless night as a possible connection to others, a civic meeting as rowdy theater, an angry theater audience as an organizing failure.
April 27 - Night Keeper LP Release Party
Can you join us for a Night Keeper listening party on Sunday, April 27, at the Collapsable Hole? 7PM - 155 Bank Street. Free.
The Night Keeper record is a trance, a communion, an affectionate letter to wandering the city. Hallow Ground put it out and we are grateful.
On Sunday, you’ll get to hear a little bit of the record performed live by Jehan O. Young and Norman Westberg, and have a glass of wine with us, and be around other awake people in the near-dark, and also take the record home with you if you’d like.
In response to Jess Barbagallo’s beautiful story, that he offered at our last listening party, I am going to read a little something from a new body of work called “Birds of Quarantine”. Maybe we’ll hear another little bit from Janine Renee Cunningham on Margaret Thatcher and 80s music of rebellion.
Like I said, the evening’s free but you can reserve here.
Here’s the album’s Bandcamp.
“This is a Rehearsal,” in Urban Omnibus
I wrote an article about performances of power onstage and at civic meetings. It encapsulates the thread in my work that layers government, theater, popular education, organizing and design. Special shout out to Mariana Mogilevich, Urban Omnibus’ editor extraordinaire and patient.
Last year, Mariana asked me to attend NYCHA’s annual meeting and look at it through the lens of performance. From there I added a visit to a conference of bureaucrats from around the world, focused on fighting impending autocracies. From there I was at a very rowdy production of Catarina, Or The Beauty of Killing Fascists, at BAM, right after the November election. I’m wrestling like we all are.
I recommend subscribing to Urban Omnibus. They make urbanity boisterous again (MUBA!)
Here’s more about the civic thread in my work!
Other folks
Here is another thing I recommend going to see this week:
HOW MUCH WATTAGE IS ONE HANDBREADTH OF WATER?
And one place to read about what to read:
See you soon!
Aaron