Year of the Sssssssssssnake
Let's go let's go let's go
Hellooooo Party People.
I got feedback on the frequency of (or the lack thereof) this Substack.
My long and infrequent posts aren’t necessarily products of thoughtful research and insights so the bottleneck isn’t process. Is short and more often better?
I was VERY bad at Twitter when it was semi-relevant. Short, sweet, and consistent is not my forté. Drawn out, embittered, and mercurial is my speed.
But I guess my fixation on liveness requires me to be a bit more rigorous about maintaining the immediacy of this newsletter. I would be a hypocrite for allowing a body of my work to lay dormant. Itallics. Emphasis. Itallics.
It’s the Year of the Snake. The Year of the WOOD Snake if that’s your thing.
A popular Japanese astrologer (despite his scammy looking choice of facewear, he’s quite good) says the year of the snake is all about fruition. When the plants you watered during the year of the dragon will bloom. The big question being: HAVE YOU BEEN WATERING THOSE PLANTS?
My EX(!)-roommate kept a bunch of dying(?) plants in our living room that I found deeply oppressive and depressing. Eventually, I stopped acknowledging their presence entirely. So in a literal sense, I unfortunately did not water a single plant in 2024.
It’s too bad that it’s starting to seem evident that the ones who were doing the most gardening last year were fascists.
I count the metaphorical plants in pots that I… think… I tended to last year. My fingers pressed into the soil can’t tell if it’s adequately moist or if my hands are just freezing. (Tangential fact: Did you know that humans don’t actually have the sensory receptors for ‘wetness’? We can only assess changes in temperature and infer wet/dry?)
Upon reflection, I don’t know how much of last year I actually “worked hard in an effective manner” vs “thrashed around trying to navigate overwhelm.” I’ll know the answer to this when opportunities either bloom or shrivel up. The thing I want to be more cognizant of is how we are surely entering a new heights of overwhelm and attention grabs weilded as tools that aid violence. I love information, I love learning, and I think that I can read it all and digest it all and feel it all, and do it all, all the time, ALL THE TIME, ALL-THE-TIME!!!!!!! But then I lose track of all the sunsets I didn’t even notice (sorry sunrise, my interest in you is significantly lower, nothing personal.)
So ironically, in the year of animal-known-for-swallowing-other-animals-whole, I am going bite size. Sustaining my spirit as resistance, I want to chew slowly so I don’t choke.
first president of japan newsssssss!
Our first show of the year is this SATURDAY, 1/25 at Rabbit Hole.
Our second show of the year is our FIRST SHOW OUTSIDE NEW YORK (ahhhhhhh we’re going #national!!!) in Philadelphia, PA. Philly!! We’re coming for ya! 2/27, location TBA!
Our third show of the year is our FIRST SHOW IN A FESTIVAL (omg so many firsts, how on brand!) at New Colossus Fest in New York’s Lower East Side, the first week of March. Date and Location TBA, and perhaps… some very good news will accompany this show!
Can’t believe we’ve been chugging along long enough for me to have done a SECOND New Year post. Thank you to all y’all who keep us going.
Always always BIG LOVE!
<3,
Non
