Weekly Zephyr #1: June 1st, 2017

Suzanne Duchamp, Scottish Espagnole 1920

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US WHERE ARE WE WHY A ZEPHYR

Hello. You're in my newsletter now! It's never been here before; it's a new structure. I've never been in here, either! What do we even do in a newsletter? I don't know! Here's what I do know: I like making a place, I like making my own scene and inviting people in. I always like thinking about floor pillows with people sitting around cross-legged with jugs of wine and candles. Caftans. Bare feet, sexy jewelry. But throwing an actual party is horrible. Bless those who do it, so generous and non-neurotic. So anyway we'll just be together here and I'll put some things out for you, and futz with the lights, and nod along to the music, and if you have some requests, you can tell me about them and I'll see about making your tiny newsletter dreams come true.

Why are you doing this instead of blogging? Don't you have a perfectly okay blog lying around?

I did have a blog. Technically I still do? Here it was in its original form. And here's the site I have now. What to do with it? I don't know. It feels like a sandwich board I can put out on the street but what am I selling? Never mind; you didn't come here to watch me ask myself that.

Here's how it came to be that we're in this newsletter together

First, some tough things happened a couple of years ago and I fell into a creative underworld and lay there for a good long time. It was okay as underworlds go (which is to say intermittently godforsaken and sometimes totally fine) and everybody falls into them sometimes.   And then this: We have an Airbnb space in our house and we had a very special guest And then this: In the wake of that visitation I talked to my people (many of you) and asked you things And after that some kind and friendly people sent me messages and then I got a hug from this miracle person I don't quite comprehend but I sure do love hadn't seen her in a few years and I was really up for that hug and it hit the spot like whoa   (and here's Russell Brand writing amusingly and also very well about the Amma experience)   and all of a sudden I was no longer in the underworld but above ground blinking in the sunshine and full of fresh energy and planning this newsletter  and driving home from Trader Joe's with dinner fixings on a balmy late afternoon and suddenly having an idea for a podcast! I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A PODCAST, OH MY GOD. I BELIEVE IN IT VERY MUCH. I have to quietly work on this idea for a good while before I say more about it. Much to think about and learn and develop.  (Do you have a podcast? What is it?)

By the way, I feel like the idea for this podcast was floating in the air about three feet above the pavement on 15th Avenue Northeast right there among the leafy trees and dappled sun, right there by the Pizza Hut. It just arrived in my brain all of a sudden with such force and surety. Thank god I was the person who drove through the idea and caught it. Some asshole could have caught it and thrown it in the garbage, not knowing what it was. I know I'm talking too much about this thing that I'm not even saying what it is. It's just part of the overall freed-up creative energy deal.

(BUT A ZEPHYR, WHY REMEMBER WE WANTED TO KNOW)

And now the idea of coming here and just talking to you freely and showing you things feels so fun. A heaviness and paralysis has left the building and a lightness and quick-moving feeling is here—hence the name The Weekly Zephyr. A newsletter feels airier than a blog, too. It travels. It's not stuck. I don't know; I just like it. I blogged for so long. Even the word: BLOG. It's like a LOG. So heavy. A letter is light!   Anyway.

The first thing of anything is always weird. Introductions, vamping. Next time we'll be in more of a groove. This is like the first hour of a party where we're all awkward standing by the goat cheese and nobody's tipsy yet.

Meanwhile, the world!

1. First of all, if you're in Seattle, hurry and see if you can get a ticket to this!

LANE 1974 This Saturday afternoon, June 3rd, at the Uptown Cinema!  Read this interview in The Stranger with genius director and beautiful human I'm proud to call my friend, the one and only SJ Chiro

(Disclosure: I'm in this movie a little tiny bit at the end)

2.  Art Lande is the goddamn greatest. I'd never listened to him before he was in my house and then after my late-night tarot reading I listened to this LSD Takes a Holiday  and laugh-cried.

One great thing he told me was, in essence, this: We're always spending all this time wondering if the other people think we're ugly or beautiful and also wondering if the other people are kind or dangerous. Instead: Just do what you do without worrying if you're ugly or beautiful. And if you're wondering if somebody is kind or dangerous, ask them to tell you what's really true. (Not in those words, necessarily, but ask.) So much needless hiding and curling up into a protective ball can be avoided if we get confirmation about the thing we've secretly decided, and then we can be with each other better. It would truly be something if I tried this out myself. I've lost lots of people that I decided were dangerous without checking. I mean, they may or may not have been, but I should have checked. Some of them were surely perfectly kind and it was just me.

More music from Art Lande and Rubisa Patrol:  A Monk in His Simple Room  And here's this: The Art Tarot: A Deck Maker's Interview with Art Lande  And this: The deck itself

(so cool) (excellent for getting the feel of tarot and finding a simple way to the heart of it) (simple in the best way, you get it)

3. If you don't know what to read right now, now you do, because you're going to read Love and Trouble by Claire Dederer while you drink whatever the Astro Poets think you should have been drinking in May and eat whatever cheese they think you should have been eating in April and don't worry, they know it's June, which cosmically speaking is apparently time for pie

And now, about shoes:

Listen to me. Do you understand that you could very possibly be buying children's shoes for yourself? Are your feet size 11 or smaller if you wear women's shoes and size 9 or smaller if you wear men's shoes?  Size chart  I just came to properly understand this and I'm deep in an aha! season about it. Do you know that so many children's shoes are very cool and quite inexpensive and don't look like your best friend is a ladybug? I can't stop freaking out. I'm going to buy sandals soon. Maybe these for work on a summer's day or these for the beach OR BOTH BECAUSE THEY'RE CHILDREN'S SHOES.   The end.