Hello y’all,

Thanks so much to all who came out for Abject Expressionism! I loved (hated) reading unedited, in-process work, talking with Ash (still a worm) and abusing the audience. Alex did a superb job with the music. Shout out to person who wore the #1 Incel mitt and, really, to everyone for your tolerance. I have another event coming up that I want to share in case you haven’t had enough for some reason: a reading and talk on Fri Dec 5 at 7PM at Up Up Books.

After an opening reading by Jessica Pedrosa, who wrote a fantastic book about her aunt’s time as the bassist for the punk band Germs, I’ll give a talk (with slides!) about challenging, experimental work and why I think it’s important to support stuff we understand or like as much as stuff we don’t.

The plan is to do this by talking through the choices I made while crafting Low. I’ve done quite a few interviews about my life as it appears in the book as well as its content more generally, but I haven’t spoken much about its evolution as a research-based, multidisciplinary project that uses text as its primary medium. The talk will include images of the art that inspired the essays, collages, and performance art instructions in the book.

I will also read the last essay in Low, “The Art of War,” an eleven-page paragraph of anarchic, braided data sets, art history, the literal Pl*dge of All*giance, and my own nervy, heartbroken thoughts as I commute through New York City. It takes 25 minutes to read through.

This will be the first—and likely the only—time I ever read it aloud (I refuse to excerpt it, so it’s hard to use for traditional readings). The event is free with the option to support my nonprofit publisher, Fonograf, in their Give Guide campaign so that they can keep putting out weird shit like Low. Would love to see you there <3