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I haven't been updating so much because I had to write this essay about the Whitney Biennial and then we had the table read of the movie Jos and I are writing and my brain sort of folded in on itself due to obsessing over fixing our blunders and so I had to not write anything for about 5 days, on any project. On Friday night, though, I went to Metrograph for a solo dinner and Meetka (hi Meetka!) said I should update my blog.

I feel like I don't have much to say because of all the writing recently, something that is surprising. I can manage to pull off completing a lot of work week to week, but apparently my ability to process my own experiences and write can be exhausted. I'm also in the process of preparing for the play in October, and that has been harrowing in its own way. I need to stop doing this thing where I put off scary new tasks till the very last minute.

In any case, my anxiety has crested, and I now feel primarily excited about the play.

Yesterday evening, I interviewed this young musician for a magazine. He lives quite close to me so I went to his apartment. I was a little nervous about this because in his other interviews he seemed either awkward or calculating. Like the kind of guy who just wants to make you squirm. But I got to his house, and he was very nice and much slighter than I'd thought from the photos. His house smelled intensely of incense and was sort of dim and there was a lot of diaspora-core decor around in a way that felt comforting, like my Aunt's old apartment in Queens. I should have asked him if he lived alone, because it would have been interesting if he, a twenty-something yr old producer, had chosen the wall-hangings.

We sat on the couch and chatted for about thirty minutes; I Am Cuba was on TV in the background, and I thought this was a perfect conveniently potent element of the encounter that I'd certainly include in the piece. We talked about interviews and architecture and, weirdly, church. I felt guilty that I'd been a little bit grumpy about going to meet him–not that he even knew–because he was really sweet and gracious.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm looking for some sign of Greatness in people when I meet them in passing; I'm so ready to put that on someone. Like wow, a genius! Even typing this, though, I know that isn't true. Most people are terribly dumb and/or dull and you can tell within a few minutes. This kid was interesting maybe because His Thing wasn't My Thing, nor was the way that he talked about his process entirely relatable. But the way he talked about what he wants from it all, that I felt deep sympathy for. Anyway, the whole thing felt somehow enriching; though it's still pretty unclear why. I hope that he gets everything he wants–which wasn't all that much. He primarily seemed to want to be left alone to make his music; I can relate to this. Though, recently, I've been questioning exactly how humble and for-the-love-of-the-game my outlook actually is. I want to be left alone, but I don't want to toil in obscurity.

I'll have to write the piece on him tonight, but right now I just want to draw shitty storyboard frames of this film idea I have had bouncing around my head for the last 3 or 4 months. I was having trouble writing it and I realized I should go back to paper and do some combination of drawing and writing. This happens so often to me that it's become frustrating when I have the realization that I should be writing not typing. Why do I still have to go through this process every time? With this film in particular it makes perfect sense; there is a lot of narration in it and I think I need to know what I'm looking at as I try to think about what anyone is saying. All very practical.

I borrowed Natasha's copy of Douglas Crimp's Before Pictures because he'd died the other day and I really had never read his writing. I'm enjoying it. I think I want to write more art criticism. It would all just be blog posts though, basically.