ZAPP as connector

the Zine Archive and Publishing Project is moving out of the Richard Hugo House. This is huge. For near-on ten years now, that's been a goal of ZAPP's, at times a casual, "wouldn't it be nice", at others a more pressing concern, but due to a variety of issues, resets, and general struggle I won't get into here (but may later) it hasn't happened til now.

This. Is. Huge.

It is not overestimating it to say that ZAPP has likely been the most important of places in my re-entry into Seattle. In 2009 I started volunteering weekly, while I was still living in Stanwood, working hanging Christmas Lights, at ZAPP's open hours. In 2010 I accepted an internship writing PR (which went through Hugo House) and helping co-ordinate volunteers. This culminated in my Internship Show, Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest, which re-sparked my interest in visual art (an interest that goes through it's own series of languishes and resets.) Many of the new, lasting friendships, artistic collaborations and  I've made have been through ZAPP-- I met Bryan Edenfield, without whom there'd be no book of Filthy Jerry Poems at ZAPP. I was in a writer's group with him, Rainey Warren, and Emily Wittenhagen the latter of whom gave me a job at the Hugo House Bar, which in turn helped me to get my foot in the door in Seattle's bar scene (From the OTHER side of the bar. please.) It's where I met Lindsey Tibbot, who'd go on to marry David Stone (both of whom put me up when a spot I was going to live fell through at the last minute.)If you factor in that employment as an outgrowth of ZAPP, I also met Marty, Brian McGuigan, Paul Nelson and many others not-too-indirectly, through ZAPP.

I'm super stoked to be reading at their Release Party. I'd say more but the Library is closing.

You can't win, how do you feel about that?

This is the song for yesterday, for today, maybe tomorrow. We'll hope to change up the soundtrack by the end of the week.

IF I weren't working tonight. . .

I would totally be at the Double Header hanging out with the readers and writers of Seattlish.
Like, a site that combines my much-increased-over-the-last-three-years city-planning/development nerdery with healthy sense of humor, diy sensibilities, feminism and a healthy love of drinking cheap beer? AND PUNS?

Someone was trying to target market me.
But I am working, so my liver is probably glad about that.

Lets talk about Snow some more!

When I walk outside into the snow, it's cool and all, and I'm glad I'm wearing boots, but whenever the weather does something here, its all I get to hear about from anyone.

January: Grinding to a nub!

Progress and loss.
The broken record on linear time: december feels like a year ago, this month feels like it just started.

"It is good to rejoice in our commonalities."

Over the weekend, Seattle Playwright's Collective mounted the fourth of the Medicine Ball series, in which I pick some poets, Dan Tarker picks some playwrights, they write to a theme, and the audience votes on which artform is superior. We started about 2 years ago, the voting thing has always been pretty tongue-in-cheek (winners get 2 buck chuck, losers get warm PBR) but it tends to be a hook that gets more folks in. Slams, etc. This time the Playwrights took it by 5 ballots over the course of a three day run.
The Medicine Ball is consistently different from all the other things I've been involved in putting together-- essentially it's introducing poetry into a theater context. In the past we've done staged readings, this time it was full staged, costumed, propped. Though it's a bit strange to be involved in such a conceptual way in such a physical undertaking ("hey guys! here's some poets! poets! write a thing, send it to these guys. see you at the show!") each time out the dialogue between playwriting and poeting seems to get more nuanced. Especially as we've got people hopping sides-- Robert Lashley wrote an incredibly powerful one act, and playwright Craig Kentworthy sent in a strong, multifaceted poem that worked on multiple levels (kind of funny they were working from the same prompt. Hmm.)
This time we also incorporated visual cues from local artists, specific word cues, and let the writers see the faces of the actors they'd be writing for. Interestingly, this led to the most serious Medicine Ball to date. There was plenty of humor, sure, but the overall tone of the night was contemplative, desperate, and punchy. I could go on about the specific choices made by writers and directors (though I gotta drop a shout out to the way Dan turned Ryan Johnson's surrealist pastiche into a helpless shrug on the ubiquity of oppressive masculinity) but ultimately, I was just stoked on the evening as a whole, and occasionally forgot I was even involved. That's one of the better parts of organizing, when you can just enjoy something as an audience member.
Of course, you get reminded reaal quick when it's time to strike the set. . .

I'll see your "do what you love" and raise you one "that's why they call it work, kid."

So lately a variety of people have posted this article about the culture of unpaid arts and academic work, and while Slate is increasingly becoming about as reliable and readable as Salon, the article (which was originally posted on Jacobin, natch) nicely articulates a lot of frustrations I have with the culture around writing, arts organizing, and "getting involved." The writer does a decent job of balancing practical and philosophical concerns, and while the author (wisely) doesn't propose a practical solution to the free-work/dismissal of labor problem, I like the ways-of-thinking suggestions in the last paragraph.

Because while a lot of the internship/volunteer/lowpay positions came into existence because of economic realities surrounding pursuits of artistic, spiritual, or intangible value, they are increasingly re-enforced by a sorta beatific, pie-in-the-sky mentality truly available to only a few. The human soul needs to be nourished, but folks tend to nourish the body first. So unlike nurses and mousetrap-makers, most people with any type of say, humanities degree, won't always have a market for their work.
I think the do-what-you-love-and-it-isn't-work paradigm ironically creates a self-love/self-loathing hamster wheel for artists, writers, designers, researchers, who don't feel they have any "real" skills, yet also see themselves as elevated by "pursuing their passions" after years of having their professors tell them to. (or you know, years of following the blog of an oil heiress who decided to quit her job and "make a living" selling necklaces made out of chicken feathers while practicing a self-invented form of yoga and tutting disapprovingly at those in the "rat race.")

There's a longer discussion here with regards to ideas about what it means to be "serious about your art" that tends to get caught up in these pinwheels as well.

At this point I've made an evolving, uneasy peace with ways I pursue my art, ways I pursue my livelihood, and how often the two do or don't intersect. Every individual has to do that on their own; I sort of figured on getting a Creative Writing Degree that bartending, or record store working (ha!) was going to figure heavily in my future.
This is why I roll my eyes at the precious snowflackes who complain that they just "aren't being fullfilled" or feel like they "just, you know, want something more. . ." from their work. I mean, if a job sucks, yeah, get outta there, go for the promotion, etc. but sometimes work is just, you know, work. And that's fine.
Necessary, even.