NAME OF THE ROSE / THE MISCALCULATED EGG / LINKS

OK you guys I got the lead out and put some NEW GUYS up on the storefront. I make these guys by hand, without a pattern, so each one comes out different, each is really one of a kind, although they have siblings, cousins, and strange bedfellows. It’s so nice to finish them up and see them all in a pile and it’s even better to send them out into the world. Putting them online gives me one more point of attachment, which is that I have to name them all. I don’t usually do this at crafts fairs and such, where they just climb over each other in a large cardboard box and you’re like “OOOOH, THAT ONE!” and I’m like “This one?” and you’re like “THAAAAT ONE!!!”. Online everything has to have a name for the database. And isn’t that the way of the world these days? Everything’s gotta be denotated and tallied.... You can’t spell “database” without “abase” (just made that up). But then again it is so fun to name these guys. And their names are just like your name-- just an approximation. Anyway check it out, I really went to town. They’re in the castle storefront, which is tacked to the outside of the castle, to the right of the door. I’ll put the link below.

ALSO I want to say THANK YOU to everyone that wrote in comments and sent emails about last week’s egg blast to recommend good movies where there’s a giant egg, but ESPECIALLY those who wrote in to say “why are you waiting 10 days for these pickled eggs”. You are absolutely right. I started a new batch on Sunday morning and I tried them yesterday and they were almost there, and then I tried one just now (I’m writing this at 10:38am Tuesday) and it was almost almost there. So now my recipe is “probably start eating them the next day”.

links / misc

• Fujichia storefront is here: [https://www.fujichia.com/store/]

• if you have any more thoughts on eggs let’s keep them all in the same place OK? [egg comments]

• I messed up and didn’t blast this out for Halloween but long time friend of the castle Dan Wars made a really nice LONNNNNG 4 hour Halloween video mix tape to project on the wall of your crypt or discothéque. There’s no audio, it’s assumed you’re jamming tunes of your own. Put it on in the background to keep the spirit rolling, or save this link for the next time someone leaves a computer unattended. Library, Apple Store, etc.. [YouTube, 4 hours]

• BlueSky is like the methadone of Twitter, I like it but I’m honestly just there to yap at like 7 or 8 people, not have a discourse about popular movies or tech stocks or whatever. If anyone’s on there I want to draw attention to my favorite account, which is Flan’s reposting of this one book about scarecrows. You don’t have to have an account to scroll through and be like “oh ya this is the good stuff.” [ephemeralfolk.bsky.social]

• Holiday markets are just starting to be announced-- so far I’m signed up to be at Sawyer’s on Broadway on the 6th, the Dirt Palace in Providence on the 19th, and the Speed Shop on the 20th, and that’s all in Providence. If there’s anything going on the weekend of the 11th 12th 13th, let me know!

HELL COST / ANGEL NUMBER EGG / EGG PROUD AND GLOWED UP / DEVIL'S NIGHT / LIST OF PEOPLE (COMPLETE) / EGG GALLERY / PICKLED EGG RECIPE / MISC

I went to the pastry store and the grocery store yesterday, and in both places my total was $11.34. The same price twice in a day feels out of the ordinary but this number?? So close to Halloween???? “HELL” I said to the chatty clerk at the grocery store. “Look at it upside down and it says ‘he.ll’”. She told me that back in the pager era her personal pager code was 663. “EGG” I said immediately, and she smiled. I don’t think she was trying to protect me from evil influence by using a protective spell, but that’s how I felt, like it was a blessing, or a benediction. We were both laughing.

“Alas, Hell...”

“Yes, but on the other hand, Egg.”

[both smile]

-- excerpt from a play

Egg is a great spell, a great image for anyone that needs one. The High Priestess of the Tarot of Marseilles sits on one, that’s one of my favorite little details. Though in the Rider Waite they moved the egg to her Egyptian hat:

I didn’t say anything about any of this to the guy at the pastry store-- that encounter happened after the events of the grocery store and I was already armed with the power of the image of the egg. “This is no problem” I thought when the screen flashed HELL, though I want to be absolutely clear that I did not say this out loud. Me and the pastry person had a completely normal brief conversation about something else, completely within reason. I believe we discussed pastries.

Egg is kind of a Halloween symbol, in that you huck them at people on the night of (or in some cultures the night before). Am I right in thinking it’s not about hitting someone you don’t like with an egg, but just about the devilish act of throwing one? Like you’d egg a friend or a stranger, a nerd or a jock, a babe, hunk, grom, toad, prep, metalhead, meatball, family, punk rock, the business man...? Am I way off in thinking this is an expression of joie de vivre? Or anyway that it’s more Old Testament than New?

I’m going to stop short of saying that getting egged is a blessing, but-- if you’re feeling haunted this Halloween, moreso than usual, or in a way you don’t appreciate; or someone mentions Hell and it makes you feel unbalanced, here’s a number spell for you:

“ 663 / EGG “

Egg Gallery

painting by Tadanori Yokoo, via a scanned book from Internet Archive, with a folded page

one from beloved artist and counterfeiter Rene Magritte

I do this sometimes, an “Amber Moon”.

I do this too. Cut the beets with a mandolin if you have one but for God’s sake be careful!

detail from Bosch

detail from the first paragraph of Don Quixote:

I tore my house apart looking for this footnote to the Quixote. Luckily I’ve been thinking about “tripe and trouble” / “grace of God” / “chocolate de la Mancha” since I was 14 years old and I of course still have the copy I read at that time, which seems to be the only edition with this footnote. The version freely available online omits this part, leaving it completely unclear what he ate on Saturday or if he even ever had an egg at all.

????

If your version says something else (or if you have a favorite DQ translation) please let me know! Mine is the Walter Starkie but only because of this one footnote.

Links / Misc

• I’ve got a couple crafts fairs coming up in December but I’ll be putting some stuffed animals (including new designs) up on the website starting NEXT WEEK so look for that next Tuesday! The drop’s going to be 11am so set an alarm if you want a chance to grab rare colorways.

• If you have a favorite movie with a huge or otherwise extraordinary egg, and it ISN’T Howard The Duck, please let me know in the comments.

• I might post more eggs next week, get your complaints lined up...

• leave me a message in the castle! [comments section]

COZY CREEPS / NO ONE SAYS “CREPUSCULAR DEMIMONDE” MORE THAN ME / MOVIES / LINKS

I was telling someone earlier that I like when things are spooky but I don’t want to be jump-scared. Like I want to go to a wax museum (where I look at ghoulish automatons), but I don’t want to go to a haunted house (where teenagers shout at me). I don’t want to go on a tense psychological hellride-- I’m already on a tense psychological hellride. I want to see eerie figures romp in merriment because it helps me feel like this world is for me too.

So anyway for this week I went through my movie notes and picked out a few movies I’ve seen recently that are spooky but not scary. They aren’t weak and “for kids”, they’re just cozy, like a Hot Toddy. Maybe some of these are kind of boring??? Would also be good for just having on at a party with the volume on zero.

If you have a favorite spooky movie with either lots of colored lights in it, OR ghoulies partying in a crepuscular demimonde, PLEASE leave a comment! Also what are we doing this Halloween? I don’t have plans yet.

• Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) - Mario Bava directs a masterclass in colored lights and mist for this movie about a beefy hunk traipsing through the underworld. There’s crypts, ghoulies, rock monsters, stalactites, bubbling lava, cobwebs, moving walls that crush you, main characters getting stretched out on the rack, everything you could want, and it all looks amazing. Even the regular shots give you some flavor of colored light bouncing off a cheekbone. Bodybuilder Reg Park plays Hercules, he was Mr Universe 1951 1958 and 1965. Christopher Lee plays the baddie and he simmers of course. If you watch this and then want to buy some colored gels to put over the clip lights in your house there’s a few people selling rainbow packs on eBay for $20, which should be fine as long as you only use 2 or 3 per room and pick the combinations well. That’s a small price to pay for even a demitasse of Bava allure.

• Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) - A bunch of neighborhood ghoulies find their turf invaded by a Babylonian diety (based on Pazuzu??) and team up to fight him off. If you’re like me and you’ve always longed for a crepuscular demimonde where non-evil sprites collide in merriment, I bid you welcome. And if your special interest is Babylonian deities and you wish the guy from Exorcist was in more movies, ahhhhhhhh get in here. There’s a lot of weird dudes from Japanese folklore here and no one gets a backstory or any explication, which this reviewer finds DIGNIFIED. Spooky and comfy, I could picture having this on tape and falling asleep to it over and over again. File under: cantina guys. I also LOVED Takashi Miike’s Great Yokai War (2005).

• Retribution (1987) - wow, I loved it!!! VERY cool 1980s “scuzzy city” movie but it’s LA not New York, so instead of taking subways in the wet night our hero takes buses and cabs in the charitable light of a pleasant afternoon. And instead of being possessed by a demon it’s just like, trauma bouncing through the system. CW: suicide, but it isn’t successful, and afterwards his friends at the fleabag hotel throw him a VERY cool surprise party with barrelhouse piano music and indoor motorcycles. Party hats, streamers, confetti, the works! His girl is a sex worker and no one’s upset about it. They get stoned and go to an art gallery, and their relationship seems honest and real. Movies where the guy is a painter. Movies where babes wear zebra print. Movies where it’s Halloween. There’s some cool gore. No punks per se but they do go to a cool reggae club. Art comics fans: his paintings kind of look like Jerry Moriarty’s. The credits say “paintings by Barry Fahr”-- I looked him up and he didn’t do a lot of paintings for movies but he’s a professor at Otis College in LA and his students absolutely love him.

• Inferno (1980) - Hell yeah. If you like evil buildings, colored light bulbs, wet silk, cats, candleabras, weird valets, and horrible hands that kill, buckle up. If you hate all those things or you need things to make sense in an extremely basic and rational way, pass. Personally I loved it. There’s a few cool basements in this, including one that’s inexplicably under water. There’s really a lot of inexplicable in this, hopefully you can groove on that. OK I’m going to issue a Content Warning in case someone I know wants to get high and watch this-- there’s a part where a guy drowns a bunch of cats in a bag, that might spin you out. Immediately after that he’s getting eaten alive by rats though, that kind of turns it around. You can’t miss it because he goes “ahhhh! I’m being eaten alive by rats!”. Again, I loved it. 2 questions though: 1, was this an inspiration for Ghostbusters? 2, Why did they hover over a “Gurdjieff lived here” plaque in front of the evil building? Did Argento have a bone to pick with the Fourth Way crowd? Or were they just throwing more sauce on the landscape?

• Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) - Growing up my video rental place was an incredible independent store with an honest to god ARTHOUSE section, so as a teen I was already exposed to the movies of Jan Svankmeyer. Luckily they didn’t have this one because I don’t know if I’d want to watch this in a house where my mom might walk in the room at any moment and say “what are you watching”. Although honestly the perversion in this is so wholesome I could see myself replying plainly “all these people have these elaborate jerk-off rituals” “oh. why is that guy making a chicken mask?” “I don’t know, I think it just freaks him out”. There are fantasies of power and domination but they’re so regular that the whole thing comes across as cute. Oftentimes in a freaky movie there’s a power dynamic and the filmmaker uses their skill to conscript the audience into alignment with the powerful. I don’t like that. I don’t want to build a world, even a temporary one, where people have to do what I tell them to. This movie invites me into a world where everyone has some weird thing that freaks them out, and that’s a much better scene for me. Also this movie has the energy of “getting ready for the big show”, which I LOVE. This isn’t really spooky but I’m adding this to the Halloween playlist because the whole movie is about getting your costume ready.

  I’m sure I’ve said “Amélie for perverts” before but this really is that. Although Amélie is also Amélie for perverts. Shoutout to Lavender for the recommendation and shoutout to Rob Newton at Starship Video, which honestly changed the course of my life.

• The Girl on the Broomstick (1972) - wow, if you’re looking for a whimsical 1970s Czechoslovakian movie about a cute teen witch, this is the one. I loved it. great vibe all the way through, all the witches and warlocks looked cool and imaginative, a perfect little Halloween romp for all ages.

• Face Like a Frog (1988) - absolutely perfect 5 minute “fun nightmare” from Sally Cruikshank where everything blinks, grins, flirts, eats you, then morphs into something else that blinks, grins, flirts, and eats you. Danny Elfman score of course. Always looking for more of this 80-90s gothic oompah / cocktail expressionist crayola bold colorway scene so if you catch a good one please leave a note. What do you call this, Elfmania? New Caligari? Memphis Bleak? This is on youtube and vimeo, uploaded by Sally herself, and it looks like she reads the comments so go ahead and tell her you love her.

links / misc

• Face Like A Frog [YouTube, 5min]

• all my movie notes can be ready in the Movie Diary, which is in the TV room on the second floor of the castle at Fujichia.com. Take the stairs up and it’s on the left. The Movie Diary contain short reviews of EVERY movie I’ve seen (even the clunkers) since January 25 2019.

• I’m playing a show in Providence on Sunday (which is maybe LATER TODAY), it’s going to be an old-time PUMPKIN PARTY, hosted by Sam from Baby;Baby! Potluck, pumpkin carving, music... for more info ask a pumpkin...

WOULDN'T IT BE NICE / ARTISANAL HTML / BELL'S THEOREM / WHEN A PICTURE OF THE THING IS THE THING ITSELF / DIAGONAL WANDERINGS / LINKS

In the grand staircase of the castle hangs a modernist chandelier. Longtime visitors may recall that this beautiful piece used to hang in the ballroom, but with the transition of that space from a grand meeting hall to an art gallery, it was deemed necessary to install more mutable and inconspicuous track lighting, and move the chandelier to a place where it could be appreciated. Or maybe it wasn’t deemed necessary but it was deemed something. It was deemed would-be-nice-if-it’s-not-too-much-trouble. It wasn’t any trouble at all.

The chandelier is made of over 15 absolutely positioned divs, hanging from a silver rod. These custom, bespoke, artisanal html elements slowly spin, and the whole thing inevitably swings slightly from side to side due to movement in the castle. If there’s no one there does it still sway from side to side? I’m going to go ahead and say maybe, and then continue to think about this (and related questions) until the end of my life.

The important thing here (I think) is that the chandelier is a bridge between something that’s a representation of a thing and something that is the thing itself. The stairs in the stairwell, to be quite honest, are just a suggestion of stairs, and the doors are just drawings of doors. The chandelier is a drawing of photons scattering through rectangular plexiglass, but at the same time, it really is photons scattering through rectangular plexiglass! Unless you’re looking at it through an e-ink display, or a printout on a piece of paper. To put it another way, if you’re in the dark in your room, and you turn on your computer and behold the chandelier, there’s going to be more light in the room than there was before. It really and truly is a lamp! It might not be enough to read by, but who wants to read in the stairwell? There isn’t even a place to sit.

The other stairwell news is that I have now instigated keypad control for scrolling:

Instead of the clunky compass rose we had before, you can now zip around the stairs like a (old, antique) video game (that few children would like). You can also use the directional keys, but that doesn’t give you a diagonal option. Is this the first website in history to scroll on the diagonal???? It might be!!! Scholars please log in.

Links / Misc

• To visit the stairwell, go to the entryway of the castle and click on the stairs. Or click here and be transported immediately: [link]

• While in the stairwell, check out Greg Harvester’s photo show in the ballroom, it’s on the second floor, first door on the right side, just before the bathroom. The previous show, by Tom Bubul, has been archived in a brand new dollhouse just outside the gallery door. All gallery shows will be archived here from now on, I think it’s a really elegant solution.

• Maybe you missed it last week but we’re still doing these wild shirts for a minute-- probably going to take orders for another week then move to some kind of Halloween design. :)))) [fujichia storefront]

• Work in the castle is supported by readers like you! Join the Fujichia Feast Society for just $6 a month and get weekly emails, a quarterly zine, a very cool membership card, stickers, 10% all Fujichia products, and a small replica of the castle for your actual mantle. [link]

  We are currently at 43.7% of our goal, I would love to hit 50% before Halloween!!! I have my own dashboard for this subscription drive and my motivational spectrum has been on green for EVER, let’s push to CYAN at LEAST!

• OK I didn’t want to put anyone on blast but while we’re talking about castle news, the mirror in between the game room and the movie room has been on the fritz, can we get someone on that?? It’s not a big deal (you just have to tap it) but I’m worried it might be endemic of a larger issue. Also it’s SO DUSTY!!!

• leave me a comment in the castle :) [comments]

THEY'RE CLASSICS FOR A REASON / LINKS

New shirt on the storefront!! I don’t need to say much about this other than yes, this is an Ernie Bushmiller comic alongside a quote from the artist Bruce Nauman.

Bushmiller is known for his comic strip “Nancy”, although this was made for a cartoonist’s trade publication. Bruce Nauman is an American artist who “seems to be fascinated by the nature of communication and language’s inherent problems, as well as the role of the artist as supposed communicator and manipulator of visual symbols” (wikipedia).

Bushmiller’s design was widely bootlegged on a variety of novelty items, and this shirt carries on in that disreputable tradition. My combo design is a slight revision of this same design I made for my junk shop in 2006. All orders I get this week will be printed next Monday and shipped out Tuesday.

Shirts are printed in black on “natural” color (unbleached) Gildan 100% cotton shirts. This would be a great shirt to tie-dye, or stain with spaghetti sauce, engine grease, and good old-fashioned dirt, or simply to wear for years until it’s as thin as chiffon.

[click here to buy this in the Fujichia storefront]

links / misc

• members of the Fujichia Feast Society get 10% off this shirt and all Fujichia products! Membership is $6 a month and you also get weekly emails, a quarterly zine, a patch, stickers, and more! To sign up today, use the following link: [Fujichia Feast Society]. Members: you should’ve got your discount code by email.

• I’m going to be selling stuffed animals at the Steel Yard Iron Pour this Saturday, October 3, from 11 to 4pm. They’ll be melting iron in large crucibles and pouring it into molds. That’s worth checking out in itself. Then there’s an arts market too, with Mary Marker, Mikey Knives, me, and who else I don’t know. The Steel Yard is at 27 Sims Ave Providence RI. Website isn’t super updated but that’s here: [thesteelyard.org]

• Earlier on Saturday, or at the same time, go see Mickey Zacchilli’s art show at the Speed Shop. She’ll have drawings on display and also plant cuttings for sale.

• Here’s our most pre-eminent Bushmiller scholar, Mark Newgarden, writing about this strip for the Comics Journal in 2019: [A Brief History of Ernie Bushmiller’s Dirtiest Comic Strip]

• [Bruce Nauman on wikipedia]

• [Ernie Bushmiller on wikipedia]

• as always, leave a comment in the castle! [comments] :)

EMERALD FENCE / HACKBERRY GALL / I AM BUT AN EGG / LEFT BEHIND 1 / LIST OF FOOD / LEFT BEHIND 2 / LINKS

I spent the last two weeks at an artists residency at TPH in Minneapolis MN. This is my report.

The house has a high wooden fence in front and a small brick courtyard on the side. The fence is painted emerald green, and the emerald effect is enhanced by an uneven paint job that makes it appear deep and luminous like an actual gemstone and not at all organic. The bricks are kind of wavy due to years of frost and also because of a big tree sending roots through the dirt below. The tree is on the property and I’d consider it the house’s tree. The tree is a hackberry, and it’s infested with galls. During my residency I sat under this tree, in the courtyard, at a small café table, a lot.

Galls are small abnormal growths of plant tissues caused by some type of parasite, in this case I believe it’s Hackberry psyllids. They lay their eggs on the leafs and the eggs trick the plant, using chemical signals, into growing a little protective shell over the egg. Each type of gall-producing insect is specific to a type of tree, with each species speaking different chemical spells that affect the trees in different ways, producing different types of growths, different types of houses for different types of egg. It’s a great system. The tree in Tom’s yard seems to be affected only in the leaves, which are covered in little rice krispies from which a nymph emerged. When I got there in early September the courtyard was already covered in dead leaves and I raked them to the side, partly just to exert some control over the space, partly because the galls grossed me out.

Something I really enjoyed about the residency was just living there, accepting “here’s my little house” as a reality, living a life not my own. As an example: the people who were here the month before left some food in the fridge, and I really liked eating it. They bought some avocados that didn’t ripen in time for them, but were perfect for me. There was a big bag of Costco house brand coffee, which I drank freely, mixing in a little pinch of cloves from the spice drawer. A can of black beans, some tortillas, some salsa. They bought a jar of pasta sauce and never even opened it, plus 2 different kinds of parmesan cheese. A bag of frozen blueberries. I went out and bought pasta for the sauce, soy milk for the coffee, and yogurt for the blueberries. When I left I left even more tortillas, an onion, some garlic, and half a jar of peanut butter.

I would love to think that while I was in the residency I was an egg, and I exuded some type of chemical that caused my host to form a protective barrier around me. Don’t get me wrong, I am an egg, I just don’t know if my chemicals are so in tune with the host, or that they work at the house level. More likely I’m more of a social contagion. Still, I think my chemicals changed the house a little bit. At the very least I left behind a funny shape that might intrigue some and yuck others out.

In addition to the misc food items, here are the books I got in Minneapolis but left behind for lack of bag space. Until me, the house had no books at all. Now there’s only these ones. They’re on a shelf near the stairs, on the way to the bathroom.

Little Lulu #229 - someone wrote “#229” in magic marker on the cover, indicating that they DON’T care about the physical condition of the books, but they DO care about making sure they have every issue. Respect to the reader! NB: This is from after John Stanley’s divine run on the series.

The Chocolate Cupid Killings by JoAnna Carl - there are a few mystery novel serieses with a food theme, but this one dials it in further, following chocolatier and chocoholic Lee McKinney Woodyard as she must solve a murder in her off-season coastal community while describing various chocolates in sumptuous detail. Got this out of the neighbor’s trash in the alley behind Raisin Bird’s house.

ZAP! Ray Gun Classics - I got this slender photobook because I’m perculating a ray gun concept at the moment, but then I remembered Missy Elliot saying that when her and Timbaland went in the studio for “Under Construction” they didn’t listen to anyone else’s music. And that record was a smash hit. I don’t want ray gun aficianados praising my ray gun project for its fidelity to existing ray guns, I want to succeed the same way Missy did: inventive production, playful eroticism, and a commanding presence on the microphone. Got this out of a little free library, to which it might one day return.

Starchild by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson - no idea here, I just think it’s nice to have something around that’s about glorious worldlets of crystal where rebels from machine-bound Earth can find refuge from the inexorable Plan Of Man with its Body Bank and Programmed Living. I guess I’m just a romantic. Bought this from a store ($1)

Wedding Crashers DVD - I found a little free library with 20 copies of this inside, including the theatrical release, the unrated version, the uncorked edition, the widescreen version, and the fullscreen version (pan and scan). Then a half block away there was another little free library with 30 copies and then a bag in front with 20 more. I asked around and the answer to this mystery is that it was someone’s project, and now they’re done. They were trying to get 1000 copies together. I’m not sure if they did but I salute them for turning the page on this one. I wasn’t paying attention to which one I got and it was the “uncorked edition”, which I’m thinking is one with the deleted scenes undeleted. I don’t know if I could watch this without thinking “I bet this scene got deleted” anytime the energy dips.

Oscar Levant “The Memoirs of an Amnesiac” AND “the Unimportance of Being Oscar” - long time readers may have clocked my fascination with Oscar Levant, who some have described as “a wincing boglin” in movies like the Band Wagon (1953) and An American In Paris (1951). He was also an extremely popular concert pianist who studied with Schoenberg, and a celebrated wit. After reading the first couple chapters of his first memoir it seems like maybe he was also the first high-profile guy with OCD? Or like the first one where that was his brand. I probably should’ve only got the first one but having both really adds to the mise en scène.

Nancy Drew #41, the Clue Of The Whistling Bagpipes - At some point in the life of this residency program, someone’s going to be like “what’s the deal with these books” and read a couple pages, or at least flip through and look at the illustrations. Maybe it’s rainy and nothing’s going on, maybe it’s cold and they want something to read in the bath. “Actually this is kinda good” they’ll say. They’ll be right.

links / misc

• Tom’s residency is not at the moment taking applications but for more info on Tom, check out his informative website at [www.tombubul.info]

• I know someone’s going to ask me about the books I didn’t leave behind, but there’s nothing too noteable, other than I FINALLY got Vol 2 of Gershon Legman’s “Rationale of the Dirty Joke”. Vol 1 has “the clean dirty jokes”, and Vol 2 has “the dirty dirty jokes”. Legman also claims to be the person who introduced origami to the west, but that’s a big time “[citation needed]”. [wikipedia: Gershon Legman]

• Big thanks to the MN crew, I had a really nice time. For their contributions to a very nice time, this castle officially recognizes Tom, Flan, NJ, Raisin Bird, Julia, Shea’la, BVS, Patricia, Colleen, Lee, Hannah, Kenny Basil, Shivaun, “The Architect”, the whole team at Ax Man, the red squirrel I saw on the walk to Tommy’s, and the guy from Twin Cities Magic.

• comments or concerns? leave a message in the castle: [comment on this post] :)

MISSING GOO / NO HOLOGRAMS NO HYDRAULICS NO RARES / HAUNTED PROMISE / SCARECROW COMPETITION / REPTILE HOUSE / A PICTURE OF ME AT PEACE BETWEEN THE ALIEN AND THE READER / THE OLDE MILL / ROOT BEER FLOAT / THE MIRACLE OF BIRTH CENTER / NO BETS / LUTHERAN BASEMENT COFFEE / UP AND COMING DINOSAUR SKELETONS / BUTTERFLY HOUSE / FRIED DOUGH AT LAST / LINKS

Flan came and got me around noon on Sunday and on Raisin Bird’s suggestion, we drove to a neighborhood near the fair, then took the bus in. “Is the bus free?” Flan asked the bus driver and he said “ahhh, it’s... kinda not”. His demeanor was so light and handwavey that we just sat down. No problem. No one on the bus was particularly revved up in spirit but it was nice to look around and think “everyone here is on their way to a good time”. The bus dumped us out and we followed the throng.

First Food

First thing I got was an iced coffee, which was fine. I was hoping that the fair’s exuberant obsession with things that are dunked, stuffed, powdered, or festooned would apply to the iced coffee as well, but it was pretty regular. No chocolate drizzles, not even whipped cream! I made a note that there’s a gap in the market out here for that. The kid who brought the coffee was definitely high, which I appreciated. He wasn’t high like “huh?”, he was high like “ahhhhhahaha check it out: I’m gonna let you pour the cream. So you can get it perfect :) :)”. I said cheers mate, he said Hell yeah.

Creative Practices Center

Saw some nice quilts and handmade goods but the thing that really made me wow was the coffee cake section. Look at this:

I guess I’m wowwing for lack of wow? What am I looking for here, crumb structure? Proximity to a childhood ideal? It’s beautiful to win a prize for something plain and nice. No holograms, no hydraulics, no gold flake, no rare ingredients at all. Jeez, imagine ribboning for a coffee cake at the Minnesota state fair-- I would never shut up about it. I’m still saying “award winning writer” and that was in 2006 (”New England Art Award” representing all of New England but not Connecticut).

Haunted Mansion

I told BVS that I’d hit the haunted mansion, so I did, even though neither me nor Flan want to be approached by malevolent energies, even in jest. I was hoping it would be more like a wax museum than an actor-led experience, but it was a mix of the two. I ended up running through the displays when I would’ve rather looked around, it’s really unfortunate. I didn’t get a good look at the alien autopsy because I didn’t want a clown to touch me.

I bet that’s the best job in the fair, being the scare staff-- one kid said “boogety boo” to me, that’s incredible. It worked too, I shrieked. I’m an easy mark. The actual scariest thing in the place though, was how dark it was. I was worried I was going to smack my head on a stanchion and get trampled by fair goers unawares. “He seemed too beautiful to be real” say mournful stompers. Didn’t happen though! Phew!

Scarecrow

From there we went to the scarecrow competition. Flan made a scarecrow for this and I’ll cut the tension and tell you straight away: she didn’t win, though she deserves every accolade. She’s dropping a zine on this so I’ll withhold my takes here. There were a lot that I liked. Some people just got a mannequin and painted it, which I feel is against the spirit of the thing. But actually the spirit of the thing is that no one is refused entry for lack of finesse.

Reptile House

When we went in and saw how small the house itself was, I felt like maybe it wasn’t worth the price of admission. But then we got very close to some huge snakes and that was special.

Key Lime Pie Beer

Feeling good I got this silly beer at a large tent blasting entry-level reggae. There was a candy-dusted rim doing much of the flavor lifting but I didn’t mind, that’s a great idea (note). I made Flan take my picture because I really felt like I was having a personal moment. I don’t usually like having my picture taken but I’m practicing getting better at it, and I like to get one when I’m feeling especially beatific. This is nice:

The Olde Mill

This is a dark ride where you float in a little boat in complete darkness. Occasionally you encounter plywood dioramas of leprechauns but most of the time you’re in the type of dark that feels illegal in the business domain of American amusement. I am certain that the original concept here is a “Tunnel Of Love” type ride, where you and your sweetie du jour neck for 5 minutes, then suddenly and just for a second the river winds back out in public and everyone laughs at you, and then you have one more minute in the dark. Then you hastily comb your tousled hair and return to the uptight 1950s world that your parents created. It is also good for platonic adults, we laughed a lot on some “this is it????” type shit. I loved it. I’ve never done DMT so I can’t compare but from the literature it seems like there’s some kind of connection there-- darkness, leprechauns, you’re immobilized with the feeling of gently drifting forward along a subterranean river...

Root Beer Float

Flan wanted vegan soft serve so we seeked it out. I got a root beer float, which rocked. The fair had a LOT of dank fusion, like Hmong corndogs or deep fried kim chi cheese balls, and a lot of pickle stuff, like deep fried pickles stuffed with pork somehow and on a stick of course. These nightmarish repasts took up a lot of the fair’s promotional bandwidth, and the lines were Star Wars long. No disrespect! I like when food veers into dreamlike horror, but I’m neither a pork head nor a line guy so I mostly abstained from the novel entries. If you haven’t had a root beer float in a while you really gotta go for it.

Miracle Of Birth Center

Flan wouldn’t tell me what this was, and I tried not to imagine. But then I got one whiff and it was clear-- this building is full of farm animals under duress. Cows, sheep, and pigs, as pregnant as a pause in a major monologue, and really ready to go. Flan said last time she was there she saw one slide right out. For me, as soon as I crossed the threshold I felt all my food fighting. I made a cursory examination, followed by several deep draughts of fresh air in a nearby pavilion.

Horse Thing

We rested our weary souls in the colisseum, where cowgirls rode their horses slalom through poles, and boy-girl teams galloped side-by-side on a straight track, clutching a kerchief between them. I don’t really follow sports but I love to drop in on a novel sport and try to figure out the merits of each player’s style. I was hoping there’d be an opportunity for me and Flan to place bets (informally, against each other), because that’s a quick way to harness attention. But no one was going head to head, everyone was racing against the clock. So we cheered everyone, which is really no problem at all.

Swedish Egg Coffee

I saw “Swedish Egg Coffee” and I thought, OK, here’s my decadent moment. And also, here’s the food of my people. But then I got it and wow, I don’t know why I allowed “Swedish” and “decadence” to co-exist in my mind. This is NOT a coffee with a rich eggy froth on top, this is straight up Lutheran basement coffee. Smooth, kinda weak... so regular! I like it but this is not something you buy, this is something you have at a 12 step meeting. This is what the cops are drinking on a stakeout in a movie from the 70s. No regrets though.

Dinosaur Thing

This was cool but I wish I wrote down the name of this one dinosaur, it was like “gigundosaurus” or “bazoombasaurus” or something. All of the dinos in the exhibit were sleepers, with nary a Jurassic Park alumnus in the mix. Only the most astute 8 year old has ever heard these names. Kinda felt like going to a record fair and everyone’s talking about some z-grade garage rock band like they’re better than the Sonics, but then you have to step back and realize that these people have listened to the Sonics record 100 million times and it’s just wallpaper to them at this point-- they need new details to dial in on. That said, the t-shirt they were selling absolutely had a stegosaurus on it. What was this one guy, it was like “hunkalunkaceratops” or “babealicious max” or something. ??? I never really ask this directly, maybe I should more often, but does anyone know what the fuck I’m talking about????

Butterfly House

After the dinosaur thing we were going to leave but then I was like actually I really want fried dough so we went back in, and that’s when we saw it: the butterfly house. You walk through this alien quarantine area and then you’re in a VERY yellow lit interior and a teen hands you a Q-Tip with some type of flavor gel on it. Looked like raspberry. Then you just stroll around and butterflies land on you! It’s great. Some people had a lot of butterflies landing on them, most had only 1 or 2, and I think it was either like what kind of detergent you use, or how pure your heart is. Or maybe they need a precise pure / foul heart ratio, like they like it best if you’re 80% Hello Kitty 20% Dorian Grey. I didn’t see any babies OR Scrooges getting swarmed. Me and Flan each got one, it was nice to be a calm place to land for someone.

Fried Dough

I was kind of looking out for it all day but didn’t really see any, and then when we were about to leave I was like “it’s ok” but then I had a heart to heart with myself and realized that you can only get this at fairs, I love it, I need it. Also we were about to leave and I realized that I no longer felt at all sick to my stomach, and that seemed wrong. I got an elephant ear with NONE of the extra sauces, just butter, cinnamon, and powdered sugar. If you think I didn’t get the powdered sugar all over me then you must be thinking of someone else. I was covered in the stuff. I always am! Thank you Flan for taking me to the Minnesota State Fair! I had a great time!!!!!!

Links / Misc

• If you’re reading this TODAY (Wednesday September 9, 2026) then I’m going to be on Flan’s radio show, New Flanland, tonight at 8pm EST (7pm CST) at [https://wfmu.org/playlists/NE]. If you’re reading this anytime after, you can catch the archive (same link). I love Flan’s show and the archives are a very rich environment.

• Greg Harvester’s photo show is up in the grand ballroom, take the stairs up and it’s on the second floor on the right. Or click here: [here]. For more Greg links see this website I made for him, which is perfect: [https://remoteoutposts.com/].

• leave me a comment in the castle! comment section

BLINDING LIGHT / BIG WAVE RIDER / BEETLES / HIGH STAKES MEDITATION / THOUGHTS ON THE WAVE / DOUBLE INVERTED ATLAS / LINKS

Greg Harvester’s photo show is now installed in the castle ballroom, that’s on the second floor. Take the stairs up and it’s on the left. The show is called “Blinding Light”.

I’ll be talking with Greg more about his show in the coming weeks. For today I’m getting ready for a trip and it’s a beautiful rainy day outside as the summer winds down, we’re wearing long sleeves again, and I thought I’d share something that Greg and I both love, which is this song, “Big Wave Rider”, by Rainbow Bridge. It’s in an eternal late summer mood. Greg sent this to me a few years ago and every couple weeks since I have a day where I listen to this over and over again.

Actually I know the exact day he sent this, it was Monday, July 08, 2024. I wrote this in my diary a few days later:

After going downtown I came home and took a shower and cut my hair, that’s a quick way to feel a little bit better. In the evening one of S-----’s shiatsu appointments cancelled so we drove out to Narragansett town beach and took a dip. It was pretty gray by the sea but it was nice, the water was cold but then once you get in it’s great. Floated for a while in the waves then sat on the blanket drinking a seltzer. There were a lot of teens there hanging out, in small groups on the beach and in the parking lot, and I got to thinking how that’s like peak childhood to me-- early evening on an overcast summer day, hanging out in a wide featureless expanse doing essentially nothing. I love it. Went to Monahans and got french fries and clam cakes and chowder and sat in their little patio. Little beetles kept landing on my neck, it was creepy but I was into it, that’s a totally benign insect.

greg sent this perfect song yesterday, I’ve listened to it over and over again, and in the car last night we listened to it 5 times in a row:

it’s simple but also surprising, mostly 2 chords but with little things in there that keep it fresh, a lot like a wave, which is basically one big idea although each one is different and nuanced and perfect, and sometimes you’re in tune, and the moment is perfect, and you and the wave and the moment are one. It’s incredible what a gift surfing is to human understanding-- that feeling of catching a wave is so applicable to so many situations, and without surfing it would be so hard to express. And I don’t even surf! People who are obsessed with surfing are absolutely correct.

There’s a line in here that I love where he says “shooting the curl for the world”-- at home or in the car, I always raise my gauntlet to this, it’s my moment. To me it’s like when you’re in a flow state and things seem to be incredibly high stakes but also you feel absolutely pinned to your course, and it really does feel like you’re doing it for the fate of the world. An intense calm driven to infinity. Hopefully some of you guys know what I’m talking about here, and if not, I hope you one day catch a taste of it. In the video at this moment, there’s a dude in the curl and he flips and it’s so sick, but the feeling doesn’t have to be an extreme sports thing, you can get it from drawing, quilting, talking-- you can get this in any domain. In “Catch A Wave” (1963), The Beach Boys said “catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world” which is both correct in spirit and technically true. The Rainbow Bridge version suggests an inversion-- catch a wave and you’re effortlessly holding the world aloft with neither concern nor ambition.

Greg said that this band barely existed, and only for a very short time. There’s also a live video:

Hang ten, my hammers :)

links / misc

• Greg’s show “Blinding Light” is in the castle ballroom gallery, here’s a direct link: [link]

• I’ve moved the previous show to a nearly identical room in a small dollhouse outside the ballroom. I hope this is a good place for this sort of thing. I know that it’s a little dizzying to conceptualize but this is the best way I could come up with archiving an installation, without running multiple instances of the same room, which is disallowed. Now that I have an OK solution I’m looking forward to switching out the shows in here more often! The dollhouse is just outside the ballroom, in between the ballroom and the bathroom. If that location proves to be too high-traffic I might move it somewhere else.

  I really had a lot of fun looking at pictures of dollhouses for this and to be honest I almost talked myself into getting a dollhouse, which unlike traditional houses have PLUMMETED in sale price. You get a kit and it’s all laser cut plywood, it even ships flat! You order the base house plus whatever shingles, siding, ornament, etc., glue it up, sand it, paint it. I only snapped out of this dollhouse reverie because, well obviously I already have a dollhouse! I’m inside of it right now and having a lovely time! Buuuuuut if anyone gets into this (Caity?) please let me know so I can live vicariously through you.

• the Feast Society is GOING STRONG and everyone should be getting their membership cards in the mail in a couple days. I want to post pics so bad but I’m waiting for this first wave of true believers to see them with their own eyes first. :) Feast Society members get a quarterly newsletter, membership card, stickers, a new embroidered patch, and 10% off all Fujichia products. And it really really really really super helps me out :) Sign up here: [link]

• I’m going to be in Minneapolis for 2 weeks starting tomorrow (Wednesday) doing the prestigious TPH residency. And I’m thinking it might be novel to do my own residency, CTRI Innovations, within this other residency. This is the thing where I buy you coffee and we sit and talk for a little bit, and then you go home and add it to your CV. If you’re in Minneapolis and want to apply for a time slot inside of the next two weeks, or if you’re just like, “what the hell are you talking about”, here’s a link with more info: [link]. Here’s a link to the TPH residency: [link]

  

• I started a BlueSky account for just posting life hits-- the songs i find myself obsessed with for periods of time. I feel like on the one hand this is a misaligned use for this platform because no one really wants to click through on a link-- when you log on to a service like this you want to scroll through pithy remarks, not dip out for 3 minutes. But if you ignore the stats (favs, followers, RTs), it’s a nice little way to add to an archive over time. I don’t think of this as a playlist because a playlist you listen to one after another, and this kind of thing I listen to just one song on loop and then it does the job and I move on. You don’t have to be logged in to this service to access this. [link]. BlueSky is basically like old Twitter, with less people. It kinda sucks but it’s OK, and honestly I’m not trying to look at my phone all the time so “it kinda sucks but it’s OK” is actually BETTER than “it’s great”.

  If you have a noteable Life Hit or personal top 40, light up the comments in the castle: [comments]. It’s different from “favorite song”-- I’d say that as a ballpark measure we’re looking for songs you’ve listened to AT LEAST 100 times in your life, ideally things you’ve listened to AT LEAST 5 times in a row.

RIVERBANK ENERGY / THEY DON'T MAKE EM LIKE THAT ANY MORE / ARROWS IN THE QUIVER IN QUESTION / PILE IT UP / STICKERS / LINKS

Great news everyone-- the Creative Reuse Center has moved from a distance that’s a car ride away to a distance that’s a short walk, and now instead of going once a year, I go every week. I go and prowl around with real riverbank energy, just seeing what washed up in the past few days. Initially I was looking at fabric mostly, but my focus recently has been old pencils, and I find that the search for this type of item is a great way to leave the house for a stroll without incurring costs related to a cup of coffee or an occult book. Here’s my haul from last week:

Last Week

Submit Your Suggestions Now - This is a great thing to have printed on the side of a mark-making device. Rookies and troubadours get shit like “Express Yourself”, but the true mild reality-definer gets more amped with “Submit Your Suggestions Now”

HAIR FREEDOM - contrast with underground Kentucky noisers HAIR POLICE

Eagle “Chemi-Sealed” Draughting - didn’t know that drafting used to be an a-u-g-h kind of thing. Lots of traughic in the late aughternoon. Do you guys have decaugh caughee?

Crayola Violet - just thought I could do for a purple line

General Semi-Hex Drawing 497, 2B - best in show, happy I got a grip of them. Nice dark line. Art pencils tend to go for a circular barrel because it signifies a difference from the pencil you grow up with. But I prefer the hex shape. And I think 2B is my favorite lead, and not just for poetic reasons.

Wickford Appliance & Lighting - If I didn’t grow up in New England, would I be obsessed with New England town names? Wickford, Woburn, Peabody, Tewksbury, Athol, Dracut, Woonsocket.... Wickford (Rhode Island) was the basis for the fictional town of Eastwick, in John Updike’s novel (and George Miller’s film) “Witches of Eastwick”.

General “Exercise” 931 - this is bigger than most, for little hands. Feels good.

C.A.B. No. 2 - C.A.B. is “Central Association for the Blind”.

I got all of these and a bunch of stickers for 45¢. Honestly I’ve thought a lot about this and I think the last time I left the house on a satisying errand that cost 45¢ was 1989, when that’s how much a Three Musketeers bar cost at Tech Market.

Are vintage pencils better than new pencils? Honestly, no. There is a quality to old wood that you can really only engage with by shaving off little bits of it over time. And it seems like there are less shitty ones compared to the modern manufacturers, and maybe there’s a few gems in there?

I can’t lie-- for pure pleasure, a great line, and a really great smell, I’m still reaching for one of these modern numbers:

Mitsubishi UNI, B

or

Tombow MONO, HB

But that said, not everything’s about being good or bad. Some things are about leaving the house, or piling up material, or having a slightly different way to engage with a piece of paper, or thinking about typography, or just knowing you’re going to read the words “HAIR FREEDOM” every now and then while rummaging around in a drawer over the next 20 years. My promise is to never buy old pencils online. If old pencils stop washing up on the river bank I’ll just find something else to look at that’s cheap, varied, distributed carelessly, and you engage with it by grinding it into dust. And if the collection gets too big, I’ll just sneak them into my friends’ homes.

Stickers

OK, here’s the stickers I got :)

links / misc

• Opening NEXT MONDAY in the castle’s grand ballroom, a show of photos by Greg Harvester! This is your last week to see the current install, “Cousins and Braintrusts” by Tom Bubul, before it’s relegated to archive status via a clever mechanism. That’s in the gallery on the second floor of the castle. Take the stairs up and it’s on your right. The castle is at www.Fujichia.com

• I’m going to Minneapolis next week, for 2 weeks, to do an artists residency. I’ll be reporting from the road as me and Flan go to the STATE FAIR where she has entered a SCARECROW in a CONTEST. My other two goals are to go to my favorite store AX MAN, and to look down on Minnesota from the plane and see lakes and lakes and lakes and baseball fields and baseball fields and baseball fields. Everything after that is a bonus.

• The Fujichia Feast Society is going strong! To join up, click [here]. Members get the emails of course and also 1 or 2 printed zines per quarter, plus stickers, a paper replica of the castle, a yearly patch to sew onto your flight jacket or memory quilt, and 10% off all Fujichia items!

BUSYTOWN / HALF KOYAANISQATSI HALF GINUWINE / SOLAR METAL HERON / IN THE SPIRIT OF YES / SHORT STORY / LINKS

I ‘ve been running into Kara in the street a lot lately, which is great, I like Kara. One time I helped her with a crossword puzzle, that’s a great role for me. And then she DJ’ed a dance party at the shiatsu clinic and emotionally it was like half Koyaanisqatsi half Ginuwine. Last time I saw her was when Dave’s band Solar Metal Heron played-- they’re a cool band in a kosmische vein, and they named themselves after this exact lawn ornament, which you can find at BJ’s Wholesale:

Having a sculpture that you bring to the gig is a great style, especially if the band plays zone music-- it’s nice to zone out on something that’s in between you and the performer (I mean literally in between but I guess also figuratively). I talked Dave into getting rotating plinths for the herons (they have 2 of them) and Dave tried to promote me to manager. I gracefully deflected.

Anyway riffing with Kara at the gig, and going to more gigs in general lately, got me thinking about this short story I wrote for her last year. My total guess is that this was going to be a zine or something, probably she sent this prompt out to a couple people, and maybe only I responded?? If this is still in the works or the dream fizzled, either way it’s no problem. I said OK in the Spirit of Yes, with no requirements and no demands.

It’s a short one this week, here goes.

Echo Group At Garg Complex

Something funny about underground music in the post-covid scene is that shows start pretty much on time, rather than like, hours after the time on the flyer. Used to be if the flyer said 8 that meant 10:30, and if it said 9 that meant midnight. But now, I don’t know, the common practices got severed-- it was long enough without shows that all of a sudden 8:30 show meant doors open at 7:30 and people hang out, then in between 8:30 and 9 you can expect the mix tape to fade out and the first act to rip. When Echo Group played Garg Complex it was a 7:30 show, which is a little unusual, but when I got there at 7:15 I couldn’t believe it, they were playing their last song. People were chanting, shirts were torn, someone brought out a birthday cake and sat in it. They must’ve started at quarter of 7?? Then all the lights go on and they kick everyone out! We’re standing in the parking lot, puzzled in the pleasant light of the actual sun for, I don’t know, 10 minutes, then the doors open and we go back in. Everything’s cleaned up, the Group has put on fresh shirts. Markie starts playing, doing his tape stuff. Georgie’s band was after that, good set, then Diatom. I’m starting to tender my farewells but then I see Echo Group moving their amps back to the stage. They do a long set, slow to build, then nutso. We’re chanting, shirts get torn, I actually leave and come back in. Someone brings out a perfectly fine birthday cake (didn’t catch the name on the cake) and someone else sits on it. Lights on and we file out into actual darkness this time.

links / misc

• The subscription drive I’m doing is going great so far, thank you everyone!!! I’m at 35% of my unstated goal. I’m going to be sending out welcome packs to all paid subscribers this Friday, with stickers, a 3D replica of the castle, and Feast Society membership cards. Membership cards!!!! You’re probably thinking that you could just make your own membership card, but you can’t-- these have a holographic security layer, produced by laser. The science is too tight!!! Sign up now: [link].

  Oh, and thank you to all Latin scholars on the timeline for so far holding your tongue about the spurious acrostic legend on the new Feast Society landing page. It translates to “Unity of Form, Delight in the Horizons of Heaven, Eternal Youth”. Or at least, that’s my intent. If you can correct this in such a way that it still spells out “FUJICHIA”, please log in.

• Kara’s name says “2022.12” after it because that’s the month I entered her name into my phone. I do that with everyone so I don’t accidentally text the old number. Shoutout to the person with my old phone number, who I’m told is “very rude”, but if they’re getting an iota of the weird shit people send me (case in point), then I’m sympathetic.

• No links for Solar Metal Heron (band) but Dave’s old band URDOG got the reissue treatment a couple years ago: [urdog.bandcamp.com]. Also no link for the HEXMORB releases he’s on (”ACID OVER” cd-r and “RED LIGHTS IN THE REFLECTIVE CAVE 1”). Bring back HEXMORB!!!! Paging Kim Guillotine... Paging Dribble Dutch...

LES GARS DES PALOURDES / ANY CLAMS TODAY / FROM A GREAT DISTANCE / INTERSTATE PANTONE / A TRIBUTE TO THE WARRIOR / TRIVIAL COURT REFRESH / PRIVATE SIGNAL / LITERALLY ICONIC / CLAMS ACROSS THE WORLD / LINKS

I love my clam guys. I don’t know how we started doing this but every now and then when they get off the boat they text me “want any clams today?” and I text back YES and they come over and I buy them fresh, from the water to the boat to the van and right to me. It’s beautiful.

There’s two of them, Joe DeGeorge and Tim Sound. They used to go out together on Tim’s boat, and then Joe got his own boat, and then that’s when I insisted that they get a flag for their fleet. I also insisted that I design it. Then I did design it, and had it manufactured by professionals. I did a great job, which I’m sure is no surprise to my saintly and beloved readership. Hello out there!

Here’s the presentation I gave my clam guys, which I was going to email over to them but then as I was working on it they texted to say “do you want clams” and then I was able to give them the spiel in person:

[click here to finish reading this one in the castle at Fujichia.com]

LOOK AT IT / WEIRD LITTLE DUDES / IT'S A TRIP / NOVEL PROBLEM SOLVING FOR RESOURCE ACQUISITION / BE THE WIND / OLD MATE CATCHES THE VIBE / WHY I'D BE GREAT AS A BAT / LINKS

OK, the big news in the compound this week, is this:

I had a cactus day a few weeks ago, and the chain of causality here is that I’m trying not to look at YouTube for a little while, so during menial desk-bound tasks I’ve been watching movies a little bit at a time over several days, and I RE-watched Predator: Badlands. That’s a sidebar in itself but the important part is that it got me hyped on the category “weird spikey little dude”. So when I finally finished the movie I went out and got some cactus dirt from the dirt store. And then I cast some attention on the weird guys shelf.

Without getting into any other this-is-good-because-of-this reasoning, I’ll just say that plants are a trip. They change slowly over time, which is special for a shelf item, and they solve problems in a variety of novel ways, which is a characteristic I admire in pretty much anything. For instance, some cactuses will grow out a dozen brittle arms, with the understanding that most of them are going to snap off when a desert fox or cruel high wind comes through. Then the ones that remain, those are the good arms. And the ones that broke off will just plant themselves in the nearby earth as new individuals, and that’s how the organism moves through a landscape in search of resources, by dropping clones that grow a short distance away. I certainly wouldn’t do it like that, but I respect the hustle. and periodically I feel the need to Be The Wind to these guys, and fuck them up a little bit here and there. I don’t know if they like it. But I like it.

This fuckin guy was doing OK until the cats knocked it over, maybe 3 years ago, and the top snapped off. I was upset, especially because this one was a gift from Sakiko’s grandpa in like... 2012?? But it was fine. And then 4 blobs grew in the new wound, which I really didn’t anticipate. Last week after the movie, to be honest, I didn’t even do shit to it. Everyone nearby got new pots, or a new location on the shelf, but this guy looked fine so I left it alone. Well I don’t know if it just got the vibe of change or what but when I looked a few days later it had started throwing out some kind of fuzzy protuberance. After about a week, the growth looked like this:

and then that night it was like this:

and then the next morning, well let’s look at it again. I actually set my alarm for this:

I don’t know what kind of animal pollinates these things, sticking its tongue down into this hole and drinking the nectar and getting pollen on it’s face that it carries to the next plant. But it’s right to do so, this thing smells amazing, and the cactus was thoughtful enough to jut the sweet part away from the prickly part, for our safety. Maybe it’s bats??? I don’t know and I certainly don’t have any evidence. I’ve lived in 2 places where you can’t really totally keep the bats out (haunted barn, industrial mill), but I’m currently very much in control of my proximity to bats (apartment) and I’ve opted out. But of course I appreciate the bats; I appreciate all of our pollinators. I bet I’d be a great pollinator-- I love to stick my face right in a flower, I get both food AND garnishes stuck to my face and clothing FREQUENTLY, I love nectar, and I tend to really flit about (everyone says this). Vote Jacob For Pollinator ‘26

The flower only lasted a day, which is fine-- I got a lot of pictures, and “only blooms for one day”, that’s so romantic. Here’s one with my cat Hana:

I really don’t know why this flower happened now, when everyone around it got a new pot, but it stayed the same. Maybe it’s talking to the other plants? Or maybe it just caught that there was change in the air, and it wanted to sing like everyone else? Sometimes change will come to a system and the reactions are extraordinary, unforeseen, and seemingly unrelated, like how Superman came to earth as a baby and it was such a crazy thing to have happened that 20 years later his perfectly normal friend Jimmy Olson turns into an invisible werewolf and starts dating a mermaid (I’m paraphrasing). Maybe this flower would’ve popped regardless of what I did the week before. All I know is that in a time of change it blossomed.

Bellisimo!!!

Sorry to everyone I saw IRL this past week, who already saw these pictures!

links / misc

• If you’re interested in getting into cactuses, my one piece of advice is DO get the ones with huge spikes. DON’T get the fuzzy ones with tiny hairs. The big spikes are clear in their intent, I respect that. The tiny hairs WILL get everywhere and then you gotta get a magnifying glass just to pull them out of your arm. Leave that shit alone!

• Predator: Badlands (2026) - A doofy young predator lands on a jungle Hell planet and discovers that every feature of that reality is a living Seussian nightmare. Why bury the lede-- I loved it. Lots of fun. Love to see a warrior stripped of their weapons and forced to improvise with weird shit-- that’s probably my favorite Action Movie Thing. Great creature design, and every little dude gets its moment in the sun. I don’t actually think they had Dr Seuss on the moodboard but there was a “What Was I Scared Of” moment kind of late in the movie that I absolutely loved. Big smiles. And actually now that I think of it there was kind of a Lorax guy too. And Weyland-Yutani is strongly Onceler-coded. ???? Maybe there was too much quipping from Elle Fanning’s manic pixie dream android character, but that’s only a small mark against, and who among us hasn’t occasionally quipped too much, in a scary situation, with a stoic associate? I sure have. In conclusion this reviewer gives Predator: Weird Other Planet.... 🦂️🦂️🦂️🦂️🦂️🦂️ 6 Fucked Up Freaky Little Dudes

• I said last week that I’d be ripping a gig this Saturday and that still goes. It’s still Saturday, it’s still at Lost Bag, and it’s still with Monochromatic Pool and Cla-Ras. I think it’s going to be like an atmosphere night, tending towards abstract and echoey. I’m trying to figure out if there’s something atmosphere I can do to join the party but so far all I got is a delay pedal. But I still have a couple days. Too late to have a gong shipped but to be honest I’m not ready to own a gong yet. Doors at 730, music at 8, $10-20. [flyer]

• Thank you to everyone who signed up for the Fujichia Feast Society! If you want to support my activities, plans start at $6 a month and include weekly emails, quarterly publications that you get in the mail, stickers, 10% off everything else I make, and when we get 100 total subscribers I’m going to make a new patch for everyone’s flight jackets. Thank you thank you thank you to the crew!!! Sign up here: [link]

• I know that some of you guys were worried I was going to start talking about Jimmy Olson again but I cut myself off. There are a few primo Jimmy covers here, and a bit more on the subject, in this post from 2020 about the Fourth World: [Fourth World Under $3]

• Leave a comment on the website, I love comments, even just “wazzap” or “Oi from Cincinnati [or wherever you are] Go Bengals! [or whoever you rep]” : [link to this article on Fujichia.com]

STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE / THE MAKING OF THIS WEBSITE / OPEN SYSTEMS / EGG VS CHAIN / HOW TO DO THE SHUFFLE / OMEN'S CHANGING ROOM / LINKS

Well, the subscription drive for the Fujichia Feast Society is going great, thank you everyone! Right now I’m at exactly 20% of my goal, which rules. 100% is my dream, of course, but 20% of a dream is a nice little dream itself! That said, 100% of a dream is absolutely lovely, I’m sure we can agree on that. Not like an outrageous circumstance dream where you wake up bummed because you’re back in a world where actually the cats can’t speak to you, but just like, waking up laughing, feeling good, then you’re making coffee, and the dream stays with you like a faint melody and guides your blessed path. You guys know what a dream is.

Anyway I thought this week I’d talk about a part of the castle with probably the most utility, for me anyway, and that’s the Tarot cards, in the game room.

Initially this tarot card mechanism was part of Charlotte de Sédouy’s website. We made the original version some time in 2011, when she was visiting from France. I think the intial idea was that it was a functioning tarot deck made up of different types of cards she found on the street. But then we got to talking, and I showed her my sprawling collection of cards-- game cards, trading cards, actual tarot, playing cards, business cards, old ID’s, wallet-sized prom photos-- and we decided to forgo the narrative purity of “found on the street” in favor of a more expansive and delightful set of objects. We scanned in her collection and some bits of mine, and then I rigged up a javascript thing to call 5 at random and display them on a website in a simple tarot card orientation. PAST / PRESENT QUESTION / OBSTACLE / HELP / FUTURE.

That’s how it was for years, and honestly I consulted it all the time, by thinking up a question, and then clicking OK. Maybe I’m good at drawing inferences between things but I found it to be usually very precient and oftentimes helpful. I think the thing that really helped me is that there isn’t a system of decoding these things, it’s entirely up to you. I mean the regular tarot can be open like that, but at the same time you know you can look it up in a book and it’ll be like “ACE OF SWORDS: New ideas, new plans, intellectual ability, victory, success, mental clarity, breakthroughs, ability to concentrate, communication, vision, focus, stimulating people and environments, new beginnings, new projects, making the correct decision, etc.”. With this way it’s just like, “hmm... SHE-HULK... strong, green, long wavy hair, anger management...? I get +1 ATK this turn for each front row character target opponent controls...?” It’s more mysterioso but at the same time, the meaning seems to always pop right out. I know some people out there really treasure a strong legacy of ideological wayfinding, but this way is really perfect for me, I love it. One way is a book, the other way is an egg, and I love both. I love books, eggs, the ocean, dreams...

Over the years I hit this tarot site quite a bit, and I started to notice that certain cards were coming up more often than others, while there were some that barely came up at all. So in 2023 I looked into the code and saw that the shuffling algorithm I was using was flawed! Getting true randomness is actually a huge problem in computing, so most people pick a flavor of pseudo-randomness that’s good enough for their purposes. Evidently I chose poorly. Well I read up on best practices in shuffling, and retooled it using a much-preferred (but still imperfect (but good enough)) method called a “Fisher-Yates shuffle”. Then while I was in there I made an intro page with information on best practices, and also made it so you have to write down your query, not just think about it. I think forcing a little contemplation in this step is very helpful, and a clear intention is important. With Charlotte’s blessing I moved it from her web site to my own, for safe keeping. Then when she was in town two Halloweens ago we hung out and added some more cards, which is allowed! It’s an open system!!!

If you want to consult this tarot anytime, you may. I’ll put a link below but it’s on the second floor of the castle, in the game room-- take the stairs up from the main foyer and it’s the first room on the left. It kind of feels weird to put it in the game room but like, everything’s a game, who cares. To paraphrase William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon: it’s all just tricks and games :) I don’t keep user stats on this or any part of the castle, but if you use this all the time and it’s helpful, let me know!

links / misc

• OK the tarot link is right here: [game room » fortune]. It’s OK to bookmark it and refer to it all the time, but if you’re looking for it later just remember it’s in the game room, on the second floor, under a fringed lamp. At present moment the game room has the tarot, a video game I made called FAXANADU GEORGES BATAILLE, and extensive rules for the card game Seven Bridge, plus a list of posts that are about or kind of about games. [game room]

• Charlotte is so cool, I love her!!!! Her website is here: [http://quesepassetil.net/]. Her last big project was writing and illustrating a kid’s book, a spooky little tale about clothing that runs away from the dresser and has a nighttime adventure. Ahhhhhhhh she’s the BEST!!!!

• If you haven’t signed up for the Fujichia Feast Society, and you want to send small amounts of money, monthly, to receive (these) regular emails plus a new quarterly publication, and depending on your level of interest, another quarterly... thing?? you can! For more info or to sign up see last week’s post, here: [link]. PLEASE NOTE that this is DIFFERENT from the Substack paid subscriber thing, which is now turned off. If you’ve been a paid subscriber there, please sign up for the new thing! And also, thank you for doing that!!!!

• Addie and Jaeyon used this version of the tarot as a prompt during their writing group (Three Writing, at Lost Bag) and said it was incredible. So don’t feel like you need to limit yourself to asking advice!

• The next Three Writing is TODAY, assuming you’re reading this on Tuesday the 28th. Otherwise you missed it. It is or was at 7pm, and the theme shall be / should’ve’dst been [TANTRUM].

• If you use this thing to try and win the lottery, or to bet on horses or altcoins or something, and it WORKS... remember me, your humble servant... I’m happy for you but like, I’d be MORE happy for the BOTH of us...

• Now for those of you who want to read more about computerized randomness, wow, I salute you and welcome you. Here’s the wikipedia entry on the Fisher-Yates shuffle: [wikipedia, Fisher-Yates shuffle]. Computerized random number generation is oddly difficult to do but also SO neccessary for computer security that people have come up with really elaborate ways to achieve it-- the classic is Lavarand, the use of a camera trained on a series of lavalamps to determine random values: [wikipedia, Lavarand]. Also of interest (?) is this book from the RAND Corporation, “A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates”. [wikipedia]. I’ve been looking for an earlyish edition of this RAND book for a long time, it’s like the numerical version of a book from Borges’ “Library of Babel” ([archive.org]).

• I’m playing a music show on the 8th, at Lost Bag, with MONOCHROMATIC POOL and CLA-RAS. Doors at 7:30, music at 8.

I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m changing my paid subscription mechanism from Substack to Paypal Recurring Payments. I’m going to be turning off the paid option on here just as soon as I send this email. I wrote more about this last week, if you didn’t see that one, it’s here: [link]

The new method has 2 t…

Read more

ONE BIG THOUGHT / REFLEXIVE GRACE / TIERS OF A CLOUD / RESTORE FACTORY SETTINGS / SOME INEFFABLES / CHALICE MEDITATION / FEAST SOCIETY / I GIVE AN F / LINKS

Hi! I didn’t get one of these out last week because it was my birthday, July 16, and I took a breather. Thank you to everyone who sent World Snake Day blessings! It was a fine beginning to my birthday fortnite, which will run until midnight on the 30th. Next year, with things as they are, I might need to pull a birthday month and a half, from the last week of June to the first couple days of August. Early warning!

On my end, I spent the week leading up to it pretty much just walking around running into people in the street, talking, eating ice cream, and thinking about things. One big thought I’ve been having is about starting a paid subscription model for this site. Well, in keeping with an ongoing pledge to treat myself with the same grace that I naturally apply to others, I am allowing myself to set this long-harbored thought upon the waves, out of the shipyard of the mind and into the full swells of reality. That is my gift to myself. I am also allowing myself to not make a big deal about it. Or rather, to delay making a big deal, and instead announce it casually and immediately.

The paid subscription will work like this:

$6 a month: you get weekly emails, a quarterly newsletter / stockholder’s report mailed to you (4 times a year), and 10% off everything I make for sale (stuffed animals, shirts, recordings, other products).

$12 or more: you get the weekly emails, a quarterly newsletter, 10% off, and an ADDITIONAL quarterly zine or other artwork. I don’t know exactly what this other thing will be, other than “probably a zine”.

I think it’ll be really fun to do a physical newsletter that I mail out to people-- historically that’s been a great zone for me. And I really like the idea of a regular but unknown zine. Could be ROBOT ARM MAGAZINE, MOTICOS #3, INTERVIEW WITH A FRANKENSTEIN #1000...? And 10% off is no joke, I’ll be mailing out the coupon codes every month, and I’m working on some really dynamite stuff-- more shirt designs, a really dynamite stationary set, the first wave of Orange White objects, more stuffed animal designs, special collabos... Then there’s the ineffables that your support would support: continuing my artists residency series, opening up more rooms in the castle, coming on here and saying weird shit, ripping gigs, speaking at various institutions, naming people’s bands when they write to me politely....

I would LOVE to offer more with the subscription but I’m capping it here for now. I might add more things at both levels, but I’ve decided to start here. But the more subscribers I get, the more I’ll be able to do! OK, I can say this: if I get 100 paid subscribers, I’m going to make another embroidered patch, which both subscriber levels will recieve. I should probably hold out for a bigger milestone but I really want to do this. I already know what it’ll look like-- it’s going to have a CHALICE on it.

In keeping with my decision to not make a big deal about this (for now), I’m floating it out in a somewhat unfinished state. I mean these things, the newsletter, the zines, the discount, the patch, these are all established, and I’ve been building up to this for a while, but I wanted to have a framework that made it more fun to be a part of, and to integrate it into the current framework for my work, which is a castle. Do I think of this new support structure as a dark money group, or a shadowy superPAC, or a board of directors, or something else? The one I like the most right now (and this isn’t final) is “Feast Society”, which is such a nice idea-- everyone contributes a little to the maintenance of the space, and we build up to a big party. We’re all making plans and sourcing ingredients for the big thousand year anniversary of the castle, in 2999. And until then we’re keeping the lights on, painting banners, having meetings, fixing the cornices, and doing other activities (holiday bazaar, 5k fun run, winter coat drive, etc.). And “shadowy superPAC” is still on the table if anyone wants to drop a substantial, needle-moving, one-time sum because you have access to material and you believe in the project. I promise not to disclose who you are, unless you’re into that. Phone lines are open.

OK I’m not trying to go too long here. I hope this sounds fun to you and if it does I hope you feel motivated to support me in this, at whatever level you can. And beyond that, I hope that what I do, on here and in general, is helpful to you in some way, and it helps you slow down the mind, or remember a feeling of joy, or laugh a little, or (and I’m allowing myself an absense of grace here) the feeling is more like “OK, I’m not the only fucked-up idiot on the timeline today”. And if you can’t support this project financially, the castle will still be here for you, and the emails will still go out. That’s no problem.

OK, here we go:

(click the image to go to the site)

Support of $6 a month will get weekly emails, a quarterly newsletter / stockholder’s report mailed to you, and 10% off everything I make for sale.

Support of $12 or more per month will get weekly emails, a quarterly newsletter, 10% off, and an ADDITIONAL quarterly zine or other artwork. This tier is a sliding scale, in $6 increments, and anything $12 and over will get it.

And as a special bonus for the early adopters, the first 30 people to sign on for the $12+ level will get one of these VERY special Fujichia “sans serif” pendants:

It is (we’re pretty sure) brass, and (we know) 1/2 inch wide, 3/4 inch tall, and 1/8 inch thick. There is a hole running lengthwise through the top part of the F into which can be inserted a string (by which it can be worn as a pendant) or a safety pin (by which it can be worn as a brooch). It can also be sewn permanently to, for instance, a leather jacket. String and pin will be supplied. Each of these F’s has the beginnings of a really lovely patina, making each one a unique piece. Let people know you support the arts with this limited item! Or let people ask “what does that F stand for” and you can tell them a possibly rude answer.

If you’re interested in the shadowy superPAC idea or the board member idea, please reach out! OK that’s it! Thanks everyone!!!!!

links / misc

• for more about Paypal recurring payments, see here: [paypal.com: what is an automatic payment]. If you can’t figure it out just write to me like “sorry bro, gotta cancel my thing” and I promise I’ll be like “I hear ya bro”. Really no problem.

• I didn’t want to do this on Substack or Patreon because they ask for too much of a cut and who wants to keep signing up for accounts all the time? If you can’t use Paypal but you want to play, send me an email and I’ll figure out an option with Stripe or something.

• I’m playing a solo show at Lost Bag on August 8th with Monochromatic Pool (Chanelle Allesandre, Dave Scanlon, Kit Young) and others TBA. I will probably be singing songs with guitar accompaniment. I’m not sure what I’m going to wear yet.

• Honestly if you can think of something you might like from this experience drop a comment on the website ([link]) or an email (jacob@fujichia.com) and I’ll put it on the corkboard for consideration.

• Thanks you guys :)

SLITHERING ACROSS A FAÇADE / A REAL BARN-BURNER / INTRO TO THE PREAMBLE / A BANQUET ENLIVEN'D / NOTES / LINKS / HI

I haven’t touched my Orange White notebook in a few months but I do still add to it. Now and again a new idea for the project pops into my head, a smile slithers across my elegant façade, and I race for the notebook, which contains only riffs and riffs on the 1961 painting “Orange - White” by Ellsworth Kelly. One day I will link up and build with the Worcester Art Museum to take 6 months to develop as many of these concepts as I can for a real barn-burner of a exhibition. Until then I’ll keep filling the notebook, and when I’m done with this notebook, I will get another.

I posted about this before, and when I did I said I’d post again when I had 100 entries total. Well with yesterday’s drop of 9 new ones I think I’m at 101. So here we are.

Usually I save the links for the end but I’ll just link out the first post here. The intro post has the first half of this notebook, plus 2 levels of preamble, plus an appendix. You can skip the writing if you feel like you get the gist, and then maybe you’ll come back to it later when you’re like OK seriously what is the deal here.

[Orange White, 1961 - present (part 1]]

final ado, on a personal note:

I started the notebook in 2018 after thinking about it for years, then I wrote this initial post in June of 2020. At the time I was (we all were) cataclysmically indoors, and I remember posting with a feeling of resignation, or a sad acceptance that this exhibit is probably not going to happen. Now it’s 6 years later, wow, 6 years! and the world continues to end but I feel like the idea of this as a real thing (an IRL solo barn-burner at the hometown museum) has crept back onto the table. Sure, it’s far-fetched. But it’s back on the divine banquet of the dimly possible but possible nonetheless. I simply don’t see why not.

WHOOPS too many images for the email again!!!!! click through to read on the website: [read this in the castle at Fujichia]

i did it again, too many pics for the email! this is a part 2 of my previous post examining photoshops i made as part of a conversation, minus the conversation.

🯁🯂🯃 read this one in the castle ⬅⬅⬅

SUDDEN ONSET BITTERNESS / STRAWBERRY PICKING SEASON / ELITE WANDERER / FIELD OF STUDY / UNPROFESSIONAL STRAWBERRY / GRANTED THE DIGNITY OF ANIMALS / AHHHHHHHH FUCK YOU GUYS / I HEAR A SYMPHONY / JOYCE TWOFER / TOWERS OF YORE / NO RIDDLE / AQUABLUE POCKETBOOK / LINKS

Oooof, I got hit with an attack of Sudden Onset Bitterness, which this time around I’m treating as an occupational hazard for whatever my “career” “actually” “is” (walking around and bumping into people I know). All you can really do (all I can do anyway, unfortunately), is treat it with grace, wait for the edges to soften, and try to zoom in on certain details.

It’s Strawberry Picking Season

They tell you at the pick your own strawberries place that you have to wash the strawberries before you eat them and I feel like this is true but as a control technique to keep people from eating fresh strawberries in the field, I gotta say Ya Right. This might work on the rabble but not on elite wanderers like me. I ate a lot right there in the field, I’m an incorruptible menace.

The strawberry field has a beach-like quality, in that it’s a treeless outdoor summertime area in which you spend a lot of time close to the ground. Sonically this manifests as a shocking lack of echo, combined with the low frequency roll-off inherent in faraway cries of mostly joy. A sound thrown out over the field by a child to land nearby without a bounce. There’s also a smell of hay, which is strewn in the path to keep weeds at bay. Straw and strawberries are not related botanically or even socially, the commonality is that both are strewn about-- the straw is strewn and the berries are too, just scattered indelicately on the ground. That’s fine for straw but it seems insane for something so precious as a strawberry. The straw lends the field a bready smell, which mixes with the berry smell to produce a heavenly fragrance of sun-warm sandwich. Or like a car parked in the sun, with a jelly sandwich on the dash, wafting out right when you open the door. If you told me “so-and-so smells like a jelly sandwich” I’d probably place that information in the derogatory column, but at the same time if I ever met someone that smelled like a strawberry field, I’d probably follow them around forever. Same smell.

Unprofessional Strawberry

You guys are probably waiting on tenterhooks for my Bloomsday report but after a few days of writing I have to say that it’s not going to be that type of thing. One thing I will say though, and this is a lick that James Joyce never hit (exactly), is that after lunch at the Pickle Barrel and a heavy old mug of their delightfully weak coffee, me and Ali walked to Mike’s old boss’s house and ate strawberries off the front lawn. “I just grow the ones in front for the squirrels” said the man, days before, bragging about the strawberries in the back lot. Ali told him “well the squirrels [points to self] really appreciate it!”. What’s crazy is that being allowed to eat them with the dignity granted to wild animals really inspired our humanity-- we each only had 3 or 4 and left the rest for the next guy. They were so tiny but also incredibly powerful. Soft, sweet, and so flavorful that I cried out in the street, like a bird yelling AHHHHH FUCK YOU GUYS to everything that isn’t, in that moment, the bird itself. Or like Diana says after the key change on “I Hear A Symphony”: “I cry not for myself / but for those who’ve never felt the joy we’ve felt”. Not to undermine the appreciation of the professional strawberry, which is good, but this amateur model was probably the best cubic centimeter of food I’ve ever had in my entire life. And also, I must point out, totally 100% regular, not a special cultivar or anything.

One More From The Tower

OK, I’ll say one more thing about Bloomsday. I was excited to do Bloomsday in Worcester because I could start the same way Ulysses starts, chapter one, a tower. Just up the street from the house I grew up in is this classic folly, Bancroft Tower--

You can’t go inside anymore, it’s been chained shut for my entire life. Of course I’ve had a few different methods of gaining entry over the years, but they’ve since patched up those vulnerabilities and I haven’t put in the work to figure out a new one. But I sat behind it and read for a little bit, which was pleasant, and then just as I started to think “what now”, a small group of kids and teachers showed up waving foam swords (the kids) and clutching clipboards (the teachers) on some kind of field day or year-end event. I thought for sure the teachers would be bugged out that I was lurking in the shadow of a cold castle in monster mode, or the kids would be like “there’s a weird man here”. But no one cared. That I was doing my own thing was obvious and anyway the kids were on some type of scavenger hunt so they had a mission objective that probably elided any low-hanging fears. Plus they were emboldened by the narrative power of a sword. One of them came up to me straight up and asked if I’ve seen any rubies or gold rings. I really wish I had a riddle prepared, or that I said what was in my heart-- little bro, everything I see is a ruby or a gold ring. Instead I said no, which was true, but probably sounded like a lie, which I liked. Walking away I saw some gold foil that had been cut into stars but it seemed unrelated to the children’s quest, it was too far down the road. Then there was a discarded aqua blue pocketbook with items spilling out of it, but I didn’t want to get too close because it seemed like a trap. Maybe I should’ve checked? But on the other hand I did have a really lovely day. That happened last Tuesday, the 16th, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

links / misc

• The Supremes “I Hear A Symphony” [YouTube, 00:02:44]. It doesn’t get much better than this but I does get at least this good.

• more songs about music: Beach Boys “I Can Hear Music” [YouTube 00:02:28]. Carl is so sweet and lovely on this I can’t stand it!!!!

• my artists residency program has been really nice lately, apply if you’re in the area (of Providence RI), or you’re planning a visit! It only takes 90 minutes or so. It costs $250 but there’s a scholarship available which brings costs to the artists down to zero. We’ve given out over $30,000 in scholarships, at a 100% success rate-- what other arts nonprofit can boast such stats? [rf5.org/residency/]. Previous residents are welcome to apply for the alumni program. I’m available for arts non-profit panels and I’m honestly great at that sort of thing, I’m both pleasant and disruptive, and my speaking fees are competitive with my peers.

• I didn’t get this post up on the website by my self-imposed deadline of 11am Tuesday, but last week I did complete my goal of hitting that deadline 10 weeks in a row. As a result I don’t have to pay Greg Harvester $200, which was a penalty I created without Greg’s knowledge or consent, because I knew he’d hate that. And I am able to get the reward I had established for myself-- a yellow and black rugby shirt, which I’ve wanted for years but put off getting because it’s hard for me to buy things at full price. Sadly David Hockney passed away last week, he was a big reason why I wanted one of these shirts (also GeGeGe No Kitaro, and cartoonist Will Laren). I don’t know if I can get one now, it feels like cosplay. And it’s still kind of a lot of money for me right now, I’m still in austerity mode :( RIP to England’s cutest painter.

• leave me a comment in the castle, I love comments! [link to this post]

I did it again, there’s too many images in this one for Substack. Luckily you can read at this post in its native locale, a castle on the open internet: [link to post]

It’s kind of a weird one I guess (going through the screen grabs folder for searchterm: “hand”) but as I was talking myself out of it I realized that I would like to see someone else’s version of this, so I can’t fault it! If you’re self-editing too hard I recommend this elegant approach: “would I like this if someone other than me did it?”. This works on the other side of the equation too (not editing enough), it’s like the artist’s “This too shall pass”.

Again, the post is here: [link to post]

If you groove on this I’d love it if you left a comment :)

GERSHMAN CALLING / ONE MINT JULEP / TO DRINK THE PERFECT AMOUNT OF ICED COFFEE / WITHOUT CEREMONY / I WANT THE BRICK / THE FLOWER OF MY HEART / LINKS / BLOOMSDAY

You guys love it when I talk about BEVERAGES-- here’s a couple recent recent additions to the drinks menu over at the atelier, for you to enjoy, adapt, or reject.

GERSHMANADE
Dissolve honey in hot water, add a pinch of salt and a shot of apple cider vinegar, then pour over ice. RIP George Gershman- nudist, dowser, watch repairman, and new age beverage entrepreur. I loved his mildly carbonnated drink “Gershman’s Drink”, which you used to find at area health food stores. This version has more salt, and lacks the fizz, but I don’t miss the fizz to be honest, because this is a chug-style beverage anyway. Real talk I don’t know what an electrolyte is but I know that my brain needs them. And I love my brain! That’s where I keep my dreams.

MINT JULEP
I made a window box planter this year, just outside my bedroom, in the hopes that some foliage will lend a cooling effect to any breeze that may find me. The box is 2 milkcrates large, and one has my Worcester Mammoth Horicultural Beans, and the other has mint. The mint is there because I found some neglected in one of last year’s pots, and I wanted the experience of bringing something back to life. Also I thought the smell would be nice. But as soon as I planted it my thoughts turned immediately to julep. I did not get any sizeable leaves in time for the traditional First Julep, which is the weekend of the Kentucky Derby, the first weekend of May. But I have a lot now, and I’m doing it, and it’s nice.

In a small mug that an elderly relative made, put in a half tsp of sugar and 2 big mint leaves. Then put 2 ice cubes in your bare hand and crack them to the best of your ability with the back of a metal spoon. Add the shards to your cup. Then put in a shot of your house bourbon, and stir it around, crushing, or at least bruising, the mint leaves with the ice. I add a little tap water too. I make them small because I’m an extraordinary lightweight, and if I want another I’ll just make another. I have a personal rule for alcohol that I can only drink in celebration-- when it’s a julep in my hand I like to toast to either a place of birth or a horse (imagined or real).

ICED COFFEE
I talked about this the other day but I’m really into making iced coffee with instant right now. I fill an old Teddy peanut butter jar with ice, then add half soy milk half water, a wee drip of good maple syrup, and maybe a teaspoon of Folgers Crystals. Screw the lid on and shake the shit out of it, then put $6 in your own piggy bank.

I honestly think I’m drinking the perfect amount, and I drink them from the early afternoon until the edge of night. To “go Ayurvedic”, add very minute amounts of cardamon, clove, nutmeg, and even cinnamon. For “night mode” add bourbon.

FIVE GLASSES OF WATER
Every spell in my grimoire starts with “drink enough water”. Do not omit this crucial step or any demons you may manage to conjure will be foggy and listless.

ICED MATCHA LATTE
This is so easy. Follow my recipe for iced coffee but instead of instant coffee crystals put in matcha powder, which you get at that Japanese market downtown. The expensive kind says “ceremonial grade” but like, it’s OK to be unceremonious on this one. With some people, that’s what I love about them, their lack of ceremony. You don’t see them for a while and then you do and they don’t make a federal case out of it they’re just like yo what’s up dude and then you’re back together like “Last Splash” era-Breeders. Anyway you know what to do from here (with the beverage I mean), you put the lid on and shake the shit out of it. if the powder don’t want to blend just put it down for a minute and come back and give it another shake. There it goes.

ICED YERBA MATE
You’ll need to hunt around for where to buy yerba mate. You want the big brick, not the little teabags you get at the health food store. I order it online, and of all the styles I always get “elaborada con palo”: with sticks. Avoid getting the smoked kind because that causes your actual cancer. At first you’ll be like, I want the special metal straw, I want the gourd, I want the whole paraphenelia. I get it. But honestly you can make it in a French press and it’s great. In winter and fall, and some cool spring mornings, I like to add cocoa powder and a little sugar. When the weather is warm I pour the mate over ice and add lemon juice (and a little sugar). I had a roommate years ago from Uruguay and she was DISGUSTED by the way I prepared yerba mate. “It really sucks what you’re doing right now”. Then she tried my chocolate variation and said “it really sucks that this is really really good”. Shoutout to Teresa!

THE FLOWER OF MY HEART
You guys I had a very stressful start of the year, and one thing that happened was we had to take one of my beautiful cats to the emergency vet. This was in late January-- she stopped eating, and then the next day we had a blizzard that made it impossible to do anything about it other than wait and see, which we did, but it only got worse. The next morning we borrowed our neighbor’s big car and got there. Then we’re waiting around, stress, the economic realities of the vet, dividing a large sum into manageable pieces then walking around the nearby Michael’s while waiting for the x-rays thinking 26 custom birdhouses at $50 a pop seems possible, but if she needs surgery, then 100 birdhouses seems beyond the pale, what else they got. I’ll cut the tension here: she’s fine now (the cat). She ate something weird, but not string, which is what I was afraid it was. They gave her an IV of fluids and rubbed an appetite stimulant in her ear (!), and when we got back to the house she popped out of the carrier spry as anything and attacked a bowl of regular cat food. No throwing up, and days later, seemingly no complications. I hung out with her awhile that night, and then, in relief, and to be honest, out of necessity, I put pineapple juice, bourbon, bitters, honey, a whole raw egg, and ice into a jar, and shook it vigorously, then drank it on the couch while watching the movie Paddington in Peru (2024).

For loving friendship, and for kind strangers, I am truly and deeply thankful. Sometimes you eat something that hurts, and it scares you off food, and then that turns into the real problem. Everyone needs access to nice stories, utopic visions, pleasant dreams, and if need be, topical stimulants. To all artists out there: if you’re thinking about trying to increase joy in this maddening world, I would say go for it, it helps. To all bartenders, I would call this cocktail “the Flower of My Heart”. Garnish as appropriate.

links / misc

• Fuck dude, Last Splash is so GOOD... Honestly I was in high school when this came out and it was more important to me than Nirvana. Absolutely lovely for the summer. Looking for a shareable version I found this inspired YouTube that puts the full album over the movie “Splash Too!” (1988). [YouTube]. I can’t lie, I’m smilin’ :)

• OK my other favorite underwater music videos are Sade “No Ordinary Love” [YouTube] and Weyes Blood “Movies” [YouTube]. I know that Blood has more than one underwater video, I’m saying this one is my favorite. Look for me getting down on one knee in “Weyes Blood Parking Lot” (2038).

• Heads up, Bloomsday is next Tuesday (the 16th of June) so I’m probably going to post late Monday night. My plan is to go to Worcester, which is my personal Dublin, and spend the day having a series of interludes. I’m thinking I’ll start at Bancroft Tower and wind up at the Ship Room?? and in between I’ll write a little poetry, buy soap, go to the post office, have a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy...?

  If you do a Bloomsday celebration for the love of God send me a report afterwards. The rough itinerary is here: [Ulysses, by James Joyce]. More about Bloomsday here: [Bloomsday, on Wikipedia]. Wikipedia notes that on the first celebration of Bloomsday “the pilgrimage was abandoned halfway through, when the weary pilgrims succumbed to inebriation and rancour at the Bailey pub in the city centre“. So while that’s hardly the top score, that’s the score we’re trying to beat. I know what you’re saying-- “I’d never succumb to rancour”. Listen... everybody says that.

  Anyway I’m going to try and post something early because next week will be my tenth week in a row and I attached a personal reward to that accomplishment. Also I said if I didn’t do 10 weeks in a row I’d send Greg Harvester $200 and I can’t afford it! I can’t afford the money and certainly not the shame. Emails will go out on Wednesday as per usual.

• the Clovers - One Mint Julep [link]. Big tune!

• thanks everyone :) if you have a question or comment please leave a message on this post at Fujichia.com: [Recent Beverages]