notes & things | 2/22/2026
This last week of false spring has been mild in temperature,, but the winds still howl ominously through the alleys and streets almost constantly. The temps still drop swiftly at night, it is February after all, but we are determined to endure the window open a crack and snuggle under the comforter most nights lest we get too warm while we sleep. We are working our way through the latter seasons of Westworld at this point right before bed, which has ominous echoes of our current predicaments with wealth, personal data, and control. I can't help but think one of the reasons it was canceled prior to a fifth season because it was on the nose, but a couple years ahead of its time. (the mad popularity of something like Severance in more recent years points to the potential of what it was becoming in its wanderings from the Crichton source material we had in the first couple of seasons.) I think there is more an audience for AI gone wrong than there was even 5 years ago.
But modern and computer-age horrors aside, I have been reveling in more distant realms creatively. The daily collages this week have a decidedly 19th Century bent, moreso than the ones I was creating earlier in the month using more mid-century visual elements. I particularly love the one above. This may be the Yellow Wallpaper stage adaptation I am in the thick of or perhaps the influence of seeing Wuthering Heights (we are actually going back again this week for a second viewing) as well as Luc Besson's Dracula movie, which we caught in theaters--definitely a more a book-accurate but highly stylized interpretation. It was an enjoyable romp with lavish costumes and shots (and gargoyles!) This turn may also be prompted by the Bluebeard project I was working on a couple weeks ago, which employs similar vibes.
I have also been working on some new shop offerings in terms of prints and new journals which I am very excited about. I am currently on hiatus from daily poems in favor of hammering away slowly plays as I try to increase my skills there, but will be making an e-zine in March of the Bluebeard poems (and a special print book object edition for Patreon subscribers, so keep an eye out for that.) You can still get in on the action there before the end of this month and land a signed copy of CLOVEN and my little 2026 desk calendar featuring collage work. This was a small print run, but I hope next year to make both a spiral-bound calendar and a desk standing version.
Tuesday, we are headed to Steppenwolf to see another Strindberg play, Dance of Death, which looks to be about a contentious marriage, which fits well as I am finishing up a first draft of the Chopin adaptation. This week, we also have new bookshelves arriving to deal with the living room situation, in which they are basically collapsing under the weight of way too many books, which grow as J has been slowly bringing more thick and chonky novels into the house. (He is also part owner of an entire room of books at his mom's house that will eventually be his to deal with. The spectre of inheriting it down the line, as well as her enormous art supply collection in the basement, means we are probably gonna need a bigger apartment.) Here, there is much still to be purged I imagine as I start re-organizing. These ones aren't the flimsy particleboard "wood" and are all metal with an industrial bent, which means they should hold quite a bit more and not be so prone to collapsing if they are a little overstuffed.
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