01. trust in the unfolding
02. know thyself, DIY
”At that point he was living in an old warehouse space an hour and a half outside of the city. It was dirt cheap, allowing him to funnel his money to his first film. We were building a fake house within the shell of the warehouse walls, hallways, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room from scavenged materials supplemented with a couple of low budget Home Depot runs.
Me and the rest of the small crew were fed a grimy, hustler version of craft services: choice of day old donuts from a bulging trash bag, scavenged from a local spot, dollar store frozen pizza breads, dollar store energy drinks.
The production schedule had to be calibrated in advance, weeks of logging the practice schedule of the heavy metal band practicing in the space on the other side of the brick wall.”
03. balance limits with excesses
04. absorb the journey
05. outfit yourself
06. outfit your friends
07. outfit your scene
08. outfit your community
09. make meaning with mutuals
10. consider the materials your rituals are made of
11. treasure the trash
12. sometimes forward
13. work in the semi-open: translucency not transparency
14. learn to repair
15. execution depends on cultivation
16. hypnotize yourself or someone else will
"Mirrors. Reflectors, the crowns of trees as viewed in the painting surface, rippling river. That's what the gear is for, the tools are for, the nesting material is for, the ritual pointers are for. Hypnotize yourself, or someone else will."
17. summon something
18. keep asking why
19. figure out how
20. observe residues closely
"Gear for throwing in your bag as you run to catch the bus. To go to the one good gallery left you know of, that's probably closing down for good soon. To go dancing after, in the basement of an old ELKS lodge, a space that has absorbed the spirit and matter of so much sweat and spilled drink stain exuberance. The exuberance of a dog chasing a car and catching it. What now, what now, where's afters"
21. get the smell of smoke in your clothes
22. find the blurry edges of your soul and signal them
23. witness time through shadows
"Like the sun on your skin, leaning into the summer glow warm promise, the candle burning, the diffused LED tabletop lamp, the glow of the screen in dark mode, these are the guide lights in quieter moments. The fireflies. Isn't it nice to be back in the season of it? Fresh light fresh life, the big bloom of it all with a time to burn before it burns out."
24. know when to bend, know when to break
25. there’s nothing spiritual about exploitation
26. escape velocity is an illusion
27. develop splatter vision
28. practice presence
29. gatebreaking over guilds (9 times out of 10)
30. everything counts
31. explore but remember many have come before you, many will follow
"A man outside the dispensary asks me to buy him a vape cart because his driver’s license expired. He said we think falling snow is beautiful because of a deeply buried sense memory from ancient alien ancestors, a parallel for traveling through the star-streaked void of space."
32. speed and convenience are extracted from someone or something, somewhere
33. run goods into the ground like life depends on it
34. sacrifice is a kind of editing
35. leave the right traces
THE FIRST CYBORG: WIELDING A STONE, WEAVING A BASKET, WEARING THE ARMOR OF AN ANIMAL, BECOMING SOMETHING NEW, SELF-CRAFTING, ANCESTORS GIFTING NEAR-DIVINE KNOWLEDGE, MASSIVE UPGRADES, CHEAT CODES
36. a cascade can’t be escaped, only survived
37. invest in what is living
38. trash is tragic
39. every thing carries the weight of its maintenance with it
40. do not become encumbered
”Gathering is assembling what is needed; collecting is a perversion of that, a curatorial hoarding oppositional to the flows of flourishing life that includes loss. Gather the right things, and make meaning while the sun is shining.“
41. ABG (always be gleaning)
42. there’s no away, no elsewhere, not really
43. move with intention
“We waited to reach the coldest pit of winter. We figured the water flooding the basement hallway would be frozen enough to drop ourselves down through the broken window and explore the the last of it, finally.”
44. share the loot
45. daily acts of faith
46. we are not kids, not a number, not a brand
Miller describes a febrile atmosphere where boundaries between performers and crowd were all but obliterated. “Everyone there was doing something, whether it was selling a fanzine or organizing a gig, doing a band, running a label. There weren’t really any civilians in that sense. It was a very creative time.”