Here’s an excerpt from my monthly substance newsletter. Read in full (and subscribe for free) here.
I found this piece when I was searching through some unpublished things recently. It’s a story about performing at a friend’s loft party on a visit to LA many years ago. Its sultry shadows and vibe of smoky indistinction between sleep and waking life felt apropos to share at this mid-summer juncture in the northern hemisphere.
Enjoy the sun,
xx
Solipsis
High afternoon sun fills the sky, diffuse and blinding overhead like a glowing, heated blanket. A mirage rises like an enchanted mirror over the barren white sidewalk. I worry about my skin, unaccustomed to this hard relentless light.
The corner deli is like an oasis, imparting a sense of calm: the seltzer I buy in multiple is only an excuse to come visit. Inside, it’s filled with bright, crinkly wrappers and glossy paper; chips, candy, tabloids and cigarettes. Their presence is strangely comforting. At the counter, neon scratch n’ win tickets sit in crisp rows under scuffed Plexiglas. A man is mumbling to the clerk to run his regular lotto numbers.
Next door is a sign shop, its windows hung from top to bottom with words spelled out in neon and LED: NAILS OPEN HERE TATTOOS SUSHI HOT FOOD DELI SORRY WE’RE CLOSED. Large powered fans waft noise and air smelling of fresh hot plastic out into the street.
My mouth is dry and my throat hurts, and words feel like pennies in a bank account slowly draining down to zero. I’m performing tonight and think I should minimize talking to save my voice, but don’t want to do that. I hop into the passenger seat of a friend’s vehicle and talk flows freely as we cruise through unfamiliar neighborhoods. The conversation falls from our lips and in my memory later it feels like silence: voices drained out channels of inner solitude, empty talk running down a stream to an empty river for a time.
As the sun fades we arrive at a deserted block where all of the buildings are fortressed off from the street by some overt protective measure: metal roll gates, iron window bars, or boards nailed to facades. The entrance to our destination is heavy, dented steel, slamming shut into a high-ceilinged lobby lit by dirty fluorescent bulbs. I walk to the top of an echoing staircase and am greeted by a longhaired guy who leads me across the wide loft to examine the sound system.
The space is lit with halogen tubes and feels refreshingly cool. Its concrete floor is painted a warm grey. It smells clean, like latex and dust.
I’m alert but pleasurably drowsy as I set up and test the microphone, gazing over at the far wall to a huge panel of windows to catch a view of the city: a landscape of glowing empty buildings, lines of traffic, and inhospitable sidewalks. Visions of dark techno ruins –
“So Bladerunner,” I say to nobody in particular.
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