Lolly-Gagging
Monocropping, envy in heat, and why asking about the weather has substantial purpose.
Hello, dear lovelies,
My sincerest apologies for missing your inbox last week! I got caught up in the SXSW festivities in Austin (a city-wide festival of film/music/tech) and neglected to finish the story I was working on for you!
In time, it’ll come. It deserves more attention, and I realize I can’t rush it for the sake of making a deadline. Missed it anyway, and in the name of not missing another and for making up for a lost last-week, here I am to provide a triple-threat newsletter of poetry, prose, and newfound insight.
POETRY
Regenerative Agriculture (is the answer)
Mono Solo the grain grows lighting up like gold in the eyes of a short-lived man with long-dead virtue Year after year the crops beg for difference / yearn for reverence listen sings their swan song as the soil becomes dirt
PROSE
I wrote this here semi-autobiographical but mostly metaphorical blurb in late 2019 and drafted a hard copy zine for it to fit into in 2020. However… it still, to this day, has not seen the light of eyes beyond my own. So, here we go! Enjoy this short story of sorts by a one Julia Fae Sanders…
2pm on a Thursday in August, Los Angeles
The red, velvet couch was the only glam persona here in an otherwise kept-dingy apartment. They crushed it under their buttocks while lolly-gagging in the city August heat. Jo could hear the horns of rolling metal yell at each other from the intersection half a block over. The auto-argument hushed while cars pulled over and an ambulance siren grew louder, eventually fading to the West. Tires began to roll again. People went on with their day. Petty impatience forgotten. The screen of the front-door looked down at Jo with apathy. A meager barrier between a world they felt in control of, and a world that wanted to control them. I think that hole is letting flies in. They slouched into submission under the weight of an abyss-like boredom usually only offered on the kids menu. Their eyes melted. The stray hairs of 6 dogs danced gently upon the red velvet cushion’s quiet surface. Like seaweed in a children’s book–back and forth; their indecision exasperated by the breath of an exhausted floor-fan. “Jea-lous-y.” Jo mouthed the word out with overexagerrated articulation. They liked the way the word licked their lips. Like candy on a stick; they wanted to bite but knew they’d hate the cracking tacky they’d have on their hands once they did. Some words have meanings that don't let go when you do. “Jealousy,” The word taunted their teeth. Without it the algorithm could become obsolete. Wouldn’t that be nice. I wonder what that would feel like. Their ring-finger twitched towards the phone, strewn and abandoned across the room. “Jealousy…” Ideas of petulant yummy floated across the ceiling. What an easy way to grab for feeling.
Man, reading that again, I can remember the sticky heat of air that hung around me while I wrote it. I love that about art. I love how it can bring you back to the place where it was forged.
In reviewing old works, it is often the weather that I remember most viscerally. People assume asking about the weather is all shallow small talk. Nah. Weather can be anything you build it up or break it down to be, and atmosphere has a way of getting under the skin of everything I do. I refuse to denounce its relevance to my day to days! Asking about the weather does not make a conversation trivial. I love weather. The specifics, the nuance, the way it frames every moment. The way it haunts the idea of time. The way it marries landscapes with collective emotional projections. The way it dictates the experience of a space. What’s the weather like where you are now? Here it’s overcast. Warm enough for shorts but cold enough for a sweater and a hat. March vibes! Full on.
(see: my fashion norms; cozy bachelor no care vibes with a solid scoop of cute/slutty)