Bread & Whistles

Fighting and Dancing in equal measure- let's catch up on where I've been and some stuff to come.

First off, let me apologize for my absence and this overdue post. I took an unanticipated break from The Quiet Part mostly because baking overtook my life for a hot minute and I’ve been struggling to “right-size” it. If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that I juggle many passions, modes of work and hobbies. Is it a lack of commitment or is it my commitment to following the thread of whatever lights me up at any particular moment? I like to think it’s the latter.

Bread and pastry have been a part of my life for nearly 15 years and it’s been patiently waiting on the back burner for my attention. It’s nice to bring out the starter and to feed it every day, to tend to my notebooks of recipes and organize them properly and share my goodies with my new Long Beach community. The holidays were a wild time, as they always are, but with the added hyperfocus of baking... I got lost in the sauce.

After a string of pop ups and collaborations around town, I launched my first monthly brunch on Sunday! The Slow Sunday Brunch is a culmination of so many previous iterations- Sunday dinners with my Quad of lovely friends and rotating guests back in Red Hook, Mumus and Mimosas (does anyone here remember this event from 2018?) in which I aimed to create a networking event that doesn’t suck, and so many dinner parties from those Brooklyn days. This monthly brunch has been waiting for its moment for well over 10 years, harkening back to the days I was making lentil soup and vegan crepes for friends in my first moldy apartment, tucked behind the Seattle troll.

I love food and I love to share food, but something that came up for me as I prepared for the first Slow Sunday Brunch, against the backdrop of state-sanctioned violence unfolding in Minneapolis, was the reminder that gathering is a political act. Food is the thing that gets people in the door— we’ve all gotta eat— but what do we do when we’re gathered and eating? We refill the spiritual coffers. We grieve together and then we strategize. We hear each other’s perspectives from our very lips and we remember why the fight is so important: none of us are free until we’re all free.

Since 2016 I’ve been actively seeking out the ways that I can authentically show up to The Fight for Collective Liberation. I’ve read the books and taken the seminars and dug deep to reflect on the ways that this is a White People Problem- an oppressive system created by white people needs to be dismantled by white people. Of course there have been missteps and Saviorism at heavy play as I’ve wandered through this journey, but something new is taking shape. I know myself better than I ever have and I know where I can plug in. Getting in the street and protesting is only one way to be involved in carrying the load. We also need to be fed, to find joy, to find pleasure and connection with our neighbors, to build trust and to have deep conversations over coffee or a cocktail or a croissant (or all of the above). This is where we share our strategies, this is where we share resources and tell each other about direct actions we can take.

The day before the brunch I went to a zine folding event to put together packets for Whistlemania. The zine outlines all the ways we can know our rights and protect our neighbors from ICE and includes a whistle, to alert our community if there is ICE in the area. I only knew about the event because of someone I met in person at our Art For All event back in August. We ran into each other and reconnected at the Long Beach Community Table, delivering groceries to homebound neighbors, and then we started getting together nearly weekly to hang out and deepen our relationship. This friend, Sabrina, invited me to this event, and then she showed up the next day at brunch. It’s through this same relationship I met another beautiful soul, Jesse, who said to me at brunch that we need to be “fighting and dancing in equal measure.” That’s what it takes to show up to this fight for the long haul, to not flame out, to not burn out- we have to find moments of joy, rest and connection. I’m reminded of Dan Savage talking about the AIDS epidemic and how he and his friends would go to funerals during the day and go dancing at night. We have to remember that we are alive and there’s so much to live for. I’m reminded of this song by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, about her mother’s experience in Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. Give it a listen.

As my priorities shift in this season, I want to take a moment to reground in what The Quiet Part is. This is my sandbox. This is the messy process of creating art and creating self. The Quiet Part is the daily practice of showing up to everything I do with the intention that it is part of my art practice. The movies I watch, the music I listen to, the bread I bake, the paintings I keep returning to, the layers and layers of daily attention that will eventually add up to something shareable with the public (hopefully?!) The Quiet Part is where I pour it out, without much of a filter, without the high level, 10,000 foot view of how this will be perceived or what will come of it- this is simply process and practice. Thank you for being here and bearing witness without any expectation. This is the daily work that makes a life, that makes an art practice.

In other news…

I am delighted to be a part of Tidepools, a year long writing group held by Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. I’m not giving up on my book just yet. I feel a new layer is being unearthed and I will share little bits and bobs as they come up. Down below, for paid subscribers, I’m including what I wrote yesterday in my free writing session. Writing and Painting take turns as the main characters in my art practice and right now, the writing is on the table. I feel fully supported and ready to run, in part because Lidia is such a dazzling example of pouring out the blood, guts and cum onto the page and letting it sit.

Recently Kristen Stewart made her directorial debut by writing and producing The Chronology of Water, Lidia’s first memoir. I sat in the theater and sobbed, slack jawed, eyes wide, glued to the experimental rawness on the screen. This is my template. If you haven’t seen this film yet, run, don’t walk, then make time to go see it again. I’m dying to see it a second time as soon as possible.

I came across a carousel of films that inspired Stewart in making Chronology of Water and so I’ll be watching them in the coming weeks and reporting back with reflections and inspirations.

Here’s the list if you want to follow along. I’ll aim for one movie per week and I’ll be writing about them here, kinda like we did with the Summer Syllabus series :)

1. Morvern Callar (2002)

2. Jacquot de Nantes (1991)

3. A Real Young Girl (1976)

4. Le Bonheur (1965)

5. Angela (1995)

6. Soft Fiction (1979)

For my paid subscribers: Thank you so much for being here and supporting my work. You’re supporting the quiet part- the unseen labor of digging and searching for kindred spirits, examples, templates, images, words that get me where I’m going. I like to think that I’m giving myself my own education, and you’re essentially my scholarship, my support in doing so. I don’t take it for granted. I’ll be resuming monthly community tarot readings on (or near) the full moon! Thank you for your patience and I hope these little bits of poetic prose give you a pep in your step today, something to gnaw on, something to inspire your own creative practices.

Thank you, I love you,

Sam

First one’s on me: