001. Irons in the Fire

I'm a few months into a new and particular season of life. I think it started with a quarter(third?)-life crisis, which generally flows in one direction: "Oh shit! I've been dicking around all this time, but now I'm a real adult! I should probably begin to feel and act like it now..." Only then to be followed by the mid-life crisis: "Oh shit! I've been asleep at the wheel all this time, but now I'm getting old! I should probably begin to feel and act alive, while I can..." Luckily I can oscillate between both, and feel horrible all the time.

Seasons in life so far have been dominated by a revolving landscape of projects, places, commitments, social groups, jobs, ambitions, and angsts. Some of these things I follow through on, and resolve nicely; other things just sort of fade into the mist as I miss the boat or forget all about them. Therefore it's helpful sometimes to go over the Irons in the Fire. Let's see what we have going on:

Working at The Recurse Center

I got a job at RC, doing office and operations work. This has transformed me, for the first time, into a salaryman. Lots of life adjustment here!

Last year while I had finished my 3rd day in a row sanding planks of wood on a boat in the sun, I thought, "I am going to become white-collar." I think, I have now done this.

I've become much more immersed in the tech world and industry proper. There are surprising things about this landscape, particularly in contrast to the arts. In particular, the fat of a healthier industry sometimes allows for collaboration and creativity in a way that I've been missing out on. There is less scarcity here, and that opens up certain possibilities. More to think on this later.

I continue to be blessed to work in and for creative communities of people who Make Stuff. Sometimes this makes me feel like the richest person in the world.

After a while of feeling like I was not being valued for my brain, or that none of the feats of my brain were involved in my societal and economic function, it's a breath of fresh air to be around very thoughtful people who are all interested in learning. At work!

I'm feeling excited about being a better event planner and host and general community-connecting force. I've been organizing a monthly public talk series called Localhost, as well as weekly presentations for people in the retreat, and other events. During my second full week at RC I helped run their yearly alumni conference, Never Graduate Week.

The amount of passive programming and tech knowledge I'm getting by just talking to people every day is really adding up. It makes the idea of a personal programming project extremely tempting...

Teaching Lighting/Texturing for Games at Pratt Institute (Fall '25)

I'm seriously over the moon about teaching at my alma mater, in the new Game Arts program -- the very program that I wished existed when I was a student! The work coming out of the first graduating class is already so beautiful and refreshing. It's rare (maybe singular?) for a game program to be scaffolded upon something like Pratt's foundation year and art history requirements. It's ART art time, baby! I can't wait.

I'm HARD at work prepping for the class this month. This is looking like running through lots of technical pipelines and creating demo materials, lesson plans, etc. to collecting a wide swath of inspiration and more critical, even political thoughts about light, environment, style, etc.

In some ways, being in the extremely pro-learning environment of RC (see the self-directives) has helped me refine and change my thoughts about pedagogy. I can see a better world in education... Maybe some of that can come through in my humble class, if I can foster even just a little bit of self-directedness and collaborative learning.

I feel newly invigorated to make some more personal work in 3D. Stay tuned...

Boshi's Place

I continue to be a member of boshi's place! I was heavily involved in my previous, more flexible season of freelancing, then took a little break to adjust to RC. I've now returned, humbly, hoping to jump in again however I can...

I'm still proud having gone to GDC in March and helped put on our indie games show at the SF collective Syzygy: FREE RANGE INDIE GAMES. We had the lovely help and general support of people like Chia Amisola, Patrick LeMieux, Stephanie Boluk, and Marie Foulston, and for the first time in the games world I felt truly and personally supported by another generation of artists, academics, and weirdos.

How did I even get to receive help from these people? Because, god, I NEEDED it! And I asked! This show was an inch away from not happening as intended. We didn't even have enough monitors or controllers, and I took the slightly embarrassing leap to make a post asking to crowdsource some. The most amazing people came crawling out of the woodwork to make it happen, and it connected me in a way that made me feel like what we are doing at Boshi's is real -- and we are in community, in games, after all. I may be thinking about some discussions I had that week for the rest of my life.

The show went great!

My ambitious Dance Games/Game Dances double exhibition/event has been postponed for now...

Less ambitious but very fun things are possibly in the works, like a videogame plein air painting workshop! (let me know if you're interested in attending!)

Are we an event space, an art collective, a friend group, a community? We have had an amazing 2 years, the last year filled with really fast growth. Things change and redefine and un-define, and I'm excited to see where we go. I have the great feeling that we are all learning together and that there is so much joy, and work, in the process of being together.

Bread and Puppet Theatre

What can I say? Bread and Puppet continues to be one of the greatest sources of sanity, expression, right action, and connection in my life. In a world with powerful forces that I am so frequently in opposition to, it takes reminding that there is resistance and power to be found in simple materials, movements, ideas, and each other, as we are. It can be hard to remember to re-center possibility without shying away from the real stakes. In the face of injustice let it be known that there are hundreds, thousands of sane-insane people with cardboard puppets that have come to shout, dance, and cry together about the state of the world, and imagine what can be done about it.

Each year since my apprenticeship in 2022, it becomes harder for me, logistically, to come up to VT to join in the performances. My stay gets shorter each year: 5 weeks, then 4 weeks, then 2 weeks, and now unfortunately I can only make time for 5 days.

Why? Simply, I don't have a car. I turned 26 and got kicked off my dad's health insurance. I have jobs and commitments and less and less time.

This begs me to ask myself what my relationship with the theater can continue to look like. Last year, I set up a new(er) computer for the apprentices to use on the farm. I brought a Zoom recorder and recorded the many folk songs we sang (Spanish, French, Hungarian, Ukrainian, American Sacred Harp, original remixes of things for performances). I joined the Archival Committee and started brainstorming, but fizzled out once the fall took hold and I was wrapped up in NY life again.

This week, John Bell approached me wanting to pick up where we left off on an idea I had pitched of an oral histories project. On the very same day, I heard the news that a beloved long-time puppeteer and 'geezer' Linda Elbow had passed away. Maybe this timing was a coincidence, maybe it was not. In either case, I strongly feel that the most endangered knowledge and culture within Bread and Puppet is that which lives in everyone's heads. I want to seriously drop what I can to get this project going.

I'm meeting with John tomorrow to discuss this. I expect to set up and/or purchase some equipment, do some research, and write up a plan this week. I'm renting a car next week and headed up to Glover, VT to see the Theatre in all its late-summer hustle and bustle, reunite with many loved ones, and hopefully -- record.

Baby Seedlings on the Horizon and Half-Abandoned Projects

Making gourd hats based off traditional Filipino hats

Getting back into weightlifting / the goal of the elusive pull-up

Chainmail projects

Expanded Age of Empires/David Graeber Zine

Videogame oil painting series

Continuing Mandarin study and returning to Taiwan

Getting back on the water (boats!)

Self-imposed prototype class (making 1 game a week)

Rewriting LocalGuessr (NYC only Geoguessr) in Javascript

RC arcade cabinet

Buying, fixing, and co-owning a 2005 Subaru Forester

Dance Games and Game Dances exhibition/event at Boshi's

Reading Moby Dick

Moving to a bigger apartment that fits my piano, so I can start playing piano again

Website for aforementioned field recordings of Bread and Puppet life, folk songs, beiguan music and Hokkien opera from Taiwan, and natural soundscapes

Evagotchi

Only a half-joke with Max, "Making Black Mountain College 2"