one big project per year

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Somehow my life has organized itself into one big project per year:

2026: The very first record by The Air Contains Honey

2027: My next novel Desire Without Expectation

2028: The new PME-ART show How Does Change Happen?

(All of these projects somehow make me very nervous for very different reasons.)


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Keep doing the same thing versus Try doing something new.

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Keep doing the same thing versus Try doing something new.

I wrote this down after seeing The Ex play a few nights ago. I had this feeling that they just keep doing the same thing and it just keeps on being good. That for them "doing the same thing" might be the right choice. But I'm not sure. I don't know enough about The Ex enough to know that they keep doing the same thing. And definitely, over the years, they also tried many new things. But I'm always wondering how much my work should change and how. And I'm never sure quite what the best way to think about it is.


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Kawai Shen Quote

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“Despite the suspension of norms in the mosh pit and the lifting of prohibitions on exercising aggression and violence, moshing was never a free-for-all. Like any social endeavour, there were unwritten rules of conduct. Entering a new millennium ushered in by forest fires, warmongering, and a global pandemic, I repeat to myself the lessons I’ve learned. Grasp the hands of the fallen so they are not trampled. Do not tolerate those monopolizing space for themselves. There is something honest and necessary in the proximity that pain causes, in the urgency to stay connected to each other. There can be unity in disorder. Seek it out, make it grow.”
― Kawai Shen, Wavering Futures


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Things haven't gone quite how I planned...

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An update on my attempt to start a Patreon (and the book I'm writing to procrastinate working on the other book that I'm supposed to be finishing.)


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Some favourite records of 2026 (so far)

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[I do a list at the end of every year. And sometimes I also do a shorter list in the middle. Not all of these records were released this year, but this was the year I heard and enjoyed them.]


Dijon – Baby
Titanic – HAGEN
Setting – Setting
keiyaA – hooke’s law
Nadah El Shazly – Laini Tani
Maurice Louca – Barĩy (Fera) برٌِي
Chyna Baejing and Boneweso – BAEJING BALLAD
mary sue, bloomcycle – Self Expressions From Selling Reflections On The Internet



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Some favourite books of 2026 (so far)

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[I do a list at the end of every year. And sometimes I also do a shorter list in the middle. Not all of these books were published this year, but this was the year I read and enjoyed them.]


Sofia Mostaghimi – Desperada
Michael Eddy – Koh-i-Noor
Kawai Shen – Wavering Futures
Patrick Cottrell – Afternoon Hours of a Hermit
Makenna Goodman – Helen of Nowhere
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr – The Most Secret Memory of Men (Translated by Lara Vergnaud)
Mohamed Kheir – Slipping (Translated by Robin Moger)
Giada Scodellaro – Ruins, Child



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