2 / Long-Lived Friends

Thank you for checking in! Thank you for being a Friend!

I begin these emails as if we are introducing an episode of Golden Girls because so many of you are Friends. I don't take that for granted.

Reviewing the modest tally of subscribers, I recognize some folks who once sat across from me as opponents in competitions. I see old co-workers who toiled alongside me in our younger years -- our paths meet again, former adventuring party-mates from a bygone era, a small history of follies and mundanities between us that no one else remembers with accuracy. I'm happy that you are still alive, that you are well. Not everyone made it or stayed in touch.

I also see usernames familiar to me from when they pressed the virtual icons communicating appreciation for my online presence or droll memes. You produced your own memes or revealed your own thoughts, and I pressed the same icons for you, and here we are now, through it all, mutuals. We are a connection linked not from shared trauma, or at least not traumas we cannot look back on today to call up some nostalgia for. You and I found each other as we enjoyed the same games, the same events, or the same sense of humor.

I am pleased to know I've embraced a good number of you, and dapped up even more, either in RL* or over computer technology. If we haven't exchanged those gestures yet, let us set an intention to rectify that sooner than later. I can't be the first to remind you that life may be long, but it's also short.

And while we are setting intentions, I can tell you the theme of these correspondences will be our kinship, not the hatred those outside our circle carry for us. It is still "Fuck them boys on the other side," them boys being the disingenuous, the antagonists confident in their unkindness, the #fakedemons, and their like. No, they are already trying to take so much from us. We will keep this space ours.

I will borrow these words from There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib, whose tone I lifted for my paragraphs so far, as if I clicked copy then paste-and-match-style, changing a few words and adding my own saccharinities to escape teacher's suspicion:

"… since we are talking about our loves over our enemies, Lord knows I will take whatever I can to be in the presence of my people. To have a secret that is just ours, played out through some quiet and invented choreography. A touch between us that lingers just long enough to know we’ve put some work into our love for each other. We’ve made something that no one outside can get through. I do not waste time or language on our enemies, beloveds. But if I ever did, I would tell them that there is a river between what they see and what they know. And they don’t have the heart to cross it."

Though class reunions are not for me, for the same reason class reunions are not for a lot of you, I am grateful for this reunion between us. Isn't reunion a beautiful, hopeful word? Something common bonded us once, and here we are again. We liked each other enough to return and say, "You know what? Let's run it back."

And if the relationship I described here does not match the reality of our brief encounters, or really you subscribed on a whim, believing we are only acquaintances if even that, please consider that this is a temporary problem. I appreciate that you allowed me to talk this long without interrupting to correct my assumption, and we are closer now because of your patience.

*I say "in RL" here instead of IRL to call out that this encompasses both in Real Life and in Ralph Lauren, which draped over my form as we held conference.

A few dope things that have been on my mind:

1. Milkman by Anna Burns - Several in my contemporary Irish authors book club disliked this assignment, irritated by its claustrophobic writing, meandering sentences, and eschewment of proper names for most characters, all complaints with merit. There are a couple harrowing chapters for pet owners to read through, and a menacing tension as "middle sister" is stalked by paramilitary actors amidst the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

But! It's a very funny book. The novel entertains with amusing internal monologues from the teenage protagonist, as well as increasingly absurd exchanges with her clueless "maybe boyfriend," her spiraling mother fixated on presumed scandals, and the nosy community that's invented their own stories about her since she refuses to share any part of herself with them. Burns's engaging prose and vivid, unique scenes earned her the Booker prize, book clubs be damned.

2. Proxxon's bench top tools - The yearning to have an atelier is strong, as evidenced by my own efforts to build a corner workshop in my basement. Living arrangements, however, can make it difficult to install the necessary ponderous machines of one's hobby. Proxxon offers tools that fit in apartments or on craft tables. Its line of petite bench top units includes drill presses, lathes, saws, thermocutters, and other instruments for small-scale projects, even a wee shop-vac to collect their dust.

While I have not invested in any Proxxon products save for a rotary tool, I imagine them apt for manufacturing birdhouses, picture frames, shelves, and dungeon tableaus for RPG campaigns. They're attractive units, too. The matte green and yellow tools seem pulled from a Mobile Suit Gundam series, background props in a hangar as repair crews service disassembled mechas with crackling arc welders.

3. Actively Black's NYFW Show - The culture-inspired athleisure label honored civil rights icons at New York Fashion Week with a joyous celebration, walking down the runway Ruby Bridges, Dr. Bernice King, Ilyasah Shabazz, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, and Juneteenth flag designer Boston Ben.

I was awed by the viral clip of photographer and political activist Cecil J. Williams as he sauntered out to Bone Crusher's "Never Scared" while the audience chanted along, the important photo of him drinking from a "White Only" water fountain projected on the wall and printed on his black hoodie. His image, then and now, holds power. Williams's confident walk evoked that characterization from John Woo's The Killer (excerpted in Rza and Raekwon's "Incarcerated Scarfaces"): "He looks determined without being ruthless. Something heroic in his manner. There's a courage about him, doesn't look like a killer. Comes across so calm. Acts like he has a dream. Full of passion."

4. Hello, Tokyo! A Guide for Exploring Japan's Capital City - After nearly 50 years in print, Japanese fashion and culture magazine Popeye has its first all-English issue, compiling a number of 2018-2025 Tokyo City Guide articles. W. David Marx (author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style) assisted in the translation and editing, and he describes the special edition as "pure Popeye: extremely deep recommendations and superhigh info density." Please buy this, post photos of its pages, and tag me so I can peek at its articles.

♫ It's almost the end of the show ♫

Hit reply and send me an email about anything -- questions, reactions, whatever you feel comfortable sharing. I welcomed the support many of you sent after the first newsletter, felt your generosity in my heart, and it provided me so much relief. I am not oblivious to my tendency to write like a dickhead with a thesaurus, to come off as self-important in my sentimentality. That you thought of me to write helped quell those anxieties.

2 / Long-Lived Friends

Credits: This email's title and overwrought comparison to adventuring party-mates are nods to, of course, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End by Kanehito Yamada. I summoned Sifl & Olly for the new title of this newsletter's penultimate segment.

The lead image is a screenshot from Square Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics, posted by Barnyard-Sheep in this Reddit thread (I have no idea if this moment is a spoiler, but I will find out when I play the remake releasing next week.). And the photo of the Proxxon tools comes from this auction listing that became too rich for my blood.