My favorite art teacher, Ben Stahl, said that Nature is an artist but only [a human] can make art. Remembering more of my life allows me to make greater art of it. There's stuff I don't like, stuff I do, and every day I go through a process of recombining all the elements in ways that feel better and more meaningful to me. I woke up remembering the feeling of a snow day. That feeling is so good. Like, we're all gonna take a break from this charade we call school, we're gonna hang out, we're prob...

Here I am at a lovely apothecary in Lyons, Colorado. I’m drinking magic tea with honey in it. In front of me is tiny tiny tea set. I pretended to make tiny tea. The invisible sugar, cream, spoon — how are those more real than the tea I’m drinking?

You know who I want to be? Someone who’s brave enough to say “hey, I made this,” and put it out into the world instead of letting it moulder in a drawer. To build up a visible trail of creative work so that others might have permission to do the same. From 2013-2014ish, I wrote a biopic about Carrie Nation. In 1900, she became the most famous woman in the world for her saloon-smashing antics. When I read her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, I felt a strong resonanc...

friendships from the early Internet

Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell, scared the shit out of me as a kid. The setting is often primal, wet, and chilly, the main character is isolated from everyone she’s ever known, and I was haunted by the image of her little brother being killed by the wild dogs that roamed the island, and the threat that they consistently present to her as each day turns to night. Only by recently revisiting the story was I able to appreciate its other dimensions and O'Dell's masterful storytelling. ...

And why I think this film belongs in the fantasy genre

I made this arrangement in appreciation of Sean Lock. Thank you for making me laugh when I really, really needed it.

plus a surprising revelation

Why Jaws is so good: It's a subliminally effective war movie. Quint's monologue reveals a poetic displacement submerged deeply in the film.

These stories are relevant to any modern person trying to find their own standpoint within a culture that thinks that war is a viable solution to its own illness.