(A tangential note: my mind is on the full moon and a volcanic eruption back home. It’s a weird place to be, cosmically and personally. I think going back to blogging is one of several ways I’m trying to process these endless passages (or what feels like passages) since the new year came around.)

The past semester felt like running a marathon. Or getting nearly mauled to death and barely surviving. Writing this post, five months from the last one, I feel like a chair that’s been thrown several times across a room until it no longer resembles a chair… which is probably what spiritual Twitter and Instagram phrases as transformation. Whether my soul takes on the form of detritus or a craftsman’s work, the point is I’m back!— not that anybody had been waiting for my superb *100 emoji* content.

I’ve been busy preparing for my graduate thesis and working on self-improvement (it’s every bit as boring as you’d think it would be). Part of the thesis (in my mind) is an exercise in self-recovery and the idea of transmutation. (One might ask: what’s the difference between transformation and transmutation? The quickest answer I can give is that transformation may refer to physical change and transmutation is more of an alchemical and actual chemical change— it gets tricky though because won’t chemical change trigger physical change? Is chemical and physical change mutually inclusive or are there instances when it’s just one or the other (i.e. chemical change without physical et cetera) What about the metaphysical dimensions of both terms? Thankfully, I’m not a scientist or a philosopher so I’ll just have to leave it to the wind or to somebody smarter than me.)

On the publishing front, not much has been happening because of said focus on school and self. I did publish an essay (review?— reviews are the Twilight Zone of writing for me) on Eliane Radigue’s Trilogie de la Mort on BERFROIS. The material from my research into Radigue’s life and work (and sound art, in general) has since developed into the bare bones of my graduate thesis. In between, I’m glad about what I think are improvements in my craft. I might share a few unpublished pieces here or find a place for them.  All I know is no matter what happens past writing will always make my skin crawl (as with reading my posts from last year). That’s the most I can share for now.