A Blast From the Past
No, I will not be talking about the hit 1999 film featuring Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone. I know. Bummer town to the max. These sentences sound like ad copy for a never aired Surge marketing commercial. Yes, I am still 57.43% comprised of defunct cultural references that no one cares about, not even having a second kid could change that.
I will be talking about how another movie inspired me. To the point, I was recently inspired by my hero Hirayama, the hermit protagonist from Wim Wenders' film Perfect Days, to get a few of my rolls of 35 mm film from another world, another time developed. In Perfect Days, Hirayama would finish shooting a roll of film during his work days and use his day off to drop off roll of film to be developed. During that visit to the camera store, he would pick up the packet of developed photos and a new roll of film. I am not sure why this practice enchanted me so much. Perchance, it was the simplicity with which Hirayama wove the practice into his daily life. I figured if a guy like Hirayama, who is busy listening to cassettes, cleaning public restrooms, and growing the babies of his favorite trees, can do it, so can I!
Like Hirayama, I used some of my off time from taking care of baby Milo to drop off four rolls from 2018-today off at my local camera shop. In true community wizard form, I went on a quest of vital importance to the realm on my bike to take my rolls over to the 9th avenue Victory Camera location, which has a dropbox for the Not Another Film Lab film processing lab based on Santa Fe. They let me bring my bike inside, gently walked me through the process of entering all the information they needed, and took my rolls. BAM! I kicked it up I notch!
Under two weeks later, I got the scans back. I had shots from proto bike quests from 7 years ago, old friends and their bike shops, Lily and I's last trip to San Francisco, and photos of our family life. It's wild to see these moments from another world, before the pandemic and the George Floyd Protests where we were just in the thick of the first trump administration. I can feel in my bones how long ago that was in time I have experienced. I feel like I have welcomed and said goodbye to two or three versions of myself since then. That's what I love about film photography though; it calls for you to slow down to consider that moment in which you took that photo. That practice wraps you in the moment you thought it important or novel enough to capture.
Come with me now on a blast from the past:
I think the most difficult thing about looking at these scans is the unexpected grief that washed over me looking through these moments old worlds. I am reminded of people who have moved away and places that were important to me that no longer exist. The coffee shop where I wrote my dissertation on weekends; it was a brewery and now its back to being a coffee shop. I am back trying to find a bike shop where I belong after treehouse has closed. Fancy Tiger, the craft store where I used to buy yarn to weave, is closed. Heck, I bet you subconsciously that I was sitting on those rolls of film because of the three photos of Oh,Wheelie! (my old bike shop where I bought my lifechanging Rivendell Atlantis) that represent for me how much I miss certain things and people from past Denver. I miss getting to bother Leeman.
I guess the only reason that this is unexpected is that I am a dude who is still working on truly feeling my feelings. Yes, despite my penchant for disowning man babies of all stripes, I am still just a dude from the midwest who as a teen best expressed his feelings listening to emo music. Look, I even have the worn CD copy of Radiohead's Kid A to prove it. I am still working on not Disappearing Completely, but I have gotten better at just sitting in the thick of the swamp of my grief, frustration, anger, and sadness. The fact that I am even able to note that I am always sort of grieving past versions of Denver is a big deal. Huzzah, Hooray! for therapy!
Despite my sadness and grief, I still can see the possibilities in change. Yeah, I miss Oh,Wheelie! and resent the fact that the building that housed it was knocked down to now sit vacant as a gravel pit. However, for everything that I have lost, I am still in awe of watching and taking photos of a city continually remaking itself. That is the sort of magic of cities. Capital will come and go with its weird, bougie concepts, but me and my growing family aren't going anywhere. This is the case for countless others who aren't going anywhere and for many others who will come to call Denver home before they move on to somewhere else. In the end, cities like Denver are made by the people doing things to build community with others they share space with for the time being. Nothing lasts forever, and maybe that is the way its supposed to be. I am still learning that, especially as a Dad.
My sadness for passage of time is tempered by the ever-quickening approach of the city that I am living into. Most of my bike quests now-a-days are just veiled pretexts to ride around and see what is going on and what has changed. I mean, I even have incorporated my polaroid photography practice into a weaving I am working on for a graffiti artist whose work I really respect. There is always something to see, townsfolk to talk to, and stuff to photograph. Given that I am particularly fond of reading a city for omens to guide my reading, listening, and watching, cities are the motor that keep me magically-engaged. For all my harrumphing about being a hermit, I find that my quests into the wilds of Denver are just as important to my mindscape as my quiet solitude with my books, records, and movies.
This all leads me back to where I was last fall with a strong urge to build and be a part of community. It's an enormous blessing in disguise that marijuana is legalized in so many places now, because there is less tourism here than there was ten years ago. With less tourism and less marijuana money flowing around, there has been less investment from outside entities that are trying to astroturf their form of culture onto our city. This is a welcome break. I almost feel like we have reached the point of being more like a flyover-country city again, which reminds me so much of the scrappy, DIY ethos of living in Columbus, OH in the early 10s hipster age. That's all I want. I just want to be a part of a community trying to flesh out what the culture of a city will be with other folx who live here. This is why I want to get back to the weaving guild and continue to find ways to meet up with buddies to do art, ride bikes, and eat food. I mean heck, I made a great friend going to the fiber meet ups at the art gym who made my family food after Milo was born (Shout out to big homie JO! – The link to their work is in my Web Repository!). It's in the real lived experience of life and community that I find the most fulfillment and satisfaction.
The only thing I need help with is with loading my 35mm film into my holga. GOOD GREAT GELATINOUS GLOB! I had two rolls in a row where the developing folx told me the film didn't load properly. Welp, at the very least, I have made my offering to the otherworld film archive. I am sure the ghosts of those photos are being processed as we speak in the next one. Hopefully my ancestors are framing them up and showing their folx what their little buddy jimblers (me) is up to. I know that my mom, who was a prolific photographer, will enjoy getting them. I think I got some great shots. I am looking forward to seeing them in like 50-60 years.
"Real Moments"
I am a big Jessica Dore fan. She is sick tight. Both her weekly offering series and her book Tarot for Change have had a big impact on me. One of the practices she has been sharing a lot of lately on the web is her photography and field recording. Watching her share these real moments from her life of what she is experiencing and noticing has only thrown gasoline on top of the kindling of my search to just share real moments from my own life. That concern of touching and accessing the real has been and continues to be one of the most urgent concerns of my life. I am allergic to the spectacle of our age, to the simulations and veneers that we must navigate just to live and communicate with one another. Me? I just want to share with you an image on film with a recording taken in that same moment without any editing on my part. I may provide some context and commentary on what the image and sounds evoke for or mean to me. I just want to inspire you to go out and experience the world for yourself and document real moments.
Pursuant to this aim [LMAO - I love adding in technical writing language into these essays], I am going to take my Polaroid camera and a Tascam DR-40X into the wilds of Denver and document what I see. Big up to Glenn of BYODC for the recommendation on what field recorder to get. His mix #14 features a bunch of water-related and family field recordings interspersed between some absolute gems of tracks. I loved it so much that I recorded it to cassette tape to listen to it offline.
One Moment
Prairie dog Warrior queen establishes social contract with locale birds who were chittering their way closer to her gaggle of buddies. In the end of the recording, you can hear the queen calling out from the top of her haunches and all her minions launch up into a response as well. You can just maker her out in the polaroid shot below if you zoom in on the bottom right portion of the photo.
The wild thing about this moment with the pika queen is that it wasn't even the most consequential moment to me in terms of personal significance. No, that moment was pretty darn special. I won't diminish it, but it wasn't like the absolute moment of serendipity I shared with my new bud Gabby outside my local library branch.
This special moment occurred at my local library. I was on my way over there to drop off Robert Hassan's Analog, which is absolutely wonderful, and one of Juju's books. The skies to the west were ominous, so I stood outside the library near the drop box checking the weather radar. It was sort of a crap shoot about whether I would get drenched if I tried to get out to the alley during an afternoon in Colorado's monsoon season. Most afternoons look downright scary. As someone from Ohio, I still haven't gotten used to just rolling the dice. The weather in Ohio would always telegraph itself by a couple hours. It was rare for stuff to just fly in outta nowhere. As I was trying to read between the lines of the futurecast, multiple folks walked by me, including a young woman with a backpack on who settled down by the curb waiting for a ride. An additional moment or two past and I decided that I could make it out there before it rained. I closed the weather app, turned back on my homie Glenn Newcomer's #14 radio mix for Be Your Own Drum Circle Radio, and carried my bike over to the street.
As I passed the fashionable woman in minimal clothing, she asked me, "Is that drone? What frequency are you listening to?"
My brain lit up into the 4,000 colors of the rainbow as someone finally stopped to ask me what was playing on my little speaker. As an older guy who has often defined himself by the music he is playing, I was so excited by this question. This made me even more excited than when AOL instant messenger asked me to fill out who my favorite music artists were for my profile when I was 14. "Oh, I am actually not listening to a frequency, but I do like to do that too. I am listening to my friend Glenn's radio show," I replied.
I went on to try and spell out Glenn's web url for her. I paused after failing a few times and said, "Do you believe in serendipity?"
She smiled and replied, "yes!"
"I do too. I feel like this is one of those moments, so I will take as long as it takes to get this sent over to you," I told her with a smile growing on my own face.
We spent the next few minutes troubleshooting before deciding it was best to exchange it over social media. Just as we figured out how to send the link to the mix over to her, her ride arrived to take her to the airport. Yes, to make matters even more serendipitous, Gabby was on layover at my local library branch waiting for her flight out of Denver and just so happened to hear something that perked up her ears as I walked by her. I hope Glenn's music treats you well, Gabby. I hope you find some tunes in that mix that help you see beauty in the world. Better yet, I hope that music changes your entire mind about the world in some way and catalyzes you to go on a great quest in search of that which sets you on fire with delight and purpose. How is that for not sending in the ending to that serendipitous encounter? tehehehe.
Huzzah! Hooray! Do you believe in magic? I do, and this is the precise way I want to share my work from now on. I want to just rely on the magical web of life and happenstance to carry my work out from the place I am currently at. I will gather up the seeds of my thoughts and woven creations with some clay, dirt, and water and form them into a seed bomb to throw into areas that look like they have been completely ignored. In my estimation, that's the perfect way to treat social media in all its forms, especially as folx have retreated from it. I will just throw a seed bomb out in a post or story and let it see where it goes. I will spend more time thinking about how I can plant seeds in my community by just being in public drinking coffee, visiting friends, or eating treatsies. I don't want my creations to go viral. Nah, I want them to grow roots and find more friends as they get hooked into the mycelial web that connects us all.
Seed bomb//root spreading strategy includes:
-Making a homemade practices (no longer business) flyer that offers up my woven/handspinning/natural dyeing/teaching services for free to community bulletin boards or telephone poles.
-Create a practices "community fiber wizard" card that I can pass out to people when I meet them that will link them with my work.
-Making zines about my woven art//questing and attend zine fairs to give away stickers and zines for free. I missed the sign up for the 2025 Denver Zine Fest, so I will just attend with some of my stickers and make buddies hopefully.
-Get back to going to the rocky mountain weavers guild.
-Find ways to collaborate with friends on IRL projects.
-Continue to offer ways to teach people to weave.
-Recommit to this newsletter practice and find an appropriate schedule
-Gifting and trading
-Mailing out half letter updates periodically
-Being quiet and patient when I have nothing to say
-Dropping off stickers and zines to friends on my bike.
What's out:
-Routine posting on social media
-Subscriptions
-Selling things
-"content creation"
-Sharp photos
-Hustling
-Trying to "make it"
-Sharing "content" at ideal times when eyes are available
-Always having something to say
Yes, this is how I let magic into my life. I let the real moments I encounter propel me forward into reflection and further iterative action. This is the essence of reading your life like an omen-filled text that is ready to guide your next steps. Are you ready to embrace all the omens that are calling you forth into new divinely-inspired action? I mean, I am, but I am one weird cookie who was raised by a mom who seeped me in new age phraseology. So, feel free to take whatever serves you and throw the rest away!
It occurs to me that this focus on real moments is tied to an important belief I have about our power to slip through a portal into a new reality at any moment. I believe this to be one of the most tremendous belief bolsters in our current moment where folks are trying to crush your belief in the future. It's much easier for corporate oligarchs to use you up like a battery, like in the film the matrix, when you do not have any hope or dreams for the future. The funny thing about this current moment is that it has only hastened the speed with which alternative, egalitarian futures have been woven into our collective fabric. Mr. Rogers used to say in scary news moments, "Look for the helpers." OH glob, do I see the helpers! They are weaving us all together into this beautiful tapestry of change that will be here before we know it. Sometimes you just need a little reminder that we indeed are all the 99% to open up new possibilities for egalitarian futures to open up. Sometimes you gotta get the fear of glob striked into you that collective resources we all depend on to survive and thrive to have that collective push for even more of those resources to be created happen. I suppose its the inversion of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Here's to a new epoch of egalitarianism being built on the ashes of this dying system.
I recently wove this belief into being in a tiny weaving for a friend. I took this monster batt of fiber (Thanks to the Goat M. Graves for the gift.), spun it up on my drop spindle, blocked the resulting skein, listened to Blood Incantation's Giza Power Plant, and awoke to the startlingly realization that I was a portal maker! Then I did my best Jennifer Mao, one of my favorite contemporary fiber artists, impersonations and embroidered a doorway onto the portal and a magic burst of energy in the center. I think what the weaving makes clear is that portals to other worlds are available to us every day, every moment. You don't gotta go to flockin' stonehenge to transcend mundane reality. No, turn your mundane reality into an endless quest for moments of life-altering change and praxix. You just have to practice looking for the portals in your everyday decisions, a certain play of light, meeting a new mushroom/ plant/ animal friend, or taking time to explore a synchronicity. Any of these could change your life and the course of life on this planet or they could just pass without any note. Only you decide which portals you will take and which worlds will be created.
Case in point, I could have just fired up the ole gaming PC this morning and vibed out in a world that someone else created, pursuing any number of quests that were created for me to "accomplish something." I don't think anyone would have faulted me or begrudged me for that as a new dad working full time in this hellscape. Honestly, no one would have noticed, because no one even knows this site exists (thehehe). Instead, I took a left hand turn after kiddo drop off by firing up the ole word processor, turning on my B52's records, and working on finally getting this newsletter out on my new ghost site. I took that portal through my decision-making toward self-expression and creativity and now I feel a lot better about turning 39 today.
This is the sort of praxis and magical thinking that enlivens Refused's classic aphorism from "protest song '68": "We could be dangerous, art as a real threat." Where can you take a left hand turn toward creativity today? In this age of corporate oligarchs extracting your time and energy by betting on your passive consumption, one of the realest threats you can become is someone that selects the music, books, and films that you will steep yourself in during pumpkin spice latte season and makes art that expresses your voice (I mean besides taking direct action and providing mutual aid for those affected by fascism – that's cool too, I swear).
Ok, anyways, next issue of this newsletter will be an update on zine building, updates on my woven death work, how I used my library 100 pages of printing a day to print my first half letter zine, and reflections on how writing letters to your friends is just flocking rad.
Jimblers OUT!
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