“Hope, no matter how unlikely, is still worth singing for. There has to be magic in that.” (Maggie Warren on Presto)

For me, these realities of nature reveal a sense of presto: an inherent poetry to this life, a chance to find meaning and magic in a world we share with such strange creatures.

Literature, Music, Personal Essay, PoliticsGuestJuly 7, 2024Maggie Warren

"A ringing clarity, followed by smoke. Deliberate naughtiness." ([sarah] Cavar on Presto)

What would my craft be, we and I, if not for the lovers I share us with?

Literature, Music, Personal Essay, PoliticsGuestMay 28, 2024[sarah] Cavar, Leila Chatti, Mary Oliver, Chen Chen, nat raum

“There exists a joy and hunger for more in that younger self.” (Adrienne Novy on Crowd Surfing With God: 5 Year Anniversary Special Edition)

That intensity is impossible to replicate as an adult, I think, because it reverts to nostalgia for us.

Music, Literature, Personal EssayGuestDecember 9, 2023Adrienne Novy, Hanif Abdurraqib

At Least at Times It Knew Me (Lucy Hannah Ryan on You Make Yourself Another)

In the back alley of my mind a taxi leaked orange light against the worst of my wounding and I said, I want to leave that here.

There and Wanting

What we do, what two mistimed people have always done, only ever has one ending. It will never be clearer than it is right now.

Music, Personal EssayGuestOctober 22, 2022St. Vincent, William Faulkner, MUNA, Mitski, Yumi Zouma, Grimes

X: Elegy | Silver-Tipped Swallow: "Debt Collector's Lullaby"

When reporters ask for the secret, you are good at hedging: hard work is a sweet way to say obsession. Pathology is prettier when masked in music.

Columns, Literature, Music, Personal EssayTopaz WintersJuly 17, 2022silver-tipped swallow

“I find joy in singing my dead to life just as often as I find ache.” (Anthony Thomas Lombardi on Elegy)

Elegy can be messy. Elegy is sometimes unhappy with itself, too. Elegy is regrinding the lens again & again & again. Elegy is a reconstruction of joy.

"Grief does not exist only in subtraction." (Geoff Anderson on Elegy)

Elegy is birthed from such discomfort, a speaker navigating a world that hurts precisely because of its horrible resemblance to the one left behind.

Music, Literature, Personal EssayGuestJuly 10, 2022Søren Kierkegaard

"To mourn is also to acknowledge the limitations of language." (Gavin Yuan Gao on Elegy)

Elegy is the séance we hold as we pray for a visitation from the ones we have lost. We invite them to haunt us. We sing to them, and listen for song in return.

Literature, Music, Personal EssayGuestJune 29, 2022Gavin Yuan Gao

X: Elegy | Uncomposed: "Shrine to July"

I was praying the only way I knew how. I was trying to build a boat, to take me through the waves of grief on your street, right up to your door.

Columns, Music, Literature, Personal EssayPaola BennetJune 23, 2022uncomposed