The Alterity of the Self-Aware Lover Emerges: Part 2

I recently decided to make a list of all of the people in my life who I know truly care about and desire for my happiness. I was amazed by how long the list became, and by the people who I thought to put on it. There are about six people on the list who […]

Letting go: How I became a retired model.

There is something strangely cathartic about seeing your own smirking face in a headshot while it lights up in flames. I have been modeling professionally for 7 years cumulatively. I started when I was 18 as a means of self-exploration because I felt like my outward appearance did not match how I felt myself to […]

“You haven’t really met yourself yet.”

Falling in love can be the best and worst experience simultaneously. I said it when I looked at his sketchbooks, that I felt like I was going to burst (it was so overwhelming), vomit, cry, and laugh forever…all at the same time. It was a terrifying and wonderful experience. It’s like when you really lose […]

The Alterity of the Self-Aware Lover Emerges: Part 1

This post is about all of the people in my life who have shown myself to myself through a bricolage of synaptic membranes connecting synchronous being-in-the-world discoveries, pains, and fascinations through increasingly complex loops. In my rather short life thus far, I have been profoundly fortunate to have found mirror-souls. I have experienced moments with others […]

Introducing Project: Happiest Moments

Yesterday I sat in the Intelligentsia in Lakeview (the one on Broadway, near the Belmont intersection) writing a screenplay called Boat Beneath the Sky. I sat there for hours, crafting something with care and detail. Does it matter? I have no idea, I just know that creating it has made me happy. Being an artist […]

Warp-Speed Thought!

It is around midnight on a Saturday night and I have spent the last hour laughing almost non-stop, celebrating and feeling celebrated by my friends. I am sitting on the floor petting Ernest, the 26-toed cat. Elena, Jocelyn, and Derek are on the couch and Thomas is across the room sitting on the floor too. […]

Cartesian Meditations: Interpretations

Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations are based upon a series of lectures that he delivered at the Sorbonne in 1929. Husserl describes the aims of transcendental phenomenology as being a version of Neo-Cartesian philosophy even though it rejects almost all of the doctrines of Cartesian philosophy. The Meditations propose first an absolute foundation for philosophy in order […]

In Praise of Angela Conway

Angela Conway is the angelic voice behind the limited-discography early 1990s release of A.C. Marias, which features a collaboration between Conway with various members of the punk band Wire, specifically Bruce Gilbert and Rowland Howard. These songs and music videos have stamped their place onto my subconscious. They really hit home and capture something that […]

Review of Neofuturist’s Latest “Too Much Light” Show (7/25): Reflecting on Graduate School and Authentic Comunication

Last night I revisited one of my favorite live Chicago theater groups, The Neofuturists, for the longest-running show (that is ever-changing in content within a consistent format) in Chicago, “Too Much Light Makes the Baby go Blind.” This show has always been a special Chicago gem to me, and I know myself and my friends […]

“Go to the Places that Scare you.” — A Review of Scary Scenes in Childhood Films

This evening I got thinking about the unconscious, as is perhaps easier to do late into the night when the silence and darkness are more conducive for letting out the “unseen” both physically and psychologically. I started to think about Joe Frank’s interview with Lester Nafzger called “Lynchpins”, which you can listen to on Hearing […]

What is Experience?

Exploring Empathy and Phenomenology in the Age of Virtuality