Act 1: Earlier this week I was waiting for the hotel elevator, standing next to a man in a kangol hat and very expensive loafers. We were both staring off into space. After some time I noticed the elevator hadn’t come; neither of us had pushed the button. He turned to me and said, “I’m not waiting for the elevator” and while I considered why anyone would stand directly in front of one if they did not intend to use it, for some reason I just said, “Me neither.”
Act 2: I was given a tarot reading over the holidays (a very good gift idea). When the reader was outlining the season ahead, she threw out a specific date: On February 7 there would be a moment of celestial shift. A reawakening of clarity. A new lease on life. Or was it February 8. Somehow despite this feeling monumental in the moment I have forgotten both the date and what is allegedly meant to unfold.
The last month has felt a bit like…a trance. Deeply in my own head, sometimes solipsistically thrilling, sometimes hazy and defeating. I’m trying to think of it like this: Harvard medical historian Anne Harrington described the idea of a a trance as “a passage out of the ordinary into someplace else.”
Below, a selection of prompts in the name of productive myopia.
Dislike versus Disinterest
Bad Bunny, sardines, slow-burn horror films: what’s something in the zeitgeist you flat-out don’t like…but you’re not writing off as unimportant?A Writer’s Writer
Contrarily, what have you been loving recently because it feels tailor made for you?Minor Characters
There used to be a guy I’d see at the Austin Whole Foods, always sitting alone in the cafe section and pounding comically large amounts of raw fruit: a dozen bananas, a whole watermelon, biting into mangos like apples, skin and all. We invented an entire narrative world around Mango Man. Cite a stranger or acquaintance whose life you’ve fictionalized.Like a Glove
What is the garment and/or accessory of the month?Pastiche
I read an interview recently where Iggy Pop reveals his earliest musical inspiration—the person he was most trying to emulate—was Frank Sinatra. It wasn’t necessarily the tones, he says, but the distinctness of the voice. What are you currently imitating as a way to make it your own?
PS: a highly limited, hand-sewn and linen-bound edition of our Moon Lists Workbook III will arrive this Sunday, February 5. We’ll send out a notice via this newsletter, so if you’re curious we invite you to subscribe below or share with someone who might be. (Or if you don’t want to wait: Our digital workbook is currently available to download immediately from Moonlists.com)