Announcing a new project – Creature Of Darkness!! #Zine #PhantomoftheOpera

Tags

"creative writing", "Creature Of Darkness", "Liberation Phanship", "Phantom of the Opera", activism, arts, creativity, Phantom, Zine

So once again it’s been ages since I’ve posted here. LOL I get so busy doing stuff that I don’t find time to write about it! And I’ve shifted a lot of the analysis stuff that I used to do here to my podcast, and to the new project I’ll soon be launching!

So after feeling excluded from zine culture for a lot of years because of its seeming like another hyper-visual idiom that would have a lot of barriers to me as a Blind person, I finally, recently, got inspired to do my own zine! I was inspired by the amazing zines written and produced by Clementine Morrigan https://www.clementinemorrigan.com, in particular their zines Fucking Magic and Trauma Magic. They’re both life-writing zines in which Clementine shares their own journey of recovery and coming into magical and political consciousness. And they’re really powerful and beautiful! Clementine also, to my eternal gratitude, makes a point of making them accessible. They’re heavy on text, and she makes sure the pdfs are screen-reader friendly. Which finally made me feel welcome in the world of zining!

So, as I said, Clementine’s work inspired me to start a zine of my own. Because, I really like the format they use! And I feel like I feel like it’s the write idiom in which to share my own journey of and reflections on coming into politicized, magical Phanship. Because, while I’ve shared some of that in my academic writing and certainly plan to continue doing so, academic writing has certain limitations. You can’t always get as personal, as speculative – as “what if…?”. You can’t often talk about magic and spirituality except as social processes, and you generally have to present a critical analysis. Whereas, in a zine format like Clementine’s, you don’t necessarily have to present a critical analysis. You certainly can, but you don’t have to. And it also gets around the other limitations of academic writing.

The first zine I’m starting, then, is called Creature Of Darkness after the line “Pitiful creature of darkness, what kind of life have you known? God, give me courage to show you you are not alone!” from the Final Lair in Phantom. It’s part Phanzine, part perzine, and part on-going, evolving manifesto. It’s a search for self and community through sharing my own journey as a Disabled, Gender-fluid, Queerish, ChristoPagan medical/educational-industrial complex surviver Phan. And I hope it’ll help others the way Clementine’s work has helped me – by providing a space where those on similar/intersecting/parallel journeys can feel heard/seen and know they’re/you’re not alone, and by sharing the healing tools and insights that have been so helpful and powerful for me! I hope to launch it some time this month, both on my Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/phantomfemme – and on Lulu Press. Though, I also think I might make some of the first issues available here, too, for free just to help get the thing going. I’m still figuring out the cover-art, though, so I’m not sure exactly when that will happen. So watch this space!!

Also watch my Patreon, though. Because, I might also release some excerpts from the first issue there as teasers. They’ll be available at the cheapest tier, though, and there may be some freebies as well! So keep an eye/ear out for that soon.

 

I’m also planning, at some point, to launch a project in which I sahre my thoughts and practice of Phantom and Phanship as a ChristoPagan spiritual path.  But I haven’t decided yet whether to do that as another zine or a new podcast.  There are pros and cons either way!  As some of you will recall, I started sharing some of that as a blog project earlier this year, in fact. But, A, a blog didn’t quite feel right for it, and B, I found I just couldn’t keep up with that much writing and posting on top of everything else I’m working on!  And I’m not sure yet whether a new podcast or a zine would make that more manageable and be the format best suited to the topic.  And I have no idea when that project might happen, so definitely watch this and my other spaces for updates!

 

Anyway, that’s what’s coming up in the near future.  And as you can imagine, I’m really excited about it!  And of course, I hope you’ll all really enjoy my upcoming projects and find them useful as well.

My Music Finally Rebooted At Last!

Tags

"Open Tuning", arts, creativity, music, performing

So I mentioned (quite a while ago now) that I was planning to reboot my music after doing a good deal of rethinking. And I finally have! It took a while, though, both to get things set back up, and because I was looking for the right occasion to relaunch. And this past Saturday, June 6 2020, seemed like an excellent time to do so!

As you’ll perhaps recall, I’ve performed several times in the Toronto Open Tuning Festival. Well, this year, for obvious reasons, the festival was held online rather than live. Plus, of course, it’s the start of Pride month. So this seemed to me like a perfect opportunity to launch the reboot of my music with my contribution to the online Open Tuning! (See the embed above. And do let me know if it works!)

I’m essentially relaunching my music online, then, because, that’s the most accessible way for me to share it. Don’t get me wrong, I love performing live when I’m able to! But I’ve found that, between my fluctuating “spoons” and challenges with getting around, I’m not able to nearly as often as I’d like. Not to mention, I’m not able to perform live nearly as often as necessary to pursue a music career seriously. Thankfully, though, there’s the magic of the internet! And there, I can share both my original songs and covers whenever I’m able and publicize them on social media. So check out my new Vimeo channel called Spirit and Voice!

Granted, I’m not sure how often I’ll be posting music there. It depends on my “spoons” and how my music is balancing with everything else I’m working on. Plus, because I only have semi-fine motor control, it can take me a long time to learn and master new accompaniments even when they’re relatively simple. But I’m really looking forward to sharing my music in a way that’s relatively accessible for me!

That said, though, as a Blind musician, sharing my music in a video idiom is a bit of a challenge. In honesty, I have no idea what my videos look like, or if they’ve come out anything like the way I intended! LOL So if they seem to lack polish, that’s why. Though, hopefully I’ll get better at it with practice! So I’ll also be sharing my music on my Soundcloud for good measure. Though, again, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to do that.

I’m also relaunching my music as a largely acoustic undertaking this time. Not that I won’t plug in sometimes! But after thinking about it a lot, playing a live instrument feels more authentic to me than the fake, computer-generated band accompaniments I used to use. Not that I’m committed to remaining a solo act for life, though! I would love to play with other musicians in the future when I find the right ones and have the chops. But playing with other actual musicians feels different to me than playing with a fake, virtual band! Playing with other musicians involves A, actual playing of real instruments, and B, actual sharing of making music with other people. And that feels more in line with my values than using technology to fake it.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy my music! I’m certainly going to really enjoy finally being able to share it. Because, as much as I enjoy writing and doing my podcast, music is really my first love. That’s where the real magic is for me!

P.S.

Uh, yes, I did say the name of my own channel wrong in the video. LOL Oops! That’s what I get for not checking my own details before filming and posting. But the correct name is, in fact, Spirit and Voice. My bad!

A Couple of Upcoming Gigs! #OT2018 #music #performances #Toronto #OpenTuning #Festival and #CUPE3903 #YorkUStrike

Tags

"Open Tuning" OT2018, arts, labour, music, performances, politics, strike

So I thought I’d mention a couple of gigs that I’ve got coming up that I’m very excited about! First of all, I’ll be performing once again at the Open Tuning Festival this Saturday (June 9). For those in the Toronto area, I’ll be on at 5 PM in the garage behind KOP’s Records at Bathurst and Bloor (see the schedule on the Open Tuning website for details). I’ll be the fourth or so act on the program at that venue this time!

Then, next Saturday on June 16, I’ll be singing again at a fund-raiser for my union local, CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) Local 3903. It’s the local that represents the teaching assistants, contract faculty, and graduate assistants at my university, and the fund-raiser is to support the strike we’ve been on for 14 weeks now! We’ve been struggling for a fair and decent contract, and to push back against precarious working conditions, especially for the contract faculty. You can read all about it at here! Anyway, as you can imagine, the length of the strike has seriously depleted our funds. So we’re doing lots of things to raise money to continue the struggle, including this event! For those in town, it’ll be at the Glad Day Bookshop at Church and Wellesley on the evening of the 16th. And I’ll be contributing some of my songs to the effort, which I’m very excited about! For those of you not in town, there’s a GoFundMe campaign that folks can contribute to. And we’d be hugely grateful for whatever support you can give!

Anyway, apologies for not getting these posted sooner. In fact, though, because of the way this year’s been going for everyone involved in organizing these events, they’ve only just come together! So I really hope in-town folks can make it to one or the other!

Another awesome conference-thing, and an awesome show to go with it!

Tags

access, arts, conferences, Crip, disability

So I had the opportunity over the week-end to take part in another totally amazing event.  Though, actually, I wasn’t there in person this time, but listened in via Livestream.  LOL I didn’t quite manage to squeeze in before they closed the registration, so I couldn’t actually be there!  But it actually worked out well, as I’m not sure I really had the energy to do another intensive week-end.  So it was actually great to be able to listen from home!  🙂 Thanks, therefore, hugely for making that available!  Much appreciated!

 

Anyway, the event was a symposium called Cripping The Arts In Canada that was jointly put on by Tangled Art + Disability and the British Council of Canada.  And it was all about how to promote Deaf and Disabled art and artists, and how to create an environment where Deaf/Disabled arts and culture can thrive.  It was really fantastic!  Unfortunately, LOL there were some issues with the Livestream as there can be with technology, so I didn’t catch everything.  Plus, I wasn’t able to listen to the final day on Saturday as I needed to try to get an article done (thank God they’ve given me a further extension on it LOL, as that didn’t quite happen).  But those sessions I did hear rocked!

 

Some of the highlights included a fabulous keynote talk to open the symposium on Thursday morning by Ruth Gould of DaDaFest from Liverpool in the U.K. And Wow! It sounds amazing! It’s a Deaf and Disability arts festival that’s been running for 15 years now, and these days gets over 100-thousand (I believe she said) visitors! Amazing! So it was awesome to hear about that and all they’ve accomplished. Then, that was followed by a really interesting series of panels and discussions on funding and finding/creating accessible spaces for Deaf and Disabled arts and artists. Lots of really useful and inspiring stuff that I’ll post more about later!

So then, on day 2, the symposium switched focus to looking at what is/are Deaf and Disability arts. Lots more really awesome discussions! Unfortunately, I missed most of the opening panel due to technical issues with the Livestream. But, from the end of it that I caught and the tweets I read, it seemed to be discussing the issue/s of non-disabled people using disability/disabled characters/disabled people in their art, and whether/to what extent that’s speaking for us rather than with us. Very important, especially when there are so many awesome Disabled and Deaf artists out there struggling to have their work recognized! Then, that was followed by a talk on Disability podcasting and its role in creating and bring together Disability culture/s. Again, very cool! Some great podcasts I’m dying to check out now!

Then, in the afternoon, there was a really interesting panel on a topic dear to my own heart and process – the role of pedagogy in Disability and Deaf arts. So it really explored the issue of the extent to which Deaf/Disability arts are/should be/can be about helping people learn and open their minds to issues around ableism and other forms of social in/justice. And it also considered what role curators of Deaf and Disability arts can/should play in making those arts pedagogical/bringing forth their pedagogical aspects. Very interesting for me as a an artist whose work frequently engages political/justice issues while trying to avoid being didactic!

Then, on the Saturday, they had what was described as a “community brain-storm” to try to come up with solutions for some of the issues raised throughout the symposium. And, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to listen to that because I needed to work on that article. But I was really glad, nonetheless, to hear they were doing it! It’s really great that they tried to bring practical solutions out of the week-end as well as just great discussion. And, apparently, they’ll be producing a resource-guide/handbook type thing out of that brain-storm session. So I’ll definitely be keeping a listen out for that!

🙂 Then, that night, they capped off the week-end with an absolutely amazingly awesome Disability arts cabaret called “Cripping The Stage”. And, being a cabaret, it featured everything from stand-up comedy to performance-art to hiphop. And all the performers were, as they say in the U.K., bloody brilliant! The performance pieces were really powerful, and the comedy had me laughing my ass off! And no, this time I wasn’t performing myself alas. Bummer! But hopefully in future I will. I’d love to have that opportunity! It’d be a huge honour to be on stage with such incredibly talented fellow Crip artists and performers! And I really hope they do this again, both the cabaret and the symposium itself! A lot of great stuff came out of both, and it’d be great to keep the momentum going!