Culture Fatigue #1

all I do is Criticize

News? Let’s call it News:

1. On Meaninglessness as God was named a Semi-Finalist in Lefty Blondie Press’ Editor’s Choice Broadside Series, but the editors renamed it “Comfort.”, so there’s that¹. Still pretty cool though!

2. I am reading at School for Poetic Computation’s Computer Poetry event this Saturday, April 19th. The event is from 6:30 to 9 PM at Secret Riso Club and it is free. All attendees get a free riso-printed chapbook of the night’s texts to take home!

3. I am reading at Brooklyn Poets’ YAWP for the first time tomorrow, April 14th at 6:30. Come by, especially if you are also a writer and into workshopping.

4. The Spring edition of Kitchen Table Quarterly is out, and a piece I thoroughly enjoyed/advocated for is in it. Read My Mother, Marilyn, and Me by Jessica Clivio when you get the chance.

5. The panel talks I took part in this February are up, in which me and my colleagues discuss lived experience and it’s validity in research contexts. I have saved them in this Dropbox folder for ease, titled “MTS Opening/Closing”.

6. I am a public figure according to Google.com??? (Libra full moon in my 10th house doing its job)

Now, let’s reminisce…

God, I love reporting. The first time I ever reported something I was five. My kindergarten teacher used to send out one student every morning to check the weather. It was one of the first times I can remember someone letting me do something on my own. The day that was my turn, I stood on my toes to open the big, gray school door. My cheeks melted snow. I ran back inside eager to share the news with my classmates. Once I did, my teacher took all us Southern children out to marvel for a bit. I love knowledge sharing. I love being the mouthpiece. I believe in blogs as a form of guerrilla journalism, but I do also agree with what Ziwe posted the other day:

So, as always, take this with a grain of salt.

Thank you to reader

E G

, who called my last post something I hadn’t even thought to: reporting. I gave up on the idea of journalism school so long ago, I never considered it might still be something I am good at. So, I am making a new series: Culture Fatigue. As usual, to continue to work out my style and what this type of writing/thought means to me. To stir up some thoughts as well.

To start out easy², here’s a critique of two white artists.

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Julia Weist (center) Jill Magid (right)

April 9th 2025, approx. 7:15 PM @ Triple Canopy 264 Canal Street New York, New York

“Assisted Nonfiction” with Julia Weist and Jill Magid

The full recording of this event is in the “What I Read This Week” section.

This just in: White women didn’t invent everything.

On Monday afternoon, I open up an email from Triple Canopy, an arts magazine, to the following text:

“How does the language of critics, institutions, and audiences define (and constrain) the work of artists? For Assisted Nonfiction, Jill Magid and Julia Weist will seek to define their own work as artists, considering the value of legibility alongside the strategy of ambiguity. In doing so, they will explore the language applied to their own work and to the practices of fellow artists whose activities may not immediately register as art.”

I figure I should take more opportunities to commune with this so-called culture I claim to critique.

The next day, I am taking in Manhattan’s early evening beauty until I reach the glossy black threshold of the address. A tall, well-dressed person with five-o-clock shadow and smart glasses confirms this is the place. I walk into the elevator with two other people. We fumble around with elevator buttons until we find ourselves on the third floor of the building.

Clarity comes around the situation I have perched myself in as the room begins to fill. Professional and Scholar class individuals take their seats, buy drinks, take in the space. I sit there, quietly, with an eight-dollar beer and a book, waiting to see what this whole thing is about.

My friend, Yanni, who I invited to join me, calls and says “I’m outside of the hottest club in New York right now!”, letting me know the tall doorman isn’t letting them up, even if there is someone saving a seat for them. (Note: 45 minutes later, during the talk, staff rolled up chairs so several late white people [idk what else to call them] entered the space) So, now I am fucking annoyed and uncomfortable and drinking, fast.

I am waiting for the restroom as I realize it’s 7:06 and think to myself: aren’t white people supposed to be on time? We’re starting off on an unimpressive note.

The description in the email formed in my mind as an event showcasing two artists whose work resists definition and bends boundaries as they run into them. Instead, I witnessed two artists attempt to pass off their casual work with The State as something more than what it is, and we’ll get into that later. It is as uncreative as it is legitimately dangerous. Julia Weist is the creator of this piece:

“Reach” (2015). Indeed. not my image

Which went viral several years ago. Weist saw the word in a rare book in the rare books room of the New York Public Library and noticed that it had never been used on the internet (5:20). A supposed statement on the attention economy, and some of the whitest shit I have ever seen. Everything going on in 2015, and you had this to offer our world.

The artist opens up by introducing herself, and letting the audience know that the New York Department of State is investigating her art practice and “the [department] has never met anyone that is as excited to get investigated by them as me”, a statement to which the audience chuckled. Projected behind her is an email (00:36), presented to the audience as proof that her investigation is still in operation. Weist says the confusion is the heart of why they (the two artists) are there to talk tonight.