catching up

It’s been four years since my last “what’s new” post. The longer I didn’t write, the more daunting it felt to try to cover everything that had happened. (Short version: Like many of you, I experienced a global pandemic.)

But this month, after resurrecting my blog to write about some songs, I ran across a weekly post from mid-2019 that resonated, and I thought, well, maybe instead of trying to write about everything that’s happened since then, I could just do a quick then-and-now compare-and-contrast. Here we go.

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arts

In 2019, the big news in my arts community was that HUGE Theater, my beloved second home, was buying a building. Well… we didn’t. But then we did! Last fall HUGE had its first shows in its new building, just a few blocks up Lyndale Avenue. Donations still very welcome. Buildings are expensive!

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• Bummertown, the show I was rehearsing in June 2019, is back! “Comedic improv that isn’t afraid of sadness,” I wrote back then. For this show I play the electric guitar. Thursdays through February. Tickets here.
• In summer 2019 I was in the middle of a run with THE PAiNTERS, an improv group that paints pictures with words. We’re coming back again this summer! And for one night in March. More info on my shows page.
• (I didn’t mention Chris Rodriguez in that 2019 post, possibly because I’d only met him a couple of times, but now we have a full-fledged duo, and we’re also doing a run this summer! It’s called Two’s Company and I love it so much.)

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I’ve been playing live a lot but not recording much. I did finally release a soundtrack to The Last Bombardment, the first play I did with Oncoming Productions. It’s available, alongside even older recordings, on Bandcamp.

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code

• In 2019 I was trying to shift my focus from full-stack Rails work to front-end development. I succeeded.
• I’ve been working with Livefront and it’s been good.
• I’m also the lead developer for SwagLeft and I’m proud.
• I just rebuilt this site in Astro and it was fun.

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life

“Minneapolis in the summer,” I wrote that summer, “is pretty great.” Winter is a tougher sell, but this one’s been easy, and last weekend I biked around to Modern Times, the Trylon Cinema, Drone Not Drones, the Art Shanty Projects, and three nights of shows at HUGE. Okay: Minneapolis in the winter is pretty great.

Some of my friends are sad because this warm winter is a symptom of global climate catastrophe, and some of them are sad because they genuinely enjoy winter activities (and/or being snowed in), but I’m content because my car got stolen this fall and I decided not to replace it. Give me one winter I can bike through. We can go back to months of snow and ice and brutal cold next year.

In summer 2019 I was looking forward to spending the weekend at CONvergence, a science fiction and fantasy convention in downtown Minneapolis where “I always feel a bit out of place,” but “I’m always glad I went.” Today I’m looking forward to spending two weekends at tabletop gaming conventions in the suburbs, where I will definitely feel out of place. Will I be glad I went? I’ll let you know in 2028.