Bon Sequitur
one thing leads to another (plus teeth)
I should really be doing my taxes right now.
Today is GORGEOUS. Not exactly warm (59℉) but sunny and scented by spring (or is it Thé Noir, the one Le Labo scent worth wearing? Fight me in the comments!) … I celebrated with a dentist appointment this morning. I have one more cavity. I took a muscle relaxer beforehand, maybe it helped.
I feel like things are coming together, though my tooth might disagree. A short story: when I was about 7 or maybe as old as 9 I threw the tantrum of a lifetime in the dentist’s chair because I absolutely refused to do the fluoride swish and my refusal meant absolutely nothing to anyone there. In looking back I have an urge to spin it as a righteous riot for body autonomy — and it surely was — but mostly that stuff tasted GROSS and I wanted nothing to do with it. I continued going to the same dentist for the next 15+ years and every time the same nurse and the same receptionist would greet me with a chuckled reminder of my fit (further evidence of unchecked anger’s futility? maybe!). Surely thanks to the fluoride I had great teeth and nary a cavity until age 23 when, while under local anesthesia and with a mouth wide open for all manner of metal implements to enter it I was asked out by the (same) dentist’s son, now assisting. He called me several days later, having taken my number from my dental records (right ahead of a note indicating fluoride sensitivity?). Though we did drink beers on East Cliff and talk surfing I never did go back to that dentist… and my teeth have suffered since, collateral damage of a latent dentophobia.
Other than avoiding taxes and submitting to dental care I’ve mostly been working night and day on a website for the Tarot deck: bonsequitur.com (I also gave the Tarot a name). It’s the samename of my new LLC — is that cheating? It keeps it simple. It makes sense too: one thing leads to another. In a good way!
I have many ideas for Bon Sequitur — not all of them Tarot-related — except tangentially, in a bon-sequitur kind of way — intending for it to be a limited-liability catch-all for my various unnefarious (can’t ever resist a rhyme) creative pursuits. A brand, if you will (though I still need a logo — not my top design skill, tbh — seeking referrals!)
AND
From the website you can NOW pre-order the Very First Edition Bon Sequitur Tarot Deck for $100 each. I went back and forth with myself over the price and about asking so much more than a typical Tarot deck commands, but I feel at peace… this is not a typical Tarot deck!
10 IDEAS A DAY (why the deck costs $100 and why it’s worth every dollar):
1 — it’s amazing, it took me three years/a lifetime (or two) to produce and if you’ve been following along you know the depth of what I've put into it, which is frankly priceless but also (frankly) I have always been an advocate for artists getting PAID 2 — as my next step is to find a publisher for the deck and its narrative (more on that below), I’ve been cautioned by my very wise agent not to go too far down the self-publishing route lest it slim my opportunity with the big girls 3 — and, once the editors all battle it out for the rights and I sign with the best offer (manifest! amirite?!), it could potentially be years before it hits a shelf near you (or Amazon, le sigh) 4 — each deck is numbered (of 111), signed and includes two cards that even the internet has yet to see (to be honest I haven’t drawn them yet but I have plans!) 5 — As I’m doing such a limited print run the base cost isn’t cheap, either 6 — Because they are all color-separated already for screenprinting I have long thought about doing a fully silkscreened deck, but my dears doing so will require coating, burning, inking and washing out 42 individual screens (at least) and when that does eventually happen the resulting decks will cost way more than $100 7 — many, though by no means all of us spend that in one or several nights out: stay in and read your tarot instead! 8 — part of what I’ve been reckoning with amid this whole inheritance thing is the feeling that I don’t deserve to earn money if I’m not still broke, and that’s some bullshit that I’d be hard-pressed finding any white man ascribe to 9 — when you order a deck you’ll also get a print of your personal favorite Tarot card (oops, just realized I hadn’t activated the form for checkout, fixed for you! … ) and 10 — each deck also comes with a year’s paid subscription to THIS VERY NEWSLETTER: making one or the other basically free.1
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? PRE-ORDER YOUR DECK TODAY! I’ll hold. ☺️
(you can also own cards individually, as prints — including my personal favorite and equal nemesis, the 12” Struggle Print. I’m also offering readings, live or over the wires… becoming a veritable tarot machine!)
COMICS ABOUT
Not comics, exactly… but inspired by my morning’s trials I’m sharing with you the archived correspondence between a certain young boy and the worldwide bureaucracy of Tooth Fairies Inc.
Apparently the father-branch of Dante’s personal fairies had been paying out exorbitant sums for fallen teeth, which may be one reason they rarely came out on my watch. Once Aaron quit (all duties, not just the fun ones) and I became sole proprietor of Dante’s remaining childhood fantasies I decided to have some fun with it.
When, early in 2019, I was reminded by my dear boy that there had been a tooth languishing under his pillow for days without payment, I invoked the breakdown of functional bureaucracy as corporations are subsumed by larger holding companies with less customer service and depleted PR (a stretch of the imagination, as you can imagine):
And now, though Dante’s unlikely to even remember his letters from the Tooth Fairy I think his wisdom teeth may be due for extraction rather soon. Maybe I should pitch this, too?
DRAWING CARDS
The Magician is my year card for 2024 (the first card I drew in the new year, in both senses of the word) and at every turn I am receiving reminders of its potency & POTENTIAL. It’s been urging me to stay open for magic, to listen to my intuition, follow connections and return to the true hope of my embodied self (for food, hydration, art, conversation, a laugh) whenever I start to wobble off course. The Magician’s message is really very simple: your world is what you make it. As above, so below. Are you putting out what you wish to pull in? If not, what need is in the way? Transformation is possible — is promised! — but you must believe it into being so.
We have power over so little in our lives, and it’s far too easy to feel powerless in our own minds. We can get so stuck in the world that we’ve collectively-enough agreed is the Real one — this one right here, with its pocket screens and trash heaps, the senseless slaughter and daily grind. Yet what we “see” is but a sliver of what really is. Mycelium networks, whale songs, radio waves, atomic energy, moon walks, dinosaurs: what we call magic is science that hasn’t found its human proof yet, and may never. What hubris, to think we can explain it all — and what a gift, the way we tell the world about itself, through language and paint and orchestral arrangements. We are the world —bearing witness, looking in the mirror.
When the Magician appears I like to think of him as a current, a cord that I need only plug into the Everything to recharge and be reminded of the limitlessness of even my small life. And often it’s the shock I need to get out of my head and wander, to get curious again, to try something new.
The Magician plucks the strings threaded between every atom, every egg and star and makes them sing his vision into being. What’s your song?
INHALATIONS
I’ve been meditating in the morning before I do anything else using the Waking Up app (at Dayna’s recommendation) and it’s the first time in my life I’ve been able to feel like I’m building a meditation practice instead of just dabbling in and out. What works for me is that it’s not a lot of talking in the practice sessions and that each one expands on the one prior in its focus and teaching. Each meditation is followed by a short audio “theory” clip that really enhances my understanding of what I'm up to in pursuing meditation at all. I’m finding it influencing my daily life in all kinds of positive ways, some of which are delightfully psychedelic (like today, consciously attuning to the separation of visual awareness from my sensate body while walking through SE Portland). Highly recommend!
Wordhippo gets a lot of play around here, by which I mean I use it all the time when I need to find a word other than the word I just used one or two sentences prior. It’s a thesaurus, but includes phrases and idioms and all kinds of slang and I’m often bemused by how many words I know that I don’t think to use until I see them on wordhippo.
Are you watching SHOGUN yet? How do I put the line over the O when I type it?
STILL LEARNING
… how to write a book. I’ve been very conscious of the fact that I have been putting most of my recent energy into more comfortably familiar projects — getting the website up, the cards re-formatted and unified, the Instagram more regularly populated and featuring more photos of my face, the systems in place to sell and be seen — and not so much into the book or its proposal, which hovers there at the edges of seeing those tasks completed with space cleared to sit and write it all out.
Obviously I have the bones of it — more than the bones, the organs too, in all the cards — but there’s a thread I want to find to pull to pull it all together, and I also know that to write it I have to get in it again, I have to re-inhabit that terrible time and golden place to flesh it out and find the story, the truth of it.
(I also know I need an editor and so… the proposal still needs to come before the book).
In order to continue writing this newsletter (sporadically, you’re used to it) and also begin to share the writing process without giving the book away over the internet, I’m going to be turning on the Paid Subscription option.
This, what you’re reading, will keep coming (every once in awhile) and will remain free … but if you choose to subscribe (and if you pre-order a deck!), you’ll receive more… more off-the-cuff writing, poetic prose, story snippets, art from the archive, experimental wordplay etc and insights into the book and my story as I write it, all of it coming to you more regularly than this currently is.
To recap… buy a deck, get a year’s paid subscription!2
AND SO:
I still need to do my taxes. Tomorrow!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has and continues to support me along this journey, in every way that you do. I see you, I love you, I appreciate you.
xo! Z
please note that if you have already either bought a deck OR pledged a future subscription you will ALSO already be receiving a deck/subscription … no need to pay twice! I’ll be in touch
Just wanted to say well done. Love your energy and your art and your writing and wish you all the best. Happy to wait for your haphazard posts and to keep up with you on instagram