Oh Messy Life #19: 72 Exposures
Plus a Proper Chune courtesy illuminati hotties
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, old photos, and updates from Friends of the Newsletter.
The photos sat, undeveloped, on a roll of film in the back of my nightstand for God knows how long.
Fifteen years. Give or take.
They show fragments of a life that is no longer mine. Downtown Edmonton on a summer’s day. A visit to the market with my family. Lemonade on ice.
The fluorescent glow of a suburban garage. A box of wine. Friends I haven’t seen in a while.
For whatever reason, I shot the roll in half frame. Took the usual amount of exposures and doubled them.
72 photos. Most of them underlit and out of context.
I thought I was getting more bang for my buck. Now it feels like I cheated myself.
I bisected my world into something much smaller than it was. I wish I had been willing to let more in, wish I had stopped to consider the prairie sky and the moonlight and the expanse of adult responsibilities awaiting us, just outside the frame.
Oh Messy Life
Read my interview with Josh Zoerner if you haven’t already. My friend Johanna said she liked the part about Post Secret. I’m also proud of the outtake.
The rest is still unwritten: ’s Dirtyverse continues to expand, this time into book coverage. Blank is “Dirt’s brand new publication about books and the culture around them.” It will arrive in your inbox twice a month. I love the logo designed by David Alderman.
Blank logo by David Alderman £1,712.29: That’s how much lost recently playing a one-off, sold out show in Dublin. The number sucks, but their fiscal transparency rules. I suspect (unfortunately) many bands are in similar situations.
I hope Anxious makes a lot of money on the road. Their Bambi Spring Tour 2025 kicked off last night in Philly, home of the short kings. I bet the sightlines were unbelievable.
Back in the studio: is working on LP2.
There’s U.S. politics and then there’s on whatever is happening with the vice-president’s photoshopped face.
Oh, and Rebecca’s book, which she referenced in our interview, is now available for pre-order. It’s called Be the Bombshell: What Love Island Teaches Us About Dating.
It’s about damn time: I was happy to see first-ever Friend of the Newsletter Brynn Wallner gracing the pages of Puck over the weekend. None of this would exist without her.
Speaking of old friends, my beloved Alex a.k.a Babish bought a copy of Josh and Daisy’s NOTES, which appears to be SOLD OUT. His first impressions:
Reading this made me wonder, would I ever show my Notes? Scrolling through my phone, I found jumbles of passwords, recipes, drafts of messages that resurfaced laughs and frustration and hurt. That’s what flipping through this book felt like - being handed a diary and given rare permission to crack it open. I haven’t been able to figure out [Ethan’s] entry just yet, but had fun imagining the authors behind the pieces.
Proper Chune
illuminati hotties ‘777’ is the only song I want to listen to right now. Forget flowers, deserves a whole garden for this one.
My next guest is…
Singer and songwriter Isabel Pless. Her song ‘Bechdel Test’ is a good entry point.