Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out, February
Friends, we've made it to the end of February. Are you feeling the joy as well? I'm always grateful that I have a birthday to celebrate mid-month, or else I have no idea what would motivate me through these dark, cold days. At the beginning of the winter, I always fancy that I'm going to use this downtime to create new works of art and get a lot of reading done and catch up on my sleep, which I sometimes manage to do, but I always forget to also account for those sneaky doldrums that make everything feel a little slower, a little more challenging. I hope that you've found some joy to pull you through the month as well. Let's say that we'll use our extra Leap Day to love each other more wildly and fiercely, shall we?
It is impossible to overstate my regard for comics artist John Porcellino. The creator of King-Cat Comics and the mastermind behind the Spit and a Half comics distributor, he is one of the most honest, thoughtful, down-to-earth, brilliant, creative artists working, frankly, in any medium today. He recently opened up a Patreon site to try to get himself, financially, over the poverty line, and I couldn't sign up to donate fast enough. Ever generous, he has been sending these fan club cards to his supporters as thanks. Please do yourself a favor and check out his work if you haven't had the pleasure already. The most recent issue of his zine, King-Cat #75, is as good a place to start as any (just be prepared to cry your eyes out).
What's new on the blog
On Queen of Peaches, I reflect a little bit on the birthday I just celebrated this month, but not before taking you on a detour through the summer I spent house-sitting for two married professors in Bloomington, Indiana:
"I was mainly only responsible for feeding their two cats Bato and Santewa (whom my younger sister renamed Bono and Santana when she came to visit me for a few days), so, other than the few hours a week I spent working a temp gig in a storage facility on the edge of town helping the university catalog the contents of a newly acquired film archive, I had a lot of time left over to sit around and write in my journal. Obviously, I had just completed the four years of my undergraduate degree (which the student loan center tells me I will finally be finished paying for by the end of 2016, at long last), so even though it’s my nature to think Big Thoughts about most changing phases of life, this felt even more momentous than usual. I had finally finished school! I was becoming an adult! I was entering the Real World! There was lots to journal about."
Click here to read the rest!
I recently figured it was probably a good idea to have a bunch of my own music saved in one place, so I put together a little digital demo reel on Soundcloud. If you click through to my page here, you'll find selections of recordings where I'm a featured vocalist from my old band Tiny Magnets as well as my current band Pet Theories and--oh, lordie--from when I was a student at the Bloom School of Jazz a million years ago. Enjoy!
It was appropriate, given the circumstances of his passing in January, to start my "I'm Waiting for the Man" covers series with David Bowie, but this version by Richard Hawley is really #1 in my heart. I first heard it in a hotel room in Drumshanbo, Ireland, in the summer of 2012, over the tinny speakers on Brian's iPad. It actually ups the ante on Lou Reed's effortless cool by completely avoiding any kind of derivative rock arrangement, aiming instead for a kind of down-tempo lounge rave-up style that somehow still leaves enough room for a sense of sublime depravity.
You'll notice that the header at the top of this e-mail has the tagline "writer, musician, psychic." I don't tend to talk a lot about that third one, "psychic," just because I often don't know what to say about it. My clairvoyant perception is either super obvious to you, or it's not, and it honestly doesn't matter much either way. But, being a psychic reader and healer is a big part of my life, one that I feel fits really naturally with being a writer and a musician.
Well, I'm moving toward making those links a little more explicit with my newly launched Psychic Services for Creatives. I'm currently offering several different readings and healings specifically designed for all you writers and dancers and musicians and other artists out there. If you're slogging through some creative blocks that you can't seem to navigate your way out of, or if you just need a little extra sparkle to get you through your latest project, I would be honored to help bring some magic to your current endeavors.
Click here to read more about what I'm offering and how I'm offering it. All you darlings on my mailing list can get 50% off if you enter the code PEACHES at checkout. And of course, if you know of anyone who could use a little boost of woo-woo with their work, please send them my way! The site's address is http://allisonfelus.bigcartel.com.
With wild and fierce February love,