Demo #2

Fragments on The Florida Project, rock shows, and accountability.

When I was younger, I often thought about what it meant to be a “real writer.” As I’ve gotten older, the most self-assuring thing is that I don’t have to question it anymore—even if I go months without publishing a single sentence. I know I’m a writer because eventually, regardless of how long a creative fallow period lasts or how broken my focus feels, something will eventually jolt me back into the fertile lands of creativity.

Over the summer, I’ve had several false starts: attending a rock show at The Sultan Room, watching a cover band at Brooklyn Bowl, and moshing at an emo night in Bakersfield, but something about the bigness of all the shows felt too nebulous to render into words. They were all so different. The crowd played a huge role in that: being in an audience where everyone’s losing themselves versus being in one where most are rigid and recording deeply influences my own ability to get trapped in the performance.