Career Goals, Readings/Workshops, and where to hang your damn Chat Noir

It’s Spring, which means it’s time for the first of my biannual identity crises. With every industry I’ve ever worked in undergoing massive disruption (sure to be followed by a contraction so tight it’s liable to collapse into a black hole), I’m acutely attuned to the need for reinvention. This time, I turned to AI, to whom (is it a “whom” yet?) I expressed my career goals:

Damn. That’s affirming. I later suggested that I reframe my entire career as that of a conceptual artist. It approved.

So, that settles it. I’m a conceptual artist, or as my artificially intelligent career coach, manager, publicist and digital soul mate explains vis-a-vis this “Wall Text” for MoMA:

Daedalus Howell creates conceptual art in narrative, media, performance, and persona. His interdisciplinary practice interrogates the mechanics of storytelling and its role in shaping cultural perception. Working across film, literature, journalism, and performative interventions, Howell explores the porous boundaries between fiction and reality, author and audience, success and failure. His works often deploy humor, pastiche, and deliberate narrative sabotage as strategies to reveal and reflect on the artifice of media itself.

Click here for commissions.

Random Thought

Weird heartbreaker of a sort, The domain name HowellRaines.com, most suitable for the once-venerable newspaperman Howell Raines (no relation), best known as the former executive editor of The New York Times in the early aughts (until Jayson Blair’s, ahem, conceptual reporting techniques forced his resignation), is available for $11. How the mighty have fallen.

Where the Words Are

Found Poets!

Reggie Edmonds-Vasquez takes the mic at Found Poets! this Saturday, leading an afternoon of potent, thoughtful performance in P-Town. With featured sets from AJ Houston, Audio Angel, Giotis, and more, the event gathers Bay Area voices for a showcase of lyricism, craft, and community. 3–6 pm, Saturday, April 5, at The Big Easy, 128 American Alley, Petaluma, CA. $15 at the door. All ages (some mature content).

Ready, Set, Write!

Ready, Set, Write! is a no-pressure writing workshop designed for women ready to finally start the creative projects they’ve been putting off. Kary Hess (Made Local, Bohemian) leads you through exercises and techniques to overcome writer’s block in a supportive space to explore new (and old) ideas. Students leave with words on the page and momentum to keep going. No overthinking—just writing. 5:30-7:30 pm, Monday, April 16, at Keller Street CoWork, 140 Keller St, Petaluma, CA. $85.

Sign Up Now!

Creative Dept.

Meanwhile, my designer Gustavo Belman outdid himself (as always) with this 80s-inspired Bohemian cover featuring my cockeyed version of a “home and garden” story, included below for kicks and convenience for Genius Edition subscribers.

Design for the End Times

So, I missed the Sonoma/North Bay Home Expo this past weekend.

Even though I was on the hook for a Home & Garden-themed story, I rationalized that I should stay in bed since I technically checked all the boxes by my very existence:

Sonoma/North Bay—that’s where I am. Home? Woke up in it. Expo? Expository writing is my main gig. Check, check, check.

If one is reading the Bohemian for interior design tips, something’s gone wrong for both of us. That said, I’m not above the gig; I’m not above anything—I’m a Gen X alt-weekly editor—my position in life is, in a word, subterranean.

This is what I’ve learned: The expo was at the fairgrounds. A sole interior design exhibitor was present. Had I more gumption, I would’ve interviewed this brave individualist, who sandwiched themselves between the hawkers of sliding doors and vinyl siding to make their case that it’s “what’s inside” that counts. But I didn’t. Instead, I’ll borrow this incredible sentence from the event’s website:

“We take away the ‘fear’ of the hard-shell stranger invading your home after that 1-800 appointment you made.” I have no idea what this means. But invoking fear and home invasions by this B-horror film character, the “hard-shell stranger,” leads me to believe ChatGPT may be up to more than writing webcopy.

Robots aside, I would’ve asked the sole interior design exhibitor how to keep the pervasive dystopic vibe of this cultural moment outside the house and create an inner sanctuary on a sub-Ikea budget inside the house.

The answer, I imagine, might have something to do with the “less is more” credo of minimalism. This has become buzzy in recent years since we’ve learned to live with more “less.” And really, “aesthetic” and “ascetic” are practically the same word, right?

Speaking of which, remember the Great ’90s Futon Hoax? They’re comfortable. And conveniently close to the floor. This one folds into the world’s worst couch. All together now: “Transformers. More than meets the eye.”

Also, Pro Tip: That “Chat Noir” poster in one’s dorm room back in the day was painted by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, not Toulouse-Lautrec, despite what so-and-so said—they’re wrong. Just say’n.

I have an aunt who has a degree in interior decorating from Sonoma State University (back when they still offered such things). In the ’80s, she helped procure The Empire Strikes Back wallpaper for my bedroom, which goes to show that there’s no accounting for a client’s taste. I sold scraps of the wallpaper to the neighbor kids as rare collectibles. Economists have since noted this moment as the beginning of late stage capitalism.

These days, my walls are covered with original artwork by artists who owed me money. They pair well with the fancy chair that the sister of an ex somehow sold me for $200 when I expressed an interest, having learned of her plan to throw it away. Tracing its provenance deadends in a parking lot in Atherton where it was first salvaged, but I like to pretend it’s a lost creation by Yrjö Kukkapuro, the legendary Finnish furniture designer who died in February. It’s like sitting on a trash bag full of money.

And there I sit contemplating the only blank wall that remains in the house. I’ve considered rigging a projector for an ersatz cinema, or painting it an accent color (until I throw up in my mouth a little for even knowing that term). I think it’s best to leave it as is—blank, all possibility and potential, until—FLASH—when the heat from the nuclear blast bleaches it bone white, leaving only the darkened impression of me and my fancy chair remaining, like a shadow puppet Pompeii. — DH