Stef___Black▒

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I wrote this yesterday and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. Enough people gave appreciative feedback that I’ve decided to put it here and on Medium.

Face front, True Believers.



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Spoiler-free Twin Peaks Season 3 predictions:

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1. There will be a new murder. Lynch and Frost will want to reclaim their unfulfilled dream, smashed by ABC executives, of a murder mystery that never gets solved. A new murder is the obvious interpretation of their brilliant reuse of the dialogue “IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN” as the season 3 tagline: the whole nightmare, all over again, in a horrific cycle—which was also literally what it meant the first time.

2. There will be a new Special Agent. Not just because of Cooper’s experiences in Season 2, but also because, as in many genre stories that introduce us to a peculiar world with a logic different from that of our daily lives, we need a fresh set of eyes through which to discover this world and its inhabitants. (There is also a possibility we will not see Cooper right away in this season—or that if we do, it won’t be in a way we’ll like.)

3. The previous point is one extension of a broader likelihood. Twin Peaks Season 3 will be written with the following assumptions: a) that not everyone has watched all of Twin Peaks; and b) that the “spoilers” and mysteries of the original Twin Peaks plot are not only not-too-precious to preserve, but actually essential to give away early—as has already been done in the “Super Trailer” and probably other materials.

4. All events and characters from the often-maligned Season 2 will be respected as canonical, even if Lynch and Frost take symbolic meta potshots at decisions that weren’t theirs to control. This should be obvious, but it’s underscored by how, in Fire Walk With Me, Lynch brilliantly tied together even the threads I’m sure he resented. In other words, they will not retcon a single moment or event, though they may portray a character like Windom Earle in a way that scorns his real-world development—which is another thing Lynch also did in the series finale.

5. This leads to the big one: the other major thing David Lynch did in Fire Walk With Me was reclaim his baby with a force, telling us in the very first image of the film that this “Last Days of Laura Palmer” prequel was not going to be the quaint, “quirky” show you remember. That film actively spat on what Twin Peaks became without his steering—treating every throughline as canon, yet tying them together in a way that dragged the world and experience of Twin Peaks, by the viscera, back into the universe of David Lynch: where what matters is not the mystery but Mystery, and everything that seems simple and comforting on its surface is just a veneer we contrive to convince ourselves that we are not surrounded by, or mired in, an inescapable existential horror every moment of every day. This quality of Fire Walk With Me—which took me about twelve years to fully recognize as being a horror film—will be happening again. That’s another thing the tagline signals to us.

6. Not only will this series exhibit Lynch’s defining style of self-referential commentary and open, searing rejection of audience expectations, it will probably also play that meta game with the history of how this Golden Age of Dramatic TV has followed directly from Twin Peaks, even after that very same industry killed his dream and restrained him from telling the story of Twin Peaks the way he and Frost envisioned it. I’m not sure how this will be visible, but I can’t imagine Lynch getting this bittersweet opportunity to finally hold the creative control he always deserved and not taking it as also a chance to piss in the eye of everyone who doubted him, meddled with his vision, and then got rich making mediocre dime-store clones of it for two and a half decades.

7. While we’re at it, considering that Twin Peaks is fundamentally a story of what Michael Stipe used to call the “mythological America,” I wonder if longtime Reagan admirer yet vocal Romney hater David Lynch will take any opportunity to comment on how America has changed—or not changed—compared to the original series’ vision of the post-Reagan world: an America still steeped in the ghosts of the 1950s, playacting the dream of The Neighborhood to cover for its traumas both survived and inflicted. Does Twin Peaks need to look different in an America that has become so much more exposed for its sins and its secrets?


In short, my prediction is this:

It is happening again—but that gum you like is not going to come back in style.

I’ll see you again in 25 years. Let’s rock.

(Source: bit.ly)



NYC folx! Please join Katie Bishop, myself, and many other talented artists at The Tank this Saturday for Deliver us from Donald #2: an anti-Trump music+poetry benefit show!
I’ll be reading something(s) that’s not quite a poem and not quite a speech,...

NYC folx! Please join Katie Bishop, myself, and many other talented artists at The Tank this Saturday for Deliver us from Donald #2: an anti-Trump music+poetry benefit show!

I’ll be reading something(s) that’s not quite a poem and not quite a speech, in a world where everything is a standup routine anyway.

Please Like the FB page, Share the event, and come on out!

Event link for quick sharing: http://bit.ly/DeliverUsFromDonald02

(Source: bit.ly)



Keep your eyes to the skies today.
WAR MATERIAL #469/366:
Communiqué, or
Transitive, or
Clauses
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL469

Keep your eyes to the skies today.

WAR MATERIAL #469/366:
Communiqué, or
Transitive, or
Clauses

http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL469



Started from the bottom;
now we’re here:
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL465
RAW MATERIAL #465/366: See Above

Started from the bottom;
now we’re here:

http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL465

RAW MATERIAL #465/366: See Above



I won’t make any rules this time. I promise.
RAW MATERIAL #448/366: “Supply Chains.”
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL448

I won’t make any rules this time. I promise.

RAW MATERIAL #448/366: “Supply Chains.”

http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL448



I will drop everything to fight the Trump admin at all costs if I see this happen, or worse: _____________.

Reblog with your response to #DrawTheLine.

My answer: I’ve already reoriented my focus around activism. If they try for a religious or racial registry, I’ll be forced to #DrawTheLine.

(Amendment to my own answer: I’d also have to #DrawTheLine at any effort to register any group, or at similar programs like anti-LGBTQ+ “conversion camps.”)

(Source: stefanoblack.com)



Huh. A two-tweet draft I had forgotten about (but do remember) for what would have been RAW MATERIAL #309+310—presumably to post Nov 5 2016.
Guess it works both ways.
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL310

Huh. A two-tweet draft I had forgotten about (but do remember) for what would have been RAW MATERIAL #309+310—presumably to post Nov 5 2016.

Guess it works both ways.

http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL310



Jan 25, 2017 shall forever be remembered as the day on which I, finding two such sacred images on the same unassuming page, met the final and ultimate dilemma as to the true nature of my aesthetic‬.



Is it over?
RAW MATERIAL #314-319/366: “The First 100 Days.”
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL319



Do yourself a favor: vote.
Do me a favor: take care of yourself today.
RAW MATERIAL #309-313/366: “There Is No Question.”
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL313

Do yourself a favor: vote.
Do me a favor: take care of yourself today.

RAW MATERIAL #309-313/366: “There Is No Question.”

http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL313



“I’m trying to keep my faith,
But I’m looking for more:
Somewhere I can feel safe
And end my holy war.”
RAW MATERIAL #308/366: “A Community.”
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL308

“I’m trying to keep my faith,
But I’m looking for more:
Somewhere I can feel safe
And end my holy war.”

RAW MATERIAL #308/366: “A Community.”

http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL308



What comes first?
RAW MATERIAL #306-307/366: “Child” & “Mother.”
http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL306

What comes first?

RAW MATERIAL #306-307/366: “Child” & “Mother.”

http://bit.ly/RAWMATERIAL306








i'm Stef.
they/them.
gender: Unknown
(the boss from Tekken Tag)

i write + filmmake + radicalize on
culture + justice + social issues.

i posted one new, original work
almost every day of 2016
until that voting thing.
RAW MATERIAL.

it is time
to sharpen
our weapons
inside + out.







TWITTER
Sometimes it's so hard to
decide whether I care less
about Burning Man
or TED Talks.

MEDIUM
Something I had to do but
not because it haunts me.

$UPPORT
buy me a latte or building

CONTACT
i make your stuff more good.