FEBRUARY 2026 UPDATE
ululating with reckless abandon edition
Greetings from Portland, Oregon, the home of well-intentioned bike corridors and entitlement-infused kombucha. How’s your new year going so far? Are you becoming who you said you’d be? Have you been troubled or energized by the Trailblazers lack of a true point guard this season? There’s no wrong answers. Let’s begin:
WHAT HAPPENED IN JANUARY (BROAD STROKES):
- my short film Apology Ghost was selected to play at the 15th annual McMinnville Short Film Festival (more below)
-released a 4-song EP titled Future History (more below)
-made a short experimental film titled Security (out to festivals soon)
- saw the Mel Brown B3 Organ group at the 1905 jazz club with M + friends. (may you carry yourself with the joy Mel Brown has on stage)
- my son lost his wallet on trimet but recovered it fully intact the next day. what are the odds?
BEST THINGS I READ in January: Transformer: The Complete Lou Reed Story (finished! so good), Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally Mann (A+), The Narrows by Michael Connelly, The Weeping Time by Anne C. Bailey (in progress)
BEST THINGS I SAW in January: A Real Pain, The Spanish Prisoner (rewatch), 1968 (4 episode series on HBO), Christ Stopped at Eboli (4 episode series on Criterion based on Carlo Levi’s memoir, highly compelling), The Prairie Trilogy (3 short documentaries about North Dakota socialism via a man named Henry Martinson circa 1916 and beyond on Criterion. great), Yojimbo (rewatch), If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
Therein ends the apertif, now join me in the newly-remodeled parlor for the harder stuff:
FILM UPDATES
Apology Ghost (narrative short, 5 min) - excited to report this film is an Official Selection at the 15th annual McMinnville Short Film Festival, our west coast premiere. We are playing Thursday 2/26 at 9:15 pm in the Experimental/A Bit Strange block where we are also nominated one of the best films in that category (curiously, a bit strange is the exact phrase my 2nd grade teacher used to describe my general demeanor on a progress report.) Come join us if you can! more about Apology Ghost here.
How Do You Move in This World (experimental narrative short, 2 min) This project will world premiere in Los Angeles the weekend of March 13th, 2026 at the VASTLAB experimental festival. VASTLAB sent accepted filmmakers a list of 9 questions to answer about their filmmaking process and below is my video response (yes, I included this on last month’s post too but it references what the film is about as well as some contextual data about me and my process so here it is again.)
More about How Do You Move in This World here
ADDITIONAL PROJECT UPDATES
Freak Farm (experimental short, 3 min) out to festivals, more about Freak Farm here.
Grief Stick (documentary short, 17 min) out to festivals, more about Grief Stick here.
Sister/Brother (narrative feature, 75 min)- currently re-editing. More about the project here.
FUTURE HISTORY
FUTURE HISTORY, a 4-song EP by impermanent marker (ie me) was just released at the end of January on bandcamp and youtube . Songs all concern death and hope and destruction in various forms and are written, performed, mixed by me (for better or worse). If you are willing to listen I recommend headphones and a darkened room with lightly incensed air at 68-70 degrees and a cup of steaming coffee or chai tea, or any variables that may work for you. I have no expectation or even hope of how these songs land in the world but I get a lot of satisfaction out of the process. Sometimes they turn out okay, sometimes less so. Either way, when it's done I set it and forget it, moving on to the next thing.
some context on each track:
dot the eye: these were initially kind of placeholder lyrics but i left them in. i like the noise in this one. the progression literally came to me randomly one morning (not that it’s particularly complex or anything) and i had my phone nearby so recorded it right then and over several weeks built the rest around it.
century city: this song was written in 1999 and very much about my aching need to succeed in los angeles and what it meant if i did or didn’t. sometimes i think i dodged a bullet by not succeeding the way i meant to when i arrived there but then i wonder if i’m just putting balm on a wound by saying that. but no, lets be real, i dodged a bullet.
shattered shell: initially was going to just be bare vocal and guitar but i kept adding tracks. this song is kind of about how it feels to endure a weeks-long depressive episode when you’re all emptied out. i like the hold/repeat of the last note
blood thin: this song was also written in 1999 but it’s always kind of hung around. it was written toward a specific person and corrosive situation but surprise i don’t remember any of the details with any degree of precision. they’ve just sort of dissolved and evaporated with time. and as such i sort of see the lyrics of this one, pointed and derisive as they are, as really directed at myself, or a previous iteration.
thanks for checking it out. follow me on bandcamp if you are willing. it’s free
GREEN LIGHTS, ETC
I’ve been transferring a lot of old MiniDV and VHS footage to digital lately (both a function of my endlessly-looping nostalgia combined by a ticking-clock urgency to get things into viable forms before tapes and older media become untenable) which has been a process of re-discovery for a lot of things. It’s at once a look at the unsophisticated equipment and vantage I had then, re-examining the memory of that time, and finding/discovering old footage that I can maybe repurpose in current projects. Overall it’s been a really positive enterprise. Anyway, one of the things I had transferred last month is the first thing I ever properly directed (skipping over some super 8 projects in college that is), a music video titled Green Lights, made in 2002 when I lived in Los Angeles (though it was shot in Humboldt County USA). I also found a folder (ie a physical plastic folder) with original shot list and storyboards also. (I’ll include a storyboard below which beyond showing my vision for the project also illustrates that i should never draw anything ever again. ) Watch the video below and learn about its origins and encumbrances HERE. more storyboards at the link plus shot lists and history, and context.
ETC
impermanence clock
days i’ve been alive: 19,5858 | days until i turn 80: 9,631
music
I already told you about that above so I’ll just leave it there lest you accuse me of being too self-aggrandizing. I do have a gaggle of upcoming tracks and projects in the works and we’ll get to those in due time.
running
weak sauce this month. counter to most beginning of the year undertakings, I didn’t run once this month. partially this is b/c i’m tired all the time b/c of aging and b/c of my punishing day-job schedule (4 nights a week!) which renders me without the resources to do much of anything physical. Or when I choose to push through it and go for a run anyway, I’ll get sick and then down for the count for a week or more. I need to jump back in and I will. I promise. Don’t give up on me. I did sign up for a 5K in April so there’s that to look forward to no matter what.
photography
if you want to purchase prints of my photos please go here. Sold one in December to Alex B and would love to get one to you, maybe for your other home in the mountains or for the just-painted human resources office? think about it.
fivver account!
I offer film editing, screenplay proofing, and voice acting. Do you have need of any of those? Does your loved one or friend? If so please go here. I could really use the support.
Okay that’s it for now. Thank you for reading. I hope you are doing well and still planning to transform into a butterfly this year. What’s stopping you? Can I help in any way? Reach out. Let’s make this February a good one, or a great one even.
Phillip Glass is amazing. The pearl, "Don't expect applause" is so very true. The photos are lovely, especially the rear-view mirror, speckled with dew drops.