My Rollercoaster
[This post consists of a handful of incomplete attempts of writing it, a return letter, to tell my tale and shed light on what’s next for this blog and I. —From late Junius to now, mid-Augustus.]
I'm finally back home (kinda), and things haven't changed much. My internet friends are all growing up and out of me, my real life friends are the same bunch of degenerates trying to prove a point, and I am the same problematic thing in between sane and not. Problems always show, things always change, and for that matter, all has stayed pretty much the same. Sure, I had a spiritual retreat of sorts and now hold a bag full of new experiences and wisdom, but in truth, I'm never really gonna change, doesn't matter how much my character is built up to. That might be a good thing, means I don't switch up on people; but also means I'm too stubborn to learn a lesson and better myself if I don't expressly feel like it. I'd be thrown into a bonfire quicker than I'd learn calligraphy if put in a mosque.
So, now, what's new? What's going to be different? Well, quite a bit. Listen to my story.
A great realization that came to me in this trip was photography. At first, the practice kinda just fell into my lap, when I was blessed with a camcorder to carry on video projects I had in mind last year. Taking pictures was an extra function, since what's the purpose of a camera that doesn't photograph?, and exploring such, I came to unveil a taste for the still record of the world around me.
After that it was only downhill, and soon I came to value the visual of my artistic sense in a way like never before. Taking pictures, making films, albums; a gate was opened and from it came the simulacrum of me as truly a complete artist. Music and literature were already big at the time, and I dabbled on the occasional nude with model when it came to visual, but a camera in my hands was a tool intrinsic to the artist I am, something I didn’t know until finally experiencing it. The Trove is a great place to see where it's started and how far it has gone.
The thing here is that the same way a bass and pencil and paper are necessary for me to live life, so had become a camera in this late 2022, early 2023. That camcorder wouldn’t leave my side, accompanying me everywhere, be it day or night. Porno and mutilation, rock shows and freestyle battles, flowers, people, emptiness, street or home, the looking down from a window, contemplating death; I captured it all, as moments, points of space and time, in numerous occasions of my existence. The Trove, as it stays, is much more than a simple archive of random shots; it is literally me, who I am, my life as is. Not entirely, of course, that would be reckless; I know the trouble I can get myself into by pulling a camera at certain times; same with the sharing of certain things I have captured. Virtually, though, it’s all there, enough to satisfaction, because of my irrational desire of capturing moments, and the artist’s need of speaking truth out loud by any means.
Photography had become my life, something that’s me and mine, and I couldn’t live without it, like a vital organ. So, you can imagine how awful it felt to have stripped from me the ability to capture — it was Aperire, I got attacked downtown, and the lesser I lost was my dignity. That night I learned what it meant to live without a limb, for I was handicapped.
From the rest of that month, to the extent of Maia, came back to me an evil I thought surpassed. Depression hit me like I thought never again, unearthing a soft spot in a way that made me feel like I was about to die, exposed and defenseless; nothing offered safety. So, I hid away, my mind forced to function in a past state, away from the truth I came to know with my camera around, and that was not me, I knew that, so I suffered. My body hosted an existence not mine, a being not me, so the enemy lived within me while I was nowhere to be found. That took me into an insane state I tried my best to keep elusive, but that transpired and worried the fuck out of the people around me. Everybody knew something was wrong, but nobody could get from me an answer on how to help the situation, and I withered until, in a struck of luck, I was invited to spend some time with a friend from a neighboring town, and my body autonomously took me there.
Inexplicably, I felt good. From the moment the bus departed I was writing. Looking at the green pastures, lone mounds and farm animals, and the giant clouds in the soft blue sky above me, I felt happiness. And in a way, I came to accept that aforementioned “insanity”, because existing there, in that bus, mindfully, didn’t bring me any harm. It was then that I wrote “O ônibus pra lá” and “Meu nome é Sebastião”, intro pieces for my latest literary project: “Poções Violeta”[provisory title]. From the two came the idea of producing a full on booklet about my experiences in this trip; my view over this new place and community as an outsider looking out. It is pretty much done, and will have a physical print in zine form, like the many poetry I’ve translated around here up to this point. If you’re interested in a copy, hit me up through the e-mail in the About section. And if you’re not curious and/or a Portuguese speaker, I’d gladly translate everything to release later as an e-book, bilingually, if there’s literally any interest at all from the rest of the public. Either way, don’t fret about coming to me.
Upon arrival, my heart was about to explode. That bus station was a place I loved to be at in my past trips to that town, for my family had houses in that neighborhood, and what used to be grandma’s main house was only a couple streets away from there. The whole area was known to me, and nostalgia hit like a motherfucker. A lot had changed in terms of the housing —colors, stories, remodels—, but the stone street felt the same under my feet, and I was ecstatic. My friend arrived to pick me up and we went straight to what would be my new home for the whole of June.
My complete experience you’ll see once “Poções Violeta” is released, and now comes what The Trove dwellers have known as the infamous “Season Two”.
Firstly, one of the things that was most appealing to me with the invite to go to this town, was the promise of a camera. Before that, I had plans of going there to film a documentary on the place and its people, but it was cut short with that whole Aperire situation. Without a camcorder, with the tools I had in hand, the project would be more trouble than its worth, so it was scratched along with all the other video projects active at the time. This promised camera was of no help either —a Samsung ES80 that was so goddamn bad I loved using it, but couldn’t record video with ease and for a good while not even take pictures. The hoops and loops I had to go through to work out my vision with this camera was an incessant struggle, for the ES80 is, almost definitely, the worst camera Samsung’s ever made. But I managed, and the result has been presented here with the “Season Two” section in most of the albums.
Though a documentary was an impossibility, documenting that town through my vision was not, and Season Two pictures are part of, truly, a whole new Trove movement, because my idea of photography and, more than that, my relation to it, had completely changed by then.
So, with a strange camera in my hands, came along that whole “stretching new shoes” stage, and I spent a good while trying to get used to its shit. From long promenades under daylight, to dark-corner urban exploration through the night, it accompanied me throughout my journey, and there’s quite a few photos I am pretty proud of, from that collection. All of them representing the birth of a new me, as an artist and, to the title I’ve embraced, photographer.
If you’ve been following The Trove in the big hiatus before Season Two, you probably came across the Sludge Life album. It was my first ever venture into the strange world of in-game photography, but more than that, worked as stepping stone to my rehabilitation into photography as a whole. Spending all of those hours and thousands of clicks trying to produce a perfect album from a videogame, having the result be as satisfactory as it was, something just snapped in my brain. Suddenly, photos weren’t the simple capture of the moment, which value is in the moment itself however it is presented; but in turn, value is in the whole thing, as an experience by and in itself, independent of outward influence. What. I mean by that is, before this realization, I used photos as an increment; I saw and thought of photography as the simple visual representation of whatever other method it leeched significance from, instead of a method that originated significance itself. I never let my pictures speak for themselves, because I never noticed in them the ability to do so, but now I do, and it has really changed the way I go about it.
By the start of June, this new ideology was already part of my tool belt, which I carried to that new space, and used throughout the trip. Today, back “home” and with a set of different tools, it still lingers, but in a much deeper form.
My situation living there, “away from home”, wasn’t necessarily the best. That self-acceptance I felt at the start, began to dwindle very quickly. A breath of fresh air might mean a pause to old problems, but also brings with it entirely new ones. I stayed miserable, though wallowing in a different kind of sorrow, and even had one of my worst birthdays ever. Often I think solitude is the best way to deal with all the shit everything and everybody else throws at me, but even though it works, it’s not forever, and I end up worse than if I tried something else. When I escaped that town, in early Julius, I was re-LIEVED, as if once more I’d taken that first breath of fresh air, although it carried an old smell I was much used to. I was back to my old life —one of them, at least— and excited to start over, and live to the best of my ability. And so I’ve been doing.
My hope for a photographic future was reignited. Instead of giving up completely on photography, I instead pursued it according to the need I felt, now with the lack of once another camera. And things went quite alright. So, shoutouts to all my friends who helped crowdfund some money to get me my new baby, because I’m broke, and shoutouts Chris, specifically, for being a super cool person and selling me her old equipment for the low.
The baby in question is a beautiful Sony DSC-H100, of which you can find further specifications in the apparatus page, and is an absurd upgrade to everything I’ve ever once called equipment over there. Not an upgrade I planned for, mind you, because of my stupid head adoring low fidelity stuff —I was looking for a cheap easyshare at most— but that was really, really, really what I actually wanted and didn’t know. You see, with this newfound big importance I began to give photography, limitations such as the ones brought by the cheap cameras I like to use, can often become unsurpassable obstacles to the holisticness of certain pictures, which can unfortunately affect creative freedom in a way that’s not fun, and meaning in a way irreversible. Therefore, having a camera that allows for more commonplace modern quality is important to allow me to carry on, properly, my new vision.
So, there you go, good shit. Copped a new camera, it’s amazing, I love it, have already gone back to taking pictures regularly, have a bunch of updates to come for The Trove, everything is great. Or not.
When I bought this camera, I was under the impression that, even though it uses AA batteries, I could just get a box of cheap ones and wouldn’t even need to worry about it for the rest of the year, at least. So I got it, copped 4 nice alkaline Panasonics to stretch it out, and once those ran out and I went to buy new ones. Turns out it’s not every kind of battery that works in a digital camera, and the cheap ones are not it AT ALL. This bitch only runs in alkaline AAs, and those bitches are so expensive you have no idea. The counterpart is rechargeable batteries, but those would send me back half the price I paid for the camera, money I absolutely do not have, and fuck me, I’m desperate, fuck this world, fuck batteries, I hate this shit.
This issue ended up introducing a new dynamic— between the camera and I, photography and me. Before it, the two cameras I handled used rechargeable lithium batteries, so I would charge them up, go out, empty them up, go back home, charge them and repeat the next day. This made for a very unconcerned photography style, since the amount of clicks I got were limited but reimbursed for basically free. That reflects on the amount of pictures you’ve seen over here in The Trove from the get-go. Some albums nearing 200 individual photos, and 20-something albums overall. This is due to the technological advances and whatnot, making portable energy/photography easy and accessible, something I thought related to everything today, but turns out not, turns out I’m fucked, bound to buy batteries for the rest of my life now. Every time I turn on that camera, every new click, every time I focus, every second of every video is money out of my pocket. Money I’m never sure to have. So, photography became now a luxury compared to all the other methods I use. I need to really think about every click before going for it, because wasting it would mean wasting potential future photos. When those Panasonics ran out, it was a whole two weeks before I could photograph again, with new batteries. So, now, this whole ideology of making pictures more meaningful and independent is not just a state of mind, but something I’m forced to chase, realistically. And don’t get me wrong, but it’s a lot of fun!
Planning photography is something I haven’t done before this whole situation, but now I do, and I spend hours thinking of angles, of programming, of natural light and flash distances and it’s so cool! Sure, as soon as possible I’m going to get rechargeable batteries, to give myself more freedom; but until then, I’m learning to be more aware of the privilege in my hands, and how lucky I am for being able to have a camera, a pair of legs and an artistic desire satiated. In other words, I’m able, I’m happy and living is bearable.
If you enjoy my photos, you’re probably gonna love what I have in store for this blog. So, stay tuned, updates will be coming soon, and they’re pretty great! Thanks a lot for your time here, I hope you come back, u a real G!
Aside from photography but not out of the realm of visual arts, I had in this Julius a pretty cool “awakening” of sorts.
If you’re a friend of me, and your birthday has passed by, or christmas, I probably gifted you one of my drawings. Something I really enjoy doing is drawing the female form, and whenever I have a model to do it, I’ll make a folderful of nudes. These usually serve as gifts to give everybody in special dates, and so far nobody has complained lol. Priscilla even has a full-on collection of my art, and every year I make something special for her, be it a big piece or something in a pretty frame. Have been drawing nudes since a child, thanks a lot Bouguereau for making the feminine body an obsession for me, and that’s pretty much been my art forever. This year I began exploring tagging and street art, and have made my statement pieces here and there; a while back drew a bunch of comic strips too, to moderate success, and besides photography, there were no plans of diversifying my visual portfolio in any way. That is, until I babysat some really cool kids.
The story itself will be a post this next week, but in sum, we drew a goddamn mural in the front yard and it’s amazing. This got me into drawing more stuff and, other than that, kickstarted this new style I want to use to illustrate children’s books in the future. To show it off, I want to make an “Artsy fartsies” album in The Trove, sharing my art to a broader public, something I haven’t done in quite a while. That also will be coming soon.
In terms of music and video, I have two clips in production right now, both of them completely original, to make company for the lonely, lonely Eat, Sing, Fuck and Die. If not this month, the next one, you’ll be seeing them pretty soon.
And as for fiction writing, unfortunately the last anthology was pushed to more at the end of the year, because of all this bullshit I’ve just talked about here. The poetry booklet is going to come out around Halloween, and “Poções Violeta” is soon to be out, so whoop whoop to my brasilians and people interested in underground poetry.
P.S. The fiftieth iteration of THE LOST TAPES has been released in the NIGHTMARE MIRROR blog. Check it out!
I also have been making jigsaw puzzles on my favorite jigsaw website: Jigsaw Planet. You can catch some spoilers of unpublished stuff over there, and play my best pictures as jigsaws in numerous levels of difficulty, all tested by yours truly. I’ll shill it better in the next updates, but if you reached this point in the post, try it out before everybody else!
To end it off, shoutouts to all that’s supported me; people who stayed by my side, physically or not; to those that believe in me and haven’t given up yet, and to the lurkers who have bookmarked my shit to keep checking if I’m alive. Y’all are great, I love you, see ya.