Let The Sun Shine - R.E.P.O.R.T.
reporting live from the surface of the sun
If you find yourself in/around Philly this summer, I’d love to take your picture at these upcoming events:
Saturday, June 21— We’re hosting Teddy’s Vinyl Club at Taylor Chip! We’ll be hanging out all evening at 1828 Frankford Ave with live performances and DJ sets from Philly musicians, as well as endless cookies and ice cream from Taylor Chip. I’ll be there with a camera (or three), it’ll be a good time.
Saturday, June 28— I’m bringing my pop-up photo studio, MICRO MAGIC, to the Under the El Bazaar on N Front St. Big ‘ol street fair with tons of food and art vendors and stuff for kids! Stop by my booth to purchase art prints of my work and take home a custom, on-the-spot keepsake portrait.
Sunday, July 6— MICRO MAGIC is returning for another week of the Sunday Pop-Up Series, hosted by Cloud 9 Clay & FORIN.
LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR!
HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE!
A JOYOUS LITHA!
IT’S CANCER SEASON, BITCH!
Those in EST will receive this as the Summer Solstice officially begins, shortly after 10:42 PM. The sun was up for a glorious 15 hours today, and I had the pleasure of spending it with people I love and indulging in all my favorite little rituals. I sincrely hope you had a special day too.
At the intersection of diary entry, listicle, wishlist, and acrostic poem lies the ~ R.E.P.O.R.T. ~
R - reading
I love the library. I love it up, down, and sideways. Write it on my tombstone.
“Here lies Mallory, she only loved three things:
1. Everyone
2. Everything
3. Her local library
I’m currently devouring a copy of The God of the Woods by Liz Moore from the Free Library of Philadelphia. I have to force myself to put this book down every night before I go to sleep. If I didn’t have to work tomorrow, I’d stay up all night and finish it under the covers, flashlight in one hand and this book in the other. It’s a mystery set primarily in the 1970s at a summer camp in the Adirondacks. The sooner I finish this post, the sooner I can get to reading this book before bed, so I’ll leave it at that. I’m about 45% of the way through, and it’s a 5-star read for me thus far. Don’t let me down, Liz!
E - eating
I made myself some fruity fruit salad fruit pancakes this week as a little morning treat. I used a basic just-add-water box mix for the pancakes, but instead of water, I made this batch with— hear me out, Coconut La Croix. The carbonation makes the pancakes so fluffy, and the coconut flavor was integral to my fruity fruit salad mix. I am a certified seltzer freak (RIP to my tooth enamel) and could easily crush a case a day, but even I wouldn’t usually touch a Coconut La Croix with a 10-foot pole. But mix it with some pancake batter… that’s a whole different story.
P - playing
I’ve been saying for years, “THIS is the year I finally get into Pokémon Go.” But every year, I make a liar of myself by not even bothering to download the app … until now.
This week, I finally downloaded the app, made my account, chose my little trainer (?) avatar, agreed to god knows what kind of privacy settings in the TOS, and told myself it was the start of something big for me. Sadly, it just left me feeling confused. I’m unsure how to navigate the interface, and I’m unsure what to do and when to do it. I just want to hang out with the Pokémon; I don’t want to chase them or make them fight. I fear the core principle of Pokémon is lost on me, and I’d be better off on Neopets (RIP).
I was recently introduced to and loved Pokémon Snap (1999), but that’s because you just take pictures and hang out with the Pokémon. Taking pictures and hanging out are like, my two favorite activities. Thinking about this game, or any video game, still makes me deeply sad, so I think this adventure is over for me, for now.
Maybe next year is the year I get into Pokémon Go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
O - obsessing
I was first indoctrinated into the cult of musical theater in 1998 in the back of my mom’s minivan. I was absolutely obsessed with the Broadway Kids cassette, The Broadway Kids: Back on Broadway. KidzBop before KidzBop, with far more camp and an air of pretentiousness. Of the musicals featured on the cassette, HAIR is the most sexed-up, drugged-out of all of them, so it would stand that it was the one that resonated deep in my five-year-old soul.
HAIR remains my favorite musical to this day, a first-of-its-kind “Love-Rock Musical” about hippie counterculture in the late 60s. NYC. The book and lyrics remain unchanged since 1968, but every season of my life brings new insights and deepens my understanding of the show’s message. The 1979 film adaptation slightly strays from the original stage show, and, IMO the film's ending is far more powerful. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard at a movie as I did at the end of HAIR when [redacted redacted].
After decades of listening to the music, watching the movie, and digging up old performances from the OBC on YouTube, I finally saw a live performance of HAIR this week at a community theater in my hometown (directed by my childhood theater director 😭).
I experienced a weird time-space collapse at the show that I’m still having trouble putting into words. These anti-war protest songs were written about Vietnam nearly sixty years ago, thirty years later, they made their way to me as a child as America began the War in Afghanistan, and another thirty years later, on the same day I saw the show, Trump paraded tanks through the streets of DC and mouthed off about nukes to Israel and Iran. The cycles of senseless violence repeat in such concentric circles that it’s quite literally dizzying.
My favorite lyric in HAIR is from Walking in Space in Act II. Claude is the only one of his hippie friends who decided against burning his draft card. As he’s having a full-on crisis of identity, he takes a hit of a laced joint and hallucinates his future as a soldier in Vietnam. His tribe of fellow hippies act out his visions around him. How could Claude turn his back on everything they stand for and choose war over all the beauty life has to offer? They hold each other’s faces and sing, like a mournful prayer, “How dare they try to end this beauty? How dare they try to end this beauty?”
In the film adaptation, this song underscores a montage of Claude’s basic training before he’s deployed.
R - recommending
Convenience is the cost you pay for community, so my recommendation is to inconvenience yourself a bit.
I hate to say “touch grass”, but it can’t hurt… (that’s mainly aimed at myself.)
Go out of your way to show up for your people! Fill the community fridges! Go to protests! Vote in local elections! Volunteer! Check in on elderly members of your community! Contribute funds to mutual aid organizations! Talk to your neighbors offline!
When I spend too much time in my neighborhood Facebook group, I want to kms, but then I step outside and connect with a neighbor, and my faith in humanity is restored.
None of this is new or groundbreaking, but it’s imperative nonetheless. No one is coming to save us, we are all we have. All power to the people. How dare they try to end this beauty?
T - treating
My solstice treat is a weekly evening out with my ladies. We’ve been having the same conversations for 20+ years, but talking to each other for hours never ever ever gets old.
Happy summer, talk soon 🫶
xo mal