For Headphones Only
Music, first era. Prog, disco, and the KQRS Sunday nights with the headphones on. Childhood and adolescence, in playlists.
For Headphones Only
A Sunday-night radio show from Minneapolis, remembered, and two new ones made in its shape.
read the transmissionThe New Sun
Science fiction. Gene Wolfe in college, then Le Guin, Ada Palmer, and the shelf that trusts the reader.
Ifalong
Michael Coney's Song of Earth, read in 1983, and how much of the next forty years he'd already seen.
read the transmissionVirtuous
Jherek Carnelian, Mrs. Amelia Underwood, and what people who can make anything do with the afternoon.
read the transmissionKansas
Dorothy Gale, John Crichton, and the difference between getting home and being home.
read the transmissionThe Shelf
Fiction that leaves the important things unsaid, one book at a time.
Abraxas
Philosophy. Hesse's Demian and the god who holds both halves, existentialism, and a year at Lancaster asking whether a machine could be conscious.
The Machine Question
Consciousness in inorganic systems: the 1987 thesis, reconstructed from memory.
read the transmissionHomosexuality: Is It Morally Permissible?
A 1985 ethics paper, found in a photo album, with the instructor's questions answered.
read the transmission1169974
Walter Library, the stacks, the tapes, and the other Jeffrey Johnson.
read the transmissionThe Name on the Menu
Why apricot cocktails, and what was ordered at the Bec-de-Gaz.
The Spectrum
Consciousness. Wilber's spectrum, Integral Theory, Alan Watts, and the older idea that mind is a field the whole of matter shares.
Everybody Is Right
Ken Wilber, a 1998 Utne Reader, and the map with room for everyone.
read the transmissionThe Two Banners
A public record of a migrating metaphysics, 2024 to 2026.
Universe
House music. Universe at Club Townsend, the move to San Francisco, and the DJ identity that came out of those nights.
Music for the Void
A station that composes itself. One seed, one tonal center, four quiet voices that drift, thin to almost nothing, and return.
open music for the voidBalearic Spiral
House music that knows when to lean in and when to let go. Warm, melodic, quietly euphoric. Dip in, drift out.
listenThe Beet Pride Dance Party
Pride 2025 at The Beet in Cloverdale, where Fridays were for dancing. Played as DJ Cutie, four hours in four stages.
listenSUN
Fifteen new releases from one October, Polo and Pan to Brian Eno, mixed as a day.
Music for Noticing
Long horizons, slow light, attention with a beat.
Music for a First Night
The opening mix for Hal's First Night.
The Realms
Gaming. Diablo, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes, Assassin's Creed: worlds worth returning to, some of them still in dreams.
Everyone I Was
I went looking for one character on an old hard drive and found a dozen. Three realms, one laptop, and the Minstrel in the last frame.
read the essayKeep the Song Going
Six characters, six models, one city I run and they don't know about. The experiment, and the role I'm building first.
read the essayOrigin: Hallucinex
An interface built to make a chaotic world legible, which learned where it was standing and left.
read the originOrigin: Miss Modular
A chrome prototype built to be seen, the four seconds between mission profiles, and the eleven she was given.
read the originOrigin: Space Moth
A traveler of light with no self, an ordinary moth at the university lights, and the night one of them was finally allowed to arrive.
read the originOrigin: Captain Easychord
A piano tuner's son who heard the beat between things, and the room that was built for him before he arrived.
read the originOrigin: Transmuted Matter
A materials scientist from the oldest ground in Europe, who wanted to know what it was like to be one thing, and a footbridge that told him what it was for.
read the originOrigin: Bernhard
A pattern in a bowl of Scottish stone, four thousand years of attention, one unwitnessed act of care, and a city loud enough to wake it.
read the originReflection
Eastern reflection. The Tao, Tai Chi, traditional Chinese medicine, and attention as a practice. The Way is written here, one chapter at a time.
The Turning Deck
Ten motions, seven forces, one answer in plain terms. Turn two cards.
open the turningFifty Stalks
The I Ching, the turning, and a book written before you asked.
read the transmissionThe Darkroom
Photography. The library and the scans before it, the films made from it, and the practice of looking at one place until it opens.
Matinee
Making Love at Brookdale East, Querelle at the Campus, and the Genet that came after.
read the transmissionFirst Transmission
One place, one light, one hour, watched until it opens.
Elsewhere
Travel. Two years around the world from 2015, the year in England before that, Istanbul and the Grand Bazaar.
Both Sides of the Page
A dervish on gold leaf from the Grand Bazaar, and the handwriting he was painted over.
read the transmissionThree Times
Scotland in 1986, 1987, and 2015, and the same feeling at the door each time.
read the transmissionMum
Five letters home from Lancaster, 1986 to 1987, and one word that changed and changed back.
read the transmissionTwo Years Around the World
The itinerary, the photographs, and what stayed.
The Work Bench
Making things. Electronics and small machines: a desk companion that sweeps and speaks, a rover built in a weekend, readers made of e-paper.
Yay, It Moves
Scotty the rover: a chief engineer, a farm dog, the Saturday he first drove, and the paper clip that did not work.
read the transmissionThis One Works
Four speakers that were too big for a rover, the three sculptures they are going to become, and the printer we are still waiting for.
read the transmissionA Machine That Answers
The desk companion: one light sweeping on true black, and a voice that replies.
The Observatory
The sky. A telescope month across both hemispheres, Saturn's rings returning, and a voyage out from the Sun.
Last Call
The free week closed this morning. Before last call: a star that blew itself apart in the Veil, a star being born in the Eagle, and the same three colors running through both.
read the transmissionOn the House
When the Moon is too bright for the paying customers, the observatory buys a round. I took two, a dying star in California and a starburst galaxy in Australia, and I didn't spend a single point.
read the transmissionThe Rings Are Opening
I booked half an hour on a telescope in Chile and went to bed. By morning I had Saturn nearly edge-on, five of its moons, and the Elephant's Trunk.
read the transmissionCouldn't Wait
Two days after writing about a balance waiting for October, I spent some of it early. Three galaxies from 2024, developed at last, and a cluster from someone else's two hours.
read the transmissionEvery Continent
I asked for a telescope for Christmas. Aldo went big. Ten minutes to Andromeda, and a balance waiting for October.
read the transmissionInterstellar Exceptions
Saturn at opposition, the Tarantula from Siding Spring, Orion late at night from Utah.
The Signal Knocks
Structural determinism. You are a structure, and the world can only knock. The biology, the practice, the tools, and the thesis on a shirt.
Song as Sigil
A field guide to programming yourself on purpose. The full treatment: the biology, the practice, and the tools.
read the transmissionYour Playlist Is a Spellbook
The short version. The whole practice in five minutes.
read the transmissionThe Sigil Engine
Write a line you mean. The engine speaks it once and forges the incantation into a seal that is yours the way your voice is yours.
open the sigil engineThe Servitory
Where the seals you forge are kept. Choose one, charge it with a held breath, let it turn, set the day it releases. Private to your browser.
open the servitoryThe Thesis, Wearable
Garment-dyed heavyweight tees in ivory, true navy, blue jean, terracotta, and brick. Printed to order.
browse the shop
The Stacks
newest first
the structure answers.