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STAY HOME DIRT MEDIA Denver, Colorado USA dirtmedia.org @dirt_media_ April 2020 In response to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, a global pandemic, we are asked to “stay home”. Some of us can, and some of us cannot. Some of us will, and some of us won’t. There are those without homes. There are doctors, nurses, and grocery clerks. There are mutual-aid collectives, food banks and unemployment checks. There is art. Psilocybin is decriminalized. There is virtual everything, Bernie Sanders, dog-walking, and dispensaries. Our time is still commodified- it is damn near impossible for us to slow down, to stop, to stay home. Still we must. 14 artists contributed their work to Stay Home zine. This is a documentation of creative activity blooming in the midst of crisis. We celebrate bringing our work together as a form of healing, community care, and a resistance & re-imagining of our current system’s failingseconomic and governing, much of which now is showing inconsistent with a livable future for humanity- a future of peace, pleasure & equality.
Conjured Pestilence
Dillon S. Cook
@dibby.gribblesen
Celeste Utke
@celesteutke
Mik Fuqua @vhirrim
Alan Peters: Jupiter Visual @jupitervisual
In The Absence of a Mechanical Sun or Moon or Stars Previously featured in the Circo De Nada Decameron
And then one day, the sun never set. In the middle of China, it got right to that golden hour and paused there in the sky like the mechanic in charge of the gears of the sun died on the job and no one replaced him. Of course, this was different everywhere—the hour that life had settled into and stayed in. Somewhere on the far side of the world, it was the moon that seemed to freeze, and all of the stars too. Just stuck, interrupted from the motion they had known for so long. The scientists took to their research, studying the complex logistics of the universe and desperately trying to sort out what went wrong, or rather what had shifted. Some spent countless days and what used to be perceived as nights digging into journal after journal of everything from meteorology to astronomy to quantum physics just trying to deduce the why of it all, not to mention what was to come after. They asked questions, and questions about their questions, and they questioned those questions as well. The spiritual among us took to their own time and ways, pending carefully on the blessing of this all and perhaps what warnings was the Sun and the Moon and Stars, this great God and Goddess of humankind for so long trying to tell us? What was indicated by their unending presence? What healing was being done, and what healing had yet to be? The nihilists, they thought nothing of it, for many of them didn’t think much of anything at all. If it’s all just a dream we’ve yet to wake up from, then what consistency was there ever to hang onto? Everything dies in its time and so will they, they thought, sipping gas station coffee, walking in circles around a lake, sleeping too much or too little. The businessmen asked where was the opportunity in it all? What great market would this huge sociological shift create and what needs could they be the first to fill? They watched the climb and fall of the green line of the stock market like a meteor dancing with the idea of destroying their world. Some rose and some fell, and there was no time still to mourn anybody.
The skeptics and contrarians asked if we were so sure that the Sun and Moon and Stars had stopped, or if maybe we were just moving with them now, or if maybe we had not ever seen them as they truly are, and then they questioned themselves and each other and fought about fighting and were quite occupied in their time. The mothers held their children and when they asked them “what does this mean?” they told them I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. The dreamers didn’t waste any of their time with things and stuff and quickly swan dove into the heartbeat of prophecy, of what the world was writing and where they could be to hear it. The dreamers slept in parks whenever they were tired in the endless day and most definitely the dreamers slept in the endless night dreaming of walking to the other side of the world. Some flowers died, some flowers blossomed for the first time, some flowers just did whatever they damn well felt like, some super dramatic and some demure. Some flowers cast shadows that they had the time to get to know, and some shadows grew to loathe their flowers for never reaching more towards them. Some flowers were carried away on the back of the wind, which somehow still moved as it always maybe had. The mail carriers carried their mail to where it needed to be carried, and left it where it needed to be left. They traversed the city in patterns while above their heads the pigeons swayed to the same songs. The Moon, she waited, as if she saw this all coming, and the Sun he waited too. Neither the Sun, the Moon, nor the Stars had lungs or legs, but if they did they would have breathed in, sat down, and watched it all moving so quickly, when for the first time in maybe forever they were able to stand still.
Brice Maiurro
www.maiurro.co
pandemic
transcend
Nick B.
@mestizomezclando
Day In- Day In
Jake Sandi
@Jake_Sandi_Art
In the depths I find myself The seed The core It’s scary dark and overwhelming But it’s really a mask A friend to shake hands with There is a comfort in this place I know it all too well The slow burn that touches every cell Strength hurts Alone I wait for you to find me An illusion I create for myself Walls built in fear for safety Leaving myself unknown Thinking I need to be found Found is the place inside The place I hate The one I run away from But it’s the only place I get all to myself And the only place that is only familar to me So I say okay And together we become friends
Olivia Oona @o.o.o.na
Rachel Zetah Becker
@girlofearth / @church.of.earth
words we say to each other — You told me once that hummingbirds are simple creatures of routine unable to change their patterns, yet retaining the elegance to bear repetition with passion. And I told you once about how those many layered pink flowers were heaven’s sweet reminder of wildfire season. And so you whispered back how we could make a mattress out of mountain sage and decide to be together always with our legs wrapped together with Indian paintbrush and yarrow stems. your skin colored like rammed earth on butter-kneaded lattice-topped homegrown June evenings.
Passing time listening to the vines spilling over your terracotta lip. you remind me to always speak in wildflower dream in river cry in watercolor and dance like the light passing through the branches of an old growth forest Sitting among the flowering lamb’s quarter,
Mary Loehr
fennelyarrow.bandcamp.com
“Coronavirus” Mutation This piece was actually made a few months ago. After the COVID-19 emerged recently, I looked at this piece more closely and realized it looked like the virus. I had just listened to a video of a transmission(channeling) from a woman who calls herself Magenta Pixie on YouTube. She frequently channels otherworldly beings who call themselves The White Winged Collective Consciousness of Nine. In the transmission, they spoke of what we call “coronavirus” as actually being a mutation that formed as a result of multiple things happening in our universe. Such things including darker underground forces such as the Cabal that the public does not hear of, 5g tower radiation, DNA splicing experiments, and mistreatment and containment of animals on earth. Everything combined apparently created this mutation and to me sounds as if Mother Gaia is trying to balance herself out. Many light workers have been mentioning the “rainbow bridge” during these times, which in basic terms, is the connection of humanity to the Divine, and can be created through meditation and other spiritual practices and requires going inward. My perspective on the virus is that everything is in divine order and we all must focus on love, connection to our inner selves and to Source energy in whatever way that means for us, and to practice more mindfulness for our own actions and health and the health of Mother Gaia in all forms. This piece depicts DNA, rainbow bridges, and other worldly spacecrafts shining their light, knowledge and perspective on humanity. Mother Earth will still thrive and bounce back. What is our part in all this? What can we do to heal ourselves, each other, and the planet? The answer is LOVE and the realization of our UNITY.
Forrest Avery
@third3yecacti
Alexander White
@commoditycreature
glass beach house crouched in queue, I wait for ocean’s architecture to survive me superfluous words for humdrum boyhood, one of permanent vacation I try to miss the child lost run into doors never arrive veins excrete dull lightning, our vows cast themselves collateral I leave a shoe so he’ll believe I would return here the beach at quarantine holds our records: grains rising like dough unpressed by human step
Mackenzie Packard @sixtywattbulb
Etymology Research in the Time of COVID-19 “Common danger made common friends” – Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) The word “foreign” from the Latin “foris” to mean outside, out of doors The word “outside” meaning “being on the outside; to the outer surface or boundary;” “situated or operating outside the house, the system, etc.)” The word “house” is perhaps connected to the root of hide The word “hide” to hide, conceal; preserve; hide oneself; bury a corpse” The word “body” “related to Old High German botah, but otherwise unknown origin. Not elsewhere in Germanic, and the word has died out in German (replaced by Leib, orginally “life” “But in English body remains as a great and important word” Body Language Body Politic Body Count The word “boundary;” a visible mark indicating a dividing line, a bound being the limit or furthest point of extension of any one thing “others; the remaining ones” Life Language Life Politic Life Count Where do you end and I begin? Where do I end and you begin? The word “begin” “to open, open up”
The word “close” “to shut, cover in” Do you care for the remaining ones? The word “care” “be anxious or solicitous; grieve; feel concern or interest…lament…cry out, call, scream, shout, cry, call” Not everyone can house; can hide Not every house is safe to hide The word “danger” from Anglo-French, Old French: “arrogance, insolence” “power, power to harm, mastery, authority, control” “power of a lord” from the Latin dominus “lord, master” from domus “house” Not everyone can house; can hide Not every house is safe Where do you end and I begin? Where do I begin and you end? Where do we make a boundary? Do I care about the remaining ones? What does it mean to be a one? What does it mean to be an-other? An-other compared to whom? Care for each other? We: “I and another and others” What does it mean to care? I washed my hands so much they bled I cannot tell where I begin and where I end there is no other only we
Liza Sparks
lizasparks.com / @sparksliza534
Unread emails at 5:00 pm Mountain Time Found Poem Email Inbox 4/17/2020 Birthright-last call for signed copies! Social distancing in refugee camps is near impossible Help keep our ad on air in Michigan and Wisconsin How we’re responding to COVID-19 Submishmash Weekly: ‘The rawest form’ Frete Grátis Na Pakera Pakera Sale to Support Authors These are Difficult times Denverite works for you Breeze your way through Tax Season Please please, please stay home Staying in? Don’t panic. We have free delivery! Hours Changing10,027,860 South Korea Reverses its Coronavirus Rates Your 5 calls What Congress is doing against Coronavirus Boulder Book Store presents Shelf Awareness for Read-ers for Tuesday 17, 2020 Lit Hub Daily: March 17, 2020 “Knives Whistle” by Sherwin Bitsui
Liza Sparks
@sparksliza534 / lizasparks.com
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