the state of the cult
welcome to this week’s Satellite Cult dispatch. i’m so glad you’re here.
you can find satellite cult updates and memes on Instagram, and you can visit your cult leader’s Neocities page here.
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i’m surprised and honored that even through Satellite Cult’s hiatus, new readers have found this little newsletter. as of today, i have 200 subscribers, which feels like an enormous milestone for a publication that feels niche and small.
after pausing publishing for months without any explanation, i feel like i owe you one now:
the highs and lows of this past year have provided enough fodder to fuel the memoir i’ll probably write when i turn 80 (assuming i haven’t been swallowed alive before then by a sentient industrial meat grinder). August 29th marks the one year anniversary of the gender-affirming surgery that forever changed my experience of living and put SatCult on a first temporary hiatus. immediately following surgery, a mass layoff cost me my day job and spun me into a four-month long job search, which thankfully ended in January after well over 100 applications. while unemployed (and in the earlier months of my new employment) i updated SatCult on and off, to the best of my ability, but found around March that i needed a break. i used that newfound time to read the books that had been sitting on my shelf, catch up on games i meant to play, and reconnect with my craft over the course of two poetry workshops taught by a friend (i highly recommend taking a poetry class with Carson). i’ve missed SatCult, but the time i took away from it has been important for me.
that’s it. that’s the story. SatCult has occupied a lot of space in my mind since July, which i anticipate means i will be ready to start again soon. in my future vision for SatCult, i plan to keep a similar structure: an introduction, the NOISE section, the VISUALS SECTION, but perhaps with a stronger emphasis on commentary and an inclusion of a WORDS section featuring the best of web-based small presses. it’s true after all that i am a writer and poet, and i once thought that maybe my calling was to run a small press or an underground arts magazine online. i cannot promise that SatCult will always be weekly in the future (maybe every other week, or once a month?), but i would like it to remain weekly, as much as it is realistic.
thank you so much to everyone who stuck around, and thank you to my new readers for giving SatCult a chance.
in the interim, here are some of my recent recs from around the web:
dashcon oral history
it’s no surprise that as a former Tumblr teen, i like Strange Aeons, and Teya has truly outdone herself this time by producing a Dashcon oral history documentary.
one poem
speaking of taking poetry classes with Carson Jordan, you should read this poem she published recently in BRUISER:
off with their head
i’m calling it: the hot new press of the moment is DISCOUNT GUILLOTINE, which launched officially last week.
alterscape
riding the line between French house and future funk with a sweet and joyful utopian virtual edge, this album by ATOM FORCE is reminiscent of a Mario Kart soundtrack and feels like cruising1 on the (low-poly) beach.
untitled by scribblemad
until next time,
your cult leader, Oli
the kind of cruising you might do in a vehicle. but also the other kind, depending on your sensibility.