Arend Lee Jessurun

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

A ditty a day keeps the shitty away

Before music-making entered my life, my first love was drawing, and it's something I want to practice and play with again. I've been inspired by visual artists who create and share a simple drawing or comic each day. So I thought I'd give it a shot. Then I thought, why can't I do something like that with music too? So I present to you A Ditty a Day. (Tierra Whack's Whack World is a great frame of…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

More creating, less complaining

My friend Boi Xochi sent me this video by a trans woman doing weighing in on a discourse about whether straight men should be allowed in lesbian bars. Perhaps my favorite part of the video is when she critiques the discourse itself, redirecting the conversation to the need to create more safe spaces for lesbians, something that "can only happen in the streets and never happen in the tweets." I love…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

Backyard concert with Fox Den at Their Lair

LA folks, come join us this Friday, Jun 28 for a our first ever Friday out of The Fox Den hosted by our friends at Their Lair! You may know about Friday at the Fox Den, the monthly house concert series I co-host with my partner Jessica and friend Paul. This month we've got a stacked bill featuring Taylor Morse, Boi Xochi, Lauren O'Connell, and Semler.

A new single I mixed

My partner Jessica…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

Break the art rules

Ursula K. Le Guin says sarcastically, "So Tolstoy can break the rules, so Dickens can break the rules, but they're geniuses; rules are made for geniuses to break, but for ordinary, talented, not-yet-professional writers to follow, as guidelines." When I was in music school studying Western music theory, a system based upon the observed conventions of Bach, one of my music teachers said that Bach would often…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

Toward an artistic society

I wholly believe that everyone is creative and that it's a shame that we've outsourced our entertainment to professionals and celebrities, instead of making our own art and fun. Obviously the hustle of late-stage capitalism doesn't really leave us much time for creative pursuits, however. Merrill Garbus of the band Tune-Yards says, "I feel that should be a right: to create, to be creative. And I think…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

We write the ending together

Emile Habibi, whom I learned about from this article, was a Palestinian-Israeli writer and a leader of the Palestine Communist Party. In his collection of short stories, "Sextet of the Six-Day War," one story ends as the narrator recounts the storytelling of his grandmother, an amputee:

"Not once did we stay awake until the end of the story, and not once did she make it to the end without falling asleep…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes! It has been a minute, and I'm glad to be getting back to writing these.

📧 Sign up for more

An update on my health

It has been tough adjusting to this disability. Treatment for fibromyalgia has been going well lately, however, I've been pushing myself too hard. After a busy couple of months of activism and travel, I've been dealing with awful flare-ups. It's a trial-and-error process learning my new physical limits, but in the process, I hope to find…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

Singing together binds us together

Last Monday, I participated in a sit-in at Representative Judy Chu's office, urging her to rescind her signature on Discharge Petition no. 9. Our action was one that risked arrest, and one thing that kept us grounded in love was singing together. Ethnomusicologist Joseph Jordania says such communal music-making serves an evolutionary purpose, helping individuals to feel less fear and pain and act…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

Pasadena passed a ceasefire!

I had the honor of giving public comment at Pasadena City Council's meeting on a ceasefire resolution. There were ~500 of us present and ~200 who gave testimony. I'm proud to have united my voice alongside other queer folks, other Christians, other Jews, as well as Palestinian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Muslims, and folks from all backgrounds, demanding a ceasefire as a first step to stop the genocide…

Heya folks,

Welcome back to another edition of Sharing Notes!

📧 Sign up for more

Quietude and art help us heal

As I continue to hear reports of violence in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, even my own country, prayer and the arts have been balms. If you're taking time listening, sharing, and taking action, remember to also take time for silence. Palestinian writer Adania Shibli said last November, "I was always afraid that one day I would wake up and I wouldn't have language, this is my fear. And in the last four weeks…