James A. Reeves
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Journal

Suddenly we found ourselves hiking.

If starvation was on the table, would you rather eat your own finger or a stranger’s?

Journal

Suddenly we found ourselves hiking.

If starvation was on the table, would you rather eat your own finger or a stranger’s?

Journal

Church attendance is lowest in Nevada.

I had no idea there was so much weather in the desert. By now, I thought I’d be begging for a cloud.

Journal

We searched for 10,000 acres of sand.

Death Valley is a place where ten thousand acres of scenery can easily go missing.

Journal

My dithering has reached its vanishing point.

My office has three little whiteboards that tell me what to do, and I rely upon them entirely because I’m a nitwit in the morning.

Journal

And entropy makes itself known to me.

I told myself it was a trick of the light rather than the result of the grey in my beard.

Journal

Towers of red rock loomed over us like a beautiful threat.

Shuffling through nature’s silence with strangers felt oddly intimate.

Journal

So much civilization where there shouldn’t be.

I pondered the idea of a Vegas-themed casino until I gave myself a headache.

Journal

The reassuring cadence of living in the sprawl.

These are days of shooting down unidentifiable objects in the sky.

Journal

A landscape that functions like memory.

Twenty miles west of Barstow, where the desert appears especially endless, I glimpsed the Tank Man in Tiananmen Square.

Journal

The games we play in museums.

C. and I play a game whenever we enter a gallery: after spending a few minutes looking at every painting in the room, we guess each other’s favorite.

Journal

Landscapes that look like scenes from tomorrow.

William Kentridge’s smoldering landscapes look like scenes from a fast-approaching future. Meanwhile, a Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted over Montana.

Journal

Yet the interesting scenery on the horizon never seems to draw closer.

My little tics and anxieties seem to be moving from the vexing to the comic. Perhaps this is one happy side effect of getting older.

Journal

Ten years sober today.

Ten years sober today. Proof there’s such a thing as grace.

Journal

And we diligently killed zombies.

I don’t mind feeling older. It brings a liberating sense of honesty.

Journal

The sensation of slippage continues.

The desert is littered with bizarre facts, and I often think I invented them, like a fragment from a dream or a misremembered film.

Journal

Fever dreams enhanced by the American government.

Here in Las Vegas, we’re catching the faintest edge of the atmospheric river, a weather event that sounds like something from a fantasy novel.

Journal

Algorithms cannot compete with the messy spectacle of humans.

In the grip of my delirium, I half-watched a lousy Netflix series that can be viewed in any order, which seems like a trial balloon for AI-generated entertainment.

Journal

The sudden lights of Vegas in the valley below.

C. and I rang in the new year at the top of Route 93.

Journal

2022 Rotation

My favorite albums this year sounded messier than in years past: scuffed and bruised yet defiant—which sounds like the future.

Journal

They say it’s the future, they say it’s useful for us.

The unique scent of desert rain has a scientific name, petrichor, derived from the Greek words for stone and the blood of the gods.

Journal

Even if the rewards have diminished.

Unlike the blank winter grays of the Midwest and East Coast, the clouds over Vegas are well-defined, painterly, and startlingly low.

Journal

All the little red bubbles.

Las Vegas feels like the future, but I’m also living in the past.

Journal

There’s too much night here.

It’s the longest night of the year, and I went for my first Las Vegan run.

Journal

White line fever and the higher silence within.

Billboards across the panhandle told me to find nirvana, win a free furnace, and invest in crypto.

Journal

My screens reflected against the sprawl.

As we pulled up to our ninth small tan house of the day, “American Woman” rocked the block.

Journal

Vegas architecture hides from the sun.

As we consider each room, there is much discussion of orientation.

Journal

A dedicated place where I can tack index cards to the wall.

The Pacific Time Zone is turning me into a morning person, and I do not like it.

Journal

Taro puffs the size of your fist.

There’s something so tranquil about an illuminated palm tree. It’s a science-fictional kind of calm.

Journal

Fireworks in the parking lot of a Chevron station.

Warm Leatherette on repeat as we drive into Vegas.

Journal

A fingernail moon rose over the Rockies.

Heavy art followed by a fingernail moon over the Rockies as we crossed the Continental Divide.

Journal

The first Pizza Hut is in Wichita.

A lone tree becomes exciting. A sign for the National Agro-Defense Facility fires the imagination.

Journal

Movements are a relic of the 20th century.

At Cracker Barrel, C. and I discussed Tristan Tzara, Model 500, Basic Channel, and vaporwave over Grandpa’s Country Fried Breakfast.

Journal

Synthetic tracks for the motorway.

Making an oldies playlist like it’s 1995 and I’m smoking clove cigarettes while speeding down I-75 to the Packard Plant or Saint Andrew’s Hall.

Journal

Faded graffiti that looked like a vanished wish.

Overpass graffiti, institutional fuckery, and a solid Joy Division cover.

Journal

The spirit of the information superhighway.

The strike against nefariousness continues. Mastodon feels wholesome. Veronica Vasicka delivers another top-shelf playlist.

Journal

People behaving poorly in glossy architecture.

Cold running. Twitter might be dying. The Menu was an okay movie. Digital ghosts.

Journal

Another sleepless night for reasons unknown.

Five days until we drive into the desert. Illinois and Indiana look like fangs. I should go to bed.

Journal

Repetition is where things get interesting.

Repetition on a grey November day.

Journal

A body of water was named after a man who was roasted alive.

It’s nice to have a new place on the map to romanticize. And William Gibson has nothing on the Catholics.

Journal

There would be less screaming.

Good news: Wolf’s Kompaktkiste is still around. Bad news: I’m on strike.

Journal

A house always made of freshly chopped wood.

Maybe one day we’ll reach a point when all possible frequencies have been recorded, every combination of words written.

Journal

Some faceless behemoth purchased it.

Hopefully there won’t be too many outages on this station while I untangle my nameservers.

Journal

The bare trees reveal new scenery.

For weeks I’ve been grinding through histories of medieval Europe in search of a point of inspiration.

Journal

Sleep has an oddly moral dimension.

The pulse of distant highway traffic in the rain is the most soothing sound I know.

Journal

Sometimes you can’t find the door.

C. and I spent the afternoon in a dark gallery and tested how our video reflected off different surfaces.

Journal

It feels like a video game.

I love driving at night. It feels like a video game.

Journal

Complaining while their opponents scorch the earth.

Today I learned your gun permit is an acceptable form of voter identification, which feels almost too American.

Journal

A white Honda with a crumpled fender.

This afternoon I idled behind a white Honda with a crumpled fender.

Journal

If we can rearrange time, we can do anything.

The end of Daylight Savings Time is my favorite holiday because it brings the night closer.

Journal

I recited the names of cities like a mantra.

C. and I are trying to determine our best route to Vegas.

Journal

A bright daytime moon hung in the sky.

I’d like to live in a world of apologetic gods and talking satellites.

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