The Tuna Tribune
Back To It
New art projects and moving forward.
April 10th, 2026
When people bring up seasonal moods, it’s almost always about depression in winter. Which is an understandable phenomenon, given the colder weather and especially the relative lack of light. I’ve always found that I like winter, though. There’s a certain peace to be found on cold morning walks, in the condensation of your own breath in the air, in the glimmering snow, in geese sleeping on frozen ponds (though I know not everybody has these things or finds a romanticism in them). Gotta enjoy it while it lasts — cue “back in my day” climate change rant. For me, instead of a winter sadness, I’m noticing an emerging pattern where the shift into spring brings a certain melancholy. Maybe it’s that the slow rebirth of the environment around me leads to more introspection than usual. How should I renew myself? I think a lot about my relationships and the ways I structure my life, the ways I think I need to change. When I have any time to think, that is. The world comes to life again and we all quicken our paces. I miss those morning walks.
The theme of this spring is “we’re getting there”. I’m trying to take this introspectiveness and use it to push myself out of my comfort zone a little. Embrace new things. I’m going to be appearing on local radio (in a basement studio run entirely by college students) in a few weeks! Which will be really, really scary, but probably good for me (and not really that high stakes considering that listenership will probably be quite low). Gotta take advantage of the opportunities that fall into my lap, plus learn how to actually talk openly about the things I care about. The topic I’ve landed on for my hour-long stint is music distributed freely online by its creators, and I think I have some vaguely interesting things to say (plus good music to play), so… more details to come, maybe? If it goes well? I will be playing Monarch of Monsters live on broadcast radio. There’s no one there to stop me.
In other news, libraries are awesome. I completely stumbled into a “queer zinefest” that just appeared in front of me, and after perusing archived zines from the 60s to present, I tumbled outside and found little guide sheets for folding your own tiny 8-page zine from a single sheet of paper, and now suddenly I have a zine project. It’s all planned out with a shoddily sketched draft, but will take some time to draw a version that looks actually presentable, since my technical art skills aren’t super up to snuff and I work really slowly drawing and redrawing. But once it’s finished, I can easily photocopy them, fold ’em up, and stick them around in Little Free Libraries, I figure. Give something small back to the community. Freely available art. I want to find new ways to connect with people, even if small. I still remember that fantastic yet mysterious self-printed collection of short stories a friend found in a Little Free Library and loaned to me at some point in high school… turns out you can just make things! Really! You can!
I don’t know when, but I think I’ll inevitably return to music production. It’s funny, it used to be, like, the artistic pursuit I defined myself by, and now I hardly find myself turning to it. I’d decided at the very start of the year that I wanted to start work on an EP project, creating a more cohesive, meatier, and overall more considered unit of music that I could chip away at over a long period of time. Then, well, life quickly turned upside down, and any potential music work was drowned out by other, more urgent priorities. It’s bizarre navigating the aftermath, if there really is such a concrete thing. Nothing just unflips itself. Some things move to carry on as before. Some things can’t. Most of us, as assemblages, are caught somewhere in-between what was, what is, and what can, should, or will be. I’m trying to figure out what healing work I need to do — as cheesy as that may sound — whether for myself or for others. I recently reconnected with an old friend from middle and sort of high school after running into each other by pure happenstance at a February protest. We toured some free art galleries and chatted the whole time. It was really nice. It felt like it counted as a healing act… like I was repairing myself in some way both as a social creature and as a creature in space, in place. I hope I can do more of that once I make it through this busy spring.
Free artistic experiences just keep coming up, don’t they? Free music, free zines, free art galleries. I wasn’t planning to have an underlying thread, but I’ll take it. I struggled a lot with writing this at first, typing out paragraphs only to delete them right after, not sure what I wanted to say or why I felt so strongly I had to (the target has undoubtedly shifted in the time spent waiting). I’m hoping this spring to turn a page in my life. Art, as a means of forming connections, may just be what facilitates that. So let’s all keep making things, okay?
Outside it is: sunny but not yet warm
I’m feeling: tired but optimistic!
Listening to: greenhouse – arc,regn