Day: August 9, 2025

I’ve been thinking about bringing Dj Malik back. I’m not ? on this situation by any means, and nor would this mean coming back as a professional DJ. I just love making mixed media. I love designing mixtapes and such, which are very directed. I want to build such a thing around the CoyoteCon event we do every year at my college. I want to be able to drop a DJM 75 for the crowd to absorb over the course of a period as a backdrop to an event–a medley of songs and images drawn from the various comics, anime, and such that reflect the culture we are attempting to promote and in some cases refine.

That is the whole game there–I want to put my stamp back on what I think the culture should look like. When I think about what the event has been lacking over the years, it is that sense of “we are for the culture” and any effort to show what I think the culture looks like. I teach a course on games and game culture and I don’t even think I’ve done a terribly good job of reflecting that cultural aspect there–it’s been mostly a rote academic course masquerading as a game. I have forgotten the face of my Sociologist.

As the teaching season approaches I find myself needing to think more and more about these things, because I don’t do it often enough. It is high time I locked in and created a mood again. That is what I’ve always been good at as a DJ and as a professor… even as a writer. I need to get back to being that Talislegger and all of which that entails.

This was not a work day.

In truth, this is the first touch to keyboard all day. I did not write, I did not read. I listened to the Gunslinger quite a bit online and I listened to music on the beach, which was magic. I didn’t have that feel to write and that left me wondering where I am at. Between projects and afraid to really dive in, it seems. I am not in the headspace of doing that as I am three days away from my wedding and totally not in the routine of being able to go do the writing the way I want to. I will get back there–after the wedding.

In the meanwhile, I am loving these last days in Victoria. I am in a strange moment in life where I think I am coming to terms with the idea of dying. I am not dying soon (I don’t think) but I am savoring these moments and this life with the idea of an end state and not really recognizing that end state beyond that state. In other words, I don’t find any truth in the idea of heaven and hell. I don’t see those places as real in the sense of how they are drawn up in popular fiction.

I don’t know that an after exists where I know who I was. I suppose I am realizing that who I am is a collection of moments and memories and I will do myself a disservice by focusing on the end state as opposed to enjoying the moments of life and energy that I have now. This moment that is approaching is a milestone. I need to spend more time locked in on those. This is the way.

I am learning the way more and more each day. So, I need to lock in on that and focus on developing truly good fiction. I need it. I need to put it out there.